[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Bryant Cook]

Swarms are very good vs delver decks because they have no permanent hate.
Swarms are very dodgy vs Omnitell because they do nothing to stop them from comboing off and nigh useless vs miracles because they have a lot of permanent hate (4 counterbalance, combination of canonist/meddling mage/clique) and are likely to keep in 2 or more swords to plowshares.

Basic swamp gets sided out for a dual if it's in your board vs non wasteland matchups. Be aware that some versions might side in blood moon.

Ad nauseam is something I rarely side out (even vs delver) but I wouldn't vs miracles anyway. The best way to win is either combo fast before their hate hits us (thus ad nauseam) or
have a nice empty for a token or 12.

Cabal is technically the worst but keep in mind that once you cut 2 or more you'll have more difficulty getting enough mana.

This seems like awful advice. Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt still answer the bug.

[JamieW89]

This seems like awful advice. Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt still answer the bug.

Yeah, I don't like them vs Delver in general either. However, Grixis delver is boarding out their bolts against me (too much to board in I guess), so when I have them I board them there. But even then, their other angles of attack (mainly cabal therapy) weaken its use.

It's a card that shines versus decks that only interact on the stack (which are basicly nonexistent by now, everyone has multiple angles). It's also a great card versus Griselbrand since it defeats their future stack interaction that we usually can't beat. Furthermore it's good against SDT, which can hide counters on top. Miracles can often answer the card though (inter alia by using any StP they kept, otherwise a dead card), and it doesn't do much with permanent hate in the mixture. If you want to fight SDT specifcally I'd prefer the harder-to-answer Krosan Grip or Pithing Needle. It was also very good when people ran white leylines in the board of decks with counters (e.g. the older omniclash lists).

I've gone from 2 swarms to 0 lately, and I'm not missing them that much. I'd bring them back if I start seeing more SnT/Griselbrand/Leyline+Counters (I do actually like them versus omnitell).

[Reagens]

This seems like awful advice. Abrupt Decay or Lightning Bolt still answer the bug.

perhaps they will have lightning bolt in their 60 but they need to have it at the right time. Abrupt decay seems ludicrous unless they have no sb whatsoever vs us.
IF you resolve it and IF it connects they have no further interaction with the exception of a deathrite activation. I think that's worth the investment of 2 slots. Perhaps you misunderstood my definition of permanent hate. They have no canonist/thalia/meddling mage that interacts with our game plan, only counters and possibly discard. For me having 2 bugs to turn those interactions off is worth it provided delver is an important part of the meta (which it was in Lille for example).
For now I would probably cut them as well since I see more important things to be answered.

[Degausser]

perhaps they will have lightning bolt in their 60 but they need to have it at the right time.

Sure, but can't the same be said for any source of relevant interaction in any given matchup?

Additionally, most delver decks do play permanent based hate as it pertains to this matchup. A quick search of legacy events from this past weekend via SCG yields:

Null Rod
Grafdigger's Cage
Nihil Spellomb

Couple this with the fact that most of these lists play surgical extraction, vendilion clique, deathrite shaman, and hand disruption as meaningful ways to interact before the bug triggers, Xantid isn't exactly suited to take over the game on its own anymore. Also, fetching a non-basic green source against an archetype that typically plays 4 wasteland doesn't exactly seem like a winning proposition either. These are just reasons I typically don't board in Xantid Swarm against delver.

[Reagens]

Sure, but can't the same be said for any source of relevant interaction in any given matchup?

Additionally, most delver decks do play permanent based hate as it pertains to this matchup. A quick search of legacy events from this past weekend via SCG yields:

Null Rod
Grafdigger's Cage
Nihil Spellomb

Couple this with the fact that most of these lists play surgical extraction, vendilion clique, deathrite shaman, and hand disruption as meaningful ways to interact before the bug triggers, Xantid isn't exactly suited to take over the game on its own anymore. Also, fetching a non-basic green source against an archetype that typically plays 4 wasteland doesn't exactly seem like a winning proposition either. These are just reasons I typically don't board in Xantid Swarm against delver.

If you read my posts properly I did not advocate xantid as being a powerhouse that's a must include in our deck. I merely stated that in the delver match-up it is at it's best as they are almost solely dependant on countermagic for interaction. Saying the surgical is a meaningful way to interact before the bug triggers seems a rather odd statement as well. It's much more debilitating mid-combo so xantid does offer protection vs extraction. Same for clique. They must play it before the trigger or can't play it anymore. That's a big difference with them just waiting for the right moment to cast it and pick a card from your hand instead of just having to pick from a full grip. And for both your opponent needs to be lucky to hit something relevant.
Gy hatred does not bother me as much as say canonist/meddling mage. Gy hatred can be played around. Canonist for example must be answered before you combo. That's a big difference.

What I wanted to make clear as well in my reply to ContractKiller is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' decklist/sideboard. You make choices on what limited information is available and go from there. There is something to be said for having Xantid Swarm in your sideboard under certain circumstances. I tried to explain when they are useful and when they are not.

And finally Xantid Swarm has always been in the deck to fight blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland. It has always been worth it even when you take into account that the land gets wasted. If you turn off even one daze with the xantid swarm you got your investment back (and possibly an extra card in the gy).

[nevilshute]

If you read my posts properly I did not advocate xantid as being a powerhouse that's a must include in our deck. I merely stated that in the delver match-up it is at it's best as they are almost solely dependant on countermagic for interaction. Saying the surgical is a meaningful way to interact before the bug triggers seems a rather odd statement as well. It's much more debilitating mid-combo so xantid does offer protection vs extraction. Same for clique. They must play it before the trigger or can't play it anymore. That's a big difference with them just waiting for the right moment to cast it and pick a card from your hand instead of just having to pick from a full grip. And for both your opponent needs to be lucky to hit something relevant.
Gy hatred does not bother me as much as say canonist/meddling mage. Gy hatred can be played around. Canonist for example must be answered before you combo. That's a big difference.

What I wanted to make clear as well in my reply to ContractKiller is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' decklist/sideboard. You make choices on what limited information is available and go from there. There is something to be said for having Xantid Swarm in your sideboard under certain circumstances. I tried to explain when they are useful and when they are not.

And finally Xantid Swarm has always been in the deck to fight blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland. It has always been worth it even when you take into account that the land gets wasted. If you turn off even one daze with the xantid swarm you got your investment back (and possibly an extra card in the gy).

I respectfully disagree completely with the first bolded part. Xantid Swarm is, in my humble opinion, clearly best against blue decks with no removal, this usually works out to be island-centric combo decks (i.e. show and tell for the most part). Regarding the second bolded part, I'm not going to pretend I know the reasons why the first storm players put in Xantid Swarm - which I'm guessing is what you're alluding to - but I am again completely in disagreeance with you here insofar as "blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland" means delver decks primarily.

Allow me to elaborate. Against show and tell decks they will rarely have an answer to a resolved bee and their interaction is almost always exclusively in the form of counter magic. We are faster and just-as-to-more consistent as/than them which means the bee can make this extremely lopsided.

Now I'm not saying that the bee is never good against something like Delver, but if you ever end up trading it for a Lightning Bolt it is boardering on disastrous for you. You'd prefer not to trade one-for-one with a delver deck and CERTAINLY not for an otherwise okay-to-weak card for them in Lightning Bolt. I agree that it CAN be an absolute beating for them. If they don't have removal and was counting on sitting back behind a delver with a fist full of Flusterstorms and Spell Pierces. But any red delver deck should be keeping in some number of bolts so you can't be sure. Against BG-Delver decks you can argue against them having any Abrupt Decays after board but fact is, a non-trivial amount of them do have a couple. But even more importantly, against any deck (delver or otherwise) running discard along side counterspells your Xantid Swarm risks being irrelevant. If you resolve a bee and then get thoughseized-into-hymned then its feel bad.

[Reagens]

I respectfully disagree completely with the first bolded part. Xantid Swarm is, in my humble opinion, clearly best against blue decks with no removal, this usually works out to be island-centric combo decks (i.e. show and tell for the most part). Regarding the second bolded part, I'm not going to pretend I know the reasons why the first storm players put in Xantid Swarm - which I'm guessing is what you're alluding to - but I am again completely in disagreeance with you here insofar as "blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland" means delver decks primarily.

Allow me to elaborate. Against show and tell decks they will rarely have an answer to a resolved bee and their interaction is almost always exclusively in the form of counter magic. We are faster and just-as-to-more consistent as/than them which means the bee can make this extremely lopsided.

Now I'm not saying that the bee is never good against something like Delver, but if you ever end up trading it for a Lightning Bolt it is boardering on disastrous for you. You'd prefer not to trade one-for-one with a delver deck and CERTAINLY not for an otherwise okay-to-weak card for them in Lightning Bolt. I agree that it CAN be an absolute beating for them. If they don't have removal and was counting on sitting back behind a delver with a fist full of Flusterstorms and Spell Pierces. But any red delver deck should be keeping in some number of bolts so you can't be sure. Against BG-Delver decks you can argue against them having any Abrupt Decays after board but fact is, a non-trivial amount of them do have a couple. But even more importantly, against any deck (delver or otherwise) running discard along side counterspells your Xantid Swarm risks being irrelevant. If you resolve a bee and then get thoughseized-into-hymned then its feel bad.

Show and tell slower then we are? Perhaps by half a turn and that's not counting disruption. And which of those decks is the most consistent? I can't say. Both run a healthy amount of cantrips and both have strengths and weaknesses.

And gettting thoughtseized into hymn is always bad irrelevant of having a swarm or not. Most delver decks do not however play hymn because it strains their already weak manabase.

Your statement about lightning bolt is true in the sense they have answered a potentially disastrous card for them but I can't see it being disastrous to us. In the end we traded 1 for 1. They can not have deathrite shaman/bolt/wasteland/thoughtseize/hymn/colored land every time (and being able to cast it in the space of 3 turns). And if they do, well gj to them. I am fully aware that xantid swarm can be answered but that does not necessarily make it a bad card in the match-up. If vs delver I board I side it in in the place of discard because I feel it hits more (all their counters as opposed to just one). Also the swarm can not be spell pierced/flusterstormed (as opposed to discard) and it does not tie up mana in my combo turn. I can accept that you find those advantages not enough to play the card but at least acknowledge that playing Xantid is a viable choice besides whatever your preferred strategy is.

[Contract Killer]

Completely unrelated to the current discussion of whether or not Xantid Swarm is good bad or otherwise, but this article is really good:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...mboarding.html
I'm surprised this isn't posted in the primer at the beginning. There's a few of Carsten's articles listed in the primer, but this one in particular really helps with sideboarding.

[Lemnear]

Xantids Swarm has a lot of merrits atm which start that the typical no-removal-blue-decks like S&T don't drop Griselbrand/Emrakul and give you a turn to attack with Xantid to combo off safely, but kill you immediately with Omnisciemce in play.

You are also missing the forest for the trees by pointing at occasional Lightning Bolts only if you opt to board Xantids against URx Delver variants. You have to fetch a Tropical Island first which adds nothing for your combo turn and makes targeting Wastelands an easy task to cut you off mana/colors.

[nevilshute]

Show and tell slower then we are? Perhaps by half a turn and that's not counting disruption. And which of those decks is the most consistent? I can't say. Both run a healthy amount of cantrips and both have strengths and weaknesses.

And gettting thoughtseized into hymn is always bad irrelevant of having a swarm or not. Most delver decks do not however play hymn because it strains their already weak manabase.

Your statement about lightning bolt is true in the sense they have answered a potentially disastrous card for them but I can't see it being disastrous to us. In the end we traded 1 for 1. They can not have deathrite shaman/bolt/wasteland/thoughtseize/hymn/colored land every time (and being able to cast it in the space of 3 turns). And if they do, well gj to them. I am fully aware that xantid swarm can be answered but that does not necessarily make it a bad card in the match-up. If vs delver I board I side it in in the place of discard because I feel it hits more (all their counters as opposed to just one). Also the swarm can not be spell pierced/flusterstormed (as opposed to discard) and it does not tie up mana in my combo turn. I can accept that you find those advantages not enough to play the card but at least acknowledge that playing Xantid is a viable choice besides whatever your preferred strategy is.

A) yes I think we are faster than Omnitell. I haven't tested it properly but that seems to be the consensus when talking to experienced Omni pilots. That ANT goldfishes a half-to-a-full turn faster than Omni. And you mention their disruption, well what about our disruption?

I will say, that when Sneak and Show is the show and tell deck of choice that deck is probably as fast as ANT, but then Swarm is also better there because it can come in off Show and Tell we ofte get to untap and attack for the win.

B) And the reason I think it's a disaster for us to play a Xantid Swarm and have it bolted is because our deck needs to contain a balance of disruption, mana, cantrips and business. If you want to side in extra disruption, IE. Xantid Swarm, then either it's because you think it's better than your main deck disruption, discard, and thus you replace 1-3 discard spells with 1-3 Xantid Swarm. Or else you decide that you don't need as much business, mana or cantrips. This latter move, making your deck disruption heavy at the cost of either business, cantrip or mana shouldn't be done a lot of the time. There are matchups where it can be adviseable to cut some business or a few cantrips maybe, but we are getting into dangerous territory fast. And those matchups aren't delver imo as ANT is built with those kinds of decks in mind. So you are looking at cutting a discard spell for a Xantid Swarm. So, if your Xantid Swarm gets lightning bolted, you have essentially used a discard spell to remove a lightning bolt = disaster (okay that is obviously a hyperbolic way of putting it, but can we agree that casting duress to remove a lightning bolt from your delver opponent is not usually where you want to be?).

Allow me to finish by saying that I in no way think it is strictly wrong to ever board in swarm against something like Delver. First of all some Delver pilots just autopilot sideboard out their removal. If you think that's going to be the case then by all means punish them. Even if that's not the case I wouldn't say that I couldn't ever see myself boarding swarms vs Delver, but merely that it is a high risk / high reward kind of play because of the abovementioned detriment if it catches a lightning bolt. Whereas vs. show and tell combo where there is practically no risk or downside to bringing it in.

You are also missing the forest for the trees by pointing at occasional Lightning Bolts only if you opt to board Xantids against URx Delver variants. You have to fetch a Tropical Island first which adds nothing for your combo turn and makes targeting Wastelands an easy task to cut you off mana/colors.

That is also a good point.

[bjholmes3]

Completely unrelated to the current discussion of whether or not Xantid Swarm is good bad or otherwise, but this article is really good:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...mboarding.html
I'm surprised this isn't posted in the primer at the beginning. There's a few of Carsten's articles listed in the primer, but this one in particular really helps with sideboarding.

Thanks, I haven't scoured the web for articles since I first wrote up the other. Further additions are welcome!

[Degausser]

If you read my posts properly I did not advocate xantid as being a powerhouse that's a must include in our deck. I merely stated that in the delver match-up it is at it's best as they are almost solely dependant on countermagic for interaction. Saying the surgical is a meaningful way to interact before the bug triggers seems a rather odd statement as well. It's much more debilitating mid-combo so xantid does offer protection vs extraction. Same for clique. They must play it before the trigger or can't play it anymore. That's a big difference with them just waiting for the right moment to cast it and pick a card from your hand instead of just having to pick from a full grip. And for both your opponent needs to be lucky to hit something relevant.
Gy hatred does not bother me as much as say canonist/meddling mage. Gy hatred can be played around. Canonist for example must be answered before you combo. That's a big difference.

What I wanted to make clear as well in my reply to ContractKiller is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' decklist/sideboard. You make choices on what limited information is available and go from there. There is something to be said for having Xantid Swarm in your sideboard under certain circumstances. I tried to explain when they are useful and when they are not.

And finally Xantid Swarm has always been in the deck to fight blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland. It has always been worth it even when you take into account that the land gets wasted. If you turn off even one daze with the xantid swarm you got your investment back (and possibly an extra card in the gy).

I'm not sure where you think I stated you as advocating Xantid as a powerhouse must include. I was simply disagreeing with your statement that swarm is good against delver decks. Reading properly is apparently a new shortcoming of mine.

My points of contention with your quoted post:

1.)Surgical is a fine way to interact before swarm triggers given that most delver decks are running discard to hit relevant targets. I'm not arguing that it loses flexibility with swarm in play.
2.) Playing clique in the draw step is more than a defensible play regardless of having xantid in play or not. Most storm pilots are capable of casting tutors and holding priority to cast rituals to mitigate the effectiveness of clique in main phases.
3.) As far as hate-permanents are concerned, you're missing the point. I never argued that thallia, canonist, and meddling mage are less problematic that null rod, spellbomb, or cage. I was disputing your statement that delver doesn't play hate-permanents, which is definitely a fallacy.
4.) I was going to comment again on fetching non-basic green sources against wasteland decks, but Lemnear already did a good job at covering that point.

[davelin]

If you read my posts properly I did not advocate xantid as being a powerhouse that's a must include in our deck. I merely stated that in the delver match-up it is at it's best as they are almost solely dependant on countermagic for interaction. Saying the surgical is a meaningful way to interact before the bug triggers seems a rather odd statement as well. It's much more debilitating mid-combo so xantid does offer protection vs extraction. Same for clique. They must play it before the trigger or can't play it anymore. That's a big difference with them just waiting for the right moment to cast it and pick a card from your hand instead of just having to pick from a full grip. And for both your opponent needs to be lucky to hit something relevant.
Gy hatred does not bother me as much as say canonist/meddling mage. Gy hatred can be played around. Canonist for example must be answered before you combo. That's a big difference.

What I wanted to make clear as well in my reply to ContractKiller is that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' decklist/sideboard. You make choices on what limited information is available and go from there. There is something to be said for having Xantid Swarm in your sideboard under certain circumstances. I tried to explain when they are useful and when they are not.

And finally Xantid Swarm has always been in the deck to fight blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland. It has always been worth it even when you take into account that the land gets wasted. If you turn off even one daze with the xantid swarm you got your investment back (and possibly an extra card in the gy).

Trading a card for Daze seems like terrible value for ANT.

[sawatarix]

Trading a card for Daze seems like terrible value for ANT.

Trading cards in general is terrible for storm unless we loose the game otherwise.
The only trades we want are our discard spells,ritual or cantrips with any hard counter spells.
This is pretty fundamental when playing this deck.

[Sloshthedark]

And finally Xantid Swarm has always been in the deck to fight blue decks who are very likely to have wasteland. It has always been worth it even when you take into account that the land gets wasted. If you turn off even one daze with the xantid swarm you got your investment back (and possibly an extra card in the gy).

although this is not true, most juts follow the herd and wouldn't try that just because "it's not supposed to be used this way" which mindset actually made it playable in certain MUs especially Canadian Threshold and Dark threshold (confidant based, no discard), currently it's no good against tempo (not because of Bolt or Waste but permanent/discard hate)... for me Xantid swarm is not worth playing for about a year, and clearly unplayable in timeframe ~after TC ban

Trading cards in general is terrible for storm unless we loose the game otherwise.
The only trades we want are our discard spells,ritual or cantrips with any hard counter spells.
This is pretty fundamental when playing this deck.

you always want to trade resources if it's favorable enough for you, Daze and Wasteland are good examples of opportunities that can sometimes punish your opponent in early game if you have the right information/opponent and play accordingly

[bjholmes3]

RIP DTT muahahahahaha

[ScottW]

RIP DTT muahahahahaha

What kind of news is this for ANT? I just started playing this deck and not sure if DTT was better than the uptick in discard / Deathrite we'll likely see. Thoughts?

[Sloshthedark]

What kind of news is this for ANT? I just started playing this deck and not sure if DTT was better than the uptick in discard / Deathrite we'll likely see. Thoughts?

Fine, less Omnitell paranoia in Miracles, less Gy hate, i kind of regret losing Dtt Omnitell - I havent lost a match, well, ever, in a tournament... More S+T, Bug and Miracles unfortunatte yet acceptable, I wonder where does this place Grixis now...

[Jandrosaurus]

Fine, less Omnitell paranoia in Miracles, less Gy hate, i kind of regret losing Dtt Omnitell - I havent lost a match, well, ever, in a tournament... More S+T, Bug and Miracles unfortunatte yet acceptable, I wonder where does this place Grixis now...

I think there will actually be more GY hate now that people aren't trying to fuel their own DTTs.

[Togores]

That means->

More miracles
More elves
More hymn to tourach
More sneak atack ->This means less canonist and more containment. Wich is a bad card against us and good againat reanimator wich is a bad deck for us.

No more omni
No more md hate

Xantid gets better
Less 1 off null rod finding -> top gets better

Lets see