Well, in my meta, they're non-existant unless I or someone on my team is playing them. I think I'll give this deck a shot, I've always found it interesting and Tog is sort of a drag nowadays, being all complicated and all :pOriginally Posted by Diablos
Last edited by Ebinsugewa; 08-06-2007 at 12:26 AM.
Has anyone been messing with this since TS came out? Just from looking at the lists and the new cards a couple of things that would really help power this deck up jumped out at me.
1) Academy Ruins. This card is just crazy here. Intuition for LftL (or Petrified Field), Crucible, and Ruins and you get all three no matter what they do. It also fights disenchant and other forms of artifact removal. It also looks to combo well with a more artifact heavy build running stuff like Horn of Greed. Finally, it gives you unlimited Tormod's Crypts to deal with annoyances like Threshold.
2) Children of Korlis. This is a great IGG hoser, which was a big problem for the deck previously.
3) Trickbind. Another solid anti-combo card for IGG and Solidarity.
4) Gemstone Mine. I know this isn't a new card, but it really just seems like it should be in the deck, and its reprinting reminded me its out there.
5) Gamble. Academy Ruins makes this less risky as you can now get back both lands and artifacts if you discard them.
6) Walk the Aeons. I'm not saying its good or anything, just noting that in this deck the buyback cost is inconsequential and can easily be paid every turn, making this basically a card that says "I win" if it resolves.
7) Volrath's Stronghold. This goes in the same category with Academy Ruins, except it covers creatures (think Children).
8) Horn of Greed. Again, not a new card, but it really eliminates the drawback to Ruins and Stronghold.
9) Words of War, Wind, and Waste. Combined with Exploration and Horn of Greed, these can quickly decimate your opponents, board, hand, or army.
10) Archeological Dig. This is the perfect repeated trigger for a Words when combined with Horn and Crucible.
I'm not exactly sure what the resulting deck would look like, but something along the lines of this seems like a good direction to start in:
4x Crop Rotation
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Intuition
3x Horn of Greed
4x Exploration
2x Gamble
1x Smokestack
1x Life from the Loam
1x Words of Wind
3x Burning Wish
4x Mox Diamond
4x Gemstone Mine
2x Flooded Strand
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Glacial Chasm
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Wasteland
1x Nomad Stadium
1x Petrified Field
1x Academy Ruins
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Nomad Stadium
1x Cephalid Coliseum
3x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
1x Tundra
3x Bayou
1x Volcanic Island
2x Taiga
Sideboard
1x Volrath's Stronghold
4x Children of Korlis
3x Gaea's Blessing
4x Trickbind
3x Tormod's Crypt
Ok, this IS NOT meant to be a defining list. It has some ridiculous holes, no way to deal with a T1 Lackey, no targets for the three Burning Wishes, no Nostalgic Dreams, etc. I'm not claiming to be an expert with the deck, I'm just pointing out that I think the advent of Ruins and the Children makes the deck much, much, much better, and it should probably be explored more now.
I've recently dropped White to only lands now since Academy Ruins is in the format.
Children doesn't really do anything for us that we really need. Trickbind on the other hand is a HUGE pick up for both combo matches.
Walk of Aeons I can picture in the board eventually. The thing that scares me about the card is that it's Buyback is 3 islands in a non-blue intense deck.
Volrath's Stronghold has actually made it into my deck now, but for a different reason. (More about that later...)
Horn of Greed, Word enchantments, Archeological Dig, Gemstone Mine and Gamble. Horn of Greed has always been too much of a Win-More for me with this deck. The Word enchantments are ok with Horn of Greed but as with Horn if you have them in play you should be winning anyway. The Dig and Mine are ok for this deck if you are looking to budgetize the fact that you should run 10-12 duals. But for this deck you need colored mana ASAP and in abundance. So I would have to say it's an ok idea but nothing I, myself would do. Gamble is search that you should already have in Crop Rotation, Intuition, Burning Wish and Life from the Loam. I think it's an interesting idea for the deck but that's a ton of search for a deck that has zero wrath effects. You need some type of creature removal in this format, even with the fact that there is Solidarity and IGGy PoP in the format. Goblins will just Wasteland the Glacial Chasm away and swing for the win.
About your suggested deck:
RIFTSTONE PORTAL. Nantuko Monastery is good as another win condition, especially if your running any amount of White. You need some Creature Removal, Pyroclasm, Decree of Pain, Wrath of God, Devastating Dreams, Innocent Blood, Chainer's Edict, Diabolic Edict, Swords to Plowshares.
Smokestack is a decent idea to toss back into the deck due to Academy Ruins. But Time Spiral also gave us Curse of the Cabal. I've been testing more of the Kobe-Small Pox-Loam deck and have intergrated the deck into Eternal Gardens. After work I'll post my current list w/ board.
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On the note of the Curse of the Cabal: I've tried it in a few decks without much success. I have found that the fact it gets TWO time counters per permenents is really making the card not as effective as Smokestack.
Nothing witty to say.
Well I like Curse better since it's tutorable with Burning Wish and there is only 1 card that can take it out of Suspend. Smokestack is good since it's symmetrical with Glacial Chasm and Crucible/Loam. But I'm not playing Enlightened Tutor anymore to tutor up the card when I need it, I have to rely on either drawing it, Intuition (for Loam, Ruins and Smokestack) or Dredging it into the graveyard w/ a Ruins in play.
I'm playing more of a board control/board removal style to punish decks that rely on thier lands (4c Landstill, Thresh and Rifter)
Here's my build as of right now:
1 Academy Ruins
2 Badlands
1 Barbarian Ring
2 Bayou
2 Glacial Chasm
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Petrified Field
2 Polluted Delta
1 Riftstone Portal
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Mox Diamond
3 Small Pox
3 Intuition
4 Crop Rotation
3 Eternal Witness
4 Exploration
2 Life from the Loam
3 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
Sideboard:
1 Hull Breach
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Curse of the Cabal
1 Decree of Pain
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Small Pox
1 Life from the Loam
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Regrowth
1 Anarchy
1 Burning Wish
1 Devastating Dreams
I'm looking to add 3-4 Innocent Blood into the deck to help out the Goblin Match-up. Small Pox is amazing against Thresh. Eternal Witness adds the single recursion that the deck was looking for, but it costs me my drawstep which is fine especially since I often find myself low in cards toward the end of the game. Sideboard has give me fits as of lately. I'm probably going to remove the Explosives and the Regrowth to toss in the Removal I talked about earlier.
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You guys arent doing much to improve combo with Academy Ruins tricks. The only way I could fight combo with a loam based deck was to play 3 Duress, 3 Therapy, 3 Witness. Smallpox helps very little.
Now playing real formats.
Well do you have any suggestions on what to cut to make life easier? Obviously you don't like Small Pox enough so that would be cut for you. But what out of the deck above would you cut to add the other 3 cards your looking to add.
Mythic Rogue Deck Builder
Team Freshly Baked Crayons
Team Albany
I've been testing this a fair amount lately, and while I wouldn't list this as a definitive list or anything, but through a fair amount of testing this list has been doing great against everything but combo game one.
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Tropical Island
2x Taiga
2x Volcanic Island
1x Plateau
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Riftstone Portal
1x Nomad Stadium
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Gemstone Mine
2x Wasteland
1x Academy Ruins
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Nantuko Monastery
4x Mox Diamond
4x Gamble
3x Crop Rotation
3x Intuition
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Life from the Loam
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Pyroclasm
4x Exploration
1x Smokestack
1x Nostalgic Dreams
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Tormod's Crypt
Sideboard
4x Meddling Mage
1x Volrath's Stronghold
3x Trickbind
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Gaea's Blessing
2x Pithing Needle
2x Research//Development
Intuition for Life from the Loam, Ruins, and any artifact will always get you all three, Smokestack gives you a long game edge against other board control type decks such as Rifter, and the Swords, Explosives, and Pyroclasms do a nice job of keeping Goblins and Thresh in check until you reach a point where you have taken control of the game. The combination of Ruins, Explosives, and Crypt is really devastating to Thresh given their low creature curve. I've really been liking Gamble in this deck, turn one it can tutor up almost anything, while after that, when you have a smaller hand it's still useful as a neo-Entomb that sometimes works as a Demonic Tutor.
One thing I have been looking at is the vulnerability of the Explorations in the deck when you're using E.E. to control the board for a few turns. A rather janky, but effective solution I came up with was Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Volrath's Stronghold. The Research//Developments in the board are stictly for combating Tormod's Crypt. This way, if you lose some important cards to the RFG pile, you can get them back. This may be a worse option than extra pithing needles however. The rest of the board seems pretty self explanatory, Trickbinds, Mages, and Blessings for Combo, although Children of Korlis might be a good inclusion if IGGy is big where you play since they negate a turn one win if you're on the play.
One other completely random thought I've been having lately is including Haakon as a one-of. This deck wouldn't have trouble getting him in the 'yard, and aside from StP, not much kills him. He also trades with Mongoose. I'm not completely sold on the Smokestack maindeck, as it often seems like a win more card, so I'm thinking of trying Horn of Greed, Phyrexian Totem, Powder Keg, and Pithing Needle in its place.
I hate double posting like this, but these are entirely different comments than what I had previously, so an EDIT didn't seem appropriate.
@bane_of_the_living: yeah, lots of discard slows them down a bunch, but you still have to kill them before they can recover, which isn't exactly this decks' strong suit. Homebrew loses to Solidarity even with all its disruption because of the lack of a clock. This deck has the same issue.
@Watcher: i can't say i'm really a fan of curse either, mainly because of the every other turnness of it. I'd rather just use a smokestack.
The vast majority of the decks' difficulties lie in dealing with combo.dec. I realized that the two best anti combo strategies are disruption + quick clock and making it impossible for combo to win. Since the general design of this deck doesn't lend itself to aggro/disruption at all, we have mostly been focusing our efforts on ways to make the deck fight combo by making it impossible for combo to win with multiple Mages or Trickbinds, etc. This has been a losing strategy. I'm not really sure where I got the idea for this, but with the more tutor heavy version I've been trying lately, and going off of Diablos' latest list (with a buncha modifications), I've come up with the following sideboard (this deck does not run any Wishes, Burning or otherwise)
3x Smokestack
4x Trinisphere
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Tormod's Crypt
This is based off of the idea that since Stax has a very positive combo matchup, and this deck is very similar to Stax, that simply using the board to have a transformative Stax option will help that matchup a lot.
The Needles are general help, Grudge is additional needle/vial hate, and the crypt is a nice way of increasing the md graveyard hate. I would sideboard for Solidarity as follows: -4 StP, -3 Pyroclasm, -2 E. Expl., -1 ancient grudge, -1 tormod's crypt, -1 glacial chasm, -1 tabernacle, +3 Smokestack, +4 Trinisphere, +4 chalice, +2 needle. That leaves your deck as mana, tutors, and lock pieces.
For Iggy Pop I would recommend -4 StP, -3 Pyroclasm, -2 E. Expl., -1 Glacial Chasm, -1 Tabernacle, -1 Ancient Grudge, -3 Crop Rotation, +3 Smokestack, +4 Trinisphere, +4 Chalice of the Void, +2 Pithing Needle, +1 Tormod's Crypt. Intuition might be the better cut against IGGy since rotation can find an early Stadium to kick your life up out of combo range ASAP, but Intuition grabs two lock pieces and Ruins, so I'm not sure if that's the right call. You couldn't ever really fight another Stax deck with this transformation, but it seems like enough to halt combo, and the maindeck already handles Goblins and Thresh very well.
Ruins is really the card that powers up this deck i think, since crucible and lands can now recur each other, with backup from LftL, and the extra recursion and artifact emphasis really power up cards like engineered explosives and tormod's crypt, both of which combine with wasteland to completely pwnorz threshold. They also allow Gamble to be used extensively with almost no drawback since its essentially half Crop Rotation/half Entomb/ half Demonic Tutor/ half Enlightened Tutor. I'm also starting to wonder if perhaps Ruins hasn't outdated Nostalgic Dreams in the maindeck as a one of. It was solid as a one of before, with Wish to support it, but all it seems to do right now is end up in the graveyard. I only hesitate to cut it because it is the decks' only way of getting back Explorations from the yard. I'm pretty tempted to replace it maindeck with a Pithing Needle and replace one of the board needles with a Zuran Orb to fight IGGy and burn. Crystal Chimes might, wierdly enough, work here since its certainly better than Skull of Orm, and it does make it much, much less painful to utilize E.E. for one. The only worry would be that Chimes is just a bit tooooo techy. Then again, considering how much this deck needs Exploration maybe not, and Intuition for Chimes, Exp. Exp. does sound rather tempting. Heck, Chimes even makes Nevinyrral's Disk look tempting.
Thoughts on any/all of this from anyone?
Just for the record, the public hasn't seen that list, so they won't know what the hell you're talking about. :pI've been trying lately, and going off of Diablos' latest list
Well I've been slowly testing out your build. And I'm liking the non-land cards better and better. I still like running Eternal Witness and Volrath's Stronghold as a recur engine. But I have a huge problem with dealing with Enchantments Post Board (Leyline of the Void, Planar Void). Null Rod has made my side board once again (only as a 1-of).
The sideboard looks like something to attempt to try out at least for testing. Only time can tell.
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@watcher
I haven't had much trouble with enchantments, as smokestack and explosives both kill them, but if you're having a lot of trouble, then just run a ray of revelation or two. as far as a recur engine, i pulled the nostalgic dreams for a blessed chimes, then realized it wasn't that important MOST of the time, so i switched it into the board for a maindecked pithing needle. The needle helps vs. goblins game one since most only include artifact hate in the board, meaning you can Chasm lock them with Needle set to Wasteland. it also does a nice job of answering t1 Vial if you don't have explosives or grudge or a tutor in hand.
I'm becoming more and more enamored of Gamble in this deck, almost to the point of thinking I don't need three Crop Rotations in a deck with four Gambles and three Intuitions, but given how strong Rotation is, I'm going to wait for a must include card that I can't find space for before I try that out.
On the Staxboard. I've got to say that so far I really, really like it. You can throw down massive disruption. I played both sides of an IGGy Pop/Garden matchup post board, and if the garden player was going first, it seemed like about an 80% win, with a first turn chalice or crypt sometimes even stopping the T1 win from IGGy. In game three (you're going to lose game one badly, deal with it) with the IGG player going first, it seemed more like 60-65% in Gardens favor. mainly due to the T1/2 wins by IGGy. Chalice on zero, needle on LED, or just Trinishpere on anything usually gave the garden deck enough time to get out a smokestack, which was usually just game over. You can generally leave out a Stack at 1 even without a crucible because the deck is so permanent heavy.
Solidarity was a different story. I was never able to pull off the win from the solidarity side, even without disruption before t4 (one time on t3, but it involved some lucky draws). This tells me that the results were basically invalid because I wasn't good enough with the solidarity deck to pull off a lot of wins that were in hand/on the table. It seemed like the garden deck was throwing a lot of heat in Solidarity's face though, so I'd assume it gives some kind of a boost to the matchup. Trinishpere seemed again, like the best card against solidarity, but Chalice, especially in multiples, was a very close second. Again, in this match garden is just trying to slow down Solidarity enough to get a smokestack going, which will mostly take care of the win on its own even if you have to make both players permanentless to do it. You much, much higher landcount lets you restart or maintain a parity loss much better than solidarity can.
Basically, I'm really optimistic about the Stax board, but it does leave you with the vulnerability that all transformational sideboards have, if neither version of your deck is good against something, you pretty much just lose because your board doesn't have much, if any, flexibility.
Sorry Morgan, it doesn't work. Even though you have to play the activated ability as an instant Lion's Eye Diamond is still a mana producing ability. So you can't get away with it, unless your opponent is dumb.
http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/Card....aspx?&id=3255
In regards to the recur engine that I use. I'm kinda aggressive when it comes to playing this deck sometimes. When I say aggressive, I mean I'll just sit on Loam and just Mill my deck out entirely. Eternal Witness/ Volrath's Stronghold gives me the ability to just tutor out of the yard, which in my point of view is a better outlet especially in the late game.
An interesting idea popped into my head while testing the deck. Why not just run Chalice, Trinisphere and Smokestack MD as 1-ofs for Gamble/ Intuition effects. All 3 are useful for all of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 match-ups except Truffle Shuffle and maybe Goblins.
Mythic Rogue Deck Builder
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Sorry for the double post but it has been over a week.
I thought it would be best to post my current list and see if anyone might have any suggestions for the holes I've been having problems with.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Bayou
2 Flooded Strand
2 Glacial Chasm <-- might be cut to 1
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Petrified Field
2 Plateau
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland <-- might be cut
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale <-- might be cut
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wasteland <-- might be cut to 1
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Crucible of Worlds <-- might be cut to 3
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Mox Diamond <-- I feel safer with only 3
1 Pithing Needle
3 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
3 Eternal Witness
4 Exploration
2 Life from the Loam
4 Gamble
2 Pyroclasm
4 Swords to Plowshares
Sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Null Rod
4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere
2 Constant Mists
1 Krosan Grip
Tabernacle really doesn't do much. It might help a little to add one more Pyroclasm for the Goblin match-up but as of right now the set-up that I have has been working for me.
The recursion set-up has been nice especially post-board with the switch sideboard. Smokestack on 2 w/o Crucible is easy with Witness Recursion.
Overall:
I love the Staxx board. Given that there is 7 ways to slow down both Solidarity and IGGyPop before they normally go off has been amazing. Also even pre-board, I feel the deck does have at least a blind chance against Solidarity, given that Crucible + Academy Ruins or Volrath's Stronghold can produce no library 'soft-locks', with Engineered Explosives or Eternal Witness + Pyroclasm.
I need to find a spot for Tormad's Crypt either MD or SB. I've been pestered into finding a spot for Ghost Quarter MD (either over Wasteland or somewhere) especially since Pithing Needle usually names Wasteland in most matchups. Constant Mists has been my back-up for Goblins post-board. Krosan Grip has found it's way into the board for misc. random decks that I've been coming across lately, Scepter Chant is nasty when it drops second turn.
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I like your current build Watcher. I'm curious though, how well did you do at the FoW tourney? Add to that, what were your matchups and what changes would you make due to them?
I'd cut a Crucible and a Chasm to add a pyroclasm and a crypt. With the gambles, intutions, and ruins i've found that one is plenty to completely shut thresh out of their 'yard. I'm also running a singleton Ancient Grudge md with one more boarded and I have to say I'm really, really, really happy with the card, it's been absolutely outstanding for me. I think three pyroclasms are definitely necessary for the goblins matchup, they help so much with so many things.
Do you need the second LftL? I've been running one and haven't really had a problem at that level. Also, is there a reason you've dropped Coliseum? I've found the ability to make my opponent draw 9 cards a turn to sometimes be a valuable alternate win condition in addition the card drawing you get from Coliseum + LftL.
Also, just on a general question, I've noticed that I'm using Intuition far more often as a mini-gifts ungiven than as a neo demonic tutor, are you experiencing the same or have you continued to use it as a "grab three"? Speaking of which, can you cut the third witness and just grab stronghold, witness, witness instead of the three witnesses? It would give you room to run a Grudge maindeck.
Concur on the awesomeness of the Staxx board and the fact that the deck can now beat combo often enough that the matchup isn't hopeless.
After being beaten by Watcher at the FoW tournament while playing Solidarity I can confidently say there is hope in the combo match. I made a bad playmistake one game but in another I couldnt keep the stax pieces on the board enough to combo off. The deck still needs a quicker clock and I suggest you try Rude Awakening in the sb as a wish target. Ive actually won the game with it multiple times in my build of rgb Loam.
Now playing real formats.
I dropped Coliseum due to no longer running Haunting Echoes in the board. Attempting to win via draw out is just a little to loopy especially since they get to choose what to discard. Intuition has been a way to set up 1 of the 2 recursion sets that I run, and if it already is up and running I'll just basically put down 3 things my opponent doesn't want me to have down.
I run 3 Witnesses cause I want the ability to draw it if it comes down to it. I might cut 1 to see how it works, but it's amazing post-board with Staxx board.
Another card people have been pestering me over, is Goblin Lore. I've been back and forth with this as a 2-of with Gamble as a 2-of as well. Late game it's a bad Millstone with an empty hand but when your got a full grip of lands and a Crucible in play it's downright nasty.
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hey guys, has anyone been working on this deck? It seems at the very end the deck managed to find a rough solution to the combo issue, but then no one has commented on this for awhile =\
"It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched)" - Pinder, on stifled fetchlands.
I've been working on it a decent amount for the past 2 months. But with only limited time to work on it and testing, and especially lack of interest here from other players, I've been keeping a low key on it. I'm planning on playing this at Columbus and just about any other 1.5 tourney I hit up along the way.
Diablos and myself tagged eachother back and forth for a little bit in regards to current builds. And to be nice we have gone in opposite directions especially with the MD. I'm more than willing to work with this deck but it's a matter of interest for anyone else here for me.
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