[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

Don't board xantids vs Canadian *****.

They don't have much of a clock to take you down, you just have to fight their counters and finish the job. It's tight game, and discard work better than them having use of their fire/ice.

You could trick out Dark ***** and Team america by playing xantids, sometimes it works since they board out removal, but it's a psychological war. How good are you on reading your opponent, will he be the kind of player that blindly boards out removal or not? the answer to this, is the answer to your boarding. just look carefully as your opponent is boarding. Tricked my opponent once with this and he ended up stifling my xantid 3 turns in a row before he died.

I'm not sure if I board against combo at all. If you play a duress ftw, and they chant, you take out 2 cards at once.
If they don't, check their mana, if they are not capable of going white, take iggy chain, if they can....ad nauseam.
I've won mulitple mirrors vs TES, because I kept any hand with a few discard, TES takes harder hits from discard than ANT does. We play more cantrips and can find/protect our business better. TES has the issue of not being able to sculpt their hands the way ANT can. This is an advantage that you really want to abuse. If not, win on T1 works as well.

Besides that, combo-mirrors are a dieroll anyways. You can hope you don't die on T1, and after that if you make a single mistake with duress targets, you lose as well.

Here's the list I'm going to be playing in D.C.

Artifacts
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

Instants
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
1 Ad Nauseam

Sorcerys
2 Grim Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

Basic Land
2 Island
2 Swamp

Land
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard
4 Doomsday
1 Emrakul
1 Shell-Dock Isle
2 Wipe Away
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Thoughtseize
1 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Tendrils of Agony

The iffy spots to me are the Chrome Mox in the main and the Tendrils in the board. I'm not 100% sure the Chrome Mox wouldn't be better off as a mox diamond. My reasoning in that is that neither mox is all that great amazing in the deck, but there have been games I could have won a turn earlier without land gumming up my hand and preventing hellbent. Very few times are there spells I want to imprint pre AdN. Post AdN they are basically on the same power level, with Diamond being just a bit better. It may be right for it to just be another land as well.

The tendrils in the board seems out of place too. I'm not sure what matchup it would come in against. On the same note I'm not sure what it should be instead. Maybe it should just be another chain of vapor, or possibly infest/disfigure

Thoughts?

-1 swamp +1 chrome mox:

here's the reasoning. It happens enough times that you have to go off through ad nauseam without any mana float, nor a landdrop.
Here's where Chrome mox shines, it can also quicken up mana instead of a land drop. It's not the most fun to use it pre-ad nauseam, but it's absolutely great after an ad nauseam, also combo's well with chain of vapor and adds 1 storm from itself imprinted or not. I choose -1 swamp, because there's not a single reason why you need double black. (grim tutor can also be cast from fetching a underground sea, since the turn after that you'll combo out probably using a single swamp or swamp + island for cabal ritual or another ton of rituals) besides that there are plenty of options with chrome mox and lotus petal.

About the sideboard, there's way to many bounce in there..6 of em, you only need 3, a fourth is fine since rebuild and hurky's are specific targets, the rest is overkill saves you 2-3 spots + another spot for the tendrills.. They can be used for a whole additional sideboard tactic.
Like confidants, xantids, doomsday + meditate package or whatever you prefer.

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Originally Posted by practical joke

-1 swamp +1 chrome mox:

here's the reasoning. It happens enough times that you have to go off through ad nauseam without any mana float, nor a landdrop.
Here's where Chrome mox shines, it can also quicken up mana instead of a land drop. It's not the most fun to use it pre-ad nauseam, but it's absolutely great after an ad nauseam, also combo's well with chain of vapor and adds 1 storm from itself imprinted or not. I choose -1 swamp, because there's not a single reason why you need double black. (grim tutor can also be cast from fetching a underground sea, since the turn after that you'll combo out probably using a single swamp or swamp + island for cabal ritual or another ton of rituals) besides that there are plenty of options with chrome mox and lotus petal.

About the sideboard, there's way to many bounce in there..6 of em, you only need 3, a fourth is fine since rebuild and hurky's are specific targets, the rest is overkill saves you 2-3 spots + another spot for the tendrills.. They can be used for a whole additional sideboard tactic.
Like confidants, xantids, doomsday + meditate package or whatever you prefer.

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I would leave the Chrome Mox count as is. In the Grim Tutor lists you are much less likely to Ad Naus than the 2 Ad Naus no Grim lists, and Chrome Mox is pretty bad with the other kills as you want cards in hand.

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Originally Posted by practical joke

-1 swamp +1 chrome mox:

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Interesting, while my gut agree's with Ari about this, I'll put it at 2 tonight and see what happens.

I'll also try the diamond (although only as a 1 of... don't think the deck could support 2), as it's got to be stronger than Chrome post Ad Nauseam.

I do feel better about having at least 5 0cc artifacts I can hit that produce mana when having to AdN with 0 floating.

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About the sideboard, there's way to many bounce in there..6 of em, you only need 3, a fourth is fine since rebuild and hurky's are specific targets, the rest is overkill saves you 2-3 spots + another spot for the tendrills.. They can be used for a whole additional sideboard tactic.
Like confidants, xantids, doomsday + meditate package or whatever you prefer.

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On the bounce, I agree it looks like a lot, however I wouldn't consider either recall or rebuild an actual "bounce" spot. It's (in my use anyways) simply a(nother) way past sphere's/chalice. In the inevitable situation that I get paired against affinity / forgemaster, it just seems like a bonus blowout. (Although affinity going -tree, glimpse, crap out some free dudes would be pretty epic fail)

Chain is just good, but we're all on the same page with that I think.

Wipe away is against the less focused counterbalance decks and sometimes game3's when brining in the Emrakul / DD package isn't as strong (when they are running wasteland/karakas/etc). It still gives you a solid way past their "lock."

Still you may be right and it's too many.

update on some of that testing.

- Mox Diamond is just not getting there. It's fine after an AdN, but worse than "meh" (which I consider Chrome Mox) the rest of the time.

- 2 Chrome Mox's is also too many Imo. Too many hands with it, too many times seeing it when it did absolutely nothing. The turn you are going off it can be useful (and can sometimes help accelerate you into a t1 "all in") but it was almost never a card I was happy to see unless it was flipped with Nauseam.

I think 1 is the right number (in the Grim Tutor list at least) as really it's only benefit is that it acts as lotus petal #5. The acceleration it offers in itself is generally not enough to advance your plan, and the imprint is very counteractive if you have a hand with cabal ritual.

On to the Boarding. (again, vs Countertop thopter, which I think is the "best" version of the deck vs. ANT)

Sideboard Strategy:
- 1 Ad Nauseam
- 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
- 4 Preordain
- 2 Infernal Tutor
- 1 Misty Rainforest

+ 1 Shell-dock Isle
+ 1 Emrakul
+ 2 Thoughtseize
+ 4 Doomsday
+ 1 Wipe Away

Card for card the most unimpressive was the wipe away. It simply costs too much for this game plan. It was certainly fine, even strong, if the game went long, but after boarding it is not good to be in the late game. I'm still not sold that it doesn't have it's place in the board, as when I did bounce CB it was almost always a game winning move. Anyways /aside.

Thoughtseize was also only fair. If they board Leyline vs. you it can quickly make a hand that looks like it's going to wreck them into "why did I keep this." If they don't get leyline on 0, it's obviously good :)

The doomsday package seemed almost unfair. We went 14 - 8 games in ANT's favor with this setup. In all fairness, I assume my DD stacks are still not as strong as they could be, trying to work on that. One thing I did realize is many times you need to put another island/sea in the stack, especially if you DD on turn 1 off a swamp, as I looked pretty silly that game with shell-dock isle hiding emrakul, but no way to put him into play. (doh)

I'm also still on the fence about leaving in Tendrils and IGG. On the one hand, there was a game (Karakas was involved) that I simply couldn't win with DD / Emrakul, but snuck out with DD for (Bstorm, LED, LED, IGG, Tendrils) still, it was two games (from my notes) and of the two only worked once (He lived at 1 life after forcing a copy of the Tendrils the other game)

The questions I am at now...
1.) is it worth keeping the package in for Game 3 (if it goes to g3 of course) or move back to something more traditional. (probably involving the wipe aways)

2.) In the other CB matchups is the combo as strong? For that matter, besides countertop, are there any matchups the DD package would come in?

3.) Did I board out the right stuff?
AdN seems like a given out, as does preordain, and LED/IT just seem a lot weaker when you are trying to DD on t1/t2.

Again, just thoughts and still open to all feedback.

When I board in the 6 card package I take out 4 IT for 4 DD, and the rest really depends on the contents of your main and board (mine is different). but after thinking about it I may be doing that wrong, my logic was always replacing a tutor for a mass tutor instead of fumbling around with trying to assemble IT + LED or IT plus enough spells/mana to get there. but with the way you are doing it it seems like if they don't assemble CB/Top you can just get them via G1 kill, but I find that highly unlikely especially against thopters with their access to E tutor. I would probably expect them to have the pieces almost all the time.

Again, I may be doing it wrong, but that's just how I think about it, I Imagine trying to DD T1-3 is key here as well or otherwise a good CB player will have you locked regardless.

Removing IT is definitely wrong. You want to be able to get to IT->DD or DD asap. Knowing that opening Duress, IT, LED is a usually win is a pretty good feeling.

Karakas on board can be usually be answered by stacking Wipe Away and using it then activating Shelldock EOT to get two turns. The only thing you could really do about Karakas played after you activate Shelldock Isle would be to run a Pithing Needle in the sideboard.

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Originally Posted by emidln

Removing IT is definitely wrong. You want to be able to get to IT->DD or DD asap. Knowing that opening Duress, IT, LED is a usually win is a pretty good feeling.

Karakas on board can be usually be answered by stacking Wipe Away and using it then activating Shelldock EOT to get two turns. The only thing you could really do about Karakas played after you activate Shelldock Isle would be to run a Pithing Needle in the sideboard.

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I'm not sure siding out IT is wrong. The deck is still 4 tutors strong (as many as quite a few builds of ANT run anyways) two of which become much stronger (grim) with this plan. IT into Doomsday is not a fast plan without a stacked hand. You need a LED or a hand full of rituals (and very few blue spells) to make it work before turn 3, at which point, you might has well be back on the tendrils plan. (As opposed to needing a DD/Ritual)

What would you suggest cutting instead of IT? There's little left in the deck that is even questionable. You want a full # of duress' all your petals/rituals/mox, definitely want grim tutors and 8 brainstorm effects. I'm not seeing what else can be cut.

On answering Karakas. If you DD on 1-2 (which is the plan) wipe away is a bit unrealistic. You would need to be able to have 5 mana (3 of that blue, plus shell dock) at UU1 to EOT wipe away, activate isle, kill. Not saying it's impossible, but very very unlikely.

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Originally Posted by leegoo

I'm not sure siding out IT is wrong.

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You really have no idea what's going on here. We want to Doomsday by turn 2, even with 0 cards left in hand and pass twice. There is little to nothing (Karakas and Needle are basically it) that a CB deck will play to interact with you in the slightest. Your speed of winning isn't as important as going off before they've cantriped into a bunch of situational permission that will be difficult, if not possible to overcome. If you Doomsday by turn 2, they can't even present a reasonable clock to kill you. If you try to Tendrils them on turn 3-4 you have to deal with situational counters, their filtering, counterbalance, and still any clock they can must.

The cards you want to cut are:

Ad Nauseam
Chrome Mox
Ill-Gotten Gains
Preordain

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Originally Posted by emidln

You really have no idea what's going on here.

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easy killer, being an internet bad@$$ doesn't make you any friends.

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We want to Doomsday by turn 2, even with 0 cards left in hand and pass twice.

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you completely missed my point... I wasn't arguing that you cared about the cards in your hand, only that getting hellbent is more difficult after boarding.

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There is little to nothing (Karakas and Needle are basically it) that a CB deck will play to interact with you in the slightest. Your speed of winning isn't as important as going off before they've cantriped into a bunch of situational permission that will be difficult, if not possible to overcome. If you Doomsday by turn 2, they can't even present a reasonable clock to kill you. If you try to Tendrils them on turn 3-4 you have to deal with situational counters, their filtering, counterbalance, and still any clock they can must.

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I'm not sure where we're disagreeing there.

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The cards you want to cut are:

Ad Nauseam
Chrome Mox
Ill-Gotten Gains
Preordain

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I'm not sure I'd agree with cutting the mox. Reasons for that? Why would you suggest cutting the IGG but leaving in the Tendrils... it seems unlikely to tutor chain for the win. Just to put it under doomsday and try to win in one turn (like Practical suggested)

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Originally Posted by leegoo

easy killer, being an internet bad@$$ doesn't make you any friends. you completely missed my point... I wasn't arguing that you cared about the cards in your hand, only that getting hellbent is more difficult after boarding. I'm not sure where we're disagreeing there.


I'm not sure I'd agree with cutting the mox. Reasons for that? Why would you suggest cutting the IGG but leaving in the Tendrils... it seems unlikely to tutor chain for the win. Just to put it under doomsday and try to win in one turn (like Practical suggested)

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You want every bit of business that allows you to go for a fast Doomsday, as a fast Doomsday is generally your only good shot at winning assuming they don't draw like a$$. Also, Chrome Mox is generally awful except when you need initial mana sources post Ad Nauseum. Finally, you leave in the tendrils so that you still have access to a Tendrils pile if the situation comes up (who knows, your opponent might draw nothing relevant) or so you can just stack Ritual, Ritual, Tendrils after SI/Emrakul and win in one hit.

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

You want every bit of business that allows you to go for a fast Doomsday, as a fast Doomsday is generally your only good shot at winning assuming they don't draw like a$$. Also, Chrome Mox is generally awful except when you need initial mana sources post Ad Nauseum. Finally, you leave in the tendrils so that you still have access to a Tendrils pile if the situation comes up (who knows, your opponent might draw nothing relevant) or so you can just stack Ritual, Ritual, Tendrils after SI/Emrakul and win in one hit.

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I can agree with that on the mox. My only reasoning is that it's just one more way to accelerate into t1/t2 doomsday. (compared to the fetchland I board out instead.)

On the IT, I'm not arguing you want business, just that I'm pretty sure we're talking about two different lists. If I were only running 4 tutors I would indeed leave all four in. Running the 6 I'm still at the same number of tutors most builds run (at least the 0 grims 2 AdN's versions) however, I am not against them staying in, just questioning what should be cut instead.

at Emidln's suggestion, the cards to cut are

Ad Nauseam (1)
Chrome Mox (1)
Ill-Gotten Gains (1)
Preordain (4)

which is not enough for the 9 cards I'm currently bringing in. Admittably, one of those is iffy, but axing just two more cards is a hard cut.

and vs counterbalance with this sb:

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
SB: 2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 3 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 2 [TSP] Wipe Away

how do you sb?
another question:
in wich pairing do you go inside Confidants?

tnx

The meta online is Cbalance variants(mostly 4color) and Storm(more ANT than TES) with aggro and Dredge in the middle placings. What would be the version suited for that meta? Would DD hybrids be best(no one is playing DD yet)?

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Originally Posted by menace13

The meta online is Cbalance variants(mostly 4color) and Storm(more ANT than TES) with aggro and Dredge in the middle placings. What would be the version suited for that meta? Would DD hybrids be best(no one is playing DD yet)?

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Emidln can correct me if this is wrong, but in my experience DD variants are stronger against CBalance and weaker against Merfolk and tempo decks. TES/ANT tend to be weaker against CBalance while having stronger matchups against Merfolk/tempo. So it really depends on what you think you'll see a lot of. All of them are strong against aggro and dredge.

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Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar

Emidln can correct me if this is wrong, but in my experience DD variants are stronger against CBalance and weaker against Merfolk and tempo decks. TES/ANT tend to be weaker against CBalance while having stronger matchups against Merfolk/tempo. So it really depends on what you think you'll see a lot of. All of them are strong against aggro and dredge.

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Not much Merfolk or Tempo played currently. 50+ events for 2011, 60 Cbalance variants and 40 Storm decks are the top 2 in placings.Everything else is in the 20s.

And, Pfff, Emidln, that guy doesnt even check his messages.

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Originally Posted by menace13

Not much Merfolk or Tempo played currently. 50+ events for 2011, 60 Cbalance variants and 40 Storm decks are the top 2 in placings.Everything else is in the 20s.

And, Pfff, Emidln, that guy doesnt even check his messages.

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A friend of mine is taking non-grim tutor lists into the dailies and so far has never lost to the Gerry T' supreme blue lists.

It's a beatable match-up, die-roll for G1 is important since the deck has no clock to kill you with, just a soft-lock (which is annoying anyways)

Most are trigger happy to put SDT on top when you cast a duress or something. The deck plays no spell pierce mainboard, just snares (dunno if it even plays pierces sideboard)

EDIT: he's not playing doomsday in SB but krosan grip, but when you resolve doomsday, it's insta-win anyways.

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Originally Posted by leegoo

I can agree with that on the mox. My only reasoning is that it's just one more way to accelerate into t1/t2 doomsday. (compared to the fetchland I board out instead.)

On the IT, I'm not arguing you want business, just that I'm pretty sure we're talking about two different lists. If I were only running 4 tutors I would indeed leave all four in. Running the 6 I'm still at the same number of tutors most builds run (at least the 0 grims 2 AdN's versions) however, I am not against them staying in, just questioning what should be cut instead.

at Emidln's suggestion, the cards to cut are

Ad Nauseam (1)
Chrome Mox (1)
Ill-Gotten Gains (1)
Preordain (4)

which is not enough for the 9 cards I'm currently bringing in. Admittably, one of those is iffy, but axing just two more cards is a hard cut.

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In addition to that, I would cut basic the Island, if you play one. You aren't really interested in making more land drops than 2 (+SI), and most of the time Island a really bad land to have in your opener when you want to force through the DD plan as quickly as possible. I would also take out the Tendrils. In my eyes, it's just a false sense of security because I have found that winning with Tendrils against a CB player after you have boarded in the DDs is very, very unlikely to happen in practice. This might be because I send send back any hand that isn't capable of fast Duress/TS + DD, though, and so winning with Tendrils automatically gets less likely to happen.

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Originally Posted by kikoo

In addition to that, I would cut basic the Island, if you play one. You aren't really interested in making more land drops than 2 (+SI), and most of the time Island a really bad land to have in your opener when you want to force through the DD plan as quickly as possible. I would also take out the Tendrils. In my eyes, it's just a false sense of security because I have found that winning with Tendrils against a CB player after you have boarded in the DDs is very, very unlikely to happen in practice. This might be because I send send back any hand that isn't capable of fast Duress/TS + DD, though, and so winning with Tendrils automatically gets less likely to happen.

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island out. Interesting, I like it.

I'm somewhat with you on the Tendrils as well, it seems very clunky other than to get the win in 1 turn. (which about everyone on here has agreed is moot after resolving DD)

New board plan vs. CB
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 IGG
-1 Tendrils
-4 Preordain
-1 Island

+4 Doomsday
+1 Shell Dock Isle
+1 Emrakul
+2 Thoughtseize

that also keeps all the tutors in.