Colorless Control

[jamis]

Lands: 22
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures: 4
4 Metalworker

Everything else: 34
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
3 Staff of Domination
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Bottled Cloister
3 Nevinyrral's Disk
3 Karn Liberated
1 Darksteel Forge

So the idea is slow the opponent down in the early game with Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere, keep them slowed in the midgame with Tangle wire, then finish the lategame with one of the deck's combos to lock the opponent out.

Card Choices

12 post mana: The deck's much more concerned with the lategame than other MUD builds that are running around, which is why it uses the 12post manabase as opposed to Grim Monolith + 4 City of Traitors. This helps abuse Staff of Domination without Metalworker, as well as guarantees the mana to cast Karn, Darksteel Forge, or what-have-you.

Bottled Cloister + Ensnaring Bridge: One of the deck's three combos it tries to assemble. Combined, prevent you from being attacked by anything except Noble Heirarch, on it's own Cloister provides much needed card draw and Ensnaring Bridge can lock out Reanimator on its own and also has a good game against Batterskull and Tarmogoyf.

Metalworker + Staff of Domination: Combo 2/3. Will let you draw as many cards as you need, gain infinite life, all that good stuff. Metalworker is obviously great on its own. With the 12 post mana, you can also draw a card or two each turn during the late game or gain some life to keep yourself alive. Also helps tap down a creature if your opponent is trying to swing with only one creature.

Disk + Darksteel Forge: The third combo. You will usually only play this after comboing out with Metalworker/staff but its needed in case your opponent makes you play it out. That said, neither card is entirely useless on its own. Disk can wrath the board if things aren't going your way, and Forge can create indestructible chump blockers with Mishra's factory and Metalworker.

Cards for consideration

I've been including these cards in my SB and putting them in randomly. Not sure if they deserve a maindeck spot yet.

Mishra's Helix: another way to lock after gaining enough mana.

Platinum Angel/Platinum Emperion: I think Angel is better since you can still tap Ancient Tomb. If your opponent doesn't play white, it combines with Forge for another lock, and is really just a great card to have overall. Still not the best with Ensnaring Bridge, and not needed. Think its a good SB card against decks lacking removal, probably not MD, though.

Buried Ruin: Manabase is pretty tight right now, so I'm not sure about this one. Definitely a possibility.

[(nameless one)]

You forgot Smokestacks.

Also, I'd use Karn, Silver Golem as a secondary win-con. He turns Trinispheres, Tangle Wires and Smokestack into win condition.

I like the idea. You should call it Stax as it just a stack of horrible permanent effects (or name it after Smokestack)

[bruizar]

I have about 2 years of experience playing a colorless control build.

There are a couple of pretty big problems in your list:

Metalworker just screams plow me. There is plenty of spot removal in the format, and Metalworker is your only target. This invalidates your 3 Staff of Dominations, which means that 1 plow beats 4 cards of your deck.

N.Disk. I don't see why you'd want to nuke your own board. Sure, your Karn Liberated lives, but you already won if Karn is on the table. Also, when you cast N. Disk, you give your opponent to GSZ into Qasali. If you want to reset the board, Oblivion Stone would be better, but even that sucks.

Ancient Tombs and Locus lands. So, the benefit of Locus is being able to get a lot of life so burn and tempo can't race you. You give this benefit up by including too many Ancient Tombs. -> TOMBS WILL KILL YOU.

City of Traitors. Your deck wants to drop Vesuva's Glimmerposts and Cloudposts. That means, City of Traitors is just a one time effect. I'd play less Cities and more utility land.

Ensnaring Bridge + Bottled Cloister. Ensnaring Bridge rocks, bottled cloister sux. Just play the cards in your hand, you turn Ensnaring Bridge into a 1-card combo!

Too many 4-offs. 4-offs increase redundancy, but you don't want redundancy, you want to play every lock piece once in each game!

Mishra's Factory. Its not gonna get through Knights. This card sucks because you dont have real creatures to back you up. If you really want to go with the man-plan, go for Inkmoth Nexus.

Why no wastelands and no crucible?

I've got a lot more questions about this build but let's just start with these first.

[Kich867]

Any reason not to run All is Dust?

[bruizar]

Any reason not to run All is Dust?

I played All is Dust first. It's just too slow. By the time you get to cast it, your already in critical burn range by Delvers and Goyfs. Also, with Karn's AND All is Dust, Metalworker gets unimpressive fast. Whats worst, not being able to ditch it when u have bridgge out, and getting beat up with an all is dust in your hand.

You really just want to drop Ensnaring Bridge and empty your hand fast. That means, not relying on Metalworker and using cheaper artifacts. Grim Monolith is miles better in this deck than Metalworker. T1 City/Tomb -> Grim Monolith into T2 City/Tomb Karn is savage.

[jamis]

You forgot Smokestacks.
Smokestack was in my very original build, but was cut. It's a really great card, but is abused much better in Geddon Stax than this deck. I feel Tangle Wire fills a much better role here. Tangle wire doesn't need to be built up and has an immediate effect. Where smokestack can work to permanently lock an opponent if setup right, Tangle Wire lets you timewalk an opponent for a turn or two while you build up the manabase, which is much more important here as it lets you assemble a better lock. The deck doesn't really have a way to abuse Smokestack like similar decks do, where Tangle Wire is always one-sided. That's my reasoning for making the switch.


Also, I'd use Karn, Silver Golem as a secondary win-con. He turns Trinispheres, Tangle Wires and Smokestack into win condition.
I don't really feel the deck is lacking on win conditions. You're either going to get Metalworker + Staff out, put a Mishra's factory into play, then use staff to keep untapping mishra's factory and mishra's factory to keep pumping to do however much you need in one turn, using Karn to reset the game with a board-state highly favoring you, or just swinging with mishra's factories after getting a lock assembled. Karn SG works a lot less with Ensnaring Bridge than those wincons, and Bridge is a really important card to the deck.


Metalworker just screams plow me. There is plenty of spot removal in the format, and Metalworker is your only target. This invalidates your 3 Staff of Dominations, which means that 1 plow beats 4 cards of your deck.
Metalworker really shines in the early game and late game. If you can land it on turn 1 or 2, and it goes unanswered for 1 turn, you can dump your hand. Alternatively, landing it after getting a lock and landing some Chalices, will let you abuse it with Staff. You're not really trying to land Metalworker+staff as quickly as possible. Sometimes it happens, and that's great, but more likely, you're aiming to assemble that pair after stabilizing. And I don't feel Staff is dead on its own. Like Train Wreck, you gain more than enough mana through the deck's lands


N.Disk. I don't see why you'd want to nuke your own board. Sure, your Karn Liberated lives, but you already won if Karn is on the table. Also, when you cast N. Disk, you give your opponent to GSZ into Qasali. If you want to reset the board, Oblivion Stone would be better, but even that sucks.
The thing to think about here is you're never activating Disk when you have a favorable board position - unless you have forge as well, but then you've already won. You need at least 1 disk in the deck so that when you go with Metalworker+staff, you can destroy you're opponent's creatures and swing with Factory. I like 3, though, because there have been times when you're oppponent gets a fast start, and restarting the board solves that. You'll be left with a lot more mana, and if they do get a fast start, more cards. Besides, you're opponent's going to grab Pridmage regardless of disk.


Ancient Tombs and Locus lands. So, the benefit of Locus is being able to get a lot of life so burn and tempo can't race you. You give this benefit up by including too many Ancient Tombs. -> TOMBS WILL KILL YOU.

City of Traitors. Your deck wants to drop Vesuva's Glimmerposts and Cloudposts. That means, City of Traitors is just a one time effect. I'd play less Cities and more utility land.
Its kind of a necessary evil, I feel. I like that every land except factory taps for more than 1 mana. Tombs and Cities are also needed to get those turn 1 Chalice of the Voids/Trinispheres. I would really like to be able to cut them to play Wasteland and Buried Ruins, but if I give up too much of the early game, I'll never make it to the late game, and the cities and tombs help with the early game mana.


Ensnaring Bridge + Bottled Cloister. Ensnaring Bridge rocks, bottled cloister sux. Just play the cards in your hand, you turn Ensnaring Bridge into a 1-card combo!
Have to disagree here. Lack of card draw/deck manipulation is Stax/Stompy's downfall. This provides a huge amount of card draw. Yes, if it is destroyed, you lose your hand, but you are never casting it if you have other cards in hand you'd rather cast. You only really cast it when you have nothing better to play, and you never lose cards you care about. Cloister, I feel, really makes the deck work.


Too many 4-offs. 4-offs increase redundancy, but you don't want redundancy, you want to play every lock piece once in each game!
Which cards? There's a few like Disk and Staff which I feel could be lowered, though You want to draw Bridge and Trinisphere every game and the earlier the better. I guess it depends here, on which cards you mean, but with no way to tutor, I don't want too many one-ofs and two-ofs.


Mishra's Factory. Its not gonna get through Knights. This card sucks because you dont have real creatures to back you up. If you really want to go with the man-plan, go for Inkmoth Nexus.
Inkmoth Nexus doesn't pump itself, so it doesn't work with Staff. Could go with Blinkmoth nexus, but mishra's factory is a better blocker and easier to pump without Metalworker. Also, Evasion's not needed with Disk+Forge.


Why no wastelands and no crucible?
The mana base doesn't really allow for Wasteland. That's why I was considering Mishra's Helix, as it could fill a similar role and take up less deckspace.


Any reason not to run All is Dust?
Was debating between Disk, All is Dust, and O. Stone. Disk is the least mana investment, so I feel its most helpful if I need a sweeper in the early game. Plus with All is Dust not being an Artifact does make Disk a bit more favorable.


You really just want to drop Ensnaring Bridge and empty your hand fast. That means, not relying on Metalworker and using cheaper artifacts. Grim Monolith is miles better in this deck than Metalworker. T1 City/Tomb -> Grim Monolith into T2 City/Tomb Karn is savage.
I do like that idea, though it does get rid of one of the deck's win conditions, which I'm not crazy about. It's worth testing Monolith in place of Metalworker and replacing Staff. Going to have to test this and report more about it after testing.

[jamis]

Okay, so I started playing

-4 Metalworker
-4 Mishra's Factory
-3 Staff of Domination
+4 Grim Monolith
+4 Inkmoth Nexus
+3 Platinum Angel

The decks seemed to lose a lot of its power, and I had a harder time finishing games. Also, after trying Platinum Angel in the maindeck, it is definitely not maindeck worthy. It is possible it could still be a SB card as it was great in certain matchups, but not enough to be maindecked. Inkmoth Nexus was good, but Metalworker was much better for me than Grim Monolith, so I'll be sticking with the list in the OP for now.

[bruizar]

Okay, here's a metalworkerless approach I've been building for a while now. This is an old version, since the one I'm doing now is different, but have a look:

2 Mishra's Factory
2 Maze of Ith
1 Crystal Vein
1 Tendo Icebridge / Gemstone Mine / Vault of Whispers / Scrubland
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 City of traitors
4 Rishadan Port
2 Sheltered Valley
1 Academy Ruins / Buried Ruins

4 Mox Diamond
2 Mox Opal
3 Sensei's Divining top
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Voltaic Key
1 Karn Liberated
3 Ensnaring bridge
3 Basalt Monolith
2 Tangle Wire
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Granite Shard
1 Oblivion Ring
1 The Abyss
2 Trinisphere

This is a prison/combo deck that doesn't die to Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt. I have played and refined this deck for a long time now (Since before the Survival era). It's not there yet, but I'm confident the numbers of the cards are correct. The mana-base is focused on locking people out with 4 wastes and 4 ports. Rings of Brighthearth puts it over the top, because your wastelands and ports will put your opponent in a stranglehold. You hide behind Ensnaring Bridge, and/or The Abyss. Your draw-engine is Top+Key or Top+Rings. You combo out with:
Top+Basalt Monolith+Rings of Brighthearth
Rings of Brighthearth+Basalt Monolith+Voltaic Key+Mishra's Factory
Rings of Brighthearth+Basalt Monolith+Voltaic Key+Granite Shard
or just Karn Liberated (Rings of Brighthearth + Karn is totally unfair)

You can aggressively cast chalice for 1 because you have Karn and Oblivion Ring to get rid of your Chalice later. Chalice for 2 is completely safe. The reason why I don't need a dedicated draw engine is because I don't play with a redundant deck. If you see 3 Trinisphere's in 1 game, that means you basically got timewalked twice, since any Trinisphere beyond the first is useless if you resolved the first one. Believe it or not, Sheltered Valley is probably your best land, gaining 7 life per game easily. However, the new colored build I am testing doesn't require life gain.

I am currently experimenting with a bunch of other cards that would make the deck more colored. Among those cards Springjack Pasture, Magosi, the Waterveil and Smokestack, but I'm not sure if they're good enough. Springjack Pasture gives small amounts of life, slow but colored mana, blockers and Smokestack fodder without coming into play tapped. It looks like crap at first sight, but so far its been pretty sweet. Magosi wins the Hivemind match and lets you skip turns with a ramped smokestack (Skip 2 turns with Rings if your Smokestack is sufficiently ramped).

As you can see, I believe that the strongest point of playing an artifact-based prison deck should be the use of utility lands. I really like the fact that you run 3 Karns, though and would love to see if I could make that happen in my own deck too.

I believe your deck has a harder time against tempo decks than mine. All that your opponent needs to do is cast Plow or Bolt on Metalworker, and Spell Pierce on Karn. IMO the strongest point of your deck is Glimmerpost and 3x Karn, but I'd steer the deck into a wildly different route, perhaps drawing inspiration from U/W Tron in Modern and Turboeldrazi legacy.

U/W Tron
Creature [4]
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Sorcery [4]
1 Day of Judgment
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
1 Wrath of God
Instant [18]
1 Condescend
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
1 Repeal
4 Thirst for Knowledge
Artifact [8]
4 Azorius Signet
3 Expedition Map
1 Talisman of Progress
Enchantment [1]
1 Oblivion Ring
Land [25]
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Eye of Ugin
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Tolaria West
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
60 cards
Sideboard:
2 Celestial Purge
2 Dispel
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Negate
1 Pact of Negation
2 Pithing Needle
1 Rule of Law
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Wurmcoil Engine

[jamis]

Thanks for the feedback, Bruizar. I'll try the list out and let you know my thoughts.

[Anusien]

The problem I've had with this style of deck in the past is that you're very very shy on answers to turn 2 Tarmogoyf (especially when you're on the draw). Your principal form of protection from creatures is preventing them from casting any, so if they cast a creature before you can stop them, you're in trouble. This problem is probably even worse now that they can turn 1 Delver.

[bruizar]

@Anusien: This is why I play with both Ensnaring Bridge and The Abyss. The idea behind E.Bridge and The Abyss is that they have to answer it to win the game. This means their plan becomes: 'Find a solution for lockpiece', rather than 'Win the game'. Meanwhile, you aim to either tighten the grip, and/or, eventually naturally draw into a combo and go infinite, without diluting the deck with dedicated combo cards such as Staff of Domination.

My sideboard plan is often 13 robots (Lodestone Golem, RMM, Wurmcoils, Metalworker) and 2 Trinisphere.

Also, I'm currently testing artificer's intuition with Seat of the Synods. The reason for it is because you simply can't lose to burn or anything graveyard based with A.Intuition on the table. Tarmogoyfs become 0/1's and Knight of the Reliquary's become 2/2's. There's such an impressive list of artifacts you can get with A.Intuition, that its hard not to run A.Intuition. Rings of Brighthearth makes A.Intuition totally unfair, but even without it its great.
Expedition Map -> Greatly boosts your utility mana base, by being able to tutor for lands that do stuff.
Mox Opal -> Free ramp and you can ditch extras for other artifacts
Pithing Needle -> A reliable answer to Qasali Pridemage
Engineered Explosives -> Not even needed...
Chalice of the Void -> Kind of conflicts, but powerful nonetheless..
Executioner's Capsule -> Expensive, but it works
Aether Spellbomb -> Probably better than executioner
Nihil Spellbomb -> Best-gyhate-ever, draws into a new card while nuking the graveyard
Elixir of Immortality -> This card enables A.Intuition. It shuffles back your Spellbombs and expedition map, and gains a ton of life. You can cycle this card a lot of times and put yourself out of burn range or creature damage range. Use rings to gain 10 life, yeah that works.
Sensei's Divining Top -> Great card, and part of the combo. Get fresh top 3 after each elixir activation.
Voltaic Key -> Great card, and part of the combo
Zuran Orb -> Sideboard card, probably not needed, but trumps price of progress

It also works well with Ensnaring Bridge, because it allows you to ditch your expensive cards for cheap ones and hide behind bridge. If you search for Expedition Map and then search for Academy Ruins, you can get back your ditched artifacts. If you run enough colors, you can put your opponent into an Explosives lock with only 1 Artificer's Intuition, but you can also do that with Elixir of Immortality gaining 5 life in the process each time.

[jamis]

I've been testing the list you provided +1 Karn since there were 59 cards.

I just couldn't get it to work for me. I was planning to do 5-10 matches with each deck on cockatrice and report the results, but ended up doing much more with the metalworker deck and only 4 matches with the list you provided. Still, my results lead me to stick with the list in the OP. below are the results of testing so far

bruizar
-----------
UR delver burn 1-0
UW blade control 0-1
RUG control w/loam 0-2
4color aggro loam 0-2


---------------------

metalworker
-----------
affinity 2-0
tes 1-2
W stax 2-0
RUG tempo 0-1
5/3 2-1
hive mind 1-1
thopterbalance 2-0
monoblack aggro 2-0
BW control 2-0
BW control 1-1
UW blade control 1-0

Granted, I did play against loam decks twice with your list, which I believe is a very unfavorable matchup for both decks. I can try to get a few more matches in to see if it was just matchups that was the issue, but initial testing has led me to stick with my list for now.

If you have time, play a few matches with my list and let me know your thoughts.