[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by Bongo

The idea is to board out the AdNs and go beatdown, while minimally weakening the Storm plan. That way, you force them into a tough decision: side in potentially dead creature removal for game 3?
Hurkyls is for Chalice, Lodestone, Trinisphere, Null Rod and Ethersworn Canonist.

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Against Stax I think it would work reasonably well although the Nighthawks are probably too cute there. Stax has nothing that can kill Tombstalker game 2 but can screw you out of casting them with the right draw. If the list is anything like mine, they'll keep the Magi as additional win cons though - Stax generally has little to board in against combo and being able to get some damage in while ahead on tempo is crucial anyway, especially with AdN as the engine.
While the critters may punch through CB, CB often also has bigger and more consistent monsters Tombstalkers/Nighthawks may or may not be useful against - many if not most CB decks don't need creature removal to win at combat.

New staxx deck:

Mainboard, hardly any answer to combo. should be a win.

Sideboard: heck a deck that makes 6+ mana on T1 is scary as hell. wurmcoil engine much?
You don't have time after boarding. the ammount of hate is immense and the wurmcoils are scary as hell.
I'd go aggressive, mulligan anything that seems slow without duress/seize. G3 should be yours again since wasteland lock is not an option against this deck.

About tutors:

yes 4 is on the tight side, but that's the reason I play 2 ad nauseam and 12 cantrips. leaving me with 6 "combo-pieces", if you go for grim tutor you'll be with: 6 tutors, 1 ad nauseam.

The difference is minimal, yes you can chain tutors, but with that ammount of mana you can even go ill-gotten gains and getting back protection (1 or 2 depends on what they have).

It can happen that you don't find anything with preordain/brainstorm/ponder...but you play that many, that it's hard to miss. (you can still find ad nauseams as well). If you often have issues with finding them, then you definately prioritize your cantrip targets wrongly, since I can keep finding the combo-pieces in the first 3 turns and keep them protected on the top of my library. It happened a few times that I had to cantrip after ad nauseam, but at that point you have a buttload of mana so you stop ad at a few lives and ponder into that tendrills or tutor into tendrils. I try not to flip myself to death when it's easier to dig up the deck with the cantrips you gained from ad nauseam.

Ari how did you feel about your sideboard @ the starcity this last time. Cutting green altogether help or hurt? How much Cbalance did you play against?

I was just testing this deck. In almost every case, it was weaker than TES. Playing around Wasteland has never been a problem for me.

Because I don't like to give up on Storm (I still whip out Doomsdays every now and then, even though they are so much worse than Ad Nauseams), I was wondering what you guys think the benefits of this deck over TES are, assume that being Wasteproof isn't one of them.

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Originally Posted by lorddotm

I was just testing this deck. In almost every case, it was weaker than TES. Playing around Wasteland has never been a problem for me.

Because I don't like to give up on Storm (I still whip out Doomsdays every now and then, even though they are so much worse than Ad Nauseams), I was wondering what you guys think the benefits of this deck over TES are, assume that being Wasteproof isn't one of them.

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You never lose to Zoo nor Goblins, because of Ad Nauseam (which TES largely depends on), due to low life total or unlucky flips. You always have the tutor/cantrip chain or IGG-loop by turn three.

With this deck, it is also much easier playing against Merfolks. All you have to do, is discard their force and add one or two extra mana depending on Daze or S. Pierce. With TES you have to take color requirements into consideration, when paying for taxation counters.

Because of the large amount of fetchlands (ten in my buid) your cantrips will often be much greater (and you can always fetch basics). You are almost always able to shuffle away bad stuff. Speaking of cantrips, they also cause you to mulligan far less, than you do with TES.

These are the reasons I plays this deck over TES. TES still might be the better deck, but they play out very differently, and I prefer how this one plays.

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On a different note, it is kind of ironic, that this deck is so bad at using its name sake card compared to TES. On the other hand, Can. Thresh only plays one creature using the name sake mecanic and NLThresh doesn't use any at all. I know that this deck was much better at abusing Ad Nauseam at the time when M. Tutor was legal... When I write decklists I always call it Grim Tendrils to mimic Grim Long :smile:

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Originally Posted by NesretepNoj

You never lose to Zoo nor Goblins, because of Ad Nauseam (which TES largely depends on), due to low life total or unlucky flips. You always have the tutor/cantrip chain or IGG-loop by turn three.

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I don't think I have ever dropped a Sanctioned game against Zoo with TES. Hoenstly, TES has many engines, not just Ad Nauseam, to kill them with. Both these decks tear both those decks to pieces simply because those decks cannot interact with you in a meaningful way.

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Originally Posted by NesretepNoj

With this deck, it is also much easier playing against Merfolks. All you have to do, is discard their force and add one or two extra mana depending on Daze or S. Pierce. With TES you have to take color requirements into consideration, when paying for taxation counters.

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TES can have Xantid Swarm, otherwise known as the instant win, against Merfolk. Plus, Merfolk is not a hard matchup since you can just Empty early and they can't answer that game 1.

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Originally Posted by NesretepNoj

Because of the large amount of fetchlands (ten in my buid) your cantrips will often be much greater (and you can always fetch basics). You are almost always able to shuffle away bad stuff. Speaking of cantrips, they also cause you to mulligan far less, than you do with TES.

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Keeping a hand of cantrips and no business seems terrible regardless of the deck. Plus this deck runs a million lands, something I will never understand.

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Originally Posted by leegoo

Ari how did you feel about your sideboard @ the starcity this last time. Cutting green altogether help or hurt? How much Cbalance did you play against?

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I played vs one and it had Leyline of Sanctity post board. I really have liked the non-green plans a lot better as 1. Drawing Grip was unreliable and 2. Krosan Grip is miserable with the easiest way to win, which is just kill on two. I tried a heavy discard suite in straight UB too, but lost too often to my own Ad Nauseums and running out of cards. I've just come to the conclusion the best way to win is combo on 2. The Chrome Moxes were terrible as you still want actual lands, but the second Ad Nauseum is a step in the right direction post board.

On this vs TES:

TES has a lot of issues with Daze/Waste if your opponent aggressively attacks your Rituals because of the color requirements. Not only do you not have the "How the fuck do I Rite, Dark Rit, and Silence with 1 land in play" issues, but Cabal Ritual just runs right over Cursecatcher/Daze.

Your cantrips give you more resilience to Duress effects. TES is significantly weaker against the GB attrition decks because of this. Cabal Ritual also means you need less cards to get to critical mana.

TES is a lot more reliant on just gut shotting Dim Rets or Ad Nauses, where as this deck is much better at setting up for sure kills.

This deck also is much better at going late against pure control decks. The large land count, especially on basics and the high cantrip count make it easy to set up late games where you just crash through a hand of counters into a Tendrils. TES's low land count means going late you don't really make progress each turn and your mana production doesn't always line up well with casting your disruption.

I've been trying out a couple of wipe aways in the board and they seem worth keeping in for the CB matchup. I think you still need a 3cc (split second) spell for those time's when they try to lock you out with some presence. (sometimes, especially against the goyf builds, you are actually on a clock which makes waiting to just push through 2 tendrils a bit more difficult.) Still, I think trying to resolve AdN at their eot is the fastest way to win post board. (considering you don't t1/2 kill of course ;) )

hi all
a new storm player is here :D
any help like http://www.mananation.com/legacy-storm-primer/ can be so useful for me
tnx

I just played a weekly four round swiss event with this deck.

4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Thoughtseize
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
2 Swamp

I'd post the board, but its somewhat disjointed right now and its currently being redone. I ended up going 3-1 with a loss to RDW in round three. The loss was due to greedy plays on my part. I saw three duress effects early and he was mana screwed so I naturally took everything from his hand. However, he top decked a Mindbreak trap the turn before I went off and I didn't have any duress effects left to take it...sigh.

I've been playing the list on Cockatrice for a while now and I've been really happy with it (about 50 matches). I've found that most of the time I've gone off, its with Ill-Gotten Gains as opposed to chaining rituals into Ad Nauseam. I've found Ad Nauseam to whiff too many times for my liking. Using it as a hand filler at the EOT phase before you go off isn't a bad call since you can get enough cards to just out right case Tendrils without having to tutor for it. I still think Ad Nauseam has its place since smarter players will bring in graveyard hate to stop the IGG, I just don't think it should be the primary engine.

I've played TES before and the only thing I like better about it is the protection package. The Chant effects are really helpful with the popularity of Mind Break Trap in boards. However, the deck is weak against aggressive fish hands (Wasteland, Cursecatcher, Daze, Spell Pierce) and has a harder time recovering against disruptive BGW draws with Wasteland, Thoughtseize and Hymn. The cantrips in UB builds help to minimize the damage from such starts against BGW and the large number of basics allows the deck to play out well against Merfolk and avoid their Daze like spells.

Played about 4 hours tonight vs. countertop thopter (card for card Guibaults build main, but +3 Mindbreak traps in the board... which is strong) game 1's and a couple of different sideboard plans. (Playing Ari's list of ANT)

Game 1 is very draw dependent. The plan goes something like this - try to kill them as fast as possible without getting wrecked by force of will. Duress on 1 (on the play) it is almost always right to grab sensei top over a FoW (unless of course you are going for it that turn), as forces in hand you can beat, forces on top of their deck you almost cannot. If they assemble top/balance the plan changes to "attempt to resolve ad nauseam during their turn. You can trip them up by casting a lot of different cc spells (and responding to certain spells with rituals/bstorms) but really... it's bad if they "get it." Remember that if they have counterbalance but no top, enlightened tutor still reads "W: counter target spell" (Even AdN with Future Sight)

I wouldn't say it's a terrible g1, but it's not better than 50/50 for sure, probably a bit in their favor.

Game 2 board games were absolutely an auto loss with the "board into a faster kill" (chrome mox's etc) plan, as a t0 leyline basically just wins unless you are sitting on chain of vapor. It also makes a lot of the cards you board in (thoughtseize comes to mind) really poor. All in all, I lost EVERY game with this board, even with a t1 kill. :(

Second Board plan - Same plan, but also bring in dark confidant, another tendrils and bounce.
Very similar, except bob is a real threat. After boarding out swords / Wrath they have few ways to deal with 2-4 dmg a turn from a guy. I got there twice just off Attacking (once with a resolved small tendrils as well) Better, but still a bad win/loss record.

Third Plan - Add Tropical Island and Reverent Silence / Krosan Grip - still better, as it's very easy to trip them up with krosan grip, especially if they get greedy and start trying to counter silly stuff like lotus petal/brainstorm/etc. Know that if you play the tropical island early, your opponent WILL float a 3 as much as possible, which can be good or bad depending. Reverent Silence was also good once or twice, especially against multiple leylines (one of very few outs to that) I consider this plan the first that is taking this matchup very serious. It's a bit of SB space, but definitely "better" if this version of countertop becomes heavily played and you don't want to go all in on Emrakul (more later).

Fourth Plan - Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience - The leyline was randomly good (even when just keeping sword gone forever) and once or twice the helm did it's job, but all in all this felt very weak, especially when you don't have Leyline in your opening grip.

Fifth plan - Emrakul/Doomsday/Shelldock Isle. This was (results wise) the best plan. The games he won involved mindbreak trap (counter's emrakul) and leyline of sanctity, without both, it was extremely potent. Even Doomsday for bstorm/ritual/tendrils/IGG/Doomsday is pretty hard for them to beat. (Came up once when I had Emrakul in hand) If you are in fear of this matchup, this is the best plan I have seen so far. It's 6 cards, which is a lot to dedicate to one matchup... but it certainly makes g2 look a lot better. I need to play more vs. the other versions of Counterbalance, as I'm not sure this plan is all that great (or should I say...better than the others) vs. the other versions. I played against the bant version in a tournament this weekend and I felt confident in rounds 2 and 3 with the chrome mox "speed it up" plan.

Just thoughts.

AT doomsday plan, if you know he has mindbreak trap.

Try the following

Doomsday: shelldock, duress, emrakul, chain of vapor( for leyline), doomsday

It's extremely rough though, but remember, emrakul can be played as instant speed. (read shelldock isle)


It's also to say, they do need 4 land in play to hardcast it, you can definately trick them at least once.


Also to be honest ANT is only 3 terrible match-ups.

- Dreadstill (the worst, potential fast clock, stifles, lot of counters, countertop and confidant for CA, and wastelands)
- Dark Tempo ***** (ugb *****, average clock, a lot of counters, CA, and removal for xantids/confidant, wastes+stifles)
- Countertop variants ( slow clock, limited ammount of counters next to countertop combo)


Merfolk is 50-50, discuss whatever you want about it, but I've never lost to the fish while playing ANT and it's really unnecessary to lose.

So you sideboard has 15 cards for the following:
- anti-hate cards
- ways to beat bad match-ups

Since Dreadstill hardly see any play, you can erase that one.

so 2 bad MU's left:
countertop: quite beatable by doomsday play (6 slots)
treshhold variants (ugb being the worst): none yet available, except by abusing xantids (whey those are laying, it'll be a win)
anti-hate: chain of vapors + more discard as options. (just need 4 slots for these)

so with this you have a fixed
10 slot sideboeard, leaving 5 for another bad match-up TT-lists.

so far I'm using xantids since they're merfolks worst nightmare, but they are limited against treshhold decks, those that probably do support removal.

another discussion:
In sb is better Dark confidant or xantids?
i only try BoBs and i like it so much.

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Originally Posted by leegoo

Fifth plan - Emrakul/Doomsday/Shelldock Isle. This was (results wise) the best plan. The games he won involved mindbreak trap (counter's emrakul) and leyline of sanctity, without both, it was extremely potent. Even Doomsday for bstorm/ritual/tendrils/IGG/Doomsday is pretty hard for them to beat. (Came up once when I had Emrakul in hand) If you are in fear of this matchup, this is the best plan I have seen so far. It's 6 cards, which is a lot to dedicate to one matchup... but it certainly makes g2 look a lot better. I need to play more vs. the other versions of Counterbalance, as I'm not sure this plan is all that great (or should I say...better than the others) vs. the other versions. I played against the bant version in a tournament this weekend and I felt confident in rounds 2 and 3 with the chrome mox "speed it up" plan.

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What does your board with Doomsday look like? Or at least, what does your Doomsday package look like? I've heard of this plan before, but haven't seen any lists dedicate slots to it.

If the board contains Doomsday, is it worth it to play Dark Confidant, Xantid Swam? I'd imagine there are other cards in the board slots that may be work playing.

@ Practical - that's a great suggestion on the doomsday pile (the duress part). Did not think about that.

On the part about Shelldock making it "instant" you could possibly also stack something silly while hiding Tendrils under it. Not sure exactly what that stack is... but it seems worth putting some thought into.

On Fish - I agree it should be a pretty good matchup. I did lose to it in a tourney last Saturday, possibly to punting the game2 (I won g1) but I'm not sure. How would you guys have handled this situation?

- My life total is 13, hand is LED, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual (I have threshold), Ad Nauseam, Duress (draw for turn was Duress). Swamp, Island, Underground in play. (No land drop yet)
He has Mutavault, Cursecatcher, Coralhelm (3 level up), Lord. (will be lethal next turn) I don't know his grip, but it's 3 cards.

I lead with Duress. See standstill and 2 land, take standstill. Play Lotus Petal and Lions eye diamond, tap Underground sea and Island to cast ritual and Ad Nauseam. The question is, do you respond by breaking LED?

I did not, and died miserably because of it. I'm not sure if it was right or wrong however.

On the one hand, I break LED, adding 3 (probably blue mana) - at this point I need to hit another LED and Infernal Tutor to win (I suppose I could also get VERY lucky on my flips and cast Grim Tutor or enough Brainstorm effects to get there) - this plays around cursecatcher but puts me in an awkward position if I flip nothing interesting.

On the other hand, I don't crack LED. (Which I didn't) I'm now in a position where I need to hit an infernal tutor (seen 0 so far) and either a dark ritual, land + lotus petal, or another combination of mana production (so long as it ends up producing 3 mana before cracking the LED)

In hindsight, I flip 2 LED's, an infernal tutor, 2 Cabal Rituals, a duress, land, land, ponder, thoughtseize, Ill Gotten Gains (dead)

Any thoughts on that? Did I punt or just lose the numbers game?

I always crack LED before ADN resolves, floating mana (you're correct chosing blue in this case, you have your landdrop to hit B) is usually much better than a simple hellbent-enabler. If you don't flip something high-cost, you'll see enough cards to win through mass-cantrips usually, if you flip something High-cost it's either a Grim (=win), an IGG (enables hellbent because you'll have a ton of mana floating once you've played all the Ritual-effects) or the Tendrils (who needs hellbent).

About Xantid Swarm vs Dark Confidant:

Actually there isn't a single deck where you want confidant over swarm.
Reasons:

- dark confidant needs to be laying on the field for a while (removal takes out both) before it has effect. A xantid swarm has it's effect the next turn keeping EVERY spell safe. Merfolk for example has no answers to this. And nowadays speed still matters.
- Dark confidant does get hit by spell snare where only force and daze aim for xantids (and you can play around that)
- Dark Confidant is on-color and does not require a trop.

I only don't break LEDS after a casted Ad Nauseam when I have +1 mana float ( this is included calculated taxing spells like cursecatcher)
If I have +1 mana (including paying for cursecatchers) I don't break it since I probably only need to hit infernal +dr,cr+chrome mox, or chrome mox +led etc.

when I don't have +1 mana, I'll always crack LED. the 3 mana are needed or else your first spell you try to cast off a petal will get catchered..which is an unneeded risk. With the 3 mana you just hope to flip your tendrills or IT+ LED, or what not to win or Grim tutor (which I don't play, but I rarely use AN and prefer to combo out through iggy) Remember I don't play grim tutor, so I'm a little less mana hungry after AN, but I can flip my second one. When I have +1 exactly it's a bit iffy, and guessing is involved, depends on cards already spend and which not. when I have +2 mana I always keep LED, since you can now cast ANY mana enhancer.

R2 vs Merfolk:
Why didn't you stop flipping? after the first land? did he sacrifice his cursecatcher already?
because + I'd go, LED, LED, land, play infernal in response sac LED x3 (9 mana) = storm 6
depending on his GY, go ill-gotten gains. (5-1 for cursecatcher= 4 mana float, duress, LED, infernal tutor)
which is only a loss vs double force or force/spell snare + daze/spell pierce. you win vs 2 taxing spells, since you can go LED, LED + infernal tutor)


Also 1 reason to not like Grim tutor:
Your ill-gotten gain piles cost have now increased by 2 mana. which is a lot as always.

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Originally Posted by practical joke

About Xantid Swarm vs Dark Confidant:


R2 vs Merfolk:
Why didn't you stop flipping? after the first land? did he sacrifice his cursecatcher already?
because + I'd go, LED, LED, land, play infernal in response sac LED x3 (9 mana) = storm 6
depending on his GY, go ill-gotten gains. (5-1 for cursecatcher= 4 mana float, duress, LED, infernal tutor)
which is only a loss vs double force or force/spell snare + daze/spell pierce. you win vs 2 taxing spells, since you can go LED, LED + infernal tutor)

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In this I think I did indeed punt. He doesn't get priority (to blow cursecatcher) until AFTER I've sacrificed the LED's in response to my Tutor... right? So I just massively punted... same with any taxing spell (daze / pierce) right?

Doh. Good to figure these things out in free tourney's :)

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Originally Posted by leegoo

In this I think I did indeed punt. He doesn't get priority (to blow cursecatcher) until AFTER I've sacrificed the LED's in response to my Tutor... right? So I just massively punted... same with any taxing spell (daze / pierce) right?

Doh. Good to figure these things out in free tourney's :)

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LED vs Taxing Counters works out very well. LED is still a mana ability, so it doesn't use the stack (they can't respond to it). You just can only play it when you have priority, where as mana abilities can be played during the announcement of a spell or sometimes the resolution (Mana Leak).

Also, Practical Joke, costing 2 more to IGG is fine as without Grim in those cases you wouldn't even be casting IGG.

Agree with Practical Joke's general outlines for how to cast Ad Naus. The only card that punishes you for not cracking to go to 4 mana from 1 is Tendrils, and even then you can prob just flip some mana.

Finally, how often do you find yourself Tendrils comboing post board against CB-Top with the DD shell? I really just found they could never beat DD, so I'm even boarding out Tendrils as it never comes together.

So how bad is the merfolk matchup without xantid's i have yet to test it against a competent fish pilot. and is it winnable with just a ton of discard?