[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

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Originally Posted by BrettF

Basically just swapping carpet of flowers (which was the card that needed bayou) for Young pyro (which needs badlands). Here's a popular version of ANT with the pyro swap in brackets.

Timo Schünemann
Grand Prix Paris Trial:

1 Bayou (Swap to Badlands)
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest (Swap to Scalding Tarn)
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers (Swap to Young Pyromancer)
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm

Ninja edit:
@Togores
It might just be me but i never bring in Decay VS wasteland unless they are on some Trinisphere/Chalice plan. VS meddling mage i bring in 2 chains and if they have more hate bears than that then massacres (or dreads) start coming in.

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I used to do this, but a while ago I started prefering Decay. It puts stress on our mana base yes (and I have adapted to this buy playing the 16th land - which also comes in handy for playing against Miracles), but I like the flexibility that Decay gives us. A lot of the time I simply like to be able to destroy something rather than just return it to their hand. I bring in some number of decays against BUG-delver where the uncounterability can be relevant - usually to take out a Grafdigger's Cage but it's not irrelevant to be able to pick off the occasional Deathrite Shaman or even a flipped delver if that's the only pressure they're representing. I also bring Decay over Vapor against Death and Taxes. If we get to a stage in the game (beyond their turn 2) where we are going to need to remove a hatebear then there's a decent chance that they will have a vial sitting at 2... at this point your chain of vapor is looking pretty embarassing. And yes, in this matchup our mana is under even more pressure, and yes sometimes a Chain of Vapor would have gotten you there where the Decay just sits in your hand, but I still prefer it in the long run.

Pretty sure Defense Grid is better than Xantid Swarm, especially since you want it for the RUG, BUG, and UWR Delver matchups where Wasteland is a real card.

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Originally Posted by End3r000

Pretty sure Defense Grid is better than Xantid Swarm, especially since you want it for the RUG, BUG, and UWR Delver matchups where Wasteland is a real card.

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Xantid is not in there to shore up those matchups, mostly for the S&S and Reanimator matchups (and the occasional High Tide or Merfolk matchup).

I bring Defense Grid in for all of those matches. I find the Delver MUs especially mediocre to bad without them. Also Xantid Swarm isn't going to win the Reanimator or High Tide MUs by itself. Both of those MUs are awful for us.

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Originally Posted by End3r000

I bring Defense Grid in for all of those matches. I find the Delver MUs especially mediocre to bad without them. Also Xantid Swarm isn't going to win the Reanimator or High Tide MUs by itself. Both of those MUs are awful for us.

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Reanimator bad MU, I agree. High Tide? Not in my experience.

My experience with High Tide is a positive matchup, try to go off before they have a mass of cards. Duress and Therapy Shine here, usually having a high tide discarded through this gives you 2-3 turns to piece more together to go off with protection. Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarms are gems post board.

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Originally Posted by End3r000

I bring Defense Grid in for all of those matches. I find the Delver MUs especially mediocre to bad without them. Also Xantid Swarm isn't going to win the Reanimator or High Tide MUs by itself. Both of those MUs are awful for us.

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Defense Grid coming down on turn 2 instead of turn 1 is often the difference in the game against S+S and Reanimator where you really want Swarms.

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Originally Posted by End3r000

I bring Defense Grid in for all of those matches. I find the Delver MUs especially mediocre to bad without them.

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Then you are doing something wrong. I am pretty sure that the "Delver MUs" (Altough one cannot generalize them into one group.) are at least mediocre or in our favour.
Boarding Xantid Swarm/Defense Grid against Tempo means carddisadvantage, which is bad especially against Team America. Good old Duress does it too.

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Originally Posted by BrettF

Basically just swapping carpet of flowers (which was the card that needed bayou) for Young pyro (which needs badlands). Here's a popular version of ANT with the pyro swap in brackets.

Timo Schünemann
Grand Prix Paris Trial:

1 Bayou (Swap to Badlands)
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest (Swap to Scalding Tarn)
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 Carpet of Flowers (Swap to Young Pyromancer)
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm

Ninja edit:
@Togores
It might just be me but i never bring in Decay VS wasteland unless they are on some Trinisphere/Chalice plan. VS meddling mage i bring in 2 chains and if they have more hate bears than that then massacres (or dreads) start coming in.

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As stated below your post. They board in chain of vapor and dread of night.
But I think that vs a UWR delver deck that plays 2-4 meddling and 1-2 canonist + reb in side the chain of vapor is not enought >.<

I generaly dont like it either but there are not so much more choices to do it. But for example you side in carpet of flowers wich is just a ton of free mana (obv you dont have it all the time).

Against uwr delver,most of the time 2 chains are enough.
Just male sure that you discard their hatebear away.and if they topdeck another one you simply discard their blast and chain meddling mage.

Delver Matchups:

I like to play against canadian.
I also like to play against uwr delver
Team america is even i guess.
Swarm doesn't make any sense against any of these matchups unless they board out all removal spells - if that happens they deserve to loose :D
Tip of the day: don't give your opponent the opportunity to shut down your plans (swarms)



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

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Originally Posted by Togores

As stated below your post. They board in chain of vapor and dread of night.
But I think that vs a UWR delver deck that plays 2-4 meddling and 1-2 canonist + reb in side the chain of vapor is not enought >.<

I generaly dont like it either but there are not so much more choices to do it. But for example you side in carpet of flowers wich is just a ton of free mana (obv you dont have it all the time).

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Thats an awesome idea of playing young pyro! What kinda matchups would you board it in against? Tempo delver decks, maybe even miracles?

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Originally Posted by End3r000

I bring Defense Grid in for all of those matches. I find the Delver MUs especially mediocre to bad without them. Also Xantid Swarm isn't going to win the Reanimator or High Tide MUs by itself. Both of those MUs are awful for us.

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Xantid swarm is an MVP against tide, show and tell decks, and reanimator. Like it's absurd how good it is. You're not looking at all the angles either. Xantid swarm flashbacks cabal therapy. It costs 1 mana instead of 2 mana. Grid just screams "Spell pierce me" where swarm gets countered by daze if you're bad or force of will. As for tempo matchups, the only real time I'm afraid of them is when they go turn 1 delver turn 2 flip it. Otherwise it's pretty easy to walk through them in the time they give you to assemble the combo + discard for their countermagic. They also have far more dead cards with the amount of creatures they run and the cards that become dead over time like daze as you hit more land drops or rituals in hand to play around soft countermagic.

Against decks with countermagic as well as REB's I prefer decay to chain of vapor. You don't want chain of vapor on canonist, mage, etc. etc. countered via a pyroblast or any counter really as combo'ing off through canonist is impossible here short of you actually drawing tons of artifacts + naturally drawing empty the warrens and that only works if they don't have stoneforge mystic for batterskull as well since skull makes EtW awful.

Agree!

Creatures are good in general postboard if our opponent doesn't have removal because they are spell pierce proof (same for flusterstorm,cursecatcher)



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

Chasm Skulker 2U
Creature - Squid Horror (R)
Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on Chasm Skulker.
When Chasm Skulker dies, put X 1/1 blue Squid creature tokens with islandwalk onto the battlefield, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Chasm Skulker.
1/1

Is this an option for transformational sideboards?

Lines up much worse against Swords to Plowshares than Young Pyromancer does, but it's in one of our main colors and puts on even more pressure against non-white decks.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Chasm Skulker 2U
Creature - Squid Horror (R)
Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on Chasm Skulker.
When Chasm Skulker dies, put X 1/1 blue Squid creature tokens with islandwalk onto the battlefield, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Chasm Skulker.
1/1

Is this an option for transformational sideboards?

Lines up much worse against Swords to Plowshares than Young Pyromancer does, but it's in one of our main colors and puts on even more pressure against non-white decks.

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Not sure better than Quirion Dryad

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Chasm Skulker 2U
Creature - Squid Horror (R)
Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on Chasm Skulker.
When Chasm Skulker dies, put X 1/1 blue Squid creature tokens with islandwalk onto the battlefield, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Chasm Skulker.
1/1

Is this an option for transformational sideboards?

Lines up much worse against Swords to Plowshares than Young Pyromancer does, but it's in one of our main colors and puts on even more pressure against non-white decks.

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Very weak. I guess we have different opinions on "transformational sideboards". The main purpose of YP is to be another win option that can win through Leyline, Counterbalance and simply that puts immediate pressure on the board by creating tokens. This does not mean that ANT has a transformational sb but it uses YP as a kind of "Empty the Warrens-guy". Still, searching for the 10drils-kill is of primary importance. This Squid-guy is lonely on the board, can be blocked all day and as you already mentioned can be removed from the game without impact on the game state, where YP's crew is still in play.

I've been thinking a lot about my sideboard lately. I'm going to be trying out Young Pyromancers this week. I've been discussing them a lot with friends and was thinking if maybe 3 was enough or if we wanted to try 4.

This is my current sideboard template:

3x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
4x Dread of Night
1x Tendrils of Agony
2x Xantid Swarm
3x Young Pyromancer

The cards I'm most unsure of these days are actually the Xantid Swarms. First of all the number... 2. I can't help but feel like 3 is the correct number if we are going to run them as in the matchups where they matter you want them early on (except, perhaps, for vs Miracles). Secondly... it's been a while since I've really felt happy I had them. The way I see it, they really shine versus Show and Tell decks. And versus these decks they only truly become essential when they are boarding in the white leyline. So, as you might guess I'm not really that worried about Show and Tell decks in my local meta at the moment. There isn't that much these days and the ones there seem to not be playing the white leyline which means that discard is usually good enough against them.

That leaves Miracles as the only other matchup where I think the Swarms really make sense to board in but I don't know... I think I'd rather have the 4th Pyromancer there + an extra free slot in my sideboard... perhaps for a Top.

What do you guys think? Am I underestimating the relevance of Xantid Swarm? And is 4 Pyromancers instead of 3 too aggressive?

I haven't had a chance to try out Pyromancer but it seems to me like they should be swapped with Xantid Swarm in a Miracles heavy meta. Xantid Swarm blanks counters but so does Pyromancer. It's also another win condition, so it's double duty. With Pyromancers in the 75, I'm not sure why and when you would board in Swarms.

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Originally Posted by Higgs

I haven't had a chance to try out Pyromancer but it seems to me like they should be swapped with Xantid Swarm in a Miracles heavy meta. Xantid Swarm blanks counters but so does Pyromancer. It's also another win condition, so it's double duty. With Pyromancers in the 75, I'm not sure why and when you would board in Swarms.

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As mentioned before, Xantids aren't really there for the Miracles matchup, they are for the matchups against decks with counters but no creature removal i.e. Sneak and Show, Reanimator, Omnitell, etc.

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Originally Posted by davelin

As mentioned before, Xantids aren't really there for the Miracles matchup, they are for the matchups against decks with counters but no creature removal i.e. Sneak and Show, Reanimator, Omnitell, etc.

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I agree that show and tell decks are the primary reason to run Xantid Swarms... that being said, if I were running swarms anyway, I would bring them in against Miracles. They still help in that matchup. Them having access to a little removal does not mean you shouldn't bring in swarms. After all we are bringing in YPMs against Miracles.