I've been working on this for a few months now, inhibited by the fact that I've been scheduled to work the day of our local tournaments here. But with SCG Minneapolis rolling around the corner, I though I'd turn to you guys for a bit of advice.
Here's a bit of a pre-primer I started up for the deck:
Well, I've always been a fan of the Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry combo, and have been a rather large control player for years. Stax has always been a favourite of mine; Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere both make for a lot of fun in the current format. Not too long ago, I decided to try to brutally force both into the same deck. Here's the result:
Basically, I was going for a more aggro-style Stax build. Speed was the name of the game; forcing out a turn 1 Chalice or Trinisphere always a powerful play, but a lot of the fun I've had with this is with the more aggressive plays. While less frequent, turn 1 Smokestacks, Tezzerets and Thopter+Swords can occur.
Card analysis
Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors – The Sol lands that really help give the speed needed for the deck to work.
Mox Diamond – Again, there to help the speed.
Mox Opal – With 37 Artifacts in the deck, it's almost always active on turn 2, often on turn 1. Again, a way to help speed out your lock pieces and threats.
Wasteland – Typical Stax choice. Along with Trinisphere and/or Smokestack, can lock out the game. Crucible helps make this a star.
Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers – Increasing the Artifact count, making metalcraft easier to achieve, and offers more food for a Thopter Foundry (before sword hits).
Underground Sea – Produces Blue and Black mana. 'Nuff said.
Academy Ruins – Recurs your pieces. Allows for a means of abusing Intuition and beating artifact destruction and countermagic.
Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere – The Stax lock pieces. Against so much of the metagame, landing either within the first turn or so sets your opponent back significantly.
Smokestack – Alongside Trinisphere, it's very easy to lock out the game. With Crucible of Worlds, the downside of sacrificing a permanent is less devastating. With thopter/sword, you can ramp this guy as high as you'd like.
Crucible of Worlds – Allows for wasteland recursion, different options with Intuition, and assisting the Smokestack lock.
Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek – This two card combo allows you to turn each excess mana you have into an additional 1/1 critter. With these two cards out, the entire tide of the turn can change.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas – Secondary win condition. Gives you a reusable way to dig, turns any lock piece into a threat, and his ultimate typically just wins the game. Do note that if you do animate a Trinisphere, tapping it (say, by attacking) will turn it off.
Intuition – Like Demonic Tutor, 'cept instant speed and can grab multiple different pieces (especially relevant with Crucible and/or Academy Ruins).
A thought occurred after a bit of testing: sideboard. Like, what if we went beyond UB. The next thought was Glimmervoid (potentially over Underground Sea). With 10 rainbow sources, I was considering looking towards some non-UB sideboard slots (Choke, Hanna's Custody, Ground Seal)
So, does anything look like it's missing out of the main? Would Glimmervoid theoretically work better than Underground Sea (giving access to a potentially wider sideboard options)? And what would be some of the more appropriate sideboard options?
4 Mox Opal seems like a lot. I'd rather have a 4th Diamond I think.
That is one of the things that I was bouncing back and forth between. Diamond seems like more of a dead draw later than Opal, and Opal can easily be thrown into Foundry of Smokestack with multiples where Diamond can't be.
Jace, the mind sculptor as a supplemental draw engine? It seems better than intuition at least on paper. Intuition doesn't seem that incredible in this deck as a 3 mana tutor because I see intuition simply grabbing triple foundry almost every time unless you draw the 1 of ruins at which point it becomes foundry, crucible (wasteland protection in case they waste ruins and having a wastelock as well as thopter sword up is living the dream) sword.
Also, are 7 moxen too many? That's the other thing I find strange with your list although maybe it's just me. Going diamond, opal, artifact land, trinisphere into intuition seems incredibly strong.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Jace, the mind sculptor as a supplemental draw engine? It seems better than intuition at least on paper. Intuition doesn't seem that incredible in this deck as a 3 mana tutor because I see intuition simply grabbing triple foundry almost every time unless you draw the 1 of ruins at which point it becomes foundry, crucible (wasteland protection in case they waste ruins and having a wastelock as well as thopter sword up is living the dream) sword.
Well, with Crucible, Intuition can grab Ruins, Foundry, Sword without too much concern.
My original list ran Jace. As a draw engine, he's fine; a little worse than Tezz with regards to digging. As a win condition, he's much slower.
Also, are 7 moxen too many? That's the other thing I find strange with your list although maybe it's just me. Going diamond, opal, artifact land, trinisphere into intuition seems incredibly strong.
Part of what I've enjoyed is the fast mana. Having a few extra ways to force out a turn 1 Chalice/Trinisphere or a turn 2 Smokestack/Tezz is one of the appeals I found with the deck.
I forgot that interaction with crucible and intuition. It's pretty nifty.
The reason I suggested jace, is because jace is almost THE lock piece with a trinisphere in play. Bouncing a creature when you have a 3sphere out is usually a time walk. Bouncing a creature and proceeding to wastelock/wasteland an opponent out is very strong. And while jace is a slower win con in comparison to Tezz, AoB he is still incredibly useful. Drawing 2 cards a turn to your opponents 1 is something that I feel stax decks could benefit from quite a bit, even without shuffle effects just drawing 2 cards a turn with stax feels like cheating. It also feels like cheating when you get to put back excess bad cards like mox opal and mox diamond back to draw 3 real cards as mox opal is quite bad in multiples unless you have foundry. If I were to include jace in your list I would probably cut 1 trinisphere, 1 opal, and 1 sword. Sword, 3sphere, and opal are all quite bad in multiples and I think 30 mana sources is probably enough in this deck. However it requires playtesting.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
3Sphere is bad in multiples, but it's also one of the things that, if at all possible, you want in your opener; turn 1 3Sphere can shut down so many decks. Sword can be good in multiples, but only if you're facing down an Emrakul or overextending your Smokestack (all swords in your graveyard will trigger on one Thopter coming into play).
Cutting a Sword and an Opal doesn't sound like a bad idea; it's certainly worth testing out.
3Sphere is bad in multiples, but it's also one of the things that, if at all possible, you want in your opener; turn 1 3Sphere can shut down so many decks. Sword can be good in multiples, but only if you're facing down an Emrakul or overextending your Smokestack (all swords in your graveyard will trigger on one Thopter coming into play).
Cutting a Sword and an Opal doesn't sound like a bad idea; it's certainly worth testing out.
Jace get's rid of multiple 3spheres
24 Land seems like a lot, you sure you need those Seas?
Most of the Geddon/Dutch/Angel Stax decks run between 24 and 26 lands, plus the 4x Mox Diamond. 31 Mana sources might be a little much, but 30 might be worth moving towards.
Most of the Geddon/Dutch/Angel Stax decks run between 24 and 26 lands, plus the 4x Mox Diamond. 31 Mana sources might be a little much, but 30 might be worth moving towards.
I like 26 Mana producing lands + 2 Utility, like Tabernacle/Maze + 4 Mox Diamond in Stax builds. If you need Double cc like UU/WW, You may want to consider 12-13 colored lands.
I'm torn on the last 3 slots in the sideboard, but really, I'm just curious if there's any suggestions for revamping the SB.
One card that comes to mind for me that has been doing a lot of work is Thorn of Amethyst. Mana Maze could also be interesting. What do you want the slots to do exactly? Additionally, I think that 4 Totems and Bridges is very excessive. I would cut to 3.
So, I figured I'd start up using my youtube channel for testing, and effectively posting results, etc. for this deck. This video is just basically the startup for it all, decklist and card explanation, basically the pre-primer. I've spoken with dissolution about testing with me on cockatrice, and I plan on using this as an oppourtunity to actually do something on youtube again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zCg5B6Nx2U&feature=youtu.be
I officially love Cursed Totem... Even more than I did earlier. The first time I played against Maverick, it wrecked him, but I forgot how good it was against D&T.
A rather disappointing end to the event for me, but on the bright side, I did get a new video up out of the deal.
For the record, Game 3 is me mulling to 5 and being stuck with 1 land the entire game. Certainly not something that I'd brag about, but it happens from time to time, regardless of what you're playing. I actually had a RUG player lost to a wasteland because his Brainstorm drew dead
Land situations are always swingy in any format. Statistically, it's just going to randomly kick your ass in some situations.
Exactly. I'm not going to sweat it. If it happened every other game, where I had to mull to 5 and still die by no lands, then I'd worry, but it's so infrequent, I'm not too worried.
So, I'm thinking I'm going to play this again at SCG Milwaukee. Some things I was thinking about for the sideboard:
Cursed Totem - Because while Maverick might not have the same presence thatit once did, with TinFins and Deathrite in general still being pretty hot, it seems like a solid call.
Spellskite - Because I'm sick of people Abrupt Decaying my ****.
You could run divert for abrupt decay. However, it just jumped up to 8 apiece...
Divert isn't particularly friendly with Chalice (or trinisphere, for that matter), which are both pretty big on the list of things I want to protect. Actually, in St. Louis, most of my issues were from Decay eating the Chalice :-\
Pops do you have an updated list or is it the same as in the previous page? There has been a uw thopter deck that is consistently toping legacy daily have you ever thought of switching to this style or is stax working out for you a lot better?
Here's a bit of a pre-primer I started up for the deck:
Well, I've always been a fan of the Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry combo, and have been a rather large control player for years. Stax has always been a favourite of mine; Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere both make for a lot of fun in the current format. Not too long ago, I decided to try to brutally force both into the same deck. Here's the result:
4 Mox Opal
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
1 Academy Ruins
3 Underground Sea
4 Vault of Whispters
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Wasteland
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
Basically, I was going for a more aggro-style Stax build. Speed was the name of the game; forcing out a turn 1 Chalice or Trinisphere always a powerful play, but a lot of the fun I've had with this is with the more aggressive plays. While less frequent, turn 1 Smokestacks, Tezzerets and Thopter+Swords can occur.
Card analysis
Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors – The Sol lands that really help give the speed needed for the deck to work.
Mox Diamond – Again, there to help the speed.
Mox Opal – With 37 Artifacts in the deck, it's almost always active on turn 2, often on turn 1. Again, a way to help speed out your lock pieces and threats.
Wasteland – Typical Stax choice. Along with Trinisphere and/or Smokestack, can lock out the game. Crucible helps make this a star.
Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers – Increasing the Artifact count, making metalcraft easier to achieve, and offers more food for a Thopter Foundry (before sword hits).
Underground Sea – Produces Blue and Black mana. 'Nuff said.
Academy Ruins – Recurs your pieces. Allows for a means of abusing Intuition and beating artifact destruction and countermagic.
Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere – The Stax lock pieces. Against so much of the metagame, landing either within the first turn or so sets your opponent back significantly.
Smokestack – Alongside Trinisphere, it's very easy to lock out the game. With Crucible of Worlds, the downside of sacrificing a permanent is less devastating. With thopter/sword, you can ramp this guy as high as you'd like.
Crucible of Worlds – Allows for wasteland recursion, different options with Intuition, and assisting the Smokestack lock.
Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek – This two card combo allows you to turn each excess mana you have into an additional 1/1 critter. With these two cards out, the entire tide of the turn can change.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas – Secondary win condition. Gives you a reusable way to dig, turns any lock piece into a threat, and his ultimate typically just wins the game. Do note that if you do animate a Trinisphere, tapping it (say, by attacking) will turn it off.
Intuition – Like Demonic Tutor, 'cept instant speed and can grab multiple different pieces (especially relevant with Crucible and/or Academy Ruins).
A thought occurred after a bit of testing: sideboard. Like, what if we went beyond UB. The next thought was Glimmervoid (potentially over Underground Sea). With 10 rainbow sources, I was considering looking towards some non-UB sideboard slots (Choke, Hanna's Custody, Ground Seal)
Other cards that I've been considering pretty hard for sideboard are Phyrexian Revoker, Ensnaring Bridge, Leyline of the Void, Lodestone Golem, Cursed Totem, and (slightly awkwardly) Rushing River.
So, does anything look like it's missing out of the main? Would Glimmervoid theoretically work better than Underground Sea (giving access to a potentially wider sideboard options)? And what would be some of the more appropriate sideboard options?
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
That is one of the things that I was bouncing back and forth between. Diamond seems like more of a dead draw later than Opal, and Opal can easily be thrown into Foundry of Smokestack with multiples where Diamond can't be.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Also, are 7 moxen too many? That's the other thing I find strange with your list although maybe it's just me. Going diamond, opal, artifact land, trinisphere into intuition seems incredibly strong.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Well, with Crucible, Intuition can grab Ruins, Foundry, Sword without too much concern.
My original list ran Jace. As a draw engine, he's fine; a little worse than Tezz with regards to digging. As a win condition, he's much slower.
Part of what I've enjoyed is the fast mana. Having a few extra ways to force out a turn 1 Chalice/Trinisphere or a turn 2 Smokestack/Tezz is one of the appeals I found with the deck.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
The reason I suggested jace, is because jace is almost THE lock piece with a trinisphere in play. Bouncing a creature when you have a 3sphere out is usually a time walk. Bouncing a creature and proceeding to wastelock/wasteland an opponent out is very strong. And while jace is a slower win con in comparison to Tezz, AoB he is still incredibly useful. Drawing 2 cards a turn to your opponents 1 is something that I feel stax decks could benefit from quite a bit, even without shuffle effects just drawing 2 cards a turn with stax feels like cheating. It also feels like cheating when you get to put back excess bad cards like mox opal and mox diamond back to draw 3 real cards as mox opal is quite bad in multiples unless you have foundry. If I were to include jace in your list I would probably cut 1 trinisphere, 1 opal, and 1 sword. Sword, 3sphere, and opal are all quite bad in multiples and I think 30 mana sources is probably enough in this deck. However it requires playtesting.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Cutting a Sword and an Opal doesn't sound like a bad idea; it's certainly worth testing out.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Jace get's rid of multiple 3spheres
24 Land seems like a lot, you sure you need those Seas?
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig.
NO RUG: Primer
Tempo Thresh: Primer
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
I like 26 Mana producing lands + 2 Utility, like Tabernacle/Maze + 4 Mox Diamond in Stax builds. If you need Double cc like UU/WW, You may want to consider 12-13 colored lands.
I want to make a Mono U Stax with Dream Tides + Mana Vortex and Propaganda
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
3 Mox Opal
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Intuition
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Cursed Totem
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
I'm torn on the last 3 slots in the sideboard, but really, I'm just curious if there's any suggestions for revamping the SB.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
One card that comes to mind for me that has been doing a lot of work is Thorn of Amethyst. Mana Maze could also be interesting. What do you want the slots to do exactly? Additionally, I think that 4 Totems and Bridges is very excessive. I would cut to 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zCg5B6Nx2U&feature=youtu.be
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Level 1 Judge
Currently Playing:
W Death and Taxes
BGR ScapeWish Nic Fit
BGR Punishing Nic Fit
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Level 1 Judge
Currently Playing:
W Death and Taxes
BGR ScapeWish Nic Fit
BGR Punishing Nic Fit
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
For the record, Game 3 is me mulling to 5 and being stuck with 1 land the entire game. Certainly not something that I'd brag about, but it happens from time to time, regardless of what you're playing. I actually had a RUG player lost to a wasteland because his Brainstorm drew dead
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Exactly. I'm not going to sweat it. If it happened every other game, where I had to mull to 5 and still die by no lands, then I'd worry, but it's so infrequent, I'm not too worried.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Cursed Totem - Because while Maverick might not have the same presence thatit once did, with TinFins and Deathrite in general still being pretty hot, it seems like a solid call.
Spellskite - Because I'm sick of people Abrupt Decaying my ****.
Anything else sorta stick out?
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Divert isn't particularly friendly with Chalice (or trinisphere, for that matter), which are both pretty big on the list of things I want to protect. Actually, in St. Louis, most of my issues were from Decay eating the Chalice :-\
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.