Metagame Boogeyman

[nodahero]

Yet again I find myself lacking concentration at work... as such my mind began wondering as it does and brought me to the idea of trying to detect common threads in the major players and to then design a deck meant to pray on those similarities.

The big decks that jump to my mind are in no particular order...

1) Miracles
2) Delver
3) Deathrite

Additionally a keen eye on Stoneforge and True-Name is important.

The first thing that jumps to my mind is the blatantly obvious... each of these decks has a very low and similar curve thus spells that pay special attention to those attributes seem well positioned.

Thus the following seem worthy of consideration on all fronts.
Chalice of the Void
Engineered Explosives
Trinisphere
Abrupt Decay

Another point of similarity is that excluding Angel tokens and the stray Tombstalker the toughness in these dekcs maxes out at 2. Thus the following options jump to mind is viable.
Special consideration given for True name here
Zealous Persecution
Toxic Deluge
Engineered Explosives
and a multitude of other black -x/-2 untargetd spells jump to mind
Additionally and more generally
StP/Path
Disfigure
Lightning Bolt
Variant wrath effects including, but not limited to Wrath/Damn/Verdict/Terminus


These thoughts have lead me to wondering if perhaps a U/B/g or U/B/r variant may not be a strong option utilizing Agent of Bolas as a means of finding the varying artifact options. Additionally I can see some merit in a U/B/w variant.

Does anyone have any thoughts/comments/criticsm on this idea? I will add a rough draft or two when I get something decent in mind.

[FTW]

Your analysis suggests that black Stax would be well positioned.

Potential cards include:
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Chrome Mox/Mox Diamond
Chalice of the Void
Trinisphere
Crucible of Worlds
Wasteland
Smokestack
Liliana of the Veil
Nether Void
The Abyss
Toxic Deluge
Lodestone Golem
Batterskull

SB potential:
Leyline of the Void
Unmask
Ensnaring Bridge
Damnation
Chains of Mephistopheles

Thoughts?

[nodahero]

That does seem decent... I just worry about the numbers mainly because of the double black in Lilliana and the potential for Damnation.

Then again looking at your suggested cards I must ask why not just play white instead... The only thing that seems WORLDS better in black is The Abyss but I don't have any and I can't justify spending the money to get them without having tested it.

Additionally, I went and looked at the histroy of SCG Legacy opens in Wisconsin and the following is the deck lists SCG featured. I grouped a majority of the Delver variants together because seperarting them by BUG/UWR/RUG seemed like alot more work then is worth it given the histrolical length (i.e. BUG delver wouldn't have old tourney histroy given how new it is).

21 Delver
17 Midrange (GBW variants with 3 Shardless BUG here)
10 Fatty combo (Sneak and Show primarily/2 Reanimator)
4 Grave combo (Oops all spells and dredge)
4 Control
2 Storm Combo
2 Enter the Iinfifte combo
2 Folk
1 Gob Aggro
1 Hypergenesis
1 Elf combo

Do these numbers change anything? While it loosely conflitcs with my prior post on worries, it is hard to draw accurate conclusions given metagame shifts over time. I opted for a 3 year anaylsis for the above numbers.

[Madmankevinx]

Most of the mentioned cards two posts up can be found in U/B Tezzeret.dec. I have shelved the deck as of late due to chalice simply not being as good as it was 6 months ago. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of one drops seeing play in legacy, but Deathrite Shaman (a one drop) has tuned the format to be more mid-range focused lately and my opponents have been able to win through a chalice on 1.

[FTW]

Most of the mentioned cards two posts up can be found in U/B Tezzeret.dec. I have shelved the deck as of late due to chalice simply not being as good as it was 6 months ago. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of one drops seeing play in legacy, but Deathrite Shaman (a one drop) has tuned the format to be more mid-range focused lately and my opponents have been able to win through a chalice on 1.

Tezz leans on Chalice as a main disruptive piece though. Stompy is similar. Abrupt Decay and decks that aren't RUG can kill it or win around it, exposing its 1-trick pony. But a Stax build just uses it as one of many synergistic hate pieces. When you play against Stax, it isn't just about whether you can beat a Chalice @ 1. Stax suffers other weaknesses (Durdling, slow, inconsistent) but may be better positioned to hate out the format now that other Chalice decks. People are playing <4 Force MD often, making it easier to stick a T1 lock piece.

Chalice @ 1 is still good, especially with that many Delver/Brainstorm decks and combo/Brainstorm decks. It just can't be the only thing.

Against Shardless BUG, a midrange deck that plays around Chalice pretty well, 3sphere straight up slows down the whole curve and shuts off cascade. Seems good.

Aside from D&T, all these tempo decks with few creatures also seem vulnerable to stuff like The Abyss, Porphyry Nodes, Braids-effects, etc., moreso than previous metas with more creatures (Nic Fit, Maverick, etc.).

Blade decks? White Stax with Suppression Field and Ghostly Prison would make it really slow to Stoneforge up and attack with a Batterskull or to cheat out a Sword, equip TNN and attack. Combine that with manabase disruption and you've already stalled that mana-intensive Voltron plan pretty hard. Suppression Field also severely punishes the meta's dependence on DRS to dodge manabase hate.

Suppression Field also shuts out Aether Vial and enemy Wastelands/Ports, making it harder for decks to disrupt you or play around your lock pieces.

Traditional lists runs Crucible+Wastelock but what about cutting Crucible, giving up the graveyard reliance, and even running Rest in Peace as further hate. Instead of Wastelocking (slow, durdly, vulnerable to GY disruption), you use Wasteland to hit critical lands and Suppression Field to shut off fetches/DRS to keep them from getting their mana back. Very few decks run enough basics that they can recover from T1 Suppression Field T2 Wasteland.

White lets you board in Nevermore on Abrupt Decay, exposing the format's weakness to trying to remove artifacts/enchantments without access to that card. Even combo decks run it SB as a catch-all.

This all makes me wonder if white or black stax might be viable with the right lock pieces stuck together (might have to be different from traditional builds, maybe no Crucible or Smokestack). All the new Planeswalkers give these decks resilient win conditions they never had access to before, maybe improving consistency. I have no idea what the list would look like, but you could probably throw together a decent meta-hate deck.

[KevinSrednoselac]

play Armageddon stax
go infinite with sundail of the infinite and smokestack

[Megadeus]

I personally think that Lands is the format boogey man... PFire, 3-4 Maze of Iths for Delvers, wastelock ability, and recurring ways to kill things to beat mid range. I havent seen much storm as of late. The UWx SFM, TNN decks just have too many efficient ways to stop storm.

I do like the suggestion of White STax. RIP is still solid