A Second Potential Nut Kicking Card

[BC]

Just spoiled:

Ad Nauseum       3bb
Instant   Rare
Reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost. You may repeat this process any number of times.

This card should be a MONSTER in Tendrils combo.  It's almost like an instant speed Yawg Bargain.  You can cast this at END OF THE OPPONENT'S TURN, then clearly untap and win with all the Moxes/Rituals you just drew.  Holy f-bombs.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

This is fucking sick. Not more to say... When is the next restriction coming? (like, if it's real, they have done with desire)

[Wise]

Looks powerful, but ew I mean 5 mana at end of turn?  I cant see any deck running more then 1 or 2 of these anyways, it would be a terrible draw early game, but I agree is definitely a bomb before going off, though hitting a force, colossus, desire, or tendrils of it would be bad, but no worse then risking it all with bob really

[madlucas]

Looks powerful, but ew I mean 5 mana at end of turn?  I cant see any deck running more then 1 or 2 of these anyways, it would be a terrible draw early game, but I agree is definitely a bomb before going off, though hitting a force, colossus, desire, or tendrils of it would be bad, but no worse then risking it all with bob really

5 mana at the end of opponent's turn is definetely less than 6 during your own turn.
Of course you won't play it along with cards like FoW,Jar,Bargain and Colossus.
It definetely needs some testing.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

5 mana is what you get from cabal rit with threshold.

BTW, it's called ad nauseam. Not ad nauseum.

[Raph Caron]

This might be the thing we needed to finally have Dark Ritual restricted.

[BC]

BTW, it's called ad nauseam. Not ad nauseum.

Hey, I just cut and paste from MTG Salvation.  It's not my fault if they spell it wrong (which they did).

Between D Rit, C Rit, and artifact acceleration, 3BB should be easily attainable by turn 3.  As for the life loss, I don't recommend playing DSC in your deck, but other than that it should not be a problem.  For example, the TPS list in one Smmenen's latest articles had an average casting cost of 1.65, and that deck played DSC, FOW, Misdirection, Bargain, Desire, Gifts...  In a leaner build, I realistically think you would be able to draw well over 10 cards.

[Razvan]

This might be the thing we needed to finally have Dark Ritual restricted.

i really hope not.
but this card is sick. the instant part is what's really scary.

[Moxlotus]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not particularly impressed.  The life loss severly limits your ability to play stuff like Grim Tutor effectively the same way Bob does.  And I guess I'm not really sure what cards you would cut from a storm deck to fit these in.  The cards on the chopping block are the blue cards that you want to keep a high blue count.  And I don't think you'd want many of this new card in the deck.  You don't really want to have a deck with 2 win conditons, bargain, jar, desire and multiple of these cards--you only want to see 1 of those cards if any and you certainly don't want multiple of these high cost spells in your opener.

It could fultill the role of a draw7 in that you try to play your real bombs and if those get countered, try a re-fill.  Pros are obvious that you don't refill your opponent's hand but the cons are obvious too in that you lose life and it costs 5 so no turn 1 land, mox mox d7.

[credmond]

This card will push combo decks to be leaner (dropping forces and misd for leaner duresses and thoughtseizes and more cabal rituals) and play more tendrils main deck, so you can keep on refueling hand and refueling life. Its like playing 5 bargains in deck except that its instant speed and you get your draw back.

[Mantis]

Can't wait to Mana Drain this card.

[ristoman]

It only costs one less than Bargain which is a far superior card.

I would put it on the same level as Infernal Contract, and we know how much play that card gets...

[credmond]

This card is much better than infernal contract since its instant speed. And for the same reason I would rate it close to bargain since instant speed is crazy. Dropping a bomb as big as this one on your opponent's end step opens up a whole bunch of potential for combo.

This card will also probably put pact of negations in some number into the combo deck.

[Tin_Mox5831]

As a long time Storm combo player that has played multiple different Tendrils builds, I'm not excited about this card. I know I'm just rehashing what's been said already, but this card doesn't look potent for two reasons:

A) It requires lots of resources. I hate the idea of Land, Ritual, Ritual, Ad Nauseam. Over half your hand devoted to a clumsy card that might just go ahead and kill you even if you somehow land it. Mind's Desire has irked me for a long time in the same regard, but Desire's saving grace is that once your mana's ramped nothing's gonna get in it's way except Stifle. This card has all of the frustrating attributes of Mind's Desire without a strong incentive such as Desire's.

B) I just had a psychic vision of Ad Nauseam storm combo lists, and they're full of crap like Demonic Consultation and Spoils Of The Vault. They'll seek to play a rinse-and-repeat type of game ala Ill-Gotten Gains, but again, without the incentives of the former. I think that calling these decks "leaner" than those sporting pitch counters and/or big bombs (Desire, Draw-7s, etc.) is a total minsomer. They're not lean, they're starving. DuressTendrils.dec has been done before, and hasn't won squat. What's a Duress-centric Tendrils deck gonna do when they Duress someone on Turn one only to have them fan out Trinisphere, Thorns, SoRs, w/e? It's not likely to end well. I've played Duress.dec and I was never impressed with it.

[Xyre]

What is good about this card is that you can moderate it to keep yourself within safe life. That way, you'll be able to turn around and use Grim Tutor etc. to win out. Not an immediately good card, b/c it requires some adaptive design, but quite good.

[bluemage55]

What is good about this card is that you can moderate it to keep yourself within safe life. That way, you'll be able to turn around and use Grim Tutor etc. to win out. Not an immediately good card, b/c it requires some adaptive design, but quite good.

Except you can't, because you've invested so much into it that you need it to pay off for you to not fall severely behind.

[Webster]

This card is not exciting to say the least.

- It costs 5 mana. Any spell that costs more than 3 in a combo deck needs to win you the game.
- This card is not yawgmoth's bargain. Don't compare the two.

This card will push combo decks to be leaner (dropping forces and misd for leaner duresses and thoughtseizes and more cabal rituals) and play more tendrils main deck, so you can keep on refueling hand and refueling life. Its like playing 5 bargains in deck except that its instant speed and you get your draw back.

- If a combo deck were to drop forces, going to grim long would be much better since you'd probably be replacing the grim tutors with this nonsense.

This card is much better than infernal contract since its instant speed.

- Infernal contract is not good. It requires burning a ritual to cast it which is really not what you want to be doing. I would happily play night's whisper in a heartbeat over infernal contract and Ad Nauseum which suffers from the same problem that infernal contract does.

[zeus-online]

The fact that it's instant speed dosn't really help all that much in a long-ish deck anyway. Casting it right away is probably better then waiting for EOT.

I'm thinking that this card might be better in drains, although  is rather annoying.

/Zeus

[Vegeta2711]

I don't get where people got this idea that instant speed was really a big deal in combo.

I'd rather play Future Sight than this.

[credmond]

This card doesn't just drop into TPS and would require a reworking of a grim long style deck. Its potent enough to warrant testing. It could wind up being in the category of cards that are strong, even broken, but not broken enough to replace existing bombs. I wouldn't be surprised though if this card winds up breaking into vintage.

[Bongo]

This is only slightly better than Necrologia, which isn't played at all:

Necrologia
Instant, 3BB (5)
Play Necrologia only during your end of turn step.
As an additional cost to play Necrologia, pay any amount of life.
Draw cards equal to the life paid this way.

[Wise]

I think this having instant speed is its only saving grace, we look at Ybargain 10 cards  for 10 life, thats a pretty good trade off, now lets look at this, while it costs 1 mana less its far less predictable, far less! For example while drawing 10 cards off YBargain is not uncommon, now  drawing 10 cards off Nauseam (even using the low average CC of TPS at 1.65) it would be roughly around 16 damage for 10 cards, and like Tin_mox said your useing quality resources like dark rit/cabal rit so you can draw more rits, if you use 2 cards to cast Nauseam and draw 10 cards, its like drawing 7, 1 card is like drawing only 8,  it would seem more likely that one will end up drawing 5 - 6 cards more often then not, for around 10 life, and drawing into more Nauseam's would be really bad synergy since I doubt you are going to want to cast it more then once a game and it hits you for 5 if you reveal a Nauseam off a Nauseam

[BC]

I don't get where people got this idea that instant speed was really a big deal in combo.

I'd rather play Future Sight than this.

Really?  I'm legitimately surprised by how many people think this card is not good.  Instant is a big deal because you can leave mana open for Drains and what have you.  I compared it to Yawgmoth's Bargain because it costs 3BB (as opposed to 4BB) and draws you a number of cards limited only by your life total.  Do I see it replacing Mind's Desire? No.  Do I see it replacing Windfall or Infernal Contract?  Hell yes.  I am officially the president of the Ad Nauseam fan club.  Hopefully I'll get my foil playset before everyone else figures out that it's broken.

[Vegeta2711]

I don't get where people got this idea that instant speed was really a big deal in combo.

I'd rather play Future Sight than this.

Really?  I'm legitimately surprised by how many people think this card is not good.  Instant is a big deal because you can leave mana open for Drains and what have you.  I compared it to Yawgmoth's Bargain because it costs 3BB (as opposed to 4BB) and draws you a number of cards limited only by your life total.  Do I see it replacing Mind's Desire? No.  Do I see it replacing Windfall or Infernal Contract?  Hell yes.  I am officially the president of the Ad Nauseam fan club.  Hopefully I'll get my foil playset before everyone else figures out that it's broken.

See that's where we differ then, I was never running that garbage in the first place.

[Troy_Costisick]

If it's "lose life" instead of "pay life", how does it interact with cards like Platinum Angel or Angel's Grace?

Peace,

-Troy

[BC]

See that's where we differ then, I was never running that garbage in the first place.

Touche.  Well, I don't know what you are running, but I would suggest testing this out.  It may be better.  I will be testing it myself, since I also have no hard proof of its awesomeness, only a feeling.

This is only slightly better than Necrologia, which isn't played at all:

Necrologia
Instant, 3BB (5)
Play Necrologia only during your end of turn step.
As an additional cost to play Necrologia, pay any amount of life.
Draw cards equal to the life paid this way.

This is way better than Necrologia.  1) You don't have to decide ahead of time how many cards to draw.  2) You can cast it on the opponent's turn, therefore eliminated the discard drawback of Necrologia.

[bluemage55]

If it's "lose life" instead of "pay life", how does it interact with cards like Platinum Angel or Angel's Grace?

Peace,

-Troy

That's where the card would be strong.  You can draw as much as you feel like if you have either.

I'm seeing this card as maybe playable in a U/B Platz Control deck, fueling the spell with Drain and the large amount of acceleration already present.

[Webster]

If it's "lose life" instead of "pay life", how does it interact with cards like Platinum Angel or Angel's Grace?

Peace,

-Troy

That's where the card would be strong.  You can draw as much as you feel like if you have either.

I'm seeing this card as maybe playable in a U/B Platz Control deck, fueling the spell with Drain and the large amount of acceleration already present.

So you're considering the possibility that this card is "maybe playable" in a control shell with platinum angel. I don't get the joke. I'm sure it's there, but I'm missing it.


The obvious problems with this card in a control shell are:

1. How does it stack up with any of the existing unresticted draw engines and resticted draw spells? If I were to rank these two categories, Ad Nauseam wouldn't be anywhere close to the top which means it's unplayable.

2. The  cost makes playing it pretty awkward against mana denial strategies.

This card is comparable to moonlit bargain. When was the last time you saw a successful t1 list with that junk?

[credmond]

Okay, web, now you are just being a naysayer.

Obviously, being able to draw your entire deck if platinum angel is in play or angel's grace in hand makes the card leap out as interesting and worthy of experimentation and not dismissable outright.

The real issue is not the way you put it. Clearly the card is not jank and it has interesting applications. It goes utterly broken with platz or angel's grace. Last time I checked night's whisper doesn't net you your whole deck. But is it basically just another dream halls? Is it almost but not quite broken enough to replace more broken lines of play? Let's see what the vintage world cooks up.

[Webster]

Okay, web, now you are just being a naysayer.

Obviously, being able to draw your entire deck if platinum angel is in play or angel's grace in hand makes the card leap out as interesting and worthy of experimentation and not dismissable outright.

The real issue is not the way you put it. Clearly the card is not jank and it has interesting applications. It goes utterly broken with platz or angel's grace. Last time I checked night's whisper doesn't net you your whole deck. But is it basically just another dream halls? Is it almost but not quite broken enough to replace more broken lines of play? Let's see what the vintage world cooks up.

The idea of playing a deck with a  draw engine revolving around requiring platinum angel in play and/or angel's grace in hand makes me want to vomit.

When I talk about a card's viability, it's for competative vintage decks only.

I'm sure someone with have some fun on a kitchen table with Ad Nauseam and platinum angel/angel's grace just about as much as casual multiplayer people will probably rush to kill player X because they can't seem to stop his double priviledged position + aether snap + dark depths 'combo' deck.

What I am giving is my opinion, which as I've said before, is that Ad Nauseam is subpar in type 1. Quote me on it. I doubt I'll regret it.