From now on until Friday, I will try to introduce a deck a day which I consider viable to be played on HL GP 7 on Saturday.
A friend of mine decided to play UW Control on that GP, but in the last few test games the deck didn’t perform all too well. Especially the matchup vs. Stax didn’t look very promising. But how could the deck be improved?
After some thinking, it came to my mind that UW Control could probably best be played as UW Stax Control. This is my draft of such a deck:
UW Stax Control 1.0
So why should this deck be better than pure UW Control?
First of all, it obviously has a better matchup versus other Stax variants since it incorporates alot of artifact mana, which should render the opposing stax’ landdestruction mostly useless. The matchup should in theory even be positive since instead of alot of mass land destruction this deck has quite some countermagic. This should – in comparison to 4c or 5c-stax-builds also improve the matchup versus control.
With alot of early protection (StoP, PtE, Oblivion Ring, Ghostly Prison, Propraganda, Wall of Omens) and 4cc-massremoval (WoG, DoJ) the deck should also be capable of constantly beating aggro decks like the ever-annoying zoo decks.
Alongside these things, the deck runs the best planeswalkers available: 2x Jace, Elspeth, Gideon, Tezzeret. It also runs two combos: Mindslaver Recursion is possible via Academy Ruins, and the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo is also included.
Apart from that, we need solutions. We have solutions for about anything that could cross our way: Pithing Needle, Faith’s Fetters, Treachery. Tormod’s Crypt and Phyrexian Furnace add to the solution mix vs. graveyard action, we also have Timetwister here.
Now, so much for this deck. If you have any suggestions as to what you’d like to read about the decks published here, drop me a line in the comments. Also improvement suggestions for the deck itself are warmly welcome.
Card Choices:
Salt Flats??? is this the Black Mana for the Demonic Tutor
Yeah, you got it!
The mistake has just been corrected. Obv it’s Marsh Flats that should be in there.
I´m a little confused, I see only Lands in your Decklist.
So i can only imagine from your comment what your deck will look like and i have to say that LD is what makes Staxx good.
IMO the Cards you mention to be good against Aggro (Propaganda, Ghostly Prison)
are best when your Opponent can`t pay the cost anymore.
Also a midgame smokestack isn`t so useful anymore when your opponent already hast some threats on the Board and 4+ lands.
Plainswalkers are always nice, especially against control but aggro Decks have many answers against them. A deck that relies on plainswalkers and more or less random occuring combos to win against aggro will probably fail more often then you might think. Again i don`t see your Decklist, so maybe I´m judging you wrong. I´m looking forward to see the full list, so i can try the deck myself.
ah i `m dumb
i have to click on creatures to see them lol
shame on me
I’m definitely missing Vedalken Shackles and Back to Basics in the list.
I don’t think Back to Basics is an option in this deck. The deck pulls a relevant part of its power from non-basic-lands such as Academy Ruins, Mishra’s Workshop, Library of Alexandria, Dust Bowl…
Vedalken Shackles is an idea worth trying!
Of course, there are more good nonbasic lands in the deck, which could be rendered useless by own BtB. However, I think that in some matchups is the BtB a straightforward GG and would rather include it, even at the cost of being a dead card sometimes. Besides, the deck has quite enough means to draw and filter cards, so I think there is place for one silver bullet either.
where is the next deck?
I will try to post two decks today.
i can only aggre to what topas said: shackles + b2b are missing. there will be way more games where b2b is autowin than you will lose due to it!
I would either play UW(x) Control or 4-5C Staxx. I do not see the usefulness of a hybrid deck. Do you fear BtB? Not having access to Wildfire , Ajani & Co. in a Staxx deck would not make sense otherwise.
The challenge with an UW(x) deck is to have a build which fits to the metagame. You can certainly build versions which either beats aggro or Combo/Control, doing both is always very difficult because UW always tend to react to the opponent plays.
Why is there a Demonic Tutor in the Decklist? I do not get it.
I´m a little confused, I see only Lands in your Decklist.
So i can only imagine from your comment what your deck will look like and i have to say that LD is what makes Staxx good.
IMO the Cards you mention to be good against Aggro (Propaganda, Ghostly Prison)
are best when your Opponent can`t pay the cost anymore.
Also a midgame smokestack isn`t so useful anymore when your opponent already hast some threats on the Board and 4+ lands.
Plainswalkers are always nice, especially against control but aggro Decks have many answers against them. A deck that relies on plainswalkers and more or less random occuring combos to win against aggro will probably fail more often then you might think. Again i don`t see your Decklist, so maybe I´m judging you wrong. I´m looking forward to see the full list, so i can try the deck myself.