Planeswalker Stax

[mistercakes]

http://i53.tinypic.com/2i9jm35.jpg
thanks yawg07!

KAAAAARRRRRN

http://i53.tinypic.com/11jm9f9.jpg


lemme start up a primer for this deck:

I guess I'll do an explanation of each card if it requires some explaining, and then some of the matchups:

4 Chalice of the Void

This card is the bread and butter of the deck. Chalice for 1 stops so many cards. If you are on the bandwagon with mental misstep, then that should explain everything that this card can do.

4 Trinisphere
These cards are second only to the chalices. You want them on turn 1 and 2, which makes sense. It has good synergy with smokestack, tabernacle, and wasteland. It is one of the ways of locking opponents out.

4 Crucible of Worlds
I like to refer to this card as howling mine for me only. With fetches it's like drawing a land out of your deck each turn. Wasteland synergy is very powerful, and can lead to blowout games. Getting back your maze of iths, tabernacles, and academy ruins is also extremely useful.

3 Smokestack
This card is King. It can allow you to really push control to do something with themselves. Sacrificing permanents is easy with crucible out, and the planeswalkers usually ensure you can play out your multiples of dead cards. Most decks if not handled with in 2 turns, end up losing to the sacrificing.

3 Ensnaring Bridge
If decks can't kill the bridge, it's a pretty hard lock. If you draw multiples, it is also usually a lock. Decks like BUG and some of the show and tell decks have no out to it preboard. Dredge usually has 1 out being a terrastodon if 2 bridges are in play. Merfolk has no outs. Goblins maindeck has siege gang as an out, affinity has ravager, so they can still get there, natural order is difficult to beat and I feel like it's the only card that can reasonably stop progenitus. They also have lots of cards to kill bridges, but maybe drawing multiples can pay off.

1 The Abyss
This card when played early, completely destroyed decks that rely on few creatures to win. I don't know how else to explain it. Just try it, and see for yourself.

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
1 Ratchet Bomb
You will need some kind of mass removal cards, and the best options are this powder keg, and ratchet bomb. This can help stop aggro rush, as well as stop nuisance cards like oblivion rings and aether vials. I personally like the keg as it's good vs affinity, can kill man lands, and teeg can't prevent me from playing it.

//planeswalkers 8 cards

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Oh Jace. This card is very self explanatory, however, the brutal nature of this card in this deck is really not seen until experienced. If a turn 1 trinisphere comes down, followed by a turn 2 jace, there is usually little that can be done by the opponent. He helps bounce creatures (vs non vials), and can help the lock by keeping lands on the bottom of their deck. He also has that useful win condition, as well as being able to bounce problematic cards like emrakul.

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
This card is very exciting in this deck.
His +1 is extremely useful. He can find all of your key cards, just refer back to each of the key artifact cards for their importance.
His -1 gives you a win condition, and it serves as a purpose of making blockers. There is synergy with the artifact creatures and the abyss, but the 5/5's do not typically work very well with ensnaring bridge...however you can get your hand back to 5 cards pretty easily.
His -4 is a win con, as well as just a good life gain. Not really necessary for explanation.



//mana sources (32 lands total)

4 Mox Diamond
I call this a mox diamond deck. This card allows for extremely nutty draws, and is extremely synergistic with crucible of worlds, and gets rid of your dead lands in certain matchups.

1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest

3 Fetches, very useful - nothing special here.

2 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Gotta get some colored mana sources besides the moxes. The 2 basics is in there to avoid getting crushed by wastelands, the undergrounds and tar pits are there to help cast the black cards and the tar pit acts as a 1 of that can get there and kill opposing jaces mostly. The Urborgs are really important as they can "turn on" your maze of iths, tabernacles, and provide your deck with a significant increase in mana some games.

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors

These cards are also the reason the deck is playable. These cards allow for the turn 1 chalice, trinisphere, crucible, ensnaring bridge. The turn 2 jace, smokestack, tezzeret, abyss. Just so good.

1 Academy Ruins

This card is pretty stock and will just let you get back cards that you might need. It probably serves more of a purpose post board, as you bring in more artifacts that have more applications, however, getting back a crucible, or a smokestack can be pretty devastating.

4 Wasteland

Wastelands in stax lists are strictly not optional. I have seem some lists with 3, but I don't recommend it. The mana bases that people are running these days (excluding mostly just mono blue merfolk, but they still have mutavaults) are extremely greedy, and people need to be punished.

//keep me alive lands

4 Maze of Ith
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Well if you look at the list, there aren't really many ways to interact with creatures. This suite of cards allows you to do just that. Many decks have few win conditions, and maze of ith will buy you enough turns until you can take control. Tabernacle is a blowout to many decks, and due to the many high synergies with wasteland and trinisphere, it can just end games. (To be noted, sometimes I will animate their artifacts into 5/5's if I have tabernacle out so they lose them. This is generally very rarely a good idea, but it can get there when an ensnaring bridge or multiple maze of iths are out)

Matchups:

Merfolk:
I really am not comfortable with this matchup. Game 1 you want to land a trinisphere, or a chalice at 1 on the play. Vial is a problem for this deck. That being said they don't have any out to ensnaring bridge, so make sure slam this card down quickly and ride it to victory. Tabernacle and maze of ith are very strong here. Abyss is also great, and smokestack can help clear the board if you have time. Coral helm commander is the real nuisance card here for you.

Game 2: you get to bring in a few cards, preferably llawans, powder kegs, engineered explosives, and a 4th ensnaring bridge. don't be fooled and board in engineered plagues. they seem useful, but unless if you get a nut draw you are going to just make them all 2/2's instead of 3/3s and sometimes that lets them get under the bridge. They will probably bring in energy flux, so just be ready for that with your artifact removal suite, and karn liberated might be able to remove it. dunno if you board him out. need to test more

On the draw it can be tough, still needs more testing to decide on sb techniques.

BUG:
They usually rely on few creatures, counterspells, and discard. Maelstrom pulse is sometimes there, and that can be a problem. Other than that this deck fuctions very well vs that one, and cards like ensnaring bridge and maze of ith make things extremely difficult for them. The abyss can just end games by itself. They function on few lands, so smokestack is another good win condition. Jace unsummon is also powerful vs tombstalker.

Burn:
Steer clear of this matchup, nearly impossible to win. Any suggestions? I've thought of running chill in the sb, but other than that, I don't even know.

Zoo:
Chalice for 1, tabernacle, ensnaring bridge, and your artifacts that can blow up all 1cc. Watch out for price of progress. I like to keep my wastelands open so I can blow up my own stuff in response.

Storm:
Chalice and trinisphere preboard. Tabernacle can stop empty the warrens, but if you don't land a chalice or trinisphere you are probably going to lose. Wastelands can sabotage their slower draws. I like to chalice for 0 vs the red version of storm, as they are more dependant on lion's eye diamond, lotus petals, and moxes. The 1cc gives them some more outs, but they can still just go off without the 1cc. After sb you get null rod if you want and it makes the matchup even more favorable.

Charbelcher:
See storm matchup.

High Tide:
This matchup you want to get down a chalice for 1. After that you need a smokestack ASAP. They will try to get a hurkly's recall or a rebuild and then go off. This matchup isn't generally too favorable, but you do what you have to do. Hopefully you can resolve a trinisphere and lock them out quickly, as the wastelands have no effect vs them. Null rod is okay vs the candelabra.

Goblins:
This matchup can be frustrating, as you will need 1 or 0 cards in your hand to make the bridges work. I think bridges are the key card here, as they have lots of 1's 2's and 3's so chalice keg/ee aren't particularly amazing. Tabernacle and maze of ith are strong here. Games 2 and 3 you have access to engineered plague and artifact removal stuff. They might bring in krosan grip, but you just have so many things they have to deal with.
That being said if they nut draw you, you can still lose. Mono red versions with blood moon could also be problematic.


My recent list:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Powder Keg

4 Maze of Ith
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Blue Fetches
2 Underground Sea
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
2 Island

SB:

3 Null Rod
2 Llawan
3 Engineered Plague
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
2 Perish


Been a long time since this has been updated. There has been a fair amount of support from a lot of players with this deck. This one is one of the later ones posted in the threads. The sb has been heavily influenced by the French players' "bridgewalkers" deck. (transmute artifact package).


4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 The Abyss
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Dimir Signet
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Maze of Ith
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
2 Island
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 1 Damping Matrix
SB: 1 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void






Tournament Reports

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax&p=548172&viewfull=1#post548172

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax&p=537502&viewfull=1#post537502

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax&p=532294&viewfull=1#post532294

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax&p=528674&viewfull=1#post528674

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax&p=540033&viewfull=1#post540033


Pretty sure this was the list:

//Stax (19)

4 Trinisphere
2 The Abyss
3 Smokestack
2 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds

//Planeswalkers (8)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

//Mana Sources (5)

4 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal

//Lands (28)

2 Seat of the Synod
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Maze of Ith
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 City of Traitors
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea

//Sideboard

1 Tangle Wire
4 Engineered Plague
1 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Cursed Totem
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Smokestack

wondering if this deck would have any value over the other UB chalice decks that have come out since then. in addition many sets have come out since circa 2012.

anyone still playing this?

[perm]

For any Stax deck, I highly recommend 1 or 2 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Rekai. Also, why only 2 smokestacks? I understand with tutors, but I'd say 3.

[Roman Candle]

God's Eye, Gate to Rekai is terrible. Trying to support two colors on a Stax manabase is hard enough as it is without including more colorless sources.

Propaganda probably doesn't work in this deck because it doesn't protect your Planeswalkers.

EDIT: Also, you really probably should be running four Cities and Tombs. Your Chalices and Trinispheres get progressively worse the less double lands you play.

EDIT2: If you can make the mana work, The Abyss might be a good replacement for Propaganda, since it leaves your Tezzeret'd artifacts alone.

[GoldenCid]

If you're going to run PW in a stax with blue run Tezz 1.0

And cut a tabernacle for the 3rd seat.

[mistercakes]

If you're going to run PW in a stax with blue run Tezz 1.0

And cut a tabernacle for the 3rd seat.

The whole point is to try new stuff out. Old tezz has been tried enough. Abyss is a possible option. I would like to stick another Smokestack, but not sure what to cut other than a jace.

[bruizar]

Why would you want to run a third seat of the synod? Its terrible. 1 Seat of the Synod is enough.

[perm]

So the only reason for the inclusion of black is one mana symbol on one planeswalker? That's not that tough to manage at all

[Angelfire]

This is one of the most expensive decks in Legacy I have ever seen. Is Tezzeret better than Elspeth 1.0?

[mistercakes]

White stax leads to dead draws late game, but with jace u can recover. Been playing blue stax for a while on modo. Tezz can only make it better. Only thing I like more about 5cc tezz is u can search out pithing needle while chalice is out. Maybe he can be a 1 of over something.

Dunno, lot of theory for about a week, when ill have more time to play.

[mistercakes]

updated list up here and up top

it's been doing rather well.


4 Trinisphere
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Seat of the Synod
4 Maze of Ith
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Island
2 The Abyss
4 Mox Diamond
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Mox Opal
1 Academy Ruins
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Wasteland
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 City of Traitors
2 Propaganda
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard
2 Perish
4 Engineered Plague
1 Karakas
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Propaganda
4 Ensnaring Bridge

[mistercakes]

updated first post. comments appreciated.

[kramer733]

Can you please put tags on your deck? LIKE PLEASE? I actually dislike it and it deters me from reading threads that have no deck tags. It's so annoying. It should be a MUST to do this.

[mistercakes]

How do you add tags on this site. I've mostest with tags plenty of times on other site, but don't see a button for it. Does it have to be manually coded in?

[Sims]

Can you please put tags on your deck? LIKE PLEASE? I actually dislike it and it deters me from reading threads that have no deck tags. It's so annoying. It should be a MUST to do this.

While card tags are nice, comments like this are pointless. If you dislike it and it deters you, then don't read it. Besides, it's not like he's posting a list full of cards that no one has ever heard of. Anyone who has played Legacy will know what the cards in that list are without having to look at the card in deckbox.


@OP: If you wish to put card tags in yoru decklist, put [ cards] [/ cards] around your decklist without the spaces between the [ and the c.

[antipode3141592]

I have been having success with a similar build:

Spells (32)
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x The Abyss
3x Crucible of Worlds
4x Tangle Wire
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Maze of Ith
3x Powder Keg
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Mana Sources (28)
4x Mox Diamond
4x Ancient Tomb
3x City of Traitors
4x Wasteland
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
3x Island
1x Swamp

I moved all four Trinispheres to the sideboard, as they are really only good on the play (as they can easily be trumped by a turn 1 Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Thoughtseize, etc). The Tangle Wires are pretty superb at buying time and controlling creatures. I havent' really developed a sideboard plan as of yet. Oh and I chose the Powder Kegs over Ratchet Bombs so that I could destroy artifact lands and manlands, though that could be a mistake.

Maindeck, I don't have much in the way of disruption against combo (aside from Chalice of the Void), but being able to side in 4x Trinisphere helps immensely. Control is always tough because there's little Stax (in general) can do aside from playing must-answer threats turn after turn, hoping they run out of answers.

The deck seems to have a lot of vulnerability to Quasali Pridemages, Grim Lavamancers and their ilk. I've considered both Cursed Totem and Damping Matrix. Cursed Totem is nice because of the cost, but Damping Matrix can also shut down Sensei's Divining Top, Voltaic Key, Candelabra of Tawnos, Aether Vial, Jitte, .... What strategies/cards have you found helpful in the matchups with lots of artifact hate? What about Pernicious Deed?

[mistercakes]

ok so you are basically

-smokestacks
-explosives
-trinisphere

+kegs
+tangle wire
+3 more planeswalkers

i have a few more mana sources too i think overall.


with my build i can't use the kegs b/c i'm running seat of the synod

i actually was going crazy looking for cursed totems in edison last week,
was only able to find 1, haven't gotten around to testing.

damping matrix might be better.
that's a really good idea, and remember, if you chalice for 2
you can't play totem.


you should try smokestack if you're running crucible of worlds
soemtimes it just lets you lock them down completely.

smokestack also wrecks control.

that all being said i've had the tangle wires in my binder for a while
i've wanted to use them, maybe i'll give them a try soon.

the matchups with a lot of artifact hate...

i haevn't played vs a lot of deed stuff recently, but i used to run 2 karmic justice in my board
it's easy to get with the moxes (i do run 6 though)

[antipode3141592]

I had eliminated the Smokestacks in the build in favor of The Abyss, but I have been testing against more aggressive decks recently. I'm trying to organize a playtest session with some of my friends here and I'll see how my list fairs against control. You're probably right about Smokestack being a wrecking ball against control (I used to play U/W Armageddon Stax and Smokestack was one of the best cards in that list). Karmic Justice is certainly helpful, but it doesn't actually answer their artifact hate, it just makes it hurt a lot (you still lose all of your stuff). Will post my testing results as soon as I can get some additional testing in.

[Mystical_Jackass]

2 Ideas:

Inkmoth Nexus (Possible 2-turn win with Tez)
Dark Tutelage (effective draw with Jace, and fits with Sol-Lands)

[mistercakes]

the dark tutelage is a good idea, but if it's really only great with jace...it's more of a win more card. there's also a lot of high casting cost cards in the deck. that being said, i can still try it, as that card is rather cheap on magic online.

the inkmoth...i just dont have room for it, and whether it's attacking 3 times with tezzeret guys or twice with inkmoth, i dont think it makes that much of a difference. i'd rather run other lands over it.

i'm not sure what i should run tonight. i might try to squeeze some tangle wires in there. i'm pretty excited about that damping matrix. what a great idea.

thanks

i'll update after tonight.

[mistercakes]

this is the decklist i played tonight i went 3-0, then drew into top 4, won my semi-finals, then split finals.



4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Smokestack
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 The Abyss
2 Engineered Explosives

//planeswalkers 5 cards

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

//mana sources (34 lands total)

4 Mox Diamond
2 Mox Opal
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Seat of the Synod
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 City of Traitor
1 Academy Ruins
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
//keep me alive lands

4 Maze of Ith
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Sideboard
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Perish
4 Engineered Plague
1 Tropical Island
1 Sylvan Library
4 Tarmogoyf



short report

round 1 ad nauseam

he won game 1 on turn 2, i didn't have any stall cards.
game 2 he didn't what i was on, so when i played chalice and then trinisphere, we went to game 3.
game 3 he mulled twice, played a land go. i went land mox, chalice for 0, goyf

match 2 Wub geddon stax

this matchup is all about crucible + wastelands or in my case, my planeswalkers
he won the first game and jace won the next 2.

match 3 stiflenaught not sure of name, but lots of land denial

i got pretty lucky and drew a ton of threats (chalice, trinisphere, crucible, planeswalkers) won 2-0

match 4 draw vs burn

match 5 goblins

closest games, i won game 1 on a tabernacle + trinisphere. tezzeret pulled me out of death range.
game 2 i kept a greedy slow hand with no hate cards and lost.
game 3 i drew very well, got multiple engineered plagues and got both ensnaring bridges.

overall was very fun. i liked the sb, and still know the deck has a lot of weaknesses, but it's very enjoyable to play.

[antipode3141592]

Congrats on the tourney and thanks for the short update.

In what matchups do you plan to use the Tarmagoyfs? How useful is the Sylvan Libary?

What cards in your maindeck or sideboard were your MVPs? Any cards that you felt underperformed?

I had completely forgotten about Engineered Plague, but that seems like a powerful 4x sideboard card. Do you feel that all of the extra creature control in the sideboard is necessary, what with maindeck Ensnaring Bridge, Jace, The Abyss, Tabernacle, Engineered Explosives, etc maindeck?

[mistercakes]

played in a daily mtgo with deck. sb isn't the same as irl, can't afford this entire deck twice over.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/2152372

[mistercakes]

played in an mtgo daily. sb isn't the same as irl. too much money.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/2152372

[mistercakes]

won a tournament in blue bell, PA yesterday with my deck. 38 players i think. 6 rounds swiss. ran smoothly and everyone seemed really nice.


Pretty sure this was the list:

//Stax (19)

4 Trinisphere
2 The Abyss
3 Smokestack
2 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds

//Planeswalkers (8)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

//Mana Sources (5)

4 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal

//Lands (28)

2 Seat of the Synod
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Maze of Ith
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 City of Traitors
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea

//Sideboard

1 Tangle Wire
4 Engineered Plague
1 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Cursed Totem
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Smokestack

Short Report

Round 1. U/B tendrils (win)
Game 1: I stuck a chalice for 1 on the draw, after seeing him ponder. It pretty much crippled him and he was unable to interact. I'm pretty sure smokestack finished him off this game.
Game 2: He combo'd me.
Game 3: Pretty sure I had drawn some tangle wires, and trinisphere got there.

Round 2. Burning wish storm (win)
Game 1: he tried to combo, but got unlucky and hit his tendrils off of ad nauseam at 4 life.
Game 2: Pretty sure I played a chalice for zero, then got trinisphere.

Round 3. Affinity (new tezz variant) (loss)
Game 1: I played a chalice for 0. He was unable to really play any cards out.
Game 2: He played out his hand on turn 1 and promptly wiped the floor with me.
Game 3: I had turn 1 trinisphere, then crucible of worlds, had drawn a maze of ith. I needed to draw another maze, a wasteland, a smokestack, or any of the 8 planeswalkers, or an ensnaring bridge, I had about 10 lands out, and still non of those came up, so I lost to a etched champion, and a master of etherium. Eventually I had to crack an engineered explosives for 3 and then he played out his hand and tezz the following turn.

Round 4. Zoo (win)
Game 1: I turn 1 chalice for 1. He probably had lots of 1 drops because he didn't do a whole lot that game, it was a long game though b/c I couldn't draw a threat even though he was trinisphere/stack locked.
Game 2: The game went on for a pretty long time, and I was low on life. I had been letting him slide on a few misplays, but when time was really low and I was low on life, I called judge on a missed tabernacle trigger. (He had drawn 3 off of his sylvan library with 5 lands out + trinisphere being active with 3 creatures out) he was playing PoP and I didn't want to get killed by that. That being said if he's going to look at his cards before tabernacle, I'd prefer they just died and i risk the burn kill. (I had 2 maze of ith and a 5/5 out so i'm not sure if it was really relevant. Again, want to mention sorry about this but I think it was warranted. Tezzeret came to save the day after that.

Round 5. Bant NO with 4 gsz
Game 1: I don't remember it too well, I'm pretty sure beat me pretty fast with a bunch of quick guys, no progenitus.
Game 2: He stuck down a gaddock teeg. I luckily hit a maze of ith, and he took me down to 4 with teeg/clique. I eventually drew an ensnaring bridge, and he was unable to clear it away. Over about 20 minutes I stax/trinisphere locked him out. Very tough game.
Game 3: We both didn't want to draw, and I think that caused him to make several misplays. He got really aggressive with 3 tarmogoyfs. I played an ensnaring bridge and then developed my board.

Round 6: Draw with Storm

Top 8 R1: Enchantress
Game 1: I played 3 cards, one being a trinisphere. He combod off on me and I scooped when he played his blue words enchantment.
Game 2: His hand was probably not bad, but I think i had turn 1 chalice. He never drew an enchantress either, so that helped. Jace hit the table and +2'd him while tezzeret made a 5/5 mox diamond. He never drew an out as his deck just didn't help him out and jace left several cards on top of his deck.
Game 3: This game was probably the most difficult game I had of the day. Lots of tangle wires, smokestacks, planeswalkers, chalices. Somehow I was able to trinisphere/stax lock down the enchantress player and kill him with a 5/5. I never had crucible that game so it was really a strange game.

Top 8 R2: Excalibur
Game 1: I played a chalice for 1, he FoW'd it. Some tangle wire resolved, and I then played some other spells, baited out more counters, then landed the planeswalkers. (I'm sure there was more going on with this game, and pretty sure his report will have more details.)
Game 2: I baited out some counterspells, and landed the abyss. He didn't draw a pridemage or a krosan grip, and was unable to deal with it for the majority of the game. He was unable to interact due to trinisphere being active and when tabernacle hit the board, as well as my lucksack wasteland draws.

Finals: Affinity (Same as round 3)
Game 1: I won the die roll and even though a chalice for 0 beats his deck, I got excited and thought I had a turn 1 jace/tezz. I did not and was too stupid to see it. 2 lands, (1 being an ancient tomb) 2 mox. Was a stupid keep, and I got rolled
Game 2: I played turn 1 chalice for 0 and I don’t remember him actually doing much that game.
Game 3: he went turn 1 memnite, ornithopter, mox, springleaf drum, frogmite. I went turn 1 explosives for 0, ancient tomb, crack. He started to play a few spells later on, but ensnaring bridge trapped him and I made sure that I kept 0 cards in hand most of the turns. Several turns later I had out both planeswalkers and he was unable to do anything. I drew my karn silver golem and nuked his lands, played a tabernacle and wiped the board out of his other affinity creatures. The bridge really won the match there, as I don’t think he had any outs other than tezz and mine was already on the board.
That was it, sorry for lack of details. I did find it extremely interesting that I played vs ZERO wastelands the entire day. I also avoided playing rock decks, which made things a lot easier.

[mistercakes]

played again this weekend at vestal. will update list later.

5-2 on saturday (missed top 8 by losing round 6)
4-0-2 on sunday, then lost quarterfinals.

between last sunday and this weekend, i'm 17-4-3 with the deck.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I think you should call this "Mr. Moneybags Stax" :wink:

[perm]

I am very happy to see the abyss in use in such a powerful way, it's a great card. Are you happy with 2 rather than 3? You have limited draw and no tutor options for it. Though I suppose being overrun with creatures will never be a problem for such a deck.

[mistercakes]

2 abyss is enough, mostly b/c it's legendary. when you have out ensnaring bridges game 2/3 and you draw a 2nd abyss you can't do anything with it. the deck has a lot of legendary status going on. planeswalkers, tabernacles, urborg.

anyway, check this game out!

http://tinypic.com/r/2upr82e/7

[antipode3141592]

Well done. I still haven't had any time to test or go to a tournament, sadly. I'm curious to read about what cards are your all-stars and which ones you just hate seeing. How are the Seat of Synods and the Academy Ruins working out for you?

[Koby]

I think you should rename the deck to Planeswalker $Tax

[mistercakes]

1 academy ruins
4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
1 flooded strand
1 ghost quarter
2 island
4 maze of ith
1 misty rainforest
1 polluted delta
2 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
2 underground sea
4 wasteland

4 chalice of the void
4 crucible of worlds
4 mox diamond
3 smokestack
3 tangle wire
4 jace, the mind sculptor
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 the abyss
4 trinisphere

//sb (i think it was)

4 ensnaring bridge
2 powder keg
4 engineered plague
2 contagion clasp
2 llawan, cephalid empress
1 tangle wire


cards i hate seeing are multiples of trinisphere, multiples of crucible, the 2nd urborg, the 2nd tabernacle, and the 2nd abyss. but unfortunately they just need to get drawn. the jaces+fetches and tezzes help shuffle them back.

academy ruins has been very good.

the seats and the mox opal just weren't as good as i wanted them to be, so i cut the last seat and mox opal that i played with on saturday for another tomb and another tangle wire.

my lists were more or less the same both days except that change and the sb was slightly different.

i'm not sure what i would do with the maindeck right now. i wonder if the new karn planeswalker is any good. i hope so. :D

btw i've been calling this deck "super stax" but "$uper $tax" is kind of hot.

[Zork]

Cash Stax also seems appropriate.

Any reason for Powder Keg in the board over Ratchet Bomb?

[antipode3141592]

Stax is just a derviative of the old Vintage Deck, "The Four Thousand Dollar Sollution", which turned into "$T4KS" (and eventually just Stax). Also, this deck is about as expensive as Dutch Stax (4x Moat = 4x Jace, 4x Tezz and 2x The Abyss, and they both run 2x Tabernacle).... and still a far cry from $4k, so I think that Planeswalker Stax is just fine.

I kinda guessed that Mox Opal and Seat of the Synod would be underpowered (and the Seat is kinda disynergistic with Powder Keg). What do you find you most often use Academy Ruins for?

Crucible of Worlds seems more like a mide-late game card, so maybe you can move one of them to the sideboard for a maindeck Powder Keg?

How successful have the Contagion Clasps been? They seem super hot for dealing with Goblin Lackeys, Curse Catchers, Faeries of all kinds, Steppe Lynx, Noble Heirarch, Bobs, etc.... But do you use the Proliferate to good effect the the Smokestacks, planeswalkers and Tangle Wires when you board them in?

Oh, and Zork, the Kegs deal with artifact lands and man-lands, unlike Ratchet Bomb (think that was stated somewhere in this thread). mistercakes, how have the Kegs been? I'm guessing that this combo-oriented meta is going to prompt a resurrgence in CounterTop, so Engineered Explosives may be better the next tournament you play in.

[mistercakes]

i might want to run an explosives again. my list on sat had 2 keg, 2 explosives in the sb.

academy ruins is very important for when the smokestack is set to 2 and you want to make sure you draw a nonland every turn. it also can turn the game around if you have a keg/ee etc.

the keg is mostly b/c it doesn't kill my planeswalkers, it rapes affinity, and it doesn't kill my abyss as well if i ever need to get it to 4 (which i shouldn't anyway)

clasps i only drew once vs a lands player that boarded in bobs. the engineered plagues were probably enough, but it worked just as well.

the problem with crucible is that you always want it...sometimes as early as turn 1. you can sometimes mox city/tomb pitch fetch cast crucible. turn 2 play fetch from grave and play a planeswalker. most decks if that resolves you will win.

i'm not sure if i would keep the 4th tangle wire in the board, it's very good but it felt like overkill.

and if countertop comes backs i'll prob just switch the kegs back to ratchet bombs. there are a lot of matchups where i feel like i have enough creature control already, the only matchups where i feel a little weak game 1 are maybe merfolk and goblins. and game 1 if i win the die roll can easily favor me with trinisphere or chalice for 1.

[mistercakes]

Gonna try again this weekend. Will update again then. Any suggestions on list?

[mistercakes]

tournament didn't happen! anyway. was playtesting a bit an beating dark confidant is very difficult. need some suggestions. anything other than engineered explosives, powder keg, or ratchet bomb for the maindeck as maybe a 2 of?

[conboy31]

Elias talked about the deck some here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21614_The_Long_And_Winding_Road_Soapboxes_And_Decks.html

Changes were a more explosive artifact suite and a stronger mana production out of the lands.
-3 maze of iths, -1 tabernacle, -1 ghost quarter vs. + 2 grims, and mana lands.

[mistercakes]

The only issue with him taking out the creature hating lands for more explosive draws is that the deck falls flat if they have a counterspell.

[mistercakes]

been testing list more. getting lots of help from someone on mtgo. not sure if he has a source account yet. deck is definitely evolving. will post a list after i play it next tuesday.

[conboy31]

Any more insight regarding acceleration, mana lands, utility lands, sideboard, etc?! I am looking forward to an update.
I think I am going to bring the deck to a little 10ish person local tourny in early May. I felt like a dick playing ANT last time. Need moar trinisphere.

[mistercakes]

saturn on mtgo has been giving me a lot of useful input as he's been testing this deck as well.

current list has some pretty cool mods. keep in mind sb is for magic online, as is the main deck (lack of tangle wire on magic online)
i particularly like the inclusion of words of war. i still haven't had a game where i draw it, but i am assuming it has to be absolutely insane with jace.

(sorry for format, that's how mtgo arranges the order of the cards)



//lands
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Maze of Ith
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Island
2 The Abyss
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 City of Traitors
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest

4 Mox Diamond
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Words of War
3 Smokestack

Sideboard
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Boil
2 Smother
4 Engineered Plague
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Null Rod

[GGoober]

Hey cakes, been following this for awhile and want to say keep up the good work. Looks like a very potential solid contestor in the Stax family. Once I get my hands on a Tabernacle (probably never lol) and 2 Abyss, I'll sleeve this up!

[mistercakes]

Mainboard -1 words -1 karn + 2 tangle wire.

Lots of sb testing though will update again later

[IamPhil]

Saturn here. Saw the deck here, fell in love with it, and I've spent a good week playing it on MTGO and on paper, including playing it at SCG's GPT: Providence here in Roanoke, VA last Saturday.

List:

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Wolds
4 Trinisphere
2 Smokestack
1 Powder Keg
1 Tangle Wire
4 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal
1 KARRRRRRRRRN!

3 Ancient Tomb
3 City
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Seat of the Synod

Sideboard:
3 Boil
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Engineered Plague
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Smokestack
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 The Abyss

Tournament Report:

Round 1 vs Jeff Abbot playing Lands
Jeff was playing a Mike Caffrey's 43-Lands (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=37425) with two main deck changes:
1 Intuition instead of 1 Entomb
1 Riftstone Portal instead of the 5th Fetch

Jeff and I have played many times before, so I immediately pegged him on Dredge, ANT, and Reanimator in that order when we sat down. One-and-a-half turns later I was wrong cycled a Thicket on my EOT, then he dropped a Life from the Loam to get back a fetch and Thicket on his turn, so I swapped gears and prepared for the long game and protected myself from a Wasteland lock.

Using Tangle Wire (1) and Crucible I bought some turns then stabilized with both basic Islands while facing down a Ghost Quarter/Loam lock. He finally drew into EE, cracked it on three, and took out a Crucible and Trinisphere. Played draw go a bit, and eventually I got down one of each Planeswalker and forced him to recur his EE again, buying me yet more turns. With double Jace on top after a Jace-Storm, I played out the second, and bought the recurred EE a third time before sealing the deal with a Tezz-swing, Tezz-Storm, 3rd Jace/Brainstorm into Wasteland for his lone Maze while he was at 4 life.

Knowing what cards I had put on the bottom, I knew when to aggressively Brainstorm/Tezz-Storm for the right pieces and sealed G1 with eight minutes and change on the clock.

+2 EE
+2 Mindbreak Trap (for Loam)
-2 Smokestack
-1 Tangle Wire
-1 Powder Keg

Game two we ran out of time, as I had Wasteland for his Creeping Tar Pit, and even in extra turns he couldn't kill me.

Games: 1-0-1
Matches: 1-0-0

Round 2 vs Mike Whitelock playing ANT with LEDs
Mike is one of our up and coming regulars to FNM Legacy and has been a consistent combo player. Luckily for both of us, we had tested the everlasting hell out of this matchup the night before. Unluckily for Mike, I play ANT, know the math like the back of my hand, and know how and when to attack his deck aggressively.

I won the die roll, dropped an Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond, and a Chalice for 1. Mike calmly drew, scooped, and proceeded to sideboard.

+2 EE
+2 Mindbreak Trap
-1 Tabernacle
-2 Smokestack

Game two he went off turn one, on the play, and I didn't have a trap even though I had the Engineered for his LEDs.

Game three he fetched to 19, my Powder Keg swung for five to put him at 14, then my Mox Diamond joined the Powder Keg to put him at four, and he fetched before going off like the gutsy ANT player he is. (And this is why I love Mike - He always plays to win no matter what! Go ANT!! :D )

He also made a really gutsy playing Chain of Vaporing my Mox Diamond in response to my Trinisphere that game. I stabilized faster than he did, but it was clooooose!

Games: 3-1-1
Rounds 2-0-0

Round 3 vs Wesley Wise playing High Tide with Time Spiral
A fellow SCG employee, Wes and I also tested this matchup. Things did not look good for me.

And true to part, Wes went off after countering my Trinisphere, and I scooped when he showed me the Cunning Wish.

Game two went a bit better. With four islands up to my double Mox Diamond and City of Traitors, things looked grim for me on the draw. I drew my card, and, yet again, passed the turn. I misplayed my lands (deliberately!) and promptly boxed myself out of playing anything for the next three to five turns because I had Boil in my opening!

On Wes' turn, he played Ponder, Island, then shipped it. On my EOT, Wes played Cunning Wish, tapping out. I cast Boil in response and patiently waited for the FoW. He didn't have it. Trinisphere came down a couple turns later, and we went to G3.

I don't remember much about G3, but he played Meditate, whiffed on the Force of Will, and Tezz went aggro to drop him to four. Wes could have played Echoing Truth to give him another turn, but he held it back trying to be greedy*.

Games: 5-2-1
Rounds: 3-0-0

* As a High Tide player, I think Wes made the right call, but both points have merit.

Luckily for me, Matt "Googs" Gargiulo lost to Mono Red with Pyrostatic Pillar the same round, so only one Time Spiral would make it to the Top 8.

Round 4 vs Hunter Sumpter playing Goblins? Mono Red?
Intentional Draw

Round 5 vs Cameron ?? playing MBC
Intentional Draw.

I screwed up here. At ten points I was garaunteed in, win or lose, and should have played Cameron. Our 8th seed, burn, was a pretty good matchup for me between being fairly new and me knowing exactly what and when to chalice. And, if I lost, I would be playing against MBC with no answer to Planeswalkers if they got on the board. It's not the best matchup, but it's pretty darned tasty compared to Team America and BGW Rock... Doh!


Quarter Finals vs Mike Kerby playing Team America
I despise Knight of the Reliquary with a passion. Oh, and Hymn to Tourach, too! And Stifle!! Needless he crushed me fairly easily and without pause. :)


I would love to elaborate more, but I have to run to work. :D

[mistercakes]

Thanks for the report!

[Koby]

SwampRitualNegator - Thanks for testing with me last nite in the 2man queues. I love the deck, even though you got some pretty consistent hands against my Elves ;)

It seemed like a lot of the hands you kept ran out of gas after you played out Crucible or Planeswalkers. I'm wondering if this is because you can't follow up with Tangle Wire like you could in Paper. Any thoughts about EE engine maindeck? Or Propaganda vs the tribal hordes. Just some ideas to shore up what may be a rough Vial matchup.

[mistercakes]

the deck originally had EE. it's definitely a good option and it has been good some games. other games where trinisphere is out, it tends to be hard to cast and use in the same turn. propaganda doesn't protect the planeswalkers. tangle wire is pretty sick though. it is missed.

[IamPhil]

Came across a few cards I'd like to test, and played against Clockwork Orange on MTGO. Pleasure to play against you if you read this, Clockwork!


Steel Golem
Often times we just need an early creature to stop the bleeding. He's a three drop with a four butt, so that means he can trade with a creature before eating a Lightning Bolt. If he eats a Path or a Swords we haven't invested five mana and a whole turn playing him, and he's an artifact so he has good synergy with The Abyss.

We can always make him a 5/5 with Tezz, and we can bounce him with Jace if you run Karn main or board him in.

Vedalken Shackles
Right now I run five Islands, two basics, two Underground Sea, and a Volcanic. The Volcanic is on the way out (see "Additional Changes" below), but stealing small critters and sacrificing them to Tabernacle or throwing them in harms way anyhow is pretty good. Also, stealing a Sower is pretty tech I hear... Man I hate Sower...

Tainted AEther
This card is on the cuff. Against mass aggro it can be bonkers if you get it down quickly enough. Combined with Wasteland, Tabernacle, The Abyss and/or Smokestack and you have a nice soft lock. But it's fragile, mana intensive at both the CMC and double black requirement, and requires other pieces to be most beneficial.

Lethal Vapors
Lethal Vapors, on the other hand, has some serious potential. This is definitely a skill-testing card as you and your opponent can seriously bone each other with it and Smokestack. Also, you can activate it multiple times...

Tsabo's Web and Static Orb
Tsabo's Web and Static Orb both have potential, but not in this build and not in this Meta. Static Orb/Tabernacle/Planeswalkers is pretty sick.

Additional Changes:
I'd also like to remove the Volcanic Island and Flooded Strand for a Badlands and Scalding Tarn respectively. Popping a fetch to get a Volcanic to Boil is just dumb, and I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Swapping the Flooded Strand to an appropriate fetch is a no-brainer, too. (Credit to Clockwork Orange for that brainstorming.)


So, all in all, not bad for a Saturday of testing. I spent 16 tickets to test a few things out (Namely Words of War and Ajani Vengeant, neither of which did well) and earned 6 packs of UD. Even if the packs only net me 15 tickets (which is way low), I came out about ahead and got to play a deck I enjoy?

I recommend this deck.

[mistercakes]

was thinking about the badlands changes too, i dont actually own a badlands, so i was too lazy to try it out.

very funny overall though, clockwork orange is someone that i actually playtest w/ irl. small world. i thought of steel golem earlier, but it was mostly as a joke. i guess it could make sense though. i've been running 2 smother online though and that takes care of most creatures in this meta.

totally forgot about tainted aether. that's a really cool little addition. double black isn't so bad with the 2 urborg in the main, but i can see how 4 mana is a little difficult.

lol@ lethal vapors. i don't even want to test that card. very funny.

you've been testing out a good bunch of stuff. i'll have to test some more cards in the maindeck. i've mostly been just playing around with sb cards for the last few days.

great ideas.

went through deck editor and found some cards might be worth testing:

desolation
ancestral memories
pendrell mists
polluted bonds (lifegain?)
shimmer?
sunken hope?
thought lash? (might need 4 smokestacks for this)
solitary confinement (lock with jace, maybe with tezz, might put a horizon canopy + tundra in maindeck for that)
life gift?
awakening zone
dust bowl* (not on magic online)
sandspoise combo? might be fun. sands of time is actually very funny with tabernacle.

[sdematt]

I've sleeved this deck up because I can literally play a deck that costs infinite money, and now Stax has draw and a clock. Is better than Geddon or Dutch? Not necessarily. Is it a different beast? Oh yes.

Playing the most expensive cards in multiples is great. I can literally play the four thousand dollar solution!

-Matt

[P-E]

http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=5944&iddeck=43102
is this you mistercake ?

nice list ^^

[mistercakes]

that's saturn on mtgo or iamphil on here. he's been contributing to the list a lot with some testing since i've posted the original list.

[Titan]

any thoughts on these?

Spine of Ish Sah
Intuition

Spine is amazing in vintage stax, yes it costs a billion mana but it's insane with smokestack

intuition seems like a resonable play to set up all the 1 of lands, it works for LANDS! why not here?

[conboy31]

I just don't think spine translates to any stax deck in legacy without metalworker, and even then its suspect. Very rarely do I look at a board state of 7 mana and wish I had something to cast. The vintage comparison does not work very well because they have access to workshop, moxes, lotus, crypt, and vault, in addition to the best acceleration that is legal in legacy (ancient tomb, traitors, etc).

[mistercakes]

i think i agree 100% with conboy about the spine.

intuition --> i'm not sure how it is in the deck. it can warrant testing, i don't have that much time to test irl and i don't have them on magic online. you are more than welcome to test them out and let me know how it goes.

[IamPhil]

I took 7th Place (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=37658) out of I'm-not-sure, P-E.

I ran Intuition in my Thopter Foundry Stax variant, and it fared well. As a toolbox fan, I ran 2 Humility, 1 Moat, 1 Tabernacle, 1 Academy Ruins, 1 Tolaria West, 3 Crucible of Worlds, 3 Ghostly Prison, 2 Thopter Foundry, 1 Sword of the Meek, 3 Jace (2/1 Split, should have been 4!) and a few other cards.

For those of you who haven't abused Intuition, there are two main considerations for deck construction. The first being tricks - what combos you can set up for an "EOT, Intuition, [Win]" based either solely on a given three cards, or based on a given three cards + card in hand to make someone autopick incorrectly for your opponent and correctly for you. The second consideration is running three-ofs that you can tutor for to guarantee getting what you need.

Viewing my list from above, and playing a 60 +4 card deck just to make the exercise easier, what three cards would you Intuition for at the EOT in a given situation of your choosing? Why? And how would you shortcut your decision makings for future Intuition stacks?

(At the end of the day, I believe you should build an Intuition-based deck rather than squeeze Intuition into an existing list, but that's my personal opinion. Feel free to prove me wrong! :D )

As for Spine? Spine is cute. If you can cheat the Spine out, why aren't you cheating something better onto the battlefield? And if you can play the Spine naturally, why aren't you playing something like Nicol Bolas (that's far more epic and just as cutesie!) or doing something very worthwhile to progress your game state?


Cakes, going through your list I've checked some of these out:

desolation
Once Smokestack has put you in the position where you have to sacrifice lands, you will never get back ahead of your opponent. Desolation won't help this. Also, Elves will ravage you, as will Metalworker. On MTGO though, this has premise as a sideboard for White Incremental Gains.

ancestral memories
Even with two basic Islands main, I think UUU will be too tough to pull off, and for the same or similar cost we have better draw spells. (Though the dig is quite commendable.)

pendrell mists
Testing has shown your opponent keeps the best creature(s). I think this is enough to naysay the Mists.


thought lash? (might need 4 smokestacks for this)
solitary confinement (lock with jace, maybe with tezz, might put a horizon canopy + tundra in maindeck for that)
life gift?
awakening zone

These four strike me as having the most merit.

thought lash? (might need 4 smokestacks for this)
Thought Lash seems to beat Burn all day long, including Pyrostatic Pillar and Sulferous Vortex. As long as you get *A* win condition, who cares? My game against Burn has been pretty good, but if Lash shows significant enough overlap... Say... Exiling dead cards put back off a Jace-storm to sculpt your deck more aggressively? I could see this being really good. I don't even think you need Smokestack for this because you can opt to not pay the Cumulative Upkeep.

solitary confinement (lock with jace, maybe with tezz, might put a horizon canopy + tundra in maindeck for that)
What a skill testing combination... I would consider this as a one-of and also consider a Thopter/Sword combo, too. (Que: Rebuild Planeswalker Stax with Intuition.) That being said, Stax faces a lot of pressure by going all in both in hand and board resources. You're devoting most/all of your hand to lock out the game as early as possible. The deck is fragile enough as it is, and adding to the fragility yourself may cost you a game for every few games it wins you. Fuck theory. Let's test this to find out.


life gift? and awakening zone
These have potential, but I don't think it's enough. Offsetting life loss from our own fetch lands, plus gaining life against opponent's lands and Knight of the Reliquaries seems good, but KotR just grows until it can churn out a Wasteland or two and alpha strike us out in a single swing. I don't think either of these will be enough. I like green though... Life from the Loam or a three drop that'll grant extra lands and extra manlands could have potential.


Welp, these are my thoughts for now. Through the week, I'm going to hunker down and come up with my all-inclusive list for you with my hard choices and then my optional & metagame cards for you, Cakes. Hopefully you won't be focusing too much on your deck for a while :)

Also, the more I think about it, the more I like running two Smother main...

[mistercakes]

thought lash u have to pay the upkeep or your library is exiled. smokestack can get rid of it without having to pay the upkeep.

newly spoiled card: phyrexian metamorph. 3(*)

Artifact Creature - Shapeshifter
( can be paid with either or 2 life.)
You may have Phyrexian Metamorph enter the battlefield as a copy of any artifact or creature on the battlefield, except it's an artifact in addition to its other types.

this might be really good for copying goyfs, gaddock teegs, progenitus, emrakul, and other artifacts. might this warrant maindeck inclusion? the fact that it can be found with tezz is a really nice inclusion. i hope this deck doesn't require massive modifications with the new set, but it looks like there are quite a few goodies.

[IamPhil]

Yes. I think that's probably going to take Steel Golem / Karn's spot. :)

[mistercakes]

played in denmark this week. went 1-3!

match 1 vs natural order prog. he got it games 1 and 3 and i didn't have a bridge to stop him.
match 2 vs goblins, win thanks to tabernacle and engineered plagues.
match 3 vs bug (tombstalker goyf variant) game 1 got double force double daze triple goyfed. game 2 got hymed double goyf tombstalker.
match 4 vs affinity. lost in 3 games. null rod could have won game 3 but he had turn 1 nuts turn 2 tezzeret.

not a huge update, just wanted to mention that i lost all 4 dice rolls and was on the draw in each match. being on the draw game 1 significantly hurts the deck as the raw power of this deck only wants to be vs FoW instead of a trillion other cards. (aether vial, daze, thoughtseize, hymn and so on)

the plus side is that there were about 30 people at a tuesday legacy tourney! very high competition as well. if anyone was there and posts on here, lemme know what ya think.

gg's to all.

-Rob

[conboy31]

Ensnaring bridge is a meta call. Some lists I have seen have it md, or sb, or none at all. I am coming around to the idea of running a copy in the maindeck. Against some aggro decks, with the attrition of resources and our life total, I have found that I die to a large tarm/kotr/terravore (all of those creatures get very big, and they tend to run wasteland). What is troubling is that I know I have none or very few outs.
The misers bridge covers many of the bigger common creatures, mitigates multiple lords, and stops the rare progenitus/emrakul. It is an affordable 3 colorless and pairs with academy of ruins. Decks often can't kill it too many times, if at all game one.

[Guy I Don't Know]

I have messing around with a similar decklist. There is less prison cards but meh. Here it is:

3 The Abyss
3 Sword of the Meek
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4 Mental Misstep
4 Chalice of the Void

4 Force of Will

4 Lotus Petal

3 Jeweled Amulet
4 Seat of the Synod

4 Island
4 Underground Sea

4 City of Traitors

3 Ancient Tomb

2 Vault of Whispers
3 Darkwater Catacombs

SB:
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Transmute Artifact
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
3 Mindbreak Trap

Missing cards and cards of note:
No trinisphere and crucible--> I found trinisphere did nothing unless cast turn one against most decks, also poor in multiples. Crucible was good, but not in multiples. Also, most people know how to build a manabase now so wastelock is rare. (Also don't play smokestack)

Force of will/Mental Misstep --> This deck sucks if opponent does what it wants. Slows down opponent so you can play spells.

Vendilion Clique/Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek--> Needs cards that are blue to pitch to force of will, also want artifacts for tezzeret so this is what I am thinking as of now. Cliques could be anything

Lotus Petal/Jeweled Amulet--> acceleration to play spells. No mox diamond because have had too many hands where you draw mox mox land and cant play anything. also no CotW. Jewled Amulet is jank but allows t1: land amulet t2: tomb/city --> abyss/tezz/jace

Before Mental Misstep I had tangle wires and transmute artifacts in main, so I am trying out a board with transmute artifacts instead.

I know the deck isn't Tier 1 so yea, but I like playing strategies that are bit different. Hope this helps with your builds and would hope you could help with mine :)

[mistercakes]

might want to take that list to the thopter list forum. i've seen some lists of that run 4 jace and 4 tezz. that list probably would benefit from mox opal.

trinisphere does amazing things after turn 1. unfortunately you need help from other cards (specifically tabernacle and wastelands)...that leads into the necessity of crucible. it's also fine in multiples if you have tezzeret and just want a beater. people can build manabases...but it's still chock full of nonbasics. smokestack can be excellent, so saying (don't play smokestack) doesn't really justify anything, please elaborate your testing so that your statements have some merit.


as a side note i'm really excited to see everyone will be playing mental mistep, as it does absolutely nothing vs the deck. people are cutting spell pierces in lists that i've been seeing, and that card can be so frustrating. we might get some sneaky wins this way! also post above....redundancy is good when your opponents tend to play counterspells and/or discard.

[Philipp2293]

Hi Mr. Cakes, what's your current list (real life)? I think the thread is a little bit confusing, as lists from MTGO and RL get mixed up pretty often. I'm 2 Abyss and 2 Tezz short of assembling the deck :)

[death]

Hi to all. First, many thanks to mistercakes and Phil for their contribution. This thread gave me an inspiration to test the U/B build (I'm now rebuilding my pet Seeker Stax). I admit I was a non-believer at first and it took a while to sink in that Tezz 2.0 is actually good here. Adding a black source was a non-issue and Brainstorming with Jace + fetch was an added bonus. In my initial testing, Tezz's ultimate quickly finished games and those 5/5's he made both as cover/threat were definitely relevant. Turning 0/0 lands and artifacts into 5/5's permanently with abilities is stupid fun. Jace TMS sealed games with Crucible + Trini lock and he was perfect at bouncing bigger threats. Maze of Iths + The Abyss made Bridge + Cloister combo outdated. Tangle Wires are my favorites as they create windows of opportunity for me to set up. I'm X-0 undefeated with the list below, demolished Team Italia, Scepter, and Pox decks in the process.






















{decklist withheld}

[mistercakes]

gotta give some credit to antipode too. anyway, why no 4 mox diamond? 27 lands, couldn't hurt. and 3 crucible. i am just a little confused about some of the choices. i do like me some 4 tangle wire 4 smokestack though.


also i haven't played this deck much recently irl because my local meta is weird as shit. there's another stax player as well as a lot of tier 2 decks. i played uw merfolk 2 weeks ago and hive mind this past friday. i'll get back into the stax soon enough.

[death]

Extra mox diamonds has been clogging up my hand (except against Hymn :P) when I don't have lands to pitch for it so I decided a 3-1 split with the Opal, which was never a dead draw. Being a legendary though can be an issue, especially when trying to ramp up permanents to feed to an active `stack.

Cutting crucibles is always a tough choice when you want to draw and resolve one everytime. However against blue and black decks, leading with chalices and 3sphres will guarantee that it sticks. Smoketack + Crucible is not the combo, it's Smokestack + 56 other permanents.

[conboy31]

Took 2nd in a little 11 man local legacy tourny. Got out Jaced in the finals. G1 (lost the die) I had a jace countered, landed a jace, he played a jace to reset the board, he landed a Jace, I resolved a Tezz and smashed it dead for 5, then he landed another Jace ftw. Game two I rolled him on the play with something like t1 chalice, t2 stax. G3 I had a t1 chalice at 1, turn 2 trinisphere (force), turn 3 crucible(?). He hit all 4 land drops, played a jace and sealed me out. I played a Jace but he had the counter.

[IamPhil]

I like the 1 Tabernacle main. Tabernacle is best against Zoo and other critter rush decks, and the meta is shifting HEAVILY in favor of few threats. Against those decks Tabernacle has become less-than-stellar, and we aren't running Magus of the Tabernacle to complicate matters further into our favor.

I recommend trying 1 Tabernacle main.

Also, Pithing Needle is a pain when we're on the draw or forced to Chalice on 2 early against hate bears...

[Admiral_Arzar]

This deck looks like a blast to play, so I'm putting it together. I've always liked Stax, and this deck seems like it shores up a lot of the weaknesses of white Stax (primarily lack of carddraw/filtering). I have one question pertinent to my meta. Other than COTV @ 2, or pre-empting him with lock pieces/planeswalkers (sometimes difficult) how does this deck answer Gaddock Teeg? There's a lot of GSZ in my meta nowadays, so Chalice doesn't even really prevent him from entering play consistently.

[mistercakes]

gaddock teeg is pretty tough. if you're really afraid of him, try to fit 2 smothers into the main. smother will also take care of some other problematic cards: goyf, kotr, dark confidant, trygon predator, pridemage(when tapped out) and some others.

i like to run perish in the sb as well.

[death]

I'm thinking of adding 1-Cabal Pit possibly in the Academy Ruins slot, which can be great against weenies if recurred via crucible. It can also deal with the likes of Teeg/Tajuru Preserver/Elves/Piledriver/LoA/Rejeerey. Any thoughts?

[Admiral_Arzar]

I'm thinking of adding 1-Cabal Pit possibly in the Academy Ruins slot, which can be great against weenies if recurred via crucible. It can also deal with the likes of Teeg/Tajuru Preserver/Elves/Piledriver/LoA/Rejeerey. Any thoughts?

I had been thinking the same thing. If not in the main, it might be worth a sideboard slot. If trying to think of a lock piece we can resolve through Teeg and eliminate him with, but I've turned up nothing so far, which is why Cabal Pit is attractive. I may just run a bunch of Perish/Nature's Ruin in the board and call it good, but that still makes game one vs. GSZ.dec pretty annoying if I don't get an explosive start. As we run 4-5 moxen, it might be possible to splash another color for something like Maelstrom Pulse (it would be easy enough to run a Tropical/Bayou) but casting it would still be very iffy.

Wait I'm an idiot - time for maindeck Rachet Bomb/Powder Keg LOL. Now I understand why the OP always seemed to have a couple in the maindeck.

EDIT: I've ebayed basically all the stuff I'm missing. If it gets here by this Saturday I may have a tournament report to put up.

[IamPhil]

How many artifacts do you want to run with Tezz's +1? In my 28-30 land builds, I've been whiffing far too much for my taste.

[mistercakes]

you can always do the 1 mox opal and run some artifact lands if that is the issue. i'm usually not digging too hard with tezzeret, as i'm pretty happy just making a 5/5. a lot of the time you hit your multiples that you don't really care for, so whether or not you put the artifact in your hand is not a huge deal.

i might want to try the new shapeshifter thing as you can copy tarmogoyfs/coralhelm commander. (that being said is it always better to get the undergrounds vs merfolk so you can always deny the islandwalk ability via wastelands?

[Admiral_Arzar]

i might want to try the new shapeshifter thing as you can copy tarmogoyfs/coralhelm commander. (that being said is it always better to get the undergrounds vs merfolk so you can always deny the islandwalk ability via wastelands?

The shapeshifter is interesting, but I'm not sure if it's good enough in an already tight list (what would it replace?). Whether you fetch Seas or Islands depends on how likely you are to get screwed by an opposing Wasteland. If you can play your hand through Wasteland, by all means grab a Sea. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't take the risk. A lot of times Merfolk players will point their Wastelands at your sol-lands or lands that stop them attacking anyways, so it might be a moot point.

EDIT: I remember white stax typically running Ghostly Prison as an additional lock piece vs. aggro. In a similar vein, have you tested Propaganda in this list? It's probably inferior to Ensnaring Bridge, because the latter is an artifact and we don't play Armageddon to make the taxing effects truly back-breaking. I'm curious though, as it seems to be a good fit against a lot of aggro.

[GGoober]

cakes, I tested Underground River as an alternative for underground Sea in Steel Stompy to reduce the risk of Islandwalk granted to Merfolks. However, Steel Stompy plays around 55 non colored spells maindeck so this makes more sense since I'm still primarily using the colorless aspect of River when tapping for mana and only use the U/B for Tezz and Master of Etherium.

[Koby]

EDIT: I remember white stax typically running Ghostly Prison as an additional lock piece vs. aggro. In a similar vein, have you tested Propaganda in this list? It's probably inferior to Ensnaring Bridge, because the latter is an artifact and we don't play Armageddon to make the taxing effects truly back-breaking. I'm curious though, as it seems to be a good fit against a lot of aggro.

I asked this question about 2 weeks ago. Propaganda doesn't prevent attacking Planeswalkers, so it's less useful.

Silent Arbiter might be a good alternative to swarms, and with Tezz can actually get pretty large too.

[mchainmail]

cakes, I tested Underground River as an alternative for underground Sea in Steel Stompy to reduce the risk of Islandwalk granted to Merfolks. However, Steel Stompy plays around 55 non colored spells maindeck so this makes more sense since I'm still primarily using the colorless aspect of River when tapping for mana and only use the U/B for Tezz and Master of Etherium.

Darkslick Shores (or the M10 land) seems less painful, as how often do you have 4 lands out in that deck anyways?

[GGoober]

Darkslick Shores (or the M10 land) seems less painful, as how often do you have 4 lands out in that deck anyways?

Darkslick Shore is a good alternative, although if it's your 4th land drop it is pretty bad (if you had it as a 4th land drop while trying to cast a 4cmc planeswalker it most definitely slows you down a turn). Also, Darkslick Shore is usually seldom a turn 1 land drop even if you have it in hand because you want to play out your sol-lands on turns 1-2 for most parts.

A deck playing 23 lands and more most definitely sees the 4th land before turn 10 frequently (using turn 10 as a reference point on when most games in MTG should be finished). In fact on turn 4 (5th turn if you're on the play), you will see 4 land drops on turn 4 most frequently if you play 23 lands in deck:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AllC2sQZZEPodE8tOFVaU2E1dzQxZmYyTjZ6VUlHSVE&hl=en#gid=1
(work in progress, refer to the LANDS tab for 23 lands analysis)

Darkslick Shore is definitely a viable option (perhaps even better in land-light decks). I suggested Underground River because the pain 1 life is only relevant when you're playing a colored spell, and as long as your maindeck is primarily colorless, this is the best land that you can get since you are seldom paying the life (unlike City of Brass and other alternatives). M10 land is just bad. M10 lands are only played in majorly 2-colored decks with lots of basics/duals e.g. Landstill as a 1-2 off but even then it's not ideal.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I asked this question about 2 weeks ago. Propaganda doesn't prevent attacking Planeswalkers, so it's less useful.

Silent Arbiter might be a good alternative to swarms, and with Tezz can actually get pretty large too.

Whoops I forgot it doesn't protect planeswalkers. Never mind, Ensnaring Bridge it is.

[death]

Here's a list of the U/B producing lands which are outside of Merfolk territory:

Darkslick Shores (and Drowned Catacomb) - CIPT terribly slow and are likely to get destroyed before you can tap it for colored mana

Sunken Ruins - needs a colored mana source, with 4-5 moxen it's useless more than half of the time to tap for mana unless pitched for mox

Underground River - Painland, taps for colorless however it's real purpose is for :u:/:b: and it is really going to deal substantial damage

I'd recommend Darkwater Catacombs over the above, since all it needs is a colorless source to go online which this deck has a lot

Ratchet Bomb/P. Keg vs Engineered Explosives - i'd go with EE on this one since it's faster to activate and won't take 3 turns to pop Teeg. i have to admit that Sunburst makes it restraining

Silent Arbiter vs Ensnaring Bridge - both have its merits but bridge will buy a lot of time against decks that run Eldrazi dudes when it resolves

[Jim Higginbottom]

Since this deck has top 8d multiple larger regional events shouldn't it be moved to established?

[Admiral_Arzar]

Since this deck has top 8d multiple larger regional events shouldn't it be moved to established?

Maybe. I think "Established" has more to do with whether a "finalized" list of sorts has been found through testing. This deck is still pretty new, and people are posting a lot of different builds, so I don't think that's the case as of yet.

[mistercakes]

EE can't be cast when teeg is out. i'll work on a primer for this deck at some point soon.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Played this list at my local earlier:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
2 The Abyss
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Maze of Ith
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Academy Ruins
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island

Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Cursed Totem
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Nature's Ruin
2 Perish
4 Ensnaring Bridge

I didn't take notes, so here's a quick report based on my hazy memory. I know I made a number of mistakes, but I also just drew badly a few times.

Round 1 - Burn

Game one I Trinisphere/Smokestack/Crucible lock him out at four life (after Price of Progress O_o), and he scoops. Game two I mull to five looking for Chalice or T-Sphere and find neither, and proceed to lose. Game three I mull to five, finding Chalice. Unfortunately, it gets hit by Smash to Smithereens and I die a fiery death. I think I boarded out some slow stuff for EE and Ratchet Bomb.

1-2, 0-1 matches

Round 2 - LEDless Dredge

I had Tabernacle both of these games, which made it very rough for him. Game one I eventually raced his Zombies and Ichorids with two 5/5 artifact creatures after not drawing Wasteland for his lands all game long. Game two I went land-go, then Chalice at one, Crypt. I eventually had a million lock pieces, including Crucible+Wasteland, and recurring Crypt with Academy Ruins. I think he scooped when he had around five cards in his library, and I still hadn't drawn a wincon. I boarded in the extra EE and Ratchet Bomb here. This deck seems to be a huge uphill battle for Dredge unless they get the nuts. Even without yard hate, so many cards here are just terrible for them.

2-0, 1-1 matches

Round 3 - Hypergenesis

Game one I drop a fast Trinisphere which prevents Hypergenesis shenanigans. However, after a few turns he Show and Tells Emrakul and I don't have Jace or the Abyss, and die. Game two I have Ensnaring Bridge off the Show and Tell (and a Chalice, which gets blown up by Ingot Chewer). However, before I'm able to draw a back-up lock piece he draws Krosan grip, and it's GG to flying tentacle monsters. Sideboard was random stuff out for 4 Ensnaring Bridge.

0-2, 1-2 matches

Round 4 - Team Italia

Both of these games went very long, with me grinding him out with Smokestack/Trinisphere/Crucible/The Abyss. I had a couple of Chalices game one, as well as Tabernacle I think. The second game I had like three Maze of Ith, which was pretty amazing. Even Dark Confidant's card advantage didn't save him, and it actually killed him the second game. This is the match that surprised me the most, as this deck seemed similar to Junk in concept. However, it ran a lot more one mana spells, and thus was much more vulnerable to Chalice. Its guys are also mostly small. I didn't board anything here.

2-0, 2-2 matches

Conclusions: this deck is a lot of fun to play. It's much more interesting than most control/prison decks I have played, and is extremely powerful. I drew quite poorly in a few games (such as barely drawing any outs against SnT + Emrakul). Proper mulligans with this deck are rather difficult, and I think I screwed up there a few times. I was low on colored sources a few times, and also got Mox Diamond flooded every once in a while. I really want the fourth City of Traitors back in, just because the explosive first turn is so important. I really don't know what to cut though (other than the Volcanic Island, not even really sure why that's there).

I also tested this deck rather thoroughly against Gerry T's BUG disruption list, as well as TES. TBH, it crushes BUG pretty hard preboard. That deck evens it out postboard with hate, but it's still by no means unfavorable. If Storm gets the nuts, we lose, but they usually don't. Empty the Warrens is also extremely risky for them. I would call it favorable, although it becomes a little closer to even the better the storm pilot is I think.

Thoughts, advice? I'm thinking about taking this deck to GP Providence if I can get some more testing in, as it seems very strong in MentalMisstepHysteria.meta.

[mistercakes]

I tested a lot yesterday after chickening out with my pet deck due to a string of losses on magic online. i ended up bringing junk to a gpt yesterday and lost.

anyway after that i put the stax deck together and tested several games vs thopters and merfolk (all preboard)

merfolk crushed me over and over again. this was the list i was testing:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Tangle Wire
2 Karn Liberated

4 Maze of Ith
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Blue Fetches
2 Underground Sea
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Island

Now I was testing for Karn Liberated. He did come in play once vs thopters and he seemed insane. I only ran two to improve my chances of drawing him. I really enjoy having a vindicate in the deck.

Conclusions: the deck could use ensnaring bridges in this meta of goyfs, merfolk, emrakuls, progenitus etc.
If decks can't kill the bridge, it's a pretty hard lock. If you draw multiples, it is also usually a lock. Decks like BUG and some of the show and tell decks have no out to it preboard. Dredge usually has 1 out being a terrastodon if 2 bridges are in play. Merfolk has no outs. Goblins maindeck has siege gang as an out, affinity has ravager, so they can still get there, natural order is difficult to beat and I feel like it's the only card that can reasonably stop progenitus. They also have lots of cards to kill bridges, but maybe drawing multiples can pay off.

I also remember my strong tourney performances relying on the bridges to get there, and in the matchups where it feels weak, they can be boarded out.
The downside is when drawing multiple legendary status cards, extra planeswalkers, legendary lands, the 2nd abyss, you get forced to either make the bridge worse, or blow up your own stuff.

Tangle wires are also very strong, but due to the lack of nemesis online, I can't thoroughly test them. They have been very good in paper tournaments though.

Now using the kegs/ratchet bombs/EE in the main. They might be required in order to deal with swarms of stuff, but the bridges might just be as effective.

I may play in a GPT today with the deck, this is the list I will use if that's the case:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Powder Keg
1 Karn Liberated

4 Maze of Ith
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Blue Fetches
2 Underground Sea
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
2 Island

SB:
Like I said, lots of merfolk is my meta. Lots of BUG, and some goblins, some storm, and some bant. The rest is fringe decks which usually get owned by chalice.


3 Null Rod
2 Llawan
3 Engineered Plague
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
2 Perish

I will most likely play this deck at the GP, with some modifications obviously.
I know this deck is weak to deed, but I think it's just something that has to be accepted.

[Admiral_Arzar]

3 Null Rod
2 Llawan
3 Engineered Plague
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
2 Perish

I will most likely play this deck at the GP, with some modifications obviously.
I know this deck is weak to deed, but I think it's just something that has to be accepted.

Deed is something we can't deal with without boarding Phyrexian Revoker, Pithing Needle, etc. However, I've heard a lot of Junk decks are actually cutting it, so all the better for us. I'm interested in brainstorming how the sideboard would look for the wide-open meta at the GP. I agree with you that Bridge needs to come back into the main, it might have saved me in at least one match yesterday. I also agree with no grave hate - as I discovered, this deck crushes Dredge pretty hard.

I have no Karn, so I'll probably keep running the second Abyss in its place - I found that card to be the stone-cold nuts when it did resolve, anyways.

One thing I forgot from my report yesterday was that the Team Italia player actually cast Serenity against me game two, although I had controlled his board pretty well. He was at low life though, so I simply rebuilt using Planeswalkers and quickly killed him. The lack of artifact lands really helps out against Serenity/Deed/Null Rod, but it also causes me to whiff when activating Tezzeret once in a while.

[IamPhil]

FWIW, you can animate your Ensnaring Bridge with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas when facing Dredge in game 1. This will lock the game vs Dredge Dread Returning a Terastadon.

[C Rayz Walz]

I think the list with Karn is way to greedy to be honest. 7 mana for this deck actually seems like a lot and with 4 maze and 2 tabernacle that don't produce mana unless you have an urborg out seems pretty bad. I think bridge is amazing in stax and I think you really need it as it really stops merfolk cold. I personally don't like keg and do not really get why you run it over E.E.

[mistercakes]

The Karn still needs some more testing. The powder keg over EE is just to help deal with Teeg, as the deck doesn't really have an out to it otherwise.

Anyway,

I played in a GPT on sunday with the list mentioned in the primer with 1 karn. Things didn't go so well with me as my draws weren't so hot. This is how it went.


4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Powder Keg
1 Karn Liberated

4 Maze of Ith
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Blue Fetches
2 Underground Sea
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
2 Island

SB:

2 Null Rod
1 Extirpate
2 Llawan
3 Engineered Plague
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg
2 Perish


Round 1: Nice guy playing burn.

Game 1: I mull to 5 on the play. I play an island, and he plays a mountain and quest for the double damage. My next turn I play down a trinisphere. Followed by smokestack on the following turn, and then crucible the next turn...yes, i lived the dream.

sb: took out abyss and bridges for ratchet bombs and other random stuff that could kill the quest card.

Game 2: I somehow manage another turn 2 trinisphere, turn 3 stax. then i just started playing out all my cards, i didn't have a crucible, but when i upped the stax to 2 counters, he went to 1 land, and then scooped. dunno how i beat burn! pure luck!

Round 2: Reid Duke playing NOBant (he was on the play game 1)

Game 1: I didn't really want to play him, as he was one of the stronger players at the tournament, but it did feel nice to see how the deck would go vs bant yet again. I knew that with the 3 maindeck ensnaring bridges he would be required to get multiple qasali pridemages in theory to stop me. Anyway...I had a reasonable draw which contained crucible of worlds and jace, smokestack, tezzeret, and the abyss. i ran out the tezzeret first as i was hoping to bait out some countermagic. he had a goyf out, so i +1 on the tezz, got something...i think it was ensnaring bridge, and passed. he killed the tezz. i played down the abyss the following turn since I assumed he had no counter magic, and it resolved. things were tough for him, but he played out the natural order. progenitus in play. i had drawn a 2nd ensnaring bridge and played one, which was force of willed, and the 2nd one resolved. i drew a wasteland the following turn and tapped out for something (i was very low on life due to ancient tombs, so i had used my wasteland for mana) i think it was to play a smokestack or crucible or something...i wish i could remember. i was going to start wasting his lands to keep him low, but couldn't do everything in one turn. maybe it was a chalice for 2 to stop his pridemage. i think that was it. his only out then was green sun zenith and he did rip it, and then kill me. poor me.

I brought in 2 llawan, 1 bridge, 2 perish.
I'm honest not sure what I sided out. Brain fart.

Game 2: not so exciting. I kept a reasonable hand, but lost to turn 1 hierarch, turn 2 pridemage, turn 3 or 4 goyf. i never drew a perish and got wiped out.

(side note) i never drew a maze of ith or tabernacle vs him both games, so who knows how it could have gone.

Round 3: Nice guy playing merfolk

Game 1: I win the die roll and I'm pretty sure he's on merfolk because my friend just lost to him. Now keep in mind I'm sick of losing to merfolk, and that is the reason why I put the bridges back in the maindeck. I get a turn 1 chalice down, and turn 2 I play a crucible of worlds. I then resolved the abyss vs him, and things were looking very good. Jace was also in play...how can I lose? I'll tell you how I can lose. I had 1 maze of ith, and he drew 2 mutavaults, and some wastelands. I never drew a 2nd maze of ith or a single wasteland over the course of several turns of using jace+fetches. I also tried to resolve a tezzeret, but he got countered and i never drew the 2nd one (to provide me with a blocker) anyway, sometimes the deck just beats itself. i was pretty annoyed at this game, and sorry for venting to anyone!

Game 2: I was on the play, and kept a really odd hand of wasteland, tabernacle, maze of ith, maze of ith. I know he had back to basics in his deck, and just hoped he didn't have it. Anyway, I do manage to draw an ancient tomb and play an ensnaring bridge, but then he double wastelands me (the tabernacle and the tomb. i had in my hand jace + tezz, and instead of drawing lands or anything i can play out of my hand, i draw jace jace tezz off the top and get stomped.

I dropped after round horribly discouraged with the deck. Perhaps some more testing vs merfolk should be warranted.

My SB strategy vs them was

-4 trinisphere
-1 karn
-1 smokestack (mistake maybe)

+1 ensnaring bridge
+2 llawan
+1 ratchet bomb
+1 engineered explosives
+1 powder keg


Like I said, the Karn was merely for testing. I don't mind testing in a tournament as it will either prove itself or not. Unfortunately I never drew him except the one game where I had no lands to play out any of my cards vs merfolk. I tested him the day before and was happy. Anyway, gg's to everyone who played.

-Rob

[Admiral_Arzar]

@ mistercakes: I plan of running this deck through a gauntlet of the decks that just T8'd at SCG: Orlando tomorrow (I'm particularly worried about Merfolk, although the switch from Spell Pierce -> Mental Misstep should work in our favor). I'll post test results afterwards.

I'm also going to test Damping Matrix in the sideboard - it seems really good against a lot of decks and does very little to this one.

[mistercakes]

i would heavily prepare for merfolk, bant, rock, and team america. most other matchups are in our favor. improve those matchups first, and then take the deck to the GP.

let's try to figure this stuff out together.

also! somebody made a picture for me for the deck on the first post. pretty sweet!

[conboy31]

I chuckled at your picture, my superstax deck is in the same sleeves. I am going to play some games with it this friday and hopefully attend a few legacy tournaments in Minneapolis over the next few weeks. I will let you guys know if I come up with any slight adjustments mb/sb, etc.

[Admiral_Arzar]

That banner is amazing, my first though was "this would be the sexiest playmat EVER."

mistercakes, my maindeck is your updated one with these changes:
-1 KARRRNNN
-1 Powder Keg

+1 Tezzeret
+1 The Abyss

I've been considering cutting a Tezzeret for the fourth Ensnaring Bridge or a second Creeping Tar Pit, but I'm not sure how good either of those ideas are. I'm working on the sideboard right now, so far it looks like this:

3 Damping Matrix
2 Nature's Ruin
2 Perish
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tormod's Crypt

I don't think the Crypts are particularly necessary though, as Dredge hasn't been a factor lately and this deck is very strong against it anyways (Loam.dec also seems to be dead, although I could see it resurging to fight blue). If I can procure 2-3 copies of Llawan I will probably replace the Crypts with her, as I hate Merfolk. 4 Perish effects are there because I have an irrational hatred of Gaddock Teeg, and I also hate losing to Progenitus. The bombs and explosives are of course catch-all answers. Damping Matrix is a versatile card, and is primarily there to stop SDT, Thopter Foundry, and EE recursion versus control. However, it has a ton of applications, such as shutting off Vial, Equipment, Lavamancer, Pridemage, Knight, a lot of stuff in MUD, bad cards in DnT, etc.

EDIT: Another card I'm considering, as a replacement for Engineered Plague (which seems too narrow now that Goblins is getting killed by Mental Misstep), is Night of Soul's Betrayal.

[.dk]

Hello - I'm pretty new to the forum, but have been lurking and reading for a long time...

I've been testing this deck on paper lately, and I'm having a blast playing it. At least with the initial lists that I've been testing, it seems that the weak matches are REALLY weak, but the strong matches are REALLY strong - so I was looking at how to even that out a bit. One of the plays that seem to be the most backbreaking was especially a T1 3sphere followed by T1 Chalice. So, I've modified my list a bit to try to maximize my chances of being able to cast a T1 3sphere. The list I'm currently rocking:

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 grim monolith
3 ensnaring bridge
3 smokestack
3 crucible of worlds
4 mox diamond
4 chalice of the void
4 trinisphere
2 the abyss

4 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors
4 wasteland
3 maze of ith
1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
2 island
1 swamp
2 underground sea
3 polluted delta
1 academy ruins
2 inkmoth nexus

SB:

3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Engineered Plague
3 Perish
2 Contagion Clasp
1 Ensnaring Bridge


I'm not yet sold on the Grim Monoliths, but they've really been helping power out T1 3sphere as an alternative to Mox Diamond + Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors.

Earlier lists I was playing didn't maindeck Ensnaring bridge - I'm currently in agreement with most of you that these NEED to be in the main now. In addition to the obvious applications (Emrakul, Progenitus) and Merfolk (as mentioned), this also stops Aggro Loam. I know that deck hasn't been popular lately, but it seems well positioned with the likely popularity of Merkfolk and Mental Misstep so I wanted to test that matchup in case others feel the same way. Without Bridge, Countryside Crusher goes insane!

Other interesting things of note from matchups I've played (sorry for not much detail, I wasn't taking copious notes):

1. 3Sphere owns ANT
2. Chalice on 0 also owns non-Tezz Affinity
3. Phyrexian Revoker is a great T1 answer to both Aether Vial as well as Deed and applies pressure at the same time. Also trades with Lackey.
4. I had trouble in decks with wasteland (especially Wasteland + Loam) keeping enough mana in play - hence the Grim Monolith as well as 3 Basics.
5. The only way I've beaten Merfolk G1 is pushing through countermagic to land Bridge.
6. Inkmoth Nexus has net me a few unexpected wins!
7. Contagion Clasp answers Teeg, and ups counters on stax, planeswalkers, etc.

I'm also not sold on Engineered Plagues in the board - I haven't tested against Goblins enough. I can see Damping Matrix in its place potentially...

Anyway, thanks for the great work on this stuff - this is a blast to play and can't wait to see where development takes it.

[mistercakes]

it might be right to cut a maze of ith for another fetch. ensuring you can play out your planeswalkers with bridge out can be problematic. it also works best with jace in getting rid of dead cards (brainstorm fetch style)

now that decks are maindecking more jaces in the main, the sideboard needs to be better equipped to deal with him. I would recommend maybe that 2nd tar pit.

Very hard to fit everything right now. Still lost as to how to win the bant matchup. It might require the 2 natures ruin and 2 perish like was posted above.

[Admiral_Arzar]

now that decks are maindecking more jaces in the main, the sideboard needs to be better equipped to deal with him. I would recommend maybe that 2nd tar pit.

Very hard to fit everything right now. Still lost as to how to win the bant matchup. It might require the 2 natures ruin and 2 perish like was posted above.

Perish effects are also extremely strong against Zoo, Canadian Threshold, Junk, some BUG variants, and a lot of fringe decks (in addition to shitting on any variation of Bant/New Horizons). I would recommend playing four, I would consider playing more if I had additional sideboard slots lol. Damping Matrix (or Cursed Totem if you run it) is also decent against Bant as it shuts down Qsali Pridemage and Knight, but I'm not sure what to side out for it in that case. I'll probably try and work in a second Creeping Tar Pit somewhere, but I'm at a loss for what to cut.

[antipode3141592]

Because this deck is about 110% permanents, a really good sideboard card in some matchups is Energy Field. Of course, it is anti-synergy with Smokestack and Wastelands, etc, but it stops aggro decks in their tracks. One of the issues with aggro and burn decks is the vulnerability of your planeswalkers, so Leyline of Sanctity can be a great sideboard card, as they can't target you and redirect the damage to your planeswalkers, so everything form Lightning Bolt to Grim Lavamancer becomes worthless.

Also, this is a deck that might benefit from maindeck Chancellor of the Annex or Mental Misstep. Chancellor is essentially unplayable in the deck, and relies on being in your opening hand, but it gives the deck some game when it is on the draw (which is when this deck is at it's weakest). The same argument goes for Menal Misstep, although it stays relevant later in the game.

The decks weakness to being on the draw (which happens half the time) is why I am such a strong supporter of 4x Tangle Wire maindeck (and only having the 4x Trinisphere in the sideboard, for when you are on the play or when you are vs. combo). Sometimes it's the only way to get back in the game if they start with a turn 1 Aether Vial or Goblin Lackey.

For the further development of this deck, I think we should all try to determine what the deck is weak to and why. It's extremely difficult for this deck to function against heavy counterspells and can even be outraced by aggro if we don't draw the right lock pieces in time. I haven't spent any time testing this deck over the past couple weeks, as I've pretty much fallen in love with Merfolk again, but this version of Stax still has tons of unexplored potential.

[antipode3141592]

@mistercakes, what are the biggest problems against facing Bant? Is it the Quasali Pridemages? The shear threat density with counterspell backup and occasional stifle effects?

Why not take a page from other Stax decks and splash some white for a Tundra so we can run out some Magus of the Tabernacle in the SB? I used to play a lot of Armageddon Stax and that card was such a beating against Bant. Other than him, running the Perish/Nature's Ruin set seems good. Damping Matrix is a house again them if you can resolve it as well.

[GGoober]

@mistercakes, what are the biggest problems against facing Bant? Is it the Quasali Pridemages? The shear threat density with counterspell backup and occasional stifle effects?

Why not take a page from other Stax decks and splash some white for a Tundra so we can run out some Magus of the Tabernacle in the SB? I used to play a lot of Armageddon Stax and that card was such a beating against Bant. Other than him, running the Perish/Nature's Ruin set seems good. Damping Matrix is a house again them if you can resolve it as well.

Blue has a Tabernacle effect as well: Pendrell Mists, not to mention he is already running the real Tabernacle effects which fit naturally in a blue shell with better digging and draw spells.

[mistercakes]

i've tried pendrell mists already, it's not that effective. it also can't come down vs a teeg. i guess the biggest problem vs bant is 2 things. 1 if they get a progenitus out, you need a bridge or you die (game 1) the downside to that is they can green sun zenith up a pridemage. if they are smart and you don't get a nut draw they will typically win that way.

games 2 and 3. perishes are a good answer. the other option is damping matrix/cursed totem to stop the pridemage, so they are only left with some maybe bounce/krosan grip stuff.

the other guy is knight of the reliquary when the decks play wasteland. this is also the reason why junk is so difficult. they get to run knight+wasteland + discard + vindicate + pridemage. there's a lot of issues with that deck.

the bant lists without wasteland are significantly worse vs us than the ones with (barring they don't get a progenitus)

overall the decks don't have too many threats, and after mental misstep, the decks are more or less running 4 force of will vs us. we only have to worry about pridemage in the bant and vindicate/pridemage in the junk matchups.

the merfolk matchup is pretty difficult if they draw wastelands for your tabernacles/maze of iths UNLESS if you resolve an ensnaring bridge, in which case they are stone cold. i guess it's just a way of how easily can you resolve one. they usually have some combination of FoW, Daze, and in some cases, spell pierce. after sb i'm sure they bring in some spell pierces.

the damping matrixes might have to be played to stop the new wave of metalworker decks. the alternative is null rod, which is strictly better, but plays no role in stopping pridemage/kotr. to be fair, nothing feels better vs affinity than null rod + tabernacle.

team america has no outs other than 2 jaces maindeck to stop an ensnaring bridge, in which case you need to get your own jace down through usually force of will and daze. (the tar pit can get there as well) post board i guess there might have to be other options.

-------

antipode...but didn't the other stax variants also want to hit their geddons when the magus was out?
tangle wire does seem a lot better on the draw, but isn't it significantly worse than trinisphere on the play? ----i don't know. maybe i will have to test them. i do like having a positive % vs combo on game 1, so i'm not required to luck out BOTH games 2 and 3.

anyway, there's a lot of discussion on here, which i like. maybe we can all chat over AIM somehow? or google chat?

keep in mind i also have this deck on magic online and so does phil, if you guys want to test. i can also try to get workstation for testing purposes for the GP. lets really get this going.

[death]

@Admiral_Arzar, I would chose Bane of the Living over Night of Soul's Betrayal, it can get past Teeg and can wipe out their hordes, however the BB requirement makes them unplayable. Also, Cursed Totem instead of matrix, it shuts down creature accel fast on turn 1 (Metalworker/Forgemaster +/- Greaves) without giving a chance to use them. Damping Matrix does not stop mana abilities. The Abyss also does nothing against MUD. Against LED combo, there's CotV/3sphere/CoW maindeck, additional null rod effects are overkill.

Grim Monolith pushes t1 3sphere but it can just be another dead draw midgame. Energy field is anti-synergistic with Stax/Waste/Wire/Tezz+1+Abyss. Pendrell Mists is subpar compared to The Abyss.

I played against a G/W and Bant decks, auto-lost to GSZ > Teeg and then to a maindecked Trygon Predator. While Triskelion remedies both hatebears, --

My sb will most likely have --

Btw, great work on the 1st page mistercakes!

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yeah, I forgot to say, the primer is excellent.

Anyways, I tested my list from page 5 against Junk, Merfolk, and Landstill last night.

Against Junk, I played 5 games preboard and 5 postboard, and went 3-2 in both sets. This was much better than I expected. The games I lost tended to be the ones involving heavy discard followed by Bob and then Knight (nut draws for them, more or less). Knight waste-locking us is a huge problem. I did, however, notice that we have way too many bombs for them to Vindicate enough stuff - there are a lot of cards here that just beat them if they stick, so their removal is stretched very thin. Postboard he had Pernicious Deed and Serenity (like 2 of each) and drew Deed a couple times. It's not as bad as I thought though, as Junk has to wipe their own board to Deed us. Getting hit repeatedly by Extirpate post-board blew though - try and stick a Chalice at 1 in this matchup.

Against mono-blue Merfolk (the list from the recent SCG) I played 6 games preboard and 6 postboard. I went 2-4 in both sets. Yeah, it's even worse than I thought - preboard especially were some of the more painful games of magic I've played. I feel like it was a little better postboard - my draws just weren't very good in a couple of the games. I'm going to modify my sideboard to accomodate Propaganda. I realize it doesn't protect Planeswalkers, but against Merfolk I find that I was dead before Planeswalkers even mattered. The games I won were primarily by baiting counters and then sticking Ensnaring Bridge or the Abyss - otherwise this is basically unwinnable unless we get the nuts and they don't have FOW. Propaganda gives another way to stall until we can lock them out with Bridge, as they have few or no outs. At this point, it doesn't matter how many wincons you board out as you'll draw one eventually (and you REALLY don't want to see a Planeswalker in your opener here). Winning the die roll helps somewhat, but not as much as I'd like.

I only got in two games preboard and two postboard against Landstill. I think I went 2-2 overall, but the two games I lost I mulliganned for land a total of three times for some reason (not sure how it's possible to open a hand with zero land in this deck, but it happened). This match seems very even. Preboard we have a lot of dead cards but so do they. It's our lockpieces/bombs vs. their countermagic. We both have Jace, so whoever sticks him is typically going to win. I won one game by baiting counters with T2 and T3 lockpieces and then sticking Smokestack on T4 with no Crucible, and just out-permanenting him. This is a very strong strategy because Landstill has no early pressure, and very few nonland permanents (so they have few ways out of the lock even if they're hitting every land drop as long as you keep playing stuff).

My new sideboard will probably look like this:

2 Nature's Ruin
2 Perish
2 Damping Matrix/Cursed Totem
2-3 EE/Ratchet Bomb
4 Propaganda
2-3 Llawan

[mistercakes]

that's a good point. thanks for testing those matchups a bit more. i did have propaganda in my maindeck when i beat merfolk in a tourney last. that was a while ago! i'll test some more over the next few days.

[GGoober]

Landstill matchup should heavily be in your favor. Everything you play except removals is a must-counter. If you're testing against Gerry Thompson's list, you are even more strongly favored (dead cards = MM), and not having EE means that the Landstill player has to entirely fight your bombs (which happens to be everything except for removal) with Counterspells.

For the regular Landstill lists, the matchup is still a little in your favor, although personally I would find Armageddon Stax to be more brutal than Planeswalker Stax against control. I'll be willing to test some games with you Arzar.

I played Cursed Totem to some success against green and white decks. It's also a one-sided null rod against Metalworker.dec. I think Damping Matrix is overall more flexible, but 2cmc and 3cmc makes a difference if you're on the draw and want to shut off Bant (it also turns off dryad arbors which is kinda funny).

[.dk]

Fair enough on the Grim Monolith - that makes sense. Seems that you would want to make it more of a business spell, rather than a ritual... maybe something like this:


4 jace, the mind sculptor
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 contagion clasp
4 trinisphere
3 ensnaring bridge
3 smokestack
3 crucible of worlds
2 the abyss
4 mox diamond
4 chalice of the void

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
4 wasteland
3 maze of ith
1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
2 island
1 swamp
2 underground sea
3 polluted delta
1 academy ruins
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 inkmoth nexus

SB:

3 phyrexian revoker
3 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 engineered plague
3 perish
3 Cursed totem


Swapped the 2 Grim Monoliths for 2 Contagion Clasps - seems good with Stax, Planeswalkers, and Inkmoth Nexus and gives some spot removal for some pesky creatures. I changed the mana base around a little bit - cut back to 3 city of traitors to re-include urborg. One other change based on the lists that you guys have been posting could be to change 1 Inkmoth Nexus to a Creeping Tar Pit. I've been really happy with the Inkmoth Nexus + Tezz thus far, however I can definitely see the need for Creeping Tar Pits vs. opposing Jace.

[mistercakes]

is 3 crucibles really the right play here? i've tried contagion clasp and a lot of times i don't want to spend the 4 mana using the ability. it is good for killing off dark confidant, vendilion clique i guess, and possibly gaddock teeg, and of course bant creatures. it could have some merit. but like i said i tried it and i'm not sure i wanted to run it over a crucible of worlds and another land.

i was thinking...we could also take this deck in another direction and make it sorta like an uba stax.

running 4 tangle wire and a few 4 uba mask in there? how might that deck look?

how is storage matrix in here? again it would have to be used with tangle wire to be most effective, but could it work?

scroll rack as a 1 of could be very useful here as well. especially with the fetches and crucibles it could act as a 5th jace in terms of setting up your draws. it's not very mana intensive either.

wtf is this possessed portal..i wish we could get 8 mana. that seems awesome with tezz.

cards that could work with ensnaring bridge

null brooch, gusta's scepter, grafted skullcap, bottled cloister.

how might talisman of dominance be in here? i think it was mentioned a few posts ago, but a turn 1 talisman can help ensure you can play out your cards quicker. not sure if more than 1 could fit in the deck though.

coalition relic is maybe another one. dunno. that's enough ideas for one day.

[.dk]

3 Crucibles is one of the weaker decisions in my list - however in general, look how many lands we have in the deck total. It seems like we can sacrifice of graveyard recursion of lands just based on the sheer number that we're running in the maindeck - we should have plenty to play until we can stick either PW and start digging to find a crucible if we need to. And if they blow up the crucible - that's not the end of the world. that means that they aren't blowing up other artifacts that prevent them from doing anything (3sphere, chalice, bridge) while we continue on our merry way with planeswalkers and winning.

Also - any thoughts on the addition of the swamp and inkmoth nexus?

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Uba's Mask in this deck, as personally, I love where this deck is currently headed. :) However... sure sounds like a fun experiment! Seems like it might be trying to get too cute though - if we can deny mana resources along with 3sphere and Chalice, then there isn't that much need to set up a "use it or lose it" scenario.

Scroll Rack sounds intriguing though - maybe that takes the place of my contagion clasps?

Bottled Cloister sounds really interesting, btw... i heard that drawing 2 cards a turn with no drawback is pretty good. ;)

[mistercakes]

i usually have a hard time getting the blue mana more than the black b/c the 2 urborgs in my list help get there. as far as killing with an inkmoth, i just don't think it's worth it as you are spending all of your resources most of the time doing other things.

could be overkill. i'm not sure. i would like to test scroll rack though. seems very good to dump the excess cards and then crack fetches.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Bottled Cloister does have a drawback. If they blow it up while your hand is exiled, your hand stays exiled.

[.dk]

Ah, true - hadn't considered that when i first glanced at it. Could be potential for a blowout there - that could be pretty severe card disadvantage...

[GGoober]

i usually have a hard time getting the blue mana more than the black b/c the 2 urborgs in my list help get there. as far as killing with an inkmoth, i just don't think it's worth it as you are spending all of your resources most of the time doing other things.

could be overkill. i'm not sure. i would like to test scroll rack though. seems very good to dump the excess cards and then crack fetches.


Scroll Rack's power is tied directly with the number of cards in your hand. I feel that in a deck like Stax which suffers card disadvantage (from Mox) and playing out lockpieces fast, SRack will often find itself with fewer cards in hand. At this point, Top is better but it conflicts with Chalice. I don't even like SRack in control decks like Landstill. It's powerful but it is only powerful in situations where you have a larger handsize ~4-5 cards, otherwise Top usually breaks even or is unsituationally better.

Cloister's drawback actually isnt too huge for the deck. You usually only want to play it when you have 'useless' cards in hand or burned out of other cards in hand. However, I can see Cloister being weaker in this deck because the deck already generates quite a lot of cards from Jace/Tezz.

[mistercakes]

i just feel like scroll rack is good early game when you are fishing for cards (especially ones like maze of ith, tabernacle) and it can come down much sooner than cloister. i do like cloister more as it fits a lot better with the deck, but there's a billion 4 drops that it has to compete with. also when crucible of worlds is out and you are playing lands from your graveyard, each land that you draw is useful for scroll rack.

i'll give it a go as a 2 of in testing to see how it does. it can also guarantee that you put an artifact on top of your deck when you are tezzing. (in the same way that you can put the cards you don't want in your hand (any amount!) and then use tezz ability to get rid of them all. that in itself seems very cool.

[Admiral_Arzar]

WARNING: ESSAY INCOMING

I did more testing last night, with my latest list:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ensnaring Bridge
2 The Abyss
3 Smokestack
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Maze of Ith
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Underground Sea
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Damping Matrix
4 Propaganda
2 Perish
2 Nature's Ruin
3 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

The first deck I tested against was Dreadstalker, which acted as a proxy for basically any tempo deck with heavy disruption and huge threats (Team America, Canadian Threshold, New Horizons, etc.). I didn't record game numbers, but this matchup is a blow-out. I don't think I lost a game - this deck has just too many must-counters, and one Ensnaring Bridge just ends them. I think I boarded in the EE and Ratchet Bomb.

Next, I played against Landstill (not the Gerry T list, this one was more traditional, containing EE/Ruins and Nevinyrral's Disk (!)). Note that I got almost no explosive hands here. However, this was very unfavorable under those conditions. To beat control with sweepers and a million counterspells, this deck needs strong and fast hands. They just counter the lockpieces that are actually relevant, land Jace, and fatseal us out. Elspeth is also extremely bad for this deck. I boarded in EE, Ratchet, and Damping Matrix I think.

After that I played a few games against traditional Zoo, and a few against Cat Sligh preboard. Both of these were somewhat favorable for me, Cat Sligh less so because of the threat of Fireblast and Rift Bolt after stabilizing. Do not keep slow hands or hands with a lot of Ancient Tombs against these decks - they are extremely fast, but unlike Merfolk, they don't have countermagic so your lockpieces always resolve. Chalice @ 1 wrecks both decks, Chalice @ 2 is also very good, especially postboard (where it counters Pridemage as well as the the two most likely sideboard blowouts, Serenity and Price of Progress).

Finally, I played a bunch of games postboard versus my nemesis, mono-blue Merfolk. I boarded like this:

-1 Jace
-2 Tezz
-1 Smokestack
-2 Chalice
-2 Crucible
-1 Some other card

+2 Damping Matrix
+4 Propoganda
+3 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

In a brainwave, I once again did not record numbers of wins. However, my new sideboard and some increased understanding of the matchup DRAMATICALLY improved it, to the point where I won more games than I lost (!). I even won a couple of games through Energy Flux (one game through double Flux). Of course, if they get Vial + FOW + 3 Wastelands, you lose regardless. However, with proper sideboarding, this matchup can actually be a little favored for us, which I didn't think was possible. Preboard, I found this to be 35-65, which is just awful. Postboard, a lot of times you end up playing a dangerous game. You have a specific lockpiece (usually Ensnaring Bridge, sometimes Propaganda if you have Tabernacle/Maze) that owns them, and you must resolve it eventually. You have to use less-essential lockpieces to bait countermagic for as long as possible. However, if you wait too long, you may just die, so you have to walk a razor's edge and bide your time and bait exactly correctly. I actually won one game while at 1 life because I landed Ensnaring Bridge exactly before I would have died. I board out a lot of win conditions in this matchup because it is NOT a race. We cannot win that race except in very rare circumstances - we MUST lock them out and then can win at our leisure. I think I only won one game with Tezz beats, and that was when the Merfolk player kept a greedy vial hand with few lands which I shut down with Damping Matrix + Tabernacle. I played Tezz and got in there with the Matrix lol.

Other Notes: I'm considering removing Damping Matrix from my sideboard for additional EE/Ratchet Bombs. I'm also going to revert Nature's Ruin back to Perish because, as a friend of mine pointed out, NR does not prevent regeneration. This is actually relevant now that GSZ decks play Thrun, the Last Troll.

I almost forgot, I also tested a number of games preboard against both 5C TES and traditional U/B ANT (no Grim Tutors). Assuming they don't get the nuts and either T1 you, or go T1 Duress, T2 win (assuming you don't have more than one lockpiece, I rip Chalice after Duress like a champ) you just crush them. It's really not even fair - your average hands shit all over most of their hands (especially if you're on the play, oh god). It's even worse for TES if they try to Empty the Warrens, and you're like "uhhh...Tabernacle?" Just make sure you mulligan into relevant cards (if a hand doesn't have Chalice/Tsphere you should probably mulligan), and you should be good unless they draw crazy awesomeness. It also helps if you're normally a storm player (this guy) so you understand exactly how to dissect their deck.

[.dk]

So I was testing last night against various decks, and I'm finding a general weakness to permission based control. Specifically decks like U/W Standstill and Mono-U control. As mistercakes has already told me, contagion clasp is unimpressive - seems that we've already got game against most creature based strategies. So, I was thinking of running 2 defense grid main, and maybe 1 more in the board. On a phone atthe moment, but I will post the full list of what I'm thinking later.

Also, as already stated - inkmoth nexus is overkill and is rarely a factor. Replacing with creeping tar pits...

I'll try to listen better in the future. ;)

[Guy I Don't Know]

Hello Everyone. I am posting this here even though it doesn't play smokestack because it is very similar.
Mainboard:
4 Chalice of the Void

4 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Mental Misstep
4 Tangle Wire
4 Lotus Petal
3 Jeweled Amulet
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 The Abyss
4 Tsabo’s Web
2 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Underground Sea
4 City of Traitors

3 Ancient Tomb

4 Darkslick Shores
2 Darkwater Catacombs

SB:
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Trinket Mage
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Shield Sphere
1 Zuran Orb
1 Executioner’s Capsule
1 Pithing Needle

The main difference is the lack of crucible, smokestack, trinisphere replaced by Tangle wire, Mental Misstep, Tsabo's Web. I think that Trinisphere is great if you can keep them off 3 lands in play. I have found it very hard to keep them off of three lands unless I have something like T1 3sphere T2 Smokestack. T2 3sphere T3 smokestack on the play still allows them to play 2 spells (on first and third turn). Instead I am opting for the Tempo plays of Mental Misstep and Tangle Wire. Mental Misstep compliments tangle wire because you can misstep t1 plays and play tangle wire t2 so they only have lands in play. Tsabo's web may be changed to something else. At the moment, I am not playing wastelands so Factories and Mutavaults are good vs me. I wanted a 2 mana artifact that is never dead. Tsabo's Web always cycles and most decks play at least one of the following: wasteland, dryad arbor, maze of ith, mishra's factory, mutavault, or karakas. Having the added benefit of these not untapping as well as if they make the mistake of tapping fetches under tangle wire :D makes it somewhat useful. It really helps when the abyss is out to guard against manlands. It is there also to be animated by tezzeret as well as another card to pick with tezz's +1. Is there another card you would recommend instead of Tsabo's Web?

Also there is Lotus petal + Jeweled Amulet instead of Mox Diamond + 3 Lands. Mox diamond is really good with crucible. Without land recursion it isn't as good, as well as not playing Goyf or KotR. the 3 land look like maze of Ith. I would need to find a replacement for tsabo's web before running maze. I truly think lotus petal and jeweled amulet are good enough. They allow t2 4 drops easily with a sol land in addition. They might not be standard but they have been working for me.

I am still working on the manabase. I might be able to help versus blood moon, back to basics and price of progress with more basics, but that makes me more susceptible to choke and lord of atlantis. I don't know which is better. I am not running Polluted Delta at the moment because already take damage from mental misstep and ancient tomb. It may be correct to run them, especially if aggro decreases in popularity. Let me know what your suggestions are. I could run River of Tears, Oboro, and Minamo cutting underground sea and islands, or I could cut Darkwater Catacombs and Darkslick shores for Islands/ Polluted Deltas.

Sideboard:
The Sideboard is Using a Trinket Mage Toolbox. The shield spheres are for aggro, they block quite a bit. Zuran Orb is for Price for Progress. Executioner's Capsule is mainly for Gaddock Teeg. Other artifacts I am considering is Aether spellbomb (I don't know what I would bounce at the moment), Meekstone (Seems good, even against progenitus :D ) Steel wall (replace one shield sphere for when you have an extra mana to pay for it), and Engineered Explosives (Might be good enough versus fringe decks and aggro?) Vendilion Clique could be other things, if I am expecting a lot of green sun's zenith, show and tell, and NOrug, it may turn into phyrexian metamorph.

[IamPhil]

http://www.pdeneka.com/pics/So-fast!.png

God I love this deck! :D

[.dk]

Sorry it's taken me a couple days to get back to this... here is what I'm thinking at the moment:


4 jace, the mind sculptor
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 defense grid
4 trinisphere
3 ensnaring bridge
3 smokestack
3 crucible of worlds
2 the abyss
4 mox diamond
4 chalice of the void

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
4 wasteland
3 maze of ith
1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
2 island
1 swamp
2 underground sea
3 polluted delta
1 academy ruins
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 creeping tar pit

SB:

3 phyrexian revoker
3 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 ratchet bomb
1 powder keg
1 ensnaring bridge
3 perish
3 Cursed totem


Looking at the results from Providence over the weekend, I think we've got game against most of the top decks. Again, I'm a bit concerned with permission, hence the defense grid... however I'm not yet sure if that is even the best choice, or if 2 is even the right number. Any other ideas for this one?

[mistercakes]

just lost in a daily to super stax.

he was running transmute artifact, and dimir signets, bottled cloister. i think definitely worth investigating. props to the person trying new stuff.

[Philipp2293]

I think you played against Jean-Mary Accard's list (Leejay on stormboards and I suppose also here?) which he played at BOM. There's is also on Decktech on french available on youtube (look at eternal central for the link).

[mistercakes]

yea i was talking to the guy afterwards. he was french and he finished 3-1 in the daily. i guess the list will be up in a few days.

[Lejay]

I am Jean-Mary Accart. You faced Pierre Sommen, a good friend of mine.

Current list is :

// NAME : [T1.5] UB Bridgewalkers
// CREATOR : LeJay (magic-ville.com)
// FORMAT :
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Swamp
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Maze of Ith
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Underground Sea
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Island
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Damping Matrix
1 Expedition Map
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
3 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 1 Nature's Ruin
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Caltrops
SB: 1 Jester's Cap
SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 The Abyss

I'm still testing the 4th city over the 4th wasteland, and we may include sylvok replica in the sideboard with 1/2 tropical island main deck to deal with energy flux, which severely damages the deck and is quite played currently.
I think Pierre cut a swamp for an island because he didn't like it (not a good land main deck, but sometimes useful post board, and there is no room for it SB), and that he didn't have jester's cap available.
Exploration Map is a recent addition with cephalid coliseum and therefore the return of tabernacle who was in the first versions of the deck. Still testing but it should stay, even if we liked 2nd damping matrix.
I've started working on the deck only a week before the bom, credits to Frédéric Pérez (Jo_la_loose) for the original concept. He has been crushing MTGO with it for some time now.
The deck is not a stax at all. Smokestack has been considered good only in already favored match-ups. The deck is refered as Bridgewalkers on french forums.

[mistercakes]

i'm very excited about the french version of this deck. :) thank you so much for posting. i wonder what elements can be used in both decks, if they are compatible. i was growing a little tired of having too much variance, and the tutor effects take care of it.

have you thought about also using scroll rack? i've tried it and it's very fun.

anyway, gotta go for now. thanks again.

i said caltrops to a friend the other day jokingly, is it good?

[.dk]

Lejay - How is the expedition map working for you? I think having a land tutor is awesome, which is why i was thinking of running Tolaria West. Of course you can dig with Tezz and it's certainly easier on the manabase (and if you wanted to, you could cast and activate it turn 1). however... it seems like chalice on 1 is a common plan, and trinisphere would make casting it difficult at times as well.

[death]

I think Uba Mask deserves a slot in the 75 if Transmute Artifact is being used as a Tinker-effect. Bottled Cloister (+Bridge) is there which is great against aggro, Uba Mask should be there too against control and combo. Jester's Cap just feels too slow. The only thing that's stopping me from using Transmute Artifact is the double:u:. Although Transmute -> Monglove Extract > Teeg is sweet tech. Meanwhile, Caltrops looks pale in comparison with Engineered Plague.

[Lejay]

@.dk : So far I've liked it, but I haven't tutor it yet. Which led me to question its presence in the deck because of the disynergies you mentioned + the one with damping matrix. However my friend Frédéric has been using it a lot already through transmute artifact. But the addition is really recent (even if we thought about it for some time now) so I can't tell right now. If you want to test the deck without just cut map for matrix#2 and tabernacle for maze #3. The singleton cephalid coliseum was also added with map but so far we agree it has been very very good and should stay regardless of map's fate.

@Mistercakes : Scroll rack has been mentioned in our discussions but untested (that I know of). It's another card that's nullified by matrix, but moreover the deck is trying to empty his hand pretty quickly. It only seems good when you don't need bridge and already have another engine, so it can be categorised as win more. Bottled cloister is far far better as the ninth transmutable engine.
Caltrops has been good enough to penetrate a very tight sideboard. The first idea was to deal with empty the warrens, noble hierarch and signal pest because I didn't like ratchet bomb. It has also been useful against ichorid, bitterblossom, thopter, goblins, elves and of course every x/1 creatures. It's nice because it takes care of the two most common creatures that can attack under a bridge, pest and noble.
The card is definitely good but I also think it is in the top2 weakest cards of the sideboard. Since we are thinking a lot about adding sylvok replica and academy ruins to go with it (both sb, academy ruins has been too weak main in testing) I'm not sure it will stay.

[Lejay]

I thought about uba mask recently and somehow forgot about testing it.
Jester's cap isn't that slow because when you transmute it you can sac it in the same turn. The idea behind cranial is that control and combo have very few cards that annoy you. And cap is a transmutable cranial (almost). Also it can be easy to dominate combo with chalices and trinispheres. But if you don't find a tezz quickly they can play recall and win the game. Cap for the win conditions allows you to use your transmute artifacts as an effective kill.

UU from transmute isn't that big of a deal with the right mana base.

Plague isn't an artifact that's the problem. If we could transmute a plague it would be auto include, but as it is we don't have room for enchantements other than the abyss. Night of soul's betrayal might be a better one of than plague depending on the mana base, but right know I don't see any room for it.

[.dk]

So, from playtesting and suggestions, I've modified this concept a bit - to the point that I'm not sure if it fits in this thread any longer. This is more of a "Bridgewalker" build like Lejay was referring to rather than Stax, but I'll let you guys be the judge. I took this list to Star City Open Denver, so if you think it still belongs here, I can post a summary of the tournament in this thread, otherwise I'll start a new one. Here she is:


4 jace, the mind sculptor
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
4 trinisphere
3 ensnaring bridge
2 crucible of worlds
2 the abyss
4 mox diamond
4 chalice of the void
3 Bottled Cloister
3 Null Brooch
2 Dimir Signet

3 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors
4 wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
3 maze of ith
1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
2 island
2 underground sea
3 polluted delta
1 academy ruins
2 creeping tar pit

SB:

3 phyrexian revoker
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 ratchet bomb
3 perish
3 Lodestone Golem
2 Caltrops


Yep, that's a 61 card main - I couldn't find anything i wanted to cut. Null Brooches seemed good in testing, but in hindsight probably should have just been lodestone golems in the main. Oh well.

After reading my list again and looking at the rest of the stax builds here, I'm leaning towards new thread for me...

[Jim Higginbottom]

Sundial of the Infinite??

[IamPhil]

Infinite Stax!

Put the Sacrifice trigger on the stack, then the add a counter. Add the counter, then end the turn! :D

[mistercakes]

That does sound awesome. With tangle wire its also a bit of a soft lock.

[death]

while mistercakes was away on modo with his new toy (u/g spiral), i gave my pet deck a spin. The matchups aren't that bad, i've won games against aggro (zoo, affinity, infect) and sneak attack. I played against a t1 lackey, i was on the draw. I laid t1 mox (pitched a fetch) + traitors + crucible. t2 i replayed the fetch, fetched sea & played the abyss. t3 i started making 5/5s, he scooped.

[mistercakes]

cool stuff. i think i'm taking a break from legacy for a while. it feels like if you're not playing mental misstep and fow, then you're playing lots of discard. if you're not doing either you have no chance. gl guys with the deck.

[death]

I don't beleive so. Discard has always been a poor strategy because once you've emptied their hands, you'd need an answer to their top deck too which more often you won't have. Decks without Force (but with MM) has also been performing well.

This is probably the scariest archtype at the moment since all your cards are must-answer threats. It is solid against FoW (and MM obv). If they counter CotV@1 and Trini slips through, Force will likely be a dead card until you drop the bomb on them. If they're lucky to counter both, CoW + Waste will lock them out, or Tangle Wire or Smokestack. Trust me, if it's not strong enough I don't play it.

[mistercakes]

i understand that the deck has raw power, that's why i made it. the decks good matches just don't show up that much anymore. it's not just that FoW is a problem. Daze is also a major player.

Anyway, gl with the deck. You might want to check out the French forum to see what they've been doing with the list (theirs is the transmute one)

[Guy I Don't Know]

Has any one tried thopter foundry in the bridgewalker french version with transmute artifact?

[Lejay]

Jo_la_loose tested it. But gathering the combo is not that easy. Thopter can be useful alone but less than another lock piece, and thopter + sword isn't that gamebreaking compared to other things you can do with this deck.

[mistercakes]

I wonder how playing 4 sphere of resistance would be in another version of this deck. Many decks are really keeping it tight with their mana, and it would probably improve matchups vs decks with many counterspells, it will generally shut off their ability to play out their hand and still cast things like brainstorm and FoW.

I can try to sleeve it up as well. Won't be at a legacy tournament for a few weeks though.

[.dk]

Personally, I'm loving the Lodestone Golems in my list. Great disruption ala sphere of resistance, and a fast clock as well. I think I'm the only one that cut the Stax and Tangle Wires for ensnaring bridges maindeck, but coupled with Bottled Cloister, the Golem can pretty easily attack through Ensnaring Bridge as well.

[Guy I Don't Know]

I could see sphere of resistance replacing trinisphere. Major benefit is it comes down earlier.

[Lejay]

The problem with sphere effects is that your planewalkers now cost 5, or even more if you have several spheres. And this deck doesn't dodge wasteland very well so i think you don't gain as much as an edge than with trinisphere.

[death]

In legacy 4-8 sphere effects will work against you more than 50% of the time. I've tried it in mono-U and there were times I got mana screwed and was killed slowly by an army of dudes. works well in Vintage with Workshops though.

[.dk]

I agree that you can't cut 3sphere. It's just too good!

However, I think running 3 lodestone golems is worthwhile. They can easily be cast on turn 2 and start beating down as well as more disruption or your opponent. It's a must answer threat turn 2 as any of the plainswalkers, really. And yes, afterwards the PW cost 5 - however you already cast a 4 drop in the golem. This deck is so land heavy that jace or tezz at 5 is still on curve really.

That said, I think lodestone golem is superior to sphere of resistance in this deck. We're already not great at providing pressure and a clock - the golem does this while also disrupting. In all likelihood it will also dodge deed and EE pretty well too. At least, I haven't seen anyone willing to crank deed to 4 that I've played against anyway.

[beau-ass]

I play legacy every Tuesday, which is awesome. I have had my deck evolve from a mono blue list to this AoB/ the Abyss UB;

3 Lodestone Golem
Creatures [3]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Planeswalkers [8]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
2 Dimir Signet
2 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
2 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
4 Trinisphere
Spells [23]
1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Island
3 Maze of Ith
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
Lands [26]
SIDEBOARD
1 Damping Matrix
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 In the Eye of Chaos
2 Memoricide
2 Perish
2 Pithing Needle
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tormod's Crypt


Somethings the deck does nothing for the pilot. Could we make it more consistent?

[.dk]

Isn't that always a problem with stax decks though? Very draw dependent. These flavors have been better (IMO) than Geddon Stax, but still have issues with consistency. This deck needs a more consistent way of powering out artifacts with acceleration and it just doesn't exist in legacy. Still a fun deck to play, but that's just one of the things we just have to deal with.

[beau-ass]

I would like to share my experiences with this deck in today's event. I played a 40pp legacy event and I blew (0-2->drop). Above is the list that i played.

Game 1 (Fish);

I kept a shaky hand on the draw with a lot of action and chalice but not much mana. That got me. Second match; I can resolve a chalice on turn one. Than I run into Daze (which I don't like doing, but you got to get sóme action) and FoW, losing my first Stax and Tezz. Meanwhile he makes a board of dudes. I manage to block his LoA to death after Wasting my only Island. I couldn't stabilize in time, even with a Tezz two 5/5's and a maze of Ith.

Game 2 (MUD);

I go t2 Trinisphere. He goes t1 lightning gleaves, t2 tap a metalworker for 10, casting Wurmcoil Engine and Spellskite. I t3 Tezz, which doesn't do anything... Second match; I punted by not playing a chalice on 1. He had two goblin welders and a SDT. My Stax was actually bad for ME.


Then I entered the 3-rounds-swiss + top 4 side event after switching to Esper. I ended up winning (1 match loss). I can hear you thing; side event are for the ones that are not going to do well in the main event? Still; we were playing for a DCI SoFi. The changes made a difference I think. Here is what I played;

4 Lodestone Golem
Creatures [3]
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Planeswalkers [8]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Dimir Signet
1 Mox Opal
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
3 Smokestack
1 The Abyss
2 Armageddon
Spells [23]
1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Tundra
3 Maze of Ith
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
Lands [26]
SIDEBOARD
1 Damping Matrix
1 Teferi's Response (by far not always good, but so much fun to resolve...)
1 Memoricide
1 Cranial Extraction
3 Perish
2 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Jace, The Mind Sculpor
2 Timely Reinforcements

For those of you who want to know what happened in this side event;

Game 1 (my friend Taylor with Bant);
It kind of sucked to have to start off playing a friend.
I don't remember well, but Geddon + Tabernacle, The Abbys, Tezz, and double Perish got me there twice.

Game 2 (elves)
I win the dies role. My hand is Tomb, Tomb, Chalice, Lodestone, Tezz, Signet, City of Traitors. So; t1 chalice, t2 Lodestone, t3 Tezz (he makes an elf and scoops next turn).
Match 2 was for him; on turn 3 he had 6 elves and a renagade leader (Tabernacle did not help). Match 3 was about mulligans. We both went to 5. I had chalice on 1 t1. I waste his grove and make a lodestone. He dies with 1 land in play.

Game 3 (BUG Stifle Nought, transforming into Team America)
These games dragged on forever. I saw no Nought, only stifles. I won after wasting ALL of his 7 lands. Match 2 was about stopping Thrunn. My Jace found me a Ensnaring Bridge, which eventually meant game. In both matches I baited out stuff before I stuck the Abbys. I think I want to run one more of that card. It Is Awesome!

top 4 (RUW blade control)
I played against a fun and experienced player, who had his deck pimped out accordingly. Sticking Jaces, Tezzs, the Abbys, and lodestones after resolving a Stax what to much for his clique, stoneforge (SoFaF and Batterskull) and manlands. The second match was similar, except I killed 2 jaces with 5/5's. (He said he was building the deck himself).

final (same as round 3)
Dealing with Thrunn was again to issue. So I did. Eventually I dealt with all of his lands and Jaced him.


-> So; what are your opinions on the addition of white for Geddon and Timely Reinforcements? Maybe O-ring? Or vindicate? Any out to permanents are definitely relevant. Batterskull?

[IamPhil]

Removing the four Lodestone Golems blanks most of your opponent's removal until you lock them out.

[Maveric78f]

beau-ass : your deck has absolutely not defined game plan. How can you play Lodestone Golem with ensnaring bridge? Also smokestack is strong but slow and also this deck does not like much losing its permanents and particularly its lands. This leads to my main objection of the deck: why on earth are you playing Armageddon? You play a lot of 1-of that are neither tutorable nor redundant. In one word, sorry to be crude, your list is awful.

Get inspiration from Lejay's list (even if it is not perfect, it has a very well defined game plan).

[beau-ass]

Maveric,

Thanks for you honesty. I appreciate your feedback. Allow me to explain some of my card-choices.

Lodestone Golem - This goes in over Trinisphere because I found that the metagame has slowed down with the coming of mental misstep. This disruption-piece disregards that. Also, the stick it is on can poke pretty hard. I know that it activates their disruption, but that takes some pressure off of Tezz's activated artifacts. It has dis-synergy with the bridges when it wants to attack, but it remains a disruption-piece in the case that I run into creature-heavy decks (when I want to resolve a bridge, see below). Dropping it on t2 makes it really hard for an opponent to do anything.

Ensnaring Bridge - This requires a bit of a breakdown of the metagame; some decks play disruption and a couple of big dudes (i.e. Junk, Team america, reanimator) other decks try to win with a lot of dudes (i.e. Fish, goblins, Bant, zoo), and finally; some decks don't play creatures to beat with (i.e. combo, painter, hive mind). Overall, there are a lot of decks that want to beat with dudes.
Against the first type of deck I would like to see a bridge on the table soon, and keep it. Vs the second type it seems good to have blockers and disruption early, and maybe later have a bridge (when we are in 'topdeck' mode, with a walker in play). Against the third type you definitely don't want to see a bridge (but YES! a golem).

Geddon - White stax is good because of the ability to resolve a geddon (and then make a tabernacle or get your lands back quickly). This is what I picked up. Playing more lands than most of the decks helps me to get back into the game right away. Having any permanent (all but the bridge) after a geddon is good enough to end up in a better position than they (Golem, walker, chalice@1, stax, mana artifacts, but especially crucible).

crusible, the abbys - super sweet cards that are unfair to have in play.

walkers - card advantage and win conditions.


Taking your critique to hart; I would suggest to switch the bridges to the sideboard, add intuition/ transmute artifact (then I will keep 1 bridge main) and maybe add a geddon somewhere (probably for stax).

In general; any advice/ opinions/ critique is very welcome.


cheers

[.dk]

Lodestone/Ensnaring bridge is one of the reasons why I ended up going with Bottled Cloister in my build originally. If you can get a Lodestone beat or 2 in before dropping bridge, hopefully Tezz ultimate can finish the job. If not, Bottled Cloister, Tezz, and Jace can help refill your hand to give you enough cards for Golem to attack through bridge, while still blanking opposing creature strategies on your opponents turn. The synergy between ensnaring bridge and bottled cloister is amazing, and personally I feel make Lodestone Golem that much better in this deck when running into a creature based meta-game.

My current list for reference:


3 Lodestone Golem
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

3 Bottled Cloister
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Dimir Signet
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
2 The Abyss
4 Trinisphere

1 Academy Ruins
3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Maze of Ith
3 Polluted Delta
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland


Sideboard:

2 Damping Matrix
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Moonglove Extract
3 Perish
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Sylvok Replica

[beau-ass]

I have tried the cloister in the first (blue) version. However, I always ended up losing my whole hand to some removal spell for it. That made me sad and made me decide not to play the card.

Nether do I like trinisphere in the legacy meta-game of today. Granted, it is the nuts in some particular MU's, the decks that pose a problem for us, tend to work around it nicely... Too nicely to my taste.


-> Does anyone have good suggestions how to abuse Intuition in this deck?

[Lejay]

Intuition looks definitely slower than transmute artifact and has to tutor 3-ofs where TA allows for singleton silver bullets.
The first reason of running trinisphere is protecting your good spells from force of will. But it's at least a good tempo tool in every match-up that can make you win games by its own. It's useful against more decks than smokestack or the abyss so I prefer to run it main deck and have more specialized bombs in my sideboard.

[Kinderschreck]

I think the list of .dk is quit nice.
But I'm not that much a fan of the 2 Dimir Signet. Maybe you could play 2 Mox Opal. You play enough artifacts to use the Mox Opal and it gets you any kind of mana.

I'm a bit wondering about the Moonglove Extract in your sideboard.
Also, why no graveremoval? You can easily use Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progenitus.

[.dk]

I think the list of .dk is quit nice.
But I'm not that much a fan of the 2 Dimir Signet. Maybe you could play 2 Mox Opal. You play enough artifacts to use the Mox Opal and it gets you any kind of mana.

I'm a bit wondering about the Moonglove Extract in your sideboard.
Also, why no graveremoval? You can easily use Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progenitus.

Thanks! About Mox opal - I had thought about that, but honestly haven't tested it yet. It seemed like we wouldn't be dropping artifacts fast enough to get real use out of it until T3, but I could be wrong. Probably worthwhile enough to test it out - maybe I'll get off my ass and get Cockatrice or MWS up and working and run some games and see how it is.

As far as the sideboard goes - Moonglove Extract kills some problem creatures for this deck, namely Bob and Teeg. We're pretty much just dead to Teeg if he lands before we have a planeswalker on the board. In a pinch, it can squeeze a bit of damage to the face... Really, it is pretty unimpressive, but I haven't found many better options as of yet. And as far as graveyard hate goes - I don't think this deck needs it. Ensnaring bridge will get you there with most graveyard based matchups (aggro loam, dredge, reanimator), and for those using a graveyard based combo like Ooze or Protean Hulk shenanigans Damping Matrix would work (although only 2 might not be enough to fight the new Hulk builds). I think the deck has worse matchups than graveyard based strategies, namely decks with Pridemage or Teeg or merfolk so I feel that the slots should be dedicated to those.

That said, my build is from a month ago or so, and pretty much just loses to Hive Mind and at least in my meta there have been a fair bit of deeds running around... Seems pretty bad at the moment. It may be right to change the direction by eliminating Jace and ensnaring bridge maindeck, and go to a Smokestack/sundial of the infinite build to fight some of the newer popular decks running around. Haven't had much time to test any of those, but I have a few ideas floating around in my head.

[beau-ass]

Thanks! About Mox opal - I had thought about that, but honestly haven't tested it yet. It seemed like we wouldn't be dropping artifacts fast enough to get real use out of it until T3, but I could be wrong. Probably worthwhile enough to test it out - maybe I'll get off my ass and get Cockatrice or MWS up and working and run some games and see how it is.

The main purpose of the slot that contains the signet is to be able do drop a 4cmc spell on turn 2. Mox Opal doesn't do that unless you have; t1; land + mox diamond + chalice@1. Signet seems better.

@ .dk; if you will get cockatrice, i'll be happy to play-test with you and explore the meta-game, your good/bad MU's and tweek the deck accourdingly. My name on cockatrice is [bo].


As far as the sideboard goes - Moonglove Extract kills some problem creatures for this deck, namely Bob and Teeg.


Moonglove a good out vs. Teeg, as is Perish (wish is very good in many MU's). Decks that run Teeg can usually be locked out of the game untill we find an answer for it. A 2:3 ratio will probably do fine, since some decks also run meddling mage. Vindicate (I run tundra's) is another very broad answer to this guy.
I thought if Cliques as an option, which makes Karakas an option two.

-> against hivemind; I guess our best strategy is to mulligan into chalice@0 and drop a jace for an occasional emrakul.

The sundial combo is definitely an option. Bear in mind though that is loses to any deck that have 'nuts-hands' that can win in one turn. It is also only a soft-lock to decks with an out to artifacts that can be cast with one-turn-mana (natures claim, ancient grudge, mana-acceleration + whatever).

Deed is very annoying, but can be handled with planeswalkers...

[[sic]]

Chalice of the Void @0 against Hive Mind does nothing. They can still play Pacts, Chalice of the Void doesn't stop them from doing so. When they do, Hive Mind's ability will trigger creating a copy (your copy) on the stack. Chalice of the Void will counter the original spell only after it has made a copy. This essentially helps the Hive Mind player to not worry about paying for his own Pacts in cases where you were able to pay for yours.

Against a majority of legacy decks, aggro, combo, including Hive Mind, it's still best to set Chalice at 1. This shuts off all their cantrips making them dig normally, while you destroy their mana source with Wasteland + Crucible and lock them out with Trinisphere.

Memoricide/Cranial Extraction seems like a good sideboard option against Hive Mind. You can take away their Hive Minds to force them to go to Emrakul plan, which can be dealt with by Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

[beau-ass]

;576387']Chalice of the Void @0 against Hive Mind does nothing. They can still play Pacts, Chalice of the Void doesn't stop them from doing so. When they do, Hive Mind's ability will trigger creating a copy (your copy) on the stack. Chalice of the Void will counter the original spell only after it has made a copy.

Unfortunately that is true: chalice doesn't counter non-casted spells... I was wrong.

[.dk]

@ .dk; if you will get cockatrice, i'll be happy to play-test with you and explore the meta-game, your good/bad MU's and tweek the deck accourdingly. My name on cockatrice is [bo].



Thanks - If i get some time to get it compiled and working on my machine I'll post my username on here. I managed to get MWS working in wine, but that thing really sucks overall...



Moonglove a good out vs. Teeg, as is Perish (wish is very good in many MU's). Decks that run Teeg can usually be locked out of the game untill we find an answer for it. A 2:3 ratio will probably do fine, since some decks also run meddling mage. Vindicate (I run tundra's) is another very broad answer to this guy.
I thought if Cliques as an option, which makes Karakas an option two.


Yes, that's one of the resons that perish is in the board too. Difference being that Tezz can search out a Moonglove Extract and not a Perish. And the extract can kill non-green creatures, as I mentioned. Vindicate seems like it would be fine if you're running Tundras. I really haven't decided what to do with that part of my landbase - maybe go back to Islands, actually. I have 2 trops at the moment for Sylvok Replica out of the board to take care of Energy Flux - but honestly that seems like less of a burden than Hive Mind... Sylvoks may still be right though, I dunno.




-> against hivemind; I guess our best strategy is to mulligan into chalice@0 and drop a jace for an occasional emrakul.

The sundial combo is definitely an option. Bear in mind though that is loses to any deck that have 'nuts-hands' that can win in one turn. It is also only a soft-lock to decks with an out to artifacts that can be cast with one-turn-mana (natures claim, ancient grudge, mana-acceleration + whatever).

Deed is very annoying, but can be handled with planeswalkers...

As others mentioned, Chalice doesn't get you much against Hive Mind. If you can manage to land a trinishpere, you're in good shape, hoewever that seems to be pretty rare given their counter suite. I like the idea of Memoricide though, that seems like a great option if they've used countermagic on 3sphere already. Emrakul can't fight through ensnaring bridge... My only worry would be that we're too slow to pull all of that off before they win.

Sundial/Stacks doesn't necessarily auto-lose to storm combo or anything. Bear in mind, those are likely to come down after you've already landed a chalice or 3sphere, in which case they are likely locked out.

Hopefully I'll get cockatrice up and going here soon so we can actually test some of this out. My time is split between decks though - testing and learning a couple others as well.

[Kinderschreck]

Would the Executioner's Capsule not be better than moonglove against Teeg?
Also it works against Emrakul. :P

[.dk]

Would the Executioner's Capsule not be better than moonglove against Teeg?
Also it works against Emrakul. :P

Interesting find, although I'm not sure that it is better than moonglove extract for a couple reasons:

1. It takes colored mana to cast as well as activate.
2. CMC of 1 is not a great place for this deck to be...
3. Ensnaring bridge also deals wih emrakul
4. Moonglove will kill Bob or tidehollow skuller

[Worm1605]

Hey guys first time poster here. Long time Legacy player, mostly mess around with tempo or control. Been watching the development of this deck, and finally built a list. I see many have deviated to a more tutor based strategy. I kept my list pretty simple, and have only played it in a couple tourney's; tested maybe 50 games.

UB Stax - 60

Artifacts -22
4x Mox DIamond
4x Trinishphere
4x Crucible of World's
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Smokestack
4x Chalice of the Void

Enchantments -2
2x The Abyss

Planeswalkers - 8
4x Jace, the Mindsculptor
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Lands - 28
2x Island
2x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Ancient Tomb
3x City of Traitors
4x Wasteland
1x Academy Ruins
4x Maze of Ith
2x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Sideboard -15
1x Cursed Totem
2x Sundial of the Infinite
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Engiereed Plauge
2x Perish
2x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
4x Leyline of the Void

I definitely geared this list more towards taking on aggro, which I think is appropriate for my meta. I did some absurd things to combo like have abyss out against multiple show and tells. The deck is so much fun to play with the T1 Chalice T2 Planeswalker, & whatnot. But anyways, I have been rocking this deck in testing, and did fairly well in a larger event at Gen Con and then got smoked against Ben Hayes w/ Blade Control. This MU seems kind of rough. Even with Chalice at 2 he was still able to control the board. Granted one game he had triple force on six cards. Any recommendations for this MU besides Maze of Ith? I also lost to TA after this round which really pissed me off as I was 15-0 against the deck in testing, and it is my go to deck, so you would think I could play against it. Double Energy Flux is real rough. Do you guys recommend Ratchet Bomb or maybe even disk or ostone in the board? I do feel like my board was pretty solid. I'm just not a big fan of the Plagues. Cursed Totem may be to cute, but it seems good against Pridemage, and even Stoneforge. Really like the Sundials out of the board. Obviously they are good against Hive Mind, but you can also bring them in against decks like Enchantress, lands, or any non aggro deck that commits lots of permanents to board. Then ranch spell bomb and stop time until the opponent is decked.Let me know what you guys think of the list.

In regards to Mox Opal, I think it's probably to slow to deserve a slot. Even if your dropping it T2 your most likely not using it for mana that turn since you just tapped out for your 2nd artifact. Not to mention the chalice/Trinisphere cross synergies are already awkward with diamond. Granted Opal + Diamond is sick, I think if you have a Diamond opening though, your probably already winning.

[beau-ass]

Hi,

On the SCO Boston I ran into someone who is playing this deck. He has a mechanic that I would like to share with you. Tolaria West enables a 0 cmc board. Some targets are;

Slaughter Pact (it gets Teeg SO nicely)
Engineered explosives
Tabernacle at Pendall vale
Wasteland
Zuran Orb
Chalice of the Void
Tormod's Crypt
Bojuka Bog

I think its worth it (to at least test)... Any other options?

[beau-ass]

1. Currently I'm also trying Transmute Artifact. I hope it give us more resilience.

2. Chalice of the Void on T1 is VERY strong. In my opinion, this is the best card in the deck. This got me thinking; What would function as a 5-8 Chalice (on T1). A two drop with similar impact is what I'm looking for. The type of card that makes your opponent sigh and look like :rolleyes: I thought of Dark Confidant. Bob!? yes, Bob...

Seems awkward in a deck with a lot of 4-drop?? If I would flip my entire deck to Bob I would loose 80 life. That is 1.33333 damage per flip. I think that is worth it.

Activating removal?? Don't we play Tezz? Doesn't Tezz make 5/5's out of artifacts?

Our game is early lockpieces?? Yes, that is usually the easy win... Granted. However, the deck more often than not ends up in midgames (which it should do well in). Bob gives you a head-start in the race to the midgame.

SO; I think a 3-off Bob could do well in the main (it goes out vs aggro, combo) or in the side (it goes in vs attrition, control decks).


Any thoughts on Bob/ a 2-drop for T1 with great impact??

[Lejay]

Tolaria West should be one turn slower than transmute artifact most of the time. The interesting thing is that it is synergistic with mox diamond and crucible, but on the other hand the targets aren't that strong. Overall I think it is barely testable but probably bad.

Dark confidant is a very bad idea. You are safe in the late game and won't be able to reach it if you play confidant because you are always low on life in tough games.
You also don't want to keep drawing cards when the major lockpiece is ensnaring bridge. You don't want to keep your confidants in hand because you are low on life neither.
With tezzeret you can choose if you think creature removal isn't a danger, not with confidant.
It isn't even a real turn one like cotv because it can't be played off ancient tomb or city of traitors alone.
The cotv 5-8 you are looking for is a 3 mana one : trinisphere.

[.dk]

Tolaria West should be one turn slower than transmute artifact most of the time. The interesting thing is that it is synergistic with mox diamond and crucible, but on the other hand the targets aren't that strong. Overall I think it is barely testable but probably bad.

Dark confidant is a very bad idea. You are safe in the late game and won't be able to reach it if you play confidant because you are always low on life in tough games.
You also don't want to keep drawing cards when the major lockpiece is ensnaring bridge. You don't want to keep your confidants in hand because you are low on life neither.
With tezzeret you can choose if you think creature removal isn't a danger, not with confidant.
It isn't even a real turn one like cotv because it can't be played off ancient tomb or city of traitors alone.
The cotv 5-8 you are looking for is a 3 mana one : trinisphere.

I'm in agreement here. Trinisphere is stronger than Chalice in many matchups even, in my opinion. Chalice is rough on Storm Combo, but 3sphere shuts down pretty much all spell based combo (no dice on Flash-less Hulk, unfortunately - that one seems like a rough matchup).

I'm not sure what Bob gets us that we don't already have. We're a rare stax deck with a lot of card draw in the form of tezz, jace, and potentially Bottled Cloister depending on your build - i'm not sure that it is worth the cost of having yet another card that kicks our own asses (in addition to Ancient Tomb) to draw even more. Also, as Lejay said, it's a bit tougher to cast on T1 than Chalice since you need colored.

I've been goldfishing a few different builds lately, and I'm thinking that Transmute artifact is quite strong. I've been trying a few builds without Jace, and trying Thopter/Sword and Transmute Artifact. Haven't settled on any kind of list yet, but it might have potential...

[beau-ass]

I'm in agreement here. Trinisphere is stronger than Chalice in many matchups even, in my opinion. Chalice is rough on Storm Combo, but 3sphere shuts down pretty much all spell based combo (no dice on Flash-less Hulk, unfortunately - that one seems like a rough matchup).

Against combo 3sphere is the nuts, usually. The synergy with Crucible+Wasteland is also overwhelming. However, 3Sphere is less good that it used to be, because of the deceleration of the format (combo is still quick, but attrition, midrange, utility decks have become a bit slower). Still play 3x3Sphere (not 4 because of Transmute) off course...Yeah, it functions as a CotV 5-8 or vise versa.


I'm not sure what Bob gets us that we don't already have. We're a rare stax deck with a lot of card draw in the form of tezz, jace, and potentially Bottled Cloister depending on your build - i'm not sure that it is worth the cost of having yet another card that kicks our own asses (in addition to Ancient Tomb) to draw even more. Also, as Lejay said, it's a bit tougher to cast on T1 than Chalice since you need colored.


You are safe in the late game

not necessarily if the draw engine of the opposing deck is stronger and they dig for outs...


and won't be able to reach it if you play confidant because you are always low on life in tough games.

True....

The Bob-idea is still up, although I'm a bit demotivated by your opinions (Lejay; I like the bluntness...) Don't get me wrong, i'm not in the least bit sold on the card, i'm just exploring possibilities. If I will get back on the subject, I'll come with arguments why its good. If not, don't test it... (Also tested Tombstalker; that's not good...)


I've been goldfishing a few different builds lately, and I'm thinking that Transmute artifact is quite strong. I've been trying a few builds without Jace, and trying Thopter/Sword and Transmute Artifact. Haven't settled on any kind of list yet, but it might have potential...

TA is quite strong! I have thought of Thopter/Sword too... One potential drawback would be to have a dead draw (sword w/out the Thopter, or vice versa) in a deck that otherwise only has (very) powerful permanents.

Otherwise; I'm very interested in your findings on T/S. Please keep us (me) posted.

[.dk]

Even against non-combo decks, 3sphere is pretty damn good - especially more traditional blue/permission control decks. It practically turns off Daze and Force, and forces them to hold up mana to actually cast them. Especially if you land it T1 (obv, but that's one of the problems with stax decks...), then you're getting a massive tempo swing. T1 3sphere into T2 planeswalker or Lodestone Golem is just insane.

Thopter/Sword while playing Transmute Artifact is pretty rad. I think you may want to reverse the usual split in this case and run more swords than Thopter Foundry as you can always transmute a sword into a foundry. I need to get some time to settle on a list and start testing on cockatrice.

[mistercakes]

anyone going to be at PT philly? I'm relatively local and will be going.

[Worm1605]

Went 4-0 last week in the local weekly here in Chicago. This deck just crushes the unknowing opponent. Changed the board up a bit as I did not expect any Gobos. -3 E Plague, + 2 Ratchet Bomb (Energy Flux scares me) +1 Cursed Totem.

Round 1 Played UR Dreadstill. While The Abyss didn't do much, Maze + Bridge was more than enough to crush. Chalice on 1 is also quite good.

Rounds 2 Played Zoo w/ blue. Won the die roll T1 3Sphere, into Abyss, into Crucible, into Smokestack gg. Game 2 he goes Heriarh. I go fetch pass. T2 he goes 3x Nacatal. I go T2 Perish, hilarious. He did have me in burn range at one point with a Slyvan Library out, and i had a Cursed totem for Pridemage/ Lavamancer. He EE for 2 killing his own Sylvan. Pretty sure he did not see that interaction as I had to point it out to him. Eventually ultimate with tezz for the win.

Round 3 vs Stoneblade. I had enough gas that he had to counter and eventually bridge + Jace took over both games. There was an awkward part in Game 2 were I ultimate with Jace and have a Jace in hand at 3 life. I was forced to play my 2nd Jace and kill the one which just went ultimate so I don't let a bunch of 1/1 faries and 1/2 Stoneforges sneak under the bridge.

Round 4 played TES. I win the roll. t1 chalice at 1. t2 3pshere both games just crushed.

Man this deck is sweet. Felt like I may have to many cards for aggro as I just absolutely crushed them. Once I obtain some Transmute artifacts I would like to take them for a spin. I probably won't play it every week since it seems easy to hate out though.

[.dk]

nice finish worm! was your maindeck the same from your post above? are you finding mox opals to be working ok? i was testing them for a bit, and honestly wasn't too impressed. i'm liking the dimir signets myself.

[beau-ass]

I went 3-1 tonight losing against stinky fish... (winning NO-RUG, the Rock, and Aggro-Bant)

Should we run damnations in the board for this MU? What would be the best card(s) to have in our board vs this deck? Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be a good option too. Anything else?

It is always an awkward MU to me... what would make it better?

[.dk]

I'm running 2 Llawans in my list. Revoker can help by turning off vial if it is resolved before chalice drops. I also am running 2 damping matrix which can turn off coralhelm commander - although I don't think I've ever actually used them in this matchup. I run maindeck ensnaring bridges which they basically have no answer to game 1 if resolved. After sideboarding, if they are running Energy Flux, we can be in a bit of trouble. I also run 2 trops and 3 sylvok replicas in my board for this reason.


I went 3-1 tonight losing against stinky fish... (winning NO-RUG, the Rock, and Aggro-Bant)

Should we run damnations in the board for this MU? What would be the best card(s) to have in our board vs this deck? Llawan, Cephalid Empress would be a good option too. Anything else?

It is always an awkward MU to me... what would make it better?

[Lejay]

The best addition to improve the fish match-up is transmute artifact. Your gameplan basically relies on resolving ensnaring bridge and running transmute artifact doubles the number of bridges in your deck.
Eon hub is my answer to both flux and hive mind.

[.dk]

Ahh, Aeon Hub is a good one. Anti-synergy with Bottled Cloister, but I'm not sure that's a big deal. I guess you know what to board out in those scenarios. That would definitely help me fix my land base though by going back to running 2 basics.

I still haven't had time to test a thopter/sword version of this - but it would definitely be relying on the transmute artifact plan. That card (TA) seems SO strong in this deck.

@Lejay - are you still playing the same list you posted a while ago? Have you made any tweaks to it?

[beau-ass]

@ Lejay; Eon Hub!? That's a good one.

The problem with Fish is that they also run Echoing Truth & we usually only have 3.5 turns to stabilize (successfully resolve a Bridge + having 1 card in hand). I find that Fish boards in ET's (100%) and about 50/50 on Back to Basics/ Energy Flux. So, the trops could work against us... (although the artifact's that produce mana help). A good plan vs BtBs is crucible + wasteland, to waste our own lands. But that's a game state in which we are already winning.

So; I like to have a bit more X-for-1's vs merfolk (similar to perish for green). 2 Llawans seem good... I think that should be a 80% certain spot in the SB.

[beau-ass]

@ Lejay; Eon Hub!? That's a good one.

The problem with Fish is that they also run Echoing Truth & we usually only have 3.5 turns to stabilize (successfully resolve a Bridge + having 1 card in hand). I find that Fish boards in ET's (100%) and about 50/50 on Back to Basics/ Energy Flux. So, the trops could work against us... (although the artifact's that produce mana help). A good plan vs BtBs is crucible + wasteland, to waste our own lands. But that's a game state in which we are already winning.

So; I like to have a bit more X-for-1's vs merfolk (similar to perish for green). 2 Llawans seem good... I think that should be a 80% certain spot in the SB.

[Lejay]

The problem with Llawan is that it is far too specialised to my taste, and targets what I consider to be a favorable match-up.

Echoing truth is not played that much in my experience (I'd say between 20 and 30% of fish decks). But even then the fish player has to draw it in the next few turns because your planewalkers kill pretty fast. Playing the abyss in the board also helps not getting screwed by a single bounce.

I haven't played magic in a long time unfortunately but I indeed made some tweaks. I also lent the deck to a good player this week-end for a 7 rounds tournament (don't know the number of players) which nearly made top8 althought it was his first tournament with the deck. He lost a round because he boarded pretty poorly against aggro-loam and lost last round against death and taxes because of double revoker and triple revoker (2nd was moongloveextracted thanks to TA) games 2 and 3.

This is what he played :

// NAME : [T1.5] UB Bridgewalkers
// CREATOR : LeJay (magic-ville.com)
// FORMAT :
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
3 City of Traitors
3 Maze of Ith
3 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Damping Matrix
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
3 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Caltrops
SB: 1 Eon Hub
SB: 1 Null Brooch
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Nature's Ruin
SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 3 The Abyss

He tried 2 damping matrix instead of 1 matrix 1 cursed totem because the metagame is full of stoneforges right now. The conclusion he gave after the tournament is that he agrees on what I told him : they will very often be the same card and running 1 and 1 is probably the best choice because of transmute artifact, either to handle mana producers or because you miss one mana during TA's resolution.

We weren't sure also about the 3rd the abyss. Like transmute artifact (between 3 and 4) the best number is not an integer and should be between 2 and 3. Considering his last round loss to revokers reminded me of the idea of playing infest in the board which I liked at the time but didn't test. This should probably come in the 3rd the abyss slot to get rid of teeg, confidant, revoker, exalted noble hierarchs etc... It's still good in the fish match-up, and improves greatly goblins which is a deck that gets me worried when I face it (fortunately it's rare right now).

Null brooch replaces Jester's cap. The first idea of Jester's cap was to have a TA's target that does almost the same job as cranial extraction (+ let us see the deck before choosing what to exile). In practice since you see often enough your cranial extractions, and cap is a bit slow you probably will use TA on another target. However it was really important in the combo match-up because it gave us 1+3 slots to effectively end the game by removing tendrils, whereas just playing artifact locks one after the other could just loose to rebuild or recall. Null brooch kind of do the same thing by countering the artifacts bounce. It also has almost the same effectiveness against decks with a lot of spot removals post board (vindicate, pulse, disenchant etc...) but is weaker against krosan grip (rare) and ancient grudge. However it is tremendously better against control decks and counters your pact copy against hive mind. All in all a clear improvement.

With 2 damping matrix in the deck he felt pithing needle was not very useful, and we were already questioning its presence before the tournament (Frédéric our friend already removed it on MTGO). You really can justify it only if there is a lot pernicious deed in the metagame. In this case maybe we should run another deck, although planewalkers are also a fine answer.
With 1 matrix 1 cursed totem main board, the needle in SB becomes our 2nd matrix.

An interesting thought of the player who played the deck is that we should run even more basics to dodge wasteland a bit more. He wants to remove second underground sea and seat of the synod. I'm not sold on this yet (removing black sources when infest enters the sideboard seems incoherent, and I like the tricks with transmuting cotv at 0 into mana ramp or transmuting seat with crucible on board). But this is definitely something to think about.

[Lejay]

double post

[.dk]

@Lejay That list is a thing of beauty! It solves so many problems I've been having with consistency - I think this is confiming for me that the ideal build of this deck definitely contains Transmute Artifact. A few months ago, I was running Null Brooch, Bottled Cloister, and Ensnaring Bridges all 3x maindeck as they do answer a lot of things - but it didn't leave me room for anything else. This totally solves that problem with an insane amount of utility. I need to test your list out a bit... but some things pop into my mind:

1. I do really like Tabernacle main and your list is lacking (i know you did have it in there before with expedition map - I wasn't a huge fan of that either).
2. I think I also like 2x Creeping Tar Pits main as an alternate win condition to the Jace & Tezz
3. Is damping matrix really perfoming that well to justify 2 maindeck slots?
4. 4x Dimir Signet is awesome as you can transmute them into anything
5. Pithing Needle over Phyrexian Revoker? Revoker seems stronger
6. Thought about a singleton Lodestone Golem in the board? A bit anti-synergistic with Transmute Artifact, but could be a huge disruption house and win con
7. Still wondering in the back of my mind how i can fit thopter sword in here...

Nice work Lejay - I'm really digging what you've done with the deck. I personally like the bridgewalker version better than stax, as Smokestacks just don't feel that crucial.

[Lejay]

1. Like I said earlier (I suppose) Tabernacle was played as a x2 at the beginning and got cut because it was too targeted towards aggro which is easy enough. Additionnaly tribal (essentially goblins) is more and more rare. It got back with the testing of expedition map just before my first intervention here, which was good but "only good" in a very tight deck and with some disynergies.

2. The problem with Creeping Tar Pits is that you really, really don't want CIPT lands and you rely a lot on ensnaring bridge. Also the idea of cutting artifact lands at one point was to remove weaknesses of the deck facing artifact hate, but also facing PoP, B2B and wasteland.
Running cephalid coliseum is not only some good utility, it also is your win condition with 2 needles on your planewalkers.

3. I though the good choice was damping matrix+cursed totem before and after the last tournament my friend played. The idea of running 2x damping main, which is fine, comes from our friend Frédéric who was the only testing player during the last month and is playing two on MTGO. The difference is that stoneforge mystics are far more present in the MTGO metagame compared to french meta. I think MTGO is largely based on american meta so you should probably run 2 main while I'll play the split, but I'm not sure.
Whatever current metagame is, I think two slots is not a lot for a card that hates so well your opponent and so little yourself.

4. Indeed

5. Revoker was there. Frédéric played them both first and when I started to test the deck I played 2 revokers. However something you probably don't realize just by looking at the list is that you are going to side out chalices a bunch of the time and so far we didn't thought of a single match-up where cotv and needle are both good (except aggro-loam, but the game plan is to resolve cotv with 2 counters).
Additionnally in our experience it is really surprising how many opponents are keeping dead cards like mental missteps and CREATURE REMOVALS post board. Really it happens all the freakin' time. That's the reason why a card that would be awesome is not played at all : silent arbiter seemed to be printed for this deck, we can tutor it, and nevertheless we don't even play it in the board. So needle was better on its own merits because you could play it turn one with no drawback (except when the opponent missteps it post board :/) or transmute it more easily with mox/seat, but also because of this.

6. Thought a little about it with 3 major issues. The one mentioned in 5, the fact that lodestone golem is strong on turn 2-3, and bridge. Transmuting it will not be a very powerful play either because it comes too late or you have to sacrifice a signet you might need. I don't see a lot of situations where I'd want to transmute it rather than trinisphere or something else. Also the deck is really based on ensnaring bridge and you only have one card that allows you to attack with it. So I'll probably run a singleton sphere before golem, but it doesn't seem necessary right now. Also the whole 75 is tight right now.

7. Everybody does. I met a player about a month ago that played a tournament with it in the board. He has the same analysis we had on the issue which is that it's good but it does too little for too much space taken. He was using 6 slots + a 7th for 4th TA and you can do a lot of things with 7 slots in the board. Worth noting that he tested it because he couldn't afford the abyss and therefore had space.
If you find a good way to play it main I'll be glad to hear it.

Thank you, but I remind I only started to work on the deck one week before the BOM, and credits for creating the deck should go to Frédéric Pérez aka Jo_la_loose.
About smokestack I agree and as I said in my first post we stopped playing it because it was only good versus control or once you took control of the game. That's why we call the deck Bridgewalkers.

[Philipp2293]

What MUs are the caltrops for?

[Lejay]

Primarily it was there for noble hierarch (exalt goes through ensnaring bridge), signal pest (instant cranial or with ornithopters), and empty the warrens. It also has been good against bitterblossom, poison, thopter foundry, ichorids, elfball and probably a lot more. You also side it in when it kills several key creatures in a deck, like dark confidant + vendilion clique for example.
Also there are several caltrops but there is only one caltrops card in the deck. ;)

[mistercakes]

i've been chatting with jolalose (a friend of lejay) and i tested out the list that his friend used last week, except i ran +1 card for 1 phyrexian metamorph.

i don't think it screws up a lot of the draws and it allows you tutor kill an emrakul if they show and tell (you have to transmute for it) it also allows you to maindeck kill gaddock teeg, and possibly kataki if there are any nuts playing him right now.

we've also discussed sundial of the infinite in the sb and noetic scales.

i should probably try caltrops. so many 1 toughness guys in the format right now.

[Lejay]

To be more precise :
Like 2nd damping main, sundial of the infinite is probably a good call on MTGO because there are so many hive minds there. Although the deck has been quite played in France before the GP its proportion is somehow stagnant. In a metagame full of hive minds sundial is good not only because it is a third silver bullet against them to put with show and tell, but also because it is the one with the lowest cost which obviously is important with TA.
Noetic scales CAN be better than 4th bridge because it is better against reanimator (Iona on blue can be problematic for bridge), and against NO RUG with terastodon. It is also nice against merfolks with all their lords and knight of the reliquary, but kotr much less of a problem now with matrix, cursed and more basics. However this is still in the 17th-20th range of sideboard cards.

I'm sorry but I really don't like the metamorph idea main. You can already answer emrakul with TA, bridge and Jace TMS which is ten cards. Kataki is nowhere, so the only important use from it is killing gaddock teeg. That's not enough to my taste.
However a good artifact for this that does something in addition could find his slot in the main. If only Purging Scythe was cheaper or culling scales was faster.

[Lejay]

Double post again, I'm increasing a lot my post count here.

[.dk]

hmm, coliseum recursion is interesting, but (at least in the meta areound here), i'm not sure it is better than getting bridge + cloister online with tar pits. too many people running eldrazi, progenitus, or MUD with blightsteel for me to be comfortable with that. seems like there should be SOME way to deal with needles that is better than this... but i could be wrong.

noetic scales is also interesting, but not totally sure it is needed either. i think i agree with you that it's a 17th sideboard card at best.

[mrjumbo03]

What's the latest list being used? I'd like to playtest this deck some before jumping on the gun and buying in.

[Lejay]

If you really need to deal with needles/revokers you should play ratchet bomb. Probably removing caltrops since they have a lot in common. The downside is that it has a disynergy with matrix.

Just read the posts of the last 26 hours and you will have a list with some help for choices depending on the metagame you target.

[Lejay]

Talking about the deck this week motivated me for some magic again, so after more than a month of no play I decided to practice a bit on Friday on mws and play in a tournament on Saturday. This is what I played :

Lands
6 Island
1 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
1 Underground Sea
1 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland

3 Maze of Ith

Engine
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister

Acceleration
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond

Locks
1 Cursed Totem
1 Damping Matrix
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void

Versatility
3 Transmute Artifact

SIDEBOARD

Control and aggro
SB: 1 Damping Matrix

Aggro
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Nature's Ruin
SB: 2 The Abyss
SB: 1 Echoing Decay
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Caltrops

Control and combo
SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Null Brooch

Others
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Eon Hub

I wanted to try the mana base with more basics but also find a replacement for 3rd the abyss. Unfortunately Infest was not coherent with the choice of cutting some black source so I opted for echoing decay which has the advantage of filling the curve at 2 and should be almost as effective in most situations. I didn't draw it in the tournament but it was very nice in testing Friday.
In order to have a clearer idea of the impact in the mana base change I played a different island with a dark image in the sea slot and another different in the seat of the synod slot.

Attendance is 49 players, there will be 6 rounds and no top8.

Round 1 against Pierre with Maveric

First game I quickly lock him with ensnaring bridge + damping matrix

I guess I went +1 caltrops +2 the abyss + 1 perish +2 nature's ruin +1 damping matrix +1 moonglove extract + 1 echoing decay -3 trini -4 cotv -1 crucible -1 bottled cloister

Second game he goes turn one savannah GSZ into dryad arbor. I kept a good hand if I draw a black source (tezzeret, nature's ruin, caltrops, island, wasteland, tomb, TA I think).
Unfortunately I draw 3 colorless lands in a row but caltrops + waste wins some time. 4th draw is the island that replaced underground sea, so I'm a little disappointed but just transmute caltrops into a signet to wipe his board of dryad, NH x2, gaddock teeg and the kotr he just played, leaving him with a forest. I play tezz and he concedes soon after.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 against Raphaël with Bant
I don't remember well this one. According to the life totals I stabilized first game at 6 life. Second game I decide to put him under pressure with 5/5s since he is slow and short on lands which put me a little in trouble because to my surprise he kept stp post side and plows my damping matrix. I win with Jace TMS and double bridge nethertheless.

Sideboarding against bant is always a bit complicated because if they play 3 or 4 Jace TMS you can't now if they are going to opt for the creature plan or the control plan with a jace kill.
I guess I went -4 chalice -1 crucible - 1 bottled + 1 damping +1 perish +2 nature's ruin +1 eon hub (in case of serenity) +1 caltrops. I didn't expect gaddock teeg since he plays Jace and fow, so no Moonglove extract. It also has disynergy with damping, as null brooch which stayed in the board. Had I see meddling mages, I would have boarded differently for G3.

2-0 (4-0)

Round 3 against Nicolas with Sneak show

He knows what I'm playing and I know what he's playing. Usually I would mulligan agressively for bridge here, as it is uncounterable through show and tell. But I know he should expect this so I decide to keep a hand with turn 1 trinisphere on the draw with planewalkers.
Trinisphere is dazed, first tezzeret is fowed, and on his turn 3 he hesitates and says "Mmmm I'm feeling you have the bridge in hand" and just plays simian spirit guide to start the beatdown. Therefore he gives more time to set up, I think he fows Jace, and the turn he fulltaps for sneak attack I play tezz N°2 and +1 into the bridge with 3 mana open. He doesn't have daze and concedes soon after.

I guess I went +2 the abyss +2 cranial + 1 memoricide + 1 null brooch - 1 damping matrix -1 cursed totem -1 crucible of worlds -3 maze of ith. Thought a bit about tormod's crypt in case he plays woodfall primus but I don't think he does.

Second game I have a good hand but he has the triple fow triple blue card sneak attack emrakul sequence. I may have won however if I played the Jace (2 in hand) instead of relying on the odds he didn't have third active fow for my bridge.

Third game I resolve first turn bridge. Apparently chalice at 1 then owned his draws of cantrips and rebs. I have both planewalkers in play, transmute cloister into active null brooch and kill him with tezz one or two turns after.

3-0 (6-1)

Round 4 against Alexi Catelain (which top8ed last Bom) with stoneblade

He knows what I'm playing and I know what he's playing. He wins the die roll but mulligans to 5. He forces my signet as a gamble since he has only one land in hand. I resolve cotv at 1 and he concedes when I play Jace.

+2 cranial +1 memoricide +1 null brooch + 1 damping matrix +1 eon hub (he has a spellstutter version and a friend of mine playing it has energy flux in the board so I feared it, it also answers serenity) +1 caltrops (sprite+clique).
I cut 4 mox diamonds, 2 chalice of the void and cursed totem.

Second game was a lot tougher. I resolved a Jace and 2 bridges, but he resolves crucible with wasteland while I have only 2 basics and my crucibles were hit by surgical extraction. I just kept fatesealing myself for my jace to survive by emptying my hand (attacked by stoneforge and mutavault). I finally stabilize at 4 basics, resolve damping, transmute a bridge on eon hub to prevent an unpleasant surprise and because it is the only spell I can't cast in my deck. He has fetchlands recursion to dodge the fatesealing but Jace finally got there despite him having 4 outs (2 jace, 1 disenchant, 1 O-ring).
Clearly a game where running 7 basics + 3 fetches was vital.

4-0 (8-1)

There are only 2 other guys at 4-0 and they both play deed (BUGstill main and tempo team america sb). Fortunately they are paired together. :)

Round 5 against Cary with Bant

He is really bad, but plays the list of good players and practices a lot so he is at 3-1. I faced the guy with goblins and doomsday before when he played junk. However I lost one match to him and won the other really really on the spot because he is really lucky and always give me awful hands after he cut my deck. I mulligan to 5 with 2 lands and never draw another, go to game 2.
The nice thing is that I only played wasteland and cephalid coliseum so he is somehow sure I'm playing dredge. I do what I can to consolidate his idea by counting the number of cards in my hand and various other mind tricks. Game 2 he has a bunch of dead cards and I crush him.
Game 3 I play turn one trinisphere. He brainstorms in response and do nothing. I then go for cruciwastetezz and he concedes.

5-0 (10-2)

Team america wins against BUGstill. He proposes to draw (which assures us for 1st and 2nd place) and to play it to define the winner of the black bordered tropical island. Since opponents behind have better tie breakers it's tempting, but it's illegal. I don't like it when other people do that while I'm behind, so I decide to play it for my personal glory even if the match-up is not easy. I'll bet on the good karma.

Round 6 against Matthieu with Team america (tempo with stifle and stalker)

First game he mulligans to 6 and I have a nice hand with trinisphere resolving on turn one. He plays turn 3 tarmo but when I have bridge + bottled cloister he concedes, indicating he doesn't have any sort of answer main deck (Jace, deed or maelstrom pulse).

-1 cursed totem -1 damping matrix -1 cotv +2 the abyss +1 null brooch. I don't side in cranials because I didn't expect Jace. Also I wasn't sure he plays deed and I still can do chalice at 3 against it. I also know he sides in spell pierces so keeping the cotvs seems better. I'll learn at the end of the match he sided in 3 pernicious deed, 3 spell pierce and 2 krosan grip.

I mulligan a slow hand into a barely less slow hand, but it isn't that bad because I decide to play around daze and pierce. Because of that he plays a second goyf to put pressure which will be a mistake. Indeed he has a hand with deed x3, fow x2 and daze. So with second goyf on the table he has to force my first bridge, and the second I play resolves. Had he kept 2nd goyf in hand he could have used deed to deal with my bridge and keep fows for other threats. I then can play jace and cruciwaste which will save me from pernicious. He manages to resolve the deed but I keep him from 3 mana thanks to mana denial + fatesealing. He concedes once he's locked.

6-0 (12-2)

I admit I would have been a bit more comfortable playing a pithing needle/revoker in the board against sneak attack and pernicious deed (worth noting I had TA in hand when my opponent resolved a deed in the last game), but it wasn't necessary either. I don't think I would change anything right now, maybe thinking about playing the 3rd crucible in the sb (was main deck at one point) because it was really good.
Although my opponents made some mistakes, I expect this deck to be a strong contender for GP Amsterdam if the metagame doesn't shift too much as it is well positioned, very powerful and completely under the radar.

[mistercakes]

thanks for the post! this was great. :)

[bruizar]

Liliana of the Veil would be pretty good in this deck. Crucible laughs at the discard, and Liliana will put your opponent in topdeck mode as well (which these types of decks usually do). Mox Diamonds fuel a quick liliana, and quick Planeswalkers are good. With Liliana, Jace, Ensnaring Bridge and The Abyss, creature strategies have a lot to overcome. Liliana is also good against non creature strategies, due to the discard making it hard for combo to assemble a winning hand.


I would consider

+1 Kormus Bell
+2 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
+2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
+3 Liliana of the Veil
Sideboard +1 Darkblast maybe

-3 Maze of Ith
-2 Island
-3 ?

Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale deals with creatures
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale + Wasteland deals with creatures better
Tabernacle + Crucible + Wasteland deals with creatures even better still
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth solves CC of Liliana
Urborg, Tabernacle, Kormus Bell = Wrath of God+Armageddon every turn
Urborg turns your ancient tombs into nice, tappable swamps.
Kormus Bell + Urborg provides alternate win / chump blocks to defend planeswalkers
Kormus Bell gives swamps summoning sickness
Kormus Bell + Urborg gives all lands summoning sickness
liliana + jace can bounce + discard creatures
liliana + jace can discard a card + fateseal into a win
liliana + jace can discard first, then brainstorm to maximize value
liliana + tez can discard first, then impulse to maximize value
liliana + crucible breaks parity
liliana + deck -> This deck empties hand quickly, so the discard becomes one sided once you empty your hand.

[Lejay]

A planewalkers with 3cc in our colours definitely sounded like good news. However I really don't see it good in this deck in almost every aspect.
The good thing is that discarding yourself isn't too much of a pain because you play 3 ensnaring bridge and 2 crucible, however :

- You won't assemble 1BB sooner than 2UU or 2UB very often because of tomb and city.
- Your opponent discarding a card of his choice is completely underpowered since your whole deck is about making dead cards for him.
- The edict effect is completely unnecessary thanks to your 3+3 bridges. The only creature you need to deal with is teeg and it will be a long way before you can deal with it since it is played in decks with lots of creatures
- The ultimate is a complete gadget.

In short forget it.

[Lejay]

Apparently you edited your post for some more ideas.

Tabernacle is a good card and it has been played back and forth in the deck. The deck is currently very fine to cope with creatures, only a resurgence in tribal decks (goblins and folk) would lead me to play it again in the board.

Kormus bell is a do nothing card with 4cc when you don't have urborg. You preconize running two which is not a lot to find a not winning combo, and can be problematic since it is legendary and you want to empty your hand.
I don't see any interest in talking about liliana+jace or tezz. If either of these two are on the table I should win regardless.
You really don't want to assemble cute combos with this deck, you want to crush your opponent with big spells that are powerful on their own.

Like academy ruins, urborg tomb of Y. has been considered for the sideboard when you side out mox diamonds and mazes against control so that you keep a decent number of mana sources. But this is not enough incentive to take slots, and as I explained earlier I really like the idea having a tougher mana base main deck.

Darkblast is interesting with jace and crucible but using two cards to deal with teeg is forbidding.


To everyone else reading this thread, if you have an idea that seems to be a clear improvement, don't hesitate. But please test the decklist before considering changing 8 or 10 main deck slots. It's not like the deck is currently bad.

[bruizar]

I"m not sure if I agree with you entirely.

Yes, tomb/traitors allows for explosive 4cc planeswalkers. The thing is, this card is like the abyss with added utility against combo. I don't think the edict effect is useless at all to be honest. You need ways to protect your planeswalkers and you will not always have a bridge in play, or a tezz-token that doesnt receive creature or artifact hate.

The things I fear most is decks with Spell Pierce, Burn (that uses more than 1CC spells), engineered explosives and pernicious deeds. Liliana doesn't solve any of those. However I found that the main problem with this deck and decks like this is that they die to themselves (bad draws/topdecks). Liliana is a really versatile and good control element that helps you stall into the late game or win games by herself due to the discard. Liliana pressures the opponent to play spells since otherwise you will have to trade the card you just drew with another one because of the discard effect. That means that your opponent will probably try to swarm with creatures, which Liliana is also able to handle due to her edict.

Her ultimate may not occur as often but its still a smokestack-like effect added to 2 already great abilities and a cheap casting cost. I can understand why you would pass up on Liliana. I'm personally not convinced yet that she's not good enough.

[Lejay]

One thing going for liliana is that the optimal number of planewalkers in the deck is probably ten. So a non optimal planewalker could get in. However the casting cost would need some adjustements for the mana base and all in all I don't feel Liliana's effects are worth it.

[mistercakes]

liliana might not be worth playing right now, if people do tend to play her a lot, she could possibly be an issue destroying lots of our permanents....but who knows. let's just wait until the set comes out before theorycrafting the deck with it.

[mistercakes]

also, woke up a little late! didn't realize the legacy tournament was at 10 AM instead of 12 PM today. i will still be stopping by the PT, but just for some side events now.

[.dk]

@Lejay -

After goldfishing for a while, I'm thinking the TA/Bridgewalker list is the way to go. It seems to be an overall superior plan to the traditional stax, and can actually get itself out of sticky situations, unlikely the traditional builds of stax. This build is much less reliant on a specific opening hands and can adapt the gameplan.

Couple things that still aren't clicking with me after goldfishing for a while (and granted, I haven't had a chance to actually play matches with this build yet - will try to get some in on cockatrice this week). I'm not yet sold on Cephalid Coliseum as a strong enough alternate win condition, but that could be because I haven't played into that situation. Also questioning only 3 trinispheres? That seems to be the best T1 play in most situations.

[Lejay]

Coliseum isn't supposed to be a strong alternate win condition. It's a good mid/late game card to dig your deck or get rid of redundant planewalkers that is also useful in the early game as a mana producer. It just happens to be a nice alternate win condition when you are locked by needle or revoker, or to kill in additional turns after Jace's ultimate.

I've been questioning the choice of 3 trinisphere after the tournament too because it has been so good, and I was already thinking about it in the sideboard because I maybe wanted one more card against control (in competition with 3rd crucible, 4th cranial, telemin performance, pithing needle and Jace 1.0). There has been some cards like tabernacle or mishra's factory or 3rd the abyss that have been going in, get cut, going in again and cut again and I'm feeling it will be the same thing with 4th trinisphere. Multiples without transmute artifact are really annoying and if your really need it you have 6 copies with TA. However it is one of the few things that I think are worth testing again.

[Lejay]

I thought about something tonight and since people here will probably have more time than me to test it I'll share it right away. I was still thinking about the additional sideboard slot against control (especially crucible), to an alternative to echoing decay, and additional mana source or acceleration main deck (fellwar stone, singleton mox opal, or off color signet), and somehow imagined merging all of them with these changes :

Main deck -1 cursed totem +1 crucible
Sideboard -1 damping matrix -1 echoing decay +1 cursed totem +1 cabal pit

Let me know what you think about it and about any testing results.

[beau-ass]

I was already playing with an extra crucible (at the expense of the totem). I like it better.

I have tried Vedalken Shackles i.s.o. the echoing decay, since the deck has 8 'islands' now and its fetchable.
It is goes well with; the Abbys, Jace, Maze, islands, (extirpated) bridges...
It does well against; Bob (mainly), Lavamancer, Fishes, Noble Hierarch (attacks under a bridge), other hate-bears. (so it also takes over the place of damping matrix in a way).

[Lejay]

I've been ill the last couple of days, so I've been able to test on mws. Here are the results :

The return of the 3rd crucible main deck was fine, but probably not the best option. It gets cut again.

Concerning cabal pit my team mate Jo_la_loose is sceptical about it (he didn't test) but in my testing it has either been a mana source or did its job. That sounds like a good card to me in this deck, and revoker is now less of a problem.

Due to a higher density of goblins and decks with lots of removal on mws I added back the 4th ensnaring bridge in the sideboard for resilience. Last time I had it sb was for the same reasons. It's kind of a metagame choice that is not too specialised.
To include it I placed second matrix main deck instead of cursed totem which got cut. The reason I didn't keep the cursed totem that I've been defending a lot is I feel there are some decks you need to handle with 2 hate slots like painter or thopter foundry, or artifact mass removals (EE, obl.stone, powder keg...), etc... So in short if you have 3 slots (1 damping, 1 cursed totem and 1 of needle/damping/revoker) playing cursed totem as one of the 3 slots is optimal. If you play only two you have to play either 2 matrix or 1 matrix + one of needle/revoker in the 75 (probably 2 matrix).

[Lejay]

Witchbane Orb
Artifact (Rare)
When Witchbane Orb enters the battlefield, destroy all Curses attached to you.
You have hexproof.
236/264

So it could be included as a generic answer to discard (already have bottled), burn (although chalice is there), milling (painter is dealt with matrix but if another milling deck appears with the mechanics of this set it will be useful), or intuition etc...
That's not very good but it has the nice idea to protect from tendrills and hurkyl's recall at the same time.

I'm a bit disappointed to not see any playtesting results nor tournament reports. Are people having trouble in sideboarding or mulliganing with the deck ? It's hard to manage at the beginning but after a month it should be ok.

[Worm1605]

I'm so confused on running less than 4x Crucible. It's the engine that drives the whole deck. Are people just relying that heavily on Transmute that they can tinker for one?

Here is an old exert from Nihil Credo pertaining to mono white stax. It has some merit and is entertaining if nothing.

Originally Posted by _erbs_
"By the way i only run 3 crusible of worlds"

*banghead*

(which is not the same as *headbang*)


I've written it elsewhere in this thread, and you can ask other people to back me up on this: you must run 4 Crucible of Worlds in Stax, period. I am as confident on this number as on any other I have ever written.

It's redundant in multiples, yes (other than as a Smokestack sacrifice). It's also the glue that makes Stax a deck worth playing, and one of the two sources of significant card advantage you run (the other being Chalice).

Without Crucible, your cards have to show up in a specific way in order not to shit on each other. With Crucible, you have a deck full of high-quality cocaine powder ready to be snorted from 20-year-old Kylie Minogue's ass. Play fucking four.

[Lejay]

Sorry if you didn't catch on this but it seems the majority of people interested in what was planewalkers stax are now playing the bridgewalkers list I posted which is absolutely not a stax deck. We should probably create another thread but it probably won't happen before GP Amsterdam.

[Worm1605]

nice finish worm! was your maindeck the same from your post above? are you finding mox opals to be working ok? i was testing them for a bit, and honestly wasn't too impressed. i'm liking the dimir signets myself.

I just realized that was a typo. I have been running the above list, but have Diamonds in the whole time, not Opals. Thanks for heads up.

[Worm1605]

Sorry if you didn't catch on this but it seems the majority of people interested in what was planewalkers stax are now playing the bridgewalkers list I posted which is absolutely not a stax deck. We should probably create another thread but it probably won't happen before GP Amsterdam.

Seems like the same deck to me, - The Abyss, and 4 stax pieces, + Transmute and more acceleration. It still seems like the same deck, just being a little more versatile while being a little less consistent. Kinda seems a little weaker to aggro to. I guess transmute can make up for that though.

[Lejay]

The deck doesn't play smokestack, and without smokestack crucible is far less necessary.
We could play the abyss main deck, it's just not necessary and too specialised.
Smokestack is only good versus control and aggro control.
The deck is very consistent once you realise it can mulligan down to 5 or 4 and still manage to win.
It is for sure more consistent than a list with smokestack and without transmute artifact and signets.

[beau-ass]

The deck that we agree on now (bridgewalker) is not a stax-deck. I have to agree with Lejay.

It simply tries to create a board where the planeswalkers thrive best on. Nothing too controlling. It tries to gain tempo by;
(A) creating a lot of dead cards in the opposing deck (creature removal, one-drops, especially Mental Misstep {damn, that card was good for us, now its banned})
(B) drawing a bunch with the planeswalkers.

So it is a tempo-deck (with added factor that it like ensnaring bridge a lot) ISO a control/ prison deck. One should play it as such. That is my experience.

@ Lejay;
(1) all the luck in A'dam (that was my hometown till i moved to Boston).
(2) I played the local Monday-night-legacy (4 rounds) and I only lost 1 game. Here is a short report on my boarding strategy. Tell me where you disagree.

Round 1 Aggro bant (2-0)
-4 Chalice, -1 Bottled cloister, -1 Crucible, -1 Transmute Artifact, +3 perish, +2 the Abbys, +1 Verdalken Shackles, +1 Moongroove Extract

Round 2 Reanimator (2-0)
-1 Damping matrix, -1 Bottled cloister, -2 crucible, -1 Maze of Ith, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +3 Memoricide, +1 Smoke stax (they play few lands)

Round 3 NO RUG (2-1)
-1 Damping matrix, -1 crucible, -2??? +3 perish, +1 Verdalken Shackles

Round 4 Fish (2-0)
-1 crucible, -3 chalice, +2 The abbys, +1 Shackles, +1 Phyrexian Revoker

3 Perish
2 the Abbys
2 Memoricide
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Eon Hob
1 Smoke Stax
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Null Brooch
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Verdalken Shackles
1 Moongroove Extract

[Lejay]

The deck that we agree on now (bridgewalker) is not a stax-deck. I have to agree with Lejay.

It simply tries to create a board where the planeswalkers thrive best on. Nothing too controlling. It tries to gain tempo by;
(A) creating a lot of dead cards in the opposing deck (creature removal, one-drops, especially Mental Misstep {damn, that card was good for us, now its banned})
(B) drawing a bunch with the planeswalkers.

So it is a tempo-deck (with added factor that it like ensnaring bridge a lot) ISO a control/ prison deck. One should play it as such. That is my experience.

I agree on each point independantly, but I have to say that both (A) and (B) are card advantage, not tempo.



@ Lejay;
(1) all the luck in A'dam (that was my hometown till i moved to Boston).
(2) I played the local Monday-night-legacy (4 rounds) and I only lost 1 game. Here is a short report on my boarding strategy. Tell me where you disagree.

(1) Thanks. I'm tempted to work on doomsday again, but since storm decks are back I'll probably stick with Bridgewalkers.
(2) Glad it is working for you. About sideboarding :

Against aggro-bant it seems overall ok and details probably change depending on the components of the build you faced so I can't tell you with confidence if you went wrong somewhere.

For réanimator I would have made :
-1 damping matrix -2 crucible (they fetch basics for sure game 2) +1 tormod's crypt + 2 the abyss.
I'm not sure about smokestack but I never really played with the card.

For No RUG (not tested a lot): -1 damping matrix -1 bottled cloister (too dangerous with ancient grudge in the equation) -3 transmute artifact (you want to resolve chalice at 1 and 2 for grudge, and they side in rebs) -1 crucible + 3 perish +1 vedalken shackles + 2 cranial extraction.
Depending on the number of jaces and grudges post sb you may have more or less cranials/crucibles.

Fish : -1 damping matrix (useful but not that much and antisynergistic with null brooch) -4 chalice +2 the abyss +1 null brooch +1 shackles +1 revoker
You could keep a chalices if you know your opponent is playing echoing truth. But null brooch has the advantage of being usefull against all sorts of bounce and energy flux. If you know he is playing flux you need eon hub.

Vedalken shackles isn't bad but I would question it over the 4th bridge (not saying you have to run 4th bridge though, it's metadependant)

Did shackles or smokestack shine particularly somewhere in testing ?


An interesting point Jo_la_loose made yesterday is that sundial of the infinite answers just like null brooch an end of turn bounce (and particularly rebuild or recall against storm). So if hive mind stays popular it will be even more worth it.

[beau-ass]

I agree on each point independantly, but I have to say that both (A) and (B) are card advantage, not tempo.

Indeed, tempo is not the word...



For réanimator I would have made :
-1 damping matrix -2 crucible (they fetch basics for sure game 2) +1 tormod's crypt + 2 the abyss.

I find that the Abbys is essentially dead against the current reanimator lists (3/4 Gin Gitaxius, Inkwell, Sphinx, Iona, Angel of Despair). It gets Gin eventually, but the damage is already done then.


Vedalken shackles isn't bad but I would question it over the 4th bridge.

This gets around extirepate and other exile effects. Also, the Shackles could take a Hierarch once (i havent been playing lately), when he was trying to gain tempo. He had to commit more than he was liked and ran into a perish, leaving him empty-handed. Also, every time I make the Shackles, people (playing Bop, birds, stoneforge, hierarch) seem to dislike it more than a bridge.


An interesting point Jo_la_loose made yesterday is that sundial of the infinite answers just like null brooch an end of turn bounce (and particularly rebuild or recall against storm). So if hive mind stays popular it will be even more worth it.

Do you think it should compete with Eon Hub in that case?


About Smoke Stack; There are situations where this particular card will easily win you the game (cast, or off of a TA). I could see a situation come up against reanimator where that would be the case. -> ME trinisphere, some lands, maybe planeswalker, HE fatty (three turn clock), three lands. We have to find a brigde which likely dies to an Angel of Despair, or we lock them out without the risk of him doing anything (thrinisphere). There are more/better examples...

[Lejay]

The abyss is great for Iona since without it, naming blue on Iona will be 100% the right play. Drawing the abyss will mean they made a mistake and you also prevent some future fatties to stick to the board. I also don't see the issue with angel of despair, if it destroys the abyss then it didn't destroy another lock piece like bridge. So Gin isn' t the only good target.

I realised the noble hierarch argument and it is by far the best when you don't play caltrops. However I'll still go with caltrops because in match-ups with noble hierarchs they often play qasali as well. This fact makes damping matrix important and therefore shackles is a less optimal choice.

I still have no real opinion on the sundial issue, didn't think about it nor tested it. I guess I'll ask Jo_la_loose his experience in the MTGO metagame. But I would lean towards keeping eon hub in the sideboard.

About smokestack once again I'm not sure it's better than transmuting another bridge. Smokestack has been judged overkill and not good in difficult match-ups in our early testings. I don't think this is different as a singleton.

[mistercakes]

i think smokestack really is just another deck. i might try to go back to something closer to my original build, and then i could also have a transmute package in the board. i like having the raw power vs the field where the bridge is fantastic vs most decks.

again, i'm not claiming the stax version is better, b/c it's frankly not. i do however love casting smokestack and tangle wire a lot more than i love casting transmute artifact.

i'm not sure how good the bridgewalkers could be vs goblins if they run ancient grudge.

i'm just interested in seeing where this format is headed again.

[Lejay]

i'm not sure how good the bridgewalkers could be vs goblins if they run ancient grudge.

BW would be in a pretty bad shape.

[beau-ass]

BW would be in a pretty bad shape.

Any answers to the big-red-horde when the deck picks up again? Or just pick up another deck, and play combo/dredge/reanimator?? Spellskite post board (blocker and it protects the bridge two turns later)?


Caltrops or Shackles... Caltrops it is if bant stays around, otherwise i'll go for Shackles!

[Lejay]

I played goblins, and although I think people were exagerating by considering it dead in the misstep era, the deck was already in a bad shape before misstep. So even if we are more likely to face it, it shouldn't be a problem often enough to be worrying. I expect much more a rise in storm decks because of both the ban of misstep and the printing of past in flames, and we all know how goblins behave in face of a storm : they go back to their caves.

If you want a card against goblins, indeed shackles has traditionnally been a very good goblins hoser. However I'm unsure of its effectiveness against goblins in bridgewalkers and it isn't synergistic with matrix (once again important in the match-up) so my personnal choice would go to more bridges or more caltrops which are versatile.
If a goblins infested meta would appear I guess I would play another deck. But it will also be not very difficult to adapt the deck with some number of tabernacles main and 3-4 engineered plagues sb.

[Lejay]

So after of lots of new cards tested (most didn't make the cut) here is where I am one week before the GP (and this shouldn't change) :

1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Swamp
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
3 Maze of Ith
3 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
6 Island
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Damping Matrix
1 Talisman of Dominance
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
4 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 1 Nature's Ruin
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Mana Maze
SB: 1 Infest
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Sundial of the Infinite
SB: 1 Null Brooch
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 The Abyss
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge

The mana base is a bit better at the expense of the mana denial strategy which is not the primary game plan of the deck. We added 4th TA and 5th "signet" to improve consistency as well as power up the value of tutorable one-ofs. Because of the 4th TA we put back a darksteel citadel to keep the artifact count at a minimum. Unlike seat of the synod it dodges wasteland and deed so doesn't put the mana base more in danger against the most common threats. The 5/5 indestructible with tezz also still wins some games and we can now again mana ramp with chalice + TA.
After testing urborg proved to have very good synergy with ancient tomb, especially in multiples. It's also another land that doesn't suffer on choke.
Retesting totem reminded me how strong it was against maverick/bant decks. My game plan post board against qasali decks is the same than against vindicate decks : adding redundancy to fight removals from their sideboard. Since we can't really run 5 bridges (noetic scales has been tested again and dismissed as a 17th or so sb card, and the abyss not being an artifact is self-limiting) adding cursed and needle is good in this plan. Needle is also nice on wasteland to protect maze of ith which is one of the best cards for noble hierarch.
The needle is better than 2nd damping matrix imo because we run 4 TA and as I said I definitely want 2 cards post sb to deal with artifact activated abilities. It also is a bit more important against deed when running less mana denial, although It's not entirely needed against it as I said in a previous post.
For both cursed totem and needle, dealing with qasalis without blanking moonglove extract has also been appreciated. :)

Sundial is now chosen over eon hub because it has been quite good against combo decks (especially tide) to deal with rebuild and the likes. If they have to play the bounce during their turn it should let you gain enough time to kill or play cranial extraction, not counting all the times the opponent just doesn't see it and gets his spell (rebuild or c.wish) removed from the game. With already an answer to hive mind on TA, dealing with flux isn't enough for eon hub to save his slot.

Mana maze is an addition instead of the 3rd cranial. The reason is I only side two against decks with lots of removals (vindicate, deed etc...) so the 3rd was brought in only against control and combo. Mana maze is more curve friendly and is a rebuild/hurkyl's recall friendly permanent. It is an absolute killer against tide and makes your planewalkers + TA almost uncounterable against control.


There is one hesitation however on the deck about liliana of the veil. Although its effect aren't very good with the deck it's still a planewalker. Considering the deck is trying to empower planewalkers to the max and that you probably want to play ten that's starting to look good. My friend Frédéric is currently testing two in his deck and is happy with it. I tested then and found it good but not enough to satisfy me because of the pressure put on the mana base. Without that I would probably run them.
I don't remember my friend's decklist by heart but it is something like mine with -1TA -1 waste -2 island -1 coliseum +2 liliana +2 underground sea +1 polluted delta.

However here is what I think could be the future of bridgewalkers :
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
3 Maze of Ith
3 Underground Sea
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Damping Matrix
1 Null Brooch
2 Talisman of Dominance
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
4 Trinisphere
4 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 1 The Abyss
SB: 1 Mana Maze
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Sundial of the Infinite
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Memoricide
SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 3 Infest
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge

This list is caliceless. They are one of the weakest cards of the deck as they are situational (according on the match-up, according to who wins the die roll, not a good topdeck), are landing generally too late when you find them with Tezz, and don't synergize well with TA as you can only look for chalice at 0 and it is mana costly to sacrifice one. They are very often sided out.
With 4 trini, 4 TA, 10 planewalkers and 6 signet this list has been very pleasant to play in the few matches (I admit I faced decks against which chalice was pretty bad), however I WILL NOT PLAY A CHALICE LESS VERSION FOR THE GP. This is just a list that focuses on the main game plan (trini->bridge->PW) that I think should be better in a future metagame with less storm decks or local metagames with few of them. The reason I'm taking BW to Amsterdam is that I want to prey both on storm decks and decks that beat storm, so I'll go with the first list I posted.

[Lejay]

DP

[IamPhil]

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Liliana of the Veil

2 The Abyss

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Trinisphere
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mox Opal
4 Mox Diamond

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Tolaria West
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Academy Ruins
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Maze of Ith

Sideboard:
2 Perish
3 Engineered Plague
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Cursed Totem


I can see cutting Mox Opal, 1 Tezzeret, and the Chalices for other stuff. Liliana has tested well, and I'm enjoying my half-priced Innistrad drafts. :)

[mistercakes]

i'm guessing this is a list for mtgo.

i would really like to squeeze in tangle wires into that list.

maybe -1 tabernacle, -1 abyss?

or something along those lines. i guess it's sorta awful since abyss and tabernacle both work wonderfully well with tangle wire.

i would like to try the deck again closer to its original form. i do like the bridgewalker deck, but i just don't get that feeling of playing my own deck.

i've been drafting on my friday nights since it's a lot closer and i'm done by 9 pm, but i'll try to start showing up to legacy every once in a while.

-rob

[IamPhil]

Correct, Rob - the list is for MTGO.

I sold my paper collection (legacy staples, most of this deck, and a solid foreign cube) a while back and don't expect to be playing it in person for a while.

At some point I'll squeeze in a 4th Liliana. Right now my expected changes are...

-1 Darksteel Citadel
-1 Mox Opal
+1 Liliana of the Veil
+1 ?


Sideboard:
-1 Crucible of Worlds
+1 Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt, or the likes


So far I've lost to poor sideboarding decisions (taking out/not boarding in answers to Gaddock Teeg) and occasional nut draws.

So far I've won through my opponents' inability to play against multiple Planeswalkers, occasional nut draws, and various locks.

I'd like to point out, discarding a Jace to Liliana with a Jace in play is just fine :)

[IamPhil]

I played it one last time on Tuesday in paper with Tangle Wires main. I found them hurting myself more than my opponent's.

Either I had gone all in pitching cards to Moxen and had fewer permanents than my opponent, or my opponent was far enough ahead so that they didn't really matter. I think Ensnaring Bridge would be better in the main.

[mistercakes]

bummer. thanks for trying. what about smokestack again? it could be pretty sweet with liliana + wastelands. not sure if it just serves the same purpose as jace there, and does it worse than him, but she is a mana less.

[IamPhil]

Possibly. I want to see a shell along the lines of...

4 Liliana
4 Jace
4 Sinkhole
* Smokestack
2 The Abyss
3-4 Crucible
3-4 Wasteland
0-1 Ghost Quarter
1 Rings of Brighthearth
4 Chalice

And the classic Mox Diamond Land build of Stax. I reallllly love Tolaria West, but if the format picks up any more speed it'll have to go. It's great for the slower metagames.

White gives Vindicate, Swords to Plowshares, and Ajani Vengeant. Splashing Red would be easy off a Mox. There's also Moat to further protect our Planeswalkers from everything but Trygon Predator and Vendilion Clique. If you really want to push it, you can run a Gideon or two.

Green gives Exploration, Tarmogoyf, Ice Storm, and Burgeoning. Garruk Relentless is pretty good, too, and quite splashable. He protects himself and fights, but he doesn't do anything vs Combo...

[mistercakes]

what if you tried for a 4 liliana, 4 tezz build that used pox? is that viable?

t1 chalice for 1 or hymn?

t2 drop liliana t3 pox?

dunno. seems fun.

[Lejay]

So here is a small report of what I've done with the deck at Amsterdam before I forget more things. I had 0 byes because I had the bad idea to playtest the deck more in small events with metagames that were too random for the deck (too much spot removals and chalices ineffective). This lesson learned I had decided to play Doomsday storm in the trials and hopefully put me in the good bracket for this very metagamed deck.

I was still hesitating about liliana of the veil. I had a last discussion with my friend Frédéric (which couldn't go to the GP) about our difficulties against hybrid strategy decks (beatdown+jace) for which liliana would be good against. He highlighted the fact that it was probably because we relied a lot on transmute artifact+silver bullets which is a blast against linear strategies, but card disadvantage for a non game winning action against hybrid decks.
My real fear on liliana was its impact on the very sane mana base we built. But as I had no trouble casting the infest when I sided it in and considering we added teh talisman of dominance, I decided to just go -1 TA -1 island +1 liliana +1 underground sea compared to the first list I posted on the previous page. Well I'll just post the result for reader's sake :

1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
3 City of Traitors
3 Maze of Ith
3 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
5 Island
1 Liliana of the Veil
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Damping Matrix
1 Talisman of Dominance
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
3 Transmute Artifact
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Cursed Totem
SB: 1 Nature's Ruin
SB: 1 Memoricide
SB: 1 Mana Maze
SB: 1 Infest
SB: 1 Moonglove Extract
SB: 1 Cranial Extraction
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Sundial of the Infinite
SB: 1 Null Brooch
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 The Abyss
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge

After diverse problems my car arrives pretty late at the GP place and I have two hours of sleep so I won't be able to afford more than one trial with all the people waiting to play in them. People behind me are listing merfolk, dredge and bant. I also know two french players a bit behind that will play elfcombo and merfolk. So I decided to play Bridgewalkers right away in the trial, which will be a pretty good decision.

These are 32 players event with direct elimination, so 5 rounds to win in a row.
Round 1 and 2 I beat ANT decks pretty easily. I forgot round 3 which is weird since I think it was a tough match-up. Round 4 I beat a sneak show deck and have to face reanimator on the final round, guess I'll just have to win the die roll.
I lose the die roll and my thought is pretty much "I'm dead" since the match-up is all about that.
Game 1 I keep a slow hand resilient to discard hoping he may be a bit paranoid about my random deck crushing into the final, and keeps a slow hand with discards/counter. He goes turn 1 entomb turn 2 Gin and that's done.
Game 2 I have a very nice hand and although he plays pithing needle on jace I completely lock him and he concedes.
Game 3 he has the god start again. Worth noting I mulled to 6 and if draw the tormod's crypt one turn earlier this game is totally different

I'm really disappointed because this deck needs so much byes to avoid random vindicate decks, sideboard hate, and get its best match-ups. I still decide to play it though because my goal isn't to make day 2, but go the farest as possible.
After some hesitations and defections I will be the only person playing bridgewalkers in Amsterdam.


Round 1 I face hive mind.

Game one I win thanks to dimir signet on show and tell (pretty broken card). I had the mox and 5 mana so when he makes a strange look I understand he has only a pact of the titan. I play Jace and fateseal a green pact right away. I win soon after.
Game 2 I think I win on sundial.

1-0

Round 2 against CB UWr
I asked him if he had a bye to evaluate my odds of facing a random deck. He says yes so I'm a bit afraid, and indeed his deck isn't very suitable for the metagame (will see him drop early).
The match-up shouldn't be too hard but unfortunately I loose game one because he counters jace with countertop (Had to have jace in the first 3 cards only). He also plays it right away after that instead of keeping it on top but I still loose.
Game two he does the same thing but with the blind counterbalance... I'm in the great danger bracket, making me regret deeply losing this trial the day before.

1-1

I will win 3 consecutive matches nevertheless against hive mind, storm and Ichorid that are all good match-ups. (EDIT : no storm it was team portugal)
Worth noting I locked the hive mind game 3 with null brooch + liliana with him having 0 cards in hand.

4-1

Round 6 against past in flames/brainfreeze

I lose the die roll for the 6th consecutive time but I win game one despite a mulligan to 5.
I know these decks play Empty the warrens sb so I go -2 jace -1 cloister -1 matrix -3 maze of ith +1 cranial +1 memoricide +1 mana maze + 1 null brooch +1 tormod's crypt +1 ensnaring bridge +1 infest.

Game 2 I chalice at one turn one. He goes turn 2 burning wish for meltdown and I don't draw a land. So I have to keep the second chalice in hand and use transmute on mox to grab citadel. He then combos through chalice at one.

I didn't see EtW and he doesn't change his sideboard so I add the sundial instead of the infest which is a bit redundant with al the bridges + TA and in case of hurkyl's recalls.

Game 3 is horrible. I play trinisphere and cast cranial on burning wish. I see no bounce so my sundial in hand is useless and he has empty the warrens in hand.
He topdecks a third land, gets one more storm on topdecking on manamorphose and I face 8 tokens. I took damage from ancient tomb but have a myriad of signets in play with jace in hand to save me. I play it and brainstorm for 7 outs but just doesn't find anything. I was a bit in panic mode and should have waited a turn to dig deeperwith all the mana I had. I check my library and nothing to signal except that I had 3 bridges in 5 cards on the bottom of the deck. :(
Going from 4-1 to 4-2 isn't very comfortable especially in this manner against a good match-up.

Round 7 I play against a protean hulk/reveillark with natural order. I loose game one because I thought I saw an infernal tutor and kept a bad hand that hoses storm. I win both games 2 and 3 on cursed totem + bridge.

5-2

Round 8 against merfolk
I win the die roll for the first time of the day, and this is the match that will cut me from day 2. Again a good match-up.
Game 1 is an easy win.
Game 2 I lose to negate !
Game 3 he has 3 echoing truth in his starting hand.
So he had lots of weapons against me in his board unfortunately and I drop.

My conclusions on this GP are that Liliana was nice, I only wanted the 4th TA against the merfolk deck. In general I found out myself winning/taking advantage a lot of the time on tutoring/drawing in midgame my one-ofs and no card felt bad so I'm very happy with the build we came to. It looks like everything is at its place and that this deck was the best possible choice (with byes) for GP Amsterdam.
I'm going to play this deck less now because storm isn't played a lot in France, but I would for sure play it on MTGO or in SCG events.
Result is disappointed but my number one testing partner winning the event was good consolation. :)

Need feedback on :

People playing several liliana's : has a weaker mana base been worth it ? Isn't the abyss dropping in value with it ? Also there is no easy cut for it in my last build.

People playing the ghost quarter over an additional wasteland : I think it is testable for it's versatility, what are your thoughts on it ? (and not just the times it was good).

Splitting threads : Should we create a bridgewalkers thread ? It could give less discussion to stax builds. Also creating a new thread will give more visibility for people, which is not that good since this deck functions better against unprepared opponents.

[mistercakes]

thanks for the post lejay. i think that we should keep it in one thread mostly because i like the little sub-community we've made in this thread.

what i can do though is if you write a primer for the decklist, or link me to a thread that has a primer, i can copy/paste it into the first post and we can just manage this thread for two decks.

like i said, i will try to play a little more and focus on bringing back the stax version into reality. this year most of the time i have for magic will be for fun, and not super competitive, so i'd like to see if i could make smokestacks and tangle wires work.

those two cards + the abyss + tabernacle performed really well in the three tournaments i did really well with my stax deck.

i think liliana only helps that, so i'm pretty excited for the deck. i'm not sure if maze of ith is even necessary any more, but if the transmute/bridge isn't available due to card slots, maze helps there.

think about how sick this is? smokestack out, upkeep add a counter. play liliana, make them sac a creature, wasteland one of their lands!?

that has to be the end of the game.

[beau-ass]

@ Lejay; We are glad that you defend the honor of this deck in Amsterdam with marginal success. 5-2 is not bad at all... And thanks for the report.

I am preparing for a blue-duals tournament this Sunday. And I'm not sure what to play. I think that RGW-aggro loam is well-positioned in the current meta. Dredge is always an option too.

RUG-delver decks and other tempo-based strategies are prevalent. Not sure how much combo there will be in the tourney. I'm pretty sure there will be Reanimator (should we add dismember to fight Gin Gitaxias?) and Fish.

Does anyone have a good feeling about the MU against decks (Bant, RUG, Esper) that run Delver/ stifle? Would it help to run 3-4 Engineered Plaque to fight wizards/ humans/ merfolk (need 2 in play)/ goblins?

I also have found that an opposing jace can be a pain, so I added 2 Cliques to the board.

Anyone have an opinion? Should I play this deck? And what will be good in the SB?

[IamPhil]

This deck is good, but falls prey to good Fish draws, Snapcaster/Hymn draws, and Knight of the Reliquary.

It eats alive aggro, combo, and the Delver/Mongoose deck that keeps popping up.

Middle matchups are Vials, opposing Jaces, and decks that punish the mulligan.


I've found Powder Keg in the board answers man-lands, btw.

[frogger42]

Hey guys,
I've been playtesting this deck something vicious for the past year and a half. I went like 5-4 in GP Providence, something like that, so nothing special. I've got a Q for you: how do you beat Reanimator? If Jin-Gitaxus or whatever he's called hits the field, usually U/B Reanimator snags a FoW in hand, shuts out your hate for your turn, and you lose your hand. I've got a really different build, but am lucky to beat the deck (maybe 40% against it at best). It's a pain at my local shop.
Some other thoughts: Dismember = hotness. It's my only out to Reanimator, and one way to beat Teeg/ get around your Chalices. Haven't playtested it against hyper-aggressive strategies (like Gobbos) so it might help a little, though probably not enough to turn the tide.

Liliana discussions: I tried her out for a little, but +1 does nothing against the opponent when you've got Chalices out. I cut her out and put in Dismembers instead. Also, I play E Bridge SB, and Abyss x4 MD, and no Stacks, which I find helps Tezz x4 a lot better.

Just some thoughts. I've been fairly consistent finishing 1-2nd in a really small meta (6-8 players - Zoo, Reanimators, another real deck and a few fake decks). Thanks!

[igri_is_a_bk]

Has this deck ever played Phyrexian Revoker? It stops Hierarch, Knight, Vial, LED, SDT, Mom, Lavamancer, etc, etc. It's very versatile and can be played turn one. I didn't read the thread, so sorry if this is old.

[beau-ass]

Reanimator is kind of a bitch but it really depends on who has the die-role... How I usually beat it is through one of the following lines of play;

1. Chalice@1 -> Jace to bounce/ E-bridge -> Chalice@2
2. Trinisphere -> Teez (fast clock) + Wastelock
3. E-bridge -> E-bridge -> E-brigde -> mill him out...


It might be time for Torpor orb in the board... Snappy is doing really well and it has value in some other MU's. Between E-bridge and D-matrix, with T-orb the only thing that is scary are instants/sorceries and opposing Jaces.

[beau-ass]

Has this deck ever played Phyrexian Revoker? It stops Hierarch, Knight, Vial, LED, SDT, Mom, Lavamancer, etc, etc. It's very versatile and can be played turn one. I didn't read the thread, so sorry if this is old.

I did test it. There are builds that are closer to Brown stompy. There he shines. However, as Lejay already stated; in MU's where you need the effect, you probably will not need Chalice. Therefore you can play pithing needle which seems better.

[.dk]

In one of the iterations of this build I was playing 3 revokers in the board, and 3 lodestone golems main. Would depend on what my opponents were playing for what I would actually side in - could go the super aggressive route and play all 6 creatures and 8 PW, or board all creatures altogether if they are removal heavy. This was prior to introducing Transmute Artifact.

I actually ran a build a bit closer to Lejay's from the GP in a local even this past weekend (with Transmute Artifact) and actually ended up doing terrible. I was drawing very poorly, and pretty convinced that I wasn't mulligan-ing properly with the TA build.

Seems like there should be builds of this with really good matchups in the current meta - chalice is pretty brutal at the moment. Trinisphere has been very hit or miss though.

[mistercakes]

i'm happy to see this thread isn't dead.

i haven't been playing much, but i think i'm gonna go old school and play a version similar to my older one this weekend. i'll keep you guys posted after the fact.

-rob

[frogger42]

Yeah, I wouldn't say dead, but with Mental Misstep gone, one of the prime reasons to run the deck (leaving their best 4x cards dead in their deck) hurts, too. I see everyone's set on running 4x Maze and Tabernacles, but how about running Tolaria West for what you want? Also mana fixes for Jace, half of Tezz. If I've got a Diamond and Tol West in play, that's all the colors I need (unless I run Liliana, but that's one reason to cut her). I never thought of using Transmute Arti, primarily b/c of the turn/mana investment - you've got to drop a 3-drop (T2?) and transmute (T3) = 5 mana minimum. At that point, isn't old Tezz better?
I actually tried whipping a quick list with him and Jace together; Grim Monoliths (to untap w/ Tezz), mono-U, possibly In The Eye of Chaos SB or something. Never really worked as well, but would a decklist fit under this category?
And PW Stax... I don't run Stack, cause I think there's no real way to make use of it (no Elspeth, Ruins of Trokair, only 4x Crucible). I think a better name's Muddy Waters, personally. Not to nitpick, though.

(Another thought - what about Parallax Tide? You want to slow your opponent down, and I haven't playtested it yet - I'd have to retool the deck - but could be kinda hot. I'd imagine that version would want Propaganda, too.)

And how many mana sources do you guys run? I do 27, not including Mox Diamonds or Crucibles, which also somewhat factor in.

[mistercakes]

i was running a list similar to the french guys' list for a while, but i think if i go back to my old version with the smokestacks and maybe tangle wires, running 28 isn't unheard of if there are 4 maze of ith and tabernacle(s).

dimir signet was definitely the best addition to the deck from the french players. i think it is almost a must as it allows consistent turn 2 planeswalkers which is what the deck needs to do if you aren't playing chalice turn 1.

also the smokestacks are helped by drawing multiple cards per turn via jace or tezz, and with a crucible out you can either sac your extra lands from crucible or your redundant artifacts (trinispheres, maybe other chalices etc)

one thing i have a hard time doing is not playing a chalice for 2, and with the transmute artifact deck you almost never want to chalice for 2 as it stops your silver bullet package. just a thought...

parallax tide could be useful vs a deck like high tide, but i'm not sure if it's strong enough. i do see how it is completely sick with trinisphere and with wasteland, but there's no real way to keep it going unless if you play something like contagion clasp to keep it permanent.

it could be tried as a different deck, contagion clasp seems like it kills some guys now more consistently. (mother of runes is a pain in the neck)

anyway. try new stuff! that's the only way a deck like this is going to make a big footprint somewhere.

-rob

[frogger42]

Hrm, do I dare to put up my decklist...? What the heck, I've tried to T8 with it, maybe someone else will have better luck:

Mana:
Urborg, ToY x1
Academy Ruins x1
Tol West x3
Wasteland x3
Mishra's Factory x3
Underground Sea x4
Ancient Tomb x4
City of Traitors x4
Chrome Mox x4
(Mox Diamond x4 - not exactly a real mana source)

PW'ers:
Jace x4
Tezz x4

Muck up your opponent:
Chalice x4
3-sphere x4
Crucible x4
Teh Abyss x4

Removal:
Eng Exp. x1
Slaughter Pact x1
Dismember x3

SB's up in the air. Reanimator's a horrible match, so I like Leylines and Null Brooches (could be Metamorphs). Zorb, Crypt x1 to tutor for. Abyss shuts down your random mid-range aggro single-handedly, and I strongly suggest more than 1x of it, MD. Also, some T1 random tech: Gargoyle Castle = super hotness w/ Crucible. It won me a round against Jace Control in GP Prov, and the guy flipped out when I played it.
Back to Basics = Bad News. Can't figure that one out, maybe enough moxen to get around it?

I also strongly defend Chrome Mox. Generally you have extra PW'ers in hand, and it makes T1 3-sphere very, very easy. Between that and Chalice, you have 8 turn 1 options MD that your opponent has to FoW (if you go first).

[mistercakes]

i ran a list similar to my old one, but changed it a cards:

gonna do this quickly, but while it's still fresh on my mind.


4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
2 The Abyss
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
3 Dimir Signet
4 wasteland
4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
1 tabernacle at pendrel vale
2 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 maze of ith
3 polluted delta
2 underground sea
2 swamp
2 island
1 academy ruins


Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
1 llawan, cephalid empress
2 leyline of the void
2 perish
2 ensnaring bridge
3 memoricide
1 trinisphere


r1 u/r delver 2-0
g1. i played a chalice game 1 turn 1 on the draw, it resolved after he brainstormed. trinisphere hit and he never really recovered.

g2. chalice was there, tezzeret kept me out of PoP range and engineered plague on wizards sealed it up.


R2 reanimator 2-1
g1. an early chalice of the void and tangle wires prevented him from getting anything useful out quickly. trinisphere slowed the game down long enough for me to beat him with smokestacks. i think i got 2 wastelands this game as well.

g2. despite my hitting my t0 leyline, i had kept a 1 land hand being wasteland. he show and telled later on and with my having 3 mana sources out i laid down trinisphere, he played jin gitax. since he can't force b/c of trini i have to draw land to hardcast jace, but miss my land drop and lose g2.

g3. i got a t1 chalice and he told me his hand was really a bunch of good 1 drops.

r3. punishing fires maverick. 2-0

g1. his draws weren't very impressive and i think i just got down some early planeswalkers.

g2. he had out gaddok teeg, but maze of ith and liliana kept him at bay while wasteland kept his lands locked out.

small turn out so i got to double ID into t8

quarterfinals: maverick.

he mulls to 5, i'm on play and land t2 liliana. he can't really do anythign b/c he got mana screwed.

g2 he had a quick draw, with wastelands and some pressure. i can't keep up so i die g2.

g3. i think i got a t2 liliana, t3 jace. since he didn't have any burn he couldn't keep up.


semis - reanimator:

i keep a t2 jace, but he has duress. i try to play out some cards but get counterspelled. he gets out jin-gitax and i die shortly after.

g2 i keep a hand with 2 chalice, CoT, 2 dimir signet, and a wasteland. i t1 chalice. he forces. then he plays duress and gets rid of the other. can't do much there.

tourney was fun overall. props to organizers, it ran fairly fast.
i was on 61 cards, couldn't decide what to cut.

might make some changes to the sb to transform the deck a little:
-3 memoricide -2 leyline of the void -1 llawan, -2 engineered plague, -1 trinisphere
+3 transmute artifact + 2 ensnaring bridge + 4 silver bullets (unsure what they would be, but i like having the tangle wires and smokestacks vs the randomness.) bridgewalkers might help the reanimator/zoo matchups.)

-rob

[frogger42]

Hrm, has anyone tried Thirst for Knowledge in this deck? I've been soooo frustrated not having Brainstorm in the deck to bloody well fix my hand, and even though it's not a T1 play all that often, maybe it'd help the deck out. I think it might be preferable to run over Transmute Arti; CA, instant speed, no spell snare, etc. Might help get around Jacing, too, by giving you a few more potential cards your opponent has to think about dropping to the bottom.
I also thought Complicate would be pretty neat, esp with Trinisphere, and could possibly pound the opponent hard enough that they never recover.
The main problem is I don't see what can get cut right now in any build. Moving Teh Abyss to SB seems like a play, albeit a bad one. I dunno. I've got my own awful tech in mind that I think I'm going to try out, too (cost me almost $2 for a playset). Other thoughts on card drawing?

[mistercakes]

just play tangle wire. it's the best card in the deck.

[frogger42]

I guess the problem comes from my build, in that I run 8x bad moxen; I keep running out of hand pretty early on. Tangle Wire prevents Jace from hitting, though it doesn't answer him when he's struck. I think I'll SB dismembers and try some bad card draw in my build. Thanks!

[.dk]

Anyone thought about trying Nether Void as a 2 of in any of their builds? Seems like if you can resolve a planeswalker and then drop Nether Void, the game is practically just over as your planeswalker will just take over the game from there.

Haven't tested anything with this deck in a long time, but just a thought that occurred to me.

[zulander]

Why aren't people playing Mox Opal instead of Chrome Mox/Mox Diamond? Doesn't make sense...

[.dk]

Why aren't people playing Mox Opal instead of Chrome Mox/Mox Diamond? Doesn't make sense...

I tested Mox Opal for a while - one of the problems is that it is SO awful in multiples. The other issue that I found was that I never had enough artifacts to use it on T1 when having the extra mana available has the most impact. It became the difference of landing a Chalice@1 on T1 vs. T2, or being able to cast 3sphere or pass the turn. I can see it as a 1 of, but certainly not one of the main sources of acceleration.

[Poliser]

Hi guys!
I've wanted to know what do you think is the best List for this Deck in these days in a Meta with much of canadian, maverick, UR Delver, Dredge, Rock and Combo

Could someone post his actually List and discribe something about the Choices?
Im working on a List but it won't work...
So i need some Inspiration ^^

Thanks

[.dk]

I haven't played this deck in months, however if I were to build it now, I would most likely not build the Transmute Artifact version of the Bridgewalker build that Lejay was talking about a while ago. Spell Snare is so prevalent right now, and the only way around it is to guarantee that you land a Chalice at 1, which seems like a bad idea. Not totally sure what I'd build right now, but it would probably involve 4 Tezz, 4 Jace TMS, and 3 Liliana.

In general though, the deck doesn't seem that great against the Delver decks right now, especially on the draw. If they land Delver on T1, or you fail to Chalice or Trinisphere, your planeswalkers are in trouble. Ensnaring Bridge with a low hand count isn't going to land fast enough to protect your Planeswalkers. The Abyss seems good in this case, but I would probably be cutting them for Liliana from the main anyway.

Lodestone Golem seems pretty decent at the moment as well - it does die to removal, however with it's own ability as well as hopefully landing a chalice or 3sphere, he'd be in pretty good shape.

What was the list that you were toying with?

[frogger42]

Hello guys,
Here's my latest list. It does pretty well, but I've notice that basically games come down to resolving an early Chalice @ 1. I <3 Chalice @ 2, also, which is generally why I stay away from MD'ing any CMC 2 cards. So, might as well refresh the thread with new ideas:

23 Lands:
Ancient Tomb x4
City of Traitors x4
Wasteland x3
Academy Ruins x1
Gargoyle Castle x1
2 Island
3 Undg Sea
2 U Fetches
3 Tolaria West

4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice
4 Crucible
4 The Abyss
4 Tezz AoB
4 Jace TMS
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Eng Exp.

4 FoW
3 Clutch of the Undercity

So choices: 3-sphere I dropped, b/c there were too many games where my opponent landed a Jace, and left mana open to cast his FoW when I finally drew an out to Jace. 3-sphere kills combo, but generally decks with fetchlands have 2-3 basics, and hence can work around Crucible-lock. I also hate losing to zoo b/c I have a 3-sphere out and it only slows that deck, doesn't stop it.
I used to run Lodestone Golem, but having him eat a removal spell most of the time ain't helpful. I'd rather keep the opponents StoPs and Bolts dead in hand. Also goes against my own FoW.

I really really like Force in this deck. The problem with Force, and Chrome Moxen, is that it forces you to run a decent amount of U sources to pitch to them. However, the added flexibility that a super-removal card like FoW brings to the deck keeps you from having to drop 3 different prison pieces to deal with any one given threat the opponent may draw. I liked it a lot to stop opposing Jaces/ protect my own Jaces from legend ruling out, but with Delvers and whatnot, it's probably better to make sure a Chalice lands.

Other things - I've had manlands in my manabase for a long time, and I much much much prefer just having ways to cast my colored spells. Too many games I've had 2-3 PW'ers in my hand, because none my my 5 lands produce colored mana. Even now, the right way to attack this deck is to hit its colored mana sources; I've still had games where I've gripped a game-winning Jace because I didn't have enough color to get him out.
Tolaria West - the champ of the deck. On occasion, I'll have a City of Traitors out and really need that extra U to play something. That sucks. But making 1x Slaughter Pact -> 4x ways to kill Teeg is a constraint of the deck. Any MD Teeg will make you cry, and it's your only way out. Half the time Tol West pitches to a T1 Mox Diamond, anyway. Plus, it gets Chalice for a real slugger of a match, and more importantly
Gargoyle Castle: I've found Manlands very sub-par against opposing Jaces. StoP in those instances breaks the game, and you need 2x Factories to kill a Jace, anyway. 1x of this kills all PW'ers when you add a Crucible, and is the best target for your Tol West to hit. If you slow Delver enough, your opponent's gonna be miffed at the 4-toughness in the air.

Clutch - I'd rather this be a good PW'er, but I needed the 3 extra U slots. It's not bad, and while Liliana's good, I don't think she belongs in the maindeck. BB is tough to hit, and if you have a Chalice @ 1 out, her discard ability effectively does nothing against your opponent. She is also not a win-condition.
Dismember - I used to play this card, too, and it's fantastic. Having 3x of a StoP, that doesn't suck into your Chalice @ 1, is absolutely incredible. I wanted the blue card for Force and Chrome Mox, though, so I opted for Clutch instead. If Dismember were blue, it'd be a no-brainer, though. Gives you T1 options when you can't power out a prison piece.

SB: Zorb, Crypt, Maze of Ith all make Tol West extra fancy. I've got a small meta where I play, but in U/B there are a decent amount of options available. I think cycling Decree of Pain could be hot against Mav, even a couple Karn Libs might be fun for slower decks. Even with Crypt, Leyline of Void x4 is incredibly useful against GY based decks. I've been trying Ensnaring Bridge from the board, but given the occasional color-problems the deck has, sometimes I can't drop everything in my hand to make it useful. There's too often an out against Bridge, anyway (Pridemage, Terastadon, etc).
I could even see a MD Volc/Tundra/Trop if you really need some random SB hate against something that's kicking you in the nuts. Fetch x2 + Mox Diamond x4 + Tol West x3 will hopefully get you your splash, as long as you have time to Transmute a Tol West. And in this build, if the SB tech is a 4-drop, you can Clutch-Transmute for it, too! Hotness!

[randomly.anonymous]

Hello guys,
Here's my latest list. It does pretty well, but I've notice that basically games come down to resolving an early Chalice @ 1. I <3 Chalice @ 2, also, which is generally why I stay away from MD'ing any CMC 2 cards. So, might as well refresh the thread with new ideas:

23 Lands:
Ancient Tomb x4
City of Traitors x4
Wasteland x3
Academy Ruins x1
Gargoyle Castle x1
2 Island
3 Undg Sea
2 U Fetches
3 Tolaria West

4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice
4 Crucible
4 The Abyss
4 Tezz AoB
4 Jace TMS
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Eng Exp.

4 FoW
3 Clutch of the Undercity

So choices: 3-sphere I dropped, b/c there were too many games where my opponent landed a Jace, and left mana open to cast his FoW when I finally drew an out to Jace. 3-sphere kills combo, but generally decks with fetchlands have 2-3 basics, and hence can work around Crucible-lock. I also hate losing to zoo b/c I have a 3-sphere out and it only slows that deck, doesn't stop it.
I used to run Lodestone Golem, but having him eat a removal spell most of the time ain't helpful. I'd rather keep the opponents StoPs and Bolts dead in hand. Also goes against my own FoW.

I really really like Force in this deck. The problem with Force, and Chrome Moxen, is that it forces you to run a decent amount of U sources to pitch to them. However, the added flexibility that a super-removal card like FoW brings to the deck keeps you from having to drop 3 different prison pieces to deal with any one given threat the opponent may draw. I liked it a lot to stop opposing Jaces/ protect my own Jaces from legend ruling out, but with Delvers and whatnot, it's probably better to make sure a Chalice lands.

Other things - I've had manlands in my manabase for a long time, and I much much much prefer just having ways to cast my colored spells. Too many games I've had 2-3 PW'ers in my hand, because none my my 5 lands produce colored mana. Even now, the right way to attack this deck is to hit its colored mana sources; I've still had games where I've gripped a game-winning Jace because I didn't have enough color to get him out.
Tolaria West - the champ of the deck. On occasion, I'll have a City of Traitors out and really need that extra U to play something. That sucks. But making 1x Slaughter Pact -> 4x ways to kill Teeg is a constraint of the deck. Any MD Teeg will make you cry, and it's your only way out. Half the time Tol West pitches to a T1 Mox Diamond, anyway. Plus, it gets Chalice for a real slugger of a match, and more importantly
Gargoyle Castle: I've found Manlands very sub-par against opposing Jaces. StoP in those instances breaks the game, and you need 2x Factories to kill a Jace, anyway. 1x of this kills all PW'ers when you add a Crucible, and is the best target for your Tol West to hit. If you slow Delver enough, your opponent's gonna be miffed at the 4-toughness in the air.

Clutch - I'd rather this be a good PW'er, but I needed the 3 extra U slots. It's not bad, and while Liliana's good, I don't think she belongs in the maindeck. BB is tough to hit, and if you have a Chalice @ 1 out, her discard ability effectively does nothing against your opponent. She is also not a win-condition.
Dismember - I used to play this card, too, and it's fantastic. Having 3x of a StoP, that doesn't suck into your Chalice @ 1, is absolutely incredible. I wanted the blue card for Force and Chrome Mox, though, so I opted for Clutch instead. If Dismember were blue, it'd be a no-brainer, though. Gives you T1 options when you can't power out a prison piece.

SB: Zorb, Crypt, Maze of Ith all make Tol West extra fancy. I've got a small meta where I play, but in U/B there are a decent amount of options available. I think cycling Decree of Pain could be hot against Mav, even a couple Karn Libs might be fun for slower decks. Even with Crypt, Leyline of Void x4 is incredibly useful against GY based decks. I've been trying Ensnaring Bridge from the board, but given the occasional color-problems the deck has, sometimes I can't drop everything in my hand to make it useful. There's too often an out against Bridge, anyway (Pridemage, Terastadon, etc).
I could even see a MD Volc/Tundra/Trop if you really need some random SB hate against something that's kicking you in the nuts. Fetch x2 + Mox Diamond x4 + Tol West x3 will hopefully get you your splash, as long as you have time to Transmute a Tol West. And in this build, if the SB tech is a 4-drop, you can Clutch-Transmute for it, too! Hotness!

Probably some split of SB Perish/Virtue's Ruins is the best against Maverick. Especially since they have MD Thalia (which bump up the mana rquirements of literally every card in this deck), it will be difficult to resolve something like Decree of Pain. I found that if you're not too scared of running CMC=2 cards that Cursed Totem also does a good job of shutting down their deck. Failing that would be Damping Matrix, but it does come down a turn later (especially with Thalias), and that could be a big difference if they're activating KoTRs or equipping stuff.

[somethingdotdotdot]

why not fact or fiction in the undercity slots? You can power it out and it can potentially refill your hand, or at the very least grab a planeswalker. It also isn't super color intensive. You can also use the stuff that gets sent to graveyard with academy ruins and crucible.