[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

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Originally Posted by Valleysdai

I saw a debate on social media about some people testing shadow of the grave in ANT due to its synergy with LED. What are your thoughts on it?

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What lines of play are being considered? Maybe play LED, LED, Land, DR or LP, cast Shadow of the Grave then discard AdN and recast by sacrificing LEDs. I guess you could do this on your opponent's end step too since it is an instant. Seems like it somewhat fixes the issue of having AdN or EtW in hand and the need to generate mana by LED like with BS and GP. This card is not recursive as you're not extending your hand as you do with AdN, PIF. I'm interested as well to hear more opinions / lines of play.

Won WNM this week with a 3-0-1 record. Played against Burn (2-0), Miracles (1-1), Elves (2-0) and 12-post (2-1). The only game with anything out of the ordinary was against Miracles. My list was

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Dark Petition
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Rain of Filth
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard

2 Sphinx of the Final Word
2 Teferi's Realm
1 Sadistic Sacrament
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sensei's Divining Top

The sideboard was chosen because I knew beforehand that there was going to be at least one MUD, Reanimator, and another ANT list.

The miracles match was against a friend who usually plays ANT, and we discuss sideboard strategies a lot together. I'd discussed the Sphinx of the Final Word plan before with him, so I expected him to be prepared for it. I conceded game one, and in game two I decided to go for the Sphinx plan anyway. I topdecked Sphinx with 6 mana up and an unthresholded Cabal Ritual in hand. I lead off with the Cabal Ritual. I could have got threshold by cracking two lotus petals, but I wanted to give him as little incentive to counter it as possible, as I only needed 7 to cast Sphinx (with the extra mana from threshold I could have actually done a mini tendrils to shorten the clock, but I decided not to get greedy). He didn't counter the Cabal ritual, so I then cracked my petals and cast Sphinx. He paused for a moment then chuckled to himself saying that he should have remembered me mentioning it as a card I was liking. It turned out he had boarded out all of his Terminus, and wasn't sure if he'd left a council's judgement in. The first turn I attacked he blocked with his Clique. The second turn I attacked him down to 4 (I had already got a tendrils for 8 life off earlier in the game). On the same turn I then was able to go past in flames into tendrils for the win, all uncountable due to Sphinx. He then looked 4 cards down and found his council's judgement, which meant he would have found it with top on the next turn, meaning the past in flames tendrils play was actually essential. Time on the round was called before we could start a 3rd game. If he'd actually had 2 cards in his deck that answered Sphinx I reckon he would have found one, as he did a lot of fetching and cantripping between the Sphinx resolving and him dying. Thus I'm not actually sure how representative this match was of Sphinx in general. Miracles has such good card selection that I don't think expecting to ride a Sphinx to victory unimpeded is reliable enough. I think Sphinx should probably be combined with multiple copies of tendrils, so that once Sphinx is down, you can kill them ASAP. I do like the inevitability Sphinx gives in the matchup though.

Quick league with Storm video series. Have fun!

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...es-storm-cjps/

Sib

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Originally Posted by Sibelius

Quick league with Storm video series. Have fun!

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...es-storm-cjps/

Sib

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Just started watching the videos. In Match 1, Game 2, why didn't you go for Ad Nauseam? Seemed like you had plenty of mana, and I would've thought the opponent's color choices indicated much better odds of a board-wipe than anything that would've stopped AdN from 19. Just curious!

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Originally Posted by Sibelius

Quick league with Storm video series. Have fun!

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com...es-storm-cjps/

Sib

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Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed watching and would definitely like to see more.

Also, back in the DTB!

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2017-04-24

Predictions as to what this means for us?

Two things:

1) Probably we don't need green anymore

2) We have 15 slots in the side and for the first time in years half for them are not dedicated to beat miracles.

Elves and Maverick I think are the two biggest winners here, right? Both of which I'm OK with.

It means there will be tournaments I register ANT for without Tropical Island, though I do still like Swarm. I *think* this is a net positive for storm though. I was well over 50% against miracles, but not having to spend so much of my sideboard dedicated to beating it may make it easier to be more well rounded against the field and maintain a healthier manabase.

Well, this was interesting.

I've been working on building ANT, and although I'll defer to more experienced minds, it does seem like green is much less useful for us now. Had anyone been experimenting on a Xantid/ADless list? Kinda bummed as I had already picked up a Trop, but obviously I'm better off than every Miracles player right now.

I was planning on a list with Culling Scales/Top in the side, which I'll obviously need to lose now. Any other thoughts with the passing of this pillar?

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Originally Posted by TheSlipperiestBogle

Well, this was interesting.

I've been working on building ANT, and although I'll defer to more experienced minds, it does seem like green is much less useful for us now. Had anyone been experimenting on a Xantid/ADless list? Kinda bummed as I had already picked up a Trop, but obviously I'm better off than every Miracles player right now.

I was planning on a list with Culling Scales/Top in the side, which I'll obviously need to lose now. Any other thoughts with the passing of this pillar?

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Yeah, you'll still need your ADs so don't worry about investing in a Trop. This ban is stupid and I'll miss double topping for storm into a natural Tendrils. Plus, ANT will likely be an even bigger target for many other decks as they have some free space now as well. Now what to do with my 8 Tops...

The only benefit I see is that all my artifacts main are old frame brown.

Hello guys, first time i post here, i played miracles for the last 2-3 years and now that top is banned i am thinking about learning this deck
Do you guys think this deck will be well positioned in the metagame after the ban take effectiveness? and for a total nnob of the deck there are some resource in video/ articles/primers that you might suggest to me?
thanks

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Originally Posted by Gros

Hello guys, first time i post here, i played miracles for the last 2-3 years and now that top is banned i am thinking about learning this deck
Do you guys think this deck will be well positioned in the metagame after the ban take effectiveness? and for a total nnob of the deck there are some resource in video/ articles/primers that you might suggest to me?
thanks

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Honestly I *think* it'll be a little worse now, but it's hard to say for sure. I track my results online, and while I haven't played online at all in the last few months because my collection got hacked, here are my ANT Results versus BUG decks, over about a 2 month period from January to February.

BUG Delver (No Discard) 2-3
BUG Delver (Discard) 2-5
Shardless BUG 1-1
Noble BUG 0-6
Aluren 4-1
Food Chain 0-0 (didn't face it)

Over that same period of time I was 7-5 against Miracles. 8-4 preboard and 9-7 postboard.

Counterbalance was much easier to sideboard against and prepare for than a lot of these BUG decks. I'm led to believe from discussions here that my BUG results are somewhat of an anomaly, since other people seem to be having much better results, but I can only really speak from my own experience. I fully expect BUG to increase it's metagame share, and I don't know if the hopeful increase in Maverick and Elves will be enough to offset it to make ANT as good as I want it to be.

My results against BUG are:

BUG Delver (Hymn):52-30
BUG Delver (Stifle): 15-5
BUG Shardless: 40-14
Czech Pile (Casters, Strixes, Deathrites, sometimes Leos) : 23-7
Aluren: 25-6
Noble BUG: 11-8
Food Chain: 5-1

The problem against BUG is that they attack us from lots of angles (counters, discard, annoying permanents such as Leo and DRS) and there isn't a sideboard card that solves this. I only board in Empty the Warrens for a Dark Petition and 2 Abrupt Decay if they are on Leo. And i'm not sure if i'll keep playing green after the top ban.

Obviously much better than mine. Don't know what I'm doing wrong. Been playing ANT for like 5 years, never felt BUG Delver was a great matchup but never as bad as it's felt lately.

Scheduled a testing session with the local BUG master, ran all over him. Promptly got my collection stolen the next week so I never got a chance to try again afterwards. Maybe I just ran really bad for a few months.

I understand everyone's happiness, but this really scares me:

Of note is that Legacy is currently the only tournament format where we have not taken action against Gitaxian Probe. Currently, the data does not support doing so in that format, and we examine each format individually.

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Originally Posted by Morden

I understand everyone's happiness, but this really scares me:

Of note is that Legacy is currently the only tournament format where we have not taken action against Gitaxian Probe. Currently, the data does not support doing so in that format, and we examine each format individually.

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Yeah I've been playing storm for a long time but I never had to play it without probe. *shudder*. On the other hand I was very happy to see it go in Vintage.

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Originally Posted by Jeff

Yeah I've been playing storm for a long time but I never had to play it without probe. *shudder*. On the other hand I was very happy to see it go in Vintage.

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It wasn't that bad. You just did the thing, or didn't. Also played thoughtseize. Probe just pushed it into the realm of no more guessing.

Havent posted here in years (forgot my password, apparently) but hearing from the banning of SDT I think that the Wish TnT or TES would be the way to go now.

Hey so I'm a long time storm player just getting back into Legacy. (Bought back in just a few weeks ago) played DDFT for many years and basically have played Tendrils of Agony in whatever form it was available since it was printed. After the top ban I became pretty skeptical of needing green mana between the main and SB, so I spent the afternoon brewing up a list to play at a local event that usually gets around 20 or so players each week. Just got home, here's my decklist/notes/tournament report. This deck is a mix between ANT and TES (not really sure where to draw the line?) and maybe this thread isn't the right place for it.

2-0 Elves (g1 Past in Flames -> Infernal Tutor -> BW -> Tendrils :: g2 Ad Nauseum -> BW -> Tendrils)
1-2 BR Reanimator (g1 Iona Beatdown, :: g2 Terrible ad Naus from 19 life on t2. Have to keep going or he just reanimates chancellor, got there. :: g3 turn 1 Griselbrand into t2 Iona)
2-1 Eldrazi (g1 BW for Shattering Spree to kill Chalice on 1 -> Past in Flames -> BW -> Tendrils :: g2 multiple mimic into reality smasher with a double chalice draw. too fast for me to keep up. :: g3 Leyline of the Void opener, thorn of A and Chalice on 0. Eldrazi start attacking, but I'm able to Shatter all his artifacts and go off with a massive natural Empty the warrens for 16 goblins.)
2-1 Merfolk (g1 turn 2 kill after Therapy naming Force sees nothing relevant. Ad Naus -> BW -> Tendrils. :: g2 I am a dumb dummy dumb person and punt a won game. :: g3 probe and see nothing. t2 kill.)

7-4 total, 3-1 matches.

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Maindeck

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal

4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish

4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Island

SideBoard
2 Dread of Night
2 Fatal Push
2 Pyroblast
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Massacre
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Void Snare
1 Dark Petition
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree

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Do any of you think Meekstone is any good? or Baleful Strix?