[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[sawatarix]

So today is another Big tournament here with around 300 players (more or less,let's see)

I'm taking my list from last week with slightly changes:

main: -1 Senseis Divining Top + 1 Preordain
+1 Volcanic Island
+1 Bayou
-1 tropical island
-1 badlands
(fetchlands change accordingly)

sideboard:

-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Tropical Island

There will be 9 rounds of swiss+top8, pretty excited :)

But before let me take my breakfast:

[meffeo]

Rice in Agony. Good luck Kai!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

[sawatarix]

Well, after 8 Rounds i was out of Top8, finished 28th among 211 Players.

The 3rd Preordain was fine, the 2 Volcanic Island manabase was interesting but not 100% percent sure if it's actually better than orher configurations.

here some infos:

over 90% of kills where either Past in Flames Kills or Tutor chains.

I used Ad Nauseam 2 times and won both games (6 Life and 19 Life)
Yeah,6 Life :D

I played Empty the Warrens only once, mainly because Tendrils was gone.

Thinking about playing 4 therapy, 1 Thoughtseize and 1Duress maybe.

Still a decent run today, any input is welcome.
2 weeks left until GP Kyoto

[Togores]

Good run Kai.

Im right now in the mountain preparing for next weekend in rome the mkm series. And im testing diferent builds. Basicaly at goldfish.
You build from last week.
The 2 pif 2 grim version
And my ant + 2sdt deck.
What turns it kills and how does it more often.
Obiusly its a goldfish and preordain at that is better than sensei. And running 6 discard is better than 7.

I will report my results, because there are a lot of thought behind it.

I have lots of ideas on the 2 pif deck. Lets see if i can finish torrow my testing at night afyer a day of ski, jumps and spins.

[Togores]

Sorry for double post.
Kai you said you only used 1 time empty but you play 1+2 you never boarded them in? Or its because it was never good?

[CabalTherapy]

If there would be enough interest, I could put together a detailed chart like what is being described sometime within this week for the thread.

I am afraid it would demand too much time of one person. Additionally, you guys have showed me deficiency in my thinking about said chart.

Well, after 8 Rounds i was out of Top8, finished 28th among 211 Players.

Nevertheless, a decent result

I have a nice story from the other side of the world. 7 people gathered today in our local store to play Legacy for 3 rounds. Wow.
The comical fact is that I have lost 3 matches and won 2 which got me the 2nd place.
(0:2 BUG, Bye, 2:1 Burg)
We can't match with Japanese conditions.

[nevilshute]

Hey guys. A bit more video content today. Here's me playing a Legacy DE (Daily Event) on Modo. Rather strange but wonderful experience to show off the modo Legacy meta

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...jlBGJ-0hBrK-q2

[owerbart]

2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

The standard manabase is 15 lands, the rest can be a fairly standard 45 spells: 16 accelerants, 6-7 protection, 4 Tutors, 13-16 cantrips, 3-5 storm cards/engines, 0-3 tech (I count Grim as tech, fwiw)

Hi. Thanks for the answer to you too.

Anywhere I can get a standard list with that manabase? I'm still reading about the deck and I'm not confident enough in building a list myself yet

[wonderPreaux]

Hi. Thanks for the answer to you too.

Anywhere I can get a standard list with that manabase? I'm still reading about the deck and I'm not confident enough in building a list myself yet

Knowing nothing about your meta, I guess a really generic list would look something like this:

2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

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

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain

1 Preordain/Sensei's Divining Top/Grim Tutor

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

Obviously, a "generic" sideboard would be kind of strange to contribute because a sideboard does have to be tooled towards your meta, but you probably would end up running some number of Chain of Vapor, Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay.

@nevil very cool, I'll definitely give that a look. For the past couple days I've been trying to test SB Jaces against Miracles, and I could never get paired against one on MTGO! I guess you found them all for me, heh

[Togores]

Hey guys. A bit more video content today. Here's me playing a Legacy DE (Daily Event) on Modo. Rather strange but wonderful experience to show off the modo Legacy meta

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...jlBGJ-0hBrK-q2

Just finished watching your videos, weird matchups. But liked how you destroy them all.

Can not say I would have played really diferent from your way. Some brainstorm, ponders and so.

Also, still dont understand why you side out duress vs miracles instead of therapy. But ok.

Also you have been liking city? and you sided it vs the golddiger deck? didnt herd it in the coments.


gg

[wonderPreaux]

Just finished watching your videos, weird matchups. But liked how you destroy them all.

Can not say I would have played really diferent from your way. Some brainstorm, ponders and so.

Also, still dont understand why you side out duress vs miracles instead of therapy. But ok.

Also you have been liking city? and you sided it vs the golddiger deck? didnt herd it in the coments.


gg

He keeps EtW in against Miracles, so I can see why he would also keep Therapies, minor synergies there. He also has the Swarms/City to cut out a lot of incidental stuff like Snare or w/e, so brute force Therapying for FoW alone can clear the way for green bombs

[Patrunkenphat7]

Duress is the much safer option against Miracles even if you have EtW because there is a lot of stuff like Counterbalance and RiP that you may want to discard early before you have a chance to see their hand with something else.

[wonderPreaux]

Duress is the much safer option against Miracles even if you have EtW because there is a lot of stuff like Counterbalance and RiP that you may want to discard early before you have a chance to see their hand with something else.

I think safety is debatable here. Duress always gets something, but Therapy clears all of something. If I have a hard read on a threat, or I just fold to it if its there, I would rather clear all the copies. If I miss, yeah I lose a card, but I'm safe from the threat anyway (since neither effects solves the issue of it floating on top, at least). Miracles also has SCM and/or Clique and halting those, especially the Clique lock, preemptively can be pretty valuable. Usually, though, I do go in with a 2-3:2-3 split of Therapy and Duress, but I can see why, given his bombs and EtW, he would lean on Therapies alone.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Six rounds of swiss, cut to top eight yesterday, first place.

1 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth

1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
1 Bayou
1 Empty the Warrens

Empty apparently still sucks, but I had a slot. Probably gonna rotate a couple cards through that slot until I find something that doesn't suck. Everything else was great.

Swiss:

0-2 UB OmniTell
2-0 UWR Blade
2-1 SneakShow
2-0 Affinity
2-0 GRWB Punishing Maverick
2-0 UWR Dig

Top 8:
2-0 UWR Dig
2-1 UB Omnitell
2-0 Mono U OmniTell

Feel free to ask any questions about my list & matchups.

[Togores]

Not missing xantids?

how was rain of fith, im unsure abaout the card.

PD: your really lucky you have free slots in your sb hahahah

[Jonathan Alexander]

Rain mainly acts as the fifth Dark Ritual. This helps tremendously against players who go after your rituals. It also makes Ad Nauseam way better, enabling Threshold as early as turn two and giving you better flips because of cheaper rituals in the deck. You see how a lot of players are unwilling to cast Ad Nauseam with no landdrops open and no mana floating, but with the combination of Rain and Chrome Mox, this is rarely an issue.
Of course, there are also downsides; mainly that you're going all-in with it and that it doesn't add mana after Past in Flames, but I'm willing to accept that and I think it's better than the fourth Cabal Ritual overall.

Xantid Swarm, ironically, isn't the deck despite making Ad Nauseam a much better card to have against Show and Tell strategies. I currently prefer having the seventh discard spell and the third Flusterstorm over Swarm, as they're more versatile. The matchup against OmniShow might be better with Swarm than with my current approach, mainly because of Swarm actually doing something against Dig Through Time, but against Sneak & Show, Swarm tends to die to Pyroclasm, at least in my experience. It seems they always have two copies of that card in their deck and with all their filtering, they tend to end up with one. I prefer to let them have dead cards in their hands.
I just think that the best way to play those matchups is to use your interaction defensively, whereas Swarm is always about letting you go off.

With regards to the sideboard, I have to admit that I don't have a real plan against BUG Delver, but that's because I don't think there is a good plan that doesn't eat too many slots. Everything else I have already covered. Plus I'm basically running a 16 card sideboard anyway. I don't like the maindeck Top, it pretty much always hurts to draw it preboard, but there isn't anything else you could reasonably run maindeck. A case could be made for Bayou, but I already have the Mox.

[wonderPreaux]

Feel free to ask any questions about my list & matchups.

Out of curiosity, could you (or anyone, really) sell me on running Dread of Night? It always felt like a toss-up, but Massacre always seemed to edge it out because you can get away with running fewer.

I always thought Dread was an odd card to run, since it feels like youd need 2 copies to solve problems postboard, especially Canonist, and it doesn't touch Revoker, afaik. It keeps weird Vial+Karakas+Thalia or Mother + X scenarios from happening, as well as just cutting down the opponent's clock, (it hits Teeg, I suppose) but I'm wondering what makes it better than Massacre. Massacre, in addition to having use against Blade decks, can hit a lot of the same things Dread can effect, as well as hitting Revoker and you only need to hit the one Massacre. Though, Massacre does fit poorly with Ad Nauseam, which you are supporting more than usual lists, so I figure that may be the explanation?

The way I see it, it's something like this:

Massacre > Dread of Night
- Hits all relevant creatures other than Teeg.
- Relevance in Blade matchups.
- "One and done" answer to creatures.
- Storm count through cheap casting cost (I've had it matter).

Dread of Night > Massacre
- Hits all relevant creatures other than Revoker.
- Reduces opponents clock throughout game.
- Meshes better with Ad Nauseam
- Prevents Vial/Flash/Karakas issues.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on the two?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Basically what you said. It lets you still play Ad Nauseam, you can play it early to take less/no damage and it wins against Vial. It is true, however, that it's worse against blue Stoneforge decks, but in those matchups I tend to only board either Abrupt Decay or Chain of Vapor (if they don't have red). Against UWR Delver, I board out Ad Nauseam, so Massacre would actually be good (and I have run one copy in the past just because of that matchup). Against Esper Stoneblade/Deathblade, I keep in Ad Nauseam though, so I wouldn't want to run Massacre.
Being able to kill Gaddock Teeg is also a factor, at least where I play locally. That's basically for free.
Pretty much all your reasoning is correct and you have to decide for your own local metagame or the metagame you expect at a bigger event which of these points are more likely to matter.
One thing you left out is that Dread of Night doesn't kill your own creatures, which becomes relevant for people running Empty the Warrens.

[Togores]

When I play vs deathblade and desth and taxes I board in 2 masaacre and didnt side out nauseam. Just because if you hit massacre you can swipe the board and win next turn.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Out of curiosity, could you (or anyone, really) sell me on running Dread of Night? It always felt like a toss-up, but Massacre always seemed to edge it out because you can get away with running fewer.

I always thought Dread was an odd card to run, since it feels like youd need 2 copies to solve problems postboard, especially Canonist, and it doesn't touch Revoker, afaik. It keeps weird Vial+Karakas+Thalia or Mother + X scenarios from happening, as well as just cutting down the opponent's clock, (it hits Teeg, I suppose) but I'm wondering what makes it better than Massacre. Massacre, in addition to having use against Blade decks, can hit a lot of the same things Dread can effect, as well as hitting Revoker and you only need to hit the one Massacre. Though, Massacre does fit poorly with Ad Nauseam, which you are supporting more than usual lists, so I figure that may be the explanation?

The way I see it, it's something like this:

Massacre > Dread of Night
- Hits all relevant creatures other than Teeg.
- Relevance in Blade matchups.
- "One and done" answer to creatures.
- Storm count through cheap casting cost (I've had it matter).

Dread of Night > Massacre
- Hits all relevant creatures other than Revoker.
- Reduces opponents clock throughout game.
- Meshes better with Ad Nauseam
- Prevents Vial/Flash/Karakas issues.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on the two?

I just want to point out Dread of Night also does not hit Canonist which is a common SB card in D+T. Dread of Night is way too narrow for my liking. Massacre is also an important tool for Meddling Mage UWR and Esper decks, and Dread of Night seems to be specifically for the card Thalia.