Stax/Mud vs. the Tarmogoyf Dilemna

[jazzykat]

First, this is not a cry to ban Tarmogoyf but a discussion on the limitations of Stax in dealing with said beasty (and other resolved threats) and a more general stax/stacker/Mud discussion.

Personal Observations (these have opinions in them)
1. For some time W-Stax has been having the most success primarily because it has Armageddon, Strong Creature Control Elements (WOG, Humility, Moat, Ghostly Prison, Magus of the Tabernacle, Oblivion Ring) and well suited win conditions that help it vs. tougher matchups (Exalted Angel, Elspeth, Magus)

2. I have been testing with Metalworker and he is stone cold nuts. Emptying your hand of artifacts on the second or third turn is usually GG. Is this everyone else's experience?

3. Traditional wisdom says you can't run welder with Chalice. I say why not. If I stick a chalice on 1 I'll have 4 dead cards and the odds are, my opponent will have somewhere between 12 and 20.

4. Stax has traditionally had a hard time with resolved threats. Tarmogoyf in particular is difficult for the following reasons:
A. He costs 2. This is important because:
A.1 A common first turn play, CotV=1 doesn't stop him and it can take 1 turn too late to chalice =2.
A.2 He is often bigger than the "fairly costed" artificat dudes Su-Chi, Juggernaut, etc.
A.3 He is often too large for a reasonable direct damage spell to kill (earthquake?)
A.4 Combined with Ancient Tomb damage a powder keg ramped up to 2 is often too slow
Stax needs a cost effictive and quick solution to Tarmogoyf otherwise it is unviable.

5. Since we now have metalworker Stax(esque) decks may have critical mass to make a larger impact on the metagame. Time will tell.

6. Blue (TfK, Intuition, and maybe a Tezz), with perhaps a red splash for welder and bloodmoon may be the right direction. Unfortunately, while giving it what I feel is the most important aspect (more consistency) you lose most of the creature control.

7. Given the relatively light and fetch/dual heavy manabases of most I feel declaring all out war against them, with some neutralizer for resolved threats is correct. Consider that we have the following synergistic cards:
Tangle Wire
Winter Orb
Static Orb
Smokestack
3sphere
Sphere of Resistance (I want to like this card but it hurts us too much)
Thorn of Amethyst (I want to like this card but it may hurt us too much)
Wasteland/Crucible/GHOST QUARTER?
Propaganda/Pendrelle Mists (for creature control)
BLOOD MOON?

8. My only ideas to really deal with creatures in blue are Control Magic and Shackles and I think the island count would be too low for Shackles.


How do you make stax viable in todays metagame?

[sco0ter]

Unfortunately I fail to see your whole point / your question / your basis for discussion.
Your points are rather plain statements.

Are you asking for an answer for Tarmogoyf for Stax decks?
Do you want to develop a Metalworker deck?
Do you wonder what splash in Stax is better, R or U?
Are you asking about the best spheres/orbs?

[jazzykat]

Are you asking for an answer for Tarmogoyf for Stax decks?
Do you want to develop a Metalworker deck?
Do you wonder what splash in Stax is better, R or U?
Are you asking about the best spheres/orbs?

Yes. But more generally I'm asking how do we win with Stax in todays metagame? My points were simply a way to get people thinking about what I see are the most important aspects of Stax at this point.

[Aggro_zombies]

Yes. But more generally I'm asking how do we win with Stax in todays metagame?
I'm pretty sure you don't.

The problem with Stax is that the deck is full of cards that you only want to play once. You play one Trinisphere, and all your other Trinispheres are dead. You play a Chalice at one, and the only other reasonable play you can make with Chalice is Chalice at two, and then Chalice is dead. Getting a second Smokestack is kinda shitty unless you want to sacrifice the first one to itself. And so on. This problem is compounded by the weak draw options the deck has available to it. Even in blue, you generally have very little control over your topdecks, making it difficult to end the game if you hit a pocket of lands or redundant lock pieces.

Another major problem is that these lock pieces require the deck to be built around them, but also take up a ton of slots in doing so. Counterbalance takes up exactly eight slots and does a lot of what Stax does, except it can be backed up by a reasonable clock and Force. Stax has...what, Tezzeret? Oh noes.

Basically, all of these factors combine to make Stax an historical curiosity in the same vein as Rifter. Even with Metalworker to shit your hand all over the board, you're still not capable of ending the game in a reasonable time frame. The deck doesn't need more mana, it needs a better win condition and to not suck.

[lorddotm]

I'm pretty sure you don't.

The problem with Stax is that the deck is full of cards that you only want to play once. You play one Trinisphere, and all your other Trinispheres are dead. You play a Chalice at one, and the only other reasonable play you can make with Chalice is Chalice at two, and then Chalice is dead. Getting a second Smokestack is kinda shitty unless you want to sacrifice the first one to itself. And so on. This problem is compounded by the weak draw options the deck has available to it. Even in blue, you generally have very little control over your topdecks, making it difficult to end the game if you hit a pocket of lands or redundant lock pieces.

Another major problem is that these lock pieces require the deck to be built around them, but also take up a ton of slots in doing so. Counterbalance takes up exactly eight slots and does a lot of what Stax does, except it can be backed up by a reasonable clock and Force. Stax has...what, Tezzeret? Oh noes.

Basically, all of these factors combine to make Stax an historical curiosity in the same vein as Rifter. Even with Metalworker to shit your hand all over the board, you're still not capable of ending the game in a reasonable time frame. The deck doesn't need more mana, it needs a better win condition and to not suck.

How about that new Smokestacks Creature from Zendikar?

[jazzykat]

What smokestack creature?

[chokin]

First of all, I don't claim that any of these are the best, but I'm tossing ideas out there.

Maze of Ith. Eats a land drop, but is essentially a Pacifism on any non-shroud beater. One of our players runs 3 in the maindeck.

Ensnaring Bridge helps since you can drop your hand fairly quickly. Coupled with Bottled Cloister, it's a soft lock and a draw engine.

Duplicant. A little slow without Metalworker, but a permanent solution to a resolved beater.

Karn. Blocks Goyf all day.

[sco0ter]

What smokestack creature?

World Queller

[jazzykat]

Aggro Zombies brings up a good point about how some things in multiples aren't desirable. Maybe we should play a few less 4 ofs of something that once you have 1 you can't do anything with a second except as a spare and another permanent on the board (i.e. 3sphere)?

[Piceli89]

Why not to circumvent the problem playing Maze of Ith as 2-ofs maindeck, in MUD? Your deck should be able to support it since it produces a lots of mana that allows to avoid the non-mana producing liability; plus it also allows you to slow down tha game a bit in order to develop your explosive metalworker-plays.
I'm working on a brown-only MUDesque build in Legacy, and i can say Tarmogoyf isn't all that problem, when you're running stuff like Ensnaring Bridge maindeck too. Since it tends to grow a lot bigger due to the presence of Land, Instants and Artifacts, it'll be likely to be stopped fom attacking you. And whoever plays artifact removal g1 ?
Post g2, I'd suggest to take a look to Silent Arbiter, too. the *5 ass is good against that kind of fatty.

Still, it's unlikely to lose from a Tarmogoyf,say played by a Canadian Threshold, when your deck can a)lock them out of their mana (Tangle wire), b) kill their board (Smokestack), c) have recurring infinite blockers (crucible+manlands), d)destrot their manabase (crucible-waste lock), e) cut out their cantrip engine, their bolts, half their finishers, sometimes even on turn 1 (chalice@1), f) have mass-removal to clean the board after a safe chalice or trini to avoid Stifle (Kegs).

If you're telling the Tarmogoyf trouble coming from more controllish decks (Rock or Aggro Loam), then it'a different matter. But still, you could manage to handle down those decks in running solid sb solutions to slow them a lot (I'm thinking to Winter Orb/Orb of Dreams to delay their Deeds/DDreams).

[jazzykat]

So far Maze seems like a very good idea, especially coupled with crucible and mox diamond. It lets you play almost the same amount of land ~24 as before. So many go up by 1 mana to 25 and put 2 or 3 mazes...?

[Infinitium]

Artifact Stompy builds in general and builds splashing blue for Master of Etherium in particular shouldn't have all that much trouble to outbeef Tarmo tbh considering that they run equipment and usually Razorcore. In blue Stax I used to run Intuition to fetch Maze as well as any other artifact with an active crucible (and academy ruins).

[f|i[p]]

Goyf has always been a problem for us specially with U/g. It will usually make goyf 5/6 easily countering our important artifacts and enchantments.

In all honesty, I think stax just needs to find more useful pieces that can stand alone rather than rely on too much synergy.

Bombs that can stand alone and doesn't rely on anything else is the key, this makes stax players stop wishing they get an armageddon from the top deck just to complete the "magus geddon" wrath effect.

In this format, I still think that white is the best color for stax. It has singleton effects that destroy or neuter creatures, lands, and enchantments/artifacts all in one card effects..(wrath, Geddon,humility,and more)

A good fast win condition.

[BKclassic]

I've played a bit with unpowered (with Shops) MUD in Vintage in an aggro heavy metagame and I know exactly what you mean with this Tarmogoyf problem.

My thoughts are these-

4 Powder Keg- This is probably an absolute must. In Vintage this kind of sucks because you have to run Orbs to replace Trinisphere that have a 2cc. However, since we aren't running those I really don't think there is a good reason not to run them. Sure, they are slow, but this deck is designed to be slow. Tarmogoyf won't grow that fast against this deck.

Su-Chi, Juggernaut, Triskelion, etc- These are definitely pointless creatures. Only run creatures that win games, aka Karn, Metalworker and Razormane Masticore (which is functionally a Smokestack that beats for 5 against an aggro deck).

Tangle Wire just does not seem to work out that well in this deck. Since we can't just put a bunch of moxes on the battlefield, it is hard to get any advantage out of the card. Mostly you and your opponent will just be tapped out for a few turns, while your opponent gets to put more lands into play.

Some things I am less sure about-
Mox Diamond- The problem is, with Mox Diamond you are probably talking 25 lands. That plus 4 Metalworkers and we are talking like 33 mana cards. However, running Maze of Ith probably makes this a non issue and seems like a really good idea to me.

Ensnaring Bridge is probably a necessity somewhere in the 75, as its the only really dependable answer we have for creatures.

Staff of Domination wins games. We should probably run it.


With all that said, I would probably run something like this-

Mana: 30
4 Metal Worker
4 Mox Diamond
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Misrha's Factory
4 Darksteel Citadel (combos with Metalworker)
1 Dustbowl
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai

Lock cards- 24
4 Maze of Ith
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Powder Keg
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack

Win- 6
3 Staff of Domination/Razormane Masticore
3 Karn, Silver Golem

SB- 15
3 Razormane Masticore/Staff of Domination
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Defense Grid

Some things I just remembered after making the decklist-
-Relic is another somewhat solid answer to Goyf. Possibly a maindeck card.
-Defense Grid is balls-out awesome against control.

[Jon Stewart]

There's a TON of good answers to Tarmogoyf...

Ghostly Prison/Propaganda + Armageddon/Cataclysm or Waste+Crucible
Magus of the Tabernacle + Armageddon/Cataclysm etc.
Maze of Ith
Ensnaring Bridge - Probably the most splashable and best and cheapest option, works fine even if you don't play Bottled Clostier. You can easily keep your hand at 4 cards so that Goyf never gets to hit.

The problem isn't and wasn't ever Goyf decks which are usually slow enough that you can deal with them.

The problem is burn decks and elves and zoo and other decks that can kill you in the fourth turn.

Find a way to beat/elves and I think Stax will reemerge.

Also, play tons of artifacts. That's the only way to abuse metalworker and make it worth running.

Lastly, what do you guys think of

Umbral Mantle?
Card type: Artifact
Casting cost: 3
Card text: Equipped creature has "3, Untap: This creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn." (Untap is the untap symbol.)
Equip 0

It takes less mana to combo out with than Staff of Domination. Plus it gives any creature vigilance and pump when it's not going infinite with Metalworker.

[The Wes]

For armageddon stax, play humility main with elspeths. Along with ghostly prisons, armageddons, and tabernacles it shouldn't be that terribly hard to deal with. If you are really that scared of it play Kor haven. Also, splash green for chokes in the sb. That'll cover a lot of your problems.

[Solaran_X]

For armageddon stax, play humility main with elspeths. Along with ghostly prisons, armageddons, and tabernacles it shouldn't be that terribly hard to deal with. If you are really that scared of it play Kor haven. Also, splash green for chokes in the sb. That'll cover a lot of your problems.
If you're gonna splash green, you should also consider Knight of the Reliquary. 1WG, and gets a lot bigger than Tarmogoyf on average - especially following an Armageddon.

[f|i[p]]

The problem is...


There's a TON of good answers to Tarmogoyf...

Ghostly Prison/Propaganda + Armageddon/Cataclysm or Waste+Crucible
Magus of the Tabernacle + Armageddon/Cataclysm etc.
Maze of Ith
Ensnaring Bridge - Probably the most splashable and best and cheapest option, works fine even if you don't play Bottled Clostier. You can easily keep your hand at 4 cards so that Goyf never gets to hit.

We rely too much on synergy having 2 cards answer 1 card is not an answer. It makes us rely on drawing(top deck) too much.

Goyf gets through a few turns because we usually have ghostly prisons early on, and the oppenents know better than to put more than 2 creatures online.With tomb and a single goyf hitting us, its a world of pain.

The reason I like dutch stax better than armageddon stax is because humility is a 1 card solution. Moat stops most of the creatures alone. It does not allow people to pay 2 to be able to attack. Ghostly prison is merely a speed bump, and relies too much on armageddon, magus and other cards to be able to be really useful. The few turns it gives is often not enough.

Relying too much on synergy is one of the problems. Having 24-26 lands to be able to support mox D. Meaning half of your deck is actually lands and mox'n,which could have put a little more space for spells.

[Tacosnape]

I'm running Garruk Wildspeaker and Metalworker to abuse Winter Orb.

My solution to Tarmogoyf is the same as my solution to Aether Vial: Powder Keg. I pick Powder Keg pretty much for those exact reasons. It can kill either of those two cards.

[iamajellydonut]

Ensnaring Bridge+Bottled Cloister need to be 4x. If you get both of those out, your odds increase dramatically. Nothing can attack you, and you get draw. Also with that, you make 2xSmokestack useful. You can just draw draw draw, and use all the "dead draws" (multiple Bridges, Trinis, etc) to fuel the Smokestack. In no time, you'll have an empty board. Even quicker if you get Crucible+Wasteland.

[undone]

Open the vaults and moat seem good reasons to go white.

Also how does 3sphear + defence grid work?

[heroicraptor]

Ensnaring Bridge+Bottled Cloister need to be 4x. If you get both of those out, your odds increase dramatically.

And then you lose to Krosan Grip.

[KillemallCFH]

And then you lose to Krosan Grip.Not really anymore than Stax already does. Ideally you'll be playing out the 2 cards you draw for the turn, so there isn't really a risk of losing a bunch of cards in hand to a Gripped Cloister. It's pretty safe to assume that, apart from T1 Bridge, T2 Cloister, it's probably the mid-late game by the time you assemble the combo and you have enough mana to play out whatever relevant permanents you draw. Worst case scenario is they blow up your Cloister and take a handful of cards with it, leaving you with an empty hand and a Bridge in play, which isn't exactly a terrible position to be in.

[iamajellydonut]

And then you lose to Krosan Grip.

Holy shit, it dies to removal...

[DragoFireheart]

Wait, why does dummy has an * next to it?


Holy shit, it dies to removal...

lmao.

Saying that Stax lock pieces die to Grip is like saying Tarmogoyf dies to Terror: yeah, he does, but if you don't kill it, it fucking kills you.

[MMogg]

Ok, I'll probably get a chorus of laughter but what about Shield Sphere against Tarmogoyf? He's free, feeds Metalworker, is practically counterproof by allowing you to keep mana open for Daze (gets around CB as well), and best of all, with a 4/5 Tarmo he blocks for three turns giving you time to "set up" the lock.

I know, I know, it's playing defense and further exacerbating the problem by just delaying and not removing the threat, but it seems that one problem is "buying time" as well as finding a good win condition (which again comes down to buying time). Anyway, commence playa hatin'. :wink:

[DragoFireheart]

Ok, I'll probably get a chorus of laughter but what about Shield Sphere against Tarmogoyf? He's free, feeds Metalworker, is practically counterproof by allowing you to keep mana open for Daze (gets around CB as well), and best of all, with a 4/5 Tarmo he blocks for three turns giving you time to "set up" the lock.

I know, I know, it's playing defense and further exacerbating the problem by just delaying and not removing the threat, but it seems that one problem is "buying time" as well as finding a good win condition (which again comes down to buying time). Anyway, commence playa hatin'. :wink:

Well, Shield Sphere doesn't get around CB that easily since lands count as 0CmC.

However, Sphere isn't a bad idea as a wall to slow Gofys down. Are there any U/W versions of Stax? I don't play the deck very much so I'm not sure of it's exact card composition, but Wall of Denial would be an amazing stall piece: can't be hit by targeted removal and will never die to your average Gofy.

[BKclassic]

Well, Shield Sphere doesn't get around CB that easily since lands count as 0CmC.

However, Sphere isn't a bad idea as a wall to slow Gofys down. Are there any U/W versions of Stax? I don't play the deck very much so I'm not sure of it's exact card composition, but Wall of Denial would be an amazing stall piece: can't be hit by targeted removal and will never die to your average Gofy.

Shield Sphere/Walls in general strike me as a bad version of Maze of Ith.

[DragoFireheart]

Shield Sphere/Walls in general strike me as a bad version of Maze of Ith.

Short of non-target removal, Wall of Denial doesn't die. With all the lock pieces, your opponent isn't going to blow up WoD.

But I agree, walls are pretty much bad Mazes of Ith.

[iamajellydonut]

Short of non-target removal, Wall of Denial doesn't die. With all the lock pieces, your opponent isn't going to blow up WoD.

But I agree, walls are pretty much bad Mazes of Ith.

Well, to be fair, WoD does cower fairly quickly to Jitte beats.

But yes, Ith > Walls.

[MMogg]

Well, I suggested Shield Sphere primarily because it doesn't hamper your acceleration as Maze does by costing you a land drop. I know it's not optimal, but neither is this decktype in general.

[_erbs_]

I would like to add something on the topic and i guess everybody forgot whats the most painful card a stax player could see when it hits the board.

For me goyfs is not the biggest problem thats why when im building a stax deck i want it be geared towards creature control, so atleast i could somehow control goys and other fast creatures.

PERNICIOUS DEED destroy's any stax vairant. If you can't quickly recover from it the game is almost over, You have no way of stoping it unless you draw a pithing needle or lock yourself aswell setting chalice @ 3. Sweeping spells like, hyrkl's recall, rebuild, energy flux, etc. cause problems aswell.

My take on stax is this...
- If you make the deck focus entirely on locking the game, your win condition will suffer and at some point your opponent could over come your lock and win eventually due to the slowness of your win condition.

- If you boost your win condition your control would suffer at times and those win con cards sometimes wouldn't help.

- I think finding the right mix between lock and win con for me is the key in making a strong stax legacy deck.

Geddonstax and variants of it was successful it doing it but not in a regular basis, as the other posters had mentioned the redundancy & several card combos are needed to make a good lock yes thats what the problem with stax it limits the deck to add other spells of cards, if you reduce the number of copies the consistency would suffer. So again balance is the problem.

If we analyze the geddonstax abit you can see that its win condition Magus of the Tabernacle is a defensive creature and helps in the lock aswell. It could block goys all day, control horde of creatures and easy to cast aswell. Eventhough tabernacle is that nice the problems posted are still the biggest problems of a stax deck.

Metalworker is a welcome boost to legacy not only for stax players, now the possibility of making a slayver control deck in legacy is much more viable.

Im a long time lover of legacy stax deck pre geddon stax i was posting here trying to develop asking several players for help (wildfire stax), i think creating a good mix or balance is what we need to make a good legacy stax deck.

As for the legacy stax, im now developing my tezzeret stax, i dropped my geddon stax for it since metalworker wasn't a nice fit for it and i wan't to push metalworker to its full potential in legacy.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Goyfs really are a big problem. Slower builds can run Serrated Arrows or Grim Poppet for their removal. In my testing of Monobrown Aggro, I find Sword of Fire & Ice to be critical, especially on my ravagers.

[Jon Stewart]

I think the only Stax/Mud will be viable in legacy is if they unban Grim Monolith as well. Even then it's not going to be tier one.

Shield Sphere is a bad card and there's no good reason for any deck to play it (even as a 1 of to tutor up with Trinket Mage). Even against Goyf, it blocks it once and thus shrinks to a 0/5 and then promptly dies either that turn, or the next turn when it's a 0/4.

And it doesn't deal with the real issue, Tarmogoyf acting like a wall against all of your creatures. Maze of Ith is better. Powder Keg is better. O-Naginata is better (suddenly Su-Chi is a 7/4 Trampler and Juggernaut is an 8/3 Trampler) and Slagwurm Armor is better. And both are tutorable with Trinket Mage too.


Not really anymore than Stax already does. Ideally you'll be playing out the 2 cards you draw for the turn, so there isn't really a risk of losing a bunch of cards in hand to a Gripped Cloister. It's pretty safe to assume that, apart from T1 Bridge, T2 Cloister, it's probably the mid-late game by the time you assemble the combo and you have enough mana to play out whatever relevant permanents you draw. Worst case scenario is they blow up your Cloister and take a handful of cards with it, leaving you with an empty hand and a Bridge in play, which isn't exactly a terrible position to be in.

IF you are playing out the two cards you draw for the turn, why do you need Bottled Clostier. Almost all legacy creatures including Goyf have 3 or 4 power. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to play Bottled Clostier.

Ensnaring Bridge by itself stops your opponents from attacking because Stax decks usually don't have more than 2 cards in their hand at anyone time.

Any situations where Bottled Clostier is useful, you end up suffering a ton of card disadvantage if Clostier gets blown up by something.

[iamajellydonut]

IF you are playing out the two cards you draw for the turn, why do you need Bottled Clostier. Almost all legacy creatures including Goyf have 3 or 4 power. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to play Bottled Clostier.

Ensnaring Bridge by itself stops your opponents from attacking because Stax decks usually don't have more than 2 cards in their hand at anyone time.

Any situations where Bottled Clostier is useful, you end up suffering a ton of card disadvantage if Clostier gets blown up by something.

1) You don't always drop the cards immediately. If you have Crucible/Wasteland going, chances are you'll have some land in hand.

2) Barring the unforeseen, you may want to keep 1/2 cards in hand for the future. In this case, Jitte+low p/t can be a huge problem.

3) Duress, Thoughtseize, Hymn, and Hippie are all rendered useless.

4) It draws moar?


@Deed: You seem to be under the impression that Stax doesn't run Smokestacks, Wasteland, Tangle Wire, or Chalice of the Void. Smokestacks and Wasteland will just destroy their mana base entirely. Tanglewire can tap them out, making it all but impossible to cast the Deed. And an early Chalice set to 1/2 will make finding land drops hard. No Brainstorm, Confidant, Standstill, etc.

Yes, if they get it off it will kill us, but no more than it would aggro, or any other deck. It's like saying "that deck dies to Yawgmoth's Will". Of course it does. Every deck does. However, unlike other decks, we have the power to stop it.