[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Togores]

Also I really hate empty. Not killing you opp 100% is prety bad. But there are matchups where its needed. I like it against deck that I have yo be fast and dont have answerst to it.
Grixis
Eldrazi
Mud
Taxes
Maverik

And sometimes against:
Loam pubishing
Miracles
Canadian
Bug delver
Shardless


Also while playing nauseam I almost never kill myself. I prefer to stop at 8 life and pass the turn surviving an attack with a perfect grip then to kill myself.
Ususualy the problem with nauseam is you didnt got petal or led or tutor. If its the 2 first untaping + discarting solves it. If its the last one just untaping and casting a lot of cantrips also helps.

Also before killing myself I prefer to use a ponder or brainstorm. Because just going 3-4 cards deep for a tutor or led at 4 life is a big chance of winning.

Sometimes you have no mana floating and just a petal and gonna get killed next turn and you have to just keep going because just a brainstorm into led + petal wins. So you have to risk.

[Lemnear]

Lately I've been having further problems with Ad Nauseam. It's weird; I never used to have much trouble with it (even when I was running 2x Petition), but over the past month or two it doesn't seem to do what I'm used to its doing, and I haven't made big changes to my maindeck since it started failing hard. I guess variance is variance and the world is a goofy place, but I'm wondering whether I'm just approaching the card the wrong way entirely. For some time I was draining down to (depending on the matchup) three or less without difficulty in finding a line, but lately I've been totally flubbing almost every time I cast it. I'm starting to wonder whether there's something I'm missing. How big a problem is it to pass the turn with, e.g., 6-8 life after AdN? Is there a good link with info on the best way to optimize it?

The variance in ANT is quite high in general, so I stopped being too greedy with AN if I don't have mana float and/or a landdrop to make post-AN and rather use the AN to refill the hand for the next turn. This is even more true if you run Dark Petition as a high cmc flip(s). Personally, I stopped running Petition completely for quite a while. I got too annoyed by seeing several tutors in my starting grip, it being a horrible card in the first two turns and its shitty interaction with tempo-counters, yardhate and LED.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Also before killing myself I prefer to use a ponder or brainstorm. Because just going 3-4 cards deep for a tutor or led at 4 life is a big chance of winning.

If you have to win the turn you're casting Ad Nauseam, this is wrong. Ad Nauseam vs. cantrips is increndibly complex because of how many variables there are (the cantrips you have access to, cards in your library total, cards in your library that win, cards in your library that kill you), but you basically never want to stop before you hit 1 life in these scenarios. Stopping at 3 or 4 is wrong barring some very extreme circumstances (being able to cast 5 cantrips or so), stopping at 2 is correct with small libraries and 3+ cantrips. I might go back and see if I still have my spreadsheets on this. If that is the case, I'm going to publish them within the next couple days.

[Togores]

I dont like to kill myself >.<

Every nauseam is unique. But I just gave sone hinsight in a situation that comes up often and ppl kill themselves a lot when not having to.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yeah, people definitely don't pass the turn as often as they should (myself included), but people also don't go low enough when they don't get to pass the turn. Thing is, if you overestimate your digging power from cantrips, you also kill yourself.

[fangzie]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

[Lemnear]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

Xantid Swarm?

[TokugawaEdo]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

I usually just bring in some number of decays for this MU. This type of hand wont see that many threats so if you can kill one it gives you a lot of time to sculpt and pick away at their hand. I know decay doesnt hit inkmoth and gets blocked by vines but it feels better than keeping top in.

[CabalTherapy]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

I played several times against Infect in the past few weeks and won all matches. It feels like a goldfish because their are light on permission and follow an inferior strategy. This particular hand (pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell) is far from average where sometimes they have 0 to almost no interaction. Xantid is a natural inclusion but no needed in my opinion because since the MU is more of a combo race, you don't develop your board using Xantid. I'd rather go with all discard spells + 2 Decays + Flusterstorm. Decay is a timewalk when played well (usually end of their turn or main phase).

[Ronald Deuce]

Thanks for the advice and discussion about Ad Nauseam! Sounds like I've got the hang of it generally, but like I just need to put more thought and time into using it.

One thing I've noticed that doesn't stick out at first glance (but that's really important) is that the ritual/mana-rock investment in the AdN is a big factor in how/whether it will work. So if we need to expend one or two Petals to make it happen, that's probably going to yield a poor result because we won't have as many left in the deck to power out the cards we draw (the same is true for Dark Ritual). I'm beginning to think I would've had different results on a number of occasions if I'd realized that earlier.

Went 1-2 last Sunday, beating 12-Post and losing to S&T and Dredge (lol, the guy borrowed my Dredge deck—with proxies for the crossover cards with Storm—and beat me with it). Kept some mediocre hands (I'm out of practice), but the Dredge matchup came down to who was going first (we discarded each other into oblivion in all three games) and S&T clocked me in game 1 and had a double-Force-double-Other Blue Card hand (in game 2) of the kind that's been wrecking me for a while. Blood Moon didn't help.

Fangzie, regarding the Berserk-Poison matchup, I feel like it's the same problem I had against S&T. Redundant countermagic is a tough hill to climb, and I don't know that there's much we can do against hands with multiple hard counters. The good news about Berserk is that all the creatures in the deck except animated Inkmoths are vulnerable to spot removal.

Whether stacked hands are a persistent problem when facing the deck is a difficult question because I've had a pretty coin-flippy matchup against it. Postboard it gets a lot harder, but I don't think it's inordinately difficult when compared with most other blue control decks; it seems like they run roughly the same number of counterspells we'd face against Delvers or S&T, though other people with experience playing those decks are better people to confirm/deny that. Sometimes/often they get crazy hands postboard, but other times they don't. Sounds like a cop-out answer, but I've had the same problem with varying frequency against other decks, too.

Personally, I'm not a fan of countermagic or Xantid in this deck, but I can see the use for both of them. I agree with CabalTherapy that we need to race them, and sometimes they'll just have One of Those Hands. But then, the same is true for us.

[ScottW]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?n...ph%20Benkstein

[Dark Ritual]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?n...ph%20Benkstein

Just a shot in the dark but dark petition isn't present in the list, so probably that as he seems solidly on the past in flames loop of course and petition does help out empty the warrens a little bit.

[Togores]

Could be preordain, rain of filth, petition or grim tutor^^

[Ronald Deuce]

Could be preordain, rain of filth, petition or grim tutor^^

My guess was Preordain, but with Empty main and Ad Nauseam in the board, Grim seems a popular choice.

[Morden]

speaking about preordain:
I know, it's the worst cantrip in legacy (also if for me most of the time ponder equals "shuffle and draw a card you saw with ponder" ) but I tried Rodrigo's list with 1 preordain instead of rain of filth. Well, test was good: there are some situations were rain is COMPLETELY useless, preordain is NEVER a waste card (well, I repeat, maybe not the best, but can always search for business). Twice I had rain of filth in hand, but I won also without using it.
Probably rain of filth is better for grinding game I guess. But having an opening hand with preordain over rain makes me more confident of the game.

[Sloshthedark]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?n...ph%20Benkstein

judging by Flooded Strands definitely not a GT

[fangzie]

But having an opening hand with preordain over rain makes me more confident of the game.

I rarely want rain in my opener, but I find it useful often enough that I'd never consider cutting it, especially not for another preordain. Rain is just a little utility card. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not, but it can lead to some strange wins out of nowhere

[ScottW]

Here's a link to my post in the pimp thread of my ANT deck. Yes, my camera is terrible. The Grim Tutor alter is by Eric Klug.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post965490

[Ronald Deuce]

Looks like White's getting a Recruiter in Conspiracy. How worried should we be?

I'll be bringing back Disfigure, and maybe Massacre as well. Not excited for what's to come.

[Contract Killer]

Looks like White's getting a Recruiter in Conspiracy. How worried should we be?

I'll be bringing back Disfigure, and maybe Massacre as well. Not excited for what's to come.

It just matters if the games go long against them since it increases their hate bear density. I really don't think it concerns us. Delver decks on the other hand are in a world of hurt with more flicker wisps to fight through.

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