Well, The Andy Fletcher Type 1 tournament is back!!! This time though it is going to be a no proxy event. That means I had to put my thinking cap on and come up with the goods. The goods of course are decks that are competitive and can be built without power.

A while ago in another one of my articles Vibri had asked if there were any unpowered decks that can compete with the powered decks. At the time, I believed that there were not many that could be competitive. Now I have changed my tune.

There are quite a few decks that can be ported into Vintage that require no “Power” cards.

The Power cards are of course

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Timetwister
Time Walk

I sat down and thought about what deck I would want to play. I thought up some crazy contraptions and interactions, built and tested them, but in the end they still felt like a casual deck. That was until I remembered Combo.

Of course, trying to build something like TPS and cutting the power is out of the question. The reason that deck is powerful is because of those cards. So I pondered about the other combo decks and came across the combo I would eventually run with.

Ad Nauseam.

Ad Nauseam adds a different approach to deck construction. You can not just throw it into an existing shell and expect it to work. The converted mana cost of yours spells has to be taken into consideration. So I had a look at some lists that have been appearing in top 8s around the globe as well as in articles or online forums.

Steve Menendian wrote an article on Ad Nauseam and proposed the following decklist

Meandeck Ad Nauseam

1 Black Lotus
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Necropotence
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
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Imperial Seal
1 Ponder
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Yixlid Jailer
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

His list is a great starting point. It has maxed out the essential spells as so to hit them with frequency. As for the power, he is running only 4, Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Mox Jet and Mox Sapphire. Also included is Imperial Seal which under my constraints I will consider a power card.

Another list I have found is Travis Spero’s

2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
4 Dark Confidant
4 Ad Nauseam
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Duress
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Imperial Seal
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Sol Ring
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Smother
1 Sundering Titan
1 Tinker
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Yixlid Jailer

This list is almost identical to all the others I have found but uses Dark Confidant as an additional draw engine. Dark Confidant has the same downfall as Ad Nauseam but also has a few upsides. As a 2/1 he can turn sideways to lower the storm requirement as well as give you card advantage. With the overall mana cost in these decks his drawback of losing life is not too much of a concern.

Again it is the same power cards that seem to be used.

So I set about testing the different variations that I have come across to build me a list that I am comfortable playing. My two choices came down to the above decks. (Hence why there listed) every other decklist I tried seemed less focused or just plain bad.

So I settled on running this list for the warm up tournament held in Wellington.

Un-Powered Ad Nauseam Storm-Combo
Or U-PANS-C (You Pansy)

2 Island
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea

4 Dark Confidant

4 Ad Nauseam
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Yawgmoths Will
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Necropotence

Sideboard
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Yixlid Jailers
2 Extirpate

The average converted mana cost of this deck is 1.33 so that means an Ad Nauseam should return anywhere between 10-12 cards. This also helps with the Bob flips.

I found while playing Travis’s decklist that Dark Confidant is absolutely amazing. He can single handily draw you into the win. Even in multiples his drawback is negligible.

So I just increased the good spells to replace the power. Of course there is no “real” way to replace power.

In my testing Pact of Negation didn’t help as much as 8 Duress. Duress effects can be proactive in stopping an opponent from advancing their game plan where as Pact can not. One card that did test well and I have yet to include was Slaughter Pact. Slaughter Pact can deal with a lot of annoying creatures and can easily be paid in your next turn. Creatures that started to be problems were Magus of the Moon and Ethersworn Canonist. Both disrupted my deck in different ways and are dealt with by Slaughter Pact.

The sideboard is focused towards the Mishra’s Workshop deck; although I doubt that there will be many decks actually sporting the land. But Spheres do hinder this deck. Also packing hate for the Ichorid match-up, as for aggro in general, Ad Nauseam is faster so should pull out the win before lethal damage can be dealt.

One deck I have not prepared for is Fish variants. I am hoping that my 8 duress can rip a threat out and win before they can mount a decent defense. Massacre, the normal sideboard slot in combo for dealing with Fish is not suitable for this deck. At 4 mana it increases the CMC of this deck; also a lot of Fish decks now do not run plains.

An option, if I feel this could become a problem deck, is Infest as it can be cast of a Ritual (without a Canonist in play). It still increases the average CMC but might be the best answer available. Infest doesn’t really deal with Tarmogoyf though.

Other cards that I tested were Chromatic Star, Windfall, Careful Study and Sleight of Hand.
Windfall proved to be too much of a liability, and the blue cantrips wasted blue mana without any real benefit most of the time. Chromatic Star was only good with top deck tutors as the draw could be stacked. Overall I am happy with this list and the only changes that could be made are Slaughter Pacts inclusion.

Wellington Warm-up.

The week before standard champs and the Andy Fletcher, Gene ran some warm up events the day after the PTQ. Congrats to Ranjith Constatine for taking out the PTQ. On the Sunday though, only a handful of players turned up for the Vintage event. So I didn’t end up getting the tourney run I was hoping for, but that is alright.

One thing that did come out of the day is that I really should be running engineered explosives. It deals with almost everything and doesn’t cause life loss to Bob or Ad Nauseam.

Engineered Explosives can deal with the 2 drop creatures from fish. It can also deal with multiple Sphere/Thorns. Due to the wording of Sunburst it can get around the additional cost being added by the spheres and still only have 2 counters. For example, a Stax player has a Thorn of Amethyst and a Sphere of Resistance in play. I can announce that I am playing EE for 0 and then pay the additional cost with a U and B so that it will come into play with 2 counters.

So we are of to the races!!!

Races, being Auckland….
We decided to take a rental up to Auckland and have a bit of a road trip. Let me tell you, I am never doing that again! Torrential rain non-stop from Wellington to Auckland was not a pleasant experience. Talking trash all the way was fun though!

We arrive in Auckland and do the hustle and bustle to the hotel we were staying at, Ivan was already there due to a work commitment flying him up. We bowl into the room and Blair gets jumped by a slightly intoxicated Ivan, nothing like watching two grown men wrestle!! NOT!!!!

We decide to head on down to Vagabond to grab some last minute cards and a few boosters for drafting. Then we head next door to Sputnik. Seriously who names a club/bar Sputnik? that is so cool. We manage to talk the bar staff into letting us have the Scorpions out of the bottles of Scorpio Vodka and Tequila.

Fear factor styles kicked in and after a bit of jousting I slam that little critter in my mouth and chewed like a madman. If you have ever had a chocolate that has those shots of brandy inside then you have an idea of what it was like.

We then head back to the hotel and draft, eat and generally just muck around getting to sleep around 1am.

Standard.

Those of you that know me understand that I do not play standard, but I had nothing better to do so decided to go 0-X for the day. I played Elfball and had a blast. Ended up going 2-4 and accomplished my 2 goals for the day. First was comboing off, second was using every single counter I had (all 60 of them)

Round 1 I played against Gene playing the Fae, this game was close. 1st, 2nd and 3rd turn nettle sentinels was a little to much for him game 1. Game 2 and 3 came down to the wire but he managed to snatch both of them from out of my hands.

The rest of my matches were not as memorable but Comboing of against Shane Eyre was a blast. And also my 6th round opponent was such a good guy to play against. Mid combo I stalled with 60+ elves on the table, untap swing for the win. Game 3 was the most exciting, I Distant Melody drawing 32 cards. The other games at the table stopped and the question was asked “How many cards was that???” I went through the motions and calculated a Banefire for X=100+/-

Good Times

After the tournament we went out for some food at an Asian restaurant. MY GOD, so cheap and so much food!!! We then headed back to the hotel to refresh, and get ready to hit town.
After the expected organizational skills of 4 magic players (ie none) we were finally ready.

First stop was somewhere and the last stop was somewhere else, Notes definitely got fuzzy after having some Bubbles. All I can say is that for an out of towner, Auckland really has a different night life.

The Andy Fletcher Tournament

So I am the first awake and have the pleasure of waking everyone else. I write down my decklist and get the last of my stuff sorted. Ivan and Blair get ready to go, and Ivan asks if I can write up his decklist… Ha, game loss for you my friend!!! I didn’t really mean to give him a game loss… really.

So we turn up at the venue and sit around and talk trash with some of the guys that turned up early. People are sitting round finishing decklist and stuff, then the pairings are posted.

Here is what I played

Un-Powered Ad Nauseam Storm-Combo
Or U-PANS-C (You Pansy)

2 Island
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea

4 Dark Confidant

4 Ad Nauseam
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Yawgmoths Will
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Necropotence

Sideboard
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Yixlid Jailers
2 Engineered Explosives

Round 1, Shane Eyre playing RGB? Beats and Burn

I thought I would be able to get some justice in this game but it was not to be.

Game 1, I keep a solid hand and proceed to combo off perfectly with a tendrils and storm 10.
Game 2, I draw terrible and get smashed by little dudes and burn
Game 3, I start comboing and fall into a predicament. I need 1 more card for threshold to Cabal Ritual into Yawg will for the win, But I am at 5 life. I think about it for a while and know his only out is fireblast. I decide to go for it and crack my fetchland. Shane cracks his fetchland and I know its all over.

0-1

Round 2, Dave McCurdy playing Tezzeret Vault
Game 1, I get decimated. Pure and simple.
Game 2, I force down a Necropotence and mini-Tendrils for 10 and restock my hand. Dave plays his lock but has to pass the turn. I have a lot of gas in hand and am able to easily tendrils him out.
Game 3, I get an early duress and see an absolutely busted hand. Nothing I take can prevent him from winning.

Also During round 2 Ivan got a game loss for an incorrect decklist… Apparently he only listed 58 cards… Ooops.

0-2

Round 3, Rhys playing RG beats and Burn
I don’t remember much of this but I know I got a triple Ritual, Yawg Will Tendrils kill but still lost the other 2 games.

0-3

Round 4 I get the BYE!!! Free win!!! At least I didn’t go 0-4 Woot!!!

I didn’t know what the metagame was going to be like and took a gamble. Obviously I wasn’t expecting as much burn as there was and that cost me. Ad Nauseam really likes having a high life total when starting to combo!!

MEGA-FAIL

I had an absolute blast over the weekend, caught up with some old friends played some cardboard and ended up 3-7 for the whole weekend. Oh well, at least it was fun.

Expect a better performance from me next time that is for sure!!

Well I will end this up now as I have hit about 2,500 words and have run out of things to say.

A big thank you to James and the crew for putting on a wonderful weekend and congrats to Ranjith, and Erik for winning.

Cheers for reading
Clint Hemingway