This is what I posted last year, but I am fairly certain it is not the list I have experience with as I did not include Jace at the time. Sideboard is always changing based on current meta.
The changes I made were
+2 City of Traitors
-2 Flooded Strand
-1 EE
-3 Thirst
-3 Jace
+1 Detention Sphere
+2 Batterskull
+4 Tezzeret's Gambit
I would love it to be viable,I think there is a deck there.
On a related note- had a couple of hours vs Eldrazi with my new SFM running list. Wow. Rough match. The Thorn of amethyst is great against us.
Unless I relved Humility, I lost, Ghostly t2 was sometimes enough to buy the time. Tanglewire was not stellar, Thought-knot such a pain.
Stacks themselves sucked, 3spheres also, which seems to be an increasingly common theme.
I will play around with a Dutch Stax type build. Edrazi is likely to be a good entrance deck at Legacy, and once those Modern bans kick in it will be pretty cheap and easy to put together, and with that and Maverick about I don't fancy my chances of hiding behind Tanglewires. I think the way to go with that is to focus more on Geddon, Moats and Humilities, less on Stacks (which, rather like Pox in Pox, are actually often the weakest cards), less on Tanglewires, which are worse in those builds, and more on Ghostly Prison, which are better. I have always found Geddon a hard card to justify, but as things in my meta have shifted it becomes a decent build-around card. Humility has always been the no 1 reason to play Stax, I see no need to change that.
Making it a bit more plains heavy will help- often the issue is a Wasteland keeping me out on a key turn.
The trick will be getting it fast enough for Delver and tempo decks, although they are very low on "real lands". A lower 3 sphere count main deck is possible for me as Storm no longer operates in my meta, and I still have Chalice and Leylines post board. I don't own real Moats, but I have been thinking about acquiring a couple recently anyway. I might still go down the SFM route, though obviously Moat makes it worse.
The Stacks themselves can still get use in the board,for slower matches like Miracles, whilst I will add in 3 spheres nos 2-3 in to the board. Sphere does still have synergy with Geddon, but with an increasing number of fair decks it becomes less attractive.
Yeah, indeed, Elspeth is the win con for sure. I may have to include a solitary Smokestack or some such just so that I don't seal them away from winning and then fail to win myself. O rings of course exist to give a small safety valve. Generally people just scoop if they can't win, but newbies often don't. I will test and post a list, probably one with and one without SFM.
In my mind I want Moats regardless, and living in Europe they are a bit cheaper than the US.
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Moats are cheaper there? Damn I should have contacted you when I picked up my moat. If I ever want a second you may get a pm from me to discuss details. Although shipping may even the price difference out.
Any who I have loved my builds with moat. Elspeth definitely seems like a must with it just to gain that evasion. Smokestack is likely a good add. It's a very powerful card in board stabilizing
Happy to help any time.
Moats on mkm in ITA are about 140-150 Euro cheapest, + paypal fees or bank transfer fees + shipping (which varies a lot from 7-30 Euros). In English 230/50 is about the cheapest for better than light play conditions, maybe 210 for beaten up and English. So if my maths is right that is cheaper than the US prices. Our Ebay sometimes has people selling to UK only, and they sometimes have difficulty shifting their high end Legacy cards outside of duals- if they put it up for auction you can get lucky. I picked up a Tabernacle recently for £280 when they normally go £400-500 (ITA of course).
Mkm is Magic card Market, I am sure you know, and it is worth keeping an eye on, although as I said there are extra fees like paypal etc. Import duties are an issue between the US and here and in public I am not going to tell anyone to break the law of course.....)
I think Moat = a lot of time vs Eldrazi, for example. Even if they start to use exile effects on casting its a lot of time to geddon/wastelock them.... Legends was so full of great cards.....
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Legends really was. It is also probably in my opinion one of the most powerful sets printed considering power level on a single card alone. The Abyss, Nether Void, Chains, Moat, etc. all very powerful cards on their own with an adverse affect on the battlefield the moment they hit.
Here is what I am thinking about for a dutch influenced build for a meta where Eldrazi are the entry deck of choice and where the combo levels (storm etc.) are low or confined to painter esque type combos rather than cantrip/ritual combo. You could easily put in SFM over the Baneslayer or Timely.
You note that have removed the Stacks, which are not effective against Eldrazi and significantly reduced 3spheres in favour of hard landkill, Moat and Ghostlies, moving the excess 3spheres to the board. Humility is the stand out card for these matches so its at 4 of, and Moat is close. Tanglewire, so, so effective against delvers and other decks, are pretty weak against deck like Eldrazi and Maverick that develop at the sae rate or faster than we do off of a single mana drop, so its out with them. Had to increase Crucuible obviously to account for the new synergies. The main thing is I have significantly reduced the vulnerability to Wasteland, something that has been bugging me a while as both RUG Delver, Grixis and Elrazi decks often run them to good effect against us.
I was very happy with the last version I posted, but after about ten hours 1 v 1 ing against some popular decks I felt it was a good build for the [edit: local] meta now, but not for the Eldrazi onslaught which I feel will be the way in to paper mtg Legacy for many for years to come.
In reference to the blue stax ideas above. This should I suppose have a separate thread, but you have to ask what does blue do that white cannot?
If you are just substituting blue cards that do the jobs of white cards in white versions you gain little. Obviously U and W work together to give a control deck, and UW enchantments is already a legitimate strategy, so a Stax shll with both in hads loads of design potential. But mono -U? Stasis is an option but aside from being a prison strategy the cards in Stasis are completely different in aim. The mono U prison deck featured I think on Wizards using bounce, Overburden, Vise, Netsuke and other tempo stuff is basicaly a non hardlock Stasis/Howling mine deck without the Stasis element and with more bounce. I use softlock Stasis/bounce/howling vise myself in an expensive Tabernacle/Propaganda build of the Stasis deck, and whilst it is a legitimate strategy, and reasonably successful considering its under-the-radar status, it is not a Stax deck.
For stax I feel that:
U does give the option to force, which means no 3 spheres- not an issue in itself.
It also has some relevant 2 drops in Overburden .
It also offers animation of artifacts (march of the machines), and an extra Tabernacle effect in Pendrell mists .
It offers Thopter spy network as a source of draw and damage plus as a Stax feeder.
It has a land that can act as a relevant spell, preventing untap of a creature, which if recurred could be useful.
In many ways the Blue Stax deck can support the smokestacks themselves well, even stifling a trigger as required.
It offers some selection at 2cc - eg Impulse to back up Chalice @1.
The candidates for a Blue stax include: Mana Vortex - I do not see it- the first sac is a killer, it only oes lands which sucks if you are behind- like landing a Nethervoid, it needs to be laid when ahead. Mana Breach - yeah, this could work. If it countered the spell if they don't bounce a land it would be nuts. Certainly strong vs cantrip heavy decks, and single u Aether Barrier - could be the nuts, single U means it can come down t2/1. Taxing creatures sounds great to me.- single u again.
Propaganda - ported from Ghostly in white and probably essential- single u Trickbind - stifle that is uncounterable at 2cc, ok for self sacing stax triggers, also kills fetch activations and storm triggers.
plus Tezeeret the seeker
overburden - again single u, could be the nuts.
Thopter spy Network feeds the stax and gives draw whilst ignoring the "play a critter part of aether barrier.
Pendrell Mists-- Tabernacle in enchantment form.
Force and other instant cards might also work here, or we could use in the eye of chaos
So in many ways U offers a bunch of single u spells (contrast with Humility/Moat/Baneslayers etc) that fit in with the Stax aim well.
What it lacks are Leylines, shutdown critter spell beyond bounce and general removal like o-rings, plus no Humility effect. I do think there is a deck there, but it needs to be not approached from the usual angles.
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Played rw stax again today at my lgs. Only 7 people showed. I went 1-2 weird meta. Had for match ups
Miracles 2-0
Turn 2 moon, turn 3 ajani gets there.
Turn 1 moon turn 2 Elspeth followed by turn 3 ajani and turn 4 sulfur elemental gets there quickly.
Round 2 jund Lands the molten vortex version.
Game 1 and 2 I get moon quickly but he has vortex and I just gave him infinite mountains. Not a good idea.
Round 3. Weird intuition bug control deck.
Games 1 and 3 he has decay and mox diamonds and I can't do much to stop him. Game 2 I had it with a quick blood moon and ajani and he can't do much.
Weird set of games. I switched out the 2 Chandra, Pyromaster for 2 nahiri, the harbinger. This should help vs problematic enchantments and card selection.maybe wear tear out of the board to help as well. Otherwise happy with the list.
Not much you can do against odd BUG variants- that color combo just seems to breed a lot of odd stuff.
Could Nahiri's ultimate bring in an Emmy? Won't play with Humility, of course, but could be an option?
In the match up like the bug control deck that might actually be an option to bring in an emrakul. I could likely never cast him again but that should be all it takes between fetchlands early and the potential ajani -2. Certainly an option. I will continue to test the deck as this might be my SCG Worcester Legacy open deck.
His presence also makes for an unexpected board option vs painter/grindstone, if the unwary painter player does not have the ability to make you draw in response to the emmy trigger or have a relic/rip coming in, which they may not if they don't see Nahiri G1. Granted the latter is unlikely given you are a stax deck, but you never know.
If anything it would likely come out of the board. But it is possible to include with nahiri. I am just happy to have her to dig out a batterskull even if it is a redundant copy to increase and get my threats online to close out a game.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11949&d=268413&f=LE has anyone tried this list? it plays 4 thought knot seer mainboard. could be an interesting direction to go. obviously a no go with Humility
Its a lovely looking list- I think a bit of disruption/discard is ideal.
I personally am full in on Humility- 4 copies, with a Moat plan too, so it won't work for me. But I do appreciate this list.
EDIT: agree with the above Eternal Dragon- what a lovely memory!
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The other night I learned the hard way 3 times that I can't beat gaddock Teeg if I don't already have an answer down.
Trying to figure out if I want sudden shock or a sweeper. I think since karakas is a card and I won't always have blood moon that sudden shock seems best
I use 2 spatial contortion in the board, just for Teeg, despite the fact I run 4 Humility and Karakas he is a pain
No mommy protection, as it is not coloured= dead Teeg unless he is wearing some equipment.
Other than that Karakas or a couple of sudden shocks sounds good.
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For the rw build I don't think I can run spatial contortion. Once I resolve a blood moon I can't cast that either. If anything u think kozilek's return as a sweeper would be the second option
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The changes I made were
+2 City of Traitors
-2 Flooded Strand
-1 EE
-3 Thirst
-3 Jace
+1 Detention Sphere
+2 Batterskull
+4 Tezzeret's Gambit
1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Island
2 Flooded Strand
3 Plains
3 Tolaria West
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland
Spells 36
2 Batterskull
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Chrome Mox
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Detention Sphere
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Humility
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Mox Diamond
3 Tangle Wire
3 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Detention Sphere
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Maze of Ith
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Wash Out
1 Zuran Orb
seems like there's some interesting choices:
dream tide
in the eyes of chaos
paradox haze
mana vortex
and most importantly: tezz the seeker
i looked around a few forums but haven't found anything recent, is it just bad?
On a related note- had a couple of hours vs Eldrazi with my new SFM running list. Wow. Rough match. The Thorn of amethyst is great against us.
Unless I relved Humility, I lost, Ghostly t2 was sometimes enough to buy the time. Tanglewire was not stellar, Thought-knot such a pain.
Stacks themselves sucked, 3spheres also, which seems to be an increasingly common theme.
I will play around with a Dutch Stax type build. Edrazi is likely to be a good entrance deck at Legacy, and once those Modern bans kick in it will be pretty cheap and easy to put together, and with that and Maverick about I don't fancy my chances of hiding behind Tanglewires. I think the way to go with that is to focus more on Geddon, Moats and Humilities, less on Stacks (which, rather like Pox in Pox, are actually often the weakest cards), less on Tanglewires, which are worse in those builds, and more on Ghostly Prison, which are better. I have always found Geddon a hard card to justify, but as things in my meta have shifted it becomes a decent build-around card. Humility has always been the no 1 reason to play Stax, I see no need to change that.
Making it a bit more plains heavy will help- often the issue is a Wasteland keeping me out on a key turn.
The trick will be getting it fast enough for Delver and tempo decks, although they are very low on "real lands". A lower 3 sphere count main deck is possible for me as Storm no longer operates in my meta, and I still have Chalice and Leylines post board. I don't own real Moats, but I have been thinking about acquiring a couple recently anyway. I might still go down the SFM route, though obviously Moat makes it worse.
The Stacks themselves can still get use in the board,for slower matches like Miracles, whilst I will add in 3 spheres nos 2-3 in to the board. Sphere does still have synergy with Geddon, but with an increasing number of fair decks it becomes less attractive.
In my mind I want Moats regardless, and living in Europe they are a bit cheaper than the US.
Any who I have loved my builds with moat. Elspeth definitely seems like a must with it just to gain that evasion. Smokestack is likely a good add. It's a very powerful card in board stabilizing
Moats on mkm in ITA are about 140-150 Euro cheapest, + paypal fees or bank transfer fees + shipping (which varies a lot from 7-30 Euros). In English 230/50 is about the cheapest for better than light play conditions, maybe 210 for beaten up and English. So if my maths is right that is cheaper than the US prices. Our Ebay sometimes has people selling to UK only, and they sometimes have difficulty shifting their high end Legacy cards outside of duals- if they put it up for auction you can get lucky. I picked up a Tabernacle recently for £280 when they normally go £400-500 (ITA of course).
Mkm is Magic card Market, I am sure you know, and it is worth keeping an eye on, although as I said there are extra fees like paypal etc. Import duties are an issue between the US and here and in public I am not going to tell anyone to break the law of course.....)
I think Moat = a lot of time vs Eldrazi, for example. Even if they start to use exile effects on casting its a lot of time to geddon/wastelock them.... Legends was so full of great cards.....
So many great cards, so little money...
You note that have removed the Stacks, which are not effective against Eldrazi and significantly reduced 3spheres in favour of hard landkill, Moat and Ghostlies, moving the excess 3spheres to the board. Humility is the stand out card for these matches so its at 4 of, and Moat is close. Tanglewire, so, so effective against delvers and other decks, are pretty weak against deck like Eldrazi and Maverick that develop at the sae rate or faster than we do off of a single mana drop, so its out with them. Had to increase Crucuible obviously to account for the new synergies. The main thing is I have significantly reduced the vulnerability to Wasteland, something that has been bugging me a while as both RUG Delver, Grixis and Elrazi decks often run them to good effect against us.
I was very happy with the last version I posted, but after about ten hours 1 v 1 ing against some popular decks I felt it was a good build for the [edit: local] meta now, but not for the Eldrazi onslaught which I feel will be the way in to paper mtg Legacy for many for years to come.
4 city of traitors
4 wasteland
8 plains
3 flagstones of trokair
1 karakas
1 kjeldoran outpost
1 maze of ith
1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
1 zuran orb
4 mox diamond
1 trinisphere
4 ghostly prison
2 oblivion ring
1 blinding light (o-ring split for echoing truth protection)
1 timely reinforcements
3 crucible of worlds
4 Humility
2 Moat
2 Armageddon
2 Elspeth, knight errant
1 batterskull
4 Leyline of sanctity (miracles, burn, delvers, affinity perhaps, painter)
2 trinisphere (storm, other combos eg tin fins etc, shardless, reanimator.)
2 spatial contortion (teeg packing decks)
1 orbs of warding (affinity, storm, burn, miracles)
1 cursed scroll (miracles, infect, decks where they pack lots of chalice removal, pox, d n t)
2 defense grid (delvers, reanimator)
1 peacekeeper (infect, lands perhaps)
1 cursed totem (maverick)
1 smokestack (miracles, lands, nic fit)
If you are just substituting blue cards that do the jobs of white cards in white versions you gain little. Obviously U and W work together to give a control deck, and UW enchantments is already a legitimate strategy, so a Stax shll with both in hads loads of design potential. But mono -U? Stasis is an option but aside from being a prison strategy the cards in Stasis are completely different in aim. The mono U prison deck featured I think on Wizards using bounce, Overburden, Vise, Netsuke and other tempo stuff is basicaly a non hardlock Stasis/Howling mine deck without the Stasis element and with more bounce. I use softlock Stasis/bounce/howling vise myself in an expensive Tabernacle/Propaganda build of the Stasis deck, and whilst it is a legitimate strategy, and reasonably successful considering its under-the-radar status, it is not a Stax deck.
For stax I feel that:
U does give the option to force, which means no 3 spheres- not an issue in itself.
It also has some relevant 2 drops in Overburden .
It also offers animation of artifacts (march of the machines), and an extra Tabernacle effect in Pendrell mists .
It offers Thopter spy network as a source of draw and damage plus as a Stax feeder.
It has a land that can act as a relevant spell, preventing untap of a creature, which if recurred could be useful.
In many ways the Blue Stax deck can support the smokestacks themselves well, even stifling a trigger as required.
It offers some selection at 2cc - eg Impulse to back up Chalice @1.
The candidates for a Blue stax include:
Mana Vortex - I do not see it- the first sac is a killer, it only oes lands which sucks if you are behind- like landing a Nethervoid, it needs to be laid when ahead.
Mana Breach - yeah, this could work. If it countered the spell if they don't bounce a land it would be nuts. Certainly strong vs cantrip heavy decks, and single u
Aether Barrier - could be the nuts, single U means it can come down t2/1. Taxing creatures sounds great to me.- single u again.
Propaganda - ported from Ghostly in white and probably essential- single u
Trickbind - stifle that is uncounterable at 2cc, ok for self sacing stax triggers, also kills fetch activations and storm triggers.
plus Tezeeret the seeker
overburden - again single u, could be the nuts.
Thopter spy Network feeds the stax and gives draw whilst ignoring the "play a critter part of aether barrier.
Pendrell Mists-- Tabernacle in enchantment form.
Force and other instant cards might also work here, or we could use in the eye of chaos
So in many ways U offers a bunch of single u spells (contrast with Humility/Moat/Baneslayers etc) that fit in with the Stax aim well.
What it lacks are Leylines, shutdown critter spell beyond bounce and general removal like o-rings, plus no Humility effect. I do think there is a deck there, but it needs to be not approached from the usual angles.
Miracles 2-0
Turn 2 moon, turn 3 ajani gets there.
Turn 1 moon turn 2 Elspeth followed by turn 3 ajani and turn 4 sulfur elemental gets there quickly.
Round 2 jund Lands the molten vortex version.
Game 1 and 2 I get moon quickly but he has vortex and I just gave him infinite mountains. Not a good idea.
Round 3. Weird intuition bug control deck.
Games 1 and 3 he has decay and mox diamonds and I can't do much to stop him. Game 2 I had it with a quick blood moon and ajani and he can't do much.
Weird set of games. I switched out the 2 Chandra, Pyromaster for 2 nahiri, the harbinger. This should help vs problematic enchantments and card selection.maybe wear tear out of the board to help as well. Otherwise happy with the list.
Could Nahiri's ultimate bring in an Emmy? Won't play with Humility, of course, but could be an option?
In the match up like the bug control deck that might actually be an option to bring in an emrakul. I could likely never cast him again but that should be all it takes between fetchlands early and the potential ajani -2. Certainly an option. I will continue to test the deck as this might be my SCG Worcester Legacy open deck.
Its a lovely looking list- I think a bit of disruption/discard is ideal.
I personally am full in on Humility- 4 copies, with a Moat plan too, so it won't work for me. But I do appreciate this list.
EDIT: agree with the above Eternal Dragon- what a lovely memory!
Trying to figure out if I want sudden shock or a sweeper. I think since karakas is a card and I won't always have blood moon that sudden shock seems best
No mommy protection, as it is not coloured= dead Teeg unless he is wearing some equipment.
Other than that Karakas or a couple of sudden shocks sounds good.