[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by jin

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

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The Ad Nauseam paths in this deck are strategically weaker compared to TES, and often relying on them to get you out of a bind doesn't end well. More to the point, ANT has to rely on luck rather than a determinate path in order to make use of Ad Nauseam. This is one of the shortfalls of this deck compared to other Storm enablers. Personally, I would rather rely on tutor chains (and hence the Grim Tutor over none) than roll the dice with Ad Nauseam if I have an opportunity.

i feel the same, i mean, with ant i hate playing ad nauseam (ironic), because my win or my lose is decided by a coinflip. Obviously the grim is awful with nauseam, but maybe 1 more tutor will work

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Originally Posted by Koby

The Ad Nauseam paths in this deck are strategically weaker compared to TES, and often relying on them to get you out of a bind doesn't end well. More to the point, ANT has to rely on luck rather than a determinate path in order to make use of Ad Nauseam. This is one of the shortfalls of this deck compared to other Storm enablers. Personally, I would rather rely on tutor chains (and hence the Grim Tutor over none) than roll the dice with Ad Nauseam if I have an opportunity.

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Originally Posted by SaberTooth

i feel the same, i mean, with ant i hate playing ad nauseam (ironic), because my win or my lose is decided by a coinflip. Obviously the grim is awful with nauseam, but maybe 1 more tutor will work

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That's an interesting statement about other decks are less reliant on luck. What do you think makes this true? The Tutors?

Yeah, I understand that ANT's Ad Nauseam is weaker than TES's, but should you add things to the deck that will further relieve the significance of Ad Nauseam? I feel that in order to still be a strong Ad Nauseam deck, you still need to be able to work with the card. Playing Grim Tutor just doesn't.

Tutor chains are great and all, but you can pretty much do the same thing with Prozak's list. You can cantrip chain until you can Tutor for a Tendrils as well. If you enjoy chaining into a Tendrils, then any storm deck can do this. You don't need to play ANT specifically.

RE: Luck with Ad Nauseam
ANT runs much fewer initial mana sources (2 less Chrome Mox in the most aggressive list), which hurts the chances of being able to continue chaining mana after the Ad Nauseam. Coupled with that are the increased use of redundant cantrips (all of which are 1 CMC), and the Cabal Rituals which are also 2 CMC. The end result of the deck's construction results in a higher average CMC that limits the cards you're able to take with Ad Nauseam. The compound effect of ANT's construction means that you have fewer cards post resolution, and more of those cards are cantrips. This reduces the effectiveness of Ad Nauseam when you are looking for mana + tutors. Furthermore, the deck only plays 4 Tutors, compared to TES's seven or eight. This again forces ANT to dig deeper in order to find the Infernal Tutor and chain it into a kill spell. The pre-requisite stopping point with Ad Nauseam is general 6 mana and have a tutor. Infernal Tutor also requires LED to be present to enable Hellbent.

TL;DR:
Higher avg CMC,
Lower tutor density,
Higher cantrip count;
Ergo - weaker Ad Nauseam.

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Originally Posted by jin

You don't need to play ANT specifically.

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Specifically why I abandoned the deck in my testing. It just couldn't consistently utilize Ad Nauseam for an advantage. I was also only able to claim only ~60% win rate with the deck, and only 40% winrate vs FOW decks. This was a deal breaker for me. These values came from over 150 matches played. I can post them when I get home and have access to the spreadsheet.

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Originally Posted by Koby

Specifically why I abandoned the deck in my testing. It just couldn't consistently utilize Ad Nauseam for an advantage. I was also only able to claim only ~60% win rate with the deck, and only 40% winrate vs FOW decks. This was a deal breaker for me. These values came from over 150 matches played. I can post them when I get home and have access to the spreadsheet.

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That's not necessary. It was a loaded question. I know you play other decks. It was just to further discussion.

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Originally Posted by ThediscoPower

- http://www.starcitygames.com/article...r-Edition.html

Ari seems to think that 16 cantrips mean that you could go to 5 tutors, when Prosak thinks that you don't need more than infernal tutor (with reasons in one of his 2 starcity articles, don't remember which). Now, with my experience playing AnT in the past and looking at his results, I believe I can back Prosak on this one. I just haven't lost enough games to not finding a tutor in time, and the format is slow enough again to relax a few turns again.

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You make a good point, we're really just jerking it without any data. I'm working on a spreadsheet that I'll share via google docs when it's ready.
So far I've ran the numbers for probability that an opening hand will have 0-7 business/IMS/Fast mana/protection cards for Prosack ANT, Grim ANT, TNT, and TES for 7-5 card hands.
I've also done a chart showing the probability of being alive after drawing n cards with Ad Nauseam for each of the decks.

Are there any other statistical measures that you guys can think of that will help further our arguments in favor of one build or another?

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Originally Posted by jin

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

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You shouldn't be casting Ad Nauseam that often anyways. This deck is geared to combo out on turn-3/4 with PiF or Tutor chaining, with protection. If you seek quick and smooth Ad Nauseams play TES.
I prefer playing one Grim Tutor and the 7th protection spell over 2 preordains and possibly a mana source (16th land or 1st mox) over another. But the results of the 12 cantrip + probe list have been pretty good lately.

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Originally Posted by jin

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

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I wouldn't call gaddock teeg the most common hatebear. Right now hatebears are usually thalia, canonist, and meddling mage if the opponent even has any hatebears in their 75.

The line against the pox player in top 8 is that since he lacks any CMC 1 discard is to play out both LED's after probe before brainstorm. If he traps one, great you win on the spot as you go dark rit x2 tutor, crack the other LED for RRR, PiF, flashback both dark rit's, tutor for tendrils. Tendrils him for 24 and call him a scrub for force of willing an LED and not the spell that the LED is being used to cast since his deck has no soft countermagic. Let's say he let both LED's resolve. Pass the turn with blue open for brainstorm. If he draws something relevant like duress brainstorm in response and hide IT on top. Let him take a useless dark ritual. Untap, infernal, crack both LED's for black, ad nauseam. Win with ease afterwards hopefully. If you found a discard spell with brainstorm in response and you still have it after his duress/seize/IoK, I would go dark rit, dark rit if you have another one, therapy/duress his MBT, tutor, crack LED's for red and black, PiF, win.

Casting ad nauseam in ANT is a last resort for me unless I naturally draw it, then I cast it if I can because as a setup spell the card is bonkers and it can randomly win on the spot if you flip the right cards. EoT ad nauseam is also very potent in this deck as it turns out untapping in storm after drawing 10+ cards typically equals game.

I might test 1 grim tutor over 1 preordain and see how I like it since I'm going to start playing this deck again quite frequently in preparation for SCG Milwaukee and see how the 5th tutor is over the 16th cantrip. Could be good, but only testing will tell.

As promised, here's my testing log from December. Not much has changed in Legacy, except metagame shifts, but the deck is basically the same.

Clicky the linky

Is 34% win rate vs force of will decks really right? Seems bad. But then again to counteract my own argument alot of those were tempo or CB decks.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Is 34% win rate vs force of will decks really right? Seems bad. But then again to counteract my own argument alot of those were tempo or CB decks.

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There are limitations to the data approach, and obviously there isn't enough data. But the sample is relatively large for an empirical approach.

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Originally Posted by Koby

There are limitations to the data approach, and obviously there isn't enough data. But the sample is relatively large for an empirical approach.

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Were you running Abrupt Decay? The CB matchup isn't great with that, but 0-4 (with 1-8 in games) seems a little off to me.

That said, are those numbers really that bad? Counterbalance is our worst matchup, everybody knows that - if that's the most popular deck in the room, you're going to get stomped. If you ignore that, "FOW Matchup" is slightly unfavorable (40% ish, with blue combo being pretty good), and the non-FOW matchups are favorable. Especially considering how popular Jund has been (and how unpopular that has made Counterbalance, and how popular that has made Sneak and Show), I don't really think that's a bad place to be.

I'd be curious to see a similar spreadsheet on TES. I was testing TES for a while, because on paper it seems a lot better (Deathrite is fairly annoying for this deck, a blank against TES, Hymn is very annoying for this deck, very slow against TES, etc), but I found myself playing ANT again due to how often TES just loses to itself or a single Wasteland.

I was using this decklist:
http://i.imgur.com/r2UShsg.png

34% winrate seems very low considering how easy it is to set up a really good hand against just countermagic with 16 cantrips. Sure, 6 protection spells is kind of low but it should be able to get there with gitaxian therapy and people usually don't run that many hard counters outside FoW. I'm usually more scared of vendilion clique than FoW against countertop decks, as them nabbing your lone tutor is quite annoying while vclique is a quick clock as well. Counterbalance itself shouldn't be a problem generally with abrupt decay in the mix, sure before decay countertop wasn't something we wanted to see but now? They can't even effectively float FoW on top with SDT in play since most versions are running RiP/we need to bring in additional bounce and decay can still hit SDT EoT to make them flip top to draw FoW into a therapy or duress. There's also the possibility of us boarding in more discard against them to hit countermagic. As for RUG Delver, to me it's a slightly harder merfolk matchup. And even they can draw bad hands against us or we can set up to win through their 3 disruption spells typically, maybe 4 and almost never 5. Just don't get wasted out and board correctly and the RUG matchup is perfectly winnable.

That decklist is a bit different than the stock 16 cantrip build IMO. The 3 additional cantrips could change the matchup immensely in terms of finding decay or other key cards. The sideboard seems awkward to say the least. EtW and IGG seem out of place to me. The additional tendrils is something I would board in as well against miracles, as you can just raw storm them using their countermagic or we could minitendrils them twice if they lack batterskull.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Casting ad nauseam in ANT is a last resort for me unless I naturally draw it, then I cast it if I can because as a setup spell the card is bonkers and it can randomly win on the spot if you flip the right cards. EoT ad nauseam is also very potent in this deck as it turns out untapping in storm after drawing 10+ cards typically equals game.

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How does this work? The longer you wait, the less life you have

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

I wouldn't call gaddock teeg the most common hatebear. Right now hatebears are usually thalia, canonist, and meddling mage if the opponent even has any hatebears in their 75.

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But Teeg sees play in any GSZ deck.. I wouldn't want to lose to Forests because I'm running Massacre instead of Infest or Pyroclasm

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

You shouldn't be casting Ad Nauseam that often anyways. This deck is geared to combo out on turn-3/4 with PiF or Tutor chaining, with protection. If you seek quick and smooth Ad Nauseams play TES.

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I do. It's been my favourite deck since 2009.

It depends on the deck and my hand if I use AdN or not. If I have no instant speed rituals, I go for ad nauseam but usually want a landdrop or a mana floating. Also depends on the opponents deck whether your life total will go down that quickly. There are a lot of variables that dictate whether I go for ad nauseam or not in ANT. Facing tormod's crypt or surgical? Go for ad nauseam. My opponent has none of these and I have at least 2 ritual effects that work with PiF? I go for PiF. Some decks really don't deal that much damage that quickly in legacy, believe it or not. Control decks deal no damage in the first few turns typically. RUG Delver has to have a flipped delver on turn 2 to deal significant damage to make AdN bad but we generally want to sculpt and go for PiF against RUG anyways when they have bolt effects to make AdN draw less. The worst card to face turn 1 is DRS, as it is a fast clock and hates on PiF.

Okay, how many GSZ decks are out there that are GW? Not many. Maverick is dead. Jund Nic Fit doesn't run teeg. The only deck that does is elves combo, and that is a fringe deck that I am about as likely to face as maverick in a big tournament. I've seen a lot more thalia's and canonists in the metagame and even meddling mage. Teeg isn't that common at all. I agree with massacre right now because it kills thalia for 1 and mage/canonist for zero.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

It depends on the deck and my hand if I use AdN or not. If I have no instant speed rituals, I go for ad nauseam but usually want a landdrop or a mana floating. Also depends on the opponents deck whether your life total will go down that quickly. There are a lot of variables that dictate whether I go for ad nauseam or not in ANT. Facing tormod's crypt or surgical? Go for ad nauseam. My opponent has none of these and I have at least 2 ritual effects that work with PiF? I go for PiF. Some decks really don't deal that much damage that quickly in legacy, believe it or not. Control decks deal no damage in the first few turns typically. RUG Delver has to have a flipped delver on turn 2 to deal significant damage to make AdN bad but we generally want to sculpt and go for PiF against RUG anyways when they have bolt effects to make AdN draw less. The worst card to face turn 1 is DRS, as it is a fast clock and hates on PiF.

Okay, how many GSZ decks are out there that are GW? Not many. Maverick is dead. Jund Nic Fit doesn't run teeg. The only deck that does is elves combo, and that is a fringe deck that I am about as likely to face as maverick in a big tournament. I've seen a lot more thalia's and canonists in the metagame and even meddling mage. Teeg isn't that common at all. I agree with massacre right now because it kills thalia for 1 and mage/canonist for zero.

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What I meant was Ad Nauseam should really be a plan A and not a back up plan. All of those are reasons to not cast Ad Nauseam, so you'll have to go to plan B, Past in Flames. I don't reject that notion. It is definitely true that ANT needs a land drop or mana floating for Ad Nauseam to work properly. I wouldn't dare to go off without those two options open as the initial mana source in this deck is highly limited after the land drop.

I was thinking Rock plays Teeg. Maverick shows up from time to time. I actually rarely see Cannonist or Meddling Mage. Given that Teeg is not a factor in your calculation, I do see the argument for Massacre.

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Originally Posted by jin

What I meant was Ad Nauseam should really be a plan A and not a back up plan. All of those are reasons to not cast Ad Nauseam, so you'll have to go to plan B, Past in Flames. I don't reject that notion. It is definitely true that ANT needs a land drop or mana floating for Ad Nauseam to work properly. I wouldn't dare to go off without those two options open as the initial mana source in this deck is highly limited after the land drop.

I was thinking Rock plays Teeg. Maverick shows up from time to time. I actually rarely see Cannonist or Meddling Mage. Given that Teeg is not a factor in your calculation, I do see the argument for Massacre.

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Really? I've been lazy with ANT and just gone for Ad Naus and gotten punished for it plenty of times when I could have thought a little bit and gone for a different kill.
I've always been of the opinion you should go for (1) tutor chain, (2) PiF (or if they have nothing and you're lazy), (3) AN if the choice is between going off now when the coast is clear or waiting (and you have 6+ mana, and you're at above 14ish).

Still working on the spreadsheet, but here's some interesting conclusions from my analysis of Ad Nauseam:
The difference in Average CMC and expectation aren't really all that much different for the different builds. TES is the best at avg CMC (not including Ad Naus) of .78, but the others aren't far behind. Prosack ANT=0.83, Grim ANT=0.86, TNT=0.88.
If we pick an arbitrary starting life total of 14, the expectation for cards drawn is 18ish for TES, 17 for Prosack ANT, and 16ish for the other 2.

However, that doesn't actually tell the whole story, in fact it's a pretty crude way to look at Ad Nauseam. Just as important is the variance - for example how often we'll draw a bunch of 2s and 4s in a row compared to how often we'll draw a nice mix of 0s, 1s, and 2s.
The standard deviation for TES=0.80, Prosack ANT=0.90, and the other 2 are around 0.94. That is pretty sizeable decrease in standard deviation! So you would expect TES to have more consistent Ad Nauseams that flip lots of 1s, 0s, and some 2s, whereas the others will have more swinginess with strings of 2s and 4s.

That's a good analysis Greg. Nothing can really model the experience of resolving Ad Nauseam with all the required pieces well. That's where the variance sometimes bites decks like ANT when you need to get that "one last card". Moral of the story - win big, lose big; just go for it anyway.

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

Really? I've been lazy with ANT and just gone for Ad Naus and gotten punished for it plenty of times when I could have thought a little bit and gone for a different kill.
I've always been of the opinion you should go for (1) tutor chain, (2) PiF (or if they have nothing and you're lazy), (3) AN if the choice is between going off now when the coast is clear or waiting (and you have 6+ mana, and you're at above 14ish).

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By the time you move to plan C, you might not have 14 life. I said it should be plan A. This does not entail be lazy with your Ad Nauseams. It just means it should be your go to plan. Maybe Adam Prozak feels the same way, so from your analysis, he wants to make the best Ad Nauseam deck... I'm not sure.

Thanks for the analysis too.

The conceptional mistake is investing 2/3 turns of cantripping to find a configuration of cards which turn Ad Nauseam on, just to find out one of these:

- that softcounters/discard already disrupted your gameplan
- creatures/burn took you below 10 Life
- Your flips off Ad Nauseam cause more damage and offer less Initial mana sources

The time I played this deck I could have cut Ad Nauseam and barely noticed

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Originally Posted by jin

By the time you move to plan C, you might not have 14 life. I said it should be plan A. This does not entail be lazy with your Ad Nauseams. It just means it should be your go to plan.

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I think by plan A, B, C etc he means that Tutor chain is preferred over PiF which is preferred over AdN. He isn't saying he is going to wait until the last possible moment to AdN as that would be fairly useless. Some hands/game states can produce multiple lines. If given the choice, those are simply the order of preference he will pursue. Some hands can't produce many lines and those are usually the ones where you have to AdN.

TES casts a better AdN. ANT gives you more play (it also can give your opponent more play, so you better be sure you want it).

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Originally Posted by jin

By the time you move to plan C, you might not have 14 life. I said it should be plan A. This does not entail be lazy with your Ad Nauseams. It just means it should be your go to plan. Maybe Adam Prozak feels the same way, so from your analysis, he wants to make the best Ad Nauseam deck... I'm not sure.

Thanks for the analysis too.

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But making ANT the best possible Ad Nauseam deck is pointless since there is a deck which will always be a better AdN deck. This point has been made too often, but it has to be repeated as it's probably the most important feature of this deck, despite its name fooling many people. This is almost like saying Doomsday should become the best Empty the Warrens deck.

You can still cast a quick Ad Nauseam when it appears to be the best gameplan, and often you can just stop at safe life, pass and kill them next turn when it doesn't get there. However, the aim is to utilize tutor-chains and the graveyard engine whenever possible for risk-free wins. The fact that Ad Nauseam is plan C doesn't mean you try it after other plans fail, you try it when you expect that other plans will not work, this is often turn-1 and 2 despite it being the last resort option (as Dzra pointed out).

The spectrum goes:
Glass Cannon (SI/Belcher): All for speed, sacrifice protection
TES: Quick & good Ad Nauseams, strong usage of Empty the Warrens, Burning Wish versatility and good protection. Weaker to LD and soft counters (and discard, yes).
ANT: Robust, resilient, slightly slower risk-free wins using tutor-chains and PiF/IGG.
DD: Even more solid and slightly slower, most versatile protection suite. Manabase is an issue, however. (It is also hard to play.)

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

TES: Quick & good Ad Nauseams, strong usage of Empty the Warrens, Burning Wish versatility and good protection. Weaker to LD and soft counters (and discard, yes).
ANT: Robust, resilient, slightly slower risk-free wins using tutor-chains and PiF/IGG.

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http://img.playground.ru/images/6/4/double-facepalm.jpg

Well i won yesterday a 4-0 Event.

I play this list:

1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Preordain
4 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Misty Rainforest

SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Karakas

Match 1 against Uw Controll version. Not Miracle

G1: I know that he have a spell pierce in hand and 4 cards i dont see (He draw 3 with ancestrall vision)but i have 4 Lands in play + LED and petal(still in hand Infernal tutor and AD )play a DR and that resolve then i play AD and do not crack the LED ( Maybe he have a FOW), he havent and play only pierce and i pay 2. And win into AD(Have to Pass a Turn then going off again with Discard).When he had a FoW i can still go off next turn with Infernal Tutor. I mean this game i cant wait longer because he drawn only more counters.
G2: I mull to 5 and he have enough counters..
G3: I win easy with a good hand and discard.

1-0-0

Match 2 against MUD

G1: I can start and discard him chalice. then i cant me slow down and i can go off:)
G2: I take a mulligan and he cast a trinisphere then at his next turn i will decay his sphere but he play a second sphere..But have still a second 2 decay in hand;)
But then in he's next turn he wasted me and play a Lodestone Golem. Game
G3: I begin again mull to 6 then to 5 and have the nicest 5 card hand ever! fetch, Tutor, LED, DR, Cabal. Ok play it and Ad nausaum make it it.

2-0-0

Match 3 against Dredge

G1: He mull to 4 but have still loothing, loothing, land and a other card. But he dredge not good and is a turn to slow. I go off.
G2: He have a better hand then g1 but i'm a turn faster again and win with PiF

3-0-0

Match 4 against Dredge again

G1: Dredge can be fast but i think we are a little bit faster..
G2: He plays imp and i play a first turn Confi with petal and land, i mean BoBs are on the draw better then discard. He dredge a little bit and play Therapy but he says LED and not Tutor and i havent a LED in hand.
Then on my turn i draw a BS with confi and draw 1 more in the draw step^^ and have now zero lands in hand only BS, Ponder, Confi ,Tutor, DR, Cabal Rit. Now i can play Ponder that's seems better when i have no land in hand because i can shuffle but he goes off with he's dredgers. Or i play a BS for a aggressive Draw and to go off maybe. I play BS and i think it was the correct play, and draw LED, petal and a Land. haha cool and i go off with PiF.

4-0-0

Well my List plays very nice and makes a lot fun. I hope your enjoy. feel free.

Greets from Switzerland

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

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Because stating that a deck with more (preordains) and better (due to more shuffle effects) cantrips, better sb options (Confidant, Divert) versus discard, Cabal Ritual and MD Past in Flames is better against discard is clearly a totally insane claim.
The wins are "risk-free" in that you win on the spot, without variance involved assuming the opponent is neutralized, when using PiF (with the exception of rare situations when you need to rely on cantrips), IGG or simple tutor chaining. This is opposed to flipping cards with ad nauseam which might kill yourself or passing the turn with tokens which allows the opponent to topdeck. What is strange about this point?
You think ANT is not slightly slower than TES? I wouldn't say it's a lot slower, maybe just 'slower' would suffice.

And why not argue the points instead of posting a trolling picture..

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Originally Posted by Pdingo

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Nice result, how do you like the sb carpets?

amazing, you won most Games off raw speed and good draws than chaining Cantrips for turns...

quot erat demonstrandum

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

Because stating that a deck with more (preordains) and better (due to more shuffle effects) cantrips, better sb options (Confidant, Divert) versus discard, Cabal Ritual and MD Past in Flames is better against discard is clearly a totally insane claim.

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Killing before Hymn hits is a strategy. I can create a dozen artificial situations in which Silence protects you from discard or a topdecked Burning Wish is miles better than a Preordain.

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

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The wins are "risk-free" in that you win on the spot, without variance involved assuming the opponent is neutralized, when using PiF (with the exception of rare situations when you need to rely on cantrips), IGG or simple tutor chaining. This is opposed to flipping cards with ad nauseam which might kill yourself or passing the turn with tokens which allows the opponent to topdeck. What is strange about this point?
You think ANT is not slightly slower than TES? I wouldn't say it's a lot slower, maybe just 'slower' would suffice.

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Sorry, but if you kill yourself off Ad Nauseam in TES aka don't know what possible cc flips remain in your Deck, you should stop playing the card/deck. If you, somehow but unlikely, are forced to flood the field with goblins, you can still prevent topdecked Outs via "chant-walking".

I wouldn't say that a rel. difference of 1.25 turns for killing should called "slightly". Against a Lot of decks, a List Turn is huge

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

And why not argue the points instead of posting a trolling picture..

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Because we discussed ALL THIS 3 Pages ago. It's like the motherfucking B&R thread in which we repeat the Same cards, the Same arguments, the Same Claims, the Same whining every 7 pages

@Jamie

Well i use it only against the UW controll Guy because he use Pierce, but they dont see play the last turnier. But i think they are pretty good against Decks like RUG or BUG. I take this list to the GPT for Strassbourg this Friday.

@ Lemnear

ok that was pretty good Draws but i dont write in this small each cantrip i use only the important.^^

Greets

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Originally Posted by Pdingo

@ Lemnear

ok that was pretty good Draws but i dont write in this small each cantrip i use only the important.^^

Greets

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of course not :)

However you might agree, that SPEED was an important, if not most important, aspect in at least 3 of the matches. I'm unable to analyze the First match under the aspect of being faster than the Ancestral Vision in that scenario and the possible Impact on the game/on your opponents Hand.

P.S.: Playing UW Control without Countertop/Miracles or SFM/Batterskull is plain wrong these days

I'm also kind of curious why everyone is saying ANT is better than TES against discard -- Hymn on the draw against TES is way too slow, and they run so much more mana that Brainstorm is pretty much always going to save their hand from targeted discard.


@Koby

It seems like your testing is an argument for dropping the green splash. It's obviously not enough to make the CB matchup favorable, it seems like its better off to just ignore that and make the mana stable (you've basically cut 2 fetches for Gemstone Mines and taken up 5 SB slots on an un-winnable matchup anyway). I think if you ignore the CB matchup, you can make the Tempo/Stoneblade matchups a lot more even with Bobs and additional fetches, and you even have room to put a 6th tutor in the SB for matchups that you really want it (I really like having 6 tutors in any combo matchup, against almost everything else I have 5 after SB)

@Lemnear

1.25 turns slower is definitely exaggerating, except MAYBE if you're talking 100% goldfishing (even then, I think its probably turn 3 vs turn 2 average). ANT is generally a turn 3 deck with protection (it uses discard to set up a turn 3 kill), with the occasional turn 2 (but very rarely if it needs discard), and the occasional turn 4. TES is generally a turn 2-3 deck (closer to 3) if it needs protection, since it often needs to generate W, B, and R on the combo turn, which can take some time to set up.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

The time I played this deck I could have cut Ad Nauseam and barely noticed

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This is probably true for many ANT players. It's a shame.

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Originally Posted by Dzra

I think by plan A, B, C etc he means that Tutor chain is preferred over PiF which is preferred over AdN. He isn't saying he is going to wait until the last possible moment to AdN as that would be fairly useless. Some hands/game states can produce multiple lines. If given the choice, those are simply the order of preference he will pursue. Some hands can't produce many lines and those are usually the ones where you have to AdN.

TES casts a better AdN. ANT gives you more play (it also can give your opponent more play, so you better be sure you want it).

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Thanks for clearing that up. Miscommunication I suppose. I don't know if ANT gives more plays though. Burning Wish gives TES access to a lot of storm engines.

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

But making ANT the best possible Ad Nauseam deck is pointless since there is a deck which will always be a better AdN deck. This point has been made too often, but it has to be repeated as it's probably the most important feature of this deck, despite its name fooling many people. This is almost like saying Doomsday should become the best Empty the Warrens deck.

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Would ANT still be scary when your opponent aren't afraid of your Ad Nauseam? I would assume you'd want to maximize your strongest card, not play cards that weaken it. Maybe you should play Grim Tutor in the Ad Nauseam slot and move Ad Nauseam to your SB....

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Originally Posted by jin

Would ANT still be scary when your opponent aren't afraid of your Ad Nauseam? I would assume you'd want to maximize your strongest card, not play cards that weaken it. Maybe you should play Grim Tutor in the Ad Nauseam slot and move Ad Nauseam to your SB....

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You can play Ad Nauseam in this deck without it being your primary strategy...if you want Ad Nauseam as your primary strategy, you probably need to play 3+ Chrome Mox, and you probably also want BW so you can win off Ad Naus without an LED (in other words, you should play TES).

Ad Naus fills an important role in the deck -- it gives us a way to win when we generate a million mana and are facing Graveyard hate, but can't generate enough mana to tutor chain, and it's just a way to draw 10 cards for 10 life at instant speed. Both are pretty good in a lot of really popular matchups, even if we're not using it as our primary strategy.

@Lemnear

Agree, Speed was very important in those Match ups. I think in the first Game i cant play faster because i have to play around pierce, clique and and and.., but have to go off.^^

Yes i think to that UW control without SFM and Top etc. is wrong. But sometimes you play against fishes.;)

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

Really? I've been lazy with ANT and just gone for Ad Naus and gotten punished for it plenty of times when I could have thought a little bit and gone for a different kill.
I've always been of the opinion you should go for (1) tutor chain, (2) PiF (or if they have nothing and you're lazy), (3) AN if the choice is between going off now when the coast is clear or waiting (and you have 6+ mana, and you're at above 14ish).

Still working on the spreadsheet, but here's some interesting conclusions from my analysis of Ad Nauseam:
The difference in Average CMC and expectation aren't really all that much different for the different builds. TES is the best at avg CMC (not including Ad Naus) of .78, but the others aren't far behind. Prosack ANT=0.83, Grim ANT=0.86, TNT=0.88.
If we pick an arbitrary starting life total of 14, the expectation for cards drawn is 18ish for TES, 17 for Prosack ANT, and 16ish for the other 2.

However, that doesn't actually tell the whole story, in fact it's a pretty crude way to look at Ad Nauseam. Just as important is the variance - for example how often we'll draw a bunch of 2s and 4s in a row compared to how often we'll draw a nice mix of 0s, 1s, and 2s.
The standard deviation for TES=0.80, Prosack ANT=0.90, and the other 2 are around 0.94. That is pretty sizeable decrease in standard deviation! So you would expect TES to have more consistent Ad Nauseams that flip lots of 1s, 0s, and some 2s, whereas the others will have more swinginess with strings of 2s and 4s.

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You also need to remember that TES plays more free mana in chrome Mox. You not only draw another card or two, but you have a much better chance in going off on the same turn that you cast Ad Nauseam.

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Originally Posted by Koby

As promised, here's my testing log from December. Not much has changed in Legacy, except metagame shifts, but the deck is basically the same.

Clicky the linky

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Hey this is Cody from SoCal btw ...

Yeah those non-BUG FoW w/l ratios seem really wrong to me, personally. Do you have a similar study conducted with TES? I'm also gonna conduct a similar test using the following list:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=4636

I was a big time proponent of the Teemo list until recent playtesting with the wishless cantrip list ... which has led me to understand the resiliency of having those draw spells.

In my experience, the combo RB ritual thing can get really awkward in TES, as well as the reliance on EtW (which I hate), and those are actually the main things that deter me from continuing to play that deck. I like Silence, don't get me wrong ... actually, no, LOVE it. If I could reliably get silence into an all B tutor storm deck that would be tits. Another thing is I'm pretty sure that ad nauseam is always luck dependent no matter what deck it's in. Just because TES has more reliable ad nauseams doesn't mean it can't whiff.

Also, jeez, how often are you guys not floating mana when you ad nauseam playing AnT? It should go without saying, but that's a big difference between AnT and TES. Floating mana into it, even 1, and more often than not I get the win.

Assuming each win represents prizes worth 3.1 tix, and each match eats 2 tix; well that data cost me a bit to generate. :P
Once I noticed my FOW matches were not winning as often as I would have thought I would; I scrapped the deck.

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Originally Posted by Koby

Assuming each win represents prizes worth 3.1 tix, and each match eats 2 tix; well that data cost me a bit to generate. :P
Once I noticed my FOW matches were not winning as often as I would have thought I would; I scrapped the deck.

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Pffft ... it's called cockatrice, bro! Anyways, I'd still like to see a similar study conducted with TES. it'd be nice to get real metrics on these decks. I like both, but I really love the inevitability of ANT

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Originally Posted by jin

This is probably true for many ANT players. It's a shame.



Thanks for clearing that up. Miscommunication I suppose. I don't know if ANT gives more plays though. Burning Wish gives TES access to a lot of storm engines.



Would ANT still be scary when your opponent aren't afraid of your Ad Nauseam? I would assume you'd want to maximize your strongest card, not play cards that weaken it. Maybe you should play Grim Tutor in the Ad Nauseam slot and move Ad Nauseam to your SB....

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Ad nauseam is literally flipping a coin to determine if you win or lose if your opponent has a flipped delver (or even unflipped delver) in play. This is why I hate casting the card outside of TES. TES has 7 initial mana sources post nauseam if it used a land drop. We have 4 without a landdrop remaining. The reason PiF and tutor chaining are the preferred kill methods are because they are GUARANTEED to kill the opponent if they have no interaction. It really doesn't take much skill to play ad nauseam optimally. Okay, so I flip until I hit petal, dark rit, LED, infernal tutor and then play all of those into a tendrils that is almost guaranteed to kill the opponent at that point? And it's a bad idea to flip when I'm at 4 or less life if tendrils and PiF are still in the deck? Shocking. Resolving ad nauseam isn't rocket science, it's actually quite easy if you can do math on the fly and if you can't do math on the fly, why are you playing storm combo again?

@Lemnear: So speed mattered against dredge and MUD. Shocker that speed matters in the combo mirror and against a deck with no countermagic but permanent based disruption.

I wouldn't ever drop the green splash. How is echoing truth better than abrupt decay again? On top of that, it really doesn't weaken the manabase much at all. The only difference is if you run trop MD or SB, and if you run trop sideboard with 2 islands maindeck, the manabase is actually strengthened as boarding in an additional land is actually useful against RUG even if it is just an island that can be wastelanded.

If you want the best possible ad nauseam deck, play TES with 4 chrome mox and 4 petal. Then ad nauseam can almost never whiff at 13+ life. Just be aware of the shitty topdecks that chrome mox offers because chrome mox is terrible when it isn't flipped off of AdN typically outside of corner cases at least in my experiences with the card in TES.

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Originally Posted by codegoblin

In my experience, the combo RB ritual thing can get really awkward in TES, as well as the reliance on EtW (which I hate), and those are actually the main things that deter me from continuing to play that deck. I like Silence, don't get me wrong ... actually, no, LOVE it. If I could reliably get silence into an all B tutor storm deck that would be tits. Another thing is I'm pretty sure that ad nauseam is always luck dependent no matter what deck it's in. Just because TES has more reliable ad nauseams doesn't mean it can't whiff.

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I prefer to think of it as TES getting to play Empty (and have it be good). We can do graveyard loops, but we also have the potentially to make a quick or low-resource 10 goblins, something that fewer than half the decks seeing play can realistically recover from. Also, you obviously don't go for Empty if you see they have ways to answer it and can't Duress or Chant-walk them.
Keep in mind that Empty doesn't have to deal the full 20, it just has to deal enough that 2 or 3 cards and a Burning Wish can turn into a Grapeshot kill. There's definitely an element of risk involved with Empty, but far less that it's made out to be, and for sure less risk than a quick Ad Naus out of ANT.

You're definitely right that TES's Ad Naus's can whiff. Just tonight I had only like a 80% win rate off of Ad Naus, pretty comparable to ANT with 1 floating. Nature of the deck, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

It really doesn't take much skill to play ad nauseam optimally. Okay, so I flip until I hit petal, dark rit, LED, infernal tutor and then play all of those into a tendrils that is almost guaranteed to kill the opponent at that point? And it's a bad idea to flip when I'm at 4 or less life if tendrils and PiF are still in the deck? Shocking. Resolving ad nauseam isn't rocket science, it's actually quite easy if you can do math on the fly and if you can't do math on the fly, why are you playing storm combo again?

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Yeah, that pretty much describes storm, and people still consider it "hard to play". If anything, PiF is easier - you don't even bother counting most times! If: tutor and 3+ rituals, then PiF! Else, durdle.

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

I prefer to think of it as TES getting to play Empty (and have it be good). We can do graveyard loops, but we also have the potentially to make a quick or low-resource 10 goblins, something that fewer than half the decks seeing play can realistically recover from. Also, you obviously don't go for Empty if you see they have ways to answer it and can't Duress or Chant-walk them.
Keep in mind that Empty doesn't have to deal the full 20, it just has to deal enough that 2 or 3 cards and a Burning Wish can turn into a Grapeshot kill. There's definitely an element of risk involved with Empty, but far less that it's made out to be, and for sure less risk than a quick Ad Naus out of ANT.

You're definitely right that TES's Ad Naus's can whiff. Just tonight I had only like a 80% win rate off of Ad Naus, pretty comparable to ANT with 1 floating. Nature of the deck, I suppose.

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My problem with empty is that sometimes it is the only option in your hand, and having to pass the turn vs fast combo f'ing sucks, OR they're playing white and/or blue and might have access to terminus, detention sphere, or echoing truth (i've seen it a fair amount actually). I think I take the prosak view where it's kinda like ... damn, if I'm gonna combo off, I want the kill THIS turn. Maybe I'll test TES a little more. I've taken it to a couple events and done OK with it, maybe my mind is too much in the mindset of ANT though. I feel like they are much different decks ... so much so that I have a hard time considering either one of them "better." That being said, if there are empirical findings towards one being the better, I'd love to hear any/all of it.