It’s only been a month since I wrote about Ad Nauseam decks, and already they’re exploding on the metagame. Today, we’ll take a look at several builds that have had great success across the world. We’ll look at what it’s good at, and more importantly, what the deck is bad at handling. There’s a lot of debate over what build makes the most sense, so we’ll break the issues down into nice chunks. First off, we have…
The White Splash
White provides the obvious Orim’s Chant and the controversial Angel’s Grace, as well as sideboard answers like Serenity. Here’s Stefan Czolk’s first-place list from a 50-person tournament recently:
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
Sideboard:
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Dark Confidant
2 Echoing Truth
2 Chain of Vapor
4 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
(Note that this is an oh-so-European 61 card list.)
The list is very straightforward; we’ve got plenty of four-ofs and Chants in there for combo protection (though no maindeck bounce spells). Alongside Duress, Chant can pull out counters from a controlling opponent and can also foil other combo players. Chant is strong enough in this deck that waiting for the mana to open up so you can generate BBW3 and some change is a fine play. You can also try to punk an opponent out of counters by blowing a Chant with nothing to follow it with, if you’re so inclined.
Abeyance is another White option, and it’s interesting but slow. It’s versatile in that it does shut down the Counterbalance/Top combination as well as all sorts of other malicious responses to your win, but generating seven mana is really rough. Currently, I haven’t seen any decks going for Abeyance, even though it looks decently tempting alongside Mystical Tutor. The aforementioned Serenity has a lot of general utility to it if you can wait, as it will clear out anything Stax wants to throw at you. It’s a niche card, but worth looking at if your metagame warrants it.
We’ve also got the Angel’s Grace option, as shown in this first-place list by Joan Anton Mateo in a 96-player event:
2 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
3 Ad Nauseam
2 Angel’s Grace
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Mox Diamond
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Orim’s Chant
4 Pact of Negation
2 Ponder
2 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Massacre
3 Orim’s Chant
3 Pithing Needle
This list is interesting for a number of reasons. It relies a lot more on Mystical Tutor to get Orim’s Chant or Angel’s Grace, both of which are nominally present. Angel’s Grace has gotten a lot of internet negativity lately, ranging from being called win-more to some people saying that this list is suboptimal and somehow suboptimally won a huge event. I’m not sure we should eliminate it just yet. Angel’s Grace seems good against any deck that can make you go into the long game, as you’ll have the mana to cast Grace and then not have to worry about life totals. While it does seem like a win-more if you’re trying to assemble Grace and Ad Nauseam as soon as possible, I’m not going to discount its ability to let you slow-roll hands and decks. In this way, it functionally operates much like Ill-Gotten Gains, letting you rebuy countered cards and combo off with insufficient life for a huge Ad Nauseam cardburst. I’ll be discussing Grace again later in the article with sideboard strategies.
The above list also runs Pact of Negation and only one Lion’s Eye Diamond. These also seem to back up a long-term, stronger combo strategy for the deck. The Mox Diamonds can take a little slack from the missing Lion’s Eye Diamonds and help the deck generate colored mana post-combo, an issue I identified in my last article. The list in general is reminiscent of a Worldgorger Dragon deck in the old days of Vintage, where the operator would be more interested in a turn 3 or 4 kill that was unstoppable instead of building the deck for suicide turn 2 kills. This strategy is certainly tempting to Legacy builders if it can crack open the Threshold matchup.
Wrapping up with the White splash theme, we have this first-place list from Carlo Gnescotto in a 40-player event:
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Rushing River
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Rebuild
1 Pact of Negation
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Ad Nauseam
3 Ponder
3 Chrome Mox
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Brainstorm
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
Sideboard:
3 Serenity
2 Wipe Away
2 Duress
2 Spell Snare
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Plains
1 Brain Freeze
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Divert
1 Rebuild
(Again, 61 cards!)
This list is notable for the Sensei’s Divining Top duo in the maindeck. This reinforces the concept of building a resilient deck that may take a little more time to kill, but does it with much more certainty. The Rebuild maindeck is curious, especially because bouncing one’s own Moxen to generate storm is a narrow play and the cycling is underwhelming. It can always bounce opposing Tops on an end-of-turn, freeing you from most Counterbalance problems. Also, check out the sideboarded Serenity! The Spell Snares are really good against any Black aggro decks, taking care of Hymns, Sinkholes, or Dark Confidants.
Bleeding Into The Red Splash
One of the most interesting Ad Nauseam decks I’ve run across is the following, supporting Red for Burning Wish and Rite of Flame:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Underground Sea
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Burning Wish
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
2 Orim’s Chant
1 Pact of Negation
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Diamond
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
Sideboard:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Angel’s Grace
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Orim’s Chant
1 Pact of Negation
4 Dark Confidant
This is from Yuu Saitou, the 5th-place winner in a 53-person event recently. You’ll note only a duo of Ad Nauseam maindeck and no Tendrils. The plan is to cast Ad Nauseam and draw several more cards than one would normally get, due to the much lower converted mana cost in the deck. Yuu is playing with fire in more than one way, as he has no answers to Meddling Mage naming Wish. That said, Pikula is really rare these days and there’s a chance that the opponent doesn’t know to shut off Wish. I’d still feel better with a bounce spell in the maindeck to handle that and other issues, like a vulnerability to Counterbalance.
I dig his sideboard because it isn’t cluttered with lots of answer cards; you’ve got IGG, Tendrils and Empty the Warrens, and if you can’t do something with those, maybe you weren’t meant to win anyway. I’m not sure if you want techy Burning Wish answers to things with cards like Pyroclasm, but I trust this sideboard. Note the Angel’s Grace on the board here as well. You can reliably slow-roll with this deck and the Rite of Flame enables that kind of play style too. I get the sense that this kind of deck is going to be the next generation (because Chapin owns the phrase “Next Level”) of Ad Nauseam combo, since I’d reckon you’ll get another four or five cards off any Ad Nauseam you cast and won’t fizzle if you lose some life in the process.
When Ad Nauseam Goes Wrong
With all the power in the deck, it’s still very hard to get wins against some decks. Mike Bomholt recently expressed that the BUG Threshold match is the big speedbump that prevents Ad Nauseam from being truly dominant. The combination of Thoughtseize, Daze and strong creatures put a lot of pressure on the deck. We’ve got several solutions, ranging from the simple to the silly.
First, Angel’s Grace can buy a lot of time to set up. Similarly, bringing in more bounce from the board can buy time against opposing creatures and break up CounterTop. I’m inclined to think that slow-rolling is the way you beat Threshold, and Dark Confidant really helps out in those situations. It gets crucial land drops rolling and obviously, gives more ammo for that combo turn. Yuu’s deck above really makes Confidant sing because of the generally low mana costs in the deck. I’d look to boarding in some number of Grace and/or Confidant in this match, since it’ll be going long and you’ll need some way of invalidating their incremental disruption.
Moving on to more theoretical concepts, I’ve been bouncing around Boseiju in my mind recently. You’d probably board in two, since you only want to see a single copy and can’t afford to see it a lot. The general premise is that you cast Angel’s Grace and then a Covered Ad Nauseam, meaning that you’re only vulnerable to Counterbalance. If you have the time to set it up, it’s a sound strategy. I’m still quite unsure on it in general, though. I’d welcome input on the combination if you have any.
There’s also the potential for transformational sideboards. Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf can bring lots of beats and they’re reasonably easy to produce in this deck. There’s also Grindstone & Painter’s Servant, if you’re willing to devote six or more cards on your board to it. I’m not sure that transforming is what we need to do because I don’t think there’s anything out there that’s totally unwinnable for AN. I’m thinking of the Worldgorger transforming boards in Vintage to fight the insidious Fish decks running around. They’d board in some quantity of Oath of Druids and Simic Sky Swallower or another Oathy dude to find or reanimate against the little blue men. Green, in particular, opens up Krosan Grip and Xantid Swarm from the sideboard, along with other cards like Regrowth that could fulfill a niche somewhere.
As we see more mirror matches and general combo, it’ll be more important to pack sufficient sideboarding cards. Orim’s Chant is the big winner in these matches, being about as close to a counterspell as we can pack. Save it for the Ad Nauseam if you can, making the opponent lose as many mana acceleration cards as possible. Other cards like Extract and Extirpate (especially to win Chant wars) might also pick up some steam. I’m not sure it’ll go as far as players packing Cranial Extractions to nail Ad Nauseam or Tendrils of Agony, but it’s within the realm of possibility.
Looking Back On A Month of Ad Nauseam
I admit: the winning decks that I’ve seen deviate strongly from what I proposed in my article last month, and that’s a good thing. Some dip down to lower numbers of Ad Nauseam, others run less Duress effects and more Chants and Pact of Negation. It tells me that we’re seeing an optimization and a push for stronger, streamlined lists as a result of playing. In particular, the emphasis on cards like Orim’s Chant and Angel’s Grace tell me we’re seeing direct results of actual play and subsequent adjustments to the environment. The mana acceleration package and the Blue card-advantage spells are universal and I’m sure we’ll see standardizations on Chant and Grace, either maindecked or sideboarded.
Cards like Ponder and Sensei’s Divining Top enable lower numbers of Ad Nauseam and Tendrils, cards you usually don’t want multiples of. If you’re an enterprising deckbuilder with sights set on this deck, take a good look at those cards and whether they fit with your intended goal of blazing-fast combo or very reliable, slower combo speeds. Time and testing will further tell how we want to approach every match in terms of slow-rolling, and we may see controversial changes like cutting some LEDs becoming commonplace. All in all, it’s a great period for combo deckbuilders and players, and I hope we have some neat lists to discuss next month. If you’re sick of Ad Nauseam already, no fear, I’ll have plenty of other things to talk about as well. Until next time…
Doug Linn
Hi-Val on the webs
P.S. Craig paid me extra this month so I wouldn’t make any more Ad Nauseam puns outside of the title. [Scurrilous lies! — Craig.]