Nauseated Grace - ANT 2.0

[optml]

This is my 'legacy - take' on a modern deck I saw being played. I don't have the full decklist, but I saw him win a couple of very exciting games. The basic combo is:

Angel's Grace
Ad Nauseum
Draw your deck
Cast a lightning storm for the win.

Straight off, people will say: "OMFG!?!11!??! Never heard of ANT or TES Optml!!?!?11 Why not play them instead?!?"

Well, let me answer your poorly written question. Yes I have. And I understand that this may not be as efficient, but I think that if there is a chance that it could be, then it is damn sure worth trying. AND, and I think that once this goes off, it won't fizzle, whereas we all know that ANT or TES can both fizzle even after going off with Ad Nauseum.

So without further ado, my take on this exciting deck is:

N.B. I've gone for Spiraling embers as the win con, as it requires only 1 red, and can't be stopped by lands in their hands.

// Combo
4x Ad Nauseam
4x Angel's Grace
4x sustaining spirit
1x Spiraling embers

// Protection / Disrtuption
4x pact of negation
2x daze
2x silence
4x Duress

// Mana producers
2x Simian spirit guide
4x dark ritual
4x Lotus petal

// Filtering
4x brainstorm
4x Lim Dul's Vault

// Lands
17 lands included fetch and duals

Once you have drawn your whole deck, you can play mana producers and cast spiralling embers.

Suggestions would be most welcome!

[Skeggi]

Sustaining Spirit prevents damage. Ad Nauseaum causes lifeloss.

[leegoo]

some thoughts.

- sustaining spirit is cute, but it should most likely just be phyrexian unlife, since that doesn't turn on your opponent's removal.

- there really isn't any point in having the red kill when your plan is to draw your deck. You'll have more than enough storm to fuel a lethal tendrils, especially if you remove awkward things like SSG with more rituals.

- Your list is glaringly missing Cunning Wish, which finds both sides of your combo along with giving you outs to Teeg/Canonist/whatever.

- Pact of Negation is probably (although not definitely) just worse than the other protection you could be running since it's only useful the turn you go off (barring situations where you PoN < Angels Grace... but that's not really where you want to be).

Good luck with the deck

[Skeggi]

- sustaining spirit is cute, but it should most likely just be phyrexian unlife, since that doesn't turn on your opponent's removal.


Another reason to run Phyrexian Unlife over Sustaining Spirit is that it actually works.

On the other hand, since this deck doesn't run any LEDs, you can actually use countermagic. Silence and Chant might still be stronger though. But why wouldn't you run LED?

The Cunning Wish idea is a good one. Put an Ad Nauseaum in your wishboard, but also a Chant. With Cunning Wish you really want to run LEDs though, so then you'll have to cut the countermagic. Also, there is no reason to run Silence over Orim's Chant.

[leegoo]

Another reason to run Phyrexian Unlife over Sustaining Spirit is that it actually works.

that actually IS a better reason, but my reason is still valid ;)

[Skeggi]

When running Phyrexian Unlife and you're going off with Ad Nauseam, you may want some extra protection in case it gets destroyed/bounced/exiled/whatever reason for it to leave play.

When Ad Nauseam is resolving, your opponent can't do anything. After that you immediately recieve priority. What if you're out of mana completely and need to cast a Lotus Petal to start you off. Your opponent can destroy Phyrexian Unlife in response. Then you're screwed. A cool way to counter this might be the following: Simian Spirit Guide with Manamorphose. This allows you to instantly cast an Angel's Grace. All you need to make this work is bump the number of Spirit Guides to 3 (you need 2 for Manamorphose) and add a Manamorphose. The deck seems alot safer to me with this trick built in.

[optml]

@Skeggi - very inventive; with just an addition of 2 cards it has significantly reduced the ability for the opponent to interact. Nice one.

And I hadn't thought about the issue with sustaining spirit. Ok, the deck, amended, is below. Has anyone a better way to win than embers? (It needs to be an instant though, as I don't want to lose priority before casting). Perhaps it's indeed worth running LED which I might try and incorporate after some testing.

Deck is currently, taking into account the suggestions:
// Combo
3x Ad Nauseam
4x Angel's Grace
3x Phyrexian unlife
1x Spiraling embers

// Protection / Disruption
2x pact of negation
2x daze
2x silence
3x Orim's Chant
4x Duress

// Mana producers
3x Simian spirit guide
4x dark ritual
1x Manamorphose

// Filtering
4x brainstorm
2x Lim Dul's Vault
4x Cunning Wish

// Lands
18 lands included fetch and duals

// Sideboard
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Angel's Grace
1x Orim's Chant

Thanks for you suggestions thus far. I'll test and see what results I post.

[j_rb]

// Combo
3x Ad Nauseam
4x Angel's Grace
3x Phyrexian unlife
1x Spiraling embers

// Protection / Disruption
2x pact of negation
2x daze
2x silence
3x Orim's Chant
4x Duress

// Mana producers
3x Simian spirit guide
4x dark ritual
1x Manamorphose

// Filtering
4x brainstorm
2x Lim Dul's Vault
4x Cunning Wish

// Lands
18 lands included fetch and duals

// Sideboard
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Angel's Grace
1x Orim's Chant



First of all, take the 1 Angel's Grace out of the main deck and add another pact. You also want 1 pact of negation sb just to fetch in certain situations. I Like LDV and would probably go up on the daze count, as 4 duress and 5 chant effects +3 pacts are probably more protection than you need.

I'd just drop 2 silence for 2 daze. It probably will be worth it as the combo is mana intensive so you probably want pact of negation/daze and duress to be the main protection. That gives you a protection package of 3 pact, 4 daze, 3 chant, 4 duress; which I still think is waaaay too much. Wish can also double as protection so thats 18 protection MD in some cases. I would probably cut some chants for fast mana like mox or lotus petal (chrome is better as it sticks around). You can sb the chants for the control Mu's as those are great there.

I used to play a version of this back when Hive mind was huge. It was fun playing and at times was more consistent than ant due to the high number of ad nauseams. EOT ad nauseam was always a solid play to fill your hand for your turn to win the game.
Mine of course looked more like ant and ran cabal rit and lotus petals but that would change the whole direction of the deck.

The spiraling embers should be lightning storm as you will always have more land than they will after the combo.

If I were to play this it probably would look like this.

3x Ad Nauseam
3x Angel's Grace
2x Phyrexian unlife
1x lightning storm

3x pact of negation
3x orim's chant
4x Duress

2x Simian spirit guide
4x dark ritual
3x Cabal ritual
2x Chrome Mox
4x lotus petal

4x brainstorm
3x Ponder (run LDV if you run daze)
3x Cunning Wish

16 lands included fetch and duals

board
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Angel's Grace
1x Orim's Chant
1x cabal ritual
1x rebuild
1x hurkyls recall
4x slaughter pact
1x chain of vapor
2x extirpate
1x spoils of the vault
1x pact of negation

Mom protected hate is the only thing that wrecks this combo.

Having wish for slaughter pact makes g1 against teeg easy.

I don't think them killing unlife post combo is a problem as you draw all your pact of negations. That is unless they have a pridemage out, and if they do you just draw until you are low and then recombo with your new hand. It happens quite often and is pretty easy.

Lightning storms the best instant kill with the deck.

I played this exact list when

[Kagehisa]

Angel's Grace + Ad Nauseam

Angel's Grace + Spoils of the Vault
Name Ad Nauseam.

Spoils of the Vault can be used as a tutor for Ad nauseam.

[Aggro_zombies]

If you Spoils away Embers, you lose. It seems a bit too risky.

[Vacrix]

Phyrexian Unlife is extremely clunky. I wouldn't run it.

I agree with AggroZombies about Spoils.. given your current build. If you replace your win conditions and a few other cards with Cunning Wish, then it might work. Cunning Wish might as well be your win condition anyway if you are going to draw your entire deck.