[Deck] Armageddon Stax

[Nihil Credo]

Karmic Justice > Hanna's Custody.

[Skeggi]

Karmic Justice > Hanna's Custody.

And Karmic Justice sucks. Therefor...

[Arsenal]

Totally forgot that Karmic Justice existed, and yeah, it was just a brainstorm; I have a playset in my binder (good ol' Rath cycle).

[The Wes]

I've been running Elspeth (2 of) and Humility (3 of) for about a month, on workstation, but was gonna wait till I took it to a tourney to post anything aobut it. So far its rather fun, and annoys a lot of people. I'll have to check out the replenish. Running creatureless does help in some situations, but less so in others. I still find myself being raped now and again by an army of 1/1s. I keep 2 tabernacles main for just such a reason. Just a note though on the dutch build, why kor haven with humility? Just extra protection, or to keep the plainswalker alive? Also with humility I find myself relying on smokestack much more to win the game, so I wouldn't go lower than 3 of. I do like the inclusion of powder keg a lot though and shall have to try it.

I think Karmic might be a little better in a build like this relying on enchantments more and with replenish...ya never know.

[Skeggi]

Just a note though on the dutch build, why kor haven with humility? Just extra protection, or to keep the plainswalker alive?

That's exactly why . The 1-of seems random, but often when I do draw it, it comes in pretty handy .

Also with humility I find myself relying on smokestack much more to win the game, so I wouldn't go lower than 3 of.

I understand this problem, however, I have no idea what to cut for it. Perhaps run a third and make it 61 cards (I'm probably angering the 60-card deck gods here; also; ZOMG 61 cards and only 24 landz! AMAGAD)...

I think Karmic might be a little better in a build like this relying on enchantments more and with replenish...ya never know.

Karmic Justice looks good on paper, but there's never something I want to side out for it. Then, it never gets used and it just sits there in the sideboard.

[The Wes]

I'd try out one less O ring main and then one more smokestack. I used to sb out my trini's for karmic's versus survial. Helped to stop their sliver enchant/arifact destruction annoyingness. With humility this becomes less of a problem. I still have a love/hate relationship with Karmic though, I know its mostly bad, it rarely works out for me, but it just looks so damn good on paper. Also the few times I've used to against a deck dropping serinity its just made me smile so much.
Off to a better question though, is replenish really that good? A one of main? Do ghostly, humility, and o ring really make it worth it?
Oh, and it seems like you might need some of those tabernacles main in a deck with no magus. Otherwise you are gonna have a lot of decks that can just keep attacking with their 1/1s.
So many random ideas. Must playtest more!

[Skeggi]

Oh, and it seems like you might need some of those tabernacles main in a deck with no magus. Otherwise you are gonna have a lot of decks that can just keep attacking with their 1/1s.

Humility and Moat handles that. In theory .

So many random ideas. Must playtest more!

QFT!

[Mordel]

Those decks are crazy. Not in a bad way, just very different compared to 99.9% of the lists that I usually see. I am not really digging moats and humility as the only enchantments that stand in the way of savage rape by creatures if only because two white mana can be a bitch to get in an unlucky game and even some with deceptively awesome hands. Humility seems really awesome though. I like factories a lot in general, but with three humilities, most of the time you will be paying one colourless to make a factory a 1/1, while you opponent has a number of other 1/1's because you aren't running magus anymore. It is a two way street though and all of a sudden your factory trades with 'naughts I suppose. In that respect, it is awesome, but I am tempted to say [tentatively] take out the factories in favor of additional white sources in a build that runs both moat and humility. I understand the other uses of factory, but in a build that basically hides behind a moat ideally, factory seems sort of "meh".

[The Wes]

Under humility factory is still a 2/2. So no worries, it just can't tap to give itself +1/+1 I don't think. Moat and humilty arn't the only thing, you also have 4 ghostly prisons. I'm not sure both moat and humility are needed together though. Elspeth can still make your factories attack for a decent amount in the air.

[f|i[p]]

So in a sense, humility replaces magus of the tabernacle...I am actually not sure how this shores up our problem with single creatures being equipped, but it still handles tarmogoyf and stalker very well. So now Elspeth is going to be one of the win conditions and I assume its with indestructible tokens.

Although a mishra kill is always an option, It makes the deck really slow.. What happens to our swarm aggro match up,now that theres no more taxing for each creature they control? Although humilty does delay the game for you to be able to draw a ghostly prison.

One thing we have to consider and ask ourselves is
Does humility really do a better job than magus of the tabernacle? In what match ups is it good against, Does it make our positive match ups worse?

As for karmic justice, its still good against mass removal, but Hannas custody is better at targeted artifact removal. I think we should also be concerned about the enchantment removal as we would rely on humility and prison to protect us from creatures. Then our sideboard becomes too defensive.

I'm not sure about humility, how good it is or how slow it makes our already slow deck. I remember there were a lot of times I used magus to beat down.

I was actually expecting the replenish build to have a secret tech or something quite different.

[_erbs_]

Humility is good card but i think it doesn't fit the stax shell altogether. Yes it handles creatures very well but with krosan grip and other enchantment killing cards with no support like counter magic it would easily be crushed.

Against mono white decks that utilizes aura of silence & seal of cleasing your decks deffenses would greatly suffer.

The current geddonstax is good but still lacks cards yet undiscovered or printed to achieve an early lock, but if you shift the deck for early locking the mid to end game part would suffer bec. you don't have any threats thus your opponent could overcome your early lock, unless its a smokestacks lock, but smokestacks takes time before it could be maximized.

A card that maybe could speedup the smokestack with tanglewire is Meditate. It has 3 casting cost playable under trinisphere and can played on the 2nd turn if you where able to cast trini on your 1st turn without giving your opponent a great advantage.


@f|i[p]
Dragon Stompy is deck that uses trinisphere, chalice of the void, & lands that produces 2 colorless man aswell. It has lots of mana accelerants like simian spirit guide, seething song & moxens over geddonstax thats why it has a more powerful early turn drops.

Locks early then aggros mid to end of the game. DS's lock parts are magus of the moon, blood moon, trinisphere, & chalice of the void, it has 2 more cards that could be casted early on thus achieving a much earlier lock over geddonstax.

[dragzz]

Humility is good card but i think it doesn't fit the stax shell altogether. Yes it handles creatures very well but with krosan grip and other enchantment killing cards with no support like counter magic it would easily be crushed.

Against mono white decks that utilizes aura of silence & seal of cleansing your decks defenses would greatly suffer.

Enchantment/Artifact removals has always been a problem and would always be a problem, with or without humility.

A card that maybe could speedup the smokestack with tanglewire is Meditate. It has 3 casting cost playable under trinisphere and can played on the 2nd turn if you where able to cast trini on your 1st turn without giving your opponent a great advantage.

Are you serious? Tanglewire has been tested and has been proven to suck.
I don't see how running meditate could improve your early game

And besides even if the idea could work, what would the list look like? I don't think it would resemble GeddonStax at all.

If you're keen on trying the idea out on a Stax type deck I would suggest you use this list: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20460 or this http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20246 as basis, or maybe post it on the Tez Stax thread.

[Skeggi]

The problem I've encountered with the current Stax build, is that often, a single strong creature can get through, with enough protection from the limited removal I have. You can see this happen in upcoming decks like Dreadstill and Team America, which are gaining more and more popularity because of good tournament results.

Most of these "I thump you with 1 big critter and make sure it survives long enough until you die"-decks pack blue, that's why I basically now include a plateau maindeck and boils in my sideboard. But this is only step 1 against these archetypes.

I've been quite negative about Elspeth, I know. I still would be, if you just simply try to fit her in the current Stax build. She needs a build tweaked to her likings, a world where all creatures are tiny and small. This she finds in Humility. She also needs protection until Humility is there; Ghostly Prison doesn't protect her, and because of Humility, other blockers than her own loyal soldiers and Mishra's Factory she shouldn't expect. But there is Moat to take most of the threats away.

The funny thing is, that Elspeth, Humility and Moat all have synergy together. Elspeth + Humility makes sure your tiny men can trade with Tarmogoyfs, Tombstalkers and Nimble Mongeese.

Humility + Moat makes sure no creatures can attack; this keeps you safe until you set up your lock.

Elspeth + Moat makes sure most creatures can't attack you. If a Tombstalker, Swans of Brynn Argol or a Trygon Predator comes flying overhead, you need to find outs in the form of Oblivion Rings or Humility, but after that, she's very safe again.

The Elspeth, Humility, Moat set-up is designed in a meta where Dreadstill and Team America are rising, but still can cope with any other deck. Normal Aggro never was a problem, and still shouldn't be a problem. Combo still has the same problems with our Chalices and Trinispheres. Control...well, the idea is that our match-up against control now is better

Let me explain some of the choices and functionalities in the following list (it's the same list as the second one a few posts back):

Dutch Stax with Moats

Planeswalkers
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Enchantments
3 Moat
3 Humility
4 Oblivion Ring

Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
3 Smokestack
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds

Sorceries
4 Armageddon
1 Ravages of War
1 Replenish

Lands
3 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Kor Haven
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Plateau
7 Plains

Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
4 Powder Keg (possible Teeg Killer)
3 Boil
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Replenish (post Grip reviver)

As noted before: Mishra's Factory rules the field when Humility is in play. No creatures are bigger. It gets even more fun with Elspeth and Moat in play: no creatures can attack you, and Mishra's Factory is an unblockable 5/5 because of Elspeth's second ability (checked with a judge, this ruling is confirmed).

I've explained before that cards like Krosan Grip and Gaddock Teeg could pose problems agains us; that's why we have Powder Kegs and Replenishes in the sideboard. The 1-of mainboard Replenish acts as a little insurance mid-late game.

I took out Ghostly Prisons in this list. Yes, they have very good synergy with Armageddon, but in a list with Planeswalkers and Moat (+Humility) they seem obsolete.

I haven't tested this list yet, it's all just theory. I will test this list this weekend and Monday, and report back on Tuesday . I think that on paper this list looks solid; the only problems I anticipate are the aforementioned double white costs. That's why I might be inclined to play around with the manabase a bit. If this doesn't work, so be it. I must add that Marcel Gelissen (who ended up somewhere in the top 16 in a 141-man tournament) still hasn't given me his list, and perhaps never will. This is just my version of things.

[Mordel]

This might be sort of a given, but another strike against humility instead of prisons/magus etc is that I usually am pretty stoked on my opponent eventually resorting to saccing lands if they try to dig themselves out of a lock. The bulk of decks I see don't really run a lot of creatures anyway, so humility might be something I want to look into testing for sure. There are many times(threshthreshthresh) for example, where a humility and magus are almost interchangeable as far as function is concerned for me. Maybe I am playing the deck wrong or something, but for a lot of matchups already good matches, I don't see a big difference between the two. Humility also makes some matchups better, but as pointed out previously, it makes some normally good matches worse.

For anyone that has been reading my thoughts on this and is wondering at my sort of circular thinking about the replacement of prison/magus, I am basically considering moat and humility the best two cards to go with if I am going to be cutting magus. The reason I am thinking this is that in theory my only vulnerability will be to swarm strategies and a single dude with a jitte or sword...I have even seen a rancor lately(!!) and I don't really want to fuck around with something that will make these situations just as bad. Two white mana for my defense cards might even be worth the extra slots opened up by the absence of magus.

It is only a matter of time before a purist comes and tells people why cutting magi in favor of humility is a bad plan, but in my somewhat limited opinion this deck will have to see some sort of radical attempts at innovation and eventually something awesome wil be discovered or it is just going to stay where it is in metagames as a really brutal deck to not be prepared for, but also really vulnerable to some dominant decks' inherent strategies.

Right now I am trying to figure out if I want to test a build with bridges/magi/prison/Elspeth or humility/Elspeth/Moat/O-Rings for protection slots. I'm kind of hesitant to ditch the magi just yet considering I have recently stopped playing angels(gasp). I haven't tested three bridges a lot, but so far, they have been treating me pretty well, the only thing that has come up was a kill took a bit longer than I would have liked because I wasn't able to pump my magus and swing over some guys while I was waiting for my opponent to start losing creatures to a smoker set on one and I was having shitty luck waiting for a geddon.

[Skeggi]

This might be sort of a given, but another strike against humility instead of prisons/magus etc is that I usually am pretty stoked on my opponent eventually resorting to saccing lands if they try to dig themselves out of a lock.

Here you are relying on your opponent to make a mistake. I prefer just making a stronger deck where it doesn't matter what your opponent sacrifices, he'll just die anyway. Plus, Magus and Smokestack don't really have synergy. It's the main flaw of the deck.

Maybe I am playing the deck wrong or something, but for a lot of matchups already good matches, I don't see a big difference between the two.

There is a significant difference if you play Elspeth. Humility + Elspeth have synnergy. Humility + Magus have dissynergy (is that a word?).

For anyone that has been reading my thoughts on this and is wondering at my sort of circular thinking about the replacement of prison/magus, I am basically considering moat and humility the best two cards to go with if I am going to be cutting magus.

It's not about replacing Prison and Magus, it's about including Elspeth.

It is only a matter of time before a purist comes and tells people why cutting magi in favor of humility is a bad plan, but in my somewhat limited opinion this deck will have to see some sort of radical attempts at innovation and eventually something awesome wil be discovered or it is just going to stay where it is in metagames as a really brutal deck to not be prepared for, but also really vulnerable to some dominant decks' inherent strategies.

The list isn't coming from no-where. It's based on the idea of a deck that was very succesful. It had no problems beating a deck like Aggro Loam, a deck I cannot beat with a traditional list.

[Mordel]

As far as my vocabulary is concerned, radical does not mean random or poorly-thought-out, it means a big change basically. Removal of magus, etc in favor of humility, moat and Elspeth is a big change in my opinion anyway. You don't need to defend your build against me for the most part because I think it is a good idea.

Dissynergy wasn't a word until you said it, but it works anyway =P

For me, including Elspeth was as easy as including bridges. Adding humility and moat obviously helps with running and abusing her(heh) more, but as far as I am concerned, even without her existing, they are inclusions that are worth a closer look. I think that I just got a wild hair up my ass and am going to play some matches with your list in the next few days instead of my bridge list, which more or less feels like 'geddon stax with bridges and Elspeth thrown...I don't know if that last part makes sense though: I am kind of tired.

I am liking the boils for sure though. It is nice to not get burnt by having a chalice for two down. Keg for Teeg seems kind of sketchy though...have you been having luck with that at all or is it still sort of preliminary?

[Skeggi]

As far as my vocabulary is concerned, radical does not mean random or poorly-thought-out, it means a big change basically. Removal of magus, etc in favor of humility, moat and Elspeth is a big change in my opinion anyway.

That's why I gave it a new name: Dutch Stax

Keg for Teeg seems kind of sketchy though...have you been having luck with that at all or is it still sort of preliminary?

Keg is not just for Teeg, it also does wonders against Ichorid for example. Anyway, I used to side in Oblivion Rings in a match against Teegs. These seemed not to be enough. Now I play Oblivion Rings maindeck, and have Powder Kegs as a back-up. And yes, against Teegs, has proven very useful. The decks I've played against which included Teeg, where mostly BGW Rock, so Powder Keg@2 cleared Teeg, Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. Yippeeka-yay motherfucker!

[Mordel]

Oh yeah, for sure. I was sort of lukewarm on the idea of keg because I set chalices for two asap in almost every match I play, but kegs in for the second match means eight possible answers to two cc cards(though one is more temporary). I bet powder kegs probably prompted a "wtf?!" from your opponent. I'd be surprised to see a keg in a stax sideboard anyway...then again maybe I am just tired.

I took the liberty of ripping off your list, but replacing the sideboard tabs with Ajani, vengeants for a laugh. I have 99% of the stuff for white stax(or Skegstax as mws calls your list) at home and there are some dudes that play 1.5 where I am living right now, so I might just throw one list together and if I do, I have no tabernacles anyway...yet I have some moats.

I started a quick match with a dude on mws and he disconnected on game two who was playing some sort of goblin sligh jank(good cards in the deck, just janky), but with a few little fishes and that one half(or maybe third of a match), the deck has a way different feel than traditional builds. I don't know how I feel about it overall yet, but I am liking it on paper anyway. I think I might up the tomb/city numbers eventually with testing though.

Based off the one match I played, I am liking the moats and humilities for sure though. I never saw an Elspeth, but whatever. I'll get to see her in action tommorow probably. If I end up going in any little mini tournies with it, Ajani in the side might end up being something I like a lot because the deck feels a lot more like a concession deck than the builds that I am more familiar with.

Good work on the list though, I like its overall feel and function with the small amount of testing that I have done so far.

[f|i[p]]

@erbs

I know what dragon stompy is, and I know how they play it, I was simply indicating that I have never played against a dragon stompy player...

@ elspeth

In my testing, when I played elspeth in place of my angels, I never really liked her at all, magus and prisons can't guarantee her protection. I would almost always rather have exalted angels in her place.

However, if elspeth is going to be protected by moat and humility, then it becomes a different story. Elspeth would almost be a perfect fit. Unlike magus and prison, moat and humility is a lock by itself.

My thoughts on the deck:

I think this version of stax almost has the same concept, but then now you wonder if armageddons should still be in the place they are in, The way I see it one of the main purposes of armageddon was to complement ghostly prison and the magus lock. having a moat and humility lock is enough on it own, you wont really need to blow up lands as much as we needed to when we had magus and ghostly prisons in that place. Armageddon still has its purpose but now that we wont be totally reliant on a geddon, we can probably cut their numbers to 3 and make more space for something else.

The deck looks very promising by itself.
Although I think the list should have these basics:

The stax core cards

4 moats
4 humility
2-3 elspeth
2-4 O rings, I think 4 O. rings is very excessive, I was quite happy with 2 main deck and the rest in the sideboard.
1 Replensih

Now we can go cut down to
3-4 armageddon
We probably can lessen the wasteland count and bump up to
4 mishra's factory

One of the problems I can think of, is Moat!... They are crazy expensive and very very hard to find... I actually think the card is over priced....

Great job skeggi... It was a very interesting find, now all we have to do is tweak it and prove that this is the way or another way to go in the stax archetype.

[Mordel]

I hear you, Flip:

I haven't tested the tweaked version much so far, but in the next few days things will become clearer in regards to armageddon. Right now, I am not impressed with four geddons because while they are awesome, more often than not they are basically a way to lock off my opponent's ability to cast anything and/or force them to start saccing off non-lands to smokers. I still like geddon, but because its functionality has been some what reduced by the removal of main deck magi, I think I am going to see how cutting them back to three and maybe keeping one in my sideboard to accompany my magi is what I will go with. Right now, I am going to keep the four and see if I continue to feel the same, but I have a feeling geddons might see some cutbacks.

I have played against three different variations of stiflenaught and I have to say that the matchup is fucking outstanding with the changes now. Factories are somewhat annoying though and force me to rely more heavily on moat, wasteland and geddons. It isn't entirely bad, but a few irksome encounters with factories in standstill decks have made me consider adding a very European 61st wasteland.

Replenish has been feeling like a wasted draw more often than not, but I am sure that the singleton copy in the main will prove to be back breaking in matches that I would otherwise lose.

Edit: This is slightly off topic, but does anyone know of any online communities that have tournies regularly or people that don't suck to playtest with because legacy players are kind of sparse on magic-league and 1.5 tournaments are almost non-existent. People keep on disconnecting after game one with Skeggi's build and I am not getting much opportunity to test the sideboard.

Something I noticed with the sideboard, but hasn't bit me in the ass yet is nothing for the burn/sligh match really. I got really lucky against a sligh deck and managed to stall the shit out of him and get a chalice/3sphere down before a geddon with his hand apparently full of bolts, chain lightnings and seal of fires. It was a lucky game for me. Sphere of law(which has pretty nice synergy with humility imo) or whatever suits one's taste might be a good bet because until the end of the game(that Elspeth COMPLETELY DOMINATED) he could have easily gone incinerate--->fireblast kkggbai.