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Granted, a big reason I don't board BoB vs Merfolk and other blue is because I have Xantid swarm. Reanimator and Merfolk both have a hard time dealing with a resolved one, and once he hits the board they are in trouble.Quote:
Originally Posted by menace13
Pulp, whats your current list?
Here is mine.
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Ponder
4 Orim's Chant
4 Duress
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Meditate
1 Doomsday
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
SB
3 Silence
2 Krosan Grip
1 Doomsday
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Mox Diamond
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Telemin Performance
1 Plains
It has been extremely consistent and versatile. The total mana cost is 51, so Ad Nauseum is pretty dang good still. The alternative is (between sideboard and maindeck):
-4 Duress
+2 Silence
+1 Ill-Gotten Gains
+1 Krosan Grip
After board is has a 55/45 against every deck except Dreadstill, which is an extremely difficult match up. Now I know that seems very off, but so far it has been able to answer every deck and there is not one deck that I haven't beaten 2/3 with an average draw when I'm playing it optimatly, but that doesn't happen every game unfortunately. This is the kind of deck that wins with skill over every deck, if one knows how to play it, their results will be great, but no knowledge of this deck makes it a horrible deck.
Doomsday is really cool.
This is so true. If more people had a better grasp of this fact, ANT would probably be posting much more impressive results. But IMO, the high bar of skill that combo decks enforce on their players is one of the things that separates Eternal from other kinds of Magic. There have been skill-intensive combos in other formats, but they are never as stable or durable as they can be in Legacy or especially Vintage.Quote:
Originally Posted by lorddotm
@Lorddotm: So a friend of mine has come to exactly your list only with -1 Duress, +1 IGG maindeck and a little bit different sideboard. Do you feel that there is really no need for IGG maindeck? I've been playing NLS without IGG maindeck myself but that deck could compensate the lack of IGG with Burning Wish. So do you think this list can really cut IGG without making Infernal Tutor far less effective? In general the trend goes towards cutting IGG as an "autowin button" just the way Saito cut it as well.
The other fact that I still think is important that you probably want a basic Swamp in your maindeck playing 4 Duress. We added that one for the Scrubland.
I haven't had any problems with the list as it is. Personally the swamp, in my testing, was not needed if you held your fetches long enough.
About Ill-Gotten Gains: I haven't had a problem with it in the board. It is extremely terrible, with Duress, against any blue deck so if I were going to main deck it, I would take out the Duresses and add 2 Silence and 1 Krosan Grip, but that makes Ad Nauseum worse main. Plus, Ill-Gotten Gains really shows itself off in nonblue decks, which should not be a problem game one. If your life total is low setting up a Doomsday is very simple.
Well exactly holding your fetches is not good when playing duress as it has to be played early on to get to it's full potential by taking away Chalice, Counterbalance or Brainstorms before your opponent can hide anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by lorddotm
I've already done a few testgames and removing Igg really hasn't been a problem so far.
why is this deck in the Estabilished forum? I mean, it's arguably the best deck in Legacy. Did it suck so much in these 3 months? I don't think so. Saito copycats poured up from everywhere, maing lots of top8s.
In the netherlands at all the tournaments there are 3 or sometimes more ANt decks top 8...
So it's indeed the best deck there is^^
Get it back to Best decks^^
43 showings since March on deckcheck alone.
Maybe the admins are still making changes...
Still, ANT is definitely a contender although its top 8-16 records lately haven't been that impressive. Just look at the SB warping in decks like Zoo - nobody can really afford to totally ignore ANT these days.
Haha, thats because its too busy hanging out in the 1-8 slots =PQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Cyrus
Yeah, I definitely won a GPT with ANT 3 days ago and Bryant Cook top 8'd the Syracuse Lotus tournament 4 days ago. This is by no means a deck thats on the same level as combo elves...
Heh, I meant "Either top 8 or top 16, depending on tournament size." But yeah I constructed that badly. Your points are well made, this is a Tier 1 deck in Legacy. I believe anybody who doesn't think so has a lot of explaining to do, based on actual results. It's done better in some fields than others - but when an experienced player shows up with it, ANT can definitely shoot for the prize as well as anybody else.
This is the build I plan on running at my locals GPT on Saturday.
Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Orim's Chant
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Ponder
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Echoing Truth
Artifacts
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
2 Sensei's Divining Top
Lands
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
Sideboard
4 Dark Confidant
2 Reverent Silence
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Deathmark
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize
What do you guys thing? What changes would you make?
That looks pretty good man. I've never been able to make Dark Confidant from the SB work for me, but I respect people who can do that. Usually I would go with more chants or Xantid Swarm, since you are playing a G splash anyways. I've also always preferred running an Ill-Gotten Gains somewhere in the main or SB for safety's sake; it functions both as an alt-win and to recoup spent cards.
Having 2 Tendrils makes little sense to me in Saito's list where you have 2 AdN, but when you only play 1 AdN, it is really useless to have the double Tendrils. You should replace one with IGG. You need more than just 1 white source to support the Chants. If your lone Tundra gets destroyed, you will have to rely on Petal or possibly Chrome Mox to cast them, which sucks. 9 fetches feel like too many, so you can remove one and fit a Tundra/Scrubland in there.
So what replaces mystical tutor now that it's banned?
Not a DTB anymore. Ponders and Tops?
Why is Mystical Tutor getting banned? This is total bs. I guess its time to build Zoo. This is so annoying.
I agree. Mystical Tutor did NOT deserve to be banned. I cannot believe they've done this. Stupid stupid. I want to read their decision on this assanine move.
Way to keep the format diverse wizards.....they've been printing storm hate cards for years. cannonist, mindbreak trap, teeg "though they may try to claim he was meant to stop wrath". and storm still keeps fighting through. So rather than print their millionth failed attempt at an anti storm card. They give up and just ban mystical tutor which then nerfs all the best storm engines as we now have to rely on...infernal tutor and burning wish..which knocks Ad Nausium out of even being a possibility for a storm engine. makes doomsday worst as we can no longer mystical for Rit to make sure we hit BBB in a timely manner, and we now have no mystical to find chant to cast Igg safely. Hope everyone that wants to keep playing storm combo as already invested in there cruel bargains...of course we have to keep tournament results on the downlow so we dont lose LED or dark rit next year round.