[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Tempus]

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

These four should suffice:

Adam Prosak: Legacy Storm Primer.

Timo Schünemann: The Legacy Laser - UBR Ad Nauseam Tendrils.

Carsten Kotter: Eternal Europe - The Cabal Rises.

Ari Lax: Legacy Storm Primer (a bit outdated, but still very well written, thorough, and relevant).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?

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...rm-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.