[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Dark Ritual]

This deck doesn't need some clunky 3 mana sorcery that draws 2 random out of the top 5. At 2, sure this would probably be nuts but 3? We have access to dark petition now too, making this even less of a consideration. Intuition practically guarantees a kill next turn, this does not. We don't play intuition either. Neat card and better than uncovered clues, which bottoms the 2 and looks at 4, but that card is widely regarded as pretty bad and we never discussed it. This card is interesting with past in flames but so is intuition as intuition finding, say, PiF, infernal, and CRit is pretty damn good whereas this isn't necessarily finding relevant cards for PiF to use as you're almost always hitting a land, some useless garbage that you can't flashback with PiF, and some artifact or instant speed ritual effects. No control over what you put in the bin makes this card inconsistent by nature. Yes you could hit the nut high with this and make it 3 mana to draw basically 5 cards, but we don't go by what could happen 1% of the time we look at what will generally happen a high percentage of the time.

[Lemnear]

This exists too and no one cares

[frafen]

[IMG]

This exists too and no one cares

This is almost like stating that dig through time is bad because no one care about impulse.

The new card is intresting. In a deck that plays lots of instant and sorceries pieces of the puzzle is really similar to a fixed dig through time that grow your graveyard instead of killing it. I don't know if it's good enough for ANT but probably it could be nice in a deck like High Tide.

[Lemnear]

This is almost like stating that dig through time is bad because no one care about impulse.

The new card is intresting. In a deck that plays lots of instant and sorceries pieces of the puzzle is really similar to a fixed dig through time that grow your graveyard instead of killing it. I don't know if it's good enough for ANT but probably it could be nice in a deck like High Tide.

It was in regards to the CUSTOM version people brought up

[CabalTherapy]

Alright guys,
I was in Hannover on Saturday and went 3-1-1 into 6th of 29. Locations was nice but the fee/price ratio is kind of bad but I didn't care that much.
I played 2 Toa, 1 Etw, 2 Pif, 1 Grim, 0 AdN main list with this SB:

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Xantid Swarm
1 City of Solitude
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
2 Chain of Vapor (switched one Extirpate for the 2nd Chain right before the tournament becase a friend told me that he has seen some DnT decks sleeving up)
1 Bayou
1 Ad Nauseam

Lost game 1 to Dragoncombo. My opponent was probably not the best player because he struggled through some turns but apparently had FoW and discard paired with a fast combokill. I was kind of salty to lose the first round
of the tournament in such a fashion but tried to focus on the next rounds. He drew the first game in response to my ritual with Gorgerloop and then proceeded to win two games out of the next three topdecking the perfect card in
our last game; obviously. 1-2-1
Then, I won against TinFins 2-0, nothing special here, he drew nothing and I had to win against Children of Korlis in game two: easy task.
Next round, I destroyed Pox 2-0. After some discard action I had LEDs with PiF and some juice in the yard both times.
My next opponent was on Burn, where I had the first turn kill with Probe. He won the next game rather unlucky because my two Brainstorms showed me no Ritual which would have won instantly. The last game was enjoyable
because he went down to 4 (scry: Mindbreak on top, I saw it next turn) where I played: Probe, Ritual, Petal, Land, EtW for 8 dudes. He played Mountain > go and I saw the Trap with my Duress taking a damage spell and leaving
him with Null Rod, Mountain, and Trap in hand. 2-1
The last round was tough. I knew he was on Miracles and he started with Top, CB on turn two. Great... I continued to play and had (I think) two windows to win but unfortunatley not the kill ready. He won with Entreat for 2 at some point. I boarded heavily and got him with two Tendrils from my hand after a grindy match where he missed some landdrops. Unfortunatly, time ran out and he moved to game 3 with only 15 minutes on the clock. Again, I've assambled both Tendrils in my hand but he countered every attempt to play them. Rest in Peace took care of my threshold (had three Cabal Rituals) at that point but knew about his Fluster, FoW, Counterspell hand with some more cards. We hadn't had time to play it out. 1-1-1
At least, a solid result once more but I am sure I had decent chances to win the third game against Miracles.

[ManCharm]

Could someine verify this is the ANT thread and not the card creation section of TheSource?

/checks forum, immediately closes forum/

Clearly nothing to see here

[TheHeff]

Gonna see if I can get this back a little bit on topic, I've been playing legacy for about three years and played a mix of RUG/BUG delver, Shardless, and some Miracles, with the bulk of that time on Shardless. I'm looking to branch out a little bit into combo, since the midrange/control strategy was getting a little stale for me. Picked up the pieces I needed to finish ANT in paper/online to get some experience with the deck. I picked what I think is a pretty stock list to start (link in sig) but I have a few questions as far as deck construction goes:

• How does the 1x Rain of Filth play? Is it worth it over something like a second PiF/Petition or a Top/3rd Preordain?
• In what metas is it beneficial to have the second PiF or Tendrils? Or multiple Tops main/SB?
• I like how Dark Petition goldfishes, but how frequently do you hit it with an Ad Nauseam? Do you cut the AdN if you want to try two Petitions?
• Is Xantid Swarm falling a little out of favor? People seem to not like it against Miracles so much anymore, but isn't it good to have to keep them honest so they keep some removal in?
• Dread of Night seems great as a DnT hoser, but is it worth it to try to sneak in some number of Disfigure for versatility?
• Is Flusterstorm or Surgical Extraction worth having around as a 1-2 of in the side? Do you add in Fluster against Stifle decks?
• Carpet of flowers in against Miracles, cutting Cabal Ritual?

Sorry for the ton of questions, thanks in advance for any advice!

[thefringthing]

I bring in Carpet against Miracles, but I cut Lotus Petal rather than Cabal Ritual.

[Ronald Deuce]

Gonna see if I can get this back a little bit on topic, I've been playing legacy for about three years and played a mix of RUG/BUG delver, Shardless, and some Miracles, with the bulk of that time on Shardless. I'm looking to branch out a little bit into combo, since the midrange/control strategy was getting a little stale for me. Picked up the pieces I needed to finish ANT in paper/online to get some experience with the deck. I picked what I think is a pretty stock list to start (link in sig) but I have a few questions as far as deck construction goes:

• How does the 1x Rain of Filth play? Is it worth it over something like a second PiF/Petition or a Top/3rd Preordain?
• In what metas is it beneficial to have the second PiF or Tendrils? Or multiple Tops main/SB?
• I like how Dark Petition goldfishes, but how frequently do you hit it with an Ad Nauseam? Do you cut the AdN if you want to try two Petitions?
• Is Xantid Swarm falling a little out of favor? People seem to not like it against Miracles so much anymore, but isn't it good to have to keep them honest so they keep some removal in?
• Dread of Night seems great as a DnT hoser, but is it worth it to try to sneak in some number of Disfigure for versatility?
• Is Flusterstorm or Surgical Extraction worth having around as a 1-2 of in the side? Do you add in Fluster against Stifle decks?
• Carpet of flowers in against Miracles, cutting Cabal Ritual?

Sorry for the ton of questions, thanks in advance for any advice!

First of all, welcome to the Dark Side!

In answer to your questions:

—Rain of Filth is superb. Adds to Threshold, adds to Storm, helps us sneak mana against Daze, has the potential to be bigger than Dark Rit. I'm not a fan of running a third Preordain or a Top in place of it primarily because, even with the 10-cantrip plan (I'm not counting Probes), I keep cantripping into cantrips, which occasionally costs me the game. I'm playing what appears to be a slightly unorthodox list (similar to Scherer's), running two Petitions and 14 lands, so I don't really view the Rain as a competitor for a business slot. More on that later, maybe.

—Having extra Tendrils seems to be primarily a bulwark against getting our business countered with RiP on the table. (N.B. you can also cast two copies of Tendrils starting at storm 4 [and again with storm 5] to win the game off of only six spells.) As far as I can tell, running two copies of PiF is primarily a means to give us discard-, counter-, and mill-proof options for our combo, but it also may necessitate using more LEDs and cracking them for blue instead of red relatively often. I prefer having an extra tutor in the main because, in my experience, it's not likely we'll draw into two PiFs in a game, and I like the flexibility of playing six tutors. I'm not an expert on the double-PiF line of play, so if someone (Togores?) wants to give a more in-depth answer, by all means go for it! I'd appreciate a thorough, up-to-date explanation as well.

—I'm running two Petitions and AdN in my maindeck. I really, really like Petition; it's only failed me a couple of times (countermagic notwithstanding) and having a five-cost tutor is actually pretty handy against Countertop and Inquisition. It's not often a problem to AdN with both in the deck because I tend either to cast AdN from 20-17 life or to use it as a last resort. It packs real heat, but you've got to be really careful with it: always, always, always board it out versus Burn. I lucked out against BRUG Delver last Sunday by AdN-ing to 3 to find Cabal Therapy (he had a Flusterstorm in his hand), which normally is a really stupid play (I didn't have any other option here), but he didn't have Bolt so I won. If you're goldfishing with AdN, think in terms of how much life you expect to have on a given turn, and subtract 1 or 2. This may make you kill yourself more often in testing than you'd hope, but it should also give you an idea of how far you can push AdN. In tournament play, I've only killed myself off of AdN twice: those games were months ago, and in at least one of them, I was on the ropes already.

—Personally, I don't like Swarm. I can see why people run it, but I don't want more green cards and I don't feel like it's worth it to try to get our opponents to run kill spells. They'll just board in more countermagic instead of keeping in removal because counters knock out the Swarm and are better against us anyway.

—I cut Dread for Disfigures a while ago. The only thing Dread does better is deal with Mentor tokens and Mother of Runes. None of the hatebears we need to worry about from D&T have one toughness except Thalia, and because she's a Legend, we won't be netting more than one dead hatebear for a Dread. Gets much stronger in multiples, but I wouldn't count on finding them. In short, Dread's great if you have four sideboard slots available, but I'd prefer to cut back to two Disfigures and a Massacre (all of which help a variety of other matchups), saving a slot.

—Haven't tested Flusterstorm or Extraction yet, but I want to. Been seeing some graveyard shenanigans lately, and I like having a counterspell that can counter opposing Flusterstorms :D I'm not sure how it performs against Stifle. I'd recommend just baiting out Stifles or hitting them with discard, but again, I'd defer to people who've tested both methods. I've not encountered Stifle on a storm trigger once, but it can happen.

—I don't cut any rituals anymore (long story short, I boarded out a CabRit once, and ended up with two Infernals in hand, two CabRits in the 'yard, one in hand, and no way to win because I'd boarded out the fourth Rit. Was dead to creatures the next turn; I'm an idiot; lesson learned). I can see the merit in doing something like that. I haven't tested it either, though, so don't take my word for it.

Hope I could help! Regarding multiple business spells, Flusterstorm/Surgical, and Miracles boarding, I'm probably not the best person to give advice, but I'm pretty confident regarding the other stuff. Best of luck riding the Storm!

I have a separate question: it seems like a lot of people are cutting down to only three copies of Therapy. Why is this? I've found it to be much more useful than Duress. So why a 3-3 split?

[Jonathan Alexander]

I have a separate question: it seems like a lot of people are cutting down to only three copies of Therapy. Why is this? I've found it to be much more useful than Duress. So why a 3-3 split?

Because Caleb does it and most people online do as well. Makes sense in these contexts, but doesn't in most other lists.

[Lemnear]

How does the 1x Rain of Filth play? Is it worth it over something like a second PiF/Petition or a Top/3rd Preordain?

It's the 9th Ritual and extremely handle for long games and/or those which shut down your yard postboard. Fast t.hold is a benefit also but usually not quite the card you want for game 1s and therefore kinda displaced

[*]In what metas is it beneficial to have the second PiF or Tendrils? Or multiple Tops main/SB?

The Grinding Station plan seems to shine in very slow matchups to reduce the relicane on IT. SDT is a nice way to battle discard, but as discard is commonly paired with DRS, the tech seems kinda outdated.

[*]I like how Dark Petition goldfishes, but how frequently do you hit it with an Ad Nauseam? Do you cut the AdN if you want to try two Petitions?

It reduces the reliance on IT (Meddling Mage) and increases density of Tutors, but unlike Preordains it does nothing for your early game when you try to get access to lands/discard. It also lacks Synergy with LED or AN, not to talk about fighting yardhate

[*]Is Xantid Swarm falling a little out of favor? People seem to not like it against Miracles so much anymore, but isn't it good to have to keep them honest so they keep some removal in?

The Main justification for Xantids are deck which overload on counters postboard or run no solutions to creatures in general like S&T or Meerfolk. The decline of these decks however make Xantid less attractive as an option

[*]Dread of Night seems great as a DnT hoser, but is it worth it to try to sneak in some number of Disfigure for versatility?

It hosses Thalia & Mom; no Canonist/Teeg/Revoker/MeddlingMage/DRS/Eidolonetc what happens to cross your way throughout a tournament. Disfigure is a lot more versatile.

[*]Is Flusterstorm or Surgical Extraction worth having around as a 1-2 of in the side? Do you add in Fluster against Stifle decks?

Fluststorms are optional in the Sideboard against other, faster combo decks like Belcher/TES/S&T/Reanimator/etc to supplement the discard and delay the game to the point ANT can win

[*]Carpet of flowers in against Miracles, cutting Cabal Ritual?

Carpet is merely ok and used to combat the yardhate, which can be worked around with CoV and/or spellchains. Another relic of a time where blue decks needed more than 1-2 Islands to operate

[Togores]

Gonna see if I can get this back a little bit on topic, I've been playing legacy for about three years and played a mix of RUG/BUG delver, Shardless, and some Miracles, with the bulk of that time on Shardless. I'm looking to branch out a little bit into combo, since the midrange/control strategy was getting a little stale for me. Picked up the pieces I needed to finish ANT in paper/online to get some experience with the deck. I picked what I think is a pretty stock list to start (link in sig) but I have a few questions as far as deck construction goes:

• [1]How does the 1x Rain of Filth play? Is it worth it over something like a second PiF/Petition or a Top/3rd Preordain?
  [2]In what metas is it beneficial to have the second PiF or Tendrils? Or multiple Tops main/SB?
  [3]I like how Dark Petition goldfishes, but how frequently do you hit it with an Ad Nauseam? Do you cut the AdN if you want to try two Petitions?
  [4]Is Xantid Swarm falling a little out of favor? People seem to not like it against Miracles so much anymore, but isn't it good to have to keep them honest so they keep some removal in?
  [5]Dread of Night seems great as a DnT hoser, but is it worth it to try to sneak in some number of Disfigure for versatility?
  [6]Is Flusterstorm or Surgical Extraction worth having around as a 1-2 of in the side? Do you add in Fluster against Stifle decks?
  [7]Carpet of flowers in against Miracles, cutting Cabal Ritual?

Sorry for the ton of questions, thanks in advance for any advice!

My answers:

1 Rain of filth is nuts, I do side out sometimes 3rd and 4th cabal ritual (2 vs miracles + uwr Blade, 1 vs Deathrite sometimes). But never side Rain out. Fast mana and tre-s-hold when your racing + ton of mana in long games. Also hte top is good in slow metas, If your gonna face a lot of jund, miracles, blade Top t1 is 80% game vs them. Just so much filtering + put extra bussined on top to Dodge one counter.

2 The second pif is good to be faster. Does multiple things. Usualy making like ritual + pif with 2 mana up makes your opp counter it just because gitaxian + cantrip + discard or ritual is to huge of card advantage. Also allows lots of cool lines:
pif + ritual + infernal + led -> pif into cabal ritual = gg also makes that pif + ritual+ infernal + led + cabal ritual dodges one couner because of being able to search for discard. thats just the most basic lines. But With 5 lands up vs control just cast pif is a muss counter, then ritual recast pif wich is a muss counter again then ritual ritual tendrills is usual.
Also vs discard like pox, jund and the mirror makes you better in discard + topdeck wars.
Finaly its great When your opp uses resources to remove your pif because you need it to win there and you just search the second one. I have won many games like so. Your at 4 lives Infernal discarting pif for led with 5 mana floating and 3-4 storm against a DRS and he just removes your pif and win the game.

3 I dont like peitition or grim tutor.

4 I dont usualy side xantid against miracles, but lately I have been playing 2 (last event I played 0 because of metagame thing) but its ok against merfolk, omniscense, sneak and show, infect, reanimator and even cloudpost even the mono Green versión (sometimes they have like midnbreak + a bunch of surgical). Also not playing them in you 75 makes your opp not to be forced to leave removal in. Thats bad, that your opp dosnt let cards for them in fear. Also you can sometimes win games because your opp in RUG delver has take out al bolts and you just win.

5 I dont like dread of night, If im gonna play it I need to play 3 at least (and I max have 2 slots for White anti hate in my sb). So I prefer to run 2 massacre. They come in against patriot (someone even plays it nowadays?), blade with magues and cannonist, deathblade, maverik (kills DRS and all stuff), and taxes. The bad thing is that Taxes players in fear of dread usualy keep g2-3 hands with revoker + canonist. This makes your dread be like the shitt.

6 I like flusterstorm it comes in against: stifle, renomator, belcher, show and tell, storm, miracles, elves, hymn decks and a few more. Just really good against them. I have played sturgical sometimes but is less good tan flsuterstom, also usualy extirpate is better vs renimator, and also has some uses vs miracles. I usualy dont play both because I have not so much space in my sb.

7 Carpet is not really a great card, I play it if I have free spots in my sb and its like rug, ur, patriot + blade and miracles infested. but most delver decks nowadays play discard and shaman. So carpet is not good. I usualy side it in for petals.

Thats it

[Manipulato]

How strong do you guys find Stifle against you? People from the Grixis thread mean that it´s nearly as strong like Flusterstorm against you guys?
And against what do you guys prefer to play, Stifle or Spell Pierce?

Just curious...

[CabalTherapy]

How strong do you guys find Stifle against you? People from the Grixis thread mean that it´s nearly as strong like Flusterstorm against you guys?
And against what do you guys prefer to play, Stifle or Spell Pierce?

Just curious...

Stifle is a joke.
In the context of Grixis Delver, I'd rather play against Stifle because my rituals don't get countered and then I discard it easily with Duress/Therapy. Pierce is ok as well but might be problematic unanswered if we don't have enough
initial mana sources (say only one black land or something like that) Just gimme all the Stifle you have.

Little anecdote: Some years ago in one of our local tournaments I was able to hit 4!! Stifles with one Therapy out of Kai Sawabatrix's hand (he was on 4c Delver back then).

Just let them believe that Stifle beats Storm.

[nevilshute]

Stifle on our storm card is not that scary for us as, against delver, we are almost always going off with (at least some) knowledge of their hand. Once you know Stifle is there you can often play around it. In that sense you can't even really compare it to an actual counter spell like Flusterstorm because where Flusterstorm can counter Infernal Tutor, Past in Flames or even a bottle-neck Dark Ritual Stifle just sits there in their hand completely useless until you are ready to cast tendrils. If you are winning through Past in Flames it seems very, very likely that you have already cast at least 1 discard spell in the game. That discard spell can be recast after resolving past in flames and that just makes Stifle sad.

If I lose to Stifle it is 9/10 times because they use it on my fetchlands and choke up my mana development. To me, that is often more difficult to play around than stifle on tendrils.

I'd probably rather be playing against Stifle out of RUG than Grixis. Stifle can mean we have to delay going off for one or possibly more turns. If I have to wait against delver I'd prefer to wait against the non-deathrite version of delver.

[davelin]

How strong do you guys find Stifle against you? People from the Grixis thread mean that it´s nearly as strong like Flusterstorm against you guys?
And against what do you guys prefer to play, Stifle or Spell Pierce?

Just curious...

Against bad opponents who hold Flusterstorm until the Tendrils, there isn't much difference between the two. Against good opponents who know how to use Flusterstorm to choke our mana, counter an important tutor card, etc, then Fluster is much much worse.

[Lemnear]

Against bad opponents who hold Flusterstorm until the Tendrils, there isn't much difference between the two. Against good opponents who know how to use Flusterstorm to choke our mana, counter an important tutor card, etc, then Fluster is much much worse.

They should stifle your lands and fluster your rituals/cantrips

[Manipulato]

@Togores: What do you think?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Stifle is not a counterspell. If people try to use it as such, they are going to fail. As such, Stifle is almost always aimed at the Storm player's mana, if played correctly. Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce are sightly more flexible; they can also hit cantrips and hard business spells. Flusterstorm for Tendrils is only slightly more relevant than Stifle for Tendrils. Usually, when that happens, it's because Top is involved.
It's also worth noting that Stifle is easier to play around/overload. With Stifle, you are more likely to end up with more spells than you can cast. Because actual counterspells are more versatile, it's easier to spread them out over the course of a game.
Either card has its uses, which is better depends on the context of your list. Stifle obviously works well in conjunction with Daze and Wasteland. Flusterstorm is great with discard. If your deck uses more mana in your own turn, I usually prefer Flusterstorm. If you have, say Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce in hand and your opponent has one discard spell, you end up with a counter no matter what. If you have Stifle and Pierce, you might Stifle their land and then die. This is less of an issue if you have access to Gitaxian Probe but if you don't, Stifle is incredibly hard to use correctly. You obviously also get that bonus if you have discard, but as I said before, I think with discard Flusterstorm should be your choice.

[Sloshthedark]

"If I was afraid of Stifle I wouldn't play Ant" a friends quote from 2011 - it wasn't really funny when they started to play Snapcaster in Threshold for a short period but I agree with all above... I have a soft spot for the card and the waiting games but other than that I don't care

why are we advising to a guy from the tempo forums btw.

[1]How does the 1x Rain of Filth play? Is it worth it over something like a second PiF/Petition or a Top/3rd Preordain?
[2]In what metas is it beneficial to have the second PiF or Tendrils? Or multiple Tops main/SB?
[3]I like how Dark Petition goldfishes, but how frequently do you hit it with an Ad Nauseam? Do you cut the AdN if you want to try two Petitions?
[4]Is Xantid Swarm falling a little out of favor? People seem to not like it against Miracles so much anymore, but isn't it good to have to keep them honest so they keep some removal in?
[5]Dread of Night seems great as a DnT hoser, but is it worth it to try to sneak in some number of Disfigure for versatility?
[6]Is Flusterstorm or Surgical Extraction worth having around as a 1-2 of in the side? Do you add in Fluster against Stifle decks?
[7]Carpet of flowers in against Miracles, cutting Cabal Ritual?

1, I wouldn't play it before 4th CR // those cards serve different purpose, imo no
2, I'm tempted so say All of them, but 2ToA isn't great when you hand is attacked... Tops - slower, plays well with multiple ToA and against discard
3, goldfish and reality are connected but often different things... // dunno as likely as any other card in that quantity // Caleb plays it obv., that's all I can say
4, It was bad and is bad... might be decent after everyone level up, then Miracle guys level up, and after another year the gamble is back... // you keep them honest by not playing it too, with upside...
5, if you aim on D+T specificaly it's your best friend, once opponent starts spitting MM, DRS, Kotr it's rather weak... Gaddock kind of embarasses both DoN and Massacre but I'm on the Massacre side of the dilemma
6, maybe, both have some application, I'd not pack SE though it's very weak and inflexible after T2 // it's a proven tactics of sorts
7, if you have it I'd play it, but I'd never have it as a plan unless heavy on ToA ... imo that's probably the best use out of the card btw. I wouldn't recommend it against any serious tempo player