[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) [Archive] - Page 2

jegger

10-10-2008, 06:49 AM

If someone would like to test both my B/u/w current version and a 5c list and compare them, I would appreciate it.

I've tested very much all the versions. I start with the TES version (personally I don't like some core cards like B.Wish because it is useful only after we combo with AN and we are searching for a ToA copy, but in all others moments B.Wish is not useful: it doesn't attend to search the necessary cards for the combo like Mystical); then I test UB version (But I don't like it beacuse if we want to start protected, we play Duress only to see that opponent for example has into hand 2 copies of Snare: Orim is necessary) and last UBw for Orim and Serenity, Ubg for K.Grip and Swarm and UBr for ReB, EtW and Pyroclasm.
Except in a meta full of CB decks, where the UBg version is better for K.Grip, the UBw is the best version in all others metagames.

For the UBw version, I start with a standard list with 8 protection (Orim and Duress) and 3 AN plus usual random stuff (1 ToA, 1 IGG, 1 bouncer) and basically the core of FT.

Then I move Duress in SB, I cut a copy of AN and a copy of Mox for Sensei and Ponder. This is a meta choice, perhaps in a meta full of control I return to Duress maindeck; but I like this new version flexible and with less hands to mulligan.

I agree: this is an evolution of storm combo.
Before I was a TES player, then I became a FT player for its consistency. Now I pass to AN version because it's more fast then FT and it mantain the consistency.
Give the time to FT players to understand the power of AN...

Pelikanudo

10-10-2008, 06:51 AM

@Hanni

At least somebody is trying versions with NO LEDS, well, I absolutly disagree with everybody who is including to their Teps or FT decks the A.N card their minds seem to be focused on the idea of playin LED because they have always played them but the fact is that LED doesnt help to cast A.N...
well I think that there are two way to develop the deck :
a) with LED, I.T, etc
b) with the package of 8 kind of moxen and Bouncers Artifacts effects like Vintage ,

well I 've tryed both versions and I prefer the b ) versions I Think that with a card such as A.N which makes you draw 1/3 of the deck is a non sense to loose your hand in order to get mana , pure and simple and the other point is that with LED you CAN NOT include Reactive defense (I'm a Solidarity player ), which sucks, I 'll try your deck Hanni and please try mine because is a bomb ( pacts seem to be THE CARD to include in A.N decks )
My axioms are :
A) we just have to focus on let A.N be casted
B) we really don't mind which cards we will draw after A.N is casted , having in consideration our average mana curve is 0.9

Because of that I can affirm LED is UNNECESSARY
this is a 3rd turn win deck with 4 defense spells reactive and 4 Proactive,
Even with the engine of getting mana from Moxen-Bouncers we can turn the deck into a deck which match ups are sligthly better than other A.N builds to Shitty-Artifacts-Like-Chalice.
Even the b) development has NO DEPENDENCY of Graveyard which for me is quite important, no extirpate anymore.

Well the list is this:
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta

4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Mox diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

4x Pact of negation
4x Duresses

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Mystical Tutor

1x Retract
1x Chain of Vapor //not sure about this slot because not always we will have
//2 lands maybe another Retract in here , but I'm not
//dissapointed in having 1 in M.Deck
1 x Hurkills R
1x Tendrils
4 x Ad Nauseam

This deck seems to be the perfect one... 3rd turn win, Reactive defense, No G.Y dependency, Answers M.D versus shitty artifgacts...

A question you al boys have to have in mind is:
If my A.N deck doesnt get a 1st turn win WITH LED AND defense then why do we have to run LED , if without LED we get the same ratio of victorys , less GY dependency and Reactive Solutions as my deck demonstrates ?
------------------
My Brain is Big

Noman Peopled

10-10-2008, 07:44 AM

Well, right now your arguments seem to consist of "discarding your hand is bad" which is not always true and can be worked around and "I like reactive disruption better than proactive disruption". And reiterating it over again instead of responding to criticism.
If LED is our holy cow, reactive disruption seems to be yours. Solidarity =/= ANT.
And for the last time, we do care what we draw post-AdN. It's unlikely that we fizzle? Good. But it's not 100% because it still comes down to chance. In fact, your deck seems to care more about what it draws, what with Retract and Mox Diamond not doing much reliably until AdN.

You play the same fast mana package everyone else does, minus LED, plus a full set of Diamonds in a 12-land shell. How often does Diamond accelerate you pre-AdN considering you're winning t2-3 with backup and might as well max out your land drops until then? More often than IT/Mystical and LED show up?

I understand that Recall/Retract can produce storm post-AdN when you have enough cards to ditch to recurring Moxen but what do they do before that? At least Recall doubles as Chalice hate.

In terms of disruption, your deck gains Pact over Chant which isn't actually that much more reactive, and also doesn't allow you to attack opposing combo or time walk against certain decks.

No IGG = bad. It's incredibly disruptive against fast aggro if cast early and makes you win against burn, Zoo, etc regardless of lifeloss. I guess it doesn't work that well without LED (and Chant) ...

In short, instead of IT->AdN or Mystical/Bstorm->AdN, you have to use mana to Bstorm/Ponder to sculpt your hand more often than the LED version does, which doesn't strike me as making the deck faster.
IGG, a valuable tool against very fast aggro, Burn, the Dredge aggro plan, and other decks depending on the situation (having your first attempt foiled by a Goyf deck etc), and also pretty much your only chance to win on low life becomes much worse without LED. (Hm, is that what Retract is supposed to do?)
Instead of going IT/LED or Mystical Tutor/Bstorm for Tendrils post-AdN, your deck can only get it via Mystical/cantrip, putting heavy requirements on blue mana (is that the reason for Mox D?).

In return, you gain ... Pact of Negation?

//edit:

If my A.N deck doesnt get a 1st turn win WITH LED AND defense then why do we have to run LED , if without LED we get the same ratio of victorys , less GY dependency and Reactive Solutions as my deck demonstrates ?
This is the last time I say it. LED increases your chances of a first-turn win (if you have IT and 4 non-LED mana), a second-turn win (if you have IT and 4 non-LED mana - OR - a Mystical Tutor and 2 non-LED mana - OR - Brainstorm and AdN in hand and 2 non-LED mana - OR - if Bstorm turned up AdN eot and you have 2 non-LED mana --- the tricks with Bstorm and Mystical also work with Duress t1 if your have one mana more available), a third-turn win (I'm tired of this), etc.
Add one mana for disruption in all cases if you want to, it's not like there's a better card to recoup that mana than LED.
It also does other things besides casting AdN, like providing mana in response to same, make IT a relatively reliable way to get your single win condition post-AdN, and makes IGG much better.

lolosoon

10-10-2008, 08:05 AM

I'm a former (Q)SI player and this deck is as fast and way more resilient to hate in its Buw version.

I'm fond of it ! My list is the same Hanni posted in the opening msg with WipeAway instead of Rushing River (some CB deck here and quite no Stax-like decks.)

Still, I'm wondering at the manabase, particulary the Fetch//Duals ratio. I suspect the number of fetches to be a bit too much : We don't need to thin the deck that much. Every land you draw after AdN is a free draw anyway !

I'll explain why I want to cut some of'em :

In some games (one over ten I'll say) the two fetches activations before going off protected and the 2 lifeloss that had followed brought me down below the dreaded "5 life left threshold" before finding enough mana or WinCon. So the extra draws were necessary to avoid fizzle.

Twice, I was 1 life short of drawing the card I was looking for.

I can agree that's might just be plain bad luck or me not familiarized with the deck.

Still, my current build contains a 8/6 split between fetches and manaLands. With Tundra and Scrubland as 1'ofs (remember Hanni's build (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=276060&postcount=1)).

I'd like to go -1 Mire, -1 Scrubland, +2 U.Seas to cast WipeAway more easily and lowering the fetches count.

But I now might encounter some trouble to find W and cast early Chants. So :

Is the risk worth the reward ?!?

Noman Peopled

10-10-2008, 08:12 AM

I have been testing with eight fetchlands, but in a two-color shell. I think 6-7 fetchlands is the bare minimum since without it, Bstorm is sub-par, though it can still pull some tricks.
I would chalk up your draws to bad luck. No matter what you do, there will always be instances where the draw you need will kill you. It's less likely with less fetchies, obv, but it hurts the deck elsewehere. Kinda like playing only one AdN would make the resolved AdN better but hurts consistency.

Anyway, I'd suggest cutting fetchies for Gem Mine instead of duals if you're worried about lifeloss and mana consistency. Again, this hurts the deck in other respects (nonbasic hate, mana stability).

Pelikanudo

10-10-2008, 08:13 AM

Well, right now your arguments seem to consist of "discarding your hand is bad" which is not always true and can be worked around and "I like reactive disruption better than proactive disruption". And reiterating it over again instead of responding to criticism.

Well if you're going to discard your hand before you Have to play Orims or duress and make sure your opp has no Fows, Stifles, etc, well this issue makes us to have quite a lot dependency of Orims which I dislike
you' re axiom is that I HAVE to play Orims before pop LED and what happens if Orims is countered, then you'll have to wait to another chant ?

If LED is our holy cow, reactive disruption seems to be yours. Solidarity =/= ANT.
And for the last time, we do care what we draw post-AdN. It's unlikely that we fizzle? Good. But it's not 100% because it still comes down to chance. In fact, your deck seems to care more about what it draws, what with Retract and Mox Diamond not doing much reliably until AdN.

As I said we have a 0.9 mana average curve, if we use Brainstorm or ponder our mana curve is decreased therefore I can say we really don't mind which cards we are going to draw after A.N is casted because next we win 100% , you can test it and probe it.

You play the same fast mana package everyone else does, minus LED, plus a full set of Diamonds in a 12-land shell. How often does Diamond accelerate you pre-AdN considering you're winning t2-3 with backup and might as well max out your land drops until then? More often than IT/Mystical and LED show up?

with LED we DO NOT intend to cast A.N ritgh therefore is the same effect like Mox diamond which is by far the card I wanna se after A.N is casted.

I understand that Recall/Retract can produce storm post-AdN when you have enough cards to ditch to recurring Moxen but what do they do before that? At least Recall doubles as Chalice hate.

Mox diamond , nothing is a card I dont want to see in my opening hand we will cast A.N with D.Rituals, Cabal r. , Chrome moxen and lotus petal, sometimes we will use the mystical-> Rituals,

In terms of disruption, your deck gains Pact over Chant which isn't actually that much more reactive, and also doesn't allow you to attack opposing combo or time walk against certain decks.

vs burn is not a problem because when you cast A.N you'll see Pact and it goes directly to your hand which means you can use it to stop burn, versus other kind of Combo decks I recognize Orims is better but... Mirror is the only match up I really havent tested, well this match up is more like a wild west confrontation and the first who start to make the combo will be the first who will win

No IGG = bad. It's incredibly disruptive against fast aggro if cast early and makes you win against burn, Zoo, etc regardless of lifeloss. I guess it doesn't work that well without LED (and Chant) ...

I dont mind Agros, burn, Sligh decks we race those decks by far ( pact is also important here , they are the ace up my sleeve

In short, instead of IT->AdN or Mystical/Bstorm->AdN, you have to use mana to Bstorm/Ponder to sculpt your hand more often than the LED version does, which doesn't strike me as making the deck faster.
IGG, a valuable tool against very fast aggro, Burn, the Dredge aggro plan, and other decks depending on the situation (having your first attempt foiled by a Goyf deck etc), and also pretty much your only chance to win on low life becomes much worse without LED. (Hm, is that what Retract is supposed to do?)
Instead of going IT/LED or Mystical Tutor/Bstorm for Tendrils post-AdN, your deck can only get it via Mystical/cantrip, putting heavy requirements on blue mana (is that the reason for Mox D?).

In return, you gain ... Pact of Negation?

//edit:

This is the last time I say it. LED increases your chances of a first-turn win (if you have IT and 4 non-LED mana), a second-turn win (if you have IT and 4 non-LED mana - OR - a Mystical Tutor and 2 non-LED mana - OR - Brainstorm and AdN in hand and 2 non-LED mana - OR - if Bstorm turned up AdN eot and you have 2 non-LED mana --- the tricks with Bstorm and Mystical also work with Duress t1 if your have one mana more available), a third-turn win (I'm tired of this), etc.
It also does other things besides casting AdN, like providing mana in response to same, make IT a relatively reliable way to get your single win condition post-AdN, and makes IGG much better.
Hell for those examples of 1st and 2nd turns win you need NO LED MANA ....¡¡ Do you all boys understand?
well I'm boring of writing ,try it and tell me

ScatmanX

10-10-2008, 08:44 AM

I'm wondering what would be the best way to beat this deck.

Last night I played against it for the first time. I used 1 orim's chant after AN, next turn 1 Abeyance after some artifacts, and he was still able to Tendrils me the turn after that.

The way I see, the best way is wastlands to stall, and inflict maximum amount of damage in the 1st,2nd and 3rd turn, before AN can go off. So goblins would be the best option against it, right?

Noman Peopled

10-10-2008, 08:45 AM

Thanks for the lengthy reply, Pelikanudo.

Well if you're going to discard your hand before you Have to play Orims or duress and make sure your opp has no Fows, Stifles, etc, well this issue makes us to have quite a lot dependency of Orims which I dislike
you' re axiom is that I HAVE to play Orims before pop LED and what happens if Orims is countered, then you'll have to wait to another chant ?
Duress/Chant before you ditch your hand, obv. This can be done t1-t3/t2-3 respectively with just one mana, while LED then provides one mana more than any other card.
What to do when Chant is countered? I'd expect a second counter or a bluff (or Chant). A second counter (or Chant) against a single Pact loses you the game, while the Chant player can wait a bit more or decide to call a bluff.
Stifle is not much of an issue since it can be dealt with post-AdN.
I personally don't play Chants.

As I said we have a 0.9 mana average curve, if we use Brainstorm or ponder our mana curve is decreased therefore I can say we really don't mind which cards we are going to draw after A.N is casted because next we win 100% , you can test it and probe it.
The average curve is nothing to be neglected, but no one wins the exact same amount in the lottery. There will be variance, and with that comes luck, good and bad. It's basic statistics. It's not literally 100%. //edit: I do think that your chances of fizzling are lower than in the LED version. I just don't think it's worth playing several cards that do very little before that and thus make it less likely to be in a position to fizzle in the first place.

with LED we DO NOT intend to cast A.N ritgh therefore is the same effect like Mox diamond which is by far the card I wanna se after A.N is casted.
Mox diamond , nothing is a card I dont want to see in my opening hand we will cast A.N with D.Rituals, Cabal r. , Chrome moxen and lotus petal, sometimes we will use the mystical-> Rituals,
We. Do. Intend. To. Cast. AdN. With. LED.
I also fail to see how a card with a drawback that synergizes heavily with eight spells and somewhat with a few more, produces three mana as a one-shot effect, and can be played early regardless of your hand even remotely compares to a card that produces mana permanently but only gives one at a time and might as well be a land in your opening hand at least half the time, probably more.
LED is also a card that can be used relatively consistently pre-AdN as well as post-AdN.

vs burn is not a problem because when you cast A.N you'll see Pact and it goes directly to your hand which means you can use it to stop burn, versus other kind of Combo decks I recognize Orims is better but... Mirror is the only match up I really havent tested, well this match up is more like a wild west confrontation and the first who start to make the combo will be the first who will win
Burn will deal most damage before you get to cast AdN, way before Pact will be useful. It's a fringe deck but many other decks can pull Bolt t1, Bolt Bolt t2 based on luck and the amount of burn they're packing.
Relying on going first in the combo matchup is a tad too simple, though. Relevant disruption can only help.

I dont mind Agros, burn, Sligh decks we race those decks by far ( pact is also important here , they are the ace up my sleeve
Pact does squat against aggro and burn until you're ready to go off. Most of the damage will have been done by then.
Burn can and often will go Bolt Bolt Bolt in the first two turns. Maybe not always, but being a t2-3 deck with quite a few potential dead draws, you will also not always be able to race using a card that depends on your life total. Hell, Domain Zoo can have you at 5-10 life by t3 if going first. Some aggro decks also maindeck or sideboard random Teegs, Mages, and now possibly Canonist which will slow you down.
Also, IGG serves as a solid disruption spell against decks relying on permanent hate if cast early (Stax, DStompy, Goblins, etc) and recurs Tendrils if you had to discard it to black disruption.
For a singleton, it sure pulls its weight.

But you're right, I should try it. Gonna do it now. See ya.

sunshine

10-10-2008, 09:04 AM

I really don't think you want to be cutting IGG from the deck without adding a non AdN path to victory. Doing so will make your burn/aggro matchups awkward to say the least, especially if that aggro is paired with discard and you can't reliably go off in the first three turns of the game.

Also @Pelikanudo, how do those specific examples of 1st and 2nd turn wins not require the LED mana making no other assumtions (I say this with no hostility, I'm genuinly curious)?

undone

10-10-2008, 09:59 AM

The reason you can go off on turn 2 is something like this.

You, fetch land, LED, pedal go.

Them dark rit, duress in responce tutor/brainstorm put AdN on top.

Notice it cost you 4 cards, a land, a 1st mana an LED, and 1 of 8-12 spells.

Seriously Debateing LED is bad because you have to discard you hand is like saying "All in" is a bad idea. Its a risk you need to learn to take in storm.

Pact is god awful, with the LED version I recovered like 3 times before resolving an AdN even though I used an LED. Strictly because this deck needs 1 freeking card to get there. After it resolves the game WILL end, because either 1 you will be suicidal, or 2 you will tendrils for X where X> thier life total.

Hanni

10-10-2008, 03:25 PM

Roelke

10-11-2008, 05:02 AM

I played an b/u/w version of ANT a week ago with a slightly different manabase:

4 polluted delta's
3 flooded strand
3 underground sea
3 tundra
1 island

I also played a wipe away instead of the rushing river and some other cards in the sideboard.

Anyway, I just went 0-2 drop;

round 1: I got paired against U/w dreadstill with meddling mages; game 1 I get to resolve a chant turn 3 and win. Game two he gets counterbalance + top + mage chanting tendrill. Game three I don't draw a white mana source to get rid of his meddling mage (chanting Ad Naseam).

Round 2: I got paired vs eva green. He hits me with thoughtseize and hymm game 1 and I can't recover in time. Game 2 I kill him on turn 1 or 2.

Game 3 is weird; I am holding another turn 1 kill (led, led, dark ritual, chrome mox, cabal ritual and infernal tutor) while my opponent mulligans to 4 and keeps a non-land hand. Still I manage to lose this game. My opponent starts the game with a leyline in play; while my draw is the single tendrills; I need to draw either a bounce spell or a brainstorm. My opponent draws a land and thougthseizes me taking the tendrills. Now I actually cant win anymore.

Because I lost twice due to not being able to resolve a tendrills I was really frustraded, so i just dropped and played the release-party sideevent.

I actually lost two games because I could not cast a tendrills. I am actually thinking to add another kill condition. since splashing red doesn't really work with a fetchlands manabase I guess brainfreeze is the next best thing. Usually getting a storm count of 16-17 isn't that hard. I am even considering playing a cunning wish maindeck; it can get most answers in the board. I might even play 2 wishes instead of an ad naseam and another card. Al list might look like:

4 polluted delta's
3 flooded strand
3 underground sea
3 tundra
1 island

4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [R] Dark Ritual
3 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [6E] Mystical Tutor
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
2 [SA] Ad Nauseam
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [7E] Duress
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
1 [TS] Wipe Away
2 [JU] Cunning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SA] Ad naseam
SB: 1 [GP] Repeal
SB: 1 [TS] Wipe Away
SB: 4 [6E] Serenity
SB: 1 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 hurkyll's recall/rebuild
SB: 1 [SC] Brainfreeze
SB: 1 [FUT] Pact of negation

Some early testing reveals that the deck is slightly slower; though it gets a bit more consitent and cunning wish into ad naseam isn't really that bad.

Hanni

10-11-2008, 08:43 AM

That just sounds like bad beats, Roelke. Having Tendrils in hand, the opponent starting with a Leyline, and hitting you with a Thoughtseize is something that would probably happen about 1/10000 games, honestly.

Dreadstill is the worst matchup for this deck.

I actually win through heavy discard very often, and have found that B/x decks like Eva Green are not difficult matchups.

The only times I really lose against B/x decks like Eva Green are turn 1 Hypnotic Specters followed by additional discard (if I cannot go off turn 1-2), because the continual discard causes the deck to be unable to recover. This is fixed in games 2 and 3, where StP comes in.

In my testing, Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor are both really strong against discard strategies. I'm usually happy when I see turn 1 Swamp, because it means I probably won't see Force of Will or Chalice of the Void.

Other than that, sorry to hear about your 0-2 drop with the deck. H

Brain Freeze is a really bad option. If you want additional win conditions, I would recommend trying to splash red in either the fecthland manabase (4c), or by adding some Gemstone Mine/City of Brass (5c). Or you could simply run a second Tendrils, although I've had little to no issues with 1 IGG and 1 Tendrils, myself.

Roelke

10-11-2008, 09:33 AM

I guess it's a weird way to lose (and I guess chances it will happen again are marginal). But I think having a second way to win isn't that bad.

I don't really like empty the warrens (not when combined with AN). Though I will test a few games with a rainbow-land manabase.

undone

10-11-2008, 10:17 AM

What does every one think of this list, i know for a fact there are 2 more ad nauseam decks, a lands deck, a dragon stompy deck, some landstill, and thresh in my metagame.

4 Underground sea
1 Tundra
2 Island
7 UX fetches

4 Dark ritual
4 Cabal ritual
4 LED
4 Lotus pedal
3 Chrome mox

3 Ad nauseam
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

4 Duress
1 Orims chant
1 Rushing river

4 Mystical tutor
4 IT
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

SB
4 EE
3 Hurkles recall
4 Cabal therapy
3 Orims chant
1 Tundra

Critque I have our monday night legacy torny I would like to prepair for what could be altered?

Noman Peopled

10-11-2008, 11:39 AM

While I'm not the most qualified person, I guess I'm one of the few awake :p

-> I would definitely pack a Swamp against DStompy. While Island allows for blue Blasts, a Swamp can allow you to go right through and your options vs a resolved Moon effect are slim already.

-> Is one maindeck Chant really worth the splash? Chant seems really strong in the mirror, I'd probably up it. Vs Dstompy it at least allows you to time walk them for a turn (quite good, considering they're gonna try for lock pieces) or "counter" a Seething Song. I wouldn't be comfortable against Thresh and Landstill without 7+ pieces of disruption either, but that depends on the exact builds.

-> I finally got my cards for the deck yesterday and thus goldfished it physically - I always get different results than on Apprentice. Chrome Mox sometimes sucked pre-AdN but I whiffed a number of times because I couldn't find one post-AdN. And it's gold with IT, IGG and AdN, which are often dead cards (IGG if you want to AdN, AdN if you have IT/LED or another AdN or want to IGG, IT if you have multiples or AdN in hand, etc). It also makes the Mystical/Bstorm tutoring way more likely post-AdN.
It also allows you to go Bstorm/shuffle t1 and provides permanent mana which works swell against Chalice/3sphere if you can get them down first.
I would strongly consider playing 4 or find another way to produce mana post-AdN without mana floating, which is an issue if you want to go off as early as possible in the mirror or to race 3sphere/Chalice/Moon.

-> 43Land shouldn't be much of a problem, but I'm not too familar with the deck. If it can race, Tundra and Chants could be boarded in as fog effects, but I doubt it will be necessary.

-> Hurkyl's Recall is kinda meh. Works against Dstompy but not much else. Considering you have 4 Mysticals anyway, you could diversify a bit more, in any case. Recall doesn't hit Chalice @ 2 and costs just as much as Wipe Away/Rushing River under 3sphere, which are also less likely to fall prey to CounterTop.
-> Therapy and Chant are there for different matchups, I suppose? You can't realistically fit them all in unless you side Ponder out, which in your metagame seems like an advisable maindeck choice to me.
-> Do you see critters like Teeg/Mage often? If so, a singleton removal may be a good idea. Deathmark and Slaughter Pact seem to be strong options. Slaughter Pact also works on Magus of the Moon regardless of mana and can serve as pretty generic removal in a pinch.

Hanni

10-11-2008, 12:09 PM

I'm just throwing this out there. I haven't done any testing against actual opponent's, but I've been goldfishing it all morning. Before I give the decklist, let me give some background information.

This all started while I was thinking about 4eak's ideas about a speedy version. I never really agreed that Pact + ESG was the way to go with accelerants (and I think Ponder is horrible in a speedy approach), but I did agree that making the deck goldfish turn 1-2 consistently is a strong approach. If you disagree, go look at Top 8's and you'll notice that R/g Belcher has the most Top 8's out of any other combo deck in Legacy (aside from maybe Solidarity back in 2006).

What I have been trying to look at closely is how much faster the deck can be made by going a speed route, since the deck is sacrificing very important protection spells to do so. My B/u/w version can goldfish turn 1 unprotected fairly often, turn 2 unprotected consistently, turn 2 protected fairly often, and turn 3 protected very consistently. If a speed version doesn't increase the goldfish by a significant amount (at least a full turn faster), I'd say it's not worth it.

Before I go any further, I'd like to state that I still believe my B/u/w version to be the strongest version of ANT, currently.

However, this is what I have been goldfishing all morning, with very consistent turn 1 goldfishes, and almost never goldfishes slower than turn 2:

5c ANTS
The "S" stands for Speed

// Lands (14)
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
3 [A] Underground Sea
3 [A] Badlands

// Spells (46)
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [BD] Dark Ritual
2 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [PS] Rushing River

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [LG] Chain Lightning
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 2 [ARE] Duress
SB: 4 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [GP] Repeal
SB: 1 [TSP] Krosan Grip

The sideboard obviously needs work.

Aside from that, I increased the number of 5cc spells by 1, the number of 4cc spells by 1, and increased the number of 2cc spells by 2. Even though there is a slight increase in cc, the deck actually fizzles less often after resolving AN because of the increased amount of accelerants (by 2) and tutors (by 4), therefore requiring the deck to draw less cards with AN.

The deck also has multiple alternate ways to win, which has been really good in goldfishing.

Again, the benefit of this version is that it has a greater chance for turn 1 and turn 2 wins. Postboard, the deck can transform into protected ANT, and Burning Wish can still grab Duress (both preboard and postboard).

The deck is very similar to Belcher in speed, except it consistently wins with lethal Tendrils on turns 1-2 instead of EtW. Tendrils is much more resilient than EtW and Belcher, IMO. So basically, it would seem as though this version of ANT is better than R/g Belcher. Again, I have only been goldfishing this and I have not actually tested against an actual opponent, so I may be wrong about my previous statement.

Interesting stuff, to say the least.

undone

10-11-2008, 12:23 PM

> Hurkyl's Recall is kinda meh. Works against Dstompy but not much else. Considering you have 4 Mysticals anyway, you could diversify a bit more, in any case. Recall doesn't hit Chalice @ 2 and costs just as much as Wipe Away/Rushing River under 3sphere, which are also less likely to fall prey to CounterTop.

1 Is a rebuild now.

-> I would definitely pack a Swamp against DStompy. While Island allows for blue Blasts, a Swamp can allow you to go right through and your options vs a resolved Moon effect are slim already.

Island gets you out from under a moon, I would add a chrome mox before a swamp.

-> Is one maindeck Chant really worth the splash? Chant seems really strong in the mirror, I'd probably up it. Vs Dstompy it at least allows you to time walk them for a turn (quite good, considering they're gonna try for lock pieces) or "counter" a Seething Song. I wouldn't be comfortable against Thresh and Landstill without 7+ pieces of disruption either, but that depends on the exact builds.

I really want more chants but im not sure I can cut ponder.

-> Therapy and Chant are there for different matchups, I suppose? You can't realistically fit them all in unless you side Ponder out, which in your metagame seems like an advisable maindeck choice to me.

Chants are so god damn good. I loath to not play them but ponder is also just THAT good.

What would be the card to cut in the main for a chrome mox?

Illissius

10-11-2008, 01:45 PM

Noman Peopled

10-11-2008, 02:55 PM

Island gets you out from under a moon, I would add a chrome mox before a swamp.
True, but with a Swamp you wouldn't necessarily need an answer in the first place. DStompy tends to thrive on the tempo swing provided by Chalice/3sphere/Moon rather than a lock. With the fatties they play, you having to Mystical for a relatively expensive answer first is exactly what they want.
If it's only one deck with Moons, though, Moxen should be enough. Basics suck in any matchup where nonbasic hate isn't a concern.

Chants are so god damn good. I loath to not play them but ponder is also just THAT good.
Both true, but they also play very different roles. In your case, I'd definitely opt for Chants main. Ponder makes the deck more consistent (duh); Chant, however mitigates consistency issues by allowing to go off safer and doubling as proactive disruption before you can go off. Useful against combo in particular.
On the other hand, Ponder does make Moxen better, which is an issue post-AdN sometimes. And more so even before with a Moon on the table, I imagine ...

What would be the card to cut in the main for a chrome mox?
Well, I'm running your list without the white (due to card shortage) and -4 Ponder, -1 Chant, +1 Mox, +4 Therapies (I hate to do this but no Chants, no Scrublands ...). I won't really know how well the Therapies work out until wednesday, unfortunately.
The only real wiggle room you have is IT, Ponder, and land. IT is very good but occasionally clutters up your hand in multiples or if you have your AdN already. Ponder is essentially there to complement Bstorm; cutting one for Mox isn't going to make much difference. And cutting land is obviously always problematic since most often some of it gets replaced because "I didn't know what else to cut". It can be done if Wasteland, Stifle, and such are completely absent but I wouldn't count on it, especially since permanent mana is important against control.
// edit: and AdN, I suppose, but multiple AdNs are important against counters.

Hanni

10-11-2008, 07:46 PM

Hanni: Wouldn't you want an IGG and a Diminishing Returns in the board if you run Wish? Less than four Cabal Rituals in an Ad Nauseum deck also seems odd, but I'm far from a Storm expert so that's possibly correct.

It was just a rough draft. IGG in the sideboard seems pretty bad, since Burning Wish gets RFG'd (and thusly you cannot reloop). I might be wrong though. As far as DR goes, I'm not sure. Like I said in the post, I'm sure the sideboard needs completely reworked.

I haven't had a problem with -2 Cabal Ritual +4 Rite of Flame, though. That 5c decklist also has 2 more black producing lands as opposed to the B/u/w version.

4eak

10-12-2008, 12:33 AM

@ Hanni

I think Ponder is horrible in a speedy approach

Please tell me why. I'm not saying I like the card either, but if it belonged anywhere it would be the speedy approach.

5c ANTS
The "S" stands for Speed

// Lands (14)
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
3 [A] Underground Sea
3 [A] Badlands

// Spells (46)
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [BD] Dark Ritual
2 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [PS] Rushing River

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [LG] Chain Lightning
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 2 [ARE] Duress
SB: 4 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [GP] Repeal
SB: 1 [TSP] Krosan Grip

1.) I agree with the mostly 5c mana-base for 4-color versions.

2.) It looks like you've replaced Ponder with BW (and altered the mana-base to play it). I think BW is not at its best in this deck though, and I'm not sure it belongs. I completely recognize that it can find ToA/EtW, but grabbing your storm outlet has rarely been the problem in my testing of ANTS. BW is really the flexible card in a protected deck, and I don't find it adds that much to ANTS. BW doesn't find mana-sources, which is a real problem if you are interested in winning 1st and 2nd turn almost guarenteed.

As much as I dislike Ponder, it stacks your deck and gets you mana, and because of the redundancy of Mystical/IT/AdN, you actually have a fair chance to see those too. Additionally, being blue will come up over and over.

My testing has shown BW to be the wrong card for ANTS, and I ran an almost exact list, with the difference being I ran a strictly B/U/r mana-base (which after looking at yours, I prefer 5c because it has room for Chants/Grip/Breach). I'd atleast try a single Right of Flame and IT in the sideboard if you run BW main. At least you could grab a mana-source and do IT tricks that would have been accomplished if you had Ponder in many cases.

Casting AdN is the only goal; after that, you should win with a very low CC curve. Fizzling because you can't find a copy of ToA is extremely rare, rare to the point that BWing for ToA isn't necessary. You will win with or without BW, the only delay to winning is how fast you can cast AdN.

3.) I just don't like EtW in the main. If I can tutor for that card in the main, then I can tutor for AdN or Tendrils. EtW fills a niche, but need is mostly filled by just having a copy in the side.

4.) After testing the list, my main issue is this: This version is not faster. It definitely has more options though. Unfortunately, to maximize T1 and T2 wins you'll be sacrificing most all protection and a good deal of flexibility to improve the color-smoothing and size of your mana-base. BW adds a good measure of defense and flexibility that I really enjoy, but I'm not convinced that it belongs in ANTS where we are usually making sacrifices for nothing but speed.

It was just a rough draft. IGG in the sideboard seems pretty bad, since Burning Wish gets RFG'd (and thusly you cannot reloop). I might be wrong though. As far as DR goes, I'm not sure. Like I said in the post, I'm sure the sideboard needs completely reworked.

If you run BW, then IGG should be in your board. BW and IGG are both the most flexible cards in the deck, and you probably shouldn't be running the former without the latter. I think IGG gets the most use in slower versions of the deck where the aggro match is a bit more dangerous, but I'd still have it sided in ANTS with BW.

I haven't had a problem with -2 Cabal Ritual +4 Rite of Flame, though. That 5c decklist also has 2 more black producing lands as opposed to the B/u/w version.

I play the same configuration when I play BW. Here are my thoughts: CRit 95% of the time is just +1 mana. Rite of Flame has higher odds to be more than than +1. The mana-smoothing is a real factor for this deck though, which I realize is mitigated by your land-base, but we can't afford to not be able to cast our most important spells which all have BB in their cost (which is something that comes up in a deck looking to win on T1/T2 every game).

Additionally, in 3-color mains, Chrome mox gets worse and so does Mystical/Brainstorm as you are sometimes put into modular situations where you can only choose to imprint and/or cast Red or Blue at the exclusion of the other.

With a 5c mana-base, is it really necessary to play Rite of Flame? If you had the Red to play RoF, then you had the Red to play BW. The exception would be adding EtW to the mix, but I don't like the card when I'm at 5 life.

peace,
4eak

Bryant Cook

10-12-2008, 01:22 AM

This deck is starting to look familiar...

Jak

10-12-2008, 01:34 AM

This deck is starting to look familiar...

Hanni has actually started testing the deck... TES thread, heeeeeerrrrreeeee's HANNI!

Seriously, how does this deck abuse AN anymore than TES? This deck is TES, except you are running slow stuff like Mystical Tutor in your "Speed" version. Can you tell me, Hanni, how is this better than TES?

undone

10-12-2008, 01:44 AM

ANT doesnt matter what shell it is, the card is so good you can follow a shell.

20 acceleration
12-14 land
4 disruption

4-8 bombs
8 tutors

The rest doesnt matter.

Bryant Cook

10-12-2008, 01:47 AM

ANT doesnt matter what shell it is, the card is so good you can follow a shell.

20 acceleration
12-14 land
4 disruption

4-8 bombs
8 tutors

The rest doesnt matter.

ANT is a deck name. Ad Nauseum is a card. It also seems like you've just described every combo deck in existence. Could you please reiterate?

Jak

10-12-2008, 02:07 AM

ANT doesnt matter what shell it is, the card is so good you can follow a shell.

20 acceleration
12-14 land
4 disruption

4-8 bombs
8 tutors

The rest doesnt matter.

No. The deck Hanni posted is TES, except worse because it runs no protection at all. Cool, Hanni, you made the deck lose to blue harder! Everytime Hanni posts something it is either speculation or he is telling us he was wrong because he was high :rolleyes:

Going off turn one more often is nice, but Force of Will is still a turn 0 counter and when you are on the draw, they get access to Daze, Spell Snare, Hydroblast, Stifle, and Orim's Chant. You need disruption/protection. Cut the Mystical Tutors and run Duress and Orim's Chant.

Whit3 Ghost

10-12-2008, 02:16 AM

You cannot justify running combo in the modern metagame without any protection spells, plain and simple. TES doesn't need to run awful(in TES) cards like Mystical Tutor and Rushing River. Hell, ETW probably isn't needed either. Giving game one to Force of Will is unacceptible. This list is strictly inferior to Bryant's new TES list, straight up.

Hanni

10-12-2008, 04:17 AM

Hanni has actually started testing the deck... TES thread, heeeeeerrrrreeeee's HANNI!

If you've followed my logic at all, you'll understand that I'm not going after what TES does, I'm going after what Belcher does. If it's that close to TES, so what? If you haven't been reading the thread, then I'll explain what I've been doing: I keep tossing out multiple ways to build and play the deck for those that want to try different approaches. I've went so far as to toss out a Counterbalance build.

Do I think a 5c speed approach is best? No. Do I think the list I just posted is better than B/u/w? No. What I was doing was giving suggestions to other readers about other approaches that are possible. Honestly, my 5c approach was different enough from TES to warrant a new thread under different circumstances. Why didn't I post it in TES? Because THIS is the Ad Nauseam Tendrils thread.

Mystical Tutor is probably the best card in the deck. Mr. Cook has said that the card is extremely horrible hundreds of times, which in itself makes this deck completely different than TES in any form.

I continue to advocate B/u/w ANT as the strongest variant for obvious reasons. Wut up, wuts happenin, all you hata's, can get at me.

EDIT: Honestly, many people on The Source hate me, for whatever reason. I hate many of them back, for whatever reason. Aside from those, if people don't like my contributions, that's fine. I'm unable to play in large tournaments anymore, so all I can contribute is playtesting results with decklists. I need to quit M:tg anyway because it is a bad addiction regardless. Anyways, I'm getting off subject. This will be my last response to the community.

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [A] Underground Sea
1 [R] Scrubland
1 [R] Tundra
1 [ON] Swamp (4)
1 [P3] Island (3)

// Spells
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [R] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [6E] Mystical Tutor
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
3 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [7E] Duress
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
1 [PS] Rushing River

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [A] Plains (1)
SB: 4 [GP] Repeal
SB: 4 [6E] Serenity
SB: 1 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt

That's what I play, that's what I think is THE BEST FUCKING COMBO DECK IN THE FORMAT, game over. Good bye.

badjuju

10-12-2008, 07:39 AM

quote hanni

In Hanni's defense -

Umm. I don't know what everyone's problem is, but if you've actually goldfished WITH Ad Nauseum + Mystical Tutor, you'll find that it's actually really fcking good. Hanni here has done us a great service and I can't believe you guys are driving him out. Hanni also said that he was just throwing ideas out there. He never said: "HEY DUDE RUN THIS LIST IT'S THE BEST LAWL". He's trying to open new avenues for the deck to go in and all you do is come in here and bash him. This is what Hanni gets for posting speculation lists - slanderous, ignorant, captain-obvious comments. Way to go.

Please don't just come in here, look at someone's latest post, and assume that it's the most optimized recent build, or even the build that Hanni was advocating. In fact, Hanni has discussed at least 6 variants of the deck already, and constantly states that he believes BUw is indeed the correct color combination with the proper amount of protection and options. But he doesn't just stop there - he constantly tries to find the ultimate, most optimal build for Ad Nauseum.

Thanks for all of your work Hanni, and I really hope you'll reconsider coming back to help us develop the deck further. The amount of ignorant hate you're receiving is truly ridiculous.

On another note, the list that got 1st place the other day...I can see why he would want to run Merchant Scroll. It dodges Chalice @ 1 for an easier time to find your bounce spells. I think there should be consideration for the card in B/U and B/U/w lists.

Boogy_Boy

10-12-2008, 07:48 AM

Hanni has actually started testing the deck... TES thread, heeeeeerrrrreeeee's HANNI!

Seriously, how does this deck abuse AN anymore than TES? This deck is TES, except you are running slow stuff like Mystical Tutor in your "Speed" version. Can you tell me, Hanni, how is this better than TES?

TES. Casts AdN.

Flip
Oops, Cruel Bargain. Drop 3 life.
Flip
Oops, Manamorphse. Drop 2 life.
Flip
Oops, SSG. Drop 3 life.

ANT doesn't have any of those. Neither are they really needed. ANT's curve's lower. How many cards do you draw with AdN in TES?

badjuju

10-12-2008, 07:52 AM

TES. Casts AdN.

Flip
Oops, Cruel Bargain. Drop 3 life.
Flip
Oops, Manamorphse. Drop 2 life.
Flip
Oops, SSG. Drop 3 life.

ANT doesn't have any of those. Neither are they really needed. ANT's curve's lower. How many cards do you draw with AdN in TES?

In defense of TES -

TES with AdN dropped Cruel Bargain.
TES with AdN does not run Manamorphose.
TES with AdN only runs 2 SSG.

I draw on average 10+ cards with AdN in TES. How many do you draw? Oh wait you haven't playtested it and are making an ignorant post. Thanks for nothing.

EDIT -

Another thing I'd like to point out: the lower CC of ANT is relevant but not the deciding difference between TES and ANT. The main deciding difference is ANT's use of Mystical Tutor for consistency and options, and TES's use of Burning Wish and Rite of Flame for more ways to win/find answers.

Boogy_Boy

10-12-2008, 08:06 AM

In defense of TES -

TES with AdN dropped Cruel Bargain.
TES with AdN does not run Manamorphose.
TES with AdN only runs 2 SSG.

I draw on average 10+ cards with AdN in TES. How many do you draw? Oh wait you haven't playtested it and are making an ignorant post. Thanks for nothing.

Oh. you mean those U/B list with 3x AdN that dropped red/burning wish/cruel bargain/diminishing return?

Sorry I'm not up to date with the latest ANT wannabe TES.

Oh, btw, ANT runs 0 SSG. Because they are not needed. Neither are rites of flame, or any additional mana other than the standard combination of petal/ritual/mox/LED.

Lastly, a dozen-ish card is more than plenty to win, but why don't you post a link to your TES list where you draw 10+ cards? I'm interested to see a TES list with an average mana cost of 1.5.

Or do you keep flipping when you have 5 life left? lol.

ParkerLewis

10-12-2008, 08:07 AM

In defense of TES -

TES with AdN dropped Cruel Bargain.
TES with AdN does not run Manamorphose.
TES with AdN only runs 2 SSG.

Actually, TES had dropped Draw 4s even before Ad Nauseam.

Other than that, you're right on the spot. The first two statements you answered to were plain wrong. The third didn't apply.

Oh. you mean those U/B list with 3x AdN that dropped red/burning wish/cruel bargain/diminishing return?

Sorry I'm not up to date with the latest ANT wannabe TES.

Oh, btw, ANT runs 0 SSG. Because they are not needed. Neither are rites of flame, or any additional mana other than the standard combination of petal/ritual/mox/LED.

Lastly, a dozen-ish card is more than plenty to win, but why don't you post a link to your TES list where you draw 10+ cards? I'm interested to see a TES list with an average mana cost of 1.5.

Or do you keep flipping when you have 5 life left? lol.

Now, aren't you a cute fanboy.

Seriously, I don't get such reactions. The card has been known for what, less than a month ? You can't expect any list to be optimal at this point. So stop treating ANT like your pet deck.

badjuju

10-12-2008, 08:12 AM

Oh. you mean those U/B list with 3x AdN that dropped red/burning wish/cruel bargain/diminishing return?

Sorry I'm not up to date with the latest ANT wannabe TES.

Oh, btw, ANT runs 0 SSG. Because they are not needed. Neither are rites of flame, or any additional mana other than the standard combination of petal/ritual/mox/LED.

Lastly, a dozen-ish card is more than plenty to win, but why don't you post a link to your TES list where you draw 10+ cards? I'm interested to see a TES list with an average mana cost of 1.5.

Or do you keep flipping when you have 5 life left? lol.

I'm using Hanni's most up-to-date list (I just was talking to him over AIM like 2 days ago) and Bryant Cook's latest TES list, so I don't know where you've been. If you want to find that, you can just go to the big ass TES thread over in the Established Deck Forums to find it. The average CC is indeed 1.55, and I still consistently draw over 10+ cards (that's being pessimistic, I draw 10-15 cards MUCH more than I draw under 10 cards).

And no, I don't flip with 5 life left unless I have fulfilled the criteria of: absolutely needing something that I don't have, will die next turn, and have calculated that the odds of flipping IGG, Tendrils, SSG, and another AdN low. Sometimes you have to take the risk; just make sure it's a calculated one.

Boogy_Boy

10-12-2008, 08:34 AM

Now, aren't you a cute fanboy.
Seriously, I don't get such reactions. The card has been known for what, less than a month ? You can't expect any list to be optimal at this point. So stop treating ANT like your pet deck.

Ya. I'm cute unlike some not so cute fanboy who can't refute other than a random statement.

Oh and yes ANT IS my pet deck. What's your problem? ANT drops red for more MD protection. I like ANT > TES. Did I hurt your feeling/ego/epeen?

You should quote me on my fanboy-ish bash on TES. You can't find any? Here. I'll write it out here.

TES SUCKS AND ANT IZ BETTER.

Happy?

I'm using Hanni's most up-to-date list (I just was talking to him over AIM like 2 days ago) and Bryant Cook's latest TES list, so I don't know where you've been. If you want to find that, you can just go to the big ass TES thread over in the Established Deck Forums to find it. The average CC is indeed 1.55, and I still consistently draw over 10+ cards (that's being pessimistic, I draw 10-15 cards MUCH more than I draw under 10 cards).

Ok. Fine. I missed Bryant's latest TES list in that -BIG ASS- TES thread with no update on the OP.

The main deciding difference is ANT's use of Mystical Tutor for consistency and options, and TES's use of Burning Wish and Rite of Flame for more ways to win/find answers.

That's got nothing to do with what i'm saying.

ANT use AdN better with a lower curve. You agree. I agree. What's the problem?

TES splash for red, it's curve is higher. Ok. I'm enlightened.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=284053&postcount=282
RTFPost.

Seriously.

badjuju

10-12-2008, 08:48 AM

Ok. Fine. I missed Bryant's latest TES list in that -BIG ASS- TES thread with no update on the OP.

That's got nothing to do with what i'm saying.

ANT use AdN better with a lower curve. You agree. I agree. What's the problem?

TES splash for red, it's curve is higher. Ok. I'm enlightened.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=284053&postcount=282
RTFPost.

Seriously.

Your childish and pretty much unconstructive remarks are exactly what I was referring to in my post about the excessive bashing on Hanni. People come in here with weak knowledge and weak arguments backed by zero playtesting and start fires instead of trying to improve an archetype. Your bashings on TES do nothing to improve ANT.

-ANT doesn't carry "more" maindeck protection, it just has a way to tutor for it with Mystical. In a slower way, TES has "more" maindeck answers via Burning Wish. The argument goes both ways.

-The remark about the TES thread is pretty ignorant as well. If you're going to argue decklist vs decklist, at least have some basis for it. You didn't even know what Cook's latest list was. The OP hasn't been updated in a long time, but if you keep up with the TES thread you can see the changes Cook constantly makes to improve his list. I'm not saying Cook is the end-all for TES, but he certainly has the knowledge, experience, and results to have me turn my head in his direction every time he throws a list out.

-Sure ANT's average CC is lower. Congratulations. Does that automatically make it better deck overall? No. Both lists have pros and cons, and the argument for running red is a strong one since it's is a very small price to pay for that much punch to add to the deck.

-I never EVER said ANT was a better or worse deck. EVER. I was defending TES because YOU made false claims about the list and basically discredited the whole thing based on the fact that the deck's average CC was higher. Your argument has been summed up as this: "ANT average CC is .9, TES average CC is 1.5, therefore TES is worse". Did you forget that TES doesn't even have to cast AdN to win BECAUSE it splashes red? Didn't think so.

Boogy_Boy

10-12-2008, 09:11 AM

-I never EVER said ANT was a better or worse deck. EVER. I was defending TES because YOU made false claims about the list and basically discredited the whole thing based on the fact that the deck's average CC was higher. Your argument has been summed up as this: "ANT average CC is .9, TES average CC is 1.5, therefore TES is worse". Did you forget that TES doesn't even have to cast AdN to win BECAUSE it splashes red? Didn't think so.

Oh hi, why don't you quote me on "basically discredited the whole thing based on the fact that the deck's average CC was higher"?

I said TES has a higher curve thus drawing less cards with AdN than ANT would. YOU are the one who started firing at me about this TES/ANT bash thing.

"ANT average CC is .9, TES average CC is 1.5"
^That is what I wrote. Ok. No. I was under the impression TES has higher average CC than 1.5
"therefore TES is worse"
^That is the conclusion YOU drew. Then, tried to shove into my mouth.

That's why I said.
RTFPost

kicks_422

10-12-2008, 09:25 AM

That's why I said.
RTFPost

Well, you really can't refer to that post since TES doesn't run Cruel Bargain or Manamorphose, and only 2 SSG's. Your answer to Jak's question on why this deck is better than TES in using Ad Nauseam is a bit on the shaky side.

Nihil Credo

10-12-2008, 09:37 AM

Chill or bad things will happen.

dahcmai

10-12-2008, 10:37 AM

Ok, to those who've actually thrown together something and have been playtesting it, what do you find it it's largest weaknesses? Are you having problems with Countertop styles, Discard, or fast aggro (I should hope not on that one).

Just curious on what it needs to shore up the most.

undone

10-12-2008, 10:51 AM

I have gone off with balance on board at least 4 times. Balance is a issue only with top. However MMage, Teeg, ethersworn cannonist, Runed halo, and other similar cards are proving to be difficult to handle for me even with a MD rushing river because discard eats some but rushing river is really weak at removing these.

I have become a huge fan of slowing games 2/3 because you get 4 EE if you want and they

1) decrease the curve
2) they destroy any hate
3) they eat threats to buy time (see dreadnaught/geese)

EE has become my favorite side board for this deck because it works so well overall.

Slaughter pact is a 4 of board too, its just so good.

My only real difficulty is when the above or 3sphear is in play, chalice hurts but can be gone off while its in play (unless they have 1/2/0 but just 2 chalices isnt always enough)

Boogy_Boy

10-12-2008, 12:49 PM

Runed Halo is a joke. It can be dealt with after you cast AdN if you run any sort of bounce/removal.

Also, I'm testing Daze x4. Not sure why no one brings it up, but returning a land back to hand is nothing.

Teeg/MMage/Counter-Top is only relevant 25%ish of the time anyway. (On the Draw, comboing off turn 2+). CB can be hit by duress, Rushing River hits them all anyway.

The only real problem I see is first turn Chalice and/or 3sphere (with ANT on the draw) as they block Duress out too. Your bounce/removal will most likely be countered, unless you spend another turn to cast duress (if you can actually cast it). Against FS, you are most likely toast.

jegger

10-13-2008, 06:24 AM

A my friend does first in swiss to a 90+ people tournament with the same UBw list I'm playing. But unfortunately he exit in top8 for an extirpate that shuffles AN taked with mystical.

badjuju

10-13-2008, 02:38 PM

A my friend does first in swiss to a 90+ people tournament with the same UBw list I'm playing. But unfortunately he exit in top8 for an extirpate that shuffles AN taked with mystical.

That sucks :(

Could you show us your/his list? I sifted back a few pages and didn't see it, so I'm wondering if you updated it?

jegger

10-13-2008, 06:02 PM

This is the list:

/ Lands
2 [R] Underground Sea
1 [MI] Swamp
1 [U] Scrubland
1 [A] Tundra
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [MI] Island

// Spells
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [PS] Rushing River
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [FUT] Pact of Negation
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [5E] Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 [WL] Serenity
SB: 3 [7E] Duress
SB: 1 [SC] Brain Freeze
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away

Mine is very similar: -1 Pact +1 Ponder, -1 Sea +1 Island plus some minor changes in side. Another player arrived in 10° place with a very similar list.

badjuju

10-13-2008, 06:51 PM

Noman Peopled

10-13-2008, 11:30 PM

Other things worth discussing:
-Sensei's Divining Top
-Merchant Scroll (YES, I know the consensus is that it's terrible, but it dodges Chalice @ 1 which is huge for this deck)
Assume I'm an idiot and explain to me what Scroll gets? I can see Bstorm (which kinda defeats the purpose), counters (which will be useless whenever you have to LED), and bounce (which doesn't strike me as very efficient but probably the strongest option).
It will pretty much always only search for disruption, which is great when you need some and a Chalice @ one is in play - but I don't like it whenever that's not the case.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just puzzled.

@Moxen:
Considering there's only a total of eight slots (or seven if you cut one) that produce mana post-AdN if you already dropped a land and don't have mana floating, I'd never go below four Moxen - especially since sometimes the only way to win will be producing double blue for Mystical/cantrip.
At least until a new Mox variant is printed or someone figures out how to make the deck support Diamonds without making it strictly worse in the process ...

badjuju

10-13-2008, 11:35 PM

Assume I'm an idiot and explain to me what Scroll gets? I can see Bstorm which kinda defeats the purpose, counters (which will be useless whenever you have to LED), and bounce (which doesn't strike me as very efficient but probably the strongest option).
It will pretty much always only search for disruption, which is great when you needs some and a Chalice @ one is in play - but I don't like it whenever that's not the case.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just puzzled.

You are correct, the Merchant Scroll is exclusive for searching out bounce. You can't Mystical for your one-of Rushing River when Chalice is set @ 1. No it isn't efficient, but you can't really just sit there and wait for your 1-of to show up while your opponent keeps dropping lock cards and pit dragons. Where TES has Burning Wish to fetch out Shattering Spree, this deck has the correct idea in wanting to tutor for an answer to impeding artifacts, but the thing is the most annoying artifact stops that very tutor. Thinking about it though, Cunning Wish might be a better choice overall.

EDIT: I just took a piss and realized how inefficient Cunning Wish sounds. Merchant Scrolls sucks just as much, but I still have problems against Chalice @ 1. Anyone have better ideas?

jegger

10-14-2008, 05:53 AM

Well, I play 3 Mox instead of 4 because they are useful only after we play AN. Often if I draw during the match before the combo a Mox or I shuffle back thanks to Brainstorm or I mantain it into hand without a very utility. With 4 Mox we risk to mulligan because an hand with 2 Mox is very often an automatic mulligan. How many times do you fail the combo because you have 7 acceleration instead of 8? And how many times do you swear against Mox when you topdeck it?

Against Chalice at 1 maindeck my only opportunity is to play Mystical in response to Chalice at 1 or topdeck Rushing River or to play cards at casting cost 2 or 0 like LED, Cabal, IT. I know that this can seem not enough, but I prefer to be uncovered in g1 instead of play nails like Merchant Scroll. You remember: games are 3 so then in g2/g3 against these decks I side in 3 Serenity, 1 Rebuild, 1 Hurkyl/E.truth. I think this is enough.

Pact is a personal choice, that I personally don't use.
We thought that this is useful only in a meta full of blue - not counterbalance - decks. Decks like Landstill or Landeed based only on the counter war to win against this deck.
Pact is useful to protect Orim. It is useful when we have in hand Orim and Mystical but we can't do double Orim because we haven't double white mana. It's useful when we don't want to wait to draw the white mana that we need to play Orim and we can play AN without the use of LED.
We arrived to the conclusion that more than 1 Pact isn't useful. The only one we need, we can search with Mystical.

undone

10-14-2008, 07:27 AM

For those who are terrified of chalice at 1, and such, I recommend the following SB and just taking a game 1 on the draw loss/pray for rushing

SB
4 EE
3 Hurkles recall
3 Slaughter pact
3 Orims chant
2 Therapy

You board in recalls and EEs over duress, and ponders for my build but 7 cards post board + 1 MD and 4 tutors means you are able to deal with annoying little things like chalice @1, 2 and 0, just not all at the same time.

jericohs@cottage

10-14-2008, 01:45 PM

Ok, i know i shouldn't be posting this here but it directly affects the way you can formulate a better Ad Nauseum Combo.

"Repeal is great but its not as synergistic as Chain of Vapor."

Case in Point:
Your going off with ad nauseaum. Draw 10-12 cards. Play all your moxen, mana spells, etc. What are you left with? 1 Chain of Vapor or multiples. Cast it, rinse and repeat. IF you chain the chain of vapor (targetting yourself) you can sac most of your tapped lands to return all your zero cost stuff and play it again. Effectively, creating a very potent storm engine. Simply put, you can use Chain of Vapor as a more effective storm engine than say what is acheived with LED/IGG/InfT. Chainning yourself ups the storm count and makes the whole combo easier to achieve.

That's why i have always been a supporter of the Spannish Inquisition shell for Ad Nauseam. I don't agree that Ad Nauseam deserves to be in the EPIC Storm (TPS), nor any other variant thereof. Most people will agree that ad nauseam isn't a spell that gets splashed into a deck. It's a deck that gets built around Ad Nauseam.

With that in mind let's start with something along the lines of the synergy I talked about over a month ago and that Stephen Menendian just managed to talk about this week. My tech is trying to fit this chain of vapor tech with an affinity type shell and a spannish inquisition feel, ;-) hehe

4 x chain of vapor
4 x ornithopther
4 x chrome mox
4 x phyrexian walker
4 x frogmite
4 x ad nauseum
4 x Tendrils of Agony (Don't tutor it, make sure you have it in your opening hand so that you can reliably go off turn 3-4)
4 x cabal therapy

Notice the artifact count, maybe we should play Cranial Platting? Would this just be a win more? Shit, maybe we should play this Affinity style/ad nauseum combo? Any takers on making a quick list.

-----------------
Which mana generating spells to use needs to be discussed and i think we should drop cabal ritual, keep DR, CtW

4 x culling the weak
4 x dark ritual
4 x cabal ritual

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

Can we make this affinity version style Spannish Inquisition deck work? Could we possibly fit in Cranial Platting, or even 2 copies of Myr Enforcer? Affinity could be fueled by Ad Nauseum... Has anyone thought of that.

Just a thought.

badjuju

10-14-2008, 03:08 PM

@jegger

Awesome response.

-Yes, I still have trouble finding an initial mana source post AdN. Maybe it's just been bad flips on my part. Maybe it's just because I'm used to playing AdN in TES and over there I flip more damage than I do with ANT. The difference is actually noticeable (in case anyone was wondering ANT vs TES). But I can definitely understand your argument for only running 3 moxen.

-You're probably right. Merchant Scroll is pretty slow, so I guess we're just going to have to play around Chalice @ 1 g1. Our board is pretty well-equipped for the Chalice deck matchup, so we shouldn't have to always depend on winning the first.

-I can also see your arguments for Pact. I'll try it out myself (I haven't actually used it yet in any ANT list).

@undone

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out, although I'd prefer to have Chants in the MB.

@jericohs@cottage

Thanks for the idea, but I do believe it belongs in Les Mise (IBA's SI-shell AdN combo). Also think of where you're going with the deck. Adding AdN into a deck that's full of high-casting cost artifacts can really hurt. In addition, it'd be hard to do the math to make sure you don't die off AdN. The list in its current form looks like a super-awkward affinity list with mana acceleration and Ad Nauseum + Tendrils.

undone

10-14-2008, 03:41 PM

I run one chant in the main, I kept trying lots of protection but it slowed the deck down my list is very consistent the only card I am back and forth on is rushing river vs wipe away, I believe our Blue X game is good enough and that rushing rivering a chalice and a 3sphear is better the wipe away but its metagame dependant. (also have been testing chain of vapor but I am thinking this sucks since doesnt deal with the major threat)

More then 1 chant in the main is also un needed because duress>>>>>> chant if your not

1) vs opposing combo
2) going to go off next turn anyway and they have 2+ game ending threats
3) You are using the IGG loop

3 is the most common (while 1 may be read as ad nauseam mirror till it gets banned) and you tipicaly have spent alot of setup if you did use it probably turn 3-4+ if you have to use it.

An Aside:
The biggest mistake I see players making is not knowing how to play the deck, a combo player who is actualy fairly good at storm combo (plays SI, and beltcher and stuff) was not going for the loop in the dragon stompy matchup because he couldnt chant. The biggest problem I see is that people dont know when to use both engines, Ad nauseam resolved is immune to 99.9% disruption not including death.

From testing between 6-7 MD disruption is the sweet spot (running 3-4 ponder) you get just enough to get there often enough, My disruption suit is

4 Duress
1 Orims chant
1 Rushing river

If you go back a few pages you will see my list It hasnt changed much save -1 ponder +1 chrome mox as I really like that off ad nauseam.

badjuju

10-14-2008, 04:11 PM

-That's pretty bad haha. Once anyone goldfishes the deck enough, they'll automatically see that you can boost your storm count for free by using IGG. They'll also realize that you probably don't want to IGG against U or in games 2/3 unless you chant. That'll all come with time though.

-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference

-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.

undone

10-14-2008, 05:33 PM

-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference

The question is

Is chant > Duress, if your answer is no most of the time then ponder is an auto include, If they are the same most of the time then play chant. Personaly I have only ever wanted 2 Main as white makes the deck so much slower.

-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.

I have done this too it makes adnauseam math problematic, but not a huge deal.

All In all a TPS approach to this deck is a good idea because it plays much like it.

Disrupt, Disrupt, cast Bomb X win the game if it resolves, your opponent gains 0 resourses.

Vacrix

10-14-2008, 09:00 PM

Quote:
-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference
The question is

Is chant > Duress, if your answer is no most of the time then ponder is an auto include, If they are the same most of the time then play chant. Personaly I have only ever wanted 2 Main as white makes the deck so much slower.

running chant is stupid. its always been stupid. all it does is draw a counter. discard does the same thing, or you take counter and see how many they have left. chant is going to get countered and if it doesnt, a discard spell would have done the same job. afraid of stifle? get rid of it with discard. discard also hits permanent based hate. combo loses to permanent based hate. the reason storm combo is good is that it doesn't lose to countermagic. why would you splash an entire color for a card that is obsolete in comparison to discard which is already in your colors and always much easier to cast? BreathWeapon posted a list a while back, and i think that that list is what you guys should be experimenting with. discard is hitting all the threats, cantrips are drawing into what you need to go off. hit thresh hold with maybe 2 fetch lands, 3 cantrips or m tutor, 2 discard, you have threshold, cast ad nauseum maybe with a discard spell before it if you have the mana, and winning from their is quite easy.

Quote:
-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.
I have done this too it makes adnauseam math problematic, but not a huge deal.

All In all a TPS approach to this deck is a good idea because it plays much like it.

Disrupt, Disrupt, cast Bomb X win the game if it resolves, your opponent gains 0 resourses.

how often is rushing river a better choice than wipe away (as wipe away is split second..)?

Why not splash green instead of white? you get xantid swarm if you need protection, krosan grip for permanent based hate, and even sylvan library if you are feeling adventurous. (and goyf's if you go for a man plan SB, but this deck shouldn't have problems with control)
and you get ESG in green, though it isn't very synergetic with AdN, but krosan grip is the same CC as both rushing river, hurkyl's recall, and wipe away, and sylvan library is like an overcosted SDT that can draw you extra cards for alot of life. meh maybe green is ok, but xantid swarm is tempting.

Ok, i know i shouldn't be posting this here but it directly affects the way you can formulate a better Ad Nauseum Combo.

"Repeal is great but its not as synergistic as Chain of Vapor."

Case in Point:
Your going off with ad nauseaum. Draw 10-12 cards. Play all your moxen, mana spells, etc. What are you left with? 1 Chain of Vapor or multiples. Cast it, rinse and repeat. IF you chain the chain of vapor (targetting yourself) you can sac most of your tapped lands to return all your zero cost stuff and play it again. Effectively, creating a very potent storm engine. Simply put, you can use Chain of Vapor as a more effective storm engine than say what is acheived with LED/IGG/InfT. Chainning yourself ups the storm count and makes the whole combo easier to achieve.

That's why i have always been a supporter of the Spannish Inquisition shell for Ad Nauseam. I don't agree that Ad Nauseam deserves to be in the EPIC Storm (TPS), nor any other variant thereof. Most people will agree that ad nauseam isn't a spell that gets splashed into a deck. It's a deck that gets built around Ad Nauseam.

With that in mind let's start with something along the lines of the synergy I talked about over a month ago and that Stephen Menendian just managed to talk about this week. My tech is trying to fit this chain of vapor tech with an affinity type shell and a spannish inquisition feel, ;-) hehe

4 x chain of vapor
4 x ornithopther
4 x chrome mox
4 x phyrexian walker
4 x frogmite
4 x ad nauseum
4 x Tendrils of Agony (Don't tutor it, make sure you have it in your opening hand so that you can reliably go off turn 3-4)
4 x cabal therapy

Notice the artifact count, maybe we should play Cranial Platting? Would this just be a win more? Shit, maybe we should play this Affinity style/ad nauseum combo? Any takers on making a quick list.

-----------------
Which mana generating spells to use needs to be discussed and i think we should drop cabal ritual, keep DR, CtW

4 x culling the weak
4 x dark ritual
4 x cabal ritual

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

Can we make this affinity version style Spannish Inquisition deck work? Could we possibly fit in Cranial Platting, or even 2 copies of Myr Enforcer? Affinity could be fueled by Ad Nauseum... Has anyone thought of that.

Just a thought.

this is a great idea. it might not work, but it has some potential i think.

Maybe more as a random alternate SB strat:
out 15:
in:
4 Arcbound worker
4 Cranial Plating
4 Frogmite
3 Arcbound worker

and make sure you have this in the MD:
4 Cabal therapy (instead of duress)
4 culling the weak
4 shield sphere
4 phyrexian walker
2 Sensei's Diving top
(artifact land)?
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

20 artifacts MD? enough? + 15 in the board makes 35, and ad nauseum can still go off into lots of artifacts. you can protect all the shit that comes out of AdN's ass with all the discard you will draw too and you will surely have creatures to sac to the flashbacks of multiple therapies if you can't go off with tendrils. would be interesting to see if someone could find a good list for it.
in addition, it would indeed be terrifying to see the storm count after bouncing all your artifacts with chain of vapor, or preferably hurkyl's recall.

great idea man.

Also, I'm testing Daze x4. Not sure why no one brings it up, but returning a land back to hand is nothing.

wow that would be a sick surprise. 'play counterbalance', 'daze, pay 1' 'WTF??!'

daze MD would actually be pretty good protection (testing would be needed to prove this though) because you can play, cantrip (ie. brainstorm, ponder, mystical tutor, etc.) and then your opponent casts chalice or CB, you can daze without breaking a stride.

btw if you are having problems with artifacts like chalice and trinisphere, vision charm might be nice. and you can keep your opponents off of mana sources. vision charm says, all lands of one type... does that mean basic/nonbasic, or sub types of mountain, swamp, forest, etc. probably the subtypes.. but if you have dual's that count as both like underground sea and tundra, you could use vision charm to change their lands into mountains so that they can't play anything, so it could function like Orim's Chant if i am right, and it can phase out chalice (putting it from 1 to 0 and at least gets it out of the way for when you go off) or trinisphere, or thorn of amyethest. In addition, vision charm can take the top 4 cards off of target players library. Pretty useless eh? not really. you can take the top 4 off of CB making it possibly easier to play your stuff. It also can take off the cards opponents search for with tutors like mystical tutor and enlightened tutor. Enlightened tutor + Ethersworn cannonist, or chalice might eventually become a problem. vision charm can take off that card at instant speed whether it be a chalice or even if you are up against other combo. If I'm right about all that, Vision Charm would be an excellent choice to run as an alternative to Orim's chant, an alternative to wipe away (though you can't get rid of CB with it unfortunately), and a way to get rid of your opponents tutor effects. thoughts?

badjuju

10-14-2008, 10:12 PM

@ Vacrix

I never really looked at it that way, so thanks for the insight on Chant. Chant is only especially good when going for Diminishing Returns or IGG. Chant is also good offensively for buying a turn (an example of this would be needing to cast a hellbent IT, but you have 2 lands in hand + chant). All I can say is that Chant has always been good for me in testing, so I'm not sure if I'll cut it completely, but I may just do what undone chose to do and run it as a 1-of tutorable. Adding Ponder sounds like a good idea anyways.

This leads me into the discussion about color splashes and defensive options.

-Rushing River is only better vs Chalice decks, whereas Wipe Away excels against Counterbalance. Which is better? I'm not sure. Problematic artifacts show up in pairs often enough to make me worry, but at the same time the uncounterability of Wipe Away is huge - maybe both should be run? I'm thinking something like 1x Chant 1x Wipe Away 1x Rushing River, or is that too greedy?

-Green isn't as good as white imo. Xantid Swarm isn't as good as what else white can offer, and Krosan Grip might as well be Wipe Away or Rushing River. Serenity is also a big plus one for white that green doesn't have.

-Vision Charm: cannot phase out a Chalice @ 1 because it costs 1. The top 4 cards is pretty meh. Nice trick, but not good enough imo. Changing lands is also situationally good, whereas Chant just denies them outright. All in all, bounce replaces all of these situations much more reliably and effectively.

emidln

10-14-2008, 10:38 PM

@ Vacrix

I never really looked at it that way, so thanks for the insight on Chant. Chant is only especially good when going for Diminishing Returns or IGG. Chant is also good offensively for buying a turn (an example of this would be needing to cast a hellbent IT, but you have 2 lands in hand + chant). All I can say is that Chant has always been good for me in testing, so I'm not sure if I'll cut it completely, but I may just do what undone chose to do and run it as a 1-of tutorable. Adding Ponder sounds like a good idea anyways.

This is flat out wrong.

Orim's Chant (and its functional brethren Xantid Swarm and Abeyance) operate on a completely different level than targetted discard like Duress or Orim's Chant. Here's what Orim's Chant reads:

Target player plays uses a broad hard counter or loses access to not only broad hard counters, but also Stifle, Spell Snare, deck manipulation, and burn spells.

To someone who has never actually piloted storm combo through a tournament, it might seem like I'm being too concerned with abstract hate, but the difference between Duress and Orim's Chant is the situation when you run into an opponent who plays enough to guarantee seeing multiple or is lucky enough to see multple non-hard counter threats. Duress and Chant are equivalent if your opponent never has instant-speed deck manipulation (think Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm) or just never draws two threats. Orim's Chant is far superior if you happen to run into an opponent who doesn't keep shitty hands and/or draw the absolute worst possible cards (in which case Duress might as well be Tarpan because it's just as functional in that scenario).

hi-val

10-14-2008, 10:54 PM

Whit3 Ghost

10-14-2008, 11:13 PM

Regarding Vision Charm, I've long felt the sickest way to take care of Chalices, and the one that is Merchant Scrollable, is Karn's Touch. It's okay to Gatherer it : )

Thoughts on Abeyance over Orim's Chant? You can use Abeyance to fuzz someone's Tops as well as their hand of spellz. And it draws a card...
The extra mana is costly. It's awesome as supplemental Chants, as it's slot in the sideboard of old FT lists shows. However, giving your opponent an extra turn to do stuff is usually bad, especially in a deck which needs every point of life it can get. It also can't handle Counterbalance, which is bad.

Vacrix

10-15-2008, 02:55 AM

This is flat out wrong.

Orim's Chant (and its functional brethren Xantid Swarm and Abeyance) operate on a completely different level than targetted discard like Duress or Orim's Chant. Here's what Orim's Chant reads:

Target player plays uses a hard counter or loses access to not only hard counters, but also Stifle, Spell Snare, deck manipulation, and burn spells.

To someone who has never actually piloted storm combo through a tournament, it might seem like I'm being too concerned with abstract hate, but the difference between Duress and Orim's Chant is the situation when you run into an opponent who plays enough to guarantee seeing multiple or is lucky enough to see multple non-hard counter threats. Duress and Chant are equivalent if your opponent never has instant-speed deck manipulation (think Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm) or just never draws two threats. Orim's Chant is far superior if you happen to run into an opponent who doesn't keep shitty hands and/or draw the absolute worst possible cards (in which case Duress might as well be Tarpan because it's just as functional in that scenario).

heh bro i have piloted storm combo through a tournament. And the only reason I lost to stax was because of my own play mistake that i realized later. I beat every landstill deck and thresh deck I was up against without running Chant with your build of tall men SI.

I must say i have never taken FT/TES to a tournament though, so you have me there.

Here's my hypothetical situation:
I'm playing FT/TES, trying to draw all your countermagic out with orim's chant, and mystical tutoring up chant. If your opponent counters chant, you have no idea what is lurking in his or her hand. Duress/cabal therapy scope how you can continue trying to set up if it does resolve, and cabal therapy's flashback happens to be excellent for the taking 2 threats. you can pull this off too without running 8 MD duress/therapy (though you must devote card space to tall men). Also, if i play Orim's chant, and my opponent doesn't counter with fow, daze, etc, he is probably holding stifle or extirpate (if its relevant), in which case playing a discard spell would have done the same thing! stop stifle! either you prevent them from playing it with chant, or make them discard it with the spell. say they are holding 2 and you can only get rid of one. well if you are playing with therapy not duress then you actually get a sweet deal and hit both and if you duress and they have another, you don't have to rush into things and go off. the decks packing a shit ton of countermagic and stifles and relevant crap that impedes your going off has a smaller clock anyway. maybe i'm underestimating thresh because i have never lost a match (i go 2-1 against it sometimes) but even with the more relevant clock, they have less relevant distruption. This is also my perspective as I have not played with Diminishing returns and try to avoid using IGG against control.

Also, how relevant is stifle to ANT? In this case you will always have enough MD protection to stop it. If you go off and draw like 10-13 cards you should have enough distruption in there to stop a stifle, even 2 stifle if you have therapy, burn you can just counter (though burn does make your life difficult without chant i must say).

Instant speed deck manipulation, correct me if i'm wrong but, I plan chant, you can't counter, so you obviously can't play anything if you manipulate your deck, so you won't (if you even can, ie can't play brainstorm under chant). Against a good opponent they are not going to look at orim's chant and say 'o that's fine i'll let it resolve.' they are GOING to manipulate their deck to deal with it. if they can't manipulate it, then you are good. Ok, duress, they hide their shit with brainstorm, fair enough i go off, put top on top and draw. Ok they have countermagic that they hid with top, brainstorm, and how much mana do they have left to play anything? 2 or 3 (tops)? If this goes off turn 3, the opponent will have more like 1 or 2 mana. so maybe daze, but sometimes you have enough mana to pay one. spell snare, hits what while you are try to cast AdN? cabal ritual? ok, i still have my business in hand, shouldn't be too hard to find more rituals in storm combo. you don't have to go off on that turn if you get countered anyway. rebuilding in this deck should be fairly simple too if you keep AdN cause the spell snare cabal ritual. if they are holding stifle, i have convinced myself that you will have distruption to rid them of it (or pact of negation).

Another advantage I see that comes out of discard... Permanent based hate is what kills this. Chalice, Trinisphere, Counterbalance. All the shit that people keep saying they have trouble with can't be dealt with by using orim's chant. I can play a discard spell on turn 1, take your shit and pass. I can't play orim's chant unless i'm going off (or if you want to draw a counter i guess) but you have to look like you can go off having enough mana open and enough cards in hand and such.

I personally think that the reason why storm combo has been so resilient to hate is a result of a couple things:
nobody plays stax anymore, and it was damn sweet against combo (at least in my play environment)

people still insist on using countermagic against combo, you counter, i rebuild, i am happy, you are not. the storm mechanic itself is resistent to countermagic.. i will go off eventually, its only a matter of time.

permanent based hate is just a side in. a deck, like stax, should be created to function as real control with permanent based hate (stompy does a pretty good job with MD chalices/trinisphere/etc)

if people do use countermagic, its just to delay the game until they can slap down a counter balance or chalice and grin viciously. people aren't saying, oh i have 25 countermagic. that should be enough to stop 8 orim's chants (ie search with mystical tutor), as you should draw 1 countermagic every 3/4 cards.

tarpan is an EXCELLENT replacement for duress. lol

THEchubbymuffin

10-15-2008, 03:25 AM

It should be noted that Orim's Chant is beautiful if you go for the IGGY loop.

badjuju

10-15-2008, 03:34 AM

What emidln is trying to say is that Duress only stops one threat, can be evaded via instant speed deck manipulation, and doesn't stop cards that can be accessed by instant speed deck manipulation.

What Vacrix is trying to say is that Duress allows you to see your opponent's hand if uncountered, therefore serves as a gauge to whether or not you can go off this turn. His other argument is that if they use instant speed deck manipulation, they won't have enough mana to play counters.

I think both of your points are valid, but both of you are just setting up situations where one will be better than the other. However, I'm still veering towards Orim's Chant since it does indeed remove your opponent from the game for the turn unless they hard counter it - this automatically stops everything else as well (from Stifle to burn), as emidln has mentioned. This means if your opponent has more than one non-hard counter threat when you Duress, you still won't be able to go off.

The argument for Duress stealing permanent-based hate from your opponent's hand turn 1 is only as good as being on the play. On the play, you can also Orim's Chant them on upkeep to prevent them from casting anything.

Maveric78f

10-15-2008, 05:18 AM

What Vacrix is trying to say is that Duress allows you to see your opponent's hand if uncountered, therefore serves as a gauge to whether or not you can go off this turn.
I don't understand this part. If your chant is uncountered, you don't need to see your opponent's hand, so I fail to see how seeing your opponent's hand when duress is uncountered can be more efficient (unless you fear a decree of silence cycling...).

Duress VS Chant (arguments classed in decreasing order of importance)

+++ Duress :
1/ removes discard or non-creature permanent hate if played preemptively
2/ costs B, which is important because you can cast DR, then duress, meaning that you only need 1 initial mana source
3/ can help to storm more easily, after AN, even if the storm count is rarely an issue.

+++ Chant :
1/ instant, which enables you to protect the upkeep trick (use LED mana to play the AN you've put on top library before and that you'll draw at your draw step)
2/ buys turns against aggro, or discard decks
3/ far better with IGG combo
4/ deals with the following opponent's hand FoW*2 + another blue card, and more globally, you can go off blindly against aggro control 3 cards hand. Might look very situational, but being myself a blue aggro control player, I know it hurts more than duress.

To my mind, overall, chant is more often good, so if you have to choose a 5 slots split, it would be 3chant + 2duress. However, I think that both can be 4-of in those IGG-inspired ANT decks.

For the other challengers, cabal therapy requires to play bad and useless creatures, thoughtseize hurts too much (but I've never tested it to be honnest), pact of negation is antisynergic with IT and LED, and I really don't want to abandon them, abeyance's cost is an issue, both being white and 2CC and cannot even buy turns against aggro. Xantid takes all the anticreatures of your opponent in the face, and it can be stifled and requires a splash that is worse than the W one. I may forgot some options but finally, I think that there is no competition.

My MD protection is:
4*chant
4*duress
1*wipe away/repeal (I'm still not decided if cycling effect is more important than universality)

At this point my SB is:
3 angel's grace (anti aggro)
3 slaughter pact (anti creature)
3 extirpate (not bad as a grave hate and as a hate eradication, I'm testing it in place of tormod's crypt, at least it's better because it can be tutored)
3 serenity (against stax, counterbalance and cannonist)
1/2 repeal
1/2 wipe away

Vacrix

10-15-2008, 05:34 AM

@Maveric78f

compelling argument. i agree, protecting LED trick is quite nice.

but, if chant is uncountered that means they don't have countermagic, or they would counter it. you get the same result if you play duress (ie. take the countermagic, or duress gets countered. more likely, duress gets countered so you can't see their hand). i'm saying that duress functions the same way that orim's chant does.

chant lets you do some cool tricks with IGG, Diminishing returns, and LED.
duress lets you take the permanents that you really don't want to see hit the board.
both protect your combo effectively.

btw if they stifle swarm, then just attack again next turn. swarm is pretty cool too since they won't expect it from ANT (if its not in the standard build) so they will board out removal not expecting to need it vs. ANT. swarm is quite nice too if you play discard/chant (ie. play either, draw the counter play swarm both easy to cast at 1cc). swarm does alot once its on the field too. like a chant every turn, though you lose the chant protecting LED in the upkeep trick.

and i'm not arguing that chant is a bad card. it works obviously because people run it with success. IMO, discard is a better choice. if you chant to stop 1 stifle, discard would have done the same job w/out splashing white. the only thing it doesn't do as far as protection is concerned is stop burn, but burn is very relevant against ANT. in fact how is the matchup looking ANT vs. burn? seems really bad if you cut chant actually..

Maveric78f

10-15-2008, 05:59 AM

but, if chant is uncountered that means they don't have countermagic, or they would counter it. you get the same result if you play duress (ie. take the countermagic, or duress gets countered. more likely, duress gets countered so you can't see their hand). i'm saying that duress functions the same way that orim's chant does.
Except for the 3 cards in hand argument, which happens more often that one would think... Except for FoW in general I would say.

btw if they stifle swarm, then just attack again next turn. swarm is pretty cool too since they won't expect it from ANT (if its not in the standard build) so they will board out removal not expecting to need it vs. ANT. swarm is quite nice too if you play discard/chant (ie. play either, draw the counter play swarm both easy to cast at 1cc). swarm does alot once its on the field too. like a chant every turn, though you lose the chant protecting LED in the upkeep trick.
You mean that you play Xantid MD or in SB? If you play MD, then you might expect that your opponent deals with it. If you play in SB, you might expect also that players keep their STP in hand in order to STP their own creatures in resp to a tendril you would think to be lethal but that is not finally. Also, a lot of players know that dark confidant is a nice SB option for such decks, so that they'll keep their STP.

IMO, discard is a better choice. if you chant to stop 1 stifle, discard would have done the same job w/out splashing white. the only thing it doesn't do as far as protection is concerned is stop burn, but burn is very relevant against ANT. in fact how is the matchup looking ANT vs. burn? seems really bad if you cut chant actually..
Against burn, you have angel's grace + duress after SB, which should be more than enough. Chant is pretty irrelevant to my oppinion, since your opponent will burn you in resp to your chant, it will only give you the information of how much life you can spend (and whether your opponent plays fireblast). Additionally, angel's grace solves the pyrostatic pillar issue too.

Vacrix

10-15-2008, 06:22 AM

3 cards in hand?
they would have to be Force + blue card, stifle, counterspell (daze works too i guess).
you play duress, the force/counterspell. ok, they may still have protection, i'll wait.

you play chant, force. same result

you play discard spell, eats Fow, discard spell (therapy flashback maybe if you play it), you see stifle and counterspell you wait.

you play discard spell, eats FoW, chant, eats counterspell. same problem.

you play discard, discard, discard, they eat force, counterspell and you take the stifle. go off next turn or that turn (if you can some how)

you play discard, (chant or discard), chant, counter, counter, go off.

in all these situations, either one works. also, if you are on the play, on your turn 3, when you go off they only have 2 mana for counterspell, no stifle, if daze, the deck has enough mana to play around it i think.

if your opponent has 3 threats in hand you get the same results no? show me if i'm wrong.

and lol if your opponent has 3 answers in hand, you are kinda gonna have to look for wipeaway when they eventually drop CB anyway, so the arguement is a little irrelevant. :P

nah i wouldn't run swarm MD, as mystical tutor for discard/chant is much stronger. meh if your opponent knows the deck, they won't leave StP in if the avg boarding plan isnt the man plan. although i must say that this boarding plan looks sick as all hell if you splash green:
4 tarmogoyf
4 phyrexian negator
3 Scragnoth
4 (open slot)

goyf. obvious. negator + dark rit is sick. scragnoth is fucking amazing as your opponent can't even make you discard it. ANT doesn't run red ever to my knowledge so your opponent will board out all mass removal so scragnoth will be a bitch to get rid of if your opponent even can get rid of it. might be something worth exploring. its not too difficult to cast, and the opponent will usually save the countermagic for AdN anyway and not counter the rituals. Tomb of Urami is also secret tech (not so secret anymore) against Stax, and i've used it VERY VERY effectively against thresh and landstill believe it or not. but i didn't include it in the board as you have wipeaway for trinisphere and you will probably want something else in the board anyway.

i think that green is worth exploring. as least for the man plan.

i'm pretty sure that angel grace doesn't let you draw your whole deck with AdN, but maybe i'm wrong? it would be pretty sick since angel's grace is uncounterable.

if the burn matchup is fine, then orim's chant shouldn't be sited as an answer to burn. if chant is that irrelevant it would be like saying that lotus petal stops you from losing to Hidetsugu's Second Rite. lol

and how good is confidant in ANT's board? im guessing quite good in that the cc's are low as it is. maybe that could go in a man plan board too.

btw, what are ANT's bad matchups? if you run chant MD (and mystical tutor for chant), im guessing that it has a good matchup against other storm combo. it beats aggro in general. stompy looks a little harder but workable. a man plan might not be such a bad idea. negator doesn't lose to CB as much, neither does tomb of urami, scragnoth (do they ever flip 6cc??), even tombstalker. goyf is just strong (and he will be big, fetch, dark rit, duress, lotus petal in the grave he's a 4/5..)

EDIT:
btw i think that a man plan with bitterblossum might be pretty sick now that i think about it. bitterblossum is immune to StP so it would be better than running tombstalker. maybe BB is even better than running goyf. and you can cast BB off of a dark rit and play a discard spell to protect it. BB is a bitch for control. might be worth exploring. then you wouldn't even need a green splash:
4 Bitterblossum
4 Phyrexian Negator
7 (open slots)

2nd EDIT:

i think that Angel's grace actually DOES work with AdN!! i looked it up, it says you can't lose the game this turn and the opponents can't win the game. damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead. so your lifetotal would be reduced to less than 0 if you drew your entire deck BUT YOU WOULD NOT LOSE UNTIL THE EFFECT WEARS OFF (according to the oracle text). that could be a pretty sick more like c-breakfast except dump your library into your hand instead of your grave. :DD
thoughts? it would be hard to set up, but maybe worth it. MD angel's grace isn't that bad anyhow, good against combo, aggro, and burn.

Maveric78f

10-15-2008, 06:55 AM

Angel's grace + AN is a combo that I thought we all knew. First I thought it was stupid to transform a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo, but after some testing I realised that the aggro MU was almost the worst for the deck (since I run 8 MD protection + 1 bounce). First I tried to accelerate the combo in order to race those aggro decks. Then I realised that the AG+AN combo solved my aggro problems.

Aggro SB plans are often cute but I've never been convinced by them. Because 15 threats is not enough to race most decks and because it completely ruins any other SB options. And what can you do against the most popular kills: tarmogoyf, dreadnought, crusher, terravore? And against burn? And against combo?

Ps: I also wonder what happens if for some reason you fizzle you AN after AG (say you are at -40 life) and then you take 1 damage (say from city of brass). Do you get back to 1 life? Would be the weirdest way to gain life ever.
PPs: white is definitely the best splash because of chant, AG and serenity. But I repeat myself.

rufus

10-15-2008, 10:35 AM

...
PPs: white is definitely the best splash because of chant, AG and serenity. But I repeat myself.

Children of Korlis seems like it's got decent potential for a deck like this as well.

Vacrix

10-15-2008, 11:20 AM

meh i wouldn't overlook the man plan. it can be good if you make it the right way. im sure someone will eventually test and find out how much it sucks or how amazing it is.
against popular kills?
the man plan is better because:
tarmogoyf.. comes down on turn 2. you can play your goyf on turn 1 (lotus petal, chrome mox), and you can swing with it before they drop goyf before the draw.
against burn, you have SB space to beat it. angels grace and chant should help here.
against dreadnought, you already run bounce and play chant to race them. in this case, evasive creatures are good (ie. tombstalker and bitterblossum (and negator kinda, and Avatar of Discord if you play it) because the opponent will have blockers (in this case goyf may not be such a good idea). but either way, if its game 2, they know you are playing combo, nobody expects the man plan, the stifles would be saved for storm obviously, they won't play dreadnought.

crusher, terravore? you can race those easily. they come down as 3/3's usually (maybe larger depending on the number of fetches. you should beat aggro loam anyway.

against combo, chant is the MVP because you can stop them mid way from going off. AG seem like it could be a decent side in as well. and MD duress is always helpful too.

i don't know how to structure the man plan, its just an idea.

i'm trying to not say the same shit everyone else is saying (ie. 'no run 3 chrome mox, not 4.' 'No FT is better than TES!' ' etc..)

back there jericohs@cottage had a great post. you guys are brainstorming different ways to approach ANT, he gave one. it may not have been the greatest idea ever but it got my brain thinking at least. if you just take one approach to the deck you may not necessarily get anywhere. thats why i suggested the man plan.

i will say once again, Scragnoth is really strong vs. landstill/CB decks. it might be a nice side in. they can't remove it once it comes down. if those matchups give you trouble, then solve that matchup problem with 4 SB slots.

Please use capitals where needed. They will make your posts clearer.
-PR

Maveric78f

10-15-2008, 12:15 PM

With humility or by having a bigger creature (tarmo e.g.) facing him.

As I told before, the main problem with the man plan is that it will be your single SB option (with the one of not SBing). Intuitively, I would say it's better to place dedicated game breaking cards, because they exist, particularly in white, with serenity (affinity, stax) and angel's grace (any aggro + burn). You may want to try it, but yo ucan make the surprise only once in a game, not on G2 and G3. And even more problematic, the guy you raped on round 1 will talk about it to all his mates, so that you can be sure that everybody in the tourney will know your deviance by round 3.

undone

10-15-2008, 12:43 PM

godryk

10-15-2008, 12:56 PM

Just a thought about the bouncer slot. I'm currently playing Repeal, and I'm loving it. When playing Ad Nauseam I want my cards to worth the damage they deal to me, taking 4 to a Tendrils is ok to me since we need it to win, but getting 3 from a card that I won't use in many matchups is kind of disappointing. And Repeal has also a nice interaction with Mystical Tutor, specially after playing Ad Nauseam, when IT won't work all the time.

bruno_tiete

10-15-2008, 01:23 PM

How the hell do you manage to lose to aggro with the IGG loop in the deck...

I dont thing 9 MD protection/bounce are needed 6 has worked perfectly for me. it leaves room for 3 ponder which is bombo for the turn 2 verson.

That was the post I was about to write.

Bryant Cook

10-15-2008, 01:26 PM

Vacrix

10-15-2008, 03:43 PM

I was actually thinking that IGG loop should beat aggro pretty well. Of course, you do not always have it sitting in your hand though but you should be able to AdN into it.

You see you don't necessarily have to devote so much card space to a man plan. the tradition man plan that everyone thinks of is usually like 15 cards sided in, but that is not really necessary. You can apply pressure with both parts of your combo (as long as you don't try to AdN into tombstalker as that would cause you a headache, or kill you instantly and give your opponent a head rush instead). If you resolve AdN you can play down a shit ton of stuff cause you will draw alot of it.
Here's an example of my 'man plan':
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Tomb of Urami
3 Naturalize
2 Massacre
2 Xantid Swarm

I'm not sure if this is the exact board I use but dam let me tell you, phyrexian negators have been much better for me then xantid swarm ever was. both are must counter for landstill or MUC (when you actually play against it) but negator ends the game quickly once and if it comes down. xantid swarm sits there for too long laughing because the opponent can't play countermagic but usually it gets bounced or something before i can actually go off.
I will say once again that Tomb of Urami has been excellent against Stax, Thresh and Landstill. I have used it against MUC too but the game was really weird (in that he had a counterspell for seriously everything i tried to play, mana sources, rituals and business. it was really pissing me off). Sometimes you can draw4 into a negator and play it and pass but if you can apply pressure (or at least i do pretty well) with your draw4's and your creatures, as you can just imprint negators you don't need on chrome moxen, or LED/IGG loop into a win and negator is just irrelevant. Its also a nice play and pass if you got fucked on a lack of business spells.
I don't believe that the man plan needs to have 15 cards, it can really just have 8.

I'm going to test Scragnoth btw as i think it would be amazing to drop one against landstill which can be a difficult matchup for me.

undone

10-15-2008, 03:49 PM

No offence man plan sucks, you only need it vs burn ironicaly. Its not a good idea if you fear the burn/aggro matchup board more IGG and tendrils like 2 IGG board and 1 tendrils would be a fine aggro board if you dont auto win the aggro match already (I was playing the burn matchup and it was really 1 sided ANT crushes the deck unless you flip outrageously bad)

jegger

10-15-2008, 05:05 PM

Repeal is awesome........in vintage.
Teeg and Chalice at 1 are the reason because Repeal sucks.
Same for Chain of Vapor. It sucks in legacy.

About the problem: Orim vs Duress, there are an hundred of posts in this forum on the old FT/TES threads. If you have the patience to read, you can understand why players, with a little bit of experience with FT/TES, prefer Orim maindeck.

Why is Burn a problem? It seems the worst matchup from some comments.
It's simple: the plan A become the IGG loop, for this reason I side out a copy of AN. AN in this matchup is the plan B, I play it only if I can win easily in the first 2 turns if I remain with more than 5 lifes after AN resolves.
Again, why do we fill the SB of crappy cards like Angel's Grace and Children of Korlis? Orim is not enough for aggro matchup? Someone perhaps forget that aggro usually is a easy matchup for combo, so I repeat: why do you use card like these?
Is Burn or Dreadstill the worst matchup?
The world upside down.

Man plan sucks. You improve partially a few matchups, but you haven't response in SB to all others. I try it with Stalker, Confidant, Hyppie & Negator, but I waste my time. If you want to waste your time, I don't block you.

Maveric78f

10-16-2008, 04:14 AM

How the hell do you manage to lose to aggro with the IGG loop in the deck...

The IGG setup is not as easy as the AN one (you need a lot of mana, IT and the ability to empty your hand). Moreover, it is often difficult to make a 10-storm with a single IGG. Plus with pyrostatic pillar in play, you automatically lose with the IGG loop.

I dont thing 9 MD protection/bounce are needed 6 has worked perfectly for me. it leaves room for 3 ponder which is bombo for the turn 2 verson.

I think I would consider sensei's divining top before ponder because it enables you to find tendrils with a single blue source. Moreover it's often better in a deck that can shuffle that often. Maybe, I'm not brave enough, but I really think that playing a protection is worth to lose 1 turn.

Again, why do we fill the SB of crappy cards like Angel's Grace and Children of Korlis? Orim is not enough for aggro matchup? Someone perhaps forget that aggro usually is a easy matchup for combo, so I repeat: why do you use card like these?

CoK is clearly bad, AG is far better, but you rhétoric is faulty, you say that those cards are bad, because they are crappy... As I told earlier, relying on the IGG plan is too random.

Benie Bederios

10-16-2008, 06:12 AM

The IGG setup is not as easy as the AN one (you need a lot of mana, IT and the ability to empty your hand). Moreover, it is often difficult to make a 10-storm with a single IGG. Plus with pyrostatic pillar in play, you automatically lose with the IGG loop.

I think I would consider sensei's divining top before ponder because it enables you to find tendrils with a single blue source. Moreover it's often better in a deck that can shuffle that often. Maybe, I'm not brave enough, but I really think that playing a protection is worth to lose 1 turn.

CoK is clearly bad, AG is far better, but you rhétoric is faulty, you say that those cards are bad, because they are crappy... As I told earlier, relying on the IGG plan is too random.

Hmm I wonder why Fetchland Tendrils plays IGG, it's Clearly bad.
:rolleyes: You're suggesting a 2-card combo with for 7 mana(4BBW) allow me to suggest Trix then. It cost the same but is in one color. IGG is quite easy to set up, there are more possibilities then LED/LED/IT. Also later in the game with a big yard and little life IGG is very powerfull. It's also powerfull in fighting discard.

BB

BB

Maveric78f

10-16-2008, 06:46 AM

Hmm I wonder why Fetchland Tendrils plays IGG, it's Clearly bad.
:rolleyes: You're suggesting a 2-card combo with for 7 mana(4BBW) allow me to suggest Trix then. It cost the same but is in one color. IGG is quite easy to set up, there are more possibilities then LED/LED/IT. Also later in the game with a big yard and little life IGG is very powerfull. It's also powerfull in fighting discard.

Why are you arguing that IGG is powerful. Of course it is. I even play 1 copy MD, but to my mind it's not enough to ensure to win the burn MU. My 2 cards combo costs 6 manas (3BBW) and it's far more easy to gather than the IT/IGG combo. Playing both enables you to follow one plan or another, enables you to go off on turn 1 or 2 with only AN. And AG can also be a card that counters the opposing lethal fireblast, giving you the time to combo at least one turn later. And finally, pyrostatic pillar does not mean GG with AG.

Edit: yesterday, I've won against a Dragon Stompy build that had Chalice@1, Chalice@2 and a moon effect into play thanks to an IGG loop, so I know how it can win desperate situations. I had no bounce because I had to bounce a creature in order to survive.

jericohs@cottage

10-16-2008, 10:58 AM

Repeal is awesome........in vintage.
Teeg and Chalice at 1 are the reason because Repeal sucks.
Same for Chain of Vapor. It sucks in legacy.

What is happening lately, people have problems speaking english... WHAT!?
Repeal is awesome in Vintage? For a while, maybe like a year ago. People don't play Teeg in Vintage. The only deck that used Teeg was Dawn of the Dead. And that deck wasn't even tier 1. I would call that deck "FAIR". Second, in Vintage you drop Chalice at 0, not 1.

Why does Chain of Vapor suck in Legacy? This guy thinks he's the tits and ass of magic ladies and gentlemen cause he doesn't bother with explaining his posts at all...lol When jegger says something he's right and no explanations necessary.

:tongue:

undone

10-16-2008, 11:00 AM

About the problem: Orim vs Duress, there are an hundred of posts in this forum on the old FT/TES threads. If you have the patience to read, you can understand why players, with a little bit of experience with FT/TES, prefer Orim maindeck.

I have played both and played TES and FT. I perfer TES because it is faster. But here duress is indeed better then FT because when AdN goes off without protection it doesnt fear stifle, or such, It fears only 1-2 cards force and (counter spell) If your off its over. Thats just the way the game plays, duress helps you get off easier then chant does when your first sources are lower then say TES. You have no spirit guides and need a crapton of black mana so you just happen to be able to disrupt them.

sunshine

10-16-2008, 02:24 PM

What is happening, lately people have problems speaking english... WHAT!?
Repeal is awesome in Vintage? For a while, maybe like a year ago. People don't play Teeg in Vintage. The only deck that used Teeg was Dawn of the Dead. And that deck wasn't even tier 1. I would call that deck "FAIR". Second, in Vintage you drop Chalice at 0, not 1.

Why does Chain of Vapor suck in Legacy? This guy thinks he's the tits and ass of magic ladies and gentlemen cause he doesn't bother with explaining his posts at all...lol When jegger says something he's right and no explanations necessary.

:tongue:

I think we can excuse his English seeing as he is from Italy.

Also, I think he was saying that people play Teeg and Chalice@1 in Legacy thus making Repeal/CoV less than ideal in Legacy. Just to clear that up.

jegger

10-16-2008, 03:15 PM

I think we can excuse his English seeing as he is from Italy.

Also, I think he was saying that people play Teeg and Chalice@1 in Legacy thus making Repeal/CoV less than ideal in Legacy. Just to clear that up.

True. This is the sense of my post.
And sorry for my bad english.
Please, can you send me in pvt the mistakes I do in my posts?
I want to learn.

jericohs@cottage

10-16-2008, 03:34 PM

rufus

10-16-2008, 05:58 PM

I've been assimilated by the english. Shouldn't everyone else be assimilated by now. I don't know a single country on the face of the earth that doesn't actively use the universal and easy to learn language. ;-)

You can say a lot of things about English, but it's not easy to learn to speak or write well because it's incosistent.

Mulletus

10-17-2008, 01:29 PM

what is Ad Nauseam? Can someone please explain.

Dark_Cynic87

10-17-2008, 01:51 PM

what is Ad Nauseam? Can someone please explain.

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

Ad Nauseam
Instant--3BB

Reveal the top card of your library. You lose life equal to the card's casting cost and put that card into your hand. Repeat as many times as you choose.

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

Not exact wording, but that is in essence what it does.
Oh, and the quote is now sigged. Lol.

Vacrix

10-17-2008, 05:27 PM

rsaunder

10-17-2008, 07:44 PM

i know it may sound a little ridiculous but how does spell snare sound as a side in vs. control? you can counter CB, meddling mage, gaddock teeg.. im not sure if it counters chalice at 1 but that would be sick as hell too. and it counters counterspell. so if you are on the play in game 2, you mull for discard to get rid of CB or mull for spell snare to counter it. thoughts?

Thoughtseize would be better because it doesn't force you to play a reactive game and takes FOW as well.

Vacrix

10-17-2008, 08:11 PM

but thoughseize is kinda meh with AdN. you need that life. and you are already losing life from fetches.
plus they are expecting discard so they wana play that shit ASAP, which will make it run unprotected into your little surprise. which is why i backed up somebody before when they suggested testing daze.

EDIT:
and against control why is a reactive game plan relevant if they cant drop the permanent based hate that is fucking you over in the first place? they dont have a clock anyway. at least one that is relevant to something as fast as this is.

Maveric78f

10-18-2008, 05:01 AM

i know it may sound a little ridiculous but how does spell snare sound as a side in vs. control? you can counter CB, meddling mage, gaddock teeg.. im not sure if it counters chalice at 1 but that would be sick as hell too. and it counters counterspell. so if you are on the play in game 2, you mull for discard to get rid of CB or mull for spell snare to counter it. thoughts?

I think it's better to have different solutions for different threats, like slaughter pact, duress, chant and serenity. And bounces are here for the universality.

Vacrix

10-18-2008, 05:25 AM

I think it's better to have different solutions for different threats, like slaughter pact, duress, chant and serenity. And bounces are here for the universality.

but why waste all that SB space on different answers when you could just use one? that doesnt make sense to me.. and this is an answer that costs U for like almost everything. you can cut a lot out of the board and free it up for other matchups. no?

Maveric78f

10-18-2008, 09:37 AM

If you think it's really for almost everything, then play it MD but in SB, you need to split the usecases of each slot, and it's difficult to find the complementary of snare.

Enigma

10-18-2008, 09:50 AM

Yes you can counter Chalice at 1 with Spell snare.

I personnaly think that Duress is the best card against Control in this deck.

godryk

10-18-2008, 02:08 PM

klaus

10-18-2008, 02:44 PM

What do you think of this?
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20273

It has Top8'ed a 90-people event, that gives some credit to the list, I think. I really like the inclussion of SDT as a colorless (aka black) way of drawing the Tendrils you put in in the top of your library with Mystical in a post Nuaseam scenario, as it's often difficult for you to get UU when you go fast and play Nauseam tapped. It is also an effcient card when paired with eight fetchlands ass we all know.

I like it :smile:. Though a singleton Top would be better imo.
I'm not sure whether this ANT list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20140) was linked here before but it's definitely noteworthy. It won a 47 player tournament afterall..___(!4 Merchant Scroll:really: )

sunshine

10-18-2008, 02:57 PM

[QUOTE=klaus;286119I'm not sure whether this ANT list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20140) was linked here before but it's definitely noteworthy. It won a 47 player tournament afterall..___(!4 Merchant Scroll:really: )[/QUOTE]

That's an interesting list. I would really like to read that tournament report. I'm suspect of thos Scrolls and Diamonds, though I guess the scrolls do get a lot better post board. If Sensei's Divining Top finds a home as more than a 1-of it might be worth considering some number of Doomsdays. Looks like AdN is well on its way to the DTB forum already...

Vacrix

10-18-2008, 03:26 PM

)
That's an interesting list. I would really like to read that tournament report. I'm suspect of thos Scrolls and Diamonds, though I guess the scrolls do get a lot better post board. If Sensei's Divining Top finds a home as more than a 1-of it might be worth considering some number of Doomsdays. Looks like AdN is well on its way to the DTB forum already...

i agree. very interesting. i can kinda see the diamonds being useful in getting rid of all those extra land you draw off of AdN. but merchant scroll really puzzles me. its it jus for looking for the bounce or something? i guess it could make sense if meditate was in here but i dont see it in here.. wtf.

badjuju

10-18-2008, 03:48 PM

LOL you people. Really?

We just had this discussion like 4 pages ago for both of the decklists (just checked - 5 pages ago for the 47-man, 3 pages ago for the 90-man). The 90 person decklist is jegger's friend, and jegger already explained his card choices. jegger also mentioned the one that placed in the 47 person. But for the sake of people who don't like reading threads, I'll post my observations again.

Merchant Scroll dodges Chalice @ 1.
May not seem like a big deal to some people, but if you've ever had to go up against it g1 you'll know that you've basically lost unless you already have your bounce in hand, or have a godlike 7 that can play around Chalice. I was playtesting against Dragon Stompy, and the moon effects actually become very relevant when this happens (building up mana to play around Chalice/Trinisphere), and I actually condone jegger's suggestion for running 2 Islands (should you expect moon effects in your meta). Also, remember Merchant Scroll is "to hand". Yes, it's still sorcery; yes it still lets your opponent read you for free; but it dodges that freaking chalice.

Mox Diamonds serve as initial mana sources post Ad Nauseum.
Often times going off after AdN, you won't have any spare mana floating, or very little if you do (unless you cracked LED, but that doesn't all the time). That's why I kept saying that Chrome Mox should stay @ 4, because finding that starting source of mana is crucial. Mox Diamond is iffy since there's so few lands, but look at it this way: Diamond is indeed a permanent mana source, it allows the deck to speed up a bit more and possibly negate the drawbacks from cards like Merchant Scroll, and up the consistency of post AdN mana sources. Colors can also be a problem (SOMETIMES), believe it or not, so I guess that's another +1 for Mox Diamond.

Don't mean to be rude or sound like an asshole, but please read the thread, especially when we spent an entire page talking about this stuff already.
Also, jegger has the link to the 90-man tournament report, but it's up to him if he wants to post it here or not since it's all in Italian.

BreathWeapon

10-18-2008, 05:27 PM

Responding to a PM for an updated list,

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten gains
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Wipe Away
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Island

13 Land and 4 Chrome Mox is the "sweet spot" between hitting land drops and building Threshold and the speed and consistency of the artifact mana.

It's light on disruption, but you can get around most counter walls by using Infernal Tutor to double your discard spells or SB in Thought Seizes. You're resilient against Spellsnare and Stifle and can race Counterspell, so Orim's Chant isn't much of a loss.

sunshine

10-18-2008, 05:28 PM

My apologies, some people (myself included) simply do not have time to read every post of every thread. Maybe we could get an update on the OP?

Jaiminho

10-18-2008, 07:02 PM

The list that won the 47 man event only faced a single blue deck, Meathooks. I don't know about the details of each round, but he played (in round order) Aggro Loam 2-1, Boros 2-0, Meathooks 2-0, Belcher 2-1, bye, 2-1 Boros.

Apex

10-18-2008, 07:16 PM

stuff...the one that placed in the 47 person. But for the sake of people who don't like reading threads, I'll post my observations again.

Uh...the 47 player event? That's from MAGIC-LEAGUE. That's like the worst spot to get reliable information for decks ever. I remember a time where Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa won a pretty large sized standard trial with some janky deck, and everyone on that website was like "lolomg look at how newb we are lol".

Even the deck player himself said that Merchant Scroll sucked and he wished it was something else. His matchups were also:

Round 1: 2-1 Aggro Loam
Round 2: 2-0 Boros
Round 3: 2-0 Meathooks
Round 4: 2-1 Belcher
Round 5: bye
Round 6: 2-1 Boros

Are you kidding me? No Dreadstill/fish, no Threshold, no Faerie/Dragon Stompy, no Counterbalance in sight, hell, not even an Ichorid deck that could have potentially raced him since he didn't even play Orim's Chant. That's not even close to being good backup data for that version.

Merchant Scroll blows in this deck, as does Mox Diamond.

Edit: omg Jaiminho you ho, totally gimped my post :P. Damn you and your fast typing skills.

As for the 90 player event, his list is almost exactly like the one that I was testing a couple of weeks ago (I had -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Pact of Negation and +2 something else, maybe a Ponder and a land). I talked about SDT like in the beginning of this thread too, but eventually I found that to utilize SDT to the fullest, you needed alot more lands, and I might as well be playing Doomsday FT.

Jaiminho

10-18-2008, 07:37 PM

Edit: omg Jaiminho you ho, totally gimped my post :P. Damn you and your fast typing skills.

Owned. That round thing info is what I posted on mtgsal. Couldn't find it quicker than that.

As for the 90 player event, his list is almost exactly like the one that I was testing a couple of weeks ago (I had -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Pact of Negation and +2 something else, maybe a Ponder and a land). I talked about SDT like in the beginning of this thread too, but eventually I found that to utilize SDT to the fullest, you needed alot more lands, and I might as well be playing Doomsday FT.

Even in FT, Top ends up sometimes being only a Street Wraith that allows some piles that Wraith itself wouldn't, since Meditate will end up being a draw 3, not a draw 4, allowing LED mana to be used before drawing that 4th card. Still, in slower matches, Top is totally insane. AN doesn't like slow games, so it can't abuse Top.

godryk

10-19-2008, 07:44 AM

spirit of the wretch

10-19-2008, 04:02 PM

I won the 50 man Hassloch tourney today with the following list:

4x delta
4x strand
3x usea
2x tundra
1x island
1x swamp
4x dark ritual
4x cabal ritual
4x led
4x petal
4x chrome mox
4x infernal
4x mystical
4x brainstorm
4x duress
4x chant
4x ad nauseam
1x tendrils
1x iggy

My SB sucked, so I won't mention it. I don't think bounce spells are needed in the mainboard, as you can play around Chalice and they probably won't bounce Counterbalance (you'd have to play Wipe Away, which I personaly think is too narrow: too expensive for the MB). I didn't have any special CB hate in the SB as I think the best play is to Duress/Chant them and/or rush the CB. It worked out for me pretty well two times against ITF.
I beat: Survival, Aggro Loam, Dragon Stompy (horrible MU!), Imperial Painter, 2x ITF.

undone

10-19-2008, 04:15 PM

ANT menaces with reaching DtB status in its very first month.

actualy if both are true (I suspect they are) then thats enough to put it up there.

The deck will break legacy in half, It will just be a while before people admit it.

BreathWeapon

10-19-2008, 04:30 PM

actualy if both are true (I suspect they are) then thats enough to put it up there.

The deck will break legacy in half, It will just be a while before people admit it.

I'm not certain it's "that" bad, half of the reason I've been winning games with Ad Nauseam is that control and aggro-control's 1cc disruption is no longer a significant factor. If people start replacing Stifle and Spellsnare with Thoughtseize and Duress or SBing anti-Storm combo bullets, the match up could turn around.

Right now, Landstill, Dreadstill and Threshold just don't seem to be prepared for the new Storm combo decks. Clearly Ad nauseam has lived up to its hype, but I think we should give the Force of Will crowd a little more time before we jump on the ban hammer. Once they adjust, Ad Nauseam wont be as ridiculous

jegger

10-19-2008, 04:43 PM

First with ANT today at a 37 peoples tournament.

Five 32+ peoples tournaments with FT/DDFT/ANT this year and 4 top8.

ixid

10-19-2008, 05:13 PM

With regard to the Merchant Scrolls and Mox Diamonds- don't get carried away over weird choices in successful lists at this stage. Ad Nauseum decks are new to the metagame, unexpected and even suboptimal ones are going to do well at this stage.

Hanni

10-19-2008, 07:48 PM

Given all of the Top 8's in 33+ player tournaments, can this deck be moven to at least Proven yet? We're already at 5 Top 8's in 33+ tournaments, right?

undone

10-20-2008, 11:27 AM

Seems like if the above are true we have 8 (right 8?) most of which were wins. The card will be banned I think but thats just me.

Pelikanudo

10-20-2008, 11:30 AM

@Everybody
Hello everybody, I've finally got the entire cards of the deck ANT (quite difficult to get LED ) and definatly tested it , ill post the list
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [A] Tundra
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [MI] Island

// Spells
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor

1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 Duresses

1 [PS] Wipe Away
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [ALA] Ad Nauseam

Well the list is quite close to the design of Hanni well I find the next troubles :
First when we get to play A.N We HAVE to find between the cards drawn :
a) the conjuntion of I.T with LED
b) at least 2 blue mana sources AND 1 mystical AND 1 Brainstorm and Black Mana producers
Well I find that I.T is useless when you dont have LED in hand when you have drawn it with A.N, because mainly for sure at least we have drawn 2 land and one of them we won't be able to put it in play.
Playing versions withouth LED ( my conclusions were that LED belongs to the deck when I tested it ) and whith Mox diamond demonstrated me that I was been able to cast all the cards I' ve drawn with A.N becuase M.Diamond allow us to get rid of land drops.
Therefore my conclusions is all about point a) I mean to have less dependency of the conjuntion of LED and IT and to make the I.T an authentical Demonic tutor because we won't have lands in hand , well this issue is logicly jandled by the inclusion of Mos Diamond in the main deck.

I like the package of 9 defense spells, and I really think that the others spells also belongs to the deck, but I'd like to test the inclusion of M.Diamond because it really makes the puzzle to an A.N casted because of the reduced dependency of the spells.

maybe -2 duresses, -1 wipe away, - 1 cabal ritual could solve te problem , but I'm yet testing,
A card I've been testing in the side and I find huge huge potential is Boseiju , who selter all , full set of them , in order to get an A.N uncountereable ( we won't mind c.b, and FoWs just to get the conjunction of these 2 cards)
Another point is the I'd like to know how do you side versus
a) 3shold ,
b ) Landstill,
c) c.b decks like It's the fear.
Ideas ,suggestions ,onions?

badjuju

10-20-2008, 12:04 PM

@Everybody
Ideas ,suggestions ,onions?

No onions from me, sorry :)

I can understand your post-AdN troubles. Sure it draws you a ton of cards, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll find what you need to win before you run out of life. I think a lot of people don't understand this part quite yet - that you still have to work for your win.

The thing about ANT in particular is that the average CC is much lower than a deck like TES, so you'll generally draw more cards off of an AdN. However, yes, you do need to have UU with Mystical+a way to draw or IT with LED/IGG. Some more points:

-The deck hurts without LED. Without LED, using IGG loop is much harder and you'll be giving up a lot of subtle synergies and interactions that can often times pull out wins.
-The deck in its current state seems to have a tug-o-war between safe and speed. Some people want to run more protection, but then miss out on cards like Ponder or SDT. Other want to run the full protection suite, but then complain that they have problems after casting Ad Nauseum. Honestly, the amount of times that I DIDN'T have the LED or Mystical+Brainstorm/Ponder was very rare, so I do prefer to run the full protection suite.
-The problem with Boseiju is that there's no real way to search for it, unless you want to run 4. CB is always a problem, yes, but Wipe Away does well to counter it.
-Against CB decks you just want to board in your bounce (probably just Wipe Away). Landstill *shouldn't* be a hard matchup, especially if you're running 9 MD protection spells. Out of their board you'll probably only see Meddling Mage .

I actually haven't tested the Mox Diamonds, but for some reason I still get the feeling that they're sounding better on paper than in practice. I'll give it a shot sometime this week and see if I like it, though I've already been drifting towards TES more after playing both decks for quite a bit.

Adan

10-20-2008, 12:55 PM

-The deck hurts without LED. Without LED, using IGG loop is much harder and you'll be giving up a lot of subtle synergies and interactions that can often times pull out wins.

IGG loop can be done with double Cabal Ritual as well. Meh, IGGy Pop nostalgia... Though this deck doesn't run Intuition to fuel it's graveyard.

-The deck in its current state seems to have a tug-o-war between safe and speed. Some people want to run more protection, but then miss out on cards like Ponder or SDT. Other want to run the full protection suite, but then complain that they have problems after casting Ad Nauseum. Honestly, the amount of times that I DIDN'T have the LED or Mystical+Brainstorm/Ponder was very rare, so I do prefer to run the full protection suite.

Ponder and SDT actually make the deck slower, in exchange you gain cardquality which allows you to optimize your hand. But this makes the matchup against Aggrocontrol harder as they will have enough time to drop Counterbalance. I'd prefer raping your opponent's hand with Duress.

Orim's Chant is also a must-counter by itself. That card is so retarded. It baits counters to ensure you win and if it resolves you will win, too.

-The problem with Boseiju is that there's no real way to search for it, unless you want to run 4. CB is always a problem, yes, but Wipe Away does well to counter it.

Boseiju is a very oldschoolish card, lol. But there are at least 3 things that suck like hell:

- It comes into play tapped, extremely vulnerable to Wastelands

- It is legendary, running 4 of it would be... design fail?

- Costs life to spwan mana, even if you only want to cast business spells.

-Against CB decks you just want to board in your bounce (probably just Wipe Away). Landstill *shouldn't* be a hard matchup, especially if you're running 9 MD protection spells. Out of their board you'll probably only see Meddling Mage .

Absolutely. But beware of Extirpates as well.

I actually haven't tested the Mox Diamonds, but for some reason I still get the feeling that they're sounding better on paper than in practice. I'll give it a shot sometime this week and see if I like it, though I've already been drifting towards TES more after playing both decks for quite a bit.

I don't have any experience with ANT yet, I can only speak from what I learned about this deck back then when I was playing Mike Bomholt's IGGy Pop.

I was told that a lot of ANT players play Mox Diamonds over LEDs and Pact of Negation instead of Orim's Chant. I guess they are more speed-oriented to win BEFORE the aggrocontrol player can resolve Counterbalance.
This, however, sounds terrible to me since you have to go off with protection against aggrocontrol anyway. Has anyone any experience with a list with Moxen and Pacts?

Pelikanudo

10-20-2008, 01:13 PM

Well this is my list without LED for reference, anyway at Starcitygames you'll find a forum called The Definitive Ad Nauseam deck made by me too

1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta

Mana Accel: 26
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Mox diamond

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Pact of negation
4x Duresses

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Mystical Tutor

1x Chain of Vapor
1 x Hurkills R

1x Tendrils
4 x Ad Nauseam

God, we hate deck list spam. Talk about your choices and reasoning. Explain some matches. Give us something to discuss.

-PR

Hanni

10-20-2008, 07:30 PM

Just to comment on a few things:

I'll start off with something small first. I've decided that a 3/1 split of Tormod's Crypt and Extirpate in the board is better than just 4 Crypt's, since Extirpate can be grabbed with Mystical Tutor against decks like Ichorid and MUC.

---

Next, I'd like to comment on my opinions about Ponder. The thing I don't like about Ponder is that it increases consistency of turn 2 and 3 wins, but takes away consistency of protected turn 2 wins. It does increase manabase stability with Chrome Mox, especially when the deck needs to Mystical+cantrip into Tendrils post AN.

However, I don't really like Ponder. It doesn't improve the matchups against hate/FoW more than Orim's Chant does, and it doesn't quicken the speed of the deck any either. I've never found consistency to be lacking enough to warrant 4 Ponder.

However, I do think that Sensei's Divining Top would be the best go to if you wanted an increased consistency card. It's slower than Ponder and more mana hungry, but it gives the deck superior dig with the fetchlands for answers to problems that take more than a few turns to answer (i.e bounce for Chalice/Counterbalance, for example). The fact that it increases consistency post AN by making the Mystical+cantrip (Top in this case) plan to only cost 1U instead of UU is huge.

If I were going to run Top, I'd only run 2. That allows you to still run 2 Orim's Chant, giving the deck 6 protection spells. With Mystical Tutor -> Chant, the deck still maintains the ability to play a protected IGG chain, against something like burn.

However, I'd much rather run 4 Orim's Chant and 0 Top's. I've been trying to figure out how to improve my B/u/w ANT version for the last couple of weeks and I can't seem to find any further innovation. I'd honestly say that right now (barring new sets with new cards), the deck is pretty much optimized, +- 1 or 2 cards (mostly metagaming spots).

I'm going to PM a mod and see if they'll move this to established.

emidln

10-20-2008, 08:32 PM

Hanni

10-21-2008, 12:26 AM

Why are you running graveyard hate at all? Extirpate in storm combo isn't to hate on the graveyard, but to guarantee that problematic cards aren't available to an opponent (either in their hand or in their yard). It deals with stuff like Force of Will, Orim's Chant, etc. You don't need graveyard hate because with Duress/Chant/Mystical Tutor (for 1-2 Extirpate) you have infinite time against decks that attempt to abuse the graveyard. SW FT, which this deck is a very direct evolution of, went something like 75/25 with Ichorid using this exact strategy. You Chant them in response to Narcomoeba triggers once they have relevant stuff in their yard (like therapy so it doesn't wreck you). You Duress away draw spells and LEDs to make them dog slow. You win turn 2. It's really simple.

Because I haven't done enough testing (graveyard hate decks specifically), to determine whether or not the deck needs it. In regards to Extirpate, I say that it sucks as any more of a 1-of because:

Extirpate effects multiple copies of a certain card. Barring strong luck, most cards aren't seen in multiples fast enough. With ANT, I'm never going to see multiples before it matters. Even if I do, multiple protection spells answers that. Extirpate is intended for a long game, ANT (as well as other combo), doesn't want that. I won't discuss Extirpate anymore here, because there is an entire thread for that, but more than 1? Retarded, IMO. I just wanted to beat Ichorid, which 3/1 Crypt/Extirpate does just fine. Maybe I'm wasting 3 sideboard slots, that's very possible... if I am, what should replace it?

jegger

10-21-2008, 02:08 AM

Yes, you waste your slot for Crypt. Before the last tournament I used 3 Crypt in SB, then I did some intensive testing against Ichorid piloted from my friend did top8 last week with ANT and we saw that the deck can win anyway thanks to fast start or to Orim, so I replaced these 3 slots with more solution against CB. Obviusly in g2 you cut slow cards like Sensei.
Extirpate isn't so good in this mathcup. If you have it in hand, ok you play it, but usually if you have Mystical in hand you prefer to search the pieces for the combo instead of Extirpate. Lastly, side in Extirpate against slow decks like Landstill I see that it's no good like in the old SW FT. This because we have so many cards to side in against this deck (more protection, an alternative win, bouncer or removal for Mages and Halo,...) and not so many cards to side out.

About Ponder vs more protection, I use Ponder + Sensei, but this don't mean this is the definitive list. You can choose to use 8 protections if you really need them or you can increase the consistency of your deck with the use of Ponder + Sensei. I don't think there is a better decklist, but the better decklist for a particular metagame. Next time perhaps I use Duress or I continue to use Sensei + Ponder. Anyway, if my meta is full of Landstill, Sensei is better than Duress.

This is the list (http://www.dragonsleague.it/archivio_deck.php?t=Dragons%20League%20(Feltre%202)) I played sunday. They did a mistake: I didn't use Rebuild maindeck.

Pelikanudo

10-21-2008, 11:45 AM

badjuju

10-21-2008, 02:25 PM

Waikiki

10-21-2008, 04:46 PM

It's pretty obvious for me what to take in, what to take out is the hard question I always face.

meanee

10-21-2008, 05:34 PM

This deck is unbeliveably consistant. It is really a force to be reckoned with.
I played a version (UBw) tonight at my local, weekly legacy tourney, at went 5-0 during the swiss. In the semifinals (we played top4 because we were only 17 players) I lost to Dragon Stompy – a really Hellish, Nightmare Match-up…

Well my version of the deck – and the one I think is clearly the best and most resilient – looks like this:
4 infernal tutor
4 mystical
4 brainstorm
4 d.rit
4 c.rit
4 petal
4 led
4 chrome
4 duress
4 chant
3 Nauseam
2 tendrils
1 ill-gotten gains

4 delta
1 flooded
1 mire
3 sea
1 scrub
1 tundra
2 swamp
1 island

My sideboard looked like this today – I was anticipating a lot of zoo-like, and burn-ish decks. And only a couple of blue fow decks:
4 Pact of negation (board these in for 1 gains, 1 it, 1 led, 1 chrome in the blue match, and you can’t loose)
4 echoing truth (the best bouncer for the deck I believe)
3 ee (it looks promising, but I didn’t play them all night. I think maybe slaughter pact is better – it handles teeg you know)
2 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrils (the gains and the tendrils comes in instead of the 3 nauseams in matches where I fear my life total will be to low before I can combo out – that means burn and zoo matches… And fast affinity)
1 Death wish (okay, okay this seems really sucky, and I didn’t use it tonight, but I simply HATE dying to extirpate)

So back to my tournament this evening. Even though we were no more than 17 players the metagame was very developed. The 6 decks I ran into was the following:
Zoo. I win 2-0. He made a mistake while having pyrostatic pillar in play. I was at 8, and tried to resolve an ill-gotten gains, while he in reponse burns me to 2 life-points. But doing so he cranks up my storm, and I don’t need to play any of the dark rituals I just received from the yard.

Affinity. I win 2-1. Game 2 he has cabal therapy and double trickbind. I couldn’t win through that…

Ichorid. I win 2-0. I am simply faster. I boarded in the ill-gotten gains and tendrils, for a safer win. Game one, I win on a resolved orim’s chant in response to his discarding a troll, thus making it impossible for him to combo out with the deep analysis in his grave… Good times 

Round 4 I played countersliver… Game 1 I am fast, and I rip his hand apart. Game 2 is unbelievably exciting. I play duress and sees a hand of 2 daze and a brainstorm, taking daze. Next round another duress. Round after that an orim’s chant, and then when I’m at 10 life I resolve ad nauseam drawing no tutor but brainstorm. I fetch for a land, and look at the top three (no outs, sooo glad I fetched) brainstorm into land, land, tendrils. 8 black mana in the pool, and storm 12… GG – 2-0.

In the last round of the swiss I played dreadstill. Uwg I think. We were both safe in the top4, but we were there to play, so that we did. Game one he throws a cb, and wastes my only land. Fortunately I can recover and I resolve an ad nauseam at a comfortable 18 life… I win with no problems… In comes echoing truth… I mulligan like a pro and my hand consists of swamp, it, led, c.rit, c.rit, petal my opponent starts, and I think “what the hell! Lets try the firstrounder!” So I killed him in round one… that was all nice and games…

In the semi I met Dragon Stompy, I had so hoped that I shouldn’t have to meet him, and as soon as I saw it was him I should fight, I kind off conceded. But again; I was there to play. I just have to win the diceroll – so I roll a failing 3 with 3 d6’s! That is what they call epic fail!!!
First game he makes a 5/5 and a chalice @ 1 the round before I can combo off!
Second game he mulls to 4, and is stuck at 1 mountain – I Kill him…
Third game he goes chalice 0, chalice 1 round one. I have echoing truth and to lands, so I am comfortable. He then proceeds to play trinisphere in his turn 2. In his turn three he plays blood moon. I have my mire (damnit for not being strand) and a scrubland in play, and I have nowhere to go…

Anyway the deck is great, and I sincerely believe that splashing white for Orim’s chant is the only way to go. And please keep the robots out of this deck!!

- meanee

Piceli89

10-22-2008, 01:45 PM

This deck is becoming too strong, really. In few time it'll break in a half the whole format, and already now it's doing really well. Do you guys think that wizard will ban something to try stopping the enormous power Ad Nauseam decks will assume ?
The possible candidates for banning / restricting are:
Ad Nauseam itself, which would mean a return to AN-less FT and TES;
Lion's eye diamond, the banning of which would pratically weaken a lot ever combo deck- not only FT and TES, but also Belcher and SI.
Maybe they're just circles in the water from mine, but i fear that orim's chant+ ad nauseam it's a bit too strong for wizard to let it survive; at least, to make so many bombs coexist in one deck. It reminds somehow of flash-power, even if the comparison is really inadeguate (there, you only had to resolve a cc2 spell with a creature in hand, basically a 2 combo card).
What do you think about it ?

meanee

10-22-2008, 03:47 PM

Even though there is a strong possibility that WotC will ban the combo in some way, I really hope they don't! I have been crying for a viable, staple storm-combo deck for almost a year now, and now, finally I got it! At least I think so.

IF they should decide to kill the combo, I really hope, that they just turn off Ad Nauseam itself. If they ban LED it will be the death of almost all viable or semi-viable combo-decks in the format, and that would make legacy even more boring... (I am exclusively a legacyplayer, but I have had a feeling that the format as a whole has been a bit boring for the last year or so - since tarmogoyf took over the format I guess...)

Anyway, I don't see the ANT deck being to good for the meta. It is not as if AdN + Chant is alot better than Ill-Gotten gains + chant...

- meanee

godryk

10-22-2008, 07:10 PM

Hot news. In the spanish blogosphere I've heard several references of ANT making 2 top8 at the last tournament of the Lliga Catalana de Legacy with a great assistance of 96 players. Decklists will be published soon, probably this week. ANT menaces with reaching DtB status in its very first month. :eek:

Lists published! (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=287490#post287490)

Winner's list is a very popular build in the spanish blogosphere and boards, since it comes from a well known and respected Eternal player, who knows what he talks about, but maybe so much respected to be criticized for other players. It may seem weird with Angel's Grace+Pacts, but the deck still does its things in an unprepared meta. The Top 4 one is much more similar to what has been discussed here.

Thoughts?

meanee

10-23-2008, 02:05 AM

Not playing the full 4 lion's eye diamonds seem like a big mistake. I would certainly replace the 2 graces and 1 orim's chant with 3 led, and then the deck looks quite strong...

Anyway I don't think angel's grace is worth it. Has anyone in here tested it thouroughly? The point is that by playing angel's grace you make a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo. I am aware of the fact that you can tutor for both the cards with mystical, and I can see the point in being able to kill decks with a fast kill, because you stop caring about your life totals when you play grace before your nauseam...

But still. Grace has to slow the deck down - does it make up for this slowing down of things??

- meanee

Hopo

10-23-2008, 02:28 AM

I see Grace as SB material at best. It's technically only a win-more card in most matchups, but it could make burn-matchups, which are considered somewhat tough, better. It has it's merits, as it makes fizzling 100% impossible, but against blue decks you need the Orim's Chant, and most likely you can only afford one white pre-nauseam spell without slowing yourself too much. Against non-blue/non-chant/non-fast-damage decks you need nothing extra. You just do your thing and win. Ad Nauseam constantly nets me 10+ cards and it's pretty much enough to go deadly after that.

Maveric78f

10-23-2008, 04:13 AM

Well it does not look stupid to play 1 AG main deck if you expect to cross a lot of aggro. According to me 2/3 AG in SB is absolutely necessary.

Hopo

10-23-2008, 04:25 AM

Well it does not look stupid to play 1 AG main deck if you expect to cross a lot of aggro. According to me 2/3 AG in SB is absolutely necessary.
Of course it's partially a meta call, but I would suggest keeping only one in SB as a boardable tutor target in builds which play 4 Mystical Tutors. As it's not mana source, disruption, setup card or a storm enabler but a win-more card, I find it lacking in terms of efficiency.

If you're really concerned about your meta packing burn and fast aggro, go ahead and maindeck a copy. Otherwise you should be doing fine. Chant also deals nicely with burn, as you can go low on life from Ad Nauseam without the fear of being bolted to death right after. Even without Grace, you still have a less suicidal way to combo: IGG.

jegger

10-23-2008, 06:30 AM

Well I need to know which is the definitive and stablished manabase for the deck , as well the sideboard in order to face a meta with :
a) 3hold,
b) landstill,
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
e) U/W confidant
f) Ichorid
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice

- which cards will you put in ?
- which cards will you take out ?
Thanks

The side in is simple. You only need a little bit of experience to understand what to side in.

This was my side at last tournament:

3x Serenity
1x Rebuild
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Duress
2x Spell Snare
2x Wipe Away
1x Plains
1x Divert
1x Brain Freeze
1x Slaughter Pact

a) threshold: what thresh? tempo or control? W or B or R splash?
Too many variables to consider. I can give you some variables guide lines.
If they use CB in the deck the side in/out is very similar to Dreadstill matchup.
In the UGW matchup you can expect to see Mage so you need to side in Pact and/or Wipe Away and/or Freeze (but I never use all 3 solutions for mages, they are too much and the deck become inconsistent). In all other thresh matchups you can cut easily the bouncer.
If I have Extirpate in SB I don't side in it. My opponent plays only 4 hard counters and usually we haven't the time to plan a EOT Extirpate on FoW and then combo like perhaps against MUC or Landstill.
Generally I side out these cards: -1 Ponder, -1 Rushing River, -1 AN, -1 IT, -1 mox (petal in these matchups is more useful).
Then I speak of side in Brain Freeze against thresh UGB with Extirpate.

b) landstill: +2 Duress, +1 Wipe Away, +1 Plains, +1 Freeze/Pact (mage in sb? you need scouting...)
Side out: -1 Ponder/-1 acceleration, -1 Rushing River, -1 IT, -1 AN, -1 Scrubland
-Scrubland: you need a consistent white mana source to play Orim.
- Rushing River: obviusly.
- AN: you have only 1 possibility to play it.
- IT: often is a dead card in hand and you have all the time to search AN or IGG.
- Ponder/acceleration. I'm not sure about cut Ponder or a piece of acceleration. Ponder is bad against Standstill, but it is useful to decrease the possibility of mulligan in the first turn. Acceleration: you have all the time to search it. It's a question open.

c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,

I consider c) & d) like the same deck. (ok there is the fear, but in my meta nobody plays that deck). At my last tournament this was the side in/out plan at 5° turn:

sb: +2 snare +2 duress, +2 wipe away, +1 freeze, +1 plains; -1 pact, -1 cabal, -1 infernal, -1 cromo, -1 scrubland, -1 ponder, -1 river, -1 AN.

This is the worst matchup. You can see that usually against blue based decks the sb out is very similar. I decrease the quantity of many cards instead of cut entirely all a playset.
I'm not sure about the utility of side in Freeze against Extirpate decks. There is a very low probability they play seize on your mono ToA that is in hand and then they play Extirpate. Also for this reason I don't like playlists with 2 ToA: Horrible. So perhaps I don't side in anymore Freeze in these matchups.
I cut Scrubland for the same reason I cut it in Landstill.
River and AN are an obvius choice.
I cut Pact beacuse the main problem here is not hard counter, but CB, so I prefer one more Duress or Snare instead of Pact. For counters there are Orim and Duress.
The others 4 cuts are a necessary evil.

e) U/W confidant
what is it? fish? the same board plan against UGW thresh. The 2 decks have the same hate against us.

f) Ichorid:
With Sb I used, nothing was really useful for this matchup. Like I wrote in the last post, simply we are more fast and we can take time with Orim. Anyway, if in your side you use Extirpate or E.truth, you can side in them. Obviusly we can cut: Rushing River and Blue Pact. If we need more space we can cut Sensei, like in all fast matchups.

g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice

I consider g) & h) like the same board plan: +1 Rebuild, +1 Hurkyl, +3 Serenity, +1 Plains.
The side out here is simple: -4 Orim, -1 Pact, -1 Ponder. Here Sensei is better. It permits to search in continuous manner lands and bouncers and you can play it with mountain if into play there is a moon effect.
Against Loam deck if I have grave hate in Sb, I don't use it. If my opponent starts Loam loop, we don't really need Extirpate, but instead Rebuild or Serenity to exit from mud.

I use Divert because I want a card against discard and I have only a slot open. I use it only to see the face of my opponent when I play it against Hymn, Sinkhole or Vindicate, but this never happen. At its place I can play Squire.

These SB in/out are general.
You need to be flexible.
If your friend plays landstill with a SB with 4 halo and 4 mage you must to change your side in / out. If your friend understands that K.Grip can be useful to destroy your Serenity, perhaps you need to change your SB.

Anyway, I'm reading in this thread some comments based on intuition instead of serious testing.

@ jericohs@cottage: sorry for my bad english.

Waikiki

10-23-2008, 09:15 AM

emidln

10-23-2008, 09:25 AM

I don't know for sure if this is adressed allready but could some rule guru post the exact ruling of the play -> M tutor upkeep into AD. sac led and play AD in your draw phase. I'm having trouble explaining this to my opponents

There is no ruling because there is no draw phase. There is only a beginning phase with untap, upkeep, and draw steps. Mana empties at end of phases, not end of steps. Point opponents to the order of a turn in the comp. rules specifically rules 300-304.1.

bruno_tiete

10-28-2008, 08:44 AM

This deck made 2 top8s in 41 and 40 people tournaments in Brazil. They were held in 400km away from each other locations, in 10/12 and 10/19. In fact, the deck made 2 top4s.

Unfortunately, TOs here have no habit of publishing decklists in international sites. I played in both tournaments, top8ing one with Aggro Loam and the other with UGr Threshold, so I am witness to the strengh of the deck, even though the pilots made some questionable choices.

The ANT list used here was UB, with just 4 duress and 1 Wipe Away as protection. I dont have the exact decklist, but it seemed very straighforward, with 4 AN, 1 IGG and 1 Tendrils. Sideboard sucked, IIRC, but was just enough to tear through the fields.

Noman Peopled

10-28-2008, 12:25 PM

Anyway I don't think angel's grace is worth it. Has anyone in here tested it thouroughly? The point is that by playing angel's grace you make a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo. I am aware of the fact that you can tutor for both the cards with mystical, and I can see the point in being able to kill decks with a fast kill, because you stop caring about your life totals when you play grace before your nauseam...

But still. Grace has to slow the deck down - does it make up for this slowing down of things??
Can't say I tested it extensively, but it was part of my sideboard package in a small tournament two weeks ago. I have been very unimpressed with it, even if it did win me a game. It's only very situationally good against anything other than pure aggro and combo, and even there it often only buys a turn that you wouldn't need if your hadn't boarded it in - and you proceed to draw a random land instead of a spell. I can certainly see it in aggressive metagames, especially ones with burn, or as a one-of.
Where I'm playing, there are very few creature decks that don't also run disruption, which means I can't just board out whatever maindeck disruption I'm playing out for AG, which makes the deck slower, which is okay if I can assemble a two-part combo in time but very contraproductive if I can't. Needless to say, there's have no guarantee aggro doesn't win t3 or board disruption that's unaffected by AG.

I suppose you could technically AdN into AdN+AG (if you have the Chants for the Moxen). The combo already requires drawing into enough mana for Bstorm/Mystical/Tendrils (2BBUU) or LED/IT (3B) or less likely but still relevant combinations of IT/IGG. Oh, or Tendrils. Adding another two-part combination to win you the game post AdN for 3BBW might not be the worst idea, you would possibly fizzle less often and thus reduce the number of average draws needed to win.
Unfortunately, all those uses would have to mitigate the fact that Angel's Grace is bloody useless a good deal of the time and simultaneously less versatile than other options. As opposed to, say, all cards mentioned above, which help you win in way more situations (as evidenced by the fact everyone plays them main :P ). Also, the deck is not built to sustain a two-card combo.

I still think the best weapon against aggro/burn/combo is a fast clock (and for combo, disruption), so you can just board an IGG or two and maybe even additional tutors or Tendrils - that would make the clock a tad slower (because IGG needs more things to go right than AdN) but less reliant on your life total.
Oh, and whatever anti-Mage/Teeg tech or bounce you have in the side you think is better than Duress/Chant.

Jaiminho

10-28-2008, 03:08 PM

It's only very situationally good against anything other than pure aggro and combo, and even there it often only buys a turn that you wouldn't need if your hadn't boarded it in - and you proceed to draw a random land instead of a spell.

How is it good against combo? It doesn't save you from Tendrils or Freeze, only from Belcher and ETW. It's not terrible only when you play Pact of Negation to force the opponent to fizzle and use Angel's Grace as a Stifle in your upkeep.

EDIT - Had do correct myself.

Noman Peopled

10-28-2008, 03:29 PM

How is it good against combo? It doesn't save you from Tendrils or Freeze, only from Belcher and ETW. It's good only if you run Pact of Negation to force the opponent to fizzle and use Angel's Grace as a Stifle in your upkeep.
True, my bad. I should rtfc and not post when I'm tired.
Another strike against the card then, though.

Hanni

10-28-2008, 03:38 PM

Orim's Chant > Angel's Grace
IGG > Angel's Grace

The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.

Maveric78f

10-29-2008, 06:09 AM

Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.

I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?

Hopo

10-29-2008, 08:18 AM

Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.

I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?

Cc is one thing. You need to generate W in both cases before casting Ad Nauseam in order for the cards to have any kind of effect on game. You would want to cast Grace, when facing burn. You would want to cast Chant against majority of decks, including burn. So, why waste space with Angel's Grace, as Chant does the same job anyway and you should be playing four of them already? Why would you want to win more? That is all Angel's Grace does. Also, Angel's Grace is a completely dead card (okay, 1 storm for 1 mana) when comboing with any card other than Ad Nauseam.

Hanni

10-29-2008, 04:30 PM

The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.

Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.

I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?

I think you misread. The conclusion was made by me and several other people who tested the card some pages back on the thread. Since I do not feel like digging through the thread for what was already written, I simply made it much easier for you by telling you it's bad.

If you want to run shitty cards, go ahead and run shitty cards. Trying to convince other readers to do the same is not helping the deck as a whole, though.

B.C.

10-29-2008, 05:49 PM

BreathWeapon

10-29-2008, 09:10 PM

I have 3 questions for the wise readers of this thread:

1) How many lands do you run? In the last few pages, the consensus seems to be 13-15 lands total, including 6-8 Fetch, 1-3 Basics, and 4-6 Duals.

2) Do you think one or more bounce spells in the maindeck are important? If so, which bounce spell do you prefer? Chain of Vapor? Wipe Away? Other?

3) What do you think of Sensei's Divining Top in this deck? I've been playing with 1-2 for a while now, and I think it's really good. I've gone to 3 Infernal Tutors to make room. Thoughts?

Less than 8 Fetchlands is just unacceptable, a Fetchland is the difference between Cabal Ritual for BBB and BBBBB, and being able to cast Ad Nauseam off a single accelerant is game breaking.

The faster you list is, the less you need answers, but whether or not you run 0,1, 2 and which ones you run is largely preference.

Top is good but it's also slow, I think it sort of pushes the deck towards more of a middle game apporach it doesn't necessarily want to see.

emidln

10-30-2008, 08:36 AM

Top is good but it's also slow, I think it sort of pushes the deck towards more of a middle game apporach it doesn't necessarily want to see.

It really doesn't. The slots that SDT tends to get put in take the place of additional disruption or extra copies of Infernal Tutor. This does a couple things:

(a) makes you mulligan less and makes mulligans hurt less otherwise average hands are made better by sensei's top.
(b) allows you to slow down, although it doesn't force you to (you can just as easily not play and spin top as you could not cast Duress if you have other stuff to do)
(c) the combination with Mystical Tutor provides another game-ending combination requiring fewer initial mana sources after comboing with Ad Nauseam
(d) effectively denies an opponent Standstill (important vs Landstill and Dreadstill)

SDT vastly increases the deck's ability to win on turn 2 without actually taking away from turn 1 kills. The other cards to put in its slot (Ponder or additional protection) don't increase the ability to kill turn 1. Ponder does increase the ability to kill turn 2 along the lines of Top, but is also signifcantly worse after Ad Nauseam. Further Ponder provides no benefits in the control matchup where often you are forced to slow down at least a turn.

Hopo

10-30-2008, 09:05 AM

emidln, what's the deal with SDT being so good against Standstill? I'm not familiar with FT or D-day combos so I don't know the reasoning behind this.

Jaynel

10-30-2008, 09:08 AM

If you have a Top (especially combined with fetchlands) under their Standstill, you can sculpt a VERY good hand while both of you sit there. Like multiple Chants good.

emidln

10-30-2008, 09:38 AM

emidln, what's the deal with SDT being so good against Standstill? I'm not familiar with FT or D-day combos so I don't know the reasoning behind this.

It's just basic control strategy. Unless you already have a significant threat on the table (something like Goyf or Dreadnought), dropping a Standstill against an opponent who is going to sit back and select his or her draws is just terrible. This always ends in the Tendrils player playing a Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor on the opponent's end step to make them draw 3 but discard down to 7, untap, and unload a lot of protection into a win (at this point, you can usually ignore Ad Nauseam and just play accel into IT -> IGG -> IT -> Tendrils.

Maveric78f

10-30-2008, 10:06 AM

Cc is one thing. You need to generate W in both cases before casting Ad Nauseam in order for the cards to have any kind of effect on game. You would want to cast Grace, when facing burn. You would want to cast Chant against majority of decks, including burn. So, why waste space with Angel's Grace, as Chant does the same job anyway and you should be playing four of them already? Why would you want to win more? That is all Angel's Grace does. Also, Angel's Grace is a completely dead card (okay, 1 storm for 1 mana) when comboing with any card other than Ad Nauseam.

1st : chant is better than grace as a MD slot, I won't deny it.
2nd : when going off, chant is good only against blue decks
3rd : when going off, AG is good against decks that make you lose life quickly. This is more than burn. It's zoo, burn, goblins, ... Aggro decks actually.
4th : how can you say that chant is as good as AG against burn? That removes all the credibility of what you say. Chant is only tempo against burn. AG, is a combo enabler and a burn counterspell (the last one).

Imagine your are turn 3, the burn player has already played a chain lightning and an incinerate on your face and he's untapped, when you chant. In resp he'll play bolt, PoP and fireblast. You're at 3/5. Now your only chance is to combo without AN. Imagine the same with AG, you can't lose anymore.

Waikiki

10-30-2008, 10:26 AM

Why would We even go the ANT route when facing burn? I'd just go for IGG and win without life loss.

Maveric78f

10-30-2008, 10:31 AM

Because the IGG route is not as easy to set up. Also because, it's better to have 2 routes against a clock as the burn's one. Because Pyrostatic Pillar beats the IGG route. Etc...

Hopo

10-30-2008, 11:24 AM

4th : how can you say that chant is as good as AG against burn?
Because it does it's job just fine.
If you are comboing on turn 1 or 2, as you should, your only worry is taking so much life loss from Ad Nauseam that you will be at burn range after that. By chanting before comboing, you disable everything that could kill you after Ad Nauseam. Sure they might have burnt you for 3 or 6 by then, but you can still draw enough or go iggy-style.

Imagine your are turn 3, the burn player has already played a chain lightning and an incinerate on your face and he's untapped, when you chant. In resp he'll play bolt, PoP and fireblast. You're at 3/5. Now your only chance is to combo without AN. Imagine the same with AG, you can't lose anymore.
Imagine a carrot up Silvio Berlusconi's ass. Ain't that hilarious? But why haven't you comboed out a turn or two earlier already? Of course Angel's Grace is amazing if you just imagine the only possible scenario when it actually matters. You do realize, that you don't have 3 turns of time when you face burn in the first place? You should go for the throat earlier or just face the facts and go Iggy as it neglects your life total anyway. AG is a win-more card with minor actual utility value. If you like it, I don't blame you. People like all kind of shit nowadays.

I am repeating myself: If you face a lot of burn or fast aggro, you might warrant a spot in SB as a tutor target. Otherwise, you don't need it. You will inevitably lose some portion of your games anyway, you don't have to fight it by playing MD cards that make losing impossible. It's just statistics.

Maveric78f

10-30-2008, 11:43 AM

Oh. You're right. I don't know why I bother comboing on turn 3 when you combo turn 1/2 under chant's protection. Being rude does not help.

I don't like AG. I just noticed that the deck had a weakness against decks that can hit you very early in the game and I sought a solution. AG is my solution. The thing is that you all look like you did not even identify this weakness. You all are so proud of yourselves, that you think that you can combo on turn 1 or 2 reliably.

And, I never told I would play it MD.

Hopo

10-30-2008, 12:54 PM

AG is excellent in the situation you described and in burn matchup altogether. I just think that it's the only case I'd ever play it. I'd rather just go with Ill-gotten Gains. You can have more IGGs on sideboard, as they are golden also vs. discard strategies.

Noman Peopled

10-30-2008, 02:37 PM

I don't like AG. I just noticed that the deck had a weakness against decks that can hit you very early in the game and I sought a solution. [...] The thing is that you all look like you did not even identify this weakness. You all are so proud of yourselves, that you think that you can combo on turn 1 or 2 reliably.
I'm gonna have to partially side with you on this one, although I have already discarded AG.
If we could AdN t1 and t2 as consistently as people appear to think, we wouldn't be needing IGG in the first place, especially not in the sideboard. Sometimes we will not win t1 and the opponent will play Teeg/Mage/Chalice/Amethyst/whatever from the side the following turn, slowing us down. It is, in fact, a weakness the deck has.
But my main beef with AG is exactly that it does nothing to accelerate the combo. In short, including AG instead of other options makes the deck slower vs aggro and thus increases the dependency on AG. It would be better off playing additional mana and IGGs from the side to speed up the clock. Or hell, pack Swords or Deathmark. What percentage of your meta is Fireblast decks, anyway?
I don't like IGG either because the deck is not really built to exploit it fully - but it can actually win the game with relatively minor support.

Of course there are situations where I would really need an AG. However, there are also situations in which I'd need Damnation or even Gigadrowse.

BreathWeapon

11-01-2008, 12:52 PM

It really doesn't. The slots that SDT tends to get put in take the place of additional disruption or extra copies of Infernal Tutor. This does a couple things:

(a) makes you mulligan less and makes mulligans hurt less otherwise average hands are made better by sensei's top.
(b) allows you to slow down, although it doesn't force you to (you can just as easily not play and spin top as you could not cast Duress if you have other stuff to do)
(c) the combination with Mystical Tutor provides another game-ending combination requiring fewer initial mana sources after comboing with Ad Nauseam
(d) effectively denies an opponent Standstill (important vs Landstill and Dreadstill)

SDT vastly increases the deck's ability to win on turn 2 without actually taking away from turn 1 kills. The other cards to put in its slot (Ponder or additional protection) don't increase the ability to kill turn 1. Ponder does increase the ability to kill turn 2 along the lines of Top, but is also signifcantly worse after Ad Nauseam. Further Ponder provides no benefits in the control matchup where often you are forced to slow down at least a turn.

I think it's debatable, the problem I have with Top over Ponder is that Top is a permanent and doesn't increase Threshold or replace itself with out cost, but T3 Cabal Rituals aside I can see the appeal of being less reliant on UU and improving the mid/late game.

Maybe it's worth cutting Infernal Tutor and/or Chrome Mox for a more FT style build?

Waikiki

11-01-2008, 01:51 PM

I've been using 2 tops in my maindeck aswell. I only run 2 ponders. They have proven their strengths to me. vs Discard and slow control they are very strong in shaping your perfect combo hand.

Also during comboin'g they go pretty well with mystical tutor.

Frenkill

11-02-2008, 08:41 AM

I have made a few testgames with this deck.

Can anyone tell me why most people play Wipe Away or Rushing River over Chain of Vapor in Mainboard? Chain of Vapor has the same effect and costs two Mana less.

I also have some successful decklists from german tournaments for you (if anyone is interested):

http://www.deckcheck.net/deckvergleich.php?ids=20273_20362_20432_20511_20550_20566

4eak

11-02-2008, 09:05 AM

@ Frenkill

Can anyone tell me why most people play Wipe Away or Rushing River over Chain of Vapor in Mainboard? Chain of Vapor has the same effect and costs two Mana less.

Mana efficiency is not so much the concern--raw bounce power is really more important. Wipe Away and Rushing River are much more versatile than CoV. Bounce exists in the main not to generate storm, but rather as a tutorable answer to problematic permanents.

Wipe Away is mostly unanswerable and outside CB's curve. Rushing River can deal with 2 at once (Cov + 3Sphere, etc.).

peace,
4eak

Hanni

11-02-2008, 04:20 PM

The entire point of bounce is to answer Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance, with a lesser extent to Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage. Chain of Vapor gets hit by both Chalice@1 and is inside the Counterbalance curve, making it a horrible maindeck bounce spell. Rushing River hits everything you have problems with and can even hit multiple permanents if it needs to.

i_need_the_extra_turns

11-03-2008, 06:13 AM

I need more sideboard Ideas vs blue based decks.
I play 4 chant and 4 duress main (ubw), but when the opponent 12 or more counters plays it can get difficult.

Maveric78f

11-03-2008, 07:13 AM

You have a lot of ways to tutor your disruption (brainstorm/ponder into it, mystical tutor it, copy it with IT). Just fetch until you have 3/4 disruptions in your hand and you have quite a lot of lands/available mana. Then you play your disruption (first duress, then chants). It's highly unprobable that your opponent will have enough countermagic and mana to counterspell 5 spells. If he does, kill him with tendrils.

I forgot but extirpate shines also in these MUs where you know you'll have plenty of time.

Maveric78f

11-03-2008, 07:31 AM

Yesterday, I played the mirror match. After game 1 where I've won the duress battle and I comboed properly, we SBed. My SB: -1 IGG, -1 bounce, -1sensei's divining top, +3 extirpate.

On game 2, I can go off once more before him, but I AN-reveal only crap and I can't neither have UU to fetch my tendril nor discard my hand to play infernal tutor. Finally, I went the route, dark ritual, duress on tendrils, extirpate on tendrils, I check that there is no kill anymore in his deck, he'll have to deck me. I had no problem to combo 8-10 turns later. The idea, is to start with chant if he answers with chant, stop the combo and extirpate it on his turn. Wait to draw enough (8 playable spells including 1 IT). Then chain 2 times IT and your opponent will lose 20. You can also take advantage of ponder/brainstorm to raise the storm.

As a conclusion, in the mirror MU, extirpating tendrils is as much a victory as comboing. Keeping that in mind, in order to take advantage from it, sb them in, at worst it wrecks their mystical fetch, at best it's a kill. To protect yourself, don't play more than 1 copy of tendrils, brainstorm it back to library as soon as you can, and you may want to play 1 copy of an alternate kill in SB (EtW, whatever).

Obviously the best would be to play counterbalance, and it's quite an effective SB card in many MUs actually, but I'm not sure it's the best solution.

B.C.

11-03-2008, 07:44 AM

I need more sideboard Ideas vs blue based decks.

I've been bringing in 4 Pact of Negation. So far in testing it has been quite enough.

emidln

11-03-2008, 08:04 AM

I bring in Meddling Mages and an Extirpate along with Helm of Awakening and Grapeshot. Since I play a package of 4 Infernal Tutor/1 Doomsday/1 Ad Nauseam, I'm able to MM Tendrils and/or Ad Nauseam and still combo as normal. For chant superiority, I've been using the same strategy the first time I designed this deck (Extirpate + playing defensively with Chant). I've had a lot of success.

troopatroop

11-03-2008, 11:45 AM

emidln

11-03-2008, 12:38 PM

If the other deck played only 1 copy like it should, the fact that Tendrils was even in his hand for you to Duress away is extremely lucky. Yes, Extirpating Tendrils is strong, but its probably not making it into his hand for you to Duress away very often, making it an improbable strategy at best. Boarding in Extirpate to take their win condition seems like a bad idea, especially because Extirpate is a bad card.

Extirpate is an amazing card for storm combo. See my arguments in the Extirpate thread, which I'll note that nobody refuted. It's not boarded in to take Extirpate. That's an opportunistic use that theoretically could happen, but not the primary purpose. The goal is Extirpate is to win the Orim's Chant war of attrition.

troopatroop

11-03-2008, 12:44 PM

Extirpate is an amazing card for storm combo. See my arguments in the Extirpate thread, which I'll note that nobody refuted. It's not boarded in to take Extirpate. That's an opportunistic use that theoretically could happen, but not the primary purpose. The goal is Extirpate is to win the Orim's Chant war of attrition.

Fair enough. I just wanted to point out the unlikelihood, and how that shouldn't be the main thought behind it's inclusion.

Maveric78f

11-03-2008, 12:47 PM

And to mess up the mystical.

emidln

11-03-2008, 12:53 PM

Fair enough. I just wanted to point out the unlikelihood, and how that shouldn't be the main thought behind it's inclusion.

I totally agree. One of the things I noticed playing early version of Fetchland Tendrils and more recent builds with 4x Doomsday is that many times an opponent could completely wreck me with Duress + Tormod's Crypt/Extirpate/Leyline if they realized that I only played one win condition. This doesn't register to most opponents and they will likely take a far more threatening card like Doomsday, Ad Nauseam, Ill-Gotten Gains, or Brainstorm. In any event, it's a pretty big gamble because all of my storm combo decks, from the original builds of FT to more modern DDFT to the hybrid DD/AdN deck that I've been testing have multiple win conditions available postboard. Ad Nauseam and Doomsday both open up alternate paths to victory like Brain Freeze/Grapeshot to go with the always possible Empty the Warrens. In this way, it's really a risk to choose a win condition with Duress over protection, acceleration, or a tutor/bomb.

badjuju

11-03-2008, 01:36 PM

If the other deck played only 1 copy like it should, the fact that Tendrils was even in his hand for you to Duress away is extremely lucky. Yes, Extirpating Tendrils is strong, but its probably not making it into his hand for you to Duress away very often, making it an improbable strategy at best. Boarding in Extirpate to take their win condition seems like a bad idea, especially because Extirpate is a bad card.

Agreed about the idea that Extirpate on Tendrils is not so probable in the mirror. I won't say anything about how good Extirpate itself is though (that's dangerous waters around here lol).

If you want to remove their Tendrils in the mirror, maveric, try using Extract instead. Most ANT decklists only run 1 Tendrils anyway.

Twoshirty

11-03-2008, 01:40 PM

You know Earlier in this thread i mentioned extract, and isnt it kinda fail. Like your backwards language that decks just have to start sbing that shiz to get us.... man i hate that card. If people dont see how good it is against us then ... and it would also be a decent card in the mirror

Maveric78f

11-04-2008, 05:05 AM

You are right about extract. However, it's not tutorable in most decks. And it's too narrow to be played in more than 1 in SB. Even in ANT SB, I think that mirrors are too rare to play it as a tutorable *1.

Extirpate is far less narrow. It's very strong against big disruption decks like MUC or standstill. It's strong against ichorid. And you may probably like it in other MUs, where chants are bad (aggro loam for instance).

Dark_Cynic87

11-16-2008, 04:48 PM

On the extract topic or even just not finding an answer in general, I like Burning Wish. A singleton in here would be fine, especially with 4x Petals. You wouldn't even *need* to change the manabase, although if you were uncomfortable with not, then you could toss in a Volcanic somewhere.

Pce,

--DC

Kuma

11-16-2008, 06:12 PM

I've been thinking about the sideboard from Hanni's current list, and I think it can be much improved. The Slaughter Pact, StP, and Crypts aren't very useful, since we can just bounce Meddling Mage and Gaddock Teeg and race Dredge.

Right now, my metagame is mostly Stax/Chalice Aggro, Aggro Loam, Storm Combo, random aggro (many with Wasteland), and a few Thresholds.

Currently, my sideboard is:

1x Plains (Wasteland decks and Dragon Stompy)
4x Serenity (Stax/Chalice Aggro)
3x Repeal (Counterbalance, occasionally aggro)
1x Wipe Away (Counterbalance)
3x Hydroblast (Aggro Loam, Dragon Stompy, Swan Thresh)
3x Echoing Truth (Stax/Chalice Aggro, Storm)

Repeal is a limited card, in that it's pretty much only useful for bouncing Chalice at zero and Counterbalance. It can generate storm by bouncing an LED or petal, but it's inefficient for dealing with creatures and prison pieces. Chalice for one is usually the stronger play against ANT, and Echoing Truth is better equipped to deal with it.

Since the DtB forum is mostly Landstill, Thresh, and Storm, and decks we annihilate, maybe some number of Abeyance would be a good sideboard choice. Added counterspell protection can't hurt, plus they're almost as good as chants versus Storm.

jegger

11-17-2008, 04:35 AM

Third place yesterday at 80+ people tournament.
Same list like last one top8. Only SB change with the introduction of red splash against Counterbalance decks.

@Kuma: why do you play 3x Repeal? We discussed it time ago and it's horrible.
It doesn't bounce Teeg and Chalice at 1 and it hasn't split second like Wipe Away against CB.

Kuma

11-17-2008, 10:34 AM

Well, what should I run over it? More Wipe Away? I can't imagine myself needing it in multiples, and it's not an easy card for us to cast. The main reason I run it is because it replaces itself and doesn't muck up your hand while comboing.

The only major deck that runs Teeg is Survival, and we've already got a great matchup there. Besides, I've got Rushing River, Echoing Truth, and Wipe Away to bounce Teeg if I really have to.

I mostly use Repeal to bounce Counterbalance, Dreadnought, and Meddling Mage. It's a solid card against Thresh and Dreadstill, but I agree it's probably the weakest card in the sideboard. Repeal deals you less damage from Ad Nauseum than your other bounce and is great with Mystical Tutor post Nauseum.

I guess if Repeal is so bad, what's a better card to replace it?

socialite

11-17-2008, 10:59 AM

blarknob

11-17-2008, 12:54 PM

repeal actually seems really good. It dodges thresholds curve with a CMC of 3 when bouncing counterbalance while also keeping the CMC of the deck lower so it doesn't bolt you like rushing river or wipe away when resolving AN.

It is really good on chalice at zero and the card draw keeps your hand at a healthy size.

It is more narrow than the other bounce but i still think it has a solid role in the sideboard.

Maveric78f

11-17-2008, 01:31 PM

It finally got there, now that it's there! Cheers. (and painter went away, mouahaha)

Kuma

11-17-2008, 01:43 PM

Chain of Vapor, which you can also use to build Storm count.

Edit: Also why do you need that much bounce? It seems like total overkill.

Chain of Vapor doesn't bounce Counterbalance (easily), but can bounce Gaddock Teeg and can bounce MM for two mana less. One of these cards shows up in numerous DtB, the others do not. Repeal replaces itself and works great with Mystical Tutor. Neither Repeal or Chain bounce Chalice at one, but both bounce Chalice at any other number for one blue mana. Repeal draws you a card in the process, Chain doesn't.

The only real advantage Chain of Vapor has is that it can generate more storm than Repeal. But that's not why we run bounce, and it's not like the deck has problems generating storm, especially after an Ad Nauseum.

I don't see the arguement for Chain of Vapor unless your meta has Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage, but no Counterbalance.

I almost never side in more than four bounce spells. I have eight, because I like to tailor the bounce to the matchup.

I'd like to run something else over bounce, but all I can come up with is Abeyance, and I'm not thrilled with it. I'd love to hear suggestions about what to run over some of the bounce, but it seems like most people are as puzzled as I am.

rsaunder

11-17-2008, 03:51 PM

Alright, so now that AdN Tendrils is a DTW, do we have a basic list to go off of and serve as somewhat of ground zero?

Also, should all discussion revolving as AdN as an enabler in threads like some of the FT thread be moved here?

Maveric78f

11-18-2008, 05:08 AM

Instead of tailor bounce spells why not tailor removal spells (Slaughter pact for creatures and serenity for other permanents). Then you can use the remaining slots to ensure the win against aggro (angel's grace or additionnal copies of IGG if you prefer this route), to ensure the win against control and random graveyard based decks (extirpate), and if you meet a lot of comboes in your meta, you can even include 1*extract.
(in addition to MD 1*wipe away, 4*duress, 4*orim's chant)
4*Serenity
4*Slaughter's Pact
3*Angel's Grace
3*Extirpate
1*Extract

Then, the difficulty is when you play against CB, MM and FoW. But I think it's difficult for all ANT versions...

Kuma

11-18-2008, 01:46 PM

Alright, so now that AdN Tendrils is a DTW, do we have a basic list to go off of and serve as somewhat of ground zero?

Hanni's B/u/w list on page one is the basic list.

Instead of tailor bounce spells why not tailor removal spells (Slaughter pact for creatures and serenity for other permanents). Then you can use the remaining slots to ensure the win against aggro (angel's grace or additionnal copies of IGG if you prefer this route), to ensure the win against control and random graveyard based decks (extirpate), and if you meet a lot of comboes in your meta, you can even include 1*extract.
(in addition to MD 1*wipe away, 4*duress, 4*orim's chant)
4*Serenity
4*Slaughter's Pact
3*Angel's Grace
3*Extirpate
1*Extract

Then, the difficulty is when you play against CB, MM and FoW. But I think it's difficult for all ANT versions...

Four Slaughter Pact is overkill. The only creatures we'd ever need to Slaughter Pact are Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage, and Ethersworn Cannonist. All three are already answered by bounce, and Slaughter Pact's upkeep cost makes it ineffective at buying time vs. aggro. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not seeing those creatures in great numbers and we already have ways to deal with them.

I could understand running Extract and Extirpate if you expect the mirror match, but, in general, both are subpar cards.

Angel's Grace seems like danger of cute things. Yes, it lets you draw your whole deck if need be, provided you cast it before Ad Nauseum, and can give you an extra turn to IGG vs. aggro, but I haven't had problems drawing enough cards off Ad Nauseum, or beating aggro. Angel's Grace just seems extremely narrow.

After some thought, I think our sideboard looks something like:

4x Serenity
1x Plains
4-6 Bounce
0-1 Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild
0-2 Abeyance
0-4 Hydroblast
0-1 Slaughter Pact
0-4 Pact of Negation

Right now, there aren't enough cards that scream "Yeah, play me!" for me to be happy with any sideboard.

4eak

11-18-2008, 11:33 PM

@ rsaunder

do we have a basic list to go off of and serve as somewhat of ground zero

Ground zero means what cards, at the bare minimum, do I expect to see in any ANT deck, right? This archetype is still fairly new, and isn't completely established (even though it deserves DTW status), so we have to be careful when we isolate what exact cards we expect to see in any deck we call ANT.

The basic shell of ANT:

Lands: 9
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

Mana Acceleration: 17
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

Card Quality: 12
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor

Engine/WinCons: 5
3 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains (Although a few may disagree, I'm going to argue this is a shell-staple)

These 43 cards belong in every variant of ANT. You can splash for red and/or white, or whatever, but you still have to run these 43. Obviously, decks will be running more land, usually some sort of protection and bounce, and often higher quantities of cards like CRit, CMox, or AdN. Those additions aren't exactly set in stone though, so I can't point them out as being part of the shell.

The above shell defines ANT. The other 17 cards define the variant you play.

@ Kuma

Hanni's B/u/w list on page one is the basic list.

While B/U/w ANT is probably the most popular among us, I'm still going to call it a variant and not necessarily the standard ground zero. The dust is still settling, and while B/U/w ANT may become the standard list for most metagames (and it probably will), it is evident that other variants are still finding success (even if we believe it is despite their card choices and not in virtue of them).

What makes a deck an ANT deck is running the above. Further evolution or multiple variants are still likely.

peace,
4eak

Maveric78f

11-19-2008, 02:38 AM

A lot of people (including me) play only 4 AN. And I don't see a lot of people playing less than 13 lands, even if I admit that not everybody splashes white. I also think that everybody agrees in playing 4*duress. On the opposite, not everybody plays the 4*LED+4*IT mechanics.

Kuma you're 100% wrong. Extirpate is the SB card I SB in the more often. It wins mirror and control. AG has already been discussed a lot. I understand that you might prefer another out to aggro, but you absolutely need one. And Slaughter Pact, what's the problem with that card? Why would you prefer bounce to removal? Will you enter more than 4 bounces in a single MU? You already said that no. So why would you play 4/6 bounces in SB instead of play 8 dedicated and highly efficient removals? Sorry but I don't get.

Kuma

11-19-2008, 01:04 PM

Kuma you're 100% wrong. Extirpate is the SB card I SB in the more often. It wins mirror and control. AG has already been discussed a lot. I understand that you might prefer another out to aggro, but you absolutely need one. And Slaughter Pact, what's the problem with that card? Why would you prefer bounce to removal? Will you enter more than 4 bounces in a single MU? You already said that no. So why would you play 4/6 bounces in SB instead of play 8 dedicated and highly efficient removals? Sorry but I don't get.

I don't think Extirpate is a good card for combo -- it's better suited to control. Still, you're arguably right about Extirpate; I just don't like the card and don't want to argue its merits and demerits here when there's a whole thread of people already doing so.

AG is not an out to aggro. AG lets you Ad Nauseum at low life totals, which can be helpful vs. aggro, but that's why we run IGG. I have never had problems winning through IGG; I've won nearly one third of my games with ANT without resolving Ad Nauseum. We're storm combo. We roll aggro decks. I'd rather have something to improve our bad matchups.

The problem with Slaughter Pact is that it's narrow. Don't get me wrong, it's the best card for killing Teeg, MM, and Cannonist, but it's nearly useless against goyfs and other creatures because of the upkeep cost. I've been thinking about Deathmark, and I think it's better.

Deathmark kills:

Gaddock Teeg
Meddling Mage
Ethersworn Cannonist
Tarmogoyf
Swans of Brynn Argol
Terravore
Nantuko Monastary
and more...

As for why I prefer bounce to removal, in combo decks, bounce spells are like instant speed blue Vindicates. You bounce whatever permanent(s) give you problems at the end of their turn and win before they can recast them. In general, removal is narrower and more expensive than bounce, but it gets rid of cards forever. This isn't relevant to combo, because we only need cards out of the way for a turn.

Lejay

11-19-2008, 03:04 PM

Good luck killing nantuko monastery with deathmark when you are playing ANT...

Removing the nasty here is easy:

Deathmark is a sorcery so there is little chance that it will kill an opponent's Monastery.

-PR

Frenkill

11-21-2008, 04:20 PM

Here is my current ANT:

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand

3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Orim's Chant
1 Pact of Negation
1 Rushing River

Sideboard:

1 Plains
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
3-4 Tormod's Crypt
3-4 Serenity
Duress?
Brain Freeze?
...

The 8 cantrips + 2 Sensei's give me a better Matchup against each deck that has a few maindeck cards that can disrupt the ANT-plan (nearly all decks)

I decided to play only 1 Ad Nauseam. The average convertened manacost of cards I can reveal is much lower this way. And when I play AN the highest cost I can reveal is 4 and not 5.

Ad Nauseam is only in the Deck to find it with Infernal and Mystical Tutor. In fact, I win the most of my games without AN.

AN is not necessary to win, when you know how to deal with your IGG.

Dark_Cynic87

11-21-2008, 05:53 PM

@ Frenkill: No discard? Now you're just being silly...

It belongs maindecked barring only the Ichorid and loam Matchups.

I like top more than you I guess, because I think it should be a 3 or 4 of in most fetchland tendrils lists, and your list is no different. I'd drop a Ponder for a 3rd. They are really good in conjunction with Mystical Tutor, as well as help in the control matchup, not to mention with LED ramp-ups by knowing when you are going to see Ad Nauseam as a top-deck.

to whoever was talking about Extirpate wanting a more controlling aspect: That's exactly what storm uses it for. Control. Storm lists have a control aspect always, even TES. Belcher and SI are the ones with the smallest capacity for control, with belcher's being seemingly non-existant (never played it...but technically neither has anyone else). What do you think Chant is for? It's a control aspect. Extirpate simply makes your chants be bait, they compliment discard (which honestly should never be dropped) and also can give information (by looking at their hand) while removing problem cards such as stifle and force of will. I'm not saying play them, I'm just pointing out that you assessed them exactly right, but then dismissed them by ignoring you assessment.

@ Kuma: Slaughter Pact does all that and more for one less mana at instant speed...

Pce,

--DC

Twoshirty

11-22-2008, 01:28 PM

Hey there everyone! I just wanted to hop in for a moment and say, Frenkill love the list! I was already playing a similar list, (I think the main differences being -1 ponder +1 AN) but I read your post and tried your idea....I love it! it is amazing casting AN and not getting wacked for five! I completely agree with what you say about IGG as well, That is the go to card for me 7 out of 10 times. I only try for AN Against decks that run force.(in my meta there are not alot).
Dark Cynic: I really think that discard is amazing, but like fren kill mine is in the sb as well. It is wonderful having the extra space main, and if you do need it you can side it in. Top is good and i think I am going to try three in the space of the 4th ponder thanx!

Kuma

11-22-2008, 02:18 PM

My bad, I thought Deathmark was an Instant. Not that my argument suffers as a result.

@ Kuma: Slaughter Pact does all that and more for one less mana at instant speed...

Slaughter Pact is good for killing MM, Teeg, and Cannonist the turn you want to combo off. Are there any other relevant creatures when you're trying to combo? My point is that you can use Deathmark any time you want to kill all of the above problem creatures and more. If someone's eating away at your Ad Nauseum fodder (life points) with goyf, you can Deathmark it. You can't do that with Slaughter Pact unless you have three mana on the board or you use a ritual. There's also the chance with Slaughter Pact that one of your mana sources is Wasted/Gripped or your ritual is countered and you lose the game.

I'm not running either in my board right now, because bounce does everything both cards do and more.

EOT, bounce MM/Teeg/Cannonist, win on your turn.

On a related note, has anyone had any success with Dark Confidant in the sideboard? I tried him out last night vs Thresh, but the only time I drew him, he was Counterbalanced. Seems like he could be good vs control, and every time he connects it's one less storm you need to win. Seems like he'd be good in a deck designed to abuse his mechanic.

jegger

11-23-2008, 04:53 AM

@Frenkill: this is the list I brought to the last 2 top8 with the exception of -1AN +1Ponder. This can be a right choice if in your meta there are few black based decks.

The Duress is a meta slot. In the right metagame Duress can be in the maindeck, in others Duress ca be in side. People say "No discard? Now you're just being silly..." don't understand the influence of the metagame in the choice of the right decklist for a metagame.
In brief, Duress maindeck is good in an heavy hate metagame.
Ponder decreases the mulligans and gives to you a more fast and more fluid deck. The choice is "pondered".

I've tried Dark Confidant in SB, but it's not synergistic with AN. When I have used DC, often I was obliged to win with IGG for the life loss (fetchland, DC, opponent race).

Kuma

11-23-2008, 01:34 PM

I've tried Dark Confidant in SB, but it's not synergistic with AN. When I have used DC, often I was obliged to win with IGG for the life loss (fetchland, DC, opponent race).

I don't view Dark Confidant and Ad Nauseum as anti-synergistic, but as two sides of the same coin. ANT is built to take advantage of low casting costs with Ad Nauseum, so why not do the same with Bob?. The average CMC in my list is 1.033, so Bob seems like a natural fit. He seems amazing postboard vs Dreadstill and Ugw Thresh, since they'll side out what little creature removal they have, and he gives you a much better chance to successfully slow roll control. Since these decks are creature light, it's likely that he'll hit them once or twice so you'll need less storm to win. The life loss is almost irrelevant because you won't need as many cards off Ad Nauseum to win. Speaking of life loss, Bob can also chump block goyf to prevent some damage.

So you might have to win with IGG. Sometimes you need to win with IGG after an Ad Nauseum anyway. What are you doing with those extra cards from Bob that you didn't have enough in hand to win with Ad Nauseum?

In the lists running extra cantrips and Top, I don't see how you can make an arguement not to run Bob. He'll deal you even less damage per card than Ad Nauseum.

Dark_Cynic87

11-24-2008, 11:02 AM

In what metagame is Duress less than amazing? Seriously, I can't think of any other than one completely devoid of anything other than goblins...

Duress isn't good in a heavy hate environment, it's fantastic. It's good in a random metagame.

I think it's bad form to say it's a meta call when every other storm list out there MD's 4x of them (TES, SI, QSI, FT). I think ANT might even...

I'll drop the issue now, and you guys should ignore me as I have a problem with having to have the last word in an argument (I've been married, sue me).

Pce,

--DC

Apex

11-24-2008, 11:57 PM

So, anyone else happy with the Grand Prix Okayama legacy side event lists?

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpoka08/legacytop8 (it's in Japanese, but the lists are there)

3 lists using Ad Nauseam:
1st and 3rd place are both basically TES with Mystical Tutor (but less gold lands, interesting, they look more FT-ish)
8th place is 2 land Belcher with 2xAdN.

Maybe we should eventually shift into this weird TES/ANT/FT hybrid for maximum efficiency.

troopatroop

11-25-2008, 12:34 AM

I think all of those lists are incredible across the board. I love the first place list for incorporating basic lands and duals instead of some of the weaker gold lands. The answers maindeck can all be fetched with Mystical Tutor. 2 AdN makes the curve pretty low after casting 1, and the 2 Mox Diamond really help win you games after resolving AdN. I like the lists alot, and this is exactly the type of shit everyone was talking about. Legacy gets bigger? Japanese figure it out. Awesome if you ask me.

Pelikanudo

11-25-2008, 06:00 AM

Hello, I want to put this idea in mind of every body and tell me how could this idea can be developed .
I've testing A.N deck quite a lot and I noticed we only need 1 AN to win , I mean there are no many times we really have it in hand in order to be played with rituals , in addition to this statement the 8 tutors have synerrgy with LED; LED has no synergy with AN in hand, therefore I can conclude that the tutors are the way to explode the A.N card ,even we reduce the average mana cost quite a lot.
Well this is the list I propose:

13 lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual // maybe +1 land= - 1 C.Ritual

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Orim's Chant
4 Duress
Sideboard:
4 Pact of Negation
4 Wipe Away
4 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Ill goten Gains
1 Plains

I've been thinking in playing as well cunnin wish because of its flexibility and ability to get access to A.N in response to pòp LED , still testing,

however playing 9 chances of getting A.N + 8 Ponder/brainstorm we really have the way to make the combo withouth loosing one slot of the defensive cards duress / Orims.

Ideas, suggestions, Onions ?

Kuma

11-25-2008, 03:16 PM

The Japanese lists are interesting, but they don't seem optimized. Ryousei Kawai's list needs more Burning Wish and Orim's Chant and less Mox Diamond. The sideboard needs work too. Ancient Grudge in the maindeck is hot, but I'm not sure it's worth running a five color mana base. I like Yuu Saitou's list a little more, but I have many of the same complaints.

Rite of Flame doesn't get it done when it comes to casting Ad Nauseum, and while Burning Wish and improved sideboard flexibility are nice, I don't see any advantages to running either list over Bryant's latest TES list or B/u/w ANT lists. In my testing, the Japanese lists were similar to ANT in speed, but lacking in protection and consistency, the latter being due to running four colors.

Frenkill

11-25-2008, 03:52 PM

Nice to see, that you like the idea with only one AN.

I had some thoughts about Duress...

When I look at all the ANT decks I see there are many decks with 3-4 Duress which doesn't play any bouncespell. (I catch this because this is the diffence between my list and Pelikanudo's one)

It makes sense. You don't need to bounce what you already let him discard...

I could take my deck and make -2 Ponder/Sensei's; -1 Bounce; -1 Pact; +4 Duress, like Pelikanudo does. So playing Duress gives one free slot.

What do you think about that?

Dark_Cynic87

11-25-2008, 06:50 PM

I would leave the bounce. Really I would, as it's able to act as removal to that goyf chipping away at your life total. Also, I've been arguing in the TES thread since Ad Nauseam was printed to only run 1x AdN and run M. Tutors. I don't get it, but I like that (some of) you guys agree with me.

By the way, I was wondering something. Why do you guys worry about creatures that don't say something like Teeg/Meddling/Cannonist? Goyf doesn't get really big against us. Only against Goyf Sligh will he be bigger than what, a 3/4? Instant, land, sorcery is all they get from us or them in the Thresh matchup, and that's their turn 3 that they will even swing with it. I don't think it's something to worry about.

Also, I've run Chrome Mox as a 3x of and even a 2x of and been fine. I'd feel free to cut a Mox to leave your bounce in. Also, if your discard is in the form of Duress, you most definitely need the bounce as it won't remove the problem creatures mentioned above.

Pce,

--DC

Pelikanudo

11-26-2008, 05:18 AM

i_need_the_extra_turns

11-26-2008, 06:57 AM

@frenkill
@dark cinyl
I've been talking with DIF about the list and he does not include any removal spell, he says its useless at least in first game, as you say the cards we want to bounce are canonist , teeg, mage and COUNTERBANCE , well the three first cards for sure we will find it in 2nd game , respect to the last one... well there have to be any deck which wins us and those are decks with c.b ,however duress in that way is the card which helps us to fitgh c.b in first game. another point is about trinisphere and chalice, well if our opponent land chalice 1cc we loose if we have or not 1 bouncer spell, unless we have incredible luck and we draw it, trust me bouncer in 1st sucks, you'd better play cunnin or burning which are cards that get access to bouncers instead playing the bouncer by itself.

I really have some doubts about the inclusion of cunnin wish, the main deck as I conceived seems to me perfect, except the lack of 1 land(13 only) , however the full package both of 4duresses/4orims and 4brainstorm/4Ponder seem to be the goal of whatever builder of any ANT deck, and in mine you see these package

However I'd like you boys tell me if you agree with the list with 1 ANT and tell me thoutghs about the land configuration :
maybe +1 land = -1ponder or +1 land = -1I.tutor ...?

regarding to the cunnin wish, well ,somebody think, if AN would be sorcery, it would be broken because of burning wish...,well
we have cunnin wish , which search for INSTANTS and BOUNCERS and doesn't make our mana base worse , all seem to be advantages, the only thing I see it's not better than burning is because it's +1mana expensive, but thats all.

Well , ideas , suggestions , Onions?

Well, I like your list and the full package^^.
My current list is:

14 lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire

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

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor

2 Ad Nauseam //maybe -1 for +1 Cunning Wish... But I like two AdN
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Orim's Chant
4 Duress
Sideboard:
1 Rushing River
1 Wipe Away
4 Serenity
1 Ill goten Gains
1 Tendrils
1 Plains
2 Extirpate
1 Angels Grace
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Pact of Negation

I will test: -1 Land +1 Ponder
The problem with Ad as a 1of is, that it can be discarded and countered.
Therefor I like the cunning wish to make a 2nd AdN available.
I see still one Problem: discard on tendrils or extract.

@ Pelikanudo What is your boarding plan against UGR tempro thrash?
Cu

Pelikanudo

11-26-2008, 09:27 AM

Well, I like your list and the full package^^.
Sideboard:
1 Rushing River
1 Wipe Away
4 Serenity
1 Ill goten Gains
1 Tendrils
1 Plains
2 Extirpate
1 Angels Grace
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Pact of Negation

I will test: -1 Land +1 Ponder
The problem with Ad as a 1of is, that it can be discarded and countered.
Therefor I like the cunning wish to make a 2nd AdN available.
I see still one Problem: discard on tendrils or extract.

@ Pelikanudo What is your boarding plan against UGR tempro thrash?
Cu

the best card vs fows and ,above all, dazes is pact of negation thats the reason I run 4 of them in side , they even get low the average mana cost

from my list for reference I'll take out :

-1 igg , -2 cabal ritual , -1 IT ,-1 led
as well If it is suposed to face wastelnds add the plain as well ,
the reasoning of these changes are :

once we have casted AN, we will not go on the way : IT + LED because we have more possibilities on the other way : chrome mox OR lotus petal + mystical + ponder OR brainstorm.

regarding to the problem of beeing discarded or beeing countered AN ,I do not find it as a problem , we allways can go on the way of IGG which gets stuff from graveyard.

Kuma

11-26-2008, 10:43 AM

Pelikanudo

11-26-2008, 11:23 AM

The problem I have with running only one Ad Nauseum is that you become reliant on Mystical Tutor to get it. Since the replacement card of choice seems to be Ponder, consider these hands:

a ) Underground Sea, Mystical Tutor, Dark Ritual, Ponder, IGG, Orim's Chant, Infernal Tutor.

b ) Underground Sea, Mystical Tutor, Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseum, IGG, Orim's Chant, Infernal Tutor.

In the hand with Ponder, you're relying on Ponder to show you a ritual or your lone copy of Ad Nausem. Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't.

However, in the hand with Ad Nauseum, you have the ability to Ad Nausem turn two every time. That's the biggest difference. Cutting Ad Nauseums slows us down.

Pact of Negation and Cunning Wish don't belong in ANT. Pact of Negation is only useful for protecting Orim's Chant -- it can't protect Tutor/LED, which is when you're most vulnerable. Assuming they FoW your Chant, the odds are very low that they'll have another FoW ready to go. The best play is usually to try to combo there. At 2U, Cunning Wish is too expensive as a setup card, and doesn't seem useful off an Ad Nauseum.

well on the a) if you see with ponder Dark Ritual OR LED it's as fast as b)
if you see mox chrome AND land is equally as fast as b) because of IT , we'll imprint orims , etc, etc.

however I its maximum turn to combo is 3rd maybe I agree its a litle slower , very litle , but playing 1 AN , ALWAYS we play it ALWAYS we win, the reduction of the number of AN slower sooo much the average mana curve...

regarding Pact ... well it not only serves to protect orims , it protects as well duress, and trust me there are lot of people that don't know what to counter

Kuma

11-26-2008, 03:00 PM

well on the a) if you see with ponder Dark Ritual OR LED it's as fast as b)
if you see mox chrome AND land is equally as fast as b) because of IT , we'll imprint orims , etc, etc.

See, that's my point. B always combos turn two, A sometimes combos turn two.

however I its maximum turn to combo is 3rd maybe I agree its a litle slower , very litle ,

So what are the advantages of Ponder? Ponder seems like a crutch so you can justify keeping subpar hands.

but playing 1 AN , ALWAYS we play it ALWAYS we win, the reduction of the number of AN slower sooo much the average mana curve...

Average CMC in your list with Ponder: .88
Average CMC in your list -2 Ponder +2 Ad Nauseum: 1.02

You'd take, on average, one more damage per seven cards you flip if you ran three Ad Nauseum. That seems like a fair trade for being faster and more reliable.

regarding Pact ... well it not only serves to protect orims , it protects as well duress, and trust me there are lot of people that don't know what to counter

If someone counters your Duress, you smile and proceed to combo. The odds of them having a second counterspell are tiny. Pact of Negation is almost always unnecessary, and can't protect you at your most vulnerable. I'd run Abeyance or Thoughtseize before I'd run Pact, and both of those are terrible options.

rsaunder

11-26-2008, 07:07 PM

I run a build with 1 AdN and I've never had a problem finding it when I need it. I know everyone likes seeing it in their openers, but seriously I almost never want to draw/open with it in any match that's not an auto-win already.

Kuma

11-26-2008, 08:22 PM

I'm not saying you'll have trouble finding it when you need it. I'm saying you'll almost always have to find it. Which is slow. And risky. And can stop you from tutoring for protection or a ritual. You're also greatly reduced in your options if they counter your only Ad Nauseum. I don't think anything less than two is correct, three has served me well, and I've strongly considered going up to four. I'm rarely unhappy drawing an Ad Nauseum.

Out of curiosity, rsaunder, what do you run over extra copies of Ad Nauseum?

Jaiminho

11-26-2008, 09:46 PM

I'm not saying you'll have trouble finding it when you need it. I'm saying you'll almost always have to find it. Which is slow. And risky. And can stop you from tutoring for protection or a ritual. You're also greatly reduced in your options if they counter your only Ad Nauseum. I don't think anything less than two is correct, three has served me well, and I've strongly considered going up to four. I'm rarely unhappy drawing an Ad Nauseum.

These are the reasons for why Doomsday FT plays 4 Doomsday. It should be no different with AN FT. Still, it seems that 4 might be too much, but I wouldn't play less than 2 in the hybrid AN/DD list or 3 in a straight AN list.

i_need_the_extra_turns

11-27-2008, 03:53 AM

however I its maximum turn to combo is 3rd maybe I agree its a litle slower , very litle , but playing 1 AN , ALWAYS we play it ALWAYS we win, the reduction of the number of AN slower sooo much the average mana curve...

Yes, that is obvious, but it was never the Problem for AdN Tendrils to finish after a resolved AdN.
The argument for cutting AdN and add Ponders is: constancy.
Ponder makes landdrops available and finds LED etc.
I cut my bounce and 1 AdN for 2 Ponders. Maybe u can cut the 14th land for an additional Ponder.
But also I dont want to play less than 2 AdN.

rsaunder

11-27-2008, 12:52 PM

Out of curiosity, rsaunder, what do you run over extra copies of Ad Nauseum?I run doomsday. I already run 4x tops, and it's a storm deck so there's little reason not to run the only storm engine that is a guaranteed kill and doesnt care about the graveyard. It also lets you side in alternate kill conditions in the board.

On another note: I hate chrome mox. I know they're a necessary evil, but what's the minimum number everyone's found that they're able to run? I definitely want to cut it from 3 to 2 and add lands, but I'd love to go down to zero.

zuzy

11-30-2008, 04:54 AM

Hallo there,

I am going to play the tournament next week with the Ad Nauseam deck.

Below you can find the decklist, that I want to play.

What I need to ask you for help is, what to SB for what in the following matchups and how to tune the SB.

Here is the decklist:

3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ALA] Island (1)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ALA] Swamp (1)
3 [R] Underground Sea
1 [u] Tundra
1 [u] Scrubland

3 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [CST] Dark Ritual
4 [7E] Duress
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [6E] Mystical Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [DS] Echoing Truth
4 [PS] Orim's Chant

The tournament should be about 40 players.

Here is metagame that I expect:

20% should be some Combo decks (1 - 2 Ichorids)
20% should be Aggro Control decks (Dreadstill, ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh, Slivers, Loam Deck)
20% should be some Control decks with or without Counterbalance (Mono U control, Landstill)
10% should be Aggro Decks (Goblins and so on)
30% should be random decks (Red Burn and so on)

My current SB is this:

1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony - Against Burn decks and against Aggro Control decks.
Side out: 1x Duress

4 [RAV] Dark Confidant - Against Control decks - for card advantage.
Side out: 4x Mystical Tutor

4 [UL] Defense Grid - Againtst Control decks
Side out: 2x Dark Ritual + 2x Cabal Ritual

2 [SOK] Pithing Needle - Random thread - Vial, Wasteland, Top....
Side out: ???

3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt - Against Ichorid, Cephalid Breakfast...
Side out: 3x Duress

1 [NE] Massacre - Against Aggro with White
Side out: 1x Duress

Now I want to put in the SB the following cards, but don´t know what to take out...:

+/- 3x Engineered Explosives - They are for 0 with Ad Nauseam. Can deal with Counterbalance, which is really big problem. Can be played for 0 or 1 or 2 or 3. They are good against Aggro decks.

Change for 3x Dark Confidant ???

+/- 2x Disenchant - Can deal with Counterbalance, Chalice of the Void.

Change for 1x Dark Confidant + 1x Defense Grid

+/- 2x Bounce Spell - Rushing River, Chain of Vapour - against random threads.

Change for ???

What do you think about this reworked SB? Do you have any other ideas?

I also found on net the version with Senseis Divining Top.

Why is it good there? It slowes down the deck...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=21703

Thank you
ZUZY

matamagos

11-30-2008, 06:26 AM

zuzy

11-30-2008, 08:34 AM

if you finally run dark confidant I'm really interested to know your experience with it. It has been very discussed, but I don't know anyone who has played it in a tournament

i'm not an ad nauseam player, I play dragon storm. when i have faced this matchup i have won due to all my artifact stuff. so I will recomend you to play exnginereed explosive or some bounce spells in sideboard. they are very flexible spells and legacy is a very diverse format, these spells help you to get rid of no matter what shit you face on the board.

I have played them at the tournament in 3 pcs. I side them out for Mystical Tutor, just to have card adventage. It is slowing the combo down, but against the control, it doesnt matter. He isn´t beater. He deals just about 2 to 4 DMG, because oponent has almost always something to block.

In my eyes, there is better to have in SB the Defend Grids. But I have to try it.

The Explosives seems really universal for me and Bounce is a must. But I dont know, what for to change.

Any other thoughts?

ZUZY

B.C.

11-30-2008, 11:07 AM

I played ANT at TML 4 yesterday. I was 2-1 at one point before scrubbing out. I should have been 3-1, but I killed myself with Ad Nauseam game 3 (starting at 19 life)... how unlucky.

The list I played:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
3 Ad Nauseam
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant
1 IGG
1 Tendrils
1 Rushing River

SB:
4 Extirpate
3 Slaughter Pact
3 Serenity
2 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Tendrils
1 Swamp
1 Mox Diamond

Rd 1: Affinity (W)
Rd 2: Mirror Match vs. Gacioch (L)
Rd 3: Painter (W)
Rd 4: Landstill (L)
Rd 5: Painter (L)

I ended up taking out 1 Ad Nauseam every game. If I were playing in another tournament soon, the only change I would make to the maindeck is -1 Ad Nauseam, +1 SDT or Infernal Tutor. Extirpate was butt stains all day long. Every time I drew it I just wished it was Pact of Negation. I also feel like Serenity is too slow, and it also can't be fetched with M Tutor. For the sideboard I would go -4 Extirpate, +4 Pact of Negation, -3 Serenity, +3 Disenchant.

Kuma

11-30-2008, 12:34 PM

I ran 4x Bob in my sideboard on Friday, and he really helped in some bad matchups.

Round one I got paired against Dreadstill (what luck!). Game one I lose to active Countertop backed up by goyf beats. I eventually resolved an Ad Nauseum with him tapped out and a zero on top, but there was no way I could finish him with his ability to counter my zeros and ones. Game two I resolve a Bob on turn two while he drops Counterbalance. I deal him 10 damage with Bob and kill him with a mini Tendrils through his Counterbalance. Game three I take goyf beats down to 14 life with a blind Counterbalance on the board. He drops Standstill and I respond by casting Wipe Away on his Counterbalance. Unfortunately, when I cast Chant on my turn, he draws FoW off Standstill and I end up being one mana short off IGG, because I'd have had to cast Chant again.

Round three sees me paired against a mono black control deck with manlands and Nether Void. Bob was a big help when playing around his discard and while digging for bounce to get rid of his Nether Void, but all my bounce and Mystical Tutors were in the bottom 30 or so cards of my deck, so I ended up losing.

I went 2-2, but I like what Bob did for me in my losses and I think he deserves a spot in the board vs control and aggro control.

Vs Dreadstill, I boarded out 1 Rushing River, 1 Chrome Mox, 1 Infernal Tutor, 1 Ad Nauseum, 1 Cabal Ritual, and something else for 1 Wipe Away, 1 Repeal, and 4 Bob.

Vs MBC I boarded out 4 Chant, 1 Rushing River, 1 Chrome Mox, and 1 Infernal Tutor for 4 Bob, 2 Echoing Truth, and a Plains.

zuzy

11-30-2008, 12:43 PM

B.C.: Why do you play there 1x Senseis Divining Top? And why you want to put there 2 of them?

It is slowing the deck. Isn´t it? Or why do you think, that they are good there?

Regards
ZUZY

rsaunder

11-30-2008, 01:13 PM

B.C.: Why do you play there 1x Senseis Divining Top? And why you want to put there 2 of them?

It is slowing the deck. Isn´t it? Or why do you think, that they are good there?

Regards
ZUZY

How fast does the deck really need to be? Isn't consistancy a worthwhile tradeoff when we're 2 turns ahead of the format anyways?

B.C.

11-30-2008, 01:36 PM

How fast does the deck really need to be? Isn't consistancy a worthwhile tradeoff when we're 2 turns ahead of the format anyways?

I agree. SDT helps consistency and card selection, which is huge against control. You don't have to win on turn 2. Also, it gives you an additional way to play Ad Nauseam off of an LED, and it helps you get what you need when you resolve Ad Nauseam. If you haven't tested it yet, I suggest trying it out. I'm a big fan.

zuzy

11-30-2008, 02:37 PM

I agree. SDT helps consistency and card selection, which is huge against control. You don't have to win on turn 2. Also, it gives you an additional way to play Ad Nauseam off of an LED, and it helps you get what you need when you resolve Ad Nauseam. If you haven't tested it yet, I suggest trying it out. I'm a big fan.

I didn´t try it yet. And I will do during this week, because the tournament is on 6.12.

About the speed - the deck is about to win within a first 2 turns.

ZUZY

Gaagooch

12-01-2008, 09:09 AM

How fast does the deck really need to be? Isn't consistancy a worthwhile tradeoff when we're 2 turns ahead of the format anyways?

I've been playing combo for a very long time now, and I just piloted AnT to the top 8 day one of the leak. I have to say I completely disagree with you about that being a worthwhile tradeoff. Time is usually not a friend of a combo player, your ideal time to win the game is turn 1-2, after that your chances of winning decrease significantly with each passing turn. Whatever the scenario is, maybe your opponent played a 3/4 goyf, or resolved a counterbalance, or some other spell of use. It is good to be two turns ahead of the format because that gives us the edge we need to win. In my top 8 match I lost to someone playing a singleton stifle in his 4-color deck, that is because I gave him the time he needed to set himself up. That was game two, game one I put him on the ropes needing to brainstorm into a force of will or lose the game, bad news for me is he found the force, but they don't always. Being fast and not allowing your opponent to set up anything gives you the best possible chance to win everytime. You really don't want to have to play long drawn out games with a combo deck as it will drain you throughout the day, and then you aren't playing at your best.

rsaunder

12-01-2008, 10:08 AM

I'm not as worried about getting drained by a deck; if I can't play it all day I probably shouldn't be playing it yet.

But you're right in theory about having to wait with this deck. AdN is an interesting card because it gets weaker as the game goes on, and that MIGHT on average make it not worthwhile to increase consistancy. I'd like to see the fundimental turns of both lists. I bet they're not all that different, and if that's the case the added consistancy of top is worthwhile.

Gaagooch

12-01-2008, 10:22 AM

I understand what you are getting at, but I have never had a problem with consistency yet. I had one game on saturday where I didn't draw gas until late in the game. The list I played performed very well for me and was very consistent. Does it still need some tweaking? Of course it does, there are some things I am going to change. Does it need top? I don't know, as of right now I personally do not think it needs a top as that will slow the deck down, even if just a little. Will top add consistency to the deck? I don't know that either, that is something to be figured out after rigirous playtesting. If top is a new addition/answer for this deck, how many would you even want to play. It is very hard to cut cards out of this deck to add in tops, but after I test out some more lists, it might come to be that that is the right thing to do.

Concallesco

12-01-2008, 12:02 PM

The consistency that Top adds, as far as I have played storm, is primarily for Doomsday, because I play a hybrid list with both Doomsday and Ad Nauseam. The ability to spin it and filter cards is only relevant as the game progresses, obviously, but the more spins you get out of it (i.e. the longer the game lasts) the more problems you encounter with allowing your opponent to set up, as Gaagooch mentioned.

Personally, I don't think it's prudent to focus almost entirely on speed, or almost entirely on consistency - which is why not many people play or do well with Solidarity or SI (or Belcher, for that matter) anymore. The trade-off that is achieved with the inclusion of Tops helps achieve a good balance, and certainly it is being so fast that allows us the opportunity to make this trade-off; I would argue in favor of it because I think it's worth it, based on the fact that I believe we're in a unique situation for the deck - the ability to add consistency through Top filtering without sacrificing too much speed, and I think we should capitalize on that. If the format speeds up, then we take it out, but right now, I think we can afford it.

I think consistency can contribute to speed also: If I have a Top active, then I theoretically should be able to increase my card quality, and thus improve my hand and be able to combo off more quickly, whereas if I don't have that constant control over my hand quality, sure, I may win some games more quickly due to the Top having been a Ritual or something, but I will also win some games more slowly, or even lose, due to a chain of bad draws or something of that ilk.

zuzy

12-01-2008, 02:18 PM

Regarding the Senseis Divining Top it is worth testing. I have the same feeling as Gaagooch so that is why I am not that big fan of that.

Anyway what about your SB cards like:

Engineered Explosives -
+ Good against Aggro, can be setted up for 0 up to 3. Can deal with Counterbalance, Chalice, Meddling Mage and Gaddok. For 0 with Ad Nauseam.
- Quite expensive to set up and blow

Disenchant -
+ Instant speed. Can deal with both Counterbalance and Chalice. Can be found with Mystical Tutor.
- ???

Serenity -
+ Can deal with Echantments and Artifacts at once. With more of them.
- Sorcery speed

Defense Grid -
+ Seems to be good against Control decks.
- Just suitable against Control decks.

Tormods Crypt -
+ Against Ichorid is a must
- Just against Ichorid mostly

Tendrills of Agony -
+ Against Aggro Control, Burn
- Expensive via Ad Naseam

Massacre -
+ Good against Aggro with white
- Expensive via Ad Nauseam

Pithing Needle -
is is worth playing?

Bounce spell - Which one and why?
Echoing Truth? - Can bounce more of same name.
Rushin River? - Can bounce 2 permanents at once.
Chain of Vapour? - Really cheep.
Repeal? - Cantrip. Expensive to play.
Wipe Away? - Expensive via. Ad Nauseam. Split-Second.

Angel´s Grace -
is it worth playing?

Pact of Negation -
is it worth playing?

Slaughter Pact -
is it worht playing?

Extirpate -
is it worth playing?

Thank you for your ideas and experiences, why you are playing these cards.

ZUZY

rsaunder

12-01-2008, 02:32 PM

The more I play Meddling Mage in the board, the more convinced I am that it is the correct decision. It's so nice to be able to completely shut off force of will after they've sided all of their creature hate out.

emidln

12-01-2008, 02:45 PM

In both my pure Ad Nauseam list and my hybrid Doomsday list I cut out Serenity completely, but I've also been running Duress + Pyroblast main as my protection suite (in some lists I keep Orim's Chant in the sideboard and some I do not). I'm at 16 lands right now and 2 Chrome Mox and the manabase has been stellar. There is ability to slow down to optimize against control and all of the speed is still there (in testing it seemed that for every game Chrome Mox allowed me to win turn 1 it threw me off 2 turns because it forced me to pitch something necessary). This has brought me towards a combination of Krosan Grip/Ancient Grudge/Slaughter Pact/H.Recall/ETruth/Rushing River/Wipe Away/Grapeshot in my sideboard to deal with problematic permanents.

I've noticed that a side effect of moving to the Duress/Pyroblast route is that your alternate win can become playing 2-3 Tendrils and just forcing an opponent into a counterwar. This has been highly effective in the 5-color Doomsday-less build with 4 Brainstorm/4 Top, and 2-3 Tendrils. Another side effect has been that in a UBRg build I can move from Delta/Strand to Delta/Mire and include basic Mountain. This isn't actually all that much of a loss for most builds as they play only a few blue cards (I'm running 8-10 preboard) and the ability to find Badlands 100% was critical for protection.

I wouldn't ever consider more than 2 Extirpate. I currently run 1 and it's primarily a tutor target against blue-based control. I don't think I'd ever want to see 2 of them (even against Ichorid because we win so fast).

Concallesco

12-04-2008, 07:11 AM

emidln:

How many Ad Nauseams and Doomsdays do you run each in your Hybrid? I'm currently running one each, but I feel like maybe adding a couple more of either, but not both, so as to be either 3x Ad Nauseam or 3x Doomsday, and 1x of the other. Which, if any, do you think works better, since you are the premier authority on Fetchland-based Tendrils decks?

Dark_Cynic87

12-04-2008, 02:33 PM

I like Meddling Mage also. I tried it in FDDT, and I like it, but my metagame doesn't call for it.

Also, 4x AdN is unneccesary and tantamount to overkill. 3 might even be too much. I'm testing 2, and while I don't really win turn one very much, I go off turn 2 protected VERY often.

I use Tops. Tops work, tops are good.

Emidln: I haven't been using red disruption as it's almost useless against other combo and Dragon Stompy, which is what my meta consists of. I'd like to see your list, but most importantly, your mana base for the red, most preferrably both your 4-c doomsday list, and then the 5-c Ad Nauseam Doomsday-less list.

Pce,

--DC

Kuma

12-04-2008, 03:04 PM

emidln

12-04-2008, 05:08 PM

My first reaction to Meddling Mage was, "Good Idea". But after thinking about it, he's not that easy to cast, especially vs decks running Wasteland (Tempo Thresh, Dreadstill). All he's really going to be chanting is FoW anyway. Chant does a perfectly good job at stopping FoW, as does Abeyance, which is one, easier to cast than MM, and two, terrible. the only point in MMs favor is that it beats face, but so does Dark Confidant.

I'd test MM, but I traded my set. Dark Confidant seems like the best choice if we're going to run a creature.

When we originally suggested MM for DDFT it was because we had 16-18 lands and wanted something that could deal with both Force of Will and Counterbalance. Chant didn't actually do all of that. Now, we still played it alongside Chant, but it wasn't necessarily meant to try to be played against Tempo Thresh. (I certainly never boarded it in.) I was playing it against CB Thresh and Landstill mostly (and it kinda sucked vs Landstill) leading me to testing other stuff like Pyroblast.

On the subject of Pyroblast, Pyroblast counters Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, and Ponder. That's actually all the reason I need to play it. If all my Pyroblasts ever do is counter Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor, I'm very happy. It's obviously not Orim's Chant in the combo matchup, but it's a lot better than Orim's Chant in the more prevelant blue-based aggro-control matchup, nearly as good against Ichorid, and will randomly beat aggro decks relying on misc Stifles and Meddling Mages. If you are seeing a lot of other fast combo you should probably have Orim's Chant in the sb anyway. In other matchups, Chant is about as dead as Pyroblast. Granted, it sometimes *might* take away Extirpate (but you don't care in AdN) and it could stall for a turn against an aggro deck (but all aggro decks run Wasteland + other LD seemingly) so you're probably going to end up short on the WW end anyway. I honestly never found that its dead weight was a drawback because when it was dead I could win easily no matter what that slot was (Tarpan/Mountain Goat/Moonlace/etc).

I've been experimenting with the number of business spells in my hybrids. I've gone as low as 11 business (1 AdN, 1 Doomsday, 1 IGG, 1 Meditate, 2 IT, 4 Mystical Tutor, 1 Tendrils) but it didn't quite feel right. I think I'd want an additional Ad Nauseam (they're usually better than Doomsday unless you're facing something with a lot of disruption) or Infernal Tutor maindeck to go to at least 12 business and I'm currently sideboarding 1-2 Doomsday for matchups where I don't want to be an Ad Nauseam deck. Preboard, being an Ad Nauseam deck with a Doomsday/Infernal Tutor backup plan is _probably_ better than being a Doomsday deck with an Ad Nauseam backup plan, but I don't yet have enough data to give that statement weight.

When I've been playing red, my manabase has almost always been this (16 lands):

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

In the 5c build, it's been:
-1 Mire
-1 Mountain
+1 Scrubland
+1 Tundra
SB: +1 Mountain

Black/Red fetching is more important when your primary protection consists of Pyroblast and Duress.

Jaiminho

12-06-2008, 09:46 AM

emidln

12-06-2008, 11:12 AM

This is a question for the hybrid AN/DD players: Is there a reason to still run Slaughter Pact in the place of Massacre? Some few reasons come to my mind:

- Gaddock is easily answerable through SB Helm+Grapeshot in a Doomsday pile.
- Magus of the Moon is not an issue comparing to the DD FT lists, since this thing runs 4 Petals and 2+ Moxen.
- Multiple Meddling Mages/True Believers/Glowriders/whatever are answered by Massacre, while not by Pact. The variety of bounce+removal doesn't remove the inevitability of the opponent getting rid of them.
- This won't work with Gaddock + Mage, but does it ever happen? Anyway, the alternative here remains to bounce Mage and ignore Teeg with Doomsday.

Slaughter Pact makes the Meditate/LED/LED/Removal/Tendrils pile still cost 2U which is great when you can't actually setup Helm+Grapeshot for whatever reason. Additionally, the Top/Brainstorm/LED/LED/IGG/Tendrils pile can sub in a Slaughter Pact for free if you have any of those cards in hand already (in addition to the 2 + Top/Brainstorm) and still win for like 1U against Teeg. Pact costing 0 compared to 4 off Ad Nauseam is also nice for the games where you don't have to resort to Doomsday because you go off on turn 1-2 before anything came down. Being an instant to answer random stuff has also come up in misc games. Besides, if an opponent does get down multiple hate bears, you can always Grapeshot them away or sometimes even Slaughter Pact only 1 and ignore the rest. The issue of multiple hate bears doesn't even happen as often as it did to DDFT because the hybrid plays more acceleration and can goldfish at a faster rate (even with Doomsday ignoring 1+ bears).