[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

In order to do the IT/LED trick you have to pop the LED before you pass priority, so when your opponent has a chance to counter it you have 0 cards in hand. You cant drop IT, give your opponent a chance to counter, and THEN pop LED. You have to do both at once, and then give the other guy a chance to counter, meaning that if you IT and pop LED, your pact is in the graveyard, and you don't have any way to protect IT (assuming you haven't already duressed).

The ???? Profit thing is a Slashdot reference.

I dont know how many time I need to shout it.

PACT OF NEGATION ISNT LEDS FRIEND THEY HATE EACH OTHER.

Pact cannot protect "IT, sac LED" this is why its BAAAAAAD together.

I was high when I included that in my text but in playtesting I haven't actually done that. Disregard and carry on.

@ Brehn, stop being a troll.

@ Hanni, what I meant was Pact of Negation is 5cc if you plan on using Pact of Negation to protect Ad Nauseam EOT or you have to stop, pass, untap and win or you have to stop Counterbalance.

Pact of Negation doesn't protect Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond into Tendrils of Agony from Stifle, and it doesn't protect Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond into Ad Nauseam from counters. Just using discard to protect both Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond into Ad Nauseam from counters and Ad Nauseam into Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond -> Tendrils of Agony from Stifle is more efficient.

I never said Vexing Shusher was better than Krosan Grip, it doesn't even make sense to compare the two because Vexing Shusher and Krosan Grip are both green. I meant the aggregate of Empty the Warrens, Red Elemental Blast, Pyro Blast and Vexing Shusher were more valuable than the aggregate of Krosan Grip and Vexing Shusher

You need to be real, real concerned with Counterbalance, designing a combo deck that gold fishes over unprepared opponents isn't as important as designing a combo deck that can stand up to Threshold.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

@ Brehn, stop being a troll.

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I love you too.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

@ Hanni, what I meant was Pact of Negation is 5cc if you plan on using Pact of Negation to protect Ad Nauseam EOT or you have to stop, pass, untap and win or you have to stop Counterbalance.

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1. It's still not correct that Pact of Negation is "5cc" (i. e. "has a converted mana cost of 5")
2. Hanni never planned using Ad Nauseam EOT and has realized that

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Originally Posted by Hanni

Casting it on the opponent's end of turn invalidates Pact of Negation as protection.

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before you've posted your incorrect statement which "meant" something different than you've written.

Maybe the next time you could write what you "mean" to avoid such a confusion?

/troll

I tried the 4 Rite of Flame 4 REB list and it is just not as consistent as the 4 Cabal Ritual 4 Pact of Negation list.

I'd still run REB in the sideboard against decks running Counterbalance. The fetchland manabase should be able to consistently make R when you need it to postboard, but don't plan on casting double REB with any consistency.

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Originally Posted by Brehn

I love you too.



1. It's still not correct that Pact of Negation is "5cc" (i. e. "has a converted mana cost of 5")
2. Hanni never planned using Ad Nauseam EOT and has realized that

before you've posted your incorrect statement which "meant" something different than you've written.

Maybe the next time you could write what you "meant" to avoid such a confusion?

/troll

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Except using Ad Nauseam EOT does come up when you have storm and need mana, so Pact of Negation not being able to protect Ad Nauseam EOT for less than 5 mana on the following turn is relevant, and not being able to stop, pass and untap for less than 5 mana is the main point. Excuse me for giving people enough credit to figure out I was referencing the upkeep instead of the actual cc, I didn't think it'd be that hard to figure out you'd have to either pay for the card or die on the following turn when it's written into the text.

@Hanni, yeah Cabal Ritual is just better than Rite of Flame. I don't think Blasts are good in the main but that doesn't mean Pact of Negation belongs in the main either. I'd just run 4 Thought Seize and 4 Duress if you want 8 disruption pieces, discard seems like the way to go because Orim's Chant adding + W on the combo turn really gums up the works.

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I dont know how many time I need to shout it.

PACT OF NEGATION ISNT LEDS FRIEND THEY HATE EACH OTHER.

Pact cannot protect "IT, sac LED" this is why its BAAAAAAD together.

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Capslock is really annoying. Seriously. Just stop holding down shift when you type things. Your meaning doesn't come across any more clearly just because all your letters are capitalized, and if you're looking to add emphasis, bolding text or putting text in italics is a lot nicer both in connotation, and in physical form.

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Except using Ad Nauseam EOT does come up when you have storm and need mana, so Pact of Negation not being able to protect Ad Nauseam EOT for less than 5 mana on the following turn is relevant, and not being able to stop, pass and untap for less than 5 mana is the main point.

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I think the real reason not to use Pact is that it gets pitched when you go for IT/LED, which is still what any good AdN deck will be doing a % of the time. What I would like to see in these lists are more duress effects.

On a side note, what does everyone think of 4x Duress, and 4x Chant main? The chants might be easier on the lifetotals than thoughtsieze, and going with gold lands instead of fetches duals really shouldn't be a problem.

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You need to be real, real concerned with Counterbalance, designing a combo deck that gold fishes over unprepared opponents isn't as important as designing a combo deck that can stand up to Threshold.

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I probably haven't tested the Combo v. Threshold matchup enough to be able to claim this fully, but wouldn't 8 duress effects be enough to ensure counterbalance doesn't hit the table before you win? It seems as if this deck is fast enough to just win before they can resolve the card, barring the land top land counterbalance hand, and that should probably be solved by throwing duress effects at your opponent.

Although this is probably retarded, I just realized that the B/u version could actually run Counterbalance. The deck should be able to easily support UU with minor modifications.

Drop the IT/LED combo for 4 Top 4 Counterbalance, and voila. The deck is no longer as fast or as explosive, but the deck abuses Counterbalance with Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, and Top, and curves out almost perfectly for it.

B/U Counterbalance ANT

Lands (14)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island

Spells (46)
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Daze
4 Duress
1 Wipe Away
1 Tendrils of Agony

Honestly not sure right now whether it's any good... the abudance of 2cc stuff makes AdN a bit weaker, though the deck might be able to cut 1-2 AdN's, I dunno. The decklist is definitely interesting. Whether or not it's worth it or not is undetermined at this point.

At first I thought ad nauseum would be one of the few decks in legacy that could use pact of negation but as always any combo deck that uses LED can't really use pact effectively. I think a combination of therapy + duress/thoughtseize would probably be best because it works with LED, before and after ad-nauseum. I was also thinking of an off the wall idea of putting 4 birds of paradise and 4 orcish lumberjack in to accelerate the deck plus once they have served thier purpose you can sacrifice them to therapy, diabolic intent and culling the weak. I admit its strange but an idea all the same

Quote: Today, 05:56 PM
Pulp_Fiction
This message has been deleted by Pulp_Fiction. Reason: I will not post in threads where someone suggests Counterbalance in a combo deck

Is it just me or is this the wrong attitude when discussing ideas. I'll grant you that it might not be the most inspired thing anyone has suggested but how many times do crazy ideas end up doing something creative and interesting. Food chain in goblins, patriachs bidding in goblins, furnace dragon in affinity's sideboard. There have also been several cards people dismissed initially as unplayable like force of will and bazaar of baghdad. My point is that things are in a constant state of flux and you never know when a crazy idea will pan out:)

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Originally Posted by Hanni

Drop the IT/LED combo for 4 Top 4 Counterbalance, and voila. The deck is no longer as fast or as explosive, but the deck abuses Counterbalance with Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, and Top, and curves out almost perfectly for it.

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The reason CounterTop isn't run in combo lists is because it doesn't protect from Force of Will, not to mention that it has no clock. No clock other than a combo is weaker vs. their Counterbalance + their FoW + their clock.

as for a list, I do like the route you are going with this, but a few things:

-3 AdN
+3 Cunning Wish

I'd give that a try. Honestly, I would. Hitting Cunning Wish instead of AdN gives you 2 more life to work with each time, and is a valuable card AFTER you play AdN, whereas additional AdNs are absolutely dead cards, not to mention it gives you a bit of flexibility with fighting hate (for instance, you could grab a PoN from your sideboard instead of running them MD; Chant, Angel's Grace for when you NEED to win or for saving yourself for a turn from a Pact if you DO decide to run it, hell, you could even run a 1-of FoW in your SB just as a wish target). and you can wish EoT for AdN instead of Sorcery-Speed Tutoring for it. It's an instant also, which means you can leave go at the end of opponent's Turn Wish into it.
B/U Counterbalance ANT

Lands (15)
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
1 Island

Spells (45)
3 Chrome Mox
3 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Cunning Wish
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
1 Wipe Away
2 IGG
1 Tendrils of Agony

SB-15
1 AdN
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
2 Pyroblast
1 Extirpate
1 PoN
1 FoW
2 Shusher (?)
1 Echoing Truth
2x ???

The idea is that you can use AdN as a suprise factor/draw-4, using the IGG kill mostly. When graveyard hate is present, you can simply wish for AdM and go off that way. This has the feel of TES in my opinion in that it uses red accel. and wishes, as well as a Draw-4 (in this case, a draw-X). I suppose that you could put a D. Returns in the SB as well, but I don't know how that would be better than an AdN.

Maybe?

LMK how you see it.

I'm not saying that the Counterbalance route is good, I'm saying that it is interesting and probably deserves a little testing on my end.

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The reason CounterTop isn't run in combo lists is because it doesn't protect from Force of Will, not to mention that it has no clock. No clock other than a combo is weaker vs. their Counterbalance + their FoW + their clock.

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If I have Counterbalance out, Mystical Tutor putting AdN on top actually does stop an opponent's FoW.

Cunning Wish lacks synergy with Counterbalance, though. If I was going to run additional tutoring, it would be with Lim-Dul's Vault. Although Cunning Wish can be versatile, setting up the maindeck draw seems really strong. The lifeloss of LDV is still too restrictive to run alongside AdN, though.

The deck could even run 4 Tombstalker and 4 FoW postboard as a transformational sideboard. Between all of the fetchlands and accel, casting turn 2-3 Tombstalker's shouldn't be a problem. Just an idea. The deck can also run 4 LED 4 IT postboard to come out for Counterbalance and in against decks like Goblins and Dragon Stompy.

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I'm obviously not giving up on the B/U/r IT/LED build, as in testing that list has already proven to be very powerful. I am going to spend the next time I get to playtest on the Counterbalance version, though, just to see if it's worth it or not. At the very least it looks very fun.

I think I've just got there,

4 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Seize
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp

I know it looks retarded, but the idea is you use Brainstorm, Ponder and Serum Visions as one big engine to filter thru' your deck while either building Threshold for Cabal Ritual or stacking Ad Nauseam on top of your deck for Lion's Eye Diamond. You've got 0 outs against permanent based hate but you've got 8 discard spells for permanent based hate, so you just disrupt, draw, draw, draw and then go off.

It's rough, but you're about guaranteed to hit 3 land drops and Threshold on turn three and it's ridiculously consistent.

Two things:

1)Why are people so hellbent on not wanting to cast AdN on the opponents end step? In most cases this would be useful, you are playing up against decks either packing FoW or counterspells that actually cost them mana. Very few people are going to be able to CounterTop into FoW to stop you, and in nearly all cases, past turn 2-3, it's going to take a single ritual to power out.

2) Why are people advocating 4 LED's in a deck set to abuse a card drawing spell? There are two times in this counter infested meta that I'd ever be willing to crack LED:

1- I've ripped their hand of countermagic, or
2- I'm going to combo off in Ichorid (and even there I hate LED).

The deck doesn't need LED as an acceleration tool. You'll get plenty of use out of Petal, Moxen (either or), and rituals, LED is just asking for trouble on resolving critical spells. With the exception of Tendrils or AdN itself, everything in the deck is practically 0-2 mana, and a single AnD resolution should put you well above needed cards & mana to reach a lethal Tendrils.

I HATE the idea of playing >1 AdN in any deck. Why? It knocks 1/4 of your life down, and it's a dead draw. I'd rather tutor into it than anything. I can't see any way to go off with it EoT other than wishing into it. While that's possible, that requires 8 mana, and you aren't actually going off, you just used a draw-X to set up your win the NEXT turn.

BTW, you better have some sort of removal that's tutorable--Teeg pwns you.

IDK, I can't figure this out for the life of me...It seems useable, but I can't see a scenario atm outside of TES that it screams "My Milkshake and all that, wot wot".

Pce,

--DC

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Except using Ad Nauseam EOT does come up when you have storm and need mana, so Pact of Negation not being able to protect Ad Nauseam EOT for less than 5 mana on the following turn is relevant, and not being able to stop, pass and untap for less than 5 mana is the main point. Excuse me for giving people enough credit to figure out I was referencing the upkeep instead of the actual cc, I didn't think it'd be that hard to figure out you'd have to either pay for the card or die on the following turn when it's written into the text.

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Which is why I have been saying Angel's Grace MD.

me: EoT AdN (God. since when has MtG got so much abbreviation O.o).
opponent: counterspell
me: Pact of Negation.
me: Draw half my library because AdN is seriously broken. If lucky, play EtW?

Untap. Upkeep. Pact upkeep goes on tack. Cast Angel's Grace.
Swing with EtW token ftw or play the 30 or so cards in your hand? Or you could do both and put them at -40 life????

Just to clarify. Not saying Angel's Grace is a must. I just thought this scenario is pretty "cool".

If lucky = your opponent not noticing that EtW is a sorcery, then sure...

In other words, that won't work. Just wait until your 1st main phase to combo off.

I think Angel's Grace is a must. Somehow it just makes damn sense to draw your whole fucking library save one card for next turn's draw. If you are going to do it, do it like a combo player--all the fucking way.

Pce,

--DC

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Originally Posted by DeathwingZERO

Two things:

1)Why are people so hellbent on not wanting to cast AdN on the opponents end step? In most cases this would be useful, you are playing up against decks either packing FoW or counterspells that actually cost them mana. Very few people are going to be able to CounterTop into FoW to stop you, and in nearly all cases, past turn 2-3, it's going to take a single ritual to power out.

2) Why are people advocating 4 LED's in a deck set to abuse a card drawing spell? There are two times in this counter infested meta that I'd ever be willing to crack LED:

1- I've ripped their hand of countermagic, or
2- I'm going to combo off in Ichorid (and even there I hate LED).

The deck doesn't need LED as an acceleration tool. You'll get plenty of use out of Petal, Moxen (either or), and rituals, LED is just asking for trouble on resolving critical spells. With the exception of Tendrils or AdN itself, everything in the deck is practically 0-2 mana, and a single AnD resolution should put you well above needed cards & mana to reach a lethal Tendrils.

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1) Because casting Ad Nauseam EOT sacrifices all of the storm.
2) Because Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond into Ad Nauseam is the nuts and Ad Nauseam into Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond is convenient.

LOL @ AdN not needing LED, you obviously haven't played with this card, AdN needs LED like a junky needs a fix.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

1) Because casting Ad Nauseam EOT sacrifices all of the storm.
2) Because Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond into Ad Nauseam is the nuts and Ad Nauseam into Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond is convenient.

LOL @ AdN not needing LED, you obviously haven't played with this card, AdN needs LED like a junky needs a fix.

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1.) I find this laughable. I fail to see how drawing X spells off of one card during an EoT step sacrifices all of the storm.

2.) Seems true.

I'm not sure it needs it QUITE that bad, but...whatever. Its a little situational and dependant upon what you drew.

Pce,

--DC