First off, Nether Void is bad. I've played it in multiple decks, and the card is a double-edged sword. If you don't draw Cavern it's awful. If your opponent draws more lands than you, it's awful. If you draw it in multiples, it's awful. I'm also not a fan of Noble here, it doesn't tap for black or allow us to make degenerate turn one plays. Otherwise the idea is sound (I'm a big fan of Master of the Wild Hunt) but testing will be needed to see if it's worth playing your list over mono-black Stax or Sylvan Plug, which it seems to be an amalgamation of. I would also like to see Sylvan Library in there somewhere if you are playing green.Originally Posted by Qweerios
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
I've been toying a lot with Trading Post lately. The card looks super efficient in the sense that it does a lot of the things this deck wants to make. The Goats are food for the stax effects, and the lifegain has been to me at least very relevant. The ability of getting back lock pieces from the graveyard also seems relevant, and the sinergy it has with Ophiomancer is ridicoulous. I'm still not sure what I would like to cut, but I just wanted to give a little update.
The Master of the Wild Hunt list could easily play Library over Void.
Hi. So after further testing Trading Post gives the deck a new angle of grinding that has been very pleasant. The card does everything the deck wants to make, it gives a new recurring food for our stax effects, also the Goats function as great chumpblockers. The synergy with Ophiomancer is amazing to keep getting lockpieces back from the graveyard in case they got countered, the gaining life ability has worked fantastic for me, as not only is extremely good with Bridge (reducing your hand size) but also because it gives you life which is objectively what you want to keep up against decks that you want bridge. The artifact sac outlet to draw cards has also been proven to be nice lategame when you draw redundant lockpieces (like double trini)
Sideboard wise, I ran across a very nice fellow in Cockatrice that told me about Damping Matrix as a card for this deck. Basically it works as a Pithing Needle but it plays smoothly through chalice. I've also been running Phyrexian Revokers in the board, the synergy the card has with Trading Post has been amazing.
I have cut a Bottled Cloister and a Crucible of Worlds and replaced them with Trading Posts. I still wanted to keep the card advantage cloister has, but unlike T.Post, I've become afraid of casting the card in the dark, specially because it's not that good against SnT (it's great in the Miracles MU tho). Cutting the 3rd Crucible for T.Post also made the deck a tad bit smoother, as you won't get stuck with multiple crucibles that often, and T.Post is always active doing something, while Crucible isn't that good if you don't establish a sac lock.
Mind sharing your current list?
Sure. It's still very similar to the decklist I posted a page ago:
Artifacts: (25)
2 Bottled Cloister
4 Chalice of The Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
2 Trading Post
4 Trinisphere
Creature (9)
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Ophiomancer
1 Mardu Strike Leader
Sorcery (2)
2 Toxic Deluge
Lands (24)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Traitors
1 God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai
2 Peat Bog
4 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
As you can see only 3 new cards have appeared, the aforementioned Trading Post and I replaced a Toxic Deluge for a Mardu Strike Leader, which in theory should be pretty good to close out games. Unfortunately, after all my testing, I still haven't managed to draw the card a single time. Overall the deck feels waaay more smoother, trading post really feels comfortable and you will always have a reason to use one of it's 4 abilities. And although I'm just playing in cockatrice, I keep a record of the decks I play against and I have a healthy win rate against a big chunk of the tier 1 decks.
I played some matches in cockatrice and I confirmed my suspicions about Trading Post. The card is definitely where we want to go.
Match 1 vs RUG Delver
G1: I assemble a Esnaring Bridge T1 and he scoops instantly
G2: I assumed that the auto scooping against Bridge meant he was on some kind of Sneak and Show, so I boarded out the Toxic Deluges and put Damping Matrixes and Phyrexian Revokers in, which after he went T1 goose became instant dead cards
G3: My first chalice and a Trini get destructive relveried, my ophiomancer gets bolted but the snake token is left behind. After I resolve bridge I'm pretty sure that he's out of artifact removal, and he concedes as he can't win from there.
Match 2 vs Merfolk:
G1: He's on the play and lands T1 Vial. I go T1 chalice which looks silly. I keep drawing into trinis and more chalices and he kills me through vial before I can establish a lock, but not before I see he has Chalices of his own, so I board them out.
G2: My ensnaring Bridge goes unanswered and Trading Post comes next, + a revoker on vial. Between gaining Life and reducing my hand size to bridge I'm able to lock him before a braids shows up and eats his board
G3: He goes island go. I go all in and jam trini T1, which resolves. He never finds a 3rd land and I'm able to lock him from there
Match 3 vs 4cc Delver
G1: He goes t1 shaman go, my chalice gets dazed but after he lands delver y set a Smokestack T2 which resolves. His delver helps without flipping and he stifles my smokestack twice while I jam crucible and ensnaring bridge, and he scoops when he sees the inevitability of his permanents getting cleaned.
G2: I play around a possible Ancient Grudge, so I set a chalice in 1 expecting it to get grudged, which it does. I follow it with a trini but he managed to play around it and Grudges my ensnaring bridge, then decays my trini and he cashes in a ton of cantrips. Eventually it resumes to him having a young pyromancer and some tokens and I casting Toxic deluge, which trades for his last two cards that are fow+blue card, and he kills me before i can lock him again.
G3: I land T1 chalice, we trade some wastelands, but i manage to sweep some of his remaining lands with braids, he starts to accumulate cards in hand so he can discard grudge to hand size and destroy my chalice, but I land trinisphere and that option is erased, and he concedes.
Match 4 vs Reanimator
G1: Chalice and Trini set him way too much behind and he concedes before I can see he's on reanimator, so I don't board anything G2
G2: I have an Ophiomancer G1 but he entombs eot for Tyrant and I can't do a lot from there.
G3: I open with Leyline of the void and a chalice. Smokestack + Trading Post seal the deal.
Match 5 vs Punishing Maverick
G1: I land a T1 chalice and a T2 Trini, he lands a Sylvan Library to decay my Trini, but a smokestack backed by crucible starts killing his lands and locking him out of the game.
G2: I really feel I punted this one hard. I have an ophiomancer, bridge and the snake token against to big big big KOTR (I didn't board in the Leylines) and eventually some nice maneuvering of him involving mazes of ith and timely decays take me out.
G3: My opening hand has leyline and Helm of obedience but only 2 swamps. I decide to go for it. I draw a cavern that gets wasted, but I draw waste and tomb in a row and manage to cast and activate helm for the kill in the face of a Liliana :)
Overall the deck felt really really good and I like the fact that you can get tons of stuff countered but the deck keeps being resilient. I highly encourage you fellow Braids Stax pilots to try Trading Post, the card outperformed greatly for me. On the other hand, even though I checked twice, I haven't managed to draw Mardu Strike Leader not even once in a single game :(
I like the trading post! Going to run a list very close to yours at my LGS, maybe this Sunday. What's your sideboard looking like now? Do you still have 3 Spines/can you speak to their usefulness? I may try to fit in one, though I imagine they are just for Show and Tell decks.
4x Braids, Cabal Minion
4x Smokestack
4x Ophiomancer
4x Mox Diamond
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Trinisphere
3x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Toxic Deluge
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Trading Post
4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Wasteland
8x Swamp
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Helm of Obedience
3x Witchbane Orb
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Desecration Demon/Abyssal Persecutor
I like your list. I went 4-1 yesterday with some slight modifications to the list I posted in this page. My sideboard right now has the Helm Combo, and the 7 other slots are varying from time to time. I found that 3 Bridges were too much sometimes, I think I'll add one to the sideboard and maybe get another card in. Also SnT decks aren't present in my meta that much, so I took all of the Ashen Rider-esque effects. I also recommend you to get some Perish in as it helps to cope against GSZ, that card can really wreck you. I can see your point of getting two Urborgs to help you fix your mana, but I've never really had a problem with the 4 Caverns. But then again, I don't play Liliana so my need for black for anything other than the creatures is just for deluge.
A card that really performed for me in testing was Seal of Doom. The card can work as a creature-kill but i can also play the role of a sacking permanent.
Right now a cool sideboard could be:
8 Combo pieces
1 Plague Spitter
1 Notorious Assassin
2 Thorn of Ametyst
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Perish
1 Virtue's Ruin
I have been tinkering with a similar concept. Current list is this:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
4 Aether Vial
4 Black vise
4 Mox opal
4 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Winter Orb
3 Braids Cabal Minion
3 Bitterblossom
1 Bad Moon
1 Underworld dreams
1 replenish
2 cranial plating
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Scrubland
1 Bayou
4 Fetchland
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Karakas
Not exactly the same concept, but a lot of similar tech. I love braids, karakas, and vial. Turn one black vise can actually sometimes end up pushing the opponent down ten or so life, especially in concert with wasteland or winter orb. Meanwhile, tick a vial up to four. So many peoples hands are jammed with removal and counters, that doing nothing at all with a vise or two in play can hilariously jam them up.
Bitterblossom online and making tokens can hit hard with no answers. Bad moon synergizes so well, too (even pumping braids and deathrites out of punishing fire range.) Moms chump block goyfs and keep DRS and braids alive. Cranial plating turns Vises, Orbs, etc. into lifelink goodness and can ride a rogue faery to victory.
Basically, this started as a slow, durdle deck i made for fun, but I have come to really like it.
I like your list, however, how do you fare yourself against combo decks? Discard in the sideboard? I think a good thing the core list has are the trinis and the chalices.
For the people playing Liliana: How are you doing with it? Does it fill your expectations? I've been wanting to try her again but my current manabase wouldn't be able to support it. I feel that Chalice + Liliana could be a non-bo, since it's +1, if you have chalices or Trinis down, wouldn't be that good considering they will have junk to discard. The -2 is of course amazing, and the -6 of course it's good but we already have 8 effects doing it.
Also I've trimmed the Mardu Strike Leader and went back to the 3 Toxic Deluges.
I've been trying Pack Rat lately. Not only it does create feeding for stax effects, but also seems amazing post-board if people are going to cut down their creature removal spells.
I've been toying around with Null Brooch and Uba Mask too. Mask was a vintage staple that felt out of favor. On the good side it stops people from miracling things, and lowers the impact of counterspells, but it doesn't stop dredge. Null Brooch is great when you have a bottled cloister down. You get a free negate each turn. I feel the card could be good even if you don't have a cloister. An active trading post could bring your pieces back, or an active crucible could bring the lands. It's not as good to defend your lockpieces, however, since decay is uncounterable and grip has split second. It counters council's, wear/tear, and disenchant though.
Contamination is a card I just feel is like a win-more. Giving only black mana isn't as devastating as having only Red mana (Blood Moon effects). BUG decks can still cast shaman and fix their stuff, and you should already have a very favorable matchup vs Miracles, RUG and Patriot.
Have tried it against combo. Trinis and chalices should slow them well, and if Braids can get online, hopefully force them to eat their land. But yeah, it could go either way. They could be fast and give no shits about what i do and just go off over my head.
Yeah makes sense.
Also, I've been thinking about adding Gloom to my sideboard as a way to battle Miracle if they start to lean heavily on Mentors, as well as the Virtue's Ruin. Also the card would completely rekt DnT if you can keep a revoker or two in your board for the Vials. I've been agressively boarding in the Leyline Helm Combo too, with decent success for now.
I made top 8 in today's argentina's legacy league.
after toying a lot with Uba Mask, Gloom and other goodstuff I decided to try a more basic approach and went with the classic list (3 toxic deluges)
Sideboard:
4 Leyline
4 Helm of The Void
1 Virtue's Ruin
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Plague Spitter
2 Perish
R1 = Merfolks
G1: I get a quick lock with Smokey and Crucible
G2: I get another quick lock with an Ophiomancer and Smokey.
R2 = Grixis Control
G1: He therapies away my trinisphere and I have a slow start with no realistic lock pieces. Tokens beat me to the death
G2: I have a quick chalice which gets decayed, a smokey gets discarded but I manage to Trading Post, getting the smokey back, which forces a concession
G3: He has a quick start and although i have a chalice he manages to play through it. I never really manage to draw a Deluge in 3 games, unfortunately.
R3 = BUG Loam
G1: I have a chalice and eventually an ohpiomancer, and he deploys a Pernicious Deed, I cast braids in my turn to keep him off 4 mana, but he gets a nether spirit and with a bad judge call he gets recursivity when he shouldn't be able to.
G2: I lock him really, really fast fast
G3: He goes to 6 and I keep a one-lander with Leyline and Helm. I tank about it and decide to keep it, mostly because it was basic swamp so I was at least unwastelandable. The game is just land-go for 3 turns until he taps out for a deed and I cast and activate helm, milling him
R4 = Reanimator
G1: I assemble a Trini T2 on the play and chalices on 3 (I knew he played show and tell) and 2. We play draw go for a while until i manage to get a second black source to jam braids, and it's game.
G2: I try to mull to leyline, but I can't. My chalices get decayed and I can't present a decent clock at all. Eventually he show and tells Griz and it's game.
G3: I open with Leyline and Chalice in 1 which gets decayed. I have the chance to cast Smokey or Bottled Cloister, with Helm in my hand. I put Smokey trying to test a FoW, but also because I suspect that he was all-in on show and tell, so bottled cloister would be a nonbo. In his turn he shows and tells, He puts Griselbrand and I jam the helm :)
R5 = Reanimator
We were both locked for top 8 so we take ID.
Top 8 is:
1. Aggro Loam
2. Sneak and Show
3. Miracles
4. Death and Taxes
5. Reanimator
6. Braids Stax ---> me :)
7. Reanimator
8. Shardless BUG
Top 8 = Miracles
G1 = He has a pretty good hand with the one-of council's judgement for my chalice, my braids and ophiomancer get plowed, and I need to draw some gas while he's stuck in two lands. But I keep drawing land for 5 turns in a row, which is unfortunate and he eventually manages to keep jace on top to counter my stuff
G2 = I lock him really fast
G3 = We both mull to 6, I have a chalice t1 and a hand full of gas, but I don't draw any land for a long time and when I do he has an active mentor and 3 swords for all my answers
Overall a pretty fun tournament, I really liked my list but losing to both elemental and monk tokens made me feel like I really wanted a 4th deluge in the deck, at least SB. Perishes and Engineered Plague would also be good answers. Stealing two games with the Helm+Void Combo really makes me feel like I want the two playsets in every sideboard variation of this deck.
Ali Aintrazi wrote an article on our deck :)
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/articl...r=Ali+Aintrazi
On another point, I'm thinking about Guardian Beast as a way to protect our cards post-sideboard.
I haven't commented in this thread in forever so I figured I'd address some things. Liliana is INSANE and I highly recommend her. Her -2 is great to kill early threats, and her +1 (while you currently point out it's not great with Chalice) serves as an additional thumbscrew to put pressure on your opponent. An upticking Lili is super scary for an opponent who lacks creatures or is locked behind Ensnaring Bridge, because losing half your board when you're already under pressure from Wasteland and various Smokestack effects is crippling. This deck generally goes hellbent quickly anyways, so her +1 is rarely a drawback. At the very worst she eats a counter or removal and allows you to force through other bombs.
Engineered Plague is an excellent sideboard card and is worthy of at least 2 slots IMO. It's great against tribal decks, Mentor decks, Pyro decks, and also Death and Taxes (naming human). I've been tempted to play Night of Soul's Betrayal here, I just don't like the nombo with glorious Ophiomancer.
It's good to see this deck getting a bit of exposure, considering I can probably count the number of people that play it on one hand.
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
I made Top4 in the last Legacy event of the year.
I was until the last second to add Revokers main and Cloisters to the side, but I figured out I wanted to consolidate the list to wrap up the year.
R1: Miracles (very skilled player) - No mentors in main 1-1-1
G1 I lock him super fast
G2 takes forever. I land a chalice and a smokey that get Wear n' Teared and a Smokey getting judged by the council. However I manage to rebuild and start to beat him with a revoker and a spirit token, and I realize he's having pretty poor draws. Eventually I get him to one life but he manages to stabilize. At this point there's close to 15 minutes on the clock, I probably should've conceded and shuffle for game 3, but goddamn he was at 1 life...I get ultimated by jace and we pack it up for game 3 with 1 minute in the clock, given that neither deck could kill that fast, a draw was agreed.
R2: Deathblade 2-1
G1 I lock him really fast, and then smokey and ophio finish him off.
G2 Somehow brainfarted and thought I was playing against Miracles again, so i've boarded pretty wrong and a T2 Liliana turned out to kill me.
G3 I lock him super fast and i'm able to play through some wastes, eventually I kill him with Pack Rat that couldn't grow as I didn't had black mana
R3: Infect 2-1
G1 He's on the play and leads with trop-go. I knew that my opponent was on infect and I could make a Bridge T1, but I test the waters first with a Trinisphere that fortunately gets in, which means that the T2 bridge is good to go. T4 i slam the cloister locking his infectors.
G2 We both mull to 6, he doesn't seem happy with his 6 so I take the shot with a hand with no T1 play but a T2 Trini. Unfortunately he leades with Glistener Elf, and G2 he infects me for 9. On my turn if i draw black mana I could cast Perish to get some breathing space, but I don't and the trini wouldn't help at all.
G3 I lock him super fast
R4: Miracles (some mentors in main) 2-0
G1: I have the nut opening hand with trini, smokey and recursion, and i keep drawing good stuff. Pretty lopsided game.
G2: My first 3 or 4 lockpieces get countered but he's stuck on lands, and I'm holding the fort with an ophiomancer, until i trade the snake token against the mentor and the ophio gets sent to the farm. Eventually a braids starts to nuke his stuff while i'm recovering with crucible. I take some monk token's hits but a Smokey appears and in concert with braids nukes the entire board except for a swamp and the crucible, and he concedes
R5: Grixis Delver ID
We see the standings and both get to top8 if we draw, so we take it, really happy I'm able to make the Top8 again, this time undefeated
Top8 Standings: (can't remember the correct order)
Grixis Delver
Braids Stax
UW Stoneblade with back to basics
Jund
Miracles
Sneak and Show
Miracles
Infect
Top8 vs Miracles (4 Mentors + Daze)
G1 I have a chalice + ophio + Braids eating his board, he tries to hold on with a mentor and throwing spells to the chalice to get some tokens but eventually he concedes.
G2: I have some lockpieces and I punish his duals, eventually I just need to find some action and I have it. But, tough luck, I draw like 10-12 lands in a row, he gets free from the lockpieces and kills me.
G3: I just lock him superfast and kill him with a revoker.
Top4 UW Stoneblade.
G1: I have a trini T1 but I make a obscene mistake with which land to pitch to the mox, which doesn't allow me to lock him and I die.
G2: I have chalice and he concedes after I have an online cloister + bridge and already nuked his creatures twice.
G3: Sadly I mull to 5 and can't get anything going
Overall again, a pretty nice tournament and I'm really glad to had good results against every variation of Miracles, be it with or without mentor Also first time I played against Infect IRL (had some experience against it on cockatrice, which helped a lot), and that match got recorded, so if it gets uploaded to youtube I'll post the link for you guys to take a look :)
Also this was the first tournament ever where I never boarded in neither the Helms nor the Leylines.
Cheers, happy holidays and have a great year!
What do you guys think of the new Eldrazis for this deck?
I'm particularly excited for Warping Wail
1<>
Instant
Choose one:
. Exile target creature with power or toughness 1 or less
. Counter Target Sorcery Spell
. Put a colorless eldrazi Scion Token 1/1 with "Sac: Add <> to your mana Pool"
I'm really happy about this one. First of all, it's a counterspell that could take out Council's Judgement or other malicious sorceries. Can work to snipe a creature, and also in desperate cases, can work as food for Braids or Smokey :)
I love the lists posted in this forum, but I'm also interested in what an aggro version of braids stax would look like. I like the idea of being aggro in the main board and having the sideboard transform into control. When I played nearly creatureless armageddon stax, some matches seemed unwinnable simply because the damage clock was too slow (some decks given enough time can break the lock). Plus resource denial and aggro go well together. Here's my mainboard:
4 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors
4 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
4 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
4 cavern of souls
4 mox diamond
4 smokestack
4 trinisphere
4 crucible of worlds
4 chalice of the void
4 ophiomancer
4 braids, cabal minion
4 mardu strike leader
2 nekrataal
2 umezawa's jitte
And my sideboard:
4 ensnaring bridge
3 toxic deluge
2 trading post
2 bottled cloister
2 leyline of the void
2 lodestone golem
Nekrataal, uncounterable with cavern, can kill Emrakul, tarmogoyf, delver, etc. It's untested but I'm really excited about it.
As I see it, there are two roads these aggro lists can go down. All humans, all uncounterable with caven of souls, but because of cavern unable to have enough black to cast things like Liliana. Or non humans, like the japanese list posted a while back with bitterblossoms, Ob nixilis of the black oath, batterskull, bane of the living, etc. I played two tournaments with a list similar to it and did poorly, but a list might work if it was built around playing four bloodgift demon instead.
Last edited by chalice; 01-10-2016 at 02:06 PM.
I think if you're trying to go agro with this deck you should look into the new Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. He dodges bolt and decay, has lifelink, hoses dredge, and makes a dude everytime your opponent sacrifices one.
Lord of the Chalice
Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
