Yeah, I've been sketchy about that, and will probably put a Trop in there instead, freeing up a SB slot.
2nd Doomsday sounds nice.
Printable View
Yeah, I've been sketchy about that, and will probably put a Trop in there instead, freeing up a SB slot.
2nd Doomsday sounds nice.
Proves in MtG are impossible. So if Saito, one of the 10 best Magic players of all times, builds a deck, wins a 186 man tournament with it and then finishes 3rd in a 2225 man tournament it can all be variance and his list sucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamuth
Ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamuth
I thought u were done with this thread .... ur still here, this doesn't seem like winning at all.
I really want to play this deck. I proxied up David Do Anh's list and have played a few matches ,as well as goldfished with it and it seems extremely difficult to play. There are times where i'll have a free turn, but wont want to tutor since I am not sure waht to look for. In Goldfishing I wait for a chant/duress effect before going off, and it seems like it takes 4-7 turns to do so. Is there any tips I can follow to playing the deck more consistently?
Thanks!
@John: Been goldfishing Saitos list since Madrid and most of the time I can go off turn 2. Almost always turn 3 and most of the time with at least 1 duress in the process. However, I don't know if one Duress/Seize might be enough in a real tournament.
It's relative. Versus some decks (like aggro), you can have absolutely no respect and just tutor for Ad Nauseum and win on the spot. Against decks with permission and disruption, going off later is the norm.Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnBaltimore
I wish I had those kinds of draws all the time like you do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
Hey guys just a heads up... I piloted a copy of TK's storm list with some mild adjustments (like Silence for Chant and such) from GP Chicago to a solid 3-0 start against Deadguy Ale followed by 2 Countertop. I then got blown out against Dredge. Some combination of poor draws and sick dredges killed me. I Then played and lost to Burnat. He simply had draws that I couldnt compete with. Game 1 he has the needed counters and follows up with Scepter Chant. Game 2 I simply can't fight through his full hand of counters. Game 2 I duressed him seeing Standstill, FoF, Counterspell, and 2 FoW when he already had a Mage naming Tendrils in play. I took the standstill and still don't know if that was right... either way he ripped a standstill off the top and played it... I eventually sucame to Mage beats.
Saitos deck does seem faster and more streamlined. I want to try this list, but I have the same concern as you do. I find 6 disruption spells is not enough. But running 3-4 thoughtseizes could get painful. Would a singleton Cabal Therapy make sense at all? Any other single black mana cards that could be run for disruption?Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
While you were testing, how often was City of Traitors your only land? That's my biggest concern, is that I won't be able to draw colored mana consistently enough. But it is 16 lands, so maybe that's better?
I've been goldfishing the deck a lot and its been excellent. Never really had any land problems, and have almost always had a duress/thoughtsieze before going off. I was really worried about the two ad nauseam's and the two tendrils, but so far I've fizzled once out of my 50 so games of goldfishing. I'm going to playtest against some real matchups the rest of the week (countertop, survival, goblins, merfolk, aggro loam, pox, etc) and then will be taking it to one maybe two tournaments this weekend. I'll let you know how it performs.Quote:
Originally Posted by sigfig8
Its a whole differnet game whyen you have an opponent in front of you doing stuff.
Well, at least when I'm goldfishing, I tend to think that I start from 15 life or something like that so it's not that far from reality. CB/Top is a whole different animal though, but try goldfishing a deck with counters.. That's just stupid. :>
Anyway, I also have Saito's list sleeved and it feels good. I can't say that I'm too familiar with different builds of storm combo so I can't really compare it do different ANT builds.
Tomorrow's my local legacy tournament. I've got Saito's list sleeved up except for 2 major changes and 1 minor change:
1. I've won way too many games to give up IGG. So that's going in maindeck instead of the 2nd tendrils.
2. I don't own Bob's (*tear*) so I'm going to run 3 Xantid Swarm in the sideboard instead.
3. To support the 3 green spells, I've got a bayou instead of a 4th underground sea.
I really really want to throw in a 7th disruption spell. Maybe cabal therapy? I could imagine a scenario where I play turn 1 duress/thoughtseize, they show me they're hand. Then turn 2 I use cabal therapy and take 1-2 more spells. It's the next best thing since this list doesn't run white for Chants.
Running IGG maindeck improves your non-blue Aggro matchup a lot I think.
I agree 100%. And I will take another shot at Merfolk with 7 discard effects and 3 swarm between sideboard and main deck. We'll see how I do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
I'd just like to share some of my recent experiences with ANT.
First, to put context to this post I'm going to share a list I played today in the Legacy event at Alternate Universes in Blue Bell:
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
2 Ad Nauseam
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
3 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
SB:
1 Island
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Krosan Grip
1 Extirpate
1 Sadistic Sacrament
4 Dark Confidant
The only change I would make to this list is replacing the 2nd Hurkyl's Recall with a Rebuild. Against decks with Chalice of the Void, if they have one it will likely be set to X=1. If they happen to draw a 2nd copy, that one will likely be set to X=2. This is bad, because the only way out of this situation with the above list is to KGrip one of the Chalices, then use another bounce spell on the 2nd Chalice. This is unfortunately very inefficient. I lost a match because my opponent had Trinisphere and Chalice at X=2 out, and I did not have enough mana to M.Tutor for 2 removal pieces and remove both the artifacts before dying to Magus of the Moon and Pit Dragon beatdown (though it is worth noting that Magus itself was not a problem at all, as I had 3 basics on the board at the time). If Rebuild were in the deck, I would have won by removing all the problematic artifacts in one fell swoop. I knew that multiple copies of Chalice would present a problem going into the event but did not adequately prepare for it.
That being said, I played against the following decks:
-Dragon Stompy
-CBGoyf
-Survival Bant
-BUG Team America variant
-CBGoyf
-Belcher
My loss to Dragon Stompy, though an unlucky set of mulligans game 2 hurt, was largely due to the point above. Belcher is a silly match, and the die roll will likely determine the winner. That being said, their deck is inconsistent enough that they will frequently resort to Empty the Warrens in order to get a kill - unfortunately, ANT can not just race that but answer it very well with M.Tutor -> E.Truth post-SB. Other times, they will just Belch you and win and there is little you can do about it. Such is life.
That being said I managed to go up against 4 blue decks, including 2 with CB, and I 2-0'd 3 of them. I wouldn't normally mention this but I felt it reflects recent testing I have done with ANT against CB decks, and I wanted to highlight what has worked well for me against blue decks and share this with others.
Typically, against a stock CB deck I would board as follows:
-3 Ponder
-3 Cabal Ritual
-1 Chrome Mox
+4 Dark Confidant
+3 Krosan Grip
If I suspect MMage, Ethersworn Canonist, or some other hatebear I will be inclined to keep a Chain of Vapor or Slaughter Pact in the deck, usually replacing a 2nd copy of Ad Nauseam or 4th Dark Confidant. Never stick to a dogma in terms of sideboarding. Allways react to what cards your opponent is playing, what they can possibly play, and even how they play in determining your SB'ing actions. When in doubt, add that Chain of Vapor into your deck because it's better to have Chain and not need it (it does generate storm if nothing else) than to scoop because your opponent has a card you didn't foresee.
With this in mind, why do I SB out 3 C.Ritual, 3 Ponder, and 1 Chrome Mox? First, the mana curve is something important to take into account. Most importantly, the deck's mana curve must still flow! So many people forget to reevaluate their deck's mana curve after boarding in a particular match, and the presence of AN/Bob really bring this to light. Siding out a 2cc C.Ritual spell for a 2cc D.Confidant spell is not going to disturb your AN nor your Bob flips nor your tempo. It hurts a bit to replace 1cc Ponders with 3cc Grips, but there must be some sacrifices that must be made to fit in Grip. =p
Second, Chrome Mox is hard to justify. Speed is good, but 3 is a bit much. 2 is good to make sure you are still explosive, but without the drawback of having multiple Chrome Moxen (which can be devastating in a battle of attrition against blue control).
Ponder, while excellent, are mostly there to maintain the deck's speed and consistency against quick decks. Seeing as how the tutors, discard, Brainstorms, remaining mana, and AN/Tendrils are virtually sacred cows then Ponder is the "good but not game-breaking" card to be cut here. Grip is, quite frankly, necessary.
Nevertheless, this SB'ing plan of bringing in Bob helps to highlight something I don't think most people take into account when it comes to beating blue decks: just playing a lethal Tendrils. You don't need to get fancy with Ad Nauseam or drawing a boatload of cards, sometimes you just need to straight up kill them with a card they cannot effectively counter. Having 2 Tendrils in the deck supports this idea, and I was very happy over the course of the day to be playing 2 Tendrils. Just for reference, I only went for Ad Nauseam in 4 of my 8 games against blue decks on the day - 2 of them were against Bant Survival. The other 4 times, the course of action was simple: kill them.
To add to this, I don't regret keeping IGG out of the deck. On average, you're going to need to put IGG on the stack with 6 storm to get a kill with it - assuming your opponent doesn't get something awesome back from the grave to stop you. If your life total is so low you cannot go for Ad Nauseam...the substitute is to simply cast Tendrils. If you are at, say, 6 life than casting a 6 storm Tendrils will put you up to a safe 18 life and your opponent will drop to single digits. Given that you have a 2nd copy of Tendrils in your deck, it is frequently not hard at all to find it and cast it for 2-3 storm to finish your opponent off. At first glance it may seem week to not have a storm engine at low life. But guess what? Tendrils wins games too. Having 2 means you can cast a non-lethal one, get your life total to a safer level, then follow it up with a lethal one later on.
With the emphasis not just being on AN, but moreso on the Tendrils plan, it is also worth noting that Duress/Thoughtseize are miles better at this plan than any Chant effect will ever be. You cannot afford to Chant, cast a non-lethal Tendrils, then pray that you can squeeze in an un-Chanted IGG and win. It just won't work. But when your opponent's hand is completely stripped by discard, the huge life buffer of Tendrils will frequently buy several turns - enough to get a few cards in hand and use your established mana base to finish them off.
Anyway, back to Bob. Bob is simply amazing with Tendrils for several reasons:
1) Each attack from Bob reduces that lethal storm count by 1
2) Each turn Bob draws, he is effectively giving you an extra card in hand to generate storm
With just those 2, each turn Bob is in play and swinging, you are 2 storm closer to killing them. In this light, Bob himself is a 5 turn clock (all else being equal).
3) The life-gain of even a non-lethal Tendrils will more than offset the life-loss of Bob himself, not to mention it will invalidate any beatdown plan.
4) Bob is cheap. The only difference between AN and Bob is that Bob is less expensive but has a slower effect. This effect is OK against a slower deck like CBGoyf, one that can't really apply too much pressure to just wipe you off the map most of the time
5) Bob works with discard effects much better than Chant effects. This is readily apparent when your hand is approaching the maximum hand size, and you can just unload discard to set-up your critical Tendrils turn
The ultimate reason Bob is good here is because he moves you towards the ultimate goal - winning the game. Cards like Xantid Swarm are great...if you already have all the other cards you need to win. But Bob doesn't care if you do or don't have a hand that will win because he gives it to you.
Some people will argue that Bob is bad because it turns on spot removal. For this, I will cite 3 examples just from today:
1) My opponent simply did not draw removal to my 2 Bobs. He lost within 3 turns of them being active, despite that I had no cards in hand upon casting the 2nd one.
2) My opponent had removal, but I Duressed/Thoughtseized it away first before playing Bob.
3) My opponent had removal, but I simply did not have Bob and combo'd out while they sat on dead cards in hand.
All 3 of those happened. Did my opponent make a mistake when I Duressed his counter-magic and cast Ad Nauseam, ignoring his 2 Smothers in hand? No. If he didn't have those Smothers, he would have gotten blown out by the Bobs I Brainstormed away. Put simply, the mere existence of Bob in your deck forces your opponent into playing cards that put them into weak positions.
At the end of all this, I lost to the BUG Team America variant 0-2. He is a good (PT) player, and the last time we met it was in Vintage and I took advantage of one mistake to steal a match from him. This time, he took advantage of my mistakes. In game 1, I mulliganed to 5 but stayed in the game pretty well. I cast a Ponder at 6 life against a 4/5 Goyf. Had I waited a single turn, and took the hit to go to 2 life, I could have drawn any card in my deck to play around his Spell Pierce and get exactly a lethal Tendrils. Instead I made a very subtle mistake wasting that Ponder too early and ended up getting him to 1 life by being a storm short. In game 2, I made another mistake in not pushing my AN to the limit. I stopped at 3 life when I should have gone further, as I had about 15 outs in my deck to Tendrils that turn and only 1 card remaining that would insta-kill me if it flipped. I stopped instead of going on. He had no action so I thought I could keep my fresh 11 cards, take a set-up turn with Top/Ponder, and kill him easily 2 turns later. He topdecked a Goyf and only gave me one turn, but I was short. I got him to 1 life again.
That aside, it was my own play mistakes that cost me both games. If I had played as tight in those games as I had in the previous blue matches, I would have gone an astonishing 8-0 in games against Force of Will decks piloted by good players. And I mulliganed in over half those games. The reason I bring this up is because extensive testing against qualified blue players confirms this. The above list has been testing very well for a while now against blue decks and I just wanted to share it to others who may be interested.
In short, this is a message to everyone who thinks blue trumps ANT, or CB stops it cold. They don't. The only thing stopping ANT from dominating the format is simply how difficult it is to play correctly. This deck is truly sick.
Typically, against a stock CB deck I would board as follows:
-3 Ponder
-3 Cabal Ritual
-1 Chrome Mox
+4 Dark Confidant
+3 Krosan Grip
I'm curious as to why you don't cut at least one ad nausium vs cb. with only 2 tops and 4 brainstorms to manipulate your topdecks and krosan grip already raising your mana curve i'de think it would be a good idea to cut at least one ad nausium and leave in one ponder to keep your curve lower and topdecks less blind so you're less likely to 5 yourself off of bob. Also having more cantrips can be very vital if the game goes late because you can just play multiple cantrips into a minitendrils which won me a lot of games back in the original fetchland tendrils days.
I woud like to note that IGG also is a second Tendrils. If you played your first Tendrils off a couple of Rituals and a Petal or something like that, you could probably just do the same thing again with IGG later (I have done this at low life totals from time to time). Of course this does not protect you from counterspells in the opponents graveyard which is problematic (well, if Duress is your protection of choice); but the flexibility in IGG from emptying your hand for IT to recur bounce while still acting as your second Tendrils does make it seem better to me (especially with Chant-protection).
The big difference in my opinion is that IGG can be countered, and if that happens then you're pretty much stuck. Now, if you play chants then you can get around that. But if you're main disruption plan is duress/thoughtseize, then it's not so easy. In this case, I can tendrils for less than fatal without worrying about force of will, daze, spell pierce, etc. Then Bob is supposed to refill your hand quickly so you can do another 3-4 stormed tendrils.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eksem
As a good example, I was playing against white/blue tempo yesterday and when I duressed him, I saw 2 forces and a brainstorm. (Don't remind me that chant would have been better in this situation, I already know that but I was trying a variant of Saito's list). So I took the brainstorm and proceeded to "go off". When I infernal tutored, I was waiting for a counter, but our opponents are SO used to coutnering IGG or AN that he let it resolve. So I fetched 1 of my 2 tendrils and proceeded to hit him for 12. He went to counter it, then he realized I didn't do what he was expecting. (In fact, if I was a jerk I could have said "too late, you can't take your FoW's back"). This took him down to 7 life. Sadly, he proceeded to play a Jitte and won the game before I could hit him again (hence my lack of Bob's making me sad!). But the point still stands. I could have played IGG (mind you I didn't have the extra mana I needed) but he very well may have countered that one. At least I got in for 12 and that bought me 4 solid turns. With Bob out, that would have been 8 cards and since I had top out, I could have guaranteed minimal hurt from Bob.
My point is that you can still do the 2 Tendrils-hit plan with IGG, but you can't do the any IGG-trix with a second Tendrils. You could have done the same play as you describe there, but drawing IGG later on as well as another Tendrils (though Duress/Thoughtseize for protection makes it harder).
I frequently board out the 2nd AN for a Chain of Vapor or Slaughter Pact if I'm bringing in 4 Bob. If I know for a fact they aren't bringing in something like MMage or E.Canonist, I'll keep the 2nd AN in the deck as it is pretty handy from time to time.Quote:
Originally Posted by metalhead
As for the lack of cantrips, I mostly treat Bob as my missing copies of Ponder. =)
Ignoring any poor synergy between Duress/Thoughtseize and IGG, the reason I cut IGG from my previous build is precisely because you can't do what you've described here consistently.Quote:
My point is that you can still do the 2 Tendrils-hit plan with IGG, but you can't do the any IGG-trix with a second Tendrils.
Sure you can go through a normal game, Tendrils them for a bit, then later IGG to get your lone copy of Tendrils back and seal it.
But half the time, you will draw IGG first and not have Tendrils. And then you die.
A while ago I had two concerns with the deck. I always felt IGG was very mediocre in the deck, even with Chants. The other factor was that Chants themselves, while decent in a number of matches, are just not as good in general as Duress/Thoughtseize. But I felt I had to run IGG as a necessary evil, then I felt I had to run Chant as a necessary evil to protect the necessary evil. Once I realized how awful this situation was, it didn't take much for me to want to change it.
At the time, I was *already* boarding in 2 Tendrils against CB, taking out the IGG. Eventually, it clicked that I'd rather have the 2nd Tedrils over IGG in most of my matches.