Ad Nauseam

Instant

Reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost/mana value. You may repeat this process any number of times.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

legendofa on Favorite plane and why?

2 months ago

Alara. I really dug into the game with that block, and it's been my favorite ever since. It's mechanically and thematically unique, and I consider it a huge shame that it hasn't been revisited in 15+ years.

For gameplay, it introduced the Cascade mechanic, spread the idea of colored artifacts, and expanded Planeswalkers from a novelty to a core game piece. Cruel Control, Jund Midrange, and Zoo had their foundations set, with Cruel Ultimatum, Bloodbraid Elf, Maelstrom Pulse, Wild Nacatl, Path to Exile... Most of these have fallen off since then, but they still make me happy. Ad NauseamGC, Noble Hierarch, Ethersworn Canonist, and Relic of Progenitus are all still viable in one form or another.

For storytelling, Nicol Bolas is shown to actually be as powerful, manipulative, intelligent, and terrifying as he's continually described to be. Ajani, Tezzeret, and Elspeth, three very important characters, are developed. The story unfortunately leaves off on a major point for the Shards themselves--after they rejoin into New Alara, we only get the lightest taste of what they're like now in Alara Reborn, along with a couple of random snippets (demon cults spreading in regions of former Bant?), and I really want to know how it's developed culturally, geographically, and magically.

And for me personally, I got a Progenitus from a booster that has a place of honor in my collection. "Protection from everything" will never not be awesome.

Barjack521 on Cheap deck always wins.

2 months ago

I realize I'm something like 10 years late to the party but have you considered adding Slaughter Pact? it could be useful for dealing with things that shut down commanders like Drannith Magistrate and since it's technically zero CMC it won't matter for the Ad Nauseam life loss. Plus spot removal can come in handy lots of ways if someone is playing creature stax pieces or something less subtle like a Platinum Angel. The other suggestions I had were Rain of Filth and/or Bubbling Muck which can each be used to go off earlier. I copied this deck and added a Skirge Familiar and an Exsanguinate and a Torment of Hailfire rather than use the zombie swarm cards as my alternate win con. If they stop the sickening dreams / dark sphere I can use the familiar to discard the rest of my hand to drain them out.

DreadKhan on Which is More Important: Total …

4 months ago

In my limited experience, most decks want it's 'key pieces' to be as low to the ground as possible, this is why Night's Whisper is a very good card, it works in hands where you are short of key resources (but not so short that you couldn't risk the hand), and it's still completely worth playing if you draw it fairly late in the game; drawing 2 cards is almost universally a good thing, and only paying 1B to do it means you can either play it early or play it late and follow it up with something you drew. In contrast a card like Tower of Fortunes is a trap in almost every list because you need to input a grand total of 12 mana to draw ANY cards, meaning it's a dead card until you can generate 8 mana in one turn. That makes the card a lot worse in practice, since every game has early turns and only some games go long enough for Tower to really shine.

The same is true about ramping, something like Utopia Sprawl (or Crop Rotation might fit better lol) is incredibly efficient, it can be played turn 1 in many games and if it's drawn late it's literally mana neutral, making it a 'free roll' in decks that can count on having a Forest early. In contrast Explosive Vegetation is unplayable turn 1 in almost any situation, ditto for turn 2, and you will need to have ramped to play it by turn 3. This means that if you're stuck on 2 lands something like Farseek could find you a key land but Explosive Veggies will just sit there making you feel stupid. This makes Explosive Veggies a relatively unimpressive card, and that's why you don't see as much ramp that costs more than 3 (and many Spikey players hate paying more than 2 for ramp), it plays a lot worse in hands that would otherwise be keeps, and they can actually cost you games.

In contrast though there are 'value cards' (usually MV 4-6), these aren't necessarily going to win the game by themselves but these are important in metas that don't expect anyone to win too early. These types of cards can cost more mana because they're doing a lot, but most deck builders quickly realize you can only include so many of this type of card, specifically because they WILL clog your early hands. These types of cards drive up your average MV, most people like something in the 2.5-3.5 range (most prefer lower fwiw). It's worth noting that spells that cost 7-10 mana are often WAY more powerful, but most of these aren't necessary to win games, and due to their sky high MV these are even worse about clogging your hand. People are generally fine with Expropriate from a power level perspective, even if many find it boring, but I think a plurality of decks that are power level 7 and up eschew big mana stuff because they don't need it, if you can win with Rite of the Raging Storm then you don't need Expropriate. In cEDH people actually skew even lower on MVs, especially Ad Nauseam lists, and it turns out it's very possible to win games using almost nothing but MV 2 and under stuff, and unsurprisingly these incredibly fast and low to the ground win cons are the most powerful.

Ultimately the less resources you need to put into an effect the better that effect. It's equally true that all things being equal doing the exact same thing a turn earlier is MUCH better, and it keeps getting better each turn sooner (in an exponential manner). The complication for me is that cards aren't very equal, and it's actually possible to build decks that assiduously ignore all of the conventions I mentioned here (my Pavel Maliki deck has 17 5 drops and an average MV of 4.20, while my Sunastian Falconer deck has a gobsmacking MV of 5.35, both are functional decks IMHO) if you simply run better cards that have relatively high MVs, and run enough of them that you will consistently have one or more to choose from. The Pavel deck happily runs some stuff like Omen of Fire that can be completely dead because the deck can usually afford to have dead cards and still be a threat, and the Sunastian deck runs some pretty derpy 'big' creatures, many aren't even cost effective, it just doesn't matter because if you have enough huge creatures it doesn't matter if you paid extra for them, they're still huge creatures that will stomp the opponent into gravy! In effect both decks win the games they win via scale, Pavel tends to have a lot of cards that trade for multiple cards, and Sunastian's effects are often so bulky that they just go right over other decks.

Even in 1v1 some of my weird Legacy decks sneak in some pretty high MV cards, and often these cards can steal games when I'm in topdeck mode (in Legacy anything over MV 2 is considered 'really high' fwiw), even if they cost me a few when I draw terribly and have 5 3 drops in my first 9 cards and I scoop. Ball Lightning is a really bad card by many metrics, but if you playtest a Burn deck in throw one or two in they WILL steal the odd game due to card efficiency (Burn's biggest problem has always been running out of Bolts).

Niko9 on MASSIVE EDH RC ban list …

7 months ago

I mean, I don't mind these bans too much, but I do think they are kind of strange choices, just because they seem to be aimed at a more competitive meta, but not addressing the problems of competitive decks, just the enablers for those decks. I feel like other cards that don't function in commander as intended might have been better choices.

Thassa's Oracle this seemed like it was designed to be a wincon for control decks that combo out in the end, but it turned into a turn 2-3 possible win out of no where.

Tainted Pact simply does way too much in a 100 card singleton deck

Ad Nauseam is gross in every kinda way : )

Necropotence is busted with 40 life

Rhystic Study is a turtley enchantment that doesn't do much in the format it was printed into

The One Ring was not intended to give you 3 turns of protection after being played

Nadu I am down with, just because it is almost impossible to make a non-combo Nady deck.

Really, I never ran any of the cards that got banned, I just think the mana cards there were more enablers for decks rather than the problem cards that come after being enabled. A dockside without some broken play after is kind of just a powered up deck, and it's easier to have a rule 0 convo about fast mana than it is to have a rule 0 convo about combo win that somebody's deck can't function without.

vic on 96 Swamp Deck

10 months ago

I think you also need Spellbook. Otherwise you can't make it work until Turn 7, when you can cast both Ad Nauseam and Sickening Dreams on the same turn. With Spellbook (or Reliquary Tower), you could keep your large hand and then win on Turn 6 instead of 7.

You could also make it work by fetching Dark Ritual on Turn 4, then Ad Nauseam on Turn 5, then doing everything on Turn 6.

nuperokaso on Win Turn 0 vs Yu-Gi-Oh

11 months ago

If you actually playtest the deck, many times your hand is not that great.

1. 8 of your tutors put the card only on the top of your library rather than into your hand. I suggest you play Demonic Tutor rather than Imperial Seal.
2. You have problems with color fixing. You end up being unable to play your cards because you don't have right combination of mana. If your plan is solely to play only one turn, then Lotus Petal is better than Mox Jet or Mox Sapphire.
3. With Dark Ritual and 8 Lotuses, It's reasonable to get to 5-6 black mana. Some 2 Ad Nauseam and/or Yawgmoth's Bargain would improve your consistency.
4. Ceremonious Rejection looks bad. If your only plan is to play for one turn, play Pact of Negation. You'll save 1 mana and have more possible targets. It's better if you start the game. If your opponent starts the game, Ceremonious Rejection only works if you have Leyline of Anticipation. And if you have that, you should able to win even with Pact of Negation trigger.
5. Play 4 Gitaxian Probe and 4 Street Wraith. Your deck doesn't care for life, and you need to get your relevant cards.
6. If you are allowed to play 4 Black Lotus and 4 Blacker Lotus, then I assume anything is playable. If so, you forgot to include the most powerful card in the entire history - Contract from Below

Niko9 on Favorite EDH Cards

1 year ago

Gleeock You know, being doomed by Wand of Wonder sounds like a really fun way to lose a match, so still a good time : )

Honestly, I'm not really sure how "commits a crime" works yet, but good to know that it might be something fun to explore. I was trying to get back into the game a bit and then the Princess Bride cards kind of broke my brain, so not really sure if I will check out the new sets right now. It's kind of weird that they don't have reminder text for these effects. I mean, I guess I should know what these effects do, but I really kinda don't.

And yep FormOverFunction the original Terror was such a creepy card, but in the best way. Part of me misses those legitimately scary cards, but then part of me thinks it went maybe a little too far with something like Ad Nauseam, so I don't know, but I love the original terror!

Azoth2099 on Healing Therapy with Mr. Oloro

1 year ago

Necropotence & Ad Nauseam love high life totals! Stuff like Approach of the Second Sun & Test of Endurance are interesting too. Cheers!