Serum Powder ANT

[median]

            I had been hoping to develop this more but for now this is just a dump of my work so far on the concept. The idea was taken from Purple Hat a while ago when he mentioned that ANT was light on threats in the thread discussing doomsday post m10. In the Ad nauseam thread we ended up adding tinker and jar address this but both aren’t the best threats a deck can have, however after seeing the New York Espresso Stacks lists with Serum Powder and wondering if that might work as a way of supplementing threats, I eventually arrived at the current list.

//Serum powder ANT
4 ad nauseam
4 cabal ritual
4 chrome mox
1 yawgmoth's will
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 mystical tutor
4 dark ritual
1 lotus petal
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 Black lotus
1 mox jet
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
2 underground sea
1 island
2 swamp
1 ancestral recall
2 Tendrils of agony
4 duress
3 thoughtseize
4 pact of negation
1 hurkyl's recall
1 chain of vapor
4 serum powder
1 necropotence

   It’s a pretty standard ANT list with the addition of powders. I took out the sapphire because there are very few occasions it’s on color. There’s one less tendrils that normal, however you’re not using demonic consultation. Consult and serum powder together are just too much deck destruction, of the two I want the nuts hand every time.
   The cards that really change between this and what you would normally play in ANT are +4 serum powder -2 chain of vapor -2 hurkyl's recall. This does hurt the cmc but not horribly in the few hundred games I've goldfished I've lost fewer games to bad flips than to exiling too many rituals or making the mistake of exiling both tendrils.
   Those problems happened in the beginning before I was familiar with the deck when all I wanted was a fast goldfish. I think this could be a contender if the Ivory mask leyline wasn't being printed. And if anyone wants some more info I would be happy to discuss it.

[Killane]

I've been wanting to comment on this since last night but being just on my phone I couldn't write a long enough post.

I hate to step all over a new idea, especvially in the area of Storm Combo which is near and dear to my heart, but Serum Powder jst seems terrible in a combo list.

powder has been successful in workshop decks and is a Staple in Dredge decks becuase those lists have a lot of redundancy: they play a high percentage of 4-sets and have very few "remove this and I loose" cards. On the rare occaision dredge pulls an unkeepable hand but with a Dread Return target, they are still very capable of winning the game if the powder it away, or could just take the mulligan becuase they face this kind of decision so rarely. Additionally, a deck like Dredge suffers less form dead cards since it sees so much of the deck within a very short span of time and has such a robust "draw" engine.

In combo, you have a metric ton of singletons supporting wincons that usually number 3 or less. your list has 2 wincons. Storm Combo is also reliant on synergy between the pieces - heck we even don't run Key-Vault becuase the pieces are not synergistic enough with the rest of the deck and are dead on thier own.

There are way too many powerful singletons in a combo list to risk exiling hands with powder. It also costs excessive life from AdNaus and does NOTHING once the game has started.

While I agree Storm deck need something that's missing in the current meta, this ain't it.

[M.Solymossy]

Any good Combo player can tell you Serum Powder isn't needed.  Preordain will help with ANT and TPS (and GWSx) greatly.  I would never value the potential mulligan over flipping 3 to my dome when casting Ad Nasaum.

[Killane]

Any good Combo player can tell you Serum Powder isn't needed.  Preordain will help with ANT and TPS (and GWSx) greatly.  I would never value the potential mulligan over flipping 3 to my dome when casting Ad Nasaum.

Ok, you said it better than I did.

I think you're right on about preordain. The decks are missing 4x BS, this is no 4xBS but it will help a great deal.

[median]

I agree to some extent, I had started this before preordain was spoiled and but found that neither Powder or Preordain was perfect after I started testing both. I would say that from my testing that I believe powder to be better.
The reasoning there is that this is a deck that wants a good opener and doesn't want to spend three turns drawing. So while preordain will get you there, powder will do it on turn one, and if you get a good turn two or turn three hand then you have a tiny chance of drawing a powder and 8 duress effects. Thats really what makes this good.
I had planned on playing this in a local lotus tourney in august but as I said in the opening post the changes that come with M11, mainly the leyline are making me apprehensive.
On the point of only two win conditions, thats actually intentional. It tells me how many hands I can exile. I would run one but the second allows me to exile a tendrils, if I get a tendrils and a powder a second time I know I can't exile that hand. This deck is really about playing the mulligan corectly. With serum powder and a turn one win, you have the ability to virtually interact before the game has started. Think about it this way…
TPS spends usually three turns sculpting a hand, this does that before the game starts. By the time you play a land, you usually know if you're going to win.

[Delha]

Think about it this way…
TPS spends usually three turns sculpting a hand, this does that before the game starts. By the time you play a land, you usually know if you're going to win.

There's a world of difference between sculpting and mulliganing. One is controlled and deliberate, whereas the other is random.

Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters might hypothetically be able to replicate Shakespeare, but they sure as hell aren't going to get it done inside 4x Powder and 6x Paris Mulligan.

[Lemnear]

Think about it this way…
TPS spends usually three turns sculpting a hand, this does that before the game starts. By the time you play a land, you usually know if you're going to win.

There's a world of difference between sculpting and mulliganing. One is controlled and deliberate, whereas the other is random.

Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters might hypothetically be able to replicate Shakespeare, but they sure as hell aren't going to get it done inside 4x Powder and 6x Paris Mulligan.

a good one ... +1   

[median]

I don't think I quite understand your point, I know that sculpting is slow and calculated, and that preordain is great for that. I think tps is probably the deck for that, not ANT, -I wouldn't put powder in TPS.  
As I've said before in this thread, ANT is a fast deck and doesn't really care about it's draws. It's evolved to not need to. This makes sculpting something ANT can't do properly, -and by that mulliganing more important. This is where serum powder is good. I will agree with killane and soly that preordain will be great for the rest of storm combo.
If I were to make a preordain version of this deck it would look a little different than whats above. I've tried ANT with both powders and preordain and it was terrible, I think dropping the powders for preordain would be the first step and finding room for the rest of the type 1 cantrip base would be a good starting point

How does this look?

//Preordain ANT
4 ad nauseam
2 cabal ritual
4 chrome mox
1 yawgmoth's will
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 mystical tutor
4 dark ritual
1 mox sapphire
1 lotus petal
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 Black lotus
1 mox jet
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
2 underground sea
1 island
2 swamp
1 merchant scroll
1 ancestral recall
2 Tendrils of agony
4 duress
1 Time walk
1 brainstorm
1 ponder
4 pact of negation
1 hurkyl's recall
1 chain of vapor
4 preordain
1 necropotence

It probably needs a demonic consultation and another tendrils. Any thoughts?

[Delha]

As I've said before in this thread, ANT is a fast deck and doesn't really care about it's draws. It's evolved to not need to. This makes sculpting something ANT can't do properly, -and by that mulliganing more important. This is where serum powder is good.

My point was mulligans are an inherently unreliable way of improving your hand. Just consider how many times you've read in tournament reports that someone mulled into oblivion. Sculpting on the other hand, is a significantly less explosive approach, but much more stable in return.

I'd go so far as to say that it is arguably this divergence in design philosophy that ultimately distinguishes the two decks as a whole.

[M.Solymossy]

Another problem with Powder  is that you remove important cards.  Lotus, Will, Etc.

[ArtOvWar]

You made ANT even worse. Congratz!
ANT doesnt need Powders. Wasting slots on a CMC3 card wich reduces the flips you can make.
GG i say. What is the next deck ur gonna rape with Powders in it?

Edit:

Why the hell would you run pre wutevah it is. It costs blue. So u need to get a sea out or an island. Wich you can better save for the bounce you run. Seas get happily nommed on by wastelands. Imo ANT doesnt need any new stuff. It can smack right through the meta... If you pick the right meta for it that is.