Man, I've really been out of the loop lately.
I hate to be a bother in asking, but would somebody care to explain why ANT is now more viable than TES? It would be very much appreciated.
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Man, I've really been out of the loop lately.
I hate to be a bother in asking, but would somebody care to explain why ANT is now more viable than TES? It would be very much appreciated.
Wastelands and stifles are everywhere.. ANT has better mana base. TES is faster but more dependent on EtW which can be easy stifled.
As well as tendrils...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fatal
ANT clearly plays around Wasteland better than TES can.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fatal
However, TES plays around Stifle a lot better. Rainbow lands are better here than fetchlands, and Chant is great if they try to hold a Stifle for your storm spell (or even if you've kept your fetchlands untapped).
Chant runs circles around spell snare.
It would be fair to argue that the current flavor of the week is RUG. Given that, I think the trend will see players moving toward UW Stoneblade, Bant, and GWx Maverick which have decent to positive match-ups against RUG. Those decks tend to be more Wasteland heavy and do not typically run Stifle. They also tend to run Wasteland and the Bant and Maverick decks can typically tutor it with Knight. Maverick and Bant also tend to run more hatebears with most running at least some maindeck. I think the UB or TNT lists will be strong moving forward and there really won't be a necessity to splash for Chant. Chant is powerful against a RUG/UW metagame, but Burning Wish makes more sense given that you'll likely see more permanent based hate.
The thing is, is maverick and other creature decks like junk are really easy mu's for ad nauseam, heck the MU is almost an auto-win. Things only get tricky post-board and only if they get a teeg/mom lock as rebuild can pick up cannonist+mom. So running chant duress splits let you effectively destroy countermagic and still give you utility against maverick. I've even run a 7 chant build in doomsday and the maverick MU is still hilariously easy g1 if you just chant walk them till you win. I might even consider a thoughtseize/chant split if you really have problems with mu's like maverick or junk, but in my experience these matches are auto-wins. I'm not saying chant should be an auto-include in any ad nauseam deck, I just think it shouldn't be automatically excluded because even in MU's where it is bad it can serve as utility and let you win a MU with no effort what-so ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fossil4182
I've been playing TNT for a while now with a copy of Virtue's Ruin in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target to get around the Maverick locks that can occur with Teeg and Cannonist.Quote:
Originally Posted by j_rb
Yea, I agree, with virtues ruin it makes the maverick matchup easy peezy, also. I was just stating that chant isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is and even with a Ubw and list, without wish, you have an almost auto-win matchup against maverick. A Ubw ad naus list is definitely viable. It's just all down to playstyle. I prefer chant because it just straight up hoses a hand full of countermagic when 2 discard spells don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fossil4182
Alright I need an explanation from some experienced storm player.
I have been playing Legacy for a while but I have always sucked at combo so I don't really have a lot of experience piloting storm. I recently managed to get a friend hooked on legacy and he wanted to play storm, and since I have a decent cardpool and he has none I build ANT for him to borrow. Now the problem is that I don't own any Grim Tutors and I don't plan on owning them anytime soon so I figured that Burning Wish would be the next best option much like what I see being played in TNT.
Now what confuses me greatly is that whenever I speak to people who have been playing storm for a while I always hear the same thing. "Burning Wish sucks in ANT", "you might as well just play TES then" etc. Why is this? What exactly makes it so that Burning Wish is apparently great in TES but horrible in ANT? I see ANT decks playing red for Past in Flames all the time, so I really don't get why you can't just play Burning Wish as well then. Would someone please explain this to me?
Quote:
Originally Posted by esqulax
Nice, that's exactly the way I started playing ANT ^^ All hail to nice friends with big cardpools.
To your question: I think this is personal preference. I, for example, like Burning Wish more than Grim Tutor and I know storm players that do so, too.
It boils down to a super solid manabase against more versatility, imho.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esqulax
I'd go with Liam's TNT list if you want burning wish in an ANT like build. (or TES of course)
As far as u/b ANT goes, if you don't have Grim's, I'd go with the second Ad Nauseam and if I were splashing I'd rather it be white than red.
I think people are still missing how effective Past in Flames is against counters. Thoughtseize the FoW, they still have Spell Snare right? Play PiF, get your Infernal countered, generate mana and win. I don't really see what's so great about Chants that people can forgo PiF, Empty and the possibility to expand to TNT with wishes.
PiF is good, but it takes some significant time to set up. In the situation you presented above, you have PiF in your hand? That's a bit optimistic as a 1 of. It's also considering that you have a boatload of mana / rituals. Also, you can't play PiF then get your infernal countered, as PiF only gives flashback to cards already in your gy. (Unless I missed something in your post of course.)Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
I'm not saying that scenario can't come up, but I think you are overestimating the power of PiF and undervaluing a good old "don't play spells any more" effect.
I'm glad someone else other than me is on board the chant in ant boat.Quote:
Originally Posted by leegoo
Past in flames is effective in the right situation, but lets say you have this situation but they have pierce, flusterstorm, or another fow.... you just lose.... Usually when you are going for past in flames you have enough mana to either play it, or flash it back with enough mana for a pierce to just screw you (If you are going with infernal into their snare and then PIF infernal again you probably would have 1-2 mana floating after the flashback). While past in flames is good against slow grindy decks, such as landstill, it can still be cold to a hand full of counters when with chant you hose their hand of flusterstorms, snares, pierces, and stifles. I do agree that Ant builds with red in them have their strong side, but if I wanted to play Burning Wish I probably would play TES as it has chant in it, and you get the same versatility with a little less stable mana base but more raw power.Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
I really can't see how chant effects are better than discard against a hand full of counters. In both cases your protection (chant and discard) takes away one counter. It's either FoW your Chant or Duress your FoW. Which leaves you against Snare, Pierce, Flusterstorm etc. How does it get you out of such a situation?
Because flusterstorm/stifle can't stop chant but can stop Past in Flames (unless you have a good amount of discard in the yard and PIF resolves). Pierce and a flusterstorm can stop chant if you're playing control, but only if they have both, and you usually have enough land to just pay for the chant and go off, or chant and if it gets countered pass the turn and chant next turn and win. I have played with Past in flames and discard and played with chant. I just find chant better against a handfull of countermagic, which seems people have against me too often. Also, in ant, chant turns on igg against decks with Force.Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
For most of the time discard/PIF is just as good as chant, but in certain situations against most of the blue decks in the format post board, chant can be better. It's also preference to me as I have played chant in all my storm builds and find it really, really amazing.
Relative to the chant vs discard discussion, I've never played with chant effects, but I've also never felt the need to do so. Even against decks with heavy countermagic, I usually boarded in Dark Confidant, discard spells 7 & 8, or Xantid Swarm. Out of all of the effects, I felt the safest using Swarm (which is a reason I considered chant). However, using the Dark Confidant/discard route never let me down. Lately, using the TNT list, I've found great utility in Burning Wish giving me access to discard spells seven and eight which can dramatically alter the control match up.
A benefit to discard over chant is that it allows you to deal with permanent based hate.
My general thoughts on this debate of chant versus discard plays out like this.
First, I think if you're playing storm in Legacy and you're not using Past in Flames as an engine, you're deck is built wrong. That card is unbelievably powerful against the field and solves a lot problems in traditionally even to weak match ups. I guess this contention is debatable, but probably not.
(Assuming you're starting with Ari's UBw list). What this means is that if you're playing chant effects you're either running a four color mana base (UBwr) or you're relying on artifact mana to access the red necessary to cast Past in Flames. If you're running a four color deck, the benefits of having a stable mana base are gone and you're better off playing TES because you almost never have mana issues due to the rainbow lands and your mana base isn't nearly as vulnerable to stifle. I've played with the UBw list using artifact mana to cast Past in Flames, but I've found these lists ill equipped to truly exploit Past in Flames. Specifically, they typically run only Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. I've found that you need at least ten ritual effects to truly use Past in Flames as a viable storm engine.
I think if you're going to splash a third color, red is an obvious choice. Burning Wish has incredible utility solving any problem you run into. The addition of Rite of Flame allows you to run upwards of ten ritual effects maximizing the mana you can generate via Past in Flames. In lieu of chant effects, you get access to six discard spells maindeck along with two more in the board as Burning Wish targets for a total of eight discard spells game one. Furthermore, you also get access to Pyroblast post sideboard which is very powerful against the Blue decks.
I think if we see a continued trend toward GW Maverick and other non blue decks, chant will continue to get weaker because of the permanent based hate negating the cards utility. Even if chant is better in some match ups, its virtually dead in others. Burning Wish ranges from fair to strong against the field and is never actually dead (unless you're run out of cards).
The hands people are referencing when you see several counterspells seem daunting, but typically, those hands represent virtually no clock. Storm digs quicker and more efficiently than control or agro control decks so running them out of counters and combing off will typically happen before they're able to assemble a clock. For example, look at most UWx Stoneblade lists. They typically run ten to eleven counterspells along with Snapcaster Mage. The break down is usually something like:
(Almost always)
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
(Changeable)
1 Spell Pierce
or
2 Spellstutter Sprite
Post board, they add one or two more Spell Pierce (or less likely, Flusterstorm). They also run only Brainstorm and Jace as draw engines. Jace, while powerful, is slow and if they're wasting Snapcaster to flashback Brainstorm instead of a counter, you're already in good shape. Most storm lists run at least ten cantrip effects allowing you to dig much faster and get access to these cards. Furthermore, every turn they pass to keep countermagic up is a turn they're not cast Stoneforge Mystic for Batterskull. Clique is annoying, but again, you'll be able to dig out of it faster and they're likely to take you're tutor when most lists run six to seven (making it easy to dig up another copy). The match up may seem daunting on paper, but after playing several matches, its apparent that the redundancy present in storm decks wins out more often than most control players would think.
I want to point out that running chants is effective against non blue decks as time walking them up to your combo turn makes it an auto-win (although I do not believe chant is BEST in Ant builds but better in TES). Even matches chant lacks in it is useful to some small extent... Also, upkeep chant EOT ad nauseam usually seals the deal against control, as most people think you are trying to time walk them with chant.
I also want to point out that PIF is insane the more and more I play with it, I realize how powerful it is. I believe if you are playing ANT the Ubr list (I hate calling it TNT) is probably the best list right now. If you want to play a deck with chant in it TES is really the best deck right now that uses it (aside from Ubrw DDFT).
@Fossil4182 > I couldn't agree more.