[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[mort-]

Regarding Bob and some other stuff, there are a few points.

1. Against CB-Top, you land him, he wins you the game. Yes, he is that strong.
2. You play Bob. He snares. You lose a card that you don't really need (lets be honest, your cards are stronger than his), he lost one that hardcounters your tutors. Seems like a good deal. If he doesn't, see point 1. Bob wins.
3. Mirror. As far as I've tested (against Duress, not Chant), it's an all-out discard war in the first few turns. Usually, the person with the better Brainstorm or more discard (and better topdeck skills) wins. So a constant stream of cards and also maybe 2 or 3 stormcount less is enough to warrant his inclusion after boarding.
4. Playing a 4c manabase isn't bad at all.
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Swamp
1x Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Volcanic Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
With this setup, you are basicly playing 2 basic islands (1 + 1 Tropical). If they waste your tropical, well.. good for you, they didn't waste a land that actually matters. If they don't, it's a basic island. The matchups in which the Trop matters are the ones who don't play Wastelands. You also have access to two red sources (Burning Wish + Meltdown/Past in Flames/Grapeshot). And you can fetch three basics to have a stable basis.
5. Burning Wish. I don't see decks winning against Surgical Extraction / Extirpate / Earwig Squad without it. Well timed and they can wreck your deck very easily.
6. Regarding Past in Flames. It's a bit sad. I had hoped for the players to recognize the new Will, but it seems that they don't. More input regarding this would've been nice, but I guess being one of the few bringing the monster to Amsterdam will have it's good sides.

I hope this post doesn't sound too arrogant / too full of myself but it needed to get out :/

[KevinTrudeau]

I can vouch for that 4c fetchland manabase's viability (cutting one Swamp for a total of fourteen lands). Also, I can't say I've come to the same conclusion on PiF, but I'd love to be enlightened.

[Piceli89]

@death: I don't like my cards being anti-synergistic among them, even if in small numbers or unlikely patterns. Pact of Negation plus LED is bad, and I don't see the necessity of Pact when

-Misstep is gone, hence the double-counters hand are way less frequent. They need Force+Snare to stop a Duress before an Infernal Tutor.
-They have printed a GODLY card for Tendrils Storm named Gitaxian Probe which acts like a free protection spell and has become an auto-include, in my opinion, because it gives you precious information about what your opponent is playing and how much time you're given to set up the combo, life remaining, a hatebear coming, etc. Which maximizes, consquently, your Duresses and the right time to cast them.


If you really want to speed up the deck, you can just take the standard UB list and cut a basic and a fetchland for the 2 Cities of Traitors, and add a second Ad Nauseam. Of course this implies adding Moxes too, thus making the deck less consistent. It's a normal tradeover. Still, I'd run Thoughtseizes, or even Therapies given Probe, before Pact of Negation, because the percentage of having Ad Nauseam in hand remains low, and that's the only scenario where Pact would shine.

Also, the second Tendrils is not needed. I get perfectly the "chain from hand" route, but adding another cmc4 can seriously harm the deck. If you stay on 2 Nauseams and a single Tendrils, you obtain a curve that's pretty identical to the normal lists (IGG costs 4, AdN 5). You can use that slot to fill another cantrip and thus maximize the chances of drawing the Ad Nauseam or the Tutor.
If I were to play an aggressive version, I'd go like this:

7-8 fetchlands
2-3 USea
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Cities

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain

4 Dark ritual
4 Cabal ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
2 Chrome Mox

4 Infernal
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy/TSeize

Pretty squared, pretty straightforward. You could even go down to 14 lands, but I'm skeleptical because opening hands with City-only is an auto-mull.
2 Moxes because I frankly hate the card and that's the maximum quantity playable. More just make the deck that less consistent. You don't want this to become TES.

[flrn]

@death: I don't like my cards being anti-synergistic among them, even if in small numbers or unlikely patterns.

Based on that sentence introducing your post, I'm wondering why the hell would you add four Gitaxian Probe to an all-out Ad Nauseam list?

[[reptiLe]]

Based on that sentence introducing your post, I'm wondering why the hell would you add four Gitaxian Probe to an all-out Ad Nauseam list?


because it gives you precious information about what your opponent is playing and how much time you're given to set up the combo, life remaining, a hatebear coming, etc.

For a second I almost thought the thread was backwards.

[Piceli89]

Based on that sentence introducing your post, I'm wondering why the hell would you add four Gitaxian Probe to an all-out Ad Nauseam list?

Because Gitaxian Probe speeds up the deck because it acts like a free protection spell, allowing you to use the mana to cantrip. 2 lives is still an acceptable loss, even in Ad Nauseam scenario, considering he's playing 2-3 Moxes while the majority of the modern builds have cut it completely. Furthermore, if you're playing against control or a slow deck, you can just cast it with mana.

What I was refering to with the opening sentence is the incapability to use Pact of Negation properly when you have a hand that wins via Infernal tutor+LED, and not Ad Nauseam. Pact of Negation used to shine when combined in the Chant builds because Chant is way more dangerous than a Duress and people used to counter it everytime. A good blue player would never counter a Duress if he holds double counter. Leaving you with a dead Pact of Negation in hand.
Again, its best use is when combined with a Ad Nauseam in hand. That doesn't seem so likely, or better, you'll have to spend 2-3 turns cantripping the majority of the time into it, making Ad Nauseam considerably worse (aggro-control, tempo decks) or letting them having all the time to find countermeasures. Just to play a Pact? I think it's better to exploit the sinergy between Probe, Duress, and Therapy, that is as cheap and functions pretty efficiently.

[Waikiki]

I still wonder why probe acts like a free protection spell. I hear alot of people say that but I dont see what it protects. It just gives valuable intel.

[metalhead]

Its more like half a protection spell. It doesn't actually protect. But it givea verry valuable information as to when its safe to go off, how to bait your threats and so on. I won no less than 3 games at indie because of this.

[death]

@Piceli89
Thank you for your comments, your arguments are valid. But at this time I won't let go of Pact of Negation yet, for the reason being it's a free protection spell. The difference between my list and traditional UB is that it packs extra "9" free spells (3 Pact of Negations/3 Chrome Moxen/3 Gitaxian Probes) which in my opinion boosts up speed. With City of Traitors the deck can put away games rather quickly. However I would like to make changes to the manabase and eliminate all basics except for 1 Island because unlike Reanimator which can live with 1 Island 1 Swamp, this deck needs both colors. Off-color basics paired with City of Traitors is a huge speed bump and can completely shut off casting of spells.

2 City of Traitors
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
8 blue fetchlands

Aside from being a "pseudo" protection spell, Gitaxian Probe has potential, with LED + Ad Nauseam though. When short on mana LED can give 3 free mana (like Black Lotus), if you can set up an Ad Nauseam on top of your library with Ponder/Brainstorm. Play LED, cast Gitaxian Probe (with Ad Nauseam on top), crack LED in resp. draw and cast Ad Naus with LED/City of Traitors mana. Same trick as with Infernal Tutors, seems equally fast as when you drew all your rituals.

[Fossil4182]

In testing, I found Gitaxian Probe to be underwhelming. The ability to have it replace itself and act as a three mana draw spell is somewhat useful. I found this is mitigated when using it with Ad Nauseam because even if you flip a Gitaxian Probe, it is still going to count as a -3 life instead of -1. The reason is that if you have access to blue mana, any other cantrip is preferable. Even if, there are situations where I would want to pay life to cast Gitaxian Probe, I found that other spells are much better in terms of helping the deck win (see below).

The main argument I am seeing for its inclusion is the fact it provides one with necessary information in order to win. It acts as a "pseudo" protection spell. If that is the main benefit, why not increase the maindeck discard spell count to 7-8? It provides the same information and is an actual protection spell. Granted, it is not free and does not draw a card, but I believe the discard spells helps the linear nature of the deck in a more effective way than Gitaxian Probe. Even if Gitaxian Probe can set up tricks with Ad Nauseam, that doesn't matter if your opponent is holding a counterspell. The discard seems to be
the most relevant inclusion since decks with countermagic or the mirror are the decks we have a decent probability of losing too and discard improves those match-ups.

[death]

@Fossil4182
On Gitaxian Probe, I believe it has potential value to be abused in this archetype if used at the perfect time. The card is competing with Preordains/Thoughtseizes in most lists. I agree that any other cantrip is preferable to Gitaxian Probe, that is, when you are in the process of sculpting a hand and have a blue source. The same can be said about Preordains though. There will likely be scenarios where a cantrip (or discard) will be less preferable and just end up being a dead card that is discarded or used as Chrome Mox fodder.

The fact is the card gives intel (when used as pseudo-protection) and speed (extra draw=Time Walk) and can be used to set up LED/AdN tricks. I cannot completely throw away those facts as irrelevant when going against another fast combo, or against hymn/trini/hate bear decks.

My approach with the list was to pick up speed that is at par with Belcher or better than TES. Depending on the approach, 8 discard spells can have value too particularly in fighting disruption, the mirror, or penetrating through a counter wall. But discard spells can end up being dead cards themselves on occasions where you are already in a good position to win. I think Gitaxian Probe fills up 2 roles in this deck and that no other card can do.

[death]

Souped-up Tendrils

2 Ad Nauseam

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor

3 Duress
3 Pact of Negation

2 Tendrils of Agony

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

2 City of Traitors
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn

This is the list I'm playing at the moment. Not missing IGG at all. It certainly feels faster than traditional UB with less fizzling of Ad Nauseams at 0 mana due to the 3 Moxen. I noticed I was actually going less for the Infernal > LED route because I was drawing into Ad Nauseam more often and that makes me feel comfortable with keeping the Pacts. The Pacts were great against Chants/Silences too, which came up during testing. Feel free to comment.

[mort-]

I can vouch for that 4c fetchland manabase's viability (cutting one Swamp for a total of fourteen lands). Also, I can't say I've come to the same conclusion on PiF, but I'd love to be enlightened.


Ok, where to start. I'll try to get the points as good as possible together. Everything is explained with the following list in mind:

Flaming ANT

4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Swamp
1x Island
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Badlands

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Brainstorm
1x Ad Nauseam

3x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Burning Wish
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
4x Dark Confidant

2x Krosan Grip
1x Rebuild
1x Chain of Vapor

1x Reverent Silence
1x Meltdown
1x Eye of Nowhere
1x Deathmark
1x Past in Flames
1x Grapeshot
1x Tendrils of Agony


First, Counterspell isn't played that much (well, in Landstill), which leaves a normal countersuite of Force of Will and Daze, most of the time accompanied by Spell Snare and Stifle.
The two greatest advantages of PiF are immunity to Spell Snare, (I'll leave out Daze because you should be able to get 6+ mana easily) and the possibility to be flashbacked. That leads to a pretty simple conclusion: If your opponent wants to counter PiF for good, he has to invest four cards and two life. For only one of your cards. That's pretty damn good.
Second, your Burning Wish become must counters. If your opponent doesn't counter BW, point one is in action. Pre PiF, letting a BW through was not that big of a problem. The possibilities to win were (in a non-combo turn) small, leaving you with a card that was even known by the opponent, so he could react accordingly (i.e. -> it's a Tendrils, I'll better not counter anything, he wants to storm me out with my help). With PiF.. yes, he knows what it is, but he can't do a thing against it, so he has to counter the Wish.
Third, it's an absolute gamechanger. Let's say we are at the worst possible moment. You tried to go off two times already and your opponent had the counter everytime. Now you are at one, he has a Goyf and two cards, known as Stifle and Spell Snare. Due to the late gamestate you have a lot of lands in play. In your last possible turn, you draw PiF. Now two things happen.
1. You start grinning so hard that your opponent wants to punch you.
2. You win the game. (Not the game, hi btw ;))
I know that this is a pretty extreme example of a game, but it does happen. You go off the first time with half your hand, your opponent counters with his only counter, then topdecks the next one for your planned win next turn.
PiF from the top basicly reads like this: So, I invest four mana. You better have a Force. Even if you do, you better have another one. No? Ok, then I'll replay every spell in my graveyard. That includes Duress (you can ignore Stifle up to the point where PiF resolves, same with Spell Snare), several rituals and/or cantrips for even more goodies.
What I'm trying to say is: We get a card that ignores every counterspell except Force of Will (and Counterspell obv) and even our life total, with the greatest downside being that our opponents board graveyardhate. Which is, frankly said, just bad.
And in exchange? We don't lose anything except for four damage if we want to win via Ad Nauseam.
Almost forgot, discard? Yeah, that's effective now.

So, in conclusion, this deck now has three routes to victory, each having it's up- and downsides.

1. Via Tutorchain:
Up: Ignores life total, gets better if your opponents life is lower than 20, can calculate some counters for storm.
Down: Easily countered via Snare, most of the time you have to sacrifice your hand to get hellbent, requires at least five cards in your hand, the more life your opponent has, the worse it gets, can be difficult to set up.

2. Via Ad Nauseam:
Up: Instantspeed, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting.
Down: May fizzle even with 20 life, so it's somewhat random, gets worse with every point of life you lose, cards like Lightning Bolt / Fire//Ice have to be calculated if your opponent is in red.

3. Via Past in Flames:
Up: Gets better the longer the game drags on, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, needs to be countered two times, ignores your life total, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting, can be tutored via Burning Wish, immune to discard, may win games with a desastrous gamestate.
Down: Requires at least two rituals in your hand or graveyard (depending on the number of LEDs/lands maybe less), graveyardhate.

As you see, PiF provides the most upsides with the least downsides.

So, I hope I didn't forget anything. I strongly advice you to test this card, it is as good as it reads (maybe better).
If there are questions, please feel free to ask.

[lordofthepit]

Ok, where to start. I'll try to get the points as good as possible together. Everything is explained with the following list in mind:

Flaming ANT

4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Swamp
1x Island
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Badlands

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Brainstorm
1x Ad Nauseam

3x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Burning Wish
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
4x Dark Confidant

2x Krosan Grip
1x Rebuild
1x Chain of Vapor

1x Reverent Silence
1x Meltdown
1x Eye of Nowhere
1x Deathmark
1x Past in Flames
1x Grapeshot
1x Tendrils of Agony


First, Counterspell isn't played that much (well, in Landstill), which leaves a normal countersuite of Force of Will and Daze, most of the time accompanied by Spell Snare and Stifle.
The two greatest advantages of PiF are immunity to Spell Snare, (I'll leave out Daze because you should be able to get 6+ mana easily) and the possibility to be flashbacked. That leads to a pretty simple conclusion: If your opponent wants to counter PiF for good, he has to invest four cards and two life. For only one of your cards. That's pretty damn good.
Second, your Burning Wish become must counters. If your opponent doesn't counter BW, point one is in action. Pre PiF, letting a BW through was not that big of a problem. The possibilities to win were (in a non-combo turn) small, leaving you with a card that was even known by the opponent, so he could react accordingly (i.e. -> it's a Tendrils, I'll better not counter anything, he wants to storm me out with my help). With PiF.. yes, he knows what it is, but he can't do a thing against it, so he has to counter the Wish.
Third, it's an absolute gamechanger. Let's say we are at the worst possible moment. You tried to go off two times already and your opponent had the counter everytime. Now you are at one, he has a Goyf and two cards, known as Stifle and Spell Snare. Due to the late gamestate you have a lot of lands in play. In your last possible turn, you draw PiF. Now two things happen.
1. You start grinning so hard that your opponent wants to punch you.
2. You win the game. (Not the game, hi btw ;))
I know that this is a pretty extreme example of a game, but it does happen. You go off the first time with half your hand, your opponent counters with his only counter, then topdecks the next one for your planned win next turn.
PiF from the top basicly reads like this: So, I invest four mana. You better have a Force. Even if you do, you better have another one. No? Ok, then I'll replay every spell in my graveyard. That includes Duress (you can ignore Stifle up to the point where PiF resolves, same with Spell Snare), several rituals and/or cantrips for even more goodies.
What I'm trying to say is: We get a card that ignores every counterspell except Force of Will (and Counterspell obv) and even our life total, with the greatest downside being that our opponents board graveyardhate. Which is, frankly said, just bad.
And in exchange? We don't lose anything except for four damage if we want to win via Ad Nauseam.
Almost forgot, discard? Yeah, that's effective now.

So, in conclusion, this deck now has three routes to victory, each having it's up- and downsides.

1. Via Tutorchain:
Up: Ignores life total, gets better if your opponents life is lower than 20, can calculate some counters for storm.
Down: Easily countered via Snare, most of the time you have to sacrifice your hand to get hellbent, requires at least five cards in your hand, the more life your opponent has, the worse it gets, can be difficult to set up.

2. Via Ad Nauseam:
Up: Instantspeed, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting.
Down: May fizzle even with 20 life, so it's somewhat random, gets worse with every point of life you lose, cards like Lightning Bolt / Fire//Ice have to be calculated if your opponent is in red.

3. Via Past in Flames:
Up: Gets better the longer the game drags on, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, needs to be countered two times, ignores your life total, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting, can be tutored via Burning Wish, immune to discard, may win games with a desastrous gamestate.
Down: Requires at least two rituals in your hand or graveyard (depending on the number of LEDs/lands maybe less), graveyardhate.

As you see, PiF provides the most upsides with the least downsides.

So, I hope I didn't forget anything. I strongly advice you to test this card, it is as good as it reads (maybe better).
If there are questions, please feel free to ask.

I think Past in Flames fits perfectly in this deck, and I would pilot a deck similar to what you have proposed.

However, this deck is currently a consistent turn 3-4 combo deck, with the potential to play an attrition game against slower control decks if necessary. The problem is Reanimator seems to be very popular right now (especially in my local area), and Reanimator is very capable of a turn 2-3 Jin Gitaxias or Iona, which makes life very difficult for storm.

Although I prefer ANT to TES, I question whether playing TES (an inherently faster deck) isn't more justifiable as long as Reanimator remains popular.

[lordofthepit]

Ok, where to start. I'll try to get the points as good as possible together. Everything is explained with the following list in mind:

Flaming ANT

4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Swamp
1x Island
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Badlands

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Brainstorm
1x Ad Nauseam

3x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Burning Wish
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
4x Dark Confidant

2x Krosan Grip
1x Rebuild
1x Chain of Vapor

1x Reverent Silence
1x Meltdown
1x Eye of Nowhere
1x Deathmark
1x Past in Flames
1x Grapeshot
1x Tendrils of Agony


First, Counterspell isn't played that much (well, in Landstill), which leaves a normal countersuite of Force of Will and Daze, most of the time accompanied by Spell Snare and Stifle.
The two greatest advantages of PiF are immunity to Spell Snare, (I'll leave out Daze because you should be able to get 6+ mana easily) and the possibility to be flashbacked. That leads to a pretty simple conclusion: If your opponent wants to counter PiF for good, he has to invest four cards and two life. For only one of your cards. That's pretty damn good.
Second, your Burning Wish become must counters. If your opponent doesn't counter BW, point one is in action. Pre PiF, letting a BW through was not that big of a problem. The possibilities to win were (in a non-combo turn) small, leaving you with a card that was even known by the opponent, so he could react accordingly (i.e. -> it's a Tendrils, I'll better not counter anything, he wants to storm me out with my help). With PiF.. yes, he knows what it is, but he can't do a thing against it, so he has to counter the Wish.
Third, it's an absolute gamechanger. Let's say we are at the worst possible moment. You tried to go off two times already and your opponent had the counter everytime. Now you are at one, he has a Goyf and two cards, known as Stifle and Spell Snare. Due to the late gamestate you have a lot of lands in play. In your last possible turn, you draw PiF. Now two things happen.
1. You start grinning so hard that your opponent wants to punch you.
2. You win the game. (Not the game, hi btw ;))
I know that this is a pretty extreme example of a game, but it does happen. You go off the first time with half your hand, your opponent counters with his only counter, then topdecks the next one for your planned win next turn.
PiF from the top basicly reads like this: So, I invest four mana. You better have a Force. Even if you do, you better have another one. No? Ok, then I'll replay every spell in my graveyard. That includes Duress (you can ignore Stifle up to the point where PiF resolves, same with Spell Snare), several rituals and/or cantrips for even more goodies.
What I'm trying to say is: We get a card that ignores every counterspell except Force of Will (and Counterspell obv) and even our life total, with the greatest downside being that our opponents board graveyardhate. Which is, frankly said, just bad.
And in exchange? We don't lose anything except for four damage if we want to win via Ad Nauseam.
Almost forgot, discard? Yeah, that's effective now.

So, in conclusion, this deck now has three routes to victory, each having it's up- and downsides.

1. Via Tutorchain:
Up: Ignores life total, gets better if your opponents life is lower than 20, can calculate some counters for storm.
Down: Easily countered via Snare, most of the time you have to sacrifice your hand to get hellbent, requires at least five cards in your hand, the more life your opponent has, the worse it gets, can be difficult to set up.

2. Via Ad Nauseam:
Up: Instantspeed, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting.
Down: May fizzle even with 20 life, so it's somewhat random, gets worse with every point of life you lose, cards like Lightning Bolt / Fire//Ice have to be calculated if your opponent is in red.

3. Via Past in Flames:
Up: Gets better the longer the game drags on, one card combo, can only be countered by Force of Will (and Counterspell), ignores opponents life total almost every time, needs to be countered two times, ignores your life total, can remove Snare and Stifle after casting, can be tutored via Burning Wish, immune to discard, may win games with a desastrous gamestate.
Down: Requires at least two rituals in your hand or graveyard (depending on the number of LEDs/lands maybe less), graveyardhate.

As you see, PiF provides the most upsides with the least downsides.

So, I hope I didn't forget anything. I strongly advice you to test this card, it is as good as it reads (maybe better).
If there are questions, please feel free to ask.

I think Past in Flames fits perfectly in this deck, and I would pilot a deck similar to what you have proposed.

However, this deck is currently a consistent turn 3-4 combo deck, with the potential to play an attrition game against slower control decks if necessary. The problem is Reanimator seems to be very popular right now (especially in my local area), and Reanimator is very capable of a turn 2-3 Jin Gitaxias or Iona, which makes life very difficult for storm.

Although I prefer ANT to TES, I question whether playing TES (an inherently faster deck) isn't more justifiable as long as Reanimator remains popular.

[mort-]

Against Reanimator, you have to get your discard spells online. If you get 1 or 2 Duress / Thoughtseize in, they will be in a position where they have to find their own keyspells which usually gives you enough time to win.
It was pretty hard with Misstep, but it should work just fine now.

[death]

Reanimator is an unpredictable matchup and you need speed to beat them, at least that's how I won a game against it. In games where I was able to double Duress, opponent had 3 reanimation spells in hand, which isn't uncommon since they pack 11-12. They can Entomb in response to a Duress, cast a first turn Study or draw+discard fatty. All of which you have no way of interacting.

If you manage to nab 1-2 reanimation spells, they can find another copy via Brainstorm/Ponder/Study and proceed to win uninterrupted (Iona/JGCA/lifelink) because all they need is a single reanimation spell. Taking care of their FoWs+Thoughtseizes is an additional burden for us too. ANT needs a bunch of mana and business spells and having multiple discard spells in your hand already means you are playing slower.

EDIT - Past in Flames. Not necessary IMO. It feels to fancy, it compromises the manabase and doesn't really add speed or consistency because it drives the deck in a different direction, gets splash damage from graveyard hate. I already took out IGG and it seems to be working out.

[mort-]

Reanimator packs 10 spells most of the time.
4x Reanimate
4x Exhume
2x Animate Dead

At least in the lists I saw, so if he manages to get three spells in the first three turns - good for him, bad for you, but that's magic.
Also, I think you are underestimating this list and the power of red in general. First, it kills on turn two very often (even with protection). Second, it doesn't lose to Iona or Sphinx, due to Burning Wishes and Eye of Nowhere / Silent Departure. Jin is the hardest target, but killing through seven new cards isn't impossible.

With that being said, I want to compare my list and yours for the points you listed.
Speed: I guess this point goes to you, I don't know exactly how fast your list is, but it seems to be 0,5 turns faster.
Manabase: I don't see how you can say that playing red compromises the manabase, while playing only one basic, two lands that nuke themselves and no basic Swamp in a list that is very hungry for black.
Consistency: Your list has six business spells, with Pact of Negation (which are dead every time you draw an Infernal Tutor) only two and three of your cantrips don't filter. In comparsion, red adds five businessspells (virtual six because PiF needs to be countered twice) that may also be played proactively to draw a counter or to prepare for a comboturn.

So in the end, you have a butchered manabase (which may be ok in a field without Wastelands), only three protection spells (which may be ok if you pass priority, then they counter, then you counter and THEN you sac your LED) and literally no out against: Teeg, Solitary Confinement, Surgical Extraction, Earwig Squad, Chalice of the Void, Landstill in general, Canonist, losing too much life or discard effects. And the list goes on. And everything for that bit of speed?

Imho, playing straight UB might be possible, but only with Grim Tutor and at least one Chain of Vapor main, to not autolose against the random hate your opponent might tutor up G1.

With that being said, I think the direction PiF leads this deck is exactly the one where ANT was and your the one setting the wrong priorities. ANT was never the fastest deck in the format, this title belongs to Belcher or SI without a doubt. ANT was the deck that sculpted it's hand for two turns, then went off with protection. And that is imho the great thing about this deck. It's no onetrickpony that concedes if the opponent has a Force, it's a solid deck that can kill by turn two, but doesn't have to (also: the unstoppable killing machine of doom).

[Pulp_Fiction]

@mort: Agree and disagree. Grim Tutor is just bad. However, if you want to play UB, Lim Dul's Vault is pretty good. Now, I also ran Cunning Wish which was ... mediocre at best, but it gives a 12 cantrip list the proper threat density to thrive. I would 100% run Cunning Wish over Grims any day, it has nothing to do with price, I just think that card will always be terrible; Lax seems to like it but ... to each their own. Before I arrived at this current list I was playing around with CWish and it was decent, sometimes awkwardly slow and clunky, but I liked that if something happened to Tendrils, I don't need IGG 2 win. You can just combo off with AdN and Wish into Brainfreeze. AdN and Brainfreeze were my only dedicated wish targets but it was quite nice having access to all the bounce and creature kill in my deck g1.

PiF should never be anything more than a wish target as it is to situational to rely on (and I am sure someone will be dumb enough to build a deck based around it that folds to grave hate). IGG doesn't care about rituals or artifacts, it just wins if you have the mana. PiF is certainly good, there is no debate here, but it will never be consistently good in the main as IGG is.

Alright, I am not sure WTF this is ... at all. Some kind of TES/ANT Hybrid thingy, but for some reason this is one of the sickest combo lists I have played in a long while:

4x Lotus Petal
3x Brainstorm
4x Rite of Flame
4x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
4x LED
4x Dark Ritual
4x Burning Wish
1x Tendrils
1x Ad Nauseam
3x Infernal Tutor
3x Preordain
3x Chrome Mox
4x Ponder

4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
1x Flooded Strand
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

SB
Wish targets
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils
1x Empty the Warrens
1x IGG

1x Deathmark
1x new blue bounce sorcery for U
1x Shattering Spree
1x Meltdown
2x Wipe Away
1x Slaughter pact
1x Echoing Truth
1x Chain of Vapor
1x open slot (probably Rebuild)

This list has been a complete animal in testing. Apparently running 10 cantrips + IT and BW is super solid :) The lifeloss from Thoughtseize + City is rarely ever relevant. It is a super consistent turn 1-3 list. The reason for 3 Brainstorm is the lack of fetchlands, I would rather have Ponder 100% of the time. Aside from that I don't think there is anything particularly strange about it, just the odd numbers of things. The manabase is a little strange, and it could easily be modded with a single Badlands 8-9 fetches and 2 basics. The reason I like the gold lands is that they don't punish low land hands. Playing 15x in a 3-color deck can be risky, and fetching a Sea turn 1 can backfire based on what you cantrip into. I just like the security of knowing I can cast a cantrip/protection spell/ritual off of a single land and then get there with a Petal or Mox.

[death]

Manabase: I don't see how you can say that playing red compromises the manabase, while playing only one basic, two lands that nuke themselves and no basic Swamp in a list that is very hungry for black.
Consistency: Your list has six business spells, with Pact of Negation (which are dead every time you draw an Infernal Tutor) only two and three of your cantrips don't filter. In comparsion, red adds five businessspells (virtual six because PiF needs to be countered twice) that may also be played proactively to draw a counter or to prepare for a comboturn.

So in the end, you have a butchered manabase (which may be ok in a field without Wastelands), only three protection spells (which may be ok if you pass priority, then they counter, then you counter and THEN you sac your LED) and literally no out against: Teeg, Solitary Confinement, Surgical Extraction, Earwig Squad, Chalice of the Void, Landstill in general, Canonist, losing too much life or discard effects. And the list goes on. And everything for that bit of speed?

The City of Traitors nuke themselves true when played in decks like Stax or MUD. In my testing, everytime I drop a City it's always when I'm going to win. The City enables turn 1 kills. I have not found the need for a basic swamp because there's 3 Moxen on which I dump the 2nd Ad Nauseam/Tendrils, there's also the 4 Petals. Blue is the most important color when you spend your 1st-2nd turns sculpting a hand and an Island makes you sure to have that extra blue during the combo turn. I actually don't worry about Wastelands because if they destroy my nonbasics they're actually slowing themselves down. The deck has a lot of acceleration to win with just an Island +/- Sea (of course with the help of Rituals/C.Mox/Petals). Not having a basic Swamp as a black source isn't a major setback. In fact, this helps you not screw yourself down when you need blue mana for a cantrip.

Pacts are not ALWAYS dead with Infernal Tutors because you don't always have to go for LED>AdN. You can use Infernal Tutors for Rituals. I agree that Pacts are a double-edged sword here and they can be changed, although I am really liking them.

Red doesn't add consistency imo, it adds resiliency to things that you said. Red gives you more outs, but if you Duress then kill them outright there's nothing really to worry about. There are sacrifices to be made I know and I'm willing to take the risk because I think the benefits outweigh them.

[Azdraël]

City of Veins is better.

[death]

City of Veins is better.

Crystal Veins. If your 1st turn attempt gets aborted for whatever reason: Crystal Veins, sac. Chrome Mox, Ritual <countered>.. You are left with 0 lands for your 2nd attempt. Corner case scenario. Like when an opponent drops Arid Mesa and suddenly breaks it for a fucking Volc. Island and Dazes you.

On the brighter side, it helps you achieve Threshold faster, which has value when playing against soft counters because of the additional :b::b: from Cabal Ritual.

[honestabe]

@mort: Agree and disagree. Grim Tutor is just bad. However, if you want to play UB, Lim Dul's Vault is pretty good. Now, I also ran Cunning Wish which was ... mediocre at best, but it gives a 12 cantrip list the proper threat density to thrive. I would 100% run Cunning Wish over Grims any day, it has nothing to do with price, I just think that card will always be terrible; Lax seems to like it but ... to each their own. Before I arrived at this current list I was playing around with CWish and it was decent, sometimes awkwardly slow and clunky, but I liked that if something happened to Tendrils, I don't need IGG 2 win. You can just combo off with AdN and Wish into Brainfreeze. AdN and Brainfreeze were my only dedicated wish targets but it was quite nice having access to all the bounce and creature kill in my deck g1.

PiF should never be anything more than a wish target as it is to situational to rely on (and I am sure someone will be dumb enough to build a deck based around it that folds to grave hate). IGG doesn't care about rituals or artifacts, it just wins if you have the mana. PiF is certainly good, there is no debate here, but it will never be consistently good in the main as IGG is.

Alright, I am not sure WTF this is ... at all. Some kind of TES/ANT Hybrid thingy, but for some reason this is one of the sickest combo lists I have played in a long while:

4x Lotus Petal
3x Brainstorm
4x Rite of Flame
4x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
4x LED
4x Dark Ritual
4x Burning Wish
1x Tendrils
1x Ad Nauseam
3x Infernal Tutor
3x Preordain
3x Chrome Mox
4x Ponder

4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
1x Flooded Strand
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

SB
Wish targets
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils
1x Empty the Warrens
1x IGG

1x Deathmark
1x new blue bounce sorcery for U
1x Shattering Spree
1x Meltdown
2x Wipe Away
1x Slaughter pact
1x Echoing Truth
1x Chain of Vapor
1x open slot (probably Rebuild)

This list has been a complete animal in testing. Apparently running 10 cantrips + IT and BW is super solid :) The lifeloss from Thoughtseize + City is rarely ever relevant. It is a super consistent turn 1-3 list. The reason for 3 Brainstorm is the lack of fetchlands, I would rather have Ponder 100% of the time. Aside from that I don't think there is anything particularly strange about it, just the odd numbers of things. The manabase is a little strange, and it could easily be modded with a single Badlands 8-9 fetches and 2 basics. The reason I like the gold lands is that they don't punish low land hands. Playing 15x in a 3-color deck can be risky, and fetching a Sea turn 1 can backfire based on what you cantrip into. I just like the security of knowing I can cast a cantrip/protection spell/ritual off of a single land and then get there with a Petal or Mox.

In all seriousness, how can I take you seriously when you're only running 3 Brainstorms?

[AriLax]

In all seriousness, how can I take you seriously when you're only running 3 Brainstorms?

For what it's worth, aside from the miserable mana base instead of a fetch-basic one and the 3 Brainstorms, that style of list is really good.

Also, Wipe Away is unplayable bad.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I'm not even going to try and defend the 3x BS, but its working, especially with that manabase. I also went -1 Thoughtsieze +1 Chant and instead of the U sorcery bounce spell I can play Oust which is simply better. I just feel more comfortable with the gold lands, it can easily be modded for different playstyles. Point is with such a low landcount I don't want to have to mull hands because I have a basic swamp/island as my only source. Is this what makes more sense to people .. I can already see the unnecessary mulligans:

4x Delta
4x Tarn
2x Flooded Strand
2x Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Island

Back to the BS thing, when playing 4 fetches ... not sure the exact odds, I would say ...1 out of 5-7 times stalls me. And I am stuck for 2 turns drawing blanks. Ponder and Preordain just keep digging. If you think this is a problem, then just -1 Preordain +1 BS. Really not hard, but the stalling thing really bugged me. Again, I can't defend not running 4x BS cause it clearly isn't wrong; this is my reasoning. With the manabase as it is, when I was playing TES a little while ago the same thing was happening. You brick on three cards ... then stall for 2 turns. And in a deck based around life totals my goal is to clear all the shit away and get going as fast as possible. When you brick on Preordain ... it doesn't matter, but randomly stalling out because of a bad BS was pissing me off.

Wipe Away is something I will always run for CB and Reanimator. Reanimator plagues my meta and I haven't played any combo SB without it in a good year or 2. They have to be there. I'm slowly starting to like it more than Krosan Grip since it gets a Teeg with MoR in play also. I personally am a big fan of it ... but u probably have a totally different meta than I do.

[metalhead]

I could possibly see someone that can't use brainstorm to its full potential running less than 4, but in that case ide up the preordains to 4

[Fossil4182]

I could possibly see someone that can't use brainstorm to its full potential running less than 4, but in that case ide up the preordains to 4

Why wouldn't one design a deck like this to take advantage of Brainstorm? practical joke and lorddotm have posted several TNT mana bases that would be able to support the red in your deck. Assuming your only fetches are Polluted Delta, Bloodstained Mire, and Scalding Tarn, fetching up Badlands or Volcanic Island shouldn't be an issue. Additionally, when you factor in Lotus Petal (and to a lesser extent Chrome Mox and Lion's Eye Diamond) I would venture to say that around 1/4 of your deck is capable of producing red mana.

While Brainstorm may produce situations when you have two cards that you have to dig past, Ponder presents the same problem since if you dig three and find one you like, you're stuck with the other two. The shuffle option is alright for solving this, however, odds are you find one card and usually want to shuffle away two worseless ones. One can almost look at the aforementioned situations as giving your opponent two free turns (which is terrible for a deck that doesn't like to interact). One of the reasons this archetype is so good is because we can maximize the value out of Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain. Playing cards that support the maximization of those cards and also contribute to a more stable and reliable mana seems like the way to design.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Fair enough, I wasn't suggesting everyone do it ... just posting a new list I am having a lot of success with online. I think at this point everyone hates ... almost every manabase I build for any storm deck. Fuck, I think I am the only person who still runs Emrakul main in DDFT, because it works in my meta and I love the miser City of Brass in there as well.

I just stalled out a few games and went -1 BS +1 Preordain. If u think thats awful, try the list with 4 BS, either way, it has been rock solid so far. While I am on the subject of bad perception, I started toying around with DReturns in the board as well. Playing 15x lands I thought would ruin that card ... I went 2/3 .... the only time it failed was when I cast it with R floating, every other time it got there. This could just be luck, further testing with 15 lands will tell. The more I play this the more I am starting to like the options available 2 it. I guess this is TNT? We should really have a thread for that cause I am sure no one playing ANT cares about BW targets.
EDIT: We don't need and more BS discussion ... I know. Just trying something newand seeing how it goes.

[dillonkbase]

Top 16 of SCG open TN, only combo in the top 16 was aluren and belcher... Any idea how long we have to wait to see what was piloted? How many reanimators and AnT decks?

Do you think to many people were testing suboptimal Pif builds and so stumbled with the new playlines?

[JJ_JKidd]

Ari I think did not play. Depends on where youre at I think. A lot of those Snapcasters, however. Caleb's list was just like some sort of Belcher in a sense that it has absolutely NO maindeck protection.

[dillonkbase]

I'm not sure how my location or Ari's play status effects my question...but let me rephrase.

How many otherwise AnT players were playing a new brew this weekend trying out PiF? Do you think that played a role on the ability of the deck to T8? Or do you think enough players reacted in their sideboarding to squeeze out both Storm and Reanimator.

[Ricca84]

Hi guys

Road to Amsterdam: I think to propose this deck to GP


4 infernal tutor
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
2 chrome mox
3 sensei's divining top
4 LED
4 lotus petal
4 brainstorm
4 preordain
2 lim dul's vault
1 ponder
1 ad nauseam
1 past in flames
1 tendril
4 duress
3 thoughtseize
4 polluded delta
2 flooded strand
2 bloodstainered mire
2 undeground sea
1 island
2 volcanic island
1 swamp


SIDEBOARD
3 empty the warrens
3 dark confidant
3 chain of vapor
2 extirpate
1 echoing thruth
1 slaughter pact
1 rebuild
1 hurkyll's recall


After MM banning, I think gitaxian probe is no good as before. I expect more combo, more tempo, less control and some aggro. I think LDV is a great bullet, giving more stability as SDT does.
PiF is insane. It is an asimmetrical IGG (except for artifact) that give us the possibility to win in late game also if opponent has 1 more counter than your protection.

in SB i dedicate some slot to resolve big issue ( Gaddok, Canonist, discard_effect, random chalices and trinispheres). Extirpate is great against Reanimator and combo in general, giving us a bullet also vs control/tempo.
ETWs from hand on turn 1/2 is the plane vs ctop.deck/tempo. After MM ( so after stoneblade/batterskull age) it seams to be a more powerful plan.

Thoughts?

[practical joke]

your sideboard is a mess.

rebuild and hurky's aren't that good at all.
extirpate is really a waste of sideboard lots for a combolist.
stoneblade decks will be seen at GP amsterdam, so boarding in ETW is extremely risky.

LDV's may sound good, but they fail in it;s purpose. It's slow, costs life and it's very conditional.
you are far better off with just personal tutor or grim tutor.

I wouldn't want to play preordain over ponder...ponder digs deeper than preordain which is actually really important.

[Ricca84]

Thanks for your tips,
-I agree with you with Hurkyls and Rebuild: they are not good at all, but seams to be great vs Dragon stompy and MUD, that are very very very bad matchups.
-extirpate probably are useless (means win more), try to remove from my Side.
-Stoneblade might be at GP, but I think it has very bad matchups in this meta, so probably after turn 3 there is few of them at 9 points.

Grim tutor and personal tutor are so ugly, I don't consider them ( Grim has a life-point drawback so hard from Ad nauseam point of view, and personal tutor can fetch few cards and only at sorcery speed.)

the alternative is to cut LDV and SDT and insert 2 ponder and 3 gitaxian probe --> more faster, but good enougth? Means, really need to be faster? Or is more powerful try to gain stability?

@ponder over preO: PreO digs equal to ponder but in blind mode :) Clearly ponder digs qualitatively better, but if you catch Bomb garbage garbage and no shuffle effect you give 2 time walk to your opponet. PreO from this point of view is preferable, and IMHO clean the topdeck is a more powerful faeture.


What do you think about Gitaxian probe?

[death]

I don't see why you would consider Preordain better than Ponder when Ponder lets you see 4 new cards and it shuffles away the garbage on top of your library. Ponder does a better job in finding the nuts better than Preordain does.

You have to choose between 2 LDV/2-3 SDT and 4 Probes as they are competing for the same slot. I agree that LDV/SDT is more stable than Gitaxian Probes albeit much slower and don't give information on what the opponent has against you. It's a trade off and it all boils down to playstyle I guess. But when you have the nut draw, LDV/SDT becomes more useless than Probes.

My question is why would you prefer Past in Flames over Ill-Gotten Gains when PiF is inconsistent with the deck if you draw artifacts and less rituals. Pulp_Fiction hit the nail on the head when he said PiF should never be anything more than a wish target, ergo Burning Wishes (which you don't have).

[dillonkbase]

It seems like 2 volcanic Island is unnecessary(why not just one?) and I think I would want an IGG in my 75 somewhere, reusing LEDs is pretty broken.

[Ricca84]

Ponder virtually show you 4 cards; infact when you shuffle you can draw a garbage you previously shuffle.
Anyway if there are no drawbacks il clever that ponder would be better than preO, but in a deck that play drawers insistently, clean topdeck is good. Let me explain with an example:

suppose you start on the play with: BS Ponder fetchlands and island and another 3 cards (ritual duress ecc). Assume you don't play against discard effect ( example is quite different in that case)
Now you can choise to island go --> eot BS topdeck one of garbage you put on the deck fetch and ponder on turn 2.
Or you can island ponder (bomb garbage garbage ), pick up bomb and on turn 2 you draw garbage, fetch and play brainstorm ( or play brainstorm and after fetch garbage).

-----------> You never optimize <------------

suppose you have the same hand with preO in place of ponder: BS preO fetchlands and island and another 3 cards (ritual duress ecc).

you can optimize doing:
t1: island PreO
t2: fetch --> brainstorm

in this case i have the possibility to see 6 card surely different.

Logically after turn 3 all change, but the deck intent is to kill on turn 3/4, so i think in the precombo phase you need to otpimize all.

IGG is powerful, but it is obsolete if you opponent play counters. In particolar if you play with discard effect you discard 2-3 counters and with IGG you can't kill your opponent.
Pif is powerfull also against blue.deck because is asimmetrical and also have flashback!

2 volcanic is because post side, when you side in ETW you want fast red mana. probably the best is to have 1 volcanic md and 1 volcanic SB.

[practical joke]

eot BS topdeck





I stopped reading after that

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

It's taking every fiber in my body not to troll this guy.

EDIT: Also in before anyone suggests Burning Wish in this thread and moving "x-posts" to the TES thread.

[death]

Logically after turn 3 all change, but the deck intent is to kill on turn 3/4, so i think in the precombo phase you need to otpimize all.

You need to optimize your deck to kill on turn 1 or 2 or else go play Aluren.

[GexxX]

Hey Guys.

I'll attend a Tournament this weekend and I just wanted to double-check my thoughts.
The Meta will be crowded with Combo, Tempo and Maverick. Some Controlish builds here and there.
My thought was that packing Chants over Discard seems good in the Combo matchup (practical did that a while ago), but you have a weaker mana base and less to handle hatebears maverick will slam in your face. So I kind of abandoned that plan.

I am not completely sure if Probes are good in the Tempo-matchup(which worries me most) so I'll rely on your help here. Usually I'd play double Ad Nauseam, but I feel Probes create some speed which which is relevant vs. Maverick preboard and in the Combo-matchup as well.

My Standart list looks like this:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scalding Tarn

4 LED
4 DRit
4 CRit
4 Petal

4 Infernal
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

Sideboard:

4 Confidant
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Thoughtseize
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm


I feel running 8 Creatures in the board is kinda bad, but Xantid helps with counter-heavy decks. Since there is not to much Landstill additional ToA are not really needed... But maybe you guys can help me tune a little.
It's the first Tournament after MM bannings so my asumption of the meta is kinda vague.

Thanks for the help =)

[AriLax]

You need to optimize your deck to kill on turn 1 or 2 or else go play Aluren.

What context are you talking in? I'm fairly sure this isn't true.

[mort-]

What context are you talking in? I'm fairly sure this isn't true.

I'm 100% sure this isn't true. Like I said, if you want to kill turn 1 or 2, go play Belcher or SI ;)

[mort-]

doublepost

[practical joke]

@ gexx : to many basics...
You can easily cut that 2nd swamp for more fetch. there's not even a single situation where the second black mana is needed that cannot be from a dual fetched that turn.


Also that ammount of bounce in your sideboard could also be reduced.

vs tempo decks, that deck is a mess to fight, after sideboarding you rely on approx 10 protection spells. Maindboard you just have to try and sneak it through.

@ Death: what the heck are you talking about. The most ANT lists goldfish somewhere between turn 2-3. turn 1 kill are possible, but rarely happen.

[practical joke]

@ gexx : to many basics...
You can easily cut that 2nd swamp for more fetch. there's not even a single situation where the second black mana is needed that cannot be from a dual fetched that turn.


Also that ammount of bounce in your sideboard could also be reduced.

vs tempo decks, that deck is a mess to fight, after sideboarding you rely on approx 10 protection spells. Maindboard you just have to try and sneak it through.

@ Death: what the heck are you talking about. The most ANT lists goldfish somewhere between turn 2-3. turn 1 kill are possible, but rarely happen.

[death]

What context are you talking in? I'm fairly sure this isn't true.


I'm 100% sure this isn't true. Like I said, if you want to kill turn 1 or 2, go play Belcher or SI ;)

Pre-MT ban this might have been true because MT slowed ANT down by missing draw/land drops, but in return MT gave resiliency/answers to hate. Without MT, U/B builds without Grim Tutor don't have resiliency to fight hate outside of AdN > Chain/E.Truth/Hurkyl's. Tuning ANT to be a t1/t2 deck isn't horrible bad and I think that's where we want to be because it solves all problems (fast combo/discard/hate bears/..). Green Sun's Zenith and NPH happened. Gitaxian Probe, Jin-Gitaxias, Phyrexian mana.. more free spells that potentially harm ANT. This forced me to give up IGG because it has become more a liability now without Chants and I'm not agreeable to a :w:-splash because it entails fetching nonblack (Tundra) or nonblue (Scrubland) just to make it work. IGG required mana, but with mana being available you can just tutor > ritual > tutor > tutor for a lethal tendrils.

ANT is a dog to Reanimator, JGCA make it look they didn't lose consistency at all without Mystical. ANT with Probes are faster than ANT without it. So how else does someone beat fast combo like TES/PiF/etc, when he has resigned himself to the idea that ANT is a slower t3/4 deck. Play disruption? They can have those too btw. Ad Nauseam requires life total. Zoo/Burn can bring you down to 10 in 2 turns. So why not take ANT to the next level. Why surrender that ANT is slower than Belcher when technically Belcher needs 7 mana while ANT needs just 4 for Tendrils.

I don't believe the focus of ANT should stray away from t1 Duress, t2 win.

2 Ad Nauseam

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor

4 Duress
2 Pact of Negation/Thoughtseize

2 Tendrils of Agony

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

2 City of Traitors
2 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn

[dillonkbase]

The problem with that list is that if it doesn't work out the way you planned it ... it might never work out. You cant really just sit their and sculpt the perfect hand because you don't play an mana base that is survivable in this format.


Further more I don't understand how you say scrubland or tundra(don't tap for the colored mana you need) are bad when your playing city of traitors. If you think chant speeds you up then your playing the wrong city.

[death]

Or I can just kill them before they Wasteland me. Regarding my mana base, City is busted. I have no issues fetching a basic Island then going off with City + Petal/C.Mox + Rituals.. thanks to the 3 Moxen my Ad Nauseams have fizzled 0.01% because I have 5-6 0cc mana sources post AdN (excluding LEDs).

I don't want Chants. I prefer Duress because Chant is slow, it forces you to come up with :w: during your combo turn. City of Traitors is just fast, I don't understand why my explanation aren't enough.

[NQN]

"Or I can just kill them before they Wasteland me"

That would be first turn. Your approach is just making the deck faster and therefor less consistent.
If you are willing to do that, nobody will keep you from doing it. But you have only 6 real threats and you ALWAYS need one of them t1-2 or else you´ll be screwed? just sounds awful to me. I prefer to adapt my game to what my Opponent is playing and if I get a "lucky" turn1 kill, I´m ok with it, too.
For example vs Canadian you need some turns to fight through their Force/Daze/Snare and usually, one Duress won´t be enough to do that.

[AriLax]

Tried a 2 Ad Naus 15 land list today. Made me want to vomit. W/o Wish to go to 7-8 tutors (even if Wish doesn't hit the actual wins) you just brick.

[dillonkbase]

Has anyone tried playing reanimate in the SB?

[death]

Tried a 2 Ad Naus 15 land list today. Made me want to vomit. W/o Wish to go to 7-8 tutors (even if Wish doesn't hit the actual wins) you just brick.

The only disadvantage of playing a faster build. I have only -1 business than you but I couldn't argue with your experience.
The advantage of a faster build is you don't lose momentum if you mulligan. You can brick on tutors without accelerants the same way you can draw blanks, it's all variance to me.

Regarding Reanimate, it's too random. You Reanimate Jin, they can Reanimate Iona or Sphinx and eat him alive.

[AriLax]

The only disadvantage of playing a faster build. I have only -1 business than you but I couldn't argue with your experience.
The advantage of a faster build is you don't lose momentum if you mulligan. You can brick on tutors without accelerants the same way you can draw blanks, it's all variance to me.

Regarding Reanimate, it's too random. You Reanimate Jin, they can Reanimate Iona or Sphinx and eat him alive.

Part of the issue is that Ad Naus is not castable off LED most of the time, makes things fairly awkward.

[death]

It comes up once in a while, but eventually becomes OK after I imprint 1 Ad Naus on Mox then go IT, crack LED for the other Ad Naus. Also with Brainstorm/Probe, I can BS to put AdN on top, cast LED, Probe, crack LED. The deck is fluid but I agree it might be running thin on threats. I might think of adding a singleton Grim Tutor or just practice shuffling/mulliganing into nut draws. When David Mayer piloted ANT to a win at Atlanta, I overheard him saying he was mulliganing all day, and that was a deck with 10 business spells (4MT+4IT+2AdN) lol.

[vilik]

Hi there fellow storm players.

I am consideing going to GP Amsterdam. Thing is, I haven't really played competetive magic pretty much since the printing of Mental Misstep. Now that the beast is dead, my goal is to put together ANT list with new meta in mind.

My starting point is straight UB list with Grim Tutors that got popularized by Ari Lax. I really enjoyed stability and consistency it provided.

My initial assumption is that Snapcaster Mage is going to be big. Subsequently, SCM + Spell Snare > SCM, so I assume blue tempo is going to be big. Therefore Wasteland resistant manabase seems good.

Options:
1) stay UB
2) splash G
3) splash W

I do not consider 4c or rainbow good idea.

ad 1) only discard as protection < SM
ad 2) while I like both Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers, they both want / need to be cast early, exposing me to geeting wasted
ad 3) Silence / Orim's Chant seems like the way to go

Issue 2: Grim Tutor. While I liked this card in straight UB, I think given the W splash, I want to replace it with Cunning Wish - maily due to color reasons (I don't like BB + splashing W). Truth is, I have never played this card outside of brief Spiral Tide era.

proposed maindeck:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

16x land, 2x W source, 9x fetch (all able to get W), 3x basic, 9/7 fetch/non-fetch ratio. BTW I really liked playing 17x land 0x Chrome Mox in the old list, but since I'm putting Chrome Moxes back, I'm also cutting a land. See below.

4 Duress
3 Silence

IMO 7 protection spells pre-board is the right number. Not 100% sure about the split.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Chrome Mox

I really don't like the dis-synergy between Cabal Ritual and Chrome Mox. I really want not to play Chrome Moxes at all. But I see no way around these numbers.

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain

One more Preordain would be optimal, but I don't know what to cut, if anything.

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Cunning Wish

The biggest change, besides splashing W. I kind of like the Cunning Wish on paper. If anyone has experience with playing this in ANT list, please let me know how it plays.

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboarding plans are really draft ATM than anything else.

What I want:
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Brain Freeze
1 Angel's Grace
1 Silence / Orim's Chant
1 Pact of Negation
1+ Wipe Away
1+ Echoing Truth
1+ Rebuild

Additional considerations:
- Defense Grid: seems good against tempo, although is susceptible to Spell Snare itself. No idea if playing it alongside Silence / Chant is good idea.

- Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek: could be useful against permanent based hate, although with C-Wish probably not needed.

- Dark Confidant: never liked this guy in combo (tested him multiple times), although I'm fully aware that there definitely are players who play him and like him. Truth is, he actually might be good against heavy discard in this particular list, at the very least to replace Silence.

- Chain of Vapor / Hurkyl's Recall: One Chain might be OK, otherwise seems like my bounce needs should be covered.

My concerns so far:

1) Is there a way to build stable UBw manabase with Cunning Wish in mind without playing Chrome Moxes?

2) Defense Grid in SB?

3) Dark Confidant in SB?

4) Anything useful for sideboard that I have overlooked (BTW I do not think DD>Shelldock>Emrakul is needed)?

5) Sideboarding procedure while playing Cunning Wish. Basicly, is the correct way to approach this to side out C-Wish and side in what you would normally wish for or leave C-Wish in MD, one copy of desired SB card in SB, side in the rest and side out something else?

Any intelligent criticism / thoughts / suggestions are welcome

- Vilik

TL;DR

ANT for GP Amsterdam meta should play Cunning Wish and splash white for Silence / Chant.

[Sloshthedark]

As I can recall the pre-misstep era 2 storm guys I meet at tournaments often had played +/- 1,2 cards exactly the same list after banning of Mystical Tutor and played it until printing of misstep, so I guess it works well

[vilik]

As I can recall the pre-misstep era 2 storm guys I meet at tournaments often had played +/- 1,2 cards exactly the same list after banning of Mystical Tutor and played it until printing of misstep, so I guess it works well

I guess that might be because I'm one of them :) Or at least I belong(ed) to the same meta.

On topic:

I'm still contemplating going -2x Chrome Mox, +1x U-fetch, +1x Preordain to the above list.

Yeah, I probably should get my my arse to the local store and get some games in to test this thing...

[death]

I'd be interested with the results, t4 Ad Nauseam against Zoo/Burn/Goblins worries me. You may sidestep a Snare by going C-Wish > AdN but Snare can still smack you unless you draw Duress or Tendrils. By t4, Snapcaster Mage is already online so I'm not convinced if C-Wish is a big improvement against it. Also, naturally drawing 3 lands and avoiding Wastelands/Stifle can be difficult. How about Lim-Dul's Vault, if it gets Snared just dig for IT or AdN as usual, at the least it baits a counter and you can set up drawing your Duresses/Tutor/Rituals with it.

After 100 goldfishes with my list on the previous page, here are the resuts:
t2 - 70% (+/- Duress/Pact protection)
t1/t3 - 30%

[Sloshthedark]

I guess that might be because I'm one of them :) Or at least I belong(ed) to the same meta.


Haha, RTFLocation =)

[GexxX]

Hey everyone.
Yesterday I went to a ~40 people tournament playing ANT.

List:

3 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony


Sideboard:
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
3 Dark Confidant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize


Round1 - B/g Smallpox:

lost the die roll

Game 1 - I win pretty easy with AN. I board in Bobs, because I thought he boards out his Smallpox. They don't do much against me.
Game 2 - My Bob gets blown up by smallpox + double Hymn and I can't recover. Well... Bobs go out again. xD
Game 3 - AN turn two with no Land drop that Turn. I reveal(relevant things only): LED, LED, IGG, DRit, AN, Tendrils, IT, IT and some lands in between. No Petal though -.- . I realise I need one more mana to IGG and Tendrils him and have 3 life left. Revealing Thoughseize and Cabal. -.-

0:1

Round 2 - R/g Goblins:

I win the dice.

Game 1 - After he fetches Taiga first turn and playing Lackey I know I have a little time to set up IGG. I do so and win on turn 3 or so.
Game 2 - He mulligans once. So do I. He starts slow and without hate. I play Duress on turn 2 looking for Mindbreak Trap and see nothing relevant and kill him with AN on turn 3.

1:1

Round 3 - WGB Recurringmightmareandrampstuff.dec

He wins the dieroll

Game 1 - He plays Plains on Turn 1 and Forest on Turn two. I just kill him after that. I could have gone for it Turn 1, but without mana Floating and I was not sure he's nonblue.
Game 2 - I fail to bounce his teeg for about 7 Turns with multiple Ponders and Preordains holding the Combo in hand. -.-
Game 3 - I Thoughtseize him turn 1 seeing Extirpate, Mindbreak and Thoughtseize but no Black mana source so I take the Mindbreak Trap. He Plays no black mana on his turn. I IGG him with enough mana to recast Thoughseize after it for Mindbreak trap and still Tendrils him for 22.

2:1

Round 4 - Affinity With Stoneforge and Batterskull

Game 1 - I draw the win on turn two and that's what I do. =)
Game 2 - He's got lethal on Board at some point and I lack one Ritual or an LED to go off. HE attacks with Ornithopter, SFM+Cranial and Master of Etherium. He has Mox Opal, Inkmoth Nexus an Ancient Den and Springleaf Drum. I bounce His SFM even though I realize he can produce BB to attach his plating to the Ornithopter. I doubt I would have drawn anything that won me the game, but okay. I still suck. ;)
Game 3 - I draw the IGG on turn 2 and he does not draw Ethersworn so I win.

3:1

At this point I am happy to not have a negative Record and not facing a single blue Deck all day.

Round 5 - GW

He wins the dieroll
I remember that guy as he sat next to me round 1. He told me he only has Mindbreak and 3 Surgical Extraction in his Sideboard for this matchup and I remeber that. =)
Game 1 - I win with IGG turn 3 after Thoughtseizing turn 2 taking his GSZ (which wanted to get a Teeg) .
Game 2 I ponder turn one. He EOT extracts it taking the one in my hand with it. :(
I need some time to get all the Combo parts and he uses the time to blow up my Island with Beast Within - lucky me I have 3 more fetches in hand getting basics to dodge his two Wastelands. I attack two times taking him down to 11 before finding AN and killing him with Tendrils. =)

4:1

Round 6 - Enchantress

I am 8th after Round 5 and I hope to play against the 7th who's on Enchantress (basically I only wnated to get paired against him, because he's the only nonblue Deck in the top8). That is what happens. After we sit down he offers a draw pointing out we're both safely in top8 and I agree. I never played against Enchantress and know little to nothing about the Deck. 8th playing the Deck on a tournament for the first time seems really good to me. We play it out for fun and practise anyways.

he wins the dieroll.

Game 1 - I keep the first turn kill when I find a mana source: LED, LED, IT, Petal, Cabal, Thoughtseize, CoV. I draw for the turn. Island. YES! First and only turn1 kill that day. =)
Game 2 - Multiple Mulligans on my side and I cant get back fast enough to bounce all the problematic permanents.
Game 3 - He starts with 3(!!!!) Leyline of Sanctity in play. I CoV one of them end of his turn. Playing AN with Petal in play. I reveal (only relevant): LED, Dark Ritual, Petal, Petal, IGG, CoV, IT, IT. I have 3 life and need one mana source to IGG him and play one CoV before it and one after. I reveal the next card: Tendrils. :(

Well good we ID'ed. After the final round prices are given to the top8. Last name on the list is not me. Someone had a better OW% and won last round having 13 points as well. Hmm well... I guess 9th is still good enough for me. =)

4 : 1 : 1

Well so all in all I was really happy with the Deck. I still want to get one Grim Tutor and exchange the second AN for it, but for now I like the Deck. I had very nice opponents all day. All in all an awesome day of Magic.

[t3hdh]

I was able to play ANT for the first time at a local Legacy tournament, I subbed Inquisitions for most of the Thoughtseizes to try it out, and ran only one Grim Tutor due to some card availability:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Island
2 Swamp

2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Rebuild
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Cremate

I went 4-0/8-0 Inquisition hit what I would have taken with thoughtseize each time (although it could bite me not being able to hit FOW) so it needs more testing. The ETW was pretty sweet against the one Hymn to Tourach deck I played against, unfortunately no one played Re-animator so I didnt get to see if Cremate was the correct choice.

[dillonkbase]

unfortunately no one played Re-animator so I didnt get to see if Cremate was the correct choice.

Fortunately you didn't have to play reanimator so you could go 4-0, that match up is not too hot.

[Dia_Bot]

How was the EtW on side?

[t3hdh]

How was the EtW on side?

It was pretty sweet, I was able to do a small storm on T3 netting 10 Goblins to go with my Confidant which earned the scoop. Granted he didnt get to disrupt me as much as I am sure he would like but I think it is worth a slot for those matchups.

[GoboLord]

unfortunately no one played Re-animator so I didnt get to see if Cremate was the correct choice.

It wasn't - but you are not too far away from it. The card you are looking for is Extirpate.
Trading 'draw a card' for 'can't be countered' and 'let me look at your hand' isn't too bad, is it?

[Dia_Bot]

It wasn't - but you are not too far away from it. The card you are looking for is Extirpate.
Trading 'draw a card' for 'can't be countered' and 'let me look at your hand' isn't too bad, is it?

I agree. I would rather not draw a card then having my graveyard removal dazed or forced resulting in facing jin-gitaxias or Iona.

[Azdraël]

Has anyone been seriously testing Probe and how does one feel about it? Instead of what? cantrips/Discards?

[Fossil4182]

Has anyone been seriously testing Probe and how does one feel about it? Instead of what? cantrips/Discards?

A person in our group tested Probe. We started with Ari's list and cut two lands and two Grim Tutors. We also cut two Preordain for two Chrome Mox in an attempt to speed the list up. It tested alright against Merfolk and RUG. In the aggro match up, the life loss from Probe rarely caused any issues.

However, we found the decks running a high number of counters like UW and BUG (both tempo and control) were somewhat more difficult to deal with. In those match ups, we found Probe to be underwhelming and found ourselves wanting the 11th and 12th Preordains to dig deeper for answers. We thought about going testing a list that cut two lands and two Grim Tutors and not including the Chrome Mox, but we opted to revert back to Ari's original list because we felt it was stronger against the counter heavy decks. This is especially true now since Spell Snare plus Snapcaster Mage makes running a list with only four Infernal Tutor very risky. Grim Tutor has become better since most lists are moving toward the inclusion of Spell Snare over Spell Pierce.

We also found Probe to be somewhat awkward with Ad Nauseam since you need to count it as minus three life you plan on casting it.

[AriLax]

It wasn't - but you are not too far away from it. The card you are looking for is Extirpate.
Trading 'draw a card' for 'can't be countered' and 'let me look at your hand' isn't too bad, is it?

Actually, it is. I would rather be able to cycle my hate card when I don't need it than have it be dead if they get to go off with a Force still up (GL winning then anyways) (also, see Rebuild vs. Hurkyl's Recall).

[GoboLord]

@ Ari: I can't imagine a situation where you DON'T need Extirpate against Reanimator (as a reminder: Extirpate allows you to look at their hand, removes ALL copies of the chosen card from their library and can't be countered!). This is not only about removing their creature in response on the reanimation-spell. If you manage to catch any counterspell this is absolutely worth the trade suggested above.

Imagine the situation you described:
You play Cremate @ a creature in their graveyard (in response to Exhume or whatever). They play FoW. So they get their Iona or Jin GItaxias back.
OR
You play the Extirpate @ a creature in their graveyard (in response to Exhume or whatever). They can't play FoW. So you have to fight through a FoW.

The point is: You can win through a FoW (or even through 2-3 counterspells) but is nearly impossible to win through Jin-Gitaxian or Iona.

[Fossil4182]

Wouldn't Extirpate have added value against decks like LED Dredge and the mirror?

[AriLax]

The point is: You can win through a FoW (or even through 2-3 counterspells) but is nearly impossible to win through Jin-Gitaxian or Iona.

The issue isn't Jin/Iona. It's the combination of Force and the quick clock. While some additional interaction is nice, the real issue arises when you Duress them early, see both halves, and have no course of action. You can now take Force, Cremate their guy, and go, all without Cremate clunking up your draws when the game turns into them being loaded on counters and you battling through. I've watched/done this before, and you don't win the games where you just Extirpate them. You win when you Duress early, strip a key piece away, and then go off. The idea is that when you can win, Cremate is the better interaction spell as it makes the immediate turn around to lethal easier.

[John Cox]

What about the games where they have force and you don't have duress? Do you let your cremate get forced and then move to the next match?
I've played the match a lot and I know the most important play is probably casting a turn one duress effect to deal with force or a reanimate spell. But Extirpate lets you interact without doing that.

[AriLax]

What about the games where they have force and you don't have duress? Do you let your cremate get forced and then move to the next match?
I've played the match a lot and I know the most important play is probably casting a turn one duress effect to deal with force or a reanimate spell. But Extirpate lets you interact without doing that.

Then if you Extirpate, you are still Duressless staring down a Force, and they can rebuild and often do faster than you can.

[esqulax]

Quick question guys. I have made a storm deck to lend to one of my friends who doesn't have a collection of his own. He is doing allright with it but he complains that his most common way to lose is to not find any of his tutors (it is a common U/B build). Is there any alternative to Grim Tutor that could add some more consistancy other than splashing another color?

[John Cox]

Then if you Extirpate, you are still Duressless staring down a Force, and they can rebuild and often do faster than you can.

Yeah, it's really a no win scenario without a duress against Reanimator. At least post board this deck has 8 duress effects.


Quick question guys. I have made a storm deck to lend to one of my friends who doesn't have a collection of his own. He is doing allright with it but he complains that his most common way to lose is to not find any of his tutors (it is a common U/B build). Is there any alternative to Grim Tutor that could add some more consistancy other than splashing another color?

You could up the Ad Nauseam count to two. There aren't a lot of great tutors out there.

[xfxf]

I'm also testing the deck recently and I've also seen that not having a tutor in hand even after multiple Ponders, Brainstorms etc. may occur quite often and make you miss out on a critical opportunity to go off before it's too late.

I don't find the Ad Nauseam kill very reliable. If I have enough mana I either go for the Tutor chains or IGG and use Ad Nauseam when I'm desperate. Well, when I'm desperate I either don't have enough mana, in which case results in a fizzle with a high percentage or I'm going down on life quickly and have to make a leap of faith to end the game now.

Back to the tutors, I thought about splasing red just for Burning Wish and go with a TNT build to leave the no-tutors issue behind but it's not as simple as -4 Gitaxian Probe +4 Burning Wish. I'm also thinking about Cunning Wish as a 2of or 3of but then I can only tutor for Ad Nauseam, which is not my favourite kill condition in the deck...

[Malakai]

bilb_o: Nothing you said is new information. I realize the thread is about seven thousand pages long, but the information is there.

I have heard of people trying Cunning Wish, but I have never heard of anyone having success with Cunning Wish. Take that for what it is.

Extirpate is garbage. It's one of those pet cards that people have because they are disproportionately afraid of their spells getting countered. The overlap between Extirpate proponents and the group of people who want to ban Force of Will is quite large. This discussion reminds me of Extended back when Dredge was the deck to beat, and people thought that "Extirpate on Bridge from Below" was a good plan. In actuality, it slowed you down just as much as it slowed down Dredge, and also took away your only vector of interaction you had with them. The loss of a card in Cremate vs. Extirpate is a similar situation.

[dillonkbase]

I If I have enough mana I either go for the Tutor chains or IGG and use Ad Nauseam when I'm Dead to IGG

Ad Nauseam in general is a risky card and in general if you can use IGG or just chain tutors those are safer and cleaner ways to win. If you ad nauseam you are subject to the draw and rules of randomness, so this all makes sense.

On the wishes, I just don't think cunning wish is the card you want or need, burning wish is much more playable, and if you don't want to do the grim tutors TNT is a good option.

*****************************

So I have been having problems piloting the deck with decisions regarding going off or attempting to find a duress. Often times I end up with hands that could win turn one on the draw, if I don't get hit with a FOW or sometimes just a daze. I think people have talked about this, but generally the correct play here is to wait to see if you can find a duress, and to counteract the fact that you are waiting is the knowledge that cabal ritual gets way better around turn 3? I guess I end up often either losing to the FOW or waiting to find a duress that never appears.

So you lose the die roll turn and turn one your opponent plays Island go, you can win if they don't FOW how do you tackle the decision tree?

[Chikenbok]

If you lose the roll to an unknown opponent who plays Island go - can you at least play around daze/pierce? If not, hold out for protection. What's the meta like - how big are your balls. Winning the roll and simply winning the game does happen, but if I have a turn 1 kill in my hand, at least in my meta, I'm not going to try and slam through a hand that probably has a force of will in it.

Nowadays with the diversification of fetches walking into a daze while staring down a marsh flats or verdant catacombs just happens sometimes... and it sucks so.. try not to do it.

But then again, sometimes ya can just win.

Be a Jedi, that's my real advice.

Game 2, don't even try it without protection.

[John Cox]

If its the draw and they haven't cantriped then you have a 40% chance of seeing Force of will, and a 40% chance of daze probably too. I would be hesitant to rush something out if I had cantrips that could make things easier and find a duress.

[Fossil4182]

Dead to IGG

Ad Nauseam in general is a risky card and in general if you can use IGG or just chain tutors those are safer and cleaner ways to win. If you ad nauseam you are subject to the draw and rules of randomness, so this all makes sense.

On the wishes, I just don't think cunning wish is the card you want or need, burning wish is much more playable, and if you don't want to do the grim tutors TNT is a good option.

*****************************

So I have been having problems piloting the deck with decisions regarding going off or attempting to find a duress. Often times I end up with hands that could win turn one on the draw, if I don't get hit with a FOW or sometimes just a daze. I think people have talked about this, but generally the correct play here is to wait to see if you can find a duress, and to counteract the fact that you are waiting is the knowledge that cabal ritual gets way better around turn 3? I guess I end up often either losing to the FOW or waiting to find a duress that never appears.

So you lose the die roll turn and turn one your opponent plays Island go, you can win if they don't FOW how do you tackle the decision tree?

As an aside, I really like this prompts. However, next time, can you include what is in your hand please
? I ask because even if your hand looses to Force of Will, whether your not you have the ability to play through Spell Pierce or Spell Snare is also relevant.

If you're opponent opens with Island and passes, there are only a few of the top tier decks that play Islands in a significant number. There are a couple of lines of thought that you need to consider. These are my initial thoughts on the subject:

A. My initial conclusion is that your opponent is playing Merfolk; this is because Merfolk plays the highest number of basic Islands. Since the banning of Mental Misstep, three of the four lists that have placed at the SCG events have had between 2 - 3 Spell Pierce maindeck along with a full complement of Daze. Therefore, there is a 74% chance they will have one of the ten counterspells in their hand and there is a 65% chance that the counterspell is either a Spell Pierce or Force of Will. Under those circumstances, I think its always better to play a land, cast a cantrip, and pass. If they counter your cantrip, it will likely be via a Daze or Spell Pierce in which case your gaining value. Merfolk's Achilles Heel in the Storm match up is that their clock directly trades off with their ability to disrupt us. Since most modern Merfolk lists have abandoned draw engines, if you can run them out of counters by baiting them into countering cantrips, then you're in a good position. This also means that digging to find a Duress and resolving it will yield you greater results against Merfolk than it would against other decks since Merfolks lack of redundancy means you'll win in the long run. If the do not counter your cantrip, you've advanced your board position, likely secured a land drop for your next turn (which pays for Daze), and have greatly increased your odds of drawing a Duress effect to strip their hand of Force of Will or Spell Pierce.

B. UW Stoneblade is the next most probable deck your opponent is playing; they play between 5 to 6 Islands.

UW Stoneblade was popular prior to the banning of Mental Misstep. While it has only placed once since the banning of Mental Misstep, the fact that it won the most recent SCG event will likely only increase its popularity. The only list that has placed was running the following as disruption:

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique

It should be noted according to Chris VanMeteter, who was the pilot of the UW Stoneblade deck, he's current maindeck disruption package would be

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Spellstutter Sprite

If your hand plans on winning via Infernal Tutor, then there is a 65% chance they have either Spell Snare or Force of Will in their opening hand. In that case, I would cast a cantrip turn one in hopes of finding a Duress effect. If you plan on using Grim Tutor, you're golden 60% of the time since you only have to worry about Force of Will. In the particular instance in which you are going to win via Grim Tutor, I'm inclined to go roll the dice and attempt to win turn one. Unlike Merfolk, which plays a lot of taxing counters, UW Stoneblade plays almost exclusively hard counters. UW Stoneblade has a higher density of threats which you cannot play around or through. Additionally, these decks have Brainstorm and Jace the Mind Sculptor to refill their hand. The addition of Snapcaster Mage also makes turns 3 - 5 much more difficult since they can recur Spell Snare or Counterspell. Therefore, winning faster is always better.

C. By comparison, Reanimator plays two basic Islands, NO Bant and RUG play one basic Island and most BUG lists do not have a basic Island. It is possible, but very unlikely that you're playing against these decks if they open with Island go. Even against a deck like Reanimator, they will only have a basic Island in hand 33% of the time make it highly unlikely that you're sitting across of Reanimator.

[dillonkbase]

As an aside, I really like this prompts. However, next time, can you include what is in your hand please
? I ask because even if your hand looses to Force of Will, whether your not you have the ability to play through Spell Pierce or Spell Snare is also relevant.

If you're opponent opens with Island and passes, there are only a few of the top tier decks that play Islands in a significant number. There are a couple of lines of thought that you need to consider. These are my initial thoughts on the subject:

A. My initial conclusion is that your opponent is playing Merfolk; this is because Merfolk plays the highest number of basic Islands. Since the banning of Mental Misstep, three of the four lists that have placed at the SCG events have had between 2 - 3 Spell Pierce maindeck along with a full complement of Daze. Therefore, there is a 74% chance they will have one of the ten counterspells in their hand and there is a 65% chance that the counterspell is either a Spell Pierce or Force of Will. Under those circumstances, I think its always better to play a land, cast a cantrip, and pass. If they counter your cantrip, it will likely be via a Daze or Spell Pierce in which case your gaining value. Merfolk's Achilles Heel in the Storm match up is that their clock directly trades off with their ability to disrupt us. Since most modern Merfolk lists have abandoned draw engines, if you can run them out of counters by baiting them into countering cantrips, then you're in a good position. This also means that digging to find a Duress and resolving it will yield you greater results against Merfolk than it would against other decks since Merfolks lack of redundancy means you'll win in the long run. If the do not counter your cantrip, you've advanced your board position, likely secured a land drop for your next turn (which pays for Daze), and have greatly increased your odds of drawing a Duress effect to strip their hand of Force of Will or Spell Pierce.

B. UW Stoneblade is the next most probable deck your opponent is playing; they play between 5 to 6 Islands.

UW Stoneblade was popular prior to the banning of Mental Misstep. While it has only placed once since the banning of Mental Misstep, the fact that it won the most recent SCG event will likely only increase its popularity. The only list that has placed was running the following as disruption:

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique

It should be noted according to Chris VanMeteter, who was the pilot of the UW Stoneblade deck, he's current maindeck disruption package would be

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Spellstutter Sprite

If your hand plans on winning via Infernal Tutor, then there is a 65% chance they have either Spell Snare or Force of Will in their opening hand. In that case, I would cast a cantrip turn one in hopes of finding a Duress effect. If you plan on using Grim Tutor, you're golden 60% of the time since you only have to worry about Force of Will. In the particular instance in which you are going to win via Grim Tutor, I'm inclined to go roll the dice and attempt to win turn one. Unlike Merfolk, which plays a lot of taxing counters, UW Stoneblade plays almost exclusively hard counters. UW Stoneblade has a higher density of threats which you cannot play around or through. Additionally, these decks have Brainstorm and Jace the Mind Sculptor to refill their hand. The addition of Snapcaster Mage also makes turns 3 - 5 much more difficult since they can recur Spell Snare or Counterspell. Therefore, winning faster is always better.

C. By comparison, Reanimator plays two basic Islands, NO Bant and RUG play one basic Island and most BUG lists do not have a basic Island. It is possible, but very unlikely that you're playing against these decks if they open with Island go. Even against a deck like Reanimator, they will only have a basic Island in hand 33% of the time make it highly unlikely that you're sitting across of Reanimator.

Some of the best analyse I have seen, my prompt or another.

[JJ_JKidd]

As an aside, I really like this prompts. However, next time, can you include what is in your hand please
? I ask because even if your hand looses to Force of Will, whether your not you have the ability to play through Spell Pierce or Spell Snare is also relevant.

If you're opponent opens with Island and passes, there are only a few of the top tier decks that play Islands in a significant number. There are a couple of lines of thought that you need to consider. These are my initial thoughts on the subject:

A. My initial conclusion is that your opponent is playing Merfolk; this is because Merfolk plays the highest number of basic Islands. Since the banning of Mental Misstep, three of the four lists that have placed at the SCG events have had between 2 - 3 Spell Pierce maindeck along with a full complement of Daze. Therefore, there is a 74% chance they will have one of the ten counterspells in their hand and there is a 65% chance that the counterspell is either a Spell Pierce or Force of Will. Under those circumstances, I think its always better to play a land, cast a cantrip, and pass. If they counter your cantrip, it will likely be via a Daze or Spell Pierce in which case your gaining value. Merfolk's Achilles Heel in the Storm match up is that their clock directly trades off with their ability to disrupt us. Since most modern Merfolk lists have abandoned draw engines, if you can run them out of counters by baiting them into countering cantrips, then you're in a good position. This also means that digging to find a Duress and resolving it will yield you greater results against Merfolk than it would against other decks since Merfolks lack of redundancy means you'll win in the long run. If the do not counter your cantrip, you've advanced your board position, likely secured a land drop for your next turn (which pays for Daze), and have greatly increased your odds of drawing a Duress effect to strip their hand of Force of Will or Spell Pierce.

B. UW Stoneblade is the next most probable deck your opponent is playing; they play between 5 to 6 Islands.

UW Stoneblade was popular prior to the banning of Mental Misstep. While it has only placed once since the banning of Mental Misstep, the fact that it won the most recent SCG event will likely only increase its popularity. The only list that has placed was running the following as disruption:

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique

It should be noted according to Chris VanMeteter, who was the pilot of the UW Stoneblade deck, he's current maindeck disruption package would be

2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Spellstutter Sprite

If your hand plans on winning via Infernal Tutor, then there is a 65% chance they have either Spell Snare or Force of Will in their opening hand. In that case, I would cast a cantrip turn one in hopes of finding a Duress effect. If you plan on using Grim Tutor, you're golden 60% of the time since you only have to worry about Force of Will. In the particular instance in which you are going to win via Grim Tutor, I'm inclined to go roll the dice and attempt to win turn one. Unlike Merfolk, which plays a lot of taxing counters, UW Stoneblade plays almost exclusively hard counters. UW Stoneblade has a higher density of threats which you cannot play around or through. Additionally, these decks have Brainstorm and Jace the Mind Sculptor to refill their hand. The addition of Snapcaster Mage also makes turns 3 - 5 much more difficult since they can recur Spell Snare or Counterspell. Therefore, winning faster is always better.

C. By comparison, Reanimator plays two basic Islands, NO Bant and RUG play one basic Island and most BUG lists do not have a basic Island. It is possible, but very unlikely that you're playing against these decks if they open with Island go. Even against a deck like Reanimator, they will only have a basic Island in hand 33% of the time make it highly unlikely that you're sitting across of Reanimator.

Those that run Clique are the most terrible. They probably let you resolve a bunch of Rituals, then Clique for your Tutor or whatever. Crazy

[dillonkbase]

Scenario of the day: You are on the play round 2 of a tournament, after losing round one to reanimator. You do not know your opponent or his deck, you draw Island, lotus petal, duress, brainstorm, infernal tutor, lion's eye diamond,& dark ritual. Do you keep? what are your turn one and two(if you go that route) plays? How do you approach the decision tree?

[death]

Island, lotus petal, duress, brainstorm, infernal tutor, lion's eye diamond,& dark ritual. Do you keep?

t1: Island, go. BS in resp (hide) or EOT to find black source.
t2: Black source, Duress. Petal, Ritual, LED > IT. Ad Naus. My list plays 3 Moxen so that's how I do it.

[AriLax]

Scenario of the day: You are on the play round 2 of a tournament, after losing round one to reanimator. You do not know your opponent or his deck, you draw Island, lotus petal, duress, brainstorm, infernal tutor, lion's eye diamond,& dark ritual. Do you keep? what are your turn one and two(if you go that route) plays? How do you approach the decision tree?

I fail to see why you would not keep this hand.

[Fossil4182]

Scenario of the day: You are on the play round 2 of a tournament, after losing round one to reanimator. You do not know your opponent or his deck, you draw Island, lotus petal, duress, brainstorm, infernal tutor, lion's eye diamond,& dark ritual. Do you keep? what are your turn one and two(if you go that route) plays? How do you approach the decision tree?

I'm assuming you decide to keep and you're playing the following list.

Spells (43)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
Lands (17)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

First, I think its necessary to eliminate all of the suboptimal plays. I'm not going to mention why its a terrible idea to cast Lotus Petal and Duress turn one; people should understand why that's terrible.

However, the question is whether or not we want to play the Island and cast Brainstorm turn one. A few things to consider. First, if you do not find additional acceleration, you lose the ability to potentially win on turn one. Second, you are minimizing the value of Brainstorm by not being able to shuffle the cards away. As a caveat to the previous point, your potentially locking yourself into terrible topdecks for the next two turns. Next, since you can no longer kill turn one, your hand is massively vulnerable to a turn one Thoughtseize from your opponent. Additionally Brainstorm, unlike Ponder and Preordain, is not usually cast until you "need" it. There probably isn't a need to play it here since you do not need to win turn one. There are only a few decks that can race you turn one: TES and Belcher. Those decks make up such a relatively small percent of the field, that there is not a need to try and race.

Looking at the other side, there are two cards that make your turn one kill easier if you draw them with Brainstorm: Dark Ritual or Lion's Eye Diamond. Assume you draw Dark Ritual. This is what the line of play would look like:

-Play Island
-Cast Brainstorm drawing Dark Ritual and plus two blank cards. Put the two blank cards on top your deck.
-Cast Lotus Petal (Storm count 2)
-Cast Dark Ritual, sacrificing Lotus Petal to pay for it (Storm count 3, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Duress (Storm count 4, Mana: BB). Let's assume you see Force of Will and make them discard it.
-Cast Dark Ritual (Storm count 5, Mana: BBBB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 6, Mana: BBBB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, sacrificing Lion's Eye Diamond when you have priority for BBB (Storm count 7, Mana: BBBBB. At this point, you cannot win via Ill-Gotten Gains since you cannot cast Duress and still have enough mana to generate lethal storm. You are then forced to cast Ad Nauseam without any mana floating (see below).

Drawing a Lion's Eye Diamond from the Brainstorm creates a better result. Consider

-Play Island
-Cast Brainstorm drawing Lion's Eye Diamond and plus two blank cards. Put the two blank cards on top your deck.
-Cast Lotus Petal (Storm count 2)
-Cast Dark Ritual, sacrificing Lotus Petal to pay for it (Storm count 3, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Duress (Storm count 4, Mana: BB). At this point, if you see Force of Will, you have them discard it.
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 5, Mana: BB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 6, Mana: BB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, sacrificing both Lion's Eye Diamonds for BBB while retaining priority (Storm count 7, Mana: BBBBBB). You will still have insufficient mana to cast Ill-Gotten Gains as your kill condition considering that you must return Duress to your hand to force them to discard Force of Will. Therefore, your only option is to cast Ad Nauseam, but with a B mana floating.

In either situation, Ill-Gotten Gains becomes viable if your opponent does not have Force of Will in hand. Statically 60% of the time you will not find a Force of Will in your opponent's hand.

While casting Brainstorm can prove valuable, both lines in which we draw a Lion's Eye Diamond or Dark Ritual from the Brainstorm result in us being in the same position as discussed below, albeit with protection via Duress.

If we don't opt to cast Brainstorm, then what else can we do?

Is it possible to kill turn one?
Possible lines of play
-Play Island
-Lotus Petal (Storm count 1)
-Sacrifice Lotus Petal for black and cast Dark Ritual (Storm count 2, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 3, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, cracking Lion's Eye Diamond for three black mana before it resolves (Storm Count 4, Mana: BBBB)

At this point, you would need to look at your options.

Is it possible to tutor chain?
No, you lack the necessary mana).

Is it possible to win with Ill-Gotten Gains?
No, you will only be able generate nine storm. For reference, here is how it would play out
-Play Island
-Lotus Petal (Storm count 1)
-Sacrifice Lotus Petal for black and cast Dark Ritual (Storm count 2, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 3, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, cracking Lion's Eye Diamond for three black mana before it resolves (Storm Count 4, Mana: BBBB). Find Ill-Gotten Gains with Infernal Tutor.
-Cast Ill-Gotten Gains tapping the Island to use for paying (Storm count 5, Mana: B). Return Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor, and Dark Ritual to your hand.
-Cast Dark Ritual (Storm count 6, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 7, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, cracking Lion's Eye Diamond in response for three black Mana (Storm count 8, Mana: BBBB). Search for Tendrils of Agony. At this point, you could cast it, but you would have only 9 storm after it resolves.

Is it possible to kill with Ad Nauseam?
Yes, it is.

-Play Island
-Lotus Petal (Storm count 1)
-Sacrifice Lotus Petal for black and cast Dark Ritual (Storm count 2, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Lion's Eye Diamond (Storm count 3, Mana: BBB)
-Cast Infernal Tutor, cracking Lion's Eye Diamond for three black mana before it resolves (Storm Count 4, Mana: BBBB). Search for Ad Nauseam.
-Cast Ad Nauseam by spending the BBBB and taping the Island for mana.

The question we are left with is whether or not this is the optimal play. The list we're playing only runs four Lotus Petal and it does not run Chrome Mox. When considering whether or not to cast Ad Nauseam in this instance, with no mana floating, it should give you a fair amount pause. In order to win via Ad Nauseam, you will need to find at least one of three Lotus Petal which are left in your deck. At this point, you have 52 cards left in your deck which means the odds are not in your favor. Additionally, if you only reveal one Lotus Petal, you must also reveal a Dark Ritual (of which you only have 3 remaining in your deck). Furthermore, unless every card you're revealing is rituals and Lotus Petals, you will also need a Lion's Eye Diamond to active Hellbent on Infernal Tutor*. Revealing a tutor should not be too difficult since you have five remaining in your deck.

*There are two exceptions to this. First, is if you reveal Tendrils of Agony along with enough Lotus Petals and rituals to generate lethal storm. Second, you can use Grim Tutor instead of Tendrils of Agony since it does not require you to be Hellbent in order to search.

The final option is to play an Island and pass the turn. This play seems to be the safest play. If we draw one of the fourteen lands in the deck that produce black mana or any of your remain acceleration pieces the following turn, we are in much better shape since we can cast Duress as a protection before attempting to combo off. Additionally, if we draw one of ten fetchlands, we can effectively Brainstorm. Even drawing a Ponder or Preordain in this situation is beneficial since casting it will likely result in us finding our second land drop which has an extremely high probability of being one which can produce black mana. Additionally, drawing any acceleration effects allows us to cast Duress and still allows us to cast Ad Nauseam or potentially Ill-Gotten Gains. Brainstorm can allow us to hide our combo pieces from a turn one Duress effect.

This line of play is not without risk. It leaves us vulnerable to Spell Pierce, Cursecatcher, and Spell Snare in addition to their potential Force of Will. All of which could be backed up by Daze.

If you're the type of player that "plays it safe", you lay the land and pass the turn. If you play the odds, which are in your favor, you have two decisions: do you cast Brainstorm and attempt to go off, or do you just go off without casting Brainstorm?

[AriLax]

Fossil, the one thing you missed is that if Ad Naus resolves you are most likely going to be able to pass the turn, untap, and go off even if you miss. I would personally play island and pass the turn, then EOT Brainstorm if my opponent is representing a non-Force of Will deck and main phase Brainstorm if they are Blue, but T1 Ad Naus is better than you are suggesting it is.

[Fossil4182]

Fossil, the one thing you missed is that if Ad Naus resolves you are most likely going to be able to pass the turn, untap, and go off even if you miss. I would personally play island and pass the turn, then EOT Brainstorm if my opponent is representing a non-Force of Will deck and main phase Brainstorm if they are Blue, but T1 Ad Naus is better than you are suggesting it is.

I understand the logic of playing the Island and passing. However, odds are if they are playing a blue deck and they do not have Force of Will, they will likely have Spell Pierce or Spell Snare in their opening seven given the frequency that those appear in Merfolk, BUG and UW Stoneblade (which are arguably the most popular blue decks in Legacy). So allowing them to play an Island and pass the turn only puts more pressure on us to either find ways for paying for the Spell Pierce, or finding a way to Duress the Spell Snare away and then go off. Even against the Merfolk lists running only two copies of Spell Pierce, their odds go from having a 39.5% chance of stopping us turn one via Force of Will, to greater than 55% chance of having a hand that contains either Spell Pierce or Force of Will which we have to deal with on turn two if they plan an Island and pass. Against some of the Team America decks or UW Stoneblade decks that play Spell Snare as a 3-4 of, the odds go up to between 61% and 65% that they now have a live counter against us turn two that we have to deal with and we cannot play around.

I looked over the math regarding Ad Nauseam turn one after your assertion and I agree with you that my analysis on casting Ad Nauseam turn one seemed a little bleak. Given that the average mana cost of the deck is less than 1, you statically should be able to flip at least 20 cards before you must stop which makes it probable that you will find the necessary combination of cards to kill turn one. You analysis that stopping if necessary and killing on turn two is also enlightening. Based on this analysis, I think casting Ad Nauseam turn one seems like a better play than playing the Island and passing.

Would you be willing to share your thought process by which you arrived at your conclusion regarding playing an Island and the use of Brainstorm against varying decks?

[Dark Ritual]

Yeah what people fail to realize about AdN is that if you fizzle you can very likely go off next turn since you still get to sculpt a godlike 7 cards with maybe some artifact's onboard to help as well.

I would go for the turn one AdN with that hand. 40% chance they have FoW, if they don't you win because guess what you resolved yawgmoth's bargain and as a sidenote bargain is broken. I see zero reason to not keep that hand, in fact that's the type of hand I wish I drew every game generally speaking because it has everything you want and 6 cards will likely be worse unless you open up with black source, dark rit, LED x2, duress, infernal tutor on the play because that hand is hard to beat.

I've seen lists with gitaxian probe over the grim's and a land sometimes; if you want to increase speed, you replace the 2 grim's with chrome moxen and maybe one land so as to make ad nauseam a lot better with 7 zero drop artifacts to draw into with AdN. I never liked grim tutor in here in the first place, the card is really slow and loses you 3 life so it is quite awful with ad nauseam.

If you want a faster UB list I would try out this:

Land 15
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp

Artifacts 10
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Accel 8
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

One of's 3
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

Tutors 4
4 Infernal Tutor

Protection 7
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize

Cantrips 13
4 Brainstorm
3 Preordain
3 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe

SB
Meta dependant

On the list I just posted though you might want to tweak the cantrips a little bit; probes add speed to the deck but aren't the best at sculpting but the advantage of them is, again, speed since they can cycle for free and peek at the opponent's hand.

[xfxf]

I love Gitaxian Probes. Today they've helped me make this play:

My opening hand was: LED, LED, LED, Cabal Ritual, Polluted Delta, Infernal Tutor, Gitaxian Probe. So I thought I was feeling lucky and laid down the Delta and paid for the Probe with 2 life. It showed a Dark Ritual. Then I fetched Swamp went Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED, LED , LED into Ad Nauseam. With enough floating I was feeling even better. But Ad Nauseam showed IGG and another LED. So I went IGG, LED, return rituals and tutor to hand. Tendrils for lethal...

I was very luck indeed but that probe just enabled that explosive turn 1 kill :)

[lordofthepit]

I love Gitaxian Probes. Today they've helped me make this play:

My opening hand was: LED, LED, LED, Cabal Ritual, Polluted Delta, Infernal Tutor, Gitaxian Probe. So I thought I was feeling lucky and laid down the Delta and paid for the Probe with 2 life. It showed a Dark Ritual. Then I fetched Swamp went Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED, LED , LED into Ad Nauseam. With enough floating I was feeling even better. But Ad Nauseam showed IGG and another LED. So I went IGG, LED, return rituals and tutor to hand. Tendrils for lethal...

I was very luck indeed but that probe just enabled that explosive turn 1 kill :)

It sounds like you eventually went the IGG route and you knew what your opponent had in hand after the Probe. Why not just Infernal Tutor into IGG for the sure win instead of risking it with Ad Nauseam?

[xfxf]

You're right, I was so focused on Ad Nauseam as my first turn kill condition it didn't occur to me that I would easily generate enough storm with IGG :)

[Fossil4182]

There was an ANT deck featured at the GP this weekend. The maindeck was interesting with Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam as the engines, though it did not run Burning Wish or Rite of Flame. It still kept a copy of Ill-Gotten Gains in the sideboard. Another interesting decision was the lack of Thoughtseize and Preordain. The list was running Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy in lieu of the aforementioned. The interaction between the two is interesting and appealing.

Here is a link to the article (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpams11/welcome#4)


Here is the list:

16 lands
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Crystal Vein
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

44 other spells
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Dark Confidant
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Xantid Swarm

[Zunam]

I am starting to like Past in Flames in ANT more and more. It feels quite good against Aggro-Control decks especially if you have a slower hand and have to eat a lot of damage (e.g. Fish, Bant...) It is not amazing but it is very solid and seems even maindeckable.

In my opinion this deck is using it better than TES:
-It has Cabal Rituals to generate enough Mana off a resolved Past in Flames easier
-TES has a lot of Rituals too but Rite of Flames is not really good when cast with Flashback.
-ANT is a bit slower than TES and gets to a point where casting a Ad Nauseam is risky easier. If you are not playing a simple Aggro Deck (Zoo, Affinity...) Past in Flames is the way to go.
-Having to support less colors makes it easier to pay the flashback costs of the spells.

Currently I use it quite often against Aggro Control and am thinking of adding it to the maindeck.

[Fossil4182]

The list I posted above was piloted by Elie Pichon who made top eight at the GP with it this morning. He just advanced to the semifinal round defeating Imperial Painter. He's now squaring off against Delver RUG.

[Dark Ritual]

Damnit he didn't correctly de sideboard before game one so he lost the match. That's a damn shame, he could have potentially won the whole thing if not for accidentally leaving out past in flames in the SB and whatever else. Canadian thresh player got lucky in that regard in that he automatically won a game.

It is intriguing to see a list with cabal therapy as protection as well as 4 probe's with only 8 hand sculpting cantrips in the form of ponder + brainstorm. I never liked 12 one mana cantrips since cantripping into more cantrips is quite slow.

1 Crystal vein also stands out. I would rather that be a chrome mox almost to improve AdN if only by a little. Then again it could be a good card I haven't tried sol lands since mystical's banning.

Past in flames in that list reminds me why I like it. It's actually good against decks with countermagic while IGG is usually chaff unless you crack like 3 LED's before casting IGG or otherwise have a boatload of mana to return protection spells.

[xfxf]

Well if the Past in Flames is included does it make sense to add the Burning Wishes as well while we already destabilized the manabase?

[Malakai]

Well if the Past in Flames is included does it make sense to add the Burning Wishes as well while we already destabilized the manabase?

I don't think Past in Flames is good enough to warrant dropping Grim Tutors, if you have them.

[ReinVos]

I really like the list Pichon took to a top 4 finish at the GP in Amsterdam.

I do wonder when/why the Grim Tutor is useful. I can see it's a powerful card but the three mana and three life does feel clunky. Is it to up the Tutor count? To get around Spell Snare? Can someone with more Grim Tutor experience elaborate a bit on that?

[NesretepNoj]

I really like the list Pichon took to a top 4 finish at the GP in Amsterdam.

I do wonder when/why the Grim Tutor is useful. I can see it's a powerful card but the three mana and three life does feel clunky. Is it to up the Tutor count? To get around Spell Snare? Can someone with more Grim Tutor experience elaborate a bit on that?

They where actually useful in the quarter final. In game two, my fellow dane, the Imp. Painter player dropped a Phyrexian Revoker naming Lion's Eye Diamond. After resolving Ad Nauseam, he couldn't generate blue mana for Chain of Vapor, but drew enough black mana to play Grim Tutor > Tendrils of Agony.

[Moosedog]

Grim Tutor is unfortunately the "best" tutor available that is on color and doesn't have card disadvantage. The fact that it dodges spell snare is an afterthought. It can find singleton SB answers as well.

[AriLax]

I really like the list Pichon took to a top 4 finish at the GP in Amsterdam.

I do wonder when/why the Grim Tutor is useful. I can see it's a powerful card but the three mana and three life does feel clunky. Is it to up the Tutor count? To get around Spell Snare? Can someone with more Grim Tutor experience elaborate a bit on that?

I'm sorry we can't run 7-8 Infernal Tutors and that 4 doesn't cut it. I'm also sorry Burning Wish either requires you to sideboard an Infernal if you really want to Tendrils kill anyone with it. As is, if you want to kill someone with Tendrils of Agony, Grim Tutor is the best option to ensure you find some tutor effect every game.

[JamieW89]

I made 37th in Amsterdam with UBw ANT. 2 of my 4 losses are to blame on myself (Against the Painter guy who top-8'd and Team America by some belgian pro), another was going all-in on turn-1 on the play in g3 against the UGr Thresh deck that made the finals and the last one I just wasn't in the game against another UGr Thresh deck.
I beat UGr Thresh, Dredge, RUG Thresh with Punishing Fires, Dredge, Doomsday, Maverick, Elf Combo, Maverick.
I beat Painter with blue, Goblins, Reanimate and The Rock in the trial I 5-0'd (the other finalist already had byes) for byes.
With better play I should have at least made top-16. But 2-3 hours of sleep a night for half a week and not eating during the day doesn't really help.

My list:

Business: 8
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor (Amazing)
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

Cantrips: 13
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe (Don't want less than 4 with white)
1 Preordain

Protection: 7
3 Orim’s Chant
2 Silence
2 Duress (Perhaps 7 chants is better though)

Acceleration: 17
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

Lands: 15
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard: 15
3 Dark Confidant (Very dissapointing)
3 Extirpate (Not bad, I beat reanimator in the trial and dredge twice in the GP)
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Path to Exile (Really liked em against hatebears and reanimate)
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Silence
1 Orim's Chant
1 Duress

I do want a Slaughter Pact side as a situation came up against Choke and Teeg that I could rit,cabal,cabal,grim->pact,led,it and win but I didn't have blue mana.
And I definately want to replace the Confidants. The extra chants/duress can be replaced if there's anything better.

[Zieby]

I played UBw ANT. Standard list from Ari, but -1 Land and the disruption was 2 Duress, 2 Thoughtseize and 3 Chants.

Instead of Dark Confidant in the SB I played Ancestral Visions against BUG (Discard) and Control. I realy liked them although I didn't make day 2 after I was 6-0 and 12-1 in games. Lost round 7 due to a error from my side while having the match win in hand. Round 8 against Tempo Thresh I realy was not into that game, stifle waste game 1 and flooded havely in game 2 drawing 5 lands in a row. Round 9 I think I was still a little on tild from my mistake and round 8 and could not win game 2 while I had 12 cards in my hand (after visions resolved).

Regarding your list.
The Path's are very interesting and I realy need to test those probes.

Regarding Grim Tutor.
I realy liked them and the fact they play around Spell Snare was relevant in more games then I could rember.

Regarding Chants.
I love them, they make allot of games so much better.

[xfxf]

I don't think Past in Flames is good enough to warrant dropping Grim Tutors, if you have them.

No I don't have them, that's why I'm elaborating on other options while trying to get additional benefit from a third color with Past in Flames :)

[lordofthepit]

I had previously been running TNT with 4 Burning Wish + 3 Infernal Tutor (with a 4th Tutor in the sideboard as a target for Burning Wish), since it's occasionally useful to Burning Wish into a Tutor to set up a better IGG loop or an Ad Nauseam. I recall there were a few others who played a similar type of list.

I'm assuming everyone is testing Past in Flames. For those of you with Past of Flames in the wishboard, have you wanted to move the 4th Infernal Tutor into the main (possibly cutting a Burning Wish)? It seems that Past in Flames is strong enough that I rarely want to Wish for an Infernal Tutor anymore. (Of course, this begs the question why I didn't just run a 4 IT/3 BW split in the first place, but the flexibility justified the "slowness" at the time.)

[lordofthepit]

I had previously been running TNT with 4 Burning Wish + 3 Infernal Tutor (with a 4th Tutor in the sideboard as a target for Burning Wish), since it's occasionally useful to Burning Wish into a Tutor to set up a better IGG loop or an Ad Nauseam. I recall there were a few others who played a similar type of list.

I'm assuming everyone is testing Past in Flames. For those of you with Past of Flames in the wishboard, have you wanted to move the 4th Infernal Tutor into the main (possibly cutting a Burning Wish)? It seems that Past in Flames is strong enough that I rarely want to Wish for an Infernal Tutor anymore. (Of course, this begs the question why I didn't just run a 4 IT/3 BW split in the first place, but the flexibility justified the "slowness" at the time.)

[xfxf]

I'm quite new to this decks but I'm giving it a try for a little while. I tried the 4 Burning Wish, 3 Infernal Tutor build with Past in Flames in the place of IGG. My problem is occasionaly when I cast Burning Wish I don't have another red mana for a PiF and go for the IGG in the board anyways. Which is good in the sense that I've effectively upped my Tutor count. But then to get the Tendrils I need a red mana again..

Also when I cast Past in Flames I'm low on mana and can't use Leds or Petals. With only black mana I can't cast Burning Wish. Then I reach for the Infernal Tutor but remember that they are not much good without LEDs. I can't get the synergy going when I splash red.

[dillonkbase]

This is the reason Grim Tutor and cabal ritual make past in flames better, it keeps the mana black and cabal with threshold makes a lot of mana (equivalent of LED). The red rituals are not as good with past in flames(particularly rite of flame) because they become worse with each on cast .

[OneWingedAngel]

Hi,

Just new to the thread. Been playing the deck for so long since the MT legal days and has seen its various evolutions.

I've been trying out a doomsday SB plan with laboratory maniac as the win con instead of emrakul-shelldock. Allows you to win outright and frees up another slot in your SB.

Your thoughts?

[OneWingedAngel]

Hi,

Just new to the thread. Been playing the deck for so long since the MT legal days and has seen its various evolutions.

I've been trying out a doomsday SB plan with laboratory maniac as the win con instead of emrakul-shelldock. Allows you to win outright and frees up another slot in your SB.

Your thoughts?

[GexxX]

DD + Emrakul was mainly the plan against Counterbalance. Maniac with it's CC2 will easily be hit by it, although you should be able to set up the combo before they can. Unless you have to ship the turn to draw into the DD pile. Maniac is also easily hit by leftover removal your opponent didn't side out.
I like the Combo of DD + Maniac, but right now I think it's just a slot DDFT can (propably won't) 'waste' on it. What matchup particularly did you want to adress those 5 slots to? I guess it can be good against BUG Snapcaster, since they have not that much removal, but I really don't know if the chances make you want to have 5 SB slots on it.

[GexxX]

DD + Emrakul was mainly the plan against Counterbalance. Maniac with it's CC2 will easily be hit by it, although you should be able to set up the combo before they can. Unless you have to ship the turn to draw into the DD pile. Maniac is also easily hit by leftover removal your opponent didn't side out.
I like the Combo of DD + Maniac, but right now I think it's just a slot DDFT can (propably won't) 'waste' on it. What matchup particularly did you want to adress those 5 slots to? I guess it can be good against BUG Snapcaster, since they have not that much removal, but I really don't know if the chances make you want to have 5 SB slots on it.

[lordofthepit]

Hi,

Just new to the thread. Been playing the deck for so long since the MT legal days and has seen its various evolutions.

I've been trying out a doomsday SB plan with laboratory maniac as the win con instead of emrakul-shelldock. Allows you to win outright and frees up another slot in your SB.

Your thoughts?

Seems a lot better in Vintage where you don't have to worry about creature removal as much, and where you can easily construct a pile to win with Gush and Ancestral Recall on the same turn.

What's the Doomsday pile you have in mind? A pass-the-turn pile with a 2/2 creature is kind of awkward.

[Deviruchi]

I've heard from 4 people that they had played during GP vs ANT pilots with SB Laboratory Maniac and Divining Witch. All of them won because of creature removal, jace or stifle. SB DD+L.Maniac is too fragile. I would only try to play it in a deck with chant effects. DD+Emrakul is good vs some blue decks without wasteland, vs CB and vs Reanimator.

[John Cox]

I've heard from 4 people that they had played during GP vs ANT pilots with SB Laboratory Maniac and Divining Witch. All of them won because of creature removal, jace or stifle. SB DD+L.Maniac is too fragile. I would only try to play it in a deck with chant effects. DD+Emrakul is good vs some blue decks without wasteland, vs CB and vs Reanimator.

DD+Emrakul It seems too slow against reanimator from what I can see, I really only see it working against counter top.

[lorddotm]

After SCG Vegas, I'll post on how to make Burning Wish and Past in Flames work. Until then, just keep trying.

[JJ_JKidd]

After SCG Vegas, I'll post on how to make Burning Wish and Past in Flames work. Until then, just keep trying.

Why wait till Vegas? :really:

[lorddotm]

Why wait till Vegas? :really:

Don't really want my list all over the place before I get a chance to play in a major tournament.

[JJ_JKidd]

Don't really want my list all over the place before I get a chance to play in a major tournament.

Well good luck

[xfxf]

Don't really want my list all over the place before I get a chance to play in a major tournament.

We're looking forward to the event then, it would be nice to see a TNT build on a feature match :) Good luck!

[Fossil4182]

Has anyone had a chance to test with Past in Flames over Ill-Gotten Gains in ANT? I'm seriously contemplating cutting one Island and Ill-Gotten Gains for a Volcanic Island and Past in Flames maindeck for the SCG event this weekend. My justification for this move is several fold.

Past in Flames, at least in gold-fishing, has been extremely powerful. It has allowed me to generate copious amounts of Storm in a fairly quick manner with excess mana left over. The extra storm is needed to protect yourself against them casting Force of Will on the 10th copy of Tendrils which would prevent you from achieving lethal storm. The extra mana also seems warranted since I believe Flusterstorm will see a rise in popularity given how powerful it appears to be in a Snapcaster.dec metagame.

I also believe that given the rise in the number of Hymn to Tourach decks as well as the number of blue decks running Spell Snare, that having the ability to flashback discarded tutors and rituals seems like a way to sidestep what would otherwise be crippling disruption. In the same line of reasoning, Past in Flames' ability to generate +12 storm should allow you to play out Lion's Eye Diamond early against BUG and BW, preventing them from discarding it. At least from my experience, using Ill-Gotten Gains often required you to play the Lion's Eye Diamond(s) the turn you were going off since you may not have been able to generate enough storm.

I also have seen several lists placing at events including the Top 8 deck from the recent GP which are weighing on my decision.

[Piceli89]

I thought Past in Flames was already a proven and consolidated replacement for Ill-Gotten Gains. So yes, the majority of the builds have adopted it adding one or two lands for red. It is a complete beast in covering the chantless versions' weakness towards Stifle and Spell Snare decks, as well as exploiting furtherly LEDs' brokenness.

Although there are still people who can't recognize how it is far miles better than IGG-which is preferable only against the decks where you are actually having a bye or almost.

[Fossil4182]

I thought Past in Flames was already a proven and consolidated replacement for Ill-Gotten Gains. So yes, the majority of the builds have adopted it adding one or two lands for red. It is a complete beast in covering the chantless versions' weakness towards Stifle and Spell Snare decks, as well as exploiting furtherly LEDs' brokenness.

Although there are still people who can't recognize how it is far miles better than IGG-which is preferable only against the decks where you are actually having a bye or almost.

Is Ill-Gotten Gains even worth a sideboard slot at this point?

[Ricca84]

Imho IGG is out.
Past in Flames is better vs any blue.deck, and you only prefer IGG when you have 2 LED with only one dark ritual in graveyard and few life points. In any case you must have 4 spell before cast IT to IGG plan.

[OneWingedAngel]

Seems a lot better in Vintage where you don't have to worry about creature removal as much, and where you can easily construct a pile to win with Gush and Ancestral Recall on the same turn.

What's the Doomsday pile you have in mind? A pass-the-turn pile with a 2/2 creature is kind of awkward.

Assuming you have enough Mana(floating 6 after DD) and have a cantrip in hand(BS preferably)and extra card, I'd probably go for a very simple L. maniac, BS,probe,BS, plus another cantrip maybe. Just getting it on top of my head so again I might be wrong with my pile but the idea is to win with a lot of cantrips on the spot.

I was experimenting on it since its very common for most opponents here in our local to side out their removal spells(STP/PTE) during game two (unless they're packing bolts) and bring in more permission.

[AriLax]

PSA: Time to splash Chants. A year ago when everyone was Daze/Wasting/Piercing and no one was Snare/Stifling, it was wrong. Things change. 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Scrubland, 1 Tundra, -1 Preordain, -2 Seize, +3 Chant/Silence.

[John Cox]

PSA: Time to splash Chants. A year ago when everyone was Daze/Wasting/Piercing and no one was Snare/Stifling, it was wrong. Things change. 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Scrubland, 1 Tundra, -1 Preordain, -2 Seize, +3 Chant/Silence.

Whats your thoughts on Past In Flames and 4 colour mana bases.

[Silent Requiem]

Whats your thoughts on Past In Flames and 4 colour mana bases.

Play TES?

One of ANT's strengths is that it plays with a very solid mana base. By going up to four colours I'm not sure that I see any real difference between the deck you are proposing and TES.

That's not to say it's a bad idea, but you need to recognise what you are trading away.

[John Cox]

Play TES?

One of ANT's strengths is that it plays with a very solid mana base. By going up to four colours I'm not sure that I see any real difference between the deck you are proposing and TES.

That's not to say it's a bad idea, but you need to recognise what you are trading away.

The majority of this thread is playing UBr ( past in flames ), Ari Lax is proposing UBw ( orim's chant ), I would like to hear his thoughts on possibly hybridizing those approaches as a way forward as I doubt most see this deck working without past in flames.

[death]

PSA: Time to splash Chants. A year ago when everyone was Daze/Wasting/Piercing and no one was Snare/Stifling, it was wrong. Things change. 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Scrubland, 1 Tundra, -1 Preordain, -2 Seize, +3 Chant/Silence.

A year ago Zoo/Ichorid/Junk/Affinity/Loam filled the meta while Reanimator, Hive Mind and Spiral Tide didn't exist. 3c/4c-Landstill and Thresh were nonexistent. Now Uw, BUG, and RUG seems to be everywhere. With Misstep out of the picture, everyone and their mother decided to switch from countering 1 drops to countering every spell that is cmc=2. Before, all you have to worry about was going off turn 1 against Fow. Without Mystical Tutor and a low threat density, every single Island is a potential nightmare because now its Fow+Snare, with Stifles and Flusterstorms/V.Clique/SCM/Surg.Extraction on the side. If you don't Chant chances are you'd be falling off the top tables. I think its time for Storm players to adapt too, by playing 3-4 colors, more business, Past in Flames (Burning Wish.. Doomsday).

[JamieW89]

PSA: Time to splash Chants. A year ago when everyone was Daze/Wasting/Piercing and no one was Snare/Stifling, it was wrong. Things change. 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Scrubland, 1 Tundra, -1 Preordain, -2 Seize, +3 Chant/Silence.

I played:
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Sea
2 Tundra
9 Fetch

5 Chants
2 Duress

At the gp. And I'm probably going to 7 chants. I liked double Tundra as you really only want to use the W and B when you go off and prefer lands to tap for U the turns before. If I'd cut the swamp I would run a Scrubland though.

My current concern is the sb. I have a few slots open after cutting Confidants but I don't know what to replace them with. Maybe Swarms are good as Canadian Thresh seems to board out their burn (all 5 of my opponents on the GP did) but I'm not sure.

I currently have:
3 Extirpate (If reanimate popularity drops I'll consider cutting these again)
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Path to Exile (Better than chain against hatebears sometimes and pretty good against reanimate)
1 Hurkyl's Recall (The lonely out against too much crazy hate, relevant at times)
*Room for extra chants/discard/swarms etc.*

[AriLax]

Whats your thoughts on Past In Flames and 4 colour mana bases.

Don't think PiF is good, esp. if you are Chanting to make IGG live against Force. Don't think Wish is good, especially if you are going to sideboard 4 Empty the Warrens like I am. Don't think Rite is good, unless you have Wish. None of the red cards impress me at all. Also, doubt 4C is doable without Gemstone Mine.

[dillonkbase]

4 empty the warrens for reanimator?

[AriLax]

4 empty the warrens for reanimator?

Unsure. Chant helps a ton there as a real Time Walk if they Entomb, might be unnecessary. If you make 10 Goblins on 2 regularly I might consider it, thats enough to beat anything that isnt Sphinx.

[emidln]

4 ETW backed by 4 Chant was an extremely good plan when we were first making the transition from Intuition to Grim Tutor in Tendrils decks. The real reason why we abandoned it was the metagame adapting to the plan, partially aided by the rise of CB adding even more EEs to the mix. With CB being held down by the tempo decks and G/W decks, ETW is probably a fine plan again.

[dillonkbase]

Just to be clear, Ari you are supporting the warrens just off mana from petals or LEDs?

Warrens seems good against reanimator for a few reasons in my head .. just want to spell them out.

1. They have probably sided out elsh norn and blazing arcon, so they might not have much left to counter 10 tokens.
2. You can storm for less so... you can storm quicker.
3. putting them down to half their life means they have less options when it comes to their reanimation spells, 10 damage to reanimate hurts.

[Malakai]

Unsure. Chant helps a ton there as a real Time Walk if they Entomb, might be unnecessary. If you make 10 Goblins on 2 regularly I might consider it, thats enough to beat anything that isnt Sphinx.

What on earth are you boarding out? IGG, Ad Naus, maybe 1 Preordain...Grims?

I'm still not sure how great this plan is against Reanimator, as if you lost game 1 they can still have Sphinx, Archon, and Elesh Norn for game 3. It just doesn't seem like you can beat an Entomb hand with this plan. Additionally, without the TES ritual set, it's still very reasonable for them to keep you off four mana with either FoW or Spell Pierce.

I'm interested in how it has tested out. We can jam some games when I get back in town if you want.

[Dia_Bot]

I've found reanimator to be slightly in your favor with 3 extirpate. The matchup I have way more problems with is team america. No matter how I sideboard this matchup is still very unfavourable. (Normally I side 3 confidants 2 SDT)
Does anyone had succes in this matchup with other sideboard cards?

[death]

Played against U/w Snapcaster using my previous UB list, he boarded into Flusterstorms and Extractions. I managed to win the round on the back of 2-3 Duresses. Lost a game when he had FoW+Snare and I didn't draw a single Duress, could have gone IT for a second Duress. Made me rethink my position on the idea of splashing -w and/or -r. 3 Probe/4 Duress/2-3 Tseize or Cabal Therapy (as suggested a few pages ago) may just be good enough. I am really hesitant on diluting the manabase or playing rainbow lands with 3-4 fetchlands so I might stay traditional for now.

[ThomasDowd]

PSA: Time to splash Chants. A year ago when everyone was Daze/Wasting/Piercing and no one was Snare/Stifling, it was wrong. Things change. 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Scrubland, 1 Tundra, -1 Preordain, -2 Seize, +3 Chant/Silence.

Why not just go up to 6-7 chant effects? Is the mana not good enough? or is the split on duress/ chant effects just nice since it helps you save mana on the fundamental turn/ disrupt other combo? I just imagine that having 6-7 chants means if you resolve it you win, and daze is useless against it.

I'm mainly just asking, I'll be messing with it sometime in the next week. I know people have done it before (all chants for disruption) but I was always curious as to why the split, since duress is mainly snagging counterspells anyways, at least 80% of the time.

[Zieby]

I played the disruption suit as suggested by Ari during the GP Amsterdam. I started testing with a build with 7 chant effects, the problem with this suit is that you are stone cold against BUG his Hymns. Therefore some duress effects are required to still have a game against BUG. I really loved it all day and only didn't make day 2 due my own playmistake. The duress effects give you a good fighring chance against their Hymns and thoughtseize realy helps against those hate bears and cliques. IMHO you want to have that mix in your disruption suit.

Regarding PiF:
I am still unsure if ANT needs it. I know the build that went top 8 had it, but I realy love the chants and a 4 color manabase is not an option in my view.

[AriLax]

Why not just go up to 6-7 chant effects? Is the mana not good enough? or is the split on duress/ chant effects just nice since it helps you save mana on the fundamental turn/ disrupt other combo? I just imagine that having 6-7 chants means if you resolve it you win, and daze is useless against it.

I'm mainly just asking, I'll be messing with it sometime in the next week. I know people have done it before (all chants for disruption) but I was always curious as to why the split, since duress is mainly snagging counterspells anyways, at least 80% of the time.

A Duress and a Chant is much better than two Chants when fighting counters. Lets you protect your Chant as opposed to having to just jam in two, potentially over 2 turns. Also would still rather have Duress against Merfolk.

Also, as for EtW, I have 1 Volc in the board too.

[death]

Why not just go up to 6-7 chant effects? Is the mana not good enough? or is the split on duress/ chant effects just nice since it helps you save mana on the fundamental turn/ disrupt other combo? I just imagine that having 6-7 chants means if you resolve it you win, and daze is useless against it.

The reason I envy Doomsday-Tendrils is because they can play Chants and still be at the optimum speed. Chant in ANT is alright against slower opponents but against Aggro with Mindbreak Trap (for example), you'll need 6 mana to safely go off if all you have are Chants. Ad Nauseam is very much life dependent (Doomsday not much). I usually find my life total already dwindled before I have access to 3BBW. Against Daze or Spell Pierce (+something else), that'll be 4BBW or 5BBW before you can declare yourself a winner. If you use Chant to try and bait a counter (just so you can go off next turn) and opponent doesn't bite it, you're dead.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Hey folks while I know people are still having a boner over Past in Flames, is anyone trying any lists with 7 chant effects?

It seems really good in the current meta with all the Stifles and Flusterstorms.

And also basics and such for the Wastelands and other nonsense.

Comments, questions, rebuttal, editorial reply?

[AriLax]

Hey folks while I know people are still having a boner over Past in Flames, is anyone trying any lists with 7 chant effects?

It seems really good in the current meta with all the Stifles and Flusterstorms.

And also basics and such for the Wastelands and other nonsense.

Comments, questions, rebuttal, editorial reply?

I'm thinking a basic Plains is going to be necessary moving forward. Too much Daze/Waste bullshit still to rely on duals.

FWIW, I played the deck in KC at the SCG Open. Went 2-2 drop, losing to miserable draws against Goblins and Tempo Thresh. I'm a pretty big fan of the EtW plan so far, but it needs a bit of work. Would definitely be much better with Rite of Flame to just make getting to 4 real easy, but I don't think you can make a Waste proof mana base with Chant and Rite. BTW, Chant was unreal.

Current list is:

2 Chant
1 Silence
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal
4 Dark
4 LED
4 Petal
4 IT
2 Grim
1 Ad Naus
1 IGG
1 Tendrils
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Sea
1 Tundra
2 Marsh Flats
4 Delta
4 Strand

Sideboard:
1 Volc
4 EtW
1 Ad Naus
3 Chain
2 Rebuild
1 Seize
1 Silence
1 Duress
1 Badlands

I kinda want to fit another Seize in the board to back up EtW (don't want Chant when I'm EtWing, just need to point target specific counters depending on my hand, not stop all of them). Might just cut the sideboard AdN as you no longer have to necessarily cut IGG against Reanimator with Chant.

[Anusien]

Why is the re-rise of Spell Snare and Stifle suggest that Chant is better?

It seems like there are a ton of Spell Pierces and Flusterstorms out there. The soft counters all make Duress better because you need more mana in the combo turn.


On another vein, if you are UBr, what is the correct number of Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony. I am becoming increasingly convinced it is not 1/1.

[death]

There are situations where one is better than the other obviously. Unfortunately you cannot pick your silver bullet. A 4/3 split doesn't really mean anything because seldomly can you filter protection spells.

The only debate here is whether it is justifiable to run a less stable manabase in the meta where you play.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

It basically comes down to that once you resolve a chant, you simply win.

Duress can't beat the hands with multiple ways of stopping you.

Chant sucks when you're trying to rip a hate bear out of your opponents hand.

[John Cox]

You can also use Chant as a pseudo tempo effect.
Suppose your on the play against zoo, you chant them on their first upkeep, they aren't able to play their first spell. This is important because if zoo doesn't play it's first creature on turn one it will be turn three when they attack for the first time. You should be able to go off near that time. This works against turn one acceleration, vials, dredge's first discard outlet, and anything that might be able to race you or put going off difficult.
It's especially good against other combo, as if they chant, you can counter back with chant. IE as long as you have a chant they can't go off since you have an instant anti combo card for :w: that's more effective than flutterstorm.


Why is the re-rise of Spell Snare and Stifle suggest that Chant is better?

Chant effects are unaffected by spell snare and stifle so we can ignore those effects where previously we would have to deal with spell snare prior to resolving infernal tutor, and stifle post nauseam. It still trades 1:1 with other counter magic so it still has the same value as a duress in that context.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Also Orim's Chant/Silence is typically is a "must counter," where Duress isn't always.

[AriLax]

Why is the re-rise of Spell Snare and Stifle suggest that Chant is better?

It seems like there are a ton of Spell Pierces and Flusterstorms out there. The soft counters all make Duress better because you need more mana in the combo turn.


On another vein, if you are UBr, what is the correct number of Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony. I am becoming increasingly convinced it is not 1/1.

Don't kid yourself, Flusterstorm is just a hard counter. 0 chance of Ritualling through it.

[dillonkbase]

Just want to point out the obvious, that duress is also trash when you want to rip a hate-bear out of your opponents hand.

If anything, I wonder if thoughtseize would be the correct call in the chant/discard hybrid?

[Dia_Bot]

Why is the re-rise of Spell Snare and Stifle suggest that Chant is better?



To be honest it's probably also due the fact that snapcaster is seeing a lot of play recently.

[ReinVos]

No one has really discussed the Gitaxian Probes and Cabal Therapies and Pichon's list (top 4 GP Amsterdam). I think they're really good. The Probes can give you an idea of what you're facing so you can either cantrip or duress/therapy based on the information. They just work great with Cabal Therapy. Cabal Therapy can hit creatures if desired so the absence of Thoughtseize isn't that much of a problem when considering hatebears (also two Slaughter Pacts from the board).

What I also like is that this list enables using post board Confidants and Xantid Swarms to flashback Therapy. You can really screw someone over with it because most players save their removal for the moment you're declaring you wanna attack. You can just flashback Therapy in your first mainphase, not giving the guy a chance to plow the insect.

While I agree that chant effects have gotten better because there are more Snares and Stifles opposed to Dazes and Pierces, which are more difficult to play around, I'm really impressed with Past in Flames. It's like a one-sided Ill-Gotten Gains. Being able to go this route makes chant a little less important since you don't have to worry about them recurring blue cards. It's too much of a strain on the mana base to try and squeeze Past in Flames and multiple Chant effects into one deck (more so than squeezing in a Bayou and have a set of Xantids in the board).

[Sloshthedark]

On another vein, if you are UBr, what is the correct number of Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony. I am becoming increasingly convinced it is not 1/1.

play burning wish? I find myself going for PiF kill most time, but still can't imagine abandoning Ad Nausem is an option...


No one has really discussed the Gitaxian Probes and Cabal Therapies and Pichon's list (top 4 GP Amsterdam)

they are good, can get you out of situations Thoughtseize simply can't, even without flashback they are > seize for me...

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

If anyone's curious, here's my current list:

15 Land
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Swamp

45 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Preordain
4 Orim's Chant
3 Silence
3 Ponder
2 Grim Tutor
2 Chrome Mox
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

15 Sideboard
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thoughtseize
2 Rebuild
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

[Dia_Bot]

No one has really discussed the Gitaxian Probes and Cabal Therapies and Pichon's list (top 4 GP Amsterdam). I think they're really good. The Probes can give you an idea of what you're facing so you can either cantrip or duress/therapy based on the information. They just work great with Cabal Therapy. Cabal Therapy can hit creatures if desired so the absence of Thoughtseize isn't that much of a problem when considering hatebears (also two Slaughter Pacts from the board).

What I also like is that this list enables using post board Confidants and Xantid Swarms to flashback Therapy. You can really screw someone over with it because most players save their removal for the moment you're declaring you wanna attack. You can just flashback Therapy in your first mainphase, not giving the guy a chance to plow the insect.

While I agree that chant effects have gotten better because there are more Snares and Stifles opposed to Dazes and Pierces, which are more difficult to play around, I'm really impressed with Past in Flames. It's like a one-sided Ill-Gotten Gains. Being able to go this route makes chant a little less important since you don't have to worry about them recurring blue cards. It's too much of a strain on the mana base to try and squeeze Past in Flames and multiple Chant effects into one deck (more so than squeezing in a Bayou and have a set of Xantids in the board).

Pichon's list is indeed quite good. The only things I don't like about his list is the C. Veins and maindeck bayou.
Personally I would play a chant version in a metagame where you expect a lot of combo decks and pure control decks and a Pif version in a more all around metagame.

[Zieby]

15 Land
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Swamp


I cannot find any reason for the way how you have constructed your Fetch base.
4 Delta
2 Strand
2 Marshflats
This config is way better because now you can fetch all duals with your fetchlands.
Maybe it is something small, but it is still a improvement.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

I was a bit lazy putting that part together.

Simple.

[Anusien]

Don't kid yourself, Flusterstorm is just a hard counter. 0 chance of Ritualling through it.
If they wait to hit Ad Nauseam or Infernal Tutor, that's probably true.

RE: Past in Flames
Burning Wish is terrible, hopefully this doesn't need further explanation.

If you just have 1 Tendrils and 1 Past in Flames, you can't really take advantage of the fact that Past in Flames has flashback (and is therefore insanely hard to counter). The only way you can cast Past in Flames and win is if you have Infernal Tutor already in the graveyard. If you can naturally draw Past in Flames/Tendrils, you dramatically reduce your vulnerability to countermagic.

If ANT lists are constructed in the form of:
15 lands
4 Preordain/Ponder/Brainstorm/Probe
4 Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond/Lotus Petal
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Storm engines (Ad Nauseam/Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains)
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Flex slots (lands, Thoughtseize, etc)

I have 1 extra Past in Flames and 1 extra Tendrils in those flex slots. The extra Tendrils becomes important if you have access to any draw7s; I don't think I have to explain the difference between drawing a Tendrils and drawing a tutor for Tendrils off a symmetrical draw7.

Edit, since people like lists:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
2 Past in Flames
1 Time Spiral
2 Tendrils of Agony

Somewhat experimental...

[egosum]

I'm a big fan of the list posted in #3410. Is card by card the list I'm playing (in UBw version), chainghing the 4/3 Preordain/Ponder for a 3/4, and -3x Silence + 3 Duress (the sideboard is quite different though (confindant kind of sucks, just my humble opinion). And is the kind of list I'll play if I expect a Snapcaster.dec metagame. Though the list I'm playing now is quite different:

Maind 60

2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Pollued Delta
3x Misty/Flooded/Scalding
1x Bloodstained Mire

2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion' s Eye Diamond

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

1x Ad Nauseam
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in flames

4x Infernal Tutor
3x Burning Wish

4x Duress
3x Cabal Theapy

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Gitaxian Probe

Side 15

2x Extirpate
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyl' s Recall

1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Il-Gotten Gains
1x Grim Tutor
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Pyroclasm
1x Silent Departure
1x Meltdown

Which I think is better suited for a wider/unknown metagame simply because Burning Wish helps a lot in dealing with almost any form of Hate, plus having the warrens out helps a lot in some given matchups. Also Grim Tutor is key, and I think is a big mistake to play an Infernal Tutor in the sideboard because it is the best enabler we have and the most regular and reliable card to start going off, so playing less than a playset in main deck is not an option.

Testing results are quite decent for now, this evening I made a perfect (4-0) in a local small store tournament (20-ish people), played against CB-Top (side MVP Extirpate), Pikula (side MVP chain of vapor, helping to reach more than 16 storm so I can win after an early nighthawk), G/W Zenith (side MVP Meltdown, killing 2 canonists with an active Mother of Runes, and my own mox in the same turn to reach threshold) and Dredge (MVP deck's raw Power...).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[lordofthepit]

I'm a big fan of the list posted in #3410. Is card by card the list I'm playing (in UBw version), chainghing the 4/3 Preordain/Ponder for a 3/4, and -3x Silence + 3 Duress (the sideboard is quite different though (confindant kind of sucks, just my humble opinion). And is the kind of list I'll play if I expect a Snapcaster.dec metagame. Though the list I'm playing now is quite different:

Maind 60

2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Island
1x Swamp
4x Pollued Delta
3x Misty/Flooded/Scalding
1x Bloodstained Mire

2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion' s Eye Diamond

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

1x Ad Nauseam
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in flames

4x Infernal Tutor
3x Burning Wish

4x Duress
3x Cabal Theapy

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Gitaxian Probe

Side 15

2x Extirpate
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyl' s Recall

1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Il-Gotten Gains
1x Grim Tutor
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Pyroclasm
1x Silent Departure
1x Meltdown

Which I think is better suited for a wider/unknown metagame simply because Burning Wish helps a lot in dealing with almost any form of Hate, plus having the warrens out helps a lot in some given matchups. Also Grim Tutor is key, and I think is a big mistake to play an Infernal Tutor in the sideboard because it is the best enabler we have and the most regular and reliable card to start going off, so playing less than a playset in main deck is not an option.

Testing results are quite decent for now, this evening I made a perfect (4-0) in a local small store tournament (20-ish people), played against CB-Top (side MVP Extirpate), Pikula (side MVP chain of vapor, helping to reach more than 16 storm so I can win after an early nighthawk), G/W Zenith (side MVP Meltdown, killing 2 canonists with an active Mother of Runes, and my own mox in the same turn to reach threshold) and Dredge (MVP deck's raw Power...).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Thanks for posting the list. I'm playing a similar list with 16 lands (2 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic, 1 Badlands, 2 Island, 2 Swamp, 8 Fetchlands), a 4/3 Wish/IT split (even though I mentioned wanting to change it to 3/4 a few posts above), Thoughtseizes instead of Duresses, and Preordains instead of Probes.

In retrospect, Gitaxian Probe makes a lot of sense with Past in Flames. Being able to draw free cards for 0 mana is amazing, especially since life total is less important if you go with PiF.

Still not entirely sold on Cabal Therapy over Thoughtseizes, even with 7 other effects to allow you to look at your opponent's hand. How often do you wish you had a Thoughtseize instead? How often does Cabal Therapy's ability to nuke multiple copies of the same card turn up relevant, and how often is the 2 life that you save relevant? The deck you have posted doesn't make use of the flashback on Cabal Therapy, so that's clearly not a factor.

I also noticed the Ill-Gotten Gains in the sideboard. Is that more of a wishboard target or a card you bring in against aggro decks that can't interact with the stack? I find IGG is a much stronger maindeck target for Infernal Tutor than it is a sideboard target for Burning Wish, since the former allows you to kill using only black mana and since you can also use IGG to bring back the Infernal Tutor that you used to grab IGG (not possible with BW). Overall, IGG is faster than Past in Flames, but less robust; however, I figure if you're going to grab a card out of the sideboard with Burning Wish, I would almost always prefer the more robust Past in Flames for the reasons mentioned above.

[egosum]

Thanks for posting the list. I'm playing a similar list with 16 lands (2 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic, 1 Badlands, 2 Island, 2 Swamp, 8 Fetchlands), a 4/3 Wish/IT split (even though I mentioned wanting to change it to 3/4 a few posts above), Thoughtseizes instead of Duresses, and Preordains instead of Probes.

In retrospect, Gitaxian Probe makes a lot of sense with Past in Flames. Being able to draw free cards for 0 mana is amazing, especially since life total is less important if you go with PiF.

Still not entirely sold on Cabal Therapy over Thoughtseizes, even with 7 other effects to allow you to look at your opponent's hand. How often do you wish you had a Thoughtseize instead? How often does Cabal Therapy's ability to nuke multiple copies of the same card turn up relevant, and how often is the 2 life that you save relevant? The deck you have posted doesn't make use of the flashback on Cabal Therapy, so that's clearly not a factor.

I also noticed the Ill-Gotten Gains in the sideboard. Is that more of a wishboard target or a card you bring in against aggro decks that can't interact with the stack? I find IGG is a much stronger maindeck target for Infernal Tutor than it is a sideboard target for Burning Wish, since the former allows you to kill using only black mana and since you can also use IGG to bring back the Infernal Tutor that you used to grab IGG (not possible with BW). Overall, IGG is faster than Past in Flames, but less robust; however, I figure if you're going to grab a card out of the sideboard with Burning Wish, I would almost always prefer the more robust Past in Flames for the reasons mentioned above.

It' s been very few times where I missed thoughtseize, it is oly relevant in the G1 if you draw it in your opening hand with no other "reveal hand effects" and with no other better T1 play, so it is quite cornercase. But this situations are balanced with the posibility of discarding multiple stifles/snares, I see Threapy as our "black Chant effect". Saving some lifes it's been awesome making Ad Nauseam stronger.

II keep the IGG in the board not for wishing, noramlly wishing IGG is not good because you won't be able to recur the wish (this is why I think that recursion effects are not good wish targets, Grim Tutor is better all the time), but because it gives you speed (as you said) against aggro decks, if I'm paying a non-burn aggro I side -1x Past for +1x IGG, and if I'm playing burn I side -1x Ad Nauseam +1x IGG (Ad Nauseam is horrible against burn/boros-like decks).

[Anusien]

Gitaxian Probe is terrible with Past in Flames. If you whiff it turns off your Infernal Tutor. So it is free storm only in the case where you can already find and cast Tendrils.

[egosum]

Have you ever thought that you can play Infernal Tutor, get what you want and AFTER THAT cast gitaxian probe for extra storm/cards?

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Anusien]

As I said, it's +1 storm in a hand that can already cast IT->Past in Flames and flashback IT->Tendrils. I've messed around with the deck and the situation where I need to do that has never come up.

The better argument to make is about desperation Past in Flames.

[John Cox]

As I said, it's +1 storm in a hand that can already cast IT->Past in Flames and flashback IT->Tendrils. I've messed around with the deck and the situation where I need to do that has never come up.

The better argument to make is about desperation Past in Flames.

It comes up all the time if you have a maindeck past in flames, look at this line of play:

Ritual, Ritual, LED, Tutor, -> Past in flames, -> Flashback Ritual, Flashback Ritual, Flashback Tutor -> tendrils

That's only 9 storm, flashbacking a Gitaxian probe is very relevant.

[lordofthepit]

Gitaxian Probe is terrible with Past in Flames. If you whiff it turns off your Infernal Tutor. So it is free storm only in the case where you can already find and cast Tendrils.

Gitaxian Probe vs. Preordain is a legitimate point of discussion, but not in the context of Past in Flames.

If you're going with Past in Flames, you're already going to need black and red mana on the turn you go off, so you'll likely be using your duals, Petals, and Diamonds for that purpose. It is highly unlikely that you'll be able to generate a lot of blue mana anyway.

If for some reason you do need to string together a bunch of cantrips while going off with Past in Flames, it's either because you need to increase the storm count before getting the sure win or because you need a desperation play. In the first case, Preordain's ability to dig deeper is simply not a factor. In the second case, since blue mana is more likely to be limiting, Probe's ability to cycle for free is probably better than Preordain's scry 2; on its own, drawing a card without manipulation isn't impressive, but you'll be coupling this with the Brainstorm and Ponders that you play. (Note: you will be playing Ponders and Brainstorms that you have accessible before you consider Preordain, because on a desperation attempt to go off, the ability to dig deeper is extremely important.)

I can't think of any case in which you would play Probe before Infernal Tutor, such that it would mess up your hellbent. I suppose if you were naturally casting it from your hand, needing to hit anything except for a land (since you used up your land drop for the turn), you might occasionally run into that issue. But that situation is used unlikely, since Probes tend to be used earlier in the game to allow you to scout your opponent's hand. Moreover, that situation has nothing to do with Past in Flames.

[Anusien]

The answer to "Preordain versus Gitaxian Probe" is both.

[Malakai]

The answer to "Preordain versus Gitaxian Probe" is both.

I have missed you so much. *Looks for Bardo*

So far your list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?11184-Deck-ANT-(Ad-Nauseam-Tendrils)&p=598751&viewfull=1#post598751) seems to be the most sound Past in Flames strategy, but I have some questions:

I understand why you cut Ad Naus, but how has it been without it?
How has only 4 protection been?
No IGGy?
Time Spiral?
The inclusion of Gitaxian Probe seems to be contradictory to some of your comments about it on the past couple pages. Can you expand on this card's role?

[thefringthing]

Looks like Liam's playing a TNT deck at SCG Legacy Open: Las Vegas right now. I'm sure he'll fill us in on his exact list after the tournament. (Or we'll find out in the coverage.)

[siqatzi]

I'm new to this deck - I'm building a UBr list with Past in Flames instead of IGG but no Burning Wish, with Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy instead of Preordain + Thoughtseize, and without Grim Tutor - and I was wondering if anyone could advise me on using anti-hate cards and on sideboarding? Specifically...

(1) I've seen some lists with a single bounce spell maindeck. I don't quite understand this in lists without Grim Tutor, as the only situation in which you could Infernal Tutor for your bounce spell (without wrecking your own hand) is if you had a PiF and some rituals in your graveyard already, which seems marginal. Are you just hoping to draw a one-of in the rare situations where your opponent has also maindecked permanent hate? Or is the plan to Ad Nauseam to draw half your deck before using your bounce spell?

(2) Sideboarding plans I'm aware of include putting in some draw (eg Dark Confidant) against discard and anti-hate cards against hate (Chain of Vapour, Slaughter Pact). I guess you might also swap out PiF for IGG against non-FoW decks. What should you bring in against counter-heavy control, and what should you bring in against tempo? And what can you actually take out without damaging the combo? Mana (Petals and Cabal Rituals) or cantrips (I suppose Ponder)?

I've read quite a bit of this thread and its equivalent on MTGS, but not the entirety of either - so if the answer to my questions is "go and do your own research", then fair enough.. But to anyone who can help me, thank you in advance :)

[John Cox]

I'm new to this deck - I'm building a UBr list with Past in Flames instead of IGG but no Burning Wish, with Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy instead of Preordain + Thoughtseize, and without Grim Tutor - and I was wondering if anyone could advise me on using anti-hate cards and on sideboarding? Specifically...

(1) I've seen some lists with a single bounce spell maindeck. I don't quite understand this in lists without Grim Tutor, as the only situation in which you could Infernal Tutor for your bounce spell (without wrecking your own hand) is if you had a PiF and some rituals in your graveyard already, which seems marginal. Are you just hoping to draw a one-of in the rare situations where your opponent has also maindecked permanent hate? Or is the plan to Ad Nauseam to draw half your deck before using your bounce spell?



The single bounce spell is easy to draw or tutor for with grim tutor after casting Ad Nauseam, or at least in theory.



(2) Sideboarding plans I'm aware of include putting in some draw (eg Dark Confidant) against discard and anti-hate cards against hate (Chain of Vapour, Slaughter Pact). I guess you might also swap out PiF for IGG against non-FoW decks. What should you bring in against counter-heavy control, and what should you bring in against tempo? And what can you actually take out without damaging the combo? Mana (Petals and Cabal Rituals) or cantrips (I suppose Ponder)?


If your going with UBr then bring in Pyroblasts for tempo and confidants for counter heavy, you can easily take out two ponders a cabal ritual and a land for those cards.

I would also recommend you start with the standard list that includes Grim tutor before experimenting with the deck too much. Playing with only four tutors is a bit difficult.

[siqatzi]

The single bounce spell is easy to draw or tutor for with grim tutor after casting Ad Nauseam, or at least in theory.

If your going with UBr then bring in Pyroblasts for tempo and confidants for counter heavy, you can easily take out two ponders a cabal ritual and a land for those cards.

I would also recommend you start with the standard list that includes Grim tutor before experimenting with the deck too much. Playing with only four tutors is a bit difficult.

Thanks for your advice :)

Pyroblasts/REBs sounds like a good idea. If I was bringing in those then would I want to have a basic mountain somewhere in the 75 (currently running just 1 x Volcanic as my red source)? And considering red SB cards - is there any use in having EtW somewhere in the 75?

Sadly I don't have access to Grim Tutors so I'm currently running 4 Infernal Tutor/2 Ad Nauseam. I like consistency in my combo, so if I had GTs I'd be running that build, but as they cost well over $150 it's a moot point for me...

[xfxf]

@lorddotm

So SCG Vegas is over, I'm still curious about your build with PiF. Will you share your approach and tell us a bit about how the tournament went?

[Anusien]

The theory behind Time Spiral is.. interesting.
I cut Lotus Petal for Rite of Flame. I feel pretty good about this choice, I think. It makes you a little bit slower, but it makes you much more resilient to disruption because you need fewer rituals to go lethal (since you can rebuy Rite but not Lotus Petal).

Once you cut Petal, Ad Nauseam becomes mediocre. You have to go into it floating at least B. It costs 6 now instead of 5. I went looking at draw spells. I considered Diminishing Returns, but that costs 5 (since you have to float mana as well) and has risks. Time Spiral costs 6 and produces a ton of mana.

The neat thing, in theory, about having Past in Flames and Time Spiral as your engine is that your life total is a resource again. You can go to the last possible turn and wait out decks in a way you can't with Ad Nauseam.


Gitaxian Probe is in there because it's bonkers. You can peek at their hand and know exactly what you have to beat and how many turns you have.


I will mess around with this more soon, maybe after Worlds, and we'll see what happens.

[JJ_JKidd]

@lorddotm

So SCG Vegas is over, I'm still curious about your build with PiF. Will you share your approach and tell us a bit about how the tournament went?

Yeah how about that?

[thefringthing]

Liam mentioned on Twitter that his report will be up tomorrow.

Based on the coverage, we know he was playing six discard spells main, and twelve rituals. I didn't see any Chrome Moxes, Gitaxian Probes, or Preordains. He may or may not have been playing any basic lands. He had a Silent Departure in his sideboard.

[TheRedBaron]

What's the consensus on Grim Tutors these days?... I just still think that 6 life from a tutor is rough. If you run, say 2 GT, use 1 to get AN = 3 life, then if you AN into the other GT thats 3 more life. Wouldn't it be technically better to run 2 AN, as that's only 5 life?

I'm still toying around with LDV instead.

[egosum]

I think That Grim tutor is fine as a wish target, but if you are not splashing red then, sadly, we need it and there is no real replacement.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[TheRedBaron]

So, how many GT to run in U/B ANT?

I love ANT, Tried it with PiF without RoF... bad idea... I just feel like... Sadly, If I'm going to splash red, I'll just play TES.

Don't think LDV is viable? I can get Grim Tutors and cost is no concern, I just can't get them right now.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Play 2. Grim Tutor lets you do goofy shit.

[Malakai]

If cost is no issue get Grim Tutors and play either UB or UBw. Burning Wish can be good sometimes, but in general it's not as good as having the six most efficient tutors and a real sideboard.

[ThomasDowd]

What's the consensus on Grim Tutors these days?... I just still think that 6 life from a tutor is rough. If you run, say 2 GT, use 1 to get AN = 3 life, then if you AN into the other GT thats 3 more life. Wouldn't it be technically better to run 2 AN, as that's only 5 life?

I'm still toying around with LDV instead.


If you are AN'ing you are winning. griming for an AN is in my opinion not a very good line. I personally actually hate using ad nauseum unless I absolutely have to or in a match where they do not have counterspells and prefer the tutor chain. since i know that ends in victory instead of investing 2-3 rituals+ tutor/ cards and then fizzling because i didn't flip IT + LED to get hellbent or have to go with no mana floating and never hit a petal. That being said I really like grim tutor since it is one of the best cards for what it does in black. the times I've cast I either did it to set up free storm (LED) go get a piece of disruption to go off the next turn or whatever. it is demonic tutor but costs one more. you lose 3 life big whoop. If you are not crutching on AN this is a non issue.

[NesretepNoj]

What's the consensus on Grim Tutors these days?... I just still think that 6 life from a tutor is rough. If you run, say 2 GT, use 1 to get AN = 3 life, then if you AN into the other GT thats 3 more life. Wouldn't it be technically better to run 2 AN, as that's only 5 life?

In my experience, you mostly use Grim Tutor to chain into a lethal Tendrils (without the use of any "engine") or in conjunction with Ill-Gotten Gains. In either case, the life loss doesn't matter.

In this deck, Ad Nauseam is an emergency button, only to be used if no other option is available.

[AriLax]

LDV is complete trash. You need to cast it the turn before you go off or you need UU, it is miserable with Ad Naus (beyond Grim Tutor), takes a million life to find Tendrils with, sucks with IGG, puts you down cards in hand on the key combo turn.... there are more I don't remember now. Tried it on literal Day 1 of testing and trashed it after playing the card twice.

Grim Tutor is just solid. It looks/feels miserable compared to Infernal and the life loss is obnoxious, but what are your other options? 4 Infernals isn't enough, and Burning Wish fucks up your mana (esp. vs Daze/Waste decks) and doesn't really get assured kills unless you side an IT. In exchange, you gain Earwig Squad resilience, G1 hate card answers, and EtW. Basically, you trade consistency for situational power, and until one of those situations is a big deal it's not worth it.

[leegoo]

After a haul of playing non-combo competitively and going to time every round (go go Blade Mirrors), I've sleeved up ANT again.

I'm on the old stock list (2Grim/4Duress/3Sieze) with the changes of -1 IGG +1 PiF (no Volcanic/Badlands) and it seems to be doing well and I haven't hit a situation where I felt a R producing land would have mattered.

It seems Ari is suggesting a white splash main, but what about the old G splash in the board? Trash now? Autumns Veil / Swarm not doing it? Chants are pretty great against spell snares and Reanimates, but is it worth a Maindeck manabase change? I was always a bit more worried about Clique than the counters anyways (which chant doesn't stop either) but again I haven't played more than 2 or 3 games since re-sleeving.

I suppose I should get back to testing, but just thinking on paper here.

[Fossil4182]

Grim Tutor is just solid. It looks/feels miserable compared to Infernal and the life loss is obnoxious, but what are your other options? 4 Infernals isn't enough, and Burning Wish fucks up your mana (esp. vs Daze/Waste decks) and doesn't really get assured kills unless you side an IT. In exchange, you gain Earwig Squad resilience, G1 hate card answers, and EtW. Basically, you trade consistency for situational power, and until one of those situations is a big deal it's not worth it.

Not to mention Grim Tutor puts you in a position whereby Force of Will becomes their only functional hard counter (excluding Mindbreak Trap/Flusterstorm) since their Spell Snares become dead.

I wrote this a while back when I was keeping a blog on learning to play the deck. The context was right after Past in Flames was spoiled when there was mass discussion of adding red to the deck (namely Burning Wish and Rite of Flame).

Burning Wish vs Grim Tutor

Along with the red mana comes the thought of adding Burning Wish and/or Rite of Flame to the deck; akin to what has been called the TNT build on The Source. Again, I've looked over this build and I'm still convinced that ANT is preferable. First, on Burning Wish. In order for Burning Wish to be effective, you either have to put a copy of Infernal Tutor in the sideboard or you have to have two tutor effects in hand when you go off.

Lets look at the first situation; one Infernal Tutor in the sideboard.

First, even if you have a Past in Flames in the maindeck, you're more likely to have a Burning Wish in hand. If you have Burning Wish in hand without an additional tutor, you'll likely have to wish for Infernal Tutor, then cast Infernal Tutor for Past in Flames for a total cost of 5RRB (8) mana. If you're playing a traditional ANT list with Grim Tutor and a splash for Past in Flames, then you only need 4RBB (7) mana to go off. You can also cast Ill-Gotten Gains for 3BBBB (7) or Ad Nauseam for 4BBBB (8). Casting Grim Tutor into Ill-Gotten Gains or Grim Tutor into Past in Flames will cost one less mana than Burning Wish into Infernal Tutor into Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains. One mana may not seem like a lot, but that's the difference between Cursecatcher and/or Daze ruining your day. If you have to play around Spell Pierce, the math becomes worse with the Burning Wish mana necessary at ten while Grim Tutor is at nine. This analysis does not take into consideration the potential mana issues one can run into with not having enough of one color to effectively cast the necessary cards to win. The extra card (Burning Wish into Infernal Tutor) plus the extra two mana is a reason why most Burning Wish Storm decks would likely cast Burning Wish into Diminishing Returns. Its true that casting Burning Wish for Ill-Gotten Gains or Past in Flames is cheaper than Grim Tutor, but it also assumes you have an Infernal Tutor or second Burning Wish in hand to tutor for the win since Burning Wish removes itself from the game and it doesn't change the math since you'll have to cast the second tutor eventually.

Looking at the other side of the TNT build which has four Infernal Tutors in the maindeck. Under these circumstances, one can Burning Wish for a Past in Flames in the sideboard which lets you.... do nothing. Well, at least nothing unless you have an additional tutor effect in hand or in the graveyard. Burning Wish, while offering more "utility", requires you to have an additional card in hand (Infernal Tutor or an additional Burning Wish) in order to win when you cast it.

Burning Wish in a Storm deck can be a powerful tool. Proponents argue that Burning Wish means you have seven to eight tutors maindeck as opposed to the four to six that ANT builds have. This is a defensible point since great density means a higher likelihood of finding it. Burning Wish also costs less than Grim Tutor (both in terms of casting cost and monetary value). From a casting cost perspective, it allows these decks to be faster which is the reason to prefer TNT (or TES) to ANT. For example, it gives the decks access to Empty the Warrens; some decks just can't compete with a belcher imitation putting 12 - 14 goblins into play on turn one/two. I won't argue that Burning Wish allows the deck to be faster in terms of going off via Empty the Warrens. Burning Wish also avoids you're deck getting completely blown out by a Surgical Extraction on your win condition or Engine. However, Burning Wish also means the conditions under which the deck goes off are much less stable and/or require more work to set up. Typically, hands that use Burning Wish to go off involve casting Diminishing Returns which is basically spinning the wheel. The success rate of Diminishing returns is conditional on having a certain combinations of mana floating and requires you to generate two blue mana. Any other application of Burning Wish will mean you either have to take an unnecessary step of wishing for Internal Tutor or you would need to cast Burning Wish for Past in Flames with an Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish in hand or in the graveyard.

Grim Tutor also allows you to find and cast a Storm engine without the need of being Hellbent. While this can also be true of Burning Wish, the same limitations discussed above still apply.



After a haul of playing non-combo competitively and going to time every round (go go Blade Mirrors), I've sleeved up ANT again.

I'm on the old stock list (2Grim/4Duress/3Sieze) with the changes of -1 IGG +1 PiF (no Volcanic/Badlands) and it seems to be doing well and I haven't hit a situation where I felt a R producing land would have mattered.

It seems Ari is suggesting a white splash main, but what about the old G splash in the board? Trash now? Autumns Veil / Swarm not doing it? Chants are pretty great against spell snares and Reanimates, but is it worth a Maindeck manabase change? I was always a bit more worried about Clique than the counters anyways (which chant doesn't stop either) but again I haven't played more than 2 or 3 games since re-sleeving.

I suppose I should get back to testing, but just thinking on paper here.

I ran a list very similar to the one you're describing with Past in Flames. I originally had no red mana producing lands and opted to add one Volcanic Island (cutting one Island). The reason was if I went off using Lotus Petal for Red Mana, there were situations when I wanted to grab an extra Red mana to flashback Past in Flames mid combo. LED works fine, but having 8 sources available (4 LED/Petal) vs 19 (4 LED/Petal + 10 Fetchlands + 1 Volcanic Island) seemed better. I've also found the notions of a Stilfe/Wasteland/Daze metagame to strengthen the case for a two color mana base (which is why I don't find the White splash to be that strong). However, in the case of Past in Flames, its not so much that you "need it", rather its nice to have access to it if you do need it.

[AriLax]

After a haul of playing non-combo competitively and going to time every round (go go Blade Mirrors), I've sleeved up ANT again.

I'm on the old stock list (2Grim/4Duress/3Sieze) with the changes of -1 IGG +1 PiF (no Volcanic/Badlands) and it seems to be doing well and I haven't hit a situation where I felt a R producing land would have mattered.

It seems Ari is suggesting a white splash main, but what about the old G splash in the board? Trash now? Autumns Veil / Swarm not doing it? Chants are pretty great against spell snares and Reanimates, but is it worth a Maindeck manabase change? I was always a bit more worried about Clique than the counters anyways (which chant doesn't stop either) but again I haven't played more than 2 or 3 games since re-sleeving.

I suppose I should get back to testing, but just thinking on paper here.

Clique is less of an issue when you can press early because of Chant. You no longer have to just hang out. Also, beating Clique is reasonable without actually casting a hate card assuming you plan for it.

Swarm I'm not a fan of. It is obviously better than Chant vs. Daze, but it is worse against your opponent having anything that interacts with the board (ie. Bolt) and the ability to just draw Chant is really nice. Also, I often cast Chant off a Lotus Petal, which is much worse with a Swarm. On that topic, Chant adds Storm.

[leegoo]

What about Veil? I can see the problem with swarm dying to most stuff (albeit I think tempo and the control decks are likely to board it out g2) but the actual Storm count is a bit less of an issue with PiF than it is/was with IGG.

Clique you can indeed play around but depending on the Opponents skill using the card it can be really tough without a handy brainstorm

Veil is close to chant, but I suppose if you aren't for Swarm then there isn't really any other draw to green (maybe Rev. Silence I suppose)

Albeit not exactly the same, there are some times playing TES when I just wish my chant effects just let me know what my opponent was up to and how much time I had to set up. That and I really dislike adding another color to the main (PiF excluded I guess)

[lorddotm]

Incase you didn't read my report, here is my list.

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Preordain
3 Thoughtseize
4 Burning Wish
3 Duress
4 Ponder
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard
2 Wipe Away
2 Pyroblast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Silent Departure
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Duress
1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Past in Flames

Changes I'm going to make include -1 Wipe Away +1 Empty -1 Island +1 Fetch or just switching it out for TES (which is the most likely thing to happen).

Feel free to ask questions.

[Kpyolysis]

I'm trying to build this deck but don't have access to any lion's eye diamonds at the moment. Is it still workable, and what should I do if it is?

(I also don't have any Grim Tutors)

[HokusSchmokus]

I am sorry but I don't think this type of combo Deck is viable without LED(in a competitive environment)

[dillonkbase]

Kpyolysis

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22541-Deck-TGIF-Thank-God-It-s-Flashback-Past-in-Flames-Combo

not sure its viable

[xfxf]

Liam,

It's a neat build. I did some goldfishing with it last night and really liked it. Somehow it felt smoother than TES and definetly faster and more consistent than ANT. But I'm curious about actual matchups.

With this list you are sacrificing the basic land stability of ANT and not utilizing the Orim's Chant the way TES does. Also I can see graveyard hate becoming a problem in the post sideboard games. How were the games overall, why would you consider switching to TES?

Edit: About sacrificing basic land stability...Yes you have basic lands in your list but you also have a third color. I feel it needs to lean on dual lands more.

[AriLax]

I'm trying to build this deck but don't have access to any lion's eye diamonds at the moment. Is it still workable, and what should I do if it is?

(I also don't have any Grim Tutors)

....

.....

No.

[lorddotm]

Liam,

It's a neat build. I did some goldfishing with it last night and really liked it. Somehow it felt smoother than TES and definetly faster and more consistent than ANT. But I'm curious about actual matchups.

With this list you are sacrificing the basic land stability of ANT and not utilizing the Orim's Chant the way TES does. Also I can see graveyard hate becoming a problem in the post sideboard games. How were the games overall, why would you consider switching to TES?

Edit: About sacrificing basic land stability...Yes you have basic lands in your list but you also have a third color. I feel it needs to lean on dual lands more.

The basics issue hasn't really been one. Just hold your fetches as long as possible.

The sb games are usually not affected by their gravehate (if they have it, just Ad Nauseam or Tutor chain).

The reason I wanna go back to TES is that I just really like that deck, it is definitely one of my favourites.

[lordofthepit]

I'm trying to build this deck but don't have access to any lion's eye diamonds at the moment. Is it still workable, and what should I do if it is?

(I also don't have any Grim Tutors)

When it comes to stretching your budget, there are a lot of things that might be tolerable--not running Goyfs, Force of Wills, Wastelands, duals, Candelabras, Tabernacles, Moats, etc. Your deck becomes very much suboptimal, but it still functions at some level.

Running storm combo without Lion's Eye Diamond is probably the most crippling "budget substitution" you can make in any Legacy deck I can think of.

[leegoo]

Liam,

How was blast out of the board?

[thefringthing]

I'm curious to hear the reasoning of Liam and others for their inclusion of Silent Departure as a Burning Wish target. I'm having a heard time coming up with anything really great to do with a Silent Departure (that isn't accomplished by something else) that's going to be relevant often enough to justify the sideboard slot.

EDIT: Also, are people interested in splitting discussion of TNT into its own thread?

[dillonkbase]

I'm a pretty big fan of the EtW plan so far, but it needs a bit of work. Would definitely be much better with Rite of Flame to just make getting to 4 real easy, but I don't think you can make a Waste proof mana base with Chant and Rite. BTW, Chant was unreal.
...
I kinda want to fit another Seize in the board to back up EtW (don't want Chant when I'm EtWing, just need to point target specific counters depending on my hand, not stop all of them). Might just cut the sideboard AdN as you no longer have to necessarily cut IGG against Reanimator with Chant.

Ari,

Have you had any luck tuning the ETW package since the KC open?
Could you see moving to rite in flame to support warrens and maybe past in flames while keeping grim over burning wish?
What plan do you play against reanimator, chant or empty?

[Rune]

I'm curious to hear the reasoning of Liam and others for their inclusion of Silent Departure as a Burning Wish target. I'm having a heard time coming up with anything really great to do with a Silent Departure (that isn't accomplished by something else) that's going to be relevant often enough to justify the sideboard slot.

EDIT: Also, are people interested in splitting discussion of TNT into its own thread?

Iona on black.

[thefringthing]

Some highlights from a 4-round local event, playing something close to Liam's list. (No Rite of Flames, two Chrome Moxes, Gitaxian Probe/Therapy and Duress for disruption.)

R1 Bye.

R2 Elves: In the first game, I start by taking two Elvish Archdruids from him via Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy on turn one. My kill is Dark Ritual > Cabal Ritual > Burning Wish + LED > Past in Flames. He takes the second game after I run blind into a Mindbreak Trap. Game three, he sticks a Thorn. I have to Wish for Meltdown. The following turn, I need to draw any mana source in order to Meltdown his Thorn and go off. I get there, and win via Ad Nauseam.

R3 UR Tempo/Stiflenought: In the first game, my opponent mulligans to four. I had kept a very disruption-heavy hand, so it takes me a while to put together sufficient material. He never really manages to develop his mana though, luckily for me. I think he lost with a single Island in play after having only a Wasteland for many turns. He takes game two. I wrote down his hand at some point, which included Stifle, Daze, Jace, Clique, and SCM. I couldn't get through that level of disruption, and lose to Delver beats. I lose game three as well, though my notes indicate that I could have killed him on the last turn through a Force if I had access to one more mana. I would have had to let Past in Flames be countered, and then flash it back to kill him.

R4 Deadguy Ale: He Hymns me on the first turn of our match. I recover and kill him, despite having an LED Vindicated at some point. He Hymns me to death in game two and I never find a way to clear away the Trap in his hand. I play poorly in the third game, and get Hymned to death again. Not sure if I could have won that one, though.

Lost every die roll on the night, except the one in WER that gave me a round one bye.

[Beatusnox]

I'm trying to build this deck but don't have access to any lion's eye diamonds at the moment.

To be honest. Build belcher. Its more playable without lion's eye diamond. After doing well with that deck you should be able to build up cash/credit/trade bait to get the cards you need for ant.

[AriLax]

Ari,

Have you had any luck tuning the ETW package since the KC open?
Could you see moving to rite in flame to support warrens and maybe past in flames while keeping grim over burning wish?
What plan do you play against reanimator, chant or empty?

Plan is the same, but I like it against RUG style decks that have Daze + Spell Snare. -2 Grim, -1 AdN, -1 IGG, -1 Plains, -3 Chant, +3 Discard, +1 Volc, +4 Empty. Reanimator you are actually fine against with just Chants.

I don't see Rite of Flaming just yet though. You choose 2 of fetch lands, Chant, and Rite/Wish and I like Chant + fetch now.

[mojoiskewl]

EDIT: Also, are people interested in splitting discussion of TNT into its own thread?

yes please, though I think Liam created his own thread a while ago (like several months ago) which got merged with this one.

[TheRedBaron]

You guys were right. I had consistency problems only running 4 Infernal Tutors. I added 2 extra cantrips, but some games 3 cantrips failed to find me an infernal.

I think I like lordotms Build (3 cabal rit, 4 dark rit, 4 RoF). Is that considered TNT? I historically don't like TES's fragile manabase. I feel like burning wish can add even more resilience to the deck than even grim tutor.

I think that I will add in RoF and 4x Burning Wish, dropping Chrome Mox from the build. I will probably run 1 EtW sideboard as well as an additional tendrils + grapeshot (wishboard).

[Silent Requiem]

I've just picked up this deck (along with Doomsday) and I'm enjoying the UB version because of the rock solid manabase. The list I'm using is pretty standard (1 ANT, 1 IGG, 1 Tendrils) with the exception of Cabal Therapies that I'm testing in place of Thoughtseize.

Could someone suggest a sample sideboard for an unknown meta? Is a transformational Doomsday sideboard an idea worth considering?

[Dia_Bot]

A sideboard must contain of:
- A number of bounce/creature removal: Chain of vapor/E. Truth/ Slaughters Pact
- Addition disruption protection: Extra thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy or X. Swarm/Tropical Island

Any other slots would be slots dedicated to hard matchups: Such as Dark Confidants/Extirpates/Empty the warrens/...

Depending on the metagame a doomsday transformational sideboard could be useful (against a CB/Discard heavy meta).
It however requires a lot of sideboard slots. So I personally wouldn’t recommend it most of the time.

Hope this helps.

[Azdraël]

I'd highly recommend Carpet oF Flower in a Thresh-like/Tempo meta. This is bunkers.

[lorddotm]

yes please, though I think Liam created his own thread a while ago (like several months ago) which got merged with this one.

I did make one, and that did happen. I'm not going to rewrite a primer though.

[Chikenbok]

I've just picked up this deck (along with Doomsday) and I'm enjoying the UB version because of the rock solid manabase. The list I'm using is pretty standard (1 ANT, 1 IGG, 1 Tendrils) with the exception of Cabal Therapies that I'm testing in place of Thoughtseize.

Could someone suggest a sample sideboard for an unknown meta? Is a transformational Doomsday sideboard an idea worth considering?

Back before I made the switch to Doomsday I also played straight UB and yes, the manabase is the best thing that ever happened to combo.

The sideboard I used to run (and one that I think would be pretty amazing right now with the surge of waste.stifle.tempo.delver.dec) is:

1 x Tropical Island
4 x Xantid Swarm
3 x Carpet of Flowers
2 x Chain of Vapor
1 x Echoing Truth
1 x Slaughter Pact
1 x Deathmark
2 x Extirpate

Good luck (especially with DDFT)

[GexxX]

I have not tried out Carpet, yet. I also think the manabase can support a third color which I decided to be white right now. It gives you chant and chant is propably the best protection at the moment. I think it helps a lot in matchups that take your life away pretty fast and also disrupt with a bunch of taxing spells or stifle.
In aggro matchups it can at least keep them from playing another thread for a round and aggro should not be our most important concern anyways. Also IGG gets a LOT better and much more viable in any matchup and due to the increased number of Tempo in the Metagame you might need to go off on a low lifetotal some games.
I've chosen 7 Chants to be solid once again. 1 Scrubland and 1 Tundra loosen up the manabase not to much since 3 Basics is still a good number to operate with.

The DD Sideboard makes not a lot of sense right now. At least that's my impression. Counterbalance is way less established as it used to be. Sacrificing 6 Slots for a single matchup that's unusual seems a bit to much.

My SB looks like this atm:

3 Bob
3 EtW
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Extirpate

3 Extirpate are obv. for the Reanimator matchup. It's close to unwinnable and is very popular where I play. So I think that's propably right. Haven't tested it in reality though. I constantly try out new things. EtW + Chants seems to be an overkill and messes up the mana, but I am not sure what to cut and I feel both are great right now.

[Azdraël]

I'm really reconsidering Xantid Swarm as a mandatory slot in Sb. The meta is becoming more and more Thresh-like (wtf, The Source takes "*****" as "trash" word) and tempo. Merfolk is into oblivion. You never want to side-in Xantid against Snaper.deck and Thresh.deck since they tend to keep in a lot of removals. Same issue against heavy control deck.

Running more Carpet/SpotRemovals for hatebears and maybe slots against the new-rising CB.deck would be more relevant I think.

Opinions?

[Sims]

(wtf, The Source takes "*****" as "trash" word)

Just as an aside that is off-topic. People had a major tendency to misspell Threshold and Thresh, and it annoyed the modstaff to hell and back, thus they implimented a filter to block it out anytime people typed it wrong. It wasn't so much that it's a bad word filter as it is a "learn to spell" filter.

More on-topic, though it's more echoing what has already been said: Carpet is amazing in a heavy threshold metagame. When I was still playing Storm combo, it singlehandedly won me games that I had no business winning.

[dillonkbase]

Haven't been a DTB in a while..... wonder what put us over the top as doomsday and TES have been doing well also

[Bryant Cook]

Haven't been a DTB in a while..... wonder what put us over the top as doomsday and TES have been doing well also

More players = more numbers.

[GexxX]

Haven't been a DTB in a while..... wonder what put us over the top as doomsday and TES have been doing well also

GP Amsterdam had a couple of ANT/TNT lists in the top 32. People tend to count both Decks as one and since the Thread here is for both it makes sense.

Well Bryant is correct. A Deck to beat has to have significant number or it's top tier obviously, but no one has to face it, so no one has to beat it -> no DTB...

[xfxf]

I'm quite confident in Liam's TNT build, I think if it gets enough play time this thread can deserve the DTB status :)

Cheers.

[GoldenCid]

Sorry for this kind of question, but the dbt status was achieved for ub or ubr version?

[Dia_Bot]

Sorry for this kind of question, but the dbt status was achieved for ub or ubr version?

Both I guess.

[Fossil4182]

I took some time off from ANT to try out TNT this afternoon (i had tested with the deck twice this week). The list was 74/75 of the list Liam ran in Vegas (I made one cut in the board for Empty the Warrens). The way it's constructed makes it it extremely powerful to use with Past in Flames. I cast Grape Shot for 53 in game (65 gold fishing before the tournament)... I felt the difference in the stability of the mana base versus BUG which cost me a game. However, Burning Wish was awesome all afternoon and I surprisingly didn't miss Grim Tutor. Going forward, I'd either play Liam's list or the list from the GP Top Eight. I think ANT is still a fine deck, but there are so many better things to do once you step outside of the traditional UB list.

[dillonkbase]

With regards to TNT, do you think it could be better to play four IT's main and sideboard a grim? IT is just so awesome main deck this seems like it could be wise?

[Fossil4182]

With regards to TNT, do you think it could be better to play four IT's main and sideboard a grim? IT is just so awesome main deck this seems like it could be wise?

I found that the higher density of rituals made it easier to combo off with Burning Wish into Infernal Tutor or Burning Wish into Empty the Warrens. Surprisingly, Engineered Explosives and Pyroclasm effects are at an all time low so doing a bad Blecher impression isn't a terrible game plan on occasion. Additionally, I can recall several games that ended up like

Turn One: Cantrip
Turn Two: Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor
Turn Three: Discard effect, combo out

I've played approximately twenty matches with the deck, but I can only recall a hand full of times when I could not find the necessary pieces to win because I had Burning Wish but needed an Infernal Tutor.

[lorddotm]

3 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp

It is very rough, but I kind of like it.

[thefringthing]

Liam: If you were going to play TNT tomorrow, would you be on the Probe/Therapy plan? Why or why not?

[dillonkbase]

Liam: If you were going to play TNT tomorrow, would you be on the Probe/Therapy plan? Why or why not?

I think the more important question is TNT vs ANT, and if your playing arbor, I assume you are sideboard a bayou or trop and some swarms? Seems like a big shift, Ari is supporting UBw, Liam just played UBr--or TNT with burning wish and past in flames, and is now suggesting UBg, with an arbor to make a better therapy/probe package?

Their is a lot of exploration in the storm decks in response to the influx of cards from innistrad, and the banning of misstep. and I think we all are wondering how this shakes out and how the formats best pilots see these choices(at least that's what I wonder about).

[lorddotm]

In TNT, which cannot flashback Therapy, I wouldn't play it. Like I said though, it is really rough, and I probably need to find room for two more lands.

[xfxf]

Not directly related to TNT but a question about Ad Nauseam variants in general..If you are running the playset of Gitaxian Probes isn't Cabal Therapy strictly better then Thoughtseize even if you don't run Arbor. You are already peeking at your oppponent's hand and you're not suffering from the lifeloss. UB ANT isn't as strong as TES while going the Ad Nauseam route, lifeloss is more important and it's easier to fizzle with lower life.

[GexxX]

Well... In ANT Probe looks fine on paper, but after testing it I've found the Information to be not that useful. The situations that occur are:

a) You peek and see zero that matters to you, but you can't win this turn, unfortunately.
Then when you do go off and saw your opp plays blue, for instance, he counters your first ritual which you needed to hit critical mana and continues pressure so you AN route get's less attractive.
b) You peek and see one Disruption spell that matters to you, which you could've also taken with a duress or thoughseize. It's still +1 Storm, but that's about it.
c) You see multiple cards that matter, but you cen't therapy all of them. Still you lost 2 life. AN gets worse.
d) Therapy hits all of their disruption -> Path is clear. (happens about 5-10% of the matches)

(Note: There might be some other situations that occur, but that's simply the most basic stuff)

In one of the four scenarios Probe was good. Personally I'd just play Chants and ignore whatever they can do. It's also way better with IGG and that's worth a lot if you ask me. Although chants are a pain in some matchups when discard-spells are king, but right now I feel a mix of duress + Chants is the way to go.
Chants are quite limited to UB ANT and TES, but TNT has issues with it's slots as Liam allready said.

[xfxf]

I'm currently trying the build I saw from the Barcelona tournament. I'll paste the list so it can give a clearer idea about the context I'm evaluating Therapy in.

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

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Thoughtseize/Therapy
4 Duress

4 Infernal Tutor

1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

About the cases you listed:




a) You peek and see zero that matters to you, but you can't win this turn, unfortunately.
Then when you do go off and saw your opp plays blue, for instance, he counters your first ritual which you needed to hit critical mana and continues pressure so you AN route get's less attractive.
In this case yes, if I spent my Probe in an earlier turn and left with Therapy when I'm going off I'd rather have Thoughtseize so that I can eliminate the counter with confidence.


b) You peek and see one Disruption spell that matters to you, which you could've also taken with a duress or thoughseize. It's still +1 Storm, but that's about it.
Neutral case.


c) You see multiple cards that matter, but you cen't therapy all of them. Still you lost 2 life. AN gets worse.
I'd say this one favors the Probe/Therapy couple slightly.
If I can't take away all the threats I'm down 2 life and looking desperate anyways after Thoughtseize.
If I used Probe I'm down two life (maybe paid U and not down 2 life), felt desperate but drew a card.
If I gambled and used Therapy blindly I'm down 0 life, looking desperate.
If I Probed and holding Therapy (instead of Thoughtseize) at least I won't lose any more life when snatching their threats away one by one.


d) Therapy hits all of their disruption -> Path is clear. (happens about 5-10% of the matches)
Favors Therapy as you mentioned.

Thoughtseize is better when I need a one card solution to see their hand a snatch a threat "now", that's a given.

I also think that Orim's Chant is a better suppliment to Duress but since I splashed red for PiF splashing white would make it harder o get all the right colors at the right time. I think at this point discussion boils down to whether PiF is more important or Chant. I'll try to summarise my comparison.

Red splah for PiF/No IGG: You don't have protection of Chant but you don't give them their threats back with IGG so the risk is remedied to an extent. Plus PiF gives you more explosive options.
White splash for Chant: After Chant you can IGG safely without worrying about their recurring counters. But IGG is less explosive than PiF from an aggressive point of view. However Chant has multiple uses where it can buy you turns or time-walk opponents.

[GexxX]

I think you're right. It's a matter of preference and I have not liked PiF much after testing for a while. Since most other people like it I might have to give it another shot, but I'm trying to get good with Reanimator at the moment until I can finally grap some Grim Tutors. Their price increased a little and I just can't ignore feeling they'll be reprinted in a little while.
Back to the point. For me IGG has allways been the best strategy to win against nonblue decks like Maverick. PiF does pretty much the same thing in those matchups, but killing in the first two turns seems best against GSZ into Hatebear. In those early turns LED mana missing after PiF made a huge difference in testing. That's a reason I stuck to the plan.
If you can handle PiF well enough you propably don't have that problem, but I seem to fail all the time. ;)

regards

[Fatal]

Maybe just add IGG on SB and PiF MD ?

[Azdraël]

PiF is just bunkers against any Tempo/Control decks where Igg kinda desperatly sucked. And vs aggro it's almost all the more the same. Really, give it a go, try it out!

[Silent Requiem]

I'm playing UB ANT (with a G splash in the sideboard), and I have a question about sideboarding against Maverick.

Now, game 1 is a bit of a toss-up, because I have no maindeck answer to Teag, so if they have a fast hand and put me on ANT they can race me by dropping a T2 Teag. This means I really want to make sure I can win games 2 & 3. Trouble is, Maverick typically boards in around 10 cards against us. After boarding, I'll have to face some combination of Mindbreak Trap, Teag, Mindcensor, Surgical Extraction and Cannonist.

So, what should I be boarding in? And what should I be boarding out? Mindbreak Trap and Extraction make me want to keep my discard effects (which also hit GSZ), but I clearly need the ability to deal with hatebears. Are Slaughter Pact/Chain of Vapor enough when Mother of Runes is also present, or should I be trying something like Infest or Virtue's Ruin?

Strangely, is Xantid Swarm a good card to board in? It shuts down their Traps and (to an extent) Extactions, allowing me to focus on the hatebears. Extras can chump block a Knight, or whatnot.

[JamieW89]

I'm playing UB ANT (with a G splash in the sideboard), and I have a question about sideboarding against Maverick.

Now, game 1 is a bit of a toss-up, because I have no maindeck answer to Teag, so if they have a fast hand and put me on ANT they can race me by dropping a T2 Teag. This means I really want to make sure I can win games 2 & 3. Trouble is, Maverick typically boards in around 10 cards against us. After boarding, I'll have to face some combination of Mindbreak Trap, Teag, Mindcensor, Surgical Extraction and Cannonist.

So, what should I be boarding in? And what should I be boarding out? Mindbreak Trap and Extraction make me want to keep my discard effects (which also hit GSZ), but I clearly need the ability to deal with hatebears. Are Slaughter Pact/Chain of Vapor enough when Mother of Runes is also present, or should I be trying something like Infest or Virtue's Ruin?

Strangely, is Xantid Swarm a good card to board in? It shuts down their Traps and (to an extent) Extactions, allowing me to focus on the hatebears. Extras can chump block a Knight, or whatnot.

If you play Grim Tutors you could play a single Virtue's Ruin to tutor or mise I suppose. I board 2 Path to Exile, 3 Chain of Vapor, 1 Slaughter Pact and board out my 2 duress, 2-3 chants and some probes leaving me with 2 or 3 chants still to play around any possible traps/extractions and timewalk when needed. Paths are pretty good for dealing with any of hatebears/mother even if you can't go off yet. I don't think I've lost a tournament match against Maverick yet, but the matchup should be about 70-30 for us. I don't think I'd board in Swarm, even if I didn't play white.

Something I did on MTGO for a bit was board in a second Ad Nauseam (which I also had for discard matchups). All the maverick decks seemed to play Aven Mindcensor and Ad Nauseam is an out to the bird with mana open. That said, it's still better to just Chant, then bounce the bird and win through IGG (or PiF), but you don't run white.

Another option is Dread of Night. I learned about this card when Fabian Görtzen named it against me with Nevermore (which ended up costing him the match) to protect his hateboard. But I'm not sure if I like it that much.

If Maverick is a very large part of the meta you might want to consider playing with Burning Wish and/or Doomsday (with a CoV main). Maybe even a single CoV with 2 Grim Tutors isn't a bad idea. At the worst it produces storm.

[Azdraël]

1) Virtue's ruin is quite good, I've been always playing it cuz g2/g3 can be quite tough with T1: MoR, T2: hatebears.

2) You shouldn't worry about extirpate effect.

3) I'd like to say, if they board-in Trap, they are not worth playing against. Most good players do not play this shit but combination of leyline + more hateabears + extirpate effect is more relevant in any match-ups. Normally, you side-out your Duress (keep your thoughtseize/cabal) and side-in CoV/Pact/Echoing Truth/Disfigure/Deathmark/whatever, alternating blue/black removal for MoR's protection on hatebears and Leyline. Keep going this way. Xantid is not really a good idea.

PS: just saw Dread of night. This is a bit cocky. It only kills MoR.

my 2 cents

[mojoiskewl]

Since we dont have a TNT thread I guess I'll post it here.

How do I beat slow-ass counterbalance variants, the one with like maindeck counterspells and SFMs and Snapcasters as the only wincons? That deck is just damn annoying, :mad::mad::mad: do I just hope to just never get paired up against it during tournaments? Its a thing here in my meta. Do I revert back to TES? Or just give it up and play something derpy like dredge?

For reference my build is Liam Kane's SCG LA list with -1 Wipe, +1 Empty

[joemauer]

Since we dont have a TNT thread I guess I'll post it here.

How do I beat slow-ass counterbalance variants, the one with like maindeck counterspells and SFMs and Snapcasters as the only wincons? That deck is just damn annoying, :mad::mad::mad: do I just hope to just never get paired up against it during tournaments? Its a thing here in my meta. Do I revert back to TES? Or just give it up and play something derpy like dredge?

For reference my build is Liam Kane's SCG LA list with -1 Wipe, +1 Empty

Don't take out wipe away. It is the best card against the card counterbalance.

[death]

Those games against control hinges on the number of times you rip their hand with discard spells.

With 9-10 discard effects, you'd draw them much often and earlier. Keep a hand with more disruption than combo since there's a good chance you'd draw into combo pieces as the match progresses, first deal with counters/counterbalance.

[Silent Requiem]

It seems to a bit silly to post about a small tournament in a DTB thread, but I'm looking for advice (in a general sense) and some of the testing might be relevant for people considering their own builds.

So I played in a local tournament. My 75 was:


4 LED
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

10 Fetchlands
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island

(Sideboard)

4 Leyline of the Void
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Deathmark (could not get Slaughter Pacts in time)
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Extirpate
1 Echoing Truth
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Cabal Therapy

Round 1 - Merfolk

Game 1: He kept his initial hand, while I mulled to six to because my first grip had only one land.

He plays an Island, followed by an Aether Vial. He then Dazes my turn one Ponder, replaying the Island on his second turn. This forces me to play my Underground Sea as my second land so I can Duress. I see FoW, which I take.

He then drops a Wasteland, and destroys my Underground Sea. On my turn I cast Dark Ritual off Lotus Petal, and then play LED. He must have topdecked FoW, because he Forces the Diamond - I think he wanted to stop me getting Hellbent and worried that I might have another Duress after getting BBB from the DR. However, the rest of my hand is all rituals, and I get Grim Tutor into Ad Nauseam for a win.

Game 2: I had intentionally left the Xantid Swarms out of the sideboard - I did not like running the Tropical in the main (although I suppose I could keep it, or a Forest, in the side). Instead, I just brought in one more Therapy, and took out one Probe. I love having loads of discard, and wonder if it would be worth including a couple of Seizes to board in.

This game started with similar plays to game 1. On about turn 2, I made a blind Therapy naming Force of Will, but his only relevant card is Flusterstorm. I play out my artifacts, and then my rituals. Grim Tutor takes the inevitable hit. On my next turn I play the Past in Flames I had in my hand from my artifact mana/lands, and flashback my rituals and Grim Tutor for the win.

Round 2 - Merfolk

Game 1: He keeps an aggressive hand with light disruption. Cabal Therapy takes FoW, however, and I play around Daze. Ad Nauseam was not an option, but Past in Flames gets me there.

Game 2: He boards in Relic of Progenitus and plays it on turn one. He then uses it to keep me off Threshold, and it obviously shuts of a PiF play.

His hand is slow, beating on me with a single Silvergill while trying to bring an Aether Vial up to speed for the four 3-mana lords in his hand. My discard clears the way, and although PiF is clearly cut off by the Relic, I have enough life to Ad Nauseam successfully.

Round 3 - Deadguy Ale

Game 1: He attacks me with discard, but that's a really bad play against PiF. I play my artifacts early and hide a Tutor with Brainstorm. The following turn I play what's left in my hand and Tutor for a massive Past in Flames.

Game 2: I was not really sure how he would board against me, so I sided out some discard and brought in some bounce for hatebears/artifacts. I also sided in an Empty the Warrens because discard plus a possible Extirpate on Tendrils could be nasty.

As it happens, he has opted to side in Bob and swamp me with even more discard. It doesn't help, though, because the turn he played Bob was a turn he was not disrupting me, and that's all I needed.

Round 4 - ID with Maverick into top 8

Round 5 - Reanimator

Game 1: I expect to lose this game, and I do. He turn 1 Entombs and my Duress sees 4 two-mana reanimate spells, a Brainstorm (he had fetched Underground Sea) and no land. I take the Brainstorm and hope he does not top-deck a land. He does.

Game 2: I side in four Leylines over my Probes and a Therapy. I also want some bounce in case he resolves a Show and Tell, but I feel there is a limit to what I can board in without slowing the deck too much. If I'd been thinking, I would have sided out Ad Nauseam, because I certainly would not have been able to cast that with the Leylines in the deck.

I find Leyline in my opening hand, which is decent overall. I once he has two lands in play I Therapy for Show and Tell, which hits. Although I draw nothing but gas for a couple of turns, he can't find an answer before I am able to go off.

Game 3: This starts in a similar way to game 2. I am sitting behind a Leyline, and have the win in hand; I just need to top-deck into anything that produces mana. Instead, I top-deck Tendrils.

I pass the turn, ready to go off in my next step; he only has two lands out this turn so there will be no Show and Tell. Instead, he Duresses, taking Tendrils. Then he Extirpates. Ugh!

I had considered that play from Deadguy, but for some reason it had not occurred to me that Reanimator would play GY hate.

Final finish - first place in the swiss, 5th overall.


Comments and Questions:

One thing I struggled with was what to board out. Probe is obviously the weakest cantrip, but removing it also makes Therapy much worse. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, how much can you safely board in? At what point does the deck just stop functioning properly?

I really like the mana-base; all of my matches in the swiss rounds were against decks packing Wasteland, and being able to accrue lands without losing them was absolutely fantastic.

I've been getting some flack from local storm players for running a) ANT over TES, b) discard over chants, and c) Therapy over Thoughtseize. However, I was really happy with the Probe/Therapy synergy, and there were a few times where I flashed back some Therapies off PiF to generate storm - something I could not have done if they had been Thoughtseize.

On the other hand, there were no truly broken plays either. I suppose that if my Therapy had been a Thoughtseize, I would have been able to take the Flusterstorm rather than play around in round one, game two.

Clearly, the 4th place list at Amsterdam did well with Probe/Therapy, but any comments about one vs the other are welcomed.

Equally, comments generally are appreciated; I'm new to this deck and I'm glad for any pointers.

[thefringthing]

I've been back on the Thoughtseize side for a little while. I like being able to take hatebears away from Maverick, Zoo, and Affinity on turn one in post-board games. These are the positive matchups, but having to jump through hoops to deal with a hatebear means using resources and losing life to their attacks. I have not yet tried any build that can flash the Therapies back.

[lorddotm]

Since we dont have a TNT thread I guess I'll post it here.

How do I beat slow-ass counterbalance variants, the one with like maindeck counterspells and SFMs and Snapcasters as the only wincons? That deck is just damn annoying, :mad::mad::mad: do I just hope to just never get paired up against it during tournaments? Its a thing here in my meta. Do I revert back to TES? Or just give it up and play something derpy like dredge?

For reference my build is Liam Kane's SCG LA list with -1 Wipe, +1 Empty

Bobbing and weaving is my firs strategy. The second one is to not play around Force as often, especially if I think they have Counterbalance. The third is to slip a card out of their board. That one is a little shady, I do admit.

[laststepdown]

PS: just saw Dread of night. This is a bit cocky. It only kills MoR.

How does Dread of Night not kill Aven Mindsensor?

[Azdraël]

How does Dread of Night not kill Aven Mindsensor?
I should have written: 'PS: just saw Dread of night. This is a bit cocky. It only kills relevant threats like MoR's protecting a hatebear'.
It's not played everywhere and any good storm players dont give a damn about it.

[mojoiskewl]

The third is to slip a card out of their board. That one is a little shady, I do admit.

I see... <rubs palms>