[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Gocho]

Just tested for like 2 hours against CB Bant (or Supreme Blue or whatever it's called) using 3x Duress over 2x Silence/1x Grip MD.

It's marginally helpful, and I can honestly say that there were some games where a Grip would have kept me in the game and some games where having the Duress was crucial for stopping that early CB. Overall though, the inclusion of Duress has more positives than negatives. I really miss having the hand information, and stealing CB and/or Top is golden. Another thing about MD Grip is that A) it sucks off Ad Nauseum and B) you usually have to give up a Mystical for it. That means slowing yourself down A LOT and possibly giving them enough time to come back with Rhox War Monk.

Post board games were awesome with the new Carpet rule changes. I bring in 11 cards vs them and I absolutely love how g2 and g3 play now with the Swarm/Carpet split.

11 cards?
I can think in 3 Xantid, 3 Carpet, 2 Krosan, but I don't have idea about the other 3.
Deathmark and Slaughter Pact?
Chain of Vapor?

[Dia_Bot]

probably also a tropical island

[Nemavera]

Usually 2 additional Doomsday, maybe Slaughter Pact and a Tropical Island

[badjuju]

11 cards?
I can think in 3 Xantid, 3 Carpet, 2 Krosan, but I don't have idea about the other 3.
Deathmark and Slaughter Pact?
Chain of Vapor?

Usually 2 additional Doomsday, maybe Slaughter Pact and a Tropical Island

Yep. Like so:

-2 Infernal Tutor
-2 Chrome Mox
-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Ad Nauseum
-3 Lotus Petal
-1 Duress/Ponder

+3 Xantid Swarm
+3 Carpet of Flowers
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Doomsday
+1 Tropical Island

I might still want the third Grip somewhere. I just don't feel safe with only two.
If I see or suspect Meddling Mage, then yes, Chris is right about the Slaughter Pact.
Chris also likes to take out a third Infernal Tutor (or at least used to). It's preference I think. Infernal Tutor is obviously worse without more Chants and Ad Nauseum, but I still like its synergy enough with LEDs to keep it in. Keeping in Ad Nauseum is also okay sometimes IMO, cause control decks will tend to keep slow hands with lots of disruption. A lot of times you can go the first 5-6 turns unscathed.

All the people who say they have done well with REB or Chain of Vapor against CB...uhhh, you're either a lucksack or just flat out lying. Anything that is 1CC to deal with CB is very difficult to pull off. There are only very small windows of opportunity where you can get rid of it with a 1CC spell, and even then you're risking that they don't have counter backup.

[Scordata]

Hey guys. This is my first post in this thread, but I've been playing storm for about 5 months now, so I know the ins and outs.
One thing I've been testing lately, and would like some feedback on, is my disruption package.
Typically I had been running 4 Chants and 2 silences, with a Kgrip in the MD. While these cards have their obvious uses, I have since replaced them
with 4 Xantid Swarms and 3 Duress.
My reasoning for this was that almost any aggro deck was a by in the first place, so the chants/silences in my hand were a waste of time.
Also, while chants and silences are ok against control, Xantid Swarm is like a silence on an isochron scepter for G. Against merfolk, a Duress protected Xantid is almost certainly game.
An additional benefit to this is cutting out White from the deck entirely. While its always fun going Tundra SdT on turn one, this, in my humble experience, has left me one black mana short on more occasions than I would like to recall.
Furthermore, against Zoo and the like, Xantid Swarm can also say "Gain 4 life" when Tarmogoyf is on the table.
Unless I'm missing something here, Chant and silence just dosn't make the cut.
I'll post my decklist after work tonight, any and all replies would be greatly appreciated.

[badjuju]

Hey guys. This is my first post in this thread, but I've been playing storm for about 5 months now, so I know the ins and outs.
One thing I've been testing lately, and would like some feedback on, is my disruption package.
Typically I had been running 4 Chants and 2 silences, with a Kgrip in the MD. While these cards have their obvious uses, I have since replaced them
with 4 Xantid Swarms and 3 Duress.
My reasoning for this was that almost any aggro deck was a by in the first place, so the chants/silences in my hand were a waste of time.
Also, while chants and silences are ok against control, Xantid Swarm is like a silence on an isochron scepter for G. Against merfolk, a Duress protected Xantid is almost certainly game.
An additional benefit to this is cutting out White from the deck entirely. While its always fun going Tundra SdT on turn one, this, in my humble experience, has left me one black mana short on more occasions than I would like to recall.
Furthermore, against Zoo and the like, Xantid Swarm can also say "Gain 4 life" when Tarmogoyf is on the table.
Unless I'm missing something here, Chant and silence just dosn't make the cut.
I'll post my decklist after work tonight, any and all replies would be greatly appreciated.

Alright, first off, are we talking DDANT or just regular ANT? Cause I have many comments if you are playing DDANT.

-Xantid Swarm is fine MD, but think about a few things. It turns on the removal that they have game 1 and you need to fetch out the Tropical / use a Petal. I noticed how you were complaining about the Tundra - this is only adding to your problems.
-And while we're on the subject of the Tundra, I have NEVER had a problem with the mana base. This deck is not designed to splurge in your opponent's face, it's been formatted to have a better chance against U-based decks, and therefore you will usually not win with your opening hand (barring the nuts). Reaching black mana is just a matter of time and sculpting.
-Chant-walking aggro (and Ichorid) is extremely underrated. I don't know why people can't see its usefulness game 1. It's not the best card, obviously, but it is far from dead.

I think the idea has merit, and is worth testing for sure. It's just the removal game 1 that is making me really hesitant to run MD Swarms. But then again, emidln, Bryant, and PF have all been running Swarm MD backed by Duress in their most recent Burning Wish lists without any problems.

[emidln]

In lists that would be running 3-4 Krosan Grip I've been cutting a Krosan Grip for a Wipe Away for a few months now. With the upswing in UBW decks like Survival Bant and UGW Tempo I see a lot more Meddling Mage and Slaughter Pact/Deathmark isn't always a good solution.

I've been playing 10 protection pretty consistently in NLS for several months now. 4 Duress, 2 Thoughtseize, 4 Xantid Swarm with something like a 3/3 or 3/2 split with Swarms and Duresses first. I don't expect to switch anytime soon except in test builds with 4 Empty the Warrens.

[Scordata]

Thanks for the input, yesmilord.
First off, Its DDANT.
To address your concerns:
Admittedly, I too was cautious of turning on their removal game 1, but the more I thought about it, if a Zoo player wants to path my swarm, the extra land I get only helps me, and if they bolt it, or whatever, that's 3 less damage that was just thrown at my head.
Also, the reason I wanted to get rid of White, and I should have made this more clear, was in that none of the deck's post board cards are in that color. Green and blue provide the best removal, and it feels like we are pulling combo into white only for chant.
Chant walking IS important, but that play, at least in my meta, usually sees a wasteland, since its their best/only move.
So, where I could have Duressed them, or pulled something up with mystical, I end up just wasting a turn and down a land.

As promised the decklist:
// Lands
1 [ZEN] Island (1)
3 [B] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tropical Island
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn

// Creatures
4 [SC] Xantid Swarm

// Spells
1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [TE] Meditate
1 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [6E] Mystical Tutor
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [M10] Ponder
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [A] Dark Ritual
3 [TO] Cabal Ritual
3 [US] Duress
1 [WL] Doomsday

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Duress
SB: 1 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 [R] Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 [WL] Doomsday
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [US] Carpet of Flowers

[Dia_Bot]

I can see the point of playing xantid swarm in the chant spot but doing that will give some deck the chance to play otherwise dead cards (for instance landstill will be able to play wrath of god, humility). Other cards played by alot of decks like Swords to plowshares aren't always a dead cards but will be way more usefull if you play xantids instead of chants.
Now i never actually tested the swarm maindeck so perhaps maybe the upside of playing one color less does outweigh the downside. Can someone who tested this a lot give me some insight on this subject?

[Aginor]

Firstly I do think LED is really an essential card in ANT, and gives a massive boost to speed. If you're removing it I would want to replace it with more mana accelaration and not disruption.
But looking at your list my biggest concern is the lack of tutors. I wouldn't run less than 7-8 tutors in ANT simply because if you use a mystical to fetch Ad-Nauseum you're probably going to need another to fetch Tendrils. I think with your list you're going to run into trouble going off, do you find this in playtesting?

It's true that the list is slower than lists playing with LED. I usually win on turn 3 or 4 but sometimes faster of course. But I almost never "gamble" by playing AdN into an opponent that might have FoW.

I think 4 tuturs is enough due to all the shuffle/search effects in the deck. I also think you expose yourself too much by tutoring. Your entire plan may be wasted if it gets countered and you also reveal what your next move will be. By searching/shuffling it's all hidden.

It might be the wrong approach but I like playing the deck a little safer (i.e slower).

Don't you miss playing pact of negation? With a pact and duress in your opening hand you are almost guaranteed to go off safely.

[Henrik]

All the people who say they have done well with REB or Chain of Vapor against CB...uhhh, you're either a lucksack or just flat out lying. Anything that is 1CC to deal with CB is very difficult to pull off. There are only very small windows of opportunity where you can get rid of it with a 1CC spell, and even then you're risking that they don't have counter backup.

Who says so? Didn't read that statement in anywhere in the last 3 pages or so.

If you refer to my post about bounce MD I think yoy misinterpreted me. I said I could just as well play Chain of Vapor as Wipe Away, since CB pre-board is like 10-90 in their favor anyway. Even with Grips post-board I tend to lose, I would lie if I denied it.

If you didn't refer to my post at all, then we're cool.

[badjuju]

Who says so? Didn't read that statement in anywhere in the last 3 pages or so.

If you refer to my post about bounce MD I think yoy misinterpreted me. I said I could just as well play Chain of Vapor as Wipe Away, since CB pre-board is like 10-90 in their favor anyway. Even with Grips post-board I tend to lose, I would lie if I denied it.

If you didn't refer to my post at all, then we're cool.

I'm not referring to anyone in specific, please don't be offended lol.

I just wanted to state that REB has been pretty bad in testing.

[emidln]

Scordata, your list is missing 1 Sensei's Divining Top. There isn't a valid reason for not playing 4 copies in that list.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Running Swarm in the main as protection is an alright idea. When emidln started doing that in NLS I decided to try it out in TES and I really like Swarm main. But here is the problem, the Hybrid is not as explosive as TES is which is why I don't like the idea of my protection spell being a creature. And there are certain situations where you need to play a Chant then win. Having only access to Duress can be crippling. Games where you could just go: Chant - IGG - win are no longer plausible since your protection spell got StPed or EEed away a couple turn earlier so you have to rely on Duress to win, which is fine if you have Top in play (for IT into DD), but if you don't then your Duress is basically worthless.

However, the idea of cutting a color is intriguing. Running a protection suite of 3x Swarm and 3x Duress with a manabase that includes 2 basic lands is pretty good! That is really the only thing that I like about this idea. I guess it makes more room in the board as well but ... I just don't think ANT has enough raw explosiveness to justify playing Swarm in the main. TES does, and with TES you don't have the luxury of Top to filter out your draws and setup your game plan. The longer the game goes the more vulnerable Swarm is, Chant can come out of nowhere and win games because you have been shaping your hand against the control player and pick the perfect time to go for it. They have a whole turn to answer Swarm and Duress does not answer Force + Blue card and Spell Snare/Stifle in the opponent's hand.

[Adan]

First off, Its DDANT.

[...]

3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top

[...]

1 [WL] Doomsday

NOOT!

Scordata, your list is missing 1 Sensei's Divining Top. There isn't a valid reason for not playing 4 copies in that list.

Aye, Sensei's Divining Top has to be a 4-of in anything that plays Doomsday as it's the free cantrip/the card that is stored on the board.

In addition to that it makes the deck very consistent.

By the way, the 2 additional Doomsday copies in the Sb, against what are they boarded in actually? And do you keep a few Chant-effects maindecked against everything that plays Burn?
This question just came up because I usually build the Brainstorm-SDT piles more often than the piles that use Meditate. Paying half of my lifetotal in order to get barbecued after I resolve IGG doesn't sound really sexy to me.

[Scordata]

The doomsdays in the board are there against CB and its ilk.
Yesmilord posted the boarding plan a few posts above mine.
Also SdT is usually a 4 of, I just cut one for more acceleration recently, and I'm seeing how that goes.

The problem is that there is a lot of merfolk swimming in my meta.
So yeah, there can be problems with Swarm MD, but the trade off
with Chant has been interesting, and so far, beneficial.

[Dia_Bot]

admittedly in a merfolk infested meta maindeck swarms must be awsome.

[Rune]

Hey, I have 2 questions for you guys:

Have any of you ever tried/considered running Boseiju or do you think it's total garbage?

Which maindeck bounce do you think is best, Wipe Away or Rushing River?

[badjuju]

@Adan

Yea, the Doomsdays come in vs U-based matchups. Why? Because we usually side out our Infernal Tutor package. This is to make sure we still maintain the amount of storm engines in the deck post-board. I'm still experimenting with keeping/siding Ad Nauseam in the U-matchups - sometimes I really want it and other times they have an early clock and it's just useless.

admittedly in a merfolk infested meta maindeck swarms must be awsome.

And so are 4 Tops. Even if NOT for Doomsday, they are a godsend against any blue deck. It makes so many unkeepable hands all of a sudden look pretty good.

Hey, I have 2 questions for you guys:

Have any of you ever tried/considered running Boseiju or do you think it's total garbage?

Which maindeck bounce do you think is best, Wipe Away or Rushing River?

Boseiju won't work as well as you'd think it would. It has dissynergy with Ad Nauseam from the life loss, it comes into play tapped, it can't always be counted on because it can be wasted, there's no way to fetch it out when you need it, and if someone sees that you have one in play they'll just try and counter your mana accelerants and setups spells instead. Not worth it.

Rushing River is better against Chalice-based decks since it can bounce multiple artifacts, but Wipe Away is better vs U-based decks since it can't be countered (except by CB).

[Rune]

@Adan
Boseiju won't work as well as you'd think it would. It has dissynergy with Ad Nauseam from the life loss, it comes into play tapped, it can't always be counted on because it can be wasted, there's no way to fetch it out when you need it, and if someone sees that you have one in play they'll just try and counter your mana accelerants and setups spells instead. Not worth it.

Yeah, I guess you are right. I was thinking that Boseiju + Abeyance would be really nice against blue decks that didn't have Wastelands (or decks that didn't draw them), but it doesn't shut down CB decks effectively so it's probably not worth it in the end.