Some thoughts from the worst combo player in the room:
- More death and taxes means I might start considering dread of night again
- These deathblade and shardless decks don't handle leyline of sanctity very well at all. Fitting in 3-4 board might be really good or just laughable. Clearly better in doomsday
- A lot of the top decks have both hand disruption and some number of counters, sometimes with clique/GY interaction to stop threshold.
- Those that don't fit the above bulletpoint are doing unfar things, or have hatebears, or are RUG
- Do I actually need abrupt decay much right now?
- 3/4 last SCGs had UB tezz around. Chalice plus possible trinisphere not likely to see in Philly, but don't be unprepared.
- Extraction still relatively prevalent
- Merfolk seems pretty good if you don't mind batterskull
Sample board:
4 leyline of Sanctity
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Dread of night
3 Chain of vapor
3 I dunno
Matt Bevenour in real life
> More D&T? Yes, bring in Dread of Night :) Meta choice!Originally Posted by Tammit67
> Just a thing, Leyline makes your Ad Nauseam's pretty miserable. Sure it's awesome but has a combo player you don't really want them. At the best, play TES with Silence. Also, you don't want to mulligan looking for a Leyline.
> It's more difficult than normal but you can do well against threshold (mainly Deathrite). You have Decays if you think it really matters but you can play relatively easy against it ;) Practice!
> Depends on the metagame. Decay for me has been awesome but I really don't want the 4 copies. I'm running 3 at the moment.
> Chalice? A really small percentage. I do not worry about him... Sure it's a big deal but not very many chalices for you do worry about.
> Extraction is always bad. Play carefully...
> Merfolk is an easy matchup
You'd board out ad naus when leylines come in. Mulliganing aggressively to them seems fine if it shuts off most if not all the interaction your opponents have.
It was just musings on Ant and the meta in general.
Matt Bevenour in real life
*I don't see too much DnT, but if people play it (or Mav) then you should probably play DoN's.
*I played Leylines in the board at GP Strasbourg (anticipated loads of Bx discard and UBx ANT), wasn't too impressed.
*Clique on its own is usually not the worst. If they just play it drawstep/EoT it's a bad discard spell+clock and if they wait you can circumvent it by playing Led,Tutor and then respond to the tutor with rituals maintaining priority.
*Merfolk is a bit on the rise and there is still a lot of SnT. I like Xantid Swarm at the moment. Since I'd have green anyways I'll be playing 2-3 Decays even if there isn't too much CB. There are Chalice decks and it's still a fine card versus random permanent hate.
37th GP Ams'11 | 80th GP Stras '13 | 5th BoM Paris '13 | 12th GP Lille '15
Question.
The SCG players that do well with ANT keep playing 2 gemstone mine main. Is this a good call, or are they just playing follow the leader?
Depends on your List and playstile. If you want to be more straightforward TES-like T1-2 cantrip, T2-3 go Off with protection you should run it. If you want to play more Controlling , searchinh for Protection and buisness until you Need to go Off - dont ever Touch it.
In my Opinion Matches where the First playstile is better ar better matchups in general, so if you want to be prepare against "worse" matchups (wich you should, because then you nearly habe nö Bad matchups anymore), Play a List without.
Big exception: MUD
If youre Meta is Full of that (where you Need to go Off fast and what is a Bad matchup) gemstone mines are fine.
But you shouldnt Play Combo in that Meta generally^^
Except from
That Fetches and Basics won't get wasted, Fetches and make your cantrips better... I dont think its ever worth Running them.
The latter, but most magic deck lists you can see around follow this priciple.
Greetings,
Iñaki.-
Spike-Johnny
My current list:
Grim Flames
4 Lotus petal
4 Lion's eye Diamond
4 Dark ritual
4 Cabal ritual
2 Cabal therapy
1 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
4 Infernal tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of agony
2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
5 Blue Fetches
SB:
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Dread of Night
2 Deathmark
1 Echoing Truth
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
I am still standing by the position that Ad Nauseam isn't very good, and Empty the Warrens is a better secondary win-con to Past in Flames. If this is truly a Past in Flames combo deck like many have acknowledged, why not make it as good as possible at doing what it does best? The 2 Grim Tutors help a LOT. As for my SB, I have the Swarms primarily for S+T. I don't particularly like them, but they are the best way to fight S+T decks, especially with the threat of Leyline of Sanctity. Deathmark has become good because it hits both Meddling Mage and Deathrite Shaman, and the Meddling Mage SB package in Deathblade Esper has become extremely popular in the States.
This deck is very good. I may be taking it to the SCG Invitational next month, but there's still some time to decide. I know that removing Ad Nauseam is daunting, but I am 100% on board for doing it.
Your list needs more Therapy. Not playing 4 Therapy in this deck should be a felony. 4 Therapy 3 Duress is a-ok, especially when you can use (and probably kinda need) those Therapies to protect your EtWs.
Therapy is certainly sick with Empty the Warrens. No one ever sees it coming. Duress and Thoughtseize are more consistent in an actual tournament in my opinion. Also in this metagame you often want to hit discard turn 1 rather than hold onto a Therapy for Force protection turn 3. I think I just like being conservative, as I initially had 4 Therapy, then went down to 3, then added the Thoughtseize and went down to 2. 3 could be correct, but 4 will put you in awkward situations in certain matchups.
Hello all, I'm a big fan of ANT and been playing Adam Prosak's list online quite a bit. My success rate has been decent but I feel like there are just some matchups and even specific cards that I'm just dead to. Most of this stems probably from the fact that the deck doesn't have any maindeck answers to permanents or spells on the stack.
For example a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg turn two usually means auto-game over. An active Liliana or Jace can also be trouble since the deck doesn't have any way to generate raw card advantage to force through. An explosive or even a half way decent start from a re-animator or Oops All Spells deck can be difficult if not possible to come back from. Somewhat surprisingly I've been able to fight through Chalice on zero and on one (although not in the same game).
It seems too much to ask for the maindeck discard to always fight back on these fronts esp since Duress cannot target a Thalia or Teeg. Boarding in a lot of perm-hate post-board makes the deck feel clunky and slow and not trying to fight on our own terms (i.e. the speed of combo). Any thoughts?
Sounds daunting to me, I'd really like to see the 2nd past in flames over the 2nd grim or the empty main (move to board over a swarm perhaps?).
Ugh, thoughtseize. If it works i guess :)
If you expect hatebears, board out the discard that can't hit them and work from there. It shouldn't feel that much different, except you might draw decay when you could have drawn a lotus petal. What are your board plans in these matchups?
Matt Bevenour in real life
Typically bringing in 2-3 Abrupt Decays, 2-3 Chains and Vapor and 0-1 Karakas. Usually subbing out a combination of discard (although not all for fear of Mindbreaks or even Surgicals), a Petal, a Preordain, and/or Probe(s).
This is why I recommend burning wish and playing 4 therapies main.
I know we've talked about this before like 5 or 10 pages ago, but why would 2 Grim Tutors be better than the Grinding Station shell? See here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...inding-Station
If you want to just have infinite business to beat counterspells and whatnot, it seems better to just play more Past in Flames. The card's sick.
ANT is a surprisingly fragile deck to maindeck hate permanents. It's possible to fight through Chalice on 1 or Thalia with +3s like Cabal Ritual and LED, but Teeg is a lock, multiple Chalices is a lock, and Lili is difficult. Its only real plan is to discard them or go off sooner, but ANT really is a turn 3 combo deck so that's a little suspect. I agree with your feelings about boarding just making the deck clunky - it's hard to board in more than 4 cards or so, and it's hard to cut anything but protection packages that are less effective.
Reanimator has always been ANT's nightmare matchup. It's a faster combo deck with Force of Wills. ANT can't really even afford the sideboard space or deck space to bring in enough hate. As far as fighting Liliana, you best bet is to drop all artifact mana on the table, build up your manabase, and try to set up for Past in Flames. If they have Deathrite Shaman as well, you're going to have a hard time.
So I feel like all these are problems that TES is much better at dealing with, but honestly it's pretty pointless to argue that opinion - it happens every few pages. I'd just urge you to take a look over at the TES thread.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
When you draw the Past in Flames, you need Rituals as well as a win-con (tutor or Tendrils). When you simply have the tutor, it acts as the entire engine by itself. This is the biggest difference between Grinding Station and my list. I would argue that my list has a more consistent kill because you don't need Tendrils + PiF, you just need a tutor.
I always thought the current ANT lists are super ignorant in the fact that they lose to a lot of cards game 1 against non-blue decks. Hypothetically, you can fight through a Chalice on 1 with multiple Cabal / LED / Petal, but realistically you'll have to dig and cantrip.. etc. Losses to Teeg immediately.
I'd like to go back to more of Timo's Burning ANT list from GP Ghent. Burning Wish allows you to have more options and have an out to maindecked hate like the above, losing to a turn 1-3 hatebear is the worst feeling when you're playing combo. Having access to Empty the Warrens is actually a good way to fight through discard (since you can just forget 3-4 storm count and go off a few turns early). Pyroclasm is big game against many of the meta's decks, even fair decks like Stoneblade to buy time. The deck may be a little more clunky due to multiple redundant tutors (which we can add more cantrips to mediate this), but at least you don't lose to Surgical Extraction / Extirpate and maindeck permanent-based hate. For reference, see below.
John Gatza's (t16). Burning ANT - SCG Philadelphia
Instant [13]
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
Sorcery [24]
3 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
Artifact [8]
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Land [15]
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
60 cards
Sideboard:
3 Dark Confidant
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
15 cards
Seriously not trolling here - why would you play Burning Wish in the ANT shell rather than TES? The reasons I've heard ANT is superior: more consistent manabase, more consistent draws because of so many cantrips, has a real sideboard, and has more powerful mana producers and storm engines (Cabal Rit and Past in Flames maindeck). Burning Wish opposes all of those plans. Now that Abrupt Decay is de rigueur required in storm combo, there's not a whole lot of difference between 6 rainbow lands over 5 colors and 4 colors with fetch/dual manabase. You have to cut cantrips to add Burning Wish - something that I'm obviously not opposed to, but I believe that if you do so, you should take it to the logical extension of making the deck as fast as possible to capitalize on a higher probability of having business in your opener. Burning Wish dilutes the sideboard and not having Silence makes insane TES storm engines like IGG and Diminishing Returns pretty bad. And finally, Burning Wish exiling itself really doesn't help with either Cabal Ritual or Past in Flames.
It seems like Burning Wish ANT plays to all the weaknesses of both strategies rather than the strengths.
Maybe I'm wrong in this, but my feeling is that the Prosak-ANT lists lose to their opponents while TES loses to itself. In other words, Prosak-ANT is very consistent at winning through a very small subset of things, but loses to a larger variety of hate. TES is more resilient...if it gets a decent draw.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
I've been having some success swapping out the Ad Nauseum for an Empty the Warrens maindeck. I like how it gives the deck an alternative way to win and doesn't rely unnecessarily on getting all the way there to finish off the opponent. Storming for 4-6 is acceptable and can stall out the game somewhat so that Tendrils can finish off the job, or the other way around if life is low due to some early pressure and Ad Nauseum wouldn't be a viable option.
I've had I mana issues at all with my build of ANT and the extra tutors aren't any more clunky than the 8 in TES, I feel like you haven't tested burning ANT at all. I switched over from TES which I have played for quite a while because on the SCG circuit every other round you play against a blue deck with discard which TES can have huge issues with. In terms of a sideboard I have my Bobs and my anti-hate and the only other thing I might want is hate against reanimator.
Edit- everyone trying to cut Ad Nauseam from the deck for empty is an idiot. Yes AN is awful in this deck for the most part but we need an alternative to PIF when we need to be faster like in combo mirrors or can't use our graveyard.
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