Occam
08-19-2007, 03:14 PM
First, the decklist.
Mana:
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x City of Traitor
4 x Mishra's Factory
4 x Savannah
2 x Wasteland
1 x Forest
2 x Plain
2 x Windswept Heath
1 x Flagstones of Trokair
4 x Mox Diamond
Locks:
4 x CotV
4 x 3Sphere
4 x Smokestack
3 x Ensnaring Bridge
Board Control:
3 x Wrath of God
Engine:
4 x Sylvan Library
4 x Academy Rector
4 x Crucible of Worlds
Win condition:
2 x Words of Wilding
1 x Form of the Dragon
Sideboard looks like this currently:
3-5 x Metagame slots:
These will be silver bullet enchantments used in addition to what CotV and 3sphere already give the deck. These include deed, karmic justice, rule of law, extra words of wilding and so on.
3-4 Pithing needle
1 x Wrath of God
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
3 x Children of Korlis
1-3 x Choke
Card choices:
1) Ancient tomb and city of traitors give stax decks a different mana curve to work on, enabling such decks to essentially cheat their way around 3sphere and chalices. A must in any stax deck.
2) Mishra Factories are the tertiary win cond, along with rector beatdown.
3) The rest of the mana sources are a mix to enable casting of both the white and green spells, and diamonds are used for acceleration into 1st turn 3spheres and other broken plays. The singleton Flagstones are there to basically ease the deck's mana base, as wastelands will not hit it while it is in your opening hand, and if you topdeck it, Flagstones has amazing synergy with smokestack in any case.
4) The lock parts are almost standard among all stax decks. CotV creates huge virtual card advantage by actually stopping opponents from playing a wide range of cards at almost no expense to you. 0-1 for chalice does not affect the deck, and chalice for 2 only hits library, which can be cheated into play via rector in any case. DO note that chalice at 2 will counter your chalices for 1. Also, smokestack effects will have to be stacked properly so that your opponent sacrifices permanents first.
5) Wrath of God was almost a necessary evil, but in actuallity has great synergy with the deck. Rectors need to die, and you need to keep opposing creatures off your back. Wrath does all of this, creating huge amounts of card advantage. Wiping creatures also frees up smokestack to really hit opponents where it hurts and to enable a much faster hardlock.
6) Sylvan Library gives stax a draw engine. It also places form of the dragon back into the library for rector to do its work. Has good synergy with rector, fetchlands and flagstones. Besides smokestack and crucible, this is one of the cards I want to see the most.
7) Now, on to rector. Probably the single most controversial choice in a stax deck, but the fact remains that besides 3sphere and chalice, the most disruptive cards are enchantments. What rector does in this deck is to get your secondary win condition, form of the dragon, as well as to act as a wall against aggro, a sac outlet for smokestack, and enable the words of wilding/sylvan library/smokestack at 3-4 combo without having hard tutors to search for the enchantment pieces.
Rector also gives the deck excellent sb options in game 2-3. Silver bullets like Rule of Law IN ADDITION to the normal lock parts give the deck excellent game after boarding. Rector is also a hotrod for counterspells, enabling other lock pieces to be forced through more easily.
Rector searches not only for form of the dragon, but also to complete the words of wilding/sylvanlibrary combo. Simply said, when smokestack is present, the words/library tandem takes immediate precedence, but FotD takes precedence when smokestack is not online, as it places immediate pressure on the opponent to answer it.
8) Words of wilding works with sylvan library to enable and maintain a smokestack with 4 soot counters, and also acts as a win condition by beatdown. An eary sylvan library and words of wilding often trumps aggro decks as well.
9) Form of the dragon is the deck's secondary win condition. Before deriding this card and the inclusion of rector to tutor for this card. Form of the dragon not only acts as a Moat, but also stabilises the deck's life total (with beatdown from opponent, manaburn and ancient tombs, stabilising at 5 life is normal) and gives the deck a quick clock. It means that opponents will have to take care of this card in addition to surviving and playing through the other lock components that stax has. Besides burn, it hoses thresh, landstill, g1 goblins, 5/3, ETW decks, deadguy, the stax mirror among others. Add ensnaring bridge to the equation, and FS, demonstompy, angelstompy, suicide black and most other aggro decks autolose to it. It shines even more against aggro-control and control. When burn can be locked out by chalice at 1-2, form of the dragon can steal a lot of games against such decks.
The sideboard is still up for change at the moment, as I am still testing various matchups. As of now, I can already say with confidence that blue based control is an easy matchup, and goblins simply loses a lot of games against FotD because even with an online siege-gang, the gobs player usually does not have the 6 mana to kill. I will post a detailed guide and a matchup analysis asap when I have done more testing and have more time.
Mana:
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x City of Traitor
4 x Mishra's Factory
4 x Savannah
2 x Wasteland
1 x Forest
2 x Plain
2 x Windswept Heath
1 x Flagstones of Trokair
4 x Mox Diamond
Locks:
4 x CotV
4 x 3Sphere
4 x Smokestack
3 x Ensnaring Bridge
Board Control:
3 x Wrath of God
Engine:
4 x Sylvan Library
4 x Academy Rector
4 x Crucible of Worlds
Win condition:
2 x Words of Wilding
1 x Form of the Dragon
Sideboard looks like this currently:
3-5 x Metagame slots:
These will be silver bullet enchantments used in addition to what CotV and 3sphere already give the deck. These include deed, karmic justice, rule of law, extra words of wilding and so on.
3-4 Pithing needle
1 x Wrath of God
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
3 x Children of Korlis
1-3 x Choke
Card choices:
1) Ancient tomb and city of traitors give stax decks a different mana curve to work on, enabling such decks to essentially cheat their way around 3sphere and chalices. A must in any stax deck.
2) Mishra Factories are the tertiary win cond, along with rector beatdown.
3) The rest of the mana sources are a mix to enable casting of both the white and green spells, and diamonds are used for acceleration into 1st turn 3spheres and other broken plays. The singleton Flagstones are there to basically ease the deck's mana base, as wastelands will not hit it while it is in your opening hand, and if you topdeck it, Flagstones has amazing synergy with smokestack in any case.
4) The lock parts are almost standard among all stax decks. CotV creates huge virtual card advantage by actually stopping opponents from playing a wide range of cards at almost no expense to you. 0-1 for chalice does not affect the deck, and chalice for 2 only hits library, which can be cheated into play via rector in any case. DO note that chalice at 2 will counter your chalices for 1. Also, smokestack effects will have to be stacked properly so that your opponent sacrifices permanents first.
5) Wrath of God was almost a necessary evil, but in actuallity has great synergy with the deck. Rectors need to die, and you need to keep opposing creatures off your back. Wrath does all of this, creating huge amounts of card advantage. Wiping creatures also frees up smokestack to really hit opponents where it hurts and to enable a much faster hardlock.
6) Sylvan Library gives stax a draw engine. It also places form of the dragon back into the library for rector to do its work. Has good synergy with rector, fetchlands and flagstones. Besides smokestack and crucible, this is one of the cards I want to see the most.
7) Now, on to rector. Probably the single most controversial choice in a stax deck, but the fact remains that besides 3sphere and chalice, the most disruptive cards are enchantments. What rector does in this deck is to get your secondary win condition, form of the dragon, as well as to act as a wall against aggro, a sac outlet for smokestack, and enable the words of wilding/sylvan library/smokestack at 3-4 combo without having hard tutors to search for the enchantment pieces.
Rector also gives the deck excellent sb options in game 2-3. Silver bullets like Rule of Law IN ADDITION to the normal lock parts give the deck excellent game after boarding. Rector is also a hotrod for counterspells, enabling other lock pieces to be forced through more easily.
Rector searches not only for form of the dragon, but also to complete the words of wilding/sylvanlibrary combo. Simply said, when smokestack is present, the words/library tandem takes immediate precedence, but FotD takes precedence when smokestack is not online, as it places immediate pressure on the opponent to answer it.
8) Words of wilding works with sylvan library to enable and maintain a smokestack with 4 soot counters, and also acts as a win condition by beatdown. An eary sylvan library and words of wilding often trumps aggro decks as well.
9) Form of the dragon is the deck's secondary win condition. Before deriding this card and the inclusion of rector to tutor for this card. Form of the dragon not only acts as a Moat, but also stabilises the deck's life total (with beatdown from opponent, manaburn and ancient tombs, stabilising at 5 life is normal) and gives the deck a quick clock. It means that opponents will have to take care of this card in addition to surviving and playing through the other lock components that stax has. Besides burn, it hoses thresh, landstill, g1 goblins, 5/3, ETW decks, deadguy, the stax mirror among others. Add ensnaring bridge to the equation, and FS, demonstompy, angelstompy, suicide black and most other aggro decks autolose to it. It shines even more against aggro-control and control. When burn can be locked out by chalice at 1-2, form of the dragon can steal a lot of games against such decks.
The sideboard is still up for change at the moment, as I am still testing various matchups. As of now, I can already say with confidence that blue based control is an easy matchup, and goblins simply loses a lot of games against FotD because even with an online siege-gang, the gobs player usually does not have the 6 mana to kill. I will post a detailed guide and a matchup analysis asap when I have done more testing and have more time.