[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

Well, I play 3 Mox instead of 4 because they are useful only after we play AN. Often if I draw during the match before the combo a Mox or I shuffle back thanks to Brainstorm or I mantain it into hand without a very utility. With 4 Mox we risk to mulligan because an hand with 2 Mox is very often an automatic mulligan. How many times do you fail the combo because you have 7 acceleration instead of 8? And how many times do you swear against Mox when you topdeck it?

Against Chalice at 1 maindeck my only opportunity is to play Mystical in response to Chalice at 1 or topdeck Rushing River or to play cards at casting cost 2 or 0 like LED, Cabal, IT. I know that this can seem not enough, but I prefer to be uncovered in g1 instead of play nails like Merchant Scroll. You remember: games are 3 so then in g2/g3 against these decks I side in 3 Serenity, 1 Rebuild, 1 Hurkyl/E.truth. I think this is enough.

Pact is a personal choice, that I personally don't use.
We thought that this is useful only in a meta full of blue - not counterbalance - decks. Decks like Landstill or Landeed based only on the counter war to win against this deck.
Pact is useful to protect Orim. It is useful when we have in hand Orim and Mystical but we can't do double Orim because we haven't double white mana. It's useful when we don't want to wait to draw the white mana that we need to play Orim and we can play AN without the use of LED.
We arrived to the conclusion that more than 1 Pact isn't useful. The only one we need, we can search with Mystical.

For those who are terrified of chalice at 1, and such, I recommend the following SB and just taking a game 1 on the draw loss/pray for rushing

SB
4 EE
3 Hurkles recall
3 Slaughter pact
3 Orims chant
2 Therapy

You board in recalls and EEs over duress, and ponders for my build but 7 cards post board + 1 MD and 4 tutors means you are able to deal with annoying little things like chalice @1, 2 and 0, just not all at the same time.

Ok, i know i shouldn't be posting this here but it directly affects the way you can formulate a better Ad Nauseum Combo.

"Repeal is great but its not as synergistic as Chain of Vapor."

Case in Point:
Your going off with ad nauseaum. Draw 10-12 cards. Play all your moxen, mana spells, etc. What are you left with? 1 Chain of Vapor or multiples. Cast it, rinse and repeat. IF you chain the chain of vapor (targetting yourself) you can sac most of your tapped lands to return all your zero cost stuff and play it again. Effectively, creating a very potent storm engine. Simply put, you can use Chain of Vapor as a more effective storm engine than say what is acheived with LED/IGG/InfT. Chainning yourself ups the storm count and makes the whole combo easier to achieve.

That's why i have always been a supporter of the Spannish Inquisition shell for Ad Nauseam. I don't agree that Ad Nauseam deserves to be in the EPIC Storm (TPS), nor any other variant thereof. Most people will agree that ad nauseam isn't a spell that gets splashed into a deck. It's a deck that gets built around Ad Nauseam.

With that in mind let's start with something along the lines of the synergy I talked about over a month ago and that Stephen Menendian just managed to talk about this week. My tech is trying to fit this chain of vapor tech with an affinity type shell and a spannish inquisition feel, ;-) hehe

4 x chain of vapor
4 x ornithopther
4 x chrome mox
4 x phyrexian walker
4 x frogmite
4 x ad nauseum
4 x Tendrils of Agony (Don't tutor it, make sure you have it in your opening hand so that you can reliably go off turn 3-4)
4 x cabal therapy

Notice the artifact count, maybe we should play Cranial Platting? Would this just be a win more? Shit, maybe we should play this Affinity style/ad nauseum combo? Any takers on making a quick list.

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Which mana generating spells to use needs to be discussed and i think we should drop cabal ritual, keep DR, CtW

4 x culling the weak
4 x dark ritual
4 x cabal ritual

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Can we make this affinity version style Spannish Inquisition deck work? Could we possibly fit in Cranial Platting, or even 2 copies of Myr Enforcer? Affinity could be fueled by Ad Nauseum... Has anyone thought of that.

Just a thought.

@jegger

Awesome response.

-Yes, I still have trouble finding an initial mana source post AdN. Maybe it's just been bad flips on my part. Maybe it's just because I'm used to playing AdN in TES and over there I flip more damage than I do with ANT. The difference is actually noticeable (in case anyone was wondering ANT vs TES). But I can definitely understand your argument for only running 3 moxen.

-You're probably right. Merchant Scroll is pretty slow, so I guess we're just going to have to play around Chalice @ 1 g1. Our board is pretty well-equipped for the Chalice deck matchup, so we shouldn't have to always depend on winning the first.

-I can also see your arguments for Pact. I'll try it out myself (I haven't actually used it yet in any ANT list).

@undone

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out, although I'd prefer to have Chants in the MB.

@jericohs@cottage

Thanks for the idea, but I do believe it belongs in Les Mise (IBA's SI-shell AdN combo). Also think of where you're going with the deck. Adding AdN into a deck that's full of high-casting cost artifacts can really hurt. In addition, it'd be hard to do the math to make sure you don't die off AdN. The list in its current form looks like a super-awkward affinity list with mana acceleration and Ad Nauseum + Tendrils.

I run one chant in the main, I kept trying lots of protection but it slowed the deck down my list is very consistent the only card I am back and forth on is rushing river vs wipe away, I believe our Blue X game is good enough and that rushing rivering a chalice and a 3sphear is better the wipe away but its metagame dependant. (also have been testing chain of vapor but I am thinking this sucks since doesnt deal with the major threat)

More then 1 chant in the main is also un needed because duress>>>>>> chant if your not

1) vs opposing combo
2) going to go off next turn anyway and they have 2+ game ending threats
3) You are using the IGG loop

3 is the most common (while 1 may be read as ad nauseam mirror till it gets banned) and you tipicaly have spent alot of setup if you did use it probably turn 3-4+ if you have to use it.

An Aside:
The biggest mistake I see players making is not knowing how to play the deck, a combo player who is actualy fairly good at storm combo (plays SI, and beltcher and stuff) was not going for the loop in the dragon stompy matchup because he couldnt chant. The biggest problem I see is that people dont know when to use both engines, Ad nauseam resolved is immune to 99.9% disruption not including death.

From testing between 6-7 MD disruption is the sweet spot (running 3-4 ponder) you get just enough to get there often enough, My disruption suit is

4 Duress
1 Orims chant
1 Rushing river

If you go back a few pages you will see my list It hasnt changed much save -1 ponder +1 chrome mox as I really like that off ad nauseam.

-That's pretty bad haha. Once anyone goldfishes the deck enough, they'll automatically see that you can boost your storm count for free by using IGG. They'll also realize that you probably don't want to IGG against U or in games 2/3 unless you chant. That'll all come with time though.

-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference

-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.

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-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference

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The question is

Is chant > Duress, if your answer is no most of the time then ponder is an auto include, If they are the same most of the time then play chant. Personaly I have only ever wanted 2 Main as white makes the deck so much slower.

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-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.

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I have done this too it makes adnauseam math problematic, but not a huge deal.

All In all a TPS approach to this deck is a good idea because it plays much like it.

Disrupt, Disrupt, cast Bomb X win the game if it resolves, your opponent gains 0 resourses.

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-I can see your argument for 1 Orim's Chant in the main, but I've had many occasions where multiple chants have won me the game, or using chants to buy myself some time before going off. In the end I still think it's preference
The question is

Is chant > Duress, if your answer is no most of the time then ponder is an auto include, If they are the same most of the time then play chant. Personaly I have only ever wanted 2 Main as white makes the deck so much slower.

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running chant is stupid. its always been stupid. all it does is draw a counter. discard does the same thing, or you take counter and see how many they have left. chant is going to get countered and if it doesnt, a discard spell would have done the same job. afraid of stifle? get rid of it with discard. discard also hits permanent based hate. combo loses to permanent based hate. the reason storm combo is good is that it doesn't lose to countermagic. why would you splash an entire color for a card that is obsolete in comparison to discard which is already in your colors and always much easier to cast? BreathWeapon posted a list a while back, and i think that that list is what you guys should be experimenting with. discard is hitting all the threats, cantrips are drawing into what you need to go off. hit thresh hold with maybe 2 fetch lands, 3 cantrips or m tutor, 2 discard, you have threshold, cast ad nauseum maybe with a discard spell before it if you have the mana, and winning from their is quite easy.

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-I'm not sure between Wipe Away and Rushing River either. I might cut down a chant just so I can run both. Chain of Vapor I don't like for the very reason you stated: it doesn't stop our Chalice problem.
I have done this too it makes adnauseam math problematic, but not a huge deal.

All In all a TPS approach to this deck is a good idea because it plays much like it.

Disrupt, Disrupt, cast Bomb X win the game if it resolves, your opponent gains 0 resourses.

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how often is rushing river a better choice than wipe away (as wipe away is split second..)?

Why not splash green instead of white? you get xantid swarm if you need protection, krosan grip for permanent based hate, and even sylvan library if you are feeling adventurous. (and goyf's if you go for a man plan SB, but this deck shouldn't have problems with control)
and you get ESG in green, though it isn't very synergetic with AdN, but krosan grip is the same CC as both rushing river, hurkyl's recall, and wipe away, and sylvan library is like an overcosted SDT that can draw you extra cards for alot of life. meh maybe green is ok, but xantid swarm is tempting.

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Ok, i know i shouldn't be posting this here but it directly affects the way you can formulate a better Ad Nauseum Combo.

"Repeal is great but its not as synergistic as Chain of Vapor."

Case in Point:
Your going off with ad nauseaum. Draw 10-12 cards. Play all your moxen, mana spells, etc. What are you left with? 1 Chain of Vapor or multiples. Cast it, rinse and repeat. IF you chain the chain of vapor (targetting yourself) you can sac most of your tapped lands to return all your zero cost stuff and play it again. Effectively, creating a very potent storm engine. Simply put, you can use Chain of Vapor as a more effective storm engine than say what is acheived with LED/IGG/InfT. Chainning yourself ups the storm count and makes the whole combo easier to achieve.

That's why i have always been a supporter of the Spannish Inquisition shell for Ad Nauseam. I don't agree that Ad Nauseam deserves to be in the EPIC Storm (TPS), nor any other variant thereof. Most people will agree that ad nauseam isn't a spell that gets splashed into a deck. It's a deck that gets built around Ad Nauseam.

With that in mind let's start with something along the lines of the synergy I talked about over a month ago and that Stephen Menendian just managed to talk about this week. My tech is trying to fit this chain of vapor tech with an affinity type shell and a spannish inquisition feel, ;-) hehe

4 x chain of vapor
4 x ornithopther
4 x chrome mox
4 x phyrexian walker
4 x frogmite
4 x ad nauseum
4 x Tendrils of Agony (Don't tutor it, make sure you have it in your opening hand so that you can reliably go off turn 3-4)
4 x cabal therapy

Notice the artifact count, maybe we should play Cranial Platting? Would this just be a win more? Shit, maybe we should play this Affinity style/ad nauseum combo? Any takers on making a quick list.

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Which mana generating spells to use needs to be discussed and i think we should drop cabal ritual, keep DR, CtW

4 x culling the weak
4 x dark ritual
4 x cabal ritual

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Can we make this affinity version style Spannish Inquisition deck work? Could we possibly fit in Cranial Platting, or even 2 copies of Myr Enforcer? Affinity could be fueled by Ad Nauseum... Has anyone thought of that.

Just a thought.

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this is a great idea. it might not work, but it has some potential i think.

Maybe more as a random alternate SB strat:
out 15:
in:
4 Arcbound worker
4 Cranial Plating
4 Frogmite
3 Arcbound worker

and make sure you have this in the MD:
4 Cabal therapy (instead of duress)
4 culling the weak
4 shield sphere
4 phyrexian walker
2 Sensei's Diving top
(artifact land)?
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

20 artifacts MD? enough? + 15 in the board makes 35, and ad nauseum can still go off into lots of artifacts. you can protect all the shit that comes out of AdN's ass with all the discard you will draw too and you will surely have creatures to sac to the flashbacks of multiple therapies if you can't go off with tendrils. would be interesting to see if someone could find a good list for it.
in addition, it would indeed be terrifying to see the storm count after bouncing all your artifacts with chain of vapor, or preferably hurkyl's recall.

great idea man.

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Also, I'm testing Daze x4. Not sure why no one brings it up, but returning a land back to hand is nothing.

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wow that would be a sick surprise. 'play counterbalance', 'daze, pay 1' 'WTF??!'

daze MD would actually be pretty good protection (testing would be needed to prove this though) because you can play, cantrip (ie. brainstorm, ponder, mystical tutor, etc.) and then your opponent casts chalice or CB, you can daze without breaking a stride.





btw if you are having problems with artifacts like chalice and trinisphere, vision charm might be nice. and you can keep your opponents off of mana sources. vision charm says, all lands of one type... does that mean basic/nonbasic, or sub types of mountain, swamp, forest, etc. probably the subtypes.. but if you have dual's that count as both like underground sea and tundra, you could use vision charm to change their lands into mountains so that they can't play anything, so it could function like Orim's Chant if i am right, and it can phase out chalice (putting it from 1 to 0 and at least gets it out of the way for when you go off) or trinisphere, or thorn of amyethest. In addition, vision charm can take the top 4 cards off of target players library. Pretty useless eh? not really. you can take the top 4 off of CB making it possibly easier to play your stuff. It also can take off the cards opponents search for with tutors like mystical tutor and enlightened tutor. Enlightened tutor + Ethersworn cannonist, or chalice might eventually become a problem. vision charm can take off that card at instant speed whether it be a chalice or even if you are up against other combo. If I'm right about all that, Vision Charm would be an excellent choice to run as an alternative to Orim's chant, an alternative to wipe away (though you can't get rid of CB with it unfortunately), and a way to get rid of your opponents tutor effects. thoughts?

@ Vacrix

I never really looked at it that way, so thanks for the insight on Chant. Chant is only especially good when going for Diminishing Returns or IGG. Chant is also good offensively for buying a turn (an example of this would be needing to cast a hellbent IT, but you have 2 lands in hand + chant). All I can say is that Chant has always been good for me in testing, so I'm not sure if I'll cut it completely, but I may just do what undone chose to do and run it as a 1-of tutorable. Adding Ponder sounds like a good idea anyways.

This leads me into the discussion about color splashes and defensive options.

-Rushing River is only better vs Chalice decks, whereas Wipe Away excels against Counterbalance. Which is better? I'm not sure. Problematic artifacts show up in pairs often enough to make me worry, but at the same time the uncounterability of Wipe Away is huge - maybe both should be run? I'm thinking something like 1x Chant 1x Wipe Away 1x Rushing River, or is that too greedy?

-Green isn't as good as white imo. Xantid Swarm isn't as good as what else white can offer, and Krosan Grip might as well be Wipe Away or Rushing River. Serenity is also a big plus one for white that green doesn't have.

-Vision Charm: cannot phase out a Chalice @ 1 because it costs 1. The top 4 cards is pretty meh. Nice trick, but not good enough imo. Changing lands is also situationally good, whereas Chant just denies them outright. All in all, bounce replaces all of these situations much more reliably and effectively.

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Originally Posted by Yesmilord

@ Vacrix

I never really looked at it that way, so thanks for the insight on Chant. Chant is only especially good when going for Diminishing Returns or IGG. Chant is also good offensively for buying a turn (an example of this would be needing to cast a hellbent IT, but you have 2 lands in hand + chant). All I can say is that Chant has always been good for me in testing, so I'm not sure if I'll cut it completely, but I may just do what undone chose to do and run it as a 1-of tutorable. Adding Ponder sounds like a good idea anyways.

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This is flat out wrong.

Orim's Chant (and its functional brethren Xantid Swarm and Abeyance) operate on a completely different level than targetted discard like Duress or Orim's Chant. Here's what Orim's Chant reads:

Target player plays uses a broad hard counter or loses access to not only broad hard counters, but also Stifle, Spell Snare, deck manipulation, and burn spells.

To someone who has never actually piloted storm combo through a tournament, it might seem like I'm being too concerned with abstract hate, but the difference between Duress and Orim's Chant is the situation when you run into an opponent who plays enough to guarantee seeing multiple or is lucky enough to see multple non-hard counter threats. Duress and Chant are equivalent if your opponent never has instant-speed deck manipulation (think Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm) or just never draws two threats. Orim's Chant is far superior if you happen to run into an opponent who doesn't keep shitty hands and/or draw the absolute worst possible cards (in which case Duress might as well be Tarpan because it's just as functional in that scenario).

Regarding Vision Charm, I've long felt the sickest way to take care of Chalices, and the one that is Merchant Scrollable, is Karn's Touch. It's okay to Gatherer it : )

Thoughts on Abeyance over Orim's Chant? You can use Abeyance to fuzz someone's Tops as well as their hand of spellz. And it draws a card...

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Originally Posted by hi-val

Regarding Vision Charm, I've long felt the sickest way to take care of Chalices, and the one that is Merchant Scrollable, is Karn's Touch. It's okay to Gatherer it : )

Thoughts on Abeyance over Orim's Chant? You can use Abeyance to fuzz someone's Tops as well as their hand of spellz. And it draws a card...

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The extra mana is costly. It's awesome as supplemental Chants, as it's slot in the sideboard of old FT lists shows. However, giving your opponent an extra turn to do stuff is usually bad, especially in a deck which needs every point of life it can get. It also can't handle Counterbalance, which is bad.

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This is flat out wrong.

Orim's Chant (and its functional brethren Xantid Swarm and Abeyance) operate on a completely different level than targetted discard like Duress or Orim's Chant. Here's what Orim's Chant reads:

Target player plays uses a hard counter or loses access to not only hard counters, but also Stifle, Spell Snare, deck manipulation, and burn spells.

To someone who has never actually piloted storm combo through a tournament, it might seem like I'm being too concerned with abstract hate, but the difference between Duress and Orim's Chant is the situation when you run into an opponent who plays enough to guarantee seeing multiple or is lucky enough to see multple non-hard counter threats. Duress and Chant are equivalent if your opponent never has instant-speed deck manipulation (think Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm) or just never draws two threats. Orim's Chant is far superior if you happen to run into an opponent who doesn't keep shitty hands and/or draw the absolute worst possible cards (in which case Duress might as well be Tarpan because it's just as functional in that scenario).

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heh bro i have piloted storm combo through a tournament. And the only reason I lost to stax was because of my own play mistake that i realized later. I beat every landstill deck and thresh deck I was up against without running Chant with your build of tall men SI.

I must say i have never taken FT/TES to a tournament though, so you have me there.

Here's my hypothetical situation:
I'm playing FT/TES, trying to draw all your countermagic out with orim's chant, and mystical tutoring up chant. If your opponent counters chant, you have no idea what is lurking in his or her hand. Duress/cabal therapy scope how you can continue trying to set up if it does resolve, and cabal therapy's flashback happens to be excellent for the taking 2 threats. you can pull this off too without running 8 MD duress/therapy (though you must devote card space to tall men). Also, if i play Orim's chant, and my opponent doesn't counter with fow, daze, etc, he is probably holding stifle or extirpate (if its relevant), in which case playing a discard spell would have done the same thing! stop stifle! either you prevent them from playing it with chant, or make them discard it with the spell. say they are holding 2 and you can only get rid of one. well if you are playing with therapy not duress then you actually get a sweet deal and hit both and if you duress and they have another, you don't have to rush into things and go off. the decks packing a shit ton of countermagic and stifles and relevant crap that impedes your going off has a smaller clock anyway. maybe i'm underestimating thresh because i have never lost a match (i go 2-1 against it sometimes) but even with the more relevant clock, they have less relevant distruption. This is also my perspective as I have not played with Diminishing returns and try to avoid using IGG against control.

Also, how relevant is stifle to ANT? In this case you will always have enough MD protection to stop it. If you go off and draw like 10-13 cards you should have enough distruption in there to stop a stifle, even 2 stifle if you have therapy, burn you can just counter (though burn does make your life difficult without chant i must say).

Instant speed deck manipulation, correct me if i'm wrong but, I plan chant, you can't counter, so you obviously can't play anything if you manipulate your deck, so you won't (if you even can, ie can't play brainstorm under chant). Against a good opponent they are not going to look at orim's chant and say 'o that's fine i'll let it resolve.' they are GOING to manipulate their deck to deal with it. if they can't manipulate it, then you are good. Ok, duress, they hide their shit with brainstorm, fair enough i go off, put top on top and draw. Ok they have countermagic that they hid with top, brainstorm, and how much mana do they have left to play anything? 2 or 3 (tops)? If this goes off turn 3, the opponent will have more like 1 or 2 mana. so maybe daze, but sometimes you have enough mana to pay one. spell snare, hits what while you are try to cast AdN? cabal ritual? ok, i still have my business in hand, shouldn't be too hard to find more rituals in storm combo. you don't have to go off on that turn if you get countered anyway. rebuilding in this deck should be fairly simple too if you keep AdN cause the spell snare cabal ritual. if they are holding stifle, i have convinced myself that you will have distruption to rid them of it (or pact of negation).

Another advantage I see that comes out of discard... Permanent based hate is what kills this. Chalice, Trinisphere, Counterbalance. All the shit that people keep saying they have trouble with can't be dealt with by using orim's chant. I can play a discard spell on turn 1, take your shit and pass. I can't play orim's chant unless i'm going off (or if you want to draw a counter i guess) but you have to look like you can go off having enough mana open and enough cards in hand and such.

I personally think that the reason why storm combo has been so resilient to hate is a result of a couple things:
nobody plays stax anymore, and it was damn sweet against combo (at least in my play environment)

people still insist on using countermagic against combo, you counter, i rebuild, i am happy, you are not. the storm mechanic itself is resistent to countermagic.. i will go off eventually, its only a matter of time.

permanent based hate is just a side in. a deck, like stax, should be created to function as real control with permanent based hate (stompy does a pretty good job with MD chalices/trinisphere/etc)

if people do use countermagic, its just to delay the game until they can slap down a counter balance or chalice and grin viciously. people aren't saying, oh i have 25 countermagic. that should be enough to stop 8 orim's chants (ie search with mystical tutor), as you should draw 1 countermagic every 3/4 cards.

tarpan is an EXCELLENT replacement for duress. lol

It should be noted that Orim's Chant is beautiful if you go for the IGGY loop.

What emidln is trying to say is that Duress only stops one threat, can be evaded via instant speed deck manipulation, and doesn't stop cards that can be accessed by instant speed deck manipulation.

What Vacrix is trying to say is that Duress allows you to see your opponent's hand if uncountered, therefore serves as a gauge to whether or not you can go off this turn. His other argument is that if they use instant speed deck manipulation, they won't have enough mana to play counters.

I think both of your points are valid, but both of you are just setting up situations where one will be better than the other. However, I'm still veering towards Orim's Chant since it does indeed remove your opponent from the game for the turn unless they hard counter it - this automatically stops everything else as well (from Stifle to burn), as emidln has mentioned. This means if your opponent has more than one non-hard counter threat when you Duress, you still won't be able to go off.

The argument for Duress stealing permanent-based hate from your opponent's hand turn 1 is only as good as being on the play. On the play, you can also Orim's Chant them on upkeep to prevent them from casting anything.

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Originally Posted by Yesmilord

What Vacrix is trying to say is that Duress allows you to see your opponent's hand if uncountered, therefore serves as a gauge to whether or not you can go off this turn.

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I don't understand this part. If your chant is uncountered, you don't need to see your opponent's hand, so I fail to see how seeing your opponent's hand when duress is uncountered can be more efficient (unless you fear a decree of silence cycling...).

Duress VS Chant (arguments classed in decreasing order of importance)

+++ Duress :
1/ removes discard or non-creature permanent hate if played preemptively
2/ costs B, which is important because you can cast DR, then duress, meaning that you only need 1 initial mana source
3/ can help to storm more easily, after AN, even if the storm count is rarely an issue.

+++ Chant :
1/ instant, which enables you to protect the upkeep trick (use LED mana to play the AN you've put on top library before and that you'll draw at your draw step)
2/ buys turns against aggro, or discard decks
3/ far better with IGG combo
4/ deals with the following opponent's hand FoW*2 + another blue card, and more globally, you can go off blindly against aggro control 3 cards hand. Might look very situational, but being myself a blue aggro control player, I know it hurts more than duress.

To my mind, overall, chant is more often good, so if you have to choose a 5 slots split, it would be 3chant + 2duress. However, I think that both can be 4-of in those IGG-inspired ANT decks.

For the other challengers, cabal therapy requires to play bad and useless creatures, thoughtseize hurts too much (but I've never tested it to be honnest), pact of negation is antisynergic with IT and LED, and I really don't want to abandon them, abeyance's cost is an issue, both being white and 2CC and cannot even buy turns against aggro. Xantid takes all the anticreatures of your opponent in the face, and it can be stifled and requires a splash that is worse than the W one. I may forgot some options but finally, I think that there is no competition.

My MD protection is:
4*chant
4*duress
1*wipe away/repeal (I'm still not decided if cycling effect is more important than universality)

At this point my SB is:
3 angel's grace (anti aggro)
3 slaughter pact (anti creature)
3 extirpate (not bad as a grave hate and as a hate eradication, I'm testing it in place of tormod's crypt, at least it's better because it can be tutored)
3 serenity (against stax, counterbalance and cannonist)
1/2 repeal
1/2 wipe away

@Maveric78f

compelling argument. i agree, protecting LED trick is quite nice.

but, if chant is uncountered that means they don't have countermagic, or they would counter it. you get the same result if you play duress (ie. take the countermagic, or duress gets countered. more likely, duress gets countered so you can't see their hand). i'm saying that duress functions the same way that orim's chant does.

chant lets you do some cool tricks with IGG, Diminishing returns, and LED.
duress lets you take the permanents that you really don't want to see hit the board.
both protect your combo effectively.


btw if they stifle swarm, then just attack again next turn. swarm is pretty cool too since they won't expect it from ANT (if its not in the standard build) so they will board out removal not expecting to need it vs. ANT. swarm is quite nice too if you play discard/chant (ie. play either, draw the counter play swarm both easy to cast at 1cc). swarm does alot once its on the field too. like a chant every turn, though you lose the chant protecting LED in the upkeep trick.


and i'm not arguing that chant is a bad card. it works obviously because people run it with success. IMO, discard is a better choice. if you chant to stop 1 stifle, discard would have done the same job w/out splashing white. the only thing it doesn't do as far as protection is concerned is stop burn, but burn is very relevant against ANT. in fact how is the matchup looking ANT vs. burn? seems really bad if you cut chant actually..

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Originally Posted by Vacrix

but, if chant is uncountered that means they don't have countermagic, or they would counter it. you get the same result if you play duress (ie. take the countermagic, or duress gets countered. more likely, duress gets countered so you can't see their hand). i'm saying that duress functions the same way that orim's chant does.

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Except for the 3 cards in hand argument, which happens more often that one would think... Except for FoW in general I would say.

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btw if they stifle swarm, then just attack again next turn. swarm is pretty cool too since they won't expect it from ANT (if its not in the standard build) so they will board out removal not expecting to need it vs. ANT. swarm is quite nice too if you play discard/chant (ie. play either, draw the counter play swarm both easy to cast at 1cc). swarm does alot once its on the field too. like a chant every turn, though you lose the chant protecting LED in the upkeep trick.

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You mean that you play Xantid MD or in SB? If you play MD, then you might expect that your opponent deals with it. If you play in SB, you might expect also that players keep their STP in hand in order to STP their own creatures in resp to a tendril you would think to be lethal but that is not finally. Also, a lot of players know that dark confidant is a nice SB option for such decks, so that they'll keep their STP.

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IMO, discard is a better choice. if you chant to stop 1 stifle, discard would have done the same job w/out splashing white. the only thing it doesn't do as far as protection is concerned is stop burn, but burn is very relevant against ANT. in fact how is the matchup looking ANT vs. burn? seems really bad if you cut chant actually..

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Against burn, you have angel's grace + duress after SB, which should be more than enough. Chant is pretty irrelevant to my oppinion, since your opponent will burn you in resp to your chant, it will only give you the information of how much life you can spend (and whether your opponent plays fireblast). Additionally, angel's grace solves the pyrostatic pillar issue too.

3 cards in hand?
they would have to be Force + blue card, stifle, counterspell (daze works too i guess).
you play duress, the force/counterspell. ok, they may still have protection, i'll wait.

you play chant, force. same result



you play discard spell, eats Fow, discard spell (therapy flashback maybe if you play it), you see stifle and counterspell you wait.

you play discard spell, eats FoW, chant, eats counterspell. same problem.



you play discard, discard, discard, they eat force, counterspell and you take the stifle. go off next turn or that turn (if you can some how)

you play discard, (chant or discard), chant, counter, counter, go off.



in all these situations, either one works. also, if you are on the play, on your turn 3, when you go off they only have 2 mana for counterspell, no stifle, if daze, the deck has enough mana to play around it i think.

if your opponent has 3 threats in hand you get the same results no? show me if i'm wrong.

and lol if your opponent has 3 answers in hand, you are kinda gonna have to look for wipeaway when they eventually drop CB anyway, so the arguement is a little irrelevant. :P

nah i wouldn't run swarm MD, as mystical tutor for discard/chant is much stronger. meh if your opponent knows the deck, they won't leave StP in if the avg boarding plan isnt the man plan. although i must say that this boarding plan looks sick as all hell if you splash green:
4 tarmogoyf
4 phyrexian negator
3 Scragnoth
4 (open slot)

goyf. obvious. negator + dark rit is sick. scragnoth is fucking amazing as your opponent can't even make you discard it. ANT doesn't run red ever to my knowledge so your opponent will board out all mass removal so scragnoth will be a bitch to get rid of if your opponent even can get rid of it. might be something worth exploring. its not too difficult to cast, and the opponent will usually save the countermagic for AdN anyway and not counter the rituals. Tomb of Urami is also secret tech (not so secret anymore) against Stax, and i've used it VERY VERY effectively against thresh and landstill believe it or not. but i didn't include it in the board as you have wipeaway for trinisphere and you will probably want something else in the board anyway.

i think that green is worth exploring. as least for the man plan.


i'm pretty sure that angel grace doesn't let you draw your whole deck with AdN, but maybe i'm wrong? it would be pretty sick since angel's grace is uncounterable.

if the burn matchup is fine, then orim's chant shouldn't be sited as an answer to burn. if chant is that irrelevant it would be like saying that lotus petal stops you from losing to Hidetsugu's Second Rite. lol



and how good is confidant in ANT's board? im guessing quite good in that the cc's are low as it is. maybe that could go in a man plan board too.

btw, what are ANT's bad matchups? if you run chant MD (and mystical tutor for chant), im guessing that it has a good matchup against other storm combo. it beats aggro in general. stompy looks a little harder but workable. a man plan might not be such a bad idea. negator doesn't lose to CB as much, neither does tomb of urami, scragnoth (do they ever flip 6cc??), even tombstalker. goyf is just strong (and he will be big, fetch, dark rit, duress, lotus petal in the grave he's a 4/5..)

EDIT:
btw i think that a man plan with bitterblossum might be pretty sick now that i think about it. bitterblossum is immune to StP so it would be better than running tombstalker. maybe BB is even better than running goyf. and you can cast BB off of a dark rit and play a discard spell to protect it. BB is a bitch for control. might be worth exploring. then you wouldn't even need a green splash:
4 Bitterblossum
4 Phyrexian Negator
7 (open slots)


2nd EDIT:

i think that Angel's grace actually DOES work with AdN!! i looked it up, it says you can't lose the game this turn and the opponents can't win the game. damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead. so your lifetotal would be reduced to less than 0 if you drew your entire deck BUT YOU WOULD NOT LOSE UNTIL THE EFFECT WEARS OFF (according to the oracle text). that could be a pretty sick more like c-breakfast except dump your library into your hand instead of your grave. :DD
thoughts? it would be hard to set up, but maybe worth it. MD angel's grace isn't that bad anyhow, good against combo, aggro, and burn.

Angel's grace + AN is a combo that I thought we all knew. First I thought it was stupid to transform a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo, but after some testing I realised that the aggro MU was almost the worst for the deck (since I run 8 MD protection + 1 bounce). First I tried to accelerate the combo in order to race those aggro decks. Then I realised that the AG+AN combo solved my aggro problems.

Aggro SB plans are often cute but I've never been convinced by them. Because 15 threats is not enough to race most decks and because it completely ruins any other SB options. And what can you do against the most popular kills: tarmogoyf, dreadnought, crusher, terravore? And against burn? And against combo?

Ps: I also wonder what happens if for some reason you fizzle you AN after AG (say you are at -40 life) and then you take 1 damage (say from city of brass). Do you get back to 1 life? Would be the weirdest way to gain life ever.
PPs: white is definitely the best splash because of chant, AG and serenity. But I repeat myself.