[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by Matt

Did you just agree with me? I honestly can't tell. *laughs* As, this is exactly what I posted (reworded of course).

By all means, if you can win turn one, do it! But, I don't think I'm as lucky as you. As, hate-bears often hit the field before my turn 2. Which, if we're in game one, can only be answered with BW-Infest... It's janky, but consistent. If you already put them on Maverick (turn one Savannah or plains, ect...), you can prepare for the play by preemptively sticking a Petal or Mox into play to facilitate a turn two BW, into turn three Infest, followed by your combo turn. Nice and janky... But, it works. :wink:

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I definitely agree and play one chrome mox main and a second in the board to speed myself up to make the ad naus better and/or turn one gobbos for a bunch. (also the 4th probe is probably the worst card in the deck) i am personally thinking about cutting my departure for a pyroclasm to just buy some time, (they don't always have mom, also one mana less through a thalia, can be relevant) and i'd rather kill all of his dudes than bounce it. still undecided about it.

cut meltdown the other day, paid for it by playing against mud round one. never again.

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Originally Posted by Anselm

I'd recommend 3 Infest in that slot. It seems the best vs maverick. Better than slaughter pact too, as that loses to mother of runes + hatebear.

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I found that the biggest problem with infest or virtue's ruin is that if you keep 1 in the wishboard and 2 into the deck for second game, you increase dramaticaly the risk of being killed by ADN than if you run run pact in that slot.

I've been reading both the ANT and TES threads, and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two. Can anyone help clarify? (I've read the last few pages, so I've seen some mentions of it, but explicit would help)

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Originally Posted by Syaoran

I've been reading both the ANT and TES threads, and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two. Can anyone help clarify? (I've read the last few pages, so I've seen some mentions of it, but explicit would help)

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Hi,my friend. The main difference between ANT and TES is its mana base.
ANT is mainly built by blue and black(with little white splash or red splash),so ANT runs basic land and can dodge Wasteland.And TES is always a 4-color storm deck(sometimes even green splash),so TES runs duals/rainbow lands,and no basic lands.


ofc its dangerous to run a deck with no basic lands in Legacy,the format full of stifles and wastelands.


However,rely on rainbow lands and fast mana(Dark ritual and Rite of Flames,and chrome mox ofc)and 8 tutors(4 Infernal Tutor + 4 Burning Wish),TES always goes off faster than ANT.Also,because of wishboard,TES can be more versatile.TES do not always win via Tendrils, a turn 2 Empty the Warrens is also a good choice.


Because TES runs more fast mana,it's not strange TES has few cantrips(4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder)than ANT does(4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder + 4 Preordain).So TES is less stable than ANT.


The very Ironical thing about ANT and TES is that "TES depends more on Ad Nauseam than ANT does"(although we all know ANT is named after Ad Nauseam Tendrils).Indeed,with chrome mox in the main deck,TES can always go for a "blind Ad Nauseam"(No mana floating after cast AdN),because "4 chrome mox + 4 Lotus petal' can be a good starting mana.However, if an ANT player tries a 'blind Ad Nauseam",he is more likely to kill himself(with only 4 lotus petal can be starting mana).

In my opinion,ANT does not always cast AdN,and the No.1 storm engine of ANT is Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains. But,the No.1 storm engine of TES is Ad Nauseam.And that is the reason why TES always runs 2 Ad Nauseam in their main deck.


PS:well,to be honest,I am the guy running ANT deck. I have no TES decks.But I think I have the basic knowledge for a Legacy storm deck. If I have misunderstanding in ANT/TES, I am happy if some one can correct it.

Well. One point is not completely correct.

Stifle makes Fetchlands worse, Wasteland nonbasics. ANT plays more fetchlands, TES only nonbasics. So: The more stifles your meta provides the worse ANT gets and the more wastelands your meta has TES is annoying to play.

Apart from that I'd like to mention that ANT has a few different lists.
UB - This is the most wasteland proof list with 4 or 5 basic lands. It does not provide Burning Wish and most likely does not support Past in Flames. It relies a lot on Ad Nauseam against blue Decks and can not find solutions for hatebears game 1. You need Grim Tutors to play it consistently. In Europe it's not very popular for the reasons mentioned above.

UBw - In this variation of ANT you play Orim's Chant and Silence over Duress and Thoughtseize. This improves your Combo matchup and it also helps to use Ill-gotten Gains in blue matchups.

UBr - Most popular Incarnation right now. At least it seems like it. It's propably the most versatile of the three variants and it also provides Past In Flames which helps a lot in matches where you run out of life before you can combo off. I've found that to be very useful when trying to find a solution via Burning Wish while you get bashed by some bears. On the other hand people in Europe tend to play Gitaxian Probe instead of Preordain and Cabal Therapy instead of Thoughtseize. I'm not impressed by Probe, but that's mainly an issue of experience with them I think. Still it's less stable when setting up the combo due to less filtering and mulliganing feels a little like TES.

When you start reading about 10 pages back you might find Decklists and get a better understanding of what we are trying to do with our lists.

Great description! I think that TES is not a DTB due to wasteland and the auge of Maverick which can tutor for it as well. When started to play storm i did it with TES and is very fast but sometimes inestable.
Nowadays i'm running UBr ANT and it's pretty good. In fact i went into a 18 persons tournemnt with it and the deck was so good. Who was not so good was me and my stupid mind with epics fails that cost me the top4. :cry:
But ANT, in my opinion is "the combo deck" actually. Maybe in the same point than dredge.

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Originally Posted by GoldenCid

But ANT, in my opinion is "the combo deck" actually. Maybe in the same point than dredge.

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How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

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Originally Posted by bilb_o

How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

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Well...in my line of opinion ANT and DRedge are the most "hated" decks. Respecting to ANT you can find:

Mindbreak Trap
Surgical Extraction
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Thorn of Amethyst
Ethersworn Canonist

(all can be played by maverick)

+

Counter spells

I run 6 discard effects MD, an additional 1 in the side, and bear killing cards as wish target + slaughter pact and bouncer spells.
It's even hard but with the exception for maverick a combination of counter spells + permanent hate stuff is difficult to see. Also i side in empty the warrens which can't be fight easily by those decks if i can't get a killing tendrils soon.

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Originally Posted by bilb_o

How do you deal with multiple hate bears and counters and sometimes hatebears + counters. I wasn't a combo player till I started playing High Tide a few months ago and lately I feel like giving ANT a try. But even with the resiliency of High Tide I find it hard to fight through the combo hate post sideboard games. Is ANT just fast enough to sail past all that because it certainly is not as defensive and resilient as High Tide.

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There's no general answer to that. Duress package to fight counters and Wish+Sweeper for the bears. It's not that simple usually, but thats pretty much how it goes. It's like fighting hate with high tide. Instead of Countering you just let them discard and instead of bouncing you destroy things or bounce them. Burning wish does not do the same thing like Cunning in UBr ANT, but it does find solutions and the real bombs. Cunning does not find you Spirals. It's basically the same thing but different purpose I guess. (I'm not a Hightide Pro though.)

Edit:
GoldenCid put it pretty straight. EtW shines when it comes down early enough. Be sure it can't be raced by anything you know of and most of the time it's just great.

Hello,

I had a question pertaining to the burning wish version of this deck. I currently have been running it card for card matching this
maindeckhttp://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/listas-top8-lcl-2012-abril

(the one that placed 7th although i believe the one that placed 8th isn't far off from it.) and have been feeling that burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

Not an expert but with the Burning Wish you get a wishboard which gives you silver bullets for specific situations and more versatility.

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Originally Posted by Rekk

burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

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Dude, BW gives you direct G1 access to 15 additional cards in your board which is almost essential against Maverick (hatebear sweepers), RUG / Canadian Threshold (Empty the Warrens), Stax & Affinity (Shattering Spree, Meltdown) and miscallenous control decks (various flexible win conditions) and it considerably reduces the risk of losing due to bad sideboarding. Compared to Grim Tutor, BW does NOT require you to maindeck a "solution package". I personally prefer UBr Therapy list with Past in Flames & 3x Burning Wish, but I would recommend to try both builds until you become completely sold on PiF & BW. I would play Grim Tutor only in pure UB build with conceptual focus on maximum speed, but not in my metagame consisting heavily of the above-mentioned decks.

In fact Grim Tutor is best of the bad tutors for the deck and is definitely superior to BW in vacuum, unfortunately with Thalia becoming real problem BW is necessary evil... I've played both deck enough to tell the difference.. the problem s RR you need to for PIF MD kill and 1 Infernal Tutor you are short MD to do that... you are slower and weaker to spellsnare and mana denial.. on the other hand you are better % with Ad Nauseam and Extirpate...personally I'd prefer Grim version in larger tournaments BW in locals

basically you're reducing speed and consistency for versatility you would not normally need... because you randomly lose to Maverick you worsen you other top 3 match-ups, which I recommend to compensate with 2nd PiF MD instead of SB

overall its more complicated and depends on play style, you better test both

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Originally Posted by Rekk

Hello,

I had a question pertaining to the burning wish version of this deck. I currently have been running it card for card matching this
maindeckhttp://manainfinito.com/articulos/legacy/listas-top8-lcl-2012-abril

(the one that placed 7th although i believe the one that placed 8th isn't far off from it.) and have been feeling that burning wish is rather underpowered in the deck compaired to grim tutor. does anyone here on the thread have any insight into the deck and would like to share their opinion between the two. (truly what it comes down to, does running this deck with burning wish mean you are just saving money and choosing to run an inferior version or does burning wish have it's own strengths.)

Some insight would be greatly appreciated

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They definitely both have their own strengths -- Basically, with Burning Wish, you get a lot more Tutor power (usually 4 BW + 4 IT -- you can't run more than 2 Grim Tutor, as they are absolutely awful in multiples), and you can G1 ETW or G1 deal with hatebears.

With Grim Tutor, you get an actual 15 card sideboard, and you can PiF/IGG or Ad Nauseam with it, where BW can be a little awkward if you don't have additional business in hand, as it doesn't play well with PiF and can't grab Ad Naus.

You can probably try both versions and see which you like more, I don't think either one is truly better. I prefer Grim Tutor, because I like having a sideboard...but having straight no outs to a G1 hate bear has definitely been awkward at times, esp. since Thalia is seeing quite a lot of play now.

EDIT:

Also, for the record, I don't think there is any reason to run straight U/B anymore unless there are 0 blue decks in your meta. We run enough artifact mana that generating a single R for PiF is almost never an issue -- I support PiF off a single Volcanic (so the additional vulnerability to Wasteland is negligible) and it's never been an issue for me to play PiF. But, I think there is certainly an argument for Grim Tutor in a U/B list splashing R for PiF.

It has been a while since I touched Legacy and a VERY long time since I played TES or ANT, "recently" I picked up Stoneblade and its ilk but am looking to play storm at this weekends SCG open which leads me to my question---Why is ANT running Cabal Therapy now?

I assume it is because it saves life against casting a TSeize but then why over Inquisition?

If you don't run Inquistion because you are so afraid of FoW then isn't the utility of TSeize worth the life loss?

Would it make sense to mix up the discard package in the board so that game 2 and 3 you can adjust discard for maximum efficeny?

Thanks for the input guys.

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Originally Posted by nodahero

It has been a while since I touched Legacy and a VERY long time since I played TES or ANT, "recently" I picked up Stoneblade and its ilk but am looking to play storm at this weekends SCG open which leads me to my question---Why is ANT running Cabal Therapy now?

I assume it is because it saves life against casting a TSeize but then why over Inquisition?

If you don't run Inquistion because you are so afraid of FoW then isn't the utility of TSeize worth the life loss?

Would it make sense to mix up the discard package in the board so that game 2 and 3 you can adjust discard for maximum efficeny?

Thanks for the input guys.

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I've been playing Therapy main for about 6 months and I'm still not 100% sold on it -- Gitaxian Probe is quite good, and it would take a lot to convince me that Preordain is better in that slot, and Therapy is rarely blind when you have 4 Discard + 3-4 Probe.

For what it's worth, I tested Thoughtseize pretty extensively, and I definitely don't think the deck can support Thoughtseize main unless you cut Ad Naus from the main (yes, Gitaxian Probe also eats at your life - but we generally need to cast all of our discard spells to win the game, where we can just pay mana or not cast our probes).

I tried Inquisition for a bit in the slot, and I wasn't a huge fan, as I really don't like having only 4 ways to interact with Force.

Also -- as far as mixing it up, I generally run 3-4 Thoughtseize in the sideboard, and I board them in quite often (against RUG, Maverick, U/W, and most control decks) -- so it's very possible they should just be main and I should accept that Ad Naus is not going to be a viable out most games.

I play the "spanish" UBr list with 4 Burning Wish and 3Infernal Main. I like the list a lot right now. Most matchups except some blue decks are favorable. Unfortunately Avacyn restored brought us nothing new except for some "enemies".

Yesterday a friend and I played some legacy. Mainly to try out Griselbrand in his SneakShow list. I personally wanted to see it's impact on the matchup since Storm is all I play in Legacy. Jin Gitaxias has been quite a big deal, but I was not sure how Griselbrand turns out, since we can try to play around him with a tendrils in hand and using discard offensively. Disrupting their combo has become easier with cabal therapy. At least my mate hates the card a lot. :>
My list is pretty much like the spanish ones, but I play 4 Burning Wish main and 1 sideboard to have the option of tutor chaining and PiF gets a little better. It's also quite versatile.
Turns out I still win about 60% preboard and depending on his sideboard it's about 50/50. Griselbrand however is a pain. As soon as he lands one it's incredibly hard to beat SneakShow. Usually you can still win after he lands ulamog with sneak attack. Griselbrand usually wins the game on the spot when he comes via sneak. Finding Emrakul and Petal is just game when he has 15life of more to draw into them.
Another Problem is the short amount of time you have to combo off. It's been a problem for me to figure out the right moment ever since I played against the Deck. Griselbrand is basically a win for them soming turn 1, 2 or 3. It's even harder to decide when his win is quite random in number of turns. Gitaxian Probe clearly does a lot of work gathering the information since it increases the amount of such effects to 11.

However I was quite amused how often it's reasonable to disrupt his hand. T1 Probe, Swamp, Therapy naming Emrakul (he discards 2), Petal, Therapy naming Griselbrand (discrads 2) was just awesome enough. Here's another example why I love Burning wish. I shortly after get EtW and have 8 Goblins on the board. Sacrificing your hand to do the same to him is very good.

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Originally Posted by aaronm678

I've been playing Therapy main for about 6 months and I'm still not 100% sold on it -- Gitaxian Probe is quite good, and it would take a lot to convince me that Preordain is better in that slot, and Therapy is rarely blind when you have 4 Discard + 3-4 Probe.

For what it's worth, I tested Thoughtseize pretty extensively, and I definitely don't think the deck can support Thoughtseize main unless you cut Ad Naus from the main (yes, Gitaxian Probe also eats at your life - but we generally need to cast all of our discard spells to win the game, where we can just pay mana or not cast our probes).

I tried Inquisition for a bit in the slot, and I wasn't a huge fan, as I really don't like having only 4 ways to interact with Force.

Also -- as far as mixing it up, I generally run 3-4 Thoughtseize in the sideboard, and I board them in quite often (against RUG, Maverick, U/W, and most control decks) -- so it's very possible they should just be main and I should accept that Ad Naus is not going to be a viable out most games.

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So what kind of discard suite are you suggesting? Im currently testing 4 Duress, 2 IoK and a singleton Thoughtseize plus I have an 1 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize SB.

My SB package also has 3 Dread of Night since Maverick and DnT is so rampant in our meta.

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Originally Posted by JJ_JKidd

So what kind of discard suite are you suggesting? Im currently testing 4 Duress, 2 IoK and a singleton Thoughtseize plus I have an 1 IoK and 1 Thoughtseize SB.

My SB package also has 3 Dread of Night since Maverick and DnT is so rampant in our meta.

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I have started testing 4 duress 3 thoughtseize main, 1 seize 2 iok side, and switching 3 probes main to preordain.

I haven't played against enough variety yet to determine if this is better than what I previously ran (4 duress 3 therapy main, 3-4 thoughtseize in the sb) - but this configuration feels a bit better vs RUG so far (switching probe to preordain is nice, and rarely does the life from thoughtseize matter, as you rarely ad naus this match anyway)

This ANT deck just finished 19th at SCG Orlando. Can someone please explain the sideboard to me?

The Bobs I get (though I don't run them myself), the bounce/Pact split is fine, but V-Cliques, Jace, and Karn are blowing my mind. I think some argument can be made for a disruption spell that comes attached to a 3/1 flier, but I don't think I have ever been in a situation with ANT where I thought "Man, I'd really like to go all-in on a seven-mana Vindicate machine."