Building a 5-color Stax for Legacy

JonPatton · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 157

I wanted to provoke some discussion about a forgotten card: Furnace Dragon

4R
6/5
Sacrifice Furnace Dragon when you control no artifacts.

Artifcat-based control in 1.5 has some problems with finding a finisher, and also doesn't do so well against Thresh and Gobbos.

Lots of people have been trying White-based Stax, and I'm not sure why. Has anyone considered being old-school and going base-red?

Among other things, Red gives you access to Cave-In, which is very good against creatures that might sneak in under a Trinisphere (and can be played just prior to dropping it), give you Blasts to beat combo and control, and I hear Goblin Tinkerer is some good.

The old Wildfire decks had Grim Monolith. Okay, we don't have it anymore, and so there's not much point in going the Wildfire route, but Trini-locking the opponent with Wasteland effects still seems pretty good to me.

I'm going to propose two lists, one of which I've tested exactly twice (once against Gobbos and once against Threshold, would have tested against Solidarity, but I had to go to bed), and found not to be very good, and another that's only been tested for a single match . . . but seems to shore up some problems. I AM NOT RECOMENDING THESE AS THEY STAND. I want to have discussion.

Red-Based Stax for 1.5
Creatures:
4 Furnace Dragon
4 Goblin Welder
2 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan

Sorceries:
3 Cave-In
2 Firebolt

Instants:
4 Fire / Ice

Artifacts:
4 Mox Diamond
4 Triniphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Mindslaver
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
3 Mountain
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Great Furnace

Before I even bothered building the sideboard, I could tell what the problem was going to be: No card drawing, no way to get things into the graveyard to recur them with the Goblin, and not enough red spells to reliably use the alternate CC on Cave in (15 Red spells maindeck; 16 is optimal for FOW, so I use that as a benchmark). Furthermore, all of the spells I'd pitch are useful on their own, and Cave-In kills my own Goblins.

That said, the deck DID do something . . . and it took a game against RW Goblins, which I expected to be a blowout against the deck. This is the game I won:
On the draw:
My hand (after Mull):
Lotus Petal, Ancient Tomb, Mountain, Firebolt, Trinisphere, City of Traitors. [This hand has no pressure, but as long as his first creature isn't Lackey, I can afford to drop the Trini first turn.]
Him: Lackey (of course)
Me: Lotus Petal, Mountain. Firebolt Lackey.
Him: Mire for Plateau, Mog War Marshall
Me: Ancient Tomb, Trinisphere
Him: Wasteland, Attack for 2. [This was a bad play. He's just put two out of 18 or so lands into the grave, and I'm playing Crucible. He also can't play any spells for another turn, and this deck isn't crippled by a wasteland or two anyway.]
Me: Lay City of Traitors, Fire/Ice the War Marshall. He gets a token.
Him: Draw, attack, and pass.
Me: Draw wasteland, use it and pass.
Him: Draw and Play Bloodstained Mire
Me: Draw (Furnace Dragon), Pass.
Him: Sac Mire EOT (This was another mistake. He should have drawn first since he still needs a third land, which he drew anyway, but still). Play Mountain. Cast Goblin Warchief. Attack for 3. [Warchief doesn't matter except for casting a Ringleader, but the haste is a problem, since most of my removal is sorcery-speed.]
Me: Draw and Play Bloodstained Mire. Sac for Basic mountain. Cast Furnace Dragon and pass.
Him: Casts Matron for a Ringleader. Passes his turn.
Me: Draw (Welder). Play Firebolt from the Grave on Warchief. Attack for 6. (13-12, me.)
Him: Attack for 2 with Matron and Token. Pass.
Me: At this point, there's no way he can race me. Even if he gets four creatures with the Ringleader when he casts it, they all cost at least three mana, and I'm holding a blocker if he gets a Piledriver. The dragon has him dead next turn. He doesn't concede, and I chose not even to play the Trisk I draw after he drops a ringleader and attacks me down to 7.

Now, I got everything I needed in this game. The second game I drew a Cave-In with no red spells, and didn't mull a hand with a Mindslaver and a Trisk because I had four lands and a Mox. I didn't play the third game of the match.

The second match was against Threshold. Threshold is a much easier matchup for two reasons:
1) They can't kill you turn four
2) They run no basics, which basically means you can go straight for the Waste-lock and ignore everything they do.

I won this match in two games, without Sideboards. He assured me he had a nice Kataki in his Sideboard, at which point I reminded him that I didn't need more than two artifacts on the board to beat him, and I wasn't using affinity's landbase. He seemed to agree with me there.

Okay, here are the problems:
1) Much of the power of this deck comes from the Wasteland lock you can get with Crucible; so you're at a severe disadvantage against two of the top three decks, Solidarity and Goblins. Mono-red Goblins is much worse than the two-color deck I faced, and that deck runs the anti-artifact machine gun in the sideboard (and loses to Moat and Worship).
2) As I said, this deck can't see any extra cards. It's too draw dependant.
3) COP: Red is actually a problem, since the deck's main beater is a 6/5 Dragon.
4) I like flexibility, and this deck simply doesn't have it. I can't deal with any enchantments, and my only options for doing so kill my whole board. My recusion is limited to a creature, and for a control deck, that's not a good proposition in Legacy.
5) Goblin Welder is WAY too fragile. There aren't many matchups I'd want to see him, and in those matchups, I'd still rather have a lock piece.

So I looked carefully at the deck and tried to decide what would improve these problems:
1) Tutors would let me run fewer of each lock piece.
2) Anything to reduce my reliance on 2-mana producing lands I would consider a good thing.
3) Crucible is good but vulnerable to Graveyard hate, counterspells, and artifact destruction. Life from the Loam has the same effect. I'm not considering dropping the Crucibles, but I think some combination of the two is the way to go.
4) If I'm using Life, then I might as well look at other dredge cards . . . Darkblast is repeated removal, something this deck wants (see Firebolt?), but even better, wants at instant speed.
5) Furnace Dragon is good, but without a lock down, he's vulnerable. I think four is too many.

I figured I was looking at more than just a single color, and I've always had a softspot for five-color decks
For each category, I made a list of each card that I thought fulfilled my needs:
1) Enlightened Tutor would give me a way to fetch what I want, but I didn't want to settle for the obvious answer. Trinket Mage gives me a creature and searches for some of the more interesting artifacts, but my best pieces are three casting cost. Intuition intrigues me most of all, since it can fetch a Life from the Loam and two utility lands, or it can fetch three artifacts, put two in the grave to come back with my Goblin, and I can rely on gobs of mana to cast the third. However, I decided to settle on a combination of the two. I also considered a single Crop Rotation, a la Five-color Stax in Type 1, but in the end, saving a land from a Wasteland was the only thing it gained over an extra Intuition.

2) I can't see this happening. The deck wants to cast a three-casting cost spell by turn two at the latest. First turn Trinispheres are insanely powerful. More moxen are not a viable option, and lotus petals aren't very good either. However, I do feel that the deck has enough early game to drop to 4 of them.

3) Life from the Loam feeds itself, and in the end I decided that it was simply better than Crucible. So Crucible has gone down to a 1-of, and Life is now three copies. This lowers my mana curve as well.

4) Darkblast warrented a single spot in the deck. It can be fetched with an Intuition, and there are other, just-as-good removal spells that I'm going to want to play as well. Firebolt looks like it warrents a spot, but Swords to Plowshares is just plain best.

5) I've decided to cut back on the number of win conditions in general; and they are can also be also land-based. But since I really liked how big the Flying Monster is, he's getting a spot in the deck. He's also quite easy to cast, and the draw-back is negligable. Removing the Welders feels like I'm destroying the "Stax" aspect of the deck, but he dies to every form of removal in the game -- and everyone plays removal in Legacy. Even Stompy.

Here's what I ended up with:

Instants:
4 Intuition
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Darkblast
4 Thirst for Knowledge
(13)

Sorceries:
3 Life from the Loam
(3)

Creatures
3 Furnace Dragon
(3)

Artifacts:
4 Triniphere
3 Smokestack
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
(1 Cool

Lands:
4 City of Traitors
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Volcanic Island
1 Savannah
3 Wasteland
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Lonely Sandbar
2 Academy Ruins
1 Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Quicksand
(24)

Sideboard:
4 Duress
3 Pithing Needle
2 Sphere of Resistence
3 Masticore
3 Armageddon

Notes:
Increasing the land count reduced my dependance on the 2-mana lands, and also increased the effectiveness of Mox Diamond. Discarding a land to the diamond and getting it back with Life started the dredging on the first turn. The deck is now almost 50% mana.

Academy Ruins took the place of the Welder Recursion.

Smokestack should have been in this deck in the first place.

The Sideboard is not very flexible, but it does have another threat, Duresses for the agro control match (note that I think that's this deck's hardest matchup), and Sphere, Duress, and Armageddon go a long way toward proactively beating combo. Pithing Needle is mainly there to neuter Togs and fetch lands.

I played one match against Goblins. The deck beat them soundly two games in a row. The first game, I never saw a Triniphere, but a second-turn Intuition for a Life From the Loam, Quicksand, and a Forgotten Cave kept the Goblins from attacking me long enough to find a Smokestack. With the prospect of losing two creatures a turn if he attacked, and knowing that he couldn't keep up with the stack if he didn't, he conceded. The second game, Masticore showed up on the second turn. My opponent was never really in these games at all.

This list needs more testing -- I'm not sure I like the mana base, and may opt for more of a fetch-land base, but I like that I didn't get mana screwed once. Glimmervoid is worth consideration, but more likely than not, even with 18 artifacts, its drawback will be a liability. But even with some glaring holes, it performed admirably against a deck that generally beats other Stax Builds I've tried. It still has the usual cards that are good against Threshold, and the flexability of a 5-color base gives it options should more problematic matchups come to my attention. What does everyone think?

CoolinDenial · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 204

wrong dragon buddy your thinking of Covetous Dragon.

this is Furnace Dragon

| 6RRR | Creature - Dragon | 5/5 | Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to play for each artifact you control.) Flying When Furnace Dragon comes into play, if you played it from your hand, remove all artifacts from the game. | DS

GRAH · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 599

The thing is that in Legacy, playing all five colors isn't necessary. It's not like Vintage where you have a ton of singles of broken cards in each color. There's no Recall and no Balance. Green is totally unnecessary, and white is only good by itself.

JonPatton · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 157

Thanks, CoolinDenial. It was right in the file but not when I typed up the decklist.

GRAH: That may be true, but Life from the Loam is the best control toy in Legacy right now. Control decks roll to wastelands + Goblins, and Life helps that by making sure you won't get land screwed. Also, the utility lands in Legacy are very powerful. There's a reason most of the top decks run the engine.

Also, the white in the deck is for Swords to Plowshares, which is the best removal spell in Legacy. There really isn't a reasonable substitution.

Most control decks are running 3 colors anyway, and using fetchlands to fix their mana. Red is the color least necessary to this deck, but it was the only color in which I could find a large enough threat that cost a single color mana and didn't cost more that 5.

In other words, I fail to see what harm running five colors is, if I'd be running the same number of colored lands with fewer colors. (Consider that Fairy Stompy runs about the same number of colored lands . . . and needs double blue). You're welcome to disagree, of course.

GRAH · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 599

Except Crucible of Worlds serves the same purpose as Loam without tapping your mana, dredging you, and without color.

STP is not worth playing white and hurting your mana base, if you're not committing to white. There are more ways around Goblins than that, like Quicksand.

I would recommend cutting down to a mono-colored build, or go RW, where you can play something like Powerstone Minefield. Stuff like Intuition and TFK are only good when in combination with Welder, which you don't play.

JonPatton · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 157

I realize that we can go back and forth on this forever, but I'd still like more thoughts.

Basically, one of my problems is I sound like I'm arguing to play good cards, and not play a good deck. It's true, all the colored cards in this deck are just colors, but the deck does have synergy among most of its elements. Dredging + Crucible, Ruins, and Loam itself is a self-feeding strategy. I also think maybe this is being evaluated as a more traditional Stax build, when it ended up being a hybrid.

STP is NOT for Gobblins. Spot removal doesn't beat them (although recurring spot removal does). I'm more worried about 4/4s for 1G and Togs and Reanimated Akromas on the second turn.

Regarding Loam, Dredging oneself is a BENEFIT when you are playing lots of cards out of the grave. If a lot of your cards are utility lands, the more you dredge, the options you have. Loam also protects itself. And it's also another colored spell that the deck plays in multiples, which means you can afford to pitch the copy you just dredged to a freshly-drawn Chrome Mox if you need more mana and don't have a TFK to pitch it to.

I agree TFK isn't spectacular in here. But Intuition is insane. I'm actually not sure why T1 Stax / Slaver builds don't play it over Thirst. It's still blue and it gets exactly what you want in the grave. Blue is by far the bext color in this deck. They'd be brainstorm in almost any other deck, because you could play the fetchland engine and reliably have 1 Blue on turn 1 (where as here you may have 3 colorless or a Savanah or whatever was pitched to the single Chrome Mox). But then, this deck doesn't need to put a Robot in the yard to win. That's a strong play, no doubt, and maybe someone wants to build a

The cards and interactions I'm least happy with right now are:

Triniphere, which I can't cut, but sometimes having to spend three mana on my LFTL bugs me. I like, however, that I can lock out all spells that cost 3 or less with the Chalices to make sure a Dragon goes uncontested.

Chalice is suboptimal as a proactive strategy. I've had to rethink how I use it -- I'm used to using it in vintage where you start at 0, but here, you want to start it at one, but only AFTER you've exausted your one-mana spells. Setting it at 2 is still an option if you drop the Crucible in the grave and can get a Ruins into play.

Monastery, Tabernacle, and the Savannah may become Mishra's Factories. This requires a lot of testing, but I've always had a colored mana source when I needed it. The reason it requires testing, however, is that I'm concerned about those times when I want to use the Savannah to cast Life and a mox or the other dual to cycle a land. Tabernacle is only really spectacular when you Armageddon first, and it doesn't produce mana, which meant it was getting pitched to Mox all the time. Monastery is proving to be very mana intensive, and since I'm not playing counters, I've found that I have to leave a wasteland out to make sure it doesn't get swordsed. Having at least 3 factories would increase my threat number to 6, which means that I don't auto-lose to four Swords to Plowshares when I don't have a lock down.

This deck could probably afford to lose one Ruins for the fourth Factory, but I'm not sure I like that I'd always have to Intuition for it. More testing will tell.

The deck's performing okay. It's certainly not going to break the format (Tog, for one, seemed impossible pre-board). Fairy Stompy is also not a pretty sight when they go first. Trinisphere does nothing against them. On apprentice, that's not good, because it's such a popular deck. However, Zoo and Terrageddon are excellent matchups. Basically, this is a good deck to play in an environment with lots of muli-colored aggro. I haven't played another matchup against Solidarity, and I need to do that.

For anyone interested, however, you can go straight UR, drop the 3 STP and the Darkblast for 4 Welders, 3 Life from the Loam for 1 7/10, 1 Pentabus, and a Trike, 1 Chrome Mox and 1 Top for 2 Crucibles, 1 Trinisphere for a Mindslaver, and drop the Cycling lands, the Monastery, and