[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[thefringthing]

Here's an interesting exercise based on one that's going on in the Painted Stone thread: discuss whether you would keep or mulligan each of these randomly generated TNT hands. Background: It's game one, you don't know what your opponent is playing. If your decision depends on being on the play/draw, mention that.

Hand 1: Lotus Petal, Duress, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils of Agony, Scalding Tarn, Thoughtseize.
Hand 2: Brainstorm, Ill-Gotten Gains, Tendrils of Agony, Lion's Eye Diamond, Duress, Lotus Petal, Volcanic Island.
Hand 3: Polluted Delta, Brainstorm, Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Tutor, Underground Sea, Swamp, Brainstorm.
Hand 4: Duress, Cabal Ritual, Island, Lotus Petal, Ponder, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond.
Hand 5: Burning Wish, Burning Wish, Brainstorm, Thoughtseize, Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, Lotus Petal.

[Chikenbok]

Here's an interesting exercise based on one that's going on in the Painted Stone thread: discuss whether you would keep or mulligan each of these randomly generated TNT hands. Background: It's game one, you don't know what your opponent is playing. If your decision depends on being on the play/draw, mention that.

Hand 1: Lotus Petal, Duress, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils of Agony, Scalding Tarn, Thoughtseize.
Hand 2: Brainstorm, Ill-Gotten Gains, Tendrils of Agony, Lion's Eye Diamond, Duress, Lotus Petal, Volcanic Island.
Hand 3: Polluted Delta, Brainstorm, Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Tutor, Underground Sea, Swamp, Brainstorm.
Hand 4: Duress, Cabal Ritual, Island, Lotus Petal, Ponder, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond.
Hand 5: Burning Wish, Burning Wish, Brainstorm, Thoughtseize, Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, Lotus Petal.

Hand 1 - Keep. Fetch basic, win game from there.
Hand 2 - Mull. With the volc as your only red source playing it out on turn one would simply be a mistake should you happen to walk into wasteland.
Hand 3 - Keep. Play fetch, get whatever. Brainstorm away extra lands, you have tendrils if you need to natural it, and tutor if you find an LED/Accel.
Hand 4 - Interesting... At a big event I'd ditch it, anything else I'd keep it and pop that petal for a turn one ponder crossing my fingers for a black land.
Hand 5 - Keep... Its a good hand.

[egosum]

Maybe is twisting and twisting ideas already said in this thread but I wanted to share my thoughts.

After playing all kind on "new" ANT builds, UB with and without Gitaxian Probe, I came to the conclusion taht there is no real reason, in competitive terms, to play ANT over Spiral Tide in the current metagame. Why am I saying this?, the fact is that modern ANT builds normally go off in turn 3-4 protected comfortably (so the main reason to play ANT over High tide which was the speed has gone), of course they can go earlier with God hand, but doing this is very situational and most of those god hands for First turn kill depend on resolving Ad Nauseam, which kind of sucks as a first turn spell with only 4 Lotus Petal. Because of this I didn't gave up trying to play Ritual storm in the Misstep World, just because I love it, and it could be terribly unfair.

T.E.S. seems a better choice if want to play rituals, but TES has its own problems (terrible mana base, very few fetch effects, basically). For this reason I tried to give another twist to T.N.T. This is the list I put together that is performing quite good (some may think that the list chould be in the TES post, but as the main and strongest gameplan is playing Ad Nauseam I decided to post it here).

R.A.N.T. (Red Ad Nauseam Tendrils) (it is no longer TNT neither exactly ANT nor TES)

Main deck 60

2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanicn Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Scalding Tarn

4x Duress
4x Thoughtseize

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

4x Burning Wish
3x Infernal Tutor
2x Ad Nauseam

4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual

4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard 15

3x Dark Confidant
2x Pyroblast
2x Echoing Truth
1x Pyroclasm / Grapeshot
1x Deathmark
1x Meltdown
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Ill-Gotten Gains

Nothing really new, I know, but it goes off faster than UB ANT and Spiral Tide with enough consistency, so we have a reason to play it.

Some card choices:

-Less cantrips, and more bussiness, this is what makes the deck faster
-More artifact mana, also provide speed and make Ad Nauseam a stronger plan (the same is true for Diminishing Returns)
-There are no Cabal Ritual, they are substituted by Rite of flame because the cantrip count is lower.
-Pyroclasm/Grapeshot are very relevant inthe GW hateful Aggro matchup, these decks pack not only Teeg and sideboard Canonist but also Aven Mindcensro that can be a pain. I 'm not sure which one to choose (if I had the slots I'd play both because they have different strengths and weaknesses)

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[practical joke]

Tbh, that's a TES list.

TES has a few lists depending on the ammount of colors it plays (between 3-5)

[egosum]

Maybe, but as far as I understand TES is a 5C storm deck with flexible strom plan (TES has not a clear plan it goes off in very different ways every game). This list is straight Ad Nauseam, but has some possible panic buttons. Anyway you are right that it has a lot of cards in common with TES, but the way it plays is quite different, at least I played TES a lot and this list for a bit and the way I develope my game is quite different.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[emidln]

Yeah, that's actually 1 card off (8th duress effect md over the 4th infernal tutor) of the 3c TES list that I built/posted about for GP Columbus and then frogboy wrote about for the following survival metagame. You can find a post about it (warning: storm boards link) here and an article about it here

Some thoughts on that list:

FWIW, you probably want to cut the 4th Burning Wish, not the 4th Infernal Tutor. The general idea behind the list was to present a very strong turn 1 play (Ponder, Thoughtseize, Duress) to setup a reasonably sure turn two around Ad Nauseam. Infernal Tutor finding Ad Nauseam is way more relevant than Burning Wish finding Infernal Tutor finding Ad Nauseam. More often than not, when you Burning Wish, you're just going to get ETW anyway. and failing that, Diminishing Returns isn't *that* bad (besides, if you had 7 mana to IT->AdN, you can float 3 into DReturns and very likely win as well).

When we were optimizing the list, we found that the wishboard targets you wanted were:

Tendrils
ETW
IGG
Grapeshot
Thoughtseize
Pulverize
Diminishing Returns

Moving TS to the main is fine, but you want to play Pulverize and another red dual land over the 8th fetchland. The 3rd dual gives you insurance that you won't get wasted out of Pulverize too often and the difference in mana wins a lot of games. Max didn't play the third dual, but there are a lot more Wastelands floating around today than there were in the Survival metagame.

We only ran Dark Confidant as a way to edge up the Tendrils mirror, which I'd go ahead and assume isn't as much of an issue these days. Confidant is pretty awful vs Junk and most Landstill builds with neither being able to side out their plentiful removal, so I don't know where you really want that guy. Maybe vs BUG, although I'd much rather have Xantid Swarm in that matchup. (You can side 3-4 Swarm + 1 green dual in the sb.)

[thefringthing]

There's a continuum of Dark Ritual decks with TES at one end and ANT at the other. The deck above is just one of many lists lying somewhere in between. In particular it's a little further toward the TES side of the spectrum than TNT.

[lorddotm]

Here's an interesting exercise based on one that's going on in the Painted Stone thread: discuss whether you would keep or mulligan each of these randomly generated TNT hands. Background: It's game one, you don't know what your opponent is playing. If your decision depends on being on the play/draw, mention that.

Hand 1: Lotus Petal, Duress, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils of Agony, Scalding Tarn, Thoughtseize.
Hand 2: Brainstorm, Ill-Gotten Gains, Tendrils of Agony, Lion's Eye Diamond, Duress, Lotus Petal, Volcanic Island.
Hand 3: Polluted Delta, Brainstorm, Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Tutor, Underground Sea, Swamp, Brainstorm.
Hand 4: Duress, Cabal Ritual, Island, Lotus Petal, Ponder, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond.
Hand 5: Burning Wish, Burning Wish, Brainstorm, Thoughtseize, Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, Lotus Petal.

Hand 1: Entirely match up dependent, but right now, it has no way to get rid of that Tendrils.
Hand 2: Ship, you lose to Wasteland.
Hand 3: Keep, that looks like it could set up a turn 3 kill.
Hand 4: Keep, and pray Ponder gets there (usually does for me).
Hand 5: Keep, lead with Seize, then Brainstorm away a Burning Wish.

[mooN_MTG]

I start to play ANT some days ago and at this moment I have real great results, give me some SB advices pls, and main deck critiques if you have:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp

(14 Lands)


4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony

(46 Other Spells)


1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
4 Dark confidant
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
2 Rebuild
1 Disfigure

[Pulp_Fiction]

I'm confused, isn't this that terrible list that took like 3rd of 4th at some SCG open? As fas a SB advice, cut acceleration/cantrips/discard accordingly and add cards you need.

[mooN_MTG]

I'm confused, isn't this that terrible list that took like 3rd of 4th at some SCG open? As fas a SB advice, cut acceleration/cantrips/discard accordingly and add cards you need.

Yes :s i don't know this archetype so i copy the main board, if you can help me...

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Yes :s i don't know this archetype so i copy the main board, if you can help me...

Scott Limoges, a very experienced Vintage player played the list you posted. He built the deck in anticipation of a very specific metagame.

I suggest you start with either Bryant's TES list, or Ari Lax's UB ANT and go from there.

[practical joke]

Scott Limoges, a very experienced Vintage player played the list you posted. He built the deck in anticipation of a very specific metagame.

I suggest you start with either Bryant's TES list, or Ari Lax's UB ANT and go from there.

I think starting with the basic UB ANT list seems fine enough.
After that pick up doomsday and TES as well. the experience with multiple decks is good enough.

You can goldfish combo at start, but try to play against blue or discard decks soon enough to learn to play against hindrances the deck can meet.

[mooN_MTG]

I think starting with the basic UB ANT list seems fine enough.
After that pick up doomsday and TES as well. the experience with multiple decks is good enough.

You can goldfish combo at start, but try to play against blue or discard decks soon enough to learn to play against hindrances the deck can meet.

So, give me the Basci Ub ANT list :p

[NesretepNoj]

Here's an interesting exercise based on one that's going on in the Painted Stone thread: discuss whether you would keep or mulligan each of these randomly generated TNT hands. Background: It's game one, you don't know what your opponent is playing. If your decision depends on being on the play/draw, mention that. [..]

I don't know if this is useful, but I've written a shuffle algorithm and made a simple front end:

Link: http://randhandgen.j87.dk

It doesn't provide any features not seen elsewhere, but it is simple and doesn't require you to go through hassles like login, signup or making the deck part of a collection.

@mooN_MTG: Here's Ari's storm list:

2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard:
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Thoughtseize
3 Dark Confidant
2 Echoing Truth
2 Rebuild
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

[thefringthing]

Played TNT in another 8-man local event. Drew with Mono-Blue Landstill, lost to Affinity and Combo Elves. I wish I hadn't sold a couple of cards from Belcher....

[GoldenCid]

Played TNT in another 8-man local event. Drew with Mono-Blue Landstill, lost to Affinity and Combo Elves. I wish I hadn't sold a couple of cards from Belcher....

A mini report would be useful! :)

[mooN_MTG]

I love Storm, but Wizards not,Spell Snare ,Mindbreak Trap, Mental Misstep, Sluterstorm, ban Mystical Tutor... its very unfair for Storm Players :( a lots of counters in recent expansions and cards for storm only Preordain, and maybe Giataxian Probe...

Another question Lim-Dul's Vault have place in ANT decks???

[Malakai]

A mini report would be useful! :)

A report from an 8man event is not useful.

[emidln]

A report from an 8man event is not useful.

Most reports are not useful without very detailed commentary on decisions and/or video exposing the hand.