So i've been on a hot streak with a peer/teachings list at my lgs's weekly moderns, going 4-0 or 3-1 for the last month or more. I have an interesting anecdote, and a question.
Anecdote: had a strange match last night. I won game 1 vs knightfall and in g2 keep a hand of 7 with 1 SSG but is otherwise great. My second turn I draw lightning storm, and wish it was something better. Turns out my opponent has a nut draw and combos on turn 3. But between the fetchland and untapped shocks he puts himself to 2, so I lightning storm him for the default 3 damage and he has no lands in hand. The look of alarm and confusion that play got was delightful.
Question: I know it's been discussed, but the jund matchup seems bad and it feels worse the more I play it. I've been on a pretty standard leyline-based sideboard plan, but it feels insufficient. Is anything else worth trying? Spellskites, maybe?
Odd idea, but what do you guys think of Zealous Conscripts in the sideboard? Seems like it would have utility against jeskai control, jund and junk, and Kiki Chord. I am pretty sure you could steal a kiki and combo off yourself with it by repeatedly targeting kiki with the copies of Zealous Conscripts. It would also have utility against jeskai/jund's planeswalkers by potentially giving you a free ultimate of either Liliana or Nahiri.
Odd idea, but what do you guys think of Zealous Conscripts in the sideboard? Seems like it would have utility against jeskai control, jund and junk, and Kiki Chord. I am pretty sure you could steal a kiki and combo off yourself with it by repeatedly targeting kiki with the copies of Zealous Conscripts. It would also have utility against jeskai/jund's planeswalkers by potentially giving you a free ultimate of either Liliana or Nahiri.
Are you playing ad nauseam currently? This is not anything near what the deck wants to be doing, nor an effective use of sideboard space. What problem does it solve? That's what sideboard slots are for.
Odd idea, but what do you guys think of Zealous Conscripts in the sideboard? Seems like it would have utility against jeskai control, jund and junk, and Kiki Chord. I am pretty sure you could steal a kiki and combo off yourself with it by repeatedly targeting kiki with the copies of Zealous Conscripts. It would also have utility against jeskai/jund's planeswalkers by potentially giving you a free ultimate of either Liliana or Nahiri.
Are you playing ad nauseam currently? This is not anything near what the deck wants to be doing, nor an effective use of sideboard space. What problem does it solve? That's what sideboard slots are for.
Provides an alternative way to win against the mirror, jeskai control, jund, and kiki chord. In otherwords, it could potentially provide an out to the Jund matchup while also having some utility in other matchups.
Match 1--
Beat Jund with some pretty good luck -- got there game 1 through a no-discard hand, game 2 leyline did its work.
Match 2--
Annihilated burn. He mulled to 5 looking for a deflecting palm game 2 but tapped out too early and I got'em. Reminds me I need to keep at least one pact in most matches :).
Match 3--
Lost a close 2-1 to omen scapeshift.
Game 1 I learned an important lesson: hands without both combo pieces need some kind of scrying to be good enough. I had double pact double angel's grace and 3 lands, and had to burn all of them looking for action.
In game 3 I had a great hand of 2 serum/1 sleight/1 land/angel's grace/spoils/ad naus. I proceeded to scry 2 ad nauseams and 3 SSGs and an unlife to the bottom looking for land drops or ramp, and barely hit one in 4 turns (a boseiju:P).
On turn 4 I realized he'd missed a land drop and so I had time to win by spoilsing for a lotus bloom. So I did, then spoilsed for 16 and died. I knew 7 or so cards at the bottom of my library and had not seem a bloom so thought it pretty likely I would get there, but oh well.
Match 4--
Beat bant eldrazi 2-0 predictably by being a degenerate combo deck. Thought-knot seer almost got him there but he picked an angel's grace instead of my ad nauseam when I had an unlife in hand, thinking he had removal for unlife (fracturing gust) but I had pact back up.
Spoils was fantastic for me in most matchups, but man that just random murder was awful
Saw a list that took 6th in an SCG IQ playing two copies of braid of fire main deck in place of two Pentad prisms. It's interesting and if played on turn two can accelerate us but I don't like that the mana is added during upkeep so there's only so much we can do with it. On the plus side it doesn't care about stony silence or artifact removal and might be bait for your opponent to use their enchantment removal on instead of unlife.
Went 4-0 at FNM with a fairly standard ad nauseam list. My list is pretty standard, the only exception being the use of 3 Disenchant which seems strong in my meta as there are a lot of decks that use stony silence and relevant artifact hate.
1: GW Hatebears 2-1
Game 1: Was a standard win; he didn't get any spell hate and I was able to combo off before he could kill me.
SIDEBOARD: +3 Ethereal Haze, +3 Disenchant, +1 Slaughter Pact, -2 Phyrexian Unlife, -2 Pact of Negation, -2 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hand
Game 2: He managed to get both his thalia, leon, and ghost quarters meaning I could not combo off fast enough.
Game 3: Had an unlife, ad nauseam, and simian spirit guide hand without any mana rocks. Destroyed his aether vial on turn 2 during my main phase in order to prevent him from using the vial on his turn. He played a Qasali Pridemage on his second turn, which I decided to slaughter pact on the main phase of my third turn in order to protect my phyrexian unlife. He did nothing on turn 3 and I paid for the slaughter pact on my next turn. I was able to combo off on turn 5 after he tapped out in order to avoid hate for the unlife.
I would consider keeping hands with more mana rocks in hindsight, as disenchant ensures they are still usable. The reason I lost a game in this match was due to being too slow as opposed to not having combo pieces. If I were to play this match again, I would probably board out more cantrips out over mana rocks. I am unsure whether or not it was correct to destroy the aether vial on turn 2, but it did seem to slow him and I didn't have any mana rocks that game.
2: Merfolk 2-1
Game 1: Standard turn 4 combo for the most part. The only difference from a standard game was keeping enough mana up to pay for multiple cursecatchers which I did by having both a lotus on turn 1 and playing a pentad prism on turn 2.
SIDEBOARD: +1 Pact of Negation, + 1 Bosieju, +3 Ethereal Haze, -1 Temple of Enlightenment, -2 Sleight of Hands, -2 Spoils of the Vault.
Game 2: Kept a hand without ad nauseam. Made a serious misplay in this game by not using slaughter pact on a single attacking creature of his when it would have brought me into negative life and because of it, I could not find ad nauseam in time. Ad Nauseam was the top card of the deck when I lost so the extra turn would have mattered.
Game 3: Kept a solid hand with both spoils, unlife, and mana acceleration. Went off on a turn where he tapped out where he tapped all but one of his mana. I had enough mana to play around both his curse catcher and a potential second curse catcher as he had an aether vial for 1. Had a pact of negation in hand as well, but it wasn't necessary in this game.
Merfolk is a fairly good matchup, as we can usually outrace them as long as you mulligan correctly. The only thing that needs to be played around is cursecatcher which isn't very hard. This matchup does raise the question about when it is correct to use spoils of the vault however, is it better to use it when they are tapped out and cannot react or is it better to wait until the last possible minute. I would assume that the former would better as it ensures that you can combo off outside of bad luck. He noted that he would start sideboarding additional counterspells for ad nauseam in the future as I faced him twice in a row (won last match as well, but it was much less interesting that time.)
3: RW Lockout 2-0
Game 1: I mulliganed to six this match and kept a hand with two lands, one being a basic plains, pentad, simian spirit guide, and ad nauseam. He used a Mana Tithe on my pentad prism, but I was able to pay for it using the spirit guide. He did not draw blood moon this game and I was able to get more mana rocks and a phyrexian unlife out and then was able to combo off once he tapped out for a nahiri.
SIDEBOARD: +3 Disenchant, +2 Duress, -2 Pact of Negation, -2 Sleight of Hands, -1 Phyrexian Unlife
Game 2: We both mulliganed to six, I kept a solid hand with a pentad prism, phyrexian unlife, ad nauseam, duress, and some lands. I kept a plains on the top of my library to play around blood moon. I duress him on turn 1, seeing that he did not have a blood moon or stony silence in hand and had no other mana sources, he kept what he scryed on top which made me believe that it was a second land, so I opted to take a Molten Rain as it was the best card that could disrupt me. From there it was a pretty standard turn 4 victory as he did not get anything else that could disrupt me.
This was a matchup that gave me a lot of trouble last week, as I did not know how to properly play around all of his hate. I decided to not play around stony silence this time around as it seemed that I lost last time because I didn't get enough colored mana acceleration: it seems like we lose the game if he gets both stony silence and blood moon (at least on game 1 or without disenchant), so playing around stony silence is pointless. One thing that surprised me was that both this week and last week, I never saw a stony silence from him, which makes it less clear as to whether or not he even runs it. The advice that people gave me about this matchup helped a lot and that was to get mana rocks, discard effects, and disenchant.
4: Lantern Control 2-1
Game 1: Kept a hand that had both pieces of the combo and a lotus bloom. He did not have any discard this game nor was he able to mill anything relevant to the combo before turn 4. He tried to abrupt decay the lotus bloom, but I was able to just combo off in response.
SIDEBOARD: +4 Leyline of Sanctity, +3 Disenchant, +1 Slaughter Pact, -3 Pentad Prism, -2 Phyrexian Unlife, -2 Pact of Negation, -1 Sleight of Hands
Game 2: Kept a hand that had both pieces of the combo but without leyline. He ended up discarding my phyrexian unlife, and was able to get the lock before I could assemble my combo. Was able to disenchant a latern during the lock, but he was able to top deck a second latern after milling himself.
Game 3: Had a perfect hand with both combo pieces, leyline, lotus bloom, and enough land and top decked a disenchant which could be used for pithing needle. His only out was to mill a copy of ad nauseam and use surgical extraction on turn 3, but he did not find anything that was relevant to the combo. He conceded after seeing my hand when surgical extracting a lotus bloom.
It seems that the most relevant aspect of this matchup is keeping a hand with as many combo pieces as possible game 1 and leyline of the sanctity in the games 2 and 3, as it increases our odds significantly that we can find our combo before being disrupted. Disenchant seems very useful in this matchup both for disrupting the lock and being able to play around hate like pithing needle. This matchup still seems very bad due to how easy our combo can be disrupted if he is able to mill any of our win cons, simian spirit guides, or ad nauseams.
Overall, I am a bit surprised that I was able to 4-0 this event, as the majority of the matchups I had seemed very hostile to Ad Nauseam. My meta usually seems to be favorable for Ad Nauseam as Jund and Infect seem fairly rare and the meta instead has a lot of collected company variants, URX control decks, and creature based aggro decks. Disenchant was a great sideboard card as it was relevant in all three of the bad matchups I had as well as being strong against the common decks listed above.
Thanks guys. Seemd that an infinite Dark confindant for 5 is a good card
Congratulations! Great finish with a great deck.
@Thread:
I'm tweaking the board before entering any more leagues. I've identified a number of recurring SB issues that need to be addressed in an MTGO metagame. Here's the original SB:
The two main problems I want to address are 1) dealing with random tech and bullets in people's decks and 2) streamlining mana costs.
For the first, I've lost games where I need to win with Maniac and don't have enough mana to fire 1-2 Thoughtseize, then Maniac, then SV. Examples range from Decay (less random) to Counterflux, Rending Volley, and Sudden Shock (most random). Sometimes I've even used a TS early and only have 1 left. Multiple hate spells means game over. The solution I've been considering from my Cheeri0s days, and izzet talked about with me out of thread, is some number of Silence in the board. Ryan's board from SCG Indy earlier this year, which also had the Gut Shot/Lose Hope package, had a singleton Silence.
Boseiju has been largely useless, and Silence performs a similar function anyway, so I want to cut the land for the Silence.
The second issue is with Darkness competing with Spoil's and Ad Nauseam's black mana. I've been in numerous situations against Infect, and the occasional random aggro deck, where I don't have enough black mana to cast Spoils into Darkness, a value Ad Nauseam for Darkness, or Ad Nauseam into a winning Maniac hand with Darkness backup. The basic Plains in my list also doesn't help, and basic Swamp is horrible. Taplands hurt too. Because of these conditions, I'm considering swapping all the Darknesses for Ethereal Hazes.
Anyone else have thoughts, experiences, or ideas about all this?
I have wound up choked on white mana enough times to like darkness in that slot I think (e.g. my only white source is a gemstone mine I would rather not use up). However...I only run one more black source than white, so that could easily just be variance so far.
Thoughtseize I've actually been thinking of going up on. The ability to grab hate cards proactively feels relatively important. The board I'm thinking about is:
Read the bones being likely better than Painful Truths and certainly better if you can't make a third color. The volume of Lilianas in my meta might indicate that I need to be playing teachings rather than a draw spell in the SB though.
Your comments about Silence seem very good to me though. Given the number of white sources we draw and how good silence is in the turn you're going off I'm surprised it doesn't see more play. Boseiju has certainly been straight up awful.
I suppose you run Laboratory Maniac in the mainboard with a 1/1 split? If not, Lightning Storm in the side feels odd to me.
Silence is surely a great add to the sideboard : I run Silence and Boseiju as well. The later is far from useless as Silence serves more a bait purpose. Opponents will have to respond to it, otherwise they will be comboed this turn most probably. But they can win the counterspells war and then, you probably don't have a Pact at hand, so Boseiju deals with any countermagic. It's just a great card that can be fetched with Tolaria, so it has its place in the 75 for sure.
Darkness is strictly inferior to Ethereal Haze, the later dealing with Borborygmos Enraged and such. I have enough white mana sources to cast and during 1 year of playing only the deck in tournaments, I never got mana screwed when wanting to play it. I'd make the swap for sure.
Slaughter Pact mainboard is cool also with the Coco and Kiki around as well as Death and Taxes / Hatebears. Can be fetched also with Tolaria when needed. I'd move it to the mainboard (don't know your 60 cards). Phyrexian Unlife as a 4th copy feels really old, but if you have plenty of aggro around, I'm fine with that.
I get that Wear // Tear serves a double purpose, but still I prefer Disenchant and Patrician's Scorn for mana requirement. Yes, it's 2 cards instead of 1, but still, they are better and I think you have room to make in the 15 cards.
I also agree that Ethereal Haze is so much better than Darkness. I haven't noticed mana problems but I've been saved by Ethernal Haze from creature damage before such as Eidolon of the Great Revel.
How have you guys been liking Thoughtseize? I haven't tried it but it makes sense that it would be a pretty decent card.
Is Disenchant really good? That's another card I haven't tried. Honestly, Patrician's Scorn and Echoing Truth has always been enough for me.
Honestly...a card I've been using that has impressed me is Gigadrowse. I've even used it against Aggro to tap down the team before comboing off the next turn. I like using it against Tron, I use it a lot against control to tap all their lands down. I love it against infect because I'm sick of dying on T3 every single time I play against Infect...
Side note: congrats Togores! You've been one of the top Ad Nauseam players I've seen around and to see you play probably the best games of magic I've ever seen, makes me want to move to Storm in Legacy.
@ Thoughtseize : it's just the best for BG/x and Infect! You take away anything relevant than can hurt you, like any Infect player would normally keep a 1 creature hand with lots of pumps, so you just take away the creature and he's facing some issues. Same thing against Jund : take the Thoughtseize in their hand before the use it against you and disrupt the combo or take away Lili. 2 Thoughtseize in the side is just a must.
@ Gigadrowse : this one is tricky, but I don't think it should be in the 75 now that Twin is gone. The me, it was a Twin card, but it is still very relevant against some matchups like Infect or Tron to take away some turn 3 Karn. Could be a 1 of in the side, I can live with that!
Yeah normally I would be down on thoughtseize vs GBx but I've found game 2 they have a really hard time beating you with anything but lily because we're sideboarded so heavily.
Yeah, I actually just lost recently to Jund. I lost game 1 to a couple of discards and a tarmogoyf and game 2 I had Leyline of Sanctity in my opener, 2x Lotus bloom, Unlife, Ad Nauseam, scry land, and Serum Visions. He T1 thoughtseized himself, hitting his other Thoughtseize and ended up getting a T2 Tasigur out followed by an Ancient grudge on both of my blooms which meant I couldn't go off due to Unlife. Just felt awful.
Yeah, I actually just lost recently to Jund. I lost game 1 to a couple of discards and a tarmogoyf and game 2 I had Leyline of Sanctity in my opener, 2x Lotus bloom, Unlife, Ad Nauseam, scry land, and Serum Visions. He T1 thoughtseized himself, hitting his other Thoughtseize and ended up getting a T2 Tasigur out followed by an Ancient grudge on both of my blooms which meant I couldn't go off due to Unlife. Just felt awful.
I've been taking out the pentads and leaving in the blooms, cutting 1 cantrip and 1 spoils. in come 2 sieze, 4 leyline. If you've got an extra mana you can force them to interact before you ad naus because you can seize first (either taking their abrupt or making them use it so they can't just sit and wait for you to act first).
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For BG/x, you need to side in at least 4 Leyline of Sanctity and 2 Thoughtseize. If your meta has BG/x everywhere, you could also add 1 Celestial Purge for Liliana of the Veil. 2 Esper Charm is also worth it with BG/x everywhere. Something fancy is Pure Intentions (it cracks me up everytime in playtesting when I can use Mystical Teachings to get it).
For the manabase, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Oboro, Palace in the Clouds are a must again BG/x.
About Sphinx's Revelation, I tested it and it was really slow, not worth the CMC and the lifegain. I'd run Ancestral Vision over it.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Are you playing ad nauseam currently? This is not anything near what the deck wants to be doing, nor an effective use of sideboard space. What problem does it solve? That's what sideboard slots are for.
Provides an alternative way to win against the mirror, jeskai control, jund, and kiki chord. In otherwords, it could potentially provide an out to the Jund matchup while also having some utility in other matchups.
UWR Control is one easy matchup, we don't need anything against it.
About Jund, BG/x is BG/x. The sideboard plan I suggested above is enough to deal with it (I mean, it's very winnable, it's not Infect).
Kiki Chord is also simple, combo faster.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Match 1--
Beat Jund with some pretty good luck -- got there game 1 through a no-discard hand, game 2 leyline did its work.
Match 2--
Annihilated burn. He mulled to 5 looking for a deflecting palm game 2 but tapped out too early and I got'em. Reminds me I need to keep at least one pact in most matches :).
Match 3--
Lost a close 2-1 to omen scapeshift.
Game 1 I learned an important lesson: hands without both combo pieces need some kind of scrying to be good enough. I had double pact double angel's grace and 3 lands, and had to burn all of them looking for action.
In game 3 I had a great hand of 2 serum/1 sleight/1 land/angel's grace/spoils/ad naus. I proceeded to scry 2 ad nauseams and 3 SSGs and an unlife to the bottom looking for land drops or ramp, and barely hit one in 4 turns (a boseiju:P).
On turn 4 I realized he'd missed a land drop and so I had time to win by spoilsing for a lotus bloom. So I did, then spoilsed for 16 and died. I knew 7 or so cards at the bottom of my library and had not seem a bloom so thought it pretty likely I would get there, but oh well.
Match 4--
Beat bant eldrazi 2-0 predictably by being a degenerate combo deck. Thought-knot seer almost got him there but he picked an angel's grace instead of my ad nauseam when I had an unlife in hand, thinking he had removal for unlife (fracturing gust) but I had pact back up.
Spoils was fantastic for me in most matchups, but man that just random murder was awful
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The rest of his list is a bit out of the ordinary and can be found here http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=103956
UBWAd NauseamWBU
URStormRU
EDH:
BMikaeus the UnhallowedB
RWAurelia, the WarleaderWR
1: GW Hatebears 2-1
Game 1: Was a standard win; he didn't get any spell hate and I was able to combo off before he could kill me.
SIDEBOARD: +3 Ethereal Haze, +3 Disenchant, +1 Slaughter Pact, -2 Phyrexian Unlife, -2 Pact of Negation, -2 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hand
Game 2: He managed to get both his thalia, leon, and ghost quarters meaning I could not combo off fast enough.
Game 3: Had an unlife, ad nauseam, and simian spirit guide hand without any mana rocks. Destroyed his aether vial on turn 2 during my main phase in order to prevent him from using the vial on his turn. He played a Qasali Pridemage on his second turn, which I decided to slaughter pact on the main phase of my third turn in order to protect my phyrexian unlife. He did nothing on turn 3 and I paid for the slaughter pact on my next turn. I was able to combo off on turn 5 after he tapped out in order to avoid hate for the unlife.
I would consider keeping hands with more mana rocks in hindsight, as disenchant ensures they are still usable. The reason I lost a game in this match was due to being too slow as opposed to not having combo pieces. If I were to play this match again, I would probably board out more cantrips out over mana rocks. I am unsure whether or not it was correct to destroy the aether vial on turn 2, but it did seem to slow him and I didn't have any mana rocks that game.
2: Merfolk 2-1
Game 1: Standard turn 4 combo for the most part. The only difference from a standard game was keeping enough mana up to pay for multiple cursecatchers which I did by having both a lotus on turn 1 and playing a pentad prism on turn 2.
SIDEBOARD: +1 Pact of Negation, + 1 Bosieju, +3 Ethereal Haze, -1 Temple of Enlightenment, -2 Sleight of Hands, -2 Spoils of the Vault.
Game 2: Kept a hand without ad nauseam. Made a serious misplay in this game by not using slaughter pact on a single attacking creature of his when it would have brought me into negative life and because of it, I could not find ad nauseam in time. Ad Nauseam was the top card of the deck when I lost so the extra turn would have mattered.
Game 3: Kept a solid hand with both spoils, unlife, and mana acceleration. Went off on a turn where he tapped out where he tapped all but one of his mana. I had enough mana to play around both his curse catcher and a potential second curse catcher as he had an aether vial for 1. Had a pact of negation in hand as well, but it wasn't necessary in this game.
Merfolk is a fairly good matchup, as we can usually outrace them as long as you mulligan correctly. The only thing that needs to be played around is cursecatcher which isn't very hard. This matchup does raise the question about when it is correct to use spoils of the vault however, is it better to use it when they are tapped out and cannot react or is it better to wait until the last possible minute. I would assume that the former would better as it ensures that you can combo off outside of bad luck. He noted that he would start sideboarding additional counterspells for ad nauseam in the future as I faced him twice in a row (won last match as well, but it was much less interesting that time.)
3: RW Lockout 2-0
Game 1: I mulliganed to six this match and kept a hand with two lands, one being a basic plains, pentad, simian spirit guide, and ad nauseam. He used a Mana Tithe on my pentad prism, but I was able to pay for it using the spirit guide. He did not draw blood moon this game and I was able to get more mana rocks and a phyrexian unlife out and then was able to combo off once he tapped out for a nahiri.
SIDEBOARD: +3 Disenchant, +2 Duress, -2 Pact of Negation, -2 Sleight of Hands, -1 Phyrexian Unlife
Game 2: We both mulliganed to six, I kept a solid hand with a pentad prism, phyrexian unlife, ad nauseam, duress, and some lands. I kept a plains on the top of my library to play around blood moon. I duress him on turn 1, seeing that he did not have a blood moon or stony silence in hand and had no other mana sources, he kept what he scryed on top which made me believe that it was a second land, so I opted to take a Molten Rain as it was the best card that could disrupt me. From there it was a pretty standard turn 4 victory as he did not get anything else that could disrupt me.
This was a matchup that gave me a lot of trouble last week, as I did not know how to properly play around all of his hate. I decided to not play around stony silence this time around as it seemed that I lost last time because I didn't get enough colored mana acceleration: it seems like we lose the game if he gets both stony silence and blood moon (at least on game 1 or without disenchant), so playing around stony silence is pointless. One thing that surprised me was that both this week and last week, I never saw a stony silence from him, which makes it less clear as to whether or not he even runs it. The advice that people gave me about this matchup helped a lot and that was to get mana rocks, discard effects, and disenchant.
4: Lantern Control 2-1
Game 1: Kept a hand that had both pieces of the combo and a lotus bloom. He did not have any discard this game nor was he able to mill anything relevant to the combo before turn 4. He tried to abrupt decay the lotus bloom, but I was able to just combo off in response.
SIDEBOARD: +4 Leyline of Sanctity, +3 Disenchant, +1 Slaughter Pact, -3 Pentad Prism, -2 Phyrexian Unlife, -2 Pact of Negation, -1 Sleight of Hands
Game 2: Kept a hand that had both pieces of the combo but without leyline. He ended up discarding my phyrexian unlife, and was able to get the lock before I could assemble my combo. Was able to disenchant a latern during the lock, but he was able to top deck a second latern after milling himself.
Game 3: Had a perfect hand with both combo pieces, leyline, lotus bloom, and enough land and top decked a disenchant which could be used for pithing needle. His only out was to mill a copy of ad nauseam and use surgical extraction on turn 3, but he did not find anything that was relevant to the combo. He conceded after seeing my hand when surgical extracting a lotus bloom.
It seems that the most relevant aspect of this matchup is keeping a hand with as many combo pieces as possible game 1 and leyline of the sanctity in the games 2 and 3, as it increases our odds significantly that we can find our combo before being disrupted. Disenchant seems very useful in this matchup both for disrupting the lock and being able to play around hate like pithing needle. This matchup still seems very bad due to how easy our combo can be disrupted if he is able to mill any of our win cons, simian spirit guides, or ad nauseams.
Overall, I am a bit surprised that I was able to 4-0 this event, as the majority of the matchups I had seemed very hostile to Ad Nauseam. My meta usually seems to be favorable for Ad Nauseam as Jund and Infect seem fairly rare and the meta instead has a lot of collected company variants, URX control decks, and creature based aggro decks. Disenchant was a great sideboard card as it was relevant in all three of the bad matchups I had as well as being strong against the common decks listed above.
Came here to say this, Congrats again!
"He traded sand for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand."
—Afari, Tales
Congratulations! Great finish with a great deck.
@Thread:
I'm tweaking the board before entering any more leagues. I've identified a number of recurring SB issues that need to be addressed in an MTGO metagame. Here's the original SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wear // Tear
2 Thoughtseize
3 Darkness
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Lightning Storm
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
The two main problems I want to address are 1) dealing with random tech and bullets in people's decks and 2) streamlining mana costs.
For the first, I've lost games where I need to win with Maniac and don't have enough mana to fire 1-2 Thoughtseize, then Maniac, then SV. Examples range from Decay (less random) to Counterflux, Rending Volley, and Sudden Shock (most random). Sometimes I've even used a TS early and only have 1 left. Multiple hate spells means game over. The solution I've been considering from my Cheeri0s days, and izzet talked about with me out of thread, is some number of Silence in the board. Ryan's board from SCG Indy earlier this year, which also had the Gut Shot/Lose Hope package, had a singleton Silence.
Boseiju has been largely useless, and Silence performs a similar function anyway, so I want to cut the land for the Silence.
The second issue is with Darkness competing with Spoil's and Ad Nauseam's black mana. I've been in numerous situations against Infect, and the occasional random aggro deck, where I don't have enough black mana to cast Spoils into Darkness, a value Ad Nauseam for Darkness, or Ad Nauseam into a winning Maniac hand with Darkness backup. The basic Plains in my list also doesn't help, and basic Swamp is horrible. Taplands hurt too. Because of these conditions, I'm considering swapping all the Darknesses for Ethereal Hazes.
Anyone else have thoughts, experiences, or ideas about all this?
Thoughtseize I've actually been thinking of going up on. The ability to grab hate cards proactively feels relatively important. The board I'm thinking about is:
Read the bones being likely better than Painful Truths and certainly better if you can't make a third color. The volume of Lilianas in my meta might indicate that I need to be playing teachings rather than a draw spell in the SB though.
Your comments about Silence seem very good to me though. Given the number of white sources we draw and how good silence is in the turn you're going off I'm surprised it doesn't see more play. Boseiju has certainly been straight up awful.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Silence is surely a great add to the sideboard : I run Silence and Boseiju as well. The later is far from useless as Silence serves more a bait purpose. Opponents will have to respond to it, otherwise they will be comboed this turn most probably. But they can win the counterspells war and then, you probably don't have a Pact at hand, so Boseiju deals with any countermagic. It's just a great card that can be fetched with Tolaria, so it has its place in the 75 for sure.
Darkness is strictly inferior to Ethereal Haze, the later dealing with Borborygmos Enraged and such. I have enough white mana sources to cast and during 1 year of playing only the deck in tournaments, I never got mana screwed when wanting to play it. I'd make the swap for sure.
Slaughter Pact mainboard is cool also with the Coco and Kiki around as well as Death and Taxes / Hatebears. Can be fetched also with Tolaria when needed. I'd move it to the mainboard (don't know your 60 cards). Phyrexian Unlife as a 4th copy feels really old, but if you have plenty of aggro around, I'm fine with that.
I get that Wear // Tear serves a double purpose, but still I prefer Disenchant and Patrician's Scorn for mana requirement. Yes, it's 2 cards instead of 1, but still, they are better and I think you have room to make in the 15 cards.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
How have you guys been liking Thoughtseize? I haven't tried it but it makes sense that it would be a pretty decent card.
Is Disenchant really good? That's another card I haven't tried. Honestly, Patrician's Scorn and Echoing Truth has always been enough for me.
Honestly...a card I've been using that has impressed me is Gigadrowse. I've even used it against Aggro to tap down the team before comboing off the next turn. I like using it against Tron, I use it a lot against control to tap all their lands down. I love it against infect because I'm sick of dying on T3 every single time I play against Infect...
Side note: congrats Togores! You've been one of the top Ad Nauseam players I've seen around and to see you play probably the best games of magic I've ever seen, makes me want to move to Storm in Legacy.
Modern
Ad Nauseam
Dredge
Living End
Legacy
Lands
"He traded sand for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand."
—Afari, Tales
@ Gigadrowse : this one is tricky, but I don't think it should be in the 75 now that Twin is gone. The me, it was a Twin card, but it is still very relevant against some matchups like Infect or Tron to take away some turn 3 Karn. Could be a 1 of in the side, I can live with that!
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Modern
Ad Nauseam
Dredge
Living End
Legacy
Lands
I've been taking out the pentads and leaving in the blooms, cutting 1 cantrip and 1 spoils. in come 2 sieze, 4 leyline. If you've got an extra mana you can force them to interact before you ad naus because you can seize first (either taking their abrupt or making them use it so they can't just sit and wait for you to act first).