Belcher is just easier to play and more popular, while SI doesn't have much of a following because the dead cards and the drawing blind aspects turn a lot of people off to it.Originally Posted by Yesmilord
But can't they see the advantages of using Tendrils as a kill? The ability to recover and be able to force that option at any time against counter-based decks is pretty freakin awesome. When playing my Belcher against blue-based decks, if I don't have the hand to play around FoW, I just curl up into a ball and die. Sure I could try and rebuild (which I often do), but they'll usually be stocked up by then anyways. There have been very few games where I've made a comeback without maindeck blasts (in fact of the 100s of games I've played against blue-based, I can count the number of times I've come back after an all-in into a force...on one hand).
It was just always so weird that the deck never picked up in popularity (same with TES. I'm not going to say it's that much more popular cause freaking half of the t8s are by Cook anyways lol).
There are many pitfalls to SI. Unlike other combo decks, you don't have obvious setup/protection/kill cards (at least not in the fasted versions), so you have many opportunities to throw winnable games away using your cards incorrectly.
Land, Go? Probe for a Force with a Chrome Mox if you don't actually want to imprint anything? Go for something bigger, like a Draw4? Go all in, sacrificing a LED in response?
With SI you usually don't have the luxury of knowing in advance if your hand is lethal. Since it's also quite vulnerable (you can play around countermagic, but a lot of permanent-based hate is deadly and you can't fight it effectively) you need to weigh chances your opponent will do something horrible against your increased chance of fizzling if you try now.
I suppose many people prefer the ability to brush off losses with a 'bah, didn't draw what I needed' rather than 'oops... made the wrong judgment call'. Losing with SI tends to be bad for one's ego :)
Most of the people who use Belcher don't use it because they want to play a game of Magic, they use it because they want to circumvent the skill gap and just flip a coin vs control or take advantage of a non-control environment.
Belcher doesn't requiring thinking, and that's what a lot of this format's "combo" players like. The people using SI, TES and FT aren't as opportunistic and play Storm combo as their default choice, at which point you actually start playing Magic again and need a deck to leverage your skill advantage.
It makes sense that Belcher is more popular tho', because it's really the deck for people who don't know what they're doing.
I giggled with glee.
taking the discussion off of belcher for a moment...
take a look a this if you guys havent already seen it:
Ad Nauseum 3BB
Sorcery
Reveal the top card of your library. Put that card in your hand and you lose life equal to its mana cost. Repeat this process any number of times.
R
I think that this could be a great draw spell for SI if you put it in the right build. heres an idea:
4 infernal contract
4 cruel bargain
4 infernal tutor
3 ad nauseum
1 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrils of agony
3 burning wish
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 cabal ritual
4 lion's eye diamond
4 chrome mox
4 lotus petal
4 summoner's pact
4 simian spirit guide
3 bloodstained mire
3 bad lands
2 kobolds
SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Shattering Spree
1 Ill gotten gains
1 cabal therapy
1 pyroclasm
3 phyrexian negator
4 tomb of urami
2 lightning bolt
you have 24 cards with 0 CC, 8 cards with 1 CC, 11 cards with 2 CC, 12 cards with 3 CC, and 5 cards with 4 or more CC. i think that if you draw 9 cards, 3 of them are likely to have 0 CC, of the other 6, 3 are likely to have 1, 2, or 3 CC, so being pessimistic lets say you lose 8 (3CC,3CC,2CC) life. now lets say the other 3 cards are a tendrils and an ad nauseum. you lost 18 life. for 9 cards. i'd say it was a deal if you happened to draw an rituals. its just like an underpowered, underpriced, yawgmoth's bargain. i'd say that would definetly be a win if there was like 1 ritual in there somewhere. the thing is that you should be able to win, or at least dig deeper off of an ad nauseum. it allows you to either get, rituals + burning wish, rituals + LED + burning wish/infernal tutor, or rituals + tendrils. im sure that with more mana from simian spirit guides/summoner's pacts that the buring wish is more than easy to cast and you will have enough mana to play out whatever you draw with an ad nauseum. i would say that we treat it more like a good draw4 spell than anything else. sure it can be forced but so can infernal contract or cruel bargain. the only disadvantage is if you draw into it after a draw4 cause you cant really use it as effectively with only 10 life. the advantage however, is that you can stop before you kill yourself with it. also, burning wish allows for less CC in the deck, and if you run ad nauseum you will most likely not want to run into multiple ToA/ad nauseum/IGG etc..
maybe this would be better in the current Pact build?
Cruel Bargain doesn't have the best synergy with Ad Nauseum. You're playing Black Jack to ten instead of to 20, and you have a higher mana curve potentially.
At this point my decklist works fairly better. I thoguht it is the most logical way to run AdN in a SI shell, i did a copy/pste from the AD thread:
I think SI shouldn't rely on Ad Nauseam. A Draw4 with 2 mana left over is often good for a win too, a lesser setback when Forced and Draw4s can also act as setup card in this deck.
Cutting mana while extending the mana curve upwards seems a poor idea. Do we still need IGG with this around? Infernal Tutor, crack LED, Ad Nauseam should work just fine and it will win many games on its own where IGG alone would be a weak play.
On the other hand, an IGG loop is the safer to choice to finish the game if we already resolved a Draw4. Anyone who played 2 Ill-Gotten Gains might want to replace one of them with Ad Nauseam.
Although this thing is powerful, how many win conditions can we cut? Ad Nauseam is actually made stronger by double Tendrils, and we'd still need at least one alternative to avoid something stupid like losing to a True Believer.
***
I think it has no future in a build that strives for speed as it's far clunkier than anything it could replace. If a deck uses it well, I assume it will have more in common with TES than SI.
That's strange, because the card seems best suited for builds that concentrate on speed.
4 Ad Nauseum
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
8 Kobolds
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
7 Lands
That's balls to the walls with ETW offering some protection against counters. I don't think you worry about Ad Nauseam when you're setting up with Draw 4s, you just treat the Draw 4s as counter bait or count Ad Nauseum as dead when you draw it.
I do agree it feels clunky tho', I don't know if the SI shell makes Ad Nauseum insane or Ad Nauseum makes the SI shell defunct *scratches head*
That shell for AdN would be really bad just counting the CC
3x 5cc
8x 3cc
5x 4cc
8x 2cc
The rest are okay but honestly you're going to take way more damage then necessary with AdN. I'd say it's necessary to cut down most of the draw 4s and definetally not run ETW with AdN.
UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
At which point running AdN in SI is pointless because it's no longer a supplimental threat and is now a main threat requiring 8 creatures with no ability to bait counters on Rituals or trade 2 for 2 on Force of Will.
I'm not even certain I'd take it over IGG.
The average CmC of his entire deck (including lands) is 1.46, which is still pretty low.
I don't think there is much of an issue w/ the curve, although, I do not like how many ETW are in the list, you should be running more tendrils in their stead.
You can do either or, ETW is just a more pragmatic card for your actual matches instead of your goldfishes.
I have a problem with the antisynergy.
Draw4 into Ad Nauseam: with an average CMC of around 1.5 that's on average of 4 cards before you risk killing yourself with the next one. Oh, and you need 2 more mana to continue the chain. Weak.
Ad Nauseam into a Draw4: redundant and unnecessarily painful - you already have the ability to exchange life for cards. You want mana or tutors for a clean kill.
Ad Nauseam is more likely to win in a deck focusing on mana and tutors rather than other bulk draw, and such decks can also use it more reliably. That would no longer be SI though.
You're right, drawing into Ad Nauseam with Draw 4s is bad, but drawing into Draw 4s with ad Nauseam isn't that awful because when Ad Nauseam bring you into the 4 life range it becomes more efficient to stop drawing with Ad Nauseam and cast 2 Draw 4s than risk death.
I don't know if drawing into 4 more dead cards is worth it, but there doesn't seem to be a problem with just resolving Ad Nauseam.
Yeah, I think Ad Nauseum is just a super-fucking-amazing draw4 that can't fizzle. I have been really pissed at SI lately because it seems like every time I cast a draw4 I draw 3 tall men and a Chrome Mox. With Ad Nauseum you don't even need draw4s. Now, as far as the mana base goes why not run Tomb of Urami in the main? You don't need more than 7-10 lands and the only color you actually need is black. As far as kill sources go, I think a 1x Grapeshot 1x Tendrils split should work perfect (I played against fucking True Believer last night with Iggy:(. IGG also isn't needed with Ad Nauseum. And this deck will certainly run Kobolds instead of tall men since imprinting on Chrome Mox is really important. Should Infernal Tutor get cut for Diabolic Intent? Maybe a split of them? 4x of each? Also, since this is SI, our build should rely on pure speed and probably not include any MD copies of Empty the Warrens.
Infernal Tutor, Lion's Eye Diamond and Ad Nauseam all belong together, but Empty the Warrens is one of the best cards in this deck because it takes advantage of the storm and mana from Kobolds, increases threat density and forces them to counter rituals.
I have this proxied ATM,
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
8 Kobolds
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
7 Badlands
but the mulligans hurt really, really bad.
how about this list, to utilize speed better with AdN:
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Goblin Belcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Land Grant
1 Kobold
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bayou
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Masssacre
4 Tomb of Urami
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Naturalize
This version is much like pact SI. the strat is to play AdN and draw into either a belcher or a burning wish and infernal loop. if you draw belcher, use all the mana sources floating around to play it and win. you will draw more land grants to search for bayou, and you will most likely find either another land grant to search for the dyrad arbor (which rids the rest of your deck of land). i think that if you resolve AdN you will probably hit with belcher for 1 land, and sometimes 2 land. if you dont draw AdN in your opening hand then you can also have belcher in your opening hand. if that doesnt work, you might get an opening hand with and infernal loop, or you might get a hand with burning wish, into ETW.
i think that a good idea might be to take out 1 AdN, put it in the board, so you can wish for it with burning wish, and add on one more infernal tutor.
another thing to consider would be death wish, if you can draw death wish then you can fetch out a belcher, which might be better than running 3 belcher MD, and instead just have a shit ton of mana and ways to fetch out a belcher.
diabolic intent could also work well, but if you add it with summoners pact, i think that there should be 2 kobolds MD at least, just incase you need one for a culling and one for an intent or something.
Well, I just proxied up and played this list:
4x Ad Nauseum
4x LED
4x Petal
4x Dark Ritual
4x Diabiloc Intent
4x Pact of Negation
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chrome Mox
8x Kobolds
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Grapeshot
4x Tomb of Urami
4x Gemstone Mine
This deck was insane and just shitty at the same time. You would either cast Ad Nauseum and draw literally 3/4 of the deck if you wanted, mull into oblivion, or struggle getting enought mana to work properly. It should be noted that this deck will literally not fizzle if you resolve Ad Nauseum with 11+ life!!! This deck mulligans like pure shit and so I decided to try some Mystical Tutor action!!!
Ad Nauseum take 2:
4x Ad Nauseum
4x LED
4x Petal
4x Dark Ritual
3x Diabiloc Intent
3x Mystical Tutor
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chrome Mox
8x Kobolds
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Grapeshot
3x Tomb of Urami
4x Gemstone Mine
3x Forbidden Orchard
Hated this even more but it was 10000000 times better. It consistently went off on turn 2. I was testing it against Zoo (one of my new favorite decks and very tier 1) and out of 6 games it won 4, all of them before turn 3. The only games it lost were where it mulled into oblivion. Now I am going to compare this to Belcher; the only reason I am about to do so is Belcher is the only deck which can keep up with SI in terms of speed. Belcher DOES NOT AND WILL NOT mull into oblivion 2/6 games. In my experience with Belcher (pretty extensive) I have mulled into oblivion maybe 3 times total out of more than 5, 4-5 round tournaments which cut to top 8. This seems to take the deck into reverse.
Now, on the bright side, I came up with a new build of SITES I am going to test out :) And Ad Nauseum is not as broken as everyone seems to think it is; I would prefer to have Mind's Desire ANY DAY over this card. But there is potential. I don't think adding cantrips and shit is the way to go though. There has to be a better way.
@ Breath Weapon: I proxied up your build as well, it mulligans awful man, it almost seems like the deck needs Serum Powder or something, but the times it does go off, it goes nuts and I have been able to make goblin tokens and Tendrils just for the hell of it!! But truthfully I just kept thinking to my self, why run this over SITES or 2 land SI? But I thought the same thing about my 2 builds as well.
Can anyone think of anything to make either of my lists better? I am open to cantrips but I still feel they slow the deck down.
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