Call of the HERD. Seems pretty good in this deck to me.
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Call of the HERD. Seems pretty good in this deck to me.
...And no-one have suggested Uba Mask in the whole thread? Its THE reason to play stax with Sylvan Libraries..
I've run Greenstacks for a while on MWS. Its a more unconventional build, but let's just say Exploration and Crucible of Worlds combine for something that's utterly ludicrous, don't forget your Eternal Witnesses, and now-not-so-secret tech: Mwonvuli Acid Moss.
Hey, guys,if you fear to play Chalice+Exploration, there is Exploration that costs :2::g:. The name is Azusa, Lost but Seeking.
I fear to say that, but with all that "untap something" cards, I want to run Gu for Intuition and..... STASIS!!! Yeah, idiotic magic-noob's dream is deck around Stasis. I'll call it StaXis:the next level of Annoyance.
here's a slightly different approach:
G/r Stax
Land
4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
2 City of Traitors
2 Horizon Canopy
Spells
4 Smokestack
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
3 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Winter Orb
3 Tanglewire
3 Sylvan Library
3 Root Maze
2 Eternal Witness
Win con
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Natural Emergence
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Words of Wilding
SB:
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip
1 Trinisphere
3 (Open Slots)
tinder wall looks like it could be helpful with the splash but what to cut? also, fetches are dont work well with rootmaze at all. blood moon effects could fit into the splash because it just turns your taiga's into mountains so you can still play natural emergence/goyf/wilding for your win, but then garrunk is nearly impossible to cast. i think witness's GG might be function better as goyf's? too much GG will be difficult.
yea i know, nobody has heard of this:
Natural Emergence
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Ca...iverseid=26410
seriously, perfect finisher. you have first strike creatures that can double block your opponents shit so its good for defense, and you can bounce 11 different permanents in this build (sylvan library, exploration, rootmaze, words of the wilding. and its not like you need anything you are bouncing anymore once you have set up the board for the win.) and it also allows you to chump block huge creatures (goyf) recurrently with crucible. also allows for some very sick interactions with garruk: untap 2 lands, double block an attacking creature, or overrun for the win. it also allows you to chump block huge creatures (goyf) recurrently with crucible. its not like you need anything you are bouncing anymore once you have set up the board for the win. the red splash also gives you vexing shusher in the board to fight through countermagic.
Interactions:
Exploration + Crucible + Smokestack
Garruk + Winter Orb
Garruk + Tanglewire
Garruk + Trinisphere
Garruk + Natural Emergence
Rootmaze + Winterorb
Rootmaze + Trinisphere
Rootmaze + Garruk
Rootmaze + Tanglewire
Sylvan Library + Words of the Wilding(?) (not sure if this works)
Eternal Witness + Smokestack
Eternal Witness + Wasteland
Eternal Witness + Tanglewire
other ideas
green:
constant mists (+ crucible is an amazing aggro lock might be better if running LftL too)
crop rotation (excellent with crucible, fetches canopy/wasteland/taiga)
rites of flourishing (its a draw engine and an exploration, but for your opponent too)
terravore (could be a nice finisher)
red splash:
bust//boom (red geddon)
devestating dreams (unlikely, but its a board sweeper and ld)
magma vein (board sweeper?)
price of glory (might make for a nice anti-control set up)
territorial dispute (fucking brilliant lock with crucible but RR is hard)
hull breach (might fit into the sb nicely)
sarkhan vol (technically a 3 turn finisher)
also Life from the Loam + Sylvan Library, as mentioned by Mordenkaynen, seems like it could be really strong. but is it worth running considering its redudancy with crucible. then again, it would make exploration more useful and open up possibilities for constant mists (more crucible effects means that you will actually draw one to use constant mists + recurrent land).
Yes, Sylvan Library + any Words enchantment works. This was used way back in Sun Tower when Emidln was "the stax guy". It's good, too. I've actually gained permanents with a Smokestack active with 5 soot counters.
I don't like the Natural Emergence. This should stay straight green I think. Makes it much less waste-lockable, and won't make your gold cards dead when they waste your Taigas. I know Mox Diamond whatever, it's relevant. The Natural Emergence isn't good enough to risk the land-screw via wastes and Blood Moons, etc.
Pce,
--DC
EDIT::: I've always said blue is my favorite color to play in stax, and green is close behind it. Intuition + LftL + Academy Ruins and any artifact = Sick synergy and Redundancy Sweetness.
What does green have to hinder quick zoo lists? White has Prison, Blue has Propaganda, what does green have?
eh.. yea its a little shaky against a possible waste lock. i think garruk/rootmaze already gives you an advantage in the stax mirror, and landstill, you have shusher in the board, rootmaze to fuck with their fetch mana base, winterorb to further fuck with them (and what else runs the waste lock anyhow?). i think that waste lock vulnerability is not as big a problem as you'd think. however, you could by pass the problem all together if crop rotation could be fit into this and then just run 1 taiga and rely on that or mox diamond to cast it. then wastelock would be irrelevant (one taiga doesnt fuck with your land base significantly). as for blood moon, it would cut your green sources from 10 to 4 which means you can still cast your shit but its harder. bring shit in from the board to deal with blood moon effects (ie krosan grip, maybe a kill spell for magus).
and yea the issue would not be that your gold cards are dead (losing 2 cards isnt a big deal) but that you are losing your green sources.
EDIT:
against quick zoo lists, green has
constant mists (good with crucible)
elephant grass (might be nice in the board)
ensnaring bridge (if you keep your card count low)
Well, Loam runs wastelock. Then there's Blood Moon, ironically still leaving you red so that's not a problem, but I must say that all of these 1cmc cards you are throwing out is a rediculous idea in a stax list, where 90% of the time a Chalice @ 1 is your best play. Losing gold cards isn't a problem. I will say that losing a win condition can be, which you would be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
yea there is loam. and they have a very easy time getting out a wastelock with crucible and LftL. then again, you can't beat everything. LftL could fit into the board to try to beat that. loam also runs heavy fetches (8 fetches good for root maze) and winter orb still works well on them (nearly all non-basics).
yea the whole 1cmc deal is not normal stax tactics. its just a different approach. maybe its viable. we wont really know until its tested. then again, if you drop those 7 1cmc cards for 4 MD chalice, then what goes in the other 3 slots? more witness?
NE is 2 out of the 8 win conditions, and if you really get all your taiga's wasted you can always bring one back with crucible (or witness) or mox diamond so they arent completely dead, just harder to cast.
here's some gold fishing with that build:
ON THE PLAY:
opening hand 1:
port, waste, witness, library, forest, canopy, trinisphere
(exploration would have been sick)
T1: forest, pass
T2: draw maze, port, library, pass
T3: draw mox, smokestack, tomb, keep ancient tomb, play wasteland, play trini, pass)
T4: draw smokestack, port, mox, keep smokestack, play canopy, waste a nonbasic, play rootmaze (- 1 life), pass
T5: draw mox, mox, port, keep port, play port, play smokestack, pass
T6: soot counter, draw mox, mox, canopy, keep canopy, play canopy, tap down 2 lands with 2 ports (-1 life), pass
T7: soot counter (sac horizon canopy), draw mox, mox, orb, keep orb, play ancient tomb, play orb, tap 2 lands (-1 life)
T8: no soot counter (sac tomb and root maze), draw mox, mox, words of wilding, pass
T9: no soot counter (sac smokestack and port), draw mox, mox, forest, keep forest, play forest, words of wilding, pass (im holding e-witness)
T10: draw 3, make 2 tokens and draw mox, tap down 1 land (-1 life)
T11: rinse and repeat draw mox, swing 4
T12: rinse and repeat draw city of traitors, play city, swing 8
T13: draw 3, make 3 tokens, tap 1 land, swing for 12 (win in goldfish)
that was alright. pretty slow to get distruption going.
opening hand 2:
canopy, stack, words of wilding, forest, garruk, waste, stack
gets mulled into:
maze, city, wire, port, witness, wire
T1: play port
T2: draw exploration, play city, play wire
T3: tap wire, draw winter orb, play orb
T4: tap wire and orb, draw crucible, play crucible
T5: tap wire, crucible, orb, draw mox, play wire
T6: tap wire, wire, crucible, orb, city, draw exploration
T7: wire dies, tap crucible and orb, draw FOREST, play mox discarding forest, exploration, bring back forest
T8: tap crucible, wire and exploration, draw NE, play NE returning exploration
T9: tap crucible, wire, exploration, and orb, draw rootmaze, play rootmaze (w/ mox)
T10: wire dies, untap port, draw orb, play witness returning wire
T11: draw taiga, play taiga, tap city and mox, play wire, swing for 8
T12: tap orb, draw tomb, play tomb, swing for 12 (win in goldfish)
that hand was alright, some fast distruption that lasts for a while.
opening hand 3:
waste, garruk, NE, taiga, forest, stack, library
gets mulled into:
exploration, crucible, witness, NE, ancient tomb, forest
T1: forest, exploration, tomb
T2: draw exploration, play crucible
T3: draw goyf, play exploration
T4: draw trini, play trini
T5: draw maze, play goyf
T6: draw garruk, play maze
T7: draw waste, play waste, sac waste
T8: draw taiga, play taiga, play natural emergence returning maze
T9: draw winter orb, swing 8
T10: draw canopy, play canopy, swing 10
T11: draw port, play port swing 12
that hand was bad. very bad.
ON THE DRAW:
opening hand 1:
trini, wire, NE, taiga, trini, orb, tomb
T1: draw forest, play forest
T2: draw words of wilding, play ancient tomb, tap (-2 life) play trini
T3: draw wire, play taiga, play words of wilding
T4: draw tomb, play tomb, play NE returning words of wilding
T5: draw exploration, play tangle wire, swing for 4
T6: tap wire, draw eternal witness, swing for 8
T7: tap wire, NE, draw garruk, play garruk, untap 2 lands and play words
T8: tap wire, garruk, words, NE, draw city, play city, remove 4 counters from garruk, swing for swing for 20 (win)
fucking great hand.
opening hand 2:
maze, crucible, port, mox, forest, exploration, taiga
T1: draw smokestack, play forest, exploration, taiga, mox discarding port, maze
T2: draw port, play port, play crucible, play port (from grave)
T3: draw maze, play maze, play smokestack
T4: soot counter, draw wasteland, play wasteland (tapped)
T5: no soot counter, sac rootmaze, draw mox, sac, play wasteland
T6: sac rootmaze, draw horizon canopy, play mox discarding canopy, play wasteland, sac, play, sac
T7: sac wasteland (for smokestack), draw library, play library, play canopy, sac, draw smokestack
(i now have a lock of wasteland per turn and i can also sac a land each turn to support smokestack, i have library, and a canopy draw engine if i dont need to or cant waste his lands. i also have 2 ports to tap down any basics he has.)
T8: sac wasteland, draw NE, trini, orb, keep NE, play NE returning library, play wasteland, swing for 6 (i have 2 mox diamonds so i only need to tap 2 land)
T9: sac wasteland, draw trini, play wasteland, swing for 10
T10: sac wasteland, draw orb, play wasteland, swing for 10 (win)
again, amazing hand.
opening hand 3:
city, orb, tomb, stack, wasteland, wire, crucible
T1: draw port, play wasteland
T2: draw trini, play tomb, play trini (-2 life)
T3: draw NE, play port, play wire (-2 life)
T4: tap wire, draw exploration, play smokestack (-2 life)
T5: soot counter, tap wire and stack, draw witness, play crucible of worlds
T6: tap wire, stack and crucible, sac city of traitors, play city of traitors (from grave), tap something with port
T7: tap wire, stack, crucible, and tomb, sac city, draw trini, replay city, tap something with port
T8: wire dies, sac city, draw garruk, play city
T9: sac city, draw tomb, play city
T10: sac city, draw maze, play city
(ive locked my oppoent out for sure now)
T11: sac city, draw...
many turns later i find a forest.. and then win. but i locked my opponent so its irrelevant. he would have no permanents.
thoughts? i just realized that i was playing with 62 cards. so i should probably cut goyf. he was always irrelevant.
rootmaze was also irrelevant but then again, goldfish.dec doesnt have fetches so meh i dont know if it was useful.
I'm not sure whether to maindeck or sideboard them, but Plow Under seems like some good in a format where people don't run a whole lot of land. I couldn't say with any certainty how it would work out in Legacy, but there used to be a Standard deck called Trinity Green that was a blast to play, and that deck used to combine Tangle Wire with Plow Under to some effect. Tooth and Nail likewise made really good use of it (although, again, in a far weaker environment).
I personally agree that Tangle Wire doesn't seem as good in a deck that can't recur it (via Welder or Ruins), but I say that having never tried it in Stax. It was good in Trinity, but Trinity ran Cradles and a million mana-producing creatures. I personally would stick Sphere of Resistance there; it helps with the mana-denial strategy, it hurts free spells if you can get it to stick, and it's dumb against combo.
plow under might work, but getting GG is hard enough as it is. and there is nothing really to cut. i think that the wasteland's and ports do the job pretty well.
sphere seems like it would be redundant with all the distruption you already have, and would fuck you up if you didnt have the appropriate mana to support it.
welder though, might be good if there is red to support him.
Spawnwrithe should be considered for the above build. I lost interest in this deck pretty fast when I was playing around with it due to dutch stax's existence in general, but the card I like the most in the deck was spawnwrithe.
There were more than a few games where I went T1: Chalice, T2: Spawnwrithe and then lay down a 3sphere or smoker and that was it. Spawnwrithe gets out of control in a hurry and feeds smokers.
Azusa seems a nice add-on to te build since it provides to run CotV and to did 2 lands each turn without anty-sinergies....
....except that every deck runs creature removal of one variety or another, where people typically only have Grips or EE for Exploration (and, since you have a bunch of artifacts and stuff of different mana costs, EE is not a whole lot better for them than Grip in many situations). I'm not knocking Azusa as a card, but this deck doesn't seem like a home for Grey Ogres.
So, here's what I've been fucking around with... It's really not optimal yet, and I'm not sold on Prefect and Spawnwrithe by any means... I think I may try out some shenanigans with Uba Mask, Words of Wilding, and Sylvan Library next.
Green Stax (rough version)
4 Wasteland
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Ghost Quarter
10 Forest
3 Imperious Perfect
3 Spawnwrithe
4 Garruk, Wildspeaker
2 Argothian Wurm
4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
1 Life from the Loam
4 Crucible of Worlds
2 Squirrel Nest
3 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
SB
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Sphere of Resistance
2 Choke
...So, it's a really rough version, and there are a few issues:
1.) Finding a decent kill condition
2.) Exploration VS. Chalice of the Void
3.) Creature control to deal with aggro swarms and/or big beaters.
I'm glad people are still thinking about the deck, but I've gotta confess, I've been having a hard time coming up with a list that's any good.
Advice would be much appreciated.
EDIT: I need some help on how exactly Words of Wilding and Uba Mask interact... They seem to both be replacement effects on drawing, but I'm not sure if Mask takes precedence over Words and makes it not work... Which would really suck. If someone could untangle the finer points of Uba Mask, Sylvan Library, and Words of Wilding, as far as simultaneous interactions, I'd really appreciate it. Lol, my mind is too frazzled to make good sense of it right now, the more I think about it.
Garruk does seem like he has great interaction with a Stax shell, but a lot of the other things you folks are trying seem a little odd to me.
--To whit: Exploration. Based on my personal experience playing Stax (Angel Stax and now Armageddon Stax) this really seems like a win-more card to me, with the added bonus of un-synergy with one of the deck's best cards -- chalice. Honestly, the only thing I can see Exploration doing is being a great accellerant when played on turn 1 or 2. In other situations it seems redundant. For example:
-If you have Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds, then you are winning, and don't need Exploration.
-If you have Smokestack but not Crucible, you don't need Exploration, because you won't draw more than 1 land a turn anyway.
-If you have Crucible but not Smokestack, you can use Exploration to use Wasteland and Canopy in the same turn, which is fun, but also pointless, since without Exploration, you could just use Wasteland and use your draw step to get more cards. In Stax you generally have the luxury of waiting. Of course, if you have nothing but Crucible, Wasteland, and Horizon Canopy, then naturally, Exploration will be great.
-If you have neither Crucible nor Smokestack, Exploration does nothing -- outside of early acceleration -- to advance your game plan. It doesn't get you closer to winning, and it doesn't stave off defeat.
--Root Maze also seems like a bizarre choice. Not only is it unfriendly with Chalice, but it also causes Trinisphere not to become active until the turn after you play it, giving your opponent potentially crucial time to find and apply an answer. On top of that, I'm not really sure why you want to play it in the first place. It slows down mana production, but you need Exploration to break the symmetry of it, and early mana production is a least as important for Stax as any other deck. It does do a number on fetchlands, but with that balanced against what it does you your own Wastelands, Horizon Canopys, Factories, Ports, etc -- which is not mitigated by Exploration -- it doesn't really seem like you would come out much ahead until you had Garruk as well. By that point, you have bigger and better things to do with your mana if you had been saving Maze, or, if you played it early, it likely took long enough to get Garruk mana, that the opponent will have enough mana that they're no longer crippled by it. It just doesn't seem worth it.
(dammit, I was hoping to avoid a wall of text. oh well.)
--In general, it seems like what people are building for green stacks loses a lot of focus as compared to white builds. Since Stax's disruption/lock suite works by layering multiple taxing/denial effects which could likely be answered individually, but which together become impossible with break out of, a loss of focus is Bad. Having lots of awesome random BS you can draw into is great in decks with tons of fetches and cantrips, but Stax doesn't have those things, so if you're getting your awesome random BS, you're aren't getting the important cards that keep your opponent from doing things. (Don't get me wrong, my biggest complaint about Stax is that it doesn't support fun BS nonsense)
For starters, it sounds like the green lists have way too many win conditions. In Armageddon Stax, I play 7 win conditions: 4 Magus of the Tabernacle, and 3 Mishra's Factory. Losing because I didn't have enough win conditions is not a problem I've had. Seriously, when you win with stax, dealing the 20 damage is a formality. You really win with Trinisphere (or whatever). My advice is to simply cut the win condition down to Garruk and 2-4 others, preferably ones which do something else to advance your game plan. It seems to me that Imperious Perfect and other cute interactions with Smokestack are a waste of deck space, and a distraction from the real game plan while playing.
--Try to cut as many things with GG in the cost a possible. Garruk is worth it, I'm sure, but given that you don't have more colored sources than than the versions I'm used to, I doubt you can really support as much green mana as I'm seeing.
--I've never liked Tanglewire. I've run it at times anyway, and since you probably need something to offer protection from rushes, Tanglewire may compensate for the lack of a Ghostly Prison/Propaganda effect in green. I can't help feeling that there is something better, though. I don't think Elephant Grass is a good way to go, though. I'm a fan of Engineered Explosives, which works surprisingly well in white versions with a single Savannah -- for Flagstones to go get -- and a single Canopy to back up Mox Diamond, and I see no real reason why it couldn't work well in a green version too, with 2-3 Canopys. EE won't do the job by itself, though.
I hope my viewpoint is helpful. Sometime in the next couple days I'll try and draft a decklist to illustrate the direction I think this deck ought to go in.
I agree with what a lot of what BlindMage wrote. The one thing I would like to at least test with is Exploration, though, as to me it does seem like a very powerful effect. I haven't played the deck, but this really caught my eye, and I really want to make it work now. Here's a list with explanations
4x Ancient Tomb
3x City of Traitors
3x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
2x Horizon Canopy
3x Forest
3x Bayou
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
4x Mox Diamond
The mana-base is fairly standard for an Exploration list. Normally I'm not a huge fan of Horizon Canopy, but I'm going to start with them and see if I run into issues. Also, the fetches are really iffy, but with Sylvan Library, the additonal shuffle effects might be worth it. Mishra's Factory is a concession to the fact that this deck looks like it's going to have far more trouble with Tarmogoyf than the White or Blue lists as it lacks a Propaganda effect.
My most radical change would be to cut City of Traitors IF, and only if, Exploration turns out to be a powerful enough choice. Gaining additional fetches and utility lands like Port, Factory, or (Unlikely) Ghost Quarter might be worth it over the hazardous acceleration offered by City of Traitors.
3x Sylvan Libary
3x Garruk, Wildspeaker
4x Exploration
3x The Abyss
I'll explain my reasoning for The Abyss here, as most of the other cards are at least fairly accepted. This deck is going to be far more vulnerable to various aggro decks than its Blue or White counterparts, as it lacks Magus, Ghostly Prison, and Propaganda. It has few answers in Green itself, and I've been unsatisfied with Engineered Explosives and Powder Keg in Stax without Academy Ruins in the past. I was very close to splashing White for Swords to Plowshares, and may still do so, but I'm going to start with The Abyss for testing.
4x Smokestack
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Trinisphere
4x Sphere of Resistance
3x Ensnaring Bridge
This is another area where I'm unsure of my choices. 4 Smokestack and Crucible would be poor in many Stax builds, but I think that in here, they're going to be key to the deck working correctly. If I feel that I'm getting too many from Horizon Canopy and Sylvan Library draws, I may cut back. I dropped Chalice of the Void (:cry:) from the deck after thinking about it long and hard. I asked myself, what decks is it good against, and what specific cards is it good against in those matchups, and came up slightly lacking. Sphere of Resistance synergizes well with the deck and is better against Combo (barring testing both). Ensnaring Bridge is a card that Sun Tower played very successfully, and one that I think is a powerful effect just looking for a home. I'll run with this maindeck against Countertop, Merfolk, and maybe Aggro Loam/Eva Green and get back to you all.
@Goblin Snowman: Interesting list, I definitely never would have thought about The Abyss. If you really can get away with cutting Chalice from the maindeck, that makes Exploration a little better. I'm skeptical about that, since against a deck like Thresh or NLU, Chalice@1 totally shuts down their cantrip base, and with it their ability to dig from answers/threats, whereas Sphere just slows it down. I'm also not convinced that Sphere is better against combo, if you know what to set Chalice at. It'll be interesting to see what falls out in your testing.
It occures to me that if you're using Exploration for acceleration, and have 4 Crucible, that City of Traitors might actually be better than Ancient Tomb, since not paying life to Tomb would give you more leeway to pay life for cards from Sylvan Library. Actually, it might be worth at least thinking about how to best capitalize on Library.
Something to keep in mind as well is that the greater use of 1- and 2-cc cards in your list makes it more vulnerable to Counterbalance than traditional Stax lists. This might not be anything to lose sleep over, but it seemed worth pointing out.
*Shrug*. The reasoning behind dropping it went a little like this;Quote:
Originally Posted by BlindMage
Next Level Blue has 4 Brainstorms, 3 Tops, 4 Swords, and MAYBE 4 NH or Mongoose or something. They don't have a cantrip engine worth shutting down anymore, and Swords is largely irrelevant. Against ANT or Fetchland Tendrils, any decent player can play through a Chalice on either 0 or 1 if there's no pressure applied. And depending on their hand/amount of land drops, it's possible they will be able to totally negate it. Sphere of Resistance can help bone them in conjunction with Wasteland pretty hardcore.
Hrm. You might be on to something. Early testing (just over Workstation while I wait for my testing partner to get back) has shown that City has been decently easy to manage. Cutting Tomb for Crystal Vein or utility might help shore up the Goyf Slight MU or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by BlindMage
It's what I'm testing right now. It was great against all decks I played up to now except tempo thresh, which was a slaughter. Pyroclasm, counterspells, mana disruption, trygon, submerge, efficient beaters, stifle on stax. Nothing I could do in this MU. The deck has serious weaknesses I don't know how to fix, except by winning before they come up. The main one is any flying beater. Sometimes I wonder if Tangle Wire does not better fit the deck than Chalice, since we already have T1 plays with trinisphere and mana guys.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Arboria would be an interesting way to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Fetches would give them 2 turns of attack. I'm not sure arboria is a good card to play in legacy.
No Sylvan Library? I would have thought that that was a good fit for a Stax-type Deck.
1) It's a permanent;
2) It's draw, something that most Stax-type decks need.
The thing against it is that it costs life for those cards.
4 life for a 0 CA, 8 life for CA+1 with no life gain, no shuffling effect (appart from NO which wins generally the game) ?
4 Life for CA1 8 Life for CA2...
What he said. Make sure you understand how a card works before you shut the discussion down. Basically, Sylvan Library lets you "brainstorm" each draw step. Draw 3, put 2 back, you get to pick. Also, they stack, with 1 giving you 3 cards, 2 giving you 5, 3 giving you 7 and 4 giving you 9.
There's a great combo used in Sun Tower (a UGx Stax list from last year when Emidln still dabbled in stax). It is Sylvan Library and any Words Enchantment. We used Words of War first, but Words of Wilding was a house against everything. You could ramp stax up to 4 on a pretty regular basis and still GAIN permanents each turn without saccing off a land. Its pretty intense.
Pce,
--DC
So you consider that ponder is CA1?Quote:
Originally Posted by rockSTAR
Sylvan library doesn't let you brainstorm, it lets you top for free at each upkeep (and you may pay life to draw, but you're already too much low in life to afford it in stax).
The combos with Sylvan Library are too random to be taken into account. Moreover the cards of the combo are bad on their own.
you know what you just said is exactly what they said, just comparing 2 different cards that do the exact same thing. pending on board state and life totals as such, being able to draw that extra card to win the game or get 2 cards needed to help win.
i didnt read through just skimmed real quick but did anyone mention harmonize? i know its not as good as library but it dodges cb and spell snare
I'm not quite sure what you mean. You're not playing any fetches. Arboria is probably inferor to something like Ensnaring Bridge in most cases, though. I was really thinking along the lines of "moat, but green".Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
The problem I see with this deck is you are putting yourselves in harm's way with the low casting cost cards.
In stax, I want to go:
Turn 1: Trinisphere
Turn 2: Smokestack
Turn 3: Crucible (followed immediately by my opponent's scoop phase)
(FYI: With this combo, the game ends unless your oppoenent has the ability to make 3 mana some mystical way because they will never be able to reach 3 lands to cast a spell)
I'll settle for:
T1: Chalice @ 1
T2: Trinisphere
Then take it from there.
It seems bad to have so many of your spells affected by your lock pieces. I realize you aren't generally playing chalice in your builds but I have still seen Trinisphere. In most stax builds, Mox Diamond (4 cards) are only affected by the lock pieces. Here you're putting 12+ (combinations of mox, goyf, Exploration and Root Maze) in which just seems wrong.
Test it. Test 4 Library, 3 Words of Wilding. I got lethally brain freezed on turn 4 playing against Solidarity and still won the game. I had out one library and one WoWilding.
Pce,
--DC
Also, in the M10 spoiler, there's a creature that makes more creatures for free each turn: Master of the Wild Hunt. Its second ability will be usually relevant as well, killing Goyfs and other non-Shroud men. It does cost 2GG, however.
It's been discussed, and the general thought is that it's worse than Garruk, and personally, I'm not a fan of Garruk. I wouldn't play Master of the Wild Hunt if a gun were held to my head. I'd rather splash for removal than play that card.
Pce,
--DC
The abundance of 1 mana producers was a weakness in 2 ways :
- pyroclasm, fire/ice, plague
- often the impossibility to play a turn 1 chalice@1
So finally, I kept the 4 elves but I replaced noble hierarches and birds with wall of roots.
Wall is less fragile than those 0/1, and overall it costs the same, since it produces G as soon as it comes into play. It's sometimes more difficult to play on turn 1, but that's not a big deal, since you can play chalice now.
In regards to the Chalice and Exploration debate, I would play four of each. A first turn Exploration can often facilitate a Chalice@1. Yeah it sucks when you have a Chalice@1 and draw into an Exploration but it's not game breaking. Being able to make your land drops AND start Waste locking your opponent is just too good to pass up IMO.
Green stax should run Words of Wilding + Sylvan Library, and make inf+1 bears ^^
That was quite a tech when I used to play Brandon's Rg Stax and Sun Tower
And also, sylvan is your best draw/lib manipulator option
One of the problems with playing a deck like Green Stax is that your opponents will invariably have ways to kill you, often despite your lock pieces. A single Krosan Grip in the midgame can often completely destroy a green stax player's gameplan because Green Stax, for the most part, lacks a solid mana denial plan. You either need to make it so that your opponent cannot play spells that break your locks or you need to win fast enough that hard locks aren't necessary. Sylvan Library/Words of Wilding provides a way to do that with cards that aren't fucking terrible on their own. If you want to not get attacked to death by Tarmogoyf, you'll need to play Ensnaring Bridge. If you want to win the game with a Bridge in play, you probably will have to look outside of Green if you reject Library/WoW.
Factories are a fine win condition if you can get the Stax lock active and online (which isn't the easiest thing to do when your opponent keeps shitting out dudes). They make a poor win condition if you have to win before an opponent simply finds and plays some removal for your bridges before a lethal sing. Garruk has a problem of requiring a million mana to be effective and is extremely suspect in the mid to late game (where your hand is generally empty or you could just play whatever you happen to have anyway) and his token generation is laughable. By the midgame, your opponent often has multiple dudes, dudes that probably laugh at your limited amount of 3/3s. Unless your opponent went infinite, they likely can't deal with a horde of Bear tokens.
Interestingly enough, White Stax opts to go the other way with Geddon effects to control the opponent's ability to effectively attack or play spells. They make it impossible to play expensive spells like Rushing River, Krosan Grip, and Pernicious Deed with geddons. This has a side effect of letting their Wastelands and Smokestacks hit the opponent's generally suspect manabase harder.
I'm still confused about the mechanics of the combo I guess.
Do you still lose 4 life per card you keep with Library + WoW? It's like, you draw the card for your turn... then 2 more goes on the stack, but you can replace those? Do you still get to keep the cards? I'm confused :laugh: :confused: Someone's gonna have to explain this to me I'm dumb lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mystical_Jackass
With one Words of Wilding you can:
a) draw 3 cards, put back 2, lose 0 life
To do this: don't activate words of wilding and put back 2 cards while resolving Sylvan Library.
b) draw 3 cards, put back 1, lose 4 life
To do this: don't activate words of wilding and put back 1 card while resolving sylvan library.
c) draw 3 cards, put back 0, lose 8 life
To do this: draw your card per turn. While Sylvan Library is resolving, do not put back any cards.
d) draw 2 cards, get 1 token, put back 2 cards, lose 0 life
To do this: activate Words of Wilding one time in your upkeep. Draw 2 cards and put back 2 cards while resolving Sylvan Library.
e) draw 1 card, put back 0, get 2 tokens, pay 0 life
To do this: do not activate Words of Wilding in your upkeep. Draw your card per turn as a game action. With the Sylvan Library trigger on the stack, activate Words of Wilding twice. The if clause on Sylvan Library will not trigger since you have not technically drawn cards from this ability.
f) draw 1 card, put back 0, get 2 tokens, pay 4 life
To do this: activate Words of Wilding in your upkeep. Your draw per turn will be replaced. With Sylvan Library's trigger on the stack, activate Words of Wilding one time. While resolving Sylvan Library, it will notice that you did in fact try to draw cards. You now get to pay 4 life to keep the draw you didn't replace.
g) draw 0 cards, get 3 tokens, pay 0 life
To do this: activate Words of Wilding in your upkeep at least one time. With Sylvan Library's trigger on the stack, activate Words of Wilding at least two more times.
Personally, I don't recommend paying life very often. You can always get 1 token (d) , 2 tokens (e), or 3 tokens (g) from 1 Library + 1 Words of Wilding without paying life.