Kundalini
01-06-2008, 08:39 AM
Hello, this is my first CaNG(d) submission.
Do you remember old good tradewind-stasis UG deck? It was based upon a famed lock: stasis in play, tradewind+2 other creatures to bounce stasis each turn and keep opponents locked while you play more creatures and achieve total control of the board.
What is new here? The printing of Garruk Wildspeaker (and, to a lesser extent, other planeswalker) gives a big bonus to such a deck: Garruk is both an alternative and immediate way to pay for stasis each turn (and keep playing under it by untapping lands OR generating creatures to feed tradewind) AND a quick kill condition. I think this is enough to give the archetype a new chance. More, after the printing of tarmogoyf, green also provides the opportunity of turning aggro when the matchup requires that, in a very efficient (slot-wise) way.
So, this is the present list:
(last updated: january 19)
//Garruk Stasis aka WildTimeTrader.dec
// Lands
4 Tropical Island
1 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
5 Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
// Creatures
4 Tradewind Rider
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Eternal Witness
2 Quirion Ranger / Scryb Ranger
2 Wall of Roots
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Vedalken Mastermind
// Spells
3 Stasis
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Eternal Witness
SB: 3 Misdirection
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 3 Chill
Deck Analysis:
[Mana sources]: 22 lands has proven to be the perfect number in a deck running 4 bop + 2 quirion + garruk AND gaea's cradle.
-Gaea's cradle is a questionable slot, but this deck has the tendency to drop a lot of critters, so cradle has been proved very useful at enabling big spells early and/or chaincasting eternal witnesses, plut it has great sinergy with Garruk so I finally decided to include it.
-the single breeding pool is there for being fetched in a turn in which I don't need that mana, just to have 1 more island/forest (important because of quirion/daze).
[Counterspell suite]: 4 foW +3 daze+ venser (and misdirection in the sideboard) is what you need to protect yourself from major threats and survive until you can lock the board.
-Force of Will / Daze- they are the best of "free" counterspells that blue has to offer, they work very well under a stasis soft lock. Daze can bounce an island to buy an extra stasis turn in some circumstances.
-Venser: another questionable slot. Questionable because of his high casting cost; he is in because of his flexibility: can act as an actual counterspell, bounce stasis, witnesses/oracle for card advantage, or anything your opponent has in play, dumps to FoW and feeds tradewind.
-Misdirection: another free counter from the sideboard. Sided in for burn / black discard matchups.
[Creatures] Base creature count is 20. It is very high considering you are going to see some garruk tokens also. It has to be high because Cradle, Garruk and Tradewind love to see lots of critters on the board
-Tradewind Rider : is the core of the deck. Main control element, lock piece with stasis, also can attend to minor tasks as foW fodder, flying blocker and occasional beater. No less than 4-of.
-Eternal witness: second most important creature in the deck. It becomes an engine with the help of tradewind/vedalken/venser. Should be a 4-of but 3 is pretty solid if you want to see at least one and are happy seeing more.
-Quirion ranger: this is a staple in any stasis deck. Can pay for stasis bouncing a trop.island each turn (better if also untaps a bop in doing so!), untaps tradewind for ridiculous plays, and so on.
-Coiling oracle: this ups both blue count for FoW AND creature count for Tradewind, is card advantage and/or acceleration and can be turned into an engine (see eternal witness).
-Wall of Roots / BoP: mana critters are mandatory here. Walls are great at chump blocking and work well under a stasis; BoP has sinergy with everything in the deck and provides the colored mana this deck is so hungry for.
-Vedalken Mastermind: less flexible but in most cases is undercosted tradewind n°5 when you desperately need a reusable bounce for your stasis/witness/oracle.
-Tarmogoyf: 4 in the sideboard. Yes, it is your backup plan, for those MU where you need an early beater without lowering your creature count (since you hope to eventually feed a Tradewind)!
[Spells]:
-Brainstorm: staple in any blue deck. Here it has a major synergy with coiling oracle.
-Time warp: alternate win condition. When you have a Tradewind online and enough mana, just cast this every turn (bouncing eternal witness) for the win. Here Gaea's Cradle helps.
-Stasis: why only 3? Well I would like to squeeze a 4th in, removing time warp, but testing with 3 is just fine and looks solid. The deck has at least 10 ways to setup an infinite stasis, so you only really need 1 of them.
-Garruk Wildspeaker: MVP and main kill condition. Has synergy with everything in the deck, is acceleration, critters producer, stasis enabler, game ending with an overrun on your small critters. Provided time (and this deck is all about buying time with stasis) Garruk can perform every task you need.
[Other sideboard choices]: The deck plays control and is very flexible usually, so I put here some card to do what I can't do without: krosan grips and crypts. Propaganda is necessary for the aggro matchup, since you lack the speed to consistently set up full board control before they kill you. Propaganda buys you turns and is great under a stasis.
Cards not included:
-Elephant grass: is not enough, propaganda is the way to go.
-Root maze / Frozen Aether: not needed. Under a stasis lock you usually gain enough advantage to bounce/counter/ignore their untapped permanents. The deck is tight, you can't afford to waste slots for these.
-Remand/Counterspell: I would like to find room for some more counterspells, but I didn't. Remand is particularly powerful under a stasis, since they will probably never cast the bounced spell again.
-Chronatog: NO. This deck is not chronatog-stasis; we have Garruk and time warp for the kill. If you are under a stasis lock... why donating infinitely (mostly useless) many turns to your opponent when you can take infinitely many turns yourself or simply beat face and end the game in few turns?
-Winter Orb/Static Orb: I would simply put more stasis.
-Tangle wire: this has been considered... probably would be in the deck if only was a creature!
-Mystic Snake: since bounce is so good in this deck, Venser is a superior choice.
-Forsaken City: not tested yet, but the card disadvantage seems too much for doing something that this deck can do pretty well already with creatures.
How to play the deck
Your main goal is to achieve a stasis soft lock i.e. to put a stasis in play and keep it there as long as possible (infinitely). How to accomplish this?
1) Use Tradewind rider / vedalken to bounce stasis in opponent's turn, so they are unable to untap while you can untap, and play stasis again in your turn;
2) use quirion ranger to bounce a trop.island and/or untap a birds of paradise to pay for stasis infinitely (or since you can play a Tradewind or more);
3) use Garruk to untap lands and pay for stasis infinitely (and/or drop tokens for a Tradewind); you can do this each other turn, so also drop some beast token in the process, until you have enough of them and 4 loyalty for an overrun.
Under a stasis soft or hard (tradewind) lock you can usually win with Garruk: you will have plenty critters and loyalty by the time so just overrun them. Or, there is the time warp alternate win: bounce an eternal witness and play infinite turns. With no Tradewind but a stasis soft lock, simply wait until you have enough critters/loyalty for a single swing for lethal damage. If you have no Garruk but a stasis hard lock, just swing each turn with your small spare critters and/or bounce multiple permanents with tradewind/quirion.
So the deck is control more than anything else (more than lock). Early game you should keep major threats at a distance with your free counterspells/bounce. You don't need to worry about permanents on the board if they are tapped and you are paying for a stasis, so focus on major threats and protecting your lock.
Matchup Analysis
-Threshold (UGR /w counterbalance): in my testing this is an even or slightly favorable but very long matchup. Counterbalance is not a big problem, since you can easily bounce it before casting your key spells (stasis) and your creature/counter suite seems enough to stand they creatures. Viceversa, too bad their counter/creature suite is enough to pressure and keep you from winning for a very long time. If they run fire/ice the matchup is unfavorable. Fire/ice is a real pain, since it usually kills two of your critters; the same is true for pyroclasm, but post-board you will have goyfs.
Sideboarding: remove timewarp, venser and maybe 1 garruk plus everything you feel inadequate (small critters such as oracles) and board in the goyfs plus some misdirection (all 3 if the run heavy burn). Crypt and grip may or may not be useful, depending on how much they rely upon graveyard and counterbalance respectively.
-Vial Goblins (green splash for grip/hooligan): this is unfavorable pre-board. Their speed is superior, they will kill you before you can setup any board control sitaution. Winning is possible, but very hard, although you have 18 answers to a turn-1 lackey on the play (only 10 on the draw). Post-board propaganda is your only hope, so focus on protecting it and your lock. If they run krosan grip in place of naturalize that can be a big problem, since you can't counter/bounce in responce; but in my testing he was never able to cast it because of lack of mana. Correct sideboarding should also include tarmogoyf because they greatly help to stop their early offensive. Board out the same as threshold plus some eternal witness minus some oracle.
-Landstill (UGB version /w deed): this is favorable. They love to stall the game, and so you have plenty time to setup your locks and tricks. Their sweepers are less efficient because you bounce important things back, and Garruk is not affected by it. Mostly the game is decided at counter wars. Save your counters and try to bait theirs; once the lock is established, there is little they can do. Sometimes I can win this matchup just by baiting all counterspell and removal with the threat of a stasis lock, then swinging with creatures ftw. Sideboarding: side in those misdirections, you will hardcast some, side out whatever they seem most prepared to fight. Siding out is hard here, because everything is just so good. Only side in crypt if they have an heavy crucible/loam engine (which, in my testing, was not the case).
-Zoo midrange aggro (GRW /w equipment): this is very favorable. See "goblins" matchup plus they lack some speed and gain some midrange power, which will be useless since they will be locked under stasis and/or bounce controlled.
-Burn: this is slightly unfavorable, precisely because you are a control deck and they are, well, burn! Good news are you have not too much dead cards pre-board, and misdirection post-board. If they aim to the dome (usually they do so game 1) and you survive, creatures/lock will win you the game; if you suspect they are boarding in pyroclasm/flamebreak, side out witnesses and some more creatures and bring in tarmogoyfs.
-Deadguy / Pikula / homebrew (BX disrupt deck): this is uncertain. In my testing most games were decided by mulligans and bad draws for both players. Misdirection is the key post-board, and here is a matchup in which it really shines; versatility of lock type is another thing that shines here: i.e. if they duress your stasis away, you have other things. I am really still uncertain about this matchup, it could be even but it seems really heavily dependant on bad/good draws more than bad/good plays.
Conclusions.
The deck is a lot of fun to play. I have enjoyed a lot my testing sessions with mws/proxies. There are not too much stellar matchups and only 1 really bad one, the rest is fair enough; the deck can stand most competitive deck and I suspect there is still some work to do into optimization.
One thing I love with it is: when I lose, it is usually in a quick way, versus an aggro rush; when I win it is a satisfactory game, in which I am able to perform all sorts of bounce/untap/lock tricks and have a lot of fun. Usually something of really ridiculous also happens (as keeping the game stalled for 10 turns, then win with a topdecked garruk; bouncing ALL their permanents back; taking infinite turns while they have an horde of 10 creatures ready and untapped on the board). After all, well this is a Tradewind deck, so it is all about having fun and being happy for that!
Do you remember old good tradewind-stasis UG deck? It was based upon a famed lock: stasis in play, tradewind+2 other creatures to bounce stasis each turn and keep opponents locked while you play more creatures and achieve total control of the board.
What is new here? The printing of Garruk Wildspeaker (and, to a lesser extent, other planeswalker) gives a big bonus to such a deck: Garruk is both an alternative and immediate way to pay for stasis each turn (and keep playing under it by untapping lands OR generating creatures to feed tradewind) AND a quick kill condition. I think this is enough to give the archetype a new chance. More, after the printing of tarmogoyf, green also provides the opportunity of turning aggro when the matchup requires that, in a very efficient (slot-wise) way.
So, this is the present list:
(last updated: january 19)
//Garruk Stasis aka WildTimeTrader.dec
// Lands
4 Tropical Island
1 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
5 Island
1 Gaea's Cradle
// Creatures
4 Tradewind Rider
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Eternal Witness
2 Quirion Ranger / Scryb Ranger
2 Wall of Roots
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Vedalken Mastermind
// Spells
3 Stasis
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Eternal Witness
SB: 3 Misdirection
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 3 Chill
Deck Analysis:
[Mana sources]: 22 lands has proven to be the perfect number in a deck running 4 bop + 2 quirion + garruk AND gaea's cradle.
-Gaea's cradle is a questionable slot, but this deck has the tendency to drop a lot of critters, so cradle has been proved very useful at enabling big spells early and/or chaincasting eternal witnesses, plut it has great sinergy with Garruk so I finally decided to include it.
-the single breeding pool is there for being fetched in a turn in which I don't need that mana, just to have 1 more island/forest (important because of quirion/daze).
[Counterspell suite]: 4 foW +3 daze+ venser (and misdirection in the sideboard) is what you need to protect yourself from major threats and survive until you can lock the board.
-Force of Will / Daze- they are the best of "free" counterspells that blue has to offer, they work very well under a stasis soft lock. Daze can bounce an island to buy an extra stasis turn in some circumstances.
-Venser: another questionable slot. Questionable because of his high casting cost; he is in because of his flexibility: can act as an actual counterspell, bounce stasis, witnesses/oracle for card advantage, or anything your opponent has in play, dumps to FoW and feeds tradewind.
-Misdirection: another free counter from the sideboard. Sided in for burn / black discard matchups.
[Creatures] Base creature count is 20. It is very high considering you are going to see some garruk tokens also. It has to be high because Cradle, Garruk and Tradewind love to see lots of critters on the board
-Tradewind Rider : is the core of the deck. Main control element, lock piece with stasis, also can attend to minor tasks as foW fodder, flying blocker and occasional beater. No less than 4-of.
-Eternal witness: second most important creature in the deck. It becomes an engine with the help of tradewind/vedalken/venser. Should be a 4-of but 3 is pretty solid if you want to see at least one and are happy seeing more.
-Quirion ranger: this is a staple in any stasis deck. Can pay for stasis bouncing a trop.island each turn (better if also untaps a bop in doing so!), untaps tradewind for ridiculous plays, and so on.
-Coiling oracle: this ups both blue count for FoW AND creature count for Tradewind, is card advantage and/or acceleration and can be turned into an engine (see eternal witness).
-Wall of Roots / BoP: mana critters are mandatory here. Walls are great at chump blocking and work well under a stasis; BoP has sinergy with everything in the deck and provides the colored mana this deck is so hungry for.
-Vedalken Mastermind: less flexible but in most cases is undercosted tradewind n°5 when you desperately need a reusable bounce for your stasis/witness/oracle.
-Tarmogoyf: 4 in the sideboard. Yes, it is your backup plan, for those MU where you need an early beater without lowering your creature count (since you hope to eventually feed a Tradewind)!
[Spells]:
-Brainstorm: staple in any blue deck. Here it has a major synergy with coiling oracle.
-Time warp: alternate win condition. When you have a Tradewind online and enough mana, just cast this every turn (bouncing eternal witness) for the win. Here Gaea's Cradle helps.
-Stasis: why only 3? Well I would like to squeeze a 4th in, removing time warp, but testing with 3 is just fine and looks solid. The deck has at least 10 ways to setup an infinite stasis, so you only really need 1 of them.
-Garruk Wildspeaker: MVP and main kill condition. Has synergy with everything in the deck, is acceleration, critters producer, stasis enabler, game ending with an overrun on your small critters. Provided time (and this deck is all about buying time with stasis) Garruk can perform every task you need.
[Other sideboard choices]: The deck plays control and is very flexible usually, so I put here some card to do what I can't do without: krosan grips and crypts. Propaganda is necessary for the aggro matchup, since you lack the speed to consistently set up full board control before they kill you. Propaganda buys you turns and is great under a stasis.
Cards not included:
-Elephant grass: is not enough, propaganda is the way to go.
-Root maze / Frozen Aether: not needed. Under a stasis lock you usually gain enough advantage to bounce/counter/ignore their untapped permanents. The deck is tight, you can't afford to waste slots for these.
-Remand/Counterspell: I would like to find room for some more counterspells, but I didn't. Remand is particularly powerful under a stasis, since they will probably never cast the bounced spell again.
-Chronatog: NO. This deck is not chronatog-stasis; we have Garruk and time warp for the kill. If you are under a stasis lock... why donating infinitely (mostly useless) many turns to your opponent when you can take infinitely many turns yourself or simply beat face and end the game in few turns?
-Winter Orb/Static Orb: I would simply put more stasis.
-Tangle wire: this has been considered... probably would be in the deck if only was a creature!
-Mystic Snake: since bounce is so good in this deck, Venser is a superior choice.
-Forsaken City: not tested yet, but the card disadvantage seems too much for doing something that this deck can do pretty well already with creatures.
How to play the deck
Your main goal is to achieve a stasis soft lock i.e. to put a stasis in play and keep it there as long as possible (infinitely). How to accomplish this?
1) Use Tradewind rider / vedalken to bounce stasis in opponent's turn, so they are unable to untap while you can untap, and play stasis again in your turn;
2) use quirion ranger to bounce a trop.island and/or untap a birds of paradise to pay for stasis infinitely (or since you can play a Tradewind or more);
3) use Garruk to untap lands and pay for stasis infinitely (and/or drop tokens for a Tradewind); you can do this each other turn, so also drop some beast token in the process, until you have enough of them and 4 loyalty for an overrun.
Under a stasis soft or hard (tradewind) lock you can usually win with Garruk: you will have plenty critters and loyalty by the time so just overrun them. Or, there is the time warp alternate win: bounce an eternal witness and play infinite turns. With no Tradewind but a stasis soft lock, simply wait until you have enough critters/loyalty for a single swing for lethal damage. If you have no Garruk but a stasis hard lock, just swing each turn with your small spare critters and/or bounce multiple permanents with tradewind/quirion.
So the deck is control more than anything else (more than lock). Early game you should keep major threats at a distance with your free counterspells/bounce. You don't need to worry about permanents on the board if they are tapped and you are paying for a stasis, so focus on major threats and protecting your lock.
Matchup Analysis
-Threshold (UGR /w counterbalance): in my testing this is an even or slightly favorable but very long matchup. Counterbalance is not a big problem, since you can easily bounce it before casting your key spells (stasis) and your creature/counter suite seems enough to stand they creatures. Viceversa, too bad their counter/creature suite is enough to pressure and keep you from winning for a very long time. If they run fire/ice the matchup is unfavorable. Fire/ice is a real pain, since it usually kills two of your critters; the same is true for pyroclasm, but post-board you will have goyfs.
Sideboarding: remove timewarp, venser and maybe 1 garruk plus everything you feel inadequate (small critters such as oracles) and board in the goyfs plus some misdirection (all 3 if the run heavy burn). Crypt and grip may or may not be useful, depending on how much they rely upon graveyard and counterbalance respectively.
-Vial Goblins (green splash for grip/hooligan): this is unfavorable pre-board. Their speed is superior, they will kill you before you can setup any board control sitaution. Winning is possible, but very hard, although you have 18 answers to a turn-1 lackey on the play (only 10 on the draw). Post-board propaganda is your only hope, so focus on protecting it and your lock. If they run krosan grip in place of naturalize that can be a big problem, since you can't counter/bounce in responce; but in my testing he was never able to cast it because of lack of mana. Correct sideboarding should also include tarmogoyf because they greatly help to stop their early offensive. Board out the same as threshold plus some eternal witness minus some oracle.
-Landstill (UGB version /w deed): this is favorable. They love to stall the game, and so you have plenty time to setup your locks and tricks. Their sweepers are less efficient because you bounce important things back, and Garruk is not affected by it. Mostly the game is decided at counter wars. Save your counters and try to bait theirs; once the lock is established, there is little they can do. Sometimes I can win this matchup just by baiting all counterspell and removal with the threat of a stasis lock, then swinging with creatures ftw. Sideboarding: side in those misdirections, you will hardcast some, side out whatever they seem most prepared to fight. Siding out is hard here, because everything is just so good. Only side in crypt if they have an heavy crucible/loam engine (which, in my testing, was not the case).
-Zoo midrange aggro (GRW /w equipment): this is very favorable. See "goblins" matchup plus they lack some speed and gain some midrange power, which will be useless since they will be locked under stasis and/or bounce controlled.
-Burn: this is slightly unfavorable, precisely because you are a control deck and they are, well, burn! Good news are you have not too much dead cards pre-board, and misdirection post-board. If they aim to the dome (usually they do so game 1) and you survive, creatures/lock will win you the game; if you suspect they are boarding in pyroclasm/flamebreak, side out witnesses and some more creatures and bring in tarmogoyfs.
-Deadguy / Pikula / homebrew (BX disrupt deck): this is uncertain. In my testing most games were decided by mulligans and bad draws for both players. Misdirection is the key post-board, and here is a matchup in which it really shines; versatility of lock type is another thing that shines here: i.e. if they duress your stasis away, you have other things. I am really still uncertain about this matchup, it could be even but it seems really heavily dependant on bad/good draws more than bad/good plays.
Conclusions.
The deck is a lot of fun to play. I have enjoyed a lot my testing sessions with mws/proxies. There are not too much stellar matchups and only 1 really bad one, the rest is fair enough; the deck can stand most competitive deck and I suspect there is still some work to do into optimization.
One thing I love with it is: when I lose, it is usually in a quick way, versus an aggro rush; when I win it is a satisfactory game, in which I am able to perform all sorts of bounce/untap/lock tricks and have a lot of fun. Usually something of really ridiculous also happens (as keeping the game stalled for 10 turns, then win with a topdecked garruk; bouncing ALL their permanents back; taking infinite turns while they have an horde of 10 creatures ready and untapped on the board). After all, well this is a Tradewind deck, so it is all about having fun and being happy for that!