[Deck] Twisted Metal - reviving mono-brown/silver Stax

[kicks_422]

First off, although colorless Stax builds exist, they are either in Vintage or do not abuse the concepts that I am trying to do with this submission. However, if the judges think it's not original enough, please move it to the N&D section.

I. Brief History

It started with Lorwyn's Thorn of Amethyst, which gave Stax players a total of 12 "Spheres," along with Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance. Then Mutavault is spoiled for Morningtide, giving 12 colorless manlands along with Mishra's Factory and Blinkmoth Nexus.

I've always been intrigued with the ability of Stax to just SHUT YOU OUT. I guess I just like winning seeing there's absolutely nothing on the opponent's board. It also helps that as I browse through decklists, the only artifact removal present are 2-3 Tin-Street Hooligans and 2-3 Krosan Grips in the whole 75 cards.


II. Decklist - January 6 (V1.1)

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mutavault
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Crystal Vein
4 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Trinisphere

3 Tangle Wire
3 Grafted Skullcap
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds

SB
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Defense Grid
3 Sun Droplet
4 Tormod's Crypt

For your reference, as spoiled in MtgSal:

Mutavault

Land - Rare

{T}: Add 1 to your mana pool.

1: Mutavault becomes a 2/2 creature with all creature types until end of turn. It's still a land.

Some changelings born at Velis Vel never return, but their essence never leaves.

Illus. Fred Fields


III. Card Choices

Main Deck

8 2-mana lands and 4 Mox Diamond - The mana acceleration required to power out those lock pieces.

4 Wasteland - In a meta where basics are near non-existent in the upper tier decks, a full set is golden. Waste-Crucible might not work all the time, but when it does, it winds games by itself, especially in conjunction with the Spheres.

12 Manlands (Mishra's Factory, Blinkmoth Nexus, Mutavault) - The concept that I'm trying to abuse with this Stax build. Cast lock pieces to stop your opponent from playing spells, while you beat down with the lands that you used to cast those lock pieces. Simple right?

8 Spheres (Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere) - Used to run all 12 in the MD, but the Thorns were dropped in favor of more mana, and they weren't good enough MD material in this format (as I painfully found out in testing). Trinisphere for low-curve decks, Spheres for higher-curved ones, basically.

4 Chalice of the Void - Chalice for 1 first-turn is still a great first-turn play, no matter what the meta looks like. Along with the Spheres, wrecks both aggro-control and combo.

4 Crucible of Worlds - It's logical to run a full 4 when the deck's win conditions are lands, along with the presence of City of Traitors. Also does wonders in conjunction with...

4 Smokestack - It might be slow to start working, but when it does, it stomps hard. Works great with this build because every single card is Smokestack food.

4 Ensnaring Bridge - Moved to the MD, since I love God. I thought the deck would be able to hold its own against aggro without it in the MD, but I was wrong. So there.

3 Grafted Skullcap - The draw engine. Not janky as it looks, since with all the mana the deck has, I can drop whatever I draw anyway. Also synergistic with Bridges. (Thanks edgewalker, though you said it was junk :tongue: )

3 Tangle Wire - Generic artifact disruption. Everything's tappable anyway, so this goes back in over the mistake of Uba Mask.


Sideboard - Most of these choices are pretty sketchy, sideboarding has never been one of my stronger points.

4 Thorn of Amethyst - Bumped to the SB since it's not much good in a format rife with creatures (I thought it would be). Comes in and helps lots against combo and control though.

4 Defense Grid - The perfect countermagic hoser, especially in a deck with the 12 Spheres.

3 Sun Droplet - For burn, basically. I don't think the deck really needs it, but meh.

4 Tormod's Crypt - Generic graveyard hate - Ichorid, Loam, Breakfast, Reanimator, whatever.


IV. Match-up Analysis

I don't have much yet to go into detailed analysis, but I'm working on it. As a general idea, the deck stomps aggro-control because of all the must-counter threats. It wrecks combo because you have 16 headache cards against them (unless they go off on you Turn 1-2, which happens at times). It's so-so against aggro, depending on the opening hand (helped a lot by the Bridges though!). It kind of sucks against blue-based board control though, where the long game is in their favor because of superior card draw.

V. Strengths and Weaknesses / Reasons to Play Twisted Metal

Strengths
- So many bombs in the deck that can be churned out turn after turn, even with a mediocre hand.
- Near impossible to kill win conditions.
- When I say it's a lock, it's a LOCK.
- Never get color-screwed!!!

Weaknesses
- Boy, when you get crappy hands, you get steamrolled. On a bed of nails. Rusty, crooked nails.
- Near to none card draw.
- No way to splash a color with this concept.

Why play this deck over other Stax variations (Angel Stax, Stompy builds, etc?).
- Angel Stax now focuses on mana denial with Geddons. Twisted Metal takes the flipside with spell denial. Some decks in the format run on 0-2 lands, and barring the awesomeness of Chalice/Trinisphere which the two decks share, it's much easier to break out of mana denial than spell denial.
- Aggro Stax/Stompy's gameplan of dropping a lock piece and then a beater and hopefully riding it to victory is now circumvented by a huge wall in the 1G Tarmogoyf. Since Twisted Metal is the most controllish of all the Stax builds, it has lots of ways to get out of situations in case Plan A doesn't work well. Aggro Stax/Stompy builds don't have as much resilience and flexibility as Twisted Metal does.

VI. Final Words

Well, there you go. I know it's a simple concept, but it's proven to be very effective thus far. Thanks for reading through all this, and hopefully I can get some constructive comments.

[Lemuria]

Hey Kicks!!


How are your MUs against Loam based decks? it seems that we have a lot of them in the CaNG, and with the release of Countryside Crusher, it tends to get more and more popular.

[edgewalker]

I see a problem with your "place holders"

Bottled cloister seems cool until you remove your hand and someone hits it with a Krosan Grip. Honestly, there isn't a lot of card draw for mono brown, but this isn't one of the better ones.

As far as tangle wire goes, the majority of the decks you play will be able to combo off under it or just plain have more permanents that you.

As to what to put in their place, I don't really have that answer outside of splashing a color, because you're limited to other card for draw like Grafted Skullcap and or junk like that.

[Bovinious]

24 land and 4 Mox diamond seems like a very high mana count to me, especially with so many of your spells either doing nothing or being slow (Stack, Wire, Cloyster, Crucible), it seems like you will just draw nothing relevent in a vast majority of your games.

[Gambit]

I think I would try Uba Mask over cloister; it's very good with the ensnaring bridge, and will put both you and your opponent on top-decking mode (your cards are hopefully more powerful). But this deck seems to lack the major card advantage that white stax does with armegeddon.

Edit: Ah crap, I thought you had E. Bridge main. I still would try something over bottled cloister

[Mental]

24 land and 4 Mox diamond seems like a very high mana count to me, especially with so many of your spells either doing nothing or being slow (Stack, Wire, Cloyster, Crucible), it seems like you will just draw nothing relevent in a vast majority of your games.

That's actually the standard amount of lands to ensure that you can consistently drop Diamond + Land on T1.

[Tacosnape]

Maindeck Bridge, for the love of god.

[emidln]

Given that you are pitching lands, sacrificing them to themselves and to Smokestack, dealing with enemy LD (Waste, Port, Sinkhole, STP on manlands), and taking damage from them, 24 is actually below the minimum I would recommend running. The absolute minimum for a Stax deck with manlands as win conditions would likely be 25, with a strong leaning towards 26 if you can find the opening.

Now, what does this give you over Sun Tower? Honestly, you added in more manlands at the expense of free wins for Crucible lock, a more unwieldly draw engine that itself makes you vulnerable to mind twists, extremely redundant and counter-effective spheres (especially given that you only have 24 lands, how do you expect to consistent cast 4cc artifacts when you need 5-7 mana for them), and no way to deal with aggro outside of trading yet more lands away or getting lucky with a turbo Smokestack.

By not going into red, green, or blue you lose out on the possibility of :

Goblin Welder - against hand disruption, manabase disruption, and general control
Rolling Earthquake and Pyroclasm - against swarm aggro, these are the tools that let us make it to midgame and late game where we can dominate
Boil - against Control and fetchland-based combo
Sylvan Library - arguably you have a similar card, although it costs twice as much and doesn't function as a win conditon
Life from the Loam - providing redundant land recursion, an element that gives Stax its speed by allowing maximal abuse of Wasteland, Manlands, Mox Diamond, City of Traitors, and potentially Crystal Vein.
Intuition - allowing for direct tutoring and combo-esque recursion when paired with Academy Ruins

Finally, how is playing an extra 8 manlands better than Wasteland, Barbarian Ring, and colored mana? Colored mana, at the very least, gives you sideboard options for metagame-specific matchups. Barbarian Ring more than functions as a secondary win condition, while colored mana also allows you to use Sylvan Library/Words of Wilding or Words of War as a win condition in support of yet independent to your normal Stax lock.

[etrigan]

24 land and 4 Mox diamond seems like a very high mana count to me, especially with so many of your spells either doing nothing or being slow (Stack, Wire, Cloyster, Crucible), it seems like you will just draw nothing relevent in a vast majority of your games.

That's stax in a nutshell.

I dont see the reason for playing mono-brown. Welder is amazing, Thirst for Knowledge is amazing, Nether Void is amazing, Tarmogoyf is amazing (OK, not in this deck), etc. I'm sure you can find something useful.

Look at Vintage UbaStax decks. They run like 4 Welders, 3 Barbarian Rings as their only colored cards. You dont need a heavy splash, but that splash is important.

[emidln]

That's stax in a nutshell.

I dont see the reason for playing mono-brown. Welder is amazing, Thirst for Knowledge is amazing, Nether Void is amazing, Tarmogoyf is amazing (OK, not in this deck), etc. I'm sure you can find something useful.

Look at Vintage UbaStax decks. They run like 4 Welders, 3 Barbarian Rings as their only colored cards. You dont need a heavy splash, but that splash is important.

Vintage UbaStax runs, at minimum:

8 red lands (some mix of Great Furnace, Barbarian Ring, Mountain)
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby

the 5c version has:

7-9 rainbow lands
1 barbarian ring
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby

The red in UbaStax allows you to support Welder and Barbarian Ring recursion, as well as sideboard stuff from time to time like Slice and Dice and Red Elemental Blast.

[Mental]

Vintage UbaStax runs, at minimum:

8 red lands (some mix of Great Furnace, Barbarian Ring, Mountain)
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby

the 5c version has:

7-9 rainbow lands
1 barbarian ring
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby

The red in UbaStax allows you to support Welder and Barbarian Ring recursion, as well as sideboard stuff from time to time like Slice and Dice and Red Elemental Blast.

Slice and Dice over 'Clasm? That said, Bridge is infinitely better the redundancy of 12 Spheres in this meta.
Welder actually isn't very strong in Legacy, Etrigan, but this deck would still benefit from a splash, perhaps in black for Nether Void, a card that really seems to fit your gameplan.

[emidln]

Slice and Dice over 'Clasm? That said, Bridge is infinitely better the redundancy of 12 Spheres in this meta.
Welder actually isn't very strong in Legacy, Etrigan, but this deck would still benefit from a splash, perhaps in black for Nether Void, a card that really seems to fit your gameplan.

Edit: The reason Slice and Dice is played in Vintage UbaStax is that it's a nearly uncounterable way to rid yourself of 1 toughness creatures. You: Pyroclasm, Them: Force of Will, You: Lose. You: Cycle Slice and Dice, Them: :(, You: Lolz

Edit2: I also can not read. I removed my rant in favor of Ensnaring Bridge since there was no questioning of it.

[Bovinious]

That's actually the standard amount of lands to ensure that you can consistently drop Diamond + Land on T1.

I suppose so, Dragon Stompy runs 18 land but 4 Mox/SSG/Song, what I was more going for was fix those 16 slots that basically seem dead to me, Tangle Wire, Smokestack, Cloyster, and at least some Crucibles. They prolly be better as Juggernaut, Synod Centurion, Phyrexian War Beast, Equipment, or Ensnaring Bridge...basically to me it seems like there 14-16 dead slots in this deck (I can see Crucible would be good but it probably shouldnt be a 4-of).

[Mental]

I suppose so, Dragon Stompy runs 18 land but 4 Mox/SSG/Song, what I was more going for was fix those 16 slots that basically seem dead to me, Tangle Wire, Smokestack, Cloyster, and at least some Crucibles. They prolly be better as Juggernaut, Synod Centurion, Phyrexian War Beast, Equipment, or Ensnaring Bridge...basically to me it seems like there 14-16 dead slots in this deck (I can see Crucible would be good but it probably shouldnt be a 4-of).

I agree on some of those points. However, running Nought and War Beast, equip, basically turns this into shit 5/3, which is shit Dragon Stompy. Just run bridge in place of the ToAs, IMO, and this deck will be vastly improved.

Tangle Wire is rarely a dead card. Ok, it is on it's own. But when combined with other lockpieces, like, say, Smokestack, it is teh broke.

Also, Cloyster seems alright in this deck. If I could think of something better without splashing, I would suggest it.

3 Crucible is better than 4, IMO, but against, without splashing what do you add in? Another land is reasonable.

[edgewalker]

I suppose so, Dragon Stompy runs 18 land but 4 Mox/SSG/Song, what I was more going for was fix those 16 slots that basically seem dead to me, Tangle Wire, Smokestack, Cloyster, and at least some Crucibles. They prolly be better as Juggernaut, Synod Centurion, Phyrexian War Beast, Equipment, or Ensnaring Bridge...basically to me it seems like there 14-16 dead slots in this deck (I can see Crucible would be good but it probably shouldnt be a 4-of).

When you don't have a draw engine, you want the greatest probability of drawing one of your lock pieces. The best way to do that is playing 4 of each. As far as the dead slots, its more like 8 since smokestack is so important. How do you expect to deal with permanents that somehow sneak under your wall of lock components? You need someway to get rid of them. However, I agree with you on the other 8, they really aren't needed and can end up doing more harm than good.

[Tacosnape]

Technically Trinisphere might be a better cut than Thorn of Amethyst, just because Trinisphere isn't a combo with Sphere of Resistance or Thorn of Amethyst.

Although, actually, cutting both and keeping Trinisphere seems like the stronger plan.

Chalice for 1 is a sufficient disruption play on your first turn if you can't power out a Trinisphere. By running all the inferior disruptors that don't synergize with Trinisphere, you're clogging up your ability to aggressively Chalice for 2, which is something you need to be able to do.

[Bovinious]

I agree on some of those points. However, running Nought and War Beast, equip, basically turns this into shit 5/3, which is shit Dragon Stompy.

Pretty much what I was thinking, Id rather run Dragon Stompy :/

[kicks_422]

Wow, that's a lot of replies. I'll try to answer each one, as well as explain the updated decklist.

Decklist first.

// Lands
4 [DS] Blinkmoth Nexus
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [MT] Mutavault
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
2 [MI] Crystal Vein

// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [EX] Sphere of Resistance
4 [US] Smokestack
4 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
3 [NE] Tangle Wire
3 [US] Grafted Skullcap

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [MR] Sun Droplet
SB: 4 [UL] Defense Grid
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst

Yeah, maybe 12 Spheres aren't good enough. Cloisters and Wires have also been replaced by Crystal Veins, Uba Masks, and Grafted Skullcap. Explanations in the OP.


How are your MUs against Loam based decks? it seems that we have a lot of them in the CaNG, and with the release of Countryside Crusher, it tends to get more and more popular.

With what I've played so far, Spheres are enough to keep them at bay. An early Crucible also helps a lot, and a Chalice for 2 kills their deck, and Crypt coems out of the board too. Basically who gets the jump first wins.


Maindeck Bridge, for the love of god.

Done.


Now, what does this give you over Sun Tower?


I dont see the reason for playing mono-brown.

Look at Vintage UbaStax decks. They run like 4 Welders, 3 Barbarian Rings as their only colored cards. You dont need a heavy splash, but that splash is important.

I do not splash a color because:

A. I think attacking with 2-3 of the manlands is enough/better as a win condition than Welders/Angels/Rings because they're just much tougher to take out. Therefore, splashing for a win condition is out.

B. Splashing a color for other cards not only would make me take out manlands (most probably the Blinkmoths if I go that route) which is going against what i want to do with the deck. Also, i don't see (so far) any MU's or weaknesses that a splash color would help with tremendously (Nether Void is something I'll keep at the back of my mind though).


Technically Trinisphere might be a better cut than Thorn of Amethyst, just because Trinisphere isn't a combo with Sphere of Resistance or Thorn of Amethyst.

Although, actually, cutting both and keeping Trinisphere seems like the stronger plan.

I've decided to cut the Thorns and put them in the SB to come in as additional tools against combo and slow control. I'd like to keep the 2Spheres in though because I won't be getting those 3Spheres out all the time, and those 2Spheres are sometimes just as good (or even better), especially against mid-range decks.

[Waikiki]

so nantuko = mutavault? I do like the deck idea very cool! what about thran turbing + well of dreams as a sort of draw engine which can also help with activation

[kicks_422]

Whoops, bad idea. Didn't realize how bad Uba Mask + Ensnaring Bridge is. I guess Tangle Wires are coming back in.

EDIT: How does Thran Turbine + Well of Lost Dreams become a draw engine?

[raharu]

First impressions: :cool:. I'm going to price this beast and if I have the cash I'm all over it (after Morningtide).

Sugestions: I don't know anything about Thran Turbine + Well of Lost Dreams, but I do know that in my past janky prison decks (Arcane Lab + Isochron Scepter + Counterspell anyone????) I have absoluetly loved Well of Knowledge, and if they can't play anything (read: if it costs 8 to play a Brainstorm), then they can pay :2: all they want. Possibly a bad idea (more like probably a bad idea), but it's as close to a Phyrexian Arena as you'll come in silver (Howling Mine??? Just accured to me).

Maybe to help out that agro matchup you could run a few Myr Enforcers (consdering the entire deck is artifacts you shouldn't have a problem with making these free 4/4s on roughly turn 3), or you could run a playset of Echporasite (I'm certaint the spelling is wrong), which are also going to be
4/4s that recur and have synergy with Smokestacks *(and considering that 3sphere will makes these both :3: to play, I think I would go with Echporasite).

Are you really going to do anything game-breaking with Tangle Wire? You don't really have any way of taking advantage of them. I mean, yeah you can tap 3spheres all day, but it's nothing special.

***IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!***

Does anyone remembers that stupid Time Vault combo deck? I don't remember how it went off, and that's not relevant right now, the point here is that they had a awesome way of using Tangle Wire. If I remember correctly, it went something like this:

Turn one Time Vault from a Tomb/ City

Turn two drop a land and play Tangle Wire

Turn three skip your third turn, leaving you opponent under Tangle Wire at 4 for 2 turns *(VICIOUS!!!!)

Your turn 3 & 4 (with Tangle Wire at 3 and 2 respectively) play it out, drop some disruption, ect. ect. just like normal turns.

Thier turn 4/5 and 5/6 (obviously depends on play or draw): I don't think this is what they did (OH!!! It was infinite turns combo...), but I'm improvising here. You let them spend two turns under Tangle Wire at 2, hopefully under some 3Sphere/ Sphere of Resistance/ other lock piece, then take 2 turns under Tangle Wire at 1 and 0, droping more lock pieces and probably taking entire control of the board.

[emidln]

Whoops, bad idea. Didn't realize how bad Uba Mask + Ensnaring Bridge is. I guess Tangle Wires are coming back in.

EDIT: How does Thran Turbine + Well of Lost Dreams become a draw engine?

Uba Mask + Ensnaring Bridge is amazing, but it necessitates winning with Barbarian Ring. If you're playing these cards, you really should consider Sylvan Library as well. At that point, you're playing Sun Tower with a worse manabase from a year and a half ago.

[Kevdog]

I love how so many people have forgotten than stax is a tempo deck (not the popular catch up "geddon at pendrell vale") and that by cutting tangle wire, they forfeit one of the best tempo cards in the game. Of all the stax builds I have seen in this competition, this one is by far my favorite.