[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

Two...

[Forstik]

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

Depends on your build and your meta. If you're playing UB, then you need 2, if you're playing more resilient UBr, then get 2 Personal Tutors, which combined with Past in Flames and Gitaxian probes creates one mana all-you-need tutor which has won me games Grim Tutor wouldn't have. It is no Mystical Tutor (won't find you mana source and one-of utility cards), but it is better than decent. It's up to your personal preference, but. I wouldn't run in it in a Chant build though.

Let me just add, that money is not an issue.

Also, how often do you actually combo out via Ad Nauseam these days? I win 4 of 5 games using Past in Flames. I choose Ad nauseam way only in desperate situations. What is your experience?

[Waikiki]

most of my wins are from pif or tutor chains. I hardly use ad nauseam either but I do go for it once in a while. I run 1 grim tutor myself.

[TheRedBaron]

Depends on your build and your meta. If you're playing UB, then you need 2, if you're playing more resilient UBr, then get 2 Personal Tutors, which combined with Past in Flames and Gitaxian probes creates one mana all-you-need tutor which has won me games Grim Tutor wouldn't have. It is no Mystical Tutor (won't find you mana source and one-of utility cards), but it is better than decent. It's up to your personal preference, but. I wouldn't run in it in a Chant build though.

Let me just add, that money is not an issue.

Also, how often do you actually combo out via Ad Nauseam these days? I win 4 of 5 games using Past in Flames. I choose Ad nauseam way only in desperate situations. What is your experience?

I was trying the strictly U/B version, I found it difficult to combo off with just tutors, and when I cast AN, it was too late. Before that I splashed red for PiF (but no RoF). I want to play chant in my next version. Guess I'm looking for guidance. I would prefer UBw, cause Imo Chant/silence is best protection out there. I feel like R splash isn't as stable, and may as well play TES (which I'm also not fond of)

[Sloshthedark]

For people playing Xantid swarm still, I'd recommend just trying the all discard route. Xantid is fine against merfolk, but that matchup isn't bad enough to warrant 4 sb slots, and every other deck leaves in removal against you.

which does not solve the Snapcaster -> stifle/Ssnare problem .. and running small goblin squads into U/W equipment is neither good

so, I'm thinking about getting Grim Tutor. Should I get 1 or 2?

its a mediocre card for ridiculous price but also current best solution for UB(r) deck... so preferably 2, I'm running 2 completely happy with it

[dillonkbase]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?

[ThomasDowd]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?

there's alot of information there that will influence your decision.

if you are on the play/ draw( if they can brainstorm stuff away your discard effects get substantially worse.)

what turn you plan to go off on.

the knowledge of your opponents deck either before the match or if this is a G2 situation.

personally if i'm on the play and i know my opponent is on a force of will deck i will duress T1. on the draw i will wait so i dont get dazed/ spell pierced. alot of the times if i put them on spell pierce i let them spell pierce it and if i do not put them on anymore counters i go off after that. but that is usually the turn i combo off.

edit: it really comes down to when and how you want your information and how you manipulate it, with a deck like this the amount of information you have will drastically increase your win percentage,most of the time though the raw power of the deck carries most people. myself included.

[Sloshthedark]

I've been gold-fishing for a few months now, and although I am getting pretty good at mulliganing and going off. The recurring problem I have is in deciding when to duress vs cantrip turn one. It seems like the right play to lead with duress most of the time, as it makes the cantrips more effective, however it also means the opponent can draw answers between your duress and combo?

9/10 time I probe for life / duress T1, always against unknown opponent, only exception is when I feel I can combo off early and also duress in the turn and opponent looks like playing blue, only the probability of disrupting their combo or discard is worth it

[j_rb]

hey guys wanted to drop by and post up my list I have been playing the past month The list I based this off was from the Russian Legacy Championship this year and I believe a similar list was played to a good finish in some big german tournament last year. I have always been a fan of ldv and top in ad naus. I don't know what you guys think but i think the deck is solid as hell. It has a good control MU due to top and chants. I still like chant even though people are gravitating towards spell pierce. It's easy to play through or around pierce IMO. I have been playing storm for a couple years and always try out new variants every 2 or 3 months this is the one I'm currently enjoying playing right now.

4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
2 ad nauseam
1 ill-gotten gains
2 sensei top
3 lim-dul's vault
2 orim's chant
2 silence
3 duress
1 tendrils
4 dark rit
4 cabal rit
2 chrome mox
4 infernal tutor

4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
2 sea
1 scrubland
1 tundra
1 swamp
1 island
1 crystal vein

sb
2 echoing truth
1 extirpate
2 slaughter pact
4 xantid swarm
1 topical island
2 hurkyl's recall
1 wipe away
1 tendrils
1 duress

the chant silence split is because there are a lot of control players in my meta who board meddling mage.

[aaronm678]

which does not solve the Snapcaster -> stifle/Ssnare problem .. and running small goblin squads into U/W equipment is neither good

Snapcaster -> Stifle/Snare is annoying...but honestly, blindly targetting a Spell Snare with a Snapcaster in response to a discard spell isn't all that common, it's much more common to do something like Snapcaster -> Brainstorm. If they do target Stifle or Snare...I would recommend not comboing that turn unless you can play around it.


Also, the only threats you actually care about from U/W are Batterskull or Sword, and sword is usually a bit slow, even for the goblin route, so you should be using your discard spells to snag threats against them, since they usually don't run Stifle, and FoW isn't that great against the goblin plan.

[j_rb]

You know what does stop the snapcaster -> snare/stifle thing.... orim's chant. It is a problem if you're playing Ubr ant though since you can't really splash for chant, but a fast duress into empty is the nuts against tempo.

[GoblinZ]

Hello every one, this is my current version:

Instants [13]

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual


Sorceries [23]

2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Preordain

Artifacts [8]

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal


Lands [16]

1 Badland
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Misted Rainforest
2 Scalding Tasrn
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

2 Slaughter Pact
2 Extirpate
4 Dark Confidant
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Virtue's Ruin

I have some questions about this deck, which may be somewhat stupid fow I am still new to this deck

1. Against Caw blade, what do you board out and board in after game one?
2. Against Bant Aggro, What do you board out and board in after game one?

help...

Sorry for my poor English

[aaronm678]

1. Against Caw blade, what do you board out and board in after game one?

-1 Ad Nauseam
-4 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
+4 Confidant
+2 ETW

This one is pretty variable. If they keep in removal, I'd leave in 2 preordain and ritual/ad naus over bob. This match can definitely be favorable with some practice, ETW is your best card, and use your cantrips or tutors to aggressively find it. They usually just sit there and durdle for 5 turns, so don't rush.

2. Against Bant Aggro, What do you board out and board in after game one?

There are about 8000000 different builds of bant aggro...there are a lot of ways to play it. I usually try to go heavy discard and just outrace or make them discard hate bears/gsz. ETW isn't that awesome, but it may be worth trying out slaughter pact or virtues ruin if you think they boarded in a bunch of creatures and not counters.

[GoblinZ]

Thank you very much

Against caw blade I fear batterskull may ruin our goblins plan, so I donnot know whether it is good to board ETW in.

And for bant, I guess they will board some spell pierce and some creature hate in...if I board out some cantrips for pact or virtues ruin, I fear that will make this deck inconsistent...

And I have another question...should I board out some cantrips for bounce spells against Hive Mind?

thx a lot!

[j_rb]

You definitely want some bounce against hive mind. Most hive mind builds these days are running chalice of the void and leyline of sanctity sideboard. Hive mind is also an incredibly easy MU due to the fact that if they go with the hive mind route you can usually kill them due to your rituals and artifact mana. The mu is comical unless they drop a turn 2 emrakrul on you, and even then you get a turn to win.

Also, empty is pretty poor against blade variants, but insane against other control decks such as all the tempo decks running around. I found orim's chant and swarm to be amazing against blade. My win percentage against stoneblade is insanely high because I run chant and swarm. Without chant, the post-board games might be harder depending on what they board, but I'm sure you can handle it. I have found in version's not running chant, that Past in Flames is absolutely insane.

[Sloshthedark]

Snapcaster -> Stifle/Snare is annoying...but honestly, blindly targetting a Spell Snare with a Snapcaster in response to a discard spell isn't all that common, it's much more common to do something like Snapcaster -> Brainstorm. If they do target Stifle or Snare...I would recommend not comboing that turn unless you can play around it.

I won't recommend it either... the problem is someday people will not play that stupid

maybe I should play bolder with the warrens plan

You know what does stop the snapcaster -> snare/stifle thing.... orim's chant. It is a problem if you're playing Ubr ant though since you can't really splash for chant, but a fast duress into empty is the nuts against tempo.

If I wanted to play 4color maindeck I'd play Doomsday instead... and chant makes me really uncomfortable, well less than IGG

[j_rb]

If I wanted to play 4color maindeck I'd play Doomsday instead... and chant makes me really uncomfortable, well less than IGG

I wouldn't recommend playing a 4 color ant version. It's just a worse TES. If I play ant it's either U/b with a red or white splash. I enjoy playing the white splash as chant is obsurd in control matchups and I do not like the life loss from thoughtseize or probe.
Mainly with chant it's more of a playstyle choice for me, but I do enjoy the ubr ant list because past in flames is insane against control.

Also, empty really wrecks those tempo decks. It's probably a good idea to board even up to 4 as ari was doing at one point, if tempo is rampant in your area.

[aaronm678]

Thank you very much

Against caw blade I fear batterskull may ruin our goblins plan, so I donnot know whether it is good to board ETW in.

And for bant, I guess they will board some spell pierce and some creature hate in...if I board out some cantrips for pact or virtues ruin, I fear that will make this deck inconsistent...

And I have another question...should I board out some cantrips for bounce spells against Hive Mind?

thx a lot!

Batterskull is annoying, but you should make an effort to snag it with duress and/or thoughtseize. Since empty can play through forces and snares, you don't have to take those cards as aggressively.

This is what I've found from playing the matchup quite a bit...but it's probably more to my playstyle- my u/w and bug matches are very grindy, so having the option to make 6 or 8 tokens without going all in is awesome.

[Fossil4182]

I played against a UWb Stoneblade deck this past weekend. I was piloting Liam's TNT list and found that Empty the Warrens can be a viable strategy since you can grind them out with Past in Flames. One of the problems I found versus Stoneblade decks is that if you can't win fast enough, Batterskull puts the game out of reach rather quickly (though I've got up to 50 plus storm in tournaments with TNT). The logical argument would be that you can use Tendrils and Grind them out, but even just using Warrens to create blockers can be really helpful. My opponent was over 40 life and I cast empty the warrens for 12 and was able to out race them. Burning Wish helps a lot because grabbing Shattering Spree lets you get way ahead since you can buy tons of time against Stoneforge Mystic if you need it. I think its easier to grind them out with tokens then attempting to recur Tendrils and kill them. The main reason why is every turn they live with Batterskull in play means you have to generate +2 storm.

[j_rb]

I was piloting Liam's TNT list and found that Empty the Warrens can be a viable strategy since you can grind them out with Past in Flames.

I like Liam's TNT list a lot because burning wish is so useful in the stoneblade MU. This does in fact make empty a viable strategy against them. I knew empty wasn't great against stoneblade, but it does give you valuable blockers, which playing u/b/r you might need in the matchup. I'm probably being biased here because I am more used to playing chant effects against stoneblade which makes the match not grindy at all and easy to win. It also seems that Past in Flames would be a great card in this matchup as the flashback has saved my ass numerous times against countermagic and gives me absurd storm counts.

I have also had hands with tendrils and Burning Wish or Past in Flames in them and most of the time you can just mini tendrils them turn 1and then past in flames turn 2 or 3 and win. It's pretty absurd when it happens and they usually will never see it coming as most players wait for a tutor to counter.