[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[thefringthing]

Some opening hands from Liam's SCG Vegas deck (within a card or two) for discussion:

1. Tendrils of Agony, Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Thoughtseize, Ponder, Polluted Delta.

2. Duress, Duress, Swamp, Infernal Tutor, Infernal Tutor, Dark Ritual, Brainstorm.

3. Duress, Badlands, Lion's Eye Diamond, Scalding Tarn, Rite of Flame, Cabal Ritual, Burning Wish.

1 seems kind of sketchy to me. 2 is bad but gets a lot better if it finds a land. 3 seems good.

[mort-]

Did he know against what he was up to? Was he on the play or on the draw?
Keeping hand 1 pretty much depends on this information.
2 seems to be good. Lots of disruption and finding a blue mana source shouldn't be an issue.
3 is a nobrainer.

Well, that's what I think at least :)

[aaronm678]

I played ANT to a pretty respectable 6-2-1 finish in SCG St. Louis last weekend with a UBr build. I had done quite a bit of playtesting with a UBw and UBrg, and basically I had just decided Xantid Swarm sucks, and past in flames is too good not to play.

The interesting parts of my list:
3 gitaxian
0 preordain
3 cabal therapy
4 duress
2 grim tutor
0 burning wish
1 past in flames
0 igg
1 Volcanic and 1 badlands main

SB
2 empty the Warrens
4 thoughseize
4 bob
5 bounce/kill

At least for a scg event, cutting grim was not an option, as I expected spell snare all over the place.

For people playing Xantid swarm still, I'd recommend just trying the all discard route. Xantid is fine against merfolk, but that matchup isn't bad enough to warrant 4 sb slots, and every other deck leaves in removal against you.

I was a huge fan of having 11 discard against the tempo thresh decks-basically my game plan against them is all in on ETW, so I aggressively take their threats early game and just wait until they're out of stifles to make a few goblins.

My win and in to top 8 was against reanimator...which I had essentially decided took up too much sb space to make a positive match, so I hoped to not get paired with it

[Predator]

Congrats on the finish. How did bob's work out when everybody left in removal? And in which match-ups did you board them in?

(yes I'm new to the deck)

[aaronm678]

Congrats on the finish. How did bob's work out when everybody left in removal? And in which match-ups did you board them in?

(yes I'm new to the deck)

Leave it out in any matchup where they're running lightning bolt. Those decks don't need their mana for counterspells, so playing a 2 mana spell that just eats a bolt is terrible.

It's fine against BUG, as there is only so much removal they can afford to leave in, and almost all of it costs 2 (and you'd rather they spend their 2 mana killing Bob than Hymning you). Also, it's very strong in the mirror (they can't kill it).

Against U/W stoneblade, it's about 50/50. Just watch to see how many cards they board out against you. If it's more than about 5, you can assume they're siding out StP and Bob is fine to bring in. If they see a Bob in G2, board him out for more discard spells if you see them reach for their sideboard.

[JMLL]

Hi all.

I was an ANT player until the Mystical ban and then I decided to change decks as couldn't make it work. Some time ago I came back with a budget version, so no Grim Tutors for me and I use 1 Personal Tutor although I'm sure it's not the same.

Anyway, this post is refering to the Side. I've also played Belcher and I've enjoyed Xantid Swarm as much as possible, but in this deck it didn't fit much. I rememebr when I played ANT that BoB was not as good as I expected, so I faced a 7 round tournament with Ancestral Visions + Extirpate.
My typical side Vs Blue decks was:
-4 gitaxian Probe
-1 Preordain (only 1 main)
-2 Ponder
-1 Cabal Therapy

+4 Ancestral Visons
+3 Extirpate
+1 Empty the Warrens (+1 main)

I won Vs:
- Canadian
- Fate Stalker
- Punishing Maverick
- Merfolks

I lost Vs:
- Maverick
- UW CounterTop Blade
- Canadian

I had several missplays all day, as the Maverick and Countertop pairings were lost to that.

What I want to say is that Ancestral Visions were good all day, giving me cards when I played them, as I'll hardly ever combo out before Turn 4 Vs Blue decks, this way I may have +3 cards or +2 spells on the crucial turn, and I have a plan to rip his hand in advance. Also, Blue Decks don't tend to put much preassure early on, so there's always more time to combo out. About Extirpate, it was a good way to see their hand without them being able to avoid this. Also, after a discard or a counter to something early on (they may do it to slow you down, you can pretend you have no more lands, for example) you can get rid of all the counters of the same type so making it harder for them to counter you later on. For me, this fact combines nicely with Ancestral Visions, and gives and edge to the 2nd game.

What's your oppinion this side as a pack? and about the pieces by their own?

[GoblinZ]

against some decks with discard, I prefer dark confidant to AV. It can beat and draw more cards if they board out the removal

[OneWingedAngel]

GoblinZ
against some decks with discard, I prefer dark confidant to AV. It can beat and draw more cards if they board out the removal

I'd agree on this. 80% of the time people board out their removal knowing that they're useless in the match-up till its too late and you drop BOB. Feeding you more gas and beating face.

I've found myself winning matches on the back of BOB and pulling out multiple tendrils since you get so much gas if he's left untouched.

[Malakai]

I'd agree on this. 80% of the time people board out their removal knowing that they're useless in the match-up till its too late and you drop BOB. Feeding you more gas and beating face.

I've found myself winning matches on the back of BOB and pulling out multiple tendrils since you get so much gas if he's left untouched.

This is only true against poor players. Good players know about Dark Confidant, and Xantid Swarm, and so will tend to leave some removal in. Both are still valid sideboard choices, but don't get caught up in the idea that you've got some sort of technology anyone worth their salt hasn't heard of.

[aaronm678]

Visions is an interesting idea, I'll have to try it out. Seems significantly worse in the mirror and the mono black or Bg decks, as those games drawn to always go to late game topdeck wars, where Bob is king. Also, Bob makes the Merfolk match hard to lose, as they can't afford to leave in removal.

Also, you should not be boarding in extirpate against decks that don't actively use their graveyard. Leave the ponders and therapy in. If you really think seeing their hand is that important, put two probes in over ponders (if they counter probe, you're probably winning anyway, because they suck).

Also, don't board like that for all blue decks -etw is usually too allow against the blue decks that play threats (blue zoo, merfolk, etc)

[egosum]

We' ve been thinking on Ancestral Visions (and also wheel of fate, spell pierce and dark confidant) as the main ways to deal with the BUG problem (we finally decided to play Pierce for being the more generalistic and the answer that covers the widest range of matches), though all of them are quite narrow, being Visions the strongest, but it has the problem that not drawing them in the very first draws (opening or first), makes it quite useless. BUt it is for sure an interesting option in a non-wish deck.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[JMLL]

Maybe you're right and ETW is not that good Vs Merfolks or Blue Zoo, but being able to cast some goblins out of nowhere and put them in a clock is not that bad either. Maybe keep one in anyway and keep some more manipulators would be better

I kinda disagree with the non-extirpate route for Blue decks. It helps a lot in the first turns. Maybe I play it strange but I don't combo out if I haven't seen the hand or if I still can chose not to, so after a discard, removing counters and peeking at what they still have is a saver path to me, maybe too safe after all. But you know that, with combo, if you fail once probably won't be able to fail twice as you may be already out. Maybe 3 is too much, that may be right, and -1 ETW and -1 Extirpate +2 Ponder/Probe could have been better. Maybe I was too agressive on that and you may be right, but I'd still keep some in.

[aaronm678]

Maybe you're right and ETW is not that good Vs Merfolks or Blue Zoo, but being able to cast some goblins out of nowhere and put them in a clock is not that bad either. Maybe keep one in anyway and keep some more manipulators would be better

I kinda disagree with the non-extirpate route for Blue decks. It helps a lot in the first turns. Maybe I play it strange but I don't combo out if I haven't seen the hand or if I still can chose not to, so after a discard, removing counters and peeking at what they still have is a saver path to me, maybe too safe after all. But you know that, with combo, if you fail once probably won't be able to fail twice as you may be already out. Maybe 3 is too much, that may be right, and -1 ETW and -1 Extirpate +2 Ponder/Probe could have been better. Maybe I was too agressive on that and you may be right, but I'd still keep some in.

I definitely agree you shouldn't combo out before you've seen their hand - but siding in a card that does nothing except for show you their hand is not good (it also deals with cards you've already dealt with and on a rare occasion snags a card). You're boarding out a bunch of cards that show you their hand without putting you down a card to do it - just keep them in.

The reason I suggest keeping in ponder against slow blue (u/w or u/b/g, some builds of u/r/g) because typically your game plan should be to cast cantrips or grim tutors until you find a threat, so counterspells that aren't Flusterstorm, MBtrap, or Stifle don't matter as much. But, if you want to see their hand, gitaxian seems fine. Extirpate, however, just doesn't do anything other than reduce their chances of drawing a 3-of from 5% to 0% (just pulling numbers out of my ass, the point is that its bad) and put you down a card (which is bad in many matches, but against team America in particular is miserable).

[AriLax]

Officially off of Chant now. Too many people moving back to Spell Pierce.

BTW, Empty is actually the stone cold nuts right now. Currently taking a break from Storming people as I don't have real events, but will likely work on breaking the tempo matchup soon.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Officially off of Chant now. Too many people moving back to Spell Pierce.

BTW, Empty is actually the stone cold nuts right now. Currently taking a break from Storming people as I don't have real events, but will likely work on breaking the tempo matchup soon.

Drawing a Chant against Maverick is miserable :/

That basic plains made me sad.

[ThomasDowd]

Drawing a Chant against Maverick is miserable :/

That basic plains made me sad.

I think having a basic plains in the deck is bad since you only ever needed the white for the combo turn for chants. drawing it naturally was pretty bad. but a scrubland or tundra in its place may be reasonable since they both do other things( rituals, cantrips)

[Grigory]

The basic plains is useful versus a combination of stifle and wasteland, allowing you to fetch it T1 with a "made hand." It also makes it less risky to try to use an excess chant during your opponent's upkeep hoping to cast your in-hand ad-naus during their turn. These are marginal situations but they do arise.

[ThomasDowd]

The basic plains is useful versus a combination of stifle and wasteland, allowing you to fetch it T1 with a "made hand." It also makes it less risky to try to use an excess chant during your opponent's upkeep hoping to cast your in-hand ad-naus during their turn. These are marginal situations but they do arise.


except its an absolute nightmare to have in your opener. i just think its bad since it only casts 4 cards in the deck by itself. also it just doesn't do anything. i just think its awful and miserable I honestly do not care that much about wasteland anymore since it is just 4 cards in my opponents deck and is easy enough to play around by holding your fetches and/or beating it anyway(a lesson learned from TES)

[seamonkeyman]

Ari can you share your list from the SCG Invitational?
A brief list of the matchups you played would be interesting as well.

[TheRedBaron]

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

Two...

[Forstik]

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

Depends on your build and your meta. If you're playing UB, then you need 2, if you're playing more resilient UBr, then get 2 Personal Tutors, which combined with Past in Flames and Gitaxian probes creates one mana all-you-need tutor which has won me games Grim Tutor wouldn't have. It is no Mystical Tutor (won't find you mana source and one-of utility cards), but it is better than decent. It's up to your personal preference, but. I wouldn't run in it in a Chant build though.

Let me just add, that money is not an issue.

Also, how often do you actually combo out via Ad Nauseam these days? I win 4 of 5 games using Past in Flames. I choose Ad nauseam way only in desperate situations. What is your experience?

[Waikiki]

most of my wins are from pif or tutor chains. I hardly use ad nauseam either but I do go for it once in a while. I run 1 grim tutor myself.

[TheRedBaron]

Depends on your build and your meta. If you're playing UB, then you need 2, if you're playing more resilient UBr, then get 2 Personal Tutors, which combined with Past in Flames and Gitaxian probes creates one mana all-you-need tutor which has won me games Grim Tutor wouldn't have. It is no Mystical Tutor (won't find you mana source and one-of utility cards), but it is better than decent. It's up to your personal preference, but. I wouldn't run in it in a Chant build though.

Let me just add, that money is not an issue.

Also, how often do you actually combo out via Ad Nauseam these days? I win 4 of 5 games using Past in Flames. I choose Ad nauseam way only in desperate situations. What is your experience?

I was trying the strictly U/B version, I found it difficult to combo off with just tutors, and when I cast AN, it was too late. Before that I splashed red for PiF (but no RoF). I want to play chant in my next version. Guess I'm looking for guidance. I would prefer UBw, cause Imo Chant/silence is best protection out there. I feel like R splash isn't as stable, and may as well play TES (which I'm also not fond of)

[Sloshthedark]

For people playing Xantid swarm still, I'd recommend just trying the all discard route. Xantid is fine against merfolk, but that matchup isn't bad enough to warrant 4 sb slots, and every other deck leaves in removal against you.


which does not solve the Snapcaster -> stifle/Ssnare problem .. and running small goblin squads into U/W equipment is neither good



so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

its a mediocre card for ridiculous price but also current best solution for UB(r) deck... so preferably 2, I'm running 2 completely happy with it

[dillonkbase]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?

[ThomasDowd]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?


there's alot of information there that will influence your decision.

if you are on the play/ draw( if they can brainstorm stuff away your discard effects get substantially worse.)

what turn you plan to go off on.

the knowledge of your opponents deck either before the match or if this is a G2 situation.

personally if i'm on the play and i know my opponent is on a force of will deck i will duress T1. on the draw i will wait so i dont get dazed/ spell pierced. alot of the times if i put them on spell pierce i let them spell pierce it and if i do not put them on anymore counters i go off after that. but that is usually the turn i combo off.

edit: it really comes down to when and how you want your information and how you manipulate it, with a deck like this the amount of information you have will drastically increase your win percentage,most of the time though the raw power of the deck carries most people. myself included.

[Sloshthedark]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?

9/10 time I probe for life / duress T1, always against unknown opponent, only exception is when I feel I can combo off early and also duress in the turn and opponent looks like playing blue, only the probability of disrupting their combo or discard is worth it

[j_rb]

hey guys wanted to drop by and post up my list I have been playing the past month The list I based this off was from the Russian Legacy Championship this year and I believe a similar list was played to a good finish in some big german tournament last year. I have always been a fan of ldv and top in ad naus. I don't know what you guys think but i think the deck is solid as hell. It has a good control MU due to top and chants. I still like chant even though people are gravitating towards spell pierce. It's easy to play through or around pierce IMO. I have been playing storm for a couple years and always try out new variants every 2 or 3 months this is the one I'm currently enjoying playing right now.

4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
2 ad nauseam
1 ill-gotten gains
2 sensei top
3 lim-dul's vault
2 orim's chant
2 silence
3 duress
1 tendrils
4 dark rit
4 cabal rit
2 chrome mox
4 infernal tutor

4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
2 sea
1 scrubland
1 tundra
1 swamp
1 island
1 crystal vein

sb
2 echoing truth
1 extirpate
2 slaughter pact
4 xantid swarm
1 topical island
2 hurkyl's recall
1 wipe away
1 tendrils
1 duress

the chant silence split is because there are a lot of control players in my meta who board meddling mage.

[aaronm678]

which does not solve the Snapcaster -> stifle/Ssnare problem .. and running small goblin squads into U/W equipment is neither good

Snapcaster -> Stifle/Snare is annoying...but honestly, blindly targetting a Spell Snare with a Snapcaster in response to a discard spell isn't all that common, it's much more common to do something like Snapcaster -> Brainstorm. If they do target Stifle or Snare...I would recommend not comboing that turn unless you can play around it.


Also, the only threats you actually care about from U/W are Batterskull or Sword, and sword is usually a bit slow, even for the goblin route, so you should be using your discard spells to snag threats against them, since they usually don't run Stifle, and FoW isn't that great against the goblin plan.

[j_rb]

You know what does stop the snapcaster -> snare/stifle thing.... orim's chant. It is a problem if you're playing Ubr ant though since you can't really splash for chant, but a fast duress into empty is the nuts against tempo.

[GoblinZ]

Hello every one, this is my current version:

Instants [13]

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual


Sorceries [23]

2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Preordain

Artifacts [8]

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal


Lands [16]

1 Badland
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Misted Rainforest
2 Scalding Tasrn
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

2 Slaughter Pact
2 Extirpate
4 Dark Confidant
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Virtue's Ruin

I have some questions about this deck, which may be somewhat stupid fow I am still new to this deck

1. Against Caw blade, what do you board out and board in after game one?
2. Against Bant Aggro, What do you board out and board in after game one?

help...

Sorry for my poor English

[aaronm678]

1. Against Caw blade, what do you board out and board in after game one?


-1 Ad Nauseam
-4 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
+4 Confidant
+2 ETW

This one is pretty variable. If they keep in removal, I'd leave in 2 preordain and ritual/ad naus over bob. This match can definitely be favorable with some practice, ETW is your best card, and use your cantrips or tutors to aggressively find it. They usually just sit there and durdle for 5 turns, so don't rush.




2. Against Bant Aggro, What do you board out and board in after game one?


There are about 8000000 different builds of bant aggro...there are a lot of ways to play it. I usually try to go heavy discard and just outrace or make them discard hate bears/gsz. ETW isn't that awesome, but it may be worth trying out slaughter pact or virtues ruin if you think they boarded in a bunch of creatures and not counters.

[GoblinZ]

Thank you very much

Against caw blade I fear batterskull may ruin our goblins plan, so I donnot know whether it is good to board ETW in.

And for bant, I guess they will board some spell pierce and some creature hate in...if I board out some cantrips for pact or virtues ruin, I fear that will make this deck inconsistent...

And I have another question...should I board out some cantrips for bounce spells against Hive Mind?

thx a lot!

[j_rb]

You definitely want some bounce against hive mind. Most hive mind builds these days are running chalice of the void and leyline of sanctity sideboard. Hive mind is also an incredibly easy MU due to the fact that if they go with the hive mind route you can usually kill them due to your rituals and artifact mana. The mu is comical unless they drop a turn 2 emrakrul on you, and even then you get a turn to win.

Also, empty is pretty poor against blade variants, but insane against other control decks such as all the tempo decks running around. I found orim's chant and swarm to be amazing against blade. My win percentage against stoneblade is insanely high because I run chant and swarm. Without chant, the post-board games might be harder depending on what they board, but I'm sure you can handle it. I have found in version's not running chant, that Past in Flames is absolutely insane.

[Sloshthedark]

Snapcaster -> Stifle/Snare is annoying...but honestly, blindly targetting a Spell Snare with a Snapcaster in response to a discard spell isn't all that common, it's much more common to do something like Snapcaster -> Brainstorm. If they do target Stifle or Snare...I would recommend not comboing that turn unless you can play around it.


I won't recommend it either... the problem is someday people will not play that stupid

maybe I should play bolder with the warrens plan


You know what does stop the snapcaster -> snare/stifle thing.... orim's chant. It is a problem if you're playing Ubr ant though since you can't really splash for chant, but a fast duress into empty is the nuts against tempo.

If I wanted to play 4color maindeck I'd play Doomsday instead... and chant makes me really uncomfortable, well less than IGG

[j_rb]

If I wanted to play 4color maindeck I'd play Doomsday instead... and chant makes me really uncomfortable, well less than IGG

I wouldn't recommend playing a 4 color ant version. It's just a worse TES. If I play ant it's either U/b with a red or white splash. I enjoy playing the white splash as chant is obsurd in control matchups and I do not like the life loss from thoughtseize or probe.
Mainly with chant it's more of a playstyle choice for me, but I do enjoy the ubr ant list because past in flames is insane against control.

Also, empty really wrecks those tempo decks. It's probably a good idea to board even up to 4 as ari was doing at one point, if tempo is rampant in your area.

[aaronm678]

Thank you very much

Against caw blade I fear batterskull may ruin our goblins plan, so I donnot know whether it is good to board ETW in.

And for bant, I guess they will board some spell pierce and some creature hate in...if I board out some cantrips for pact or virtues ruin, I fear that will make this deck inconsistent...

And I have another question...should I board out some cantrips for bounce spells against Hive Mind?

thx a lot!

Batterskull is annoying, but you should make an effort to snag it with duress and/or thoughtseize. Since empty can play through forces and snares, you don't have to take those cards as aggressively.

This is what I've found from playing the matchup quite a bit...but it's probably more to my playstyle- my u/w and bug matches are very grindy, so having the option to make 6 or 8 tokens without going all in is awesome.

[Fossil4182]

I played against a UWb Stoneblade deck this past weekend. I was piloting Liam's TNT list and found that Empty the Warrens can be a viable strategy since you can grind them out with Past in Flames. One of the problems I found versus Stoneblade decks is that if you can't win fast enough, Batterskull puts the game out of reach rather quickly (though I've got up to 50 plus storm in tournaments with TNT). The logical argument would be that you can use Tendrils and Grind them out, but even just using Warrens to create blockers can be really helpful. My opponent was over 40 life and I cast empty the warrens for 12 and was able to out race them. Burning Wish helps a lot because grabbing Shattering Spree lets you get way ahead since you can buy tons of time against Stoneforge Mystic if you need it. I think its easier to grind them out with tokens then attempting to recur Tendrils and kill them. The main reason why is every turn they live with Batterskull in play means you have to generate +2 storm.

[j_rb]

I was piloting Liam's TNT list and found that Empty the Warrens can be a viable strategy since you can grind them out with Past in Flames.

I like Liam's TNT list a lot because burning wish is so useful in the stoneblade MU. This does in fact make empty a viable strategy against them. I knew empty wasn't great against stoneblade, but it does give you valuable blockers, which playing u/b/r you might need in the matchup. I'm probably being biased here because I am more used to playing chant effects against stoneblade which makes the match not grindy at all and easy to win. It also seems that Past in Flames would be a great card in this matchup as the flashback has saved my ass numerous times against countermagic and gives me absurd storm counts.

I have also had hands with tendrils and Burning Wish or Past in Flames in them and most of the time you can just mini tendrils them turn 1and then past in flames turn 2 or 3 and win. It's pretty absurd when it happens and they usually will never see it coming as most players wait for a tutor to counter.

[The Big Ragu]

Man, I've really been out of the loop lately.

I hate to be a bother in asking, but would somebody care to explain why ANT is now more viable than TES? It would be very much appreciated.

[Fatal]

Wastelands and stifles are everywhere.. ANT has better mana base. TES is faster but more dependent on EtW which can be easy stifled.

[GoldenCid]

Wastelands and stifles are everywhere.. ANT has better mana base. TES is faster but more dependent on EtW which can be easy stifled.

As well as tendrils...

[lordofthepit]

Wastelands and stifles are everywhere.. ANT has better mana base. TES is faster but more dependent on EtW which can be easy stifled.

ANT clearly plays around Wasteland better than TES can.

However, TES plays around Stifle a lot better. Rainbow lands are better here than fetchlands, and Chant is great if they try to hold a Stifle for your storm spell (or even if you've kept your fetchlands untapped).

[Final Ritual]

Chant runs circles around spell snare.

[Fossil4182]

It would be fair to argue that the current flavor of the week is RUG. Given that, I think the trend will see players moving toward UW Stoneblade, Bant, and GWx Maverick which have decent to positive match-ups against RUG. Those decks tend to be more Wasteland heavy and do not typically run Stifle. They also tend to run Wasteland and the Bant and Maverick decks can typically tutor it with Knight. Maverick and Bant also tend to run more hatebears with most running at least some maindeck. I think the UB or TNT lists will be strong moving forward and there really won't be a necessity to splash for Chant. Chant is powerful against a RUG/UW metagame, but Burning Wish makes more sense given that you'll likely see more permanent based hate.

[j_rb]

Chant is powerful against a RUG/UW metagame, but Burning Wish makes more sense given that you'll likely see more permanent based hate.

The thing is, is maverick and other creature decks like junk are really easy mu's for ad nauseam, heck the MU is almost an auto-win. Things only get tricky post-board and only if they get a teeg/mom lock as rebuild can pick up cannonist+mom. So running chant duress splits let you effectively destroy countermagic and still give you utility against maverick. I've even run a 7 chant build in doomsday and the maverick MU is still hilariously easy g1 if you just chant walk them till you win. I might even consider a thoughtseize/chant split if you really have problems with mu's like maverick or junk, but in my experience these matches are auto-wins. I'm not saying chant should be an auto-include in any ad nauseam deck, I just think it shouldn't be automatically excluded because even in MU's where it is bad it can serve as utility and let you win a MU with no effort what-so ever.

[Fossil4182]

The thing is, is maverick and other creature decks like junk are really easy mu's for ad nauseam, heck the MU is almost an auto-win. Things only get tricky post-board and only if they get a teeg/mom lock as rebuild can pick up cannonist+mom. So running chant duress splits let you effectively destroy countermagic and still give you utility against maverick. I've even run a 7 chant build in doomsday and the maverick MU is still hilariously easy g1 if you just chant walk them till you win. I might even consider a thoughtseize/chant split if you really have problems with mu's like maverick or junk, but in my experience these matches are auto-wins. I'm not saying chant should be an auto-include in any ad nauseam deck, I just think it shouldn't be automatically excluded because even in MU's where it is bad it can serve as utility and let you win a MU with no effort what-so ever.

I've been playing TNT for a while now with a copy of Virtue's Ruin in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target to get around the Maverick locks that can occur with Teeg and Cannonist.

[j_rb]

I've been playing TNT for a while now with a copy of Virtue's Ruin in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target to get around the Maverick locks that can occur with Teeg and Cannonist.

Yea, I agree, with virtues ruin it makes the maverick matchup easy peezy, also. I was just stating that chant isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is and even with a Ubw and list, without wish, you have an almost auto-win matchup against maverick. A Ubw ad naus list is definitely viable. It's just all down to playstyle. I prefer chant because it just straight up hoses a hand full of countermagic when 2 discard spells don't.

[esqulax]

Alright I need an explanation from some experienced storm player.

I have been playing Legacy for a while but I have always sucked at combo so I don't really have a lot of experience piloting storm. I recently managed to get a friend hooked on legacy and he wanted to play storm, and since I have a decent cardpool and he has none I build ANT for him to borrow. Now the problem is that I don't own any Grim Tutors and I don't plan on owning them anytime soon so I figured that Burning Wish would be the next best option much like what I see being played in TNT.

Now what confuses me greatly is that whenever I speak to people who have been playing storm for a while I always hear the same thing. "Burning Wish sucks in ANT", "you might as well just play TES then" etc. Why is this? What exactly makes it so that Burning Wish is apparently great in TES but horrible in ANT? I see ANT decks playing red for Past in Flames all the time, so I really don't get why you can't just play Burning Wish as well then. Would someone please explain this to me?

[mort-]

Alright I need an explanation from some experienced storm player.

I have been playing Legacy for a while but I have always sucked at combo so I don't really have a lot of experience piloting storm. I recently managed to get a friend hooked on legacy and he wanted to play storm, and since I have a decent cardpool and he has none I build ANT for him to borrow. Now the problem is that I don't own any Grim Tutors and I don't plan on owning them anytime soon so I figured that Burning Wish would be the next best option much like what I see being played in TNT.

Now what confuses me greatly is that whenever I speak to people who have been playing storm for a while I always hear the same thing. "Burning Wish sucks in ANT", "you might as well just play TES then" etc. Why is this? What exactly makes it so that Burning Wish is apparently great in TES but horrible in ANT? I see ANT decks playing red for Past in Flames all the time, so I really don't get why you can't just play Burning Wish as well then. Would someone please explain this to me?


Nice, that's exactly the way I started playing ANT ^^ All hail to nice friends with big cardpools.
To your question: I think this is personal preference. I, for example, like Burning Wish more than Grim Tutor and I know storm players that do so, too.
It boils down to a super solid manabase against more versatility, imho.

[leegoo]

Alright I need an explanation from some experienced storm player.

I have been playing Legacy for a while but I have always sucked at combo so I don't really have a lot of experience piloting storm. I recently managed to get a friend hooked on legacy and he wanted to play storm, and since I have a decent cardpool and he has none I build ANT for him to borrow. Now the problem is that I don't own any Grim Tutors and I don't plan on owning them anytime soon so I figured that Burning Wish would be the next best option much like what I see being played in TNT.

Now what confuses me greatly is that whenever I speak to people who have been playing storm for a while I always hear the same thing. "Burning Wish sucks in ANT", "you might as well just play TES then" etc. Why is this? What exactly makes it so that Burning Wish is apparently great in TES but horrible in ANT? I see ANT decks playing red for Past in Flames all the time, so I really don't get why you can't just play Burning Wish as well then. Would someone please explain this to me?


I'd go with Liam's TNT list if you want burning wish in an ANT like build. (or TES of course)

As far as u/b ANT goes, if you don't have Grim's, I'd go with the second Ad Nauseam and if I were splashing I'd rather it be white than red.

[xfxf]

I think people are still missing how effective Past in Flames is against counters. Thoughtseize the FoW, they still have Spell Snare right? Play PiF, get your Infernal countered, generate mana and win. I don't really see what's so great about Chants that people can forgo PiF, Empty and the possibility to expand to TNT with wishes.

[leegoo]

I think people are still missing how effective Past in Flames is against counters. Thoughtseize the FoW, they still have Spell Snare right? Play PiF, get your Infernal countered, generate mana and win. I don't really see what's so great about Chants that people can forgo PiF, Empty and the possibility to expand to TNT with wishes.

PiF is good, but it takes some significant time to set up. In the situation you presented above, you have PiF in your hand? That's a bit optimistic as a 1 of. It's also considering that you have a boatload of mana / rituals. Also, you can't play PiF then get your infernal countered, as PiF only gives flashback to cards already in your gy. (Unless I missed something in your post of course.)

I'm not saying that scenario can't come up, but I think you are overestimating the power of PiF and undervaluing a good old "don't play spells any more" effect.

[j_rb]

As far as u/b ANT goes, if you don't have Grim's, I'd go with the second Ad Nauseam and if I were splashing I'd rather it be white than red.

I'm glad someone else other than me is on board the chant in ant boat.



I think people are still missing how effective Past in Flames is against counters. Thoughtseize the FoW, they still have Spell Snare right? Play PiF, get your Infernal countered, generate mana and win. I don't really see what's so great about Chants that people can forgo PiF, Empty and the possibility to expand to TNT with wishes.

Past in flames is effective in the right situation, but lets say you have this situation but they have pierce, flusterstorm, or another fow.... you just lose.... Usually when you are going for past in flames you have enough mana to either play it, or flash it back with enough mana for a pierce to just screw you (If you are going with infernal into their snare and then PIF infernal again you probably would have 1-2 mana floating after the flashback). While past in flames is good against slow grindy decks, such as landstill, it can still be cold to a hand full of counters when with chant you hose their hand of flusterstorms, snares, pierces, and stifles. I do agree that Ant builds with red in them have their strong side, but if I wanted to play Burning Wish I probably would play TES as it has chant in it, and you get the same versatility with a little less stable mana base but more raw power.

[xfxf]

I really can't see how chant effects are better than discard against a hand full of counters. In both cases your protection (chant and discard) takes away one counter. It's either FoW your Chant or Duress your FoW. Which leaves you against Snare, Pierce, Flusterstorm etc. How does it get you out of such a situation?

[j_rb]

I really can't see how chant effects are better than discard against a hand full of counters. In both cases your protection (chant and discard) takes away one counter. It's either FoW your Chant or Duress your FoW. Which leaves you against Snare, Pierce, Flusterstorm etc. How does it get you out of such a situation?

Because flusterstorm/stifle can't stop chant but can stop Past in Flames (unless you have a good amount of discard in the yard and PIF resolves). Pierce and a flusterstorm can stop chant if you're playing control, but only if they have both, and you usually have enough land to just pay for the chant and go off, or chant and if it gets countered pass the turn and chant next turn and win. I have played with Past in flames and discard and played with chant. I just find chant better against a handfull of countermagic, which seems people have against me too often. Also, in ant, chant turns on igg against decks with Force.

For most of the time discard/PIF is just as good as chant, but in certain situations against most of the blue decks in the format post board, chant can be better. It's also preference to me as I have played chant in all my storm builds and find it really, really amazing.

[Fossil4182]

Relative to the chant vs discard discussion, I've never played with chant effects, but I've also never felt the need to do so. Even against decks with heavy countermagic, I usually boarded in Dark Confidant, discard spells 7 & 8, or Xantid Swarm. Out of all of the effects, I felt the safest using Swarm (which is a reason I considered chant). However, using the Dark Confidant/discard route never let me down. Lately, using the TNT list, I've found great utility in Burning Wish giving me access to discard spells seven and eight which can dramatically alter the control match up.

A benefit to discard over chant is that it allows you to deal with permanent based hate.

My general thoughts on this debate of chant versus discard plays out like this.

First, I think if you're playing storm in Legacy and you're not using Past in Flames as an engine, you're deck is built wrong. That card is unbelievably powerful against the field and solves a lot problems in traditionally even to weak match ups. I guess this contention is debatable, but probably not.

(Assuming you're starting with Ari's UBw list). What this means is that if you're playing chant effects you're either running a four color mana base (UBwr) or you're relying on artifact mana to access the red necessary to cast Past in Flames. If you're running a four color deck, the benefits of having a stable mana base are gone and you're better off playing TES because you almost never have mana issues due to the rainbow lands and your mana base isn't nearly as vulnerable to stifle. I've played with the UBw list using artifact mana to cast Past in Flames, but I've found these lists ill equipped to truly exploit Past in Flames. Specifically, they typically run only Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. I've found that you need at least ten ritual effects to truly use Past in Flames as a viable storm engine.

I think if you're going to splash a third color, red is an obvious choice. Burning Wish has incredible utility solving any problem you run into. The addition of Rite of Flame allows you to run upwards of ten ritual effects maximizing the mana you can generate via Past in Flames. In lieu of chant effects, you get access to six discard spells maindeck along with two more in the board as Burning Wish targets for a total of eight discard spells game one. Furthermore, you also get access to Pyroblast post sideboard which is very powerful against the Blue decks.

I think if we see a continued trend toward GW Maverick and other non blue decks, chant will continue to get weaker because of the permanent based hate negating the cards utility. Even if chant is better in some match ups, its virtually dead in others. Burning Wish ranges from fair to strong against the field and is never actually dead (unless you're run out of cards).

The hands people are referencing when you see several counterspells seem daunting, but typically, those hands represent virtually no clock. Storm digs quicker and more efficiently than control or agro control decks so running them out of counters and combing off will typically happen before they're able to assemble a clock. For example, look at most UWx Stoneblade lists. They typically run ten to eleven counterspells along with Snapcaster Mage. The break down is usually something like:

(Almost always)
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell

(Changeable)
1 Spell Pierce
or
2 Spellstutter Sprite

Post board, they add one or two more Spell Pierce (or less likely, Flusterstorm). They also run only Brainstorm and Jace as draw engines. Jace, while powerful, is slow and if they're wasting Snapcaster to flashback Brainstorm instead of a counter, you're already in good shape. Most storm lists run at least ten cantrip effects allowing you to dig much faster and get access to these cards. Furthermore, every turn they pass to keep countermagic up is a turn they're not cast Stoneforge Mystic for Batterskull. Clique is annoying, but again, you'll be able to dig out of it faster and they're likely to take you're tutor when most lists run six to seven (making it easy to dig up another copy). The match up may seem daunting on paper, but after playing several matches, its apparent that the redundancy present in storm decks wins out more often than most control players would think.

[j_rb]

I want to point out that running chants is effective against non blue decks as time walking them up to your combo turn makes it an auto-win (although I do not believe chant is BEST in Ant builds but better in TES). Even matches chant lacks in it is useful to some small extent... Also, upkeep chant EOT ad nauseam usually seals the deal against control, as most people think you are trying to time walk them with chant.

I also want to point out that PIF is insane the more and more I play with it, I realize how powerful it is. I believe if you are playing ANT the Ubr list (I hate calling it TNT) is probably the best list right now. If you want to play a deck with chant in it TES is really the best deck right now that uses it (aside from Ubrw DDFT).

[Forstik]

@Fossil4182 > I couldn't agree more.

[metalhead]

A millions discard effects doesn't beat snapcaster+stifle/flusterstorm. And control players have learned to leave removal in vs storm. Even without representing that you might hve swarm post board they know bolt means less cards off of ad nausium and swordsing there own goyf/kotr can be a game deciding play. This puts chants at an all time premium rite now.

[j_rb]

A millions discard effects doesn't beat snapcaster+stifle/flusterstorm. And control players have learned to leave removal in vs storm. Even without representing that you might hve swarm post board they know bolt means less cards off of ad nausium and swordsing there own goyf/kotr can be a game deciding play. This puts chants at an all time premium rite now.

I agree, but I would rather play chant in TES than run a Ubrw ad nauseam list. The unstable mana base would be rather atrocious. The only Ubw ad nauseam list I would consider running is one with top and LDV. I also believe that since there's a resurgence of stifle in most of the tempo decks; Orim's Chant would benefit an ant player more than seize/duress and past in flames, but this point has already been discussed to death in this thread. If tempo decks started to decline and maverick and other decks with permanent based hate start to be played more than Ubr would be the obvious choice for an AnT list.

[leegoo]

I agree, but I would rather play chant in TES than run a Ubrw ad nauseam list. The unstable mana base would be rather atrocious. The only Ubw ad nauseam list I would consider running is one with top and LDV. I also believe that since there's a resurgence of stifle in most of the tempo decks; Orim's Chant would benefit an ant player more than seize/duress and past in flames, but this point has already been discussed to death in this thread. If tempo decks started to decline and maverick and other decks with permanent based hate start to be played more than Ubr would be the obvious choice for an AnT list.

I agree other than about LDV. That card blows in ANT (and just about everything else but shelldrazi)

[j_rb]

I agree other than about LDV. That card blows in ANT (and just about everything else but shelldrazi)

It blows now because of snares all over the damn place. It was actually quite good if you ran a couple with tops before tempo blew up everywhere.

[dillonkbase]

It was actually quite good if you ran a couple with tops

I may be wrong here but If I am playing tops in storm shouldn't my tutor of choice be doomsday?

[OurSerratedDust]

I may be wrong here but If I am playing tops in storm shouldn't my tutor of choice be doomsday?

Yup.

[j_rb]

I may be wrong here but If I am playing tops in storm shouldn't my tutor of choice be doomsday?

Only if you're playing a set of tops. Most ad nauseam builds running LDV and top run 2 tops.

[dillonkbase]

The only Ubw ad nauseam list I would consider running is one with top and LDV.


Most ad nauseam builds running LDV and top run 2 tops.


Okay besides the one versus two tops you would play or that "most" LDV builds play; What exactly about LDV makes it good? Or more to the point what makes it better than doomsday for finding 5 cards or grim tutor for finding one card? We are not playing force of will so the fact that its blue only makes it worse because of reb and pyroblast. The fact that it costs two makes it worse against spell snare and counterbalance. And it is unlikely that it will cost less life than grim tutor, it will have less effect than doomsday.

With that said I am unsure why I should consider LDV in my Ant list, UBw or otherwise?

[j_rb]

With that said I am unsure why I should consider LDV in my Ant list, UBw or otherwise?

You shouldn't because it's terrible now. I clarified this in a post above when I said "It blows..." Snare hits it, reb hits it, and it gets hit by pierce/balance pretty easy, even though the latter is nearly non-existent. Ldv was a decent choice for a tutor before delver decks blew up, and to be honest it was really powerful but no one played it and dismissed it as garbage even though there was solid tournament results showing it was viable. I was just stating a point and was not suggesting running LDV, I was just stating that I use it from time to time in my local meta when testing numerous amount of storm builds.

But the point is, don't use LDV now because it isn't viable to play now with so much delver/stoneblade running around (even though a savvy player can play around snare).




and counterbalance.

Lets be real here, counterbalance isn't a good deck anymore.

[Sloshthedark]

I never had a feeling Chant solves anything except the - SDT and Snapcaster-SS/Stifle interaction... well you can still beat it but that's rare..

if the Fow/Spellpierce you, do you pass/pay? I prefer to have information and go off when I know I can win, I prefer mtg to poker..

I recently realized i can beat 2xFow 3xDaze 2xSS hand in one turn with 2 discards the same as I would with 2 chants (well likely not), except I would likely lack the WW most time...

Past in flames - plain power of this card make Chant in ANT no option... I mean, should the deck be still called ANT if you kill through Past in flames 4/5 of the time?

I play a bit modified GP UBrg list and I don't think UW is unfavorable I only lost due to my misplays in tournaments, Canadian thresh is around 50/50 while they know what you're playing (based on 50+ games)... no experience with URG tempo thou, since nobody plays/tests it around here =/

LDV - although i really like the card I have little experience with it in old UB list.. I'm a bit tempted to give it a try instead of 2 preordains now

[j_rb]

Past in flames - plain power of this card make Chant in ANT no option... I mean, should the deck be still called ANT if you kill through Past in flames 4/5 of the time?


Playing PiF makes your delver MU easy as pie. Actually, it makes most blue Mu's easy as long as you get some decent disruption. Running PiF or chant is all play-style dependent.

Most the time you can wait for a tap out for a clique and just wreck em on your turn.

PiF is so powerful against blue that I wouldn't recommend playing without it. It allows you to just be awesome. The mini tendrils play is amazing if you draw the tendrils and/or PiF. It just lets you win against control. I've also been in situations where I would just use PiF for flashing back discard and cantrips. It's just soo good.


if the Fow/Spellpierce you, do you pass/pay? I prefer to have information and go off when I know I can win, I prefer mtg to poker..

I prefer a mix of discard and chants. With this you can easily just win. Also, most players let a chant resolve on their turn so you can abuse this the best with ant, going rit rit adn, since ant runs 8 instant cast rits compared to TES. Most the time with chant you duress then chant the next turn and if they pierce you typically pay it only if you have enough lands to cast a ritual and another ritual in response to another pierce in case they have one, otherwise you just pass and chant again next turn.




LDV - although i really like the card I have little experience with it in old UB list.. I'm a bit tempted to give it a try instead of 2 preordains now

LDV is good in old ant list with tops. You usually play 2 top and 2 LDV. I played 2 top 3 LDV in my old list before delver decks got huge here in the Americas.

I wouldn't recommend running it just because snare wrecks it. You can always play around it but there will be certain situations where you need to LDV and they just snare it and win.

LDV with chant works because if you have extra chants you can chant then LDV.

LDV is very powerful when it works and top lets you sculpt perfect hands. I liked the version of ANT with it. It was very powerful the times it was working. Basically if you want to run LDV, you just cut 4 preordain for 2 LDV and 2 Top. I still wouldn't recommend it if your meta is filled with control, as a timely snare can just make you lose. To cut to the chase, when it works it's a 2 mana vamp tutor.

[scott_limoges]

J_rb - do you have a decklist?

[j_rb]

J_rb - do you have a decklist?

Yea, but I would not recommend playing this unless you can really play around snare. It's not hard but it takes some patience. These list are solid against mixed metas. I stopped playing them because I opted to the 7 chant Doomsday fetch tendrils builds because they wreck control, which my meta is filled with.
The chant list is obviously good if theres rampant control in your area because you can go upkeep chant eot LDV ad nause or just ad naus.

4 duress
1 ill gotten gains
4 infernal tutor
3 ponder
1 Tendrils
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ad nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 lotus petal
2 sensei top

1 crystal vein
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 delta
2 misty rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

sb
3 dark confidant
2 echoing truth
1 thoughtseize
1 hurkyls recall
1 rebuild
1 kgrip
1 slaughter pact
1 chain of vapor
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Xantid Swarm

green splash for swarms. The extra chrome is because I prefer speed and you can ad nauseam with no mana floating more successfully.

4 duress
1 ill gotten gains
4 infernal tutor
3 ponder
1 Tendrils
3 Orim's chant
1 Ad nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 lotus petal
2 sensei top

4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 delta
1 Swamp
1 tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 scrubland

sb
3 dark confidant
1 Ad nauseam
2 echoing truth
1 Orim's chant
1 hurkyls recall
1 rebuild
1 kgrip
1 slaughter pact
1 chain of vapor
1 Tendrils of agony
2 surgical extraction

Heres my list with white for chant. I use surgical for obvious gy hate. Mainly against reanimator. It also can shuffle if you need a shuffle effect, which I have done numerous times.

I'll be honest the Ubg version is probably the better version, but I enjoy playing chants as my meta is filled with control.

[Sloshthedark]

general question for G splash - Main/side? Trop or Bayou?


I really dislike G land main since you're telegraphing Xantid swarm miles away

Trop seems like an obvious choice, but in numerous situations i wished it'd be Bayou and lost due to it (T1 swarm - T2 kill, or more likely - T1 island+cantrip, T2 fetch-> swarm but with no black for the kill next few turns), in fact it is a protection so natural would be B land

...the problem is reconfiguration of fetches as ability to go T1-> island is vital, but I'm playing both Volcanic and Badlands (which is 100% worth it) and going Misty Rainforest>Scalding tarn makes the MB weaker =/

which Configuration would be your choice?

for reference my recent decklist (61 cards) I 100% like except the Trop problem:

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy


4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

2 Island
1 Swamp

2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island

SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 2 Pyroclasm


j_rb - Crystal Vein - is that 2. situational mana worth it?

btw. would Dread of Night (most likely a SB 4of) be really weird in strong monoW & Maverick meta?

[dillonkbase]

I think virtues ruin is the better choice over dread of night.

The crystal vein reasoning is going to include comments about sensei's and chrome mox.


As for your deck slosh, Have you considered an Empty the Warrens Main? I think I would try -2 preordain +1 Empty, and being a 60 card deck?

I could also see -2 Grim +2 burning, and adding a single grim SB. Once you are running red maindeck, I think it should be considered for burning wish and empty the warrens, these are cards that can offer outs to other random main deck cards.

[Fossil4182]

If you're going to splash for a color (Green), then I would suggest taking up five to six sideboard slots with two of those slots being land. It seems excessive, but its probably necessary considering the two top blue decks are running a minimum of three Wasteland. If you're looking at Green for Xantid Swarm, why not just splash White for maindeck or sideboard Chant effects? The old argument about splashing Green was that it gave you access to Krosan Grip to solve Counterbalance. However, Counterbalance has fallen out of favor taking away the secondary reason to play Green.

The best method to beat these decks will likely depend on what is in your metagame. If it is RUG heavy, then Chant seems like your best out. If its UWx Stoneblade, you could get away with UB with Dark Confidant and additional discard from the sideboard; the benefit being you don't risk color screw and you maintain your ability to play around Wasteland. I think Chant is probably the stronger splash between the UB, UBw, or UBg simply because Confidant is terrible against RUG because they almost always have burn in post board.

If you're going to play chant, something to consider is the presences of Leyline of Sanctity. If that card is prevalent in your area, play Silence over Chant (Chant targets, Silence does not). The ability to blank attacks is probably not that relevant since most of the aggro decks are slower than they use to be and you usually have until turn four before they kill you. Most aggro players will tend to mulligan into hate cards because they believe your deck capable of killing them on turn one; the reality is that unless you're playing Blecher, the odds of a turn one kill are fairly low.

[emidln]

Dread of Night serves an important function in guaranteeing that you don't lose to Aven Mindcensor while keeping the Teegs and Canonists able to be hit with other removal (killing Mother of Runes). This is fine in Doomsday where you are fine with them having Teeg or Canonist, but cannot beat Mindcensor. ANT isn't really fine with either of them, and is generally better served by Virtue's Ruin/Infest effects.

[j_rb]

general question for G splash - Main/side? Trop or Bayou?

I really dislike G land main since you're telegraphing Xantid swarm miles away


I prefer the trop on the board but if I'm running out of board space I'll put it maindeck. Most of the time it can be avoided in g1 that they have no idea you are playing swarm.

I also like trop as I don't need to fix the mana base for bayou. Turn 1 island cantrip into turn 2 trop swarm usually works as you will have a 3rd land or a lotus petal for the black source.




j_rb - Crystal Vein - is that 2. situational mana worth it?


Yea, it is kind of mandatory (Not technically mandatory but it's amazing) playing with tops. You can use either vein or City of Traitors, which I dislike city, as you need another land to kill it for thresh in certain games.

If you suspect mindbreak trap dark rit, vein into ad nauseam is kinda sweet.

That is also why I run 3 chrome moxes. So the dark rit vein ad nauseam turn 2 is a more consistent win.



btw. would Dread of Night (most likely a SB 4of) be really weird in strong monoW & Maverick meta?

Yea in maverick filled meta's it could be. It's definitely less of hassle than trying to play around mom protected teegs, cannonist and mindcensors. Sudden shock is tech as fuck against maverick/teeg/mindcensor too if you are playing red.

You definitely want them as a 4 of if you are running them. As 1 and any other bounce/kill wins against maverick.



As for your deck slosh, Have you considered an Empty the Warrens Main? I think I would try -2 preordain +1 Empty, and being a 60 card deck?

I could also see -2 Grim +2 burning, and adding a single grim SB. Once you are running red maindeck, I think it should be considered for burning wish and empty the warrens, these are cards that can offer outs to other random main deck cards.

I could see this. Hell, I could see running 4 burning wish(-2 preordain -2 grim for 4 Burning Wish with empty and grim tutor in board). Burning wish with a wish board would be sick and grim would be a sick tutor target. This also makes the deck more versatile. I've found many games with ant that burning wish is fantastic as I can imprint tendrils on chrome without having to worry about not having a win con. Empty is so powerful against pox/tempo decks, you probably want 1 main or 4 Burning Wish for easy access to early empties. I got so many auto wins against pox at the last scg I played in due to empty.

P.S. Burning Wish is goooood. Versatility is key here.

[Sloshthedark]

-Goblins main is something I can imagine to have use for but I don't have feeling I actually need them and Ad Nauseam into 2x Grim, Flames, Tendrils and Warrens on the top seems pretty risky... 61 card deck is simple personal preference 61st card being additional land

-Chant is no option for me due to PiF and Swarm is some sort of Chant effect

-Actually Burning Wish is the reason why i switched to Grim Tutors, although I like the versatility its slower, shrinks sideboard and most of all is clumsy with Past in Flames

4Burning wish and Wishing for Grim in chain is a bit wild at least with mana IMO, I would play that in TnT with Rite of Flame

[P.S.]

61 card deck is simple personal preference 61st card being additional land

The 61st card is always worse than the 60th card. When going for efficiency, adding another card is just decreasing consistency.

There was an old argument about people playing 41 cards in Limited instead of 40. The argument went something like "if the game goes long, I won't get decked" or some nonsense like that. The bottom line is, if you play 41 cards, your deck is not as good as it could be, or you're not strong enough of a player to make the final cut.

I feel the same way in Constructed. Certainly when playing Combo.

[dillonkbase]

I'm not so sure burning wish is clumsy with PiF, I mean if you get your wish through then it exiles, if its countered than it still goes to the GY, generally you only need to resolve one tutor, so I'm not sure this is that big of problem.

As for the 61st card being a land, I'm not sure that means anything, I mean you could call anything the 61st card. However you are running 14 cantrips instead of the usual 12, so I think going to 12 or 13 would be acceptable.


As for Grim vs Burning, I'm not sure paying 6 life(either with ad nauseum or twice cast through PiF) and 2 extra mana when you are already main-decking red lands makes sense.

Burning Wish for Virtues Ruin in the SB is a sweet play to beat the maverick decks and burning for EtW means you dont have to take the 4 damage flipping it to AN.


If I wasn't playing chant, I would practice this, as it stands I am boarding in 4 warrens and 2 red lands from my board at times.

[Sloshthedark]

The 61st card is always worse than the 60th card. When going for efficiency, adding another card is just decreasing consistency.


That's true... well I'm used to play 61 decks even combos (and played even 63 card Lands deck once) and feel no way obligated with this "rule"... I bit hesitated with storm but it provides more SB versatility and I want enough lands in deck where I keep reasonable no-landers with probe time to time, and probe virtually makes it -4 cards

bottom line - I cannot build the main deck better than this that would feel stronger to me in 60 cards.. so I ended up like that...

[Sloshthedark]

I'm not so sure burning wish is clumsy with PiF, I mean if you get your wish through then it exiles, if its countered than it still goes to the GY, generally you only need to resolve one tutor, so I'm not sure this is that big of problem.

It is, as it requires the tutor... I played only 4/2 or 3/3+1, sure its better in 4/4 +1 ...I wonder If I wouldn't rather play TES then...


As for the 61st card being a land, I'm not sure that means anything, I mean you could call anything the 61st card. However you are running 14 cantrips instead of the usual 12, so I think going to 12 or 13 would be acceptable.

that means same deck 14 lands... hmm need more lands... add one
maybe it would.. but playing 1of preordain =/ ...I'm not sure 12 is usual and 16 is just cantrip into more cantrips, so I'm fine with 14 as I board out 2 preordains out +/- each match


As for Grim vs Burning, I'm not sure paying 6 life(either with ad nauseum or twice cast through PiF) and 2 extra mana when you are already main-decking red lands makes sense.

It doesn't matter with Pif as I'm winning that turn, its real pain with Ad Nauseam... on the other hand 4/5 games I combo through PiF and do not use Ad Nauseam unless its necessary


Burning Wish for Virtues Ruin in the SB is a sweet play to beat the maverick decks and burning for EtW means you dont have to take the 4 damage flipping it to AN.

I know It is and its mana intensive too.. I'm thinking of running Infest in my board instead

[j_rb]

I'm not so sure burning wish is clumsy with PiF, I mean if you get your wish through then it exiles, if its countered than it still goes to the GY, generally you only need to resolve one tutor, so I'm not sure this is that big of problem.

It's not clumsy as long as you are running 4 tutor 4 wish because you will usually have a tutor as you burning wish. The tutor will usually be in your hand and lets you double up on mana or protection post combo. Also, if they counter it you can usually use a PiF to get a lethal storm count through your gy so the 1 wish is all it takes some times. Also, just 1 burning wish with the natural tendrils in hand will win games.



As for Grim vs Burning, I'm not sure paying 6 life(either with ad nauseum or twice cast through PiF) and 2 extra mana when you are already main-decking red lands makes sense.

It's fine as you are mainly comboing off with PiF, but the ad nauseam requires a little bit of caution, as you need extra life for it. I prefer Burning Wish as you can be fast if you need to with the empty route or it gives you the best utility and versatility your deck can give.

I also think it's important to have a maindeck out to Teeg, which Burning Wish gives.



Burning Wish for Virtues Ruin in the SB is a sweet play to beat the maverick decks and burning for EtW means you dont have to take the 4 damage flipping it to AN.


Ruin and possibly Grapeshot. Grapeshot is great against hatebears or as a 1 sided wrath of god if they don't have mom protection.
Oh, and it lets you showboat for your friends or grapeshot an opponent who is being rude to you for 50 damage.

On a side note grapeshot is more mana intensive if you don't run rite of flame so you usually need a 2nd red source via petal or another land. It definitely isn't mandatory if you aren't running rite of flame, but when I played Ubr Ant I found the mana easily accessible via petal and not having double red never screwed me over.


It is, as it requires the tutor... I played only 4/2 or 3/3+1, sure its better in 4/4 +1 ...I wonder If I wouldn't rather play TES then...

You probably wouldn't because you get a way less stable mana base. Also playing 4 wish 3 tutor 1 sb or 4/4 1 grim sb, makes Burning wish less of a random thing as you usually have the extra tutor. Also, post combo the extra tutor lets you double up on protection or mana. Burning wish getting PiF when I have drawn the tendrils has won me so many games I can't count.

[lordofthepit]

For those of you who are running Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy in a Past in Flames list (which I believe to make sense given the synergy between PiF and Probe and between Therapy and Probe), are you opting for Duress or Thoughtseize as your "other" discard spell? Given the number of Snapcasters, Vendilion Cliques, Spellstutter Sprites, and other hatebears running around, and the fact that Past in Flames decks are less reliant on life totals, I am almost inclined to run Thoughtseizes (or at least a split).

[phazonmutant]

I'm going to make a bold claim. ANT's sideboard is mostly garbage. The only anti-hate needed are a couple Chain of Vapors, 1-2 Echoing Truth, and a few ways to deal with Counterbalance and Stax. The rest are "upgrades" (imaginary or real) to bounce spells and other filler.

To fill this hole in the sideboard, I've been testing boarding in 4x Delver of Secrets and 4x Dark Confidant against all blue decks, and it's been working beautifully. Even against my playtest opponents who know I'm boarding into the manplan, their sideboard is now less effective and they often can't draw an answer before I deal 9+ damage or draw a few cards. In some small local tournaments, people have been completely blown out (although if they're good, they'll leave in some swords).

Delver will flip something absurd like 80% of the time and really puts a ton of pressure on them. Bob is fine, but a little underwhelming so far. Next plan is to try a 2-2 split of Jaces and Bobs. Both of the duders are likely to come down under a counterbalance lock and force the opponent to search for an answer for them or die, which dilutes their efforts to search for interaction with the combo.

For boarding, I'm operating on the theory that I transform into an aggro-combo deck. Therefore, I want to be less all-in, focusing on pressuring and disrupting my opponent until I can execute a combo-kill. I board in an additional Tendrils to make it easier to cast a couple rituals into Tendrils for the kill. So right now, the plan is:
+ 4x Delver, 4x Bob, +1 Tendrils, +2ish bounce spells
- 4x Preordain, 2x LED, 1x Infernal Tutor, 1x Ad Nauseam, 1x Ill-Gotten Gains, 2ish Flex
The flex can be some number of Petals, Duresses, maindeck bounce, etc.

I'm currently playing Past In Flames in the maindeck along with IGG, no Grim Tutors because of budgetary reasons. 1 Volcanic, but no other splashes off stock U/B.

[emidln]

I'm going to make a bold claim. ANT's sideboard is mostly garbage. The only anti-hate needed are a couple Chain of Vapors, 1-2 Echoing Truth, and a few ways to deal with Counterbalance and Stax. The rest are "upgrades" (imaginary or real) to bounce spells and other filler.

To fill this hole in the sideboard, I've been testing boarding in 4x Delver of Secrets and 4x Dark Confidant against all blue decks, and it's been working beautifully. Even against my playtest opponents who know I'm boarding into the manplan, their sideboard is now less effective and they often can't draw an answer before I deal 9+ damage or draw a few cards. In some small local tournaments, people have been completely blown out (although if they're good, they'll leave in some swords).

Delver will flip something absurd like 80% of the time and really puts a ton of pressure on them. Bob is fine, but a little underwhelming so far. Next plan is to try a 2-2 split of Jaces and Bobs. Both of the duders are likely to come down under a counterbalance lock and force the opponent to search for an answer for them or die, which dilutes their efforts to search for interaction with the combo.

For boarding, I'm operating on the theory that I transform into an aggro-combo deck. Therefore, I want to be less all-in, focusing on pressuring and disrupting my opponent until I can execute a combo-kill. I board in an additional Tendrils to make it easier to cast a couple rituals into Tendrils for the kill. So right now, the plan is:
+ 4x Delver, 4x Bob, +1 Tendrils, +2ish bounce spells
- 4x Preordain, 2x LED, 1x Infernal Tutor, 1x Ad Nauseam, 1x Ill-Gotten Gains, 2ish Flex
The flex can be some number of Petals, Duresses, maindeck bounce, etc.

I'm currently playing Past In Flames in the maindeck along with IGG, no Grim Tutors because of budgetary reasons. 1 Volcanic, but no other splashes off stock U/B.

This has been tested off and on for 5-6 years in this style of deck. It's fucking awful. The reason that it's awful is that ANT actually only has a few bad matchups, and this plan solves none of them. Let's walk through them:

(a) faster combo decks with as much or more permission/disruption (examples: Reanimator, Mirror w/Chant effects)


(b) prison decks that can attack basics and/or put up a clock (e.g. Geddon Stax, Dragon Stompy, Faerie Stompy).

(c) permission decks that leverage more than just stack-based counterspells (e.g. Counterbalance.dec (with it's namesake), Team America (with spot discard, Hymn, VClique))

(d) permission-heavy tempo decks with a very fast clock (RUG Tempo/Canadian Threshold)

Man plan doesn't help you at all vs (a) (siding in creatures vs someone who kills you faster than you...) or (d) (they're way more aggressive and won't side out their burn). It's pretty questionable vs (b) since they play a good number of threats and likely can't side out all of their (normally quite large complement of) creature control. (c) has far better trumps in one of the following:

Tarmogoyf
Stoneforge Mystic->Batterskull/Sword
Knight of the Reliquary
Tombstalker
(arguably, Jace, the Mind Sculptor)

This is ignoring the fact that they expect Xantid Swarms and Dark Confidants by now and have accounted for that by keeping around 4 pieces of removal in their decks. It's also ignoring that creatures don't actually deal with them assembling CB/Top.

What might you do to solve these pillars of things that ANT doesn't want to see?

(a)

1. Use specific hate, if it can be classified as a hoser should metagame presence become strong enough.

2. Play more discard spells so you can fight a war of attrition. ANT plays more and better draw than other combo decks (particularly those that sacrifice stability to have speed and lots of protection). Use this to stall the game until those cantrips matter.

(b)

1. Without a fast clock or land disruption, beating these decks is as easy as Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild, Meltdown, or Pulverize. With a fast clock, you have less time to hit land drops and find your removal. Lists like Ari's with lots of lands and lots of basic lands are much better here than something with 14 lands and gitaxian probes. In terms of ending the game of a deck with 14-17 lands, the last point of damage and Armageddon backed by a Sphere, a creature, or other non-chalice disruption are the same. The same thing that will work best against Dragon Stompy (as many lands and basics as you can afford (Ari Lax's well-known UB list is great here) plus enough mass bounce/removal that you have a good shot of drawing one naturally) also will beat Geddon Stax.

2. It's important to know what is inconvenient vs what is deadly. ANT often plays discard spells so recognizing what your hand might be able to play through when staring down an opponent's opening hand containing Chalice, Trinisphere, Mox, Ancient tomb, City of Traitors is very important. Both Trinisphere and Chalice can be played through, but how you do it is dependent on what your hand might be able to accomplish. Mentally giving up by telling yourself (and probably later your friends) that an opponent outdrew you is the reason you miss the cut when piloting storm.

(c)

1. Play a different deck. Fighting the two main ways of non-counterspell disruption from a blue deck (Counterbalance and Discard) at the same time is nearly impossible when you're trying to string together 8-10 spells. The only thing that has been constant in terms of beating these decks together has been Empty the Warrens, but opponents are quick to adapt with EE, Deed, and Maelstrom Pulse.

2. If you're facing only one, particular strategies are known to hose each. Heavy discard decks are known to be vulnerable to Divert, Disrupt, and Flusterstorm. Counterbalances can usually be dealt with by a mix of hard to counter enchantment removal (Krosan Grip, Reverent Silence, Wipe Away) and discard. Counterbalances are sometimes vulnerable to alternate sideboard plans of Doomsday into Shelldock Isle for Emrakul or Show and Tell into Emrakul but both will eat up large amounts of sideboard space.

(d)

1. The most obvious is change your protection package. These decks are notoriously weak to Orim's Chant, Silence, and basic Plains.

2. That said, this matchup is very winnable in stock lists. Know what's likely to walk into Daze and don't throw something critical like a discard spell or a Brainstorm into it if you can avoid it. Play with knowledge of their Wastelands and Stifles (fetch basics when it's safe if you can). Hold on to those discard spells a little longer until they've spent their manipulation. You're more likely to be able to follow up a bad hand of theirs with comboing and at least they're unlikely to be able to immediately recover from your discard spell by Brainstorming.

3. In lists with fewer lands, Carpet of Flowers and/or basics in the sideboard can help vs their mana denial and soft counters.

[phazonmutant]

That's a good analysis of the matchups. I know the manplan has been tested in the past, but so far I haven't seen anyone (posting about) testing with Delver. It sounds trivial, one man vs. another, but Delver is actually that good. Going through the specific matchups:
I agree with you on a and b. I have another Thoughtseize and a couple Rebuilds for a and b respectively. The manplan doesn't come in.

c. Your first option (play a different deck) would be correct if CB or BUG had large percentages of the meta, but fortunately they don't. However, Legacy being as diverse as it is, you're likely to run into one of these decks at a larger tournament, and I want to do something more than board in 3 cards to make the matchup 40-60 in their favor instead of something awful like 30-70.

Delver in particular is able to turn the matchup around to favorable postboard. Against heavy discard, given a hand of Delver and Tutor, Delver and LED, or even Delver and Brainstorm, it would be very unusual for them to take Delver with a Thoughtseize turn 1. They will usually leave in 2-5 removal spells, but we're playing 8-10 cantrips (depending on how you board), they're usually playing 4-6, so we're going to hit our men more frequently then they hit their removal. So by the time they find removal, Delver has hit them for 6, sometimes more. It gets under Counterbalance, allowing you to pressure them while you set up for the EOT Wipe Away instead of just sitting there. It's all about stretching them thin - they can try to search for permission or removal, and if they have a 3/2 battling, it forces them to make a decision fast.

Addressing the trumps,
1) Tarmogoyf you can often race. He tends to be a 3/4 in this matchup and Delver comes down faster and flies over. Bob doesn't fare well against Goyf, though, which is one of the reasons I'm not completely sold on him.

2) Mystic is vulnerable to discard. Instead of blowing your discard early, wait until they cast Mystic, then attempt to squire him. Even if Mystic blocks Bob, Bob has drawn you multiple cards at this point.

3) A turn 2 Knight seems like it could be a problem. I haven't tested against a Bant CB list though. It doesn't seem very popular.

4) Tombstalker is big, but he's very, very slow. What's even more embarrassing is if you happen to have a bounce spell handy, you can bounce him to swing through and they usually won't have enough cards in grave to recast him.

5) Jace is a problem, as always. You can attempt to kill them before he can come down, you can attempt to battle him to death, but if he sticks around, you will lose. This is another reason I'm trying out Jaces of my own. You can't protect Jace effectively, but against decks with very few creatures, he can come in through CB and will usually dominate.

d) I've tried Chant packages, didn't find them to be very effective. You're devoting at least 1/3 of your board and weakening your manabase to spells that fundamentally interact in the same way as they're preparing for. Either that, or you're adding Chants and discard, which makes the deck incredibly clunky and reactive. Ari posted not too long ago that Chants are garbage because of how many spell pierces they're running.

I appreciate your advice for how to play the matchup, but I am playing around Stifle and Wasteland. They can usually disrupt you just enough to buy them the 2 turns they need to battle for the win if you're just trying to sculpt a perfect hand, in my experience.

While most people will keep in burn, it's again stretching their searching thin by trying to find 4 bolts to my 8 men. Ever Snapcaster they use to bolt my men is one fewer Snare or Stile I have to play around. Their Delvers flip less frequently (or require suboptimal Pondering or Brainstorming). If they tap out / low to put pressure on you or remove a dude, you can often combo off right there. What's really worrying is the Hatfield RUG Delver playing CB in the side. This plan allows you to actually have a game against them.

The main point is that yes, the manplan hasn't been very effective in the past, but it's good now solely because of Delver.

And emidln,

Mentally giving up by telling yourself (and probably later your friends) that an opponent outdrew you is the reason you miss the cut when piloting storm.
There's really no call for making demeaning assumptions.

[aaronm678]

For those of you who are running Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy in a Past in Flames list (which I believe to make sense given the synergy between PiF and Probe and between Therapy and Probe), are you opting for Duress or Thoughtseize as your "other" discard spell? Given the number of Snapcasters, Vendilion Cliques, Spellstutter Sprites, and other hatebears running around, and the fact that Past in Flames decks are less reliant on life totals, I am almost inclined to run Thoughtseizes (or at least a split).

Blue/Red decks are way too popular to run Thoughtseize as the "Other" spell, particularly if you're running Grim Tutors. Vendillion Clique isn't really a huge deal to play around (If you think they have it, save a Brainstorm), and Spellstutter rarely counters anything of too much value. Snapcaster can be semi-annoying, but honestly, usually if they're leaving up Snapcaster + Counter magic every turn you can probably just wait out a Cabal Therapy and/or enough mana to play through Spell Pierce, since they're not doing anything with their mana.

If you want to run Thoughtseize main, you might as well cut Ad Naus, because you'll never really be able to cast it profitably -- a lot of people are already on the verge of cutting it, so this is one more strike against it.

I run 4 Duress main, and usually 3-4 Thoughtseize in the board (in Game 2/3, I often take out Probes for Thoughtseizes, or if I'm siding out Ad Naus I can be a little more aggressive with my life total).

[Matt]

In your honest opinion's, what stands a better chance at Indianapolis, LED/Looting Dredge or TES? I've been play testing/practicing with Dredge for the last 2 months but I'm starting to think TES will fair better. Graveyard based decks are back on the radar and TES fairs better against Delver, which is currently the deck to beat. Try to be unbiased.

-Matthew

[lordofthepit]

In your honest opinion's, what stands a better chance at Indianapolis, LED/Looting Dredge or TES? I've been play testing/practicing with Dredge for the last 2 months but I'm starting to think TES will fair better. Graveyard based decks are back on the radar and TES fairs better against Delver, which is currently the deck to beat. Try to be unbiased.

-Matthew


I would not play either deck at a big event, but if I had to choose, I'd go with TES, assuming you're very proficient. (There's a separate TES thread to focus on the storm deck with a 5-color manabase.)

However, if you're concerned about Delver, I consider Dredge to have the stronger matchup. The old Canadian Threshold counted Dredge among its weaker matchups, whereas these types of decks (quick clock, plentiful countermagic, Stifle, Wasteland) are decks that Storm pilots do not look forward to facing.

[Malakai]

People will have prepared for dredge. Take that for what it is.

The old Canadian Thresh counted dredge as a favorable matchup, to the point where proper sideboards did not contain any graveyard hate. You had every tool against them in the maindeck already:
-Fast enough to race a DDD hand.
-Early counters for the quick enablers
-Burn both to clock and to remove bridges.
-Stifle on Narco, Ichorid, zealot's ETB
-Wasteland, a card that by itself forced them to try to get hands with two lands or die to Waste+fow/daze.

[lordofthepit]

The old Canadian Thresh counted dredge as a favorable matchup, to the point where proper sideboards did not contain any graveyard hate. You had every tool against them in the maindeck already:
-Fast enough to race a DDD hand.
-Early counters for the quick enablers
-Burn both to clock and to remove bridges.
-Stifle on Narco, Ichorid, zealot's ETB
-Wasteland, a card that by itself forced them to try to get hands with two lands or die to Waste+fow/daze.

I'm going to disagree here. David Caplan had a primer (on TCG), I believe, where he discussed the matchups of the deck, but I think it's no longer available on the Internet. He mentioned specifically that Ichorid was a terrible matchup and he considered not sideboarding against Dredge at all because it was that bad.

That being said, he overestimated how bad it was. In a later article (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18018_Legacys_Allure_Canadian_Threshold_With_Ben_Wienburg.html), he said that the matchup was more tenable than he had given it credit for (precisely for many of the reasons you outlined where you do have ability to interact) and that the matchup did indeed justify devoting sideboard slots towards. Edit: Never mind, this is Ben Wienburg and not Dave Caplan.

Wherever you consider the matchup between Thresh and Dredge to lie on the spectrum, I'd still much rather be playing Dredge against RUG Delver than ANT/TES, and I have more experience with storm deck than I do with Dredge.

[Matt]

Yeah, LED/Looting dredge doesn't DDD like old dredge use to. It's still a helpful tool when you don't want to interact, but with so many powerful draw spells now, you often just overwhelm your opponent with threats. Dredge is really combo oriented now, if it wasn't already. An extremely resilient combo deck at that, grave-hate aside. And that's where my conundrum begins, everyone's eyes are on dredge after Adam Prosak stole first with dredge last week. I intended to do the very thing he accomplished, but he got there sooner. Now I'm left wondering if TES is the better choice, in a meta full of graveyard hate and aggro-control. In all honesty, I'm not too familiar with TES, though I did pilot U/B AdN pre-Misstep. I'm very comfortable with Dredge, but Cockatrice would allow me to get acquainted with TES fairly quick, though my time is limited. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

-Matthew

[Malakai]

For GP:Indy, I recommend UB or UBr*. RUG and Stoneblade both are moving towards playing Spell Pierce, which tends to make Chant effects untenable.

Additionally, I think everyone needs to be prepared for Counterbalance. Historical plans should still be effective, e.g. 4x Empty the Warrens, Doomsday, etc.



*I advise the full 12 rituals / 3-color TES.

[aaronm678]

For GP:Indy, I recommend UB or UBr*. RUG and Stoneblade both are moving towards playing Spell Pierce, which tends to make Chant effects untenable.

Additionally, I think everyone needs to be prepared for Counterbalance. Historical plans should still be effective, e.g. 4x Empty the Warrens, Doomsday, etc.



*I advise the full 12 rituals / 3-color TES.

What 12 rituals are you running? I assume you're counting either LED or lotus petal in addition to the normal 4 dark rit and 4 cabal or rite of flame? I can't imagine running more than 16 non land sources being correct unless you cut land (which seems bad if you're expecting a ton of counterbalance)

[death]

Spell Pierce? Counterbalace? Then I guess I'm back to old school

Sb
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tendrils of Agony
10

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

What 12 rituals are you running? I assume you're counting either LED or lotus petal in addition to the normal 4 dark rit and 4 cabal or rite of flame? I can't imagine running more than 16 non land sources being correct unless you cut land (which seems bad if you're expecting a ton of counterbalance)

Probably talking about Liam's TNT list (i.e. 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flame, 4 Cabal Ritual).

[aaronm678]

Probably talking about Liam's TNT list (i.e. 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flame, 4 Cabal Ritual).

Does he cut Petal or something? I searched around for his list and couldn't find one -- very surprising to me people are adding additional rituals for this deck, since I usually the games I lose are the games where I have excess mana and can't find action.

[thefringthing]

Does he cut Petal or something? I searched around for his list and couldn't find one -- very surprising to me people are adding additional rituals for this deck, since I usually the games I lose are the games where I have excess mana and can't find action.Here's his list from page 173:

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Preordain
3 Thoughtseize
4 Burning Wish
3 Duress
4 Ponder
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

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

Sideboard
2 Wipe Away
2 Pyroblast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Silent Departure
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Duress
1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Past in Flames

[Sloshthedark]

UBr (MD post #3574) question - SB ideas/strategies with UR crap?

sadly I found out its my worst match-up I'm frequently confronted with, it potentially represents the same clock Burn could and still has those random Spellsnares, Fows and Snaplocks or ... I found I just can't read their hands and play efficiently
All games I've ever won were just they played badly or drew real nothing and still it was close...and its even worse with Extraction and Pillar...

I have tried
3x Empty the Warrens - which is too slow unless played T1, T2, totally random ...and is even worse MD as suggested some time above
3x Defense Grid - which is kind of ok, but underperforming in other matches

usually with 3x +Chain of vapor for pillars/delvers/warrens

I'm currently on 3x Pyroblast 1x EtW -1xAd Nauseam, -1xPreordain, -1 Therapy, -1xIsland and ignoring the Pillars... better but still not good...

3x Pyroblast
2x Empty the Warrens
3x Extirpate
2x Pyroclasm
1x Virtues Ruin
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x ? metachoice (Hurkyls Recall/EtW/Infest/Wipeaway/Sadistic Sacrament)

so the question is SB: 3xpyroblast/3xgrid/3xother?

Opinions/experience using Nihil spellbomb as a Snap/GY hate?

[slaydo]

Guys,

I have been thinking to play this deck over TES due to consistency issues and I was wondering why ppl would play Grim Tutor? I am not looking for comments on cost. ANT only plays 4 tutors. Is this alleviated with Ill gotten gains and past in flames or not? In ANT, do you play either 1 main and the other 1 side?

thanx for your help.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Guys,

I have been thinking to play this deck over TES due to consistency issues and I was wondering why ppl would play Grim Tutor? I am not looking for comments on cost. ANT only plays 4 tutors. Is this alleviated with Ill gotten gains and past in flames or not? In ANT, do you play either 1 main and the other 1 side?

thanx for your help.

Proper English and grammar, please.

And you play 2 Grim Tutor's main because ANT has fewer business spells and fast mana than TES.

TES can more consistently win games on turns 1 and 2 than ANT because it plays 10 business spells versus 7.

ANT is good at consistently not losing to Wasteland.

In ANT, if you play Past in Flames, play Iggy in the board, or just not play Past in Flames and keep Iggy in the maindeck.

There haven't been too many good finishes with Past in Flames outside Elie Pichon's GP Amsterdam Top 8 upset and some smaller European tournaments.

[slaydo]

Proper English and grammar, please.

And you play 2 Grim Tutor's main because ANT has fewer business spells and fast mana than TES.

TES can more consistently win games on turns 1 and 2 than ANT because it plays 10 business spells versus 7.

ANT is good at consistently not losing to Wasteland.

In ANT, if you play Past in Flames, play Iggy in the board, or just not play Past in Flames and keep Iggy in the maindeck.

There haven't been too many good finishes with Past in Flames outside Elie Pichon's GP Amsterdam Top 8 upset and some smaller European tournaments.

Thank you for the feedback.

[Sloshthedark]

In ANT, if you play Past in Flames, play Iggy in the board, or just not play Past in Flames and keep Iggy in the maindeck.

There haven't been too many good finishes with Past in Flames outside Elie Pichon's GP Amsterdam Top 8 upset and some smaller European tournaments.

Iggy are inferior choice to PiF ...that's the same with Thrash, in Europe people tend to play Mongoose over Snapcaster, I haven't seen straight UB doing good anywhere except SCG and even that is suspicious...

[Dia_Bot]

Iggy are inferior choice to PiF ...that's the same with Thrash, in Europe people tend to play Mongoose over Snapcaster, I haven't seen straight UB doing good anywhere except SCG and even that is suspicious...

Iggy is only inferior to Pif when not playing chants (thus not splashing white).

[Zieby]

Iggy is only inferior to Pif when not playing chants (thus not splashing white).
And Chant is superior to Duress when playing against Thress Imo.

The only reason the splash for RED is Burning Wish, otherwise the Chants are allot better the what PiF brings to your gameplan.
So if you do not see the need for Burning Wish (or believe that when playing Burning Wish you should play TES, as I do) then I think the best build is a version of UBw ANT with 7 chants MD.

[Dia_Bot]

And Chant is superior to Duress when playing against Thress Imo.

The only reason the splash for RED is Burning Wish, otherwise the Chants are allot better the what PiF brings to your gameplan.
So if you do not see the need for Burning Wish (or believe that when playing Burning Wish you should play TES, as I do) then I think the best build is a version of UBw ANT with 7 chants MD.

Agreed.
I've switched to a 7 chant UBw list recently and haven't looked back on duress or B. Wish jet.

[aaronm678]

UBr (MD post #3574) question - SB ideas/strategies with UR crap?

sadly I found out its my worst match-up I'm frequently confronted with, it potentially represents the same clock Burn could and still has those random Spellsnares, Fows and Snaplocks or ... I found I just can't read their hands and play efficiently
All games I've ever won were just they played badly or drew real nothing and still it was close...and its even worse with Extraction and Pillar...

I have tried
3x Empty the Warrens - which is too slow unless played T1, T2, totally random ...and is even worse MD as suggested some time above
3x Defense Grid - which is kind of ok, but underperforming in other matches

usually with 3x +Chain of vapor for pillars/delvers/warrens

I'm currently on 3x Pyroblast 1x EtW -1xAd Nauseam, -1xPreordain, -1 Therapy, -1xIsland and ignoring the Pillars... better but still not good...

3x Pyroblast
2x Empty the Warrens
3x Extirpate
2x Pyroclasm
1x Virtues Ruin
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x ? metachoice (Hurkyls Recall/EtW/Infest/Wipeaway/Sadistic Sacrament)

so the question is SB: 3xpyroblast/3xgrid/3xother?

Opinions/experience using Nihil spellbomb as a Snap/GY hate?


I've never had too much a problem with this deck -- keep in mind, they typically run max 10 counters pre-board (3-4 daze, 2-3 force, 2+ spell pierce/snare), and they have to actively use all their mana to get damage through, so they can't typically leave up pierce.

Preboard, don't run your duresses into Daze, and other than that, play like they're a burn deck -- they don't run enough counters to matter. Mulligan aggressively, as keeping hands that don't do anything is an easy way to lose.

Postboard, my entire game plan is to keep their creatures off the board -- if you do that, they're just a really bad burn deck. So, for you, I'd board in 2x Pyroclasm, 2x Chain of Vapor.

Also -- I'm not sure why you run Pyroblast in the board. I would run additional Thoughtseize/Duress if your U/B/R, or run Chants if you're 4 color. Pyroblast is just a bad version of both, and is just about the most awkward thing you can do if you're trying to crack an LED.

Boarding in Grave Hate to stop Snapcaster is really, really bad in general, and even worse against that deck. Honestly, you should probably be outracing Snapcaster, particularly on the play, and on the draw...they run about 4 spells that can be Snapcastered to benefit (and Pierce is FAR more common than Snare, and Pierce is not a hard card to play around when you can see it coming from a mile away).

[Sloshthedark]

Daze is not run in favor of SS/SP around me

I though about pyroclasm, I don't know it feels counter intuitive he just bolts/snapbolts me the same... I feel I can't fight both clock and disruption they always seem to have the other type of hand I'm prepared for or I'm just unlucky bad player... its subjectively worst my matchup in my meta

4th color would be total mess... I've encountered the pyro/Led problem, it is awkward... reasoning behind pyro is it deals with Snapcaster and V.clique when discard could not (in your big turn), sidefx it kills Delver if needed, helps with counterbalance, top->counterspell/stifle, or Arcane Lab local guy used to play

I mean as a GY, not in this particular matchup

[aaronm678]

Daze is not run in favor of SS/SP around me

I though about pyroclasm, I don't know it feels counter intuitive he just bolts/snapbolts me the same

It's possible you need to keep more aggressive hands? I don't know your exact list, but if you're having trouble with Snapcaster -> Bolt, it seems like you would have trouble racing a lot of aggressive decks.

I board in removal because their dorks are annoying, as they up their clock pretty substantially -- my removal suite is 3x Chain of Vapor, 2x Slaughter pact -- I've never actually tested Pyroclasm, but it seems fine. Typically I board out:

-1 Underground Sea
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Ad Nauseam

My list is similar to the GP Amsterdam list without the green splash.



4th color would be total mess... I've encountered the pyro/Led problem, it is awkward... reasoning behind pyro is it deals with Snapcaster and V.clique when discard could not (in your big turn), sidefx it kills Delver if needed, helps with counterbalance, top->counterspell/stifle, or Arcane Lab local guy used to play

I mean as a GY, not in this particular matchup


I've never been a huge fan of the 4 color lists either, just wasn't sure what exactly you were playing.

I find it interesting people board specific cards for Vendillion Clique -- usually I just try to use my cantrips wisely if I have seen/expect it from them (save a brainstorm, keep a card you need 2 cards down on ponder, etc). I've just never had any luck trying to run reactive cards in Tendrils decks.

[Sloshthedark]

We play nearly the same deck then... I have +2 preordain, -1 land, 4 duals, no Crystal Vein, 61cards

9/10 7card hands can go off at T1-T3 if played aggressively, 6card turn later so I do not mulligan unless its complete (match-up) garbage, we're talking both know what the other is playing

I mean on the top of that - you kill some guide/delver, they snapbolt finish you, Pyroclasm seem too narrow answer.. It's not like I can't race their deck, but they can sometimes hold me off enough time to snaplock and burn me, which is just worse with Extraction and Pillar postboard, its not like I lose all the games, but feel unfavored where it seems ok on paper and shows horrible in practice, all wins just too close for my liking... and it cost me better prices in weekly tournaments... but maybe you're right I'll give it a try tomorrow...

I don't usually go under 3 probes G2 i really like the card, pyroclasm is awesome in my experience

Pyroblast is not for Clique, but can serve the purpose, a lot o blue decks run it... its just test in the swarm slots as many expect creatures postboard and SB bayou weakens MD manabase

anyway thanx for your answers

[videogamer99]

I went 10-5 with UB ANT at GP Indy. I placed 98 of 1212. Here is a mini tourney report.
R1 Bye
1-0

R2 Affinity. 1-2. Lost to Mindbreak Trap G2 and I boarded out Ill-Gotten Gains G3 and that cost me the game
1-1

R3 Mono Red 2-1
2-1

R4 RUG Delver. 2-1. G3 went like this:
He has a Snapcaster in hand. He has Spell Snare and Stifle in yard. I cast Infernal Tutor. He Spell Snares. I cast 3x LED, Lotus Petal, 2x Dark Ritual, Tendrils
3-1

R5 UW Stoneblade. 2-0
4-1

R6 RUG Delver. 1-2
4-2

R7 RUG Delver. 2-0
5-2

R8 High Tide. 2-0
G1: T1 Thoughtseize, T2,3,4 Duress
G2: T2 Dark Rit, Thoughtseize x2 and Bob
6-2

R9 Hive Mind 2-0. Beat double Leyline with 2x Bob G2
7-2

R10 Stoneblade. 2-0
8-2

R11 Maverick. 1-2 He had double Leyline. I went to Ad Nauseam while at 18 life and went down to 1. I cast Ill-Gotten Gains to return Tendrils, Ponder, and Brainstorm to try to find 2x Chain of Vapor or 1x Chain and 1x Infernal Tutor and I missed
8-3

R12 Esper Stoneblade vs Sam Black. Kept a 1 lander, played around Wasteland, mana screwed.
8-4

R13 vs Combo Elvers. 1-2. He attacked me out with Thorns G2 and G3
8-5

R14. Dredge. 2-1.
9-5

R15. Burn. 2-0
10-5

Here is the list that I played:
Maindeck:
Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

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

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Hurkyl's Recall

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

R11 Maverick. 1-2 He had double Leyline. I went to Ad Nauseam while at 18 life and went down to 1. I cast Ill-Gotten Gains to return Tendrils, Ponder, and Brainstorm to try to find 2x Chain of Vapor or 1x Chain and 1x Infernal Tutor and I missed
8-3

I watched this match at the GP. Echoing Truth man :cry:

That Maverick player was such a douche to you.

[videogamer99]

I watched this match at the GP. Echoing Truth man :cry:

That Maverick player was such a douche to you.

He didnt seem that douchey. He used Bojuka Bog too early and he didnt apply enough pressure to make Ad Nauseam no longer be an out.

[aaronm678]

I went 11-4 in Indy with this list (no byes) :

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 U Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

SB:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thoughtseize
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Empty the Warrens


My Terrible Tournament Report

Rd1 Win 2-0
White Stax
G1 he goes T1 Mox Diamond (pitch Wasteland) -> Mistveil plains go. I name Trinisphere on Cabal Therapy, he discards it and does nothing the rest of the game.
G2 he lands a trinisphere and a smokestack. I play a bunch of Dark Confidants and Empty the Warrens for 0 storm a few times, and kill him with 1/1 and 2/1 beat down.

Rd2 Win 2-0
Rug
G1 I take because he has no clock. G2 he boards in Life from the Loam...eventually he draws it and dies because he boarded in Life from the Loam.

Rd3 Loss 1-2
TES
I hate storm matchups...G1 he kills me faster, G2 I kill him faster, G3 he kills me faster.

Rd4 Win 2-0
pox

rd5 Win 2-1
esper stoneforge

rd6 Win 2-x
?? u/w stoneforge I think

rd7 win 2-0
zoo

rd8 Win 2-1
white weenie with sideboard chalice
This was an unexpected board plan -- G3 I win because my hand is randomly like cabal ritual x3, Lion's Eye, Infernal Tutor, so his chalice is a blank.

rd9 win 2-0
maverick
He mulligans to 5 both games, I end up discarding or killing his hate bears.

rd10 loss (caleb d) 0-2
RUG
Game 1 it gets into a situation where he has 1 blind card, lethal on board, and I win unless it's a daze. It's a daze.
Game 2 I keep a hand heavy on discard, but kind of slow (I actually like that in this matchup, since they typically don't clock you that much). He goes t1 delver -> flip, t2 delver -> flip, and ends the game with something like Force/2x Stifle in hand. Was never really in this one.

rd11 loss 1-2
U/W stoneforge
Very close games here, end up losing G3 when he has a blind card in hand and need to win. The blind card is Snapcaster and I can't play through it.

rd13 Win 2-1
u/w Stoneforge
These matches were definitely good practice in playing around Vendillion Clique, as he had them every game and used them well. His list didn't have much of a clock outside of Clique, so I was able to take my time to kill him and eventually got there. He runs a million Spell Snares, and Grim Tutor ends up being an all star.

rd13 Win 2-0
RUG
I take G1 as he doesn't have much of a clock. He boards into counterbalance, but I'm able to duress it before it lands, and eventually get there.


rd14 Loss 1-2
Dream Halls -- I take game 1 in a pretty intense game (I play Past in Flame twice this game, both times I end up tutoring up an LED to crack for blue to cantrip my way into a bunch of cards - the first time to force him to play a daze and slow him down, the second to kill him). Game 2, he mulligans to 4, I get cocky, start playing poorly, and he plays Dream Halls -> Conflux. I Ad Naus in response down to 2, don't hit Chain of Vapor, and die. Looking back, at the very least I should have continued to go on Ad Naus, but there were a million misplays this game and I deserved to lose. G3 he goes T2 show and tell -> Dream Halls, I try to Chain of Vapor and he has the force. The dude was an ass (was trying his hardest to rules lawyer me out of the game...I think I had a judge called on me 2-3 times, and dude after every spell I cast insists on counting my hand, etc), but this was a pretty fun match. Dude I played -- if you're reading this: You're an ass, it's a game, and you're not even playing for top 8. Calm the fuck down.

rd15 win 2-0
Aggro Loam
These weren't actually games...G1 he keeps a fine hand against most decks. I kill him Turn 2 on the play, he never cast a spell.
G2 he plays Turn 2 Sphere of Resistance, but misses his 3rd land drop. I play turn 3 bob while he continues to miss land drops. I eventually play more bobs and kill him with a tiny tendrils.

Ended up being good for 51st and $200.

[j_rb]

Agreed.
I've switched to a 7 chant UBw list recently and haven't looked back on duress or B. Wish jet.

I love more people jumping on the Orim's Chant wagon, as I've always loved and advocated Ubw ant over other colors.... 7 chant builds are sexy.

[ThediscoPower]

I love more people jumping on the Orim's Chant wagon, as I've always loved and advocated Ubw ant over other colors.... 7 chant builds are sexy.

Is there a representative list somewhere? I only find normal lists (aka the one I am playing right now and getting bored of) or I find lists playing red (the one I am about to try, if I don't find a list with white soon lol)

[j_rb]

Is there a representative list somewhere? I only find normal lists (aka the one I am playing right now and getting bored of) or I find lists playing red (the one I am about to try, if I don't find a list with white soon lol)

I'm curious. What's the list your running look like. I've found most 7 chant builds look similar to ub and you just cut a tutor or preordain for a protection spell.

Generally, Ubw looks like this:

4 Silence
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Ponder
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Orim's Chant or Duress

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded strand
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra

It's Ub with 2 cards cut for 1 protection and a md CoV.

There's also some lists I posted a couple pages back that have white in them and have done well in large tournaments....

Ari lax just posted this list in his premium article on scg. It looks pretty sweet. I don't know about 2 rains but 1 could be worth the slot.

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Instants
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Orim's Chant
2 Rain of Filth
4 Silence

Sorceries
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony

Basic Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Rebuild
1 Grim Tutor
1 Preordain
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Island
1 Plains

[Sloshthedark]

aaronm678 Congratulations how are 17 lands working for you? // would you change anything?

j_rb I'd feel dead to maverick, with all respect to Ari Lax this is nice 2 Ad Nauseam nostalgia but I can't see a good deck in it

[aaronm678]

aaronm678 Congratulations how are 17 lands working for you? // would you change anything?

I would probably cut the Volcanic for either a Badlands or a Fetch. I could see an argument for moving one of the lands to the sideboard (typically my first cards to cut post-board are either lands or petals, depending on how aggressive their mana denial plan is), but I think you want 17 in after you've sideboarded against RUG.

I could also see cutting a Chain or Slaughter Pact for Echoing Truth or Hurkyls, I wasn't expecting to see a lot of Chalices, but my list is almost just dead to it. The problem is there is only room for a 2 mana bounce spell as a 1 or 2 of, and the only way this deck can tutor it is Grim Tutor.

Other than that, I liked my list a lot -- My game plan against RUG was typically just to board into 11 discard spells, since they typically don't have that many threats I can snag those, which gives me a lot of time to play around stuff like Daze and Stifle. Also -- this game plan is quite good against the counterbalance sideboard (where the Chant lists I think are just dead to that board plan).

[ThediscoPower]

I'm curious. What's the list your running look like. I've found most 7 chant builds look similar to ub and you just cut a tutor or preordain for a protection spell.

Generally, Ubw looks like this:

4 Silence
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Ponder
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Orim's Chant or Duress

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded strand
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra

It's Ub with 2 cards cut for 1 protection and a md CoV.

There's also some lists I posted a couple pages back that have white in them and have done well in large tournaments....

Ari lax just posted this list in his premium article on scg. It looks pretty sweet. I don't know about 2 rains but 1 could be worth the slot.

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Instants
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Orim's Chant
2 Rain of Filth
4 Silence

Sorceries
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony

Basic Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Rebuild
1 Grim Tutor
1 Preordain
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Island
1 Plains

The list I am running right now is looking like this:

4 duress
3 thoughseize
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Ponder
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Gitaxian probe

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 march flats
1 verdant catacombs
1 misty rainforest
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 crystal veins

Sideboard:
1 Bayou
4 doomsday
1 emrakul
4 xantid swarm
2 chain of vapor
1 shellshock isle
1 Ad Nauseam
1 rebuild

Now yes, yes, I know, i know. The probe is kinda lost. I'm aware of it. However, Grim tutor is kinda hard to find and costly for a card I am not particularly fond of, or more specifically, I hate the 3 mana, and the 3 life loss (6 from ad nauseam) doesn't help his case either. Yes, I know, he can win games you should lose, i'm aware of that too, but that still doesn't make him better to my eyes. Then, comes the case of the mox diamond and chrome mox, that I do not like either in that spot, which is why I ended up opting for a probe, just to see how he would perform. As far as I am concerned, he isn't bad at what he does. Draw a card and lets you see what's up in opponent's hand, but still a bit lackluster tho. I will however go and test mox, the forth thoughtseize and lim-dul's vault, just to see how it goes. As for the sideboard, I do like the trans board against control heavy matchups, however, it can stick to go for the emrakul plan when the guy has his wastelands. Here, i am think about either taking out the swarms and add in cloud of faeries, a laboratory maniac in case I fail hardcore (and to see if the little guy is viable.) and 2 other cards, Or i will go with textbook dark confidant plan, more resilient in general.

Now, the red list I almost want to try is the list that made top 8 GP Amsterdam. After seeing it make it this far, along with the fact that the list I saw lately were all using red made me want to try it, at some point:

4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam

SORCERIES (23)
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

LANDS (16)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Bayou
1 Crystal Vein
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Bloodstained Mire

SIDEBOARD (15)
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Dark Confidant
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Echoing Truth

so there you go, what I am playing, what I will try and all the rambling that goes with it :) As I said, I had no idea where to begin the cuts in order to add the silences and the chants, mostly because I do love my discard spells lol. Your post gave me a nice idea on where to start with that style

[j_rb]

I had no idea where to begin the cuts in order to add the silences and the chants, mostly because I do love my discard spells lol.

If you love your duress I'd stick with 4 duress 3 chant or a 3 duress 4 chant protection package. This is still solid against control decks with 3 or 4 chants. Also, 7 chant builds are sexy as you can chant walk against certain decks. You usually do this against maverick if you don't have the turn 1 or 2 kill.



j_rb I'd feel dead to maverick, with all respect to Ari Lax this is nice 2 Ad Nauseam nostalgia but I can't see a good deck in it

This is true, but 99% of other builds without burning wish die to gaddock teeg also. Ari's list tries to win turn 2 not turn 3-4 like most other ant builds. Thats why there's 3 mox and rains. They add speed and consistency to your ad nauseams. Other builds will obviously have earlier wins, this one will just have more due to more fast mana. This is just common sense.

Most of the time you just kill maverick before they can stick anything with a build similar to this.

As I've said earlier, chants are sexy for just buying time... Mainly this is done against maverick so they don't stick gaddock teeg or the more recent Thalia.

[JJ-JKidd]

AnT made it to the SCG Finals in Sac Town, but lost in Game 3:


Phillip sat calmly as Galen ran through more mental calculations, shrugging as Infernal Tutor went to find a copy of the Cabal Ritual Galen revealed. Polluted Delta dropped Galen to 15 as he grabbed an Island and cracked his Lotus Petal to cast both powered-up copies of Cabal Ritual, topping it off with a hellbent Infernal Tutor for Ad Nauseum, leaving him with just one black mana after casting it.

The first spell out of the gate was a second Ad Nauseum, knocking off a huge chunk of his life and potential card supply, but he was fully committed and had to keep going for a mass of Dark Rituals. Instead, a bunch of chaff fell off the deck including a multiple copies of Duress, Ponder, and lands that combined to knock Galen's life down to a tiny 2. It was too late to stop, but Past in Flames flipped over and ended the game and match out of nowhere.

Phillip Contreras wins the match and is the Sacramento Legacy Open champion!

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/finals_galen_lemei_vs_phillip_.html

[aaronm678]

AnT made it to the SCG Finals in Sac Town, but lost in Game 3:



http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/finals_galen_lemei_vs_phillip_.html

I'm sure it was a long day, so misplays are understandable..but reading the coverage , it seems like he could have tutored cabal ritual instead of dark confidant the last turn and killed him by flashing back pif.

[gregtron]

I'm sure it was a long day, so misplays are understandable..but reading the coverage , it seems like he could have tutored cabal ritual instead of dark confidant the last turn and killed him by flashing back pif.

He had no red available, but if he'd gotten LED he could've done it. I think his line was to go for Ad Naus and cast it with no mana floating. :( My wife and I were watching the coverage and the sound of our simultaneous forehead slaps when he plopped a Bob on the table (after discarding one to LED) was loud enough to scare our dogs.

Dude must have been completely exhausted, because games 2 and 3 were both very winnable for him. It looked like he was relying really heavily on just brute-forcing a big Ad Naus, which is understandable enough because he was obviously too tired to clearly think out his lines of play. He also looked really uncomfortable and nervous on camera, which I'm sure factored in.

[3eowulf]

Tutoring LED wouldn't have done it, since the opponent's spell pierce would have had him 1 mana short after PiF.

He played poorly and I was facepalming myself the whole time :frown: BUT I perfectly understand how being tired after a long day like that was a huge factor in his misplays. He might want to sleep more the night before / have some energy drink at the ready the next time :tongue:

[aaronm678]

He had no red available, but if he'd gotten LED he could've done it. I think his line was to go for Ad Naus and cast it with no mana floating. :( My wife and I were watching the coverage and the sound of our simultaneous forehead slaps when he plopped a Bob on the table (after discarding one to LED) was loud enough to scare our dogs.

Dude must have been completely exhausted, because games 2 and 3 were both very winnable for him. It looked like he was relying really heavily on just brute-forcing a big Ad Naus, which is understandable enough because he was obviously too tired to clearly think out his lines of play. He also looked really uncomfortable and nervous on camera, which I'm sure factored in.

Gotcha -- the report wasn't awesome, I was under the impression he cracked LED before he tutored there, and I also must have missed the opponent having blue available for spell pierce.

[Dark Ritual]

Well yes he cracked it for black mana. The line that won through spell pierce was to crack LED for red mana, tutor for cabal ritual, cast cabal ritual using the 2 untapped lands if he pierces pay then flashback PiF with one black floating so he can go dark rit, dark rit, cabal rit, infernal, tendrils but instead he got bob and worse he blocked with the bob without drawing a single card off of it while knowing his opponent still had another geist due to a thoughtseize on turn 2. Also felt he should have played his protection differently i.e. not play it when the opponent had brainstorm mana up to make his duress fail to find, putting back psionic blast and mindbreak trap. He also kept miscounting mana during the match with his dice, like paying 3 mana for infernal tutor (I'm guessing he thought he was casting grim, but still.) When he had to go for ad nauseam game 3, I thought it would be ugly because ad nauseam is always ugly in this deck, even if you're at 18 or more life you can fizzle, which is super meh for me. He was probably tired though but that match should have been his.

[gregtron]

Ah yeah, I forgot about the Spell Pierce. He was obviously dead-set on getting what would have likely been a disastrous Ad Naus anyway, so I'd wager his head wasn't in the game. It's really easy to get stuck on a game plan, you know? I'm sure I've lost plenty of games doing something so easy to not do, like getting Infernal with an Iggy loop... While my Tendrils is in the yard.

[ThediscoPower]

He had no red available, but if he'd gotten LED he could've done it. I think his line was to go for Ad Naus and cast it with no mana floating. :( My wife and I were watching the coverage and the sound of our simultaneous forehead slaps when he plopped a Bob on the table (after discarding one to LED) was loud enough to scare our dogs.

Dude must have been completely exhausted, because games 2 and 3 were both very winnable for him. It looked like he was relying really heavily on just brute-forcing a big Ad Naus, which is understandable enough because he was obviously too tired to clearly think out his lines of play. He also looked really uncomfortable and nervous on camera, which I'm sure factored in.

Tell me about it. I almost fell of my chair when he casted the brainstorm before going to find the tendrils with infernal tutor in one of the matches against mono red goblin, and was about to fizzle if he couldn't play the card he got from brainstorm. Then the end was kinda sad tho. He seemed completely exhausted in the end.

[Sloshthedark]

well the major problem was him sticking to the Ad nauseam plan - opponent has 0 GY hate cards and even if he had...
G2 he shouldn't bounce the Angel at first place... miscounting, well ok happens, but sac LED for other that R with past in flames in hand its absolutely counter intuitive :really:

G3 why re-boarding into 2 Ad Nauseam? (I hope he did not get the impression he can use some after 1st gets Mtraped like G2 at least...)

I'm not into these fancy dice counts, do you all do so? imho it's rather lengthy and causes more confusion... I just have my GY in a line - what went to GY this turn separated, cards not played down, flash-backed up and write down remaining mana just when need to think and search for something... so the storm and order is clear (for both) and easily reconstructed

[3eowulf]

What about artifacts? :tongue:

The best way is to write down everything, so that you have also no problem with judge calls, but I usually use coloured (blue/black/red/storm) d10 spindown to easily show the opponent what I'm doing.

[gregtron]

well the major problem was him sticking to the Ad nauseam plan - opponent has 0 GY hate cards and even if he had...
G2 he shouldn't bounce the Angel at first place... miscounting, well ok happens, but sac LED for other that R with past in flames in hand its absolutely counter intuitive :really:

G3 why re-boarding into 2 Ad Nauseam? (I hope he did not get the impression he can use some after 1st gets Mtraped like G2 at least...)

I'm not into these fancy dice counts, do you all do so? imho it's rather lengthy and causes more confusion... I just have my GY in a line - what went to GY this turn separated, cards not played down, flash-backed up and write down remaining mana just when need to think and search for something... so the storm and order is clear (for both) and easily reconstructed


I do like 3owulf, which is write everything down. When I'm going off, I track storm count with ticks, and mana down as BBB, BB, UU, or whatever. You can easily knock dice over or make a simple math mistake, and if you aren't using paper then you have no way to walk back through the events to make sure you're at the right game state. I'm also really careful to verbally confirm storm count and mana changes. For example, "storm count 4" or "go down to 2 black, cast Dark Rit" followed by "go up to five black" are super easy to do, and make a world of difference in communicating what's going on.

[Muzzah]

I too feel as though he could of easily won that match aswel however it's important not to forget that they had been playing for over 12 hrs at that point and playing storm for 12 hours straight would be far more taxing than playing dudes and suiting them up. I'm certain if that match had happened at the start of the day he would of crushed.

[JJ-JKidd]

In the standard (Ari Lax) list, what do you board out for Dark Confidant?

[AriLax]

I do like 3owulf, which is write everything down. When I'm going off, I track storm count with ticks, and mana down as BBB, BB, UU, or whatever. You can easily knock dice over or make a simple math mistake, and if you aren't using paper then you have no way to walk back through the events to make sure you're at the right game state. I'm also really careful to verbally confirm storm count and mana changes. For example, "storm count 4" or "go down to 2 black, cast Dark Rit" followed by "go up to five black" are super easy to do, and make a world of difference in communicating what's going on.

This is exactly how I do it. Tick marks for storm as it always counts up, actual symbols for mana. I usually don't go "3 floating, Dark Rit, 2 Floating, now 5" unless I'm playing into/around counters. No need for an extra operation if it doesn't matter.

[JJ-JKidd]

This is exactly how I do it. Tick marks for storm as it always counts up, actual symbols for mana. I usually don't go "3 floating, Dark Rit, 2 Floating, now 5" unless I'm playing into/around counters. No need for an extra operation if it doesn't matter.

I have a separate die for the storm count then represent mana floating using blue die for U floating, black die for B floating and red die for R floating.

In addition, normally do not bring my dice out during the game, not unless I am "storming-out."

[JJ-JKidd]

This is exactly how I do it. Tick marks for storm as it always counts up, actual symbols for mana. I usually don't go "3 floating, Dark Rit, 2 Floating, now 5" unless I'm playing into/around counters. No need for an extra operation if it doesn't matter.

I have a separate die for the storm count then represent mana floating using blue die for U floating, black die for B floating and red die for R floating.

I normally do not bring my dice out during the game, not unless I am "storming-out."

[emidln]

I actually write down the names of each spell cast (well sometimes shorthand). I started doing this when I was playing doomsday, but have kept it up regardless of the storm deck I'm playing. I write down each mana symbol while comboing. This guards against confusion in gamestate and opponents who want to cheat during a later judge call.

[AriLax]

In the standard (Ari Lax) list, what do you board out for Dark Confidant?

Generally, if you are boarding in Bob you can cut down on cantrips. I don't know if I've ever gone below 7, but he makes up the difference in selection by filling your hand with cards.

[aaronm678]

In the standard (Ari Lax) list, what do you board out for Dark Confidant?

Also, sometimes you want to cut a couple lands or lotus petals if your opponent doesn't have much of a mana denial plan, since 17 land is too many unless you're scared of wasteland/stifle, and lotus petal kinda sucks if you're grinding out the game (which you usually are looking to do with Bob)

[gregtron]

Generally, if you are boarding in Bob you can cut down on cantrips. I don't know if I've ever gone below 7, but he makes up the difference in selection by filling your hand with cards.

I'm assuming you cut Preordains, correct?

Also, how crazy am I for not running Bob in the board? I cut them and two bounces in Indie for a Doomsday/Emrakul board because I was unnecessarily nervous about counter/top. I ended up only boarding them in during grinders when I hated my opponent, because every deck you want them for seems to have found room for Stifle and Wasteland.

[aaronm678]

I'm assuming you cut Preordains, correct?

Also, how crazy am I for not running Bob in the board? I cut them and two bounces in Indie for a Doomsday/Emrakul board because I was unnecessarily nervous about counter/top. I ended up only boarding them in during grinders when I hated my opponent, because every deck you want them for seems to have found room for Stifle and Wasteland.

You can cut Bob...but the Doomsday board plan is really, really bad right now (like you said). The only counterbalance decks are RUG ones, and Doomsday is never going to work against them.

I'm not exactly sure what you cut Bob for...but I can definitely see it not making sense in some metas (or, if you want to run Burning Wish main, you almost have to cut him for tutor targets).

[Dia_Bot]

I've also cut Bob from the sideboard and replaced it with extirpates and/or dread of night.
If you're having a hard time beating Thalia/cannonist + mother of runes dread of night is just awsome. Extirpate isn't really needed since reanimator isn't a deck anymore but I like them for the hand info they provide, the ability to remove either a snapcaster's target or protect your tutors (to a certain degree) from surgical extraction.

[gregtron]

I've also cut Bob from the sideboard and replaced it with extirpates and/or dread of night.
If you're having a hard time beating Thalia/cannonist + mother of runes dread of night is just awsome. Extirpate isn't really needed since reanimator isn't a deck anymore but I like them for the hand info they provide, the ability to remove either a snapcaster's target or protect your tutors (to a certain degree) from surgical extraction.

How have I never even seen Dread of Night? I've been playing with Virtue's Ruin in the board, but it's nice to know that for two less mana I could kill all the same stuff except for Teeg. Thanks, man, I like that.

[aaronm678]

How have I never even seen Dread of Night? I've been playing with Virtue's Ruin in the board, but it's nice to know that for two less mana I could kill all the same stuff except for Teeg. Thanks, man, I like that.

It doesn't hit Teeg or Canonist...it's fine, but playing a card to kill hate bears that doesn't kill the two most popular bears is awkward to say the least.

EDIT:

I think Thalia is seeing more and more play maindeck, but Teeg and Canonist almost always come in from the board, and this makes it so you need to draw 2 of your SB cards to kill them.

That said...I haven't actually tested the card, it may be easier than I'm giving it credit for to hit two of them, which should surely lock them out of the game.

[Dia_Bot]

It doesn't hit Teeg or Canonist...it's fine, but playing a card to kill hate bears that doesn't kill the two most popular bears is awkward to say the least.

EDIT:

I think Thalia is seeing more and more play maindeck, but Teeg and Canonist almost always come in from the board, and this makes it so you need to draw 2 of your SB cards to kill them.

That said...I haven't actually tested the card, it may be easier than I'm giving it credit for to hit two of them, which should surely lock them out of the game.

While it is true 1 dread of night doesn't instantly kill teeg and cannonist it does 2 very important things:
- killing all mother of runes/thalia thus giving you the ability to just target their hatebears with any bounce spell
- reducing the power of cannonist and teeg thus giving you more time to find either a bounce spell or simply a second dread of night.

you really can't ask for more from a card at the cost of one black mana. As for drawing 2 of them, there is only 1 card you can play where you'll only need 1 card to solve moR+ hatebear and that is virtue's ruin. The problem I have with this card is the casting cost making it impossible to play like 3 of them in an Ad Nauseam deck, the fact that it doesn't protect your lifetotal from early beats and the fact that you will have to combo the same turn as playing the card and it will cost alot of mana. (4! with Thalia)
I've won games where my opponent had hands of cannonist, GSZ, Thalia and mother of runes where my hand had cantrips, lands, ritual + dread of night. With any other card I would have lost this game for sure.

[GoldenCid]

Hi guys!! Since the existence of Past in Flame i wanted to run it in ant. Search for list and picked uo this one, tried it and got a bit excited:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [U] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ZEN] Island (4a)
2 [ZEN] Swamp (2a)
1 [R] Volcanic Island
1 [R] Badlands

// Spells
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
1 [ISD] Past in Flames
4 [US] Duress
2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [M11] Preordain

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
SB: 2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 1 [4E] Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 [FUT] Slaughter Pact

The only question about main deck is what is chain of vapor specifically for??
Would you replace mox for another spell??
Sideboar in pretty unneat and need some help. I saw list with Empty the warrens. Why would i change tendrils for warrens?? And why a second nauseam is needed?? Mirror??

Sorry for my newbie question but i've been a time "out of magic" and coming back!

Thx!!

[Tammit67]

The only question about main deck is what is chain of vapor specifically for??
Would you replace mox for another spell??
Sideboar in pretty unneat and need some help. I saw list with Empty the warrens. Why would i change tendrils for warrens?? And why a second nauseam is needed?? Mirror??

Sorry for my newbie question but i've been a time "out of magic" and coming back!

Thx!!

Wow you are out of practice! Chain is for the maindeck hatebears maverick plays or artifically increasing storm count. Mox is necessary if you are going Ad naus every game, although cutting one or two wouldn't be miserable. Empty the warrens is one of the better cards to draw against RUG tempo/threshold as they usually can't beat 10 goblins easily. And the second ad nauseam is good against matchups where drawing naturally is insane (read: control).

[GoldenCid]

Yes i am!!!


And the second ad nauseam is good against matchups where drawing naturally is insane (read: control).

I thought that for that purpose was confidant! And i see them a bit antisinergic...?

[Sloshthedark]

I've played 4x Dread of night in a tournament (a lot of WW and Maverick expected) and lost to Maverick where any other sweeper would win me the game, it is conditional as any other card, but the need of 2 and increasing number of pridemages MD discourages me from keeping it in

[aaronm678]

I've played 4x Dread of night in a tournament (a lot of WW and Maverick expected) and lost to Maverick where any other sweeper would win me the game, it is conditional as any other card, but the need of 2 and increasing number of pridemages MD discourages me from keeping it in

Would targeted removal (slaughter pact/disfigure/deathmark) have been better?

I have started testing infest in the sb as a 2-of...it seems fine, but typically I can keep them from landing multiple hate bears, so the board wipe isn't that relevant. I'm still not sold on the board wipe plans (infest, virtues ruin, dread of night) over stuff like slaughter pact and chain of vapor.

[GoldenCid]

I have started testing infest in the sb as a 2-of...it seems fine, but typically I can keep them from landing multiple hate bears, so the board wipe isn't that relevant..

Yeah, you can do this with thoughtseize mainly cuz you can take creatures, this plus pact + vapor deals with them!

[Sloshthedark]

Would targeted removal (slaughter pact/disfigure/deathmark) have been better?

I have started testing infest in the sb as a 2-of...it seems fine, but typically I can keep them from landing multiple hate bears, so the board wipe isn't that relevant. I'm still not sold on the board wipe plans (infest, virtues ruin, dread of night) over stuff like slaughter pact and chain of vapor.

Would have been (I ended up with multiple, Ooze killing me); I'm not sure If in general... so I keep Virtue's ruin, Infest, Pyroclasm for now ...I had great impression in T2 or mid combo Grim-> Pyroclasm

which restricts me on AN postboard, and Ooze is a problem so I'm tempted to put double pact back

all options cover problematic creatures to some extent, it's how you deal with corner cases, for me UBr storm needs some instant sweeper =/

[Jay_Gatz]

Infest isn't supposed to be a traditional sweeper, its just a way to kill a hatebear through mother of runes. If you're dying to creatures before you can combo there is a good chance you're doing something wrong. I'm playing two echoing truth a wipe away and two infest currently, I've only lost to maverick once and it was almost entirely my fault (I'm extremely greedy with mulligans).

[aaronm678]

Infest isn't supposed to be a traditional sweeper, its just a way to kill a hatebear through mother of runes. If you're dying to creatures before you can combo there is a good chance you're doing something wrong. I'm playing two echoing truth a wipe away and two infest currently, I've only lost to maverick once and it was almost entirely my fault (I'm extremely greedy with mulligans).

The problem I've had with infest is it's very expensive with a Thalia out, particularly when maverick is more than happy to wasteland you at every opportunity.

Yeah, hate bear + mom is annoying, typically I just wait for EOT bounce/pact then main phase again-you can usually thoughtseize.enough to stop them from getting multiples + Mom.

I agree though, I've never had to target a non hate bear/mom with a removal spell, their clock isn't particularly fast, even when they get a knight going you have a few turns.

Also, if you've never lost to maverick you either need to playtest the matchup more or playtest with better maverick players. The matchup is positive, but maybe 60/40 positive, not 90/10.

[Jay_Gatz]

I was just talking tournament play, I've lost plenty in playtesting. Yeah 4 mana is a lot but since you can't cast massacre with teeg in play its our best option. The reason I play this deck over TES is that it can play through and around wasteland.

[Benke]

Played UBr ANT in a 48(?) person tournament and ended up in 6th place.

UW stoneforge 2-1 (win)
RUG delver 2-0 (win)
Tezz Stax 2-1 (win)
Nic fit 0-2 (loss)
Burn 1-2 (loss)
UB controll 2-1 (win)
BUG counterbalance 2-1 (win)


Loosing to nicfit pissed me off. First game he drew 2x explorer and 2x cabaltherapy which demolished my hand and I could never recover. I had to go off without protection in second game since he had leathal on board, and of course did he have a mindbreak trap in hand.

I was also surprised how difficult burn was. Trying to combo off against 2 Pyrostatic Pillar aint easy! This guy ended up winning the tour with the score 7-0 so creds to him.

The list I ran:

2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
9 Fetch

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion´s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
3 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe

4 Duress
3 Thoughtsieze

3 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

60

Board:

1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclams
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Deathmark
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Infernal Tutor
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth

15

[The Enemy Wizard]

Ok, I am fairly sure that there is a reason that this card is not played, but it seems very effective in removing Maverick's hatebears and it avoids MoM, not to mention being free... perhaps its too narrow?

Massacre

[MiniLuv]

The reason is Gaddock Teeg.

[Dzra]

Played UBr ANT in a 48(?) person tournament and ended up in 6th place.

UW stoneforge 2-1 (win)
RUG delver 2-0 (win)
Tezz Stax 2-1 (win)
Nic fit 0-2 (loss)
Burn 1-2 (loss)
UB controll 2-1 (win)
BUG counterbalance 2-1 (win)

Odd that you beat all the Blue decks and lost to the non-Blue decks. Maybe that just goes to show how geared up people are for Maverick and RUG that they aren't packing their combo hate.

[GoldenCid]

@Benke: Congratz on your finish! I'm very sourprised to see burning wish again in the ANT list. My question is why did you feel that you needed it? Did you feel that tutoring just with Infernal tutor was not enough?

Burn is in its best moment in a long time i think, although it left the BDT list, it's a hard match up. How do you side against it? In my case i increse the discard outlet.

[leegoo]

Ok, I am fairly sure that there is a reason that this card is not played, but it seems very effective in removing Maverick's hatebears and it avoids MoM, not to mention being free... perhaps its too narrow?

Massacre

in ANT, it's the fact that it's CMC is 4. Bad to flip off Ad Nauseam and doesn't work against Teeg.

It's been very good in DDFT though ;)

[Benke]

@Benke: Congratz on your finish! I'm very sourprised to see burning wish again in the ANT list. My question is why did you feel that you needed it? Did you feel that tutoring just with Infernal tutor was not enough?

Burn is in its best moment in a long time i think, although it left the BDT list, it's a hard match up. How do you side against it? In my case i increse the discard outlet.

Thanks! The main reason was that I dont have any Grim tutors, if I had one I would probably not play with burning wish. On the other hand, having a toolbox sideboard can be extremly useful, and has saved me alot of times (pyroclasm against hatebears, meltdown whish is totally sick against some decks or just to securing comboing next turn by taking a thoughtsieze from the board). Also, being able to go off with empty the warrens turn 1 is also pretty neat.

Currently I dont think I'll changed them. I must admit that I feel "better" when I see an infernal tutor in hand, and the fact that burning wish gets removed after being cast complicates things with past in flames.

[GoldenCid]

I dont own grim tutors too, so i invested some slots on cantrip spell and it worked. However, sometimes i feel "too infernal tutor dependant". Indeed i didnt think on burning wish but on Lim-Dul's Vault. What can you say?

[JJ-JKidd]

Combined Infernal Tutor + Burning Wish. Another similar list made the Top 8 in the same event:

Lands (15)
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
Instants (13)
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
Sorceries (24)
3 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
Artifacts (8)
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Sideboard (15)
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Deathmark
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Extirpate
1 Past in Flames
1 Pyroclasm
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Virtues Ruin

http://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/listas-top8-lcl-2012-abril

[ThomasDowd]

Played this recently.

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
3 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

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

Sideboard:
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Extirpate

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Chrome Mox
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Meltdown
1 Past in Flames
1 Silent Departure
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Virtue's Ruin

Deck is very good. Meltdown was probably the worst wish target(never used it, should probably be pulverize if anything at all, don't really know what I want it for, other than chalice which is soemthing i see so rarely that it feels like a wasted slot). But it may be a necessary evil. Extirpate was awesome since reanimator and dredge are pretty miserable. I'm glad I cut the 4th probe for the first chrome moxen in the main. The second one in the board is for the non force decks mostly. sometimes kind of hate probe but the information is pretty nice.

[GoldenCid]

What result did you get? Could you make a brief report for us please?

[ThomasDowd]

I'll give a brief one since i didn't do so hot.

6 rounds.

rd1 U stiflenought w/ counterbalance

g1 I rush and go off as i am worried about cb/ top engine coming online and forgot about a card he hid on top of his library with top and thought I was in the clear and get forced.
g2 I ad nauseam, he dazes and I pay, down to 2 and punt. a bunch of black mana in pool and past in flames in hand w/ an IT if I lead with past in flames he has to counter since I have a burning wish in yard he does not know about either IT or PiF in hand. I lead with IT and cracking LED. i flash back past in flames and end up one mana short of casting a tutor and tendrils. if I lead with PiF he dies. also I guess that daze from earlier was relevant. oops. at this point I am tilting pretty bad due to two huge mistakes, but I figure its good to get it out of the way now against a miserable matchup considering I havent played ANT in a long time. but the fact that i could have won those pretty easily is frustrating

round 2 played SDEMatt w/ the rock (see his report in the rock thread if you desire, his notes are better than mine)
g1 T2 ad naus to 5. tendrils. dead.
g2 (6)I debate on going turn one 12 gobbos but hold due to the fact that in game one a duress or probe revealed a pulse and an EE. I figure I can wait instead of walking into getting blown out. my hesitation costs me the game as he stabilizes at one
g3 I double probe seeing double inq, bob, and lands my probes drew me to some business he turn one in quisition i brainstorm hiding LED and IT he surgicals i never get back in it.

round 3 my opponenet forgot to drop (bye)

round 4 Maverick
g1 ad nausem. tendrils
g2 he has a multitude(e tutor for canonsit, thali, mind censor, rule of law) of hate bears I lose
g3 I ad nauseam again and kill him on some low flips for mana, he sighs, probably because he realizes storm is awesome. and CAB.

r5 reanimator
g1 He gets an early jin i lose
g2 I extirpate his first target and have double therapy in hand after wards to rip his hand apart, I eventually tendrils him.
g3 I go gobbos early after he sticks a jin, he cannot find an answer in time.

r6 u/r delver Buddy of mine, we rode up together
we both mull to 5 and stare at each for ever. i get there off past in flames with 2x brainstorm and 2 x ponder in the yard. it was stupid. he had merfolk of the pearl trident beating me down.
g2. he beats me down with merfolk of the pearl trident for a while I tendrils him for 12 to buy myself soem time to stay alive. he was at five my next two draws were IT and lotus petal with 5 lands in play.

he never flipped his delvers in most of our games we lament about variance and why we shouldn't play magic and what we could spend our time on instead. the driver of our car makes top 8(ends up taking it down) me and friend from round 6 get drunk.

multiple hate bears are annoying. storm is awesome. Still don't know which version I like the most


ended up 4-2

[MTG Junkie]

Anybody know of any good Storm articals? Links are appreciated :)

[Sloshthedark]

@ThomasDowd something seems wrong, you go for Ad nauseam often, btw. isn't 1 Infernal Tutor SB better? I find - BW -> IT -> Pif common route in similar builds

[Benke]

@ThomasDowd something seems wrong, you go for Ad nauseam often, btw. isn't 1 Infernal Tutor SB better? I find - BW -> IT -> Pif common route in similar builds

I must agree here. Most often is the target with burning wish an infernal tutor in the SB, since otherwise you're unable to cast PiF. Also, I only use ad nauseam in extreme emergencies. I hate the inconsistency and total randomness of ad naus, and would almost always prefer it to be an Empty the Warrens instead.

It might've been a coincidence, but meltdown was a real bomb for me. Totally demolishing both MUD and affinity was something extremely useful.

[ThomasDowd]

@ThomasDowd something seems wrong, you go for Ad nauseam often, btw.

i used it more a s a draw ten than anything else. I took the lines i saw. Vs. maverick you just want speed, AN helps a lot with this as also beating multiple hate bears is pretty miserable, so i'd rather turn one or two them. might put the second copy in the board for this reason.


isn't 1 Infernal Tutor SB better? I find - BW -> IT -> Pif common route in similar builds

possibly, I remember when I used to do that with other versions like this but hated it due to (a)the spot it took in the board(b) the mana requirement.

I may play some more games and see how often it comes up but I like it right now. typically you can set it up with the first infernal tutor for more action (ritual, protection, whatever) and then burning wish for past in flames from there. you only ever need one IT in the yard once past in flames resolves. also ponders and brainstorms get there a surprising amount of the time(they always do)

[dillonkbase]

Anybody know of any good Storm articals? Links are appreciated :)



X. Additional Information


c.) Articles
Unlocking Legacy- A Metagame Update By Chris Coppola (Machinus) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13782.html)
Unlocking Legacy- The Pet Deck By Adam Barnello (Nightmare) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14837.html)
Unlocking Legacy- Combo: The Missing Link By Chris Coppola (Machinus) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14902.html)
Unlocking Legacy- Extending a hand By Adam Barnello (Nightmare) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15629.html)
Unlocking Legacy- Design Patterns By Anwar Ahmad (Anwar101) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15905.html)
Unlocking Legacy- Emerging Decks By Chris Coppola (Machinus) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15962.html)
Unlocking Legacy- "The Engine of Storm" By Anwar Ahmad (Anwar101) (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16526.html)
So Many Insane Plays – A Bird’s Eye View of Legacy: The Engines of Legacy By Steven Menendian (Smmenen) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17126_So_Many_Insane_Plays_A_Birds_Eye_View_of_Legacy_The_Engines_of_Legacy.html)
Playing TES (a Demystifying Guide) By Brandon Adams (Emildn) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18139-Free-Article-Playing-TES-%28a-Demystifying-Guide%29&p=469555&viewfull=1#post469555)
Ill-Gotten Pains (Vacrix) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18184-Psuedo-Article-Ill-Gotten-Pains&p=470854&viewfull=1#post470854)
Arnold Palmer: Daily MTG By Mike Flores (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/102)
Legacy's Allure - GenCon and Columbus Trends By Doug Linn (HiVal) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19869_Legacys_Allure_GenCon_and_Columbus_Trends.html)
Ideas Unbound - The Tendrils/Merfolk Matchup By Max McCall (Frogboy) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20020_Ideas_Unbound_The_TendrilsMerfolk_Matchup.html)
The Long and Winding Road – Legacy Storm (Don't Call It A Comeback) By Matt Elias (Voltron00x) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20032_The_Long_Winding_Road_Legacy_Storm_Dont_Call_It_A_Comeback.html)
The Long and Winding Road – The New Kings of Legacy By Matt Elias (Voltron00x) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20209_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_The_New_Kings_of_Legacy.html)
The Long and Winding Road – You, But Better By Matt Elias (Voltron00x) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20408_The_Long_Winding_Road_You_But_Better.html)
Ideas Unbound - So You Want To Kill Your Opponent On Turn One By Max McCall (Frogboy) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20499_Ideas_Unbound_So_You_Want_To_Kill_Your_Opponent_On_Turn_One.html)
Ideas Unbound - The Process Of Actually Killing Someone On Turn One By Max McCall (Frogboy) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20528_Ideas_Unbound_The_Process_Of_Actually_Killing_Someone_On_Turn_One.html)
The Long and Winding Road – Legacy Combo: It's Whats For Dinner By Matt Elias (Voltron00x) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20610_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_Legacy_Combo_Its_Whats_for_Dinner.html)
So, You Want To Play Storm Combo... by Silent Requiem (Silent Requiem) (http://www.manaleak.com/beta/2010/12/so-you-want-to-play-storm%E2%80%A6/)
Ideas Unbound - One Game Remix: Tendrils vs. U/G Survival by Max McCall (Frogboy) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20631_Ideas_Unbound_One_Game_Remix_Tendrils_vs_UG_Survival.html)
Storm Academy: Becoming a Storm Pilot by Silent Requiem (Silent Requiem) (http://www.manaleak.com/mtguk/2010/12/storm-academy-becoming-a-storm-pilot-by-silent-requiem/)
Storm Academy: Anatomy of Storm by Silent Requiem (Silent Requiem) (http://www.manaleak.com/mtguk/2010/12/storm-acamedy-anatomy-of-a-storm-by-silent-requiem/)
TES (The EPIC Storm) Primer Article by Liam Kane (lorddotm) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21580_TES_The_Epic_Storm_Primer_Article.html)
Tracking the storm - NPH Effects on Legacy Storm by AJ Kerrigan (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21851_Tracking_the_Storm_NPH_Effects_On_Legacy_Storm.html)
Legacy Matchups With AJ Kerrigan And Michael Caffrey (mchainmail) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22566_Legacy_Matchups_With_AJ_Kerrigan_And_Michael_Caffrey.html)
Out With The New And In With The Old by Ari Lax (AriLax) and AJ Kerrigan (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22844_Out_With_The_New_And_In_With_The_Old.html)
Cook's Kitchen - Storming into the Past by Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) (http://jupitergamesonline.com/2011/463/cooks-kitchen-storming-into-the-past)
Cook's Kitchen - Storming into Indianapolis by Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) (http://jupitergamesonline.com/2011/518/storming-into-indianapolis)
Cook's Kitchen - Updating Storm by Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) (http://jupitergamesonline.com/2012/1070/cooks-kitchen-updating-storm)
Legacy Week - Q & A: How To Count To Ten In 2012 by Ari Lax (AriLax) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23720_Legacy_Week_Q_A_How_To_Count_To_TenIn_2012.html)
Cook's Kitchen - Reality Check by Bryant Cook (Bryant Cook) (http://jupitergamesonline.com/2012/1214/cooks-kitchen-reality-check)
Road to Annecy 2012 con TES - Report ganador: ELL 2012 Marzo by Eneko Mendiebe (http://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/road-annecy-2012-con-tes-report-ganador-ell-2012-marzo)
Road to Annecy 2012 con TES - Opciones para el banquillo by Eneko Mendiebe (http://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/road-annecy-2012-con-tes-opciones-para-el-banquillo)

d.) Readings:
First Thread (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4612)
Second Thread (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5450)
Third Thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8046)
Fourth Thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15028-Deck-T.E.S-The-EPIC-Storm)
The Definition of "Combo" - Do Storm Decks Count? (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2194)
Combo Summer (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6037)
TES vs. Iggy Pop (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5157&highlight=tes+iggy)
What is the Best Current Combo Deck? (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=230642#post230642)
The EPIC Storm (TES) vs. Fetchland Tendrils - The Competition (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=232561#post232561)
Would the format be more interesting without Tendrils of Agony? (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13874)
Combo vs. Synergy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16236)
Shattering Spree vs.Trinisphere (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12983&highlight=shattering+spree)
Shattering Spree vs. Chalice of the Void (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14556&highlight=shattering+spree)
Are there too many different combo decks in Legacy? (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20472-Are-there-too-many-different-combo-decks-in-Legacy)
City of Brass - Painting the Town REB by Andy Probasco ( http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21311_City_of_Brass_Painting_the_Town_REB.html)

[MTG Junkie]

Yea iv seen all those,but thank you. I appreciate the post.

Iv been playing T.E.S. for a bit now and it just seems like you have to get lucky every time with th e deck. There's got to be a good reason why Storm/Ant has put up better results at SCG opens than TES.....right.
From the little iv gathered it seems like ANT is more mid rang with the win locked in. But I'm no ANT pro or anything.

[dillonkbase]

Yea iv seen all those,but thank you. I appreciate the post.

Iv been playing T.E.S. for a bit now and it just seems like you have to get lucky every time with th e deck. There's got to be a good reason why Storm/Ant has put up better results at SCG opens than TES.....right.
From the little iv gathered it seems like ANT is more mid rang with the win locked in. But I'm no ANT pro or anything.


These two by Ari Lax speak more to what you are asking
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23720_Legacy_Week_Q_A_How_To_Count_To_TenIn_2012.html

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/legacy-storm-primer/

Ant is less focused on Ad Nauseam, although recently decks have started to include more moxes to move that direction, Tes is definitely more about the early game, think about it like this, how long of game can you play in legacy with lands that expend themselves ping you and are destroy by wasteland... Ant sacrifices some speed for a more solid manabase, and less burning wish(traditionally)

[Matt]

I feel like TES beats Maverick better than Ant, which is why TES is currently doing so well. Burning Wish, in addition to discard and bounce, allows you to reliably answer hate. Though, it looks like you guys are catching on with Burning Wish. But, you're really somewhere between TES and Ant regardless with the inclusion of BW.

-Matthew

[Koby]

Liam Kane was advocating a list that similar to the PiF deck floating around right now that uses Rite of Flames in place of Cabal Ritual. It plays out very similarly, but has a tougher time going for tutor chains due to the restricted black mana.

Just adding more :r: to the fires.

[JJ-JKidd]

Liam Kane was advocating a list that similar to the PiF deck floating around right now that uses Rite of Flames in place of Cabal Ritual. It plays out very similarly, but has a tougher time going for tutor chains due to the restricted black mana.

Just adding more :r: to the fires.

Hows the list doing so far? And,,, whats the list?

[Koby]

Hows the list doing so far? And,,, whats the list?

-4 Cabal Ritual
+4 Rite of Flames
-1 Infernal Tutor
+1 Burning Wish
...

I've been testing it from time to time, but haven't run it in a tournament yet.

[dillonkbase]

-4 Cabal Ritual
+4 Rite of Flames
-1 Infernal Tutor
+1 Burning Wish
...

I've been testing it from time to time, but haven't run it in a tournament yet.

Whats your SB look like? Burning wish seems like if you are in for one you should be in for them all, due to the changes to the SB required to make it the most effective.

[Koby]

Sideboard is typical for Storm with wish board. You have some removal, EtW, enablers, and extra protection/disruption.

[slaydo]

I am just wondering if any1 can help me. I am torn between the UBr build and the UBw build. Is UBw ANT dead? I only see T16 results with UBr builds with Bwish and the occasional Grim Tutor. Here is the UBw list I have been working on:

1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Ponder
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Grim Tutor
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Silence
2 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chrome Mox
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 2 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Silence
SB: 1 Chrome Mox
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact

The UBr version I have been playing is the one that the spanish players have been getting good results with.

Please help me out, I am currently testing for a GP in a few months and I need to decide on a deck soon. Please dont make me take Dredge :tongue:

thanx,

Slaydo

[ThomasDowd]

I am just wondering if any1 can help me. I am torn between the UBr build and the UBw build. Is UBw ANT dead? I only see T16 results with UBr builds with Bwish and the occasional Grim Tutor. Here is the UBw list I have been working on:

1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Ponder
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Grim Tutor
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Silence
2 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chrome Mox
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 2 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Silence
SB: 1 Chrome Mox
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact

The UBr version I have been playing is the one that the spanish players have been getting good results with.

Please help me out, I am currently testing for a GP in a few months and I need to decide on a deck soon. Please dont make me take Dredge :tongue:

thanx,

Slaydo

I would test them both if I were you to see which one you are more comfortable with.

I think the wish board + past in flames is better than chant and iggy but thats a personal opinion. and if you are stretching for the red at that point (with chants) you may as well just play TES.

[dillonkbase]

Sideboard is typical for Storm with wish board. You have some removal, EtW, enablers, and extra protection/disruption.


-4 Cabal Ritual
+4 Rite of Flames
-1 Infernal Tutor
+1 Burning Wish
...

I've been testing it from time to time, but haven't run it in a tournament yet.

Seems like a bad deal to play a wish board with only one wish

[ThomasDowd]

Seems like a bad deal to play a wish board with only one wish

Pretty sure he means its a 4/3 split in favor of Bwish> IT.


@Koby
Is the 4th IT in the board?

for BW > IT > PiF line?

[dillonkbase]

Pretty sure he means its a 4/3 split in favor of Bwish> IT.
That makes more sense.



@Koby
Is the 4th IT in the board?

for BW > IT > PiF line?

When do you side IT in? if you don't isn't it better to just run a pif main and one in the board?


Edit: now that I think about it the only reason it was argued in the past to run IT in the board was to BW>IT>AdNauseam, beacuse it's an instant. Otherwise you should just get the sorcery you need from your board.

[ThomasDowd]

Edit: now that I think about it the only reason it was argued in the past to run IT in the board was to BW>IT>AdNauseam, beacuse it's an instant. Otherwise you should just get the sorcery you need from your board.

BW> IT>PiF gives you a tutor to flashback with past in flames to kill them, IF BW is your only action. It is a viable line at minimum 9 mana (need at least a D. Rit in the yard, but reality dictates more rituals than one). it is really only a speed thing, because most of the time you can set up an infernal tutor for value to set up the line if you have one in hand. It is rather frustrating when you produce gobbles of mana but not enough storm and the only tutor you have is BW. Patience may be key here but who knows. sometimes just killing them is what needs to be done.

It depends on the role you want BW to fall into more often as well. Find the anti hate. or Find the action. or Find the kill them.

I personally think it's a waste of a slot in a precious hybrid wish board/realboard sideboard, but some of the corner cases make sense. and if you are on 4 burning wish it becomes much more relevant.

There are arguments both ways and I don't fault either or even it's non inclusion. 7 tutors is good though. 6 might be a reasonable amount in the "slower" UBr lists since you are just trying to discard for a few turns and then kill them instead of going in early.

[Sloshthedark]

@ThoamsDowd IT has been better much better SB slot than Past in flames for me because you fetch it in late late game or with IT already in hand, which mean you do not to enter sideboard unless its a real corner situation, it its sad to have ton of mana, BW in hand and cannot kill; on the other hand BW-IT-PIF has same mana requirements as Grim tutor (as you save 1 mana flasbacking the tutor ftw.) the bad is double R slows the deck a ton and I'm still undecided whether its better to play 3BW 3IT / 4IT 2Grims builds... actually I'm 2x Pif MD to compensate for Grims and its excellent

@Slayedo UBw build is dead unless everybody plays SDT for miracles it loses PiF which is not worth the comfort as you can still kill both UW and Threshold just rolling over their counterspells... I don't like the non interactivity of chants as zenith spells problem and I'm strongly attracted to Gitaxian Probe

[slaydo]

@Slayedo[/B] UBw build is dead unless everybody plays SDT for miracles it loses PiF which is not worth the comfort as you can still kill both UW and Threshold just rolling over their counterspells... I don't like the non interactivity of chants as zenith spells problem and I'm strongly attracted to Gitaxian Probe

I dont understand why UBw is dead and chants are sh***. For instance, the mirror is decided by which ever player can combo out fastest. Chant gives you the upper hand and in other matchups can function as a time walk to get the missing combo piece. Leaving out cabal therapy and probe and replacing them with chants (4 MD and 2 side) will leave room to keep anti hate cards which can help storm indirectly and provide answers MD against hatebears.dec and have more room for cantrips. UBr has a lot of tools however testing against RUG tempo shows that it's too slow. Bwish and IT are prime spell snare targets, and that vulnerability isn't good given the fact that spell snare is very very popular currently.

[moose5628]

I played the following build at a small tournament (14 players) yesterday. I went a disappointing 2-2.

Land (17):
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Spells (43):
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Past in Flames
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Echoing truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Dread of Night
1 Extirpate

Rd 1 - BUG Control. Lost 0-2 due to a play error in g1 and too much countermagic in g2.

Rd 2 - UB Reanimator. Won 2-0 - g1 beat an Iona (unfortunately for my opponent naming blue). G2 duressed his protection and went off unhindered.

Rd 3 - UW control with counterbalance and stoneforge mystic packages in the sideboard. (lost 1-2)

Rd 4 - Affinity - Won 2-0 - G1 completely unhindered and g2 through an irrelevant tormods crypt.

I'm a new storm player so the play errors aren't totally unexpected.
Winning through multiple counterspells (particularly a timely spell snare) is quite challenging. I discussed this with an experienced storm player at the tournament and he did suggest adding chant effects for protection.

[Matt]

I dont understand why UBw is dead and chants are sh***. For instance, the mirror is decided by which ever player can combo out fastest. Chant gives you the upper hand and in other matchups can function as a time walk to get the missing combo piece. Leaving out cabal therapy and probe and replacing them with chants (4 MD and 2 side) will leave room to keep anti hate cards which can help storm indirectly and provide answers MD against hatebears.dec and have more room for cantrips. UBr has a lot of tools however testing against RUG tempo shows that it's too slow. Bwish and IT are prime spell snare targets, and that vulnerability isn't good given the fact that spell snare is very very popular currently.

Chant-effects aren't "shit". It's just fact that other colors have proven more relevant or powerful for ANT (red does more). Like I said in an earlier post, I run TES, which makes great use out of Chant-effects. But, you have to realize what you're losing also (the ability to dodge Wasteland). It's really a meta-game call. And with the abundance of Maverick like decks, I think I know which one I'm going with... :wink:

Edit: Maybe I should clarify, I prefer TES against Maverick because of speed and the play-set of Burning Wish's (BW-Infest), not Chant-effects.

[ThomasDowd]

I prefer TES against Maverick because of speed and the play-set of Burning Wish's (BW-Infest), not Chant-effects.

This.This is how you beat maverick, the BW plan is so slow and awkward, but it gives you a fighting chance through bears. you just want to kill them and quickly.

[Viridia]

I played the following build at a small tournament (14 players) yesterday. I went a disappointing 2-2.

Sideboard:
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Echoing truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Dread of Night
1 Extirpate


Your sideboard is kind of odd, why are you playing Dread of Night? It doesn't kill Teeg or Canonist, only Mother or Runes and Thalia?

[GexxX]

Your sideboard is kind of odd, why are you playing Dread of Night? It doesn't kill Teeg or Canonist, only Mother or Runes and Thalia?

Well. What do you suggest? Is there any other good alternative? Dread seems like a solid option for UB Ant. UBr Ant or TES have their BW targets (Infest, Virtue's Ruin, Pyroclasm). That's why I have been trying to figure out what configuration of an UBr list fits me. TES is not a good option in my metagame right now and I've had problems with it, because it's unstable sometimes.

[Anselm]

I'd recommend 3 Infest in that slot. It seems the best vs maverick. Better than slaughter pact too, as that loses to mother of runes + hatebear.

[Matt]

This.This is how you beat maverick, the BW plan is so slow and awkward, but it gives you a fighting chance through bears. you just want to kill them and quickly.

Did you just agree with me? I honestly can't tell. *laughs* As, this is exactly what I posted (reworded of course).

By all means, if you can win turn one, do it! But, I don't think I'm as lucky as you. As, hate-bears often hit the field before my turn 2. Which, if we're in game one, can only be answered with BW-Infest... It's janky, but consistent. If you already put them on Maverick (turn one Savannah or plains, ect...), you can prepare for the play by preemptively sticking a Petal or Mox into play to facilitate a turn two BW, into turn three Infest, followed by your combo turn. Nice and janky... But, it works. :wink:

[Koby]

Did you just agree with me? I honestly can't tell. *laughs* As, this is exactly what I posted (reworded of course).

By all means, if you can win turn one, do it! But, I don't think I'm as lucky as you. As, hate-bears often hit the field before my turn 2. Which, if we're in game one, can only be answered with BW-Infest... It's janky, but consistent. If you already put them on Maverick (turn one Savannah or plains, ect...), you can prepare for the play by preemptively sticking a Petal or Mox into play to facilitate a turn two BW, into turn three Infest, followed by your combo turn. Nice and janky... But, it works. :wink:

The most relevant point is also to fetch basics when you can. Being cut off is miserable when trying to reach 4 mana for a sweeper vs Thalia.

[Matt]

The most relevant point is also to fetch basics when you can. Being cut off is miserable when trying to reach 4 mana for a sweeper vs Thalia.

Good point. TES doesn't have that luxury, obviously. :rolleyes:..

[ThomasDowd]

Did you just agree with me? I honestly can't tell. *laughs* As, this is exactly what I posted (reworded of course).

By all means, if you can win turn one, do it! But, I don't think I'm as lucky as you. As, hate-bears often hit the field before my turn 2. Which, if we're in game one, can only be answered with BW-Infest... It's janky, but consistent. If you already put them on Maverick (turn one Savannah or plains, ect...), you can prepare for the play by preemptively sticking a Petal or Mox into play to facilitate a turn two BW, into turn three Infest, followed by your combo turn. Nice and janky... But, it works. :wink:

I definitely agree and play one chrome mox main and a second in the board to speed myself up to make the ad naus better and/or turn one gobbos for a bunch. (also the 4th probe is probably the worst card in the deck) i am personally thinking about cutting my departure for a pyroclasm to just buy some time, (they don't always have mom, also one mana less through a thalia, can be relevant) and i'd rather kill all of his dudes than bounce it. still undecided about it.

cut meltdown the other day, paid for it by playing against mud round one. never again.

[GoldenCid]

I'd recommend 3 Infest in that slot. It seems the best vs maverick. Better than slaughter pact too, as that loses to mother of runes + hatebear.

I found that the biggest problem with infest or virtue's ruin is that if you keep 1 in the wishboard and 2 into the deck for second game, you increase dramaticaly the risk of being killed by ADN than if you run run pact in that slot.

[Syaoran]

I've been reading both the ANT and TES threads, and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two. Can anyone help clarify? (I've read the last few pages, so I've seen some mentions of it, but explicit would help)

[entreri_fans]

I've been reading both the ANT and TES threads, and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two. Can anyone help clarify? (I've read the last few pages, so I've seen some mentions of it, but explicit would help)

Hi,my friend. The main difference between ANT and TES is its mana base.
ANT is mainly built by blue and black(with little white splash or red splash),so ANT runs basic land and can dodge Wasteland.And TES is always a 4-color storm deck(sometimes even green splash),so TES runs duals/rainbow lands,and no basic lands.


ofc its dangerous to run a deck with no basic lands in Legacy,the format full of stifles and wastelands.


However,rely on rainbow lands and fast mana(Dark ritual and Rite of Flames,and chrome mox ofc)and 8 tutors(4 Infernal Tutor + 4 Burning Wish),TES always goes off faster than ANT.Also,because of wishboard,TES can be more versatile.TES do not always win via Tendrils, a turn 2 Empty the Warrens is also a good choice.


Because TES runs more fast mana,it's not strange TES has few cantrips(4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder)than ANT does(4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder + 4 Preordain).So TES is less stable than ANT.


The very Ironical thing about ANT and TES is that "TES depends more on Ad Nauseam than ANT does"(although we all know ANT is named after Ad Nauseam Tendrils).Indeed,with chrome mox in the main deck,TES can always go for a "blind Ad Nauseam"(No mana floating after cast AdN),because "4 chrome mox + 4 Lotus petal' can be a good starting mana.However, if an ANT player tries a 'blind Ad Nauseam",he is more likely to kill himself(with only 4 lotus petal can be starting mana).

In my opinion,ANT does not always cast AdN,and the No.1 storm engine of ANT is Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains. But,the No.1 storm engine of TES is Ad Nauseam.And that is the reason why TES always runs 2 Ad Nauseam in their main deck.


PS:well,to be honest,I am the guy running ANT deck. I have no TES decks.But I think I have the basic knowledge for a Legacy storm deck. If I have misunderstanding in ANT/TES, I am happy if some one can correct it.

[GexxX]

Well. One point is not completely correct.

Stifle makes Fetchlands worse, Wasteland nonbasics. ANT plays more fetchlands, TES only nonbasics. So: The more stifles your meta provides the worse ANT gets and the more wastelands your meta has TES is annoying to play.

Apart from that I'd like to mention that ANT has a few different lists.
UB - This is the most wasteland proof list with 4 or 5 basic lands. It does not provide Burning Wish and most likely does not support Past in Flames. It relies a lot on Ad Nauseam against blue Decks and can not find solutions for hatebears game 1. You need Grim Tutors to play it consistently. In Europe it's not very popular for the reasons mentioned above.

UBw - In this variation of ANT you play Orim's Chant and Silence over Duress and Thoughtseize. This improves your Combo matchup and it also helps to use Ill-gotten Gains in blue matchups.

UBr - Most popular Incarnation right now. At least it seems like it. It's propably the most versatile of the three variants and it also provides Past In Flames which helps a lot in matches where you run out of life before you can combo off. I've found that to be very useful when trying to find a solution via Burning Wish while you get bashed by some bears. On the other hand people in Europe tend to play Gitaxian Probe instead of Preordain and Cabal Therapy instead of Thoughtseize. I'm not impressed by Probe, but that's mainly an issue of experience with them I think. Still it's less stable when setting up the combo due to less filtering and mulliganing feels a little like TES.

When you start reading about 10 pages back you might find Decklists and get a better understanding of what we are trying to do with our lists.

[GoldenCid]

Great description! I think that TES is not a DTB due to wasteland and the auge of Maverick which can tutor for it as well. When started to play storm i did it with TES and is very fast but sometimes inestable.
Nowadays i'm running UBr ANT and it's pretty good. In fact i went into a 18 persons tournemnt with it and the deck was so good. Who was not so good was me and my stupid mind with epics fails that cost me the top4. :cry:
But ANT, in my opinion is "the combo deck" actually. Maybe in the same point than dredge.

[xfxf]

But ANT, in my opinion is "the combo deck" actually. Maybe in the same point than dredge.

How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

[GoldenCid]

How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

Well...in my line of opinion ANT and DRedge are the most "hated" decks. Respecting to ANT you can find:

Mindbreak Trap
Surgical Extraction
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Thorn of Amethyst
Ethersworn Canonist

(all can be played by maverick)

+

Counter spells

I run 6 discard effects MD, an additional 1 in the side, and bear killing cards as wish target + slaughter pact and bouncer spells.
It's even hard but with the exception for maverick a combination of counter spells + permanent hate stuff is difficult to see. Also i side in empty the warrens which can't be fight easily by those decks if i can't get a killing tendrils soon.

[GexxX]

How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

There's no general answer to that. Duress package to fight counters and Wish+Sweeper for the bears. It's not that simple usually, but thats pretty much how it goes. It's like fighting hate with high tide. Instead of Countering you just let them discard and instead of bouncing you destroy things or bounce them. Burning wish does not do the same thing like Cunning in UBr ANT, but it does find solutions and the real bombs. Cunning does not find you Spirals. It's basically the same thing but different purpose I guess. (I'm not a Hightide Pro though.)

Edit:
GoldenCid put it pretty straight. EtW shines when it comes down early enough. Be sure it can't be raced by anything you know of and most of the time it's just great.

[Rekk]

Hello,

I had a question pertaining to the burning wish version of this deck. I currently have been running it card for card matching this
maindeckhttp://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/listas-top8-lcl-2012-abril

(the one that placed 7th although i believe the one that placed 8th isn't far off from it.) and have been feeling that burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

[xfxf]

Not an expert but with the Burning Wish you get a wishboard which gives you silver bullets for specific situations and more versatility.

[Forstik]

burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

Dude, BW gives you direct G1 access to 15 additional cards in your board which is almost essential against Maverick (hatebear sweepers), RUG / Canadian Threshold (Empty the Warrens), Stax & Affinity (Shattering Spree, Meltdown) and miscallenous control decks (various flexible win conditions) and it considerably reduces the risk of losing due to bad sideboarding. Compared to Grim Tutor, BW does NOT require you to maindeck a "solution package". I personally prefer UBr Therapy list with Past in Flames & 3x Burning Wish, but I would recommend to try both builds until you become completely sold on PiF & BW. I would play Grim Tutor only in pure UB build with conceptual focus on maximum speed, but not in my metagame consisting heavily of the above-mentioned decks.

[Sloshthedark]

In fact Grim Tutor is best of the bad tutors for the deck and is definitely superior to BW in vacuum, unfortunately with Thalia becoming real problem BW is necessary evil... I've played both deck enough to tell the difference.. the problem s RR you need to for PIF MD kill and 1 Infernal Tutor you are short MD to do that... you are slower and weaker to spellsnare and mana denial.. on the other hand you are better % with Ad Nauseam and Extirpate...personally I'd prefer Grim version in larger tournaments BW in locals

basically you're reducing speed and consistency for versatility you would not normally need... because you randomly lose to Maverick you worsen you other top 3 match-ups, which I recommend to compensate with 2nd PiF MD instead of SB

overall its more complicated and depends on play style, you better test both

[aaronm678]

Hello,

I had a question pertaining to the burning wish version of this deck. I currently have been running it card for card matching this
maindeckhttp://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/listas-top8-lcl-2012-abril

(the one that placed 7th although i believe the one that placed 8th isn't far off from it.) and have been feeling that burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

They definitely both have their own strengths -- Basically, with Burning Wish, you get a lot more Tutor power (usually 4 BW + 4 IT -- you can't run more than 2 Grim Tutor, as they are absolutely awful in multiples), and you can G1 ETW or G1 deal with hatebears.

With Grim Tutor, you get an actual 15 card sideboard, and you can PiF/IGG or Ad Nauseam with it, where BW can be a little awkward if you don't have additional business in hand, as it doesn't play well with PiF and can't grab Ad Naus.

You can probably try both versions and see which you like more, I don't think either one is truly better. I prefer Grim Tutor, because I like having a sideboard...but having straight no outs to a G1 hate bear has definitely been awkward at times, esp. since Thalia is seeing quite a lot of play now.

EDIT:

Also, for the record, I don't think there is any reason to run straight U/B anymore unless there are 0 blue decks in your meta. We run enough artifact mana that generating a single R for PiF is almost never an issue -- I support PiF off a single Volcanic (so the additional vulnerability to Wasteland is negligible) and it's never been an issue for me to play PiF. But, I think there is certainly an argument for Grim Tutor in a U/B list splashing R for PiF.

[nodahero]

It has been a while since I touched Legacy and a VERY long time since I played TES or ANT, "recently" I picked up Stoneblade and its ilk but am looking to play storm at this weekends SCG open which leads me to my question---Why is ANT running Cabal Therapy now?

I assume it is because it saves life against casting a TSeize but then why over Inquisition?

If you don't run Inquistion because you are so afraid of FoW then isn't the utility of TSeize worth the life loss?

Would it make sense to mix up the discard package in the board so that game 2 and 3 you can adjust discard for maximum efficeny?

Thanks for the input guys.

[aaronm678]

It has been a while since I touched Legacy and a VERY long time since I played TES or ANT, "recently" I picked up Stoneblade and its ilk but am looking to play storm at this weekends SCG open which leads me to my question---Why is ANT running Cabal Therapy now?

I assume it is because it saves life against casting a TSeize but then why over Inquisition?

If you don't run Inquistion because you are so afraid of FoW then isn't the utility of TSeize worth the life loss?

Would it make sense to mix up the discard package in the board so that game 2 and 3 you can adjust discard for maximum efficeny?

Thanks for the input guys.

I've been playing Therapy main for about 6 months and I'm still not 100% sold on it -- Gitaxian Probe is quite good, and it would take a lot to convince me that Preordain is better in that slot, and Therapy is rarely blind when you have 4 Discard + 3-4 Probe.

For what it's worth, I tested Thoughtseize pretty extensively, and I definitely don't think the deck can support Thoughtseize main unless you cut Ad Naus from the main (yes, Gitaxian Probe also eats at your life - but we generally need to cast all of our discard spells to win the game, where we can just pay mana or not cast our probes).

I tried Inquisition for a bit in the slot, and I wasn't a huge fan, as I really don't like having only 4 ways to interact with Force.

Also -- as far as mixing it up, I generally run 3-4 Thoughtseize in the sideboard, and I board them in quite often (against RUG, Maverick, U/W, and most control decks) -- so it's very possible they should just be main and I should accept that Ad Naus is not going to be a viable out most games.

[GexxX]

I play the "spanish" UBr list with 4 Burning Wish and 3Infernal Main. I like the list a lot right now. Most matchups except some blue decks are favorable. Unfortunately Avacyn restored brought us nothing new except for some "enemies".

Yesterday a friend and I played some legacy. Mainly to try out Griselbrand in his SneakShow list. I personally wanted to see it's impact on the matchup since Storm is all I play in Legacy. Jin Gitaxias has been quite a big deal, but I was not sure how Griselbrand turns out, since we can try to play around him with a tendrils in hand and using discard offensively. Disrupting their combo has become easier with cabal therapy. At least my mate hates the card a lot. :>
My list is pretty much like the spanish ones, but I play 4 Burning Wish main and 1 sideboard to have the option of tutor chaining and PiF gets a little better. It's also quite versatile.
Turns out I still win about 60% preboard and depending on his sideboard it's about 50/50. Griselbrand however is a pain. As soon as he lands one it's incredibly hard to beat SneakShow. Usually you can still win after he lands ulamog with sneak attack. Griselbrand usually wins the game on the spot when he comes via sneak. Finding Emrakul and Petal is just game when he has 15life of more to draw into them.
Another Problem is the short amount of time you have to combo off. It's been a problem for me to figure out the right moment ever since I played against the Deck. Griselbrand is basically a win for them soming turn 1, 2 or 3. It's even harder to decide when his win is quite random in number of turns. Gitaxian Probe clearly does a lot of work gathering the information since it increases the amount of such effects to 11.

However I was quite amused how often it's reasonable to disrupt his hand. T1 Probe, Swamp, Therapy naming Emrakul (he discards 2), Petal, Therapy naming Griselbrand (discrads 2) was just awesome enough. Here's another example why I love Burning wish. I shortly after get EtW and have 8 Goblins on the board. Sacrificing your hand to do the same to him is very good.

[JJ_JKidd]

I've been playing Therapy main for about 6 months and I'm still not 100% sold on it -- Gitaxian Probe is quite good, and it would take a lot to convince me that Preordain is better in that slot, and Therapy is rarely blind when you have 4 Discard + 3-4 Probe.

For what it's worth, I tested Thoughtseize pretty extensively, and I definitely don't think the deck can support Thoughtseize main unless you cut Ad Naus from the main (yes, Gitaxian Probe also eats at your life - but we generally need to cast all of our discard spells to win the game, where we can just pay mana or not cast our probes).

I tried Inquisition for a bit in the slot, and I wasn't a huge fan, as I really don't like having only 4 ways to interact with Force.

Also -- as far as mixing it up, I generally run 3-4 Thoughtseize in the sideboard, and I board them in quite often (against RUG, Maverick, U/W, and most control decks) -- so it's very possible they should just be main and I should accept that Ad Naus is not going to be a viable out most games.

So what kind of discard suite are you suggesting? Im currently testing 4 Duress, 2 IoK and a singleton Thoughtseize plus I have an 1 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize SB.

My SB package also has 3 Dread of Night since Maverick and DnT is so rampant in our meta.

[aaronm678]

So what kind of discard suite are you suggesting? Im currently testing 4 Duress, 2 IoK and a singleton Thoughtseize plus I have an 1 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize SB.

My SB package also has 3 Dread of Night since Maverick and DnT is so rampant in our meta.

I have started testing 4 duress 3 thoughtseize main, 1 seize 2 iok side, and switching 3 probes main to preordain.

I haven't played against enough variety yet to determine if this is better than what I previously ran (4 duress 3 therapy main, 3-4 thoughtseize in the sb) - but this configuration feels a bit better vs RUG so far (switching probe to preordain is nice, and rarely does the life from thoughtseize matter, as you rarely ad naus this match anyway)

[gregtron]

This (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=46316)ANT deck just finished 19th at SCG Orlando. Can someone please explain the sideboard to me?

The Bobs I get (though I don't run them myself), the bounce/Pact split is fine, but V-Cliques, Jace, and Karn are blowing my mind. I think some argument can be made for a disruption spell that comes attached to a 3/1 flier, but I don't think I have ever been in a situation with ANT where I thought "Man, I'd really like to go all-in on a seven-mana Vindicate machine."

[ThomasDowd]

This (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=46316)ANT deck just finished 19th at SCG Orlando. Can someone please explain the sideboard to me?

The Bobs I get (though I don't run them myself), the bounce/Pact split is fine, but V-Cliques, Jace, and Karn are blowing my mind. I think some argument can be made for a disruption spell that comes attached to a 3/1 flier, but I don't think I have ever been in a situation with ANT where I thought "Man, I'd really like to go all-in on a seven-mana Vindicate machine."

Probably a variation of the man plan. or for the troll value. have definitely played a Jace or two in my board to turn two one and troll my opponents. also you can probably play karn relatively easily.

IMO they are waste of space, but you do what you want a lot of the times with those last few spots.

[TheRedBaron]

I have started testing 4 duress 3 thoughtseize main, 1 seize 2 iok side, and switching 3 probes main to preordain.

I haven't played against enough variety yet to determine if this is better than what I previously ran (4 duress 3 therapy main, 3-4 thoughtseize in the sb) - but this configuration feels a bit better vs RUG so far (switching probe to preordain is nice, and rarely does the life from thoughtseize matter, as you rarely ad naus this match anyway)

I run 2 Thoughtseize, 2 duress, 3 IoK main deck. I dislike Gprobe + Therapy in ANT. Feels too gimicky.

This is my current build, I'm pretty happy with it:


2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
3 Preordain

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

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

//board
4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Empty The Warrens
2 Energy Flux
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
1 Slaughter Pact


IMO, IoK isn't bad, cause it hits Thalia.

I board out most of my discard and AN, for 4 Bobs + 4 xantid vs. Stoneblade/Blue decks.

[aaronm678]

I run 2 Thoughtseize, 2 duress, 3 IoK main deck. I dislike Gprobe + Therapy in ANT. Feels too gimicky.

This is my current build, I'm pretty happy with it:


2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
3 Preordain

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

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

//board
4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Empty The Warrens
2 Energy Flux
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
1 Slaughter Pact


IMO, IoK isn't bad, cause it hits Thalia.

I board out most of my discard and AN, for 4 Bobs + 4 xantid vs. Stoneblade/Blue decks.

Have you had trouble against Maverick? Your SB looks pretty weak if they ever land a dude (I usually like to have at least 5 bounce/removal, as it seems like postboard they just have infinite hate bears).

Also -- do you think Xantid is worth the strain on the mana base? I found it helps a lot in the blue matchups I don't need specific sideboard cards for -- durdly blue decks like Stoneblade/Landstill/whatnot --but it's pretty bad in matchups that I really want some specific sideboard cards for (namely RUG). I ended up cutting them for additional discard spells, as those are good against RUG, and I've found myself boarding them in quite a few matchups (occasionally going to 10-11 discard spells, but often it's stuff like switching Duress for IoK against Maverick).

[guillemnicolau]

The list I'm currently playing:

Maindeck:
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Tendrils of agony
1x Past in flames
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Infernal tutor
3x Burning Wish
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
2x Underground sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Polluted delta
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard:
1x Empty the warrens
1x Ill-gotten gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames
1x Meltdown
1x Pyroclasm
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Deathmark
1x Cabal Therapy
2x Extirpate
1x Wipe away
3x Chain of Vapor

This list is awesome, it's really explosive, gitaxians + therapy is the start you'll always want, with a possible 2x1, and filling your graveyard so the cabal rituals have threshold. Inquisition is bad, just for the fact that it doesn't hit fow.. Thoughtseizes are good, but for the moment 4 duress + 3 therapy are enough (the 4th therapy is in the side for bw).
The side is very versatile thanks to the burning wish with game1 answers to maverick, affinity, and random cratures decks, and the toolbox for the combo.
Chain of vapor is the best bouncer, so 3 of them, and a wipe away for counterbalance.
I'm not sure about the extirpates, I'm starting to think that they don't fit in this deck..

[videogamer99]

So, I am going to be playing UB ANT at the StarCityGames 5K at Origins. Im just trying to decide between splashing red or not. It would be for 1x Past in Flames mainboard and 1x Empty the Warrens in the board. Is that reasonable enough or should it be strictly UB?\

[Silent Requiem]

Honestly, I've played with Past In Flames and a single Empty the Warrens without "splashing" anything. With 4 Lotus Petal and 4 LED, a single red mana is easy to come by. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't still play a single Volcanic Island, but that's more to give me a sense of security than because I've ever really found it necessary.

[ThomasDowd]

Do you guys prefer the 4 BW/3 IT, 1 IT side split or the 4 IT /3 BW? I am testing the former configuration after having played the latter for a long time. It opens up a few more lines and keeps the density the same in the main deck.

The AN line becomes a little worse (only 3 IT main).

[MTG Junkie]

I'v been trying 4 I.T. 3 B.W. main and 1Grim Tutor side.



Edit:
Sloshthedark,Having to B.W. for a Tutor is not always needed. I've found it's better to keep the main at its fastest.When going off with threshhold Cabal Rituals,LED and Dark Rituals the 3rd mana doesn't matter that much.

Don't get me wrong do what you wish this is just from my Exp.

[Sloshthedark]

I'v been trying 4 I.T. 3 B.W. main and 1Grim Tutor side.

Isn't 3IT 3BW 1GT // 1IT side better then? BW-> GT-> ? is really manaintensive (and nearly unplayable into PiF without other tutor)

[ThomasDowd]

Isn't 3IT 3BW 1GT // 1IT side better then? BW-> GT-> ? is really manaintensive (and nearly unplayable into PiF without other tutor)

just responded to our very lackadaisical pm exchange. SO Sorry!

i should probably set up email notices.

[Tammit67]

The list I'm currently playing:

Maindeck:
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Tendrils of agony
1x Past in flames
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Infernal tutor
3x Burning Wish
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
2x Underground sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Polluted delta
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard:
1x Empty the warrens
1x Ill-gotten gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames
1x Meltdown
1x Pyroclasm
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Deathmark
1x Cabal Therapy
2x Extirpate
1x Wipe away
3x Chain of Vapor



I played an almost identical 75 today to a top 2 split at a local 5 round event (Stomping Grounds in Warminster, Pa, US).
I had infest over Virtue's ruin, a second deathmark over a chain of vapor, and an echoing truth over the 2nd chain. My main was identical -1fetch +1 island.

This list is insane. IGG in the board won me a bunch of games where PiF wouldn't have. The Extirpate slots are awkward, I'm not really sure what I want them to be though.

I'm also do not have a good handle on sideboarding. Often I board out a ponder or probe or Petal if the game is going to drag out, or duress against the hate bear decks.

[guillemnicolau]

I played an almost identical 75 today to a top 2 split at a local 5 round event (Stomping Grounds in Warminster, Pa, US).
I had infest over Virtue's ruin, a second deathmark over a chain of vapor, and an echoing truth over the 2nd chain. My main was identical -1fetch +1 island.

This list is insane. IGG in the board won me a bunch of games where PiF wouldn't have. The Extirpate slots are awkward, I'm not really sure what I want them to be though.

I'm also do not have a good handle on sideboarding. Often I board out a ponder or probe or Petal if the game is going to drag out, or duress against the hate bear decks.
I think I started with a list like yours, but a friend of mine reminded me that drawing a land full of black spells and an island is the worst, so I changed an island for a fetch.
I also think that the extirpates aren't good enough, but they are really needed for the reanimator matchup, without them it's too hard.
When sideboarding I also do it like this, against control I usually do:
-1 gitaxian
-1 therapy
-1 ponder
-1 petal
+2 chain of vapor
+2 wipe away (counterbalance has increased it's presence in my meta, so amb currently playing 2 wipes and 2 chains)

[Sloshthedark]

I can't see Extirpate not being good enough, it's one of my favorite cards in the board ever, I bring one in if I won G1 just to see their hate in every match-up, ruins other combo and is decent vs. Counterbalance/snap control

Can you see a Pithing Needle (possible 3-of?) as an universal SB answer to Griselbrand and SDT powered decks?

[Rekk]

I can't see Extirpate not being good enough, it's one of my favorite cards in the board ever, I bring one in if I won G1 just to see their hate in every match-up, ruins other combo and is decent vs. Counterbalance/snap control

Can you see a Pithing Needle (possible 3-of?) as an universal SB answer to Griselbrand and SDT powered decks?

pithing needle doesn't awnser dredge nor does it truly stop reanimator, you also can't bring it in against the mirror to stop them from using pif.

[Sloshthedark]

pithing needle doesn't awnser dredge nor does it truly stop reanimator, you also can't bring it in against the mirror to stop them from using pif.

obv I'm not suggesting using them instead of Extirpates...

[Rekk]

obv I'm not suggesting using them instead of Extirpates...

sorry for the confusion then,

in the grim tutor build it is a possibility, but as for the burning wish version i don't know were one would find room. as well as the concern of it not doing that much outside of stoping sneak attack and griss in one matchup and top in a less popular matchup.

[blaggro]

Hey guys! On Sunday it's the gp trial for Ghent that will give a ticket and i'll attend with ANT probably.. i'd like your opinions about the list (UBW) i'm tesing lately.. the meta consists of many RUG and Mavericks and some UW and espers and others like reanimator and maybe a sneak ans dhow..

1 Ad nauseam
4 dark ritual
4 brainstorm
4 cabal ritual
1 chain of vapor
4 silence

4 duress
4 ponder
4 infernal tutor
1 tendrils
3 preordain
1 ill gotten gains

4 LED
4 petals
2 SDT

1 karakas
2 underground sea
1 tundra
1 scrubland
1 swamp
1 plains
2 island
3 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
2 marsh flats

sb
2 extirpate
1 karakas
1 virtue's Ruin
3 Dread of Night
1 wipe away
1 chain of vapor
2 tendrils
2 defence grid
2 disfigure

the reasons if the white is chan effects and karakas which can win games with reanimator and sneak and show and also bounces thalia and teeg that's why i maindeck a CoV main too. I decided to split the discard/chants ad because i don't play R i don't play Past in flames and play IGG.. The SDTs are because of many Tempo decks i'll face and i'd love to have them althought the many other cantrips..
Any ideas would be welcomed! ;)

[Lejay]

Just copy/pasting ideas from DDFT won't be good. If you want to play SDT to improve tempo decks, then you need an engine that will allow you to go off in the late game for that SDT to be good. That means you need to play past in flames since it is far better than IGG agaisnt blue.
CoV is a bad main deck card when there is no way to tutor for it. You'll loose much more games because of it than win game ones because of it.
Karakas is nice in Doomsday as the 18th land. Here as a 15th land that's not a good idea. With so few lands you really want to maximize possibilities of either going off early or start cantripping on turn one. Also you can't tutor for it unlike DD.
Karakas is also less good now because of griselbrand.

[blaggro]

You're right i took some ideas like karakas from DDFT i'm playing and i tried to place it in ANT.. At my ANT lists i always had a CoV and a SDT main and i thought a second SDT would be good against tempo and control as far as i know from playing fetchland tendrils..
To tell you the truth as far as i have tested this is worst than DDFT which was in my mind to play but i wasn't sure :/
About karakas you are right too that makes the manabase much worse but at the testing it helped me a lot when i got it against maverick especially and reanimator without Griselbrand..
thanks for the advice lejay ;)

[Lejay]

If it helped you a lot against maverick essentially then it's sideboard material.
Reanimator without griselbrand isn't valid consideration when deckbuilding.

[Rekk]

I've been having 3 inquisitions in the board for weeks now, to board in against g/w and honestly i don't really think they do much of anything. i have never grabbed a thalia out of someones hand nor a green sun. the two deathmarks have been amazing though

[Tammit67]

I've been having 3 inquisitions in the board for weeks now, to board in against g/w and honestly i don't really think they do much of anything. i have never grabbed a thalia out of someones hand nor a green sun. the two deathmarks have been amazing though

IoK was very good to me while I was running TES. I find there is a turn or two between when we can rip it out of their hand before they play it and when we are actually looking to go off. TES seems to be able to just kill the turn after IoK whiffs, this not so easily IMO

[Rekk]

I've been debating cutting the inqs and putting in two chrome moxs and another infest. which is a weird combiniation considering the chrome mox are to use ad nause and having another infest makes ad nas worse.

their would be two infest in hte board, on to wish for the other to bring in. maybe it would be a split between virtue's ruin and an infest

[MTG Junkie]

I'm also playing the Burning Wish list.
I Still don't know what I want the 3 flex spots in the board to be though.

[Rekk]

Does anyone have a handle on the show and tell matchup? i haven't had too much experience playing it.

[guillemnicolau]

I've been having 3 inquisitions in the board for weeks now, to board in against g/w and honestly i don't really think they do much of anything. i have never grabbed a thalia out of someones hand nor a green sun. the two deathmarks have been amazing though

Against GW you have to be really fast, trying to rip his hand is not gonna be useful, cause unless you kill him in the same turn, he'll probably draw a thalia, or a GSZ for gaddock, or choke, or mindbreak trap, or surgical extraction, or ooze to f**k your graveyard... I play a massacre in the board (burning wish list), and once I fetched it, he sacrificed his only plains with his reliquary... I recommend 3 chain of vapor in the side, because thalia and choke are not easy to take off with echoing truths or wipe aways.
just kill him on turn 1 or 2, or you're probably gonna have to face too much hate.

[Rekk]

Against GW you have to be really fast, trying to rip his hand is not gonna be useful, cause unless you kill him in the same turn, he'll probably draw a thalia, or a GSZ for gaddock, or choke, or mindbreak trap, or surgical extraction, or ooze to f**k your graveyard... I play a massacre in the board (burning wish list), and once I fetched it, he sacrificed his only plains with his reliquary... I recommend 3 chain of vapor in the side, because thalia and choke are not easy to take off with echoing truths or wipe aways.
just kill him on turn 1 or 2, or you're probably gonna have to face too much hate.


In that case wouldn't boarding in 2 chrome mox be a better idea then 3 chain of vapors

my board is at the moment
3 exterpate
3 inquistion
1 infest
2 deathmark
1 chain
2 echoing truth
1 pif
1 tendrils
1 empty


also im at 2 burning wishes right now and im debating cutting down to 2 preordains to up the burning wish count.

[Tammit67]

I play a massacre in the board (burning wish list), and once I fetched it, he sacrificed his only plains with his reliquary...

You burning wished for massacre, then gave him priority?

[Tombstalker]

Greetings ANT players. Im in the process of building a tendrils deck and trying to make my decision on what deck. Currently im leaning towards doomsday but I wanted to ask dedicated ANT players your thoughts on doomsday and the fundamental differences between ANT and DDFT, i.e. why no DD in ANT and kill conditions main vs side only. Thanks in advance.

[JamieW89]

Greetings ANT players. Im in the process of building a tendrils deck and trying to make my decision on what deck. Currently im leaning towards doomsday but I wanted to ask dedicated ANT players your thoughts on doomsday and the fundamental differences between ANT and DDFT, i.e. why no DD in ANT and kill conditions main vs side only. Thanks in advance.

ANT and DD are alike in some ways. They both operate on a fetchland manabase making their cantrips alot stronger than in TES. This is even more true for DD as it runs Tops. They can also both run Chant-effects, Discard-effects or green protection spells to protect their combo. ANT has a harder time playing more than 3 colors though, without rainbow lands like TES and only 15-16 lands (Ari played 17 with 5 basics, but I consider that inferior) compared to the 17-19 in DDFT.
ANT, just like TES, relies mainly on tutors to fetch the couple of engines in the deck, this used to be Infernal Tutor and Mystical Tutor. Now Infernal Tutor is usually supplemented by Grim Tutor or Burning Wish. Doomsday runs more bombs (doomsday itself) and less tutors to find those bombs.
Infernal Tutor and Doomsday are not the greatest friends; you cannot use most of your cantrips to draw into the pile as IT requires hellbent. The only cantrip that does work is Top, which is not the greatest card with Ad Nauseam as Top is slow by nature and Ad Nauseam can't wait too long.

Doomsday lists have some advantages over ANT. The only 'dead' card they run main is a single Ideas Unbound/Meditate which is sometimes pretty decent anyways. ANT without red has to run Tendrils and IGG/PiF main deck, and they're not cards you usually want to draw. UBr ANT doesn't have this issue as much though.
Doomsday is also a win condition that doesn't need 10-15 life or the graveyard to win, unlike the engines in ANT. One thing that should be noted is that the current GY hate of choice, Surgical Extraction, is also a real annoying card for Doomsday when played correctly.
Another plus for Doomsday is the ability to play around hate better. Cards such as Gaddock Teeg are really not that scary for DD. This is especially true for versions that play red for wish (goes for both ANT and DD).

ANT however, does have some advantages over DD. It's faster for one; being able to outrace aggro decks much easier. If you check DDFT tournament reports you'll notice that a fair amount of its losses are against aggro and not against blue decks. Dredge, to name one deck, is a much better MU for ANT than it is for DD.
It is also much easier to play than DD. While some say this is not an argument and one should simply put more time towards learning their deck, I'd say it is. When playing a GP you might play 8 rounds on Friday in the trials, have a bad sleep, play 6-9 rounds on Saturday, hardly sleep again and then have another full day to play on Sunday. Being able to play ANT while braindead is much easier than it would be for DDFT where mistakes are punished more severely.
UBw ANT also has the advantage of sideboard space compared to UBr ANT and all modern DDFT lists.

There are different forms of hybrids as well. First of all there's ANT decks with Tops and 1 DD (usually more DD's sb along with the Emrakul package). It can be done in straight UB(w) lists to simple provide the much needed extra business after 4 IT, 1 AdN. It can also be done in lists with both IT and BW (Citanul's list f.e. although I'd cut the MD Tendrils there).
There are also Infernal/Doomsday 'hybrids' which don't play Ad Nauseam. These lists run the full 4 Doomsday and supplement it by 3-4 Infernal Tutor. This facilitates an alternative kill in IGG to race aggro while still being a Doomsday deck. These lists often splash green for the sideboard (Krosan Grip, Carpet of Flowers, Xantid Swarm and possibly Autumn's Veil). This version is known as "the german list".

The biggest issue for ANT right now is probably Maverick, which despite our speed, is quite annoying since Thalia got printed. Counterbalance (without wastelands) is a good MU for DDFT and pretty terrible for UBw ANT. UB/UBr/UBg ANT are decent against it because of their discard + speed.
RUG is doable, but not positive, for both decks assuming you play white (which I still prefer in both ANT and Doomsday). Sneaky Show is favorable for ANT if they don't sb hate, but they usually do. Stoneblade is favorable for both decks. Storm decks are fine MU's for both; you both have chants, DDFT has top and ANT has EoT Ad Nauseam.
Reanimate is annoying for both decks but probably better for ANT since it actually has the space to board something against it (in GP Amsterdam I boarded 3 Extirpate, 2 Path to Exile, 1 Chain of Vapor I think). Dredge, with its current speed, seems quite a bit better for ANT than for DDFT.
Aggro decks without hate are alot easier for ANT than DDFT.