Ill-Gotten Gains is included due to its abusiveness against aggro in Doomsday piles. It makes for easy and very lethal piles with low mana requirements (including some useful pass the turn piles). Even with 0 Infernal Tutor in my 75, I would include Ill-Gotten Gains because it's that important to have against aggro when utilizing Doomsday.
If I were to play green, I would maindeck a Tropical Island and seriously consider a sideboard Bayou. The Tropical Island would likely be over Underground Sea #2 or Bloodstained Mire #2.
Cruel Bargain/Infernal Contract has been an integral part of my NLS lists for awhile. It's important for turning Burning Wish into a cheap and effective draw spell for breaking into Doomsday.
Merfolk isn't hard to beat with the list I posted. I originally cut green when I realized how I never actually needed green. The reason for this is that Merfolk has very little actual disruption and no card quality engine. Sure, they have Force and then 8 taxing counters, but those taxing counters are easier to play through when you're not spending extra mana on chant effects the turn you go off. Unlike Tempo Thresh or Team America, they don't have the ability to use Brainstorm/Ponder to constantly fill their hand with cheap disruption. This means that you can use your Duresses to quickly exhaust them of all relevant counters and then play Doomsday or Ad Nauseam around Stifles. Standstills are just a lot worse than Brainstorm/Ponder at keeping the deck in supply of counters. I'm not saying the matchup is an auto-win, I've just found it very difficult to lose when playing tightly with 8 Duress.
If I wanted green for anything, it would be Krosan Grip against Counterbalance and Carpet of Flowers against Tempo Thresh. Tempo Thresh is an abysmal matchup and the extra 2+ mana a turn from Carpet is a big deal, even without the ability to power their their soft counters with chants.
About Duress/Thoughtseize vs Chant effects. Something I've noticed from testing that isn't often talked about here is the ability of Duress/Thoughtseize to punish bad draws. Opponents mulling, especially unstable decks like Reanimator and most of the Bant CB lists I've seen can often be completely blown out by a Duress/Thoughtseize. This offensive capability to force interaction has won me a lot of games in some of my harder matchups.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Has anyone thought of playing Massacre in the sideboard? When I look at it, it's Deathmark, Pyroclasm and Slaughter Pact combined. It is free to cast wishboard card that answers multiple hate bears.
EDIT: Realised that Massacre doesn't answer Gaddock Teeg which makes it crap.
Last edited by Pysethus; 03-13-2010 at 01:11 PM.
Only if one of those hate bears isn't Gaddock Teeg (which is generally what gets paired up with Ethersworn Canonist).
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Massace doesn't answer Gaddock Teeg, can't buy you the turn you need to combo v. goyf or goblins, and has godawful art.
Massacre doesn't...
...kill a Goyf when you need to buy time, the same is true for RWM
...get rid of Gaddock Teeg, which actually shuts off IGG and AN
...let your Xantid Swarms survive
...kill EtW tokens, because those decks will most likely doesn't have a plains on the table
...[...]
STIFLE is good because:
This card is also retarted as a first turn play against a fetch. They pay 1 life, they lose a land, they pass the turn. It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched).
Doh! I didn't realise Massacre doesn't work when Gaddock Teeg is on the table. The fact that it needs no mana to cast bluffed me.. Teeg is prolly the most played hate bear at the moment so that's pretty much about it then. The card is garbage.
Just wanted to quote myself so I can say I KNEW IT. Haha, I win, this thread fails.Originally Posted by Tao
You're in again? Good.
I guess I need to see a video of him piloting it, or a report. I'm really curious of why he included these 2 CoT. Just because they make 2 mana so he can cast his Ad Nauseam faster?
Yes, I assume that is why. Turn 1 CoT, Petal, Rit, AdN is pretty nice. :)
(Well, except against FoW or Daze.)
Right number of ponder is 2, as well as for the mox. C.Ritual might be at 3, but some players are playing 4
And: never try to play without Doomsday ;)
City of Traitors is for 3 reasons:
1) Simply powering out Ad Nauseam
2) Beating Trinisphere
3) Overcoming Daze effects.
Suddenly, Fluffy realized she wasn't quite like the other bunnies anymore.
-Team R&D-
-noitcelfeR maeT-
Right. What exactly makes you think you were right here? Saito's list changed, and as I said, although the concept is interesting, the list is still suboptimal.
By the way, do you know how Saito got in the Top 8? He tries to stretch every game as long as possible. Because the chances of him winning the first game are huge, buying time is the best thing you can do. If you lose game 2, going to time in game 3 against any deck that wins on creatures ensures you at least a draw. And you're combo, so you can try to win in the last couple of turns of the extra time as usual. If you can't, pick up you 'well earned' draw and leave.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
http://solidarityprimer.proboards85.com/index.cgi
That he finished 3rd in a 2225 player tournament after I said that the list is awesome.
*facepalm*
I'm legitimately curious, so I'll just ask.
How can a deck that Top 8s a 2200+ person tournament be suboptimal exactly? Don't actual results have some bearing on what is or is not the optimal deck configuration?
He can't get good matchups for every round of a tournament that big, and I don't see how he can slow play every round as you claim he did, so it seems like it was a very good list for the tournament. Yeah, he didn't win. Yeah, another ANT deck went to the finals (and blew it), so I guess if you consider it the second best list of the tournament "suboptimal" then maybe that explains it?
---
By the way, I hope to hear how emidln did today with NLS since he seems pretty confidant about it being the best deck. I saw NLS on a feature match today, but it didn't look like his list.
Edit: Looks like no Storm combo in the T8. :(
Last edited by Tychoides; 03-14-2010 at 09:44 PM.
Give me a reasonable correlation between a decklist and a result that proves you're right. There is none, because players don't win tournaments because their decks are superior. Players win tournaments because they play well, have luck and have a good list (and Saito's is decent, but not optimal). Actual results have some bearing, but who wins tournaments is not decided by the optimality of someones list.
He obviously can't. Although this deck doesn't really have too many bad matchups. Saito's result was 7-0-2 and 7-0-1. He got at least 2 of those draws by slowplaying. I was there, I saw it happen. It's what got him into the top 8. If he wound't do this, he would have lost these round and you immediately would've thought of his list as ' not all that good, because he didn't make top 8'.
And Tao, if you don't want to discuss and just want to show off about something you weren't right about, please get out as you did earlier.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
http://solidarityprimer.proboards85.com/index.cgi
Thanks for answering, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here. :)
While I don't disagree that luck and play skill can overcome some sub-optimal card choices, I believe there is some admittedly subjective line you can cross where skill and luck just won't help anymore. In this specific case, I think a large sample set (the many rounds of GP Madrid + Saito's past performance with an almost identical list) start to make those other variable contributing factors less of a factor when looking at results as well.
Perhaps I just put more emphasis on actual results than theoretical card-choice discussions, since what is or is not "optimal" for a deck like ANT is definitely debatable and there is some need to look at some concrete numbers and results in my opinion.
In the MD area, recently very few (less than 40%) of decks are playing Force of Will - and there's very little CounterTop or Thresh (though Merfolk remains common). This is making me want to pick up storm, and I've been practicing with this list:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chrome Mox
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Doomsday
1 Meditate
1 Wipe Away
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Duress
3 Orim's Chant
--- Sideboard ---
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Krosan Grip
1 Tropical Island
1 Plains
1 Orim's Chant
1 Deathmark
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Echoing Truth
Still Under Construction
Why don't you just run a 9th fetch over a 2nd Island? What is it in there for?2 Island
Basically, you could play the Trop MD.
Also, for the SB, I suggest 1 Doomsday. It may occur that you have to board in too many costly spells, so that Ad Nauseam becomes a liability.
Also, how about a Chain of Vapor for the SB?
2nd island in the main could become a 2nd tundra instead, making it easier to chant-walk should the situation arise. I've missed 2 basics in ANT in some games but never really wanted 3
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