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FatPow
01-16-2014, 03:24 PM
I’ve been testing and refining a Stasis deck over the last year with promising results. I have experimented a lot, but after a full year, the deck list has completely stabilized. I’ve drawn lots of inspiration from the Stasis thread in the Developing Decks forum, but I believe this is something quite different; its synergies speak for themselves for the most part, and if you experience it at full capacity, it is quite impressive. It is decidedly not a hard-lock strategy; it is a momentum based critical mass combo deck sort of like Elves or Enchantress. It does contain some serious raw card advantage, but its true secret is virtual card advantage: making cards useless on the opposing board and hand. I’ll start with the deck list and then I’ll discuss the card choices, the internal synergies and strategies, and some matchup analyses.


4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
6 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Sword of War and Peace
3 Horn of Greed
3 Exploration
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Stasis
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard:


1 Seal of Primordium
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Equipoise



Why Stasis right now? What influence do new forces on the metagame such as True Name Nemesis have? Legacy is a format with efficiency at its core. Decks are designed to make the first three land drops, and spend all of their mana each turn. Instants may well be the most commonly played card type, whether it's to protect and clear the path for early creature drops like RUG Delver, to fuel a dizzying combo, or to counter a single key spell. The pace is usually quite fast. Stasis is the ultimate hate for this style of play. If people are tapping out every turn, it's not hard to find a back-breaking time to drop Stasis. After the first game, the opponent must adapt awkwardly to leaving open large amounts of contingency mana in case Stasis makes a sudden appearance. Almost every deck is seriously crippled by a turn two to four stasis. For two mana, the effect of preventing untapping is very powerful. The only problem, of course, is that you have to find a way to make the upkeep costs without withering away while your opponent finds a way out. You not only have to have your head above the water, you have to make progress on a win condition.

Some have tried with Forsaken City, but the card disadvantage, the Wasteland susceptibility, and the lack of mana for an actual win condition outside of Ebony Owl Netsuke don't bode well. This isn't Vintage, where we have Black Vise and Gush to enable an Island-only mana-base. So what should the goal of a Stasis build be? Firstly, it should be able to resolve a turn three stasis consistently if need be. It should then be able to continue to grow and even flourish under the soft lock, all while paying the upkeep. It should pass the Wasteland test. It shouldn't be so narrow-minded that a countered and Surgically-Extracted Stasis equates to a game loss. It should either slowly close out the options of the opponent as the game progresses, since they will see a lot of cards in the amount of turns you'll play, or it should seek to end the game quickly. Finally, it shouldn't take forever to win. Decking people under a hard lock is not an option.

So where do we start? We need to resolve Stasis consistently, so Enlightened Tutor makes the white splash inevitable. Now how do we grow under the lock? When I played mono-blue Stasis, I used a lot of effects to return Islands to my hand, like Daze, Thwart, and Ensnare so that you can keep the lock going. You unfortunately don't grow though, you are just barely able to scrape by at the rate of one mana per turn while dropping fresh Islands. Clearly returning lands to your hand at will is good though. This is where Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger step in. They can return a Forest (or a Tropical Island) to your hand, to untap the likes of Sylvan Caryatid or Noble Hierarch. You return a tapped land, untap a Caryatid, pay one blue, and net one mana free when you replay the land! Not only do they allow you to grow quickly in the early game, but they give you quite a lot of Wasteland resiliency as well. If you have two Rangers, you're basically Wasteland proof. One of my favorite plays is to bait out a Wasteland, then flash in a Scryb Ranger to save the land, untap the Cayatid, play Enlightened Tutor and get Stasis on their end step. The one Dryad Arbor has lots of synergies with Rangers, most notably the ability to block Umezawa’s Jitte and get bounced in response.

These four core creatures as the main engine for sustaining Stasis absolutely beg for the addition of Exploration, which allows for explosive growth, but you quickly run out of cards. That’s where Horn of Greed comes in. With an Exploration down and a ranger on board, you’re drawing two extra cards per turn as a byproduct of your mana production. Without some serious hindering, soon you’ll flood the board with more rangers and you’ll find additional Explorations. You grow nonlinearly. My favorite interaction here is to respond to the last Horn of Greed trigger in your turn with an Enlightened Tutor for whatever you need: Stasis, Sword of War and Peace, or an Exploration.

Green Sun's Zenith is an obvious choice to consistently get these creatures out. Unfortunately they will have a very obvious target on their heads once Stasis is out (especially the Rangers) and there are plenty of one mana kill spells to do away with one or even two of them. Mother of Runes can help here a lot (she can even protect twice in a turn with a Ranger), but I prefer the strategy of just maximizing the number of rangers to 8 and 4 Green Sun’s Zeniths, so that we can be sure that some of them survive. Sylvan Caryatid survives pretty much anything, so that’s why we have more rangers than Hierarchs and Caryatids. Now here’s where the biggest synergy comes in: Sword of War and Peace. If you manage to equip a Scryb Ranger with Sword of War and Peace, she has protection from pretty much everything except Abrupt Decay, and usually the Sword will be targeted instead of the Ranger, since they’ll suspect that you’ll just flash in more Scryb Rangers. Your hand will be full due to Horn of Greed, their hand will be full due to Stasis and Horn of Greed, and that averages out to about a 10 to 14 point life swing each attack. Sword of War and Peace can be active as early as turn 3, which is often enough to steal games. Most importantly, Sword of War and Peace forces a response, your opponent cannot just wait untapped to spring upon you as soon as you drop Stasis, they have to devote their mana to build up a board presence, and this is when you drop Stasis.

Finally, we have our Planeswalkers. All of Garruk Wildspeaker’s abilities are relevant here, providing beasts for edict effects, untapping lands en masse, and providing a critical alternate win condition if Sword of War and Peace has been hit by Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker. All you need is about 4 Rangers, a couple of beasts, and the -4 on Garruk. I used to include 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but Horn of Greed proved to be more reliable and resilient. This one Jace is mostly here to diversify from Horn of Greed for our card advantage, as well as to provide an alternate win condition against the likes of Rest In Peace/Energy Field.

Some other cards that I tested at various points are Hidden Strings, which is sometimes fantastic but most often not, Sword of Feast and Famine, which has the critical drawback of protection from green, Equipoise, which is great against Phyrexian Revokers and Pithing Needles, as well as against the Miracles deck, but otherwise it’s usually dead weight. Stoic Angel as a fifth Stasis which you can Green Sun Zenith for against aggressive strategies was interesting, but it proved to be mostly un-needed. Vorapede is an absolute monster against Veteran Explorer decks, and it’s an interesting alternate win condition, but I found myself cutting it from the main deck. Sheltering Ancient is really fun against tempo strategies where you have to drop Stasis early, but I found Sword of War and Peace to be more reliable.

On to the matchup strategies:

UWR Delver:
Your priority is absolutely to equip a Scryb Ranger or even a Quirion Ranger with a Sword of War and Peace. This often means playing the sword first, and waiting for an opportune time to flash in the ranger, and have mana for a double equip on 2 Rangers to avoid Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt. True Name Nemesis is mostly useless against our deck; at most he swings once at Garruk. The problem is the Delver of Secrets backed up by Force of Will, Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares. The only card in their entire deck that an equipped Scryb Ranger can’t deal with is a Batterskull germ with an Umezawa’s Jitte equipped. This is why we side in an extra Dryad Arbor in exchange for a Forest to be sure.

Miracles:
Terminus hurts, but just hold back your creatures and only expose two at a time. Here your priority is to find Garruk Wildspeaker, he is the ultimate insurance against Terminus with Stasis out. We side in Vendilion Clique and Seal of Primordium, and we can take out a Dryad Arbor and an Exploration.

Burn:
Just rush to equip a Sword of War and Peace on literally anything that can attack, and it’s usually game over.

High Tide, Storm, Elves:
Our first game is unfavorable, our only chance is to race with the Sword of War and Peace. Once we side in 4 Ethersworn Canonist (for our 4 Stasis) and Gaddock Teeg (for a Quirion Ranger) things become favorable. Being able to Enlightened Tutor or Green Sun’s Zenith for these guys is very powerful, and alongside our acceleration, Horn of Greed engine, and Sword of War and Peace, we can be competitive.

Veteran Explorer, 12 Post, Thopter Tezzeret, Enchantress
These matchups are somewhat favorable and very enjoyable, I don’t side anything for the most part. 12 Post is a mess since most of their lands are coming in tapped, and it takes them a while to get going. The only thing you’re worried about is the Tabernacle. Veteran Explorer is more of a challenge because of Pernicious Deed, but you can usually drop a Stasis before the Deed goes off to force them to search for land drops to blow it, and you can extract enough of an advantage during that time by sculpting what you leave in your hand. Against Thopter Tezzeret make sure to side in the Equipoise since it just devours their disruptive artifacts as well as the tokens. If you think Thalia, Guardian of Thraben hoses Enchantress, try Stasis. Their best play is to discard to zero with Solitary Confinement so that the Sword won’t hurt as much. Just be aware of Oblivion Ring and drop an extra Stasis if you suspect it’s coming.

Jund Depths:
Here the tabernacle will hose you. Stasis won’t come into this matchup, but the inherent synergies in Rangers and Caryatids can carry you out of Tabernacle. Horn of Greed and Planeswalkers are essential. Eventually you can equip with the Sword if Punishing Fire hasn’t already gotten you. If this deck becomes more popular, I’d side in Tajuru Preserver.

Sneak and Show:
This is the most uninteresting matchup. Just side in 4 Oblivion Ring for 4 Stasis and pray while you race with the Sword.

Death and Taxes:
This is a tough one. It’s the combination of Swords to Plowshares, and Phyrexian Revoker. You’ll want to side in Equipoise, but be aware that if you have as many artifacts as them you won’t be able to phase out the Revoker. The one saving grace is that Sword of War and Peace gives us protection from white, but always beware of Aether Vile on 3 for that Flickerwisp.

FatPow
01-20-2014, 03:24 PM
Here's a list that milks Dryad Arbor for all its worth, fueling the Horn of Greed/Exploration/Ranger synergy. The sideboard is adjusted for the prevalence of Pernicious Deed and Abrupt Decay, just swap two swords for Hidden Strings. Your openings also sometimes mimic Elves, so you'll get Revokers on Heritage Druids.


4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Sword of War and Peace
4 Horn of Greed
4 Exploration
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Stasis
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard:


1 Vendilion Clique
1 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Equipoise
2 Hidden Strings

gregtron
01-28-2014, 12:42 AM
Were you just smashing Joe Lossett's face?

Cageofpancakes
01-28-2014, 12:49 AM
Were you just smashing Joe Lossett's face?

Yes it was Greg, pay attention if your watching the stream.

apple713
01-28-2014, 01:06 AM
let me address the elephant in the room.....why no feast and famine... especially over war and peace?

Cageofpancakes
01-28-2014, 01:18 AM
let me address the elephant in the room.....why no feast and famine... especially over war and peace?

He stated in the primer that he does not run it due to the protection from green.

FatPow
01-28-2014, 02:49 AM
So the deck is still evolving, I made some changes and put up the best performance so far, 3-1 in the Legacy daily, 7th out of 28, including a lucky win over Joe Lossett (who wrecked me with Miracles last time). Here's the most up to date list. I made some changes primarily to make the deck more resilient to creature sweepers like what Joe's Miracles deck did to me.


4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
6 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

3 Sword of War and Peace
3 Horn of Greed
3 Exploration
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Stasis
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard:


1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Equipoise
1 Rest in Peace


The first round was against Affinity, where I luckily stabilized after quick Cranial Platings and dropped a Stasis then grew exponentially. Then in the second game my Stasis got Swan Songed, so I had to ultimate Garruk to get the job done, here the 5/5 trample Bird actually made a big difference.

My second round was against Tezzeret, where I couldn't find my Scryb Rangers and actually lost Garruk to a flock of Baleful Strix and then things went downhill the first game, especially since Ensnaring Bridge was holding back the beasts. The second game I rushed out with Garruk and the Sword to manage to kill Tezzeret. Then in the third game, a Chalice for 2 was blocking off Stasis so I had to pull out Equipoise to phase it out, then things got out of hand with both a Horn of Greed engine going, and Jace, soon everything was phased out and the card advantage was overwhelming.

Round 3 was against Jund, here multiple Thoughtseizes severely crippled my hand and then Umezawa's Jitte was the followup. I managed to lay out enough Rangers to absorb the Jitte counters and drop Stasis, but it got pyroblasted.

Round 4 was against Death & Taxes. The first game I had an absolutely explosive hand; I had a Caryatid, a Scryb Ranger, an Exploration, Garruk and Jace and Stasis out before the Batterskull could land. Game 2 an early Jitte took me out and I couldn't keep the Dryad Arbor alive to block. Game 3 there was a Jitte, a Phyrexian Revoker, a Thalia and a Manriki Gusari and I was on the back foot so I dropped an Equipoise and waited with Stasis in my hand while only having a Caryatid out. I finally drew Garruk and cast Stasis, keeping everything phased out across the board. I was exposed to Wasteland on my lone Trop for a couple of turns until one of my 12 outs in a Ranger came to me, then I grew exponentially. I cast Horn of Greed which accelerated me, but which also may have been a mistake since now an Aether Vial was ticking up on the other side, threatening an end of turn Flickerwisp in 3 turns. Luckily with both a Horn, 2 Explorations, and a Jace, I found a second Stasis, but instead just went for the kill by dropping a Sword and using Garruk's ultimate.

I'll watch Joe's stream and see if I can answer any questions if anyone had any.

oarsman
01-28-2014, 03:52 AM
Well I certainly got smashed by this deck on stream tonight if anyone wants to watch.
http://www.twitch.tv/oarsman79/b/498795395 The match starts 56 minutes into the clip.


I was a little disparaging towards the Swords, since I think they might be better as just about anything else. It is mentioned in the original post that Sword will draw an Abrupt Decay because the other player will have too many cards in hand from Stasis to survive. This situation will never come up, as the Decay will always target Stasis. That in itself doesn't make Sword bad, but I just don't get when it is good. If you have Stasis set up, you can win with just about anything (like your Planeswalkers).

Since you have GSZ, an Eternal Witness might not be bad. You could add more planeswalkers, or just move some of the tutor targets (probably a canonist and oblivion ring) into the main. The upside of that is creating more space in the board. You mention that Stasis isn't worth much against Depths, but with extra room maybe you can fit in a copy of Back to Basics to sideboard in and tutor for. A copy of Chill or Sphere of Law wouldn't be the worst thing to have available either if you did cut the Swords.

oarsman
01-28-2014, 03:57 AM
I got distracted while writing my post and I see that FatPow got a post in before I did. I think the new list looks better overall. Dropping a Sword was a good step. With more Planeswalkers in the deck, I am curious whether you will still find the remaining Swords necessary.

Also, sorry if I came off too harsh when you didn't bounce my Chalice and kill Tezzeret. You clearly wrecked me anyway, so perhaps you were right to play it that way.

apple713
01-28-2014, 11:04 AM
He stated in the primer that he does not run it due to the protection from green.

considering it turns any creature into an enabler for stasis it seems like a much better option. Protection from green while irrelevant is offset by the amazing trigger...

Razorwynd
01-28-2014, 11:38 AM
I got distracted while writing my post and I see that FatPow got a post in before I did. I think the new list looks better overall. Dropping a Sword was a good step. With more Planeswalkers in the deck, I am curious whether you will still find the remaining Swords necessary.

Also, sorry if I came off too harsh when you didn't bounce my Chalice and kill Tezzeret. You clearly wrecked me anyway, so perhaps you were right to play it that way.

I love how salty a lot of the comments were during that hour… losing to odd rogue strategies is always frustrating and funny.

Greenpoe
01-28-2014, 12:10 PM
The deck looks brilliant - t1 Exploration into turn 2 Garruk and turn 3 Jace looks amazing. The Equipoise combo with Stasis is sweet too (with Stasis, the opponent's permanents get removed forever!)

Have you considered some way to bounce & replay Stasis? Maybe Tradewind Rider - could bounce opponent's untapped lands or problematic permanents and bounce & replay your own stasis as well. Between Garruk, 14 creatures + 4 GSZ, Tradewind Rider could be decent as a 2-of.

FatPow
01-28-2014, 01:31 PM
The deck looks brilliant - t1 Exploration into turn 2 Garruk and turn 3 Jace looks amazing. The Equipoise combo with Stasis is sweet too (with Stasis, the opponent's permanents get removed forever!)

Have you considered some way to bounce & replay Stasis? Maybe Tradewind Rider - could bounce opponent's untapped lands or problematic permanents and bounce & replay your own stasis as well. Between Garruk, 14 creatures + 4 GSZ, Tradewind Rider could be decent as a 2-of.

Thanks! I took a look at Tradewind Rider, it's intriguing, but I think Equipoise is better at dealing with troublesome permanents as long as their lands, artifacts or creatures. I guess that's assuming you've got Stasis going though, I guess Tradewind could help out before Stasis lands, maybe I'll try him.

I understand people's apprehension about the Sword. There are upsides - it's a fast clock, it can keep you alive when you don't have Stasis, it protects your Rangers from lightning bolt, punishing fire and swords to plowshares, and you can block just about anything other than a Tombstalker or a Batterskull. Stasis is just a soft lock, and people can often find a way out of it given say 5 turns. SoWaP often gives them 2 turns. I think it's worthwhile to have in the more tempo and aggro matchups, it's fantastic against Goblins for example. If you manage to equip it against UWR Delver, the only relevant card left is Batterskull. Having 4 was probably overkill though, there are some games where it's effect is so obvious that it's the most vocal of the cards in terms of trying to keep a slot, but now that there are 3 Garruk, that is just as viable a win condition.

Perhaps we cut the sword down to one, move back to 4 Enlightened Tutors, and have another slot for a silver bullet E-Tutor target. I think that should be one Equipoise in the main, since there aren't many matchups where it under-performs. It hits Pithing Needles, Phyrexian Revokers, Tabernacle (after some initial pain), Umezawa's Jitte, Thalia, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Lodestone Golem, etc. There's one really good argument for it in the main: if you phase out a Germ token, the Batterskull never comes back, regardless of whether Stasis is out or not.

I like the extra room in the board. I like Back to Basics against Loam. I'm also trying out Dense Foliage against burn and UWR Delver. Here's a tentative list taking Joe's seasoned advice.



2 Savannah
4 Tropical island
6 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Horn of Greed
3 Exploration
4 Stasis
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Equipoise
1 Sword of War and Peace



Sideboard:


1 Equipoise
2 Back to Basics
1 Dense Foliage
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Rest in Peace
1 Gaddock Teeg

FatPow
01-28-2014, 02:12 PM
considering it turns any creature into an enabler for stasis it seems like a much better option. Protection from green while irrelevant is offset by the amazing trigger...

So the protection from green prevents your Rangers from untapping the creature, which means you have to pack a lot of vigilance guys. I tried a list with several Sword of Feast and Famine and Stoic Angel with Hidden Strings, but it didn't work as well.

Poron
01-28-2014, 05:14 PM
how do you deal with all the massive /-1 spells around? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

you might end with just Caryatid online.. imho you should capitalize with an early Sword or Garruk than Stasis.

That brings anything to turn 4 at least.. you need a shitload of counters to get there..

klaus
01-29-2014, 05:59 AM
@ OP:

This deck should be renamed.
Choose one:
* Greedy Stasis
* Horny Stasis

FatPow
01-29-2014, 01:08 PM
how do you deal with all the massive /-1 spells around? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

you might end with just Caryatid online.. imho you should capitalize with an early Sword or Garruk than Stasis.

That brings anything to turn 4 at least.. you need a shitload of counters to get there..

You can play around things like Golgari Charm by only exposing one or two rangers, equipping the sword, then flashing in Scryb Rangers when they die and equipping the Scryb Ranger.

In those matchups Equipoise is pretty useless, how about a Parapet in the sideboard?

FatPow
02-01-2014, 05:29 PM
how do you deal with all the massive /-1 spells around? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

you might end with just Caryatid online.. imho you should capitalize with an early Sword or Garruk than Stasis.

That brings anything to turn 4 at least.. you need a shitload of counters to get there..

I tried out a list with 8 counterspells today and as I suspected it didn't work very well. I believe that packing counterspells in this deck is similar to trying to pack counterspells in Enchantress, it's a critical mass combo deck and every card that doesn't immediately and permanently add to your critical mass takes away from your momentum.

J-Funk
02-02-2014, 09:07 PM
I find it interesting that countermagic isn't working out for you. I know it's probably hard to find items to cut, but I really feel like you could do with a couple of spell pierces in there. I'd be interested to see what happens if you cut a couple of the Jace's for pierces.

That said, you obviously have much more experience with the deck than me. Just my two sense, though. It'd be nice to protect your pieces a little better with pierces.

Regardless, I'm watching this thread with extreme interest. This deck seems incredibly fun to play and I may end up building it or something similar in the near future.

Contract Killer
02-02-2014, 11:31 PM
So just gold fished some with this deck and it can definitely get nuts. I had turn 1 exploration, GSZ then turn 2 Quirion stasis pass. After that turn 3 horn + enlightened tutor for a second exploration and then it just got really degenerate. Drawing 2 cards and 3 lands per turn gets pretty crazy and then Scryb ranger got suited up with a sword for beats. Really like the deck, but I think it will have trouble with some of the midrange tempo decks like UWR delver and RUG delver.

Poron
02-03-2014, 09:29 AM
I would add some strong creature as plan B (1x Tarmogoyf, 1x Thrun...) something like that.

or you can pack a whole plan B with Natural Order and Progenitus. This deck can play a NO on turn 2. Plan A is a combo deck which dies if opponent keep a Spell Snare/FoW/Swan Song/Qasali Pridemage/Abrupt Decay/Zealous Persecution/Golgari Charm/Krosan Grip/Wear-Tear....

I would play Crop Rotation for Cradle and Boseju and Natural Order

FatPow
02-09-2014, 12:14 PM
So just gold fished some with this deck and it can definitely get nuts. I had turn 1 exploration, GSZ then turn 2 Quirion stasis pass. After that turn 3 horn + enlightened tutor for a second exploration and then it just got really degenerate. Drawing 2 cards and 3 lands per turn gets pretty crazy and then Scryb ranger got suited up with a sword for beats. Really like the deck, but I think it will have trouble with some of the midrange tempo decks like UWR delver and RUG delver.

:) That's where this deck shines I think, and I think the list should be fully aimed at just going for that situation as much as possible. UWR Delver and RUG Delver are hard due to the 8 removal, the Sword of War and Peace is really crucial here, and you have to play it first, then in one crucial turn flash in a bunch of Rangers and desperately equip to all of them. Once you've equipped you're good to go. Against RUG they don't always have the bolt, but UWR will always have a plow/bolt. We do have 12 virtual rangers though so some will survive. Playing Stasis on turn 2 might not be a good plan against these decks, I'd go with more redundancy before committing with Stasis. You don't mind much if Stasis gets Wear/Teared or Abrupt Decayed, but you do care a lot if a Scryb Ranger dies and then you can't pay the upkeep costs on Stasis.

I ended up cutting the Equipoise from the main, since its main purpose is to phase out artifacts and Horn of Greed is too good not to play here. Also, Poron, plan B seems to be just beat with the Sword and Garruk beasts, which is streamlined with the plan A and doesn't require cutting anything for Tarmogoyfs or Thruns (although I do love those cards). Also Crop Rotation is a strong card for protection from Wasteland, but we're already pretty much immune to Wasteland, so Crop Rotation would be purely for a separate combo which would detract from our initial plan. I disagree that you're screwed if they keep one answer, this deck explodes onto the board and the options grow nonlinearly, it's often confusing for them which piece they should counter or remove, since there's so much redundancy. Do they Abrupt Decay the Horn, or save it for a Stasis? If they don't Abrupt Decay the Horn, you'll draw into 2 Stasis.

Here's my up to date list:


2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath

2 Dryad Arbor
1 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

3 Horn of Greed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Mirri's Guile
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Exploration
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Stasis


Sideboard:


1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Parapet
1 Equipoise
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Rest in Peace
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist


The 2 Dryad Arbor is a nod to Stoneforge Mystic, and with 4 Exploration and a virtual 12 Rangers, you can pretty much always hold off a Batterskull or Jitte without stalling. Maybe this should be 3. The Mirri's Guile replaces one Enlightened Tutor for card quality in the long run instead of in one shot, and synergy with fetchlands. Note that the Mirri's Guile is still strong even when you've got a Horn of Greed engine going, since you can fetch in response to the Horn of Greed trigger. In the board, Parapet has been great against Golgari Charm, and Wilt-Leaf Liege is fantastic against an early Liliana when Golgari Charms would follow.

hurlman81
02-15-2014, 12:31 PM
So I will love to try this deck. I am going to scg stl this weekend and if I can get some testing in I will try it. Its a choice between this or parfait. Have you tried blind obedience in the sb? That card has been a HOUSE vs storm, elves and fast aggro we are testing tomorrow night and I will toss this together to test it.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

FatPow
02-24-2014, 05:14 PM
This past weekend I took Stasis to a top-8 of the local monthly Legacy tournament at Face to Face games here in Montreal. People wanted to split the prize so I don't know how well I would have done. It was a 34 person tournament. The main change I did was to remove Jace and replace him with Brainstorm, and also to add more Wilt-Leaf Lieges in the sideboard for BUG. I was lucky in that I didn't play against Elves or Storm the whole time, I won against Esper Deathblade, Shardless BUG, Burn, and lands, and I lost to RUG Delver and a deck with quadruple Archive Trap and Surgical Extraction. Here's the list.


2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Dryad Arbor

1 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

3 Horn of Greed
4 Brainstorm
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Exploration
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Stasis


Sideboard:


3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Equipoise
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Rest in Peace
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist



I haven't tried Blind Obedience, I tend to think that the soft lock is enough as long as you're pressuring to win with the sword or with Garruk's ultimate relatively quickly, so I avoid hard lock cards as they're not much use without Stasis, and I'd rather play a win-condition alongside Stasis instead of tightening the lock. The same goes with Frozen Aether, I haven't tried it, but I just suspect it's better to play a win condition and go for it quickly rather than try to squeeze someone completely out of the game, since given enough time - or enough draws - they may find a way out completely.

One thing that was definitely validated for me was to not commit Stasis to the board unless you're really under pressure, or you have contingency plans i.e., multiple Rangers. The number one way to set that up is with Horn of Greed and Exploration, starting with one Ranger and then quickly adding up to three or four. Given a board of Exploration, Ranger, Caryatid, lands, I would definitely E-Tutor for the Horn instead of Stasis unless you're really under pressure. That has me thinking that maybe we should be running 4 Horn of Greed, and 3 Stasis, given that we want the Horn first and then we want the Stasis. However, Stasis is more likely to get countered, and it's often a bad idea to play two Horns since you actually start to run out of cards in your library pretty quickly.

FatPow
03-02-2014, 12:10 PM
There's another tournament next week and I'm fairly sure that if we want to go the turboland route, this is the way to do it:


2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Dryad Arbor

2 Noble Hierarch
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Horn of Greed
4 Brainstorm
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Exploration
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Stasis


Sideboard:


3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Equipoise
2 Krosan Grip
1 Rest in Peace
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist


However that's not what I'll be playing next week. This list excels over slow decks with spot removal like Esper Deathblade, but it doesn't do well against decks with significant amounts of sweepers like Miracles or if a Pernicious Deed manages to come down. Instead I'll be playing this:




2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Dryad Arbor

3 Noble Hierarch
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Equipoise
1 Horn of Greed
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Brainstorm
3 Exploration
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Stasis


Sideboard:


3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
3 Krosan Grip
1 Rest in Peace
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist



Also with this list, now that Horn of Greed is a tutorable 1-of, we can pack Equipoise main and now we have removal. It's a one-sided Balance every turn under Stasis, and it solves a lot of problems with Brimaz and his buddies the Phyrexian Revokers.

FatPow
03-03-2014, 12:18 AM
I just wanted to say that tonight on the daily I absolutely dominated ziggy_stardust playing UWR Delver with this deck, in a way that there was no way to come back from, and my computer crashed with more than enough time to ultimate garruk and attack with a sword equipped scryb ranger, and he didn't concede in the 2 minutes of me logging back in, so he gets the wall of shame here, and here is the list that dominated him. So it is very possible to fight through 8 removal and dozens of counterspells.


2 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Dryad Arbor

2 Noble Hierarch
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Horn of Greed
4 Brainstorm
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Exploration
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Stasis


Sideboard:


3 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Equipoise
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Sylvan Library
1 Rest in Peace
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Ethersworn Canonist


The idea here is to go for the turbo-land plan in the main deck which is good against delver decks, and then side out 3 Horn of Greed and an Exploration into 2 Jace, 1 Sylvan and 1 Equipoise for the matches that need Equipoise or are slower like Miracles. Anyway if you're reading ziggy_stardust I hope we play again.

ventouza6969
03-03-2014, 02:13 PM
Hi Fatpow,
Today i sleeved your last list and i played a lot of games.

i like your deck a lot but it is casual until this moment. you might be draw cards with no interaction each other.
For example you have on board quirion/scryb and noble/caryatid and your draw is a zenith, totaly dead card, i wanted
with zenith an exploration effect on a creature and i didn't have one and i think one azusa or mul daya needed main.
on the other hand u might have exploration and greed on board and you draw tutor, okay it is not 100% dead card
because tutor has more target than zenith but without the rangers on board tutor is little bit useless.
Also horn of greed isn't always castable without an exploration and ranger, so i think four copies of this card i don't like.

i played vs show n tell and i can't do anything.
Also garruk sometimes is broken but the most time is ok, yes i know under stasis is awsome but from what i understand you don't
play stasis if you don't have at least one ranger and one mana creature on board, but there is a small chance having on board 2 tropical and garruk under stasis. I would prefer tamiyo better than garruk or even kiora.

and i think -1 savanah +1 tundra

force_of_phil
03-04-2014, 02:39 PM
Divert could be a good SB card for this deck. It's good against Abrupt Decay, discard, and counters, which seem to be the biggest weaknesses. If they wait for mana to play around it, they get behind to the Exploration/Horn engine.

FatPow
05-01-2014, 01:49 PM
Show and Tell is indeed a weak matchup but you can't win them all. Also Show and Tell is so uninteresting I don't mind losing to it. It seems to be on the decline anyway. It has a lot of good matchups such as Esper Deathblade, Tezzeret, 12-Post, and even Jund. Post-board you can fix a lot of the bad matchups such as storm and high tide. I've been working on the sideboard mostly. Also I've decided that while 4 Horn of Greed and 4 Exploration is the most explosive, having 1 Equipoise main is necessary in many matchups, and then you should minimize the number of artifacts that you have.

Here's what I've been playing, note the extreme sideboard action against elves and dredge which have been popular lately:


4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
4 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest

2 Dryad Arbor
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

1 Equipoise
1 Horn of Greed
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Exploration
3 Stasis
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm


Sideboard:


4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Rest in Peace
1 Krosan Grip
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Moat
3 Wilt-Leaf Liege



I've 3-1'd once with this deck, once with it in its original configuration, I went 3-2 in a paper tournament, and with the full turboland configuration it went top 8 at a 6 round paper tournament.

I maintain that Abrupt Decay is not a problem. If you have a card advantage engine going, they cannot afford to trade 1-for-1 forever, you will outpace them. Also, Equipoise can keep them on one land. Divert is pretty narrow and dilutes your combo action.

FatPow
05-09-2014, 06:17 PM
I've come to realize that Enlightened Tutor is poor in an opening hand, while Noble Hierarch is strong, so I've modified the above list by swapping 2 Enlightened Tutor for 2 Noble Hierarch.

Lately I've tried something new: RUG Greed Stasis. I 3-1'd an event today with this list:


4 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
4 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest

2 Dryad Arbor
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger

4 Horn of Greed
4 Exploration
4 Stasis
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Ral Zarek
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm

grokh
06-01-2014, 04:27 PM
Hi,

Have you tried the new card : Courser of Kruphix ?
- It's a body
- It can help you having lands faster
- You can sure trick with it for having lots of life

Jace's phantasm may be an idea too, if your opponent is under Stasis and discards a lot, it can be a 5/5 Fly creature early in the game.

dameus
06-02-2014, 02:10 AM
I like the concept. I just can't believe you can't make room for Daze in a Stasis deck.

intrepidgamer
06-25-2014, 09:12 PM
now that we've seen Nissa, Worldwaker would you consider that it would be a good card to switch with Garruk?

FatPow2
09-15-2014, 09:18 PM
Hi,

Have you tried the new card : Courser of Kruphix ?
- It's a body
- It can help you having lands faster
- You can sure trick with it for having lots of life

Jace's phantasm may be an idea too, if your opponent is under Stasis and discards a lot, it can be a 5/5 Fly creature early in the game.

Courser is definitely not main deck material, but he may be a great 1-of as a sideboard card against burn. The matchup is great against burn... IF you have a sword of war and peace active by turn 3, and IF you don't get smashed to smithereensed. Courser is bolt-proof and could represent 3 or 4 life a turn. With Eidolon of the Great Revel out there now, Courser in addition to sword of war and peace may be necessary, so he may be good as a one-of in the sideboard.

Regarding Daze, I've tried it, it seemed to water down the deck and disrupt the ridiculous card drawing engine that is basically every one of the cards already in the deck. Also many of the good spells against us can't be countered, like Abrupt Decay. You want to keep them off of mana so they just can't cast them, or if they can, you've flooded the board with extras anyway. Against Bug Delver I'd rather just draw multiple stasis and play both of them, than sit with a daze in my hand.

Nissa is interesting, but 5 mana for something that doesn't get aggressive to tap down their stuff is tough. We only have about 4-6 forests so the ultimate is not very impressive compared to Garruk's ultimate, and I've found I usually only have a max of 2-3 lands out.

I played at Face a Face again last weekend, where I placed top-8 out of 20ish people, but fell to Esper Deathblade which is usually a good matchup. I'm now back to white instead of red as a third color... Ral Zarek is okay, but white makes your sideboard much much better, and equipoise is sometimes necessary and often good, especially against miracles (shuts off entreat, preps them for stasis). Also Noble Hierarchs are much better than BOP's since they allow Scryb Rangers to threaten Planeswalkers. With the added emphasis of attacking with Scrybs, Hidden Strings becomes good as long as they're a deck that's light on removal. Since you can do 4 a turn with a scryb ranger, you don't necessarily have to rely on Garruk's ultimate. Here's my most updated list: a nice addition is Azusa to GSZ for.


1 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath

2 Dryad Arbor

4 Noble Hierarch
2 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Scryb Ranger
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking

4 Horn of Greed
4 Brainstorm
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 Exploration
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Equipoise
1 Sword of War and Peace
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Stasis


Sideboard:


2 Hidden Strings
1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Rest in Peace
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Garruk Wildspeaker


I must have placed 3-1 online about a dozen times already, but I usually play in the earlier East Coast daily, since I work early in the morning, so I've yet to get this list posted. :(

Choirgirl Hotel
09-16-2014, 04:54 AM
I like this deck. I'm going to try it out and see what happens for a while. Should be an interesting change from playing Lands all the time. But I have a love affair with Stasis as a card.

LDX
09-16-2014, 05:10 AM
Hey man,

I was at Face to Face, played against you, and just wanted to give you some public props for your deck. It was, as I said back then, really impressive to see a Stasis deck work and to be honest it obliterated the poor TES I was trying to play.

Guys, give this man some credits. He knows what he's doing and this Greed Stasis thing is on its way to crush your local meta! :laugh:

FatPow2
09-29-2014, 06:05 AM
Hey man thanks, good games!

So I finally got a 3-1 that posted:

http://www.mtgo-stats.com/cards/Stasis

I played against 2 Shardless BUGs, a Miracles who got a bit unlucky on the blind flips (6-0 in games up until now), and then a Painter deck took me down 0-2.

So far if you look up "Stasis" as well as "Horn of Greed" it's the only deck that shows up...

It took me a solid year to get this list posted... I went from coming in at 0-4 or 1-3 every time, to finishing midway most of the time, to an even split of 3-1, 2-2, and 1-3.

All that to say: this may not be the most refined build of Stasis possible... I took many ideas from the original thread here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8615-Deck-Stasis&highlight=Stasis

and essentially my innovation that made my deck specifically start winning more frequently was to make it also a "turboland" Stasis deck with 4 Horn of Greed and upping the exploration effect count. This was very effective in many match-ups... but falls flat against combo, and isn't fantastic against Miracles... a good portion of the meta-game right now.

So if you're looking to break Stasis to the point where it can actually 4-0 and have a decent chance at a big tournament, I would suggest going to the original thread, and brewing your own from there. The deck that I ended up with after a year of testing is extremely effective in a certain metagame (Tezzerets, cloudpost MUD, enchantress, life from the loam, 12-post) and okay against the fair decks, but mostly bad against miracles and combo. We need to come up with a deck that's strong across the board.

I know that other lists that have been suggested such as using a straight blue/red Ral Zarek style with lots of counterspells would have their advantages in certain areas, but they also have lots of disadvantages.

What do I think is the future of Stasis? Someone needs to break Root Maze. Root Maze was discussed a little in the original thread. It is interesting in that it turns on Forsaken City, since the Wastelands will be coming in tapped. And I just realized that Forsaken City actually cannot be Pithing Needled. It severely hinders even combo decks from the first turn... those lotus petals and chrome moxes either give you storm or mana, your choice... your fetchlands take 2 turns to pay off... if only it hit LED. It presents many deckbuilding problems, but I think the community is up to the task. I know I will be! :)

Holden1669
10-02-2014, 01:27 PM
And now a mention on SCG!

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29459_Daily-Digest-Breaking-Symmetry.html

Congrats!

SpoCk0nd0pe
12-05-2014, 11:14 AM
What do I think is the future of Stasis? Someone needs to break Root Maze. Root Maze was discussed a little in the original thread. It is interesting in that it turns on Forsaken City, since the Wastelands will be coming in tapped. And I just realized that Forsaken City actually cannot be Pithing Needled. It severely hinders even combo decks from the first turn... those lotus petals and chrome moxes either give you storm or mana, your choice... your fetchlands take 2 turns to pay off... if only it hit LED. It presents many deckbuilding problems, but I think the community is up to the task. I know I will be! :)
I don't think Root Maze is the way to go because it disables our strongest card to break the synergy of Stasis: Quirion Ranger (1 mana, only cost is your land drop!).

When I started with Stasis I tried a lot around Forsaken City and Root Maze, the problem is that you don't always have Root Maze in place before the Wasteland hits the table. The City alone makes it hard for you to win because you need a card for every mana you want and your handsize doesn't grow on it's own. Bottom line: Either the city was wasted or I hit dead ends not able to free up mana. It was terrible. But maybe someone can find a better list.
Forsaken City is not a bad card in Stasis, it works well to play around the drawback of Quirion Ranger or as emergency backup in case of disruption and it essentially doesn't cost you a slot because you can play it as a land drop in your list (it practically has no downside under stasis except for not counting as an island). You probably don't need it in your list though as dorks and exploration are another way to enable Stasis under ranger.

Tbh, I think we need help from Wizards. Some cheap, evasive creature that has a hidden strings like effect to tap out the opponent is probably our best shot. Derevi comes very close, if he only had vigilance instead of his stupid commander ability :(

Darkenslight
12-05-2014, 11:49 AM
And now a mention on SCG!

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29459_Daily-Digest-Breaking-Symmetry.html

Congrats!

Abe will have a nerdgasm at the Miser's Equipoise in the list!

Rishadan
12-08-2014, 12:57 AM
Just throwing this out there, but since we're picking up our lands to help out Scryb and Quirion, would there be any landfall cards we would like to abuse? Steppe Lynx could be an insane beater.

jimmycolorado
01-01-2015, 08:45 PM
Yeesh, fell to page 3? Well, it looks like Fatpow 3-1'd again. Looks like a pretty tight list!

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/257448#paper

I need to get my trops back from some friends and give this thing a spin.

SpoCk0nd0pe
01-17-2015, 04:42 PM
Interesting to see another list use Derevi.

Nuke is Good
01-17-2015, 07:21 PM
I've been trying to goldfish with this deck and I'm having the same problem that I do with Stax. I keep really crappy hands. Though Stax is a boatload more explosive.

Should we attempt to power out Stasis first or attempt to establish the cards that will break symmetry from the stasis lock?

FatPow2
04-21-2015, 07:54 PM
I've been trying to goldfish with this deck and I'm having the same problem that I do with Stax. I keep really crappy hands. Though Stax is a boatload more explosive.

Should we attempt to power out Stasis first or attempt to establish the cards that will break symmetry from the stasis lock?

Nuke that's an interesting point. I think the answer is that you should rush the entire board in general (barring an expected terminus) and force them to answer you by tapping their mana and spending resources, then you drop stasis after stasis until one sticks. That requires a horn. I think the best opening hand you can have with this deck is:

3 land, 1 exploration, 2 quirion rangers, 1 horn of greed

(basically play out 2 land, fetch an arbor, play horn and get +1 card on the 2nd turn)

once the horn engine is going, everything else follows. They have to answer your flood of cards by tapping mana, which you respond to by dropping stasis. They only have 4 force of wills in 60 cards... they run out pretty quick. I was having trouble when treasure cruise was around combined with forked bolt... then they overpower your flood with extra Forces and realistically they can actually kill all 8 rangers with not much mana. But now things have changed again.

The list from the last 3-1 when I last played in Dec. was pretty well tuned. But I'm looking to change a few things.

-caryatid - may not be necessary
-garruk - we should have more. this is the primary win condition, it has extreme innevitability (win the turn after you play it often), it's good against miracles, it adds value to our trops and takes away stress from the hierarchs
-equipoise - maybe a sideboard card these days, absolutely demolishes tezzeret and mud but isn't all that necessary... sometimes needed against tabernacle but really with more garruks at least game 1 will be ok then we can add some


so I think basically, -1 caryatid, +1 or 2 garruk, - 1 or 2 equipoise, +1 land? but otherwise that last list here is good:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/257448#paper


I'm back in summer mode after a winter of powder hunting, so I'll be playing a couple of dailies per week. At least one 4-0 is the goal this summer! Also there is a good possibility of streaming soon, likely an absurd singalong stream alternating between instrumentals and singalongs, with music largely from here: https://soundcloud.com/betweenheatandwind/likes

FatPow2
04-21-2015, 07:59 PM
Just throwing this out there, but since we're picking up our lands to help out Scryb and Quirion, would there be any landfall cards we would like to abuse? Steppe Lynx could be an insane beater.

against burn glazing gladehart is ridiculous, you know maybe a courser would be ok I just don't like how they see the top of your deck coming

Nuke is Good
04-24-2015, 08:55 PM
against burn glazing gladehart is ridiculous, you know maybe a courser would be ok I just don't like how they see the top of your deck coming

I use Sphere of Law as it's harder for burn to deal with. My meta burn likes to maindeck searing blaze so poor gladehart gets burned to death. However I cannot deny how well Gladehart works with the deck.

angelbaka
04-29-2015, 12:15 PM
Has anyone thought about adding a living wish package for profit, utility lands and hatebears?

slave
04-29-2015, 03:37 PM
Can this deck compete with powerful decks that can go silly from early on, like Reanimator and Elves?
And how does this deck fair with storm/fast-combo?

angelbaka
04-29-2015, 03:53 PM
This deck has some truly absurd turn one starts, but also has some pretty terrible draws. So the answer is "sometimes".

angelbaka
05-02-2015, 04:10 AM
Anyone tried countertop in here?

angelbaka
05-02-2015, 04:23 AM
Has anyone tried putting countertop in here?

SpoCk0nd0pe
05-17-2015, 07:50 PM
Countertop is usually really awful in stasis. Top just requires too much mana and playing a winning card or a counterspell under stasis is usually better then counterbalance because your opponent should have limited resources anyway.

[edit]
Some further suggestions for the E.Tutor SB:

Pithing Needle
Ensnaring Bridge
Null Rod
Detention Sphere
Limited Resources
Sterling Grove

grokh
09-28-2015, 02:47 PM
Hi,

New banlist update :
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/september-28-2015-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-09-28

Black vise is unbanned !

Could be a very good kill in Stasis nope ?

dawgie
09-29-2015, 10:44 PM
I have been playing with this deck rigorously for the past few weeks and I love the deck!

Regarding Black Vise, think Black Vise is an option but I think there are better options with this deck's strategy. Black Vise I believe is for a more control type of Stasis.

The Retreat cards from BFZ are looking nice. I am especially looking at Retreat to Kazandu as a win condition as it can add a bunch of counters per turn to one of your guys(in this case, Scryb Ranger is the target because it is flying) or can give you life as needed. I proxied this up and added 2 in the deck and I was getting about +4/+4 per turn on a creature plus +2/+2 from Exalted. This gives a 2-3 turn clock to finish the game. Compared to Black Vise, you might need 4-5 turns (if you only have 1 in play). Although I understand that you can play this on turn 1 to get some damage in but I would rather play acceleration for my first 2 turns and power out a Stasis.

I do have a question though if we want to make this competitive. Sneak And Show, yes, I know even in paper that this is the deck's weakest matchup . Do we only really have 4 O-rings to put in the SB? Anyone who has a better idea for this? Or do we just really autoscoop? LOL

rufus
09-30-2015, 12:15 AM
...
I do have a question though if we want to make this competitive. Sneak And Show, yes, I know even in paper that this is the deck's weakest matchup . Do we only really have 4 O-rings to put in the SB? Anyone who has a better idea for this? Or do we just really autoscoop? LOL

Root Maze might fit better.

Memories of the Time
10-02-2015, 04:04 AM
Why retreat to Kazandu when CoralHelm is perfect in this deck? Could be interesting with Kotr.
Anyone has tried the new Kiora? I think this could be the only deck where she can be usefull.
Against S&T: Imposing Sovereign or Blind Obedience. Or Gatekeeper, more general and expensive