You'll probably notice as you scroll down that this deck looks a lot like ANT, and I would have been just fine posting this in the ANT forum but it felt odd to call it ANT without any Ad Nauseam. I've noticed (as I'm sure a lot of combo players have) that the Ad Nauseam in ANT is not usually something that you're excited to cast. It's much, much better in TES due to the lower cost of the rituals, and often you can't really cast it against an aggressive opponent. So ANT has, naturally, evolved to be more of a Past in Flames deck than an Ad Nauseam one. So I cut it. There are a couple of benefits to playing a Tendril's-based deck without Ad Nauseam in it, first and foremost being able to play larger, more impressive spells without hurting your ability to win (Treasure Cruise, Reforge the Soul, and Gifts Ungiven) along with generally feeling safer playing more cards that cost mana and life (Thoughtseize, Grim Tutor, more fetchlands, Gitaxian Probe and City of Brass). There is absolutely a downside, being that Ad Nauseam is a very, very powerful card that does not rely on the graveyard, so building without it has potential potholes.
I cut my teeth playing combo in Vintage, from the original Burning Long deck in 2003 up to modern Gush-based combo. Having done so has given me a very wide and deep appreciation for all of the different ways that you can count to 10, so I saw the design constraints of Treasure Cruise fitting into basically two different kinds of decks; the first, something closer to Belcher with an over-abundance of cantrips designed to fill the graveyard very fast and cast Treasure Cruise equally fast, and the second being a slower, more controlling combo deck like ANT or High Tide that fills the yard more naturally and uses Treasure Cruise to refill the hand and win. Having played all versions of combo, I have much more appreciation for Demonic Tutor than for Street Wraith, so I went in the slow vein.
I tried a lot of different slower shells, and again the design constraints of Legacy pushed me towards this list. I really wanted to play something with Force of Will, as I think that that's the hallmark of a lot of very powerful combo decks in Vintage which were certainly fast enough to survive there (TPS and Gifts-Tendrils being some of the highlights), but in Legacy we don't have moxes (or at least not good ones), so we are forced to play with Lion's Eye Diamond which necessarily pushes the deck towards discard rather than counterspells as it's protection suite. It's a lot more difficult to control a game with discard, but we aren't exactly trying to be Miracles so it's no big deal.
What I noticed over and over again is that casting Gifts Ungiven in a slow Tendrils + Past in Flames shell is always, always game over, so I really wanted to try to incorporate that. Here's where I was left:
TPS (Now for Legacy!) - as of 10/12
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
2 Treasure Cruise
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
This deck is roughly the same speed as ANT, though in return for more reliance upon the graveyard you get upgraded protection spells and more haymakers, along with the ability to play Gifts Ungiven. You exchange a few stability cards (Preordain mostly) for the ability to win out of nowhere and a more consistent kill. Some card choices:
The Mana:
8 Fetchlands, 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 2 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic Island - I modeled the lands after TPS in Vintage. While that deck was built to defend against a very different threat (Stax), I find that this land configuration is very solid against a lot of the mana-denial decks that we face in Legacy without screwing ourselves out of colors by playing too much around Wasteland and Stifle. Alternately, you could run a mana base with City of Brass, Gemstone Mine and a few duals, but I find fetchlands to be too valuable in any deck with Brainstorms. City of Brass is, however, excellent in a deck without Ad Nauseam.
4 Lotus Petal, 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Cabal Ritual - These are some of the most efficient fast mana sources we have access to. I tried a lot of different configurations here, often featuring hits like Rite of Flame and Mox Opal, but I feel that the late-game power of Cabal Ritual suits the slower nature of the deck. I tried so very hard to make Mox Opal work, since Gifts Ungiven loves moxes, but there are just not enough good, cheap artifacts to make that work.
0 Chrome Mox - there is a strong chance that Chrome Mox should be in the deck as it plays well with the more top-heavy cards in the deck and the extreme redundancy in cantrips and discard spells, along with allowing the deck to play a slightly faster game, but as the power of the deck is much more turns 3-4, they are not currently in the list. As many as three could be correct.
The Protection:
4 Thoughtseize, 3 Cabal Therapy, 1 Chain of Vapor
I wanted a lot of this kind of effect because the game will go on slightly longer and because it's really the only means we have to disrupt the opponent and take control of the game. There's a lot of potential variance here when it comes to exactly which spells you'd want to run and in what proportion; for instance, if you find yourself taking too much damage, some number of these cards could become Duress to mitigate some of the damage done by Thoughtseize. But with Gitaxian Probe now in the deck alongside the other discard spells, Cabal Therapy is strong. Chain of Vapor is the best card for the main deck if you're only going to play a singleton bounce spell as it gets everything except for Chalice of the Void on 1, which is real bad for us (as it is for pretty much every storm deck), but the lack of Chalice in the metagame and the added utility of using Chain of Vapor on ourselves to increase the storm count gives it the nod.
I started with a four Force of Will, three Thoughtseize split, and while I really liked having counterspells in the deck (theoretically), they are terrible with Lion's Eye Diamond and you can't afford to play without Black Lotus. They helped you to play more of a control role early but they did nothing to protect you while you were going off except in very specific circumstances. Again, if we could play with Moxes (not even Black Lotus! Come on, Wizards!) I would probably not play LED and play more of a control shell, but we don't really have a choice.
The Setup Spells:
4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 3 Gitaxian Probe
Most notable here is for what is missing, namely Preordain. This is also a section of the deck that I am least sure about, as cantrips and Storm go hand in hand, but I needed to shave, and honestly I wouldn't be completely upset playing fewer of this type of card to get at more of more powerful spells. Unlike other Storm decks, storm count is pretty much never a problem for this deck due to a reliance on Past in Flames and a very, very efficient manner of filling the graveyard, so the older plays where you would use cantrips to pad the storm count are much less important than it would be in something like ANT and TES.
The Gas and the Kill:
This is the meat of the deck, and the part that underwent the most drastic changes throughout testing. This section, along with the fast mana, really defines the fundamental turn of the deck and the overarching strategic goal. This has had everything in it from Burning Wish and Empty the Warrens to Griselbrand and Dig Through Time. I settled on these numbers based on a lot of testing, and here's a more detailed breakdown:
4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Grim Tutor - This is the same split that a lot of ANT decks have been running and it works well for me. Grim Tutor hurts a lot less when Ad Nauseam isn't even an option, and it helps me tutor for things I need to get set up, as opposed to Infernal Tutor which is most often the last spell in a chain. The Merchant Scroll that was here (and may still make an appearance in the sideboard) was a little loose (and I sure wish Treasure Cruise was an instant) and was largely a holdover from when the deck had Force of Will in it. It is still valuable as a second Gifts Ungiven or bounce spell, and at worst it's a Brainstorm when you really need one, but it ended up not pulling it's weight. In general, these tutors are better with Past in Flames than Burning Wish would be, though I tried to make it work. In the end, I found that I only wanted five-six tutors total, so that's where I ended up. Burning Wish is awesome, though.
2 Treasure Cruise - Two feels correct. I played four and three and both felt too greedy given that Past in Flames is our primary win and we are (relatively) lacking in cheap cantrips, but two gives us the ability to see it a lot and use it as Ancestral Recall while going off or to recover from heavy discard. It can also be used with Past in Flames if your graveyard is particularly stocked, as Delve and Past in Flames work exactly the way you want them to. That being said, and in spite of the fact that Treasure Cruise was the impetus for building this deck, it's entirely possible that you'd rather at least one of these were something else, like Gifts Ungiven and/or Reforge the Soul because casting it feels a little underwhelming and it does require some setup. Good, but still not Ancestral Recall. I think it's something you want some of, but it's surprisingly not all that exciting.
0 Dig Through Time - This guy was in the deck for a while and I like what it did, particularly with Merchant Scroll. In the end it got cut because most of the time I'd rather just be casting Gifts Ungiven as the mana saved wasn't usually relevant and the dissynergy with Past in Flames wasn't really helping it. To be clear, the deck can absolutely support both Past in Flames and a Delve card, it was just that I'd rather be casting Treasure Cruise or Gifts Ungiven most of the time.
1 Gifts Ungiven - As I said, resolving a Gifts Ungiven wins on the spot, as most of the time you're able to Gifts for something like Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Past in Flames and Infernal Tutor (assuming you've got very little else in your hand/yard) and there's no pile they can give you that doesn't just beat them. Gifts Ungiven is Cabal Ritual's best friend, and it can be used as more of a value card if you're in that stage of the game, getting Treasure Cruise and discard spells. Being an instant means that you can use it as a setup (or bait) spell at the end of the opponent's turn and then untap and win the game, though it's often better and fairly trivial to just make a few more mana and win all at once. Context dependent.
1 Reforge the Soul - A while back there were four of these in the deck as my initial idea was to build things more like a Vintage deck with lots of Draw 7's and tutors, and potentially getting it to flip for the miracle cost all the time, but it didn't end up being necessary or even all that good. I will say that it is not in the deck because of it's miracle cost, though there are some times when you can cast it for two and you feel like you just did something naughty, but don't go overboard trying to set it up; it's still perfectly serviceable at five mana. It's in the deck because you can't just scoop to graveyard hate, and it does a reasonable job of getting you back into the game or winning. Not as good as Ad Nauseam would do, but in spite of all of the discussion below, this is NOT AN AD NAUSEAM DECK. I tried a lot of other things here, and something like Time Spiral or Time Reversal may be better in some situations, but I like the fact that Reforge the Soul fuels Past in Flames and Treasure Cruise, and that it can occasionally be cast for two, so it's my current choice. I would not play Diminishing Returns simply because I only have 1 win condition and I'd hate to scoop it up roughly 20% of the time that I cast that card. If the deck had Burning Wish, Diminishing Returns would rock.
1 Past in Flames - The best storm engine in Legacy, provided that you are playing with instants and sorceries. Two rituals and a tutor will still get you there almost every time, and the beauty of playing a tutor-based combo deck is that you can mostly ignore otherwise dead cards in the deck since drawing them isn't necessarily deadly. This is the source of the heavy graveyard commitment, but it is a guaranteed on-the-spot kill so I like it. Actual besties with Gifts Ungiven.
1 Tendrils of Agony - It kills them. Of all of the decks in Legacy that count to 10, this one fizzles the absolute least, so there's no need to hedge with Empty the Warrens. I'd probably play 1 even if I were playing with Burning Wish because it's always more convenient to just draw it mid-combo or to be able to fetch it with all of your tutors rather than just some of them.
Potential Sideboard Cards:
Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth/Wipe Away/Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild/Repeal - bounce and combo go together like peas and carrots, and with a large amount of sideboard space there's a lot of room for these types of cards. Given the deck's natural heavier dependence on the graveyard, having a means to fight graveyard hate is imperative in the post-board games where you are most likely to see those cards.
Pithing Needle - A good anti-anti-graveyard card, hits things like Deathrite Shaman, Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Could also be used as a control card against Sneak and Show.
Lightning Bolt - a firm, consistent and permanent answer to hatebears at one mana.
Dread of Night - kills Thalia and Mother of Runes, turning on your bounce spells for other hatebears.
Massacre - kills every hatebear for free but is turned off by Gaddock Teeg.
Duress/Cabal Therapy - if you feel the need for additional discard
Ingot Chewer - a very strong anti-artifact card for if you need to kill, rather than bounce, an artifact. Gets around Chalice on 1.
Leyline of the Void - given the controlling nature of this deck, Leyline could easily be the correct call in the face of other faster decks like Dredge and Reanimator. Incredibly castable off of Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual.
Dark Confidant - while Ad Nauseam is not great, The Great One could still be a strong choice in a grindy matchup.
Merchant Scroll - a strong choice as a 1-of, can be brought in for a longer match or in concert with bounce spells to provide additional redundancy.
Tropical Island - opens up sideboard space for cards like Abrupt Decay and Carpet of Flowers
Why play this deck?
Honestly? Because you want to cast Gifts Ungiven. That card is insane. On the speed continuum, it probably goes something like:
Oops! All Spells -> Belcher -> Reanimator -> TES -> Elves -> THIS DECK -> ANT -> Sneak and Show -> Omnitell -> High Tide
With probably some wiggle room in there between decks, but this deck is faster than High Tide while being better at converting since it uses tutors and I-Win spells rather than a long cantrip chain, and is roughly as fast as some of the premier combo decks in the format. It also has a lot of discard which will propel you through a lot of hate, and is still faster than the aggro decks of the format, though those don't really exist anymore. The mana base is strong and resilient in the face of Wasteland. It can be more difficult to pin down with hate cards by playing a non-linear gameplan with cards like Gifts Ungiven and Reforge the Soul.
Why not play this deck?
It has a very heavy reliance upon the graveyard, and it doesn't make up for it in speed like something like Reanimator. It has slightly less consistent draws than something like ANT or Spiral Tide due to having fewer cantrips. You prefer Belcher.
One advantage to playing with more engine cards like Gifts Ungiven and Reforge the Soul is that drawing a dead card hurts a little less than otherwise, so sideboarding should be done robustly but within reason. I wouldn't bring in nine cards, but you could probably get away with four or five much more than any other combo deck could. The sideboard cards above are merely a suggestion based upon what other similar-speed combo decks would bring in, while also taking into account our extra need to defend against the graveyard hate present in the format.
I encourage you to test this guy for a few dozen games before you start making changes. It's not perfect but there's a lot of thought here. I'm not sure if it's the right time to be leaning heavily on the graveyard (given how excited everyone is about Treasure Cruise), but the format feels like it's in a good place speed-wise for this deck. It's also entirely possible that we will experience a slight depression in the power (if not the amount) of graveyard hate, as a lot of the decks that would want to be playing a card like Rest in Peace, for example, will also want to be playing Treasure Cruise and so will have to play something less intense like Surgical Extraction or Tormod's Crypt.
This deck has proven it's ability to handle a large, strong gauntlet and so has proven to me to be a legitimate deck. What it needs now is more eyes and more people willing to try it. It performs about as well as any other combo deck against the field, with some strength over slower matchups (like Miracles) and more grinding ones (like Jund).
Last edited by benthetenor; 10-13-2014 at 05:06 PM. Reason: Updated decklist, added sideboard discussion
The deck just loses to graveyard-hate. Running Moxen + Cabal Ritual + Treasure Crusie is a conceptional Desaster. There is also no reason to not run Gitaxian Probe. Manabase is unable to support hardcast Reforge other than Burning Petals. There were plenty of questionable decisions made imo. I cannot see this having ANY advantage over ANT
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Originally Posted by Echelon
I agree with Lemnear on everything. I wouldn't run Chrome Mox in a list w/o Ad Nauseam, I'd rather play Rite of Flame. You are basically adding
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Treasure Cruise
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Reforge the Soul
and removing the Ad Nauseam possibility while still adding 3 Chrome Mox and making the deck less consistent. I don't plan on ever trying this but, I would consider playing Rain of Filth to fill the graveyard.
Also why is this in Established Decks instead of New and Developing?
Unless I'm missing something, I think it's literally impossible for the list to win without using either Past in Flames or ridiculous tutor chaining. Which is not a great place to be.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
Well that was fast.
The list is in Established Decks because the requirement is that it has been thoroughly tested, not that it has done anything of note. It has been thoroughly tested.
This deck leans heavily on Past in Flames. I say as much. In return you get a more stable Past in Flames and you never fail to draw a tutor. In the face of graveyard hate, it has the option of going Infernal Tutor -> Reforge the Soul which is eminently castable off of Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal, Volcanic Island, etc. If you don't think you can win that way, you've never played Storm in Vintage. I win that way a significant amount of time.
This isn't me just throwing a list up here without any thought or testing. It's been heavily tested and it runs basically the same as ANT with a slightly stronger late game. Ad Nauseam is not good in ANT. It's played because it has to be, but it's not good. If you think otherwise, I'm not sure how much you've really played that deck.
If you think it's garbage, test it. That's all I ask. Or, you know, dismiss it off hand. It really doesn't matter to me, I just wanted to show people what I've been working on.
Also Lemnear, I think you mean "conceptual," unless you think that the deck is having sex with someone.
I disagree with the "strong lategame" because you are harvesting your own graveyard with TC and make lines of flashbacking cantrips via PIF to access more mana or IT impossible. The comparison between Reforge and Vintage draw7s like Wheel of Fortune is lacking as Wheel, Twister and Windfall cost only 3 and can be naturally played during your turn 1 after dropping your VaCrySoLoMoxen for actual cardadvantage. This is not possible in Legacy and outright weaker than Ad Nauseam for the same amount of mana especially under the likely assumption that you refill your opponents hand with counters. If neither of the two problems mentioned above occured in your "thoroughtly testing" I would like to know your testing setup. Ad Nauseam is still in ANT because it offers a playline Which doesn't require your graveyard as a resource. I don't see an advantage in removing a plan B.
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Yeah i don't see the advantage to dropping a 5 mana draw 15 spell for a 5 mana wheel
Prefacing that I have very little experience with legacy storm. However, I have a lot of experience with Vintage storm. Hurkyl's recall is often used as a storm enabler in vintage kills. Now I realize that legacy does not have moxen to enable easy Hurkyl's kills, but would this be a possibility with the number of 0 costed artifacts being played?
I don't think Echoing Truth is the preferred bounce spell in this style of deck. Sure, Chalice of the Void absolutely trashes Storm, and this build just as much. However, Chalice as a strategy in Legacy is so much less played compared to Vintage. Thus, it can be ignored and chalked up to a bad matchup and fixed with good sideboarding.
Thus, Chain of Vapor provides both Storm as well as permanent clean-up that hinders storming (possibly even together!). There is no other card in Legacy that has this functionality, and makes it worthwhile.
I am hesitant that such a Storm list isn't including Gitaxian Probe as it's free storm and immense synergy once Past in Flames is resolved.
In fact, I'm not sure how this list is better in concept than Grinding Station Linked here.
The list here is proposing worse draw engines than exist in currently Established Storm variations.
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The draw of Draw-7s in Vintage combo is not so you can go turn 1 drop your hand and play a Draw-7, it's threat density. Playing that many threats gives you the ability to run the opponent out of counterspells with your spells with the intent that if one does resolve you're in a great position. So you go turn 1 Windfall (countered), turn 2 Demonic Tutor (countered), turn 3 Wheel of Fortune which resolves and you crush him. Believe me, no one has played more Vintage combo than I have. If you manage to make the play that you mention stick then you're crushing him anyway, but that's not the purpose of the cards; it's to increase threat density.
The issue I have always had with Legacy combo decks is a distinct lack of threat density. You try to make up for it by playing 4-7 discard or protection spells, but when your ONLY line of play is to resolve a tutor with mana floating it is a very easy line to beat with the proper tools. Having Ad Nauseam in the deck only intensifies this difficulty as it naturally restricts you to playing Ad Nauseum, Past in Flames, and some tutors. I'm trying to ameliorate that.
In ANT it was 5 tutors and an Ad Nauseum. I've added two must-counter spells to that list in Reforge the Soul and Gifts Ungiven. It's not a lot because Legacy's card pool is not great for combo, but it's a step. I would also appreciate you not speculating on lines of play unless you've played with the deck. I understand that you've played a lot of combo; a lot of the issues that you have with my deck have not happened, in my experience. I have no major issue, for instance, casting treasure cruise on turn 3, removing fetchlands and artifacts (and cantrips as a last resort), and winning from that point with threshold and with Past in Flames. After a long, grindy game I'd much rather cast Ancestral Recall from my hand than Ponder off of Past in Flames. As for refilling the opponent's hands with counters after a draw-7, I also refill my own hand with discard.
To clarify, I am not saying that this deck is superior to ANT. It is a different take that has slightly different strengths and weaknesses. I understand why you like Ad Nauseam as you play TES. It is not a card that I've ever heard an ANT player say that they like, myself included, so I'm trying to build the deck differently.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying, particularly about Chain of Vapor; assuming that Ad Nauseam is off the table for the deck, what would you cut from the proposed decklist to make room for 4 Gitaxian Probe?
it's probably better if you are to go all in on a past in flames strategy that you dump cards into your grave without casting them first via spells like glimpse the unthinkable / heron crab / other stuff i haven't thought about but am sure is out there.
In doing so you even have access to pinpoint spells like entomb.
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If I ran a deck that used Past in Flames so heavily I'd run 2, I've seen ANT list cut the Ad Nauseam and run a 2nd Past in Flames.
1 Person testing does not mean it is tested fully, metagame decks have been tested my many players all discussing, the numbers you posted are several orders of magnitude away from number of games from real decks that have had many successful tournament placings and tournament reports. A hivemind of testers will always have more match results to have better understandings of the match up.
You can't say the RUG Delver match up is 50-50 from 30 games.
Agree completely, and I am not trying to make that claim. I am imploring other people to test this thing out, which is apparently something that is frowned upon. The numbers were simply there to show people that I'm not just talking out of my ass.
The second Past in Flames is not a bad idea at all, as going off with it in hand is great as well. So far I haven't had any trouble finding it (or tutors for that matter) in 300+ games, but it's something to keep in mind.
Kinda interresting as RUG is a pretty good matchup for traditional ANT due to Basics and the 8 "Black Lotus". Testing in a gauntlet is fine if your testing partner is a decent Legacy pilot. Do you have a SB for that list as the results against Miracles (SB RIP) and WUR (SB RIP & Meddling Mage) are quite surprising.
In general, I have Troubles to see this list fueling the graveyard without Probes and only 5 Fetchlands, but running TC. Maybe I'm not the only one left behind confused about design decisions like this especially as the OP doesn't waste a word on why some storm-Standards got dismissed
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 10-13-2014 at 03:31 PM.
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I wouldn't dream of drawing any conclusions about how good or bad any specific matchups are based on 20 or 30 test games. I have a number of test partners and they are each quite good at a variety of Legacy decks, so there's no issue there. There's no set sideboard yet as I have yet to actually take the deck to a tournament, but I find myself having 3-5 cards for each deck, usually Pithing Needles and bounce spells. Between Repeal, Echoing Truth, Chain of Vapor and Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild (even Abrupt Decay if that is something you want to splash for) you should have no trouble finding a good mix for the sideboard within 6-7 bounce spells to take care of everything and sideboard heavily with, which is half of the sideboard but a there are no Burning Wishes or the like there's a lot of room in the sideboard. As I said earlier, Meddling Mage or any very specific hate like that is less of an issue for this deck than it would be a traditional Ad Nauseam deck given that I can both find more answers with Grim Tutor, Merchant Scroll and Gifts Ungiven and also play around Meddling Mage on a particular card since there's a lot of non-linearity in the deck with Reforge the Soul and Gifts Ungiven.
It really is not difficult to fill the graveyard quickly, putting two and three cards in a turn is really not difficult between fetchlands and cantrips, and that seems to be the same rate as a pretty standard Legacy deck. It's also only two cards; it's not like I'm playing four and constantly taking cards out of the graveyard. I posted about the reasons why the cards that are in the deck made the deck. If you have a card you would like to ask about, ask. I can't possibly imagine every card you'd want to put in, but rest assured I tried every card I could think of. I didn't just take an ANT deck and swap out some cards; I started with a Burning Tendrils deck from Vintage circa 2003 and it morphed into the deck above over lots and lots of trial and error.
I'm not trying to say anything bad about the deck, I've even given some of my ideas, I just think it should be in Developing for a while, at least while we are still first discussing the deck.
I tried the deck for four matches on MTGO (2 man ques) just to see what it was like.
(I usually play ANT)
While playing the deck, I immediately got a feeling that this list could be superior to ANT in the non-Delver matchups.
However, I think this deck is weaker against UR / RUG Delver than ANT. If those claims are true, then this immediately means that TPS could be a serious consideration over ANT, depending on the meta's composition. Obviously, today's meta happens to be incredibly Delver-full, but there are MANY reasons to consider playing this deck.
This deck, and at minimum the 1 Gifts, 2 Treasure Cruise shell, should definitely be taken seriously. It has serious advantages not offered by ANT.
Unfortunately, I have problems with the manabase, and in particular, the cantrip package + Chrome Mox.
I can attest to the claim that "you always have a tutor." Gifts Ungiven really changes the tutor count of this deck, as you go up to 7 tutors (1 Merchant Scroll, 1 Grim Tutor, 1 Gifts Ungiven, 4 Infernal Tutor). This dramatically changes how the deck plays against Aggro, because you're basically guaranteed to goldfish them by turn 3. ANT can occasionally fall to such a low life total that it may only win with a PiF loop, which is difficult to do unless you draw an Infernal Tutor AND at least two rituals. This deck can kill without rituals, meaning when you're goldfishing, you can substitute LED for CR/DR in a way not permitted by ANT.
Gifts Ungiven is incredible in this deck.
1) It enables busted Infernal Tutor "win from nowhere" plays, similar to Infernal Tutor
2) If you have 0 tutors in your hand, Gifts Ungiven is a all-in-one PiF loop.
3) It enables you to run 6 Infernal Tutors and bump into the "two infernal tutor" problem less often.
4) It reduces the life total burden from Thoughtseize
5) It doesn't get worse as your Life Total drops.
6) Merchant scroll goes from being a joke to a qausi Infernal Tutor, giving you 7 tutors, which is an insanely high TNT/TES-like number.
There are a lot of theoretical reasons why this deck could be better than ANT.
What May Be Good
Being able to run Thoughtseize improves matchups that rely on turn 2 hatebears, which right now is burn. Thoughtseize against Burn is actually very good, because Eidolon is game-endingly broken.
All that being said, this deck could happily swap the Thoughtseizes with Therapies and not change much. You can't do that with ANT.
The Treasure Cruises could be insane, and obviously improve the Miracles matchup. Yes, Ad Nauseum is one of our ways of winning (and even beating a CB lock), but it's possible that Gifts is close enough in power level that being able to add 2x Ancestral Recalls (which aren't countered by CB) makes the trade worth it.
Cruise may be a new way for slow (non-TES) storm to fight Miracles, which is by far the hardest matchup among the major decks.
Losing Ad Nauseum for Gifts doesn't change your clock against decks like Elves, and in fact allows you to win after taking a ton of damage (e.g., against Burn). We board out Ad Nauseum so often that many top ANT players start Ad Nauseum in the board.
So yes, there are theoretical reasons to experiment with this list, or at minimum the 1 Gifts +2 Treasure Cruise shell, over ANT.
What May Be Bad
I suspect that decklist's manabase + cantrip package is unstable, and would be improved with adding lands.
The 3x Chrome Mox makes mulligans much worse than ANT, and more likely.
Things I Haven't Verified Yet
-If I'm wrong about Chrome Mox
-If Reforge the Soul helps
Questions
1) Do we need Reforge the Soul game 1?
Your explanation about having a way to win when your graveyard is attacked makes sense, but I could see moving it to the board game 1.
This card is dead in a lot of situations.
2) Do we need the Chrome Moxen, and especially at such a high number?
While playing the deck, I encountered this scenario a few times:
2 LEDs, 1 Infernal Tutor, 2 mana. (nothing in graveyard)
From here, normal ANT goes for an Ad Nauseum kill with B floating, hoping to draw CR + LP/DR along with LED + IT
However, this deck actually can't win, unless I'm missing something.
However, if you have 1 more mana, you can go for a sick Gifts Ungiven PiF loop.
Chrome Mox appears like it could help in this scenario, but I don't know if it helps more than a fetchland would, and fetchlands have the bonus of making your Brainstorms / mulligans significantly better.
3) Can we just run maindeck Pithing Needle?
I'm already experimenting with boarding them against Miracles anyway. This deck is particularly hit by Relic / Crypt / DRS, so 2x Needle in the board seems like an obvious inclusion.
However, hitting DRS is so nice, that it almost makes me want to just maindeck ~2 of them.
Because DRS is one of Elves few ways of conceivably winning against you, I can imagine not minding Needle game 1 against elves.
Needle is decent against Deathrite-Delver, Miracles, non-Miracles Control decks.
It's bad against UR Delver and Burn game 1, but good against Burn game 2.
Something to think about.
4) Should the Merchant Scroll AND the Grim Tutor be in the maindeck?
You're basically at 6 Tutors + Gifts. I don't know what the correct number is, but if it's 5, one of the {Grim Tutor , Merchant Scroll} set should be cut.
I can definitely see moving one to the board, and this prospect is really exciting.
The idea of being able to +1 Merchant Scroll against non-Delver sounds really powerful.
5) Is Helm-Line actually good in the board?
1x Helm actually sounds pretty exciting. I think it's HelmLine or have the ability to play a Grinding Station strategy and just natural storm them out.
6) The Gifts / Treasure Cruise shell has such a small footprint, can we just use them in ANT?
Given how suspicious I am of Chrome Mox / Reforge, this is my gut reaction. However, it's possible that I'm just wrong about Chrome Mox / Reforge.
Thanks for posting this deck benthetenor, it's fascinating.
Lastly, I should note something which isn't irrelevant: this deck is loads of fun to play. Casting Gifts is one of the most fun things you can do in Magic and leads to some interesting puzzles.
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I'll test the deck. I killed myself twice with Ad nauseam last time I played ANT, and it looks like a really fun deck.
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