[Primer/Deck] Stax

[Dice_Box]

If someone let you kill Marit Lage with a ratchet bomb, then you got a free pass. Marit Lage being indestructible cares about ratchet bomb less than SHE cares about your life total.

In our Dark Mistresses name we do feed to her the unbelievers.

[barwick11]

Yeah, fixed that... I'm an idiot. Told you I play about zero legacy.

Has anyone experimented with Lodestone Golems? Sometimes they're more useful as blockers than anything else. The effect is great too, but I find myself losing more often than not to just not being able to get rid of 2 points of damage a turn.

[Fred_Bear]

I think the problem you are having here is Sphere of Resistance. I have found in my previous Stax decks that while this card is often great, it can also be a severe liability. A single wasteland from the opponent and if we have Sphere we can be locked out of the game. We have to remember that the decks we face in legacy run much cheaper cards than us. We have parity or gain an advantage by running sol lands and moxen. This all comes crumbling down if we can't stay far ahead on mana. And a single bolt to Metalworker or wasteland on a critical land will do that. Sphere turn 1 means we MUST have 4 mana turn two to play anything useful. You just can't guarantee that.

I would also recommend you try Tanglewire some more. It is very very good at getting us to the later turns of the game where we can lock the opponent out. A massive flaw in Stax style plans is a weakness to Delver and other Tempo decks. As we have very little way of removing their turn 1 creatures after they have hit the board we use Tanglewire to tap them down until we can find/resolve an ensnaring bridge.

Sib

With this list, it's not the Sphere of Resistance. It's that everything takes a ton of mana to activate and play to keep moving forward. Buried Ruin takes 3 mana (2 + Ruin) to return a card and then 3-4 mana to replay it, so 6-7 total mana. Inventor's Fair takes 5 mana (4 + Fair) to find a lock piece plus the 3-4 mana to play it, so 8-9 mana total. You can split it between turns, of course, but both require the sacrifice of a land and in splitting the cost, you are likely Time Walking yourself and not adding to the board (Smokestack fodder) which is what Stax does best. Metalworker, as you point out, is very fragile as a mana source in this deck. When he sticks around, he can be (is often) a blowout, but you can't count on untapping with him in a format with Bolt and Swords in the most popular decks.

I understand what Tangle Wire should do and maybe I just don't like it because of how much less value you get from it in Legacy compared to Vintage. I think Sphere does much more. As you said, most decks in Legacy run cheaper spells than us. They also play less mana sources. Sphere is much harder for them to overcome than us. Tangle Wire is nearly the opposite. If you play it early, like you suggest, you are just as likely to tap yourself down for a turn or 2 as well while not developing your board. I'm sure there are situations in which Tangle Wire is better than a Sphere, but there are a ton where it's not (or at the very least, Sphere is harder for the opponent to deal with).

As I said previously, I'm still not convinced that this is any better or worse than older white stax builds, mud builds, etc.

[Avez]

Tournament report from 15.10.2016 Finnish Legacy Champs (110 players, top8 decklists).
I found the deck from internet (SCG or mtggoldfish) and instantly fell in love with it! It was somewhat similar to a deck I've been playing previously (and discussing in this same thread I think..) and I just had to try it out. I had first planned playing Imperial Painter in the tournament but I decided to throw that away because I hate to play against Miracles and Eldrazi with it (and it seemed those 2 decks were all over the meta here).

Mainboard:
1x Bottled Cloister
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ghirapur Orrery
2x Grim Monolith
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
1x Staff of Domination
3x Tangle Wire
4x Trinisphere

4x Ancient Tomb
3x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Karakas
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
4x Inventors' Fair
4x Wasteland

4x Metalworker
1x Triskelion

Sideboard:
2x Defense Grid
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Mindbreak Trap
3x Phyrexian Revoker'
1x Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale
2x Zuran Orb
1x Ratched Bomb

Round 1 - Miracles
G1: I get the game somewhat locked up but can't find the Smokestacks anywhere, opponent blows up the half of my board with EE set to 3 and Jace wins the game by fate sealing me
Side: in Revoker and Defense Grids, out Tangle Wires and Bridges
G2: Revoker to top, Chalice on 1 and Trinisphere do wonders and I get the opponent to 4 life. I even had Ratched Bomb on 2 counters and "forgot" to bring it to 3 in case of Blood Moon. Opponent plays EE x=2 and blows up the my Bomb and lands Blood Moon. We play draw-go 15 turns and then opponent plays Jace again and soon after wins the game, again no Smokestacks anywhere to be found :(

0-1

Round 2 - Dredge
G1: Opponents wins the dice and begins by vomiting his hand to graveyard dredging 2-3 times and passing the turn. I had a semi-good hand against almost every other opponents EXCEPT Dredge :( Pass the turn and lose.
Side: in Tormod's Cryp, Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, out some numbers of Tangle Wire, Crucible and Smokestacks
G2: Begin the game with turn 1 Trinisphere, opponents facepalms and starts by playing Cephalid Colosseum. Wasteland the Colosseum and play Chalice on 1. Opponent starts stockpiling cards to his hand for cleanup-discard-mode and I draw more wastelands. I end up dying to 4x Narcomoeba beats... Not my day?

0-2

Round 3 - Storm
G1: Opponent starts by playing Sensei's Top from Bayou and I wonder what deck he is playing. I start with Tangle Wire and few turn later Trinisphere, opponent scoops immediately. Ok so storm?
Side: in Revoker, Mindbreack trap, out Smokestacks, Bridge, Triskelion
G2: Opponent checks up my hand with Dures and his face makes it clear that he doesn't approve my starting hand with two Trinisphere, discards Chalice. I start with Tomb Revoker naming LED. Opponent Cabal Therapies the Trinispheres away :( I play land Metalworker. So Trinispheres are gone, but no worries, I have Buried Ruin in hand and with Metalworker on next turn I have enough mana to bring Trinisphere back from the graveyard and play it to the table. Opponents scoops again.

1-2

Round 4 - RUG Delver
G1: I know my opponent plays RUG and I keep a pretty good hand against him. I soon realize that it is PRETTY hard to win a game of magic if the only spell you resolve is a Mox Diamond in the whole game and on top of that opponents destroys your lands every other turn.
Side: in Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, Defense Grid, out Grirapur Orrery, Bottled Cloister, Triskelion
G2: This game is about the same as the first one, I get some lock pieces to the board, but end up taking too much damage from my Ancient Tombs and opponent wins with flipped Delver.

1-3

Round 5 - UR Delver
G1: At this point all my fighting spirit is gone and I'm only playing for "fun" and practice. I have all the wastelands and Ghost Quarters in the world in my hand, opponent fetches and plays only basics. He then kills me in few turns with two flipped Delvers and Price of Progress, yep fun...
Side: in Tabernacle, Ratched Bomb, Zuran Orb, out Smokestacks, Ghirapur, Tangle Wire
G2: I start the game with Chalice on 1 and my opponent obviously doesn't do anything after that excepts waits for finding Smash to Smithereens. I get more lockpieces to the board, at some point there's like 12 artifacts in my side of the table and also I keep munchin lands with Zuran Orb to keep my lifetotal as high as possible. He finally scoops to save time.
G3: Flipped delvers and fast beats kill me in few turn after my turn 1 Trinisphere eats Force of Will.

1-4

Round 6 - Splinter Twin
G1: That's right Splinter Twin in Legacy! Of course I start with a hand that COULD HAVE WON EVERY FAIR LEGACY DECKS IN THE WORLD (Crucible, Wasteland, Quarter, Chalice) but loses to a deck that plays only basic lands and a 3cc creature on my turn and wins the game turn after with a million attacking 1/4s.
Side: in Ratched Bomb, Revoker, out Tangle Wire, Bridge, Cloister
G2: I get a somewhat OK hand with a hope of fast Smokestacks. Opponent gets the combo faster with the help of Chrome Mox and also Jace fate seals me for few turns and that's that.

1-5

Round 7 - Burn
G1: I know that my opponent is playing Burn and a keep a hand that could win the game pretty fast. Opponent starts with Goblin Guide beats and follow up with turn 2 Trinisphere. Guide keeps punching me in the face and revealing lands from the top of my deck, yay lucky. I land Metalworker and pass the turn. Opponent picks the card up and reads what the little guy does and decides to bolt ME in the face. In my turn I use Metalworker, play Staff of Dominance (was in opening hand) show how the infinite mana combo works and take 1 million life, opponent scoops.
Side: in Zuran Orb, Revoker, out Ensnaring Bridge, Bottled Cloister
G2: Turn 1 Guide from the opponent followed by turn 1 Chalice on 1 from me. Turn 2 is a good time to land Trinisphere especially when opponent doesn't have the third land. We play draw go for some turns, I hold the Guide back with Tangle Wire and after few turns play the Metalworker + Staff. Opponent picks up his cards and asks me to show what the wincon is. I told him that there are few little slower ones, 1/1 spirit beats, Triskelion beats and if you have to win fast then go with the Mishra's Factory pumping himself up and attacking for something like 100/100.

2-5

After the tournament I played against my friends High Tide and BUG Shardless decks and won several matches while simultaneously consuming great amounts of alcohol so the day wasn't all that bad in the end. I think the deck is good and especially fun to play (not for the opponent though). I should have had more practice with it before bringing it to a larger tournament. I playtested the deck 10-15 games before the tournament and even though I've had previous success with somewhat similar Stax-decks in the past there where some misplays and other stuff that could have gone better with more experience with the deck. Inventor's Fair is super good and I even altered them a bit to remember to take the 1 life every upkeep. Triskelion is my own stupid brew against Gaddock Teeg and some other stuff (Death & Taxes, Jace,...) I'm optimistic about this deck and hope to see others have success with it in tournaments. Keep brewing!

[Dice_Box]

I played the deck last night with the SCG main (Minus one Cavers, plus one factory) and the following side:

1x E Bridge
1x Bottled Cloister
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Grafdiggers' Cage
3x Defense Grid
3x Tabernacle
4x Revoker

The deck felt solid. My matches where:
Elves 2/1
Landstill 2/0
Turbo Depths 1/1/1
MUD 0/2

Elves I lost game one because I did not know what he was on. Game 2 I locked him down with a Tab, a 3Ball and the Waste Crucible lock. Game 3 I locked with Smokestacks. (The only one in the deck too. I had sided two out.)

Landstill was a walk in the park. A slow deck with a game plan that gets licked out with Bridge and Wasteland? Sign me up. Siding in Defence Grids felt so very good here too. Love that card.

Turbo Depths was harder than I expected, mostly because of one card, Decay. I actually lost this match but for the grace of my opponents mistake. He realised he had made it after the match when we talked it over, but we also both agreed this was the most fun we had found in a draw in a good long time. I ended up cutting Chalice against him (He has them too) and brought in 2 Tab and the Bottle and Bridge. The Tab where not useful but that made fodder for Mox Diamond, that was the reason for their inclusion.

MUD was a sad match. He got two combo hands and stomped me. We played some more games after and I locked him down each time. I guess you can not win them all. Not when a hastey Blightsteel is looking at you like its next meal.

After I played some games against Nic Fit. This match is near on unwinnable. Deed, Decay and so many Basics that they can ramp into is painful. Mostly Deed. I would bring in the Revokes for that, but then they have Decay as well. I guess that is always the issue you are going to have with mass removal, its just sad that the deck is so common in my meta.

In all I love it. I love the questions on how I plan to win, I love the 3Ball, Wasteland and Tab plan, I love that I can Bridge against an 20/20 and grin. I love it. My issue is though, people tend to concede and end my fun... that's a bother.
Also, I think the second Gods' Eye is a must. That card makes Stax even more broken. When I had the two out together the deck just hummed.

[Dice_Box]

I played this again tonight and I learnt a few things.

1. Win the die roll.
2. You have almost no outs to early threats. An early Delver is going to cause issues if backed up with any kind of efficient counters. Tabernacle helps with this by slowing them down, but it also slows us down. Mana producing Land drops matter here.
3. Time is important. If you do not have an opening hand with a must answer threat or a lock piece, send it back. Force them to have the answer or risk losing. It does not matter how quickly you can tutor if your going to find yourself on no life thanks to your Tomb and a Delver. This is not a turn 3 deck. Move into a holding pattern, delay and then smack.
4. Tangle Wire buys time. A lot of time. Its more important than it seems at first. We do not want to add Spheres to this deck because we are already looking to tutor or recur 3 drop spells. We can not make them 4 drops and keep humming along. Its actually painful to face a Thalia and I would hate to do that to myself. Not to mention, sometimes your mana does not come together perfectly. Stick with Wire, if dropped turn 2 or 3 it will buy the time you need to get to turn 5 where you really can take off with your mana. Also Wastelanding Fetches is oh so much fun.

Granted, none of this is new. I am just agreeing with everyone from the page before this.

What's the view on cutting down to 3 Ruins? Sometimes I really want that card but often is just a Wastes. I want to put in Factory and think one of the Ruins is a good cut.

[Barachai]

I've been playing the Inventors' list vs Jund off and on for the past week and losing pretty horribly. Any ideas on what could make the match winnable? I've been pondering if Wurmcoils are worth adding to the sideboard or just to accept it as an awful/rare matchup.

[johnthedestroyer]

could metalwork colossus work in this deck somehow?

[Dice_Box]

I've been playing the Inventors' list vs Jund off and on for the past week and losing pretty horribly. Any ideas on what could make the match winnable? I've been pondering if Wurmcoils are worth adding to the sideboard or just to accept it as an awful/rare matchup.

I don't know if there is. Any deck running Decay, Pulse and Deed in their 75 are just going to give us hell. Maybe Wurmcoil would help, I am not sure. Intuition tells me it's expensive.

As for Metalwork? Maybe, but it hits up against Bridge hard.

[GoblinSettler]

Not much to add, but trimmed some cards from the main deck to fit in four Thought-Knot Seer. TKS gives another form of disruption that does not slow our own mana development. It also makes a decent wall or provides a faster threat game one. Bridges are in the board to move to a slower stance as needed in additional games.

Went 2-2 this week. My usual result when playing a Stax variant. Wins against Death and Taxes and B/R Reanimator. Losses to White Eldrazi and Veteran Explorer BUG. Also got in some practice games against Canadian Threshold and Shardless. Mixed results there.

Can attest to Dice Box's observations. Playing first helps. Abrupt Decay hurts. Pernicious Deed is a nightmare.

Was happy with 3 Buried Ruin.

Intend to run back much the same list next week.

[barwick11]

Played (roughly) this at Legacy Champs at Eternal Weekend. My performance being dismal is being overly generous. Did not win a single game. Not match... game. Went 0-4. Granted, that's ONLY during the tournament itself, and could attribute to matchups and the "oh look, you topdecked exactly what you needed... three times" in half of the games (it was creepy, seriously). Outside the tournament in playtesting, it played very well. Just, not when it counted.

I'll put up a full list later, but basically, I pulled the orrery/cloister, one stax (left 2), and had 4 trisphere, 4 chalice, 4 tangle wire, 4 crucible, etc... and went with 3 metalwork colossus and 2 sanctum of ugin (still had 4 fairs, etc), plus a wurmcoil main, and one in side. The thing I found the deck lacked before this was answers to simple threats, or ways to win under heavy board stalls but not a full lock (against counters, etc). It basically presented them with a lot of the same threats but one hole in my board could let them squeeze out, so they'd either counter it or destroy it. The colossus were must-answer threats, and usually come down for 3 mana (rarely will they come out without a trisphere on board). The sanctums are there because it's just too much for control to handle going colossus, search, get it countered, ok pass. Next turn, sanctum, colossus, search, countered, ok pass... next turn, colossus, countered, recur, colossus... ok they scoop.

I just ran into a lot of hard matchups in the tourney too, Jund game 1 drew abrupt decays and got a goyf out turn 2 through my wasteland lock. Found a bridge and he decayed it, got a stax out and he maelstrom pulsed it topdeck after 2 turns under it with tangle wire delaying up to that point. Game 2 he drew 2 wastelands in his first 10 cards, turn 1 DRS, turn 2 wasteland, another two turns later, couldn't get enough mana on board and stopped drawing lands (yeah out of 24 lands...) stuck on 2 mana.

Second matchup was reanimator. He's on play, swamp, pass. I go chalice on 1, he responds with entomb, grave titan. Reanimates it. I get out a tangle wire turn 2, he taps both lands, both zombies, and makes more with a titan attack. No bridge in sight, no fair in sight, he wins.

Third matchup was miracles with mentor. Was actually a good game. I was on play, he FOW'd a turn 1 trinisphere. Next turn I topdecked a chalice on 2 (1 was probably a better option in hindsight). Tangle wire was a champ. Got a stax out which he killed with council's judgment. He got mentors on the board. Ended up with 2 metalworkers on board but no way to search, so I spewed most of my hand trying to delay him, eventually got a fair, searched up bridge, he FOW'd it through a tri-sphere, won next turn with a few more mentor attacks. Game 2 I can't remember offhand, if I can remember I'll write it up, but it was full of FOW and hard cast counterspells.

Fourth matchup was moar miracles, two extremely close games, but he edged them out.

Again, I'll try to write up more later, I think this deck DOES need some creatures in it besides metalworker, but I don't think metalwork colossus is that creature. Triskelion maybe, saw someone tried that. 3 golems perhaps, not sure. I do know I'm not a huge fan of cloister. Against most decks it just seems like a blowout, especially if Kolaghan's Command is involved, and they blow it up along with your metalworker... that's a sad day in MUD ville.

[Dice_Box]

I have found the best way to deal with board stalls is Tabernacle. Knowing that is not an option for everyone, it may not be a bad plan to put Ratchet Bomb in the side. I am looking at making space for 3. I am also debating adding a Zuran Orb somewhere too but on that I have yet to come up with a definite answer.

When going up against a deck with Decay and Pulse, just swallow the pain. They are going to have the upper hand unless you can waste lock them. Because we are not fast, they have time to draw into those 4-6 cards that let them punch though the lock. I had a game this week against RUG Delver, I can not tell you how much fun that was. If RUG was still the primer Delver deck of the format I would say we would be in a great position. Sadly its not and we have to admit sometimes we are just going to get stomped.

Let's be honest, if your playing Stax in 2016, your not there because you think you have the best deck in the room, your there because you want to play Stax. That's ok, just be willing to take the licks that come with that.

[battousai555]

I had a game this week against RUG Delver, I can not tell you how much fun that was. If RUG was still the primer Delver deck of the format I would say we would be in a great position. Sadly its not and we have to admit sometimes we are just going to get stomped.

I've been practicing against Grixis Delver with my friend quite a bit as of late, and I must say that the best delver deck isn't all that scary if we win the die roll and get a decent hand. Sure, they can get busted Probe+Therapy+YP hands, but they have no answer to a resolved Chalice/Trinisphere/Ensnaring Bridge G1, which hurt them quite a bit. Post-board we get Revokers for Deathrite Shaman, which is the only thing that can consistently slow down the Crucible and Wasteland/Ghost Quarter plan.

Just like MUD, this deck can definitely just lose to itself, but I feel like it has a very good chance against several powerful decks. D&T is definitely a problem, though, and I'm currently trying to decide if Triskelion is worth squeezing in solely for that prevalent, mean deck.

[GoblinSettler]

I've been practicing against Grixis Delver with my friend quite a bit as of late, and I must say that the best delver deck isn't all that scary if we win the die roll and get a decent hand. Sure, they can get busted Probe+Therapy+YP hands, but they have no answer to a resolved Chalice/Trinisphere/Ensnaring Bridge G1, which hurt them quite a bit. Post-board we get Revokers for Deathrite Shaman, which is the only thing that can consistently slow down the Crucible and Wasteland/Ghost Quarter plan.

Just like MUD, this deck can definitely just lose to itself, but I feel like it has a very good chance against several powerful decks. D&T is definitely a problem, though, and I'm currently trying to decide if Triskelion is worth squeezing in solely for that prevalent, mean deck.

It looks innocuous, but I have found Aeolipile to be a nice early play against creature centric decks. Sort of a one-shot Triskelion.

[battousai555]

It looks innocuous, but I have found Aeolipile to be a nice early play against creature centric decks. Sort of a one-shot Triskelion.

That actually seems really good for killing Prelate and the like! Getting to 6 mana against D&T is pretty difficult and probably too slow, so your suggestion makes a lot more sense. I'm only familiar with commonly seen Legacy cards, so thanks for the recommendation! I'll let you know how it works out in testing.

[Dice_Box]

I don't want to go too deeply into results based thinking but... Tangle Wire is a must. I know there was some talk on its use. Well, I had a game against Infect where Tangle Wire delayed the board long enough bring Smokestack online. Add in the capacity to Waste them down, I watched as they where forced to sac their only threat and then I dropped a 3ball.

Wire is a great delaying tactic. It's not great on already completed board states, but it is beyond useful carrying us to the mid point of the game.

[Wotkenmendo]

So the general experience with Bottled Cloister is that it only works once, usually sided out yes? I've played with it in Braids Stax and have experienced the both the joy and pain it can bring. Any thoughts on Trading Post somewhere in the Cloister/Orrery mix or in place of it? Feeding goats to Smokestack, sacrificing Decay targets or stacked Smokestacks/Tangle Wires end of opponent's turn are utilities gained, though the Cloister/Orrery combo is obviously great at drawing cards and synergizes more strongly with Ensnaring Bridge. Looking to run one of these Stax lists soon, need a few more cards!

[Dice_Box]

I normally keep it in. People are often given a lot of targets for they removal and a lock piece usually takes priority over a Bottle.

[Sibelius]

Playing stax tonight. The metal worker list, with an added Tabernacle or two in the 75.
Ill post how it goes

Sib

[Dice_Box]

For the record, my current list is as follows:

Creatures (4)
4x Metalworker

Spells (31)
1x Bottled Cloister
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Crucible Of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ghirapur Orrery
2x Grim Monolith
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
1x Staff Of Domination
4x Tangle Wire
4x Trinisphere

Lands (25)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Buried Ruin
4x City of Traitors
3x Ghost Quarter
4x Wasteland
2x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
1x Mishra's Factory
4x Inventors' Fair

Sideboard
1x Bottled Cloister
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Ratchet Bomb
3x Defense Grid
3x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Phyrexian Revoker

I like adding Trading Post in somewhere. I will look to do that later