Post-Mystical Tendrils: Why Mystical Tutor is Irrelevant

This week Wizards of the Coast announced the banning of Mystical Tutor in Legacy.  Today I will examine the impact of this banning on the metagame at large and on Ad Nauseum Tendrils in particular.


Let's start off by getting the less important issue out of the way: Mystical Tutor was more powerful than just a "Tier Two" tutor and should have been banned as per the general policy for the format. Brian Demars probably put it best in saying that Mystical Tutor was actually just better than Vampiric Tutor in the decks that played it.  It also cost 2 less life, pitched to Force of Will, and those were the decks that a Tutor effect was best in.  Reanimator and Ad Nauseum were also quite degenerate.  I personally know from playing ANT that if I had played correctly I would be around 90% in games, with the only losses involving turn 2 active Counterbalance Top or playing against Reanimator.

That said, the loss of Mystical Tutor does not come close to eliminating the combo decks from the metagame.  Reanimator already has a huge amount of built in redundancy, with the least redundant spell being the actual creatures.  Without 8 Entombs, the deck will have to either have to consolidate on options or adopt slower spells like Intuition or Buried Alive, possibly alongside Chrome Mox.  ANT really only Mystical Tutored for a singleton after resolving Ad Nauseum, with most of the searches going for Duress or Dark Ritual.  Ad Nauseum is also the worst way to win with the deck. Preordain fills in the slot nicely and has good synergy with Brainstorm and Ponder.  Cabal Ritual also gets a lot better with the increase in cantrips fueling threshold much better than Mystical did.

If these decks were already too good and banning Mystical Tutor doesn't decrease the raw power level of these decks, why would anything be different?  The one thing Mystical Tutor did allow was a much simpler sideboard consisting of a toolbox answers to their answers.  The key to adapting is finding the right sideboard.

The first step is finding the right main deck protection for the combo.  Burning Wish is a possibility to maintain similar main deck utility to the Mystical Tutor for Wipe Away package, but adding Red increases your vulnerability to Wasteland and the Rituals you gain don't help as they basically provide colorless.  It is much easier to just stock up on Duress and Thoughtseize to take any main deck hate or counters out of their hand.  Orim's Chant may seem good on paper to enable an Ill-Gotten Gains through a Force of Will, but realistically it requires Duress backup to get Chant to resolve through Force in the first place and recurring Duress off the IGG is a very reasonable option.  Chant also has the same issues as Burning Wish with regards to Wasteland.  Chant is effective against them having just a Stifle, but how often is that the real issue?

Out of the board there are a lot of effective options. The start should be graveyard  hate, both to fight the graveyard combo decks and to potentially remove Force of Will from an Ill-Gotten Gains chain. Extirpate is the strongest for the last purpose but Leyline of the Void is much more of a blowout with a resolved Gains and is stronger against Dredge. Some mix of it and Tormod's Crypt is likely the best.

Some generic bounce spell is also needed just for safety.  Chain of Vapor is probably the best here, as it helps solve the problem of being low on cards for storm count after you set up the bounce spell.  A low count of bounce spells is reasonable given the increase in Duress effects.  Some direct answers to permanents might also be a solid choice, most notably a cheap removal spell to lower Zoo's clock and deal with Gaddock Teeg.  The only issue is that a bounce spell also deals with sideboarded graveyard hate aimed at keeping you off Ad Nauseam (Don't you mean Ill-Gotten Gains?  -G).  Hurkyl's Recall will also be a good choice for some slots given the unbanning of Grim Monolith.

Another copy of Tendrils out of the board is also important for the control  match ups as well as against Reanimator.  Against control having a Tendrils in your hand is the easiest way to set up a win, and against Reanimator short Tendrils can keep them off Reanimate or kill them after they cast it.  With the loss of Mystical Tutor, they will not always have Iona to stop the combo anymore but you will also not have easy access to Wipe Away so plan accordingly.

Dark Confidant is also insane in this deck.  If it sticks against control, they die as it both gases up a Tendrils and makes you need less storm for lethal.  (I think this requires a little more clarification, Control decks tend to need to board out their creature removal to load up on disruption versus Storm decks, and you effectively sideboard versus their sideboard by overwhelming them with cards.  -G)

Suggested  "ANT" List
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
3 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Thoughtseize
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Confidant

Honestly, the biggest problem for this deck is the pilot.  If you can manage not to screw up too bad you should just crush everyone.

On second thought, I probably should play Zoo.