If you want to splash blue in a humility build how do you not run jace, arcitect of thought? The synergy is too good to pass up it makes combat an unwinnable form of damage, provides card draw and you get to steal key cards from them when he gets there. Really just a suggestion that I wanted to try but never actually tested. I do like the idea of spy network. Interesting fact, of you find a way to give a thopter first strike and then hit the opponent with 2 of them you get to draw 1 for first strike damage and 1 for normal damage step.
After two weeks of testing, Jace, Architect of Thought is pretty decent and a fun card to run. I can see him as a "downgrade" of "Moat" in the sense that Humility with either of these two cards in play is a lock. Now, the downgrade is that Moat is such a powerful card (on its own) that many decks that rely on creatures really do not have an answer, meanwhile, they may have an answer for Jace, Architect of Thought.
What I am saying is that if you do not have Moats, then most certainly give Jace a try (assuming you are also running Humility).
I did notice I had Mox Diamond hands where I didn't have Mana for the Trinisphere play first turn. Not that that is the most optimal play, but Trinisphere plus geddon just wins the game against most decks. I would love to run more Wasteland type effects, but I'm scared to cut cards that seemed essential to my winning. Don't i want to draw those cards?
The thing I like about Stax, is that there are many "powerful" cards that can be used to our advantage, and that easily can complicate things for your opponent. If you look at my build posted a little while ago, you can see the different spells I run.
I think it's best to have different options to controlling the game, that way, you keep your opponent guessing (this helps lure those pesky counterspells in my opinion).
If you notice my build, I run many 2 of's and 1 of's. This may seem counter-intuitive, but like I mentioned before, Stax has the opportunity to play many powerful spells that make up for our lack of draw power. For example, I run 1 of each Elspeth. The main reason, I just want my opponent to trade "1 for 1" in terms of going up against cards that say "name a nonland permanent". Essentially, I am running 3x Elspeth.
Another point, is my Ghostly Prison. Notice I run 1, but I also have 1 Propaganda and 1 Peacekeeper. In a way, that's like having 3x Ghostly Prison.
I can keep going, but from here I think you can see my point.
Just experiment around, and see how things fall in place for you.
While I definetly like the deck, there was a few things I noticed that I was wondering if there are any modern fixes to;
1. Smokestack always seemed to do nothing, or hurt me in the process. The one time it was useful I was already winning, and it felt like a win-more.
2. Is it just me, or does this deck all about knowing the deck? I'm coming from modern and edh, so at first I wasn't worrying about my plays, but this deck seems to have one of the worst potentials for misplays in a new player's hands, like mine.
3.Magus was awesome, but always seemed just a touch too slow.
4. What is the best number for Chalice in game 1? I noticed that putting it on the wrong number tended to lose me the game if it was my only lockdown piece. In general, I put it on one.
5. I was having trouble timing Armageddon. Thoughts?
6. Lastly, my sideboard seemed super suboptimal.
I apologize for my plethora of questions, and I greatly appreciate any and all answers. Thank you guys!
1.) It's about sequencing your plays, then dropping Smokestack at the right time.
2.) Since our deck lacks draw power, it is all in the sequencing of our plays. Understanding when to play a spell, understanding how much damage to take (I generally win all my matches when I have 3 or less life).
3.) Magus is not slow by no means, it's a matter of when to properly drop him. Out of experience, I would not recommend running a complete play set.
4.) Chalice on 1 is the best option right away (assuming you cannot drop Trinisphere). You will be surprised at the amount of players that do not know how to respond to this.
5.) Armageddon is tricky. I know it's a card you want to play, but it's a card that is optimized the most when played properly.
6.) Sideboard highly depends on your meta.
Somethings to clear the view. Any Elspeth should do just fine in here. The thing you must understand with this deck, is that we are by no means in a hurry to win. So producing 6+ mana shouldn't be a problem. So any of the 3 Elspeths will do just fine.
What I do find a problem, is 24 lands is too little for a Geddon type of deck. You want to have sufficient targets for Mox Diamond. I can easily see that you can cut pretty much 1 of any spell, except for: Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, and Mox Diamond.
So this means you can run 6 more cards. You should be able to fit 2 or 3 Elspeth's in here easily. I recommend not running identical Elspeth's, as you do not want "Name a nonland card" type spells to ruin your day. From here, you can add 2 more lands, preferably Ghost Quarter or Horizon Canopy. The cool thing about both of these lands is that they net you profit. Firstly, many decks do not run basics, so having 4x Wastelands and 1-2x Ghost Quarters can really break your opponents heart. Now, Horizon Canopy let's you draw a card, but not only that, it produces both green and white mana. So that means, you can now run Choke in your sideboard, which will perform quite as effective as Armageddon. The trick is, sequencing your plays correctly. If playing against counter magic, then it's all about knowing to lure the counterspells to the "seemingly" proper play in your opponents view. Another good sideboard card is Sphere of Law. Not many decks that use red sources for damage will have a very hard time with this (Young Pyromancer becomes extremely useless).
There is one land that comes to mind, and if you can obtain it, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale will do wonders. I have come to the conclusion that running 2 of these lands is the perfect amount. I once ran 3 (one being sideboard) and it didn't really go too well.
To me, Stax really builds around to how you like to control the board. It must be noted that this is a control deck, and we are by no means in a hurry to win (time is our ally if played properly).
I sleeved my classic geddon Stax again for the first time in nearly 4 years (the first Stax variant I played) for testing purposes and all I have to say is that it's still basically the same: your starting hand is your own worst matchup. Especially the Geddon variants where your cards all serve different purposes, all of which you need to further your gameplan, and if you fail to execute one of the prerequisites for winning the whole building collapses.
I am definitely very interested in this archetype again, since this meta looks out to be one of the best fitting for this deck in years. So I will put aside somewhat my main deck of many years (Death and Taxes) and focus on Stax again in the upcoming months. Definitely will post more stuff here!
So far from what I've gathered the best lists IMO are the "classic" mono brown ones with Tangle Wire and Sphere of Resistance, with new cards like Coercive Portal, which is probably the best tool Stax has gained in recent years. All the cards in the deck are geared towards aggressively locking the opponent out of mana instead of being a hodgepodge of resource and board control pieces like Ghostly Prison, Chalice and O-Ring which leave a lot of openings for the opponent to slither through the cracks. Brown stax can also make use of one of the best tax pieces in the game that sadly Geddon Stax can't: Lodestone Golem.
This is a rough list I'm looking to build in the next few days as soon as I get the cards:
Sideboard may vary. Of course this is not White Stax per se but so far I haven't seen another more inclusive Stax thread in MTGS so I'll just leave it here. I love this archetype and I'm so excited to see it come back to the meta again!
I think the best card to align with Ensnaring Bridge is Null Brooch. I think I have recommended this to someone before, but I think it's just too good to let slide.
The only disagreement I have with your Geddon build is the fact that I believe that Trinisphere is much more impactful than Suppression Field, and that should be a definite play set.
Yeah I actually brewed a UW list with 4 humility and 4 jace. I never really got to test it though. On paper it seemed sweet. But in reality is was very colored mana hungry. But I was planning on 4 diamond and 3 chrome so color may not have been a problem. Moat just shuts down any man land you'll probably see in legacy. Aside from the random conclave which you can just waste anyway.
Well, there's also Inkmoth Nexus. Though, just like Faerie Conclave, it only pertains to a particular deck (ie: Nexus in Infect based Berserk decks). Yeah, I was a little skeptical in splashing blue. So what Might happened is that I must resort and go to -1 Propaganda and +1 Ghostly Prison, then find a singleton slot for Jace, Architect of Thought.
If you want to splash blue in a humility build how do you not run jace, arcitect of thought? The synergy is too good to pass up it makes combat an unwinnable form of damage, provides card draw and you get to steal key cards from them when he gets there. Really just a suggestion that I wanted to try but never actually tested. I do like the idea of spy network. Interesting fact, of you find a way to give a thopter first strike and then hit the opponent with 2 of them you get to draw 1 for first strike damage and 1 for normal damage step.
Haha, you are actually the second person to say that to me. I will try to find a way for just 1 copy of Jace, Architect of Thought. This enables option 2 if I happen to not have a Moat (Similar lock to Jace in the sense that I will not take any damage, unless of course, they have a manland in play). I heard about that nifty thing with the thopter tokens, but at the moment, I do not think there is a worthwhile card to give them first strike as of yet (or I guess I am just not seeing it yet).
That is a decent thought. U must offer a fair few options.
I have always fancied w/u stax myself- but there is just not enough time to investigate everything. Of course if you have all the w/u lands and cards then why not play Miracles as a solid control deck?
TBH I am waiting for Black Vise to be unbanned before looking at Blue- then I feel a Stasis deck in the making.....)
I am not a Miracles player. The only reason I am trying out blue at the moment was because I found Thopter Spy Network to be a card worth testing. Also though, I have a feeling that Sensei's Divining Top might get banned (but that's my opinion, and this may in fact never happen).
EDIT: just thinking this through... after you cast sunder, drop tabernacle and say, "End turn" to get all those pesky creatures.
You can do the same with Armageddon and Ravages of War, plus this is more effective. I do not like the fact of putting the lands back into my opponents hand, it does not slow them down as much as geddon effects do. Plus, Sunder costs 5 while the geddon effects cost 4.
That makes sense, I am starting to put a deck together now, is there a good argument against magus of the tabernacle? I got ghostly prisons but the magus would be a good blocker JIC, and I am not sure if I would want to run him AND Humility in the same deck..
Magus is really good. He is a win condition aside from elspeth and factories. With moat and humility, its a 4 turn clock on your opponent. Even if you have tabernacle in play too, it's pretty much GG. I remember doing Elspeths ultimate and never paying for Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale, it's very broken lol.
Also, if you are lacking draw power, i found Coercive Portal to be quite fun. If you want o mess with your opponents draw power, play Uba Mask, highly underrared card, especially with everyone wanting to play Treasure Cruise.
Ohh ok. That makes much sense. I have the cards to build either of the three, but i started leaning towards OmniTell because it looks more fun to play with lol
With D and T on the draw I have found a t2 Thalia followed by a revoker on my artifact mana to be hard. When that match goes awry it is normally due to this sort of thing. My match is not as good as yours I'd guess for one reason- I can't run tabernacle as I make lots of tokens. It is not a bad match at all, though. I don't quite understand how you can use double Tabernacles.....
If Omnitell is a problem, running a 4th Trinisphere will not hurt. Force them to pay three mana for every spell. As you said though, 3 Trini is good for you. Maybe try old school stax, and see how a Jester's Cap and/or Uba Mask can do for you. With the Mask, you can start killing off their hand little by little, getting rid of their Show and Tell targets.
If you go the mask route, that opens the doors for different types of locks, and can enable you to run Ensnaring Bridge and Null Brooch.
Honestly, Thalia is just hard against us. Try playing vs d and t and you will see how hard it is vs it.
Can't see how we can use it. Supp field sucks with wasteland, but you can probably live with the lack of synergy there. I have wondered about radiant fountain as a life gain source in a list like this.
My only only concern about the deck is I would want one or two less copies of timely and 3 sphere. Decks like stax often work well with two and three copies of cards. I would use O rings somewhere too- Show and Tell is everywhere.......
Show and Tell loses to us all the time. When you face that deck, just make sure to always keep a Humility in your hand, you will completely ruin the deck. Plus having a Mishra's Factory will give you the advantage, since all of their dudes will be 1/1's and your Factories will be 2/2's. Plus, by now, all Stax builds should have at least 1 Karakas. I would recommend every build to play 2 Karakas and 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale mainboard.
Death and Taxes is not that hard of a match up. From my experiences, Suppression Field wrecks that deck apart. Who cares if it affects Wasteland, their whole mana base is basic after-all. Plus, use double tabernacles against them and you will see how much taxing it is on them.
Either i have great match-ups against those decks, or we're all doing something different.
I cannot stress this enough, but you must run 4 Trinisphere. A turn 1 Trinisphere will almost always win you the game.
After two weeks of testing, Jace, Architect of Thought is pretty decent and a fun card to run. I can see him as a "downgrade" of "Moat" in the sense that Humility with either of these two cards in play is a lock. Now, the downgrade is that Moat is such a powerful card (on its own) that many decks that rely on creatures really do not have an answer, meanwhile, they may have an answer for Jace, Architect of Thought.
What I am saying is that if you do not have Moats, then most certainly give Jace a try (assuming you are also running Humility).
The thing I like about Stax, is that there are many "powerful" cards that can be used to our advantage, and that easily can complicate things for your opponent. If you look at my build posted a little while ago, you can see the different spells I run.
I think it's best to have different options to controlling the game, that way, you keep your opponent guessing (this helps lure those pesky counterspells in my opinion).
If you notice my build, I run many 2 of's and 1 of's. This may seem counter-intuitive, but like I mentioned before, Stax has the opportunity to play many powerful spells that make up for our lack of draw power. For example, I run 1 of each Elspeth. The main reason, I just want my opponent to trade "1 for 1" in terms of going up against cards that say "name a nonland permanent". Essentially, I am running 3x Elspeth.
Another point, is my Ghostly Prison. Notice I run 1, but I also have 1 Propaganda and 1 Peacekeeper. In a way, that's like having 3x Ghostly Prison.
I can keep going, but from here I think you can see my point.
Just experiment around, and see how things fall in place for you.
1.) It's about sequencing your plays, then dropping Smokestack at the right time.
2.) Since our deck lacks draw power, it is all in the sequencing of our plays. Understanding when to play a spell, understanding how much damage to take (I generally win all my matches when I have 3 or less life).
3.) Magus is not slow by no means, it's a matter of when to properly drop him. Out of experience, I would not recommend running a complete play set.
4.) Chalice on 1 is the best option right away (assuming you cannot drop Trinisphere). You will be surprised at the amount of players that do not know how to respond to this.
5.) Armageddon is tricky. I know it's a card you want to play, but it's a card that is optimized the most when played properly.
6.) Sideboard highly depends on your meta.
Somethings to clear the view. Any Elspeth should do just fine in here. The thing you must understand with this deck, is that we are by no means in a hurry to win. So producing 6+ mana shouldn't be a problem. So any of the 3 Elspeths will do just fine.
What I do find a problem, is 24 lands is too little for a Geddon type of deck. You want to have sufficient targets for Mox Diamond. I can easily see that you can cut pretty much 1 of any spell, except for: Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, and Mox Diamond.
So this means you can run 6 more cards. You should be able to fit 2 or 3 Elspeth's in here easily. I recommend not running identical Elspeth's, as you do not want "Name a nonland card" type spells to ruin your day. From here, you can add 2 more lands, preferably Ghost Quarter or Horizon Canopy. The cool thing about both of these lands is that they net you profit. Firstly, many decks do not run basics, so having 4x Wastelands and 1-2x Ghost Quarters can really break your opponents heart. Now, Horizon Canopy let's you draw a card, but not only that, it produces both green and white mana. So that means, you can now run Choke in your sideboard, which will perform quite as effective as Armageddon. The trick is, sequencing your plays correctly. If playing against counter magic, then it's all about knowing to lure the counterspells to the "seemingly" proper play in your opponents view. Another good sideboard card is Sphere of Law. Not many decks that use red sources for damage will have a very hard time with this (Young Pyromancer becomes extremely useless).
There is one land that comes to mind, and if you can obtain it, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale will do wonders. I have come to the conclusion that running 2 of these lands is the perfect amount. I once ran 3 (one being sideboard) and it didn't really go too well.
To me, Stax really builds around to how you like to control the board. It must be noted that this is a control deck, and we are by no means in a hurry to win (time is our ally if played properly).
I think the best card to align with Ensnaring Bridge is Null Brooch. I think I have recommended this to someone before, but I think it's just too good to let slide.
The only disagreement I have with your Geddon build is the fact that I believe that Trinisphere is much more impactful than Suppression Field, and that should be a definite play set.
Well, there's also Inkmoth Nexus. Though, just like Faerie Conclave, it only pertains to a particular deck (ie: Nexus in Infect based Berserk decks). Yeah, I was a little skeptical in splashing blue. So what Might happened is that I must resort and go to -1 Propaganda and +1 Ghostly Prison, then find a singleton slot for Jace, Architect of Thought.
Haha, you are actually the second person to say that to me. I will try to find a way for just 1 copy of Jace, Architect of Thought. This enables option 2 if I happen to not have a Moat (Similar lock to Jace in the sense that I will not take any damage, unless of course, they have a manland in play). I heard about that nifty thing with the thopter tokens, but at the moment, I do not think there is a worthwhile card to give them first strike as of yet (or I guess I am just not seeing it yet).
I am not a Miracles player. The only reason I am trying out blue at the moment was because I found Thopter Spy Network to be a card worth testing. Also though, I have a feeling that Sensei's Divining Top might get banned (but that's my opinion, and this may in fact never happen).
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
3 Plains
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Tundra
2 Mishra's Factory
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Karakas
1 Savannah
Creatures (3)
2 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Peacekeeper
Planeswalkers (3)
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Humility
2 Moat
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Propaganda
1 Thopter Spy Network
Sorceries (2)
1 Armageddon
1 Ravages of War
Artifacts (18)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Choke
2 Sphere of Law
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Humility
1 Peacekeeper
1 Ghostly Prison
Actually, I do not remember the last time I updated my version, but here it is.
There is one very powerful black spell not on the list, but have you tested with Nether Void?
You can do the same with Armageddon and Ravages of War, plus this is more effective. I do not like the fact of putting the lands back into my opponents hand, it does not slow them down as much as geddon effects do. Plus, Sunder costs 5 while the geddon effects cost 4.
It's not bad. Just picture (when humility is no longer needed) it's something for Smokestack to eat.
Magus is really good. He is a win condition aside from elspeth and factories. With moat and humility, its a 4 turn clock on your opponent. Even if you have tabernacle in play too, it's pretty much GG. I remember doing Elspeths ultimate and never paying for Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale, it's very broken lol.
Also, if you are lacking draw power, i found Coercive Portal to be quite fun. If you want o mess with your opponents draw power, play Uba Mask, highly underrared card, especially with everyone wanting to play Treasure Cruise.
Double Taberancles = Magus of the Tabernacle + The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Suppression Field can be a sideboard option. It's done wonders for me against Death & Taxes.
If Omnitell is a problem, running a 4th Trinisphere will not hurt. Force them to pay three mana for every spell. As you said though, 3 Trini is good for you. Maybe try old school stax, and see how a Jester's Cap and/or Uba Mask can do for you. With the Mask, you can start killing off their hand little by little, getting rid of their Show and Tell targets.
If you go the mask route, that opens the doors for different types of locks, and can enable you to run Ensnaring Bridge and Null Brooch.
Stax can be built differently with everyone, the only common core in our decks (excluding lands) is Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Mox Diamond, Crucible of Worlds, and Smokestack (Most likely an Elspeth in there as well) and the rest is built to your liking.
Just throwing ideas out there.
Show and Tell loses to us all the time. When you face that deck, just make sure to always keep a Humility in your hand, you will completely ruin the deck. Plus having a Mishra's Factory will give you the advantage, since all of their dudes will be 1/1's and your Factories will be 2/2's. Plus, by now, all Stax builds should have at least 1 Karakas. I would recommend every build to play 2 Karakas and 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale mainboard.
Death and Taxes is not that hard of a match up. From my experiences, Suppression Field wrecks that deck apart. Who cares if it affects Wasteland, their whole mana base is basic after-all. Plus, use double tabernacles against them and you will see how much taxing it is on them.
Either i have great match-ups against those decks, or we're all doing something different.
I cannot stress this enough, but you must run 4 Trinisphere. A turn 1 Trinisphere will almost always win you the game.