[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[CabalTherapy]

Grim tutor would be a consideration but it actually costs more life with ad naus, since you have to pay 3 life after casting it as well. Thanks!

The real quote should be: "Grim tutor would be a considertaion but it actually costs more money, since you have to pay.... Thanks!"
Not relating this to Sherer here but at least this seems to be the reason for some players who keep telling themselves that DP is good. Grim is the one and only 5th tutor. I mean c'mon DP doesn't even
have "tutor" in its name. It's only big ol' Griselbrand trying to persuade people to sign some shitty document in Dominaria or wherever this whole business takes place.

[Bittemommy]

The real quote should be: "Grim tutor would be a considertaion but it actually costs more money, since you have to pay.... Thanks!"
Not relating this to Sherer here but at least this seems to be the reason for some players who keep telling themselves that DP is good. Grim is the one and only 5th tutor. I mean c'mon DP doesn't even
have "tutor" in its name. It's only big ol' Griselbrand trying to persuade people to sign some shitty document in Dominaria or wherever this whole business takes place.

I think the arguments of Caleb are in favor of the Grisselbrand Shizzely Petition 👌🏼

[CabalTherapy]

I think the arguments of Caleb are in favor of the Grisselbrand Shizzely Petition 👌🏼

Naturally because he only stated things in favour of DP.

[Bittemommy]

Naturally because he only stated things in favour of DP.

Because it is the better card over the Grim. In his opinion. What are your thoughts and arguments?

[Ronald Deuce]

The real quote should be: "Grim tutor would be a considertaion but it actually costs more money, since you have to pay.... Thanks!"
Not relating this to Sherer here but at least this seems to be the reason for some players who keep telling themselves that DP is good. Grim is the one and only 5th tutor.

Strikes me that the two serve different purposes surprisingly often. I'm a fan of Petition (and no, I can't afford Grim Tutor), but I can see why people are die-hard Grim fans. It feels to me like it's a better card when we're not trying to combo and a worse card when we are. I guess the other advantage is that it's easier to cast early or when we're relying on LEDs to hit our stride. I feel like its disadvantages are pretty severe, though. I'd not be comfortable running it at all with AdN, and it strikes me as a pretty big risk to play regardless of AdN if we're facing down a clocker. In my last tournament, I wouldn't have been able to cast it instead of Petition because of an active Deathrite. Running two seems pretty much impossible prima facie, as well. In any case, I'd still love to hear more about when it's really shined for people. And if it's doing work, by all means keep it up!

Regarding the argument over what slot deserves an Empty, I started with two Petitions in the main and gravitated toward switching one of them for Empty because it looked really good as a means to power out a t1/t2 with subpar storm count, even (rarely) after using Ad Nauseam. A big problem I see with replacing AdN with Empty is that the two don't work the same way with respect to our mana base. It might not be a problem now that I've got a Badlands in the main. AdN and Empty are good against different decks and bad against different decks, but I'm more comfortable with one of each in the maindeck for the time being. I also haven't been bringing in green cards against Wasteland decks because to date it hasn't seemed necessary. It's worth pointing out that I've never fought dedicated MUD or a couple of other decks against which having backup green is pretty important, though.

Keep storming up a storm in the new year, everybody!

[Togores]

lateley I have been testing va GWb maverik zenith.
Its a 50% match. At siding I have been doing like:

+3 decay
+2 masacre
+1 echoing

-2nd pif
-1 top
-1 preordain
-3 duress

But Im not sure if its better to take out the 3 duress or they 3 therapys. I think is better the duress. But want a second thought and more ideas: after boarding they have:

4 deathrite
1-2 Tegg
4 Zenith
4 Mother of runes
3-4 seize
0-2 surgical
4 thalia
2 cannonist


I have been playing and callong blond therapy usualy happend to be on thalia. But other ideas? They just play a ton of diferent cards.

If they start and play desthrite should I ponder (for example) or therapy? If I therapy what I call? Thalia? Zenith? I Know it depends on my hand. But still just to get thoughts.

[Burnplayer]

GWb is one of the reasons to play Dread of Night.

Massacre could be good vs Death and Taxes killing Thalias/Revokers, but vs GWb the Gaddock Teeg is a problem.

Vs Mother + Gaddock or vs Safekeeper + Gaddock you can't win.

One Dread of Night liquidates Mother of Runes and Thalias. And in this pairing, if you don't win for speed, Mother of Runes/Sylvan Safekeeper + bear is other more problem.

The second Dread liquidates Gaddocks and Canonist, and you can look for making Infernal Tutor to Dread of Night.

My SB plan is:

-3 Duress -3 Cabal Therapy -1 Dark Petitition

+4 Abrupt Deacy +3 Dread of Night

(In my point of view, after much testing, Abrupt Decay > Chain of Vapor in this pairing)

[Togores]

I dont want to waste 3 slots for white decks. You dont play them often enought. For example in mkm toulouse I decides to play no white hate. At the end of an event you max play 0-1 white deck usualy. And dread is only good as a 3x. Masacre is good vs blade, taxes, patriot, deathblade, sometimes miracles. While dread is only good vs maverik and taxes. And sometimes they still have revokerd and canonist and your dread makes nothing...

[Burnplayer]

You waste two slots in White Creatures (massacre). And vs Blade or Patriot I prefer Abrupt Decay.

But the Massacre vs Dread of Night is an old debate.

[Ronald Deuce]

Game 1, I've been naming Green Sun's Zenith or Gaddock off a blind Therapy because either of those locks us out. Thalia's also a really good target, possibly better than Gaddock just because there are fewer Gaddocks in most of their maindeck lists and Thalia can knock us out too.

Dread of Night is pretty underwhelming whenever it comes up against anyone but D&T in my experience. Massacre's ok, but I've had a lot of matches against Mav in which the opponent played around it by not dropping Plains at all. And Gaddock stops Massacre.

Togores, You're absolutely right that Therapy is more useful than Duress in this matchup simply because our only relevant target for Duress is Green Sun's Zenith. I wouldn't recommend Abrupt Decay unless you're facing Chalice or Countertop, though. It's pricey, it needs green mana, and Mav runs Wasteland.

Mom is a problem if we don't have Dread of Night, but I'm hoping we can use Therapy to get relevant threats out of their hand before Mom can bring the shields up. I haven't seen it come up very often, but when it does, it's tough to beat without global effects. What's everyone's experience been like against Mom?

The best luck I've had against Mav was to board into 3x Empty and some hate cards and to just jam it. Worked great, but I don't think it's something on which to rely. In terms of other things to use against them, I've been considering dropping the Dreads and replacing them with another Disfigure or Chain and an Empty, probably. That would make my board look like this:

4x Abrupt Decay
2-3x Disfigure
2-3x Chain of Vapor
2x Empty the Warrens
2x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Tropical Island


I agree that it's important not to over-sideboard, but I've been having trouble finding anything relevant when we don't bring in more than six cards. And mulligans hurt really badly against Maverick because they've got Wasteland and a whole lot of hatebears. What I'm thinking of doing next time I go against Mav is this:
-3 Duress
-2 Preordain
-1 Dark Petition
-1 AdN

+3 Disfigure
+2 Empty the Warrens
+2 Chain of Vapor

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Togores]

I tested 3 empty vs grixis and taxes a lot. And they where not better than 1.

Against maverik and taxes I prefer like having in my deck:
1 nauseam
1 empty
1 toa
1 pif.
Usualy it dosnt hurt to have all this.

The last years when playing my old 2 top list I enden post board va taxes like:
1 nauseam
1 pif
1 toa
2 masaacre
3 decay
2 chain


Or even adding and empty to this (still never a fan of empty in ant).

You really dont care vs taxes having so many cmc4 because if you flip one masaacre your usualy safe can wipe the board and win next turn with extra backup.

[davelin]

For me they don't really compete for a slot.
Empty competes with Ad Nauseam (or potentially with the 1st DP in a list with AdN).
The 2nd DP competes with cards like Preordain, Top, and the 7th discard spell for me. In EtW lists I often run 2 DP, whereas in AdN lists I seldom do.

Scherer does run 2 DP's and AdN, but his card choices have baffled me since the beginning, since there often seems to be some inherent anti-synergy in his card choices.
- He often runs Top, which makes cutting a land somewhat odd (explainable if you're playing a lot of grindy decks without wasteland though, such as Miracles. He can also board up to 15 lands which makes it less strange.). [No SDT in his latest list anymore]
- Running less lands, but more basics. This is especially weird given the earlier choice is explained by facing fewer wasteland decks.
- Running Ad Nauseam, and upping the Dark Petition count to 2.

That said, he's been wrecking the US with his lists. But that's probably more because of his playskill, and because minor deck differences hardly matter, but still.

Collected some data about my matches this year. With some matches still missing (forgot the matchup f.e.) I'm about 77% for the year (80% DTT era, 68% post-ban) over 90 matches (have 124 total I think, with about 15 ID's). 80%+ against Delver, Blade and combo (mainly because of Omnitell pre-ban). 73% against Miracles/Shardless/Grixis Control (ironically Shardless was the worst, #samplesize). Against non-blue I have 67%, but the category should be split in two. Against prison I've been scoring just under 50/50 overall, and versus decks such as Nic Fit and Jund the percentages are very high obviously..
The conclusions are nothing new really; ANT destroys Delver, Blade, and Midrange decks. In a meta full of crap like MUD and Loam you'd rather pick something else.

Jamie, what's your latest decklist these days? In particular I'm curious how you board versus Miracles?

[CabalTherapy]

Because it is the better card over the Grim. In his opinion. What are your thoughts and arguments?

First of all, I have to state that I've been playing with Grim for quite a while, thus my thoughts and arguments might be biased/subjective -as it is the nature of stating one's opinion- and based on my experience with this card rather than with DP. Therefore, I know what Grim can and what it cannot in specific situations.

To put it short and very general, there are basically two approaches to business spells: relying on tutors and on the other hand relying on engine spells. Since there is only Infernal Tutor who earns his plays among the tutors in this deck, one has to look out for other options, from which Grim Tutor has been the number two for some time. Now, ANT changes, slowly but it changes, and the need of more business spells arose because other decks adapted to Storm as a super strong opponent and started to attack our deck from different angles. Thus, 7 discard spells didn't get the job done. More business spells= better against opp's discard= higher chances to draw spice from top= ... =... and so on.

Starting from this idea, one has generally speaking the options to add tutor effects to the deck to be able to search for engine spells or making tutor chains easier or to increase the count of engine spells (PiF, ToA=grinding station approach; please don't relate multiple ToA imediately to grinding station. The decks differ due to playstyle and not as much to card slots.) I chose the route of adding another engine, second PiF, to the deck because it is a huge spell against a wide field of the meta and not being forced to search for it via tutor effects is a huge upside for certain lines.

Coming back to Grim Tutor vs. DP, I think that Grim provides more lines against real opponents (not goldfish) with this kind of approach. Just imagine playing against a "discard deck", let's say the mirror, playing your LED, having three lands in play or maybe a Petal and then drawing Grim/DP. Just a simple example of which there are many in real situations. Other arguments contain: taxing counter spells, graveyard hate, playing tutors before combo, AdN (you don't need to play Grim if you reveal it...)

All in all, since you started playing this deck not long ago, I would advise you to simply play, play, and play with one version of the deck keeping in mind different plays with possibly different cards and testing with different lists. Sounds much? Yeah, but at some point you will see, you will find your playstyle and also your boarding plans. There are many ways to play Tendrils for 20 and in the end everything works to some extent. Enjoy.

[Plague Sliver]

Wisdom

Great post. I hope to one day be as knowledgeable and well-practiced as some of you folks. Well, I'd better get practicin'

[l33twash0r]

I personally stopped playing Grim Tutor after somewhat big local tournament and I pondered between 1x Petition or 1x G.Tutor and the G.Tutor cost me few matches and decided to put it away for good time.

[jjrotzo]

(...) Coming back to Grim Tutor vs. DP (...)

Speaking of real opponents, note that you cannot do a PiF loop with Grim Tutor if you have less than 7 life points left (10 life facing Bolt). Additionally to needing two extra mana for the Grim PiF loop in the first place.

No matter which tutor you choose, you will find yourself in situations wishing you would hold the other one in hand. Either card shines or fails under certain circumstances. I do not think that anyone is able to tell for sure which of those situations happen more frequently.

Btw, I side the fith tutor out after game 1 quite often anyway.

[meffeo]

Great post. I hope to one day be as knowledgeable and well-practiced as some of you folks. Well, I'd better get practicin'

We all know that in term of knowledge, Cabal Therapy is the real master.

[nevilshute]

Back with a couple of Legacy Storm vids https://youtu.be/P2arxt2ocwo & https://youtu.be/ttUdsCzm5KQ

Playing a list very similar to what Caleb Scherer's.

[CabalTherapy]

Back with a couple of Legacy Storm vids https://youtu.be/P2arxt2ocwo & https://youtu.be/ttUdsCzm5KQ

Playing a list very similar to what Caleb Scherer's.

Haven't seen these yet but I've enjoyed your Vintage Storm video.

[ScottW]

Back with a couple of Legacy Storm vids https://youtu.be/P2arxt2ocwo & https://youtu.be/ttUdsCzm5KQ


Playing a list very similar to what Caleb Scherer's.

I really enjoy your videos. Hopefully, you'll keep making them now and then. FYI, I liked your previous lists more but happy to have the content either way.

Congratulations on being a father. It's unimaginably rewarding.