[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

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Originally Posted by citanul

Most people know me as a combo guy.
But if I'm facing strangers I keep my dice in my bag. Then when I am going off I grab them and start using my dice.
Not everyone with dice is a combo player though. An Ichorid player around here has a bunch of Zombie tokens with several Goblin tokens on top of them. So if the opponent ever catches a glimpse of it they'll think he's a Goblin player. You got to ignore such things from good players.

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I've done the Goblin token thing. Mind tricks in general are pretty funny. I know there was a player with a white deck who had one Mana Tithe in his sideboard and left that on top to "accidentally" show it to his opponents. All of his opponents played game two as if he had Mana Tithe. But let's get back on track.

@lordofthepit - I bought one of those blocks of mini dice (like 36 of them?). They can be used for tons of stuff like Vial, Jitte, etc. And often I share them with my opponent. I've found that pencil and paper work best for storm though. You can very quickly jot down mana by color and tally up storm. It just takes a lot of room. I do most of it in my head now though, and once you get more experience in Magic, I'm sure you can too.

@xTrainx - There are a ton of DD stacks that you can do depending on what you have. And actually, emidlin has the link for it on his sig. It's pretty useful.

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Here's a pretty trivial logistical question: how do you guys keep track of mana and storm count? I'm thinking of using dice the next time I play, but I don't want to give away that I'm playing storm. Do you just keep everything away until you're ready to "go off"? Or do people already know you guys as "the combo guy"?

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You shouldn't show your dice until they have already figured out what you are playing. There aren't many decks that play Polluted Delta/Flooded Strand into Underground Sea, but you might as well make your opponent think you are playing Reanimator, Faeries or some Counterbalance deck. When comboing off the dice is mostly to help the opponent understand what's going on, since you should think your line of play through in your head before doing anything. The storm count/mana you achieve in the end should come as no surprise.

When it comes to Jedi mind tricks, my playmat now features illustrations of Counterbalance + Top!

I only bring blank pads of paper, a pen, my playmat, and cards with me to each round. Unfortunately for me, my playmat is a giant artist-drawn Street Wraith with pink highlights with the letters E M I D L N at the top of my playmatt facing my opponent. Most people I've played against in the last year know me from that or from the fact that I haven't shown up to a 30+ player event without combo in legacy or vintage in a long time.

Further, when comboing, I keep track of mana in pool with one B, U, R, G, W, or C per mana of that type on my page of paper and cross them out when I've used them. I use hash marks grouped into fives to count my storm.

Do those "tricks" really work oput for you? Maybe I´m just the worst combo player on earth but I need quite some time to determine the best line of play and count my storm/mana before actually comboeing off. Most of the time, people realize what I´m playing way before I even start the combo.
And for the question itself: I don´t use dice to keep track of the storm count, I usually write it down. There have been some times where my opponent asked in the middle of my combo, how many spells it have been so far. It really is important to have a sheet where you can review it, not a dice which could easily be misplaced/switched/whatever...

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Originally Posted by DerFern

Do those "tricks" really work oput for you? Maybe I´m just the worst combo player on earth but I need quite some time to determine the best line of play and count my storm/mana before actually comboeing off. Most of the time, people realize what I´m playing way before I even start the combo.
And for the question itself: I don´t use dice to keep track of the storm count, I usually write it down. There have been some times where my opponent asked in the middle of my combo, how many spells it have been so far. It really is important to have a sheet where you can review it, not a dice which could easily be misplaced/switched/whatever...

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I am in the same boat as you. I use pen and paper always. And I so often have to stop and count in my head and that definitely may tip off the opponent. The good news is, usually by the time you're doing that sort of counting, that means you're already awfully close to going off.

Here's a thought. Has anyone tried counting storm and mana on games 2 and 3 to give the illusion of "going off" without actually having the key puzzle pieces? For example, could I try playing a spell, write down the storm count, and then play LED or Top with the hopes they waste a counter on it? Do you think it's feasible?

Another question: has anyone ever faked having a Tendrils left in their deck (after revealing one through AN, for example), but did so convincingly enough so that the opponent scooped and you didn't have to show the Tendrils? I've heard stories of this kind of stuff. Seems really loose to me, but does it actually work?

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Another question: has anyone ever faked having a Tendrils left in their deck (after revealing one through AN, for example), but did so convincingly enough so that the opponent scooped and you didn't have to show the Tendrils? I've heard stories of this kind of stuff. Seems really loose to me, but does it actually work?

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I even got so far to get someone to scoop to me resolving Infernal Tutor even though I was still holding a card in my hand. Believe me, people can be convinced of anything, just don't cheat.

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I am in the same boat as you. I use pen and paper always. And I so often have to stop and count in my head and that definitely may tip off the opponent. The good news is, usually by the time you're doing that sort of counting, that means you're already awfully close to going off.

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It's practice I guess. If you play your deck enough you'll know what you need to do things and don't even have to count anymore.
Using Pen and Paper looks good but I usually just use Dice to indicate it to my opponent. Also make sure that for the next match you use a blank piece of paper instead of a paper with BBBUUW written all over it.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Here's a pretty trivial logistical question: how do you guys keep track of mana and storm count? I'm thinking of using dice the next time I play, but I don't want to give away that I'm playing storm. Do you just keep everything away until you're ready to "go off"? Or do people already know you guys as "the combo guy"?

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I play a variety of decks so that no one can ever know immediately what I'm playing. I just grab a handful of assorted dice at the beginning of every match. But I usually don't use dice for storm and mana. I've usually spent so long planning it out in my head that I don't need to. I make it clear to my opponent, but I don't waste mental energy on changing dice that I already know in my head.

To reply to lordofthe pit:

I don't typically keep track, but I do watch my opponent. If I am trying to go off, I ask if they want to keep notes if they don't seem used to the decktype. Just break down your cards to an easy reverse mental count. Unless they're flashing life gain at you, count down from 10 with every 2 life they lose. Add if you think a copy can get countered. I think it's easier to count storm down than up as the game goes mentally... but when you go off, go up instead of down. Organize your mana sources in hand by amount of net mana generated (1 for petal, 3 for LED, 1 for Infernal Tutor (into LED). When you think Cabal can make net 3 instead of net 1 mana, just shift it in your hand. Do a check if you have threshold before casting Cabal. And go step by step procedurally whenever you pass priority so that they can interject if they have something. The only time I've ever gone to time playing a storm deck was playing against a Rock deck that made me discard my hand... and somehow, his Dark Confidant was unlucky and Bob, Thoughtseizes, and fetchlands outraced him faster than Bob raced me (Orim's Chant kept him from attacking/casting a flipped Tombstalker).

The only time I would write storm count/mana down is when I cast Diminishing Returns. I actually write names of spells cast/sources of mana rather than just storm count when I do that to avoid issues with an opponent if they think I'm cheating.

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Originally Posted by sigfig8

Another question: has anyone ever faked having a Tendrils left in their deck (after revealing one through AN, for example), but did so convincingly enough so that the opponent scooped and you didn't have to show the Tendrils? I've heard stories of this kind of stuff. Seems really loose to me, but does it actually work?

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This does work, more often than you'd think. I've never done it with ANT, as I've never played it, but I've done it with Enchantress before, and with Solidarity. With Enchantress, I've convinced my opponent to scoop to a Confinement lock when I had no actual win conditions left in the deck because of his maindeck Relic. With Solidarity, I've had my opponent scoop several times after I make ungodly amounts of mana, but with no actual card draw left in my hand. They just see you doing lots of stuff and assume you're going to win.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Here's a pretty trivial logistical question: how do you guys keep track of mana and storm count? I'm thinking of using dice the next time I play, but I don't want to give away that I'm playing storm. Do you just keep everything away until you're ready to "go off"? Or do people already know you guys as "the combo guy"?

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I usually have a sheet of paper with me to protocol the lifetotals. And, you know, there's enough space to note your manapool and stormcount as well. it's pretty easy, just write it down. :-)

So looking at the ANT that took home the gold in Atlanta this weekend (and the other ANT in the top 16), they both seemed much more focused and one-dimensional than I expected. After reading all through this thread, I was expecting them to have 1 AdN, a Doomsday package, maybe even Burning Wishes and/or a transformative sideboard. Instead there was just streamlining and redundancy...2 AdN, 2 Tendrils, 3-4 of all the rest. Nothing even remotely approaching the more complicated decks on here placed in the top 16 (and no other versions of a storm deck).

Is this a sign that ANT with a focus on the AN win is better/more consistent than DDANT? Is it just that regular ANT is more prevalent than DDANT so it's more likely to get a someone in the top? Does this result change anyone's opinions about the right way to build ANT?

Just looking for what significance, if any, the vets here find in the results.

Honestly, I think the straight ad nauseam build is quicker, and more broken, which results in a better deck. The only matchup I've found Doomsday to be worth running was Countertop, and they won most of the time anyway

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Originally Posted by sirisaacnuton

So looking at the ANT that took home the gold in Atlanta this weekend (and the other ANT in the top 16), they both seemed much more focused and one-dimensional than I expected. After reading all through this thread, I was expecting them to have 1 AdN, a Doomsday package, maybe even Burning Wishes and/or a transformative sideboard. Instead there was just streamlining and redundancy...2 AdN, 2 Tendrils, 3-4 of all the rest. Nothing even remotely approaching the more complicated decks on here placed in the top 16 (and no other versions of a storm deck).

Is this a sign that ANT with a focus on the AN win is better/more consistent than DDANT? Is it just that regular ANT is more prevalent than DDANT so it's more likely to get a someone in the top? Does this result change anyone's opinions about the right way to build ANT?

Just looking for what significance, if any, the vets here find in the results.

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As many before me pointed out, winning a tournament, despites how big it is, does not qualify version X o a certain archetype better than version Y. This emerged from several discussions, and can be applied in here too.
In this case, all I can say is that Doomsday ANT is far more difficult to pilot, because it involves a decision tree that's far wider than the Saitoish's one. The lack of results in big tournaments may be caused by the fact that most of the people are not very confident with it and so they prefer to bring the "simple" version, or just that the usual netdeckers see that a Pro built that and so they think it is the ultimate shit. Or maybe, just for a coincidence, no one of the good Doomsday Storm Combo players in here or there in the world attended a great event (even if i recall 2 DDANT being in top of a 100+ dutch tournament, it was Matelm and Bahamuth, weren't they?).
On a personal note, I think you can win a tournament just going Ad Nauseam-style, seeing the tremendous number of people who do not know how to fight this deck.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

As many before me pointed out, winning a tournament, despites how big it is, does not qualify version X o a certain archetype better than version Y. This emerged from several discussions, and can be applied in here too.
In this case, all I can say is that Doomsday ANT is far more difficult to pilot, because it involves a decision tree that's far wider than the Saitoish's one. The lack of results in big tournaments may be caused by the fact that most of the people are not very confident with it and so they prefer to bring the "simple" version, or just that the usual netdeckers see that a Pro built that and so they think it is the ultimate shit. Or maybe, just for a coincidence, no one of the good Doomsday Storm Combo players in here or there in the world attended a great event (even if i recall 2 DDANT being in top of a 100+ dutch tournament, it was Matelm and Bahamuth, weren't they?).
On a personal note, I think you can win a tournament just going Ad Nauseam-style, seeing the tremendous number of people who do not know how to fight this deck.

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I think you (and by extension everyone who agrees with your sentiment) is looking at it the wrong way. Zoo wins games, matches and tournaments because it's brutally consistent. 90% of the time, your starting 6 or 7 will goldfish by turn 5. Even against countermagic, discard, removal or whatever, Zoo delivers by dropping threat after threat quickly and consistently. Saito ANT is the Zoo of storm combo. Doomsday builds are insanely difficult to pilot, have a decision tree more complicated than a doctoral thesis and are typically built to be meta-dependent. A deck that exhausts its pilot and gets too wrapped up in its own complexity can't reasonably expect to win more than the occasional tournament here or there.

When 4 or 5 color ANT-something hybrids were in vogue and Orim's Chant was the protection of choice, storm combo was tough but beatable. It seems abundantly clear that storm combo got too complicated for its own good. Saito ANT says, "I'm going to resolve Ad Nauseam and I'm going to do it turn 2 or 3 with Duress backup" and most of the time, it does. I get that DD piles can fight through triple force Force, quadruple Pierce, active countertop and six Mindbreak Traps played after a resolved Counterspell-Fork-Twincast, given perfect play and a little bit of luck, but Saito ANT just sticks to its plan of using the fastest, most brutal engine since Necropotence and it does it well. I think there's a lot to be said for a deck that can very quickly, very consistently land a game-winning bomb through 1-2 hate pieces. It doesn't take nearly as much thought or effort to pilot, it usually goes off before your opponent can do anything about it (barring a truly perfect hand) and if you stop it, you've probably spent your entire hand doing so, except the entire ANT deck is programmed to go off again, while you've only got 5 or 6 relevant counters left in the 50 cards you haven't seen yet.

Yes, if Deep Blue was programmed for Magic, it could probably win every tournament with some ultra-techy DD pile. That said, Magic is played by people who over time get tired and make mistakes against opponents who do the same. Saito ANT removes a lot of the difficulty of DD piles, hybrid storm and NLS shenanigans for just the stone-cold nuts with a handful of in-color protection. That kind of absolutely brutal consistency (the Zoo kind, that could put a monkey in the top 8) combined with the power of legacy-legal Ad Nauseam storm combo (unrestricted BS, LED & Lotus Petal) makes it in my opinion the undisupted best combo in Legacy right now. Maybe the results are just a byproduct of the fact, rather than any kind of proof in the first place.

Among straight ANT builds (not Doomsday hybrids), why is the Saito version considered superior to a more traditional build like Do Anh's, who actually beat him head to head?

The main differences I see are 1) dropping the white splash, replacing Chants with Thoughtseize, 2) replacing the IGG with a second Ad Nauseam, and 3) including a second copy of Tendrils of Agony. It seems that it's better geared towards control decks for these reasons, while having worse Ad Nauseams (due to the higher average casting cost), but it loses the Chants against the mirror and IGG against aggro. It seems more of a metagame call to me, but why is his deck getting discussed so much more? Is it inherently superior in some way, or is it just more interesting/revolutionary?

I normally don't bother posting, but I'll toss in my two cents.

@lordofthepit:

The builds packing 7-8 Duress effects are stronger against most of the blue based decks in the format right now. The strategy of quickly stripping hard counters then pushing for the win is better against CounterTop/most tempo decks than tryng to resolve a Chant (which also stretches the manabase). Discard is also stronger vs. Reanimator. A list playing Chant would really only be better against the mirror and maybe some slow control deck (Landstill, perhaps).

@the DD hybrid discussion

I have extensively (thousands of games) tested Tendrils based combo over the last two years. While I'm currently no longer playing ANT (Ive moved on to what I feel is a stronger combo deck) I will say that if I had to bring a list to a tournament it would be very similar to Saito's build (different sideboard and maybe maindeck pyroblasts). This isn't becuase of the rediculous complexity of the DD hybrids, but becuase I feel straight ANT is a better choice in the current metagame.

The Doomsday hybrids are without doubt more versatile and more powerful. They are better against decks not playing Islands and have mostly even to favorable match ups against the blue decks. However, I have not had any significant trouble beating non-blue (80% in my favor isn't much different from 95%) and I generally beat most of the blue decks just the same.

I admit that I'd rather have DD against Tempo thresh, but that deck isn't common enough anymore for me to care. I feel that a tuned straight ANT list performs better against CounterTop and about the same against the non-Canadian Thresh tempo decks (unfortunately, it is fairly difficult to generate any real win percentage as games hinge greatly upon exact deck lists and play skill of the opponent). Now, the Doomsday builds do have the option of bringing in extra Doomsdays + removal + whatever else, but I find this taking up a lot of sideboard space just to get a better match up percentage than straight ANT lists. (note: including Emrakul could change my overall opinion, but Im no longer playing ANT)

In the end, both decks beat most of the metagame fairly easily when run correctly. I think I perform better against CounterTop with my own straight ANT list than with DD hybrids - and this is enough for me as I feel confident beating anything else in Legacy.

People win with ANT for the same reason they lose with Dredge, a strong, consistent deck that doesn't require critical thinking is easier to play than a strong, consistent deck that requires critical thinking and mediocre players will prefer a deck that prevents them from losing from their own mistakes instead of rewards them for their own skill. I'd say DDANT has appr. 5% better match up vs. CB, but the number of people who can realize it while not reducing their over all match up % vs. the rest of the field thru' screwing up the basics is a hand full of people

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Originally Posted by ColeM

I normally don't bother posting, but I'll toss in my two cents.

@lordofthepit:

The builds packing 7-8 Duress effects are stronger against most of the blue based decks in the format right now. The strategy of quickly stripping hard counters then pushing for the win is better against CounterTop/most tempo decks than tryng to resolve a Chant (which also stretches the manabase). Discard is also stronger vs. Reanimator. A list playing Chant would really only be better against the mirror and maybe some slow control deck (Landstill, perhaps).

@the DD hybrid discussion

I have extensively (thousands of games) tested Tendrils based combo over the last two years. While I'm currently no longer playing ANT (Ive moved on to what I feel is a stronger combo deck) I will say that if I had to bring a list to a tournament it would be very similar to Saito's build (different sideboard and maybe maindeck pyroblasts). This isn't becuase of the rediculous complexity of the DD hybrids, but becuase I feel straight ANT is a better choice in the current metagame.

The Doomsday hybrids are without doubt more versatile and more powerful. They are better against decks not playing Islands and have mostly even to favorable match ups against the blue decks. However, I have not had any significant trouble beating non-blue (80% in my favor isn't much different from 95%) and I generally beat most of the blue decks just the same.

I admit that I'd rather have DD against Tempo thresh, but that deck isn't common enough anymore for me to care. I feel that a tuned straight ANT list performs better against CounterTop and about the same against the non-Canadian Thresh tempo decks (unfortunately, it is fairly difficult to generate any real win percentage as games hinge greatly upon exact deck lists and play skill of the opponent). Now, the Doomsday builds do have the option of bringing in extra Doomsdays + removal + whatever else, but I find this taking up a lot of sideboard space just to get a better match up percentage than straight ANT lists. (note: including Emrakul could change my overall opinion, but Im no longer playing ANT)

In the end, both decks beat most of the metagame fairly easily when run correctly. I think I perform better against CounterTop with my own straight ANT list than with DD hybrids - and this is enough for me as I feel confident beating anything else in Legacy.

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Im considering move to a combo deck, I was considering ANT, however you mention a more powerful deck. Might I ask what you believe it to be?

What are the critical life totals for this deck in terms of opponents? As in, "Ad Naus from 17 I've never failed, but Ad Naus from 8 never wins."

Life Total alone is an awful metric. I've lost from 20 and won from 4 with Ad Nauseam. What actually matters is how likely you are to see the initial mana and/or rituals and/or win conditions you need given your present resources including your ability to survive another turn at a high enough life with the chance they might draw relevant disruption.

Going off at 20 with no Lotus Petals left in the deck because you cast Ad Nauseam off land drop + 4 petals turn one is sketchy at best with 3 Chrome Mox left in the deck.

What you should be asking is how many initial mana sources, rituals, win conditions, and life points do I need to be left in my deck to win the game at least X% of the time with Y mana floating.

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Originally Posted by emidln

Life Total alone is an awful metric. I've lost from 20 and won from 4 with Ad Nauseam. What actually matters is how likely you are to see the initial mana and/or rituals and/or win conditions you need given your present resources including your ability to survive another turn at a high enough life with the chance they might draw relevant disruption.

Going off at 20 with no Lotus Petals left in the deck because you cast Ad Nauseam off land drop + 4 petals turn one is sketchy at best with 3 Chrome Mox left in the deck.

What you should be asking is how many initial mana sources, rituals, win conditions, and life points do I need to be left in my deck to win the game at least X% of the time with Y mana floating.

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My question was from a non-combo player, from a tactical perspective of "should I use knight of the reliquary to fetch a wasteland or does taking you from 15 to 11 matter more" (or general rules for this situation.

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My question was from a non-combo player, from a tactical perspective of "should I use knight of the reliquary to fetch a wasteland or does taking you from 15 to 11 matter more" (or general rules for this situation.

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I'm afraid there is no 'right' answer for your question because it's actually very dependant on the situation the combo player is in.
For instance let's say you play against saito AnT where life equals card draw. And Let's say the combo player is at 15 life with 2X Underground sea in play.
If you waste one of them and he has ritual, treshed Crit + AN in his hand you just gave him a perfect opportunity to win the game easily. But if he had for instance the same hand without the ritual you might just have given yourself a huge advantage by making the same play.
My point is: to make the right choice you need to use every piece of information you have about your opponent's hand (for instance: mystical tutor found card x, infernal card y, etc). Without any of that information i'm afraid you'll need to take a guess.

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Originally Posted by IsThisACatInAHat?

I think you (and by extension everyone who agrees with your sentiment) is looking at it the wrong way. Zoo wins games, matches and tournaments because it's brutally consistent. 90% of the time, your starting 6 or 7 will goldfish by turn 5. Even against countermagic, discard, removal or whatever, Zoo delivers by dropping threat after threat quickly and consistently. Saito ANT is the Zoo of storm combo. Doomsday builds are insanely difficult to pilot, have a decision tree more complicated than a doctoral thesis and are typically built to be meta-dependent. A deck that exhausts its pilot and gets too wrapped up in its own complexity can't reasonably expect to win more than the occasional tournament here or there.

When 4 or 5 color ANT-something hybrids were in vogue and Orim's Chant was the protection of choice, storm combo was tough but beatable. It seems abundantly clear that storm combo got too complicated for its own good. Saito ANT says, "I'm going to resolve Ad Nauseam and I'm going to do it turn 2 or 3 with Duress backup" and most of the time, it does. I get that DD piles can fight through triple force Force, quadruple Pierce, active countertop and six Mindbreak Traps played after a resolved Counterspell-Fork-Twincast, given perfect play and a little bit of luck, but Saito ANT just sticks to its plan of using the fastest, most brutal engine since Necropotence and it does it well. I think there's a lot to be said for a deck that can very quickly, very consistently land a game-winning bomb through 1-2 hate pieces. It doesn't take nearly as much thought or effort to pilot, it usually goes off before your opponent can do anything about it (barring a truly perfect hand) and if you stop it, you've probably spent your entire hand doing so, except the entire ANT deck is programmed to go off again, while you've only got 5 or 6 relevant counters left in the 50 cards you haven't seen yet.

Yes, if Deep Blue was programmed for Magic, it could probably win every tournament with some ultra-techy DD pile. That said, Magic is played by people who over time get tired and make mistakes against opponents who do the same. Saito ANT removes a lot of the difficulty of DD piles, hybrid storm and NLS shenanigans for just the stone-cold nuts with a handful of in-color protection. That kind of absolutely brutal consistency (the Zoo kind, that could put a monkey in the top 8) combined with the power of legacy-legal Ad Nauseam storm combo (unrestricted BS, LED & Lotus Petal) makes it in my opinion the undisupted best combo in Legacy right now. Maybe the results are just a byproduct of the fact, rather than any kind of proof in the first place.

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Saying DDANT is a worse deck because it's harder to play is just stupid. If you're not up to the challenge of memorizing all it takes, just go play mono red burn.

But I do agree that against the current metagame DDANT might not be the better choice. Discard is better against CB and Reanimator, and that's a big deal. With straight AdN you probably don't have to worry about Stifle and Spell Snare, so that makes chant a little worse. Reanimator and CB put permanents in play that disrupt your game, that stops DDANT from taking advantage of the "no life needed" making Ad Nauseam look better.

I really like DDANT, but in the current meta speed matters. Taking it slow and grinding it out is not gonna get you anywhere with Ionas and Counterbalances flying everywhere.

So I'm sleeving up ANT for a cash tournament in Cleveland tomorrow, and I haven't played it since the last larger tournement I went to In Ann Arbor. I'm going to post my list for everyone to be snarky about, but my real question is for those who have extensively tested the Saito list: Does the deck get slowed down a turn by targeted Discard? I expect the ANT mirror, and I'd like some scouting on the Saito list. Anyway, here's my list, that has always been great for me, but with an Edict in the board, as a second MD out to Reanimator.

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
=15 Lands

4 Dark Ritual
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Cabal Ritual
=18 Instants

4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
2 Ponder
3 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
=16 Sorcery

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
=11 Artifacts


2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Extirpate
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Pact of Negation

I'd cut the burning wishes for 2 tops and another tendrils.

Top is an auto-win against discard, which you seem worried about. Like burning wish, top also plays well with Lions eye diamond. Cutting red will also stabilize your mana base, and allow you to run city of traitors, which has been the MVP of my manabase during testing

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Originally Posted by honestabe

I'd cut the burning wishes for 2 tops and another tendrils.

Top is an auto-win against discard, which you seem worried about. Like burning wish, top also plays well with Lions eye diamond. Cutting red will also stabilize your mana base, and allow you to run city of traitors, which has been the MVP of my manabase during testing

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With all due respect, you are suggesting playing a different deck. I understand the arguments people make for top, but I do care for it. It's a matter of preference, but the flexibility and ability to generate a faster clock is something I prefer. The matches top is good against, it's not enough, and the matches it's bad against, well, I simply prefer pushing the deck from 80%-90% against zoo. I do not feel that removing the wishes for top adds percentage in any match-ups more than it takes away from others.

My question was more so to bring in the fourth thoughtseize against combo, or attempt to race with the other ad nauseam.

Hey guys, so I have just recently picked this deck up.
I am playing the straight Ad Nas version that just won the SCG.
It is great fun to play, and seeing as I played TPS in Vintage for a while, it was an easy switch.
The deck does play a lot differently, and I had a few questions...

Is this deck more ballsy? As in I have 5 Mana and Ad Nas just go all in? Or should you be waiting for tutor/Duress effects?

Also, what turn should this deck be winning? I have found it winning like turn 3-4 ish. Maybe I just need practice.

What do you guys think of a maindeck Ill Gotten Gains? I really think its awesome, a mini Yawg Will. I find myself trying to combo and finding Ad Nas Ftw, and not having enough mana to just straight combo without Ad Nas. I think one IGG can maybe help the deck win without Ad Nas?

I think I will test it.

The only deck I played against was Pox, and he beat me a few times, though I got him a majority of the time. Discard + Life loss is hard to beat.


Thank you guys for the insight, and I will continue to play and test the deck.

If you have the 1st turn combo, go for it. No matter what you're against.

Iggy is bad amindeck, because if your opponent is on blue, they can return counters back to thier hand.

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Originally Posted by magicplaya10

Hey guys, so I have just recently picked this deck up.
I am playing the straight Ad Nas version that just won the SCG.
It is great fun to play, and seeing as I played TPS in Vintage for a while, it was an easy switch.
The deck does play a lot differently, and I had a few questions...

Is this deck more ballsy? As in I have 5 Mana and Ad Nas just go all in? Or should you be waiting for tutor/Duress effects?

Also, what turn should this deck be winning? I have found it winning like turn 3-4 ish. Maybe I just need practice.

What do you guys think of a maindeck Ill Gotten Gains? I really think its awesome, a mini Yawg Will. I find myself trying to combo and finding Ad Nas Ftw, and not having enough mana to just straight combo without Ad Nas. I think one IGG can maybe help the deck win without Ad Nas?

I think I will test it.

The only deck I played against was Pox, and he beat me a few times, though I got him a majority of the time. Discard + Life loss is hard to beat.


Thank you guys for the insight, and I will continue to play and test the deck.

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I wish I was playing against Pox all the time. It's a really easy matchup: drop Sensei's Divining Top, hide your business spells, bear their discards a bit and then win.

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Originally Posted by honestabe

If you have the 1st turn combo, go for it. No matter what you're against.

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I disagree. Perhaps in Game 1, if you're on the play and you have no idea what you're up against, it might be a reasonable risk to take, but if you know that you're up against anything with Force of Will or other free/cheap countermagic, especially post-sideboard, it's much more reasonable to wait and make sure you can go off protected. If you can go off with protection on the first turn, however, then by all means do so.

I'll take my turn one on the play "got force?" all day every day.

Roughly 60% chance to win now not good enough for you? You prefer to be able to play a duress/chant first and let them get daze, spell pierce, cursecatcher, brainstorm mana etc online?

Though, the lazy bastard I am, I'm on saito list right now - with something like ddayhybrid, I'd be more inclined to wait.

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Originally Posted by deviant

I'll take my turn one on the play "got force?" all day every day.

Roughly 60% chance to win now not good enough for you? You prefer to be able to play a duress/chant first and let them get daze, spell pierce, cursecatcher, brainstorm mana etc online?

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Word. They have ~40% chance of having FOW in their opening hand ASSUMING they are playing 4x FOW. There is always a good chance they're not even playing a blue deck. I will pretty much always go for a turn 1 kill if I have it. If you're playing combo, sometimes you have to put your balls out there. If you want to slow play, go play control.

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Originally Posted by B.C.

Word. They have ~40% chance of having FOW in their opening hand ASSUMING they are playing 4x FOW. There is always a good chance they're not even playing a blue deck. I will pretty much always go for a turn 1 kill if I have it. If you're playing combo, sometimes you have to put your balls out there. If you want to slow play, go play control.

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I agree with this, but I'll also note that I lost 5 game ones to Force of Will on turn one en-route to barely missing day 2 at GP Chicago with this strategy. Had I played a bit more conservatively, I probably make day two.

Thanks for the replies guys. So Igg is bad against blue, but really good against everything else?

Also, can someone explain to me the Dday list and how it works? Is it even worth running?

Thanks!

Basically the Dday list offers you a bunch of possibilities as the Doomsday piles can help you in much situations.
The Basic pile consists of (in correct order)

1. Meditate
2. Dark Ritual
3. Dark Ritual
4. Utility Slot
5. Tendrils

To use this pile you need at least 3 mana for the Meditate and a Top.
This pile creates 6 Storm (+2 Storm for Dday and Rit to cast it) you only need two Storm more. (For me this spell are often a Chant and a LED)

Start this pile with 4 Mana (at least one blue) and 2 Storm. Play your Rit (6 mana/3 Storm) --> Dday for the pile above (3 mana/4 Storm) --> Draw the meditate with your Top --> Play Meditate, draw Top,Rit,Rit,Petal (0 mana/5 Storm) -->Play Petal (1 mana/6 Storm) --> Play 2xRit (5 mana/8 Storm) --> Play Top (4 mana/9 Storm) --> Draw the Tendrils with the Top --> Play Tendrils (0 mana/10 Storm)

emidln has posted a fantastic document with many Dday pile over there at Teamstormboards

In my opinion it's worth running the Dday list because it offers you more ways to win even if you're on low life.

I played at the Philly Open VI Legacy portion earlier today (yesterday) to a top 4 split. I played this list:

Land - 15
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp

Acceleration - 18
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox

Action - 4
2 Ad Nauseam
2 Tendrils of Agony

Disruption - 7
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize

Manipulation - 16
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor

SB:
1 Tropical Island
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Krosan Grip
1 Extirpate
4 Dark Confidant
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

If you want to read a more detailed report, you can go here (though you have to scroll down a bit):

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40437.0

There were a lot less players than anticipated here, but the skill level was high and there were a lot of ringers too. This only meant that there was less chaff to feed off of so each round was pretty grueling.

I went as follows:
Rd 1 = 2-0 vs. Bant
Rd 2 = 2-1 vs. UBGR CB/Top
Rd 3 = 1-2 vs. Goblins
Rd 4 = 2-1 vs. New Horizons
Rd 5 = ID

Yea, I somehow managed to beat all the blue decks and lose to the non-blue deck. Don't ask.

Top 8 had another ANT deck, but I don't have a list. It was pretty close to Saito's version from what I heard, and it used City of Traitors main. The whole top 8 was:
ANT > Zoo
Goblins > Goblins
Bant > ANT
CB/Top > B/G (Eva Green I suppose? I'm terrible with Legacy deck names)

Quarterfinals I beat Zoo 2-1. Despite losing game 1, I won the following games 2 and 3 before my opponent reached a 2nd land in either one.

Top 4 was:
Goblins vs. ANT
CB/Top vs. Bant

But we agreed to a 4 way split.

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As for the deck, it once again performed quite well for me against blue decks or I wouldn't have a reason to be posting this. The 3 blue decks I played against were of different varieties.

The first was Bant. You can read the exact list here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...with-Excalibur

Duress was really important giving me information in game 1. In fact, Duress is really awesome game 1 for a number of reasons:
1) You get to clear the way for your important spells
2) You can't always draw conclusions from "Polluted Delta, go". Duress lets you know exactly what they are up to.
3) You don't just get information about what cards they are playing, but what hands they are willing to keep. Sooo many times I see players keep extremely loose hands in game 1 or 2, even if they know I'm playing combo, and if things go to game 3 it gives me additional information regarding what they're willing to do.

For example, when playing against Dave Price at the last Vestal tournament I had a first turn Duress in game 2. After watching him mull to 5, I wasn't surprised to see him mull just to find Force of Will. In game 3, when I watched him mull to 5 again, I already knew he was looking for Force and found it at 5.

Anyway, going back to the tournament at hand Thoughtseize was really nice taking Spellstutter Sprite in game 2.

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The second blue deck I played against was UBGR CB/Top. It had Bob, Thoughtseize, Daze, and random aggro-control dudes maindeck. He boarded in Stifle and Extirpate on top of that, which made for an interesting and difficult match.

Game 1 hinged on his Dazes just not being able to stop me. His relevant spell was Duressed, at which point he had to start Dazing mana sources which just isn't going to cut it.

Game 2 he got a Bob down on turn 2, and I was unable to capitalize before he started to stabilize drawing cards. I knew he was on Extirpate/Stifle from a Duress, so at least I had information on how to play game 3 better. Seriously though, playing around CB/Top and Stifle and Extirpate and Thoughtseize too? Pretty brutal.

Game 3 wasn't decided by the die roll. Basically, Bob is a great card but not against a deck with Tendrils. His own Bob ended up taking him to 10, and a Duress cleared the way for Stifle on a critical turn to get a lethal Tendrils at his low life total.

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The 3rd blue deck was New Horizons, which has apparently been growing in popularity or at least on the internet. It's got Force, Daze, Stifle, and Wastelands as relevant disruption but its beaters are 3cc dorks that are slow. Teeg from the SB wasn't really a surprise, but I would expect it would catch at least 90% of other ANT players with their pants down and steal a post-SB game.

Games 1 and 3 were basically mirrors of each other. Slow play lands, don't die to Stifle, Duress him to clear the way, ANT when ready. When in doubt, go for it because they aren't going to have Force.

Game 2 I just got blown out by his hand of Teeg, Teeg, Force, Force, land, Goyf, Goyf. He missed his 2nd land drop, but made it on turn 3 had extra blue cards to spare after removing the first Teeg. I guess I could have played a little more aggressive with my 2 M.Tutor hand but I'm pretty sure I was boned either way.

After playing against it here and against Dave Price at the Vestal tournament, I'm pretty sure this deck is just really poorly suited to fighting combo. If you can avoid dying to Stifle/Wasteland, and still manage to play around Daze, they are a really slow-clocking deck who has 4 Force of Will and little else. It feels like an easier match-up than Merfolk, because Merfolk's clock is a lot faster not to mention they have actual card draw in Standstill to complicate things.

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On the whole, I still advocate that ANT is a wrecking ball against blue decks if played well. =)

Also, I'm still of the opinion that Doomsday only makes the deck as a whole worse.

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Thanks for the replies guys. So Igg is bad against blue, but really good against everything else?

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Pre-side: I would say yes. But after sideboarding you'll have to watch out for cards like mindbreak trap or extirpate.

Hey Rico, I've been looking at your decklists and your tournament reports for a while. I'm thinking of taking ANT to a local tournament for the first time, and as a beginner, I prefer the sheer speed and relative simplicity of the U/B build (compared to Doomsday versions). I wanted to ask some questions about your card choices so that I could better determine what I want to include.

I notice your maindeck is very similar to Saito's, except with the following differences:

1) fewer total lands (15 vs. 16), with an extra Ponder taking the place of the 16th land
2) an extra Thoughtseize instead of a Wipe Away, which I also find more useful Game 1 (the Thoughtseize)
3) an extra fetchland for more shuffling effects
4) more basics for better mana stability at the expense of the explosiveness of City of Traitors

My main question concerns point #4: do you ever wish you had City of Traitors instead (or Crystal Vein, which has also been discussed in the thread)? And in what types of metagames would you prefer those City of Traitors?

If you were to go with City of Traitors (for instance, in a combo-heavy metagame where you might desire the extra speed), would that cause you to go up to 16 lands?

@Rico: how do you side against Countertop and Merfolks with your list. I'm playing it for fun with maindeck -1 Tendrils and +Igg, and although it's near to autopilot (no flame intended, but i'm used to play DDANT), it's comfortable to win on turn3 without making esoteric calculations.
How many grips do you side in against CT? I assume you side out an AdN to not get the curve too high. Do you also brig in the Confidants? Actually I'm playing Xantid Swarm instead of them , because i'm used to the green bees and they're autowin against merfolk as well as being useful against other stuff. But perhaps, sincer Merfolk is really easy with this list (as long as you don't open a slow hand and they go ultra-beatdown mode), I can try to cut them for something else.

I figured my local Meta was better suited for ANT than DDANT, so I just looked up the latest Saito-esque list, goldfished it a bit, made some tweaks and designed a SB for my meta.

I'll write a small report later, but I must say, the deck is fun and easier to pilot.