Ok this is the list im going to continue to do more testing with.
The reason 2 tangle wire i was playing with 4 and it just didn't seem optimal in the build since it can go turn 2 braids/stax. It was more often tangle wire used to stall to draw into something useful. i guess i opted for more overall synergy and threat density. So i left 2 in and 1 in SB for matches where i'd want them more.
Heres a little breakdown from the non mandatory stax choices.
Lodestone-Ended up being cut into Sphere of resistance which does counteract a bit with 3sphere but also acts as a decently solid taxing effect on its own, hoping it won't be to counterproductive for me.
Bitterblossom- has overall great synergy with stax and stax effect's it allows it to stay at 2 and you slowly grind a win. A stax at 2 is much more harmful for most then 1. Also if its dropped before stax and has a few flyers out already ive been able to stabilize with my smokestack at 3-4 counters because of this bad boy. And it works great with ensnaring bridge and is now my finisher.
Braids- what can i say ive always loved her. Its a stack for 1 asap thats a bit easier to remove granted but since her Double B cost urborg helps a lot alongside of Phyrexian totem/Mox diamond so mana has been less of a issue.
Grim Monolith- Want to test the card out doesn't seem bad. Still feel short on black producers for 8 cards though.
Liliana, of the veil- Was move to sb and replaced MD with ensnaring Bridge.
3spehere- i only included 3 because with 4 i was rather inconsistent. I had them almost every hand but didn't have lock pieces or the wrong type of lock piece and had to hold out longer then i wanted. Becomes more redundant in multiples then almost any other card in the deck (braids) because it has either really hurted them or they just played around it. At tournament's id probably include a full set. With 1 staying in SB.
Chains of Meph-Well since im not gonna be drawing any cards why not have a 2 of that will make certain decks just cry a bit with their cantrips. Card is rather solid of a hate card on a large portion of the field.
MD -1 Braids, +2 Chains of Mephistopheles, -1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth -1 City of Traitors, -2 Ghost Quarter, -1 Swamp, +2 Wasteland, +1 Mishra's Factory, +2 Maze of Ith, -3 Liliana +3 Ensnaring bridge, -3 Lodestone Golem +3 Sphere of Resistance, +3 Rishadan Port
Sb, -3 Tombstalker +3 Engineered Plague, -3 Cabal Therapy +2 Perish +1 Virtues Ruin, -2 Cursed Totem, +2 Liliana of the veil, -1 Tanglewire +1 Damping Matrix (thinking karn silver golem/ratchet bomb might be good additions to sb have to figure out if this is good enough or not)
descent is sort of negated by Brainstrom and Stoneforge, and anything that puts cards in your hand. It's slow and hurts you more for having less cards in hand than it will your opponent.
I like the idea of resource denial in legacy but you dont think POX just accomplishes the same thing better?
also if you would consider something at 5 cmc Liliana 1.0 is alot stronger
The point of stax is denial which ultimately results in you having a boardstate to their hand of unplayable cards and no permanents.
Descent is counterproductive for 1 i can't recur anything with crucible where with smokestack/braids i can just sac land get it back while they lose 1 permanent a turn or bitterblossom tokens. 2 It exiles so it ruins the point of stax in general since they can exile cards in hand while ill be stuck exile permanent since usually you play out your hand. 3. Its not controllable and will always hurt each player equally where stax is not about that. Its just 1 sided pain ultimately resulting in a hard lock where you have board state and beat them down while they have nothing.
The liliana i picked was for a certain reason it helps me deal with something that i otherwise couldn't is at 3cmc which is perfect for this deck. All edict type effects were at 1-2cmc(that are playable) and would hurt myself with chalice.
Phyrexian i thought about but decided bitterblossom does more for the deck i don't typically need all that much draw but a draw 2-3 spell might be good. ambitions cost might be the go to. I do typically lose a lot of life though so a phyrexian arena or bitterblossom is the choice otherwise id lose too much life.
I thought about contamination lock with bitterblossom+bloodghast reason for no inclusion gained the opinion that it was too fragile on its own without a Enlightened Tutor or academy rector...would want me to then play bloodghast and could work quite well. But i feel like its better in a different shell.
I originally had the impression that Nether Void + Trinisphere did not work i found out now that im wrong. Im still under the impression its a win more type of card because dropping this when i already have things set up seals the deal for certain, trinisphere doesn't, but if i drop this anytime im behind ive probably hurt myself much more in the end...Ill try some testing to see if im wrong about this though.
The Abyss is fantastic card but its not quite suited for this list. Id be forced into sacing my bitterblossom tokens/braids. In a mud stax or any artifact creature based/manland stax Oh defiantly i would love that card. But as is. It just doesn't feel right. It could be included but then feel as though to optimize the deck would need to change around 10-20 cards. Also this card is just dead verse some decks. And i personally feel braids is just the better option at the end of the day currently.
edit-Leaning towards trying out undead gladiator. was testing nether void so far i have never casted it im running 2-3 took out lodestones to see the difference.
I'm in love, but the Totems seem meh, and if your opponent drops a Bolt, you'll be in trouble. Bloodghast can be sacrificed repeatedly, but seems harsh on your manabase. Cabal Therapy or Thoughtseize can quickly get rid of bad stuff, like quick SNT, T1 combo, FOW, etc. Also, in my opinion, a deck should never run more than 3 basic lands. That means two of your swamps could be replaced with black mana-producing lands that have an alternative function, like Cabal Pit, Bojuka Bog, Bayou for SB Grips, etc. Why run 2 Ghost Quarter and 2 Wasteland when you can run 4 Wasteland? Otherwise looks rad. I've never gotten to play with Stax, but have always wanted to.
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Green = Creation of life
White = Preservation of life
Black = Death
Red = Destruction
Blue = ...Wizards?
Reasoning behind ghost quarter is that against a fair number of decks ghost quarter actually just becomes Strip Mine or can easily get to that but its probably just not worth it since well basically wasteland does the same thing. Thanks for the feedback updated the list and the header a bit.
I'm not sure why I haven't seen Contamination in any of these lists.
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Always wear protection kids, sleeve up your deck.
LEGACY: Soldier Stompy WW // Blue Stompy UU // Fit Variants BGRW // Sol Land Brews BGRUWC MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
The problem of Contamination is that, unlikely Blood Moon, you can't play it quickly because you need at least one creature on the board to feed this enchantement...still, I think that it can still worth using in order to stop the opponent on his tracks from turn 4 onwards.
I think that Treacherous Blessing is really an underlooked card: it is a "draw 3" with minimal drawback in this deck because you run Smokestax.
Problem is that this card con't be played with Chains of Mephistopheles already in play, so we have to choose one of the two enchantements.
Any additional thoughts?
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3 City Of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Maze of Ith
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
4 Bitterblossom
3 Sphere of Resistance
2 Braids, Cabal Minion
3 Grim Monolith
4 Smokestack
2 Tangle Wire
3 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Ensnaring Bridge
Ok this is the list im going to continue to do more testing with.
The reason 2 tangle wire i was playing with 4 and it just didn't seem optimal in the build since it can go turn 2 braids/stax. It was more often tangle wire used to stall to draw into something useful. i guess i opted for more overall synergy and threat density. So i left 2 in and 1 in SB for matches where i'd want them more.
Heres a little breakdown from the non mandatory stax choices.
Lodestone-Ended up being cut into Sphere of resistance which does counteract a bit with 3sphere but also acts as a decently solid taxing effect on its own, hoping it won't be to counterproductive for me.
Bitterblossom- has overall great synergy with stax and stax effect's it allows it to stay at 2 and you slowly grind a win. A stax at 2 is much more harmful for most then 1. Also if its dropped before stax and has a few flyers out already ive been able to stabilize with my smokestack at 3-4 counters because of this bad boy. And it works great with ensnaring bridge and is now my finisher.
Braids- what can i say ive always loved her. Its a stack for 1 asap thats a bit easier to remove granted but since her Double B cost urborg helps a lot alongside of Phyrexian totem/Mox diamond so mana has been less of a issue.
Grim Monolith- Want to test the card out doesn't seem bad. Still feel short on black producers for 8 cards though.
Liliana, of the veil- Was move to sb and replaced MD with ensnaring Bridge.
3spehere- i only included 3 because with 4 i was rather inconsistent. I had them almost every hand but didn't have lock pieces or the wrong type of lock piece and had to hold out longer then i wanted. Becomes more redundant in multiples then almost any other card in the deck (braids) because it has either really hurted them or they just played around it. At tournament's id probably include a full set. With 1 staying in SB.
Chains of Meph-Well since im not gonna be drawing any cards why not have a 2 of that will make certain decks just cry a bit with their cantrips. Card is rather solid of a hate card on a large portion of the field.
3 Engineered Plague
2 Cursed Totem
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Perish
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Damping Matrix
Heres some changes-
MD -1 Braids, +2 Chains of Mephistopheles, -1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth -1 City of Traitors, -2 Ghost Quarter, -1 Swamp, +2 Wasteland, +1 Mishra's Factory, +2 Maze of Ith, -3 Liliana +3 Ensnaring bridge, -3 Lodestone Golem +3 Sphere of Resistance, +3 Rishadan Port
Sb, -3 Tombstalker +3 Engineered Plague, -3 Cabal Therapy +2 Perish +1 Virtues Ruin, -2 Cursed Totem, +2 Liliana of the veil, -1 Tanglewire +1 Damping Matrix (thinking karn silver golem/ratchet bomb might be good additions to sb have to figure out if this is good enough or not)
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
I like the idea of resource denial in legacy but you dont think POX just accomplishes the same thing better?
also if you would consider something at 5 cmc Liliana 1.0 is alot stronger
Descent is counterproductive for 1 i can't recur anything with crucible where with smokestack/braids i can just sac land get it back while they lose 1 permanent a turn or bitterblossom tokens. 2 It exiles so it ruins the point of stax in general since they can exile cards in hand while ill be stuck exile permanent since usually you play out your hand. 3. Its not controllable and will always hurt each player equally where stax is not about that. Its just 1 sided pain ultimately resulting in a hard lock where you have board state and beat them down while they have nothing.
The liliana i picked was for a certain reason it helps me deal with something that i otherwise couldn't is at 3cmc which is perfect for this deck. All edict type effects were at 1-2cmc(that are playable) and would hurt myself with chalice.
Phyrexian i thought about but decided bitterblossom does more for the deck i don't typically need all that much draw but a draw 2-3 spell might be good. ambitions cost might be the go to. I do typically lose a lot of life though so a phyrexian arena or bitterblossom is the choice otherwise id lose too much life.
I originally had the impression that Nether Void + Trinisphere did not work i found out now that im wrong. Im still under the impression its a win more type of card because dropping this when i already have things set up seals the deal for certain, trinisphere doesn't, but if i drop this anytime im behind ive probably hurt myself much more in the end...Ill try some testing to see if im wrong about this though.
The Abyss is fantastic card but its not quite suited for this list. Id be forced into sacing my bitterblossom tokens/braids. In a mud stax or any artifact creature based/manland stax Oh defiantly i would love that card. But as is. It just doesn't feel right. It could be included but then feel as though to optimize the deck would need to change around 10-20 cards. Also this card is just dead verse some decks. And i personally feel braids is just the better option at the end of the day currently.
edit-Leaning towards trying out undead gladiator. was testing nether void so far i have never casted it im running 2-3 took out lodestones to see the difference.
White = Preservation of life
Black = Death
Red = Destruction
Blue = ...Wizards?
Legacy: RUG Delver
MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
The problem of Contamination is that, unlikely Blood Moon, you can't play it quickly because you need at least one creature on the board to feed this enchantement...still, I think that it can still worth using in order to stop the opponent on his tracks from turn 4 onwards.
I think that Treacherous Blessing is really an underlooked card: it is a "draw 3" with minimal drawback in this deck because you run Smokestax.
Problem is that this card con't be played with Chains of Mephistopheles already in play, so we have to choose one of the two enchantements.
Any additional thoughts?