Printable View
Nope, the deck is kind of tiring to play so I took a break to see how many other decks I can jam Karn into.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnza
A lot of interesting choices here, I'm not a fan of no manlands and the 4 Inventors' Fairs seem like they'd be awkward. The Serum Powders give it a more stompy-esque vibe, which does match the Trinisphere/Tanglewire plan. I wonder if the creator or someone who's played it will chime in and give us their insight.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnza
The guy who played it is often playing a Modern prison deck and is live in that Discord. If you want to ask him questions I can PM you a link.
I played a couple different Stax builds at legacy FNM over the last 2 weeks. Here are the lists and short tourney reports
Week 1:
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
4x Mishras Factory
2x Drownyard Temple
1x Buried Ruin
1x Dunes of the Dead
1x Inventor's Fair
4x Mox Diamond
4x Smokestack
3x Tangle Wire
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Trinisphere
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Ratchet Bomb
1x Powder Keg
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Lodestone Golem
2x Karn Scion of Urza
SB:
1x Ratchet Bomb
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Pithing Needle
2x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Zuran Orb
Matches: (these were from a couple weeks ago and are purely from memory, so individual game details are going to be minimal)
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: UR Delver (budget)
Won this match 2-0. Both games I stuck early chalice on 1, ate permanents with smokestack, and closed the game quickly with lodestone. Match felt pretty lopsided after chalice resolved. This opponent doesnt own FoW, so getting chalice online was pretty easy.
Round 3: Blue control (miracles of some sort?)
Lost this round 0-2 and didnt see much of my opponents deck. Both games were similar. I mulled heavily, he countered the first lock piece I went for, then immediately followed up with B2B. I scooped quick in both games, as I knew I wasnt ever resolving another spell.
Round 4: DnT
Won this match 2-0. game 1 I went T1 chalice, T2 lodestone, T3 Trinisphere. Game 2 was a little longer, but equally 1 sided. Ratchet bomb cleared his early vial and mom, then stack came down and ate the rest of his board. Karn closed the game out with my opponent on zero permanents.
I also got a bunch of games before/after the tourney against some other random decks. Deck feels like a blowout machine. None of the games (win or lose) were close at all. ensnaring bridge was really awkward, as it shuts down all my win cons. Losing to back to basics also felt really bad. there is enough of that card in my local meta (2-3 decks) that I dont feel like I can play a deck that has zero outs to it.
Week 2:
I made some changes this week to try and shore up some of the issues id had the week before. I decided on a flagstones package in the manabase as a way to give me game against B2B, and to create value engines with stack and/or crucible. With white in the deck I brought in Armageddon to help fight the decks with large numbers of basics.
List:
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Flagstones of Trokair
5x Plains
1x Karakas
4x Mox Diamond
4x Smokestack
3x Tangle Wire
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Trinisphere
3x Ratchet Bomb
4x Crucible of Worlds
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
4x Lodestone Golem
2x Karn Scion
3x Armageddon
SB:
4x Surgical Extraction
3x Magus of the Tabernacle
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Pithing Needle
1x Ratchet Bomb
2x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Seal of Cleansing
2x Sphere of Resistance
Round 1: vs Merfolk
Lost this round 0-2. I dont think this matchup is particularly bad, but I mulled to 5 in both games, and drew almost no action after my opening hand. Both games basically went the same way, with me slowing the game down with an early tangle wire, block+pumping with factorys to kill/trade with fish, and recurring the factory with crucible. I just needed to draw stack, ratchet bomb or karn sometime in the first part of the game and I think it turns heavily in my favor. Instead I had a lot of ancient tombs and wastelands with no way to really control his board and eventually got overrun by fish.
Round 2: vs DnT
Won 2-0 in a couple of blowout games. Early spyglass was huge both games (getting vial in g1 and stoneforge in g2), and combinations of smokestacks, lodestones and tangle wires made sure he never had any real offense. Both games ended with him on zero permanents.
Round 3: vs Nic Fit
Lost this round 2-1. Ive played this matchup a lot outside of events, and it feels pretty hard. Pernicious Deed is insane against me, and between all the lands from veteran explorer and all the clues from tireless tracker, tangle wire and smokestack have a hard time shutting down the opponents board. Pre-board its probably 75% in opponents favor. After board you can get much closer to 50% but it still feels slightly in their favor. G1 went as expected, I had lock pieces in play, but he managed to deed it all away and I never rebuilt. G2 he had double leyline of the void early, but I slowed him with chalice on 1. He eventually had to deed for 4, which cleared out the leylines but let me surgical deed so he couldnt recur it. After a replayed chalice on 1, Karn got there. G3 I had a good early game, with chalice on 1 and spyglass on deed, but we ended up flooding and he was able to rec sage the spyglass then deed my board before I drew into geddon or karn, either of which would effectively end the game.
Overall, the deck has the same issue as a lot of the non-blue decks in legacy. There are too many decks in legacy for every card to be good in every matchup, and without card selection tools, sometimes you just lose because you drew the wrong half of your deck. On the other hand, the power level of the effects in these decks are extremely high. I think Chalice is probably the highest impact card in Legacy right now, and the sol land manabase is really gross, so thats definitely the plan I want to be on, I just need to figure out how to mitigate the awkwards draws a bit
Seems I am a few pages late to the Green Stax discussion. Hoping to revive it a bit. I already have the Mud stax built and I enjoy playing it. Here is my take on a green variant. I still need to trim one card to get to 60.
I also hate BLUE more that anything. Might add Gutteral Response to the SB.
I really think Exploration in the deck can be crazy but the nonbo with Chalive of the Void makes it only a 1 of.
Lands 26
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Dryad Arbor
6 Forests
5 Green Fetchlands
Artifacts 21
4x Mox Diamond 0
4x Smokestack 4
3x Tangle Wire 3
3x Crucible 3
3x Trinisphere 3
4x Chalice of the Void XX
Spells 4
4x Green Sun’s Zenith XG
Creatures 7
1x Azusa, Lost But Seking 2G
1x Ramanap Excavator 2G
2x Terravore 1GG
2x Tireless Tracker 2G
1x Slyvan Safekeeper G
Enchantments 1
1x Exploration
Planeswalker
2x Karn Scion of Urza 4
Sb
3x Choke 2G
1x Tsunami 3G
1x Miotic Slime 4G
2x Zuran Orb 2
1x Rec Sage 2G
4x Ensnaring Bridge 3
3x Faerie Macabre discard
After getting back to the civilized world and with DRS gone, I definitely want to try sleeving up Stax. I played the deck pretty religiously previously, even buying into Dutch Stax, and then the Junk bug bit me, and I rode that train forever. However, I did play a GW version splashing Sylvan Learning Center, so I'd be interested in seeing it in today's meta.
The plan here, as it always was when I played the deck, was to play an absurd number of lock pieces, few win conditions, and get your tasty 50 minutes of Magic every 50 minute round.
4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Mox Diamond
4 Suppression Field
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
3 Armageddon
2 Smokestack
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Sylvan Library
3 Crucible of Worlds
28
3 Wasteland
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Tabernacle
2 Savannah
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Windswept Heath
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Plains
26
3 Choke
2 Mirage Mirror
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Rest in Peace
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Tireless Tracker
Notable emissions include Karn, Factories, etc.
My plan is to wreck havoc via Suppression Field and Thalia to slow development to a crawl. Coupled with Ghostly Prison and Tabernacles, that's a deep web of shit I don't want to see. Sure, Assassin's Trophy is seeing play to kill my Stack, but yet, I'd rather set Chalice to 2 and forget about it.
I found that when I was playing it before, Sylvan was nice. Playing Crystal Ball or other shit, was, well, shit. Horizon Canopy loop with Crucible isn't the greatest either. You don't have a ton of shuffles, but I'll take Mirri's Guile over nothing.
This was crafted over Saturday night hangouts, so I'll be starting to test when I can and post results, good or bad. Realistically, I just want my opponents to have a miserable time, whether I win or lose.
with your sentiments in mind, i'm playing this tonightQuote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
1 ghost quarter
4 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors
4 wasteland
4 plains
2 flagstones of trokair
2 inventors' fair
1 mishra's factory
1 buried ruin
1 karakas
1 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
4 mox diamond
3 armageddon
2 karn, scion of urza
4 smokestack
4 serum powder
3 sphere of resistance
1 trinisphere
3 tangle wire
4 ensnaring bridge
4 crucible of worlds
4 chalice of the void
1 circle of protection: red
1 containment priest
2 sorcerous spyglass
1 defense grid
2 surgical extraction
2 leyline of the void
3 ratchet bomb
3 magus of the tabernacle
EDIT: sadly, went 1-2 drop; too many free counterspells
lost 1-2 against grixis delver
won 2-0 against elves (tabernacle and SB magus were key)
lost 1-2 against U/R delver
the ratchet bombs and magus were the "most" used cards from the board
the white splash is acceptable but i'll go full MUD next event
pros: spheres of resistance were very very good, will do 4 next event
cons: needing a land to stabilize at 2 life and drawing ancient tomb
It's GG, but you could try Gaea's Touch. Gives you a second forest-only land drop. Would have to significantly up your basic forest count to make it effective, but you can also cash it in for the mana you spent on it. Probably too slow, but figured i'd put it up there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palacejailer
Hey guys!
I have been having a lot of fun with this deck- although I am sure it's not optimized and fringe. It plays pretty well, and I really love being able to draw cards with horzion and the explore a bunch of lands back- i love destroying lands.
The history is, I played lands, then pox, then stax-- and now i am at this place where I love them all and want to mix em haha
Feel like I need help tweaking the mana, the threats and some of the removal for cards like bloodmoon etc... any thoughts? Thanks for looking! (ps i am trying to play this in paper, so some of the choices are because i own the cards listed)
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Buried Ruin
2 Ghostly Prison
4 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Plains
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Inventors' Fair
3 Exploration
1 Smokestack
4 Mox Diamond
4 City of Traitors
2 Armageddon
2 Ravages of War
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Horizon Canopy
3 Savannah
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Riftstone Portal
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Nether Void
1 Windswept Heath
1 Sylvan Library
1 Trinisphere
1 The Abyss
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Moat
2 Humility
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Choke
1 Humility
1 Bitterblossom
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Abrupt Decay
30 lands
I even thought of trying to see if I could run a transformation sideboard and turn it into pox or angel stax or even dark depths combo after game 1 - but IDK
Start with the mana base and mana curve and build the deck after you finish that. Now it's just a ragtag bunch of prison cards. It would be pretty funny to see you play Entomb for Riftstone Portal to get through Blood Moons, ancient tomb damage and general fixing, but that's probably not good enough since you could be entombing for a reanimator creature...Quote:
Originally Posted by ancestraltimewalker
This is my first attempt at making a Stax list with War of the Spark out. I'm not sure if this is the way it should be built, but it is the way I'd like to try it for now. Comments are very welcome.
SparkStax
[25 land]
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Karn’s Bastion
3 Blast Zone
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
3 Vesuva
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
[35]
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Defense Grid
4 Serum Powder
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Karn, the Great Creator
2 Ugin, the Ineffable
3 Liquimetal Coating
2 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Contagion Engine
SB 15:
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Spellskite
1 Contagion Engine
1 Serrated Arrows
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Zuran Orb
2 Trinisphere
I'm aware of the fact that hardcasting Leyline only works with an Urborg out. That's a concession I was willing to make. It is the only untapped land that adds BB besides Phyrexian Tower. I might up them to 3, but don't want too many due to the legendary rule. The idea is to Serum Powder into it anyway.
Some points:
Crucible + Blast Zone lock
Helmline with Karn to grab one out of the sideboard
Liquimetal Coating with Karn Silver Golem and Karn the Great Creator for strip lock
I'm searching for the right thread for my list, maybe this is the place.
Coming from MUD-topic:
Completely agree on the lack of City's there, I'm playing four in my list and I feel they are really important to get to four mana soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisDissent
This is the list I'm working with at the moment.
4x Karn, Scion of Urza
4x Karn, the Great Creator
2x Ugin, the Ineffable
4x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2x Walking Ballista
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Trinisphere
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Grim Monolith
2x Mox Diamond
2x Thran Dynamo
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Blast Zone
4x City of Traitors
4x Cloudpost
4x Glimmerpost
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Vesuva
2x Wasteland
2x Maze of Ith
Sideboard
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Meekstone
1x Mycosynth Lattice
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Tormod’s Crypt
1x Torpor Orb
1x Voltaic Key
1x Lodestone Golem
1x Spellskite
1x Walking Ballista
1x Wurmcoil Engine
3x Warping Wail
Feels strong with some "free wins" due to hate cards, but of course it has it's weak spots, Back to Basics from Miracles is always difficult, Goblins has a lot of artifact hate + fast clock, etc. etc.
Since there's no Smokestack or Tangle Wire in the list, I'm not 100% sure this is the right place, let me know if it's out of line then I'll start a new topic with a fancy Karn-name or something :wink:
I started testing with 4 Blast Zone by the way but that seemed to much. Blast Zone needs time/mana to work which sometimes is no problem, but sometimes it is. I changed two of them for the fourth City and one Urborg (which is nice with Maze of Ith)
Any advice is welcome!
Re: the deck above, it seems stax-y enough to talk about here. And I'm cool with that, just to have some more discussion in here. Cross-pollination.
On the other hand, I think it's closest lineage is the Eldrazi Post deck. Which has a thread around somewhere. Similar posts and planeswalkers decks are at least getting mentioned there, too.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...zi-Ramp/page16
...
Have also tried updating recent Stax lists I have seen to incorporate the new Karn. After a bit of testing, I am at this:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
3 Inventors' Fair
1 Dunes of the Dead
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 basic land, your choice
4 Mox Diamond
4 Serum Powder
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
2 Tangle Wire
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
4 Karn, the Great Creator
2 Ugin, the Ineffable
SB
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Wurmcoil Engine
...
Notes
Dunes, Gemstone Caverns, Urborg, and the basic should be seen as flex slots in the land base. I could really see wanting the fourth Port over any of those. Could also see going down to 25 lands. I started with 24, looking at past Serum Powder lists where you're really hoping that Powder fixes your opener and you topdeck gas. But here I'd like to get to six mana and was having some trouble with only 24. My sample size surely isn't enough, but having better results with more than 24. If I dropped a land I'd probably put the 3rd Tangle Wire back in.
Serum Powder is here until the London Mulligan comes back. Not sure if it stays after that, but I don't know what else I would put in over those slots. The boost to opening hand consistency is really nice and the mana rock comes in handy more often than it's dead. Worst case anymore, it fuels Karn constructs or gets animated by the Great Creator.
Trinisphere gets the nod over Spheres as I don't want to increase the cost of my own walkers.
Went down to three Cruicible and Smokestack to have wishable copies in the board. But haven't found myself wanting to grab Smokestack from the board, so it got trimmed. Have wished for Crucible a couple times, for insurance against mana destruction decks like Pox. If I can keep lands in play there, I'll win eventually. Happy with three of each in the main.
Eight Karns give the deck several proactive game plans in addition to winning via Soot counters. Things feel a bit congested at the four cmc slot. And sometimes you're stuck short of being able to cast any of them. It's been bad behind a Bridge. On the upside, sometimes you start casting haymakers on turn two and don't stop.
Ugin hasn't come up too much, yet. But it seems really solid here. Once it's in play, you can probably cast Karn and Lattice on the following turn. Or feed the Spirit tokens to fuel Smokestack. Have also tried God-Pharaoh's Statue. Which seemed really cool at first, but I totally overlooked the Legendary part. And had fun throwing away a game I could have won by casting a second Statue. These, too, could easily be considered flex slots. Keeping them for now, though.
On the sideboard, I didn't start out with the LED. But I found myself wanting it available after playing the Bomberman shell and having access to it there. It gives you a really solid shot at curving from Karn into Lattice the following turn. Can play it immediately so it won't be hit with discard. And can get handsize down for Bridge. With Crypt, Bridge, and Ratchet Bomb I'm usually leaving one in the side to wish for and bringing in two copies. If other Karn decks continue to put up the same percentages online and in my local meta, pretty sure I want to fit Null Rod into the board. Which feels pretty nutty.
I've had pretty good results facing down non-Karn decks. And less than stellar when facing down other Karn decks. I think that my performance there is getting better over time though. As I understand the match up more. Like, Karn Post is still a Post deck. Stax can lean hard on the Cruicible+Waste lock to make sure they never get into the game. And we may have a better shot at landing Karn on turn two. Comes down to how the hands line up.
I haven't tried Blast Zone yet.
Kinda want to run the Karn proliferate land with four Tangle Wire to keep things tapped down indefinately.
Really enjoying this take on Stax. There's a lot raw power between the two Karns and lots of on-board interactions to manage.
...
Coming back to the thread, I notice that I have arrived at some similarities to Bruizar's list. Now that I've actually played with the cards. Which is interesting to me, as I didn't really get it before. Still not convinced that the Leyline and Helm combo is worth the space. But bringing Tangle Wire back I can really get behind.
...
Trading Post in your wish board is a great way to get rid of artifacts for value. It lets you recycle a lot of your deck if you buy yourself enough time. Karn's Bastion + Tangle Wire sounds hilarious, I hope that works out.Quote:
Originally Posted by LoveAndLockPieces
I recently played this deck to top8 a tournament in Stockholm!
It was a lot of fun and I’ve made changes since this top8. Most important change was swapping an ensnaring bridge with a ballista in the sideboard!
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=21948&d=347958&f=LE
So, Wrenn and Six seems to be the latest flavor of Legacy. So how about Wrenn and Stax?
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2028107 - Here's a spicy 5-0 list from EryngaLv2.
I have been trying out 3 W6 in place of the maindeck Crucibles in basically the same list I posted a few messages up. Changing the manabase accordingly, too. Wrenn nicely answers Thalia, Dryad Arbor, and unflipped Delvers. Can double up activation to ice a Teeg or flipped Delver. It feels bad doing so, but sometimes it needs to be done. Splashing RG opens up Choke from the board and makes Engineered Explosives really fun. With this many 'walkers, the Karn, Scion's contructs have been pretty weak. Probably going to rethink having four of those.
The deck feels good, but my results have been poor so far. Would chalk some of that up to variance and me being bad, so far. Not ready to throw in the towel on this idea yet.
(Like, I lost to Storm? That felt really bad! But my opponent just went off turn one in two out of three games. Sometimes that just happens...)