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It's also pointless to draw multiple business spells. I thought 10 business spells was the sort of optimal number for TES.
On the other hand, we wanted to not cast Brainstorm/Ponder too often in these games, so maybe you're right and we need the full 11 business spells just like Belcher always has them.
As the crew around Jonathan highlighted in regards to his article today, it appears, that most top-performing S&T lists have dismissed the Leyines for several reasons and therefore I began to question the role of Xantid Swarm (and to a lesser extend, Silence). I opt to make another radical change to the testing list
5-Color-Goblins - Testing Grid
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Thoughtseize
1 Telemin Performance
1 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
I know, how bad Dim.Ret. becomes as a Storm-Engine without Xantid/Silence. Testing without the non-targeted-protection as Final Fortune suggested
I'd like to discuss/raise some points; your thoughts on these are appreciated:
PhazonMutant hit the nail on the head with this:
So moving on from here we need answers that hit a variety of problem cards but are still powerful enough to be effective.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmutant
We've already started to do that by cutting Duress for the more versatile Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy and creating more sideboard space which has been a great evolution.
Bear this key theory in mind as you read the rest of this post.
Shaving 1 Silence for 1 Cabal Therapy and general thoughts on our disruption package.
I've often wondered in the past about whether this split would be correct; I remember reading recently in Ari Lax's DC article that he felt it was a possibility too. It's certainly a switch I can get behind. I know lots of people have advocated wanting to cut Silence entirely to a mono-black disruption suite. But I digress; let's get down to the details:
Obvious benefits are it costing black instead of white. Less awkward Chrome Mox imprinting, easier casting and synergy with Empty the Warrens. The list goes on. Excellent!
We've established above that we want powerful, versatile cards. Cabal Therapy fits that role perfectly. It answers nearly any card we care about.
While Silence can be amazing against some combo decks and the "silence-walk" means it's rarely completely dead, Cabal Therapy is even better in this regard. Seriously, what's the worst Cabal Therapy you've ever cast? It probably just revealed their hand. Provided you make good use of that information, you could do worse in a combo deck like this.
So when is Cabal Therapy not as good as Silence? Picture the scenario - You name Thalia, Guardian of Thraben; they reveal something else. Fuck. What's the alternative? Silence in your upkeep. 100% works. Every. Time.
What's my point? I think the important thing to distinguish here is how much better Cabal Therapy gets when you have other information. Look at ANT - Cabal Therapy is much more potent in that deck because they complement it with 3/4 Duress. With nothing other than Gitaxian Probe to reveal their hand, we could run into issues with the reliability of our disruption.
I'd suggest perhaps 3 Cabal Therapy, 1 Thoughtseize with 1 Cabal Therapy in the sideboard, but truthfully, upon testing with Thoughtseize I have found the shock from it to be quite relevant against the tempo decks. I'm not moving back to Duress due its lack of versatility against hate, so what choice do I have? 4 Cabal Therapy is probably correct. That way we can Burning Wish for Thoughtseize only when we can afford to pay the life.
One could argue for cutting more than 1 Silence (or all of them!) to have more hand revealing spells, but as stated, I have my difficulties with Thoughtseize and the next best things are Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek which don't hit everything. Even without the hand-revealing, I'd probably rather have Silence - it's still very powerful against soft counters, certain combo decks, Stifle and often cycles when required.
It's also important to note that while not having perfect information of what to name could be a problem, the things we want to hit with Cabal Therapy in this deck are few and far between. Half of the time we'll be naming Force of Will anyway.
To conclude, I agree that 4 Cabal Therapy, 3 Silence main deck and 1 Thoughtseize sideboard is the best disruption option at the moment. That's what I'll be using from now on.
I began writing this yesterday and played 4 games last night with the full 4 Cabal Therapy main deck. Bearing in mind the small sample size I was very impressed. I felt I was getting much more value from my disruption and not shocking myself felt great. I'm pretty comfortable with the format and what cards I expect to face, so the lack of perfect information wasn't that important. Your mileage may vary.
Boarding in multiples of Empty the Warrens.
Your meta may vary, but I actually find opponents have always brought in answers to the goblins regularly in the past, in fact, often even more than they should. I find that if an opponent looses game 1 to a ton of Goblins even in a match-up were it is clearly the plan B, they become focused on not loosing like that again and I end up facing copies of Echoing Truth and Engineered Explosives (which I'm often happy for them to have).
That statement was referring to my experiences in the past. What about the future?
If you're suggesting the Goblins plan due to a shift in the meta-game (the reduction of Stifle) - did you forget that that shift has demanded a non-spot-removal response to 1 toughness creatures? Golgari Charm. Zealous Persecution. Engineered Explosives. Terminus. I don't want to be all-in on that plan.
You can't then argue that "In that case we'll just cast Ad Nauseam" because with 3 or 4 copies of Empty the Warrens, your Ad Nauseam's are going to be much worse.
Telemin Performance & Bribery.
I think any time I could cast this, I could cast something else that would kill them or likely wait a turn to enable a different option that doesn't require a sideboard slot. It is very narrow. That said, I must admit, against something like Reanimator it would be nice to have the option over Diminishing Returns when Past in Flames/Ad Nauseam isn't available and we don't have time to set it up.
The fabled 13th land and the 3rd Chrome Mox.
I play this deck quite aggressively. I don't feel like I need any more lands slowing me down. I feel that most times a 13th would be a hindrance.
The 3rd Chrome Mox is admittedly one of the weaker slots in the deck. It's awful in multiples. But I think it's a necessary evil. We need to be fast; don't forget we are the Ad Nauseam deck. The 'named' Ad Nauseam deck, ANT, is more of a Past in Flames deck these days. Ad Nauseam is much, much better with Chrome Mox. I think it's almost essential.
My current list.
//Card Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
//Tutor (8)
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
//Tutor Target (2)
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
//Disruption (7)
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
//Ritual Mana (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
//Artifact Mana (11)
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
//Land (12)
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
//Sideboard (15)
1 Tropical Island
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
Additional thoughts on our sideboard.
I think Grapeshot is the best wish-able removal spell we have compared to alternatives like Pyroclasm and Deathmark. Doing the last few points of damage after an Empty the Warrens doesn't make it comes up quite often too.
I don't cast Diminishing Returns as much as I used to; it's still an option I think we need to have.
We don't really need the Thoughtseize in the sideboard after the above changes. It's only there as a Burning Wish target. Does that come up often enough to warrant the use of a sideboard slot? I think it does, but it's definitely up for discussion if there was something else we needed room for.
Chain of Vapor and Abrupt Decay have been excellent for me. I can't see running less than 2 of each at the moment as I think the versatility outweighs other powerful but narrow options like Revoke Existence or Karakas.
Were we go against the theory I referenced at the start of this is post is when we have difficult match-ups. If our versatility covers everything else comfortably, it makes sense to use powerful, if narrow, cards against the decks we have issues with. I think we can all agree this is primarily Show & Tell type match-ups and tempo. This is why I have 2 Xantid Swarm and 2 Carpet of Flowers. It's possible that a different split of these may be superior depending on their performance and the meta.
With so many green cards in our sideboard, the Tropical Island gains lots of value and is probably better than any remaining options. Sure, we could fit an additional copy of another card, or another narrow wish-able answer instead - but one Tropical Island offers increased efficiency of Abrupt Decay, Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm which seems better to me.
I hope you enjoyed reading this; hopefully it has given you all some food for thought.
@Vercadium: you make a long list of valid points, but some points I don't fully agree with. Most important one (about the Thoughtseize as a Wish target):
What if you cannot afford to pay the life, but do need to remove that Flusterstorm? And will you ever board in the Thoughtseize? Not against D&T or Maverick, because you'll be boarding bounce and removal. Not against Tempo or Control, because you need it as a Wish target. Only maybe against discard decks to remove Hymn to Tourach. Why not make that slot a Duress? Serves the exact same purpose, and doesn't cost life.Quote:
Originally Posted by vercadium
A small remark: The multi-EtW-idea isn't based on the decline of Stifle, but on the increased amount of SB hate in Form of Flusterstorm, Envelope, Hatebears etc. which you all may race/make obsolete with EtW being cast T1/T2. I don't believe that some 1-/2-offs being usually boarded against the Goblins are THAT big concerns in regards to our (flashback-)discard and the fact, that opponents prefer other cards in their starting grip than a solution to our plan B
In regards to the known calculation, that more peek-effects make Therapy better, I wanted to try out the ANT suit of discard, as it is plain better to handle variable hate (discard + Counter, discard + hatebear, Counter + hatebear) than Silence was able to do. You can even add the facts that the trend to leave the Leylines at home which S&T players started and the decline of Stifle may support the idea to test that Layout. You can take your first Paragraph and phazenmutants quote in the regards of TS over Silence as well.
TP is a narrow option, no doubt. Having the Edge in matchups where speed seriously matters could be worth that SB slot.
It's not such a big deal for AN if you either play 2 or 3 Moxen math-wise; it's however a big Problem, having to mulligan because of crappy hands without land, seeing your only land wasted/stifled in the previous Tempo-meta, or having Moxen in your starting grip (especially after a mulligan). I gave it a try and it never disappointed me in all the time. With the next meta-switch on the horizon, the return of the 3rd Mox is acceptable as it plays well with the suggested Multi-EtW-plan.
For the SB, I agree that tempo, S&T and not to forget, Miracles, are bad matchups. Carpets are good against Miracles and Tempo, but I think the Multi-EtW's are also fine against Miracles (they are forced to topdeck a 3-off or find EE) as well as against Tempo while working amazing with the 4 MD Therapies which most of us seem to agree on. You may want to observe mtgTop8.com in regards to the SB hate of other decks: Leyline vanished from top-performing Sideboards and therefore I would reconsider the roles of Xantid + CoV in your SB
Quick question, seems like ANT still is able to put up solid results but still subject to the same vulnerabilities. Just a numbers game?
Discard is pretty bloody good atm. ANT packs a crapton of it, 7 or so pieces including 3-4 Cabal Therapies with Probe backup. It can play the long game better partly due to stronger cantrips. It's not that surprising that ANT would fare better.Quote:
Originally Posted by davelin
Hmm...I'm not sure I'm convinced. We're talking about how esp post-SB games other decks are attacking us on multiple axes (counters, discard, hatebears, etc.), I'm not sure how the above helps ANT against this disruption more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie
TES is a tad harder to play optimally than ANT.
So it's less popular with the masses, and the masses perform worse with it.
This counts even more for Doomsday Tendrils.
Proving one is better than the other is almost impossible.
Concerning the BoM results: numbers game + the fact that ANT is more resistant to mana-denial.Quote:
Originally Posted by davelin
Played against Painter, Miracles, UWR Delver , D&T and Esperblade exclusively that weekend
Tbh, Silence does shit against the combination of Counter + hatebear or counter + discard (all 3 in terms of Esperblade). Therefore the idea to test without Silence as long as hate is so diverseQuote:
Originally Posted by davelin
As long as Leyline is sitting on the side lines, Thoughtseize is much better than Silence because of the mana efficiency of the card; I don't really think it being worse to Diminishing Returns after is that big of a deal because you rarely kill with Diminishing Returns vs anything blue anyway.
If you remove Silence, it probably makes sense to change up the manabase as well and get some more fetches in there.
Ofcourse you SB in Thoughtseize vs D&T and Maverick, why would you want a 2(3) mana re-active answer to Thalia as opposed to a 1 mana pro-active answer to Thalia? Duress does not serve the same purpose as Thoughtseize because Duress does not discard creatures, I can not tell you how many games I have Duressed vs Miracles, seen a Vendillion Clique and then picked up my cards and went home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Asthereal
If it's your only sideboard discard spell, you won't side it in anyway against Miracles.
And I would max out on removal against D&T/Maverick to have a better chance to find it.
I don't really like to lose against a resolved Canonist, and even Thalia can be killed by Decay.
Remember the suggestion was to play 4x Therapy main, so we have our discard already.
Do you often Wish for a Thoughtseize to remove a Clique? I never had to do that in 5 years of storming.
I already did iny example-list on the last page, replacing the Cities with a Trop (none in the board) and the 4th fetch. I had 3 Chrome Moxen in that list which could be replaced by the 3 Carpets in the SB for the blue-matchupsQuote:
Originally Posted by HammafistRoob
@sideboard-discard
Wishing for discard to get rid of Thalia is rare, as it requires you to burn either a Petal or a RoF to do so and therefore I would step back from that if possible. I indeed think that a Duress could do the trick in the SB
Another compromise that some may go for here is to play duress for game one (like most ANT lists) and then side those out for better cards G2. This lets us cut white for the consistency %s and then actually have cards to side out for removal/thoughtseize without making our deck slower.
IE:
MD discard:
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Duress
average SB:
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
Boarding VS DNT:
-3 duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Chain of vapor
OPEN QUESTION:
Do you side in a CoV or AD against UWr Delver in G2/G3 because they have 4x meddling mage?
Or do you just side in tendrils to increase the chance you can play around what they name?
That just seems so wrong, to play suboptimal cards just to have cards to sb after g1...Quote:
Originally Posted by BrettF
Top 4'd a small FTV:20 event today. I played the list on the opening post, I feel that it's pretty damn close to where we want it to be. I'm just wondering if the Thoughtseize in the sideboard should be another Chain of Vapor.
I beat:
Merfolk 2-0
Mono-Black Discard 2-0
Sneak Show 2-0 (Had Leylines - Xantid didn't care)
UR Delver 2-0
Lost to:
RUG 0-2
I mulliganed game one into a hand with three lands and when he killed me I still had three lands in my hand. FLOOD.
In the second game he managed to get me too low to reliably Ad Nauseam when I open handed it.
Nice Job!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant Cook
I am in the same spot as you for the maindeck. 4 Therapy has been treating me really nice. I am still running 3 Decay side, with no carpets. How have the carpets been so far? I haven't really tested them much. Worth cutting down to 1 Chain, and 2 decay?
Decay won't be going back up to three unless Miracles becomes a heavily played deck again. It's a card I rarely want but is just necessary to have. Carpet has been fine, I just wish there was more sideboard room.Quote:
Originally Posted by Technics