Well I would certainly like to playtest online but haven't got much time for the next week and a half.Originally Posted by Chikenbok
Unfortunately I don't have modo but I do have cockatrice installed somewhere on my PC.
This is the list I play atm:
Lands
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
9 Fetch
Protection
4 Silence
4 Orim's Chant
Mana
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
Tutors/Win
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Grim Tutor
Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Dark Confidant
1 Rebuild
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Slaughter Pact
3 Protection (Defense Grid, X. Swarm, TS,..depending on the meta)
I do go back and forth between 2 configurations, the other one being:
+4 Duress + 1 Swamp -1 Tundra -4 silence (with the necessary adjustments to the sideboard ofc)
Not completely sold on which is best.
I've played a lot of 3C TES in the past and loved Burning Wish in the deck so it's not like I think they don't have the potential. It's just that lately with MM's everywhere and having to fight through a lot of counters I've found it better to play with chants. + Chantwalking against any junk-like deck is just awsome :).
It's always nice to read a tournement report. :)
Just wanna ask, what is the best SB list for the deck, may it be UBr AnT or UB AnT, that does not include Dark Confidant?
Thanks!
@Dia_Bot: didn't you miss burning wish??? I provides alternative win conds and versatility slots in side!
@Mort: Why did you include B. wish but no empty the warrens as alternative? The absence of rite of flame was relevant??
I don't like EtW as a finisher. They can be handled even easier now with each second deck having access to T3 Batterskull.
Fast report from the top of my head:
R1 I am paired against Christoph who is on DD Tendrils (with Chants). Luckily, they forgot a player and so we get repaired.
R1: Raphael with Jung
G1: I win the roll and cantrip, he lays a land, I cantrip again while he plays Sculler, taking a Ritual from my hand. I go off in my turn, Nauseam to four with one Dark Ritual missing to win, so I ponder, find nothing, shuffle, he cuts and there is the ritual.
G2: He keeps the one land hand and doesn't draw another one.
R2: Eric with BG Depths / Rock
G1: We both keep a pretty discardheavy hand and our graveyards are filling fast in the first few turns. He then draws no gas while I can cantrip into the win.
G2: He mulls to six, then has no firstturn play. I cantrip a bit, he lands a Confidant but doesn't find the big beats / the win / more discard soon enough.
R3: Jan with RUW Caw Blade
G1: I duress and don't see anything that worries me. Then he rips Stoneforge from the top. I duress again and take the Skull. He rips another SFM and gets his second Batterskull, which I duress again. Beats down to 12, then Iggy gets his turn.
G2: We both mull to six, I land a Confidant, he topdecks Punishing Fire to get the combo going with his Grove. As soon as he's tapped out I get an Ad Nauseam going - which is enough.
R4: Christian with Reanimator
G1: We both know what each other is playing, so I start with Duress - which finds a Misstep. I lay down Petal and Thoughtseize, which meets a Force, pitching Brainstorm. He just plays a land, I do the same. He entombs Gitaxis EoT, then plays Reanimate and draws seven. I draw Cabal Ritual, which goes fine with the Dark Ritual and the Burning Wish in my hand. He's at seven because of all the Reanimate / Force / Misstep lifeloss and didn't draw any counter at all in his Jin seven, so I am able to finish him off with a Tendrils for eight.
G2: He plays Study, getting Jin in his grave. My Duress finds E. Truth, Delta, Pierce and Animate Dead, which I take. Still, he topdecks Exhume a few turns later and his post Jin hand was like 2x Force, Daze, Pierce.. all the goodness.
G3: First Duress meets a Misstep, like the first ones in the last two games. I am able to duress again the next turn and keep him off reanimation spells until it's too late for him.
R5: Julius with Lands
R1 + R2: Nothing to see here. He is a really nice guy and I'm always feeling sorry (although being very happy to be paired against) a matchup that's just about 100:0 in my favor.
R6: Tobias with Belcher
R1: He wins the roll but lets me play. My hand is very slow, but I am able to duress his finisher from his hand. We then do nothing. Finaly, after playing two Brainstorms that find me nothing but land and laying down my fifth land (!) I'm able to kill him.
R2: He lets me play again and I duress his finisher again. My hand was very weak (should've mulliganed more agressivly this game, 4x Land, Thoughtseize, 2x Dark Rit, I realized as soon as I said keep) but I feared that a mulligan could've gotten me a hand without a first turn discard effect. So I play TS and get his finisher while he does nothing. I play lands again, drawing into Infernal and another Duress, but still with a land stranded in my hand. I duress a ritual but he has mana enough and draws Belcher from the top.
R3: I have Nauseam, Ritual, LED's and Brainstorm in my hand, but no black source. I gamble to draw into B for Nauseam in my Brainstorm for a second turn kill, he goes of first turn. I ask him if I should note stormcount or if he belches me - and stormcount it is (was quite happy about that). He then drops two LEDs, plays Burning Wish and saccs his LEDs for RRRUUU. With a grin, he tells me that he doesn't like my seven if I'm not duressing him, so he goes for Diminishing Returns with RR floating, removing two Belcher and two Burning Wishes. Sadly, he has another Burning Wish and two Belcher plus the mana necessary to belch in his new seven. Shit happens, the three games were really fun though.
I have put Ari's base build together with 2 Grim Tutors.
But I am a little confused when to play Grim Tutor. I always end up in playing Infernal Tutor instead.
I also tried to figure out playing Grim Tutor during combo but that additional mana hurts alot and I always seem to settle with Infernal Tutor.
Any thoughts?
Grim Tutor is in the deck as a worse Infernal Tutor, because you want more business cards. Grim does have the advantage in that you can crack it before you counter for something you need. If you're comboing off and you have an extra one you can cast it for an LED/Cabal and net 2 storm for 0 mana.
What's wrong with running an alterantive?? Yeah batterskull T3 is awful but the are decks that si simply can't respond to EtW...
But those decks just die to a Tendrils ;D
The only thing I really missed about Bwish was the extra tutor you had in your deck.
But since I've added the Grim tutors I haven't had a problem finding engines/win conditions.
To me adding white for Chants (while keeping a stable mana base) is better atm then the benefits you gain from adding Bwish.
@Dia_Bot
The list looks great. I can't believe I never thought about the white splash. So far, testing has been promising. I'm running:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Orim's Chant
3 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
I always though Ari's build was super solid, but needed one or two more disruption spells. Chant is insane right now, and with fish on the decline, I don't feel bad running this manabase. Having IGGY as your primary win condition, chant seems better than duress, so I went with 4/3 split.
I'm feeling better and better about storm...
I've been running 7-8 chants/silences in my ANT and DDFT lists. It may seem weird, but not having to worry about what is in their hand has been amazing. In a way, chant is like a duress that will either take a MM or a Force and their blue card. Give it a try if you get a chance. I highly recommend it.
I'm interested to know whether the white splash is better against Stoneblade than other options. I'm very underwhelmed by the +3 Dark Confidant +2 Tendrils of Agony plan out of the sideboard.
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
Founding member of Team Scrubbad: Legacy Legends
Thanks, It has been working very well for me.
I would say the white splash is better against decks with lots of countermagic. This includes decks like BUGstill, Stoneblade and such.
@ Clown of Tresserhorn ... The Verdant Catacombs seem to be a typo. They should be Marsh Flats!
I agree with that.
I had a long discussion with one of my buddies which resulted in "stoneforge makes this plan no longer possible". Beating with Confidant and emptying your hand and play lethal Tendrils out of it is a Pre Stoneforge tactic and imo no longer recommendable.
Here is the 75 I was playing recently ...
I had pretty decent results with it ...
// Lands
2 [B] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [B] Island (3)
1 [B] Swamp (3)
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [B] Tundra
1 [B] Scrubland
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
// Spells
3 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [MM] Brainstorm
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [MI] Dark Ritual
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [US] Duress
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [M11] Silence
1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 3 [WL] Serenity
SB: 3 [FUT] Pact of Negation
SB: 1 [B] Plains (3)
SB: 2 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 2 [TSP] Angel's Grace
SB: 2 [TE] Meditate
The list is kind of slowish but as mentioned quite good against anything blue based.
Grim Tutor always really sucked for me. I got one but I never wanted to draw or play it when it was in the list.
I always liked top a lot more than more than 8 cantrips but I guess that is some kind of personal taste.
I always liked a mix of Duress and Chanteffects a lot more than only Chanteffects because it is much more versatile.
Pacts to protect the Chants/Duresses in G2/G3 were always very good for me!!
I really like the latest approaches because they seem to be a good call towards the current metagame. Go ahead
I am have tried a lot but the deck tends to be too freaking random for me overall ... Mystical Tutor times are sadly over since quite a while ... It is still a lot of fun to play of cause.
For example I nearly fizzeld with AdN on 15 life having UUUBBB floating - I won that game with no mana spare and the exact count of storm I needed by finding tendrils in a Cantrip. Another time I fizzeld on 18 or 19 life having my landdrop made for that turn and no mana spare playing the second AdN (other one was already in the yard) and having Tendrils or IGG (I do not remember) on hand which leaves only one CC4 in the deck ...
How has chain of vapor maindeck been for you? Running the 4th Cabal Ritual might be better there, especially if you are fizzling a lot. Even g1 against Maverick, it doesn't really help all that much against Gaddock Teeg and friends. Also, 9 protection seems like too much for my own tastes, but that is probably more of a meta call.
@ Maindeck Chain ... Basicly it saves you a sideboard slot and is never bad. You can bounce random stuff to buy some time or generate a shitload of storm by sacrificing your lands into it. It is defiantly not necessary but I liked it. I highly doubt that playing 1 Ritual more would do a great difference when it comes to fizzeling with ad nauseam.
@ 9 Protection ... The 4/4/1 split was a good answer to my metagame and I rarely felt that I have to much protection. I do not like playing plain 7-8 chants (btw I do not like playing plain 7-8 Duress either) because they can be only proactive and never reactive (with only playing Duress its the other way around obviously).
This means that you are not able to pick the batterskull they tutored for - you are only able to chantwalk them and preventing like this that SFM hits the battlefield. There might be better examples for what I mean
I tinkered with the list A LOT and this was the most suitable list for me and my metagame. Anyway I got really annoyed by fizzeling on high life because 1 specific card is missing (watch game 1 of the Spanish guys to see what I mean). It happend way too often to me and is not acceptable.
I started to sell the deck and I am looking forward to play something which annoys me less
Perfectly cutted. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Could someone please explain to me the point of the extra Tendrils and Ad Nauseam I sometimes see in the board?
Both are against counterheavy decks.
Tendrils + Confidant were used to just kill your enemy by attacking with Confidant and emptying your hand and play Tendrils out of it.
More AdN are just more business when you need it.
After much testing, I find the 4/3 duress/silence split the most optimal. Sometimes, I just wanna ritual duress and go off. Silence is golden in the tempo matchups, but with 12 cantrips, finding one isn't hard. Plus, I never ever want to fetch out a tundra/scrubland unless I'm going off.
In addition to the response oRen gave, there are times when some of these cards are situationally better. For example, the extra Tendrils probably replaces Ill-Gotten Gains against counter heavy decks with Force of Will. If you're deck is running Xantid Swarm, I've found the extra Tendrils to be a wasted sideboard slot. This is because in addition to four Xantid Swarm, I tend to bring in more discard with a boast board deck containing 4 Xantid Swarm, 4 Duress, 4 Thoughtseize. Not to mention a swing with Xantid Swarm protects you so when you should only have to Tendrils once. I can't speak for other players, but depending on the deck construction, this may also be true for players who use Orim's Chant or Silence since it appears to be the same in principal.
Extra copies of Ad Nauseam can "speed" the deck up by increasing the likelihood you'll see Ad Nauseam and go off. I've found this strategy useful in the mirror, against Dredge, or Aggro decks.
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