[Deck] Armageddon Stax

Now i played stax when workshop was still in the format. Forgive me if i'm not up to date on the newest versions, but here is my question.

In a format like ours where there are turn 1 kills in TES, early drops from aggro on the draw etc. why haven't we tried sphere of resistance? (if this has been vetted and i missed it forgive me)

It feels to me like while it isn't as strong a play, it's a pretty easy t1 drop as compared to trini, is actually useful in multiples AND is useful late game. For me at least, it feels like that without workshops to drop trini t1 reliably, shouldn't we be looking to either switch to spheres or at least go with a 2/2 split?

Just a thought.

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Originally Posted by ns2973

Now i played stax when workshop was still in the format. Forgive me if i'm not up to date on the newest versions, but here is my question.

In a format like ours where there are turn 1 kills in TES, early drops from aggro on the draw etc. why haven't we tried sphere of resistance? (if this has been vetted and i missed it forgive me)

It feels to me like while it isn't as strong a play, it's a pretty easy t1 drop as compared to trini, is actually useful in multiples AND is useful late game. For me at least, it feels like that without workshops to drop trini t1 reliably, shouldn't we be looking to either switch to spheres or at least go with a 2/2 split?

Just a thought.

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To be honnest I have been thinking the same thing, but the problem here is (I think) that sphere of resistance is just to symetrycal when compares to trinisphere...

The only thing trini has anny effect on in this deck is chalice for 1 (if it's not allready on the field) and mox diamond, which i neglible since when you can cast trini you can pretty much cast annything in the deck...

I'm going to playtest it. I think the increased chance of a t1 drop and late game (if we have to) playability outweighs the trini.

I'll try it out some and let you know what i find.

The main problem with sphere of resistance is that it's way too linear. Unlike in Vintage, we don't have the ability to abuse Mishra's Workshop in order to break the synergy, and Ancient Tombs won't quite cut it, in my experience.

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Originally Posted by Ryoku

The main problem with sphere of resistance is that it's way too linear. Unlike in Vintage, we don't have the ability to abuse Mishra's Workshop in order to break the synergy, and Ancient Tombs won't quite cut it, in my experience.

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I get where you are going. Again when i have some testing stats i'll post them so the stax players can see. Realistically though conceptually i disagree with the linear nature of the card. While it does indeed slow us down, i don't think it's fair to say that it will affect our ramp in a similar way to the other decks in the format.

When i look around, i see merfolk, goblins, TES, and other decks that use little acceleration that is a land. We use ancient tomb's, traitors, can drop mox diamond first to leverage that sphere to hamper our opponent far more than ourselves. While i realize that it is a more linear option than say trinisphere, i think and hope in testing it will bear out that the increased probability of a turn 1 drop will prevent mass mulligan against our worst matchups.

The real question becomes, is the linear pain of the sphere more of a disadvantage than the increased t1 drop ratio, value in multiples, and late game playability is an advantage?

Ok, so i tested this deck with 200 starting hands. 100 with trinisphere, 100 with sphere of resistance, here are the results:


Now for this test i am testing reliability in turn 1 soft lock pieces, thats it. It could completely cripple your hand, and ruin your late game, what i was looking for was an average amount of turn 1 lock pieces to help us build stability. I'll test actual matchup variances between the two decks as well, but i found some interesting data i thought you guys might be interested in.


For this test i used the following build

Artifacts 20
4 Chalice Of The Void
4 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere

Creatures 5
3 Magus Of The Tabernacle
2 Baneslayer Angel

Other Spells 11
4 Armageddon
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring

Land 24
5 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City Of Traitors
4 Flagstones Of Trokair
1 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kor Haven


For what i call consistency, again i only count turn 1 soft lock pieces. This includes a chalice for 1, one of the spheres, ghostly prison, smokestack or magus. I looked at each hand and just tested if i had a t1 drop of a soft lock piece or i didn't. Again, this doens't mean they were amazing plays, i'm just looking at which gives us a consistent turn 1 lock play.

First, deck replacing trinisphere with sphere of resistance

56 turn 1 soft lock plays
44 no turn 1 lock plays

or pretty much a 50/50 shot of dropping a lock piece on turn 1.

The more telling of the two, trinisphere current build

34 turn 1 soft lock plays
66 no turn 1 lock plays

Of those 66 no turn 1 locks, if sphere of resistance were in the deck instead of trini, you would have had an additional 15 turn 1 lock plays.

So out of 200 hands, it seems that there is a 15-20% better chance of having turn one play that involves a lock piece if you replace trinisphere with sphere of resistance. That to me is pretty damn substantial. So now is the important part, do you think a 20% increase in the odds of playing a lock piece turn 1 WORTH the more linear play of the sphere of resistance? I feel like it merits legitimate playtesting to see if it could increase the consistency without crippling us.

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by paeng4983

my sb cards were:
4 suppression field
4 relic of progenitus
2 loadstone golem
3 oblivion ring
2 Day of judgement

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You said you used a "standard" white list, but you don't really seem to be using a standard build, which uses Magi and ORings maindeck. Would you mind posting your maindeck, or showing the changes (+/-) from a more standard deck like ns2973's just above?

RE: side, Relic is weird. Given that Stax is a yard-dependent deck, it seems like you'd want something like Tormod's Crypt to just wipe their yard without affecting yours. Do you use Relic for the extra card and just play around its downside, or was that choice made due to a lack of availability of Crypts?

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Originally Posted by ns2973

sphere of resistance?

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Why is Trinisphere considered poor in the late-game? Many Legacy spells are cheap. Even if they're able to stabilize and restart casting spells, having to greatly increase mana costs from 1-2 to 3 mana is extremely significant. This isn't Standard which ramps up to 5-6-cost spells.

I find that I'm often wanting to get lock pieces out more quickly; Smokestack, Magus, Geddon, and the other 4-drops aren't by any means easy to cast, even for us. Some have even shied away from Baneslayer Angel due to her need for 5 mana. Upping these to 5- and 6-drops respectively seems very dangerous.

Get back to basics: what's our actual goal? If it's simply the ability to drop more turn 1 lock pieces, additional acceleration is another avenue. I'm not sure that we want cards like Grim Monolith, but it would allow us to retain the use of the superior (IMO) Trinisphere while also increasing first turn lock piece drops.

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Why is Trinisphere considered poor in the late-game? Many Legacy spells are cheap. Even if they're able to stabilize and restart casting spells, having to greatly increase mana costs from 1-2 to 3 mana is extremely significant. This isn't Standard which ramps up to 5-6-cost spells.

I find that I'm often wanting to get lock pieces out more quickly; Smokestack, Magus, Geddon, and the other 4-drops aren't by any means easy to cast, even for us. Some have even shied away from Baneslayer Angel due to her need for 5 mana. Upping these to 5- and 6-drops respectively seems very dangerous.

Get back to basics: what's our actual goal? If it's simply the ability to drop more turn 1 lock pieces, additional acceleration is another avenue. I'm not sure that we want cards like Grim Monolith, but it would allow us to retain the use of the superior (IMO) Trinisphere while also increasing first turn lock piece drops.

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I believe that trinisphere loses some of it's effectiveness late game. My personal belief is that a turn 1 sphere of resistance is just as much a time walk as a trinisphere is, only 20% more likely to happen. Also again, if a sphere is in play, a topdecked sphere isn't a dead draw like an additional trinisphere would be.

While i agree we want to get lock pieces out more quickly, i don't think diluting the "lock base" by adding accel in the form of grim is the way to go. I played stax pretty exclusively for a long time and what i learned was this, if we lose, it's due to bad draws and the early game. If we can stabilize to mid-late game, we have a favorable matchup. It is with this assumption in mind that i advocate sphere of resistance.

Again, this isn't playtested to the level where i'll say it's superior, but i think if we can speed up the lock process without diluting the lock pieces, allowing us to slow the tempo down, WE ramp faster than the average opponent and have mid to late game advantage. So i'm willing to wait till 5 for smokestack or geddon.

My goal for stax is to lock quickly. Legacy is a quick meta and without fast lock pieces, we get hurt. Those quick lock pieces buy us time to stabilize against aggro decks AND give us the stability to have greater turn 1 lock effeciency.

Just throwin out ideas. Hell i REALLY want to find a way to sneak welder in and i REALLY want to make room for 2 winter orb. It's just SO sick.

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Originally Posted by ns2973

I believe that trinisphere loses some of it's effectiveness late game. My personal belief is that a turn 1 sphere of resistance is just as much a time walk as a trinisphere is, only 20% more likely to happen. Also again, if a sphere is in play, a topdecked sphere isn't a dead draw like an additional trinisphere would be.

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Multiple Spheres work in concert wonderfully, but they work in concert against us as well. Two Spheres or one Trinisphere would both make Spell Pierce cost 3, but Trinisphere doesn't simultaneously make Armageddon cost 6. Also, while a first turn Sphere of Resistance may be likened to a Timewalk, a T1 Trinisphere could be two of them. Of course, that assumes that it lands. =)

One additional strike against Trinisphere is that it's already somewhat redundant since we use Chalice. Chalice is most likely to hit cards with CMC of 0, 1, or 2, but Trinisphere preys on the same cards. What Chalice doesn't hit are alternate casting cost spells such as FoW. Of the three, Trinisphere is the most powerful against FoW.

I wonder about your statistic that SoR is 20% more likely to land: I think it could actually be a lot more. Do you still have the numbers from your testing? Did you separate out which lock piece was cast each time? If you're just comparing the chances of a Trinisphere vs a SoR landing T1, you may find that SoR is 2x or 3x as likely to land turn 1. These results are actually diluted by the other lock pieces that you could conceivably cast. I agree that the aggregate numbers are useful as well, but I'm wondering what just comparing SoR to Trinisphere gives us.

Has anyone here tested Crystal Ball in the O-Ring spot? A friend of mine tried it out and had some extremely positive results.

Edit: nevermind, checked a few pages back.

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Originally Posted by keys

Has anyone here tested Crystal Ball in the O-Ring spot? A friend of mine tried it out and had some extremely positive results.

Edit: nevermind, checked a few pages back.

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and who would that be, brian?

hello there! :)
over the span of 4 days, i testplayed with 7 of my friends
(burn, aeon bridge, dredge, bant_tempo, rock, urg_fae and gw_aggro)
using this deck, although i replaced trinisphere with SOR. here's the list that i used:

Artifacts 21
4 Chalice Of The Void
3 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Winter Orb

Creatures 3
3 Magus of The Tabernacle

Other Spells 11
4 Armageddon
4 Ghostly Prison

Land 25
6 Plains
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Tabernacle Pendrel Vale


here are my results:
vs. burn
stax wont have a problem with this kind of opponent.
COTV at 1, together with SOR were too much for him.
he can't even kill magus tabernacle because of its 2/6 status.
we played for 5 games in which i won 4 times.
i had to admit that there were times that i wish
i had trinisphere on the table instead of SOR because they can still
afford to pay the extra mana off the soft lock unlike with
trinisphere in which they will really find themselves in a pit.
my lone lost came from the unearth ability of hellspark
elemental. by the way, winter orb really rocks in this game!

vs. gw_aggro
whenever im using stax, GW combination is the color
combination that i hate most because of it has a lot of
love in its MD and in its SB. we played like 7 or eight games
in which he won like 50% plus one. (i really cannot recall how
many time we played). qasali pridemage and G.teeg in his MD,
both really kick our ass. a 1st turn SOR is a strong move but
accompanying it with his wastelands destroying your non
basic lands (especially the accel ones), damn
i hate that when it happens.

vs. dredge
SOR works just the same as trinisphere here especially when you
dropped SOR during your 1st turn. then followed by another SOR
in your 2nd or 3rd turn, surely - you are on your way in winning game one.
just pray hard enough to your god that your opponent will not go off
during the early part the game especially if you haven't dropped any threat yet.
:D after sideboarding for games two and or three, dredge players find it hard
to pay the extra mana cost off either SOR or trinisphere's lock ability.

vs. aeon bridge
whoever plays a strong 1st two turns controls/ wins the game.
and that what happened here. he'd go like 1st turn petal, land
dreadnaught plus stifle. and after that game, on my 1st turn i'd
go like ancient tomb + COTV 1 or SOR. he rarely complete his combo
dreadnaught, ability on the stack, mosswort triggers, cast emrakul,
maybe because of the plus at the casting cost or because of COTV
at one or maybe because i kept on destroying his mosswort off my
wasteland. i won like 60-70% of the games we played.also, there were
times that winter orb was helpful. :D

vs. bant_tempo
just like GW aggro, bant_tempo has a bunch of MD love for us.
and heading to game two and or three, he'll bring-in more love
for us to enjoy. :) krosan, teeg, naturalize, zealots were just
some of the things that he used during our testplay. men that hurts.
in this game, multiple SOR on the table were not as good as we are discussing here.
as what happend to my case with this match up, i had 3 SOR on the table
and i needed THREE more mana just to cast ghostly. and whenever i was like
a mana short away, he'd destroy any of my non basic land with his wasteland.
maybe im not that patient enough as ns2973, because with trinisphere after
resolving an armageddon, you'll just need three mana to cast ghostly prison
unlike with SOR, you'll need six.

vs urg_fae
game one, i believe, we will have an 80% chance of winning it. here i go again,
dropping an early SOR is not that helpful because he'll just pay ONE then he can
successfully cast his spell (in our case a turn two brainstorm in which he was able to
find his 3rd and 4th land) unlike with trinisphere.

vs.BGw_ rock
pernicious deeds will really kick us out if it resolves. not to mention vindicate.
well in this particular game, i appreciate SOR because if you'll have a trinisphere
on the table, he'll just cast that 3cc vindicate or P.deeds that destroys whatever he
likes on your side. but if you have SOR, especially if they are in 2 or 3 on your table,
he'll be having a hard time of casting his deeds or vindicate.
:D

*im not saying here that trinisphere is much better than SOR, its just a case to case basis.
maybe, just maybe, im still not that comfortable with SOR. maybe i need more testplays
in order for me to adopt with SOR's synergy with my playing style.

*cheers to everyone here!
by the way, are there anyone else who testplayed white_stax using SOR instead of trinisphere?
thanks!

:D :D :D :cool:

(double post)
i just deleted the content.
sorry

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Multiple Spheres work in concert wonderfully, but they work in concert against us as well. Two Spheres or one Trinisphere would both make Spell Pierce cost 3, but Trinisphere doesn't simultaneously make Armageddon cost 6. Also, while a first turn Sphere of Resistance may be likened to a Timewalk, a T1 Trinisphere could be two of them. Of course, that assumes that it lands. =)

One additional strike against Trinisphere is that it's already somewhat redundant since we use Chalice. Chalice is most likely to hit cards with CMC of 0, 1, or 2, but Trinisphere preys on the same cards. What Chalice doesn't hit are alternate casting cost spells such as FoW. Of the three, Trinisphere is the most powerful against FoW.

I wonder about your statistic that SoR is 20% more likely to land: I think it could actually be a lot more. Do you still have the numbers from your testing? Did you separate out which lock piece was cast each time? If you're just comparing the chances of a Trinisphere vs a SoR landing T1, you may find that SoR is 2x or 3x as likely to land turn 1. These results are actually diluted by the other lock pieces that you could conceivably cast. I agree that the aggregate numbers are useful as well, but I'm wondering what just comparing SoR to Trinisphere gives us.

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Yeah, it may not work out in testing. This is just pure theory at this point. the 15-20% number is the % increase that the deck will play a lock piece turn 1. so it will go up to around 25% increased ability to play t1 if 3phere is replaced with SoR. I didn't separate the numbers unfortunately but will happily test further. The purpose of this was just to see if more debate is merited based on a significant increase in consistency of turn 1 lock piece.

Yeah, it hurts that geddon and magus become six, but again i feel that making spells cost more across the board heightens our advantage, not dilutes it. Allowing us to draw more cards and make pernicious deed cost 4-5 doesn't hurt AT ALL. We pack more ways to access mana in multiples than any other deck out there really, tombs and city's and crucibles give us a huge advantage in that we can play more 2 mana lands than they have, effectively ramping us even further than our opponents.

I'm going to build this deck in the next week or so and do some serious playtesting, stax has always been my favorite, and while i never feel we'll fix the draw/consistency issue, it's still some of the most fun in the game.

I get why people moved away from tanglewire, but why not play winter orb? Is there any particular reason?

Again, too symmetrical. We don't have a way of tapping or bouncing Orb to ensure that we're not affected by it. There's Mox and 2-lands, but our spells cost a lot too so it's still rather even.

Also, better to destroy the land (run a 5th Geddon effect if you need more) than to merely tap it. End of Turn Pridemage will ruin Orb's plan. I'm more pessimistic about Winter Orb than I am about SoR.

Yeah, i was just considering the idea of the synergy of worb with magus and spheres.

I'm going to test the currently accepted build for about a week and then test a hybrid build running sphere as well. We'll see what shakes out.

It's often good to start with the accepted build before attempting to make changes, esp. if it's been some time since you've worked with the build. It lets you familiarize yourself with the common baseline to see what changes are necessary, so I'm glad you're going that route.

My meta is somewhere between casual and nonexistent, so I can't do too much testing. Thanks for sharing the results you get. =)

Sphere of Resistance is an excellent sideboard card, but it should never, never, never replace Trinisphere in the maindeck.

The reason is simple: this isn't Vintage. You don't have constant access to enormous amounts of mana, so the additional 1 ends up mattering a lot, especially against aggro. Having to pay 4W for Magus of the Tabernacle and 3W for Ghostly Prison makes the aggro matchup a lot harder than it needs to be. (Trust me; I have lost games with Sphere out *precisely because* I couldn't afford to cast these spells.) Admittedly, the aggro player will have to spend more for his guys, too. But aggro's best plan against Stax is not to dump tons of guys per turn anyway. Aggro beats Stax when it gets two substantial creatures down, protects them, and keeps enough mana open to attack through a Ghostly Prison and/or pay for Magus taxes. One can easily do that with a Sphere out. You just end up hurting yourself in a situation like that.

Sphere is also quite bad against non-storm combo decks like Imperial Servant. You don't solve any long-term problems by making them pay 2 for a Grindstone or a Goblin Welder and 3 for a Painter's Servant. To do that, you need to cast Chalice of the Void for 1, or Smokestack, or Armageddon, but each of those things gets harder to do--and often impossible to do--when you have a Sphere out.

There's also the general problem of math. You can easily make careless, game-defining arithmetical errors with a Sphere out, especially when you're trying to play around spells like Daze and Spell Pierce. Of course, as before, the same will hold for your opponent. But most decks are more forgiving of such mistakes than Stax is. Stax players encounter numerous turns per game in which they absolutely *must* resolve some key spell in order to survive. Failing to do so because you played Sphere of Resistance turn 1 is a real pain. (Again, trust me on this.)

Lastly, it must be noted that you often want to cast Chalice for 2, but if you do so, then you can't play Sphere of Resistance. Obviously that's not a problem for Sphere of Resistance per se, but a general problem for 2-mana spells. But you should always try to make Chalice's (and Trinisphere's) effect as asymmetrical as possible.

Honestly, the only Legacy decks against which I routinely want to cast Sphere of Resistance are storm-combo decks. Having twelve turn-1 bombs (4 Spheres, 4 Chalices, and 4 Trinispheres) instead of eight is a real lifesaver, especially if you lose the coin-toss game 1. But against everything else, I'd rather just run more utility spells or things like Crystal Ball (which is very good, by the way).

I think the gist of why SoR isn't played has already been covered; in my opinion, the biggest problem is that it's too symetrical - as in, a t1 Sphere doesn't allow for t2 three-drop that easily. We would increase our chances of t1 action but decrease our impact on t2. Might be very desireable in some matchups, especially those where many of our lock-pieces are insubstantial (combo). It's much less desirable in other matchups where the strategy of interlocking pieces is needed. A deck with a substantial number of SoRs would need to stray from that path somewhat. A 3sphere/SoR split might work better.

The other reason is that SoR is not really needed against most decks and would eke out more versatile or less problematic lock pieces. Sure, most non-combo decks would get hit by it as well, but nowhere near as much as combo would, and we'd be hampered as well. Our hardlocks are expensive or hard to assemble; our soft lock depends on multiple lock pieces to be efficient, particularly since quite a few of our lock pieces are situational.
3sphere comes down a turn later, but has a much larger impact. It also plays better with Geddon, Smokestack and Crucible/Wastes eating their land, since it makes it impossible to cast stuff of one land.
In other words, 3sphere is better except in multiples and on t1.
To be frank, I've never had much of a problem with multiple 3spheres; they're prime cspell and disenchant targets, and if they're not being eliminated, I can often sac them to Stack. But yeah, SoR is better in multiples, at least potentially. Examples have been given; maybe a restructuring or metagaming would be needed, though.
As for t1, I don't see in which matchup SoR would warrant cutting something else, with the obvious exception of combo. whether we play 3sphere t2 or SoR t1 is a mere one-mana difference for the opponent (at best). If they're cantripping they may get the nuts against us, but it's a relatively small chance, particularly if the opponent attempted to keep a good anti-Stax hand anyway - depending on what they get, we may still be better off with the ability to cast Crucible/Prison/3sphere (if any) t2. If they run out a creature instead of cantripping, they're delayed by a turn; then again, we're delayed by a turn as well - and it's not like we're always getting four mana t3 without having to sacrifice City either.

//edit: SoA -> SoR. How I shortened "Resistance" to "A" I'll never know.

What is SoA?