[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

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.

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well I had Virtues Ruin in the SB for half a year and never - not once - wished for it, only time I used it was naturally drawn and won me the game obv. killing c2 KotR and Thalia somewhere in February =) ... on the other hand I used Pyroclasm more often (saved mi life vs. Elves and affinity few times), my problem with VR is not the effect (particularly, because I'm not comfortable with Ooze in my SB plan which could change) but the 3CC +1 with Thalia which is quite prohibitive and requires deck construction with more basics imho which I could not accept same as passing the turn after VR... so eot bounce, my trun pyroclasm ftw.

Dark Confidant btw. is completely fine, they need to keep stupid hands with T2 havebear, Dark confidant enables land drops and chips off life total so Toa from hand, CoV Toa, Double Toa is not a problem, with this plan you do not kill them on your T3 but turn X before you die...

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

well I had Virtues Ruin in the SB for half a year and never - not once - wished for it, only time I used it was naturally drawn and won me the game obv. killing c2 KotR and Thalia somewhere in February =) ... on the other hand I used Pyroclasm more often (saved mi life vs. Elves and affinity few times), my problem with VR is not the effect (particularly, because I'm not comfortable with Ooze in my SB plan which could change) but the 3CC +1 with Thalia which is quite prohibitive and requires deck construction with more basics imho which I could not accept same as passing the turn after VR... so eot bounce, my trun pyroclasm ftw.

Dark Confidant btw. is completely fine, they need to keep stupid hands with T2 havebear, Dark confidant enables land drops and chips off life total so Toa from hand, CoV Toa, Double Toa is not a problem, with this plan you do not kill them on your T3 but turn X before you die...

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Ummmm, you cannot win with gaddock teeg in play and playing through a thalia in play is almost impossible. Dark confidant won't be getting damage in for you against maverick, not when they're dropping dudes each turn typically as their deck is virtually all creatures + equipment + StP. Just an FYI if maverick keeps in StP against your confidant plan and they plow your confidant, congratulations you just got blown out most likely.

Burning wish is a terrible card and I suggest you cut it. I have no idea how you tolerate drawing that card, as it is actually just terrible in this deck. Once I switched from wish to snapcaster + grim I was a lot happier.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

Ummmm, you cannot win with gaddock teeg in play and playing through a thalia in play is almost impossible. Dark confidant won't be getting damage in for you against maverick, not when they're dropping dudes each turn typically as their deck is virtually all creatures + equipment + StP. Just an FYI if maverick keeps in StP against your confidant plan and they plow your confidant, congratulations you just got blown out most likely.

Burning wish is a terrible card and I suggest you cut it. I have no idea how you tolerate drawing that card, as it is actually just terrible in this deck. Once I switched from wish to snapcaster + grim I was a lot happier.

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Why? pyroclasm is ok, Thalia G1 is not impossible with either build / 1-2 hits is enough /maybe, haven't happened yet, only gutshot ;), still could have won through Thalia hitting 1 tutor in the game / yes it is yet I went the other way - from Snap back to BW and I will keep at least 1 just for the EtW

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SCG St.Louis - Quick Question: Why isn’t Storm more popular?

Caleb Durward
Because it’s not a rewarding deck. You can outplay your opponent and still lose to Thalia. With most combo decks you’re cantripping and stuff and you’re making these close decisions correctly and it ends up more powerful than people think because they’ve been playtesting with it wrong, so you do things they don’t expect and you take advantage of gaps in your opponent’s testing. But with Storm, it’s just too fragile. The hate cards are too good, even if you do everything right. Also Counterbalance is a tier 1 deck. It’s just not a good metagame for Storm.

Justin Uppal
It’s hard to play... unless you’re European.

=D

I did...ok at the SCG St. louis, 4-3-1, for top 64. Maindeck was the normal stuff + 4 duress, 4 probe, 3 cabal therapy, 2 grim tutor, 16 land, 0 snapcaster. My sb was something like 3 decay, 3 thoughtseize, bayou, 2 pyroclasm, 3 karakas, ill-gotten gains, 1 virtues ruin, 1 chain.

I played RUG (1-2), Reanimator (2-1), RUG (2-0), Nic Fit (2-0), Esper (1-2), RUG (2-0), Esper (1-2), ID.

Game 3 against the second esper deck, the hand I kept was 5 land, petal, brainstorm. I kept because the matchup is so grindy, and I was curious to see how the hand did in the matchup (we were out of top 8 at this point, so didn't particularly care how it ended). It ended up working out fine, as I was able to take my time on cantrips, and the hand came together fine, and it was nice to sit back and make land drops while they don't really do anything (ended up losing to a top-clique flip I wasn't prepared for), but I was curious on your guys' thoughts?

EDIT:

RE: ruin vs clasm, I'm just saying post board, we run so much removal it isn't that difficult to deal with Mom + hate bear (Preboard I lose to a Thalia whether or not they have Mom, so that's kind of irrelevant...if you're running Burning Wish and you're wishing for a removal spell, I would guess that Pyroclasm isn't what you want, but I really have no idea, I've played < 10 matches against Mav with BW in my deck). If they play a mother of runes, you should probably kill it before they untap with it, otherwise you're going to have to wait for 2 removal spells or a karakas. Yeah, it occasionally happens, imo, it's been way more relevant to have a board wipe that costs less and is a little less narrow. (for the record, I tried a mix at the tourney and never used either).

I wouldn't keep that hand. If you draw one more land in the 4-5 cards you see when you brainstorm, you're stuck with 4 even if you shuffle away two of them, and that seems like too little gas for my taste. I see your point, as mulliganing against a deck with both discard and counterspells is bad, but still, I'd rather take that chance.

On another note, I went 8-1 in a local 45ish-player tournament this weekend. Ran 4 therapy, 3 duress, 1 grim, 2 preordain, 0 wish build, with 2 tropicals and 7 fetches. Sb was 3 decay, 2 dread, 2 karakas, 3 swarm, 1 EtW, 1 cage, 1 spell pierce, 2 city of traitors.

The spell pierce is for faster combo, as I've really struggled against things like cephalid breakfast (yes, really) before, where they have so much redundancy that discard sometimes doesn't cut it. That said, it's probably not worth it. City of Traitors is against RUG, to be able to pay for spell pierce and daze a bit more. That I'm quite fond of, but I haven't tested enough postboard games to be sure.

Have the feeling dread of night is just better than karakas against maverick etc; especially when you have decay you want to kill mother of runes, and doing it "for free" is sweet. Might switch the spell pierce for a second cage at the same time to hedge against reanimator a bit (it's still very bad of a matchup).

I faced a rather strange bunch of decks: no RUG, maverick or miracles except in the finals which we split and didn't play. It went something like this:

Omnitell 2-0 (swarm off SnT)
Burn 0-2 (miscounted pre sb, lost to Pyrostatic Pillar post)
High Tide 2-1 (swarm was excellent)
RUG Cascade 2-0
UR Delver 2-1
UG Infect 2-1 (lost t2 first game after I had duressed a brainstorm and he topdecked glistener elf + invigorate to go with his berserk, won the third t1 on the draw. he wasn't terribly happy)
Death and Taxes 2-0 (beat a board of thalia, mother, canonist, rest in peace)
BUG Landstill 2-0 (swarm would have been fantastic had I drawn it)

@aaronm678 - on play I'd keep it (petal, BS, fetch makes it a decent mull 6 anyway), on draw never against this deck

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Originally Posted by Sloshthedark

@aaronm678 - on play I'd keep it (petal, BS, fetch makes it a decent mull 6 anyway), on draw never against this deck

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It was on the play, I forgot to mention that. I don't think you'd ever keep that on the draw, as you just lose to a duress.

Played a UBw ANT deck with a green splash in the board to a top-4 finish in the ~150 player side event of GP Lyon. Finals would have been against Merfolk. Might edit in an actual report.

R1: UBr ANT 2-0
R2: UW Delverblade 2-0
R3: Burn 2-1
R4: UWr Miracles 2-0
R5: BUG Delver 2-1
R6: MUD 1-2 (Messed it up myself)
R7: Dredge 2-1
R8: BUG 1-1 (He couldn't draw but took ages, so we drew anyways)

QF: RUG 2-1
SF: MUD 1-2 (I had a t1 kill g3 and he had nothing on the play. I drew spells I couldnt cast and had to discard in roughly 10 drawsteps that I had to win. Insane.)

I've bene playing locally and one matchup where I've been having difficulty is against the new breed of Deadguy/Junk decks with Liliana of the Veil. Her repeated discards backed by spot discard makes it very tricky to go off, and hard to maintain a sizeable hand. What strategies do people find to work best against such a deck? (Wasteland, Thoughtseize/Inquisition/Duress, Hymn, Sinkhole)

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

Played a UBw ANT deck with a green splash in the board to a top-4 finish in the ~150 player side event of GP Lyon.

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I'm really interested in your deck. Did you play Silence/Orim's Chant? No Past in Flames? What's the green splash for, Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm?

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Originally Posted by Koby

I've bene playing locally and one matchup where I've been having difficulty is against the new breed of Deadguy/Junk decks with Liliana of the Veil. Her repeated discards backed by spot discard makes it very tricky to go off, and hard to maintain a sizeable hand. What strategies do people find to work best against such a deck? (Wasteland, Thoughtseize/Inquisition/Duress, Hymn, Sinkhole)

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Against LD just play your fetchlands but don't crack them unless you need the mana.
For discard: Unless they have/had a fast clock, which most discard heavey decks don't, I always won against discard heavy decks via Past in Flames and playing my artifact fast mana before they can make me discard it.

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Originally Posted by dune2k

I'm really interested in your deck. Did you play Silence/Orim's Chant? No Past in Flames? What's the green splash for, Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm?

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I played 3 Chants, 2 Silence, 2 Therapy. IGG (<3) over PiF. Green was purely for Decays (although I had to play a terrible build with 1 Grip and a shockdual over Trop + 3rd decay because of not bringing all legacy stuff but it doesn't matter too much in the one matchup you want them for anyways).
I played Swarm, Carpet and Decay in the UBg version I 5-2'd legacy nationals with last week and that was fine too, but with white you can't really support the green against decks with wasteland.
The extra sideboard space also came in handy as I had Cage and 2 Extirpate against dredge and 2 Serenity against MUD (which I should have beaten in the swiss with better plays and in the top-4 if I had drawn a castable spell once..).

Iv been wanting to do some thing with Chants or Swarm my self. Last tornament I went to it felt like my discard affects where decent game 1 but game 2 it felt they weren't as good. Against blue anyways.
I played against a 12 post player who boarded in 4 Flusterstorm and 4 COTV. I also played against a High Tide player who boarded in flusterstorm. I found it really hard to keep them off there combo while dealing with there cantrips and counterspells.

What was your mana base like?

Is Infest not an option anymore vs Mavericks hatebears?
I know it's 3cc and sorcery speed, and 4cc Massacre doesn't pass through a Teeg, but it does sweep the entire pack of bears and doesn't bother about Mom's protection.

EDIT: Nice read Carsten & Iñaki

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Originally Posted by Spigore

Is Infest not an option anymore vs Mavericks hatebears?
I know it's 3cc and sorcery speed, and 4cc Massacre doesn't pass through a Teeg, but it does sweep the entire pack of bears and doesn't bother about Mom's protection.

EDIT: Nice read Carsten & Iñaki

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I suppose, you may never hit 4 lands to cast it through Thalia, considering their wastelands and stuff.

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Originally Posted by Spigore

Is Infest not an option anymore vs Mavericks hatebears?
I know it's 3cc and sorcery speed, and 4cc Massacre doesn't pass through a Teeg, but it does sweep the entire pack of bears and doesn't bother about Mom's protection.

EDIT: Nice read Carsten & Iñaki

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its still an option, but people are opting to use Virtues Ruin instead as it hits all the hate bears plus KOTR which is very relevant.

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Originally Posted by Koby

I've bene playing locally and one matchup where I've been having difficulty is against the new breed of Deadguy/Junk decks with Liliana of the Veil. Her repeated discards backed by spot discard makes it very tricky to go off, and hard to maintain a sizeable hand. What strategies do people find to work best against such a deck? (Wasteland, Thoughtseize/Inquisition/Duress, Hymn, Sinkhole)

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Snapcaster Mages.

Other cards that people don't play much that I find to be clutch are Sensei's Divining Top, Divert, and more lands in the sb. A 2nd Past in Flames would likely be helpful as well. Unfortunately, most of the strategies (outside of Divert) are pretty bad if they also have Deed or EE to sweep your artifacts. If they have Deed/EE + Hymns + Sinkholes, you might just accept that as a loss when they curve out perfectly (and beat them with Past in Flames or Ad Nauseam when they don't).

Thanks Spigore.

About Infest. I really never lked it for being both expensive and mana intensive. I will only consider it in an straight UB build with 3 Island 2 Swamps. And even in this case Virtue's Ruin is far better option.

On Virtue's Ruin it is quite expensive and you may have some troubles to cast it in time if you pretend to BW into it, while adding it to main is not a great idea for being a singleton and high cost, and lplayign multiples is even worse idea, if you want to do it so, you' d better think in a full set of Dread of night.

On Massacre, is a nice wish target, though you need extra answers for Gaddock.

I' d rather prefer pyroclasm for BWish build (TNT). For both cost and versatility, it can sweep a board full of goblins or merfolks buying you some precious time, it can eventually be a useful card against Belcher or a bad/desperate ANT/TNT/TES player, for cleansing EtW.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

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Originally Posted by emidln

Snapcaster Mages.

Other cards that people don't play much that I find to be clutch are Sensei's Divining Top, Divert, and more lands in the sb. A 2nd Past in Flames would likely be helpful as well. Unfortunately, most of the strategies (outside of Divert) are pretty bad if they also have Deed or EE to sweep your artifacts. If they have Deed/EE + Hymns + Sinkholes, you might just accept that as a loss when they curve out perfectly (and beat them with Past in Flames or Ad Nauseam when they don't).

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That was indeed the situation I faced. I incorrectly boarded out Ad Nauseam thinking I wouldn't manage to ever fire it off, then proceeded to generate 9 mana and have IT with hellbent. /punt/
The tactics you're suggesting sound more like DDFT rather than straight up ANT; which I can agree with for the former, but not the latter. Liliana of the Veil decks are a perfect storm of disruption against storm.

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Originally Posted by Koby

That was indeed the situation I faced. I incorrectly boarded out Ad Nauseam thinking I wouldn't manage to ever fire it off, then proceeded to generate 9 mana and have IT with hellbent. /punt/
The tactics you're suggesting sound more like DDFT rather than straight up ANT; which I can agree with for the former, but not the latter. Liliana of the Veil decks are a perfect storm of disruption against storm.

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I haven't had a ton of IRL matches recently, but the ones I've had have involved a lot of Liliana of the Veil decks. Unless the deck plays Deed/Null Rod/EE/Stony Silence and finds them, I simply do not care. They succumb to the exact same strategies that have destroyed black disruption decks for years: kill them turn 1 or run out your difficult to destroy mana sources and wait for a bomb.

If those strategies sound like DDFT strategies, it's because I've preached them to DDFT players who needed to beat black disruption decks. They aren't uniquely mine and the weren't developed for DDFT. SDT is a reasonable card in ANT and is extremely difficult to deal with for a discard deck. I already play extra lands in my ANT sideboard and they are awesome at making sure I can weather the wastelands and sinkholes with enough mana to cast cantrips and a bomb when I draw it. DD has the benefit of costing less than Ad Nauseam and having a Time Spiral pile that generates a ton of storm and doesn't care about the cards in my hand. Other than that, all of the advantages afforded to DD playing in this manner are available and enjoyed by ANT. You might not have SDT (which is a leg up), but developing lands to make the most of Brainstorm/Ponder into an eventual IT/AdN/PiF is still good.

I'm not saying specifically that I would play SDT right now, but if I was encountering a lot of black disruption decks, I'd consider playing a few SDTs (they also super awesome against RUG and UW).

I certainly remember those days back when MT was still legal and SDT provided a way to invest the mana to have MT provide an immediate effect. I may be blurring the lines between DD builds too (and to be fair, DDFT was a better performer in those days). I don't think the 4c ANT builds can afford to go that long against today's format with RUG/Legacy's Wasteland and W/x-Midrange's Thalia, which may hurt SDT's chances in ANT.

On the flip side, blue mages are often concerned about countering SDT in today's metagame were cantrips would go through unopposed. This could help.