Bazaar of Moxen Top-8: 6-1 & 13-1-1 with ANT

[JamieW89]

Originally I was intending to pilot DDFT at BoM, since I just love the deck. But the more I looked at the metagame, the more I was liking the idea of just playing ANT as always. It has a better matchup versus blue tempo decks and FoW based combo decks in my eyes. I will discuss some of the choices I made regarding my deck, before I briefly go through my matches.

// Main Deck: 60
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

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

4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard: 15
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Dread of Night
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Divert
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Ad Nauseam

Business Spells: 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Grim Tutor, 1 Empty the Warrens, 1 Past in Flames, 1 Tendrils of Agony
When I had decided to play ANT over DDFT the first list I considered was one with 3 Burning Wish, mainly to include Massacre. But as it became clear that there was very little Thalia (although there were a small number of really solid players playing them) I switched back to the UB list, as Wish is just a weak business spell (or none at all if you don’t run Grim Tutor, like the other top-8 list).
In the UB list there is no discussion about 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Past in Flames and 1 Tendrils of Agony. The other two slots have been debated, with people going for more cantrips rather than Grim Tutor and sometimes playing Lim-Dul’s Vault. I really like the Grim Tutor over extra cantrips as you most often dig for business, and when you plan on digging for protection it’s usually not a real fast matchup, so Grim Tutor will still perform that function. I also saw several Spell Snares, which Grim Tutor laughs at. While I like the first Grim Tutor over the 3rd Preordain, I prefer the 2nd Preordain over the 2nd Grim Tutor, since multiple Grims can become quite clunky.
Concerning Lim-Dul’s Vault; I like the card in theory but it never convinced me in testing so I chose not to run it.
Most lists play Ad Nauseam over the Empty, but I just didn’t like the card in this deck. In hindsight I feel these slots should be switched again, Ad Nauseam is enough better against some common matchups to want it while PiF & Tutor chains are almost always the way to go preboard anyways. Empty was good in most matchups though, and it’s definately not bad to cut the Ad Nauseam.

Cantrips: 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Gitaxian Probe, 2 Preordain
There should be no discussion about maximizing Brainstorms, Ponders and Probes in my opinion, and I really hope that the top-8 list without Brainstorms was a typo. These cards are what makes the deck work. Preordain is a fine card but just worse than Ponder in a combo deck with plenty of shuffle effects, and it doesn’t replace Gitaxian Probe because of the information and cheap storm Probe provides.
While I really love Sensei’s Divining Top in DDFT, I just don’t feel the same about it in this deck. Unlike other cantrips it doesn’t create threshold or flashback after Past in Flames. It is certainly a really good card in a meta full of discard and tempo, but I just don’t think this is the deck for it. But ofcourse I might be wrong on this point.

Discard: 4 Duress, 3 Cabal Therapy
Discard seemed the best option for the metagame, since it’s usually better against black-based decks, non-storm combo decks and counterbalance, while still being fine against tempo where the better manabase is huge and stifle can usually be discarded after PiF. Seven discard has always been a number I like MD in combo decks, and I see no reason to change it. The main question about this package is the 4th Duress over the 4th Therapy. While Therapy is insane, I’d often prefer to hold Duress + Therapy or double Duress over double Therapy if you don’t also have a Probe. However, with some creatures in the board and plenty of ways to gather hand information it is probably better to run the 4th Therapy.

Acceleration: 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Cabal Ritual, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
Not much to say here, this has been the fast mana skeleton of most ANT decks lately. Chrome Mox is a bad card in normal lists, let alone without Ad Nauseam. I still want 4 Lotus Petals without the Ad Nauseam, since they’re good with Empty too, fix your mana sometimes and are needed if you want to board the Ad Nauseam.

Manabase: 8 Fetch, 2 Sea, 1 Trop, 1 Bayou, 1 Volc, 2 Basics
To me there are a few points worth talking about on the manabase. First there is the fetchland configuration, second there is the amount of green lands and finally the amount of basic Islands.
The 4 Delta are fixed, the other 4 slots (can be 3-6, depending on your build) are up for discussion. I wanted three blue and one black fetch rather than four blue since it’s quite common to fetch basic Swamp on turn-2 after casting Brainstorm. I think the Misties are clearly the best blue choice in this version since they fetch every land other than basic Swamp. As for the Bloodstained Mire, I prefer it over Catacombs because it fetches every color in the deck.
I really wanted two green duals since I board four green cards in some matchups, so getting wasted of your only green dual is annoying. This is debateable though.
I think one Swamp, one Island is solid enough concerning basic lands and I really don’t like the second basic Island. I find the Trop (which I’d cut for it) more relevant in postboard games than really wanting to fetch another basic Island.

Sideboard: 2 Xantid Swarm, 2 Dread of Night, 2 Chain of Vapor, 2 Carpet of Flowers, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Hurkyl’s Recall, 1 Divert, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Leyline of Sanctity, 1 Ad Nauseam
Chain of Vapor is the most versatile sideboard card and I’d always want at least 2 in ANT. It is an answer to most permanent hate while also being a storm generator if needed. While you do want to board 3 or 4 in some matchups, I didn’t want the third often enough to make room for it. Against blue decks with hatebears (Blade and UWr Tempo for example) or FoW combo decks with leyline I just want two and against other decks there are usually better options to complement the two Chains.
I almost completely cut Abrupt Decay due to not seeing many Chalices and Counterbalances in recent European top-8’s but when I looked deeper into those metagames it appeared that these decks did exist in meaningful numbers and this card is impactful enough to want.It is also really good against Painter, which was surprisingly popular. I didn’t want three since you’ll usually have the time to find one against Counterbalance, which is the main reason to play Decay while the first Hurkyl’s Recall is a fine addition against chalice.
Another great thing Hurkyl’s Recall does it complementing Dread of Night versus Thalia decks. DoN deals with Thalia, Mindcensor and Mother of Runes while Hurkyl’s deals with Canonist, Revoker and Vial. Speaking of Dread of Night, I only played two since there wasn’t too much Thalia, but it’s so impactful in those matchups (one is already really good, unlike the old days where you almost always needed two versus Teeg + Canonist) that I still played two.
My friend suggested the Pithing Needle, as it’s a pretty reasonable card against the black-based decks (hitting Liliana, Shaman and random junk like Spellbomb sometimes), against Top (floating forces are annoying, as well as stopping the soft lock), against Painter as well as against Sneak Attack/Griselbrand. I liked the card over the weekend.
The singleton Leyline of Sanctity is basicly stolen from Lejay, who ran one in DDFT (where SB slots are really tight) since it’s the most impactful SB card versus discard and storm (and for DDFT also burn, which can be an issue there). I really didn’t like running four which I did in Strasbourg, so I opted for one complemented with Divert against Hymn decks. Flusterstorm is an alternative to Divert but I was not convinced of it’s use against tempo without Chant effects to protect and in the mirror it’s not that backbreaking. Looking back I think I will not run the Leyline next time, since Ad Nauseam is also a fine card versus discard and the two don’t go well together. Dark Confidant would be an alternative, but most of these decks do play Liliana, so I wasn’t sure how much I liked the card.
The two carpets are meant for blue tempo decks such as RUG, UWr and Merfolk. While they do not increase the matchups by too much, they are definately good and these matchups are quite common.
The swarms are mainly for combo decks with Force of Will such as Show & Tell decks and Reanimator as well as for Merfolk. It’s great against leyline or Griselbrand. It also gets boarded in against slow blue decks with no removal.
The Ad Nauseam has been discussed in the business section, next time I’ll play the Empty the in board to bring in versus Tempo and some other decks where I don’t expect them to have a solution.
A card I cut but might want to play again next time is Karakas, it is fine against Elves, Thalia & friends, and sometimes enough against big dudes.

We walked through Paris on Thursday, which was okay other than the fact that it was impossible to find dinner before 7 PM while we were starved by 5.. Back in the hotel I borrowed a few cards I missed for this build (thanks Matthias!) and we did some testing.
During this testing session the deck was losing to almost everything, and it almost convinced me to switch decks for Friday. But I decided to stick with it and switch for the main event if didn’t work out. Turned out the deck was fine :).

The Friday 3-bye Trial: 6-1
Death & Taxes 2-0
Jund 2-1
UW Miracles 1-2
RUG Delver 2-0
Patriot 2-0
Merfolk 2-0
Esper Blade 2-0

The game I lost to Jund was to a discard spell followed up with three Thorns (he discarded the fourth to Liliana). The match against Miracles had me going off into Spell Snare blindly (lost to FoW or Snare) and me not clearing his mountain of disruption in g3.

Finding dinner in the area was another nightmare on Friday, with basicly everything being closed for some reason. Just as we headed back to the hotel I spotted a Chinese restaurant, and we had a decent meal anyways.

Main Event Day-1: 8-1
* Bye *
* Bye *
UR Painter 2-1
UB Death's Shadow 2-1
Affinity 2-1
Patriot 2-1
Team America (Pierre Sommen) 1-2
Death Blade (Daniel Gilligan) 2-1
Patriot (Stuart Taylor) 2-1

I lost g1 to Painter when his freshly drawn card was Thirst for Knowledge, which in turn drew him into the Blast (with painter on the board).
I lost a game to the Death’s Shadow deck when I had Tendrils in hand because of him correctly countering my rituals.
Against Affinity I kept a hand of Probe,Ritual, Cabal Ritual, LED, Tutor, Cabal Therapy, Cantrip on the draw, which was a bit of a gamble. I never drew a mana source.
My only matchloss was against Team America, piloted by Pierre Sommen. He thoughtseized my tutor, I then got rid of two forces and went off into a hand of Nemesis, Nemesis, unknown. The last card was brainstorm which found the third force. In the third game he had an answer to quick goblin tokens, which I should have boarded out after winning g2 on them.
Versus Deathblade I lost to a fast Hymn & Shaman, followed up by Jace fatesealing. In g2 he bottomed something he shouldn’t have and I drew Grim Tutor ftw.
Versus Patriot in round-9 I punted away game-1. I had resolved PiF with tons of mana and for some reason I couldn’t find the Therapy in my graveyard after looking for it twice so I was not able to play around Stifle, which he clearly had. I did manage to make 30+ goblin tokens on 4 life versus a flipped delver, but he topdecked the bolt to punish me. He made some strange calls with Meddling Mage in the other games.
I called a judge on my opponents for marked sleeves three times during day-1 (see-through sleeves, a mixture of double and single sleeved cards and different color (!) sleeves), all of them only received warnings. These players seemed a little annoyed, but please make sure your stuff is in good shape, it just seems shady and only results in unneeded game losses.

This night we had dinner in the hotel next to ours (the one affiliated with BoM), which had pretty decent food at a good price. I managed to trade for about €400 worth of german cards with a German guy, who also found a buyer for my FBB sea.

Main Event Day-2: 5-0-1
Sneaky Show (Loic Le Briand) 2-0
Esper Blade (Felix Hofbauer) 2-0
UW Miracles (Yohan Dudognon) 2-0
Elves (Julian Knab) 2-1
Death & Taxes (Thomas Enevoldsen) 2-1
ANT ( Jezierski) ID

I won the second game against Sneaky Show after showing in a Needle which shut down his Sneak Attack. Then after he countered my Ad Nauseam my hand was Chain of Vapor (x2) and Infernal Tutor with 2 LED’s on the board and 4 lands. That was quite lethal, and shows the versatility of Chain.
I was a quite lucky against Miracles in game-2. He had resolved a turn-2 Counterbalance after a turn-1 Ponder which had hid it from a discard spell. He didn’t flip versus my Brainstorm so I was able to Chain of Vapor the Counterbalance and cast Ad Nauseam with 0 floating. It didn’t get there from 19 life since it sucks in this deck, but after drawing so many cards I easily won two turns after anyways.
The match versus Julian was a feature match, and we both threw away a game. I, for some reason, made goblins g1 instead of waiting until I could properly go off. He opted to Zenith for a small dude rather than for Ruric Thar in g2, otherwise he’d now be without a loss in legacy for over 30 matches! Then I hit the nuts g3.
An interesting scenario came up against Thomas. I had won the first game and had bounced his Thalia, Canonist and Revoker in order to go off in the second. I had the choice between 14 goblins or Past in Flames with BB float and Cabal Ritual (Threshed), Infernal Tutor and 2 Gitaxian Probes as Flashbacks. I went for the tokens as their old sb didn’t have much against tokens, but they had Ratchet Bomb this time around. Ofcourse I had the nuts in g3 anyways.
I drew with another ANT player in the last round and we talked a bit about the deck. Had I known that he did not play Brainstorm (assuming those decklists are correct) I would have had a few more questions
We split the top-8 when they offered us €1800 each, which was a really solid offer in my eyes. Turned out well since I lost the Quarters to Shahar Shenhar on camera.

Pro’s:
- Going 6-1 & 13-1-1 to make top-8 :D
- Julian winning the tournament, he’s a really nice guy and deserves it.
- Tim (my roommate for the event) doing pretty well with the deck too.
- Seeing a ton of nice people from around Europe.

Con’s:
- Matthias (my other roommate for BoM) not having his best weekend.
- Not finding dinner in Paris and we didn’t go to all the must-see places (but there is another GP there soon I guess).
- Losing in the top-8 and playing weak on camera twice.

See you all next time, once more in Paris!

[Ghost588]

Awesome job and great report!

I look forward to picking up this deck soon even though I've played control forever!

[Koby]

Congrats on your finish Jamie! Guess we need to spend more time in the Tournament Practice room of MTGO ;)

EDIT: Independent of your list and result, I put together a list that was 3 cards different from yours, including the 1 Grim Tutor but lacking the 1 Ad Nauseam. Funny how the deck develops over time like that!

[afb0032]

Thanks for the write up and congratulations on your top 8! I am playing a similar list this weekend and it was nice to get your take on how the grim tutor and pithing needle performed.

[lyracian]

Congratulation on doing so well and nice write up.

[Sinkhole]

Congrats on your nice finishing and many thanks for your report. It always makes me happy when Storm
reaches Top 8 in tournaments (even I had wished for seeing T.E.S in Top 8 ), especially in such a big like BoM.

[Crysthorn]

I drew with another ANT player in the last round and we talked a bit about the deck. Had I known that he did not play Brainstorm (assuming those decklists are correct) I would have had a few more questions

Those decklists are obviously wrong - Grzegorz Jezierski definitely played Brainstorms, you can see that in his on-camera matches (i.e. he discarded a Brainstorm for LED during his match against Loïc Le Briand).

[entreri_fans]

congrartulations Jamie! for your excellent performance with the deck.

the quarter-final is just too much tough for you I guess>_< shahar drew pretty well in game 2 and game 3.

too many 2cc hatebears, revoker, thalia, canonist... if we can't go off before they get their 2nd turn, things can get really worse-_-

anyway, ANT is still well-positioned in the current meta, thx for the report!

[Sasan]

Congrats :) Awesome finish :)

[Fatal]

Grzegorz Jezierski List was running 4 of brainstorm - its a typo and more over a typo not on decklist but when they rewriting his deck to covarage.

Not running brainstorms in ANT would be ... heresy xD

[JamieW89]

Thanks for the replies everyone :)

@Koby, I wish I still had the deck on MTGO :(. Thinking about picking it up again.
Want to PM me your similar list? Would be interesting to see.

@Crysthorn/Fatal
Happy to hear about Jezierski's list, he seemed like a solid player, was surprised to see this decklist.
Would have been funny though, after the 3 Ad Nauseam list last year :P.

@entreri
Death & Taxes is still slightly favorable over 3 games I think, although under 55% with this list. If you expect loads of it play a UBr list with 3 Wishes for Massacre/Pyroclasm and board in that Pyroclasm + 3 DoN. In my list switch the Leyline and Divert to the 3rd DoN & a Karakas.

[Julian23]

Congrats to your very good finish, Jamie. It was a pleasure meeting you at the BoM after previously only running into each on MODO occasionally.

[sawatarix]

Would you change your list after grand prix paris?

Let's meet at Bom in Annecy,this time i'll join the tendrils instead of grapeshot (i piloted tes in novembre)


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[JamieW89]

Would you change your list after grand prix paris?

Let's meet at Bom in Annecy,this time i'll join the tendrils instead of grapeshot (i piloted tes in novembre)


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

I haven't looked into it much since Paris, but I'll definately play a third Decay (and the Needle again, which I cut at the GP) for Miracles. I also play Massacres as DnT hate, since it's a solid plan versus some Blade decks too. My main problem is BUG Delver, which has become the most popular deck, and it's not a great MU. Currently I have Empty in the main again since most decks board answers for it. This way it has good value g1 (especially versus some tough tempo matchups like BUG) and they board in dead cards g2 when we just go Ad Nauseam (I do keep EtW versus RUG and UWR and maybe even Deathblade. The latter two because of Massacre.). For BUG I also board something like 2-3 Divert (possibly flusterstorm) again, which is pretty solid, but if you have a better idea I'd be happy :P.

[sawatarix]

To be honest i'm not a fan of empty the warrens since tnn has been printed because of all the -1/-1 effects in all decks.

I would run 3 tendrils and 1-2 pithin needles to fight miracles to natural-tendrils them.

I'm not sure about massacre,it's pretty risky to play 2 massacre and ad nauseam in one deck.
Maybe 3 decays+3chain of vapour are enough to fight hatebears?


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

To be honest i'm not a fan of empty the warrens since tnn has been printed because of all the -1/-1 effects in all decks.

I would run 3 tendrils and 1-2 pithin needles to fight miracles to natural-tendrils them.

I'm not sure about massacre,it's pretty risky to play 2 massacre and ad nauseam in one deck.
Maybe 3 decays+3chain of vapour are enough to fight hatebears?


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

Ad Nauseam in ANT is only a draw 7 like effect and getting Massacre in your hand that way against decks running SFM, Delver, Hatebears or TNN sounds pretty ok.

Personally dood, the decision to be made in terms of storm is is you rather lose against against a sweeper if you push all-in with goblins, get grinded out by running weaker individual cards in TES or prefer fair fights against hatebears, Clique, Hymn, DRS, RIP without "free wins" over a whole tournament. That stuff takes it's toll. I remember Jamie looking worn on his day 2 match against D&T during BoM and I have the greatest respect for him staying focussed for so long considering myself starting to let my focus slip in round 5 of day 1 already (that infamous forget-to-flashback-Therapy-for-Skull)