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View Full Version : [Primer] Sun Tower (RG UbaStax)



emidln
01-30-2007, 04:57 PM
About the Name

Sun Tower is my team's name for our R/G Legacy UbaStax build, derived from some conversations Team Blitzkrieg had about Stax theory. We use the name Sun Tower to avoid any confusion with random decks running Uba Mask/Sylvan Library. While we didn't invent this combo, this is the first deck to use it effectively, to my knowledge.

Introduction and History

Sun Tower is the name of family of R/G UbaStax decks to come forth from my team in the last year. They have been played by myself, some teammates, and a few associates to success in Chicago, Paris, and the Gencon meta, as well as testing well over MWS against a variety of opponents. I've prepared a bit of a primer, which I plan on adding to in this thread, to help get people started. I want to do this thread right, so if you have any questions, or want additional information, please ask.

To understand some of the card choices, a bit of a history lesson is in order. The original UbaStax list that I proposed was mono red and looked like this:

// Legacy UbaStax (May/June 2006)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Mox Diamond
3 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Mountain
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire

// Stax
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire

// Combo/Randomness Control
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere

// Creature Control
3 Uba Mask
4 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Pyroclasm
2 Granite Shard

Notable deviations from standard Stax lists at the time (May/June 2006) include being mono-red, Uba Mask, Ensnaring Bridge, Granite Shard, and a full acceleration suite consisting of Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein as well as Mox Diamond and Crucible of Worlds. After a lot of testing we felt the need for a draw engine. Like every other Legacy Stax build we had no draw engine and, despite a rather strong game against aggro-control like UGW Threshold and a good game against Control, would randomly lose games due to bad topdecking.

Certain cards were isolated as being inefficient against Goblins and Threshold. Granite Shard, Uba Mask, and Ghost Quarter were cut for more creature control. The final version of mono-red UbaStax was actually Uba-less and included 4 Rolling Earthquake, 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, and 4 Pyroclasm. This version still had some consistency issues related to the one draw per turn problem, but was fairly good for a second attempt. At the time, we considered Goblins our worst matchup with the refined list, a theme that would unfortunately continue into the future.

Sometime before Gencon 2006, Yesphuyren let me in on a variation of his Vintage UbaStax list that was RG in order to get 8 Bazaar of Baghdad effects from 4 Sylvan Library. After some talking, this led me to try Sylvan Library + Uba Mask in Legacy UbaStax and soon it was realized that we had a draw engine. We continued testing and this is the list that I played at Gencon 2006:

// Sun Tower Gencon 2006

// Manabase
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland
2 Barbarian Ring
3 Mishra’s Factory
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

// Lock Pieces
3 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire

// UbaLibrary
3 Sylvan Library
2 Uba Mask

// Creature Control
4 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Rolling Earthquake
4 Pyroclasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Boil
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Uba Mask
SB: 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

This list attempted to use The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as another mass removal spell. This was spectacularly unsuccessful in actual tournament play along with the Tangle Wires. I noticed about half way through the tournament that Tangle Wire was getting boarded out in every match up for more relevant cards. Finally, out of my 5 losses, 4 of these were to Goblins when I had them locked out with Ensnaring Bridge but failed to find mass removal or a Smokestack to get rid of Siege Gang Commander. I finished X-2 at the Legacy Prelims, X-2 at the World Championships main event, and X-1-1 at the Legacy $500 tournament. I was in the top16 of each tournament, which, while not bad with a Rogue deck, wasn’t really what I wanted having only lost to Burn once and Goblins four times (out of eight) over the weekend.

Taking what I learned from my experience at Gencon (Tabernacle: bad; Tangle Wire: bad; SGC = gg) I started playing with lists. That led to a Burning Wish-based list that is extremely similar to my current list (-X Pyroclasm, +X Burning Wish), but took up a lot of sideboard space. This allowed for things like Life from the Loam, Shattering Spree, and mass removal in the board. This let me move out some of the lesser used board cards like Naturalize and Pyroblast.

In September 2006, I ran my Burning Wish-based list with Constant Mists at a Black Lotus/Time Walk tournament in Flint, MI. I finished the day X-2 losing to a series of major play mistakes and a UWB Fish deck playing Serenity. Serenity made me re-evaluate my deck. Is it even possible with a card that so thoroughly hoses the archetype? I talked to my teammate Colby Evenpence about it and he related his experiences with Serenity in the Vintage Fish vs Vintage UbaStax matchup: it’s merely a speed bump that Goblin Welder mostly ignores. Armed with this knowledge, I experimented with Welders in the board, and they were indeed insane against hate. So good that my standard sideboard plan became board in Welders for whatever isn’t working.



This is my most current list. It is what I believe to be the most advanced, consistent, and strongest Stax build. The current list is based on a fundamental change of goal for Legacy Stax away from resource denial to a focus on card advantage.

// Sun Tower 2k7

// Manabase
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Taiga
1 Windswept Heath

// Hybrid Defense/Mana/Win Conditions
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Barbarian Ring
2 Wasteland

// Non-land Mana Sources
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

// Card Filtering/Advantage Engine
3 Sylvan Library
2 Uba Mask

// X for 1 Card Advantage
4 Smokestack
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
3 Pyroclasm
2 Rolling Earthquake

// Busted
4 Trinisphere

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Goblin Welder
SB: 4 Razormane Masticore
SB: 4 Boil
SB: 3 Pithing Needle

This deck focuses on establishing a crushing board position through both virtual and actual card advantage. The deck plays a number of must-answer permanents that generate near infinite card advantage when on the table, and negate entire strategies by resolving. UbaStax focuses on "bombs". As far as things that have changed since Gencon, Tangle Wire was cut completely; Smokestack, Chalice of the Void, and Mishra’s Factory were incremented to playsets in the maindeck; Barbarian Ring and Wasteland numbers were tweaked, Windswept Heath was added to increase the colored mana available; and Pithing Needle, Goblin Welder, and Razormane Masticore were added to the general strategy.

Deck Discussion

The Manabase

It has been argued, time and again, that basics are required in Legacy. This is untrue if, and only if, your deck has outs designed around common land destruction/disruption. One out to land destruction is to win the game. If you are treating your land as a one-time use resource and win the game, land destruction isn’t relevant. Another out is to play lands and spells that cheat the fundamental rules of magic. I chose the later option. Sun Tower plays 12 lands which produce more than one mana, four Mox Diamonds which are effectively "basic" lands, as well as four Crucible of Worlds. These, combined with Pithing Needles, allow you to control, possibly negate, any land/mana denial strategies.

Sun Tower’s mana sources do a variety of things. In addition to generating resources for our spells, they provide uncounterable recurring damage, blocking, and removal, along with allowing us to out-accelerate other, similar decks. Our Crucibles, Moxen, and double lands let us compete with strategies like Goblins, Affinity, and Solidarity, which are far faster than we should be.

Because of our mana sources, our curve is very different from that of most decks. We effectively jump from the 0/1/2 spot with around 8-10 cards to the 3/4 spot occupied by the rest of the deck. We start life at 3 mana. That is, a Mox and a double land get us going. This is important to consider when considering slots for the deck as metagame answers, or potential major changes.



Card by Card Analysis

Card Advantage Engine

Sylvan Library

Sylvan Library is part card quality, part card advantage. In UbaStax, much like in Combo, your life is used openly as a resource to be abused. To this end, 1-2 cards taken extra off a Sylvan Library is normal and encouraged if it helps you out of a situation. This is my second favorite card to see early, as it always signifies a win if it resolves. (My favorite card to see early is Crucible of Worlds.) Sylvan Library lets you find the right card at the right time, while hiding cards that you don't need quite yet from Discard and Ensnaring Bridge.

As far as applications, a major use is to smooth out our draws. Once we hit 4 no-damage mana, we want to be playing lock pieces every turn. Sylvan Library facilitates that by giving us lock pieces when we need them, or land when we need them. Additionally, it allows control cards like Pyroclasm and Rolling Earthquake to be saved until you need them, hidden from Duress, Hymn, and keeping you at zero cards for Ensnaring Bridge. When combined with Uba Mask, Sylvan Library generates obscene card advantage, effectively drawing an extra two cards per turn for each Sylvan Library in play. That's three cards per turn for the first, five for the second, and seven for the third. Remember, since Uba Mask replaces all draws, you'll never deck yourself. You should probably protect your combo with Chalice set at two to avoid potential complications with Disenchant and Naturalize, or an appropriate Chalice/Pithing Needle if you suspect other tricks like Vindicate or Pernicious Deed.

Please note that Sylvan Library is a triggered ability at the beginning of the draw step. Since the draw per turn is always the first thing to resolve, you will have drawn three cards (if you resolve a Sylvan Library trigger) and must put back two of them or lose four life per card.

Uba Mask

Uba Mask is a piece of our card advantage engine that actually has four major functions.

(1) Enemy Disruption: this makes early draw spells terrible, shuts off countermagic/removal, and shuts off Aether Vial.
(2) Draw Engine: this allows us to "draw" multiple cards per turn.
(3) Lock Piece: this is a win condition with Goblin Welders creating "UbaLock" out of the board, as well as permanently enabling Ensnaring Bridge.
(4) Win Condition: this allows us the extra time to eat an opponent's board with Smokestack and end the game with Mishra's Factory or Barbarian Ring once the coast is clear. Additionally, against certain decks that abuse their library (Life from the Loam decks in particular), playing Uba Mask may grant them false hope that they won’t deck themselves which may allow you to remove Uba Mask in order to make them draw a card (thus losing).

UbaLock is when you have two Uba Masks, one in play, one in the yard, and a Goblin Welder, or two Goblins Welders, and one Uba Mask, along with another artifact in the graveyard. At the end of your opponent's draw step, you weld out Uba Mask for another Uba Mask, or alternately, weld Uba Mask into an artifact of your choice, and their ability to play their Removed from Game card ends. Unless they have an instant, they are essentially "locked". With Trinisphere, this can become a hard lock. Additionally, this is useful information if you need to remove certain troublesome permanents before they are played.


Ensnaring Bridge

This card is busted in UbaStax. With a deck as focused on "hellbent" as any other deck I'm aware of, this is effectively a Moat for everything. It negates attacking completely, forcing opponents to scramble for bounce/removal, or an alternate method of victory. This card allows us to execute our game plan, which is render as enemy cards dead as possible, creating massive card advantage. Since UbaStax is designed to accelerate out quickly, your hand is normally empty by turn three or four. Once you have 4 mana, you can play any spell in your deck off the top of your library, or use Sylvan Library to guarantee that you always draw something you can play. Uba Mask makes sure you hand will never increase.

This is a key card in most matchups, rarely boarded out.

With Uba Mask, Ensnaring Bridge, and Crucible of Worlds, you can largely ignore what your opponent is doing, and blindly fling Barbarian Rings at them every turn until they die. This is a very good backup win condition to wiping the board and attacking with Factories.

Note: when your opponent can no longer play spells (under Smokestack/Trinisphere/Crucible lock), this is a safe permanent to sacrifice to allow you to attack with Mishra's Factory. This turns a 10 turn clock into a 3 or less turn clock. This is important in tournament play with timed rounds.

Many times you will be faced at a situation that requires an Ensnaring Bridge, but you lack one. In this circumstance, empty you hand and wait for it to come. As a general rule, cards in your hand are bad with this deck, unless your opponent is running massive board clearning cards like Pernicious Deed or Akroma's Vengeance which you haven't dealt with yet through Chalice, Wasteland, or Smokestack. You should try to empty your hand as fast as possible unless there is a good reason not to.

Lock Components

Smokestack

This is the deck's namesake, as well as our catch-all solution to everything. If there is something we can't handle, we ramp the stack and reset the game. The applications are numerous, but generally fall into one of four circumstances listed below.

(1) Ramping Smokestack to save your life - this happens when something nasty hit the board for which you need a solution to asap. This could be a Leyline of the Void, something with a triggered ability, or you could not be finding creature removal. Ramp Smokestack and the problem goes away.
(2) Setting Smokestack at one preemptively - this is the most common occurance. You set Smokestack at one and feed it a permanent a turn, possibly land with a Crucible, possibly redundant permanents. This is usually one of the defining steps of the Stax lock.
(3) Ramping a Smokestack and setting another at one to lock the game: This is when you are moving in for the kill. Double Smokestack, signals a game loss for your opponent, as you will be able to ramp one up while you keep the other at one, wiping their board while maintaining a Smokestack at 1 for eventual hard lock once they run out of permanents.
(4) Playing it to get it out of your hand - there are situations, mostly involving an opponent playing with Exploration/Manabond and some way to recur lands, that you don't want to ramp Smokestack. You therefore play it to get it out of your hand to enable Ensnaring Bridge. This is a good pre-emptive strategy, as you never know when you'll draw that Bridge. Additionally, it is a permanent that sacs to other smokestacks, if that's all you need, although that generally forms a situation like (3), where you win from there.

When given a situation between playing Smokestack and something else, it's usually a good idea to play Smokestack first, as it has to wait a turn to come online. An important part of winning with UbaStax is forseeing the future, and planning your moves accordingly. As dumb as that sounds, it is possible for an experienced UbaStax pilot with a solid understanding of how the decks in their meta work to predict these things rather accurately. Along this line, you must know how to play each other deck in your meta, lest you will make mistakes with Smokestacks, Chalices, Pithing Needles, and mulliganing. Each of these errors results in a game loss. This is one of the least forgiving decks I've come across while playing magic.

Please remember to stack triggered abilities properly. You will lose if you don't. There are two on your own upkeep, and 99% of the time, you will want to add the soot counter trigger to the stack, and then the sacrifice trigger to the stack, so that you sacrifice fewer permanents than your opponent. There are some exceptions, mostly dealing with Chalices and imminent threats or imminent threats and Threshold.

A combo of note is Smokestack's interaction with Crucible of Worlds. With Crucible out, you can maintain Smokestack indefinitely until your opponent runs out of permanents. With a Trinisphere, this is close to a hardlock, as the only thing that will save them is a Spirit Guide. Most people concede to Trinisphere + Smokestack @ 1 + Crucible when they run out of permanents. If they don’t, and start to play slowly, make sure you get a judge to watch for slow play. Stalling the game repeatedly when they have no plays is cheating.

Smokestack @ 1 can also be maintained with a Smokestack in the graveyard and an active Goblin Welder in play. At the end of your opponent’s turn, weld the active Smokestack for the one in the graveyard. On your upkeep, stack sacrificing a permanent and then adding a counter.

Trinisphere

"Trinisphere accomplishes all of your goals in a single card." -- Colby Evenpence

Evenpence is right. This card was restricted in Vintage for a reason, it makes games uninteractive and only fun for a single player, the person who plays it. That's you. It's legal as a four-of here in Legacy, and it is mana denial/disruption, a lock, and proactive defense against opponents meddling spells all in one. This is a central part of your win condition, the so-called "Stax" lock of Trinisphere + Smokestack @ 1 + Crucible.

Trinisphere is played in multiples, as many as I legally can, since it is a card that you want to see early, along with Mox Diamond. The earlier, the better, with the best being turn 1 on the play. Turn 1 Trinisphere that resolves and isn't responded to by Wasteland, will win the game. Trinisphere itself will probably win, but without Wasteland they have no chance. If followed by a Smokestack, your opponent might as well start packing as you run five spells that aren't permanents. You have six chances of hitting a hard lock, and seven of finding a win condition. You opponent has to hit every land drop each turn, until they find Elvish Spirit Guide, a double land, or your miss a permanent drop. The odds are heavily in your favor.

If you find yourself with extra copies, they make great Smokestack fodder, as well as excellent Welder targets post-board. This is a card that is sometimes boarded out against aggro, as you only really need 1 to Lock them out in the end, and many times, Welder is better if you suspect tricks like Serenity. On the play, this card should almost always be in your deck.

Chalice of the Void

Chalice is an offensive defensive tool. It is used to negate certain strategies, and problematic cards for you, without the need for removal. Additionally, it allows you to obtain Threshold for your Barbarian Rings. You can quickly accelerate in settings of Chalice @ 2 and Chalice @ 3, if need be, along with a common opening of Chalice @ 1. It should be noted that Chalice can be sacrificed to Smokestack when it is no longer needed, or if you absolutely have to cast something at that spot (Burning Wish for example). Using Chalice is really dependent on the gamestate and situation, but here is a list of common Chalice settings:

Goblins: 1, 3, 5, 2
Angel Stompy: 2
Fish/EBA: 2 (1 if you have a Welder in play)
Threshold: 1, 2, 4 0
Solidarity: 3, 1, 2, 4 (in that order, unless you have multiple chalices, or Chalice is your opening play)
Iggy Pop: 0, 1, 2, 3
Salvagers: 0, 2, 3 (turns off Engineered Explosives/Lion's Eye Diamond, then Living Wish, then Pernicious Deed (may not be applicable))
43Lands: 2, 3, 0 (this highly build dependent past 2)
Pikula.dec: 2, 3 (1 is important if you have seen STP and you have Welder out)
Survival Variants: 2, 3
Landstill: 2, 3 (again, 1 is important is you have seen Bolt or STP and have Welder out)
Affinity: 1, 2, 0 (0 is to turn off Lotus Petal and EE for 0)
Rifter: 2, 3, 6 (this will happen sometimes)
Reanimator: 1, 2, 3 (depends on the build)
Faerie Stompy: 0, 3 (0 turns off EE, Crypt, and their Moxen while 3 turns off the rest of their deck)
Burn: 1, 2, 3 (especially for Price of Progress)

Pithing Needle

The Needle is a tool that is applicable in almost every matchup. In almost every matchup it serves a different Purpose. Sometimes, it is as simple as turning off Wasteland recursion when you are at a disadvantage. Other times it is turning off SGC to lock up the win. Yet more it prevents nasty equipment. This is highly dependent the matchup, and the build you are facing. Also, Pithing Needles hit fetchlands. This is a great way to manascrew combo, or decks in general that rely on many fetches, or fetch recursion.

Needle Targets to look for:

Land: Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Wasteland, Volrath's Stronghold, Nantuko Monestary, Cycling Lands
Artifacts: Aether Vial, Cursed Scroll, Powder Keg, Tormod's Crypt, Sword of Fire and Ice, Umezawa's Jitte, Engineered Explosives
Gold: Pernicious Deed
Black: Withered Wretch, Recurring Nightmare
Red: Siege-gang Commander, Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Tinkerer, Seismic Assault
Green: Viridian Zealot, Survival of the Fittest
White: Seal of Cleansing

Note, that if you play a Needle into a Chalice, you can get it back with Goblin Welder, as you name a card anytime it comes into play, not just from your hand. Needle, like Chalice, can be sacrificed when not necessary.

There are three more Pithing Needles in your board if you think the matchup needs them.

Meta Package

Rolling Earthquake

This is creature removal that doesn't cost two, doesn't target, and can be used on arbitrarily large creatures. It hits flyers, shadow creatures, etc. If you run into a creature with Horsemanship, you should probably win the game anyway. Additionally, this can be played for R with X = 0 to bring you closer to Threshold. Finally, this is an alternate win condition, or, in some cases, a draw condition, that will draw the game, and let you start fresh. With the mana that you generate, drawing a game with an opponent at 11 or 12 is not unheard of.

This is better than Pyroclasm because your acceleration allows you play it at almost all the same times, while avoiding Chalice @ two. This is worse than Pyroclasm when you are at two or less life.

Pyroclasm

Pyroclasm functions to kill small stuff while you set up your locks. This probably could be Burning Wish, but Burning Wish is worse against Goblins (your worst matchup).

Non-land Mana Sources

Mox Diamond

While it may seem rather basic, I'm listing this to be complete, and so the inclusion of Mox Diamond as a four-of is not questioned. This card is acceleration, colored mana, and a virtual "basic" land providing manabase stability. Games that open with Mox Diamond, pitch a land, land, play a spell are rarely lost because of the advantage Mox Diamond brings to the Sun Tower player.

Offhand, this card protects your manabase from:

Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Sinkhole, Smallpox, Wildfire, Devastating Dreams

at the cost of pitching extra lands to be replayed later with Crucible of Worlds. This is a "super-land" in our deck, one without so much as a drawback.

Please note, that you don't want to play an Uba Mask with a Mox Diamond in hand. This is the only liability of Mox Diamond, and one, that if you are careful, is easily avoided. Failure to do this can result in a game loss.

Crucible of Worlds

This is listed under the manabase because it is essential to accelerating out quickly. This deck, to attain the required speed to compete in Legacy, runs 16 mana sources that destroy themselves, three that are likely to be destroyed, and four that damage you. Additionally, there are no basic lands, outside of Mox Diamond to provide you stability against opposing disruption. Crucible Worlds fixes these problems.

As well as being part of the manabase, Crucible is a part of our win condition as well. Uba Stax has four win conditions, with three of them involving Crucible in some way.

(1) Concession (Usually to Trinisphere + Smokestack @ 1 + Crucible)
(2) Crucible + Mishra's Factory
(3) Crucible + Barbarian Ring
(4) Rolling Earthquake

In addition to all of these other uses, Crucible is a lock piece. Added to Smokestack, it allows us to maintain permanent advantage over opponents by continuously sacrificing and replaying the same lands. With an added Wasteland, Crucible is a locking mechanism of its own against decks that run many, or critical non-basic lands. Barbarian Ring, when added to a Crucible, becomes a significant road block as recurring removal, allowing as much as 4 damage (a maximum of 8 damage, but not sustainable) to a single target from a colorless source per turn.

List of common Crucible interactions:

Smokestack + Crucible: Recur Crucible for permanent advantage
Barbarian Ring + Crucible: Recur B. Ring for damage to creatures or players
Mishra's Factory + Crucible: Recur Mishra's Factory as a blocker or for an offensive rally
Wasteland + Crucible aka "Wastelock": Remove all of an opponent's non-basic lands from play, sometimes locking them out under Trinisphere
Fetchland + Crucible + Sylvan Library: Shuffle effect for 1 life to see 3 new cards and/or get another Taiga"

Sideboard

Goblin Welder

Goblin Welder has a variety of uses. Amongst his most prominent are lock piece protection (from removal and countermagic), as a win condition (he is a 1/1), as a blocker (he trades with Lackey when he needs to), and as a way to avoid upkeep costs on certain permanents (Smokestack and Razormane Masticore).

Goblin Welder is in the sideboard because he has very large targets on his forehead, chest, back, and a giant sign above his head that seems to scream “Kill Me!” with its large bold lettering. Welder is brought in when creature hate is boarded out and when you need some protection against removal.

Crucible + Mishra’s Factory provide Welder infinite targets to work with. This come comes up quite often, and is one of the reasons game 2 of every matchup is in your favor.

Razormane Masticore

Razorcore as we have come to call him, is a 5/5, first striking last stand against anything the legacy environment will likely throw at you. He bolts things on your draw step, kills things on your attack step or your opponent’s attack step, and very likely lives through all of it to present a very quick clock to your opponent. His upkeep cost is neglible since when you have Razorcore on the table you are winning. Razorcore’s upkeep cost incidentally fills the graveyard with nice Welder targets, allowing infinite Welding.

When you board in Razorcore, Goblin Welder is almost always brought in to protect him. Additionally, when Razorcore is boarded in, please remove Uba Mask so you can have draws to discard to Razorcore. This is very important.

Razorcore can come down as early as turn two to turn the tables on aggro and put them into a control role where you are playing Chalices, Trinispheres, and Smokestacks aggressively. Early Razorcore generally signify a game loss for the opponent if they cannot immediately deal with it.

Boil

Against 2/3s of the “tier one” in Legacy right now, Boil is a one-sided, instant-speed Armageddon that can be cast as early as turn 1 (theoretically, although this would be silly), and easily on turn 2 and beyond. Against a large part of the established decks that are not tier one, such as MUC, Landstill, Trix, and Counterslivers, Boil is again a one-sided Armageddon.

Boil allows is primarily played to give you another set of land destruction against Solidarity. If left alone with only a few Chalices and Trinispheres, Solidarity may still be able to combo off. This helps to make sure that they don’t have the luxury of biding their time.

Cards Not Played

I thought that it would be important to explain some of the cards that I have chosen to not include in Sun Tower. This might help to avoid questions in the thread about said cards.

Tangle Wire

I cut this card, not because it is counter-productive, but because it is bad. It is bad because it's either win more or lose more. It's win more in your good matchups (like Threshold) and lose more in your bad matchups (like Goblins). When I was looking at what Sun Tower is trying to do, it is generating card advantage. This is done through permanents that X for 1 my opponent. These are cards like Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void, and Smokestack. Tangle Wire doesn't actually provide card advantage in this way.

The reason Tangle Wire is played in Type 1 Stax is Mana Drain. Workshop Aggro uses it as a tempo card, but Vintage Stax is primarily interested in not letting Drain decks go busted on turn 2-3 off a free 3-4 mana. Advatange is accomplished by playing some cheap/free artifacts, then shop -> Tangle Wire. Our format does not have Mana Drain and we play very few free/cheap artifacts.

While some people will tell you this card is good against Aggro, they are wrong, at least partly. Aggro falls into two categories: fat aggro and swarming aggro. Fat aggro is aggro that uses a few fat creatures (or, alternately, a few small creatures with Equipment or other Aura-type things). Swarming aggro is aggro that uses many cheap creatures that are usually undercosted in an effort to overwealm the defenses.

UbaStax is naturally good against fat aggro. We have Ensnaring Bridge, which is a card fat aggro never wants to see. It must be dealt with for them to win. However, UbaStax is very weak against swarming aggro. We are forced to play non-permanent cards like Rolling Earthquake, Pyroclasm, and Burning Wish in an attempt to deal with fast, swarming aggro since we lack a reliable way to get and use Barbarian Ring early, as in Vintage. Also, since our ways of emptying our hand are less refined than Vintage (Bazaar and Null Brooch), we typically have more trouble getting Ensnaring Bridge online vs swarming aggro than we do fat aggro.

Tangle Wire's problem is that it is only good against fat aggro. Fat Aggro, like Threshold, only plays a few permanents a time, and is significantly set back by Tangle Wire. However, swarm aggro decks like Goblins, Affinity, and Life.dec (which usually goes Aggro vs UbaStax), rely on their small creatures to get in past the defenses of Ensnaring Bridge, and their own card advantage engines to survive Pyroclasms and Rolling Earthquake. Whereas Threshold invests a lot of resources (typically, 3-7 cards per creature), Goblins invests 1 card for 1 creature. Added to the fact that Goblins can produce more of themselves to generate card advantage, and suddenly they have more permanents than we do. Tangle Wire ends up Time Walking 3 times, but it's not like the Classic Trinisphere, Juggernaut, Tangle Wire "Time Walks" of old. These are Time Walk targetting me, Time Walk commendeered by you, Time Walk commendeered by you. This is because Goblins will have more permanents, and thus recover faster from Tangle Wire than you.

I cut Tangle Wire for cards that are actually useful in problem matchups. These cards include Pithing Needle, which is absolutely busted against Goblins, as it stops their win condition post Uba-Bridge lock.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

As much as I really want to play this card, it doesn’t have a home in Sun Tower. Without a dedicated mana denial strategy involving things like Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, Winter Orb, multiple Smokestack effects or ways to simulate them, or other ways to tax an aggro player, Tabernacle just isn’t good. Threshold can generally afford to keep their few creatures, Goblins can afford to keep their problem creatures (Warchief usually), and Affinity will just sacrifice everything to Atog or Ravager and win the game. Perhaps Tabernacle tapped for mana it could be playable, but as-is, I don’t play with it.

Sphere of Resistance

This card is really bad because it is symmetrical. Sun Tower looks to generate advantage by playing lands that allow me negate the drawback of my own Trinisphere. Trinisphere is amazing partly due to the fact that most of Sun Tower costs 3 or more and is thusly unaffected. Sphere of Resistance will affect everything putting certain key spells out of reach (Uba Mask and Smokestack) and rendering Ensnaring Bridge much harder to play with.

Defense Grid

I don’t know why this card is continually talked about in the Stax sideboard. When I tested it I found that it really doesn’t do anything. Sun Tower is about generating advantage through X for 1 scenarios and I don’t see how this generates an X for 1 scenario. In every matchup involving countermagic, proper evaluation of the importance of lock pieces combined with playing them in appropriate order according to their importance has always been the best strategy. I posit that if you think you need Defense Grid you instead need to learn how to evaluate the value of your lock pieces.

Exploration

Exploration has two marks against it. The first is that I want to play Chalice @ 1 a lot of the time game one. The second is that we have no way to abuse multiple lands per turn. Except for winning faster with Barbarian Ring or Wasteland, this doesn’t seem to do anything. I classify this as win more in Sun Tower, although I would love to see a build that proves me wrong.

Wasteland #3 and Wasteland #4

These cards aren’t played due to testing and trimming. Due to the increased need for colored mana, as well as a need for the fourth Mishra’s Factory, two Wastelands were cut from the deck on the basis that they don’t significantly influence our worst matchup.

Quicksand

This was tested in early builds of Sun Tower but was removed for Mishra’s Factory. While Mishra’s Factory is slightly worse in the Goblin matchup, it is significantly better in almost every other matchup, as well as providing an efficient alternate win condition.

Cards Not Played That Could Be

Burning Wish

It was recently determined from testing that Burning Wish presented two problems. The first is that it required too many slots in your wishbord to be effective. This problem is felt when you consider the need for 4 Razorcore and 4 Boils with the want for 4 Needles total with 4 Welders to keep consistency. Burning Wish was only significantly better in the blue-based combo, blue-based control, and Deadguy matchups. The second reason cost of 2 damage vs Goblins and Affinity between Burning Wish and Pyroclasm. Pyroclasm costs 1R for 2 damage while Burning Wish for Pyroclasm costs 2RR.

Life from the Loam

This is an extra Crucible effect that combos with Goblin Welder by filling the yard with nice weld targets. Life from the Loam is really good in here, but not significant in enough matchups (Deadguy, Pox) where it is worth a spot in the main or sideboard.
Matchups

Goblins – about even

I’m starting out with the roughest matchup first so that you will know what you are getting into. This will likely be your most common matchup in a random metagame, and game one is only about 45% in your favor. The win is highly dependent on dice roll game one.

If you are on the play, your immediate goals should be Chalice @ 1, Chalice @ 3 and Ensnaring Bridge online. If you have a Pithing Needle, Siege Gang Commander (SGC) is a great target, as is Wasteland if your mana in your opening hand is sketchy, or Aether Vial if you don’t have the Chalice @ 1 to play on the same turn. You should play Smokestack and ramp it as soon as possible, as well as keeping the board clear of any obvious alpha strike. As the game progresses, you want to keep cards out of your hand and their board clear so they can’t abuse Siege Gang Commander. As mid-game approaches, you may be able to use Barbarian Ring with Crucible to rid random threats.

On the draw, you are in for a nearly impossible feat. Hands with Trinisphere and Chalice are basically hands with forced mulligans. Your ideal hand has moxen, land, crucible, bridge, and one to two mass removal spells. A hand with Crucible + factory early is nice, but dangerous due to their 8 land-based land disruption spells. If you make it out of the early game (you’ll know because you are alive on turn six), the game plan is much the same as it is if you are on the play. Use Ensnaring Bridge to avoid attacks while your removal focuses on removing alternate win conditions like Sharpshooter + Prospector, Siege Gang Commander, or Sharpshooter + your Smokestack. You will likely find yourself ramping one or two Smokestacks very highly to survive unless they keep a bad hand. Good luck.

In this matchup, you generally want lackey to hit you if you have mass removal in hand. Knowing the exact right time to play it can be tricky since they are capable of alpha striking in a single turn, but you generally don’t want to let Piledrivers stay on the table long.

Game two is a lot better for you. This is how I recommend that you board:

-4 Trinisphere
-4 Chalice of the Void
-2 Uba Mask

+4 Razormane Masticore
+3 Pithing Needle
+3 Goblin Welder

Even on the play, Trinisphere and Chalice are near worthless to you. You need cards that actually do stuff, and Pithing Needle, Goblin Welder, and Razormane Masticore do stuff. Needle shuts down Vials, Wastelands, Ports, and SGC. Razorcore holds down the fort by himself. Welder protects your important permanents like Ensnaring Bridge and Razorcore from removal, as well as pulling random tricks with Smokestacks and Pithing Needles.

Needle targets:

Aether Vial – if this is on the table, you really want to have a Needle naming it
Siege Gang Commander – this is their biggest (perhaps only) threat after Ensnaring Bridge becomes active.
Rishadan Port – depending on your draw, Port could wreck you (this is the Crucible + manlands draw). If this is the case, name it with Needle.
Goblin Tinkerer – depending on your board state, Tinkerer can wreck you. Tinkerer is most dangerous early game, as by mid game you likely have multiple bridges or ways of protecting yourself outside of bridge in motion.
Umezawa’s Jitte – this can kill you in spite of a bridge. Active Jitte is bad for you, just like everyone else in magic.

Threshold – extremely favorable

This is one of the reasons to play Sun Tower. In this matchup, almost every card in your deck is a must-counter due to destroying their strategy completely or enabling you to find more cards that destroy their strategy completely. You should rarely lose games in this matchup, let alone matches. UGW Threshold sideboarding Serenity is the best against you, but even Serenity doesn’t bridge the gap created by the matchup.

Game one, you want to play Ensnaring Bridge and Chalice @ 1 and/or Trinisphere. Use Crucible to recur Wasteland or Mishra’s Factory as blockers, and use Pyroclasm early to clear unthresh’d critters and Meddling Mage/Dark Confidant if they are played. Towards the mid game (around turn 4), you’ll be playing Uba Masks and Smokestacks, along with any lock pieces that were countered early. Don’t be afraid to Rolling Earthquake for 4 to get rid of Werebears.

Sideboarding for this matchup is almost unfair. Unless you suspect Serenity, the proper boarding strategy is -3 Pyroclasm, -1 Pithing Needle, + 4 Boil. If you do suspect Serenity, identify your least favorite cards (Rolling Earthquake and Uba Mask come to mind), and add in Goblin Welders. While Razormane Masticore and Pithing Needle (on fetchlands) are both stellar against Threshold, you simply have too much hate.

Postboard, Chalice @ 2 probably removes any hate they had, as well as half their deck. As usual, Chalice @ 1 takes away their draw engine as well as mongoose. You shouldn’t have much trouble with this matchup.

Solidarity – very favorable

This matchup is all about your opening draw. You need to have relevant lock pieces in there for the first few turns. Relevant threats include Uba Mask, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, and Smokestack. Chalice @ 1 and Chalice @ 3 almost ends the game (they can play around Chalice with Twincast, and a Chalice @ 2 or Smokestack will seal the game. You can lose game one in this matchup due to drawing too much creature hate. I’ve done it before, but I’ve never lost a match to Solidarity. Remember, with Uba Mask in play, they must bounce Uba Mask before they deck you. Don’t remind them of this as they may waste their only draw spell on you. If it comes up, point to Uba Mask and say “I replace the draw with Uba Mask”.

Game 2 is sorta like game 1, except that they likely cannot actually win this game. The reason is your board:

-4 Ensnaring Bridge
-3 Pyroclasm
-2 Rolling Earthquake
-1 Wasteland

+4 Boil
+3 Pithing Needle
+4 Goblin Welder

Here you take our irrelevant cards (well, Rolling Earthquake is kinda relevant) for cards that they can’t go off with if you have in play (or are holding in the case of Boil). Pithing Needle names their blue fetchlands to slow them down. Goblin Welder is less dead than the other cards, and can actually beat them if you resolve it turn 1 (you weld in Uba Mask in response to their draw spell since they put your entire graveyard in your library with Brain Freeze). Boil is kinda obvious. You usually play this at the EOT so if they remand it you can just play it again. Your goal in game 2 is the same as game 1 (Chalice @ 1, Chalice @ 3) but you have a lot of different outs. UbaLock is common in this game, as well as early Stax lock. Just play whatever lock pieces you draw and you’ll be fine.

Pithing Needle Targets

Flooded Strand – needling this slows them down if they have fetches in hand or happen to draw them as land. Remember, they only play 10-12 actual Islands so with a Smokestack or a few Boils, they could be permanently locked out under Trinisphere.
Polluted Delta – same as above

Chalice of the Void Settings

Chalice @ 1 – stops Brainstorm, High Tide, and opt/peek
Chalice @ 3 – stops Meditate and Cunning Wish

I'll be posting some more matchups when I have time to edit them into something at least as consistently bad as the above. Anyway, this thread is here to stay, thanks for reading.

mikekelley
01-30-2007, 05:19 PM
Chalice talk

Faerie Stompy: 0, 3 (0 turns off EE, Crypt, and their Moxen while 3 turns off the rest of their deck)

Just want to let you know that this is incorrect. Setting chalice at 0 does not do anything to engineered explosives, as the converted mana cost is never 0 while it is on the stack (unless someone is playing it without any sunburst counters on it). It's converted mana cost is 0 everywhere but on the stack, so an EE at 1, 2, or 3 etc will always get around chalice for 0.

emidln
01-30-2007, 05:22 PM
Just want to let you know that this is incorrect. Setting chalice at 0 does not do anything to engineered explosives, as the converted mana cost is never 0 while it is on the stack (unless someone is playing it without any sunburst counters on it). It's converted mana cost is 0 everywhere but on the stack, so an EE at 1, 2, or 3 etc will always get around chalice for 0.

This is partially what you need to know, but not quite. An EE at 0 is what's relevant since you want 0 sunburst Counters to remove my Chalice @ 3. However, If you play an EE with colorless mana you still get 0 counters and get around Chalice @ 0. Fortunately, Chalice @ 0 is still pretty good since most players seem to be ignorant of this from my experience.

mikekelley
01-30-2007, 05:23 PM
Fortunately, Chalice @ 0 is still pretty good since most players seem to be ignorant of this from my experience.
This is certainly true. :laugh:

Lego
01-31-2007, 12:45 AM
Fortunately, Chalice @ 0 is still pretty good since most players seem to be ignorant of this from my experience.

It seems like a bad move to count on your opponents not knowing the rules to win the game.

emidln
01-31-2007, 12:50 AM
It seems like a bad move to count on your opponents not knowing the rules to win the game.

With a Chalice @ 3 out (the only time Chalice @ 0 would be useful), you might be able to be recurring Wasteland. If this is the case, Chalice @ 0 isn't a matter of your opponents not knowing the rules, it is a function of them finding a 1-of without Trinket Mage to tutor it up as well as their ability to have a colorless-producing land on the table.

Lego
01-31-2007, 01:14 AM
As well as their ability to have a colorless-producing land on the table.

Half their mana is colorless. It's one of the reasons the deck sucks.

emidln
01-31-2007, 01:22 AM
Half their mana is colorless.

Half of their mana is colorless, but half of their colorless mana goes away. Add in the ability for waste recursion (and possibly more Chalices) and there is a relatively good chance at locking them out of colorless mana long enough through Smokestack and Wasteland to make EE worthless (with a Pithing Needle for example).

Geeba
01-31-2007, 06:21 AM
I'm not a huge fan of Pithing Needle in the MB, because of the CotV and because 1 copy of Pithing Needle is usually not enough vs goblins, as you really need to shut down both vial ánd SGC. This is based on my observations of my former blue/ug-uba stax build vs. vial goblins, but it may not be appropriate to apply these conclusions to the red build as blue does not have access to pyroclasm. If so, however, it may be worth to replace the (MB)Pithing Needle with Damping Matrix, although it does not hit Wasteland and Pernicious Deed.

Additionally, don't you want Krosan Grips in the sideboard vs Energy Flux and Serenity?

emidln
01-31-2007, 06:38 AM
I'm not a huge fan of Pithing Needle in the MB, because of the CotV and because 1 copy of Pithing Needle is usually not enough vs goblins, as you really need to shut down both vial ánd SGC. This is based on my observations of my former blue/ug-uba stax build vs. vial goblins, but it may not be appropriate to apply these conclusions to the red build as blue does not have access to pyroclasm. If so, however, it may be worth to replace the (MB)Pithing Needle with Damping Matrix, although it does not hit Wasteland and Pernicious Deed.

Pithing Needle is main mostly because I can't fit in the sideboard, but need four, and it is randomly useful. Also, you don't always have Chalice @ 1 (nor is it always a good idea in every matchup). I would really like the 2nd Maindeck, but going down to 4 mass removal was problematic in testing. Damping Matrix is interesting, but it would be dead in the matchups where 4 Needles are best (Survival, 43 Lands/Exploration decks, pseudo-mirror) while being bad post-board against most other stuff since I want to use my Welders with Needles. It is worth testing though, but my Intuition tells me that it is going to be worse than Pithing Needle.

It's also worth noting that Uba Mask can make it problematic for Goblins to use Vial (forcing them to rely on Ringleader and Matron for cards in hand) and that SGC is only a large problem when you lack sweepers/pithing needles/razorcore(or welder, depending on gamestate). You actually have a lot of outs to SGC when Bridge is in play, but I highlight it because a combination of poor deck design (lack of smokestacks) and bad luck caused me losses to it in important matches.


Additionally, don't you want Krosan Grips in the sideboard vs Energy Flux and Serenity?

Krosan Grip >= Welder > Paying 2 for Ensnaring Bridge > Energy Flux
Krosan Grip >= Welder > Serenity

Since Welder is much better in other matchups, as well as at least as good as Krosan Grip against these type of hate spells, I would say that I don't want Krosan Grip.

Cait_Sith
02-05-2007, 08:34 PM
It seems like a bad move to count on your opponents not knowing the rules to win the game.

You didn't know the No-Stick and Meddling Mage do not interact. I have actually won a number of games because of that.

@Stax: Do you ever worry about how Uba Mask can force a draw, or have you always been able to sacrifice it to Smokestack when you need to?

BiscuitVader
02-05-2007, 09:24 PM
I like this deck, and the fact that it has good Thresh and Solidarity MU's makes me like it even more. Though, how are the MU's against decks like Homebrew, Faerie Stompy, Rifter, Iggy Pop, 43Land, and other lesser played (but still good) decks?

Also, I want to say that this is a very good Primer.
I love how you went into so much detail on all the cards.

Whit3 Ghost
02-05-2007, 09:52 PM
I like this deck, and the fact that it has good Thresh and Solidarity MU's makes me like it even more. Though, how are the MU's against decks like Homebrew, Faerie Stompy, Rifter, Iggy Pop, 43Land, and other lesser played (but still good) decks?

Also, I want to say that this is a very good Primer.
I love how you went into so much detail on all the cards.

Homebrew- You can win postboard, but preboard is like 1-6.

FS- To quote Emidlin's brother "You should concede, and save us 20 minutes, this matchup isn't winnable for you."

Rifter- Havn't tested it. You should eat their permanents pretty quickly though. A random Vengance would be the only thing I'd be afraid of, but you should be able to regain your board position because that would be in the VERY lategame.

Iggy- It's like TES, but better because they can't go Burning Wish-> Demolish board or randomly drop ETW and win through dumb luck(no mass removal). They're also about a turn/turn and a half slower then TES, which will let you resolve disruption. It's a good idea to mull untill you can drop either Chalice or 3Sphere turn 1-2.

43 Land- Again, we havn't tested, but you can run them over early with Trinisphere, Crucible and Stax or get Chalice@ 2 and win.

Emidlin can elaborate on these points.

emidln
02-05-2007, 10:15 PM
Homebrew- You can win postboard, but preboard is like 1-6.

This is only true of rsaunder's build. More conventional builds I tend to wreck. It's difficult to setup b.ring with grunt messing with my yard though.


Rifter- Havn't tested it. You should eat their permanents pretty quickly though. A random Vengance would be the only thing I'd be afraid of, but you should be able to regain your board position because that would be in the VERY lategame.

So, if they maindeck Serenity, they have a chance. Otherwise, you need to not hit a lot of cards for them to approach casting Vengeance. Luckily, by that time, a Chalice @ 6 is a real possibility for Sun Tower. Cycling decree for tokens is kinda gay, but we have needle and a lot of otherwise dead removal for that.


Iggy- It's like TES, but better because they can't go Burning Wish-> Demolish board or randomly drop ETW and win through dumb luck(no mass removal). Their also about a turn/turn and a half slower then TES, which will let you resolve disruption. It's a good idea to mull untill you can drop either Chalice or 3Sphere turn 1-2.

This is basically it. You want Chalices, 3spheres, and Smokestacks here. Uba Mask is somewhat of a liability since it gives them 4 Ancestral Recalls, but other than that, it's not really _that_ unwinnable for iggy game 1. Leyline is also randomly amazing for them since they do go turn 1 Leyline + IGG like 13% of the time. They tend to win those games.

Postboard, you board out useless cards for stuff that is slightly less useless like Welder and Boil. Boil is good against them since they carelessly select basics (not knowing I only run 2 Wastelands).


43 Land- Again, we havn't tested, but you can run them over early with Trinisphere, Crucible and Stax or get Chalice@ 2 and win.

This matchup is a joke. They need the nuts the have a chance of competing with you game 1, and they can't win games 2 or 3 at all. If they MD Boseiju, you probably won't even see them in the later rounds of the tournament, but, assuming you do, and they can use it to get off a Burning Wish, and they have enough red mana to make Shattering Spree useful, then they could theoretically pull out games. Even their wastelock isn't always good against us since we play 4 Crucibles, 4 Moxen, and a bunch of lands that make lots of mana. Oh, and there's this pithing needle card...

43 lands is simply a really bad aggro deck against UbaStax. UbaStax does what it does best and wrecks bad aggro decks. They can only hope and pray for turn 1 Manabond into LftL into wasteland. Then they need you to not hit more than 1 mox diamond early, and for you to not have Ensnaring Bridge. And this has to be game 1, because game 2 you have 8 one drops that pwn them.

BiscuitVader
02-05-2007, 11:24 PM
I was just trying to put this into MWS to try it out, and it turns out it is 61 cards.

Is there an error, or really 61 cards in the deck?

emidln
02-05-2007, 11:36 PM
Is there an error, or really 61 cards in the deck?

Yes.

Gui
02-06-2007, 08:22 AM
Isn't Pithing needle worth MD, i mean, as it's a good call at SB almost every game, and helps against the worse matchup ??

Muradin
02-06-2007, 12:25 PM
I think this looks like the first Staxx deck in Legacy that might be really good, as it got a draw engine. What do you think is the Land-Ho(Loam.dec) Matchup like, as this deck is played very much in my meta?

emidln
02-06-2007, 01:26 PM
I think this looks like the first Staxx deck in Legacy that might be really good, as it got a draw engine. What do you think is the Land-Ho(Loam.dec) Matchup like, as this deck is played very much in my meta?

I've found that I seem to have a very favorable matchup against G/R/x Life from the Loam decks. I've seen some builds that give me more problems than others, but they generally can only win through something like Seismic Assault due to Ensnaring Bridges and Chalices, and even that tends to go away games 2 and 3. Chalice @ 2 makes it especially hard for Terravore/LftL type decks to compete because their only real chance of getting past Bridge is to Wish it away or to LftL-Wastelock 4cc cards into my hand (this only works if I don't have Crucible or Moxen in play).

ForceofWill
02-13-2007, 11:05 PM
Hey all I just won a tourny with Sun Tower on Magic-league. It was a 6 round trial with 55 players. Single elim.

heres the list I played
// Lands
2 [TE] Wasteland
2 [OD] Barbarian Ring
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
1 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [R] Taiga
4 [6E] Crystal Vein
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb

// Spells
4 [DS] Trinisphere
2 [9E] Pyroclasm
4 [P3] Rolling Earthquake
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [8E] Ensnaring Bridge
4 [US] Smokestack
2 [CHK] Uba Mask
3 [5E] Sylvan Library
4 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [SH] Mox Diamond

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [FD] Razormane Masticore
SB: 4 [8E] Boil
SB: 4 [UL] Goblin Welder
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle

and now for the rerpot:

Round 1:
hes playing b/w Pikulas
I play tons of land which makes his land d ineffective I get double hymned turn 3/4. But I eventually lay bridge with chalice for 3 for vindicate. GG
He has a shade which I rolling for 4 while he has a shade and a swamp and 1 card in hand. Playing it safe I guess or else shade would eat me alive. I get a factory Stped then eventually get a smokestack while I have crucible b ring going for his guys and him. he vindicates crucible but loses his land b4 he draws another creature. Eventually I draw another factory and he scoops.

Round 2. Shooter with Card for card mirror.
I played him in an earlier tourny and he netdecked lol.

game 1 I get crucible wasteland he doesn't get crucble

game 2 I kill some welders then drop a bridge for his razormane eventually get a stack which he loses his perms to.

round 3 Boros (yah I was like wtf)
hes on the play and drops turn plateau isamru then passes I play turn 1 chalice with an ancient tomb considering the amount of 1cc he plays. Hes swinging and burning me but at 4 life I maintain crucible + smokestack after ramping up a first ss to 2 then saccing it and playing another.

game 2 him turn 1 mountain chain lightning me turn 1 trinisphere turn 2 smokestack and thats all she wrote.

round 4 belcher with ETW sb

game 1 he plays first and makes no play and passes. this confirms hes playing belcher because I played him earlier. i go land chalice for 1 and chalice for 0.
he scoops.

game 2 he plays mana and belcher then belchs me for 4. I go turn 1 needle belcher. eventually dropped good stuff.

round 5 3 people left and I get the bye

FinaLS: Aluren
game 1 I have no clue what hes playing but stax away a bunch of stuff r equake for 5 to kill a wall of roots (which he told me later that lost him the game). I ended the game at 3 life all of which I cause myself.

Game 2: I know what hes playing and get trinispeher welder and 2 smokestacks. Yah GG.

Edit: to include final

Odd Mutation
02-14-2007, 07:03 AM
Hi,

This is one of the best written primers I've ever read. Congratulations! The deck itself certainly looks promising and I will be testing it soon.

Thanks for sharing.

Robrecht.

emidln
02-14-2007, 09:24 AM
Congrats on the finish. Keep us up to date on how the fewer red sources works. I'm interested in knowing if I can cut it down to 60. Additionally, have you done any testing vs Goblins yet? I know I always want 4 Razormane Masticore when I play them, enough that I'd probably give up a Boil vs Solidarity and Control if really pressed into it. Congrats again, and I'm glad to see someone else playing the deck.

mikekelley
02-14-2007, 10:30 AM
It's one of the reasons the deck sucks.

That's a bold statement.

nupert
02-15-2007, 09:23 AM
Wouldn't Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai be a strong addition to the deck? I mean, it's totatally incredible with Smockestack on the board. You can set your Smokestack at 2 or build up an army or play an additional land each second turn. Your deck is built around creating card advantage and this is what this card does. Sure, the spirits die to pyroclasm and stuff, but it should work alright if you begin producing spirits after the board is cleared, and this card really helps you to do that. I could see it replacing one or two mishra's, but I haven't tested it yet.

emidln
02-15-2007, 02:34 PM
Wouldn't Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai be a strong addition to the deck?

No.


I could see it replacing one or two mishra's, but I haven't tested it yet.

You haven't played enough aggro yet. Mishra's Factories are only win conditions because they are convenient. We already play them to help against aggro. God's Eye does not help against aggro unless we're already winning.

nupert
02-15-2007, 09:52 PM
You haven't played enough aggro yet. Mishra's Factories are only win conditions because they are convenient. We already play them to help against aggro. God's Eye does not help against aggro unless we're already winning.

Yeah I can see that point. But against aggro you wouldn't hold a hand because there is Mishra's Factory in it. Sure it can block a lackey early in the game, but as pointed out before, I want something like pyroclasm or ensnaring bridge. There still are plenty of ways of slowing down aggo (you just lack one or two Factories). As I understand the Deck, the next thing you want to do is you want to ramp um the Smoke count very fast. God's Eye increases the benefit you gain. You're in trouble if your opponent plays crucible himself since it negotiates the cardadvantage you want to achieve by smokestack. Here God's Eye works fine (especially in the Mirror!). But I have to admit that I'm not playing very much and my usual opponents are by no means enemies you expect in a tournament, so this is just theory. I wonder if somebody really tested it in this version of stax since it wasn't even mentioned before. Do you really suffer that much from the removement of lets say two Mishra's Factories when facing Goblins?

CaptainLyle811
02-16-2007, 12:24 AM
Yeah I can see that point. But against aggro you wouldn't hold a hand because there is Mishra's Factory in it. Sure it can block a lackey early in the game, but as pointed out before, I want something like pyroclasm or ensnaring bridge. There still are plenty of ways of slowing down aggo (you just lack one or two Factories). As I understand the Deck, the next thing you want to do is you want to ramp um the Smoke count very fast. God's Eye increases the benefit you gain. You're in trouble if your opponent plays crucible himself since it negotiates the cardadvantage you want to achieve by smokestack. Here God's Eye works fine (especially in the Mirror!). But I have to admit that I'm not playing very much and my usual opponents are by no means enemies you expect in a tournament, so this is just theory. I wonder if somebody really tested it in this version of stax since it wasn't even mentioned before. Do you really suffer that much from the removement of lets say two Mishra's Factories when facing Goblins?

this is one of the most ridiculous suggestions Ive personally ever heard.

First thing- Mishra IS your kill

Second- Gods Eye IS LEGENDARY____DDUUUMMMMMMBBB IDEA!

Third- if you face mirror match and they play crucibal, make SmokeStack huge and watch them cry!

Fourth- Gods Eye is terrible in mirror, Your opponent Rolling Earthquakes your board, and watches you sac all your stuff because of your monster SmokeStack...which loses you the game.

Fifth- Factory is a 2/2 recurring pumpable land/creature...gods eye can only have 1 in play, and only gives you a worthless 1/1

please think before you speak :laugh:

Please read before you post. (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/announcement.php?f=25) :frown:
Keep the attitude in check.
Welcome to the Source.
-TOOL

Bane of the Living
02-17-2007, 12:52 PM
Are you having problems dealing too much damage to yourself? Between early barb ring damage, earthquake and ancient tomb, it seems your kicking your own ass alot. Angel Stax has its name sake to keep this problem in check. Do you ever find yourself wanting a bit of life gain? Especially to help stablize against aggro.

laststepdown
02-17-2007, 01:35 PM
Are you having problems dealing too much damage to yourself? Between early barb ring damage, earthquake and ancient tomb, it seems your kicking your own ass alot. Angel Stax has its name sake to keep this problem in check. Do you ever find yourself wanting a bit of life gain? Especially to help stablize against aggro.
QFT. This deck can kick it's own ass if you don't get painless mana out quick...if you couldn't play Necropotence because you didn't want to lose life, this probably isn't the deck for you. Would Demonfire be a better topdeck off Uba/Syvan than Rolling Earthquake? Maybe, but doubtful...on one hand, this deck is hellbent for most of every game. On the other, Earthquake is not just any X spell now, is it?

emidln
02-22-2007, 10:24 PM
Hi. Emidln, thanks for show us this great deck and explain us how to play it . I was testing Sun Tower vs gobblins and results was very bad, 1-15. I'm sure that I don't know how to play it well. Can you explain how to beat gobblins with and without sideboard?

I also find a card that kills gobblins but I don't know if this card is playable or not: AEther Flash. Not only gobblins but random decks with small creatures and aggro in general. But double red cost is expensive with only 4 taigas and 4 moxes

Thanks and sorry for my poor poor english (I'm from Spain)

Thanks! While I dismissed this once for costing RR, a reevaluation of a couple matchups led me to wonder if I could tinker with the manabase. When it was proved that it was safe, I started looking for hosers for certain matchups and remembered that you mentioned Aether Flash. Well, I finally got around to seriously testing this with my teammates today and it really makes the Goblins matchup easy. I came up with the following tweaks:

-4 Crystal Vein
-1 Windswept Heath
-2 Uba Mask
-1 Pyroclasm

+3 Mountain
+2 Wooded Foothills
+3 Aether Flash

So far, it has been working beautifully. It helps out in not only the Goblins matchup (which it generally ends game 1), it kills everything but Jotun Grunt in both Fish and Deadguy, kills unthreshed Mongeese and Weres, kills random Meddling Mages, kills Survival's manabase as well as removing some of their threats, improves the Affinity matchup, and is generally really good. With the cutting of Crystal Vein, we gain another green source, 3 basics, and a grand total of 14 red sources making Boil and Welder much better out of the board.

However, we do lose some explosive starts due to Crystal Vein. Razormane Masticore is no longer as attractive as it once was due to the lack of the 3rd double land. This card is coming under fire with Aether Flash in the deck and might soon be cut for a combination of Pyroclasms, Aether Flash, and the 4th Boil. This hasn't been decided upon yet, but it would open up a few sideboard slots. Vein also afforded us some amount of protection to recurring land destruction like wasteland and ports. While Mountain + fetches can make up for some of this, it's yet undetermined how much of an effect port will have now that we only really have 3 ways to avoid it.

Xero
02-22-2007, 10:40 PM
Is cutting Uba Mask a good idea? It makes Sylvan Library and Ensnaring Bridge worse.

emidln
02-22-2007, 10:48 PM
Is cutting Uba Mask a good idea? It makes Sylvan Library and Ensnaring Bridge worse.

It doesn't make Sylvan Library worse. Library is there to fix your draws for free and to enable Bridge. It still does that. It has always done that. Sylvan Library is a card you never board out. Uba Mask is boarded out all the time because the CA combo, while nice, doesn't affect a lot of matchups. Uba Mask has a lot of synergy with the deck, but it is very likely that Aether Flash has more synergy by utterly hosing most aggro decks. It remains to be seen if Mask + Bridge + Crucible + B.Ring is necessary in most matchups. I don't think that it is.

rsaunder
02-23-2007, 10:14 AM
Ooh, I like aether flash. I think that just made gblins a winnable matchup.

Good job, guys. My faith in the deck is restored.

torgar
02-23-2007, 03:41 PM
Yeah I like this change. Goblins was the only thing a was really worried about. Although I suppose now you can't call it UBA-stax. Flash-stax, anyone?

emidln
02-23-2007, 04:09 PM
Yeah I like this change. Goblins was the only thing a was really worried about. Although I suppose now you can't call it UBA-stax. Flash-stax, anyone?

My codename for it was AT1 for Aether Tower 1.0. That was when I wasn't sure if it was the direction Sun Tower wanted to take. Also AT1 is kinda cool.

pantos
02-25-2007, 09:07 AM
how about adding the time vault - mizzium combo to the deck? i know, there's not much mizzium could copy, but time vault has a good synergy to ss.

and with a combo in the deck, perhaps a blue splash with fabricate would be a good choice, as it can get you other artifacts if they're needed...
with blue, you could also play academy ruins, it's good against counter, and if there's no crucible out, you can keep a ss with 1 counter by playing and sacrificing a cheap artifact (e.g. chalice) continuously.

or would this change the deck too drastically?

emidln
02-25-2007, 09:29 AM
how about adding the time vault - mizzium combo to the deck? i know, there's not much mizzium could copy, but time vault has a good synergy to ss.

and with a combo in the deck, perhaps a blue splash with fabricate would be a good choice, as it can get you other artifacts if they're needed...
with blue, you could also play academy ruins, it's good against counter, and if there's no crucible out, you can keep a ss with 1 counter by playing and sacrificing a cheap artifact (e.g. chalice) continuously.

or would this change the deck too drastically?

This is a horrible idea because Time Vault and Mizzium Transreliquat both do nothing by themselves. They don't create card advantage for us, and we don't need to take infinite turns. In fact, I can't seem to think why you would suggest this. I played Flame Vault Stasis Stax, probably more than anyone else. While Time Vault was incredibly busted in FVSS, it simply isn't good for Stax anymore. The new wording means you only ever get 1 extra trigger for Smokestack, while we have nothing else to punish an opponent for having that extra turn.

We don't need Academy Ruins. Academy Ruins is just a worse Goblin Welder that requires a color that gives us nothing else. We can already pay for smokestack without Crucible by just sacrificing permanents. We have between 5 and 6 cards in the deck that we can't just play and sacrifice. Furthermore, Welder pays for Smokestack each turn by welding Smokestack into another Smokestack eot.

Fabricate just seems bad. There is never really anything you want to tutor for outside of mass removal, which artifacts don't provide. Furthermore, there are no slots for this. If I had more slots there would be more Pyroclasms and Uba Masks followed up by Pithing Needles before any other cards.

Arsenal_Fan
02-25-2007, 07:32 PM
@emidln I wanted to know how you attack zoo if it includes some form of burn. It seems that to stabilize from creature damage takes a couple of turns and then you are at a life total that could be at direct damage level in a long game. Any thoughts on this?

laststepdown
02-25-2007, 08:00 PM
@emidln I wanted to know how you attack zoo if it includes some form of burn. It seems that to stabilize from creature damage takes a couple of turns and then you are at a life total that could be at direct damage level in a long game. Any thoughts on this?

If you don't have Chalice @ 1, Zoo is probably one of your worst matchups-especially the ones running Tin-Street, Blastoderm/Ascetic, and Fireblast. Regardless, no-one plays SD Zoo anymore.

And a side note, Rolling Earthquakes are a hell of a card to find. :(

emidln
02-25-2007, 10:58 PM
@emidln I wanted to know how you attack zoo if it includes some form of burn. It seems that to stabilize from creature damage takes a couple of turns and then you are at a life total that could be at direct damage level in a long game. Any thoughts on this?

I personally like Chalices, Trinispheres, and Smokestacks. That's how I attack the burn matchup too. Zoo is a lot like Burn with Ball Lightning/Blitstering Firecat except it vulnerable to wastelock, runs creates that factory eats for breakfast, and sometimes has tin street hooligan. I've found that double Chalice takes the deck out minus Fireblast (which not all builds run), and that an early Trinisphere, Chalice, or Smokestack can easily seal the game.

If you find yourself playing lots of Zoo you should think through the matchup a bit more and perhaps do some tweaking, but with the amount of play Zoo sees right now, I'm comfortable with the standard Stax solutions to everything.

emidln
02-26-2007, 04:13 AM
Updated the decklist for the AT1 variant is on the front page in the primer. I'm recommending that people test that over regular Sun Tower right now. I'll fix the primer to include the changes from AT1 when I'm sure that they're correct and I have time. I'd appreciate some testing feedback with the list. Thanks.

emidln
04-02-2007, 02:49 PM
In an effort to figure out what cards are actually useful and what board cards are needed we've developed several different builds of Sun Tower. First, the version likely to become Sun Tower in name is called AT1 at the moment.

// AT1
// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Taiga
3 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Barbarian Ring
2 Wasteland

// Non-land Mana Sources
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

// Locks-n-Stuff
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
3 Sylvan Library

// Critter Hate
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Rolling Earthquake
1 Pyroclasm
3 Aether Flash

// Sideboard
4 Goblin Welder
4 Pithing Needle
3 Boil
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyroclasm

The next deck is an experimental build I've been calling AT2. It drops Trinisphere to the sideboard in an effort to shore up some particularly hazardous matchups with maindeck Pithing Needle. The general theory here was that the most common matchups don't require Trinisphere, and generally don't require Chalice @ 1 either. However, they all want Pithing Needle. Since this was the case, why not maindeck Pithing Needle? This turned out to be a very good anti-aggro deck. I wouldn't recommend this for a general metagame right now since combo and control appear on the upswing, but it was a very interesting excercise.

// AT2
// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Taiga
3 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Barbarian Ring
2 Wasteland

// Non-land Mana Sources
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

// Locks
3 Pithing Needle
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
3 Sylvan Library

// Critter Control
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Rolling Earthquake
3 Aether Flash
2 Pyroclasm

// Sideboard
4 Goblin Welder
4 Trinisphere
3 Boil
3 Null Brooch
1 Pithing Needle

This lead me to ask, how can I improve the aggro matchup further? Somewhere before this question I also asked how many basic mountains I could run alongside Crystal Vein. Uba Mask too? AT3 was the result of this train of thought.

// AT3
// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Crystal Vein
4 Taiga
1 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Barbarian Ring
2 Wasteland

// Non-land Mana Sources
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

// UberLibrary Engine
3 Sylvan Library
2 Uba Mask

// Locks
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack

// Critter Control
4 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Aether Flash
4 Rolling Earthquake
3 Pyroclasm

// Sideboard
4 Goblin Welder
4 Pithing Needle
4 Trinisphere
3 Boil

I'm now at a crossroads. There are 4 undecided spots in the sideboard of AT1. The 3 EE/1 Clasm seem fine right now but I want to understand exactly what could be busted, when, and why. The sideboard cards I've indentified as having the most potential are these:

Engineered Explosives
Null Brooch
Viashino Heretic
Pyroclasm
Krosan Grip
Razormane Masticore
Uba Mask
Life from the Loam
Jester's Cap
Wasteland
Wildfire

EE - This card is interesting on a number of fronts. It is an answer to vial, survival, enemy chalices, tcrypt, sacred ground, serenity, and even Leyline of the Void (I've done it in several games so far). Without moxen we can set it for 0, 1, or 2 and with moxen we potentiall have up to 5 counters. This can double as an anti-control card (anti exploration/sacred ground) as well as anti-aggro (vial, survival, etw (theoretically if needed)).

Null Brooch - This is a card that my team ran in Vintage UbaStax and The Jester for a few months and it was phenominal. This was our solution to Gifts' eotRebuildGG. That it happened to be busted against anything not named Fish was pretty nuts too. In Legacy, it solves a similar problem, but instead of eotRebuildGG we have control playing Akroma's Vengeance, Pernicious Deed, Crucible of Worlds, and Mr. Niven's Disk. Furthermore, this actually empties our hand, regardless of the ability resolving, allowing us to quickly empty our hand for Ensnaring Bridge while simultaneously protecting it. Null Brooch has applications in numerous matches since our anti-aggro package is already ridiculous. My favorite thus far has been against Loam control where I counter their Burning Wishes and Life from the Loams.

Viashino Heretic - Another Vintage import, this has become important in the online metagame that is filled with Stax, 5/3, and Faerie Stompy. In addition to wrecking the pseudo-mirrors, Heretic is pretty good against equipment decks in general (Angel Stompy) as well as Affinity (obvious) and Goblins (destroys Vial, enemy needle, enemy crypt and has a fat ass for blocking).

Pyroclasm - Depending on the number of clasms maindeck, adding a 6th of 7th sweeper can be nice against the likes of extremely fast or resilient aggro (Goblins for example). These help us stay alive until the Flashes and Bridges come down.

Krosan Grip - instant-speed, nearly uncounterable ways to blow up Serenity, Crucible, Jitte, SoFI, Sacred Ground, and Survival seems pretty good. Whether it is better than the more general EE is debatable, but it is definitely in my binder of playable Sun Tower sideboard cards.

Razorcore - With slight tweaking to the manabase, Razorcore would become playable again. With the recent improvements in the aggro matchup, I'm not sure playing Razorcore against Angel Stompy would be the best call. The major reason for considering Razorcore is aggro control while putting a serious clock on control and combo at the same time.

Uba Mask - the anti-control card with so much synergy in this deck that it was named for the card, Uba Mask has a lot of synergy in the maindeck, and even more in the sideboard where it is paired with Welder for impressive results.

Life from the Loam - This is probably paranoia induced by MWS, but I have the worst possible land draws in a 25 land deck. Combine that with enemy LD and you have a recipe for disaster. LFTL isn't limited to anti-LD though. Combined with Chalices and Welders, we can actually play our game without casting spells. This is an extremely strong position to be in, since Crucible + Factory gives us free welds while LFTL puts weld targets into our yard. I've won countless matchups due to chalicing for 2, 3, and 4 and playing the Welder + Loam game.

Jester's Cap - Brought on by and influx of artifact and enchantment hate mixed with better combo builds, Jester's Cap is a viable selection. RFGing ways to get out of your prison seems pretty good.

Wasteland - Extra Wastelands were a recent idea to combat the increase in Landstill and TES being played. TES is extremely vulnerable to our locks combined with minor LD. This gives us a little more.

Wildfire - This was suggested as an alternative to Wasteland against Landstill and TES. It may be viable, but I don't see 6cc double red spells as being better than Jester's Cap or even Mindslaver against combo or control. This is included for completeness.

My question is, what is actually needed? I've only identified a handful of truely problematic cards: Pernicious Deed, N. Disk, Leyline of the Void, Akroma's Vengeance, Decree of Justice, Crucible of Worlds, Sacred Ground, Serenity, and Goblin Welder. Currently, we have at least one answer to each of them except Crucible and Sacred Ground. Are these cards played enough in sideboards or maindecks to worry about? Furthermore, what answers these cards best? Null Brooch seems to be the most applicable, and is a must counter for anything that isn't storm combo. It's also amongst the most expensive in terms of CC solutions.

rsaunder
04-02-2007, 05:45 PM
I would love to run jester's cap. Perhaps it's just nostalgia talking, but it looks like it'd be pretty damn good.

Brooch is pretty broken, though. I'm not sure if there's any reason to not run brooch.

Silverdragon
04-02-2007, 09:13 PM
The general theory here was that the most common matchups don't require Trinisphere, and generally don't require Chalice @ 1 either. However, they all want Pithing Needle.
I can understand that there are matchups Trinisphere is not that useful against but when I look at the LMF there is only one in which Needle is superior and that's Goblins. Could you please explain what matchups you were refering to? I guess you were talking about the online metagame (MWS and Magic League in general) because you also said
Viashino Heretic - Another Vintage import, this has become important in the online metagame that is filled with Stax, 5/3, and Faerie Stompy however my experience is that you definately should play Trinisphere maindeck in an average "offline" tournament.

emidln
04-02-2007, 11:47 PM
I can understand that there are matchups Trinisphere is not that useful against but when I look at the LMF there is only one in which Needle is superior and that's Goblins. Could you please explain what matchups you were refering to? I guess you were talking about the online metagame (MWS and Magic League in general) because you also said however my experience is that you definately should play Trinisphere maindeck in an average "offline" tournament.


Trinisphere is worse than Pithing Needle against:

Goblins
Survival
B/W Deadguy
Angel Stompy
Faerie Stompy
Stax
Affinity
Life

Additionally, Pithing Needle is just as good as Trinisphere against:

Aluren (although I'd rather have both)
Landstill
Black-based control

Trinisphere is better than Pithing Needle against:

Solidarity
Iggy Pop
TES
anytime turn 1 on the play


I meant my local meta. The online metagame has an over representation of Stax and Combo. I would want Trinisphere main and Heretic in the board online. However, in Michigan, there seems to be a definite lack of combo. Because of this, I was looking at cutting Trinisphere from the maindeck for cards that were more generally useful. In an unknown metagame in real life, I wouldn't expect too much combo (more than the michigan meta), but I would expect enough combo and control that Trinisphere is useful.

torgar
04-03-2007, 03:25 AM
I've only identified a handful of truely problematic cards: Pernicious Deed, N. Disk, Leyline of the Void, Akroma's Vengeance, Decree of Justice, Crucible of Worlds, Sacred Ground, Serenity, and Goblin Welder. Currently, we have at least one answer to each of them except Crucible and Sacred Ground. Are these cards played enough in sideboards or maindecks to worry about?

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that you worry about these. Though, honestly, I'd say aside from Deed, Leyline and Crucible they're all pretty scarce.

I like the idea of Null Brooch, I've been looking at it myself. Do you think could warrant the MD inclusion of Welder? Or are you thinking bring in Brooch from the board along with Welder?

emidln
04-03-2007, 10:40 AM
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that you worry about these. Though, honestly, I'd say aside from Deed, Leyline and Crucible they're all pretty scarce.

I like the idea of Null Brooch, I've been looking at it myself. Do you think could warrant the MD inclusion of Welder? Or are you thinking bring in Brooch from the board along with Welder?

I'm thinking that Null Brooch will be SB right now, but that's mostly due to not having room for it maindeck. I think as far as power level is concerned, it's on par with Uba Mask and Trinisphere, right below Aether Flash in this deck. Maybe in something like AT3 with the lack of maindeck Trinispheres it could fit into the Uba Mask slot, but in AT1, it's seeming like it will be a sideboard card.

Xero
04-03-2007, 03:04 PM
Trinisphere is better than Pithing Needle against:

Solidarity
Iggy Pop
TES
anytime turn 1 on the play


Aren't you forgetting Aggro-Control decks like Thresh here?

emidln
04-03-2007, 04:56 PM
Aren't you forgetting Aggro-Control decks like Thresh here?

Yeah. I suppose I should add "decks with shaky manabases" to the list. That would give most blue aggro-control since they share the drawback of being easy to disrupt.

tsabo_tavoc
05-05-2007, 11:15 PM
Will Grafted Skullclap or Pyromancer's Swath from FUT worth trying, for their good synergy with Ensanaring Bridge, Babarian Ring and Pyroclasm?
Are the Aether Flashes only for the Gob's matchup?

rsaunder
05-06-2007, 12:07 AM
Grafted Skullcap was printed back in Urza's block, and I don't think it worked very well in stax versions that ran it way back then. This reprint doesn't really change anything.

wmagzoo7
05-06-2007, 04:26 PM
I have come to liking this deck over a short while of testing with it, and it seems as if it should beat hulk flash but what is the percentage of this one if anyone has spent the time testing it. I may be going to GP Columbus and I am wondering if it would be a good idea.

PS: any ideas instead of rolling earthquake because I can't find it and if I found it I would be dishing out 50-75$.

emidln
05-07-2007, 03:13 AM
This is the list that I'll be taking to the GP, possibly playing there. It is the result of infi testing time.

// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [A] Taiga
2 [OD] Barbarian Ring
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
2 [TE] Wasteland
3 [US] Mountain (1)
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [5E] Sylvan Library
4 [8E] Ensnaring Bridge
4 [P3] Rolling Earthquake
4 [7E] AEther Flash
4 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [US] Smokestack
4 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [SH] Mox Diamond

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [UL] Goblin Welder
SB: 3 [8E] Boil
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [OV] Jester's Cap

It has a great Goblins matchup preboard, as well as a strong game against Affinity and Thresh/Fish/Flash Hate with better than average combo matchups. Postboard, it can crush Goblins, Thresh, Affinity, Combo, and give Flash serious problems (to the point of doing well against U/B and our 5c Flash).

Sideboarding:

Goblins is pretty secure in the boarding out of Trinisphere for Pithing Needles. You shouldn't need anymore (and you don't have anymore).

Threshold is a match that I don't actually test enough to figure out what the best boarding strategy is. You have Boil and Goblin Welder that are both grossly effective here, along with Pithing Needle and Cap being splash damage (needle on fetches, EE) and Cap them for whatever you feel like (I like hitting lands). I'm open to suggestions on what I should board and why here, but the matchup is already very good.

Deadguy sees Trinisphere cut for Goblin Welder. Game 3, if there is, one you probably board out Welders for Needles since they will be bringing in Engineered Plague for Mr. 1/1 Joblin.

Loam sees you cutting Rolling Earthquakes and Aether Flashes for Caps and Welders depending on the build. (This is a bad move against Terrageddon for instance.) You might substitute Needle for Cap. It really depends on the build here what is most important to you. Remember that Chalice @ 2 generally = gg.

Flash has been seeing this board:

-4 Rolling Earthquake
-4 Smokestack
-4 Trinisphere
-3 Sylvan Library


+4 Goblin Welder
+4 Jester's Cap
+4 Pithing Needle
+3 Boil

I'm not actually sure if this is right, but it's what t I've been doing. Cutting Smokestack and Trinisphere might in fact be awful against Combo, but Cap is better against the deck, and Needle + Boil can wreck their manabase. Welder is protection that you lack from the 3sphere. Thoughts here? I'm very open to suggestions/analysis.

Solidarity goes like this:

-4 Ensnaring Bridge
-4 Rolling Earthquake
-4 Aether Flash

+4 Pithing Needle
+3 Boil
+2 Goblin Welder
+4 Jester's Cap

Iggy Pop/TES goes very similar to Solidarity, but you leave in Rquake for ETW and Dark Confidant as well as the clock aspect. The keyword here is Threat Density.

-4 Ensnaring Bridge
-4 Aether Flash
-3 Sylvan Library

+4 Pithing Needle
+3 Boil
+4 Jester's Cap

rsaunder
05-07-2007, 05:46 PM
Against goblins, I'd be tempted to go -4 chalice in addition to 3-spheres for the whelders. Or have you been liking chalice in there for some reason?

For thresh, -4 aether flash, +3 boil, +welders if you suspect serenity, +needle to take up whatever unused slots you have.

Has null brooch fallen out of favor for the current metagame? It seems like a solid play with hulk flash running around, especially for a MB hate slot.

emidln
05-07-2007, 06:52 PM
Against goblins, I'd be tempted to go -4 chalice in addition to 3-spheres for the whelders. Or have you been liking chalice in there for some reason?

For thresh, -4 aether flash, +3 boil, +welders if you suspect serenity, +needle to take up whatever unused slots you have.

Has null brooch fallen out of favor for the current metagame? It seems like a solid play with hulk flash running around, especially for a MB hate slot.

Cap does everything Null Brooch wants to do, but better against Hulk Flash. I've actually been messing with a mono-red version featuring 4x barbarian ring, 4x wasteland and a ton of basic mountains with a 26th land and 2 Wildfire maindeck. This also lets me play some Crystal Veins for more accel without giving up any colored sources. I'm still using the same board, and it has been pretty brutal in initial testing. I do really miss Sylvan Library though. Selecting from 3 cards is infy times better than taking the top card.

Accordingly with my luck, I still draw 2 lands and nothing else for 3-5 turns, so I think that mws just hates me right now despite me running 34 mana sources (26 lands, 4 mox, 4 crucible). Have others been experiencing drastic mana screw (too few lands) with either this build or previous 25 land builds? Even in tournament play with generous pile shuffling and riffling, I'm seeing mana screw often.

Aether Flash is actually hate for the Kiki version of Hulk Flash's kill. They cannot combo out if it is in play since all of their 2/2s die in a sudden inferno.

tsabo_tavoc
05-07-2007, 11:01 PM
Does Leyline of the void belongs to the Sideboard, as it is great against Hulk Flash/Thresh/Control decks incluing Survival & Atog.
Greater Gargadon is a faster clock, have good synergy with Stax/Chalice, worth trying?

rsaunder
05-08-2007, 07:21 AM
Greater Gargadon is a faster clock, have good synergy with Stax/Chalice, worth trying?It also has some notably bad synergy with ensnaring bridge. Probably not worth it.

Deger
05-09-2007, 10:56 AM
I like looking at all the Stax lists I play a red Stax took 11th at GPT Pgh. I ran 2 Aether Flash in the main as well as an earthquake and found it good against a bunch of decks Gobs and this weird storm combo deck it housed the confidants..
Crucibal and wasteland were huge in most of my matches wasteland needs a 4 of...
Mishra's factorys were like MVP against so many decks.. I think better then the barbarian rings..
and chalice was great.. against gobs I set it at 1 and 2 and then with the wastelock.. GG
fairy stompy saw it at zero and wastelock GG
and Hulk got it at 1 and 2 with waste lock...GG
hulk runs real land light smash those and you are golden.. even with their dazes can buy you the time to go agro on them.. get a stax out and ramp it and you have them...

I lost to Iggy and my first encounter with the hulk....

I also threw a Diamond Valley in for a small thing last night and it was not bad... Most of the decks I played against were kinda chumpy though.. went to all 3 games in each match.. (rogue is weird that way) only had a problem against a discard deck with Korlash and I blocked him with an arc slogger then activated the slogger and my opponent regenerated and I lost 1/3 of my deck... DOUGH!!!! but that went to 3 games also and ended 3-1-1 for the night and 2nd place.

hope this info helps the UBA STAX some.. Wildfire is good but at the GPT I only cast it once and wiped a goblin army away...

Namaste

Dave

Ninj4
05-14-2007, 03:27 AM
what do u think of Rites of Flourishing for the deck? it seems like its able to abuse that card more than any other deck right now...

Wobbles The Goose
05-14-2007, 06:51 AM
Null Brooch - This is a card that my team ran in Vintage UbaStax and The Jester for a few months and it was phenominal. This was our solution to Gifts' eotRebuildGG. That it happened to be busted against anything not named Fish was pretty nuts too. In Legacy, it solves a similar problem, but instead of eotRebuildGG we have control playing Akroma's Vengeance, Pernicious Deed, Crucible of Worlds, and Mr. Niven's Disk. Furthermore, this actually empties our hand, regardless of the ability resolving, allowing us to quickly empty our hand for Ensnaring Bridge while simultaneously protecting it. Null Brooch has applications in numerous matches since our anti-aggro package is already ridiculous. My favorite thus far has been against Loam control where I counter their Burning Wishes and Life from the Loams.

Jester's Cap - Brought on by and influx of artifact and enchantment hate mixed with better combo builds, Jester's Cap is a viable selection. RFGing ways to get out of your prison seems pretty good.


I didn't see this discussed, but an interesting recent addition might be Jester's Scepter. It seems effective in the hulk flash matchup, where turn one disruption is a must, but it sometimes wins you the game if it resolves. It acts a lot like null broach against everything else but life from the loam, and even then it's not like it's bad. The least used card in the board looks like it might be welder, but Welder and Scepter together can be just brutal. So, basically, I don't know what you take out for it (probably Cap), but Scepter seems really good right now.

Meeee
05-14-2007, 02:26 PM
Aether Flash Does necessarily shut down the Kikki Jikki build as a good player can get an arbitrarily large Carrion Feeder, A hulk and even a Kikki Jikki to stick around with it on board. Simply play Flash Hulk at end of opponents turn; getting 1 Karmic Guide, 1 Carrion Feeder. Put all the Aether Flash triggers on the stack then Karmic guides goes on top because Flash player is not active, get Hulk back sac him and get Kikki Jikki and Benevolent Bodyguard, once again put the Aether Flash triggers on the stack then copy Karmic guide to infinite with the standard combo, carrion feeder gets large off Kikki Jikki and the Guide Tokens. End by not saccing Kikki Jikki and getting Hulk back, then give Kikki Jikki pro red with the Aether Flash Trigger still on the stack you now have a Protean Hulk Generator (Kikki Jikki), an arbitrarily large Feeder and Hulk. That should be sufficient to win assuming no ensnaring bridge, but those stay on the board and Kikki can be used to feed a Smokestack at 1 by copying Hulk at end of opponents turn or your upkeep.

yespuhyren
05-15-2007, 11:13 AM
I was just wondering why you are still playing Green in the deck? Is sylvan library strong enough to merit playing green and taigas? The original reason I was playing green when I came up with this deck was because I discovered the Sylvan Library/Uba Mask combo, but now that you have cut Uba Mask is there even a point? I would think Mono Red could be stronger on the mana base for you, considering there is no use to green really. You could just use other cards instead.

emidln
05-15-2007, 05:19 PM
I was just wondering why you are still playing Green in the deck? Is sylvan library strong enough to merit playing green and taigas? The original reason I was playing green when I came up with this deck was because I discovered the Sylvan Library/Uba Mask combo, but now that you have cut Uba Mask is there even a point? I would think Mono Red could be stronger on the mana base for you, considering there is no use to green really. You could just use other cards instead.

Sylvan Library is strong enough on its own for much the same reason that Bazaar functions by itself in Mono Red Uba-less stax in Vintage. Stax needs a method of card selection and filtering. Sylvan Library does a lot of things for the build:

- card selection enables the hiding of key spells against discard/hate (Rolling Earthquake or extra Crucibles against Deadguy for example)
- card selection enables ensnaring bridge by letting you select spells or lands as needed
- sylvan library first turn provides an extra 5 cards to work with in the early turns that affords the deck some of the truely busted openings

As far as a stronger manabase, with 3 Basics, 2 Fetches, and 4 Taigas, I haven't had any manabase issues so I don't really see a reason to change from this perspective. The only thing that seems to be an advantage would be going up to 4x Barbarian Ring.

It seems that if you were to cut green, it would look something like this:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Barbarian Ring
4 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills

4 Smokestack
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Aether Flash
4 Rolling Earthquake
2 Slots (probably Pyroclasm or Wildfire)

Gui
05-17-2007, 02:28 PM
Just been wondering about this:
Could Ubastax run a RU version of it, using thirst for knowledge and compulsive research as draw engines, and maybe some other busted blue cards, sticking to the R as kill-condition/aggro-hate... what do you think?

Espenhein
10-02-2007, 10:13 AM
What is the current decklist of Suntower?

I think it can be a pretty strong meta call, now when Threshold is raising in popularity.

DragoFireheart
10-02-2007, 10:36 AM
How in the world does this deck handle Ichorid? Ichorid doesn't play too many spells that this deck can disrupt...

emidln
10-02-2007, 10:45 AM
How in the world does this deck handle Ichorid? Ichorid doesn't play too many spells that this deck can disrupt...

There are actually several ways if you understand how Ichorid functions. Off the top of my head, the interaction between Mishra's Factory and Wasteland allows you to remove Bridge from Belows from Ichorid's graveyard, Aether Flash prevent Ichorid from functioning, Ensnaring Bridge is easily maintainable at 1-2 to prevent attacking with hasty zombies, and Trinisphere stops Ichorid from getting rid of any of their creatures (to make tokens) outside of Ichorids (slowing down the ichorid deck allows more time for Ensnaring Bridge to come online). Additionally, Chalice @ 0 stops LED, while Chalice @ 1 stops most of the draw spells ichorid uses forcing the deck to rely on the attack step. If you stop the initial rush, recurring Mishra's Factory/Wastelands provide, in conjunction with Trinisphere, an easy way to nullify the recurring Ichorids and keep them from ever playing spells. You even have Rolling Earthquake to sweep up Zombies if necessary to stall.

In short, if you don't suck as a player, Ichorid isn't very hard.

My decklist changes frequently. I haven't decided if I want to maindeck Life from the Loams (1-2) with Words of Wilding or use maindeck Aether Flash with Words of War yet. It's mostly a meta call that appears to be Loams + Wilding right now with 4 Flash in the board.

Belgareth
10-02-2007, 11:30 AM
What is the current decklist of Suntower?

I think it can be a pretty strong meta call, now when Threshold is raising in popularity.

I'm sure many others (aswell as myself) Would love to see a recent list , or if you have time an updated primer :).
I have always been a fan of prison decks and this one actually performs well.

Espenhein
10-02-2007, 11:48 AM
Yes a decklist would be great..

Maybe even both decklist, then I can see what works best in my meta

Cait_Sith
10-02-2007, 12:50 PM
It's mostly a meta call that appears to be Loams + Wilding right now with 4 Flash in the board.

I know in the North East Ichorid and Breakfast are fairly popular, along with some Survival, so an active AEther Flash can devastate their decks.

Also: Losing Sylvan Library can be ridiculously painful as Stax quickly gets stuck in topdeck mode. Without any way to escape it you can just randomly lose the game. The first time Library comes down it can dig quite and deep and, if you have extra life (HAHAHAHAHAHA) get deeper faster.

Also, it has amazing synergy with Uba Mask. Amazing.

emidln
10-02-2007, 12:58 PM
I know in the North East Ichorid and Breakfast are fairly popular, along with some Survival, so an active AEther Flash can devastate their decks.

In the northeast, it might be worth playing Aether Flash main again then. I don't play there so I don't really analyze their results a whole lot.

Btw, Library is always in the deck. Words of Wilding and Words of War are not. Their counts, as well as the number of Aether Flashes maindeck, are tweaked according to metagame expectations.


Also, it has amazing synergy with Uba Mask. Amazing.

I know. :wink: I'm pretty sure that I started people using that combo in Legacy. We cut it because it didn't do enough in the current metagame. Both red Words and green Words simply outperform it.


As for a decklist, I'd probably keep playing AT1 in a breakfast/ichorid metagame, perhaps with a slight manabase tweak. For a general Loam/Thresh meta, I'd likely play something like this:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Taiga
2 Stomping Ground
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam
4 Sylvan Library
2 Words of Wilding
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Rolling Earthquake
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Razormane Masticore
SB: 4 Aether Flash
SB: 3 Boil

with the 4th Library, 4th Wasteland, 3rd Words, and 2nd Loam being interchangeable.

Edit: I guess people are going to be too lazy to look up AT1, so here you go:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Taiga
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Rolling Earthquake
4 Aether Flash
3 Sylvan Library

SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Boil
SB: 4 Razormane Masticore
SB: 2 Words of Wilding
SB: 1 Life from the Loam

Cait_Sith
10-02-2007, 01:07 PM
In a Thresh meta I would really go for some Ghost Quarter action. It does weaken their colors and some decks don't even run enough basics to support one hit.

Silverdragon
10-02-2007, 01:53 PM
In a Thresh meta I would really go for some Ghost Quarter action. It does weaken their colors and some decks don't even run enough basics to support one hit.

The decks not running enough basics to support one hit generally have a lot of problems with Wasteland alone because that means they play at most 1 land you can't hit with Wasteland.

from Cairo
10-02-2007, 06:04 PM
In a Thresh meta I would really go for some Ghost Quarter action. It does weaken their colors and some decks don't even run enough basics to support one hit.

If the Thresh build runs a forest and an island, Ghost Quarter just seems awful. I have no experience with or against this deck, but have had that card played against me on Thresh, and as far as I can tell reads as Wasteland + let the the Thresh player fetch an untapped land to replace the one in play. It seems like the worst tempo move on the face of the planet.

Ghost Quarter targeting Thresh's Tropical Island, in response they Brainstorm, put two bad cards back and get a free shuffle and free untapped Island... just seems soooo bad. Even if they don't sploit it with casting something or floating the mana, if they have a basic in the deck, it's trading a land drop for cutting off a color at best, given they play Daze intentionally falling behind on land drops and trying to cast mid range CC spells seems like a really poor move.

I guess I could be missing something, but this card seems horrible.

cheddercaveman
10-03-2007, 09:03 AM
The thing with ghost quarter is that most threshold decks only run like 1-3 basics (at most). So lets look at the situation where you have crucible in play, you ghost quarter his trop. He gets an Island, which you ghost quarter. Then chances are good that there arent others in the deck. It compliments wasteland is what it does, and color screws them because chances are they arent playing a forest. Just for an example, I watched a threshold player lose to a 42land type deck at a recent legacy event because of wasteland and ghost quarter completely taking out his lands.

edgewalker
10-03-2007, 10:36 AM
The thing with ghost quarter is that most threshold decks only run like 1-3 basics (at most). So lets look at the situation where you have crucible in play, you ghost quarter his trop. He gets an Island, which you ghost quarter. Then chances are good that there arent others in the deck. It compliments wasteland is what it does, and color screws them because chances are they arent playing a forest. Just for an example, I watched a threshold player lose to a 42land type deck at a recent legacy event because of wasteland and ghost quarter completely taking out his lands.

Except it doesn't compliment wasteland because wasteland only kills non-basics. Ghost Quarter brings basics out into play. I would play one or the other but not both. Actually I would only play wasteland since it kills non-basics and doesn't replace them with more land

thedarkness
11-07-2007, 11:01 PM
I dunno, this is one of my favorite decks, but it seems to me that Words of War is much better than Words of Wilding. It's like multiple Barbarian Rings every turn, with the added bonus of wiping a board of creatures when staring down lethal damage and knowing your opponent has, say, Seeds of Innocence.

I was just testing a list on page 3, and I love the way it performs. The only problem I had was that I was testing vs mono green Stompy, and failing the turn 1 chalice on one game 1, I ended up losing the match to random Seeds of Innocence then sacrifice double Seal of Strength and slaughtering me with a Berserk. The deck has no answer to that, besides a chalice on 3, which is a bad idea for obvious reasons.

After maybe 2 hours of testing, cut short because of something that will likely turn out to be an arbitrary cutoff point (bedtimes is in five minutes, but I'm having AWFUL coughing fits), I have come up with this list. Most of the testing was done for me, so all I really had to do was read this thread and fiddle around a bit.

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
2 Stomping Ground
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Taiga
1 Barbarian Ring

Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
4 Rolling Earthquake
2 Words of War
4 Sylvan Library
4 Ensnaring Bridge

Sideboard
SB: 4 Jester's Cap
SB: 4 Goblin Welder
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 3 Boil

The non-obvious card choices are as follows:

Words of War - better than Words of Wilding in my humble opinion, simply for the fact that it gets in for two EVERY TURN, even if you don't have a Library, and even if you DO have an Ensnaring Bridge. More damage is always a plus, too, if you have the Library or LibrarieS and open mana. This is rarely an issue.

The sideboard called for Jester's Cap and Welders to my eyes. I don't think I'll be boarding in either one alone any time soon, but that's not why they are in. I'd be dropping the Bridges or stax or chalices, depending on the specific matchup, to board in both. This deals effectively with storm of virtually any type, enchantress if I see it, blah blah blah you've heard the logic before.

Anyway, that's my take on the deck, and I'd appreciate any criticism and maybe an updated list? :wink:

Edit: holy crap on a stick, I could SWEAR I'd posted here before. o.o *wanders off to the Introduce Yourself thread*

Silverdragon
11-08-2007, 01:16 AM
Nice to see this thread get bumped again. I think Sun Tower is a good choice in the current metagame.
So I have one question concerning the Boil slot. Generally Boil is played against blue-based controldecks (aka Landstill) and occasionally slower Thresh or Fish builds. Could Decree of Annihilation be a valid replacement for Boil or is it to slow? Is the drawback of killing your own lands a problem?
I think being able to hit manlands without breaking Standstill should not be underestimated (and don't forget that it can only be countered by Stifle). Being able to hit non-blue duals, basics and other utility lands is extremely valuable against other controldecks for example all the different Loam variants (maybe even Enchantress).
What do you think? Is hitting 7 mana too much to ask for?
With Sylvan Library and a Words enchantment or Aether Flash out I could even see myself casting it the hard way to wipe the board (and hands and graves).

emidln
11-08-2007, 02:39 AM
I would much sooner cut Boil than Pithing Needle. Pithing Needle is actually mandatory. There are so many applications. Fetchlands, deeds, tops, cycling lands (think loam decks playing tranquil thicket), manlands, etc, etc, etc. I played Cap during the Flash era and I liked it, it's good anti-hate.

If you like red words better, it's a decent choice. I use WoW + Smokestack a whole hell of a lot though. Unless something forces me to maindeck Aether Flash again, I can't see giving up the free wins WoW causes in so many scenarios.

You could probably play Decree. Against the decks you'd play decree against, you could afford the mana and land requirement. The question is would it be better than Demonfire? The sideboard is fairly open as to what you actually play. I'm pretty partial to Razorcore right now since Tarmogoyf is all the rage. Razorcore + Welder is pretty potent.

bigredmeanie
11-08-2007, 02:37 PM
The deck needs more main deck win conditions. I've just been wondering if there was a creature, or more win conditions that could be put main.

Is white stronger than red? It allowes us to run Geddon, Flagstones of Trokair, and potentially Exalted Angel or Magus of the Tabernacle.

Anyway, the deck doesn't win fast enough, and if for some reason you don't draw a Smokestack, you can get very behind very quickly.

emidln
11-08-2007, 05:27 PM
The deck needs more main deck win conditions. I've just been wondering if there was a creature, or more win conditions that could be put main.

Anyway, the deck doesn't win fast enough, and if for some reason you don't draw a Smokestack, you can get very behind very quickly.

I would chalk that up to poor decision making because I always finish on time in rounds. I've never wanted more win conditions. After testing, many people seem to agree with me.


Is white stronger than red? It allowes us to run Geddon, Flagstones of Trokair, and potentially Exalted Angel or Magus of the Tabernacle.

No. I've explained why in the past. Use search and look for "emidln" in Stax threads.

s0beit
11-14-2007, 07:11 PM
However should I board in against Threshold, especially UGR Threshold? They will board in EE and Krosan Grip. Razormane Masticore must be board in, then what's the others? Pithing Needle and Goblin Welder are quite diffcult to play because of Chalice@1, even Goblin Welder is in play, it'll soon be the target of burns. And what should be out? It seems only Rolling Earthquake is less useful against Threshold.

bigredmeanie
11-20-2007, 05:42 PM
However should I board in against Threshold, especially UGR Threshold? They will board in EE and Krosan Grip. Razormane Masticore must be board in, then what's the others? Pithing Needle and Goblin Welder are quite diffcult to play because of Chalice@1, even Goblin Welder is in play, it'll soon be the target of burns. And what should be out? It seems only Rolling Earthquake is less useful against Threshold.

I would also like some of these answered.

A few things:
Is Earthquake the best solution to creatures? I found that combined with Ancient Tomb the damage from these adds up very quickly and can often leave us in a delicate situation if we don't have a lock in place by the time were at 6 life or so.

Is the deck finished? Unless something new comes out that is better than the 6 core cards I don't see this deck every being very different than it is now.

emidln
01-04-2008, 02:30 PM
I've recently been working on a new addition to Sun Tower. This change involves major manabase restructuring, but allows for the most busted build of Legacy Prison I've played since Flame Vault Stasis Stax. The change? Intuition/Academy Ruins

I know, that's been suggest before right? Wrong. I was as surprised as anyone and searched all of my threads for the card. Nothing came up. Nobody ever said, "hey emidln, why don't you play Intuition?" Gifts was recommended, tested, and discarded, and rightly so with its inability to directly tutor for things. Intuition's flexibility allows us to find the remaining stax lock, setup EE recursion, go for the throat with Library/Words, or simply find an Ensnaring Bridge when we need it.

I'm still working out manabase kinks, but this is where I am so far

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
8 G/U/R Sources
3 Wasteland
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Sylvan Library
3 Words of Wilding

The sideboard would likely contain some number of these:

Tormod's Crypt
Goblin Welder
Pithing Needle
Damping Matrix
Rolling Earthquake
Engineered Explosives

experimental:
Uba Mask (depends on playing Welder)
Aether Flash
Boil (depends on the manabase)

The question still remains if red is worth staying in. A UG manabase would be a lot easier, but the raw power afforded by Goblin Welder (especially in conjunction with Intuition) and Rolling Earthquake is tempting. Uba Mask in the board would provide a 2 card combo kill when boarded in (the two card combo being Welder and Intuition) as well as augmenting Sylvan Library's power and weakening reactive control decks.

Edit: I'm playing Green Words and not Red Words

Fred Bear
01-04-2008, 05:33 PM
I fully understand that Intuition is a powerful card and have often thought about how to best abuse it in a Stax shell. (I'm assuming that the 3 cards missing from the list are the Intuitions). But I have a couple of questions related to it based on what I've seen in my testing...

1) Is Intuition better than any other option for Stax in difficult matches? i.e. is Intuition better than another lock/control piece (Armageddon/Magus)? is Intuition better than other draw (Thirst/FoF)? is Intuition better than another tutor (Gifts)?

I don't mean to answer my own question, but like I said, I've played around with using Intuition in my own builds and it's come up short except in a couple of situations. One of those situations is vs Pernicious Deed. Having a non-permanent way to bounce back after a Deed (or Disk) is very powerful. The downside to that is that most of the decks running Deed have ways to either remove cards from your hand (Black) or counter the spells you cast (Landstill) making it no more powerful (and in some cases downright awful - cast it for 3 of something and then have that card countered creating a 4 for 1) than any other option for Stax.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found Intuition's power in Stax exponentially related to Academy Ruins already being in play?

What I mean by this is that unless you draw into a Ruins naturally, the first Intuition is either a waste or 'just an Intuition'. I'll comment on the 'just an Intuition' case first since it's basically the same question as (1). You search for 3 cards, keep 1 and without Ruins, you play the 1 you got losing the other two and an Intuition, ie. no recursion. In the case where I've termed the first Intuition as a waste (I'm probably overstating), you must cast Intuition to set up the recursive engine. This is probably more than obvious to the Legacy veterans of this site, but if you don't have the Ruins you can get a first Intuition pile of some combination of Crucible/Loam/Ruins. I have 2 major problems with this - a) you essentially waste an Intuition (with only 3 in the deck, you will only see 1 per 20 cards or one in the first 13 turns unless/until you find and play a Library) setting up a non-game winning (or locking) combo and b) setting up the recursive engine becomes very mana/turn intensive.

Here's an example to illustrate what I mean...

You have 3 mana in play of some combination including Blue and Green (say a Diamond/Trop/Factory) on turn 2 (let's say you landed a Chalice at 1 on turn 1, a solid first turn play). You don't play anything on your turn and pass. On the opponent's end step, you cast Intuition for Loam/Crucible/Ruins. Your Opponent gives you Loam (which is what I think would be correct since it forces you to waste time and turns to set up the engine) and sends Crucible and Ruins to the yard. On your turn, you cast Loam and return Ruins (+ the land discarded to the Mox) to your hand and then play out the Ruins. You have limited options for what else to do on your turn (Chalice, Library, or activate Factory or Ruins is what I see upon a quick glance) and then pass. Your total cost = 2 turns (1 waiting to cast Intuition, 1 casting Loam), 3 cards (Intuition, Loam, Crucible) in return for 2 lands and the potential to trade a draw for Crucible. That seems like quite a bit to a deck like Stax.

Yes, you have a Chalice at 1 and the potential to recur threats, but when you untap on turn 4 to play your second permanent with Stax, you're playing fair :wink: Why play Stax?

3) What bad-to-poor match-up does Intuition help Stax against?

This is asking a lot, but again, I've put Intuition through it's paces in a couple of my own idea decks and it just hasn't performed as well as I wanted it to. I understand that it can help a lot in some match-ups because it can go and get specific answers to specific problems, but Stax is already strong because in many match-ups inevitability is on your side.

I really like the idea of Intuition in a Stax shell, I just have found it 'cooler' than it is 'effective'.

Fred Bear...

emidln
01-04-2008, 07:17 PM
1) Is Intuition better than any other option for Stax in difficult matches? i.e. is Intuition better than another lock/control piece (Armageddon/Magus)? is Intuition better than other draw (Thirst/FoF)? is Intuition better than another tutor (Gifts)?

I've found it better than Gifts primarily due to being able to directly tutor (get three copies of the same card). This lets me immediately go aggro through Sylvan Library + Words of Wilding in otherwise awkward situations. Additionally, it guarantees that I have Ensnaring Bridge when I need it. Thirst, Gifts, and FoF can't do that.


2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found Intuition's power in Stax exponentially related to Academy Ruins already being in play?

Not at all. While it is true that casting Intuition the first time will generally lead to an Academy Ruins in play, this isn't always the case. The most common situation is already having a Loam/Crucible and Intuitioning for the remainder of the Stax lock. This means I go get Academy Ruins, Trinisphere, Smokestack. The ability to tie up these loose ends in a timely manner is crucial in certain matchups (for example, Rifter, which is historically awful since you have no way to guarantee you get a Smokestack before they hit 6 mana for Vengeance).


What I mean by this is that unless you draw into a Ruins naturally, the first Intuition is either a waste or 'just an Intuition'. I'll comment on the 'just an Intuition' case first since it's basically the same question as (1). You search for 3 cards, keep 1 and without Ruins, you play the 1 you got losing the other two and an Intuition, ie. no recursion. In the case where I've termed the first Intuition as a waste (I'm probably overstating), you must cast Intuition to set up the recursive engine. This is probably more than obvious to the Legacy veterans of this site, but if you don't have the Ruins you can get a first Intuition pile of some combination of Crucible/Loam/Ruins. I have 2 major problems with this - a) you essentially waste an Intuition (with only 3 in the deck, you will only see 1 per 20 cards or one in the first 13 turns unless/until you find and play a Library) setting up a non-game winning (or locking) combo and b) setting up the recursive engine becomes very mana/turn intensive.

Actually, Intuition for Academy Ruins/Life from the Loam/"Random Card that is not Crucible" is one of the strongest plays the deck has. This is true for a couple reasons, but most important is that Life from the Loam mills three cards per turn making Academy Ruins better. This turns your draw step into a guaranteed ancestral recall, much like Loam works in 43land or Aggro Loam w/Volrath's Stronghold.


Here's an example to illustrate what I mean...

You have 3 mana in play of some combination including Blue and Green (say a Diamond/Trop/Factory) on turn 2 (let's say you landed a Chalice at 1 on turn 1, a solid first turn play). You don't play anything on your turn and pass. On the opponent's end step, you cast Intuition for Loam/Crucible/Ruins. Your Opponent gives you Loam (which is what I think would be correct since it forces you to waste time and turns to set up the engine) and sends Crucible and Ruins to the yard. On your turn, you cast Loam and return Ruins (+ the land discarded to the Mox) to your hand and then play out the Ruins. You have limited options for what else to do on your turn (Chalice, Library, or activate Factory or Ruins is what I see upon a quick glance) and then pass. Your total cost = 2 turns (1 waiting to cast Intuition, 1 casting Loam), 3 cards (Intuition, Loam, Crucible) in return for 2 lands and the potential to trade a draw for Crucible. That seems like quite a bit to a deck like Stax.

The question here is why are you getting Crucible? I would almost aways get some sort of spell to put pressure on my opponent, be it Wasteland, Smokestack, or Ensnaring Bridge. Why do you need two land recursion pieces? Even if you dredge up Chalice and recur it to play it at 2 (very common), you still get what you want which is dredging three cards per turn. You'll see a Crucible fairly quickly between dredging and possibly a Sylvan Library.


3) What bad-to-poor match-up does Intuition help Stax against?

This is asking a lot, but again, I've put Intuition through it's paces in a couple of my own idea decks and it just hasn't performed as well as I wanted it to. I understand that it can help a lot in some match-ups because it can go and get specific answers to specific problems, but Stax is already strong because in many match-ups inevitability is on your side.

I really like the idea of Intuition in a Stax shell, I just have found it 'cooler' than it is 'effective'.

Fred Bear...

Intuition is amazing against decks that lose to a single card and against decks that can't stop graveyard recursion. Against decks that lose to a single card, you find that card. Against decks that can't stop graveyard recursion, you usually get Ruins/LFTL/card_you_want and then start dredging.

Examples are Akroma's Vengeance decks (UW Landstill, MWC, and Rifter), Pernicious Deed decks (you get Academy Ruins/LFTL/Pithing Needle postboard, although Ruins/LFTL probably win it on their own), and people that board out creature removal (given the obscurity of Sun Tower, this isn't necessarily a bad call on their part, you get 3x Welder).

I think something else you're going for is playing Intuition too early. I play Intuition when I run out of other things to do so I can tutor for bricks to fill the holes in my wall. Running out Intuition turn 2-3 is almost always going to be because I'm finding Words/Library, food for Welder, or I'm really desperate. None of those situations are necessarily common, although the Words/Library direct tutor would be the most common.

What I haven't talked about is how insane Intuition and Life from the Loam are with Goblin Welder. The reason to keep red is that active Goblin Welder in this version of Sun Tower is more dangerous than ever before. Intuition can setup infinite welds for stuff like Uba Mask, Tormod's Crypt, or Smokestacks, as well as just finding 3 lock pieces and playing two of them for free. While at first I thought these interactions were win more at best, in testing they quickly became "just win" as I found myself resolving turn 1 welder into a turn 2-3 intuition that became GG almost immediately.

Belgareth
01-05-2008, 07:56 AM
Intuition and acadamy ruins were suggested long ago, just not in Suntower, however by adding them the list becomes practically the same as Di's Eternal Garden.
Is it possible these 2 decks can find a common ground and work towards a better deck.
Certainly they share 75-80% of their component parts.

94teen
01-16-2008, 09:53 PM
I've actually been testing something that tries to hybridize the two recently. I dropped most of the artifact lock component's that Eternal Garden plays and replaced them with Ensnaring Bridges, added a few Words of Wilding, and replaced Sensei's Divining Tops with Sylvan Libraries.

It's actually been working out really, really well. Ensnaring Bridge is really good against any kind of deck that wants to win by attacking, especially since stax decks tend to empty their hands rather quickly.

georgjorge
04-20-2008, 05:40 PM
Regarding the earlier builds without red: I've been testing them a bit, and run into problems from a) having too little life to use Earthquake b) having too many cards in hand to keep my opponent from attacking with Bridge. I'm currently testing a card which seems to fit nicely in the deck since it a) kills small creatures b) destroys lands c) empties your hand:

Devastating Dreams.

Either the damage or the land loss is gonna hurt your opponent, and you should recover faster with the help of Crucible, Library, and just more mana on the board. Also, nice synergy with Sylvan Library (load up on cards for Dreams) and Mox Diamond (if you Dreams for more than you have lands out), if not with Uba Mask.

JazzMasterZero
04-21-2008, 01:04 AM
Now Ensnaring Bridge can be used with Botteled Cloiser - really good combo

Sanguine Voyeur
04-21-2008, 08:00 AM
Now Ensnaring Bridge can be used with Botteled Cloiser - really good comboThose could be used together for a while, but typically weren't. Uba Mask forces them to top deck, which is powerful combined with mana denial, and allows you to maintain a relevant hand size for Bridge. Cloister allows your opponent to hold on to things and opens you up to untimely card advantage.

emidln
04-21-2008, 02:13 PM
Although I don't play this deck anymore, the cards you want are Words of Wilding and Words of War. Right now, Words of Wilding is the best complement to Sylvan Library as far as Ensnaring Bridge enablers go. Wilding has numerous synergies with the deck, and should be played as a 2-3 (3 if you play on playing Intuition in a UG build). If you stay RG or WG, I would highly recommend switching from Trinisphere to Sphere of Resistance with sideboard Thorn of Amethysts in this metagame. In a UG build, Tarmogoyf has been really strong as a sideboard solution to help stop the aggro onslaught (given that you lack Rolling Earthquake).

Bottled Cloister is junk. Devastating Dreams is a worse topdeck than Rolling Earthquake, which can at least be used to draw the game in unwinnable scenarios.

Belgareth
04-21-2008, 02:17 PM
Although I don't play this deck

Can I ask if this was just a meta decision , or wether you no longer have faith in the deck ?
While your passion for storm has become more and more aparent , I'm suprised to see you abandon Suntower.

emidln
04-21-2008, 05:44 PM
Can I ask if this was just a meta decision , or wether you no longer have faith in the deck ?
While your passion for storm has become more and more aparent , I'm suprised to see you abandon Suntower.

This is part metagame decision, part designer decision. I've felt for a very long time that storm combo was the best deck in the format. I continued to play Tower because it could prey on the overwhelming amount of poor deckbuilding that has become the hallmark of Legacy. As designers become better and new designers enter the format, the advantages of Tower have faded. With the advent of things like EE in Landstill, Serenity in Storm combo, the decline of Goblins, and Trygon Predator in UG aggro-control, previously amazing matchups have fallen through for the red builds. I worked for awhile to fix this with a Gu build, but the best that this does is become a bad loam deck. It's highly effective at what it does, but many of the best tools for fighting control (specifically Boil and Welder) become largely unavailable to you which counteracts the relative strength of Intuition, LFTL, and Academy Ruins. The deck gains considerable speed which makes it playable to tournament wins (and probably tier 2-ish overall), but it lacks the sheer unfair plays that Fetchland Tendrils has. More though, it's not flexible. The lock pieces are general, the VCA (virtual card advantage) is stellar, but deck designs have evolved so much that answering the roughly 10 different archetypes that are easily capable of seeing the top8 tables is impossible. In the end, I stopped developing the deck for something that I feel has more potential, something that can truly be the best deck.

Vetinari
05-08-2008, 08:41 AM
Reading the Geddon Stax thread gave me an idea, namely Propaganda. In testing it turned out it is acts as 80% Ensnaring Bridge and 80% AEther Flash in one. An excellent compromise. With it I believe we can finally eschew red altogether.

Here is the list I was running:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
1 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mox Diamond

3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam

4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack

4 Propaganda
1 Engineered Explosives

3 Intuition
4 Sylvan Library

3 Words of Wilding

The other controversial change is cutting a Factory. I did it mainly for 2 reasons:

1) I wanted a more stable mana-base. Adding Propaganda means I need both U and G relatively soon.

2) With the onset of Tarmagoyf the Factory has become a much less efficient blocker in early game as it is often reduced to chump blocking. Recurring it in such a scenario is actually quite bad as it just puts you further behind (somewhat akin to Tangle Wire).

Coliseum has been awesome. It allows you to dig for answers improving consistency; stocks your graveyard, making LftL and AR tutor-like; clears the top of your library from crap accumulated through SL usage; works wonders with WoW and is a blue source. Even people sticking with red should try it.

Two cards I am not sure about are:

1) EE. Slow and unwieldy. Becomes good only in late game when it can be recurred with AR and used almost as pin-point removal. Basically I would always rather lock the game than mess about with blowing stuff up. It's value is further reduced by introduction of Propaganda since we don't need it to fight tokens anymore (which as a one-of was a stretch to begin with).

2) City Traitors as a 4-of. 2 problems:

a) you never want to draw the second one as it is only good as Mox or Coliseum fodder.

b) while it allows for more explosive first turns, it slows you down on consequent turns partially negating the benefits. Granted, in the past this was not such a problem but with the meta speeding up and decks becoming more and more resilient, we really need to critically asses every aspect of the deck, especially pertaining the early game.

Obviously this question can fully be answered only in the context of alternatives. Some ideas:

- AEther Spellbomb
- Maze of Ith
- The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
- Pithing Needle
- Pendrell Mists
- Seal of Cleansing
- more coloured sources
- Silent Arbiter
- Cursed Scroll
- Zuran Orb

Zuran Orb may seem like jank, but I often find myself wishing for a bit more life. Even without the Enemy, repeated usage of Tomb and fetch-lands adds up.

emidln
05-08-2008, 09:10 AM
Reading the Geddon Stax thread gave me an idea, namely Propaganda. In testing it turned out it is acts as 80% Ensnaring Bridge and 80% AEther Flash in one. An excellent compromise. With it I believe we can finally eschew red altogether.

2) With the onset of Tarmagoyf the Factory has become a much less efficient blocker in early game as it is often reduced to chump blocking. Recurring it in such a scenario is actually quite bad as it just puts you further behind (somewhat akin to Tangle Wire).

This is completely wrong. See below.



- AEther Spellbomb

Tested. It was bad, but there was no need for it. I played it as a 1-of for awhile before cutting it for more Intuitions.


- Maze of Ith

Tested. It wasn't as good as Intuition, the card that it was cut for. With Intuition, I'd rather tutor for Ensnaring Bridges. In a really Breakfast-heavy metagame, I could see it in the sideboard.


- The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Tested. It was a good Intuition target in the board.


- Pendrell Mists

Tested. Worse than Tabernacle.


- Seal of Cleansing

Tested. Fucking terrible because it costs white mana. Seal of Primordium isn't awful, but you'd rather play KGrip since against decks where you need a disenchant effect, it's critical that it can't be responded to (and I'm talking about Aluren and Landstill).


- more coloured sources

I usually play Breeding Pools, 2 fetches, and only basic forests. I have no idea why you would go away from such a manabase. Seems quite terrible.


- Pithing Needle

I've played this as a 4-of for the longest time. I think I even wrote about this card in the Sun Tower primer like a year and a half ago. It's seriously tits. You should play 5 and just not get caught. It's probably worth it because it's that good.


- Zuran Orb

I could see this not being terrible, but it doesn't seem to be good either. Life gain isn't always bad, but it seems like if you wanted life gain, there would be a better way to do it than Zuran Orb. I've never really wanted lifegain except against Burn, and against Burn, nuking your own permanents is never a winning situation.

Propaganda is fucking terrible compared to Ensnaring Bridge in Sun Tower. It does nothing even remotely comparable to Aether Flash. Sun Tower isn't an LD deck. Don't play that trash. Come on people, think before you post.

As far as CoT not being a 4-of, we play 4 ways to recycle lands that turn double CoT into 4 colorless a turn when necessary. Combined with the fact that you need it in the early game to even have a chance of stalling into mid game, and that the alternate is Crystal Vein, you will quickly realize it's never under consideration for cutting.

Factory is amazing as a 4-of because blocking goyf every turn isn't a no-win situation. This buys you time to find Ensnaring Bridge, which disable goyf completely.

Edit: As an explanation, you play zero mass LD. None. Your only ways of killing lands are Smokestacks, Wastelands, and bad players. This means that your opponents pay 2 mana and attack with Goyf all day long putting you in an event worse position since you cut a factory. Propaganda only stops stalls against Goblins for a turn or two (where they start spending 4-6 mana and attacking with dubs piledriver and maybe a friend). Now, Aether Flash is better than Propaganda in almost every way. The reason is that Aether Flash actually removes the threats that might potentially get under an Ensnaring Bridge until it is fully active. This is important to understand because Aether Flash was designed to work with Bridge in matchups where Bridge alone was ineffective (Goblins). With a Propaganda out, you are largely in the same situation as a Bridge, except that instead of waiting for an enemy to blow up the Bridge, they get to attack you for a little while they are searching for the kgrip to nuke Bridge. So instead of replacing the functionality of both, you've cut one and lessened the functionality of the other. That is the definition of 'fucking terrible'.

Vetinari
05-08-2008, 09:28 AM
Not that it makes much difference, but Seal of Cleansing should be Seal of Primordium (I might have crappy ideas, but not that crappy ;)).

To elaborate a bit further. I was testing against Goblins, Thresh and Ichorid. In both cases it wasn't nearly as bad as you make it seem. Lack of mass LD is somewhat offset by the fact that the effect stacks. In both cases it amounts to a race with you looking to seal the deal and them trying to get out. In case of Thresh they have to decide between messing about with cantrips/Top or attacking. I think this is one of the cases where your opponent having more options works to your advantage.

emidln
05-08-2008, 09:35 AM
Not that it makes much difference, but Seal of Cleansing should be Seal of Primordium (I might have crappy ideas, but not that crappy ;)).

To elaborate a bit further. I was testing against Goblins, Thresh and Ichorid. In both cases it wasn't nearly as bad as you make it seem. Lack of mass LD is somewhat offset by the fact that the effect stacks. In both cases it amounts to a race with you looking to seal the deal and them trying to get out. In case of Thresh they have to decide between messing about with cantrips/Top or attacking. I think this is one of the cases where your opponent having more options works to your advantage.

So you're going to rely on your opponents to be terrible? That seems like a suboptimal strategy.

If you're playing against only Goblins, Thresh, and Ichorid, you should be playing RG anyway. Aether Flash is a house against Goblins and Ichorid.

phil
04-11-2010, 08:38 PM
hi, i would like to build this deck and i have a question. do you think botled cloister would find place in the deak? ithink it is a good card but will it realy improve? if you could share your opinions whith me i would be grate

Afro
04-11-2010, 08:46 PM
Holy Necro Batman! 2 years!

nodahero
04-11-2010, 10:19 PM
Read the thread... This page alone talks about Cloister....

sdematt
04-11-2010, 11:05 PM
Rise! Riiiiise! Feast upon the flash of the living! Good god, what a necro.

I'm pretty sure this deck has fallen out of favour due to some tricks not being allowed with Uba Mask anymore.

-Matt

Anusien
04-11-2010, 11:19 PM
No, Uba Mask works just fine. It fell out of favor due to never being that good, and emidln not pushing it.

rsaunder
04-11-2010, 11:55 PM
No, Uba Mask works just fine. It fell out of favor due to never being that good, and emidln not pushing it.

It WAS good... best legacy stax build without flame vault, but it still suffered from all the same problems.

/still nice necro imo

Forbiddian
04-12-2010, 12:15 AM
It's funny how much Emidln's attitude toward the people posting in the thread changes as they ask the same stupid questions over and over.

Really reminds me of me and the UW Tempo thread.


First I was all:

I've prepared a bit of a primer, which I plan on adding to in this thread, to help get people started. I want to do this thread right, so if you have any questions, or want additional information, please ask.


Then after a while I was all:

This is completely wrong. See below.

...

Tested. It was bad, but there was no need for it. I played it as a 1-of for awhile before cutting it for more Intuitions.

...

Tested. It wasn't as good as Intuition, the card that it was cut for. With Intuition, I'd rather tutor for Ensnaring Bridges. In a really Breakfast-heavy metagame, I could see it in the sideboard.

...

Tested. It was a good Intuition target in the board.

...

Tested. Worse than Tabernacle.

...

Tested. Fucking terrible because it costs white mana. Seal of Primordium isn't awful, but you'd rather play KGrip since against decks where you need a disenchant effect, it's critical that it can't be responded to (and I'm talking about Aluren and Landstill).

...

I usually play Breeding Pools, 2 fetches, and only basic forests. I have no idea why you would go away from such a manabase. Seems quite terrible.

...

I've played this as a 4-of for the longest time. I think I even wrote about this card in the Sun Tower primer like a year and a half ago. It's seriously tits. You should play 5 and just not get caught. It's probably worth it because it's that good.

Phoenix Ignition
04-12-2010, 01:47 AM
It's funny how much Emidln's attitude toward the people posting in the thread changes as they ask the same stupid questions over and over.

Really reminds me of me and the UW Tempo thread.


First I was all:



Then after a while I was all:

Is there a single thread that you or Pi4 post in that doesn't have something to do with UW Tempo? Is this some sort of joke that you two have planned to see who catches on first?

DukeDemonKn1ght
04-12-2010, 02:23 AM
Is there a single thread that you or Pi4 post in that doesn't have something to do with UW Tempo? Is this some sort of joke that you two have planned to see who catches on first?

Other people have also definitely caught on, my good sir.

Whit3 Ghost
04-12-2010, 07:50 AM
It wasn't even that. RG doesn't have an answer to Tarmogoyf besides bridge. Give Red mass removal better than Earthquake and Tower's pretty competitive again.

(nameless one)
04-12-2010, 08:01 AM
Is there a single thread that you or Pi4 post in that doesn't have something to do with UW Tempo? Is this some sort of joke that you two have planned to see who catches on first?

Just like the good old Nourishing Lich days...

Back to this thread,

How would that red Wrath from Worldwake look on this deck as Earthquake back up? Maybe All is Dust from ROE could see play here.

Sanguine Voyeur
04-12-2010, 09:13 AM
How would that red Wrath from Worldwake look on this deck as Earthquake back up? Maybe All is Dust from ROE could see play here.Chain Reaction? That won't kill a Tarmogoyf. All is dust costs 7.

emidln
04-12-2010, 10:54 AM
The thing that killed this deck was the limit on 4 Ensnaring Bridge to stop KGrip + Goyf. I tried everything I could do to fix this, but in the end, the solutions (Words of Wilding + Sylvan Library, Intuition, etc) ended up being better in more focused decks while not being all that great at getting 2x Bridge into play anyway. The only decent solution to this was to side in Welder and pray they don't keep in removal (even though EE is insane vs us). Academy Ruins was far too slow forcing us to just try to win out with Bears, but that ended up being the focus of most games and not stax.

This thread is, at least partially, responsible for me not wanting to develop storm decks on public forums (hence Storm Boards). If people keep posting dumb questions (i.e. not read, or at least fucking search the thread) there, I'll just ban their ass.

Infinitium
04-12-2010, 12:47 PM
Well, as long as this deck is bein discussed (dismissed?) I might as well throw Awakening Zone into the fray. 2G enchantment that creates an eldrazi spawn token at the beginning of each upkeep. What makes this interesting is that it trades the winning-the-game-ility of WoW for some pretty nifty tricks, including being able to chump Tarmogoyf all day long, guaranteeing a 4cc play and allowing one to drop a lock piece and mass removal on the same turn. It definetly isn't enough to make this viable again (albeit Firespout is also a step in the right direction) but hey, every little bit..

Phoenix Ignition
04-12-2010, 12:53 PM
The thing that killed this deck was the limit on 4 Ensnaring Bridge to stop KGrip + Goyf. I tried everything I could do to fix this, but in the end, the solutions (Words of Wilding + Sylvan Library, Intuition, etc) ended up being better in more focused decks while not being all that great at getting 2x Bridge into play anyway.

For lack of working search function, I'll throw this out there. Ever try Meekstone? Sure you take 1 hit, but in general you can take it or chump block once.

Vacrix
04-12-2010, 12:59 PM
Spells that cost one aren't happy with a Chalice @ 1. It does look interesting though, stopping everything in Reanimator, and Progenitals. Most of the creatures in Zoo and Goblins aren't affected. Thats really the issue. I think Awakening Zone is an interesting add. It enables Stack lock @ 1 too. I was also thinking Firespout while I was reading through this thread. Emidln already mentioned the obvious solution; 4 more Ensnaring Bridge, but I guess thats the disadvantage of losing white thus losing Ghostly Prison/Moat.

EDIT: Its also worth noting that taking hits because you are running Meekstone prevents you from using your life as a resource for Sylvan Library and Ancient Tomb.