The Legacy Laser – UBR Ad Nauseam Tendrils

Hello everyone and welcome to my first article on Eternal Central, where I’ll talk about the Legacy Laser aka UBR Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) that I used to win Grand Prix Ghent, and split the finals of the big Legacy tournament at Ovino 7. I usually don’t write articles, because I prefer the free train of thought style of blogging. This is not your average strategy article. You have been warned.

The Man with the Machine Gun

Before I talk about the deck I would like to introduce myself and explain how I ended up shooting people in the face. My name is Timo Schünemann and prior to GP Ghent I was best known for building the Legacy Dredge build known as “quad laser,” and also working on the Vintage Dredge deck my good friend and fellow maggot and EC author Erik Hegemann used to win this year’s Bazaar of Moxen Vintage tournament.

In other words, I was known for playing and building Dredge decks and writing the best German semi-Magic related blog. 🙂 So how did I end up playing Storm in Ghent? The answer is very simple and yet strange. The Dredge deck failed me and I couldn’t figure out why. Early this year I started losing with Dredge and didn’t know why. I did what I was required to win matches with Dredge, and yet I still lost. In some relationships you come to a point where it’s just not worth the effort and you come to hate what you loved. So I decided to play something ridiculous like Belcher or TES in Ghent, but my strong dislike of bad cards and assistance of my friends brought me to ANT. It was fast, elegant, flexible, beautiful, and cooperative. It was also easy to borrow from my friends (and this is where the girlfriend-metaphor breaks down for all but the most screwed up relationships).

After a few test games and one tournament, I was pretty sure of two things:
1. The deck is ridiculously good.
2. You have to not be stupid to win with it.

Knowing this, my plan for Ghent was very simple: I had to play ANT and not be stupid.

Why You Don’t Get a Full Tournament Report, and What You Get Instead

I don’t like writing play by play tournament reports. I don’t take notes, and after three days of Magic your brain just starts to melt. Additionally, combo reports aren’t very interesting to read, because most of the time they go like this: I play a deck without counters, I shoot him in the face turn 2 in both games. Next round I play against counters, I play discard until he has nothing of interest left, then I go off. Next round I play against Maverick. I win on turn 2, then after sideboarding play Dread of Night and/or Pyroclasm and win on turn 3/4. Therefore you will only get a summary of my performance at GP Ghent and Ovino 7.

I arrived at Ghent without byes and won my first trial. I decided that we needed more boosters and I needed more practice and went straight to the next trial only to play so ridiculously bad that I still wonder why the Magic god didn’t punish me with a meteor to the face. After trying to lose for 2 rounds I finally managed to die to a Belcher player in the third round of the trial. Determined to not play like that in the GP, I still managed to make two misplays which ended up not mattering. Why do I tell you this? I want you to know that it is ok to make mistakes with a deck like this as long as you learn from it and don’t make the same mistake multiple times. This deck isn’t so good that you can go 21-2-1 in three days without playing insanely tight and without lucking out on the matchups. Let’s just agree that that’s a lot of people getting something big and black shoved into their faces and leave it at that. A lot of people are afraid of playing storm for 7-12 rounds straight and I hope to change that. Sure you will lose to misplays, but so does everyone else, it is just more obvious with combo because you play with yourself for 5 minutes and then pass the turn without having achieved anything. Storm has always been underplayed in Legacy as far as I’m concerned, and like some of you, I was afraid to pick it up. Since I overcame my fear of making a fool of myself in public at Magic tournaments, it still dazzles me how few people play the deck and how good it is. Not only does it have very few, if any negative matchups, but it has one of the most impressive auto-wins against random decks. Playing against Goblins or Zoo feels like playing Unreal Tournament on instagib mode while everyone else uses regular weapons. Bottom line: I want you for the combo division!

At Ovino 7 I entered the tournament with the exact same list that I used in Ghent. Coming from a Top 8 at the Modern event the day before (with Storm of course) and being observed by a very friendly combo playing judge meant there was no way I could screw up that day. After losing to CounterTop once and beating Black/White discard, RUG Delver, CounterTop, Goblins, Junk, Dredge, and Mono White, I could once again draw into the elimination rounds (Top 16 this time). I went on to beat Reanimator, CounterTop, and BantBlade 2-0 each to be able to split with Reanimator in the finals at 2:30 in the morning. I was offered a split for the Top 4, but the BantBlade player had lucksacked his way into a win against my good friend Andreas Reling, so splitting was out of the question, especially since Andreas had already announced that his demise would not go unpunished. So I had to take the place of my fallen comrade, shoot my opponent in the face twice in like 20 minutes and wait one and a half matches to finally be able to split in the finals. Lesson learned: Always take revenge for your friends if you can.

Also as a side note, people need to SERIOUSLY speed up their play, especially in Legacy. There is too much time wasted and too many draws.

While I do feel a bit lucky about the Swiss pairings, the elimination rounds were no walk in the park matchup-wise, and I wasn’t allowed to go first once, even though I was 10th after the swiss rounds. In the next part of the article I will talk more about the list, sideboarding with it, and why you should play ANT over TES, even though I think that the proof is in the pudding.

Sidekick to the Kneecap of Magic

People sometimes ask me why I try to never play “real Magic.” Why would you want to do that, when you can just win instead? Creature combat bores the hell out of me. I don’t know if it has to do with my martial arts training, but I like to be the one asking the questions, not the one who is forced to always have the correct answer to not die on the spot. I like low risk-high reward moves and decks. Self defense is a lot like Magic in that the best course of action is often to end the confrontation as early as possible in the least fair way possible. This is what combo has always been about for me. Combo is the crippling sidekick to the kneecap of magic. Let’s take a look at how this move should be executed in Legacy.

The Legacy Laser, by Timo Schünemann

The Main Deck
The manabase should be self-explanatory. You need duals to cast all the spells, and you also need basics to not die to Wasteland, and you finally need fetchlands to make Brainstorm retardedly good. The one-of Chrome Mox looks strange, but I think it is correct. Here is why: Chrome Mox is a bad card. If you don’t think so, put 2 of them in your opening hand and come back to this article. I will wait. Now that we have established that, one might wonder why you should play the Mox at all. I was never really satisfied with the effectiveness of Ad Nauseam in regular builds. It always felt just a little too bad and that is where one Chrome Mox can make all the difference, believe it or not. Playing only one is also the best way to make sure that you can never draw two. It’s still the first card to go to the sideboard in most matchups.

This is one reason why this deck is superior to The Epic Storm (TES), where you will draw multiple Chrome Moxen and you will just die. In addition, Cabal Ritual is far superior to Rite of Flame. No, this is not a matter of taste. Cabal Ritual has more skulls printed on it than the average cover of a black metal band. It is essential when you don’t like losing to taxing counters and that is basically all there is to it. I’m sure I will get flamed to hell and back for this, but I have never seen or heard anything that would even come close to convincing me otherwise.

The rest of the deck is pretty much the standard build, apart from the fact that some people still don’t know that Gitaxian Probe plus Cabal Therapy is the way to go. Sure, you will sometimes miss with a Therapy, but that usually means that your opponent doesn’t have what you are worried about most. On the other hand, Therapy can put your opponents in some very tough spots if they have multiples of the same counter/hate card, and you will usually know the opponent’s hand from Probes and other discard spells. I believe every discard suite that doesn’t include 4 Cabal Therapy to be incorrect right now for the reasons listed above. The combination of Duress and Inquisition main means that you can Burning Wish for Duress if need be, and still have 3 of one or both post-board. It’s possible that running a Thoughtseize over the maindeck Inquisition is better. I have been testing it for some time now and still haven’t come to a conclusion, so if you want to change anything, please start there.

The Sideboard
Yes, this sideboard does indeed lose to MUD and Dragon Stompy, if you plan on ever seeing those decks. Call me arrogant, but these aren’t real decks and I don’t waste sideboard space against decks that don’t exist once you are 2:0 or better. Sideboard cards against those decks are as useful as learning self-defense against an assault rifle with a chainsaw. Sure it might come in handy if you encounter one, but you will probably still end up with your inside out. If you want to lose valuable sideboard space against matchups that you encounter more often than the monster of Loch Ness, you can go ahead and add Pulverize or whatever else you feel is necessary.

Next comes the Grim. Now this is not the Grimm from Harry Potter so there is no reason to want to avoid it like the plague. People always ask me, what they should do if they don’t have a Grim Tutor. The answer is simple: you buy or borrow one. I know it costs a lot of money and you can’t use the card for anything else, but you need a tutor in the sideboard and running any less than 4 Infernal Tutors in the maindeck will come back to bite you. I tested 4 Wish, 3 Infernal for a while and it was just worse. Not a lot worse, but just worse. Get over it and just buy or borrow the damn card. It’s not like it will become any less expensive in the near future. The rest of the Wish-board should again be self-explanatory so I will go over that quickly. Tendrils of Agony and Empty the Warrens mean all of your tutors can become kill conditions. Pyroclasm kills most hateful Pokemons dead and can also buy time against Goblins or Elves. Discard clears the way against hate. Ill-Gotten Gains is similar, but slightly better than Past in Flames against decks without counterspells, so being able to Wish for it game 1 and switch places with Past in Flames games 2 and 3 is a good thing.

As a general rule, you should always have at least one Storm engine in the sideboard. Blue decks bring in more counters against us, so we bring more discard to counter that. Being able to switch the discard suite to something more capable of taking creatures against decks like Maverick is a nice bonus.

Next come the two unusual cards: Grafdigger’s Cage and Dread of Night. What Johnny Cage brings to Mortal Combat, Grafdigger’s Cage brings to the Reanimator and Dredge matchups: a swift punch to the nuts. Considering that Reanimator is one of the more difficult matchups and Dredge is about even without the cage, this seems like a good thing to have. I prefer it over other graveyard hate like Extirpate or Surgical Extraction because unlike those two it is very good against both Dredge and Reanimator and is proactive, which is a big plus in a proactive deck. Sure it will get discarded or countered from time to time, but guess what? This means that your discard/tutors are relatively safe. People can Force of Will my Cages all day if they want. A word of caution if it not obvious: board out your Past in Flames when you bring in your Cages.

Dread of Night often gets bad press for being very narrow. This is true. It is also very powerful and one of the reasons for playing a powerful linear deck like Storm in the first place is that you can afford to play very narrow but powerful cards. If no one plays Maverick, there is no need to run Dread of Night, but as long as Maverick is one of the more popular decks, I like being able to destroy them with absurd ease. Yes, Dread of Night is that good if you use it right. Most of the time you should only cast the Dread to kill something on board. If nothing bothers you, why waste time casting random stuff, when you could also Ponder/Brainstorm into more gas and an earlier kill? Qasali Pridemage can destroy Dread of Night, that is also true. Let’s see where that leads us in a game scenario. They cast Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. You cast Dread of Night. They cast Qasali Pridemage and sacrifice it to kill the Dread of Night. They used two cards and 5 mana to get rid of your one card that you cast for 2 mana, and that is just about the best way they have to deal with this abomination of a card. I know one Dread alone doesn’t kill Gaddock Teeg, but two do and are not very hard to dig up in a deck with Brainstorm and Ponder. Apart from that, you also have Burning Wish for Pyroclasm to deal with Teeg and whatever other Pokemons are on the battlefield at the time. The fact that Dread also slows their clock is just icing on the Tendrils.

Why This Deck is So Good

There is one type of card that I have played in almost all my decks: discard. Targeted discard is very, very good and here is why. In a game with hidden information, discard lets you know exactly what’s in your opponent’s hand while also taking what’s most likely to be good against you. Targeted discard (and Probes) turns Magic into a game of perfect information for the pilot of this deck. This is almost like playing poker with an opponent who has to keep his hand revealed at all times. There is but one downside to discard: it becomes a dead draw once your opponent has nothing relevant left in his hand. Usually this is a real drawback but with a combo deck you just kill them at this point negating the main disadvantage of discard spells. It is a lot easier to execute the combo turn, misguide your opponent, and play around stuff when you know exactly what’s in his hand and what he will probably want to counter/interact with. This is the main reason why 4 Probes and 7 discard spells are insanely good, and why I believe this deck to be the best combo deck in Legacy at the moment, and in the near future. This is also the reason why this deck is not as complicated as it may seem. You usually just have to be able to goldfish through some resistance that you know of.

The Matchups, and a Guide to Sideboarding

How do you win against decks with counterspells? When reading/hearing this question, I always want to punch someone in the face (and I can usually control myself very well). This is not a question, it is an insult to my intelligence as a human being. How about you freaking discard that shit first? A lot of players seem to not understand what is good against combo in general and storm in particular. To be good against storm you need to either provide a hard lock or at least two of the following:
-A fast clock
-disruption
-softlocks/hate cards

This is why StoneBlade is a very good matchup to the point of almost being a cakewalk. If you think otherwise and see me at a tournament, you can challenge me to play you for money. If you only have discard/counters but no clock, you will die. If you only have a moderately fast clock, but no disruption, you will die. If you only have hatebears but no relevant clock or disruption, you will die. Having said that, let’s look at certain matchups and how you can win them.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. StoneBlade
Barring ridiculous hateful sideboards, this matchup is very good. Let no one tell you otherwise. You suffer their discard, take their counters, ignore their pokemons, and then shoot them in the face.

Sideboarding vs. StoneBlade:
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek

You don’t need the speed that the Mox provides, and you don’t want to draw dead cards. You don’t need the information advantage that the additional Probes provides because you will see their hand about every turn because of your 10 discard spells anyways. If you draw a Burning Wish postboard you can Wish for Empty the Warrens (if they don’t have a Batterskull in play already or you can ETW for a lot), or cycle the Wish for Grim Tutor.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. Goblins
You go off. End of story.

Sideboarding vs. Goblins:
-2 Duress
-1 Past in Flames
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+1 Ill-Gotten Gains.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. Elves
See the Goblin matchup above.

Sideboarding vs. Elves:
-2 Duress
-1 Past in Flames
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+1 Ill-Gotten Gains.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. RUG Delver
This is one of the more difficult matchups, because they have a quick clock and a lot of relevant disruption. I usually manage to win this matchup, but I don’t know how good/bad it really is. It certainly usually feels very close when I win. Fetch basics, respect their reach, sequence your plays properly to get them to counter irrelevant stuff, and pray they don’t have a nut draw. Try to assemble a hand with absurd amounts of mana and Past in Flames as that beats most of what Canadian can do.

Going for an early Empty the Warrens can be a very strong play if you know they don’t have Stifles. This applies both preboard and postboard.

Sideboarding vs. RUG Delver:
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek

Like the StoneBlade match, you don’t need the speed that the Mox provides, and you don’t want to draw dead cards. You’ll have plenty of information about their hand because of your 10 discard spells. You also don’t want to lose life unnecessarily with Probe.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. UW Miracles
Let me say this right now: you won’t get slaughtered in this matchup if you play well. Apart from the CounterTop lock, we are dealing with a very slow blue deck with a few counterspells. Even if they manage to land the lock, you can sometimes still win with natural Tendrils because their clock is so very slow.

Don’t forget, that you are the one asking the questions: do you have an early counter? Can you handle Wish for Empty, or Wish for Tendrils, or even a natural Tendrils? Does your hand not fall apart when hit with one or more discard spells? That’s a lot of answers that they have to provide when “all” you have to do is win before they can bore you to death.

Sideboarding vs. UW Miracles:
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek

People on The Source seem to wonder how I beat multiple UW Miracles players 2:0 at Ovino. Let me set this straight once and for all: it has nothing to do with me being a lucksack and everything to do with this matchup just not being this bad. I’m not saying it is good, I’m just saying it is not very (if at all) negative. It is very taxing though, so force yourself to be awake and play the best you can. I often see players break down after a certain number of rounds. This is not an option if you want to play combo.

Blaming a lack of sleep or your exhaustion is the weakling’s way out. Your ability to force yourself to go those extra rounds will make a lot of difference in the long run. Physical health and fitness is an often overlooked aspect of what makes a good magic player. Playing complicated decks while drinking and eating far from enough, not getting enough fresh air, and being subject to a lot of noise is exhausting, both mentally and physically. Like most problems in Magic, this one can be countered by sheer force of will. Be a man, even if you are a woman! This might have been slightly (or totally) off-topic, but being at the top of your game is very important when you want to succeed with combo. Your opponents will get hungry, desperate, thirsty, tired, nervous, and frightened, and will play worse because of that. You will not, because you made the choice not to.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. Maverick
Game 1 you shoot them before they can land a hatebear, or Pyroclasm said pokemon to death and then shoot them. Game 2 and 3 you also have Dread of Night, which makes the matchup very much in your favor. As stated, try to time your Dreads in a way that will give you the most time and benefit.

Sideboarding vs. Maverick:
-2 Duress
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Past in Flames
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Ill-Gotten Gains
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+4 Dread of Night

Playing and Sideboarding vs. Reanimator
Game 1 this is a difficult matchup, which is why you bring in very potent hate cards and more discard. In this matchup it is often difficult to decide whether you should discard their counterspells or their business. There is no hard rule for that, you will have to get used to seeing what is the correct call based on the situation. I still think it is important to be aware of the problem so that you can better react to it. All in all, I think the matchup is about 50%, maybe slightly worse. Note that a natural Tendrils is often the best way to beat a reanimated Griselbrand as I demonstrated in the Top 16 of Ovino, winning against Griselbrand and Jin-Gitaxias.

Sideboarding vs. Reanimator:
-1 Past in Flames
-1 Chrome Mox
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Cabal Ritual
+3 Grafdigger’s Cage
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek

Playing and Sideboarding vs. Dredge
Preboard, the matchup is about 50%, maybe slightly better for us. Postboard you have Cages, which they usually don’t even expect, making the matchup a lot easier.

Sideboarding vs. Dredge:
On the play:
-2 Duress
-1 Past in Flames
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+3 Grafdigger’s Cage

On the draw:
-3 Cabal Therapy
-1 Past in Flames
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+3 Grafdigger’s Cage

You don’t want more than 7 discard spells because you still have to kill them relatively quickly. Which discard spells you want is what differs depending on whether you are on the play or not. On the play you want to be able to Therapy their most powerful card (Lion’s Eye Diamond) and hit any and all copies of it since you will probably be able to race anything else they might have. On the draw, they can have anything in their hand and the LEDs will most likely be in play making other discard better. At least that has been my experience. Feel free to comment and share your experiences if you prefer other setups in this matchup.

Playing and Sideboarding vs. OmniShow
You have the better disruption, the faster clock, and the better topdecks. You can lose this matchup because both decks are so powerful, but on average you should win. Their combo is very vulnerable to discard which often leaves them with dead cards in hand.

Sideboarding vs. OmniShow:
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
+1 Duress
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek

I could keep listing matchups forever since Legacy is home to such a great number of different decks, but I think I’ve covered most of the common matchups. If it’s not on my list it is likely to be either ridiculously easy, or barely played.

Like every matchup analysis in an article, people will think I’m nuts and the matchups are not that good. I can assure you that with good play, they really are this good. You have 3 difficult matchups: Reanimator, RUG Delver, and UW Miracles with CounterTop. Those three are at 50% or slightly below that. Every other matchup is either slightly or significantly in our favor, some of them almost to the point of being byes. As I said, I think ANT is severely underplayed at the moment, as it is a very strong deck.

General Advice

There are enough articles explaining the math behind the combo or fundamental turn, so if you are not sure how to go off at all, please refer to one of those. What I want to do here is explain a few things that I see being done wrong a lot of the time. Most of these are or rather should be very obvious, but I see people screw them up, so would prefer to highlight them here.

Ad Nauseam doesn’t have to win you the game on the very same turn that you cast it all the time. It is perfectly reasonable to build an unbeatable hand and pass the turn as I have done on several occasions in the elimination rounds of both Ovino and Ghent. I often see people get desperate when Ad Nauseam fails them. Unless you are presented with a clock, there is no need to get nervous, as you can simply try to kill them again next turn.

Be aware of what is in your deck and sideboard at all times. It is ok to look at your sideboard if Burning Wish is the next card you will play. Otherwise you are giving your opponent information that he doesn’t deserve. Alternatively, you can also look at your sideboard to make you opponent think that you drew a Wish, even when you haven’t. The same goes for looking at the graveyard and bluffing Past in Flames or Ill-Gotten Gains. These are powerful plays so try not to give away a play you intend to make by being so obvious with a tell.

You can Brainstorm an Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames to the top of your library, play multiple LEDs, then play another draw spell and crack the LEDs in response to generate a ton of mana. This doesn’t come up often, but is a very mana efficient way of starting the combo and I often see people miss this.

I have touched on this before, but proper sequencing is very important when playing ANT, so think through your next couple of possible turns. For example, don’t play the LED before you need to, as that needlessly gives away storm count.

Expect the unexpected. People will sideboard the weirdest stuff against combo ranging from Choke to Krosan Grip, and even stranger stuff. If you can avoid being vulnerable to something they should not have, you should usually still do so. Think what potential options they have and ways to mitigate that hate.

Before going for an Ad Nauseam, you should first make sure that no other definite path to victory is available. Ad Nauseam is powerful but risky, and the other ways to finish are not as risky. Finishes from best to worst:
Natural Tendrils>Tutor Chain>Past in Flames>Iggy>Ad Nauseam

Against decks with counters you usually don’t want to go for an Ill-Gotten Gains unless you have a lot of mana and can include a discard spell in the three cards you pick up (because they will likely return at least one counterspell with Ill-Gotten Gains). Sometimes when I want my opponent to sideboard graveyard hate, I go for the Past in Flames in Game 1, even though I could also win the a tutor chain/natural Tendrils. This can be especially effective against inexperienced players, making them think you are depending on your graveyard to go off, when that is the furthest thing from the truth.

Carefully consider when you want to break a LED and how many you want to break. You might need them around in case your Ad Nauseam gets countered, or you might need one post Ad Nauseam to enable a hellbent trigger for Infernal Tutor.

This last one is critical. Above all else, maximize your cantrips. This is something that people really need to learn in Legacy and that I have neither the time, nor the space to explain in this article. There are several excellent pieces on this topic, so I will leave it at that and just say that Brainstorm is a sorcery 90% of the time in this deck and that you should usually only play it if you can shuffle afterwards. When you feel like your deck didn’t deliver, backtrack through your plays and try to find out if you really got the maximum value out of your cantrips. Throwing away cantrips is one of the easiest ways to end up with a bad hand after several turns of casting spells. Sometimes the deck really does fail you, but more often than not, you fail your deck.

Looking to the Future

The printing of Abrupt Decay in Return to Ravnica means that you basically don’t have to ever lose to the CounterTop lock again if you choose not to. Depending on your metagame you can either cut the Dread of Nights or Johnny Cages, and add Decay to your sideboard and a green land to your maindeck or sideboard, maybe taking the place of the Chrome Mox. As stated, this is a metagame call and I for one will continue running this list for the moment as I expect Countertop to drop in popularity because of its obvious weakness to Abrupt Decay. If you don’t think so, feel free to tinker with the sideboard but be sure to add Virtue’s Ruin to your sideboard if you cut the Dreads, as you will otherwise be cold to an active Mother of Runes + Thalia or Gaddock Teeg.

You Shall Not Pass (the Turn)

We are reaching the end of this article. I hope some of you found it entertaining, different, informative, or funny. As I said before, I usually only blog, so my style might not be for everyone, nor is it meant for everyone. Note that I don’t take myself and what I write too seriously, and neither should you. I’m just some d00d having fun pointing a laser at my opponents and winning a lot of money lately. If that sounds appealing, you might want to try this deck out. If you think I’m an arrogant idiot, you probably take yourself and/or Magic way too seriously. Feel free to comment, or talk to me in person when you see me at a tournament. Happy Storming, and may the matchups be ever in your favor (which they usually are)!