[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

Played a fairly stock list to an unexciting 1-2 finish. I showed my rust with strom combo in round 1 by boarding out my Ad Nauseam vs UW Tempo hate bears. Stripped his hand and went to IT for Ad Nauseam only to remember I boarded it out. Derp. Round 2 was funny, a guy playing some WB Reanimator, Hypnotic Spectre Brew. G1 he goes beggining of the game, WHite Leyline. I can't actually beat that in game! I win thanks to chain of vapor being awesome in Games 2 and 3. He was newer so he didn't understand how some of the interactions worked but he still had fun. Round 3 vs Lands. He T1 decides to port my basic island, and I drop swamp, triple dark ritual, LED, IT and win from there. Games 2 and 3 he gets Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst, and I misplay by bouncing his sphere of resistance to go off, but I forgot I had 2 lands in hand and couldn't quite get hell bent. Cost me the match.

Showed my rust, but I'll be goldfishing and testing for Sunday, and I think with tight play I at least 2-1 tonight, and possibly 3-0.

In case I'll miss it later:

Best wishes to all storm-pilots attending GP Paris! @Slosh: beer must wait till BoM, as I can't make it to Paris next week. :(

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

I showed my rust with strom combo in round 1 by boarding out my Ad Nauseam vs UW Tempo hate bears. Stripped his hand and went to IT for Ad Nauseam only to remember I boarded it out.

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Maybe the "rust" you're talking about is referred to the fact you didn't remember you sided AN out, but the decision itself to bring AN out against tempo seems to me like a good idea.

I have recently cut a preordain for a top in my pretty stock list. Can someone give a quick tutorial on how to play cantrips when you have top in play? I find it difficult to play a cantrip when i can top instead. I use ponder to shuffle if i dont have a fetch but i have no clue what to do with brainstorms and preordains I draw. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by anakyn

Maybe the "rust" you're talking about is referred to the fact you didn't remember you sided AN out, but the decision itself to bring AN out against tempo seems to me like a good idea.

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I agree, abd I don't think I would change my board plan. I just didn't maximize my mana, and if I had, I probably could have won the turn after with a natural chain of IT for IT for IT (I had like triple cabal ritual) for tendrils. I got impatient and got burned

Also my board plan vs it was -4 preordain, -1 AN, -1 duress, +1 empty the warrens, +3 dread of night, +2 chain of vapor. I didn't want to be cold to a meddling mage, hence the chain of vapor. Duress came out because in G1 he played mother of runes, thalia, and stuff. I think however that this match, abd meddling mage seeing increased play in general, is that Massacre > Dread of Night

Edit again, I actually didn't bring in the Empty over duress because I saw stoneforge and batterskull in G1, otherwise I obviously would have gone for that over a weakened tendrils

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

In case I'll miss it later:

Best wishes to all storm-pilots attending GP Paris! @Slosh: beer must wait till BoM, as I can't make it to Paris next week. :(

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=( that saddens me deeply... and I was hoping HotS Paris takes place...

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

=( that saddens me deeply... and I was hoping HotS Paris takes place...

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It's not that i can seriously take any mentionable notes during such tournaments. You saw me taking the usual notes in your match with Kai; those took a while (don't take much longer if I play myself, as i usually write in my opponents turn) and enough people bitched about that during Friday, so I dropped the idea for saturday. :/

It's up! Heart of the Storm Vol.6 - New Frontiers @ Eternal Central! Woooooooo!

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

It's up! Heart of the Storm Vol.6 - New Frontiers @ Eternal Central! Woooooooo!

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Yes, congratulation... But I don't see a connection between your article and this thread.
It is like posting a UR Delver list in a Burn thread. (Do I exaggerate here? :P)

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Originally Posted by BrettF

UWR Delver
-2 Preordain
+2 Chain of Vapor

RUG Delver // UR Delver
-2 Preordain
+2 Flusterstorm

Sneak and Show // Reanimator
-4 Preordain

-1 Island
-1 Cabal Therapy
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Chain of Vapor
+3 Xantid Swarm

BUG Delver

-2 Preordain
-2 Duress
-1 cabal therapy

+2 Flusterstorm
+3 Xantid Swarm

Elves // Jund

-4 cabal therapy
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Chain of Vapor

Death and Taxes

-2 Duress
-2 preordain
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 Cabal Therapy
+4 Massace
+2 Chain of Vapor

Deathblade // Stoneblade
-2 Preordain
-2 Duress
-1 Cabal Therapy
+3 Xantid Swarm
+2 Chain of Vapor

UW Miracles
-4 Preordain

-3 cabal therapy

+4 Abrupt Decay
+3 Xantid Swarm

Painter's Stone // Staxx
-4 preordain

-2 cabal therapy
+4 Abrupt Decay
+2 Chain of Vapor

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What I don't understand:
1) Why do you play 4 Massacre, if you could play 3-4 Dread of Night instead? You seem to board Massacre only against DnT (where you have to board out Ad Nauseam - or you die). Against DnT, Ad Nauseam is your best win-con, since its the fastest... So DoN > Massacre here. Against Esper/Deathblade or Patriot, Massacre is > DoN cuz of Meddling Mage. But you don't seem to board it there (why?)
2) Why Flusterstorm? I would understand it against other Combo (SnT and Elves) but you also seem to board it against Tempo. You can't protect your own combo with it (since you need to discard your hand with LED to give Infernal Tutor Hellbent). In my opinion Surgical Extraction is way more effective on those matchups than Flusterstorm.

Could you explain your choices?

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Originally Posted by CabalTherapy

Yes, congratulation... But I don't see a connection between your article and this thread.
It is like posting a UR Delver list in a Burn thread. (Do I exaggerate here? :P)

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Storm is storm is storm ... Decks are siblings imo, but I remember this post the next time anyone comes around with Burning Wish and advice him/her to get out here and post in the TNT thread instead...

This is the board I plan on runining at Somerset

4 Swarm
4 DON
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Grim Tutor
1 Empty
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

Playing a Wish build with 1 Bayou main. Id like to fit a Trop in the board but can't decide on what to cut for it.

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Storm is storm is storm ... Decks are siblings imo, but I remember this post the next time anyone comes around with Burning Wish and advice him/her to get out here and post in the TNT thread instead...

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:cool: +1

Oftentimes people refuse to think outside-the-box, but especially in this archetype it is extremely important imo. I remember the old ANT-Thread and a D-Day as Tech against CB :tongue:

Scrubbed out pretty hard last tourney losing to Team America, TES, Reanimator and MUD. Won only against burn and esper-blade.

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Originally Posted by MTG Junkie

This is the board I plan on runining at Somerset

4 Swarm
4 DON
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Grim Tutor
1 Empty
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

Playing a Wish build with 1 Bayou main. Id like to fit a Trop in the board but can't decide on what to cut for it.

What do you think?

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As someone who's played a lot with wish builds, I would suggest keeping green out of the deck altogether. With the need to actually cast red spells sometimes, it makes your mana way too bad in the matchups where its important, namely against delver decks.

@MTG Junkie
cut the Grim Tutor.

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Originally Posted by paeng4983

@MTG Junkie
cut the Grim Tutor.

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That isn't remotely correct in a burning wish version of the deck. It makes it so wish can find a PiF engine/the primary way you win most games. It seems nightmarishly slow I'll give you that, but what are you running instead?

Don't know how bayou main over trop would ever be right especially in a wish build. Casting cantrips is still vital to ANT's gameplan no matter what build you run and trop does that while bayou does not. All bayou casts is fast mana, tutors not named wish, and discard spells. I prefer to not have my cantrips stuck in my hand due to not having a blue producing land in play. Same reason most people don't run badlands.

Concur with Cuthbert on keeping green out of wish builds. Makes the mana absolutely atrocious. At that point you're far better off with TES.

So, with me not going to GP Paris I have a good long while to prep for the BoM in May. I plan on taking ANT - the deck I believe I'm most proficient with - to the tournament and as such would like to already now settle on a few fundamental things.

I've been playing ANT for a little less than a year now and started out playing a version that is close to what is also called TNT, meaning I played with some number (usually 2 or 3) of Burning Wishes and a wish board. About four or five months ago I made the switch to dump the wishes and run a more linear UBr(g) version with no wishes. I'm very satisfied with this and do not wish (:wink:) to go back to the wish build.

So now I'm left to figure out how to best put together a list. A few months ago I ran a list with no Ad Nauseam in the main board, instead running an Empty the Warrens. It worked out fantastically initially. I got a dramatic increase in explosive turn one and two wins. Many times I'd win (defacto - 12 goblins is almost impossible to deal with for most decks if they are dropped before they get their first turn) after probing to see discard, daze/pierce and/or Deathrite Shamans thinking "hmm, good thing I can just make 10 or 12 goblins now and ignore all that shit that's going to become live once I pass the turn". I kept the AN in the sideboard mainly to bring in against other combo decks and discard heavy strategies.

However, after a while I started getting these explosive starts less frequently. I think that, honestly, the deck had probably overperformed a bit and now, variance had caught up with me. It also got me to think, that if what I really craved was more consistent early turn wins-if-there-isn't-a-force then I'd probably be better off playing TES instead. But I'm not familiar with that deck and I think that over a two-day tournament, a deck like ANT with a stronger mid- and lategame plan is probably a better choice... but that's a discussion for another day.

Suffice to say that I've moved the Ad Nauseam back to the main deck. For a while I wanted to have my cake and eat it too and as such played both Ad Nauseam and Empty the Warrens in the main deck. I think, ultimately, it was too greedy and it just made the AN too fragile.

So I've decided to switch out the Empty and put it in the sideboard. Only now, what to replace it with? A part of me would like to replace it with a Grim Tutor as I think that since I'm removing one business spell I'd be well off replacing it with another. However, I've worried about how much I'm going to be pushing the enveloped in terms of making Ad Nauseam worse.

Here's the list I'm planning on running. I'd love to hear some thoughts on the Grim Tutor / no Grim Tutor part specifically, but also any thoughts on the list as a whole would be great also:


4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Dures
1x Thoughtseize
1x Grim Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Preordain
1x Past in Flames

4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Island
1x Swamp

Current Sideboard:


3x Xantid Swarm
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Slaughter Pact
2x Dread of Night
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Massacre
1x Empty the Warrens


TLDR: I would like to run the Grim Tutor but am worried about its inherrent dissynergy with Ad Nauseam. Do you think it's reasonably to ignore these concerns and run it anyway? If so, why? If not, why not and what would you replace it with?

Anyway input, about Grim Tutor or about the list as a whole, is much appreciated :)

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Originally Posted by nevilshute

TLDR: I would like to run the Grim Tutor but am worried about its inherrent dissynergy with Ad Nauseam. Do you think it's reasonably to ignore these concerns and run it anyway? If so, why? If not, why not and what would you replace it with?

Anyway input, about Grim Tutor or about the list as a whole, is much appreciated :)

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Many successful lists have run Grim Tutor, I believe Jamie runs one in his BOM top8 list. I personally also like Lim-Dul's Vault as the 5th piece of business. With many redundant spells, it usually services as a combination of a poor man's Vampiric Tutor or Doomsday.

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Originally Posted by davelin

Many successful lists have run Grim Tutor, I believe Jamie runs one in his BOM top8 list. I personally also like Lim-Dul's Vault as the 5th piece of business. With many redundant spells, it usually services as a combination of a poor man's Vampiric Tutor or Doomsday.

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I used to run singles of both Grim and LDV, but have swapped them for a second BW and a SDT. I hated Grim every time I drew it, and I never once IT'd for it. LDV was great for finding singleton answers post-board (Massacre, Wish for Pyroclasm, a Duress-effect, etc), but Top does a slightly weaker thing over and over again forever, and makes your fetches and cantrips way better.