[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

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Originally Posted by Tammit67

There are too many discard decks running around me that I'm willing to drop the ad naus. Telemin is interesting.

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Wait what?

during the time that the majority of the meta consisted out of pure attrition wars as a comboplayer ( tempo decks, Team America and 12 discard rocklists and the like), this card was the deciding factor.
so if you are so scared of cards getting discarded that means they must be good.

Yes PiF is good in the attrition war, but it still costs quite some time to set it up.

However, this ad nauseam card wins straight up ( well, you can flip yourself to death, but you get the idea) if you properly protect it with brainstorm and continue to keep it on top of your deck.

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Originally Posted by practical joke

Wait what?

during the time that the majority of the meta consisted out of pure attrition wars as a comboplayer ( tempo decks, Team America and 12 discard rocklists and the like), this card was the deciding factor.
so if you are so scared of cards getting discarded that means they must be good.

Yes PiF is good in the attrition war, but it still costs quite some time to set it up.

However, this ad nauseam card wins straight up ( well, you can flip yourself to death, but you get the idea) if you properly protect it with brainstorm and continue to keep it on top of your deck.

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I guess this is one of the reasons he doesn't want to drop it from his deck.

Do you guys think it's a good idea to swap 3 xantid swarms for 3 bobs? I think there's a huge chance to see a rise in gbx to combat TNN. I haven't gotten my bobs yet so I need some opinions.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Matt, EtW isn't good as a post-SB option but very good pre-SB in spot of the Ad Nauseam. The gameplan of Grinding Station aka several Tendrils and/or PIF wasn't any good in my lastest testing. MB EtW as SB Telemin is my current choice.

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actually I have this ready for the GP Paris... the design is pre-SoL, I haven't had time for Mtg after its release.. played GP Prague Sideevents with this into 3:0 +split with CB player and disappointing 4-3 (empty luckpool+some poor decisions in earlier matches) btw. If you ever find yourself in a GP run by Gordian knot games definitely play Golden Rush events - we split ~400$ cards+boosters in 2 people which is equal to 7-0/6-1 in the main Legacy sideevent

the second ToA Plan is influenced by Hanau decklists and excuse to not buy 2nd Grim Tutor + it has some synergy with Bolts & "manplan" ... I like to experiment, my final version may differ as I get to test more vs SoL decks and BURG next week, URG Thresh MU feels very good, I'd like a 7th discard spell... I can't say much about the Sulfur Elementals, haven't really used them much, just chumping MM, I'm tempted to drop a AD and Karakas, might be all AD and a land for something... dunno yet I'm too far ahead of myself

Grim fullmoon UBer Storm

2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Lightning Bolt

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

61


SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 Notion Thief
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

3 Lightning Bolt

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Prepare for deckchecks.

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Originally Posted by CabalTherapy

Prepare for deckchecks.

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6 months = 0 problems, 0 deckchecks on BoM / GP sides /larger tournaments ... LGS do no care

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Originally Posted by cheerios

Do you guys think it's a good idea to swap 3 xantid swarms for 3 bobs? I think there's a huge chance to see a rise in gbx to combat TNN. I haven't gotten my bobs yet so I need some opinions.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

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I can't imagine a meta without a significant portion of decks with islands. Which is what it would take for me to consider such a swap. Three Xantid Swarms are side board slots that I wouldn't tamper with. If you want to try the bobs I'd suggest picking something else to remove. I've tried two swarms at one stage, but ended up moving to three as they are just extremely effective against a lot of blue matchups imo.

I tried a board with both three swarms and four bobs. Now whether or not the number should have been three or four bobs is irrelevant as I ended up removing them altogether. My reasoning:

Bob is best against decks with a discard strategy. The most prevalent of those decks - at least where I play - is Jund, a deck that is likely to be running 2-4 Lightning Bolts and 2-4 Lilianas in games two and three. That's enough removal to invalidate Bob. Other discard strategies like Pox is likely to run too much creature removal post board too.

I initially thought he'd be good against combo decks as well, and against the mirror, and perhaps that's true sometimes. But when you look at it, he's a two drop that doesn't gain you any card advantage until two turns after entering the battlefield. That's too slow a lot of the time against another combo deck.

As much as I love a resolved Bob I've opted against him.

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Do you guys think it's a good idea to swap 3 xantid swarms for 3 bobs? I think there's a huge chance to see a rise in gbx to combat TNN. I haven't gotten my bobs yet so I need some opinions.

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I think that is better to play xantid swarms, in the match ups that dark confidant is good ad nauseam also is good, and dark confidant hasn't got too sinergy with ad nauseam, xantid swarms are gold vs show and tell and merfolks.

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Originally Posted by nevilshute

I can't imagine a meta without a significant portion of decks with islands. Which is what it would take for me to consider such a swap. Three Xantid Swarms are side board slots that I wouldn't tamper with. If you want to try the bobs I'd suggest picking something else to remove. I've tried two swarms at one stage, but ended up moving to three as they are just extremely effective against a lot of blue matchups imo.

I tried a board with both three swarms and four bobs. Now whether or not the number should have been three or four bobs is irrelevant as I ended up removing them altogether. My reasoning:

Bob is best against decks with a discard strategy. The most prevalent of those decks - at least where I play - is Jund, a deck that is likely to be running 2-4 Lightning Bolts and 2-4 Lilianas in games two and three. That's enough removal to invalidate Bob. Other discard strategies like Pox is likely to run too much creature removal post board too.

I initially thought he'd be good against combo decks as well, and against the mirror, and perhaps that's true sometimes. But when you look at it, he's a two drop that doesn't gain you any card advantage until two turns after entering the battlefield. That's too slow a lot of the time against another combo deck.

As much as I love a resolved Bob I've opted against him.

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Good point. I might just resort to an additional Ad Naus or just try muliganning for fast hands.

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Originally Posted by practical joke

Wait what?

during the time that the majority of the meta consisted out of pure attrition wars as a comboplayer ( tempo decks, Team America and 12 discard rocklists and the like), this card was the deciding factor.
so if you are so scared of cards getting discarded that means they must be good.

Yes PiF is good in the attrition war, but it still costs quite some time to set it up.

However, this ad nauseam card wins straight up ( well, you can flip yourself to death, but you get the idea) if you properly protect it with brainstorm and continue to keep it on top of your deck.

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Perhaps you misunderstood; I do not want to drop the card for those reasons.

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Originally Posted by Mindlash

I guess this is one of the reasons he doesn't want to drop it from his deck.

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Exactly.


I'm a proponent of bringing in the bobs against the esper stoneforge lists too, not just mirror/jund/junk discard strategies. Certainly not for show and tell (where you'd want swarm and chain). Not a huge fan of the 3 thoughtseizes I had there before, so I swapped them for dark confidants

I actually liked confidant in the sneak and show matchup (call me crazy.) The reason I could justify it was because in a grindy game it is insane and if nothing else it flashbacks cabal therapy, which is also quite good as you don't want them to put a griselbrand into play or spaghetti. That was when I had bob in my board though and I have since dropped bob from the board entirely. Xantid swarm is absurd though and probably my favorite card in the board simply because of how good swarm is against miracles and especially sneak and show so they can't just jam a show and tell for fear that you'll drop a xantid swarm/trump their show and tell drop and kill them when you untap.

Ad nauseam is too good to cut from this deck. As for your list slosh, I'm seeing NINE protection spells. If you're that scared of spirit of the labyrinth/hatebears I would greatly prefer thoughtseize's 3 and 4 to bolt in those slots and to add an ad nauseam or anything really over the ninth protection spell. 9 protection spells is way too many for this deck especially when we already run 4 probes, which really count as half a protection spell as you know what you have to play through then. Although AdN in your list is pretty bad with 2 ToA and 2 PiF + 1 grim tutor.

I was a big proponent of bringing in bobs in any matchup honestly where your life total did not matter that much or at all simply because most people take out all their creature removal. Decks I didn't like bob against were hatebear decks and delver decks. Loved the card in the esperblade matchup as it just grinded them down to nothing and you won with ease generally. Bob allows you to play the control role a lot more effectively as well so duressing/therapy on batterskull they just tutored or any threat really became a very real line as countermagic in their hand does nothing against an active bob given you have enough time to draw into protection or a natural tendrils/past in flames.

I don't like empty as a sideboard plan right now. If you're that scared of deathrite + discard pitching tendrils board in another tendrils. But deathrite has declined in terms of usage as TNN is the new thing that people are using and most lists with TNN don't run DRS.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

I actually liked confidant in the sneak and show matchup (call me crazy.) The reason I could justify it was because in a grindy game it is insane and if nothing else it flashbacks cabal therapy, which is also quite good as you don't want them to put a griselbrand into play or spaghetti. That was when I had bob in my board though and I have since dropped bob from the board entirely. Xantid swarm is absurd though and probably my favorite card in the board simply because of how good swarm is against miracles and especially sneak and show so they can't just jam a show and tell for fear that you'll drop a xantid swarm/trump their show and tell drop and kill them when you untap.

Ad nauseam is too good to cut from this deck. As for your list slosh, I'm seeing NINE protection spells. If you're that scared of spirit of the labyrinth/hatebears I would greatly prefer thoughtseize's 3 and 4 to bolt in those slots and to add an ad nauseam or anything really over the ninth protection spell. 9 protection spells is way too many for this deck especially when we already run 4 probes, which really count as half a protection spell as you know what you have to play through then. Although AdN in your list is pretty bad with 2 ToA and 2 PiF + 1 grim tutor.

I was a big proponent of bringing in bobs in any matchup honestly where your life total did not matter that much or at all simply because most people take out all their creature removal. Decks I didn't like bob against were hatebear decks and delver decks. Loved the card in the esperblade matchup as it just grinded them down to nothing and you won with ease generally. Bob allows you to play the control role a lot more effectively as well so duressing/therapy on batterskull they just tutored or any threat really became a very real line as countermagic in their hand does nothing against an active bob given you have enough time to draw into protection or a natural tendrils/past in flames.

I don't like empty as a sideboard plan right now. If you're that scared of deathrite + discard pitching tendrils board in another tendrils. But deathrite has declined in terms of usage as TNN is the new thing that people are using and most lists with TNN don't run DRS.

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I agree with this, but will say that against Esper, Bob actually also functions to blank their hatebears to an extent. I'll also just generally agree with you that Esper is a matchup where Bob is probably at its strongest because of how little pressure they are usually able to apply to our life total. If they drop a Meddling Mage or a Canonist and we drop a Bob then they have to choose: attack into our bob and risk trading, in which case they are unprotected on the board. Or sit back and keep their bear alive while we just draw 2 cards every turn. That's a situation we are going to come out profitably most of the time.

Hi guys! I've been lurking on this thread for awhile and finally decided to make an account for some help on my sideboard since I do not feel like my local community can help me as much as it used to. My list for reference:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain

4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Blood Stained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrubt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Karakas <-- I never board this in
1 Telemin Performance <-- Narrow, maybe it should be something else
3 Thoughtseize <-- Thinking about carpet of flowers. Usually for tempo matchups. Maybe not cut all of them?
1 Empty the Warrens <-- Not that helpful I feel like it should be something else but I don't know what

Yeah this is the list that was top 4ed Indy. It was me. Considering adding another AN and a Chrome Mox to make T1 AN more likely and successful. I feel like speeding up post board can be helpful sometimes instead of just answering the hate. On the flip side if I am just going for a little more speed why not play TES. Any tips?

I'm having the same thoughts you are about speed and TES. When I saw your list top 8 I started testing with it, and the additional discard was spot on. I have been trying all types of main deck and s/b options. I think going after the opponents hand instead of protecting your own with ignorant bliss is working better for me in this meta game. Coupled with dark confidant that strategy has been effective. As far as speed goes I have been using a Lim-Dul's vault. It definitely wins some games. I have also started testing with a mox diamond in an attempt to smooth out certain draws.

Just from online play, I notice that ANT is really hard to be consistent with when the top decks are Team America, RUG, and Miracle Control. When players upped the spell pierce count to four things became a little more difficult. I'm hoping some new cards will bring the meta back into ANT's favor. I do think TES is probably well positioned though.

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Originally Posted by jtos84

Just from online play, I notice that ANT is really hard to be consistent with when the top decks are Team America, RUG, and Miracle Control. When players upped the spell pierce count to four things became a little more difficult. I'm hoping some new cards will bring the meta back into ANT's favor. I do think TES is probably well positioned though.

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I have the opposite feeling about ANT and TES to be honest: I think in the actual meta ANT is better positioned.

We fight soft counters like Pierce much better than TES for example. (by the way: the only deck having upped the Pierce count is Patriot; other decks like RUG / BURG are playing less Pierces and more Snares)
We have a better tempo matchup because of our resilience to both Wasteland and Daze / Pierce.
Also having Tendrils as primary win condition in place of Warrens is a big advantage in a meta saturated with -1 -1 effects to fight TNN.
And Past in flames loops helps against Control too.

From my testing, ANT > TES against tempo and control, while TES > ANT against discard and combo.
Since Jund is declined in popularity and tempo keeps rolling, right now I take ANT.

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Originally Posted by anakyn

From my testing, ANT > TES against tempo and control, while TES > ANT against discard and combo.
Since Jund is declined in popularity and tempo keeps rolling, right now I take ANT.

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I agree with this fully. I have a much harder time beating wasteland+daze decks with TES. I would say i feel 45% VS them with TES. With ANT i get more like 55-60% vs waste/daze decks.

The biggest draw to playing TES is you gain percentage against the other combo decks much more.

Additionally, i don't play ANT unless im happy with my sideboarding in each matchup. If i feel like i can't deal with something properly i play TES since you don't need to SB too much and can silence-walk past hate.

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Originally Posted by anakyn

I have the opposite feeling about ANT and TES to be honest: I think in the actual meta ANT is better positioned.

We fight soft counters like Pierce much better than TES for example. (by the way: the only deck having upped the Pierce count is Patriot; other decks like RUG / BURG are playing less Pierces and more Snares)
We have a better tempo matchup because of our resilience to both Wasteland and Daze / Pierce.
Also having Tendrils as primary win condition in place of Warrens is a big advantage in a meta saturated with -1 -1 effects to fight TNN.
And Past in flames loops helps against Control too.

From my testing, ANT > TES against tempo and control, while TES > ANT against discard and combo.
Since Jund is declined in popularity and tempo keeps rolling, right now I take ANT.

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I do not play TES, so that is just speculation. I play on magic workstation, so I do not know if they just know what I am going to play and decide to play four spell pierces plus every other counter spell, but all I have seen is counter spells and hymn to tourachs. It makes testing difficult when people fix their deck to beat one player.

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Originally Posted by BrettF

I agree with this fully. I have a much harder time beating wasteland+daze decks with TES. I would say i feel 45% VS them with TES. With ANT i get more like 55-60% vs waste/daze decks.

The biggest draw to playing TES is you gain percentage against the other combo decks much more.

Additionally, i don't play ANT unless im happy with my sideboarding in each matchup. If i feel like i can't deal with something properly i play TES since you don't need to SB too much and can silence-walk past hate.

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ANT does seem to have to deal with more post-SB hate cards with GY cancellation effects such as RiP and Cage, which TES usually ignores, in addition to the hate bears.

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Originally Posted by davelin

ANT does seem to have to deal with more post-SB hate cards with GY cancellation effects such as RiP and Cage, which TES usually ignores, in addition to the hate bears.

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Very true: TES being almost immune to graveyard hate is a good reason to play it over ANT.

On the other hand, TES being weaker against Wasteland and -1 -1 effects is a good reason to play ANT.

:tongue:


It comes down to playstyle I guess: what I hate most when playing Magic is losing to Wasteland AND being forced to mulligan aggressively (which happens pretty often with TES and pretty rarely with ANT), therefore my preferred choice is ANT.
In addition to this, I really like to win on the spot (Tendrils) instead of waiting a couple of turns after comboing (Warrens) and hoping my opponent doesn't topdeck any solution to my little Goblins.

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Originally Posted by anakyn

Very true: TES being almost immune to graveyard hate is a good reason to play it over ANT.

On the other hand, TES being weaker against Wasteland and -1 -1 effects is a good reason to play ANT.

:tongue:


It comes down to playstyle I guess: what I hate most when playing Magic is losing to Wasteland AND being forced to mulligan aggressively (which happens pretty often with TES and pretty rarely with ANT), therefore my preferred choice is ANT.
In addition to this, I really like to win on the spot (Tendrils) instead of waiting a couple of turns after comboing (Warrens) and hoping my opponent doesn't topdeck any solution to my little Goblins.

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I've been goldfishing TES a little bit and I can see what you mean. If I were to get wasteland almost anytime it would be huge. Also I don't really draw too much disruption. Which is strange since it plays the same amount as ANT. Eh variance. ANT plays around hate fairly well so with all the hate in the meta it isn't too big a deal. But at the same time optimizing the sb would be an awesome idea.