[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

Played a list very close to Inaki's (great work, btw, really enjoyed Google-reading the article!) in our weekly mini-tournament yesterday.
List:

4 Delta
4 Misty
2 Sea
1 Volc
1 Trop
2 Island
1 Swamp

4 DRit
4 CRit
4 Petal
4 LED

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe

4 Duress
4 Therapy

4 Infernal
2 Grim
1 Tendrils
1 AdN
1 PiF

SB:
4 Dread of Night
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Bayou

Round one beat Cascade Bant,

G1 he plays Top but I empty his hand of blue cards with a ton of discard before having to go for AdN. I brick on fast mana until I'm down to two life (finally finding the second CRit), can't find an LED and topdeck a land next turn, keeping me from getting hellbent (kept one of AdN because I was mana-light). Luckily all he has for pressure is a SFM and I Past in Flames him next turn.
G2 He has turn 2 Counterbalance but no Top and after running a few spells into blind CB flips I finally have him with a Top on Top (just cracked a Fetch into it) and no cards in hand. Cabal Ritual, LED and Infernal Tutor get there.

Round two against UW Tempo
G1 I win after he Forces a post-Probe Therapy leaving him without any other interaction (I have the Duress anyway) and I Brainstorm without a shuffle effect to hit any tutor to instant win. Natural Storm with a bunch of Probes, cantrips and Rituals into Grim Tutor.
G2 He has turn one Delver which doesn't flip for a turn. I drop Xantid on turn 2 to avoid Daze and he flips his Delver with a Stifle (obv...). Given that I'm not missing any landdrops and shuffled away Dark Ritual plus Infernal Tutor with my last Brainstorm, the god-hand gets there. I take out the Stifle with a Swarm-attack, crack a fetch afterwards, Duress his last relevant card and win with two Rituals, LED, Pif and Infernal in hand.

Round three against Merfolk
G1 I can go for a relatively safe turn two AdN but decide to wait because I have Duress, Therapy and the means to win with PiF a turn or two later and hey, what could he do? He drops Standstill... Two turns later my Duress gets stopped, Therapy resolves and shows a hand full of lands. PiF it is.
G2 He forces my first two swarms and puts on a sizable clock, leaving me at six the turn I can win with Grim Tutor->Pif. 1 life short.
G3 I have a solid though land-heavy hand but no protection. He drops turn 3 Chalice @1 and a Tormod's Crypt. Seeing as I won't get to cast any more protection, I go for Petal, Infernal, LED Dark Ritual (countered by Chalice) Empty the Warrens. He has Master of the Pearl Trident, Mutavault and Vials in another Lord when I attack so he only takes seven. From there on out he drops another Chalice on 0 but doesn't draw any more pressure. I make landdrops and stockpile cards, including an Infernal for a Lotus Petal. When he taps out the turn after that for Chalice @2 both he and the onlookers start saying "man, if you still win that, that'd be the sickest." I casually attack him to 8, cast my five spells into the Chalices and kill him with the natural Tendrils through FoW.

Round four against Punishing Maverick.
G1: I win the roll and kill him on turn two with AdN after he plays a Mom. Could have waited for the turn 3 PiF but didn't want to risk Thalia.
G2: I keep a really weak hand (lands, acceleration, ETruth, Dread of Night) on the logic that the only relevant thing he does is hatebears and the anti-hate should allow me to just topdeck business at some point and win. Dread of Night ends up killing a Mindcensor and a Mom, Teeg gets ETruthed and I kill him with Rituals, tutor and in hand IGG.

As to the list, I didn't have ADs yet, but seeing the Swarms in Inaki's list made me really want to play those again and they were quite brutal. Definitely worth the splash until I get ADs.
I wouldn't want to miss EtW any more, the card just wins so many games at random. I'm actually contemplating just cutting AdN for it (both fill the same roll of "doing something with random early LED hands") but first game people have a ton more removal in so I'm dubious. Postboard I board Empty against most decks in place of the AdN (exceptions include Nic Fit, clockless blue control-decks and Maverick) - that card is just too random and pretty bad postboard against any form of clock plus SB hate.
The sweet thing about Dread of Night is that it allows you to beat those random non-Legendary hatebear plus Mom hands that you'd otherwise have trouble with and setting up dubs isn't really that hard if you can't find another answer for Teeg or Canonist.
IGG feels like it isn't really necessary, but maybe that's just me.
SB Bayou: I love boarding in extra lands against Wasteland-softcounter decks and this casts turn 1 Duress, turn 2 Swarm. Not playing it maindeck because non-blue sources suck to draw.

tl;dr: Deck is insane, need to get Abrupt Decays.

/edit: remembered that I semi-bricked of off AdN R1G1

I finally manage to pick up one Grim tutor, and people are saying two is good also!

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Originally Posted by Tammit67

I finally manage to pick up one Grim tutor, and people are saying two is good also!

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You shouldn't have started testing the list in my article back in spring - then you wouldn't need Grim Tutors now ;p

On a more serious note, the two tutors are good when you want to win rather early (there's a reason I always had a second in the board) but the deck works fine with only one. I still generally board one of them out against decks where I bring in the Swarms and plan to play a long game (basically all blue control/aggro-control decks), keeping a few Probes in the deck. Knowing the opponents hand is just that good.

All that being said, I'm going with the two Grim, eight discard set up for the foreseeable future. Just felt perfect in every game I've played with the list so far. I made the switch after seeing Inaki's list and realizing that a lot of my boarding included getting rid of the Preordains for space reasons anyway and the deck kept working fine with two less cantrips postboard.

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

I don't like it with Dark Confidant and i don't like it while having additional 2-3 4CC storm spells in, that leaves me with mirror+other combo and some on play SB scenarios when Bobs are not good.

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You're misbuilding your sideboard if dark confidant is in there right now. Card doesn't cut it against RUG, miracles, or much of anything right now. I absolutely adore bob and wish I had an excuse to play him but right now there is no reason for bob to be in the sideboard.

Yeah I was wondering why you didn't have abrupt decay in your board Mon but that answers that. True highrollers own $175 dollar cards but not 8 dollar cards :wink:

Overall nice report though, liked the game with chalices at 0, 1, and 2. That was great.

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Originally Posted by aaronm678

What decks is Bob even good enough to bring in? Not RUG, miracles, or maverick certainly. I like Bob as much as anyone, but it's pretty hard to justify playing in a meta where Stoneblade and BUG aren't really things anymore.

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You have different meta... 0 miracles in mine, Stoneblade present, Threshold quantity~UBG tempo... and Bob vs. Maverick is excellent


@Mon
nice report, I'm personally not a big fan of G lands MD as you give unnecessary information and logically indicates Xantid Swarm to most opponents that do not follow Storm (AD) development

The decklist seems weaker to Canadian Threshold, Don't you miss second ToA in SB?

ad EtW - I also follow EtW>AdN G2 approach and was using a one-of BW, just for the EtW option when AdN is too risky, to enable double Tendrils and to have outs in improbable G1 situations, the sad necessity of AdN inclusion are the all-black hands deck sometimes provides and 1(2)turn window luxury you can't always afford & the card is cool ;)

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

You have different meta... 0 miracles in mine, Stoneblade present, Threshold quantity~UBG tempo... and Bob vs. Maverick is excellent


@Mon
nice report, I'm personally not a big fan of G lands MD as you give unnecessary information and logically indicates Xantid Swarm to most opponents that do not follow Storm (AD) development

The decklist seems weaker to Canadian Threshold, Don't you miss second ToA in SB?

ad EtW - I also follow EtW>AdN G2 approach and was using a one-of BW, just for the EtW option when AdN is too risky, to enable double Tendrils and to have outs in improbable G1 situations, the sad necessity of AdN inclusion are the all-black hands deck sometimes provides and 1(2)turn window luxury you can't always afford & the card is cool ;)

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Green lands MD: It's a single Trop. How often are you honestly gonna see it game 1? I think the possible info for the opponent is much less valuable than the additional SB slot (only a single green source sucks with Swarms because in contrast to the single R for PiF you need to get it early and might need to cast multiple Swarms).

Weaker to Canadian than what? I'm used to playing less discard effects and no Swarms and still being slightly favored against RUG preboard and about even postboard.
I never understood the additional Tendrils anyway, least of all against Canadian. EtW is about a million times better against them than trying to natural Tendrils them twice and the whole "get them to counter my stuff then Tendrils" plan has never really worked for me against capable opponents (either I rip their hand to shreds with discard and win with whatever or they counter my mana while Delver does me in). What am I missing?

I played with the idea of running a single Wish so as to get access to Virtue's Ruin MD against Maverick and have additional bonus options (I ran SB Grim Tutor and 4th Therapy anyway). I think ignoring that psychological crutch and just running the most consistent MD possible with enough room for hate in the board is just better, though.
As for AdN, it probably is a sad necessity for exactly the reasons you mention.

@Carsten - What do you propose as a sideboard once Abrupt Decay is included?

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Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief

Green lands MD: It's a single Trop. How often are you honestly gonna see it game 1? I think the possible info for the opponent is much less valuable than the additional SB slot (only a single green source sucks with Swarms because in contrast to the single R for PiF you need to get it early and might need to cast multiple Swarms).

Weaker to Canadian than what? I'm used to playing less discard effects and no Swarms and still being slightly favored against RUG preboard and about even postboard.
I never understood the additional Tendrils anyway, least of all against Canadian. EtW is about a million times better against them than trying to natural Tendrils them twice and the whole "get them to counter my stuff then Tendrils" plan has never really worked for me against capable opponents (either I rip their hand to shreds with discard and win with whatever or they counter my mana while Delver does me in). What am I missing?

I played with the idea of running a single Wish so as to get access to Virtue's Ruin MD against Maverick and have additional bonus options (I ran SB Grim Tutor and 4th Therapy anyway). I think ignoring that psychological crutch and just running the most consistent MD possible with enough room for hate in the board is just better, though.
As for AdN, it probably is a sad necessity for exactly the reasons you mention.

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As I go through the list again I'm more surprised it's not a Bayou, well I'm not into that all-island thing and would not feel comfortable with just 2 reliably fetchable B and the "just island" hands

simple - to have it in hand, playing previous BW list I found ToA my no.1 wish target (not counting ftw), maybe it's just play style +my 2 PiF list merit; EtW is great but sometimes vs. flipped delver+reach not that much, just sayin'; I dislike Grim tutor vs. threshold but understand your consistency reasons, used to play it too... surely best is which works for you

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Originally Posted by Koby

@Carsten - What do you propose as a sideboard once Abrupt Decay is included?

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Probably this:

4 Dread of Night
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Decay
2 CoV
1 Bayou
1 EtW

I'd like the third CoV but I don't want to cut anything else (might go to 3 DoN, 3 CoV after some more testing). If Reanimator and Dredge come out of the woodwork I'll have to figure out how to make room for a few Crypts or Karakas but for the moment I feel ok just relying on Xantid a lot to blank GriselB against Reanimator and hope to race Dredge.

@Sloshthedark: We seem to be playing this deck very differently. I hate having Tendrils in hand. I'll have to experiment with a playstyle closer to yours to learn how to adopt it at will, might help eek out games I can't win with my usual preferences. Second PiF obviously helps with the draw Tendrils plan, too.
As for the Bayou, there are two Seas and a Swamp, which seems like enough B sources, usually. Almost any hand without blue is a mulligan imo, so I want to have an absolute minimum of non-blue lands. I'm fine with the SB Bayou because its a 16th land or comes in for the Swamp.

@Carsten: Congrats for the tournament. I'm glad to hear you are storming again. I' d rather found IGG was also kinda underwhelming and I'd rahter drop it. But IGG is super sweet in a n aggro enviroment. Also it is a lot better than PiF when you board Cages in, nevertheless this is kinda corner case for some reasons, first is taht when you baord cage in (I mean when I board cages in) is because it s going to win the game by itself giving you enough time to multi tutor chain or ADN (the decks that need tha cage be baorded won't really hurt me much until they do their thing). Furthermore I found that even aggro decks are playing some traps in the board, which makes IGG even weaker. Therefore I think I may give a chance to any other card in the side. But Warrens feels like too narrow, I will side it any time against RUG, but nothing else, I rally don't think it is bonkers against any other deck. Sepcially because I will keep all 3, Tendrils, ADN and PiF, when siding Warrens in, so the natural change will be Grimm Tutor <--> Empty the Warrens, but even this change makes the plan weaker because with Warrens in the deck, the more tutors the better so you can cast it really early. Still not sure, but have to think about it.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S. In addition, I'm not a big fan of Dread of night. They are almost auto win against G/W but the decreasing number of those in conjunction with reanimator being a major threat that should be solved I'd rahter use those hate slots for grave hate (I don't really think dredge is a big deal, so yes I'm usinghappily 7-8 sideboard slots against reanimator, the match is so unbalanced...). If you are worried agasint G/W too just splash some Karakas in the board as hybrid hate (and when siding treat them always as spells.

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Originally Posted by egosum

@Carsten: Congrats for the tournament. I'm glad to hear you are storming again. I' d rather found IGG was also kinda underwhelming and I'd rahter drop it. But IGG is super sweet in a n aggro enviroment. Also it is a lot better than PiF when you board Cages in, nevertheless this is kinda corner case for some reasons, first is taht when you baord cage in (I mean when I board cages in) is because it s going to win the game by itself giving you enough time to multi tutor chain or ADN (the decks that need tha cage be baorded won't really hurt me much until they do their thing). Furthermore I found that even aggro decks are playing some traps in the board, which makes IGG even weaker. Therefore I think I may give a chance to any other card in the side. But Warrens feels like too narrow, I will side it any time against RUG, but nothing else, I rally don't think it is bonkers against any other deck. Sepcially because I will keep all 3, Tendrils, ADN and PiF, when siding Warrens in, so the natural change will be Grimm Tutor <--> Empty the Warrens, but even this change makes the plan weaker because with Warrens in the deck, the more tutors the better so you can cast it really early. Still not sure, but have to think about it.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S. In addition, I'm not a big fan of Dread of night. They are almost auto win against G/W but the decreasing number of those in conjunction with reanimator being a major threat that should be solved I'd rahter use those hate slots for grave hate (I don't really think dredge is a big deal, so yes I'm usinghappily 7-8 sideboard slots against reanimator, the match is so unbalanced...). If you are worried agasint G/W too just splash some Karakas in the board as hybrid hate (and when siding treat them always as spells.

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Second the karakas idea. The card is actually insanely good, at least infinitely better than DoN in storm sideboards. I put 3 in my sideboard and haven't looked back. The card has so much utility unlike DoN. Against reanimator I singlehandedly beat them because I played karakas directly after he reanimated griselbrand. If griselbrand draws him seven cards a turn I'm almost certainly not winning that game.

Dark confidant against maverick? That matchup is easy as soon as you include karakas + virtue's ruin. If you lose that matchup with this sideboard I would be amazed:

4 Abrupt Decay
1 Trop
1 Bayou
3 Karakas
3 Virtue's Ruin
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Tendrils

The matchup becomes a cakewalk when you get to board in 12 cards +2 lands for AD. You'd have to punt pretty hard to lose against maverick with this sideboard. Not to mention the only card that is relegated to just maverick + the odd fringe decks you might come across is virtue's ruin. Chain of vapor is a solid card. Abrupt decay answer CB, and that card gives me headaches when it's in play. Karakas is good against anything relying on legends to win outside of clique.

For what match-ups are you guys boarding Chain of Vapor? I haven't come across anything Abrupt Decay doesn't take care of, so I cut them for Inquisition of Kozilek so I would have something to bring in against Canadian Thresh.

Edit- I suppose Leyline of Sanctity is a solid target. Anything else i forgot?

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Originally Posted by BKclassic

Edit- I suppose Leyline of Sanctity is a solid target. Anything else i forgot?

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That's pretty much it off the top of my head, outside Iona or something similar.

Chain of Vapor is a good way to generate storm against Discard heavy decks.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

4 Abrupt Decay
1 Trop
1 Bayou
3 Karakas
3 Virtue's Ruin
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Tendrils

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I'm on a very similar sb right now, except I prefer pyroclasm over virtues ruin (slightly less narrow, makes some random matchups impossible to lose), and I haven't really found a need for chain anymore.

My sb is 1 trop, 3 pyroclasm, 3 karakas, 3 abrupt decay, 4 thoughtseize, 1 c mox, and I have 16 md land, one is a trop.

Clasm doesn't actually kill hate bears against Maverick. Part of the reason you can afford to pay 3-4 for Virtue's Ruin is that they won't crack back after you tap down. If they still have a Knight or, worse, have Mom protecting a hatebear, you're in for a very bad time. Clasm isn't really necessary in other matchups. You don't need or want it vs goblins. You don't need or want it vs elves. It's pretty worthless vs Dredge.

I don't have an issue with natural tendrils from hand. Between Snapcaster Mage, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Therapy, and Gitaxian Probe, I find I always can Tendrils my opponent out without a separate storm engine should I draw my Tendrils. This is particularly true against RUG. If you are finding yourself beginning the combo turn without 6-8 cards in hand, you probably fucked up during the setup portion of the game (e.g. running out that Therapy or Duress several turns pre-combo).

Dark Confidant is extremely weak against Maverick. You don't want to burn acceleration on it. It can't even reliably kill things you care about in combat (they're unlikely to walk their Teeg into it, and everything else likely to attack in their deck kills it while surviving. It takes 2 upkeeps to gain card advantage. These are turns that you give them (while waiting for a profit) that they are clocking you or playing lock pieces.

Dark Confidant has no place in Legacy storm right now. The discard decks back Abrupt Decay and/or and/or Pulse and/or Deed and/or Vindicate and/or EE and those cards are all fine against us anyway (so unlikely to side out and unlikely to generate advantage). The aggro-control decks play burn (that they won't side out) or the bgw stuff (that also won't be sided out). You might have a case against UW w/CB, except where they don't actually have enough cards to side out their stps and ignoring the fact that abrupt decay is all you actually need against UW. The combo mirror might theoretically be the place where Dark Confidant is good, except that everyone plays Duress/Seize + Therapy now, so Snapcaster Mage is, in fact, much better value (keeps parity immediately, is likely to gain 1 or 2 immediately via Therapy or Duress; could even attack if you feel the need).

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Originally Posted by emidln

Clasm doesn't actually kill hate bears against Maverick. Part of the reason you can afford to pay 3-4 for Virtue's Ruin is that they won't crack back after you tap down. If they still have a Knight or, worse, have Mom protecting a hatebear, you're in for a very bad time. Clasm isn't really necessary in other matchups. You don't need or want it vs goblins. You don't need or want it vs elves. It's pretty worthless vs Dredge.

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Honestly, part of the reason it's Pyroclasm > Virtue's Ruin for me is because SB I have 12 cards that come in against Maverick. Yes, in theory Mother of Runes + Hate bear causes a problem, but in practice that is pretty trivial to prevent the game from getting to that state. If the game does get to that state, all of Maverick's hate bears are legendary, and I run 3 Karakas + Instant speed removal spells to hit a protected hate bear. And we must be playing the matchup very differently if Knight of the Reliquary is causing you problems. It's possible this is because Pyroclasm comes down a turn earlier, but I don't think I've ever really wished that clasm could kill Knight, though. It does kill Ooze, though, which isn't irrelevant.

Elves more often than not has Teeg, and it's pretty nice being able to bring in a removal spell for it that will also buy you 10 turns against them. This matchup doesn't really need much help, but it is definitely loseable, and it's a very popular deck. It's also pretty difficult to lose any game against Merfolk where it resolves. I don't even bring it in against Dredge, but there are random creature decks (Zombies, Affinity, etc). Again, this deck doesn't really need help against those matchups, but it is nice being able to bring in a card that they typically can't ever beat, particularly when I'm not even convinced Virtue's Ruin is better against Maverick in the first place.

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Originally Posted by BKclassic

For what match-ups are you guys boarding Chain of Vapor? I haven't come across anything Abrupt Decay doesn't take care of, so I cut them for Inquisition of Kozilek so I would have something to bring in against Canadian Thresh.

Edit- I suppose Leyline of Sanctity is a solid target. Anything else i forgot?

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Chain of vapor is simply the best bouncer/anti hate card for Storm decks, specially those ANT incarnations playing Cabal Ritual. It provides Storm, it provides Threshold and it gets rid of a given hate card.

In the following article I have my sideboard plan, it may itnerest you as an answer because I'm playing 3x Chain of Vapor in my current board. http://manainfinito.com/articulos/ma...ki-puigdollers

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

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Originally Posted by aaronm678

Honestly, part of the reason it's Pyroclasm > Virtue's Ruin for me is because SB I have 12 cards that come in against Maverick. Yes, in theory Mother of Runes + Hate bear causes a problem, but in practice that is pretty trivial to prevent the game from getting to that state. If the game does get to that state, all of Maverick's hate bears are legendary, and I run 3 Karakas + Instant speed removal spells to hit a protected hate bear. And we must be playing the matchup very differently if Knight of the Reliquary is causing you problems. It's possible this is because Pyroclasm comes down a turn earlier, but I don't think I've ever really wished that clasm could kill Knight, though. It does kill Ooze, though, which isn't irrelevant.

Elves more often than not has Teeg, and it's pretty nice being able to bring in a removal spell for it that will also buy you 10 turns against them. This matchup doesn't really need much help, but it is definitely loseable, and it's a very popular deck. It's also pretty difficult to lose any game against Merfolk where it resolves. I don't even bring it in against Dredge, but there are random creature decks (Zombies, Affinity, etc). Again, this deck doesn't really need help against those matchups, but it is nice being able to bring in a card that they typically can't ever beat, particularly when I'm not even convinced Virtue's Ruin is better against Maverick in the first place.

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Ummm, I still have 14 cards to bring in against maverick if I feel the need for ALL the abrupt decay's. As for mother into hatebear, that is indeed a thing. I have lost games because my only out to a resolved hatebear is wish -> pyroclasm and that doesn't work because they have mom to protect their hatebear. I'd rather just wipe their board of all the relevant things, and KotR is in fact relevant against us when they fetch bojuka bog in response to past in flames to blow us out of the water.

Chain of vapor is an incredibly flexible card and it answers everything abrupt decay does except CB. It's also is a storm engine by itself when you have multiple artifacts to bounce with it, and I am quite fond of making that play and that play has won me games where it was otherwise unwinnable without CoV providing storm. Here are some of the cards it hits:

platinum angel/emperion
iona
griselbrand
almost any fatty out of reanimator
leyline of sanctity/the void
hatebears when they don't have mom
anything not named countermagic/the tabernacle at pendrell vale (the only relevant land against us if we do go for EtW the other being rishadan port)

Sure some of these aren't the most relevant or get bounced by other things like karakas, but chain has pulled its weight for me.

Natural tendrils from hand is quite nice when the opponent uses countermagic against you on the combo turn. I know I love it when I match my 8 cards to my opponents 7 or less cards, as you're almost a lock to win if they lack stifle or you can make them discard it. Snapcaster giving 3 storm is also great when you flashback probe and therapy after resolving snapcaster otherwise it grants 2 storm if they use countermagic on it. Either play is a win win for you unless you needed snapcaster to continue the spell chain.

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Originally Posted by egosum

Chain of vapor is simply the best bouncer/anti hate card for Storm decks, specially those ANT incarnations playing Cabal Ritual. It provides Storm, it provides Threshold (thanks to destroying your own lands) and it gets rid of a given hate card.

In the following article I have my sideboard plan, it may itnerest you as an answer because I'm playing 3x Chain of Vapor in my current board. http://manainfinito.com/articulos/ma...ki-puigdollers

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

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