Probe helps actively win as well. It makes your Therapies better and lets you know when it may be safe to go off. It is mana-less storm that synergises well with Past in Flames.Originally Posted by Dzra
Cabal Therapy is a skill-tester. Maybe people aren't confident about their skills.
Preordain is slower. Once you get past like 8-10 cantrips, more cantrips actually just slow you down (although they can make you more consistent). I don't have data on that, but that's how it's always felt. The Probe gives you velocity, storm, and works well with Therapy and knowing whether to go for it.
Maybe people have had success with 1 BW main, but I think that speaks to storm's power, not the soundness of the build. You're throwing away a fifth of your sideboard. If you're going to choose to have Burning Wish, I just cannot understand why you wouldn't at least play 3 to maximize it.
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Because three BWs are one too many. Also, I'm not sure if "throwing away a fifth of your sideboard" is true. Slosh played 2nd ToA which he boarded against Thresh, one EtW which he boarded against Thresh some Duress or what, plus Pyroclasm. I wouldn't say that these cards were spoiling his sb and the fact that they were available G1 has little in common with common "wishboards". You would play them no matter the BW, so I'd say that "throwing away a sixtieth of your mainboard" is more accurate. and then we're back in the territory of things that don't matter...
I'm not sure and I hardly ever find the truth, but I think I had most successes with the 2 BW version.
This is not necessarily on topic, but what about "Storm In Flames" as the new list name? Works well in my opinion.
I'm using as my tutor package:
4 Infernal Tutor
2 LDV
1 B Wish
I only run Tendrils and EtW as wish targets, but often enough (along with RIP in several matchups to let me grab my IT back) that's enough. By the way, Double Tendrils is awesome. So awesome.
-ABC
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not cutting ad nauseum. Card is too good
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I've just been calling it Past in Flames Tendrils... or PfffffT. lol
Even though I agree with you and won't be removing it anytime soon, this really isn't much of an Ad Nauseam deck. Ad Nauseam is mainly just good as a supplemental and occasionally as a totally alternative engine, but it's never my go-to.
Why would you quit playing it? Because it's not the namesake of the deck? That's dumb. I've got it sb'ed right now (teaching myself how to play around DRS's; it's kinda hard...), but I would never cut it from my 75. Ever. It's too powerful. It's an urefined power, but the chaff is ignored and the path to victory is usually in the many cards dropped from the life-loss.
TES doesn't subscribe a name out of a card, and honestly I don't know why the deck quit using the name Fetchland Tendrils. That has always been a key element of the strategy of the deck. Fetches create pseudo-tutoring effects that is highly capitalized on in this deck, especially 12-16 cantrip builds. Fetches allow for library thinning, creating virtual card advantage by way of upping your threat density. These are all important, and just a few of the many aspects of the deck that wouldn't be possible without fetches, and the deck would not be what it is today.
FTIF (Fetchland Tendrils in Flames)
-ABC
Agreed. I get that you have a theory about how to win through leyline and all, but even in your testing that you chose to use for the article, it didn't work. They just won.
You're trying to find a 3-of (swarm) AND a 2-of (chain), they're trying to find a 4-of (leyline), they don't have to cast theirs, you do, their deck can easily be just as fast as you (if not faster), and their protection can blank half of your deck.
Let's say you win game one. They're on the play game 2, they open with a 7 card hand and start with leyline in play. Then they play an island, ponder, pass the turn. Now they have 5 cards in hand (and they've pondered, so they've had some access to card selection).
You draw for the turn, and have the following hand.
Polluted Delta
Lotus Petal
Lion's Eye Diamond
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Duress
Infernal Tutor
Brainstorm
This hand casts Ad Nauseam on turn 1 quite easily, but you have to crack the LED to do it, and if they have a counterspell, you probably just lose the game becuase you have a land and a lotus petal in play and they have 3 cards left and a leyline.
Do you just make them have it? Or do you start brainstorming looking for one of 5 cards (3 Swarms and 2 Chains) to try and hope you can get a better chance? If you don't go off this turn, sure you might find something with the Brainstorm, but they could easily play a land and a cantrip and hold up 1 mana for Flusterstorm next turn (which they definitely have in the deck).
Maybe it's just anecdotal, but I feel like this is the situation I run into almost every match I play with S&T. I can just go for it and make them have it, or I can give us both time to develop, which benefits them immensely because they can either find protection or they can just go off, and I have to find a limited number of specific answers.
No, because Ad Nauseum is just so-so in this deck. ANT is a slower storm deck so it gets life-pressured more. It also has a lower business count and higher average CMC than say TES, making the chance for a successful series of flips less likely.
Did they shuffle with Ponder? I'm likely to brainstorm now, adjust game plan depending on what you find.
With the 1 or 2 Burning Wish plan, is Past in Flames the best sideboard option for an engine? It doesn't seem like a great option since you need to have another tutor either in hand or gy, and at least 2 Red to do this. I don't have experience with ANT and Burning Wish, is that not hard to accomplish?
I like the sound of Ill Gotten Gains since it turns on the double LED draw (with less rituals) you might have, but you would still need a nother tutor for this option.
Not sure if Diminishing Returns is playable out of the sb in this deck.
Thoughts?
Well, let's start by looking at historic BW ANT decks: https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazi...nt12/welcome#1
So IGG is definitely reasonable, but DimRet probably isn't. It's pretty bad when you don't run Silence or a bunch of IMSs.
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Thanks for link and response.
I dare to add, that both a pretty miserable without Silence or additional IMP's but IGG suffers under the riss of DRS and RIP
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I love IGG as it shines in the area where PiF really lacks: Artifact use. Having to hit rituals and then dumping my hand using mana/brainstorm lands back into my library instead of being able to reuse my LED so I can IT for Tendrils has been a challenge for me (this is obviously when I Ad Nauseam in tandem with PiF). It takes a dimension of the deck away that I never really had to worry about before. Losing the ability to make myself discard my hand to tutor for the win has become an annoyance that I want fixed. I don't know how, but I am gonna figure a way out. Enough is enough.
Putting AN in your board for the matchups it shines in. Otherwise it's going to be available as a bad option that you will be tempted to use when it will more likely just kill you for them.
-ABC
Alright, sorry for being absent for a bit, here's how I see the Leyline issue: Concerning the game in the article, yes they just won - because I mulled into a risky hand and missed. Essentially what happened is that I fizzled, Leyline or no Leyline (though the Duress would obviously have helped without the Leyline). Had I hit business at any point before dieing (and hitting cantrips kind of counts as all I needed was a Tutor), that game would have been an easy, utterly non-interactive win. All Leyline does is force you to play more aggressively than you otherwise would (as you have to race their likely turn 3-4 kill, their turn 2 potential is actually rather negligible as it relies on four specific cards in S&T, Sol land, Omni/Halls plus Enter/Wish/Intu. I haven't calculated the exact odds but that comes up probably below 5% of the time, especially if you also figure in the likelihood of having a Leyline to protect it all).
With the hand you suggest, I'd probably just straight go for it, though I'd be tempted to Brainstorm first and see if I can't unearth a Swarm/Chain given that I have access to nine mana, enough to cast the Brainstorm as well as Tutor into AdN. A sticking point there is blue mana (to cast the Chain which you'll need at some point if you're going for it this turn), which is a reason to rather want to keep the Petal around. The first thing I'd do is to try to get a read if they have Force. If I feel they have it, I'd cast Brainstorm and see where that leads. If Brainstorm misses I'd go for it anyway. If I get the impression they're vulnerable, I'd ignore the Brainstorm and try to just kill them. I know it feels bad and goes against everything the deck is built to do in usual games but if they have Leyline you just want to get the game over with ASAP and have to take higher risks accordingly.
I definitely would end up going for it this turn if I don't find Swarm/Chain because, as you mentioned, letting them untap allows them to cast more cantrips (to find the counter they're rather unlikely to have right now) and keep up mana for additional disruption they might have (like the mentioned Flusterstorm). Note, by the way, that they're looking for even more specific cards than you're looking for with your five Chains/Swarms. What they're looking for against that hand is exactly Force of Will.
What it all boils down to is this:
They have four Leylines and four Forces to interact with you. That gives them roughly a 16% chance to open a hand with both at the same time (or so I believe, as opening any single card is roughly 40%). So if they have a Leyline and you have neither Swarm nor Chain (which you're more likely to have than them hitting Leyline in the first place) but can kill them, that gives you a 84% chance to just win right now. Even if the Ponder adds another 10% chance for them hitting the Force (I expect it's lower than that), that leaves you with a 75% win rate. Sounds decent to me.
Between five ways to threaten Leyline/the countermagic it might be protecting, the ability to goldfish significantly faster than they do and the fact that both of your engines will usually allow you to answer Leyline while creating the necessary Storm and mana for the win, Leyline is an annoyance but far from game over. Add a very positive matchup in any normal game in which they don't Leyline up, and you have a matchup I'm not only not afraid of but happy to sit down against.
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I like Past in Flames fine as a SB option. I've tried IGG before, but found that I'd rarely grab it over PiF. You need a second Tutor for either one and PiF is generally just better. Double LED hands are nice for IGG, but if you have double LED as well as an Infernal Tutor then you're probably set either way.
Diminishing Returns is pretty risky. I've tried Time Spiral before since it's not uncommon to have several lands out. It can be nice against discard, non-Blue decks, but I've since dropped it because I just didn't need it often enough.
I appreciate the full response, but I read it twice, and as near as I can tell the answer is "Try to find a swarm or chain, but if you don't, hope they don't have Force of Will." I guess maybe that's the strategy you need to have, but the entire reason I play ANT and not TES is because I don't like the "man, I hope this works" element of the deck, I much prefer working with perfect information and sculpting the right response before just winning. Maybe I should just go back to High Tide ;)
It just distresses me that Leyline + Force of will is pretty much game over, and they know it. I know you're saying it's only a 16% chance for them to have it, but they're mulliganing to it, obviously. I just have trouble seeing it as a positive matchup when all they need is a two card combo to just beat me.
At this point, if they mulliganed to Leyline AND Force, you should have enough time to durdle, while cantripping and searching for your answers or additional copies of them. If they start with Leyline AND Force, while still winning on turn 3 or so, then, yeah, you lost against the nuts. That happens and it's okay I think.
May try this perspective: Running TES, you can bait the FoW with Silence/Swarm and then cast Infernal for Ad Nauseam into Chain of Vapor ... more of "man, this DID work!"
;D
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