[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Lemnear]

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.

It takes down Mother of Runes and Thalia. That's about it. You still run into problems against Meddling Mage, SFM, Canonist, Revoker and shit. DoN was ok as long as the deck had to care much about it's cmc related to Ad Nauseam. If you pass on the 5 mana instant, I don't see how D&T should stand a chance against a postboard config. of 3 Massacres, 2 CoV and 2 PIF for clearing the board

[wonderPreaux]

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

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

Jona, out of curiosity, have you had a problem with inconsistent draws with your main deck? Since you aren't running any additional Tutors or Preordains, and have potential poor draws like Chrome Mox and the 2nd ToA, do you ever have problems with not finding the right cards, or getting awkward draws with the Mox and such? Did you miss the 4th Cabal Ritual at all?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Well, the worst card to draw is probably Chrome Mox, but this deck has a tendency to end up with useless cards during the combo turn anyway - how often do you discard nothing to your LED? In some matchups, Mox is a card I actively want to draw, for example in combo mirrors, where mana is much more important than the amount of cards in your hand.
Drawing Tendrils is only bad if you don't play for it. For Tendrils to become a bad draw, you have to draw it at a point where you have already traded resources with your opponent and don't have Past in Flames to make use of it. The second Tendrils makes it more likely for it to end up in your hand, thus making playing for it more likely to be successful.
Drawing both copies is worse without the fourth Cabal Ritual in the deck, I'll give you that. Not running it is something I'm currently trying out; I'm not convinced it's right just yet.
Regarding additional cantrips, I have always been playing either nine or ten plus Probes. Running too many will dilute the deck and you will end up at a point where you're just an inferior version of Show and Tell strategies. There's a reason people aren't running the full 12 cantrips anymore, although progress on this deck seems to be very slow overall. However, I do believe that 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 2 Preordain is reasonable in 2 Past in Flames builds. What I'm currently playing is much more aggressive, at least preboard, so I don't want to do that. After boarding, I tend to play a much longer game in several matchups, so that's what the second Top is there for.

[Zombie]

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.

I don't like the maindeck Top. A case could be made for Bayou, but I already have the Mox.

Isn't the logical outcome of these to move the Top to the board and put a Preordain or the fourth Cabal Rit back maindeck?

[Jonathan Alexander]

I have not played enough without the fourth Cabal Ritual to be sure, but yeah, running that again and putting both Tops in the board is the obvious configuration. It might actually be worse than Top though, and this way I might end up with a card that's more valuable than the ninth Ritual. In any case, I don't think either of these cards is something I actually want in the maindeck. Top has more potential upside for sure, but it doesn't mesh well with the aggressive game I'm generally playing preboard.
I hope to have at least Top vs. Cabal Ritual solved by the end of the week, then I can work out the last sideboard slot. I definitely have some ideas for that. Of course, it would be ideal to find something I want maindeck, but I don't think that card exists.

[Zombie]

Go Slosh and play Bolt?

[wonderPreaux]

I have not played enough without the fourth Cabal Ritual to be sure, but yeah, running that again and putting both Tops in the board is the obvious configuration. It might actually be worse than Top though, and this way I might end up with a card that's more valuable than the ninth Ritual. In any case, I don't think either of these cards is something I actually want in the maindeck. Top has more potential upside for sure, but it doesn't mesh well with the aggressive game I'm generally playing preboard.
I hope to have at least Top vs. Cabal Ritual solved by the end of the week, then I can work out the last sideboard slot. I definitely have some ideas for that. Of course, it would be ideal to find something I want maindeck, but I don't think that card exists.

I was going to go ahead and suggest a singleton Preordain over the top as well (it does seems to be at odds with Chrome Mox), but someone already mentioned that. How is your Miracles matchup with just the Tops and removal?

[JanoschEausH]

It takes down Mother of Runes and Thalia. That's about it. You still run into problems against Meddling Mage, SFM, Canonist, Revoker and shit. DoN was ok as long as the deck had to care much about it's cmc related to Ad Nauseam. If you pass on the 5 mana instant, I don't see how D&T should stand a chance against a postboard config. of 3 Massacres, 2 CoV and 2 PIF for clearing the board

Well, have fun with your Massacres against a DnT opponent who avoids playing plains. There is a reason why the number of plains is decreasing in todays DnT lists. The inclusion of Flagstones of Trokair is only the latest example. Massacre is also dead against Teeg. I prefer DoN still. If you can get 2 out, you can solve lots oft problems.

[nevilshute]

Well, have fun with your Massacres against a DnT opponent who avoids playing plains. There is a reason why the number of plains is decreasing in todays DnT lists. The inclusion of Flagstones of Trokair is only the latest example. Massacre is also dead against Teeg. I prefer DoN still. If you can get 2 out, you can solve lots oft problems.

Being both an ANT and D&T player I feel that you cannot realiably play around Massacre. I also disagree with your "the number of plains is decreasing in todays DnT lists" remark. People have gone up and down for years on the amount of plains. Flagstones is a nice replacement right up until you run into Blood Moon. And really, making yourself vulnerable to Blood Moons just to play around a sideboard card doesn't seem worth it to me.

As the D&T player there are times where you absolutely can play around Massacre, but you are kind of at the mercy of the top of your deck and, I mean, I'd never mulligan a hand that promises turn 2 Thalia, Canonist or the likes but where my only white source is a plains. And those hands are going to be there some number of the time. And then you are open to Massacre.

I think if you want to go the DoN route then you need at least three, probably four. Even then you can lose to a revoker beating you down with a SoFaI. That's the thing about all of these cards, they aren't perfect solutions. I often find myself trying out different hate cards from time to time.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I was going to go ahead and suggest a singleton Preordain over the top as well (it does seems to be at odds with Chrome Mox), but someone already mentioned that. How is your Miracles matchup with just the Tops and removal?

The difference between Top and Preordain is only marginal, I'd rather find a card that really does something.
The Miracles matchup is awesome. Now that I have Flusterstorms, I can actually play Tops against them. There really isn't much they can do.

Regarding Dread of Night vs. Massacre, it comes down to how you want to play the matchup against Death & Taxes. Dread of Night lets you reasonably run Ad Nauseam, which is a very powerful option. Being able to kill them before they can even do anything meaningful comes up a lot. I like that. Trying to play a long game against the Wasteland + Rishadan Port deck, not so much. Now, If my list wasn't designed to support Ad Nauseam as well as it does, that would be another story. Also, as I have already said, people are still playing Maverick locally, so the inability to do anything against Gaddock Teeg does come up.
Alas, we have all the arguments for both cards and it's up to you to decide which of these cards works better with your list.

[Bahra]

Flagstones is a nice replacement right up until you run into Blood Moon.

The deck doesn't care enough about Blood Moon even if you are running 4 Flagstones, and if you're boarding Cataclysm, including 4x Flagstones in your main deck is an absolute no brainer.

I have found that I, as a D&T player, can very often play around massacre when I'm facing ANT. Maybe 70-80% of the time actually. Between 3 Karakas, 4x Flagstones and 4x Æther vials you're not very dependent on your Basic Plains in this match up and you can easily hold them back.

[Noxwalrus]

Pyroclasm? 2 mana is worse than 0-1 mana, but it hits everything that DoN or Massacre does except mom+thalia. For those running badlands and 2 PiF/tendrils builds it seems like a good option. I really like a diversification of answers given that nothing hits absolutely everything. Right now I have 1-2 pyroclasm, 1 massacre, and 0-1 DoN.

On a somewhat related note regarding sb tech, has anyone tried running Divert to combat hymns/discard from BUG or other discard matchups? And with the resurgence of wasteland after the ban of TC I've been considering 1 teferi's response in my sb flex slot. Vs BUG/RUG it protects our mana base and can recover some cards lost to discard. Vs something like DnT it seems kinda meh, but more cards is always helpful and an instant speed counter to a port lock seems playable. Also, how useful have you guys found Rebuild for larger tournaments? My meta doesn't need it, but playing 8+ rounds it seems like a bad idea to just hope you never see MUD.

[Narcind]

Not sure I would want to have a card in my sideboard just vs wasteland, seems like a bit of a wasted spot. If you're really concerned about wasteland, just run a third basic and you should be more than fine.

[wonderPreaux]

The difference between Top and Preordain is only marginal, I'd rather find a card that really does something.
The Miracles matchup is awesome. Now that I have Flusterstorms, I can actually play Tops against them. There really isn't much they can do.

So do you also bring in Flusterstorms to go after their floating counters/Entreats? What does your boarding plan tend to look like?

[Megadeus]

Pyroclasm? 2 mana is worse than 0-1 mana, but it hits everything that DoN or Massacre does except mom+thalia. For those running badlands and 2 PiF/tendrils builds it seems like a good option. I really like a diversification of answers given that nothing hits absolutely everything. Right now I have 1-2 pyroclasm, 1 massacre, and 0-1 DoN.

On a somewhat related note regarding sb tech, has anyone tried running Divert to combat hymns/discard from BUG or other discard matchups? And with the resurgence of wasteland after the ban of TC I've been considering 1 teferi's response in my sb flex slot. Vs BUG/RUG it protects our mana base and can recover some cards lost to discard. Vs something like DnT it seems kinda meh, but more cards is always helpful and an instant speed counter to a port lock seems playable. Also, how useful have you guys found Rebuild for larger tournaments? My meta doesn't need it, but playing 8+ rounds it seems like a bad idea to just hope you never see MUD.

I actually really liked Bolts/Pyroclasm in the treasure cruise meta. Bolt was great against the URW deck because you could either use it on a meddling mage, or if they didn't have that just kill their delver and watch them struggle to find a clock. Pyro was a nice out to a Gaddock too. Have a super stacked hand with Pif, tutor for pyroclasm to kill teeg, go off next turn by flashing back pif. Stuff like that. I think though that being 3 mana under a Thalia is what makes me kind of meh about the card.

[Noxwalrus]

Not sure I would want to have a card in my sideboard just vs wasteland, seems like a bit of a wasted spot. If you're really concerned about wasteland, just run a third basic and you should be more than fine.

Well it's not so much being afraid of wasteland and more that it seems like a really good opportunity to yell "got ya!" while drawing a bunch of cards.

I actually really liked Bolts/Pyroclasm in the treasure cruise meta. Bolt was great against the URW deck because you could either use it on a meddling mage, or if they didn't have that just kill their delver and watch them struggle to find a clock. Pyro was a nice out to a Gaddock too. Have a super stacked hand with Pif, tutor for pyroclasm to kill teeg, go off next turn by flashing back pif. Stuff like that. I think though that being 3 mana under a Thalia is what makes me kind of meh about the card.

Yeah 3 mana cause of thalia sucks, but if you can never cast your massacre that's even worse. Also can come in against meddling mages or even elves if you feel more comfortable as the control role. Pyroclasm was definitely better during TC/pyromancer days.

[Lemnear]

Pyroclasm was definitely better during TC/pyromancer days.

...which was mainly the case because of the absence of Wasteland, which did not immediately punish you for fetching your only red Source in the deck (in most cases)

[Megadeus]

...which was mainly the case because of the absence of Wasteland, which did not immediately punish you for fetching your only red Source in the deck (in most cases)

Hence why I played Badlands anyway.

But against Elves I dont generally board in sweepers... I generally have found I'd rather just try to be faster by boarding out my 2nd PiF and bringing in Ad Nauseam. I guess some bring in Teeg in which case you maybe bring something in... But discard is still pretty fine against them in that situation.

[Jonathan Alexander]

So do you also bring in Flusterstorms to go after their floating counters/Entreats? What does your boarding plan tend to look like?

-1 Chrome Mox
-2 Lion's Eye Diamond
-1 Cabal Ritual / Rain of Filth
-1 Swamp
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Infernal Tutor

+1 Sensei's Divining Top
+3 Abrupt Decay
+3 Flusterstorm
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Bayou

Not sure on Cabal Ritual vs. Rain; I think Rain is worse after boarding as it doesn't synergise with endstep Ad Nauseam.

[Holden1669]

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

I said this before but I'm really enjoying your videos. You walk through your plays clearly and explain your thought processes very well. Please keep them going!