[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Pdingo]

@scottW
The Match up is difficult anyway because they have multiple hate for us.. naming chalice is fine normally because chalice for 0 is also very hard;)
But it depends on your hand/situation.
I remember one time i said blind mox and he had the teeg in hand and drew the mox from the top.

[rlesko]

On the contrary there is only 1 Teeg in the deck so I would likely never name that. As ScottW pointed out mox diamond is the only way to hit a turn 1 chalice for 1 or gaddock teeg(2 mana turn 1). So the situation seems too complex to really come up with some rules of thumb as it depends how likely you are to win the next turn or find additional disruption.

[.Ix]

Went 3-0-1 last night.

2-1 Zoo

Kept a cantrippy hand and lost game 1. G2 I killed him T2, G3 killed him T1.

1-1-1 Miracles

G1 Killed him turn 3 I think? Game 2 I kept a one Swamp hand off a mull to 6, and I didn't draw any lands for ~6 turns. On my last turn, I had to Kgrip a CB with a Petal+2 lands, and brainstorm into LED/Ritual + Land to win. Brainstorm gave me nothing. Game 3 would have been easy but we had no more time.

2-0 Burn

Dazed a Lightning Bolt and a Creature in Game 1, hardcasted both times. Killed him after the second daze with very low life and 2 Price of Progress in his hand. G2 was a T2 kill.

2-0 Slivers.

G1 I Probe - Therapy the Haste Sliver, then Daze a Vial to make him slow as heck. I kill him soon after. G2 he plays a Turn 1 Thalia with a Petal. I had Daze in hand, but I also had Disfigure. Took damage from Thalia until I could Disfigure it and won right after. I still had Daze in hand but I killed him somehow anyway.

Pretty good matchups for me, but I'm now 13-1-2 with 3 Dazes maindeck. I keep changing a few slots, but I played 14 lands, 1 Dark Petition, 1 PIF, and 1 Preordain last night.

[Morden]

I want me too give a try to daze...... I noticed that now a lot of G1 have hate against us, it can be difficult to win also pre-side:
miracle has counterbalance
eldrazi has thorn and chalice
merfolks has chalice
aggroloam has chalice
D&T has thalia
burn has eidolon

it's very frustating if the opponent starts with one of this card in hands, and you have basically one turn to find a discard (by the way, duress doesn't work with eidolon and thalia.......) or die. Luckly all these cards come into play on turn 2, so daze can really save a game.

How many copies do you usually play? 2 or 3? What do you usually cut for them? sensei, 1/2 preordain, cabal therapy......?

[CabalTherapy]

it's very frustating if the opponent starts with one of this card in hands, and you have basically one turn to find a discard (by the way, duress doesn't work with eidolon and thalia.......) or die.

Fortunately, that's not how it works. You only give a very limited/narrow description of a specific game state.

cabal therapy......?

By the way, it feels good to be back in established decks.

[Morden]

well, if we are now in the established section, maybe this means that the situations I described above happen not only to me, and quite often

[Ronald Deuce]

Played three rounds today, beating Grix Delver and Reanimator(!), losing to Maverick.

Not a ton to report, except that I think I lucked out hard against Reanimator (he only had one of those "T1 Griselbrand"-type hands in game 1) and I got shafted against Maverick; he just got really good hands and I got really mediocre ones.

Morden, I'm with you regarding the dangers this deck faces from game-1 permanent hate, though I'm not sure it's worth it to change the existing anti-hate package by more than a card or two. I'm sticking with six discards for the time being, but I definitely think dedicated anti-hate is very important in the sideboard.

Though it might not be representative, I couldn't get anything together against Mav today. I ended up facing down Thalia in game 1, then naming Thalia (Guardian) with a Therapy in game 2, only to see my opponent topdeck one, followed by a Thalia, Heretic Cathar.

I'm starting to think that we're going to have a lot of problems against decks like D&T and Mav going forward—not because the new hatebears are appreciably similar to the preexisting ones (they're obviously worse than Canonist and Old Thalia, if only because of their mana costs), but because they've gained so much maindeck consistency with the addition of the new cards.

I, for one, am bringing back the second Disfigure. No idea whether that's going to be enough, but I don't think relying on 2-cmc cards like Decay to get rid of hatebears is going to get us anywhere if they've got so many possible targets (a number of which tax us or slow us down). Maybe Massacre's back in the gameplan, though I don't like to run it with Ad Nauseam. Anyone have thoughts about this stuff?

[.Ix]

I want me too give a try to daze...... I noticed that now a lot of G1 have hate against us, it can be difficult to win also pre-side:
miracle has counterbalance
eldrazi has thorn and chalice
merfolks has chalice
aggroloam has chalice
D&T has thalia
burn has eidolon

it's very frustating if the opponent starts with one of this card in hands, and you have basically one turn to find a discard (by the way, duress doesn't work with eidolon and thalia.......) or die. Luckly all these cards come into play on turn 2, so daze can really save a game.

I agree with CabalTherapy. None of these cards really beat us outright. We can kill them before these cards are even played, and we can simply play straight through them sometimes. Daze should increase our win% percentage against these cards, but I haven't actually Dazed any of them so far. I just haven't faced them at all. Even then, I think it's pretty decent in my aggro/combo-ish metagame. I will keep testing it.

How many copies do you usually play? 2 or 3? What do you usually cut for them? sensei, 1/2 preordain, cabal therapy......?

This is the 60 I played last time.


4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Daze

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Dark Petition
1 Past In Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

--Fixed. Good catch, Jonathan. Thanks!

[Jonathan Alexander]

That's 59.

[Morden]

thanks IX for the suggestion, I didn't like to cut one of my green mana source (I used to play a bayou and a tropical) but I think it's better cut one of them (that are useless g1) rather than a cabal therapy.

I know that we CAN win against those cards, but let's be honest, how frequently does it happen? Maybe against D&T, before recruiter/prelate we had time to develop tons of mana and play over thalia, now hate is stronger, you don't have so much time. The same against eldrazi......before them you could play around chalice....now you have the pressure of smasher and thought not seer.....
Good for you if you can always win turn 1-2 or later, this doesn't happen to me :( .

[CabalTherapy]

well, if we are now in the established section, maybe this means that the situations I described above happen not only to me, and quite often

Sure, T2 something can let ANT die from time to time but it's too easy to simply state: "We sat down, I had a mediocre hand, he played [insert random hate piece] and I died." (I know you didn't write it that way.)
But I was referring to all the actions that take place before T2 starting with the first handshake and so on; basically all the decisions that lead to a certain ending. Something like: 1. Do you know you opponent? Does he know you?
2. His T1 play unveils he is on some kind of hatebear strategy/ Does he know what you're on? 3. You don't have a kill/ CT before his Thalia sticks? Did you lead with Volcanic maybe? Do you have a Petal > then fetch for Tropical and hope
he goes for your lands first and plays it safe. 4. If you don't have either discard spell or a fast turn what do you have instead? Can you win against a Thalia/Lodestone later on?

I think that DnT is easily a positive MU, especially with Daze, it's a pure goldfish scenario where you can slow them down. They are already extremely consistent but too slow compared to Thalia Stompy. By the way, I played against the W stompy last week and was able to push through Lodestone and Chalice@1. I had Daze in hand for the Lodestone but he played Caverns > Golem.

[Dr_D]

This is the 60 I played last time.


4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Island

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Daze

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Dark Petition
1 Past In Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

What's your board look like, if you don't mind me asking.

[Morden]

Sure, T2 something can let ANT die from time to time but it's too easy to simply state: "We sat down, I had a mediocre hand, he played [insert random hate piece] and I died." (I know you didn't write it that way.)
But I was referring to all the actions that take place before T2 starting with the first handshake and so on; basically all the decisions that lead to a certain ending. Something like: 1. Do you know you opponent? Does he know you?
2. His T1 play unveils he is on some kind of hatebear strategy/ Does he know what you're on? 3. You don't have a kill/ CT before his Thalia sticks? Did you lead with Volcanic maybe? Do you have a Petal > then fetch for Tropical and hope
he goes for your lands first and plays it safe. 4. If you don't have either discard spell or a fast turn what do you have instead? Can you win against a Thalia/Lodestone later on?

I think that DnT is easily a positive MU, especially with Daze, it's a pure goldfish scenario where you can slow them down. They are already extremely consistent but too slow compared to Thalia Stompy. By the way, I played against the W stompy last week and was able to push through Lodestone and Chalice@1. I had Daze in hand for the Lodestone but he played Caverns > Golem.

yes, sorry if I wrote it too quickly, I missed a lot of considerations as you pointed out.
Of course, I'm talking about pre-side games......with sideboards included things are much more complicated to analyze.
Imho the problem with those cards is that they are the "best" drop for them: a D&T player will probably keep an hand with thalia if other cards are pretty good, as the eldrazi player would do with an hand with chalice. I'm generalizing too much maybe, the meaning of my sentence is that those cards are so good in general, not only against us, that our opponents don't need to know what we are playing.

Similiar situation in our side; let's say that your opening hand, on the draw, is:

1 island, 1 ponder, 1 fetch, 1 brainstorm, 1 led, 1 infernal tutor, 1 dark ritual.

Would you mulligan this hand just because you know that your opponent is on eldrazi and a chalice on turn 1 is basically GG? I cannot image a matchup where this hand is a mulligan, neither on the play or on the draw. True history: I kept this hand against D&T, on the draw.....turn1 ponder, pass, thalia......trying to develop tons of mana, putting led on the board before storming, on his turn 4 recruiter->prelate.....
I don't think I made a mistake, I cannot mulligan until I find a cabal therapy.....

anyway, I think me too that D&T is a good matchup, especially if you are on the play. You can also "bluff" and make your opponent think that you are a grixis deck, so they don't call "LED" on revoker or something like this.....but these are very narrow situation, what I saw against these bad matchups (not only in my games) is "hate on hand: GG 70% of the time" (30% thanks to a discard card, to be on the play, to play around the hate if possible, and so on....)

[taconaut]

Of course, I'm talking about pre-side games......with sideboards included things are much more complicated to analyze.

Similiar situation in our side; let's say that your opening hand, on the draw, is:

1 island, 1 ponder, 1 fetch, 1 brainstorm, 1 led, 1 infernal tutor, 1 dark ritual.

(1) Would you mulligan this hand just because you know that your opponent is on eldrazi (or D and T, as in your example that followed)and a chalice on turn 1 is basically GG?

anyway, I think me too that D&T is a good matchup, especially if you are on the play. You can also "bluff" and make your opponent think that you are a grixis deck, so they don't call "LED" on revoker or something like this.....but these are very narrow situation (2), what I saw against these bad matchups (not only in my games) is "hate on hand: GG 70% of the time" (30% thanks to a discard card, to be on the play, to play around the hate if possible, and so on....)

(1) I would keep that hand as well, and agree that it's pretty solid. However, if I knew my opponent were on Eldrazi or DNT, I would actually lead with brainstorm instead of ponder, as there's a non-zero chance we could hit something like lotus petal + ritual and combo turn one (though this comes with my usual caveat that I am probably more eager than most to fire off a naked Ad Nauseam). Slightly less optimal, we could hit petal + therapy, and least optimal, we hit nothing, but are not really all that much worse off than before, because we have a fetch to shuffle at least one of the two cards we put back and a ponder after that. Also, there's a sizable chance that they just don't have it - you can't rely on it, and I risked it once turn one this weekend and my opponent had the force, but I'd probably do it again if I got the chance.

(2) I actually had several situations this weekend where I was able to keep my opponent in the dark as to my deck game one, and then converted the information asymmetry into a match win later, though I agree that it's not overly common in general. I think it's not quite as hard to beat some of the hate as 70-30, partly because our opponents may have that mindset as well - opponents who are unfamiliar with Storm, especially, will sometimes keep hands that lean much too heavily on a single hate permanent, and will then lose because we decay or bounce the permanent and the rest of their hand wasn't up to snuff. I think the 70-30 feeling is very analogous to how fair deck players react to ANT, except in reverse: you never really remember when the games were close shaves and both players had to play around hate and disruption; you remember the one where you keep your sweet hand with knight of the reliquary, waste, and thalia, and the storm guy kills you turn zero with the nuts. The other side of the coin is when they open on land > DRS, then land > GSZ > Teeg in game one, and we feel like we got dumpstered.

I got to play at Eternal Extravaganza this Sunday and went 6-2-1 and had a blast. I'm going to try to write up a report in a bit, and either post it here or in the reports section. Quick summary: Grixis Delver and Legends Miracles are hard, and Legacy players by and large are good sports. I was on something similar to what I've been playing, with the Chrome moxen (1 MB/1 SB), one Preordain/DP/ToA/PiF/ADN, fifteen lands, and seven discard (I do think the Dazes sound spicy though). Did anybody else get to go?

[Pdingo]

3:0 at weekly Legacy with 3 Main Daze:)

2:0 Fast Reanimator (2 Surgical SB , we always have 1-2 people there with Reanimator)
2:0 Infect
2:0 Sneak and Show (Daze won me here the g1!)


greets

Pascal

[Ronald Deuce]

3:0 at weekly Legacy with 3 Main Daze:)

2:0 Fast Reanimator (2 Surgical SB , we always have 1-2 people there with Reanimator)
2:0 Infect
2:0 Sneak and Show (Daze won me here the g1!)


greets

Pascal

Good show!

A question for the people who are running Daze right now, either in the sideboard or the main: when do you bring it in/take it out? I feel like it's no good in certain matchups, and that on the draw, it's often no better than targeted discard because the hate (esp. Chalice or Thorn) is so likely to come down regardless of whether we've got Daze in hand. Also, does it still do good stuff when it's later in the game? When I tried it, I found that it essentially stopped doing anything after about turn 3 unless the opponent flubbed hard on finding lands.

A couple of other things regarding other stuff in the thread:
—Venezuelan Legends is definitely a tough Miracles build to fight, but I've found Mentor Miracles to be more difficult because they can clock us so quickly, even if they've got a mediocre hand with, say, a single piece of permission. Clique is great and all, but it feels a lot like Tarmogoyf to me: it might be the card that seals the game, but it's also the one I'm least worried about seeing in the face of whatever else they're using to disrupt us. They've probably already got us on the back foot if they've managed to start recurring Clique.
—This might simply be a lack of experience (only weekly 3-rounders because Vermont), but I've never beaten a resolved Thalia preboard. It makes us have to jump a hurdle every time we play a spell, and the likelihood a second piece of hate won't come down before we get a workable plan together (especially in this brave new world of white recruiters) is, from what I've seen, extremely slim.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Geez I've been gone from this deck for a while, and I come back to maindeck Daze... What is going on...

[Pdingo]

@Ronald Reduce

I side them always out normally..sometimes against burn decks or eldrazi decks on the play i keep them in:)

[CabalTherapy]

Geez I've been gone from this deck for a while, and I come back to maindeck Daze... What is going on...

Don't worry, it's only one dude.

[nevilshute]

4-1'd a league playing Dazes in the main. Didn't see them enough to really conclude much.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...pVwezdAMlM5pR7