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ACME_Myst
02-19-2008, 08:08 AM
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g169/acme_myst/moonstaxbanner.jpg

About the deck:

I’ve always loved Stax since I first looked at the Angel Stax thread about 18 months ago. I got the deck together, played it for 6 months straight, then traded it away about a year ago. Since then, I’ve been building Stax lists on and off on MWS, and proxying them up to test against my team, but always without much succes. Until, a couple of weeks ago, I created the first incarnation of the deck I’m now going to present to you. I proudly present: MoonStax.

The decklist:

Lands (25)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Barbarian Ring
6 Mountain

Acceleration (4)
4 Mox Diamond

Lockpieces (24)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Blood Moon
4 Ensnaring Bridge

Utility (7)
3 Bottled Cloister
3 Starstorm
1 Words of War

Sideboard (15)
4 Razormane Masticore
4 Pithing Needle
4 Powder Keg / Goblin Welder
3 Boil / Any card that reads “Destroy target metagame.”

Cardchoices:

Some of the cards I’m going to explain here might seem a bit obvious to most. I’ll include them anyway so there is a complete explanation for new players to the archetype.

The manabase:
While 25 lands and 4 Mox Diamond seems a bit much, it really is needed. 24 lands is the accepted minimum to reliably support Mox Diamond turn 1. Because 8 of our lands blow themselves up, 4 are likely to die to creature removal / land destruction, and 4 Blood Moons turn off our 2-mana lands, the 25th land was included.

4 Ancient Tomb, 4 City of Traitors:
These are the core of any Chalice deck that is present in the current metagame. Together with Mox Diamond, they let us cheat the manacost of all our spells. Our manacurve basically begins at 3, but due to the presence of these 12 cards (8 2-mana lands and 4 Moxen), it plays like all our spells are 1-2 mana cheaper. So effectively Trinisphere cost ~1-2 mana, Smokestack costs ~3, etc. This allows for a very explosive game to get an immense headstart on your opponent.

4 Wasteland:
Simply put, this card punishes decks with weak manabases. Use it to cut your opponent off from a color, or combine it with Crucible to create “Wastelock”.

4 Mishra’s Factory:
Besides tapping for mana, this cards serves a dual purpose. The first one is as an early game blocker. The second is as a wincondition once you have established a hardlock.

3 Barbarian Ring:
Like Factory, this card also serves as a wincondition combined with Crucible. Besides that, it taps for colored mana, and can ping annoying creatures.

6 Mountain:
These tap for Red. How broken. Besides that, they provide manabase stability in the early game against opposing Wastelands.

4 Mox Diamond:
Like in any Stax deck, Mox Diamond is included as a four off. Together with the 2-mana lands, this allows for the hyper-aggressive playing of lockpieces. Nobody likes turn 1 Trinisphere.

The lockpieces:

4 Chalice of the Void:
Like most players know, this card rapes most of the format. It’s the core of most prison decks in the format, and of the Tomb-Chalice decks (hence the name..), like Dragon Stompy. Note that Chalice @ 1 or 2 do not hinder the maindeck in any way whatsoever. I’m going to copy-paste a list of common Chalice settings against certain decks from Emidln’s Suntower primer (though the list is a bit outdated, this should give you a general idea):

Goblins: 1, 3, 5, 2
Angel Stompy: 2
Fish/EBA: 2 (1 if you have a Welder in play)
Threshold: 1, 2, 4 0
Solidarity: 3, 1, 2, 4 (in that order, unless you have multiple chalices, or Chalice is your opening play)
Iggy Pop: 0, 1, 2, 3
Salvagers: 0, 2, 3 (turns off Engineered Explosives/Lion's Eye Diamond, then Living Wish, then Pernicious Deed (may not be applicable))
43Lands: 2, 3, 0 (this highly build dependent past 2)
Pikula.dec: 2, 3 (1 is important if you have seen STP and you have Welder out)
Survival Variants: 2, 3
Landstill: 2, 3 (again, 1 is important is you have seen Bolt or STP and have Welder out)
Affinity: 1, 2, 0 (0 is to turn off Lotus Petal and EE for 0)
Rifter: 2, 3, 6 (this will happen sometimes)
Reanimator: 1, 2, 3 (depends on the build)
Faerie Stompy: 0, 3 (0 turns off EE, Crypt, and their Moxen while 3 turns off the rest of their deck)
Burn: 1, 2, 3 (especially for Price of Progress)

4 Trinisphere:
This card is one of the reasons that Stax decks are so unfair. With all the mana-effective decks like ******** and combo running around, Trinisphere punishes them badly. Though it’s useless in multiples, it’s run as a four off because you want to see it every single game, except for the mirror. You can always sac multiples to Smokestack if you draw them.

4 Smokestack:
This card is the solution to anything nasty that resolves on your opponents side of the table. If you see a problem, ramp the stack and the problem goes away. Combine this with Crucible of Worlds to negate the sacrifice part on your end of the table, while your opponent sees his board gradualy moving towards his graveyard.

4 Crucible of Worlds:
This card does a multitude of things that are good for you, and bad for your opponent:
- It gets back used Wastelands, creating the so-called “Wastelock”
- It’s a wincondition combined with Barbarian Ring
- Use it to get back Factory for chumpblocking every turn
- Combine with Smokestack to break it’s symmetry
- It lets you replay destroyed city of Traitors, and lands pitched to Mox Diamond
- It negates any land destruction strategy’s that your opponent might have

4 Blood Moon:
Ah, now we’re getting to the real reason to play this deck. Most, if not all, of the cards I just discussed are played in most Stax decks. However, Blood Moon is not. It’s played in Dragon Stompy of course, but for some reason a real prison deck running it was yet to be created. Blood Moon has a couple of different functions:

- First, like Dragon Stompy shows, Blood Moon > format. If played in the early game, it shuts down parts of decks, and sometimes even entire decks, all for the cost of 2R.
- Second, it allows you to go into the lategame without worries of your manabase. Like many Stax players can tell you, Ancient Tombs in the late game become near useless as you might kill yourself with them / put yourself within lethal range.
- Third, one of the major weaknesses of Stax decks has always been Pernicous Deed. For the mere cost of 1BG and an untap step, that card will rape your entire board. On top of that, it costs 3 to play, so it’s hard to effectively Chalice it early enough. If you look at Deed decks though, you’ll see that most of them always use duals to pay for one of its colors. Playing Moon will shut them off that color. Even if decks run a single basic land of the splash color, Blood Moon will keep them off the fetches needed to find it. This hopefully buys you enough time to get Smokestack / Chalice@3 down.

4 Ensnaring Bridge:
This card on itself shuts down most strategies trying to win with creatures. Preboard, it’s hard for most decks to have an answer to it. This combined with Bottled Cloister will cause many players to scoop game 1. It should be noted that the card has one major weakness, which I recently encountered: Doran is immune to it. This sucks, big time, but there is nothing we can do about it. The good news is that 4 Blood Moon maindeck will make it very hard for your opponent to get Doran down fast enough.


The utility slots:

3 Bottled Cloister:
It’s been said before, and it will be said again, most players think this card sucks. I have to disagree though. This card has huge synergy with Ensnaring Bridge, allowing you an attack step while your opponent has none. Besides that, it also functions as a draw engine, and protection against discard strategies. However, the reason this card is generally considered bad is because of the potential mindtwist that occurs when the Cloister is destroyed when your hand is removed. You can avoid the relevance of this problem if you only cast Cloister in the following scenarios:

- You currently have no relevant lockpieces in hand, and just want to draw some more cards. Getting mindtwisted in this case isn’t bad because there is nothing relevant in your hand anyway.
- You are playing vs aggro, and have Bridge on the table. You don’t care if you get mindtwisted, because it still doesnt allow your opponent to attack. Since you already have 4 mana because you could cast Cloister, you can just play everything you draw, with the exception of Mox Diamond.
- You are looking for something specific to not lose the game. Imagine needing to find Bridge or Starstorm against aggro, so you want to draw some more cards. If Cloister gets destroyed now, you have just as much draws as when you wouldn’t have cast Cloister. Since you needed to find a certain card to not lose, losing your hand doesn’t really matter.

3 Starstorm:
Yes, Starstorm. This used to be Rolling Earthquake, but I really hated to nuke 1/4th – 1/3th of my lifetotal to get rid of Goyfs. For the mere cost of one extra red mana, we gain:

- Instant speed. EOT nuke your critters I win.
- Not hurting yourself any extra in addition to Tombs and Barbarian Rings.
- Cycling in the cases where it isn’t relevant.

Also, with 4 Blood Moon in the deck, the required double red isn’t really a problem.

1 Words of War:
I needed a wincondition under Blood Moon, if for some reason I couldn’t get rid of it (Smokestack is Extirpated, whatever). Besides being a wincondition, it allows you to keep an empty hand with Bridge on the table, go machinegun with multiple Cloisters in play, and prevent you from decking.

The sideboard:
This is pretty much taken directly from the R/g Suntower build. It’s just a good SB.

Razormane Masticore:
Bring this in against aggro and watch them cry. Not much more to say about it really.

Pithing Needle:
Shuts off evil cards your opponent might be running. Potential targets include: Aether Vial, Siege Gang Commander, Goblin Sharpshooter, Wasteland if you fear for your manabase, Putrid Imp, Survival of the Fittest, Pernicous Deed, Nevy’s Disk, Fetches, Jitte....

Powder Keg:
It’s either Powder Keg or Goblin Welder in this slot. If your metagame is more combo/aggro, run the Keg, if it’s more control, run Welder.
Keg just easily blows up lot’s of stuff and gets rid of annoying things your opponent plays. Think of it like a mini Smokestack. It can win the game against Affinity on it’s own. Kills Empty the Warrens tokens. Note that cracking it @ 0 will also blow up your own Chalices.

Goblin Welder:
Insane if it sticks, which is the reason to run it sideboard and bring it in when people board out their creature hate. Weld back stuff that gets countered or destroyed. You can play stuff into Chalice and then Weld it back in. Combine with Crucible and Factory for near infinite Welding targets. Cheat upkeep costs on Smokestack and Razorcore.

Boil:
Most of the time, a one-sided, instant speed Armageddon. Rapes ********, Landstill, and anything blue-based. Very unfair.

Matchups:

I haven’t yet tested most matchups as much as I want to, but I’ve been beating most stuff thats thrown against me on MWS. Not sure if that’s a big accomplishment though. Anyway, rather then percentages, I’ll give you a general idea about each matchup. I’ll add stuff in this section when I get around to playtesting it:

Goblins – About even
You have very relevant lockpieces, they have an insane clock. Preboard, it get’s down to you needing to find Ensnaring Bridge asap, then locking them out before / blowing them up after they get SGC online. Postboard you get Peedle and Razorcore. When playing against mono-red, take out Moon and Trinisphere. Against anything splashing, take out Chalice and Trinisphere. The reason for this is that Blood Moon is very likely to turn of any boarded hate like Krosan Grip and Tin-Street.

******** – Very favorable
Preboard, it’s very hard for them to win. Blood Moon is MVP. Add Ensnaring Bridge and they might as well scoop. If they don’t, it’s likely they run Engineered Explosives and are waiting for their second basic land to crack it for 3, so Chalice for that number is top priority. As always, Chalice@1 or Trinisphere nerfes them bigtime.

Anything combo – Very favorable
Just like most Stax decks, you run lots of cards that are very relevant. Chalice and Trinisphere are MVP. Depending on the deck (not so much against Belcher..) Blood Moon is good at shutting of their answers like Wipe Away, Serenity etc.

43 Lands – Untested, but presumably good
Yeah, you have 4 Blood Moon. 43Mountain.dec is not funny. Recently, builds have sprung up that run maindeck Nevy’s Disk to answer this, so that might be a problem.

Survival variants – Unfavorable from limited testing
In my experience, Survival tends to beat Stax. Stax doesn’t like recurring stuff, or maindeck tutorable answers.

Most aggro decks – Favorable
If you can go 50-50 with Goblins, chances are that you are favorable against other aggro. Obviously depends on the deck. Burn/Sligh is tough, but Chalice and Trinisphere punish them because they have no curve.

Random jank – Usually favorable
I tend to crush most random stuff that’s thrown against me on MWS. Most of that has to do with crappy manabases.

Chalice Aggro – Untested

Landstill – Untested

Aggro Loam – Untested


Why play this?

Like with any deck, you have to ask the question of why to play this over anything else. The relevant decks that you might play instead in the Moon/Prison archetype:

- Dragon Stompy
- Armageddon Stax
- Suntower

Dragon Stompy
While the strategy of both decks vary greatly, there are some similarities. The reason to play this over DS is that you give your opponent much more dead cards preboard, and that against most decks you have more relevant topdecks. Also, if you’re the kind of sadist that likes lockdown, MoonStax might be better for you.

Armageddon Stax
Ah yes, Geddon Stax, my old deck. While GS has a better game against most aggro decks, Moon Stax has more relevant cards against other archetypes. You (generally) don’t want to draw Ghostly Prison, Magus, or Geddon when playing against combo, except when they go for Empty the Warrens. Besides that, Blood Moon is a card that is very relevant in the format right now.

Suntower
I feel (and it seems Emidln agrees since he has abandoned his list) that R/g UbaStax is outdated. I’m not going to lie, I haven’t yet tested his new G/u list, so I can say very little of this. Except maybe that, again, Blood Moon is a very relevant card in the current format.

Eldariel
02-19-2008, 08:32 AM
I'd just like to point out one thing:
Chalice stopping EE isn't very effective. Unless you have a Blood Moon down, Faerie Stompy can easily use Tomb or City to play Chalice at 0 with X=1 or 2 past your Chalice at 0. Also, Threshold probably has found more than one non-basic by the time they hit their second basic, so they can play EE at 3 with X=4 past your Chalice at 3.

Good primer though, Blood Moon is really a nuke vs. all the 3+c decks running around (although I personally still prefer Back to Basics since it just plain stops the mana from being used. Of course, it doesn't go that well into a deck playing a bunch of non-basics itself - I guess that explains my irrational affinity with MUC).

ACME_Myst
02-19-2008, 08:41 AM
Yeah, good point. I keep forgetting how stupid EE works. Anyway, it's still better than not having an answer to EE :tongue: .

Rephrase the ***** with EE point: Just get Smokestack down asap and go to town. That should fix it.

emidln
02-19-2008, 09:15 AM
I'd just like to point out one thing:
Chalice stopping EE isn't very effective. Unless you have a Blood Moon down, Faerie Stompy can easily use Tomb or City to play Chalice at 0 with X=1 or 2 past your Chalice at 0. Also, Threshold probably has found more than one non-basic by the time they hit their second basic, so they can play EE at 3 with X=4 past your Chalice at 3.

We've had this discussion in the Sun Tower thread. Anyone interested should see the first two pages of that thread on reasons why I gave this.

This deck looks almost exactly like Sun Tower is a much worse fixer/draw engine (Cloister over Sylvan Library). Library is playable off 1-2 fetches and 4 taiga when combined with your moxen, which seem to be perfectly fine even under blood moon since they'll still give you red for your starstorms. The major reasoning against Cloister isn't the random mind twists. Those aren't an issue at all. The real issue is that Sylvan Library is for fixing your turn 2-4 draws before Cloister comes online. This makes it really relevant against discard and easy to get in before control gets countermagic up. Add in that it doesn't get nuked by Shattering Spree (giving you one half of the busted Library + Words win condition that sidesteps your biggest problem cards) and you have a real winner.

I've said this time and again that Stax doesn't need card draw. The reasoning is always the same: Stax is a deck built around virtual card advantage. Our Bridges, Smokestacks, Crucibles, Chalices, etc all produce VCA netting us things like "3 for 1", "4 for 1", and "15 for 1". Where Stax has its issues is (1) when the enemy is only affected by 4-8 cards and has countermagic; (2) when stax's manabase implodes on itself not giving itself a chance to play its spells; (3) when stax draws its nearly 50% mana sources when it needs bombs (the converse of (2)). Sylvan Library helps out each of these scenarios by digging deeper and providing valuable selection to keep you in land and bombs as needed.

The major reason to play G/u btw is the "Turbo Bear Factory" condition where you can assemble Library + Words of Wilding fast and consistently which presents a lot of problems for most decks in the format. Before I started testing Words of Wilding, I played Words of War, but with the rise of Goyf, combined with Wilding's synergy with Smokestack, I switched to Words of Wilding. If you fix the manabase, the deviation from the immediately pre-Intuition version of Sun Tower to Moon Stax is:

-3 Bottled Cloister
-3 Starstorm
-4 Blood Moon
-1 Words of War

+4 Sylvan Library
+3 Words of Wilding
+4 Rolling Earthquake

Given that Starstorm is an analogue of Rolling Earthquake, and one of the Words would be the same, we have a difference of 6 cards. It's probably worth arguing that Blood Moon is better than additional copies of Words of Wilding in that it is usually better by itself.

As far as reasons to not play Starstorm, your Goblins matchup is going to be really weak. Rolling Earthquake addresses the issue of not always being able to get to RR fast enough to sweep. Given that Goblns are on the rise again, it's probably worth figuring out whether losing some life to kill a goyf is worth throwing some matches against Goblins. Another thing is that if Goblins comes back into full swing, you'll want to add Aether Flash to the board along with enough sweepers to be at 5-6 postboard + Aether Flash.

Outside of that, the only really questionable thing about your build is Barbarian Ring. Have you actually used these much? I eventually cut B. Ring down to 1 copy (alt win) since I generally found the damage unacceptable and never had Threshold unless I was winning anyway.


I feel (and it seems Emidln agrees since he has abandoned his list) that R/g UbaStax is outdated

Potentially Offtopic:

I never really dropped RG Because it was outdated, I just found that Intuition turned you into a Prison-Combo deck and I liked that. I dropped Stax entirely because winning in a metagame of properly built Threshold (Stifles/Spell Snares and Trygon Predators in the board), Goblins, and Storm Combo is nearly impossible if you end up running into things like Survival as well. The strategies for beating each are so different that you must choose what to lose to, and I feel that I can simply play storm combo and not have that issue. When it comes down to it, I feel that storm combo is the best deck in the format right now and that's what I've been working on.

ACME_Myst
02-19-2008, 09:44 AM
This deck looks almost exactly like Sun Tower is a much worse fixer/draw engine (Cloister over Sylvan Library). Library is playable off 1-2 fetches and 4 taiga when combined with your moxen, which seem to be perfectly fine even under blood moon since they'll still give you red for your starstorms. The major reasoning against Cloister isn't the random mind twists. Those aren't an issue at all. The real issue is that Sylvan Library is for fixing your turn 2-4 draws before Cloister comes online. This makes it really relevant against discard and easy to get in before control gets countermagic up. Add in that it doesn't get nuked by Shattering Spree (giving you one half of the busted Library + Words win condition that sidesteps your biggest problem cards) and you have a real winner.

I've said this time and again that Stax doesn't need card draw.

Yeah, the truth is that the Cloister slot was previously filled with Uba Mask. I then noticed that except against control, it did nothing but keep my hand empty for Bridge, and provide major lack of synergy with Razorcores. I then figured that Cloister was just better in most cases, except against heavy reactive control decks, but you should probably win that matchup anyway, since all other cards are very relevant.



The reasoning is always the same: Stax is a deck built around virtual card advantage. Our Bridges, Smokestacks, Crucibles, Chalices, etc all produce VCA netting us things like "3 for 1", "4 for 1", and "15 for 1". Where Stax has its issues is (1) when the enemy is only affected by 4-8 cards and has countermagic; (2) when stax's manabase implodes on itself not giving itself a chance to play its spells; (3) when stax draws its nearly 50% mana sources when it needs bombs (the converse of (2)). Sylvan Library helps out each of these scenarios by digging deeper and providing valuable selection to keep you in land and bombs as needed.
Yes.



The major reason to play G/u btw is the "Turbo Bear Factory" condition where you can assemble Library + Words of Wilding fast and consistently which presents a lot of problems for most decks in the format. Before I started testing Words of Wilding, I played Words of War, but with the rise of Goyf, combined with Wilding's synergy with Smokestack, I switched to Words of Wilding.

Yeah that does seem like a good reason to go for G/u. However, do you think going Bear Factory is more relevant in the current metagame than Blood Moon?



If you fix the manabase, the deviation from the immediately pre-Intuition version of Sun Tower to Moon Stax is:

-3 Bottled Cloister
-3 Starstorm
-4 Blood Moon
-1 Words of War

+4 Sylvan Library
+3 Words of Wilding
+4 Rolling Earthquake

Given that Starstorm is an analogue of Rolling Earthquake, and one of the Words would be the same, we have a difference of 6 cards. It's probably worth arguing that Blood Moon is better than additional copies of Words of Wilding in that it is usually better by itself.

Yeah, most Stax decks only differ around 10 cards when you ignore the manabase. So, is this a potential suggestion from you?

- Fix manabase to include fetches and taigas
- go -3 Cloister, +3 Library

I might test that, but I'd hate sitting with uncastable cards in hand because i just dropped turn 2 Moon without a Mox in sight.



As far as reasons to not play Starstorm, your Goblins matchup is going to be really weak. Rolling Earthquake addresses the issue of not always being able to get to RR fast enough to sweep. Given that Goblns are on the rise again, it's probably worth figuring out whether losing some life to kill a goyf is worth throwing some matches against Goblins. Another thing is that if Goblins comes back into full swing, you'll want to add Aether Flash to the board along with enough sweepers to be at 5-6 postboard + Aether Flash.

The truth is that in my country (Holland) Goblins doesn't seem to be played much. Also, like I said, getting RR is a lot easier when you're running Blood Moon. Moon also makes sure they don't screw around with your manabase too much, while running basic Mountains instead of Taigas also helps. Also, Starstorm is better at creating more CA, since you can also blow up the Drivers they just played on their turn / vialed in EOT.



Outside of that, the only really questionable thing about your build is Barbarian Ring. Have you actually used these much? I eventually cut B. Ring down to 1 copy (alt win) since I generally found the damage unacceptable and never had Threshold unless I was winning anyway.

Yeah, I was noticing the same. I was thinking about dropping to 1-2 BRings and add in some fetches for nice synergy with Crucible. Since I haven't tested this yet, I figured I'd just post my current list, and post changes when testing is done.

Nihil Credo
02-19-2008, 12:46 PM
Any issue with winning within the time limits if the opponent won't scoop?

The singleton Words of War takes ten turn to kill if you don't have a Cloister. Mishra's Factory is just as slow, but it's shut down by both Bridge and Moon, so you may lock down your opponent but find yourself unable to start winning until you resolve a Smokestack for the full lock.

Maveric78f
02-19-2008, 01:02 PM
The biggest issue remains that the opponent just have to counterspell 1 spell. (and maybe chalice @2 and @5 too...) You lock down yourself alone.

I know it assumes that your opponent knows that your deck is bad built, but anyway, that's cool to build your deck properly.

Benie Bederios
02-19-2008, 01:07 PM
It's funny, because I was testing a deck like this too. I was feeling rather silly though and decided to use Welder in the MD. For that I played Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amnetist. I played about nine or ten Sphere effects than. With Welder I chose to run Gamble and Burning Wish and a Sundering Titan. It was quite potent, but it tried to do to many. It's a pity that red doesn't have any taxing effects like the white Stax. That really slows down an opponent. Anyway it was just something to think about.

BB

DragoFireheart
02-19-2008, 01:22 PM
How does this deck fair against recent rock variants? Some of them run STE [Rampant Growth on a stick] which lets them find basic lands to mana fix. They also run lots of 3 CC removal [Vindicate, Putrufy, Deed, etc] and Discard.

ACME_Myst
02-19-2008, 01:26 PM
@Nihil:

No, usually there are no issues with that. Opponents usually scoop game 1 if you get a hardlock down. If they don't, sit back and setup to win in the last of the 5 extra turns. If you're 1-1 or 0-1 in games, and you get a lock down, make sure your opponent doesn't start slowplaying. Call a judge to check on this to make sure if you have to.

@Maveric78f

WTF are you talking about? Yes, your oppenent only has to counter Words in order for him not to lose. He also must have more cards in library, so he cannot use carddraw / fetches, so you don't deck him. Also, this assumes you have locked your own Smokestack under Chalice@4, or it got Extirpated, so you can't get rid of your own Moon, if you resolved one in the first place.

If any of the above conditions are not true, then your opponent can counter Words all he wants, but he's just going to lose anyway. Also, don't be dumb enough to cast Words if you MUST resolve it, without baiting counters first / locking your opponent out with Stack + Trinisphere.

@Benie Bederios
Yeah I've been testing Welder maindeck for some time as well. Giving your opponent relevant cards preboard is not good. Also, there are very little reasons to run spheres or Thorns in Legacy.

@DragoFireheart
In nearly two years of Legacy tournament experience, I have never encountered The Rock in an actual tournament, and maybe 1-2 times on MWS. So I have no idea on what the matchup is, nor do I really feel like testing it since it will probably never come up. Feel free to do it however.

Bovinious
02-19-2008, 01:44 PM
If Blood Moon is so great why arnt you running 8 (Magus)?

DragoFireheart
02-19-2008, 01:57 PM
If Blood Moon is so great why arnt you running 8 (Magus)?

Magus is easier to kill. Hell, a Fire/Ice will kill the dumb thing.

Enchantments are generally harder to remove as most decks don't run main-deck enchantment removal.

Ragnarok
02-19-2008, 02:11 PM
Yeah, what he said.

Also, giving your opponent as much dead cards preboard is a good thing. Besides, you only really need 1 in play.

[edit] Lol, not logging out your friends account is major tech. Anyway, this was acme_myst posting :tongue:

Tacosnape
02-19-2008, 02:40 PM
This all looks very redundant and overlapping. Blood Moon and Wasteland aren't synergystic, Moon and Factory aren't synergystic, Factory and Bridge aren't synergystic, Moon and Smokestack aren't synergystic. Eh. It looks like you've tried to merge Dragon Stompy and Geddon Stax and lost significant elements of what makes them both work so well. How is this better than either one?

trollwarrior_666
02-19-2008, 04:29 PM
It's true that this deck does indeed have a lot of anti synergy, but it does play several very disruptive cards. You lose the fast kill Dragon Stompy has, but you get the disruption from Stax. I don't know whether this will work out or not, but to me it looks promising.

ACME_Myst
02-19-2008, 06:15 PM
This all looks very redundant and overlapping. Blood Moon and Wasteland aren't synergystic, Moon and Factory aren't synergystic, Factory and Bridge aren't synergystic, Moon and Smokestack aren't synergystic. Eh. It looks like you've tried to merge Dragon Stompy and Geddon Stax and lost significant elements of what makes them both work so well. How is this better than either one?

Actually, I have to disagree. On you anti-synergy points:

- Moon and Waste: You are turning off all their nonbasics. How is that not better than destroying one once it has already tapped for mana?

- Moon and Factory: Maybe, and only if they already have a relevant creature in play, and you have no Bridge / Starstorm. In that case, try not to be such a bad player and keep Moon off the table so you can block. Taking away their way to actually cast creatures > blocking.

- Factory and Bridge: True, if you try to use your Factory's offensively. However, the purpose of Stax isn't to win fast, it's to lock down. Once you have achieved that, you don't care if you win with Dwarven Pony or anything else. Factory allows you to block, and probably kill, creatures that can still slip under your Bridge, while you empty your hand to complete the lock.

- Moon and Smokestack: I'm really not seeing the anti-synergy here. Rather, I'm seeing a way to create card advantage while your opponent can't play more permanents / answers.

And how this is better than either one? Here's a list:

- More relevant cards against decks in general than Geddon Stax
- More dead cards in your opponents deck than with Dragon Stompy or Geddon Stax
- Answers to stuff that resolves, which Dragon Stompy doesn't have
- Having less problems than Geddon Stax against a resolved opposing Crucible (edit: ignore this one, I forgot about Oblivion Ring)
- Practical immunity to Deed, which is huge
- Huge metagame foil in Blood Moon

The Wes
02-19-2008, 08:43 PM
I think someone is a bit confused on what anti-synergystic means.

Michael Keller
02-19-2008, 08:54 PM
I can see what you're trying to do with this variant, and I respect that. However, you must refer back to Taco's post: How is is better than either? It lacks consistency. Essentially the argument is synergy vs. anti-synergy and how it ultimately affects you. Some ideas you might want to consider (some reiterated):

1. How is this better than a traditional stacks build?

2. How will I fare against the absolute best decks in the format?

3. Would I feel comfortable playing a variant like this in a major tournament?

You're also main-decking Ensnaring Bridge. Have you thought of Grafted Skullcap? For some reason, I would rather drop one of those than Smokestack if I had the mana. Who's not to say you'll not draw another? Which brings me to...

Goblin Welder. He might be good here. He'll soak up Force of Will or Swords to Plowshares which should generate you card advantage anyway you look at it. With Skullcap/Bridge, that could be quite a nasty scenario (if you play more relevant artifacts...).

FoolofaTook
02-19-2008, 09:03 PM
I'd just like to point out one thing:
Chalice stopping EE isn't very effective. Unless you have a Blood Moon down, Faerie Stompy can easily use Tomb or City to play Chalice at 0 with X=1 or 2 past your Chalice at 0. Also, Threshold probably has found more than one non-basic by the time they hit their second basic, so they can play EE at 3 with X=4 past your Chalice at 3.

Good primer though, Blood Moon is really a nuke vs. all the 3+c decks running around (although I personally still prefer Back to Basics since it just plain stops the mana from being used. Of course, it doesn't go that well into a deck playing a bunch of non-basics itself - I guess that explains my irrational affinity with MUC).

The list above is a very nice attempt at an aggro lockdown deck. I wonder whether its own Blood Moons won't be too hard on it in matchups against two color opponents.

Blood Moon is effective mainly because of all the strong lists that have developed around 3+ colors. The first really effective Blood Moon deck would move the format inexorably back towards 2c builds. So far that build has not been seen and Dragon Stompy is not going to be it, primarily because a meta that is trying to deal with Goyf has very little trouble dealing with Arcbound Slogger and the other big critters that Dragon Stompy promotes.

Back to Basics works really well in U/W and B/U builds, not just MUC. It probably also works well in U/G builds, although there are enough really good proactive things to do in U/G right now that Back to Basics is probably low on the priority list.

I have this gut feeling that Threshold's most effective build is going to wind up being just U/G, because it will not be vulnerable to any of the permanent mana hosers and it'll be able to get back up and running on just two lands when the sweepers go off.

ACME_Myst
02-20-2008, 06:30 AM
I think someone is a bit confused on what anti-synergystic means.

Would you mind pointing out who that person was? Sure, all the elements in this deck don't flow into each other as smoothly as in Geddon Stax. However, Tacosnape arguments on dissynergy between certain cards we're bullshit imo.

It's like saying that the Sinkholes in Deadguy have dissynergy with the Vindicates, because the Vindicates have already destroyed their lands..

There is, imho, a difference between "lack of synergy" (which i interpret as: do not work together), and straight anti-synergy (work against each other).

Sets of cards in this deck like Waste+Moon or Bridge+Factory complement each other in case the other one isn't drawn. It's a redundant failsave to make sure the deck can always execute it's strategy of making sure your opponent can't play stuff, and when stuff does resolve that he can't effectively attack you.



I can see what you're trying to do with this variant, and I respect that. However, you must refer back to Taco's post: How is is better than either? It lacks consistency. Essentially the argument is synergy vs. anti-synergy and how it ultimately affects you. Some ideas you might want to consider (some reiterated):

1. How is this better than a traditional stacks build?

2. How will I fare against the absolute best decks in the format?

3. Would I feel comfortable playing a variant like this in a major tournament?


Of course, these are valid questions to ask when a new deck is presented. I will do my best to answer them.

1. Though it is of course hard to say when a deck has been in development for just a few decks that it is "better than existant decks", since those have been in development for multiple years in some cases, and lot's of people have worked on them. I will say however that I think a variant of this design can be a top contender in the current metagame. I've stated the most important reasons already in my reply to Tacosnape. This time, I will put them in the order of most important to least important in that list, and try to explain why.

- Huge metagame foil in Blood Moon
This is obvious. Simply winning the game preboard against op tier decks like ******** and Landstill if you get it to resolve is huge. This card is so bomby in the current meta that it's the nr.1 reason to play this.

- Practical immunity to Deed
Like I said, Pernicous Deed decks have always had an advantage over Stax. Blood Moon shutting of one of these colors most of the time, makes this deck far less vulnerable to Deed.

- More dead cards in your opponents deck than with Dragon Stompy or Geddon Stax
Both Dragon Stompy and Geddon Stax run creatures. DS even tries to win with creatures. Like FoolofaTook said, "a meta that is trying to deal with Goyf has very little trouble dealing with Arcbound Slogger and the other big critters that Dragon Stompy promotes". Running 0 creatures preboard has your opponent sit in hand with useless removal while you lock him out.

- More relevant cards against decks in general than Geddon Stax
I already explained this point in the primer when discussing Geddon Stax. "You (generally) don’t want to draw Ghostly Prison, Magus, or Geddon when playing against combo, except when they go for Empty the Warrens. Besides that, Blood Moon is a card that is very relevant in the format right now."

- Answers to stuff that resolves, which Dragon Stompy doesn't have
This is the least significant point, since DS can just go "You play something. Oh. Then I'll just win I guess." against certain decks. However, DS does have trouble against a (for example) resolved Ensnaring Bridge preboard.


2. Decks like ******** (3+ colors), Landstill (3+ colors, I think, havent tested this yet), and TES get absolutely raped by this deck. I go about 50-50 (maybe a little bit less than that) against Goblins, and I'm trying to fix that. I have a great game against all sorts of random jank, because they either have no manacurve of they try to win with creatures, or their manabase sucks.

3. Because of the above reasons, yes, I would feel comfortable. Assuming I don't lose a lot to possible random stuff I see in the first few rounds, I start getting paired against decks that generally do well (like ********), were I excel.



You're also main-decking Ensnaring Bridge. Have you thought of Grafted Skullcap? For some reason, I would rather drop one of those than Smokestack if I had the mana. Who's not to say you'll not draw another? Which brings me to...

Goblin Welder. He might be good here. He'll soak up Force of Will or Swords to Plowshares which should generate you card advantage anyway you look at it. With Skullcap/Bridge, that could be quite a nasty scenario (if you play more relevant artifacts...).

Yeah, both Skullcap and Welder were tested. i eventualy dropped Welder because it gave your opponent something to do with his removal. Without Welder, there was no reason to run Skullcap over Cloister though.

Incidentally, I just stole the idea from AT1 and I'm now going to test Aether Flash in the Cloister slot. Should fix my MU against Goblins a bit, and also improve the match against random aggro even more.

The Wes
02-20-2008, 11:09 AM
Synergy - an effect of the interaction of the actions of two agents such that the result of the combined action is greater than expected as a simple additive combination of the two agents acting separately

Wastelands do not work when moon is out. Factories do not work when moon is out. Factories are often hurt when bridge is out. No, this is not like vindicate/sinkhole. If vindicating a land stopped you from ever sinkholing a land again, then yes, it would be the same thing. One piece of removal doesn't stop others pieces from being used later in the game, but once moon is out all the wastelands and factories you draw might as well be basic mountains for the most part.

For two things to have synergy they have to work better together than they do apart. The points I mentioned above don't work better together or the same together, one works against the other when they are out together.

Also, I'm not saying I dislike the deck. I tossed it on workstation and had a decent bit of fun with it. Some decks work just fine having parts that arn't synergistic together because of the raw power of their parts. But Taco's points were valid in that parts of the deck are not synergistic with other parts.

FoolofaTook
02-20-2008, 02:13 PM
It's a good attempt at what he's trying to do. It might be even stronger if some of the dissonant elements were removed from the equation. It's been my experience that it's really hard to create a topflight proactive deck when the play of some elements are highly conditional on what else was drawn.

It's fine to play a permission/control deck with a few dissonant elements in it because the timing of the plays are determined over a longer span of turns, allowing for picking and choosing the right time to play said elements.

This deck is going to Tomb into a Moon early on fairly regularly and then draw too many "basic" lands in the next few turns. That doesn't mean that he's not going to absolutely destroy some decks in the process, because he is, but he's also going to destroy himself randomly.

Thomas1991
03-05-2008, 06:44 AM
I've been testing this deck for a short while and i bust say i like it.

At the moment I play for Devastating dreams Main instaid of Starstorm and Words of war.

Devastating dreams is great with the fallowing cards:

Smokestack
Crucible
Trinisphere
Ensnaring bridge
Wasteland and blood moon (to destroy basic lands)

And it's ofcourse a board sweeper so it's usefull agains aggro.

Dark_Cynic87
03-06-2008, 08:19 PM
Synergy - an effect of the interaction of the actions of two agents such that the result of the combined action is greater than expected as a simple additive combination of the two agents acting separately

Wastelands do not work when moon is out. Factories do not work when moon is out. Factories are often hurt when bridge is out. No, this is not like vindicate/sinkhole. If vindicating a land stopped you from ever sinkholing a land again, then yes, it would be the same thing. One piece of removal doesn't stop others pieces from being used later in the game, but once moon is out all the wastelands and factories you draw might as well be basic mountains for the most part.

For two things to have synergy they have to work better together than they do apart. The points I mentioned above don't work better together or the same together, one works against the other when they are out together.

Also, I'm not saying I dislike the deck. I tossed it on workstation and had a decent bit of fun with it. Some decks work just fine having parts that arn't synergistic together because of the raw power of their parts. But Taco's points were valid in that parts of the deck are not synergistic with other parts.

Ah, but this is where you are wrong. Blood Moon is synergistic with Wasteland. Whatever Blood Moon affects, so does Wasteland. You have a Wasteland or 2 out and a Blood Moon, they either get to have mountains or no land. It's up to them. I think it works quite well.

I like the Devestating Dreams idea, it seems to be something I'd like to test.

BTW, does Blood Moon make it to where I can get multiple City of Traitors in play? Also, just play a singleton forest or 2 and more fetches if you are dislike the idea of having unplayable cards in your hand.

Tacosnape
03-06-2008, 09:50 PM
Ah, but this is where you are wrong. Blood Moon is synergistic with Wasteland. Whatever Blood Moon affects, so does Wasteland.

How is that synergy? You still can't touch their basics. Wasteland doesn't work with Blood Moon out, and anything Wasteland kills isn't there to be affected by Blood Moon anymore.

emidln
03-06-2008, 10:40 PM
DarkCynic, the term you are looking for is redundancy.