[Primer/Deck] Stax

[feline]

http://i.imgur.com/FOBjiAV.jpg

If you like strategies that take the ultimate control of the board, utterly locking your opponent out of the game, or just slowing the gamestate down enough to steal a win, going with what is known sometimes as a prison deck, or resource denial strategy, then Stax is the deck to play, while there are different variants of Stax, Mud or stompy stax that gets out a large creature after controlling the game state enough, or the extreme that is Mono white stax, or Prison Stax that is one of the more successful, giving key access to prison strategies such as more taxing effects & land destruction.

Please note: This is about Stax decks that have more of a focus on things like Smokestack, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void etc, whether it's Colorless or White, for decks that focus more on MUD aggro, Metalworker combo, Forgemaster, etc, go here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23388-Deck-MUD-(Metalworker)

1) Playing Stax
2) Successful decklists & trends
3) Card choices
3a) Maindeck
3b) Sideboard
4) Price guide
5) Awesome links
6) Previous Stax thread http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6044-Deck-Armageddon-Stax special thanks to Machinus (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/member.php?1427-Machinus)
7) 20 match ups

1) Playing Stax:
Version 1: Prison Stax strategies:
Your goal is to completely lock out the opponent, kill conditions in this deck are minimal, the only reason they even exhist is because you still can't actually win until the opponent is killed somehow, therefore, 2 for 1 kill conditions are the way to go, Mishra's Factory doubles as a 2/2 animation creature & a land for mana, & Magus of the Tabernacle doubles as a 2/6 that can also block, & puts out a taxing effect on opposing creatures, making it perfectly synergetic with the rest of your deck, Magus was practically built for a deck like this. If you're running the most extreme version of Prison Stax, sometimes referred to as Dutch Stax, you'll also be running the expensive Legacy staple Moat, combined with Humility it is a lock out against any/all creature based strategies, & most all decks in Legacy kill with creatures save for some combo decks.

Version 2: Stompy/Mud Stax strategies:
Your goal isn't so much to completely lock out the opponent, but to slow them down just enough so that you can stall them, before dropping something like Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Hero of Bladehold or Baneslayer Angel to take them down for the kill while they are severly impacted by your lock out, taxing, & resource disrupting strategy. Destroying all lands in play with one of your kill conditions out is sometimes a 100% win if it resolves, especially with stuff out like Trinisphere. If you are running MUD Stax, then you'll be colorless, and your creatures will be things like Lodestone Golem & Wurmcoil Engine, Metalworker is another card you'll see in some MUD stax builds, since it produces mana based on artifacts in hand, & you'll have so many.

Starting hand: Whatever your primary strategy is, you will want some sort of acceleration in your opening hand, whether it's a Mox Diamond, Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors. A general rule is this, you want to have 3 mana or more for your turn 2, since most of your deck is 3-4 drops. Another thing to take into consideration is on the play, turn 1 Chalice of the Void for 1, or even dropping a turn 1 Trinisphere after playing a Sol land (Tomb or Traitors) & the Mox.

Early game: The first thing you will do once you have a keepable hand is what any deck does, drop your lands, and start playing something, the first things that will likely come down are your Trinisphere's & Chalice's as noted above, but in addition, you also have access to Crucible of Worlds. If it's Prison Stax, additionally Ghostly Prison against creature based strategies, basically the first parts of the game you will get yourself setting up, getting out stuff that slows the opponent down.

Mid game: This is where things like Smokestack, Armageddon come into play, after getting down some lock out pieces, further cement the game state by restarting the game essentially with permanent disruption or even straight for land destruction. If you are stompy or MUD Stax you can then start dropping threats here, Wurmcoil Engine is especially effective against aggro strategies in that it's so hard to answer (Swords to Plowshares being the one exception) & can gain your life back that you've lost against an opposing, fast aggro strategy. As far as other creatures like Baneslayer Angel & Hero of Bladehold if you're running them, they can start to come down here as well, & if it's more Prison Stax, Magus of the Tabernacle, or even trying to complete the Moat/Humility combo if you have the pieces required in hand.

Late game: This is where you will "finish them" in most builds, though the Stompy versions can kill during the mid game if starting out with a smooth hand. In either case. While starting to take them down, your disruption will take things even further, after getting out things like Smokestack & ticking it up accordingly, if you have a Chalice of the Void at 1 in play, cast the next one for 2 counters on it, further cutting the opponent off from doing much since most legacy decks are filled with cards in the 1 & 2 converted mana cost ratio.
~Stompy: After getting your permanents into play that slow the opponent down as much as you can, you'll cast your creatures & start swinging, keeping the opponent slowed enough that they cannot recover as you eat at their life total, Hero of Bladehold is especially effective here as it swings for 7 at a minimum, makes threats, then even more damage comes across the following turn until you kill them.
~MUD: Similar to Stompy versions of Stax, once you've disrupted the game state enough, you will drop your artifact creatures like Wurmcoil Engine or Lodestone Golem and be swinging for huge chunks of their life total, while further cementing them out of the game with your disruption that you continue to draw.
~Prison: This version is the slowest, at a maximum you'll only start out swinging for 2 a turn, whether it's Magus of the Tabernacle or Mishra's Factory until you draw into more of them, or do 20 damage over the course of 10 combat steps, however, this version of Stax is so focused on controlling the board state with so many taxing effects & lockout strategies, once you're in a position where you're swinging for 2 a turn & you have control, your opponent will almost never recover & is as good as dead, it's just making it actually happen on the Life counter.

History: Stax type strategies have been around in different versions in Legacy for years, but one of the most common more recent strategies has been white/prison stax, focusing on a prison strategy that locks the opponent out of the game with what some would call, the ultimate form of control. For those most recent versions, we'll go back to the end of 2009 with a 1st place at the open series in Philadelphia.

2) Successful decklists & trends: from here http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/decklists/ & http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/formato.php?format=Legacy&page=1
2009:
1st place - Brian Peters - SCG Philadelphia (147 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=29960) prison stax

2010:
11th place - Alex Kenny - SCG Seattle (191 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=33315) prison stax
4th place - Hannes Knabe-Paulsen - Sommermercadiade 2010 (134 players) (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=3389&iddeck=8930) prison stax
6th place - Mori Tushi - Japan Legacy Championships (174 players) (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=2220&iddeck=28802) prison stax

2011:
13th place - Zack Strait - SCG St Louis (277 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=42537) prison stax with stompy elements

2012:
5th place - Hannes Knabe-paulsen - Iserlohner Magic-Treff (68 players) (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8321&iddeck=60643) prison stax
3rd place - Carson Long - SCG Dallas (174 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=44652) artifact stax
9th place - Matt Keefer - SCG Providence (247 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=45967) U/B
29th place - Christopher Yip - SCG Seattle (187 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=47521) B/W stax
15th place - Jacob Lombas - SCG New Orleans (92 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50387) prison w/out land destruction

2013:
5th place - Alessandro Fabricatore - MLL#12-Milano, MI (74 players) (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11118&iddeck=81232) prison stax

2014:
15th place - Scott Muir - SCG Columbus (342 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=62702)

2015:
37th place - Joshua Taylor - SCG Philadelphia (566 players) (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78468) prison w/out land destruction

3) Card choices:

3a) Maindeck: The prison Stax setup:
Taxing effects:
Magus of the Tabernacle (4) 1 of your kill conditions, synergy with land destruction & other taxing effects against creatures.
Ghostly Prison (4) synergy with land destruction & other taxing effects against creatures.
Stalling effects:
Trinisphere (4) synergy with land destruction & other taxing effects.
Chalice of the Void (4) a metagame card, your deck is almost built around it, most of Legacy's spells cost 1-3 mana while your deck starts at the 3 mana curve.
Tangle wire non traditional seen in fewer lists, has some synergy with taxing effects.
Can hit any permanent:
Oblivion Ring (4) one of your only ways to hit artifacts/enchantments/planeswalker's directly as removal.
Smokestack (4) synergy with much of the deck, & the namesake of the deck being called Stax.
Land Destruction:
Armageddon (4) synergy with taxing effects & trinisphere especially.
Wasteland (4) synergy & abuseable with Crucible of worlds against most decks.
Other advantage:
Crucible of Worlds (4) synergy with Mox Diamond, Land destruction, sac'ing to Smokestack.
Scroll rack non traditional seen in fewer lists.
White mana sources:
Plains (4) sometimes 3, sometimes 5.
Flagstones of Trokair (4) synergy with Armageddon & Smokestack.
Mana excel:
Mox Diamond (4) synergy with Crucible of Worlds, helps get out Trinisphere/Chalice of the Void as early as turn 1.
Ancient Tomb (4) helps get out Trinisphere/Chalice of the Void as early as turn 1.
City of Traitors (4) helps get out Trinisphere/Chalice of the Void as early as turn 1.
Other lands:
Mishra's Factory (4) 1 of your kill conditions.
Nomad Stadium non traditional
Kor Haven non traditional
Karakas non traditional
Maze of Ith non traditional

Other Stax strategies:
Stompy Stax: (more threats)
Baneslayer Angel (2-3) kill condition.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant (1-2) kill condition with a bonus if it 'ultimates'.
Hero of Bladehold (3) kill condition.
Stoneforge Mystic non traditional tutor for equipments.
Batterskull non traditional kill condition & lifegain against aggro decks.
Dutch Stax: ($$$ money stax $$$)
Enlightened Tutor non traditional tutor, though uncommonly seen with Chalice of the Void in the deck.
Humility (4) half of the moat/humility combo.
Moat (4) the other half of the moat/humility combo.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale synergy with taxing effects against creatures.
MUD Stax: (colorless)
Lodestone Golem (4) taxing effect against non artifact spells & a kill condition.
Wurmcoil Engine (3-4) a very effective kill condition that's also great against aggro strategies with it's lifelink & split token reanimation upon death.
Metalworker (3-4) potentially produces alot of mana from hand in full artifact MUD Stax builds. Can also give combo option with Staff of Domination if your version runs that setup, though it's seen in more aggressive MUD decks that don't run Stax.
Grim Monolith (4) mana acceleration.
Darksteel Citadel indestructible artifact land.
Phyrexian Metamorph (1 in the Carson Long list) can copy any artifact/creature in play.
Steel Hellkite (1 in the Carson Long list) kill condition & potential removal.

These are less common, but still noted as having some success in the past based on the history of higher placings of Stax decks:
Splashing green:
Savannah w/g land.
Horizon Canopy synergy with Crucible of worlds as recurring card draw.
Planeswalker Stax: (blue/black)
Jace, the Mind Sculptor card advantage, potential kill condition, creature bounce, & can help prevent opponents from topdecking good stuff.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas card advantage, potential kill condition, perfect in a deck with enough artifacts.
Force of Will Legacy staple, counterspell disruption.
Intuition instant speed tutor, as long as there's 3 copies in deck.
The Abyss creature removal, sacrifice effect every turn.
Engineered Explosives potential sweeper against multiple permanents based on converted mana cost.
Chrome Mox mana acceleration.
Academy Ruins synergy with Intuition, Smokestack, or anything that goes to the graveyard.
Tolaria West can tutor for Engineered Explosives
Island
Underground Sea
Polluted Delta
Pox Stax: (black/white)
Smallpox disruption in the form of discard, land, & creature removal.
Liliana of the Veil disruption in the form of recurring discard & creature removal.
Damnation sweeper against creature based strategies.
Hymn to Tourach 2 for 1 discard, card advantage on your end.
Lingering Souls blockers early, kill condition later, or both.
Vindicate destroy any permanent that is a problem, & is targetable of course.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Marsh Flats
Scrubland

3b) Sideboard:
~Graveyard hate:
Tormod's Crypt 0 cast mass graveyard removal.
Grafdigger's Cage 1 cast that "neutralizes" the graveyard, but also affects things like Green Sun's Zenith.
Relic of Progenitus 1 cast mass graveyard removal that cantrips.
Leyline of the Void "free" mass graveyard removal that continues until answered.
Faerie Macabre "free" graveyard targeting removal & uncounterable.
~Removal:
Oblivion Ring when not in the maindeck, at a minimum in the sideboard.
Wrath of God great against creature based strategies.
Powder Keg great against multiples of lower converted mana cost permanents from the opponent.
Pithing Needle great against planeswalkers, equipments, or other annoying activations from other permanents.
Phyrexian Revoker a Pithing Needle with legs that can even target mana activations.
~Combo hate:
Mindbreak Trap "free" against combo, essentially storm combo decks in paticular.
Rule of Law 1 spell a turn, also great against storm combo especially.
Ethersworn Canonist 1 spell a turn, same as Rule of Law.
Leyline of Sanctity also works against discard/burn strategies.
~Artifact, Enchantment hate:
Aura of Silence doubles as both a Disenchant & a taxing effect against artifacts & enchantments.
~Additional taxing effects:
Suppression Field great against lots of fetchlands & creature activations.
Defense Grid very good against counterspell strategies.
~Other:
Karmic Justice protection against artifact/enchantment hate against you.
Sphere of Law for opposing burn strategies.
Ensnaring Bridge great to bring in against decks that try to drop bombs, like Natural Order or Show and Tell strategies.

4) Price guide of more common Stax cards: As of March 2013 (For the most current prices, click on the link of each card) High-Mid-Low according to http://magiccards.info/ & http://magic.tcgplayer.com/all_magic_sets.asp
$50.00+ average:
Moat (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Moat) $330.10 $296.30 $257.03
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21The+Tabernacle+at+Pendrell+Vale) $359.98 $321.24 $295.00

$20.00 to $50.00:
Wasteland (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/340.html) $55.95 $49.62 $41.95
City of Traitors (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21City+of+Traitors) $36.03 $29.79 $26.99
Mox Diamond (http://magiccards.info/sh/en/132.html) $42.33 $30.43 $23.40
Crucible of Worlds (http://magiccards.info/10e/en/319.html) $29.98 $24.06 $21.50
Elspeth, Knight-Errant (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Elspeth%2C+Knight-Errant) $27.98 $23.30 $19.95
Grim Monolith (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Grim+Monolith) $26.47 $22.00 $19.31

$10.00 to $20.00:
Baneslayer Angel (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Baneslayer+Angel) $17.99 $14.01 $11.59
Humility (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Humility) $15.99 $14.16 $11.80
Metalworker (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Metalworker) $20.59 $12.30 $8.50
Leyline of Sanctity (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Leyline+of+Sanctity) $17.98 $12.52 $9.95

$5.00 to $10.00:
Wurmcoil Engine (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Wurmcoil+Engine) $12.95 $10.36 $8.96
Smokestack (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Smokestack) $12.45 $8.20 $6.73
Chalice of the Void (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Chalice+of+the+Void) $10.95 $9.11 $6.48
Ancient Tomb (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/305.html) $27.66 $9.53 $7.41
Flagstones of Trokair (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Flagstones+of+Trokair) $9.98 $5.95 $4.95
Ethersworn Canonist (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Ethersworn+Canonist) $10.99 $9.50 $8.00
Ensnaring Bridge (http://magiccards.info/query?q=ensnaring+bridge&v=card&s=cname) $7.49 $5.73 $4.49

$2.00 to $5.00:
Armageddon (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Armageddon) $7.47 $4.99 $3.70
Hero of Bladehold (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Hero+of+Bladehold) $9.20 $4.84 $3.66
Tangle wire (http://magiccards.info/query?q=tangle+wire&v=card&s=cname) $5.98 $4.75 $3.75
Phyrexian Metamorph (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Phyrexian+Metamorph) $7.99 $3.62 $2.89
Trinisphere (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Trinisphere) $4.45 $3.72 $2.95
Ghostly Prison (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Ghostly+Prison) $4.49 $3.32 $1.69
Mishra's Factory (http://magiccards.info/4e/en/181.html) $4.04 $2.86 $1.75
Powder Keg (http://magiccards.info/ud/en/136.html) $5.15 $2.65 $1.40
Mindbreak Trap (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Mindbreak+Trap) $7.98 $4.18 $2.85
Karmic Justice (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Karmic+Justice) $4.98 $3.55 $2.81

$1.00 to $2.00:
Darksteel Citadel (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Darksteel+Citadel) $1.98 $1.55 $1.19
Aura of Silence (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Aura+of+Silence) $2.04 $1.21 $0.94
Defense Grid (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Defense+Grid) $2.35 $1.45 $1.05

$1.00 or less average:
Magus of the Tabernacle (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Magus+of+the+Tabernacle) $1.98 $0.51 $0.15
Oblivion Ring (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Oblivion+Ring) $1.04 $0.53 $0.20
Lodestone Golem (http://magiccards.info/wwk/en/127.html) $2.01 $0.79 $0.43
Steel Hellkite (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Steel+Hellkite) $1.98 $0.95 $0.46
Tormod's Crypt (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Tormod%27s+Crypt) $1.02 $0.47 $0.14
Pithing Needle (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Pithing+Needle) $2.05 $0.81 $0.43
Phyrexian Revoker (http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Phyrexian+Revoker) $1.98 $0.71 $0.37
Suppression Field (http://magiccards.info/rav/en/31.html) $0.75 $0.27 $0.08

Plains (http://magiccards.info/ddk/en/38.html) $129.98(Guru) $5.07(Unhinged) $4.47(Unglued) $3.99(Beta) $1.00(Zendikar) $0.03(Basic)
http://i.imgur.com/06TAWpK.jpg

5) Awesome Links: In relation to Stax & Legacy
Price trends of Singles:
http://www.mtgprice.com/sets/Urzas_Saga/Smokestack

Stax articles/reports/etc:
2012:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_planeswalker_stax_wi.html Deck Tech, Planeswalker Stax, from SCG Providence (Matt Keefer)
2011:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_mono_white_stax_with.html Deck Tech. Prison Stax, from SCG St Louis (Caleb Durward)

Stax decklist sources:
Starcitygames.com Stax decklists (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?t%5BT2%5D=3&event_ID=&feedin=&start_date=2008-01-06&end_date=2013-03-24&city=&state=&country=&start=1&finish=32&exp=&p_first=&p_last=&simple_card_name%5B1%5D=smokestack&simple_card_name%5B2%5D=chalice+of+the+void&simple_card_name%5B3%5D=trinisphere&simple_card_name%5B4%5D=&simple_card_name%5B5%5D=&w_perc=0&g_perc=0&r_perc=0&b_perc=0&u_perc=0&a_perc=0&comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B1%5D=1&card_name%5B1%5D=&comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B2%5D=1&card_name%5B2%5D=&comparison%5B3%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B3%5D=1&card_name%5B3%5D=&comparison%5B4%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B4%5D=1&card_name%5B4%5D=&comparison%5B5%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B5%5D=1&card_name%5B5%5D=&sb_comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B1%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B1%5D=&sb_comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B2%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B1%5D=&card_not%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B3%5D=&card_not%5B4%5D=&card_not%5B5%5D=&order_1=date+desc&order_2=&limit=50&action=Show+Decks&p=1)
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/tipo.php?archetype=Stax&format=Legacy

Legacy metagame:
http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/decklists/
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/formato.php?format=Legacy&page=1
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24023-40-Tier-Legacy-Decks-Lists-Singles-Prices-etc-To-be-updated-regularly(started-2012)

For more on Dutch Stax: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?12515-Deck-Dutch-Stax
For -non stax- MUD decks that focus more on aggression & things like Metalworker: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23388-Deck-MUD-(Metalworker)

6) The previous Stax thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6044-Deck-Armageddon-Stax by Machinus (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/member.php?1427-Machinus) Special thanks to them, & to everyone that helped fill the thread over the past 6 years.

[feline]

7) 20 match ups: (Based mostly on decks that have performed with some level of consistent, higher placings since Return to Ravnica Legacy)

01) RUG (Moderate-Heavy playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard Get out your disruption early, & if they don't play a threat early, you can even wait a turn or 2 so you can better play around Daze & Spell pierce. Their deck is more reliant on non basic lands, some versions running only 1 basic Island if any at all, so getting out the Crucible of Worlds + Wasteland soft lock is very helpful against this deck mid game, early game however they will play almost everything since the mana curve of their deck is basically 1 or "free to cast" with the exception of Tarmogoyf or a hardcast Daze. Chalice of the Void for 1 is also very effective here, however they have counters so try to bait out a counter with something else before attempting to resolve, Trinisphere is good bait since if they burn a counter on it that eats 1, and if Trinisphere resolves, then they have to pay 3 to be able to counter your stuff at that point. Once you get enough disruption out, take them for the win, whether you're Prison Stax running Magus of the Tabernacle, or more aggressive versions with stuff like Hero of the Bladehold or Baneslayer Angel.
Post sideboard Defense Grid is something you can bring in since it can be a taxing effect against their counterspells or anything else they try to do on your turn, and resolving your permanents is important. They will likely bring in something to be able to answer your permanents, artifact hate like Ancient Grudge & Krosan Grip if they're running it even though it's converted mana cost is 3, a bit high for RUG, but still seen sometimes.

02) Stoneblade (Moderate-Heavy playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard Chalice of the Void for 1 hits their discard, brainstorm & Swords to Plowshares, & stopping swords can help prevent them from removing your kill condition later game when you start swinging. They are a control type deck so they won't have a fast clock, the first parts of the game will be spent trying to disrupt eachother's game plans, whether it's you resolving your permanents to slow them down, or them countering your more effective disruption. Land disruption is more vital here so try to bait a counter if you can before attempting to resolve Armageddon or Smokestack depending on which version you're running. Also if you're more Stompy of Mud stax, they have access to sweepers like Supreme Verdict if they are running, as well including Engineered Explosives & 3 colors from their deck that can hit your lower converted mana cost permanents, but will be less likely to hit stuff with converted mana cost 4 or higher. Prison stax's strategies can have a bit of harder time here since they can kill you with a Jace ultimate, so use your Oblivion Ring accordingly or keep them off of mana if you're pushing for more control elements, as far as more aggressive stax setups, you can just swing into a Jace to kill it, backed up with a Chalice for 1 that prevents Swords.
Post sideboard Between their Equipments, Stoneforge's, Jace & Engineered Explosives, Suppression Field can be helpful here, but over that make sure you have Oblivion Ring in the main deck if it's in your sideboard game 1 for their Jace's. A note on Dutch stax, Humility is less effective here on it's own since they have Batterskull & Lingering Soul tokens, & Moat is less effective on it's own because the Lingering Soul tokens are flyers. They may possibly increase their hate for your permanents in the form of Artifact/Enchantment destruction, or in the version that still run Detention Sphere expect the number of those to increase from the sideboard if they're running them.

03) UW Control Variants (Moderate-Heavy playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard Whether they are running the Helm of Obedience Rest in Peace combo or their kill is more reliant on Entreat the Angles you are going up against a control deck, the only exception is that the combo version might be a little more explosive or a little harder to stop. Also Rest in Peace can affect your Crucible of Worlds recurring lands like wasteland. If you're maindecking Oblivion Ring it will help against this strategy especially. Early game both sides will be presenting some sort of disruption, one package they are known for is Counterbalance Sensei's Divining Top. Chalice of the Void for 1 can prevent that from coming into play if you can get it off early, but luckily even if they get it going, the Counterbalance won't hit as much since your deck isn't full of 1 and 2 converted mana cost spells like most decks in the format. If you're pushing a more aggressive version of Stax, try to have a Chalice in play resolved with 1 counter so they can't Swords to Plowshares your kill condition, however still be aware of Terminus tricks with Top or Brainstorm draws during your turn especially. Land disruption is key against control decks as well, so if you can get a Smokestack to resolve while keeping them off of too many other permanents, or if you're running Armageddon it will go a long way if resolved. In the end whatever version you're running, they will be a deck that has a focus on creature removal & counterspells as their main game plan. Also to note, this is another deck that can kill with an ultimate from Jace, the Mind Sculptor because they run it as well, so even if you can control the state of creatures on the board, if a Jace resolves, you'll either have to Oblivion Ring it or manipulate Smokestack to get rid of it, or if you get to the point of enough control, swing at it with a creature depending on your strategy.
Post sideboard Pithing Needle if you're running it, though it's anti synergetic with Chalice, can hit Top & Helm, half of either "combo", Oblivion Ring if you have access to white should at a minimum be in the sideboard if not maindecked already. Defense Grid is also a card to note from the sideboard since they are a blue deck and you resolving your spells is important as always. They will likely bring in something to answer artifacts/enchantments like Disenchant or Detention Sphere, they also might bring in a little more counterspells in the form of Spell Pierce if it's in their sideboard.

04) BUG Variants (Moderate-Heavy playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard The difference between BUG aggro to BUG control builds, is that if you see planeswalkers & more disruption, it's likely control, if you see faster creature drops, Delver of Secrets, it's aggro, Daze is commonly seen in tempo, aggressive strategies. Aside from that, you can expect to see the same between most in the form of some sort of discard, some counterspells at a minimum, Abrupt Decay & creature staples like Tarmogoyf & Deathrite Shaman. There is also the potential for Shardless Agent if it's more midrange, and Baleful Strix if it's more control. For you, whether you're more aggressive or more prison stax based, you'll want to cast your disruption as in al strategies early, resolving stuff like Chalice & Trinisphere, then getting to a point of the midgame, if they are aggro, any additional slowing effects are especially effective, while Smokestack is more effective against more control versions of BUG. If you're running white in your deck, then Armageddon is also helpful, & of course, against aggro strategies Ghostly Prison early. If you are MUD Stax then you'll have more threats, & they can't so easily deal with things like Wurmcoil Engine once resolved, & Lodestone Golem can't be hit by Abrupt Decay either. If it's more aggressive white stax, then Hero of Bladehold & Baneslayer Angel naturally. 1 thing to note, Abrupt Decay can still hit Chalice at 2 counters because of it being uncounterable.
Post sideboard Oblivion Ring if you're running white should be in the maindeck at this point if not already, & Defense Grid can help whether you're White or Colorless stax, like against any blue strategy. Expect to see them bring in more disruption like Duress or Spell Pierce, while some versions might to try and answer things more directly like Krosan Grip from their sideboard for your permanents since you'll have so many that are targetable by it.

05) Jund (Moderate playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard They are a more mid range strategy with a focus on card advantage & efficient creatures like Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant Bloodbraid Elf, spells like Hymn to Tourach Liliana of the Veil & the newer legacy cards Abrupt Decay & Deathrite Shaman. Early game they will try to impact you with disruption, however it will be more difficult for them to answer your permanents once they hit the field, with the exception of Abrupt Decay, which even then can only hit stuff converted mana cost 3 or lower. If you are more Prison Stax it's an all out race for control, while if you're more aggressive Stax then you will want to stall them out & drop a threat to start taking them down once you've disrupted their gameplan enough. They will fight back with their discard which includes Thoughtseize as well.
Post sideboard Leyline of Sanctity can be effective since it can stop both their burn against you & their discard. They will likely bring in more disruption in the form of either more discard like Duress or removal like Maelstrom Pulse in which, some Jund lists will maindeck a Maelstrom Pulse or 2. They also may be packing Ancient Grudge.

06) Dredge (Combo, Light-Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard From the graveyard based deck like Dredge that casts everything for free or, maybe 1 to cast at most. You'll want to resolve a Trinisphere as soon as possible, a Chalice of the Void for 1 if you're on the play turn 1 can also be very effective. Smokestack doesn't do as much since the way dredge is setup, they will benefit from it more than you will because they don't care about sacrificing permanents near as much & can swarm an army of 2/2's out. If you're running more aggressive Stax, get enough disruption early to slow them down, though it might be more difficult to race a bunch of 2/2 Zombies from Ichorid & Bridge from Below every turn, as far as more prison Stax versions, you'll have access to Ghostly Prison & Magus of the Tabenacle, however even against these versions, Dredge also has access to Cabal Therapy so get your stuff out before they start attacking your hand regardless.
Post sideboard Graveyard hate is made for match up's like these, Tormod's Crypt Leyline of the Void or whatever your graveyard hate strategy is, usually however it's these options, because other graveyard hate has a converted mana cost that will likely be hit by a Chalice of the void for 1. They will likely bring in something like Nature's Claim to answer your hate if it's artifacts, on top of the fact that it can also answer your enchant's/artifacts that are problematic for them. They also have the transformational sideboard option of going Painter's Servant + Grindstone with back up from Enlightened Tutor & Unmask.

07) Maverick (Light playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard They are an aggro deck, as well they are another example of a deck that Chalice of the Void for 1 can hit a nice number of things, Noble Hierarch Mother of Runes Swords to Plowshares & even Green Sun's Zenith for 0 if they attempt acceleration on turn 1 aiming for a Dryad Arbor. The other option is to just lock out the first couple turns with a turn 1 Trinisphere After that, they will have access to things like Qasali Pridemage and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in addition to a few other 2 drops, so a second Chalice for 2 would likely set the game about done with an almost assured win, also a key note on 2 drops is Gaddock Teeg which can actually stop enough of your deck coming down to fight back with their own slowing effects to the game state, in which will affect you more than it will affet them. If you are more aggressive Stax, slow them down just enough to be able to start swinging with your threat & take them down, & if you are more Prison Stax, then get control of the board from the beginning & drop as much disruption & slow effects as you can, Ghostly Prison & Magus of the Tabernacle are especially effective to their strat full of so many creatures. If you are running the more extreme version of prison stax with access to Moat & Humility, Humility is especially effective against Maverick because so many of their creatures have so many abilities.
Post sideboard If you are Mud stax, Prison stax, or anything in between, they will bring in more answers for your artifacts / enchantments, more Qasali Pridemage or something similiar will come in, as well as more Gaddock Teeg. They will also have access to more 1 converted mana cost removal if they have Path to Exile in their sideboard, in addition to having Swords to Plowshares maindeck, so getting a Chalice to stick with 1 counter on it is important once you start swinging with a threat so that they cannot answer it so easily. You'll want to bring in anything that is mass removal, whether it's Powder Keg or Ratched Bomb from the artifact section, or even Wrath of God if you're running straight mass creature removal in Prison stax versions, luckily however, the prison stax decks are more equipped to handle Maverick, especially the ones that run Humility so you might be the same even after game 1.

08) Ad Nauseam Storm decks (Combo, Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard Turn 1 Chalice of the Void / Trinisphere, whatever version of Stax you're running doesn't matter, these 2 cards are your goal! just that alone can buy you the game, even a Chalice for 0 which stops Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox & Lotus Petal alone can hit them pretty hard depending on their hand. Their ultimate goal will be to cast an Ad Nauseam and draw a ton of their deck to finish you off, however it means little if they draw a bunch of cheap stuff only to have to pay 3 for each one, or have a bunch of them countered by Chalice of the Void. They will either aim for Storm count to Tendrils of Agony or Empty the Warrens & sometimes even Grapeshot. Chalice for 0, 1, or 2 are all good, as 0 & 1 hits most of their deck, & for 2 cuts them off of Infernal Tutor & Burning Wish. They will try to fight back with discard, and maybe Silence effects if they are running TES, though the discard is more impactful against stax since it's all non instant stuff. Again your key cards are Trinisphere & Chalice of the void.
Post sideboard Graveyard hate can be decent because of Past in Flames but you want to prevent them from going off at all, Leyline of Sanctity is a bit more effective in that it protects you against their discard, & it can prevent them from targeting you with some of their final kill conditions if they don't draw something that gives them access to bounce the Leyline. Another option if you're using them is Mindbreak Trap. They will likely be roughly the same even after sideboarding, since they are setup with a half wish sideboard, and the other half will be more dedicated to the anti blue match up which will not affect you. The one thing you might see is Chain of Vapor or Abrupt Decay but that's the extent of it. Also if Ethersworn Canonist is in your sideboard, it's a 1 card combo stopper against storm combo decks, if colorless, Sphere of Resistance.

09) High Tide (Combo, Moderate playtesting recommended, however a less common match up)
Pre sideboard You have to be the aggressive deck here, whether it's your plan to be aggressive stax already, or prison stax, Moat & Humility are utterly useless here, as well as anything else that affects creatures. Your best bet is to get Trinisphere & Chalice of the Void into play, along with Smokestack which is key, because it will almost always eliminate a land from them and their goal is to get lots of Islands into play. The hard part is that they can wait till the end of your turn, Cunning Wish & then the following turns, wait for a while if you don't pose a threat, then Rebuild all the artifacts away and go off without any problems. So if you're aggressive stax, get a threat out early & keep your Chalice & Trinisphere out accordingly while pushing for Smokestacks, if you're more prison stax, you'll be relying more on armageddon instead of your threat's because they will be too slow.
Post sideboard They will likely have the same game 2-3 plan against you, save for maybe bringing in a maindeck bounce target for Merchant Scroll. As far as what can help you, take out the dead stuff, anything that affects creatures globally & go more for control against spells, stuff like Defense Grid so you can resolve your Chalice's & Trinisphere's more safely, & if Ethersworn Canonist is in your sideboard, it's a 1 card combo stopper against storm combo decks, if colorless, Sphere of Resistance.

10) UR Delver (Light-Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard They are just another aggro deck, though their focus is more on burn & counterspells, Lightning Bolt Spell pierce & anything that compliments such strategies, one key card to look out for here is Price of Progress as it can do tons of damage, based on non basic lands you have out of course, so if you get high on non basics & low on life, keep an untapped Wasteland ready to nail one of your own lands to reduce 4 damage if it means being killed. Chalice of the Void for 1 here is another match up that hit's a LOT, like Goblin Guide Grim Lavamancer Spell Pierce Brainstorm Ponder Chain lightning Delver of Secrets & Forked bolt which can be the majority of their deck when it comes to their non lands. Complimenting that of course is also Trinisphere as it slows down 1 converted mana cost spells so significantly. Whether you're aggressive Stax or Prison Stax, those 1st couple turns getting out Chalice/Trinispheres will go a long way against this deck. Also be mindful if they get you low, if you're aggressive / Mud type strategies, Wurmcoil engine will gain you life back & eat at their life total fast, while prison setups can lock them out with Trinisphere & Armageddon resolved.
Post sideboard Leyline of Sanctity & maybe even Defense Grid, depending on what's in your sideboard, they will likely bring in Submerge if you're more aggressive Stax to further tempo you out, while whichever version you are, always watch out for anything that hits artifacts from red, like the potential for a Shattering Spree.

11) Show and Tell variants (Combo, Moderate-Heavy playtesting recommended, a more common match up)
Pre sideboard They are a combo deck, & their goal will be to cast things like Show and Tell & either Sneak Attack or Burning Wish depending on the version they are running, wish which can obtain a Show and Tell from their sideboard, or even a Petals of Insight with an Omniscience out, so if they Show and Tell & they are the Omnitell version, putting a Trinisphere into play can be very effective in stopping those tricks. Aside from that, whether you're aggressive or prison stax, they will attempt to dump out a Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn early & then use their bomb to kill you, both creatures being extremely effective in their own way against almost any strategy once hitting the battlefield. If you are aggressive stax, you will need to rely more on slowing them down while trying to kill them before they get to a point of Show and Tell'ing the game in their favor, while if you're prison stax & have access to white, especially if you're maindecking [cards]Oblivion Ring[cards] and/or Humility you can actually ride the Show and Tell itself, dropping one of those into play to turn one of their bombs into a 1/1, or remove them from the game before they can use it properly to attack you.
Post sideboard Defense Grid & Ensnaring Bridge are colorless, Oblivion Ring is 2W, whatever options you have, whichever version of Stax you're running, you should at a minimum have one of these 2 to bring in. They will likely have less to bring in if much at all, so their game 2-3's will look almost the same, Omnitell specifically has a Burning Wish half sideboard, so they will be even more focused on things that will not come in against a Stax match.

12) Belcher (Combo, Light-Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard Turn 1 combo kill deck of the format, or at least, turn 1 combo for a bunch of 1/1's and swing over some combat phases, whatever the case may be, a turn 1 Chalice of the Void / Trinisphere are as important here as ever, since most the rest of your stuff will be less effective, the only secondary out would be only if you're running prison stax, & only if they Empty the Warrens for creatures, in which I'm referring to Magus of the Tabernacle / Ghostly Prison / Moat if you're running such cards. After that, unfortunately, especially game 1, it will likely come down to the die roll, they just might kill you right there and game 1 will end, & your death right off the bat will be how you find out what they're playing.
Post sideboard Leyline of Sanctity can help against the Goblin Charbelcher but it doesn't help against their army, Ethersworn Canonist if you're running it is a bit more effective, if you have the W to cast it. Ratchet Bomb or Powder Keg if it's in your sideboard can help against the token army strategy. They will likely not change much since their sideboard is mostly wish targets & stuff for the anti blue match, not really anything that would come in against Stax.

13) Goblins (Light playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard They are an aggro deck with a huge focus on card advantage & overrunning, If you're more aggressive stax, you need to play the aggressive deck & kill them before they overrun you. If you're prison stax, you need to gain as much control of the board state to the point of them not even being able to attack you, Ghostly Prison Moat whatever your setup may be. Trinisphere & Chalice of the Void as weaker against goblins than other creature based decks because of Cavern of Souls Goblin Lackey & Aether Vial.
Post sideboard Any sort of sweepers from your sideboard if you run them can help, Ratchet Bomb or Wrath of God, but really you'll still have to focus on killing them before they kill you if you're aggressive stax, & take complete control of the boardstate if you're prison stax. They could bring in anything from Shattering Spree to Blood Moon.

14) Elves (Combo, Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard They are a tribal deck & a combo deck, which can take an aggressive route of action with lots of creatures to try and swarm you, or go combo with stuff like Glimpse of Nature or Natural order / Green Sun's Zenith for a Regal Force to draw a ton of cards, or a Craterhoof Behemoth to attack you for lethal with a small army. Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere are better in this match up because it really slows them down, so many of their elves are so cheap to cast. After that, start swinging with your creature if you're aggressive stax, & continue to take control of the board state if you're prison stax, Humility is especially effective against Elves if you are running it in your White stax setup.
Post sideboard Any sort of sweepers from your sideboard, Powder Keg or Wrath of God whatever options you may have can help. They will likely bring in Abrupt Decay / Cabal Therapy if they are splashing black, which will be noted by their land base and whether or not they cast Deathrite Shamans, they may also have access to Gaddock Teeg, Viridian Zealot & Viridian Shaman as a Green Sun's Zenith target to attempt to answer your permanents or prevent you from casting non creature stuff with X or cost of 4 or higher (Teeg).

15) Merfolk (Light-Moderate playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard Another tribal deck, though this one is more focused on backing up their strategy with some card draw like Standstill & counters like Force of Will Daze They will attempt to drop a bunch of "Fish Lords" that give eachother +1/+1 and the more that are out, the larger they get. Aside from that, try to drop a Trinisphere to make their counterspelling more difficult against your most vital spells, however they don't have alot of counterspells, mostly just Force, Daze, & Cursecatcher which cant hit anything but Armageddon, & that's only if you're running white. After that, get out your threat & start swinging if you're aggressive stax, they cannot properly answer creatures in play being a mono blue deck. While for prison stax you'll want to get out as many control elements as you can to stall the board state, until they can't even attack you anymore, Ghostly Prison Magus of the Tabernacle at a minimum go very far in slowing them down.
Post sideboard Defense Grid can help really put a taxing effect on their spells when they try to counter your own. They will likely bring in Submerge if you're aggressive stax, while if you're Prison stax it will more likely be some sort of counterspell increase, though counters can work against both setups.

16) Zombies, Zombardment, Walking Dead (Light playtesting recommended, however a less common match up)
Pre sideboard They will take advantage of synergy with the following cards Goblin Bombardment Cabal Therapy and Carrion Feeder, abused by recurring Gravecrawler Bloodghast & 4 creature from 1 card in Lingering Souls, backing up their gameplan by more discard potentially, including possibly Tidehollow Sculler. If you're more aggressive stax, get out your threats after droping your disruption, Chalice of the Void for 1 & Trinisphere are especially effective against this deck as most of their stuff is cheap. If you're more prison stax, then getting control of the boardstate may be more difficult because even stopping their creatures from swarming you, they can sac to Bombardment to finish you off over & over, so relying on Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere is even more vital, while backing it up with land destruction. Smokestack is weaker here since they can just lose a permanent much more easily with it affecting them less.
Post sideboard Leyline of Sanctity is a decent option to bring in, if you're running Pithing Needle in spite of running Chalice at the same time, it can hit Carrion Feeder & Goblin Bombardment as well as Deathrite Shaman. For them, Disenchant since they splash white means you can see this card, while they may also bring in cheap removal like Swords to Plowshares.

17) 12 post (Light playtesting recommended, however a less common match up)
Pre sideboard They are a ramp deck with combo elements, either they'll be focused on getting out as many Cloudpost as they can, or just dropping a bomb through Show and Tell. Based on the list that won San Diego back in January, Chalice of the Void can hit Crop rotation Sensei's Divining Top Pithing Needle Brainstorm Candelabra of Tawnos & Expedition map. After that they will have bigger stuff like Primeval Titan to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and other eldrazi in between. If you're aggro stax you'll have a harder time against this decks since racing them will require you to really slow them down, or really come out blazing because they can simply just start dropping their bombs from their hand the longer the game goes on, & they have so many ways of abusing getting out multiples of Cloudposts. Prison stax will have an easier time, however Emrakul still makes you sacrifice 6 permanents so if it swings, it can change everything, so try to control the board state as much as possible with as many permanents as you can to prevent that from happening, as Ghostly Prison & Magus of the Tabernacle mean little when they can just pay for it with so much mana from their lands, so Armageddon is a very good card here, & they are not big on disruption in the form of counterspells.
Post sideboard They will likely not have much to bring in against you based on the San Diego list, unless they change something specifically for a match up as such which is very unlikely. As far as your options, like Show and Tell combo elements, you can bring in Oblivion Ring if you are sideboarding it to ride their Show and Tells. While Ensnaring Bridge can be huge against this strategy, & is colorless to boot fitting into any stax, or any deck at all against Show and Tell setups.

18) Junk/The Rock (Light playtesting recommended)
Pre sideboard Another home to Knight of the Reliquary & Tarmogoyf aggro strategies, backed up by the newer Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay They are another aggro deck that will try to be disruptive with their discard taking key cards out of the opponents hand, then attacking the battlefield with their threats that are cheap, efficient & powerful fast. You'll want to slow them down as much as possible with your early disruption, then drop your threats if you're aggro stax, & drop more devastating control if you're prison stax. Also be mindful of a Chalice of the Void at 1 because they can still abrupt decay it, then use swords on your kill condition.
Post sideboard Ensnaring Bridge can affect enough of their creatures since they grow fast, while Leyline of Sanctity can help against their discard if you feel they will have more against you after sideboarding, which is a definite possibility since they're already likely running maindeck Thoughtseize & Hymn to Tourach, in which Duress or something else that can target & is cheap discard will probably come in, as well as artifact / enchantment hate, and Gaddock Teeg as a target for Green Sun's Zenith.

19) Death and Taxes (Light playtesting recommended, however a less common match up)
Pre sideboard They are an aggro deck with a stalling effect, but they are much more aggressive, running things like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben & Ethersworn Canonist, then even things like Karakas + Mangara of Corondor to start eating away permanents, abused even more with Aether Vial tricks. They will also have more disruptive creatures like Phyrexian Revoker, & Flickerwisp to take advantage of Mangara & Vial even further. Put our your disruption early with Chalice, Trinisphere, then start dropping your threats if you're aggro stax, & continue dropping more control permanents if you're prison stax, Thalia will be especially annoying, luckily however you have access to much mana. Also watch out for the Mangara sitting & eating your permanents by tapping, targeting, then bouncing with Karakas or Flickerwisp, it can actually do what you're trying to do, and you can be locked out of the game by their own version of stalling the opponent out with control elements that white does so well.
Post sideboard Wrath of God is great against a heavy creature based deck like this, while colorless sweep options rely more on Ratchet bomb Powder Keg if you're running them. They will likely bring in more answers to your artifacts/enchantments in the form of Disenchant stuff, whether it's Disenchant itself or a similar namesake spell or ability from their sideboard.

20) Stax The Mirror Match! (Moderate playtesting recommended, however a less common match up)
Pre sideboard If you actually go against a mirror stax match, you're probably the only 2 people playing the deck in the tournament as the deck is one of the rare'st decks you'd run into, aside from that, if it happens, it all depends on which versions you are running, if you're both aggressive, more prison based, or whatever in between, you'll have to base each game off of itself, the game state, cards in hand, what they're doing -vs- not doing, when to play more aggressively to steal a win, & when to play more control'ish so you don't lose. If you are aggressive stax, you will want to try and steal a win early if you're against control/prison type stax, since the longer the game goes, the harder it will become because they will have more control in the long run than you.
Post sideboard Remember their sideboard will be similiar to your own especially if you're both the same type of Stax deck, so you'll have to judge accordingly, maybe even "next level" them, try to figure out what they're doing based on what they think you're doing, and then 1 up them by doing something else that gives you an advantage in that regard. Anything from the sideboard that gives potential card advantage will help you most especially here, Wrath of God if you're white stax & against aggressive stax is about the biggest difference I can see between the sides, as aggressive stax will likely have a harder time winning against the more control'ish stax builds

[razvan]

First, great article so far.
Secondly, first article ever that I can think of that listed prizes.
Third, Armageddon is criminally underplayed. That card belongs in more decks.

[feline]

I assume you meant Prices instead of prizes? ^,^

[razvan]

Yeah, well, I have immigrant English, you get what you pay for! :)

[lithiux]

You have the Mishra's Factory prices wrong, as it is unacceptable to play with anything other than Winter Anitiquities Mishra's Factory.

[Lemnear]

You have the Mishra's Factory prices wrong, as it is unacceptable to play with anything other than Winter Anitiquities Mishra's Factory.

Now THAT was helpful *facepalm*

[(nameless one)]

You have to rename this as Armageddon Stax as there's also Dutch Stax (or are we just gonna put them in the same umbrella?)

[RaZe]

You have to rename this as Armageddon Stax as there's also Dutch Stax (or are we just gonna put them in the same umbrella?)

Elaborating on that. What is going to be the primary focus of this forum as you mentioned a lot of variations for stax? Mono white? Mud prison? All?

[feline]

I tried to note all stax strategies on some level, since any version of the deck is uncommon to see at the higher tables of larger events. and I believe I did that version of Factory's, they are averaging that price according to the sight, unless I actually did one incorrectly, I'll double check now.

-edit- Yes it's the same version of Factory that's the correct price according to the links.

& yes, an emphasis on Stax as a deck, since the most popular has been prison stax, while Dutch stax, stompy & mud type strategies, & even planeswalker (Blue/Black) & a Black/White stax deck have had success, so they got noted as well but the focus isn't so much on the 1 of rogue versions, they're just there for reference because people like stuff like that and technically, it did have success the 1 time it did.

[(nameless one)]

U/B Tezzeret Stax has a thread in New/Developing subforum. Sure that deck needs a threads in Estalished.

[kingtk3]

Good work Feline!
When you refer to MUD Stax do you intend this one: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23388-Deck-MUD-(Metalworker)
Because I think that the decks discussed over there are combo or tempo oriented instead of a real prison deck like in this thread.

[feline]

No this isn't so much the combo MUD, it's more the versions that focus more on Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Smokestack, stuff like that.

[guybrush3]

A FEW ANTICIPATIONS FOLKS:

Friday night i partecipated at a DCI tournament with the deck we talked about these days.People were surprised and seemed to appreciate how the deck worked.No other staxx were playing.We were something like 18/20 people. I'll go more in detail later since I don't have time now.
My deck:
4x chalice
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Nether Void
3x Braids, the Cabal Minion
3x Dismember
4x Trinisphere
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Talisman of Dominance
3x Dimir Signet
4x Wasteland
3x Smokestack
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Underground Sea
2x Underground River
1x Watery Grave
x4 Tezzy and x3 Lilly

Sideboard (was crap i assemble it with no time):
4 leyline of the void (never used it)
2 extirpate (never used it)
2 serum powder (sideboarded once)
1 ensaring bridge (never used it)
2 enginnered plague (never used it)
2 Massacre (sideboarded twice)
2 perish (sideboarded once)

Yes no helm . Didn't have them.I'll try the combo next time,fortunally no reanimator played against me.Or combo decks.


round1 lost 0-2
against GREEN/WHITE weenies,deathrite shaman, greensunzenit ,kor, stoneforge mystic, equipments, GADDOCK tegg (MAIN!) deck. How do u call this deck?Maverick right?
HATED CARDS: deathrite shaman,gaddock tegg

round2 won 2-1
against mono white weenie,with some artifacts such as Phyrexian Marauder , batter skull, serra avenger , aether vial,stoneforge mystic, Squadron Hawk
HATED CARDS:
karakas,flying creatures

round3 won 2-0
can't say i saw his deck cuz i completly blocked him from the beginning both games. However it was white blue deck ( think it was a BANT) with counters stoneforge mystics and dont remember what else.. many duals i can say due to the 3 color.
HATED CARDS:
none i can say

round4 draw due to points (played friendly and lost 2-1)
against team america if that is his name. Had Delver of Secrets , counters, burn spells, tarmogoyf
HATED CARDS:
Delver of Secrets (he killed me with the flying bastards without no other permanent on the ground.Forced me twice when i tried to remove it)

TOP8: passed

top8 quarterfinal lost 0-2
Against WhiteBlu Enchantress /Helm deck. (he never did the combo)
Lost after a 40 minutes first game due to the flying MIRACLED 4/4 creatures.
HATED CARD:
Jace (free brainstorm to draw lands permanents is to strong)


I can only say what the deck suffered the most are CREATURES. Sounds strange but its like this.
BEST CARDS: braids,chalice,trinisphere
MAYBE WORSE: liliana, nether void. ( ill explain later why liliana)

CARDS THAT MIGHT BE NEEDED IN SIDEBOARD/MAIN:

DAMNATION/THE ABYSS/TABERNACLE AT PENDRELL VALE/SMALLPOX/ALL IS DUST?

pithing needle for planeswalkers ( i forgot them)

Bye guys.I'll edit this post later with further explanations.Happy for the results.

[Crust]

Feline; awesome that you put the effort into writing and starting this Stax thread. I just started looking around for stax lists a while ago. Have a Soldier stompy deck with Chalice, Trinisphere, Suppression field, Chrome Mox and 2 mana lands so it's a kind of stax deck. So this intro to the stax gameplay is fantastic for me.
Right now my project is an Aggro stax deck with Hero of Bladehold witch I'm about to test during upcoming weeks. I'll post a decklist and some comments after testing.

[feline]

Thank you Crust ^.^

As far as Stax goes, it's definitely one of my favorite decks, if it was more viable in the format & I played a little more I'd consider pushing it at the Open Series as well, but mostly I just play it at the local level, it's just fun to play a prison style lock out deck, I absolutely love non traditional stuff.

[Remy]

First of all, thank you for the amazing work put into the Primer.

Back in the day (some 8-9 years ago) I used to play/have a vintage Stax deck which I loved. I'm considering making a legacy version though I would love to put some new spin on it.

Has a blue spash for the counter top combo been considered? (I assume it would have to run without the namesake card, but I figured a mix of scroll rack and divining top with chalice maindeck might make for an impressive lock. Good ol' JtMS could easily become the decks "finishing move")

In terms of a rough draft deck list I was looking at:

4x Mishra's Factory
10x Island
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
1x Academy Ruins
3x Wasteland
(24 lands)

4x Chalice of the Void
2x Crucible of Worlds
4x Tangle Wire
2x Engineered Explosive
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Scroll Rack
4x Counterbalance
4x Counterspell
4x Daze
4x Trickbind
2x Jace the Mind Sculptor

Conceptually the goal would be to land a turn 1 Chalice@1 to shut off the majority of legacy decks (until they can answer it) and utilize a very high 2CMC curve with CounterTop to shut out the remainder of what filters through. Crucible + Waste locking would be used to slow them down even further while Factories or Jace goes to town. My only thought is that Abrupt Decay may just make this entire idea null. But thoughts are always appreciated :tongue:

[VZK]

Hi all, I've always loved Stax decks, for a long time played all versions of white stax (even once played and t8d with Dutch Stax playing 3 armaggedon and 2 Ravages and 3 moat maindeck). I've also tested all colored versions and built different versions but lately I'm trying to build a consistent colorless lock stax. The following is my current build:

Post-stax
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
3 Trinisphere
3 Smokestack
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Lodestone Golem
3 Trinisphere
3 Tangle Wire
3 Winter Orb
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Karn Liberated

SB:
4 Sun Droplet
3 Damping Matrix
3 Oblivion Stone
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Tangle Wire
1 Smokestack

Card Choices

The 12 post lands
I was reluctant at first, but I've been more than impressed with the performance of this manabase. Cloudposts will easily produce more than :2: (without other drawback than entering tapped) and lots more which is just what we need since we play six sphere effect and 3 Trinisphere and our spells have high casting cost, the point is we'll be able to pay 6 mana for a 3cc card but most of other decks won't. Also the life gaining from Glimmerpost is really noticeable, some games it may be the difference between victory or defeat since we can take so much damage until we get control of the game and gaining 3 or 4 lives is easy but the fun comes at late game when you have like 4 locus on play, Crucible and Smokestack at 1 and sac Glimmerpost to replay it and gain life again and again (in extreme situations you can Wasteland your own Glimmerpost to replay it). Also we play Winter Orb and untapping just one Cloudpost we can get lots of mana (classical manabases can't do that and our mana denial needs this assimetry of mana production).

3 Sphere of Resistance - 3 Lodestone Golem
With CotV gives us 7 easy outs for unabling your opponent's turn 1. As for Golem: we need something to kill too! Also adding +1 to cc is just what we need ;)

3 Tangle Wire - 3 Winter Orb
Denying all this mana alongside the sphere effects really wrecks our opponents.

2 Phyrexian Metamorph
We can copy nasty threats from our opponent or duplicate our own threats (can copy 32 cards in maindeck)

1 Karn Liberated
Thanks to the Post manabase it's actually castable even under hard Winter Orb lock. Removes threats, with stalled game it's gg, in 3 turns can restart game with 2 permanents under your control (maybe Trinisphere and Smokestack ;)) You can also exile cards from your own hand to help Ensnaring Bridge.

3 Ensnaring Bridge
Forget that Emrakul, forget all those big creatures so easily! Almost definitive lock vs creatures when 0 cards in hand and topdeck mode with enough mana on.

4 Sun Droplet
I've even tested this card maindeck... I really like it. Works great with Ancient Tomb and with 2 or more Sun Droplets you actually gain life (tap tomb, 2 droplets get 2 counters each, pass turn +2 lives at opponent's upkeep and +2 at yours!). Maybe it should come back maindeck, please test it and let me know what you think. Really wrecks monored and similar decks.

3 Damping Matrix
This one I'm not really sure, but it comes handy vs Maverick and some other decks.

3 Oblivion Stone
Best out vs decks with lots of permanents, specially elves which is a horrible MU.

Other possible cards
Some of them are for maindeck, some are clearly for SB, some can be either maindeck or SB:
Academy Ruins (maybe this one should be a 1of again but I took it out since most of the time it was just a land that only produced :1: but when it's on, recurring Tangles and so on are really good ;))
Static Orb
Culling Scales
All is Dust
Witchbane Orb
Thorn of Amethist
Sundering Titan
Spine of Ish sah
Wurmcoil Engine
Defense Grid

Match up analysis
Coming soon...

Conclussion
I think this build can be effective, colorless deck trying to lock the opponent first then making itself way to finish the opponent once locked if they dont concede first. I really like the post manabase and the Tangle, Orb, Spheres sinergy sinergy. I'm still looking for new ideas both for maindeck and SB so all feedback will be kindly appreciated! Please test it and let me know!

[Anarky87]

I have a tournament on the 20th that I was thinking of playing Armageddon Stax in. But I've been doing some testing in my off time recently and I'm just getting destroyed by RUG Delver. Out of the handful of 10 game sets I've done, I'm only winning like 2/10 pre-board and maybe 5/10 post. I'm not keeping bad hands by any means (usually a mixture of lands and bombs), but the constant combination of Delver > Counter-any-card-you-play is making me second guess my choice. I try to play around Daze all the time, but usually when I do, there's just a Spell Pierce or FoW in the waiting anyway and I get annihilated by flying Nacatls. It seems the only games I win are where they have an atrocious hand, or I manage to land the Chalice @ 1&2. Any advice? I don't have much of a Legacy collection anymore, so I think my choices are either between this, Dragon Stompy, or Affinity. I really like the Stax-Prison strategy. Thanks.

[feline]

In pushing Prison Stax myself, I have had to go against RUG often enough, what is your list? I don't recall RUG being one of the harder match ups, but it's not one of the easier match up's either, just because it's RUG.

In either case, I pushed this against it, and it did help if I won the die roll, especially against RUG.
4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Tanglewire -then switched after awile for- 4 Humility
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Armageddon
- SB -
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Stony Silence

[Anarky87]

My current list is:

5 Plains
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Karakas

4 Magus of the Tabernacle

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Armageddon
3 Humility
4 Mox Diamond

I only own 3 Trinispheres at the moment, but it seemed to work out because I felt like I was getting land light hands a lot, so I tossed an extra Plains in. I've been testing on Cockatrice, so I don't know if that's the reason, but it seems like the opponent gets 1 Delver, 1 blue producing land, and 6 counters in every game.

I don't know what I want in the board right now. I might try to nail it down the closer it gets and I find out who all is going to be attending.

Edit: Made a switch in the MD to try out -4 O-Ring for +3 Humility and +1 Trinisphere

[Tonyjackpot]

I almost play the exact same list, but with a fourth flagstone and a horizon canopy instead of two factories. In fact, do you find them useful enough to be a 4 of ? What for ? I often need a white mana more than a 2/2 which is likely to chump block early in the game !

My SB for this list is :
4 leyline of sanctity
1 sundial of the infinite (i also play one MD instead of a fourth oblivion ring)
2 humility
2 elspeth
1 trading post
1 karmic justice
2 cursed totem
2 timely reinforcement

Lots of one of... Not totally convinced

[paeng4983]

A merged thread for all stax lovers! Good job on this one TS. With me yesterday was a dutch stax and I participated yesterday in a 65-man legacy tournament but had a dismissal record before dropping out of the tournament. I managed to win vs. Ur delver, sneaky show but lost to dredge, dredge and a hypergen.

From your experiences, how's your game vs. dredge? It really irked me that I was helplessly against it. Their game plan were just to fast as compared to ours.

Here's the SB list btw that I had:
4 Swords to Plowshare
4 Trinisphere
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Tormod's Crypt

*cheers

-Paeng

[Anarky87]

Has Humility been worth it? I was kinda staying away from it because of Magus. But if it's legit, I might make the swap to:

-4 Oblivion Ring (moved to the SB)
+3 Humility
+1 Trinisphere

Also, how hard is it to get the WW for it.

[feline]

If it helps I did the same thing, I basically moved Oblivion Ring to the sideboard & maindecked Tangle Wire then eventually I just replaced Tangle Wire with Humility.

If I had Moat I'd just play Dutch Stax myself, in which if the deck had a little more performance I'd probably invest in them, but Stax overall just doesn't perform as much.

[Anarky87]

On another note, what would be suggestions for a SB going into an unknown meta? I imagine there will be some blue-control being played, but that's about it. The few attempts I've brainstormed have been:

SB 1: 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 4 Oblivion Ring, 3 Tormod's Crypt, 2 Suppression Field, 2 Uba Mask
SB: 2: 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 4 Oblivion Ring, 3 Tormod's Crypt, 2 Suppression Field, 2 Stony Silence

I'm pretty set on Leyline, O-Ring, and Crypt for graveyard decks. The last 4 slots I'm not sold on. I figure Fields and Masks against control, but then I thought maybe I should throw Stony Silence in there in case of an Affinity decks. Not sure.

[Tonyjackpot]

I'm playing the deck today and I chose the sundial of the infinite strategy... But it just doesn't win.
Does it work, yes. Win, no, because opponents just don't scoop. Basically, if they win game 1 and if you settle sundial + trinisphere + smokestack, they can not win, but they are unfortunately not compelled to scoop. Even if they play "quick" (at least quick enough for a judge), it takes all the time of the round and you just lose. So sad... I wonder how trading stax did so well, now that I figured it out.

[GoldenCid]

I used to run geddon stax when survival was on line everywhere. In that moment i maidecked 3 suppression field and after the ban of survival i removed it away. Now think:

Shaman
Jace
Top
Vial
Fetchland
Reliquary
Mother of runes

and so on...

I really think that SF worth the pitty in the maindeck. Nowadays every deck has activated abilities.

Just my opinion.

Despite this the biggest problem of stax is the library manipulation that seems to has no solution. Anyway an awesome lover / hated deck!

GC.

[Anarky87]

I'm gonna try running a pair of Fields in my deck again. I've cut 2 O-Rings for them. I didn't end up running Stax for the tournament this weekend (which was a mistake because the meta was really good for it), but I have another tournament on May 18th, so I'll give it a whirl then.

[dcosiem]

Has anyone considered Nevermore? I feel like you need oblivion Ring in this deck because Jace, the Mindsculptor can really give you a problem if he is resolved.

[GoldenCid]

Has anyone considered Nevermore? I feel like you need oblivion Ring in this deck because Jace, the Mindsculptor can really give you a problem if he is resolved.

You do need to jace an answer to jace! O-ring ans Smokestack are great cards for that purpose...i see nevermore a bit narrow...

[feline]

Oblivion Ring's are definitely more popular than Nevermore's, since Oblivion Ring has actually been ran and I don't think Nevermore is in any of the more successful lists I've overviewed according to thecouncil/starcitygames/etc.

[dcosiem]

Nevermore seems like a skill intensive strategy to deploy on your opponent. I feel like if i'm unable to set my lock pieces: Ghostly Prison, Magus of T, Smokestack, etc, Nevermore is in some ways better than Oblivion Ring because it stops continual play action of cards being named. I'm going to test 2 in my main deck with split 2 Oblivion Ring.

[GoldenCid]

Nevermore seems like a skill intensive strategy to deploy on your opponent. I feel like if i'm unable to set my lock pieces: Ghostly Prison, Magus of T, Smokestack, etc, Nevermore is in some ways better than Oblivion Ring because it stops continual play action of cards being named. I'm going to test 2 in my main deck with split 2 Oblivion Ring.

It sounds true on paper. O-ring lets you to cope to "visible" threats while Nevermore is more "theorical". Except in the case of combo no deck will loose to nevermore even if you name correctly. But if you wish you can take your playstyle. What i recomend is to avoid the splits in this deck. Stax is one of the most sinergistic decks in the format basic on its redundance because we almost have no way to manipulate our library. With the exception of certain win conds i 'd run not less than 3 of everything.

Side note: has anybody tested Bottled Cloister or Scroll Rack as fuel cards¿?

GC.

[dcosiem]

It sounds true on paper. O-ring lets you to cope to "visible" threats while Nevermore is more "theorical". Except in the case of combo no deck will loose to nevermore even if you name correctly. But if you wish you can take your playstyle. What i recomend is to avoid the splits in this deck. Stax is one of the most sinergistic decks in the format basic on its redundance because we almost have no way to manipulate our library. With the exception of certain win conds i 'd run not less than 3 of everything.

Side note: has anybody tested Bottled Cloister or Scroll Rack as fuel cards¿?

GC.

Deck manipulation is the only thing this deck lacks.

[GoldenCid]

Deck manipulation is the only thing this deck lacks.

Imagine stax manipulating the library consistenlty....sol lands would be banned inmediately!! :P

Back on o-ring versus nevermore: o-ring is far better against SnT decks.

GC.

[Anarky87]

Given my love/hate relationship with this deck, I've still been tinkering with my list and tweaking slots. I'm trying to convince myself to play it at a tournament on the 18th, but I almost feel like I should just play DnT instead. Mostly been having issues against other creature decks. The other night at work I lost 1-2 to a B/R Standard Vampires deck which made me hit the drawing board again. Also games against RUG Delver have still been kind of a toss up. Sometimes you get the lock on them, and sometimes they sneak a Delver in before your lock pieces and just counter anything relevant while Delver goes to town. So here's my current list:

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Armageddon
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Mox Diamond
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Suppression Field

SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Timely Reinforcements
SB: 2 Wrath of God
SB: 1 Oblivion Ring
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt

I added the Grid's for tempo decks as an additional 'Sphere' effect. I also was going to run some Zuran Orb's in my board after watching Matt Keefer keep afloat with it against Ur Delver at a SCG Open. But then my friend informed me of Timely Reinforcements as a better alternative that wouldn't set me back mana-wise. Mostly there against the aggressive decks to keep my life total up, while making road blocks so I can attempt to establish control. One thing I've wondered about is how have people been getting by running just the 24 lands? Before, I was running 24 and felt a little light on mana and had Diamonds getting stuck in my hand sometimes, so I added the 25th land to help with that and to also help recovering from a Wasteland draw from the opponent. However, I've noticed I tend to get flooded now, and I'm contemplating just offing the Karakas and going back to 24 lands.

That's all I have for my essay. Would love to hear some other people's input.

[GoldenCid]

You said it my friend. Stax variants are loved - hated by its pilots and hated by its oponents.
In the last time i loved it more than i hated it because i think i improved my game. I made a list with 4 O-ring and 3 Smokestack main deck to improve my removal stuff. One of the problem we have is, due that we lack of library manipulation (c`on horizon canopy + crucible is not manipulation), that an eraly therad that got rid from our chalice @ 1 (delver, mongoose, lackey, goblin guide and to a less extent shaman) could be a nightmare. For this reason i included 4 O - ring MD to increase the chance to resolve this situations while making a soft lock. In this situation where a small vampire could be nasty (remember the damage we deal uorself with tomb) cards like O-rig , prison (in that order) then smokestak and mishra's factory shine while a magus follwed by a geddon (if we survive) will win the game.
Fast pressure is not good for stax so we have to be redundant to get solutions. Tempo deck are our worst match up: efficients guys + counter magic is terrible. So DEfense grid is a good choice here as you mentioned trini sphere is too. I'm including Null Rod x 2 in the side as testing slots because it anulls top, vial and equips for the low price of cutting our moxes. I choosed rod over Stony Silence because we don't always have 1W in t1 but (2) we do. It improves t1 opposing tops. Anyway the MU pass from bad to regular.
Another hard MU is goblins. A t1 lackey demands you a t1 O-ring. If not we are almost done. I said almost!!!
I included in my side 2 copies of Sphere of Law which amilorates the damage of the goblin horde to a good extent. You can drop it in t2 to buy a great deal of time in combination with prison effects.

I liked timely reinfortments in your side! What experience did you made with it??

Side note: up to now i had no problem for beating death and taxes (i have posituve record against that deck)

GC.

[feline]

Got 2nd at a local Legacy tourney tonight in a 4 rounder.

Loss, was to a Ral Zarek Stasis deck, was very interesting because I never thought I'd see someone play stasis after all this time. Technically we ID'd for that round 4 and split 1st/2nd, but then we play a best of 3 anyway and they got it on game 3. Basically we're both going for a prison style strategy, but they can get there a bit faster with all their card draw being mono blue, as well as having access to counterspells to hit my most damaging stuff and put it into the graveyard instead of it resolving. As far as game 2 went, I was able to resolve enough to lock them out of the game, but they got their setup before I did games 1 & 3.

Also in reference to my round 3 opponent, Stony Silence is awesome against affinity!

Setup is still:
4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokiar
4 Mox Diamond
4 City of traitors
4 Ancient tomb
4 Mishra's factory
4 Wasteland
4 Chalice of the void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Magus of the tabernacle
4 Ghostly prison
4 Humility
4 Armageddon
-sideboard-
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Stony Silence
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Oblivion ring

[GoldenCid]

Congrats!!!!!

If you could detail us about your loss against Stasis i'd be loved!
Even more if you could provide the dekclist the better!!

GC.

[SteakKnife]

Got 2nd at a local Legacy tourney tonight in a 4 rounder.

Setup is still:
4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokiar
4 Mox Diamond
4 City of traitors
4 Ancient tomb
4 Mishra's factory
4 Wasteland
4 Chalice of the void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Magus of the tabernacle
4 Ghostly prison
4 Humility
4 Armageddon
-sideboard-
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Stony Silence
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Oblivion ring

I have a few comments/questions.

4 flagstones for 4 plains? I would think you have too few plains for 4 flagstones to be worthwhile. I personally run 3 flagstones 5 plains.

Running humility and magus: This seems like an odd mix. Humility tries to punish creatures for their abilities. Magus has an ability that punishes players for playing numerous creatures. Humility makes magus worthless. I run humility but use Elspeth as a win condition as it feeds stax and is good with humility out. (not as good with ghostly prison I know) I would think you would be running O-Ring main instead of humility to deal with annoying things.

[clavio]

Setup is still:
4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokiar
4 Mox Diamond
4 City of traitors
4 Ancient tomb
4 Mishra's factory
4 Wasteland
4 Chalice of the void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Magus of the tabernacle
4 Ghostly prison
4 Humility
4 Armageddon
-sideboard-
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Stony Silence
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Oblivion ring

I've been playing around with this list. I don't like humility here. It's a strong card, but with only 12 white sources I'm having trouble casting it. Is it worth running (as a four of!) even if it is uncastable from time to time? Also, why stony silence over null rod?

[feline]

Creatures [5]
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Exalted Angel

Sorceries [4]
4 Armageddon

Enchantments [11]
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Spectral Prison
4 Suppression Field

Artifacts [16]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere


Lands [24]
1 Karakas
3 City of Traitors
3 Darksteel Citadel
3 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains

4 Rest in Peace
3 Humility
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Helm of Obedience

June 9th 2013, 5th place of 74 players, http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11118&iddeck=81232

Also, I don't think Spectral Prison is actually in the list, I think that is an error.

[art138]

Creatures [5]
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Exalted Angel

Sorceries [4]
4 Armageddon

Enchantments [11]
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Spectral Prison
4 Suppression Field

Artifacts [16]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere


Lands [24]
1 Karakas
3 City of Traitors
3 Darksteel Citadel
3 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains

4 Rest in Peace
3 Humility
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Helm of Obedience

June 9th 2013, 5th place of 74 players, http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11118&iddeck=81232

Also, I don't think Spectral Prison is actually in the list, I think that is an error.

Ghostly Prison, perhaps?

[feline]

It's gotta be Ghostly Prison, it's the only prison that makes sense ha ha

[Anarky87]

Using the typical Smokestack/Armageddon/Wasteland, but no Crucible. Seems kinda odd.

[Deadpool]

Using the typical Smokestack/Armageddon/Wasteland, but no Crucible. Seems kinda odd.

He cut Crucible in favor of being able to board into the RiP Helm combo for his win condition. I'm not sure what to make of this strategy.

[Anarky87]

I was running the combo in the board there for a little bit before I shelved the deck. But I never felt I wanted/needed to cut Crucible. Even with the combo, sometimes turn 2 Crucible, turn 3 Smokestack just got there.

[Deadpool]

I was running the combo in the board there for a little bit before I shelved the deck. But I never felt I wanted/needed to cut Crucible. Even with the combo, sometimes turn 2 Crucible, turn 3 Smokestack just got there.

I wish I could report similarly. I've actually been somewhat disappointed with landing Crucible/Waste "lock" recently. I love the MB Suppresion Fields from this list, I'm thinking about giving that a go.

[GoldenCid]

Ghostly Prison, perhaps?

Tabernacle effects?

[art138]

Tabernacle effects?

Yeah, I like Tabernacle in the board, but I was just suggesting that Ghostly Prison might have gotten misreported as Spectral Prison.

[GoldenCid]

Sure it is a misreported ghostly prison. Moreover a blue card with just moxes as blue mana source doesnt make sense.
And why should you run tabernacle effects in side? I think that they are pretty sinergic!

[frogger42]

I've got a brilliant idea to add another $200 to the deck: what about Eureka? Stax kinda struggles on tempo a bit, as it always has to play one big piece at a time (so it gets blown out by Daze/Pierce), but Eureka is like a super Show and Tell for the deck, potentially allowing you to catch up on "lost" turns. And if you don't run against blue, then it's like an auto-win (supposing you have a couple lock pieces and PW'ers).


4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Plains
2 Karakas
4 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
2 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Trinisphere
4 Humility
3 Eureka

4 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Gideon Jura
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Karn Liberated

O Rings and RiP in the board. Just been shuffling it to myself so far - I'd like Garruk to be something stronger, and Crucible to be just another lock piece, but maybe it's strong enough on its own. I'd also like not to be blown out by Gaddock Teeg...

[MightyPenguin007]

@frogger42 - I think the Eureka idea is somewhat interesting, but it would most likely end up hurting more than helping. I haven't played Legacy for a long time, but blue is fairly prevalent from what little I've played. I still like Eureka though. Fun card.

Back to the thread - I've been checking out some of these Stax-type threads over the last two or three weeks, and I have to wonder the reasons why this isn't played more often. I mean, I realize it probably takes a considerable amount of skill and one sadistic bastard to play this kind of deck, but it seems like it would have a good amount of game against most decks. Is there a reason below the surface that I'm not seeing which makes people steer clear of this kind of strategy?

Also, I've seen White, White/Green, and Green strategies in this same vein. Is this a matter of preference on color, card choices, or is it generally accepted that one is superior to the others? And while I'm on that topic, is this thread suitable for discussion on all variants of Stax or just the white-based strategies?

Thanks!

[frogger42]

Back to the thread - I've been checking out some of these Stax-type threads over the last two or three weeks, and I have to wonder the reasons why this isn't played more often. I mean, I realize it probably takes a considerable amount of skill and one sadistic bastard to play this kind of deck, but it seems like it would have a good amount of game against most decks. Is there a reason below the surface that I'm not seeing which makes people steer clear of this kind of strategy?


I think the main problem with the deck is it doesn't play Brainstorm. Really. It doesn't have any serious filter (some run Sylvan Library, but you run so few shuffle effects it's not generally worth it), so it lacks a lot of consistency. The manabase is also... hit or miss, to put it. Sometimes you get Sol lands when you need them; sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get all Sol lands and can't play your most relevant spells - that's happened to me a lot. So it's not the most consistent deck out there, even though the prison strategy and elements are especially strong.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think UB Stax is the most powerful version. My list ran Intuition + Tolaria West for tutoring, and white simply doesn't have access to those kinds of effects. Also, add in that Abyss is like a Smokestack with haste (and for your opponent's relevant threats, ie creatures), plus Jace, and you have a deck that's a bit faster and more flexible than traditional Wx Stax. Tezz, Agent of Bolas is probably the single best PW'er printed, except you have to build your deck around him - which is what the deck is. Now, add that you need Jace x3-4 and Abyss pref x4, and you have a deck that very few people are likely to build. So very uncommon.

Also, the prevalence of Thalia absolutely wrecks this deck, any version of it, and is much more common than Teeg (who's just a kill switch). Abrupt Decay lessens the value of getting down a Chalice @ 1 Turn 1, though it's still a strong play.

It's not actually too difficult to play, you're pretty much restricted to running down 1 prison piece at a time. You can play mind games against Force of Will by holding back your more relevant piece and letting them Force something like Ghostly Prison. I'm going to try Eureka anyway, as it seems like it might blow out the non-U strategies, and I'll work on it eventually. I like that the only non-synergy is Trinisphere + Mox Diamond, as opposed to Ghostly Prison and Planeswalkers that usually shows up (your opponent doesn't need to pay to bash your Elspeth). Thanks for your thoughts, and will let you guys know how it goes at the weekly. Go proxy it up on MWS or Cockatrice and give it a whirl. People will hate playing against you.
-Frogger

EDIT: Another card, Cavern of Souls, can also lessen Chalice's effect, but it's mainly those other cards I mentioned. Cavern tends to show in Goblins, against which Chalice is terrible. SB'ing with this deck is probably the hardest part of playing it.

[HammerAndSickled]

Eureka has got to be one of the worst ideas. You play a ton of lock pieces to stop them from casting spells, then you give them an outlet to put all their permanents into play for free, completely bypassing all of your lock pieces?

[frogger42]

Eureka has got to be one of the worst ideas. You play a ton of lock pieces to stop them from casting spells, then you give them an outlet to put all their permanents into play for free, completely bypassing all of your lock pieces?

Noted. It's also a way to break tempo with a slow slow deck and catch up. It's also a "I don't need to play this if I'm winning" kind of card, because everything's castable. It's probably best if you have Humility in hand, as that will muck up most of the cards your opponent is likely to play.

[SteakKnife]

@frogger42 - I think the Eureka idea is somewhat interesting, but it would most likely end up hurting more than helping. I haven't played Legacy for a long time, but blue is fairly prevalent from what little I've played. I still like Eureka though. Fun card.

Back to the thread - I've been checking out some of these Stax-type threads over the last two or three weeks, and I have to wonder the reasons why this isn't played more often. I mean, I realize it probably takes a considerable amount of skill and one sadistic bastard to play this kind of deck, but it seems like it would have a good amount of game against most decks. Is there a reason below the surface that I'm not seeing which makes people steer clear of this kind of strategy?

Also, I've seen White, White/Green, and Green strategies in this same vein. Is this a matter of preference on color, card choices, or is it generally accepted that one is superior to the others? And while I'm on that topic, is this thread suitable for discussion on all variants of Stax or just the white-based strategies?

Thanks!

HammeredandSickled has pointed out the major reasons why Eureka are bad.

As to why this deck isn't played often: Being on the play is incredibly important. Stax can just fall behind and has a hard time catching up without armageddon. Winning game 1 just so you can be on the play for game 3 is really important. If you lose game 1 then your are at a big disadvantage. Scariest things to see are first turn vial or lackey. Even when you get a hand that let's you first turn chalice/3sphere and then crucible/smokestack, you may just draw cards you can't play or you don't get wasteland/geddon and eventually just have to sac smokestack and the game is reset except your opponent has been drawing a lot of cards and sculpting a good hand to come back while you probably dont' have anything left.

Also, I don't think this deck takes much skill. It requires patience and good mulligans. It's like a simple combo deck that takes 20-30 minutes to win a game if your opponent really doesn't want to give in. Can you play chalice/3sphere and/or crucible/smokestack on turn 1-3 and hope every hand has armageddon? No? Then you mulligan or generally lose.

I personally like mono-white as I love playing Humility and Elspeth.

[frogger42]

HammeredandSickled has pointed out the major reasons why Eureka are bad.


Not really, not that I've noticed. I get why it'd be bad to run it in the traditional Stax build, as those lock pieces are more prison-y, and prevent your opponent from landing things. But something like Humility, or Karn, will disrupt your opponent's entire gameplan, plus give you a PW'er to win with every turn. I think the pieces for this kind of prison will be different, will likely all be PW'ers, and will probably not be things like Trinisphere or Smokestack. Guys like Karn and Vraska can go 1-for-1 with what your opponent plays on the Eureka board, and still remain on the table to generate card and board advantage. I think that's where this should go.

I just played it tonight and I'm still working out the manabase. I went 3-1, but really 2-2 with it; the goblins player was so blown away by it, he scooped to me just to play the deck himself. I think it might have potential. It doesn't not have potential right now. I think I'll take the discussion on the Dev Board, as it's probably going to be pretty different from Stax, and from what I've been hearing, you guys aren't really too stoked about it. Thanks tho.

[diego1985]

Hi i will try this list but i have a difficult to set a sb. Can you help me? What you think about a md list? Thanks

// Deck: Prison Stax (60)

// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Crystal Vein
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Mishra's Factory
5 Plains
4 Wasteland

// Creatures
3 Magus of the Tabernacle

// Sorceries
4 Armageddon

// Enchantments
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring

// Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
3 Tangle Wire
3 Trinisphere

[feline]

Nothing too exciting, just a 3 round tournament, 2nd place, almost won a Tundra:

Went against Elves (won in 3), then Elves again (won in 2), then RWU Pyromancer Delver (lost in 3)


4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Humility
4 Armageddon
-sideboard-
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Stony Silence
3 Oblivion Ring

Against Elves, the only issues I had between the 2 decks was game 1 round 1, where they got out enough mana with Priest of Titania / Lords, that the Taxing stuff was irrelevant, and instead of attacking, they just infinite combo'ed with Staff of Domination, drew their entire deck, hard cast Emerakul & killed me by un equipping & re equipping Livewire Lash.

Against the RWU Pyromancer Delver deck, I got the 1st game, then lost the next 2. I could have possible mulliganed my hand game 2 but it was good enough to keep and I really hate to mulligan. The biggest issue both games was actually Wear//Tear. Especially game 3. They were bringing me down and I eventually got out a Ghostly Prison & then Chalice of the Void at 1 -or- Smokestack, I don't remember. But they did Wear//Tear on both and took down the Prison & an artifact. If they had not nailed Ghostly Prison I was basically setting myself up to stabilize and until that point I felt I had the win incoming. Long story short, at the end of the match I felt like I lost to Wear//Tear between the 2 game losses, only way to completely stop it on top of that, is to have a Chalice at 1, 2, & 3 because of how that works, or of course, Trinisphere and the opponent with less than 3 mana sources. Neither of which happened games 2/3 for the final lockdown.

Even though I love High Tide, at the local level, I always find myself playing this deck more, it's just, ridiculous, & in my opinion easier, to gain control with a lock down, then just let the deck do the rest of the work for you once you establish. Though sooner or later I will consider pushing Prison Stax on some level at bigger events because I'm just that crazy.

[paeng4983]

Anyone here who has any tournament result with our dear Stax?
What were you MUs? What's your final standing?
How did it perform?

Also, does anyone here plans to use the deck in any SCG event or BOM?

Thanks.

[diego1985]

in august I make a second place in a local contest (22player)... my list

// Deck: Prison Stax (60)

// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Crystal Vein
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Plains
4 Wasteland

// Creatures
3 Magus of the Tabernacle

// Sorceries
4 Armageddon

// Enchantments
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring

// Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
3 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Wrath of God


Inviato dal mio GT-S7500 con Tapatalk 2

[feline]

Toying around with the following stuff:

Mana:
Flagstones of Trokair
Plains
Wasteland
Mishra's Factory
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Mox Diamond

Artifacts:
Smokestack
Crucible of Worlds
Trinisphere
Chalice of the Void
Sphere of Resistance
Tangle wire

White spells:
Armageddon
Magus of the Tabernacle
Ghostly Prison
Humility

Also messing around with/considering/etc:
Lodestone Golem
Ensnaring Bridge
Winter Orb
Static Orb
Moat
Batterskull

Possible sideboard stuff:
Aura of Silence
Leyline of Sanctity
Rule of Law
Oblivion Ring
Null Rod
Stony Silence
Cursed Totem
Tormod's Crypt, (As Graveyard hate, costing 0 to cast get's past Chalice of the Void's @ 1 & 2)

[diego1985]

hi feline

why you play humility with magus?

Inviato dal mio GT-S7500 con Tapatalk 2

[feline]

Humility + Magus together are anti synergetic, but I've found that by themselves against so much stuff in the format they are so powerful, I've been testing even running them both in spite of them clashing with each other. Just because again, by themselves alone they are stupid.

~If it's Magus by itself, awesome
~If it's Humility by itself, awesome
~If it's Magus & Humility together, Humility is still that awesome that I don't mind it nuking a card in my deck, when it trumps so many others in, other decks.

As for the list above that I'm toying with, I'm throwing things around here & there, I'm not running all of the cards listed, just testing this and thats.

[Ish]

Humility + Magus together are anti synergetic, but I've found that by themselves against so much stuff in the format they are so powerful, I've been testing even running them both in spite of them clashing with each other. Just because again, by themselves alone they are stupid. ~If it's Magus by itself, awesome ~If it's Humility by itself, awesome ~If it's Magus & Humility together, Humility is still that awesome that I don't mind it nuking a card in my deck, when it trumps so many others in, other decks. As for the list above that I'm toying with, I'm throwing things around here & there, I'm not running all of the cards listed, just testing this and thats.

Magus + Humility came up up in the painter thread. It appears from that discussion that according to layering rules (magus' effect comes before humility) that magus loses his ability after his effect already changes everything to mountains.

[CaptainTwiddle]

Magus + Humility came up up in the painter thread. It appears from that discussion that according to layering rules (magus' effect comes before humility) that magus loses his ability after his effect already changes everything to mountains.

Yes, Humility does not stop Magus of the Moon from turning nonbasic lands into mountains, because the Magus's type-changing effect happens in an earlier layer than Humility's ability. But I believe the discussion was referring to Magus of the Tabernacle, which grants creatures an additional ability that is not type-changing. So I'm pretty certain that Humility does indeed shut off the effect of Magus of the Tabernacle.

[Megadeus]

Feline, why not just play RIP as your graveyard hate?

[feline]

I did look at it, but it hits my own graveyard and that messes up the crucible of worlds, wasteland plan, as well as bringing back factory's.

and yes, magus of the tabernacle is a 1/1 with no abilities with a humility out. But if you have a humility out against a lot of decks, that's what matters. If you do not, Magus of the Tabernacle is a nice card on it's own. Together, it just gets trumped by your own Humility, but Humility and Magus are good enough on their own that I find myself not caring. It just means when I start swinging, it's 1 damage instead of 2 from the magus, but if I'm swinging, I'm probably winning.

[Scott]

I came across this take on the deck that got 13th at SCG St. Louis two years ago and I'm thinking about giving it a whirl:


// Creatures
3 Hero of Bladehold
4 Stoneforge Mystic

// Sorceries
4 Armageddon

// Enchantments
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring

// Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

// Artifacts
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Trinisphere
3 Batterskull
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond

// Lands
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mishra's Factory
3 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
9 Plains


// Sideboard
SB: 1 Batterskull
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Ghostly Prison
SB: 1 Decree of Justice
SB: 3 Wrath of God
SB: 1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7268&iddeck=52898

Has anyone been playing something similar, or have thoughts with regards to updates or the list in general?

[GoldenCid]

I came across this take on the deck that got 13th at SCG St. Louis two years ago and I'm thinking about giving it a whirl:


// Creatures
3 Hero of Bladehold
4 Stoneforge Mystic

// Sorceries
4 Armageddon

// Enchantments
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring

// Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

// Artifacts
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Trinisphere
3 Batterskull
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond

// Lands
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mishra's Factory
3 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
9 Plains


// Sideboard
SB: 1 Batterskull
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Ghostly Prison
SB: 1 Decree of Justice
SB: 3 Wrath of God
SB: 1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7268&iddeck=52898

Has anyone been playing something similar, or have thoughts with regards to updates or the list in general?

Maybe you want to take a look here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18483-Deck-White-Aggro-Stax&highlight=aggro+stax

I'd cut a batterskull in favour of jitte! :)

GC

[Scott]

Maybe you want to take a look here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18483-Deck-White-Aggro-Stax&highlight=aggro+stax

I'd cut a batterskull in favour of jitte! :)

GC

Thanks!

[dcosiem]

Hey guys,

So, I just started playing Stax on Cockatrice. So far, what I've learned from playing this deck. It's extremely powerful. I think it might be one of the most powerful decks in the game of Legacy. I consider myself an average Legacy player. I play just about practically everything except for Goyf/delver decks because I only have 1 goyf. I particularly play combo decks, mud, dnt, etc. Stax is powerful in the sense that, you really are the ultimate control deck. You lock out your opponent on everything he does and you win with your win con. So here's my list. I'm like 7-0 on cockatrice.

4 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Karakas
3 Smokestack
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Trinisphere
4 Ghostly Prison
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
2 City of Traitors
2 Humility
2 Moat
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Maze of Ith
2 Mox Opal
2 Armageddon
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Ancient Den
SB: 2 Aura of Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 2 Helm of Obedience
SB: 3 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity

[Captain Hammer]

Hi guys,

Below is the list that I'm currently running, I would really appreciate your feedback or any needed changes or problems that you see. Thank you.

3 Crystal Vein
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Plains
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 Cataclysm
4 Armageddon
4 Magus of Tabernacle
4 Baneslayer Angel

[paeng4983]

12/4/13
We had our year ending legacy last Sunday and this was the deck that I used.

7 plains, 2 karakas, 1 horizon canopy, 4 wasteland, 8 turbo lands, 4 flagstone

4 trinisphere, 4 COTV, 4 mox D, 4 COW

4 moat, 4 humility, 4 o.ring

4 elspeth

2 idylic tutor


SB
4 STP, 2 jester's cap, 4 leyline of sanctity, 1 WOG, 2 geddon, 2 ratchet bomb


I won against the following: UWr stoneblade, AnT
lost vs: dredge, elves, sneaky show
draw vs. miracle
-----------
12/7/13
I will just post it here.
I participated again in a 4 rounder legacy with the same line up as posted above .
I won my first two games (belcher 2-1 and high tide 2-0)
But lost my next two (elves both 1-2).

Most of my loses, including those from the previous tournament, were just a turn away from locking down my opponent.

[feline]

2013 conclusion for Stax:

Unfortunately all I can conclude for the deck, is that it's basically non existent. 2012 actually had a sporadic amount of showings, different versions ran, but 2013 had none. There really is no other way to put it. Hopefully, not only for Prison Stax, but all Stax strategies in general, for Stax lovers out there, 2014 will prove to be a more impressive year for the deck. Good luck to all pushing one of the most fun decks in the format to play, & probably one of the least fun to play against if you ask most of the field.

[Crust]

March this year I wrote this in this newly started Stax thread.

03-30-2013 10:42 PM #15
Feline; awesome that you put the effort into writing and starting this Stax thread. I just started looking around for stax lists a while ago. Have a Soldier stompy deck with Chalice, Trinisphere, Suppression field, Chrome Mox and 2 mana lands so it's a kind of stax deck. So this intro to the stax gameplay is fantastic for me.
Right now my project is an Aggro stax deck with Hero of Bladehold witch I'm about to test during upcoming weeks. I'll post a decklist and some comments after testing.

Of some reason (laziness) I didn´t post any decklists or comments but I did play a couple of lists that reach success to some extent. Won one smaller tournament and placed top 4 in some other small ones. But after a while I wanted to test something else and I put the aggro-stax on the shelf. I only play Legacy and I think the format suits me perfect but one problem I have is that there are so many fantastic decks to test and play that I don´t stick to a single one and just grind that one over and over again. I think that is how you get the extra skill in Legacy. On the other hand, the more decks you test the more you get to know the format and you get knowledge about a lot of cards, and that is key in Legacy.

Well, now the aggro-stax. Pick the deck from the shelf and made some changes and this is what I´m playing right now.

CREATURES (10)
3 Dark Confidant
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Hero of Bladehold
ENCHANTMENTS (2)
2 Oblivion Ring
SORCERIES (8)
3 Lingering Souls
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Vindicate

PLANESWALKERS (1)
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
ARTIFACTS (14)
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Trinisphere
4 Mox Diamond
LANDS (26)
4 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
6 Plains

SIDEBOARD
2 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Humility
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Abolish
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Oblivion Ring

The deck can be very staxy with Chalice and Trinisphere and it can be very aggro with Stoneforge, Hero or even Lingering Souls.
Vindicate and Oblivion Ring solves a lot of problems and I'm never disappointed when I draw them. Vindicate (take out lands) in addition to Wasteland has taken several games under a resolved Trinisphere.
Supreme Verdict can seem to an odd choice but has proven to be really supreme when you´re a bit behind.
Worth mentioning is Dark Confidant. Stax has always had the problem with drawing cards. Lingering souls is some sort of solution to that due to it´s flashback. Dark Confidant is also a sweet. Under Chalice on 1 and under Trinisphere my experience is that Bob can make a good job adding cards to your hand.

I´m going to take it to tournaments in the near future and if you´re intrested I can write some report.

By the way, please make comments if you want.

[feline]

Thank you Scott Muir, SCG Columbus, Jan 19th 2014, Prison Stax pulls off a top 16 finish after being almost disappeared from a finish that high in over a year


Creatures (2)
2 Peacekeeper

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Lands (26)
1 Ancient Den
4 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale


Spells (30)
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
3 Humility
2 Moat
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Armageddon


Sideboard
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Spellskite
1 Peacekeeper
3 Rest in Peace
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Catastrophe

[GoldenCid]

Yay! Congrants! Its a particular list

I simply dont know why death a taxes is dtb and stax a sucking tier 2. :-(

[Jay_Gatz]

Yay! Congrants! Its a particular list I simply dont know why death a taxes is dtb and stax a sucking tier 2. :-(
Because d&t is both cheaper and more competitive?

[Koby]

Yay! Congrants! Its a particular list

I simply dont know why death a taxes is dtb and stax a sucking tier 2. :-(

Stax is very dependent on the strength of its opening hand. It has an atrocious curve. D&T can reasonably make a miss a few land drops and be operating fine. Stax usually can't skip a land drop in the first 3 turns and still maintain control.

D&T works to remove threats retroactively.
Stax works to prevent threats from being cast.

While objectively more powerful (lock, prison, 'Geddon), Stax is a weaker deck due to having less even (close to 50/50) matches. Some matches are 80/20, but others are also 20/80. D&T has more even matchups, and with some skillful play, grind out wins.

[B4L4]

For those still trying to revive the deck, you will find below what i am testing atm :

### Field-Stax ###
Non-creatures permanents (28)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Smokestack
Creatures (4)
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
Non-permanents (4)
4 Armageddon
Lands (24)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Humility
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Leonin Abunas
1 Rest in Peace

### Soldiers-Stax ###
Non-creatures permanents (30)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Smokestack
3 Humility
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Bottled Cloister
Non-permanents (5)
3 Armageddon
2 Timely Reinforcements
Lands (25)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Flagstones of Trokair
8 Plains
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Sideboard (15)
3 Magus of the Tabernacle
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Leonin Abunas
3 Rest in Peace
4 Sun Droplet

[Scott]

### Soldiers-Stax ###
Non-creatures permanents (30)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Smokestack
3 Humility
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Bottled Cloister
Non-permanents (5)
3 Armageddon
2 Timely Reinforcements
Lands (25)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Flagstones of Trokair
8 Plains
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Sideboard (15)
3 Magus of the Tabernacle
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Leonin Abunas
3 Rest in Peace
4 Sun Droplet

Cool list. Mind if I ask what you side in and out against different decks?

[GoldenCid]

For those still trying to revive the deck, you will find below what i am testing atm :

### Field-Stax ###
Non-creatures permanents (28)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Smokestack
Creatures (4)
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
Non-permanents (4)
4 Armageddon
Lands (24)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Humility
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Leonin Abunas
1 Rest in Peace



I highly recomend you add 1 copy of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.

GC.

[Captain Hammer]

Why? You can't tutor for it.

It doesn't generate mana. It uses up a land drop and creatures are not this deck's weakness, other control decks are.

[btm10]

So I've had a lot of success with this token-centric list recently, albeit only online:

Mana Sources (31)
7 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond
2 Scrubland*
2 Kjeldoran Outpost

Lock/Control (21)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 Bottled Cloister
2 Humility
2 Armageddon

Win (8)
4 Lingering Souls
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard (15)

3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
2 Tangle Wire
2 Humility
2 Oblivion Ring

*Scrubland is there only to facilitate flashing back Lingering Souls, and may not be pulling its weight in this regard. I had tested Bitterblossom in the main briefly, and if you go that route you probably want to drop the MD Cloisters for the Blossoms and swap in a third copy of Timely Reinforcements for one of the Lingering Souls.

The sideboard is where I have the most complaints. I'm thinking of removing the Needles for 2 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Bottled Cloister because of how good Tangle Wire has been in the Miracles matchup and how much you want to get Cloister/Bridge up and running against Tempo. The large capacity this build has for making tokens makes ramping Smokestack up to 2 or 3 pretty easy, especially with Elspeth or Kjeldoran Outpost on board. The Outpost slot started out as a 1-for-1 swap with The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, and fills very much the same role, except it can answer things that they'd normally being willing to pay for as long as they're ground pounders and combos way, way better with Smokestack.

[GoldenCid]

Why? You can't tutor for it.

It doesn't generate mana. It uses up a land drop and creatures are not this deck's weakness, other control decks are.

Huh?

If you run the prison versión and you include magus of the tabernacle you have an extra uncountereable mage.

[btm10]

Huh?

If you run the prison versión and you include magus of the tabernacle you have an extra uncountereable mage.

It doesn't matter if that "uncounterable mage" isn't good in problem matchups.

Edit: Also, B4L4 - I like Leonin Abunas, but wouldn't Hanna's Custody be better?

[GoldenCid]

It doesn't matter if that "uncounterable mage" isn't good in problem matchups.

Edit: Also, B4L4 - I like Leonin Abunas, but wouldn't Hanna's Custody be better?

As you probably know, stax depends on redundance. Tabernacle not being tutored is still good because it fits with whole strategy of prison stax.

And on the "shroud" cards....have you had an specifical trouble with artifact removal?

[btm10]

Stax depends on redundancy to hit functional opening hands, not so much when it's playing off of the top. Multiples of things like Trinisphere and Crucible are only useful if you're ramping Smokestack up very high or facing lots of removal. Adding a 5th Tabernacle effect doesn't do anything but help you draw more Tabernacle effects which, generally speaking, aren't needed. Using The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as the Tabernacle effect is bad because, as Captain Hammer pointed out, it uses a land drop and doesn't make mana so you're slowing your own development in order to play it. Openers with Tabernacle have one fewer land than they appear to, and it's a wasted land drop before you're actually locking them down. I'd rather have a 1- or 2-of MD Tangle Wire or an additional MD Cloister than a 5th Tabernacle effect. This is probably made even clearer by the fact that I don't have any Tabernacles in my list.


I started off with a more traditional Prison build (the 75 that top 16'ed SCG Columbus) and have been tweaking it through testing since then. Outside of an awful Death and Taxes matchup, I'm at ~50/50 against BUG Delver and Shardless BUG, slightly better than that against Stoneblade, UWR Delver, and Deathblade, and obviously quite strong against all sorts of non-Show and Tell combo (and even Show and Tell is pretty tractable because of Chalice @ 1 and 8-10 Show and Tell-able answers postboard). MUD isn't favorable yet, but I don't think we should be thinking about non-DTB level opponents right now. More to the point, the token-making capacity lets you go beyond 1-for-1 permanent trades and coming out ahead of your opponent because of replacement abilities like Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai and Flagstones of Trokair and lands that produce more than 1 mana to using Smokestack to generate real card advantage. If you play Lingering Souls right, it's at least 2 permanents for 1 card, and it's 4 permanents more often than not. That gives you significant time to topdeck additional permanents, to develop your board, and to refill your hand while your opponent flounders under Chalice @1 backed up by Crucible and Stack at 1 or 2. Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Kjeldoran Outpost are frequently backbreaking in the mid-to-late game, as no deck can break the asymmetry of Stack at 2 when you're just tapping some lands and wiping their board while remaining largely unaffected. I'd love to make room for MD Tangle Wire to make the lock even harder and these cards even less symmetric.

[GoldenCid]

First of all. Do you own a tabernacle? Why do you think tbat it is in almost every stax list?

[diego1985]

Stax depends on redundancy to hit functional opening hands, not so much when it's playing off of the top. Multiples of things like Trinisphere and Crucible are only useful if you're ramping Smokestack up very high or facing lots of removal. Adding a 5th Tabernacle effect doesn't do anything but help you draw more Tabernacle effects which, generally speaking, aren't needed. Using The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as the Tabernacle effect is bad because, as Captain Hammer pointed out, it uses a land drop and doesn't make mana so you're slowing your own development in order to play it. Openers with Tabernacle have one fewer land than they appear to, and it's a wasted land drop before you're actually locking them down. I'd rather have a 1- or 2-of MD Tangle Wire or an additional MD Cloister than a 5th Tabernacle effect. This is probably made even clearer by the fact that I don't have any Tabernacles in my list.


I started off with a more traditional Prison build (the 75 that top 16'ed SCG Columbus) and have been tweaking it through testing since then. Outside of an awful Death and Taxes matchup, I'm at ~50/50 against BUG Delver and Shardless BUG, slightly better than that against Stoneblade, UWR Delver, and Deathblade, and obviously quite strong against all sorts of non-Show and Tell combo (and even Show and Tell is pretty tractable because of Chalice @ 1 and 8-10 Show and Tell-able answers postboard). MUD isn't favorable yet, but I don't think we should be thinking about non-DTB level opponents right now. More to the point, the token-making capacity lets you go beyond 1-for-1 permanent trades and coming out ahead of your opponent because of replacement abilities like Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai and Flagstones of Trokair and lands that produce more than 1 mana to using Smokestack to generate real card advantage. If you play Lingering Souls right, it's at least 2 permanents for 1 card, and it's 4 permanents more often than not. That gives you significant time to topdeck additional permanents, to develop your board, and to refill your hand while your opponent flounders under Chalice @1 backed up by Crucible and Stack at 1 or 2. Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Kjeldoran Outpost are frequently backbreaking in the mid-to-late game, as no deck can break the asymmetry of Stack at 2 when you're just tapping some lands and wiping their board while remaining largely unaffected. I'd love to make room for MD Tangle Wire to make the lock even harder and these cards even less symmetric.

hi btm10 can you propose one list? thanks

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[btm10]

First of all. Do you own a tabernacle? Why do you think tbat it is in almost every stax list?

Whether or not I own a Tabernacle is irrelevant. I don't but I have the means to acquire one, so I'm really not sure what your point is here. We're discussing what makes the 'optimal' list. I don't know why it's in almost every current Stax list because it's never pulled it's weight in mine.

Edit: To answer your earlier question, I think that you should have an answer to artifact removal if you're going to be running Bottled Cloister. Getting your hand RFG'd by Krosan Grip or Wear/Tear or Smash to Smithereens or Uktabi Orangutan elf is a serious problem.

hi btm10 can you propose one list? thanks

Inviato dal mio GT-S7500 con Tapatalk 2

I posted my current list further up on this page. I have swapped the Scrublands for Plains, though.

[Megadeus]

I really like the use of Timely Reinforcements here. Makes men to block an early rush, gains life lost from Tomb, and doubles as a win con? Sweet.

[btm10]

Thanks. If it weren't so situational I'd be running at least a third copy, but sometimes you actually have a hard time getting the dudes out of it. Then again, you're usually winning by that point. What I really want is a transformational sideboard where you just get to board out the lock, play Crusade, and smash face with tokens and, I dunno World Queller or Exalted Angel. Unfortunately, with Death and Taxes being Stax's worst matchup, I don't see that happening. I know that Glorious Anthem exists, but 1WW is very different from WW in just about all other matchups.

[Megadeus]

Honor of the Pure bro

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=233237&type=card

[btm10]

I might have to try this, then.

4 Honor of the Pure
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker
2 Humility
2 Exalted Angel
1 White Knight

Sorry, I don't know new cards at all. Aside from the stuff in Enchantress and the various Tier 1 lists.

[GoldenCid]

Tnacle is relevant because it goes with the whole strategy of the deck. I does not add mana, so what? You have 20+ adding mana lands + 4 mox.

Check this (1 of multiple examples):

Opening: Prison + mox + Tnacle + City + Crucible + Oring + whatever.

You are untouchable by creatures. Prison now tax for 3 thx to tabernacle.

T1: mox (discard Tnacle), city, cast prison.
T2: Cast crucible, play tabernacle.

Now a deck with shaman which went with fetch in t1 will not touch you for a long time. Got the idea?

Anyway....i played stax for month and always run tnacle, moat and karakas. ;)

Side note: if you are going to pay WW for an spell, it MUST be a bomb. Dont waste your time with white knight or crusade and crap like that.

[btm10]

Tnacle is relevant because it goes with the whole strategy of the deck. I does not add mana, so what? You have 20+ adding mana lands + 4 mox.

Check this (1 of multiple examples):

Opening: Prison + mox + Tnacle + City + Crucible + Oring + whatever.

You are untouchable by creatures. Prison now tax for 3 thx to tabernacle.

T1: mox (discard Tnacle), city, cast prison.
T2: Cast crucible, play tabernacle.

Now a deck with shaman which went with fetch in t1 will not touch you for a long time. Got the idea?

Anyway....i played stax for month and always run tnacle, moat and karakas. ;)

Side note: if you are going to pay WW for an spell, it MUST be a bomb. Dont waste your time with white knight or crusade and crap like that.

I understood your point before, I just disagree that it's worth pursuing. In your example, you're dedicating what, eight slots to an archetype that essentially doesn't exist? Or are you just not playing around Daze, Spell Pierce, or Wasteland in the "swing with dudes" decks that do exist? Also, while I think the transformational sideboard plan has merit, rattling off 15 essentially random cards was a joke.

[btm10]

Sorry to double post, but here's my current list, with the aggro sideboard option:


Mana (31)
8 Plains
4 Flagstones of Troikar
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond
2 Kjeldoran Outpost
1 Scrubland

Control/Lock (17)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 Tangle Wire
2 Armageddon
2 Humility

Win Conditions (8)
4 Lingering Souls
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard (15)
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Honor of the Pure
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Tangle Wire

I'm thinking about switching the Oblivion Ring and Humility Slots, with 2 Humility/1 O.Ring in the board and 2 MD Oblivion Ring, both for synergistic effects between Smokestack and Oblivion Ring and for the fact that Ring is more of an all-purpose answer than Humility, which is really only good against tempo, Elves, Goblins, and Show and Tell. Ring is better against tempo because it only costs 3 and you can usually survive a few delver hits before you start binging on their permanents, and can then selectively kill DRS, SFM (or the equipment that SFM finds) or Goyf, which tend to be the creatures of theirs that cause you trouble. Against Elves and Goblins, you really just need to buy time until you can get Chalice @ 1 + Stack, and Ring can keep the worst of their creatures at bey until you lock them out. The sideboard has been pretty effective so far, especially because in physical games you can take the approach of shuffling your board into your deck and then pulling 15 cards out, meaning that if you go to 3 games you can easily give your opponent dead cards in games 2 and 3 by alternating between the approaches. Tangle Wire has been awesome when you're on the prison plan, but the aggro version might be better with 2 Jalum Tome in the SB Wire slots. Brimaz, King of Oreskos means you just win if he gets to stick around for more than a turn.

[diego1985]

and ghoslty prison? i think that its a good soluzion with armageddon and wasteland and is playeble on turn 1

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[Wilkin]

Hi all, been testing out a version of Stax. I've played a couple of 4 round weekly tournaments and went 4-0 both times. Lent it out to someone else....and they went 0-3. Guess, I'm better at top decking answers....lol.

3 Smokestack
2 Humility
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Batterskull
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Decree of Justice
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Powder Keg
4 Mox Diamond
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Karakas
6 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Mishra's Factory

Side....2 Tormod's Crypt, 2 Faerie Macabre, 2 Wilt-Lief Liege, 1 Timely Reinforcements, 3 Pithing Needle, 1 Armageddon, 2 Cursed Totem, 1 Aura Of Silence, 1 Seal of CLeansing.


Reasoning behind some of the cards....
Ratchet Bomb and Powder Keg - I've played Stompy decks and sometimes they can get something in before a lock piece lands. In testing I've usually blown it at 1 or 2 to kill mostly Deathrites, Delvers or Stoneforges.
Decree of Justice - Like a lot of decks like this, there isn't much card draw. Not only does this card cycle but outside of Stifle it makes a lot of dudes. That you can sacrifice to Smokestack or even surprise block say Dark Confidants. I've cycled for 7 soldiers once. Felt good. lol.
Horizon Canopy - Again the card draw. I've been liking this a lot. I play 27 lands so I do flood quite a bit and with Crucible it's been great.
Pithing Needle - In board. May seem a bit weird seeing as Chalice is set mostly on one. Needle is mostly for Deathrite Shaman. The 2nd most annoying creature would probably be Stoneforge Mystic so at least I could stop the cheating the equipment into play. Forgot, any deck with Aether Vial is awful to play against. Needle for that too.

Also I only play 3 Smokestack. Used to run 4 but I found that drawing multiples is kind of meh. Also cut out the Armageddons and left 1 in board. Armageddon, I feel is great if we are ahead or parity but awful when already behind. There are already many cards that aren't great when behind so I felt I had to cut some of those out, and is also why I put in a few ratchet bombs to kill things that get through the lock pieces. Thoughts on my version?

After seeing a couple of decklists on here, I may give Bottled Cloister a shot. Card Draw + Synergy with Ensnaring Bridge is pretty cool. And LOL, since I play Deadguy 99% of the time I'm not sure why I didn't try Lingering Souls in Stax yet.

[diego1985]

netx week i will try this list

Token Stax

4 Wasteland
1 Scrubland
4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Crystal Vein
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Armageddon
4 Lingering Souls
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Humility
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant


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[feline]

Minor update, messed up the link in the latest decklist, even though the list is from a couple months ago now.

[trinistax]

Hey, this is my first post but, I'm looking to get some feedback on my current list. I have essentially merged the old Sandsipoise lock combo with the Stax shell, ultimately created an adaptation to Prison Stax.

Card choice descriptions/synergies to follow.

Sandsipoise Stax:

4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Crystal Vein
4x Wasteland (Ghost Quarter: Budget)
4x Forsaken City

(20 Lands)

4x Mox Diamond
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Grim Monolith
3x Sundial of the Infinite
3x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Equipoise
3x Trinisphere
3x Smokestack
3x Bottled Cloister
3x Sands of Time
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant

(40 Spells)

Sideboard:
2x Armageddon
2x Mindlock Orb
2x Torpor Orb
2x hanna's Custody
2x Powder Keg
2x Pithing Needle
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Defense Grid

Forsaken City: Provides a sac outlet for Ensnaring Bridge / can be untapped by Sands of Time. Provides any mana color to increase sideboard options, i.e. Mindlock Orb
Ghost Quarter: Besides being budget, it replaces an opponent's land which is better suited with Equipoise. With Crucible you can target your own land, getting a basic, then replaying the sac'd land via Crucible.
Grim Monolith: Provides first turn acceleration in addition to Mox Diamond - permits a 3 CMC spell first turn, i.e. Trinisphere/Bridge/Crucible. Can be untapped with Sands of Time.
Sundial of the Infinite (probably most controversial card, by itself it's worthless): Allows for multiple City of Traitors in play; combo's with Smokestack ending turn before sacrifice trigger; negate any spell cast by opponent on your turn.
Oblivion Ring: Removal of anything i.e. Planeswalkers
Bottled Cloister: Prevents discarding to spells from opponents; synergy with Ensnaring Bridge; draw engine that can trigger before you sacrifice/end turn with Sundial and Smokestack
Smokestack: With Sundial can mill opponents deck - for the Sands/Equipoise combo can remove opponents permanents
Elspeth: Win-Con; can protect itself

Now, why use Sands of Time + Equipoise:

Stax permits you to have a great deal of control of the amount and type of permanents you have in play; has great acceleration, and attempts to create the same end game as the Sandsipoise combo - a complete lockout. Sandsipoise originally used a Win-Con of Misers' Cage or the likes. I believe with the Stax shell the Sandsipoise deck can be much more powerful.

Maybe I have completely missed the mark, I am just hoping to see if anyone can run with this list and suggest improvements.

All contributions are very much appreciated.

[GoldenCid]

Chat match ups have you faced with this list?

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[trinistax]

Chat match ups have you faced with this list?

Enviado desde mi XT890 mediante Tapatalk

If you were replying to me:

I have been playing mostly against Miracles and being able to stall until my opponents landed Jace, for which, I had no answer to. The fate sealing disrupted my draw and lead to an empty library.

Against Elves a side boarded Ruric Thar, the Unbowed tore me to pieces. Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin was able to combo out for infinite mana and play around the Ensnaring Bridge with an ETB effect.

I had success against Storm, but in all cases I wasn't able to get out all the pieces for a full lock out. I could also be piloting this deck poorly, as I haven't been playing it long.

[Scott]

4th place (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14050&iddeck=103349) in a 57-person tournament in Rhode Island two weeks ago:

// Creatures
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Exalted Angel
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Windborn Muse
4 World Queller

// Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
4 Trinisphere
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

// Lands
5 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Karakas

// Sorceries
4 Armageddon

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Council's Judgment
SB: 4 Faerie Macabre
SB: 4 Suppression Field
SB: 1 Manriki-Gusari
SB: 1 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Sword of Light and Shadow

The event (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28061-Lincoln-RI-Sunday-6-22-DHG-June-Buncha-Duals!-Up-to-18-Duals-Prize-Fetches!).

[danpo]

The Rhode Island list with World Queller looks sweet. I'm interested in several of the card choices there:

- Muse over Ghostly Prison? Prison was more commonplace a few years ago and at least used to be harder to remove before the advent of Abrupt Decay. Plus Muse is a body for flying in with gear, and, subtly, the absence of enchantments in this list is an advantage if that's what you want to name with World Queller.

- I love and miss Exalted Angel, but is it good enough in 2014? Can't argue with this guy's result, but it's tempting to imagine some mixture of like Lin Vala and Elspeth, Knight Errant in this slot getting work done for a lot less mana. Elspeth can also generate dudes to break the symmetry of naming creatures with World Queller. But in her absence, naming Planeswalker with Queller is pure advantage again.

- Council's Judgment in the board? I know it kills Emrakul and True Name Nemesis, but it's tempting to imagine Oblivion Ring answers Show & Tell a lot better and is also easier to cast using sol lands. Then again, I guess there's still the argument Queller really incentivizes minimizing permanent types in the lists.

Overall I really like that Stax is in rotation and find this list really exciting.

[danpo]

UPDATE:
So for my local weekly I sleeved up prettymuch the Rhode Island list above, with a few tweaks:

In:
2x Linvala, Keeper of Silence; 1x Plains

Out:
2x Exalted Angel; 1x Darksteel Citadel

Round 1--Death & Taxes

Got a turn-one Trinisphere, which was pretty good against him, but then I still had to sit there and actually kill him, which was not quickly forthcoming. He got a Jitte, which I killed by naming artifacts with World Queller. I got a Batterskull, which he dealt with via Flickerwisp targeting the germ. I got a Jitte, but he kept it from accruing counters via Mother of Runes. That's the turn I should've played Chalice of the Void x=1 instead, and because I didn't he was able to Swords To Plowshares my Windborn Muse and alpha me out of the game.

I then proceeded to board in Suppression Field, play it, completely tax myself out of the fucking game, then de-sideboard and for good measure get steamrolled by him again three more games after we signed the match slip, just to make sure this matchup is in fact pretty bad.

Round 2--Storm Combo

Game one he wins the die roll, plays first and hits me with Duress for I think Chalice of the Void. I then topdeck and windmill-slam Trinisphere and follow it up with Aven Mindcensor and he is fucked. Skill!
Game two I have turn-one Chalice of the Void and he is fucked but does a good job poker-facing like he might just pull it off, which I respect.

Round 3--RUG Delver

I don't remember a ton about what happened in which game here except that in game one I walk into some counters early on and end up on turn three or four tapping like Plains, Chrome Mox and City of Traitors (sacrifice) into new City of Traitors, thereby hardcasting Exalted Angel with no mana for Daze. He Brainstorms and comes up empty and after a smash or two has to trade a flipped Delver of Secrets and a Lightning Bolt, but by this point I have other pressure, I think closing the game out with Sword of Fire & Ice on Aven Mindcensor.

I lost game two and game three he kept a hand with no Force of Will and I kept a hand with turn-one Chalice of the Void and he does not draw his Krosan Grip or his Ancient Grudge or his Theros-Block RG Disenchant Plus Shock You I can't remember the name of, all of which is great news for me killing him, but he does a good job poker-facing like he might just pull it off, which I respect.

Round 4--Classic Mono Black

So at this point I'm 2-1, and my fourth/final round opponent asks what we get if we intentionally draw. The answer is basically our entry fee back in store credit plus a couple bucks, so we agree to end the night 2-1-1 and then play just to see how it would've gone. He is playing a mono black deck with The Rack and Hypnotic Specter and I lose horribly to opening plays like Dark Ritual > Stupor > turn-two Hymn to Tourach and and and Dark Ritual > Ice Age Sinkhole That Fucks Me For Playing Snow-Covered Plains Take 1 Damage. So what I am saying is I am glad we agreed to split because barf.

Overall the deck is fine I guess if you miss the Stax of yore but doesn't seem poised to redefine the meta or anything. Going forward I think Phyrexian Revoker and Leyline of Sanctity should be heavy considerations, but I'm not sure I'll bother continuing to tinker with it.

[dsck]

This is something I have been having fun with:

GW Stax

Land (27)
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
3x City of Traitors
2x Flooded Strand
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Karakas
1x Maze of Ith
1x Mishra's Factory
4x Plains
4x Savannah
4x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath

Artifact (14)
2x Batterskull
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Mox Diamond
1x Sword of Body and Mind
2x Trinisphere

Creature (12)
4x Hero of Bladehold
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Stoneforge Mystic

Sorcery (6)
4x Council's Judgment
2x Life from the Loam

Enchantment (1)
1x Sylvan Library


Sideboard (15)
1x Armageddon
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Choke
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Sylvan Library
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Tower of the Magistrate
3x Wrath of God

Its pretty brutal at times. Anyone else been testing stax with Council's Judgments? Feels like those would help with one of the biggest problem stax has - planeswalkers.

[Philipp2293]

Ah, Hero Stax - very nice! That's pretty much exactly the deck I won a tournament something like 2 years ago - just with more Sylvan Libraries in place of the CJs. Looks like I need to give this a second look. Thanks for brining this to my attention!

[dcosiem]

This is something I have been having fun with:

GW Stax

Land (27)
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
3x City of Traitors
2x Flooded Strand
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Karakas
1x Maze of Ith
1x Mishra's Factory
4x Plains
4x Savannah
4x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath

Artifact (14)
2x Batterskull
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Mox Diamond
1x Sword of Body and Mind
2x Trinisphere

Creature (12)
4x Hero of Bladehold
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Stoneforge Mystic

Sorcery (6)
4x Council's Judgment
2x Life from the Loam

Enchantment (1)
1x Sylvan Library


Sideboard (15)
1x Armageddon
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Choke
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Sylvan Library
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Tower of the Magistrate
3x Wrath of God

Its pretty brutal at times. Anyone else been testing stax with Council's Judgments? Feels like those would help with one of the biggest problem stax has - planeswalkers.

Councils judgements is nice, but it is really bad with the mana base in armageddon stax. I substituted o ring for suppression field in my deck because activated abilities are common.

[feline]

Some updated lists from smaller tournaments, if anyone has been looking for stuff. Though the last deck to make it here was in June: http://www.tcdecks.net/tipo.php?archetype=Stax&format=Legacy

[BaroqueW]

Hello everyone,

I took last Wednesday Stax to my LGS and went 3-1 at a 24-person event.


Lands:
3 Mishra's factory
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
5 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient tomb


Other mana sources:
4 Mox diamond

Lock pieces:
3 Humility
4 Chalice of the void
4 Smokestack
4 Suppression Field
4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Armageddon

Others:
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard:
3 Leyline of sanctity
1 Enlightened tutor
1 Hanna's custody
1 Karmic justice
2 Pithing needle
2 Rest in peace
2 Defense grid
2 Ghostly prison
1 Cursed totem


The meta at my LGS is very diverse so the sideboard is a bit of a hodge lodge of cards. Also realizing I only had 3 Leylines a bit late doesn't help.

Match 1 - Felix on Gub elves
U was for Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Went 2-1
Game 1 and 3, Chalice on 1 and Humility wrecked his deck. Suppression field also curbed his chance at an explosive start.
Second game, Ancient tomb got at my life total and NoPro finished the rest.

MVP: Chalice, suppression field
He scooped before actually losing to lethal g1 and g3.

Match 2 - Lauri on UR delver with treasure cruise
Went 1-2
G1: I mulled to 5 with no lands (opening 7 had 1 land, next 6 had no lands), dead by turn 6 or 7 with two lands in play and nothing else. It happens.
G2: I establish my lock (chalice on 1 neuters a lot of his deck) but we play it out to the bitter end because he wants to see what i got (i don't overcommit so he doesn't see much). I had cleaned up his table with the clever application of Smokestack and sat at 1 life for the rest of the ride (thank you so much, Ancient tomb). He made a mistake to play a land while I had Smokestack out, instead of sand bagging it to protect his Insectile Aberration and swing for the win. I took 8 or 9 of his 17 lands and he never saw them again.
G3: he gets a live delver and pyromancer, gets a couple of triggers on pyromancer before I get humility out by countering three of my lock pieces, draws a lot with treasure cruise (2x) and eventually swing with 1/1 until I drop to 0.
Note to self: when you bring in Defense grids in your sideboard, actually remember to side them in. Playing around Daze doesn't help much against FoW.

Match 3 - Alex with Slivers (not a legacy brew though)
Humility hits the table on turn 4 like clockwork and Mishra's factory + Crucible of worlds seal the deal (Crucible to recur mishra and his double blockers)
Scooped on the second game
2-0

Match 4 - Michael on 35-Lands combo (Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage, crop rotation, gamble, no Knight of reliquary or vampire hexmage)
Hysterical game thanks to a really nice opponent. I had never seen an opponent laugh so much at how bad the match-up was for him :-)
Really close call on game 1 as I land humility one turn before he could go off with his combo. He ends up scooping as my lock pieces accumulate and Elspeth start throwing a 4/4 flyer at him for a couple of turns.
Sideboard in: Cursed totem, Rest in peace, and Enlightened tutor. I didn't know he packed no relevant target for Totem but suspected Knight of Reliquary, possibly Vampire hexmage.
I get my lock pieces early. RiP turn 2 prevents his Life from the loam recursion and I start piling up Trinispheres and Suppression Field, which keep him out of his combo. Eventually an armageddon (he only had lands + 1 Mox diamond) followed by Stax on 1 made him scoop. Until then his Maze of Ith had held back my lonely factory.
2-0

All in all, it was 5 scoops out of 7 games won.

I got some practice time before the event against Jund and the discard wrecked me 3 games out of 4 (we didn't sideboard). In one game, he got 2 abrupt decay (for mox and a lock piece) in the first three turns + maelstrom pulse on turn 4. Can't beat that.

MVP in general: Humility, and honorable mention to Timely reinforcements for its ability to keep us afloat.
Trinisphere or Chalice on 1 Turn 1 is very potent, Suppression field turn 1 is another option which I was looking forward to see against DRS or more Fetch intensive decks but that didn't happen. Was really good against Elves though.

I am pondering adding Ghostly Prison main board, as losing to a bunch of 1/1s is definitely possible.

I often found myself boarding out the Smokestack (multiples), Crucible (single), and Suppression field (against UR Delver which didn't seem to pack Grim Lavamancer but had new Monastery Swiftspear from Khans; and against Slivers).

Constructive comments and feedback are welcome.

[GoldenCid]

Congrats on your finish. Could you explain why decided to avoid tabernacle effects and add token strategy?
In addition i think that 4 smokestake i too high. Probably 3 is the number. The same could apply for armaggedon 3 is fine. You may consider a couple of o-ring which allow solutions for multipurpose.
Moreover, did you feel any discomfort by the field-elspeth interaction?


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[GoldenCid]

Congrats on your finish. Could you explain why decided to avoid tabernacle effects and add token strategy?
In addition i think that 4 smokestake i too high. Probably 3 is the number. The same could apply for armaggedon 3 is fine. You may consider a couple of o-ring which allow solutions for multipurpose.

Moveover, did you feel any discomfort with field-elspeth interaction?
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Congrats on your finish. Could you explain why decided to avoid tabernacle effects and add token strategy?
In addition i think that 4 smokestake i too high. Probably 3 is the number. The same could apply for armaggedon 3 is fine. You may consider a couple of o-ring which allow solutions for multipurpose.


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[BaroqueW]

Congrats on your finish. Could you explain why decided to avoid tabernacle effects and add token strategy?
In addition i think that 4 smokestake i too high. Probably 3 is the number. The same could apply for armaggedon 3 is fine. You may consider a couple of o-ring which allow solutions for multipurpose.
Moreover, did you feel any discomfort by the field-elspeth interaction?

I agree with you, 4 stacks and 4 Armageddon are too many. I often sideboard out the 4th one of each going into G2/3.

I am thinking of shaving them for either Ghostly prison or Council's judgment. I am not so keen on Oblivion Ring as it can be answered with many cards that already are strong against us (Qasali pridemage, Abrupt decay). The only advantage I see to ORing would be if I added some copies of Enlightened Tutor somewhere in the 75.
In any case, I do hear you on the need for multipurpose solutions in the deck. See below report (although I really needed a solution to ONE card in particular last week).

I did not get hurt by field taxing Elspeth. I tend to play (over-play?) all my lock pieces first, then Elspeth last. I have rarely played Elspeth and needed to activate her direly in the same turn. I would not play ever Elspeth as soon as I hit the mana. And if I do not have enough mana to activate her through one suppression field (I rarely commit two to the board) it probably means Smokestack/Armageddon have been played recently and most likely my opponent is not going anywhere.
What I felt less comfortable about is the field+waste or field+factory poor interaction. Factory will often be in play earlier than Elspeth and the field often prevents me from sneaking 2 damages here and there.
I still very much like having another 4-of to play on turn 1 (with a Mox), besides trinisphere and chalice. I find it kills a lot of T1/T2 for an opponent as well (Fetch, DRS, Waste).

As for the Tabernacle effects vs. token strategy, I think it came down mostly on my interest in playing Humility in the main. I have Lodestone golems, Baneslayer Angels, and Magus of the Tabernacle waiting to be played (No Tabernacle itself though) but having been on the receiving end of a humility while playing creature-heavy decks, I wanted to try it myself.
With Factory and Elspeth, your creatures will be better than measly 1/1s. Timely reinforcements also very often brings you back in the game, providing 6 life AND 3 1/1s more often than not. The 1/1s mostly end-up chomp blocking but they can sneak in for some damage once in a while, or can be a setup for a slightly faster Elspeth (no need to +1 for a soldier when you land her). I could see myself testing Batterskull instead of one Timely Reinforcements, but again, it's one more artifact that can be dealt with cards already strong against the rest so I do not mind diversifying with TR.

Also, some results from last week's event.

My main was the same as previously. I only changed the sideboard to eliminate the one-ofs.


Lands:
3 Mishra's factory
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
5 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient tomb

Other mana sources:
4 Mox diamond

Lock pieces:
3 Humility
4 Chalice of the void
4 Smokestack
4 Suppression Field
4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Armageddon

Others:
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of sanctity
2 Pithing needle
3 Rest in peace
3 Defense grid
3 Sun droplet


First match was against against RUG Delver
2-0
He scooped twice when Humility hit the table with some other lock pieces already on the table. Both times he scooped he had a fair amount of creatures on the table and had already hacked away at my life total, thanks to Goyf and a flipped Delver. I am definitely not sure he should have scooped; it would have been grindy for him to win but it was in no way in the bag for me yet when he did.

Second match was against Maverick
1-1-1 too maverick
G1 on the draw T1 I play a SoL land, Mox discarding Karakas for trinisphere. T2 Crucible. T3 He plays off a Gaddock Teeg for three and I get to realize how much this card wrecks Stax: no Chalice, no Smokestack, no Humility, no Elspeth. I spend the next two turns staring at my hand and the ceiling trying to think of any way out. I eventually land my eyes on the Karakas in my graveyard and the Crucible I have on the battlefield. Immense relief when I play Karakas, bounce Gaddock Teeg, and slam humility on the table. I go on to win that one.
G2 Gaddock Teeg comes into play again before I reach four mana. The lone Karakas is nowhere to be found.
G3 ends in a draw (we had 2 life each). Very grindy game; most of the attacks came from Factory but without any other win con and without Crucible, it gets held off by double blockers enough turns to end in a draw. My opponent played a Sword of Fire and Ice a few turns before we got to time and for some reason didn't equip it. I believe he would have gotten the upper hand if he had done so.

Third game was against UGW creatures good stuff (fauna shaman, GSZ, dryad arbor, quirion ranger, BoP, vial, TNN, Gaddock Teeg, Qasali pridemage, MoM and a large array of one-ofs)
0-2
G1 Qasali pridemage Gaddock Teeg Enough said.
G2 came close to seeing me preventing him from getting his Teeg out. I had the choice of a turn three chalice on 2 or pithing needle while he had his two lands and a vial on one. I play needle on vial as I know he leans heavily on it and keep the chalice next in line. Next turn he lands Teeg once again.

Final match was against Miracles. The deck that hates people and want them to know it vs. the deck that hates people and don't want them to know it.
2-1
It seems players laugh a lot when their last pairing of the evening is Stax. Go figure.
First game is rather uneventful and is a win.
The second game is close but I lost with a Smokestack on 3 to his lonely TNN (he played snapcaster and clique EoT to avoid his board being completely wiped).
The final game was a win on a mull to four of my opponent. Landing an early Defense grid helped a bit too.
In neither of the three games did I see a terminus, entreat, top, or counterbalance.

So all in all, I went 2-1-1.

Sun droplet was never played. The few times I got it in my hand, I already had a chalice on 2 (ie rather late) or still had lock pieces to play out. I am pondering playing 2 Bottled cloister in the side to go through the deck faster looking for a win con. Ghostly prison feels like it needs trying out in here as well.
Open the vaults is that just being too cute or could one play it as a 1/2-of in side?

Questions, comments, constructive criticism, are always welcome!

[GoldenCid]

I always preferred the full prison stax. Tnacle effects are ultrasynergic with prison and sphere effectS. Not to mention armageddon. I agree that oring is vulnerable but i think that it is still a valuable card....2 or 3 of.
On your list maybe i'd change the god eye for the 8th sol land

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[tyriion]

If you go for cloister ensnaring bridge is a very nice card to try out as well. Always loved playing them together.

[Nuke is Good]

If you go for cloister ensnaring bridge is a very nice card to try out as well. Always loved playing them together.

You sir are a genius. It never occured to me when playing the deck. I'm so putting that combo in MUD.

[GoldenCid]

It is a nice sinergy but be aware if cloister gets gripped o vindicated. You loose your hole hand

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[Nysrol]

So I am working on building STAX as it fits into my "don't let others play" playstyle and I have read through this thread and wanted to apporach a cute W/R list

Mana (31)
5 Plains
2 Mountain
4 Flagstones of Troikar
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Ghost Quarters
4 Mox Diamond
2 Kjeldoran Outpost
1 Platue
1 Scrubland

Control/Lock (21)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 Tangle Wire
2 Armageddon
2 Humility

Win Conditions (8)
4 Lingering Souls
2 Assemble the legion
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Sideboard (15)
3 Helm of Obediance
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Rest in Piece
2 Tangle Wire
1 Moat


I know there are some problems with the list as realy a 5CMC spell that just allows you to tick up stax can be a little expensive but i dont think it would be that hard to cast with sol lands.

Let me know what you think and hopefully I will get a few rounds in with it soon.

[Purpley333]

Been looking into building a stax deck, what is the main thing holding it back from being good?:really:

[Nuke is Good]

Been looking into building a stax deck, what is the main thing holding it back from being good?:really:

Inconsistent like what MUD suffers. But the thing is its inconsistent and slow, SDT would make the deck better but we also run chalice which is a no-go. But I still love it.

[Purpley333]

So ive been playing this stax deck on cockatrice.
http://i.imgur.com/SgDpDHh.jpg
Thus far its been winning the majority of games, beating multiple delver decks, storm, miracles, elves. Any thoughts on this? Im not sure about the TC but ensoul is amazing. I just cant seem to find a good sideboard. :cry:

[Nuke is Good]

So ive been playing this stax deck on cockatrice.
http://i.imgur.com/SgDpDHh.jpg
Thus far its been winning the majority of games, beating multiple delver decks, storm, miracles, elves. Any thoughts on this? Im not sure about the TC but ensoul is amazing. I just cant seem to find a good sideboard. :cry:

For a Chalice deck, a 2 CMC spell seems pretty bad to put and would end up being a dead card in my opinion.

[(nameless one)]

Usually, don't you wanna just lock 1cc spells?

Also, I saw this on the spoilers: http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/134/743/635556637507898693.jpg

With this guy, you can keep spamming the board with threats while you feeding the board with resistors. Can also support Smokestacks if you have to.

[Purpley333]

Usually, don't you wanna just lock 1cc spells?

Also, I saw this on the spoilers: http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/134/743/635556637507898693.jpg

With this guy, you can keep spamming the board with threats while you feeding the board with resistors. Can also support Smokestacks if you have to.


Thats the biggest problem im having, trying to find sb cards that are not 1 cmc. Cant think of any good GY hate, tormods crypt may be the best since I cant use RIP

[draugr]

This isn't Stax, but something loosely related. I was hoping I could get the Stax community's opnion.

I've been playing a discard-based Pox deck with The Rack for the past few years causally. I recently picked up a playset of beta Sinkholes, and have been excited to make use of them in a land-destruction Pox shell. I've also had a fondness for Smokestack, but lack the funds to build it in its true form. I drafted up a bastard list that looks, at the least, aesthetically pleasing on paper:

10 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Dakmor Salvage

4 Dark Ritual

2 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Innocent Blood
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
3 Pox

4 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit

2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Smokestack
2 Trinisphere


Sideboard:
3 Engineered Plague
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Null Rod
2 Powder Keg
2 Sphere of Resistance
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere


I really like the cards mono-black has to offer at the 1CMC and 2CMC slots, so am tempted to avoid Chalice of the Void. Moreover, I lack the funds for Sol Lands. Curious, does the Stax community have any suggestions that could make this list a tad more cohesive? Or is melding up Pox with Stax not going to be a thing.

Thanks!

[Nysrol]

Thats the biggest problem im having, trying to find sb cards that are not 1 cmc. Cant think of any good GY hate, tormods crypt may be the best since I cant use RIP

You could use leyline of the void. You cant hard cast (with out a mox) it but it still works with helm.

[feline]

14 Decklists according to The Council over the past couple years:

http://www.tcdecks.net/tipo.php?archetype=Stax&format=Legacy

Is there anyone out there actively still pushing a Stax / Prison Stax archetype anymore?

[TLK]

14 Decklists according to The Council over the past couple years:

http://www.tcdecks.net/tipo.php?archetype=Stax&format=Legacy

Is there anyone out there actively still pushing a Stax / Prison Stax archetype anymore?

I'm still actively playing Angel Prison. I lost my win-and-in at the SCG Premier IQ in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago. Was rather heartbreaking. I have since moved away from the deck as the loss stung a little, but it's a great deck and likely my go-to for any future big events.

[GoldenCid]

What about you feline? Are you pushing the deck?

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[The_Dingo]

Found a sweet video of Caleb Durward playing a Mono W stax deck to a 4-0 finish. The legacy daily starts at 03:58:00.

http://www.twitch.tv/calebdmtg/v/4025872?t=2h52m36s&hc_location=ufi

[apple713]

i played it for about a year solid but then dropped it because of inconsistency issues which i do not believe are solvable with the current card pool. I believe most others have come to similar conclusions but some play it because it's the epitome of a prison deck.

[Blastoderm]

I'm brewing a Mono Blue tezzeret stax deck. It's pretty cool with Winter Orb

[Nuke is Good]

Right now my meta is going back to Delver which I find to be a terrible matchup for Stax.

There was one week at the LGS there were three people playing Miracles and one playing Pox. I wiped the floor with them with Stax, it felt so good. Stasis is my current pet project deck that I want to actually win with.

[Blastoderm]

Right now my meta is going back to Delver which I find to be a terrible matchup for Stax.

There was one week at the LGS there were three people playing Miracles and one playing Pox. I wiped the floor with them with Stax, it felt so good. Stasis is my current pet project deck that I want to actually win with.

I'm incorporating stasis in my tezz stax build as it's pretty much a lock with Tezzeret himself (you can fetch up seat of the synod and -X for orb of dreams if necessary). Winter Orb + Propaganda/Dream Tides/Pendrell Mists/Trinisphere/Tangle Wire is absolutely insane. Ratchet Bombs/Chalice of the Void help with Delver. ~3 Ensnaring Bridge has also been great.

[Ellomdian]

Is there anyone out there actively still pushing a Stax / Prison Stax archetype anymore?

I've been fooling around with a much more 'Shops based version of Stax - Spheres and Thorns and Wires oh my! - and it is as polarized to play/draw as the Vintage version. Games in which you play Sphere->3Sphere are bonkers, games in which your opponent just T1 Delvers you are awful.

I feel like many of the advantages of a 'traditional' white Stax build have been diminished in Legacy over the last decade. If you want the prison-y elements of the white cards, DnT is a serviceable mana denial strategy, and if you want to play Chalice and 3sphere, Blue/X Tezz shells and MUD represent better long games. The problem with Prison decks is that if your opponent can get under the lock, proactive elements have a hard time reacting (classic Standstill is probably one of the best examples of this) and the proliferation of Tempo strategies using hyper-efficient creatures like Delver has made it much more difficult.

There just isn't a lot of room in Legacy for decks that want to cast cards with an average CMC of 4.

[Nuke is Good]

I've been fooling around with a much more 'Shops based version of Stax - Spheres and Thorns and Wires oh my! - and it is as polarized to play/draw as the Vintage version. Games in which you play Sphere->3Sphere are bonkers, games in which your opponent just T1 Delvers you are awful.

I feel like many of the advantages of a 'traditional' white Stax build have been diminished in Legacy over the last decade. If you want the prison-y elements of the white cards, DnT is a serviceable mana denial strategy, and if you want to play Chalice and 3sphere, Blue/X Tezz shells and MUD represent better long games. The problem with Prison decks is that if your opponent can get under the lock, proactive elements have a hard time reacting (classic Standstill is probably one of the best examples of this) and the proliferation of Tempo strategies using hyper-efficient creatures like Delver has made it much more difficult.

There just isn't a lot of room in Legacy for decks that want to cast cards with an average CMC of 4.

This is the sad truth. I thought about a W/G Stax since the green splash could help mana acceleration. I still blame Delver for not being able to bring Stax to my LGS.

[Ellomdian]

This is the sad truth. I thought about a W/G Stax since the green splash could help mana acceleration. I still blame Delver for not being able to bring Stax to my LGS.

I think this is true for most Legacy archetypes in general - Creatures get better, spells get 'worse.' It's not just Delver's fault (though he is the poster child,) power creep has resulted in 3/3's for 2 with upside, and you have cards like Anticipate that would likely have been printed at U 3-4 years ago instead of the 1U they are at now.

Then again, you still have cards like Abrupt Decay pop up that are basically tailor-made for Legacy.

[fluuu]

I think this is true for most Legacy archetypes in general - Creatures get better, spells get 'worse.' It's not just Delver's fault (though he is the poster child,) power creep has resulted in 3/3's for 2 with upside, and you have cards like Anticipate that would likely have been printed at U 3-4 years ago instead of the 1U they are at now.

Then again, you still have cards like Abrupt Decay pop up that are basically tailor-made for Legacy.

Can someone post a current legacy white stax deck plz? I saw this deck in last shop tournament and I liked it.

[TLK]

I run a green splash Stax list. Played side events at GP Vegas and fared pretty well. Only card I lost to was Jace. Definitely need to swap out O-Rings with Council's Judgment in the main.

[Blastoderm]

I run a green splash Stax list. Played side events at GP Vegas and fared pretty well. Only card I lost to was Jace. Definitely need to swap out O-Rings with Council's Judgment in the main.

Cool! I'm sure Stax is stillviable but it needs more innovation to adapt to the new meta. I'm currently brewing a Mono Blue Tezzeret version.. I'll post soon.

[fluuu]

i like the W stax a lot.

[lavafrogg]

Stay got a post on starcity today.

The deck has to have a great miracles matchup as pretty much every card is valid and miracles has no clock to stop smokestacks from gobbling up the entire board. If I am right the wasteland/port mana base will be the next great archetype.

Creatures (4)

4 Lodestone Golem

Lands (26)

4 Ancient Tomb
3 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mutavault
3 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

Spells (30)

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible Of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Mox Diamond
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Tangle Wire

Sideboard

2 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Zuran Orb
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Razormane Masticore
4 Spellskite

[intelli78]

Thanks for posting, I would've missed that article otherwise.

Here are some thoughts:


4 SoR and 0 Trinisphere seems to go against common wisdom. It's slightly better against 4-5 CMC cards like planeswalkers and FOW, and against 3 CMC cards of which there aren't many right now. But it's significantly worse against 1 CMC, which is everywhere. Delver, DRS, Brainstorm, Ponder, Lightning Bolt, Spell Pierce, Gitaxian Probe, etc). It also clashes with CotV on 2. Though, SoR can also be casted more reliably on turn 1, which could be especially helpful on the draw. An interesting choice, but needs testing.
Do 4 Lodestone Golems really deserve 3 Cavern of Souls that could be Grim Monoliths, Tabernacles, the fourth Port, etc?
Are the 4 Tangle Wires good enough without Goblin Welder?

[Sibelius]

Thanks for posting, I would've missed that article otherwise.

Here are some thoughts:


4 SoR and 0 Trinisphere seems to go against common wisdom. It's slightly better against 4-5 CMC cards like planeswalkers and FOW, and against 3 CMC cards of which there aren't many right now. But it's significantly worse against 1 CMC, which is everywhere. Delver, DRS, Brainstorm, Ponder, Lightning Bolt, Spell Pierce, Gitaxian Probe, etc). It also clashes with CotV on 2. Though, SoR can also be casted more reliably on turn 1, which could be especially helpful on the draw. An interesting choice, but needs testing.
Do 4 Lodestone Golems really deserve 3 Cavern of Souls that could be Grim Monoliths, Tabernacles, the fourth Port, etc?
Are the 4 Tangle Wires good enough without Goblin Welder?


This deck wants Chalice on 1 never 2 because ratchet bomb and sphere cost 2. With Chalice on 1 Trinisphere does exactly the same vs cmc2 that Sphere does. Sphere then becomes better at cmc 3+

I agree that lodestone maybe an odd choice, especially with bolt running rampant and I'm currently working on a list without it. a 4cmc sphere might not gel with the plan of the list.

I really like the list and will be testing my version IRL. Ill get back to you all with a list once its been battle tested.

[Sibelius]

This is the list I played last night at my LGS

Pendrell Vale Prison

4 Tomb
4 City
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
4 Mishras Factory
3 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Mox diamond

4 Lodestone
2 Ratchet bomb
3 Ensaring bridge
4 Smokestack
4 Tanglewire
4 Chalice of the void
4 Sphere of resistance
4 Crucible of Worlds


Side

1 Zuran orb
2 Bottled cloister
1 Ensaring bridge
2 Thorn of amethyst
3 Pyrexian revoker
1 Batterskull
2 Tormods crypts
1 Ratchet bomb
2 Defence grid

Went 2-1-1

Played very badly vs Grixis control to loose the first round. I had never played a deck like this but I should have been more aggressive with my manlands. He did however have MD Kologhans command which is a bit annoying..... 0-2

Drew with Miracles, probs should have played better but still learning the optimum sequencing in the opening turns. Chalice on 5 was funny. 1-1

Beat High Tide. he didn't really have a chance game 1. game 2 went very long as I had him locked out with chalice, thorn and defence grid but no pressure. 2-0

Beat Storm. He mulled to oblivion but my opener was very good anyway. G2 he played young pyro and we had lots of shenanigans. 2-0

Thoughts

Deck seemed very solid and fun to play. Tabernacle was a good idea with all the pyro and mentor decks about. The deck felt a bit land heavy and Ancient tomb is a real problem a lot of the time. Pilot error was the biggest factor in loosing the 3 I lost. Lodestone was fine and is probably correct even with Tabernacle in the deck. I didn't play a discard heavy deck so Bottled Cloister wasn't used. Still looking forward to drawing extra cards and having EBridge out. Sideboard is just a bit random and hard to make when the main is still in such flux.
In the future I would like to try out Ghost quarter and really push the LD side of the deck.

Plans

Main
- 1 Port
- 1 Mox
- 1 Tabernacle (this kills me)
+ 2 Ghost quarter
+ 1 Ratchet Bomb

Please respond with some suggestions or any questions. I feel like there is something really good in this style of deck, especially with the interaction between Mox Diamond ramping out our chalice and sphere effects and Tabernacles upside with Tanglewire and Smokestack with its legendary downside decreased with access to Mox Diamond.

Cheers

[Avez]

Your decklist looks really good and love to hear more about your sideboard choices and strategies against the current post-DTT meta. Can this deck beat Lands somehow? I myself just started playing similar list (decklist here (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15869&iddeck=118263)) and it feels great. I'm missing the Tabernacles (too expensive), but still managed to win matches here and there. if possible I'd like to see more brewing and conversation about this deck here.

[apple713]

This is the list I played last night at my LGS



Please respond with some suggestions or any questions. I feel like there is something really good in this style of deck, especially with the interaction between Mox Diamond ramping out our chalice and sphere effects and Tabernacles upside with Tanglewire and Smokestack with its legendary downside decreased with access to Mox Diamond.

Cheers

Stax has always been a great deck, almost no matter how u build it but the reason it isn't tier 1 is because its not consistent. When you fix that issue, let me know. It's unlikely that anything will ever be printed that will help it Either. Any kind of draw / manipulation thats colorless is incredibly powerful and tutor effects are not in color;ess's color pie unless incredibly over costed.


EDIT

To add something more constructive. it seems like you might consider running cloud posts and glimmer posts since you aren't running the traditional white stax. White stax has proven well because of its synergy with flagstones of trokair and armageddon. I guess if you really wanted to you could substitute winter orb for armageddon but then you also lose out on ghostly prison. Furthermore, in a colorless list Karn / gin get discussed. Probably win more.

Red may be your best bet now with daretti goblin planes walker dude

[bruizar]

in addition to apple's points, I think the main reason it is hard for stax to play is due to the lack of fetch lands. Sensei's Divining Top is an incredibly powerful selection tool given enough shuffle effects, but it just doesn't work without fetchland. I believe that stax variants benefit immensely from a color splash. Then there is the awkward dissynergy between chalice of the void and SDT, Brainstorm and Ponder which makes you wonder if you should play chalice of the void at all in the first place. My favorite combination is R/G with sylvan library and punishing fire, but blue or black are probably better.

[Blastoderm]

I prefer blue over white right now but there are a couple similarities.

Ghostly Prison = Propaganda / Dream Tides
Magus of the Tabernacle = Pendrell Mists

The main reason why I'm playing blue is Tezzeret the Seeker. His tutoring ability is especially useful. You can also play stasis as he can untap seat of the synod and establish the lock by tutoring for Orb of Dreams.

Winter Orb should be good here as it works well with basically everything. Sideboard you can play Aetherize for stronger creature control if needed (like vs Elves). My list is as follows:

4 Tezzeret, the Seeker
4 Propaganda
2 Pendrell Mists
2 Stasis

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Tangle Wire

4 Sky Diamond
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Orb of Dreams
3 Smokestack
1 Sundial of the Infinite
3 Winter Orb

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Mishra's Factory
9 Island

[Sibelius]

Your decklist looks really good and love to hear more about your sideboard choices and strategies against the current post-DTT meta. Can this deck beat Lands somehow? I myself just started playing similar list (decklist here (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15869&iddeck=118263)) and it feels great. I'm missing the Tabernacles (too expensive), but still managed to win matches here and there. if possible I'd like to see more brewing and conversation about this deck here.


After the nice PM you sent me I've had a good think about Stax. I honestly think that this deck is at its best running a Mox Diamond and Tabernacle package. Unfortunately it is a very very expensive card but there really is no substitute for it.
My main deck currently is Lands but I've yet to play my stax list against a competent Lands player. I would have thought Game 1 with 3 Ensnaring bridges you would be quite safe. Chalice on 1 will do alot of work against them. Obviously then landing a chalice on 2 is game over. You may even be able to fight them on the land destruction with 4 Crucible main.
After board is where the problems will arise. Obviously add the last bridge and your graveyard hate. Muligan to a hand that has some resistance to wasteland that can hopefully not crumple to a single grip. If they are on the RUG Lands list you may have more problems because of Engineered Explosives and A Ruins, so save your Waste or Crypt/Relic for the correct moment if you can. Luckily this list is played less and less because Intuition really sucks at the moment.

That Blue Stax list desperately needs some more early turn plays. You can't just rely on resolving Tshere and then a 4 drop. The curve looks suspect and it looks weak to Wasteland.

Obviously Mono Brown Stax needs some library manipulation or way of abusing artifact interactions. The main issue is SDT and Goblin welder have a cmc of 1 and Chalice of the Void on 1 is our decks best play.
The simple fact is that stopping our opponents Brainstorm, Ponder, Bolt, Nimble Mongoose, Delver, Spell Pierce, SDT, Plow, Crop Rotation, Gamble, Deathrite, Entomb, Reanimate, Dark Ritual, G probe, Aether Vial, Relic, Pithing needle ETC ETC ETC is about a thousand times better than anything we can ever do with SDT or Welder. The only option is to recognise the disjunction between and try and play with both. However you want Chalice on 1 ON TURN 1 almost every game :(

The issue with my list is that it doesn't draw extra cards so I am certainly interested in looking at a cloudpost + coercive portal mana base. We do loose the manlands that are such a useful presence with Tabernacle and Smokestack.

I tried the Ghost quarter and didn't find them great. More work needed here certainly.

My list again for reference. Please test the exact version if you can, it is surprisingly good.

4 Tomb
4 City
4 Waste
4 Port
3 Tabernacle
4 Factory
4 Mutavault

3 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Ratchet Bomb
4 Tanglewire
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Smokestack

Sideboard
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Ensnaring Bridge

the rest currently in flux. cards I am moving between include
Bottled Cloister (pet card)
Spellskite (this looks promising)
Relic of Progenitus (unhappy with Chalice)
Tormods Crypt
Batterskull
Zuran Orb (probs good to have 2 in the list)

Please be aware of the mana curve of decks like these. High impact and low to the ground is where one wants to be. We may have lots of sol lands but mana can easily be a problem if we encounter a player who finds 2 wastes or horror of horror a Shardless player with loam main.

Where to go now ?
Options are testing that sweet Kharn Portal list linked above, trying out Howling mine in a list more optomised for Land Destruction, possibly with Black Vice. Obviously we encounter then Chalice issue again. Final options are some kind of Mox, Tabernacle, Sylvan Library, Planeswalker brew that has been tickling the back of my mind for ages.

Hope some of this massive post is interesting and gets people making good competitive lists.

I'll definitely be more active in the STAX thread from now on. (Tabernacle is the way to go :))

Sib

[L10]

Have you considered playing a copy or two of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? Tabernacle can tap for mana and Ancient Tomb is more manageable when you don't need it to tap for two mana.

Also, if you are playing with Winter Orb, Ghost Town may be a good option.

[Blastoderm]

Winter Orb is probably the way to go. It's amazing with Ghostly Prison, Tabernacle + variants (pendrell mists, magus), trinisphere and tangle wire.

Not to mention it's great against Miracles!

[Sibelius]

Winter Orb is probably the way to go. It's amazing with Ghostly Prison, Tabernacle + variants (pendrell mists, magus), trinisphere and tangle wire.

Not to mention it's great against Miracles!

Winter Orb..... Winter Orb ..... Winter Orb......
I love the card. It stops them untapping and with my Tabernacle I might be able to wrath a problematic board.

However it stops me untapping and this is an incredibly mana hungry deck. I can't kill them with man lands any more because Winter Orb ruins the clock. The entire focus of my stax list is to stymie (slow down) my opponent, have more permanent than them and then destroy them with wastelock or Smokestack. With winter orb out I slow myself down. And this is a terrible terrible idea against virtually all Legacy decks.

Legacy is a format built on 1 drops, you guys know this, and landing a Winter Orb early just allows them to play their Delvers and Dark rituals and I get stuck with 3/4 drops in hand. Try to think of the orb as you would when drafting a cube. It goes in an aggressive deck or one that can really punish them for the tempo swing it affords. The Stax list that you suggest I jam it into (god only knows what's getting cut) is a tap out control deck. The mana ramp is there to get under their counters while they ponder on the first turn and we can land an important sphere or chalice effect. The Rishadan ports back this up (and they work SO well with Orb .....)
I can see that Orb is a strong card that does something we might need. However the simple fact is this deck does it already ! Tabernacle is not for killing creatures. It is not a removal spell. It is a Winter Orb Land. The opponent has to decide if keeping around her creature is more important than playing spells. It locks up their mana so that when we land a Stack their board is under developed. It is not a symetrical effect in our deck whereas Winter Orb would be (and probably more detrimental to us). If we land Orb late and try to lock them out what are we gaining that couldn't have been achieved with Ensaring Bridge or Crucible of Worlds or Tabernacle? It is a dead card early and a redundant card late.


Tldr on Winter Orb
1. Early on it stops us playing spells
2. Late on it locks up the board but so does everything else we do and those other spells can be played in early turns.
3. It fucks with our man lands and Rishadan ports


Sib

[Avez]

Winter Orb..... Winter Orb ..... Winter Orb......
Sib

Good analysis overall, thanks! How are you guys feeling generally about putting 4x Leyline of the Void to the sideboard? In my meta I've been seeing an rise in Aggro Loam and other graveyard based decks and I think I need to hate them out somehow. Burn is also a thing here, so I have a couple Zuran Orbs and one Batterskull in my sideboard.

[Sibelius]

Good analysis overall, thanks! How are you guys feeling generally about putting 4x Leyline of the Void to the sideboard? In my meta I've been seeing an rise in Aggro Loam and other graveyard based decks and I think I need to hate them out somehow. Burn is also a thing here, so I have a couple Zuran Orbs and one Batterskull in my sideboard.

Do you need to hate them out because you are loosing to them or just because there are lots ? Their Chalice plan is redundant against you because you are both ignoring one drops but Abrupt decay in the wrong spot can be a real issue. I am tempted to say Relic of Progenitus might be the best card, it shrinks their yard, and therefore Kotr, and can be used to snag a problematic land or loam. It depends if you plan on using chalice against them, perhaps on 2 ?
Abrupt decay is the obvious problem from their deck, that and Dark confidant drawing the answers to our permanents.
The problem with Leyline is it has to be in the opening hand and we can hardly cast it. Perhaps spellskite is the way to go. redirect all of those annoying decays ?
Remember we are trying to lock them out with crucible and waste which is great against their manabase but awkward vs 2x loam most lists run.
What other graveyard decks are causing you problems ?

Sib

[Avez]

Do you need to hate them out because you are loosing to them or just because there are lots ? Their Chalice plan is redundant against you because you are both ignoring one drops but Abrupt decay in the wrong spot can be a real issue. I am tempted to say Relic of Progenitus might be the best card, it shrinks their yard, and therefore Kotr, and can be used to snag a problematic land or loam. It depends if you plan on using chalice against them, perhaps on 2 ?
Abrupt decay is the obvious problem from their deck, that and Dark confidant drawing the answers to our permanents.
The problem with Leyline is it has to be in the opening hand and we can hardly cast it. Perhaps spellskite is the way to go. redirect all of those annoying decays ?
Remember we are trying to lock them out with crucible and waste which is great against their manabase but awkward vs 2x loam most lists run.
What other graveyard decks are causing you problems ?

Sib

Hating just because I'm a hater :D I think the matchup against lands and aggro loam is not so good and it needs strong sideboard cards. Leylines are problematic of course to get to the opening hand (and not been able to play them any other way) but after they hit the board they do so much that it's tempting to play them. I'm now running Tormod's Crypts as a graveyard hate, let's see how they perform... Other graveyard decks in my meta are Dredge and ANT. Spellskite is interesting, I could try few of those.

[Ralf]

@ Sibelius:

How do you deal with midrange ? (Jund / Shardless / D&T)

No matter how hard I try, these decks tend to have the upper hand (Jund being the closest and Shardless the hardest).

What does your SB look like and how do you board against these ?

[Sibelius]

@ Sibelius:

How do you deal with midrange ? (Jund / Shardless / D&T)

No matter how hard I try, these decks tend to have the upper hand (Jund being the closest and Shardless the hardest).

What does your SB look like and how do you board against these ?

I will be honest. I haven't put much work into this deck since DTT was banned. The banning of DTT has made decks running the full 4 Ponder 4 Probe 4 Brainstorm and Young Pyromancer less effective and my build is based on directly combating those decks. This doesn't mean that this deck is bad now, just I haven't played it in the new meta.
Shardless and Jund run fewer of the annoying one drops we are built to combat. Various builds of Shardless and all of Jund run Hymn which I imagine is a serious problem for our deck, as are the 4 of Abrupt Decays in both lists.
In our corner Ebridge is still good, as is the Crucible + Waste plan to lock them out. I suggest using Spellskite to get around Abrupt Decay. As to discard my first thought is Bottled Cloister. This card is perfect against discard decks AND draws us extra cards. It is also Decay proof which will certainly help as we go long.
All of this is theory at the moment but I would have thought removing Chalice and Sphere would be good against Jund and bringing in 4 Spellskite, 2/3 Bottled Cloister is worth testing. As to Shardless, Chalice on 0 or sphere should deal with their card advantage as those are our main problems. I really don't know what else to suggest. Shardless is designed to beat up other midragey fair decks. Try to get ahead with permanent on board and use smokestack as inefficient removal ?
D and T. The problem is Aether Vial and Revoker. We have our own Revokers in the board for Vial and our Tabernacle, Bridge and Waste plan should be able to deal with what is left. Slow them down as best as possible. Remember how good Ratchet Bomb is here !

Good luck guys, Ill try and play Stax at my next event. Please do some testing and tell me what conclusions you come to. On the upside the resurgence of Infect and Storm, both of which should be good matchups for us. Get those Chalice for 1 on Turn 1 !!!

Sib

[Avez]

Zak Elsik was playing MUD Stax on camera at the weekends Legacy GP on Round 2! Video can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball/v/24505351, starts at 2:08:12.

[lilevo]

So I have been working on this list for a few days now and I am happy with the results so far, the main thing I changed from past staxx lists (other than the lack of smoke stacks) is that I didn't want to play too many 4 drops, also I wanted to play a deck that has a good MU vs delver in game 1.

http://imgur.com/YL0Ko3W

[shadowgripper]

Zac Elsik was playing MUD Stax on camera at the weekends Legacy GP on Round 2! Video can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball/v/24505351, starts at 2:08:12.

Here is the list I piloted:

2 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Tangle Wire
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Trinisphere
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Smokestack

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
1 Tabernacle


SIDEBOARD
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Spellskite
2 Bottled Cloister
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Razormane Masticore

Nothing special really. Bottled Cloister were amazing. Razormane I wanted 2 of at least. Tabernacle was cool but I rarely drew it, somehow, so can't state how good/bad it was.

I did not have any byes. Won my first 4 matches. Lost to D&T because player error on my part, lack of knowledge with deck. Lost again to Shardless BUG, just got out-valued both games, idk what else could be done. Finally lost round 9, closing my record at 6-3, to BUG Delver. Player error both games lost me each one, just dumb on my part. I was exhausted lol, the day was long and the venue was loud. Maybe next time :)

If I had to play again I would pilot a list with a color in it. Probably black because I like the list with Ophiomancer + Braids + Toxis Deluge. Playing a color, any color, gives you better sideboard options. I originally tested a mono red Darreti Stax list with welders and punishing fire, but found it hard to close out games. With the non-color version I had man-lands so games ended quickly.

[Ralf]

I did not have any byes. Won my first 4 matches. Lost to D&T because player error on my part, lack of knowledge with deck. Lost again to Shardless BUG, just got out-valued both games, idk what else could be done. Finally lost round 9, closing my record at 6-3, to BUG Delver. Player error both games lost me each one, just dumb on my part. I was exhausted lol, the day was long and the venue was loud. Maybe next time :)

If I had to play again I would pilot a list with a color in it. Probably black because I like the list with Ophiomancer + Braids + Toxis Deluge. Playing a color, any color, gives you better sideboard options. I originally tested a mono red Darreti Stax list with welders and punishing fire, but found it hard to close out games. With the non-color version I had man-lands so games ended quickly.

Thanks for the feedbacks. You have struggled against MU I have mentioned a few weeks ago: midrange.decks


Adding a color also means less consistency (color issues).
I didn't had time to experiment but I think Culling Scales might be the solution against midrange.deck
Another potential out is wurmcoil engine, fairly used by standard MUD builds.

How were the cavern ?

[Sisyphos]

I didn't had time to experiment but I think Culling Scales might be the solution against midrange.deck

I don't know how you define midrange.deck exactly and I don't know how you plan to board in those matchups, but unless I miss something and unless the card you want to kill out of midrange.deck has a cc of 0, using Culling Scales in a deck that plays Chalice (cc=0) and Moxen (cc=0) does not exactly strike me as very useful.

[Ralf]

I don't know how you define midrange.deck exactly and I don't know how you plan to board in those matchups, but unless I miss something and unless the card you want to kill out of midrange.deck has a cc of 0, using Culling Scales in a deck that plays Chalice (cc=0) and Moxen (cc=0) does not exactly strike me as very useful.

Making the effort to read a few posts back would have given you exactly the type of decks I was mentioning.

Obviously chalice & mox are sided out when you side in Culling Scales.

Here are my sideboard plan for those MU:

Jund / Shardless / D&T

1 Spellskite
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Bottled Cloister
2 Orbs of Warding
3 Culling Scales

-4 Tangle wire
-4 Chalice of The Void
-3 Mox diamond


And my list:

Stax

4 Mishra's factory
4 Mutavault
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Tabernacle
1 Maze of Ith

4 Lodestone Golem

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of resistance
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
4 Smokestack
3 Mox diamond
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Ratchet Bomb

Sideboard

1 Spellskite
1 Defense Grid
2 Zuran Orb
1 Ratchet Bomb
3 Culling Scales
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Bottled Cloister
2 Orbs of Warding
2 Phyrexian revoker

[Avez]

Participated last weekend in the Finnish Legacy Championships with my version of the MUD Stax and I have to say that this deck rocks! There were 109 player in the tournament, 7 rounds of swiss and top8. I went 5-0-2 in swiss (3#) and ended up in the top4. My decklist was:

Main
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Mox Diamond
1x Powder Keg
3x Ratchet Bomb
4x Smokestack
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire

4x Lodestone Golem

4x Ancient Tomb
1x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Mutavault
3x Rishadan Port
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Wasteland

Sideboard
1x Caltrops
1x Cursed Totem
4x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Powder Keg
1x Ratchet Bomb
2x Spellskite
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Zuran Orb

I played against:
2-1 RUG Delver, usually pretty ok matchup if they don't land an early delver.
2-1 MUD, my friend playing the traditional MUD list. I think in this matchup I only have to deal with the metalworker and after that it's game. Revoker helped a lot!
2-1 In the first game my opponents counters everything I try to play and wins easily by comboing with Omniscience + Release the Ants. Second game goes on a while, opponent tries to combo through 2 Lodestone Golems and some other stuff, he forgets I have Chalice on 1 in table and ends failing to combo me, Lodestone golems finishes the job. In third game I draw everything that is relevant in this game and beat my opponent up with Lodestone.
2-0 RUG Delver, another RUG and another friend playing against me. Early Delver don't ruin the game, but my lock pieces do for the opponent. Repeating Wastelands and Tangle Wire are awesome here.
2-0 Sneaky Show, first game my opponent casts a Show and Tell and I show him the Bridge, almost instant scuup from my opponent. Second game is a bit harder. My opponents counters everything I try to play and ends up having Sneak Attack on the table and wiping my table (few lands and mox diamond) with Emmy. Never surrender never give up! I continue playing, drawing manlands after another and my opponent doesn't find another creature to sneak into game. 6-7 rounds later I win the game with Mutavault beats :)
ID
ID
Top8
2-1 BUG Shardless, opponent destroys me with perfect hand (Shaman, decay, tarmo, liliana). Second game it's my turn to play the perfect hand were I repeatedly destroy his lands, bomb away the shamans and finally the Lodestone golem deals the lethal damage. Last game my opponent got stuck in 2 lands where I go and draw a few Rishadan Ports and 3 Phyrexian Revokers naming Deathrite Shaman and they finish the game my attacking every turn.
Top4
0-2 Aggro Loam, impossible to win? Opponent wastelands me repeatedly and has the Loam-engine going on in both games.

I end up getting 150 store credits and felt pretty good overall with the results. The deck is almost all foiled up and judges did deckcheck to my twice. They mentioned that some of the foils are a little curved but luckily it was always a different card when they tested my deck. I will definitely keep on playing this deck and hopefully see others also achieve good results with it!

[darkgh0st]

@Avez: Gratz on the great finish! Your list was popping up wherever I look. I'm a long time MUD player (combo and stax).
RG Lands' game plan vs us is to prioritize their Waste-lock then combo us after. It is beatable by either naming Pithing Needle on Wasteland (hampers your locks too, but Smokestack should solve that problem), or constantly removing his yard when he has Loam or Wasteland in it (Loam being the priority).

I wanted to inquire what your SB strat is vs RUG and BUG?

[Avez]

@Avez: Gratz on the great finish!
I wanted to inquire what your SB strat is vs RUG and BUG?

Thanks! If I remember correctly....
Against RUG
Out:
-1 Smokestack
-1 Mox Diamond (don't want to lose 2 cards against A.Grudge, I guess...)
-1 Sphere of Resistance

In:
+1 Tabernacle
+1 Powder Keg
+1 Ratchet Bomb

Spellskite could have also worked here as a A.Grudge target and a blocker against mongoose and goyf. Bombs are obviously good in this matchup because sometimes they can get 2for1 (in one game I hit mongoose and unflipped Delver) but also they're crucial for stopping the early Delver-beats.

Against BUG Shardless
Out:
-4 Sphere of Resistance
-2 Lodestone Golem

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker
+1 Powder Keg
+1 Cursed Totem

My plan here was to shut down their Deathrite Shamans right at the beginning and attack their manabase with repeating Wastelands and also use Rishadan Port aggressively so that they can't access Liliana. I think that Sphere might gripple your own mana here and Lodestone usually just dies to Liliana or trades with Goyf.

Should have made more notes during the games :(

[Ralf]

Thanks! If I remember correctly....
Against RUG
Out:
-1 Smokestack
-1 Mox Diamond (don't want to lose 2 cards against A.Grudge, I guess...)
-1 Sphere of Resistance

In:
+1 Tabernacle
+1 Powder Keg
+1 Ratchet Bomb

Spellskite could have also worked here as a A.Grudge target and a blocker against mongoose and goyf. Bombs are obviously good in this matchup because sometimes they can get 2for1 (in one game I hit mongoose and unflipped Delver) but also they're crucial for stopping the early Delver-beats.

Against BUG Shardless
Out:
-4 Sphere of Resistance
-2 Lodestone Golem

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker
+1 Powder Keg
+1 Cursed Totem

My plan here was to shut down their Deathrite Shamans right at the beginning and attack their manabase with repeating Wastelands and also use Rishadan Port aggressively so that they can't access Liliana. I think that Sphere might gripple your own mana here and Lodestone usually just dies to Liliana or trades with Goyf.

Should have made more notes during the games :(

Against RUG I'm usually boarding:

+1 Spellskite
+2 Zuran Orb
+1 Ratchet
+1 Ensnaring Bridge

-4 Lodestone Golem
-1 Smokestack

I think we have to play control here and the more the game lasts, the better.

Against Shardless I am not sure about removing Sphere of resistance instead of Tangle.
Tangle is virtually card disadvantage which is not where I want to be against a grindy MU.
I also fail to see the impact of cursed totem in the MU save Baleful Strix

Edit: Gratz to say the least Avez. I'll be trying the playset of revoker

Stax

4 Mishra's factory
4 Mutavault
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Tabernacle
1 Maze of Ith

4 Lodestone Golem

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of resistance
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
4 Smokestack
3 Mox diamond
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Ratchet Bomb

Sideboard

1 Spellskite
1 Defense Grid
2 Zuran Orb
1 Ratchet Bomb
3 Culling Scales
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Bottled Cloister
4 Phyrexian revoker

[Sibelius]

I also fail to see the impact of cursed totem in the MU save Baleful Strix


I imagine its for Deathrite Shaman and an extension of his mana denial plan against Shardless. Baleful Strix is a triggered ability rather than activated, which is what Cursed Totem stops.

Congratulations on your 'Finnish' ;-) Avez

Time to sleeve this deck back up and get testing. We all seem to be agreeing on the main deck, I like the Maze of Ith addition over the third Tabernacle. It is now time to really sort out how to sideboard in all of the Matchups and get some proper testing and practice in. I would love if you Avez could write a post on sideboarding for every deck in meta, not for us to take as correct, but as a starting point for discussion,s because you seem to have had some good success with the deck so far.

Cheers guys
Sib

[Ralf]

I imagine its for Deathrite Shaman and an extension of his mana denial plan against Shardless. Baleful Strix is a triggered ability rather than activated, which is what Cursed Totem stops.

Congratulations on your 'Finnish' ;-) Avez

Time to sleeve this deck back up and get testing. We all seem to be agreeing on the main deck, I like the Maze of Ith addition over the third Tabernacle. It is now time to really sort out how to sideboard in all of the Matchups and get some proper testing and practice in. I would love if you Avez could write a post on sideboarding for every deck in meta, not for us to take as correct, but as a starting point for discussion,s because you seem to have had some good success with the deck so far.

Cheers guys
Sib

Yes my bad I thought the card's ability was Torpor orb's ability.

[Avez]

Congratulations on your 'Finnish' ;-) Avez
...I would love if you Avez could write a post on sideboarding for every deck in meta, not for us to take as correct, but as a starting point for discussion,s because you seem to have had some good success with the deck so far.
Sib

Thanks! I'll try to write something here during this week.

Edit.
The sideboardin guide is now ready, I'm running it through my friend for additional ideas and inputs and then I'll post it here.

[Sibelius]

Played a small 4 round event last night. Went 2-2. Lost to Painter 2-1 and Rug delver 2-1, beat Shardless and Storm. Painter loss was because I played very very badly by not casting Crucible and ending up with no lands. urgh misplay. Painter cant really beat a chalice on 1 without Jaya Balad so should be good. Rug went ok until I yet again had a brain fart and kept a terrible hand only for my opponent to waste me three times. Bad play punished.

3 mox
2 Tabernacle
1 Maze
8 Sol
4 Waste
3 Port
8 Man lands (I have the four seasons of Mishras factory now :) )

4 Smokestack
4 Crucible
4 Chalice
4 Sphere
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Powder keg
3 Ensnaring bridge
4 Trinisphere
4 Lodestone

Side
2 Zuran Orb
2 Bottled cloister
4 Revoker
1 Ebridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Tormods crypt
1 Cursed Totem
2 Spellskite

This board felt really good. Still haven't managed to get the bottled cloisters in hand yet though so don't know how good they are. I didn't like the Maze of Ith, I feel it should be the 4th port.

Sib

[Ralf]

Played a 5 swiss-rounds last saturday + top 8.

Lost in semi finals.

R1: Win vs Twin combo (2/1)
R2: Loss vs Aggro Loam (0/2)
R3: Win vs BUG (2/1)
R4: Win vs Burn (2/1)
R5: Win vs Reanimator (2/1)

Quarter: Win vs Painter (2/1)
Semi: Loss vs Infect (0/2)

I made a few sideboard errors and I truly think Infect is winnable.

Same list as posted above.
The sideboard was slightly tweaked:
-1 Culling Scale
-1 Defense Grid
+2 Surgical Extraction

[Avez]

Hello again! Here is the sideboarding guide I was asked to make for the deck. It's very crude but I hope it can start a conversation what works in different matchups and what doesn't. I used my own list as an example, hope you don't mind.

Main
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Mox Diamond
1x Powder Keg
3x Ratchet Bomb
4x Smokestack
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire

4x Lodestone Golem

4x Ancient Tomb
1x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Mutavault
3x Rishadan Port
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Wasteland

Sideboard
1x Caltrops
1x Cursed Totem
4x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Powder Keg
1x Ratchet Bomb
2x Spellskite
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Zuran Orb

RUG
Fast Delver is the worst! Blow it up right away and get some lock pieces out. After sideboard they have Ancient Grudge, so prepare for this and if you can always attack the green manasource (they have total of 3 Tropical Islands) first, shuts down A.Grudge flashback but also every other creature except Delver.


Out:
-1 Smokestack
-2 Mox Diamond (don't want to lose 2 cards against A.Grudge)
-1 Sphere of Resistance

In:
+1 Tabernacle
+2 Powder Keg / Ratchet Bomb
+1 Spellskite ?

BUG Shardless
Here I usually try to lock down their Shamans and try to keep them from getting enough mana to cast Tarmogoyfs or Lilianas.


Out:
-4 Sphere of Resistance (they have wasteland, could screw your own mana)
-2 Lodestone Golem (dies to Liliana too easily)

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker (shuts down Deathrite Shaman & Liliana)
+1 Powder Keg
+1 Cursed Totem

Miracles
Here we just have to worry about not dying to fast Monastery Mentor beats and land the Smokestack ASAP. Also don't be afraid to raise the Smokestacks to 2 counters. Revoker names the Divining Top of course.


Out:
-2 Ensnaring Bridge (Doesn't really help against Monastery Mentor tokens)
-1 Powder Keg
-1 Tabernacle

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker

Omnitell
Seems that Omnitell is still a deck even without Dig Through Time. Our maindeck is pretty good against them so it's not so bad even if we don't have good sideboard cards against them. Try to land the Chalice on 1 and Lodestone Golem for a fast win.


Out:
-1 Tabernacle
-3 Powder Keg / Ratched Bomb

In:
+4 Revoker (for just trying to punch in the damage fast)

Sneak Attack
They usually lose to a resolved Ensnaring Bridge in the first game. So try to land one safely or keep it in hand and reveal it to Show and Tell. After sideboard they will usually bring some bounce spell like Echoing Truth or Wipe Away. Sometimes they even side out Show and Tells for Through the Breaches, so resolving the Ensnaring Bridge fast is really important in game 2&3.


Out:
-1 Tabernacle
-4 Powder Keg / Ratchet Bomb

In:
+ 4 Phyrexian Revoker (Naming Sneak Attack or Griseldaddy)
+ 1 Cursed Totem (stops Griseldaddys card draws)

Jund
This is one difficult matchup. They have Dr.Shamans, Decays, Wasteland, discards and burn spell to kill our revokers and golems. I don't even have a good sideboard strategy against them, let's try to work something out?


Out:
-4 Sphere of Resistance
-2 Chalice of the Void (if you're on the draw)

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker (Deathrite Shaman & Liliana)
+1 Cursed totem
+1 Tabernacle

Lands
Lands is not so bad what it first seems. On the play the Chalice on 1 also does a lot of damage to them. Best way to victory is often Lodestone Golem, but it may take a hit from Krosan Grip after sideboard.


Out:
-1 Tabernacle
-3 Rathed Bomb / Powder Keg

In:
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+2 Spellskite (Decay decoy)

ANT (Storm)
Our mainboard is pretty sweet against these kinds of decks.


Out:
-1 Tabernacle
-3 Ensnaring bridge
-2 Rathed Bomb / Powder Keg

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker (Naming Lion's Eye Diamond)
+2 Tormod's Crypt

Elves
Try to get the Chalice of The Void x=1 here as soon as possible.


Out:
-2 Ensnaring Bridge (They're going to find the Reclamation Sage at some point and instakill with Behemot)
-2 Crucible
-3 Tangle Wire

In:
+1 Cursed Totem
+1 Tabernacle
+2 Ratched Bomb / Powder Keg
+1-2 Phyrexian Revoker (I don't even know what is the best target to name here?)

Burn
This is a bit hard because of Goblin Guide, Price of Progress and especially Sulfuric Vortex! Try to get one of your bombs to 3 because Vortex will otherwise end you! It also stops the lifegain from Zuran Orbs.


Out:
-3 Ensnaring Bridge
-2 Tangle Wire (This doesn't necessarily do anything since they have so much instant spells)

In:
+2 Zuran Orb
+2 Spellskite
+1 Ratched Bomb / Powder Keg

MUD
Our big brother! Try to get to the infinite Wastelands via Crucible of the Worlds since they have only nonbasic lands in their deck.


Out:
4 Lodestone Golem (These are useless here)

In:
+4 Phyrexian Revoker (Gotta shut down that Metal Worker before it's too late)

Reanimator

Out:
-3 Ratched Bomb / Powder Keg

In:
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+1 Cursed Totem (Stopping Griselbrands card draws)

Grixis Delver (Grixis Control?)
I'm pretty new to this matchup but I feel that their number one wincon is either Delver or Young Pyromancer. Try to land the Chalice on 1. Also good to know, they don't usually have more than one or max two basic lands in their decks.


Out:
-1 Lodestone Golem
-1 Ensnaring Bridge
-2 Sphere of Resistance

In:
+2 Rathed Bomb / Powder Keg
+1 Tabernacle
+1 Caltrops

Foodchain
Try to disable their Shamans and get a bomb to 3 counters to blow up the Food Chain. They have 3-4 Abrupt Decays in the mainboard, so prepare to lose some artifacts. Sphere of Resistance disables their infinite mana combo with Food Chain and Misthollow Griffin.


Out:
-2 Ensnaring Bridge (They have ways to bounce this back to your hand if they combo out)
-1 Tabernacle

In:
+1 Cursed Totem (Deathrite Shaman)
+2 Spellskite (Divert Decays)

Death and Taxes
Pretty hard matchup (or maybe even the hardest) because of Thalia, Wasteland and maindeck Phyrexian Revokers. Bombs are obviosly good here if they don't get revoked. Try to land a fast Ensnaring Bridge and take control of the board before it's too late.


Out:
-4 Sphere of Resistance (These will F*** up your game combined with Thalia from the opponent)
-2 Lodestone Golem

In:
+1 Caltrops
+2 Powder Keg / Ratched Bomb
+2 Phyrexian Revoker (Aether Vial, Jitte)
+1 Tabernacle

So what do you think?

[Dice_Box]

Took a week off from Lands and decided to try this out tonight. Dam it is a world of fun. Main was I think a copy of the one above, I have got to say I enjoyed it. It does need some card draw though as lacking that hurt. I am thinking a Trading Post because it also adds some life gain to the main. Anyway, I will try this again next week and take notes. MUD never quite felt like Shops does to play, this really does.

[Avez]

No love for the Stax anymore? :cry:

[Blastoderm]

No love for the Stax anymore? :cry:

Very few people have love for stax. But we're still here :)

I've been jamming mono blue stax with propaganda, tezzeret the seeker, etc :)

[Avez]

Very few people have love for stax. But we're still here :)

I've been jamming mono blue stax with propaganda, tezzeret the seeker, etc :)

Give us your decklist immediately! :D

[anakyn]

Love ain't the problem, competitiveness is.
Deck is still fun to play and I tried to test it again recently, but loses from itself even when facing theoretically positive matchups.

[ZEROorDIE]

I've got a mono colorless build in working on right now using a couple of the new cards. I want to get some testing in with it over the next couple weeks and see if its any good/tweak some of the card quantities.

[Avez]

a couple of the new cards

Warping Wail?

[Blastoderm]

Give us your decklist immediately! :D

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle wire
4 Ratchet Bomb

4 Tezzeret, the Seeker
4 Propaganda

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
3 Maze of Ith
10 Island

I play around with a few cards like Pendrell Mists, Dream Tides, 1-2 Copies of Stasis (to combo with Tezzeret), and some mana rocks like Dimir Signet or Talisman of Dominance.
Note I don't have Crucible of Worlds so the typical wasteland/crucible/mox diamond package is out.


Warping Wail?

I've been LOVING 4x of this maindeck in 12Post.

[ZEROorDIE]

Warping Wail?

Yes, also testing out sea gate wreckage since the goal is the same as ensnaring bridge(empty your hand) and card draw has been one of the big struggles with artifact decks in legacy. Will hopefully have some data by mid next week

[darkgh0st]

@Avez: Do you find that having Tabernacle makes a big difference in the deck?

[Avez]

@Avez: Do you find that having Tabernacle makes a big difference in the deck?

I really can't say :/ Sometimes it does wonders and sometimes I just throw it away to a Mox Diamond. We need a way to fetch it somehow for it to be really usefull...

[frogger42]

So...
Things I liked about my old Stax list: It ran Intuition (with Crucible of Worlds) and Tolaria West. Intuition of course adds 4 copies of your heavy-hitters (be it something like Elspeth or Smokestack) but also has random other synergies, like a triple-tutor (Daretti, aforementioned Crucible), and Tolaria West, while CIPT, tutors for 1-of Tabernacles, land/ Artifact bullets, extra Wastes, and of course, Chalices.

I present these two cards as the future of Stax. They make an inconsistent Stax deck far, far more consistent, and really open up your topdecking and lines of play. Don't leave home without them. Thoughts on a list?

[Sibelius]

Going to try this out when I can. Similar to http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gppra16/deck-tech-eldrazi-stacks-valentin-mackl-2016-06-12

Now Tabernacle is not as good as before we can play Hangerback and some creatures. Obvs ensnaring bridge is now out but winning a bit faster is no bad thing. Its a shame tangle wire doesn't fit in here any more. TKS is probably just better than Lodestone and with the extra 4 sol lands reshaper and smasher become sensible options. Trinisphere is a better option here than Sphere of resistance in this build.
I am looking forward to playing it. Although I may be wrong in not playing the creature centric cards like dismember and jitte and the catchall of wail.
Crucible, Smokestack, Wasteland and Ghost quarter give this deck a good endgame

4 Smasher
4 Tks
4 Reshaper
4 Hangerback

4 Smokestack
4 Chalice
4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible
3 Mox Diamond
1 ? Endbringer ?

4 Temple
4 Tomb
4 City
4 Waste
4 Factory
3 Cavern
2 Ghost Quarter

SB
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 GY hate (surgical, crypt, farie macarbe?)
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Jitte
3 Warping Wail ?
1 ?

Sib

I know this does not seem very innovative considering the above deck tech but this is probs where stax should be right now.
I also need to do some work on Tanglewire. It is probably very good in the Eldrazi matchup when backed up with waste.

[Sibelius]

Finally found the time to finish another article. Its about Stax and Eldrazi. It might give some of the Stax lovers an idea or two!
I hope you like it.

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com/2016/10/02/the-brewery-eldrazi-stax/

Sib

[caprino]

Finally found the time to finish another article. Its about Stax and Eldrazi. It might give some of the Stax lovers an idea or two!
I hope you like it.

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com/2016/10/02/the-brewery-eldrazi-stax/

Sib

Very nice as a list.

you think I can be competitive?

[Sibelius]

Very nice as a list.

you think I can be competitive?

I think there is definitely something worth working on in that list or around those cards. A way to beat Delver of Secrets is the most pressing need. As we can't use Ensnaring Bridge I think some number of Dismember or Spatial Contortion need to be added. Dismember has the additional problem of costing a lot of life. Spatial contortion however does not deal with Goyf or Gurmag. This is probably less of a problem as we have bigger ground pounders. My advice would be to play the deck a few times and see what changes you think are needed.


On another note.
I found someone doing well with Stax on SCG. It has been mislabeled MUD when it is OBVIOUSLY a Stax list.

Link : http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=108137

List

Creatures (4)

4 Metalworker

Lands (25)

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Buried Ruin
4 City of Traitors
3 Ghost Quarter
4 Wasteland
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
4 Inventors' Fair

Spells (31)

1 Bottled Cloister
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible Of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ghirapur Orrery
2 Grim Monolith
4 Mox Diamond
3 Smokestack
1 Staff Of Domination
4 Tangle Wire
4 Trinisphere

Sideboard
1 Bottled Cloister
3 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ghost Quarter

There is a lot going on here.
Locking people out with Ghost Quarter and Wasteland.
Buried Ruin and Inventors Fair returning and searching out lock pieces,
infinite life combo with Staff,
Gemstone caverns to increase the Turn 1 play %,
Worlds slowest Bitterblossom in Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reika,
Ghirapur Orrery as a ramp and Crucible lock effect.

This deck is a good example of the most important part of Stax decks in Legacy. The Mana/Land base. As we have to play largely similar spells, all the spheres and lock pieces, the difference in these decks comes from the mana base. The mana base is often also the win condition. Mishras Factory and Mutavault, Tabernacle and Waste Lock, Rishadan ports and Eldrazi lands seem to be the best options. This deck has added Inventors Fair and increased the Buried Ruins from the 1 ofs in some previous decks.
I also really like the use of Metalworker. Without Mishra's Workshop we are often a turn behind with our lock pieces or our Smoke Stack needed one more turn to take over the game. With Metalworker and a 100% artifact based deck we can make tons and tons of mana on turn 2 and overload our opponent with a bunch of Locks all in one go. This will help us against Tempo and soft counter decks like Delver.

I am going to build this list and do some work on it. I will try my best not to add in pet combos like Hangerback or Tabernacle unless they would actually work :wink:

Sib

[MGB]

Inventors' Fair adds A LOT to this deck.

The ability to gain a life buffer for no extra cost, and the ability to tutor for specific lock pieces mid/late-game... are amazing additions.

The power level of the decklist that made Top-8 at the Legacy Classic is very high. Everything fits perfectly together now and Inventors' Fair ties the bow on the ribbon of this deck, basically.

[Wotkenmendo]

So concessions, Gods' Eye and maybe Metalworker beats are the only wincons? Cool. Thought the Inventor's Fair and Ghost Quarter numbers might be inversed. I like the look of this though!

[L10]

The list is very spicy. I'd try to fit in a singleton Karn, Silver Golem, though. Having access to four tutors, assuming the deck list is correct, makes it a viable win con.

[CaptainTwiddle]

I was chatting with Michael Coyle, the pilot of the deck that finished 5th at SCG Indy, about his list and have played a few games with it. It is very solid. There is so much power in the list that isn't immediately apparent. For example, it wasn't until I had both Bottled Cloister and Ghirapur Orrery in play together that I realized it allowed me to draw 5 cards per turn and still hide behind an Ensnaring Bridge. I think a land or two could be adjusted, but the the list seems really tuned. I was worried about possibly going to time against opponents who wouldn't concede and am considering cutting some land (possibly an Inventors' Fair or Ghost Quarter to fit in a second Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai. Since the deck is really looking to play off of Crucible of Worlds, having a second Gods' Eye allows you to generate 2 spirits per turn, once you have Crucible + Orrery, which adds up to a pretty fast clock, once your opponent is being eternally tapped down with Tangle Wire or has no board thanks to Smokestack.

[non-inflammable]

The gemstone caverns is cute but that's what i'd take out of the main for the second Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai.

If you "really" wanted to play gemstone caverns, put them in your sideboard for AFTER you win game one and know you're playing second.
I did play caverns out of the side when I played RUG Lands and it was nice to get it turn zero; surprised several opponents.

[anakyn]

The gemstone caverns is cute but that's what i'd take out of the main for the second Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai.
That's exactly what I did too before testing the deck.

The only other change in the maindeck was -1 Inventors's Lair, + 1 Ghost Quarter.

[bruizar]

That's exactly what I did too before testing the deck.

The only other change in the maindeck was -1 Inventors's Lair, + 1 Ghost Quarter.

Wouldn't do that. I'd do -1 Fair, +1 Sheltered Valley so you can get 2 life a turn.

[Sibelius]

Wouldn't do that. I'd do -1 Fair, +1 Sheltered Valley so you can get 2 life a turn.

Gaining 1 more life per turn is not something this deck is after.
Cutting tutor effects for this kind of terrible conditional card is not something you want to do.
The main plan is to lock out the opponent and then destroy all of their lands, followed by what ever is left with Smokestack.

Inventors Fair is a 4 of because we always want to play one in the first few turns.

Its time we all actually played and tested the proven deck before trying to change parts of it with pet cards.

Sib

[Fred_Bear]

Gaining 1 more life per turn is not something this deck is after.
Cutting tutor effects for this kind of terrible conditional card is not something you want to do.
The main plan is to lock out the opponent and then destroy all of their lands, followed by what ever is left with Smokestack.

Inventors Fair is a 4 of because we always want to play one in the first few turns.

Its time we all actually played and tested the proven deck before trying to change parts of it with pet cards.

Sib

Honestly, I think testing 3 Inventor's Fair is entirely reasonable. I'm not sure what I'd immediately replace it with (I'm usually with you that 'pet' cards or 'cute' interactions aren't worthwhile), but a 4-of legendary land which requires 3 other artifacts in play (one of which really needs to be a Crucible) to activate isn't 'obviously' right, results (from 1 tournament) or not. Testing 3 should bear that out one way or the other.

As it stands, I'm interested to see which cards could be cut back to include another win condition. I only play online and winning by spirit beats might not be feasible on the chess clock.

[bruizar]

Gaining 1 more life per turn is not something this deck is after.
Cutting tutor effects for this kind of terrible conditional card is not something you want to do.
The main plan is to lock out the opponent and then destroy all of their lands, followed by what ever is left with Smokestack.

Inventors Fair is a 4 of because we always want to play one in the first few turns.

Its time we all actually played and tested the proven deck before trying to change parts of it with pet cards.

Sib

I've played and won with stax decks running 2 off sheltered valley long before inventors fair was a thing. Mainly to shore up the burn matchup. Wasting 4 mana to tutor for a lockpiece is rather bad. Metalworking into staff for an instant win would have been an argument for inventors fair #4, but alas. Stax decks have inevitability, but ancient tomb is a big problem against aggressive decks.

[mykatdied]

I spoke with the actual pilot of the deck. He said he would never drop below 4 inventors fair. If he had redundant copis he would pitch to diamond or just recur them with crucible and the tutor effect was apparently great.

If anything he said a buried ruin would probably be cut for a second gate.

[Airwave]

Honestly, I think testing 3 Inventor's Fair is entirely reasonable. I'm not sure what I'd immediately replace it with (I'm usually with you that 'pet' cards or 'cute' interactions aren't worthwhile), but a 4-of legendary land which requires 3 other artifacts in play (one of which really needs to be a Crucible) to activate isn't 'obviously' right, results (from 1 tournament) or not. Testing 3 should bear that out one way or the other.

As it stands, I'm interested to see which cards could be cut back to include another win condition. I only play online and winning by spirit beats might not be feasible on the chess clock.

I've played something similar in the past. The clock was a problem for me too. Until I found the answer (well that worked for me that is). A single Mishra's Factory kills the opponent in one strike with Metalworker/Staff combo.

[Fred_Bear]

I spoke with the actual pilot of the deck. He said he would never drop below 4 inventors fair. If he had redundant copis he would pitch to diamond or just recur them with crucible and the tutor effect was apparently great.

If anything he said a buried ruin would probably be cut for a second gate.

Does he have any plans for a report? I'd love to know what he faced.


I've played something similar in the past. The clock was a problem for me too. Until I found the answer (well that worked for me that is). A single Mishra's Factory kills the opponent in one strike with Metalworker/Staff combo.

That doesn't necessarily solve the clock issue on MTGO. All the clicking... It is a line worth remembering, though.


I played a few games over the weekend with the deck set-up the same as Coyle's list from Indy. I'm not sure it's better/worse than other Stax/Mud lists I've played in legacy. I don't want to speak for others, but I found that surprise of being straight prison to be the biggest aspect of the deck. Most people see Metalworker and immediately assumed Mud.

Metalworker is Metalworker. When you are activating it, you are winning. In this deck, when you are activating it, you are often piling it on. 3 CC is pretty jammed and the lock pieces are more important. I found myself using Metalworker more to bait a Force so that I could land a Trinisphere or Chalice.

Tangle Wire still stinks. I've never liked Tangle Wire in my legacy Stax builds and I still don't. Legacy decks play too many permanents and Tangle Wire doesn't provide the same Time Walk effect it does in Vintage (in fact, without Workshops, the feeling is usually that I provided my opponent with a couple Time Walks if you don't have an active Metalworker or Trinisphere). I think these may be better as spheres (probably Sphere of Resistance over Thorn unless you choose different creatures).

Ensnaring Bridge does a lot of the work. This was a card I hid behind for well over 50% of the time I played. If your opponent can't answer it, you have inevitability on your side. I found it to be the most important lock piece, even vs miracles.

This deck is really mana intensive, and it's not the cards you are casting. I tapped Wasteland a lot for mana. Buried Ruin and Inventor's Fair are both horribly expensive effects, especially since nothing you are recurring (3 mana plus CC) or tutoring (5 mana plus CC) wins the game outright. The effects are both appropriate and useful/necessary, but still expensive. I'll have to play more with them to get a better feel, but I'm not sold on either at this point.

I didn't get an opportunity to tinker too much with the deck yet, but I have a couple of things I want to try.

[mykatdied]

I messaged Mike Coyle. He is pretty busy the next few days but he will try to jump in and write up some stuff about his card choices and match ups.

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

I think that Karakas must be considered because is a good card, especially if you play Karn, Silver Golem. Karakas can be better than Gemstone Caverns because:

it's good against Gaddock Teeg, that's a very powerful card against this deck;
it helps against Reanimator and Sneak and Show;
it helps against Death and Taxes;
it can save Karn, Silver Golem.

I think that one Karakas in the maindeck and the other in the sideboard is a good choice.
I hope this deck will make top 8 in at least one of the Eternal Weekend tournaments and in the Grand Prix Chiba! :cool:

[BlackHawkX9]

I'm normally a MUD player, but I've been looking at this list with great interest. I am strongly leaning towards taking a variant of this list to the eternal weekend at the end of this month.

[Dice_Box]

I have been looking at this list for a few days trying to work out what I think of it. I have a few thoughts but nothing concrete. What do people who have played it think? I look at this and I want to add a trio of Tabernacle. Just feels like it should be in the 75. Either that or I am a sadist. I have not tested it myself yet though.

[BlackHawkX9]

I have been looking at this list for a few days trying to work out what I think of it. I have a few thoughts but nothing concrete. What do people who have played it think? I look at this and I want to add a trio of Tabernacle. Just feels like it should be in the 75. Either that or I am a sadist. I have not tested it myself yet though.

You want to add tabernacle, I want to add Ugin and/or karn.��

[Dice_Box]

I think if I built this the Tabernacle would go in the side. I think of this like a kind of Terra Nova deck that wins less with Factory and more with Land control. (Something I may be known to love...)

I think Karn is a decent plan but I would rather play with Factory as a kill condition, pushing though damage with Staff. I think in this regard it's more to do with personal choice. I actively adore Terra Nova style decks, it's why I have so many Tabernacles, and I may be trying to shoe in something that doesn't fit.

That said locally I don't need Traps in the side, so cutting them for a pair works out as a starting point. I also agree Tangle Wire is not as strong in Legacy as it is in Vintage but I want to play the deck before I mess with it too much.

[BlackHawkX9]

I also keep wanting to utilize aetherflux reservoir in this style of deck. Staff of domination, infinite life, 50 them and just win on the spot.

[Fred_Bear]

I've been waiting to see if the deck's pilot would stop by to answer questions, but I can provide you with my experience from about a week of playing online...


You want to add tabernacle, I want to add Ugin and/or karn.��

I really want to be able to add a PW, too. Most of my games were played from behind an Ensnaring Bridge while you work to establish a lock. Ugin would help win without the lock, but at 8 mana, it becomes tough to hit while using Smokestack/Crucible. Karn, at 7 mana, isn't going to help as much as we want/need it too in this deck.


I think if I built this the Tabernacle would go in the side. I think of this like a kind of Terra Nova deck that wins less with Factory and more with Land control. (Something I may be known to love...)

I think Karn is a decent plan but I would rather play with Factory as a kill condition, pushing though damage with Staff. I think in this regard it's more to do with personal choice. I actively adore Terra Nova style decks, it's why I have so many Tabernacles, and I may be trying to shoe in something that doesn't fit.

That said locally I don't need Traps in the side, so cutting them for a pair works out as a starting point. I also agree Tangle Wire is not as strong in Legacy as it is in Vintage but I want to play the deck before I mess with it too much.

Adding Tabernacle, Factories, and (sometimes) Maze of Ith were some of the first changes I made to the deck. In keeping with the shell/strategy, the deck really needs to establish a lock to win as you need to nearly shut off your opponent before you ever attack. Tangle Wire works in Vintage for it's early turn 'Time Walk' effect, but going from Mishra's Workshop and Moxen to Ancient Tomb really changes the dynamic. [I could get into gory details, but Tangle Wire can't be used early to good effect in Legacy and later it's only good once the lock already in place.] Looking for those 'Time Walk' effects is one reason why I added Tabernacle and Maze. It effectively uses up some of your opponent's mana and shuts off early attacks while you are still trying to find an Ensnaring Bridge or Trinisphere. I find that Sphere of Resistance helps, too. Adding Sphere's also helps against combo in game 1.

My tinkering has left me testing with this...

4 Ancient Tomb
3 Buried Ruin
4 City of Traitors
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
3 Inventor's Fair
1 Maze of Ith
3 Mishra's Factory
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Wasteland

4 Metalworker

1 Bottled Cloister
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ghirapur Orrey
2 Grim Monolith
4 Mox Diamond
3 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Staff of Domination
4 Trinisphere

Ghost Quarter is never as good as it sounds on paper (at least for me). I'm sure it's right in some metas, but online it really just kills you. The deck is pretty good at establishing a lock and winning from there. I will say, like many Legacy decks, pilot comfort level helps a lot. I've stolen a lot of games because opponents misidentify play lines.

My current criticisms with the list are
1) Mana intensive. I would say in well over 50% of games, you really want 'one more mana' some turns (5 mana to search with Fair is rough). A lot of your 'sinks' are expensive to activate and utilize. At the same time, with 35 mana sources, you can have games where you feel pretty flooded. Ultimately, I feel like we have enough sinks (Ruin, Fair, Staff, Monolith) and running an extra one or a high CC win condition may be a bit greedy. There are definitely some flex slots to try something though.

2) Slow. Online, we're stuck with a chess clock and I end a lot of matches with less than 5 minutes on mine. I'd love a way to win faster without giving up too much. There are some play lines that can speed it up, but it's still slow going most of the time.

3) Bottled Cloister only works once. Hands down it's an awesome combo with Bridge and Orrey. You side it out in pretty much every match since it turns every bounce/destroy spell into a blowout against you.

I'm curious to hear what other experiences folks are having.

[Sibelius]

My current criticisms with the list are
1) Mana intensive. I would say in well over 50% of games, you really want 'one more mana' some turns (5 mana to search with Fair is rough). A lot of your 'sinks' are expensive to activate and utilize.



I think the problem you are having here is Sphere of Resistance. I have found in my previous Stax decks that while this card is often great, it can also be a severe liability. A single wasteland from the opponent and if we have Sphere we can be locked out of the game. We have to remember that the decks we face in legacy run much cheaper cards than us. We have parity or gain an advantage by running sol lands and moxen. This all comes crumbling down if we can't stay far ahead on mana. And a single bolt to Metalworker or wasteland on a critical land will do that. Sphere turn 1 means we MUST have 4 mana turn two to play anything useful. You just can't guarantee that.

I would also recommend you try Tanglewire some more. It is very very good at getting us to the later turns of the game where we can lock the opponent out. A massive flaw in Stax style plans is a weakness to Delver and other Tempo decks. As we have very little way of removing their turn 1 creatures after they have hit the board we use Tanglewire to tap them down until we can find/resolve an ensnaring bridge.

Sib

[barwick11]

I rarely get a chance to play legacy, but one thing I really have trouble with in this deck is targeted removal. I've found that ratchet bomb is a great thing to have in the sideboard (1 main, 2 side). Vs lands, {it kills Marit Lage on the turn it's dropped} edit: No it doesn't... I'm an idiot. Vs delver on 1, Vs death & taxes it kills a lot on 2, it kills blood moon and magus of the moon on 3 (unless you like having them around). Also kills Sanctum Prelate (that's a major PITA in hatebears).

That said, I've also found Tangle Wire is often *handy*, but not always "great". It's a mini time walk at times, but I've yet to recur it with buried ruin even one time.

Even Grim Monolith... unless you're running some serious fatties, I don't think it really buys you all that much. Sure you can often Ancient Tomb --> Monolith --> Metalworker on turn 1... it happens. Ultra rare occasions you can Inventors Fair and fetch for a staff to end the game, but that's ultra rare.

Overall though, if I could fetch for Ugin somehow, I'd love to have a singleton in this deck. Clearing a scary board is something I find myself wanting to do, thinking "man... when these tangle wire tick down, I'm screwed"

I'm wondering if there's lands that overall are better than Inventors' Fair, and instead of running 4, going down to 2 or even 1, replacing them with the other lands. Then for the fetch effect, run something with a "Ring of Three Wishes" effect. It costs 5, and costs 5 to activate, but Inventors' Fair also costs 5 effectively. That would let you fetch for Ugin. If only Haven of the Spirit Dragon let you find it in the library...

[mykatdied]

I rarely get a chance to play legacy, but one thing I really have trouble with in this deck is targeted removal. I've found that ratchet bomb is a great thing to have in the sideboard (1 main, 2 side). Vs lands, it kills Marit Lage on the turn it's dropped. Vs delver on 1, Vs death & taxes it kills a lot on 2, it kills blood moon and magus of the moon on 3 (unless you like having them around). Also kills Sanctum Prelate (that's a major PITA in hatebears).

That said, I've also found Tangle Wire is often *handy*, but not always "great". It's a mini time walk at times, but I've yet to recur it with buried ruin even one time.

Even Grim Monolith... unless you're running some serious fatties, I don't think it really buys you all that much. Sure you can often Ancient Tomb --> Monolith --> Metalworker on turn 1... it happens. Ultra rare occasions you can Inventors Fair and fetch for a staff to end the game, but that's ultra rare.

Overall though, if I could fetch for Ugin somehow, I'd love to have a singleton in this deck. Clearing a scary board is something I find myself wanting to do, thinking "man... when these tangle wire tick down, I'm screwed"

If someone let you kill Marit Lage with a ratchet bomb, then you got a free pass. Marit Lage being indestructible cares about ratchet bomb less than it cares about your life total.

[Dice_Box]

If someone let you kill Marit Lage with a ratchet bomb, then you got a free pass. Marit Lage being indestructible cares about ratchet bomb less than SHE cares about your life total.

In our Dark Mistresses name we do feed to her the unbelievers.

[barwick11]

Yeah, fixed that... I'm an idiot. Told you I play about zero legacy.

Has anyone experimented with Lodestone Golems? Sometimes they're more useful as blockers than anything else. The effect is great too, but I find myself losing more often than not to just not being able to get rid of 2 points of damage a turn.

[Fred_Bear]

I think the problem you are having here is Sphere of Resistance. I have found in my previous Stax decks that while this card is often great, it can also be a severe liability. A single wasteland from the opponent and if we have Sphere we can be locked out of the game. We have to remember that the decks we face in legacy run much cheaper cards than us. We have parity or gain an advantage by running sol lands and moxen. This all comes crumbling down if we can't stay far ahead on mana. And a single bolt to Metalworker or wasteland on a critical land will do that. Sphere turn 1 means we MUST have 4 mana turn two to play anything useful. You just can't guarantee that.

I would also recommend you try Tanglewire some more. It is very very good at getting us to the later turns of the game where we can lock the opponent out. A massive flaw in Stax style plans is a weakness to Delver and other Tempo decks. As we have very little way of removing their turn 1 creatures after they have hit the board we use Tanglewire to tap them down until we can find/resolve an ensnaring bridge.

Sib

With this list, it's not the Sphere of Resistance. It's that everything takes a ton of mana to activate and play to keep moving forward. Buried Ruin takes 3 mana (2 + Ruin) to return a card and then 3-4 mana to replay it, so 6-7 total mana. Inventor's Fair takes 5 mana (4 + Fair) to find a lock piece plus the 3-4 mana to play it, so 8-9 mana total. You can split it between turns, of course, but both require the sacrifice of a land and in splitting the cost, you are likely Time Walking yourself and not adding to the board (Smokestack fodder) which is what Stax does best. Metalworker, as you point out, is very fragile as a mana source in this deck. When he sticks around, he can be (is often) a blowout, but you can't count on untapping with him in a format with Bolt and Swords in the most popular decks.

I understand what Tangle Wire should do and maybe I just don't like it because of how much less value you get from it in Legacy compared to Vintage. I think Sphere does much more. As you said, most decks in Legacy run cheaper spells than us. They also play less mana sources. Sphere is much harder for them to overcome than us. Tangle Wire is nearly the opposite. If you play it early, like you suggest, you are just as likely to tap yourself down for a turn or 2 as well while not developing your board. I'm sure there are situations in which Tangle Wire is better than a Sphere, but there are a ton where it's not (or at the very least, Sphere is harder for the opponent to deal with).

As I said previously, I'm still not convinced that this is any better or worse than older white stax builds, mud builds, etc.

[Avez]

Tournament report from 15.10.2016 Finnish Legacy Champs (110 players, top8 decklists (http://porotour.com/legacy-champs-top-8-pakkalistat/)).
I found the deck from internet (SCG or mtggoldfish) and instantly fell in love with it! It was somewhat similar to a deck I've been playing previously (and discussing in this same thread I think..) and I just had to try it out. I had first planned playing Imperial Painter in the tournament but I decided to throw that away because I hate to play against Miracles and Eldrazi with it (and it seemed those 2 decks were all over the meta here).

Mainboard:
1x Bottled Cloister
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ghirapur Orrery
2x Grim Monolith
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
1x Staff of Domination
3x Tangle Wire
4x Trinisphere

4x Ancient Tomb
3x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Karakas
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
4x Inventors' Fair
4x Wasteland

4x Metalworker
1x Triskelion

Sideboard:
2x Defense Grid
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Mindbreak Trap
3x Phyrexian Revoker'
1x Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale
2x Zuran Orb
1x Ratched Bomb

Round 1 - Miracles
G1: I get the game somewhat locked up but can't find the Smokestacks anywhere, opponent blows up the half of my board with EE set to 3 and Jace wins the game by fate sealing me
Side: in Revoker and Defense Grids, out Tangle Wires and Bridges
G2: Revoker to top, Chalice on 1 and Trinisphere do wonders and I get the opponent to 4 life. I even had Ratched Bomb on 2 counters and "forgot" to bring it to 3 in case of Blood Moon. Opponent plays EE x=2 and blows up the my Bomb and lands Blood Moon. We play draw-go 15 turns and then opponent plays Jace again and soon after wins the game, again no Smokestacks anywhere to be found :(

0-1

Round 2 - Dredge
G1: Opponents wins the dice and begins by vomiting his hand to graveyard dredging 2-3 times and passing the turn. I had a semi-good hand against almost every other opponents EXCEPT Dredge :( Pass the turn and lose.
Side: in Tormod's Cryp, Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, out some numbers of Tangle Wire, Crucible and Smokestacks
G2: Begin the game with turn 1 Trinisphere, opponents facepalms and starts by playing Cephalid Colosseum. Wasteland the Colosseum and play Chalice on 1. Opponent starts stockpiling cards to his hand for cleanup-discard-mode and I draw more wastelands. I end up dying to 4x Narcomoeba beats... Not my day?

0-2

Round 3 - Storm
G1: Opponent starts by playing Sensei's Top from Bayou and I wonder what deck he is playing. I start with Tangle Wire and few turn later Trinisphere, opponent scoops immediately. Ok so storm?
Side: in Revoker, Mindbreack trap, out Smokestacks, Bridge, Triskelion
G2: Opponent checks up my hand with Dures and his face makes it clear that he doesn't approve my starting hand with two Trinisphere, discards Chalice. I start with Tomb Revoker naming LED. Opponent Cabal Therapies the Trinispheres away :( I play land Metalworker. So Trinispheres are gone, but no worries, I have Buried Ruin in hand and with Metalworker on next turn I have enough mana to bring Trinisphere back from the graveyard and play it to the table. Opponents scoops again.

1-2

Round 4 - RUG Delver
G1: I know my opponent plays RUG and I keep a pretty good hand against him. I soon realize that it is PRETTY hard to win a game of magic if the only spell you resolve is a Mox Diamond in the whole game and on top of that opponents destroys your lands every other turn.
Side: in Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, Defense Grid, out Grirapur Orrery, Bottled Cloister, Triskelion
G2: This game is about the same as the first one, I get some lock pieces to the board, but end up taking too much damage from my Ancient Tombs and opponent wins with flipped Delver.

1-3

Round 5 - UR Delver
G1: At this point all my fighting spirit is gone and I'm only playing for "fun" and practice. I have all the wastelands and Ghost Quarters in the world in my hand, opponent fetches and plays only basics. He then kills me in few turns with two flipped Delvers and Price of Progress, yep fun...
Side: in Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, Zuran Orb, out Smokestacks, Ghirapur, Tangle Wire
G2: I start the game with Chalice on 1 and my opponent obviously doesn't do anything after that excepts waits for finding Smash to Smithereens. I get more lockpieces to the board, at some point there's like 12 artifacts in my side of the table and also I keep munchin lands with Zuran Orb to keep my lifetotal as high as possible. He finally scoops to save time.
G3: Flipped delvers and fast beats kill me in few turn after my turn 1 Trinisphere eats Force of Will.

1-4

Round 6 - Splinter Twin
G1: That's right Splinter Twin in Legacy! Of course I start with a hand that COULD HAVE WON EVERY FAIR LEGACY DECKS IN THE WORLD (Crucible, Wasteland, Quarter, Chalice) but loses to a deck that plays only basic lands and a 3cc creature on my turn and wins the game turn after with a million attacking 1/4s.
Side: in Ratched Bomb, Revoker, out Tangle Wire, Bridge, Cloister
G2: I get a somewhat OK hand with a hope of fast Smokestacks. Opponent gets the combo faster with the help of Chrome Mox and also Jace fate seals me for few turns and that's that.

1-5

Round 7 - Burn
G1: I know that my opponent is playing Burn and a keep a hand that could win the game pretty fast. Opponent starts with Goblin Guide beats and follow up with turn 2 Trinisphere. Guide keeps punching me in the face and revealing lands from the top of my deck, yay lucky. I land Metalworker and pass the turn. Opponent picks the card up and reads what the little guy does and decides to bolt ME in the face. In my turn I use Metalworker, play Staff of Dominance (was in opening hand) show how the infinite mana combo works and take 1 million life, opponent scoops.
Side: in Zuran Orb, Revoker, out Ensnaring Bridge, Bottled Cloister
G2: Turn 1 Guide from the opponent followed by turn 1 Chalice on 1 from me. Turn 2 is a good time to land Trinisphere especially when opponent doesn't have the third land. We play draw go for some turns, I hold the Guide back with Tangle Wire and after few turns play the Metalworker + Staff. Opponent picks up his cards and asks me to show what the wincon is. I told him that there are few little slower ones, 1/1 spirit beats, Triskelion beats and if you have to win fast then go with the Mishra's Factory pumping himself up and attacking for something like 100/100.

2-5

After the tournament I played against my friends High Tide and BUG Shardless decks and won several matches while simultaneously consuming great amounts of alcohol so the day wasn't all that bad in the end. I think the deck is good and especially fun to play (not for the opponent though). I should have had more practice with it before bringing it to a larger tournament. I playtested the deck 10-15 games before the tournament and even though I've had previous success with somewhat similar Stax-decks in the past there where some misplays and other stuff that could have gone better with more experience with the deck. Inventor's Fair is super good and I even altered (http://i.imgur.com/8fc2Ts5.jpg) them a bit to remember to take the 1 life every upkeep. Triskelion is my own stupid brew against Gaddock Teeg and some other stuff (Death & Taxes, Jace,...) I'm optimistic about this deck and hope to see others have success with it in tournaments. Keep brewing!

[Dice_Box]

I played the deck last night with the SCG main (Minus one Cavers, plus one factory) and the following side:

1x E Bridge
1x Bottled Cloister
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Grafdiggers' Cage
3x Defense Grid
3x Tabernacle
4x Revoker

The deck felt solid. My matches where:
Elves 2/1
Landstill 2/0
Turbo Depths 1/1/1
MUD 0/2

Elves I lost game one because I did not know what he was on. Game 2 I locked him down with a Tab, a 3Ball and the Waste Crucible lock. Game 3 I locked with Smokestacks. (The only one in the deck too. I had sided two out.)

Landstill was a walk in the park. A slow deck with a game plan that gets licked out with Bridge and Wasteland? Sign me up. Siding in Defence Grids felt so very good here too. Love that card.

Turbo Depths was harder than I expected, mostly because of one card, Decay. I actually lost this match but for the grace of my opponents mistake. He realised he had made it after the match when we talked it over, but we also both agreed this was the most fun we had found in a draw in a good long time. I ended up cutting Chalice against him (He has them too) and brought in 2 Tab and the Bottle and Bridge. The Tab where not useful but that made fodder for Mox Diamond, that was the reason for their inclusion.

MUD was a sad match. He got two combo hands and stomped me. We played some more games after and I locked him down each time. I guess you can not win them all. Not when a hastey Blightsteel is looking at you like its next meal.

After I played some games against Nic Fit. This match is near on unwinnable. Deed, Decay and so many Basics that they can ramp into is painful. Mostly Deed. I would bring in the Revokes for that, but then they have Decay as well. I guess that is always the issue you are going to have with mass removal, its just sad that the deck is so common in my meta.

In all I love it. I love the questions on how I plan to win, I love the 3Ball, Wasteland and Tab plan, I love that I can Bridge against an 20/20 and grin. I love it. My issue is though, people tend to concede and end my fun... that's a bother.
Also, I think the second Gods' Eye is a must. That card makes Stax even more broken. When I had the two out together the deck just hummed.

[Dice_Box]

I played this again tonight and I learnt a few things.
Win the die roll.
You have almost no outs to early threats. An early Delver is going to cause issues if backed up with any kind of efficient counters. Tabernacle helps with this by slowing them down, but it also slows us down. Mana producing Land drops matter here.
Time is important. If you do not have an opening hand with a must answer threat or a lock piece, send it back. Force them to have the answer or risk losing. It does not matter how quickly you can tutor if your going to find yourself on no life thanks to your Tomb and a Delver. This is not a turn 3 deck. Move into a holding pattern, delay and then smack.
Tangle Wire buys time. A lot of time. Its more important than it seems at first. We do not want to add Spheres to this deck because we are already looking to tutor or recur 3 drop spells. We can not make them 4 drops and keep humming along. Its actually painful to face a Thalia and I would hate to do that to myself. Not to mention, sometimes your mana does not come together perfectly. Stick with Wire, if dropped turn 2 or 3 it will buy the time you need to get to turn 5 where you really can take off with your mana. Also Wastelanding Fetches is oh so much fun.

Granted, none of this is new. I am just agreeing with everyone from the page before this.

What's the view on cutting down to 3 Ruins? Sometimes I really want that card but often is just a Wastes. I want to put in Factory and think one of the Ruins is a good cut.

[Barachai]

I've been playing the Inventors' list vs Jund off and on for the past week and losing pretty horribly. Any ideas on what could make the match winnable? I've been pondering if Wurmcoils are worth adding to the sideboard or just to accept it as an awful/rare matchup.

[johnthedestroyer]

could metalwork colossus work in this deck somehow?

[Dice_Box]

I've been playing the Inventors' list vs Jund off and on for the past week and losing pretty horribly. Any ideas on what could make the match winnable? I've been pondering if Wurmcoils are worth adding to the sideboard or just to accept it as an awful/rare matchup.
I don't know if there is. Any deck running Decay, Pulse and Deed in their 75 are just going to give us hell. Maybe Wurmcoil would help, I am not sure. Intuition tells me it's expensive.

As for Metalwork? Maybe, but it hits up against Bridge hard.

[GoblinSettler]

Not much to add, but trimmed some cards from the main deck to fit in four Thought-Knot Seer. TKS gives another form of disruption that does not slow our own mana development. It also makes a decent wall or provides a faster threat game one. Bridges are in the board to move to a slower stance as needed in additional games.

Went 2-2 this week. My usual result when playing a Stax variant. Wins against Death and Taxes and B/R Reanimator. Losses to White Eldrazi and Veteran Explorer BUG. Also got in some practice games against Canadian Threshold and Shardless. Mixed results there.

Can attest to Dice Box's observations. Playing first helps. Abrupt Decay hurts. Pernicious Deed is a nightmare.

Was happy with 3 Buried Ruin.

Intend to run back much the same list next week.

[barwick11]

Played (roughly) this at Legacy Champs at Eternal Weekend. My performance being dismal is being overly generous. Did not win a single game. Not match... game. Went 0-4. Granted, that's ONLY during the tournament itself, and could attribute to matchups and the "oh look, you topdecked exactly what you needed... three times" in half of the games (it was creepy, seriously). Outside the tournament in playtesting, it played very well. Just, not when it counted.

I'll put up a full list later, but basically, I pulled the orrery/cloister, one stax (left 2), and had 4 trisphere, 4 chalice, 4 tangle wire, 4 crucible, etc... and went with 3 metalwork colossus and 2 sanctum of ugin (still had 4 fairs, etc), plus a wurmcoil main, and one in side. The thing I found the deck lacked before this was answers to simple threats, or ways to win under heavy board stalls but not a full lock (against counters, etc). It basically presented them with a lot of the same threats but one hole in my board could let them squeeze out, so they'd either counter it or destroy it. The colossus were must-answer threats, and usually come down for 3 mana (rarely will they come out without a trisphere on board). The sanctums are there because it's just too much for control to handle going colossus, search, get it countered, ok pass. Next turn, sanctum, colossus, search, countered, ok pass... next turn, colossus, countered, recur, colossus... ok they scoop.

I just ran into a lot of hard matchups in the tourney too, Jund game 1 drew abrupt decays and got a goyf out turn 2 through my wasteland lock. Found a bridge and he decayed it, got a stax out and he maelstrom pulsed it topdeck after 2 turns under it with tangle wire delaying up to that point. Game 2 he drew 2 wastelands in his first 10 cards, turn 1 DRS, turn 2 wasteland, another two turns later, couldn't get enough mana on board and stopped drawing lands (yeah out of 24 lands...) stuck on 2 mana.

Second matchup was reanimator. He's on play, swamp, pass. I go chalice on 1, he responds with entomb, grave titan. Reanimates it. I get out a tangle wire turn 2, he taps both lands, both zombies, and makes more with a titan attack. No bridge in sight, no fair in sight, he wins.

Third matchup was miracles with mentor. Was actually a good game. I was on play, he FOW'd a turn 1 trinisphere. Next turn I topdecked a chalice on 2 (1 was probably a better option in hindsight). Tangle wire was a champ. Got a stax out which he killed with council's judgment. He got mentors on the board. Ended up with 2 metalworkers on board but no way to search, so I spewed most of my hand trying to delay him, eventually got a fair, searched up bridge, he FOW'd it through a tri-sphere, won next turn with a few more mentor attacks. Game 2 I can't remember offhand, if I can remember I'll write it up, but it was full of FOW and hard cast counterspells.

Fourth matchup was moar miracles, two extremely close games, but he edged them out.

Again, I'll try to write up more later, I think this deck DOES need some creatures in it besides metalworker, but I don't think metalwork colossus is that creature. Triskelion maybe, saw someone tried that. 3 golems perhaps, not sure. I do know I'm not a huge fan of cloister. Against most decks it just seems like a blowout, especially if Kolaghan's Command is involved, and they blow it up along with your metalworker... that's a sad day in MUD ville.

[Dice_Box]

I have found the best way to deal with board stalls is Tabernacle. Knowing that is not an option for everyone, it may not be a bad plan to put Ratchet Bomb in the side. I am looking at making space for 3. I am also debating adding a Zuran Orb somewhere too but on that I have yet to come up with a definite answer.

When going up against a deck with Decay and Pulse, just swallow the pain. They are going to have the upper hand unless you can waste lock them. Because we are not fast, they have time to draw into those 4-6 cards that let them punch though the lock. I had a game this week against RUG Delver, I can not tell you how much fun that was. If RUG was still the primer Delver deck of the format I would say we would be in a great position. Sadly its not and we have to admit sometimes we are just going to get stomped.

Let's be honest, if your playing Stax in 2016, your not there because you think you have the best deck in the room, your there because you want to play Stax. That's ok, just be willing to take the licks that come with that.

[battousai555]

I had a game this week against RUG Delver, I can not tell you how much fun that was. If RUG was still the primer Delver deck of the format I would say we would be in a great position. Sadly its not and we have to admit sometimes we are just going to get stomped.
I've been practicing against Grixis Delver with my friend quite a bit as of late, and I must say that the best delver deck isn't all that scary if we win the die roll and get a decent hand. Sure, they can get busted Probe+Therapy+YP hands, but they have no answer to a resolved Chalice/Trinisphere/Ensnaring Bridge G1, which hurt them quite a bit. Post-board we get Revokers for Deathrite Shaman, which is the only thing that can consistently slow down the Crucible and Wasteland/Ghost Quarter plan.

Just like MUD, this deck can definitely just lose to itself, but I feel like it has a very good chance against several powerful decks. D&T is definitely a problem, though, and I'm currently trying to decide if Triskelion is worth squeezing in solely for that prevalent, mean deck.

[GoblinSettler]

I've been practicing against Grixis Delver with my friend quite a bit as of late, and I must say that the best delver deck isn't all that scary if we win the die roll and get a decent hand. Sure, they can get busted Probe+Therapy+YP hands, but they have no answer to a resolved Chalice/Trinisphere/Ensnaring Bridge G1, which hurt them quite a bit. Post-board we get Revokers for Deathrite Shaman, which is the only thing that can consistently slow down the Crucible and Wasteland/Ghost Quarter plan.

Just like MUD, this deck can definitely just lose to itself, but I feel like it has a very good chance against several powerful decks. D&T is definitely a problem, though, and I'm currently trying to decide if Triskelion is worth squeezing in solely for that prevalent, mean deck.

It looks innocuous, but I have found Aeolipile to be a nice early play against creature centric decks. Sort of a one-shot Triskelion.

[battousai555]

It looks innocuous, but I have found Aeolipile to be a nice early play against creature centric decks. Sort of a one-shot Triskelion.
That actually seems really good for killing Prelate and the like! Getting to 6 mana against D&T is pretty difficult and probably too slow, so your suggestion makes a lot more sense. I'm only familiar with commonly seen Legacy cards, so thanks for the recommendation! I'll let you know how it works out in testing.

[Dice_Box]

I don't want to go too deeply into results based thinking but... Tangle Wire is a must. I know there was some talk on its use. Well, I had a game against Infect where Tangle Wire delayed the board long enough bring Smokestack online. Add in the capacity to Waste them down, I watched as they where forced to sac their only threat and then I dropped a 3ball.

Wire is a great delaying tactic. It's not great on already completed board states, but it is beyond useful carrying us to the mid point of the game.

[Wotkenmendo]

So the general experience with Bottled Cloister is that it only works once, usually sided out yes? I've played with it in Braids Stax and have experienced the both the joy and pain it can bring. Any thoughts on Trading Post somewhere in the Cloister/Orrery mix or in place of it? Feeding goats to Smokestack, sacrificing Decay targets or stacked Smokestacks/Tangle Wires end of opponent's turn are utilities gained, though the Cloister/Orrery combo is obviously great at drawing cards and synergizes more strongly with Ensnaring Bridge. Looking to run one of these Stax lists soon, need a few more cards!

[Dice_Box]

I normally keep it in. People are often given a lot of targets for they removal and a lock piece usually takes priority over a Bottle.

[Sibelius]

Playing stax tonight. The metal worker list, with an added Tabernacle or two in the 75.
Ill post how it goes :wink:

Sib

[Dice_Box]

For the record, my current list is as follows:

Creatures (4)
4x Metalworker

Spells (31)
1x Bottled Cloister
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible Of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ghirapur Orrery
2x Grim Monolith
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
1x Staff Of Domination
4x Tangle Wire
4x Trinisphere

Lands (25)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
3x Ghost Quarter
4x Wasteland
2x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
1x Mishra's Factory
4x Inventors' Fair

Sideboard
1x Bottled Cloister
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Ratchet Bomb
3x Defense Grid
3x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Phyrexian Revoker

I like adding Trading Post in somewhere. I will look to do that later

[barwick11]

Playing stax tonight. The metal worker list, with an added Tabernacle or two in the 75.
Ill post how it goes :wink:

Sib

It didn't go did it? Hehe... I love this deck, but it's just so hit or miss it seems.

[snoop_x]

Played an almost identical list to Dice_Box's list at my weekly legacy tournament. I went 3-0-1 with 14 players (played against Sneak and Show/Omni/Hatebears). Had to leave early so I split the last game. There's been a lot of BR Reanimator around my meta lately so I decided to play Faerie Macabre, just didn't run across it. I liked having the 3 tabernacles in the side, helps tax all those creature decks. And yes, there is 61 cards in the main as I felt like i always wanted to see a bridge sooner then later and didn't want to cut anything main as I felt they were too important to cut. Bolded the minimal changes on the list.



Creatures (4)
4x Metalworker

Spells (32)
1x Bottled Cloister
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible Of Worlds
4x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ghirapur Orrery
2x Grim Monolith
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
1x Staff Of Domination
4x Tangle Wire
4x Trinisphere

Lands (25)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
3x Ghost Quarter
4x Wasteland
2x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
1x Mishra's Factory
4x Inventors' Fair

Sideboard
3x Faerie Macabre
2x Ratchet Bomb
3x Defense Grid
3x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Phyrexian Revoker

[Dice_Box]

I have been messing around with my list. Tried adding Trading Post over Orrery, not sure how I feel overall about it, but I am going to keep that in there for the time being. I am also going to cut a Gods' Eye for a second Factory. Since its the only part of them combo I can't fetch I want to be able to draw it more naturally quicker. I personally like the second Eye, but I have not had it play the envisioned role often enough for me to keep a pair.

[ghostfire86]

I just finished out my mono black Pox and now have my eyes set to build White Stax with a Green splash. Would like some opinions:

Mainboard
1 Eternal Dragon
4 Magus of the tabernacle

3 Armageddon

4 Ghostly Prison
4 Oblivion Ring

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere

3 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Flagstones of trokair
1 Ghostly Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
4 Mishra's Factory
5 Plains
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell
3 Wasteland


Sideboard
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Auta of Silence
2 Choke
3 Karmic Justice
2 Defense Grid
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Pithing Needle

[Fred_Bear]

I just finished out my mono black Pox and now have my eyes set to build White Stax with a Green splash. Would like some opinions:

Mainboard
1 Eternal Dragon
4 Magus of the tabernacle

3 Armageddon

4 Ghostly Prison
4 Oblivion Ring

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere

3 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Flagstones of trokair
1 Ghostly Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
4 Mishra's Factory
5 Plains
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell
3 Wasteland


Sideboard
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Auta of Silence
2 Choke
3 Karmic Justice
2 Defense Grid
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Pithing Needle



I think it's an interesting starting point. I'll be interested to see how your testing goes...

For individual card choices:

Eternal Dragon never worked out the way I wanted it to back when I ran a similar list (years ago). Early, you want to focus on assembling some kind of a lock, not 'wasting' time developing mana. It's a nice trick when it works, just not as consistent as stronger/more lock pieces.

I found splashing green to be better (more consistent) when you add a Savannah (or 2) and Sylvan Library. I'm not sure the mana base you are on will be consistent enough to cast green out of the sideboard. Certainly worth testing, but 5 sources with no search seems light to me.

Having played the Armageddon Stax versions extensively a while back (check the archived thread here), I'm interested to see what your experience is in the current meta. I've played a little online with it and have had trouble with a lot of the speedy reanimation/show and tell decks. You have a better long game than most of the grind/tempo/control decks, but can't really stop a turn 1-2 Griselbrand or Reality Smasher (or sometimes even a fair turn 2 Tarmogoyf).

When I have tinkered with this deck more recently, I like Lodestone Golem, Thought-Knot Seer, and access to Phyrexian Revoker in the board. I prefer a straight white base with full 4-of sets of sol-lands and Wastelands. I recently upped my Karakas to 2 because of the popularity of reanimating Legends... I also tend towards a more 'vintage-esque' build and run Sphere of Resistance as an additional turn 1 disruption. When I tested the Inventors' Fair Stax build, my favorite card was Ensnaring Bridge, though, and that may be better suited for the current meta-game. I also wouldn't try to run a list without Sanctum Prelate in the side as long as Abrupt Decay is a thing...

Good luck testing!

[ghostfire86]

Thanks for the info. Eternal Dragon in truth is a filler...to a point. It just feels right on paper, but the utilization of him I do think will be lop sided. I've considered the possibility of a WOG mainboard, peacekeeper, or loading in a play set of Rishadan Port instead of the Mishra's Factory while looking for a different wincon like Elspeth, knight-errant.

Eventually I want the list to resemble Dutch Stax, but moat just costs way to much atm.

sylvan library would solve some other issues I have been thinking about, but I worry about that moment that I have two counters on chalice of the void and finally draw the library (dead draw). Will have to test it out if my current list fails to perform well.

[mykatdied]

Personally if I ran any white variant of stax I'm running humilty. Eldrazi basically can't beat it and you get to laugh at so many of the creatures in this meta.

[chaosjace]

When are they gonna print a Spirit Spirit Guide that you can exile from your hand to add a white mana?
Or even gemstone cavern, I think if we could get a turn earlier this deck would be amazing.

[GoldenCid]

When are they gonna print a Spirit Spirit Guide that you can exile from your hand to add a white mana?
Or even gemstone cavern, I think if we could get a turn earlier this deck would be amazing.

Maybe Papá Noel is bringing it this year! :P

[Fred_Bear]

Thanks for the info. Eternal Dragon in truth is a filler...to a point. It just feels right on paper, but the utilization of him I do think will be lop sided. I've considered the possibility of a WOG mainboard, peacekeeper, or loading in a play set of Rishadan Port instead of the Mishra's Factory while looking for a different wincon like Elspeth, knight-errant.

Eventually I want the list to resemble Dutch Stax, but moat just costs way to much atm.

sylvan library would solve some other issues I have been thinking about, but I worry about that moment that I have two counters on chalice of the void and finally draw the library (dead draw). Will have to test it out if my current list fails to perform well.

Personally, I wouldn't waste time with Port or at least not a full playset. Stax really wants to be pumping out permanents that have the taxing effect, not spending two mana a turn to tap 1 land. D&T gets away with it because they can use Vial to cheat creatures into play. We want to tax their mana base, but lock pieces are usually just better. You could play one to keep them off a color or a mana, but I always found it to be 'win-more' once you are using it. Wrath is too slow, in my opinion, for the current meta and Peacekeeper is too fragile (without help).

I could see the Dutch Stax route, but I'm not sure how you'll do in the current meta. It's much better against traditional aggro, so I'm not sure if it would make the best choice against Miracles and Delver (there are pretty obvious benefits against Eldrazi). I always thought it was a slow deck (and too inconsistent for my liking) but I'd be interested to see how it would fare in the current meta. Has anyone tried it?

I never tried more than two Sylvan Libraries, so I didn't really worry about the interaction with Chalice at 2. I also played Spheres/Thorns and Chalice at 2 came up much less than you might think (I usually went 1, 0, and then 2).



Personally if I ran any white variant of stax I'm running humilty. Eldrazi basically can't beat it and you get to laugh at so many of the creatures in this meta.

It might be worthwhile in the 75 for utility, but I don't think you 'have' to run it. Eldrazi struggles with mana disruption and a Ghostly Prison and/or Magus of the Tabernacle can give them fits. If you manage to combo either with an Armageddon, they are done... That's not to say Humility isn't useful, it is, but most decks are cheating mana so badly that they can't handle a Ghostly Prison either.


When are they gonna print a Spirit Spirit Guide that you can exile from your hand to add a white mana?
Or even gemstone cavern, I think if we could get a turn earlier this deck would be amazing.

I hope acceleration doesn't come in a one-shot form. Stax needs the permanents, not just a boost (otherwise, we'd play Crystal Vein). I'd be more impressed if we got a good mana rock or a new sol-land. Neither will happen anytime soon, but it's nice to dream...