[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Jaynel]

If you have a Top (especially combined with fetchlands) under their Standstill, you can sculpt a VERY good hand while both of you sit there. Like multiple Chants good.

[emidln]

emidln, what's the deal with SDT being so good against Standstill? I'm not familiar with FT or D-day combos so I don't know the reasoning behind this.

It's just basic control strategy. Unless you already have a significant threat on the table (something like Goyf or Dreadnought), dropping a Standstill against an opponent who is going to sit back and select his or her draws is just terrible. This always ends in the Tendrils player playing a Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor on the opponent's end step to make them draw 3 but discard down to 7, untap, and unload a lot of protection into a win (at this point, you can usually ignore Ad Nauseam and just play accel into IT -> IGG -> IT -> Tendrils.

[Maveric78f]

Cc is one thing. You need to generate W in both cases before casting Ad Nauseam in order for the cards to have any kind of effect on game. You would want to cast Grace, when facing burn. You would want to cast Chant against majority of decks, including burn. So, why waste space with Angel's Grace, as Chant does the same job anyway and you should be playing four of them already? Why would you want to win more? That is all Angel's Grace does. Also, Angel's Grace is a completely dead card (okay, 1 storm for 1 mana) when comboing with any card other than Ad Nauseam.

1st : chant is better than grace as a MD slot, I won't deny it.
2nd : when going off, chant is good only against blue decks
3rd : when going off, AG is good against decks that make you lose life quickly. This is more than burn. It's zoo, burn, goblins, ... Aggro decks actually.
4th : how can you say that chant is as good as AG against burn? That removes all the credibility of what you say. Chant is only tempo against burn. AG, is a combo enabler and a burn counterspell (the last one).

Imagine your are turn 3, the burn player has already played a chain lightning and an incinerate on your face and he's untapped, when you chant. In resp he'll play bolt, PoP and fireblast. You're at 3/5. Now your only chance is to combo without AN. Imagine the same with AG, you can't lose anymore.

[Waikiki]

Why would We even go the ANT route when facing burn? I'd just go for IGG and win without life loss.

[Maveric78f]

Because the IGG route is not as easy to set up. Also because, it's better to have 2 routes against a clock as the burn's one. Because Pyrostatic Pillar beats the IGG route. Etc...

[Hopo]

4th : how can you say that chant is as good as AG against burn?

Because it does it's job just fine.
If you are comboing on turn 1 or 2, as you should, your only worry is taking so much life loss from Ad Nauseam that you will be at burn range after that. By chanting before comboing, you disable everything that could kill you after Ad Nauseam. Sure they might have burnt you for 3 or 6 by then, but you can still draw enough or go iggy-style.

Imagine your are turn 3, the burn player has already played a chain lightning and an incinerate on your face and he's untapped, when you chant. In resp he'll play bolt, PoP and fireblast. You're at 3/5. Now your only chance is to combo without AN. Imagine the same with AG, you can't lose anymore.

Imagine a carrot up Silvio Berlusconi's ass. Ain't that hilarious? But why haven't you comboed out a turn or two earlier already? Of course Angel's Grace is amazing if you just imagine the only possible scenario when it actually matters. You do realize, that you don't have 3 turns of time when you face burn in the first place? You should go for the throat earlier or just face the facts and go Iggy as it neglects your life total anyway. AG is a win-more card with minor actual utility value. If you like it, I don't blame you. People like all kind of shit nowadays.

I am repeating myself: If you face a lot of burn or fast aggro, you might warrant a spot in SB as a tutor target. Otherwise, you don't need it. You will inevitably lose some portion of your games anyway, you don't have to fight it by playing MD cards that make losing impossible. It's just statistics.

[Maveric78f]

Oh. You're right. I don't know why I bother comboing on turn 3 when you combo turn 1/2 under chant's protection. Being rude does not help.

I don't like AG. I just noticed that the deck had a weakness against decks that can hit you very early in the game and I sought a solution. AG is my solution. The thing is that you all look like you did not even identify this weakness. You all are so proud of yourselves, that you think that you can combo on turn 1 or 2 reliably.

And, I never told I would play it MD.

[Hopo]

AG is excellent in the situation you described and in burn matchup altogether. I just think that it's the only case I'd ever play it. I'd rather just go with Ill-gotten Gains. You can have more IGGs on sideboard, as they are golden also vs. discard strategies.

[Noman Peopled]

I don't like AG. I just noticed that the deck had a weakness against decks that can hit you very early in the game and I sought a solution. [...] The thing is that you all look like you did not even identify this weakness. You all are so proud of yourselves, that you think that you can combo on turn 1 or 2 reliably.

I'm gonna have to partially side with you on this one, although I have already discarded AG.
If we could AdN t1 and t2 as consistently as people appear to think, we wouldn't be needing IGG in the first place, especially not in the sideboard. Sometimes we will not win t1 and the opponent will play Teeg/Mage/Chalice/Amethyst/whatever from the side the following turn, slowing us down. It is, in fact, a weakness the deck has.
But my main beef with AG is exactly that it does nothing to accelerate the combo. In short, including AG instead of other options makes the deck slower vs aggro and thus increases the dependency on AG. It would be better off playing additional mana and IGGs from the side to speed up the clock. Or hell, pack Swords or Deathmark. What percentage of your meta is Fireblast decks, anyway?
I don't like IGG either because the deck is not really built to exploit it fully - but it can actually win the game with relatively minor support.

Of course there are situations where I would really need an AG. However, there are also situations in which I'd need Damnation or even Gigadrowse.

[BreathWeapon]

It really doesn't. The slots that SDT tends to get put in take the place of additional disruption or extra copies of Infernal Tutor. This does a couple things:

(a) makes you mulligan less and makes mulligans hurt less otherwise average hands are made better by sensei's top.
(b) allows you to slow down, although it doesn't force you to (you can just as easily not play and spin top as you could not cast Duress if you have other stuff to do)
(c) the combination with Mystical Tutor provides another game-ending combination requiring fewer initial mana sources after comboing with Ad Nauseam
(d) effectively denies an opponent Standstill (important vs Landstill and Dreadstill)

SDT vastly increases the deck's ability to win on turn 2 without actually taking away from turn 1 kills. The other cards to put in its slot (Ponder or additional protection) don't increase the ability to kill turn 1. Ponder does increase the ability to kill turn 2 along the lines of Top, but is also signifcantly worse after Ad Nauseam. Further Ponder provides no benefits in the control matchup where often you are forced to slow down at least a turn.

I think it's debatable, the problem I have with Top over Ponder is that Top is a permanent and doesn't increase Threshold or replace itself with out cost, but T3 Cabal Rituals aside I can see the appeal of being less reliant on UU and improving the mid/late game.

Maybe it's worth cutting Infernal Tutor and/or Chrome Mox for a more FT style build?

[Waikiki]

I've been using 2 tops in my maindeck aswell. I only run 2 ponders. They have proven their strengths to me. vs Discard and slow control they are very strong in shaping your perfect combo hand.

Also during comboin'g they go pretty well with mystical tutor.

[Frenkill]

I have made a few testgames with this deck.

Can anyone tell me why most people play Wipe Away or Rushing River over Chain of Vapor in Mainboard? Chain of Vapor has the same effect and costs two Mana less.

I also have some successful decklists from german tournaments for you (if anyone is interested):

http://www.deckcheck.net/deckverglei...11_20550_20566

[4eak]

@ Frenkill

Can anyone tell me why most people play Wipe Away or Rushing River over Chain of Vapor in Mainboard? Chain of Vapor has the same effect and costs two Mana less.

Mana efficiency is not so much the concern--raw bounce power is really more important. Wipe Away and Rushing River are much more versatile than CoV. Bounce exists in the main not to generate storm, but rather as a tutorable answer to problematic permanents.

Wipe Away is mostly unanswerable and outside CB's curve. Rushing River can deal with 2 at once (Cov + 3Sphere, etc.).


peace,
4eak

[Hanni]

The entire point of bounce is to answer Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance, with a lesser extent to Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage. Chain of Vapor gets hit by both Chalice@1 and is inside the Counterbalance curve, making it a horrible maindeck bounce spell. Rushing River hits everything you have problems with and can even hit multiple permanents if it needs to.

[i_need_the_extra_turns]

I need more sideboard Ideas vs blue based decks.
I play 4 chant and 4 duress main (ubw), but when the opponent 12 or more counters plays it can get difficult.

[Maveric78f]

You have a lot of ways to tutor your disruption (brainstorm/ponder into it, mystical tutor it, copy it with IT). Just fetch until you have 3/4 disruptions in your hand and you have quite a lot of lands/available mana. Then you play your disruption (first duress, then chants). It's highly unprobable that your opponent will have enough countermagic and mana to counterspell 5 spells. If he does, kill him with tendrils.

I forgot but extirpate shines also in these MUs where you know you'll have plenty of time.

[Maveric78f]

Yesterday, I played the mirror match. After game 1 where I've won the duress battle and I comboed properly, we SBed. My SB: -1 IGG, -1 bounce, -1sensei's divining top, +3 extirpate.

On game 2, I can go off once more before him, but I AN-reveal only crap and I can't neither have UU to fetch my tendril nor discard my hand to play infernal tutor. Finally, I went the route, dark ritual, duress on tendrils, extirpate on tendrils, I check that there is no kill anymore in his deck, he'll have to deck me. I had no problem to combo 8-10 turns later. The idea, is to start with chant if he answers with chant, stop the combo and extirpate it on his turn. Wait to draw enough (8 playable spells including 1 IT). Then chain 2 times IT and your opponent will lose 20. You can also take advantage of ponder/brainstorm to raise the storm.

As a conclusion, in the mirror MU, extirpating tendrils is as much a victory as comboing. Keeping that in mind, in order to take advantage from it, sb them in, at worst it wrecks their mystical fetch, at best it's a kill. To protect yourself, don't play more than 1 copy of tendrils, brainstorm it back to library as soon as you can, and you may want to play 1 copy of an alternate kill in SB (EtW, whatever).

Obviously the best would be to play counterbalance, and it's quite an effective SB card in many MUs actually, but I'm not sure it's the best solution.

[B.C.]

I need more sideboard Ideas vs blue based decks.

I've been bringing in 4 Pact of Negation. So far in testing it has been quite enough.

[emidln]

I bring in Meddling Mages and an Extirpate along with Helm of Awakening and Grapeshot. Since I play a package of 4 Infernal Tutor/1 Doomsday/1 Ad Nauseam, I'm able to MM Tendrils and/or Ad Nauseam and still combo as normal. For chant superiority, I've been using the same strategy the first time I designed this deck (Extirpate + playing defensively with Chant). I've had a lot of success.

[troopatroop]

Yesterday, I played the mirror match. After game 1 where I've won the duress battle and I comboed properly, we SBed. My SB: -1 IGG, -1 bounce, -1sensei's divining top, +3 extirpate.

On game 2, I can go off once more before him, but I AN-reveal only crap and I can't neither have UU to fetch my tendril nor discard my hand to play infernal tutor. Finally, I went the route, dark ritual, duress on tendrils, extirpate on tendrils, I check that there is no kill anymore in his deck, he'll have to deck me. I had no problem to combo 8-10 turns later. The idea, is to start with chant if he answers with chant, stop the combo and extirpate it on his turn. Wait to draw enough (8 playable spells including 1 IT). Then chain 2 times IT and your opponent will lose 20. You can also take advantage of ponder/brainstorm to raise the storm.

As a conclusion, in the mirror MU, extirpating tendrils is as much a victory as comboing. Keeping that in mind, in order to take advantage from it, sb them in, at worst it wrecks their mystical fetch, at best it's a kill. To protect yourself, don't play more than 1 copy of tendrils, brainstorm it back to library as soon as you can, and you may want to play 1 copy of an alternate kill in SB (EtW, whatever).

Obviously the best would be to play counterbalance, and it's quite an effective SB card in many MUs actually, but I'm not sure it's the best solution.

If the other deck played only 1 copy like it should, the fact that Tendrils was even in his hand for you to Duress away is extremely lucky. Yes, Extirpating Tendrils is strong, but its probably not making it into his hand for you to Duress away very often, making it an improbable strategy at best. Boarding in Extirpate to take their win condition seems like a bad idea, especially because Extirpate is a bad card.