[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by Aleksandr

I really have to rethink why to play combo anymore, when most of what that made it appealling for me is lost.

1) No more we have the fastest decks (Zoo on play and Dredge even on the draw can be faster)
2) No more we have the most resilient deck.
3) No more we have the most flexible deck.
4) The deck is much more harder to play.
5) Doomsday =/= AdN

Otoh:
1) Much less combo means much less hate.
2) Anything else?

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Combo is still the fastest option. SI was not affected by the ban and has been the fastest deck in the format since it originated.
ANT was resilient?
ANT was flexible?
What's wrong with a deck being hard to play? The current storm combo options might be significantly harder to play than ANT, but those decks reflect your ability as a player. I don't know about you but I prefer to play decks that reflect my ability as a player, rather than playing a good deck thats easy to pilot.

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2) Anything else?

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The metagame is going to change, likely in aggro's favor. I think DnT is going to be the strongest decks in the format with less Reanimator and ANT in floating around. We will have to see what gets popular to determine how everything is shifting though.

I must say. Its pretty fucking ironic that Reanimator and ANT got moved to the DTB forum, only to get completely nerfed in the same week.

Yes, ANT was both resilient and flexible, mainly due to MT that found exactly the one card you needed, be it protestion, removal, mana ramp or bomb, while simmultaneously hiding that card safely where it could not be Duressed. I think you already know it.

What's wrong with a deck being hard to play? If you put the question like this, well, than reread what RS wrote. It is not about decks been harder. It's about decks been worse. I am yet to find if his analysis is true, but right now I fear that it is. And as long as the only reward is less anti-combo hate, than I really have to think if I wanna play combo. Not that it matters that much for you, it's just my line of thoughts, feel free to ignore me and play whatever you want to. In all honesty, no flame at all.

Also: gl hf playing 7+ rounds with non-ANT storm. Not everyone loves that headaches.

Quick question, has anyone slotted in Peer through Depths or Impulse into the MT slots. I realize they are obviously not as strong but with enough cantrips to get through the deck (4 brainstorm 3 SDT 2 Ponder 4 Impulse/Peer) it might still be almost as consistent though admittedly slower.

If you start casting 2 mana cards to find something you might as well start using lim-duls vault. then at least you know how painfull the ad naseaum is going to be at start.

If you desire more cantrips wait untill M11 and get a set of preordain ( scry 2, then draw a card)

Lim Dul's Vault actually doesn't seem like a bad option. It hits what this deck wants to do: play 2 Ad Nauseam and still find them reliably. Whether or not the lifeloss will be overwhelming is still a good question...

I still think Ad Nauseam is the best "I win" card for storm yet printed. I just tried a few of the SI variants, and they seem outstandingly bad by comparison. Draw 4's are a complete crapshoot, and making 6 mana to play 2 Cruel Bargains costs by comparison more life and seems to be less reliable at winning the game.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Cyrus

Lim Dul's Vault actually doesn't seem like a bad option. It hits what this deck wants to do: play 2 Ad Nauseam and still find them reliably. Whether or not the lifeloss will be overwhelming is still a good question...

I still think Ad Nauseam is the best "I win" card for storm yet printed. I just tried a few of the SI variants, and they seem outstandingly bad by comparison. Draw 4's are a complete crapshoot, and making 6 mana to play 2 Cruel Bargains costs by comparison more life and seems to be less reliable at winning the game.

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I'd rather play Belcher before SI. At least with belcher I can look at my hand and know if I'm going to win or lose (assuming they don't have force >.<)

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Originally Posted by JonBarber

I'd rather play Belcher before SI. At least with belcher I can look at my hand and know if I'm going to win or lose (assuming they don't have force >.<)

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^^ This! Yikes SI makes my brain hurt. But it's not surprising that Draw4's seem so awful when you realize that Ad Nauseam basically reads (or used to read) 3BB: Draw 10-15 cards.

New SI lists uses the new Draw up to 7 cards:
Diminishing Returns
Recurring Insight
Balance of Power
Slithermuse


7 initial cards + Chaining Draw 4 + Draw 7 must give you enough mana to 10+ storm. Anyway I don't test it yet.

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Originally Posted by JonBarber

I'd rather play Belcher before SI. At least with belcher I can look at my hand and know if I'm going to win or lose (assuming they don't have force >.<)

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I can look at my hand and know if I'm going to win or lose playing Pact SI. You probably can't because you aren't an SI pilot.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Cyrus

I just tried a few of the SI variants, and they seem outstandingly bad by comparison. Draw 4's are a complete crapshoot, and making 6 mana to play 2 Cruel Bargains costs by comparison more life and seems to be less reliable at winning the game.

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You can't win consistently with AdN from 8 life. D4s allow you to go off from life totals that AdN can only have wet dreams about because you are cutting your life total in half instead of paying life. Also, no deck can mulligan better than SI because of redundant D4's. Theoretically you can go off and win on turn 1 with just 3 cards. I go off on turn 1 with 5 cards all the time.
Its understandable that you think the D4 engine is unreliable. You aren't an SI pilot. I have yet to talk to someone who just randomly picked up SI and said 'Shit! This deck is awesome and consistent!' I think it is consistent because I play it all the time. You don't because you just picked it up.. and then dropped it. For the record, I couldn't goldfish SI for shit when I first started back in 06. I think it took me something like 20 games to start going off consistently within the first 5 turns. Its all about the mulligans. You ought to actually understand what you are doing before you pass judgement on it as a 'crapshoot'.

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Originally Posted by Gocho

New SI lists uses the new Draw up to 7 cards:
Diminishing Returns
Recurring Insight
Balance of Power
Slithermuse


7 initial cards + Chaining Draw 4 + Draw 7 must give you enough mana to 10+ storm. Anyway I don't test it yet.

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Yes still working on this but so far its only worked really well in SITES. Still working on a config for this in Pact SI. Slithermuse is amazing though.

Vacrix, my judgement is probably a little too harsh. But I think the Draw7's show a lot more potential - 6-7 cards for 3U is insane. I'll wait for you experienced SI players to build a better list incorporating Slithermuse and/or Diminishing Returns and then try again at that point. In hindsight, most of my failures probably did have to do with not understanding the correct mix of cards I need in my hand before trying to go off. But if I can't understand this in the course of 10 games or so, after playing all sorts of combo decks for years, I think we can agree that the current versions of SI will never appeal to the majority of people who enjoyed playing ANT.

I still feel like this is the real loss from MT - the loss of joy for all the happy combo players out there, who while much maligned, did their part to keep the format stable and honest.

So, in short, all the best to you brave souls trying to keep Storm in Legacy alive, and I will reserve my judgements until I can try an updated list.

Combo is far from dead, except now it requires that you actually put the time in to learn the deck. Between building crazy storm with TES, chaining draw4s together, or building Doomsday stacks, combo will thrive, but it will go back into the shadows again because of the time and patience it requires to play those decks.

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Originally Posted by Pulp_Fiction

Combo is far from dead, except now it requires that you actually put the time in to learn the deck. Between building crazy storm with TES, chaining draw4s together, or building Doomsday stacks, combo will thrive, but it will go back into the shadows again because of the time and patience it requires to play those decks.

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I feel like ANT got a bad wrap. There were still a lot of really skilled ANT players. Like any deck, it requires a certain level of skill to truly pilot the deck. Its really frustrating when you put in all the time and effort into learning the deck really well, only to have wizards kill it. Yes I could go and devote another 6 months to a deck, but it sucks to start all over. Once the dust settles I'll probably begin to learn another storm deck, but for the mean time, I'm just gonna belch people :)

The problem with ANT was that it was way too intuitive. I started playing combo back in 06 piloting old school SI. After mastering SI, it only took me a day to learn how to pilot Solidarity well. Playing harder combo made decks a deck like TES really easy to learn, and ANT and Belcher was a joke. NLS was a bitch to learn since DD piles were so foreign but still familiarizing yourself with complex spell chains makes switching back and forth between combo decks very easy. Nobody is saying that ANT pilots aren't skilled. Rather, ANT pilots had much less work to do to master their deck. Naturally its going to be harder for you guys to change to a combo deck that isn't just Belcher.

@Lord Cyrus
You aren't the only one who has trouble playing SI. At this point, I think I'm just going to record some games (like Matt did for UWT) to show people how the deck works. D7's are indeed promising but the D4 engine is the best choice you have in the format now if you want to draw a bunch of cards into Tendrils of Agony. If you'd prefer playing a deck that doesn't 'fizz' play TES or NLS. They are setup decks that abuse tutors rather than draw engines.

Thanks for the advice Vacrix. I'm now looking into TES and I have to say it immediately "clicks" a lot better for me. I feel comfortable crafting the right hand with the tutors, and then just knowing for sure I will win. I think my problems with SI have more to do with not properly understanding the engine and how to chain the Draw4's together properly. It's just such an alien playstyle for me that it puts me out of my comfort zone and then I start making bad mistakes.

Different decks for different pilots.

I'd rather play SI before Belcher, but let's be honest: neither are good. They both suffer from the problem of being so narrow that they are unable to play a real game of magic. Anybody who is able to interact with you is likely to blow you out.

There are decks that allow its owner to show off skill, and decks that allow its owner win with skill. SI and Belcher are the former. A deck like ANT was closer to the latter, but without M.Tutor there are more attractive options for that.

Has anyone done any serious testing on Lim-Dul's Vault since the banning of Mystical Tutor? You also may want to pick some up now before they get expensive.

As I'm sure anybody who has played various older combo decks will tell you, the effect is very strong. What is particularly nice is the ability to stack your 5 cards any way you like at the end.

Nevertheless, major concerns are: Mixed casting cost, vulnerability to Daze and/or spell snare, life loss. Additionally it's a fairly intense skill testing card. You have to know how much life you can afford to lose, and when you've hit the right 5 card pile that will win.

Honestly I doubt these guys will ever get that high in $$ cost. It's a corner-case card that is only usable in certain decks under specific circumstances.

LDV is awkward and clunky. It creates a lot of situations where you're clogged by your own set-up and slowed down tremendously.

Consider for instance a Zoo opener:
T1 - Nacatl
T2 - random 2 drop, swing for 3
T3 - swing for 5, Chain for 3 with Bolt in hand

If you're on the draw against Zoo, you get to cast LDV at a precarious 9 life without counting fetchlands and use that to fuel the LDV *and* a storm enabler. You're not running multiple IGGs, are you? Because not even Doomsday will save you from that situation with any consistency.

Before we used to be able to M.Tutor on turn 1 to set up a turn 2 kill. That is why the deck was successful against aggro. It wasn't just that we could maintain a high life total either, because frequently we could fan open a hand against Zoo on the play and know we can outrace their hate-bears too.

Now with LDV we are more vulnerable to their main plan, and more vulnerable to their hate too. M.Tutor made it a turn 2 deck often enough to be good against aggro, but LDV makes it a turn 3 deck pretty much all the time. Its casting cost is the primary drawback.

LDV is not a replacement for M.Tutor. It is bad when finding Ad Nauseam.

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Originally Posted by Rico Suave

I'd rather play SI before Belcher, but let's be honest: neither are good. They both suffer from the problem of being so narrow that they are unable to play a real game of magic. Anybody who is able to interact with you is likely to blow you out.

There are decks that allow its owner to show off skill, and decks that allow its owner win with skill. SI and Belcher are the former. A deck like ANT was closer to the latter, but without M.Tutor there are more attractive options for that.

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Let's be honest?
Ok. Which list are you referring to? It depends. Lumping all of them into one category is a mistake. QSI is dam good against control. The Pact list is not. I have a feeling you aren't too familiar with SI.

I'm not going to touch the infinity subdivisions that are named retarded things like Super Next Bonus Level Eternal Spanish Inquisition Storm QSI version 2.3 part II with Pacts.

A deck with 2 lands is vastly different from a deck with 9 lands anyway. Nevertheless, the Pact list is obviously the one closest to Belcher and what drew the comparison above.

As for the other lists, I don't think they're good against disruptive decks. A deck like Merfolk would cream its pants if the opponent cast Meditate. My CB/Top with 0 and 1 on top is still going to blank a storm kill. And a hand like Force/Stifle/Waste from New Horizons is still going to wreck almost anything with 9 lands.

In fact, New Horizons is a great example. It was a deck that ANT was good enough to consistently 2-1 in a match. But it took a lot of stability in order to pull this off, and for me the matches were almost always very very close. Something like SI just can't hope to compete in this match regardless of which version.

I don't want this to all be pessimistic though. Were I to build a storm combo deck today, it would likely be built around Doomsday. It is not an engine like ANT was, but if you're looking just for a card that generates some extra storm then DD does it very nicely.