[Deck] Armageddon Stax

[Skeggi]

If we stick Chalice @1, they drop EE and win.

Not even under these circumstances would I side in the Pithing Needles. Chalice@0 stops EE killing your Chalice@1. Trinisphere also pretty much wrecks DreadStill.

Anything will help. Thanks!

Play Dutch Stax.

[scrow213]

Not even under these circumstances would I side in the Pithing Needles. Chalice@0 stops EE killing your Chalice@1. Trinisphere also pretty much wrecks DreadStill.

Play Dutch Stax.

Ok apparently I was too vague when I said "anything will help". What I meant was "any advice on my sideboard and sideboarding techniques will help". I don't know that I will see a lot of Dreadstill in my area. Right now I only play on MWS and I just want to not get stomped by decks like Dreadstill, Landstill, and Thresh. I have conceded that Survival just sucks and accept that. Land.dec sucks too, but is manageable. I can't afford, and also do not wish, to play Dutch Stax, as I am very happy with Armageddon Stax. I just need some assistance knowing how to SB for these matchups, so I know what's what. I always seem at a loss as to what goes in and comes out.

[Skeggi]

You can run 1 maindeck Kor Haven for starters. That helps greatly against decks like DreadStill or TA. Further, as I said, Chalices and Trinispheres are DreadStill's nemisis. Oblivion Rings are a must against both these decks, if you don't already have them. If you can, try to run 1 Plateau or Savannah maindeck, and have either Boils or Chokes in your sideboard, it helps against alot of match-ups which have blue. They help (way) better than the underperforming Defense Grid because:

• Defense Grid only stops counters. Decks these days play threats as well.
• Defense Grid has poor synergy with Trinisphere. Most counters you'll ...uhm...encounter...are Force of Will and Daze. Trinisphere make these cost just like Defense Grid does, plus Trinisphere also has effect on alot more.

I'm also not a fan of Humility in Armageddon Stax, because it shuts down half your win conditions: your Maguses. Try Powder Keg. It's a real good card against:

• Goblins. Not that this match-up was a problem in the first place.
• Empty the Warrens tokens.
• Phyrexian Dreadnought
• A little creature called Tarmogoyf, and all his 2cc friends like Jotun Grunt and Dark Confidant. And these are all cards which are very good against Stax.

My Armageddon Stax sideboard looks like this:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Choke
4 Compost
3 Powder Keg

Compost is also pretty cool: it helps against match-ups which are pretty hard for Stax: decks with alot of discard. I already run 4 maindeck Oblivion Rings, so they're not in the board.

Against DreadStill, out of this list you want Choke and Powder Keg. So you could try something like:
-1 Smokestack (with Choke they're less useful), go to a minimum of 2.
-4 Ghostly Prison (they only have 1 real beater...they can afford the mana)
-1 Armageddon (if you're playing 4 Armageddon and 1 Ravages of War, like I am)
-1 Mox Diamond; tricky card when EE@0 comes through, you will not only lose your Chalices but also your Moxen.

+4 Choke
+3 Powder Keg

If you play clever against their countermagic (keep in mind they sided out Counterbalance, but put in Krosan Grips or Shattering Pulse depending on the build, and probably still play Daze), this should be a win for you.

If you prefer some graveyard-hate in your sideboard you could try:

3 Pithing Needle
3 Choke
3 Compost
3 Powder Keg
3 Tormod's Crypt

[scrow213]

You can run 1 maindeck Kor Haven for starters. That helps greatly against decks like DreadStill or TA. Further, as I said, Chalices and Trinispheres are DreadStill's nemisis. Oblivion Rings are a must against both these decks, if you don't already have them. If you can, try to run 1 Plateau or Savannah maindeck, and have either Boils or Chokes in your sideboard, it helps against alot of match-ups which have blue. They help (way) better than the underperforming Defense Grid because:

• Defense Grid only stops counters. Decks these days play threats as well.
• Defense Grid has poor synergy with Trinisphere. Most counters you'll ...uhm...encounter...are Force of Will and Daze. Trinisphere make these cost just like Defense Grid does, plus Trinisphere also has effect on alot more.

I'm also not a fan of Humility in Armageddon Stax, because it shuts down half your win conditions: your Maguses. Try Powder Keg. It's a real good card against:

• Goblins. Not that this match-up was a problem in the first place.
• Empty the Warrens tokens.
• Phyrexian Dreadnought
• A little creature called Tarmogoyf, and all his 2cc friends like Jotun Grunt and Dark Confidant. And these are all cards which are very good against Stax.

My Armageddon Stax sideboard looks like this:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Choke
4 Compost
3 Powder Keg

Compost is also pretty cool: it helps against match-ups which are pretty hard for Stax: decks with alot of discard. I already run 4 maindeck Oblivion Rings, so they're not in the board.

Against DreadStill, out of this list you want Choke and Powder Keg. So you could try something like:
-1 Smokestack (with Choke they're less useful), go to a minimum of 2.
-4 Ghostly Prison (they only have 1 real beater...they can afford the mana)
-1 Armageddon (if you're playing 4 Armageddon and 1 Ravages of War, like I am)
-1 Mox Diamond; tricky card when EE@0 comes through, you will not only lose your Chalices but also your Moxen.

+4 Choke
+3 Powder Keg

If you play clever against their countermagic (keep in mind they sided out Counterbalance, but put in Krosan Grips or Shattering Pulse depending on the build, and probably still play Daze), this should be a win for you.

How do you reliably get green mana if you just splash one dual (and Moxen, obv.)? I have posted my list, and my manabase, several times, so you can see that I have 3x Oblivion Ring MD, and I have 1x Kor Haven already.

I have felt the same about Humility myself, and have been wondering why Keg isn't getting more attention. Is it just the speed?

I like the SB you listed, but sadly I am not in a position to pick up duals. It's part of why I built Stax. No need for hundreds of dollars for a manabase. Can you make any other recommendations for my SB? I will certainly try replacing Humility with Powder Keg, as I too felt it deserved some love.

As for Defense Grid, I disagree. It doesn't just hurt counters. It means Brainstorm costs unless they want to cast it on their turn. StP suddenly costs , Grip costs , all unless they want to spend their mana on their turn, opening up our options on our turn. I do understand where you are coming from though, I guess I like the fallback as additional Trinispheres for counters. I like knowing that they can't counter anything without that mana untapped. It's like Trinisphere 5-7 for me.

I don't know... I am too drunk and tired to think too much about it, but I love the deck and just want to understand how to stand a chance against a large portion of the field.

[Skeggi]

How do you reliably get green mana if you just splash one dual (and Moxen, obv.)?

Fetch with Flagstones.

I like the SB you listed, but sadly I am not in a position to pick up duals.

Try shockland? But you really just need 1 Savannah, it shouldn't be that big a deal...

As for Defense Grid, I disagree. It doesn't just hurt counters. It means Brainstorm costs unless they want to cast it on their turn.

So they cast it on their own turn. With Trinisphere it always costs . Same goes for Swords to Plowshares. I'll give you the comment regarding Grip, but that's far too narrow to use Defense Grid...and again, they'll use it on their own turn if they otherwise can't afford it.

It's like Trinisphere 5-7 for me.

But they're bad Trinispheres. In fact, you don't even want to run over 4 Trinispheres in the first place, even if you could.

Ah well, good luck with it. All I can say is, try some stuff and test them out.

[f|i[p]]

I wasn't listing cards that we use Needle for against Dreadstill. I was listing cards in general that we use Needle for. As for the Dreadstill matchup, the point I have been trying to make is that with them moving from the green splash, if we stick Needle on EE and Chalice @1, we win. If we stick Chalice @1, they drop EE and win. I have run across this problem time and time again. I don't know how to better combat it. And I still have a shit SB with no ideas how to improve it, and still suck at sideboarding. Here is my SB:

3x Defense Grid
3x Suppression Field (Pithing Needle)
3x Humility
3x Runed Halo
3x Aura of Silence

So how can I change this to make it better? And I still (even after reading pages and pages of this thread) suck at knowing what comes out and what goes in. Thresh? Goblins? Landstill? 43Land? Dreadstill? I never know, so I take out cards that I wish I didn't and draw cards that turn out useless, so I clearly am terrible at sideboarding. Anything will help. Thanks!

Against threshold, I probably wouldn't side in as much. Your main deck would already wreck thresh as it is. Prisons and Magus do their job pretty well against thresh. Blocking and taxing their mana.

Goblins I usually side out smokestack as, normally aggro gets more permanents faster than you do. Also if your on the draw, I would cut some chalice against goblins. Since you would really want to hit lackey and vials with it. I think wrath is better than humility against aggro. Kills everything.Unless you plan to go the manland kill or humility is used against matrons or trinket mages.

Against 43 land, I definitely take off magus and prisons or cut them at the least since they really don't run creatures. In goes suppression fields/needles. try to set chalice at 2 for loam.

Dreadstill does not run alot of permanents just like thresh, Prisons won't do much here, So im assuming that you take prisons off for fields, and cut a few e magus for aura of silence or seals.Your sideboard generally would almost help you against dreadstill. Runed halo would be a head ache since now they actually have one win con which is dreadnaught. I didn't consider manlands because, you generally have 2-3 manlands and 2-3 wastelands as well.

As for your sideboard, I used to like def grid as well, but after bringing them to a few tournaments, I realized that they work almost exactly like trinisphere so in actuality you already have maindeck def. grids. Just something to consider, Have you ever tried mana tithe? It might be something that could work if your really taxing your opponent. They would normally counter chalice at one anyway so its not such a big deal for it being 1cc.

As for the green splash, I would advocate at least 2 dual lands in there. If your on the budget, pain lands or maybe even filter lands. I actually tried treva's ruins or riths grove in there just to see if I could constantly use it to bounce city of traitors when I put it to play constantly. It worked it some cases, but I hated drawing it as my first land.

@ green splash
In my green splash I have chokes and Krosan grips in my side. I don't think the grips are ever going to go away, as it helps in either killing dreadnaught, or taking out P. Deed which kills this deck on its tracks. I Don't mind discard as much as deed since I already have a maindeck solution to discard like chalice set @ 1 or 2 for hymn . So as for the green splash, I would definitely have K. grips and chokes on the side.

@OneBigSquirrelGod
Thirst for knowledge has been very very helpful in my testing. They can give us a variety of other options like chills sower of temptation or whaver else there is.

[Skeggi]

Against 43 land, I definitely take off magus and prisons or cut them at the least since they really don't run creatures. In goes suppression fields/needles. try to set chalice at 2 for loam.

First stop: Chalice@1 against Manabond and Exploration. Also, Armageddon isn't as good against this match-up as it seems. They kinda recover fast .

As for the green splash, I would advocate at least 2 dual lands in there. If your on the budget, pain lands or maybe even filter lands.

Painlands and Filterlands aren't fetchable with Flagstones.

@ green splash
In my green splash I have chokes and Krosan grips in my side. I don't think the grips are ever going to go away, as it helps in either killing dreadnaught, or taking out P. Deed which kills this deck on its tracks. I Don't mind discard as much as deed since I already have a maindeck solution to discard like chalice set @ 1 or 2 for hymn . So as for the green splash, I would definitely have K. grips and chokes on the side.

This is an awesome idea, so obvious, I kick myself in the head for not having thought of this. I'm going to try it. I'm beginning to like the green splash more and more.

@OneBigSquirrelGod
Thirst for knowledge has been very very helpful in my testing. They can give us a variety of other options like chills sower of temptation or whaver else there is.

The blue build with white splash seems strong, but the white build with green splash seems stronger in my opinion.

[f|i[p]]

@skegi "Painlands and Filterlands aren't fetchable with Flagstones."

I know they aren't fetchable, thats why I said if he was really on a budget and has no other option. I thought of the ravnica dual lands which are alot cheaper than regular dual lands at first, but at the cost of 2 life,so it doesnt come into play tapped... perhaps not since tombs already hurt you a lot.. Mox D would actually cover most of the problems regarding light color splashes..You would probably need at least 2 sources of green aside from mox D.

@scrow
Savannahs are one of the cheapest duals anyway, but I suggest you proxi it first and see how it helps. If you don't like it.. Don't shell out money for it. You can stay mono white as far as im concerned. Its just that splashing a color usually gives you more options even if its a light splash.

[scrow213]

@skegi "Painlands and Filterlands aren't fetchable with Flagstones."

I know they aren't fetchable, thats why I said if he was really on a budget and has no other option. I thought of the ravnica dual lands which are alot cheaper than regular dual lands at first, but at the cost of 2 life,so it doesnt come into play tapped... perhaps not since tombs already hurt you a lot.. Mox D would actually cover most of the problems regarding light color splashes..You would probably need at least 2 sources of green aside from mox D.

@scrow
Savannahs are one of the cheapest duals anyway, but I suggest you proxi it first and see how it helps. If you don't like it.. Don't shell out money for it. You can stay mono white as far as im concerned. Its just that splashing a color usually gives you more options even if its a light splash.

Thank you guys. I woke up this morning to a ton of helpful advice. I think I will test out the green splash, as Krosan Grip seems like it can be very very good. I like the fact that it can take out Deed, Disk, EE, Dreadnought, etc and they can't stop it (short of a lucky blind flip off CB).

As for SB options and techniques that really helps. The main reason I have the Defense Grids is for Blue Control, since I want a Trinisphere to stay down, and it gives me more of them that they have to counter/remove. Also, since it is a different CMC from Trinisphere, they can't EE both off the field. I guess I will drop them and test out some other options. K.Grip sounds great for sure. Now should I play Choke or Compost or both? It seems like a lot of green out of the board, and I kind of like Aura, Halo, etc.

[Noman Peopled]

The green cards would pretty much by definition worth be splashing, so they would presumably be worth two life or waiting a turn most of the time as well. Especially since Flagstone really doesn't care if you're fetching a Temple Garden or Savannah; it's gonna be tapped either way.

Proxying can't hurt, though.


//edit: oh well, too slow.
Gript doesn't help against EE/Deed if they kick it without passing priority. Granted, that's least likely to happen in a matchup like Stax. I guess I'm gonna have to try that as well ... luckily, I just ordered a Savannah just to near completion of my soon-to-be playset of duals.

[f|i[p]]

Yes, until they pass priority, you can't do much even with grips in hand. However, with stax as your deck, it shouldn't be quite a problem. They should be tight on their mana. Meaning they won't be able to pop whatever they got right away without passing priority, or at least the next turn.

Played a short game with Dreadstill, won 2-1 today. I must say resolving a trinisphere wrecks their deck. I didn't encounter too much counterspells though.. It was maybe either he was unlucky or I was lucky. Magus doesn't really do much here. Standstill still kicks stax in the balls. I played the W/u version with thirst for knowledge for card draw.

[Patrick]

TA is a tough match-up. If you encounter alot of these (or DreadStill) in your meta, you may want to try Dutch Stax, it has better odds against these decks.

In my experience Team America is in the favor of Stax. Their manabase is so shaky that a single Wasteland can be enough to win the game, let alone Wastelock. They only play 8 threats in the deck. I'm having a hard time explaining it, but I've never lost a match to TA, and I've played matches probably 5 or 6 times.

[scrow213]

Well I just bought a set of Choke, Krosan Grip, and 2 Temple Garden (easier to spend $12 on a pair of G/W Lands than ~$20 each). I will probably upgrade this later. How would you shift the manabase to accomodate:

4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
7x Plains
3x Flagstones of Trokair
3x Wasteland
3x Mishra's Factory
1x Kor Haven
1x Horizon Canopy

I figure probably just -2 Plains +2 Dual. Coincidentally, Horizon Canopy also produces green or white, so it provides one more source of either color. That is pretty handy, I must say! Adding the duals means I will have 3 lands that produce green, 4 moxen, and 3 Flagstones to fetch, which sounds pretty stable given the fact that I will only need 1 green out.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

In my experience Team America is in the favor of Stax. Their manabase is so shaky that a single Wasteland can be enough to win the game, let alone Wastelock. They only play 8 threats in the deck. I'm having a hard time explaining it, but I've never lost a match to TA, and I've played matches probably 5 or 6 times.

I second this. I Lost on Wednesday for the first time, and I've played against it 9-10 times. Usually even If I get screwed a game, I still get the 2/3.

[f|i[p]]

Well I just bought a set of Choke, Krosan Grip, and 2 Temple Garden (easier to spend $12 on a pair of G/W Lands than ~$20 each). I will probably upgrade this later. How would you shift the manabase to accomodate:

4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
7x Plains
3x Flagstones of Trokair
3x Wasteland
3x Mishra's Factory
1x Kor Haven
1x Horizon Canopy

I figure probably just -2 Plains +2 Dual. Coincidentally, Horizon Canopy also produces green or white, so it provides one more source of either color. That is pretty handy, I must say! Adding the duals means I will have 3 lands that produce green, 4 moxen, and 3 Flagstones to fetch, which sounds pretty stable given the fact that I will only need 1 green out.

Looks stable.. that would be how I would put it if I ran 26 lands... which I actually don't. I cut the 4th city of traitors and never looked back...

[klaus]

3x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
7x Plains
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Wasteland
3x Mishra's Factory
[25]

Most straight forward, consistent land config I've been testing over the years.
-
I've been off this threat for quite some time & my stax chore cards have been moved to my trading folder. Stax just hasn't performed as consistently as I wanted it to.
Don't wanna sound like a total dick but the only card that could change my mind about Stax's overall quality would be a 1W Ponder

Cheers.

[scrow213]

Looks stable.. that would be how I would put it if I ran 26 lands... which I actually don't. I cut the 4th city of traitors and never looked back...

You think the 7 lands that tap for is consistent enough for getting early Trinisphere and Chalice? I mean it would save me 12-15 bucks for getting the 4th City, but I don't want to weaken the power of the early plays.

[f|i[p]]

In my testing however, mox D, and tombs and 3 traitors were consistent enough.The problem I have was drawing another traitors in the process... Like getting 2 traitors in your opening hand... or drawing another city later on... Just the same with flagstones.. I also cut them to 3...I hated drawing 2 flagstones opening hand, or drawing another flagstones later on... If this however does not happen to you as much.. Then I guess its not a problem if you have 4. It happens to me a lot as I do not tend to be as lucky as other players are. I actually run the bare minimum land count which is 24 lands.. Others play an optimum of 25 and others play it safe with 26. I however do not have any problems with 24 lands and I'm very happy with it(No Kor havens here just because I have never really tested it yet or have a copy).

On the side note, on the process of testing the green splash,if you make it a little more dedicated, what do you think of Knight of reliquary? It becomes very large with an armageddon (which we already have 4 of), it also fetches any land you need as well, from wasteland,kOr haven, factory,tabernacle,flagstones, duals but then again, you can only sac a plains/forest card. It Works well with smokestack, if in any case you didn't attack on your turn, you could tap him on the end of your opponents turn, and get a flagstones for stax fodder. But I guess we run too few plains cards to make him even worth it. But maybe as a 2 of he might work. These are just thoughts however. Do you ever feel the need to tutor for land in this deck? Have you ever played this deck and wanted to tutor for a wasteland, manland or tabernacle or any of the likes? I know how tight the deck is already is, and its hard to actually make some space. I don't really think he is needed... Just wanted to throw out some fresh ideas.

[Kuma]

Again, Pithing Needle on Colloseum...what does Ichorid play for 1 you want to Chalice out anyway? (Nothing a Trinisphere can't handle, I can tell you)

Putrid Imp, Cabal Terapy, Breakthrough, Chain of Vapor, Careful Study...

Yeah, all of those can't be cast under a Trinisphere, but it's much easier to drop a Chalice turn one than a 3-sphere.

Ichorid hates seeing a Chalice at one. Don't board them out for Needles.

[ParkerLewis]

As I very much like the deck, but have always hated :

1) the trouble it can have to deal with a sizeable enemy threat. Against a Drake, a Dreadnought, or whatever unique big threat, the deck is often far too defenseless : a single Ghostly Prison won't be enough most of the time, the potential moat or humility risks coming online too late (or being simply ineffective vs flying for moat), or sometimes even simply a small goblin because the deck stabilized at a too low life level,

2) the desperate craving of filtering this deck has (lots of 4-ofs that are almost needed to be seen but sucks when seen in multiples, ie basically the whole artifact suite),

I've decided to try running this list :

// Lands (26)
    4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
    3 [EX] City of Traitors
    3 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
    4 [TE] Wasteland
    1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
    1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
    4 [LRW] Plains (3)
    3 [U] Tundra
    1 [ST] Island (4)
    2 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures (3)
    3 [PLC] Magus of the Tabernacle

// Spells (31)
    4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
    4 [DS] Trinisphere
    4 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
    4 [SH] Mox Diamond
    4 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
    3 [R] Armageddon
    1 [P3] Ravages of War
    4 [FD] Engineered Explosives
    3 [RAV] Compulsive Research

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
SB: 4 [UL] Defense Grid
SB: 3 [RAV] Suppression Field
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

(sideboard certainly unoptimized).

As you can see, the principal addition is a very light blue splash, for A) a drawing engine (Compulsive Research), B) maindeck 4x EE with C) Academy Ruins as a two-of.

A) Compulsive research. As a 3-of, I've felt that CR was superior to TfK. Keep in mind that the build is high on land (26), which means I'm more likely to easily discard a land card than an artifact card. A land card is also far more easily reusable via Crucible (4-of) than having to use 2 lands + Ruins (2-of) + a draw step to get back an artifact. I’m running three but I could see running a fourth one. The only thing preventing me from doing that is that the deck usually wants to do a few things first, and only then to reload / get what it’s now lacking, as it’s critical not to give the opponent too much time in the early game to put you in a too difficult position.

As an alternative, and since the deck effective needs would be almost equally filled via filtering than with raw drawing, I’ve considered Omen. Yeah, the 1U Ponder, Ponder itself not being acceptable for the same reason that Entlightened Turor isn’t, ie the 1 cc that is going to be shut down by CotV. On the other hand, beween a 1U Ponder and a 2U CR, the mana difference didn’t appear significant enough anymore to justify only going for the filtering. But I thought it was debatable as at 2 mana, Omen is a card you could also play as a setup card (much like Thresh does with Ponder)… but then you’d probably need to have acces to blue more consistently. All in all, it seemed inferior to CR without doubt, but i guess it’s worth keeping the card in mind.

B) Engineered Explosives. Between Moxen and the light blue splash, there is no problem at all sunbursting it up to 2 (more is obviously more difficult and rarely recommended given the deck’s curve), which is enough for most of the threats in the format (dread, tarmogoyf, etc). Basically, the goal of the card is to fill both Oblivion Ring & Smokestack roles at the same time. Think of it this way : it will cost around the same mana, but will combine Smokestack’s mass destruction with the speed of Oblivion Ring (ie not having to dangerously wait turn after turn while you’re low on life before Smokestack’s effect finally gains the edge over what the opponent can do). I mean, I can see one of the roles of Smokestack is to slow the game down by encouraging the opponent to wait for it to die before resuming his game plan, but that’s usually not what’s happening. Between the time needed to reach four mana, plus the additional turns before it gets active, you’re usually at such a low life that the opponent has a good shot of finishing you off simply by overextending into it to keep his single threat alive a few more turns.

EE solves this problem, and with it being recurrable via Ruins, I really don’t see any reason to look back on that particular change. For those very few match-ups where you risk facing threats that actually cost 3 or more (mainly Chalice aggro decks like Dragon/Faerie Stompy), I’ve put the full Oblivion Ring suite in the board.

C) Academy Ruins. As already said (and pretty obvious), Academy Ruins are here solely to recurr EEs. Well, they always can have an additional use outside of that (giving you back a countered or gripped key artifact like Crucible or any lock piece), but that’s more of an added bonus.


So, here it is. Not that many changes compared to a standard list, but I’ve ended up pretty happy with the result. I’d be glad to hear your comments on this, and potential tests or real-life results if you're willing to try these changes.