Last updated 10/1/16. Old discussion and primer found here.
Introduction and history
Ad Nauseam Tendrils is a storm-based combo deck that utilizes various draw spells, fast mana, and tutor spells to kill the opponent with a lethal Tendrils of Agony, or in some cases empty the warrens. At the core, Ad Nauseam Tendrils is essentially a UBrgw storm-based combo deck. For those unfamiliar with Storm, storm is a mechanic that triggers once the spell with storm is cast that puts a copy of the spell on the stack for each spell cast before it this turn. There are several other storm-based combo decks in the format, but this is generally considered the most viable. While not quite as fast as some combo decks in the format, it is still feared as one of the fastest, resilient, and consistent combo decks in the format having ways to combo through even the toughest hate.
The history of this deck is almost as old as the game itself. Cards like Dark Ritual, demonic tutor, black lotus, ancestral recall, wheel of fortune, and timetwister have existed since the game began. Wizards quickly realized these cards were not healthy for competitive game play with the other cards available and since, we scarcely ever see anything even close to the same power level. But while those cards, and even others that came later such as necropotence and yawgmoth's will, had been restricted or banned magic players continued to find ways to create combo decks that abused the power of draw spells and fast mana. Win conditions varied over the course of roughly a decade in this kind of deck that came and went through what would be known as standard; Juzam Djinn to drain life to hypnotic spectre among them. The actual combo finish of the deck in its current iteration came long after the degeneracy to support it. The Scourge set from the Onslaught block finally blessed the game with one of the strongest, one-sided, uninteractive, yet beloved keywords the game has seen and would quickly become the name of the predecesor deck with a fitting title: Storm.
After cards such as tendrils of agony and mind's desire had been printed, Magic players quickly found ways to exploit these cards as their win conditions in combination with casting multiple cheap spells in a single turn. Early iterations of storm-based combo decks involved things like cruel bargain, infernal contract, and meditate in combination with rituals, and artifact-based fast mana. Compared to current Legacy ANT, these decks were very inconsistent and were often outclassed by other combo decks such as reanimator and tinker decks, especially when they appeared in standard. But players definitely remembered the power of the Storm mechanic into the following decade of modern magic despite their lack of consistency.
Five years passed before Ad Nauseam was printed as the most significant addition to the deck since tendrils of agony, which would then solidify the potency and consistency of the strongest variant of a storm-based combo deck. Ad Nauseam finally gave the decks that employed it the ability to generate a massive number of cards to consistently finish combo kills since most storm combo decks used low CMC cards. This new card, along side other more recent magic cards such as ponder, infernal tutor, and later cards such as past in flames would combine with the older combo cards to shape this deck into what it is know as today: Ad Nauseam Tendrils, or ANT.
Again, the history of this deck is as old as the game itself, but it was not until recent years that this deck had become a known force in the modern meta game for the Legacy format.
Before you decide whether or not this deck is for you, here are some pros and cons to help you weigh your decision.
Pros
⦁ You like combo. Winning out of seemingly thin air with blazing speed. The deck has the ability to win on turn 1 or 2, especially if met with no resistance.
⦁ You like to practice hard. This deck rewards those who are more familiar with it.
⦁ You like to win. This deck is currently top tier, and will generally always be. Unlike other storm-based combo decks, this deck is very resilient and consistent.
⦁ You like quick matches. As a combo deck, matches are generally a little shorter than other matchups.
⦁ You like historical, textbook, broken magic. Sometimes this deck just does stuff that even the pilot didn't know could happen...and it results in a win.
Cons
⦁ You have little to no format knowledge. You need at least some format knowledge because if you thought force of will was the only card that can stop this deck, you probably haven't played the format enough.
⦁ You like turn 1 kills. This deck is not for you if you are looking for turn 1 kills and other super degeneracy and shenanigans. Sure it can get a turn 1 kill, but its not meant to go off on turn 1.
⦁ You dislike blowouts. The deck is highly resilient, but you may occasionally get locked out by some strategies with little to no outs, especially if you're new to the format. If you really dislike having to concede due to a lockout, you may want to consider something else.
⦁ Similarly, if you dislike losing to yourself, you may want to consider something else. Again, the more experience you have the less it will happen, but it still feels really bad to lose because you messed up the combo.
⦁ You don't have the resources to acquire this deck. This isn't the most expensive legacy deck, but it certainly isn't the cheapest. There are some decent budget alternatives, but the most optimal lists start at around $1200.
As mentioned in the history of the deck, ANT is a storm-based combo deck that will normally try to win the game with a lethal tendrils of agony. What that means is you must cast (X ÷ 2) - 1 spells then cast Tendrils of Agony, where X is the opponent's life total...so to simplify, if your opponent has 20 life, you must cast 9 spells, followed by tendrils of agony. If your opponent is at 19 or another odd number, you will have to round up. What happens when you cast tendrils of agony after casting 9 other spells is 9 copies go on the stack, plus the original you cast for a total of 10 which amounts to your opponent losing 20 life. How convenient! Note that this magic number will generally always be right around 8 or 9, but it can be greater or fewer. When calculating this number, note common cards that can help your opponent gain life such as deathrite shaman or umezawa's jitte. So, 8 or 9 spells is a lot of spells to cast in a single turn, how do we manage to cast that many? The deck chains the spells together using what we call fast mana to give us extra mana that we wouldn't normally have. We use the fast mana to cast can trips, hand disruption, and business spells in succession and end the chain of spells with tendrils of agony. The can trips allow us to draw more cards or shape up our hand to create the spell chain. Hand disruption stops our opponent from trying to interfere (and can also be used on ourselves in to help us out some rare cases). Business spells, such as infernal tutor and ad nauseam give us the ability to find what we need to close out the game at the end of the spell chain.
So before we go into how the combo works, lets look at some mulligans. Keep in mind that your deck only has 14 or 15 lands, so average starting hands will only have one or two lands. This is completely normal for this deck, so don't be alarmed at the land desparity. As long as you have one or two, you're fine. Ideally, you shouldn't be keeping hands with 4 or more lands either unless you have brainstorm to replace some of them with spells. Everything in between takes a little bit of experience, but for the most part you should only be wary of having too many of your business spells and not having a brainstorm to fix that. Here are some examples of acceptable starting hands.
This hand, though it has 1 more land than what we would normally prefer, is pretty ideal. It has 2 can trips, 2 fast mana spells, and at least 1 fetch to use with our brainstorm. Its a little soft to potential hate cards with no hand disruption, but there's a good chance we can find what we need to win with at least 2 card selection spells.
This hand is a little dangerous, and also demonstrates the need for blue mana in the early stages of the game. I'm not sure what this bloodstained mire is doing in my list either haha; it creates a problem because I can't fetch a basic island which opens us up to wasteland. You probably still keep it in game 1 though knowing that there's a solid chance you can get off both your can trips and reasonably get a kill with the fast mana you already have in this opener.
Again, access to no basic island makes this hand a little sketchy, and again make sure you play only blue fetches if you can...but we still have 2 cantrips, 2 fast mana spells, a tutor spell, and 2 lands. Plus we have at least one chance to use brainstorm with a fetch land. Definitely still a keep, especially in the blind.
Ah, our first 4 land hand. Its actually not all that bad, but with no cantrip spells to guarantee improvement on it, its probably a hand you will want to send back. It might have been better in games 2 and 3 if you know what you're playing against, but even in most match ups you'll probably want to find a hand with more spells in it. I can't emphasize enough the importance of shipping hands with 4 or more lands in them; not having enough spells will often get you into a lot of trouble.
The mulligan off the previous hand. This is actually really solid, especially for a mulligan to 6. We have access to basic island to safely cast at least 2 cantrips, plus a lotus petal for if we need access to black or red. The only downside is the past in flames, which isn't normally ideal in our starting hand since we really need to find some more fast mana before we can use it. Definitely a keep, though, for a mulligan to 6.
This is the only hand I actually sculpted to demonstrate a point. This hand has the ability to go off the first turn, but is also dead to a force of will. Basically, you keeping this hand banks on whether or not you think your opponent has a force of will, or if we are on the draw. If we're on the play, they really only have force, but if they're on the draw they have more options so I would ship it on the draw. Personally, I would keep it on the play and hope for the easy kill, but perhaps you knew they were on a blue deck by some means, and you would be smart to ship it. There are other hands similar to this, some of which are actually just unbeatable on turn 1 or 2, but hands like these is where format knowledge, and even more importantly, meta knowledge comes into play.
After we've started the game, the goal is to sculpt the ideal hand to start the spell chain, and if necessary, make sure our opponent isn't trying to stop us. As you saw with the mulligan examples, we need cantrip spells to sculpt the ideal hand. So what are we looking for to sculpt the ideal hand? You will generally be looking for some combination of fast mana spells and an infernal tutor or one of our other business spells. The required cards to start the spell chain varies on what route you will go to finish the spell chain, so I will describe the most common spell chains below.
The first route, which is normally the easiest but least consistent, is the Ad Nauseam route. The Ad Nauseam Route requires only 7 mana to go off, unless you already have Ad Nauseam in your hand, in which case, you only need the 5 to cast it. If your opponent is playing aggro, the Ad Nauseam Route may not be the most ideal route unless you still have 17 or 18 life, but you can generally still use Ad Nauseam as low as 5 or 6 life in a pinch. Anything less is really desparate...but sometimes you may have to go for it. Let's assume we don't have Ad Nauseam in our hand already. This means we will need to tutor for it with either Infernal Tutor or Dark Petition. Note that both of these are net -2 normally, so in order to cast ad nauseam, we will need a total of 7 mana. More mana is ideal so you have more mana to continue the spell chain after you resolve ad nauseam, but there's a good chance you will get a lotus petal or a lion's eye diamond to contine if you need to. You may also need additional mana to cast a hand disruption spell to take an opposing counter spell so you can resolve your tutor spell. If you're using infernal tutor, you will need to be hellbent as well. This means you will generally need a Lion's Eye Diamond to use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor, but you may be able to get hellbent without it by using your hand disruption spells or just simply casting everything else in your hand.
You can hold priority and use Lion's Eye Diamond's ability in response to casting Infernal Tutor to get it's hellbent ability and net 3 mana. This is one of the most important interactions in the deck. Don't forget it.
After resolving infernal tutor and using the remaining mana to cast Ad Nauseam, the real trick is to know what spells you specifically need to finish the combo. Luckily, our deck is mostly cards with very low converted mana costs, so most flips for ad nauseam aren't going to dock you more than 1 or 2 life each but you may occassionally flip one of your higher cmc spells for 4 or 5 life. That said, you should not continue to reveal for Ad Nauseam once you are at 4 or 5 life if you can. Generally you will need more mana to finish the combo, so things like lotus petal and rituals are usual required. You will also need tendrils of agony at some point (or possibly empty the warrens if its game 2 or 3), or a way to get it which is usually infernal tutor. Of course, you will probably need another lion's eye diamond if you need to use infernal tutor again. All of these spells combined should get you to a lethal storm count. This method can also be used as sort of an emergency method if another combo route you were trying went wrong. Keep in mind, though, that a failed Ad Nauseam usually results in a game loss since you will probably take a significant amount of life to use it.
The second route is the Past in Flames route. This route is usually the safest, but may not always be available due to cards like rest in peace, deathrite shaman, etc. It also usually requires a bit more mana and can therefore be a bit harder to set up. Unlike Ad Nauseam, however, it will not destroy your life total meaning even a failed attempt is still not always as drastic as a failed Ad Nauseam. The set up is essentially the same as the first route, but the total mana required to finish the combo is at least 9 or 10 before tendrils of agony. The goal with this route is to cast several rituals, infernal tutor for past in flames, cast said past in flames, then flash back the aforementioned rituals...and then the infernal tutor to get Tendrils of Agony. Again, this route is usually the safest because it won't take a huge chunk out of our life total, and using spells out of the graveyard usually doesn't have a drawback. Be wary, though, that you must still be hellbent for infernal tutor to do what you want it to do, so a lion's eye diamond may still be necessary. Also, you must avoid drawing cards after you've cast past in flames if you plan to use infernal tutor again, as you may not necessarily be able to get them out of your hand unless you have another Lion's eye diamond. Gitaxian probe can be flashed back at the cost of 2 life from the graveyard, but if you're using infernal tutor and you don't have a lion's eye diamond, using the gitaxian probe to put a card in your hand may neuter your infernal tutor and stop you from finishing the combo (especially if you draw something like a land that you can't play).
The third route...well, the third route is basically every other method of comboing off. This could mean anything from casting 6 rituals spells into infernal tutor into tendrils, or some combination of the above two routes where you had to use both ad nauseam and past in flames because something went wrong along the way and you still had the mana to do both. Honestly, it would take too much time for me to sit and write all the possible ways this deck could potentially kill your opponent, but all you need to know is that you can still win games without past in flames, ad nauseam, or even tutor spells sometimes. All you need to do, as previously mentioned, is cast (X ÷ 2) - 1 spells then cast Tendrils of Agony, where X is the opponent's life total. Realistically, winning without past in flames or ad nauseam usually involves several ritual spells, several can trips, and usually a hellbent infernal tutor or dark petition to get tendrils. You shouldn't usually be aiming to go this route; this usually happens as the result of games going longer than usual and you having an abnormally large amount of lands or mana and not having access to past in flames or ad nauseam. But sometimes, you may just have the perfect hand to do this, even on turn 1. The more you play this deck, the more ways you may find to successfully combo.
If you still have trouble figuring out how to win games with this deck: see the images below.
Below are images with explanations below each image that explain the steps in the combo. On the left side, the black and red circles represent black and red mana in the pool. The orange circle represents the storm count. The red area represents the stack, the green area represents our hand, and the purple-blue area represents the battlefield. The zones on the left are our graveyard and exile zones (which will be brought up when necessary). Images brought to you by Cockatrice :).
1.) This is roughly what your hand will look like to start the combo; you should be trying to sculpt your hand with your cantrips to look something like this in order to successfully perform the combo. Hand disruptions spells or other cards (such as removal from the sideboard in games 2 and 3) are also usually important in this preceding step in order to make sure its safe (or even possible) to go off. In this particular example, this just so happened to be my opening hand, so this would be a turn 1 kill assuming our opponent had no interruptions.
2.) As long as we can, we want to play around daze, which is why we lead with our land, and the lotus petal that we have so our opponent can't stop us with daze. If we know our opponent is playing wasteland it may also be a good idea to fetch a basic land instead, but in this example it doesn't matter and we just grab an underground sea.
3.) Now, in this example, we may go ahead and cast our fast mana spells which puts our storm count to 4 and our black mana to 4 total. Generally, we want to cast Cabal Ritual last to get threshold, but in this case we have no way to reach threshold no matter the order so it doesn't really matter.
4.) We will now use 2 of our black mana (leaving us with 2) to cast infernal tutor. This is the step that confuses those who are unfamiliar with how this deck works. Now that infernal Tutor is on the stack, we need to hold priority (meaning we will immediately respond to our own spell being cast before our opponent has an opportunity to respond) and activate Lion's Eye Diamond's mana ability by sacrificing it and discarding our hand which at this point only had a land we couldn't play. This will add 3 mana to our pool and allow us to use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor, which essentially makes it a Demonic Tutor (which is currently banned in legacy). In this case, we will add red mana in case we want to use past in flames, but we also have 2 black and 5 total for Ad Nauseam or Dark Petition. This is the most vulnerable step of the combo, since an interruption at this point will leave us with no cards in hand since we used a LED. Therefore, if you have hand disruption, you really want to use it before this step if possible.
5.) Assuming nothing went wrong in step 4 and our infernal tutor resolves, we are now at only 5 storm so we can't get tendrils of agony yet (unless our opponent only had 12 life for some reason). Instead we need to pick another spell to continue the spell chain: Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames. Which one you should get depends on the situation, and will take some experience deciding between the two. In this example we can do either, but having the ability to safely do either is rare. In some rare cases, we can just get another infernal tutor or dark petition here instead to simply increment the storm count by 1 before going for tendrils, but in this example we don't quite have the mana for that and we'll also just assume our opponent is at 20 life, meaning we'll need at least a storm count of 9.
6a.) Assuming we picked past in flames, we would then cast it from our hand which now allows us to recycle (flashback) the sorceries and instants in our graveyard. Luckily, we have just enough spells in our graveyard to do this. If we don't, you will have to go for Ad Nauseam instead when resolving the infernal tutor in the previous step.
6b.) In this particular example, we need to crack the lotus petal for mana to flashback the Cabal Ritualfirst to make sure we have 7 cards in our graveyard to get the threshold ability. Otherwise, we wouldn't quite have enough mana to finish the spell chain with tendrils. Normally this isn't a problem since we normally go through more fetchlands and spells before getting to this point, but in this example comboing off on turn 1 brought us to this particular issue.
6c.) After we resolve the cabal ritual, we may now flashback the dark ritual, and then the infernal tutor. Since we still don't have any cards in our hand (because we were casting those from the graveyard), we will again have the hellbent ability of infernal tutor to get whatever we want from our deck. In this example, we are now at 9 storm count with a total of 5 black in the pool so we can go ahead and get our win condition: Tendrils of Agony.
7a.) Assuming we picked Ad Nauseam in step 5, we would then cast it and resolve its effect. This part is essentially Black Jack: Magic the Gathering edition...except the odds are generally much more in your favor--but not always. You take hits from the top of the deck and try to get what we need to finish the combo without letting our life total become 0. You need to know whats in your deck while resolving this spell because going too low in life could result in you killing yourself on the spot. You also need to know what you need to finish the combo so that you don't have to dock your life total unnecessarily. Note that besides step 4, this is the most vulnerable point in the combo, as our combo is left to random chance on the resolution of this spell and we could just brick. This is why past in flames is generally preferred if possible since that is usually guaranteed if we can do it, but sometimes we may just have to go for this route, win or lose. Don't worry too much, though, this deck handles this step surprisingly well as long as you have a healthy life total
7b.) After resolving ad nauseam, which in this example put me to 3 life, we may now simply unload on our opponent. In this case I happened to get the tendrils from Ad Nauseam (which can often be a bad thing) so I don't have to tutor for it, I just have to cast my fast mana spells, some hand disruption (just to be sure), then the tendrils. In most other cases, it may require repeating some of the previous steps like the one outlined in step 4.
8.) Either route should result in this step. Which is our opponent losing all of their life. Sometimes we may use empty the warrens instead, which should put enough goblins into play to overwhelm our opponent. Congratulations! You've won!
Here are some example deck lists for reference. Note that due to the nature of the deck being a combo deck, lists will not vary much and will be roughly 85% to 90% the same across the board. There is not much room in this deck for variation since it requires consistency.
This is closest to what I think would be the most normal ANT list, based on the current meta and deck lists available on MTGtop8.com. When in doubt, I recommend using this list as the best reference, or at least the best list to start with to get familiar with the deck.
Caleb Scherer has many notable results playing ANT in the SCG open and classic series. The main difference in his lists from most other lists is the mainboard rain of filth and an extra dark petition. He also does not choose to play Sensei's Divining Top. The most unique part of his list(s), however, is his unique sideboard which employs an aggressive transformation option with several extra copies of tendrils and 3 chrome mox for speedier kills. He also plays a bayou which is not too uncommon these days with 4 abrupt decays in many people's sideboards.
Here is a great example of a European list which has some notable differences. The first of which is 15 lands with mainboard Bayou and Tropical island, as opposed to only 14 with no green lands in the main. For whatever reason this is pretty common in European lists compared to North American lists. As such, the sideboard has some extra slots. Many European lists are still playing Krosan Grip in addition to abrupt decay. Also, many European players prefer Flusterstorm in their sideboards as well. Notable differences in the main include an extra past in flames, both Sensei's divining top with an extra in the board, and rain of filth.
Fast mana is fuel for the fire...somewhat literally, as past in flames is commonly involved. Fast mana, for those who are unfamiliar, are cards that generate more mana than what we would normally have access to at the cost of a card. This is not the same as rampspells; ramp spells are not card disadvantage because they usually replace themselves with a land card, resulting in no total cards gained or lost. Fast mana cards are different, though, they do not replace themselves with another card resulting in card disadvantage. Their only effect is creating additional mana...
...So why would a combo deck want cards that are disadvantageous? We hope to chain these fast mana spells into a spell that is extremely advantageous (see Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames), so much so that it allows us to win the game in a single turn. Below are the fast mana cards, pay close attention to the Net mana. Calculating total mana available is easier using Net amounts, and will give you a better idea of whether to begin the combo or not than trying to remember costs and additions the normal way. And while not technically fast mana: lands are Net +1, obviously.
Dark Ritual (Net +2) - Ah, the one and only dark ritual. Information aside, this is one of my favorite magic cards, and despite being a fairly common card, is one of the most iconic in Magic's great history. Many consider it to be the greatest black spell in the game over other great black cards such as thoughtseize and necropotence. All praise aside, this card is serious business that is essentially the backbone to the deck. Any turn 1 kill from this deck will assuredly involve at least one or two of these, and most turn 2 or 3 kills require at least one. This card is the most consistent fuel for the fire having virtually no drawbacks due to its status as an instant spell and the only net +2 mana by itself in thats still legal in legacy. You will be playing 4 of these, no exceptions. Again, it is important to remember that these net you 2 mana normally; 3 mana for the cost 1 for a total of 2.
Cabal Ritual(Net +1/+3) - This card, while not always as great as dark ritual, can often times be flat out better as a potential net of 3 additional mana (5 for the cost of 2). Even still, the deck can still utilize a net 1 (3 for 2) mana if threshold is not met. Cabal ritual, while not necessarily as important as dark ritual, is still usually played as a 3-of or 4-of in the deck as the only other viable black ritual spell. Again, remember that it is either net 3 or net 1 if you do not have threshold. This card can often allow you to pull off a win where it normally wouldn't be possible in games that have gone long where you have threshold.
Lotus Petal (Net +1) - A fixed version of Black Lotus. Net 1 mana (1 mana for 0). Its also great for casting spells that you may not necessarily have the colors to cast otherwise and also adds to the storm count. 4 of these are mandatory.
Lion's Eye Diamond (Net +3) - Another attempt at a fixed black lotus, often abbreviated as LED. Most decks can't use this card due to its cost of discarding your hand, however, we still can take advantage of its unique ability. The goal is to cast some rituals, cast LED, then cast infernal tutor and while its still on the stack, retain priority and use LED's ability to net 3 mana and use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor. This mana can then be used in turn to cast whatever spell you got with infernal tutor. It also works great with past in flames. Again, 4 of these are mandatory.
You used to be able to announce a spell (such as necropotence) and pay its cost by sacrificing an LED you had in play since it was a mana ability and mana abilities can normally be used while casting a spell. However, the rules of the game have changed and its oracle text restricts you from doing this now since you can only use its ability at any time you could cast an instant, which you cannot do while casting a spell.
*Optional* Rain of Filth (Net ???) - Sometimes you see this in successful storm lists. It essentially lets you cash in your lands for mana which is great for the combo turn. Come to your own conclusions. If you play this, it won't be more than one or two copies.
*Optional* Chrome Mox (Net +1) - You sometimes see this in successful lists as well. Its a net +1 at the cost of an additional card which can be bad, but can also be good if you have an extra infernal tutor or something else in your hand. It can also be used repeatedly unlike other fast mana spells, so you can use this on a non-combo turn to cast an additional cantrip or hand disruption spell if you need to. It is often played in the sideboard, and in other storm variants as well. Most ANT decks, if they're playing this, only play one or two copies, but most ANT lists don't use it nowadays.
*Optianal* Rite of Flame (Net +1/2/3/4[HOLY SHIT]) - You don't normally see this in ANT as we don't usually need red mana (except for past in flames), but its without a doubt one of the most powerful rituals in the game. If you play this, you should play 4 for its unique ability...but again, this spell is usually too aggressive for our deck and should therefore be avoided. I'm listing it here for those interested in possible expirementation, as some successful ANT lists have utilized this spell in the past.
Fast mana tips
Asides from remembering the net mana, there's a few other things you should remember to do with your fast mana.
-Remember the net mana of each spell. This will help you quickly calculate your available mana in a shorter period than if you tried to go through the steps of mana cost vs mana gained in your head.
-Normally we want to save our fast mana for the combo turn, however, sometimes it may benefit you to use a ritual or a lotus petal to cast multiple hand disruption spells or can trip spells in a single turn. For example, if you see that your opponent has 2 hate cards on turn 1 with gitaxian probe, you can cast a dark ritual or a lotus petal and use 2 hand disruption spells to rid their hand of their 2 hate cards before they can cast either. This may be necessary if there's multiples of somethings we can't deal with otherwise (ie, counterbalance, thalia, guardian of thraben, etc).
-Lotus Petal and Lion's Eye Diamond can be used for any color. Seems obvious, but its easy to forget that these artifacts produce more than black mana sometimes. Red can be used for past in flames/empty the warrens, blue can be used for cantrips, and green and white can be used to cast sideboard cards. Keep this in mind when going off, or in situations where you want to play around wasteland by fetching basic lands.
-Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual are instant speed. You still mostly cast these at any time you could cast a sorcery, but it is still important to keep in mind when you can put one of these rituals on the stack in combative spell situations. They can also be used on your opponent's turn, in some rare situations (to cast ad nauseam or something similar).
Cantrips are integral to how the deck works. You should value these over other kinds of cards in this deck in most situations simply because they create consistency. Not only are these spells good on non-combo turns to sculpt your hand, but you can often use them on the combo turn as well to help extend the combo and increase the storm count.
Ponder - Pretty straightforward card selection. You will generally only be using this to find what you need, generally combo pieces or sideboard cards. Keep in mind the shuffle effect can be very useful in combination with brainstorm if you don't have a fetch land to shuffle away cards you might not want. You'll pretty much always play 4 of these unless something better comes along to replace it.
Preordain - Not quite as good as ponder, but serves pretty much the exact same purpose. Most lists can only fit 2 in the list, but if you have room for more there's nothing wrong with adding more.
Brainstorm - Hands down the best card in its class. Brainstorm is the backbone of many decks and our deck is no exception. You must play 4 of these. Unlike the other cantrip spells, brainstorm gives you several additional abilities outside the usual card selection. The most important ability is getting rid of cards in your hand that you don't need. For example, if you have 3 infernal tutors in your hand (which is generally not ideal, you really only need 1 in most cases), you can cast brainstorm, look at 3 new cards, and put 2 of your unwanted infernal tutors back on top of your deck. Then, if you have a polluted delta or scalding tarn, you can use it to find a land and shuffle away the 2 infernal tutors that were on top of your deck for new potential cards for later draws. Brainstorm can also be used defensively against decks that cast hand disruption. Because its an instant, you can respond to cards like thoughtseize by casting brainstorm and putting the cards you don't want your opponent to take with their thoughtseize back on top of your deck so you can draw them later. For all these reasons, you really want to save brainstorm for the most ideal situations. Don't just cast brainstorm, especially if you have no way to shuffle your library to get rid of unwanted cards. You may have to in tight situations, but if there's not pressure from your opponent you should try to save them. Use your brainstorms well and you will be rewarded.
Gitaxian Probe - This card simply makes our deck more consistent by essentially reducing our deck to 56 cards at the cost of 2 life each. Its pretty straightforward, and definitely a 4-of. You can use them to get information early in game 1, or you can simply save them until you can perform the combo and it adds to the storm count. Note that this card is amazing with cabal therapy, since it allows you to see what you should name with cabal therapy.
*Optional* - Sensei's Divining Top - You see this pretty often as a 1-of in more recent lists. Its good at keeping your card selection over the course of long, grindy match ups, and can actually be used on the combo turn to draw the extra card you need to go off. This particularly strategy works very well against decks employing lots of hand disruption or liliana of the veil. If you play it, you really won't want more than 1 in the 75.
These spells are referred to as 'Business' spells because they usually finish the combo, or "get the job done". You generally want at least one of these any given game, but any more than 1 is generally too many. Therefore we try to play just the right amount of these so that we only see one of these when we need it. This also includes our win condition: Tendrils of Agony.
infernal tutor - Since demonic tutor is banned in Legacy, we have to resort to this as our primary tutor spell. Don't fret, though. The hellbent ability is very easy to set up in our deck, especially with Lion's Eye Diamond. This is usually the most critical spell in the spell chain, and you will generally want to avoid having this countered. You will usually get ad nauseam, past in flames, or tendrils of agony with this card when it resolves after you've emptied your hand by either casting those spells or by using an LED. However, don't be afraid to use it without its hellbent ability to get a second copy of something like dark ritual or lion's eye diamond, especially if you have another infernal tutor in your hand. The deck plays 4 of these.
Ad Nauseam - This is what the deck is named after. Formerly, the deck played multiple copies of this, but now with multiple ways of comboing off, you really only need 1 now. Using this spell is a little tricky for those who have never done it before, but I've explained it a little bit in the previous section. If you spend some
past in flames - For those of you who have cast yawgmoth's will, this is essentially ghetto yawgmoth's will. This is a great alternative to finish the spell chain without using ad nauseam if possible, as our graveyard often has enough rituals to flash back an infernal tutor to get Tendrils of Agony. It also can be cast in conjuction with lion's eye diamond in a pinch for potential combo kills. Only use this card when you know that your graveyard has enough in it to finish off the combo. Otherwise, you will have to use a different business spell. Most lists will play at least one of these main board.
dark petition - The most recent addition to ANT. Obviously, our deck has a very easy time getting to 5 mana, and having spell mastery. As such, this card is often very usable as a tutor spell to continue the spell chain. Note that even though it adds 3 black, it is still net -2 for mana since it costs 5 total. Also note that you don't have to use it with lion's eye diamond to get what you want: it always lets you tutor for whatever you need. Most lists these days play 1 in the main board.
Tendrils of Agony - The win condition. You should only need 1, because you will usually tutor for it with infernal tutor or dark petition. It is viable to play more than 1 though, especially in the sideboard.
*Optional* grim tutor - This card was recently replaced by dark petition for most people, but its still a viable option as the only unconditional tutor spell in the game that costs 3 mana, making it the closest alternative to demonic tutor in functionality. The real problem with this card is its availability: market value is over $300. Most storm lists that played this only used 1, but its optional.
*Optional* Ill-Gotten Gains - This card has mostly been replaced by past in flames now, but its still worth mentioning as it does have some unique applications over past in flames since it makes your opponent discard their hand. These interactions are pretty niche though. You will generally be playing past in flames over this, but if you find yourself in a very peculiar meta this can be used in its place, or in the sideboard.
Hand disruption spells are used to preemptively defend the combo. Since our deck often folds to counterspells or other forms of hate, the deck can utilize these very efficient spells to take our opponent's defensive spells and allow us to execute the combo unhindered. We usually only need one or two over the course of the game, so we only play a few.
Cabal Therapy - This should be your primary hand disruption spell. Most lists play 4. This is the primary reason why this deck requires at least some format knowledge because you will need to know what to name when resolving this spell. Of course, gitaxian probe and duress help, but you may not necessarily have those cards to help you name the right card. Generally, you want to use this before you try to cast your most important spells such as infernal tutor, LED, ad nauseam or past in flames because those are the spells that your opponent will likely save their counterspells for. Against non-blue decks, you will need to use cabal therapy to preemptively name other problematic spells. Even if you miss and they don't have the card that you named, you can at least see what they do have and see if its safe to combo off.
Duress - The second hand disruption spell in the deck, most lists play at least 3, sometimes 4. Its much easier to use than cabal therapy, but unlike cabal therapy it can only take one copy of any given card which can make a difference sometimes. Duress is preferred over other hand disruption spells because the deck does not care about most creatures. Unlike thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, it does not take any life from us and doesn't discern spells that cost more than 3...like Force of Will. Note that it will still take most of the hate cards that aren't counterspells as well. Duress also works well with cabal therapy.
*Optional* Thoughtseize - ANT used to maindeck this spell over other options due to its ability to take anything among a field of very diverse threats. Fortunately, decks like Maverick and Canadian Thresh are much less prevalent and therefore we don't really need to play thoughtseize usually. Obviously, the 2 life can be relevant which is why ANT generally opts for duress more often in today's meta. It is entirely still possible, however, that we see a resurgence of a wider diversity of hate including more creatures that may make this card a better option.
*Optional* Inquisition of Kozilek - This hasn't been employed too much in the history of ANT, but if the meta is full of swarming aggro decks--and is lacking force of will--this card is actually pretty good. Of course, duress is generally still more ideal since there aren't many creatures we care about.
ANT, in its current form, only needs 14 lands. Some lists have played 15 or 13, but I recommend starting with 14 for mathematical reasons.
Polluted Delta is the most relevant fetchland as it lets us get any of our lands, whereas scalding tarn can get anything but the basic swamp. It seems kind of negligible, but if you play this deck at a big event you will almost assuredly play a game where having the right fetches is relevant. With this particular mana base, you can substitute scalding tarn for any other blue fetch. The underground seas are pretty self-explanatory; they can cast can-trips, hand disruption, or rituals to go off. The volcanic island is ocassionally necessary to cast past in flames or other sideboard cards (namely empty the warrens). Its important to understand that islands are more critical as far as basic lands go because they are necessary to ensuring that we go off. Although black is necessary to cast hand disruption and ritual spells, these are not as important as cantrips. We can also use lotus petals for other colors if we need to. Therefore, we play 2 islands and only one swamp usually.
The sideboard Tropcial Island is extremely important to our mana base as well. A lot of our most difficult matchups require that we bring in some green spells...and therefore we'll need a way to cast them. With the normal mana base as listed above, you will generally take out the second island, as the green spells usually come in against decks that don't use wasteland. However, depending on the matchup, you can also take out the volcanic island or the swamp.
Make sure you actually practice bringing in tropical island in matches. I've definitely played 1 or 2 sanctioned games where I forgot to bring it in and got stuck with green spells in my hand that I couldn't cast without a lotus petal. (for the record, I think I still won those games lol).
Land bases will vary from deck to deck, but only very slightly. For reference, here is mine. I play an extra underground sea over another basic island because I generally feel a little more comfortable playing around wasteland, but that's just personal preference.
Some mana bases in the past have also used rainbow lands, especially in more red-heavy decks. These lands include: Gemstone Mine, City of Brass, and Mana Confluence. Its not very common anymore, but if you're playing a bit more red or green (or god forbid, white), you could employ these lands a little more effectively than the normal mana base.
The sideboard for ANT is very important. There are a few cards that come in from the sideboards of other decks that we cannot normally deal with or have a very difficult time dealing with and without having an answer for them the deck can be locked out of the game on the spot. Additionally, many decks will bring in what they can to interact with us and take out things that don't really work on us such as removal spells or unnecessary creatures.
The sideboard for this deck should have everything it needs to answer the cards that our deck could not normally deal with. Luckily for us, the list of things we actually care about is pretty straightforward. Counterspells and hand disruption are the obvious offenders, and you should be able to play around those with your cantrips and hand disruption. However, our deck has a hard time dealing with some permanents and therefore we generally need something to deal with those permanents. Below is a list of all permanents relevant to us in their corresponding colors so you know what to prepare for.
NOTE - Knight of the Reliquary is only problematic due to the fact that it can fetch Bojuka Bog to effectively stifle Past in Flames. This example is rare, but should be remembered. Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman simply make past in flames a little more difficult and don't usually actually have to be dealt with. Blood moon and back to basics can usually be played around, but may come by surprise so it they are worth considering when sideboarding.
Now that we know what permaments we have to play around we can look at our sideboard options.
Abrupt Decay - This card is absolutely necessary currently due to the high presence of counterbalance and chalice of the void in the meta. It also blows up a lot of other things that we care about too and is therefore a 3-of or 4-of in most sideboards nowadays.
Xantid Swarm - So, in case you needed help explaining what this card is for: this card is really good against decks that cast counterspells. Obviously, xantid swarm prevents said decks from interacting with you on your turn when you try to go off. Unfortunately, it is susceptible to removal, but the idea behind this card is that the opponent takes out their removal for games 2 and 3 because they presume you don't play any creatures in your deck and they'd rather have more counterspells. This card preys on that particular plan by silencing them and negating their counterspells. Do remember, however, that experienced players know this simple trick and will often keep some removal if they can to deal with the swarm.
City of Solitude - This card is essentially the same as xantid swarm, except its harder to interact with, and it costs 3 mana which can be difficult for this deck. This has become much more relevant in the recent meta due to the presence of sensei's diving top since it neuters its ability as well, which in turn makes counterbalance a non-issue. Notably, it also stops a few other relevant abilities on your own turn such as deathrite shaman, umezawa's jitte, or cards such as nihil spellbomb or relic of progenitus. Successful lists in more recent times have generally been playing this over xantid swarm, but they each have benefits over the other, so you may want to come to your own conclusions, or adjust according to the forecasted meta.
Carpet of Flowers - Good against decks that play islands...obviously. Its really strong in a delver meta since they focus really hard on mana denial. However, its actually not that great against most other decks playing islands simply because the extra mana is not important as getting through opposing counterspells.
Dread of Night - The only creatures that we actually care about are white, and therefore this is about the only card we have that interacts specifically with the creatures that we care about. It's about the best thing in the game to keep both thalia, guardian of thraben and vryn wingmare off the table. By itself, it doesn't get rid of ethersworn canonist or gaddock teeg though, which brings us to the next option...
Massacre - This is a little more reactive than proactive, but effectively deals with all creatures that we care about. Of course, you must be certain your opponent will have a plains in play though in order to cast it.
The next few sideboard slots should be dedicated to some bounce spells or other generic removal spells. This primarily means cards like chain of vapor, echoing truth, krosan grip, etc. This is for decks that likely bring in the permaments that don't get destroyed by abrupt decay. Its can also be used against opposing combo decks that also rely on permanents for a kill such as dredge, show and tell, or elves--or even some aggro decks.
Many ANT sideboards will dedicate a few spots to additional combo options in addition to the normal suite of removal/interaction. In the sideboard above you see an additional tendrils and Empty the Warrens. Empty the warrens is employed in just about every storm deck sideboard as an alternative win condition against decks that may have limited removal or blockers. The additional tendrils of agony can be useful against decks where casting two may be necessary, or the deck has heavy hand disruption in combination with cards that exile things from the graveyard. These situations are a little niche, but they do come up so you should have a plan for them. Not listed in the above sideboard, some decks may go into additional storm cards such as chrome mox or rain of filthfor a speedier combo kill.
Lastly, there's usually room for other spells such as Flusterstorm and additional hand disruption that are just pretty good to have if you can fit them in there. You never know what your opponent might bring in and these cards can generally answer them before they hit the table. Flusterstorm is also, of course, hilariously good in the mirror which is becoming a little more common than in previous years of magic. Your own experimentation will be required in this particular area, as many ANT players differ on opinions or what they prefer.
For tips on how to sideboard for certain match ups, I leave that to Bryant Cook: http://www.theepicstorm.com/sideboarding-guide/. This link is actually a sideboarding guide for TES, which is a similar but different deck. However, many of the same principles in this sideboarding guide can be applied to this deck and therefore I would highly recommend you read it. Since I had little knowledge and experience of this particular area while writing this, if this were a scholarly work, I would simply have inserted stuff Bryant Cook said and cited it. But since this is the internet and I did not want to type up all of that I put the link here--go look at it!
I don't think the phrase glass cannon can accurately describe a deck that can go off through multiple pieces of disruption. One of the reasons to play this deck is its resilience.
I don't think the phrase glass cannon can accurately describe a deck that can go off through multiple pieces of disruption. One of the reasons to play this deck is its resilience.
Agreed, but there are definitely situations where you will have to concede because your opponent had a mainboard leyline of sanctity in their opening hand or something similar. I'll look into rephrasing it.
I don't think the phrase glass cannon can accurately describe a deck that can go off through multiple pieces of disruption. One of the reasons to play this deck is its resilience.
Agreed, but there are definitely situations where you will have to concede because your opponent had a mainboard leyline of sanctity in their opening hand or something similar. I'll look into rephrasing it.
Not sure who runs Leylines in Legacy, but boarding in bounce solves that issue. The deck has ways of playing through permanent hate. The deck can beat Chalice of the Void; it isn't a glass cannon.
I guess there are images missing for the starting hands?
No mention of City of Solitude interacting with SDT.
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I lost a game 1 to enchantress playing mainboard leyline. He hard cast it though. Chalice on 1 is difficult to beat game 1 though, which is fairly common these days with the popularity of eldrazi decks. But yes, this problem is solved simply by boarding into some form of bounce spell or artifact/enchantment removal. The deck is definitely resilient.
And yes, the starting hand images are yet to be linked. I may have time to do it tonigjt
Added the starting hand images, fixed the part in the cons section about "being a glass cannon", and added the bit about SDT (and a few other cards) with city of solitude.
On my to-do list: add the combo demonstration images (I haven't actually made these yet, so that might be a little longer), add sample decklists, bold some of the points that I had bolded to emphasize from my original write up, then go back and proof-read and clean up some of the writing to make it a little more concise.
Also, can anyone else think of any other permanents we care about for the list of problematic permanents in the sideboard section? I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
Also, if you're of the opinion that Jitte is relevant, then you might want to include the even more scary batterskull
thank you. Eh, I might just take down jitte. Obviously the only relevant ability is gaining life...or if they somehow have an active jitte and play and you've cast empty the warrens.
I'm having trouble figuring out how to sideboard for this deck. I have the basic list, and I just keep running into trouble. Any help would be appreciated.
A lot of the decks here are UBx delver lists, but there's also Burn, Tinfins, and one CB deck that seems to draw my name EVERY time on round 1. Any advice?
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Your sideboard looks super strange to me. I can't think of a universe where echoing truth isn't better than disperse, which I have never seen in the sideboard or maindeck of any legacy deck, period. That whole sideboard looks like a big mess. Deathmark, spellbomb, mox, disperse, and pyroblast are all suboptimal choices I think. If I were to gear up for UBx delver lists with ANT I would want a sideboard that looks like this:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disfigure
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Dark Confidant
1 Krosan Grip
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
If the UBx delver lists are predominantly splashing red, I'd remove the confidants for something else though, perhaps tops as tops can help greatly against discard. Other considerations are xantid swarm, which is okayish if they don't have removal for it but it doesn't stop countertop. Tinfins is beatable just by racing or discarding. 2 spellbombs won't give you a big edge, but flusterstorm is also excellent against them as it counters any reanimation spells, entomb (counter entomb above everything, as getting griselbrand in the bin is their biggest hurdle having played the deck myself.), or discard of theirs whether it's pointed at them to pitch brand or you.
As for a guide on sideboarding in general, don't overdo it. With this sideboard I'd use and the list above here's how I'd board.
Against delver:
-1 Ad nauseam
-1 Preordain
-1 Therapy
-1 Lotus Petal
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Carpet of flowers
Don't want bobs here because they try to kill you as fast as possible. Same with ad nauseam becoming dead very quickly because delver taking chunks out as well as bolts makes ad nauseam difficult to win with.
Against Countertop, I imagine it's miracles
-3 Lotus Petal
-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Duress
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+2 Carpet of Flowers
Fast mana is less important because you generally play a longer game against them. Want to keep ad nauseam as an instant speed end of turn play or for the oops I have double LED dark rit infernal type hands where you need it to combo when PiF cannot. Helps that they don't pressure you.
Against tinfins
+2 Confidant
+2 Flusterstorm
-1 Preordain
-1 Duress
-1 Therapy
-1 Sensei's Top
Remember that therapy can be flashed back by confidant sacrifice. Therapy is one of the hardest cards to use correctly, especially in this type of matchup where naming wrongly can lose you the game on the spot. If I were to blind name turn 1 on the play I'd pick entomb. On the draw I'd hope to hold up flusterstorm for EoT entomb or any reanimation spell on their turn if they mainphase entomb. If griselbrand is in the bin and you have to blind name with therapy I'd pick shallow grave as they run 4 of it and not 4 goryo's vengeance.
Against burn
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Disfigure
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Chain of Vapor
-3 Therapy
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 Sensei's top
-2 Duress
Ad nauseam is awful. Biggest worry is them having fireblast/racing us as turn 3 can show them a kill with a good hand. Eidolon is naturally a huge pain as unlike pyrostatic pillar it can attack so we can't lock them under it and combo'ing with it in play is impossible. While therapy can discard it and duress cannot, therapy can miss. Hitting a fireblast with a duress is solid or any instant speed burn. We have a bunch of answers to resolved eidolon with this configuration. Eidolon is symmetrical, and I cannot stress it enough. Only needing 7 storm instead of 10 can be the difference. So let eidolon sit around sometimes so they get nugged by it, but be careful of course because burn can kill very quickly.
Bread: Flusterstorm I can't get locally for a price I'm willing to pay, and echoing truth I just plain forgot about. Disfigure isn't something I'd considered, but is worth testing. My logic for nihil spellbomb was that was empties the graveyard (depriving them of DRS fuel, or popping my own GY in response to a surgical extraction) and can replace itself - and it also forces Tinfins to run through multiple reanimation spells, which they don't always have.
The boarding guide is quite helpful, and even if I don't follow it exactly I'll keep it in mind. I've also been told to consider playing a tundra for Monastery Mentor as a sideboard plan. Thoughts on that?
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Bread: Flusterstorm I can't get locally for a price I'm willing to pay, and echoing truth I just plain forgot about. Disfigure isn't something I'd considered, but is worth testing. My logic for nihil spellbomb was that was empties the graveyard (depriving them of DRS fuel, or popping my own GY in response to a surgical extraction) and can replace itself - and it also forces Tinfins to run through multiple reanimation spells, which they don't always have.
The boarding guide is quite helpful, and even if I don't follow it exactly I'll keep it in mind. I've also been told to consider playing a tundra for Monastery Mentor as a sideboard plan. Thoughts on that?
For the record, I think its worth pointing out that most creatures we actually care about are white, and therefore I really like dread of night over things like disfigure.
As far as nihil spellbomb goes, you really don't need it. You should be combating decks like tinfins and reanimator with hand disruption, or simply racing them. I suppose if you know you're going to play against it, it might be okay, but I'm still skeptical. Even dredge, you're likely just going to beat them in the race anyway. Also, its definitely not worth it to stifle a DRS activation. It would be nice to have that capability, but its just not impactful enough for us to try and hit on DRS.
I don't know about mentor. 3 mana is a lot in our deck and many players may go on to sweepers for the already anticipated empty the warrens. Might be worth a try; mentor is certainly a good card that would likely be a 1 turn clock for us, but killing on the spot is of course preferred.
The problem with tinfins, Mast, is that 7 hand disruption spells seems nowhere near enough. Their FTK rate is oddly high for needing as many parts as they do (swamp, dark rit, Therapy/grislebrand or entomb, one of 9 reanimation spells) and a single discard effect rarely is enough to stop them. I'd been considering Surgical Extraction specifically for this matchup, only to realize they usually have 2 reanimation spells when they go off. Extirpate is a maybe, and even if I exile all their grislebrands I still need to win before they just drop emrakul.
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If a delver heavy meta, I'd always have empty the warrens as at least a 1-of. Turn 1/2 empty will get you a win as often as not, and will come up more often than you'd think. It's also nice as you only really need 8-10 goblins for it to be very effective. Ad nauseam is, I believe, worth leaving in vs BUG delver, but something i'd take out vs the other two. Against most delver decks, you can board fairly lightly, although I'd consider a second PiF, either main or at least in the board. It does wonders against high levels of countermagic. Ditch petition if you have to play against too many blue decks, it's better in a goldfish type meta. Confidant is awful, it's trying to take the place of a cantrip but lacks selection, and is too slow. Against burn, you only really want some minimal removal, whatever you can fit in by dropping Ad Nauseam and all Duress, unless you have extra tendrils. You keep therapy for this matchup, IMO. Snagging Eidolon is great. A couple of decays and a couple of echoing truths can fill the rest. Although don't ever hesitate to two-for-one them with therapy if you get a chance. And don't stress tin-fins. There will always be some matchups you'll struggle wtih (belcher will fall in this category as well). Especially if you can't afford flusters. Just remember that you're more resilient, so in longer tournaments, if you know what you're doing, you'll likely pull ahead over time.
Question;
How does the matchup against Eldrazi (or any deck that plays Chalice of the Void in the main really) usually go for you?
Matchups used to be better insofar as most Chalice decks locked a solid or reliable clock and so a bounce spell or Abrupt Decay could answer it and allow you to combo off. Eldrazi is an abysmal matchup in that they are immediately threatening lethal a few turns after a Chalice not to mention Thought-Knot Seer providing a level of interaction that old MUD decks or mono red prison just don't have access to.
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Question;
How does the matchup against Eldrazi (or any deck that plays Chalice of the Void in the main really) usually go for you?
Matchups used to be better insofar as most Chalice decks locked a solid or reliable clock and so a bounce spell or Abrupt Decay could answer it and allow you to combo off. Eldrazi is an abysmal matchup in that they are immediately threatening lethal a few turns after a Chalice not to mention Thought-Knot Seer providing a level of interaction that old MUD decks or mono red prison just don't have access to.
Although I wouldn't say the matchup is abysmal, its certainly got game against us now compared to MUD variants from before Oath of the gatewatch. Honestly, Delver is still the most threatening aggro deck to us since they have actual interaction, but eldrazi is certainly a close second now thanks to thought-knot seer and some really disgusting potential beats. Formerly, we were a little more worried about dnt or maverick (...sort of), but again now that there's a chalice deck that will kill you on turn 4, those definitely take a back seat to threat of chalice.
I am gold-fishing the deck and have a rules question. If I have a LED and Petal on board. And have a Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, and Infernal Tutor in hand. Can I crack the LED and hold priority for all 3 instants?
1) Crack Lotus Petal and LED hold priority
2) Cast Dark Ritual hold priority, 6 Mana
3) Cast Cabal Ritual hold priority, 7 Mana (dont have Threshold)
4) Cast Infernal Tutor 5 Mana, get Ad Nauseam...hopefully get the win from there
PS: Here is my current list. Please let me know any suggestions. It is a pretty vanilla list.
No, thankfully LED doesn't work like that. If it did, it might as well be black lotus and it wouldn't be legal in this format. Normally, mana abilities can be activated at any time, but if you read the oracle text for LED its ability can only be activated at instant speed. Since the cost of the ability is discarding your hand, you will not get priority to cast anything before discarding your hand, meaning you can't use the mana gained from LED to cast those spells from your hand...because your hand will already be in the graveyard by the time you receive priority again. I mentioned in the primer you used to be able to announce a spell and place it on the stack, then pay for it like normal with LED since activating mana abilities had a slightly different timing back then. But now, you don't actually receive priority while casting a spell and even though LED is in fact a mana ability, it has that timing restriction which means you can't announce the spell, then pay for it by saccing LED. Or the other way around.
Lion's Eye Diamond is such a peculiar card.
However, in your example you can just cast your rituals with the lotus petal (dark rit, then cabal rit), then the infernal tutor, then crack the LED. The end result is effectively the same. But cracking the LED first would result in having nothing else to cast...so don't do that.
As far as your list goes, it looks mostly fine. The sideboard is a little strange with 4 copies of echoing truth and some singleton stuff, but if you have a reason for it I assume its probably fine.
I am gold-fishing the deck and have a rules question. If I have a LED and Petal on board. And have a Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, and Infernal Tutor in hand. Can I crack the LED and hold priority for all 3 instants?
1) Crack Lotus Petal and LED hold priority
2) Cast Dark Ritual hold priority, 6 Mana
3) Cast Cabal Ritual hold priority, 7 Mana (dont have Threshold)
4) Cast Infernal Tutor 5 Mana, get Ad Nauseam...hopefully get the win from there
PS: Here is my current list. Please let me know any suggestions. It is a pretty vanilla list.
Generally, you hold priority after casting Infernal Tutor, at which point you crack LED. You cannot use the mana from LED until your hand is discarded.
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Reanimator is actually probably the strongest deck in such meta since it can prevent opposing combo kills with both its hand disruption and counter magic, while also being able to race or very quickly win games when the timing is right with its own combo engine, especially at instant speed. Of course, storm does have its own hand disruption, but reanimator has the most interaction. Storm probably has better game in general against control decks, but it can depend on the kind of control you're facing. Also, it depends on what kind of aggro decks are in your meta. Storm is strong against delver, but can be a little soft to things like thalia or eidolon of the great revel if those cards are showing up a lot.
So, honestly, I'd give reanimator a try if possible. But if I were to choose between storm and dredge, I would pick storm. Dredge is just a little soft these days, and I think storm is overall better right now. Plus, storm has a bit more interaction with opposing combo kills with its hand disruption, and many storm players these days are more than content to play counter magic in the board, namely flusterstorm. Storm doesn't just lose to rest in peace. Lastly, storm is better in a race where as dredge may be a turn or 2 too slow against a deck like show and tell or reanimator.
It seemed as if there were no Storm decks at Eternal Weekend. Is Eldrazi really pushing it out or is it the combination of a meta full of D&T, Miracles, and Eldrazi?
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UBx Storm Combo
Ad Nauseam Tendrils is a storm-based combo deck that utilizes various draw spells, fast mana, and tutor spells to kill the opponent with a lethal Tendrils of Agony, or in some cases empty the warrens. At the core, Ad Nauseam Tendrils is essentially a UBrgw storm-based combo deck. For those unfamiliar with Storm, storm is a mechanic that triggers once the spell with storm is cast that puts a copy of the spell on the stack for each spell cast before it this turn. There are several other storm-based combo decks in the format, but this is generally considered the most viable. While not quite as fast as some combo decks in the format, it is still feared as one of the fastest, resilient, and consistent combo decks in the format having ways to combo through even the toughest hate.
The history of this deck is almost as old as the game itself. Cards like Dark Ritual, demonic tutor, black lotus, ancestral recall, wheel of fortune, and timetwister have existed since the game began. Wizards quickly realized these cards were not healthy for competitive game play with the other cards available and since, we scarcely ever see anything even close to the same power level. But while those cards, and even others that came later such as necropotence and yawgmoth's will, had been restricted or banned magic players continued to find ways to create combo decks that abused the power of draw spells and fast mana. Win conditions varied over the course of roughly a decade in this kind of deck that came and went through what would be known as standard; Juzam Djinn to drain life to hypnotic spectre among them. The actual combo finish of the deck in its current iteration came long after the degeneracy to support it. The Scourge set from the Onslaught block finally blessed the game with one of the strongest, one-sided, uninteractive, yet beloved keywords the game has seen and would quickly become the name of the predecesor deck with a fitting title: Storm.
After cards such as tendrils of agony and mind's desire had been printed, Magic players quickly found ways to exploit these cards as their win conditions in combination with casting multiple cheap spells in a single turn. Early iterations of storm-based combo decks involved things like cruel bargain, infernal contract, and meditate in combination with rituals, and artifact-based fast mana. Compared to current Legacy ANT, these decks were very inconsistent and were often outclassed by other combo decks such as reanimator and tinker decks, especially when they appeared in standard. But players definitely remembered the power of the Storm mechanic into the following decade of modern magic despite their lack of consistency.
Five years passed before Ad Nauseam was printed as the most significant addition to the deck since tendrils of agony, which would then solidify the potency and consistency of the strongest variant of a storm-based combo deck. Ad Nauseam finally gave the decks that employed it the ability to generate a massive number of cards to consistently finish combo kills since most storm combo decks used low CMC cards. This new card, along side other more recent magic cards such as ponder, infernal tutor, and later cards such as past in flames would combine with the older combo cards to shape this deck into what it is know as today: Ad Nauseam Tendrils, or ANT.
Again, the history of this deck is as old as the game itself, but it was not until recent years that this deck had become a known force in the modern meta game for the Legacy format.
Before you decide whether or not this deck is for you, here are some pros and cons to help you weigh your decision.
Pros
⦁ You like combo. Winning out of seemingly thin air with blazing speed. The deck has the ability to win on turn 1 or 2, especially if met with no resistance.
⦁ You like to practice hard. This deck rewards those who are more familiar with it.
⦁ You like to win. This deck is currently top tier, and will generally always be. Unlike other storm-based combo decks, this deck is very resilient and consistent.
⦁ You like quick matches. As a combo deck, matches are generally a little shorter than other matchups.
⦁ You like historical, textbook, broken magic. Sometimes this deck just does stuff that even the pilot didn't know could happen...and it results in a win.
Cons
⦁ You have little to no format knowledge. You need at least some format knowledge because if you thought force of will was the only card that can stop this deck, you probably haven't played the format enough.
⦁ You like turn 1 kills. This deck is not for you if you are looking for turn 1 kills and other super degeneracy and shenanigans. Sure it can get a turn 1 kill, but its not meant to go off on turn 1.
⦁ You dislike blowouts. The deck is highly resilient, but you may occasionally get locked out by some strategies with little to no outs, especially if you're new to the format. If you really dislike having to concede due to a lockout, you may want to consider something else.
⦁ Similarly, if you dislike losing to yourself, you may want to consider something else. Again, the more experience you have the less it will happen, but it still feels really bad to lose because you messed up the combo.
⦁ You don't have the resources to acquire this deck. This isn't the most expensive legacy deck, but it certainly isn't the cheapest. There are some decent budget alternatives, but the most optimal lists start at around $1200.
As mentioned in the history of the deck, ANT is a storm-based combo deck that will normally try to win the game with a lethal tendrils of agony. What that means is you must cast (X ÷ 2) - 1 spells then cast Tendrils of Agony, where X is the opponent's life total...so to simplify, if your opponent has 20 life, you must cast 9 spells, followed by tendrils of agony. If your opponent is at 19 or another odd number, you will have to round up. What happens when you cast tendrils of agony after casting 9 other spells is 9 copies go on the stack, plus the original you cast for a total of 10 which amounts to your opponent losing 20 life. How convenient! Note that this magic number will generally always be right around 8 or 9, but it can be greater or fewer. When calculating this number, note common cards that can help your opponent gain life such as deathrite shaman or umezawa's jitte. So, 8 or 9 spells is a lot of spells to cast in a single turn, how do we manage to cast that many? The deck chains the spells together using what we call fast mana to give us extra mana that we wouldn't normally have. We use the fast mana to cast can trips, hand disruption, and business spells in succession and end the chain of spells with tendrils of agony. The can trips allow us to draw more cards or shape up our hand to create the spell chain. Hand disruption stops our opponent from trying to interfere (and can also be used on ourselves in to help us out some rare cases). Business spells, such as infernal tutor and ad nauseam give us the ability to find what we need to close out the game at the end of the spell chain.
So before we go into how the combo works, lets look at some mulligans. Keep in mind that your deck only has 14 or 15 lands, so average starting hands will only have one or two lands. This is completely normal for this deck, so don't be alarmed at the land desparity. As long as you have one or two, you're fine. Ideally, you shouldn't be keeping hands with 4 or more lands either unless you have brainstorm to replace some of them with spells. Everything in between takes a little bit of experience, but for the most part you should only be wary of having too many of your business spells and not having a brainstorm to fix that. Here are some examples of acceptable starting hands.
This hand, though it has 1 more land than what we would normally prefer, is pretty ideal. It has 2 can trips, 2 fast mana spells, and at least 1 fetch to use with our brainstorm. Its a little soft to potential hate cards with no hand disruption, but there's a good chance we can find what we need to win with at least 2 card selection spells.
This hand is a little dangerous, and also demonstrates the need for blue mana in the early stages of the game. I'm not sure what this bloodstained mire is doing in my list either haha; it creates a problem because I can't fetch a basic island which opens us up to wasteland. You probably still keep it in game 1 though knowing that there's a solid chance you can get off both your can trips and reasonably get a kill with the fast mana you already have in this opener.
Again, access to no basic island makes this hand a little sketchy, and again make sure you play only blue fetches if you can...but we still have 2 cantrips, 2 fast mana spells, a tutor spell, and 2 lands. Plus we have at least one chance to use brainstorm with a fetch land. Definitely still a keep, especially in the blind.
Ah, our first 4 land hand. Its actually not all that bad, but with no cantrip spells to guarantee improvement on it, its probably a hand you will want to send back. It might have been better in games 2 and 3 if you know what you're playing against, but even in most match ups you'll probably want to find a hand with more spells in it. I can't emphasize enough the importance of shipping hands with 4 or more lands in them; not having enough spells will often get you into a lot of trouble.
The mulligan off the previous hand. This is actually really solid, especially for a mulligan to 6. We have access to basic island to safely cast at least 2 cantrips, plus a lotus petal for if we need access to black or red. The only downside is the past in flames, which isn't normally ideal in our starting hand since we really need to find some more fast mana before we can use it. Definitely a keep, though, for a mulligan to 6.
This is the only hand I actually sculpted to demonstrate a point. This hand has the ability to go off the first turn, but is also dead to a force of will. Basically, you keeping this hand banks on whether or not you think your opponent has a force of will, or if we are on the draw. If we're on the play, they really only have force, but if they're on the draw they have more options so I would ship it on the draw. Personally, I would keep it on the play and hope for the easy kill, but perhaps you knew they were on a blue deck by some means, and you would be smart to ship it. There are other hands similar to this, some of which are actually just unbeatable on turn 1 or 2, but hands like these is where format knowledge, and even more importantly, meta knowledge comes into play.
After we've started the game, the goal is to sculpt the ideal hand to start the spell chain, and if necessary, make sure our opponent isn't trying to stop us. As you saw with the mulligan examples, we need cantrip spells to sculpt the ideal hand. So what are we looking for to sculpt the ideal hand? You will generally be looking for some combination of fast mana spells and an infernal tutor or one of our other business spells. The required cards to start the spell chain varies on what route you will go to finish the spell chain, so I will describe the most common spell chains below.
The first route, which is normally the easiest but least consistent, is the Ad Nauseam route. The Ad Nauseam Route requires only 7 mana to go off, unless you already have Ad Nauseam in your hand, in which case, you only need the 5 to cast it. If your opponent is playing aggro, the Ad Nauseam Route may not be the most ideal route unless you still have 17 or 18 life, but you can generally still use Ad Nauseam as low as 5 or 6 life in a pinch. Anything less is really desparate...but sometimes you may have to go for it. Let's assume we don't have Ad Nauseam in our hand already. This means we will need to tutor for it with either Infernal Tutor or Dark Petition. Note that both of these are net -2 normally, so in order to cast ad nauseam, we will need a total of 7 mana. More mana is ideal so you have more mana to continue the spell chain after you resolve ad nauseam, but there's a good chance you will get a lotus petal or a lion's eye diamond to contine if you need to. You may also need additional mana to cast a hand disruption spell to take an opposing counter spell so you can resolve your tutor spell. If you're using infernal tutor, you will need to be hellbent as well. This means you will generally need a Lion's Eye Diamond to use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor, but you may be able to get hellbent without it by using your hand disruption spells or just simply casting everything else in your hand.
You can hold priority and use Lion's Eye Diamond's ability in response to casting Infernal Tutor to get it's hellbent ability and net 3 mana. This is one of the most important interactions in the deck. Don't forget it.
After resolving infernal tutor and using the remaining mana to cast Ad Nauseam, the real trick is to know what spells you specifically need to finish the combo. Luckily, our deck is mostly cards with very low converted mana costs, so most flips for ad nauseam aren't going to dock you more than 1 or 2 life each but you may occassionally flip one of your higher cmc spells for 4 or 5 life. That said, you should not continue to reveal for Ad Nauseam once you are at 4 or 5 life if you can. Generally you will need more mana to finish the combo, so things like lotus petal and rituals are usual required. You will also need tendrils of agony at some point (or possibly empty the warrens if its game 2 or 3), or a way to get it which is usually infernal tutor. Of course, you will probably need another lion's eye diamond if you need to use infernal tutor again. All of these spells combined should get you to a lethal storm count. This method can also be used as sort of an emergency method if another combo route you were trying went wrong. Keep in mind, though, that a failed Ad Nauseam usually results in a game loss since you will probably take a significant amount of life to use it.
The second route is the Past in Flames route. This route is usually the safest, but may not always be available due to cards like rest in peace, deathrite shaman, etc. It also usually requires a bit more mana and can therefore be a bit harder to set up. Unlike Ad Nauseam, however, it will not destroy your life total meaning even a failed attempt is still not always as drastic as a failed Ad Nauseam. The set up is essentially the same as the first route, but the total mana required to finish the combo is at least 9 or 10 before tendrils of agony. The goal with this route is to cast several rituals, infernal tutor for past in flames, cast said past in flames, then flash back the aforementioned rituals...and then the infernal tutor to get Tendrils of Agony. Again, this route is usually the safest because it won't take a huge chunk out of our life total, and using spells out of the graveyard usually doesn't have a drawback. Be wary, though, that you must still be hellbent for infernal tutor to do what you want it to do, so a lion's eye diamond may still be necessary. Also, you must avoid drawing cards after you've cast past in flames if you plan to use infernal tutor again, as you may not necessarily be able to get them out of your hand unless you have another Lion's eye diamond. Gitaxian probe can be flashed back at the cost of 2 life from the graveyard, but if you're using infernal tutor and you don't have a lion's eye diamond, using the gitaxian probe to put a card in your hand may neuter your infernal tutor and stop you from finishing the combo (especially if you draw something like a land that you can't play).
The third route...well, the third route is basically every other method of comboing off. This could mean anything from casting 6 rituals spells into infernal tutor into tendrils, or some combination of the above two routes where you had to use both ad nauseam and past in flames because something went wrong along the way and you still had the mana to do both. Honestly, it would take too much time for me to sit and write all the possible ways this deck could potentially kill your opponent, but all you need to know is that you can still win games without past in flames, ad nauseam, or even tutor spells sometimes. All you need to do, as previously mentioned, is cast (X ÷ 2) - 1 spells then cast Tendrils of Agony, where X is the opponent's life total. Realistically, winning without past in flames or ad nauseam usually involves several ritual spells, several can trips, and usually a hellbent infernal tutor or dark petition to get tendrils. You shouldn't usually be aiming to go this route; this usually happens as the result of games going longer than usual and you having an abnormally large amount of lands or mana and not having access to past in flames or ad nauseam. But sometimes, you may just have the perfect hand to do this, even on turn 1. The more you play this deck, the more ways you may find to successfully combo.
If you still have trouble figuring out how to win games with this deck: see the images below.
Below are images with explanations below each image that explain the steps in the combo. On the left side, the black and red circles represent black and red mana in the pool. The orange circle represents the storm count. The red area represents the stack, the green area represents our hand, and the purple-blue area represents the battlefield. The zones on the left are our graveyard and exile zones (which will be brought up when necessary). Images brought to you by Cockatrice :).
1.) This is roughly what your hand will look like to start the combo; you should be trying to sculpt your hand with your cantrips to look something like this in order to successfully perform the combo. Hand disruptions spells or other cards (such as removal from the sideboard in games 2 and 3) are also usually important in this preceding step in order to make sure its safe (or even possible) to go off. In this particular example, this just so happened to be my opening hand, so this would be a turn 1 kill assuming our opponent had no interruptions.
2.) As long as we can, we want to play around daze, which is why we lead with our land, and the lotus petal that we have so our opponent can't stop us with daze. If we know our opponent is playing wasteland it may also be a good idea to fetch a basic land instead, but in this example it doesn't matter and we just grab an underground sea.
3.) Now, in this example, we may go ahead and cast our fast mana spells which puts our storm count to 4 and our black mana to 4 total. Generally, we want to cast Cabal Ritual last to get threshold, but in this case we have no way to reach threshold no matter the order so it doesn't really matter.
4.) We will now use 2 of our black mana (leaving us with 2) to cast infernal tutor. This is the step that confuses those who are unfamiliar with how this deck works. Now that infernal Tutor is on the stack, we need to hold priority (meaning we will immediately respond to our own spell being cast before our opponent has an opportunity to respond) and activate Lion's Eye Diamond's mana ability by sacrificing it and discarding our hand which at this point only had a land we couldn't play. This will add 3 mana to our pool and allow us to use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor, which essentially makes it a Demonic Tutor (which is currently banned in legacy). In this case, we will add red mana in case we want to use past in flames, but we also have 2 black and 5 total for Ad Nauseam or Dark Petition. This is the most vulnerable step of the combo, since an interruption at this point will leave us with no cards in hand since we used a LED. Therefore, if you have hand disruption, you really want to use it before this step if possible.
5.) Assuming nothing went wrong in step 4 and our infernal tutor resolves, we are now at only 5 storm so we can't get tendrils of agony yet (unless our opponent only had 12 life for some reason). Instead we need to pick another spell to continue the spell chain: Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames. Which one you should get depends on the situation, and will take some experience deciding between the two. In this example we can do either, but having the ability to safely do either is rare. In some rare cases, we can just get another infernal tutor or dark petition here instead to simply increment the storm count by 1 before going for tendrils, but in this example we don't quite have the mana for that and we'll also just assume our opponent is at 20 life, meaning we'll need at least a storm count of 9.
6a.) Assuming we picked past in flames, we would then cast it from our hand which now allows us to recycle (flashback) the sorceries and instants in our graveyard. Luckily, we have just enough spells in our graveyard to do this. If we don't, you will have to go for Ad Nauseam instead when resolving the infernal tutor in the previous step.
6b.) In this particular example, we need to crack the lotus petal for mana to flashback the Cabal Ritual first to make sure we have 7 cards in our graveyard to get the threshold ability. Otherwise, we wouldn't quite have enough mana to finish the spell chain with tendrils. Normally this isn't a problem since we normally go through more fetchlands and spells before getting to this point, but in this example comboing off on turn 1 brought us to this particular issue.
6c.) After we resolve the cabal ritual, we may now flashback the dark ritual, and then the infernal tutor. Since we still don't have any cards in our hand (because we were casting those from the graveyard), we will again have the hellbent ability of infernal tutor to get whatever we want from our deck. In this example, we are now at 9 storm count with a total of 5 black in the pool so we can go ahead and get our win condition: Tendrils of Agony.
7a.) Assuming we picked Ad Nauseam in step 5, we would then cast it and resolve its effect. This part is essentially Black Jack: Magic the Gathering edition...except the odds are generally much more in your favor--but not always. You take hits from the top of the deck and try to get what we need to finish the combo without letting our life total become 0. You need to know whats in your deck while resolving this spell because going too low in life could result in you killing yourself on the spot. You also need to know what you need to finish the combo so that you don't have to dock your life total unnecessarily. Note that besides step 4, this is the most vulnerable point in the combo, as our combo is left to random chance on the resolution of this spell and we could just brick. This is why past in flames is generally preferred if possible since that is usually guaranteed if we can do it, but sometimes we may just have to go for this route, win or lose. Don't worry too much, though, this deck handles this step surprisingly well as long as you have a healthy life total
7b.) After resolving ad nauseam, which in this example put me to 3 life, we may now simply unload on our opponent. In this case I happened to get the tendrils from Ad Nauseam (which can often be a bad thing) so I don't have to tutor for it, I just have to cast my fast mana spells, some hand disruption (just to be sure), then the tendrils. In most other cases, it may require repeating some of the previous steps like the one outlined in step 4.
8.) Either route should result in this step. Which is our opponent losing all of their life. Sometimes we may use empty the warrens instead, which should put enough goblins into play to overwhelm our opponent. Congratulations! You've won!
Here are some example deck lists for reference. Note that due to the nature of the deck being a combo deck, lists will not vary much and will be roughly 85% to 90% the same across the board. There is not much room in this deck for variation since it requires consistency.
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Duress
2 Preordain
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Dark Petition
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Dread of Night
1 Flusterstorm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
This is closest to what I think would be the most normal ANT list, based on the current meta and deck lists available on MTGtop8.com. When in doubt, I recommend using this list as the best reference, or at least the best list to start with to get familiar with the deck.
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Preordain
2 Dark Petition
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Rain of Filth
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony
3 Chrome Mox
2 City of Solitude
1 Echoing Truth
Caleb Scherer has many notable results playing ANT in the SCG open and classic series. The main difference in his lists from most other lists is the mainboard rain of filth and an extra dark petition. He also does not choose to play Sensei's Divining Top. The most unique part of his list(s), however, is his unique sideboard which employs an aggressive transformation option with several extra copies of tendrils and 3 chrome mox for speedier kills. He also plays a bayou which is not too uncommon these days with 4 abrupt decays in many people's sideboards.
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Past in Flames
1 Preordain
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Rain of Filth
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Krosan Grip
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Sensei's Divining Top
Here is a great example of a European list which has some notable differences. The first of which is 15 lands with mainboard Bayou and Tropical island, as opposed to only 14 with no green lands in the main. For whatever reason this is pretty common in European lists compared to North American lists. As such, the sideboard has some extra slots. Many European lists are still playing Krosan Grip in addition to abrupt decay. Also, many European players prefer Flusterstorm in their sideboards as well. Notable differences in the main include an extra past in flames, both Sensei's divining top with an extra in the board, and rain of filth.
Fast mana is fuel for the fire...somewhat literally, as past in flames is commonly involved. Fast mana, for those who are unfamiliar, are cards that generate more mana than what we would normally have access to at the cost of a card. This is not the same as ramp spells; ramp spells are not card disadvantage because they usually replace themselves with a land card, resulting in no total cards gained or lost. Fast mana cards are different, though, they do not replace themselves with another card resulting in card disadvantage. Their only effect is creating additional mana...
...So why would a combo deck want cards that are disadvantageous? We hope to chain these fast mana spells into a spell that is extremely advantageous (see Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames), so much so that it allows us to win the game in a single turn. Below are the fast mana cards, pay close attention to the Net mana. Calculating total mana available is easier using Net amounts, and will give you a better idea of whether to begin the combo or not than trying to remember costs and additions the normal way. And while not technically fast mana: lands are Net +1, obviously.
Dark Ritual (Net +2) - Ah, the one and only dark ritual. Information aside, this is one of my favorite magic cards, and despite being a fairly common card, is one of the most iconic in Magic's great history. Many consider it to be the greatest black spell in the game over other great black cards such as thoughtseize and necropotence. All praise aside, this card is serious business that is essentially the backbone to the deck. Any turn 1 kill from this deck will assuredly involve at least one or two of these, and most turn 2 or 3 kills require at least one. This card is the most consistent fuel for the fire having virtually no drawbacks due to its status as an instant spell and the only net +2 mana by itself in thats still legal in legacy. You will be playing 4 of these, no exceptions. Again, it is important to remember that these net you 2 mana normally; 3 mana for the cost 1 for a total of 2.
Cabal Ritual(Net +1/+3) - This card, while not always as great as dark ritual, can often times be flat out better as a potential net of 3 additional mana (5 for the cost of 2). Even still, the deck can still utilize a net 1 (3 for 2) mana if threshold is not met. Cabal ritual, while not necessarily as important as dark ritual, is still usually played as a 3-of or 4-of in the deck as the only other viable black ritual spell. Again, remember that it is either net 3 or net 1 if you do not have threshold. This card can often allow you to pull off a win where it normally wouldn't be possible in games that have gone long where you have threshold.
Lotus Petal (Net +1) - A fixed version of Black Lotus. Net 1 mana (1 mana for 0). Its also great for casting spells that you may not necessarily have the colors to cast otherwise and also adds to the storm count. 4 of these are mandatory.
Lion's Eye Diamond (Net +3) - Another attempt at a fixed black lotus, often abbreviated as LED. Most decks can't use this card due to its cost of discarding your hand, however, we still can take advantage of its unique ability. The goal is to cast some rituals, cast LED, then cast infernal tutor and while its still on the stack, retain priority and use LED's ability to net 3 mana and use the hellbent ability of infernal tutor. This mana can then be used in turn to cast whatever spell you got with infernal tutor. It also works great with past in flames. Again, 4 of these are mandatory.
*Optional* Rain of Filth (Net ???) - Sometimes you see this in successful storm lists. It essentially lets you cash in your lands for mana which is great for the combo turn. Come to your own conclusions. If you play this, it won't be more than one or two copies.
*Optional* Chrome Mox (Net +1) - You sometimes see this in successful lists as well. Its a net +1 at the cost of an additional card which can be bad, but can also be good if you have an extra infernal tutor or something else in your hand. It can also be used repeatedly unlike other fast mana spells, so you can use this on a non-combo turn to cast an additional cantrip or hand disruption spell if you need to. It is often played in the sideboard, and in other storm variants as well. Most ANT decks, if they're playing this, only play one or two copies, but most ANT lists don't use it nowadays.
*Optianal* Rite of Flame (Net +1/2/3/4[HOLY SHIT]) - You don't normally see this in ANT as we don't usually need red mana (except for past in flames), but its without a doubt one of the most powerful rituals in the game. If you play this, you should play 4 for its unique ability...but again, this spell is usually too aggressive for our deck and should therefore be avoided. I'm listing it here for those interested in possible expirementation, as some successful ANT lists have utilized this spell in the past.
Fast mana tips
Asides from remembering the net mana, there's a few other things you should remember to do with your fast mana.
-Remember the net mana of each spell. This will help you quickly calculate your available mana in a shorter period than if you tried to go through the steps of mana cost vs mana gained in your head.
-Normally we want to save our fast mana for the combo turn, however, sometimes it may benefit you to use a ritual or a lotus petal to cast multiple hand disruption spells or can trip spells in a single turn. For example, if you see that your opponent has 2 hate cards on turn 1 with gitaxian probe, you can cast a dark ritual or a lotus petal and use 2 hand disruption spells to rid their hand of their 2 hate cards before they can cast either. This may be necessary if there's multiples of somethings we can't deal with otherwise (ie, counterbalance, thalia, guardian of thraben, etc).
-Lotus Petal and Lion's Eye Diamond can be used for any color. Seems obvious, but its easy to forget that these artifacts produce more than black mana sometimes. Red can be used for past in flames/empty the warrens, blue can be used for cantrips, and green and white can be used to cast sideboard cards. Keep this in mind when going off, or in situations where you want to play around wasteland by fetching basic lands.
-Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual are instant speed. You still mostly cast these at any time you could cast a sorcery, but it is still important to keep in mind when you can put one of these rituals on the stack in combative spell situations. They can also be used on your opponent's turn, in some rare situations (to cast ad nauseam or something similar).
Cantrips are integral to how the deck works. You should value these over other kinds of cards in this deck in most situations simply because they create consistency. Not only are these spells good on non-combo turns to sculpt your hand, but you can often use them on the combo turn as well to help extend the combo and increase the storm count.
Ponder - Pretty straightforward card selection. You will generally only be using this to find what you need, generally combo pieces or sideboard cards. Keep in mind the shuffle effect can be very useful in combination with brainstorm if you don't have a fetch land to shuffle away cards you might not want. You'll pretty much always play 4 of these unless something better comes along to replace it.
Preordain - Not quite as good as ponder, but serves pretty much the exact same purpose. Most lists can only fit 2 in the list, but if you have room for more there's nothing wrong with adding more.
Brainstorm - Hands down the best card in its class. Brainstorm is the backbone of many decks and our deck is no exception. You must play 4 of these. Unlike the other cantrip spells, brainstorm gives you several additional abilities outside the usual card selection. The most important ability is getting rid of cards in your hand that you don't need. For example, if you have 3 infernal tutors in your hand (which is generally not ideal, you really only need 1 in most cases), you can cast brainstorm, look at 3 new cards, and put 2 of your unwanted infernal tutors back on top of your deck. Then, if you have a polluted delta or scalding tarn, you can use it to find a land and shuffle away the 2 infernal tutors that were on top of your deck for new potential cards for later draws. Brainstorm can also be used defensively against decks that cast hand disruption. Because its an instant, you can respond to cards like thoughtseize by casting brainstorm and putting the cards you don't want your opponent to take with their thoughtseize back on top of your deck so you can draw them later. For all these reasons, you really want to save brainstorm for the most ideal situations. Don't just cast brainstorm, especially if you have no way to shuffle your library to get rid of unwanted cards. You may have to in tight situations, but if there's not pressure from your opponent you should try to save them. Use your brainstorms well and you will be rewarded.
Gitaxian Probe - This card simply makes our deck more consistent by essentially reducing our deck to 56 cards at the cost of 2 life each. Its pretty straightforward, and definitely a 4-of. You can use them to get information early in game 1, or you can simply save them until you can perform the combo and it adds to the storm count. Note that this card is amazing with cabal therapy, since it allows you to see what you should name with cabal therapy.
*Optional* - Sensei's Divining Top - You see this pretty often as a 1-of in more recent lists. Its good at keeping your card selection over the course of long, grindy match ups, and can actually be used on the combo turn to draw the extra card you need to go off. This particularly strategy works very well against decks employing lots of hand disruption or liliana of the veil. If you play it, you really won't want more than 1 in the 75.
These spells are referred to as 'Business' spells because they usually finish the combo, or "get the job done". You generally want at least one of these any given game, but any more than 1 is generally too many. Therefore we try to play just the right amount of these so that we only see one of these when we need it. This also includes our win condition: Tendrils of Agony.
infernal tutor - Since demonic tutor is banned in Legacy, we have to resort to this as our primary tutor spell. Don't fret, though. The hellbent ability is very easy to set up in our deck, especially with Lion's Eye Diamond. This is usually the most critical spell in the spell chain, and you will generally want to avoid having this countered. You will usually get ad nauseam, past in flames, or tendrils of agony with this card when it resolves after you've emptied your hand by either casting those spells or by using an LED. However, don't be afraid to use it without its hellbent ability to get a second copy of something like dark ritual or lion's eye diamond, especially if you have another infernal tutor in your hand. The deck plays 4 of these.
Ad Nauseam - This is what the deck is named after. Formerly, the deck played multiple copies of this, but now with multiple ways of comboing off, you really only need 1 now. Using this spell is a little tricky for those who have never done it before, but I've explained it a little bit in the previous section. If you spend some
past in flames - For those of you who have cast yawgmoth's will, this is essentially ghetto yawgmoth's will. This is a great alternative to finish the spell chain without using ad nauseam if possible, as our graveyard often has enough rituals to flash back an infernal tutor to get Tendrils of Agony. It also can be cast in conjuction with lion's eye diamond in a pinch for potential combo kills. Only use this card when you know that your graveyard has enough in it to finish off the combo. Otherwise, you will have to use a different business spell. Most lists will play at least one of these main board.
dark petition - The most recent addition to ANT. Obviously, our deck has a very easy time getting to 5 mana, and having spell mastery. As such, this card is often very usable as a tutor spell to continue the spell chain. Note that even though it adds 3 black, it is still net -2 for mana since it costs 5 total. Also note that you don't have to use it with lion's eye diamond to get what you want: it always lets you tutor for whatever you need. Most lists these days play 1 in the main board.
Tendrils of Agony - The win condition. You should only need 1, because you will usually tutor for it with infernal tutor or dark petition. It is viable to play more than 1 though, especially in the sideboard.
*Optional* grim tutor - This card was recently replaced by dark petition for most people, but its still a viable option as the only unconditional tutor spell in the game that costs 3 mana, making it the closest alternative to demonic tutor in functionality. The real problem with this card is its availability: market value is over $300. Most storm lists that played this only used 1, but its optional.
*Optional* Ill-Gotten Gains - This card has mostly been replaced by past in flames now, but its still worth mentioning as it does have some unique applications over past in flames since it makes your opponent discard their hand. These interactions are pretty niche though. You will generally be playing past in flames over this, but if you find yourself in a very peculiar meta this can be used in its place, or in the sideboard.
Hand disruption spells are used to preemptively defend the combo. Since our deck often folds to counterspells or other forms of hate, the deck can utilize these very efficient spells to take our opponent's defensive spells and allow us to execute the combo unhindered. We usually only need one or two over the course of the game, so we only play a few.
Cabal Therapy - This should be your primary hand disruption spell. Most lists play 4. This is the primary reason why this deck requires at least some format knowledge because you will need to know what to name when resolving this spell. Of course, gitaxian probe and duress help, but you may not necessarily have those cards to help you name the right card. Generally, you want to use this before you try to cast your most important spells such as infernal tutor, LED, ad nauseam or past in flames because those are the spells that your opponent will likely save their counterspells for. Against non-blue decks, you will need to use cabal therapy to preemptively name other problematic spells. Even if you miss and they don't have the card that you named, you can at least see what they do have and see if its safe to combo off.
Duress - The second hand disruption spell in the deck, most lists play at least 3, sometimes 4. Its much easier to use than cabal therapy, but unlike cabal therapy it can only take one copy of any given card which can make a difference sometimes. Duress is preferred over other hand disruption spells because the deck does not care about most creatures. Unlike thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, it does not take any life from us and doesn't discern spells that cost more than 3...like Force of Will. Note that it will still take most of the hate cards that aren't counterspells as well. Duress also works well with cabal therapy.
*Optional* Thoughtseize - ANT used to maindeck this spell over other options due to its ability to take anything among a field of very diverse threats. Fortunately, decks like Maverick and Canadian Thresh are much less prevalent and therefore we don't really need to play thoughtseize usually. Obviously, the 2 life can be relevant which is why ANT generally opts for duress more often in today's meta. It is entirely still possible, however, that we see a resurgence of a wider diversity of hate including more creatures that may make this card a better option.
*Optional* Inquisition of Kozilek - This hasn't been employed too much in the history of ANT, but if the meta is full of swarming aggro decks--and is lacking force of will--this card is actually pretty good. Of course, duress is generally still more ideal since there aren't many creatures we care about.
ANT, in its current form, only needs 14 lands. Some lists have played 15 or 13, but I recommend starting with 14 for mathematical reasons.
The land base is usually as follows:
4 scalding tarn
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
2 island
1 swamp
1 Tropical Island
Polluted Delta is the most relevant fetchland as it lets us get any of our lands, whereas scalding tarn can get anything but the basic swamp. It seems kind of negligible, but if you play this deck at a big event you will almost assuredly play a game where having the right fetches is relevant. With this particular mana base, you can substitute scalding tarn for any other blue fetch. The underground seas are pretty self-explanatory; they can cast can-trips, hand disruption, or rituals to go off. The volcanic island is ocassionally necessary to cast past in flames or other sideboard cards (namely empty the warrens). Its important to understand that islands are more critical as far as basic lands go because they are necessary to ensuring that we go off. Although black is necessary to cast hand disruption and ritual spells, these are not as important as cantrips. We can also use lotus petals for other colors if we need to. Therefore, we play 2 islands and only one swamp usually.
The sideboard Tropcial Island is extremely important to our mana base as well. A lot of our most difficult matchups require that we bring in some green spells...and therefore we'll need a way to cast them. With the normal mana base as listed above, you will generally take out the second island, as the green spells usually come in against decks that don't use wasteland. However, depending on the matchup, you can also take out the volcanic island or the swamp.
Make sure you actually practice bringing in tropical island in matches. I've definitely played 1 or 2 sanctioned games where I forgot to bring it in and got stuck with green spells in my hand that I couldn't cast without a lotus petal. (for the record, I think I still won those games lol).
Land bases will vary from deck to deck, but only very slightly. For reference, here is mine. I play an extra underground sea over another basic island because I generally feel a little more comfortable playing around wasteland, but that's just personal preference.
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Tropical Island
Some mana bases in the past have also used rainbow lands, especially in more red-heavy decks. These lands include: Gemstone Mine, City of Brass, and Mana Confluence. Its not very common anymore, but if you're playing a bit more red or green (or god forbid, white), you could employ these lands a little more effectively than the normal mana base.
The sideboard for ANT is very important. There are a few cards that come in from the sideboards of other decks that we cannot normally deal with or have a very difficult time dealing with and without having an answer for them the deck can be locked out of the game on the spot. Additionally, many decks will bring in what they can to interact with us and take out things that don't really work on us such as removal spells or unnecessary creatures.
The sideboard for this deck should have everything it needs to answer the cards that our deck could not normally deal with. Luckily for us, the list of things we actually care about is pretty straightforward. Counterspells and hand disruption are the obvious offenders, and you should be able to play around those with your cantrips and hand disruption. However, our deck has a hard time dealing with some permanents and therefore we generally need something to deal with those permanents. Below is a list of all permanents relevant to us in their corresponding colors so you know what to prepare for.
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Rest in Peace
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Rule of Law
1 Gaddock Teeg
Blue
1 Counterbalance
1 back to basics
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Deathrite Shaman
Red
1 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Blood Moon
Green
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Choke
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere
NOTE - Knight of the Reliquary is only problematic due to the fact that it can fetch Bojuka Bog to effectively stifle Past in Flames. This example is rare, but should be remembered. Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman simply make past in flames a little more difficult and don't usually actually have to be dealt with. Blood moon and back to basics can usually be played around, but may come by surprise so it they are worth considering when sideboarding.
Now that we know what permaments we have to play around we can look at our sideboard options.
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tropical Island
2 Dread of Night
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flusterstorm
Abrupt Decay - This card is absolutely necessary currently due to the high presence of counterbalance and chalice of the void in the meta. It also blows up a lot of other things that we care about too and is therefore a 3-of or 4-of in most sideboards nowadays.
Xantid Swarm - So, in case you needed help explaining what this card is for: this card is really good against decks that cast counterspells. Obviously, xantid swarm prevents said decks from interacting with you on your turn when you try to go off. Unfortunately, it is susceptible to removal, but the idea behind this card is that the opponent takes out their removal for games 2 and 3 because they presume you don't play any creatures in your deck and they'd rather have more counterspells. This card preys on that particular plan by silencing them and negating their counterspells. Do remember, however, that experienced players know this simple trick and will often keep some removal if they can to deal with the swarm.
City of Solitude - This card is essentially the same as xantid swarm, except its harder to interact with, and it costs 3 mana which can be difficult for this deck. This has become much more relevant in the recent meta due to the presence of sensei's diving top since it neuters its ability as well, which in turn makes counterbalance a non-issue. Notably, it also stops a few other relevant abilities on your own turn such as deathrite shaman, umezawa's jitte, or cards such as nihil spellbomb or relic of progenitus. Successful lists in more recent times have generally been playing this over xantid swarm, but they each have benefits over the other, so you may want to come to your own conclusions, or adjust according to the forecasted meta.
Carpet of Flowers - Good against decks that play islands...obviously. Its really strong in a delver meta since they focus really hard on mana denial. However, its actually not that great against most other decks playing islands simply because the extra mana is not important as getting through opposing counterspells.
Dread of Night - The only creatures that we actually care about are white, and therefore this is about the only card we have that interacts specifically with the creatures that we care about. It's about the best thing in the game to keep both thalia, guardian of thraben and vryn wingmare off the table. By itself, it doesn't get rid of ethersworn canonist or gaddock teeg though, which brings us to the next option...
Massacre - This is a little more reactive than proactive, but effectively deals with all creatures that we care about. Of course, you must be certain your opponent will have a plains in play though in order to cast it.
The next few sideboard slots should be dedicated to some bounce spells or other generic removal spells. This primarily means cards like chain of vapor, echoing truth, krosan grip, etc. This is for decks that likely bring in the permaments that don't get destroyed by abrupt decay. Its can also be used against opposing combo decks that also rely on permanents for a kill such as dredge, show and tell, or elves--or even some aggro decks.
Many ANT sideboards will dedicate a few spots to additional combo options in addition to the normal suite of removal/interaction. In the sideboard above you see an additional tendrils and Empty the Warrens. Empty the warrens is employed in just about every storm deck sideboard as an alternative win condition against decks that may have limited removal or blockers. The additional tendrils of agony can be useful against decks where casting two may be necessary, or the deck has heavy hand disruption in combination with cards that exile things from the graveyard. These situations are a little niche, but they do come up so you should have a plan for them. Not listed in the above sideboard, some decks may go into additional storm cards such as chrome mox or rain of filthfor a speedier combo kill.
Lastly, there's usually room for other spells such as Flusterstorm and additional hand disruption that are just pretty good to have if you can fit them in there. You never know what your opponent might bring in and these cards can generally answer them before they hit the table. Flusterstorm is also, of course, hilariously good in the mirror which is becoming a little more common than in previous years of magic. Your own experimentation will be required in this particular area, as many ANT players differ on opinions or what they prefer.
For tips on how to sideboard for certain match ups, I leave that to Bryant Cook: http://www.theepicstorm.com/sideboarding-guide/. This link is actually a sideboarding guide for TES, which is a similar but different deck. However, many of the same principles in this sideboarding guide can be applied to this deck and therefore I would highly recommend you read it. Since I had little knowledge and experience of this particular area while writing this, if this were a scholarly work, I would simply have inserted stuff Bryant Cook said and cited it. But since this is the internet and I did not want to type up all of that I put the link here--go look at it!
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Agreed, but there are definitely situations where you will have to concede because your opponent had a mainboard leyline of sanctity in their opening hand or something similar. I'll look into rephrasing it.
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I guess there are images missing for the starting hands?
No mention of City of Solitude interacting with SDT.
And yes, the starting hand images are yet to be linked. I may have time to do it tonigjt
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On my to-do list: add the combo demonstration images (I haven't actually made these yet, so that might be a little longer), add sample decklists, bold some of the points that I had bolded to emphasize from my original write up, then go back and proof-read and clean up some of the writing to make it a little more concise.
Also, can anyone else think of any other permanents we care about for the list of problematic permanents in the sideboard section? I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
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Also, if you're of the opinion that Jitte is relevant, then you might want to include the even more scary batterskull
thank you. Eh, I might just take down jitte. Obviously the only relevant ability is gaining life...or if they somehow have an active jitte and play and you've cast empty the warrens.
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2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
Mana Accel (16)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
Disruption (7)
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
Win Cons (4)
1 Dark Petition
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pyroblast
2 Disperse
2 Deathmark
2 Chrome Mox
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Carpet of Flowers
A lot of the decks here are UBx delver lists, but there's also Burn, Tinfins, and one CB deck that seems to draw my name EVERY time on round 1. Any advice?
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disfigure
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Dark Confidant
1 Krosan Grip
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
If the UBx delver lists are predominantly splashing red, I'd remove the confidants for something else though, perhaps tops as tops can help greatly against discard. Other considerations are xantid swarm, which is okayish if they don't have removal for it but it doesn't stop countertop. Tinfins is beatable just by racing or discarding. 2 spellbombs won't give you a big edge, but flusterstorm is also excellent against them as it counters any reanimation spells, entomb (counter entomb above everything, as getting griselbrand in the bin is their biggest hurdle having played the deck myself.), or discard of theirs whether it's pointed at them to pitch brand or you.
As for a guide on sideboarding in general, don't overdo it. With this sideboard I'd use and the list above here's how I'd board.
Against delver:
-1 Ad nauseam
-1 Preordain
-1 Therapy
-1 Lotus Petal
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Carpet of flowers
Don't want bobs here because they try to kill you as fast as possible. Same with ad nauseam becoming dead very quickly because delver taking chunks out as well as bolts makes ad nauseam difficult to win with.
Against Countertop, I imagine it's miracles
-3 Lotus Petal
-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Duress
+3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Krosan Grip
+2 Carpet of Flowers
Fast mana is less important because you generally play a longer game against them. Want to keep ad nauseam as an instant speed end of turn play or for the oops I have double LED dark rit infernal type hands where you need it to combo when PiF cannot. Helps that they don't pressure you.
Against tinfins
+2 Confidant
+2 Flusterstorm
-1 Preordain
-1 Duress
-1 Therapy
-1 Sensei's Top
Remember that therapy can be flashed back by confidant sacrifice. Therapy is one of the hardest cards to use correctly, especially in this type of matchup where naming wrongly can lose you the game on the spot. If I were to blind name turn 1 on the play I'd pick entomb. On the draw I'd hope to hold up flusterstorm for EoT entomb or any reanimation spell on their turn if they mainphase entomb. If griselbrand is in the bin and you have to blind name with therapy I'd pick shallow grave as they run 4 of it and not 4 goryo's vengeance.
Against burn
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Disfigure
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Chain of Vapor
-3 Therapy
-1 Ad Nauseam
-1 Sensei's top
-2 Duress
Ad nauseam is awful. Biggest worry is them having fireblast/racing us as turn 3 can show them a kill with a good hand. Eidolon is naturally a huge pain as unlike pyrostatic pillar it can attack so we can't lock them under it and combo'ing with it in play is impossible. While therapy can discard it and duress cannot, therapy can miss. Hitting a fireblast with a duress is solid or any instant speed burn. We have a bunch of answers to resolved eidolon with this configuration. Eidolon is symmetrical, and I cannot stress it enough. Only needing 7 storm instead of 10 can be the difference. So let eidolon sit around sometimes so they get nugged by it, but be careful of course because burn can kill very quickly.
Currently Playing:
Retired
The boarding guide is quite helpful, and even if I don't follow it exactly I'll keep it in mind. I've also been told to consider playing a tundra for Monastery Mentor as a sideboard plan. Thoughts on that?
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
For the record, I think its worth pointing out that most creatures we actually care about are white, and therefore I really like dread of night over things like disfigure.
As far as nihil spellbomb goes, you really don't need it. You should be combating decks like tinfins and reanimator with hand disruption, or simply racing them. I suppose if you know you're going to play against it, it might be okay, but I'm still skeptical. Even dredge, you're likely just going to beat them in the race anyway. Also, its definitely not worth it to stifle a DRS activation. It would be nice to have that capability, but its just not impactful enough for us to try and hit on DRS.
I don't know about mentor. 3 mana is a lot in our deck and many players may go on to sweepers for the already anticipated empty the warrens. Might be worth a try; mentor is certainly a good card that would likely be a 1 turn clock for us, but killing on the spot is of course preferred.
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Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
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How does the matchup against Eldrazi (or any deck that plays Chalice of the Void in the main really) usually go for you?
Although I wouldn't say the matchup is abysmal, its certainly got game against us now compared to MUD variants from before Oath of the gatewatch. Honestly, Delver is still the most threatening aggro deck to us since they have actual interaction, but eldrazi is certainly a close second now thanks to thought-knot seer and some really disgusting potential beats. Formerly, we were a little more worried about dnt or maverick (...sort of), but again now that there's a chalice deck that will kill you on turn 4, those definitely take a back seat to threat of chalice.
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1) Crack Lotus Petal and LED hold priority
2) Cast Dark Ritual hold priority, 6 Mana
3) Cast Cabal Ritual hold priority, 7 Mana (dont have Threshold)
4) Cast Infernal Tutor 5 Mana, get Ad Nauseam...hopefully get the win from there
PS: Here is my current list. Please let me know any suggestions. It is a pretty vanilla list.
1 Bayou
2 Flooded Strand
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
SPELLS
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Dark Confidant
4 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Xantid Swarm
RG Lands
B Mono Black Pox
C MUD
Vintage:
UBRGW Dredge
Lion's Eye Diamond is such a peculiar card.
However, in your example you can just cast your rituals with the lotus petal (dark rit, then cabal rit), then the infernal tutor, then crack the LED. The end result is effectively the same. But cracking the LED first would result in having nothing else to cast...so don't do that.
As far as your list goes, it looks mostly fine. The sideboard is a little strange with 4 copies of echoing truth and some singleton stuff, but if you have a reason for it I assume its probably fine.
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So, honestly, I'd give reanimator a try if possible. But if I were to choose between storm and dredge, I would pick storm. Dredge is just a little soft these days, and I think storm is overall better right now. Plus, storm has a bit more interaction with opposing combo kills with its hand disruption, and many storm players these days are more than content to play counter magic in the board, namely flusterstorm. Storm doesn't just lose to rest in peace. Lastly, storm is better in a race where as dredge may be a turn or 2 too slow against a deck like show and tell or reanimator.
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