
Originally Posted by
Fred Bear
Armageddon (I've said this before if you read this whole thread and the 1-2 before it) is the best card in this deck (just like Bane said). Period. Armageddon is very good against Legacy in general because it punishes tight mana curves, low land counts, and the use of fetches (i.e. most of the format). Take Thresh for example, in a typical list they play 17-18 lands with 6-7 fetches. It's not unusual for them to use 2 fetches to get their first two lands. If I 'Geddon off two lands and a mox, it's a 4-for-4 trade (3 lands and Armageddon for 2 lands in play and 2 fetches), but my recovery is 22 lands plus 4 Crucibles in my remaining deck while he has 13-14 lands left in his. This often swings 'tempo' in my direction which is HUGE agains a deck like Thresh.
I've not seen a list of Rispal's opponent's, but if you are a good Magic player (at World's) and know your Stax deck (as I'm sure he did and many on this thread are/do), in a tournament of 100s of players of varied ability, 4-1 with a sub-optimal list is not an unreasonable outcome.
But try solving a Landstill-heavy meta, try solving a Survival-heavy meta - those are our real challenges.