Playtested it now with a list without Elspeth and I gotta say i really like this deck. Its done well vs Merfolk, 50-50 vs Deadguy and 45-55 vs Maverick :)
Not too bad and its FUN
Greetings
Printable View
Playtested it now with a list without Elspeth and I gotta say i really like this deck. Its done well vs Merfolk, 50-50 vs Deadguy and 45-55 vs Maverick :)
Not too bad and its FUN
Greetings
Glad to hear you like it. It's definitely an outlier deck so people tend not to board hate against it with the exception of your standard artifact hate (KGrip, etc.). If you're getting those results vs. midrange decks, wait until you test against aggro (Zoo, Goblins) and combo (TES, High Tide). Only keep hands that allow you to plop down a prison piece turns 1, 2 and 3 and you will kill.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipp802
thats the Deck im playing atm:
//Making Mana
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Mox Diamond
//Using Mana
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Armageddon
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Oblivion Ring
Any tips from people more accquented with this deck? Thank you
Personaly I would cut 1 of each:
Trinisphere (you only need 1 in play anyway)
Magus of the tabernacle (unless your meta is that filled with agro)
Oblivion ring (Ive always found 3 to be enough for the main deck)
And put them in the sideboard
Main deck you could ad 2 elspeth, knight errant, and 1 extra land (Ive always found 24 to be just 1 to few to consistently have enough lands to play mox diamond).
For the most part I agree with overseer. You should be at 25 lands (some even play 26). Landwise I would cut 1 plains, then add 1 flagstones (you always want flagstones over plains so it's a 4-of) and add 1 factory. Often if you see two stones you also see a diamond to pitch one to.
In the business section, I'd cut one O Ring, one 3sphere, and one Smokestack. While stack is the namesake of the deck, you don't necessarily want to see it every game. Often you can survive for a few turns while your opponent is in a soft lock until you draw into it to end the game.
Honestly, as much as I love the deck, I really can't play it anymore. If your bomb lockpieces get countered, you basically have nothing. You don't have card draw, etc.
I've found Elspeth is an absolute house. Armageddon is obviously a must. I think 26-27 lands is the real "good" number, since you'll want to fit in plains, Factories, and Tabernacles.
I've been playing Crystal Ball in this deck for a while and it helped immensely.
-Matt
What would your list look like?
Yeah matt please post your latest list. The one thing this deck severely lacks, as mentioned, is card draw. I've heard some splash for green for Library and even KotR. I'd interested in trying that.
I would play some number of Ravages of War in that list of yours, Philipp802. It serves as different named Armageddon filling numbers x5-8.
What do are the thoughts of batterskull for a wincon.
-Bounce is good.
-Not having to pay upkeep with magus and tabernacle could mean something
-Lifelink is good.
-double white sometimes is a pain for angels and or walkers.
-Could equip to a factory
-humility builds really get an advantage with it. germ gets bigger.
Thoughts?
If it were 4 mana, sure, it'd be the new Exalted Angel. At 5 mana though, it's too expensive. Any experienced Stax player knows that the gap between 4-5 mana is much larger than the gap from 3-4 mana. Although Batterskull may look great against Aggro, there's no way you can consistently get 5 mana before you're in the redzone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moduloc
4 mana is the cap for any spell in the deck because Stax needs to be ABLE to play all their spells by turn 3. 5 mana is too much of a liability when you're fighting through Wasteland, Daze, and Spell Pierce. Wasteland can be devastating because 1 of your opponent's Wastelands often takes away two of your mana in one swoop.
Dunno, but: Baneslayer did prove to be effective sometimes... Batterskull is practically the same for this deck, only collorless (double white does become an issue sometimes...). So just maybe it could work out fine...Quote:
Originally Posted by Steveman
Although I'll settle for Elspeth for now.
I played Baneslayer for a while and found that while it was killer vs. aggro, it was always a dead card vs. combo/control. The thing is, we already have a killer aggro matchup, so we don't really need this card. We should be focusing on finding cards that allow us to consistently establish our lock more easily. Factory/Magus/Speth can end the game no problem once we do that.
I'll try and post my list when I actually find my deck :P
-Matt
Deck List
19 Artifact
4 x Chalice of the Void
4 x Crucible of Worlds
4 x Mox Diamond
3 x Smokestack
4 x Trinisphere
25Land
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x City of Traitors
3 x Flagstones of Trokair
2 x Horizon Canopy
2 x Mishra's Factory
7 x Plains
3 x Wasteland
16White
2 x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 x Ghostly Prison
4 x Magus of the Tabernacle
3 x Oblivion Ring
4 x Armageddon
SB:
Artifact
2 x Defense Grid
4 x Tormod's Crypt
White
3 x Karmic Justice
4 x Leyline of Sanctity
2 x Suppression Field
This is the list that i have sleeved up right now. I'm not really too sold on the SB, but as far as the main deck i like canopy better than Crystal Ball as its harder to keep a land out of play than an Artifact. Sure its more reliant on Crucible, but sticking a cruicible is pretty cruicial to the deck anyways. So if we don't stick one, we're in for a upward battle anyways.
This is the list I've been using recently
Main
Lands :25
4x Wasteland
4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Kor Haven
1x Horizon Canopy
5x Plains
3x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Mishra's Factory
1x Karakas
4x Magus of the Tabernacle
4x Mox Diamond
3x Smokestack
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Ghostly Prison
3x Trinisphere
3x Oblivion Ring
4x Armageddon
4x Crucible of Worlds
3x Crystal Ball
Sideboard
3x Tormod's Crypt
4x Defense Grid
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Suppression Field
Hi Everyone! I've been following this thread for a while and decided to register and post my list up. This is my only deck as of right now in the format. Trying to make it as competitive as I can from a beginning list before some of the bigger Legacy tournaments hit my area and I can find out what my meta is like.
I recently came back to playing MTG with only my old 'Angel Stax' decklist from a while ago and decided to update to the current list I have here. I am trying the build with crystal Ball which was sort of hard on deciding which 4-of's to drop to 3 in order to implement it. Ended up dropping 1 3sphere, 1 stax, and 1 prison. Maybe adding 3sphere and prison as a 1 of in the SB in case I need them? I only have 6 win condition cards but most people seem to scoop when they are securely locked. I am liking the manabase so far because there are no WW's in anything like there are when playtesting with Elspeth(one less thing to worry about with opening hands).
My main source of testing has been against combo and it's all gone well enough but I just can't say how confident I can feel in the deck with such limited testing yet. Maybe if anyone can shed some light if they get to run weekly events with a similar build?
General question: how often do you get a hard lock* with Stax? I've played against everything from aggro to control (no combo, but supposedly our 3Spheres and Chalices make that a cakewalk), and it's always a race. I generally drop the lock pieces I have, and race to the finish with 2-power ground beaters or an Angel if I'm lucky. Of course I'd love to get a hard lock because "that's how it's supposed to work", but a deck with little draw/sift/search doesn't guarantee such performance too often.
Maybe I'm not mulling aggressively enough, or maybe all that talk about "hard locks" is wishful thinking and selective memory.
The answer to this question determines the way we populate the flexible slots in the deck. If we regularly enter a state of inevitability, then the Magi and Factories that we already run will be enough to get us there. If we're fighting tooth and nail to get every game, we may need more powerful cards that can swing battles.
* Just to be clear, my definition of hard lock consists of the following:
1) Crucible of Worlds (or permanent generator, e.g. Elspeth)
2) Smokestack at 1 (or 2, as long as it's sustainable)
3a) Chalice at 1 (and/or 0 and/or 2 depending on opponent) OR
3b) Trinisphere
4) Opponent with clear board
I get the hard lock pretty often to be honest, but then again i'm not one of the people who have moved on to playing 3 of each of the lock pieces, so i tend to get the lock and then win, vs grinding it out. It might also be because they refuse to scoop, so i keep advancing my board position. I know a lot of people hope to draw out the game, especially if they already won game 1, because a 1-0-1 is still a win for the match.
x2 to what Prax said. More often than not with wins I get a soft lock that basically spells a hard lock, but the opponent wants to grind it out. For example, against aggro with a developed board, I might have...Chalice at 1, and a Magus out. If I play geddon and then say go, his board gets nuked, and I have a dude out for the win. Not necessarily a hard-lock, but an inevitable win that you will need 10 turns to grind out.
That's a bit of a slippery slope, because there are various combinations of lock pieces and board states, all with different levels of board control. The difference between that and a hard lock is the latter has no "out" within the realm of Magic. As long as they may have some realistic solution, there's at least some reason for them to keep slogging, especially if you're under 5 life from early attacks and Ancient Tomb. In SG's hypothetical, it's still up to you to finish out the game before they can recover. That's what I meant when I said "it's always a race" unless you actually have the hard lock.
Nevermore
It could be played naming whatever answers your opponent has to our lock or other integral pieces to decks.
My current list has been trying to dodge running anything with double white to improve consistency, but I think Nevermore could give us one other annoying threat for the opponent to deal with.
My Build right now is the Crystal Ball version, so that would be the only thing I could really cut to run it main deck, but it could be a nice sideboard option as well. The card doesn't fit into the main theme of the deck but it's definitely powerful and does wonders if you have multiples running.
Anyone else think this card deserves a chance?
Does Nevermore help against Stax weak spots?
Nevermore is more of a anti combo card. Stax strongest matchup is probably most combo decks. But if you want more anti combo cards for your sideboard try leyline of sanctity, is good versus discard too.
Does that help answer your question any BleiDD.
Yeah that's a good point. It pretty much makes our already solid matchup against combo even better so it might just be considered overkill.
Mainly looking to start some discussion on it since it's a solid card we could potentially utilize.
Crystal Ball, i tried it some time ago and resulted ok but strongly mana intensive. What is your experiencie.Quote:
Originally Posted by BleiDD
Another option to manipulate the library is running a couple of copies of Academy Rector. You can tutor an enchantment by sacrifing it with Tnacle, magus or even smokestack. Thoughts?
Too bad it can't fetch artifacts, since we play so many more artifacts than enchantments. I'd actually consider putting Rectors in Oblivion Ring/Ghostly Prison slots, since they can "become" those cards.
In my Dutch Stax list, I've been running Idylic Tutor. It's pretty amazing since Stax's greatest weakness is consistency. Idylilic Tutor searches for any silver bullet I need, Humility / Moat against creatures and Oblivion Ring for those pesky Jaces.
I'm thinking about trying Enlightened Tutor out for consistency since Geddon Stax is predominantly artifact based. Anyone have luck here?
Also, speaking of Jaces, I'm going to try maindecking two Elspeth, Knight-Errant since I've heard a lot of good thing about her.
E. Tutor does not play well with chalice at one. It is also card disadvantage. Might be nice in SB for corner cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seems Good
Neah.I wont even considered grandma in my SB because it really doesnt sync with trinisphere and COTV. try something better instead of hasting for an answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by joemauer
Anyway, just to share, what i have in my MD were the following:
Aside from the core, i have 3 humilities MD and 2 elspeth.
Im not using BSA nor any angels in my list, my goal is to lock whatever deck i may cross. Whether it be a combo or an aggro or control. Here's my list:
4 city traitors
4 ancient tomb
4 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
3 flagstone of trokair
1 horizon canopy
5 plains
1 tabernacle pendrel vale
4 trinisphere
4 COTY
3 smokestack
4 COW
4 mox diamond
4 ghostly prison
3 humility
1 oblivion ring
1 WOG
4 armageddon
2 elspeth v.1
SB:
4 tormod's crypt
4 suppression field
1 oblivion ring
1 Day of judgement
1 WOG
4 leyline of sanctity
^_^
How crucial is wasteland to this decks strategy?
Wastelock wins gamesQuote:
Originally Posted by thatoneguy
if u dont got wastelands dont play staxx, this sums it up pretty muchQuote:
Originally Posted by thatoneguy
I am glad to know this. Wasteland is awesome............
I like Idyllic tutor, i'll try it!!
@Paeng: i can`t consider a control stax without Magus of the Tabernacle. Why don`t you include it?
Im using humility. There were times that, all they have to do is to pay one per creature and swing for lethal damage/s for the win. So I decided to tap humility for magus tabernacle. And currently, base from my play testing, the combination of geddon, humility, and ghostly (not to mention trinisphere and COW) are so good.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenCid
Another thing is that humility alone can buy u some time (that's working on the premise that you're still waiting for geddon or ghostly to come). Hmmm.... Humility also stop whatever ability a creature has, whether it be mana accel, comes into play triggers, activated abilities, etc.
^_^
I've been thinking about using Humility and Elspeth instead of Magus and Angels. There's a LOT of white mana symbols down that path, though.
Yes but if you combine the magus effect with a prison one or even armageddon opponent creatures are out.
I don't quite understand the terms you're using, nor the argument itself. I guess you mean that Humility with Prison or Tabernacle land with Geddon will slow/kill nearly any creature-based force. Fair enough, but a Tabernacle creature with Geddon would do the same thing, and without the double white costs I initially mentioned.
If I misinterpreted you, please explain your point further. Thanks.
Looks like he meant if you combine a Magus effect with Prison or Geddon it deals with creatures very well. True statement. Judging by his earlier post he was curious why the list posted by paeng above didn't utilize Magus.
I personally think that this deck needs to play 4 Magus + 4 Geddon. Humility is awesome, but I feel like it fits best in Dutch Stax along with Moat.
Perfectly explained, sorry for my spelling it was due to i was wrinting throught my cell phone. That's right, if you land a magus + prison effect creatures can't simply swing for lethal. This is important when you face an horde of guys. If you face a Phyrexian dreadnought geddon or moat is needed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seems Good