This is my newest deck i am planning on building, but before splashing the cash i would like to know if this will turn out great or if it needs to be tinkered with beforehand. Any suggestions or help would be great:
My general and the heavy control theme is fixed; never had a deck like this
Things I'm concerned about:
1) Wincons, I have sufficient control and so far my win cons are Bribery and Planeswalkers
2) Ending the game while i can; I've seen many games where the "almost winner" couldn't close the game and ends up taking a board wipe and losing
3) Voltron commanders with hexproof would theoretically pose a great threat IF it resolves
4) Should i keep this deck creatureless? or would i benefit by adding some into the 99?
5) Am I running too many lands? (38 minus Tabernacle)
Helm of Obedience was considered but in theory wouldnt the Helm only be as good as the creatures in the opponent's deck? I could easily get a 1/1 mana dork instead of the win i'm looking for
Helm of Obedience was considered but in theory wouldnt the Helm only be as good as the creatures in the opponent's deck? I could easily get a 1/1 mana dork instead of the win i'm looking for
You use Helm with RIP to win the game. Activate Helm with RIP in play and your opponent mills themselves out. I've never seen Helm used to grab a creature.
OH yea, didn't see Rest in Peace, that would be a great wincon, easily tutorable as well
Indeed. It was staple combo in most Zur decks as it was so easy to grab RIP. But as you say it's still very easy to assemble in GAAIV.
Also, any reason for going completely creatureless? I'd think at least a Snapcaster Mage deserves a slot. Venser, Shaper Savant is pretty much a staple in GAAIV as well.
No actual reason for going creatureless, was just an interesting concept i was trying out. I got a bit carried away with the tax effects. Yea i've been looking around the forums and most GAAIV users are using them, i should prbbly goldfish on tappedout and see how it feels with more creatures
Winter Orb and Rising Waters make things miserable for opponents with Tabernacle on board and punish them for tapping out for something that will probably get remanded anyway. Having a GAIV Stax deck, I've found my wincon to be...well...Grand Arbiter. The deck was built to push him out as fast as possible for the huge tempo boost he grants and use that to fuel 'Geddon, Ravages of War, Sunder, or other absurdities. Gush is a very abusable card with Winter Orb/Stasis etc and should make the list as well. Crystal Shard is another card that shines. Now your opponents have to pay 1 more to play their creature because of GA, 1 more if they don't want you to draw a card to Rhystic Study, 1 more if Lodestone Golem is down, and keep 1 open so Staff doesn't bounce it. Hell, maybe even 2 if I staff at the end of my opponent's turn and then staff again during mine. And again, Winter Orb makes life absolutely miserable. I also included Hannah, Ship's Navigator to recycle Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, or create a permanent Stasis lock if the opportunity arises.
Sun Titan makes a great enabler too, being immune to Stasis effects is obviously strong in this build, GA helps spit him out fast, and he combos well with Stasis, Strip Mine, Wasteland, and the Tectonic Edge you should be playing.
No one plays GA to make friends, so you might as well go all out and include Armageddon and friends- this also means dropping a plains for a Flagstones. I've also got a Land Equilibrium in there to keep rampy style decks under control. If you can keep the board clear, you can float the mana for Land Equilibrium and cast Armageddon, creating a permanent hardlock until you play a land. If you have even one lonely creature leftover (usually GA- he makes this absurd combo cost only 6 mana), he can beat until victory! Creatures in the deck are few and far between for a reason, you want to make sure sweepers are asymetrical, and it blanks your opponent's removal. If you get GA out fast enough, GA will blank half their hand for a few turns while you continue to establish dominance and if all goes well, they'll havea handful of spells and no way to play them.
You can drop out some of the countermagic. GA and Stax's playstyle isn't to counter everything you try to play, it's to keep you from playing anything at all and only counter anything that threatens to break the stranglehold. Moat would seem like an obvoius inclusion, but it keeps GA from being able to attack as well. While you try to figure out how to win under your own moat, your opponent will continue trying to break your lock.
Sorry, I got a little carried away when I saw you were going for a split between stax playstyle and heavy control, which are more thana bit different in their cardpools. The comments above are more heavy-stax orietned. My reocmmendation would be to capitalize and focus on one strategy or the other. Both styles, however, are notorious for being heavily competitive, unfriendly decks. I don't pull GA out often, but when I do, I've made more than a few people quit even though the outcome was a long way from being decided.
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Thanks for the lengthy reply, its ok i love constructive criticism especially ones. I've read through the entire post and I agree that i should stick to one instead of doing both. Do you perhaps have a list for your GAAIV? would greatly appreciate a base for me to work with
Frozen Aether should probably replace Kismet at some point because it pitches to Force, and I haven't had much time to test out new stuff like Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time, but the list was designed to spit out Grand Arbiter as fast as possible, and apply continuous general beats while playing things like Winter Orb or Armageddon. Lots of artifact mana help make mass land destruction very asymmetrical, and having Grand Arbiter out helps provide a speedier recovery than anyone else, while making their recovery extra slow and difficult. Continuous artifacts like Winter Orb are also great to tap to Tangle Wire, or give you extra things to feed your Smokestack effects. Most of my wins come from locking an opponent out of their spells early with GA, and then applying a harder and harder lock as GA attacks early.
Sample godhand:
T1: Tundra-Sol Ring or Mana Crypt or Mana Vault
T2: land, Grand Arbiter
T3: Land Equilibrium.
Grand Arbiter beats in for the rest of the game. Play Ravages or 'Geddon next
Your opponent is now capped at no more than 2 land for the rest of the game with all of his spells costing one more. In the meantime, your white/blue spells cost 1 less, and you have access to 4 mana. If you really want to be a jackass, play a strip mine and strip mine one of your own lands.
Packed full of painful sweepers, and powerful protective cards like Kor Haven, Forcefield, and Maze of Ith, if things don't go according to plan, you have several ways to reset the board state. If creatures have got you down, try playing Winter Orb and then drop your Tabernacle.
Pendrell Mists did not make the cut as I have an actual Tabernacle, and Mists seemed to redundant for 4 mana. If it was a lower CC, I'd consider including it.
Time Elemental is great at performing several tricks- bouncing Winter Orb at end of opponent's turn. Bouncing stasis in and out, Bouncing opponent's creatures as they're being played. Use it to reset Tangle Wire. Etc. Love to see an old school card doing work like this.
Slow Motion, by the way is a really great card in Stax lists.
Crucible of Worlds needs no explanation in a Stax list, maxing out on strip mine effects makes it plenty miserable, but being able to feed smokestack forever is a war of attrition your opponents can't win.
This list is somewhat geared for 1 on 1. You can make multiplayer games absolutely miserable, but oftentimes the combined anger of 3 people is too much to Staxx, though I've pulled it off a few times.
Know how to use Smokestack and Tangle Wire triggers to make them to most brutal. On your turn, you put tapping to tangle wire on the stack first, then the removal of the fade counter, so you remove a fade counter and tap 1 less thing to TW. Then you tap TW to itself.
Same thing for Smokestack. Set up the triggers so you sac to smokestack and then add a counter to it if you so desire.
With the incredibly hostile environment towards mana availability, planeswalkers are an important to give you a way to do things on your turn without having to pay for them. Also, Elspeth combos well with smokestack.
Prison Term. I only mention this because you specifically mentioned hexproof voltron as a potential problem and this card gets around hexproof and is solid removal otherwise. Tower of the Magistrate is another card to consider for equipment voltron if this is a thing in your meta.
So far i'm going down the permission route for anti-voltron, its more versatile than the cards u mentioned, but thanks for the advice. In case i have more issues with voltron, i'll definitely think of those 2
Prison Term is a fine card, and I had considered it- slow motion got the nod instead, partially because the single blue was easier to manage. The deck really doesn't struggle against voltron, voltron needs enough mana to play a creature and then the buffs as well, whereas this deck is meant to be extremely spell prohibitive to being with. It really doesn't matter what the opponent's gameplan is because your gameplan is to make casting any kind of spell miserably difficult. One exception to this might be Zur, as he cheats in his equipments when attacking.
Tower of the Magistrate might have made the list, but I considered the necessity to have a blue and white mana to play GA as soon as possible to be of the utmost importance, and I'm already running Strip Mine, Tec Edge, Wasteland, Port, Darksteel Citadel, Tabernacle, Boseiju, Maze of Ith, Temple of the False God and Ancient Tomb as colorless mana sources. A bit greedy, but all are crucial lands for one reason or another with the possible exception of Citadel (as a way to keep mana after and Armageddon).
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Oh, I wanted to add a few things-
Parallax Tide is absurd. I've used it to buy myself several turns by nuking my opponents land and ice also floated a bunch of mana t while exiting my owe lands and the casting a 'geddon, with all my lands coming back in after the fact. Resist the temptationext to play mana vortex, the deal breaker is the fact you have to sac a land when you cast it.
Don't rely on permission spells, they only need to buy enough time to put down a lock.
Hardlocks are possible, but greedy. You just need to keep your opponent locked for 11 general swings or till your opponent rage quits.
Lastly, don't think too much about how you're going to beat certain decks and play cards just for them. Your game plan should always be that their game plan doesn't matter because they might not get to cast a single spell the whole game, who cares what they're playing.
Lastly, parallax wave is mass landkill in blue. Just play it. It's such an amazing tempo card.
Sorry about any typos, posting on mobile.
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Thanks for the new information, highly appreciated. Though i do have 1 question, you play a lot of Tax effects such as "non creature spells cost 1 more to play", considering the low amount of creatures that u run in comparison to most edh deck, wouldnt it affect you as well or perhaps even more?
Notice how nearly all colored spells in the deck require some amount of colorless mana? That's so that grand arbiter can reduce all their costs as well. Grand arbiter should always be played as soon as you have the mana for him. Your deck is built to handle taxes between the heavy mana rock usage and the general. Your opponent's deck is probably not. The toughest challenge I've faced is whether to T2 Thalia or wait to play grand arbiter first, but outside of that, the taxes shouldn't bother you nearly as bad as your opponent. So many GA builds focus on his taxing ability people tend to forget his cost reduction ability is also equally strong when it's built around. So unless it's just plain bonkers (mana drain) I chose spells that would be reduced by GA. One of the reasons Invoke Prejudice didn't make the cut, though it was tempting.
Holy crap I didn't realize how bad my typing is on this phone. Sorry about the horrible unreadability of the pre-edited pist.
I think I'm going to drop either Kismet, Cloud Cover, or Mishra's Helix for Mana Web. The only thing stopping me is I'm unsure of the wording on the card- Oracle text says "an opponent" but the card says "target opponent" so I'm wondering about its impact on multiplayer. Seems like a fun toy with Winter Orb effects.
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Yes, your opponent gets to float his mana off of web, which is fine, the card isn't meant to keep people from casting more than one spell, but it's a little better in this deck than it seems on the surface. I may opt to cut Defense Grid from the deck for it actually. Here's the issue:
Defense Grid was a card that got included for two reasons. First, it's THE piece to stick against countermagic heavy decks and hoses Prophet of Kruphix and friends pretty decently. Secondly, I have an 8th edition foil one, which is super pimp. But I digress. GA plays a decent degree of countermagic as well, and a fair amount of instants, so sometimes this effect is a little less than desirable.
Mana Web, on the other hand, forces players (particularly mono colored ones) to choose if they'd like to play spells during their turn or mine, because once they tap one land, they usually tap nearly all of them to mana web. With so many tax effects in the deck, it becomes really really hard to play spells and leave any mana up for interaction on other player's turns. And since GA plays basically almost every Winter Orb effect (Winter Orb, Rising Waters, Hokori, Dust Drinker) you can really punish them for tapping to Mana Web. Even having Tabernacle down is terrific with this card- do you pay for your creatures, but get forced into tapping out to do so, or sacrifice your board to try and play a spell or two during your turn?
Also, Mana Web only affects the opponent, so that's nice.
Mishra's Helix is a bulk Rishaden Port. Being able to lockout several lands during your opponent's upkeep is a powerful effect which also happens to be very mana intensive, the drawback of this card. It combos well with mana rocks and, again, Winter Orb, letting you untap the rocks to keep your opponent's mana pinned. Still, it's comparably mana intensive to cast, so it's always been on my list of possible cuts. I've tried to keep the curve in GA low and aggressive unless the card is just bonkers (Sun Titan etc), but I'm pretty undecided about how powerful the Helix really is because it's been a terrible topdeck at times, but a superstar at others.
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Cloud cover makes the final cut thus far. Absolute house. Shuts off often the very few options for spot removal that might be able to even hit GA (StP and other similar low cost spells.) and it furather insures winter orb will be hanging around as long as you need it to. Mana Web really shines well when combined with orb and tabernacle forcing your opponent to choose if he wants to spend his only free mana paying to keep one dude alive.
I've also learned how key it is to build this deck by focusing on GA's cheapen in ability just as much. It's important to be able to play the staff effects and protect them. Played against 1v1 tuned goblins a bunch over break. Brilliant deck, but hyperaggro just scoops to a few cards. Playing in an aggro meta would be fine wit slotting ghostly prison alongside propaganda, especially if you're not building with one its probably better than trying to cast pendrell mists.
One of the things I like about this build is how rock solid it is but still main tains primarily older cards. Treasure Cruise will not make the cut. By the time you can cast it you shouldn't need to, you should have control on the game by then. The delve is not relevant in an archetype that wants to stick a bunch of permanents on the board to make tangle wire, not by chucking things into the yard. I could make an argument for DTT, but I don't know of what I'd take out except for maybe Thassa, which by the way has been doing great.
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Yea I've been trying Cloud Cover as well, and alongside the other tap effects my opponent just scoops. on Pendrell (i'm using magus of the tabernacle) and Mana Web though i've found them to be pretty slow (i'm running a slightly faster version of GAAIV) and have been favoring a more Duel Commander build with counters.
Treasure Cruise and DTT have been great imo, they help refill my hand with threats, counters as well as locks
I bet Thassa would probably be pretty good in your build along with Enlightened Tutor. You've got a semi-enchantments thing going on with the Sanctum and all and I like the toolboxiness of them, and oddly enough, I have less of a problem turning Thassa on in my build than I thought I would anyway. Also, holding a 'Geddon and an E-Tutor is a pretty good feeling when you've got Pendrell Mists or Land Tax or Crucible of Worlds in your deck, but it's also nice to be able to find D-Sphere in a real pinch. Every now and then your opponent does something real dumb like find himself unable to cast a creature and you 'geddon with Grand Arbiter as the only guy and the board and just win sometimes, so if any of your countermagic isn't cutting the mustard and you don't mind THAT guy, try Armageddon.
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My general and the heavy control theme is fixed; never had a deck like this
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
6x Island
1x Kor Haven
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Mystic Gate
1x Nimbus Maze
6x Plains
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Rishadan Port
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Serra's Sanctum
1x Skycloud Expanse
1x Strip Mine
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Tolaria West
1x Tundra
1x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Brainstorm
1x Counterspell
1x Cryptic Command
1x Daze
1x Dig Through Time
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Forbid
1x Force of Will
1x Force Spike
1x Hinder
1x Logic Knot
1x Mana Drain
1x Mana Leak
1x Memory Lapse
1x Miscalculation
1x Misdirection
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Pact of Negation
1x Path to Exile
1x Render Silent
1x Spell Crumple
1x Spell Pierce
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Unexpectedly Absent
1x Expedition Map
1x Forcefield
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Sphere of Resistance
1x Static Orb
1x Banishing Light
1x Detention Sphere
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Greater Auramancy
1x Humility
1x Land Tax
1x Luminarch Ascension
1x Moat
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Pendrell Mists
1x Propaganda
1x Rest in Peace
1x Rhystic Study
1x Stasis
1x Treachery
1x Austere Command
1x Bribery
1x Council's Judgment
1x Personal Tutor
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Replenish
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Treasure Cruise
1x Wrath of God
Things I'm concerned about:
1) Wincons, I have sufficient control and so far my win cons are Bribery and Planeswalkers
2) Ending the game while i can; I've seen many games where the "almost winner" couldn't close the game and ends up taking a board wipe and losing
3) Voltron commanders with hexproof would theoretically pose a great threat IF it resolves
4) Should i keep this deck creatureless? or would i benefit by adding some into the 99?
5) Am I running too many lands? (38 minus Tabernacle)
Decree of Justice and Entreat of the Angelslooks good, i'll be putting this in and testing it on tappedout to see how it goes
Helm of Obedience was considered but in theory wouldnt the Helm only be as good as the creatures in the opponent's deck? I could easily get a 1/1 mana dork instead of the win i'm looking for
You use Helm with RIP to win the game. Activate Helm with RIP in play and your opponent mills themselves out. I've never seen Helm used to grab a creature.
Indeed. It was staple combo in most Zur decks as it was so easy to grab RIP. But as you say it's still very easy to assemble in GAAIV.
Also, any reason for going completely creatureless? I'd think at least a Snapcaster Mage deserves a slot. Venser, Shaper Savant is pretty much a staple in GAAIV as well.
Sun Titan makes a great enabler too, being immune to Stasis effects is obviously strong in this build, GA helps spit him out fast, and he combos well with Stasis, Strip Mine, Wasteland, and the Tectonic Edge you should be playing.
No one plays GA to make friends, so you might as well go all out and include Armageddon and friends- this also means dropping a plains for a Flagstones. I've also got a Land Equilibrium in there to keep rampy style decks under control. If you can keep the board clear, you can float the mana for Land Equilibrium and cast Armageddon, creating a permanent hardlock until you play a land. If you have even one lonely creature leftover (usually GA- he makes this absurd combo cost only 6 mana), he can beat until victory! Creatures in the deck are few and far between for a reason, you want to make sure sweepers are asymetrical, and it blanks your opponent's removal. If you get GA out fast enough, GA will blank half their hand for a few turns while you continue to establish dominance and if all goes well, they'll havea handful of spells and no way to play them.
You can drop out some of the countermagic. GA and Stax's playstyle isn't to counter everything you try to play, it's to keep you from playing anything at all and only counter anything that threatens to break the stranglehold. Moat would seem like an obvoius inclusion, but it keeps GA from being able to attack as well. While you try to figure out how to win under your own moat, your opponent will continue trying to break your lock.
Sorry, I got a little carried away when I saw you were going for a split between stax playstyle and heavy control, which are more thana bit different in their cardpools. The comments above are more heavy-stax orietned. My reocmmendation would be to capitalize and focus on one strategy or the other. Both styles, however, are notorious for being heavily competitive, unfriendly decks. I don't pull GA out often, but when I do, I've made more than a few people quit even though the outcome was a long way from being decided.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
5 Island
3 Plains
1 Kor Haven
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Temple of the False God
1 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Polluted Delta
1 Mystic Gate
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Vesuva
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Wasteland
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Tolaria West
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Arid Mesa
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Rishadan Port
1 Nimbus Maze
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Strip Mine
1 Command Tower
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Scroll Rack
1 Mishra's Helix
1 Kismet
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Mind Stone
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sol Ring
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Return to Dust
1 Catastrophe
1 Stasis
1 Aura of Silence
1 Tangle Wire
1 Static Orb
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Hokori, Dust Drinker
1 Glowrider
1 Ravages of War
1 Cataclysm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Winter Orb
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Time Elemental
1 Remand
1 Rhystic Study
1 Tezzeret, the Seeker
1 Gush
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Force of Will
1 Detention Sphere
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Grim Monolith
1 Propaganda
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Sunder
1 Arcane Denial
1 Smokestack
1 Hannah, Ship's Navigator
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Mana Vault
1 Torpor Orb
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Azorious Signet
1 Defense Grid
1 Mana Drain
1 Trinket Mage
1 Voltaic Key
1 Crystal Shard
1 Land Equilibrium
1 Sun Titan
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Cloud Cover (testing)
1 Slow Motion
1 Wrath of God
1 Rising Waters
1 Terminus
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Parallax Tide
1 World Queller
1 Forcefield
1 Armageddon
Frozen Aether should probably replace Kismet at some point because it pitches to Force, and I haven't had much time to test out new stuff like Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time, but the list was designed to spit out Grand Arbiter as fast as possible, and apply continuous general beats while playing things like Winter Orb or Armageddon. Lots of artifact mana help make mass land destruction very asymmetrical, and having Grand Arbiter out helps provide a speedier recovery than anyone else, while making their recovery extra slow and difficult. Continuous artifacts like Winter Orb are also great to tap to Tangle Wire, or give you extra things to feed your Smokestack effects. Most of my wins come from locking an opponent out of their spells early with GA, and then applying a harder and harder lock as GA attacks early.
Sample godhand:
T1: Tundra-Sol Ring or Mana Crypt or Mana Vault
T2: land, Grand Arbiter
T3: Land Equilibrium.
Grand Arbiter beats in for the rest of the game. Play Ravages or 'Geddon next
Your opponent is now capped at no more than 2 land for the rest of the game with all of his spells costing one more. In the meantime, your white/blue spells cost 1 less, and you have access to 4 mana. If you really want to be a jackass, play a strip mine and strip mine one of your own lands.
Packed full of painful sweepers, and powerful protective cards like Kor Haven, Forcefield, and Maze of Ith, if things don't go according to plan, you have several ways to reset the board state. If creatures have got you down, try playing Winter Orb and then drop your Tabernacle.
Pendrell Mists did not make the cut as I have an actual Tabernacle, and Mists seemed to redundant for 4 mana. If it was a lower CC, I'd consider including it.
Time Elemental is great at performing several tricks- bouncing Winter Orb at end of opponent's turn. Bouncing stasis in and out, Bouncing opponent's creatures as they're being played. Use it to reset Tangle Wire. Etc. Love to see an old school card doing work like this.
Slow Motion, by the way is a really great card in Stax lists.
Crucible of Worlds needs no explanation in a Stax list, maxing out on strip mine effects makes it plenty miserable, but being able to feed smokestack forever is a war of attrition your opponents can't win.
This list is somewhat geared for 1 on 1. You can make multiplayer games absolutely miserable, but oftentimes the combined anger of 3 people is too much to Staxx, though I've pulled it off a few times.
Know how to use Smokestack and Tangle Wire triggers to make them to most brutal. On your turn, you put tapping to tangle wire on the stack first, then the removal of the fade counter, so you remove a fade counter and tap 1 less thing to TW. Then you tap TW to itself.
Same thing for Smokestack. Set up the triggers so you sac to smokestack and then add a counter to it if you so desire.
With the incredibly hostile environment towards mana availability, planeswalkers are an important to give you a way to do things on your turn without having to pay for them. Also, Elspeth combos well with smokestack.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
*edit for grammar.
Tower of the Magistrate might have made the list, but I considered the necessity to have a blue and white mana to play GA as soon as possible to be of the utmost importance, and I'm already running Strip Mine, Tec Edge, Wasteland, Port, Darksteel Citadel, Tabernacle, Boseiju, Maze of Ith, Temple of the False God and Ancient Tomb as colorless mana sources. A bit greedy, but all are crucial lands for one reason or another with the possible exception of Citadel (as a way to keep mana after and Armageddon).
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Parallax Tide is absurd. I've used it to buy myself several turns by nuking my opponents land and ice also floated a bunch of mana t while exiting my owe lands and the casting a 'geddon, with all my lands coming back in after the fact. Resist the temptationext to play mana vortex, the deal breaker is the fact you have to sac a land when you cast it.
Don't rely on permission spells, they only need to buy enough time to put down a lock.
Hardlocks are possible, but greedy. You just need to keep your opponent locked for 11 general swings or till your opponent rage quits.
Lastly, don't think too much about how you're going to beat certain decks and play cards just for them. Your game plan should always be that their game plan doesn't matter because they might not get to cast a single spell the whole game, who cares what they're playing.
Lastly, parallax wave is mass landkill in blue. Just play it. It's such an amazing tempo card.
Sorry about any typos, posting on mobile.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Holy crap I didn't realize how bad my typing is on this phone. Sorry about the horrible unreadability of the pre-edited pist.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Mishra's Helix i am rather unsure about, it costs too much for my liking, this is what i would cut for Mana Web
Defense Grid was a card that got included for two reasons. First, it's THE piece to stick against countermagic heavy decks and hoses Prophet of Kruphix and friends pretty decently. Secondly, I have an 8th edition foil one, which is super pimp. But I digress. GA plays a decent degree of countermagic as well, and a fair amount of instants, so sometimes this effect is a little less than desirable.
Mana Web, on the other hand, forces players (particularly mono colored ones) to choose if they'd like to play spells during their turn or mine, because once they tap one land, they usually tap nearly all of them to mana web. With so many tax effects in the deck, it becomes really really hard to play spells and leave any mana up for interaction on other player's turns. And since GA plays basically almost every Winter Orb effect (Winter Orb, Rising Waters, Hokori, Dust Drinker) you can really punish them for tapping to Mana Web. Even having Tabernacle down is terrific with this card- do you pay for your creatures, but get forced into tapping out to do so, or sacrifice your board to try and play a spell or two during your turn?
Also, Mana Web only affects the opponent, so that's nice.
Mishra's Helix is a bulk Rishaden Port. Being able to lockout several lands during your opponent's upkeep is a powerful effect which also happens to be very mana intensive, the drawback of this card. It combos well with mana rocks and, again, Winter Orb, letting you untap the rocks to keep your opponent's mana pinned. Still, it's comparably mana intensive to cast, so it's always been on my list of possible cuts. I've tried to keep the curve in GA low and aggressive unless the card is just bonkers (Sun Titan etc), but I'm pretty undecided about how powerful the Helix really is because it's been a terrible topdeck at times, but a superstar at others.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I've also learned how key it is to build this deck by focusing on GA's cheapen in ability just as much. It's important to be able to play the staff effects and protect them. Played against 1v1 tuned goblins a bunch over break. Brilliant deck, but hyperaggro just scoops to a few cards. Playing in an aggro meta would be fine wit slotting ghostly prison alongside propaganda, especially if you're not building with one its probably better than trying to cast pendrell mists.
One of the things I like about this build is how rock solid it is but still main tains primarily older cards. Treasure Cruise will not make the cut. By the time you can cast it you shouldn't need to, you should have control on the game by then. The delve is not relevant in an archetype that wants to stick a bunch of permanents on the board to make tangle wire, not by chucking things into the yard. I could make an argument for DTT, but I don't know of what I'd take out except for maybe Thassa, which by the way has been doing great.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Treasure Cruise and DTT have been great imo, they help refill my hand with threats, counters as well as locks
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave