[Deck] Sandsipoise on Legacy

[Barsoom]

I was roaming around some magic sites before, and i come with this really old "combo" lock deck, that use Equipoise (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=3710) + Sands of Time (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=3601) to lock the opponent (with Sands you miss the Untap Phase, so the phased permanents of your opponent never come back...).
The deck was a strong deck at his times, with good results on Vintage too; i googled around for more infos, but the earliest topics was around 2006; the only decklist i can found here or in other magic forums is this

4 Sands of Time
4 Equipoise

4 Porphyry Nodes (not sure if this will work with Arbitor)
4 Winds of Rath (Rout was too expensive :/)
1 Magus of the Disk

4 Silent Arbitor
3 Mageta the Lion

4 Story Circle
2 Iron Maiden

4 Tithe
3 Tooth of Ramos
23 Plains

in a topic of the best cheap all rares deck, so i don't think this is optimized.
The old win condition, for reference, was Taniwha (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=3366), and the deck was Blue/White; i still prefer the mono white version with milling cards or the Maiden as win condition anyhow; Painterstone combo will be nice here i think too.

I'm a casual player and i love to play funny/old/strange decks with friends, on small tournaments and so on; the problem is that i'm not a really good deckbuilder, so i'm asking your help here, with tips, suggestions, decklists if there is someone that still own/play the deck.

[Barsoom]

This is the list i'm toying in these days, a very starting and not optimized list:

4 Sands of Time
4 Equipoise

4 Porphyry Nodes
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Armageddon

4 Enlightened Tutor

4 Chrome Mox

2 Zuran Orb

2 Chimeric Idol
2 Iron Maiden
2 Grindstone
3 Painter's Servant

14 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Flagstones of Trokair

As you can see, 8 Acceleration (Moxes and Tombs), 8 Combo Pieces (Equipose and Sands), 3 different win conditions (Idol, Maiden and Painterstone combo), 8 ways to control opponent creatures (maybe the worst part of the deck so far...), 4 Armageddons that works well with this deck, and 2 orbs to keep the land count low when the combo is on the table, or to gain some life at start (with the help of the Trokairs).

Any suggestion, tip, cards and so on is GREATLY appreciated.

[FoolofaTook]

Is 4 Armageddon really required in the deck? The lock would seem to make it an additional option that's not used all that often. Maybe turn that into 2 Armageddon and 2 Wrath of God?

[Barsoom]

Mmm yes 4 Armageddons are too much and redundant, 2 is better, thanks for the tip; a card suggestion for controlling the creatures instead of Porphyry Nodes? Humility isn't viable cause we have Painter and Idol; maybe some life gain here to gain time? something like Renewed Faith on Rabid Wombat.
Some cycle lands maybe is worth the inclusion too, when the lock in on the table we don't need many lands.

[technogeek5000]

Iron maiden seems like a poor win condition, although im not sure what to put in instead (not sure if angel would be good but I think its worth testing). Also I would look into running more acceleration... city of traitors catches my eye here as it speeds up the deck and it works with equipose. Good luck with the deck, Im liking the concept.

[Barsoom]

I did some games of testing these days against random decks piloted by friends (like Affinity Stompy Blue Skies random controls and something like that) and changed the decklist a bit; then first, the new one:

4 Sands of Time
4 Equipoise

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Armageddon

4 Enlightened Tutor

3 Chrome Mox
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Zuran Orb

3 Chimeric Idol
1 Exalted Angel
3 Painter's Servant
3 Grindstone

12 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Flagstones of Trokair

As you can see, i removed the Porphyry Nodes entirely, simply we have better cards to run; i added another Wrath of God, and Oblivion Ring, that's good mostly against the very annoying Counterbalance, versatile, good with the manabase and tutorable too; right now so good that maybe i'll cut one Wrath to add another Ring.
Anyway, now we have 13 ways to control creatures, and Sands are good too for slowing down the opponent till we lock the game or we win with Painterstone. Wing Shards was another card i was looking for, but the manacost of 2 plains isn't good for the manabase we have.
I added Sensei cause we need something for manage the draws, finding combo pieces, and so on, maybe some fetchlands here too?
Chimeric Idol is really a card made for this kind of deck, it combo with Equipoise, Sands of Time (allows to tap all lands for nothing so next turn you get again all lands unstapped), Wrath, it's tutorable and a 3/3 isn't a really bad clock.
The Angel needs more testing but 1 copy seems to me quite random, maybe another Idol or Grindstone here.
I cut one Mox cause we run only 20 white permanents and was too much for 4 moxes; i added City of Traitors as technogeek5000 suggested and of course they are really good (and you was right Iron Maiden was crap...)
I'm actually uncertain about the Painter/stone slots, 3/3 is too much? too few? this needs more testing.

Well, i can say that this deck isn't totally crap at least... it's quite fun to play (if you like, as me, playing decks for the target to lock down to death an opponent till he get bored and scoops ahah), can play like a slow control hitting for 3 damage a turn or kill the game in 2 turn with the amazing Painterstone combo; actually, 2 games i won milling with Grindstone alone in like 10+ turns, not bad (i'm a lucky guy).

As usual cards suggestions, tips and everything is appreciated.

ps: if a moderator can change the Topic name to something like [Deck] Sandsipoise will be nice, i'm sorry but i miss this when i opened the topic.

[MTG Guru]

I don't think that Armageddon is a truly good reason to run Zuran Orb. I'd actually would take Zorb out and run something that actually does something. Cool deck idea though, I enjoyed looking at the list. :wink:

[Barsoom]

Actually the Zuran Orb was here firstly to keep yours land count low and gain some life at the same time under the Sandsipoise lock, to keep phasing opponents lands; it's quite good with Armageddon and without the lock to take time, and tutorable.
Anyway, i agree with you that maybe isn't really useful or really needed; i'll think about it.

[dahcmai]

It seems you might be better off going in the White Stax realm and adding things along the lines of Trinisphere and such to slow things up. It's basically the same idea and I have a funny feeling you could converge the two into something interesting.

[edgewalker]

Di built this to fuck around with a while ago before the lists split. It basically played like a parfait lift with a combo finish... a slow combo finish. Most tournaments I played in I went 1-0-x which sucked. Personally I'd rather play a white stax build, though if I'm going to do that, I'd rather just play white stax.

[Rush]

There's a difference between this deck and Parfait, though, Edgewalker: Parfait wins (the variant I last used anyway). There are several problems with this deck, but the biggest problem is the amount of mana required to get the combo going, on top of the fact that the combo does not even win once you have it going. Hell, my Mizzium Transreliquat/Time Vault deck probably played better than this deck (haven't tried it and I'm not going to) and Jank.dec was about all I could beat with it, so I'm not sure how you plan on winning with this deck.

[Barsoom]

The amount of mana what? i usually have 3 mana on turn 2, if not turn 1 (tomb or traitors + mox), so Equipoise it's usually a turn 2-3 play, followed very soon by the Sands, not very slow... this combo of course doesn't win, but (like the Stax decks) put a very hard lock on the table, then you can go for your combo kill Painterstone (not a bad win condition isn't it? 3 mana for a 2 card combo seems quite fast for me, or not?); anyway, i don't need to win the same turn the combo hit the table, if the opponent can't recover from this, who care if the win will be some turns later?
This deck got 2 combos inside, one for lock the table, and one for win; yes, we can say it plays with the same goal as Stax, so some merge of the decks will be possible (possible sure, but maybe not better).

[edgewalker]

The combo takes longer to kill thank it really should, that's the problem. I've played sandopoise before and most of the games went to time in the round. Finding iron maiden and winning with it is slower then the second coming of christ. I think the only thing slower is the zur's weirding + words of worship combo.

[4eak]

From what I understand, Sands of Time is mainly in the deck to "skip the untap step", enabling phasing to act as RFG. Additionally, sands offers minor disruption, but at an unwieldy cost. The best card to abuse Equipoise is not Sands of Time, --start groaning here-- it is Stasis. Stasis has a better lock, it works well with several other cards, and it is cheaper.

This deck, like Stasis decks, suffer from an inability to win the game in competitive environments where time is a factor. The deck has no real clock (in every sense of the word). We play it casually at home (always an interesting exercise), but I just don't see a way to make it competitive.

Not to mention: KGrip owns this deck (it is heavily played, this deck is slow, and there isn't a good answer to it).



peace,
4eak

[Barsoom]

edgewalker: of course Iron Maiden was a crappy win condition, this is why i cut it from the deck; with painterstone combo we have the fastest win condition for this deck i think.
Anyhow, can you share the decklist you was using?

About the general philosophy of the deck, this is a "don't try this in tournaments" deck; i play this deck for fun, and i want to work on this deck for fun too and for the love of this game. I love taking old unused combos or decks and bring back to life to the best decklist we can get now; nothing more.

[edgewalker]

Well the list was from before the lists split so lets see if I can remember

4 land Tax
2 Scroll Rack

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God
2 Humility
1 Moat
1 Story Circle

4 Argivian Find
2 Replenish

1 Seal of cleansing
1 Aura of Silence

4 Sands of time
4 Equopoise
3 Iron Maiden
1 Zuran Orb

3 Ancient Tomb
X Basic land (Plains with 2-3 mountains)

The deck played REB's in the SB which explains the 2-3 basic mountains. I don't know if that's enough cards, but that's all I remember

[Barsoom]

First thanks for the list.
I can see that yours only win conditions was 3 Iron Maidens; luckily today we have the idols and the very powerful and fast Painterstone combo as the best win conditions available for this deck.
About other cards, we can't use now Humility cause we have Idols and Painter, we can't use Land Tax cause it's banned, Sensei is better than Scroll Rack, Replenish imho isn't really necessary, and Argivian Find is a good sideboard card for sure.

[(nameless one)]

Well the list was from before the lists split so lets see if I can remember

4 land Tax
2 Scroll Rack

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God
2 Humility
1 Moat
1 Story Circle

4 Argivian Find
2 Replenish

1 Seal of cleansing
1 Aura of Silence

4 Sands of time
4 Equopoise
3 Iron Maiden
1 Zuran Orb

3 Ancient Tomb
X Basic land (Plains with 2-3 mountains)

The deck played REB's in the SB which explains the 2-3 basic mountains. I don't know if that's enough cards, but that's all I remember

If Land Tax were legal in Legacy, how would this deck do in the current meta?

[whienot]

Is this amazing Necro week on The Source? But, to contribute, I'm going to go with it's a little too slow. Zoo would eat this alive. Pridemage, K. Grip, yada yada.

[sdematt]

Leave dead things dead. The combo is too vulnerable to everything.