[Deck] Angel Stompy

[Digital Devil]

4x Chrome Mox
3x Sword of Fire and Ice
3x Umezawa’s Jitte
3x Aven Mindcensor
4x Exalted Angel
3x Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4x Mother of Runes
4x Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4x Silver Knight
3x Oblivion Ring
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Flagstones of Trokair
11x Plains
3x Cataclysm

Sideboard

4x Chalice of the Void
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Aven Mindcensor
3x Glowrider
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Cataclysm

Your list is quite similar to the one I'm running at the moment. I'm running a higher curve version (not Chalice Aggro), with 22 mana/21 creatures/23 spells. I came to the conclusion that this deck needs to be aggro, so I finally dropped Mother of Runes. It is kinda insane, but it has an anti-synergy with Cataclysm (which is the card I always want in my 7), since it forces me to overcommit, making me even more susceptible to sweepers. Plus, it's too defensive, IMHO. Also, I've been tinkering about Enlightened Tutor: I'm running 2 at the moment and they are awesome. They can grab my equipments, mana, and fucking... no, let me write it the way it should be... fucking OBLIVION RING. The cool part is that it opens a wider sideboard space: I have room for Thorn of Amethyst/SoLaS/Needle/Relic. As for the Aven Mindcensor argument, I totally agree - that's why I'm not even considering the idea of dropping Chrome Mox. The equipment split I'm running at the moment is 2 SoFaI (too strong IMHO), 1 Mask and 1 Jitte. I hate to have my hand stuck because I have two Jittes. If I really want them, I still have 2 ETutors + 1 Steelshaper's Gift (redundancy FTW). Speaking about redundancy, that's why I play a singleton Kor Sanctifiers: they get rid of Counterbalance or other pesky artifacts/enchantments - the fourth ring is dangerous, especially since I play the same amount of Clysms. 3 is the perfect number. The list I'm running at the moment is something like this:

// Lands
7 [9E] Plains (3)
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [EX] City of Traitors
2 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
1 [MR] Ancient Den

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Aven Mindcensor
4 [ON] Exalted Angel
4 [SC] Silver Knight
3 [EVE] Figure of Destiny
3 [TSB] Soltari Priest
2 [TSP] Serra Avenger
1 [ZEN] Kor Sanctifiers

// Spells
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
3 [EX] Cataclysm
2 [VI] Tithe
2 [6E] Enlightened Tutor
2 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MR] Mask of Memory
1 [FD] Steelshaper's Gift

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [DS] Sword of Light and Shadow
SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 [FUT] Patrician's Scorn
SB: 1 [EX] Cataclysm

-Exalted Angel: the deck's namesake.
-Aven Mindcensor: this is a card that makes me want to cheat - I want to play 10x of these, but WotC allows me to play only 4.
-Silver Knight: nice against Zoo, Goblin, Dragon Stompy, sweepers (DD, Firespout/Volcanic Fallout).
-Figure of Destiny: I've heard 2nd turn 4/4 (with Mox) is good.
-Soltari Priest: I wanted another cheap, evasive beater, and this was the best one available.
-Serra Avenger: late game beater.
-Kor Sanctifiers: redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. Card advantage attached to a 2/3 body. Solves many of this deck's problems.

-Swords to Plowshares: no need to explain these.
-Chrome Mox: makes this deck fast as hell.
-Cataclysm: I play three because there are many aggro-control strategies, but it is always nice to have a reset button if you're in trouble.
-Oblivion Ring: white Vindicate.
-Tithe: comboes well with Chrome Mox and the :2: lands. Works well on the draw, and before Cataclysm.
-Enlightened Tutor: my favourite card so far. Nothing to complain about. What is card disadvantage and tempo loss if I can fetch for O-Rings and Swords and win NOW? Makes the sideboard's impact more important.
-Sword of Fire and Ice: the equipment I'm in love with. All your critters suddenly become giant threats, and it is an annihilation machine. Removal, fast damage and card draw. Oh, and protection effects.
-Mask of Memory: sometimes I need to dig for a card, sometimes I need to get rid of those extra Mox/lands. This is the perfect tool in those situations.
-Umezawa's Jitte: the strongest equipment. Ever. I play only 1 but I have virtually access to 4 Jittes, if needed. I hate to be locked by my own deck. So I went for the -1 route.
-Steelshaper's Gift: not as good as Enlightened Tutor. It is a bit narrow, but doesn't make card disadvantage. Pretty good if you need to destroy an opponent's Jitte or you are hell bent for leather and need an answer as soon as possible.

-Ancient Tomb: :2: mana. Virtually no drawbacks, because of Angel.
-City of Traitors: Tombs 5-6.
-Flagstones of Trokair: nice with Cataclysm.
-Plains: can't play without those.
-Ancient Den: can be fetched with Tutor if needed. Sometimes it really helped me to have it as part of the toolbox.

-Thorn of Amethyst: best anticombo tool, ever. Also, useful against Landstill and Enchantress.
-Relic of Progenitus: standard grave-hate tool.
-Pithing Needle: Deed, Mishra, Top, I'll play this then I say "stop".
-SoLaS: Landstill, Stax, Rock, Burn, here I come.
-Cataclysm: against those decks which tend to overextend.
-Umezawa's Jitte: only against Merfolk/Goblins, or if my opponent is playing Jitte, too.
-Patrician's Scorn: Enchantress/Stax and Counterbalance do hate this.



Don't let a deck as fun as this one die out...
I've sold my Dragon Stompy deck (played it for only 7 months), even if it is generally accepted as "a better deck" just because I trust this deck and I want to win with it. Nostalgic dreams always win. The reason this thread seems to fade to black is because we're probably the only two who still play Angel Stompy.

Discuss.
I would suggest dropping Isamarus in favor of FoD. Also, Samurais don't work well with Cataclysm + Flagstones. These are the only things I can dare to say. The other card choices are pretty basilar. Obviously the sb is strictly dependant on your meta, so I have nothing to say about it.

[Hawdes]

Lists needs moaaaar Baneslayer Angel.

[Illissius]

Lists need more Elspeth.

[spirit of the wretch]

Haven't played this deck in a long while... last time '05 when it was actually good. But even then:
Tithe sucks balls! Daze/Duress/Aven Mindcensor/Thoughtseize/Counterbalance/City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb... will seriously ruin your day! Play more Plains.

Also:

Lists need more Elspeth.

Steelshaper's Gift is just bad. Play an additional Jitte. Or SoFI if you like. Wasting that 1 mana just isn't woth it.

I'd also cut Figures (because of the 2 Mana lands and the Moxen) for a Jötun Grunt/Kor Sanctifiers split, but that's my 2 cents. And hey, I'm only a S-Class Legacy player, so why listen to me.

[tivadar]

Someone started a mono-white workshop thread in the developmental. While it's not angel stompy, it is close to it. I posted there and describe it as a cross between angel stompy and stax. It might be worth taking a look at. The fact is this deck isn't competitive now because it loses to combo and control pretty badly. This deck fixed some of that by running Glowrider/Chalice/Thorn of Amethyst maindeck, which dealt with combo handily. However, it didn't have pro-red or as much equipment, so it lost to goblins and heavy aggro.

[Digital Devil]

Lists needs moaaaar Baneslayer Angel.
Too slow, and forces me to overcommit because of the mana issues.

Lists need more Elspeth.
I've tried it for a long, long time. Obviously it's gamebreaking, but it doesn't save me if I'm facing lethal or if my opponent has a gazillion mana and can do whatever he wants the next turn. Generally speaking, I'd rather play Cataclysm.

Haven't played this deck in a long while... last time '05 when it was actually good. But even then:
Tithe sucks balls! Daze/Duress/Aven Mindcensor/Thoughtseize/Counterbalance/City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb... will seriously ruin your day! Play more Plains.
I understand your point, but if they manage to play Counterbalance then I don't need Tithe anymore because on their second turn I should already have 4 mana available. Mindcensor is barely played. Daze is not, but the only times in which I uses Tithe as a bait they fell in misery because they didn't have a spare counter for a threat. City of Traitors/Tomb. That's right. If I have a hand with Tomb and Tithe as my only mana sources then I will mulligan. I assume the risks: I want a better late game, I don't like to be mana flooded, and it is an "imprintable" land. And sometimes it's card advantage.

Steelshaper's Gift is just bad. Play an additional Jitte. Or SoFI if you like. Wasting that 1 mana just isn't woth it. I like it because it makes the deck more flexible, while a third Sword or a second Jitte would clog my hand. I use it mainly to fetch for Mask, but just in case I need a different piece of equipment, I can either grab Mask or a different card. I play it mainly because I needed an additional starter, and it fits well the role. I know it's bad, but I then should replace it with another 1-drop.

I'd also cut Figures (because of the 2 Mana lands and the Moxen) for a Jötun Grunt/Kor Sanctifiers split, but that's my 2 cents. And hey, I'm only a S-Class Legacy player, so why listen to me.Jotun Grunt is bad. I used to play it because it has synergy with Cataclysm and shrinks Goyf, but it is card disadvantage, and I want threats that stick around. Kor Sanctifiers is cool, that's why I play it, but playing another 3 drop weightens the deck even more. As for the Figures, I play them because of Mox. Some lists play Isamaru. Even if it's a 2/2 for 1+1 it isn't bad at all. Many many games I could make it a 4/4 on my second turn. I understand all of your points, and all you say makes sense, but cutting Figures for Sanctifiers/Jotun make this deck slower. Saying land, go for an aggro deck is not a good thing.

Someone started a mono-white workshop thread in the developmental. While it's not angel stompy, it is close to it. I posted there and describe it as a cross between angel stompy and stax. It might be worth taking a look at. The fact is this deck isn't competitive now because it loses to combo and control pretty badly. This deck fixed some of that by running Glowrider/Chalice/Thorn of Amethyst maindeck, which dealt with combo handily. However, it didn't have pro-red or as much equipment, so it lost to goblins and heavy aggro.I tried an Aggro Stax shell with Mox Diamond, but I missed the resiliency that the lower curve version can offer. Also, my meta is almost all red-based aggro with 1 of each Landstill and NLS, so I'm quite comfortable with the version I'm playing. The only thing I'm considering is dropping Tithe. I'm playing 50 games (not rounds). When I finish, I'll post my results.

[overseer1234]

The fact is this deck isn't competitive now because it loses to combo and control pretty badly. This deck fixed some of that by running Glowrider/Chalice/Thorn of Amethyst maindeck, which dealt with combo handily. However, it didn't have pro-red or as much equipment, so it lost to goblins and heavy aggro.

Okay, lets say I replace the samurai from my list with ethersworn cannonist (yes, main deck) good enough??? okay then play runed halo on the sideboard? yes this thing also works against progenitus and thresh (just say mongoose and use removal on goyf, or say goyf and just make the mongoose look really small).

don't forget you also play aven mindcencor main deck.

Yep combo matchup should be prety okay right nog without losing to much against agro decks.

Now control is a totaly different thing, but aura of silence and stuff like defence grid or pithing needle handle that pretty good (also, cataclysm kills elspeth), the only thing you have to gamble is the fact that ichorid will be a bitch (but with zoo and combo roaming around to keep that in check atm...)



What I'm trying to say is that white has gotten some freaking good cards to battle all the decks that used to be bad matchup's, so dont dismiss it as "not viable (don't take it personal, this goes for everyone)

[Digital Devil]

Okay, lets say I replace the samurai from my list with ethersworn cannonist (yes, main deck) good enough??? okay then play runed halo on the sideboard? yes this thing also works against progenitus and thresh (just say mongoose and use removal on goyf, or say goyf and just make the mongoose look really small).

don't forget you also play aven mindcencor main deck.

Yep combo matchup should be prety okay right nog without losing to much against agro decks.

Now control is a totaly different thing, but aura of silence and stuff like defence grid or pithing needle handle that pretty good (also, cataclysm kills elspeth), the only thing you have to gamble is the fact that ichorid will be a bitch (but with zoo and combo roaming around to keep that in check atm...)



What I'm trying to say is that white has gotten some freaking good cards to battle all the decks that used to be bad matchup's, so dont dismiss it as "not viable (don't take it personal, this goes for everyone)
Also, Canonist works well with the curve, since it has cmc 2, but actually costs :1::w:, so it can be played with 2 Plains, or even with a Plains and a Tomb/City. It gives us an edge against combo g1, and can be fetched for with ETutor.

Pros:
-Slightly improves the combo matchup
-No more "Brainstorm into FoW"
-It's an additional toolbox target
-Has the same role as Razor Golem in a Cataclysm shell - you can keep Canonist and a creature, you can keep two Canonists, or an equipped one.
-Cmc fits the curve

Cons:
-Krosan Grip
-Qasali Pridemage
-Can't be imprinted on Chrome Mox

So what of you guys do think about this? I'm playing this deck tomorrow so I wanted to know if it was worthwile to *buy* 3-4 Canonists.

[overseer1234]

Also, Canonist works well with the curve, since it has cmc 2, but actually costs :1::w:, so it can be played with 2 Plains, or even with a Plains and a Tomb/City. It gives us an edge against combo g1, and can be fetched for with ETutor.

Pros:
-Slightly improves the combo matchup
-No more "Brainstorm into FoW"
-It's an additional toolbox target
-Has the same role as Razor Golem in a Cataclysm shell - you can keep Canonist and a creature, you can keep two Canonists, or an equipped one.
-Cmc fits the curve

Cons:
-Krosan Grip
-Qasali Pridemage
-Can't be imprinted on Chrome Mox

So what of you guys do think about this? I'm playing this deck tomorrow so I wanted to know if it was worthwile to *buy* 3-4 Canonists.

whell, canonist is good aginst combo and agro controll decks, so these cons arn's really relevant for that matchup (never wanted to imprint it against combo, and combo doesn't usualy run quasaly, or grip sow...°

But get down a combination of runed halo, glowrider, or canonist . And combi alsmost never find's an answer (and mindcencor make's it harder to find those)

Ohw, and mother of rune's can protect anny of your hatebears from the blue bounce combo usualy runs against problem permanent's.

[Digital Devil]

I've just returned from today's tournament. The harsh weather conditions made many players stay at home, so at the start of the competition there were only 21 souls fighting for the prize. 21 is a pretty low number, but the meta was very healthy (there weren't two of the same archetype among the partecipants). My list was the same as the one in post number 1501, except that I switched Soltari Priest for Ethersworn Canonist, MVP all day long. There were 5 swiss rounds leading to top8 - as soon as they said "Pairings" I almost cried because I was playing against Landstill.

Round 1 - vs. :u::r::w: Landstill
So here we are, talking about how badly I've lost the first game. I start with a face-down Angel, which takes him to 4, until he drops Humility and Elspeth. Seeing that I had to win the next two games, and the round time limit was 45 minutes, I decided to scoop.

-4 StP, -1 Mask, -1 ORing, -1 Jitte, -1 Mox, +4 Thorns, +2 Needle, +1 Cataclysm, +1 SoLaS

Game 2 starts with Aven Mindcensor leading the race. Since during the previous game I've threatened my opponent with a SoFaI, I forced him to counter it again. This way, I'm able to Etutor for SoLaS, which makes the game quite easy for me. A Thorn of Amethyst joins the party and he's a mana short to cast his dreaded Wrath of God. Censor wins alone.

Game 3 is pretty similar, except for the fact that I drop a turn 1 Thorn with a Tomb, casting a Mox, a turn 2 Censor, a turn 3 (first turn 3 mana, second turn 4 mana, third turn 6 mana) SoFaI which net me enough card advantage that when he played EE@3, by paying four mana, I could easily cast Cataclysm and seal the deal. Wheew, the hardest matchup was over...

1-0-0

Round 2 - vs. Guillame de Sauza's burn
Game 1, I open with first turn Silver Knight, followed by turn 2 Jitte. My opponent looks at his hand, shuffles it into his library and proceeds sideboarding.

-3 Cataclysm, -3 ORing, -1 Mask, +4 Thorn, +2 SoLaS, +1 Jitte

Second game, I mulled to 6, and the life loss from Tomb made me lose.
Game 3, I've literally locked him out of the game. Turn 1 Thorn (Tomb + Chrome Mox), Turn 2 Ethersworn Canonist, turn 3 SoLaS. He could cast only a burn spell each turn, which wouldn't have killed my 4/4 Canonist. Also, by playing one spell each turn, every attempt to damage me was entirely nullified by SoLaS's lifegain. It all happened because he decided to Lava Spike me instead of Chain Lightning the Canonist.

2-0-0

Round 3 - vs. :r::b: Goblins ("The secrets to avoid bad matchups", chapter 2)
When he opens with Mire into Badlands, Vial, I smile. I open with T1 Knight. Turn 2, he plays Goblin Tinkerer (?). I City into Jitte, which takes his minion's life. He then scoops.

-1 Mox, -1 ORing, +1 Jitte, +1 Cataclysm

Game 2, he still opens with Vial, go. I once again play T1 Knight, which gets eaten by his Warren Weirding. He vials Lackey EOT, he crushes me and he drops Matron searching for Ringleader. I play a Canonist and a Steelshaper's Gift into Jitte. He plays Warchief, swings for 2. I then proceed playing Tomb to play Jitte and equip it, with spare mana to play a FoD. He EOT Vials Matron into another Weirding. He charges Vial @4, vials the previously mentioned Ringleader, he founds chaff, kills my FoD with weirding (it would have been a foolish idea to sacrifice Canonist). He swings for... a lot, he then plays Piledriver, I remember him that Canonist prevents him to play another spell, and he decides to pass the turn. I've intentionally kept the charge counters on Jitte, because I had a Cataclysm in hand. Next turn, I show it to him, shake his hand, and proceed to the next round.

3-0-0

Round 4 - vs. :u::r::g: Lobstill (I'd like to remember that Dreadnought is nothing but a giant lobster)

There were only 3 players with a total of 9 points. The first two players decided to I.D., but I was the third one so I was paired down. Fuck the pairings.

Game 1 was pretty easy. To lose. I open with T1 Angel, he plays Wasteland, EE for 0, go. I cross my fingers since he forgot to destroy my land, but during my upkeep, he Wastes my :2: land. I drop a Flagstones, then try to drop a Canonist which gets FoWed, in his turn he played Tropical, go. I hoped the top card of my deck was a fucking :2: mana land but instead I drew a Chrome Mox... The game ends with me being killed by a 2/2 Mishra and a Trinket Mage.

-3 Cataclysm, -1 Mask, +2 Needle, +2 Path to Exile

Fuck the Dreadnought. I start with FoD which gets FoWed on sight. Island into Top. My turn, I play Tomb and a Canonist. He assembles Counter/Top lock next turn. Luckily, I'm able to circumvent the lock with Aven Mindcensor. He goes with Stifle/Nought. I play EOT Swords, he switches Top because he has failed finding a 1cc in his top3, so when he tries to play again Top, while it is on the stack, I manage to Path to Exile Dreadnought. With 2 Censors and a Canonist, and my opponent at 13, the game was close to a victory. He takes 6, goes to 7. During his turn, he switches top to play another Stifle/Nought. I'm forced to play Kor Sanctifiers, who got Trickbinded. I swing for 4, taking him to 3 life. I was at 12, due to Tomb's life loss, so I was forced to block with Canonist, going down to two. He plays Sower, which steals one of my Mindcensors. I tried to ORing the Sower in order to win, but unfortunately for me he had Vedalken Shackles in the top3.

3-1-0

Round 5 - vs. ???

Didn't even know what he was playing. We decided to I.D.

3-1-1

Top8: Round 1 - vs. Ichorid

G1, he starts with T1 PImp. I'm fucked, because I didn't know what he was playing, so I kept a mediocre hand. EOT, he discards 2 Trolls. He dredges for 6, plays a red "each player draws three cards then discards three cards at random" card, plays Coliseum. I play a stupid, useless Mindcensor, but when he reveals his Breakthrough and a Gemstone mine, I scoop.

-4 StP (worst error. Ever), +2 Relic, +1 Jitte, +1 Cataclysm

For some reason I forgot I had 3x Oblivion Rings maindeck, and removed StP instead. I opened with a pretty good hand, plus a piece of hate. Flagstones, Relic, go. He plays City of Brass, Ingot Chewer, go. I play ETutor during my upkeep to fetch for another Relic, play land, drop Relic, pass the turn. Then he plays Undiscovered Paradise, and plays Null Rod. I scoop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, I end 5th, earning some FTV: Exiled cards. The maindeck is pretty solid, although I'm gonna replace a Steelshaper's Gift with the fourth Figure. They are simply huge. I've also decided to pack a third Relic in the sb. Patrician's Scorn is cool, but it is way too narrow to continue playing it.

Good things to say: I have bought a 6E Enlightened Tutor for 1€ (it was indeed a bargain), so I just simply wanted to ask to all of you if it's better to play 2 or 3 Tutors, maybe with a more toolboxish approach. Also, no regret for cutting Mother of Runes. Removing them made the deck more "aggro".

Bad things away: I realized only now that I've never drawn Tithe in 14 games. Epic fail.


EDIT - I was thinking about a better sb configuration: the staples are

4x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Pithing Needle
2x Sword of Light and Shadow

so that leaves me with 4 empty slots. My meta is full of Zoo/Goblins/Stax, with a bunch of blue based decks, a Landstill deck and a storm combo deck. Two of the empty slots could be the second Jitte and the fourth Cataclysm. In the other two I'm playing two Path to Exile - is there something better to play in the sideboard?

[Teumie]

hi, i played this deck a while ago and really liked it ... I will build it again and see what happens in the current meta (here that consists of a lot of aggro, a bit of combo, faeries, supreme blue) so i guess this shouldn't be that bad.

regarding the previous post question on sideboarding ... this might sound silly but against zoo/goblins absolute law is a bomb ...
i guess against blue-ish decks you should already be ok
the only thing i can think of to win the combo matchup is to side in chalice of the void ... i prefer that card over thorn anyway, but thorn is more versatile ...
playing first turn chalice @ 1 is huge

[Digital Devil]

hi, i played this deck a while ago and really liked it ... I will build it again and see what happens in the current meta (here that consists of a lot of aggro, a bit of combo, faeries, supreme blue) so i guess this shouldn't be that bad.

regarding the previous post question on sideboarding ... this might sound silly but against zoo/goblins absolute law is a bomb ...
i guess against blue-ish decks you should already be ok
the only thing i can think of to win the combo matchup is to side in chalice of the void ... i prefer that card over thorn anyway, but thorn is more versatile ...
playing first turn chalice @ 1 is huge
Well, your meta is practically identical to my meta. The only exception is that I have a single combo player, instead of a bunch of them.
About Absolute Law: Goblin is a *BYE* on your match slip, and Zoo is highly in your favor, so I think Law is a bit of a win-more card. Against "blue-ish decks" the deck is comfortable only for the fact that it has more creatures than their countermagic; if they use their countermagic on your creatures, you remove their threats with StP and O-Ring, and if they use their countermagic on your removal it means they're taking huge pain from your attacks. I gave up the Chalice idea because I don't want to be occasionally killed by my own cards - the opponent is already giving all of his talent to make me lose, so I'd rather play a card that isn't symmetrical. Against Combo, Thorn isn't symmetrical for the fact that StP, Cataclysm and other cards are pretty much useless, meaning you don't need to cast them in order to achieve the goal of your victory. That's why I like it over Chalice, but, hey, it depends on what you're planning to do.

@ everyone: I've played a bunch of matches (2 out of 3 games), because I was searching the perfect configuration for both the deck's curve and mana base. I've still a lot of work to do to understand the proper meaning of Tithe (it's hard to play 50 matches when the average tournament here is 6 rounds + top8), but I still wanted to ask this----

With a mana base consisting of
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
8x Plains (I replaced a Tomb with an additional :w: source)
3x Chrome Mox (cut one of them because they cost me card disadvantage and a second copy is pretty much Mask fodder)
3x Ancient Tomb (cut one of them because of the life loss, and the :w::w: issue)
2x City of Traitors
2x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Tithe
1x Ancient Den
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
And a mana curve like this
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 xxx
1 xxxx xxxx xxxx x
2 xxxx xxxx xxx
3 xxxx xxxx xx
4 xxx
5
6 xxxx (although the Exalted Angels can still be played with :3:)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do I need to play additional mana sources? With a 22 sources manabase I noticed I was mana flooded most of the times - from 22 to 21 there's not a huge difference, but the impact in removing a Tomb and a Mox made me feel like the deck was more stable. 3 Mox is still good - what isn't good is drawing two Tombs, or having 2 Tombs and 2 Plains and being forced to take 2 damage for every >3cc spell you cast. And drawing Mox in the mid-late game makes me angry.

[from Cairo]

EDIT - I was thinking about a better sb configuration: the staples are


4x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Pithing Needle
2x Sword of Light and Shadow

so that leaves me with 4 empty slots. My meta is full of Zoo/Goblins/Stax, with a bunch of blue based decks, a Landstill deck and a storm combo deck. Two of the empty slots could be the second Jitte and the fourth Cataclysm. In the other two I'm playing two Path to Exile - is there something better to play in the sideboard?

You could try the card Exile from Alliances, it might prove to be better than Path to Exile in this shell, since it dodges CB/T a bit better and instead of giving the opponent a land it gives you a grip of life. Versus something like Phyrexian Dreadnoughts or Zoo/Thresh's 4/5-5/6 Goyfs it can put a pretty big swing on the game, if you're netting 6-12 life and offing their biggest threat.

You might also want to try Aura of Silence for the Stax and CB/T Thresh and Dreadstill match ups. It fits your toolbox theme as it can be searched with Tutor, and at cmc 3 dodges Spell Snare and is a bit harder CB flip. Additional Kor Sanctifiers might be worth testing too.

[kinda]

I would suggest a moat...

[Digital Devil]

In those four slots I could play the second Jitte, 2x Patrician's Scorn (by replacing O-Rings against Counterbalance, also useful against Enchantress, Stax, and Mighty Quinn) and a second Kor Sanctifiers. That way, against CB decks, I have the certainty of getting rid of that :u::u: enchantment, instead of fearing a K-Grip on my Rings. My plan against CB becomes -3 Rings, +2 Scorn (it kills my own Rings, so I'd better take 'em out) and +1 Sanctifiers. Against Dreadstill, instead, I might simply want to pack Needles instead of Cataclysms, a thing I've always been doing against CB Thresh-like strategies. What about Patrician's Scorn, since it's tempo boost and in the meanwhile it dodges CB harder?

[Digital Devil]

Ok, so here is the data I've collected so far. I'm neither calculating % nor mathematical concepts, I'm just talking about logical conclusions. I have obtained precious informations, which I want to share with you to (maybe) improve the deck's general behaviour. By playing a good amount of games (50 matches, 114 games total) I noticed important aspects of the deck I have never considered before. First of all, it's dangerous to run more than four :2: producing lands, even with only (I'm talking about my version) 7 cards with double :w: in the casting cost. During my tests, I've been considering Exalted Angel as a 3 drop, so my thoughts may be wrong. I'm going to take an in-depth analysis of every aspect I've been studying.

Ancient Tomb: this deck needs no more than four :2: accelerants. Since I want to hit :w::w: anyway, and as soon as possible, I've considered a 2-2 split with City of Traitors (you have to sacrifice your lands to Cataclysm, so it shouldn't be a problem, at first glance), but it looks like 3-1 is better. Tomb is terrible in the late game, City is terrible during the first turns, but Tomb is a *permanent* mana source, so the split is in its favour. I'm not playing a full set of Tombs because, even if we're in the late game we're already losing, sometimes a City is just better than a Tomb, especially if you're casting high cost spells repeteadly.

Flagstones of Trokair: never play more than two. The deck thinning isn't worth "losing" a land drop. This is a thing I've noticed years ago, but I think it is helpful to remind that.

Plains: the deck needs at least 16 :w: producing sources. Some come in the form of Chrome Mox, some are Flagstones, the rest should be Plains. The minimum consensus should be somewhat around 10 basics.

Exalted Angel: too slow for today's meta? I don't think so. Most of the currently used threats don't even take a chance against an early Angel. Sure, lategame it loses some of its power, but "lategame" isn't even a word I want to hear when playing this deck. 5/6 Goyfs will be hitting for 1 a turn. Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt always existed. If you're afraid of removal, just play Mother of Runes first. Against Force, just remember your opponent also lost 2 cards.

Figure of Destiny: with a higher amount of white producing lands, and a full set of Chrome Moxen, this card seems pretty good. Not only it seems good, it is good. It's like a super-efficient Isamaru (Godzilla's list ran 4), except for the fact that it doesn't lose its power lategame. It increases its power. Plus, it's an additional starter.

Aven Mindcensor: I don't need to say that every white deck should run these. It gives an edge against combo during game 1 (not that it makes a hard matchup any better, but it is indeed one of the few useful cards against combo), acts as a semi-permanent Stifle, shuts down the Survival engine and hoses NO-Progenitus. Flash makes it even cooler, since you can cast it in response to so many stuff you can't even imagine. It's also a surprise blocker (pseudo-removal, also) and dodges Counterbalance.

Ethersworn Canonist: if you play a Cataclysm-centric build, but with Chrome Mox instead of Razor Golem, this is an auto-include. I run 3, because they're useless in multiples, but they are indeed a strong addition to the deck. It forces your opponent to decide whether he should be casting a cantrip or a creature, and if he needs to cast a Brainstorm to find a counter, he can't then cast the counter. It makes your Aven Mindcensors 100% sure to connect, because your opponent is likely to play a spell during his turn, so he can't respond with a counterspell to a flash-played 2/1.

Mother of Runes: I initially removed this card from my build, but I immediately missed her inclusion. It works as a tempo/card advantage generating machine, and it is a 1 drop. With Ethersworn Canonist it also makes a soft-lock against a good part of the field. Going down to three (as I did after many tests) is acceptable, but cutting them is insane.

Silver Knight: I found Silver Knight to be the weak link in the deck's threatbase. Most times it just dies to Mishra's Factory, threshed Mongeese, and Zoo usually plays bigger threats than he can trade with. I tried to entirely remove him, but the red based decks raped me so badly I decided to play him again. I dropped him down to three copies, and it works well. I think this card is the most likely to be changed with a new set release, but that would be a problem against red decks.

Serra Avenger: in my newer build, she is the fourth Silver Knight. I don't want to draw her in more than two copies, so I only play one. This deck needs threat to play now, and it seriously slows down the whole strategy if drawn in multiples. Playing two of them is what I always used to do, but without Aether Vial it is risky. You can still imprint the one in excess, but what if you have a threat-light hand?

Swords to Plowshares: nothing to say about this card.

Chrome Mox: mana accelerant, but card disadvantage at the same time. The main problem is that I always want one of them in my opening 7. The secondary problem is that if you play only 3, you reduce the chance of drawing it in the first seven cards. I'm sticking on four. Mana flood is *better* (although still terrible) than mana screw. Mox also allows broken starts against decks without protections, and lets you play your soft-lock pieces faster. Against combo, it's one of the few chances to play your Thorn of Amethyst/Glowrider, if playing any. Excessive copies can be discarded with Mask of Memory.

Cataclysm: here is where my analysis goes deeper. Cataclysm is a safe reset button. It costs four, which is not a problem with a manabase like this deck one's. It severely punishes decks which tend to overextend, but I realised that those decks are fewer than those who, say, tend to play only a few amount of threats, and/or have a light mana curve. Many times it saves you from dangerous situations, many times it punishes your opponent even harder. But applying pressure in the form of land destruction isn't what this deck needs to do. Finishing the game as quickly as possible, that's what it needs. Cataclysm is a controversial element. Sometimes it just sits in my hand, sometimes I need to topdeck it to avoid losing. But you don't need cards to make sure you avoid your loss, you need cards that make you win. I've always wondered how the Death'n'Taxes build which were playing Cataclysm in the sideboard could manage to win the first game. And the reason is simple. Protect your threats, and remove your opponent's. If your opponent has a 4/5 Tarmogoyf, and you have a Silver Knight, Cataclysm won't save you. Lands don't make a threat, cards in hand do. Cataclysm punishes both players if they both overextend, but then again, it completely annihilates the reason to play Mother of Runes. Sometimes they just keep their Tundra, a creature, they Swords to Plowshares your 2/2 and start the beatdown you should have started yourself, exactly the same way you should be doing. Against some strategies, it just completely wrecks all of your opponent's efforts (Stax/Enchantress/Goblins). But against some of those strategies you need to overextend yourself to avoid losing. In a game in which the strongest creature costs :1::g:, and in which the strongest removal costs :w:, Cataclysm is to me nothing more than a sideboard card. This is weird, since I've never been playing anything different from Cataclysm in the last three years. Now I understand why people say that Cataclysm has been obsoleted. Now I'm playing Parallax Wave in Cataclysm's place, and I have no regret.

Oblivion Ring: absolutely no reason to not include those. The amount of Rings you play depends on the amount of Qasali Pridemage/Krosan Grips/Counterbalance you see in your area.

Tithe: Tithe is what this deck needs. It's an additional starter, it's better than a regular land in the lategame, and it's imprintable. Someone talks about tempo loss, but you're not losing the game because of *that much* tempo since your threats have a light mana cost. The amount you play depends on the amount of risk you're willing to take in drawing multiples and/or on the amount of free countermagic/mana denial strategies you are expecting to face.

Enlightened Tutor: Godzilla used to say it is one of the cards that didn't make the cut, because the deck relied on redundancy. But I'm not playing a deck with 36 silver bullets, I'm playing a deck with 3x/4x of many cards. This is what I call "added flexibility". Originally, those slots were filled with equipments. Equipments do nothing on their own, that's why I decided to play only 4 total. Tutor makes your sideboard more effective, as well as making your bombs fetchable. It is tempo loss and card disadvantage, but that's not enough to make me give up on the best utility spell I think this deck has access to. Throw in 2 Tutor in place of equipments, then tell me. We want things now, of course, but I'd rather waste a card and be sure to draw what I need instead of drawing an additional equipment which sometimes is just nothing more than an annoyance.

Mask of Memory: fast, cheap, nets you card advantage, makes you dig deeper in your deck, makes you discard useless cards, improving your card quality. Nothing to say about Mask.

Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice: I'm talking about those two at the same time. One is cheaper, one is heavier. Both are bad in multiples, although one makes sure to destroy your opponent's copy, the other makes you deal a huge amount of damage. With the amount of low cost efficient creatures this format has, Umezawa's Jitte ability to remove critters isn't as effective as it used to be. Of course it can accumulate its counters, and even spread them, but what if instead I draw a Swords to Plowshares and still remove your creature? Both equipments need tempo, and both have their advantages/drawbacks. I'm playing only one copy of each. This is the only thing about which I'm uncertain. I want to entirely drop Jitte, but at the same time I'm unwilling to do it, because sometimes I need the lifegain, the ability to remove 2 threats simultaneosuly, and sometimes even a response to my opponent's Jitte. That's a problem I hope you can help me solve.


I'm not talking about my sideboard, either because there's nothing like a "universal meta", either because things like "my meta" are marginal and shouldn't involve the entire thread.
I'm simply posting my latest list: maybe it's helpful, maybe it's me the one who needs help. In both cases, I hope my words were not spoken in vain.

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

// Lands
9 [10E] Plains
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
1 [EX] City of Traitors
1 [MR] Ancient Den


// Creatures
4 [REL] Figure of Destiny
4 [FUT] Aven Mindcensor
4 [JGC] Exalted Angel
3 [FNM] Silver Knight
3 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
3 [FNM] Mother of Runes
1 [CHP] Serra Avenger

// Spells
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
3 [NE] Parallax Wave
2 [VI] Tithe
2 [6E] Enlightened Tutor
2 [MR] Mask of Memory
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MANA CURVE

0 xxxx (4)
1 xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx (15)
2 xxxx xxxx xx (10)
3 xxxx xxxx (8)
4 xxx (3)
5
6 xxxx (4)

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

[Moonlight]

Very interesting post! :cool: read it with growing respect for your ''this deck WILL kill again''-drive hehe..

What about soltari priest? If your losing to red.deck, this + equipment might be good..?
And what about Sword of light and shadow instead of jitte, if lifegain is your emergency case with jitte?

Ill throw this into MWS again to play some games!

[Digital Devil]

Very interesting post! :cool: read it with growing respect for your ''this deck WILL kill again''-drive hehe..

What about soltari priest? If your losing to red.deck, this + equipment might be good..?
And what about Sword of light and shadow instead of jitte, if lifegain is your emergency case with jitte?

Ill throw this into MWS again to play some games!
1. Thank you
2. Soltari Priest is a card I always wanted to fit. When I initially removed Silver Knight, I switched them with Soltari Priest, because they retained the protection ability, and didn't die to Mishra/Mongoose. The main problem is that removing Silver Knight severely harms the winning % against some decks (Goblins, Sligh, Dragon Stompy, even Aggro Loam). So I decided to go to the "ok, then I'm playing only 3" route. If you don't play Aven Mindcensor, I strongly recommend Priest in those slots, although it probably means switching Tithe with Plains. IMHO Aven Mindcensor > Soltari Priest.
3. Nice question - I was thinking the same exact thing. By removing Jitte, I still have two Swords that give me a static +2/+2 (which is the main advantage over Jitte - I don't want my creatures to go kamikaze style just to charge Jitte); then, I have virtually protection from everything. SoLaS makes all creatures Exalted Angels (4/x with lifegain, although 3 life is minus than 4+), but doesn't work well with Mother of Runes and the new inclusion of Parallax Wave. I wanted to pack a second copy of Sword of Fire and Ice, since with Wave the % of connecting an attack is superior, thus the card draw and extra damage can be really useful. Also, 4th turn kill in goldfish is cool =)
Talking seriously, Jitte does extra damage, SoFaI does it, too. Jitte has a nice life gain ability, SoLaS has it, too. Jitte can use its ability at instant speed, while the respective counterparts can be used only in our turns. Jitte is cheaper, also. It's a thing I can't find a solution to. And your question gives me more reasoning, which is always nice. Good point.

[eq.firemind]

Looks like this deck finally recieved something cool:


Stoneforge Mystic 1W
Creature - Kor Artificer (rare)

When Stoneforge Mystic Enters the Battlefield, you may search your library for an equipment card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
1W, tap: Put an Equipment card from your hand onto the battlefield.

1/2

Card advantage + the ability to select the right Sword against current opponent looks extremely good. Also, I guess we can run less equips now.

[Kilz88]

More important I think than equipment guy is the white kird ape.

W
1/1
+1+2 if you control a forest.

I think this might finally give the deck a good enough reason to run green as a splash for this guy, goyf, and some much needed grips in the board.

With this change also brings up the question of cutting exalted angel and chrome mox for vial and something like maindeck ethersworn canonist/jotun grunt or another 1-2 cmc guy.

[EDIT]

I am looking at something like this. Keep in mind, very loose rough draft:


// Lands
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [B] Savannah
3 [US] Plains (4)
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
1 [ALA] Forest (3)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [CHK] Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 [FUT] Aven Mindcensor
4 [V09] Kird Ape
4 [TSP/CSP] Serra Avenger/Jotun Grunt

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
3 [A] Armageddon
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
2 [LRW] Oblivion Ring

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
SB: 4 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt

[eq.firemind]

The white Kird Ape? As far as I know, Zoo players consider the original one to be one of the weakes cards in the deck... I guess if you play 2 colors, then you play fetches, and then Steppe Lynx is the agressive creature of choice and Figure of Destiny is there if you prefer more controllish variant. Also, Knight of the Reliquary is awesome (and even better if you run Geddon).

IMHO Stoneforge Mystic is bonkers in lists with Mox - he just solves the problem of running out of gas early. And Plains, Mox, Stoneforge Mystic open is just insane - you cheated a manasource, but you also just traded the worst card in hand (pitched to Mox) for good equipment.
Also, uncounterable Jittes/Swords are great.

[sco0ter]

More important I think than equipment guy is the white kird ape.

W
1/1
+1+2 if you control a forest.

I think this might finally give the deck a good enough reason to run green as a splash for this guy, goyf, and some much needed grips in the board.



White Kird Ape??

Where do you get this from? I don't see it spoiled or discussed on mtgsalvation.

Why not run Disenchant, if you need an effect like this?

[eq.firemind]

I'd like to know your opinion about a little twist: very minor :u: splash.

Here is ho it should look like:

4 Ancient Tomb
10 Plains
3 Tundra
4 Chrome Mox
2 Tithe

3 Figure of Destiny
4 Mother of Runes
4 Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile

4 Azorius Guildmage
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Mask of Memory

4 Aven Mindcensor
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Augury Adept
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Parallax Wave

The first card I want to use is Azorius Guldmage and that's why the minor splash is needed. This creature can tap blockers, screw fatties' attack and with blue mana she can counter fetches, Wastelands, Deeds and many other stuff.
The second one is Augury Adept. This one is like 2/2+attached SoLaS/SoFaI mix in one card. The bad part is that she needs to connect. The good part, the deck has lots of ways to help her (4 StP, 2 O-Ring, 1 Wave, 4 Mother of Runes, 3 Elspeth, and now 4 Guildmage).
The deck runs more :w: in cost and some nonbasics, so I decide to add 13th colored land.
Also, our creatures has no raw power, so I tried to compensate that by adding 4th Mother of Runes.
The singleton Wave was 3rd O-Ring, but I decided that I want a better answer to swarms.
So, what do you guys think?

[paeng4983]

I'd like to know your opinion about a little twist: very minor :u: splash.

Here is ho it should look like:

4 Ancient Tomb
10 Plains
3 Tundra
4 Chrome Mox
2 Tithe

3 Figure of Destiny
4 Mother of Runes
4 Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile

4 Azorius Guildmage
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Mask of Memory

4 Aven Mindcensor
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Augury Adept
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Parallax Wave

The first card I want to use is Azorius Guldmage and that's why the minor splash is needed. This creature can tap blockers, screw fatties' attack and with blue mana she can counter fetches, Wastelands, Deeds and many other stuff.
The second one is Augury Adept. This one is like 2/2+attached SoLaS/SoFaI mix in one card. The bad part is that she needs to connect. The good part, the deck has lots of ways to help her (4 StP, 2 O-Ring, 1 Wave, 4 Mother of Runes, 3 Elspeth, and now 4 Guildmage).
The deck runs more :w: in cost and some nonbasics, so I decide to add 13th colored land.
Also, our creatures has no raw power, so I tried to compensate that by adding 4th Mother of Runes.
The singleton Wave was 3rd O-Ring, but I decided that I want a better answer to swarms.
So, what do you guys think?

Where's the angel here? i mean it's her name up there... where is she? :)

[TheSleeper]

Hey guys,

I've been searching for a deck that can hose Survival-based decks which are running rampant of late. My search lead to first to the 'Stompy' disruption base of Trinisphere and Chalice. From there, I looked at which colour best suited this goal. After exploring Dragon & Sea Stompy a little, I turned to white. This is a pretty raw list but wanted to share with any Angel Stompy people so we could look at tuning it. I give you..

Darwin's Nightmare
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
14 Plains
4 Chrome Mox

4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Baneslayer Angel
2 Exalted Angel

4 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Oblivion Ring


The cards can be broken down into high level catergories: Disruption, Utility & Win Cons.

Disruption:
Arbiter & Mindcensor: Disrupt Survival, Natural Order, Fetch-lands, tutors of any other kind (Sterling Grove, Crop Rotation, Personal Tutor, Infernal Tutor, Trinket Mage to name a few). Mindcensor is also a 2/1 flying which carries Jitte wonderfully.
Canonist, Chalice & Trinisphere: These hose Basking Rootwalla (and therefore Vengevine), Aggro like Zoo & Combo decks in general.
Ghostly Prison: Severely hampers the usual Aggro suspects. Little fear of early game Vengevines with this out.

Utility:
Jitte: The manabase can support it and we have a number of flyers. Can randomnly win games.
Oblivion Ring: All purpose removal which fits the manabase/disruption plan.

Win Conditions:
Baneslayer & Exalted: I wanted Win Conditions that trump Vengevine (and can even race Progenitus). While a lot of people wonder if Baneslayer is 'too slow for Legacy'. In short, no she's not. With this disruption package in place, a lot of decks simply cannot answer her (Chalice @ 1 makes her a happy girl). From Zoo to Merfolk to Goblins to Dragon Stompy - not many decks want to face BA.

Problem matchups:
Again I haven't tested this extensively yet (in the process), but early analysis says this deck will simply fold to 43-lands. Every deck has its Archilles Heel and while perhaps the matchup can be improved, I'm fine with punting this one in favour of smashing more popular decks.

Any feedback/thoughts appreciated.

[overseer1234]

Hey guys,

I've been searching for a deck that can hose Survival-based decks which are running rampant of late. My search lead to first to the 'Stompy' disruption base of Trinisphere and Chalice. From there, I looked at which colour best suited this goal. After exploring Dragon & Sea Stompy a little, I turned to white. This is a pretty raw list but wanted to share with any Angel Stompy people so we could look at tuning it. I give you..

Darwin's Nightmare
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
14 Plains
4 Chrome Mox

4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Baneslayer Angel
2 Exalted Angel

4 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Oblivion Ring


The cards can be broken down into high level catergories: Disruption, Utility & Win Cons.

Disruption:
Arbiter & Mindcensor: Disrupt Survival, Natural Order, Fetch-lands, tutors of any other kind (Sterling Grove, Crop Rotation, Personal Tutor, Infernal Tutor, Trinket Mage to name a few). Mindcensor is also a 2/1 flying which carries Jitte wonderfully.
Canonist, Chalice & Trinisphere: These hose Basking Rootwalla (and therefore Vengevine), Aggro like Zoo & Combo decks in general.
Ghostly Prison: Severely hampers the usual Aggro suspects. Little fear of early game Vengevines with this out.

Utility:
Jitte: The manabase can support it and we have a number of flyers. Can randomnly win games.
Oblivion Ring: All purpose removal which fits the manabase/disruption plan.

Win Conditions:
Baneslayer & Exalted: I wanted Win Conditions that trump Vengevine (and can even race Progenitus). While a lot of people wonder if Baneslayer is 'too slow for Legacy'. In short, no she's not. With this disruption package in place, a lot of decks simply cannot answer her (Chalice @ 1 makes her a happy girl). From Zoo to Merfolk to Goblins to Dragon Stompy - not many decks want to face BA.

Problem matchups:
Again I haven't tested this extensively yet (in the process), but early analysis says this deck will simply fold to 43-lands. Every deck has its Archilles Heel and while perhaps the matchup can be improved, I'm fine with punting this one in favour of smashing more popular decks.

Any feedback/thoughts appreciated.

Here's what I would change:

14 plains + 8 2-mana lands + 4 whrome mox seems a bit much, so I would cut at least 2 plains

4 mindsensor+4 arbitter also seems a bit overkill... cutting 1 would make room for another disruptive critter (maybe glowrider)

And since you want to be agro I supose ghostly prison could be exchanged for windborn muse...

The open 2 slot's (2 plains) are the one's I would fill with a SoFaI and a 3rd O-ring...

Also, Ive alway's liked cataclysm and armageddon in this type of decks....

Just my 2 cents

[eq.firemind]

TheSleeper, this is nice decklist!
I think that 4 Arbiter + 4 Mindcensor are fine and the deck needs even more.
I suggest to try -2 Umezawa's Jitte -1 Plains, +3 Suppression Field. This will affect everything 43 lands can offer except Tabernacle and gives you another crippling turn 1-2 play.
Also, decks with Pernicious Deed could cause problems to you. Armageddon in SB (and 2-3 Flagstones of Trokair in main) should give you tool to fight slow control decks.
And I agree on Windborn Muse

[TheSleeper]

over1234 & eq.firemind cheers for the kind words and even more for the suggestions. Will definitely give them a go and report back!

[Esper3k]

A friend today pointed me to the Angel Stompy thread getting some action and I must say I really like where this is going!

I may have to give it a spin...

I do think a couple Flagstones of Trokair ala White Stax would be really useful.

Maybe consider some SoLS instead of SoFI? Baneslayer really only has to worry about black or white removal and it seems like it would save it from both. Also, gaining 10 life when you swing should pretty much win you any aggro race.

If you play Cataclysm, it'd synergize nicely with SoLS to get your guys back too.

[dahcmai]

Instead of those really expensive angels, you might give old Blinding Angel a try. It's serious tech for the survival match up. What do they do against Blinding Angel except sit and die? lol It's quite amusing how she kills the entire deck all by herself and you don't have to hold a single thing in reserve. I think a lot of people forgot about that card or just can't cast it as easily as this deck can.

[Esper3k]

Only issue with Blinding Angel, at least against the UG Vengevine Survival is that she can be blocked all day by a Trygon Predator.

[ZeinVoncy]

Only issue with Blinding Angel, at least against the UG Vengevine Survival is that she can be blocked all day by a Trygon Predator.

Not to mention WW3 could be a little too late game for some decks. Ideally, U/G Vengevine Survival will either be in the swing of things by the time she comes out, or it's likely they'll have a counter waiting. Silent Arbiter, a Moat of some sort or Dueling Grounds would be better options (mana pendent of course)

This deck type interests me, but I fail see how it's stompy. I see it more as a MonoW Control that uses white weenies to delay your opponent and expensive Angels as it's kill to win the game. Is this a viable deck type? (I'm new to the site but have been around MTG since Mercadian Masques, mainly playing Vintage and Standard periodically. Legacy is somewhat new, past year or so, and this deck just doesn't look like much. Along with Dragonstompy.)

[overseer1234]

Another issue with vengevival is when they see a moat or just a lot of fliers they simply ditch a wonder to survival and then everything getw wings....

I do like the plan of playing flagstone's+armageddon/cataclysm, making life pretty hard on an opponent when there's a badass angel beating his face...

Also when you chose for cataclysm, razor golem gets pretty interesting again... (giving you the option to keep 2 creature's)

[Admiral_Arzar]

TheSleeper, this is nice decklist!
I think that 4 Arbiter + 4 Mindcensor are fine and the deck needs even more.
I suggest to try -2 Umezawa's Jitte -1 Plains, +3 Suppression Field. This will affect everything 43 lands can offer except Tabernacle and gives you another crippling turn 1-2 play.
Also, decks with Pernicious Deed could cause problems to you. Armageddon in SB (and 2-3 Flagstones of Trokair in main) should give you tool to fight slow control decks.
And I agree on Windborn Muse

Something like this, maybe:

4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Windborn Muse
4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
3 Oblivion Ring

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
11 Plains

Sideboard

3 Armageddon
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon
????

My one worry is that most of our creatures are nothing special in the aggro matchup. There is a massive amount of maindeck combo hate, and Suppression Field is a game-ending bomb against fetchland heavy decks. Not to mention that Chalice eats a large chunk of the format alive.

[Esper3k]

@zein: Stompy generally refers to decks that have a particular mana base (Ancient Tombs, City of Traitors, Chrome Moxes) and run Chalice + Trinisphere.

I was thinking about his deck this evening and was mildly considering testing Linvala for more activated ability hate. If you can get her out early, she shuts off hierarch, bop, qasali, necrotic ooze, grim lavamancer, etc

[overseer1234]

Something like this, maybe:

4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Windborn Muse
4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
3 Oblivion Ring

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
11 Plains

Sideboard

3 Armageddon
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon
????

My one worry is that most of our creatures are nothing special in the aggro matchup. There is a massive amount of maindeck combo hate, and Suppression Field is a game-ending bomb against fetchland heavy decks. Not to mention that Chalice eats a large chunk of the format alive.

Nice decklist, it's definetly something to start testing and tweak to perfection for a certain meta.

however I do think its a bit landheavy... (4 chrome mox + 22 land is a bit much I think).

I would propably cut 2 lands, and put the spuression fields in the sideboard, so you have some more room for equipment.

This way the agro matchups get a bit better I think.

[ZeinVoncy]

@zein: Stompy generally refers to decks that have a particular mana base (Ancient Tombs, City of Traitors, Chrome Moxes) and run Chalice + Trinisphere.

Oh, I always thought stompy referred to very cheap and aggressive decks, as in 10-land Stompy . . .

[Admiral_Arzar]

Nice decklist, it's definetly something to start testing and tweak to perfection for a certain meta.

however I do think its a bit landheavy... (4 chrome mox + 22 land is a bit much I think).

I would propably cut 2 lands, and put the spuression fields in the sideboard, so you have some more room for equipment.

This way the agro matchups get a bit better I think.

I agree on the lands. Maybe replace them with Ghostly Prison or another beater (Linvala is a really good idea Esper3K). I think Suppression Field is an awesome maindeck slot though, as the meta is infested with Vial aggro and Survival, and it ruins those decks. It also does horrible things to any deck that relies on Top or runs a lot of fetchlands. That pretty much covers the entire meta...Equipment may help us against aggro, but I'm not sure that it will help more than Suppression Field. A T1 'Field prevents Zoo from fetching and slows 'Folk and Goblins down to a crawl as they can't abuse Vial. This gives us more than enough time to drop other lock pieces and then beat face with BSA. At least, that's how it works in theory lol.

[Esper3k]

Yeah, the only reason I would want some equipment is because all the bears die to Pyroclasm/Firespout. A resolved Tarmogoyf also seems to make the hate bears very sad.

Maybe Absolute Law in the board to help with that.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yeah, the only reason I would want some equipment is because all the bears die to Pyroclasm/Firespout. A resolved Tarmogoyf also seems to make the hate bears very sad.

Maybe Absolute Law in the board to help with that.

Yeah, a single resolved fatty makes this deck unhappy if we don't draw Oblivion Ring or stick Baneslayer. Not sure exactly what else to do about that assuming they can pay for our taxing effects. Elspeth would help both greatly but she is horrible with Suppression Field just like equipment. We probably have more answers to a resolved fatty than Sea Stompy or Dragon Stompy, but we also have less capacity to race without equipment, and most of our creatures being unimpressive in combat. Baneslayer is insane though - we can even race Progenitus often with it on the board.

Absolute Law makes sense, that's probably the best red hoser there is for us. Sphere of Law would be great if it protected our dudes, but it doesn't. Maybe we should just maindeck Armageddon and set it off after laying a couple of lock pieces - not sure how I feel about that without Crucible though.

Also, I'm not sure about Leonin Arbiter's place here. It seems inferior to Ethersworn Canonist, and Aven Mindcensor already pretty much does what it does while being attached to a flying, flashing body. Any better ideas for that slot?

[Litorers]

Samurai of the pale curtain might be a really good hate bear, with all the survival running around....
Just my 2 cents

[Admiral_Arzar]

Samurai of the pale curtain might be a really good hate bear, with all the survival running around....
Just my 2 cents

That's an awesome idea. My one worry is that double white mana might be hard to get early in the game.

[Esper3k]

See I was actually thinking Canonist was less than spectacular. Vengevine Survival decks pack a Memnite just to get around Canonist.

Regarding Samurai: it's actually pretty bad against Survival because a card going to the hard from your hand isn't a permanent. In order to be a permanent, the card has to be on the battlefield. This is also why Samurai is generally bad against Dredge - their cards go to the yard from the library or hand so are never actually permanents.

[TheSleeper]

I have been testing these new builds and if I had to drop one of Leonin or Canonist from the MD, it would probably be the latter. Leonin has been solid against fetch-heavy decks which are rampant these days. Could be considered a 'flex slot' / meta call though. Chalice/3Sphere/Aven/Field are often your best disruption pieces, however Leonin and Canonist act as secondary options to help consistency. I've opened with T1 Chalice T2 Leonin and Zoo just rolled over because it had a hand of fetches. Yes these hate-bears are somewhat vulnerable, however its all about disrupting your opponent until you can land a Baneslayer. Having people pay to fetch, activate, search and attack is a lot of fun!

Linvala seems solid but I'm wary of her double white as well as being legendary. Possibly a singleton, although might compete with a Moat which I've also been thinking about. Unsure Samurai does enough to warrant inclusion.

For reference, my testing list:
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
13 Plains
4 Chrome Mox

4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Windborn Muse
2 Exalted Angel

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Suppression Field
3 Oblivion Ring

[Blackmagic]

Just a few questions @The sleeper and others:

Does suppression field make exalted angels morph cost 2 more? (this might sound like a very noob question)
What do think of knight of the holy nimbus? It's pretty hard to kill for a lot of decks, especially with a suppression field on the board
and also what do you think of Parallax Wave as added removal.

I like the idea of having a cataclysm/Armageddon+flagstones interaction but don't know if that doesn't turn the deck too much into a stax build.

I've been busy building a mono white deck which runs suppression field main, it also runs flickerwisp. It's not death and taxes and also not angel stompy just a homebrew.
what do you think of tivadar of thorn in the sideboard against goblins and wispmare against survival?
Both offer recurring removal later in the game with flickerwisp. The fact that you are able to destroy survival for one white mana with wispmare's evoke cost could be vital in game three when you're on the draw I think.

[Esper3k]

Just a few questions @The sleeper and others:

Does suppression field make exalted angels morph cost 2 more? (this might sound like a very noob question)
What do think of knight of the holy nimbus? It's pretty hard to kill for a lot of decks, especially with a suppression field on the board
and also what do you think of Parallax Wave as added removal.

I like the idea of having a cataclysm/Armageddon+flagstones interaction but don't know if that doesn't turn the deck too much into a stax build.

I've been busy building a mono white deck which runs suppression field main, it also runs flickerwisp. It's not death and taxes and also not angel stompy just a homebrew.
what do you think of tivadar of thorn in the sideboard against goblins and wispmare against survival?
Both offer recurring removal later in the game with flickerwisp. The fact that you are able to destroy survival for one white mana with wispmare's evoke cost could be vital in game three when you're on the draw I think.

Morph is not an activated ability, so turning a face down creature face-up would not be affected by Suppression Field.

Knight of the Holy Nimbus is neat, but I think wouldn't be that great. First of all, the WW in the casting cost makes it tough to get out early. Second, it doesn't really disrupt the opponent or put them on a fast clock.

[overseer1234]

See I was actually thinking Canonist was less than spectacular. Vengevine Survival decks pack a Memnite just to get around Canonist.


Erm... how much vengevival hate do you really want???

I mean, sure they can bypass canonist with memnite, but...

Trinsphere makes it cost at least 6 mana for them to actually cast 2 spells.
Suppression field,Leonin arbitter, AND aven mindsensor make's it damn hard for them to tutor op anything.

Also windborn muse makes an alpha strike pretty unlikely

[Atwa]

I played this deck way back with Paralax Wave, Silver Knight and those kind of cards.

Seeing some more activity in this thread makes me want to revisit the deck. Here is the list I'm going to try out:

8 Plains
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Karakas

4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Windborn Muse
3 Etherworn Canonist
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinishpere
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Elspeth
1 Paralax Wave
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Those last 3 slots are for testing. I'll decide what to do with them later.

[Esper3k]

Erm... how much vengevival hate do you really want???

I mean, sure they can bypass canonist with memnite, but...

Trinsphere makes it cost at least 6 mana for them to actually cast 2 spells.
Suppression field,Leonin arbitter, AND aven mindsensor make's it damn hard for them to tutor op anything.

Also windborn muse makes an alpha strike pretty unlikely

Yeah, that's what I'm saying - with all the hate we're already packing, Canonist seems unnecessary + is worse than the rest.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying - with all the hate we're already packing, Canonist seems unnecessary + is worse than the rest.

Agreed, at least against the Survival matchup. However, Canonist MD om nom noms storm combo and contributes to slowing down other decks. There could be a better MD slot though, I just can't think of anything right now.

[Esper3k]

Agreed, at least against the Survival matchup. However, Canonist MD om nom noms storm combo and contributes to slowing down other decks. There could be a better MD slot though, I just can't think of anything right now.

Sure, but Chalice / Trinisphere already wrecks Storm combo. Arbiter/Mindcensor also helps to stop Infernal Tutor.

[Al-ucard]

I have been testing these new builds and if I had to drop one of Leonin or Canonist from the MD, it would probably be the latter. Leonin has been solid against fetch-heavy decks which are rampant these days. Could be considered a 'flex slot' / meta call though. Chalice/3Sphere/Aven/Field are often your best disruption pieces, however Leonin and Canonist act as secondary options to help consistency. I've opened with T1 Chalice T2 Leonin and Zoo just rolled over because it had a hand of fetches. Yes these hate-bears are somewhat vulnerable, however its all about disrupting your opponent until you can land a Baneslayer. Having people pay to fetch, activate, search and attack is a lot of fun!

Linvala seems solid but I'm wary of her double white as well as being legendary. Possibly a singleton, although might compete with a Moat which I've also been thinking about. Unsure Samurai does enough to warrant inclusion.

For reference, my testing list:
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
13 Plains
4 Chrome Mox

4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Windborn Muse
2 Exalted Angel

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Suppression Field
3 Oblivion Ring

I tested this list yesterday and I like it a lot!! But I find that we need more raw power, so I quit Canonist and put instead 2 linvala and another angel and find the deck quite impressive.

My 2 cents

Edit:
I will put Canonist in side just alongside some Armageddon for control matches

[TheSleeper]

Al-ucard: Glad you like the deck.

I originally dredged this up because I just wanted to see if I could build an anti-Survival deck. Next challenge is to see whether we can keep that favourable matchup while succeeding against other decks in the format.

I played with a mate with the above list, 10 games against Zoo, 10 games against Merfolk, no SBs.

Zoo (60%):
Angel Stompy went 6-4 here and I feel thats accurate (55%-60%). Its a real battle and pretty fun. Sometimes you lock them down with 3sphere and Chalice and they can't do anything. Sometimes Zoo punishes you for being light on threats. Still being able to hold your own against Zoo is definitely a worthy thing for a deck (despite the deck losing some popularity due to Survival being everywhere.

UB Merfolk (30%):
You'd think especially with the fetch lands that the UB Merfolk has (with our SupField) we'd be ok against it.. wrong. Unless our testing was skewed (10 games isn't the greatest sample size I know), Merfolk can give hand this deck a beating. FoW & Daze mean your best plays don't stick (3Sphere), Aether Vial is a pain, Standstill is a blowout, as can be Wasteland. Depends on their decklist as I had a Baneslayer taken by a singleton Sower >< but still its not pretty.

So while I was encouraged by the Zoo results, the Merfolk ones put a dampener on things. Still, depending on your meta this deck could be viable I think.

[Muradin]

Actually a well built more traditional Angel Stompy should be very well placed in the current metagame. Historically the deck suffered from Counterbalance, combo and slower control decks while being decent or favored against aggro or aggro control strategies. In the current meta, where Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk and Vengevine Survival make up a large part of the metagame, this deck should be doing fine.

In general I am convinced, that the "Stompy" builds of the deck are not the way to go, as this kind of modification always brings a lot of inconsistency with it. A more traditional "Big White Weenie" approach with specific hatebears for certain matchups is the way to go in the current metagame. Especially since the tribal decks run Aether Vial, which makes Chalice/Trinisphere much weaker here such an approach won't be successful in the long run.

[Esper3k]

In today's meta, I think Suppresion Field needs to be a 4-of. With how much Survival and Aether Vial running around, that one card really puts a damper on both.

[Muradin]

Well, so maybe running a 4-of Pithing Needle might be even better. Survival, Aether Vial, Fetchlands, Engineered Explosives, Mutavault, Sensei's Divining Top, Grim Lavamancer, Qasali Pridemage... You all know what the card does. I think it is way superior to Suppresion Field.

[GoldenCid]

Well, so maybe running a 4-of Pithing Needle might be even better. Survival, Aether Vial, Fetchlands, Engineered Explosives, Mutavault, Sensei's Divining Top, Grim Lavamancer, Qasali Pridemage... You all know what the card does. I think it is way superior to Suppresion Field.

I don't agree. SF has a global effect while needle only affects the cards you named.

Well...i'm starting with this deck moving from aggro stax (the phylosophy is similar). I have my main deck but i'd thank you're suggestions.

4 Exalted Angel
2 Baneslayer Angel
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Windborn Muse
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Parallax Wave
4 Suppression Field
3 Flagstones of Trokair
11 Plains
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb

SB: 3 Armageddon
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 2 Ghostly Prison
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Cataclysm

In a grose mode it has all the lock pieces of the classicv angel stompy. With experimental slots (the 4th ring + 1 Parallax) instead of cataclysm or geddon main deck.
Inthe side i include Leyline of sancticity which i didn't see in the last pages. What do you think?

[overseer1234]

Maybe this article could bring some life back to this thread
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21175_Building_a_Legacy_Gtterdmmerung_Or_How_To_Play_Baneslayer_Angel.html

[GoldenCid]

Do you think that the arrival of mental misstep gives a second chance to this deck??

[TheSleeper]

I originally necro'd this thread because at the time I thought it had tools to fight Survival. After Survival was banned the meta was in flux and appears to have settled a little now.

I feel this deck can be tuned to be viable depending on meta. This deck can support a wide variety of hatebears; the challenge is to tinker your list appropriately. I feel if you set out to beat Aggro or Combo you easily could (granted a lot of decks might fit this category). Finding the balance between the two is the tricky part.

Comparisons to Dragon/Faerie Stompy can (and should) be made. I feel Dragon is more all in; when your Moon effects work you are golden, however if they are irrelevant you have up to 8 dead cards. Faerie Stompy exists without a 'spirit guide' (as this deck does); for that reason (and FoW) they forgo Trinisphere. This is something probably worth investigating. So why play White Stompy? I feel this deck has the biggest number of sweet-spot creatures (2W), a wide variety of disruptive creatures and the best finishers of the three decks (Baneslayer and/or Elspeth). Thats what interests me about it.

To start some brainstorming, this is a partial list of '2W' creatures we can play (D.Stompy wishes it had this many 2R creatures to choose from):
Soltari Monk
Apex Hawks
Aven Mindcensor
Aven Riftwatcher
Nightwind Glider
Pegasus Charger
Stonecloaker
Thermal Glider
Glittering Lion
Glowrider
Kor Hookmaster
Kor Sanctifiers
PeaceKeeper
Exalted Angel

Also with NPH, we get two more:
Blade Slicer. A 3/3 first strike and a 1/1 isn't bad for 2W, especially when you plan to attach equipment. Might be better off in Stax type decks but still worth consideration. Has synergy with Lodestone Golem as well.
Porcelain Legionnaire. Alternate casting cost and first strike for use with equipment.

There are a bunch of disruptive cards that can be played in this deck (MD or SB), some of which being:
Phyrexian Revoker
Windborn Muse
Ghostly Prison
Suppression Field
Leonin Arbiter
Lodestone Golem
Moat
Ethersworn Canonist

Other possibilities include Eternal Dragon, Baneslayer & Elspeth.

When I look at the above creatures, almost all have evasion. Evasion and equipment go hand-in-hand, so I plan on testing an aggro-equipment based Stompy, with strong SB options available to hate out whatever I'm facing. I'll provide testing results later when I get a chance.

[TheSleeper]

I originally necro'd this thread because at the time I thought it had tools to fight Survival. After Survival was banned the meta was in flux and appears to have settled a little now.

I feel this deck can be tuned to be viable depending on meta. This deck can support a wide variety of hatebears; the challenge is to tinker your list appropriately. I feel if you set out to beat Aggro or Combo you easily could (granted a lot of decks might fit this category). Finding the balance between the two is the tricky part.

Comparisons to Dragon/Faerie Stompy can (and should) be made. I feel Dragon is more all in; when your Moon effects work you are golden, however if they are irrelevant you have up to 8 dead cards. Faerie Stompy exists without a 'spirit guide' (as this deck does); for that reason (and FoW) they forgo Trinisphere. This is something probably worth investigating. So why play White Stompy? I feel this deck has the biggest number of sweet-spot creatures (2W), a wide variety of disruptive creatures and the best finishers of the three decks (Baneslayer and/or Elspeth). Thats what interests me about it.

To start some brainstorming, this is a partial list of '2W' creatures we can play (D.Stompy wishes it had this many 2R creatures to choose from):
Soltari Champion
Apex Hawks
Aven Mindcensor
Aven Riftwatcher
Nightwind Glider
Pegasus Charger
Stonecloaker
Thermal Glider
Glittering Lion
Glowrider
Kor Hookmaster
Kor Sanctifiers
PeaceKeeper
Exalted Angel

Also with NPH, we get two more:
Blade Slicer. A 3/3 first strike and a 1/1 isn't bad for 2W, especially when you plan to attach equipment. Might be better off in Stax type decks but still worth consideration. Has synergy with Lodestone Golem as well.
Porcelain Legionnaire. Alternate casting cost and first strike for use with equipment.

There are a bunch of disruptive cards that can be played in this deck (MD or SB), some of which being:
Phyrexian Revoker
Windborn Muse
Ghostly Prison
Suppression Field
Leonin Arbiter
Lodestone Golem
Moat
Ethersworn Canonist

Other possibilities include Eternal Dragon, Baneslayer & Elspeth.

When I look at the above creatures, almost all have evasion. Evasion and equipment go hand-in-hand, so I plan on testing an aggro-equipment based Stompy, with strong SB options available to hate out whatever I'm facing. I'll provide testing results later when I get a chance.

[ivanpei]

I can't wait for the new set to be released. I'm sick of playing with proxies! Porcelain Legionnaire seems like a must play though. It's insane with equipment and fills the Vital 2 drop slot that can be powered out through a T1 Tomb. I'm not for Trini in the MD though. White desperately needs a "spirit guide" that is on colour for Trini to be maindeckable.

I think we need to concentrate on the 2cc slot. Angel stompy has plenty of good options to choose from at the 3cc/4cc/5cc but not much at the front end 2cc. Ideally I'd like the following curve:

12 Double Colourless cards that can be cast of a T1 Tomb/Mox
12 Three Mana Cards for T2.
5 Four Mana bombs
3 Five Mana bombs

4 Mox Diamond
24 Lands

The best I can come up with is:

4 Revoker
4 Chalice
4 Legionnaire
4 Stoneforge
4 Mindcensor
4 Oring
1 Sofi
1 Jitte
2 Elspeth
3 Slayer
1 Batterskull

4 Mox Diamond
12 Plains
4 Waste
4 Tomb
4 City

Do you think we should play crucibles? 2 Crucibles + a set of Horizon Canopies could really help give the deck some extra power. - 1 Slayer, -1 Oring, -4 Plains, + 2 Crucible, + 4 Horizon Canopies. Crucible has synergy with Mox, Waste, City and Canopy. Invalidating the opponent's wastes seems good as well.

[GoldenCid]

I think these are the best NPH options for us:

http://www.imagengratis.org/thumbs/ensambla.jpg (http://www.imagengratis.org/?v=ensambla.jpg)
http://www.imagengratis.org/thumbs/legionario.jpg (http://www.imagengratis.org/?v=legionario.jpg)

Although i don't know what to cut.

My creature base:

4 Leonin Arbiter (discutible)
4 Aven mindscensor
4 Exalted angel
4 Windborn muse

Others:

4 Chalice
4 Tsphere
4 O-ring
4 C. mox
3-4 Suppression field
3 Armageddon / Cataclysm
More stuff....

[eq.firemind]

Already posted the idea in other thread, but I think it deserves to be written here too:
Chancellor of the Annex
Any opening hand with this actually gives you a free Time Walk and if you also have Chrome Mox, it becomes ridiculous.
Focusing in 2-mana disruption permanents is the way to go since even if you have no way to get 2 mana on turn 1, your opponent will still do nothing on his turn, so you can just pass too and drop your first lockpiece on turn 2 from tho plains.
I started with a bunch of big creatures, but goldfishing showed that we now have enough cheap white/artifact lock pieces to completely shut opponent down in 2-3 turns and I continued to work on the deck in that direction.

So here is my under-work list (not fully oiptimized, but much better than original)
Mana (23)
11 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox

Cheap disruption(23)
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Aven Mindcensor

Beaters (8)
4 Blade Splicer
4 Exalted Angel

Utility (6)
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Crystal Ball

Some explanations:
Manabase is pretty standart, nothing tricky here.

No Stoneforge Mystic since I run Arbiter and Field to lock opponent out and also want every card to do something by itself (equips only do a thing with something to attach on).
No Armageddon since the card doesn't help you to dig out of bad situation or break a stall. Actually, the deck is manahungry, so effect is pretty symmetric. Can find its place in sideboard against slow control decks like Lands or Landstill.
No Porcelain Legionnaire since phyrexian mana is too much of life loss and the deck needs pitches to Chrome Mox. Blade Splicer performed much better in my tests.
Exalted Angel over Baneslayer because I want to be able to win the game with only 4 mana avaliable.
No Trinisphere since we have lot of 2-costers. It can still find its place in sideboard.
Crystal Ball is my attempt to solve the lack of manipulation. While I'm searching for other options, this one works surprisingly well and allows me to break stalls or slam a Chancellor of the Annex far more often than I expected. Sometimes opponent can't cast a single spell!
Every permanent lockpiece is pretty standart and doesn't need an explanation.


SO, this is it. Will be glad to hear your comments.
Oh, and the deck now has 8 angels thanks to Chancellor. Man, the card really hooks me!

[tsabo_tavoc]

As cool as it is, I don't see Suppression Field and Leonin Arbiter a viable direction for this deck. They are cheaper than Moons, but much inferior by only screwing fetchlands. For decks that run fewer (<6) fetchlands, they are from being dead to about as good as a Wasteland. For decks that run more fetchlands, they can be good or win games, but often enought the opponent just has duallands in hand or plays first and fetches. While Moons have synergies with other Dragon Stompy cards, Suppression Field suppresses Angel stompy playing Stoneforge+Equipments, one of the best W strategies. Being a bear, Leonin Arbiter is not as bad but cries for Equipments to become a threat.

Of course, I dismissed other utilities of Field and Arbiter but their tax effects can only nullify opponent's strategy by pairing with a fast clock.

[NecroYawgmoth]

What about playing Glowrider and Lodestone Golem here?

I like a small attempt to be "aggro-staxxish" in maing all spells cost more, while we just play more creatures? [seems IMO better than Arbiter and Field.

also: Lodestone Golem has Synergy with Blade Splicer XD

I don't like Chancellor, He is only good in the OP7 and way to expensive to hardcast, I think Baneslayer is better here.

OH, btw: If you really want to play Chancellor, It would be awesome with Trinisphere, don't you think?

[Dark Ritual]

Chancellor seems really bad here. Sure if it was 5 mana it would be the shit but 7 mana? Just no. And what MUs does he improve exactly storm combo doesn't give a shit about him really unless you back him up with a chalice. They can easily just run a duress or ponder or some useless card into him and explode next turn. Control? I guess it's good against them when you're on the play and drop a turn one chalice at one that can't be countered since they lack the 1 mana. Against aggro I guess it is a time walk then again against aggro how do they answer an exalted or baneslayer angel.

Oh yeah lodestone golem has sick synergy with the splicer XP 5/3 first strike for 4 sick life. Blade splicer is interesting though.

[Al-ucard]

Last weekend I was playing this and I have to say that the results are quite impressive:

22 Lands
10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Flagstones of Trokair
2 City of traitors

22 Creatures
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Jötun Grunt
2 Baneslayer Angel

16 Others
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Elspeth Knight-Errant
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

60 Total

Thoughts?

[NecroYawgmoth]

Chalice Aggro without any Moxen???

Also, is Aether Vial that good here?

[Al-ucard]

Yes I think I prefer to topdeck vial than mox and because I didn't think in a better turn one play. Did you test the list? For now its working quite well for me...

[Nekrataal]

Funny. I was thinking hard to improve Mono G Chalice Aggro when I thought that SToneforge Mystic would be a great addition. Well in any Stompy Deck where all play equipments it is a great idea to tutor for them. However two-color Stompy mana bases do not hold up to the standards in Legacy. Therefore I was searching for a Mono W Stompy Build not being to much of a Staxx Version. Now here I am. However in the current Meta Trinisphere seems not a bad idea. Looking at all the creatures Thorn of Ametyst could be an option instead. Together with Glowrider this could be an interesting package. Modifying the latest list to my ideas ...

22 Lands
10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Flagstones of Trokair
2 City of traitors

22 Creatures
4 Glowrider
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Mirran Crusader
3 Free Slot (Porcelain Legionare or Loadstone Golem or going Chrome Mox)
4 Baneslayer Angel

16 Others
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Oblivion Ring (questionable if Loadstone Golem is also played)
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

This is more a anti-control type of list due to 8 tax effects on CotV

SB Options vs. Creature-heavy Decks where Thorn of Amethyst is nearly useless
2 Elspeth Knight-Errant
Peacekeeper
Moat
Windborn Muse
Ghostly Prison

Combo
Canonist
GY-Hate
Leylines
Rule of Law

[Al-ucard]

Me too! I was thinking the way to add stoneforge to an stompy deck and finally came to this hahah. I like glowrider and amethyst, the problem is that the first one doesn't have evasion and the second one don't attack.

Your 3 free slots must be phyrexian metamorph, really, this guy is amazing! And better if you have glowrider.

Then 4 Baneslayer are too much, and finally Sword of Feast and Famine is better than Batterskull.

Anyway, I think this afternoon I will test the your sphere effects XD

[lunabass]

Mikaeus, the Lunarch anyone?

[GoldenCid]

Mikaeus, the Lunarch anyone?

What deck problem does it solve?

[TsumiBand]

I have to admit to an unhealthy appreciation of the White Weenie archetype. The first deck I ever put together for Legacy was Angel Stompy, back in the format's infancy. Years later I crushed a bunch of face playing Angel Stompy, pulling out turn one Glowriders against Iggy Pops like it was my job and I wanted a raise. Even then, I always wished for a proper Black splash and fought the urge forever but eventually converted to a weirdo W/b build that is still super aggro but not true Angel Stompy (though I still rock the Exalted Angels, because (a) turn one MoR, turn two FDC still makes aggro scrrd (b) turn 1 Mox/Tomb/FDC, turn 2 flip Angel is funny as shit (c) fuck you.)

So as a guy who's genuinely retarded for Angel Stompy, I'm compelled to ask; what does a deck like Angel Stompy offer over either WW Ascension or Deadguy?

Ascension is pretty resilient and can actually be really explosive without opening itself up to Wasteland/Chrome Mox hate and cards like Proclamation of Rebirth give it game against removal/counters/sweepers while still boasting the power of things like MoM and its lifelinking flier is way bigger than Exalted. Like, it's a mono-White aggro deck when SFM is good, but not required. O_O

On the other hand Deadguy is basically some of the most amazing utility guys in the format and like so many aggro/control decks contains SFM + equips, gets to run Thoughtseize/Kozilek/Vindicate and is really good at doing well against a mixed/unknown metagame.

I guess I feel like Angel Stompy doesn't offer the right kind of midgame anymore, in that it will only get to the midgame by accident and once it's there will probably just get outclassed by superior creatures or superior board position. Maybe you guys can enlighten me and convince me otherwise? I wouldn't be mad if you could, I'd probably be all like :D

[Antonius]

What deck problem does it solve?

The current build doesn't have enough KKK Grand Dragons in it.

[CalebD]

Sorry if I'm necroing this thread, but I had a spicy build idea.

// Lands
11 [BRB] Plains (9)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 [DK] Maze of Ith
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
3 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
1 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
4 [MBS] Hero of Bladehold
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
1 [PTR] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
2 [CMD] Oblivion Ring
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
2 [V09] Trinisphere
1 [NPH] Batterskull
1 [CMD] Lightning Greaves
4 [6E] Armageddon
2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SC] Decree of Justice
SB: 3 [4E] Wrath of God
SB: 1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 1 [V09] Trinisphere

I got batterskull+boots online one test game, and it was savage.

But yeah, don't have a ton of experience w/ this archetype, and the list is obv untuned.

[Curby]

Have you looked at Stax? This seems like an uncomfortable mix between that and "real" Angel Stompy, in the sense Stax will lock down better, and Angel Stompy will beat face better. /shrug

[overseer1234]

last week I threw the following decklist together for LOLZ:

Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Trinisphere

Creatures
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Exalted Angel
4 Glowrider
4 Stoneforge Mystic

Enchantments
4 Oblivion Ring

Legendary Artifacts
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Basic Lands
10 Plains

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

Legendary Lands
3 Flagstones of Trokair

I found it some time ago on SCG

So I sleeved it up and went off to play with my local group. (which is very diverse as it contains tendrills (ant, tes, DDFT whatever it is called), zoo, goblins, merfolk, reanimate, maverick, mono blue fairys, aggro bant, dredge, BUg landstill,.....)


And to everyone's surprise the deck held its own pretty damn good against the entire field.... Also while being one of the most consistent stompy decks I have played until now (I've always faery stompy and dragon stompy in the past)

It had the explosive starts against control, fast big creature's (with lifelink) against aggro + a sweet equipment toolbox, and the buttloads of disruption against combo made short work of my entire playgroup.

The only bad matchups seemed to be decks running deed and EE, or dredge.

But in my experience those matchups should not be to difficult to sideboard against, and the main deck can be perfectly metagamed against anny giver meta sice, white DOES have good creatures in the 2-4 mana range.


So has anybody also tested this list? If so, how did it pack out, and what did you change?

[Curby]

Flagstones? They could be Karakas for dealing with the odd Reanimator deck.

Is the deck fast enough without Moxen? I thought Chrome Mox was always a staple of Angel Stompy. Works with first turn Exalted or first turn Trini.

I wonder if Suppression Field could somehow find room in the maindeck, perhaps instead of the SFM/Equipment suite. I've always wanted to run that in some deck. Should be fun watching opponents look at their 3 fetch + spells hands.

[overseer1234]

Flagstones? They could be Karakas for dealing with the odd Reanimator deck.

Is the deck fast enough without Moxen? I thought Chrome Mox was always a staple of Angel Stompy. Works with first turn Exalted or first turn Trini.

I wonder if Suppression Field could somehow find room in the maindeck, perhaps instead of the SFM/Equipment suite. I've always wanted to run that in some deck. Should be fun watching opponents look at their 3 fetch + spells hands.

The flagstones are there for the sideboard armageddon (originally there for the controll matchup)


And there ARE 4 chrome moxen in the deck.

SFields had been tested and ditched in so manny decks it's not even funny. also, trinisphere and glowrider keep them of their spells, and, aven mindsencor meddle's with the fetchlands.

SFM+ equipment is propably the thing keeping angel stompy playable (propably adding batterkull would be a verry good idea)

[Curby]

Whoops, didn't see the Moxen there. Sorry bout that!

[TsumiBand]

last week I threw the following decklist together for LOLZ:

Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Trinisphere

Creatures
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Exalted Angel
4 Glowrider
4 Stoneforge Mystic

Enchantments
4 Oblivion Ring

Legendary Artifacts
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Basic Lands
10 Plains

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

Legendary Lands
3 Flagstones of Trokair

I found it some time ago on SCG

So I sleeved it up and went off to play with my local group. (which is very diverse as it contains tendrills (ant, tes, DDFT whatever it is called), zoo, goblins, merfolk, reanimate, maverick, mono blue fairys, aggro bant, dredge, BUg landstill,.....)


And to everyone's surprise the deck held its own pretty damn good against the entire field.... Also while being one of the most consistent stompy decks I have played until now (I've always faery stompy and dragon stompy in the past)

It had the explosive starts against control, fast big creature's (with lifelink) against aggro + a sweet equipment toolbox, and the buttloads of disruption against combo made short work of my entire playgroup.

The only bad matchups seemed to be decks running deed and EE, or dredge.

But in my experience those matchups should not be to difficult to sideboard against, and the main deck can be perfectly metagamed against anny giver meta sice, white DOES have good creatures in the 2-4 mana range.


So has anybody also tested this list? If so, how did it pack out, and what did you change?

Needs moar Revoker!

I kind of want you to play Suppression Field too, instead of the equipment/SFM stuff, since you've already got a ton of disruption going on and it's probably better to throw down a Baneslayer than a Batterskull with a deck like this anyway. It's not that the SFM package isn't strong, just, I really wish someone could make Suppression Field into a real card.

[overseer1234]

Needs moar Revoker!

I kind of want you to play Suppression Field too, instead of the equipment/SFM stuff, since you've already got a ton of disruption going on and it's probably better to throw down a Baneslayer than a Batterskull with a deck like this anyway. It's not that the SFM package isn't strong, just, I really wish someone could make Suppression Field into a real card.

Idd, revokers are in the sideboard, but I think that SFM+equipment is what keeps this deck going, as 12 of our 19 creature's are 2/1 or 1/2 those equipments become verry relevant.

Also, baneslayer is indeed better then batterskull, BUT you don't always tutor for baterskull, and baneslayer usualy gets pitched for a chrome mox in the early game, and not needing double white (or being able to cheat in play) is also a plus for batterskull.
I think it's best to look at batterskul as baneslayer nr4

I'm also confused by your argument that i should play SField+revoker, instead of playing SFM+equip BECAUSE I have a ton of disruption :S

Doesn't that make the deck even more disruptive and less agressive? This is a stompy deck, not stax, so I feel it's best to keep is more to the agressive side...

Ohw, and 11 of the 19 creature's fly in my list, so equipment usualy means GG in 2-3 turns...

[from Cairo]

Hey guys wanted to give this thread a bump with a list I was playing around with a bit today.

Land 19
9 Plains
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Karakas

Spells 15
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
1 Lotus Petal

Creatures 26
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Leonin Arbiter
3 Glowrider
3 Silverblade Paladin
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Lodestone Golem

I'm far from 100% on the numbers here, but am working on testing/tuning to answer Maverick, RUG, and Sneak & Show.

[Curby]

How's the 19 land working out for you? D&T runs 22-23 and Stax runs 24-27 (all not counting tricks such as Moxen/Vials). While Angel Stompy doesn't necessarily work like either of those, 19 seems curious. I haven't tested this though, so it's just an honest question.

[from Cairo]

I was initially testing 20 and the 4 Chromes and 2 Petal and was finding myself to get flooded. I trimmed the 10th Plains and 1 of the Petals and the mana seemed to be going better. I'll need to test it some more though.

[frogger42]

Hello, sorry to revive an old thread, but I was wanting to put this deck together. It appears a lot of the lists are closer to Death and Taxes, and I wanted to bring it back to something like old Sea Stompy. I haven't had time to test, but here's a rough idea of what I'm thinking:

4x Mox Diamond
6x Plains
4x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Darksteel Citadel
4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Chrome Mox

4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Exalted Angel
4x Windborn Muse
2x Baneslayer Angel

4x Sword of Fire and Ice
3x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
4x Armageddon
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Trinisphere

Like I said, I haven't tested it yet, it's just a rough sketch. But what I'd like is another W2 or W1 creature to include, maybe Aven Mindcensor over Baneslayer, just to fit the curve nicer. Ideally it'd be another fattie, but white is pretty scarce of those. And maybe it's a bit Equip heavy, take out a couple Jittes and make them a couple more creatures. I think overall it's a bit more streamlined in what it wants to do, drop fatties and muck up your land, and I'm looking to take it in that direction rather than all the muck-up creatures of DnT. I included O-Ring in the SB, but I should probably MD it, huh...

EDIT: I included Windborn over Magus of the Tabernacle because it has flying for Swords, and I'm not sure if I should switch the Chrome and Diamond count. It doesn't run Crucible, so Diamond only really has synergy with City, Geddon, and an early Chalice/ 3-sphere. Hopefully that's enough of a reason to run it.

[Asthereal]

Couple of ideas for your list:

1. I feel you play WAY too many equipments. You can easily cut five. Remember you have Stoneforge Mystic to tutor them up, and you play only 14 creatures right now, so you might run out of dudes to equip.
2. You could try adding Karakas. it's really nice versus Emrakul and his friends.
3. I think this decks really wants the full set of Trinispheres.

I would like to suggest these adjustments:
-3 Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 Sword of Light and Shadow
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-1 Flagstones of Trokair
-1 Plains
+2 Karakas
+3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Trinisphere

Also note that Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox are bad together. If you REALLY want one in every opener, you can run both, but it will take some testing to figure out which numbers are best. My gut tells me 3/3 would be optimal if you want to run six in total, but that's just a feeling. :tongue:

Last note: I don't know whether your deck can support it, but Lodestone Golem is also an interesting guy. Maybe you can try that one too.

(Couple of edits.)

[frogger42]

Couple of ideas for your list:

1. I feel you play WAY too many equipments. You can easily cut five. Remember you have Stoneforge Mystic to tutor them up, and you play only 14 creatures right now, so you might run out of dudes to equip.
2. You could try adding Karakas. it's really nice versus Emrakul and his friends.
3. I think this decks really wants the full set of Trinispheres.


I think you're right about the Equips, it is pretty heavy, and I need more dudes. I forgot about Elspeth because the list originally was going to run Suppression Field, but I feel having something that's not easily StoP'ped is a bit better than Baneslayer. I forgot about Gideon Jura, too, who's never been run in Legacy as far as I know, but he's also removal, though he works worse with Equip. And I'll definitely have to test the Moxen, as they work really well with Geddons, though not so well with Trini. I think you're right about the Spheres, I'm going to four in this deck.
In the little bit of testing I've done, Geddon isn't a total powerhouse if Jace is on field, and it is if he's not. PW'ers muck up the whole taxing thing. I feel I can go: Creatures, Supp Field, Geddon/Ravages of War synergy, or just do more powerful cards (my own PW'ers, SFM), with less synergy.

I'm not sure about the Thalias, as they hurt my own Elspeth/ 3-Spheres/ Moxen and other stuff. It's such a beater to combo, I know! I feel like if I could run Trinket Mage to get more Chalice, I'd be much happier, but that's not really possible. I'll think about Thalia, though I'd really prefer some other combo-hater. She might get into the SB instead of MD.
I just realized Windborn Muse doesn't work well with the PW'ers. I might have to change that slot to Magus (who doesn't work great with Elspeth) or something else. I need more fatties! Nuts!
Karakas, duh. Forgot about that one. Thanks for the suggestions!

[Zupponn]

Just a thought, but have you guys tried Restoration Angel in this deck at all? She seems really useful to help dodge random removal on your dudes, let your guys block and live, surprise block and kill something, and flip Exalted Angel without losing tempo.

[frogger42]

Hey Zuppon, that's a really good idea. I was trying to find a beater that's faster than Baneslayer (which commits me harder to the Geddon) and I think that's it. The deck is okay right now, and I think with Resto, it'll look like this:

4 Flagstones
3 Darksteel Citadel
6 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox

4 SFM
4 Windborn Muse
4 Exalted Angel
3 or 2 Jotun Grunt
2 or 3 Resto Angel

1 Batterskull
1 Sword Fire/Ice
1 Um Jitte

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Geddon
2 Ravages

Thanks for the idea! I'll have to pick up a playset at some point.

EDIT: or - Grunts, 4x Resto, +1 Sword of Light and Shadow. I side it in a lot vs opposing Batterskulls.

[FTW]

No love for Aven Mindcensor? Particularly brutal if you play Geddon next! Several decks straight up scoop to Mindcensor + Windborn + Geddon because they won't be able to find mana and cracking a fetch blind is a huge gamble.

[frogger42]

No love for Aven Mindcensor? Particularly brutal if you play Geddon next! Several decks straight up scoop to Mindcensor + Windborn + Geddon because they won't be able to find mana and cracking a fetch blind is a huge gamble.

That combo's about 11 mana, and hits by T4 with accel. Censor is pretty good, but I want the deck to hit with hard beaters and hard prison pieces. Censor just isn't a clock, and sometimes he doesn't do enough; though he might get room in the SB for certain MUs. I think Suppression Field is better for the deck, but with 4 Chalice, 4 3-sphere and 6 Geddons, the rest of the deck needs room for finishers. Windborn is kinda what I'm stuck with... at least it taxes with 3-Sphere, and shuts down aggro decks. EDIT: It's likely a bit more "active" than Censor is, is what I'm trying to say.

[FTW]

Yeah, Windborn is definitely better and I would never replace it.

And a creature with Suppression Field ability would certainly be better, but one doesn't exist. Suppression Field would be great but it isn't a clock and you need evasive bodies to equip. Mindcensor curves out smoothly at 2W (turn 1-2?) where you don't have many 3cc guys, and gives you a weaker ability but with a flying body that can carry a sword. Not worth it?

[frogger42]

Yeah, Windborn is definitely better and I would never replace it.

And a creature with Suppression Field ability would certainly be better, but one doesn't exist. Suppression Field would be great but it isn't a clock and you need evasive bodies to equip. Mindcensor curves out smoothly at 2W (turn 1-2?) where you don't have many 3cc guys, and gives you a weaker ability but with a flying body that can carry a sword. Not worth it?

I won't have time this weekend cause of the SCG Open, but in previous testing I've found it to be a bit lackluster, as it's kind of a Counterspell instead of Removal (as in it prevents something from happening, as opposed to removing the problem from the field). Windborn makes a better topdeck, in that respect. Censor tends to hit just fetches in most MUs, and is often too slow to hit SFM (esp if on the draw), plus is easy to remove. I'll test it, but whenever I've had a deck and said "Mindcensor would be a total blowout," it hasn't made the cut. I think every deck has 1-2 spells it shuts down, but my opp may not end up drawing them. I will say it is worth a shot, though, and I'll give it my due diligence.

I could try out Phyrexian Revoker, as that's somewhat a Supp Field + Dude, but it doesn't really answer Batterskull all that well. Either Revoker or Field will be in the board, depending on how bad Mav/ Death and Taxes is for me. Thalia for activated abilities, fingers crossed. IDK.

EDIT: For now I might stick with Porcelain Legionnaire, as 3 power turn 1 seems pretty good, and it helps to curve into Armageddon better, too. Also, having a couple on the ground mucks up Batterskull/Goyf attacks, and may be a semi-Moat with Windborn. That's the theory, anyway.

[frogger42]

I actually went 3-1 at our local tourney! I won a round because my opponent named Revoker on Exalted Angel, which doesn't stop the morph, and might have stabilized G2 last round if I thought enough to drop Chalice @ 0 against BUG cascade.

I played a jank mono-Red. Then Merfolk (Trinisphere + Geddon, though he drew a lotta lands), Death and Taxes, which was a good match, and BUG Cascade, which I got totally stomped.

Some thoughts on Resto Angel - I wasn't entirely impressed, and once I had SFM equipped with SoLaS, and I really wanted to flicker it. I think it's a fine card, but it's definitely not bonkers - the slot needs to be bonkers. I would've liked something more like Indomitable Archangel for the BUG Cascade MU, or Linvala seems like the right card for the deck, as it just smashes things like KotR and Qasali Pridemage and Mangara. I might try Porcelain Legionnaire next week; it gives me another T1 option, though ideally it'd have flying. I never had a chance to flash the angel out and prevent a removal spell. It seems like Chalice generally does that, anyway.

4 Trinisphere and 6 Geddons seems like what I want for the deck. Did I mention Darksteel Citadel is awesome? Darksteel Citadel is awesome.

I might also consider Worldqueller. He eats up Planeswalkers, I hear. Also Stonehewer Giant is a possibility, though I still want to keep this slot a bit more on the curve. Seraph of the Sword is also possible, and probably works really well with WB Muse.

EDIT: Thoughts on the BUG MU: Jace came down both games, and was exceptionally hard to deal with. The fact that he can bounce Exalted Angel three times certainly spells game, and if it were Liliana, that would've been even worse. I sided in Revoker, but what I really wanted was something like Suppression Field, to shut off both PW'ers, and Deathrites, and to give life to my Geddons again. Out of 4 Lock pieces - Chalice, Trinisphere, Rest in Peace and Revoker ( /Suppression Field), I felt all were relevant in the MU, moreso than Geddons, and I couldn't decide which ones were most relevant. So I probably goofed in SB'ing. Likely 3-Sphere and RiP were the best, to stop Goyf and Cascade/Force, and then drop Geddon for Supp Field.
Any suggestions on ways to deal with Jace/ other PW'ers? I could Cataclysm, but I feel it probably hurts me more, as I tend to commit dudes and other permanents to the field. Sup Field won't make it maindeck, as Chalice, 3-Sphere and Geddon are enough lock pieces, and I need the extra slot to be a finisher.

[Deadpool]

Hi all. For the past 2 weekends I've been piloting the following list to top 4 success (~20-25 person tournaments):


4 Restoration Angel
4 Blade Splicer
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Glowrider
3 Thalia

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
4 Chrome Mox
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Oblivion Ring

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
1 Karakas

SB:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Rest in Peace
3 Phyrexian Revoker

4 Other cards that I've switched around a lot

In my local meta I play against a lot of combo and delver-ish decks. The main board is a house against storm combo and I haven't dropped a match to it, yet. Chalice and 3Sphere slow Delver's game way down and Resto Angel can block an Insectile Aberration all day. My hardest match-up isn't so much a deck, as it is a card: Tarmagoyf. He's bigger than all my dudes and I only have so many O-rings before I'm in real trouble. GY hate out of the board is my best answer but it isn't enough and I've dropped matches to RUG Delver and Shardless BUG on Tarmagoyf board presence alone.

Thoughts:

Really want to try for some Linvala's in the board as well as Lodestone Golem for bigger beats. Since this weekend I've switched to 4 Thalia and 3 Glowrider as she is just strictly better, and I'm strongly considering dropping Glowrider altogether and trying a more aggressive creature in his slot. Maybe Mirran Crusader if I can manage the double white.

The other thing I would like to try out is 2-3 Cavern of Souls. Naming Human gets almost everything in the deck, and you could clutch name Angel or Kor if you really needed to stick something through a Counterbalance lock.

[kingtk3]

You can also try a sword of feast and famine in the main deck since pro green beats tarmogoyf and it's tutorable.

Mirran crusaders are good too, and that may give you the edge against tarmo decks.

Crusaders with equipment represent a fast clock against other decks too

[frogger42]

You can also try a sword of feast and famine in the main deck since pro green beats tarmogoyf and it's tutorable.


Let me just point out that running CotV makes the discard on FnF almost useless. You'd only be running it for Pro:Green instead of the card advantage it should generate. Maybe Body and Mind would be a better choice.

I want to dust this off in a couple weeks, but right now I'm trying to figure out a way to beat PW'ers, specifically Jace:
[cards]
4 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Darksteel Citadel
6 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Windborn Muse
4 Exalted Angel
4 Open Slots

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Armageddon
2 Ravages of War

SB: Revoker, GY Hate, other stuff

I should mention Light and Shadow is awesome against opposing SFM.
I'd tried Resto Angel in the open slot and wasn't terribly enthused about it, but maybe it's worth trying again just for the Flash. I've got Seraph of the Sword in there right now, which works well with Windborn, but, again, give and take - easier to Jace-bounce, but survives Goyfs better than Resto. I think Deadpool's right in saying Goyf is a pain for this deck to deal with, and I can only hope to lock it out with boltable Muses. I'd also add Jace is really difficult, too. If only there were a flying Suppression Field...
(Maybe I'll try Mindcensor after all.)

[Megadeus]

Why do these decks not play moats?

[Just me]

I want to dust this off in a couple weeks, but right now I'm trying to figure out a way to beat PW'ers, specifically Jace:

SB: Revoker, GY Hate, other stuff


Hmm, maybe maindeck the Revokers? After all, they're an answer to Jace. It stops his abilities and it's a beatstick in case you want to kill it.

[Esper3k]

Why do these decks not play moats?

Moats and Suppression Fields are for the Competitive+ REL events to get those free wins! :)


[QUOTE=frogger42;746505]
I want to dust this off in a couple weeks, but right now I'm trying to figure out a way to beat PW'ers, specifically Jace:

SB: Revoker, GY Hate, other stuff
/QUOTE]

Hmm, maybe maindeck the Revokers? After all, they're an answer to Jace. It stops his abilities and it's a beatstick in case you want to kill it.

Maindeck Revokers are fine, but I actually really like Restoration Angel quite a bit in this deck. The 3/4 body is perfect against the red decks and the Flash + Flying makes her great at ambushing planeswalkers.

[DPCyric]

I am working on Angel Stompy for a friend of mine who wants to get into constructed and wants a deck where he can play a fist full of Angels... I was working off an old list with Chancellor of the Annex, Suppression Field and Glowriders but I am concerned that they just aren't good enough now.


2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Thalia Guardian of Thraben
3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Exalted Angel
4 Restoration Angel
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spear of Heliod
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Chrome Mox
1 Karakas
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
11 Plains

Sideboard:

4 Terminus
4 Entreat the Angels
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Mindbreak Trap

The sideboard is a stack of miracles that can ideally get you lucky wins against stuff like affinity, goblins and merfolk (or might just be janky tech) and Thorn/Mindbreak for combo.

[Captain Hammer]

I'll just leave this here...

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/128/67/635331135126786879.jpg

Advantages over Canonist...

Stops combo artifacts like Lions Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal and decks like Affinity too.
Bolt proof.
Can block Mongoose et. al and survive.

[Megadeus]

Why would a deck hellbent on making a chalice on 1 or 3 ball want this so badly?

[Captain Hammer]

This is as good as or better than Trinisphere. Many decks you need these cards against play discard or FoW so you wont see or land a Chalice/3 Ball every game.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

This is as good as or better than Trinisphere. Many decks you need these cards against play discard or FoW so you wont see or land a Chalice/3 Ball every game.
Also, contrary to Chalice, this card has a body attached, however irrelevant.



I am working on Angel Stompy for a friend of mine who wants to get into constructed and wants a deck where he can play a fist full of Angels...
The very same idea popped up on my mind yesterday. I wanted to build something similar, just for the fun, of course, because... well, see the list:


8 Sol
12 Plains
4 Mox

4 StP
4 Obl Ring
4 equips

4 MoR
4 SFM (lame, I know, but I need to win with something)
4 Serra Avenger
4 Resto
4 Serra Angel
4 BSA

[Megadeus]

Therefore it does to conventional removal. Do you really want one of your lock pieces to die to removal? Its a 1/4. Hardly a clock. It gets stonewalled by a mere Deathrite Shaman. And this guy is hardly comparable to 3 ball. Three ball if you waste an opponent to 2 lands totally prevents them from casting ANYTHING. This card is SB material for storm. MAYBE. Canonist is probably still simply better

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Therefore it does to conventional removal. Do you really want one of your lock pieces to die to removal? Its a 1/4. Hardly a clock. It gets stonewalled by a mere Deathrite Shaman. And this guy is hardly comparable to 3 ball. Three ball if you waste an opponent to 2 lands totally prevents them from casting ANYTHING. This card is SB material for storm. MAYBE. Canonist is probably still simply better

Yep, you're right.It dies to conventional removal, but I guess you'd be playing lots of more importnat targets, so it's not like the 1/4 wall that may block Mongoose for whole day long is in any danger. I'm not saying it's super duper extra powerful, but I think it's interesting card that deserves testing.

[Captain Hammer]

Its a solid Jitte target too.

[nedleeds]

This is as good as or better than Trinisphere. Many decks you need these cards against play discard or FoW so you wont see or land a Chalice/3 Ball every game.

This is apples and oranges. Trinisphere can end games where opponents can't get up to 3 mana because 3ball locked them out of their cantrips. It's absolutely not 'better' than Trinisphere.

[Zupponn]

I'd play it alongside Trinisphere.

Maybe something like this?

8x Sol Lands
4x Chrome Mox
13x Plains

4x Chalice
4x Eidonlon
3x Trinisphere
4x Resto
4x Blade Splicer
4x O Ring
4x Stoneforge
3x Equips
2x Exalted Angel
3x Baneslayer Angel

[Megadeus]

I can't understand why you guys are so excited about a horned turtle with rule of law tacked on. Seems mediocre

What has everyone convinced that rule of law turtle is even main deck material? The effect is mediocre outside of storm match ups

[TsumiBand]

I can't understand why you guys are so excited about a horned turtle with rule of law tacked on. Seems mediocre

What has everyone convinced that rule of law turtle is even main deck material? The effect is mediocre outside of storm match ups

It makes their fair effects less fair. For example, activating Mother of Runes in response to removal is harder to answer unless you have activated abilities as well.

sent from phone, don't be a dick

[nedleeds]

Trinisphere reads the same thing, they need 6 mana to cast 2 spells in a turn. It's de facto rule of law. Any of these lists without Armageddon/Ravages are just a waste of time anyway, Rule of Horned Turtle isn't awful but it's not worth playing when you have Trinisphere and other great white prison pieces. I'd actually not overlap Horned Turtle of Law with 3ball, I'd rather attack on another axis if I wanted to pair a hate man with 3ball. Like Spirit of the Labyrinth, or True Believer (or New Believer), or Mindcensor.

If you were really reaching you might say Rule of Turtle survives Massacre, which Canonist, Believer, Thalia don't. But again Trinisphere makes Massacre near uncastable in most storm lists, and is de facto rule of law anyway because if they have 6 mana producers in play you are likely losing anyway.

[TsumiBand]

Trinisphere reads the same thing, they need 6 mana to cast 2 spells in a turn. It's de facto rule of law. Any of these lists without Armageddon/Ravages are just a waste of time anyway, Rule of Horned Turtle isn't awful but it's not worth playing when you have Trinisphere and other great white prison pieces. I'd actually not overlap Horned Turtle of Law with 3ball, I'd rather attack on another axis if I wanted to pair a hate man with 3ball. Like Spirit of the Labyrinth, or True Believer (or New Believer), or Mindcensor.

If you were really reaching you might say Rule of Turtle survives Massacre, which Canonist, Believer, Thalia don't. But again Trinisphere makes Massacre near uncastable in most storm lists, and is de facto rule of law anyway because if they have 6 mana producers in play you are likely losing anyway.

Oh no totally; I didn't make it clear at all in my post, but I don't think the Rule of Law guy is really very good in this deck. It should already be playing Thalia anyway, if not Trinisphere.

I just get why it would seem potent - it makes a lot of cards look really stupid when there's no way to respond to anything with another spell. If between Thalia and True Believer Mindcensor** you're not already giving them hell, a 1/4 that sucks every at everything else White Weenie is doing really isn't very favorable.

Perhaps if Junk Doran were a thing, it would be a funny guy to drop because it would also put a lot more pressure on the opponent, but I bet that bird won't fly.

**why the fuck did my brain think "Mindcensor" but my hands type "True Believer"...?! Weird

double-edit: I keep seeing these lists with 4, 5, 6 casting cost Angels; when did this deck turn into Tribal Midrange Slow Roll w/Trinisphere?

[Megadeus]

I agree that the card isn't necessarily bad, I just don't see it being so much better than every other option that you should jam 3-4 of them. The body is pretty meh and the effect isn't really that exciting either.

[Tyrio]

double-edit: I keep seeing these lists with 4, 5, 6 casting cost Angels; when did this deck turn into Tribal Midrange Slow Roll w/Trinisphere?

You're already running 3Ball and Sol Lands, might as well take advantage of that fact and play Exalted Angel and Baneslayer over Serra Avenger and SFM. Big angels also can't be killed by Bolt or Decay, fly over Moat if you're Nedleeds and pretty much win any creature fight except against spaghetti monsters.

[Megadeus]

Plus, playing a morphed Exalted Angel, then EoT blinking it with restoration angel to "level" it up to a 4/5 is pretty sick.

[TsumiBand]

Plus, playing a morphed Exalted Angel, then EoT blinking it with restoration angel to "level" it up to a 4/5 is pretty sick.

Ugh. That *does* sound pretty badass. I do love Exalted Angel.

sent from phone, don't be a dick

[nedleeds]

Plus, playing a morphed Exalted Angel, then EoT blinking it with restoration angel to "level" it up to a 4/5 is pretty sick.

Blinking the tapped morph on their turn into untapped Exalted Angel and blocking is also quite satisfying. Why I play anything other than moat stompy is beyond me.

[Captain Hammer]

Monastery Mentor seems like it would amazing in this deck, and could possibly even revive Baneslayer Angel Stompy as a viable deck...

Sol Lands that let you cast this guy on turn 1, Chalice that prevents your opponents from StPing it, Trinisphere and Armageddon that choke off any hope of your opponents being able to deal with your threat all together etc.

Tons of disruption/lock pieces plus a powerful threat that will end the game in a couple of turns is a match made in heaven.

Perhaps something like this...

4 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Crystal Vein
2 Karakas

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Ghostly Prison
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Smokestack
2 Armageddon
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Baneslayer Angel

[The Crow's Eye]

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_angel_prison_with_jo.html

Is this Angel Stompy or Armageddon Stax?

[Captain Hammer]

It's playing 3 Baneslayer Angels and 0 Armageddons. My vote would be Angel Stompy.

[TLK]

Joshua's deck looks awesome. I've always thought prison decks seemed like a cool archetype. I think I'm going to try to sleeve up his list, replacing a Ghost Quarter with a Tabernacle and the Banishing Lights with O-Rings.

[TLK]

So this deck is pretty sweet. Played in a 20+ man legacy event at my LGS and went 4-1. My list was a little different than Joshua's.


4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Mox Diamond
3 Phyrexian Revoker (didn't have access to Sphere of Resistance, but in testing I wasn't thrilled with them and Revokers proved to be worthy replacements)
4 Ghostly Prison
1 Wrath of God
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Restoration Angel

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

5 Plains
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Karakas

Side was as follows:


3 Rest in Peace
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Armageddon
1 Wrath of God
2 Krosan Grip
2 Choke
1 Humility
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Timely Reinforcements

Round 1 vs Storm

I mulligan to 5 and stumble on lands and he storms me out through a Chalice on 1. Probably should've played it on 0. Might've pulled that out. Games 2 and 3 I secure Trinispheres and early pressure via Elspeth token swinging for 4 a turn followed by a Baneslayer. A timely Choke seals game 3.

2-1, 1-0

Round 2 vs MUD

He wins game 1 fairly easily via Karn. I win a long game 2 in which we were both in topdeck mode searching for lands. I draw one first and lock him out and apply pressure with Stoneforge. Game 3 Wasteland does its thing until I land a Baneslayer then Arnageddon for game.

2-1, 2-0

Round 3 vs Counterbalance Painter

This was pretty rough. Couldn't resolve a Chalice on 1 and he lands turn 1 Grindstone. Game 2 I mulled and couldn't draw any lands past the 2 in my opening hand. Put up a good fight but eventually lost. In retrospect I think I misboarded.

0-2, 2-1

Round 4 vs Death & Taxes

2 long, grindy games, but this seems like a favorable matchup. 2 Ghostly Prisons + Tabernacle seal the deal game 1 with his creatures unable to attack while I fly over with Angels. Game 2 was very back and forth and his Batterskull actually got me very low until I found a Prison and Chalice on 1 for StP and Baneslayer equipped with Batterskull won me the game at like 70 life.

2-0, 3-1

Round 5 vs High Tide

Game 1 I had Chalice on 1 and Trinisphere. He only casted a couple spells. Game 2 Revoker on Candelabra and a Canonist do their job and I eventually attach a Sword of Fire and Ice to it and close it out.

2-0, 4-1

Deck was sweet. I'd like to try to add another white source in the main, but I'm unsure what to cut. Sideboard felt OK but could maybe use some sprucing up. Any comments/questions are welcomed.

[TLK]

Went 3-1 with Angel Prison last night. Same decklist I posted above.

Wins: 2-1 vs U/R Delver, 2-1 vs Storm, 2-0 vs Counterbalance Painter
Loss: 0-2 vs Jund Depths

I think Jund Depths would've been much easier had I drawn my Humility/Graveyard hate. I've been siding in Humility quite a bit, so I may up the count in the board to 2. I also just acquired a Moat, so I'll be making room for that as well. The 3 Revokers in the mainboard are the Sphere of Resistance (don't currently own those, and not much of a fan of them after testing) flex slot, so I may try to play around with different card choices there. Let me know if you want more detail or my sideboarding strategy.

[nedleeds]

Blinking the tapped morph on their turn into untapped Exalted Angel and blocking is also quite satisfying. Why I play anything other than moat stompy is beyond me.

Just disassembled my moat stompy after going 11-1 with it in my last 12 over 3 locals. I hadn't really played it extensively since Containment Priest. It's a pretty great addition, Reanimator on the draw and worse Show and Tell off a fast start were tough (barring lucking into a ring or Karakas).

4 x Exalted Angel
4 x Restoration Angel
4 x Windborn Muse
2 x Baneslayer Angel
2 x Aven Mindcensor

3 x Moat
3 x Banishing Light
4 x Suppression Field
4 x Chalice of the Void
2 x Armageddon
2 x Ravages of War

4 x Chrommox
4 x City of Traitors
4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x Karakas
2 x Cavern of Souls
6 x Plains
4 x Flagstones of Trokair

SB has varied but

X x Containment Priest
X x Ring Effects
4 x Leyline of Sanctity (always)
3-4 x 3Ball
X x Tormod's Crypt
X x Angel of Finality
X x Aegis of the Gods (actually performed pretty well as Leyline 5-6)
X x Cursed Totem
X x Rest in Peace (hate losing the Flagstones interaction)
X x Crackdown
X x Phyrexian Revoker
X x Magus of the Moat (sometimes a hardlock vs. internet elves)
X x Ethersworn Canonist

Beat Sneak twice along the way, Jund (sacked Leyline), humiliated burn twice, a few other midrangey blue decks and non blue decks, a couple of decks were stone dead to moat. Saddened that Ravages will soon drop in value.

[MGB]

Just disassembled my moat stompy after going 11-1 with it in my last 12 over 3 locals. I hadn't really played it extensively since Containment Priest. It's a pretty great addition, Reanimator on the draw and worse Show and Tell off a fast start were tough (barring lucking into a ring or Karakas).

4 x Exalted Angel
4 x Restoration Angel
4 x Windborn Muse
2 x Baneslayer Angel
2 x Aven Mindcensor

3 x Moat
3 x Banishing Light
4 x Suppression Field
4 x Chalice of the Void
2 x Armageddon
2 x Ravages of War

4 x Chrommox
4 x City of Traitors
4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x Karakas
2 x Cavern of Souls
6 x Plains
4 x Flagstones of Trokair

SB has varied but

X x Containment Priest
X x Ring Effects
4 x Leyline of Sanctity (always)
3-4 x 3Ball
X x Tormod's Crypt
X x Angel of Finality
X x Aegis of the Gods (actually performed pretty well as Leyline 5-6)
X x Cursed Totem
X x Rest in Peace (hate losing the Flagstones interaction)
X x Crackdown
X x Phyrexian Revoker
X x Magus of the Moat (sometimes a hardlock vs. internet elves)
X x Ethersworn Canonist

Beat Sneak twice along the way, Jund (sacked Leyline), humiliated burn twice, a few other midrangey blue decks and non blue decks, a couple of decks were stone dead to moat. Saddened that Ravages will soon drop in value.

I bet this deck looks really nice in all foil Japanese cards.

I assume that's how you have it, right? :)

[SilkyPimP]

Just disassembled my moat stompy after going 11-1 with it in my last 12 over 3 locals. I hadn't really played it extensively since Containment Priest. It's a pretty great addition, Reanimator on the draw and worse Show and Tell off a fast start were tough (barring lucking into a ring or Karakas).

4 x Exalted Angel
4 x Restoration Angel
4 x Windborn Muse
2 x Baneslayer Angel
2 x Aven Mindcensor

3 x Moat
3 x Banishing Light
4 x Suppression Field
4 x Chalice of the Void
2 x Armageddon
2 x Ravages of War

4 x Chrommox
4 x City of Traitors
4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x Karakas
2 x Cavern of Souls
6 x Plains
4 x Flagstones of Trokair

SB has varied but

X x Containment Priest
X x Ring Effects
4 x Leyline of Sanctity (always)
3-4 x 3Ball
X x Tormod's Crypt
X x Angel of Finality
X x Aegis of the Gods (actually performed pretty well as Leyline 5-6)
X x Cursed Totem
X x Rest in Peace (hate losing the Flagstones interaction)
X x Crackdown
X x Phyrexian Revoker
X x Magus of the Moat (sometimes a hardlock vs. internet elves)
X x Ethersworn Canonist

Beat Sneak twice along the way, Jund (sacked Leyline), humiliated burn twice, a few other midrangey blue decks and non blue decks, a couple of decks were stone dead to moat. Saddened that Ravages will soon drop in value.


My friends and I have started a Legacy league at our local shop and I am looking for something fun and different to play tonight. Any advice on how to side against reanimator or show and tell?

[Spigore]

Nedleeds, if you're reading this;

What's the reason beyond the 3Balls in the sideboard (instead of maindeck)? Assuming they are 'underperforming' can't be it, right?!

[nedleeds]

Nedleeds, if you're reading this;

What's the reason beyond the 3Balls in the sideboard (instead of maindeck)? Assuming they are 'underperforming' can't be it, right?!

It's pretty simple, 3 ball is bad on the draw vs. most Deathrite or White Vial decks which were seeing a resurgence locally. If you play in a heavy combo environment it's obviously good. If you play vs. lots of DRS decks or White Vial decks it's not as exciting. I had more threats and 3 light / 3 moat. You also have to watch your artifact count with Chrommox.

Lot's of combo -> more 3ball
More attrition mana denial decks -> more Suppression Field / reliable Chrommox food

RUG might be the exception, it's a mana denial deck but a resolved 3ball is backbreaking against a deck with 6 colored lands. The above list also ran a little more mana than i've run in the past to reflect the rise of mana denial ... 22 lands + 4 chrommox.

[nedleeds]

My friends and I have started a Legacy league at our local shop and I am looking for something fun and different to play tonight. Any advice on how to side against reanimator or show and tell?

Vs. Reanimator and Sneak and Chimp 4 x Containment Priest, Revokers are also acceptable. I mean ... vs. Reanimator bring in any additional grave hate on top of priests, I've run Crypt and Rest In Peace, Crypt doesn't play great with Field.

Vs. Omni Derp you want 3ball, Banishing Light is still good but isn't that reliable, if they have Wish / Dig in hand they can chain into a trickbind. I'd cut the slower threats and the moats. Aegis has text since it stops Intuition and is a clock. If you have Canonist it's obviously good as well. Another option if your local is invested with shaved monkeys omni derping is to just board in 4 Iona. They need natural Show into Omni/Emrakul or Show/Emrakul. I believe the internet instructs Omnimonkeys to run 1 or 2 Emrakuls.

[MGB]

Vs. Reanimator and Sneak and Chimp 4 x Containment Priest, Revokers are also acceptable. I mean ... vs. Reanimator bring in any additional grave hate on top of priests, I've run Crypt and Rest In Peace, Crypt doesn't play great with Field.

Vs. Omni Derp you want 3ball, Banishing Light is still good but isn't that reliable, if they have Wish / Dig in hand they can chain into a trickbind. I'd cut the slower threats and the moats. Aegis has text since it stops Intuition and is a clock. If you have Canonist it's obviously good as well. Another option if your local is invested with shaved monkeys omni derping is to just board in 4 Iona. They need natural Show into Omni/Emrakul or Show/Emrakul. I believe the internet instructs Omnimonkeys to run 1 or 2 Emrakuls.

I play a white prison-ish deck myself and lost games to Sneak n Derp with Containment Priest in my hand when they cast Show and Tell, and I had like, a single Ancient Tomb in play (Turn 2 Show). In alot of situations it seems as if just playing Banishing Light vs. Sneak n Derp would be better, no?

[nedleeds]

I play a white prison-ish deck myself and lost games to Sneak n Derp with Containment Priest in my hand when they cast Show and Tell, and I had like, a single Ancient Tomb in play (Turn 2 Show). In alot of situations it seems as if just playing Banishing Light vs. Sneak n Derp would be better, no?

I also have 3 x Banishing Light.

Edit: and 2 Karakas.

[Spigore]

Thanks for the input Nedleeds.

Looking further into Restoration Angel and Exalted Angel; I definately dig the full playset of Restoration Angel. The instant speed is great. However I can't seem to understand running the full set of Exalted Angel. Is the occasional morph into blink with Resto Angel that awesome? In my opinion Baneslayer Angel is strictly better. Is the cmc 5 the big issue of Baneslayer? Does the deck have the odd moment of not coming up with 5 mana after an Armageddon?

Assembling the deck soon, can't wait to see some melted faces at the local store! :wink:

[Esper3k]

Just curious, but why Banishing Light over O-Ring?

Also, it kind of makes me sad that we can't play SFM as another flicker guy to use with Restoration Angel but with Moat, I guess we can't play SFM.

[MGB]

Just curious, but why Banishing Light over O-Ring?

Also, it kind of makes me sad that we can't play SFM as another flicker guy to use with Restoration Angel but with Moat, I guess we can't play SFM.

Banishing Light is almost strictly better than O-Ring because it includes the text "exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls " rather than "exile another target nonland permanent." Why does this matter? Because if the opponent doesn't have any permanents in play when the trigger resolves, Oblivion Ring will force you to exile one of your permanents! Whereas if, for whatever reason, you opponent doesn't have any permanents in play when the Banishing Light trigger resolves, nothing will happen and your own permanents are still safe.

[Esper3k]

Banishing Light is almost strictly better than O-Ring because it includes the text "exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls " rather than "exile another target nonland permanent." Why does this matter? Because if the opponent doesn't have any permanents in play when the trigger resolves, Oblivion Ring will force you to exile one of your permanents! Whereas if, for whatever reason, you opponent doesn't have any permanents in play when the Banishing Light trigger resolves, nothing will happen and your own permanents are still safe.

Oh gotcha I see. That's the benefit vs losing the O-Ring bounce/tricks (which this deck isn't really designed to abuse anyways).

Thanks for the info! Now to find some sweet Banishing Lights.

[Admiral_Arzar]

So it looks like we're getting flying Glowrider as well as a bigger, more angelic Windborn Muse in Magic: Origins. I dislike the three white mana commitment to play the Angel, but just the fact that it survives bolt makes me strongly consider it.

[Esper3k]

So it looks like we're getting flying Glowrider as well as a bigger, more angelic Windborn Muse in Magic: Origins. I dislike the three white mana commitment to play the Angel, but just the fact that it survives bolt makes me strongly consider it.

The other thing I don't like about the Angel of Tithes is that she doesn't do as good a job of holding back your opponent's team after you Armageddon, especially while you're on offense.

[addict insane]

Also, contrary to Chalice, this card has a body attached, however irrelevant.



The very same idea popped up on my mind yesterday. I wanted to build something similar, just for the fun, of course, because... well, see the list:


8 Sol
12 Plains
4 Mox

4 StP
4 Obl Ring
4 equips

4 MoR
4 SFM (lame, I know, but I need to win with something)
4 Serra Avenger
4 Resto
4 Serra Angel
4 BSA

What is MoR? It's probably something completely obvious that I can't think of right now :(

[Myelectronicdays]

What is MoR? It's probably something completely obvious that I can't think of right now :(

im assuming mother of runes.

[addict insane]

im assuming mother of runes.

See? So obvious.

I'm even crazy about that card.

Thanks.

[HUvB]

I've been following this deck for a while now, and its (fairly) recent (fairly) decent performance - the Angel Prison version floating around SCG at the beginning of the year - got me excited about it being at least semi-viable. How do we think something like Angel Prison/Stompy does in the current, post-DTT meta?

Is a more creature-heavy build better (perhaps using new flying glowrider and friends in a Moat version), or is the prison version the way to go?

[Admiral_Arzar]

Played Moat Stompy at a couple of the side events at GP: SeaTac. Went 3-2 in the first one and 4-1 in the second. In the first event I beat Miracles, BUG Delver, and Grixis Delver and lost to MUD (awful matchup) and Burn (misplayed horribly in game 3). In the second I beat BUG Delver, Miracles, Death and Taxes, and Goblins while losing to Infect (seemed bad). I played Lands in the main event, and while I love Lands, this deck is basically an unmatched barrel of all things fun. Baneslayer Angel was the all star, creatures in Legacy just aren't up to dealing with her.

Some highlights were my first BUG Delver opponent casting zero spells game one after I played Suppression Field turn one and Trinisphere on turn 2, followed by some threat and an Armageddon. The second game he kept a six with no blue mana and cast only one spell - Force of Will targeting Moat. I lost game one to Goblins as I couldn't find Moat or a lifelink Angel until it was too late and Krenko made a gazillion dudes. Game two I open with "Plains, go." He plays turn one Lackey. I respond with turn 2 City of Traitors, Chrome Mox (imprinting Moat), cast second Moat. The expression of shock on my opponent's face when I imprinted Moat had to be seen to be believed. My DnT opponent in round 5 of the second event offered a draw, then decided against it when I accepted, saying that he actually came to play magic. I was a little taken aback by this, apparently prize tickets are serious business. I mulled to five game one, but Karma interceded and I savagely top-decked Moat followed by Baneslayer Angel and got there. I lost game two to Flickerwisped O-Rings on my angels (Containment Priest was a huge blowout) and got there in game 3 off of Moat and big righteous angels getting in for the beats.

2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Restoration Angel
4 Windborn Muse
2 Baneslayer Angel
4 Exalted Angel

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
3 Moat
4 Armageddon

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Karakas
8 Plains

Sideboard

3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Containment Priest
3 Rest in Peace
1 Trinisphere
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Moat

I boarded in the 4th Moat a lot. STP came in a lot as well, as it's really good against decks with dudes where you can't count on your Chalice resolving (Delver) and also excellent against creature decks where Chalice isn't as relevant (Goblins or DnT when you're on the draw). It also gives you slightly more than a snowball's chance in hell of beating MUD if they keep a shaky Metalworker hand, but damn that matchup is terrible. I might cut 1 Exalted Angel for a 3rd Baneslayer as the latter card is just insane against any remotely fair matchup (also Griselbrand :laugh:). I cut the O-Ring effects from Nedleeds' last list as I didn't expect much Show and Tell. Containment Priest is there as a safety valve in that matchup that's also excellent against graveyard combo. Leyline of Sanctity is the most essential sideboard card bar none, beating discard, burn spells, certain planeswalkers, and Tendrils alike.

[TLK]

Have you considered Cavern of Souls (naming Angel) for your list?

[Admiral_Arzar]

Have you considered Cavern of Souls (naming Angel) for your list?

Yes. The issue is that the deck needs consistent double white for Moat, so there's no way 4 Cavern would be stable. 1-2 might be worth looking at though.

EDIT: Also a couple of the creatures aren't angels which can make things tricky.

[TLK]

Yeah, definitely not suggesting you run a full set. I'd try maybe 1-2 to ensure your Angels stick.

[HUvB]

I love that list @Admiral_Arzar. Congrats on your success in those events! As for the O-Rings/Banishing Lights, given the right meta, what would you take out to put them mainboard? Armageddons? Suppression fields? Having the fields seems like a major benefit of the Moat version of the deck over those that keep the Stoneforge Mystic package. Do you ever find that Armageddon-ing puts you behind (i.e. just not finding necessary lands afterwards)?

Besides MUD, do you have a feel for the deck's worst - and, I suppose, best - matchups?

[evanmartyr]

Admiral, that is a sweet list. Any suggestions on what to look into to replace the moats for those of us on a budget? I'd probably start with 4x Swords to Plowshares, but that clearly is only a partial replacement.

[HUvB]

Admiral, that is a sweet list. Any suggestions on what to look into to replace the moats for those of us on a budget? I'd probably start with 4x Swords to Plowshares, but that clearly is only a partial replacement.

Don't want to butt in uninvited, but I was thinking Ghostly Prisons as a budget placeholder. Hits all creatures and is one mana cheaper, but can be decayed and is obviously easier to get around.

[Dziga Murnau]

What's the purpose of StP in sideboard? Do Chalices get sided out, when you side StP in?

[evanmartyr]

Don't want to butt in uninvited, but I was thinking Ghostly Prisons as a budget placeholder. Hits all creatures and is one mana cheaper, but can be decayed and is obviously easier to get around.

The downsides come with a fairly large upside, in that it hassles reanimator and flyers where moat does not. Worth trying, good suggestion.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Sorry about the late replies all, I had forgotten to check this thread as I'm used to it not really getting any interest lol.


I love that list @Admiral_Arzar. Congrats on your success in those events! As for the O-Rings/Banishing Lights, given the right meta, what would you take out to put them mainboard? Armageddons? Suppression fields? Having the fields seems like a major benefit of the Moat version of the deck over those that keep the Stoneforge Mystic package. Do you ever find that Armageddon-ing puts you behind (i.e. just not finding necessary lands afterwards)?

Besides MUD, do you have a feel for the deck's worst - and, I suppose, best - matchups?

Thanks man! When Nedleeds used to play this deck he moved Trinispheres to the board in order to maindeck O-Ring effects. My meta has more Miracles/Storm/etc. than it does Sneaky Show so this is unnecessary for me. Once in a while Armageddon backfires but it is pretty rare assuming you play it correctly. It is rarely correct to 'Geddon when you don't have some kind of on-board advantage, and Mox + Flagstones helps mitigate the land loss. As for matchups, the deck tends to have issues with BGx value piles like Shardless and Jund. They can disrupt you a lot of different ways and have a lot of card advantage where your deck doesn't. Delver is very swingy and is heavily dependent on whether you win the roll and on how aggressive their draw is. Miracles is a downright amazing matchup, as is Storm or any other combo deck that relies on casting a lot of spells in one turn. Dredge is actually beatable preboard with the right draw, and easy postboard.


Admiral, that is a sweet list. Any suggestions on what to look into to replace the moats for those of us on a budget? I'd probably start with 4x Swords to Plowshares, but that clearly is only a partial replacement.

Ghostly Prison, as mentioned below is ok. It stacks with Windborn Muse which is pretty cool. The issue I have with Prison is that it gets hit by Decay and isn't a hard lock (i.e. BUG is probably happy to just pay 2 and beat you down with a gigantic 'Goyf). But yeah, in all honesty this deck isn't playable at full effectiveness without at least 3 copies of Moat. I spent a long time trading for mine to be able to play it, the card just randomly wins you so many games.

EDIT: If you want to be more aggressive I could see an argument for Vryn Wingmare in those slots.


What's the purpose of StP in sideboard? Do Chalices get sided out, when you side StP in?

I added STP because the deck has issues being on the draw against Delver. There are certain decks where if your Chalice resolves you are likely going to win, but it's unlikely the Chalice will resolve (RUG Delver for example). STP is great against these matchups and I will generally leave Chalice in here because no matter which one resolves you are probably winning. STP is also great in matchups where Chalice isn't as good (Vial decks, MUD) or is going to be set on a different number (Loam decks).

[gryffinheart]

Sorry about the late replies all, I had forgotten to check this thread as I'm used to it not really getting any interest lol.



Thanks man! When Nedleeds used to play this deck he moved Trinispheres to the board in order to maindeck O-Ring effects. My meta has more Miracles/Storm/etc. than it does Sneaky Show so this is unnecessary for me. Once in a while Armageddon backfires but it is pretty rare assuming you play it correctly. It is rarely correct to 'Geddon when you don't have some kind of on-board advantage, and Mox + Flagstones helps mitigate the land loss. As for matchups, the deck tends to have issues with BGx value piles like Shardless and Jund. They can disrupt you a lot of different ways and have a lot of card advantage where your deck doesn't. Delver is very swingy and is heavily dependent on whether you win the roll and on how aggressive their draw is. Miracles is a downright amazing matchup, as is Storm or any other combo deck that relies on casting a lot of spells in one turn. Dredge is actually beatable preboard with the right draw, and easy postboard.



Ghostly Prison, as mentioned below is ok. It stacks with Windborn Muse which is pretty cool. The issue I have with Prison is that it gets hit by Decay and isn't a hard lock (i.e. BUG is probably happy to just pay 2 and beat you down with a gigantic 'Goyf). But yeah, in all honesty this deck isn't playable at full effectiveness without at least 3 copies of Moat. I spent a long time trading for mine to be able to play it, the card just randomly wins you so many games.

EDIT: If you want to be more aggressive I could see an argument for Vryn Wingmare in those slots.



I added STP because the deck has issues being on the draw against Delver. There are certain decks where if your Chalice resolves you are likely going to win, but it's unlikely the Chalice will resolve (RUG Delver for example). STP is great against these matchups and I will generally leave Chalice in here because no matter which one resolves you are probably winning. STP is also great in matchups where Chalice isn't as good (Vial decks, MUD) or is going to be set on a different number (Loam decks).

Hi, I am a new legacy player who is very interested in your angel stompy deck. I would like to ask a few questions:

1. Have you considered side board humility and elspeth knight errant as an alternative lock/win condition?
2. Or 1 or 2 ghostly prison to replace moat against delvers?
3. Since there are many white devotions, would it be nice to add one Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for acceleration?
4. As mentioned in earlier posts, 1 or 2 cavern of souls may be nice to cast the angels?
5. Do you think would moat be nice to combine with Entreat the angels, luminarch ascension, or sigil of empty throne in the Enchantress deck?

Thank you or anyone for the discussions :)

[TLK]

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but is Exalted Angel really that great? Isn't Baneslayer just better? I would think you'd rather max out on her than on Exalted.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Hi, I am a new legacy player who is very interested in your angel stompy deck. I would like to ask a few questions:

1. Have you considered side board humility and elspeth knight errant as an alternative lock/win condition?
2. Or 1 or 2 ghostly prison to replace moat against delvers?
3. Since there are many white devotions, would it be nice to add one Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for acceleration?
4. As mentioned in earlier posts, 1 or 2 cavern of souls may be nice to cast the angels?
5. Do you think would moat be nice to combine with Entreat the angels, luminarch ascension, or sigil of empty throne in the Enchantress deck?

Thank you or anyone for the discussions :)

1. Yes, but Humility is awful with Moat (and our big creatures) and Elspeth (along with planeswalkers in general) conflicts with Suppression Field. The deck's threats were deliberately chosen to interact favorably with Moat and Suppression Field. If you really want to play Humility, Moat, and Elspeth together do a forum search for "Dutch Stax" or "Legendary Tales."
2. Moat is generally better than Ghostly Prison. Against Delver you have blockers and sideboard STP, I'd rather not weaken the deck against other creatures and matchups.
3. Most of your white permanents are expensive (and only the most expensive ones have double white). Getting enough devotion early game to matter is unlikely, and late game you'll have enough mana to cast your big angels anyways.
4. I may test 1 Cavern of Souls next time I play the deck, but more colorless lands concerns me.
5. Moat is a strong lock piece in Enchantress, yes.


Forgive me if I'm missing something, but is Exalted Angel really that great? Isn't Baneslayer just better? I would think you'd rather max out on her than on Exalted.

Exalted Angel is played because both morphing her up and flipping her with Restoration Angel are faster methods of getting in there with a big threat than Baneslayer. Sure, Baneslayer is the stronger card, but you don't always have 5 mana available. I am considering a 3-3 split though simply because of the strength of Baneslayer.

[Curby]

Exalted is nice if you're running Restos or Flickerwisps. I'm not sure how often that works out even when you're running 4 Exalteds and Restos though.

P.S. Would Angel Stompy ever really need anything to fight Delvers? In the realm of Angels a Delver is pretty small.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Exalted is nice if you're running Restos or Flickerwisps. I'm not sure how often that works out even when you're running 4 Exalteds and Restos though.

P.S. Would Angel Stompy ever really need anything to fight Delvers? In the realm of Angels a Delver is pretty small.

The big issue is with Delver the archetype more so than Delver the card. This deck is susceptible to getting Wastelanded and Dazed out of the game when you're on the draw, and your cheaper creatures are weak to Lightning Bolt if you can't stick a Chalice. Sure you have plenty of blockers for Delver, but they have to resolve and you have to have sufficient mana to cast them. I may be biased as I got badly burned with this deck by a nut-drawing UR Delver player once upon a time, and I haven't forgotten resolving zero spells in at least one of the games. I went 3-0 against Delver in general at the GP side events, and STP out of the board was an excellent solution to the times my draw was slower and I just needed to kill the first threat.

[Curby]

@Arzar sure, I was responding mostly to the question of Ghostly Prison, which had a proposed purpose of fighting actual Delvers. I didn't see your earlier reply so it was unclear who I was responding to. I definitely think StP or similar removal could have a place in this deck.

Also, just making sure Morph is not an activated ability. I don't think it is because Morphing a creature is one of the few ways to counter Split Second spells. That said, I just noticed all the Suppression Fields and wanted to make sure.

[Admiral_Arzar]

@Arzar sure, I was responding mostly to the question of Ghostly Prison, which had a proposed purpose of fighting actual Delvers. I didn't see your earlier reply so it was unclear who I was responding to. I definitely think StP or similar removal could have a place in this deck.

Also, just making sure Morph is not an activated ability. I don't think it is because Morphing a creature is one of the few ways to counter Split Second spells. That said, I just noticed all the Suppression Fields and wanted to make sure.

Ah ok. Morph is not an activated ability, it's a "special action" (akin to playing a land) that doesn't even use the stack. It can't be responded to, Stifled, or affected by Suppression Field. Notably, the converted mana cost of a Morph is zero, so Counterbalance flipping a 3 doesn't do anything. Flipping a land does, though :tongue:.

[TLK]

Yeah, I'm just wondering if there isn't something better to be done with your mana than play a 2/2 for 4. The Resto->Exalted is obviously great when it happens, but the set up is slow and Resto can only blink Mindcensor. Then again, I've had little experience with Angel Stompy (had a successful build a year or so ago but its construction was much different.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Yeah, I'm just wondering if there isn't something better to be done with your mana than play a 2/2 for 4. The Resto->Exalted is obviously great when it happens, but the set up is slow and Resto can only blink Mindcensor. Then again, I've had little experience with Angel Stompy (had a successful build a year or so ago but its construction was much different.

Morph is 3, 4 would be a little too much. There are plenty of situations where you play a turn one Chalice or Field and just need a 3-mana play. Enter the Morph. If it dies, it dies, but if it doesn't you get a large flying beater the following turn that's incredibly difficult to race. Resto can also blink Windborn Muse which is relevant (Muse is a spirit not an angel).

[TLK]

Ah, gotcha. For some reason I thought Muse was an angel. I think I'm going to sleeve up your version and give it a try.

[nedleeds]

It also gives you slightly more than a snowball's chance in hell of beating MUD if they keep a shaky Metalworker hand, but damn that matchup is terrible.

Tons of dead cards in that matchup. Stony Silence only cuts you off Chrommox. Not sure I want Stony for any other matchup. Suppression Field already demolishes Top. Moat is a good card, Field is still necessary to slow Wasteland, Forgemaster. I know one build I had 2-3 Revokers in my sideboard. Revoker is pretty good vs. both MUD and DnT when you are on the draw and need to stop something ASAP. They also came in when Moat was a brick, like vs. storm its not worth keeping moat in for empty, so Revoking LED is a quasi prison effect and a clock. I would usually keep Windborn in vs. Storm to brick empty.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Tons of dead cards in that matchup. Stony Silence only cuts you off Chrommox. Not sure I want Stony for any other matchup. Suppression Field already demolishes Top. Moat is a good card, Field is still necessary to slow Wasteland, Forgemaster. I know one build I had 2-3 Revokers in my sideboard. Revoker is pretty good vs. both MUD and DnT when you are on the draw and need to stop something ASAP. They also came in when Moat was a brick, like vs. storm its not worth keeping moat in for empty, so Revoking LED is a quasi prison effect and a clock. I would usually keep Windborn in vs. Storm to brick empty.

Yeah Revoker or Stony would be excellent if I wanted to sideboard specifically for MUD. The biggest issue is that if they have Metalworker, this deck can't do shit about it preboard. I just don't have room for either as of now without trimming hate for graveyard combo/derp and tell. STP comes in against both of those matchups as killing Metalworker/Mom is essential. Versus Storm I trim Moat and keep Muse also. I often board out Field against Storm because they have no activated abilities outside of fetches (and Leyline/RIP are just better in that matchup).

[nedleeds]

Admiral, that is a sweet list. Any suggestions on what to look into to replace the moats for those of us on a budget? I'd probably start with 4x Swords to Plowshares, but that clearly is only a partial replacement.

As mentioned, Ghostly is OK. But dying to Abrupt Decay is miserable ... Shardless can't deal with Moat very well at all. Magus of the Moat is actually better vs. a few decks. It's a near hardlock vs. internet elves (DRS/Drainelf). It dodges Charms and Grips post board. If you are running a couple of Caverns it might be uncounterable. It's also a funny Magic card.

[gryffinheart]

Morph is 3, 4 would be a little too much. There are plenty of situations where you play a turn one Chalice or Field and just need a 3-mana play. Enter the Morph. If it dies, it dies, but if it doesn't you get a large flying beater the following turn that's incredibly difficult to race. Resto can also blink Windborn Muse which is relevant (Muse is a spirit not an angel).

Since this deck has 4 restoration angels to flip the morphs, can we substitute one exalted angel to Akroma, Angel of Fury? They both can morph, but Akroma, Angel of Fury would be a faster clock and have protection from white and blue, which is very nice. And can we use 1 or 2 flickwisp since they only need 3 mana and have other applications than morph the angel as well?

And also this deck runs 4 armageddon but no crucible of worlds? Would 2 copy of crucible of worlds plus mox diamond better than chrome mox in this strategy? And substitute one or two armageddon to Cataclysm to get rid of opponents' planes walkers?

[Admiral_Arzar]

Since this deck has 4 restoration angels to flip the morphs, can we substitute one exalted angel to Akroma, Angel of Fury? They both can morph, but Akroma, Angel of Fury would be a faster clock and have protection from white and blue, which is very nice. And can we use 1 or 2 flickwisp since they only need 3 mana and have other applications than morph the angel as well?

And also this deck runs 4 armageddon but no crucible of worlds? Would 2 copy of crucible of worlds plus mox diamond better than chrome mox in this strategy? And substitute one or two armageddon to Cataclysm to get rid of opponents' planes walkers?

Unfortunately, we can't actually ever morph up or cast Akroma which makes her a dead card a solid half of the time. This deck can't really afford any other situational dead cards. Flickerwisp is 1WW which is a hard cost to hit when you play 8 Sol lands - not to mention that we don't have Vial to give it flash which is required for any real tricks. Resto Angel is far better.

Crucible is unnecessary because we don't run Wasteland and because Armageddon is supposed to be cast when we already have board presence. It's a game-ending play, not a disruptive one like it is in Armageddon Stax.

[nedleeds]

If I am playing Wasteland, Mox Diamond and Crucible then I'd just play White Staxx / Dutch Staxx. Angel Stompy is fighting on a different axis trying to close the game with a giant threat - not grind your opponent into dust and slowly win through attrition. Just because they share some cards doesn't mean they are the same deck.

Played M0@tSt0mpy this weekend at a small local. Felt good to pin some moats under chrome mox to cast moat.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12321470_797632263696490_6310594572081376460_n.jpg?oh=267e8c5d39b320710f16d2d1332eacf8&oe=56D3FB52

[TLK]

If I am playing Wasteland, Mox Diamond and Crucible then I'd just play White Staxx / Dutch Staxx. Angel Stompy is fighting on a different axis trying to close the game with a giant threat - not grind your opponent into dust and slowly win through attrition. Just because they share some cards doesn't mean they are the same deck.

Played M0@tSt0mpy this weekend at a small local. Felt good to pin some moats under chrome mox to cast moat.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12321470_797632263696490_6310594572081376460_n.jpg?oh=267e8c5d39b320710f16d2d1332eacf8&oe=56D3FB52

How'd you do? What's your current list?

[Dziga Murnau]

How hard do we need some permanent removal in side, like O'Rings? I am afraid of things like Ensnaring Bridge that I simply can't beat. Also, it's good to have more things to Show and Tell against Sneak Attack.

[nedleeds]

I'm certain there is no reason to ever play O-Ring anymore.

[Dziga Murnau]

I'm certain there is no reason to ever play O-Ring anymore.

But on the picture you posted there's clearly Banishing Light. Did you decide that O'Ring cards are unneccessary since then?

[whienot]

Banishing Light ≠ O. Ring.

100% sure his intent is that you should be playing Banishing Light, not Oblivion Ring.

[Dziga Murnau]

Banishing Light ≠ O. Ring.

100% sure his intent is that you should be playing Banishing Light, not Oblivion Ring.

Then he did not answer the question I asked.

[nedleeds]

I'm certain there is no reason to ever play Oblivion Ring anymore in Angel Stompy. Banishing Light is superior.

[Dziga Murnau]

in Angel Stompy. Banishing Light is superior.

What cards in Admiral's list would you remove to fit Banishing Lights in?

[nedleeds]

I don't know if I would main Banishing Light at all. Depends on what you expect to face.

[Dziga Murnau]

Played Adiral's List at TopDeck Legacy Cup 2015 (big Russian Legacy tournament usually held in December) for 4-3 result. Was pretty close to prizes, but alas. The deck was fun.

1. 2-1 against Oops All Spells: easily lost first game without any disruption, easily won 2-3 games because of Trinisphere and other stuff we have against combo.
2. 2-0 against Reanimator: he just mulls to 3 in Game 1, while I have Karakas and two Suppression Fields, then in Game 2 I resolve Rest in Peace and that's all.
3. 0-2 against Rogue UR-Painter, the finalist of the tourney: Game 1 he goes first and casts Grindstone-Top-Welder on turn 1, while I sit with Chalice in hand... Then in Game 2 I side out Moats, disrupt his combo, but he beats me with a pair of painters while I cannot topdeck any creature at all...
4. 0-2 against Jund: Game 1 I land Moat, he says "I can't win" and burns me to death with DRS, Bolts and Punishing Fires, while topdeck five lands in a row; Game 2 I land Leyline of Sanctity and Chalise on 1, he says "I can't win" and beats me to death with Bob and Tarmo, while I cannot topdeck lands.
5. 2-1 aganst Rogue Grixis-Delver: like the first normal round in the tournament where we both topdeck badly, but at least fight with each other witch creatures and disruption, not fight with starting hands and topdecks. Rememver nothng except he couldn't cast Zombie Fish in one of games because did not get any cantrips, fetches or black mana sources.
6. 1-2 agaist Sneak Attack: Game 1 I show and tell Supression Field and quickly kill him before he can play any activated abilities; next two games he plays accurately and kills me even through Baneslayer Angel.
7. 2-0 or 2-1 agaist Jund. Game 1 it's Moat and that's all. Suddenly I start to understand how the deck works and side out Chalices, Suppression Fileds and Trinispheres in exchange of proper Jund hate - Leylines, RiPs, Swords to Plowshares. Then we have fight for Moats (he has too little answers to Moat+Leyline) and I finish the day by resolving Baneslayer that he cannot answer in any way.

So I have questions:
1. Aren't Moats sideboard slots? Too much decks just do not care about them. Though, I should admit, they always impress people.
2. Aren't 4 Armageddons too much? 3 looks pretty normal, we want only one to seal the game, and can win without them (though players continued to play too much lands against me).
3. Don't we need more creatures and more powerful ones? Beloved Exalted Angel is absolutely weak, I couldn't morph her or Restoration her and hardcast one time, when I was already winning. Flash of Restoration Angel is cool, but does nothing to the deck: opponents will read it sitting in our hand, single white mana have sense only in 2 sol-lands+Plains cases, which are not so often. So Exalted is Gray Ogre and Restoration is 3/4 beater for four. Can we exchange them for guys that do stuff? For example, make more Mindcensors in 3-mana slot and put some Indomitable Archangel (4/4 for 4 without a drawback, protects artifacts as often, as Resto's flash is needed) or Guardian Seraph (helps with swarms right now).
4. Can we put six Windborn Muses and five Baneslayer Angels in the deck? These girls just rule. A couple of times I killed people with attack for two Muse beatings, and Baneslayer is feared by everyone.

Suppression Field dominates the metagame, really, it's even better than Chalices.

[Admiral_Arzar]

So I have questions:
1. Aren't Moats sideboard slots? Too much decks just do not care about them. Though, I should admit, they always impress people.
2. Aren't 4 Armageddons too much? 3 looks pretty normal, we want only one to seal the game, and can win without them (though players continued to play too much lands against me).
3. Don't we need more creatures and more powerful ones? Beloved Exalted Angel is absolutely weak, I couldn't morph her or Restoration her and hardcast one time, when I was already winning. Flash of Restoration Angel is cool, but does nothing to the deck: opponents will read it sitting in our hand, single white mana have sense only in 2 sol-lands+Plains cases, which are not so often. So Exalted is Gray Ogre and Restoration is 3/4 beater for four. Can we exchange them for guys that do stuff? For example, make more Mindcensors in 3-mana slot and put some Indomitable Archangel (4/4 for 4 without a drawback, protects artifacts as often, as Resto's flash is needed) or Guardian Seraph (helps with swarms right now).
4. Can we put six Windborn Muses and five Baneslayer Angels in the deck? These girls just rule. A couple of times I killed people with attack for two Muse beatings, and Baneslayer is feared by everyone.

Suppression Field dominates the metagame, really, it's even better than Chalices.

I would like to hear nedleed's answers to these as well, question 3 especially has been bothering me.

1. No. Even decks with flyers usually have a bunch of creatures that can't attack over Moat, and it's probably the biggest "Oops I win" card in the deck besides a turn one Suppression Field. We want to pre-board for as many mainstream matchups as possible and run the more narrow hate in the board. RIP and Leyline are much more narrow than Moat, and STP is really only amazing if you side out Chalice, so they all belong in the board.

2. After my recent events with the deck I would be willing to drop one Armageddon. Multi-Geddon hands are pretty bad unless you can pitch one to Chrome Mox.

3. There really aren't slots for more creatures without compromising our disruption package. I also had some issues with Exalted Angel recently, which is why I moved from 4 Exalted/2 BSA to 3 of each. I might go up to 4 BSA though as that card just wins games my itself. I have also considered Vryn Wingmare as an additional lockpiece but I don't like taxing all the noncreature spells this deck plays.

4. Yeah those two are awesome. Muse gets bolted a lot, but the times it doesn't it's always a house. BSA just wins if they don't have STP.

[Dziga Murnau]

I am especially worried about Sneak'n'Show, we are to light on hosers of that deck.

[HUvB]

So, now that most (all?) of Oath of the Gatewatch has been spoiled, it seems like there could be a few cards that some version of this deck could use. That, I suppose, is the benefit of there being so many smaller Eldrazi being spoiled that this deck's abundance of "waste" mana can use.

The first that strikes me is:
Eldrazi Displacer 3/3
2W
Creature - Eldrazi
Devoid (This card has no color.)

2◊: Exile another target creature, then return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control. (◊ represents colorless mana.)

Now, like most of the new cards, this obviously doesn't fit as well with the Moat Stompy versions, although it seems like it could be pretty useful in the Serignese/Taylor style Angel Prison mold (given that both style of decks have been talked about here, I hope it's okay to also speak to the more prison-ey versions). Since the latter also employs Wastelands, it has more opportunities to hit the ◊ consistently without relying upon taking two life from Ancient Tomb on every activation. The utility it provides seems pretty immense: protecting creatures, bouncing tokens, flipping delvers, generally stalling, etc. The Death and Taxes folks have even considered it, I believe, and their consensus seems to be that it provides a lot of utility but (a) it might mess up their consistency/synergy and (b) it is too expensive. Both of these drawbacks, it seems, are alleviated in an Angel Prison style deck that can accumulate more mana and isn't as set in stone when it comes to the cards it wants.

Along similar lines, another creature that looks interesting from both a utility and a beat-stick perspective is Endbringer:
5◊
Creature - Eldrazi 5/5
Untap Endbringer during each other player's untap step.

T: Endbringer deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

◊, T: Target creature can't attack or block this turn.

◊◊, T: Draw a card.

Again, this card probably works better in the prison style rather than straight up stompy. As we're all painfully aware, the major trouble of white-based decks is card draw/card advantage. From what I can see, there are times when you simply run out of gas but still have some lock pieces in place generally holding the opponent at bay. Endbringer provides inevitability in terms of damage, defenses, and card draw. It's a bit pricey, but again, at a one or two of, it could come in handy when you get to the point of having too much mana but nothing to do with it.

Those two seem to be the most promising to me, but a couple others could be worth looking at:
Reality Smasher 5/5
4◊
Creature - Eldrazi
(◊ represents colorless mana.)

Trample, haste

Whenever Reality Smasher becomes the target of a spell an opponent controls, counter that spell unless its controller discards a card.

This guy is just a reasonably costed, immediate threat that presents the threat of leaving it in play or shredding the opponent's hand (thus leveling the playing field). And, as a potential sideboard slot - although I'm not sure it's better than the options we already have - there is:
Warping Wail
1◊
Instant
(◊ represents colorless mana.)
Choose one -

* Exile target creature with power 1 or less.

* Counter target sorcery spell.

* Put a 1/1 colorless Eldrazi Scion creature token onto the battlefield. It has "Sacrifice this creature: Add ◊ to your mana pool."


Sorry for the giant wall of text, but I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on which of these might be worth including and what versions of Angel Stompy/Prison they could work in.

[Curby]

If you're going to seriously consider Displacer, maindeck Containment Priest becomes a serious removal outlet in addition to splash damage against Reanimator/Sneak/Show/Elves. It's something I'm intrigued about in D&T, but it would work even better here because (1) no vial and (2) fewer worries about mana costs. It would disrupt Resto's blinking though.

[HUvB]

If you're going to seriously consider Displacer, maindeck Containment Priest becomes a serious removal outlet in addition to splash damage against Reanimator/Sneak/Show/Elves. It's something I'm intrigued about in D&T, but it would work even better here because (1) no vial and (2) fewer worries about mana costs. It would disrupt Resto's blinking though.

Do you think the Containment Priest might still be a bit too narrow - given that the combo would take (typically at least) a couple of turns to set up? I do like the idea of having that maindeck hate against Sneak and Show, which seems like one of the decks harder matchups - as I believe someone pointed out earlier - because they generally don't care about our taxing effects or Ghostly Prison/Moats. I'm not the biggest fan of the Spheres of Resistance in the Angel Prison builds, so we might be able to replace those with a couple of the Displacers and Containments Priests. In combination with Ghostly Prisons (and potentially Windborn Muses), it that overkill for creature-based matchups?

[Dziga Murnau]

So, I've changed creatures in the Admiral's list to
4 Windborn Muse
4 Guardian Seraph
4 Indomitable Archangel
3 Angel of Finality
3 Baneslayer Angel

Reducing Armageddon count to 3 and playing 61 card (I decided to join the heretic sect of 61 worship).
Surprisingly happy, no problems with double W. Especially surprised that Indomitables shows themselves strong. Seraphs, if played, must be played as a four-of, you always want to see multiples. Finalities are better Restorations, as the consntantly hate almost everyone (so, you are going to cast some Gurmag after Armageddon? Have some uncounterable gravehate).
Also, one Karakas and one Plains less for two Cavern of Souls. 14 Angels want to resolve.

[Delvis]

My SO has been working on this deck lately. Here's where she's arrived:

4 Moat
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
3 Rest in Peace
3 Armageddon
2 Coercive Portal

4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Indomitable Archangel
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence

3 Chromatic Lantern
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Den
3 Flagstones of Trokair
5 Plains

// Sideboard
4 Windborn Muse
4 Containment Priest
3 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction

Still a work in progress, but with Eldrazi on the uptick locally, I'm looking to cast a few more Baneslayer Angels in Legacy. I'm going to put this list through its paces tomorrow night and see how it rolls.

[Delvis]

Wound up 2-1-1 and made prizes. ID'd the final round to clinch it up.

Played against Burn (crushed him 2-0), a Krovikan Horror brew (2-1), 4c Loam (got crushed 0-2 off bad draws for me and good ones for him), and Eldrazi Stompy (ID). Played it out against Eldrazi and lost 1-2 but I identified a misplay that would have won me that particular game, but was a very low percentage (I needed my top card to be Baneslayer - it would have been, but I searched for a Flagstones trigger).

Got some tweaks to make to the list, I'll update when I get it all figured out.

[caprino]

Wound up 2-1-1 and made prizes. ID'd the final round to clinch it up.

Played against Burn (crushed him 2-0), a Krovikan Horror brew (2-1), 4c Loam (got crushed 0-2 off bad draws for me and good ones for him), and Eldrazi Stompy (ID). Played it out against Eldrazi and lost 1-2 but I identified a misplay that would have won me that particular game, but was a very low percentage (I needed my top card to be Baneslayer - it would have been, but I searched for a Flagstones trigger).

Got some tweaks to make to the list, I'll update when I get it all figured out.

4 cavern of soul main deck no?

[Delvis]

4 cavern of soul main deck no?

Cavern didn't feel totally necessary, however, with the new sideboard, I'm going to try them out in place of Dens.

Here's our updated list:
4 Indomitable Archangel
4 Baneslayer Angel
2 Archangel of Thune

4 Moat
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
3 Rest in Peace
2 Armageddon

2 Coercive Portal
2 Talisman of Unity
2 Talisman of Progress

4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains

// Sideboard
4 Sun Droplet
3 Warping Wail
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Rest in Peace

Notes:
- I'm not sure if RIP-Helm is a good inclusion in the sideboard, but I figured I might as well try it out. Coming out of the board, they may not expect it. When RIP is good, it's REALLY good, so I wanted to max them out post-board in the relevant matchups.
- 4 Sun Droplet is a lot, but I'm seeing an increase in Burn recently. It's also a great card for recovering life lost to Ancient Tomb.
- Warping Wail is real, and playing the Eldrazi Stompy deck has confirmed it. Cavern is now a good card not just because it makes our Angels uncounterable, but also because it can tap for a colorless, which is underrated.
- I'm playing a split of the Talismans because I want the added resiliency against Phyrexian Revoker. The opportunity cost is zero, so I don't mind. Talismans work well with Sun Droplet, too, and provide colorless for the sideboarded Warping Wails.
- I've cut the Ancient Dens as an experiment to see how difficult it is to turn Metalcraft on without them, and also because I wanted to try Caverns.
- Exalted Angel might be better than Archangel of Thune, but I'm trying out Archangel first due to its hilarious synergy with Sun Droplet.

[Seraphim_ID]

- I'm not sure if RIP-Helm is a good inclusion in the sideboard, but I figured I might as well try it out. Coming out of the board, they may not expect it. When RIP is good, it's REALLY good, so I wanted to max them out post-board in the relevant matchups.
It is all the time additional win condition. Most of the time your opponents will focus on countering your more relevant cards like Moat. And Helm of Obedience is completely unexpected (for the first couple of times at least). But not sure you need 4th Rest in Peace.


- Warping Wail is real
For sure it is. Additional option VS Sneak&Show.
But at your last list you removed 4 Containment Priest.
Last time I faced Reanimator and Sneak&Show.
What I can mention: it is really hard to stop Emrakul or Iona.
I really prefer to have an option to stop them very early by having an "answer" in form of Priest.
I understand that vs Reanimator we can play Chalice of the Void with 1 and 2 counters. 3 Rest in Peace in main. But I feel paranoic about this match-up as it can show us "Iona-lock" on turn 1 and we can't really respond :)
Anyway, there is also an idiotic idea in some case after playing MUD: All is Dust (a bit more then just Wrath of God and doesn't require white mana, it is tribal -- so you can name Eldrazi for second Cavern to deal around counterspalls of any sort).
Second paranoic thought: put back 2-3 Karakas (balancing with Caverns and Flagstones).


- I've cut the Ancient Dens as an experiment to see how difficult it is to turn Metalcraft on without them, and also because I wanted to try Caverns.
No problem with metalcraft as tests showed.


I'm trying out Archangel first due to its hilarious synergy with Sun Droplet
Any success?
Sun Droplet works good vs Burn and helps to recover after self hitting. But it is all the time sideboard option. So you will use the advantage of this in about 1 game out of 4.

EDIT:
Also just like an idea: as we don't play Muse -- may be we can think about Archangel of Tithes. WWW in cost and only :1: to pay if compare with Muse, but deals fine with most of direct damage removals.

[Delvis]

Oh my god, somebody else posted on the thread.


It is all the time additional win condition. Most of the time your opponents will focus on countering your more relevant cards like Moat. And Helm of Obedience is completely unexpected (for the first couple of times at least). But not sure you need 4th Rest in Peace.

I cut Helm. I wasn't impressed with it. I replaced it with Winter Orbs, which are more useful standing alone against decks like Shardless or Lands or Aggro Loam, all three of which have picked up in popularity locally.



For sure it is. Additional option VS Sneak&Show.
But at your last list you removed 4 Containment Priest.
Last time I faced Reanimator and Sneak&Show.
What I can mention: it is really hard to stop Emrakul or Iona.
I really prefer to have an option to stop them very early by having an "answer" in form of Priest.
I understand that vs Reanimator we can play Chalice of the Void with 1 and 2 counters. 3 Rest in Peace in main. But I feel paranoic about this match-up as it can show us "Iona-lock" on turn 1 and we can't really respond :)
Anyway, there is also an idiotic idea in some case after playing MUD: All is Dust (a bit more then just Wrath of God and doesn't require white mana, it is tribal -- so you can name Eldrazi for second Cavern to deal around counterspalls of any sort).
Second paranoic thought: put back 2-3 Karakas (balancing with Caverns and Flagstones).

Yeah, I think Wail is probably okay, but I didn't like it out of the sideboard. It's much less of a catch-all against decks like Sneak & Show, where they'll cast Sneak Attacks or Through the Breaches and you just stare at their Emrakul and your Warping Wail with a sad face.

I got slaughtered by a Sneak & Show pilot and there's evidence pointing to that deck's resurgence locally based on the popularity of non-blue decks currently. So I've cut the Dens and Flagstones and I'm running 3 Caverns and 2 Karakas, because Karakas is just insane in this meta. I should probably even be playing 3, despite legendary status. I'll go back up to 4 Caverns if blue becomes largely popular again, but basic Plains is one of my favorite lands to draw.



No problem with metalcraft as tests showed.

Yeah, Metalcraft wasn't hard to achieve, and even when I achieved it, it often wasn't relevant. I'd rather have Karakas or a basic Plains.


Any success?
Sun Droplet works good vs Burn and helps to recover after self hitting. But it is all the time sideboard option. So you will use the advantage of this in about 1 game out of 4.

Not really. Archangel was a bit of a win-more, as I suspected. I got to attack with her once, and she was attacking alongside a Baneslayer, with a summoning-sick Baneslayer on the bench growing from all the triggers. Sun Droplet actually just didn't work, because Burn was able to just hit it with Smash to Smithereens or Destructive Revelry.

I've moved back to Exalted Angel for now, but I'm also interested in moving more towards Angel of Finality rather than Rest in Peace. I also really think Banishing Light is necessary if we plan for our deck to have any sort of sustained metagame presence. One of the cards I'm seeing people pick up now is Ensnaring Bridge to answer Eldrazi decks, and Bridge is also good against us. I'm not worried about the rest of the splash hate for Eldrazi, though. Blood Moon and Moat are even beneficial to us in many instances.


Also just like an idea: as we don't play Muse -- may be we can think about Archangel of Tithes. WWW in cost and only :1: to pay if compare with Muse, but deals fine with most of direct damage removals.

I don't like Archangel of Tithes strictly because of the WWW cost. That's really hard to manage in this deck. The effect is fine.

[frogger42]

Here's a decklist based on one I was pretty successful with, with a slightly new inclusion (and a really old one). This doesn't really play Angels, but it is pretty stompy, and not really quite a Geddon Stax - more like a Geddon Stompy. I like this much better than the crummy Worldquellers I ran, and the sub-par Exalted Angels - why I like it is most threats are at CMC 3, while you follow up with Geddon next turn.


4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
3 Darksteel Citadel

4 Chalice of the Void
2 Trinisphere (or Ravages of War)
4 Tsabo's Web
4 Armageddon

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Windborn Muse
4 Thought-Knot Seer

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard would probably include Suppression Fields, O-Rings, GY Hate (Angel of Finality), and 1 SoLaS.

[Scott]

Thalia, Heretic Cathar with Tsabo's Web sounds savage, but I'm curious how it's felt in different match ups when you landed Web without Thalia.

[frogger42]

Thalia, Heretic Cathar with Tsabo's Web sounds savage, but I'm curious how it's felt in different match ups when you landed Web without Thalia.

I played a few matches against Grixis Delver where Web only shut down a Wasteland or two. But consider this - it cantrips, and it's super easy to get out T1 (just like Chalice). Some hands it may be your only T1 play. And if you topdeck it, again, it cantrips, so it's not going to be dead. And then there are random MUs (Lands, Stax, DnT) where Web by itself is just a house.

It might even work really well with that 4/4 Metalcraft Angel, since this deck generally doesn't run enough artifacts to give them all Shroud.

But yes, I'm on a different deck, so I haven't playtested this one too much... but I think the balance here with Web is whether cantripping in most MUs for a Sol-land-tap is slow enough to lose you the game. I think every deck as far as I know runs some # of utility lands (Wasteland, Creeping Tar Pit, Rishadan Port) that I think Web will always have at least a minimal effect vs your opponent... other than Elves. And besides, it's my favorite cantrip in the game, bar none.

I actually liked the new Thalia a bit vs Delver, as between her and Aven Mindcensor, I have 8 ways to muck up and slow down their lands. Then Geddon to seal the deal, if need be.

[square_two]

But yes, I'm on a different deck, so I haven't playtested this one too much... but I think the balance here with Web is whether cantripping in most MUs for a Sol-land-tap is slow enough to lose you the game. I think every deck as far as I know runs some # of utility lands (Wasteland, Creeping Tar Pit, Rishadan Port) that I think Web will always have at least a minimal effect vs your opponent... other than Elves. And besides, it's my favorite cantrip in the game, bar none.

I actually liked the new Thalia a bit vs Delver, as between her and Aven Mindcensor, I have 8 ways to muck up and slow down their lands. Then Geddon to seal the deal, if need be.

frogger, have you had any sense that Mindcensor is overkill for the mana denial plan? Looks like it really does help guarantee, but between Tsabo's and Thalia and Geddon, I'm wondering if it is really needed. Saw the spoiled Palace Jailer and was wondering if it could go here. 2WW cost, comes down and guarantees you a draw and can exile opp's worst creature offender. Only way for them to get it back is to attack in for creature damage. Too bad it's a fairly weak body though. I don't have experience playing the deck though so I'm not sure what all is trouble. Deathrites producing mana? Show/Tell being too fast?

When I saw the monarch mechanic spoiled, I really liked how it works with attack taxes like Windborn Muse. Once monarch is triggered, then you are drawing 2 cards a turn until the opponent connects with a creature. Ensnaring Bridge isn't quite as convenient if you are drawing a ton. So it made me think of this deck. Stompy lists can always use extra card draw :rolleyes:

Maybe it would just take a higher critical mass of taxing effects to help make sure you keep the card draw to yourself.

[frogger42]

frogger, have you had any sense that Mindcensor is overkill for the mana denial plan? Looks like it really does help guarantee, but between Tsabo's and Thalia and Geddon, I'm wondering if it is really needed. Saw the spoiled Palace Jailer and was wondering if it could go here. 2WW cost, comes down and guarantees you a draw and can exile opp's worst creature offender. Only way for them to get it back is to attack in for creature damage. Too bad it's a fairly weak body though. I don't have experience playing the deck though so I'm not sure what all is trouble. Deathrites producing mana? Show/Tell being too fast?

If you don't have experience playing this deck, you'll just have to throw together a list. Not to toot my horn, but I took my list to a Top 4 Tie, basically won a tourney (about 60 people?). I'd advise to have a list with at least 16 threats in it. Those Stax lists with like 3 Elspeth and 2 Mishra's Factories are the biggest joke I've ever seen. Close the game already.
Mindcensor - It's a flier, really. You muck up the ground, then you want evasion. It also kills delver. It also is a prison piece.
My friend was playing Tsabo's Web, and that's overkill. It should probably go back to Trinisphere.


When I saw the monarch mechanic spoiled, I really liked how it works with attack taxes like Windborn Muse. Once monarch is triggered, then you are drawing 2 cards a turn until the opponent connects with a creature. Ensnaring Bridge isn't quite as convenient if you are drawing a ton. So it made me think of this deck. Stompy lists can always use extra card draw :rolleyes:


Good luck with that.

[midnightAce]

Instead of Web, how about Winter Orb? Thalia and Orb seems savage, with sol lands and Chrome Mox the Orb's symmetrical effect is minimum towards yourself. Orb with Muse is also very taxing, and can completely shut down aggro decks.

[frogger42]

Instead of Web, how about Winter Orb? Thalia and Orb seems savage, with sol lands and Chrome Mox the Orb's symmetrical effect is minimum towards yourself. Orb with Muse is also very taxing, and can completely shut down aggro decks.

I like how you think. You can jam 9 WOrbs in a deck - Recruiter of the Guard -> Hokori, Dust Drinker. Maybe Armageddon sits out this one, idk.

EDIT: I should've mentioned, Winter Orb by itself doesn't do much vs heavy tempo decks, a la RUG, Delver, or combo, Storm, Sneak and Show, Elves etc. So it might be a tricky balance there, finding what affects tempo and mid-range / control.

[Cliq]

http://i.imgur.com/tqzoQzo.png

[frogger42]

I went 3-1 in our LGS, the 1 is from building the deck wrong, and not having enough white in there to cast my stuff. Here's the list with one more plains and one less toolbox guy:

4 Flagstones of Trokair
5 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
3 Darksteel Citadel

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
5 Armageddon

4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Windborn Muse
3 Restoration Angel
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Leonin Relic Warder

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Toolbox SB, I can't give away all my tech. But definitely 4x Suppression Field.

The deck lost to itself vs Food Chain, but beat Manaless Dredge (Trini + Windborn Muse are awesome), squeaked through my friend's cool Dreadnaught and Taxes, and I can't remember my Rd 2 opponent. But yeah, this build is powerful, consistent, and has a super nuts toolbox, which made my SB almost all 1-ofs. It was a little awkward SB'ing against Manaless Dredge, since the 5 Geddons are worthless, and 4 Chalice is just about dead, too - I just sided in anything White to imprint to Chrome Mox, which included some O-Rings (which I'll probably cut, too). Try it out! I still want to fit another Geddon and Resto Angel, but I don't think it's really possible in this list. Oh well!

[MGB]

So has anyone thought of a list with 4 Thalia's Lancers in it?

With the new Legend Planeswalker rule they can fetch a ton of good stuff. Karakas, Umezawa's Jitte, and the usual stuff but now they can also get singleton Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

[TLK]

This awesome list top 8’d a big event in Japan.

4 Ancient Tomb
3 Cavern of Souls
2 City of Traitors
2 Karakas
10 Plains
4 Chrome Mox
4 Suppression Field
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Blade Splicer
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Council’s Judgment
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Restoration Angel
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Angel of Sanctions
4 Chalice of the Void

3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Containment Priest
1 Disenchant
3 Rest In Peace
2 Holy Light
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Thorn of Amethyst

[TLK]

This crazy thing 5-0’d a League:

3 Baneslayer Angel
4 Palace Jailer
1 Pristine Angel
1 Restoration Angel
1 Cataclysm
2 Coucil’s Judgment
1 Wrath of God
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mind Stone
4 Mox Diamond
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Trinisphere
3 Ghostly Prison
1 Moat
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Cavern of Souls
3 City of Traitors
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Karakas
2 Mishra’s Factory
6 Plains
4 Wasteland

1 Cataclysm
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Armageddon
1 Containment Priest
1 Disenchant
1 Helm of Obedience
3 Rest In Peace
1 Teferi’s Protection
3 Thorn of Amethyst

[_WD40_]

Couple new angels coming in Dominaria.....might make angel stomp an actual thing

[arlenite]

So exciting (and weird) to see Angel Stompy actually putting up some decent results in smaller events over the last half year or so. I've been slowly putting the deck together over the last few years, despite the periodical price explosions (oh the days when City of Traitors was just $45). Think I'll try to speed things up.

Some of the questions I'm wrestling with are:

Which is better: a stompy version with Chrome Moxen and lots of creatures or a prison build like TLK mentioned with Mox Diamonds, fewer creatures, and more disruptive artifacts/enchantments/spells?
As for the mana base, is it better to go with Cavern of Souls or Wasteland (or squeeze in both)?
Do we go full angel/flyer stompy with no Thalias and adding in Moat$ (theoretically of couse, lol), or are Thalias and other ground creatures like Palace Jailer and Thought-Knot Seer too valuable?
Related to the above question - and as WD40 mentioned - is there a place for recently-released angels like Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Lyra Dawnbringer? Other angel options I've seen include Restoration Angel, Baneslayer Angel, Gisela, the Broken Blade, and Angel of Sanctions. Of course, there's a danger of pushing the curve too high, especially with powerful four drops like Jailer and TKS competing for spots. Some lists are running cheaper creatures like Phyrexian Revoker, Stoneforge Mystic, Mirran Crusader, Sanctum Prelate , and Blade Splicer. What do we think about these options and the overall curve?


Also, with the recent unbannings, anyone have some educated guesses about how the deck might be positioned now?

[frogger42]

So exciting (and weird) to see Angel Stompy actually putting up some decent results in smaller events over the last half year or so. I've been slowly putting the deck together over the last few years, despite the periodical price explosions (oh the days when City of Traitors was just $45). Think I'll try to speed things up.

Some of the questions I'm wrestling with are:

Which is better: a stompy version with Chrome Moxen and lots of creatures or a prison build like TLK mentioned with Mox Diamonds, fewer creatures, and more disruptive artifacts/enchantments/spells?
As for the mana base, is it better to go with Cavern of Souls or Wasteland (or squeeze in both)?
Do we go full angel/flyer stompy with no Thalias and adding in Moat$ (theoretically of couse, lol), or are Thalias and other ground creatures like Palace Jailer and Thought-Knot Seer too valuable?
Related to the above question - and as WD40 mentioned - is there a place for recently-released angels like Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Lyra Dawnbringer? Other angel options I've seen include Restoration Angel, Baneslayer Angel, Gisela, the Broken Blade, and Angel of Sanctions. Of course, there's a danger of pushing the curve too high, especially with powerful four drops like Jailer and TKS competing for spots. Some lists are running cheaper creatures like Phyrexian Revoker, Stoneforge Mystic, Mirran Crusader, Sanctum Prelate , and Blade Splicer. What do we think about these options and the overall curve?


Also, with the recent unbannings, anyone have some educated guesses about how the deck might be positioned now?

Good questions! I finally put together a list that I think I like, though I haven't tested it too much. I think that as with any legacy deck, you want to curve out as much as you can, though with stompy your curve usually starts at CMC3. White I think is the only color that gives you a legacy staple at 2 mana - Stoneforge Mystic - and has a plethora of 3-4 drop haymakers. You also have access to Suppression Field at CMC2. So I think White can be better constructed than most other colors - mono-R I've found plays a ton of 3-drops at a minimum, and mono-U has more 4-drops than you want.

I'll give you a little insight on how I build my Angel Stompy. I like running the Armageddon version, and try to make CMC4 the top of the curve. I jam it full of SFM, Blade Splicer, and other spicy 3 drops so that by the time I hit Armageddon, I should have 1-2 lock pieces and/or threats on the board. I think in my build I want to stay away from CMC4 threats, but Resto Angel is too good (other considerations are Palace Jailer, Thought-Knot, and I've even had success with Windborne Muse / Magus of the Tabernacle). I also don't run CMC5 because that's an extra land I lose to Geddon, and there are so many great options at CMC4.

I haven't seen any real consensus on how to build Angel Stompy on here, but I'm of the opinion that if a card is good, and you don't run cantrips or tutors, you run the full set. Or as many as your curve can hold. If you don't want a full set, then you probably shouldn't run it. 1-2 is not going to make your deck consistent, which is how you win tournaments.

[Captain Hammer]

I accidentally posted this in the Armageddon Stax thread. But it makes more sense here. White is about to get an awesome planeswalker.

Serra the Benevolent
WW2, 4 Loyalty Planeswalker
+2: Creature you control with flying get +1/+1 until end of turn.
-3: Creature a 4/4 Angel Creature token w/ Flying and Vigilance
-6: You get an emblem with "If you control a creature, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead."

https://i.imgur.com/OfFRFlq.jpg

Ideally, to maximize indestructible Worship, you would be pairing this with Aven Mindcensor, Stoneforge Mystic, Both Thalias and other utility creature lock pieces, similar to Death and Taxes.

But against nonaggro matchups where the Worship effect isnt needed, just popping out 4/4 flyers every other turn is amazing value.

[aedemiel]

I accidentally posted this in the Armageddon Stax thread. But it makes more sense here. White is about to get an awesome planeswalker.

Serra the Benevolent
WW2, 4 Loyalty Planeswalker
+2: Creature you control with flying get +1/+1 until end of turn.
-3: Creature a 4/4 Angel Creature token w/ Flying and Vigilance
-6: You get an emblem with "If you control a creature, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead."

[...]

Ideally, to maximize indestructible Worship, you would be pairing this with Aven Mindcensor, Stoneforge Mystic, Both Thalias and other utility creature lock pieces, similar to Death and Taxes.

But against nonaggro matchups where the Worship effect isnt needed, just popping out 4/4 flyers every other turn is amazing value.


What you're describing looks more like Thalia Stompy.
I do agree that Serra looks promising in a stompy/prison-deck. Moat-Stompy is probably a greatest shell for her. Also I would bet that she would be played with Karn a lot of the time.

However, Why would Stoneforge be that important to play with her?