[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[CabalTherapy]

not sure if you guys agreed on some stock list here or anything, but I was under the impression that most here ride the Togores Train. (no criticism here. was just an observation =))

This observation goes hand in hand with the fact that it's obvious that newer palyers will copy a recent and successful list. There is nothing wrong with that in first place but in second
people should at least have some experience and own thoughts before commenting on any deck. It's easy to notice that all experienced storm boys run different lists fitting their playstyle and so on.

Therefore, generally speaking, one has to reflect upon their own post if it adds new aspects to a discussion or not. And of course we won't agree on a stock list for sure.


(tl (can't be too long);dr: DP is bad)

[Final Fortune]

I think Petition is one of those cards that newer Storm players like to play because it provides a more direct path to winning, it's kind of a Storm equivalet of training wheels until you get better with Past in Flames. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing because not everybody has the same amount of experience with the deck, but I think there is a reason the people who have been playing the deck the longest gravitate towards more grindy builds. So if you plan to play the deck for awhile, you should probably be open to changing your mindset towards certain cards as you get better with it.

[cheerios]

I think Rodrigo's list is the same list as Kai's list (just +1 top, -1 preordain) which did well last year at GP Kyoto.

What I don't like about Dark Pet is that it costs 5 mana. It usually needs a thresholded Cabal Ritual or 2 dark rituals. The spell is also harder to push against soft counters. What I like about the 2 PIF build is you can sometimes value PIF and set up a win for the next turn if not the current turn.

Cheers

[Ronald Deuce]

Petition rivals the second piF PRETTY hard imho.

It's certainly more flexible than PiF, but double-PiF is significantly better against countermagic. Also means you often don't need to find discards to cook off through disruption, and that's a big bonus. I'm still on a 1-2 split of Petition to Past in Flames.

So yes, I certainly want a DP instead of a 3rd preordain. Any day, every day.

Would you rather have a Preordain or a DP in your hand if your opponent opens with DRS?

Also I prefer playing a preordain all days of my life over DP.

It sounds like you guys might be talking past each other. I, for one, don't view Preordain and Petition as competing for a slot; I run Petition (or some other business postboard) in place of land #15. I wouldn't want to play a third Preordain ever, end-of, because it's the most low-impact card in the deck. I know I'm not a particularly experienced player (compared to the storm pedigree of several of you in the thread), so I don't mean to sound like I don't value your opinions. I just think the card has been tested and found to be successful in certain contexts, even/especially as a double (if anyone's running double-Petition and can elaborate, I'd be interested to hear what you think the strengths of the card are).

One other thing to note about running extra tutors is that you can overwhelm Deathrite more easily if you have a hand with double-Tutor. Pitch the first one to get mana/PiF/whatever, then use the second to grab mana or (if you're worried about Flusterstorm and pals) discard [EDIT: or one of any number of missing pieces for the combo].

I even have to agree completely with his stance, that if you are unable to access either a single Tutor, an Ad Nauseam or a PIF in any generic ANT list in a reasonable time, your cantrip priorities are off. I see people cantripping for Rituals rather than business all the time and it makes me wanna flip tables when I hear "I didn't find a Tutor!" afterwards.

Agreed, that sounds really aggravating. But bearing in mind that the default priority for cantrips is to dig up business, I do still have trouble finding business sometimes, even with a fifth tutor and double-Preordain. Doesn't happen too often, but it does happen. Round five or six, Worcester, I only saw one copy of Tendrils and no other business in both games, even after really aggressive cantripping. I think my opponent (BUG Delver) commented after the match that he had no idea what I was playing until the games were over. Funny, but depressing.

Narcind, out of curiosity, are you running Ad Nauseam in the maindeck? Personally, I've never liked the idea of running Grim, but I can see a use for it if you aren't running AdN. I'll confess I never tested it because I took one look and thought, "looping this is going to be an ordeal," but it does give you the option to Empty very quickly.

[DaGarver]

I personally play Petition over the 17th ritual from stock Togores list (replacing Rain of Filth).

I like having ~5 extra percentage points to find a major business spell in the top 10 cards of my deck (opening hand + cantrip) -- the stock list runs 7 and I add an 8th. I also like the extra lines it provides towards beating Deathrite, Surgical, etc. It's more akin to Ad Nauseam as a business spell than it is to PiF, IMO; you're not going to cast either without Threshold or multiple Rituals.

It sounds like you guys might be talking past each other. I, for one, don't view Preordain and Petition as competing for a slot; I run Petition (or some other business postboard) in place of land #15. I wouldn't want to play a third Preordain ever, end-of, because it's the most low-impact card in the deck. I know I'm not a particularly experienced player (compared to the storm pedigree of several of you in the thread), so I don't mean to sound like I don't value your opinions. I just think the card has been tested and found to be successful in certain contexts, even/especially as a double (if anyone's running double-Petition and can elaborate, I'd be interested to hear what you think the strengths of the card are).

I know that the guys on The Brainstorm Show talked about this a bit when they were advocating for 4 Infernal + 2 Grim in the maindeck. Their logic was basically what I use above regarding an increase in probabilities of finding business, but I don't think they considered the notion that Past in Flames with a stocked graveyard is a business spell and will find you the last piece of the combo, more often than not. Their math was 4 Infernal + 0 Grim was a ~53% chance of finding a tutor in the top 10, +1 Grim was a ~61% chance, +2 Grim was a ~68% chance.

[Narcind]

Narcind, out of curiosity, are you running Ad Nauseam in the maindeck? Personally, I've never liked the idea of running Grim, but I can see a use for it if you aren't running AdN. I'll confess I never tested it because I took one look and thought, "looping this is going to be an ordeal," but it does give you the option to Empty very quickly.

No, I'm not. Here's the list I'm currently on: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/468932#online, though in paper I play dread of night rather than disfigure, but I figured I didn't need them online since no one plays death and taxes online.

The main thing I like about grim tutor is that it's pretty flexible, it can get a discard spell, it can get a sideboard card, it allows you to win early with empty without being hellbent or drawing it naturally, etc.

[Lemnear]

One other thing to note about running extra tutors is that you can overwhelm Deathrite more easily if you have a hand with double-Tutor. Pitch the first one to get mana/PiF/whatever, then use the second to grab mana or (if you're worried about Flusterstorm and pals) discard [EDIT: or one of any number of missing pieces for the combo].

You can Infernal for Infernal for PIF and get around a DRS activation just with excessive mana and without the need to have two tutors. With Preordains building faster T.hold and creating more mana-redundancy within your 60, its dven better than sitting on two Tutors

Agreed, that sounds really aggravating. But bearing in mind that the default priority for cantrips is to dig up business, I do still have trouble finding business sometimes, even with a fifth tutor and double-Preordain. Doesn't happen too often, but it does happen. Round five or six, Worcester, I only saw one copy of Tendrils and no other business in both games, even after really aggressive cantripping. I think my opponent (BUG Delver) commented after the match that he had no idea what I was playing until the games were over. Funny, but depressing.

There are situations where cantripping into two more cantrips or a cantrip plus a Ritual opens up a lot of additional possibilities. Chaining cantrips isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially against DRS

[Damaku]

Could this work?

[Narcind]

No, it's bad. First you have to get to find a way to play it, then you need to play a bunch of spells in the same turn to gain enough life (around 8-9 spells in one turn) to be able to activate it, and on top of that, it gets hit by removal

[Ronald Deuce]

You can Infernal for Infernal for PIF and get around a DRS activation just with excessive mana and without the need to have two tutors. With Preordains building faster T.hold and creating more mana-redundancy within your 60, its dven better than sitting on two Tutors

Not sure whether I agree that added Preordains (i.e., 3+) are better than added tutors, but you're right that with a mana surplus the tutor-chain is very good there. It's worth pointing out that the flexibility of Petition is more useful than double-Infernal in a situation like the one I mentioned, though not by all that much. I think the initial mana investment for double-tutor is usually lower than the investment for a chain, especially because the first tutor can find added mana there. Have you noticed that to be the case?

There are situations where cantripping into two more cantrips or a cantrip plus a Ritual opens up a lot of additional possibilities. Chaining cantrips isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially against DRS

Right on. One of the mistakes it was hardest for me to stop making was shuffling away revealed cantrips when I wasn't under the gun but wanted to find business.

Could this work?

Looks spicy, but like it'd be a better fit in something else. Suffers from the ">0-cost permanent" problem, and we pretty much have to combo backwards. I guess not needing to find business once we've landed it is good, but I don't really see it to solve any problems we're having. [EDIT: Lower storm count requirement is nice, but we'd need to get it going really quickly to make use of our starting life total.]

[taconaut]

Damaku: I don't think ANT will be the place to play it, but it seems interesting, at least. It's hard to believe it'll be better than tendrils for a number of reasons.

As for the other discussions (I play 15 lands, 1 ToA, 1 AdN, 1 PiF, 1 DP, 1 Preordain, 1 Chrome Mox):

WRT Dark Petition: I have been playing it for a while, and liked it when I drew it. I have been getting better at cantripping, which has helped solve the "can't find business" problem, but I do think having an additional tutor has helped as well. I've had a couple of situations where DP not requiring hellbent actually enabled me to win, which was nice; by contrast, I can't blind flip for AdN when my life total is five anymore, which has been relevant a similar number of times. I think a second Past in Flames could certainly fit in that same slot, depending on your playstyle, but I do like that DP could be either a Past in Flames or an Ad Nauseam or a Tendrils (or even a discard spell or extra ritual) in a pinch. Past in Flames will get you there a lot of the time, but sometimes you need to roll the dice on Ad Nauseam to get some cards back, and DP gives you that option while admittedly being softer to countermagic at other times. I haven't tried Grim Tutor because of price considerations, so I can't comment on it.

WRT 0 SDT in the main: I think SDT is pretty great, and I have run it in the past, but I am not currently running it now. I tend to like to try to be a little faster than average rather than grind every game, so playing the preordain and a mox over the SDT and a preordain or something similar makes explosive starts a little more likely. I think playing it is totally defensible, I'm just not currently on that plan.

WRT Empty the Warrens: I actually hate this plan in the abstract, because it feels like even more of a gamble than Ad Nauseam does, but it has definitely won me games, and typically is the only way I end up beating Eldrazi, short of them just having awful keeps. I don't play any in the main, but they are a nice juke postboard (I have two in the board currently, which seems off to me, but I haven't done a lot of reconstruction of the sideboard since I added some extra Tendrils/PiF based on peoples' recommendations here, which have been excellent).

Really, if there's any card in the deck I wish I could change, it'd be the preordain - it's the first card I cut postboard for essentially everything, and I just wish it could be a fifth Ponder or (fantasy land) Brainstorm. I constantly try to convince myself I could play a Burning Wish in that slot instead, though I've never actually tried it.

[ColonelKiwi]

kambal.jpg

Thoughts on this?

[Lemnear]

Not sure whether I agree that added Preordains (i.e., 3+) are better than added tutors, but you're right that with a mana surplus the tutor-chain is very good there. It's worth pointing out that the flexibility of Petition is more useful than double-Infernal in a situation like the one I mentioned, though not by all that much. I think the initial mana investment for double-tutor is usually lower than the investment for a chain, especially because the first tutor can find added mana there. Have you noticed that to be the case?

To net mana with a Tutor you need to grab a +3 manasource aka LED or CR and it isn't off to just cantrip into DR/CR/LED which nets you MORE mana than grabbing a CR with Dark Petition. With a cantrip you have more outs to expand you available mana by hitting any of the fastmana-sources than the double-Tutor scenarios, which boil down to IT doubling a CR in hand or DP for LED/CR. So no, I don't think the double tutor scenarios have a lower investment, but quite the opposite. If you cantrip into a t.hold CR its a +2 mana net, grabbing one with DP is +1. Of course this is just a single aspect. More important is the ability of the cantrips to find early landdrops and discard, which DP is no help with

[Darkness]

kambal.jpg

Thoughts on this?

Thalia is better as disruption for spell based decks, so is Vryn wingmare, ethersworn canonist and Gaddock Teeg. Also, it dies too easily in fair MU so I doubt this will be a card played regularly in legacy.

[Ronald Deuce]

Wisdom

You're right that cantrips will net us more mana if we find a ritual/LED in the top 3, but is it worth the risk of failing to find a mana source that's worth extra mana in the top 3 when we could dig something up with certainty? If we only hit cantrips and lands, we find ourselves in the same place (or maybe a worse spot) as/than if we'd tutored for mana (assuming, of course, that we were trying to combo in the same turn). You're absolutely right that cantrips are cheaper and reasonably reliable, but they aren't guaranteed to find what we need if they resolve. That's one reason I don't run a fifteenth land maindeck: I keep finding more lands off of cantrips when I really need to find something with greater impact that isn't limited to one per turn.

A separate question is whether a double-tutor hand is better than tutor-for-tutor, which was really what I was asking about (no offense or effrontery intended).

Another question is whether it's worth it to increase the density of cantrips and drop to four tutors by adding Preordains, which are the least effective cantrips we can use. Maybe Top would be better, but again, Top is slow. Have you done testing regarding this question?

Sincerely interested, and I'm not trying to challenge your expertise by asking this! I just find that cantrips can be great, but they can fail pretty hard, too. Tutors only fail when we don't plan well or when our opponent snipes them—or both.

[Lemnear]

You're right that cantrips will net us more mana if we find a ritual/LED in the top 3, but is it worth the risk of failing to find a mana source that's worth extra mana in the top 3 when we could dig something up with certainty?

I think it js, because the "certainty" comes at the price of DP (talking in the context of DL vs Preordain in hand) being pretty dead the first two turns of the game (unless your hand is nutz already and the opponent a goldfish). Given your deck is ~40% mana, the odds to find a valuable manasource with cantrips which let you dig 3-4 cards deep, is extremely high per definition. Mind that chaining two cantrips into a LED or CR aka digging 6-8 cards deep, still nets you +1.

If we only hit cantrips and lands, we find ourselves in the same place (or maybe a worse spot) as/than if we'd tutored for mana (assuming, of course, that we were trying to combo in the same turn). You're absolutely right that cantrips are cheaper and reasonably reliable, but they aren't guaranteed to find what we need if they resolve. That's one reason I don't run a fifteenth land maindeck: I keep finding more lands off of cantrips when I really need to find something with greater impact that isn't limited to one per turn.

Playing storm means playing the odds. The deck is designed at maximum redundancy unlike Show&Tell, because Storm is essentially a "1-card combo" given you have enough mana. Ponder, Probe, Brainstorm, IT, etc. are nothing more than redundancy tools increasing your odds the longer a game goes, but DP and IT used to snag Mana either requires a big invenstment/risk (Surgical Extraction on IT and/or revealing your hands content, dependancy on graveyard, etc) which isn't necessary in my opinion

A separate question is whether a double-tutor hand is better than tutor-for-tutor, which was really what I was asking about (no offense or effrontery intended).

Its just me babbling. Ignore it hahaha

Another question is whether it's worth it to increase the density of cantrips and drop to four tutors by adding Preordains, which are the least effective cantrips we can use. Maybe Top would be better, but again, Top is slow. Have you done testing regarding this question?

I prefer to fill the preboard slots with preordains, because it feeds t.hold and is faster than SDT. I don't like SDT unless I play against Hymn personally, but thats maybe just me. Playing several Preordains make it also very easy to sideboard as those are the most obvious slots to chop. On top of it they are pretty good if you play with sideboard DoN as accessing these is damn easy with all the cantrips (given you board out some discard for the DoNs and keep the while cantrip shell intact)

Sincerely interested, and I'm not trying to challenge your expertise by asking this! I just find that cantrips can be great, but they can fail pretty hard, too. Tutors only fail when we don't plan well or when our opponent snipes them—or both.

Its a forum; you can take away from the written what is relevant for you and ignore the rest of my babbling lol. Also: Do challenge the written at any given time; take nothing as carved in stone. It helps you as a player. Playing the odds with cantrips and squeezing out the optimum is pretty close to the "certainty" you have with tutors. An extreme example to look at are the old vids of the 16-cantrip ANT decks which popped up right after Preordain was printed and won several tournaments.

[Cave]

I am myself a big fan of preordain and i'm convinced the card itself is nowhere near as bad as many users state it is.
It's for sure the worst of our cantrips spells, but it also has some upsides. Namely, it interacts very well with ponder and brainstorm and it improves your overall card quality more than ponder does, thanks to the scry mechanic. Ponder digs deeper though, and this makes it better.

I believe that, while building an ANT deck, every available slot should be an additional copy of preordain. I'm playing two at the moment, but I was playing three at some point, and it wasn't bad at all. Also, I favour a really lightweight approach with no more than 4 bomb-cards (ToA, AN, PiF, and the 4th i've been toying with DP and PiF#2). Finally, I'm quite sceptic about fancy 1-of's like Rain of Filth and SDT: before considering those cards, i'd rather add discard#7.

When I play this deck I like to be consistant (i'd be playing Belcher otherwise) and preordain's exactly what I need.

[Final Fortune]

I'm also a fan of 3 Preordain, I think it raises the skill cap of the deck much higher than Dark Petition and from the original Prosak list I only ever cut the 4th Preordain to play grindier set ups with multiple Tendrils and Pifs etc.

[Lemnear]

I'm also a fan of 3 Preordain, I think it raises the skill cap of the deck much higher than Dark Petition and from the original Prosak list I only ever cut the 4th Preordain to play grindier set ups with multiple Tendrils and Pifs etc.

I think something like the Prosak Maindeck with a 2016 manabase is still pretty viable. Maybe, with such a high number of cantrips, I would even play a second Island for double cantrip turn 2. Boarding out the Preordains for the sideboard storm spells in games two and three should be a plan still ;)

[Contract Killer]

I'm somewhat of a lurker, but have been playing the deck on and off at weekly events for a year or so now. As for Top being slow while this is true I think the flexibility the card gives is absurd to not run one main deck. At the very least it gives you a "ponder" effect each fetch and improves your draws constantly. After that though is what sets it apart from literally any other card you could play in a flex spot.

A) Makes natural tendrils in hand much easier to complete by flip top, cantrip, replay top rinse repeat until lethal storm.

B) Increased usage with LED which if you have a stocked graveyard is much better in my opinion. Being able to ritual out and crack an LED for UUU (flipping top to get the PIF) rather than for RRR and flashing back a PIF you binned is great. You net 1 more mana this way, get another PIF turn if this one fails (unlikely) and get access to minimum UUU instead of maybe just maybe UU off of your remaining lands after the first land goes into a dark ritual.

C) Brainstorm in conjuction with top allows you to float redundant business on your combo turn.

D) Most PIF cantrip lines I notice end up having excess black mana which with top can be turned into pseudo cantrips. At the very least seeing a couple cards deeper in-between actual cantrips at the cost of excess black mana we can't use otherwise seems worth it.

It might be easy to dismiss these as cute corner case scenarios. Which they could very well be, but I consider at least the cumulative cantrip effect you get on draws and fetches worthwhile. Honestly I don't see why people look at top as being slow when for the most part other decks can't efficiently race storm to begin with; the few exceptions being faster combo decks (reanimator, tin fins, etc) and burn.