[Deck] Armageddon Stax

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Originally Posted by Steveman

I think I get by just fine with just 3 Elspeths. If I were to add anything, it'd be a SINGLETON Blinkmoth Nexus. Wasteland over Canopy IS debatable but Canopy does it all in my opinion: taps for White mana in the early game when you need it the most and gives you a late-game draw engine with Crucible which is GAMEBREAKING since the deck only runs 3 Elspeths. The reason why I only run 3 Wasteland is because they've gotten weaker ever since enemy fetchlands came around, which is why I run Armageddon main now over Wrath of God. The problem with Mishra's Factory / Mutavault in this deck is that they're horrible when Moat is in play and they don't tap for white mana which is a BIG deal in this deck because Moat / Humility / Elspeth all require WW.

As good as Suppression Field is, I don't like it that much in a Dutch style build because it's too much of a double edged sword because it hurts your Wastelands, Elspeth, and Horizon Canopies, especially if you have them in multiples. Also, it's not too "bombastic" enough for my tastes: if your opponent already has a threat down, all it does is slow them down from playing / finding other threats, where Moat / Humility lock the game on their own fairly easily.




I'm flattered that you based your deck off mine, but I disagree heavily with your changes because every card that you added (Suppression Field / Mutavault) just doesn't fit in the deck. Suppression Field still screws both your win conditions (Elspeth / Mutavault). To me, it doesn't make sense to add 2 cards that really don't work together at all, but doesn't work together with other key parts of the deck. Also, by adding more threat diversity, you take away more key cards like Moat / Humility which are the two BIGGEST bombs in the deck.

I would NEVER play less than 4 Crucible (I would play 5 if I could) because Crucible is the glue that keeps Stax falling over itself: if I were to cut a card, it'd be Trinisphere: winning / placing lists I've analyzed often only played 3 Trinispheres.

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I see.., you points are valid and correct. But dropping a 1st or 2nd turn suppression field can almost single handedly win you games. It stops deed, rachet bomb, survival and pridemage assuming that humility is not in play. Yeah humility and moat are strong lock parts but they cost 4 and sometimes even with 28 mana sources your still get screwed bec. your lands was hit by enemy wastelands. A single wasteland from your opponent can hurt a stax deck bec. of insuficient mana.

Well im still torn which route to take but for the mutavault , yeah blinkmoth is much better, haha. I believe suppression field a like a trinisphere of somesort, especially now that decks run 6-7 fetch lands in their decks.

Just came up with a crazy idea. -3 Stax -2 Angels +3 World Queller +3 Suppression Field. I'll talk about the last card to take out later.

I don't like the fact that Angel's "just" a big beater. The D&T player in me wants my critters to do something when they're not beating.

Smokestack is often sided out for Fields against fast decks, and there are a ton of fast decks out there. Why not get this out of the way? You still have Queller for the hard lock.

The questionable -1 could be: Magus because you have more critters in general, and both Magus and Prison are options because you're maindecking other cards that slow them down in other ways, and both attack creatures but there are a lot of decks with few or no creatures until you're already dead (storm, land/loam).

The questionable -1 could also be the 25th land, because overall you're reducing the cost of your deck.

It probably won't work. But there it is. =)

EDIT: For those (like me) running 4 Trinispheres, that becomes an obvious -1 candidate.

I've never been a fan of World Queller or Baneslayer Angel because they cost a whopping 5 mana. Being spoiled with Elspeth, I would never want to pay 5 mana for a VULNERABLE creature that gets shut down by my Humility / Moats (that's just me). Still, I like to play around Daze when I can, and I certainly would not want to wait to ramp up to 6 mana. To me, going from 4-5 mana is a HUGE gap between going to 3-4 mana. Even with a solid manabase, a single Wasteland from an opponent is -2 mana for us many times.

For those of you who still like to play with Baneslayer Angel and /or World Queller and trying to pick either or, I would probably pick BSA. My only problem with World Queller is that you can't use him to break a creature stalemate without losing him yourself. Baneslayer Angel is still a lock piece even if she is on the defensive because she's going to at least stall your opponents from attacking most of the time, take out anything that's not a ridiculously huge 5/6+ Tarmogoyf, and gains you life while she's at it.

Quite honestly, in a traditional Armageddon Stax, I personally would go back to using Exalted Angel :-P

hello erbs!
congrats in your TOP8 finish last saturday!

im just wondering, how was supp. field in your MD did?
were you able to drop supp. field during your turn_one
many times? how effective was he?

:)

:cool:

Just realized, casting a first turn S.Field requires a Mox and two land. That's a lot harder to do than Chalice at 1, and just a little bit easier than a first turn Trinisphere.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paeng4983

hello erbs!
congrats in your TOP8 finish last saturday!

im just wondering, how was supp. field in your MD did?
were you able to drop supp. field during your turn_one
many times? how effective was he?

:)

:cool:

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Hello
Thanks !!
As for suppression field main.., for me its really an awesome card.., its like a mini geddon and ghostly prison in one. Hmm... around twice only in the etire 8 rounds i've played. Resolving it against vial users is just execellent like merfs, silvers or gobs who has great depency on it, it gives you ample time to setup your lock pieces.

Yeah its harder than 1st turn chalice but it has the same requirements with trinisphere with daze backup if you land a turbo land.

Ooh, top8? Do you have (or are you planning) a writeup about it? That would be nice. =)

Suppression Field is great except for all of the times where it doesn't do anything.

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Ooh, top8? Do you have (or are you planning) a writeup about it? That would be nice. =)

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Hello,
Went 5-1-1 in a 74 man tourny which was held last week in our country. But sadly lost in the playoffs bec of misplay.

Record 1-0
Round 1 vs Dreadstill (2-0)
Game 1
Forgot the entire plays but i was down to 1 before i was able to stabilize and won the game via Bob flipping cards from my opponent. The permanents we had where 1 pyrexian dreadnought 1 dark confidant 1 sensei 1 cb, several lands. On my part trinisphere, moat, cow and 2 suppression field. i was able to resolve an armageddon then bob did its work for my while i wastelock him tapping 4 mana just to do it lol... (Moat was the MVP here)
Game 2
(Moat and Boiling Seas where the MVP) faster game 1 with bob flipping FOW twice i think. And suppression field making TOP useless.

Record 2-0
Round 2 vs BG Depths (2-0)
Game 1
Got stuck with 3 lands and bob beatdown all the way
Game 2
1st turn suppression field almost gave me the win, my opponents 1st turn was verdant catacombs. able to establish a lock with smokestack, cow while my opponent continue to struggle with fetchlands.
Game 3
1st turn chalice, followed by humility and moat until i landed an elspeth for the win.

Record 2-1
Round 3 vs Sneaky Show (0-2)
Game 1
He goes 1st and droped a lotus petal with ancient tomb followed by show and tell landing emrakul..
Game 2
I boarded 3 orings, boarded out smokestacks.., i go for a 1st turn trinsphere, he drops an island. I then droped a cow with wasteland, on his turn he drops ancient tomb casting show and tell emrakul.. lol gg, i can only drop another cow haha.

Record 3-1
Round 4 vs Slivers (2-0)
Game 1
I dropped a 1st turn chalice for one, it was forced. he drops 1st turn vial, i then dropped a suppression field, it almost gave me the win. after several turns another wastelock with cow.
Game 2
almost same as game 1

Record 4-1
Round 5 vs Zoo (2-1)
Game 1
He goes 1st and dropped a nacalt, i kept a slow hand but had 1 wrath of god and humility with enough mana to drop it on the 4th turn. he then dropped FOD and kird ape.., i cleared all his creatures and then proceed with the lock.
Game 2
I was fast and furious and i took 8 damage from Price of progress haha
Game 3
boared in 3 firespout, almost same as game 1, i had 2 firespout and moat on my opening and mox with turbo lands.

Record 5-1
Round 5 vs Ichorid (2-0)
Game 1
he casts putrid imp.., oh.. ichorid, i then dropped chalice of 1 after several turns i dropped moat with wastelock then smokestack .
Game 2
1st turn trinisphere, then dropped chalice ghoslty prison followed by wasteland lock

Round 6 draw

RECORD => (5-1-1)

Round 7 vs Zoo playoffs (0-2)
Game 1
he goes 1st drops FOD, i was able to drop several lock piece but nothing could stop the 4/4 FOD, and all i drew was lands after dropping somelock parts like chalice and trini.
Game 2
i go for a trini 1st turn, then i was wondering if i'll waste his 2nd land bec i had no more lands on my hand and if i get land screw i cant cast my WOG and moat which i had on my hand.., well thats the turning point.. lol... i should have.., he drew his a 3rd land ang was able to cast pridemage and gaddock teeg... oh no!!!!!!.... i can't do anything with teeg around lol...

overall i was happy with the deck several tweaks and more playtest and i think it will run better

TFF Kingslayer

4x Trinisphere
4x Chalice of the void
3x Suppression Field
4x Ghostly Prison
3x Armageddon
2x Moat*
3x Humility
2x Smokestack
2x Wrath of God*
3x Elspeth, knight of Errant
3x Crucible of Worlds

4x Ancient Tomb
3x City of Traitors
4x Wasteland
1x Mutavault*
1x Horizon Canopy
3x Plateau
2x Flagstones of Trokair
6x Plains
3x Mox Diamond

Sideboard
4x Magus of the Moon
3x Boiling Seas*
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Firespout
2x Bloodmoon

Changes i'll be making are the following:
sadly i don't own any moats thus, i only borrowed them for this tourny.
* moat - mud slide
* wrath of god - firespout
* boiling seas - boil
* mutavault - plauteau

I really don't know how the deck will perform without moats haha.., mudslide is not that nice but until i can find away to play the deck without moats i'll try to look for other alternatives.

Suggestions and comments are welcome

Thanks

Hi, thanks for the report. I'm not very familiar with Dutch Stax builds, but if this one is any indication, there seems to be a lot of design space taken up by creature answers: 11 main and 3 in the side. Angelgeddon Stax generally only has 7 dedicated anti creature cards in the main, and 2-5 in the side. Aside from the large amount of double white costs, it seems better to get rid of the threat altogether rather than neutralize it; a random wisp mare could lead to a dangerous alpha strike, and forcing them to pay upkeep for creatures follows the Stax plan of resource denial. Freeing up some room would also allow you to run more copies of key cards and increase the chances of drawing them. Have you tried the Angel build and found it lacking? For the reasons above, I find it hard to believe that this design would be superior.

When did you board in the moon effects? Were they for lands decks? It seems that moon's effects on you were at least as great, and it's always better to destroy their lands rather than turn them into mountains.

Overall, it's a neat design, and I like the fact that you're trying new things and posting good results with them. Congrats! I just wonder if you aren't splintering the goal of the deck by adding so many new features.

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Hi, thanks for the report. I'm not very familiar with Dutch Stax builds, but if this one is any indication, there seems to be a lot of design space taken up by creature answers: 11 main and 3 in the side. Angelgeddon Stax generally only has 7 dedicated anti creature cards in the main, and 2-5 in the side. Aside from the large amount of double white costs, it seems better to get rid of the threat altogether rather than neutralize it; a random wisp mare could lead to a dangerous alpha strike, and forcing them to pay upkeep for creatures follows the Stax plan of resource denial. Freeing up some room would also allow you to run more copies of key cards and increase the chances of drawing them. Have you tried the Angel build and found it lacking? For the reasons above, I find it hard to believe that this design would be superior.

When did you board in the moon effects? Were they for lands decks? It seems that moon's effects on you were at least as great, and it's always better to destroy their lands rather than turn them into mountains.

Overall, it's a neat design, and I like the fact that you're trying new things and posting good results with them. Congrats! I just wonder if you aren't splintering the goal of the deck by adding so many new features.

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My old build was Angel geddon stax, i had tons of writeups in this thread in the earlier pages about it. Yes wispmare could totally destroy you in an instant but sometimes the geddon lock doesn't work. I've had great success in the agnel geddon stax build i just tried a different approach since i was able to borrow moats hahaha. But i think humility is really a nice addition to the stax shell as it stops different cards like bob who can develop enough card advanage to over come your lock. I also liked the idea of having wrath of god effects in the main as the meta is really aggro in our area.

My moon effects are for blue control decks aka jace control decks, humility + magus of the moon will work wonders with them, giving me vanilla 1/1 and killing there mana so does boil

@kirbysdl

The over all plan of dutch stax and geddon stax is quite different. As you have noticed Dutch stax focuses on nullifying creatures more than armageddon stax. Humility shuts down almost all the creatures..the moat simply seals the deal. Wispmare won't be able to go through humility, as well as pridemage, emrakul, progen, and almost every other creature in the format. A single moat can stop goblins cold. It can also handle most creature based decks.

One of the big differences of dutch stax and geddon stax in my opinion is that Dutch stax does not rely too much on synergy like geddon stax. While magus may be able to block, a single creature, and tax an opponent, he won't be able to handle 2 merfolk lords. You will have to wait for ghostly prison and armageddon to be able to do that. While moats and humility can work alone, geddon stax normally needs the interaction between different spells, and hence most of the time we pray for a timely armageddon.

Dutch stax in my opinion is a little superior to armageddon stax simply because of synergy issues. Stax doesn't have much draw (as you can see) to be able to combo out with 2 cards consistently( ghostly-geddon or magus-geddon ).However armageddon stax may have some small advantages as well, like not needing 4 mana and double white to be able to cast moat or humility. Also at times being able to tax an opponent works wonders. One more advantage of geddon stax is that its way much cheaper. But I still think regardless, dutch stax is a stronger version of the deck itself. We don't have to rely on armageddon as much and will be able to dedicate more slots to other spells.

With the metagame seem to be relying on more and more creatures, humility does its job fairly well.

1. People's advocation of Suppression Field and wanting to win with Elspeth can be very hard. Try to geddon, and still make and pump dudes with 2-3 fields online. Winning with an Angel becomes much better with the fields in the main. Personally I may run one or two Windborne Muse along with my 2 BSA.

2. This thread is seemingly crossing over to a Dutch Stax thread. If you run Humilty and 4x Moat, Congrats I own exactly one Moat so no matter how much better you tell me it is unless I can go in a time machine and get 3 more for under $100 Geddon Stax it is for me. You are not converting me to Dutch Stax thanks for trying.

3. If more people play Rock/Dark Horizons (showed up recently in my meta) to beat Survival that hurts more than survival match ups. Ghostly prison/ wasteland/ Crucible/ Graveyard hate in SB already gave Stax a good chance in the Survival Match up. Suppression Fields are great I have been playing them for months instead of Smokestacks (turns the lands match up which can be very bad.) Discard decks have always been bad for Stax seeing as we are a die roll dependent deck which already gives up card advantage for early control.

If more Rock shows up, pack more Karmic Justice in the board. Pernicious Deed rapes our face, so try to make targeted permanent removal as painful as possible.

I know the matchup very very well, as it's one of the other main decks I play (Rock, Dutch and Armageddon Stax, Landstill and Dreadstill). They have a solid matchup against us, Field in play or not.

-Matt

Vesper, what's your list? I've been thinking about the Muse; oftentimes Prisons are what the deck looks like it would like to use 6 of. I'm just a little concerned with having to pay a lot of upkeep to Magus, but as always it probably hurts them much more than it does us.

@Vesper Ghoul

First of all, I wasn't trying to convert anyone to play dutch stax.As I myself play armageddon stax. I never had a single moat, but if I did have 3 copies, I would probably play dutch stax. But that won't happen unless the moats fall from the sky onto my lap. I was simply trying to explain the differences of dutch and armageddon stax, and why I think dutch stax has an advantage over geddonstax. THe thread is generally for stax, before we even had a dutch stax thread it was already talked about here. THey have almost the same style of play, with only a few differences in win con as well as protection. So again, I'm not trying to convince people to move to dutch stax. I'm just simply stating my thoughts on it.

@sdematt

Yes you are right to say that rock is a bad match up for us. I remember that when I used to play stax, I dropped it because rock was filling up the metagame.P.deed owns us. However if you followed the thread way back, around page 71 or so I was already advocating the splash of green for krosan grips and chokes. Krosan grip helped me deal with dreadnought as well as pernicious deed. And if people asked me if it was worth it, yes it is. If rock was trying to come back, you can side both karmic and krosan grips to help out.

Oh don't worry Flip, I've advocated the Green Splash for years, except I've been playing Choke with no Grip. My board is as follows:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Choke
3 Karmic Justice
4 Suppression Field

Leylines deal with Combo and discard and Burn and Jace; Field is for Zoo, Fetch heavy decks, Jace, Deed, etc.; Karmic is just for Deed and targeted removal, and good against Grip/Predator; Choke is for Blue heavy decks. Grip is most definitely a worthy addition, but so far, I've found this lineup pretty decent against the majority of the field (Thopter and Landstill and Rock are pretty much our worst matchups, I think. If Thopter can crap tokens to outrace you on Smokestack or drop Jace, it's hard. Rock's discard and removal and Landstill's counterpower backed with Deed can hurt, too).

All in all, I still think we're in a good place in the Meta right now. I think the main problems plaguing us are consistency and cost. Were it not for those issues I think we'd be putting up great numbers. $180 Moats and $250 Tabernacles aren't easy to purchase...

-Matt

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Vesper, what's your list? I've been thinking about the Muse; oftentimes Prisons are what the deck looks like it would like to use 6 of. I'm just a little concerned with having to pay a lot of upkeep to Magus, but as always it probably hurts them much more than it does us.

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List since February

2 Baneslayer Angel
3 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Armageddon
1 Ravages of War
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Suppression Field
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
1 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Karakas
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Nomad Stadium
5 Plains
4 Wasteland

Testing

2 Windborne Muse
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Armageddon
1 Ravages of War
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Suppression Field
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
3 Trinisphere

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Horizon Canopy/ or Ghost Quarter (tinkering)
2 Karakas
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
5 Plains
4 Wasteland

3 Pieces from my sideboard which I found myself boarding in almost constantly are now in the main Tabernacle and 2 Muses.

New SB
1 Suppression Field
1 Trinisphere
3 Bottled Cloister (discard and control match ups)
3 Defense Grid (I think this may become Choke for Folk)
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Smokestack
2 Pithing Needle


@f|i[p]
No disrespect I wasn't targeting anyone I've been on this thread a while and it always become "Dutchie."

Stax decks without Stax seem a bit odd. I take it that instead of setting up a hard lock, you tend to just Geddon repeatedly while racing for the win before they can stabilize? Have you tried switching out ORing for Stax?

Also, why 2x Karakas? Do you see a lot of Iona? Would Karakas change to more Canopies or Savannahs if you were to go to Chokes in the side?

I like the idea of maindeck Supp Fields, so I'll be trying to fit them in. I'm just not sure yet what I should take out, though Smokestack seems like the popular option. =)

I have switched the two cards and found that Oring get rid of what I need when its needed. Where as a stck get rid of everything else but.

2X Karakas is because I had/have a ton of zoo players in my area and Gaddok Teeg is a pain as well as Emrakul, Iona, and a host of others (In the last year Reanimator was still relevant.) With Diamond I really never saw it as an issue 3x was too much and 1x Lands in the deck as we know are hard to find. As far as if I go green splash I would be looking squarely possibly one Savannah and one more canopy. But surprisingly I have been looking at cutting one or both Factories which are not nearly as good with the Suppression Field. The same could be said for the Canopy but drawing extra cards when needed seems more relevant in "Soft Lock" mode.

I'm not going to lie I was forced to run the fields originally because I needed 3 more Smokestacks so I ran 3 and 1. As time went by I learned to love Field more than the Stacks once I got them. I have looked back and tried to squeeze in the stacks again but it just never worked out.

3 fields is optimal in main with the board much like the 3sphere is only boarded in situations where activation is 100% key to winning like against 43 land and Survival for Field and Storm for 3sphere.

Good luck and Don't let the Nostalgia of Legacy lure you to stay with the older cards even if they are great ones. I borrowed Stax before I bought it and the borrowed deck ran 4x Stack so it not like I didnt play it or know how it works before I bought my deck.