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.
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.