First stop siding these in and you should do better. -1 ad nauseam +1 empty the warrens is a good idea.
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First stop siding these in and you should do better. -1 ad nauseam +1 empty the warrens is a good idea.
RUG isnt' hard, but you have to be able to read them. Their deck telegraphs what's in their hand pretty hard. If they have no turn 1 play you can make reasonable assumptions about their full grip.
Fetch basics.
Know when to make them want to stifle your land, and when not to.
I have started doing much better with this deck since I started playing one Empty the Warrens and no Ad Nauseams main.
At GP Denver I went 9-5 in the main event, 3-0 in a side event, and 2-1 in another side event, and I only ever cast Ad Nauseam once. My record was mediocre, but it gave me a lot of sanctioned experience with the deck during the course of one weekend. The one time I cast AN I realized that Ill-gotten Gains would have also won that game (not saying anything one way or another about this card). I think if people find they are consistently tutoring for Ad Nauseam, they are probably doing something wrong.
DRS is awkward for two reasons - You tutor for an extra tutor first, thus requiring an actual boatload of mana to combo. You do this, and they strip a dark ritual from your graveyard to manascrew you. You don't do this, you have to rely on cantrips to combo out. It all depends on the hand. If they have more than one DRS and more than one black mana, prepare to try to slog through. You'll need a stacked hand to combo at this point.
Ad nauseam is completely necessary. Try cutting it, I know I wouldn't. It's nice to draw almost yawg's bargain naturally to just go 5 mana into ad nauseam without requiring LED's or infernal tutors.
I think both PIF and IGG are easier to go off, since they are deterministic.
But neither replaces the need for some hands to go for Ad Nauseam. The card has no substitute in the deck.
I just re-pick my ANT recently and I see there are a lot of people who have one empty warren in their sb. I think it is for the tempo deck like canadian. Does it work?
Stealing a decklist someone posted on storm boards, what does everyone think?
Luftlande-Sturm
Qty ED Name
// Lands
1 ON Island
1 MM Swamp
2 U Underground Sea
1 B Volcanic Island
2 R Tropical Island
1 R Badlands
4 ON Polluted Delta
3 ZEN Scalding Tarn
1 ON Bloodstained Mire
//\
// Spells
4 MM Brainstorm
4 M10 Ponder
4 NPH Gitaxian Probe
4 JU Cabal Therapy
3 US Duress
4 R Dark Ritual
4 TO Cabal Ritual
4 TE Lotus Petal
4 MI Lion's Eye Diamond
4 DIS Infernal Tutor
2 JU Burning Wish
2 ISD Past in Flames
1 ALA Ad Nauseam
1 SC Tendrils of Agony
//\
// Sideboard
1 SC Tendrils of Agony
1 TSP Empty the Warrens
1 PT Virtue's Ruin
1 ON Chain of Vapor
1 DS Echoing Truth
2 RTR Abrupt Decay
4 SC Xantid Swarm
4 RAV Dark Confidant
He said he went 6-0 in a 40ppl event.
Yeah, for Canadian, BUG and Jund.
Well... it works, it's not like... OMG super good, but it's OK, imo is a win condition with less requirements than others (less mana, less storm), so in those matchups where you are facing quite a lot of disruption does the work pretty well since those kind of decks don't usually run many ways to get rid of a bunch of 1/1s.
EDIT:
He runs 2 past in flames in order to increase the chances of having 1 in hand, actually you can even go off through countermagic with the appropiate amount of mana which is nice, that been said i'd never go for 2 PIF maideck since you're uping your converted mana cost and making Ad nauseams even worse, and yeah, Ad nauseam is bad but you have to run it, ther're hands or situations where Ad nauseam is the best option.
If you want to focus on PIF engine, play another deck (PIF storm or something like that).
it's really good, shines vs. Threshold and makes deck both a little bit faster+resilient, making sure you ~never lose G1... it's presence in Deathrite Shaman meta is questionable so I don't play it regularly, used to be absurd not to play two until RtR
+I know the guy & I actually have "developed" the tech ;) he went 6-0 quite easily beating me round 1 in the mirror (because he had 2 btw ;)
With release of DrShaman the deck got significantly weaker, discard alone doesn't matter, experiencing a loss with Jund or similar bx stupidity is frustrating
How often do you find yourself boarding in Abrupt Decay?
Not a lot but it's because my meta is like tons of Esper Blade.
I board them against:
UW Miracles
Maverick and things like that with Thalia and Gaddock combined with chain of vapor, is not as good as chain but I need to bring as much answers as I can.
Infect
Chalice of the void decks.