Main Menu

Staxx Oath 4.3

Started by Kassow-Rossing, 12-07-2011, 02:01:14 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Kassow-Rossing

Just wanted to share my latest version. Note that I don't play a few auto-includes like Maze of Ith and Moat due to meta game decisions. Feel free to comment in any way! :)

The Lands:
10 Fetch Lands (Thx to Nastaboi)
10 Dual Lands
City of Brass
Glimmervoid
Tendo Ice Bridge
Reflecting Pool
Exotic Orchard
Stirring Wildwood
Flagstones of Trokair
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Rishadan Port
Wasteland
Dust Bowl
Academy Ruins
Mishra's Workshop
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
36 lands
-Tendo Ice Bridge is good because often you only really need one mana you couldn't already produce to cast your bomb which will win the game.
-Reflecting Pool works like a Shadowmoor-Eventide Filter Land which ensures the second or third mana of the same type. It's really great with Glimmervoid, Tendo Ice Bridge and City of Brass.
-Exotic Orchard is most often a Dual Land or a Shards of Alara Tri Land which is more than good enough.
-Stirring Wildwood is the only Man Land and it's really solid. It also produces the most used colour in my deck: White + Garruk, Primal Hunter green mana. I would like to run Celestial Colonnade too but I can't find room for it right now.
-I do not play Maze of Ith, which is sort of a mistake. It's like this, however, for meta game decisions. I don't need it in my areas right now. I will most probably include it again in six months. Until then I've also cut Expedition Map even though it allows Tezzeret to fetch up Wasteland-lockdown.

The Creatures
Baneslayer Angel
Frost Titan
Grave Titan
Primeval Titan
Sun Titan
Wurmcoil Engine
6 Creatures
-I play four titans + the two strong lifelink creatures. I do not see any reason to play Inferno Titan.
-I don't play Hokori, Dust Drinker, Braids, Cabal Minion, Trinket Mage or any other strong but tiny creature because of Oath of Druids.
-I'm thinking about trying Rune-Scarred Demon because Oath'ing into this would be equal to win because often you only need that one extra "perfect" card after Oath'ing to ensure you won't drop the game. It costs 7cc which is a lot but I only see it being one mana too expensive so I should give it a try.

The Planeswalkers
Ajani Vengeant
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Gideon Jura
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Karn Liberated
Tezzeret the Seeker
8 Planeswalkers
-I haven't figured out exactly how many PW's is right in this deck but I just realized I too often lost to three counter spells during one single game so I had to include more threads.
-Karn is really expensive so he's still testing but he's really strong once resolved. He's a strong answer to Blood Moon and he's really easy to cast after resolving a Thran Dynamo.
-I'm trying out Garruk, Primal Hunter too but the GGG mana is hard. For that I've added Stirring Wildwood, three more Fetch Lands, changed the Signets (I really like the way they are right now) and added two more 5-colour mana stones (Manalith and Spectral Searchlight).

The Theme
Winter Orb
Static Orb
Rising Waters
Tangle Wire
Nether Void
Armageddon
Ravages of War
Wildfire
Burning of Xinye
Devastation
Crucible of Worlds
11 Theme Cards
-Since the beginning of the deck I've cut Life from the Loam, Sphere of Resistance and Smokestack while adding Rising Waters and Devastation. Those did not change for each other but have been added and been cut over time. Lately I've removed Smokestack because it didn't do enough if my areas where many players use a lot of stuff like Llanowar Elf, Dark Confidant, Cultivate'n stuff.

The Mana Artifacts
Grim Monolith
Worn Powerstone
Thran Dynamo
Mox Diamond
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Spectral Searchlight
Manalith
Gilded Lotus
Azorius Signet
Selesnya Signet
Orzhov Signet
Simic Signet
Awakening Zone
14 Mana Artifacts
-I now play four Manalith's which feels quite right at the moment because they:
1. Makes sure you have the fourth mana for the PW's and the Wrath's
2. Helps you ramp up to stuff like Gideon Jura and Wildfire's
3. Helps you a lot in the fight against Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics.
4. Helps you cast the difficult spells like Garruk, Primal Hunter, Wargate, Firespout, Vindicate, Malestrom Pulse and of course all the 4cc spells with dual mana.
-The Signets have been changed so the two most used colours White and Blue are shared with three Signets each. Orzhov helps the four Wrath effects and Garruk 2.0 now gets both Simic and Selesnya.

The Draw Spells
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven
Demonic Tutor
Tainted Pact
Sensei's Divining Top
Thirst for Knowledge
Timetwister
Memory Jar
Wargate
Primal Command
10 Draw Spells
-Wargate can find any land on x=0, Oath of Druids or Winter Orb on x=2, Crucible of Worlds on x=3, Humility or a PW on x=4 and any bomb on higher CmC. This card is good even on the starting hand.
-Primal Command has proven to be really strong because it adds life, it functions as a 0.8 Time Walk (Has been tested) and it tutors for bombs. It's the perfect draw spell this deck needed.
-Memory and Timetwister are really the bombs in this deck because it ramps this much. Memory Jar + Academy Ruins has also proven to be quite powerful in the late game.

The Defense
Fire//Ice
Maelstrom Pulse
Oblivion Ring
Swords to Plowshares
Vindicate
Damnation
Day of Judgment
Firespout
Wrath of God
The Abyss
Humility
11 Defensive Cards
-I no longer play Faith's Fetters, Collective Restraint or Crumbling Sanctuary which always were pretty decent cards. I can't find room for them and I don't feel I need them at the moment. One should keep an eye on them however. Collective Restraint got worse and worse after including more and more PW's.
-I don't play Moat but instead I play Humility. Moat is by far a stronger card than Humility but at the moment Moat won't do me much good because my opponents are either UW Skies, Mono Red Burn or Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp so Humility locks down half of the Skies deck (Yeah they're actually not 1/1's but 3/1's all of them) and all of the Mono Green deck. Meta game decision.

The Other Win Conditions
Oath of Druids
Bitterblossom
Bribery
Upheaval
4 Other Win Conditions
-Bribery is always good. Even against aggro you can find Kitchen Finks or Obstinate Baloth quite often.
-I neat trick with Upheaval is to Oblivion Ring one of your own permanents and then cast the Upheaval to save some mana.

-Total 100 cards
I lose to heavy counter decks where they can cast more than four counter spells during a game if they have but one win-condition like Trinket Mage. I lose to Mono Red Burn in 40-60. Most of the times this deck performs really well online and in the Danish environment.

LasH

#1
Hi Kassow, thx for your update. We already speaked a bit in private and here are my thoughts:

About the lands:

Not much to say. Maze is an autoinclude for me exspecially with stoneforge mystic still being avaible. But as u alrdy pointed out, its a metagame choice of your own.

About the creatures:

I also try out Rune-Scared Demon and maybe even the fact or ficiton sphinx. Its all about their Mana-Costs..One mana more can be huge. Gotta give it a try, bc if u oath it, you kinda should straight win the game.

I currently think about cutting Wurmcoil and Baneslayer because they do not generate card advantage when they pop in. I try to find "better" ways for lifegain and primal command might be a decent choice or even Pelakka wurm (again the problem with the casting from hand). Im not sure if i cut them if i can still beat decks like RDW.

About Inferno titan, i can only say that it worked out to be the best titan for me. He kills all dangerous creatures or he gives your enemy a hard clock, because of his pump ability. Hes better than grave titan in my opinion, but i play all 5 titans.

Planeswalkers:

Yes Garruk is a great choice. I dont think the deck can afford the GGG constantly when you need it. But i hope you'll give more feedback about that.
Karn is weird..I play him too, but he does not win straight a game. He's worse than nicol bolas in his abilitys. Im not sure if i let him stay in the deck, its more flavor than effect.


Theme:

I did cut static orb, because it really never ever was effective for me. It was in every matchup always a dead card. I dont know how ppl use this properly.

Whats manalith?

Humility is the "new moat". Its better in every aspect currently and i also play venser planeswalker, so my own creatures are not affected. If you play Humility, Elspeth 2.0 is also a nice choice.

About timetwister...I did change it to compulsive research. I do not like to give my opponent a free draw 7. Exspecially in the current meta, where 90% of the decks clean their hands till turn 4.

If you have alot RDW in your meta, bring back crumbling sanctuary with fabricate or even transmute artifact.


btw: I miss gifts ungiven and the thoper foundry combo in your decklist. I also play regrowth, because it turned out to be great after using oath, or, if you loose something important.

Kassow-Rossing

Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 02:26:00 PM
I also try out Rune-Scared Demon and maybe even the fact or ficiton sphinx. Its all about their Mana-Costs..One mana more can be huge. Gotta give it a try, bc if u oath it, you kinda should straight win the game.

The thing is: Getting to Oath into a 6/6 flying creature and casting Demonic Tutor is win. Getting to Oath into a 5/6 flying creature and casting Fact or Fiction is not win all the time. To me there's a huge difference in turn 3 clock (Which 18 damage kind of is) and turn 4 clock (which 20 damage absolutely always is). At least that's the way I see it. I also see Demonic Tutor being that much better when you already have Oath on the battlefield and already have a bomb on the battlefield. A bomb you only need to protect. Please let me know how your Sphinx of Uthuun works out.


Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 02:26:00 PM
About Inferno titan, i can only say that it worked out to be the best titan for me. He kills all dangerous creatures or he gives your enemy a hard clock, because of his pump ability. Hes better than grave titan in my opinion, but i play all 5 titans.

Interesting. Hmm how does 3 damage kill all dangerous creatures? If you were to chose for me, would you test him instead of Grave Titan or Frost Titan?



Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 02:26:00 PM
Yes Garruk is a great choice. I dont think the deck can afford the GGG constantly when you need it. But i hope you'll give more feedback about that.
Karn is weird..I play him too, but he does not win straight a game. He's worse than nicol bolas in his abilitys. Im not sure if i let him stay in the deck, its more flavor than effect.

I will feedback you in two months. I never test anything briefer unless they prove to be absolutely horrific. Yeah Karn feels weird but I have only lost two games after resolving him and he really has a high win-rate. He's just impossible to damage to death when he goes straight to 10 loyalty. That means the opponent will most likely never benefit from attacking him because 10 life to Karn or 14 life to the opponent (Example) makes Karn very less likely to be attacked or Lightning Bolt'ed. I have even tried restarting the game with Coalition Relic and Sun Titan on the battlefield, which led to a Swords to Plowshares turn1 in the face of Sun Titan but Coalition Relic + land + Mox Diamond gave me turn1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Turn2 Garruk Wildspeaker. I would not play a card for flavour. Maybe you should reconsider him. I will keep him in for now.



Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 02:26:00 PM
I did cut static orb, because it really never ever was effective for me. It was in every matchup always a dead card. I dont know how ppl use this properly.

Whats manalith?

The "right" way to play Static Orb is to have stuff like Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus or Planeswalkers on the battlefield. The other "right" way to play Static Orb is to play against control and see him only untap two lands each turn or to play against aggro and see his creatures only attack once during each game or seeing him not casting anything because he needs to untap his two creatures each turn. That would be the job for Static Orb in every deck but the only reason why it's really good enough for Staxx is because Staxx HAS stuff like Gilded Lotus, because Staxx HAS Planeswalkers and because Staxx really doesn't do that much so untapping two permanents each turn is actually enough, which is never is for the opponent.

Manalith is this:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220162


Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 02:26:00 PM
Humility is the "new moat". Its better in every aspect currently and i also play venser planeswalker, so my own creatures are not affected. If you play Humility, Elspeth 2.0 is also a nice choice.

About timetwister...I did change it to compulsive research. I do not like to give my opponent a free draw 7. Exspecially in the current meta, where 90% of the decks clean their hands till turn 4.

If you have alot RDW in your meta, bring back crumbling sanctuary with fabricate or even transmute artifact.


btw: I miss gifts ungiven and the thoper foundry combo in your decklist. I also play regrowth, because it turned out to be great after using oath, or, if you loose something important.

I don't understand how Venser, the Sojourner works with Humility. Will you explain? Yeah any Elspeth is good with Humility. As are Awakening Zone, Bitterblossom, Gideon Jura, Stirring Wildwood or many other things. I've decided not to run Elspeth Tirel because she simply doesn't do enough for me any longer. You also can't use her ultimate. The Timetwister decision you've made must be a meta game decision because Timetwister is really amazing most of the times because you empty several cards while your opponent usually doesn't. Giving him two cards and yourself five cards are quite devastating. I think your Crumbling Sanctuary comment are quite right. I should really thinkg about that. Thx!

I do play Gifts Ungiven as listed above. I've never cut it. It's so good it should be banned. I also think a format with Life from the Loam but not Gifts or Intuition would be more healthy but that's just my opinion. Yeah I've cut the Thopter Foundry-Sword of the Meek combo. That's sad because I really liked it. It was just so terrible to draw any of them without the other (Thopter Foundry worked really well with Smokestack too and also fine with Tangle Wire). When I played Transmute Artifact, Fabricate, Expedition Map and the combo it was a lot easier to find the combo than it is now. I've just changed the deck a whole lot and now I only play "good cards" meaning cards that can stand alone and still be good. The combo was a game winner, so it should always be in the pile of testing cards, but for now I won't run it since it's too vulnerable. Maybe I'll try it again after testing Buried Ruin.

Thx for the comments.

LasH

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 12-07-2011, 04:29:40 PM


Interesting. Hmm how does 3 damage kill all dangerous creatures? If you were to chose for me, would you test him instead of Grave Titan or Frost Titan?


Its hard to tell about the theoretic choices you can kill. There is alot stuff out there he can kill quite easy. It doesnt even matter if the creature is dangerous or not, he cleans the way to attack in alot of scenarios. Best case: You trade 3-0 when he enters the battlefield. Worst case: 3 damage to your opponent, which is not that bad at all. If no creatures are on the battlefield, that means he deals 12 dmg without pumping in 2 turns which is still quite good. In my meta he always kills atleast one creature, which alrdy means card advantage.

Test him instead of grave titan. In my experience you wanna play stuff that effects the battlefield immediatly, grave titan "just" creates creatures (which is not always what you want, exspecially if you have oath on the battlefield), so i would not cut the frost guy :)

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 12-07-2011, 04:29:40 PM

I don't understand how Venser, the Sojourner works with Humility. Will you explain? Yeah any Elspeth is good with Humility. As are Awakening Zone, Bitterblossom, Gideon Jura, Stirring Wildwood or many other things. I've decided not to run Elspeth Tirel because she simply doesn't do enough for me any longer. You also can't use her ultimate. The Timetwister decision you've made must be a meta game decision because Timetwister is really amazing most of the times because you empty several cards while your opponent usually doesn't. Giving him two cards and yourself five cards are quite devastating. I think your Crumbling Sanctuary comment are quite right. I should really thinkg about that. Thx!


Well the same way it works with moat. In your turn, you exile it, so your titans have their effects. I think the titans are kinda so strong that they can win games just by their abilitys. It surely depends on the situation, but i made quite good experiences with this.

Sry i've overseen the gifts in the list. You are probally right about the combo. But it won so many games for me, that i dont wanna cut it yet. But it happens that you have only one piece and thats pretty sad, but its nearly an autowin with resolved gifts. Probaly its more constant to cut it, but i'm not there yet.

Kassow-Rossing

Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 04:48:53 PM
Well the same way it works with moat. In your turn, you exile it, so your titans have their effects.

Well said. I don't know how I could overlook that fact. Makes sense but I don't see Venser being good enough still though. As we've already discussed a lot of this over the private messages, I feel there is not much else to say right now. One last quesion:

How do you feel about the Coalition Relic (Auto include), Darksteel Ingot, Manalith and Spectral Searchlight?
I play them because it makes me overcome the Blood Moon, Magus otm and Back to Basics a lot easier + a few other strong advatages such as ensuring the colour pie and being able to cast stuff like Wrath of God, Garruk 2.0 and stuff. The cards are however not the strongest of mana stones because they are expensive. Tell me your thoughts?

LasH

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 15-07-2011, 04:13:02 PM
Quote from: LasH on 12-07-2011, 04:48:53 PM
Well the same way it works with moat. In your turn, you exile it, so your titans have their effects.
One last quesion:

How do you feel about the Coalition Relic (Auto include), Darksteel Ingot, Manalith and Spectral Searchlight?
I play them because it makes me overcome the Blood Moon, Magus otm and Back to Basics a lot easier + a few other strong advatages such as ensuring the colour pie and being able to cast stuff like Wrath of God, Garruk 2.0 and stuff. The cards are however not the strongest of mana stones because they are expensive. Tell me your thoughts?

Sad but true. They are very expensive and slow. But you need them to support the mana you need. Nastaboi did help already to make the manabase more constant, but i still have problems in casting spells in the right situation. Partly its my own fault, because i do fetch sometimes the wrong land (for example i hold ajani and i fetch something white/red to cast him, then i draw primeval titan and i lack the 2nd green). This deck is very hard to play in my opinion, if it comes down to have the right mana in the right moment.

I wish there would be better "signets" or more lands like city of brass. So you kinda have to play what you can play. I dont see any other option than the 3 mana fixers to be more constant, but in generell you wanna ramp turn 2 and not turn 3. I think thats a problem of this deck but its still pretty strong atm and these situations can happen to every deck, i guess.

Best way would be to support workshop a bit better (crop rotation) for example, but on the other side the deck runs about 21 artifacts, which means workshop doens't ramp you as much as he would do in a more artifact based deck.

I hope we get some more ideas or input from other players because im pretty much clueless how to improve this problem.



Kassow-Rossing

Some ideas and my thoughts on why I don't think they're good enough:

A: A better signet could be Fellwar Stone? How do you feel about that? I dislike it even though I very much think Exotic Orchard is strong. The difference for me is first of all the Armageddon remains are artifacts and no lands, which would make Fellwar Stone useless for some turns afterwards where Exotic is already destroyed no matter what.

B: Mind Stone? Too colourless for me.

C: Coldsteel Heart? Haven't tried it yet but I think it entered tapped and only produces one colour is not good enough.

D: Talismans? I prefer Signets but I've played Talisman of Progress sometimes but now I need more green so signets worked better.

E: Everflowing Chalice? To me it's only good enough with Workshop and otherwise it's a Mind Stone with the disadvantage it cannot be sacrificed.

F: Chrome Mox? Hm way worse than Diamond in this deck because you need the five colours and already a low on threads. Have you tried it?

G: Mox Opal? Too few artifacts with a CmC of 3 or less. I don't see it as a Mox Diamond you can cast turn1 but as a Manalith you can cast for free any time from turn3 or later. I don't think there are enough though.

LasH

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM
Some ideas and my thoughts on why I don't think they're good enough:

A: A better signet could be Fellwar Stone? How do you feel about that? I dislike it even though I very much think Exotic Orchard is strong. The difference for me is first of all the Armageddon remains are artifacts and no lands, which would make Fellwar Stone useless for some turns afterwards where Exotic is already destroyed no matter what.


I play Fellwarstone alrdy. So far, i did not have the problem with him after armageddon, because u usually still have enough artifact mana. The stone turns out to be very bad if you face a monocolored deck.

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM
B: Mind Stone? Too colourless for me.

Yes
Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM

C: Coldsteel Heart? Haven't tried it yet but I think it entered tapped and only produces one colour is not good enough.


Played this one too... The tapped part makes it so bad. Its the same as with tapped lands. You kinda always wanna use any sort of mana instantly, that's why i dont even consider playing manlands. To many times you loose a round because of tapped mana, and each round is very important for our deck, because we alrdy do nearly nothing than ramp in the first turns and then we are forced to take care about the bord.

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM

D: Talismans? I prefer Signets but I've played Talisman of Progress sometimes but now I need more green so signets worked better.

Well you kinda always need the artifacts for the colored mana. 10 fetchlands + talismans...to much damage. To bad vs aggro.

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM
E: Everflowing Chalice? To me it's only good enough with Workshop and otherwise it's a Mind Stone with the disadvantage it cannot be sacrificed.

Useless in my opinion, as you alrdy said.

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM
F: Chrome Mox? Hm way worse than Diamond in this deck because you need the five colours and already a low on threads. Have you tried it?

Yes i tryed. Its always a pain for this deck to imprint any spells. We play not much carddraw and each spell has its purpose in any matchup. Imagine you have to imprint jace or armageddon. There is no spell i wanna discard for mana. Thats not worth playing it.

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 01:51:35 AM
G: Mox Opal? Too few artifacts with a CmC of 3 or less. I don't see it as a Mox Diamond you can cast turn1 but as a Manalith you can cast for free any time from turn3 or later. I don't think there are enough though.

I played it in a version with 40 artifacts and trinket mage and it was insanely good. I kinda searched it more times than SDT with trinket mage. But in our 20-23 artifact version its not good. You have to add artifact lands anyway to make it usefull in any way. And we figured alrdy out that we cannot support artifact lands.

Kassow-Rossing

Fellwar Stone: Do you play Exotic Orchard as well? Hm the thing is I really dislike the idea of not being able to fix my mana myself because that means I can't always get my mana base the way I like it. In a game situation there are no way to turn your Simic Signet into producing white mana for your Elspeth, Knight-Errant but preconstructing the deck allows you to turn the signets white if you need to. I too feel sad every time I have Exotic Orchard in hand against a mono red player. Against the mono green in my areas (he's a bit white as well so sometimes he has Savannah or Temple Garden on the board) it's not too bad because green is an "important" colour in the deck unlike red. I really want to play Fellwar Stone again after you've left this comment. What should I test it for instead?

Coldsteel Heart: I don't quite buy it. I'm testing Stirring Wildwood after Nastaboi mentioned Worldwake lands would be good and it's actually really good. That means the deck runs: 1 land that enters the battlefield tapped. You can very often choose to play it when you don't need it the first turn. For that reason I've decided to start playtesting Celestial Colonnade too. What I really don't quite understand is your Wrath of God-theory and tapped lands. I would almost never cast a Signet turn5 and then a Wrath to follow up. I'm not sure I understand how Coldsteel Heart should prevent you from taking care of your board..?

Mox Opal: Yeah I think artifact lands are kind of important to play as well if you need this one to work. By turn3 you have drawn around 10 cards depending on Play First og Draw First rule. That means 3/10 = 30 % must be artifacts. BUT I believe that to be false math because we really don't care about having three artifacts on the battlefield unless we have drawn Mox Opal, which means we already have one artifact. So in the first 10 cards, nine are random and one is Mox Opal. So we get 2/9 = 22,22 % must be artifacts of the remaining 99 cards of the deck.

That leads me to believe a deck running 25 artifacts should be able to support Mox Opal by turn3 as a free Manalith most of the times.

LasH

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 12:57:35 PM
Fellwar Stone: Do you play Exotic Orchard as well? Hm the thing is I really dislike the idea of not being able to fix my mana myself because that means I can't always get my mana base the way I like it. In a game situation there are no way to turn your Simic Signet into producing white mana for your Elspeth, Knight-Errant but preconstructing the deck allows you to turn the signets white if you need to. I too feel sad every time I have Exotic Orchard in hand against a mono red player. Against the mono green in my areas (he's a bit white as well so sometimes he has Savannah or Temple Garden on the board) it's not too bad because green is an "important" colour in the deck unlike red. I really want to play Fellwar Stone again after you've left this comment. What should I test it for instead?


Ye i play exotic, too. But im not excited about it either. Its like you say. Your opponent determines your manasource. If you face alot of monocolored decks, dont play the stone. If i met a monocolor, i wish i had a signet or another land than exotic...

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 12:57:35 PM
Coldsteel Heart: I don't quite buy it. I'm testing Stirring Wildwood after Nastaboi mentioned Worldwake lands would be good and it's actually really good. That means the deck runs: 1 land that enters the battlefield tapped. You can very often choose to play it when you don't need it the first turn. For that reason I've decided to start playtesting Celestial Colonnade too. What I really don't quite understand is your Wrath of God-theory and tapped lands. I would almost never cast a Signet turn5 and then a Wrath to follow up. I'm not sure I understand how Coldsteel Heart should prevent you from taking care of your board..?

About the land: Imagine you are on 5 mana and got the wildfire on the hand to clean the bord...you draw the wildwood. Thats really sad and happend to me alot.

Coldsteele Heart is not that bad as a land. If you play a talisman you kinda loose one mana, because you can tap the talisman itself. Coldsteele Heart makes you loose 2 Mana this turn. I know its only one mana, but its magic and one mana can be crucial in certain situations. For example: You play on 4 Lands and you hold coldsteele + coalition (for whatever reason). Now you can only play out coldsteele, while with a signet or talisman you could play both. I hope this bad example shows what i experienced with this artifact.
Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 16-07-2011, 12:57:35 PM

Mox Opal: Yeah I think artifact lands are kind of important to play as well if you need this one to work. By turn3 you have drawn around 10 cards depending on Play First og Draw First rule. That means 3/10 = 30 % must be artifacts. BUT I believe that to be false math because we really don't care about having three artifacts on the battlefield unless we have drawn Mox Opal, which means we already have one artifact. So in the first 10 cards, nine are random and one is Mox Opal. So we get 2/9 = 22,22 % must be artifacts of the remaining 99 cards of the deck.

That leads me to believe a deck running 25 artifacts should be able to support Mox Opal by turn3 as a free Manalith most of the times.

Maybe. That requires testings, but i know that even in my deck with 40 artifacts i didnt want this card on my starthand. Its not a Mox diamond that ramps you in the first turns, its more like you said...a manalith for 0 which is active in turn 3 or later.

Kassow-Rossing

Quote from: LasH on 16-07-2011, 01:47:30 PM
Ye i play exotic, too. But im not excited about it either. Its like you say. Your opponent determines your manasource. If you face alot of monocolored decks, dont play the stone. If i met a monocolor, i wish i had a signet or another land than exotic...

We perfectly agree. What is your final evaluation of Fellwar Stone ? Good enough for now?



Quote from: LasH on 16-07-2011, 01:47:30 PM
About the land: Imagine you are on 5 mana and got the wildfire on the hand to clean the bord...you draw the wildwood. Thats really sad and happend to me alot.

Coldsteele Heart is not that bad as a land. If you play a talisman you kinda loose one mana, because you can tap the talisman itself. Coldsteele Heart makes you loose 2 Mana this turn. I know its only one mana, but its magic and one mana can be crucial in certain situations. For example: You play on 4 Lands and you hold coldsteele + coalition (for whatever reason). Now you can only play out coldsteele, while with a signet or talisman you could play both. I hope this bad example shows what i experienced with this artifact.

Yeah that was a very bad example because then I would simply cast Coalition Relic first and then Coldsteel Heart afterwards :) The Wildwood situation doesn't happen very often. I have not tried it yet and I have had it many times. I understand the theory behind your story, but I really enjoy playing more coloured lands (Stirring Wildwood was changed for Volrath's Stronghold and Celestial Colonnade for City of Traitors) plus it gives a lot of defense which I didn't already have. The tiny Kird Apes have a tough time attacking my PW's once Wildwood is on the battlefield. I'm for sure going to test Fellwar Stone before Coldsteel Heart but I hoped for a mix of Pristine Talisman and Manalith but we haven't seen anything spectacular since Future Sight and Coalition Relic.



Quote from: LasH on 16-07-2011, 01:47:30 PM
Maybe. That requires testings, but i know that even in my deck with 40 artifacts i didnt want this card on my starthand. Its not a Mox diamond that ramps you in the first turns, its more like you said...a manalith for 0 which is active in turn 3 or later.

Well that's the thing. This should not be a Mox Diamond because it has no card dis-advantage build-in. You would not like to have Manalith on the starting hand either unless you sit with a Primal Command (or the likes) or the Workshop. Don't you agree? I'm thinking to keep this Mox in the back of my head for a future time where cards like Nihil Spellbomb, Relic of Progenitus, Expedition Map, Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek and Pithing Needle are more needed.

LasH

Well i still play fellware stone, because in my meta 90% run 4c goodstuff decks. There are not much monocolored builds, so i yes i would play it. Depends on the meta.

Kassow-Rossing

If you would you could join in on my research. At the moment I'm writing down my Rune-Scarred Demon results. They are as follows:

How RSD entered the battlefield -> What RSD found - Why RSD tutored for that - Did I win the game

1. Oath -> Crucible - Armageddon in hand - Win
2. Cast -> Armageddon - Board position - Win
No more results so far.

If you would we could share our results to see what is best to Demonic Tutor for. I'm going to keep on keeping track. If you do not wish to write it all down, you could also just write down what you tutored for each time only.

LasH

Quote from: Kassow-Rossing on 17-07-2011, 07:53:08 PM
If you would you could join in on my research. At the moment I'm writing down my Rune-Scarred Demon results. They are as follows:

How RSD entered the battlefield -> What RSD found - Why RSD tutored for that - Did I win the game

1. Oath -> Crucible - Armageddon in hand - Win
2. Cast -> Armageddon - Board position - Win
No more results so far.

If you would we could share our results to see what is best to Demonic Tutor for. I'm going to keep on keeping track. If you do not wish to write it all down, you could also just write down what you tutored for each time only.

Well i dont play much atm. I had him twice and he won everytime. Usually you tutor armageddon or Wildfire, depends on the bord situation, but a demonic is nearly never bad and his 6/6 body is also very good. He is by far better than grave titan in this deck and he will stay in my version.

I will add batterskull to the deck, because i still dont like wurmcoil engine and baneslayer. Futhermore i still play thopter combo and to support both, batterskull and the combo, i will add fabricate and maybe even transmute artifact again. I only wanna run creatures which have instantly an effect on the bord. Batterskull on the other hand is great lifegain and will pump all my token generators. It much harder to deal with and does not die to a simply swords or path like my wurmcoil did in about 70%.

Next point in my version is to re-check nether void. In my last 20-40 games it did do exactly nothing. I know nether void is usually closing the game after a resolved land destruction or a screwed enemy, but i think there might be better choices because you need a specific bord position to use this card properly.

I play prismatic lens now. I hope this card can help to fix mana. I'll cut exotic orchard. Its to random. Even if alot of my opponents run at least 2 colors, the games vs the monocolors or "wrong" colors are pretty bad. I wanna know exactly which mana my lands can produce at any time.

Kassow-Rossing

#14
It's funny how you should say that. For two weeks I've played this version (Edit: I'm refering to Nether Void):


Staxx Oath 4.4

The Lands:
10 Fetch Lands
10 Dual Lands
City of Brass
Glimmervoid
Tendo Ice Bridge
Reflecting Pool
Exotic Orchard
Stirring Wildwood
Flagstones of Trokair
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Rishadan Port
Wasteland
Dust Bowl
Academy Ruins
Mishra's Workshop
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
36 lands


The Creatures
Baneslayer Angel
Frost Titan
Inferno Titan
Primeval Titan
Rune-Scarred Demon
Sun Titan
Wurmcoil Engine
7 Creatures
-Rune-Scarred Demon wins almost every game he enters the battlefield.


The Planeswalkers
Ajani Vengeant
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Gideon Jura
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Tezzeret the Seeker
7 Planeswalkers
-Karn was cut for Rune-Scarred Demon because he was simply too expensive compared to what he did.


The Theme
Winter Orb
Static Orb
Rising Waters
Tangle Wire
Armageddon
Ravages of War
Wildfire
Burning of Xinye
Devastation
Crucible of Worlds
10 Theme Cards
-Since the beginning of the deck I've cut Life from the Loam, Sphere of Resistance, Smokestack and Nether Void while adding Rising Waters and Devastation. Those did not change for each other but have been added and been cut over time. Lately I've removed Smokestack because it didn't do enough if my areas where many players use a lot of stuff like Llanowar Elf, Dark Confidant, Cultivate'n stuff. Nether Void is sort of the same.


The Mana Artifacts
Grim Monolith
Worn Powerstone
Thran Dynamo
Mox Diamond
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Spectral Searchlight
Manalith
Gilded Lotus
Azorius Signet
Selesnya Signet
Orzhov Signet
Simic Signet
Awakening Zone
14 Mana Artifacts


The Draw Spells
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven
Demonic Tutor
Tainted Pact
Sensei's Divining Top
Thirst for Knowledge
Timetwister
Memory Jar
Wargate
Primal Command
10 Draw Spells


The Defense
Fire//Ice
Maelstrom Pulse
Oblivion Ring
Staggershock
Swords to Plowshares
Vindicate
Damnation
Day of Judgment
Firespout
Wrath of God
The Abyss
Humility
12 Defensive Cards


The Other Win Conditions
Oath of Druids
Bitterblossom
Bribery
Upheaval
4 Other Win Conditions


-Total 100 cards