Do you think Landstill will have a lower win percentage than Counterbalance even with Green Sun's Zenith in the format? I think that card is the answer to Counterbalance in the way Engineered Explosives used to be used to be. The fact that it negates the traditional late game advantage that Counterbalance has means these decks now can play on a more even playing field. Why do you think Counterbalance will be favorable in the upcoming metagame?Originally Posted by NesretepNoj
Did I write that? If so, I must have expressed myself poorly. No, I actually don't think Counterbalance will come back. As you mention, GSZ is a beating. The same goes for Stoneforge Mystic, which can come down, before Counterbalance becomes relevant. The deck will also have a hard time beating Hive Mind, if it survives.
My primary point was, that IF counterbalance becomes viable, DD/Emrakul is a really good answer. Hence, no fear from my point of view.
I used to play CB/Top before MT got banned... I never lost a match to ANT. I did lose to Charbelcher before though. Never played DD, SI, or other storm decks. Frankly I feel combo has to prove itself before CB comes back. Until then, I wouldn't worry about it. I'd worry more about ppl replacing their Missteps with Spell Pierces or Spell Snares or Daze.
Question: I haven't played since MT got banned... Do ppl still play City of Traitors in this deck? What about Lim Dul's Vault?
I'll agree on the first point. Regarding your question, you've got some 150 pages of reading to do and various archetypes to check out. ANT is a new brew and there are various forms of it that play various threats and beats. LDV is still run in some lists that people have been discussing over on the stormboards but I've always preferred either burning wish or infernal tutor. City of traitors has been cut almost across the boards for either more fetches, basics, or duals.
after everyone's helpful advice this is what I have come up with.
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
4 lion’s eye diamond
2 chrome mox
2 mox diamond
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
3 gitaxian probe or should this be preordain?
4 duress
3 thought sieze
4 infernal tutor
1 ill gotten gains
1 ad neausium
1 tendrils of agony
2 misty rainforest
2 verderant catacombs
4 polluted delta
1 underground sea
2 island
3 swamp
Ok now for some other questions. Should I still run the mox diamond in the deck? WOuld it be able to produce mana of off a fetchland? Should I run gitaxian probe of preordain, seeing as all of my disruption lets me look and choose, why should I look agian? Also, did I fix the land part of the mana base?
Last edited by thatoneguy; 09-28-2011 at 01:39 PM. Reason: type-o
Ding, fries are done
@Thatoneguy - It seems like a pretty straight forward UB Ant list. I would, without a doubt cut the 2 mox diamonds for 2 more land, simple as that. 14 land is real sketchy to run with mox diamonds. I understand there is always the possibility to float no mana into an Ad Naus and hope to flip the diamond but... I'd rather just have a land. You're going to find yourself with weird openers like land, diamond, spell, spell, spell etc. and it will be a weird play indeed.
In regards to probe vs. preordain I've always been on the preordain side of the argument but I'm sure people will disagree. Probe does give you the peek that no one will counter. It sometimes just lets you sit back, cast it, and realize that you can win. Preordain on the other hand can shuffle chaff away, can provide you with an extra turn of virtual card advantage, and give you the answer you need now.
Its really up to play-style in the end. Give em both and try and tell us what you think but, before that, I'd cut the diamonds.
The lands look fine but especially realize that if you cut the probes, you need more land (I'm still not sure how people are topping weird events with 14 land lists). The second u-sea would be helpful but really isn't all that necessary. Sometimes I'll draw opponents into wasting me over and over to keep them off of say, Jace mana but I run a Chain of Vapor MD to deal with problems like that .
That's my 2 cents. Hope you enjoy the deck.
So at the Star City Open today, an ANT deck that splashed red for Past in Flames got tenth place. I'm kind of wondering how often the player actually won games with the card.
The deck list looks interesting. It can push into four colors if need be via the Tropical Island in the sideboard. What struck me as interesting is Past in Flames was a maindeck card and the list did not run Burning Wish. I think once you're getting into the four color range, the mana base gets too unstable I would rather just play TES since its faster. Its also interesting to note that ANT (UB) made the top eight along with a TES variant.
In the short term, the three storm decks (TES, ANT, and UBrg), two reanimator decks and the belcher deck have demonstrated that combo is back in good form. I would expect control and aggro decks to sideboard accordingly with increased levels of graveyard hate (somewhat relevant to this deck) and dedicated storm hate slots. Most of the players in Legacy tend to go overboard when a deck like Reanimator, Dredge or Storm wins a SCG event and they overload on sideboard cards to beat decks that are "unfair". This means if you are planning on playing ANT or some variant in Nashville or Baltimore, I would test against versions of decks with more dedicated disruption. My guess is Junk, Team America, and possibly Counterbalance will become more popular choices among control players given that prior to the printing of Mental Misstep, they posted the best win percentages against combo decks. Also, if your gauntlet Merfolk deck does not already include Flusterstorm, it should. Caleb Durward suggested it in an article a while back and the recent Top 8 list of Merfolk included it as well (so expect others to copy).
I like that list a lot, aside from the bounce-free 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
New thing to try:
SB Empty the Warrens + a Volc. Solves some of the CB and Team America issues. Someone ended up running this on my advice and they smashed AJ in the swiss with it.
Practical Jokes old 2x Ad Naus list with Chrome Moxes. Added speed is very good vs. Reanimator and the move towards Snapcaster Tempo and combo instead of Fish and Zoo means your life total is higher for longer. Also, Ad Naus fucks up Stifles.
how's the confidant working in SB at this moment? still feels like a really awkward sideboard.
Also with GP amsterdam coming up, I should start preparing myself (kinda been slacking off big time)
the etw don't always solve the TA match-ups, but do a proper job against the current CB lists.
You know what solves tempo problems (TA, Can Thresh, New Delver Thresh, Etc) AND CB problems?
Doomsday.
Practical, would you please repost the list Ari is referencing...
Also I agree with Practical that the SB is awkward, although I am unsure if the doomsday plan is really any better, perhaps more IGG and surgical extraction could be effective?
You know what is a lot more complicated than Ad Nauseam? Picking the 5 best cards for the current situation. It's doubtful that there are people who have significantly more experience than I do with Doomsday, but I'll be the first one to tell you that whatever skill level you think you are, you're a couple hundred hours off what it takes to play Doomsday at a high level. Comparatively, Ad Nauseam will get you 90% of the common Doomsday wins and a good percentage more that most Doomsday piles don't win because the deck itself itself is a very general 2 card combo instead of a 1 card combo. Combine that with not getting as many early wins because you don't see the double cantrip piles as well as an experienced player and you'll find that a good player who is normally X-2 or better drops to X-3 or X-4 because they lose a close game or two that winning comes from experience.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I am by no means either doubting your ability to play Doomsday or trying to make myself seem like a competent Doomsday player. I've yet to bring the deck to a large and/or long event (one of the downsides of being a grad school student), and would say that over the last two or so years of playing it, I've still found myself losing more games than I would have just playing good ole' UB ANT. And yes, that reason is because of Ad Nauseum.
However, I don't think that the fact that I'm not playing the deck even close to 100% competency changes at all what I've said; Doomsday.
I think the issue here is that you're advising that everyone playing ANT right now just drop what they're doing and spend two years learning how to play a different deck.
Oh well no, it was intended to be a bit more of hyperbole.. However, even I recall a time when 4 DD in the board + and Emrakul and a SI was a great way to deal with CB - not so much thresh.
Are you going to be writing a tournament report?
I was the guy playing the deck, Past in flames was absolutely insane all day long for me. I don't remember exactly how many games I won by casting it, I know that one particularly memorable game against high tide was more or less locked up by casting it to flash back 3 Duress effects. One thing to note was the number of people who brought in graveyard hate against me, presumably because they didn't have storm hate. It's probably still worth keeping in against hate, but it's something that would need to be looked at.
Yeah, my sideboard was terrible and probably caused my first loss, playing against reanimator and having no outs to Iona on black. I think that cutting the grim lavamancers is the first step, since without them you can definitely cut the maindeck mountain and possibly the badlands. My sideboard now looks like
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Wipe Away
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtseize
3 Firespout
1 Empty the Warrens
and my maindeck is -1 Mountain -2 Scalding Tarn +2 Bloodstained Mire +1 Swamp
lol no they don't. Stoneblade-CBT decks aren't bothered by ETW tokens at all.
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