Quote Originally Posted by practical joke View Post
I think the list can be improved.

I've had rare situations that I had to cantrip into a win, but those were during tests and it happens very rarely.
I. if possible do not sac my second LED when casting ad nauseam, or keep my LED at hand.
It can happen, and I do think this list lacks a proper tutor. Both lim-dul's vault and personal tutor are to slow and grim tutor is costing to much when trying to ill-gotten gains/or find it with ad nauseam. so I chose to be a bit greedy and play only 6cards that would provide me action.

Those you have to protect with everything you have.


Most of the time I flipped IT and/or LED or I used LED and infernal tutor to find ad nauseam and then flipped ill-gotten gains.
That's where SDT would shine, in helping you to cantrip into the critical cards without blue mana. With your list, I think it would be wiser to sac LED in response to Ad Nauseam for UUU instead of BBB. You're more likely to flip several cantrips which nets you card, and rituals only need a Petal or a Mox to start being cast.
I can see that Preordain instead of (2) SDT speeds the deck and this is quite important nowadays that aggro-control are winning on turn 4, but it's quite sad to lose nice interactions like Brainstorming my Ad Nauseam on top and then using SDT plus LEDs to cast it, or just cast double bomb.
I also fear that such a list would have real difficulties against opposing Tops, but I'll take the risk.

As or the land count, I was already playing my list with 14 lands and it was better. This configuration relies a lot more on Infernal Tutor because it's basically the tutor which enables most of your kills, so it should be optimized. 12 cantrips help in finding the other lands against blue decks, and 3 basics are really strong against tempo decks. Personally I would not play 10 fetchlands because you're exposed excessively to Stifle and lifeloss, as 8 are more than sufficient to still guarantee a turn 3 threshold and you don't always want fetchlands especially when you have 2 good cards with Ponder and you need both,but you also want to Duress the opponent so you should shuffle away the good card because of having a fetchland. This scenario happens.

As for the third Mox, I think it's down to a personal choice. I do not love Mox since it's essentially a dead card. I prefer having an out to randomness in the form of Chain of Vapor maindeck. Not that it will bounce Counterbalance, but there are some decks as of now that play Meddling Mage maindeck to stop, guess what, Survival. They're more likely to name Tendrils than Ad Nauseam or rituals/LED, especially the so-and-so players. I don't like having random autolosses. I know it's marginal, but it could still happen.
Chain also buys a turn bouncing a turn 2 Survival, or may be useful in several situations (just bouncing their clock and forcing them to tap again, for example). It frees a sb slot and can, obviously, create +1/2/3 storm.

I've retuned your list a bit down to my taste and it sounds like this.

// Lands
1 [A] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand/Misty rainforest
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [10E] Island (2)
1 [9E] Swamp (4)

// Spells
1 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DDC] Duress
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [US] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [GPX] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [A] Tropical Island
SB: 2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [LRW] Shelldock Isle
SB: 2 [5E] Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 [6E] Doomsday
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth/Wipe Away


I've changed the sideboard a bit. Hurkyl's Recall because it's still an autowin against those Stax decks that may give this deck a difficult life.
The echoing truth stays there as a third bouncer for Stax matchups as well as another answer against hatebears that replaces Duress , but It could be another discard against Counterbalance as well - say, an Inquisition of Kozilek, which has been surprinsingly good.
Not being able to grab Force is not a justification since it can still take off CB and hatebears as well as Pierce.
4 Doomsdays to me are too much, you can cantrip into one very fastly. Odds that you are going to cast on your first turn protected are pretty low. You should aim to quick Duress them and go for it. It still remains a risky plan, though. A Wipe Away as suggested by Kikoo should be good since you're still not going to pack Ad Nauseam.
Against Counterbalance, how the sideboarding should be?

-2 Ad Nauseam
-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 (2) Lotus Petal

+3 DD
+1 Emrakul
+1 S.ISle
(+1 Wipe Away)

-1 IGG? You should keep that angle of the deck, it may still get you wins.