[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[Sloshthedark]

short report delayed one week by my vacation, LGS, 27 players:

Grimflames fullmoon UBer Storm

2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
1 Grim Tutor
3 preordain
2 Past in Flames

61


SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Lightning Bolt
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 Notion Thief
SB: 2 Young Pyromancer
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Teferi's Realm

15


decent player 1 UB Reanimator

G1 - dieroll lost, I expect tempo and keep slower solid hand, he starts Watery grave, take 2, study, bin Elesh Norn, I laugh inside and ponder, 2 turns later he has Elesh in play he, nothing in hand and nothing for life total, based upon the watery grave start I debate over naming Spell pierce instead of Fow with therapy but resist the idea succesfully discarding the later
-3x preordain, -island, -swamp, -thoughtseize, -duress, -probe, -pif, +karakas +2x chain of vapor, + pithing needle + tropical +3x xantid swarm +Notion Thief

G2 - I keep 7 feat. needle and karakas, I needle a Griselbrand, he has T2 Iona (naming black) via Study and T4 Angel for my Karakas binning Iona again, my poor combat math tells me 10 goblins and lifeloss from Reanimate are incompatible with life if he fails to find and reanimate Griselbrand in the 1 turn window...


poor player 2 monoB discard

hmmm, he met with elves R1, justifies random 1-0 I guess, dieroll lost

G1 - he mulls 6, starts swamp go / 14 Goblins go ... probe check shows card to beware is Funeral Charm, he doesn't try to mimic any outs like ratchet bomb, no charm used (haha)
-preordain -therapy +2x chain of vapor

G2 - he mulls 6, starts swamp go / 14 Goblins go ... probe check shows card to beware is Funeral Charm, he fails to draw 2. land and live the dream of any outs


unknown player 3 LED Dredge

foreign, came here for a GP, I remember him visiting for the same reason 2 years ago playing dredge (I traumaticaly lost g1 to not desideboarding and and g3 to mono Putrid Imp aggro racing mono Painter aggro), I finaly win the die roll knowing he is still on dredge beating UBR Ant last round:

G1 - he is looking for Bazaar mulling to 5 = casual 3 after probe+therapy on 2 LEDs, his hand doesn't have bazaar nor dredger but 3 draw spells which he loses next turns and dies shortafter not bricking on lands
+lightning bolt +2x chain of vapor, +pyroblast, -swamp, -preordain, - thoughtseize -therapy

G2 - he hesitantly keeps 7 with leyline of the void, doensn't appreciate how good it actually is against my list because his slow hand cannot compete with casual 14 goblins T2


Christian UBrg Ant (16 cantrip modified)

good player, he wants to split (only players with 3:0), I want to play, my build is much better prepared for the mirror, he has Dark Confidant in SB, I win the die roll:

G1 - T2 I have tough decision which to discard - IT / Ad Nauseam / accel .. I choose DR, if he draws a ritual I'm likely dead, fortunately he has to cantrip into one which buys me the turn to kill him on my 3rd before he could do so
+lightning bolt +pyroblast +2x Notion Thief, -island, - swamp, - preordain, -duress

G2 - I have strong hand, regulary check for problems and discard him to 0 cards at one point with therapies, Notion Thief runs most of the distance despite facing late Dark confidant and natural ToA seal the deal after tricking him not to block last turn that matters

4-0 (8-0) ~27 players = Bayou, the shopkeeper is low on U duals and adds 4th player prize instead of played Tundra for the 1st =/

to be honest GP side events were a different story, empty luckpool offered incredible 3+ land draw rows, poor BSs, unneccesary close games and 1 punt resulting into 1-4 score and ultimate disgust, all bitter loses 1-2 obv., crushing reanimator doesn't count to "awesome" evening, although Notion Thief run the distance again... limited GP do not offer trading opportunities for me but jap. LED and kor. Meditate finds offer some comfort

Young Pyromancer is unfortunately too slow, neither swing the pendulum enough nor provides enough time compared to resources spent, therefore is crap in the deck... Teferi's realm used for rogue points, I don't have an opinion yet, but prefer Pernicious deed (now missed without Bayou)



1, @Ivanpei you are destined to lose the long games with 7 fetches and 4 targets, I don't understand the logic behind Gemstone mine, I shortly tested and watched Ant with Gemstones numerous times, Gemstone mine is exactly the card you want to fetch away, stifleproofness and opps hesistant to waste the Mine are larger merrits for me than color pseudostability it provides, which you chose to reduce by running 2 islands. Also why run suboptimal 7 fetches? you reduce consistency, I'd happily run 10 but cannot go under 6 fetchable targets... gemstone mine is poor t1 land for Ant although best played early and overall poor topdeck

2, @Cabalpit - wtf? ok I'm open to rogue ideas, but I have to smell some sence behind it, disfigure, now cabal pit - why the hell would you want to play that? have you read that card? read that again... ok now read that again again... and imagine some real gameplay scenarios, now switch off superman mode... only, ONLY reasonable application is Cannonist in a blue deck... and so many conditions to use that... ehm...

[ivanpei]

You guys goldfish MD waaay too much. If you don't take your sideboard into account, it is a problem. Of course more fetches are great MD, but once you play postboard games when you consistently need green for Decay and Xantid, you will thank yourself for playing Gemstones. I'm also playing islands and a swamp, resistance to wasteland is fine. You can always sandbag gemstones the same way you sandbag duals. A T1 Gemstone is not ideal, but the 3 counter limit has not really affected me. Smart play and tapping the right lands can save your Mine from expiring. Having 4 fetchable is fine. Along with gemstones, 5-6 lands as max is totally fine. In the long game mana is usually not the issue.

Not running Decay in the Sideboard of Storm is wrong wrong wrong. It is the best anti Counterbalance and Chalice of the void card in existence. Not only does it take care of the 2 biggest threats to this deck, you can even board it in against hatebears. It does everything and not playing them in the board is bad. Your board totally folds to Counterbalance and Chalice @1.

[Darkness]

You guys goldfish MD waaay too much. If you don't take your sideboard into account, it is a problem. Of course more fetches are great MD, but once you play postboard games when you consistently need green for Decay and Xantid, you will thank yourself for playing Gemstones. I'm also playing islands and a swamp, resistance to wasteland is fine. You can always sandbag gemstones the same way you sandbag duals. A T1 Gemstone is not ideal, but the 3 counter limit has not really affected me. Smart play and tapping the right lands can save your Mine from expiring. Having 4 fetchable is fine. Along with gemstones, 5-6 lands as max is totally fine. In the long game mana is usually not the issue.

Not running Decay in the Sideboard of Storm is wrong wrong wrong. It is the best anti Counterbalance and Chalice of the void card in existence. Not only does it take care of the 2 biggest threats to this deck, you can even board it in against hatebears. It does everything and not playing them in the board is bad. Your board totally folds to Counterbalance and Chalice @1.

I agree, a mix between Fetches and Gemstones works best, I have not had a problem with mana with a spilt of 7 fetches, Tropical Island in the board, and two Gemstones.

[bjholmes3]

That's what I use, and it's treated me quite well.

In fact, here is my build, for rating and fixing, as the Yugioh players would say.


4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Duress
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Karakas
1 Tropical Island
1 Undecided

[Sloshthedark]

You guys goldfish MD waaay too much. If you don't take your sideboard into account, it is a problem. Of course more fetches are great MD, but once you play postboard games when you consistently need green for Decay and Xantid, you will thank yourself for playing Gemstones. I'm also playing islands and a swamp, resistance to wasteland is fine. You can always sandbag gemstones the same way you sandbag duals. A T1 Gemstone is not ideal, but the 3 counter limit has not really affected me. Smart play and tapping the right lands can save your Mine from expiring. Having 4 fetchable is fine. Along with gemstones, 5-6 lands as max is totally fine. In the long game mana is usually not the issue.

Not running Decay in the Sideboard of Storm is wrong wrong wrong. It is the best anti Counterbalance and Chalice of the void card in existence. Not only does it take care of the 2 biggest threats to this deck, you can even board it in against hatebears. It does everything and not playing them in the board is bad. Your board totally folds to Counterbalance and Chalice @1.

I dislike Decay, the prohibitive casting cost makes it unwanted option vs. hatebear decks and other options are more effective for me, I understand you try to make it less prohibitive but worsen your g1 for SB which is wrong imho, although the Decay is perfectly castable with trop+bayou setup I still do not like it, Chalice is not a thing I'm afraid of (decks that play that are pretty bad and underplayed = Tezzeret, Stax, Chalice Goblins or questionably good and underplayed - MUD, Cloudpost, R-stompy -which is obviously worst match-up possible; still you can kill through CoV, Golem, I killed a guy with Trinisphere once from 20 - funny thing he had Mindbreak trap in hand and could not cast it =D, it's totally luck based, like maverick) , CB is classic argument - current iterations are mostly associated with RiP which totally kills me so my plan is to dodge the match-up (usually 0-1 in my 20+ people LGS meta), only situation I really miss the Decay is Ethersworn Cannonist vs. blue based decks...

[bjholmes3]

So you're saying that you don't want to run an out to the main lock of one of the most popular and powerful decks in the format because you can dodge the matchup? Pertaining to your meta, that's fine and good, but that's not a very convincing reason for the rest of us not to run the card.

[Sloshthedark]

So you're saying that you don't want to run an out to the main lock of one of the most popular and powerful decks in the format because you can dodge the matchup? Pertaining to your meta, that's fine and good, but that's not a very convincing reason for the rest of us not to run the card.

and I'm not trying to persuade you to abandon the card I'm defending my cardchoice, it's not good for me so it's usually not in my lists, that's all...

[cuthbertthecat]

and I'm not trying to persuade you to abandon the card I'm defending my cardchoice, it's not good for me so it's usually not in my lists, that's all...

I agree with you that decay doesn't really belong in this deck. Against all of the decks where you want decay except for counterbalance, they have wasteland to punish you for splashing removal. Too often, I find them just rotting in my hand and wishing they were any other card, usually echoing truth or something. Against counterbalance, you're boarding in 2-3 cards to deal with their 4 of, which would be fine if they had no other way of interacting with you, but they have clique, force, pierce, flusterstorm, some blasts, counterspell, sensei's top floating a force, etc. I'd rather have discard against them and use it early to nab a counterbalance than board in a card that will probably just end up sitting in hand doing nothing.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Nice read, Slosh. I was sad you hadn't time on Thu, but nvm, maybe we'll see each other this week. I think I'll finally take ANT, I'm quite disgusted with Thresh right now.
What about the GP, any remotely interesting experience?

[Dark Ritual]

That's what I use, and it's treated me quite well.

In fact, here is my build, for rating and fixing, as the Yugioh players would say.


4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Volcanic Island

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Duress
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Karakas
1 Tropical Island
1 Undecided

Nice double gemstone, double swamp manabase/not. I see no reason to run gemstone mine over tropical island + bayou or change a swamp into a bayou and turn the mines into fetch + trop to save on sideboard space. Gemstone mine is super meh as an unfetchable land. And 2 swamps? Why would you ever need two swamps. Black fetch > second swamp. Your list is Prosak's list with a slightly different sideboard/nothing new.

The reason decay is in here is due to just counterbalance and other permanents out of miracles that they board like canonist and meddling mage. I think 3 is the right number, but it depends on how much miracles you expect. If the field is going to be miracles heavy I'd run 4. My only problem with decay is not hitting leylines and against decks with wasteland it becomes a lot worse/hatebears.dec and DnT especially when they can port you as well. And for it sucking with basic island and volcanic island.

[Sloshthedark]

Nice read, Slosh. I was sad you hadn't time on Thu, but nvm, maybe we'll see each other this week. I think I'll finally take ANT, I'm quite disgusted with Thresh right now.
What about the GP, any remotely interesting experience?

Not much:

3 lands in opener, 4 lands drawn in a row, winning the game
merfolk player not finding single counterspell in the entire game, 2 standstills broken
Pithing needle on LED
Killing the Reanimator guy with Notion thief, no cards drawn, just aggro
Losing to 1 drop zoo without hate, winning the die roll
4/5 matches my opps were from our lgs
Not selling a single card
5 different animals met driving home :)

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Not much:
Pithing needle on LED

Oh, the good ol' Pithing Needle naming LED.

5 different animals met driving home :)

List?

[Sloshthedark]

Oh, the good ol' Pithing Needle naming LED.

List?

and his mean brother Stifle your LED missed me by a seat next 8-man...

doe, jackrabbit, squirell, stray cat, marten... in that order

[bjholmes3]

Nice double gemstone, double swamp manabase/not. I see no reason to run gemstone mine over tropical island + bayou or change a swamp into a bayou and turn the mines into fetch + trop to save on sideboard space. Gemstone mine is super meh as an unfetchable land. And 2 swamps? Why would you ever need two swamps. Black fetch > second swamp. Your list is Prosak's list with a slightly different sideboard/nothing new.

The reason decay is in here is due to just counterbalance and other permanents out of miracles that they board like canonist and meddling mage. I think 3 is the right number, but it depends on how much miracles you expect. If the field is going to be miracles heavy I'd run 4. My only problem with decay is not hitting leylines and against decks with wasteland it becomes a lot worse/hatebears.dec and DnT especially when they can port you as well. And for it sucking with basic island and volcanic island.

Oh dear, I meant 2 Island, 1 Swamp.

Also, forget you and your condescending remarks. This isn't a creativity contest, my list is similar to Prosack and Xu's lists because those are successful and proven builds. Everything in my deck has been proven by multiple pilots to be effective and powerful, even the 2 Gemstone Mines. They're my least favorite part of the deck, and the first I'll be changing, but don't you tell me that they don't work, because they do.

Also, neither Stifle nor Pithing Needle work on Lion's Eye Diamond, because it's a mana ability.

[Sloshthedark]

How many times have you had your working Gemstone mines stifled?

[bjholmes3]

That can't be Stifled either

[Dark Ritual]

Oh dear, I meant 2 Island, 1 Swamp.

Also, forget you and your condescending remarks. This isn't a creativity contest, my list is similar to Prosack and Xu's lists because those are successful and proven builds. Everything in my deck has been proven by multiple pilots to be effective and powerful, even the 2 Gemstone Mines. They're my least favorite part of the deck, and the first I'll be changing, but don't you tell me that they don't work, because they do.

Also, neither Stifle nor Pithing Needle work on Lion's Eye Diamond, because it's a mana ability.

Thanks for saying stifle works on nothing in this deck except fetchlands and storm triggers. Anyone who knows what they're doing knows that same with pithing needle.

I know Jake Xu in real life, and he wouldn't be on storm combo if it wasn't for me so shut the fuck up. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have put up the result with ANT that he did at SCG Minneapolis. I'm not claiming all the credit for his essentially first place finish but at the same time he doesn't have all the credit either.

I love how you immediately contradict yourself by saying that gemstone mine works and that it's the first thing you'll be changing in the list just like I told you to do. Gemstone mine does not belong in storm combo outside of TES. How many doomsday fetchland tendrils lists run gemstone mine when that's 5 color? Oh right they run zero because the card is meant to be tapped for mana once for a cantrip, second time for the kill typically. We don't run silence or rite of flame, so I don't see how that card helps us more than running, say, another underground sea or getting more sideboard slots by running a tropical island or bayou over it so you don't have to run a land in your sideboard that isn't named karakas/having more precious sideboard slots to help out in games 2 and 3.

I love how you also said that your list was very similar to Prosaks list when it is Prosaks list card for card in the maindeck with a few sideboard changes for metagame consideration in all likelihood. We all know Prosak and his list as his list is common knowledge. Cutting and pasting his list with a few tiny sideboard changes doesn't make you remotely clever, just saying.

[bjholmes3]

What is your problem? I'm not trying to be special or clever by showing off my "fancy original deck list". I'm posting the cards that I've been using so there is a point of reference for my opinion on cards and for my changes in the future. It doesn't matter that they're the same as anybody else's because creativity doesn't matter like results do, at least not to me. Last I checked, this was a forum for people to discuss ideas and the like, not for geniuses like you to throw around how awesome they fancy themselves to be and how unworthy players like me are, players who are just still learning, which is really the lot of us.

Nonetheless, I can respect your suggestions on the Mines, and I'll promptly make better adjustments to my mana base, but your opinion would've been much nicer to swallow without an aftertaste of dick.

[Sloshthedark]

That can't be Stifled either

Well, I know...

@rogueideals - I'm playing Bloodmoon in SB today...

[PissedNumlock]

Played ANT at a local 50person tournament this weekend. Situation that occurred was the following, although details are a bit fuzzy.

My hand: Therapy + ritual, LED, infernal (basically enough to kill him)
Graveyard: 1 ponder, 1 preordain, 1 brainstorm, nothing else that is relevant.

Opponent's hand: Surgical, FoW, 1 unknown

I have a line where I can therapy his FoW, and kill him without going through PiF.
Therapy takes FoW, but reveals stifle as the unknown card. This means I need to go through PiF in order to win. I do not have enough mana to both cast PiF, flashback therapy, cast Infernal (which I assume he will take with surgical) to find tendrils and kill him. He ends up exiling my therapy when I cast PiF instead.

I need to find the following things

• Some ritual/mana as I do not have enough to cantrip + duress/therapy + tendrils
• Said duress of therapy
• Tendrils

The question I have is whether you start by flashbacking your cantrips first, relying on brainstorm to put back dead cards in case you ponder/preordain into nothing. Or do you go for infernal tutor first to find your singleton tendrils, but then cards like LED are dead if you find them with your cantrips.

I started by flashing back preordain and ponder, finding a land and a duress which took his stifle. I then needed to cast Infernal to find a LED, and then cast brainstorm hoping to find my tendrils in the top3 (which I did).