[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by phazonmuant

I'm glad to see people posting statistics like this. Data is always useful, but not the most important thing.

- How did you feel about each matchup? Specifically, did you feel like you really had to struggle to win, despite the raw numbers looking good?
- What list did you play? 16-cantrip / Grim / Wish / other?
- Do you have any thoughts about individual card/sidboard choices?

I'm surprised you didn't see any Thresh at all. That's something I'm worried about for GP Denver.

---

This was the list I more-or-less used: http://www.mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=564728

I didn't feel very comfortable against UB/x decks since their discard was very potent and any number of soft counters and FOW meant I couldn't race to go off. When I did manage to go off fast, I was often hamstrung on mana - without Empty the Warrens it was hard to reach lethal storm or enough mana to go PIF route. That resulted in poor results vs FOW based decks. My win-rate vs those matches was 39% out of about 15-18 matches played. Many of these came from BUG Tempo builds and CB-Top based lists.

Xantid Swarm was fine vs BUG, but it didn't stop the Discard.
Liliana was tough to fight against from both fronts -- she could remove Xantid Swarm and keep up the discard pressure on the back pedal. Backed by cheap counters meant I couldn't go off reliably.
Surgical played against me never stopped me from going off directly. It was more of a nuisance and I was already behind when it did affect me.

Top + FOW is a hard battle. Xantid Swarm helps, but since those decks also play Counterbalance, you still need to find Abrupt Decay to be able to actually win.

Vendilion Clique is not fun to see, and caused many blow outs.

RUG Delver is much easier to deal with IMO - discard is very effective against them, and Xantid Swarm helps that out.
Discard + Counters is a much harder battle. That's even before considering DRS messing up Cabal Ritual enabling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Koby

This was the list I more-or-less used: http://www.mtgstats.com/Deck.aspx?DeckID=564728

I didn't feel very comfortable against UB/x decks since their discard was very potent and any number of soft counters and FOW meant I couldn't race to go off. When I did manage to go off fast, I was often hamstrung on mana - without Empty the Warrens it was hard to reach lethal storm or enough mana to go PIF route. That resulted in poor results vs FOW based decks. My win-rate vs those matches was 39% out of about 15-18 matches played. Many of these came from BUG Tempo builds and CB-Top based lists.

Xantid Swarm was fine vs BUG, but it didn't stop the Discard.
Liliana was tough to fight against from both fronts -- she could remove Xantid Swarm and keep up the discard pressure on the back pedal. Backed by cheap counters meant I couldn't go off reliably.
Surgical played against me never stopped me from going off directly. It was more of a nuisance and I was already behind when it did affect me.

Top + FOW is a hard battle. Xantid Swarm helps, but since those decks also play Counterbalance, you still need to find Abrupt Decay to be able to actually win.

Vendilion Clique is not fun to see, and caused many blow outs.

RUG Delver is much easier to deal with IMO - discard is very effective against them, and Xantid Swarm helps that out.
Discard + Counters is a much harder battle. That's even before considering DRS messing up Cabal Ritual enabling.

---

My list is very similar to yours now. I cut a grim as well(only playing 1 grim now) and have been playing with 2 chrome mox and one less discard. I have not found the decrease in tutors or disruption too big of a deal, I may board the 4th piece of discard. I wanted to try out autumn's veil(2x out of the board,unsure of if it is better than swarm) at my weekly but I did not run into blue decks. lost to junk and golem stax and then dropped and played some netrunner.

It is effectively a green silence except you can't " chant walk" them which I am willing to sacrifice to beat blue spells. Discard may still be a beating but AN should help that a bit, I could see maybe playing a D returns? but that is sketchy without wish.

edit: draw 4's, doomsday, and top, are all things that help beat discard but at that point you should just be playing doomsday.

Or just killing them on turn 1-2 (insert TES argument here).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cuthbertthecat

I played Prosak's 75, which for reference is

4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
4 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Gemstone Mine

4 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Carpet of Flowers
1 Karakas
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

I've 4-0'd the last 2 Legacy Dailies with his list, playing against bug twice, sneakshow twice, merfolk, reanimator, zoo, and pox. The deck feels very good, the extra cantrips help you play around discard by letting you float business on the top of your library more often and also make the deck operate very smoothly. The trade off is that you're about a turn slower protected, but that doesn't really matter against the decks you want protection against. The gemstone mines help splash both red and green, I was skeptical initially but they let you keep island+gemstone and cast your black spells unlike island+trop.

The sideboard isn't ideal, I think the 2 Slaughter Pact could become a second Karakas and a third Chain of Vapor. The Carpets are pretty sweet against BUG, they let you play around all of their soft permission and let you cast the business spells you topdeck. I've been boarding out lotus petals for them because the matchup is super attrition-y and a 1-mana boost isn't usually what you need to win the game.



I'm not sure either, but swarm is really good against U/W as well, it in conjunction with abrupt decay lets you stop the top floating force method they have of beating you and the counterbalance method they have of beating you. Its also good against reanimator, and for a tournament like a grand prix I would expect to get paired against Show and Tell and Merfolk several times which makes the sideboard slots worth it in my eyes.

I've been boarding it in because you have discard to stop their initial combo, meaning that a topdecked show and tell is likely their way to win. Karakas stops that. I think sneak show is more popular because it's more resiliant to discard because both combos are 2-card, but I could be wrong. I'm absolutely not a Show and Tell player.

---

Adam Prosak said in a website during the tournament that the Carpet of Flowers aren't helpful at all. Now I'm no longer sure if they are worth the 3 slots, they can be replaced by Xantid Swarm though. Is the 4 Infernal Tutor really enough as Kill conditions? I'm still tempted to use a couple of Burning Wishes as it can fetch Pyroclasms on SB games and well you will draw it faster :)

Has anyone considered going back to Dark Confidants in the board to beat BUG? It seems like it would be good, digs you out of discard holes and allows you to flashback Cabal Therapy the turn you go off. I played carpet of flowers a couple weeks ago at a local weekly and it was very bad. Anyone but UW Miracles can play around it pretty easily. I plan to try a clean swap next week.

I top8ed a mox tourney last week with Ub ant
4 delta
4 misty
2 underground
1 volcanic
1 trop
2 island
1 swamp
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 probe
3 preordain
4 lotus petal
4 led
4 duress
2 cabal therapy
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 infernal tutor
1 grim tutor
1 past in flames
1 ad nauseam
1 tendrils
sb
4 dark confidant
4 abrupt decay
3 xantid swarm
2 chain of vapor
1 echoing truth
1 karakas
my one loss of the day was against pox and it was a very close game 3
Most matchups went like this... i cantrip a bunch duress them and then shoot them in the face.
The board was awesome i never used karakas due to matchups.
Confidants and xantids were awesome.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ponder

I top8ed a mox tourney last week with Ub ant
4 delta
4 misty
2 underground
1 volcanic
1 trop
2 island
1 swamp
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 probe
3 preordain
4 lotus petal
4 led
4 duress
2 cabal therapy
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 infernal tutor
1 grim tutor
1 past in flames
1 ad nauseam
1 tendrils
sb
4 dark confidant
4 abrupt decay
3 xantid swarm
2 chain of vapor
1 echoing truth
1 karakas
my one loss of the day was against pox and it was a very close game 3
Most matchups went like this... i cantrip a bunch duress them and then shoot them in the face.
The board was awesome i never used karakas due to matchups.
Confidants and xantids were awesome.

---

My SB is very similar:
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
2 Karakas

If you plan on playing against BUG, Bob is very good, as all their removal kinda sucks against him, except the occasional misers Darkblast that they run. With all the green cards in the SB, are you comfortable on just the one Trop?

Just wondering if anybody has tried Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard against the discard heavy decks? I know it makes Ad Nauseum way worse but not having your hand ripped apart usually means you should be able to win without it. Or Dark Confidant's just better since it replaces the cards that was discarded?

I played against BUG and Zombardment last weekend and ugh, I don't see how ANT can beat Zombardment since it's got so much hand disruption with therapies, thoughtseizes and tidehollow scullers. I know it's not a deck to prepare for but it just sucks to lose to random discard heavy decks.

@aaron: I did not cut Ad Nauseam for Empty the Warrens, so I don't understand where your comment is coming from... I like having options, and while Ad Nauseam is occasionally decent against BUG, I actually think Empty is better. Because of their interesting mix of disruption along with the Deathrites, having Empty, AN, and PiF really helps your percentages.

@pocari: I tested Leyline for a while against BUG, and I didn't like it. I also tested 1-2 Divert. The theory there was that even Diverting Thoughtseize could be good because I get information. Both of these cards were way too unreliable, and you really need to streamline this deck against high disruption opponents. Dark Confidant was also pretty poor in my testing, because those decks are able to kill you much faster when they need to... And their Jaces (that they definitely leave in for blue count) really trump the Dark Confidant. I don't know how to completely explain why Bob didn't work out. He used to be amazing in this deck's SB... It's unfortunate that all these cards did not test well, but at the end of the day the deck has operated the best when we don't dilute the gameplan, and all our hate hits as much of their hate as possible (AKA targeted discard).

The regular "Zombardment" deck is a great matchup, but I don't know what the BUG version runs. Does it have countermagic? One of my friends plays the Brw build, and the games are rarely close. You can turn 5 Past in Flames kill without worrying about countermagic; I dream for these matchups! I don't know anything about BUG variants though.

@everyone: Where is Xantid Swarm actually good? It seems like a terrible card in this metagame. It is marginally decent against RUG Delver, but it still eats a Bolt (and they are not boarding out their Bolts...) and opens you up to Wasteland. It's terrible against BUG midrange/control/tempo. It's terrible against Esper. It's terrible against UW of any kind. It's useless against any non-blue deck. The only deck it is great against is Fish, which is a terrible, unplayed deck that we already beat easily with PiF. It is OK against Show and Tell and High Tide, but I would rather have discard that let's me choose to be the control or combo player on a given turn sequence. I bet it stinks to play a turn 1 Xantid Swarm only to have them kill you first. Our deck is not THAT much faster than those decks. So in conclusion, Xantid Swarm is great against Fish, OK against Show and Tell and High Tide, playable but unreliable against RUG, and not good against anything else. I just don't feel like I could warrant playing the card.

My list has evolved a lot through my playtesting and a couple small tournaments. I will post my list so that people know where I'm coming from when I add to the conversation.

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

SB
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Dread of Night

I feel 100% about my maindeck, but my SB has bee changing almost daily over the past couple weeks. At one point I wasn't playing so much hate for Maverick, a deck on the decline, but I realized that I wanted to stop diluting my deck in a lot of other matchups. And I don't know how many people test against it, but Maverick is actually a pretty poor matchup if you don't have Dread of Night in your deck... It's annoying. The Karakas I ran originally was sadly suboptimal against Show and Tell variants, because they either recast with Omniscience, have an extra red mana for Sneak Attack, or draw a fresh 7 off Griselbrand. It was really only good when they slammed Emrakul off their Show and Tell, but that's their worst play against us anyways. It was also not as good as I wanted it to be against Maverick.

I board in the Thoughtseizes A LOT because people have so much varied hate post-SB. Against BUG I usually board -1 Therapy, -1 Probe, +2 Thoughtseize to hit their Hymns and whatever else they bring in. You can't overboard for those cards though, because then you just lose to Force... It can be annoying. I board nothing against RUG. I win with Empty the Warrens relatively often against them, so I view my deck as being preboarded against that questionable matchup. None of the SB otpions were ever really that good. The best card in testing was Inquisition of Kozilek, but I decided to do without it. The matchup is not as bad as some people think if they don't have Surgical Extraction in their SB. Between Empty the Warrens and Past in Flames, you can usually put together a good kill. You REALLY hope they play a Tarmogoyf on turn 2.

Well that's all for now. I am leaving for GP Denver tomorrow; is anyone else going?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

I board nothing against RUG. I win with Empty the Warrens relatively often against them, so I view my deck as being preboarded against that questionable matchup. None of the SB otpions were ever really that good. The best card in testing was Inquisition of Kozilek, but I decided to do without it. The matchup is not as bad as some people think if they don't have Surgical Extraction in their SB. Between Empty the Warrens and Past in Flames, you can usually put together a good kill. You REALLY hope they play a Tarmogoyf on turn 2.

---

I have no idea what the cool kids do these days, but in the past, it was recommended to side out Tarmogoyf vs combo because hitting 3 mana was awkward and tapping down tended to be a game loss. Now that you have Delver + Mongoose, I have no idea why someone would keep Goyf in their deck for g2 unless they had nothing to side out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

@aaron: I did not cut Ad Nauseam for Empty the Warrens, so I don't understand where your comment is coming from... I like having options, and while Ad Nauseam is occasionally decent against BUG, I actually think Empty is better. Because of their interesting mix of disruption along with the Deathrites, having Empty, AN, and PiF really helps your percentages.

---

People were discussing cutting Ad Naus for EtW a few posts back, I figured that's how you were fitting it in. Do you cut a Grim Tutor for it? I don't know that you can support 2 Grims and EtW in the same deck as Ad Naus. Cutting a Grim for it seems fine though, and I think there's definitely an argument for that.

@pocari You should definitely not be having trouble against Zombies, that's a great matchup. Don't keep do-nothing hands, and leave mana up for Brainstorm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

Dark Confidant was also pretty poor in my testing, because those decks are able to kill you much faster when they need to... And their Jaces (that they definitely leave in for blue count) really trump the Dark Confidant.

---

I like boarding in Bob against the Tempo BUG lists, which don't run Jaces, and usually don't run much removal. Those lists seem to be a little more popular, and they're also a much more difficult matchup. The Control BUG lists you just play against like they're any other slow control deck without counterbalance, it should be a very strong matchup (though, admittedly, I haven't played against that deck nearly as much as the tempo one).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

@everyone: Where is Xantid Swarm actually good?

---

My SB is currently built for the online meta, where Sneak/Show and High Tide are quite popular, and it's definitely better than Discard against those decks -- Sneak/Show and High Tide aren't really the type of decks that kill you turn 1 after you play a swarm. It's actually excellent against U/W, too -- they usually can't afford to leave in much removal on the off chance that we're boarding in Swarms. I usually board in 1-2 against RUG/BUG, it's extremely mediocre there, though. The fact that it's bad against any non-blue deck is pretty irrelevant, since we have pretty good matchups against all of the non-blue decks, we don't really need a million SB cards against them.

OK I'm back with another outside-the-box idea. What if we go -2 Gitaxian Probe +2 Surgical Extraction in the main (with 4 Cabal Therapy)? It serves the same purpose of letting us see their hand but also lets us Surgical their Force of Wills so we don't lose to a topdeck.

Or what about those times when you go Therapy -> they Brainstorm in response. You can instant speed Surgical their Brainstorm after it resolves but before Therapy resolves. You still get to see their hand and hit with Therapy, they have no more Brainstorms, and you get to shuffle away the cards they hid with Brainstorm. In that scenario Surgical is a virtual 3-for-1, since your opponent will probably hide their most important cards!

And it has incidental benefits of improving the G1 matchup against Dredge, Reanimator, and other ANT decks. Or any other deck that requires a specific card to combo (Show and Tell, Hive Mind, Painted Stone, Cephalid Breakfast, Aluren). Oh and it's a free shuffle effect if you need one off Brainstorm (target yourself, fail to find). And counters a Deathrite Shaman activation. Or protects yourself from enemy Surgical Extractions.

And it frees up two sideboard slots.

edit: Speaking of sideboard slots, what is our best weapon against BUG/RUG Delver? I know these aren't great matchups but nobody seems to be boarding for them specifically. There has got to be something better than Inquisition of Kozilek here.

@aaronm87
The one trop has been more than enough. Worst comes to worst you pop a petal. The bobs have been stellar.

Adam Prosak's report from SCG Invitational in Los Angeles:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article...geles-8th.html

If you're stuffing your decks full of 4-drops (like the list above that has 2 Grims and 3 4-drops), why are you even playing Ad Nauseam? Isn't it just going to kill you more often than not?

In the lists like that ad naus is an "oh shit" button and deserves a slot because of that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aaronm678

My SB is very similar:
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tropical Island
2 Karakas

If you plan on playing against BUG, Bob is very good, as all their removal kinda sucks against him, except the occasional misers Darkblast that they run. With all the green cards in the SB, are you comfortable on just the one Trop?

---

Looking at your SB, how would you side against miracles? Because every card is quite good against them. Bob, swarm, abrupt decay. What are you going to remove then?

Which matchup would you say is the single most difficult for this deck?

Miracle Control
Blade Control
Goblins
RUG Tempo
Sneak Attack
GW/x Maverick
Team America (BUG tempo or control)
Omniscience

And why do you feel that is the most difficult matchup?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Which matchup would you say is the single most difficult for this deck?

Miracle Control
Blade Control
Goblins
RUG Tempo
Sneak Attack
GW/x Maverick
Team America (BUG tempo or control)
Omniscience

And why do you feel that is the most difficult matchup?

---

Goblins, since their hand is usually all creatures my duress's are dead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mike1987

Looking at your SB, how would you side against miracles? Because every card is quite good against them. Bob, swarm, abrupt decay. What are you going to remove then?

---

Against Miracles I'd:

-4 Probe
-1 Fetch
-1 Grim Tutor
-2 Cabal Therapy


+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Trop
+4 Swarm

Bob is fine, and I can see an argument for running it instead of swarm, especially if you're going to be stifled on Green Mana. Most of the time, you'll have plenty of time to cast two green spells against them. Bob is kind of sweet against Miracles, but it's not really what you need to be doing -- very rarely is cards in hand going to be your limiting factor, as you have 10 turns to draw your perfect hand, Bob isn't really going to make that much of a difference.

If they don't run Wasteland, it's probably correct to cut the Island for a second cabal Therapy in my list...I don't know that I would game 1, though, probably only if I knew the list didn't have wasteland.

Surprised that there is no ANT decks in GP Denver's top 8.

Any body make top 16 or 32? If so I'd be interested in what you sleeved up for a board.