fbpx

Unlocking Legacy – An Ad Nauseam/Threshold Matchup Analysis

Read Legacy articles every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Friday, December 26th – Doug tackles two matches between Ad Nauseam and UGB Threshold this week with a thorough play-by-play article. Are you curious about how Legacy’s premiere combo deck stacks up against its toughest matchup in the format? Can Mystical Tutor and Lion’s Eye Diamond defeat Daze and Thoughtseize? How do you successfully sideboard against the opposing deck? Find out all this and more in this week’s article.

With Ad Nauseam decks performing consistently well, it’s becoming more and more important to know how to play with them and against them. As you’ll remember from last month, I promised a look at the deck and what I think is its most challenging matchup, UGB Threshold. I’ll be going in-depth with these games to show you all the critical decision-making trees that arise and how to make the best choices with incomplete information. We’ll take a look at two full matches, giving you a good sense of pre-and post-board games. If you’d like a warm-up before jumping into these, check out Richard Feldman and Patrick Chapin “One Game” articles (linked to from their names in this sentence), and then get ready for six times the gaming!

First, let’s take a look at the two decks in the mix. The first is from an 84-person Italian tournament, piloted by Carlo Gnesotto to a 3rd place finish:

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 Ponder
3 Chrome Mox
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Rushing River
1 Pact of Negation
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
1 Underground Sea

I’ve omitted the sideboard here because I tweaked it around to try out Angel’s Grace. The relevant sideboard cards in this match were 1 Brain Freeze and 3 Angel’s Grace.

The second list took 5th place at a 38 player event, piloted by Andrea Soldan:

1 Swamp
1 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Krosan Grip
4 Thoughtseize
2 Smother
2 Putrefy
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Island
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Engineered Plague
4 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Blue Elemental Blast

I selected both decks for having strong performances in events as well as being evocative of what you’d see at an event. Certainly, the UGB Threshold deck has some dead maindecked creature-kill spells, but most of the UGB Threshold decks I looked at ran around four removal spells. The Ad Nauseam Tendrils deck is also generally representative of what you’d encounter in an event. It has Ponder, some quantity of Sensei’s Divining Tops and the usual mana acceleration. Check out the appendices at the end of the article for links to more styles of Ad Nauseam decks.

I expected that the Ad Nauseam deck would have a rough time in this matchup, and it’d be lucky to win a game, much less a match, unless it got an extremely explosive start. UGB Threshold would also have to get enough creatures out to hurt its opponent quickly enough to prevent Ad Nauseam’s huge card draw. I thought about “who’s the beatdown?” but it’s particularly hard in this match. Ad Nauseam is the aggressor in the early turns, putting a lot of pressure on UGB Threshold to find disruption. It then becomes the defender as UBG Threshold stabilizes and starts attacking. Both decks can essentially seal the game out of nowhere based on what they topdeck, and you’ll see this in the swingy games that follow.

Let’s get into the matches! For shorthand, I’ll be abbreviating Ad Nauseam Tendrils as ANT and UGB Threshold as UGB.

ANT wins the die roll and opens the following:

Polluted Delta
Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
Cabal Ritual
Cabal Ritual
Orim’s Chant
Ponder
Ponder

This is a pretty decent hand for ANT. I like the two Ponders because it’ll show eight cards, and from there it’s pretty easy to find something to get Ad Nauseam. There’s enough mana acceleration and protection with Orim’s Chant to make it a keeper.

UGB opens:

Nimble Mongoose
Putrefy
Flooded Strand
Swamp
Tarmogoyf
Force of Will
Ponder

This hand has Force of Will and a Blue card, along with enough mana to play both beaters. The biggest question is whether we’ll be playing Ponder on the first turn or holding it for Force fuel. I wouldn’t mulligan this, because even though Putrefy is dead, the six cards we see probably will not have Force in them. This is a better hand to work with.

ANT plays the Polluted Delta, breaking it to get Island and casts Ponder. Ponder reveals Orim’s Chant, Ad Nauseam and Mystical Tutor. ANT draws the Mystical Tutor, putting Ad Nauseam on top of the library.

UGB draws Stifle. Now, do I hold Stifle and Ponder during my turn, tapping out of Stifle? Do I hold Ponder and Stifle, having two effective counters up? UGB makes the decision to Ponder; we really want to see Daze, as that’ll be more important than possibly Stifling a fetchland at this point. Ponder reveals Tarmogoyf, Tarmogoyf, Nimble Mongoose. Shuffle that baby up all day long and UGB draws Tropical Island. UGB sends the turn back.

ANT draws Ad Nauseam. At this point, do I cast the other Ponder or cast Mystical Tutor? The only real Mystical Tutor target at this point is Dark Ritual. If I see another Blue-producing land in the Ponder, I can Mystical Tutor anyway. ANT has not played the Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] in hand yet; we’re holding onto it to draw out a Daze. If the Ponder gets hit, we aren’t in such bad shape, and I’d like to get that Daze out of the way. Ponder resolves and reveals Orim’s Chant, Tundra, and Chrome Mox. We draw and play the Tundra, with Chant above the Mox on the library. We then play the Tundra.

UGB plays Tarmogoyf and passes the turn back. Things are not looking stellar for the UGB player right now. At the end of turn, ANT Mystical Tutors for Dark Ritual. We didn’t do this before because we did not want to hint that we had combo pieces in hand already.

ANT draws the Dark Ritual. It then plays the Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] and Orim’s Chant. UGB Force of Wills the Orim’s Chant. They’ve only got three cards in hand, though, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see another dangerous spell. The Chant did its work of pulling out a counter. Ad Nauseam then casts Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and a second Cabal Ritual. We don’t have to play around Daze because we will have a thresholded Cabal Ritual, and we would’ve seen a Daze on the Ponder last turn if they were holding it then. We don’t have to play around Spell Snare either, since we’ve got duplicate Cabal Rituals to power up the Ad Nauseam.

The Ad Nauseam reveals:

Pact of Negation
Ill-Gotten Gains
Orim’s Chant
Orim’s Chant
Flooded Strand
Brainstorm
Flooded Strand
Dark Ritual
Brainstorm
Chrome Mox
Ad Nauseam

At this point, ANT is at 4 life. The Ill-Gotten Gains is so close to making a loop to kill with, but we can’t get the mana to make a situation where we bring back Ponder, Mystical Tutor and Dark Ritual to tutor up, draw and kill with Tendrils of Agony. ANT has to keep going to see more mana cards. This is getting to be dangerous; luckily, the most mana-intensive card left in the library is Tendrils of Agony, so we can see at least one card without dying. The next card revealed is Lion’s Eye Diamond. We’ll stop there.

Now we’ve got plenty of mana to go off. We play Chrome Mox, imprinting Orim’s Chant. We play Lion’s Eye Diamond and Dark Ritual. We’ve got BBBB in the mana pool and 10 storm, so it’s academic at this point. We tap Island, leaving a Black mana up from those Cabal Rituals earlier, then play Ill-Gotten Gains and respond with Lion’s Eye Diamond for Blue mana. The mana pool right now is BUUU. We get back Cabal Ritual, then cast Mystical Tutor for Tendrils of Agony, Ponder into it, and use the Ritual to play it for around 15 copies.

ANT did exactly what it was supposed to do here and Orim’s Chant functioned beautifully, enabling an Ill-Gotten Gains recursion without letting the UGB player get Force of Will and a Blue card again. ANT also hit every land drop and UGB had only light disruption. The next games will not be as easy.

Next game, this time sideboarded.

Threshold boards out the creature kill cards for 4 Extirpate. I’ll admit, it’s not a card I’m used to playing with, so there might be play errors. Please point these out to me in the forums so everyone knows the best line of play! Ad Nauseam boards in a Brain Freeze, to have a second kill card, and three Angel’s Grace in exchange for a Rushing River, Infernal Tutor, Mystical Tutor and Lion’s Eye Diamond. I realized afterwards that ANT should side out another Mystical Tutor instead of either the LED or Infernal Tutor, because Extirpate really messes up Mystical Tutor.

UGB opens a hand of:

Krosan Grip
Nimble Mongoose
Ponder
Flooded Strand
Wasteland
Tropical Island
Dark Confidant

This hand doesn’t have any disruption at all. UGB sends it back for:

Wasteland
Nimble Mongoose
Force of Will
Underground Sea
Extirpate
Stifle

This is MUCH better!

ANT opens:

Dark Ritual
Cabal Ritual
Mystical Tutor
Infernal Tutor
Ponder
Tendrils of Agony
Brainstorm

No land in this hand, so we see these six:

Ponder
Mystical Tutor
Lotus Petal
Cabal Ritual
Orim’s Chant
Flooded Strand.

UGB plays the Sea and passes.

ANT draws Mystical Tutor and cracks the Flooded Strand to Ponder. That gets Stifled, putting the ANT player in a very hard position. ANT plays the Lotus Petal and casts Ponder, seeing Angel’s Grace, Polluted Delta and Chrome Mox. It draws the Delta and passes. A Daze from UGB here would have been a scoop-inducer, for sure.

UGB plays a Wasteland and Thoughtseizes, taking Cabal Ritual. It then passes the turn.

Ad Nauseam draws the Grace, plays a Polluted Delta and breaks that for an Island. It passes back to UGB, which merely draws and uses a Delta to get Tropical Island and plays a Nimble Mongoose before passing the turn back.

ANT uses Mystical Tutor for Brainstorm at the end of UGB’s turn. However, when UGB is passed priority, it Extirpates Mystical Tutor to shuffle up the deck and nab the other Mystical Tutor from ANT’s hand. ANT is consigned to drawing a Dark Ritual and passing the turn.

UGB then draws Spell Snare and beats for a point of damage before passing the turn. Both decks are out of gas here, but at least Threshold has a creature to apply pressure with.

ANT draws a serendipitous Brainstorm, casts it and sees Polluted Delta, LED, and Ponder. It puts back the two White cards in hand because it’s unlikely we’ll have White mana in the face of that opposing Wasteland. ANT gets Island with the Delta and casts Ponder, seeing Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox and Lion’s Eye Diamond. none of these turn into business, so ANT shuffles and draws Infernal Tutor. Unfortunately, there’s not enough mana to get a Hellbent Infernal Tutor for Ad Nauseam to seal the deal. ANT passes the turn with a significantly better hand.

Threshold plays Tropical Island and attacks with Nimble Mongoose and passes the turn back to ANT.

ANT draws Lotus Petal, plays Lion’s Eye Diamond, the Petal, Dark Ritual, and then Infernal Tutor with a cracked Lion’s Eye Diamond. Unfortunately, UGB has the Spell Snare.

ANT peeks at the top few cards of the deck and concedes this game.

But for that Spell Snare, ANT would have won the game handily, having plenty of life left and lots of storm already generated. On to the third game!

Unfortunately, I lost my notes for UGB’s opening hand in this one. I remember that it has Extirpate and Daze in it, though. Ad Nauseam’s hand is:

Ponder
Dark Ritual
Mystical Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Swamp
Polluted Delta
Lion’s Eye Diamond

ANT opens with a Delta for an Island, then a Ponder. The Ponder shows Orim’s Chant, Ponder and Lotus Petal. ANT draws the Petal and puts the Chant on top.

Threshold draws Ponder, plays Tropical Island and passes the turn.

ANT plays Swamp and the Diamond and Petal and then passes the turn. It is setting up for an upkeep Ad Nauseam the next turn. UGB just plays a swamp and passes the turn.

ANT breaks the Petal in the upkeep to Chant UGB. The opponent Brainstorms in response, seeing two Nimble Mongeese and a Daze. It puts back the two Green creatures and Dazes the Chant, hopefully messing up the mana for the ANT player. The ANT player casts Dark Ritual and pays for the Daze, but with the Chant still on the stack, the UGB player Extirpates the Dark Rituals out of the ANT player’s deck.

Orim’s Chant finally resolves with five storm already generated!

ANT plays Mystical Tutor for Ad Nauseam and breaks the Lion’s Eye Diamond for Black mana, floating it to the draw step to cast the namesake spell with no mana floating and six storm.

Ad Nauseam reveals:

Angel’s Grace
Polluted Delta
Orim’s Chant
Infernal Tutor
Brainstorm
Sensei’s Divining Top
Angel’s Grace
Polluted Delta
Orim’s Chant
Cabal Ritual
Lotus Petal
Sensei’s Divining Top
Cabal Ritual
Ponder
Lion’s Eye Diamond

ANT stops here with five life left. It then plays the Delta for an Underground Sea, then the Petal, Cabal Ritual, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and a Hellbent Infernal Tutor for a Tendrils of Agony for the match.

The Angel’s Grace didn’t work out here, but the Orim’s Chants proved their worth completely. I am surprised that I’m liking them more than Duress in this deck, even though they need a little more work to actually be cast.

Now let’s move on to that second match.

UGB opens:

Tropical Island
Tropical Island
Brainstorm
Brainstorm
Spell Snare
Tarmogoyf
Force of Will

Which is probably as close to a God Hand as this deck can get. ANT will have to work hard to beat this.

ANT draws:

Orim’s Chant
Orim’s Chant
Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal
Underground Sea
Polluted Delta
Island

No business in this hand, so it gets mulliganed for:

Chrome Mox
Swamp
Dark Ritual
Ad Nauseam
Polluted Delta
Orim’s Chant

This is a little better. The plan here is to get to six mana for a Chant-protected Ad Nauseam, but it seems somewhat hopeless.

UGB plays a Tropical Island and passes the turn.

ANT draws a Lotus Petal, plays a Delta and passes the turn. UGB uses the opportunity to play Brainstorm, seeing Daze, Krosan Grip and Polluted Delta. This would be a great time to fetch a land without fear of Stifle, but the ANT player sits on the Delta because they may need it for Orim’s Chant later and wants to preserve the flexibility of its mana. Threshold resolves Brainstorm and puts back the Grip under the Delta, which UGB draws and then plays for a Sea and passes the turn.

ANT draws a Brainstorm. It then plays Swamp. Right now, ANT can Orim’s Chant and then play Chrome Mox imprinting Brainstorm, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual and Ad Nauseam. ANT fetches Tundra and plays Chant. UGB Forces the Chant. ANT now has a tough decision. This hand loses to Daze but not Spell Snare. We haven’t seen Daze yet, but that Brainstorm might have revealed it. ANT is content to have drawn out the counter and passes the turn. It’ll be better to wait until it can play around Daze next turn.

UGB draws Ponder and casts it, revealing a timely Thoughtseize. As the opponent is likely to go off the next turn, UGB wastes no time and takes the Ad Nauseam from the ANT player and passes the turn.

The ANT player, dismayed, draws Lion’s Eye Diamond and plays the Brainstorm left over from last turn. The card reveals Orim’s Chant, Mystical Tutor and Polluted Delta. What luck! ANT puts back the Chrome Mox with a Delta on top. It plays the Lotus Petal and Diamond and then passes the turn. We’re seeing another one of those upkeep setup games, thanks to the protection of the Orim’s Chant.

UGB draws and plays a Dark Confidant and then passes the turn.

ANT untaps and begins the magical storm of spells. It casts Orim’s Chant to no response. It then plays Mystical Tutor off the Lotus Petal, cracks the Diamond for Black mana, and casts Dark Ritual. The Tutor finds the deck’s signature spell and floats BBBBBB into the draw step to cast the Ad Nauseam.

ANT made a mistake here by using the Diamond for Black mana; there are no Black Instants we’d want to cast in the deck with the floating Black mana left over in our draw step, so it’d be better to leave a Blue mana up for a possible Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor. Now we know Ad Nauseam will mana burn for a point, let’s hope it doesn’t matter. The draw step spell reveals:

Rushing River
Cabal Ritual
Tendrils of Agony
Brainstorm
Infernal Tutor
Ponder
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Chrome Mox
Mystical Tutor
Flooded Strand
Dark Ritual

If ANT had broken the LED correctly, we could have cast Mystical Tutor in the draw step to save a mana. ANT uses the Flooded Strand to get an Underground Sea, then casts Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox imprinting the Rushing River, then a Lion’s Eye Diamond and a Tendrils of Agony for nine copies.

I’m very surprised that ANT was able to play around such a strong hand from UGB, and this tells me that perhaps the match isn’t as one-sided as I had thought.

On to the next game!

UGB opens a good hand containing:

Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Stifle
Nimble Mongoose
Polluted Delta
Dark Confidant
Swamp

It’s not the most amazing hand but it’s got a Stifle and some early pressure.

ANT keeps:

Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
Dark Ritual
Ponder
Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Chrome Mox
Sensei’s Divining Top

UGB plays a Flooded Strand and passes the turn. ANT draws an Angel’s Grace and then plays a Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] to play around Stifle. It then plays a Top. ANT could have held a Delta up and hoped to crack it when UGB uses their fetchland at the end of the first turn, but it’s likely more important to get a Top on the board and start spinning it into more lands.

UGB draws and aims a Wasteland at ANT. That’s unfair! ANT draws and plays a Polluted Delta, but that gets Stifled. This is going quite badly for the ANT player!

UGB draws an Extirpate, making things even worse. It can aim it at the Polluted Delta in the graveyard, but the card is probably better used on a countered Orim’s Chant or Dark Ritual later. If it cast it now, it would have taken both Deltas in the ANT player’s hand and likely won the game right there, but the UGB player has no idea that the cards are in there and makes the best decision with imperfect information. The UGB player draws and plays a Polluted Delta, plays a Nimble Mongoose and passes the turn.

ANT draws an Infernal Tutor and uses a Polluted Delta for an Island. It then Ponders into Mystical Tutor, Swamp and Lotus Petal. These get shuffled into a Lion’s Eye Diamond drawn off the top from Ponder. Things aren’t looking so bad for the Ad Nauseam player now.

The UGB player lays an Underground Sea, a Dark Confidant and beats for a point of damage before passing the turn.

Things now get interesting; the ANT player uses Top and arranges into Lion’s Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor, and Cabal Ritual. They draw the Diamond and then activate a Delta to get a shuffle, arranging Lotus Petal, Ad Nauseam, and Cabal Ritual on top. ANT can play the two Diamonds and then use Top to get the Ad Nauseam, but that plan is dead to a counter. It’s better to wait a turn so ANT has enough mana to set up both Infernal Tutor and an Ad Nauseam on top.

UGB reveals a Tarmogoyf off Bobby Mascara and draws a Daze. It plays a Swamp, beats for three damage and passes the turn.

ANT draws and plays the Lotus Petal and both Diamonds. It plays Angel’s Grace off the Petal. ANT then plays Dark Ritual and Infernal Tutor with Diamonds making Blue and Black mana, but the Tutor gets Spell Snared. There’s UUBBB in the mana pool right now, and Ad Nauseam on top. ANT taps the Top to draw a card, but UGB has an Extirpate in response! After the Black card removes an irrelevant graveyard card from the game and shuffles the ANT player’s library, the ANT player uses a Blue mana to spin the Top with the draw on the stack. There’s an Infernal Tutor lurking below and the ANT player has UBBB in the mana pool. They play the Infernal Tutor and can only get Brain Freeze for a total of eleven copies. This leaves the Threshold player with 14 cards left in the library and a concession from the ANT player.

Now, for the final game of the match. ANT is on the play with a really juiced hand of:

Dark Ritual
Rushing River (erroneously left in this match)
Ill-Gotten Gains
Lotus Petal
Brainstorm
Flooded Strand
Ad Nauseam

ANT is just shy of a really fun first turn involving the Gains and an Ad Nauseam, but the hand is strong enough anyway. UGB opens two awful no-landers into a five-card hand of:

Thoughtseize
Thoughtseize
Tropical Island
Nimble Mongoose
Krosan Grip

Not the worst five-card hand ever, and ANT might be thinking that UGB mulliganed into a Force of Will. This is where your in-game mulliganing demeanor can really bluff or tell the opponent what you’re looking for or lacking.

The ANT player uses a Fetchland for Island and casts Brainstorm into Mystical Tutor, Ponder and Lotus Petal. ANT puts back the River and Ponder and passes the turn. The UGB player draws Brainstorm and plays Tropical Island and passes the turn back.

ANT could Mystical Tutor for Pact of Negation, but that doesn’t leave enough mana to go off. Instead, ANT just draws and plays a Petal and Ponder. It reveals a Polluted Delta, which the ANT player uses to get an Island and passes the turn.

The UGB player could endstep the Brainstorm here, but they’re really looking for a second land to enable the discard spells. Instead, the UGB player waits to mainphase the Brainstorm. It sees Daze, Daze, Polluted Delta. See what waiting did for us! UGB puts back the Grip and the Mongoose it draw that turn and then shuffles that away with a Delta for an Underground Sea. UGB casts Thoughtseize, taking the Ad Nauseam.

At this point, ANT can Mystical Tutor for Orim’s Chant, allowing for an IGG loop. It can’t get Pact of Negation, because that wouldn’t stop the Force of Will recursion that UGB might have. ANT is halfway playing around Force at this point, thanks to the mulligan and the Brainstorm. The turn ends with a Tutor for Orim’s Chant.

ANT breaks the Lotus Petal for Orim’s Chant. UGB Dazes it once; it gets paid for. It Dazes it again, hoping to stop the ANT player from having enough mana to go off. At this point, ANT is out of range for Ad Nauseam anyway, so it pays for Daze #2 and passes the turn. At least the Chant pulled out the goods from the UGB player.

UGB casts its second Thoughtseize, taking the Ill-Gotten Gains, and then passes the turn.

ANT draws a Brainstorm and plays it, only to see Orim’s Chant, Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author] and Chrome Mox. Bummer! Chant goes back with Dark Ritual on top. It passes to UGB, which plays a fetchland for a Tropical Island and runs out a Nimble Mongoose.

In the next two turns, UGB draws a Stifle and attacks the ANT player, who is stuck drawing the blank cards from the Brainstorm.

Things heat up again when the ANT player draws and plays a Ponder, showing Mystical Tutor, Cabal Ritual, and Polluted Delta. It draws Mystical Tutor and plays Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]. During the Threshold player’s turn, ANT uses the Petal to kick Orim’s Chant so it can save three life and possibly go off next turn. That life is important, while there is little chance that the UGB player has drawn a hard counter in the meantime. ANT then plays Mystical Tutor for Ad Nauseam and goes to its turn.

It draws the Ad Nauseam and plays it off of Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], Dark Ritual, Island and Island. Threshold Brainstorms, looking for Daze, but sees Tarmogoyf, Nimble Mongoose and Island. It puts the Green guys back and lets Ad Nauseam resolve, which reveals:

Lion’s Eye Diamond
Infernal Tutor
Rushing River
Dark Ritual
Tendrils of Agony

Now ANT is at two life and in a hard position; it needs a land or a Lotus Petal or something to get to four mana to cast Tendrils. Luckily, the Ad Nauseam reveals another Diamond and an Underground Sea.

ANT plays the Sea, both Diamonds, a Chrome Mox imprinting Infernal tutor, a Dark Ritual and a Tendrils of Agony for seven copies. Unfortunately, the UGB player has a Stifle in hand and seals the game up. With another Tendrils or an IGG in the deck, the story would have been a lot different!

The Debriefing

First, I’m impressed at how even these games were. I thought UGB would mop the floor with ANT, but the games were much closer than I had predicted. The games tended to go into the lategame and ANT had a shot at winning in every game, but UGB was still very good at suppressing ANT’s avenues of victory. The Thoughtseizes were particularly brutal.

Second, these games took a very long time to play. It took a lot of thinking to make the best plays, especially around Stifle and Daze in every game. If you’re going to be playing either of these decks, I suggest getting in as much practice time with them against each other so you don’t end up drawing or making a match-losing mistake.

ANT generally wants to play around Daze and Stifle as much as it can, because the deck has to spend a lot of resources to cast its spells and doesn’t want to blow four cards to run an Ad Nauseam into a Daze. You don’t sacrifice much by waiting a turn to develop mana and cards in hand.

As for the sideboards, the Extirpates were better than nothing and surprisingly good at messing up Mystical Tutor and the Top. The Angel’s Graces were mostly irrelevant, though if my Ad Nauseam had resolved in one game, I would have Lived The Dream and drawn my whole deck. Carlo’s ANT deck had a Red element on the sideboard for Pyroblast and Wheel of Fate; perhaps these would be better in the match.

Because ANT performed so well in this matchup, I’d be comfortable taking this list into a tournament, as most matchups are nowhere near this hard. UGB Threshold is also a great contender for the metagame and both decks should be in your testing gauntlet for events.

Finally, some scattered closing thoughts…

Thanks for waiting a week for this article; I was finishing my two weeks of law school exams at Indiana University last week and if there was any way to get this article finished, I would have, but school took precedence. This article ended up being just a little longer than my Torts final, and was infinitely more entertaining to write. I hope you feel that your patience has been rewarded!

Next, like I mentioned earlier, there are several other Ad Nauseam strategies you’d do well to check out. For example, TES has been adapted to fit in Ad Nauseam to great results, like this second-place finish by James Peyton in The Source 5th Anniversary Tournament:

2 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Burning Wish
2 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Ponder
4 Rite of Flame
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 City of Brass
1 Forbidden Orchard
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pyroblast
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tranquility

There are also versions running a Doomsday to solve certain problems that the deck runs into as well as give another strategy for victory. Vintage veteran Kim Kluck recently performed well with this build:

2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Meditate
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Rushing River
1 Doomsday
4 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
2 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Pyroblast
1 Wipe Away
1 Grapeshot
1 Pyroclasm
1 Helm of Awakening
2 Volcanic Island

Next, you might be wondering how I tested these games. I wanted to get a good grasp of both players, so I played the decks against each other myself. I’ll be the first to admit that this may have subconsciously slanted my playing, but I think my ultimate goal of giving you a play-by-play for both sides has been satisfied better this way than playing against an opponent. This also lets you blame me for any play mistakes you see on either side!

Finally, we’re holding a Meandeck Open Legacy tournament in Columbus, Ohio on December 28th. If Steve will lend me his video camera, I’ll hopefully have video of some matches for next month! Details and lolarity in this thread.

Please leave your feedback in the forums. Have you had different results? Were there any plays in here that you hadn’t thought of or that I should have not have done? Have you got a killer Ad Nauseam list or a better way to sideboard for this match? Let us know! Until next time…

Doug Linn