[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

The doomsday plan was to beat counterbalance decks(without wasteland) but now the debate is whether doomsday is a good enough storm enabler to be a burning wish target and if the doomsday plan g2 is worth the amount of slots it requires.

I feel that the shelldock plan is not good enough right now but that doomsdays should be kept in the sideboard to help against discard decks where a resolved doomsday, with mana on the board, can win you the game. It also helps up your "bomb" number in attrition match-ups.

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The Meditate in the sideboard of the deck displayed indicates that the creator felt that there were situations other than Counterbalance decks where it would be appropriate to side into DDFT--Doomsday is still a great storm enabler even if you don't play Shelldock Isle. Ad Nauseam is just usually considered to be better because you don't have to jump through the hoops that Doomsday requires--You just cast the card, draw a billion new cards, and most of the time that wins you the game. The deckbuilder might even randomly be using it as a way to have access to their anti-hate cards.

I think I agree about the Shelldock Plan being unnecessary, but I would only take it out if you need the sideboard space, since Emrakul can steal wins easily if you find yourself matched up with an opponent who cannot disrupt you.

In addition to your comments about attrition matches and discard, I'd also side Doomsday in against any aggro deck with no counters, because that gives you both the IGG-Loop and Pass-the-turn piles with Doomsday to win quickly--Hell, you could even get wild with it and throw Emrakul into the mix if you so desired. But aggro is usually something like a Bye for combo decks anyway, so this is probably unnecessary and just stems from me trying to find an excuse to play DDFT more.

I'm not entirely sure about the deck shown there, but I like it how it looks. Lim-Dul's Vault seems like a so-so replacement if you want to stay in two colors and don't want to play Grim Tutor or extra Ad Nauseam, but I couldn't tell you if the card is good here. It's certainly better when you add SDT to the mix--but SDT is a beating on its own in the first place. I love the feeling of having Top in play against control, with a Business Spell in hand and a Business Spell on top of my library.

That being said, I'm looking at the MTGO Legacy Daily events, and two people have 4-0 in the past few days with a list similar to the one from SCG Denver, with 14 lands, 4 IT, 1 Ad Nauseam, and 4 Gitaxian Probe. Is there something about that version of the list that I'm just missing?

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Originally Posted by Namida

The Meditate in the sideboard of the deck displayed indicates that the creator felt that there were situations other than Counterbalance decks where it would be appropriate to side into DDFT--Doomsday is still a great storm enabler even if you don't play Shelldock Isle. Ad Nauseam is just usually considered to be better because you don't have to jump through the hoops that Doomsday requires--You just cast the card, draw a billion new cards, and most of the time that wins you the game. The deckbuilder might even randomly be using it as a way to have access to their anti-hate cards.

I think I agree about the Shelldock Plan being unnecessary, but I would only take it out if you need the sideboard space, since Emrakul can steal wins easily if you find yourself matched up with an opponent who cannot disrupt you.

In addition to your comments about attrition matches and discard, I'd also side Doomsday in against any aggro deck with no counters, because that gives you both the IGG-Loop and Pass-the-turn piles with Doomsday to win quickly--Hell, you could even get wild with it and throw Emrakul into the mix if you so desired. But aggro is usually something like a Bye for combo decks anyway, so this is probably unnecessary and just stems from me trying to find an excuse to play DDFT more.

I'm not entirely sure about the deck shown there, but I like it how it looks. Lim-Dul's Vault seems like a so-so replacement if you want to stay in two colors and don't want to play Grim Tutor or extra Ad Nauseam, but I couldn't tell you if the card is good here. It's certainly better when you add SDT to the mix--but SDT is a beating on its own in the first place. I love the feeling of having Top in play against control, with a Business Spell in hand and a Business Spell on top of my library.

That being said, I'm looking at the MTGO Legacy Daily events, and two people have 4-0 in the past few days with a list similar to the one from SCG Denver, with 14 lands, 4 IT, 1 Ad Nauseam, and 4 Gitaxian Probe. Is there something about that version of the list that I'm just missing?

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I have found it to be incredibly unreliable in testing. Maybe it's just the online meta being weird?

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Originally Posted by nayon

I have found it to be incredibly unreliable in testing. Maybe it's just the online meta being weird?

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You are correct, it is bad. Have you notice that Koby(aka rukcus) wins every Legacy daily he plays in with Maverick? I hope that deck becomes popular.

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Originally Posted by GoldenCid

SB: 1 [TE] Meditate
SB: 4 [WL] Doomsday
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [LRW] Shelldock Isle

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If this is not good, whiare are the best replacement for this slots?

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Originally Posted by GoldenCid

If this is not good, whiare are the best replacement for this slots?

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That comment seems pretty directly aimed at the 14 land, 4 gitaxian probe build.

So, played in a tournament yesterday (61 people, placed 18. with 3-2-1).
Played my normal ANT list with two Burning Wishes (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post538840), just replacing the two Moxen (as I think they're the worst cards in the deck) with the fourth Duress and Thoughtseize and replacing Smother with Pyroclasm.

Short report:

Round 1: Aggro Loam (2-1)
G1 he starts with Chalice 0, Chalice 1. I'm able to Burning Wish for Eye of Nowhere (was cursing the fact that I didn't think of Meltdown.. oh well). He just plays another Chalice 1 and lays a Terravore. Second game I go Rit, Duress on a Mox Diamond, Confidant, Minitendrils a few turns later. G3 he starts with Chalice 0, but I have a Confidant and Krosan Grip.

Round 2: Maverick (1-2)
G1 he mulls to six and starts with Hierarch. I Duress and see Pridemage and Jitte. He proceeds to rip Teeg and Mother from the top. I BWish for Deathmark and kill Teeg in my turn, but am one mana short of killing him, so I have to wait a turn. He gets Witness from the top and recurs Teeg, playing it again.
G2 I kill him T2. G3 I have 2x LED, Infernal, 2x Cabal Rit, Land, Brainstorm, but fail to get a Petal / DRit from the top. So he fetches Teeg. I cantrip for four turns into no hate. He lays double mother, I Infernal Tutor with LED support into Pyroclasm. He has EOT Enlightened for Canonist and Witness for Teeg again.

Round 3: UW Landstill (1-1-1)
G1 was long and I kill him through Jace and multiple copies of Force, Misstep, Counterspell and Snare, baiting his last counter with Burning Wish, still holding Infernal in my hand.
G2 I get double Confidant, he has Explosives two. He gets Jace and Standstills running and I'm in a Situation where I can just kill him if I play my hand into Tendrils (also in my hand). Don't know if it was just lucky or if he had a good read, but he plays Meddling Mage on Tendrils.
G3 I get double Confidant again, he counters one and kills the other. Confi reveals 4 Infernals in a row, which I play (3, all get countered) to get a second Duress. Shows he has a counter for my two Duress in hand too.. and a Force for my Infernal. Well.. he can't kill me, a draw it is.

Round 4: UWB Landstill with Polymorph Emrakul (0-2)
G1 is long because I only rip lands from the top, playing Duress from time to time so he won't get a critical mass on counterspells for my comboturn. He finally Polymorphs into Emrakul with 2 U open. I Duress (one still in hand) and he Brainstorms.. and shows two Force (one found with the Brainstorm), Snare and two Pitchcards.
G2 I play Nauseam on 17, revealing two Brainstorms, two Duress, Chain and four Cabal Rits in a row with only 1b floating. I guess it's ok, so I take it, Duress him and see Vend Clique. He plays, I Brainstorm, Mindtrick him (he doesn't take anything and I am able to fetch the two lands on top back), Brainstorm again, Chain his Clique and still don't find anything. So I'm dead two turns later.

Round 5: Team America (2-1)
G1 He Goyfs, on my turn two I try to kill with double Duress, so he Missteps one, forces the other and still has a Force for my Infernal.
G2 I get a Confi down and kill him with a Mini Tendrils. G3 is pretty long, in my Comboturn he Flusterstorms a Infernal Tutor with Storm 5, luckily I have two Cabal Rits in my hand, so in Resp I play them and pay, getting another Duress for his Force and MM and play my Burning Wish for Tendrils. Close call, his Goyf would've killed me one turn later.

Round 6: Aluren (2-0)
G1: He has four Brainstorms, so he is able to hide his Force pretty well, I am still faster and he doesn't find the second Force.
G2: He mulls to six and smiles, telling me that he wouldn't keep this hand against any other deck. So he goes Land, Cabal Rit -> Infernal Tutor. Luckily, I was thinking the same and kept a hand with 2x Thoughtseize, 1x Duress, 2x Preordain, Burning Wish and a Land. His hand was 2x Force, 2x Pitchcard. He doesn't draw a land and I have all the time in the world to disrupt his hand (drawing 2 Duress and another Thoughtseize, too) and kill him.

Well.. I am not that satisfied with my standings in the end, because I think that I got extremly unlucky more than one time (well.. that's magic I guess). Still, 8 Duress/Thoughtseize have been great in disrupting MM, so the deck seems ok for now (at least if people really don't board Flusterstorm).

So TNT is just a silly name for UBr Tendrils? I seem to recall bringing it up a few (17) pages ago:

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Originally Posted by Malakai

This is what me and Ari came up with for people without Grim Tutors.
-2 Grim Tutor
-1 Infernal Tutor (this goes to the sideboard)
-1 Island
-2 Verdant Catacombs

+3 Burning Wish
+1 Volcanic Island
+2 Bloodstained Mire


And yes, four Burning Wish was too many.

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Liam has an extra Thoughtseize in the maindeck, which I like. Basically, UBr has much better Ad Naseams than UB, but in testing has been much worse against Merfolk.

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Originally Posted by nayon

I have found it to be incredibly unreliable in testing. Maybe it's just the online meta being weird?

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I played that version in 3 dailies to see how I like it. 4-0'd the first and 2-2'd the others after a 2-0 start. Overall I think I prefer the old version but I do somewhat like the information Probe gives.
14 Lands had me mull alot more because of no lands (although 12 matches is a small sample). My Ad Nauseams failed alot less though without the 2nd ad nauseam.

And yes. The online meta differs from the real meta mainly because FoW was about $130-150 each. But even online it became a little harder to consistently 4-0/3-1 with combo after Misstep.

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

I played that version in 3 dailies to see how I like it. 4-0'd the first and 2-2'd the others after a 2-0 start. Overall I think I prefer the old version but I do somewhat like the information Probe gives.
14 Lands had me mull alot more because of no lands (although 12 matches is a small sample). My Ad Nauseams failed alot less though without the 2nd ad nauseam.

And yes. The online meta differs from the real meta mainly because FoW was about $130-150 each. But even online it became a little harder to consistently 4-0/3-1 with combo after Misstep.

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How much is ANT to build for MTGO? I recently started doing drafts online and I am thinking about getting out of paper standard and just keeping my EDH and Legacy decks for tournaments. I would like to also remake my legacy deck for MTGO to get more play experience.

Almost free with the exception of the $100 LEDs

I bought ANT just yesterday on MTGO. LED is 80 now, the rest is 150 (100 of it being 4x Polluted Delta and 2x Underground Sea). Although Ill be playing TES and thats additional 50 for Burning/Chrome. Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

So TNT is just a silly name for UBr Tendrils? I seem to recall bringing it up a few (17) pages ago:


Liam has an extra Thoughtseize in the maindeck, which I like. Basically, UBr has much better Ad Naseams than UB, but in testing has been much worse against Merfolk.

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weird, it should hardly make a difference, since you use the exact same cards mainboard vs merfolk except I don't run the ill-gotten gains and tendrils mainboard....so you have actually the same value for chains and ad nauseam chances.

Also the red variants of tendrils have been on drawing boards much longer than that post of ari lax.
Also that only lists manabase and a burning wish...maindeck changes weren't made in ari's post.

Also TNT is an easy name for an explosive combo-deck that is created from the best ANT and TES have to offer. It's not a completely new deck, it's just a different take on existing ones.

Also I don't think anyone deserves any real credits for a minor change, and unless it's a completely new deck, why should it be this important.

Magic has deckbuilding credits? This is news to me.

UB has a better matchup against fish for a couple reasons:
1) Infernal is the best, and you have one more of them.
2) Casting a setup Grim Tutor (or infernal) is better than a setup Burning Wish when they have a Wasteland.
3) The effectiveness of taxing counterspells is reduced as the number of colors you need decreases.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

Magic has deckbuilding credits? This is news to me.

UB has a better matchup against fish for a couple reasons:
1) Infernal is the best, and you have one more of them.
2) Casting a setup Grim Tutor (or infernal) is better than a setup Burning Wish when they have a Wasteland.
3) The effectiveness of taxing counterspells is reduced as the number of colors you need decreases.

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1) I play 4 in my build as well, only using burning wish for the kill/versatility
2) wasteland has never been a problem in shutting me off from my red, you only need red when combo-ing off. I made the simple change to get tendrills out of main together with iggy to add my burning wishes (play -1 cantrip for the 3rd).
3) taxing spells hardly matter since you get that red mana out of a LED or petal when combo-ing off. if you cannot get it from there, you can play that fetch into volcanic or badlands.

By the way you're responding it appears you think I'm saying that the matchup goes from being okay to being terrible. What I'm actually saying UB vs. Fish is very, very slightly favorable to tendrils, whereas UBr vs. Fish is slightly favorable to Fish.

Tendrils out of the main seems odd, although I can see the reasoning for it. Not sure it's something I'd want to do. You're running 3x Wish and 4x Infernal, without md IGG? I'm doing the exact opposite...

Also has it ever been awkward not having a tendrils MD? Because sometimes you only get 8 or less mana post nauseam and if you don't have a burning wish afterwards then you have to infernal -> wish -> tendrils. Playing 1 tendrils MD isn't the worst thing ever except when you draw it naturally or with ad nauseam when you have also revealed another high CMC card. But perhaps I'm just being paranoid after all revealing a wish off of AdN isn't that hard or if you get 2 LED's post nauseam or have mana floating after casting ad nauseam it shouldn't be hard to continue to combo out.

Actually, it has never been a problem, since after you cast ad nauseam there is at max 1 ad nauseam in your deck and only 2 cmc or less.

You can flip longer (ignoring that ad nauseam) and can flip ftw on an avg off 8 life.
you do not need a LED to win in combination with infernal tutor, but a single burning wish is enough already (you need red mana somehow, but that's just something you should think about in advance, almost never, but really almost never is an issue)

when you can flip longer, 8 mana is easy to get, since a single cabal ritual makes +3, led=+3, ritual +2.
you can cast petals and cantrips as well to make storm.
Also one reason to keep chains in the board, cuz it makes it a lot easier to make storm when in a pinch.


You can play with tendrils and iggy in main and 1 in side, but since there's so much blue nowadays, I placed it in the side since you'll have time against zoo to get the mana into that iggy (which cost more mana, but that's possible, since you can also aggressively combo out on that double ad nauseam)

I do like a good tutor in the sideboard to wish for, maybe a grim will be in there, but I might look for a different card that can slightly do the same (not putting my 4th IT in the board for a 4th wish, 4 wishes is too much)

As said, all these combo decks leave a little room for self-experimenting and preferences. The 4 IT and 3 wish without iggy and tendrils main is mine.
Sideboard needs tweaking due to changing meta and lack of space.

I keep the chrome mox in the deck because it makes combo-ing out via ad nauseam easier without mana float.

Yeah IGG is poor without chant effects and when there's a lot of blue around so it's a good decision to cut it in the current meta. On chrome mox if you're relying on ad nauseam a lot to generate wins you should run at least 2 minimum because there will be times when you have no mana floating after AdN and in those cases you have to find a petal or chrome mox. Ideally you would always have mana floating after AdN resolves but alas tis not to be with cursecatcher's and daze's floating around. I agree with cutting one wish for the 4th infernal; it's very clunky to go wish -> infernal -> ad nauseam it's really only good when you generate enough storm to go wish -> infernal -> tendrils or tutor chain into tendrils with a stacked hand. I do like that you can cast AdN at 8 life and be fine with your list though; it's very sweet indeed to have no spells cost more than 2 mana/life when you resolve AdN so you don't have to worry about flipping the tendrils/IGG/EtW.

@practical joke
i'm new to storm since dropping it way back when with mind's desire...have followed the threads to get back into it and was wondering what your decklist was if you care to share it...thanks

I run ANT and TNT: I'll list both maindecks.

4 LED
4 petal
10 fetch (use the ones that have most targets, including the trop sb)
2 islands
1 swamp
2 sea
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 preordain
4 duress
3 thoughtseize
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
1 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrills
2 ad nauseam
2 chrome mox
4 infernal tutor

(should be 60)

TNT changes compared to ANT:

-1 preordain
-1 iggy
-1 tendrills
-1 sea
-1 fetch

+3 burning wish
+1 badlands
+1 volcanic island

minor changes, but change the gameplan a bit because you have more resilience mainboard vs gaddock teeg and other shenanigans.


Feel free to ask about the decks in this forum so others can comment on it as well, without discussion there won't be any improvements.