16 cantrip list is indeed the most vanilla of the various lists and a decent starting point. I would never run PiF, Tendrils, AdN, and EtW all in the main. At most I would play 3/4 of them. Usually PiF, Tendrils, and AdN. Empty rarely wins me games anymore against experienced Legacy players. As for boarding I usually board my 2 Preordains and 3 Duress and the 15th land. Anymore than that and I feel you're overboarding.
I don't like the Carpet for Cabal swap for several reasons… 1 - it makes Past in Flames a TON worse. 2 - AN is not that good against the tempo decks like RUG Delver in the first place, and most of the time you want your PiF to be good. In my opinion Carpet of Flowers is a very overrated SB card. I don't want to be playing a Trop against Tempo decks.
That's all true but there is no magic sideboard cards that give you major advantage against RUG, resolving Cabal Rituals against them can be really tricky and once you resolve Carpet i don't really care if they waste my Trop. Granted you could get wasted and Carpet countered but that's their modus operandi. And all tempo deck tend to board in some kind of GY hate that makes Cabal Ritual miserable.
If i suspect opponent is boarding out all removal i might try the Xantid Swarm route but hardly any players i know do.
What do you put in and take out against RUG delver?
Coming from Esper Stoneblade/Deathblade, I am just starting to learn this deck (still most of the time in goldfishing mode) and i have to say, that as a beginner the with the 16 cantrip version is indeed easier start with. Overall I was faster with a Version with +1 lim-dûl's vault, +1 sensei's divining top but less consistant.
Just wanted to say, that I appreciate the new Primer a lot. I really need help from all angles. Still struggling a lot when facing disruption. Haven't got the time to watch the clips, but i am sure that they and a Sideboarding-Guide will be a big help.
This deck has got a steep learning curve and I hope that in some months i am confident enough, to switch from my stoneblade deck to this one for smaller tournaments. Anyway, thanks!
Against Elves! I would rather keep Duresses and side out Therapies - main discard targets are not creatures (NO, GSZ, Thorn, M Trap...) so you need probe to discard their fast hate efficiently.
My list is pretty different from the "stock," but generally I find the best strategy is to board in Empty for AN (if you have it, very good against tempo decks). AN is just so poor against Delver. Carpet plays well with AN but plays poorly with Empty the Warrens. I also play 1 maindeck Thoughtseize, and I swap it out for an Inquisition since the lifeloss is very relevant, and Inquisition hits 30+ relevant cards. I wouldn't do this if I only played 6 discard spells though, because you need to hit Force (I have 8 discard, 6 tutors, no Preordains).
In general I just don't like boarding in green cards since fetching basics is one of the most important parts of this matchup. Even without the major downside of not having flashback on combo turn, there are quite a few situations where they can negate your carpet of flowers by having like a 1 dual + Waste hand or simply not crack a fetch past their first. I think it's worth mentioning that the GY hate of choice right now in RUG seems to be Cage, so the Cabal Rits are unaffected even if you can't PiF with Cage in play.
Something to try if you want to practice against hate without the stress of playing against hate is the following:
1.) Goldfish after opponent's turn 2 paying 1 extra mana for Thalia.
2.) Discard your most important card on opponent's turn 1 to simulate getting Thoughtseized.
3.) Pretend your opponent has a Wasteland + Dual, and play around it.
4.) Goldfish several rounds in which your opponent has various counters for you to play around.
Also, remember to always record your goldfishes. Write them down, take a video, even have a friend watch it. Whatever it takes. This way you don't go into goldfishing "God mode". You will plainly see where your weaknesses are and you will know what to work on and how to do it, especially if you can get feedback from elsewhere.
EDIT: Added a Useful Links section to the primer, to which I would like to add articles, videos, and good decklists. Also, touched up the formatting a bit. I want the section headers to be visible enough to be easily seen at a glance while scrolling through the document. Are they? They are for me, but that's because I wrote it, lol.
I'll just go ahead and post my list so it exists in this new thread:
4 Dark Rit
4 Cabal Rit
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
SB
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
1 Karakas
2 Chain of Vapor
More stuff in the primer. Things are coming right along, methinks. Remember, feedback is always welcome! Again, I want this thread to be the place to learn about ANT.
I don't agree with MDing AN, mainly because Thoughtseize is so much better than Duress in this metagame. You really only want AN whenever you want Xantid Swarm/Autumn's Veil, which is strictly against Show&Tell (Storm mirror is pretty rare, in which case I might just take Telemin Performance for shits and giggles).
Hi !
I'm a new legacy player, and i decided to start with ANT which is a pretty hard deck to pilot. Well, the truth is i wanted to play a strong Past in Flames deck and had to jump the bridge to legacy. I really like the deck but it's really hard to win through discard and / or counterspells, i really need to practice.
As for the primer, it's great to gather in one spot all great articles about storm in the end. I would be interested in a section "history of the deck", if this is doable.
I think you might fuse part V and VI so that the sideboarding plan comes right after the analysis of the matchup.
I've started with a stock list with 15 cantrips and 7 discard main. Now i'm interested in taking in burning wish to play 6 tutors. The real question is the sideboard, i would need a few wish targets which reduce sideboard space. Considering that i get to play legacy online only, what would be a good sideboard for the modo meta?
Thanks for the great job!
In the section on cabal therapy you should probably mention synergies with xantid swarm, dark confidant and empty the warrens. And even main deck I totally flash back therapy with PIF!
When I said Therapy's flashback wouldn't be used, I meant, well, its flashback. I worried that wasn't clear though. I'll touch it up.
The second half was a joke, but I do think the other synergies are worth noting
The opening post is great, but one thing I would tweak would be to remove some of the strong opinions about some of the card options and leave everyone else to decide for themselves what they think is best. An example of this is when you list Inquisition of Kozilek and come to the conclusion that people should not play it. I think that card is a perfectly reasonable SB option against Jund and hatebear decks, so I wouldn't wanted anyone immediately discounting it. I think the bias towards a more stock "Prosak Storm" list sort of comes out in the writing.
I also think it would be cool to have like a stock list with flex options like I see in some opening posts. This would help new players sort of build their list using some starting numbers for mandatory cards and card options. Example maindeck breakdown:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
0-4 Preordain
2-4 Duress
2-4 Cabal Therapy
0-2 Thoughtseize
4 Infernal Tutor
0-2 Grim Tutor
0-3 Burning Wish
0-2 Lim-dul's Vault
0-2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
0-1 Ad Nauseam
0-1 Empty the Warrens
4 Polluted Delta
3-5 Blue fetchland
0-2 Bloodstained Mire
1-2 Island
1-2 Swamp
2-3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
0-1 Badlands
0-1 Tropical Island
0-1 Bayou
0-2 Gemstone Mine
There are also some different SB options that you might want to explore - like if you are going to mention Wipe Away, you probably want to list Echoing Truth. Mentioning different types of discard like Tseize or Inquisiton in the SB might be helpful in explaining how these cards could be more useful than Duress and Therapy in certain matchups. Instead of saying "etc" next to Massacre and friends, you probably want to list out Disfigure, Deathmark, Virtue's Ruin, Toxic Deluge, Infest, and Pyroclasm. If you are going to list Trop, you might as well also list Bayou. Random stuff like Pithing Needle to deal with Spellbombs, Deathrites, and Lily in Jund might be worth mentioning. We just want there to have a ton of different options listed in the opening post. Thanks for doing all this work; it is looking great!
So what's the plan against Pox? I know it's not super popular, but still may be worth putting in the Primer.
I tested a match with it yesterday and besides a Turn 1 kill on the play one game, it wrecked me. Granted, I'm very new but it felt tough trying to fight through discard and land destruction.
Prosak sided Ignorant Bliss...would that be a decent option here? Are we mostly reliant on our own disruption to deal with them? If we can't win by Turn 3 it gets pretty grim.
Sure, I can add a Pox section. :)
Ignorant Bliss is just a horrible card for storm!
The plan is: (if you can't go off T1), play your LED's and petals. Let them kill your hand, topdeck tutor -> win.
They have one of the slowest clocks ever so you will get tons of time. The matchup isn't actually that hard but you have to play tight. You'll get there
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