[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

Tomorrow Im flying from Madrid (Spain-Europe) to the United States, to be there 10 days in a grat trip of Boston-DC-Philadelfia and will be storming at sunday in the SCG Worcester and the next Week in the past called Legacy and vintage worlds of the eternal weekend. At least in the legacy part.

Would love to be on camera with all my German fbb, foil and foil japanese deck

If someone want to say hi just google my name: Rodrigo Togores


Hope to show them whats a real hurricane full of headshots (like in sharknado where there are tornados with sharks)

Best of luck Togores :smile: Give 'em hell!

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Originally Posted by Togores

Tomorrow Im flying from Madrid (Spain-Europe) to the United States, to be there 10 days in a grat trip of Boston-DC-Philadelfia and will be storming at sunday in the SCG Worcester and the next Week in the past called Legacy and vintage worlds of the eternal weekend. At least in the legacy part.

Would love to be on camera with all my German fbb, foil and foil japanese deck

If someone want to say hi just google my name: Rodrigo Togores


Hope to show them whats a real hurricane full of headshots (like in sharknado where there are tornados with sharks)

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Hope to see you there at the top tables

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Originally Posted by Togores

Tomorrow Im flying from Madrid (Spain-Europe) to the United States, to be there 10 days in a grat trip of Boston-DC-Philadelfia and will be storming at sunday in the SCG Worcester and the next Week in the past called Legacy and vintage worlds of the eternal weekend. At least in the legacy part.

Would love to be on camera with all my German fbb, foil and foil japanese deck

If someone want to say hi just google my name: Rodrigo Togores


Hope to show them whats a real hurricane full of headshots (like in sharknado where there are tornados with sharks)

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Go go go, Rodrigo. I will try to watch to stream and hopefully see ANT crushing some random Blade pile.

Im still not sure what to side.

Like now is this.
2 grip
3 decay
3 xantid
2 chain
2 massacre
3rd top
2 fluster

I play 2 top main. And removing a ponder for a top is not so cool.

So may be cards I could play:
3rd chain
2 carpet of flowers i expect lots of urx delvers decks and this card is beast.
2 tendrills (reason because they are op vs ur and burn)
2 dread of night.


And im not still sure if 4 dures 3 cabal or on the other. Vs tempo therapy is better for me but vs decks like jund or miracles i think duress is a better card.
Oppinions?

Duress vs Therapy:

I'm with you, i've been testing both possibilities and i'm not convinced about wich is the best. This saturday i'm going to play 4 therapys and 3 duress in the LCL.

The third top:
After playing about 20 postside games against miracles i think it's necessary. It's one of the best cards against them, playing it in turn 1 or even 2 allows you to keep searching for a krosan/decay despite of a counterbalance. I was hesitant about this one too, but now i have no doubts: It's awesome!

Only play it against miracles.

2 massacre:

I love massacre, but i don't feel sure about playing two of them (because of Ad Nauseam and Gaddock teeg). Actually i'm testing with a similiar sideboard like yours but playing a pyroclasm in it's place, and it has worked well.

2 flusterstorm:

Seems Ok if you expect a lot of combo. Otherwise i'd play maybe the third chain and Empty the warrens, which is so good against Delver decks.


I hope you have a nice weekend, show the power of storm!

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Originally Posted by Surfinbird

The third top:
After playing about 20 postside games against miracles i think it's necessary. It's one of the best cards against them, playing it in turn 1 or even 2 allows you to keep searching for a krosan/decay despite of a counterbalance. I was hesitant about this one too, but now i have no doubts: It's awesome!

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I agree completely on the power of SDT, but think you should consider Needle. I wrote about this earlier but an issue with Miracles game 2-3 is they're trying to assemble double Counterbalance, which isn't that hard to do b/c their Counterbalance counters our Ponder / Brainstorm, but we have nothing to stop their SDT / Ponder. If you had 4 SDTs, you'd run them. IMO SDT > Duress in this matchup.

However, Pithing Needle plays a similar role as SDT. When you Needle SDT, their ability to double counterbalance you is greatly diminished AND you totally disrupt their Counterbalance's power.
Lemnear and Slosh gave some pretty compelling arguments for Pithing Needle, and I've switched from Kai's board to a 2x Needle board. I think Miracles prevalence has decreased somewhat thanks to TC, so the increased utility in other matchups is even more relevant than before.
Note: I played 2 Miracles matchups w/ Kai's board and found it to be very strong, but have played 0 Miracles matchups w/ a variant on Slosh's board. This is because I play online and Miracles prevalence seemed to drop after Treasure Cruise was printed.

SDT is awesome against Miracles, but 2x Pithing Needle gives a ton of the same advantages while being incredibly sideboard efficient.

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

Because of the lengthy discussions in the "TPS thread"* it might be worth it to discuss Gifts Ungiven as 5th and possibly 6th Infernal Tutor in this deck using its current skeleton without adding extra cards like Reforge the Soul.

If we consider 15 lands, 16 mana, 12 cantrips incl Probe, 4 Tutor, 1 ToA, 1 PiF, 6 Discard as fixed we have 5 flex slots left in the deck. 4-5 of these are filled with business spells & cantrips and there sometimes is a 7th protection spell. The options for the extra business/cantrips slots currently are: (1) Preordain (up to 4), (2) Grim Tutor (up to 2), (3) Lim-Dul's Vault (up to 2), (4) Ad Nauseam (#1 and rarely #2), (5) Empty the Warrens, (6) Past in Flames #2.
The previously mentioned thread brings forth Gifts Ungiven as an additional option for these slots and I feel it warrants testing in the proper frame. The idea is that you mainly use Gifts to go for a PiF kill, and sometimes use it for setup.

A quick glance gives me this impression: (please correct this if there are better options)

Gifts for PiF: 6URB (9), 4+ Spells cast, 1+ Life.
Have 3U + 3R + B and 4 spells played this turn.
Gifts for IT+PiF+DR+CR, float 3R+B
Get IT+PiF, cast PiF, float B
Flash back DR, CR (threshed) and cast IT from hand into ToA.

Grim Tutor for PiF: 4RBBB (8), ~3+ spells cast, 7+ Life.
Have BB1+3R+B,
Cast Grim Tutor for PiF, float 3RB
Cast PiF, float B
Flashback Rituals and Grim Tutor for ToA

Summarized:
Gifts costs a mana more (9 instead of 8).
GT can be more expensive depending on the amount of rituals available post-PiF (just DR and CR with thresh makes it already cost an extra mana)
Gifts has less problems regarding the anti-synergy of LED and PiF since you tutor up two rituals to flashback.
Gifts costs 3 or 6 life less.
Gifts becomes cheaper with a good graveyard (IT in the GY makes Gifts cost 7 mana, where GT is still 8)
Gifts might require more cards already in the yard, as CR almost always needs to be threshed.
GT finds any card in set-up, and is one cheaper as a setup spell.
Gifts has some setup applications (e.g. finding Duress/Therapy/Thoughtseize/X), finding you two cards.
Gifts is one more damage for Ad Nauseam, while GT costs 3 life to cast after Ad Nauseam. -> Might want to play MD Empty if you go for Gifts.
Snapcaster Mage might be worth testing as well if you do include Gifts.
Gifts makes the deck even more graveyard-reliant, but you can side them out and go for Ad Nauseam/Empty postboard if required.

Has anyone tested such a list? For example filling the 5 flex slots with: (1) Empty the Warrens, (2) Gifts Ungiven, (3) Gifts Ungiven/Top/Preordain, (4) 7th discard spell, probably the 1st Thoughtseize and (5) Top/Preordain/SCM?

*See: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...660-Legacy-TPS

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(as background, I have started testing Gifts as IT #5, and wrote about it extensively in the TPS thread)

Gifts Ungiven as kill spell has these modes:
-7 mana kill with Infernal Tutor in graveyard
-8 mana "risky kill" where you end up with BBBBB BBUUU with an active Past in Flames.
-9 mana kill
The 7 mana kill requires access to red, but the the other kills requires you to have UR after Gifts resolves.

All of those modes are inferior to Infernal Tutor, except in the edge case where you don't have enough cards in your graveyard to PiF. (Gifts Ungiven supplies those).
Obviously, we would never cut an Infernal Tutor for Gifts.

However, those modes ARE competitive with Grim Tutor, even if Ad Nauseum is available.
(we aren't exactly fist pumping when we pay 8 mana to Grim Tutor for Ad Nauseum against Delver)

Therefore, Gifts Ungiven is a contender for sideboard slots and tutor slots.

Details
In summary, with 3U BBUR, you can cast Gifts twice, cast Past in Flames, and have BBBBBBBUUU floating.
I detail the sequence here in a very long post, linked below:

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Originally Posted by Garritano

An Example Gifts Kill with Mana Costs Similar to some ANT PiF Kills
This deck can often use Gifts during the Combo turn as variant quasi-infernal tutor,
...

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Originally Posted by JamieW89

...
Has anyone tested such a list? For example filling the 5 flex slots with: (1) Empty the Warrens, (2) Gifts Ungiven, (3) Gifts Ungiven/Top/Preordain, (4) 7th discard spell, probably the 1st Thoughtseize and (5) Top/Preordain/SCM?

*See: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...660-Legacy-TPS

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I'm on something almost identical to what you proposed.

Disruption: 4 Cabal Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize
Kill cards: 1 Empty the Warrens, 4 Infernal, 1 Gifts, 1 Grim

The rest of the deck is standard ANT. I've been experimenting with 2 slots, and tried Treasure Cruise / Dig Through Time / Preordain.

I have the Ad Nauseum in the board.

The deck performs very well, but that's not surprising because ANT is a good deck. The deck is literally within 3-4 cards of nevilshute / Slosh's list, and I don't always run the Treasure Cruises.

If you take Slosh's list (which was 61 cards), cut the 1 duress (so we're 60 cards), and cut the 2nd PiF for a Gifts, it's basically the deck I'm playing. I am on 1x ToA right now, but my preferred way of beating Miracles is Grinding Station, so after game 2 I resemble Slosh even more. (I also am on the 2x Pithing Needle, 3x Abrupt Decay plan)
The biggest difference between my list and his my SB. I play on MTGO so I cut most of the spells that help vs Thalia decks. (on MTGO, you get paired against D&T once in every 50 or so matchups, as a playset of Rishadan Ports + Wastelands = $1,000, so the deck is rare).

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Originally Posted by Surfinbird

Duress vs Therapy:

I'm with you, i've been testing both possibilities and i'm not convinced about wich is the best. This saturday i'm going to play 4 therapys and 3 duress in the LCL.

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Epecially in the combo mirror, not having to guess your first target is crucial for delaying your opponents potential combo turn as the best choices can be pretty uncommon cards you'd never call blind with Therapy. Giving Therapy the favor in the split makes only sense if you expect a lot of aggro and Aggro-control decks as stripping Delver, Lackey, DRS, etc. can be a pain in the ass of your opponents gameplan. Depending if you run EtW or Pyromancer, the potential to flashback the Discard-Spell is also a reason to stock them up to 4. Ergo I would prefer Therapy for a local meta due to the advantage of knowing your opponents decks or in a metagame with various Aggro-Control decks; in a wider, unknown metagame, I would give Duress the 4- off-slot (not counting factors like EtW, etc.)

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Originally Posted by Surfinbird

The third top:
After playing about 20 postside games against miracles i think it's necessary. It's one of the best cards against them, playing it in turn 1 or even 2 allows you to keep searching for a krosan/decay despite of a counterbalance. I was hesitant about this one too, but now i have no doubts: It's awesome!

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the question isn't if it's good to filter for Decays and gas, but if you seriously believe you can take greater advantage from SDT than your Miracles opponent. This isn't a race about digging for Counterbalance on the one side and filtering for Decays on the other. The Problem is that you also have to deal with SDT giving your opponent (floated) counterspells/Cliques/RIPs/etc. which are much harder to deal with after the game drags out. How many Decays/K.Grips are you planning to find if you have to handle SDT (due to floated counters), Counterbalance and RIP postboard if you spend turns with "look at top 3, draw, look at top 3, fetch, look at top 3" (hyperbole again :D)?

If SDT is disabled, they have a much tougher time assembling a dangerous, controlled flow of mana and defense and you'll face less problems if the game goes beyond turn 4. I'm convinced, keeping SDT under control is the Key to grind out Miracles, not to talk about potentially screwing your opponent due to greedy keeps. A real FoW Magnet ;)

Played another local 3-0-2'd into the top-4, which I won. Played AdN, 2 Tops, 1 Preordain, 7th Discard in the 5 flex-slots (so no Grim Tutor).
SB:
3 Decay
2 Grip
1 Surgical (Knew at least one person was on reanimate)
1 Tormod's Crypt (^)
1 Empty
1 Flusterstorm
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor

Miracles 2-0 (won through an active CB g1)
Reanimate 2-0 (t1 kill & won by Griselbrand not finding FoW in 14..)
Lands 2-1 (Lost g2 to t1 Sphere, t2 sphere. Won g3 by decaying my own top to hit thresh on the 5th extra turn)
Merfolk ID (won 2-1, including brainstorming AdN to the top, playing LED, Probe, resp DR, resp sac LED to play around his daze which would have gotten me if I lead with the ritual.)
BUG Delver ID (lost 1-2, tokens didn't get there)
top-4:
BUG Delver 2-1 (won g3 through Null Rod, Shaman, FoW, Daze, Pierce. He had a line which gave me good odds, but he missed it)
BUG Delver 2-0 (Blind t1 18 goblins + therapy if my ritual resolves, without a land in hand, g2, decided it had better odds than mulling to 6.)

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Originally Posted by Togores

Tomorrow Im flying from Madrid (Spain-Europe) to the United States, to be there 10 days in a grat trip of Boston-DC-Philadelfia and will be storming at sunday in the SCG Worcester and the next Week in the past called Legacy and vintage worlds of the eternal weekend. At least in the legacy part.

Would love to be on camera with all my German fbb, foil and foil japanese deck

If someone want to say hi just google my name: Rodrigo Togores


Hope to show them whats a real hurricane full of headshots (like in sharknado where there are tornados with sharks)

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^ on stream @ scg with 6-1 vs burn. Gogogo!

(Dat double post)

Togores is on camera right now as the X-1 with the worst tiebreakers going into the final round. This is his win-and-in!

Go go go Togores!!! On camera now at scg Worcester round 8 win-and-in vs burn :smile:

Dang, lost game 1 to turn 2 eidolon.

Damn, down one game.

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Originally Posted by Holden1669

Damn, down one game.

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Update: Nice. Game two no Eidolon.

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Originally Posted by Holden1669

Update: Nice. Game two no Eidolon.

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Yes! Won g2 through Mindbreak trap

damn.

:frown: