[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

@Spider900: my list has never changed (except for trying out Duress). It's Pulp_Fiction's list from many pages back. nemavera has also done very well with it. Just sift through pages 60-70.

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Originally Posted by Rico Suave

Not really, Ad Nauseam requires the least amount of resources. DD's only advantage in terms of resources is that it does not require a healthy life total. In regards to mana and other usable spells, AN is superior.

At anyrate, let me highlight the problems I have with this boarding plan:

-1 Silence
+1 Xantid Swarm

See, the gain here is really marginal. Sure I guess Swarm is better, but is it really worth a SB slot to "upgrade" from a Silence to a Swarm?

-2 Cabal Ritual
+2 Carpet of Flowers

Another marginal gain. You replace a perfectly fine, if not great, mana source in Cabal Ritual with a different mana source. In fact it's tough to say Carpet is actually better anyway.

See, some of these changes are just not worth it. I'll expand on this a little bit more in a different point of view.

Going back to the original point of Xantid Swarm, here is the real problem: the reason Counterbalance/Top is a bad matchup is because of Counterbalance. Yet you board in Carpet, Doomsday, and Xantid Swarm. None of those cards answer the problem at hand. In fact, Swarm is there to answer what, 8 cards? And 4 of them are Daze? And it doesn't deal with the CB itself?

You board in a whopping 11 cards, and still only have two cards after boarding that let you answer the most dangerous card they can present - cards you cannot readily find because CB shuts the deck down. To be fair, you did say you were testing Duress instead of extra Chants, so kudos. But still, this is a very greedy number for a deck boarding in that many cards. I think you can afford to find room for a 3rd Grip. =p

Chant effects are actually quite weak against CB. Swarm is a great card against Merfolk. But that's about it honestly. It's just not good anywhere else.

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-The life IS the reason that Ad Nauseam is a taxing form of victory. In a matchup where you cannot always win quickly, a lone goyf can wittle away at your life, forcing you to take unnecessary risks with Ad Nauseam.

-The Swarm for Silence was a recent change I made. They usually board Swords out, so this is where Swarm comes in. Upping your chant count to 8 is sufficient. Swarms are a threat that must be answered, and I don't know why you think that it's terrible against CB. CB is only half of the equation, you still have to deal with the 12 counterspells they have.

-Krosan Grip is a 3-of (there's one MB), so you're honestly fine in that department. I've tried going up to 4 and just didn't feel like it was necessary.

-Carpet is much better than Cabal Ritual right now because we board out almost all of our 2CC spells to completely evade Spell Snare. True we do not always know if they are running Dispel, Spell Pierce, or Spell Snare, but it's a good way to blank a card. It also allows you to constantly set up turn by turn with cantrips while evading Daze and Spell Pierce. I don't see how Carpet, which grants you mana every turn, could even be argued as "worse" than Cabal Ritual.

-It is a greedy boarding plan, I know. It also works, which testing has shown. I feel comfortable playing this post-board matchup, moreso than ANY previous incarnation or boarding plan of ANT, DDANT, TES, FT, or NLS. Honestly, the deck ends up playing like DDFT, which was always a great deck vs blue.

I'd say try it yourself sometime. I think you'll be surprised like I was.

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Originally Posted by Yesmilord

-The life IS the reason that Ad Nauseam is a taxing form of victory. In a matchup where you cannot always win quickly, a lone goyf can wittle away at your life, forcing you to take unnecessary risks with Ad Nauseam.

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Well, this gets more to the point of a DD approach vs. a non-DD approach, but I don't think that's the point.

However saying DD requires less resources, like you did, is clearly misleading. =p

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-The Swarm for Silence was a recent change I made. They usually board Swords out, so this is where Swarm comes in. Upping your chant count to 8 is sufficient. Swarms are a threat that must be answered, and I don't know why you think that it's terrible against CB. CB is only half of the equation, you still have to deal with the 12 counterspells they have.

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Chant is terrible in comparison to Duress in this match. Swarm is not a must answer, as it does nothing about CB. Duress does.

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-Krosan Grip is a 3-of (there's one MB), so you're honestly fine in that department. I've tried going up to 4 and just didn't feel like it was necessary.

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Fair enough.

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-Carpet is much better than Cabal Ritual right now because we board out almost all of our 2CC spells to completely evade Spell Snare. True we do not always know if they are running Dispel, Spell Pierce, or Spell Snare, but it's a good way to blank a card. It also allows you to constantly set up turn by turn with cantrips while evading Daze and Spell Pierce. I don't see how Carpet, which grants you mana every turn, could even be argued as "worse" than Cabal Ritual.

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Nobody uses Spell Snare.

As for Carpet, I could argue that a good player won't be giving you any more than 2 mana with it ever, and frequently it will be 1 or 0.

But whether Ritual or Carpet is better is largely irrelevant. The entire point is it's a marginal change. Do you really have trouble filling up your SB? With 11 cards coming in just for blue, there's no way you can have all your bases covered with just 4 remaining slots.

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-It is a greedy boarding plan, I know. It also works, which testing has shown. I feel comfortable playing this post-board matchup, moreso than ANY previous incarnation or boarding plan of ANT, DDANT, TES, FT, or NLS. Honestly, the deck ends up playing like DDFT, which was always a great deck vs blue.

I'd say try it yourself sometime. I think you'll be surprised like I was.

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I have tried it. -_-

Honestly, I'd rather not get into the DD vs. non-DD argument....again.

I got beat so bad by Reanimator today, after about three and a half hours of (Sideboarded) playtesting, that it scared me off of ANT almost completely. With Reanimator just winning the massive Legacy tournament in Madrid, I expect it to be out in pretty big numbers. I'm not sure exactly what my strategy was supposed to be...but with Force of Will, Daze & Spell Pierce all backing up a first-three-turn Iona...it was ugly.

Trying to Chant/Silence/Duress and go off wasn't enough.

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Originally Posted by P.S.

I got beat so bad by Reanimator today, after about three and a half hours of (Sideboarded) playtesting, that it scared me off of ANT almost completely. With Reanimator just winning the massive Legacy tournament in Madrid, I expect it to be out in pretty big numbers. I'm not sure exactly what my strategy was supposed to be...but with Force of Will, Daze & Spell Pierce all backing up a first-three-turn Iona...it was ugly.

Trying to Chant/Silence/Duress and go off wasn't enough.

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Ok .... what SB plan were u using? list? DD or no? Swarm? But here is the honest truth that I wish people would understand, these matchups aren't easy. They are usually coinflips but can be won if you know what you are doing and the deck is cooperating just a little. If you don't feel comfortable playing combo against blue shit then don't play it. In order to get good with combo you have to know the deck in and out and put the time in to understanding and playing it, as well as knowing basically what your opponent has and what to anticipate. Also, Swarm is awesome in this matchup.

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Originally Posted by P.S.

I got beat so bad by Reanimator today, after about three and a half hours of (Sideboarded) playtesting, that it scared me off of ANT almost completely. With Reanimator just winning the massive Legacy tournament in Madrid, I expect it to be out in pretty big numbers. I'm not sure exactly what my strategy was supposed to be...but with Force of Will, Daze & Spell Pierce all backing up a first-three-turn Iona...it was ugly.

Trying to Chant/Silence/Duress and go off wasn't enough.

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Bring in blue bounce and Extirpate. Don't board out too much, just focus to keep your speed high.

Chant/Silence blow in this match. Swarm is acceptable, but Duress effects are where it's at.

Honestly, Reanimator has such a high variance you can just never tell. Sometimes their opener will be land, land, Pierce, Force, blue, Entomb, Reanimate on the play and there is just nothing you can do. Othertimes they fold to a single Duress. Really, their deck is so high risk / high reward that they're bound to have nutty draws and they're also going to watch their deck crap itself. They also run the most greedy mana base in Legacy which is bound to catch up to them. But hey, if they're running hot they're running hot.

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Originally Posted by Rico Suave

Honestly, I'd rather not get into the DD vs. non-DD argument....again.

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Haha, to each his own then.
What's worked for me hasn't worked for you, so we'll just leave it at that.

Eh, it's worked for me. Doomsday serves a fine purpose. It also has a lot of complications, and I'm not talking about the playing of it.

The disagreement is not whether Doomsday can or can't work. It's more about whether the pros outweigh the cons. There is a lot of opinion in the matter to cloud the argument.

I do love my Bobs though. =)

I've been playing this deck for about 4 months now, and I'll admit I'm still learning. But there are 2 hurdles I have failed to overcome as of yet: counterbalance and Merfolk.

With CB, I end up in a situation where they'll have a land on top and I only get 0 mana artifacts for acceleration post Ad Nauseam. Or they'll have a 1 mana card on top (or perhaps a top in play) and I find myself needing to play rituals or mystical tutors + cantrip.

With Merfolk it's even worse. I simply cannot beat them. I know partly that's due to my inexperience. But still...when I am playing 3 duress, 4 chants, and 3 xantid swarm, I should have a better chance and yet I still can't win! So here are my questions:

1. Am I sideboarding in the wrong cards? I figure duress/chant/xantid swarm is a solid package.
2. How do you normally use your duresses and chants? Do you play duress as soon as you draw them? Do you wait until you can play 2 hate spells AND go off in the same turn?
3. Do you crack standstill as soon as possible? What if you DON'T have top out and you know they're running 4 Mutavaults?

Thanks for the help.

I've had some number of requests for the list I'll be rocking at the 5k this weekend. After some more testing, I've switched up the accel package some more:

4 Pollluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Dark Ritual
3 Rite of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ponder
1 Meditate

4 Mystical Tutor
4 Burning Wish

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Doomsday
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Doomsday
SB: 1 Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 Pulverize
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Deathmark
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Dead//Gone

Some notes about this list:

The manabase is unchanged from my previous lists. I'm quite happy with 2 basics and 15 total lands. The fetch configuration provides access to any dual in the deck and a 6/6 split to find each basic.

Dead//Gone probably shouldn't be sided in for Dead in the aggro matchup. This is due to the potential for hitting it off Ad Nauseam and its CMC being 4 when this happens. Gone is primarily for Reanimator.

No Green or White splashes?

I currently feel like there is an all-time low in the amount of Tempo Thresh being played. In other blue matchups, notably Merfolk and Counterbalance, Duress/Thoughtseize are significantly better than chant effects.

- Against Merfolk, the lack of green (and thus Xantid Swarm) isn't noticeable due to Duress/Thoughtseize working well against their very light disruption suite and lack of draw/filtering engine.

- Against Counterbalance, Duress effects have always been stronger than chant effects. While Krosan Grip is signficantly stronger than Wipe Away, I believe that the manabase stability granted to me in other matchups, combined with the increased ability to proactive remove Counterbalance via 8 discard makes up for Wipe Away's relative inadequacies.

- Against Reanimator, Duress effects provide offensive capabilities and the ability to remove their limited hard countering abilities. This is preferential to Chant effects that cannot be used offensively in this matchup.

- Against Dredge, the lack of Chant effects is noticeable. It's hard to beat Time Walk for W in this matchup, although Duress effects are serviceable on the play, and the deck is still significantly faster than Dredge, especially the non-LED variety.

I have not found a use for Reverent Silence in several months, and thus don't consider it for a sideboard slot anymore.

Pyroclasm has returned due to Bant decks and Zoo decks varying hate between Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg, and Ethersworn Canonist. Clasm is also randomly useful vs tribal decks like elves, zoo, and sometimes even Merfolk.

Three Rite of Flame seems like a weird number, but the other cards available for cutting (15th land, 6th protection, 1st Ponder) end up being critical for various reasons. Ponder, for example, to construct several Doomsday piles. While it may be possible to cut either protection or land, I am not personally comfortable doing so. Additional acceleration from multiple Rite of Flames is not critical to the functionality of the deck.

Why Rite of Flame over Cabal Ritual?

Rite of Flame often produces the same net mana as Cabal Ritual. I may be in the minority here, but my Cabal Rituals rarely achieve Threshold.

Rite of Flame has a lower initial cost, although of a different color. I have found the 1cc of Rite of Flame to be crucial to going off on low land counts. This is important after resolving Ad Nauseam to cast Burning Wish as well as when paired with Mystical Tutor and LED to find and cast Ad Nauseam.

Non-black mana hasn't been much of an issue in testing. Ad Nauseam can be fed with Rite of Flame and Doomsday can often use the red to pay for Meditates, Sensei's Divining Tops, or Burning Wishes. While it can't directly cast Doomsday, it is often useful to cast Burning Wish after hard casting Doomsday from Lands/Petals to setup a Cruel Bargain (using Doomsday and something like SDT to glean a Black Lotus from thin air (as in the pile LED, Petal, LED, LED, Wish which requires 1RBBB, Burning Wish, and an SDT to generate lethal storm).

Additional acceleration helps when playing for quick Ad Nauseams and Empty the Warrens. In matchups where quick acceleration isn't necessary, Rite of Flame can be sided out without much loss. The list is designed around Dark Ritual, LED, and Lotus Petal, with Chrome Mox and Rite of Flame supporting.

Additional 1cc accelerants hurt the deck's performance against Chalice-packing decks. This forces us to rely more heavily on Burning Wish in these matchups preboard. This might be a problem in the midwest metagame as there is a high presence of Chalice-packing Loam decks.

Is there any real reason to use Dead/Gone over Extirpate?

If they name blue with Iona, you're going to be hard-pressed to actually find the singleton Dead/Gone.

If they name black, you can always M.Tutor -> Chain of Vapor without needing the red spell.

The real case for Extirpate goes along the lines of what you said about Duress vs. Chant. Duress is better than Chant in this match because it works against both counter-magic and their business spells, while Chant only works against one. Similarly, Dead/Gone only handles one aspect of their deck while Extirpate can potentially handle both. In short, Extirpate is a great defensive card here that can also function as a way to punch through counter-magic.

Can anybody share some of their Doomsday piles with me, I'm curious on how it works. I'm new to the deck, so I'm trying to decide between all of variants this deck can have.

The line of thinking for Dead//Gone over Extirpate was that I could Mystical for Dead//Gone pre-emptively (possibly with the reanimate/exhume on the stack) to force my opponent into disrupting me for a turn by naming blue/black or to name an off-color.

I'll do some testing with Extirpate in that slot. It's been awhile since I've rocked an Extirpate in storm combo.

I would recommend using the search function in the thread to find a list of Doomsday piles. The pages have been posted a lot.

Despite the CC off Ad Nauseam, I've found Simian Spirit Guide is the best accelerant in the Rite of Flame slot; initial mana sources are way better than Rituals and "counter target Daze" is the nuts.

Also, the SB definitely benefits from Diminishing Returns vs. the aggro match ups, and Perish is bat shit insane vs Zoo when it kills Gaddok Teeg and the rest of their board with him.

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Originally Posted by j-flo

Can anybody share some of their Doomsday piles with me, I'm curious on how it works. I'm new to the deck, so I'm trying to decide between all of variants this deck can have.

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This is what you've been looking for for all your life!

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Despite the CC off Ad Nauseam, I've found Simian Spirit Guide is the best accelerant in the Rite of Flame slot; initial mana sources are way better than Rituals and "counter target Daze" is the nuts.

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I'm extremely skeptical that I could support CMC3 spells #3-5 where Rite of Flame is right now. I haven't tested this yet (and will), but going in, this seems extremely loose.

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Also, the SB definitely benefits from Diminishing Returns vs. the aggro match ups, and Perish is bat shit insane vs Zoo when it kills Gaddok Teeg and the rest of their board with him.

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In TES, I would agree with you. However, I can already just kill my opponent with Wish->DD, despite them having Teeg in play. Returns has been tested a few different times and always gets removed because I'm never in a position where I want it. If I have an SDT or Brainstorm, Doomsday is a strictly better wish target. Otherwise, Wish->Infernal Tutor, pass (unless I have enough mana to just IT->AdN right away) is usually the play.

I haven't followed Storm combo much, but if I call correctly, ANT decks used to run both Duress effects and Chant effects in the same list; obviously, there are certain advantages to the versatility of this plan instead of a more redundant list of just Duress/Thoughtseize or Chant/Silence. Would that be too taxing on the manabase?

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Originally Posted by emidln

- Against Merfolk, the lack of green (and thus Xantid Swarm) isn't noticeable due to Duress/Thoughtseize working well against their very light disruption suite and lack of draw/filtering engine.

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I don't really belive this, but you seem to have much better results against Merfolk than I do (with different lists though, although I don't see this one performing much better in my hands). Swarms have always been able to completely turn around this matchup for me.

If you were to splash green for something, would you run the Trop mainboard?

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Originally Posted by emidln

- Against Counterbalance, Duress effects have always been stronger than chant effects. While Krosan Grip is signficantly stronger than Wipe Away, I believe that the manabase stability granted to me in other matchups, combined with the increased ability to proactive remove Counterbalance via 8 discard makes up for Wipe Away's relative inadequacies.

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How good was boarding in multiple Grips here, like the DDFT strategy? What happened to the multiple EtW plan you ran in the previous list?

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Originally Posted by emidln

I have not found a use for Reverent Silence in several months, and thus don't consider it for a sideboard slot anymore.

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I suppose this means Wishing for Reverent Silence won't win you matches against Counterbalance? If that's the case, I agree with cutting it.

Pyroclasm has returned due to Bant decks and Zoo decks varying hate between Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg, and Ethersworn Canonist. Clasm is also randomly useful vs tribal decks like elves, zoo, and sometimes even Merfolk.

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Originally Posted by emidln

Three Rite of Flame seems like a weird number, but the other cards available for cutting (15th land, 6th protection, 1st Ponder) end up being critical for various reasons. Ponder, for example, to construct several Doomsday piles. While it may be possible to cut either protection or land, I am not personally comfortable doing so. Additional acceleration from multiple Rite of Flames is not critical to the functionality of the deck.

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Has cutting IGG never been an option? I was considering running it in the board and boarding it in along with an Infernal Tutor against aggro. I don't really see what makes IGG good in this list.

Is the acceleration of multiple Rite of Flames ever usefull? If yes, you should probably try to find room for the 4th anyway. If no, wouldn't a split of 2 Rite 1 CRit be better?

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Originally Posted by emidln

Non-black mana hasn't been much of an issue in testing. Ad Nauseam can be fed with Rite of Flame and Doomsday can often use the red to pay for Meditates, Sensei's Divining Tops, or Burning Wishes. While it can't directly cast Doomsday, it is often useful to cast Burning Wish after hard casting Doomsday from Lands/Petals to setup a Cruel Bargain (using Doomsday and something like SDT to glean a Black Lotus from thin air (as in the pile LED, Petal, LED, LED, Wish which requires 1RBBB, Burning Wish, and an SDT to generate lethal storm).

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Speaking of which, do you consider the Cruel Bargain a definite slot in yout sideboard? I don't remember it being in the earlier lists you posted.

I'm kind of off topic for this long long thread but i'm running the deck quite differently with upmost consistancy.
all i need is

lotus petal, ad nauseam, any land, a kobold, and culling the weak
plus i don't run tendrils main board instead i keep it in the wish board and run burning wish.

the kobolds (i'm running six) mox for red, or the are early game chump blockers. plus there is no question about my storm count because just off 0cc spells i get from nauseum. total in my deck as possible damage from nauseum is 35

@emidln: Are you sure you want to go into a tournament without access to green? I really like your newest list but it doesn't look nearly as solid against CB decks, especially since you are only running a single Wipe Away in the board. I personally don't like Reverent Silence in the board but I woud not run any less than 2-3 Wipe Away for that matchup. Running all the discard is great, and actually in the ANT lists I am toying with I am just running 3x Duress and 3x Swarm and liking it but, I think not running Swarm as a protection spell is a serious mistake. Merfolk will be out in mass at a big tournament like this because of how cheap it is to build compared to the rest of the blue garbage. Other combo (one of the lists that did good in Madrid) will also be quite popular I would imagine, and Swarm is so great in these matchups.

Hell, maybe you don't even need to run Swarm in the board, just put 2 in the main over the 2x Thoughtseize and keep the discard in the board. It just seems sub-optimal to no be running green. I am not critisizing the list at all, just wondering what your thought process is. I highly doubt that CB will be a rare occurrence, its an easy as hell deck to play and a tiny soft lock that wins games, anyone who has played Magic for around a year can understand this deck, thus, lots of people will play it, especially at a big tournament because it is a "safe" choice. I would imagine a good amount of Reanimator (2-3 Wipe Away would really shine here, as would Swarm since they have no answer), Dredge, Zoo, and CB. Thoughts?

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I'm kind of off topic for this long long thread but i'm running the deck quite differently with upmost consistancy.
all i need is

lotus petal, ad nauseam, any land, a kobold, and culling the weak
plus i don't run tendrils main board instead i keep it in the wish board and run burning wish.

the kobolds (i'm running six) mox for red, or the are early game chump blockers. plus there is no question about my storm count because just off 0cc spells i get from nauseum. total in my deck as possible damage from nauseum is 35

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Kobold lists are the utmost in inconsistency.

Kobolds are nothing without Culling, and Culling is nothing without a Kobold. You will experience times where you get one without the other. Running extremely conditional cards that either shine or fall flat with no in between is the definition of inconsistent.

Besides, you don't really gain much. A threshold Cabal Ritual nets as much mana as Kobold+Culling, without needing 2 cards to do it.

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I haven't followed Storm combo much, but if I call correctly, ANT decks used to run both Duress effects and Chant effects in the same list; obviously, there are certain advantages to the versatility of this plan instead of a more redundant list of just Duress/Thoughtseize or Chant/Silence. Would that be too taxing on the manabase?

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The problem is that the versatility does not make up for the fact Thoughtseize is just better than Chant in the tough matches. I would rather have Thoughtseize against CB, Reanimator, Merfolk, and to a lesser degree even matches like Stax or Chalice Loam.

The only situation I can think of where Chant is better than TS in a tough match would be the mirror, and even that is questionable as I find TS to be invaluable for a number of reasons.

RE: Cabal Ritual

One of the reasons I enjoy Cabal Ritual is due to its ability to make a lot from a little. Cabal Ritual vs. Rite of Flame is comparable in the opener, or in the first couple turns. If you are playing any war of attrition, Cabal Ritual becomes a whole lot better. Granted a list with 4 Tops can't really achieve threshold with the same reliability that other lists can, but it can still make great use of C.Ritual and I'll try to describe why.

There are a number of situations where you either need to or would like to Duress/Thoughtseize multiple times. With 2 Duress effects, a couple fetchlands, a Brainstorm/Ponder, and you're pretty much right at threshold. Now if you were using Top to sculpt this kind of hand, there will be many times you opt to draw disruption effects instead of extra land drops or fast mana. You will likely be in a position where you will only have 2-3 land on the board and 2-3 cards in hand due to this, during which your opponent will be defenseless, and knowing that Cabal Ritual can turn into a net of 3 mana is invaluable in these kind of situations. You can win with as little as 2 land and C.Ritual + AN if you have threshold. And threshold is of course easier to achieve when you're constantly Duressing and fetching.

In other words, it allows you to sculpt a winning hand without needing something along the lines of 3-4 land and 2-3 fast mana. You don't need to assemble tons of fast mana, you can fall back on the power of C.Ritual to act like extra copies of LED. It is truly a great card.

Ill-Gotten Gains is included due to its abusiveness against aggro in Doomsday piles. It makes for easy and very lethal piles with low mana requirements (including some useful pass the turn piles). Even with 0 Infernal Tutor in my 75, I would include Ill-Gotten Gains because it's that important to have against aggro when utilizing Doomsday.

If I were to play green, I would maindeck a Tropical Island and seriously consider a sideboard Bayou. The Tropical Island would likely be over Underground Sea #2 or Bloodstained Mire #2.

Cruel Bargain/Infernal Contract has been an integral part of my NLS lists for awhile. It's important for turning Burning Wish into a cheap and effective draw spell for breaking into Doomsday.

Merfolk isn't hard to beat with the list I posted. I originally cut green when I realized how I never actually needed green. The reason for this is that Merfolk has very little actual disruption and no card quality engine. Sure, they have Force and then 8 taxing counters, but those taxing counters are easier to play through when you're not spending extra mana on chant effects the turn you go off. Unlike Tempo Thresh or Team America, they don't have the ability to use Brainstorm/Ponder to constantly fill their hand with cheap disruption. This means that you can use your Duresses to quickly exhaust them of all relevant counters and then play Doomsday or Ad Nauseam around Stifles. Standstills are just a lot worse than Brainstorm/Ponder at keeping the deck in supply of counters. I'm not saying the matchup is an auto-win, I've just found it very difficult to lose when playing tightly with 8 Duress.

If I wanted green for anything, it would be Krosan Grip against Counterbalance and Carpet of Flowers against Tempo Thresh. Tempo Thresh is an abysmal matchup and the extra 2+ mana a turn from Carpet is a big deal, even without the ability to power their their soft counters with chants.

About Duress/Thoughtseize vs Chant effects. Something I've noticed from testing that isn't often talked about here is the ability of Duress/Thoughtseize to punish bad draws. Opponents mulling, especially unstable decks like Reanimator and most of the Bant CB lists I've seen can often be completely blown out by a Duress/Thoughtseize. This offensive capability to force interaction has won me a lot of games in some of my harder matchups.

Has anyone thought of playing Massacre in the sideboard? When I look at it, it's Deathmark, Pyroclasm and Slaughter Pact combined. It is free to cast wishboard card that answers multiple hate bears.

EDIT: Realised that Massacre doesn't answer Gaddock Teeg which makes it crap.

Only if one of those hate bears isn't Gaddock Teeg (which is generally what gets paired up with Ethersworn Canonist).

Massace doesn't answer Gaddock Teeg, can't buy you the turn you need to combo v. goyf or goblins, and has godawful art.

Massacre doesn't...

...kill a Goyf when you need to buy time, the same is true for RWM
...get rid of Gaddock Teeg, which actually shuts off IGG and AN
...let your Xantid Swarms survive
...kill EtW tokens, because those decks will most likely doesn't have a plains on the table
...[...]

Doh! I didn't realise Massacre doesn't work when Gaddock Teeg is on the table. The fact that it needs no mana to cast bluffed me.. Teeg is prolly the most played hate bear at the moment so that's pretty much about it then. The card is garbage.

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Originally Posted by Tao

However, since everybody in this thread is so sure that all changes Saito made to the deck are bad and that his testing with these changes and his tournament victory were just a fluke or a statistic variance I won't bother explaining it. I am sick of out of context quoting and purposeful misunderstandings like the one above, I am out of this thread.

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Just wanted to quote myself so I can say I KNEW IT. Haha, I win, this thread fails.

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Originally Posted by Tao

Just wanted to quote myself so I can say I KNEW IT. Haha, I win, this thread fails.

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You're in again? Good.
I guess I need to see a video of him piloting it, or a report. I'm really curious of why he included these 2 CoT. Just because they make 2 mana so he can cast his Ad Nauseam faster?

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Originally Posted by Nidd

You're in again? Good.
I guess I need to see a video of him piloting it, or a report. I'm really curious of why he included these 2 CoT. Just because they make 2 mana so he can cast his Ad Nauseam faster?

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Yes, I assume that is why. Turn 1 CoT, Petal, Rit, AdN is pretty nice. :)

(Well, except against FoW or Daze.)

Right number of ponder is 2, as well as for the mox. C.Ritual might be at 3, but some players are playing 4
And: never try to play without Doomsday ;)

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Originally Posted by Nidd

You're in again? Good.
I guess I need to see a video of him piloting it, or a report. I'm really curious of why he included these 2 CoT. Just because they make 2 mana so he can cast his Ad Nauseam faster?

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City of Traitors is for 3 reasons:

1) Simply powering out Ad Nauseam
2) Beating Trinisphere
3) Overcoming Daze effects.

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Originally Posted by Tao

Just wanted to quote myself so I can say I KNEW IT. Haha, I win, this thread fails.

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Right. What exactly makes you think you were right here? Saito's list changed, and as I said, although the concept is interesting, the list is still suboptimal.

By the way, do you know how Saito got in the Top 8? He tries to stretch every game as long as possible. Because the chances of him winning the first game are huge, buying time is the best thing you can do. If you lose game 2, going to time in game 3 against any deck that wins on creatures ensures you at least a draw. And you're combo, so you can try to win in the last couple of turns of the extra time as usual. If you can't, pick up you 'well earned' draw and leave.

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

Right. What exactly makes you think you were right here?

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That he finished 3rd in a 2225 player tournament after I said that the list is awesome.

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

and as I said, although the concept is interesting, the list is still suboptimal.

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*facepalm*

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

Right. What exactly makes you think you were right here? Saito's list changed, and as I said, although the concept is interesting, the list is still suboptimal.

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I'm legitimately curious, so I'll just ask.

How can a deck that Top 8s a 2200+ person tournament be suboptimal exactly? Don't actual results have some bearing on what is or is not the optimal deck configuration?

He can't get good matchups for every round of a tournament that big, and I don't see how he can slow play every round as you claim he did, so it seems like it was a very good list for the tournament. Yeah, he didn't win. Yeah, another ANT deck went to the finals (and blew it), so I guess if you consider it the second best list of the tournament "suboptimal" then maybe that explains it?

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By the way, I hope to hear how emidln did today with NLS since he seems pretty confidant about it being the best deck. I saw NLS on a feature match today, but it didn't look like his list.

Edit: Looks like no Storm combo in the T8. :(

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Originally Posted by Tychoides

I'm legitimately curious, so I'll just ask.

How can a deck that Top 8s a 2200+ person tournament be suboptimal exactly? Don't actual results have some bearing on what is or is not the optimal deck configuration?

He can't get good matchups for every round of a tournament that big, and I don't see how he can slow play every round as you claim he did, so it seems like it was a very good list for the tournament. Yeah, he didn't win. Yeah, another ANT deck went to the finals (and blew it), so I guess if you consider it the second best list of the tournament "suboptimal" then maybe that explains it?

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Give me a reasonable correlation between a decklist and a result that proves you're right. There is none, because players don't win tournaments because their decks are superior. Players win tournaments because they play well, have luck and have a good list (and Saito's is decent, but not optimal). Actual results have some bearing, but who wins tournaments is not decided by the optimality of someones list.

He obviously can't. Although this deck doesn't really have too many bad matchups. Saito's result was 7-0-2 and 7-0-1. He got at least 2 of those draws by slowplaying. I was there, I saw it happen. It's what got him into the top 8. If he wound't do this, he would have lost these round and you immediately would've thought of his list as ' not all that good, because he didn't make top 8'.

And Tao, if you don't want to discuss and just want to show off about something you weren't right about, please get out as you did earlier.

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

Give me a reasonable correlation between a decklist and a result that proves you're right. There is none, because players don't win tournaments because their decks are superior. Players win tournaments because they play well, have luck and have a good list (and Saito's is decent, but not optimal). Actual results have some bearing, but who wins tournaments is not decided by the optimality of someones list.

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Thanks for answering, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here. :)

While I don't disagree that luck and play skill can overcome some sub-optimal card choices, I believe there is some admittedly subjective line you can cross where skill and luck just won't help anymore. In this specific case, I think a large sample set (the many rounds of GP Madrid + Saito's past performance with an almost identical list) start to make those other variable contributing factors less of a factor when looking at results as well.

Perhaps I just put more emphasis on actual results than theoretical card-choice discussions, since what is or is not "optimal" for a deck like ANT is definitely debatable and there is some need to look at some concrete numbers and results in my opinion.

In the MD area, recently very few (less than 40%) of decks are playing Force of Will - and there's very little CounterTop or Thresh (though Merfolk remains common). This is making me want to pick up storm, and I've been practicing with this list:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chrome Mox
2 Cabal Ritual

4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Doomsday
1 Meditate
1 Wipe Away
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Duress
3 Orim's Chant

--- Sideboard ---
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Krosan Grip
1 Tropical Island
1 Plains
1 Orim's Chant
1 Deathmark
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Echoing Truth
Still Under Construction

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2 Island

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Why don't you just run a 9th fetch over a 2nd Island? What is it in there for?

Basically, you could play the Trop MD.
Also, for the SB, I suggest 1 Doomsday. It may occur that you have to board in too many costly spells, so that Ad Nauseam becomes a liability.
Also, how about a Chain of Vapor for the SB?

2nd island in the main could become a 2nd tundra instead, making it easier to chant-walk should the situation arise. I've missed 2 basics in ANT in some games but never really wanted 3