[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Dr_D]

None of those examples seem particularly strong - the whole point of having targeted discard and Abrupt Decay/Grip is so that you can deal with whatever you need to before you go off. I don't see why you would need to extract all their CBs/Tops/Forces when you only need to deal with what's on the board/in the hand.

As for extracting in response to theirs, I don't even think Surgical is a popular card for Miracles - in fact, I have never ever seen it out of their board. Even if they were packing extraction, that corner case doesn't seem worth it.

It's still hard to go off by just decaying/discarding 1 counterspell or counterbalance. They can float all sorts of nonsense with top and often can get multiple balances on the field. Extirpate makes sure they'll never have another balance. Note I'm playing the full house version, so my strategy against Miracles is to try to grind them out, not decay one counterbalance then pray there's nothing on top to stop me from going off.

In response to miracles not playing surgical, just go to mtgtop 8 and look how many miracles decks are running it. It's pretty common in the ponder versions with snapcasters, as you don't want things like RIP because you essentially turn off your snaps and digs.

hmmm...

Can you elaborate what you mean by this?

[KevinH]

At any rate, what would your recommended sideboard plan be for such a matchup? Criticism is good, but if you think my recommendations are subpar you should back it up with your own.

I'm just picking what I think is bad - everything else I agree with.

When I play vs. Miracles, I board as follows - This is with Grinding Station, 2 Tendrils, 1 EtW, 2 PiF maindeck:

-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 EtW
-2 Therapy
-1 PiF (if expecting Rest in Peace)

+3 Abrupt Decay
+2-3 Xantid Swarm

That's about all you really need against Miracles. The reason for boarding out some discard is that it's redundant with Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm.

[bjholmes3]

Oh, that reminds me. Has Grinding Station been addressed gracefully enough in this guide, or should I do more on that note.

[Sloshthedark]

Can you elaborate what you mean by this?

Looks like me too... just presented 8 Extripates and 4 Pyros in my boarding...

I'm just picking what I think is bad - everything else I agree with.

When I play vs. Miracles, I board as follows - This is with Grinding Station, 2 Tendrils, 1 EtW, 2 PiF maindeck:

-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 EtW
-2 Therapy
-1 PiF (if expecting Rest in Peace)

+3 Abrupt Decay
+2-3 Xantid Swarm

That's about all you really need against Miracles. The reason for boarding out some discard is that it's redundant with Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm.

not great imo, EtW is awesome, your answer to +3Flusterstorm +3Clique is -2Therapy (I know, there is Xantid Swarm), is Rip a plan in Miracles with 2 DiG 3 Snapcaster? (unless found out or AdN boarded in I don't think it's worth dropping)

for last 6+months everyone and their Senseis are expecting XS and Pyromancer and keep STPs in, once 1 is found XS is not a plan, by boarding out 2 CT you give up even the mode 2

[Jonathan Alexander]

not great imo, EtW is awesome, your answer to +3Flusterstorm +3Clique is -2Therapy (I know, there is Xantid Swarm), is Rip a plan in Miracles with 2 DiG 3 Snapcaster? (unless found out or AdN boarded in I don't think it's worth dropping)

for last 6+months everyone and their Senseis are expecting XS and Pyromancer and keep STPs in, once 1 is found XS is not a plan, by boarding out 2 CT you give up even the mode 2

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

Further, I heavily disagree with the sideboard guide for RUG. Grinding Station is literally built to beat Canadian. The only card you want to board out is Top, the only card you want to bring in is Swamp. Currently, neither is in the list, so no sideboarding. If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).
Also, on a general note, you want to keep two copies of Tendrils with Ad Nauseam whenever possible, it makes Ad Nauseam better and allows for more in-hand Tendrils & double Tendrils kills.
Other than that, I'm too lazy to read through the entire primer right now.

[bjholmes3]

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

Further, I heavily disagree with the sideboard guide for RUG. Grinding Station is literally built to beat Canadian. The only card you want to board out is Top, the only card you want to bring in is Swamp. Currently, neither is in the list, so no sideboarding. If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).
Also, on a general note, you want to keep two copies of Tendrils with Ad Nauseam whenever possible, it makes Ad Nauseam better and allows for more in-hand Tendrils & double Tendrils kills.
Other than that, I'm too lazy to read through the entire primer right now.

Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

[Sloshthedark]

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

I know, but does it make sense? (will/should it be played...)

Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

I believe they do, on the other hand i like to be able to "control" Omnitell (but grip is definitely not the optimal tool to do so)

[nevilshute]

Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

Can you be specific? To me it mostly makes sense.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I know, but does it make sense? (will/should it be played...)

I've been testing the matchup from the other side recently and I believe it is correct to bring Rest in Peace if you have it. The old plan of grinding out games isn't working anymore because you are often forced to trade more aggressively to set up kills against current lists. This means you need some kind of engine to enable kills and quite often, that's Past in Flames.
That being said, Rest in Peace is only better than the maindeck white cards, and I wouldn't board it over Ethersworn Canonist or Meddling Mage.

[bjholmes3]

Grinding Station is a new philosophy to me, so keeping AN with several cmc 4 cards seemed sketchy. I suppose having substantial life gain helps with this though. Most of my confusion stems from this philosophy actually, I'll need to spend more time with the build. In the old days I was a 16 cantrip purist, so clearly I have some catching up to do.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Keeping the second Tendrils doesn't really have to do with the lines that are more common to Grinding Station, it simply makes you a better Ad Nauseam deck.

[bjholmes3]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

[JamieW89]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

Carpets are great, empties are great, there isn't much else to board. Ad Nauseam is weak. I would not board out (the first) top myself, combined with a single basic it's a good way to build up a stable mana-base. The matchup plays in three phases; (1) build up a mana-base (basics & carpet are vital), (2) clear the way and setup, (3) kill them. Alternatively plan-B consisting of a quick empty usually gets there as well. Most matches I lose against them either involve a super aggresive Delver hand with some burn or when I never get any mana whatsoever. Strangely enough some people consider it a tough matchup (mainly commentators and people who don't play storm) but I think it's the single matchup where I score the highest win% among real decks.

[Jonathan Alexander]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

I think before you do this, you should decide which of these questions you want to answer in the primer:

1) Which cards should I have in my 75?

2) Which of the cards in my 75 should I have in my deck after sideboarding?

The answers to both questions are quite complex, as there are a lot of variables. The first question is harder for most people, because you need to look at the big picture. It can be hard to get correct information, and coming to the right conclusions isn't trivial either. Reading metagames is very hard, but with Storm, it's essential.
The second question is easier to answer, but only when you already have the data. Boarding plans might change between playing or drawing first or in reaction to an opponent's configuration or plays in a previous game. It's also important to line out the purpose of each card you are discussing; sometimes Card A is only brought in if you also have Card B, sometimes Card C is simply meant to act as an upgrade to Card D. Other times, Card E is only boarded in if your opponent has seen Card F.

How deep you want to go in answering these questions is also relevant. It's very easy to do well with Storm simply because it's a powerful deck, but playing it really well takes a lot of practice and barely pays off. What do you think people reading the primer expect?


Also Jamie is right, Canadian vs. Storm clearly favours Storm, but it's also one of the few matchups that still let you leverage playskill, so you can get to absurd percentages.

[nevilshute]

It's very easy to do well with Storm simply because it's a powerful deck, but playing it really well takes a lot of practice and barely pays off.

I'd love to read more on this Jonathan. I've felt similarly in that it is easier to reach a relatively high level of performance with the deck if one plays enough with it, but it feels really hard to truly reach the highest peaks.

Edit: easier than with some other decks.

[TokugawaEdo]

If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).

Agreed, keeping stifle for storm triggers is not a good idea for them. Played against it at eternal weekend and saw a hand with 2 stifle and a flusterstorm. He had the chance to stifle a fetch and didnt. Just killed him with PiF and flasted back some duresses to take stifle.

In the omni match up, grip is definitely a no but doesn't extirpate have some merit. If you duress a show and tell and extirpate it is the game not just over. I'm not saying to rely on this as a game plan but it can happen and you can always just take something else like omniscience leaving them with show and tell emurkul which usually doesn't win it for them.

[nevilshute]

Agreed, keeping in stifle is not a good idea for them. Played against it at eternal weekend and saw a hand with 2 stifle and a flusterstorm. Just killed him with PiF and flasted back some duresses to take stifle.

In the omni match up, grip is definitely a no but doesn't extirpate have some merit. If you duress a show and tell and extirpate it is the game not just over. I'm not saying to rely on this as a game plan but it can happen and you can always just take something else like omniscience leaving them with show and tell emurkul which usually doesn't win it for them.

I think Jonathan meant keeping Stifle as in saving them for a storm trigger instead of using them on your fetchlands. I don't think they should be cutting stifles unless they have an inordinate amount of cards to board in.

Stifle your fetch is a valid thing to be doing vs Storm

[TokugawaEdo]

I think Jonathan meant keeping Stifle as in saving them for a storm trigger instead of using them on your fetchlands. I don't think they should be cutting stifles unless they have an inordinate amount of cards to board in.

Stifle your fetch is a valid thing to be doing vs Storm

Yeah my bad. Tried to shorthand it. Meant keeping them in for just the storm triggers is a bad idea. Will edit now

[bjholmes3]

RUG and OmniTell updated

[Izor]

Thanks for the updates in the opening post. Very helpful!

I'm still having issues with the Grinding Station approach. I've been playing everything between full-TES to classic ANT, but I just can't get good results with PiF + natural Storm as my only win condition.

Yesterday I played another test match against a friend of mine who's on Esper blade. I went with Grinding Station for G1 and got totally destroyed by his turn 1 DRS neutering my PiF and his multiple Thoughtseizes (naturally drawn plus recast with Snapcaster) taking every business spell out of my hand.
I boarded back into my usual list with AN, won game 2 due to him taking two mulligans.
Game 3 I opened the following hand on 6: Petal, Petal, Tutor, LED, LED, Probe. This hand is a mulligan with Grinding Station (with 3 ToA, 0 EtW), but a turn 1 kill with AN in my deck. Needless to say I turn 1'd him after Probing him and seeing that he had no Force with a comfortable Ad Nauseam with 1 floating and an open land drop.

Every time I test Grinding Station I get into situations like those. I'm probably either missing something, or it's just not my playstyle,... or it's just chance, I don't know.

I know Grinding Station is supposed to help in matchups against fair blue decks, but as soon as those decks run black as well, I feel like going without AN is a mistake. So my question is, what matchups does Grinding Station really improve after all? I know Miracles is one of them, and Jeskai Stoneblade might be another likely one. But what else? And if it's just against a few decks that it's really better while it forces you to sacrifice a substantial amount of game against other decks in the format (which at this point I am 100% sure it does), wouldn't it be better to have AN main and board into Grinding Station for G2 instead of doing it the other way around? All I'm seeing are people playing Grinding Station with AN in the side and boarding into it in the majority of their matches. Keeps me thinking 'could've had it G1 already' every time.

Thanks for your replies.