Stax Players: Need advice on an alternate win-con

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Well, a long time ago, I played Angel/Geddon stax (Both) and I tried out suntower for a short while. I left it in favor of less boring decks to play and am now deciding to go back to it. I played it over 4-5 years ago though. I've been working on a list (not complete, will share it when I am finished), but what I wanted to ask you guys about is this:

I'm wanting to try and use the Natural Order/Progenitus combo, and I have a few good ideas for doing so, but I want to get a general consensus on the idea first. I was thinking:

Xx ESG
3x Green Fetches
1-2x Dryad Arbor
2-3x Natural order
1x Progenitus

The other option is run the orders in the board and leave the progenitus in the maindeck to stall out the mill win some decks use. I'm going to also use a Words enchantment in my list but idk if progenitus will be needed if I run the bear scenario; the only way it would probably help is against stuff like Propaganda//Ghostly Prison. LMK what you think, good, bad, a different point of view.

Thanks!

[emidln]

What's wrong with the current mishra's factories and baneslayer angels?

[Vacrix]

Well if you are already in white playing Geddon Stax why not try out Luminarch Ascension. Stax can stall the game for 4 turns pretty easily. Winning after its online isn't very difficult.

[Laertes]

Unless you want to include Sensei's Top, you will sometimes get the hydra in your hand somehow - thereby making him unsearchable with Natural Order. The other downside is that you are then polluting your deck with sub-optimal cards like weak ESG's and Dryad Arbors that have to pay their own upkeep, dont make white, etc.

If your heart is set on a green splash, I see White stax with a couple Knight of the Reliquary. If you have your chalice at 1, then you have dodged Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. Knight is some tough stuff to remove without 1CC. If you want a big swinger, I recommend Knight over Progenitus.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I guess I didn't specify what I was building, only what I have played in the past. I'm trying a GWu build of an old list called sun tower. It was not really a mainstream stax build, but I liked it and did really well with it. However, I didn't ever like the red splash. It had its uses, but largely I believe that aside from Moons and R. Quakes, the red was the weakest link. I think white makes it better. I'm trying to keep the idea similar but add a bit of speed to it.

I built once, right after Planar Chaos came out, a list that ran 8 spirit guides and the 4x Mox Diamonds along with 4x factories and it was incredibly quick. I often had 5 mana a turn, and almost as routinely as other stax lists drop Chalice for one on turn two, I was dropping chalice for one and then 3sphere. It was fast, but had worse than normal matchups vs other control, Landstill in particular.

Anyway, I'm trying to build a G/W build with Words of Wilding/Sylvan Library stax list, and I have a very small splash for blue (Intuition and Academy Ruins, also just like Sun Tower) and as an additional win-con I'm thinking 3/1 of Natural Order/Prog. The list is looking too tight with just my bare necessities so it's looking like the board if it goes in at all. I don't really know what Prog is good at. I'm thinking it would probably be good at beating landstill if I can land it. Probably side out 3x WoW (running 3), and 1x Ensnaring Bridge (only running one, opting for Ghostly Prison instead as I can wasteland them into not being able to attack, and/or multiple Prisons). I've never really thought of the goblin matchup as that big of a deal, but I understand the some people have a pretty hard time with fast mono-colored aggro. I might just be lucky.

If I remember correctly I run one more fetch than Sun Tower used to but I think that may just help me out more than hurt me.

Thanks for the replies so far.

[freakish777]

Terravore.
Knight of the Reliquary.

[majikal]

Lodestone Golem

[Valtrix]

Why doesn't Elspeth work as a win-con again...? Is that too slow?

Also, if you want a guy that goes back into the library, you could consider going for one of the big Eldrazi. However, then there's no natural order combo in that, but you could actually cast it at some point.

[majikal]

Why doesn't Elspeth work as a win-con again...?
I think he's got too many color splashes to get WW.

[Malchar]

You could try using painter's servant + grindstone. It seems a little easier on your mana base than natural order. It's probably equally fast. You can ideally play the components on turns 1 and 2, then win turn 3. It costs six mana total but wins the game in one turn. I suppose the only disadvantage would be that you're already weak against artifact hate, but using dryad arbor as the only green creature seems equally flimsy. On the positive side, you could throw in enlightened tutor or something to help.

[emidln]

Blue Sun Tower only needs Words and Mishra's Factory (and a way to beat Zoo, but NO isn't helping you there either). For reference, this isn't an arbitrary judgement, I created the deck.

To be honest, you should consider a sturdier manabase (so you can consistently hit 4 mana) and Jace at this point. In addition to card advantage/card quality, it also provides something stax normally lacks: a way to deal with permanents that sneak through. It has the same problems that other non-Sylvan Library cards have (i.e. not costing 2), but its effect is powerful enough to try to make it work.

[SpikeyMikey]

Stax and all its variants are dead in 1.5. There is not a win con that will make it any more than a tier 3 deck with such notables as "Elves!", "Pox" and "UW Tempo".

Stax is bad because it is inherently inconsistent. The more broken you CAN be, the more inconsistent you WILL be. The format has plenty of acceleration, but it all comes with drawbacks; there are no moxen, no Workshop, no Crypt/Ring/Vault. So the faster you can play expensive cards, the more of your opening hand you sacrifice to do it.

That used to be acceptable, but with the power creep filling the low mana slots with powerhouse cards and aggro control climbing back up from a GP Chicago low of 16-17 lands to a current 20-22, Stax simply cannot compete. Decks are too consistent now. They will beat you soundly on your bad draws and go toe-to-toe with you on your best. Consistancy is what wins now. See Zoo. So the best advice I can give, and I give it with the strongest encouragement I can muster, is to play something else. I know it's not what you were asking and it's not what you want to hear, but it is what it is. Que sera, sera.

[SpikeyMikey]

Sorry, meant to add this to the previous post but forgot before I posted it. UW Tempo isn't really a bad deck, I just couldn't pass up a chance to rile the SD players a bit. It's the mischevious side shining through.

[kinda]

I'd really like to see a gw stax deck successfully use dueling grounds+maze of ith/kor haven/pitfall trap/humility.

[red.devil]

White Stax is just too slow, try a brown (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15386-%5B-Deck-%5D-Mono-Brown-Metalworker&p=462399&viewfull=1#post462399) list :wink:

[menace13]

I'm pretty sure this deck can not win, play Shared Fate and just laugh as your opponent struggles thinking you had a win con.

[Aleksandr]

SpikeyMikey: You're right!

I'd rather play any Tier1 deck than Stax. You know what really sucks? Having that imba hand and opponent just goes "Whoa... Duress or Daze or Fow or Breakthrough or RitRitAdN, gg". Also losing to own inconsistency (and time limit) is not what the deck makes appealling.

Also: this. (http://a34.idata.over-blog.com/500x698/3/06/94/15/MTG-alters/Bandemage-Qasali-by-V-500.jpg)

The only acceptable wincons are Elspeth and Baneslayer. More often than not happens to you that every other deck in format defeats you before you can lay them down.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Thanks for your input.

Mods, please close post.