[Brainstorming] Ad Nauseam

[BreathWeapon]

Seems bad. The better thing to do is run 4 Mystical Tutor, giving you 8 maindeck AdN, 4 of which cost and cause you to "discard" a card, as opposed to 7 maindeck AdN, 4 of which cost

Additionally:

Mystical Tutor is better against discard than Cunning Wish.
No one considered running Cunning Wish to grab Flash at GP Columbus (you want Mystical Tutor here to either grab AdN or Dark Rit for the turn 2 kill, you don't ever accelerate into Cunning Wish).



EDIT:

Kobolds? As in "I play Glimpse of Nature" Kobolds?

You're probably right.

For the B/r lists, I think 4 Ad Nauseam with 4 Empty the Warrens is really strong, because they have to counter acceleration as their default choice and it's not difficult to ramp your mana back up for the Ad Nauseam.

I still think U/b with FoW is the way to go tho'.

[Brehn]

I still think U/b with FoW is the way to go tho'.

Have fun building a non-suicidal list with Tendrils and Force of Will main.

[idraleo]

Yep running AdN+Force+Tendrils is unfair. Sometimes happens to get busted only by some 1-2cc spells + 1 AdN revealed, that's why i dropped blue in favour of red, wich gaves best tutors and an efficent slow mana finisher such as Grapeshot.

[BreathWeapon]

Have fun building a non-suicidal list with Tendrils and Force of Will main.

Ok, I'll just throw Ad Nauseum into every pre-existing Storm deck, something any one else could do, with out bothering to try anything innovative or to do basic math to see whether or not it's even viable ... WTF

Any one can win by casting AdN, it's the non Storm, non graveyard and non draw 7 aspect of the card that leads us to deck building options. I mean, it's not rocket science to know when to stop drawing, cast Tendrils for less and then use your card advantage to win on a later turn.

Have you never played SI or what?

[Brehn]

Ok, I'll just throw Ad Nauseum into every pre-existing Storm deck, something any one else could do, with out bothering to try anything innovative or to do basic math to see whether or not it's even viable ... WTF

WTF are you talking about? I could also ask you to do the basic math to see whether FoW+Tendrils+AdN is viable.

I mean, it's not rocket science to know when to stop drawing, cast Tendrils for less and then use your card advantage to win on a later turn.

List or it didn't happen. Are you playing 4 Tendrils? Also, is there any card advantage left after you've drawn 4-5 cards paying 9-12 life and played 4-5 spells for a mini Tendrils?

[BreathWeapon]

WTF are you talking about? I could also ask you to do the basic math to see whether FoW+Tendrils+AdN is viable.



List or it didn't happen. Are you playing 4 Tendrils? Also, is there any card advantage left after you've drawn 4-5 cards paying 9-12 life and played 4-5 spells for a mini Tendrils?

You're missing the point, it doesn't matter whether or not it works or it doesn't work, it's about not pre-judging the card and decks based on 0 experience and putting in the effort to research an idea rather than being a worthless, non-constructive critic. Do your own testing.

It's like "Confidant + Colossus lolz" all over again.

[Brehn]

Maybe I've missed the point because you haven't made it before?

Anyway, I'll explain why I think that this idea doesn't lead to anything: Skeletal Scrying exists and I think we can agree that it's not broken. If you're trying to break Ad Nauseam by playing it in the opponent's end of turn step, you have to assure that it is better than Skeletal Scrying all the time. For 3BB, Scrying draws you 4 cards for 4 life. So you'll have to draw significantly more than 4 cards to break Ad Nauseam. With each copy of Force of Will, Tendrils of Agony and Ad Nauseam in the deck the average amount of cards you'll be able to draw will shrink. Sure you can draw 5 cards for 10 life, play a mini Tendrils and continue to win. But you could have done that pre-Shards with Scrying and you didn't. I don't think it's possible to draw more than 5 cards reliably with Forces, Tendrils and additional Ad Nauseams in the deck.

[undone]

Ad Nauseam, the card so broken that it made commandeer good.

[Brehn]

Ad Nauseam, the card so broken that it made commandeer good.

Also the end of the world is near.

[Willoe]

How many cards do you really need to draw with Ad Nauseam for it to be "oh so broken"? I'd call eight, but maybe that's just me.

With eight cards in your deck, then 20/8=2.5. Then your average cmc will have to be at most 2,4, assuming that you have no other cards in your deck which cost you life. Can this be done? After all, a playset of Ad Nauseam pulls the average cmc a bit up.

I know this card is pretty busted, I'm just wondering if it's any better alternative than the already existing draw4s and Diminishing Returns. I mean, i.e. diminishing gives you +6 card advantage (with an empty hand), and have a small risk of killing you by milling away all your key cards.

A couple of questions:
1. Do you think that combo decks will have a comeback with this card?
2. Does it improve anything against the countertop matchup?
3. Is the fact that it's an instant the most important?
4. Would the card had been playable if it was a sorcery?

The reason why I'm asking question 4 is that all the other CA spells except for Meditate are at sorcery speed.

Anyway, good job WotC by creating a nice instant/sorcery card.

[emidln]

Nearly the same List I used for first testing (-4 brainstorm +4 lands)
Why play fetchlands? You don't need deck thining and the lifeloss actually matters sometimes. Gemstone mine > Fetchlands here. Also helps casting potential Sideboard stuff.

Brainstorm

Whenever Ad Nauseam hits play you have won

This isn't entirely true. To make it true, you need to write "Whenever Ad Nauseam hits play you have won if you have at least 12-15 life in a shell with Culling the Weak. The fewer accel spells you play (dropping them for tutoring or control), the more life you will need, on average, to make AdN give you enough cards for a lethal tendrils.

@ the FT discussion

In lists with a full 12 acceleration spells in the original FT lists you burn 1-3 accel to cast this thing. Now you need to draw into Tendrils (4 life), Mystical + Cantrip (2 life, required UU), and some way to cast Tendrils. On turn 2-3 you get to do this at roughly 18 life. With a singleton AdN and Sensei's Tops replacing Street Wraith, you end up with an average mana cost of about 1 for the cards left in your deck (assuming your total CMC of FT is about 68 and you've burnt roughly 8-9 to cast AdN with 49-50 cards left in deck while accounting for the fact that AdN + several other cards aren't in your deck). Now the problematic part is that you desperately need to draw into Tendrils. You can do it off AdN naturally (longer odds) or attempt to force the issue with something like Infernal Tutor + LEd or Mystical Tutor + cantrip. These are not too difficult to setup, but tend to be out of the range of the deck's capabilities if you want to win the turn you cast AdN.

It is better to play AdN at eot. This is preferential for you because it lets you only search until you find Mystical Tutor, Infernal + LED, or Tendrils instead of requiring UU + Mystical Tutor + Cantrip, Tendrils or even more ritual effects. The drawback to playing AdN at end of turn is that you will waste any storm you generate playing and protection AdN. The converse is that you can untap with the ability to play protection spells and acceleration with the need to worry about hitting a 4-of Lotus Petal.

The drawback to waiting until turn 2-3 is you give the opponent a chance to simply build up a minor counterwall. That is, they treat AdN as any other setup spell. They can then gamble that you don't naturally draw a Tendrils and attempt to counter Chants and bombs like Infernal Tutor or Mystical Tutor. While this isn't an immediately obvious play, the risks involved in potentially letting you find multiple chants could be worth it when the fact that if they are able to deal with perhaps Chant + bomb they can likely kill you with a single attack from Tarmogoyf/Mishra's Factory/random beater.

This doesn't sound like something I want to play with. It's actually unplayable in more recent builds of FT because of the low acceleration count, and playing this won't solve any of the issues that the older builds had against Thresh (the primary reason to move to newer builds).

[jazzykat]

IMO it's busted, how much so I have no idea, but 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 LED, and maybe for the sake of the combo some amount of Mox Diamonds to keep the CC low and pitch the lands you are going to hit could give you anywhere from 20-25% of the deck free + whatever amount of lands you put in it.

Also as stated pact of negation may find a home, and instead of thoughtseize you can play duress to save you 2 life.

I don't know when about half your deck is free if it's fair or not but counterbalance/top still exists...

BTW: Maybe this is what Trix wanted? It's a lot easier to win with an extra 20 life right?

[Happy Gilmore]

We will be testing it this weekend. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[Peter_Rotten]

I know this card is pretty busted, I'm just wondering if it's any better alternative than the already existing draw4s and Diminishing Returns. I mean, i.e. diminishing gives you +6 card advantage (with an empty hand), and have a small risk of killing you by milling away all your key cards.

It is more flexible than Returns.

I think a better comparison is to a "fixed" Mind's Desire.

[Van Phanel]

Also the end of the world is near.

Has Ad Nauseam destroyed Magic yet?

Answer

[rufus]

The reason why I'm asking question 4 is that all the other CA spells except for Meditate are at sorcery speed.

Necrologia, Skeletal Scrying, Stroke of Genius, Gifts Ungiven...

It's broken because:
1. It's Black so it's easy to accelerate into.
2. The cost per card is stupidly low.

7 cards is sufficient. (Consider Memory Jar.)

At this point, I expect this to be an 'end of turn' or 'upkeep' only card.

[Willoe]

A fixed Mind's Desire? Hmm, Mind's Desire is millions of times better than this card, Mind's Desire is in my opinion one of the most busted cards ever printed.
I give you that it reminds me of Desire. Reminds.

PR^

I often think that a draw7 is good, but giving you that extra card to give you an ACTUAL new hand is far better. You get +7 card advantage by drawing 8, and +6 by drawing7. 7 is a good number, and 7 is after all more than 6. This was some weird logic, but maybe it's just me who feels this way about massive card advantage.

But Rufus, it's not broken because:

1. Its cost is 5, after all, and not many hands contain a double ritual. It's a lot harder to reach five mana and not four.

2. It doesn't win the game when it resolves. It maybe will. With Bargain, you draw 19, with this you draw cards equal to your average cmc. Divide your life with your avg. cmc and you get the number of cards that you averagely earn. It's also a very risky card. You never know if you'll slam into another AdN or a Tendrils.

It's true that it's good for the reasons you said, but I'm calling power creeped, not broken.

[freakish777]

Here's the lists so far in this thread (someone want to copy and paste the one in the TES thread?):

List 1:


12x Swamp
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Ornithopter
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Dark Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Duress
2x Cabal Ritual
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Diabolic Intent
2x Tendrils of Agony
4x Ad Nauseam

total casting cost: 58. Average cc < 1 (keep in mind if you're playing an AdN, the rest of your deck cc goes down a bit).

List 2:

// Lands
4 [DIS] Blood Crypt
4 [A] Badlands

// Creatures
3 [LG] Kobolds of Kher Keep
4 [LG] Crookshank Kobolds
4 [LG] Crimson Kobolds

// Spells
4 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [TSP] Grapeshot
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
3 [EX] Culling the Weak
3 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [PS] Diabolic Intent
4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond

Total cc = 48... Average cc < 1 (about 2/3rds when you consider you only have 3 AdNs left in your deck at most).
List 3:

// Lands
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [u] Underground Sea

// Creatures
4 [AL] Shield Sphere
4 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
4 Ad Nauseum

// Spells
4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [R] Dark Ritual
4 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor

Total cc = 64. Average cc just barely > 1.

So assume you're sitting on 13 life after getting hit from a Goyf, some Burn spells, your own lands, whatever. With these lists you're looking at an average above 10 cards (about what IBA said he was goldfishing).

I would assume in TES it would be a higher average cc, but I'm too lazy to go get a list from another thread...

[technogeek5000]

I dont know if this has been brought up, but ad Nauseam not only seems busted in combo, but in 43 lands too. Turn three you can put out 20-30 lands, lock down your opponents next turn, and swing for lethal the turn after.

I truly hope they ban this card. It really unbalances the format in combos favor.

[undone]

1) Its broken because there will be 4 in every deck, combo or not.

2) I saw this card litteraly the first thing I said was "take 10, draw 30, manabond GO"

3) Its insane we all know that.