[Free Article] So Many Insane Plays - Ad Nauseam Combo

[Smmenen]

Editorial Blurb:

Monday, October 13th - Ad Nauseam… a card that has polarized opinion in the Vintage community. Is it a powerful effect that promises much in the Vintage-with-Shards metagame, or is it an overpriced and over-hyped waste of resources. Stephen Menendian believes the card has potential, and Team Meandeck have created a deck to prove it…

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16541.html

Enjoy!

Meandeck Ad Nauseam Combo:

4 Ad Nauseum
4 Tendrils of Agony
 
4 Chain of Vapor  
 
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
 
1 Demonic Consultation  
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
 
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
 
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
 
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
 
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Vault
 
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Island
 
Sideboard:
 
3 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Yixlid Jailer
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

[Tobi]

Very interesting approach. Good article.

There is certainly some room for finetuning, probably Tendrils, Chain and Cabal Ritual are better as 3-ofs. Tendrils could make room for Twister which I do not want to miss in any combo list. Cabal Ritual can be replaced with an off-color Mox, and Chain can turn into Time Walk.
Walk is not great for combo by itself, but enables a lot of broken plays and gets even better after sideboarding.


edit: Please fix the thread's topic line. There is no "Ad Nauseum" card. 

[Troy_Costisick]

Very interesting approach. Good article.

Cabal Ritual can be replaced with an off-color Mox...

Yeah, like Mox Emerald to help cast the Swarm in game 2 and 3 (if necessary).  I really hope this deck becomes a viable archetype.
It looks like a lot of fun to play.

Peace,

-Troy

[Smmenen]

Very interesting approach. Good article.

There is certainly some room for finetuning, probably Tendrils, Chain and Cabal Ritual are better as 3-ofs.

I consider Tendrils and Cabal Ritual to be must-have 4-of's. 

[Anusien]

Is Yawgmoth's Bargain not worth playing here?  It seems like it's basically a 5th Yawgmoth's Bargain, and you're already running Necropotence.

I get that you always want to find Tendrils, but do you run into problems seeing too many?

[meadbert]

Desire might be better than Bargain since with 4 Ad Naseam and 4 Tendrils there are a lot of goodies to Desire into.

I assume the reason Steve left both out was that he wanted to be able to Ad Naseam down to 6 life rather than 7 and the life loss was just too much.

[Marske]

Indeed a very interesting approach and as always a good article.

I played the ICBM ad nauseam list in a 50 man tournament this weekend and never had problems finding my tendrills or had a problem with the pacts. The only reason why I didn't do so well is because I made some huge play errors. (this is something else of course)

With Mystical, Vamp, DT, DC and the Ad Nauseam itself how do you have problems finding a tendrills ? I also think Repeal has a place in this deck because it does the same as you want chain of vapor to do and interacts well with the topdeck tutors it truly has been great for me all day. I wouldn't cut the chain but play something like 2 chain and 2 repeal have you tested this?

During the tournament I never EVER wanted to play necro because this would mean I had to pass the turn to win and that was never something I wanted to do with this deck. Also in the article you mention playing thoughtseize instead of pacts. I disagree about this because sometimes you will find yourself in a situation needing to cast a tendrills to make sure you can combo with the ad nauseam because you are to low on life for the ad nauseam to be game ending. Imo this is in some cases wasting a tendrills and obv you are going to have to need 4 to support these kinda plays. The pacts don't stop threats an opponent plays but they do make sure you can combo out without a problem and without additional setup.

Also your sideboard seems to be very much aimed at beating Ichorid or at least graveyard based decks. In my testing Ichorid has never been a problem because usually we are quicker and their normal hate (leyline, Chalice) doesn't do as much as it does against other decks. The Jailers can obv be used for beatings and a sort of secondary game plan but if that would be the case why not run goyfs or something similar ? That being said the tormod's crypt you are running are a viable plan enough against ichorid, but I think a mix between Relic of Progenitus and Tormod's Crypt would be better.

Looking forward to your reply !

Marske

[DarkfnTemplar]

With such a suicide-like tendrils build, I'd say that the opponents game plan would be to lock you or slow you down so they can catch up. I wouldn't dismiss pact as a distraction right away.
 While seize has proven to be better in past interactions, this is an entirely different deck.

By “good cards” here, I am actually referencing powerful interactions (i.e. synergies)

 As a comparison in the context of your list, Seize is inferior for two reasons. While you have addressed these, I am not quite satisfied with your answers.
#1-It costs mana
#2- Poor synergy with Ad Nauseam

 However, from the current  obsession with disrupting bears, I have to reason that cutting the duress would be the right move over seize. Therefore, I propose -4 Duress and +4 Pact. I have not tested the deck, so maybe I will see your logic in time.
 
 Until then, this deck needs pact. Otherwise, it's just meandeck tendrils that plays 4 copies of 6 a costing duress target.

[Webster]

Utility bears don't seem like much of a threat with 4 chain of vapor main.

[Wise]

doesn't any shop varrient wreck this deck?

Chalice @ 1 hoses 23 cards in the main deck

Sphere nulls non threshold rituals and moxen

There is NO countermagic to stop a first turn chalice/TSPHERE/Sphere/thorn

Duress is not very strong against workshop based decks

what are your solutions for this?

[Smmenen]

Spheres don't seem like much of a threat with 4 chain of vapor main.

In our testing, this deck blows out the 9ball Shop decks, but we changed one Chain to a Hurkyl's.   

Post board you bring in 2 lands and 3 more Hurkyl's Recalls.   Seems very favorable. 

[Webster]

Spheres don't seem like much of a threat with 4 chain of vapor main.

In our testing, this deck blows out the 9ball Shop decks, but we changed one Chain to a Hurkyl's.   

Post board you bring in 2 lands and 3 more Hurkyl's Recalls.   

Where exactly in my post do I say this? Please point it out because I'm having a bit of trouble.

Utility bears don't seem like much of a threat with 4 chain of vapor main.

[Smmenen]

Having trouble, eh?

FYI: I formatted the decklist in the first post.  I hate how SCG formats decklists. 

Is Yawgmoth's Bargain not worth playing here?  It seems like it's basically a 5th Yawgmoth's Bargain, and you're already running Necropotence.

I get that you always want to find Tendrils, but do you run into problems seeing too many?

No. Here’s why:

1) Chrome Mox. Additional Tendrils can simply be imprinted.

2) Two Tendrils make an easier win than 1. With 8 mana, which is not too difficult to generate with Cabal Rituals, you can cast a Tendrils for 4 storm and than another for 5 and just win the game.

3) It creates wins without needed Ad Nauseum.

Yawgmoth’s Bargain has just proven unnecessary in testing. Necro can easily be played on turn one for an easy turn two victory. Bargain is more costly both in life and mana. Meadbert is correct.

I've noticed that many people have been trying to build this deck based upon what they "feel," rather than what they think.   I didn't build this deck out of theory, but practice.   I challenge anyone who thinks that 3 Tendrils is correct to actually advance a compelling argument, as opposed to how they "feel" about it. 

[Neonico]

If you just praticed with 4 tendrils, you cannot say that either.
I questionned myself more on cards like timetwister, Why didn't you include them ?
Also, that disruption you would consider in a Control Heavy metagame ? Isn't Xantid Swarn better than Thoughtseize to optimize the lifeloss.

[Smmenen]

If you just praticed with 4 tendrils, you cannot say that either.

I tested 1 Tendrils, 2 Tendrils, 3 Tendrils, and 4 Tendrils - each in various permutations, shells, and configurations.

I questionned myself more on cards like timetwister, Why didn't you include them ?

It's not very good. 

Also, that disruption you would consider in a Control Heavy metagame ? Isn't Xantid Swarn better than Thoughtseize to optimize the lifeloss.

The lifeloss from Thoughtseize has proven irrelevant in practice.   Generally, you play Thoughtseize before you play Ad Nauseum.   So you start at around 17 life sometimes when you begin to flip cards.   

[Liam-K]

My biggest concern about 4 tendrils would be that whiffing nauseam occurs almost exclusively by flipping multiple high-cc cards.  Hitting 2 tendrils on a nauseam can lose you the game.  I've also simply found tendrils the least difficult piece of the puzzle to put in my hand, because it can happen after or during drawing 15 cards.  Therefor I'd rather tweak the ratio more in favor or enabling cards.

It also just seems to me like the number of non-mull opening hand permutations that suggest winning without a bomb, even with 4 chain of vapor, should be low enough to have less probable impact than the above.  I know this gets back to "feeling" (though I do intend to test a 4 chain list) but it's really more of an estimation of the math rather than some nebulous gut instinct.

[Smmenen]

The biggest reason to include four Tendrils is to maximize your chances of finding one with Ad Nauseam.   That alone is compelling enough for me. 

However, if you are looking for additional reasons, here is another big one.  Consider what the purpose of Ad Nauseam is.   The reason you want to draw a bunch of cards is so you can generate storm and mana to play a lethal Tendrils.    If you maximize your chances of drawing a Tendrils in your opening hand by running four, then the only thing you need Ad Nauseam to do is to find just enough spells and mana so that you can play a lethal tendrils.  I recognize that running four Tendrils increases the decks Average Converted Mana Cost, but I would argue that seeing additional Tendrils is not a problem for several reasons.     Not only can you imprint additional Tendrils on a Chrome Mox, but you also can potentially generate the requisite 8 mana needed to play two Tendrils.  More importantly, moving from 2 or 3 Tendrils to 4 does not significantly impact the total AMC of the deck.  In any case, the way I've designed the deck around Chain, you really don't need to see that many cards in order to generate a lethal Tendrils. 

[Liam-K]

The probability you come up short with Nauseam isn't completely based on average cmc.  If you consider the permutations that fail, they almost invariably involve hitting too many high-cost cards before you hit enough B.

This is probably a little nonintuitive so I'll try to explain what I'm pointing out in detail.  Raising the deck acmc decreases your average expected returns, yes.  However, even when the deck-wide acmc shift is not relevant, raising the instances of high-cost cards changes the spread that forms that average in a nonlinear fashion.  The permutations where you draw drastically fewer cards make up the majority of the relevant change.  Drawing 1 less card every other game is unlikely to matter.  Drawing 4 less cards several times in a tournament has a good chance of costing you a match somewhere.

essentially, hitting any combination of 3 cards named Tendrils or Nauseam is your most likely source of problems and raising the probability of this seems dodgey compared to the benefits offered

[nataz]

In any case, the way I've designed the deck around Chain, you really don't need to see that many cards in order to generate a lethal Tendrils.

I thought this old idea made new was the best part of the article. Figure for U mana you can net an average of 3 storm on turn 2 with a card that has a lot of defensive capabilities to boot.

[Harlequin]

I haven't done much testing with Ad Naus (only some testing as a throw-in for Doomed Mirror).  I was wonder if you could give some insight into the function of Pact of Negation, and how often you play Ad Nauseam as a sorcery vrs an instant.

It seems to me that Ad Nauseam is only better than other high-commitment cards (like say null profussion) because its an instant.  The real concept as I understand it is that you cast it on your oppoent's endstep, draw a metric ton of advantage, untap and win handly.  As we all know, casting Bargin -after- playing a land for turn with 0 mana in the pool is usually not nessisarily a win.  I feel like Ad Nauseam has this same problem.  Pact of Negation doesn't give you any help when it comes to pushing through an Ad Naus durring thier endstep. 

Has any though been given to running something like an extra duress + extirpates, or something along those lines: a card that helps you -be- instant.

[Liam-K]

I haven't done much testing with Ad Naus (only some testing as a throw-in for Doomed Mirror).  I was wonder if you could give some insight into the function of Pact of Negation, and how often you play Ad Nauseam as a sorcery vrs an instant.

It seems to me that Ad Nauseam is only better than other high-commitment cards (like say null profussion) because its an instant.  The real concept as I understand it is that you cast it on your oppoent's endstep, draw a metric ton of advantage, untap and win handly.  As we all know, casting Bargin -after- playing a land for turn with 0 mana in the pool is usually not nessisarily a win.  I feel like Ad Nauseam has this same problem.  Pact of Negation doesn't give you any help when it comes to pushing through an Ad Naus durring thier endstep. 

Has any though been given to running something like an extra duress + extirpates, or something along those lines: a card that helps you -be- instant.

There are several major differences between the classic bargain issue of generating B after resolving it to win that turn and the way a nauseam deck behaves.  They boil down to a number of simple points.

chrome mox (running 4 chrome mox increases your free nonland b sources from 3 to 7)
nauseam is cheaper (makes a huge difference actually, it's not too hard to float B into a nauseam )
running more rituals (obvious)
not being built around grim tutor (aka you're much less likely to have used lotus to cast your bomb, so you're much more likely to draw into it)
more bounce (mana fixing)

[jamestosetti]

I was wondering how this deck has done for you guys in the meta. I tried it out and lost more games than I won. The deck I was playing against were consisting mainly of counter spells or discard and it seems hit the right card and your finished.Ive been playing a list with repeals and manamorphose for quite a while now and its pretty explosive even when you draw nothing of signifigance in your opener you can still turn 1 with casting an empty the warrens and a tendrils.It only uses 1 tutor. Ive not been doing real great with combo latley only winning about 50 percent of games Id say. I dont know what up lately lol.

[BruiZar]

I thought I'd point out that the lifeloss from flipping tendrils shouldn't neccesarily be a problem. Once you resolve Ad Nauseam and are low on life you can just cast a non-lethal Tendrils to gain some life (If you have 4 in the main), granted it's not a pretty solution, but it may just be enough to survive a match or 2 during a tourney. You should have enough cards on hand after the ad nauseam to try another small tendrils.

[Smmenen]

I haven't done much testing with Ad Naus (only some testing as a throw-in for Doomed Mirror).  I was wonder if you could give some insight into the function of Pact of Negation, and how often you play Ad Nauseam as a sorcery vrs an instant.

It seems to me that Ad Nauseam is only better than other high-commitment cards (like say null profussion) because its an instant.  The real concept as I understand it is that you cast it on your oppoent's endstep, draw a metric ton of advantage, untap and win handly.  As we all know, casting Bargin -after- playing a land for turn with 0 mana in the pool is usually not nessisarily a win.  I feel like Ad Nauseam has this same problem.  Pact of Negation doesn't give you any help when it comes to pushing through an Ad Naus durring thier endstep. 

Has any though been given to running something like an extra duress + extirpates, or something along those lines: a card that helps you -be- instant.

It sounds like you have a number of misconceptions.   Some of them are addressed in the article, such as the function of Pact of Negation (I assume that you don't have premium).   Although I could help you out a bit, you would probably learn more from just a few games of testing than I could provide in a few paragraphs of text.   

[Stormanimagus]

doesn't any shop varrient wreck this deck?

Chalice @ 1 hoses 23 cards in the main deck

Sphere nulls non threshold rituals and moxen

There is NO countermagic to stop a first turn chalice/TSPHERE/Sphere/thorn

Duress is not very strong against workshop based decks

what are your solutions for this?

In my experience being a storm player playing against shop decks the objective is simply. You have a couple paths to victory:

1. Bounce annoying hindrances with Hurkyl's or Chain & then combo out.

2. Sidestep Chalice @1 and/or Sphere by winning slowly and casting Chrome moxen and/or Cabal Rituals to achieve a couple small tendrils. This is another reason why 4-Tendrils is a great idea for this deck. You can use a small Tendrils to fuel an even bigger one later on (via ad nauseam) and the multiple copies give you some other options than just one huge combo for the stax matchup.

Those are my thoughts on that.

[Demonic Attorney]

It sounds like you have a number of misconceptions.   Some of them are addressed in the article, such as the function of Pact of Negation (I assume that you don't have premium).   Although I could help you out a bit, you would probably learn more from just a few games of testing than I could provide in a few paragraphs of text. 

It sounds to me like you're ducking some very good questions.  I too had wondered how useful Pact of Negation would be in this deck, since it can't be used to protect an Ad Nauseam on an opponent's end step, which seems like the play that gives you the most out of Ad Nauseam.  Responding to such a thoughtful question by telling Harlequin to "test the deck more" doesn't really add much to this discussion.  I understand you don't want to incorporate the content of your premium article, but this struck me as a non-answer to Harlequin's post.

As we all know, casting Bargin -after- playing a land for turn with 0 mana in the pool is usually not nessisarily a win.

I'll take a stab at answering this.  While I don't have much experience with Ad Nauseam combo, I have played with other iterations of ritual-based storm decks before.  It's true that if you exhaust your on-color mana and your land drop to get Bargain into play, it's a tall order to draw into enough resources to get yourself back up to the 2BB threshold, plus whatever tutors you might need to finish the game off.  It's also true that, when played as a sorcery, Ad Nauseam mimics the effect of Bargain.  But, I think there are some key differences that might make it eaiser to win off a sorcery-speed Ad Nauseam in this deck.

First, you have access to significantly more on-color mana sources now that Chrome Mox is unrestricted.  In a conventional combo list, if you exhausted your on-color resources and your land drop to play Bargain, you had to draw into Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, or Mox Jet to get your rituals going again-- a small number of potential outs.  If you run 3 Chrome Mox, that number doubles.  If you run 4, you're in even better shape.  Chrome Mox has good synergy with Ad Nauseam in other ways, given its low mana cost and Ad Nauseam's ability to load you up with expendable cards. 

Second, the full complement of rituals can be included in an Ad Nauseam deck.  In traditional combo, you had about 5 cards you wanted to power out with rituals-- Bargain, Necro, Will, Grim Tutor x 2.  Even among those, only two qualify as "bombs" completely on their own.  With Ad Nauseam, that number triples.  Having so many rituals does two big things for you.  One, it makes it more likely you can power out an Ad Nauseam with B or BB floating, available to start another ritual chain or pay for a crucial black tutor if one is needed.  Two, it makes it much more likely for you to draw into the quantity of acceleration needed to fuel another big play if you manage to pick up 10 cards off Ad Nauseam. 

So, I think while conventional wisdom correctly holds that tapping out for Bargain can put you at a disadvantage, this list offers more of a chance to turn that same situation into a win.  Nevertheless, I am concerned about just how frequently you might "whiff" on a sorcery-speed Ad Nauseam, particularly one that was protected with Pact of Negation.  In my own testing, a devastating play I came back to over and over was:  End Step, Ad Nauseam into a counter, Counter back, Draw opponent's backup counter, Untap, Play second bomb with full resources available, Win.  I'm concerned about this list sacrificing one of Ad Nauseam's greatest strengths by boxing you into playing it at sorcery speed most of the time.   

Furthermore, Pact of Negation is by necessity an "offensive" counter.  It can't be used to protect you from an opponent's bombs.  So you run the risk of being blown out by Belcher (or Storm Ten!) on the play, you can't stop Stax's early proactive disruption (some of which seems absolutely catastrophic for this deck), and you don't have anything to protect yourself from a faster opening 7 on the play in the mirror match.    I realize Force of Will becomes a major liability with Ad Nauseam, but when I tested my list I could still reliably draw 6-8 cards from 16 life, and I still had Force's ability to defend against must-counter plays.

[Mr. Type 4]

in my experience, Pact of Negation sucks in this deck.  It pretty much forces you to try to cast Ad Naus on your turn, and if it doesn't turn out that you win on the spot then you either lost the game or need to pay 5 on your next upkeep (which probably means you still lost the game).  OR you can keep digging in the Ad Naus danger zone until you can win on the spot or Ad Naus kills you.  Fun times. 

Pact also doesn't do anything to stop your opponet from bringing his gameplan online.  Basically it's just not FOW. 

[Smmenen]

It sounds like you have a number of misconceptions.   Some of them are addressed in the article, such as the function of Pact of Negation (I assume that you don't have premium).   Although I could help you out a bit, you would probably learn more from just a few games of testing than I could provide in a few paragraphs of text. 

It sounds to me like you're ducking some very good questions.  I too had wondered how useful Pact of Negation would be in this deck, since it can't be used to protect an Ad Nauseam on an opponent's end step, which seems like the play that gives you the most out of Ad Nauseam.  Responding to such a thoughtful question by telling Harlequin to "test the deck more" doesn't really add much to this discussion.  I understand you don't want to incorporate the content of your premium article, but this struck me as a non-answer to Harlequin's post.

Let me be specific so that the various questions are not being conflated:

1)  his understanding of Ad Nauseam as superior to cards like Null Profusion only because it is an Instant is a clear misconception that could be resolved by playing only a few games with this deck.   It is nothing like Null Profusion.   

In fact, and this is directed at Harlequin, I often prefer main phase Ad Nauseam to eot AN because playing it on my main phase contributes to storm, and the storm contribution is more important than having a couple of additional mana sources available on my mainphase.   

A helpful way of thinking about my list is this: 

Storm 1-3:  Rituals, other mana and AN
Storm 4-5: Chrome Mox, and another accellerant.
Storm 5/6: Chain of Vapor (sacrificing 1+ lands)
Storm 6-8: Replay Chrome Mox and additional artifact accellerant, perhaps more. 
Storm 8-10: Rituals and Tendrils


2) His question about Pact of Negation is comprehensively, and point by point, addressed in my article.   I list out all of the arguments for Pact of Negation and all of the arguments for Thoughtseize, consider counterarguments for each, and weigh the arguments against each other.  Although I was more judicious in the article, I agree with what Paul just said. 

[Liam-K]

In my testing I have been running 4 pact 4 duress.  There are certainly situations where one or the other is preferable but in actual use I've found they weigh in rather equally.  However the 0cc during Nauseam is a very real factor outside of that comparison that weighs in on behalf of the pact.  Pact also has the pitchlong effect of protecting land, ritual.  It's also not irrelevant that 2 rituals off 1 permanent source can afford Nauseam but not back it up with Duress.

It's true that they push you away from end step plays, but generally if I can afford to cast nauseam and figure it'll resolve, I just do it.  I'm very confident I'll find the mana I want and even with nothing floating, usually more confident my chances of losing to no free B source are lower than my chances of winning shrink by giving my opponent another turn.  If I'm baiting a counter, I can do it on the end step without blowing a Pact then just have my Pact to counter their next force.  Plus that play costs too many rituals to come up more than once in a while.

[Rush]

Hello, I had a few questions about this deck.  First, have you tried running 5C lands rather than fetch lands, specifically Gem Stone Mine?  Also, how about Burning Wish?  You could throw it in there rather than the fourth Tendrils or Nauseam.  Also, how about Personal Tutor since it is now unrestricted?  Finally, the deck could use a little more draw.  How about the prospect of using off color moxen?  I think it would help with the deck.  The off-color moxen plus 1-2 Chrome Mox.

EDIT: It was just pointed out to me that Nauseam is an instant, not a sorcery.  I was not aware of this.  Disregard my comment about Personal Tutor.