[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

My main concern with these neo-ANT lists, also, is that they lose to Gaddock Teeg and/or Canonist g1 (yeah, there are some decks playing it MD, especially Zoo plays Gaddock). Even if we were to play a singleton Chain of Vapor, finding it via cantrips means an excessive loss of time and resources. That's why I'm skeleptical about the new storm combo lists that don't have any tutor power in the form of either Doomsday or Burning Wish.

Also, post Ad Nauseam you rely A LOT more on Infernal Tutor+LED to find the Tendrils, since you can't go Mystical+Cantrip anymore. This has happened frequently during tests.


Extract and Sadistic Sacrament are cards that won't see play in Legacy again. Guess why? Because the only tutor that could grab them has been banned. And I'm willing to bet mono-Black or Eva Green has other problems before dedicating 3-4 slots to fight a deck that will be considered dead or just too much weakened to care about.

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I think grim tutor is there to help serve as tutor effect for bounce (albeit a bad one, but still one nonetheless). The other option, which is what most non-wish versions seem to do, is just run more copies in the sb. For example, Ari Lax's list ran 3 chain of vapor and 3 rebuilds. With 12 cantrips, your odds of finding one are pretty good. Chain is a great storm builder, and the extra copies of rebuild in your hand can be cycled. The deck definitely is not as versatile as it once was, but the fact that theres less hate allows it to get away with it.

The odds of finding a card on 60 with 12 cantrips is still too low to not require some turns in which Zoo beats your face off and off invalidating the Ad Nauseam plan and leaving you with a bad Ill-Gotten Gains because your opponent will retrieve his burn spells and finish you off, and this is guaranteed since that list with Grims lacks Chant effects. You could Grim Tutor for Chain of Vapor, but even doing that will likely cost you a full turnunless going off that turn, which requires +1BBU) and 3 lives. Basically, you have timewalked and bolted yourself against Zoo. That's not an acceptable thing.
I think this matchup would still be doable if you manage to Chant your opponent or the first 1-2 turns and then quickly end the game, but also here you have to be very lucy to have the cards to go off by turn 3 assuming you lose 1 mana and a card each turn for Chants. Also, try to goldfish that online list and you'll find that Ad Nauseam, as already said, is way worse than how it was before due to the lack of Mystical and the presence of another one to be flipped after the first one resolves. You have to wait until you flip Infernal+LED, Tendrils, or IGG assuming you already have an Inernal in hand or in the yard.Or go random style with cantrips digging for one of those.

Of course, post-sideboard you destroy them, though.

The fact of powering way more squared lists and sbs is a natural assumption for all the non-Burning Wish ANT or DDFT lists, and that's what I'm doing from a month. Post-side against Zoo I have 3 Chain of Vapor and 2 Slaughter Pact, against Counterbalance I have 3 Krosan Grips (even i I'd like to transform the list into a post-sb DDFT w/ Emrakul+Isle, but it requires too much space), against random I also have Echoing Truth and 2 Hurkyl's recall (better than Rebuild in a list with 2 Ad Nauseam). The focus is to be able to side out all the chants against non-blue with good cards.
Carpet of Flowers is also an each-turn Black Lotus against all those Ubg LS- controllish lists that are popping everywhere. It's really, really good, perhaps even more than Xantid which is basically only for Merfolks, a matchup that is way far from being bad.

On the topic of 3 cmc tutors, maybe Cunning Wish should be reconsidered, as Hanni suggested some time ago.

It gives you maindeck outs to all kinds of permanent disruption, it finds you almost everything you need and it makes it possible to get away with only playing 1 AdN maindeck. In an UBg list you could create a wishboard that looked something like:

1 Autemn's Veil
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Brain Freeze
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chain of Vapor
x Krosan Grip

The problem is that it doesn't enable the IGG loop or find the best win condition in Tendrils. You would probably have to play City of Traitors in such a llist so you can fetch the AdN/protection/ritual on turn 2 and go off turn 3.

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Originally Posted by kikoo

On the topic of 3 cmc tutors, maybe Cunning Wish should be reconsidered, as Hanni suggested some time ago.

It gives you maindeck outs to all kinds of permanent disruption, it finds you almost everything you need and it makes it possible to get away with only playing 1 AdN maindeck. In an UBg list you could create a wishboard that looked something like:

1 Autemn's Veil
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Brain Freeze
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chain of Vapor
x Krosan Grip

The problem is that it doesn't enable the IGG loop or find the best win condition in Tendrils. You would probably have to play City of Traitors in such a llist so you can fetch the AdN/protection/ritual on turn 2 and go off turn 3.

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We can try. The Wish Idea intrigues me a lot, even if it's clearly suboptimal. But I still don't know if City of Traitors is worth it, you're packing a land that pops itself in a mana-hungry configuration (given the Wishes) and implies a mulligan in initial hand. We could work on it a bit, but keep in mind you're adding more Bolts in the face when flipped off Ad Nauseam. The manacurve issue is extremely delicate; I can tell you having played Doomsday ANT for a year and not being able often to kill via Ad Nauseam with a Doomsday and Meditate in the deck (2 cmc3, exactly).
We could try:

Da Bombz
4 Infernal
1 Ad Nauseam- 2 is too much if we play CWish.
2 Cunning Wish
1 Igg
1 Tendrils

Poor's accels
4 Dark ritual
3 Cabal
4 Petal
3 Mox
4 LED

Condoms
4 Chant
3-4 Duress

Cards that fetch other cards
4 BS
3-4 Ponder
4 Sensei's D.Top

The Mana
2 City of Traitors (?)
7 Fetchlands
2 USea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical
1 Island
1 Swamp


Sideboards: the usual ANT old layout, with +1 Ad Nauseam, +1 Freeze, +1 Chant. It may also be good to side out the 2 Wishes or the sb AdN in certain MUs (like Zoo) to be more fast.


This raises the bomb density to 8. Don't know if it's enough, but it might work.

As for the fact that Wish doesn't grab Tendrils, Brain freeze is still good after AdN. Remember the main gameplan still remains resolving AdN or Igg, Wish is just a (bad) pseudo-Mystical that doesn't imply Card-disadvantage and acts either as a solution fetcher or as a bomb/kill one. Just like BWish in TES.
But it also gives more value to SDT+LED, and this is pretty good.Ok, I think Cities are pretty necessary. The aim is to craft a slightly slower build (than the ones posted on here) that can support better Divining Top and has a better mid-game. It can also play really well staying mana open and EOTing Wishes, or using multiple SDT shanenigans, which is a strong principle in modern storm combo decks (the fact that you outplay your blue opponents).Wish could really shine, since it's also an answer to problematic g1 cards,and grabs instant solutions which are >>> in quality to the sorcery counterparts (Grip is better than, say, Cleanfall or Eye of Nowhere against CB, Hurkyl's is better than Spree). Therefore, a higher land count than usual (16). Wish is also a bomb with Carpet of Flowers, post board.
Yes, I like the idea a lot. Let's see if we can get something good out of this.

I think Cunning Wish is a great idea based solely on the idea that you get to win with Hunting Pack or Brainfreeze, much like how I win with Grapeshot.

Grapeshot + Brainfreeze both require a similar amount of storm. Brainfreeze slightly less.

Usually I only agree with Bryant when he is trolling or choking in top8s.

But, for once i have to agree. I want to see more hunting pack played.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I think Cunning Wish is a great idea based solely on the idea that you get to win with Hunting Pack or Brainfreeze, much like how I win with Grapeshot.

Grapeshot + Brainfreeze both require a similar amount of storm. Brainfreeze slightly less.

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Is this ironic or are you serious?

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Is this ironic or are you serious?

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A little of both. I don't think it's a terrible idea as a 2x of, 3x might be too hard on Ad Nauseam. But winning with Brainfreeze or Hunting Pack seems AWESOME.

if your already running white for chant/silence, my as well try to fit angels grace in the SB as a Cwish target. seems slow but might be worth testing.

But it requires 10 mana to kill via CW+Pack. It's impossible to pull it out unless you have a billion cards in hand, which is after Ad Nauseam. Better to leave it to Solidarity.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

But it requires 10 mana to kill via CW+Pack. It's impossible to pull it out unless you have a billion cards in hand, which is after Ad Nauseam. Better to leave it to Solidarity.

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It's impossible to get 10 mana after ad Nauseam? Also, who says it has to be Hunting Pact, Brainfeeze (which is more realistic) is 3UU.

I like how that gets around random hate.
After losing mystical the "just put one bounce in the md" plan has gotten significantly less reliable.

I think I'll be testing that if I feel like nauseating over people in the next legacy tournament.

From my experience playing vintage ANT I feel fine playing 4 wish maindeck to find Ad Nauseam, the vintage version plays 4 Ad Nauseam, and 3 tendrils and still functions, you wont be hurting yourself too much with 4 wish's.
The only downside is that it might be a bit clunky. A turn two wish-> turn three ANT, requires more acceleration. A turn three wish-> turn four ANT seems a little too slow.

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Originally Posted by median

From my experience playing vintage ANT I feel fine playing 4 wish maindeck to find Ad Nauseam, the vintage version plays 4 Ad Nauseam, and 3 tendrils and still functions, you wont be hurting yourself too much with 4 wish's.
The only downside is that it might be a bit clunky. A turn two wish-> turn three ANT, requires more acceleration. A turn three wish-> turn four ANT seems a little too slow.

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Playing 4 Cunning Wish will significantly make your Ad Nauseam worse, instead. It's like playing 4 Lightning Bolts when you start revealing. You can ask several people on here (Bryant Cook first of all) why cmc 3 cards are bad to be revealed off Ad Nauseam, and that's the reason that lead to cut Simian Spirit Guide in TES, for example. We do not start revealing from 20 lives when we're actually playing,and the comparison with Vintage doesn't stand because it's a totally different format with a different clock and more powerful acceleration to be used and revealed.
I'll repeat myself: Cunning Wish would function only to slightly increase the chances of finding a bomb that does not necessarily depend on LED after flipping with Ad Nauseam, and incidentally it's also pretty good because it can offer solutions from game 1 against the classic problematic cards of slow decks (blue aggro-control with Counterbalance, Trinisphere decks). I have a doubt about its speed against Zoo, but surely it's miles better than Grim Tutor being an instant and not requiring double black and 3 lives.
For the remaining 57-48 cards, ANT remains the same with the same function, the same storm engine patterns and the same shell, and has to be played in the same way it used to be.

EDIT: if a competent player who plays storm well and understands it wants to help me developing a new version of ANt w/ Wishes together,feel free to PM me.

As far as adding wish, I like the idea on paper, but without a resolved AdN, we will be VERY hard pressed to reach storm 17 to freeze them out.

If you use the wish to get the AdN and bounce spells however, i think that's a great idea, especially considering that you get an upgrade from eye to nowhere to CoV from burning->cunning wish boards.

The grim tutor works very well in this deck, however I was not 100% convinced that it was the best option, that being the reason that i jammed TES at the GP instead of the list that me and Ari were working with. I feel that some form of wish board will yield the best results.

From the NLI thread:
We discussed the idea of an enlightened tutor boarding strategy. allowing us to get seals to stop hate. might be worth looking into.

What I saw when I looked at 4 wish's was an average of 3 cmc over four cards being added or 12 total casting cost to the curve, for a reference point, a lot of people run 2 Ad Nauseam, or 10 cmc to the curve. Having a difference of 2-4 overall cmc isn't much.

Going back to Grim tutor, I play 1 infernal tutor in my sideboard in TES so that I can grab IGG/ANT with it if I get a hand with just one wish and no tutors. You could run Burning Wish here, and run a singleton grim tutor in the side. I actually like the idea for TES since I could have 4 wish that also function as tutors in addition to four infernals.

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Originally Posted by jjflipped

As far as adding wish, I like the idea on paper, but without a resolved AdN, we will be VERY hard pressed to reach storm 17 to freeze them out.

If you use the wish to get the AdN and bounce spells however, i think that's a great idea, especially considering that you get an upgrade from eye to nowhere to CoV from burning->cunning wish boards.

The grim tutor works very well in this deck, however I was not 100% convinced that it was the best option, that being the reason that i jammed TES at the GP instead of the list that me and Ari were working with. I feel that some form of wish board will yield the best results.

From the NLI thread:
We discussed the idea of an enlightened tutor boarding strategy. allowing us to get seals to stop hate. might be worth looking into.

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You said you worked with ari on his list for the GP. Why no chrome moxs?

Im starting to play around with the deck and I wonder how Iggyloop works since its exiled.
Also how important is Orims Kicker, i might build this deck but Silence is much cheaper, so id just play that.

The answer is not in the wind but in Infernal Tutor dude.

I dont get it. Usually i Bwish for Iggy, so I dont have Infernal. Also I dont see an Infinite Loop with Infernal.

why posting unclear answers at all