[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[dissy]

Hello everyone,

I'am new to the ANT deck played it a couple of times during a legacy night with some friends.
I don't play xantid swarm. I have my doubts how good the xantid swarm is.
Dont we have our discard spells for counterspells?
And when we expect a counterspell to come up dont we just go for a small empty the warrens to kick the opponent?

I'am asking this question because i dont really have a slot for 3 xantid swarms my sideboard is

4x dark confidant
3x abrupt decay
2x massacre
1x pyroclasm
1x perish
1x reverent silence
1x chain of vapors
1x empty the warrens
1x tendrils of agony

I would like to hear ur oppinion on my sideboard and if u guys think the xantid swarm is absolutley neccesary

[Togores]

When u play vs decks like cloudpost, omnitell, sneak atack, merfolks and so.

you will miss the xantids a lot when seeing you oppoentnst full of spellpierces, flusters and so + pressure on board.

[Lemnear]

Hello everyone,

I'am new to the ANT deck played it a couple of times during a legacy night with some friends.
I don't play xantid swarm. I have my doubts how good the xantid swarm is.
Dont we have our discard spells for counterspells?
And when we expect a counterspell to come up dont we just go for a small empty the warrens to kick the opponent?

I'am asking this question because i dont really have a slot for 3 xantid swarms my sideboard is

4x dark confidant
3x abrupt decay
2x massacre
1x pyroclasm
1x perish
1x reverent silence
1x chain of vapors
1x empty the warrens
1x tendrils of agony

I would like to hear ur oppinion on my sideboard and if u guys think the xantid swarm is absolutley neccesary

Why, if you are new to the deck and it's cards, don't you seek guidance for a 75 through the community (which put countless hours into development of the deck), but simply doubt the storm's hive mind here, cut Xantids for a clueless mix of cards like Perish or Reverent Silence and then ask for opinions while you didn't even bother to explain your choices?

Xantid is there for Leyline of Sanctity and deck overloading on counterspells like Spell Pierce, Envelop, Flusterstorm, Swan Song, Stifle or whatever counter of choice is played, blanking them ALL so you don't need half a dozen discard-spells to pick them apart one by one. I thought this is very obvious and I bet it's even covered somewhere in the primer on the very first page of this thread.

[nevilshute]

Why, if you are new to the deck and it's cards, don't you seek guidance for a 75 through the community (which put countless hours into development of the deck), but simply doubt the storm's hive mind here, cut Xantids for a clueless mix of cards like Perish or Reverent Silence and then ask for opinions while you didn't even bother to explain your choices?

Xantid is there for Leyline of Sanctity and deck overloading on counterspells like Spell Pierce, Envelop, Flusterstorm, Swan Song, Stifle or whatever counter of choice is played, blanking them ALL so you don't need half a dozen discard-spells to pick them apart one by one. I thought this is very obvious and I bet it's even covered somewhere in the primer on the very first page of this thread.

Strong... Love the attittude.

Read the part in bold and ignore the rest for an answer to your question on Xantid Swarm, Dissy.

I'm guessing you're running Burning Wish in your main? If so then I think I would cut your sweeper count down from three to two. Probably just 2 Massacre. Then, when playing against hatebears I'd bring in one of them and keep the other as a wish target. I'd also bring in a three Abrupt Decay. Regardless, Perish must be removed as it doesn't kill any hatebear other than Gaddock Teeg. If you want to run a split of one Massacre and one other sweeper then may I suggest any one of Virtue's Ruin, Toxic Deluge or [Drown in Sorrow].

[dissy]

Thanx for the feedback,

Sorry that i didnt explain the choises although i did spend a lot of hours in research watching gameplay reading deck techs compare tons of differents build

The reason why i go with revirent silence en perish is the following.
Where iam from a lot of people play elves, it also kills deathrite shaman, tarmogoys ooze gaddock and so on.
So perish sounds like a good choise for me. It might be a good matchup for us anyways and that we don't need to kill them because we are faster.
But iam not sure about that.
I sculptered my sideboard with help of forums and countless hours of watching SCG live, also the meta in our region is important.
You dont see a lot show and tell decks in our meta. and when u expect one is it not just easier to duress it or cabal therapy? also the swarm maby to slow if its not in ur opening seven or next draw (unless you want to mull for it?)
The decks that play those counter spells often play abrubt decays, disfigures, lightningbolts, sword to plowshares and so on and so on (at least in my region).
Thats why i went for this sideboard. Of all the counterspells the only big ones are the force of will and the flusterstorm.
We can play around daze en spell pierce.
The reason why i play revirent silence is easy. The biggest problem for our deck besides counterspells are the following (in my oppinion):
- counterbalance
- rest in peace
- leyline of sanctity
- spirit of the labyrinth (this is really a b*itch in the death and taxes deck)
So i think a one off is needed next to the abrupt decays.
Specially because the abrupt decay cannot target the leyline.
Why i play massacre is obvious it works against death and taxas and tribal deck like goblins elves merfolks and so on. it also kills delvers stoneforge mystics TNN and so on. for the same reason i also have pyroclasm.
The dark confidants are for the long matchups with loads of discards spells.

I hope i explained my choises a bit better now,

Thx in advance

[CabalTherapy]

Thanx for the feedback,

Sorry that i didnt explain the choises although i did spend a lot of hours in research watching gameplay reading deck techs compare tons of differents build

The reason why i go with revirent silence en perish is the following.
Where iam from a lot of people play elves, it also kills deathrite shaman, tarmogoys ooze gaddock and so on.
So perish sounds like a good choise for me. It might be a good matchup for us anyways and that we don't need to kill them because we are faster.
But iam not sure about that.
I sculptered my sideboard with help of forums and countless hours of watching SCG live, also the meta in our region is important.
You dont see a lot show and tell decks in our meta. and when u expect one is it not just easier to duress it or cabal therapy? also the swarm maby to slow if its not in ur opening seven or next draw (unless you want to mull for it?)
The decks that play those counter spells often play abrubt decays, disfigures, lightningbolts, sword to plowshares and so on and so on (at least in my region).
Thats why i went for this sideboard. Of all the counterspells the only big ones are the force of will and the flusterstorm.
We can play around daze en spell pierce.
The reason why i play revirent silence is easy. The biggest problem for our deck besides counterspells are the following (in my oppinion):
- counterbalance
- rest in peace
- leyline of sanctity
- spirit of the labyrinth (this is really a b*itch in the death and taxes deck)
So i think a one off is needed next to the abrupt decays.
Specially because the abrupt decay cannot target the leyline.
Why i play massacre is obvious it works against death and taxas and tribal deck like goblins elves merfolks and so on. it also kills delvers stoneforge mystics TNN and so on. for the same reason i also have pyroclasm.
The dark confidants are for the long matchups with loads of discards spells.

I hope i explained my choises a bit better now,

Thx in advance

I am not sure if you are aware of the existence of Chain of Vapor.

[nevilshute]

Thanx for the feedback,

Sorry that i didnt explain the choises although i did spend a lot of hours in research watching gameplay reading deck techs compare tons of differents build

The reason why i go with revirent silence en perish is the following.
Where iam from a lot of people play elves, it also kills deathrite shaman, tarmogoys ooze gaddock and so on.
So perish sounds like a good choise for me. It might be a good matchup for us anyways and that we don't need to kill them because we are faster.
But iam not sure about that.
I sculptered my sideboard with help of forums and countless hours of watching SCG live, also the meta in our region is important.
You dont see a lot show and tell decks in our meta. and when u expect one is it not just easier to duress it or cabal therapy? also the swarm maby to slow if its not in ur opening seven or next draw (unless you want to mull for it?)
The decks that play those counter spells often play abrubt decays, disfigures, lightningbolts, sword to plowshares and so on and so on (at least in my region).
Thats why i went for this sideboard. Of all the counterspells the only big ones are the force of will and the flusterstorm.
We can play around daze en spell pierce.
The reason why i play revirent silence is easy. The biggest problem for our deck besides counterspells are the following (in my oppinion):
- counterbalance
- rest in peace
- leyline of sanctity
- spirit of the labyrinth (this is really a b*itch in the death and taxes deck)
So i think a one off is needed next to the abrupt decays.
Specially because the abrupt decay cannot target the leyline.
Why i play massacre is obvious it works against death and taxas and tribal deck like goblins elves merfolks and so on. it also kills delvers stoneforge mystics TNN and so on. for the same reason i also have pyroclasm.
The dark confidants are for the long matchups with loads of discards spells.

I hope i explained my choises a bit better now,

Thx in advance

Elves is a good matchup for us. We are close to one turn faster and have discard which will effectively make them even slower. If you side in Perish you are siding out something relevant and diluting your deck. You should never be doing this against elves. You can reasonably expect them to side in discard and maybe something like Thorn of Amethyst. Also, at least here in Europe, Elves are running Ruric Thar as NO/GSZ target. For these reasons I always bring in one or two Chain of Vapors (even though Chain is often not enough for Thar).

At this point in time, the only decks that are likely to run the white leyline are Show and Tell decks. I would always prefer Xantid Swarm + Chain of Vapor to answer this. If I were playing Burning Wish and I was expecting to see white leylines I would probably play a Reverent Silence in my board. As it happens, the show and tell decks I've come across in the last few months at least have not been running leylines at all. If they are not running the leylines then the Xantid Swarms are not a necessity. Instead, your 7 discard spells are suffecient to beat show and tell. If you are NOT running Burning Wish then I really think Reverent Silence is poor choice. Yes it can kill more than one enchantment at once - which won't come up very often - and it is "free" which is nice. But here's the thing. The decks with most troublesome enchantments (counterbalance and white leyline) don't run any mana denial... so getting to one mana (Chain of Vapor) or two (Abrupt Decay) is never going to be an issue. Why not, then, play one of these cards that have SO much more flexibility. Reverent Silence is too narrow. So yeah... if there aren't much Show and Tell in your local meta I'd probably prefer not to play the swarms at all.

Dark Confidant have, to me at least, always come up worse than I expected. They can occasionally be impressive in the mirror, but will just as often be bad. Turn 2, tap out, cast dark confidant on the draw seems like a very mediocre play against storm. The thing about Dark Confidant is, that he needs to survive TWO turns to generate card advantage. The first time you untap with him he merely replaces himself. That makes him quite soft to your opponents' removal. How many decks with "loads of discard spells" won't run removal? Jund will have bolts and liliana, BUG will have some number decays after board + liliana. He is at his best, probably, against miracles but even then, good miracle players will have at least a few answers to him post board. Sawatrix has started playing Young Pyromancer in his place. I've tried it out too now and it quite strong. Generally you only need to untap ONCE with him to get the pay off of two tokens or more. Depending on what point in the game he gets played you can start to benefit immediately.

[sawatarix]

Perfecly summed up by Martin,nothing more to add from my side :)

Not to forget the 6 lifegain from reverent silence,sometimes it can be an issue. (-> additional 3 storm)


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[CabalTherapy]

If you are well-versed with ANT you may skip this post: Some general thoughts incoming:

I feel the urge to elaborate on a specific card which I mentioned before after reading dissy's post: Chain of Vapor.
Yeah, you all know that card but I think that some people are not that enthusiastic about this card. Well, this post might be some kind
of redundant but I would like to explain (especially for the new players) why CoV is our best sideboard card. That's a statement I guess.

First of all the basic reading: instant, cc1, U, bounces non-land permanents and allows chains with LED, Petal = perfect
ANT's swiss army knife (just as former Solidarity's Crypric Command ). It can handle almost everything on its own. Works well against hate bears,
against Leyline, semi-hate bears like Deathrite Shaman, and assuming one boards and plays correctly, never a dead card. (can't be stated for other SB cards like Decay, Massacre and stuff like that)

Wizards may print a storm-hate bear in every set and each of them will be vulnerable to CoV (as long as they don't print something with protection from blue, Mother of Runes doesn't count here ). In addition to that, even if one does not know what to board (either due to missing experience or because of opponent's homebrew deck...) Chain is always a solid choice.
Therefore, I would like to recommend playing not less than 2 (I am playing 3 = better for me due to my boarding plans). Build your SB around that card and do not cut it in favor of some R. Silence stuff or random one offs (even in a Burning Wish variant, one can certainly find room for some BW targets.)

[gregtron]

[U]

Wizards may print a storm-hate bear in every set and each of them will be vulnerable to CoV (as long as they don't print something with protection from blue, Mother of Runes doesn't count here ). In addition to that, even if one does not know what to board (either due to missing experience or because of opponent's homebrew deck...) Chain is always a solid choice.
Therefore, I would like to recommend playing not less than 2 (I am playing 3 = better for me due to my boarding plans). Build your SB around that card and do not cut it in favor of some R. Silence stuff or random one offs (even in a Burning Wish variant, one can certainly find room for some BW targets.)

I think a lot of people who run BW dedicate to many sideboard slots for it. There are so many awesome non-sorcery cards we can board in for various things, it becomes unnecessary to board weaker answers just because BW finds them. I normally only keep about five or six sorceries in my board. 1 Tendrils, 1 Tempty, 1 IGG, and 2-4 hatebear sweepers (Grapeshot, Massacre, Pyroclasm, Virtue's Ruin), and sometimes an extra Thoughtseize.

[gregtron]

Also, shoutout to all of you advocating Young Pyromancer in board. I got to cast Cabal Therapy four times on turn 2 this past weekend.

[Lordofthestringz]

Speaking of Young Pyromancer, i like him in the sideboard but i still havent tested him against Tempo decks.

Do you guys think he is better against tempo decks than Carpet of Flowers?

What i like in theory is that Pyromancer + Cabal Therapy will allow us to manage all the flusterstorms/stifles and forces, but Carpet of Flowers is also great to circumvent all the soft counters.

Or someone prefere some other strategy against tempo decks?

[nevilshute]

I think what makes him strong against tempo decks has less to do with us being able to play around soft counters and more to do with the fact, that most tempo decks just can't handle the "tempo loss" they incur from their opponent having a token machine like the pyromancer. Most delver decks run 12 creatures at most. If you can stick him on turn 2 and they don't have removal, then their plan of sticking a delver and riding it to victory while keeping up counter magic is basically worthless now as you will, with in the frame of one turn after untapping have a greater clock than them and an increasing one. Eventually you can kill them straight up through combat dmg or a combination of combat dmg and a baby tendrils.

[sawatarix]

Yep,i remember a crazy g2 against ur delver wen my opponent started with turn1 delver.
I slammed 2 pyromancers on turn 3 and 4,guess who won the race ;-)

It's a completely different attack angle which has a great synergy with the deck. gitaxian probe,therapy and pyromancer belong together.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[dissy]

Wow,

That looks pretty good indeed nice sinergy.
If u play it how many times would u have pyromancer in the sideboard?

[wonderPreaux]

Wow,

That looks pretty good indeed nice sinergy.
If u play it how many times would u have pyromancer in the sideboard?

do you mean how many copies to play? I'm liking 4, because you want to see them asap, and multiples stack quite nicely

[Zombie]

Elves is a good matchup for us. We are close to one turn faster and have discard which will effectively make them even slower. If you side in Perish you are siding out something relevant and diluting your deck. You should never be doing this against elves. You can reasonably expect them to side in discard and maybe something like Thorn of Amethyst. Also, at least here in Europe, Elves are running Ruric Thar as NO/GSZ target. For these reasons I always bring in one or two Chain of Vapors (even though Chain is often not enough for Thar).

Are you rating Ruric Elves and no-Ruric Elves the same? Because their fundamental turn in the Storm matchup is drastically different. Elves have a bunch of quirky lines that result in a T2 NO, but without Ruric those are pretty useless. Ruric ups the fundamental turn a good bit. Still clearly Storm-favoured by some margin though because even if the decks are equally fast, Storm has the discard, which is a bitch. Ruric-less Elves are a total dog to Storm G1 - Storm is both almost a turn faster as said and has discard to boot. Postboard who's favoured depends so much on the specific sideboards and boarding plans it's not funny. But when playing Elves I'm typically not scared of Storm postboard.

Storm's Public Enemies #1 and#2 are Natural Order and Quirion Ranger. I can't stress this enough: Take Quirion Rangers. They're the key to most of the really explosive shenanigans Elves can do, taking a Ranger can easily buy you a turn or more.

[nevilshute]

Are you rating Ruric Elves and no-Ruric Elves the same? Because their fundamental turn in the Storm matchup is drastically different. Elves have a bunch of quirky lines that result in a T2 NO, but without Ruric those are pretty useless. Ruric ups the fundamental turn a good bit. Still clearly Storm-favoured by some margin though because even if the decks are equally fast, Storm has the discard, which is a bitch. Ruric-less Elves are a total dog to Storm G1 - Storm is both almost a turn faster as said and has discard to boot. Postboard who's favoured depends so much on the specific sideboards and boarding plans it's not funny. But when playing Elves I'm typically not scared of Storm postboard.

Storm's Public Enemies #1 and#2 are Natural Order and Quirion Ranger. I can't stress this enough: Take Quirion Rangers. They're the key to most of the really explosive shenanigans Elves can do, taking a Ranger can easily buy you a turn or more.

Around here, everyone plays with main deck Ruric-Thar so it's from that position that I'm writing. With Ruric Thar in the main I still feel like the favorite against Elves in game one although, like allude, with or without Ruric Thar makes a huge difference, and there's definitely a non-trivial risk of just losing on the spot on turn two or three if you just derp around / they get the nuts.

I probably win something like 3 out of 4 game ones (haven't tested intensely, this is from tournament experience over the past six-eight months including the most recent BoM). Against a competent elves pilot I feel close to 50/50 in game two if on the draw, but am okay losing that game as I again feel favorite in game three on the play. It's not like it's 90/10 and that I'm on autopilot against Elves. Can easily lose that way. I do, however, feel like I win something between 60-70 % of this matchup. Meh, might be warping this percentage slightly due to bias or vanity or vanity bias, but I don't think many people would argue that in the storm vs elves matchup storm is favorite

[Zombie]

Around here, everyone plays with main deck Ruric-Thar so it's from that position that I'm writing. With Ruric Thar in the main I still feel like the favorite against Elves in game one. I probably win something like 3 out of 4 game ones (haven't tested intensely, this is from tournament experience over the past six-eight months including the most recent BoM). Against a competent elves pilot I feel close to 50/50 in game two if on the draw, but am okay losing that game as I again feel favorite in game three on the play. It's not like it's 90/10 and that I'm on autopilot against Elves. Can easily lose that way. I do, however, feel like I win something between 60-70 % of this matchup. Meh, might be warping this percentage slightly due to bias or vanity or vanity bias, but I don't think many people would argue that in the storm vs elves matchup storm is favorite

I think I said Storm was favoured game 1, just that Elves has a roughly similar fundamental turn with Ruric maindeck. It's certainly not a good matchup, just not a nightmare. Without Ruric it's a nightmare. 50/50 sounds about correct, but Elves SBs vary so wildly I think a concrete rating is hard. There are boards which I feel leave Elves favoured, boards where Storm is and so on, though in the current meta I think 50/50 or slight Storm favour are perfectly safe assumptions - there's just not enough room for juicy Storm-specific cards so we have to fight with discard and other not specifically targeted pieces of hate.

[nevilshute]

I think I said Storm was favoured game 1, just that Elves has a roughly similar fundamental turn with Ruric maindeck. It's certainly not a good matchup, just not a nightmare. Without Ruric it's a nightmare. 50/50 sounds about correct, but Elves SBs vary so wildly I think a concrete rating is hard. There are boards which I feel leave Elves favoured, boards where Storm is and so on, though in the current meta I think 50/50 or slight Storm favour are perfectly safe assumptions - there's just not enough room for juicy Storm-specific cards so we have to fight with discard and other not specifically targeted pieces of hate.

Yeah sure, didn't mean to come off as a contrarian. I do also agree that sideboards vary a lot. It does seem, however, like most elves players have roughly the same amount of slots allocated for their storm (and Show and Tell - there is at least some overlap) matchup. At one point it was some number of discard spells (5-6?) that was the main strategy (it might still be); at the bazaar, the elves pilots seemed to have skimped on (some of) the discard in favour of Swan Songs supported by a Tropical Island in the main.

I also agree with your insinuations that if an Elves player want to be favoured against storm post board then this is certainly possible. But I'm guessing that will take too many slots. Heck, if I run into an elves player able to support his main deck Ruric Thar with 10-12 cards from the sideboard then I'm not going to consider myself a favourite post board. Especially not while on the draw. So, if I happened to have tripped up and lost game one, all of the sudden I'm not so confident.