I'm on board with this, that being said...Originally Posted by Bryant Cook
Having done literally no testing with Xantid Swarm I'll disagree with this. Supposing you bring in 3 Xantid to go along with 4 Chant effects you'll have a total of 7 spells that are realistically only getting played off of rainbow sources - of which we run 10 (out of a total of 21 intitial mana sources). Those feel like some reasonable ratios, I'm not sure if more five color lands are really necessary (and I have no real interest in boarding a Trop).
This is doubtful. Or at least I have a hard time imagining a situation where I'd commit my only rainbow land to the board against an opponent running Wasteland and not try to either resolve Xantid, resolve Chant, or win immediately - when I otherwise wouldn't have played that land.
Assume that you do play your rainbow land a turn early to try and get Xantid to stick before going off. Regardless of what happens you're no worse off than saving the land drop and chanting on the next turn. If Xantid is countered that counter would have been aimed at Chant instead and your land gets Wasted anyway. If Xantid sticks and your land gets Wasted, the net effect is essentially that of tapping your land to play Chant on the next turn (except now you have another land drop available).
Granted. I have no interest in playing a Trop.
As I said above I don't feel that the manabase would have to change to accommodate Xantid, and against decks boarding our their removal or not running any at all - namely Merfolk - resolving the creature is very strong. Playing a Xantid early and getting your land Wasted does not put you any farther behind on manasources than saving that land to play Chant later.
Personally, I haven't been playing Xantid as I like the flexibility of Pyroblast - which also can be played off fetchable lands. Given that the last local tourney we had was 25% Merfolk (I was told) I'm thinking about trying it out though.
Last edited by sunshine; 08-30-2010 at 07:09 PM. Reason: spellling
awesome
On my last tournament playing TES (5-1 , just lost to Merfolks) the field was all over merfolks , I got paried twice (2-1 and 1-2) and there Xantids just shines, If you just solve Xantid then they will just die to Grapeshot(happen 2 times but it could be 3) and regreat playing merfolks and losing to 20+ storm.
Note: I'm playing 3 Fetch 3 City manabase to suport Xantid + Chant.
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Counterbalance generally seems to be on the decline but Merfolk, UG Madness and Emrakul+FoW decks are on the rise, and all of those decks are just cold to Xantid Swarm. The printing of Spell Pierce has also made those matchups significantly harder and it has given an even bigger incentive to play the little bug over Pyroblast. I wanted a fetchable G land to minimize the risk of having my gamebreaking hoser in hand without being able to cast it, but I guess it can be debated if the sideboarded land is a good idea or not... However, not playing Xantid Swarm in the sb almost seems like a mistake at the moment.
Realistically there’s 6 initial sources, not 10. You don’t want to be breaking a Lotus Petal on turn 1 to play a Xantid Swarm, or at least I don’t. The loss of card advantage and tempo against Merfolk will kill you.
Are you telling me you don’t keep one land Gemstone Mine hands with Cantrips, Protection, and rituals? This is a great situation since it happens frequently.
I don’t often hold lands. I’ve lost too many games where I couldn’t become hellbent and lost because I was holding a land. Never again. It has more value on the table because If I draw another I’m in a much better position. This doesn’t really apply to me.
I do feel like it needs to change for the reason stated above. It’s seven cards that are only castable on six lands. I’m not arguing that Xantid isn’t strong.
So I played a 46 man tournament with this deck on sunday, and I wnet 4-2, missing the top 8 by .9 of a percentage point in tiebreakers. Basically Bryan's GP top 8, -1 Sea, +1 City
R1 vs Merfolk.
Game 1 I mull to 5 on the play, he leads with island-vial, and I ponder on turns 1 and 2 while he does nothing but add a counter. T3 I have the option of trying to resolve an ad nauseam off of LED+IT with 0 protection, or cast ETW for 12 after duress. I do duress, he flips over a hand full of lords, and he successfully races my 12 tokens. I cut IT, ponder, and Mox for 3x Pyroblast
G2, I have land, ritual, rite, ad nauseam, Duress, Burning Wish, Chrome Mox. I discounted going balls-out here, and duressed instead. He revealed 3 cursecatchers, and while I do manage to grapeshot his team down, I don't manage to do anything else before he finds force+lords. Should I have gone for the blind AN turn 1?
r2 vs Dredge.
Game 1: we both mull to 5, but my 5 have LED and IT. I win this off of Ad Nauseam on turn 3, after his self-therapy on Troll turns up a garbage six.
I take a ponder out for an echoing truth in case he has leylines.
Game 2: He mulls to garbage and I easily Ad Nauseam turn 2.
R3 vs. Suppression Field WW
Game 1 I win pretty easily off of a diminishing returns for crazy storm.
I cut IT, ponder, and ETW for the bounce spells.
Game 2 I lead with a brainstorm into garbage, hoping to ponder the next turn, but he end-of-turn runs Enlightened Tutor into Chalice @1. and 3 turns later my petaled Etruth on his chalice does not give me enough.
Game 3 he mulls to 4 and I wn in easy mode
R4 vs Elf Survival Combo.
G1 we each mull to 6 he leads with Fyndhorn, I lead with Duress, take your Glimpse of Nature, seeing 3 lands and Summoner's pact. T2 he swings and passes. Under no pressure, I make with an ETW for 10 or so (fff the one MD copy), and then Silence him when he casts Summoner's Pact after running out Priest of Titania and Heritage Druid. I swing, he takes it. He pays pact, casts Sylvan Messenger, and flips some elves. I have LED on board, and Ponder into IT+LED for the finish.
I cut ETW, Ponder, Chrome Mox, and IT for 4 bounce spells+Kgrip as I know he is playing Thorn of Amethyst.
G2 he runs out land, pitch esg, I grit my teeth looking at my sick one-lander ( with Cantrip, accel, Silence, and business)...Survival!? Okay, cool beans. I ponder into the nuts and upkeep silence him in case he has shenanigans, before Ad Nauseaming for the win.
r5 vs. 4c Counterbalance.
G1: I mull, but manage to t1 duress his CB. He brainstorms into another just in time, gets some good blind flips, and he seals it up with SDT+Jace.
I cut IT, ponder, ETW, Mox, and Silence for 3 Pyroblast 1 Kgrip 1 Wipe Away.
G2: I'm able to run Silence into burning Wish into Empty the Warrens, and he doesn't have Firespout or EE. Good times.
G3: I keep a hand with no disruption, but cantrips, mana, and wipe away. My plan is sculpt my hand some, and EOT bounce his counterbalance before forcing business through a few turns down the line. Unfortunately for me he has the end step of my turn 3 vendilion clique after the t2 Counterbalance, and I lose my chance. I go from 19 to 0 quite quickly. If Wipe Away was Kgrip, I would have managed to win.
r6 vs Painter-Stone counterbalance. I had loaned him a FOW literally the round before, so I knew he was on blue.
G1
He has t1 top, t2 painter's servant, t3 ET-Grindstone, while I am digging for a decent hand, but he can't t4 me as he must top to find land 3. I manage to, with certain death on the other side, silence successfully, and then instead of conservatively wishing for a shattering spree, go into the tilt-Diminishing returns floating a bunch of mana and win with Tendrils.
I board the same as last round.
G2: He goes t1 windswept heath. I go underground sea. He moves to crack EOT, I go Ritual, Ritual, ad nauseam, keep the super-sculpted 7, win t2.
All in all a really fun deck to play, but it needs more Krosan Grips in the board. Probably will cut a Wipe Away and 1 other thing (a Pyroblast, maybe?) for them. My lifetime record with TES is now at .777777 (7-2 what what!)
Yes, I would have. The chance of them having countermagic online greatly increases with a land drop.
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
its unreal. it took a banning for this fucking dekc to make th DTB stasus. more power 2 it but, combo is not as strong at it was. sad time. but thi is probably the premier combe dek in the format and to all u who played saiuto ANT i say fuck u because u aint played real comobob yet tilll u played this shit.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
Agreed, take your 60%...unless you're running swarm.
Is Pulp trolling with that kind of grammar or just really drunk?
Meanwhile congrats to TES on making it DTB.
Only the heroic and the mad follow mountain goat trails.
I'd say the latter.
Fair enough. I'd be willing to spend a Petal to cast Xantid on turn one if I have other initial sources available, at least in theory. The rationale being I'd spend that same Petal to cast Chant 2-3 turns later without hesitation.
I definitely do, this falls into the category of hands where I'd be playing into Wasteland anyway:
I certainly don't advocate holding lands if you're plan is to gain hellbent without LED. My point was just that if I'm playing those lands anyway I'm not opening myself up to Wasteland any more than I would otherwise. This is predicated on not changing the manabase to have more rainbow lands - If you swap fetches for rainbow lands you're definitely making yourself more vulnerable to getting Wasted out.
Meh, I think we're in agreement on Xantid being strong and that it still probably is not right for the deck now (I say that since I'm essentially playing your list card for card atm). I guess it just boils down to whether or not you're willing to use a Petal to cast Xantid - maybe I don't have enough experience with the deck yet but I don't see that as being a horrible play.
awesome
I guess our argument comes down to play style. I think Pyroblast holds much more value, which you seem to agree upon. Counterbalance decks still exist, making Pyroblast better than Swarm in my eyes. If it was gone, sure, Xantid Swarm would even be maindeck able.
And you would have been very correct. Had another screwdriver (basically straight voldka with a splash of OJ) then a few beers, I got pretty awesome :)
Now to post something actually constructive, I have been fucking around with more maindeck EtW and I have to say, I like it. Against aggro and shit I would run additional IGGs in the board just for the easy wins but I have to say I actually like 2-3 EtW in the main.
As far as the protection suite goes ... play whatever the hell u want. What Cook plays works in his meta ... your meta is probably different. There is no correct answer and I think its funny how most people will run his exact 75 and then complain about certain choices ... change em. If u want to run 4x Duress and 3x Swarm in the main (which is currently what I am doing) go for it. Don't like Pyroblast in the board, don't play it. Plenty of other options. U can run 7x Duress effects as protection spells, that may work better in your meta. Just put the time in with the deck and decide on what u like. Just cause it works for Cook doesn't mean it will work for u. I think Pyroblast is shit in the board, thats me though, it may work for u, try it out, and if u like the card, play it.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
The Vestal meta is notorius for being blue heavy (especially counterbalance) which makes pyroblast a good idea. If your meta is more fish and similar type decks, xantid swarm may be better, but accept that the mana base may need tweaking. The difference of T1 lotus petal->swarm as opposed to T2 lotus petal->chant is the loss of two storm, which can make a significant impact sometimes.
And they'll have 1 more turn to dig for answers...
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Swarm also opens you up to twice as much hate, but only if they know it. Theres certainly positives and negatives of playing the card.
I just LOVE pyroblasts in SB , except against Merfolks where Xantid is amazing due to their wastes + daze/pierce/catchers you are short on mana so you can cast your protec earlier and it will not take StP or anything.Also the less mana + more hand sculpt that xantid allows you against merfolks let you showboat them with grapeshot.
Super Bizarros Team.
HUEHUEHUE BRBRBR. VIVA DILMA!!! EM NOME DE JESUS CRISTO!
So i'm kind of a newb with combo, built ANT and got to play two months with it before IT was banned, and have been piecing together Bryants list for TES as I really like the looks of it and it seems to be the best way to go without IT. I'm just wondering about the sideboard though, so many one of's that aren't fetchable with wish seems odd to me? Can anyone explain what the reasoning is for this? It must be the way to go since so many people are doing it that way, but I just can't seem to figure out how it works.
Thanks in advance
Infernal Tutor
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