[Deck] Dutch Stax

[Mordel]

You can't just search for one card?

[KillemallCFH]

That works with Gifts, not Intuition (which says: "...Target opponent chooses one. Put that card into your hand and the rest into your graveyard...").

The reason it works with Gifts is because there is a restriction on the cards you can find with Gifts, and thus you choose to fail to find any number of them. With Intuition, since there are no restrictions, so you cannot choose to fail to find. If there was some sort of restriction on Intuition, because of the clause you stated, you could choose to only find one, and fail to find the other 2, essentially making it a 2U Instant-speed Demonic.

[Mordel]

Yeah, I forgot the specific wording of the card. My bad.

I fail to see how intuition will be sending portals to the 'yard unless there is three in the deck.

[KillemallCFH]

Well, if you find two, one will be guaranteed to go to the 'yard. Still, seems like a pretty weak use for Intuition.

[keidot]

Given the relative ease of splashing green versus the other color choices thanks to Mox Diamond, Horizon Canopy and Riftstone Portal to a lesser degree, it's unfortunate we can't take a page from Enchantress and run Sterling Grove. Wish it was 3cc :<

However, regarding the concerns of becoming more vulnerable to non-basic hate if a color splash is used, I agree that's a legitimate concern. However, I do feel that some experimentation is needed to prevent stagnation when this deck clearly has problems lacking consistent draw.

I haven't read all of the Armageddon Stax thread but I figure someone might be able to answer this question. Given the argument I placed for Vess, that a 5cc tutor is plausible given the nature of this deck, is running Golden Wish a possibility? Arguments for this choice is that our sideboard options aren't necessarily weakened by this because the bulk of our sideboard are both artifact and enchantments. As well, the likely cards that would be cut to run this would likely be singletons of Moat, Humility and Crucible which means they could be moved to the side to inflate our counts of these cards to 6 (assuming 3 Golden Wish). Pro-arguments for this is that the mana base can continue to stay mono-white with a very light splash which will maintain one of the strengths of this deck.

I don't think Golden Wish is a better than Intuition with a Crucible in play or being able to have Liliana Vess in play with a way to defend it but it does give us stronger first games overall against random decks assuming we can survive to cast it. Our sideboard will suffer slightly but for a bit of consistency maindeck, I'm willing to take that sacrifice.

[Skeggi]

Given the relative ease of splashing green versus the other color choices thanks to Mox Diamond, Horizon Canopy and Riftstone Portal to a lesser degree, it's unfortunate we can't take a page from Enchantress and run Sterling Grove. Wish it was 3cc :<

Eeh...If you want to tutor for enchantments just run Idyllic Tutor? I must admit, this one has been screaming 'ABUSE ME' at me for quite some time now...But I still couldn't figure it out (it's a sorcery damnit!)...But it sure might be useful in this more enchantment oriented version of Stax. It has been mentioned before if I remember correctly...

About Golden Wish: I fear a 5cc Sorcery is simply too slow. I prefer Idyllic Tutor then. Turn 2 Idyllic Tutor for Moat, Turn 3 Moat. Could be fun. We do lack the power of searching for an artifact though, which is a shame. Perhaps we can orient more on enchantments? Are there any enchantments that could replace certain artifacts in the deck?

[keidot]

But isn't our sideboard already a wishboard?

Sphere of Law, Defense Grids, Powder Kegs, Chokes, Compost, Tormod's Crypt and O. Rings are in a number of Sideboards already. Isn't this already a strong board of cards to wish from to improve game one against some decks? What I'd be advocating in the case of Golden Wish is to cut three cards and add a Humility, Moat and Crucible/O.Ring.

A sample wish oriented SB might be:

1 Moat
1 Humility
1 Crucible/O. Ring
1 Smokestack
1 City of Solitude
1 Planar Colapse
1 Eye of Singularity
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
3 Sphere of Law
3 Choke

Regarding Sterling Grove, it's both for Shroud and Tutor. Multiples maindeck would be to prevent Krosan Grip from ruining our day.

[Skeggi]

I agree that shroud for our enchantments would be awesome, but we simply cannot affor a card costing in this deck. I'd prefer running a 1-of Replenish then.

Well, one doesn't ban the other...what about this?

3 Humility
3 Moat
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Pendrell Mists
1 Ghostly Prison

3 Armageddon
2 Idyllic Tutor
2 Golden Wish
1 Replenish

4 Mox Diamond
2 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

3 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Wasteland
1 Dustbowl
2 Horizon Canopy
7 Plains

Sideboard:

1 Smokestack
1 Humility
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
1 Pendrell Mists
2 Choke
1 Compost
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Sphere of Law
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 City of Solitude

When running against a blue deck for instance, you could side in 1 Choke, so you can also search it with Idyllic Tutor.

Having looked at the list, I think I prefer Idyllic Tutor still (and screw the Replenish).

[keidot]

That looks positively interesting to play. It doesn't have the vulnerabilities of Intuition, maintains a strong mana base due to very light splashes and has a very strong curve. The ability to play Idyllic Tutor means a following play of O. Ring or any other enchantment main board assuming a land is in hand. While this build doesn't help the draw situation present in the deck, it helps to insure that the deck finds the correct tool for the job. Needless to say, I'll test this deck a bit and will hopefully have something more noteworthy to comment on then.

Playing 3-4 Tutor main board can lead to a lot of interesting maindeck options as you've demonstrated with Pendrell Mists and Ghostly Prison. In regards to having shroud on our permanents, if Idyllic Tutor or Golden Wish is run, a singleton Privileged Position could be run somewhere in main or side to give us that option to keep a lock on board fairly tightly.

[Skeggi]

The obvious problem with that card is that it costs 3 colored mana (and 2 colorless mana)...I think it'll be too much of the good stuff; early and midgame it won't be playable. If you reach late game, shroud will probably not be your main issue; getting a kill would.

Edit: is this a hidden gem? Okay, perhaps not supertech vs. Tombstalker, but anything else it's pretty cool I think (plus, the big Tombstalker reflection wouldn't have flying, which is also pretty cool!)

And this could be sort of a Moat for the people without money. Except that it doesn't protect Elspeth, which sucks.

[keidot]

True enough, it does scream win more to me as well. Given situations where the play would be applicable with an Idyllic Tutor lead, it seems easier to wish for multiples of lock pieces and play them to hold the lock. As well, I'll state that if Idyllic Tutor is run, I think Pendrell Mists is mandatory. It gives Dutch Stax a way to emulate one of the strong plays from Armageddon Stax which is definitely appreciable.

On the note of Idyllic Tutor, I was considering the draw issue again. Tutor does a lot to alleviate this issue as it serves to act as our enchantment lock pieces 4-6 but it doesn't help us find our win conditions or our strong artifact locks. So, with that in mind, I'll suggest this odd card: Attunement. As a singleton that can be found with Idyllic Tutor, it has a relatively deep dig potential and has the all important component of being reusable. This is the main reason why I wanted Jace and Vess to work in this deck as the ability to reuse them as necessary helps build and maintain our lock to win the game.

Sorry if my suggestions have been so odd throughout this thread, I can't help but be curious about what can make this deck better.

---
Pure Reflection is interesting in tandem with Humility as it prevents from the board from being cluttered with creatures and will work towards the power of stacks more. As well, Elspeth can block the Reflection token near indefinitely. Ignoring the possibility of an opponent using removal on the token and then swinging into her, this forms a fairly effective soft lock on creatures.

Regarding the idea of a budget Moat, this is actually a fairly serious issue for people wishing to run this deck. In the case of a budget version, I'll suggest a more R/W oriented build. The reasons for this is that I'd run this as my creature lock:

3 Humility
3 Powerstone Minefield
X Idyllic Tutor

Though Powerstone Minefield doesn't do much on it's own against tombstalkers or pairs of goyfs, it keeps a decent soft lock when paired with Humility.

[Skeggi]

Sorry if my suggestions have been so odd throughout this thread, I can't help but be curious about what can make this deck better.

I really like thinking outside of the box, but I think we should be weary of drifting. Conjuring all sorts of odd tech and contemplating whether it'd work or not is only useful up to a certain level. We've thought of a couple of adjustments - now all we have to do is test it. Alot. I prefer testing a certain concept in an as standard as possible decklist, so you won't see two cases influence eachother.

For instance, test Idyllic Tutor in one deck first, then test Golden Wish in another, then test them together. Observe, analyse and conclude. In this order: too often do people analyse while observing, which can blur the observation.

So I guess, we should start testing these builds and report back here. I'll try some Idyllic Tutor awesomesauce myself. We'll see how it goes .

[keidot]

Initial play results aren't too surprising given the nature of wish. Resolving Vess allows for a constant flurry of ideal plays where as Golden Wish leads to an efficient burst that can either be the turning point in a match or ultimately fizzle. The times where it resolved reminded me very little of when I resolve Burning or Cunning Wish as I lacked the mana to immediately play the effect. To enunciate on the benefits of those wishes, their efficient cost coupled with their efficient cost lead to effective sideboard options. Based on the cost of Golden Wish, it feels like a weak card to start the lock but is an appropriate card to finish a lock. With out dashing it away as saying it's "win-more", using a naked Golden Wish essentially leads to unoptimal plays versus our other options available at this given moment. Even Vess, a card that would a restructuring of the maindeck to support its double black casting cost, is better than wish because it maintains a constant stream of threats and can possibly provide a 'fog' effect for you as the card quality engine it provides cannot be overlooked by an opponent.

To be stated succinctly, due to the nature of this deck (playing chalices for 1 and 2, playing Trinisphere, etc), we can't play Golden Wish efficiently. All draw/tutor spells to find and cast a lock piece require two pieces no matter what (except in the case of Vess and multiple resolutions). However, the extra turn lost in regards to the higher cost of Wish effects this deck poorly as its single use doesn't net a large benefit for the cost associated with it. A good example of using wishes can be described when I play my friend and his Spring Tide deck. He cares very little for my resolving artifacts and uses his Forces to hit my Armageddons. It's only when he's crafted a strong hand does he Cunning Wish for Rebuild, then Rebuild on the end of my turn. This is the luxury that we deny ourselves: even if Golden Wish costed 1-2 less mana, our sideboard wouldn't have low costed, efficient answers as our own prison effects restricts our chances to play them appropriately.

Given the play data I've acquired, the only card I would want to wish for in every game if possible would be Balance. Yes, Balance. The nature of needing to wish for correct or any lock pieces necessitates that board position fails to favor you and, accordingly, the deck wants a cheap, board reset to have another chance to set up the lock. However, seeing as how I can't play with cards that silly, we come back to the point that we started at: Golden Wish isn't good enough to warrant at this current point in time. Wishes are generally run to improve a decks game 1 as opposing decks will struggle with the wide array of answers the Wish deck can have. To be blunt, I think Stax has a superb game 1 if it can draw it. A simple example would be Turn 1 Chalice for one, Turn 2 Trinisphere, Turn 3 Armageddon. Unless there's a creature on the table, this type of lock stops any deck dead in their tracks and forces them to top deck land, something your much more apt to handle. This is why it's odd to force Golden Wish as we don't need to have better game 1s and worse subsequent games due to a smaller SB. We just want to have optimal draws/plays every turn more than anyone else.

With that information in tow, I'll move my efforts towards testing Idyllic Tutor as that seems to be a bit more promising given how this deck curves. I don't think think my results will be all that surprising but I don't mind being surprised at all either.

Oh, for fun, try testing 3-4x Attunement in place of Idyllic Tutor. I toyed around with it a bit and it's quite amusing actually. It makes Replenish, Crucible and Academy Ruins become much more linchpin in the deck but it digs deep and consistently. If you play it, it means you have no other plays but it's nice starting a turn with it in play knowing that you can dig six cards deep for a relevant card if you're desperate. At the very least, I had more fun testing Attunement than struggling with Golden Wish.

[Skeggi]

Yeah, the findings on Golden Wish were a bit predictable.

@Balance: there's a pretty good reason not to run this 'silly' card. Next to the fact that Chalice@2 is often a gamewinning play, it's also kind of banned. You could try Cataclysm though. Doesn't really do the same, but in a way, it does. Some Armageddon Stax lists used it as Armageddon 5-6, when they couldn't afford Ravages of War. In fact, some people liked it so much, they ran 3 Armageddons and 2 Cataclysms. It might be an idea to replace(!) Armageddon with Cataclysm in this deck. Keep in mind though: it also kills Planeswalkers.

I can imagine this deck going either an Idyllic Tutor-way, with 1-of silver bullets in the form of enchantments to tutor up. Or an Attunement-way, Replenish and Academy Ruins; where you can dig deeper and Replenish would be a total bomb. The last version seems a bit more counter-sensitive, because your opponent only needs to counter that 1 Replenish and you're back to square one.

..or...it basically stays the same

[Mordel]

Idyllic tutor seems very interesting. I took a break from playing the deck before merfolk started to become very popular online anyway.

As far as I am concerned, tuning the deck a bit more for merfolk might be a good bet, though I don't think too much needs to be done considering in theory, it should be an easier game than dreadstill depending on if they run ports or not(ports would make it quite difficult if they were running wastelands too I think).

The primary matchups that I would be concerned about right now are combo, merfolk, dreadstill, thresh variants with natural order integrated(same as uwg as far as I am concerned) and trying to confront the weakness to jank.

I'm sure that I am missing something in there though as far as targeted matches go.

Results may be pointing to otherwise, so I am sorry if this comes off as a bit crass, but the wishes seem very unwieldy. While I like the idea of having a wishboard, needing to hit two white and three colourless and then a turn to use what you wish for seems too much for my liking. The reason I say this is because I would often find myself at death's door almost when I would need the entirety of my lock to come together.

That is to say that I am not too confident that I would rather be playing the wishes over oblivion rings, which I consider to be the cornerstone of the deck's success in many games. Yes, the tutors essentially drive the number of oblivion rings up to four in a sense, but counters and needing to 'ring something promptly make this seem less desirable to me in the long run. At the very least, O-rings get sacrificed to allow cards like moat to resolve and having four at my disposal allows me to use them as fodder and at the same time, have one or two to fall back on.

I see what you are doing there with that singleton replenish though. Very clever.

No promising developments will ever happen without shifting directions and maybe even focus, but I am not sure if lowering the number of wastelands by three and adding a dustbowl is a step in the right direction. While wastelands sometimes feel like a wasted draw against merfolk(sometimes!), I don't know if I would want to forsake the ability to force other opponents to play a turn behind in mana development. Early wastelocks still do work too.

I think a lot of my apprehension towards cutting some slots back to three that are the bread and butter of the deck as far as first turn plays go in favor of adding tutors would be lessened by knowing what sorts of decks you are trying to prepare for in particular,

Don't think I didn't notice the freat deal of effort that you put into keeping the base number of basics relatively high in your build either. I have to agree with what this suggests in that one of the strengths of the deck is in a relatively strong/resilient mana base that can stand up reasonably well to opposing wastelands. In the same token though, to try to make a minor splash without disturbing this balance and at the same time allowing for the minor splash to be easily accessible seems like a very difficult task at best. In the games that you have played with the splash, have you had access to the right colour when you needed it or did you find yourself inconvenienced?

Here I was earlier today thinking that when I get a wild hair up my ass, I would try removing a two lands and put in two canopies. Haha.

Edit: What's this about Balance?!

[keidot]

I mentioned Balance as a mixed point of sarcasm and desire. I'm aware of it being banned in Legacy but it was mentioned as something the deck wants to accomplish to some degree. If Stax fails to have a strong draw, games can turn ugly quickly as the lock pieces might possibly do too little too late. Cataclysm did come to mind but the fact that it does kill Planeswalkers makes me a tad wary.

Regarding exchanging wastelands for other relevant lands, I'm not against attempting this. What would we gain in exchange for our mana denial plan though? More Canopies isn't necessarily bad but ideal Canopy plays mean being slightly flooded or having Crucible in play to ensure being able to cast lock pieces that you hopefully draw.

Concerning Replenish, I would at least increase the count to two if attempting to run multiple Attunements as a way of digging through the deck. However, the deck doesn't need a deep devotion to Attunement. As realistically you'll only be working with one more often than not, it's possible to just Idyllic Tutor for a singleton and start setting up a large Replenish if it's already in your hand.

Regarding splashes, I could hit the cost for Vess far more often than the cost for Jace simply because drawing Urborg made it easy to hit double black. It was always rare to have a possible turn 3 Jace play but he was never dropped until I had either Moat or Elspeth down to ensure he had some type of way to stay out there and draw me cards unless my opponent hadn't played a creature yet. When making test lists, if I pick up a splash to specifically play a draw spell of some sort, I always drop Canopies first. I don't know if this is the right choice, but it seems correct because the card that normally lets us draw is being exchanged for a mana source that helps ensure being able to play draw. I generally end up with 8 ways to mana fix for non-green colors, the most possible without restructuring the non-land slots in the deck.

[Skeggi]

Perhaps we should take a closer look at green. Horizon Canopy really is pretty good as a 4-of, so green is as good as given. Green has some funky draw-stuff like Harmonize. Perhaps try and exploit that.

[keidot]

Oddly enough, I'd go with the heretical suggestion of Rites of Flourishing. It's not a bad play if Chalices are in place to make their draws less effective and serves its function as an exploration with a possible wastelock to make their played lands less significant. Your opponent getting the Draw+Exploration effect first is unfortunate but it does accomplish two things this deck makes good use of from a pure analysis stand point.

[Skeggi]

I like that 'heretical' suggestion. It's certainly testworthy. You can see I failed with Exploration...but this could turn out to be pretty cool. Or a total fiasco, but hey, in that case, at least we can cross it off the list .

[Mordel]

Rites of Flurishing strikes me as absolutely horrible. Never mind my opponent drawing an extra card per turn, but allowing them to play two lands in a turn? Even if you have a smoker set at two that is a huge liability without a 3sphere or a CotV set at two.

Is Rites of Flourishing sarcasm too?