Ad Nauseam Post Burning wish

[median]

So while rituals haven't been that great here in vintage I've been playing Storm in Legacy.

   One of the key cards that I believe has led to the survival of storm in legacy is burning wish. If you look at the first linked deck you can see a very low cmc, this is helped by Burning wish. Burning wish has allowed pilots to bring a suite of hate cards with them into every game as well as carry a much more threat dense deck with them to the table.


Here's what TES looks like, (legacy Ad Nauseam)

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Silence
3 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

3 Cabal Therapy
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Karakas
2 Echoing Truth
1 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames

Before looking at what a possible new Ad nauseam deck list might look like here's Meandeck Ad Nauseam (vintage) (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/16541_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Meandeck_Ad_Nauseam.html),

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Enchantments
1 Necropotence

Instants
4 Ad Nauseam
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor


Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
1 Ponder
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Basic Lands
2 Island
2 Swamp

Lands
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea

There are two major stumbling blocks for this deck, converted mana cost and threat density. Thankfully Burning wish solves both of those issues. However it creates a new one.

The Manabase

This is a deck that needs access to three colours on turn one. Black, blue, and red. The rock solid mana base of ant's past isn't going to work. What I feel works the best is the hybridized mana base of TES. This is an option that will almost always be able to produce the mana I need it to, as well as create shuffle effects for brainstorm and ponder. Another option would be to go with a pure 5 color mana base but outside of gemstone mine and city of brass I dislike my options for 5 colour lands.

This is what my work on the deck has ended up with.


//Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 lion's eye diamond
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

//Enchantments
1 Necropotence

//Instants
1 pact of negation
2 hurkyl's recall
4 Ad Nauseam
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

//Sorceries
1 wheel of fortune
4 gitaxian probe
4 duress
3 cabal therapy
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ponder
4 burning wish
1 windfall

//land
1 ancient tomb
4 gemstone mine
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 misty rainforest


//sideboard
1 timetwister
1 abrupt decay
1 imperial seal
2 shattering spree
1 rakdos charm
1 massacre
1 yawgmoth's will
1 tendrils of agony
1 empty the warrens
1 hull breach
1 cabal therapy
1 rebuild
2 ancient tomb

Threat density,

   Ad Nauseam was in the past known for being threat light. If you look storms decks historically (Grim Long for example), they'll usually have around 8 bombs (Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Tinker, Mind's Desire, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Memory Jar), plus the normal tutors, 3-4 grim tutors and maybe even a maindeck seal. That’s about 16 cards worth of threats.
   This deck plays 4 ad nauseam 1 wheel of fortune, 1 windfall, 1 necropotence, 4 tutors, 4 burning wish, that’s already 15 cards. Already this deck looks better than past ad nauseam lists, but it gets better. The 4 gitaxian probes are functionally holes in your deck, (if you draw one your going to cycle it.) This means you might as well be playing a 56 card deck, if you do the math for ad nauseam as a 56 card deck the gitaxian probe increases your threat density by just over one card, making this functionally a 16 threat deck (Ie the same density of Grim Long.)
Because of probe this deck is able to run the greedy mana base it does, and because of probe the protection suite is amazing.  

CMC

Without including lands in the CMC the average casting cost in this deck is 1.33 this is more than acceptable; if you include lands it drops to 1.1, at this point ad Nauseam is basically a Yawgmoth's bargain. You should have no problems getting what you need from Ad nauseam.

Moving forward...

Decreasing the overall CMC of the deck opens up new place for the deck to go, we could add more draw sevens and make the deck more threat heavy than most decks out there. We could go to a straight fetch dual mana base, we could drop the probes and go to thoughtseizes...
There are a number of directions this deck could move to, Your thoughts are welcome.
 

[Smmenen]

I think Soly and others were working on an Ad Naus list with 4 Burning Wish, and they had Desire, Tendrils and Will in the SB.  Possibly ETW was well. 

[median]

Hmm, I hadn't put serious thought into mind's desire. I wouldn't need to draw as many cards from Ad Nauseam to win with it so I could increase the overall CMC -possibly add in Yawgmoth's Bargain.
Thank You.

[emidln]

This comes from a google doc that I was circulating with a few people (soly, jjflipped, desolutionist):

4 Burning Wish
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Ad Nauseam
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Necropotence
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Shattering Spree

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Mind's Desire
SB: 3 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Balance
SB: 4 Oath of Druids
SB: 1 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Timetwister
SB: 1 Yawgmoth's Will
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Thoughtseize


Some Random Notes / Thoughts:

The Oath Plan (4 Oath, 1 Grisel) in the 75 - I think everyone realized that 5c + Oaths was possible when Wish was revealed as unrestricted.

Good Wish targets:

Yawgmoth's Will
Timetwister
Tendrils of Agony
Balance
Shattering Spree
Mind's Desire

Wish->Desire is what makes this deck possible. Plain old ANT is a one trick pony with very little threat density. ANT w/Burning Wish lets you DC with abandon and fall back on the beast of an engine that is Mind's Desire should your opponent hit your life total too hard.

The reason you should play this deck over Long is that you're not refilling your opponents hand while comboing.
The reason you should play Long over this deck is that you can't profitably maindeck Oath of Druids, which makes several non-blue matchups extremely awkward g1 on the draw.

- Twister is interchangeable with Tinker if you maindeck a Memory Jar. You're just looking for the draw7 effect here. Wheel isn't so hot since it requires RR, which is hard to get.
- It's perfectly valid to cut some Ad Nauseams for Jar/Bargain/Wheel (not Windfall, that card is fucking awful). Doing this puts Tinker in your sideboard and likely something like BSC as well.
- Tinker/Jar in particular is powerful since it gives you another non-lifebound plan, while Mem Jar is fine to cast on its own.
- No ETW. Getting RR basically requires passing the turn or drawing one of LED/Lotus/Ruby/Petal. In theory, you could imprint Spree or a 2nd Wish target, but let's be honest about your chances of doing so.
- Balance is the best removal spell ever printed for a combo deck.
- Shattering Spree is way more efficient than Vandalblast/Meltdown, so efficient that you'd rather board them in vs H.Recall for workshops.
- If you play sb lands (not saying you have to), you want Taiga since it casts your best anti-workshop/anti-fish cards in Oath and Shattering Spree.
- Maindeck Tendrils of Agony. You actually need this as you won't always be able to jump start into B+R after Ad Naus due to variance, while this gives you 2 shots at not needing the R (DT + ToA).
- Time Walk isn't super efficient, but is arguable. The biggest thing it does is jumpstart you into another gold land on turn 1, which can be the difference between Wish->pass and Wish->Combo.

[brokenbacon]

I'M STARTING TO SEE LONG COMING BACK. I AM SO EXCITED.
This list is fucking awesome, POWER to YOU GUYS for tuning it.

[median]

If I was running 12 rainbow lands I would have a hard time justifying brainstorm, and probably ponder too. I'd be inclined to put draw sevens or disruption in those spots. What are your thoughts on this. I know brainstorm is great and shuffle effects aren't too important what with the speed of the deck, but I always feel wrong when I brick with it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Wheel isn't so hot since it requires RR, which is hard to get.
(snip)
Getting RR basically requires passing the turn or drawing one of LED/Lotus/Ruby/Petal. In theory, you could imprint Spree or a 2nd Wish target, but let's be honest about your chances of doing so.
(snip)
- Shattering Spree is way more efficient than Vandalblast/Meltdown, so efficient that you'd rather board them in vs H.Recall for workshops.

One of these things is not like the others.

[emidln]

Spree doesn't care if you pass the turn. Stax isn't killing you next turn. It won't duress you. It won't play a second Island and come into drain mana. You can afford to make land drops to blow up chalices, spheres, or lodestones. You can rarely affort to play Burning Wish for a non-Spree red card and simply pass the turn.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Spree doesn't care if you pass the turn. Stax isn't killing you next turn. It won't duress you. It won't play a second Island and come into drain mana. You can afford to make land drops to blow up chalices, spheres, or lodestones. You can rarely affort to play Burning Wish for a non-Spree red card and simply pass the turn.

What you've said is fair, but Wasteland is something your opponent gets more opportunities to use when you have to pass the turn.

While I agree that the 5C plan for Oath is better than a UBr plan for Pulverize, I'm probably not the only one who remains unconvinced that Spree is the best target for a Burning Wish.

[median]

While I agree that the 5C plan for Oath is better than a UBr plan for Pulverize, I'm probably not the only one who remains unconvinced that Spree is the best target for a Burning Wish.

What about Seeds of innocence? Your going to want to spend a few mana on shattering spree if you pass the turn regardless, this seems superior in that it's global.
 .

[InfectedMushroom]

 

What about Seeds of innocence? Your going to want to spend a few mana on shattering spree if you pass the turn regardless, this seems superior in that it's global.
 .

The list above runs 13 artifacts. You would blow up all of yours as well. Then your opponent is left with Workshops and Tombs to drop whatever else they are holding. If you can justify running a 3 mana sorcery which requires GG, why not just run Rebuild and drop your acceleration again, then win?

Shattering Spree is good because of the replicate ability, which isn't hit by spheres. I just think it is difficult to cast Seeds of Innocence through multiple sphere effects.

[median]

For what it's worth I have a rebuild in my sideboard, I just want something on par with rebuild that's a wish target. Shattering spree is great, but it's not a rebuild or hurkyl's, I see this as something similar.

[median]

Hey I just had a dumb (probably) thought.
The main downside to Ad Nauseam (over something like long) with Burning wish is no main deck oath. What about using Eternal witness as an oath target so oath can fit main deck. You would be recurring Yawgmoth's will or a tutor for will, then winning with a full graveyard? The cute thing is I can even flash back a cabal therapy using the witness for protection.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Hey I just had a dumb (probably) thought.
The main downside to Ad Nauseam (over something like long) with Burning wish is no main deck oath. What about using Eternal witness as an oath target so oath can fit main deck. You would be recurring Yawgmoth's will or a tutor for will, then winning with a full graveyard? The cute thing is I can even flash back a cabal therapy using the witness for protection.

Isn´t most of the point of putting oath in this deck to play around hate? Witness into yawgwin gets owned both by Thalia and Leyline.

[emidln]

You'd skip witness entirely. You'd oath away your deck, flashback memory's journey targeting lotus, petal, will, then draw one, flashback deep anal, and win the game for 1UG the turn you oath.

[JACO]

You'd skip witness entirely. You'd oath away your deck, flashback memory's journey targeting lotus, petal, will, then draw one, flashback deep anal, and win the game for 1UG the turn you oath.

That still doesn't get around a million Spheres in play like a Griselbrand, nor does it get around a hand full of Mental Missteps and Flusterstorms like a Griselbrand.

[AmbivalentDuck]

You'd skip witness entirely. You'd oath away your deck, flashback memory's journey targeting lotus, petal, will, then draw one, flashback deep anal, and win the game for 1UG the turn you oath.

That still doesn't get around a million Spheres in play like a Griselbrand, nor does it get around a hand full of Mental Missteps and Flusterstorms like a Griselbrand.

Gris makes so little sense in an Ad Naus build, though.

[median]

Hey I just had a dumb (probably) thought.
The main downside to Ad Nauseam (over something like long) with Burning wish is no main deck oath. What about using Eternal witness as an oath target so oath can fit main deck. You would be recurring Yawgmoth's will or a tutor for will, then winning with a full graveyard? The cute thing is I can even flash back a cabal therapy using the witness for protection.

Isn´t most of the point of putting oath in this deck to play around hate? Witness into yawgwin gets owned both by Thalia and Leyline.

Oath would change for game 2/3 into griselbrand and/or maybe blightsteel if I expect sphere effects and graveyard hate. The idea is to get some easy activations from creature based decks game one, and increase threat density against the rest of the field. The other good thing is it takes 4 cards out of the sideboard (4 oaths) so there's room for more metaing.

I like the memory's journey idea, my only issue with it is the deep analysis, I dislike allocating two slots to the oath plan and one that's contingent to being in my graveyard when I win. I would also end up dropping memory jar or something as important from my list to play it and I don't want to do that. The main advantage I see of deep analysis is that reduces the cost to win by one mana. I'll test it but I'm not certain it necessitates the cut.

[emidln]

You'd skip witness entirely. You'd oath away your deck, flashback memory's journey targeting lotus, petal, will, then draw one, flashback deep anal, and win the game for 1UG the turn you oath.

That still doesn't get around a million Spheres in play like a Griselbrand, nor does it get around a hand full of Mental Missteps and Flusterstorms like a Griselbrand.

I just meant that you would never play Witness. I think you might even be able to justify using Past in Flames over Deep Anal if you had at least one Gitaxian Probe in your list. You would do this:

flashback memory's journey to shuffle LED and Black Lotus
draw one of them
pay two colorless to flashback Past in Flames (doesn't matter if PiF is in hand, it's just a mana cheaper)
flashback gitaxian probe paying life to draw the other artifact
play artifact, break for black
flashback 8 rituals + duresses + tendrils

If you have a spare mana, this even beats a single misstep. If you play Pact of Negations (I wouldn't, but you might) you blank a number of missteps = to the number of PoN you play for no extra mana.

Past in Flames has the advantage of not being a bad awkward card (its powerlevel is still absurdly high). It's still a 4cmc spell which sucks, but it also gives you another non-AdN storm generation option.

Griselbrand and Emrakul are both awkward vs modern shops in that being legendary makes them easy to remove. Pro Spells is pretty irrelevant vs workshops, but the lifelink can often make a big difference. That tends to make Griselbrand a bit better. I was experimenting with playing 4 Ingot Chewer paired with 4 Oath in my 75 and siding out AdN. This gives you the option to play an old-extended style attrition deck where you eventually clear the way enough to storm them using Will/Desire out of the wishboard. Tidespout Tyrant is another option, but, like BSC, is dangerous since they have a couple ways of turning it against you for an alpha strike.

[brokenbacon]

flashback memory's journey to shuffle LED and Black Lotus
draw one of them
pay two colorless to flashback Past in Flames (doesn't matter if PiF is in hand, it's just a mana cheaper)
flashback gitaxian probe paying life to draw the other artifact
play artifact, break for black
flashback 8 rituals + duresses + tendrils

If you have a spare mana, this even beats a single misstep. If you play Pact of Negations (I wouldn't, but you might) you blank a number of missteps = to the number of PoN you play for no extra mana.

Sick!!!!!

[median]

You'd skip witness entirely. You'd oath away your deck, flashback memory's journey targeting lotus, petal, will, then draw one, flashback deep anal, and win the game for 1UG the turn you oath.

That still doesn't get around a million Spheres in play like a Griselbrand, nor does it get around a hand full of Mental Missteps and Flusterstorms like a Griselbrand.

I just meant that you would never play Witness. I think you might even be able to justify using Past in Flames over Deep Anal if you had at least one Gitaxian Probe in your list. You would do this:

flashback memory's journey to shuffle LED and Black Lotus
draw one of them
pay two colorless to flashback Past in Flames (doesn't matter if PiF is in hand, it's just a mana cheaper)
flashback gitaxian probe paying life to draw the other artifact
play artifact, break for black
flashback 8 rituals + duresses + tendrils

If you have a spare mana, this even beats a single misstep. If you play Pact of Negations (I wouldn't, but you might) you blank a number of missteps = to the number of PoN you play for no extra mana.

Past in Flames has the advantage of not being a bad awkward card (its powerlevel is still absurdly high). It's still a 4cmc spell which sucks, but it also gives you another non-AdN storm generation option.

Griselbrand and Emrakul are both awkward vs modern shops in that being legendary makes them easy to remove. Pro Spells is pretty irrelevant vs workshops, but the lifelink can often make a big difference. That tends to make Griselbrand a bit better. I was experimenting with playing 4 Ingot Chewer paired with 4 Oath in my 75 and siding out AdN. This gives you the option to play an old-extended style attrition deck where you eventually clear the way enough to storm them using Will/Desire out of the wishboard. Tidespout Tyrant is another option, but, like BSC, is dangerous since they have a couple ways of turning it against you for an alpha strike.

That's even better, I don't need Yawgmoth's will maindeck so it frees up a slot.
I looked at the oath into ingot chewer plan a while back, the problem I had was that I had to either let them keep playing creatures just so I could keep oathing, or I would end up with them oathing of my oath, and they would get better things than ingot chewers and one or two real creatures.

[Daenyth]

That still doesn't deal with Thalia or Sphere effects.

[median]

That still doesn't deal with Thalia or Sphere effects.

The deck has balance and shattering spree to deal with those effects, in game two and three oath creatures are brought in to reinforce the oath plan.
I just realized something cool, I can keep Yawgmoth's will in the main deck, flash it back with past in flames, replay all my artifacts, then wish for tendrils. The question becomes what do I want main deck, tendrils or will? I think tendrils is the better call but will is so much cooler.

[median]

Slight improvement to the PiF LED Lotus pile,

1) mill deck
2) Flashback memory's journey, put petal, lotus, LED in deck on upkeep.
3) draw a card on draw step
4) play mana artifact and break it for blue, flash back deep analysis drawing other two mana artifacts, break them for black and red
5) play Past in Flames
6) play storm chaff (IE rituals, duress, therapies)
7) win

It costs    but could costs just if you draw LED or lotus as the first mana artifact on step three.

[emidln]

That would require you to play Deep Anal in your list over a Gitaxian Probe. I think I'd personally rather have a Gitaxian Probe if I'm still playing Ad Nauseams.

[median]

That would require you to play Deep Anal in your list over a Gitaxian Probe. I think I'd personally rather have a Gitaxian Probe if I'm still playing Ad Nauseams.

I agree completely. Right now I'm trying to make this worth doing; if it costs two mana to win then that could be the mana I cast oath with, -not a stretch to get, three is slightly pushing it. I'm probably just going to stick the oaths in the sideboard, but this is so far a helpful thought exercise.

If you look at it from a CMC point ,
   (memory's journey) +  (Past in flames) +   (Deep anal) = . That's a higher CMC than a griselbrand and 2 pacts or cost artifacts. So I really have to use a probe if I want this to be any better than a main deck griselbrand, even then I'm not saving much. I think I should be asking myself is what's the cheapest oath target to put in main deck that outclasses workshops.

[Worldslayer]

Few thoughts while reading this:

1) As a diehard ANT player, my first thought when Wish was unrestricted was "yes, my cmc gets lower! Consistency!" So I tried it a bunch and found that the mana you have access to in your window of operation is UB, and that adding 1R cards functionally cost me draws while remaining uncastable a large portion of games, or at least forced me to dig deeper where typically they became irrelevant because I found nonWish paths to victory. I was running an additional Ruby and Volcanic Islands in my manabase to support this.

2) Necro was already awful in AdNauseum Tendrils, again, due to your relatively limited window of operation. Further punishing your life total with lands that immediately cost life (City of Brass) or generate increasing lifeloss (Forbidden Orchard) is cramming salt into an already unecessary wound.

3) So far, Burning Wish does next to nothing to improve the faults of AdNauseum: I.e. the shops matchup and fighting a fistful of counterspells against Big Blue. Wishing for Shattering Spree or Pulverize is a good play against shops assuming:

A) You won the die roll and have not immediately killed them.
B) You can in fact even attempt to cast a 2cc spell
C) They will not kill you or effectively kill you (I.e. lock you out) by the time you can cast the spell you wished for.

If you play ANT vs. Storm often, you'll know that against any competent opponent with a reasonable hand, any line of the game stemming from A is most likely a loss. You will usually not be able to cast your 2cc spell except on the first turn, and you will certainly not be able to cast it after that. There's games where they draw the incorrect pieces or games they don't have a relevant first turn play, but those are typically the games you kill them before their second turn so Wish -> answer here is irrelevant.

Against blue decks with fistfuls of counterspells you Wish for "bombs" under the assumptions that:

A) Wish will resolve. ANT could typically beat a single counterspell anyway. Any more than that and your Wish has as much likelihood of resolving (or resolving your wish target has as much likelihood of resolving) as whatever your first bomb was.
B) The "run bombs into counters" strategy works with little to no disruption in comparison to blue decks.
2B) The "run bombs into counters" strategy works when the blue decks are capable of gameplan "run bombs into no counters".
Summation of B) The blue decks don't just parry your first strike and kill you on the return blow. Unmolested or lightly molested, Big Blue decks are only about a turn to a turn and a half behind a pure combo deck. Other control-heavy, aggression-light blue decks exist, such as U/x/x landstill, but at that point see A.

3) Burning Wish helps in games where your lifetotal is under assault to the point that AdNauseum no longer functions, most commonly from "Fish" decks like Noble Fish/Selkie Slam/Slaughter Smurfs or "fishlike" decks such as Rug Delver, Bug Delver, Ug Delver, and generally anything with Delvers in it. It is my fervent belief that the first mentioned group (Fish decks) are already your best possible pairings. Despite being the drastically inferior player in all likelihood, my ANT is currently X-0 lifetime against Mykie Noble piloting his namesake, as well as several other players of equal or superior caliber to my own. Anecdotal evidence, but speaks to the drastic disparity between their respective strategies and the power of them in the matchup. In these cases, Burning Wish is exactly fixing something that isn't broken (or possibly slightly breaking it, as a 3c-5c manabase opens you up more to Wasteland). In regards to "Fishlike" decks, their individual construction can lend the matchup to anything from the same as "Fish" (nearly laughable) to "Nightmare" (Matt Elias' Remora RUG Delver from the end of 2011) which is so lopsided in a competent/knowledgeable opponent's favor that it's laughable in completely the other direction, to which Burning Wish would most likely meet the same fate as "every other relevant spell you cast ever", which is to say countered or otherwise negated. In direct contrast to the Fish line, Burning Wish here is attempting to plug a dam with a winebottle cork - the tools you're employing simply don't measure up to the undertaking. In either case, Burning Wish is largely irrelevant to the matchup while eating up vital slots and condemning your manabase to mediocrity.

I'm sure Burning Wish has a place in Vintage, whether in a long-style combo deck or in a Big Blue deck (Menendian's Doomsday Deck was based upon the concept of a control deck running four "tinkers". Burning Wish similarly allows you to run four "Tinkers". This design has tons of space to explore), but the more I see this thread develop, and additional colors and bombs and Wish targets and alternate strategems appear, the more it confuses me what the point of forcing everything into the ANT shell achieves. Adding wishboards and draw7s into ANT is jamming a Horseshoe onto a Hobo: it's possible, but the nature of the gain achieved is questionable. Wish does one thing: gives you low CC ways to find Tendrils. Instead of flipping fours, you flip twos. Wish's weakness is in it's nature as a tertiary color: ANT now needs three colors to operate in its window of efficacy: turn 1/2.

Summation: Burning Wish costs a nonzero amount of resources while presenting an almost zerogain to the strategy. There are decks for Burning Wish, by it is my absolute belief that the Best Glass Cannon Vintage isn't one of them.

[emidln]

tldr; Worldslayer knows slightly less than nothing about playing ANT.

1) As a diehard ANT player, my first thought when Wish was unrestricted was "yes, my cmc gets lower! Consistency!" So I tried it a bunch and found that the mana you have access to in your window of operation is UB, and that adding 1R cards functionally cost me draws while remaining uncastable a large portion of games, or at least forced me to dig deeper where typically they became irrelevant because I found nonWish paths to victory. I was running an additional Ruby and Volcanic Islands in my manabase to support this.

You're losing because you play shitty lands that don't tap for BRU. If you'd just play a correct manabase, you wouldn't find your spells are uncastable.

2) Necro was already awful in AdNauseum Tendrils, again, due to your relatively limited window of operation.

Necro was never awful. If Necro is awful for you, you are playing it wrong. Let me help you:

Step 1) Pay at least 10 life then untap
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit

Step 2, in case you're not very quick, is cast the spells you just drew.

If you're paying less than 10 life, Necro might be bad. The solution is to pay at least 10 life. If you can't because you're going to die on the crack back from a creature, Ad Naus probably wouldn't have helped you anyway.

Further punishing your life total with lands that immediately cost life (City of Brass) or generate increasing lifeloss (Forbidden Orchard) is cramming salt into an already unecessary wound.

You probably don't play consult because you might deck yourself right? Grow a pair. The experience will help you win games.

3) So far, Burning Wish does next to nothing to improve the faults of AdNauseum: I.e. the shops matchup and fighting a fistful of counterspells against Big Blue. Wishing for Shattering Spree or Pulverize is a good play against shops assuming:

A) You won the die roll and have not immediately killed them.
B) You can in fact even attempt to cast a 2cc spell
C) They will not kill you or effectively kill you (I.e. lock you out) by the time you can cast the spell you wished for.

The deck plays 13 lands and anywhere from 11-14 more useful mana sources against workshops. You have a very reasonable chance of casting a Hurkyl's Recall or a Burning Wish and following that up with Shattering Spree. Further, since you actually play Wish, you can even win after they've dealt you damage.

If you play ANT vs. Storm often, you'll know that against any competent opponent with a reasonable hand, any line of the game stemming from A is most likely a loss. You will usually not be able to cast your 2cc spell except on the first turn, and you will certainly not be able to cast it after that. There's games where they draw the incorrect pieces or games they don't have a relevant first turn play, but those are typically the games you kill them before their second turn so Wish -> answer here is irrelevant.

ANT vs Long/TPS is a matchup where you want to do one of two things:

(a) kill them
(b) duress them and settle into a plan of trading disruption until you resolve Ad Nauseam, Necro or Wish->Will.

You have more discard and typically more and cheaper bombs than they do. Further, most of their bombs reload you if they don't actually win. You are favored in the both lines of play. If you're losing, it's because they are getting lucky with the dice a lot (and killing you before Duress comes online) or you don't know how to mulligan correctly.

Against blue decks with fistfuls of counterspells you Wish for "bombs" under the assumptions that:

A) Wish will resolve. ANT could typically beat a single counterspell anyway. Any more than that and your Wish has as much likelihood of resolving (or resolving your wish target has as much likelihood of resolving) as whatever your first bomb was.

From a pre-BW ANT list, the changes for ANT (excluding mana base) are:

(out)
2-3 Tendrils of Agony
Yawgmoth's Will
Timetwister

(in)
4 Burning Wish
0-1 Demonic Consultation

If your wish resolves vs a counterspell deck, you can get Desire crush them. If desire isn't the best target (maybe you've already Duressed them), you get the best target (Twister, Tendrils, or Will). If wish doesn't resolve, you didn't put your Yawgmoth's Will in the graveyard. Let that sink in. Every wish can be will, but never does losing wish cause you not have future access to will.

B) The "run bombs into counters" strategy works with little to no disruption in comparison to blue decks.
2B) The "run bombs into counters" strategy works when the blue decks are capable of gameplan "run bombs into no counters".
Summation of B) The blue decks don't just parry your first strike and kill you on the return blow. Unmolested or lightly molested, Big Blue decks are only about a turn to a turn and a half behind a pure combo deck. Other control-heavy, aggression-light blue decks exist, such as U/x/x landstill, but at that point see A.

This leads to you using Duresses defensively. When you do this, you enter into an attrition war. In an attrition war, the person to resolve Will or Tinker typically wins the game. This deck is as good as or better than at finding and resolving Will compared to any other deck in the format. In these matchups, being able to duress often and threaten with cards like Ad Nauseam and Burning Wish that are low-investment are the keys to winning.

Adding wishboards and draw7s into ANT is jamming a Horseshoe onto a Hobo: it's possible, but the nature of the gain achieved is questionable. Wish does one thing: gives you low CC ways to find Tendrils. Instead of flipping fours, you flip twos. Wish's weakness is in it's nature as a tertiary color: ANT now needs three colors to operate in its window of efficacy: turn 1/2.

ANT needs black to operate. Sometimes, it will setup using blue or red (Recall, Brainstorm, Twister, sometimes Tinker, or Burning Wish and Wheel of Fortune). It casts the majority of its deck with black mana. It has the following bombs:

Ad Nauseam
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Will
(in some lists)
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Mind's Desire
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune

With the single exception of Mind's Desire, the most that any of these cost is Black and one other color. With this in mind, the deck is built to provide access to two colors of mana, with a preference to black via Chrome Mox and number of black spells in the deck. If you are stupid enough to attempt to play Island in your Burning Wish list, you deserve to lose when you can't match up colors.

Burning Wish does the following things (ranked in order of importance):

1) Cast Mind's Desire without flipping Mind's Desire
2) Easy access to Yawgmoth's Will
3) Draw cards at low life with low card commitment (Timetwister or Tinker->Jar)
4) Remove problematic permanents (Balance + Shattering Spree)
5) Allow more aggressive Demonic Consultation usage
6) provide plentiful and cheap copies of Tendrils of Agony to fuel the Necro plan
7) lower overall cmc of the deck when casting Ad Nauseams

1, 2, and 3 are so far above the rest that it's frankly amazing that you ignored them. Previously to Wish, your options for winning at low life total were:

- demonic or topdeck tutor into Will or Twister
- play against an opponent who doesn't know to counter rituals and still need to get lucky to double tendrils/bounce+tendrils

If you were using a topdeck tutor, you often found that you were too slow to hit your windows. The second option just didn't happen unless your opponent liked carrots and made sounds along the lines of "hee-haw".

Now your life total does not matter.  This is a big deal when your opponent manages to stop your first assault and begins to beat down with Delver (RUG Delver is a bad matchup without Burning Wish and extremely easy with Burning Wish), Snapcaster Mage, Mishra's Factory, or Dark Confidant. It matters a lot against Workshops, particularly since you are often very low on life when you finally assemble a spree/h.recall to clear the way.

Summation: Burning Wish costs a nonzero amount of resources while presenting an almost zerogain to the strategy. There are decks for Burning Wish, by it is my absolute belief that the Best Glass Cannon Vintage isn't one of them.

This is the primary issue with your post. You are not approaching the subject from the perspective of a deck that actually exists. ANT has never been a glass cannon deck. It has since introduction been capable of beating multiple counters and has always offered strong options for beating workshops post-sideboard (Serenity + maindeck H.Recalls). It disappeared because game 1 against workshops is extremely awkward on the draw, enough that taking both sideboard games wasn't always realistic.

Verbal warning for violation of TMD Rules and Regulations, section III, subsections one and two:

III.  Inflammatory Posting

Purpose:  Interpersonal attacks, incendiary comments, and other hostile or antagonistic posts make it very difficult for other users to enjoy their time on this site and make contributions.  Specific examples of posts which violate this rule include:

1.  Flaming.  (The staff, and not TMD users, has discretion to determine what constitutes a flame and what doesn't)

2.  Baiting.   (Posts intended to antagonize other users or instigate conflict.)

This post contains a fair amount of valuable information, but it's conveyed through sarcastic pedagogy, which entirely defeats its purpose.  You would have been able to make far stronger points had you refrained from attacking Worldslayer in the manner you did - Prospero  

[Worldslayer]

Aside from the gaff of talking ANT vs. STAX and writing ANT vs. Storm, I stand by everything in my post. Your post starts off as needlessly aggressive and toxic on top of being entirely ironic. The first statement you open with is that I know nothing about ANT, followed by statements about how you're still running Necro and Twister, are actually running Bargain and Memory Jar, how the 5c lands are correct and how ANT is not a glass cannon.

 The added quips about not running Consult/growing a pair are A) provably false and B) needlessly awful.

Necro isn't bad because I'm not drawing enough cards, it's bad because passing the turn in a deck with little to no reactive, instant speed interaction is a good way to get killed against anyone playing or drawing at any level above "absolutely awful".

Your chances of casting Hurkyll's Recall or similar in a relevant timeframe are lower than Big Blues, and Big Blue is a matchup many competant STAX pilots are familiar with and prepared for. You are a attempting a strategy they already play against with less reliability then the deck(s) they expect the strategy from. This is a doomed proposition.

ANT is inherently a glass cannon deck in Vintage, if only because of the speed at which other decks can retaliate for the win or simply pull so far ahead in their own gameplan that you've actually lost already, your life just isn't zero. ANT in Legacy is a different monster because Legacy is a different monster, but ANT in Vintage is and in all likelihood will be a glass cannon strategy. Saying it isn't because it can beat a counterspell or two is completely false: for reference, Belcher is also capable of beating a similar number of counters with the correct draw. It is a glass cannon deck. In vintage, once you fire your cannonball your cannon's shattered: either you've won the game or you're dead before you can glue your pieces back together.

I'd continue this, and probably add in statements questioning which one of us knows anything about ANT, but realistically this forum has grown to League of Legends level toxicity: the noise to signal ratio is excessively high and I expect better conduct out of Standard players, anymore. At this threshold, residence is no longer worth it. I wish you success in your endeavors, as a Ritual deck is a Ritual deck and I'm fond of those, but realistically I expect none in this deck's specific regard.

-WS

[Prospero]

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