[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[emidln]

I believe my NLS list, or a very close derivative, is the best deck in the format. It addresses the current problems of the format while providing a fast and flexible kill condition. Common hate like Gaddock Teeg, Sadistic Sacrement, Chalices, and discard doesn't cause it much concern. It takes a lot out of the pilot to be able to apply Doomsday to win through some of the strange situations that come up in Legacy, but I believe that the power provided is worth it.

This isn't the most complicated storm deck in the format for the record. If you take the NLS list, cut Ad Nauseam, chrome mox, and protection, you can end up with a straight Doomsday deck (3 DD, SB: 1 DD) playing 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 SDT, 4 Street Wraith. If you use Street Wraith slots for protection, you could probably use that as a tournament deck. You'd be missing out on a lot of raw power by dropping Ad Nauseam, which is why I haven't been playing that deck already.

[Dm225]

Hello, I'm rather new to this deck and was looking for some advice. This is what I run;


Artifact

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Instant

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Mystical Tutor

Sorcery

4 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Orim's Chant
2 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

Land

2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard

4 Dark Confidant
1 Angel's Grace
1 Brainfreeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Wipe Away
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Thoughtseize

Is there anything I'm doing that's blatantly wrong? Especially in the sideboard, that is where I'm the most unsure.

[Tychoides]

Might be a typo, but I see you have 4 Brainstorm MD and 1 Brainstorm in the SB. Other than that, it looks pretty standard for a non-Doomsday ANT deck to me.

[Dm225]

It was a typo it's supposed to be Brainfreeze lol

I know the deck is pretty standard but I'm just not sure on sideboard choices... is there anything I'm missing or anything I don't need?

[Tychoides]

Depends on your metagame, but you might want to think about adding Krosan Grip or Reverent Silence for some enchantment removal if you see a lot of CounterTop. I would personally remove the Pact of Negation and/or Brainfreeze for one or both.

[Julian23]

I consider taking this to a tournament tomorrow but how in the name of every combo player in existance is this deck meant to beat Merfolk? I just got rapped so hard, I didn't stand a chance at all between Stifle, Wasteland, Cursecatcher, Daze and Force maindeck! I run Saitos List with 4 Duress 2 Thoughtseize and never felt there was any sequence of plays that might have possibly won any game for me. I feel deflated...

[P.S.]

Merfolk and Counterbalance are both really bad match-ups.

[Julian23]

You don't say...
So do we just surrender to the Fishmen or what's the general approach in that matchup? Early AdN without protection? Or open yourself to even more hate (and less life total) but play at least 1 protection spell before AdN? To me it felt there was no time to do so. With Saitos list and 3 Reverrent Silence from the sb the CB matchup doesnt even feel that bad.

[Draener]

So heres an interesting question that came up on the U/W tempo thread, so I figured I would post it over here to see if I could get some discussion from some more experienced storm players:

Question after GP Madrid:
Playing against ANT your hand:
Tundra
Fetch
Fetch
Wayfarer
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Ethersworn Canonist

You start, play wayfarer, he on his turn draw, play a land, and casts Orims Chant.
Question is To FoW or Not to Fow?

[Rico Suave]

The best way to defeat Merfolk is with a lot of experience and a lot of practice. You honestly just cannot expect to pick up this deck and perform well against blue, especially against a more aggressive blue version like Merfolk. You will be under a lot of stress and there is so much going on that you will feel overwhelmed at first.

The best way to win the match is to practice combo against aggro-control for a long time, so that way instead of feeling overwhelmed you will have most of it become automatic. Frequently, even with a lot of experience, I run into many situations where I have to sit in the think tank longer than normal. But I wouldn't be able to focus on those new situations without knowing what to do with the rest of my game plan.

In short, there is no substitute for practice. Play Tendrils against Merfolk, then switch and play Merfolk against Tendrils, then try two-fisted testing when your partner gets bored. Then analyze what went wrong and what you can do to improve it.

Question after GP Madrid:
Playing against ANT your hand:
Tundra
Fetch
Fetch
Wayfarer
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Ethersworn Canonist

You start, play wayfarer, he on his turn draw, play a land, and casts Orims Chant.
Question is To FoW or Not to Fow?

No.

[badjuju]

Welcome to combo, Julian.

I've had the extreme pleasure of playing against blue decks non-stop in testing AND in tournaments. The experience is both aggravating and challenging. The more you play it, the better you will get at it.

As a rule of thumb, Chant is better against fish and Duress is (slightly) more valuable in the CB matchup just because you have a chance to steal it on the play. The fish matchup is much harder than the CB matchup from my experience, mainly because they have a much faster clock. Backed by Cursecatcher, you're most likely going to have to count your mana +2 instead of the usual +1 for Daze. It really comes down to draws for both decks. Fish pressure is often discombobulated and not always as streamline as they'd like it to be, so as long as they don't kill you too quickly you should have a fighting chance. Another huge player in that matchup is Xantid Swarm. Resolve it and then do whatever you feel like.

The CB matchup I've actually played quite a bit. The reason why it is so difficult is because even if you have Chants, they can still counter your stuff with CB. What generally happens games 2/3 is I'll side in Carpet of Flowers, Xantid Swarm, extra Doomsdays, and Krosan Grips. You can build up tons of DD mana with Carpet and then try and steal counters using Xantid Swarm (which conveniently evades Spell Pierce). I disagree with the people that argue against Xantid Swarm, saying that it "turns your opponent's removal on". It's more like a mindgame during g2/g3 because that's usually the first thing they side out vs combo, and you force them to make sub-par siding decisions because they need to keep answers for the insect. CB is usually responded to with Mystical for Krosan Grip. It's annoying because you have to have both Chant and give up gas to answer CB, but they usually don't have a fast clock so this gives you tons of time to set up a Doomsday win (which generates tons of storm on its own).

That's all with DDANT though. It's really the most equipped deck to fight against U-based decks IMO.

EDIT: Rico Suave is 100% right. Experience is what the matchup is all about. If you're getting discouraged by this, you have two options: practice a lot or play another deck. These days when my opponents open with a blue fetch, I am 100% mentally prepared for the war of attrition. You need to play the deck a lot more to get to that point.

[Bahamuth]

So heres an interesting question that came up on the U/W tempo thread, so I figured I would post it over here to see if I could get some discussion from some more experienced storm players:

Question after GP Madrid:
Playing against ANT your hand:
Tundra
Fetch
Fetch
Wayfarer
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Ethersworn Canonist

You start, play wayfarer, he on his turn draw, play a land, and casts Orims Chant.
Question is To FoW or Not to Fow?

Chances of him being able to win turn 1 protected are extremely small. Like 2% small. This doesn't mean you have 98% chance to win if you don't FoW though. Not many ANT players are willing to spend a Chant as a bluff, although if this were a bluff, casting it turn 1 would be bad timing because the chances are big the opponent doesn't bite. I'd estimate the chances of him bluffing to be no larger than 50%.
What also has to be considered though, is wether FoWing or not will matter in this situation. Almost every hand that wins through IGG (in which case countering the Chant actually matters) can win trough AdN as well, in which case your FoW does nothing.
Given that you are most probably going to win this game if you get another turn, and that FoW Chant will only do something in a small amount of cases, not FoWing is the right play.

EDIT: Kinda ninjaed by Rico there. :)

The Merfolk matchup isn't as bad as it seems to you. Most list don't even run Stifle as far as I know. In that case, they only have FoW as a hard counter, and winning the game is probably going to cost you about 2 mana more than usual. It's quite doable, given that Merfolk players don't run Brainstorm for some weird reason, which pretty much means the game will be in your favour the longer it lasts. Doomsday is a much better tool against Merfolk for that reason, unless you are able to win before some of their counters come online (i.e. turn 1).

[Rico Suave]

I disagree with the people that argue against Xantid Swarm, saying that it "turns your opponent's removal on". It's more like a mindgame during g2/g3 because that's usually the first thing they side out vs combo, and you force them to make sub-par siding decisions because they need to keep answers for the insect. CB is usually responded to with Mystical for Krosan Grip. It's annoying because you have to have both Chant and give up gas to answer CB, but they usually don't have a fast clock so this gives you tons of time to set up a Doomsday win (which generates tons of storm on its own).

I have always agreed with the idea that turning your opponent's removal on is a weak argument.

However, the factor I have against Xantid is not so much that it turns their removal on, but that it is not gas. If you are playing against CB/Top in particular, you can end up in situations where you have Xantid, Grip, mana, but no gas. Sure you can win through their spells...but you don't have any spells that actually win.

There is a fine line to walk when boarding in tons of "awesome" cards yet still maintaining the threshold of mana/business to actually follow through on the advantage those spells give you.

This is one reason I like Bob especially. You can play Bob and he will likely eat the same removal/counter that Xantid would, except you can afford to keep a hand with Duress/Bob/Ritual/LED/lands. The same hand with Xantid instead of Bob is most likely a mulligan.

[badjuju]

I have always agreed with the idea that turning your opponent's removal on is a weak argument.

However, the factor I have against Xantid is not so much that it turns their removal on, but that it is not gas. If you are playing against CB/Top in particular, you can end up in situations where you have Xantid, Grip, mana, but no gas. Sure you can win through their spells...but you don't have any spells that actually win.

There is a fine line to walk when boarding in tons of "awesome" cards yet still maintaining the threshold of mana/business to actually follow through on the advantage those spells give you.

This is one reason I like Bob especially. You can play Bob and he will likely eat the same removal/counter that Xantid would, except you can afford to keep a hand with Duress/Bob/Ritual/LED/lands. The same hand with Xantid instead of Bob is most likely a mulligan.

I think that argument is fine for a non-DD deck.

For a DD deck, the plan I mentioned has been amazing for me. Because DD does not ask for a specific set of cards in hand (except for a cantrip), you will eventually find one along the way and still not need all the gas because the amount of storm it generates by itself is more than enough.

[Dia_Bot]

Just a little question: in a UBG Ant deck like saito's list, against what decks would you side in Dark confidant, and what would you side out for it. Probably the mirror but what else?

[Rico Suave]

I think that argument is fine for a non-DD deck.

For a DD deck, the plan I mentioned has been amazing for me. Because DD does not ask for a specific set of cards in hand (except for a cantrip), you will eventually find one along the way and still not need all the gas because the amount of storm it generates by itself is more than enough.

I was referring more the point of being stuck in a situation where you're drawing Grip, Swarm, lands, fast mana, a 2nd Swarm, a 2nd Grip, and having all the answers to their stuff but having no way to capitalize on it. I guess you could say this isn't a problem with correct boarding, but this raises another point:

If you're boarding in Carpet and Swarm and Grip and extra Doomsdays, what are you siding out? There reaches a point where *something* isn't right. Like, if you take out cantrips your Doomsdays are much worse. If you take out mana for Carpet, well, that's marginal. If you take out Duress/Chant for Xantid, it sort of defeats the purpose. If you side out strictly mana, you may be able to better win a slow game of attrition but become worse at developing and getting into the mid-late game in a good position (not to mention you face tougher mulligans).

While the general approach varies depending on whether DD is present or not, there is still a level of equilibrium in regards to land-acceleration-protection-search-bomb that makes the deck optimal against CB decks. Personally, I don't think it's wise to play 10+ protection, 3 CB answers, and leave the deck sort of hobbling along when it really needs something that was boarded out.

I don't claim to have the answer for a DD version, as I haven't played it recently, but if you could elaborate more specifically on exactly what comes in and out it may help to clarify things for me.

[Nidd]

I would side him in against pretty much every deck that doesn't play a shitton of removal and in which drawing additional gas is important because you have to water down your deck a bit to fight the hate.
Remember, 1 beat of Bob reduces the Storm you need by 1 and he can also block, if necessary.

[badjuju]

I was referring more the point of being stuck in a situation where you're drawing Grip, Swarm, lands, fast mana, a 2nd Swarm, a 2nd Grip, and having all the answers to their stuff but having no way to capitalize on it. I guess you could say this isn't a problem with correct boarding, but this raises another point:

If you're boarding in Carpet and Swarm and Grip and extra Doomsdays, what are you siding out? There reaches a point where *something* isn't right. Like, if you take out cantrips your Doomsdays are much worse. If you take out mana for Carpet, well, that's marginal. If you take out Duress/Chant for Xantid, it sort of defeats the purpose. If you side out strictly mana, you may be able to better win a slow game of attrition but become worse at developing and getting into the mid-late game in a good position (not to mention you face tougher mulligans).

While the general approach varies depending on whether DD is present or not, there is still a level of equilibrium in regards to land-acceleration-protection-search-bomb that makes the deck optimal against CB decks. Personally, I don't think it's wise to play 10+ protection, 3 CB answers, and leave the deck sort of hobbling along when it really needs something that was boarded out.

I don't claim to have the answer for a DD version, as I haven't played it recently, but if you could elaborate more specifically on exactly what comes in and out it may help to clarify things for me.

I posted this a few pages back.

The key is that the cards are replacing a counterpart and not stealing the limelight of other slots. Once again, when it comes down to it, DD requires the least amount of resources and allows the most amount of time over the course of a long game vs blue to storm off of. You won't need to play a slew of artifact mana spells or chain Infernal Tutors cause DD will generate more than half the storm by itself - counter wars will take care of the rest. This allows you to spend the entire early game sculpting, building your mana base, and answering their problematic cards. You are the control player in this matchup. I know it's bizarre concept, but it works.

All this said, it's still an uphill battle. I've kinda figured it out, but I'm nowhere as keen a pilot as nemavera. I would ask him, as he probably knows this deck the best.

Yep. Like so:

-2 Infernal Tutor
-2 Chrome Mox
-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Ad Nauseum
-3 Lotus Petal
-1 Silence

+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.

[spider900]

@Yesmilord: So what is your list looking like right now?

[Rico Suave]

Once again, when it comes down to it, DD requires the least amount of resources and allows the most amount of time over the course of a long game vs blue to storm off of.

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.