I know black Stax is rather sucky, but I'd like to fool around with it and I have a few cards I'm considering that I would like advice for:
Smallpox:
It's not a permanent, but flavor-wise it fits perfectly. I'm looking to try to include a few CMC 2 cards into the deck to run alongside bitterblossom and ease out my curve, but BB can be a little hard to hit. And yes, I am aware of how this interacts with chalice/3sphere.
Hymn to Tourach:
More or less the same arguments as above. I feel like this would also help against some of the decks that Stax is traditionally weak against by gaining an early advantage and preempting a lot of trouble permanent-heavy decks tend to cause you.
Colfenor's Plans:
It's more than a little janky, but A) it's card draw B) it's a permanent and C) you have plenty of ways to get rid of it when you need to. On the other hand, I'm a little afraid that I may just be entranced by the cool factor.
So you have an idea of where my head's at, here's a list of stuff beyond the typical Stax shell that I'm looking at running:
bitterblossom - #1 reason I want to take a swing at black stax
bloodghast - utility synergy and beats, but I'm not wed to the idea just yet
abyssal perc - I really like how he looks in this deck, but this is another card that I think may prove to be more cool than it's worth
3sphere - strictly SB in my build
nether void - with bb and mishra's? yes, please
the abyss - maybe, but I think it's overkill
maze of ith - instant-speed defense made even better by urborg and mox diamond
braids - I don't care how vulnerable she is, I like the thought of extra smokestacks that don't have to warm up
contamination - I understand how powerful color-hosing is, but I haven't worked out a place for it yet
If you have suggestions for other cards that I may have overlooked I would love to hear them, but I ask that you please not argue against the deck concept. I am fully aware that this is not going to be nearly as good as white Stax, and I would like to fool around with it anyway.
Thanks!
ehm...where are the sinkholes? staxx will always be based around attacking the oppenents manabase. for cmc 3 their wouuld be rain of tears [to play around chalice]
Innocent blood has always shown me love
Island, go.
If you run crucible (or similar land recursion engine) in your build, Lake of the Dead may deserve a look.
I thought also to Death Cloud, even if extremly mana expansive, for the nice synergy with the stax strategy. Zombie infestation & Undead gladiator are also 2 funny tools to recycle dead draws.
Not sure any of these cards could work, but who knows.
Since when was a 2cmc double-colored spell played in Stax lists??Originally Posted by Darth Nihilus
Opening post, if you are talking about Stax as in a shell utilizing City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb and Mox Diamond, you have to take note of double-colored spells in Stax lists. It's hard to afford double-color early in the game with the mentioned Sol-lands (Sol Ring).
From my previous testings with Black Stompy/Stax, a combination of Braids + Smokestack + Bitterblossom was quite brutal. Braids is most of the time strictly better than Smokestack since she is a turn faster. If they don't have the removal, you get much value from her than from Smokestack. But she's usually going to bite the dust.
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
Good post :)
Yeah, which is why I'm not so sure about smallpox and less about hymn :(
1 CMC is bad bc I run 4x chalice; otherwise yes innocent blood would be good.
Death Cloud is BBB, which is rough with the "sol lands," and honestly I'd rather be messing with pox. Plus it's not so hot with a nether void on the table.
Sinkhole is strictly worse than smallpox, imo.
I'm not familiar with lake of the dead, but I suppose I'll check it out later.
Thanks and keep them coming!
With a Braids list, I found Mimic Vat quite good at fueling permanent sacrificing or making Braids 1-sided after eating non-exile removal.
It wasn't spectacular, but it worked and has random utility.
Red Wizard needs food badly!
In hindsight... I don't have plenty of ways to get rid of Colfenor's Plans :( Otherwise, I really like the card so far in this deck, as Nether Void and stax effects tend to limit you to one spell a turn anyway.
Take a look at my thread at TMD and take inspiration.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40624.0
Zork - hmm... that would get under both Nether Void and Colfenor's Plans quite nicely. I'll have to look into it.
Bruizar - cool I will :)
I've tinkered around some with black stax type decks. The Abyss needs to be included. Really helps,
I tried Rysthic Tutor with mixed results, urborg needs to be there for sure, bloodghast can make it, the problem I found was trying to last long enough to really take control, dealing with fish and goblins was a pretty big problem for me, tablernacle helps but it alone can't really go the distance. I think Sorin desrves a hell of a look,when I was trying stax it took the place of elspeth in the white build and made the synergy with bloodghasts really good!
Gl with the build man, I backed off of it instead of devoting the time and effort I probably should have.
Sorin just seems so damn hard to cast... :/ I mean, his first ability is pure win, but the other two are merely "cool" (including how devastating slaver+stax can be), so yeah. But then again he seems like a better call than the 3x nighthawks I started running after I realized how badly the one spell per turn limit on Colf's hurts your permanent race lol. I'll see how he does, but honestly I can't see the Bloodghasts being any good with their inability to block lol.
I always wanted to run Colfenor's Plans with Donate, but that doesn't work with all the sacrificing going on...Crucible of Worlds, and something to destroy your opponents Crucible?
I think Donate would cause more trouble than it's work, as Stax relies on having a ton of permanents. And Colfenor's Plans really doesn't seem to be performing well :( but if anyone has ideas of how to make it more effective I'm all ears.
As for the other cards... Braids is performing as well as could be expected, and I'm fairly happy with her. BB surprisingly seems to kick my ass rather frequently, but the faeries it generates are indispensable. Nether Void is absolutely stellar, and I think that it alone has broken more games than I can feasibly count. It's good to the point that I'm tempted to chuck the Stax shell out the window and build a deck around it alone :)
Sorin is proving very difficult to cast, but I'm not sure if that's a limitation of the deck or myself. As other people have stated before, resolving a CMC 6 should flat out win you the game - I'm not sure if he's sufficiently powerful to do that. Life gain is good, but it's often too little too late, and between Smokestack, Braids, and Nether Void the casting cost is rather obscene. I'm considering Lake of the Dead, but here we run into problems with permanent count (same reason Dark Ritual is bad for Stax). Ahh well I'll keep you posted and thanks again for the assistance!
Lake of the dead is a powerful T3 acceleration stuff (6 black mana available) but it is often difficult to find a deck to use it well, the suicide way aside. To abuse of it, I think the build needs a large number of swamp (urborg tomb could help here, by converting your sol-lands into swamps or to sacrifice lake to itself), and crucible to get the sacrified lands back, but I guess crucible would propobably already be there at least to abuse of smokerstack. Not sure it is the best choice for black stax, but I think the ability to get 6 manas wihtout casting any spell T3 especialy under any sphere effect is asymetrical enough to take a look on it.
Let us know your results
Be fun to add the Urborgs and Dark Depths to give people a target besides the Ancient Tombs and Cities. You're already weak to Blood Moon anyway so what the hell.
Blood Moon is not too difficult to play around in my opinion, as many of your main cards are artifacts. Sure, it slows you down a little, but with a handful of basics and some Mox Diamonds you can still resolve what you need to. And yes, Urborg is quite clutch :)
Lake of the Dead... I really cannot justify giving up the number of permanents it requires :( I mean... there are very few situations where I can justify tossing two lands to it for 4 mana when those same two lands could have been exchanged for two of my opponents permanents, dig? So unfortunately Soren has been tossed aside.
I still really feel like I'm missing something, but I cannot put my finger on it. Vampire Nighthawk is back in for the moment, and despite him being an awesome card I just don't think he's right for the flavor of Black Stax. I would like to focus more on Nether Void, however, so does anybody know of any cards that pair particularly well with it? (besides the obvious LD + Chalice... which is evil)
Erm Boseiju pairs pretty well with it, but it is another increase on the lifeloss and colorless lands... As would Dread Sanctuary be...
Blurred Mongoose, Scragnoth ... they do just die in most combats...
Bloodghast is already in there... Aether Vial ;)
Basically any threat you can drop before Nether Void is good.
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