Playing Legacy Ad Nauseam

Some people say that storm is the most broken mechanic of all time. While they may be true, it's very far from being the easiest most overpowered mechanic to use. I would probably say something like affinity is the most overpowered easy to use mechanic ever printed. Just make a pile of artifacts, and you can make everything with affinity cost 0. Easy as that. Storm, on the other hand, is mind-blowingly complicated! There are so many ways you can go with your deck, it's simply incredible! For starters, for those of you who haven't been playing for a long time, here's the basics on storm:

Storm: When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn

Sounds fair, right? After all, there's only so much mana and so many cards in your hand, this couldn't be absurd. Well, then you add cards like Dark Ritual and Ad Nauseam and you see how we just trumped those 2 restrictions. There are 7 cards with the storm mechanic that can win a game by themselves:

Dragonstorm
Hunting Pack
Grapeshot
Empty the Warrens
Brain Freeze
Ignite Memories
Tendrils of Agony

The most popular of these in Legacy is of course Tendrils of Agony. However, Brainfreeze and Empty the Warrens have been used as alternate win conditions in other decks that aren't built around storm (High Tide and Charbelcher). Other storm cards have been used in other formats, most famously Dragonstorm, Grapeshot, Ignite Memories, and Empty the Warrens from the 2007 World Championships. Also recently, Grapeshot was used with Pyromancer's Swath in a storm deck in Modern (played by Conley Woods among others).

Storm decks are incredibly difficult to build, never mind tune to gain an advantage on the field. I will be focusing on Legacy storm which, as I said, traditionally runs Tendrils of Agony as it's win condition. Let's take a look at one of the original storm decks, albeit with modern cards, called TES or The Epic Storm:

3x Gemstone Mine

2x City of Brass
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Volcanic Island
1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire

4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Burning Wish
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Duress
2x Orim’s Chant
1x Thoughtseize
2x Ad Nauseam
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
3x Defense Grid
2x Echoing Truth
2x Deathmark
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grapeshot
1x Thoughtseize
1x Meltdown
1x Shattering Spree

With just 14 lands, this deck is all gas! Or is it? Let's compartmentalize this deck:

Mana: 34
14x lands
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Lions Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox

Tutors/Cantrips: 18
4x Burning Wish
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
2x Ad Nauseam

Disruption: 7
4x Duress
2x Orim's Chant
1x Thoughtseize

Win Condition: 1
1x Tendrils of Agony

TES is designed to be faster by using the best every color has to offer. White is splashed solely for 2 Orim's Chants. Many lists also run Silence and Xantid Swarm as other cards to prevent countermagic. Now Magic is wonderful because of it's mana system. To get the best of each color, something has got to give, and that something is the mana base. Gemstone Mine only gets 3 uses, City of Brass deals you damage (reduces the number of cards than can be drawn off Ad Nauseum), and the other cards may not add the kind of mana you really want. Because of this, a different storm deck was designed simply named Ad Nauseum Tendrils, or ANT:

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Thoughtseize
4x Duress
4x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Lotus Petal
1x Chrome Mox
1x Ad Nauseum
1x Il-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony

2x Underground Sea
3x Island
2x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
1x Tropical Island
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Dark Confidant
1x Extirpate
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth

Mana: 33
16x Land
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Chrome Mox

Tutors/Cantrips: 18
4x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Ad Nauseum
1x Il-Gotten Gains

Disruption: 8
4x Thoughtseize
4x Duress

Win Conditions: 1
1x Tendrils of Agony

This deck was designed to beat Wastelands decks with a stronger manabase. This deck loses a little speed by having less mana sources, but is more resiliant with more disruption. "But wait! All the numbers are the exact same except for that 1 card difference!" Remember when I said this isn't an easy deck to build? These very subtle tweaks on the numbers make a world of a difference! Several pages of forums have been eaten up debating 1 Ad Nauseum or 2. I personally am in the 1 camp, although I think I may try out having 2 next time around the block.

Now, there's always the desire the come up with the best, most perfect lists out there and take the pros of every deck and make it work together. So how can we utilize the power that is adding red to the deck while still having a wastelands-proof mana base? Here's my try:
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
3x Chrome Mox
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Burning Wish
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
4x Brainstorm
4x Preordain
4x Lotus Petal
1x Ad Nauseum
1x Il-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony

4x Poluted Delta
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
2x Island
2x Swamp
1x Mountain

Sideboard:
4x Dark Confidant

2x Echoing Truth
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Deathmark
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Thoughtseize
1x Meltdown
1x Shattering Spree

Will this deck work? I don't know, but I sure want to try it out! Burning Wish seems like an incredibly exciting card for me to play with, because there are so many unique cards it can grab. One that's very exciting is Deathmark. Being able to tutor up this card, which allows you to destroy hate bears like Ethersworn Canonist or Gaddok Teeg is absolutely essential! Another card that is simply delightful to see is Meltdown. I didn't know this card existed, but I am very glad it's here! A deck like Stax is impossible to beat unless you get the turn 1 kill because of all their maindeck hosers like Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, and Lodestone Golem. However, those cards are all artifacts, so a 4 mana Meltdown is completely backbreaking! I honestly don't know how well this deck will work, but Storm is all about difficult deckbuilding, so you just have to keep on trying!

While I was writing this post, I was cruising forums at the same time, and an idea someone mentioned that blew my mind was to have a transformational sideboard. In the past, ANT has had a Doomsday transformational sideboard against Counterbalance.

Quick Aside
{
For those of you who don't know what the Doomsday combo is, here's the 5 second version:
Cast Doomsday, make a doomsday stack of (from top to bottom):
-Brainstorm
-Shelldock Isle
-Cloud of Faeries
-Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
-Solitary Confinement
Then you cast Brainstorm, putting Emrakul and any other card back on top so you have Shelldock Isle and Cloud of Faeries in hand
Play Shelldock Isle, hiding Emrakul underneath it
Cast Cloud of Faeries, untapping Shelldock Isle and a blue source
Cast Emrakul with Shelldock Isle
Win

There's obviously A LOT more to it, but that's a very simple way for it to work. The Solitary Confinement prevents you from decking yourself, but other stacks are popular. I am not well versed enough in the deck to go into any more detail...
}
End Aside

However, instead of using the Doomsday sideboard, which loses to Wastelands pretty hard, he suggested sideboarding in Phyrexian Obliterators and Tombstalkers! Everyone cuts all their anti-creature cards against Storm for game 2, because they are completely dead, so these guys can drop as early as turn 1 and beat your opponent to a bloody pulp before they realize what's hit them! This sideboard plan is for ANT, and could even be extended to make it a Team America-esque deck with cards like Hymn to Tourach! Let's rewind to a possible sideboard utilizing these cards!

4x Open
4x Tombstalker
3x Hymn to Tourach

Now, it's great to have a cool transformational sideboard, but it's also very important to learn what needs to come out for the combo. Here's my suggested cuts:

-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Ad Nauseum
-1 Il-Gotten Gains
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-4 Infernal Tutor

+4 Phyrexian Obliterator
+4 Tombstalker
+3 Hymn to Tourach

I am constantly back and forth as to what the last 4 slots in the sideboard could be. At first I was thinking the obvious answer is to use Dark Confidant. However, when you think for more than 5 seconds about your sideboard plan, you realize that you would want to bring in Bob in the same matchups that we are trying out using our 5/5s. Not only do we no longer need to draw 2 cards a turn to combo out faster (because there is no combo), but we significantly increased our deck's CMC by adding in 4 drops, and 8 drops in replacement of 0 drops.

One idea I had for a card is Daze. I figure there are decks like Painted Stone where having the creatures may be too slow and instead you need to disrupt their plan. However, now we don't have a board against Zoo, which can pack Gaddok Teeg for hate (although besides that, the matchup is a bye).

Overall, this idea is very fresh and not thoroughly developed, but I feel it has a ton of potential. If you have any ideas, let me know in the comments, on facebook, or on twitter. Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack