[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[gamergc]

I think the point is that you can't cast it if they have a Jace in play.

[Kich867]

I think the point is that you can't cast it if they have a Jace in play.

But that's making an assumption (a rather large one) that shouldn't ever happen. The assumption being, "I can only play Personal Tutor the turn before I go off or turns prior to going off." To an extent it's somewhat like saying that you can't Infernal Tutor for Tendrils because next turn they will just Duress it out of your hand. They're both sorcery speed forms of getting rid of the card after tutoring and both equally unlikely since you intend to win when you're tutoring for it.

Why is this the only point of view being looked at. I mean I'm 100% open to being wrong on this, but is it literally, in any way shape or form, impossible to draw a card after playing Ad Nauseam?

What I'm getting at is, why are you assuming you can't play Personal Tutor if they have Jace in play if you play Personal Tutor on the turn you go off--Jace's ability is not an instant and would never have the opportunity to occur.

Ad Nauseam > Draw a bunch > if you didn't get Tendrils, Personal Tutor for Tendrils > Play one of the cantrips you pulled while AdN'ing, draw Tendrils > Kill them.

[lorddotm]

But that's making an assumption (a rather large one) that shouldn't ever happen. The assumption being, "I can only play Personal Tutor the turn before I go off or turns prior to going off." To an extent it's somewhat like saying that you can't Infernal Tutor for Tendrils because next turn they will just Duress it out of your hand. They're both sorcery speed forms of getting rid of the card after tutoring and both equally unlikely since you intend to win when you're tutoring for it.

Why is this the only point of view being looked at. I mean I'm 100% open to being wrong on this, but is it literally, in any way shape or form, impossible to draw a card after playing Ad Nauseam?

What I'm getting at is, why are you assuming you can't play Personal Tutor if they have Jace in play if you play Personal Tutor on the turn you go off--Jace's ability is not an instant and would never have the opportunity to occur.

Ad Nauseam > Draw a bunch > if you didn't get Tendrils, Personal Tutor for Tendrils > Play one of the cantrips you pulled while AdN'ing, draw Tendrils > Kill them.

Why not play Burning Wish or Grim Tutor, neither one is card disadvantage, and both are playable without having to hold all your cantrips, something this deck does not enjoy doing.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

If you generally only want to draw a certain card after you've resolved Ad Nauseam, that's generally a sign the card is pretty bad. In most situations you will win after AdN in the current lists already. Making your game pre ADN worse just to be slightly better afterwards is already questionable with Chrome Mox (which does at least replace only a land and works as accel pre AdN) but cards you'd rather never have in your hand before you've already won (which is almost always what occurs once you've resolved AdN) make the deck weaker at actually getting to the point where you can AdN.
If Dark Ritual were a sorcery, I think a case could be made for Personal Tutor because it would fetch whatever you're missing pre-combo (protection, accel, business) but without that ability, it's just too limited.

[Kich867]

Why not play Burning Wish or Grim Tutor, neither one is card disadvantage, and both are playable without having to hold all your cantrips, something this deck does not enjoy doing.

Burning Wish is a different card, so, that's irrelevant (they serve two different functions).

Grim Tutor is 3 mana, so hitting it on AdN would effectively deal 6 damage to yourself as opposed to 1, and you wouldn't have to hold all your cantrips. That again falls into the idea that for some reason you can't play a cantrip after you Ad Nauseam and I'm just not really understanding why that's implied.

I would see there not being enough room in the deck for it as a better argument before anything else really. It doesn't seem necessary between it and Infernal Tutor, but Infernal Tutor is rather limited without LED.

If you generally only want to draw a certain card after you've resolved Ad Nauseam, that's generally a sign the card is pretty bad. In most situations you will win after AdN in the current lists already. Making your game pre ADN worse just to be slightly better afterwards is already questionable with Chrome Mox (which does at least replace only a land and works as accel pre AdN) but cards you'd rather never have in your hand before you've already won (which is almost always what occurs once you've resolved AdN) make the deck weaker at actually getting to the point where you can AdN.
If Dark Ritual were a sorcery, I think a case could be made for Personal Tutor because it would fetch whatever you're missing pre-combo (protection, accel, business) but without that ability, it's just too limited.

Gotcha, that makes more sense.

[lorddotm]

Burning Wish is a different card, so, that's irrelevant (they serve two different functions).

Grim Tutor is 3 mana, so hitting it on AdN would effectively deal 6 damage to yourself as opposed to 1, and you wouldn't have to hold all your cantrips. That again falls into the idea that for some reason you can't play a cantrip after you Ad Nauseam and I'm just not really understanding why that's implied.

I would see there not being enough room in the deck for it as a better argument before anything else really. It doesn't seem necessary between it and Infernal Tutor, but Infernal Tutor is rather limited without LED.

So wait, your Personal Tutors are not used to find business spells? Weird. How are PT and BW different in the grand scheme of things?

[Kich867]

So wait, your Personal Tutors are not used to find business spells? Weird. How are PT and BW different in the grand scheme of things?

Right, but most of the modern lists run both tutors and wishes from what I saw, so I was ignoring them as the assumption would be that it's there in some number. But for arguments sake, Burning wish hits you for 2 off an AdN and only creates 1 storm count where a PT and a cantrip together accomplish the same thing at the same cost but for 2 storm count.

I'm making an assumption myself, in that you would have both a PT and a cantrip in your hand after an AdN, except I don't feel that assumption is entirely off base when lists are running 12 cantrips.

However, Mon summed it up well for me, just exploring a potential alternative.

[lorddotm]

Right, but most of the modern lists run both tutors and wishes from what I saw, so I was ignoring them as the assumption would be that it's there in some number. But for arguments sake, Burning wish hits you for 2 off an AdN and only creates 1 storm count where a PT and a cantrip together accomplish the same thing at the same cost but for 2 storm count.

I'm making an assumption myself, in that you would have both a PT and a cantrip in your hand after an AdN, except I don't feel that assumption is entirely off base when lists are running 12 cantrips.

However, Mon summed it up well for me, just exploring a potential alternative.

Another thing is 1R is a lot easier to make than UU, not to mention Mental Misstep. I assumed that everyone knew that cards that are better post Ad Nauseam aren't needed.

[Kich867]

Another thing is 1R is a lot easier to make than UU, not to mention Mental Misstep. I assumed that everyone knew that cards that are better post Ad Nauseam aren't needed.

Ah gotcha, I wasn't exactly sure on that since you never really eluded to that being the case (you threw me off a little with the Jace thing, but again, the UU requirement and MM certainly do pose issues). Mon made it rather clear though.

I'm just breaking into combo decks so I'm still figuring all of this out.

[lorddotm]

Ah gotcha, I wasn't exactly sure on that since you never really eluded to that being the case (you threw me off a little with the Jace thing, but again, the UU requirement and MM certainly do pose issues). Mon made it rather clear though.

I'm just breaking into combo decks so I'm still figuring all of this out.

No worries, sorry to beat a dead horse, but I just wanted to make sure you got where I was coming from.

Welcome to combo, this is probably the toughest time there has been for Ritual casters in a long time (if not ever), if you can stick it out through this, you will become an immensely better combo player.

[Noman Peopled]

Getting Tendrils once going off isn't that much of a problem, though.
Having to get rid of Jace in addition to other hate is, though. Decks playing Jace do have means to get to t4+ against us, and we don't always rip the right amount of discard. We have disruption but so does everybody playing Jace. It's not a huge issue, but not irrelevant. It's not a cas of playing poorly, it's a case of creating a problem, albeit small, where none existed.
Plus, showing the opponent what we want next turn gives them valuable information. "Hm, Doomsday? Guess I won't go for Zenith/Teeg just yet but cantrip into counters instead." IT and BWish can also be chained for a secondary win con, with or without IGG.
Also, blue has Misstep now, which allows decks to get away with 1:1 countering much easier. Cda for a tempo gain is much less appealing then it used to be.

Personal does too little to be worth the slot - it doesn't even get the most explosive card, the namesake of the deck. Mystical was so good because it was much more flexible - it could basically get anything and allowed us to wait for a full turn's worth of information more.

[lorddotm]

Getting Tendrils once going off isn't that much of a problem, though.
Having to get rid of Jace in addition to other hate is, though. Decks playing Jace do have means to get to t4+ against us, and we don't always rip the right amount of discard. We have disruption but so does everybody playing Jace. It's not a huge issue, but not irrelevant. It's not a cas of playing poorly, it's a case of creating a problem, albeit small, where none existed.
Plus, showing the opponent what we want next turn gives them valuable information. "Hm, Doomsday? Guess I won't go for Zenith/Teeg just yet but cantrip into counters instead." IT and BWish can also be chained for a secondary win con, with or without IGG.
Also, blue has Misstep now, which allows decks to get away with 1:1 countering much easier. Cda for a tempo gain is much less appealing then it used to be.

Personal does too little to be worth the slot - it doesn't even get the most explosive card, the namesake of the deck. Mystical was so good because it was much more flexible - it could basically get anything and allowed us to wait for a full turn's worth of information more.

No offense, but this was a little useless, we have determined that Personal Tutor is dogshit. Next topic.

[mooN_MTG]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

[Tammit67]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

I know, you might actually have to learn the deck :D

[Diprivan]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

[Namida]

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

I agree with you, but the issue is becoming a good player, haha.

[lorddotm]

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

You are definitely wrong, much more fun to kill people when they are defenseless.

[Soggy_oggy]

You are definitely wrong, much more fun to kill people when they are defenseless.

I agree, every time I've had a "win and you're in top 8" scenario I always get paired against a X/U deck and never an aggro deck. Call me an asshole but for once I would rather win using less of my brain power and save myself the headache before top 8.

[Namida]

So a list similar to the one that was in the Top 8 of SCG Open Denver 4-0'ed a Daily Event yesterday. The maindeck was identical, card for card, with 14 lands, and 4 Gitaxian Probes. The only difference was -1 Island, +1 Tropical Island for Xantid Swarms in the sideboard.

Are there any merits to exploring a list like this any further? I don't understand the appeal here because cheating on both lands and business spells seems like a recipe for disaster--yet people are doing well with this kind of configuration.

[Final Ritual]

This is the list I've been testing. Probes have been very good to me in the Landstill and Merfolk matchups. The information you gain is worth the price of two life IMO. In most of my games I found that I would achieve threshold much faster when I was able to cast Probe on turn 1. Also you are able to make a better decisions on what to ship with the cantrip spells, such as holding onto or shipping the protection.

-4 Ponder
-4 Brainstorm
-3 Preordain
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Durress
-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Dark Ritual
-4 Cabal Ritual
-4 Infernal Tutor
-1 Ad Nauseum
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Tendrils of Agony

-4 Lions Eye Diamond
-4 Lotus Petal
-2 Chrome Mox