@Spider900: my list has never changed (except for trying out Duress). It's Pulp_Fiction's list from many pages back. nemavera has also done very well with it. Just sift through pages 60-70.

Quote Originally Posted by Rico Suave View Post
Not really, Ad Nauseam requires the least amount of resources. DD's only advantage in terms of resources is that it does not require a healthy life total. In regards to mana and other usable spells, AN is superior.

At anyrate, let me highlight the problems I have with this boarding plan:

-1 Silence
+1 Xantid Swarm

See, the gain here is really marginal. Sure I guess Swarm is better, but is it really worth a SB slot to "upgrade" from a Silence to a Swarm?

-2 Cabal Ritual
+2 Carpet of Flowers

Another marginal gain. You replace a perfectly fine, if not great, mana source in Cabal Ritual with a different mana source. In fact it's tough to say Carpet is actually better anyway.

See, some of these changes are just not worth it. I'll expand on this a little bit more in a different point of view.

Going back to the original point of Xantid Swarm, here is the real problem: the reason Counterbalance/Top is a bad matchup is because of Counterbalance. Yet you board in Carpet, Doomsday, and Xantid Swarm. None of those cards answer the problem at hand. In fact, Swarm is there to answer what, 8 cards? And 4 of them are Daze? And it doesn't deal with the CB itself?

You board in a whopping 11 cards, and still only have two cards after boarding that let you answer the most dangerous card they can present - cards you cannot readily find because CB shuts the deck down. To be fair, you did say you were testing Duress instead of extra Chants, so kudos. But still, this is a very greedy number for a deck boarding in that many cards. I think you can afford to find room for a 3rd Grip. =p

Chant effects are actually quite weak against CB. Swarm is a great card against Merfolk. But that's about it honestly. It's just not good anywhere else.
-The life IS the reason that Ad Nauseam is a taxing form of victory. In a matchup where you cannot always win quickly, a lone goyf can wittle away at your life, forcing you to take unnecessary risks with Ad Nauseam.

-The Swarm for Silence was a recent change I made. They usually board Swords out, so this is where Swarm comes in. Upping your chant count to 8 is sufficient. Swarms are a threat that must be answered, and I don't know why you think that it's terrible against CB. CB is only half of the equation, you still have to deal with the 12 counterspells they have.

-Krosan Grip is a 3-of (there's one MB), so you're honestly fine in that department. I've tried going up to 4 and just didn't feel like it was necessary.

-Carpet is much better than Cabal Ritual right now because we board out almost all of our 2CC spells to completely evade Spell Snare. True we do not always know if they are running Dispel, Spell Pierce, or Spell Snare, but it's a good way to blank a card. It also allows you to constantly set up turn by turn with cantrips while evading Daze and Spell Pierce. I don't see how Carpet, which grants you mana every turn, could even be argued as "worse" than Cabal Ritual.

-It is a greedy boarding plan, I know. It also works, which testing has shown. I feel comfortable playing this post-board matchup, moreso than ANY previous incarnation or boarding plan of ANT, DDANT, TES, FT, or NLS. Honestly, the deck ends up playing like DDFT, which was always a great deck vs blue.

I'd say try it yourself sometime. I think you'll be surprised like I was.