[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Koby]

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

The Ad Nauseam paths in this deck are strategically weaker compared to TES, and often relying on them to get you out of a bind doesn't end well. More to the point, ANT has to rely on luck rather than a determinate path in order to make use of Ad Nauseam. This is one of the shortfalls of this deck compared to other Storm enablers. Personally, I would rather rely on tutor chains (and hence the Grim Tutor over none) than roll the dice with Ad Nauseam if I have an opportunity.

[SaberTooth]

i feel the same, i mean, with ant i hate playing ad nauseam (ironic), because my win or my lose is decided by a coinflip. Obviously the grim is awful with nauseam, but maybe 1 more tutor will work

[jin]

The Ad Nauseam paths in this deck are strategically weaker compared to TES, and often relying on them to get you out of a bind doesn't end well. More to the point, ANT has to rely on luck rather than a determinate path in order to make use of Ad Nauseam. This is one of the shortfalls of this deck compared to other Storm enablers. Personally, I would rather rely on tutor chains (and hence the Grim Tutor over none) than roll the dice with Ad Nauseam if I have an opportunity.

i feel the same, i mean, with ant i hate playing ad nauseam (ironic), because my win or my lose is decided by a coinflip. Obviously the grim is awful with nauseam, but maybe 1 more tutor will work

That's an interesting statement about other decks are less reliant on luck. What do you think makes this true? The Tutors?

Yeah, I understand that ANT's Ad Nauseam is weaker than TES's, but should you add things to the deck that will further relieve the significance of Ad Nauseam? I feel that in order to still be a strong Ad Nauseam deck, you still need to be able to work with the card. Playing Grim Tutor just doesn't.

Tutor chains are great and all, but you can pretty much do the same thing with Prozak's list. You can cantrip chain until you can Tutor for a Tendrils as well. If you enjoy chaining into a Tendrils, then any storm deck can do this. You don't need to play ANT specifically.

[Koby]

RE: Luck with Ad Nauseam
ANT runs much fewer initial mana sources (2 less Chrome Mox in the most aggressive list), which hurts the chances of being able to continue chaining mana after the Ad Nauseam. Coupled with that are the increased use of redundant cantrips (all of which are 1 CMC), and the Cabal Rituals which are also 2 CMC. The end result of the deck's construction results in a higher average CMC that limits the cards you're able to take with Ad Nauseam. The compound effect of ANT's construction means that you have fewer cards post resolution, and more of those cards are cantrips. This reduces the effectiveness of Ad Nauseam when you are looking for mana + tutors. Furthermore, the deck only plays 4 Tutors, compared to TES's seven or eight. This again forces ANT to dig deeper in order to find the Infernal Tutor and chain it into a kill spell. The pre-requisite stopping point with Ad Nauseam is general 6 mana and have a tutor. Infernal Tutor also requires LED to be present to enable Hellbent.

TL;DR:
Higher avg CMC,
Lower tutor density,
Higher cantrip count;
Ergo - weaker Ad Nauseam.

You don't need to play ANT specifically.

Specifically why I abandoned the deck in my testing. It just couldn't consistently utilize Ad Nauseam for an advantage. I was also only able to claim only ~60% win rate with the deck, and only 40% winrate vs FOW decks. This was a deal breaker for me. These values came from over 150 matches played. I can post them when I get home and have access to the spreadsheet.

[jin]

Specifically why I abandoned the deck in my testing. It just couldn't consistently utilize Ad Nauseam for an advantage. I was also only able to claim only ~60% win rate with the deck, and only 40% winrate vs FOW decks. This was a deal breaker for me. These values came from over 150 matches played. I can post them when I get home and have access to the spreadsheet.

That's not necessary. It was a loaded question. I know you play other decks. It was just to further discussion.

[phazonmutant]

- http://www.starcitygames.com/article...r-Edition.html

Ari seems to think that 16 cantrips mean that you could go to 5 tutors, when Prosak thinks that you don't need more than infernal tutor (with reasons in one of his 2 starcity articles, don't remember which). Now, with my experience playing AnT in the past and looking at his results, I believe I can back Prosak on this one. I just haven't lost enough games to not finding a tutor in time, and the format is slow enough again to relax a few turns again.

You make a good point, we're really just jerking it without any data. I'm working on a spreadsheet that I'll share via google docs when it's ready.
So far I've ran the numbers for probability that an opening hand will have 0-7 business/IMS/Fast mana/protection cards for Prosack ANT, Grim ANT, TNT, and TES for 7-5 card hands.
I've also done a chart showing the probability of being alive after drawing n cards with Ad Nauseam for each of the decks.

Are there any other statistical measures that you guys can think of that will help further our arguments in favor of one build or another?

[JamieW89]

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

You shouldn't be casting Ad Nauseam that often anyways. This deck is geared to combo out on turn-3/4 with PiF or Tutor chaining, with protection. If you seek quick and smooth Ad Nauseams play TES.
I prefer playing one Grim Tutor and the 7th protection spell over 2 preordains and possibly a mana source (16th land or 1st mox) over another. But the results of the 12 cantrip + probe list have been pretty good lately.

[Dark Ritual]

Hurts Ad Nauseam a lot. I like Prozak's main deck. The deck has to search for one thing, Infernal Tutor and it wins. It's jam full of lands and protection is consequential. It's fine the way it is.

I just don't understand why he plays massacre in the SB. It sucks against Gaddock Teeg, which is probably the most common hate bear.

I wouldn't call gaddock teeg the most common hatebear. Right now hatebears are usually thalia, canonist, and meddling mage if the opponent even has any hatebears in their 75.

The line against the pox player in top 8 is that since he lacks any CMC 1 discard is to play out both LED's after probe before brainstorm. If he traps one, great you win on the spot as you go dark rit x2 tutor, crack the other LED for RRR, PiF, flashback both dark rit's, tutor for tendrils. Tendrils him for 24 and call him a scrub for force of willing an LED and not the spell that the LED is being used to cast since his deck has no soft countermagic. Let's say he let both LED's resolve. Pass the turn with blue open for brainstorm. If he draws something relevant like duress brainstorm in response and hide IT on top. Let him take a useless dark ritual. Untap, infernal, crack both LED's for black, ad nauseam. Win with ease afterwards hopefully. If you found a discard spell with brainstorm in response and you still have it after his duress/seize/IoK, I would go dark rit, dark rit if you have another one, therapy/duress his MBT, tutor, crack LED's for red and black, PiF, win.

Casting ad nauseam in ANT is a last resort for me unless I naturally draw it, then I cast it if I can because as a setup spell the card is bonkers and it can randomly win on the spot if you flip the right cards. EoT ad nauseam is also very potent in this deck as it turns out untapping in storm after drawing 10+ cards typically equals game.

I might test 1 grim tutor over 1 preordain and see how I like it since I'm going to start playing this deck again quite frequently in preparation for SCG Milwaukee and see how the 5th tutor is over the 16th cantrip. Could be good, but only testing will tell.

[Koby]

As promised, here's my testing log from December. Not much has changed in Legacy, except metagame shifts, but the deck is basically the same.

Clicky the linky

[Megadeus]

Is 34% win rate vs force of will decks really right? Seems bad. But then again to counteract my own argument alot of those were tempo or CB decks.

[Koby]

Is 34% win rate vs force of will decks really right? Seems bad. But then again to counteract my own argument alot of those were tempo or CB decks.

There are limitations to the data approach, and obviously there isn't enough data. But the sample is relatively large for an empirical approach.

[aaronm678]

There are limitations to the data approach, and obviously there isn't enough data. But the sample is relatively large for an empirical approach.

Were you running Abrupt Decay? The CB matchup isn't great with that, but 0-4 (with 1-8 in games) seems a little off to me.

That said, are those numbers really that bad? Counterbalance is our worst matchup, everybody knows that - if that's the most popular deck in the room, you're going to get stomped. If you ignore that, "FOW Matchup" is slightly unfavorable (40% ish, with blue combo being pretty good), and the non-FOW matchups are favorable. Especially considering how popular Jund has been (and how unpopular that has made Counterbalance, and how popular that has made Sneak and Show), I don't really think that's a bad place to be.

I'd be curious to see a similar spreadsheet on TES. I was testing TES for a while, because on paper it seems a lot better (Deathrite is fairly annoying for this deck, a blank against TES, Hymn is very annoying for this deck, very slow against TES, etc), but I found myself playing ANT again due to how often TES just loses to itself or a single Wasteland.

[Koby]

I was using this decklist:

[Dark Ritual]

34% winrate seems very low considering how easy it is to set up a really good hand against just countermagic with 16 cantrips. Sure, 6 protection spells is kind of low but it should be able to get there with gitaxian therapy and people usually don't run that many hard counters outside FoW. I'm usually more scared of vendilion clique than FoW against countertop decks, as them nabbing your lone tutor is quite annoying while vclique is a quick clock as well. Counterbalance itself shouldn't be a problem generally with abrupt decay in the mix, sure before decay countertop wasn't something we wanted to see but now? They can't even effectively float FoW on top with SDT in play since most versions are running RiP/we need to bring in additional bounce and decay can still hit SDT EoT to make them flip top to draw FoW into a therapy or duress. There's also the possibility of us boarding in more discard against them to hit countermagic. As for RUG Delver, to me it's a slightly harder merfolk matchup. And even they can draw bad hands against us or we can set up to win through their 3 disruption spells typically, maybe 4 and almost never 5. Just don't get wasted out and board correctly and the RUG matchup is perfectly winnable.

That decklist is a bit different than the stock 16 cantrip build IMO. The 3 additional cantrips could change the matchup immensely in terms of finding decay or other key cards. The sideboard seems awkward to say the least. EtW and IGG seem out of place to me. The additional tendrils is something I would board in as well against miracles, as you can just raw storm them using their countermagic or we could minitendrils them twice if they lack batterskull.

[jin]

Casting ad nauseam in ANT is a last resort for me unless I naturally draw it, then I cast it if I can because as a setup spell the card is bonkers and it can randomly win on the spot if you flip the right cards. EoT ad nauseam is also very potent in this deck as it turns out untapping in storm after drawing 10+ cards typically equals game.

How does this work? The longer you wait, the less life you have

I wouldn't call gaddock teeg the most common hatebear. Right now hatebears are usually thalia, canonist, and meddling mage if the opponent even has any hatebears in their 75.

But Teeg sees play in any GSZ deck.. I wouldn't want to lose to Forests because I'm running Massacre instead of Infest or Pyroclasm

You shouldn't be casting Ad Nauseam that often anyways. This deck is geared to combo out on turn-3/4 with PiF or Tutor chaining, with protection. If you seek quick and smooth Ad Nauseams play TES.

I do. It's been my favourite deck since 2009.

[Dark Ritual]

It depends on the deck and my hand if I use AdN or not. If I have no instant speed rituals, I go for ad nauseam but usually want a landdrop or a mana floating. Also depends on the opponents deck whether your life total will go down that quickly. There are a lot of variables that dictate whether I go for ad nauseam or not in ANT. Facing tormod's crypt or surgical? Go for ad nauseam. My opponent has none of these and I have at least 2 ritual effects that work with PiF? I go for PiF. Some decks really don't deal that much damage that quickly in legacy, believe it or not. Control decks deal no damage in the first few turns typically. RUG Delver has to have a flipped delver on turn 2 to deal significant damage to make AdN bad but we generally want to sculpt and go for PiF against RUG anyways when they have bolt effects to make AdN draw less. The worst card to face turn 1 is DRS, as it is a fast clock and hates on PiF.

Okay, how many GSZ decks are out there that are GW? Not many. Maverick is dead. Jund Nic Fit doesn't run teeg. The only deck that does is elves combo, and that is a fringe deck that I am about as likely to face as maverick in a big tournament. I've seen a lot more thalia's and canonists in the metagame and even meddling mage. Teeg isn't that common at all. I agree with massacre right now because it kills thalia for 1 and mage/canonist for zero.

[jin]

It depends on the deck and my hand if I use AdN or not. If I have no instant speed rituals, I go for ad nauseam but usually want a landdrop or a mana floating. Also depends on the opponents deck whether your life total will go down that quickly. There are a lot of variables that dictate whether I go for ad nauseam or not in ANT. Facing tormod's crypt or surgical? Go for ad nauseam. My opponent has none of these and I have at least 2 ritual effects that work with PiF? I go for PiF. Some decks really don't deal that much damage that quickly in legacy, believe it or not. Control decks deal no damage in the first few turns typically. RUG Delver has to have a flipped delver on turn 2 to deal significant damage to make AdN bad but we generally want to sculpt and go for PiF against RUG anyways when they have bolt effects to make AdN draw less. The worst card to face turn 1 is DRS, as it is a fast clock and hates on PiF.

Okay, how many GSZ decks are out there that are GW? Not many. Maverick is dead. Jund Nic Fit doesn't run teeg. The only deck that does is elves combo, and that is a fringe deck that I am about as likely to face as maverick in a big tournament. I've seen a lot more thalia's and canonists in the metagame and even meddling mage. Teeg isn't that common at all. I agree with massacre right now because it kills thalia for 1 and mage/canonist for zero.

What I meant was Ad Nauseam should really be a plan A and not a back up plan. All of those are reasons to not cast Ad Nauseam, so you'll have to go to plan B, Past in Flames. I don't reject that notion. It is definitely true that ANT needs a land drop or mana floating for Ad Nauseam to work properly. I wouldn't dare to go off without those two options open as the initial mana source in this deck is highly limited after the land drop.

I was thinking Rock plays Teeg. Maverick shows up from time to time. I actually rarely see Cannonist or Meddling Mage. Given that Teeg is not a factor in your calculation, I do see the argument for Massacre.

[phazonmutant]

What I meant was Ad Nauseam should really be a plan A and not a back up plan. All of those are reasons to not cast Ad Nauseam, so you'll have to go to plan B, Past in Flames. I don't reject that notion. It is definitely true that ANT needs a land drop or mana floating for Ad Nauseam to work properly. I wouldn't dare to go off without those two options open as the initial mana source in this deck is highly limited after the land drop.

I was thinking Rock plays Teeg. Maverick shows up from time to time. I actually rarely see Cannonist or Meddling Mage. Given that Teeg is not a factor in your calculation, I do see the argument for Massacre.

Really? I've been lazy with ANT and just gone for Ad Naus and gotten punished for it plenty of times when I could have thought a little bit and gone for a different kill.
I've always been of the opinion you should go for (1) tutor chain, (2) PiF (or if they have nothing and you're lazy), (3) AN if the choice is between going off now when the coast is clear or waiting (and you have 6+ mana, and you're at above 14ish).

Still working on the spreadsheet, but here's some interesting conclusions from my analysis of Ad Nauseam:
The difference in Average CMC and expectation aren't really all that much different for the different builds. TES is the best at avg CMC (not including Ad Naus) of .78, but the others aren't far behind. Prosack ANT=0.83, Grim ANT=0.86, TNT=0.88.
If we pick an arbitrary starting life total of 14, the expectation for cards drawn is 18ish for TES, 17 for Prosack ANT, and 16ish for the other 2.

However, that doesn't actually tell the whole story, in fact it's a pretty crude way to look at Ad Nauseam. Just as important is the variance - for example how often we'll draw a bunch of 2s and 4s in a row compared to how often we'll draw a nice mix of 0s, 1s, and 2s.
The standard deviation for TES=0.80, Prosack ANT=0.90, and the other 2 are around 0.94. That is pretty sizeable decrease in standard deviation! So you would expect TES to have more consistent Ad Nauseams that flip lots of 1s, 0s, and some 2s, whereas the others will have more swinginess with strings of 2s and 4s.

[Koby]

That's a good analysis Greg. Nothing can really model the experience of resolving Ad Nauseam with all the required pieces well. That's where the variance sometimes bites decks like ANT when you need to get that "one last card". Moral of the story - win big, lose big; just go for it anyway.

[jin]

Really? I've been lazy with ANT and just gone for Ad Naus and gotten punished for it plenty of times when I could have thought a little bit and gone for a different kill.
I've always been of the opinion you should go for (1) tutor chain, (2) PiF (or if they have nothing and you're lazy), (3) AN if the choice is between going off now when the coast is clear or waiting (and you have 6+ mana, and you're at above 14ish).

By the time you move to plan C, you might not have 14 life. I said it should be plan A. This does not entail be lazy with your Ad Nauseams. It just means it should be your go to plan. Maybe Adam Prozak feels the same way, so from your analysis, he wants to make the best Ad Nauseam deck... I'm not sure.

Thanks for the analysis too.