Yeah, I can see that the moon is an issue. We do need to deal with the thing though, hence the two terrible spatial contortions in my board. Whatever the removal it has to be colourless to avoid Mommy issues, and below 4cc. That does not leave many options. .
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I currently play the mono white build and my meta is infested with R/W D and T lists that play 4 magus of the moon and 4 Blood moon. How does white stax beat that? Also what's the current R/W build running blood moon. If you can't beat them join them?
Mono white stax generally runs some number of basic plains, they also have access to mox diamond and potentially chrome mox depending on how heavy your list is in colored cards. Humility is a great way to go. If you resolve crucible and can Armageddon or smokestacks lock them that is always good alongside a ghostly prison or 2. Remember that decks like death and taxes rely a lot on their creatures with activated and enters the battlefield abilities so humility really goes a long way there. They also have no way to power out a quick moon effect but we can power out chalice @1 to shut down vial plays, Trinisphere to keep them from casting anything relevant early and humility to make their creatures terrible.
My rw stax list should be on the previous page. I'm at work do this is a quick post, I can post the list later otherwise.
That sums it up.
Race to 4 mana cast humility, win. Their flickerwisps do nothing, thalia nothing etc. Avens still have flash but that is it, when they resolve they are 1/1s with n abiities. Ok, batterskull buffs their stuff, but even then it can be dealt with. Their Magus/Moons come on line t3, we can hit humility easily t2/3.
Race to 3 mana cast ghostly prison to slow them, buy time to draw moxen and basics. They can't port you with moon down, so one basic is good enough to cast a fair chunk of cards like Ghostly, and Batterskulls can be durdled to and cast of mountains.
I use mono w, 4 Humility, 2 moat, 4 ghostly and 2 Geddon 3 oring. 7 plains min 4 moxen, with 4 Flagstones fetching plains if they come down as a pair before moon or get geddoned/zuraned. I would expect to be strong vs that deck......
Hell RW can use the mountains to cast pyrclasm/kozilieks etc.
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Hey guys, haven't posted here in a while but I saw a card in SOI that seems to be really damn good in this archetype: Declaration in Stone
Of course, it's only for Stackless builds as the clue can be problematic in the long run, but I've always wanted a proper CMC2 replacement for Swords to Plowshares that isn't Journey to Nowhere, and this card fits the bill. I ran 4 Journeys in my Bird Stompy sideboard list and DIS is pretty much strictly better. Dodges Chalice@1 and the aggro nature of the build makes saccing the token very inneficient, especially in Legacy.
I would rather run Unexpectedly Absent- deals with anything in response to a fetch at instant speed, can top deck our permanents too. Can't be cast under Teeg, though. This declaration targets, which is not where I want to be. Tariff or Journey seem slightly underwhelming and I would put that in this category.
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They still allow me to discard excess lands to nahiri and just play them for value. There are a lot of games where I can't stick a blood moon and wasteland helps to ontrol the game early.
Declaration in stone does seem perfectly fine. The fact it targets isn't really terrible, it's cheap removal that answers a Teeg at the very least. That's my main concern at the moment.
Unexpectedly Absent is a card that I like a ton, but the double white mana and general high cost for a removal spell (especially with taxes in play) can be pretty awkward in practice. Also doesn't really get rid of cards but rather just delay them (Teeg in particular).
I do agree that UA is better than DIS if your list has cards like Smokestack, and as always it will depends on your particular build.
@ Mykat, Nahiri of course solves nonbos pretty well, I forgot about her filtering mode.
WW is a pain on UA for sure, and Teeg is a bigger one for all of us. UA is just a good card in the o ring mode. If you actually want kill for a Teeg infestation its not the way to go.
The problem with Teeg is that half the decks that plays him plays mommy. Annoyingly Nic Fit and maverick run GSZ to fetch him, which seems bad but they all do it. So they gt him quickly.
UA does nothing to Teeg anyway, it can't be cast as it has x in the cost. In many ways the key for me is to get rid of him temporarily via Karakas and drop a Humility, or to board specifically for the evil adviser.
But the odds of nailing Teeg forever with Declaration seem quite low to me- they can Karakas or mommy him. Its a Sorcery, so Port, Waste et al are going to be hard if they hit the white sources. It might be better in the Blood Moon version where that is no issue, but then that loses Karakas as an out.
Its amazing that Pox can skill him with Smallpox, Innocent blood him, Lilly him, Cabal Pit him and Scroll him before getting to Dystopia, Perish et al. And here we are scrabbling around (in my case with Spatial Contortion) because all our best answers conflict with Chalice or get nerfed by him.
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Personally I will likely test 3 Sudden Shock in the board for Teeg. If I find that sweepers are sometimes just better to have then Kozilek's return it is as I don't want to have to worry about Mother of Runes stopping removal that I HAVE to resolve on a specific creature.
Budget build I presume? Llanowar wastes seems sub-optimal since you already have 4 tomb, 4 city and 4 wasteland to fix colorless mana. Maybe they are necessary. Overgrown tomb seems like obvious budget replacement for bayou and I am not sure you really want that. I could likely get behind no fetchlands and dual lands that can be fetched with flagstone to help color fix towards gitrog. I really am not too sure this shell is the right place for Gitrog or budget builds honestly. Between ancient tomb and llanorwar wastes you are definitely bound to be really hard off for life. Your mana requirements are all over the place with WW in Elspeth, W in geddon, GB in Gitrog and decay, C for thought-knot. 2 Color builds can be very tough for stax to mana fix, let alone "4". You could potentially run a build that is black green so you get monster and aren't stretching the mana base out so far. You get to keep decay, keep thought-knot and the llanowar wastes without worrying so much about resolving a crucible and not getting hit by 1 wasteland.
Budget build I presume? Llanowar wastes seems sub-optimal since you already have 4 tomb, 4 city and 4 wasteland to fix colorless mana. Maybe they are necessary. Overgrown tomb seems like obvious budget replacement for bayou and I am not sure you really want that. I could likely get behind no fetchlands and dual lands that can be fetched with flagstone to help color fix towards gitrog. I really am not too sure this shell is the right place for Gitrog or budget builds honestly. Between ancient tomb and llanorwar wastes you are definitely bound to be really hard off for life. Your mana requirements are all over the place with WW in Elspeth, W in geddon, GB in Gitrog and decay, C for thought-knot. 2 Color builds can be very tough for stax to mana fix, let alone "4". You could potentially run a build that is black green so you get monster and aren't stretching the mana base out so far. You get to keep decay, keep thought-knot and the llanowar wastes without worrying so much about resolving a crucible and not getting hit by 1 wasteland.
Ok, I am very confused. Are you replying to a deleted post? All I can see is my post about nerfing Teeg (little sod that he is) and then yours?
FWIW I have difficulty hitting one color in mono W.
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Well deleting it won't help fix it up. I am very interested in the list you posted. I'm not sure stax is really the right build for it. But gitrog as a 6/6 for 5 that draws us cards can be a good clock and card advantage engine.
Yeah the post was deleted. I lost to junk having gsz for the double teeg play vs me and I only found 1 sudden shock before he got the second one equipped up.
Managed an 8 man pod
Played Shardless- 1-1
Played two games in a minute- blown out by a cascade into hymn, thoughtseize, cascade in ancestral. Ouch.
Second one I returned the favour- T1 3 sphere, crucible, wastelock, elspeth.
Third one- 45 mins of rampant ridiculousness. Had 4 humilities killed, lost a chalice, another chalice, a 3 sphere, a ghostly, two crucibles to unending removal. Lost one geddon to a force, resolved another at the end. He was never able to kill the Moat though and had a needle on my Kjeldoran Outpost, and tried to DRS me to death- and would have it it were not for Zuran orb I boarded in. Board finished with me on two moats, a Leyline, a Ghostly, a Zuran and two chalices and a 3 sphere. And 3 land. And a pretty empty bin. His had 3 goyf, 4 drs, an empty graveyard nearly, shardless and about 6 cards left in his library.
Beat Merfolk easily- Moat both games after a boarded peacekeeper died to a daze.
Beat affinity 2-1, turn 0 chalice wrecked him game 1 (knew he was on it), assembled wastelock and 3 sphere.
G3 I did the t1 3 sphere and added a tabernacle for extra sickness.
Can't help feeling I want one more Tabernacle in the 75.
My wins are currently 2 elspeth, 1 timely, 2 batterskull (in a 2 moat 4 humility deck) Can't help but think I need 3 geddon in the 75 or something- 2 is fine main, one more in the 75 may help.
Want something to nail DRS too- maybe cursed totem again. Rarely seem to want to board in 2 smokestacks.
he was 2 dudes short in his build (the artifact flyers, in fact). He replaced them with more main deck removal (pulse), and ran golgari charms in the board (I also play parfait, and shardless BUG loses to it a lot). It was carnage- but fortunately they stayed just long enough to not lose.
My board is now looking like an extra geddon and wrath.
4 leyline
3 spatial "kills teeg" contortion
1 zuran
1 3 sphere (2 main)
1 wrath (experimental)
1 geddon (2 main)
1 smokestack (none main)
2 defense grid (for rug and tempo decks- more t1 plays, basically)
1 peacekeeper
I figure stack is the weakest in my build in my meta-lots of aggro/tempo (where its a bit slow), lots of hatebears (where its weak), miracles (where its good)and grindy stuff (where its good), not much storm/combo. Sure stack is great against miracles, but so is the extra geddon. I use 4 ghostly prison main, and 2 moat. Miracles has trouble with Kjeldoran Outpost, unless they run Blood Moon, and vs Miracles it is more about game 1 where they don't.
My offense in the main is just 2 elspeth, 2 outpost, 2 batterskull, 1 timely reinforcements.
Something does not quite feel right about it- the WW mana can be harsh on Elspeth, the 2 x 5cc can be harsh with batterskull, which won't work with moat, of course. The timely is a great defensive card and does exactly what I need it to vs aggro and tempo, I guess it should go but then I don't fancy the burn match as much (its always there)
When I found out that stax can be morphed into a R/W version I had to laugh a little.
I've been playing a R/W control list since tempest and since then the choices only get better.
As to the R/W stax variant, is there any interest in playing devastating dreams?
Here's my R/W list from more than six years ago...
Your list is neat. Not sure I want to run without Chalice of the Void, but I do love some cursed scroll given pox is one of my other decks of choice so I can understand that.
I don't think Devastating Dreams is great for Stax. My reasoning is because you want to dump your hand and get permanent control and tax effects onto the board. Dreams requires a relatively full hand to be effective. If you have a full hand then ensnaring bridge is terrible. If you don't have a full hand then bridge is fine vs creatures. I also tend to believe for blowing up lands that Armageddon is more than enough. I suppose dreams has the advantage of hitting Gaddock Teeg and friends and then locking out the board if you actually have cards in hand. I have run it with Life from the Loam a lot in Legacy because you get so much value that way. I don't think I like it in Stax since you don't have a consistent way to fill your hand. That is kind of how today's meta plays as far as that suggestion goes. I suppose Reforge the Soul or Magus of the Wheel could be used if you wanted a way to get value?
First up kudos on the above list. Very neat looking, I want to test null broach out in my Stax, never get round to it.
Secondly I played an 8 man pod on Friday FNM (paper, as ever).
Using humility/armageddon stax.
R1 Burn. 1-2
Win G1 as i know wheat he is on I mull and power out into batterskull. Resolve my one of timely and its enough to get me far ahead enough to win.
G2 Mull a half decent hand away, its close as I also get batterskull as the agme goes long after a mull to 5 (one of 2 batterskulls in the list). Sadly he has answers int he form of double burn spell, I bounce BS and he smashes it to smithereens in response, I can't or won't pay again (forget which, may have been double tomb activation that stops me) and then a Vortex means no lifegain fun from then in. Mental note- 3 orings are not enough in this match - need a disenchant effect in the board, perhaps even the M set lifegain one at 3cc, although being a sorcery sucks. With vortex and eidolons there are plenty of targets.
G3 Power into t2 batterskull and t3 armageddon. Lose. Don't ask me how, just draw a series of anti critter measures and some land, whilst he draws burn spells and deals with the BS. Chalice is too late.
Skullcrack does a lot of work for him.
R2- Nic Fit
1-1
Lose g1 as I take a 4 land hand with a crucible and threat in. Thoughtseize nicks the threat, I draw lots more land and a crucible- 4 successive rips off the top of land. Followed by 2 chalices. Not winning anything with that.
G2 Power into elspeth, geddon is a killer for him, Deed resolves and gets popped for zero to save him but can't hit Elspeth, and although he does some stabilising a humility eventually resolves, alongside an Outpost. A word or two here for my anti teeg card, spatial contortion- it takes out a 1/1 with sword on, meaning I can buy the winning turn. It also potentially interacts favourably with a 4/4 soldier token.
G3 is drawn in short order.
R3 Miracles 2-0
G1 resolve 3sphere and, later, 'geddon, having disrupted counterbalance as soon as its cast thanks to 3 sphere being down and o ring.
G2 repeat, he gets an aggro start with clique and venser doing work, but I resolve an elspeth, humility plus outpost. Quick games.
Thought: I want 2 batterskull, 3 elspeth in the 75, maybe elspeth 3 in the board. I dislike having to run timely main but it does a lot of work, being an all important 3 cc spell. That said its a singleton, so perhaps it should be sideboard.
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My rw stax list should be on the previous page. I'm at work do this is a quick post, I can post the list later otherwise.
Race to 4 mana cast humility, win. Their flickerwisps do nothing, thalia nothing etc. Avens still have flash but that is it, when they resolve they are 1/1s with n abiities. Ok, batterskull buffs their stuff, but even then it can be dealt with. Their Magus/Moons come on line t3, we can hit humility easily t2/3.
Race to 3 mana cast ghostly prison to slow them, buy time to draw moxen and basics. They can't port you with moon down, so one basic is good enough to cast a fair chunk of cards like Ghostly, and Batterskulls can be durdled to and cast of mountains.
I use mono w, 4 Humility, 2 moat, 4 ghostly and 2 Geddon 3 oring. 7 plains min 4 moxen, with 4 Flagstones fetching plains if they come down as a pair before moon or get geddoned/zuraned. I would expect to be strong vs that deck......
Hell RW can use the mountains to cast pyrclasm/kozilieks etc.
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Wasteland
Spells 37
3 Ajani Vengeant
3 Batterskull
3 Blood Moon
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Chrome Mox
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Humility
1 Moat
4 Mox Diamond
2 Narhiri, the Harbinger
1 Outpost Siege
3 Trinisphere
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Blood Moon
3 Exalted Angel
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Sulfur Elemental
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Trinisphere
This is what I am currently on. Sudden Shock or Kozilek's Return will likely take the place of the Exalted Angels.
Of course, it's only for Stackless builds as the clue can be problematic in the long run, but I've always wanted a proper CMC2 replacement for Swords to Plowshares that isn't Journey to Nowhere, and this card fits the bill. I ran 4 Journeys in my Bird Stompy sideboard list and DIS is pretty much strictly better. Dodges Chalice@1 and the aggro nature of the build makes saccing the token very inneficient, especially in Legacy.
Declaration in stone does seem perfectly fine. The fact it targets isn't really terrible, it's cheap removal that answers a Teeg at the very least. That's my main concern at the moment.
I do agree that UA is better than DIS if your list has cards like Smokestack, and as always it will depends on your particular build.
WW is a pain on UA for sure, and Teeg is a bigger one for all of us. UA is just a good card in the o ring mode. If you actually want kill for a Teeg infestation its not the way to go.
The problem with Teeg is that half the decks that plays him plays mommy. Annoyingly Nic Fit and maverick run GSZ to fetch him, which seems bad but they all do it. So they gt him quickly.
UA does nothing to Teeg anyway, it can't be cast as it has x in the cost. In many ways the key for me is to get rid of him temporarily via Karakas and drop a Humility, or to board specifically for the evil adviser.
But the odds of nailing Teeg forever with Declaration seem quite low to me- they can Karakas or mommy him. Its a Sorcery, so Port, Waste et al are going to be hard if they hit the white sources. It might be better in the Blood Moon version where that is no issue, but then that loses Karakas as an out.
Its amazing that Pox can skill him with Smallpox, Innocent blood him, Lilly him, Cabal Pit him and Scroll him before getting to Dystopia, Perish et al. And here we are scrabbling around (in my case with Spatial Contortion) because all our best answers conflict with Chalice or get nerfed by him.
They have marginal use elsewhere too, maybe killing a DRS or whatever.
Ok, I am very confused. Are you replying to a deleted post? All I can see is my post about nerfing Teeg (little sod that he is) and then yours?
FWIW I have difficulty hitting one color in mono W.
Played Shardless- 1-1
Played two games in a minute- blown out by a cascade into hymn, thoughtseize, cascade in ancestral. Ouch.
Second one I returned the favour- T1 3 sphere, crucible, wastelock, elspeth.
Third one- 45 mins of rampant ridiculousness. Had 4 humilities killed, lost a chalice, another chalice, a 3 sphere, a ghostly, two crucibles to unending removal. Lost one geddon to a force, resolved another at the end. He was never able to kill the Moat though and had a needle on my Kjeldoran Outpost, and tried to DRS me to death- and would have it it were not for Zuran orb I boarded in. Board finished with me on two moats, a Leyline, a Ghostly, a Zuran and two chalices and a 3 sphere. And 3 land. And a pretty empty bin. His had 3 goyf, 4 drs, an empty graveyard nearly, shardless and about 6 cards left in his library.
Beat Merfolk easily- Moat both games after a boarded peacekeeper died to a daze.
Beat affinity 2-1, turn 0 chalice wrecked him game 1 (knew he was on it), assembled wastelock and 3 sphere.
G3 I did the t1 3 sphere and added a tabernacle for extra sickness.
Can't help feeling I want one more Tabernacle in the 75.
My wins are currently 2 elspeth, 1 timely, 2 batterskull (in a 2 moat 4 humility deck) Can't help but think I need 3 geddon in the 75 or something- 2 is fine main, one more in the 75 may help.
Want something to nail DRS too- maybe cursed totem again. Rarely seem to want to board in 2 smokestacks.
My board is now looking like an extra geddon and wrath.
4 leyline
3 spatial "kills teeg" contortion
1 zuran
1 3 sphere (2 main)
1 wrath (experimental)
1 geddon (2 main)
1 smokestack (none main)
2 defense grid (for rug and tempo decks- more t1 plays, basically)
1 peacekeeper
I figure stack is the weakest in my build in my meta-lots of aggro/tempo (where its a bit slow), lots of hatebears (where its weak), miracles (where its good)and grindy stuff (where its good), not much storm/combo. Sure stack is great against miracles, but so is the extra geddon. I use 4 ghostly prison main, and 2 moat. Miracles has trouble with Kjeldoran Outpost, unless they run Blood Moon, and vs Miracles it is more about game 1 where they don't.
My offense in the main is just 2 elspeth, 2 outpost, 2 batterskull, 1 timely reinforcements.
Something does not quite feel right about it- the WW mana can be harsh on Elspeth, the 2 x 5cc can be harsh with batterskull, which won't work with moat, of course. The timely is a great defensive card and does exactly what I need it to vs aggro and tempo, I guess it should go but then I don't fancy the burn match as much (its always there)
I've been playing a R/W control list since tempest and since then the choices only get better.
As to the R/W stax variant, is there any interest in playing devastating dreams?
Here's my R/W list from more than six years ago...
2x Keldon Megaliths
10x Plains
4x Arid Mesa
1x Mountain
3x Cursed Scroll
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Peace of Mind
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Path to Exile
1x Moat
3x Mox Diamond
4x Lightning Helix
1x Searing Meditation
4x Enlightened Tutor
2x Humility
1x Null Brooch
4x Oblivion Ring
1x Argivian Find
4x Red Elemental Blast
4x Blood Moon
3x Leyline of the Void
1x Cursed Scroll
3x Revoke Existence
I don't think Devastating Dreams is great for Stax. My reasoning is because you want to dump your hand and get permanent control and tax effects onto the board. Dreams requires a relatively full hand to be effective. If you have a full hand then ensnaring bridge is terrible. If you don't have a full hand then bridge is fine vs creatures. I also tend to believe for blowing up lands that Armageddon is more than enough. I suppose dreams has the advantage of hitting Gaddock Teeg and friends and then locking out the board if you actually have cards in hand. I have run it with Life from the Loam a lot in Legacy because you get so much value that way. I don't think I like it in Stax since you don't have a consistent way to fill your hand. That is kind of how today's meta plays as far as that suggestion goes. I suppose Reforge the Soul or Magus of the Wheel could be used if you wanted a way to get value?
Secondly I played an 8 man pod on Friday FNM (paper, as ever).
Using humility/armageddon stax.
R1 Burn. 1-2
Win G1 as i know wheat he is on I mull and power out into batterskull. Resolve my one of timely and its enough to get me far ahead enough to win.
G2 Mull a half decent hand away, its close as I also get batterskull as the agme goes long after a mull to 5 (one of 2 batterskulls in the list). Sadly he has answers int he form of double burn spell, I bounce BS and he smashes it to smithereens in response, I can't or won't pay again (forget which, may have been double tomb activation that stops me) and then a Vortex means no lifegain fun from then in. Mental note- 3 orings are not enough in this match - need a disenchant effect in the board, perhaps even the M set lifegain one at 3cc, although being a sorcery sucks. With vortex and eidolons there are plenty of targets.
G3 Power into t2 batterskull and t3 armageddon. Lose. Don't ask me how, just draw a series of anti critter measures and some land, whilst he draws burn spells and deals with the BS. Chalice is too late.
Skullcrack does a lot of work for him.
R2- Nic Fit
1-1
Lose g1 as I take a 4 land hand with a crucible and threat in. Thoughtseize nicks the threat, I draw lots more land and a crucible- 4 successive rips off the top of land. Followed by 2 chalices. Not winning anything with that.
G2 Power into elspeth, geddon is a killer for him, Deed resolves and gets popped for zero to save him but can't hit Elspeth, and although he does some stabilising a humility eventually resolves, alongside an Outpost. A word or two here for my anti teeg card, spatial contortion- it takes out a 1/1 with sword on, meaning I can buy the winning turn. It also potentially interacts favourably with a 4/4 soldier token.
G3 is drawn in short order.
R3 Miracles 2-0
G1 resolve 3sphere and, later, 'geddon, having disrupted counterbalance as soon as its cast thanks to 3 sphere being down and o ring.
G2 repeat, he gets an aggro start with clique and venser doing work, but I resolve an elspeth, humility plus outpost. Quick games.
Thought: I want 2 batterskull, 3 elspeth in the 75, maybe elspeth 3 in the board. I dislike having to run timely main but it does a lot of work, being an all important 3 cc spell. That said its a singleton, so perhaps it should be sideboard.