[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[nevilshute]

I wouldn't, you have to deal with possible discard and then possible disruption (even pierce/fluster online), and that hand lack protection. Moreover it is not a granted first turn kill, you need 1 more mana to even cast PiF. However if you had a FTK in hand (let's say change the petal for a ritual or led) then I'd keep of course. Though the Thalia thing seems weird to me...

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

He does have the mana for a turn-1 PiF and therefor the kill (assuming he can still get hellbent once he draws) @BrettF: Koby makes a valid point. If you draw another land you can't go off. If you draw a cantrip you (pretty likely) can't go off either. That said, I'd keep myself. But I'm easily dazzled ;)

[Koby]

So... Lim-dûl's Vault. How did I miss it for this deck?! Time to retool my list...

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Linking this here too, as it somehow feels relevant :p

http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ers-Vault.html

Enjoy :)

[BrettF]

Cool article! This card sets up some sick brainstorms. I'd love to see some more of the other ANT players takes on this variant.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Hello Martin!

I'm glad that your list and efforts gained a well deserved popularity.
Also, I'm with you on the "no basic" idea, the only thing that scares me are one-lander keeps, so I'll use one Island, especially as there's no other deck where I may play my oriental ODY Island I love, so lets keep it in.
Sadly I don't own Grim Tutor, and for the obvious reasons (I mean: reasons obvious to you) I'll never have any. So I have to try the list without it. Maybe I'll add one BW/Preordain, I can't tell yet.
Will we meet on Thu? Unless my wife will protest?
Btw, do you find the deck resilient enough to fight through the DRS? It's the only card that treally annoys me (ok, except maybe for the Counterbalance, but no one plays it anymore), and I'm not sure if the SDTs, double PiF ans sbed Seals are enough to circumvent the shaman.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Koby: Hehe, happy to hear it. Felt the same way (how could I miss this) when I started testing the card.

@BrettF: Thanks! I totally agree that I'd like to see more people pick up LDV and I also think they should (obviously, given I wrote the article). LDV truly feels like the tool the deck was missing to fill the last 1-2 slots.

Hello Martin!

I'm glad that your list and efforts gained a well deserved popularity.
Also, I'm with you on the "no basic" idea, the only thing that scares me are one-lander keeps, so I'll use one Island, especially as there's no other deck where I may play my oriental ODY Island I love, so lets keep it in.
Sadly I don't own Grim Tutor, and for the obvious reasons (I mean: reasons obvious to you) I'll never have any. So I have to try the list without it. Maybe I'll add one BW/Preordain, I can't tell yet.
Will we meet on Thu? Unless my wife will protest?
Btw, do you find the deck resilient enough to fight through the DRS? It's the only card that treally annoys me (ok, except maybe for the Counterbalance, but no one plays it anymore), and I'm not sure if the SDTs, double PiF ans sbed Seals are enough to circumvent the shaman.

If you need to replace the Grim Tutor - which I don't feel is necessary, there is such a thing as being business flooded - I'd start with the fourth Ponder instead of Preordain in Martin's list, though. ;)
As for Deathrite resilience, it depends. The faster the clock they can present in addition to Shaman and the earlier Shaman comes down, the more problematic things become. A lot of the time, though, especially against "normal" Deathrite decks (not BURG Delver) their clock is so abysmally slow that you can easily set up either a straight tutor chain kill or find the additional pieces to combo straight through Deathrite. After all, it only forces you to have additional Rituals or a second Infernal Tutor plus enough Rituals to not die to one being removed (enough mana allows you to tutor chain once before casting PiF to make sure they can't remove your tutor which also works as an additional bad ritual effect in case they decide to remove one of those instead). The maindeck Empty is also a great way of getting around Shaman as most Deathrite decks are pretty dead to a hoard of early goblins.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Yes, Mon, you're right. Unless they got clock, it shouldn't be impossible to win. Otoh, sometimes the discard and DRS activations are enoguh to kick us out of game.
On the fourth Ponder - I wanted to play it, of course. But I thought about additional cantrip, but well, you're right that it is not necessary.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Yes, Mon, you're right. Unless they got clock, it shouldn't be impossible to win. Otoh, sometimes the discard and DRS activations are enoguh to kick us out of game.
On the fourth Ponder - I wanted to play it, of course. But I thought about additional cantrip, but well, you're right that it is not necessary.

Oops, I just expressed myself badly. I was trying to say you don't actually need the Grim, LDV and Infernal (plus the engines themselves) should easily be enough business. My point was simply that, before stooping to play Preordain, you should add the fourth Ponder first (which is what I did in my list, too).

As for Deathrite, yeah, we definitely lose games to it. My point wasn't that it's bad against us, just that there are still a ton of ways to win around/through Deathrite so that I'm not worried about Deathrite resilience.

Sorry for expressing myself unclearly enough that you understood exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say :p

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Sorry for expressing myself unclearly enough that you understood exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say :p

Oh, I got your point now. No need to apologize, I was reading lazily...

[SaberTooth]

im going to play ant again, prozak's list -1 preordain +1 grim tutor and im building my sideboard for a big event coming, i was thinking about something like

3 xantids
1 toa
1 trop
3 abrupt decay
1 cabal therapy
2 chain of vapor

but i need to define the last slots. have no idea about the metagame really, i like sdt, but i think that something is missing. any ideas?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

im going to play ant again, prozak's list -1 preordain +1 grim tutor and im building my sideboard for a big event coming, i was thinking about something like

3 xantids
1 toa
1 trop
3 abrupt decay
1 cabal therapy
2 chain of vapor

but i need to define the last slots. have no idea about the metagame really, i like sdt, but i think that something is missing. any ideas?

The biggest thing missing in that sideboard - in my opinion - is a singleton Empty the Warrens (if you don't make room for it maindeck anyway). It's one of the easiest and best ways to profit from an early opening against the tempo-decks and a lot of other fair decks. There really is no good reason not to have access to a card that allows you to board out a terrible engine against the Delver decks (AdN) for one that is truly insane against them.
After that, I'd probably play the third Chain of Vapor - have been very happy with that against those matchups we're supposed to win but that board a bunch of permanent based hate to try and lock us out.
For the last two slots, your best line is to just guess what your most difficult common matchup will be. Surgicals or Tormod's Crypt help with Dredge and Reanimator (and can also come in in the mirror), Pyroclams help with mass-hatebear opponents and can actually be quite effective against Deathblade or BURG Delver (no to mention makes the non-Merfolk tribal matchups even better), Karakas is a nice catch all against the different Griselbrand decks as well as Teeg and Thalia, Dread of Night crushes Thalia decks, Sensei's Top gives you something quite useful to board in against discard and so does a second Ad Nauseam. If you really can't get any read on the meta, I'd probably pack two Extractions as those help in the hardest matchup you aren't prepared for yet (Reanimator).

[Zombie]

One thing if LDV catches on: We can finally push for the deck to be renamed to something more fitting. Vault Tendrils, Vault in Flames, anything not related to AdN.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

One thing if LDV catches on: We can finally push for the deck to be renamed to something more fitting. Vault Tendrils, Vault in Flames, anything not related to AdN.

Storm?

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[Secretly.A.Bee]

Vault has seen play in ANT, Doomsday Hybrid. It's okay. I think it is absolutely better now that there is a free cantrip, but it wasn't bad the first time. It should do well as a tutor, but it's lacking in those sticky situations that storm players have a tendency to get into where a Burning Wish would probably be more helpful, as it doesn't actually net you a card. Also, with blue in it, it's always going to require a land unless for some reason you popped an LED for blue, or luck-sack into a Petal.

-ABC

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Vault has seen play in ANT, Doomsday Hybrid. It's okay. I think it is absolutely better now that there is a free cantrip, but it wasn't bad the first time. It should do well as a tutor, but it's lacking in those sticky situations that storm players have a tendency to get into where a Burning Wish would probably be more helpful, as it doesn't actually net you a card. Also, with blue in it, it's always going to require a land unless for some reason you popped an LED for blue, or luck-sack into a Petal.

-ABC

Also as a blue it lacks the BW ability to walk through Pyroblasts like a champion. Otoh, the ability to cast it EOT outweights the fact that we don't draw the card. Also, BW is clunky. I loved to play the card, but after been business-flooded many times, I decided to play just two and then I abandoned them.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I made top 16 of the Legacy Open in Somerset with a record of 8-2. I beat 2 RUG Delver, 2 Show and Tell, Shardless BUG, Reanimator, Countertop, and Nic Fit. I lost to TES and Shardless BUG. I am running a list without Ad Nauseam, and I was very happy with Empty the Warrens main. Highlights of the day were definitely beating the Countertop and Reanimator decks 2-0 after losing the die roll. The tournament was fun. My opponents were all very nice, and the skill level was high. I really enjoy playing Legacy in the northeastern US.

[phazonmutant]

I made top 16 of the Legacy Open in Somerset with a record of 8-2. I beat 2 RUG Delver, 2 Show and Tell, Shardless BUG, Reanimator, Countertop, and Nic Fit. I lost to TES and Shardless BUG. I am running a list without Ad Nauseam, and I was very happy with Empty the Warrens main. Highlights of the day were definitely beating the Countertop and Reanimator decks 2-0 after losing the die roll. The tournament was fun. My opponents were all very nice, and the skill level was high. I really enjoy playing Legacy in the northeastern US.

Congrats! I like how they just listed your archetype as "Storm". Definitely puts some weight behind your argument that Ad Nauseam is just unnecessary...

[Pdingo]

Nice results!

[BrettF]

Patrunkenphat7,

I'd love to hear how you sideboard for each matchup. Would you give a brief overview of your SB card choices? Your board is a-typical and I like it.

I'll post it here so everyone else knows what im referring to:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=57897

2 Pithing Needle
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
1 Echoing Truth
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tropical Island

[nevilshute]

I played at a 21-man legacy tournament at my LGS a few nights ago and went 5-0 with a Burning Wish list. I also tried out Lim-Dul's Vault for the first time to mixed-to-positive results. Now firstly, my result should be taken with the caveat that I had some very, very good match ups. I didn't face one deck running counter magic and at least two of my five match ups were practically auto wins.

I'd like to share my thoughts on Lim-Dul's Vault as I'm currently unsure about it. Mostly I liked it. On a few occasions it got me to the one card I was missing which was great. I did, however, not once get to shoot off a LDV while having another cantrip in hand. Now five rounds of magic hardly a valid ground for comparison make, but even so I couldn't help but think that maybe it's because I'm running Burning Wish and therefore fewer cantrips. As you can see I'm running 4x Brainstorm, 4x Ponder, 4x Probe, 1x Preordain. I used to be running 2x Preordain but cut 1 for a LDV.

The other card I dropped for the second LDV was one of my seven discard spells meaning I now only run six, which I'm not totally comfortable with. Maybe it's just the price of running my two Burning Wish which I have no intention of dropping.

Could anyone share in with their recent experiences with LDV? How many cantrips are you running along side your LDV? Like I mentioned there were times when it worked like a charm to dig for that one card I was missing. But I just don't know if that warrants a spot in the deck. For the time being I'm keeping them in to do some more testing.

For reference, this is the list:

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Gitaxtian Probe
1x Preordain
2x Lim-Dul's Vault
2x Burning Wish
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Duress
1x Thoughtseize
4x Infernal Tutor

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
2x Island
1x Swamp

Sideboard:
3x Xantid Swarm
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Duress
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Grim Tutor
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tropical Island