[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Jonathan Alexander]

Come on. Discard isn't only meant to battle opposing counters, but for delaying opposing combos and having to dig for discard spells is backbreaking in the combo mirror especially if you're not the fastest combodeck in the grid. ANTs strength as the controldeck in these matchups came from chaining discard-spells until Cabal Ritual and PIF can make up for the spent cards and win the game. I still don't know why Flusterstorm should be any better than additional discard against Storm, S&T, BUG, Belcher, Elves, etc. It's a one-trick pony which also messes with your hellbent unlike discard.

The difference between six and seven discard spells in and on itself is not that huge with all the cantrips we have going on. I have played six discard maindeck ever since 2011 and never felt I didn't have enough. I also played seven discard spells from time to time and didn't really notice a difference.
What is a huge difference, however, is the additional business spell you get. Running a second Past in Flames is almost like running another discard spell when you need them, but it's also always another copy of the best business spell.

Your position on Flusterstorm actually surprises me quite a bit. Haven't you played TES with Chant effects a lot? Fluster storm is a lot like that in the storm mirror. Also, when running Top, you can pretty much go full-on Doomsday mode. How is that not good? Against Belcher, the same, but to be honest, I wouldn't make card choices based on their value against Belcher.
Against Show and Tell strategies, those Flusterstorms are huge. They generally don't expect you to counter their Show and Tell, and they will be trying to win the game asap, so they will often try to jam it on turn two. With all their cantrips, discard spells also get worse against them.
Against Elves, I haven't tested it, but I don't think you can really do wrong in that matchup anyway. Pascal said it's good against them, though.
Against Hymn to Tourach decks, I'm not sure. I think I agree with you that it's too narrow they're, but I haven't played those matchups enough since adding Flusterstorms to my list.

I actually played a list with 2 Top and 3 Flusterstorms total and I really liked it in the OmniShow matchup by the way. Let's you go full-on control against them, if needed. Games are harder to navigate than with Xantid Swarm though.

[Lemnear]

The difference between six and seven discard spells in and on itself is not that huge with all the cantrips we have going on. I have played six discard maindeck ever since 2011 and never felt I didn't have enough. I also played seven discard spells from time to time and didn't really notice a difference.
What is a huge difference, however, is the additional business spell you get. Running a second Past in Flames is almost like running another discard spell when you need them, but it's also always another copy of the best business spell.

That's not what I was talking about. I talked about having access to discard in the first two turns against combo. It's completely irrelavant if you can cantrip into a discard spell turn 3 or what. I played 6 discard spells for quite a while as it was sufficient to grind out aggro-control that way, but with Miracles and OmniTell sitting on top of the metagame, I don't see "I can cantrip into a discard spell!" a good game 1 solution against Counterbalance and Co.

Your position on Flusterstorm actually surprises me quite a bit. Haven't you played TES with Chant effects a lot? Fluster storm is a lot like that in the storm mirror. Also, when running Top, you can pretty much go full-on Doomsday mode. How is that not good? Against Belcher, the same, but to be honest, I wouldn't make card choices based on their value against Belcher.

I "have" played chant effects and I "have" cutted them also because of the reasons I mentioned before (on top of "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma" and "Color"), so I'm confident in my evaluation. Mind you are talking here about 2 Flusterstorms and 1-2 SDT which you need for your scenario. I'd rather play Counterbalance myself at that point than Flusterstorm if I'd willingly aim for the control seat in the combo mirror and am fine with dedicating SB space to that role.

Against Show and Tell strategies, those Flusterstorms are huge. They generally don't expect you to counter their Show and Tell, and they will be trying to win the game asap, so they will often try to jam it on turn two. With all their cantrips, discard spells also get worse against them.
Against Elves, I haven't tested it, but I don't think you can really do wrong in that matchup anyway. Pascal said it's good against them, though.
Against Hymn to Tourach decks, I'm not sure. I think I agree with you that it's too narrow they're, but I haven't played those matchups enough since adding Flusterstorms to my list.

Flusterstorm isn't the bees knees against a single spell combo like S&T and rarely is more effective to delay your opponents combo than a Duress as they need TWO specific cards in their hand, but bears the potential issue to delay yours if it blocks hellbent. You ride the "may my opponent walks into it" horse too much against decks which also run Gitaxian Probes imo.

Is Flusterstorm good against a deck which can create more than 6 mana by turn 2 and only needs to resolve a 4cc Sorcery to blow you out? Seriously, if you can't combo in your first two turns, Flusterstorm will not save you from NO/GSZ.

Against BUG (shardless), I don't see a mayor difference between discarding Hymn or countering it. Discard can at least snatch a FoW if they hold that one instead of a Hymn in their hand. Even acknowleging the tempo advantage possible of countering the Hmyn, I dunno if that is such a big deal in the end.

I actually played a list with 2 Top and 3 Flusterstorms total and I really liked it in the OmniShow matchup by the way. Let's you go full-on control against them, if needed. Games are harder to navigate than with Xantid Swarm though.

I'm still not convinced that making S&T cost two generic mana more is better than forcing your opponent to cantrip for turns to replace a discarded combo-piece especially as Discard does double-duty to delay their combo AND takes away their protection

[Togores]

The difference between six and seven discard spells in and on itself is not that huge with all the cantrips we have going on. I have played six discard maindeck ever since 2011 and never felt I didn't have enough. I also played seven discard spells from time to time and didn't really notice a difference.
What is a huge difference, however, is the additional business spell you get. Running a second Past in Flames is almost like running another discard spell when you need them, but it's also always another copy of the best business spell.

Your position on Flusterstorm actually surprises me quite a bit. Haven't you played TES with Chant effects a lot? Fluster storm is a lot like that in the storm mirror. Also, when running Top, you can pretty much go full-on Doomsday mode. How is that not good? Against Belcher, the same, but to be honest, I wouldn't make card choices based on their value against Belcher.
Against Show and Tell strategies, those Flusterstorms are huge. They generally don't expect you to counter their Show and Tell, and they will be trying to win the game asap, so they will often try to jam it on turn two. With all their cantrips, discard spells also get worse against them.
Against Elves, I haven't tested it, but I don't think you can really do wrong in that matchup anyway. Pascal said it's good against them, though.
Against Hymn to Tourach decks, I'm not sure. I think I agree with you that it's too narrow they're, but I haven't played those matchups enough since adding Flusterstorms to my list.

I actually played a list with 2 Top and 3 Flusterstorms total and I really liked it in the OmniShow matchup by the way. Let's you go full-on control against them, if needed. Games are harder to navigate than with Xantid Swarm though.

Against elves I realized in the eternal weekend last eyar that flusterstorm is better than discard. Thay play postboard far too many bussines. You discard glimple while they still have natural. Also they can topdeck like 10 cards everyturn that are backbreaking. They have natural, glimpse and discard. And you cant get rid of them plus visionary drawing makes them more likely hit.
Its a safe investment because you win more time countering than discarting even if its mana intensive.

[Lemnear]

Against elves I realized in the eternal weekend last eyar that flusterstorm is better than discard. Thay play postboard far too many bussines. You discard glimple while they still have natural. Also they can topdeck like 10 cards everyturn that are backbreaking. They have natural, glimpse and discard. And you cant get rid of them plus visionary drawing makes them more likely hit.
Its a safe investment because you win more time countering than discarting even if its mana intensive.

How does Flusterstorm help if they have Discard + NO or the like? You counter what they want you to counter and die to the second spell even if we ignore their potential to generate serious amounts of mana to play around Fluster in the first place. I rather have the option to choose which card I want to get rid of.

[Jonathan Alexander]

That's not what I was talking about. I talked about having access to discard in the first two turns against combo. It's completely irrelavant if you can cantrip into a discard spell turn 3 or what. I played 6 discard spells for quite a while as it was sufficient to grind out aggro-control that way, but with Miracles and OmniTell sitting on top of the metagame, I don't see "I can cantrip into a discard spell!" a good game 1 solution against Counterbalance and Co.

The odds of having one out of six discard spells in your opening seven is 54.1%. Having one out of seven discard spells is 60.1%. Figure in cantrips to see three additional cards on turn one and we go to 68.3% and 74.1% respectively. The difference is not that big. The second copy of Past in Flames makes a much bigger difference.

This is, of course, assuming that your objective is to win as fast as possible. Do you not believe that is the best plan in these matchups game one? If not, I can see why you would rather want additional discard.

I "have" played chant effects and I "have" cutted them also because of the reasons I mentioned before (on top of "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma" and "Color"), so I'm confident in my evaluation. Mind you are talking here about 2 Flusterstorms and 1-2 SDT which you need for your scenario. I'd rather play Counterbalance myself at that point than Flusterstorm if I'd willingly aim for the control seat in the combo mirror and am fine with dedicating SB space to that role.

I'm not entirely sure I get what you're saying here. I don't think I can see how your earlier post relates to Chant effects. Although, to be fair, discussing Chants is not really the point here.
Anyway, what do you mean by "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma"? And at which point exactly would you start playing Counterbalance? Two copies each of Top and Balance? That seems very low.

Flusterstorm isn't the bees knees against a single spell combo like S&T and rarely is more effective to delay your opponents combo than a Duress as they need TWO specific cards in their hand, but bears the potential issue to delay yours if it blocks hellbent. You ride the "may my opponent walks into it" horse too much against decks which also run Gitaxian Probes imo.

How is Flusterstorm not good against the actual card Show and Tell? It is the best card against those kind of things because of how hard it is to interact with Flusterstorm. How often does Hellbent without LED come up for you?

Is Flusterstorm good against a deck which can create more than 6 mana by turn 2 and only needs to resolve a 4cc Sorcery to blow you out? Seriously, if you can't combo in your first two turns, Flusterstorm will not save you from NO/GSZ.

As I said, I have not tested this with Flusterstorms, so I'm not actually looking to discuss it.

Against BUG (shardless), I don't see a mayor difference between discarding Hymn or countering it. Discard can at least snatch a FoW if they hold that one instead of a Hymn in their hand. Even acknowleging the tempo advantage possible of countering the Hmyn, I dunno if that is such a big deal in the end.

I didn't see anybody arguing you should board out discard for Flusterstorms nor that they run Flusterstorms for this specific matchup. But if you have them, it is certainly within reason to board them in.

I'm still not convinced that making S&T cost two generic mana more is better than forcing your opponent to cantrip for turns to replace a discarded combo-piece especially as Discard does double-duty to delay their combo AND takes away their protection

Oh, two mana is a lot. That's two turns worth of landdrops. Also, Flusterstorm can interact with their disruption. Forcing through your own spells comes up more than I initially thought. It's also pretty good against the UB OmniShow lists running Thoughtseize

How does Flusterstorm help if they have Discard + NO or the like? You counter what they want you to counter and die to the second spell even if we ignore their potential to generate serious amounts of mana to play around Fluster in the first place. I rather have the option to choose which card I want to get rid of.

How does discard help there? Either you get to take their discard and they win because they cast Natural Order or you take the Order and can't win because they get to cast the discard spell. I really don't want to get into discussing Flusterstorm against Elves, but this just doesn't make sense.

[Ghiwo]

usually there are 3 slots free - so it's SDT and Preordan for you which looks like the easiest cut, what's the 3rd? do you still have Ad Nauseam MD (if not LP is an option)? GT?

Right now I have 1 Ad Nauseam, 1 PIF, 1 ToA, 7 discard, 2 Preordain, 1 Sensei's Divining Top. I'm trying to fit a second PIF in, without cutting either Top (because I feel I need it vs. Miracles) or AN (I think I need its ability to steal games fast in combo mirrors and non blue decks like Jund or D&T). So I thought about a Preordain, or a Cabal Therapy. I agree with both GoblinZ and Kai, as I believe that when you see more than one discard you are gonna brick with high percentages (Kai's version), but I also belive that I want discard early against Miracles (GoblinZ' version). I could see cutting the top, but this way I want at least 2 in the board for the Miracles match-up.

Also, I'm still unsure about my sideboard, I'm not certain about the "miracles package", maybe 5 decay effects and 1 additional top, or 4 decays and 2 additional tops. And still don't know how to split the decay effects: 4/1? 3/2? 4/0? And, City? City or Grip?
Also I'm not sure about splitting the 2 slots vs. combo in 1 extirpate and 1 flusterstorm or 2 flusterstorm.

So many doubts and the big tournament is on Saturday! I hope I'll come to an end! Any advise or tip is great guys!

[Burnplayer]

In my point of view, Flusterstorm is a very suboptimal card, for the most elemental reason in a Tendrils deck, the Lion's Eye Diamond.


¿In fact someone sides in the Flusterstorm vs Elves? I think that is a bad inclusion.

Vs decks like pox or jund, you want speed. The most effective way to figh discard is with our cantrips or playing Sensei's Divining Top, no with a counter.

Years ago, when the TES players were playing Pyroblast, the reason was destroy Counterbalance and Medling Mage, not with a counterspell.

I prefer the Surgical Extraction for this reasons:

-More sinergical with the deck, specially with Cabal Therapy.
-Much better that Flusterstorm vs Graveyard Combos (Dredge and Reanimator).
-Good vs Storm (I think that better than Flusterstorm):
-Vs the new Omnitells, If you hunts a Show and Tell or and Omniscience, probably you'll win.


Vs Pox, Jund, etc Flusterstorm's contribution is minimal and bad.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I'm done: The Storm Box
Hope this will help players tune their lists.

[Ghiwo]

I'm done: The Storm Box
Hope this will help players tune their lists.

A huge work, congrats Jona!

[Rokkastut]

Hello,

Could anyone please confirm that this is 'Ok'. Going to play two GPT's for Lille (or only one if I get it right like Strasbourg). The meta is manly Delver variants, ANT, Miracles, OmniTell , D&T, MUD and Jund. Planning on bringing this deck:

15 lands (the usual with Bayou > Badlands)

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Rain of Filth (gets hyped for a reason)
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lions Eye Diamond

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor

2 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy (yep, trying the six)

2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Sensei's Divining Top (cutting Preordain)

And the SB selectiom is as follows:

3 Carpet of Flowers (better than XS vs Miracles, worse against OmniTell)
2 Flusterstorm
3 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam

If I don't see any D&T players (I know who they are) I will change SB:
-3 Dread of Night, +1 Rebuild, +1 Massacre, +1 Entreat the Angels (funtech)

Let me know, thanks :-)

[Jonathan Alexander]

Looks good overall, although I haven't tried the 2 Past in Flames list with two Tops. I tend to play it with Preordains instead. Apart from that, Carpets are not important, they really only upgrade Cabal Rituals, which doesn't make a huge difference. But if you don't think you'll need the slots for anything else, keep them.

[Rokkastut]

Looks good overall, although I haven't tried the 2 Past in Flames list with two Tops. I tend to play it with Preordains instead. Apart from that, Carpets are not important, they really only upgrade Cabal Rituals, which doesn't make a huge difference. But if you don't think you'll need the slots for anything else, keep them.

Thanks for reply. Aaah, I did not see the dissynergy between Top and PiF, perhaps I need to reconsider this and perhaps go for Preordain in the main.

If so then I may gamble in little D&T and go -3 Dread of Night, +1 Massacre, +2 Top in the board.

Regarding Carpet: Stops soft counters Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm (sometimes) in addition to accelerate. Just because I feel they leave removal in for tokens (ETW) that they can also use on Xantid. But perhaps Xantid is stronger. Both could go... I think I would prefer Carpet in this build.

EDIT: could not sleep, just thinking. When playing PiF in past games I rarely want to flashback a cantrip, and if I do, I usually have both Ponder and Preordain in the yard. So perhaps keeping top in is okay after all? And yep, for the Xsntid you have a point... it has won me some games, and is a must-counter / kill for every opponent reliant on counterspells as the answer to my combo.

[phazonmutant]

I played against Omni with Flusterstorms in my board twice in the past week. The match I lost, I didn't draw Flusterstorm but instead drew plenty of discard. Dig was able to find him protection or the combo faster than I could get rid of them and go off. The next time I played Omni, I had Flusterstorm both games I won, and used it to prevent him from comboing for several turns. Flusterstorm was basically uncounterable. Also good players often Force your rituals fearing discard if they just need to buy a little time, and Flusterstorm can help there.

[phazonmutant]

I'm done: The Storm Box
Hope this will help players tune their lists.

Awesome article! Hopefully that can go up on the OP.

I think you need to remove some of the personal-opinion stuff from the article though. For some things, Grim Tutor in particular, even if you don't like the card you have to admit that others have done well with it. Wilson Hunter has top-8d an SCG Invitational with a 2 Grim Tutor list, and I've gone 8-0 at an Invitational and top-8'd (or better) three 50+-person tournaments with various 1 Grim Tutor lists. On the other hand, I would never consider playing Burning Wish in ANT, and think that card is trash. But despite that, it's reasonable to note it as an option in your Storm Box and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.

[Pdingo]

@Jona

Nice Article:)
But i don't understand 2 things. Grim Tutor can be very strong. He won me a lot Matches because of him.
I think Timo and you are pretty wrong with that. the strong thing is you can go to 4 life and still win with him if you don't have a infernal or a LED.

BW should just be playing in TES because it's the better BW Deck;)

[GoblinZ]

Awesome article! Hopefully that can go up on the OP.

I think you need to remove some of the personal-opinion stuff from the article though. For some things, Grim Tutor in particular, even if you don't like the card you have to admit that others have done well with it. Wilson Hunter has top-8d an SCG Invitational with a 2 Grim Tutor list, and I've gone 8-0 at an Invitational and top-8'd (or better) three 50+-person tournaments with various 1 Grim Tutor lists. On the other hand, I would never consider playing Burning Wish in ANT, and think that card is trash. But despite that, it's reasonable to note it as an option in your Storm Box and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.

I fully agree with u on the Flusterstorm. Sometimes against decks like Shardless, I am forced to blindly name Hymn if I miss it really sucks. And no need to mention flusterstorm can stop a Hymn from cascade which discard can't. Also Flusterstorm can protect your hardcast Ad Nauseam or combo with Grim Tutor, which don't demand hellbent.

About Grim Tutor, I'd say I always like that card. I played Ari Lax's list with 2 Grim Tutor before Probe was printed, which was fast and consistent at that time. Also I think Rain of Filth can make Grim Tutor slightly better, for if u had one to help u hit threshold, u would never lack the mana to go into a PIF kill, which is much better than Grim Tutor into Ad Nauseam.

[Lemnear]

The odds of having one out of six discard spells in your opening seven is 54.1%. Having one out of seven discard spells is 60.1%. Figure in cantrips to see three additional cards on turn one and we go to 68.3% and 74.1% respectively. The difference is not that big. The second copy of Past in Flames makes a much bigger difference.

This is, of course, assuming that your objective is to win as fast as possible. Do you not believe that is the best plan in these matchups game one? If not, I can see why you would rather want additional discard.

I don't think the parameters for a successful T1/2 combo are that easy to sum up, that ones to get rid of their Counterbalance in hand, which is basically "find a discard-effect in the first 10 cards you see"

I'm not entirely sure I get what you're saying here. I don't think I can see how your earlier post relates to Chant effects. Although, to be fair, discussing Chants is not really the point here.
Anyway, what do you mean by "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma"? And at which point exactly would you start playing Counterbalance? Two copies each of Top and Balance? That seems very low.

The talk about chant was that once you opponent knows about the tech being present (either because of seeing it in a game or via online decklists), you lose the "gotcha!"-effect and it becomes a card which your opponent can simply play around. I rarely ever saw anyone walking into a Silence against old 5c TES and as Kai isn't the first and last ANT pilot run run Flusterstorms, so people are already aware of the tech which causes Chant/Flusterstorm to lose it's strategic momentum.

The "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma" describes basically the inability of Silence/Chant to interact meaningful with decks which feature both, Sorcery-speed & Instant-speed disruption like Hatebears+Counter or Discard+Counter as Silence/Chant are unable to solve the strategic-dilemma of casting Dilence in your opponents upkeep to deny Hatebears/discard OR cast it in your own turn to protect your combo against Counter. I'm sure with Flusterstorm you maneuver yourself into that problem as the card is pretty questionable for protecting your turn and does nothing against hate-permanents. With discard, the failure-by-timing isn't occuring at all

The topic of CounterTop in combo decks was brought up by Feline as she tried it in her HighTide combo deck to go full control against other combo decks as hers was clearly the slower one. She boarded SDT+CB while people who already run 1-2 MD SDTs in ANT would habe less of a burden to include that tech. I'm not a supporter of that tech, but your remark about going the controlish Doomsday-path with SDT and Flusterstorm (floated) reminded me of Felines mindset in that regards and IF you are fine to go full control in the combo mirror AND are already running 2-3 SDT in your 75, I'd rather look at Counterbalance than Flusterstorm. With that being said, I don't think that's where we want to be.

How is Flusterstorm not good against the actual card Show and Tell? It is the best card against those kind of things because of how hard it is to interact with Flusterstorm. How often does Hellbent without LED come up for you?

It makes S&T cost 5 mana within a deck running Sol Lands. My points were that a) Flusterstorm does not help you to overcome their FoW/Pierce/Flusterstorm and that forcing them to not only cantrip into one missing combo-part but possibly two (if they have one in their opener and try to cantrip into the other but get hit by your discard) delays them more than the potential two mana it costs to play around Flusterstormnd b) that you are required to find a LED in addition to combo if Flusterstorm is in your hand and you can't shuffle it away with Brainstorm. I encountered the problem with Pyroblasts (which can at least casted against your own red/black spells without harm unlike Fluster).

[Burnplayer]

Flusterstorm is very antisynergical with Lion's Eye Diamond and with Infernal Tutor. Seems to me better Pyroblast, but the two are very bad

[Lemnear]

@Article

Having Burning Wish rather than more copies of the spell you're going to get is useful in two scenarios.

Had to laugh here as it misses every aspect of flexibility it provides not even Infernal Tutor can deliver. Protection? Engine? Kill? Solution? All on demand. It's also not about cmc in regards to Ad Nauseam or Extraction-Effect; it's a matter of timing and speed foremost and every paragraph or discussion about Wish is pointless without adressing that point as the main topic

[Jonathan Alexander]

Regarding Carpet: Stops soft counters Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm (sometimes) in addition to accelerate. Just because I feel they leave removal in for tokens (ETW) that they can also use on Xantid. But perhaps Xantid is stronger. Both could go... I think I would prefer Carpet in this build.

The difference you have in boarding is not between Carpet and creatures though. What you board out for Carpet are Cabal Rituals, which you would never board out to bring in creatures. I'm not arguing that Carpet isn't good against Miracles, it usually is, but having Carpet rather than Cabal Ritual is not a big deal against Show and Tell strategies.
I also don't like any creature plans against decks that actually have removal, only Xantid Swarm against Show and Tell strategies. In smaller formats like Standard and even Modern, I think diversifying threats is good. In those formats, it is highly likely that your opponents won't always have the right interaction. But in Legacy there is so much card selection going on that people will generally be able to handle whatever you throw at them at minimal cost.

Awesome article! Hopefully that can go up on the OP.

I think you need to remove some of the personal-opinion stuff from the article though. For some things, Grim Tutor in particular, even if you don't like the card you have to admit that others have done well with it. Wilson Hunter has top-8d an SCG Invitational with a 2 Grim Tutor list, and I've gone 8-0 at an Invitational and top-8'd (or better) three 50+-person tournaments with various 1 Grim Tutor lists. On the other hand, I would never consider playing Burning Wish in ANT, and think that card is trash. But despite that, it's reasonable to note it as an option in your Storm Box and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.

First off, thank you.

The thing about Grim is that it's just not good. Also, just because the card is successful doesn't mean it's good. People win with supoptimal lists all the time, myself included. Just look at the pile Timo played way back in Ghent. As I said in the article, I really don't get how you end up with that card in your deck. If it wasn't as widely played, I would never have included it in that section but kept it for the bad cards section.
Regarding Wish, I actually stated that the card is very narrow an only has one use. Should I rewrite that bit to make it clearer that I think you should never play more than the one you might want to play as Extraction insurance?

I don't think the parameters for a successful T1/2 combo are that easy to sum up, that ones to get rid of their Counterbalance in hand, which is basically "find a discard-effect in the first 10 cards you see"

Yeah, it might be too complicated to talk through in general. Even beating Counterbalance is not as easy as finding discard early. Which is basically the reason that taking a more proactive approach is better in that matchup.

The talk about chant was that once you opponent knows about the tech being present (either because of seeing it in a game or via online decklists), you lose the "gotcha!"-effect and it becomes a card which your opponent can simply play around. I rarely ever saw anyone walking into a Silence against old 5c TES and as Kai isn't the first and last ANT pilot run run Flusterstorms, so people are already aware of the tech which causes Chant/Flusterstorm to lose it's strategic momentum.

Sure, people won't run into it, but if you have Top, it becomes an entirely different thing. When Top is involved, there is no other way than to go for it. People trying to play around it when you don't have it will also benefit you. So at worst, they will use a discard spell on a card that doesn't contribute to you winning. I don't see how that's bad.

The "Dual-Disruption-Dilemma" describes basically the inability of Silence/Chant to interact meaningful with decks which feature both, Sorcery-speed & Instant-speed disruption like Hatebears+Counter or Discard+Counter as Silence/Chant are unable to solve the strategic-dilemma of casting Dilence in your opponents upkeep to deny Hatebears/discard OR cast it in your own turn to protect your combo against Counter. I'm sure with Flusterstorm you maneuver yourself into that problem as the card is pretty questionable for protecting your turn and does nothing against hate-permanents. With discard, the failure-by-timing isn't occuring at all

I wouldn't board in Flusterstorms against decks that have permament hate, the exception being Miracles and maybe Jeskai Delver lists, where you board in Decay anyway and I tend to board out Tutors. So yeah, fair point, but I think it comes down to the player to make sure it doesn't apply.
With discard, failure by timing happens the same as with Chants against just permanent hate: You can't always wait on your discard so you sometimes give them extra draw steps to draw relevant cards.
By the way, I am not arguing that discard isn't the best disruption overall, but for some matchups, it's just useful to have an additional angle of interaction.

The topic of CounterTop in combo decks was brought up by Feline as she tried it in her HighTide combo deck to go full control against other combo decks as hers was clearly the slower one. She boarded SDT+CB while people who already run 1-2 MD SDTs in ANT would habe less of a burden to include that tech. I'm not a supporter of that tech, but your remark about going the controlish Doomsday-path with SDT and Flusterstorm (floated) reminded me of Felines mindset in that regards and IF you are fine to go full control in the combo mirror AND are already running 2-3 SDT in your 75, I'd rather look at Counterbalance than Flusterstorm. With that being said, I don't think that's where we want to be.

Sure, CounterTop is probably the more effective approach to this, but it also requires way more slots to actually be good. With Flusterstorm, even the first copy without any additional cards is already good.

It makes S&T cost 5 mana within a deck running Sol Lands. My points were that a) Flusterstorm does not help you to overcome their FoW/Pierce/Flusterstorm and that forcing them to not only cantrip into one missing combo-part but possibly two (if they have one in their opener and try to cantrip into the other but get hit by your discard) delays them more than the potential two mana it costs to play around Flusterstormnd b) that you are required to find a LED in addition to combo if Flusterstorm is in your hand and you can't shuffle it away with Brainstorm. I encountered the problem with Pyroblasts (which can at least casted against your own red/black spells without harm unlike Fluster).

OmniShow lists don't have more than three Sol-Laands. That's not much.

Anyway, point a)
Flusterstorm does not help you protect your combo if you have to go hellbent and they wait to counter you last spell. That is true. But it's also not the norm. You also assume that no opponent will ever not know when you have Flusterstorm in hand and you can never increase the Storm count.

Point b)
I think you overestimate the amount of time this comes up. I actually played one maindeck Flusterstorm for a while and this never happened to me. I'm don't want to say it never does, but it is unlikely.

@Article

Had to laugh here as it misses every aspect of flexibility it provides not even Infernal Tutor can deliver. Protection? Engine? Kill? Solution? All on demand. It's also not about cmc in regards to Ad Nauseam or Extraction-Effect; it's a matter of timing and speed foremost and every paragraph or discussion about Wish is pointless without adressing that point as the main topic

I think I addressed that:

"Burning Wish is a card that is often misunderstood. Allowing you to grab a sorcery card from your sideboard, it often leads to players filling their boards with answers to specific situations."