[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[.Ix]

I can imagine LDV being better than usual in discard-heavy metagames (which Japanese tournaments seem to be). Responding to some discard spell to set up an unbeatable pile sounds decent.

[Blastoderm]

I can say we have been there with LDV post mystical ban then few years back

....

...Reading japanese decklists simply cannot disappoint... btw. is there a special jap site for decklists? major english websites do not cite them much or hardly at all

www.happymtg.com

[sawatarix]

yeah,it's also kinda similar to an instant 2-Mana doomsday without lifeloss.
I like Senseis Divining Top alot in combination but i don't have a clue if Lim Vault+Top (3 of each for example) are better than let's say 3 preordain+3Ponder.

[Sloshthedark]

I can imagine LDV being better than usual in discard-heavy metagames (which Japanese tournaments seem to be). Responding to some discard spell to set up an unbeatable pile sounds decent.

with SDT it might, you choose your 2 cards to draw

www.happymtg.com

thanx, harder to navigate but is a start... not much innovation in the Ant department, Parallax Nexus the most crazy one

yeah,it's also kinda similar to an instant 2-Mana doomsday without lifeloss.
I like Senseis Divining Top alot in combination but i don't have a clue if Lim Vault+Top (3 of each for example) are better than let's say 3 preordain+3Ponder.

it's about what do you want to achieve, LDV will slow the deck a lot (3C for PiF loop - as the only tutor can be really miserable, blind PiF is a lottery) but improve consistency of oneshot T3-4 goldfish, I'd think it better vs non U and weak U decks, I don't think I'd like to play this against tempo or Miracles or use it for midgame setup - imagine tutoring up a discard spell+something to find out you can't kill yet - down a card (maybe a turn), devastating in a world of DiG imo, SDT is a must imo, I do not like that Pyroblast would actually do something ... LDV screams "counter me" too much, no one counters Ponder.. a common decision whether to BS+fetch T2, or pass- fetch- LDV is not an easy one and I'd rather be doing the 1st in vacuum... but I'll construct something at least for a goldfish to have a try, it's been a year since I cast LDV...

[lordofthepit]

Recently took a really bad beat with Storm, with Brainstorm hitting three lands when all I needed to do was get hellbent with Cabal Therapy in hand. I wrote about it in my blog, if anyone is interested: http://lordofthepit23.blogspot.com/2...ith-storm.html

Fortunately, the tournament was just a simple weekly, so my misfortune was more an amusing learning experience than anything else.

Edit: I've forgotten the exact contents of my hand, but I do remember the calculations I went through during the game, so I took some guesses in order to reconstruct the game state to be consistent with what I remember.

[Sloshthedark]

Recently took a really bad beat with Storm, with Brainstorm hitting three lands when all I needed to do was get hellbent with Cabal Therapy in hand. I wrote about it in my blog, if anyone is interested: http://lordofthepit23.blogspot.com/2...ith-storm.html

Fortunately, the tournament was just a simple weekly, so my misfortune was more an amusing learning experience than anything else.

Edit: I've forgotten the exact contents of my hand, but I do remember the calculations I went through during the game, so I took some guesses in order to reconstruct the game state to be consistent with what I remember.

Interesting, sometimes this just happens, I'd have lead with a DR though

[Firefight]

Recently took a really bad beat with Storm, with Brainstorm hitting three lands when all I needed to do was get hellbent with Cabal Therapy in hand. I wrote about it in my blog, if anyone is interested: http://lordofthepit23.blogspot.com/2...ith-storm.html

Fortunately, the tournament was just a simple weekly, so my misfortune was more an amusing learning experience than anything else.

Edit: I've forgotten the exact contents of my hand, but I do remember the calculations I went through during the game, so I took some guesses in order to reconstruct the game state to be consistent with what I remember.

Question, if the intention is to go off that specific turn, would not cracking the fetch first and after that brainstorm, in the following line :

Board: Underground Sea and Misty , play petal, crack misty, play BS , if he try to daze play dark ritual in response would give you a less percentage of drawing out lands?

[Izor]

Question, if the intention is to go off that specific turn, would not cracking the fetch first and after that brainstorm, in the following line :

Board: Underground Sea and Misty , play petal, crack misty, play BS , if he try to daze play dark ritual in response would give you a less percentage of drawing out lands?

I often do this. It is against the conventions, because in everything but Storm you usually want to keep your Fetches uncracked as long as possible in order to improve your future Brainstorms. In Storm, however, I find myself in situations where I just want to find the three best possible cards on top right now, at which point thinning your deck before resolving the cantrip is often the right play (unless you're digging for Land, obviously).

I also often go turn 1 fetch into Gitaxian Probe for 2 life if I know that I can draw a particular card that will let me go off that turn. Still, I only do this if I know what I'm up against. If you don't know what your opponent plays yet, you may want to get info before deciding what land to get, for instance.

[lordofthepit]

Interesting, sometimes this just happens, I'd have lead with a DR though

Any particular reason for this? I assume you are trying to bait out the Daze to get extra storm, which would make it unnecessary to cast Brainstorm since I would be able to Therapy it out of my hand. Is this typically a line that induces a Daze? The downside is if he doesn't Daze and my Brainstorm hits all lands, I've burned a Dark Ritual and still have to pass the turn, mostly for the upside of presenting a presumably attractive target for Daze.

Question, if the intention is to go off that specific turn, would not cracking the fetch first and after that brainstorm, in the following line :

Board: Underground Sea and Misty , play petal, crack misty, play BS , if he try to daze play dark ritual in response would give you a less percentage of drawing out lands?

I believe this is described by my Option 5, which in retrospect I believe is a better line than the one I took (Option 4). Playing Dark Ritual in response to Daze would not be necessary, since I would only need one initial black source from that point to go off and would not need to cast any blue spells that I hit off Brainstorm (since the storm count would be high enough that I could just Therapy it away). In the unlikely event that I hit three lands off the Brainstorm, I would prefer to still have a Dark Ritual in hand. Please let me know if there's something I'm missing.

I often do this. It is against the conventions, because in everything but Storm you usually want to keep your Fetches uncracked as long as possible in order to improve your future Brainstorms. In Storm, however, I find myself in situations where I just want to find the three best possible cards on top right now, at which point thinning your deck before resolving the cantrip is often the right play (unless you're digging for Land, obviously).

I also often go turn 1 fetch into Gitaxian Probe for 2 life if I know that I can draw a particular card that will let me go off that turn. Still, I only do this if I know what I'm up against. If you don't know what your opponent plays yet, you may want to get info before deciding what land to get, for instance.

Agreed on cracking fetchlands. In a recent storm mirror, I realized I needed to hit discard or business early, and I was on the draw, so I fetched for an Underground Sea before I cast Probe (and my opponent didn't on his Turn 1).

[Sloshthedark]

Any particular reason for this? I assume you are trying to bait out the Daze to get extra storm, which would make it unnecessary to cast Brainstorm since I would be able to Therapy it out of my hand. Is this typically a line that induces a Daze? The downside is if he doesn't Daze and my Brainstorm hits all lands, I've burned a Dark Ritual and still have to pass the turn, mostly for the upside of presenting a presumably attractive target for Daze.

my reaction given the gamestate before reading rest of the article, I'd not take draw 3 lands into account probably and likely end up as you did if Opp doesn't believe me the kill, hard to say if he'd daze unless I faced him but It's the only spot that makes sense for him... I'd do that 9/10 cases



Fetchlands - If I had to write an article or teach someone how to play storm I'd say keeping fetchlands is a dangerous myth (same with autofetching basics) that in longterm works against you, I believe it's a bad habit from playing other mtg decks, you should be able to evaluate minimum number of lands you want in the game and play to it - I've seen good storm players with 3+ fetches in play in situations when any bussiness=win, I've seen a GP winner with 2 fetches against Belcher, I believe you have to have a good reason for more than 1 fetchland in play (and I do fetch upkeep if I have another in hand)... just don't tell my Opps ; )

[lordofthepit]

my reaction given the gamestate before reading rest of the article, I'd not take draw 3 lands into account probably and likely end up as you did if Opp doesn't believe me the kill, hard to say if he'd daze unless I faced him but It's the only spot that makes sense for him... I'd do that 9/10 cases

I was thinking about your line of leading with Dark Ritual, and I think it has one advantage over the line that I took.

If the opponent is extremely aggressive, he can cast Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog very early in our sequencing and ensure that I'm unable to achieve threshold with either Cabal Ritual. This means I'd only be able to generate 7 mana (2 lands, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, two Cabal Rituals without Threshold), which means I cannot beat a Daze if I have to cast Cabal Therapy on myself or if my Brainstorm bricks on any mana. However, the opponent is extremely unlikely to trade in his best card and add one to the storm count until I've shown him a Cabal Ritual or a Past in Flames, as the Crop Rotation represents his clock and his best piece of disruption, plus he doesn't know the contents of the rest of my hand. In that situation, not knowing what my Brainstorm may hit, I feel extremely confident that if I can't kill him this turn, I'm still favored to win the game before he presents any sort of a clock.

Thus, if I sequence as follows:

• Dark Ritual. Resolves, BBB in pool, Misty Rainforest still open, five cards in graveyard.
• Lotus Petal. Resolves.
• Crack Misty Rainforest. Resolves. Potentially 5 mana available, six cards in graveyard.
• Crack Lotus Petal (he can't respond to this). Seven cards in graveyard.

At this point I can now cast a first Cabal Ritual which would resolve with Threshold. If he tries to rotate for Bojuka Bog in response, I can respond with the second Cabal Ritual, while having mana to pay through Daze. At this point, it is trivial to get hellbent and get to storm 10.

If I had instead led on Brainstorm or Cabal Therapy targeting myself, there is a decent chance he casts Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog in response to my first Cabal Ritual. I can respond with the second copy, but that loses to Daze as I would not have any mana floating at that point.

So after long deliberation, I think I like your suggestion to lead with Dark Ritual (or Lotus Petal).

[kkkant]

Has bitterblossom ever been considered as a sb option?

[CabalTherapy]

Has bitterblossom ever been considered as a sb option?

Yes, it was part of the discussion last summer but lost to Young Pyromancer.

[Arguru]

Hi guys!I play storm for a year(both ANT and TES) with good results;yesterday i top 8'd a big tournament here in italy(~150 ppl) with ANT,and i want to share with you my list and some impression!

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining top
1 grim tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

SIDEBOARD
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Sensei's Divining top
3 Xantid swarm
1 massacre
2 surgical extraction
2 Dread of night
1 krosan grip

I finished undefeated after 8 round of swiss(6-0-2),beating:

• death and taxes(2-1)
• Jund (2-0)
• UWR stoneblade (2-0)
• team america (2-1)
• jund (2-0)
• sneak and show (2-0)

And drawing in round 5 against uw stoneblade(g1 my ad nauseam from 17 life fail to find a business spell)

In the first round of top 8 i lose to a strange uw control...

The main deck feels pretty strong,grim tutor won several match,maybe the only change i would make is to change the sdt with another preordain,but i'm not sure...

I never played against dredge/reanimator/storm,so surgical extraction were useless,the same for miracles and krosan grip...

That's all,if you have any question i'll be happy to answer!

Sorry if my english is not perfect and keep on storming guys!

[Surfinbird]

Hi Arguru, congratulations for the good results!
My list is very similar to yours: In the maindeck I'm running a second Preordain instead of the Sdt, and the sideboard is: 3 Abrupt decay, 3 Dread of nnight, 2 Xantid swarm, 2 Surgical extraction, 2 Chain of vvapor, 2 Sensei's divining top and 1 Krosan grip.

Like you, I've been thinking if the spot of the 2nd Preordain should be a SDT. That seems good in the New (old) Metagame and also gives us an extra sideboard slot (I think 2 tops between MB and SB are needed to fight miracles and other slow/discardbased decks). Otherwise, playing SDT + Grim tutor and only one Preordain has given me some clunky/slow hands.

I think that playing with 2 preordains is better because:
1.In g1 it's easy to win games by just being faster, dealing with a few pieces of disruption.
2.SDT is a beast in long, grindy games where you will win after dealing with lots of hate: counterspells, discard, permanents... That usually happens in G2-3.

In conclusion: 2 preordains MB to take profit of our deck killing in the first turns. 2 SDT in the sideboard to win those difficult g2 and 3 where we need to find lots of answers during lots of turns.

PD: After the 5th week of testing, i've reached the match number 100 of this year (between cockatrice and tournaments), very happy of the 81 victorys and 19 loses! This thursday i'll will attend to a legacy Shop to play a 4round tournament, i hope to return home with a 4-0

[KevinH]

Just curious, what makes Krosan Grip better than Abrupt Decay?

Also, I remember once reading a European blog talking about a "Turbo Tendrils" deck that included multiple copies of Tendrils of Agony in the maindeck to "brute force" the combo through. Does anyone know what blog I'm talking about? I wanted to go read those articles again.

[Arguru]

Hi Arguru, congratulations for the good results!
My list is very similar to yours: In the maindeck I'm running a second Preordain instead of the Sdt, and the sideboard is: 3 Abrupt decay, 3 Dread of nnight, 2 Xantid swarm, 2 Surgical extraction, 2 Chain of vvapor, 2 Sensei's divining top and 1 Krosan grip.

Like you, I've been thinking if the spot of the 2nd Preordain should be a SDT. That seems good in the New (old) Metagame and also gives us an extra sideboard slot (I think 2 tops between MB and SB are needed to fight miracles and other slow/discardbased decks). Otherwise, playing SDT + Grim tutor and only one Preordain has given me some clunky/slow hands.

I think that playing with 2 preordains is better because:
1.In g1 it's easy to win games by just being faster, dealing with a few pieces of disruption.
2.SDT is a beast in long, grindy games where you will win after dealing with lots of hate: counterspells, discard, permanents... That usually happens in G2-3.

In conclusion: 2 preordains MB to take profit of our deck killing in the first turns. 2 SDT in the sideboard to win those difficult g2 and 3 where we need to find lots of answers during lots of turns.

PD: After the 5th week of testing, i've reached the match number 100 of this year (between cockatrice and tournaments), very happy of the 81 victorys and 19 loses! This thursday i'll will attend to a legacy Shop to play a 4round tournament, i hope to return home with a 4-0

I have the same idea about sdt vs preordain,and i think i'll cut one of the two dread of night in the side to make room for the second sdt;so i can play with 2 mb preordain,and switch them in g2/3 against slow deck.
I could also cut a xantid swarm instead of a dread of night,but i really like the swarm,and we can beat death and taxes even without a lot of dedicated sideboard slots IMHO...

How did surgical extraction perform in your experience?

[Surfinbird]

I have the same idea about sdt vs preordain,and i think i'll cut one of the two dread of night in the side to make room for the second sdt;so i can play with 2 mb preordain,and switch them in g2/3 against slow deck.
I could also cut a xantid swarm instead of a dread of night,but i really like the swarm,and we can beat death and taxes even without a lot of dedicated sideboard slots IMHO...

How did surgical extraction perform in your experience?

If you play dread of night i wouldn't play less than 3, since it's great in multiples to beat canonist and goddock teeg. They are fantastic against Gw Zenith because they play lots of hatebears and and 2 dreads or even 1 can deal with lots of them. If in your meta there are more death and taxes than GW i'll play 2 massacres and no dreads. In a meta with more Gw, 3 dreads is a good option. And about Xantid, only play 3 of them if there are lots of show and tell decks in your metagame (and if most of them play leyline of sanctity).

Surgical extracction is fine against Storm, Reanimator and dredge. I like it over flusterstorm because usuallly it's more decisive, and also doesn't force you to play with a blue source untapped during the game. In my meta those decks are quite popular, so i'll keep playing 2.

Another point. I've been discussing with another stormplayer about siding in surgicals against omnitells. It's true that taking all show and tells or omnisciences of their deck is a powerful play but to do this you need 4 conditions:

- Having a discard spell in hand
- (They not playing leyline in turn 0)
- Having surgical in hand
- They not having any counterspells
- They having show and tell or omnicience

Also, agaist omnitell you should be siding some discard spells out to play the xantids, so the plan discard+surgical just gets worse

I hope i've helped you

[Arguru]

In my meta there isn't GW,but i really don't like 2 sb massacre,because they really weakens your ad nauseam plan(and d&t players always side in rip and relic of progenitus) and most of them plays without drop plains,if possible,to dodge massacre...

Concerning xantid swarm,there are a lot of reanimator/s&s/merfolk around here,so i'm happy with 3 of them in my sb,but i understand your opinion!

I 100% agree with you about surgical extraction,i had seen people siding them in against miracles and show and tell,but i think it's wrong.

How do you guys side in/out against miracles?my plan atm is:-2 preordain -4 Lotus petal +2 sdt +3 decay +1 krosan grip

[Surfinbird]

In my meta there isn't GW,but i really don't like 2 sb massacre,because they really weakens your ad nauseam plan(and d&t players always side in rip and relic of progenitus) and most of them plays without drop plains,if possible,to dodge massacre...

Concerning xantid swarm,there are a lot of reanimator/s&s/merfolk around here,so i'm happy with 3 of them in my sb,but i understand your opinion!

I 100% agree with you about surgical extraction,i had seen people siding them in against miracles and show and tell,but i think it's wrong.

How do you guys side in/out against miracles?my plan atm is:-2 preordain -4 Lotus petal +2 sdt +3 decay +1 krosan grip

To avoid the lifeloss of massacre during the Ad Nauseam i played 1 Massacre +1 Pyroclasm for a couple of weeks and they worked well, also ther are good targets for grim tutor in those matchups. Now i've got more SB space and i'm playing 3 dreads of night because GW it's quite popular in my meta.

Against Miracles i side this way:

+3 Abrupt decay +2 SDT +1 Krosan grip
-2 Preordain, -2 Cabal ritual, -1 Lotus petal -1 Island (Underground sea or Lotus Petal#2 if they play some blood moons in SB)

I think that you should leave at least 2 lotus petal, otherwise you will lose thos fast kills that win easy easy and you will make your AN worse too. I like having 3 of them, but i'm not sure if i should side out a second petal instead of the second cabal ritual. I've got fantastic results siding this way (13 wins, 4 loses during this year)