(LSV): Welcome to the second matchup Matt and I tested in our new Legacy series. After beating High Tide reasonably well (they weren’t super lopsided, but ANT did have the edge), we moved on to a presumably bad matchup, Team America. Here is the list I was using (or very close, might be a card or two off):
This is a pretty basic list, stolen directly from Gerry Thompson, who played it at some Starcitygames Open or other. [card hymn to tourach]Hymn[/card], Thoughtseize, [card inquisition of kozilek]Inquisition[/card], Daze, Spell Snare, and Force of Will, plus Wasteland and Dark Confidant, all are bad news for combo, and we went in expecting the matchup to favor Team America (TA). Matt’s sideboard plan of Jace and Dark Confidant was the X-factor, and we thought it might help an otherwise bad matchup. Then, we played some games:
To see the rest of this deck’s matchups, as well as the current Running the Gauntlet series, click here!
Matt: Unfortunately, the Team America matchup didn’t go quite as well for Ad Nauseam as the High Tide matchup. By not quite as well, I mean Luis ranched me over and over again. At times he was literally complaining about being disruption flooded because he didn’t know whether to Hymn me Thoughtseize and Wasteland me or embarrass me in some other way.
I did my best to grind through the post board games with Jaces and Bobs. They did help a tiny bit, but the matchup is definitely ugly. However, I’m not really sure there’s a better plan. A Doomsday plan is much better against Counterbalance than Jace, but you can’t get Shelldock Isle (for the Shelldock Isle into [card emrakul, the aeons torn]Emrakul[/card] combo) against Team America because of Wasteland. It is possible the correct plan is to just scoop to Team America and then use Doomsday to combat Counterbalance. That way, you give or take scoop to Team America, but you have game against Counterbalance and should be favorable against most other decks.
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(LSV): Ok, let me grab the reins back from Matt before we finish for the day. This matchup seems horrible, but I must say that the plan of just hoping to get lucky (also known as scooping) against Team America isn’t as ludicrous as it would be to scoop to Cawblade in Standard. Team America might be a very good deck, but it is just one of many in Legacy. You can legitimately win a tournament without ever seeing it, and playing it just once is also a real possibility. Therefore, if Ad Nauseam can destroy the rest of the field, it is still quite a good choice, even with a bad TA matchup.
