[Deck] Nausea - Tendrils for the win.

Well, I have finally decided to not give up on this deck just yet. I came up with a totally new look for it, hopefully you guys like it.


// Nausea v2.0
// Mana
4 City of Traitors
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

// Cantrip
3 Darkwater Egg
4 Chromatic Sphere
3 Shadowblood Egg
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Night's Whisper

// Other Shit
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Spoils of the Vault


// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Night's Whisper
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Regrowth
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Overmaster
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Drain Power
1 Baleful Stare
1 Simplify
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Chain Lightning

It's pretty resilient and has lost abosutley no speed. In fact it has probably gained some consistancy. Burning Wish is something that I have been trying to get to work in this deck, and I finally have.

@Spoils: I know that this is one of the reasons the deck loses, but it is a necessary evil.

@No Meditate: I think it costs to much.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I cut the Duress for a Drain Power. Drain Power>Solidarity.

I've been a faithful Nausea player ever since its creation, and I am glad you haven't given up on it. I am a little worried about the loss of the best card draw the deck had, Meditate. This spell was usually the gamebreaker in many of my matches. Do the extra 'eggs make up for this?

Still no maindeck disruption; it's risky, but I'm willing to give it a go for a while.

I'm personally glad to see Brainstorm go; I've been running Sleight of Hand in that spot for a while.

Finally, Lion's Eye Diamond! I had built a deck to utilize LED and Burning Wish on your structure a long time ago, but I could never make it work really consistently with 3 colors.

I will definately try this out; I love Tendrils combo!

EDIT: Without another fast tutor, Spoils will have to do. Too bad Grim didn't cost 1B :D

I'm going to go into more detail about Meditate. I wanted the deck to run purely on cantrips. With enough of them the deck runs very smoothly. The only exception to this is Wish for a big draw spell like Diminishing Returns. Meditate breaks this rule by costing 3 and having a hefty drawback. I think that this is the way to go.

Also, you do have MD disruption in Burning Wish. It has been doing fine for me so far. If it becomes necessary I will add in some Duresses or something. I don't think it will though.

Diminishing Returns>All,
Roop

I did some goldfishing with the new list.

Turn 1 III
Turn 2 IIIIIIIIIII
Turn 3 IIIIII
Turn 4
Turn 5 III
Turn Dead IIII
Spoils III


So out of 30 games I went off by turn3 66.6% of the time. That's a 6-4/7/3 average against Goblins. That'd decent.

I also found out that there was a great need for a mediocre draw spell in the SB. The is Whisper for a cantrip and Returns to win the game. There was nothing in the middle for cheap. So I took out Baleful Stare for Ideas Unbound. I think this might greatly effect golfishing in a very posistive way. I'll get back to you guys when I have more results.

Roop

Pardon me if I'm mixing the TJS and Nausea threads, but I think that Top was discussed briefly in one or the other, and should be reconsidered in light of Brainstorm. Whenever I tested, Sleight of Hand seemed to be a very useful card, but it still felt a little underwhelming. The (re)inclusion of Brainstorm and Tops creates a decent possibility of an infinite Storm and also gives you a free spell that actually can be helpful anyways under Helm. Just working from previous experience with Tendrils-Helm decks. Also, this is not to say that Sleight and Brainstorm are mutually exclusive either, though good luck finding room in this excellent list for both. A job well done, I love the deck.

EDIT: Instead of double-posting, I'd also like to say that I like the utility of Burning Wish, but I've only ever used it to fetch a game-winning Tendrils off a Shadowblood Egg for the win. I know that there are obviously myriad uses for it, but they all seem mediocre to me. So if you wanted room for Brainstorms and Tops, the Sleights and Wishes would be my first choice. Preferably not all of the Wishes, but maybe one. Cause at 2, they're sort of pointless. And that would require a complete overhaul of sideboard and maindeck focus. Which I don't have time to give right now. So I figured I'd open it up for feedback while I go to bed :D Will get on this soon, though.

I did already think of and test Top in the new list because of there being 4 LEDs in the deck. I didn't like how it ran in the least bit. Without Helm, I never ever wanted to draw Top. It was never worth the mana investment.

Also, if you take out a single Burning Wish, let alone all of them, I would greatly greatly fear consistency of the deck. I have no clue how many times I have Wished for the Returns or IGG to win the game. It would have to be countless.

That reminds me, Night's Whisper came out of the board for an IGG. It's been working wonderfully.

Roop

[color=#000000:post_uid9]Isn’t your current list just a blatant rehash of this deck with a few minor changes?[/color:post_uid9]

Actually We've had lists just like that 5-6 monthes ago. Evil Roopey developed nausea by himself, noone else. Your Team ABS boards are actually behind. Minor changes are absolutely critical in decks like this, so "a blatant rehash with minor changes" is an oxymoron.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by troopatroop

Your Team ABS boards are actually behind.

---

I hope you realize that the post I linked was from back in May.

Also, the exact same decklist was posted by its creator on this site around the same time it was posted there, so there's a good possibility that Evil Roopey may have gotten some of his ideas from it. It was a legitimate question.

I am not trying to not give anyone credit that they deserve, but I came up with this list on my own. I actually built it from a BR version of Nausea that I was working on, then I fused them together. I wrote a brief article that I sent into Star City that explains all of this. I doubt they will publish it though, because I was very brief in my description of the whole thing.

Here it is.

Legacy is defiantly shaping into a very fun and diverse format. There are still a couple things that are missing from it though. One of these things is a good combo deck. I know, I know. What about Solidarity (High Tide)? Well, I think we can do better than a turn four win in a format as big as ours. So I have been working for some time to fix that. It is a lot harder than it looks. You have to have a deck that can fight through a couple counters and kill before turn four.

Well since April I have been working on this. I had initially built a deck that could kill on turn 2.5 very consistently. The only problem was that it lost to a single counter. This was about the time that Gro was getting big in my area, so development on the deck further than that was slowed down by my unbelief that I could get it to work. Here is the initial build of the deck.


//Nausea
//Lands
4x City of Traitors
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Polluted Delta
4x Land Grant

//Mana
4x Lotus Petal
3x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

//Helms
4x Helm Of Awakening

//Search and Kill
4x Spoils of the Vault
4x Tendrils of Agony

//Draw and Mana Fixers
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Darkwater Egg
2x Night's Whisper
4x Brainstorm
4x Meditate
3x Sleight of Hand

//Sideboard
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Duress
2x Oxidize
3x Naturalize
1x Smother
1x Vendetta

That list was fast, but there was no way to stop someone from stopping you. The list was based on Meandeck Tendrils. Cutting almost anything from the deck took away from its consistency. After a while it just became strictly worse to play this over Solidarity. I was stumped. I had been working on the deck for a couple months and I had found no way to make it work like I wanted to, so I gave up.

So a couple months ago I decided that it was time to pull out the old notes and see what I could do. I tested a lot of new lists. I tested a black and red list that ran Desperate Ritual and Burning Wish. It was ok, but it cried for a cheaper set-up spell than Night’s Whisper. Overmaster made that list pretty resilient, and it was slightly faster than Solidarity. Here is that list.


// Nausea v2.0
// Mana
4 City of Traitors
1 Bayou
2 Taiga
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
2 Desperate Ritual

// Cantrip
4 Shadowblood Egg
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Overmaster
3 Night's Whisper

// Other Shit
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Spoils of the Vault


// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Promise of Power
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Regrowth
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Baleful Stare
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Drain Power
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Simplify
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Chain Lightning

Like I said above, the deck was in desperate need of a small cantrip. It had Overmaster, but that was about it. The deck did utilize all of its resources to the maximum, which is what I want the deck to do. It also had quite a bit of resiliency.

Yet still I was unsatisfied. The deck had improved a great deal, but I wanted more. So I tried putting blue back into the main for a light splash.


// Nausea v2.1
// Mana
4 City of Traitors
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

// Cantrip
3 Darkwater Egg
4 Chromatic Sphere
3 Shadowblood Egg
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Night's Whisper

// Other Shit
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Spoils of the Vault


// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pain’s Reward
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Regrowth
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Overmaster
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Drain Power
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Simplify
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Chain Lightning

Now I’m not positive on which of the last two lists is better against the metagame, but they are both very solid lists. I just like the slight more consistency over the added resiliency in Overmaster. Sleight of Hand definitely made the deck run as smooth as I wanted it too with having some resiliency in Burning Wish.

Here are some numbers:
Turn 1 III
Turn 2 IIIIIIIIIII
Turn 3 IIIIII
Turn 4
Turn 5 III
Turn Dead IIII
Spoils III

Now that is a pretty consistent turn three kill. It gives you close to a 7/3 record against Goblins. That’s nothing to scoff at. Now the only problem is the fact that Gro and Deadguy Ale both are on the rise. I have found that I can fight threw Gro’s counterwall unless they are playing the white version with Meddling Mage in the main. I normally beat Deadguy Ale unless they do some crazy Ritual, Duress, Hymn first turn. I can normally outrace most of the hate or use Burning Wish to fight threw it.


This deck happens to be slightly difficult to play. People on The Source PM me all the time with something along the lines of: “I am not getting the same results as you. What am I doing wrong?” I have played this deck for a long time now, so most things that I just do on instinct people might not se right away. There is a lot to playing this deck correctly that I will get to in another article. For now the only thing I can say is play it. See what works and what does not.

I think that there is a lot of potential for this deck to do very well in the coming months. Maybe someone will take it to Lille and do as well as my testing says they will. As long as there isn’t a mass number of UGW Threshold decks.


Not anything special, I was lazy that day, probably high.

In any case, that link was probably based on Nausea, not the other way around.

Roop

I'm just still trying to get my head around this. Can you maybe describe methods you have for managing your mana, or some of your requirements for keeping an opening hand. I'm sure that I don't need a Helm to combo, but all my testing results seem to prove otherwise. I manage to get to maybe 6-7-8 Storm, but that's all I can muster. I like this deck a ton, but some of the things that are instinctual to you I think are lost on me. It's probably because I played Easter Tendrils for so long, which is quite a different deck, regardless of what they have in common. So I hope that I see that article soon.

Ok so I changed my mind.

The most common play mistake with this deck is not takings mulligans correctly. Now you want a hand that will be able to go off before turn four. Now think about what you need to do that. You are going to need four mana, nine spells played, and a Tendrils of Agony in hand. Now if you don’t believe that your hand can do that by turn 3, pitch it back and try again. Most of the time a keepable hand is a mixture of mana and draw.

Now there is, how do you know you can go off? Do some math. Well do a lot of math. Do you have Burning Wish? Do you have the means to find Burning Wish? If I Spoils for it, how many Tendrils am I likely to RFG in the process? If it is a lot, can I cast Returns reliably and find the next wish to get the Tendrils? What is there life total, how many spells do I need to cast? Can I cast that many spells? How many cantrips do I have, and is it enough to get nine storm and a Tendrils? How much mana do I have to get all of this done with? Am I likely to draw more mana? Do I need a Helm? If so, can I find one? These are all the questions you should ask yourself before going off. After a while, it should just be instinct and you will just know what works and what doesn’t.

The way that I figured out how to play the deck best was I forced myself to go off turn three every game. I did this until I figured out for myself what I thought worked and what didn’t.

Playing things in the correct order is key in this deck. It is a lot less relevant now that Brainstorm has been cut, but it still stays true to some extent. You always want to play all of the cantrips in your hand and use them before casting a Spoils. This is of course unless you need a Helm to go off, then cast Spoils first. If you have multiple Land Grants in hand and you are going off, cast one and fail to find anything. Only find the land with the last one in hand. Always cast Land Grant before Spoils if you need to play a certain land that turn. If you have a lot of Eggs make sure you filter your mana correctly. Most of the time you are going to need a single Black, Red, and Blue mana. That way no matter what you draw you will be able to cast it. This is of course you have a Tendrils in hand then you are going to want double black.

Always, always, always remember that you need four mana, nine storm, and a Tendrils throughout the entire game. Never stop thinking it. When there life total changes, change your thoughts accordingly. Look at the deck as a whole. Look at it as a puzzle that needs solving. Memorize what piece goes where, and just do the puzzle over and over again. Sooner or later you will find a better way to solve the puzzle. Never look at only your hand, look at the whole deck in your mind. Find out what needs to be done for you to win the game. Now when you find out what needs to be done, find out what will happen if your opponent does something to stop you. What then? Are you going to be able to recover fast enough? Should this change the play? Probably.

Hope that helps. Please ask any questions you have.


Roop

Roopey I'm glad to see you using a list with the wishes. I've been keeping mad tabs on this deck and every time my buddies and I play it or think about it I cream my pants alittle.

I did want to ask you about a few issues concerning the 3 colours. Your saying to filter through eggs accourdingly, leaving U, B, R so you can cast anything. If I need to use one of those as colorless mana, which mana do I use? Obviously not black..?

And have you tried serum visions over slieght of hand? They seem equally good to us.
Thanks!

I tend to draw blue mostly from my Lotus Petals when I need to Sleight; rarely do I ever use the blue from Darkwater Egg as colored mana. This is probably not correct though :)

My main problem is with the Lion's Eye Diamonds. I know you can crack them for your Wished/Spoiled whatever, but are there any other uses for them? I feel as if I'm not using them correctly, other than for free Storm.

Quote:

---

I did want to ask you about a few issues concerning the 3 colours. Your saying to filter through eggs accourdingly, leaving U, B, R so you can cast anything. If I need to use one of those as colorless mana, which mana do I use? Obviously not black..?

---

Most it really depends on your hand. If you are using the colorless for say a Wish, it depends on what you are Whishing for. If you are using it for an Egg, it doesn't matter if you have only three mana. If for a Sphere then use the mana that you aren't going to need, if you need to draw a Wish, use the blue mana. If you need to draw a Sleight use the Red mana. I think you get the jist.

Quote:

---

And have you tried serum visions over slieght of hand? They seem equally good to us.

---

Serum Visions is a better setup spell and Sleight is better while going off. I think Serum Visions is better due to the fact that you don't want a suboptimal draw spell while going off. Sleight is a decent draw spell and is amazing while going off.

Quote:

---

I tend to draw blue mostly from my Lotus Petals when I need to Sleight; rarely do I ever use the blue from Darkwater Egg as colored mana. This is probably not correct though

---

This is going to happen sometimes. It evens out with more numbers though. I use Sphere more than anything to get Blue mana for Sleight. Although most of the time if I have Sleight and Petal in my opening hand, I do that before I do anything else.

Quote:

---

My main problem is with the Lion's Eye Diamonds. I know you can crack them for your Wished/Spoiled whatever, but are there any other uses for them? I feel as if I'm not using them correctly, other than for free Storm.

---

I forgot to go over LED in my little rant. I normally do use LED when I cast Wish or Spoils, but there have been a couple exceptions. When I have a Helm in play and a few Eggs/Spheres I tend to drop all of them then pop LED. This gives you plenty of mana and cards in your hand to use it on. Also, LED has come in a great deal handy when I'm wishing for IGG, that card was made for LED.

Hope this helps you guys out. If you have more questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Roop

I would just like to testify that the current list is quite different from previous lists. It can fight through approximately 1-2 more counters on the turn it goes off which is really impressive. The addition of Burning Wish adds both redundancy and flexability, things the older builds did not have. Nice innovations Roop.

I can't help but notice that adding LED makes Nausea look much more like TJS. And since you're already playing blue for Sleight of Hand, why not add Deep Analysis? With Helm of Awakening, it allows you to get all the card draw you need, and it's only slightly more painful than Night's Whispers, but with better synergy.

It seems like Burning Wish definitly helps out the consistency. I played the old version (circa August) for a while and found getting consistant mana (that 3 duals + city) usually didn't help against Wasteland x2 draw.

Quote:

---

I can't help but notice that adding LED makes Nausea look much more like TJS. And since you're already playing blue for Sleight of Hand, why not add Deep Analysis? With Helm of Awakening, it allows you to get all the card draw you need, and it's only slightly more painful than Night's Whispers, but with better synergy.

---

The problem that I see right off the bat with DA is that it is not something I want to see in a hand without LED. Narrow cards are not good. You want to be able to use your cards in a lot of situations, not just two, the other being slow playing. I don't like the idea of there being something to slow me down in the deck. It will get tested though.

Quote:

---

I played the old version (circa August) for a while and found getting consistant mana (that 3 duals + city) usually didn't help against Wasteland x2 draw

---

So I should be worried about 10% of the Goblin matchup going bad? I think I can stick with my 9/1 record against the stupid little green men. :)


Other things:

Some people have asked if Helm is a necessity to going off. The short answer is no. The long answer is maybe. It really depends on your hand. Just like every other card in the deck, your hand might be dependant on something else. If you are really short on mana or have a lot of Eggs then sure Helm will help a lot. If not then who cares? Helm is in the deck for the same reason any other card, it is not a necessity to go off, but it is a necessity of the deck.

Also, I was testing against UGBThresh with maindeck Stifles and went 4/6 against it. Not horrible but not a record that I can brag about. I think that if people start running Pithing Needle that the record should improve slightly. I think I might have to start doing more innovation with the upstart of Gro everywhere. Stupid Gro. Someone should start a thread about banning Mongoose and Werebear. :p

That's all for now,
Roop

I know I know, call me newb but I am playing nausea since version 1 without any problem but now that version number 2 is out I can't get the deck to run. I just fizzle all the time... Maybe only once or twice I got lucky and managed to get the deck going. What I just dont know is when to go off or if the hand is good. I tried to follow Roop's advices but I am still having trouble. Someone please help?

I really don't know what to say. All of my testing has been amazing with this deck. I won the local tourny in NoVa with this last Satuday. I will try to type up a more in-depth summary on how to play the new version some time soon, but I have to get some rest for tommorow.


Roop

Just wanted to let you know I'm getting great results with this deck as well. Opening hands of City, Helm, LED, cog, cog, cog are beautiful things. I like the fact LED doubles as a free means to blow em all up, it's my most often use for it when i dont see spoils or wish.

Do you need so many wish targets in the board? Could any of these slots be devoted to anti hand disruption maybe?

Uhm, maybe I found my problem, I try to go off without helm of awakening even when I shouldn't.

I've also build the deck and it's incredible, imho, the best Combodeck in Legacy (somewhat reminds me of Death Long... :D).
Still, I've got some questions...
As far as I've experienced, you can't go off if your opponent has a counter and is able to target the right spell (which is, of course, quite hard to decide). Is this just me bad-playing or is the statment, that you can fight 1-2 counters kind of an exageration?

What do you board OUT for Xantid Swarms?

Why Cabal Therapy and not Duress?

I'm also desperatly searching for a mana-producing sorcery for my SB, but the best we got is Inner Fire :/. And LAnd Grant is horrible, if your opponent has Cabal Therapies :P.

The new decklist fights through counters much better than the old one. You dont fizzle against counter because your not relying on meditate anymore, the only spells to counter are now wish and helm. The fact that you can go off with either of them, i lucky, is rediculous.

heil nausea

I think if this deck can go at least even with U/G/W threshold that has meddling mages,stifles and a thick counterwall it will rise to tier one status. I was wondering about the wishboard though. It seems as though there are too many targets and not enough to sideboard. I would probably put in 4 duress/therapy alongside the swarms.

Quote:

---

I would probably put in 4 duress/therapy alongside the swarms.

---

Hasn't been necessary yet. The deck handily beats Gro without it.

Why is this deck good against Gro? It seems like counter magic would hurt it alot since it can't really generate card advantage outside of night's whisper. It seems like counter magic plus fast beats would make it difficult to win.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnwarA101

Why is this deck good against Gro? It seems like counter magic would hurt it alot since it can't really generate card advantage outside of night's whisper. It seems like counter magic plus fast beats would make it difficult to win.

---

That is actually why. A lot of hands I don't do anything they want to counter then win. Nobody counters Eggs and Sleights because its the wrong play, then they die.

Well obviously any smart player would know that it is the smart play, and win. You can't justify that argument.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by troopatroop

Well obviously any smart player would know that it is the smart play, and win. You can't justify that argument.

---

So what you are trying to tell me is that countering an Egg is the correct play when I will probably have more? Rituals are the same way. The actual thing that beats Gro is redundancy. They normally can't counter everything they want to. They normally have 1-2 counters by the turn I go off, and I can go off through that. Overlord and Gilmore can both attest to this because they have played Gro against me.

I went over a very long conversation with BlackLotus last night that I should have saved and didn't. It was about the Gro matchup. I don't feel like saying it again.

Roop

I haven't tested this deck much, but I can attest to the new version being worlds better than the old. The redundancy is really the key here. The old deck would lose to a counter on Meditate, or Spoils, whereas here, the deck is simply playing cog after cog, and you never want to counter those. Knowing the order to play your spells is also key. Sometimes I would want to counter a Lion's Eye Diamond (in the Helm, Diamond, cog, cog, cog draw), but other times the Diamond is useless for the hand, and I'll just be wasting a counter and upping the storm count.

It is a pretty hard deck for control to play against, especially when piloted by a good player. I'd say if it starts being played, and puts up some numbers, it could easily reach DTB status.

Props Roop!

I begin to see where the real problem for control lies... they just can't know which spell is the critical key making it possible to go off. Still, I often feel somewhat shortened, especially the LED doesn't reallly work (apart from turns like cog, cog, cog, cog, sac LED to use the cogs) because if i sac it in response to a Wish or Spoils, i have no hand and they know if they counter now, my Combo has to fizzle.

You want to avoid doing the whole Wish, LED thing against blue. Well that is unless you believe them to use all there counters already. Then go nuts. If that is what you are trying to do, I would psych them into countering something you don't actually need.

Roop

Actually, I find it better to just not play the deck against blue. I get much better win percentages that way :;):

The reason Nausea can win against gro is exactly what Roop said, redundancy. The control deck needs permanent solutions to be able to shut the deck down. If gro is maindecking Pithing Needle, he can still only name one Egg, Diamond, Sphere, or whatever against Nausea. I've found Helms to be the must counters, but the deck can win without it. The key is not to rush it unless you have a godly hand. With enough mana, you can blast through multiple counterspells pretty easily.

Quote:

---

If gro is maindecking Pithing Needle, he can still only name one Egg, Diamond, Sphere, or whatever against Nausea.

---

I would just like to point out that the only thing that you can Needle in this deck is Foothills. Needle can't hit mana abilities.

Roop

Just wondering how testing against Threshold was going for everyone; I find that the White splash is quite difficult when a Meddling Mage sticks, leaving the Wish -> Chain Lightning plan = :frown:

Anyone have any ideas on improving the matchup, or tips on how to play it more efficiently?

I think Chain Lightning is the best option
all other options are black INSTANTS, so no way to use them
and blue options are overcosted

Firebolt seems like it would be a lot stronger than Chain Lightning.

This is Roop, BTW.



Edited By Obfuscate Freely on 1136024311

There don't seem to be anything that Chain can hit that Firebolt can't, but would you ever have the mana/need to flash it back?

EDIT: Random question with a hopefully obvious answer: Have you ever hit the opponent with a Chain?