Does anyone have a SB to go for the Grinding Station plan (a.k.a. overload their counters) rather than the critters plan?
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Does anyone have a SB to go for the Grinding Station plan (a.k.a. overload their counters) rather than the critters plan?
Hello,
So I've been playing Legacy ANT for a few years now, currently on the Burning Wish version because I like the versatility and I find that when running Preordain 99% of the time I'm looking for a business spell with it so I might as well run Wish which basically is. Here is my list:
Fast Mana:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
Cantrips:
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
Discard:
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
Business:
3 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
Lands:
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
Sideboard (15)
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Void Snare
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Massacre
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Meltdown
Now that Treasure Cruise is out, I think that might be worth running. I know how poorly it synergizes with PiF and Cabal Ritual, but it might be worth it for such a powerful effect. You can always cast it after CRit after getting the threshold bonus, and we have plenty of cards we don't care about for PiF such as lands/artifacts/excess cantrips. For now I am going to test it as a 1 or maybe 2 of, over either Probe, Ponder, Burning Wish, or with it just in the SB as a Wish target (over Pyro or IGGy). I'll talk about it more once I can get some tests done, I'm not actually sold on it just yet but it is the kind of card worth thinking about. If you are running the Preordain version of ANT that is an obvious replacement worth testing.
Let us know how the testing goes, the problem with packing it MD is that it doesn't synergize well with AdNaus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goobady
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goobady
Treasure Cruise is terrible here. Just look at this:
- Ad Nauseam
- Cabal Ritual
- early game cantripping
- against any kind of graveyard removal: Deathrite Shaman, RiP...
These points make TC a pretty bad card in ANT. Always Preordain > Treasure Cruise.
I can already see someone testing with TC, doing some fancy natural Tutor line without LED: Gitaxian Probe into Treasure Cruise into "I can't play this now!" :tongue:
Yea I know all that, which is why I'm not sold, just putting it out there for testing. I'm mainly focused on the Wish target, due to Ad Nauseam, but it might work there.Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
True, but I was rather referring to "If you are running the Preordain version of ANT that is an obvious replacement worth testing." I guess it would be ok as a Wish target. (see the TES thread)Quote:
Originally Posted by Goobady
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garritano
Wouldn't you board in the Swarms? They protect you from Top + counter floating, otherwise you would need Abrupt Decay + discard. They're just week to Staticaster and Plowshares, but I think they're worth it. Don't you? Or maybe you just forgot them, don't know :tongue:
Anyway, I'm going to run a sideboard like that:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Flusterstorm
1 Massacre
Maybe boarding 10 against Miracles is too much, I don't know.. What do you think? Are 3 Decays enough or should I go to 4? And I am going to board 6 or 5 vs. D&T and Maverick (2 chain 2/3 decay 1 massacre), this should be enough, doesn't it? The Flusterstorms are in for Show.dec, Reanimator, Storm, Canadian match-ups, absolutely not for Team America! Especially, vs. Reanimator I am going to apply this plan when boarding: -1 top -1 swamp -1 preordain -1 lotus petal -2 cabal therapy +2 flusterstorm +2 chain of vapor +2 xantid swarm. The question is: do we need another swarm in? Carsten does a pretty much similar plan against Show.dec, just -1 chain +1 swarm.
Ahaha! Thanks a lot, I hope so! I'll do my best to value all of your help!Quote:
Originally Posted by Garritano
@togores: sad to read this, it would have been great to meet you and also the german stormers. I'll do my best to headshot each one of my opponents as you wished. Maybe I'm not as good as Sawatarix and Cabal Therapy are, but I'll do my best! :)
Xantid Swarm vs Young PyromancerQuote:
Originally Posted by Ghiwo
Before you construct your SB for Miracles, you need to choose which strategy you're going with. If you're playing Young Pyromancer, you are consciously deciding to let mini-Tendrils be a kill. This means drawing a midgame Tendrils is awesome, so simultaneously boarding Tendrils and Young Pyro makes sense. The Abrupt Decays are fine here, because EoT Abrupt Decay is still important even if you're only going for Tendrils for 4-5 (you still want DR / CR to resolve).
If you adopt a mini-Tendrils or Grinding Station strategy, you don't mind if your opponent has some form of interaction. You aren't trying to bring them to 0 counterspells on your combo turn. What you really care about resolving is DR / CR to get to 4 mana. If they counter some cards but let you reach 4 mana anyway, they lose to the extra storm they added.
Knocking them off floated Flusterstorm / FoW using Xantid Swarm is less useful for that goal.
Xantid Swarm and Young Pyro are completely at odds with one another. Normally you're crushing your opponent if you draw two sideboard cards in an opening hand, but in this case (Xantid + Young Pyro), the Xantid Swarm isn't adding much. If your opponent lands Counterbalance, you're still depending on Young Pyro to carry you until you get your AD.
When is Xantid Swarm Good?
Xantid Swarm crushes Show and Tell because they're all-in on the "beat you with Flusterstorm + REB + Spell Pierce + FoW" plan, but Miracles isn't like that. They can cast Counterbalance and walk away from the table, drawing nothing but useless 1 mana spells like Swords and easily win. If you resolve Swarm there, you might still lose. They even can play Clique in response and hope to nail a key card (e.g., all mana sources 1 business spell).
In addition, Show and Tell doesn't play removal. Their only way of answering Swarm turn 1 on the draw is FoW, after that they're all-in sideboard hate (Leyline of Sanctity) or racing your combo.
Now, if you decide that you want to kill your opponent with a non-Grinding Station plan, such as a standard Tutor Chain / Ad Nauseum / PiF kill utilizing LED, then yes, you have to make sure you don't lose to SDT floating a counterspell.
This is why some boards are 3-4 Xantid Swarms + ADs with 0 Pyros. I think Carsten Kotter recommends something like this.
Where does that leave everything?
After all of this reasoning, it's conceivable you'd still board in Xantid Swarm against Miracles. If you do, I absolutely would not bring in 3. You can't sideboard 10 cards and expect your deck to still work, you'd have to board out discard. When you do, Young Pyro gets worse and you become even weaker against CB. I have never played both Young Pyro and XS at the same time, so I can't comment too much on this, but maybe a 3/1 split is ok. My gut reaction is to do 3/0 or 0/3.
Lastly, there is a poker aspect to your sideboarding game. You're in an imperfect information game with your opponent, where you both blindly commit some number of slots to either removal or creatures. It's plausible you should randomize between 0-6 creatures with a distribution skewed towards 3 to optimally play against your opponent. I think a finding from game theory is that mixed strategies are typically the solution to games of this form, so keep that in mind. (i.e., committing to "always board X creatures" is probably wrong no matter which number you settle you. You're probably supposed to say "I will randomly choose a number from the set {0,1,2,3,4,5} with weightings {a,b,c,d,e}."
If you decide to go rogue and play a 6 creature board, consider going to 0-3 creatures game 3. If your opponent overboards, you can punish him.
Lastly, your sideboard has Young Pyros and 0 ToA. I don't really like this, as Young Pyro often doesn't go all the way but leaves your opponent at a dangerously low life total that you can mini-Tendrils. If you don't board in Tendrils, this is really hard to do.
I would rather board in AD, ToA, YP, and SDT. I think 3 or 4 AD is fine, even despite the 2 CB threat. I think 3x of 4 cards after game 1 is good.
You should decide how you want to beat Miracles then focus your board a little. Also, 3x Xantid Swarm may be too many, having 2 is fine. Having 0 is also fine. They're narrower in application than I'd like and you can consider other spells in that slot.
I think in live tournaments people play more white creature decks than online, you could consider making room for more hate spells there.
@Garratino,couldn't agree more. +1
now i'm on my way to the airport, today is reserved for sightseeing. ( does anybody know a delicious restaurant in Milano? :D )
decklist: Check
sideboard: Check
confidence: Check
ciao amicos !Ovino here we go
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...2251fc3782.jpg
Good luck, mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by sawatarix
Unfortunately, I am not able to attend this tournament but I am sure you will storm your way through Milano. Have a splendid day off.
Oh that's sad to read, wish you things settle down well...Quote:
Originally Posted by Togores
I'm on the airport myself, hope to meet you guys, if we don't know each other and you see black korean foil PiF it's me killing you :)
GL everyone!
I hope there'll be a coverage ^^
good luck everyone
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garritano
Thank you, now I understand your point. It makes great sense to me. So, I can drop the 2 Flusterstorms for 1 ToA and 1 more chain, as you suggested, to hate white hatebears. So, I'll try to handle Reanimator with just Swarms, Chains and discard. With a ToA in the board I can swap it for Ad Nauseam in the Canadian Threshold match-up, what do you think?
Could tell you a couple places where to eat some sweet italian food in Milano, unfortunately they aren't that close to the tournament location ^^Quote:
Originally Posted by sawatarix
Also, it's "ciao amici" actually, "amicos" sounds kind of spanish :cool:
Have your sb plans ready against miracles, it's been the go-to choice for all of the top players here in Italy for the last 2 years.
See you there tomorrow in person, and for all the others, don't forget to watch the live streaming for some entertainment (mostly in italian but we'll have a few matches commented in english as well) :wink:
Bring your TheSource playmats with you guys, I'll be proudly showing mine!
I am always happy to help fellow storm players!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghiwo
Hatebear Decks
White hatebears are a lot more dangerous than they look. In particular, Mother of Runes + Thalia is very strong against us and is hard to beat with CoV. (you need two). Thankfully these hatebear decks are becoming less popular (I think because of True-Name Nemesis making aggro difficult to play), and the recent Khans of Tarkir printings probably bias people towards blue decks this coming weekend.
I don't have a good feeling for the paper meta, especially in Europe, but having another card or two that you can board in against hate bears might be nice.
I have to warn you that this matchup actually has a lot of skill (for both players), so if you can get practice in it will really be valuable. This might all be obvious, but make sure you understand what instant-speed tricks they can do. The obvious ones are Swords to beat an exact storm or Aven Mind Censor to beat Tutor, but be mindful of Aether Vial on 2, it can flash Thalia, Canonist, or Spirit of the Lab.
In general, I think 3x CoV is awesome in ANT sideboards and am happy you are going up to 3.
Tendrils Against Canadian
This sounds pretty good. Carpet of Flowers is probably the best card here, but you don't run those, and I think it's fine to exclude them.
I have experimented with Xantid Swarm against Delver, and I didn't really like it. Btw don't forget they're always boarding in a Null Rod.
In the Delver matchups, natural Tendrils is most important against the Young Pyromancer builds, because they run 4x Gitaxian Probe. (and, if they run black, they actually also board Thoughtseize).
Historically Canadian has been an awesome deck, but it's possible that UR Delver or BUG Delver will become more popular this weekend thanks to Treasure Cruise.
Reanimator
Be really careful here. Reanimator is a very powerful deck and is very good against opposing combo decks. Chain of Vapor looks really good, but they often just Ioana blue or Griselbrand you. If they Griselbrand you, they're going to draw Daze / FoW / Spell Pierce on their draw 7 and will reanimate the following turn.
If you Chain of Vapor Griselbrand, you're still behind.
The color they name against you normally depends on if they're a former Storm player. I find that Reanimator players who have never played Storm name black, and those that have played Storm sometimes name blue. I think the correct decision should depend on each players' opening 7 (e.g., what did Duress show, did they open w/ Daze / FoW).
Over all, I'm afraid that Reanimator is favored in this matchup unless you put hate in your board. (Extirpate / Surgical Extraction / Leyline of the Void / Tormod's Crypt). Your overall match win percentage will be very unfavorable with the board you've posted, and you are probably unfavored in any game where you draw 2 CoV. (they're going to know the content of your hand because they run Probe + Duress, and they'll just draw 7 or Ioana you out)
Now, this doesn't mean you need to panic and change anything. You're playing a ANT because you want to crush all the Elves and (non-Counterbalance) control decks, having a bad Reanimator matchup might be a weakness you are fine with!
Dredge
While I'm mentioning graveyard hate, I want to mention Dredge. You are very favored int his matchup, especially if they're on Manaless dredge. (I have never lost a match to manaless dredge, the only games you lose are when they get LED + Street Wraith god draws).
Dredge is such a good matchup that you don't need to dedicate any sideboard hate to them.
I suggest you sideboard in CoV, because they will want to Dread Returns Ioana against you.
I'm writing all this about Dredge because it's important for you to know that graveyard hate against Reanimator isn't very useful in other matchups, because it's improving a matchup you're already favored in.
Chain of Vapor + Sensei's Divining Top
You probably already know this, but make sure you're aware of this interaction. If you know, please don't be offended by me restating the obvious, as it may help our fellow storm players. :)
There are two key tricks with Chain of Vapor and Sensei's Divining Top.
If you draw Chain of Vapor and would rather be digging for fresh cards, you can use it with SDT to cycle. Activate Sensei's Divining Top's tap to draw ability, and do not pass priority. With that on the stack, cast Chain of Vapor targeting SDT. If that resolves, Sensei's Divining Top goes to your hand. Then, Sensei's Divining Top's draw ability resolves, but it won't go to the top of your library (because it is now in your hand).
If you need to bounce something, you can extend this trick to get a few draw at the loss of a land / recasting Top.
Suppose your opponent has a Leyline of Sanctity in play, and you have Top. Activate Top to draw a card, hold priority, cast CoV targeting Top, and let CoV resolve. If CoV resolves, you may choose to copy it by sacrificing a land. Sacrifice a land, hitting Leyline of Sanctity. After that is bounced, your opponent can clone CoV (which he probably won't), then your draw ability finally resolves.
Lastly, you can get free storm when you CoV. (e.g., if your opponent has Leyline and you have a few zero mana artifacts, you can get play them, CoV them all, then have your final CoV hit Leyline).
Board in Chain of Vapor against Show and Tell
I assume you already know this, but it may help our fellow storm players so don't be offended if this is obvious.
Unfortunately, you need to board in at minimum 1 Chain of Vapor against Show and Tell decks. They board in Leyline of Sanctity, so don't let them get any free wins.
Xantid Swarm - Numbers
You're on 3 Xantid Swarms, and this is fine as it will give you a much better Show and Tell matchup and help you a lot vs Reanimator.
However, if you need another SB slot, you can shave one here. 2 Xantid Swarm is also really great.
The card is a weaker in multiples against Duress, because if you draw 2 they'll just slow you down with Duress and out-combo you.
Because you aren't bringing in many of them (or any, depends) against Miracles, they're not doing much work in your sideboard, so you can definitely cut some if you want.
Xantid Swarm vs Flusterstorm in the context of Duress and Sensei's Divining Top
One of the reasons Top is good is that it lets you float game-ending cards against discard decks (and Clique).
Unfortunately, Xantid Swarm doesn't work with that game plan. It is game-endingly good, but you can't float a Xantid Swarm and use it to counter combo the same way Extirpate does against Reanimator or Flusterstorm does against ANT.
Therefore, when you have access to SDT, you are slightly more inclined to use Flusterstorm as an answer against combo.
You can consider going to 0 Swarms and ~2 Flusterstorms. It'll make Show and Tell a much harder matchup, but it'll make ANT / TES significantly easier.
Flusterstorm Competes with Xantid Swarm in Show and Tell MUs
Because Show and Tell boards in Leyline, this causes Flusterstorm's value to go up a little. This is because your Duress / Cabal Therapy gets weaker after game 1. If they have LLoS + interaction, they can slow your combo down, and if you don't have Flusterstorm you can't punish them for trying to quickly combo out. Being able to threaten Flusterstorm is completely awesome, and it's particularly good against Mono-blue OmniTell (which can't Sneak Attack you).
Because they have LLoS + FoW, game 2-3 they're going to either have LLoS or FoW turn 1 pretty much every game. This means that Turn 1 Xantid Swarm is going to get FoWed OR you are going to need to CoV your combo turn, and that combo turn better happen turns 2-3.
Overall Conclusions
If you play 2 or 3 Xantid Swarms, they're both good and defensible. 0 or 2 Flusterstorms are also both defensible.
I personally love playing SDT and Flusterstorm fits my play style. I'd rather have the option to threaten floated Flusterstorm vs ANT than the improved Show and Tell MUs. You're playing in Europe where Storm is a bit more common. Flusterstorm dramatically helps in the ANT MU, and you basically don't have any board against them, so that might be a consideration.
You also might need to make room for Dread of Night or Massacre, depending on how make of the meta you think white is going to be. Both of those cards are phenomenal in the hate bears matchup (and Massacre comes in against Esper Deathblade) and if you're willing to lose slots you can make those decks an easy matchup. If you don't, the MU is 1000% time harder than you'd expect from a white-weenie deck. Although we're playing fast combo, Thalia really is that good and it means you need to be very careful, the MU is way harder than it looks!
Good luck man! Please post a tournament report and tell us how it went!
One last thing - how are you boarding against Burn? Are you boarding in the Abrupt Decays? You are going to up 6 spells that can answer Eidolon now that you've upped your CoV count so you have more options. The MU is favorable but not dramatically favorable. Game 1 really depends on each player's opening 7 and the die roll. (the entire matchup boils down to "did he get turn 2 Eidolon?")
Good luck!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by sawatarix
Hope to see you take down another one. Please write a report, your reports have been really valuable.
I really am excited by Burning Wish lists, but have had trouble with them myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goobady
My experience has been really similar to nevilshute's - I find that they hurt the Delver matchup.
Delver
Could you post your SB plan against Delver? You have enough wish targets that are good game 2-3 that I could imagine boarding -3 BW, -1 Ad Nauseum +1 Pyroclasm, +1 Cabal Therapy, +1 PiF, +1 ToA.
I have found BW builds open you up to Daze in a big way. Normally with ANT you get to see their hand and can construct a strategy to beat their conditional counterspells through sequencing / rituals, but with Burning Wish I find you become way more susceptible to Daze.
Chrome Mox / Manabase
Is the Chrome Mox necessary? TNT is so rare that it's hard to say what's normal in a list, but I have seen that Burning Wish ANT consistently uses 1. I unfortunately hate Chrome Mox. At 3x Burning Wish, I don't know if Chrome Mox-> BW is as important in your list as it is in the 4x versions.
Also, have you tried running any lists w/o Gemstone Mine?
Lastly, is the Ill-Gotten Gains necessary? I ended up cutting it from my TNT list, but I play TNT so rarely that my experience isn't that valuable.
I would rather vomit into my deckbox than cash in 1RU, seven cards from my graveyard, and a tutor to draw three.Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
I would rather use BW to get a Strongarm Tactics to kill myself.
I know such a list is long. :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by gregtron
Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
i made TOP 8 today at the 7-round trial tournament with 100 Players at Ovino and got 1 Bye , wish me luck for tomorrow :)