SpoCk0nd0pe
10-01-2015, 05:25 PM
Welcome to Stasis Control!
First, this is certainly not a tier 1 deck. It might be tier 2 in certain metas and definitely has good matchups. The deck has some serious weaknesses: Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, Wasteland locks (single Wastelands are usually fine) and the dreaded Abrupt Decay (seriously, this should have been a sorcery!) to name a few. So if you really want to make the top 8, this deck is probably not for you.
The Heart:
This Stasis variant wants to resolve Stasis as consistently and best protected as possible.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/be/81.jpg
Stasis does amazing things for control. It is mana denial and aggro denial in one card. For that reason, one could argue that Stasis is the single most powerful control card in magic. The card has a serious drawback though: It's upkeep.
Cantrips really suck if the board is under Stasis rules so if you search for a way to punish cantrip abuse, you might want to try Stasis.
The Engine:
There are currently two really great cards to permanently break the synergy of Stasis. The most important one is
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/vi/67.jpg
It costs only one mana to drop, untaps your creatures and sustains Stasis indefinitely. Always play 4 and always also play 4 Tropical Islands. It has one serious downside though: You cannot free up additional Mana while sustaining Stasis under the Ranger alone. Forsaken City or a mana dork fix this though. A noteworthy variant is the Scryb Ranger. Being light on mana costs is very important for this deck as we will see in the section critical mass, so the Quirion Ranger will be our Nr. 1 choice to sustain Stasis. Don't forget that a Ranger can untap a dork at instant speed. Use this for emergency counterspells, Brainstorms and Stasis upkeep after Wastelands.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ps/139.jpg
This card can sustain Stasis on it's own as well. This time though, the disadvantage is that you cannot fill your hand. A big advantage of the Forsaken City is, that you only need 2 other cards to drop the Stasis. It has great synergies with Daze and Thwart but can ultimately only be a temporary solution during a game because you will run out of counterspells.
Critical Mass!
One very important aspect of optimizing the deck is Critical Mass. If you play Stasis with a Ranger you need 3 mana producing cards, Stasis and the Ranger. Considering a turn 3 Stasis, that is 5 cards total out of 9 drawn on the play. Whenever you consider a card for your list, think about how many cards you need to make Stasis work and how many cards you will have left. For example: If you try to play a pre Stasis Ral Zarek (turn 4), you need 7 cards total out of 10 drawn on the play.
Remember that your opponent isn't doing nothing in the meantime. Out of experience you probably want two counterspells, one of which will probably require you to pitch a card. Every now and then you will have to mull or play an Enlightened Tutor to find Stasis. That leaves very little room for other cards in the turn 3 Stasis example. So if you found a new cool card for your Stasis list, do the counting first and see if it really is that helpful (e.g. Exploration, more on that later).
Think Stasis!
A sustained Stasis changes the rules of Magic in a very fundamental way. Under Forsaken City: 1 Mana <=> 1 Card. Under Ranger with Dork: 1 Mana <=> 1 Turn.
Have a little faith (and luck)!
Like I said, this deck is not tier 1. You will find yourself in situations where you know you need to play Stasis but have no way to sustain it. But maybe something will turn up. I often find myself not countering removal for my only Ranger knowing that I need the counterspell to bring Stasis into play. Gitaxian Probe helps to play correctly. You should also tap the Forsaken City first under Stasis and get a feeling whether you should keep the Noble Hierarch or that Land untapped for the next upkeep (most of the time tap the Hierarch).
I also rarely mull for Stasis or a Tutor if I have a cantrip and just hope the deck gives me one.
Core Card Choices:
Enlightened Tutor:
This card is obviously good because it finds Stasis quickly and allows for a toolbox sideboard. It also helps against discard. The card disadvantage hurts but there isn't a better alternative.
Daze:
This card is great in many decks. But for us, it is truly amazing. Under Stais, a tapped land is a dead card anyway and casting Daze under Forsaken City gets that card into your hand so you can play it untapped. In a Forsaken City Stasis environment Daze often reads: Counter target spell, draw a card. It is often beneficial to play Daze even if your opponent can pay the mana just to have him spend it. Note that this works for your opponent too, so it is sometimes preferable not to play a spell so your opponent can't Daze to free mana.
Force of Will:
Force of Will is just amazing. The card disadvantage can hurt at times, especially under Forsaken City, but it's still too good to pass up on. In fact I also advise to expand your free counters with Misdirection.
Brainstorm:
Yes, cantripping under Stasis is usually a bad deal. Due to the way the deck works, you will draw into quite some redundancies though. So shuffling cards away pre Stasis and enhancing the odds to find Stasis is great. Also, if you have a running engine with Stasis in play, this helps find the counterspell you so desperately need in some situations. It also helps with discard. In my testings, Ponder was not quite as good so I didn't include it (yet).
Thwart:
This card allows us to play additional Dazes. It is really amazing if you cannot find a Ranger and need to work with Forsaken City (Counter target spell, draw three cards!). You also sometimes want to drop an additional land to sustain Stasis instead of using the Ranger, just to enable this card. Unlike Daze, it can't be played around.
Noble Hierarch:
Dorks work as acceleration and Ranger fix. Noble Hierarch is the prime choice because it allows faster kills. I had plenty of games where a 2/2 Quirion Ranger was killing my opponent. If you are playing under Stasis, it is usually a good idea to keep the Noble Hierarch tapped instead of a land. He can be untapped with a Ranger at instant speed and if you have just one mana open (you sometimes need to do risky Stasis plays), most decks have an easier time removing the untapped Dork then the untapped land.
Stifle:
Multi-Purpose defence. You will find good targets for this, Wasteland is the most obvious one. Keeping your opponent off mana while under Stasis is another. SFM, Needle, Revoker, Vial, Pridemage, Miracle triggers, cheating Stasis past Counterbalance are other examples for good uses. Don't use Stifle like a tempo deck, use it defensively.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician:
This card is important for the deck because we need a tool to prevent our opponent from just playing really slow draw-go the first few turns and keeping lots of mana open. It also seals the deal as a win condition because she can keep your opponent from Abrubt Decay or Krosan Grip mana with a ranger. When it comes into play, it can tap a blocking Tombstalker or other nasty, untapped blockers that would prevent us from winning otherwise.
Note that the card really only costs 2 mana in most circumstances because you need one mana open at the beginning of your next upkeep anyway. Also note that Derevi needs a Ranger to tap out your opponent, otherwise she just has vigilance (which is still good).
Extended Card Choices:
Sterling Grove:
Another Abrupt Decay defence. It is considerably slower then E.Tutor when finding Stasis but it is tutor-able itself if you can spare the mana. I'm not sure this is a useful one off but it did help me occasionally. It is also the only Krosan Grip defence we have. If you don't want to play it maindeck, you should at least put it into the Sideboard (and play one more E.Tutor main deck).
Spellpierce, Divert and Flusterstorm are the next best choices for protection after the free counters. The mana cost is a downer but sometimes they complement the core counterspell suite very well. Personally, I think Spellpierce is the best general choice (mostly because it hits Planeswalkers) while Divert is better against discard and Abrupt Decay. Flusterstorm is good against storm combo and settles counter wars. Adjust to your meta!
Gitaxian Probe is a recent tech of mine. Stasis has some combo elements to it's strategy. Gitaxian Probe helps you to play correctly in some situations. It also reduces your total deck size to virtually 56. I know it is not the same because you increase blind draws on mulligans but it still allowed me to cut an Enlightened Tutor (it is statistically the same chance to find Stasis). It helps with overall consistency of the deck. The life loss is only very very rarely relevant.
Ancestral Vision helps a lot with card disadvantage and critical mass. Being down a card for 4 turns is definitely a downside but it helped me a lot in recent testings.
Misdirection/Divert:
Abrupt Decay can't be countered but it can be Misdirected. Misdirecting a Hymn is also very neat and can very well determine the winner of a game. It also works just as well as FoW/Spell Pierce in counter wars. Hope your opponent decided to bring Pyroblast over REB. I think a few copies main-deck are vital nowadays with all the Abrubt Decays around.
Frequently suggested cards:
In Stasis threads I see some cards suggested over and over. I will go into detail here and explain why I do not play them.
Planeswalkers, cards like Garruk Wildspeaker and Ral Zarek have great effects for our strategy. I still wouldn't think about playing them though. The reason is their high casting cost. Scenario 1: You want to play them before Stasis. This will usually delay your Stasis till turn 4 at least, which is simply too late in many scenarios. You also need more critical mass to get Stasis into play because you need at least 4 mana producing cards (which means you also need more lands in total).
Scenario 2: You want to play them after Stasis. Well if you can free up 4 mana under Stasis, you don't need more mana, you need a win condition. In that case Derevi, Empyrial Tactician just does a better job. He wins faster, taps out your opponent and costs virtually 2 mana.
Stoneforge Mystic with Sword of Feast and Famine might seem a good option too. I think they are not for of the same reasons Planeswalkers are not. In terms of turns to get it into play, SFM and Sword is faster then a Planeswalker but also easier to hate. I still think it isn't fast enough. If you already have Stasis in play, Derevi is again the better card.
Exploration has been played in previous Stasis lists to success but I think it is win more. Yes, Exploration gives turbo charged starts but it is a card that does not protect Stasis and does not produce mana by itself. If you compare it to a dork, both allow you to free mana with a Ranger, but you can untap the dork at instant speed if you need mana urgently. The final, and most important argument is, that a dork adds more mana to turn 3 Stasis scenarios with 2 lands. Exploration does not contribute to critical mass, the dork does.
Bounce strategies like Vedalken Mastermind are very vulnerable to counterspell disruption. Your opponent will usually have all the time in the world to gather all the (free) counterspells in his deck. Playing a bounce strategy does not only mean you have to win the initial counterspell war over Stasis, but you have to be ahead in counterpells all game. Your opponent will also always be able to free up mana with Daze. Lastly, you need 3 mana to initiate a Vedalken Mastermind when under Stasis with Forsaken City, Quirion Ranger only requires 1. That is a huge difference, the Mastermind isn't really an out when clinging on to Stasis under Forsaken City.
Hardlock strategies using cards like Root Maze have the weakness of being 3 card combos. They also tend to shut down your Quirion Ranger, imho the best way to break the Stasis synergy. You will have to invest more heavily into the engine making your more complex engine even more vulnerable to disruption. Kismet and Frozen Aether are too expensive, again Derevi just does a good enough job and wins the game in one card.
Hidden Strings started a new surge of Stasis variants. The card is great for Stasis but legacy is full of creature spot removal. It is not unusual for your Rangers and Dorks to be shot down. Hidden Strings let's your opponent 2 for 1 too easily. It also requires a creature with evasion (Invisible Stalker would be a suggestion) or a dropped Goyf immediately stops it. In my current list my engine works fine and I couldn't really cut a creature to support Hidden Strings because then I'd have too few creatures for it. So I'd have to cut protection which I really wish I could afford to play more off. Derevi is like Hidden Strings light with an evasive body.
I'm not finished with experimenting with this card though, maybe someone can find a way to make it work really well.
Why Stasis control?
Like I said, this Stasis variant wants to resolve Stasis as consistently and best protected as possible while keeping the engine as slim as possible for the most counterspell slots. It is not the only way to play Stasis but is the way I like to approach it. I also think it is the overall strongest approach to Stasis. Aggro control variants tend to just get their Stasis hated easier and end up with inferior cards then straight Delver or midrange lists. Hardlock variants are just too easy to hate, they lack the resilience needed for a disruption packed format like legacy. The prison type decks usually have their own strengths but a very weak game vs combo. The strategy of this list comes at the expense that you are in trouble if Stasis gets hated. If you want to start a constructive argument about this, please try and compare two lists and present findings from testing (the 'right' choice will probably be meta dependent).
My current List:
Lands
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Forsaken City
8 Blue Fetchlands
Creatures
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Spells
4 Stasis
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Thwart
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Divert
1 Sterling Grove
4 Gitaxian Probe
Sideboard
3 Enlightened Tutor to enhance all the SB options
2 Meddling Mage vs Abrupt Decay and Combo
1 Ethersworn Canonist vs combo
1 Pithing Needle vs Planeswalker heavy decks like Tezzeret
1 Ensnaring Bridge vs Sneakattack and Reanimator
1 Null Rod vs Mud, Affinity, Tezzeret maybe Miracles
1 Rest in Peace good permanent GY hate
Those are only the SB cards I would consider essential. Some more options for open slots:
Sterling Grove swap for E.Tutor for additional Decay/Krosan Grip defense
Confusion in the Ranks one of the best cards vs Omnitell
Misdirection to shift the countersuite against Decay/discard
Divert to shift the countersuite against Decay/discard
Detention Sphere good card vs show and tell
Jace, the Mind Sculptor can help in control matchups
Energy Flux is pretty Mud specific but good at that
Spellskite another piece of Decay defense, also helps with burn.
Chill good against burn
Some more Enlightened Tutor targets that are more fringe, outdated or imho surpassed and redundant from other options:
Grafdigger's Cage another great piece of GY hate, RIP is better imho
Elephant Grass good vs fast aggro
Limited Resources very situational hardlock, good vs 12-Post
Counterbalance good vs combo but we already have lots of combo hate and no Top (too mana intensive)
Aegis of the Gods good vs various things
Moat good against aggro, very slow though
Island Sanctuary faster then Moat but with a huge drawback
Phyrexian Dreadnought tech to have a better clock vs combo
Black Vise could help vs draw-go strategies with mass removal (i.e. Miracles)
Equipoise nergasm
Choke Stasis without upkeep vs some decks (against some mono U variants that I encountered 5 years ago), probably bad use of slots
SB cards requiring a splash:
Dread of Night good vs Death and Taxes
Engineered Plague good vs Elves and Goblins
Further thoughts:
Some choices are definitely meta dependent. Less Stifle and more Divert/Misdirection helps against Abrupt Decay and Hymn. Sterling Grove slows the deck down but provides some protection that can be tutored for. I would definitely place one in the 75 as it is the only Krosan Grip defense. Playing it maindeck might or might not be good depending on the meta.
Against most b/g decks my base sideboard strategy is -2 Stifle, -1 Enlightened Tutor, -1 FoW or Spellpierce, +2 Meddling Mage, +1 Misdirection, +1 Sterling Grove. It might be a good idea to include another Misdirection or a Divert main deck to loose less games to Abrupt Decay game 1. Stifle, Spellpierce, FoW and Thwart seem to be prime candidates for "maybe cut one".
I'm also just blatantly abusing the hype around Black Vise to promote my primer. Since I'm not a native speaker, there are probably some errors in the text. Please point out things that could be improved. I hope the primer will grow and improve over time.
Even though I did test and experiment with my list over the past 5-6 years and think I'm not posting utter gibberish, I'm not a very experienced tournament player. I have been quite successful vs Canadian Thresh, Maverick, 12 Post, Enchantress, Goblins and some other random stuff. But this deck needs more testing.
Update: I recently added Ancestral Visions, cut one Forsaken City, one Misdirection, one Scryb Ranger and one E.Tutor. The cards from Acnestral Visions mostly make up for it. The deck lost a tad bit of speed on Stasis drops but won on resilience. In Abrupt Decay heavy meta games another Misdirection Maindeck would be nice.
Update2:
Maybe I should post my most recent SB.
1 Null Rod
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sterling Grove
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Energy Flux
1 Chill
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Misdirection
1 Spellskite
Thanks in advance for any constructive input and testing you can provide!
First, this is certainly not a tier 1 deck. It might be tier 2 in certain metas and definitely has good matchups. The deck has some serious weaknesses: Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, Wasteland locks (single Wastelands are usually fine) and the dreaded Abrupt Decay (seriously, this should have been a sorcery!) to name a few. So if you really want to make the top 8, this deck is probably not for you.
The Heart:
This Stasis variant wants to resolve Stasis as consistently and best protected as possible.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/be/81.jpg
Stasis does amazing things for control. It is mana denial and aggro denial in one card. For that reason, one could argue that Stasis is the single most powerful control card in magic. The card has a serious drawback though: It's upkeep.
Cantrips really suck if the board is under Stasis rules so if you search for a way to punish cantrip abuse, you might want to try Stasis.
The Engine:
There are currently two really great cards to permanently break the synergy of Stasis. The most important one is
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/vi/67.jpg
It costs only one mana to drop, untaps your creatures and sustains Stasis indefinitely. Always play 4 and always also play 4 Tropical Islands. It has one serious downside though: You cannot free up additional Mana while sustaining Stasis under the Ranger alone. Forsaken City or a mana dork fix this though. A noteworthy variant is the Scryb Ranger. Being light on mana costs is very important for this deck as we will see in the section critical mass, so the Quirion Ranger will be our Nr. 1 choice to sustain Stasis. Don't forget that a Ranger can untap a dork at instant speed. Use this for emergency counterspells, Brainstorms and Stasis upkeep after Wastelands.
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ps/139.jpg
This card can sustain Stasis on it's own as well. This time though, the disadvantage is that you cannot fill your hand. A big advantage of the Forsaken City is, that you only need 2 other cards to drop the Stasis. It has great synergies with Daze and Thwart but can ultimately only be a temporary solution during a game because you will run out of counterspells.
Critical Mass!
One very important aspect of optimizing the deck is Critical Mass. If you play Stasis with a Ranger you need 3 mana producing cards, Stasis and the Ranger. Considering a turn 3 Stasis, that is 5 cards total out of 9 drawn on the play. Whenever you consider a card for your list, think about how many cards you need to make Stasis work and how many cards you will have left. For example: If you try to play a pre Stasis Ral Zarek (turn 4), you need 7 cards total out of 10 drawn on the play.
Remember that your opponent isn't doing nothing in the meantime. Out of experience you probably want two counterspells, one of which will probably require you to pitch a card. Every now and then you will have to mull or play an Enlightened Tutor to find Stasis. That leaves very little room for other cards in the turn 3 Stasis example. So if you found a new cool card for your Stasis list, do the counting first and see if it really is that helpful (e.g. Exploration, more on that later).
Think Stasis!
A sustained Stasis changes the rules of Magic in a very fundamental way. Under Forsaken City: 1 Mana <=> 1 Card. Under Ranger with Dork: 1 Mana <=> 1 Turn.
Have a little faith (and luck)!
Like I said, this deck is not tier 1. You will find yourself in situations where you know you need to play Stasis but have no way to sustain it. But maybe something will turn up. I often find myself not countering removal for my only Ranger knowing that I need the counterspell to bring Stasis into play. Gitaxian Probe helps to play correctly. You should also tap the Forsaken City first under Stasis and get a feeling whether you should keep the Noble Hierarch or that Land untapped for the next upkeep (most of the time tap the Hierarch).
I also rarely mull for Stasis or a Tutor if I have a cantrip and just hope the deck gives me one.
Core Card Choices:
Enlightened Tutor:
This card is obviously good because it finds Stasis quickly and allows for a toolbox sideboard. It also helps against discard. The card disadvantage hurts but there isn't a better alternative.
Daze:
This card is great in many decks. But for us, it is truly amazing. Under Stais, a tapped land is a dead card anyway and casting Daze under Forsaken City gets that card into your hand so you can play it untapped. In a Forsaken City Stasis environment Daze often reads: Counter target spell, draw a card. It is often beneficial to play Daze even if your opponent can pay the mana just to have him spend it. Note that this works for your opponent too, so it is sometimes preferable not to play a spell so your opponent can't Daze to free mana.
Force of Will:
Force of Will is just amazing. The card disadvantage can hurt at times, especially under Forsaken City, but it's still too good to pass up on. In fact I also advise to expand your free counters with Misdirection.
Brainstorm:
Yes, cantripping under Stasis is usually a bad deal. Due to the way the deck works, you will draw into quite some redundancies though. So shuffling cards away pre Stasis and enhancing the odds to find Stasis is great. Also, if you have a running engine with Stasis in play, this helps find the counterspell you so desperately need in some situations. It also helps with discard. In my testings, Ponder was not quite as good so I didn't include it (yet).
Thwart:
This card allows us to play additional Dazes. It is really amazing if you cannot find a Ranger and need to work with Forsaken City (Counter target spell, draw three cards!). You also sometimes want to drop an additional land to sustain Stasis instead of using the Ranger, just to enable this card. Unlike Daze, it can't be played around.
Noble Hierarch:
Dorks work as acceleration and Ranger fix. Noble Hierarch is the prime choice because it allows faster kills. I had plenty of games where a 2/2 Quirion Ranger was killing my opponent. If you are playing under Stasis, it is usually a good idea to keep the Noble Hierarch tapped instead of a land. He can be untapped with a Ranger at instant speed and if you have just one mana open (you sometimes need to do risky Stasis plays), most decks have an easier time removing the untapped Dork then the untapped land.
Stifle:
Multi-Purpose defence. You will find good targets for this, Wasteland is the most obvious one. Keeping your opponent off mana while under Stasis is another. SFM, Needle, Revoker, Vial, Pridemage, Miracle triggers, cheating Stasis past Counterbalance are other examples for good uses. Don't use Stifle like a tempo deck, use it defensively.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician:
This card is important for the deck because we need a tool to prevent our opponent from just playing really slow draw-go the first few turns and keeping lots of mana open. It also seals the deal as a win condition because she can keep your opponent from Abrubt Decay or Krosan Grip mana with a ranger. When it comes into play, it can tap a blocking Tombstalker or other nasty, untapped blockers that would prevent us from winning otherwise.
Note that the card really only costs 2 mana in most circumstances because you need one mana open at the beginning of your next upkeep anyway. Also note that Derevi needs a Ranger to tap out your opponent, otherwise she just has vigilance (which is still good).
Extended Card Choices:
Sterling Grove:
Another Abrupt Decay defence. It is considerably slower then E.Tutor when finding Stasis but it is tutor-able itself if you can spare the mana. I'm not sure this is a useful one off but it did help me occasionally. It is also the only Krosan Grip defence we have. If you don't want to play it maindeck, you should at least put it into the Sideboard (and play one more E.Tutor main deck).
Spellpierce, Divert and Flusterstorm are the next best choices for protection after the free counters. The mana cost is a downer but sometimes they complement the core counterspell suite very well. Personally, I think Spellpierce is the best general choice (mostly because it hits Planeswalkers) while Divert is better against discard and Abrupt Decay. Flusterstorm is good against storm combo and settles counter wars. Adjust to your meta!
Gitaxian Probe is a recent tech of mine. Stasis has some combo elements to it's strategy. Gitaxian Probe helps you to play correctly in some situations. It also reduces your total deck size to virtually 56. I know it is not the same because you increase blind draws on mulligans but it still allowed me to cut an Enlightened Tutor (it is statistically the same chance to find Stasis). It helps with overall consistency of the deck. The life loss is only very very rarely relevant.
Ancestral Vision helps a lot with card disadvantage and critical mass. Being down a card for 4 turns is definitely a downside but it helped me a lot in recent testings.
Misdirection/Divert:
Abrupt Decay can't be countered but it can be Misdirected. Misdirecting a Hymn is also very neat and can very well determine the winner of a game. It also works just as well as FoW/Spell Pierce in counter wars. Hope your opponent decided to bring Pyroblast over REB. I think a few copies main-deck are vital nowadays with all the Abrubt Decays around.
Frequently suggested cards:
In Stasis threads I see some cards suggested over and over. I will go into detail here and explain why I do not play them.
Planeswalkers, cards like Garruk Wildspeaker and Ral Zarek have great effects for our strategy. I still wouldn't think about playing them though. The reason is their high casting cost. Scenario 1: You want to play them before Stasis. This will usually delay your Stasis till turn 4 at least, which is simply too late in many scenarios. You also need more critical mass to get Stasis into play because you need at least 4 mana producing cards (which means you also need more lands in total).
Scenario 2: You want to play them after Stasis. Well if you can free up 4 mana under Stasis, you don't need more mana, you need a win condition. In that case Derevi, Empyrial Tactician just does a better job. He wins faster, taps out your opponent and costs virtually 2 mana.
Stoneforge Mystic with Sword of Feast and Famine might seem a good option too. I think they are not for of the same reasons Planeswalkers are not. In terms of turns to get it into play, SFM and Sword is faster then a Planeswalker but also easier to hate. I still think it isn't fast enough. If you already have Stasis in play, Derevi is again the better card.
Exploration has been played in previous Stasis lists to success but I think it is win more. Yes, Exploration gives turbo charged starts but it is a card that does not protect Stasis and does not produce mana by itself. If you compare it to a dork, both allow you to free mana with a Ranger, but you can untap the dork at instant speed if you need mana urgently. The final, and most important argument is, that a dork adds more mana to turn 3 Stasis scenarios with 2 lands. Exploration does not contribute to critical mass, the dork does.
Bounce strategies like Vedalken Mastermind are very vulnerable to counterspell disruption. Your opponent will usually have all the time in the world to gather all the (free) counterspells in his deck. Playing a bounce strategy does not only mean you have to win the initial counterspell war over Stasis, but you have to be ahead in counterpells all game. Your opponent will also always be able to free up mana with Daze. Lastly, you need 3 mana to initiate a Vedalken Mastermind when under Stasis with Forsaken City, Quirion Ranger only requires 1. That is a huge difference, the Mastermind isn't really an out when clinging on to Stasis under Forsaken City.
Hardlock strategies using cards like Root Maze have the weakness of being 3 card combos. They also tend to shut down your Quirion Ranger, imho the best way to break the Stasis synergy. You will have to invest more heavily into the engine making your more complex engine even more vulnerable to disruption. Kismet and Frozen Aether are too expensive, again Derevi just does a good enough job and wins the game in one card.
Hidden Strings started a new surge of Stasis variants. The card is great for Stasis but legacy is full of creature spot removal. It is not unusual for your Rangers and Dorks to be shot down. Hidden Strings let's your opponent 2 for 1 too easily. It also requires a creature with evasion (Invisible Stalker would be a suggestion) or a dropped Goyf immediately stops it. In my current list my engine works fine and I couldn't really cut a creature to support Hidden Strings because then I'd have too few creatures for it. So I'd have to cut protection which I really wish I could afford to play more off. Derevi is like Hidden Strings light with an evasive body.
I'm not finished with experimenting with this card though, maybe someone can find a way to make it work really well.
Why Stasis control?
Like I said, this Stasis variant wants to resolve Stasis as consistently and best protected as possible while keeping the engine as slim as possible for the most counterspell slots. It is not the only way to play Stasis but is the way I like to approach it. I also think it is the overall strongest approach to Stasis. Aggro control variants tend to just get their Stasis hated easier and end up with inferior cards then straight Delver or midrange lists. Hardlock variants are just too easy to hate, they lack the resilience needed for a disruption packed format like legacy. The prison type decks usually have their own strengths but a very weak game vs combo. The strategy of this list comes at the expense that you are in trouble if Stasis gets hated. If you want to start a constructive argument about this, please try and compare two lists and present findings from testing (the 'right' choice will probably be meta dependent).
My current List:
Lands
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Forsaken City
8 Blue Fetchlands
Creatures
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Spells
4 Stasis
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Thwart
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Divert
1 Sterling Grove
4 Gitaxian Probe
Sideboard
3 Enlightened Tutor to enhance all the SB options
2 Meddling Mage vs Abrupt Decay and Combo
1 Ethersworn Canonist vs combo
1 Pithing Needle vs Planeswalker heavy decks like Tezzeret
1 Ensnaring Bridge vs Sneakattack and Reanimator
1 Null Rod vs Mud, Affinity, Tezzeret maybe Miracles
1 Rest in Peace good permanent GY hate
Those are only the SB cards I would consider essential. Some more options for open slots:
Sterling Grove swap for E.Tutor for additional Decay/Krosan Grip defense
Confusion in the Ranks one of the best cards vs Omnitell
Misdirection to shift the countersuite against Decay/discard
Divert to shift the countersuite against Decay/discard
Detention Sphere good card vs show and tell
Jace, the Mind Sculptor can help in control matchups
Energy Flux is pretty Mud specific but good at that
Spellskite another piece of Decay defense, also helps with burn.
Chill good against burn
Some more Enlightened Tutor targets that are more fringe, outdated or imho surpassed and redundant from other options:
Grafdigger's Cage another great piece of GY hate, RIP is better imho
Elephant Grass good vs fast aggro
Limited Resources very situational hardlock, good vs 12-Post
Counterbalance good vs combo but we already have lots of combo hate and no Top (too mana intensive)
Aegis of the Gods good vs various things
Moat good against aggro, very slow though
Island Sanctuary faster then Moat but with a huge drawback
Phyrexian Dreadnought tech to have a better clock vs combo
Black Vise could help vs draw-go strategies with mass removal (i.e. Miracles)
Equipoise nergasm
Choke Stasis without upkeep vs some decks (against some mono U variants that I encountered 5 years ago), probably bad use of slots
SB cards requiring a splash:
Dread of Night good vs Death and Taxes
Engineered Plague good vs Elves and Goblins
Further thoughts:
Some choices are definitely meta dependent. Less Stifle and more Divert/Misdirection helps against Abrupt Decay and Hymn. Sterling Grove slows the deck down but provides some protection that can be tutored for. I would definitely place one in the 75 as it is the only Krosan Grip defense. Playing it maindeck might or might not be good depending on the meta.
Against most b/g decks my base sideboard strategy is -2 Stifle, -1 Enlightened Tutor, -1 FoW or Spellpierce, +2 Meddling Mage, +1 Misdirection, +1 Sterling Grove. It might be a good idea to include another Misdirection or a Divert main deck to loose less games to Abrupt Decay game 1. Stifle, Spellpierce, FoW and Thwart seem to be prime candidates for "maybe cut one".
I'm also just blatantly abusing the hype around Black Vise to promote my primer. Since I'm not a native speaker, there are probably some errors in the text. Please point out things that could be improved. I hope the primer will grow and improve over time.
Even though I did test and experiment with my list over the past 5-6 years and think I'm not posting utter gibberish, I'm not a very experienced tournament player. I have been quite successful vs Canadian Thresh, Maverick, 12 Post, Enchantress, Goblins and some other random stuff. But this deck needs more testing.
Update: I recently added Ancestral Visions, cut one Forsaken City, one Misdirection, one Scryb Ranger and one E.Tutor. The cards from Acnestral Visions mostly make up for it. The deck lost a tad bit of speed on Stasis drops but won on resilience. In Abrupt Decay heavy meta games another Misdirection Maindeck would be nice.
Update2:
Maybe I should post my most recent SB.
1 Null Rod
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Sterling Grove
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Energy Flux
1 Chill
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Misdirection
1 Spellskite
Thanks in advance for any constructive input and testing you can provide!