actualy if both are true (I suspect they are) then thats enough to put it up there.Quote:
ANT menaces with reaching DtB status in its very first month.
The deck will break legacy in half, It will just be a while before people admit it.
Printable View
actualy if both are true (I suspect they are) then thats enough to put it up there.Quote:
ANT menaces with reaching DtB status in its very first month.
The deck will break legacy in half, It will just be a while before people admit it.
I'm not certain it's "that" bad, half of the reason I've been winning games with Ad Nauseam is that control and aggro-control's 1cc disruption is no longer a significant factor. If people start replacing Stifle and Spellsnare with Thoughtseize and Duress or SBing anti-Storm combo bullets, the match up could turn around.Quote:
Originally Posted by undone
Right now, Landstill, Dreadstill and Threshold just don't seem to be prepared for the new Storm combo decks. Clearly Ad nauseam has lived up to its hype, but I think we should give the Force of Will crowd a little more time before we jump on the ban hammer. Once they adjust, Ad Nauseam wont be as ridiculous
First with ANT today at a 37 peoples tournament.
Five 32+ peoples tournaments with FT/DDFT/ANT this year and 4 top8.
With regard to the Merchant Scrolls and Mox Diamonds- don't get carried away over weird choices in successful lists at this stage. Ad Nauseum decks are new to the metagame, unexpected and even suboptimal ones are going to do well at this stage.
Given all of the Top 8's in 33+ player tournaments, can this deck be moven to at least Proven yet? We're already at 5 Top 8's in 33+ tournaments, right?
Seems like if the above are true we have 8 (right 8?) most of which were wins. The card will be banned I think but thats just me.
@Everybody
Hello everybody, I've finally got the entire cards of the deck ANT (quite difficult to get LED ) and definatly tested it , ill post the list
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [A] Tundra
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [MI] Island
// Spells
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 Duresses
1 [PS] Wipe Away
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
Well the list is quite close to the design of Hanni well I find the next troubles :
First when we get to play A.N We HAVE to find between the cards drawn :
a) the conjuntion of I.T with LED
b) at least 2 blue mana sources AND 1 mystical AND 1 Brainstorm and Black Mana producers
Well I find that I.T is useless when you dont have LED in hand when you have drawn it with A.N, because mainly for sure at least we have drawn 2 land and one of them we won't be able to put it in play.
Playing versions withouth LED ( my conclusions were that LED belongs to the deck when I tested it ) and whith Mox diamond demonstrated me that I was been able to cast all the cards I' ve drawn with A.N becuase M.Diamond allow us to get rid of land drops.
Therefore my conclusions is all about point a) I mean to have less dependency of the conjuntion of LED and IT and to make the I.T an authentical Demonic tutor because we won't have lands in hand , well this issue is logicly jandled by the inclusion of Mos Diamond in the main deck.
I like the package of 9 defense spells, and I really think that the others spells also belongs to the deck, but I'd like to test the inclusion of M.Diamond because it really makes the puzzle to an A.N casted because of the reduced dependency of the spells.
maybe -2 duresses, -1 wipe away, - 1 cabal ritual could solve te problem , but I'm yet testing,
A card I've been testing in the side and I find huge huge potential is Boseiju , who selter all , full set of them , in order to get an A.N uncountereable ( we won't mind c.b, and FoWs just to get the conjunction of these 2 cards)
Another point is the I'd like to know how do you side versus
a) 3shold ,
b ) Landstill,
c) c.b decks like It's the fear.
Ideas ,suggestions ,onions?
No onions from me, sorry :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelikanudo
I can understand your post-AdN troubles. Sure it draws you a ton of cards, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll find what you need to win before you run out of life. I think a lot of people don't understand this part quite yet - that you still have to work for your win.
The thing about ANT in particular is that the average CC is much lower than a deck like TES, so you'll generally draw more cards off of an AdN. However, yes, you do need to have UU with Mystical+a way to draw or IT with LED/IGG. Some more points:
-The deck hurts without LED. Without LED, using IGG loop is much harder and you'll be giving up a lot of subtle synergies and interactions that can often times pull out wins.
-The deck in its current state seems to have a tug-o-war between safe and speed. Some people want to run more protection, but then miss out on cards like Ponder or SDT. Other want to run the full protection suite, but then complain that they have problems after casting Ad Nauseum. Honestly, the amount of times that I DIDN'T have the LED or Mystical+Brainstorm/Ponder was very rare, so I do prefer to run the full protection suite.
-The problem with Boseiju is that there's no real way to search for it, unless you want to run 4. CB is always a problem, yes, but Wipe Away does well to counter it.
-Against CB decks you just want to board in your bounce (probably just Wipe Away). Landstill *shouldn't* be a hard matchup, especially if you're running 9 MD protection spells. Out of their board you'll probably only see Meddling Mage .
I actually haven't tested the Mox Diamonds, but for some reason I still get the feeling that they're sounding better on paper than in practice. I'll give it a shot sometime this week and see if I like it, though I've already been drifting towards TES more after playing both decks for quite a bit.
IGG loop can be done with double Cabal Ritual as well. Meh, IGGy Pop nostalgia... Though this deck doesn't run Intuition to fuel it's graveyard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yesmilord
Ponder and SDT actually make the deck slower, in exchange you gain cardquality which allows you to optimize your hand. But this makes the matchup against Aggrocontrol harder as they will have enough time to drop Counterbalance. I'd prefer raping your opponent's hand with Duress.Quote:
-The deck in its current state seems to have a tug-o-war between safe and speed. Some people want to run more protection, but then miss out on cards like Ponder or SDT. Other want to run the full protection suite, but then complain that they have problems after casting Ad Nauseum. Honestly, the amount of times that I DIDN'T have the LED or Mystical+Brainstorm/Ponder was very rare, so I do prefer to run the full protection suite.
Orim's Chant is also a must-counter by itself. That card is so retarded. It baits counters to ensure you win and if it resolves you will win, too.
Boseiju is a very oldschoolish card, lol. But there are at least 3 things that suck like hell:Quote:
-The problem with Boseiju is that there's no real way to search for it, unless you want to run 4. CB is always a problem, yes, but Wipe Away does well to counter it.
- It comes into play tapped, extremely vulnerable to Wastelands
- It is legendary, running 4 of it would be... design fail?
- Costs life to spwan mana, even if you only want to cast business spells.
Absolutely. But beware of Extirpates as well.Quote:
-Against CB decks you just want to board in your bounce (probably just Wipe Away). Landstill *shouldn't* be a hard matchup, especially if you're running 9 MD protection spells. Out of their board you'll probably only see Meddling Mage .
I don't have any experience with ANT yet, I can only speak from what I learned about this deck back then when I was playing Mike Bomholt's IGGy Pop.Quote:
I actually haven't tested the Mox Diamonds, but for some reason I still get the feeling that they're sounding better on paper than in practice. I'll give it a shot sometime this week and see if I like it, though I've already been drifting towards TES more after playing both decks for quite a bit.
I was told that a lot of ANT players play Mox Diamonds over LEDs and Pact of Negation instead of Orim's Chant. I guess they are more speed-oriented to win BEFORE the aggrocontrol player can resolve Counterbalance.
This, however, sounds terrible to me since you have to go off with protection against aggrocontrol anyway. Has anyone any experience with a list with Moxen and Pacts?
Well this is my list without LED for reference, anyway at Starcitygames you'll find a forum called The Definitive Ad Nauseam deck made by me too
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
Mana Accel: 26
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Mox diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Pact of negation
4x Duresses
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Mystical Tutor
1x Chain of Vapor
1 x Hurkills R
1x Tendrils
4 x Ad Nauseam
God, we hate deck list spam. Talk about your choices and reasoning. Explain some matches. Give us something to discuss.
-PR
Just to comment on a few things:
I'll start off with something small first. I've decided that a 3/1 split of Tormod's Crypt and Extirpate in the board is better than just 4 Crypt's, since Extirpate can be grabbed with Mystical Tutor against decks like Ichorid and MUC.
---
Next, I'd like to comment on my opinions about Ponder. The thing I don't like about Ponder is that it increases consistency of turn 2 and 3 wins, but takes away consistency of protected turn 2 wins. It does increase manabase stability with Chrome Mox, especially when the deck needs to Mystical+cantrip into Tendrils post AN.
However, I don't really like Ponder. It doesn't improve the matchups against hate/FoW more than Orim's Chant does, and it doesn't quicken the speed of the deck any either. I've never found consistency to be lacking enough to warrant 4 Ponder.
However, I do think that Sensei's Divining Top would be the best go to if you wanted an increased consistency card. It's slower than Ponder and more mana hungry, but it gives the deck superior dig with the fetchlands for answers to problems that take more than a few turns to answer (i.e bounce for Chalice/Counterbalance, for example). The fact that it increases consistency post AN by making the Mystical+cantrip (Top in this case) plan to only cost 1U instead of UU is huge.
If I were going to run Top, I'd only run 2. That allows you to still run 2 Orim's Chant, giving the deck 6 protection spells. With Mystical Tutor -> Chant, the deck still maintains the ability to play a protected IGG chain, against something like burn.
However, I'd much rather run 4 Orim's Chant and 0 Top's. I've been trying to figure out how to improve my B/u/w ANT version for the last couple of weeks and I can't seem to find any further innovation. I'd honestly say that right now (barring new sets with new cards), the deck is pretty much optimized, +- 1 or 2 cards (mostly metagaming spots).
I'm going to PM a mod and see if they'll move this to established.
Why are you running graveyard hate at all? Extirpate in storm combo isn't to hate on the graveyard, but to guarantee that problematic cards aren't available to an opponent (either in their hand or in their yard). It deals with stuff like Force of Will, Orim's Chant, etc. You don't need graveyard hate because with Duress/Chant/Mystical Tutor (for 1-2 Extirpate) you have infinite time against decks that attempt to abuse the graveyard. SW FT, which this deck is a very direct evolution of, went something like 75/25 with Ichorid using this exact strategy. You Chant them in response to Narcomoeba triggers once they have relevant stuff in their yard (like therapy so it doesn't wreck you). You Duress away draw spells and LEDs to make them dog slow. You win turn 2. It's really simple.
Because I haven't done enough testing (graveyard hate decks specifically), to determine whether or not the deck needs it. In regards to Extirpate, I say that it sucks as any more of a 1-of because:Quote:
Why are you running graveyard hate at all? Extirpate in storm combo isn't to hate on the graveyard, but to guarantee that problematic cards aren't available to an opponent (either in their hand or in their yard). It deals with stuff like Force of Will, Orim's Chant, etc. You don't need graveyard hate because with Duress/Chant/Mystical Tutor (for 1-2 Extirpate) you have infinite time against decks that attempt to abuse the graveyard. SW FT, which this deck is a very direct evolution of, went something like 75/25 with Ichorid using this exact strategy. You Chant them in response to Narcomoeba triggers once they have relevant stuff in their yard (like therapy so it doesn't wreck you). You Duress away draw spells and LEDs to make them dog slow. You win turn 2. It's really simple.
Extirpate effects multiple copies of a certain card. Barring strong luck, most cards aren't seen in multiples fast enough. With ANT, I'm never going to see multiples before it matters. Even if I do, multiple protection spells answers that. Extirpate is intended for a long game, ANT (as well as other combo), doesn't want that. I won't discuss Extirpate anymore here, because there is an entire thread for that, but more than 1? Retarded, IMO. I just wanted to beat Ichorid, which 3/1 Crypt/Extirpate does just fine. Maybe I'm wasting 3 sideboard slots, that's very possible... if I am, what should replace it?
Yes, you waste your slot for Crypt. Before the last tournament I used 3 Crypt in SB, then I did some intensive testing against Ichorid piloted from my friend did top8 last week with ANT and we saw that the deck can win anyway thanks to fast start or to Orim, so I replaced these 3 slots with more solution against CB. Obviusly in g2 you cut slow cards like Sensei.
Extirpate isn't so good in this mathcup. If you have it in hand, ok you play it, but usually if you have Mystical in hand you prefer to search the pieces for the combo instead of Extirpate. Lastly, side in Extirpate against slow decks like Landstill I see that it's no good like in the old SW FT. This because we have so many cards to side in against this deck (more protection, an alternative win, bouncer or removal for Mages and Halo,...) and not so many cards to side out.
About Ponder vs more protection, I use Ponder + Sensei, but this don't mean this is the definitive list. You can choose to use 8 protections if you really need them or you can increase the consistency of your deck with the use of Ponder + Sensei. I don't think there is a better decklist, but the better decklist for a particular metagame. Next time perhaps I use Duress or I continue to use Sensei + Ponder. Anyway, if my meta is full of Landstill, Sensei is better than Duress.
This is the list I played sunday. They did a mistake: I didn't use Rebuild maindeck.
Well I need to know which is the definitive and stablished manabase for the deck , as well the sideboard in order to face a meta with :
a) 3hold,
b) landstill,
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
e) U/W confidant
f) Ichorid
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice
- which cards will you put in ?
- which cards will you take out ?
Thanks
For the mana base I would run 8 fetches. Which fetches? Depends on what you're packing, but it's probably a safe bet to just run 4 Flooded Strand and 4 Polluted Delta. I personally prefer jegger's mana base because he runs 3 basics (2 Islands and 1 Swamp) in order to better combat Dragon Stompy. Here's what it looks like in whole:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelikanudo
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Scrubland
Total: 14
I have a lack of experience SBing with this deck (I'm not even sure what my own SB looks like yet), so bear with me as I outline the choices --
-Threshold: should be an even matchup depending on how much disruption he draws. Just make sure you have the 7-8 Orim's / Duress.
-Landstill: same, but you probably want to board in some sort of bounce to deal with Meddling Mage. Watch out for extirpate.
-Counterbalance: Bring in your Wipe Aways.
-U/W Confidant?: is this like fish? Probably just have your Orims and Duresses, maybe bounce to deal with Meddling Mage.
-Ichorid: no need to side. Just win faster. Chanting on their upkeep is also a good play to stop them from going nuts.
-Chalice decks: one of our biggest fears. People have Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild, Serenity, and Wipe Away (as well as 1 Plains in the board for Serenity).
-Dreadstill: another hard matchup. I would bring in the bounce and hope for the best.
So as a review, cards you probably want to include:
-Wipe Away
-Hurkyl's Recall
-Rebuild
-Rushing River
-Serenity
-Plains
-Duress (if it isn't already in the MB)
-Brainfreeze (possibly)
-Slaughter Pact (if you expect Teeg)
It's pretty obvious for me what to take in, what to take out is the hard question I always face.
This deck is unbeliveably consistant. It is really a force to be reckoned with.
I played a version (UBw) tonight at my local, weekly legacy tourney, at went 5-0 during the swiss. In the semifinals (we played top4 because we were only 17 players) I lost to Dragon Stompy – a really Hellish, Nightmare Match-up…
Well my version of the deck – and the one I think is clearly the best and most resilient – looks like this:
4 infernal tutor
4 mystical
4 brainstorm
4 d.rit
4 c.rit
4 petal
4 led
4 chrome
4 duress
4 chant
3 Nauseam
2 tendrils
1 ill-gotten gains
4 delta
1 flooded
1 mire
3 sea
1 scrub
1 tundra
2 swamp
1 island
My sideboard looked like this today – I was anticipating a lot of zoo-like, and burn-ish decks. And only a couple of blue fow decks:
4 Pact of negation (board these in for 1 gains, 1 it, 1 led, 1 chrome in the blue match, and you can’t loose)
4 echoing truth (the best bouncer for the deck I believe)
3 ee (it looks promising, but I didn’t play them all night. I think maybe slaughter pact is better – it handles teeg you know)
2 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrils (the gains and the tendrils comes in instead of the 3 nauseams in matches where I fear my life total will be to low before I can combo out – that means burn and zoo matches… And fast affinity)
1 Death wish (okay, okay this seems really sucky, and I didn’t use it tonight, but I simply HATE dying to extirpate)
So back to my tournament this evening. Even though we were no more than 17 players the metagame was very developed. The 6 decks I ran into was the following:
Zoo. I win 2-0. He made a mistake while having pyrostatic pillar in play. I was at 8, and tried to resolve an ill-gotten gains, while he in reponse burns me to 2 life-points. But doing so he cranks up my storm, and I don’t need to play any of the dark rituals I just received from the yard.
Affinity. I win 2-1. Game 2 he has cabal therapy and double trickbind. I couldn’t win through that…
Ichorid. I win 2-0. I am simply faster. I boarded in the ill-gotten gains and tendrils, for a safer win. Game one, I win on a resolved orim’s chant in response to his discarding a troll, thus making it impossible for him to combo out with the deep analysis in his grave… Good times
Round 4 I played countersliver… Game 1 I am fast, and I rip his hand apart. Game 2 is unbelievably exciting. I play duress and sees a hand of 2 daze and a brainstorm, taking daze. Next round another duress. Round after that an orim’s chant, and then when I’m at 10 life I resolve ad nauseam drawing no tutor but brainstorm. I fetch for a land, and look at the top three (no outs, sooo glad I fetched) brainstorm into land, land, tendrils. 8 black mana in the pool, and storm 12… GG – 2-0.
In the last round of the swiss I played dreadstill. Uwg I think. We were both safe in the top4, but we were there to play, so that we did. Game one he throws a cb, and wastes my only land. Fortunately I can recover and I resolve an ad nauseam at a comfortable 18 life… I win with no problems… In comes echoing truth… I mulligan like a pro and my hand consists of swamp, it, led, c.rit, c.rit, petal my opponent starts, and I think “what the hell! Lets try the firstrounder!” So I killed him in round one… that was all nice and games…
In the semi I met Dragon Stompy, I had so hoped that I shouldn’t have to meet him, and as soon as I saw it was him I should fight, I kind off conceded. But again; I was there to play. I just have to win the diceroll – so I roll a failing 3 with 3 d6’s! That is what they call epic fail!!!
First game he makes a 5/5 and a chalice @ 1 the round before I can combo off!
Second game he mulls to 4, and is stuck at 1 mountain – I Kill him…
Third game he goes chalice 0, chalice 1 round one. I have echoing truth and to lands, so I am comfortable. He then proceeds to play trinisphere in his turn 2. In his turn three he plays blood moon. I have my mire (damnit for not being strand) and a scrubland in play, and I have nowhere to go…
Anyway the deck is great, and I sincerely believe that splashing white for Orim’s chant is the only way to go. And please keep the robots out of this deck!!
- meanee
This deck is becoming too strong, really. In few time it'll break in a half the whole format, and already now it's doing really well. Do you guys think that wizard will ban something to try stopping the enormous power Ad Nauseam decks will assume ?
The possible candidates for banning / restricting are:
Ad Nauseam itself, which would mean a return to AN-less FT and TES;
Lion's eye diamond, the banning of which would pratically weaken a lot ever combo deck- not only FT and TES, but also Belcher and SI.
Maybe they're just circles in the water from mine, but i fear that orim's chant+ ad nauseam it's a bit too strong for wizard to let it survive; at least, to make so many bombs coexist in one deck. It reminds somehow of flash-power, even if the comparison is really inadeguate (there, you only had to resolve a cc2 spell with a creature in hand, basically a 2 combo card).
What do you think about it ?
Even though there is a strong possibility that WotC will ban the combo in some way, I really hope they don't! I have been crying for a viable, staple storm-combo deck for almost a year now, and now, finally I got it! At least I think so.
IF they should decide to kill the combo, I really hope, that they just turn off Ad Nauseam itself. If they ban LED it will be the death of almost all viable or semi-viable combo-decks in the format, and that would make legacy even more boring... (I am exclusively a legacyplayer, but I have had a feeling that the format as a whole has been a bit boring for the last year or so - since tarmogoyf took over the format I guess...)
Anyway, I don't see the ANT deck being to good for the meta. It is not as if AdN + Chant is alot better than Ill-Gotten gains + chant...
- meanee
Lists published!Quote:
Originally Posted by godryk
Winner's list is a very popular build in the spanish blogosphere and boards, since it comes from a well known and respected Eternal player, who knows what he talks about, but maybe so much respected to be criticized for other players. It may seem weird with Angel's Grace+Pacts, but the deck still does its things in an unprepared meta. The Top 4 one is much more similar to what has been discussed here.
Thoughts?
Not playing the full 4 lion's eye diamonds seem like a big mistake. I would certainly replace the 2 graces and 1 orim's chant with 3 led, and then the deck looks quite strong...
Anyway I don't think angel's grace is worth it. Has anyone in here tested it thouroughly? The point is that by playing angel's grace you make a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo. I am aware of the fact that you can tutor for both the cards with mystical, and I can see the point in being able to kill decks with a fast kill, because you stop caring about your life totals when you play grace before your nauseam...
But still. Grace has to slow the deck down - does it make up for this slowing down of things??
- meanee
I see Grace as SB material at best. It's technically only a win-more card in most matchups, but it could make burn-matchups, which are considered somewhat tough, better. It has it's merits, as it makes fizzling 100% impossible, but against blue decks you need the Orim's Chant, and most likely you can only afford one white pre-nauseam spell without slowing yourself too much. Against non-blue/non-chant/non-fast-damage decks you need nothing extra. You just do your thing and win. Ad Nauseam constantly nets me 10+ cards and it's pretty much enough to go deadly after that.
Well it does not look stupid to play 1 AG main deck if you expect to cross a lot of aggro. According to me 2/3 AG in SB is absolutely necessary.
Of course it's partially a meta call, but I would suggest keeping only one in SB as a boardable tutor target in builds which play 4 Mystical Tutors. As it's not mana source, disruption, setup card or a storm enabler but a win-more card, I find it lacking in terms of efficiency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
If you're really concerned about your meta packing burn and fast aggro, go ahead and maindeck a copy. Otherwise you should be doing fine. Chant also deals nicely with burn, as you can go low on life from Ad Nauseam without the fear of being bolted to death right after. Even without Grace, you still have a less suicidal way to combo: IGG.
The side in is simple. You only need a little bit of experience to understand what to side in.Quote:
Well I need to know which is the definitive and stablished manabase for the deck , as well the sideboard in order to face a meta with :
a) 3hold,
b) landstill,
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
e) U/W confidant
f) Ichorid
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice
- which cards will you put in ?
- which cards will you take out ?
Thanks
This was my side at last tournament:
3x Serenity
1x Rebuild
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Duress
2x Spell Snare
2x Wipe Away
1x Plains
1x Divert
1x Brain Freeze
1x Slaughter Pact
a) threshold: what thresh? tempo or control? W or B or R splash?
Too many variables to consider. I can give you some variables guide lines.
If they use CB in the deck the side in/out is very similar to Dreadstill matchup.
In the UGW matchup you can expect to see Mage so you need to side in Pact and/or Wipe Away and/or Freeze (but I never use all 3 solutions for mages, they are too much and the deck become inconsistent). In all other thresh matchups you can cut easily the bouncer.
If I have Extirpate in SB I don't side in it. My opponent plays only 4 hard counters and usually we haven't the time to plan a EOT Extirpate on FoW and then combo like perhaps against MUC or Landstill.
Generally I side out these cards: -1 Ponder, -1 Rushing River, -1 AN, -1 IT, -1 mox (petal in these matchups is more useful).
Then I speak of side in Brain Freeze against thresh UGB with Extirpate.
b) landstill: +2 Duress, +1 Wipe Away, +1 Plains, +1 Freeze/Pact (mage in sb? you need scouting...)
Side out: -1 Ponder/-1 acceleration, -1 Rushing River, -1 IT, -1 AN, -1 Scrubland
-Scrubland: you need a consistent white mana source to play Orim.
- Rushing River: obviusly.
- AN: you have only 1 possibility to play it.
- IT: often is a dead card in hand and you have all the time to search AN or IGG.
- Ponder/acceleration. I'm not sure about cut Ponder or a piece of acceleration. Ponder is bad against Standstill, but it is useful to decrease the possibility of mulligan in the first turn. Acceleration: you have all the time to search it. It's a question open.
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
I consider c) & d) like the same deck. (ok there is the fear, but in my meta nobody plays that deck). At my last tournament this was the side in/out plan at 5° turn:
sb: +2 snare +2 duress, +2 wipe away, +1 freeze, +1 plains; -1 pact, -1 cabal, -1 infernal, -1 cromo, -1 scrubland, -1 ponder, -1 river, -1 AN.
This is the worst matchup. You can see that usually against blue based decks the sb out is very similar. I decrease the quantity of many cards instead of cut entirely all a playset.
I'm not sure about the utility of side in Freeze against Extirpate decks. There is a very low probability they play seize on your mono ToA that is in hand and then they play Extirpate. Also for this reason I don't like playlists with 2 ToA: Horrible. So perhaps I don't side in anymore Freeze in these matchups.
I cut Scrubland for the same reason I cut it in Landstill.
River and AN are an obvius choice.
I cut Pact beacuse the main problem here is not hard counter, but CB, so I prefer one more Duress or Snare instead of Pact. For counters there are Orim and Duress.
The others 4 cuts are a necessary evil.
e) U/W confidant
what is it? fish? the same board plan against UGW thresh. The 2 decks have the same hate against us.
f) Ichorid:
With Sb I used, nothing was really useful for this matchup. Like I wrote in the last post, simply we are more fast and we can take time with Orim. Anyway, if in your side you use Extirpate or E.truth, you can side in them. Obviusly we can cut: Rushing River and Blue Pact. If we need more space we can cut Sensei, like in all fast matchups.
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice
I consider g) & h) like the same board plan: +1 Rebuild, +1 Hurkyl, +3 Serenity, +1 Plains.
The side out here is simple: -4 Orim, -1 Pact, -1 Ponder. Here Sensei is better. It permits to search in continuous manner lands and bouncers and you can play it with mountain if into play there is a moon effect.
Against Loam deck if I have grave hate in Sb, I don't use it. If my opponent starts Loam loop, we don't really need Extirpate, but instead Rebuild or Serenity to exit from mud.
I use Divert because I want a card against discard and I have only a slot open. I use it only to see the face of my opponent when I play it against Hymn, Sinkhole or Vindicate, but this never happen. At its place I can play Squire.
These SB in/out are general.
You need to be flexible.
If your friend plays landstill with a SB with 4 halo and 4 mage you must to change your side in / out. If your friend understands that K.Grip can be useful to destroy your Serenity, perhaps you need to change your SB.
Anyway, I'm reading in this thread some comments based on intuition instead of serious testing.
@ jericohs@cottage: sorry for my bad english.
I don't know for sure if this is adressed allready but could some rule guru post the exact ruling of the play -> M tutor upkeep into AD. sac led and play AD in your draw phase. I'm having trouble explaining this to my opponents
There is no ruling because there is no draw phase. There is only a beginning phase with untap, upkeep, and draw steps. Mana empties at end of phases, not end of steps. Point opponents to the order of a turn in the comp. rules specifically rules 300-304.1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waikiki
This deck made 2 top8s in 41 and 40 people tournaments in Brazil. They were held in 400km away from each other locations, in 10/12 and 10/19. In fact, the deck made 2 top4s.
Unfortunately, TOs here have no habit of publishing decklists in international sites. I played in both tournaments, top8ing one with Aggro Loam and the other with UGr Threshold, so I am witness to the strengh of the deck, even though the pilots made some questionable choices.
The ANT list used here was UB, with just 4 duress and 1 Wipe Away as protection. I dont have the exact decklist, but it seemed very straighforward, with 4 AN, 1 IGG and 1 Tendrils. Sideboard sucked, IIRC, but was just enough to tear through the fields.
Can't say I tested it extensively, but it was part of my sideboard package in a small tournament two weeks ago. I have been very unimpressed with it, even if it did win me a game. It's only very situationally good against anything other than pure aggro and combo, and even there it often only buys a turn that you wouldn't need if your hadn't boarded it in - and you proceed to draw a random land instead of a spell. I can certainly see it in aggressive metagames, especially ones with burn, or as a one-of.Quote:
Originally Posted by meanee
Where I'm playing, there are very few creature decks that don't also run disruption, which means I can't just board out whatever maindeck disruption I'm playing out for AG, which makes the deck slower, which is okay if I can assemble a two-part combo in time but very contraproductive if I can't. Needless to say, there's have no guarantee aggro doesn't win t3 or board disruption that's unaffected by AG.
I suppose you could technically AdN into AdN+AG (if you have the Chants for the Moxen). The combo already requires drawing into enough mana for Bstorm/Mystical/Tendrils (2BBUU) or LED/IT (3B) or less likely but still relevant combinations of IT/IGG. Oh, or Tendrils. Adding another two-part combination to win you the game post AdN for 3BBW might not be the worst idea, you would possibly fizzle less often and thus reduce the number of average draws needed to win.
Unfortunately, all those uses would have to mitigate the fact that Angel's Grace is bloody useless a good deal of the time and simultaneously less versatile than other options. As opposed to, say, all cards mentioned above, which help you win in way more situations (as evidenced by the fact everyone plays them main :P ). Also, the deck is not built to sustain a two-card combo.
I still think the best weapon against aggro/burn/combo is a fast clock (and for combo, disruption), so you can just board an IGG or two and maybe even additional tutors or Tendrils - that would make the clock a tad slower (because IGG needs more things to go right than AdN) but less reliant on your life total.
Oh, and whatever anti-Mage/Teeg tech or bounce you have in the side you think is better than Duress/Chant.
How is it good against combo? It doesn't save you from Tendrils or Freeze, only from Belcher and ETW. It's not terrible only when you play Pact of Negation to force the opponent to fizzle and use Angel's Grace as a Stifle in your upkeep.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noman Peopled
EDIT - Had do correct myself.
True, my bad. I should rtfc and not post when I'm tired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Another strike against the card then, though.
Orim's Chant > Angel's Grace
IGG > Angel's Grace
The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.
Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.
I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?
Cc is one thing. You need to generate W in both cases before casting Ad Nauseam in order for the cards to have any kind of effect on game. You would want to cast Grace, when facing burn. You would want to cast Chant against majority of decks, including burn. So, why waste space with Angel's Grace, as Chant does the same job anyway and you should be playing four of them already? Why would you want to win more? That is all Angel's Grace does. Also, Angel's Grace is a completely dead card (okay, 1 storm for 1 mana) when comboing with any card other than Ad Nauseam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
I think you misread. The conclusion was made by me and several other people who tested the card some pages back on the thread. Since I do not feel like digging through the thread for what was already written, I simply made it much easier for you by telling you it's bad.Quote:
The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.
I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?
If you want to run shitty cards, go ahead and run shitty cards. Trying to convince other readers to do the same is not helping the deck as a whole, though.
I have 3 questions for the wise readers of this thread:
1) How many lands do you run? In the last few pages, the consensus seems to be 13-15 lands total, including 6-8 Fetch, 1-3 Basics, and 4-6 Duals.
2) Do you think one or more bounce spells in the maindeck are important? If so, which bounce spell do you prefer? Chain of Vapor? Wipe Away? Other?
3) What do you think of Sensei's Divining Top in this deck? I've been playing with 1-2 for a while now, and I think it's really good. I've gone to 3 Infernal Tutors to make room. Thoughts?
Less than 8 Fetchlands is just unacceptable, a Fetchland is the difference between Cabal Ritual for BBB and BBBBB, and being able to cast Ad Nauseam off a single accelerant is game breaking.Quote:
Originally Posted by B.C.
The faster you list is, the less you need answers, but whether or not you run 0,1, 2 and which ones you run is largely preference.
Top is good but it's also slow, I think it sort of pushes the deck towards more of a middle game apporach it doesn't necessarily want to see.
It really doesn't. The slots that SDT tends to get put in take the place of additional disruption or extra copies of Infernal Tutor. This does a couple things:Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
(a) makes you mulligan less and makes mulligans hurt less otherwise average hands are made better by sensei's top.
(b) allows you to slow down, although it doesn't force you to (you can just as easily not play and spin top as you could not cast Duress if you have other stuff to do)
(c) the combination with Mystical Tutor provides another game-ending combination requiring fewer initial mana sources after comboing with Ad Nauseam
(d) effectively denies an opponent Standstill (important vs Landstill and Dreadstill)
SDT vastly increases the deck's ability to win on turn 2 without actually taking away from turn 1 kills. The other cards to put in its slot (Ponder or additional protection) don't increase the ability to kill turn 1. Ponder does increase the ability to kill turn 2 along the lines of Top, but is also signifcantly worse after Ad Nauseam. Further Ponder provides no benefits in the control matchup where often you are forced to slow down at least a turn.
emidln, what's the deal with SDT being so good against Standstill? I'm not familiar with FT or D-day combos so I don't know the reasoning behind this.