[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Tammit67]

Some thoughts from the worst combo player in the room:

More death and taxes means I might start considering dread of night again
These deathblade and shardless decks don't handle leyline of sanctity very well at all. Fitting in 3-4 board might be really good or just laughable. Clearly better in doomsday
A lot of the top decks have both hand disruption and some number of counters, sometimes with clique/GY interaction to stop threshold.
Those that don't fit the above bulletpoint are doing unfar things, or have hatebears, or are RUG
Do I actually need abrupt decay much right now?
3/4 last SCGs had UB tezz around. Chalice plus possible trinisphere not likely to see in Philly, but don't be unprepared.
Extraction still relatively prevalent
Merfolk seems pretty good if you don't mind batterskull



Sample board:
4 leyline of Sanctity
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Dread of night
3 Chain of vapor
3 I dunno

[Gedaco]

Some thoughts from the worst combo player in the room:

More death and taxes means I might start considering dread of night again
These deathblade and shardless decks don't handle leyline of sanctity very well at all. Fitting in 3-4 board might be really good or just laughable. Clearly better in doomsday
A lot of the top decks have both hand disruption and some number of counters, sometimes with clique/GY interaction to stop threshold.
Those that don't fit the above bulletpoint are doing unfar things, or have hatebears, or are RUG
Do I actually need abrupt decay much right now?
3/4 last SCGs had UB tezz around. Chalice plus possible trinisphere not likely to see in Philly, but don't be unprepared.
Extraction still relatively prevalent
Merfolk seems pretty good if you don't mind batterskull



> More D&T? Yes, bring in Dread of Night :) Meta choice!
> Just a thing, Leyline makes your Ad Nauseam's pretty miserable. Sure it's awesome but has a combo player you don't really want them. At the best, play TES with Silence. Also, you don't want to mulligan looking for a Leyline.
> It's more difficult than normal but you can do well against threshold (mainly Deathrite). You have Decays if you think it really matters but you can play relatively easy against it ;) Practice!
> Depends on the metagame. Decay for me has been awesome but I really don't want the 4 copies. I'm running 3 at the moment.
> Chalice? A really small percentage. I do not worry about him... Sure it's a big deal but not very many chalices for you do worry about.
> Extraction is always bad. Play carefully...
> Merfolk is an easy matchup

[Tammit67]

> More D&T? Yes, bring in Dread of Night :) Meta choice!
> Just a thing, Leyline makes your Ad Nauseam's pretty miserable. Sure it's awesome but has a combo player you don't really want them. At the best, play TES with Silence. Also, you don't want to mulligan looking for a Leyline.
> It's more difficult than normal but you can do well against threshold (mainly Deathrite). You have Decays if you think it really matters but you can play relatively easy against it ;) Practice!
> Depends on the metagame. Decay for me has been awesome but I really don't want the 4 copies. I'm running 3 at the moment.
> Chalice? A really small percentage. I do not worry about him... Sure it's a big deal but not very many chalices for you do worry about.
> Extraction is always bad. Play carefully...
> Merfolk is an easy matchup

You'd board out ad naus when leylines come in. Mulliganing aggressively to them seems fine if it shuts off most if not all the interaction your opponents have.

It was just musings on Ant and the meta in general.

[JamieW89]

You'd board out ad naus when leylines come in. Mulliganing aggressively to them seems fine if it shuts off most if not all the interaction your opponents have.

It was just musings on Ant and the meta in general.

*I don't see too much DnT, but if people play it (or Mav) then you should probably play DoN's.
*I played Leylines in the board at GP Strasbourg (anticipated loads of Bx discard and UBx ANT), wasn't too impressed.
*Clique on its own is usually not the worst. If they just play it drawstep/EoT it's a bad discard spell+clock and if they wait you can circumvent it by playing Led,Tutor and then respond to the tutor with rituals maintaining priority.
*Merfolk is a bit on the rise and there is still a lot of SnT. I like Xantid Swarm at the moment. Since I'd have green anyways I'll be playing 2-3 Decays even if there isn't too much CB. There are Chalice decks and it's still a fine card versus random permanent hate.

[Star|Scream]

Question.

The SCG players that do well with ANT keep playing 2 gemstone mine main. Is this a good call, or are they just playing follow the leader?

[Asgar]

Depends on your List and playstile. If you want to be more straightforward TES-like T1-2 cantrip, T2-3 go Off with protection you should run it. If you want to play more Controlling , searchinh for Protection and buisness until you Need to go Off - dont ever Touch it.
In my Opinion Matches where the First playstile is better ar better matchups in general, so if you want to be prepare against "worse" matchups (wich you should, because then you nearly habe nö Bad matchups anymore), Play a List without.
Big exception: MUD
If youre Meta is Full of that (where you Need to go Off fast and what is a Bad matchup) gemstone mines are fine.
But you shouldnt Play Combo in that Meta generally^^

Except from
That Fetches and Basics won't get wasted, Fetches and make your cantrips better... I dont think its ever worth Running them.

[egosum]

Question.

The SCG players that do well with ANT keep playing 2 gemstone mine main. Is this a good call, or are they just playing follow the leader?

The latter, but most magic deck lists you can see around follow this priciple.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Patrunkenphat7]

My current list:

Grim Flames

4 Lotus petal
4 Lion's eye Diamond
4 Dark ritual
4 Cabal ritual

2 Cabal therapy
1 Thoughtseize
4 Duress

4 Gitaxian probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain

4 Infernal tutor
2 Grim Tutor

1 Past in flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of agony

2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
5 Blue Fetches

SB:
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Dread of Night
2 Deathmark
1 Echoing Truth
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize

I am still standing by the position that Ad Nauseam isn't very good, and Empty the Warrens is a better secondary win-con to Past in Flames. If this is truly a Past in Flames combo deck like many have acknowledged, why not make it as good as possible at doing what it does best? The 2 Grim Tutors help a LOT. As for my SB, I have the Swarms primarily for S+T. I don't particularly like them, but they are the best way to fight S+T decks, especially with the threat of Leyline of Sanctity. Deathmark has become good because it hits both Meddling Mage and Deathrite Shaman, and the Meddling Mage SB package in Deathblade Esper has become extremely popular in the States.

This deck is very good. I may be taking it to the SCG Invitational next month, but there's still some time to decide. I know that removing Ad Nauseam is daunting, but I am 100% on board for doing it.

[Zombie]

Your list needs more Therapy. Not playing 4 Therapy in this deck should be a felony. 4 Therapy 3 Duress is a-ok, especially when you can use (and probably kinda need) those Therapies to protect your EtWs.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Your list needs more Therapy. Not playing 4 Therapy in this deck should be a felony. 4 Therapy 3 Duress is a-ok, especially when you can use (and probably kinda need) those Therapies to protect your EtWs.

Therapy is certainly sick with Empty the Warrens. No one ever sees it coming. Duress and Thoughtseize are more consistent in an actual tournament in my opinion. Also in this metagame you often want to hit discard turn 1 rather than hold onto a Therapy for Force protection turn 3. I think I just like being conservative, as I initially had 4 Therapy, then went down to 3, then added the Thoughtseize and went down to 2. 3 could be correct, but 4 will put you in awkward situations in certain matchups.

[davelin]

Hello all, I'm a big fan of ANT and been playing Adam Prosak's list online quite a bit. My success rate has been decent but I feel like there are just some matchups and even specific cards that I'm just dead to. Most of this stems probably from the fact that the deck doesn't have any maindeck answers to permanents or spells on the stack.

For example a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg turn two usually means auto-game over. An active Liliana or Jace can also be trouble since the deck doesn't have any way to generate raw card advantage to force through. An explosive or even a half way decent start from a re-animator or Oops All Spells deck can be difficult if not possible to come back from. Somewhat surprisingly I've been able to fight through Chalice on zero and on one (although not in the same game).

It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?

[Tammit67]

This deck is very good. I may be taking it to the SCG Invitational next month, but there's still some time to decide. I know that removing Ad Nauseam is daunting, but I am 100% on board for doing it.

Sounds daunting to me, I'd really like to see the 2nd past in flames over the 2nd grim or the empty main (move to board over a swarm perhaps?).

Ugh, thoughtseize. If it works i guess :)


It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?

If you expect hatebears, board out the discard that can't hit them and work from there. It shouldn't feel that much different, except you might draw decay when you could have drawn a lotus petal. What are your board plans in these matchups?

[davelin]

Sounds daunting to me, I'd really like to see the 2nd past in flames over the 2nd grim or the empty main (move to board over a swarm perhaps?).

Ugh, thoughtseize. If it works i guess :)



If you expect hatebears, board out the discard that can't hit them and work from there. It shouldn't feel that much different, except you might draw decay when you could have drawn a lotus petal. What are your board plans in these matchups?

Typically bringing in 2-3 Abrupt Decays, 2-3 Chains and Vapor and 0-1 Karakas. Usually subbing out a combination of discard (although not all for fear of Mindbreaks or even Surgicals), a Petal, a Preordain, and/or Probe(s).

[Jay_Gatz]

Hello all, I'm a big fan of ANT and been playing Adam Prosak's list online quite a bit. My success rate has been decent but I feel like there are just some matchups and even specific cards that I'm just dead to. Most of this stems probably from the fact that the deck doesn't have any maindeck answers to permanents or spells on the stack.

For example a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg turn two usually means auto-game over. An active Liliana or Jace can also be trouble since the deck doesn't have any way to generate raw card advantage to force through. An explosive or even a half way decent start from a re-animator or Oops All Spells deck can be difficult if not possible to come back from. Somewhat surprisingly I've been able to fight through Chalice on zero and on one (although not in the same game).

It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?

This is why I recommend burning wish and playing 4 therapies main.

[phazonmutant]

I am still standing by the position that Ad Nauseam isn't very good, and Empty the Warrens is a better secondary win-con to Past in Flames. If this is truly a Past in Flames combo deck like many have acknowledged, why not make it as good as possible at doing what it does best? The 2 Grim Tutors help a LOT. As for my SB, I have the Swarms primarily for S+T. I don't particularly like them, but they are the best way to fight S+T decks, especially with the threat of Leyline of Sanctity. Deathmark has become good because it hits both Meddling Mage and Deathrite Shaman, and the Meddling Mage SB package in Deathblade Esper has become extremely popular in the States.

This deck is very good. I may be taking it to the SCG Invitational next month, but there's still some time to decide. I know that removing Ad Nauseam is daunting, but I am 100% on board for doing it.

I know we've talked about this before like 5 or 10 pages ago, but why would 2 Grim Tutors be better than the Grinding Station shell? See here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22550-Introducing-Grinding-Station

If you want to just have infinite business to beat counterspells and whatnot, it seems better to just play more Past in Flames. The card's sick.



Hello all, I'm a big fan of ANT and been playing Adam Prosak's list online quite a bit. My success rate has been decent but I feel like there are just some matchups and even specific cards that I'm just dead to. Most of this stems probably from the fact that the deck doesn't have any maindeck answers to permanents or spells on the stack.

For example a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg turn two usually means auto-game over. An active Liliana or Jace can also be trouble since the deck doesn't have any way to generate raw card advantage to force through. An explosive or even a half way decent start from a re-animator or Oops All Spells deck can be difficult if not possible to come back from. Somewhat surprisingly I've been able to fight through Chalice on zero and on one (although not in the same game).

It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?

ANT is a surprisingly fragile deck to maindeck hate permanents. It's possible to fight through Chalice on 1 or Thalia with +3s like Cabal Ritual and LED, but Teeg is a lock, multiple Chalices is a lock, and Lili is difficult. Its only real plan is to discard them or go off sooner, but ANT really is a turn 3 combo deck so that's a little suspect. I agree with your feelings about boarding just making the deck clunky - it's hard to board in more than 4 cards or so, and it's hard to cut anything but protection packages that are less effective.

Reanimator has always been ANT's nightmare matchup. It's a faster combo deck with Force of Wills. ANT can't really even afford the sideboard space or deck space to bring in enough hate. As far as fighting Liliana, you best bet is to drop all artifact mana on the table, build up your manabase, and try to set up for Past in Flames. If they have Deathrite Shaman as well, you're going to have a hard time.

So I feel like all these are problems that TES is much better at dealing with, but honestly it's pretty pointless to argue that opinion - it happens every few pages. I'd just urge you to take a look over at the TES thread.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I know we've talked about this before like 5 or 10 pages ago, but why would 2 Grim Tutors be better than the Grinding Station shell? See here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22550-Introducing-Grinding-Station

If you want to just have infinite business to beat counterspells and whatnot, it seems better to just play more Past in Flames. The card's sick.


When you draw the Past in Flames, you need Rituals as well as a win-con (tutor or Tendrils). When you simply have the tutor, it acts as the entire engine by itself. This is the biggest difference between Grinding Station and my list. I would argue that my list has a more consistent kill because you don't need Tendrils + PiF, you just need a tutor.

[Jessenator]

Hello all, I'm a big fan of ANT and been playing Adam Prosak's list online quite a bit. My success rate has been decent but I feel like there are just some matchups and even specific cards that I'm just dead to. Most of this stems probably from the fact that the deck doesn't have any maindeck answers to permanents or spells on the stack.

For example a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg turn two usually means auto-game over. An active Liliana or Jace can also be trouble since the deck doesn't have any way to generate raw card advantage to force through. An explosive or even a half way decent start from a re-animator or Oops All Spells deck can be difficult if not possible to come back from. Somewhat surprisingly I've been able to fight through Chalice on zero and on one (although not in the same game).

It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?

I always thought the current ANT lists are super ignorant in the fact that they lose to a lot of cards game 1 against non-blue decks. Hypothetically, you can fight through a Chalice on 1 with multiple Cabal / LED / Petal, but realistically you'll have to dig and cantrip.. etc. Losses to Teeg immediately.

I'd like to go back to more of Timo's Burning ANT list from GP Ghent. Burning Wish allows you to have more options and have an out to maindecked hate like the above, losing to a turn 1-3 hatebear is the worst feeling when you're playing combo. Having access to Empty the Warrens is actually a good way to fight through discard (since you can just forget 3-4 storm count and go off a few turns early). Pyroclasm is big game against many of the meta's decks, even fair decks like Stoneblade to buy time. The deck may be a little more clunky due to multiple redundant tutors (which we can add more cantrips to mediate this), but at least you don't lose to Surgical Extraction / Extirpate and maindeck permanent-based hate. For reference, see below.

John Gatza's (t16). Burning ANT - SCG Philadelphia

Instant [13]
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
Sorcery [24]
3 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
Artifact [8]
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Land [15]
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
60 cards

Sideboard:
3 Dark Confidant
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
15 cards

[phazonmutant]

I'd like to go back to more of Timo's Burning ANT list from GP Ghent. Burning Wish allows you to have more options and have an out to maindecked hate like the above, losing to a turn 1-3 hatebear is the worst feeling when you're playing combo. Having access to Empty the Warrens is actually a good way to fight through discard (since you can just forget 3-4 storm count and go off a few turns early). Pyroclasm is big game against many of the meta's decks, even fair decks like Stoneblade to buy time. The deck may be a little more clunky due to multiple redundant tutors (which we can add more cantrips to mediate this), but at least you don't lose to Surgical Extraction / Extirpate and maindeck permanent-based hate. For reference, see below.

Seriously not trolling here - why would you play Burning Wish in the ANT shell rather than TES? The reasons I've heard ANT is superior: more consistent manabase, more consistent draws because of so many cantrips, has a real sideboard, and has more powerful mana producers and storm engines (Cabal Rit and Past in Flames maindeck). Burning Wish opposes all of those plans. Now that Abrupt Decay is de rigueur required in storm combo, there's not a whole lot of difference between 6 rainbow lands over 5 colors and 4 colors with fetch/dual manabase. You have to cut cantrips to add Burning Wish - something that I'm obviously not opposed to, but I believe that if you do so, you should take it to the logical extension of making the deck as fast as possible to capitalize on a higher probability of having business in your opener. Burning Wish dilutes the sideboard and not having Silence makes insane TES storm engines like IGG and Diminishing Returns pretty bad. And finally, Burning Wish exiling itself really doesn't help with either Cabal Ritual or Past in Flames.

It seems like Burning Wish ANT plays to all the weaknesses of both strategies rather than the strengths.
Maybe I'm wrong in this, but my feeling is that the Prosak-ANT lists lose to their opponents while TES loses to itself. In other words, Prosak-ANT is very consistent at winning through a very small subset of things, but loses to a larger variety of hate. TES is more resilient...if it gets a decent draw.

[davelin]

I've been having some success swapping out the Ad Nauseum for an Empty the Warrens maindeck. I like how it gives the deck an alternative way to win and doesn't rely unnecessarily on getting all the way there to finish off the opponent. Storming for 4-6 is acceptable and can stall out the game somewhat so that Tendrils can finish off the job, or the other way around if life is low due to some early pressure and Ad Nauseum wouldn't be a viable option.

[Jay_Gatz]

Seriously not trolling here - why would you play Burning Wish in the ANT shell rather than TES? The reasons I've heard ANT is superior: more consistent manabase, more consistent draws because of so many cantrips, has a real sideboard, and has more powerful mana producers and storm engines (Cabal Rit and Past in Flames maindeck). Burning Wish opposes all of those plans. Now that Abrupt Decay is de rigueur required in storm combo, there's not a whole lot of difference between 6 rainbow lands over 5 colors and 4 colors with fetch/dual manabase. You have to cut cantrips to add Burning Wish - something that I'm obviously not opposed to, but I believe that if you do so, you should take it to the logical extension of making the deck as fast as possible to capitalize on a higher probability of having business in your opener. Burning Wish dilutes the sideboard and not having Silence makes insane TES storm engines like IGG and Diminishing Returns pretty bad. And finally, Burning Wish exiling itself really doesn't help with either Cabal Ritual or Past in Flames.

It seems like Burning Wish ANT plays to all the weaknesses of both strategies rather than the strengths.
Maybe I'm wrong in this, but my feeling is that the Prosak-ANT lists lose to their opponents while TES loses to itself. In other words, Prosak-ANT is very consistent at winning through a very small subset of things, but loses to a larger variety of hate. TES is more resilient...if it gets a decent draw.

I've had I mana issues at all with my build of ANT and the extra tutors aren't any more clunky than the 8 in TES, I feel like you haven't tested burning ANT at all. I switched over from TES which I have played for quite a while because on the SCG circuit every other round you play against a blue deck with discard which TES can have huge issues with. In terms of a sideboard I have my Bobs and my anti-hate and the only other thing I might want is hate against reanimator.

Edit- everyone trying to cut Ad Nauseam from the deck for empty is an idiot. Yes AN is awful in this deck for the most part but we need an alternative to PIF when we need to be faster like in combo mirrors or can't use our graveyard.

[davelin]

I've had I mana issues at all with my build of ANT and the extra tutors aren't any more clunky than the 8 in TES, I feel like you haven't tested burning ANT at all. I switched over from TES which I have played for quite a while because on the SCG circuit every other round you play against a blue deck with discard which TES can have huge issues with. In terms of a sideboard I have my Bobs and my anti-hate and the only other thing I might want is hate against reanimator.

Edit- everyone trying to cut Ad Nauseam from the deck for empty is an idiot. Yes AN is awful in this deck for the most part but we need an alternative to PIF when we need to be faster like in combo mirrors or can't use our graveyard.

Well consider me an idiot for at least trying to test out EtW instead of Ad Nauseum. Yes there are situations where AN is preferable. However in combo mirrors, if you have the mana to cast an early Ad Nauseum, you probably have the mana to just finish the job with PiF.

[phazonmutant]

I've had I mana issues at all with my build of ANT and the extra tutors aren't any more clunky than the 8 in TES, I feel like you haven't tested burning ANT at all. I switched over from TES which I have played for quite a while because on the SCG circuit every other round you play against a blue deck with discard which TES can have huge issues with. In terms of a sideboard I have my Bobs and my anti-hate and the only other thing I might want is hate against reanimator.

Edit- everyone trying to cut Ad Nauseam from the deck for empty is an idiot. Yes AN is awful in this deck for the most part but we need an alternative to PIF when we need to be faster like in combo mirrors or can't use our graveyard.

I have, I've played Burning ANT in at least one SCG Open (like a year ago). I've also seen a couple friends play it at my local store. I mean, obviously we have a different opinion on the deck, but I'm not coming out of nowhere with this.

As far as blue decks with discard, I'm really not sure how any of ANT, TNT or TES are uniquely equipped to deal with that.

[Jay_Gatz]

Well consider me an idiot for at least trying to test out EtW instead of Ad Nauseum. Yes there are situations where AN is preferable. However in combo mirrors, if you have the mana to cast an early Ad Nauseum, you probably have the mana to just finish the job with PiF.
This is just not true, a lot of hands with either based on LED or just all one color mana can't ever use PIF.


I have, I've played Burning ANT in at least one SCG Open (like a year ago). I've also seen a couple friends play it at my local store. I mean, obviously we have a different opinion on the deck, but I'm not coming out of nowhere with this.

As far as blue decks with discard, I'm really not sure how any of ANT, TNT or TES are uniquely equipped to deal with that.
The biggest draw is the ability to play Dark Confidant, easily my favorite SB card. The more powerful ritual, more stable manabase and maindeck PIF all help me go off with fewer cards in hand and play a longer game than a deck playing 12 lands and chrome mox.

[davelin]

This is just not true, a lot of hands with either based on LED or just all one color mana can't ever use PIF.

Sure the cases where you have only artifact mana or only rituals with no red source requires the use of Ad Nauseum if you need to go off immediately. But with 12 'trips and multiple fetches, is this that frequent a case?

[Jay_Gatz]

I try to avoid casting ad nauseam but it is way to powerful of a tool to not include. Empty is simply weak in this deck, I only put it in my SB to hedge against things like leyline. We usually want to sculpt for a few turns and then go for a hard kill, if you want to empty on turn one play TES.
Also having only one storm engine, especially one based on the graveyard, in the main deck seems loose.

[phazonmutant]

I try to avoid casting ad nauseam but it is way to powerful of a tool to not include. Empty is simply weak in this deck, I only put it in my SB to hedge against things like leyline. We usually want to sculpt for a few turns and then go for a hard kill, if you want to empty on turn one play TES.
Also having only one storm engine, especially one based on the graveyard, in the main deck seems loose.

Absolutely have to agree with everything you just said.

davelin, If you look in my signature, there's a link to an excel worksheet for storm that will help you get a feel for how many cards you can typically draw off of Ad Nauseam given a certain life total. Of course there's no substitute for playtesting, but I thought it was kinda neat to see numerically the differences between the builds as far as Ad Nauseam is concerned.

[ThomasDowd]

Absolutely have to agree with everything you just said.

davelin, If you look in my signature, there's a link to an excel worksheet for storm that will help you get a feel for how many cards you can typically draw off of Ad Nauseam given a certain life total. Of course there's no substitute for playtesting, but I thought it was kinda neat to see numerically the differences between the builds as far as Ad Nauseam is concerned.



I think I'm going to add SAINT to the sheet just for laughs when i get home from work

[practical joke]

Right, I've been away from this forum for quite some time, but it doesn't seem like anything has changed considering any form of ad nauseam kind of decks

[davelin]

Absolutely have to agree with everything you just said.

davelin, If you look in my signature, there's a link to an excel worksheet for storm that will help you get a feel for how many cards you can typically draw off of Ad Nauseam given a certain life total. Of course there's no substitute for playtesting, but I thought it was kinda neat to see numerically the differences between the builds as far as Ad Nauseam is concerned.

Thanks for the link! I'm also primarily interested in things like for each decklist how to they perform in speed, consistency and resiliency. I'm currently in the midst of goldfishing Prosak-ANT at least 100 times to collect some data on this. I'll share my results if anyone is interested.

[Mindlash]

Thanks for the link! I'm also primarily interested in things like for each decklist how to they perform in speed, consistency and resiliency. I'm currently in the midst of goldfishing Prosak-ANT at least 100 times to collect some data on this. I'll share my results if anyone is interested.

I do not doubt that Prosak's ANT is good. It had a lot of Top8. But I don't get the rainbow lands and the 6 discard spells.

Wouldn't it be more benificial to cut one Gemstone Mine for another Scalding Tarn, which would make cantrips better? I don't like these rainbow lands except for their use in TES and Dredge. You can't fetch them and they are not Wasteland-proof. In most of the cases I am playing against wasteland, I fetch for the needed mana in my comboturn. This is not possible with Gemstone Mine. To get similar effects I need it on my hand and I will need guaranteed landdrops before.

I would cut the second Gemstone Mine entirely for more discard, using 4 Cabal Therapy and 3 Duress, with the 4th Duress in my sb. In my opinion seven discard spells is the right number most of the time. I like the 4th Therapy over the 4th Duress, because you have more targets with the Therapy. With 4 Probes and 3 Duress you will have almost always the information to hit with your Therapies.

Greetings Mindlash

Edit: 14 Lands was enough for me with the full amount of cantrips at hand. With Tropical Island I have a 15th land in my sb.

[Jay_Gatz]

Good is not the word I would use for Prosak's list, I'd probably go with sub-optimal.

[Mindlash]

Good is not the word I would use for Prosak's list, I'd probably go with sub-optimal.

Well ok...it performed well / good was what I meant :-)
I like the version I play a lot more :-P

I am interested what people think about the slight tweaks that I posted.
I can post the list with sideboard if that helps...but sideboards are often too metadependant :)

Greetings Mindlash

[davelin]

Good is not the word I would use for Prosak's list, I'd probably go with sub-optimal.

Jay_Gatz, in what matchups do you find yourself SBing in the Confidants? I'm guessing more grindy, mid-rangy matchups?

[Patrunkenphat7]

Bob is so much worse than it used to be. The matchups where you are boarding it in still have Jaces, and if your plan is to grind out the game for a few turns, then you just lose. I tested this endlessly with an Esper player, and it was just not good.

In response to the Empty the Warrens comments: obviously TES can Empty better, but it's not your main engine if you are playing it in this deck. There are many matchups and situations where you can make Goblins turn 1 or 2 but you will lose the grindy game if you try going for the Tendrils plan. It gives the deck more options in these tough situations. Also, just because TES can do something better doesn't mean that you can't play it as a secondary win-con. Your Ad Nauseams are exactly the same. TES can Ad Nauseam better, so why play them? This is a Past in Flames deck, and the debate between Ad Nauseam and Empty is reasonable. Also, If you opt for Empty over AN, it affects more than only those 2 lines; for example, I imagine most AN players don't run 2 Grim Tutors, correct? Well already the Empty list with 2 Grim Tutors is more effective at the Past in Flames kill. When I played AN I would use it once in a 15-round GP, as you rarely NEED to go for this variance-based win-con when you have Past in Flames in the deck. Prosak said the exact same thing. He usually only uses AN once in an entire tournament. I think you are doing it wrong if you are relying on AN often...

[Jay_Gatz]

Is jace supposed to be good against Bob? I feel like you are playing the matchup wrong.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Is jace supposed to be good against Bob? I feel like you are playing the matchup wrong.

Yes you will unnecessarily lose many games to otherwise irrelevant slow cards like Jace if you board in Dark Confidants. If they aren't trumping your Bob with something more relevant to the game, then you will easily win anyways. Believe me, I remember when Dark Confidant used to be a great SB plan in Storm. Times have changed.

[davelin]

Yes you will unnecessarily lose many games to otherwise irrelevant slow cards like Jace if you board in Dark Confidants. If they aren't trumping your Bob with something more relevant to the game, then you will easily win anyways. Believe me, I remember when Dark Confidant used to be a great SB plan in Storm. Times have changed.

Maybe it depends on what shell of ANT you're running? Case in point I've played about 10 or so games with Burning ANT after over a hundred with Prosak-ANT. Granted I'll admit I'm still learning the deck but here are my general observations -

- Burning ANT seems to be more grindy and built for the longer game. Yes it obviously can win early as well but the 4 Preordains in Prosak-ANT makes a big different IMO. Smoother draws, easier mana requirements, etc. With Prosak I can reliably PiF -> Tendrils around turn 4-5

- Re: mana requirements. Burning ANT now requires red to be available earlier than usual. Yes all of the fetches can be used to get red mana, but blue and black is required first and it's very possible to get choked off

- Burning ANT is more resilient since it doesn't auto-lose pre-SB to cards like Teeg or even Thalia.

Just some general observations. I'm hoping I can combine some of two and come up with something as consistent as Prosak but as resilient as Burning without sacrificing too much speed.

[Jay_Gatz]

Playing preordain instead of action spells doesn't increase the speed of the deck at all.

[davelin]

Playing preordain instead of action spells doesn't increase the speed of the deck at all.

I respectively disagree. ANT can easily go off turn 2 or 3 with a combination of rits, artifact mana and an infernal tutor and additional cantrips helps immensely getting there. Burning Wish cannot dig or replace one of these parts, the best it can achieve is generate 10-12 goblin tokens.

Say it's turn three and you have Infernal Tutor, 2 rits, 2 petals and two lands in play. The game is over, you've won. Replace any of these instead with Burning wish and you can only just EtW for a bunch. Again maybe it's my unfamiliarity with the deck but I don't see how it's just as fast as Prosak-ANT and more resilient at the same time.

[Jay_Gatz]

I didn't replace any of the core cards in the deck with wishes. I opted not to play the redundant and subpar cantrip that is preordain.

[davelin]

I didn't replace any of the core cards in the deck with wishes. I opted not to play the redundant and subpar cantrip that is preordain.

Understood but cantrips help you find the core cards while Burning Wish can neither help you find the core cards and continue to go off, nor replace any of the core cards themselves.

[phazonmutant]

I respectively disagree. ANT can easily go off turn 2 or 3 with a combination of rits, artifact mana and an infernal tutor and additional cantrips helps immensely getting there. Burning Wish cannot dig or replace one of these parts, the best it can achieve is generate 10-12 goblin tokens.

Say it's turn three and you have Infernal Tutor, 2 rits, 2 petals and two lands in play. The game is over, you've won. Replace any of these instead with Burning wish and you can only just EtW for a bunch. Again maybe it's my unfamiliarity with the deck but I don't see how it's just as fast as Prosak-ANT and more resilient at the same time.

It always feels like flying on the seat of your pants, but Empty is really good against a lot of the field right now. All the BUG, Jund, and Thresh decks have at most 1 answer to Empty main, if you can keep Blade off of Batterskull it's good against them (and you'll still race as long as you can empty for 14 the turn before they drop SFM or 18 the turn they drop SFM).

However, besides the Cabal Ritual nonbo, the biggest problem I have with Burning Wish builds is that because ANT doesn't play Silence, it's not an efficient use of space to play IGG or Diminishing Returns in the board to wish for. With TES, I wish for DimRet a lot and it's pretty nuts. So davelin is right in that BW is harder to convert into a kill in TNT.

[Tammit67]

Understood but cantrips help you find the core cards while Burning Wish can neither help you find the core cards and continue to go off, nor replace any of the core cards themselves.

If you have a grim tutor in the board, Burning wish is a core card. Heck, dropping 16 goblins turn 2 is enough against a decent portion of the field.

[davelin]

If you have a grim tutor in the board, Burning wish is a core card. Heck, dropping 16 goblins turn 2 is enough against a decent portion of the field.

Thought about that as well but that line is a little too slow to be useful. Burning wish seems best used to fetch an answer to a threat or EtW

[Patrunkenphat7]

If people think Empty is a good card, play it main and play Grims. The Burning Wish version is the worst version of this deck at the Past in Flames kill. That's really what this deck is, so I can't get behind it. If you want to have access to Empty, play it over the Ad Nauseam in the main and play 2 Grim Tutors. Burning Wish ANT is basically a slower TES that plays discard over Silence and is worse at Empty and Ad Nauseam. The thing you gain is a decent PiF kill, but that is worse than every other ANT variant. Burning Wish ANT just doesn't seem to have a focus of what it wants to do.

[Jay_Gatz]

Understood but cantrips help you find the core cards while Burning Wish can neither help you find the core cards and continue to go off, nor replace any of the core cards themselves.

Wish finds you an engine, the tendrils, or a discard spell game one and game two often finds a tutor.



However, besides the Cabal Ritual nonbo, the biggest problem I have with Burning Wish builds is that because ANT doesn't play Silence, it's not an efficient use of space to play IGG or Diminishing Returns in the board to wish for. With TES, I wish for DimRet a lot and it's pretty nuts. So davelin is right in that BW is harder to convert into a kill in TNT.

Iggy is in the board more to board in as a replacement engine and I agree it isn't a the best. And everyone still seems to be talking like burning wish replaces something essential to the deck. 12 cantrips are more than enough to play this deck, whenever I've played the 16 cantrip version I feel like preordained are only in the deck to sideboard out.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Wish finds you an engine, the tendrils, or a discard spell game one and game two often finds a tutor.



Iggy is in the board more to board in as a replacement engine and I agree it isn't a the best. And everyone still seems to be talking like burning wish replaces something essential to the deck. 12 cantrips are more than enough to play this deck, whenever I've played the 16 cantrip version I feel like preordained are only in the deck to sideboard out.

When you Wish for PiF or Iggy, you have to also have an Infernal Tutor. You can't wish for Ad Nauseam. What other "engines" are there? You can get Emtpy, but that's not an engine, and to me that seems like its only good use (as well as grabbing a win con when you flip off Ad Nauseam).

[Lemnear]

When you Wish for PiF or Iggy, you have to also have an Infernal Tutor. You can't wish for Ad Nauseam. What other "engines" are there? You can get Emtpy, but that's not an engine, and to me that seems like its only good use (as well as grabbing a win con when you flip off Ad Nauseam).

Diminishing Returns?!

[Pdingo]

Guys pls don't talk about BW and a good target for an ANT SB here in this Treath, when you do, don't play this Deck and Play TES... omg. TES is alot better BW Deck;)
Can't see those comment anymore^^

[davelin]

When you Wish for PiF or Iggy, you have to also have an Infernal Tutor. You can't wish for Ad Nauseam. What other "engines" are there? You can get Emtpy, but that's not an engine, and to me that seems like its only good use (as well as grabbing a win con when you flip off Ad Nauseam).

Exactly, usually you need to tutor for an engine and a finisher usually same turn. A single infernal can do this, a single Burning wish cannot.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Diminishing Returns?!

This is less of an engine and more of an escape button that you don't need as much with this deck but is necessary with TES because of the awkward situations you get in against discard.

[Jay_Gatz]

You generally wish for PiF before you're ready to go off and you don't always need a tutor. Going off using cantrips is generally safe

[Lemnear]

This is less of an engine and more of an escape button that you don't need as much with this deck but is necessary with TES because of the awkward situations you get in against discard.

Against Discard wishing for PIF is golden in TES. DR isn't a panic button but best used turn 1 or 2 if EtW isn't an Option or the stormcount too low for EtW. You have clearly no idea of the application of Diminishing Returns in TES.

[bondfan]

Can we stop taking about TES cards in the ANT thread? I recently picked up ANT after realizing TES has way too high variance for my taste. How do people feel about tropical island over the 2nd island?

[Patrunkenphat7]

Against Discard wishing for PIF is golden in TES. DR isn't a panic button but best used turn 1 or 2 if EtW isn't an Option or the stormcount too low for EtW. You have clearly no idea of the application of Diminishing Returns in TES.

I completely understand the application of Diminishing Returns, but it is bad in this deck, and it is unreliable in TES. I have played TES for a long time and understand the benefits and pitfalls of this card. Also, wishing for PiF is not "golden," unless they happen to take your tutor and leave you with a bunch of fast mana and a Burning Wish...

This deck is a different beast, so we need to stop trying to port all these ideas over from TES, because the deck will become a bad TES.

In response to Tropical Island, I find the 2nd basic Island to be very important. I play my Trop in the SB. Some people play Trop main and Bayou SB, but Bayou is actually very bad with Abrupt Decay, so in my opinion there isn't much reason to devote a slot to that card.

[Jay_Gatz]

I completely understand the application of Diminishing Returns, but it is bad in this deck, and it is unreliable in TES. I have played TES for a long time and understand the benefits and pitfalls of this card. Also, wishing for PiF is not "golden," unless they happen to take your tutor and leave you with a bunch of fast mana and a Burning Wish...

This deck is a different beast, so we need to stop trying to port all these ideas over from TES, because the deck will become a bad TES.

If they make you discard your tutor and you wish for PiF shouldn't you be happy?
I've never needed or really wanted a second island, trop main is fine.

[Patrunkenphat7]

If they make you discard your tutor and you wish for PiF shouldn't you be happy?
I've never needed or really wanted a second island, trop main is fine.

Oh absolutely, that was my point. But a competent opponent isn't going to do that.

[mishima_kazuya]

I changed it up and ran AnT to a top 8 finish at the Philadelphia Legacy Series in Top Deck Games.

41 players showed and I went 4-2 in the swiss, due to poor game planning.
Maindeck was a pretty stock version with one Grim Tutor.

[Dark Ritual]

If they make you discard your tutor and you wish for PiF shouldn't you be happy?
I've never needed or really wanted a second island, trop main is fine.

Likewise. The odds of naturally drawing the tropical island are quite low, and I personally rarely feel the need for a 2nd basic island as well. Tropical island is a mainstay in my ANT maindeck. On the fence about bayou maindeck, may replace it with another tropical island so as to cast cantrips with it not to mention trop is generally just as good at casting abrupt decay as bayou is.

TES is the burning wish deck of choice unless you want to learn DDFT. Seriously, burning wish cabal ritual are a nombo. Not to mention it makes ad nauseam even worse when you run 11 two drops in the deck in the form of 4 CRit's, 4 IT's, 3 BW.

Wish is super clunky. I don't see why people ever try to run it over grim tutor besides the price argument. Wish doesn't find any business at all short of you having wish + IT in hand, and then I would generally prefer to have just IT + rituals. When burning wish often grabs grim tutor, why run it over that anyways as well. It's nice to have an out to hatebears game 1, but that's about the only good thing about wish.

[davelin]

I changed it up and ran AnT to a top 8 finish at the Philadelphia Legacy Series in Top Deck Games.

41 players showed and I went 4-2 in the swiss, due to poor game planning.
Maindeck was a pretty stock version with one Grim Tutor.

Congrats!

[Jay_Gatz]

Seriously, burning wish cabal ritual are a nombo. Not to mention it makes ad nauseam even worse when you run 11 two drops in the deck in the form of 4 CRit's, 4 IT's, 3 BW.
The reverse being that ad nauseam is better because you can often stop when you hit a wish.

[Patrunkenphat7]

The reverse being that ad nauseam is better because you can often stop when you hit a wish.

Absolutely not. You need to have cracked a 2nd LED for red mana, hit a Lotus Petal (that you don't need for black), AN with a red land open (and not need it for black mana), or AN before playing a land drop and hit a red land (that you don't need for black). This creates some really awkward situations and awkward Ad Nauseams. Hitting BW off AN in this deck is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than hitting it in TES, and it does not fix this deck's problems with the card Ad Nauseam.

[nevilshute]

Absolutely not. You need to have cracked a 2nd LED for red mana, hit a Lotus Petal (that you don't need for black), AN with a red land open (and not need it for black mana), or AN before playing a land drop and hit a red land (that you don't need for black). This creates some really awkward situations and awkward Ad Nauseams. Hitting BW off AN in this deck is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than hitting it in TES, and it does not fix this deck's problems with the card Ad Nauseam.

The question isn't whether TES is a better Burning Wish deck than ANT. The real question is: is ANT a better deck with or without Burning Wish in it.

I would not like to play without BWish myself as it will often let you Ad Nauseam to a win without having to go hellbent. Yes, this means you have to worry about getting a red mana as well as having enough black mana to ramp rituals post Ad Nauseam, but honestly, that is rarely a problem in my experience. I also like having the option of turn 1/2 EtW. It's not a play I make often, but having the option is nice. Having the option to answer a game 1 Gaddock Teeg is also nice, if quite narrow. Having Diminishing Returns (and less so Ill-Gotten Gains) as wish targets also is nice. Lastly, there a lot of people packing Surgical Extraction as sideboard hate in my local meta so having Infernal Tutor as my only tutor feels risky.

I am aware of the problems with Burning Wish, especially the potential non-bo with Past in Flames. Grim Tutor in the sideboard seems like a possible solution to this though.

[Lemnear]

This is a ever repeating discussion.

If you want to run more Tutors and you feel that burning Wish is your selection of choice, don't tinker around with the ANT maindeck, question Cabal Ritual and create awkward 4-Color-fetchland-manabase-monstrosities but grow nuts and play TES!

The same is true for the annoying discussion about how to tackle graveyard removal other than DRS and MB hate like Gaddock Teeg. The solution for all this is playing TES

[SaberTooth]

i played the 3 decks (tes ant tnt) and to me, they are metagame choices, i mean, the 3 decks are good

[Lemnear]

i played the 3 decks (tes ant tnt) and to me, they are metagame choices, i mean, the 3 decks are good

4c ANT with Burning Wishes aren't a metagame-choice but an abdomination. The solution to MD hate like Gaddock Teeg, Rest in Peace, Thalia and random crap out of the SB like surgical extraction or Leylines isn't to muddle subtypes together but performing the switch between subtypes

[nevilshute]

4c ANT with Burning Wishes aren't a metagame-choice but an abdomination. The solution to MD hate like Gaddock Teeg, Rest in Peace, Thalia and random crap out of the SB like surgical extraction or Leylines isn't to muddle subtypes together but performing the switch between subtypes

The 4th colour being green I'm assuming? Is what you are objecting to, having Burning Wish in an ANT altogether? Or only when the deck also splashes green for the likes of Abrupt Decay, Carpet of Flowers and/or Xantid Swarm?

[Jay_Gatz]

Absolutely not. You need to have cracked a 2nd LED for red mana, hit a Lotus Petal (that you don't need for black), AN with a red land open (and not need it for black mana), or AN before playing a land drop and hit a red land (that you don't need for black). This creates some really awkward situations and awkward Ad Nauseams. Hitting BW off AN in this deck is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than hitting it in TES, and it does not fix this deck's problems with the card Ad Nauseam.

Casting Ad Nauseam with no mana floating with no land drop is terrible regardless.

[Lemnear]

The 4th colour being green I'm assuming? Is what you are objecting to, having Burning Wish in an ANT altogether? Or only when the deck also splashes green for the likes of Abrupt Decay, Carpet of Flowers and/or Xantid Swarm?

Yes, I'm talking about UBRG ANT with 1-2 Volcanics and 1-2 Tropicals to support both, B. Wish and sideboard options like A.Decay and Xantid Swarm. The problem is supporting all that colors with a fetch- & Dual-manabase. If you go the small step here from 4c-Dual to a real 5c Rainbow manabase, you can benefit from the limitless options of that manabase and run Silence. Several iterations of that progress might lead you ending u with TES but it's my honest believe that splasing R to support a pure UB Deck with PIF is right but turning ANT into a Full 3c Deck with a Green-splash and opting to still call the manabase resistant which a lot of ANT supporters still claim it is, is both, nonsense and a mistake

[Star|Scream]

I think Lemnear is trying to get everyone to switch to TES

[Lemnear]

I think Lemnear is trying to get everyone to switch to TES

Even if I have a History of piloting TES, this is not my intention. Why would I dare? I'm just shaking my Head in disbelieve about some peeps who think they can remain the (mana)stability of ANT with the flexibility of TES by streching the manabase from 2,5 colors to 3,5. Moreover those attempts still lack the bare reasoning to perform that color extension with Duals rather than Rainbow lands.

[Pdingo]

@Star/Scream

Sorry but Lemnear is only right what he's saying^^;) oh and i prefer ANT over TES.
I think you don't understand what he mean^^BW is bad in ANT. You Need red only for PiF(maybe ignorant bliss;)

[Patrunkenphat7]

@Star/Scream

Sorry but Lemnear is only right what he's saying^^;) oh and i prefer ANT over TES.
I think you don't understand what he mean^^BW is bad in ANT. You Need red only for PiF(maybe ignorant bliss;)

Ignorant Bliss was pretty bad when I tried it. How are people having success with that card? If you are on the draw it's awful, and if you are on the play it's still pretty sub-optimal.

I think there are some really powerful green SB options, but you shouldn't be running and green mana maindeck imo. The matchups where you bring in the green cards and the Trop usually don't play Wasteland. Honestly some close matchups become unwinnable if you decide to not run Decays in the SB at all. Swarm is really good against S+T, and there is a lot of variance against that matchup post-SB when they bring in the stupid Leylines.

[phazonmutant]

Ignorant Bliss was pretty bad when I tried it. How are people having success with that card? If you are on the draw it's awful, and if you are on the play it's still pretty sub-optimal.

I think there are some really powerful green SB options, but you shouldn't be running and green mana maindeck imo. The matchups where you bring in the green cards and the Trop usually don't play Wasteland. Honestly some close matchups become unwinnable if you decide to not run Decays in the SB at all. Swarm is really good against S+T, and there is a lot of variance against that matchup post-SB when they bring in the stupid Leylines.

Not running any G lands main is a reasonable conclusion that I've seen people come to, but it seems that you're pretty much giving up the Chalice matchups by only running 1 G source. I know I've lost with ANT when I only had 1 G land and got wasted off of G - either had to deal with 2 hate permanents or naturally drew the Trop. Of course, you could add Rebuild or Hurkyl's Recall, but at that point you have to ask yourself why you're devoting board space to inferior and redundant cards, and some decks like Hoogland Loam even run Chalice + Thalia + Teeg, so Abrupt Decay is really the only good answer.
This weekend I did well at a small local with a build that had 1 Trop main, 1 side, 2 Mines. Having 2 fetchable G sources was good, but the Mines were bad (as expected). R is just super easy to make with LED, Petals, and the 1 Volcanic.

Agreed on Bliss...but I haven't tested it to be fair. Pretty sure you would have to play the 2 Gemstone Mines to play it consistently though. Shoutouts to all you Bob lovers out there, it's still the stone cold nuts against Miracles.

[Mr Miagi]

If people think Empty is a good card, play it main and play Grims. The Burning Wish version is the worst version of this deck at the Past in Flames kill. That's really what this deck is, so I can't get behind it. If you want to have access to Empty, play it over the Ad Nauseam in the main and play 2 Grim Tutors. Burning Wish ANT is basically a slower TES that plays discard over Silence and is worse at Empty and Ad Nauseam. The thing you gain is a decent PiF kill, but that is worse than every other ANT variant. Burning Wish ANT just doesn't seem to have a focus of what it wants to do.

Fully agree with the above. I've played the following list in the 7 round legacy tournament and went 2-3-2:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian probe
4 Cabal therapy
3 Duress
4 Infernal tutor
3 Burning wish
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 Lotus petal
2 Chrome mox
4 Dark ritaul
4 Cabal ritual
1 Ad nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted delta
4 Misty rainforest
2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Thoughtseize
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agnoy
1 Reverent silence
1 Ill-gotten gains
1 Past in flames
1 Empty the warrens
3 Abrupt decay
2 Chain of vapor
1 Bayou
2 Xantid swarm


I can confirm that ANT with Burning wishes is quite bad, I'd dare say the worst subtype of decks that feature Ad-Nauseam and Tendrils in same shell.
It really looses focus. You can rape their hand quite nicely, but you are usually missing the infernal tutor or most importantly LIFE for Adnauseam. This type of deck is really not explosive, and even when I've discarded every counterspell/threat possible I couldn't go off as I was lacking key piece for the combo. I will not call my self expert in storm, bu I've palyed it few times in tournaments and I definetly have an in-depth knowledge about legacy - so please no remarks about how I couldn't go of before turn 4 even when I wanted to/had a free way.

Having so many 2 CMC spells and only 4 lotus petals and my dekc also featured 2 chrome moxes, you really cannot afford to play adnauseam with 0 mana left in the pool. You will kill your self due to bad flips.. lack of additional chrome moxes and 1 mana dark rituals (as rite of flame) is very notable. I failed 4 out of 5 times when trying to go off with adnausem. Once with 19 life, once with 17 life, another time with 12 and 10 life but plenty of mana in the pool (but indeed 12 and 10 life is not the best amount of life for adnausem, but when you have abundance of mana in pool 10-12 life is really not that much of a problem since you only need to find burning wish and or infernal tutor (+LED) for the tendrils.

About Burning wish.. I really hated this card.. Even with past in flames from the board you need aditional burning wish or infernal tutor in the yard. The only real use is for goblin tokens.. and that was almost often to late as I was working my way through wall of counterspells first few turns.

To conclude my experince with Burning ANT:

It's a suboptimal deck compared to TES or straight forward ANT.
Adnasueam without any mana in pool or available landrops will not be a feasible more times then you think.
Deathrite shamans especially if there is more then one on the field will ruin your day.
Burning wish.. is really only good for empty the warrens. Although it is true goblin tokens will win you few games.. this is definetly a suboptimal deck to play the B. wish/tokens plan.

[Pdingo]

Running 1 Green Dual/Tropical Island Main is fine. Meta choice. i like it^^

Ignorannt Bliss is not bad at all^^
Winn because of this Card against jund all the Time;)
Last time on the GP strassbourg i won 2 Games against Jund because of bliss.

[th3 w1z4rd]

Here's the list I currently use. I'm basically only posting it for kicks. No comments about Burning Wish in ANT, I already wasted my time reading all the existing ones on this thread. And I know, no Past in Flames or Empty the Warrens maindeck. I play what I want. No comments about TES either; I've used that deck extensively and I hate it. This sideboard is bad. I'm still tweaking it. One time I almost beat Miracles with the CounterTop lock active but the turn before I was going to combo off, my opponent played a THIRD Counterbalance so he then had two on the field. Boooo. I'm trying Virtue's Ruin for the stupid hatebears since it gets around Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Ethersworn Canonist, Meddling Mage, etc even if they have Mother of Runes backup. It might be too slow, I don't know.

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Ad Nauseum
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1 Tropical Island
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Virtue's Ruin

[Jay_Gatz]

Fully agree with the above. I've played the following list in the 7 round legacy tournament and went 2-3-2:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian probe
4 Cabal therapy
3 Duress
4 Infernal tutor
3 Burning wish
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 Lotus petal
2 Chrome mox
4 Dark ritaul
4 Cabal ritual
1 Ad nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted delta
4 Misty rainforest
2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Thoughtseize
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agnoy
1 Reverent silence
1 Ill-gotten gains
1 Past in flames
1 Empty the warrens
3 Abrupt decay
2 Chain of vapor
1 Bayou
2 Xantid swarm


I can confirm that ANT with Burning wishes is quite bad, I'd dare say the worst subtype of decks that feature Ad-Nauseam and Tendrils in same shell.
It really looses focus. You can rape their hand quite nicely, but you are usually missing the infernal tutor or most importantly LIFE for Adnauseam. This type of deck is really not explosive, and even when I've discarded every counterspell/threat possible I couldn't go off as I was lacking key piece for the combo. I will not call my self expert in storm, bu I've palyed it few times in tournaments and I definetly have an in-depth knowledge about legacy - so please no remarks about how I couldn't go of before turn 4 even when I wanted to/had a free way.

Having so many 2 CMC spells and only 4 lotus petals and my dekc also featured 2 chrome moxes, you really cannot afford to play adnauseam with 0 mana left in the pool. You will kill your self due to bad flips.. lack of additional chrome moxes and 1 mana dark rituals (as rite of flame) is very notable. I failed 4 out of 5 times when trying to go off with adnausem. Once with 19 life, once with 17 life, another time with 12 and 10 life but plenty of mana in the pool (but indeed 12 and 10 life is not the best amount of life for adnausem, but when you have abundance of mana in pool 10-12 life is really not that much of a problem since you only need to find burning wish and or infernal tutor (+LED) for the tendrils.

About Burning wish.. I really hated this card.. Even with past in flames from the board you need aditional burning wish or infernal tutor in the yard. The only real use is for goblin tokens.. and that was almost often to late as I was working my way through wall of counterspells first few turns.

To conclude my experince with Burning ANT:

It's a suboptimal deck compared to TES or straight forward ANT.
Adnasueam without any mana in pool or available landrops will not be a feasible more times then you think.
Deathrite shamans especially if there is more then one on the field will ruin your day.
Burning wish.. is really only good for empty the warrens. Although it is true goblin tokens will win you few games.. this is definetly a suboptimal deck to play the B. wish/tokens plan.


I'm surprised you won a single match with this deck. Chrome mox is absolutely awful in this deck especially if you are running wishes. By cutting the past in flames from the main deck you made the deck far more reliant on burning wish which is supposed to be a support card and ad nauseam which is admittedly worse in wish builds.


Running 1 Green Dual/Tropical Island Main is fine. Meta choice. i like it^^

Ignorannt Bliss is not bad at all^^
Winn because of this Card against jund all the Time;)
Last time on the GP strassbourg i won 2 Games against Jund because of bliss.
The problem with Bliss is that is is only good against Jund and basically only on the play.

[Asthereal]

You could always drop green. Abrupt Decay is only needed against Counterbalance, and I don't see that very often anymore. Next to that, stuff like Xantid Swarm is good, but other cards can take its place. And Carpet of Flowers is a card I haven't used in a year now.

Right now I play a list with Wish and without green. I have 3x Red Elemental Blast to complement the protection package. They help countering Counterbalance if I cannot discard it from their hand. It's not brilliant, but I almost never encounter Counterbalance anyway, so why splash a whole colour just for the outside chance of encountering one card? :wink:

[JJ-JKidd]

I really do not understand why people are still talking about dropping Abrupt Decays when they should have dropped it ever since DRS got printed. Number of CB decks are falling rapidly come on.

Regards to the ongoing discussion of Wish vs non-Wish builds I would just like to say that to each his own. Play whatever you want. Ive played with Burning Wish in AnT and I have never looked back. The option of wishing for something is irreplaceable. I almost always pull off in a tournament Infernal for additional LED, then BWish for IGG FOR THE WIN. Or BWish for Dim Ret every time I got stripped of my hand against discard heavy decks. Not to mention the possibility of EtW if and when the opponent does not run blue. In addition, seeing the face of an opponent playing with counters after you cast BWish is priceless. They are absolutely clueless whether to resolve BWish or not.

[Asthereal]

I really do not understand why people are still talking about dropping Abrupt Decays when they should have dropped it ever since DRS got printed. Number of CB decks are falling rapidly come on.

Regards to the ongoing discussion of Wish vs non-Wish builds I would just like to say that to each his own. Play whatever you want. Ive played with Burning Wish in AnT and I have never looked back. The option of wishing for something is irreplaceable. I almost always pull off in a tournament Infernal for additional LED, then BWish for IGG FOR THE WIN. Or BWish for Dim Ret every time I got stripped of my hand against discard heavy decks. Not to mention the possibility of EtW if and when the opponent does not run blue. In addition, seeing the face of an opponent playing with counters after you cast BWish is priceless. They are absolutely clueless whether to resolve BWish or not.
I was planning on dropping it earlier, but no one seemed interested, so I reckoned it could be a bad choice.
I've been working without green for some weeks now and I don't miss the colout at all.
The deck runs more smoothely, which compensates for the loss of Decay and Swarm.
Additionally, Red Elemental Blast often is good enough as well to force through the combo.

[nevilshute]

I was planning on dropping it earlier, but no one seemed interested, so I reckoned it could be a bad choice.
I've been working without green for some weeks now and I don't miss the colout at all.
The deck runs more smoothely, which compensates for the loss of Decay and Swarm.
Additionally, Red Elemental Blast often is good enough as well to force through the combo.

Lately there has been a blossoming of the UB Tezzeret deck (aka Tezzerator). That deck runs 4x Chalice of the Void in the main deck. Goblins is another deck that can easily adapt 4 chalice in their board against a combo heavy meta. I'd be very uncomfortable playing against any deck rolling with chalices without Abrupt Decay. Perhaps I just need to lose the training Wheels, I dunno. We can go off with one chalice on the board, but it's difficult. It feels close to as oppressive as a top/balance lock.

Maybe it's also because I don't feel that my mana base suffers much from the splash of green. Meh, I dunno.

[SaberTooth]

it's really strange to me. people says that burning wish in ant is awful, but still, the last winning list of storm on a gp was tnt (gp ghent)

[Mindlash]

it's really strange to me. people says that burning wish in ant is awful, but still, the last winning list of storm on a gp was tnt (gp ghent)

Timo isn't playing BW in Ant anymore. BW was seen as necessary evil at this time. He is now playing a version with 16 cantrips and redsplash only for PiF (and green in the board for Decay and Carpets).

[Jay_Gatz]

I really do not understand why people are still talking about dropping Abrupt Decays when they should have dropped it ever since DRS got printed. Number of CB decks are falling rapidly come on.


Decay and shaman were printed at the same time...
Decay answers way more than just counter balance. With hatebears including Meddling Mage coming out of blue deck's board more often I'm certainly keeping all three regardless of what build I play.

[Patrunkenphat7]

There is a lot of crap you will lose against if you don't run Decay in the SB, not just counterbalance. I don't see why you can't run a non-green maindeck and run green in the SB for the good SB cards?? I have never run a green dual in the main, but the green SB cards are borderline necessary. I never used to run Xantid Swarm, but after testing a lot of S+T (which will bring in Leylines 95% of the time) you really need it.

[phazonmutant]

it's really strange to me. people says that burning wish in ant is awful, but still, the last winning list of storm on a gp was tnt (gp ghent)

Some other people hit on this, but just to make sure it's clear - he wasn't playing 4 colors! Adding a fourth color does impact the mana in a real way when you're trying to do a fetch/dual manabase. Obviously it's workable, but no one claims that TinFins has a consistent manabase and that's I think the only other fetch/dual 4 color combo manabase people play.



There is a lot of crap you will lose against if you don't run Decay in the SB, not just counterbalance. I don't see why you can't run a non-green maindeck and run green in the SB for the good SB cards?? I have never run a green dual in the main, but the green SB cards are borderline necessary. I never used to run Xantid Swarm, but after testing a lot of S+T (which will bring in Leylines 95% of the time) you really need it.

Seconded. I'd third if I could. Silence effects are incredibly necessary against Show and Tell, and Abrupt Decay is just insanely versatile. Think about all the cards you have to play in the sideboard without Decay - Hurkyl's Recall for Chalice, Slaughter Pact/Virtue's Ruin for bears, Wipe Away for Counterbalance...there's just not enough slots.



Right now I play a list with Wish and without green. I have 3x Red Elemental Blast to complement the protection package. They help countering Counterbalance if I cannot discard it from their hand. It's not brilliant, but I almost never encounter Counterbalance anyway, so why splash a whole colour just for the outside chance of encountering one card?

You have REB...in your LED combo deck? Uhhhh. Ok. Also good luck resolving a 1-drop with Counterbalance in play. It happens, but they do play like 15 1s for a reason.

But more than that, that whole line of thinking doesn't make sense to me. Why would you concede the Miracles matchup instead of building your deck to be able to have game against the field? You're not really giving up a whole lot to do it, either.

[Zombie]

There is a lot of crap you will lose against if you don't run Decay in the SB, not just counterbalance. I don't see why you can't run a non-green maindeck and run green in the SB for the good SB cards?? I have never run a green dual in the main, but the green SB cards are borderline necessary. I never used to run Xantid Swarm, but after testing a lot of S+T (which will bring in Leylines 95% of the time) you really need it.

Thirded just because I can.

[Lemnear]

Aluren is another 4c-Fetch-/Dual-Manabase-Deck ... just for the sake of completion. If you've ever tested Aluren you'll notice the mess

[Asthereal]

You have REB...in your LED combo deck? Uhhhh. Ok. Also good luck resolving a 1-drop with Counterbalance in play. It happens, but they do play like 15 1s for a reason.

But more than that, that whole line of thinking doesn't make sense to me. Why would you concede the Miracles matchup instead of building your deck to be able to have game against the field? You're not really giving up a whole lot to do it, either.
You can counter Counterbalance with it, or discard it with Duress/Therapy/Thoughtseize (whatever you have).
Additionally, you can bait a card, and respond to their Top activation. You can do a million things.
But like I said, I almost never see Counterbalance anyway, so I don't think I should tune my list against it too much.

Against Show and Tell you can also just let them Leyline their ass off, and then proceed to make 12 Goblin tokens, after discarding their combo piece. Then you cantrip into more discard or a Red Elemental Blast to disrupt them further. Especially the Mono-U OmniShow is rather vulnerable to this kind of stuff. It needs many cards to be able to go off itself, so it's pretty slow, which makes Empty a very valid kill. In addition, Empty improves our discard package (flashback Therapy). I don't feel we NEED green there.

[Jay_Gatz]

Aluren is another 4c-Fetch-/Dual-Manabase-Deck ... just for the sake of completion. If you've ever tested Aluren you'll notice the mess

The difference being that we have petals and LEDs and usually only need to use green or red mana once in any given game if at all

[Lemnear]

The difference being that we have petals and LEDs and usually only need to use green or red mana once in any given game if at all

LED's don't pay for Abrupt Decays, Xantids, Wishes, Carpets and such. To invest Petal + Decay/xyz to get rid of 1 Card (aka 2-1 yourself in a Deck without a pre-combo cardadvantage engine) is questionable at best to comment the existing issue. Havin to cast Xantid or Carpet off a Petal rather than a land is torture. Countless times i'm forced to imprint a Wish or a Rite of Flame to Chrome mox to bridge the Color-gap in TES and it's even worse without the Mox or the Rainbows.

[Jay_Gatz]

I was mostly just talking about decay. If I were to play carpets or bees I would rethink my mana base.

[Star|Scream]

Against Show and Tell you can also just let them Leyline their ass off, and then proceed to make 12 Goblin tokens, after discarding their combo piece. Then you cantrip into more discard or a Red Elemental Blast to disrupt them further. Especially the Mono-U OmniShow is rather vulnerable to this kind of stuff. It needs many cards to be able to go off itself, so it's pretty slow, which makes Empty a very valid kill. In addition, Empty improves our discard package (flashback Therapy). I don't feel we NEED green there.

How do you plan on discarding their combo pieces with a leyline in play?

[Asthereal]

Fair point. Which also advocates for REB by the way.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Fair point. Which also advocates for REB by the way.

That's the ENTIRE point to be honest.

One REB is not going to do anything against them. It's super awkward and not even that powerful even if you get some weird hand where you are able to successfully cast it. What are you going to do against their Flusterstorms if they have Leyline in play? Most importantly, I don't see how you can ever resolve a relevant Infernal and still have a REB in your hand... This is a classic example of "in theory" arguing, because if you actually played the matchup, you would know that you can't cast discard through a Leyline of Sanctity.

[JJ-JKidd]

Decay and shaman were printed at the same time...
Decay answers way more than just counter balance. With hatebears including Meddling Mage coming out of blue deck's board more often I'm certainly keeping all three regardless of what build I play.

Well like I said, to each his own. In place of AD, I have Pyroclasm in the side, which I can 'Wish, to deal with multiple hatebears. I dont really see a lot of Chalice and CB in my meta so that is one of the reason why I dont run AD's.

[Asthereal]

... if you actually played the matchup, you would know that you can't cast discard through a Leyline of Sanctity.
I don't have to know the matchup to know that. And I do know that. I just forgot for a sec.
What you do is worse: you pretend that the opponent always has all the dangerous stuff against you.
If you would actually play the matchup, you would know what to expect. And them having Leyline AND Flusterstorm AND they start so you cannot go for x Goblins turn 1 is a very rare situation. The situation where they have Leyline AND Force of Will for your Xantid Swarm actually happens more often. Let's look at what they have:

Leyline (3-4): he has 40% chance of getting his Leyline. If he doesn't have it in his opener, he can never cast it. People in the OmniShow thread sometimes advocate against playing Leyline in the first place because of this problem. Mathematically it is just more often bad than good.
Flusterstorm (max. 3): Yes, you are cold to Flusterstorm, but only IF he has Leyline. Otherwise you just Duress it away.
Force of Will (3-4): This is the most dangerous one, because it can stop almost all we have. It is bad against an in hand Empty the Warrens though, and it messes up their plan topo. They need a lot of cards cards to go off: S&T + Omni + EtI/Wish/Intuition, or Halls + EtI + blue card + four lands, or Halls + Omni + Wish + blue card + four lands. I could go on. Force costs them a card, which can often stop them from going off themselves, which buys us time.

In the off chance they draw all their disruption, they can pretty much lock us out of the game regardless of what we play. If we play with Swarms plus a bounce spell, we lose to double Leyline, or to Leyline + Force. If we play Empty the Warrens, we lose to Leyline + Fluster on the draw.
But if they don't have Leyline, which we have 60% chance to happen, our disruption is better and we are likely to win, regardless of what disruption package we play. Discard is just very good against them. It's a game of chance.

[Mindlash]

Leyline (3-4): he has 40% chance of getting his Leyline. If he doesn't have it in his opener, he can never cast it.

Show and Tell wants to have a word with you. Doesn't happen often, but killed me at least once.

[Asthereal]

I never saw that happening. That's a pretty creative play.
Not something we should count on all the time, but it's an interesting play nonetheless.

[SaberTooth]

of course, 4 color ant maybe it's a mess, but i was pointing that tnt is really playable, timo won that tournament and miracles was a deck. dont get me wrong, if i play ant, possibly i play with 15 cantrip list (3 preordain 1 grim tutor md) but i was saying that we cant say that tnt is bad

[bondfan]

Has anybody tested engineered explosives? I had situations last night where it would of been insane.

[Mindlash]

I never saw that happening. That's a pretty creative play.
Not something we should count on all the time, but it's an interesting play nonetheless.

Yeah I haven't thought of it either. I was duressing the Counter and would have been able to kill him the next turn. Saw the Leyline in his hands and thought of it as a dead card...until he ripped the SnT :D

[Lemnear]

Has anybody tested engineered explosives? I had situations last night where it would of been insane.

Can you elaborate a situation in which it is right for a combo deck to play a boardsweeper?

(Sans fixing previous misplays)

[Fatal]

EE is stopped by Gaddock Teeg so not so useful.. on the other side it dodge mana tax by thalia ;]

[bondfan]

Can you elaborate a situation in which it is right for a combo deck to play a boardsweeper?

(Sans fixing previous misplays)

My opponent was on Deathblade with a Meddling Mage on Abrupt decay, Bob and Canonist. EE is just an idea. It has a favorable interaction with Thalia, Canonist and Bob.

[nevilshute]

My opponent was on Deathblade with a Meddling Mage on Abrupt decay, Bob and Canonist. EE is just an idea. It has a favorable interaction with Thalia, Canonist and Bob.

Massacre and bob's your uncle.

[Asthereal]

Which cards would you replace with the Engineered Explosives?
And would that be worth it in the majority of the matchups you expect to face?

[Jay_Gatz]

I still think people are crazy for running massacre when teeg is showing up more and more again

[Mindlash]

Massacre and bob's your uncle.

This reminds me of a question on sideboarding.
I currently use the following board:

3 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
1 Tropical Island
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tormod's Crypt

When fighting white hatebears I trust in DoN most of the time.
DoN is good against DnT too...and you see it alot here.
Problem is...I had to cut on GY hate to make room for the DoNs.
Dredge, Reanimator and TinFins are all tough matchups and appear more often then I like them to.

So my question is: Is one Massacre or Infest enough to adress hatebears? I don't like Massacre for not dealing with Teeg. Infest has the problem of double black mana (I play 2 basic Islands and 1 basic Swamp).

My idea was to play 3 Grafdigger's Cage and 1 Infest instead of 3 Dread of Night and 1 Tormod's Crypt.

What do you think and is there a good alternative ways?

Maindeck is 16 cantrips, no green dual main, 7 discard (4 therapy / 3 duress).

Greetings Mindlash

[bondfan]

I still think people are crazy for running massacre when teeg is showing up more and more again

I understand Teeg will be an issue, but keep in mind EE will not be the only removal spell we board in. My board is currently:

4x Dark Confidant
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
3x Xantid Swarm
1x Tropical island
1x Tendrils of Agony

I would move the Tropical Island to the maindeck and perhaps drop 1 Bob or Swarm. Also, EE occasionally blows up Chalice.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I don't have to know the matchup to know that. And I do know that. I just forgot for a sec.
What you do is worse: you pretend that the opponent always has all the dangerous stuff against you.
If you would actually play the matchup, you would know what to expect. And them having Leyline AND Flusterstorm AND they start so you cannot go for x Goblins turn 1 is a very rare situation. The situation where they have Leyline AND Force of Will for your Xantid Swarm actually happens more often. Let's look at what they have:

Leyline (3-4): he has 40% chance of getting his Leyline. If he doesn't have it in his opener, he can never cast it. People in the OmniShow thread sometimes advocate against playing Leyline in the first place because of this problem. Mathematically it is just more often bad than good.
Flusterstorm (max. 3): Yes, you are cold to Flusterstorm, but only IF he has Leyline. Otherwise you just Duress it away.
Force of Will (3-4): This is the most dangerous one, because it can stop almost all we have. It is bad against an in hand Empty the Warrens though, and it messes up their plan topo. They need a lot of cards cards to go off: S&T + Omni + EtI/Wish/Intuition, or Halls + EtI + blue card + four lands, or Halls + Omni + Wish + blue card + four lands. I could go on. Force costs them a card, which can often stop them from going off themselves, which buys us time.

In the off chance they draw all their disruption, they can pretty much lock us out of the game regardless of what we play. If we play with Swarms plus a bounce spell, we lose to double Leyline, or to Leyline + Force. If we play Empty the Warrens, we lose to Leyline + Fluster on the draw.
But if they don't have Leyline, which we have 60% chance to happen, our disruption is better and we are likely to win, regardless of what disruption package we play. Discard is just very good against them. It's a game of chance.

The situation you listed above is not uncommon at all... So they have 2 cards in their opener that are difficult to deal with, and you can't Empty on turn 1... Unfortunately that is a common scenario if you play a lot against that deck. And I play the matchup a ton which is why I respect its difficulty if you're not running Swarms. It's actually why I added Swarms to my deck later. My list is tuned from tons of testing rather than theory.

There are some easy solutions to the problems you bring up here. First of all, I play Empty the Warrens. I ALSO play Xantid Swarms. If they have Force for my Xantid Swarm and a Leyline in play, I will try to go off and make goblins (at which point I may be able to) OR try to combo and find the singleton bounce spell, which is, by the way, an Echoing Truth. In your scenario, you have no Swarm, so you try to combo with Goblins and they Force your tutor gg. If they have Leyline + Force + Flusterstorm, then you and I both lose.

In regards to your argument of their Force "buying us time," that is just crazy. We spend like 4-5 if not all of our cards attempting to go off with a tutor. The one card they pitch to Force of Will is not going to buy enough time to get back into the game against this resilient combo deck. I also don't see why you think you lose to Force if they Force your Swarm... If you have to go for it, you go for it, and now they don't have a Force in their hand. Swarm has basically become a discard spell with Leyline in play. What does your deck do in the situation where they have Leyline + Force? The only chance your deck has is to have the singleton Empty the Warrens in hand, and I play that too...

Your statistics just don't make sense. So you are willing to lose the 40% of the time that they have Leyline in their starter and then play a real game when they don't? The matchup isn't a cakewalk when they don't have Leyline in play; I mean they have tons of countermagic and are a combo deck that can kill you quickly. But let's say for the sake of the argument that you impressively have a 65% win rate when they don't have Leyline in play. With weighted averages, that means your matchup against this deck is 39% post-SB. Yikes. I don't think I need to compare my matchup, because it this point it looks like I am running a strictly better list to combat S+T.

*Again, I just want to note that you don't lose to double Leyline if your bounce spell is an Echoing Truth.

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

To weigh in on the hatebear discussion, I really like my Disfigures since they can deal with Meddling Mage, Canonist, Teeg, Thalia, and Deathrite Shaman. You don't usually HAVE to kill a Deathrite, but it makes the Disfigures good even if they don't have a hatebear in play. I generally like to bring in 2 Disfigure against most Deathblade decks if I think they are on the Meddling Mage plan.

[phazonmutant]

So my question is: Is one Massacre or Infest enough to adress hatebears? I don't like Massacre for not dealing with Teeg. Infest has the problem of double black mana (I play 2 basic Islands and 1 basic Swamp).

My idea was to play 3 Grafdigger's Cage and 1 Infest instead of 3 Dread of Night and 1 Tormod's Crypt.

What do you think and is there a good alternative ways?

Maindeck is 16 cantrips, no green dual main, 7 discard (4 therapy / 3 duress).

Greetings Mindlash

If you're only playing one, I don't think Massacre is the right one. I also don't like Infest for the reasons you described. Virtue's Ruin is the tits. I love that card to death. I'm currently trying out ANT again after a long engagement to TES (just to double check if I'm correct in preferring TES) and Virtue's Ruin has already saved my bacon a couple of times.

Virtue's Ruin is going to be at its worst against D&T because they play Port and Thalia, but it's in my opinion the best sweeper to have access to against Maverick, Miracles, and Deathblade now that they're trying to not roll over to combo. That said, it's still pretty damn good against the mono-W deck. Dread of Night is an excellent card for dealing with Mom and Thalia, but you have to draw multiples to beat Canonist which I don't like.

I don't know if it's correct to play multiples. I'm only playing one right now and using AD (and if necessary, Chain) to mop up, which allows me to fit in some Surgicals and Bobs. Multiple sweepers isn't right out though.

edit: saw post above

To weigh in on the hatebear discussion, I really like my Disfigures since they can deal with Meddling Mage, Canonist, Teeg, Thalia, and Deathrite Shaman. You don't usually HAVE to kill a Deathrite, but it makes the Disfigures good even if they don't have a hatebear in play. I generally like to bring in 2 Disfigure against most Deathblade decks if I think they are on the Meddling Mage plan.

Why do you feel like you need more 1-for-1 removal than Chain of Vapor and Abrupt Decay? If you feel like you need more, why wouldn't you play Slaughter Pact?

[nevilshute]

I'm playing with Burning Wish and I've therefore got two anti-hatebear sweepers in my sideboard. They used to be Massacre and Infest. I side in one against Maverick and Death & Taxes and the like and leave one in the sideboard.

A few nights ago I was playing Maverick and ran into a situation that has gotten me to switch Infest with Virtue's Ruin. Basically my opponent managed to get down a Aven Mindcensor during game one and also managed to get a Jitte down and equip and attack. From then on neither Massacre nor Infest would ever be able to kill it because of constantly keeping counters on the Jitte. For reference, this is my current board:

1x Massacre
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grim Tutor
1x Duress
1x Chain of Vapor
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Xantid Swarm

[Asthereal]

@Patrunkenphat7:
Looking at the chances of drawing a 4-of and a 3-of in your opener, or a 4-of and another 4-of, yes the chances are that low. If you test a hundred games, of course you will encounter it sometimes. In general you should only have to face the almost impossible to win scenario one out of five times. Chances enough to win. It's not like your chances of winning with Swarm increase more than 10% compared to without.

The discussion boils down to this: how much do you win by playing both Green (Swarms and Decays) and red for Empty the Warrens in the relevant matchups (Miracles, Show and Tell), and how much do you lose in the other matchups where a stable mana base is needed (Canadian Thresh, BUG Tempo, other blue Tempo, Jund, Junk, Maverick and whatever else tries to blow you out by targeting your lands. I'm not saying those matchups become unwinnable. Of course not. But you do lose some percentage of your winning chances against them if you play a crippled mana base that is supposed to be able to support four colours.

It's a trade off. A marginal one, but still a trade off. I chose for the TNT idea. Stable mana base, slightly more limited sideboard options. By the way I do play more than one Empty the Warrens. Right now I have three on side. Two to board in where needed, keeping one for the Wish board. Empty the Warrens is highly underrated my many ANT players. I come from TES and I have very good experiences with Empty, even in a deck that doesn't usually support it that well accelleration wise.

[Patrunkenphat7]

@Asthereal: I run no green mana main, therefore, my deck has an equally stable manabase as yours against decks where I don't need green. Again, I am trying to show that there is no downside to playing green cards in your SB for certain matchups. You can argue all day how MUCH worse your deck is against S+T, but I think we can agree that it has to be some amount worse with no access to Swarm. My argument is that you sacrifice nothing to have Swarms in your SB other than not having access to worse SB cards like red blasts.

@phazonmuant: I like the 2 Disfigure simply because I don't want to bring in the Decays unless I absolutely have to. Deathblade runs Wastelands, and I like being able to deal with their permanent hate off a single black. I think Chain is fine, but Disfigure is a more conservative option when you are going for the turn 4 kill. Against something like Deathblade that has a lot of discard early backed by countermagic and hatebears, it can be difficult to go off turns 2-3 unless you have a resilient hand and theirs is weak. Because of that, I will often preemptively answer a Deathrite Shaman on turn 1 before it has the chance to start eating away at my yard. I do have Decays in my SB as well, and they come in against decks that are 100% permanent hate or play hosing cards like Counterbalance, Rest in Peace, Thorn of Amethyst, or Chalice of the Void.

For reference, here is the current iteration of my deck (a couple cards change every now and then...):

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

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

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor

1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn

SB
1 Tropical Island
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Dread of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Pithing Needle

[Asthereal]

No Ad Nauseam AND no Wish? Awkward choice.
Not saying it's plain wrong, I just never tried it.
If I were to cut Ad Nauseam, I'd probably first try 3x Infernal + 3x Wish with both fourth on side.
That gives tutor chains from every angle, and Wishes can get an Infernal for a Past in Flames loop.

Having four colours does mean a worse mana base.
You need your fetches to all be blue, otherwise you cannot consistently find either the one-of Volcanic or the Tropical.
I have more black fetch so I have more chance to find the basic Swamp when I need it.
It's marginal, but I need my basic Swamp way more often than I need Xantid Swarm instead of other protection.

For reference my latest ANT list:
4 Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal
2 Wish
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils
1 Ad Nauseam /21

4 LED
4 Petal
1 Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual /17

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy /7

2 Sea
2 Volcanic
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Tarn
2 Mire /15

Sideboard:
1 Tendrils
3 Empty
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Chain of Vapor /15

[Patrunkenphat7]

In a lot of matchups, I need both basic Islands before I ever get black to go off. The basic swamp is less important, but it depends on what you are playing against. Comparing our manabases, I don't think you can say one is more "stable" than the other. I actually used to have a Mire but took it out because I wanted the consistency of the basic Island, and it didn't have anything to do with the SB Trop. Also you only run 2 basic lands and an additional dual main. I don't like the Burning Wish loop for PiF because a 4 mana tutor to find PiF is tough in addition to keeping some amount open. I find the Grims to be much better and more consistent with PiF.

[Asthereal]

I am more dependent on red, so I need the second Volcanic.
So far I haven't needed the second Island.

A PiF loop with Grim Tutor costs six mana and six life. Wish into Infernal for a PiF loop costs six mana as well, though it requires one more starting mana, but it doesn't cost life. Additionally, you can Wish for Infernal and go off the next turn using up less mana. I feel Wish plus Infernal has some serious upsides.

Don't you miss Ad Nauseam by the way?

[Mindlash]

If you're only playing one, I don't think Massacre is the right one. I also don't like Infest for the reasons you described. Virtue's Ruin is the tits. I love that card to death. I'm currently trying out ANT again after a long engagement to TES (just to double check if I'm correct in preferring TES) and Virtue's Ruin has already saved my bacon a couple of times.

Ahh I totally forgot about Virtue's Ruin. I think I will test it a bit. Only downside coming to my mind right now is Turn 1 Mother of Runes into Turn 2 Ethersworn Cannonist.

Another possibility might be to play both...the 3 Dread of Night and the 3 Cages and cut the 8th discard and the Ill-Gotten Gains.

I used Ill-Gotten Gains mostly against decks without Silence, Counterspells and Mindbreak Traps for the extra speed. But from time to time I ran into Maverick or Goblin decks with Mindbreak Traps so it became more and more unpredictable :-/

What do you guys think about discard? I have 7 discard spells maindeck. Is the 4th Duress in the board mandatory?
Or will 7 spells do the job?

Otherwise I could run something like this:

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Carpet of Flowers / Xantid Swarm
3 Dread of Night
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Tropical Island

Not sure about Xantid Swarm...it's really good against SnT with leylines...but Carpet of Flowers is just too strong in most other cases...like RUG and BUG and so on...

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

On the TNT / ANT discussion. I played TNT first and switched to ANT (with 16 cantrips) later. I felt that ANT is alot more stable. Burning Wish just creates situations that just don't felt right or smooth. The fast and easy kills came with Infernal Tutor anyway.

From my point of view it is like this:

Postive:
I like the option to play some "Belcher Games" with Empty on Turn 1 or 2 though.
You can interact with hatebears in Game 1.
You canwish for Grim Tutor Turn 2 and go off Turn 3.
Burning Wishes that are not needed can be turned into additional Discard (coming from Timos TNT).

Negative:
You need more red mana or earlier red mana to support the wishes which can be a problem against Wasteland.
Needing more red mana can create awkward situations in your combo turn.
Burning Wish needs another tutor to make stormengines from the board useful.
Burning Wish does not synergize with Cabal Ritual.
Burning Wish fucks up your Sideboardspace.
Manabase gets more unstable in Matchups where green cards from the board would benefit you.

I think it is up to ones personal choice. TNT needs more planning in mana and threshold management while giving you more flexibiltiy especially game 1. ANT on the other side can give you a more stable manabase, easier access to threshold due to the high amount of cantrips and an easier time to implement some green cards to your board (mana- and spacewise).

I am alot more comfortable with the latter. I sold my TNT duals and the Grim Tutor anyways ;)
When playing with wishes a take TES but as of now ANT is my first choice.

Greetings Mindlash

[phazonmutant]

Ahh I totally forgot about Virtue's Ruin. I think I will test it a bit. Only downside coming to my mind right now is Turn 1 Mother of Ruins into Turn 2 Ethersworn Cannonist.

Another possibility might be to play both...the 3 Dread of Night and the 3 Cages and cut the 8th discard and the Ill-Gotten Gains.

I used Ill-Gotten Gains mostly against decks without Silence, Counterspells and Mindbreak Traps for the extra speed. But from time to time I ran into Maverick or Goblin decks with Mindbreak Traps so it became more and more unpredictable :-/

What do you guys think about discard? I have 7 discard spells maindeck. Is the 4th Duress in the board mandatory?
Or will 7 spells do the job?

Why is that scenario a downside? Just hope they play another duder and make your third land drop. Then all their men are dead.

Yeah, IGG has pretty much been outclassed. It doesn't really serve a purpose any more. I'm not really sure what matchups you would bring the 8th discard in for. If you're playing Carpet, it's better at playing through Thresh's taxing counters, Swarm is better against U combo decks and fish, and most every other matchup requires bringing in some sort of permanent anti-hate.

[Mindlash]

Why is that scenario a downside? Just hope they play another duder and make your third land drop. Then all their men are dead.

Yeah, IGG has pretty much been outclassed. It doesn't really serve a purpose any more. I'm not really sure what matchups you would bring the 8th discard in for. If you're playing Carpet, it's better at playing through Thresh's taxing counters, Swarm is better against U combo decks and fish, and most every other matchup requires bringing in some sort of permanent anti-hate.

The problem in that scenario is: Mother of Runes protects Ethersworn Cannonist from Virtue's Ruin. This is not possible with Infest. I will never find the perfect spell for my needs :D

But I think I will go with Dreads and Cages and cut the Duress and IGG :-)

Greetings Mindlash

Edit: Had mistaken protection to something like: Card can't be destroyed instead of damage would be reduced to zero. My bad :D

[Sloshthedark]

same discussion over and over again... my list with little variations last 1-2 months


1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Underground sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 LED
3 Lotus Petal

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Lim Dul's Vault
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor

1 EtW
2 Past in Flames
1 ToA

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

================
2 Pyroblast
3 Ground Seal
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Notion Thief
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Karakas
1 Lighning Bolt

-Grim +Top, maybe Confidant instead of 2x Thief and a Pyro today


the list follows assumptions - basics are overrated, you win against 9/10 G1 against decks with no GY interaction or MD hatebears, UGR Thresh is good match-up, Deathrite shaman made ANT significantly worse, Ad Nauseam belongs to TES, Abrupt Decay is not so hot as it seems, S&T is bad deck with even worse players, and it's fun... made the list after comparing Mystical Tutor Ant to todays Probe+PIF build (which is actually better =D) and experimentig with Mystical Tutor in PiF build

[Zombie]

Not a single Tendrils in the 75?

[Mindlash]

Not a single Tendrils in the 75?

1 ToA and 1 EtW

[Sloshthedark]

Not a single Tendrils in the 75?
you were few seconds faster... =)

[whosyourdaddy]

Hi, lately I've been testing against my friend's rock deck(playing the 16 cantrip version) and would like to share some thoughts. Most of my g1s were a cakewalk but things got tricky postboard. Without going much into details, postboard he had the following relevant cards against me:
4 iok/thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
4 deathrite shaman
3 liliana of the veil
3 surgical extraction
4 sfm + batterskull (to a lesser extend)
and 3 gaddock teeg on top of that

I've been having trouble sideboarding. I feel like I want my two ignorant bliss from the board(which is really cute when ressolves, but also equally rare), leave some number of discard to hit their hymns, surgicals and possibly teeg and bring in removal not to die from a single bear. It seems like I end up siding to much of my business out or feeling not equipped well enough.
I had a crazy thought I could try Izze Charm(Dimir Charm?) In my board. It could replace ignorant bliss(If anyone is still bothering to test it). It it hits all hatebears, can answer discard and other random hate while still 'cantrips' should none of the above mentioned situarions occure.
Could Izzet Charm be a real card?
How would you guys side agains this deck?

[Mindlash]

Hi, lately I've been testing against my friend's rock deck(playing the 16 cantrip version) and would like to share some thoughts. Most of my g1s were a cakewalk but things got tricky postboard. Without going much into details, postboard he had the following relevant cards against me:
4 iok/thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
4 deathrite shaman
3 liliana of the veil
3 surgical extraction
4 sfm + batterskull (to a lesser extend)
and 3 gaddock teeg on top of that

I've been having trouble sideboarding. I feel like I want my two ignorant bliss from the board(which is really cute when ressolves, but also equally rare), leave some number of discard to hit their hymns, surgicals and possibly teeg and bring in removal not to die from a single bear. It seems like I end up siding to much of my business out or feeling not equipped well enough.
I had a crazy thought I could try Izze Charm(Dimir Charm?) In my board. It could replace ignorant bliss(If anyone is still bothering to test it). It it hits all hatebears, can answer discard and other random hate while still 'cantrips' should none of the above mentioned situarions occure.
Could Izzet Charm be a real card?
How would you guys side agains this deck?

I don't know your board but I would board something like this:

In : +1 Tropical, +3 Abrupt Decay
Out: -3 Duress, -1 Cabal Therapy

Leaving me with 3 Cabal Therapy after boarding. Abrupt Decay is mainly for Teeg but you can shoot at Lilly too.
Rest looks like the cards Jund brings in...discard, shaman, hymn, extraction. I usually do not board against Jund...you should not loose with ANT against it.

People tend to overboard most of the times and loose to their crippled deck more often than to their opponents hate.

Greetings Mindlash

[whosyourdaddy]

People tend to overboard most of the times and loose to their crippled deck more often than to their opponents hate.

That was my exect thought. I tend to win more games just going off early and consistently rather than trying to answer every hate card. My thought was that with decay you are only addressing a portion of their hate suit. The point is I could board Izzet Charm that deal with Teeg equally well, but have much broader application. This way you end up not overboarding but having a nice catch—all antihate card that's almost never dead.

Edit: I think I've just convinced myself. Gonna try it out and see how it works out:)

[Final Fortune]

I didn't replace any of the core cards in the deck with wishes. I opted not to play the redundant and subpar cantrip that is preordain.

And other people opted not to play the redundant and subpar tutors that are Burning Wish and Grim Tutor, but in all seriousness I don't think Pre-Ordain makes the deck any slower. I find having 8 Ponder/Pre-Ordain gives the deck a consistent, turn one cantrip so Duress, Cabal Therapy and Brainstorm can be saved for the later turns (3+) where you can maximize their value. Dropping an Underground Sea and Duressing the opponent on your first turn really isn't what you want to have to do with your first land drop and first spell in this deck.

[Mindlash]

That was my exect thought. I tend to win more games just going off early and consistently rather than trying to answer every hate card. My thought was that with decay you are only addressing a portion of their hate suit. The point is I could board Izzet Charm that deal with Teeg equally well, but have much broader application. This way you end up not overboarding but having a nice catch—all antihate card that's almost never dead.

Edit: I think I've just convinced myself. Gonna try it out and see how it works out:)

If you have the sideboardspace for Izzet Charm you can board it in.

But in my opinion Abrupt Decay is better for killing Stoneforge Mystic, Teeg and Lilly (Izzet Charm can only counter the later)

You can counter the discard spells, but I don't think you will ever have the mana to spare + The Rock plays Wastelands, which makes it additionally hard to counter reliably with the need of red mana.

And the lootingeffect is inferior to the other played cantrips because it makes you loose a handcard and you are already playing against discard ^^

Izzet Charm also eats up sideboardspace, while Abrupt Decay is very good in other matchups (killing Counterbalance for example).

I don't know your maindeck and sideboard though...but I think there are better sideboard cards right now.

Greetings Mindlash

[fogxanic]

Hello, Im playing Grant Wilkinsons list of ANT. http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/53062. I just dont know why there is one tendrils on SB? Usually if it goes to gy Im still able to PiF it back in action. Maybe EtW instead it?

Yesterday I was at local 8 player tournament and placed 2nd. Beat affinity 2-0, the rock 2-0 and lose to SI 0-2. I felt like I had no chances against it. Ok I got slow hands but like 2 discard (cabal fizzled naming culling the weak while he had dryad arbor on board, Cruel Bargain would have been right choice he had 3 in hand) in G1 and 1 discard in G2. I think Tes would been better because of silences I have played that more.

[practical joke]

ANT and all of it's variations have an attrition war against discard heavy decks and gy hate.
Rely more on your cantrips and ad nauseams and less on your hand itself.
It's all about timing and manipulating the top cards of your deck.

Don't be affraid to drop your LED's on the field from turn one or something like it. Pitf against a heavy gy hate board is suicidal

[Patrunkenphat7]

I am more dependent on red, so I need the second Volcanic.
So far I haven't needed the second Island.

A PiF loop with Grim Tutor costs six mana and six life. Wish into Infernal for a PiF loop costs six mana as well, though it requires one more starting mana, but it doesn't cost life. Additionally, you can Wish for Infernal and go off the next turn using up less mana. I feel Wish plus Infernal has some serious upsides.

Don't you miss Ad Nauseam by the way?

The initial mana floating after casting the PiF is what is most important to start flashing back your rituals. It is a benefit that you can wish one turn and then have Infernal for the following turn.

I hate Ad Nauseam… Haha. I ran it for a long time, but the Empty wins me more games. Now I need to read what everyone else is talking about. This thread is busy…

Edit: My advice to whosyourdaddy would be to board something like 2 Disfigures to deal with the Teegs/Deathrites and keep in the rest of your discard. If you can deal with Surgical, you can usually beat that kind of deck regardless of how much discard they have. I wouldn't overboard permanent hate based on what you have posted.

[whosyourdaddy]

But in my opinion Abrupt Decay is better for killing Stoneforge Mystic, Teeg and Lilly (Izzet Charm can only counter the later)

Since we are talking about non—blue matchups they are both equally good at killing mystic and teeg. True, charm doesn't kill lily, but does tons of different stuff.


You can counter the discard spells, but I don't think you will ever have the mana to spare + The Rock plays Wastelands, which makes it additionally hard to counter reliably with the need of red mana.

If wasteland is an issue, I'd rather not play the card that needs a 4th colour(I run 1 trop side) and stick to UBr. So I guess it kinda speaks for Charm over Decay.


And the lootingeffect is inferior to the other played cantrips because it makes you loose a handcard and you are already playing against discard ^^

True, looting is worse than any cantrip we run and is card disadvantage but is still miles better than having a dead removal spell in hand once you're ready to go off next turn.


Izzet Charm also eats up sideboardspace, while Abrupt Decay is very good in other matchups (killing Counterbalance for example).

I don't know your maindeck and sideboard though...but I think there are better sideboard cards right now.

Greetings Mindlash

I run a pretty standard prosak list. My board is:
3 Abrupt decay
3 Carpet of flowers
1 Tropical
2 Chain of vapor
2 Ignorant bliss
1 Slaughter pact
1 Karakas
1 Cabal therapy
1 Empty the warrens

I guess the 2 Ignorant bliss could easly go, that leaves my with something like that:
-2 Bliss -1 Pact +3 Izzet charm.
I was hoping to fit in 3 xantid swarms tho, so I'm not sure yet.

[Mindlash]

If wasteland is an issue, I'd rather not play the card that needs a 4th colour(I run 1 trop side) and stick to UBr. So I guess it kinda speaks for Charm over Decay.

The problem with Izzed Charm is you need to hold red mana open. Ok you can fetch into that mana in the turn you need it like you do with Abrupt Decay. But I have never had a turn in ANT where I sit back, do nothing and leave mana open. You either cantrip, or disrupt or kill. And its not that easy to win through a resolved lilly...


Since we are talking about non—blue matchups they are both equally good at killing mystic and teeg. True, charm doesn't kill lily, but does tons of different stuff.

As I said you can use it if you have the space in your sideboard open. Abrupt Decay does the same thing with hatebears in the non-blue matchup while beeing better in the blue matchups and has more relevant targets like chalice, counterbalance. The question is: Do you build your sideboard against your friend or against the field.


I guess the 2 Ignorant bliss could easly go, that leaves my with something like that:
-2 Bliss -1 Pact +3 Izzet charm.
I was hoping to fit in 3 xantid swarms tho, so I'm not sure yet.

In my opinion the 3 Swarms would benefit you more than the 3 Charms. Swarm definetly is good against als those Show and Tell decks with their leylines and would improve your matchup against these decks, while Charm doesn't do anything relevant your deck isn't already cabable of.

Greetings Mindlash

[Patrunkenphat7]

Reactive countermagic is really bad in this deck. I tried 2 Divert in my SB one time, and it was just awkward and not relevant. I can't imagine how Izzet Charm makes any kind of impact on the game besides being an overcosted spell to kill hatebears. Even if you are on the play, they will still be able to cast discard turn 1 against you.

[aaronm678]

I feel like I want my two ignorant bliss from the board(which is really cute when ressolves, but also equally rare), leave some number of discard to hit their hymns, surgicals and possibly teeg and bring in removal not to die from a single bear.

Try something like Sensei's Top -- Ignorant bliss is pretty bad, because it's really difficult to hold up 1R when you need to...and it pretty much never resolves against those decks. Top lets you draw your artifacts mana and lands off the top, while keeping your important spells safe, and typically it comes down early enough that they have to Force it if they want to counter it.

I don't think Izzet charm is very good -- you don't generally see hate bears from the same decks you see heavy discard from, and the looting effect is just not very good (especially against a discard deck, a card that is negative card advantage is unplayable). Countering a Hymn or whatever doesn't seem like it's going to happen often enough to be a worthwhile sideboard card (has the same problems as Ignorant Bliss -- impossible to hold up, and even less likely to resolve).

[th3 w1z4rd]

Burning Wish is invincible. I don't have Past in Flames maindeck because the only time I want it is when I have an abundance of mana from rituals, so wishing for it in that situation is acceptable. I just played an out of control game against RUG where I played multiple Burning Wishes, sometimes as counter bait and once to get the sideboard Tendrils for the win. I actually Infernal Tutor'd for Cabal Therapy once to help strip the insane amount of countermagic from my opponent's hand. At one point I played Gitaxian Probe and his hand was Force of Will, Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Stifle. DAFUQ. Much of the time he didn't have a threat but then he got a flipped Delver and I needed my full stock of Infernal Tutors and Burning Wishes to get enough resources to punch through the blue wall. I actually combo'd off to 9 storm between playing stuff and him playing blue spells but then I couldn't finish him off. A couple turns later I resolved an Ad Nauseum at 10 life, went down to 2, stripped away his Stifle finally and Burning Wished for Tendrils to kill him from 19 life. Anyone who says Burning Wish is bad in ANT is retarded.

P.S. In Game 1 I played some mana, Burning Wished for Past in Flames and won on turn 1.

[phazonmutant]

Anyone who says Burning Wish is bad in ANT is retarded.

Yup, you got me. I'm a registered retard.

Sounds like in that matchup Silence would have been pretty clutch. Maybe you should consider the idea that Burning Wish is a good card, but not at its best in ANT. I know it's hard to divorce statistics from bad beat stories, but ya know. You could maybe try it out.

[th3 w1z4rd]

Yup, you got me. I'm a registered retard.

Sounds like in that matchup Silence would have been pretty clutch. Maybe you should consider the idea that Burning Wish is a good card, but not at its best in ANT. I know it's hard to divorce statistics from bad beat stories, but ya know. You could maybe try it out.

I've played TES a lot and been horribly destroyed by decks like RUG Delver. Cabal Ritual >>>>> Rite of Flame. Not even close. Silence would make ANT's manabase crap like TES's. I've had no mana troubles unlike with TES. I know you love TES to death so why not stay in that thread instead of here? Talking about how Silence is better and Burning Wish isn't good in ANT... you're clearly advocating for your pet deck. But if people wanted to play TES they'd be in that thread, not here. And my statistics over hundreds of games indicate that Burning Wish is awesome, at least in my build of ANT, if not others.

[Jay_Gatz]

Can we just ban comparisons between TES and ANT in this thread? It's never productive and it's quite obnoxious.

[Dark Ritual]

Burning Wish is invincible. I don't have Past in Flames maindeck because the only time I want it is when I have an abundance of mana from rituals, so wishing for it in that situation is acceptable. I just played an out of control game against RUG where I played multiple Burning Wishes, sometimes as counter bait and once to get the sideboard Tendrils for the win. I actually Infernal Tutor'd for Cabal Therapy once to help strip the insane amount of countermagic from my opponent's hand. At one point I played Gitaxian Probe and his hand was Force of Will, Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Stifle. DAFUQ. Much of the time he didn't have a threat but then he got a flipped Delver and I needed my full stock of Infernal Tutors and Burning Wishes to get enough resources to punch through the blue wall. I actually combo'd off to 9 storm between playing stuff and him playing blue spells but then I couldn't finish him off. A couple turns later I resolved an Ad Nauseum at 10 life, went down to 2, stripped away his Stifle finally and Burning Wished for Tendrils to kill him from 19 life. Anyone who says Burning Wish is bad in ANT is retarded.

P.S. In Game 1 I played some mana, Burning Wished for Past in Flames and won on turn 1.

Maybe wish works for you. But the card is trash without rite of flames or doomsdays and I'll stand by that statement. You cut PiF? That makes ad nauseam marginally better, however there's the issue of playing burning wish as well so your ad nauseam flops can still fizzle out quite easily by flipping no mana but all these cantrips, wishes, and infernal tutors. Also, you beat an opponent with no clock/you had a long time to set up? Congratulations on that incredible feat I don't know how you can lose when your opponent does no damage to you at all.

Stifle isn't a problem card until they use it on your fetchlands if you lack lands in hand to play around 1 mana sinkhole. Why? You can't stifle past in flames. You simply resolve PiF, flashback all the rituals into therapy/duress on stifle, then tendrils them. I can't remember the last time my tendrils of agony trigger was the target of a stifle. It's the same case with ad nauseam, flip over duress/therapy. Cast dark rit into either one on their stifle and they suddenly die when you follow that up with CRit, LED, tutor, tendrils.

Did you ever consider that if those wishes were preordains you could just, you know, dig for discard/extra infernals to fetch discard to strip his countermagic? I've played grindy games with combo quite a bit, and when the opponent lacks a significant clock it's almost too easy for me to win the game.

Let me also reiterate the second bad part of wish. Nice sideboard, bro. Love all those 1 ofs you have in there that can't be boarded in or if they are boarded in water down wish even more.

Could people not discuss izzet charm in storm combo? That's just sad. I would never ever run the card in my sideboard.

[Lemnear]

I've played TES a lot and been horribly destroyed by decks like RUG Delver. Cabal Ritual >>>>> Rite of Flame. Not even close. Silence would make ANT's manabase crap like TES's. I've had no mana troubles unlike with TES. I know you love TES to death so why not stay in that thread instead of here? Talking about how Silence is better and Burning Wish isn't good in ANT... you're clearly advocating for your pet deck. But if people wanted to play TES they'd be in that thread, not here. And my statistics over hundreds of games indicate that Burning Wish is awesome, at least in my build of ANT, if not others.

So you suck to pilot TES? Still not a valid argument for Burning Wish ANT, right?

[th3 w1z4rd]

So you suck to pilot TES? Still not a valid argument for Burning Wish ANT, right?

The deck itself sucks, like your English.

[Pdingo]

@th3 w1z4rd

When you get destroyed by RUG all the Time , then your doing something wrong with TES.
And sorry maybe, you like BW to death but it's wrong to Play BW in ANT. You won't have a better manabase with BW in the board.^^
Good ANT Player knows BW sucks and it's damn wrong;)

and pls no isults^^

[Lemnear]

The deck itself sucks, like your English.

Must be the reason I win tournaments playing against RUG, BUG and Show&Tell decks all the time. Feel free to hit me on details of the reports in my sig.

If my english isn't good enough for you, we can switch to german, bavarian, spanish or french. Your choice.

[Asthereal]

Canadian Threshold is very loseable for both TES and ANT. TES has more trouble there because it has the Past in Flames on side, so it's less accessible, and the mana base is worse. The only upside for TES is having Emtpy the Warrens main deck. If you have that one in your opener, things look a lot better. But seriously, people should stop saying players are bad because they lose to Canadian Thresh with either Storm variant. If you draw mediocre hands and the Thresh player gets all the good stuff, you just die.

[Lemnear]

Canadian Threshold is very loseable for both TES and ANT. TES has more trouble there because it has the Past in Flames on side, so it's less accessible, and the mana base is worse. The only upside for TES is having Emtpy the Warrens main deck. If you have that one in your opener, things look a lot better. But seriously, people should stop saying players are bad because they lose to Canadian Thresh with either Storm variant. If you draw mediocre hands and the Thresh player gets all the good stuff, you just die.

No, doubt that you can loose against Canadian but Maindeck EtW and being able to wish/infernal for EtW turn 1/2 with the help of mox and Rite of Flame is nothing ANT can perform and favors TES over ANT in that matchup. To claim that the pure opposite (especially in terms of Rite) is the truth, is laughable.

Edit: I have no clue why the accessability of PIF in TES should matter in any Way against RUG Delver

Edit 2: If you just don't loose some games against RUG with TES and it's EtW, but get "destroyed" by it every game, you should in fact question your playstyle/-skill or actually never have played the matchup and just use phrases and guesses to prove your point

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Not to just barge in and interrupt, but isn't Strionic Resonator something to take a look at? It re-triggers storm...Won't hit most other things like LED, Petal, other mana abilities, but does help with that, can really lower storm count needs while still virtually adding to the count even if you didn't play it on combo turn. It's easy on the life total for Ad Nauseam, and could even just be a sb option. Anyway, call it a novelty, but I think it will see at least some play in storm initially much like Nivmagus did. Makes Snapcaster Mage a bit better as well...

-ABC

[Asthereal]

@ABC: That thing costs four mana to cast + activate. You can also just tutor chain two times more and have more Storm count. Adding a card that otherwise does nothing seems bad. I think that card might have some potential in Modern. There's enough triggered stuff to copy, and in Modern you don't get killed before turn 5, so you actually have some time to get that thing to work.

@Lemnear: in the Thresh matchup, a couple of things matter:
1. Opening hands!!!
2. Being able to get an Empty the Warrens through.
3. Being able to recover when a lot of your stuff gets countered.

For point 1, there's no real winner. TES plays slightly worse cards (Chrome Mox compared to Cantrips and Lands), but it does have more explosive starts.
For point 2, TES obviously wins. TES is better at casting Empty, and some ANT lists don't even support it.
For point 3, ANT clearly wins. ANT has a more stable mana base, which helps when Thresh is on the mana denial plan. Also, having better access to Past in Flames helps you recover when many spells were countered.

My experience is that ANT is a bit better against Canadian Thresh. Maybe I am unlucky, but I often get a lot of stuff countered, and if they have a Delver out you don't get much time to recover, so you better recover quickly and well. Getting Past in Flames asap helps here. I feel that TES is highly dependant on it's opening hands, and if they suck, and the opponent just gets his good stuff, you are in trouble. I've played this matchup a lot, and I've tried many things, but if they just play a Delver and then proceed to counter your more relevant spells, what can you do? I read all of your reports. I find them very insightful, but your tips cannot help me push this matchup into the positive.

[phazonmutant]

Can we just ban comparisons between TES and ANT in this thread? It's never productive and it's quite obnoxious.

On the one hand, I agree with you. But on the other hand...what else do we have to talk about? :laugh:


I feel that TES is highly dependant on it's opening hands, and if they suck, and the opponent just gets his good stuff, you are in trouble. I've played this matchup a lot, and I've tried many things, but if they just play a Delver and then proceed to counter your more relevant spells, what can you do?

That hand is pretty much the god hand for Thresh and it's hard to beat for both decks.
I don't have a whole lot of experience from the ANT side since I stopped being terrible at Storm, but it seems like ANT relies pretty heavily on getting to 3 or 4 lands to power through the counterspells and taxes. I guess Carpet of Flowers works pretty well at that job, but I'm a bit skeptical that it's worth the slots. Haven't played with it, so could be wrong. Doable, but Stifle and Wasteland can be problems as you mentioned.

TES plays a bit differently. You're right that it's pretty dependent on opening hands in the sense that TES feels unbeatable when it draws a Silence or two and has a couple lands, but it's a slog if you don't draw Silence. TES is less vulnerable to Stifle, but hurt more by Wasteland.

Thresh is a tough matchup, but I feel like it's about 50/50 given equally skilled pilots, and I feel favored if I'm playing against a bad Thresh pilot. Pretty sure that's true for ANT as well.

[practical joke]

I've been skimming through the recent pages quickly and I confirmed one thing: It's full of crap and yes-no arguments.

Not helping what's it about.

ANT, TNT (BW -ANT) and TES are both combo-decks but all play relative different. Do not compare them, they are not the same and do not play the same way against i.e. treshhold variants.

Anyways, all are fine.

ANT is straight forward, lots of resilience agaisnt discard and other hand manipilation. Can get acces to lots of mana with very few cards, can win out of very few cards.
TNT was created to give ANT more resilience to hatebears meanboard and other mainboard hate that get more presence for some time. ( cards like pyroclasm, ETW and deathmark got to see play in the board)
TES is a more aggressive combo variant combining aggressive play and resilience to hate, quite weak against discard and heavy counters due to it's aggressive nature. However, skilled players can manipulate their ways into a win against those kind of decks.


Now that's in the clear, just discuss the deck itself and it's sideboard and ignore the TES part, which has a completely different thread on it's own.

I saw some things about izzet charm.
Just don't. reactive cards are horrible for combo in general. Play the xantid swarms, they are a big deal when they hit play and your opponent has no answer ( even if they have, you'll probably get the better of the trade anyways)
The point with reactive cards is, they cost mana and trade 1 for 1. Are need to be used the same turn you want to combo out.
Silence does the same thing, but better. if it resolves, you win, if not you don't have to go off yet. same goes for xantid swarm
regular discard allows for topdecks, but do the same thing, trade 1 card for another but can be cast beforehand and also allow you to adapt your playstyle according to your the cards in their hand and abuse the information very well.

[bondfan]

This discussion again...
How I see it is, if it's a weekly legacy tournament for all means run TES. But for any larger tournaments 9+rounds, I'll be on ANT all the way. Two different decks. For actual discussion, has anyone ran 16 cantrip vs grim tutor and has results? I've been losing games recently by not hitting business and was wondering if I should just shell out the $200. And no, I will not run burning wish.

[practical joke]

This discussion again...
How I see it is, if it's a weekly legacy tournament for all means run TES. But for any larger tournaments 9+rounds, I'll be on ANT all the way. Two different decks. For actual discussion, has anyone ran 16 cantrip vs grim tutor and has results? I've been losing games recently by not hitting business and was wondering if I should just shell out the $200. And no, I will not run burning wish.

Nope, never played with the eyeballs in my 75.
11-12 cantrips have always done the trick for me when playing the UB ANT version. I did try Grim tutor, but I've managed to work it out without them as well.

However, that list is quite old and it very rarely happened that I found no business at all. ( it did happen, but you're playing combo, it's not something uncommon)
I'm used to play with double ad nauseam in that list though.
I've tested up to 2 Grim tutors in the main. They do the trick, but not quite the way you want them to do it.
They are fine pre- ad nauseam, but horrible when you flip them. The 3 life and the 1 mana is quite the burden when trying to chain your storm at times.
but they are you're only viable options if you need more business and you're scared of running double ad nauseam.

Also, I am not very thrilled about probes, they do their job when playing therapy. If not I find them to be horrible at times when playing Ad Nauseam. I like them in TES and doomsday though.

[bondfan]

Nope, never played with the eyeballs in my 75.
11-12 cantrips have always done the trick for me when playing the UB ANT version. I did try Grim tutor, but I've managed to work it out without them as well.

However, that list is quite old and it very rarely happened that I found no business at all. ( it did happen, but you're playing combo, it's not something uncommon)
I'm used to play with double ad nauseam in that list though.
I've tested up to 2 Grim tutors in the main. They do the trick, but not quite the way you want them to do it.
They are fine pre- ad nauseam, but horrible when you flip them. The 3 life and the 1 mana is quite the burden when trying to chain your storm at times.
but they are you're only viable options if you need more business and you're scared of running double ad nauseam.

Also, I am not very thrilled about probes, they do their job when playing therapy. If not I find them to be horrible at times when playing Ad Nauseam. I like them in TES and doomsday though.

I think probes are actually very good. G1 you generally kill with PiF unless they get T1 Deathrite. Even so, Deathrite decks are not the fastest decks so Ad Nausem will be safe most of the time. Also, the information is crucial. Post boardgames however, I usually side some number of probes because you know what they're on and PiF gets weaker. I've had my tutors extracted way too many times which is why I've been looking at grim tutor. 3 (potentially 6) life and 3 mana seem very bad however.

[Jay_Gatz]

Free draws/storm are awesome with PiF in regards to probe.

[Dark Ritual]

Nope, never played with the eyeballs in my 75.
11-12 cantrips have always done the trick for me when playing the UB ANT version. I did try Grim tutor, but I've managed to work it out without them as well.

However, that list is quite old and it very rarely happened that I found no business at all. ( it did happen, but you're playing combo, it's not something uncommon)
I'm used to play with double ad nauseam in that list though.
I've tested up to 2 Grim tutors in the main. They do the trick, but not quite the way you want them to do it.
They are fine pre- ad nauseam, but horrible when you flip them. The 3 life and the 1 mana is quite the burden when trying to chain your storm at times.
but they are you're only viable options if you need more business and you're scared of running double ad nauseam.

Also, I am not very thrilled about probes, they do their job when playing therapy. If not I find them to be horrible at times when playing Ad Nauseam. I like them in TES and doomsday though.

Agreed about probes being great in TES and DDFT. DDFT getting a free cantrip to draw into the pile is amazing while providing storm. In TES it shows if they have an answer for turn 2 kill you. It's less impressive in ANT to be sure, but it's still very powerful in the combo mirror regardless of what deck the opponent is playing, alright against control, and only really bad against aggro short of it being turn 1 probe into therapy to strip their thalia, GSZ, teeg, etc. etc.

Out of curiosity, what have you been running for your maindeck? I'm curious, as you're a very competent storm player unlike some people.

[nevilshute]

Could someone shoot me some quick pros/cons on their thoughts/experiences with Dark Confidant in the sideboard for a non-burning wish ANT build?

This is my current sideboard:

3x Chain of Vapor
3x Abrupt Decay
My anti hatebear/countertop/chalice stuff

2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Xantid Swarm
My anti Island stuff

1x Empty the Warrens
Not sure about this, but it seems good to have a second win con to side in

4x blank blankfidant(?)
Feel like I need either these or something else to side in against discard. Ignorant Bliss seems bad as it means having, and leaving open, 1R all the time. Another option is Sensei's Diving Top, but I like Bob.


Anyway, open to any suggestions :)

[Asthereal]

Nope, never played with the eyeballs in my 75.
11-12 cantrips have always done the trick for me when playing the UB ANT version. I did try Grim tutor, but I've managed to work it out without them as well.

However, that list is quite old and it very rarely happened that I found no business at all. ( it did happen, but you're playing combo, it's not something uncommon)
I'm used to play with double ad nauseam in that list though.
I've tested up to 2 Grim tutors in the main. They do the trick, but not quite the way you want them to do it.
They are fine pre- ad nauseam, but horrible when you flip them. The 3 life and the 1 mana is quite the burden when trying to chain your storm at times.
but they are you're only viable options if you need more business and you're scared of running double ad nauseam.

Also, I am not very thrilled about probes, they do their job when playing therapy. If not I find them to be horrible at times when playing Ad Nauseam. I like them in TES and doomsday though.
Are you the one we called that list after? :smile:

I love Probe. I think it's great and I always like to have one. Still, for the tourney yesterday I cut them. They seem to mess up my deck building:
- I need enough cantrips that actually dig to find stuff I need when I need it. Probes don't do that very well.
- The information is really nice, but a Thoughtseize will get me the same info and strip a card without me needing two cards for it.
- As you said, Probe doesn't play particularly well with Ad Nauseam.

I ran this list (that needs work though):

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam /20

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual /18

4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize /7

2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire /15

Side:
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Empty the Warrens (2 to side in, 1 wishboard)
1 Past in Flames
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Reforge the Soul (testing vs. Diminishing Returns)
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek (Therapy might be bad without Probe)
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth /15

I went 3-3 in the tourney.

Round 1 vs. Mono-U OmniTell combo (Mark)
Game 1 we exchange some disruption. I draw mediocre stuff and cannot go off. At some stage he gets an Omniscience on the board and cantrips into lands. I have to do something. Reforge will probably get him a counter and then get me killed, so I go for 14 Goblin tokens, hoping he draws blanks. Fortunately he does draw blanks and I get the win. Lucky me.
Game 2 My disruption stopped him from getting the good stuff. I drew all my Seizes, he drew almost all his Cunning Wishes. Pretty awkward. When I tried to get some Goblins into play, I had to Seize first. I would lose if he could use his Wish to get a Force of Will, but he had them all main deck. His awkward hand could not turn into a winner before he died to my army. 2-0

Round 2 vs. Jund (Ben)
Game 1 we both mull to six. I discard his Hymn, and start digging for the win. He gets quite a bit of pressure on, and I cannot explode in his face. Credits to Ben for being the first Judn player I encounter who actually knows how to use Deathrite Shaman optimally.
Game 2 he Duresses my wincon. I manage to find an Empty the Warrens. He Maelstrom Pulses my army after dropping low on life, but a few turns later my small Tendrils finishes him off.
Game 3 is a bad one. He gets two Deathrites and two Dark Confidants. He forgets to attack two times with the Confidants. I final.ly get an army of Goblins. He defends while hitting my head with Deathrite-eats-spells action. At some stage he finds a way to stay alive and be fast enough to kill me: he blocks a token with a Confidant, and eats his own Confidant with Deathrite for two life. I missed that play! Time in the round is called. I think I can still win. I have a LED and an Infernal. I realise that I boarded out my Tendrils. Shit, no win. Then I think of Infernal for Wish for Grapeshot and realise I at the last moment replaced my trusty Grapeshot with Pyroclasm! I go tilt and forget I can use Pyroclasm to wipe the board and for for a draw (if he doesn't find a way to kill me in his last three turns after time was called). Sio I do something silly and his Deathrites kill me in the first turn after time. 1-2

Round 3 vs. Death and Taxes (Stefan, if I recall correctly)
Game 1 he opens with a white land. I have a turn one kill with 2x Ritual, LED and an Infernal. I play it out and get a rediculous Ad Nauseam with Tendrils in hand and one STorm short of killing him. I shoot him to two life, while recovering my own life total. He plays a Thalia which slows me down just enough for him to be able to kill me before I can Past in Flames my Tendrils back.
Game 2 I bust out 10 Goblin tokens on turn 1. He isn't able to get Batterskull in time.
Game 3 I was lucky he didn't find Thalia, because I was a bit slower than in game 2. I finished him off with an Ill-Gotten Gains loop because I had both Wish and Infernal. 2-1

Round 4 vs. Burn (Nick)
Game 1 I have to mull and get a very doubtful six. I recon he should be on something blue, since he looks calm and is on 2-1 like me. Also I am in the draw, so I'll see a couple of new cards soon. So I keep those six that will probably win on turn 5 or so. He starts throwing burn and creatures at me and I just die before I find a business spell.
Game 2 I play carefully, but the only business I find is an Ad Nauseam. Not the best. I know he has a Bolt, and he has one untapped Mountain. So I Ad Nauseam on until I find the win. This happens nicely before a new card could put me on 3, so I stop at 7 life. He had drawn the Fireblast in his last draw step, so he burns me to death in response to the first Petal I cast. Hard luck. 0-2

Round 5 vs. Berserk Tempo or something like that, awesome deck! (Ward)
Game 1 I have to mull to five. I get a pretty decent five, but he has a Kiln Fiend who gets a Berserk and some other spell boosts. The Fiend becomes 20/2 Trample in one turn and I of course don't really play answers to that. :tongue:
Game 2 I start a bit better, but he sided in many good cards. My Brainstorm actually makes my hand a lot worse, but still all looks fine. When I can go off I want to Thoughtseize to see whether the coast is clear. He Diverts my Thoughtseize, which costs me my Wish. I am a bit distracted by this play and don't really consider trying to go off regardless of not having seen his hand. It turned out he had nothing besides that Divert, so I could have won here. Instead I pass the turn and he proceeds to make his Nivmagus Elemental 18/10 Trample, and come in for the kill, together with a Tarmogoyf. Ward afterwards bragged about this game at least four times, but he deserves it. Awesome deck, and especially that last game had a big "in your face!" written all over it. 0-2

I could drop now, but I feel I can use the experience.
So Round 6 vs. EsperBlade (forgot his name, sorry!)
Game 1 we disrupt eachother a bit. He gets the wrong card with a discard spell, and Force of Wills the wrong card. At some stage I can go off. I cannot remember which engine I used, but he had no answer to it at that point.
Game 2 I do remember well, because it was a GRINDER! During this game we exchanged many discard spells. He drew all of his Force of Wills, three of which countered stuff I needed to go off, and one I managed to strip from his hand with a Duress. He never found any card that could actually kill me, so I could recover from three times trying to go off and failing because of his permission. When I had almost no deck anymore, I managed to push through my fourth attempt to go off. Past in Flames flashbacked about 10 cards from my graveyard and he conceded before I would showboat into a rediculously large Tendrils. 2-0

So 3-3. Not a very good score, but the deck worked well for me. It was me who failed.
The sideboard was suboptimal:
- Four bounce is one too many.
- The trusty Grapeshot deserves a slot too. Perhaps instead of the Pyroclasm, perhaps instead of something else.
Also, the main deck Tendrils might not be strictly necessary. I could switch it for an Empty the Warrens, opening up another slot in the sideboard. Perhaps I should go back to my original plan and put 2x Red Elemental Blast in the board. It's good against Counterbalance and Mono-U Omnitell combo. I could also add an additional discard spell instead. That's bad against Leyline of Sanctity, but that's only one card. We shouldn't blind stare on one card. At least, not in my opinion.

Back to the original point: I never missed the Gitaxian Probes. Preordains were just better cantrips, Seizes and Duresses gave me the info I needed and protected me well. Actually I at two times had a Preordain shipping away two lands. A Probe would have been two free Time Walks for the opponent there.

(Edit: small correction.)

[SaberTooth]

i think that 1 grim tutor is the way to go 1 more business and it's cute and expensive

[phazonmutant]

I ran this list (that needs work though):
<list>

Man, that is an old-school list. Looks like ANT from like 3 years ago. Cool to see people still playing what they love (even if I can't get behind the choices...).

It seems like that list might have trouble getting thresh consistently by turn 3 with the Burning Wishes and Chrome Moxen and no free cantrips. What's your take on that?


To people playing Carpet - I'm very confused by its inclusion. What do you board out to bring in Carpet? What does it actually help you accomplish, and where do you bring it in?
Just from watching ANT on feature matches, I've seen it sit on the board and make 4 mana while the player is desperately trying to do anything but make land drops, and I've also seen it in play against thresh where it made like 1 or 2 irrelevant mana. Like...isn't ANT already good at making lots of mana between Cabal Ritual and 15 lands?

[Mindlash]

Man, that is an old-school list. Looks like ANT from like 3 years ago. Cool to see people still playing what they love (even if I can't get behind the choices...).

It seems like that list might have trouble getting thresh consistently by turn 3 with the Burning Wishes and Chrome Moxen and no free cantrips. What's your take on that?


To people playing Carpet - I'm very confused by its inclusion. What do you board out to bring in Carpet? What does it actually help you accomplish, and where do you bring it in?
Just from watching ANT on feature matches, I've seen it sit on the board and make 4 mana while the player is desperately trying to do anything but make land drops, and I've also seen it in play against thresh where it made like 1 or 2 irrelevant mana. Like...isn't ANT already good at making lots of mana between Cabal Ritual and 15 lands?

I board in Carpet of Flowers against most blue matchups like Stoneblade, RUG and so on.
I do not use it against fast blue decks like Reanimator or SnT (Xantid Swarm would be good here ^^)

It mainly makes your time a lot easier against taxing counters. You drop in in the early turns and in your combo turn you will have enough mana to pay for their counters.

It can also be used like rainbow rituals, playing them in mainphase 1 and switching directly to mainphase 2 to get the mana. Because of this I usually take out 1 or 2 Cabal Ritual and 1 other card for my Carpet of Flowers.

Carpet of Flowers also serves as unwasteable rainbow mana. Just deal with their hardcounters and you are good to go ;)

Greetings Mindlash

[bondfan]

I've fiddled between Carpet and Xantid. It usually depends on what you expect. I usually go with Xantid because we really do need a silence effect against Leylines/Griselbrand and I only really want Carpet against RUG. As for Bob in the Sb, I have had it before but realized you don't want to play that game. Against jund, they will still have Lilianas. You also don't want to dilute your deck. Here is my SB:

4x Abrupt Decay
3x Xantid Swarm
3x Slaughter Pact
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Tropical Island
1x Karakas
1x Tendrils of Agony

I hate boarding in abrupt decay against non CB decks because it is so horrendous with Ad Nausem and against Wasteland. You usually are against GY hate post board so Pact makes your Ad Nausems stronger. I've also considered 1x Empty in the side but havn't got around to actually testing it.

[Asthereal]

@Phazon: I just don't get a list with Probes to work like I want it to. So I decided to run a list that works more smoothely, though it's probably suboptimal. You know, a list is only as good as the pilot can get it to be, and I seem to mess up every time I play a list with Probes, so the cut seemed logical. At least, according to Spock. :tongue:

I had no real issues in getting Threshold on turn 3. One time my first Cabal Ritual was unthreshed, but my second was threshed. And once I wanted to go off and use Chain of Vapor as a Storm engine, which would bounce my Petal, sac a land and then bounce my LED, but when I cast my LED my opponent countered it with FoW. So no chance to use Chain of Vapor to fill up my yard with both it and the land I would sac. That was the weird match against EsperBlade by the way. He made some odd choices. Of course going off at that moment was wrong in retrospect since he had a FoW plus a blue card, but he had already burned a FoW by then, so I thought I should give it a shot.

[Patrunkenphat7]

An opponent at the Sunday IQ kept a hand of fetch, Ponder, Force, Sneak Attack, Griselbrand, and Leyline of Sanctity x2 on the play. Needless to say, I won on turn 3 thanks to double Xantid Swarm.

[Star|Scream]

An opponent at the Sunday IQ kept a hand of fetch, Ponder, Force, Sneak Attack, Griselbrand, and Leyline of Sanctity x2 on the play. Needless to say, I won on turn 3 thanks to double Xantid Swarm.

I think it's actually NEEDFUL for you to say how you did it. Double chain or goblins?

[AlleywayJack]

This thread drives me crazy. There is almost no useful information here. Just fanboys arguing over which storm deck is better. Or whether Burning Wish is good in ANT.

Get this... Both decks have pros and cons. Get over it.

[MTG Junkie]

This thread drives me crazy. There is almost no usepooful information here. Just fanboys arguing over which storm deck is better. Or whether Burning Wish is good in ANT.

Get this... Both decks have pros and cons. Get over it.

Like!

[Tammit67]

This thread drives me crazy. There is almost no useful information here. Just fanboys arguing over which storm deck is better. Or whether Burning Wish is good in ANT.

Get this... Both decks have pros and cons. Get over it.

That's what happens when a deck has so few customizable slots and everything has already been talked through. It is not like we are expecting M14 or Theros to really change what cards we are going to use.

[phazonmutant]

This thread drives me crazy. There is almost no useful information here. Just fanboys arguing over which storm deck is better. Or whether Burning Wish is good in ANT.

Get this... Both decks have pros and cons. Get over it.

Honestly, what useful information are you looking for? No one gets good at storm by listening to randos on the internet jawbone about their favorite build; they have to learn by experience. The biggest change in 2 years was Past in Flames...as a more efficient IGG. A year before that it was Probe...as a more efficient Thoughtseize. This year it's Abrupt Decay...as a more efficient Wipe Away. The deck doesn't fundamentally change. And clearly it's still possible to do well without new tech - Asthereal and others will advocate for that. So again, what do you want us to be talking about in here other than arguing for marginal differences between decks?

[Jay_Gatz]

So again, what do you want us to be talking about in here other than arguing for marginal differences between decks?

Tournament reports, SB'ing suggestions, interesting or difficult scenarios you've come across and what lines of play you chose and actual reasons behind deck decisions. Civil conversation would be neat too!

[Patrunkenphat7]

I think it's actually NEEDFUL for you to say how you did it. Double chain or goblins?

He Forced my turn 1 Swarm, so I resolved another one on turn 2, and I made 18 Goblins on turn 3. His turn 2 land that he topdecked was an Ancient Tomb, so that made the 18 gobos enough to kill in one swing if he ever activated the land. I boarded in my 1 Echoing Truth for situations like this though, but my hand wasn't nearly powerful enough to find the bounce spell and PiF kill him that turn.

I think it's fine for people to debate Burning Wish in this thread. I mean isn't the point of discussion to come up with an optimal list? Jay, you were the most vocal about wanting to debate Burning Wish from the beginning, and you said people are "idiots" if they don't play Ad Nauseam in this deck.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

What is the merfolk matchup like without red for Pyroblasts? I understand you have A. Decay, but I find it hard to believe that the match up is a favorable matchup. I know that Swarms are decent against merrow as was spoken about earlier in the thread, but between their crazy critter base and them being even a moderately competent player in the form of knowing what to counter (tutors, Swarms/Carpets, PiF, AN, etc.), it seems pretty scary. Looking for advice on how to play against it apparently.

-ABC

[Tempus]

Against Merfolk it plays out like that:
- Do I have Swarm? Resolve that and you're golden.
or
- Do I have enough (fast) mana to pay for taxing counters? If yes you're golden.

Usually they have only FoW as real counters and basically no removal for your Swarm. So you "just" have to create tons of mana to pay for the taxing counters before they kill you with their fish...

Abrupt Decay (and Pyroblast) are kinda bad as you don't want to expose yourself to Wasteland if you don't have to.

So if you're playing green I'd only board in Xantid Swarm (and Carpet of Flowers), no Decay, no blast.


BTW has anybody time and experience enough to write a proper primer?

[nevilshute]

What is the merfolk matchup like without red for Pyroblasts? I understand you have A. Decay, but I find it hard to believe that the match up is a favorable matchup. I know that Swarms are decent against merrow as was spoken about earlier in the thread, but between their crazy critter base and them being even a moderately competent player in the form of knowing what to counter (tutors, Swarms/Carpets, PiF, AN, etc.), it seems pretty scary. Looking for advice on how to play against it apparently.

-ABC

I've often wondered myself what kind of Merfolk match up we have. (Un)fortunately(?) there are no Merfolk players in my local meta whatsoever so I haven't had a chance to test it. I would imagine in it's in the medium-to-hard bracket due to a very fast clock when completely undisrupted combined with a lot of main deck counterspells.

On another note I'd like to report my latest tournament experiences:

Having picked up ANT roughly two months ago I'm still in my infancy as a pilot of the deck, but I have been getting the hang of things recently at least to a point where I'm no longer making glaring errors (or so I hope ;)). I've exclusively been playing a list with Burning Wish, but yesterday I had prepared a deck without Burning Wish, more in the UB Adam Prosak vein. I started playing some test games against a friend of mine playing BG Pox. Already there I felt uneasy as soon as Deathrite Shaman hit the board and I was looking at my hand with my single win con Tendril's of Agony that I had topdecked into on turn 3. Certainly not an unwinnable situation at all, but the DRS just made my Tendrils awkward, as a single discard spell and subsequent DRS activation would end my game on the spot unless I could find a brainstorm to hide it / shuffle it away.

During the actual tournament I ran into similar situations where it just felt incredibly vulnerable and unflexible without the Burning Wishes. I'm hesitant to pass judgement on the actual functional merits of either deck, but suffice to say it definitely suits my style of play and my temperament as a player to play a version of ANT that runs Burning Wish.

Having said all that I'd like to hear what people think about the following sideboard:

2x Xantid Swarm
2x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Duress
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Chain of Vapor
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames

I've opted to drop Ill-Gotten Gains as I asked myself how often I've ever played it and the answer was disturbingly close to nil. Maybe I'm just not skilled enough to be playing it, but it just often seems completely irrelevant when an opponent has counter magic in his yard, which is a frequent occurance ;)

The two Sensei's Divining Tops used to be Carpet of Flowers, but I just feel that I already have the two swarms for fighting decks with islands in them (two different approaches, I know), and the top is just a bloody amazing Card when facing discard.

[NesretepNoj]

BTW has anybody time and experience enough to write a proper primer?

These four should suffice:

Adam Prosak: Legacy Storm Primer (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25829_Legacy-Storm-Primer.html).

Timo Schünemann: The Legacy Laser - UBR Ad Nauseam Tendrils (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3216).

Carsten Kotter: Eternal Europe - The Cabal Rises (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23816-Eternal-Europe-The-Cabal-Rises.html).

Ari Lax: Legacy Storm Primer (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/legacy-storm-primer/) (a bit outdated, but still very well written, thorough, and relevant).

[Asgar]

I learned Storm with this artikel, too and all of them are Great. Mention that the only List playing burning wish is Schünemann's and he swiches to 16 cantrips and 4 infernal Since abrupt decay is legal.
(shhhh... Dont Play wish ;))

I solved the 5th Business spell and Grim tutor is a Bad Card - Problem
By playing Empty MD. You Board it in against Rug and Bug, wich are Not your best matchups, so having it Main can only help.

[SaberTooth]

I learned Storm with this artikel, too and all of them are Great. Mention that the only List playing burning wish is Schünemann's and he swiches to 16 cantrips and 4 infernal Since abrupt decay is legal.
(shhhh... Dont Play wish ;))

I solved the 5th Business spell and Grim tutor is a Bad Card - Problem
By playing Empty MD. You Board it in against Rug and Bug, wich are Not your best matchups, so having it Main can only help.

what is ad nauseam? baby don't hurt me, no more

[Lemnear]

it remains the question what value EtW has if you have to cast 2 turns of cantrips to find it and still Need to generate the 3R. This deck cannot dump a T1/2 EtW like it's brother and so I asume EtW is too slow as a threat and if it's expectable to infernal for it, isn't PIF the superior choice as a Tutor Target in like 90% of all cases?

[Mindlash]

it remains the question what value EtW has if you have to cast 2 turns of cantrips to find it and still Need to generate the 3R. This deck cannot dump a T1/2 EtW like it's brother and so I asume EtW is too slow as a threat and if it's expectable to infernal for it, isn't PIF the superior choice as a Tutor Target in like 90% of all cases?

These were exactly my thoughts about EtW. It is to slow in Cantrip ANT and you nearly never need it if Infernal Tutor is available.

In TNT EtW was useful in the SB if you could use Burning Wish Turn 1 or 2 and not generate enough Storm to kill with Tendrils.

Turn 3 EtW is not likely to win you the game in most cases.

Greetings Mindlash

[SaberTooth]

if you want more bussiness, grim tutor is the answer. playing 3 preordain and 1 grim is the best option for me

[Mindlash]

if you want more bussiness, grim tutor is the answer. playing 3 preordain and 1 grim is the best option for me

I tried it in TNT with BW and Grim in my SB and in ANT with 1 / 2 Grim Main...I do not like this card.
But on the other hand I have never had buisness problems with 16 cantrips so far.

Grim hurts too much in some matchups. 3 Life on AN flip and 3 Life while casting it are a bunch of life. Same goes for flashbacking it.

It is probably the next best tutor after Infernal Tutor in ANT, but for me the cantrips list works out better.

Greetings Mindlash

[SaberTooth]

I tried it in TNT with BW and Grim in my SB and in ANT with 1 / 2 Grim Main...I do not like this card.
But on the other hand I have never had buisness problems with 16 cantrips so far.

Grim hurts too much in some matchups. 3 Life on AN flip and 3 Life while casting it are a bunch of life. Same goes for flashbacking it.

It is probably the next best tutor after Infernal Tutor in ANT, but for me the cantrips list works out better.

Greetings Mindlash

of course, grim tutor sucks as a card, but i feel better playing it, i suppose that is a personal preference, and after all, ant's ad nauseam sucks already

[Mindlash]

of course, grim tutor sucks as a card, but i feel better playing it, i suppose that is a personal preference, and after all, ant's ad nauseam sucks already

Yeah thats true...when I am playing TES I enjoy playing AN alot. It is almost impossible to fizzle it with all the initial mana sources and low cmc cards. I rarely use it in ANT though. But I would not cut it entirely. There are just those fast and easy wins here and there.

And you can also use at as a super draw spell from time to time. Natural drawn AN can also be a strong option in ANT. I am not willing to exchange it entirely for EtW...at least not maindeck.

Greetings Mindlash

[SaberTooth]

yeah, if you cut ad nauseam for etw you are doing something wrong

[nevilshute]

Is Grim Tutor even a viable option in the sideboard when playing Burning Wish?

The only time you'd get Grim with your wish is when you can PiF for the win. And for that to be the case you'd need A LOT of ritual effects in your hand (and possibly in your GY too). So, sure, if your hand is something like: 2x Dark Ritual, 1x Cabal Ritual (threshold), 2x LED and Burning Wish, but no Infernal Tutor in the GY, AND you have red producing land, you could make enough mana to burning wish -> grim tutor -> past in flames and win with Grim. You'd also need to be on at least 7 life.

With no Grim Tutor in the board the above hand would be limited to "just" making 14 goblins with EtW...

Wouldn't then one Grim Tutor be better in the actual main deck? I'm thinking something along the lines of a 4/2/1 split of Infernal/Bwish/Grim.

[Asthereal]

Is Grim Tutor even a viable option in the sideboard when playing Burning Wish?

The only time you'd get Grim with your wish is when you can PiF for the win. And for that to be the case you'd need A LOT of ritual effects in your hand (and possibly in your GY too). So, sure, if your hand is something like: 2x Dark Ritual, 1x Cabal Ritual (threshold), 2x LED and Burning Wish, but no Infernal Tutor in the GY, AND you have red producing land, you could make enough mana to burning wish -> grim tutor -> past in flames and win with Grim. You'd also need to be on at least 7 life.

With no Grim Tutor in the board the above hand would be limited to "just" making 14 goblins with EtW...

Wouldn't then one Grim Tutor be better in the actual main deck? I'm thinking something along the lines of a 4/2/1 split of Infernal/Bwish/Grim.
I have a Reforge the Soul on side for that situation. During my last tourney I didn't use it, but I was glad I had the option regardless.
(Note that Diminishing Returns can exile all your wincons, and it eats your graveyard, which makes Cabal Ritual and a potential follow-up Past in Flames worse.)

[Lemnear]

Why would you run full 3c ANT for Wish and still run the crap that Grim Tutor is?

[SaberTooth]

grim tutor is bad, i prefer 3 wishes in tnt, because bw doesn't search only for the grim, and you dont really need so much mana, you can bw on your second turn for grim tutor and go off turn 3

[Mindlash]

Is Grim Tutor even a viable option in the sideboard when playing Burning Wish?

The only time you'd get Grim with your wish is when you can PiF for the win. And for that to be the case you'd need A LOT of ritual effects in your hand (and possibly in your GY too). So, sure, if your hand is something like: 2x Dark Ritual, 1x Cabal Ritual (threshold), 2x LED and Burning Wish, but no Infernal Tutor in the GY, AND you have red producing land, you could make enough mana to burning wish -> grim tutor -> past in flames and win with Grim. You'd also need to be on at least 7 life.

With no Grim Tutor in the board the above hand would be limited to "just" making 14 goblins with EtW...

Wouldn't then one Grim Tutor be better in the actual main deck? I'm thinking something along the lines of a 4/2/1 split of Infernal/Bwish/Grim.

You could also get Grim Tutor on turn 2 with Burning Wish and go for the kill the turn after.

Sometime you just do not want to BW into Empty or you have no second tutor in your hand to BW into PiF / IGG or your storm is to low for ToA. In that case you get yourself the Grim Tutor one turn earlier. Beeing able to perform it all in one turn is just a bonus.

You could probalby play something like 3 Infernal, 3 BW, 1 Grim with one Infernal in your SB or 4 BW and 3 IT...but I don't think it is a good idea to play less then 4 Infernal Tutor main.

Greetings Mindlash

Edit: Just got ninjaed a lot of times :D

[Patrunkenphat7]

it remains the question what value EtW has if you have to cast 2 turns of cantrips to find it and still Need to generate the 3R. This deck cannot dump a T1/2 EtW like it's brother and so I asume EtW is too slow as a threat and if it's expectable to infernal for it, isn't PIF the superior choice as a Tutor Target in like 90% of all cases?

I would say PiF is better than Empty maybe 80% of the time. That 20% when you want a fast Empty just steals games. I won with Empty 3 times at the IQ and PiF every other game. Those 3 times I won with Empty definitely mattered, even if they were less than the number of times I cast PiF. Ad Nauseam is just an unreliable card and is absolutely terrible against blue tempo decks that pressure you early. Ad Nauseam is a fine card in matchups that we already win easily with PiF. It's like an easy button when you don't have patience and want to get excited by variance. All I can say is to try Empty. Maybe you'll like it, and maybe you won't, but I have played both Ad Nauseam and Empty, so I am just drawing from my experiences with the cards. Not running Ad Nauseam also lets you run Grim Tutors for added consistency and not make you feel like you have to play some number of bad cards like Chrome Mox.

[SaberTooth]

and still deathrite shaman and pulse can destroy you, but well, to me, ad nauseam, is a neccesary evil

[Patrunkenphat7]

and still deathrite shaman and pulse can destroy you, but well, to me, ad nauseam, is a neccesary evil

Deathrite Shaman is mediocre at best against PiF. I rarely have trouble beating it. And with Pulse… Just don't Empty into a Pulse haha. You have Probes and tons of discard to know whether or not Empty would be good against a particular deck or good in a certain situation. You can also flashback Therapies with goblin tokens. With Ad Nauseam, CREATURES can destroy you… Which is very sad. I like not caring about what their stupid Delvers are doing in the first 3 turns.

[Sloshthedark]

Deathrite Shaman is mediocre at best against PiF. I rarely have trouble beating it. And with Pulse… Just don't Empty into a Pulse haha. You have Probes and tons of discard to know whether or not Empty would be good against a particular deck or good in a certain situation. You can also flashback Therapies with goblin tokens. With Ad Nauseam, CREATURES can destroy you… Which is very sad. I like not caring about what their stupid Delvers are doing in the first 3 turns.

No it´s damn good. Before, losing to a discard deck was just a really terrible bizzare painful accident... Like t1 DRS and die xx turns later having t2 in hand entire game... Stupid and unfortunate... since printing of Thalia you randomly face lame t2 funhosers that actually kill you... so thats how Zoo players felt all the time... At least that used to be fun for one side of the table, fast and face it, for bringing knife into a gunfight they deserved it... Raping the saying further actual situation is better described like fork vs. spoon in a knifefight, more of a gathering than a magic...

[Star|Scream]

No it´s damn good. Before, losing to a discard deck was just a really terrible bizzare painful accident... Like t1 DRS and die xx turns later having t2 in hand entire game... Stupid and unfortunate... since printing of Thalia you randomly face lame t2 funhosers that actually kill you... so thats how Zoo players felt all the time... At least that used to be fun for one side of the table, fast and face it, for bringing knife into a gunfight they deserved it... Raping the saying further actual situation is better described like fork vs. spoon in a knifefight, more of a gathering than a magic...

what is this I don't even?

[Patrunkenphat7]

what is this I don't even?

Haha! Yeah my Google translator didn't work when I plugged it in.

[alderon666]

Deathrite Shaman is mediocre at best against PiF. I rarely have trouble beating it. And with Pulse… Just don't Empty into a Pulse haha. You have Probes and tons of discard to know whether or not Empty would be good against a particular deck or good in a certain situation. You can also flashback Therapies with goblin tokens. With Ad Nauseam, CREATURES can destroy you… Which is very sad. I like not caring about what their stupid Delvers are doing in the first 3 turns.

Deathrite by himself is not scary.
Deathrite + discard is a bit scariear, since they can get your tutors/bombs/rituals and remove them.
Deathrite + discard + counter is a nightmare.

[art138]

Does anyone have any advice in regards to the Mono-U OmniTell matchup? I played against it two weeks ago and between their abundance of counterspells, Brainstorms to hide combo pieces, Leylines in the board, and the asymmetrical awesomeness that is Show and Tell, the matchup seems horrible.

I am currently running Adam Prosak's list and any suggestions as to what I should be sideboarding in and out would be appreciated. The fact that they have Leyline in the board makes me feel like I should be boarding out my discard for Carpet of Flowers and Chain of Vapor, but that leaves me with virtually no way to disrupt them.

I have also considered playing a two-of Krosan Grip in my board as it seems like the only reliable way to disrupt Omniscience/Dream Halls. There are two players in my meta who are currently on this deck so I do not mind devoting sideboard cards for specific hate, if necessary.

[nevilshute]

Does anyone have any advice in regards to the Mono-U OmniTell matchup? I played against it two weeks ago and between their abundance of counterspells, Brainstorms to hide combo pieces, Leylines in the board, and the asymmetrical awesomeness that is Show and Tell, the matchup seems horrible.

I am currently running Adam Prosak's list and any suggestions as to what I should be sideboarding in and out would be appreciated. The fact that they have Leyline in the board makes me feel like I should be boarding out my discard for Carpet of Flowers and Chain of Vapor, but that leaves me with virtually no way to disrupt them.

I have also considered playing a two-of Krosan Grip in my board as it seems like the only reliable way to disrupt Omniscience/Dream Halls. There are two players in my meta who are currently on this deck so I do not mind devoting sideboard cards for specific hate, if necessary.

I played a bunch of test games against someone playing Drew Levin's list (one or two changes tops to the 75). Now granted, we only played pre-sideboard matches so I can't speak for games 2 and 3. They don't run that much counter magic for starters. My opponent only ran 4 Force and 2 Pact of Negation. The two pacts won't often be online before we want to go off so my initial advice would be to not be too afraid to go off. Discard obviously helps a bunch. Vis a vis leylines I think our best strategy is a combination of Xantid Swarms and Chain of Vapors.

[Tempus]

For Omni-Tell again Xantid Swarms are golden...


These four should suffice:

Adam Prosak: Legacy Storm Primer (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25829_Legacy-Storm-Primer.html).

Timo Schünemann: The Legacy Laser - UBR Ad Nauseam Tendrils (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3216).

Carsten Kotter: Eternal Europe - The Cabal Rises (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23816-Eternal-Europe-The-Cabal-Rises.html).

Ari Lax: Legacy Storm Primer (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/legacy-storm-primer/) (a bit outdated, but still very well written, thorough, and relevant).

I read them all, no worries there. I just thought that a well structured first post would help this thread... It might even be sufficient to just make it a collection of links to those 4 articles...

[Sloshthedark]

Does anyone have any advice in regards to the Mono-U OmniTell matchup? I played against it two weeks ago and between their abundance of counterspells, Brainstorms to hide combo pieces, Leylines in the board, and the asymmetrical awesomeness that is Show and Tell, the matchup seems horrible.

I am currently running Adam Prosak's list and any suggestions as to what I should be sideboarding in and out would be appreciated. The fact that they have Leyline in the board makes me feel like I should be boarding out my discard for Carpet of Flowers and Chain of Vapor, but that leaves me with virtually no way to disrupt them.

I have also considered playing a two-of Krosan Grip in my board as it seems like the only reliable way to disrupt Omniscience/Dream Halls. There are two players in my meta who are currently on this deck so I do not mind devoting sideboard cards for specific hate, if necessary.

that deck has just Fow and Cunning wish, how could that be horrible? Xantid swarm is obvious PB...

[bondfan]

If they open with a Leyline, then they are down 1 card. Their combo is also a 3 card combo, which means you likely have some time.

[Patrunkenphat7]

My board for S+T matchups is 4 Xantid Swarm and 1 Echoing Truth. I don't like devoting more than 1 bounce slot to this matchup because it is dead if they don't have Leyline… But the 1 Echoing Truth is solid. If you don't have Xantid Swarms post-board against S+T, the matchup becomes pretty terrible. I think that deck is popular enough to warrant special attention.

[art138]

that deck has just Fow and Cunning wish, how could that be horrible? Xantid swarm is obvious PB...

They have Pact of Negation, too. To be be fair, I've only played a match against it. Game one he cast Show and Tell on turn two, putting Dream Halls and the best thing I had to put in was an LED (guess I should probably have put in a land). I got another turn, didn't have a hand disruption spell, so I tried to go off and he Forced my Ad Nauseam. I died the next turn. Game two, he mulled to double Leyline and didn't do anything for a couple turns, during which I could not find a Chain of Vapor. It just SEEMED horrible :P

My buddy told me that the meta was MUD, Loam, Elves, DnT, Belcher, so I swapped the Xantid Swarms in the board for Dark Confidants. Looking back, they wouldn't have helped me in any of my PB games, but I am definitely putting them back in. The meta has a lot of combo hate so I probably shouldn't be playing ANT, anyway :(

[Patrunkenphat7]

Both mono-blue S+T and Sneak and Show are pretty good matchups, but only if you have a solid SB plan. There is also a lot of variance in that matchup which is why I hate playing against it, even if it's not really that bad.

Yeah putting in an LED off S+T is worse than putting in nothing off S+T...

[practical joke]

Are you the one we called that list after? :smile:



Not really, I just happened to be the first one who got something done with a 2-color Ad Nauseam after mystical got banned.
UB ANT has always been there, the only thing changed was an update for the decklist.

Same thing happens to a lot of deck.

As for my 75.
Changes everytime I play the deck.

I have a box of sleeved cards available and usable for any combolist( from ANT to belcher like decks).
I just grab the 75 I want to play.
Sometimes I borrow a grim tutor, sometimes I play chants and sometimes I go for PiF mainboard.

There's not an ideal 75 for me.

The old list I played is probably available. It has been on the forum as well, think it was Oktober or November 2010 or something.\

Probably will be at grand prix rimini as well and grind some legacy sides on friday or when I scrub out during the main event

[Zombie]

I have a box of sleeved cards available and usable for any combolist( from ANT to belcher like decks).

Do you have a box of small pointy-eared things? ;)

[practical joke]

Do you have a box of small pointy-eared things? ;)

No no, I keep my elves captured in a dumpster

[nevilshute]

I took this list to my LGS's weekly legacy tournament (the 1 Carpet in the board is going to become the 3rd swarm, I just hadn't received it yet):

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Infernal Tutor
2x Burning Wish
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
2x Preordain
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Duress
1x Thoughtseize
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Past in Flames
3x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard:
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Grim Tutor
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Duress
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Chain of Vapor
2x Xantid Swarm
1x Carpet of Flowers

It was a 30 something tournament. I ended up going 3-3, losing to the following decks: Dragon Stompy and 2x Monoblue Omnishow.

The loss to the dragon stompy is what it is. 4x Chalice main deck, 8x Sol Lands, 8x Blood Moon effects makes it extremely hard. I won the one game I was on the play which is something I guess.

The two losses to Omni tell was a bit annoying as I had been testing against that match up a bit to some decent results a week ago, so to go 2x 0-2 was disappointing. I did get a bit unlucky in games against both of my opponents, but all in all I couldn't complain too much.

Against Omni tell I sided like this:

-4 Probe
-1 Preordain
+3 Chain of Vapor
+2 Xantid Swarm

I anticipated Leylines and weren't disappointed.

I really feel, though, that siding out five cards is problematic. I'd be tempted to keep out the swarms altogether against this MU in the future and just side in the Chains. What do people think?

[Tempus]

First to your list I'd do
MB
-1 Tropical
+1 Island
SB
-1 Reforge the Soul
-1 CoV
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Echoing Truth

Draw7 suck without Silence/Chants, also out of the 7 mana only 3 will come from a Ritual if you want to play it in the same turn (Land for R + LED for RRR, the odd case where you have badlands, volcanic, petal + initial mana for CR or 2*DR are odd to consider)
And if your meta contains OmniTell and DragonStompy you want Truth: against the first for multiple LoS and for the latter to dodge CoV@1...

I'd then board

+2 CoV
+1 Truth
-1 Island
+2 Swarm
-2 Preordain
-2 Probe
-1 Therapy
+1 Tropical

Therapy gets worse if you're expecting LoS and you're cutting back on Probes. But bringing in 2 Swarms should compensate that.

[nevilshute]

First to your list I'd do
MB
-1 Tropical
+1 Island
SB
-1 Reforge the Soul
-1 CoV
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Echoing Truth

Draw7 suck without Silence/Chants, also out of the 7 mana only 3 will come from a Ritual if you want to play it in the same turn (Land for R + LED for RRR, the odd case where you have badlands, volcanic, petal + initial mana for CR or 2*DR are odd to consider)
And if your meta contains OmniTell and DragonStompy you want Truth: against the first for multiple LoS and for the latter to dodge CoV@1...

I'd then board

+2 CoV
+1 Truth
-1 Island
+2 Swarm
-2 Preordain
-2 Probe
-1 Therapy
+1 Tropical

Therapy gets worse if you're expecting LoS and you're cutting back on Probes. But bringing in 2 Swarms should compensate that.

Makes sense to run a split between CoV and Truth. 2/1 sounds good as I think I still prefer the CMC1 of vapor, but it's nice to have a bounce effect to Work as a pseudo 3rd Abrupt Decay to take care of a chalice@1.

Semi-unrelated: Do you suggest running a single Ill-Gotten Gains in the board as a wish target?

[Tempus]

Short: No

Long: Ill-Gotten Gains helps in Match-Ups where you need to be fast and the opponent doesn't play counters, so Burn, Zoo, Goblins. Problem is, that those Decks happen to play Mindbreak Trap in the sideboard. Which makes it useless in Games 2 and 3. And for G1 it's not reliable enough with only two BW.

[egosum]

Makes sense to run a split between CoV and Truth. 2/1 sounds good as I think I still prefer the CMC1 of vapor, but it's nice to have a bounce effect to Work as a pseudo 3rd Abrupt Decay to take care of a chalice@1.

Semi-unrelated: Do you suggest running a single Ill-Gotten Gains in the board as a wish target?

Never forget that best thing about CoV is not its 1 CMC, but that it is a great storm engine on its own (in combination with the mana artefacts).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Patrunkenphat7]

I really feel, though, that siding out five cards is problematic. I'd be tempted to keep out the swarms altogether against this MU in the future and just side in the Chains. What do people think?

I feel the opposite. Bouncing the Leylines for the Tendrils kill is less important than bouncing them for discard. If you play Swarms, you don't have to bounce them for your discard, and you can safely go off and use your bounce for the kill when you need to. Swarms also trump the Flusterstorms that they will likely have in addition to the Leylines. Also, 3 Chains are completely wasted slots when they don't open on Leyline which is ~50-60% of the time depending on how they are deciding to mulligan. They have plenty of disruption and a relatively quick kill so that you can't side out answer cards for cards that potentially do nothing. This is another reason why Swarms are superior. They deal with the S+T player's disruption effectively regardless of whether or not there is a Leyline in play.

I bring in these cards in this matchup:
+4 Xantid Swarm
+1 Echoing Truth
+1 Tropical Island

I also play Empty the Warrens which allows me to potentially ignore the Leylines altogether if I don't have the correct cards to incorporate bounce into my kill when they have Leyline in play. Even if people aren't playing Empty main, they should probably be playing it in the SB to fight just about any tempo deck as well as situations like this.

[Maro_]

hi,

I just started to learn how to play ANT on MTGO, made a nice list but still struggling with sideboard.
If you would be so nice and look into, maybe you got some idea... im trying confidants and Xantid Swarms but still not entirely sure.

Card chooses are mostly from this article:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25829_Legacy-Storm-Primer.html

Another question, how to sideboard with this deck?

3 Scalding Tarn
4 Brainstorm
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
2 Underground Sea
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Preordain
1 Island
4 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Volcanic Island
4 Ponder
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Sideboard
2 Ignorant Bliss
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Massacre
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Karakas
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Carpet of Flowers

[BrettF]

Would you keep:
U. Sea, Lotus Petal, Infernal Tutor, 4xDark Ritual

Against B/W Stoneblade (Thoughtseize and Thalia maindeck) on the draw?

(Version: 1xGrim, 0xBurning)

[bennotsi]

Would you keep:
U. Sea, Lotus Petal, Infernal Tutor, 4xDark Ritual

Against B/W Stoneblade (Thoughtseize and Thalia maindeck) on the draw?

(Version: 1xGrim, 0xBurning)

Of course you keep that! How often do you get a turn 1 PiF kill in hand?! The only way for him to stop you is with a turn 1 Thoughtseize, he probably only plays 4 1-mana discard spells so only in about 39% of the opening hands he will actually have it.

You're probably asking this because you recently kept that hand and it blew up on your face. Sorry to tell you, but that just happens from time to time. Keeping slower hands and risking that Thalia hits play doesn't really sound any better to me. Certainly no reason to mulligan a turn 1 kill.

[egosum]

I wouldn't, you have to deal with possible discard and then possible disruption (even pierce/fluster online), and that hand lack protection. Moreover it is not a granted first turn kill, you need 1 more mana to even cast PiF. However if you had a FTK in hand (let's say change the petal for a ritual or led) then I'd keep of course. Though the Thalia thing seems weird to me...

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Koby]

Would you keep:
U. Sea, Lotus Petal, Infernal Tutor, 4xDark Ritual

Against B/W Stoneblade (Thoughtseize and Thalia maindeck) on the draw?

(Version: 1xGrim, 0xBurning)

How would you feel if you drew a land for your turn, thus turning that hand into <do nothing>? Considering recent 15 land builds, that's greater than 25% chance of not being able to go off even if your opponent has a stroke and collapses on the table for their first turn.

[nevilshute]

I wouldn't, you have to deal with possible discard and then possible disruption (even pierce/fluster online), and that hand lack protection. Moreover it is not a granted first turn kill, you need 1 more mana to even cast PiF. However if you had a FTK in hand (let's say change the petal for a ritual or led) then I'd keep of course. Though the Thalia thing seems weird to me...

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

He does have the mana for a turn-1 PiF and therefor the kill (assuming he can still get hellbent once he draws) @BrettF: Koby makes a valid point. If you draw another land you can't go off. If you draw a cantrip you (pretty likely) can't go off either. That said, I'd keep myself. But I'm easily dazzled ;)

[Koby]

So... Lim-dûl's Vault. How did I miss it for this deck?! Time to retool my list...

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Linking this here too, as it somehow feels relevant :p

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26588_Raiding-The-Necromancers-Vault.html

Enjoy :)

[BrettF]

Cool article! This card sets up some sick brainstorms. I'd love to see some more of the other ANT players takes on this variant.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Hello Martin!

I'm glad that your list and efforts gained a well deserved popularity. :cool:
Also, I'm with you on the "no basic" idea, the only thing that scares me are one-lander keeps, so I'll use one Island, especially as there's no other deck where I may play my oriental ODY Island I love, so lets keep it in. :tongue:
Sadly I don't own Grim Tutor, and for the obvious reasons (I mean: reasons obvious to you) I'll never have any. So I have to try the list without it. Maybe I'll add one BW/Preordain, I can't tell yet.
Will we meet on Thu? Unless my wife will protest? :smile:
Btw, do you find the deck resilient enough to fight through the DRS? It's the only card that treally annoys me (ok, except maybe for the Counterbalance, but no one plays it anymore), and I'm not sure if the SDTs, double PiF ans sbed Seals are enough to circumvent the shaman.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Koby: Hehe, happy to hear it. Felt the same way (how could I miss this) when I started testing the card.

@BrettF: Thanks! I totally agree that I'd like to see more people pick up LDV and I also think they should (obviously, given I wrote the article). LDV truly feels like the tool the deck was missing to fill the last 1-2 slots.


Hello Martin!

I'm glad that your list and efforts gained a well deserved popularity. :cool:
Also, I'm with you on the "no basic" idea, the only thing that scares me are one-lander keeps, so I'll use one Island, especially as there's no other deck where I may play my oriental ODY Island I love, so lets keep it in. :tongue:
Sadly I don't own Grim Tutor, and for the obvious reasons (I mean: reasons obvious to you) I'll never have any. So I have to try the list without it. Maybe I'll add one BW/Preordain, I can't tell yet.
Will we meet on Thu? Unless my wife will protest? :smile:
Btw, do you find the deck resilient enough to fight through the DRS? It's the only card that treally annoys me (ok, except maybe for the Counterbalance, but no one plays it anymore), and I'm not sure if the SDTs, double PiF ans sbed Seals are enough to circumvent the shaman.

If you need to replace the Grim Tutor - which I don't feel is necessary, there is such a thing as being business flooded - I'd start with the fourth Ponder instead of Preordain in Martin's list, though. ;)
As for Deathrite resilience, it depends. The faster the clock they can present in addition to Shaman and the earlier Shaman comes down, the more problematic things become. A lot of the time, though, especially against "normal" Deathrite decks (not BURG Delver) their clock is so abysmally slow that you can easily set up either a straight tutor chain kill or find the additional pieces to combo straight through Deathrite. After all, it only forces you to have additional Rituals or a second Infernal Tutor plus enough Rituals to not die to one being removed (enough mana allows you to tutor chain once before casting PiF to make sure they can't remove your tutor which also works as an additional bad ritual effect in case they decide to remove one of those instead). The maindeck Empty is also a great way of getting around Shaman as most Deathrite decks are pretty dead to a hoard of early goblins.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Yes, Mon, you're right. Unless they got clock, it shouldn't be impossible to win. Otoh, sometimes the discard and DRS activations are enoguh to kick us out of game.
On the fourth Ponder - I wanted to play it, of course. But I thought about additional cantrip, but well, you're right that it is not necessary.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Yes, Mon, you're right. Unless they got clock, it shouldn't be impossible to win. Otoh, sometimes the discard and DRS activations are enoguh to kick us out of game.
On the fourth Ponder - I wanted to play it, of course. But I thought about additional cantrip, but well, you're right that it is not necessary.

Oops, I just expressed myself badly. I was trying to say you don't actually need the Grim, LDV and Infernal (plus the engines themselves) should easily be enough business. My point was simply that, before stooping to play Preordain, you should add the fourth Ponder first (which is what I did in my list, too).

As for Deathrite, yeah, we definitely lose games to it. My point wasn't that it's bad against us, just that there are still a ton of ways to win around/through Deathrite so that I'm not worried about Deathrite resilience.

Sorry for expressing myself unclearly enough that you understood exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say :p

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Sorry for expressing myself unclearly enough that you understood exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say :p

Oh, I got your point now. No need to apologize, I was reading lazily...

[SaberTooth]

im going to play ant again, prozak's list -1 preordain +1 grim tutor and im building my sideboard for a big event coming, i was thinking about something like

3 xantids
1 toa
1 trop
3 abrupt decay
1 cabal therapy
2 chain of vapor

but i need to define the last slots. have no idea about the metagame really, i like sdt, but i think that something is missing. any ideas?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

im going to play ant again, prozak's list -1 preordain +1 grim tutor and im building my sideboard for a big event coming, i was thinking about something like

3 xantids
1 toa
1 trop
3 abrupt decay
1 cabal therapy
2 chain of vapor

but i need to define the last slots. have no idea about the metagame really, i like sdt, but i think that something is missing. any ideas?

The biggest thing missing in that sideboard - in my opinion - is a singleton Empty the Warrens (if you don't make room for it maindeck anyway). It's one of the easiest and best ways to profit from an early opening against the tempo-decks and a lot of other fair decks. There really is no good reason not to have access to a card that allows you to board out a terrible engine against the Delver decks (AdN) for one that is truly insane against them.
After that, I'd probably play the third Chain of Vapor - have been very happy with that against those matchups we're supposed to win but that board a bunch of permanent based hate to try and lock us out.
For the last two slots, your best line is to just guess what your most difficult common matchup will be. Surgicals or Tormod's Crypt help with Dredge and Reanimator (and can also come in in the mirror), Pyroclams help with mass-hatebear opponents and can actually be quite effective against Deathblade or BURG Delver (no to mention makes the non-Merfolk tribal matchups even better), Karakas is a nice catch all against the different Griselbrand decks as well as Teeg and Thalia, Dread of Night crushes Thalia decks, Sensei's Top gives you something quite useful to board in against discard and so does a second Ad Nauseam. If you really can't get any read on the meta, I'd probably pack two Extractions as those help in the hardest matchup you aren't prepared for yet (Reanimator).

[Zombie]

One thing if LDV catches on: We can finally push for the deck to be renamed to something more fitting. Vault Tendrils, Vault in Flames, anything not related to AdN.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

One thing if LDV catches on: We can finally push for the deck to be renamed to something more fitting. Vault Tendrils, Vault in Flames, anything not related to AdN.

Storm?





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[Secretly.A.Bee]

Vault has seen play in ANT, Doomsday Hybrid. It's okay. I think it is absolutely better now that there is a free cantrip, but it wasn't bad the first time. It should do well as a tutor, but it's lacking in those sticky situations that storm players have a tendency to get into where a Burning Wish would probably be more helpful, as it doesn't actually net you a card. Also, with blue in it, it's always going to require a land unless for some reason you popped an LED for blue, or luck-sack into a Petal.

-ABC

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Vault has seen play in ANT, Doomsday Hybrid. It's okay. I think it is absolutely better now that there is a free cantrip, but it wasn't bad the first time. It should do well as a tutor, but it's lacking in those sticky situations that storm players have a tendency to get into where a Burning Wish would probably be more helpful, as it doesn't actually net you a card. Also, with blue in it, it's always going to require a land unless for some reason you popped an LED for blue, or luck-sack into a Petal.

-ABC

Also as a blue it lacks the BW ability to walk through Pyroblasts like a champion. Otoh, the ability to cast it EOT outweights the fact that we don't draw the card. Also, BW is clunky. I loved to play the card, but after been business-flooded many times, I decided to play just two and then I abandoned them.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I made top 16 of the Legacy Open in Somerset with a record of 8-2. I beat 2 RUG Delver, 2 Show and Tell, Shardless BUG, Reanimator, Countertop, and Nic Fit. I lost to TES and Shardless BUG. I am running a list without Ad Nauseam, and I was very happy with Empty the Warrens main. Highlights of the day were definitely beating the Countertop and Reanimator decks 2-0 after losing the die roll. The tournament was fun. My opponents were all very nice, and the skill level was high. I really enjoy playing Legacy in the northeastern US.

[phazonmutant]

I made top 16 of the Legacy Open in Somerset with a record of 8-2. I beat 2 RUG Delver, 2 Show and Tell, Shardless BUG, Reanimator, Countertop, and Nic Fit. I lost to TES and Shardless BUG. I am running a list without Ad Nauseam, and I was very happy with Empty the Warrens main. Highlights of the day were definitely beating the Countertop and Reanimator decks 2-0 after losing the die roll. The tournament was fun. My opponents were all very nice, and the skill level was high. I really enjoy playing Legacy in the northeastern US.

Congrats! I like how they just listed your archetype as "Storm". Definitely puts some weight behind your argument that Ad Nauseam is just unnecessary...

[Pdingo]

Nice results!

[BrettF]

Patrunkenphat7,

I'd love to hear how you sideboard for each matchup. Would you give a brief overview of your SB card choices? Your board is a-typical and I like it.

I'll post it here so everyone else knows what im referring to:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=57897

2 Pithing Needle
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Echoing Truth
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tropical Island

[nevilshute]

I played at a 21-man legacy tournament at my LGS a few nights ago and went 5-0 with a Burning Wish list. I also tried out Lim-Dul's Vault for the first time to mixed-to-positive results. Now firstly, my result should be taken with the caveat that I had some very, very good match ups. I didn't face one deck running counter magic and at least two of my five match ups were practically auto wins.

I'd like to share my thoughts on Lim-Dul's Vault as I'm currently unsure about it. Mostly I liked it. On a few occasions it got me to the one card I was missing which was great. I did, however, not once get to shoot off a LDV while having another cantrip in hand. Now five rounds of magic hardly a valid ground for comparison make, but even so I couldn't help but think that maybe it's because I'm running Burning Wish and therefore fewer cantrips. As you can see I'm running 4x Brainstorm, 4x Ponder, 4x Probe, 1x Preordain. I used to be running 2x Preordain but cut 1 for a LDV.

The other card I dropped for the second LDV was one of my seven discard spells meaning I now only run six, which I'm not totally comfortable with. Maybe it's just the price of running my two Burning Wish which I have no intention of dropping.

Could anyone share in with their recent experiences with LDV? How many cantrips are you running along side your LDV? Like I mentioned there were times when it worked like a charm to dig for that one card I was missing. But I just don't know if that warrants a spot in the deck. For the time being I'm keeping them in to do some more testing.

For reference, this is the list:

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Gitaxtian Probe
1x Preordain
2x Lim-Dul's Vault
2x Burning Wish
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Duress
1x Thoughtseize
4x Infernal Tutor

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
2x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard:
3x Xantid Swarm
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Duress
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Grim Tutor
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island

[Patrunkenphat7]

Patrunkenphat7,

I'd love to hear how you sideboard for each matchup. Would you give a brief overview of your SB card choices? Your board is a-typical and I like it.

I'll post it here so everyone else knows what im referring to:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=57897

2 Pithing Needle
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Echoing Truth
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tropical Island

Thanks for taking interest in my list and SB. Here are the uses of the following cards and what matchups I bring them in for:

2 Pithing Needle:
I bring these in against Jund and Shardless BUG. I usually board out 1 Therapy and 1 Probe against Shardless and 3 Therapy for the Needles and 1 Inquisition against Jund. The discard in their decks is a minor annoyance, but very easy to beat if they don't have a turn 1 Deathrite. Shutting off their Deathrite or Nihil Spellbomb (or sometimes Liliana of the Veil), makes these games much easier.

2 Disfigure:
Apart from the obvious hatebear answer, this card is really good against Deathblade. Killing Deathrite Shaman or Meddling Mage is an important play post-SB. Killing Bob can also be relevant. I board out a Therapy and a Probe for these against Deathblade. Of course I also board these in against Thalia or Teeg decks.

3 Abrupt Decay:
Everyone should be playing these. I felt like 4 was too clunky, and 3 ended up being fine. Hatebears, MUD, and Counterbalance.

1 Dread of Night:
This is additional Mav/Death and Taxes hate. I think playing 1 or 2 of these is correct. It complements the Disfigures and Decays in these matchups. I don't want to get locked out by their turn 1 Mom draw.

4 Xantid Swarm:
These are specifically for the Show and Tell matchups. The card is just nuts against S+T decks because of their reliance on a combination of Force, Flusterstorm, and Leyline of Sanctity post-SB. I think the S+T matchup is super annoying and high variance post-SB without these, simply because of Leyline of Sanctity. I also board in the 1 Echoing Truth so I can Tendrils combo though Leyline or double Leyline, although sometimes goblins is enough depending on which turn you are on. I board out Therapies first in this matchup just because of the unreliability of this card if you didn't have the Duresses in. Therapies would be bad if you relied on just Probe post-SB to give you information. You are also not always naming Force with Therapy post-SB if they don't have Leyline in play, so 3 Duress and 1 Thoughtseize is safer to leave in. I board out both of my basic Islands in this matchup, because you don't need them and don't have time to durdle around and curve on basic lands. I obviously bring in the 1 Trop, so I am netting -1 land post-SB in this matchup. The Swarms are also very good against Fish, but I am not bring them in against anything competitive other than those 2 archetypes.

1 Echoing Truth:
Playing more than 1 bounce spell wastes slots against S+T, and this card easily answers double Leyline. It's mostly for this matchup. Also bring it in against faster combo playing Empty the Warrens as a miser answer to their fast Empty hand. Bring it in against MUD.

1 Inquisition of Kozilek:
I swap it with Thoughtseize against RUG Delver or fast tempo decks. It comes in against hatebear decks as an additional discard with the maindeck Thoughtseize. It's better than Therapy against Jund or non-blue midrange discard decks. Inquisition is also better than the 2nd basic Island against other combo decks like TES or Reanimator.

My list has evolved over time after tons of testing and playing this deck. After adding the Pithing Needles, I never looked back.

I think sometimes people over-value Therapy post-SB. While it is inherently the most powerful discard spell in the deck, a lot of the time you need consistency and more information post-SB rather than higher variance raw power. It's still one of the best cards against RUG though, and I never board any out against them.

For reference, here is my current list: :)

"Storm"

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

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor

1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

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

SB
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Echoing Truth
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Dread of Night
2 Pithing Needle
1 Inquisition of Kozilek

[Tombstalker]

Patrunkenphat7- Im returning to legacy after a long break and I was on storm before I left (well and TA). Anyway I dig your list.

Edit post was lame content removed to save space.. carry on.

[thefringthing]

I think I'm on to something with this partial sideboard:

1 Tropical Island
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Teferi's Realm
5 TBD (2 Ignorant Bliss, 2 Pithing Needle, 1 Discard?)

[phazonmutant]

I think I'm on to something with this partial sideboard:

1 Tropical Island
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Teferi's Realm
5 TBD (2 Ignorant Bliss, 2 Pithing Needle, 1 Discard?)

Ok, since I have a giant hard-on for Teferi's Realm, I'll bite.
Hmm, that metaphor took a turn for the strange, moving on.

What specifically do you think you bring it in against, what are you boarding out, and why do you think it's better than a pile of bounce / Virtue's Ruin / Dread of Night / Rebuild / Hurkyl's Recall?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Ok, since I have a giant hard-on for Teferi's Realm, I'll bite.
Hmm, that metaphor took a turn for the strange, moving on.

What specifically do you think you bring it in against, what are you boarding out, and why do you think it's better than a pile of bounce / Virtue's Ruin / Dread of Night / Rebuild / Hurkyl's Recall?

Hurkyl's Recall does nothing against Gaddock and Virtue's Ruin cannot remove Trinisphere. It's all abnout versatility, and as sb space is limited, versatile cards are good. I need to test the card, the only thing I dislike is the hard-to-get casting mana.

[thefringthing]

why do you think it's better than a pile of bounce / Virtue's Ruin / Dread of Night / Rebuild / Hurkyl's Recall?Because it fills the roles of all those cards combined, potentially freeing up sideboard space for stuff like graveyard hate, Needles, Ignorant Bliss, etc.

[Koby]

Because it fills the roles of all those cards combined, potentially freeing up sideboard space for stuff like graveyard hate, Needles, Ignorant Bliss, etc.

If the current trend is to utilize Sensei's Divining Top along with LDV, then would you consider Devastation Tide as a catch-all (minus Teeg) answer to problematic permanents?

[thefringthing]

That's an interesting idea. I'm not on the LDV + SDT train just yet, and my initial reaction to Devastation Tide is that it seems pretty cute. It's definitely on the same axis I'm exploring with Teferi's Realm, though.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I don't like it much. Even with SDT in play, it has few weaknesses:
One: Unlike Miracles.dec, if you start with this in hand, you got just Brainstorm to return it on top, we don't play JTMS.
You may use it with LDV, but this little bit limits how exactly you may build the pile.
Next trouble is already mentioned - it doesn't answer Teeg.
I won games against hatebears with this sequence: Rituals+IT (sac LEDs, drop PiF) into Chain/Truth, than flashback PiF. You can't do this that easy with Tide. You may play the IT into LDV and then use SDT, but it's a bit harder.
Also, when in grave, this card's flashback costs a lot, unlike Chain/ET that can be flasbacked for much less.

Otoh, it answers the permanent based hate completely and as such, it's strength is unique. I am very interested in your test results. Maybe some split of Chain/Karakas (for Teeg) and Devastation Tide (for the rest) could be usable.

[Dia_Bot]

Also, as long as you play ad Nauseam you don't want to add additional 5 CC spells to your deck since you shouldn't side AN out againt D&T or Maverick.
Also against the decks where you would play devastation tide massacre is almost always better since at least you can play it for free if it's in your hand (the only sitiuation where it's worse is when the cannonist/thalia etc. has a sword/jitte attatched to it).

Non creature based hate is not nearly played enough to negate the downsides of playing devastation tide over massacre.