So far with my testing, it really doesnt seem like there is much of an opportunity cost at all for having three tolaria wests and there are some reasonable benefits. It makes control almost impossible to lose against (it was already a very good matchup though, gives us a both a game 1 out to humans and makes game 2/3 more winnable, and was even used to find black sources against hatebear decks. I am wondering if there is a way to optimize this list, I feel like the one darkslick shores could probably be turned into a utility land, but im not sure which.
I don't think the unbanning of Jace is good for us...Leylines would be good against him though.
I thought about it and it seems worse than Nahiri (against us) in a lot of ways. Its win con is much slower compared to a nahiri ult and casting it on turn 4 still risks losing to the combo. The pro to using Jace is that its plus ability some what interacts with us if we don't have the combo yet, but I don't see that being a huge problem if the control player does the smarter thing and plays it while holding up counter magic.
What is the game plan versus storm? It seems like if they know what they are doing and combo off leaving themselves with remands/blue mana open and the ability to storm off again next turn, its almost impossible to win as they are a turn faster than us.
I just bought Adn, so i have no experience. But, i do play alot of storm and i can imagine what you would want to do. Storm is faster, but you can cheat death and that will make storm fizzle (hopefully). So, pray that you have a Angels grace. Let him go of, and respond with grace after grapeshot (if possible, keep up atleast 2 white mana, for remand). If storm is popular in your local meta, 3 Leyline in main might be something to concider. Most of the decks run 3 grapeshots, and no empty MB. Hope i could help a lil bit
The problem with this is that this only works against inexperienced storm players. Someone who is smarter will hold up at least one blue land and try to find a remand while still comboing off, making it so you need both a second grace effect and a pact of negation to combo off; which is much harder to get by turn 4.
What is the game plan versus storm? It seems like if they know what they are doing and combo off leaving themselves with remands/blue mana open and the ability to storm off again next turn, its almost impossible to win as they are a turn faster than us.
I need a second opinion on a play. Here is the context.
I am playing game 1 against a UR control deck which may or may not play the through the breach. On my turn 4 they snapcastered remanded my lotus bloom. They are tapped out. On my main phase, I have 2 darkslick shores and a gemstone mine. Relevant cards in my hand include 2 ad nauseams, a phyrexian unlife, and 2 spirit guides, 0 pacts and 0 lands. I am at 20 life. Is it correct to hardcast ad nauseam in an attempt to draw a large sum of cards (relevant cards being ramp, pact of negations, and angel's grace) that would make going off easier and prevent lethal with through the breach or should I cast phyrexian unlife, allowing me to to potentially combo off next turn if they tap out, but at the risk of dying to a through the breach.
I think Mystical Teachings has the same mana cost and serves the same purpose at instant speed with the bonus of Flashback to even allow you to get both pieces of the combo. Unless they change the rules on this and it will allow you to retrieve an exiled Ad Nauseam which was Surgical Extraction-ed then I would really consider this card. Coz there's only 2 cards that can fetch a card from exile, Pull from Eternity and Riftsweeper
Putting ad naus in the sideboard would allow you to fetch one after being surgicaled. The bonus with this card is effectively allowing you to fetch for an answer to any hate card/alt wincon/bad matchup game 1 and effectively being 4 copies of said hate card/alt wincon.
Do we want Mastermind's Acquisition? Allows us to run seven copies of ad nauseam and angel's grace if we put one in the sideboard (or eight if we don't, I doubt its correct to put grace in the board) and lets us access alternative wincons/relevant hate cards from the sideboard.
Thoughts on Treasure Map? This card seems interesting for its ability to both scry and ramp us mana. While its slower than a card like pentad prism (it activates turn 5 if it comes out on turn 2 or 3), it allows us to get closer to combo pieces while doing so, making it more likely we can combo off by turn 5. This card seems pretty good in a non aggro heavy meta.
Hey guys, I somehow managed to win our Rivals of Ixalan PPTQ with Ad Nauseam today. There seems to be some gloom on the position of the deck in the current meta, but drawing well and dodging our worst matchup still seems to work like it did a year ago. If anyone is interested I can post a short writedown, although I will probably not go into much detail as I did not take any notes and was rather tired.
I think ad nauseam is positioned to see a comeback, a lot of decks are trying to hate out death shadow and to some extent succeeding, and we happen to have a good matchup against many of those decks.
Dispel and Remand don't play around Angel's Grace because of Split Second, unless you mean Remanding their own Grapeshot in response to the Grace to use next turn. The counters do play around the combo itself though.
I like Mercy but, much like the black one in the cycle, the cost of not untapping may be too high.. also it would seem best against burn but they run Skullcrack and occasionally Atarka's Command, and that MU is usually pretty favorable anyway.
No, I mean getting remands/dispels and leaving up lands so when they do angel's grace, they can just counter ad nauseam if you attempt to combo off on your turn.
With DS being on top and really rough, Affinity a 50/50 matchup and Eldrazi Tron everywhere, we are not in a great spot right now. Dredge, I never know what to expect (nothing from their side and easy win or huge turn 2-3 swarm with a buch of 2/1 creatures) and Storm is also a 50/50 matchup (it's the dice roll that decides who win if both player know how to play). So not a surprise our tenors didn't do much. But we'll be back
Playing both decks, storm definitely is favored if they are smart. A storm player can simply combo leaving up lands and find multiple copies of remands or dispels to play around angel's grace and phyrexian unlife is completely useless against them. The only way ad nauseam can beat storm is to hold up pact of negation then combo off that next turn.
Does this sideboard seem adequate against an unknown meta, or is it too dated? The real question here is how good is aggro in modern in the death shadow meta and whether or not it is worth sideboarding heavily for death shadow. Death Shadow seems like such a bad matchup for ad nauseam to the point where it seems like boarding in specific cards for it like paths/push/godhead seems weak compared to boarding for other winnable matchups.
If you played on cockatrice, I am the BW tokens guy you crashed xD. I have to say that this version is very hard to handle for decks that rely on runed halo as a SB answer for that, you just dont know what to name. However, I feel like you are just winning more of the same matchups you already were good at, with the additional threat of death's shadow. I guess you lose the edge you SB gives you against your bad mu's. no? I mean, you are just changing you wincon, but the idea remains similar. In my case, any of them is already a bad MU, so...
Nice deck anyway!
I have been finding that the death shadow half has been performing better than the ad nauseam half (although I have been boarding in ad nauseam liberally just to test the list) and in terms of matchup, the death shadow half actually has been doing really well against grixis death shadow opponents; after multiple matches, I haven't lost a single game using the death shadow half against them, and that is without a sideboard. I found that in some games I am able to just out grind death shadow opponents without needing to combo off. I may need to make a list of matchups where I'd prefer to be ad nauseam though; probably most aggro decks, tron, and blue control decks.
Im sorry, all I see is you tried merge 2 decks and you don't have any and no sideboard as well.
This isn't entirely true, a good number of the cards in the mainboard work well as sideboard cards for ad nauseam, thoughtseize and snapcaster mage have both been useful in certain matchups.
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4 Lotus Bloom
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Lightning Storm
4 Phyrexian Unlife
3 Spoils of the Vault
4 Angel's Grace
4 Ad Nauseam
2 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Plains
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Temple of Enlightenment
4 Temple of Deceit
1 Island
4 City of Brass
1 Darkslick Shores
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
1 Walking Ballista
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Pact of Negation
1 Echoing Truth
2 Slaughter Pact
2 Thoughtseize
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
So far with my testing, it really doesnt seem like there is much of an opportunity cost at all for having three tolaria wests and there are some reasonable benefits. It makes control almost impossible to lose against (it was already a very good matchup though, gives us a both a game 1 out to humans and makes game 2/3 more winnable, and was even used to find black sources against hatebear decks. I am wondering if there is a way to optimize this list, I feel like the one darkslick shores could probably be turned into a utility land, but im not sure which.
I thought about it and it seems worse than Nahiri (against us) in a lot of ways. Its win con is much slower compared to a nahiri ult and casting it on turn 4 still risks losing to the combo. The pro to using Jace is that its plus ability some what interacts with us if we don't have the combo yet, but I don't see that being a huge problem if the control player does the smarter thing and plays it while holding up counter magic.
The problem with this is that this only works against inexperienced storm players. Someone who is smarter will hold up at least one blue land and try to find a remand while still comboing off, making it so you need both a second grace effect and a pact of negation to combo off; which is much harder to get by turn 4.
I am playing game 1 against a UR control deck which may or may not play the through the breach. On my turn 4 they snapcastered remanded my lotus bloom. They are tapped out. On my main phase, I have 2 darkslick shores and a gemstone mine. Relevant cards in my hand include 2 ad nauseams, a phyrexian unlife, and 2 spirit guides, 0 pacts and 0 lands. I am at 20 life. Is it correct to hardcast ad nauseam in an attempt to draw a large sum of cards (relevant cards being ramp, pact of negations, and angel's grace) that would make going off easier and prevent lethal with through the breach or should I cast phyrexian unlife, allowing me to to potentially combo off next turn if they tap out, but at the risk of dying to a through the breach.
3 Grave Titan
2 Path to Exile
2 Thoughtseize
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Pact of Negation
1 Echoing Truth
Putting ad naus in the sideboard would allow you to fetch one after being surgicaled. The bonus with this card is effectively allowing you to fetch for an answer to any hate card/alt wincon/bad matchup game 1 and effectively being 4 copies of said hate card/alt wincon.
I think ad nauseam is positioned to see a comeback, a lot of decks are trying to hate out death shadow and to some extent succeeding, and we happen to have a good matchup against many of those decks.
No, I mean getting remands/dispels and leaving up lands so when they do angel's grace, they can just counter ad nauseam if you attempt to combo off on your turn.
Playing both decks, storm definitely is favored if they are smart. A storm player can simply combo leaving up lands and find multiple copies of remands or dispels to play around angel's grace and phyrexian unlife is completely useless against them. The only way ad nauseam can beat storm is to hold up pact of negation then combo off that next turn.
Also, what do you guys think of Oketra's Last Mercy?
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Disenchant
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Ethereal Haze
1 Echoing Truth
2 Duress
I have been finding that the death shadow half has been performing better than the ad nauseam half (although I have been boarding in ad nauseam liberally just to test the list) and in terms of matchup, the death shadow half actually has been doing really well against grixis death shadow opponents; after multiple matches, I haven't lost a single game using the death shadow half against them, and that is without a sideboard. I found that in some games I am able to just out grind death shadow opponents without needing to combo off. I may need to make a list of matchups where I'd prefer to be ad nauseam though; probably most aggro decks, tron, and blue control decks.
This isn't entirely true, a good number of the cards in the mainboard work well as sideboard cards for ad nauseam, thoughtseize and snapcaster mage have both been useful in certain matchups.