Competitive Red-Green Stax or, The Great Radhaggro - Staxing Her Mana-maker For Conquest!
This is a competitive (that's CEDH) agro-stax deck. Because it's competitive, that means everyone is trying to combo by turn 3 or 4. This deck can win on turn 5. That means we have to play stax stuff on turn 2 to slow down the people trying to win on turn 3, so that the game lasts long enough for us to win on turn 5. Got it? Good.
Why Radha? Why Stax?
The Competitive EDH (CEDH) scene is mostly dominated by fast combo decks, with a sprinkling of slightly less-fast combo decks. In broad generalizations, fast combo decks are trying to assemble a 2-card combo that ends the game by turn 3 or 4, or maybe 5 with some protection and interaction. That's well and good, but aren't there other archetypes? What if I want to play a different style of deck? Will we just get run over by combo decks as we try to do something cute and interesting that takes more than 3 or 4 turns to develop?
That's where Stax comes in. Stax means playing cards that slow everyone down, but that generally slow down your opponents more than they slow down yourself. "Stax" as an archetype gets its name from the the first stax deck, which was "The 4 thousand dollar solution" (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/5273_T4KS_The_Four_Thousand_Dollar_Solution_To_The_Type_One_Metagame.html) or "T4k$s" which is basically an anagram for "STAKS", and featured the card
Smokestack
. Modern stax decks don't typically use
Smokestack
and are more likely to run cards like
Sphere of Resistance
,
Trinisphere
,
Null Rod
,
Rule of Law
,
Gaddock Teeg
,
Aven Mindcensor
,
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
, and
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
. The problem with these cards is, a lot of them are white! Can we play them? No, but that's what makes this deck interesting! We're using cards nobody's ever used before in Competitive EDH. And the cool thing is, it works!
Why Not Play Blood Pod ?
There's basically one successful stax deck in CEDH now, it's called "Blood Pod" (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tana-and-tymna-blood-pod-primer/) and it runs
Tymna the Weaver
and
Tana, the Bloodsower
as the generals. It gets its name from the two standout cards it features:
Birthing Pod
and
Blood Moon
, the first one it uses to set up
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
and
Felidar Guardian
to win the game, while the second card is a stax piece that attacks multicolored decks and punishes them for not playing basic lands. It also plays a bunch of other stax pieces like thalia, guardian of thraban,
Aven Mindcensor
,
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
,
Trinisphere
, and
Rule of Law
. The idea is to hose mana production, make it hard for people to assemble a combo with
Rule of Law
and
Eidolon of Rhetoric
effects, and then draw cards using
Tymna the Weaver
until you can assemble your own combo and win.
Playing
Grand Warlord Radha
has some important benefits over Blood Pod. First, we're two colors. So we can run
Blood Moon
and
Magus of the Moon
and not get hosed. We have plenty of basic lands. The Blood Pod deck has 3 or 4 basics, but also has almost no red cards, so the Moon effects actually hurt it very badly. And of course,
Grand Warlord Radha
's ability also fixes mana by producing either Red or Green. Second, we can run all the spheres. Our general makes mana so we aren't particularly hurt by
Sphere of Resistance
,
Thorn of Amethyst
,
Lodestone Golem
or
Damping Sphere
, which is great since these are some of the best stax effects we have. These come down early and make it very hard for opponents to do much. Third, we can run better finishers. We make mana with the general and can easily support super-effective cards like
Void Winnower
,
Emrakul, the Promised End
,
Ezuri's Predation
,
Genesis Wave
, and
Tooth and Nail
.
However, Blood Pod does get some better hate cards, like
Aven Mindcensor
and
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
. These are strong. We can run
Stranglehold
as an analog of
Aven Mindcensor
, but the best we have to stop other creatures, particularly mana-producing creatures, is
Goblin Chainwhirler
. A one-sided wrath like
Ezuri's Predation
is also awesome, but doesn't come down early enough to really act like a stax piece. Instead of the
Rule of Law
effects Blood Pod runs, we can play the spheres -
Damping Sphere
,
Sphere of Resistance
,
Lodestone Golem
, which by taxing each spell make it difficult to play multiple spells in a turn, and thus accomplishes sort of the same effect. However, these spheres are better in a lot of cases, since it's harder to maneuver around them since each card-filtering or card-tutoring spell is also taxed. It's also easier for us to just play around them - we produce extra mana and so we can afford to pay a few more for our spells.
Blood Pod also runs
Tymna the Weaver
, so it has built-in card advantage. We run
Grand Warlord Radha
, which makes mana, instead of drawing cards. So we trade card advantage for mana advantage. This can be a weakness. We have to include some cards that draw cards ourselves, like
Mask of Memory
,
Duskwatch Recruiter
,
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
, or
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
. These cards aren't great, and we're not guaranteed to have them in every game. It is possible to reach a point in a game where we've played our hand and we don't have many cards coming in. This isn't necessarily a losing position, since our cards are so powerful, we can frequently win despite drawing fewer cards than our opponents. However, it does feel crappy. I like drawing cards!
To summarize: Blood Pod is a good deck. We actually break parity on the stax effects better than Blood Pod does. However, we don't have card draw in the command zone. But we do get to play bigger finishers. It's a choice, and both decks are good, but I think Radha is more fun, and just about as effective. But at least you have a choice now. There's not just one stax deck in CEDH anymore!
The Plan: Stax, Mana, Attack.
Step 1: Stax. The main plan is to slow down people trying win quickly by using some kind of stax effect. This can be a
Sphere of Resistance
or a
Harsh Mentor
, but hopefully something that costs 2 or 3 CMC so we can cast it on turn 2 (and we have 3 mana turn 2 off a turn 1 mana elf, frequently). There's a number of good creatures that also have some kind of stax effect, like
Scab-Clan Berserker
,
Burning-Tree Shaman
,
Eidolon of the Great Revel
,
Magus of the Moon
,
Manglehorn
,
Lodestone Golem
, and
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
. These are excellent since they simultaneously slow opponents down, while attacking and dealing damage, making them less able to take 2 damage from incidental hatebears (like
Harsh Mentor
) and they make mana as they attack when Radha is out.
Step 2: Mana. We then put creatures on the board, and use them with our general to generate large amounts of mana. We can then cast something expensive and cool! And you know, game-ending. Either we can get something big and disruptive down like
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
or
Void Winnower
, or something huge and game-winning like
Emrakul, the Promised End
, a giant
Genesis Wave
, or entwined
Tooth and Nail
.
Step 3: Attack for the Win. We win with combat, and that include combos:
Aggravated Assault
+ 5 creatures with reasonable attacks -> infinite combats. We were running
Hellkite Charger
, which does the same with 7 creatures, but it's pretty hard to set up. People see it coming and kill the dragon, or you don't have 7 creatures that have good attacks, or your opponents have blockers. Also the total cost is way more: 6 to cast Charger + 7 to activate = 13, which is lot and not generally possible in a single turn; whereas casting
Aggravated Assault
is 3, and 5 to activate is much less, it's easier to do all that in a single turn. The second infinite combat combo is
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+
Combat Celebrant
-> infinite combats. This can be set up off
Defense of the Heart
or
Tooth and Nail
with entwine, but 9 mana for entwine is sort of unlikely to go off before we gain the extra mana from the combat step and Radha's ability. Typically you play one of the creatures main phase 2 and then the other one on your next turn.
We can also win with overrun off
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
, which can use up the mana from the
Grand Warlord Radha
attack trigger to overrun multiple times in a turn; although that’s also usually a two-turn plan since he costs 6. And most awesomely, we can use the mana generated by Radha to cast a mid-combat
Chord of Calling
for x=8 and get
Craterhoof Behemoth
.
In-Depth Stax Analysis
This stax deck comes with a clock, since we're putting out damage at a pretty good rate and eventually we do something like overrun, assemble infinite attacks, or cast a huge disruptive fatty. So the stax plan doesn't have to prevent our opponents from ever doing anything, it just has to prevent them from winning. And, since this is CEDH, that means it has to stop them from assembling an infinite combo. So it's fine to use stuff like
Harsh Mentor
and
Damping Sphere
that don't really hinder play particularly much, but which make it really hard to execute a game-winning combo. We'll kill them before they answer all the stax pieces.
Spheres :
Sphere of Resistance
,
Trinisphere
, and
Damping Sphere
stop a lot of combos.
Thorn of Amethyst
does less work, but it also does the least damage to our own spells, so it's ok. These also slow development a ton if you can land them early.
Lodestone Golem
is one of the best spheres, even though it looks like it would hurt us with our low artifact count. It actually doesn't since it also attacks to make a mana using Radha's ability, and being a 5/3 it can almost always attack into someone profitably.
Activated Effects :
Harsh Mentor
and
Burning-Tree Shaman
are amazing. They stop these combos: 1) drawing infinite cards with
Thrasios, Triton Hero
, 2) making infinite mana with
Dramatic Reversal
and
Isochron Scepter
, 3) making infinite beaters with
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
, 4) milling your deck with the Breakfast Hulk combo (
Nomads en-Kor
and
Cephalid Illusionist
), 5) making infinite mana with
The Chain Veil
and
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
, 6) making infinite mana with
Auriok Salvagers
and
Lion's Eye Diamond
, and 7) dredging your deck with a discard outlet +
Dakmor Salvage
and
The Gitrog Monster
. It also hoses less-played combos like
Arcum Dagsson
and
Power Artifact
-
Grim Monolith
. Then it does incidental damage to
Razaketh, the Foulblooded
combos and
Viscera Seer
death combos. It also just does random damage for things, like people using fetch lands or
Necropotence
. The only common win conditions unaffected by these two guys are
Food Chain
and
Laboratory Maniac
, although second-tier wins like
Captain Sisay
and
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
basically get around them, too.
Moons :
Magus of the Moon
and
Blood Moon
stop a lot of decks. A lot of CEDH decks are four colors since they run
Thrasios, Triton Hero
and
Tymna the Weaver
, and these decks won't have more than 2 basics. These Moons are awesome.
Spell-Cast Hate :
Eidolon of the Great Revel
and
Scab-Clan Berserker
are sort of like extra
Thorn of Amethyst
s, since they punish people for casting a lot of cheap spells. These are great in some matchups - like against actual storm decks - and less good in others. Note they both stop
Isochron Scepter
combos, which is probably the most common combo used in CEDH today.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
is their big daddy, he stops a LOT of stuff since the 6 life is pretty significant. Usually he's one of the first tutor targets.
Artifact Hate :
Null Rod
stops artifacts hard,
Manglehorn
less so.
Manglehorn
looks really good if your opponents ever play a
Mana Vault
into it.
Gorilla Shaman
is also good, but he's mostly just to destroy cheap mana artifacts. Depending on your meta you might need more, like
Reclamation Sage
,
Artifact Mutation
,
Release the Gremlins
,
Decimate
, or even
Vandalblast
. There's a tremendous number of anti-artifact cards in red and green, but I think these are the best of them.
Anti-Counterspell Tech :
Xantid Swarm
is great; so are
Vexing Shusher
,
Prowling Serpopard
, and
Pyroblast
, although I'm not sure how much of that I can fit in the deck. Spheres like
Thorn of Amethyst
also make counterspells harder to use. And
Possibility Storm
makes them almost impossible to use.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
is a low-investment card that can make
Genesis Wave
and
Tooth and Nail
uncounterable (and, let's face it,
Ezuri's Predation
is always going to get countered, even if someone is basically going to win on-board if it doesn't resolve), but it's a pretty weak land.
Stranglehold :
Stranglehold
gets its own section. It's a great effect that stops fetch lands, and also a lot of combos, like boonweaver, razaketh, tazri
Food Chain
, and
Doomsday
. It also makes it difficult to set up a combo since the pieces can't be tutored. And it makes it hard to tutor for a board wipe. The second clause is a cute combo with
Emrakul, the Promised End
, since the targeted opponent will not be able to take an extra turn!
Possibility Storm :
Possibility Storm
also gets its own section, since this card is insane. First of all, it makes it hard to assemble a combo or develop a boardstate since it makes spell casting random. Then, it interacts with most of our deck. If there's a
Sphere of Resistance
in play, that applies to the first spell, and to the second, random spell that's cast off
Possibility Storm
. The same goes for
Eidolon of the Great Revel
or
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
, which will deal 4 or 12 damage for a single spell to resolve.
Trinisphere
is going to make the minimum cost of a spell six mana since the free spell will cost 3 also.
Void Winnower
is going to stop the first and/or the second spell from being cast if either of them are even-CMC. We have several ways to actually play around
Possibility Storm
by casting spells not-from-our-hand, like
Prophetic Flamespeaker
,
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
, and
Spinerock Knoll
. Also the top-deck manipulation from
Mirri's Guile
and
Sylvan Library
allow you to know what you're going to cascade into.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
will trigger twice, allowing us to draw two cards per creature cast. And finally, we usually don't care what we get off the
Possibility Storm
. It's cool to cast an
Arbor Elf
and watch it turn into a giant eldrazi!
Other Stax:
Phyrexian Revoker
is ok if you're opponents are going to play a general with an activated ability like selvala, heart of the wild,
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
,
Captain Sisay
, or even
Thrasios, Triton Hero
, although that's usually not an effective name. Remember it stops mana abilities so you could name
Sol Ring
if 2 of your opponents happen to have them early. Also stops
Food Chain
.
Omen Machine
costs 6, but it stops both
Tymna the Weaver
and
Thrasios, Triton Hero
, which is something very few cards can do. Also it stops dredge so it's one of the only ways of shutting out
The Gitrog Monster
completely. Usually we're behind on card advantage so playing this hurts other people more than us. If it turns wheels into mass discard, that's great! Also makes it impossible to put counterspells into your hand. Doesn't stop
Necropotence
and
Ad Nauseam
.
Tangle Wire
was ultimately cut since it doesn't synergize with very much of the deck, and the deck no longer produces a lot of random tokens that were free taps for this.
Willow Satyr
is a pretty funny answer to a lot of general-based decks. I'm going to try bringing it in against Zur, Yisan, Gitrog, Sisay, etc.
Scavenging Ooze
is pretty key against graveyard strategies. It's possible to bring in other stuff like
Tormod's Crypt
or
Relic of Progenitus
if your meta demands it. I wouldn't do
Grafdigger's Cage
unless you really need it since it shuts off
Natural Order
and
Chord of Calling
.
Answers
We do need a certain number of answers for things, although these are hard to slot into the deck since we would much rather have proactive stax pieces that prevent our opponents from doing things we need answer. I wish I had more room for answers, but I don't think it really fits in the deck.
Nature's Claim
is great. So is stuff like
Decimate
,
Bane of Progress
,
Terastodon
,
Natural State
,
Noxious Revival
,
Red Elemental Blast
,
Mizzium Mortars
, etc.
Goblin Chainwhirler
is cute against other elf-based decks, and
Ezuri's Predation
just wins if it resolves. Depending on your meta you might want to run more anti-artifact stuff, of which there are plenty. You can pick from
Vandalblast
,
Gorilla Shaman
,
Release the Gremlins
,
Caustic Wasps
,
Artifact Mutation
in addition to the (basically uncuttable)
Null Rod
,
Nature's Claim
and
Manglehorn
. Another question is how much anti-counterspells you might want in your meta.
Xantid Swarm
is very good, but mostly cause its a 1-cmc flier that attacks to produce a mana.
Vexing Shusher
is ok but we'd need to hold up mana.
Prowling Serpopard
is ok too, but won't protect our
Genesis Wave
or our
Tooth and Nail
.
Pyroblast
is also a reasonable include.
Ramp
We want as much 0-CMC and 1-CMC ramp as we can get. Although I'm not real excited about the card disadvantage of
Chrome Mox
, since it takes one of our good spells. I also don't like one-shot stuff like
Elvish Spirit Guide
or
Lotus Petal
. I'm not sure if we want
Orcish Lumberjack
, since there aren't that many forests, and killing lands isn't great for our end game: he becomes a little too conditional for ramp. Also not sure what place 2-CMC ramp guys really have here: stuff like
Priest of Titania
,
Joraga Treespeaker
, and
Radha, Heir to Keld
. Three mana ramp like
Elvish Archdruid
is probably useless.
Big Mana Finishers
One of the main ideas here is to slow people down, then ramp into something huge, which ends this game. Ending the game is better than trying to assemble a weak stax lock (something like
Null Rod
+
Living Plane
+
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
). Green/Red has great finishers:
Tooth and Nail
,
Craterhoof Behemoth
,
Chord of Calling
,
Genesis Wave
,
Tendershoot Dryad
,
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
,
Knollspine Dragon
,
Hellkite Charger
,
Void Winnower
and
Emrakul, the Promised End
. I think the best is Emrakul (by far), it usually costs about 9 mana, it's ability is uncounterable, and it usually 1) wins the game, 2) kills a player, or 3) almost wins the game if only I had a better working knowledge of my opponents' decks. I've cut
Tendershoot Dryad
since it doesn't do enough. I've cut
Knollspine Dragon
since it was too conditional. And I've cut
Hellkite Charger
since it was too easy to answer and the requirement of having 7 creatures with good attacks required a lot of set up. I sort of wish we could fit more of these big finishers, like
Etali, Primal Storm
,
Chancellor of the Forge
,
Bane of Progress
,
Inferno Titan
, but... there can't be too many of these.
I think these finishers have to be a little disruptive in addition to being a big board presence. This makes
Void Winnower
and
Emrakul, the Promised End
good since as soon as they're cast they do something to restrict our opponents' options. And
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
probably fits this category - he's easy to tutor for and easy to cast, and certainly hastens the end of the game.
Mostly our big spells have to be cast in main phase 2, since that's when we get all the extra mana from Radha.
Tooth and Nail
in main phase two is a pretty common play and I think the best pair is probably
Void Winnower
+
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
, which are two disruptive giant threats.
Card Draw
We have to keep the juices flowing since it's easy to play out your whole hand of ramp and then topdeck a few lands and just lose. There's some good ones, like
Sylvan Library
and
Mirri's Guile
, but after that most of them are conditional :
Knollspine Dragon
and
Shamanic Revelation
require having a big boardstate already,
Genesis Wave
requires a ton of mana.
Slate of Ancestry
is slow and requires a boardstate.
Skullclamp
is slow and requires tokens or extra mana dorks.
Faithless Looting
is tempo-negative,
Regal Force
is too conditional,
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
and
Prophetic Flamespeaker
require attacks.
Spinerock Knoll
is slow and conditional,
Etali, Primal Storm
doesn't have haste.
Smuggler's Copter
doesn't provide actual card advantage.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
is slow, but also the scry-1 is just awesome.
Fecundity
might be worth trying but gets worse with fewer token-makers.
Wheel of Fortune
is probably only good on turn 1 or turn 2, and is actively bad since it draws your opponents a ton of cards. They always find something to answer you.
Lurking Predators
costs 6.
Mask of Memory
requires at least one good attacker, but usually works with Radha.
Arch of Orazca
is really slow and basically only good if the board is all staxed down.
Duskwatch Recruiter
is slow and only gets creatures.
Runic Armasaur
might also be ok if you play against Thrasios a lot.
So far, I think these are good:
Genesis Wave
, since it's massive.
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
draws a lot of cards and can also be disruptive.
Smuggler's Copter
since it basically gives each elf haste, and lets the 1/1's get in for 3, and also just loots away extra lands.
Lurking Predators
is pretty good, and has a strong chance to stop people when they go off. It also protects against boardwipes since people cast a lot of spells to rebuild after the board wipe.
Spinerock Knoll
is fine for such a low opportunity cost, so is
Arch of Orazca
.
Faithless Looting
can help mold hands that are close to good, and would have to mulligan without it. Then the flashback gets rid of extra land later.
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
is the green
Search for Azcanta
- it does two different things, and the scry-1 is really strong with stuff like
Mirri's Guile
and
Sylvan Library
. It's also not shut off by any of our stax.
Prophetic Flamespeaker
is probably ok; it's hurt by not having haste. And
Duskwatch Recruiter
is really slow; only good if you have a bunch of mana and stax going on.
Tutors
There's a lot of fine tutors in green, which get creatures.
Tooth and Nail
and
Defense of the Heart
are particularly good since they get two creatures, which can set up our combo:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
and
Combat Celebrant
.
Fierce Empath
is good since it gets
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
, and then can attack which can make a mana.
Natural Order
also gets Ruric Thar, which is one of the first things we'd like to get into play.
Worldly Tutor
is super versatile.
Survival of the Fittest
is also great; ideally you can get whatever hate bear is best, or set up
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
and
Combat Celebrant
.
Chord of Calling
is best if you can do it during the attack step to put
Craterhoof Behemoth
into play.
I don't like
Green Sun's Zenith
since the targets are so limited, and it makes you play
Dryad Arbor
which, if you ever draw it in your opening 7, is a mulligan. After you cut
Dryad Arbor
, GSZ just seems like a worse
Natural Order
, so that goes in over GSZ.
Things Not to Do
Token Making
It's tempting to try and make tokens with
Grand Warlord Radha
. The tokens can attack and each generate a mana! But, most token cards aren't very good. They just put out some 1/1's and don't stop our opponents from executing a combo. And opponents usually have something in play to block with, so making tokens is a bit like a
Pyretic Ritual
- one shot mana boost and then it's gone. I think the best token makers are these.
Spawnwrithe
is insane. I think I've literally not lost when I've connected with this guy. goblin rabble master is decent since it makes a token with haste so it also produces a mana with Radha the turn you cast it. I'm not sure if
Tempt with Vengeance
or
Tilonalli's Summoner
are worth it.
Tendershoot Dryad
has also been pretty ok, but more as a "big mana finisher". Token makers that are really cheap are nice if they come down before Radha, like
Dwynen's Elite
, but there aren't many of these that are really worth playing. I would chose maybe 1 or 2 or 3 of these token makers at most. I found
Hanweir Garrison
to generally be too slow, since it doesn't have haste and doesn't make tokens that attack for mana until TWO turns after it's in play.
Mostly I just play
Spawnwrithe
now; it's really just so strong if you can get it in early.
Haste
I don't think anything that just grants haste is worth a card.
Hanweir Battlements
is too expensive and takes a land slot from something like
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
or
Spinerock Knoll
;
Anger
is too hard to get into the graveyard;
Hall of the Bandit Lord
ETB's tapped and costs too much life. Maybe something like
Urabrask the Hidden
or
Fires of Yavimaya
would be ok, but, they also seem bad, and not worth a whole card.
Sarkhan Vol
might be ok if your meta will give you a lot of value out of the -2 ability.
Land Destruction
Do we care about running LD like
Boom / Bust
,
Winter Orb
, or
Impending Disaster
? Again, I don't think so since it's so conditional, and it takes us off of our "Big Finishers" plan. Also then it makes us really general-dependent, for making mana after our land is wiped, and then we could easily lose to removal on Radha or a board wipe. LD can be really good, but I think it's probably too situational: only good if your opponents don't have mana rocks or mana elves, or you already have hate down like
Null Rod
; and you have a lot of creatures in play, and they can attack, and you have Radha; and you don't need your land to cast anything big; and your opponents have no way to interact with your board. That's literally 6 conditions that have to be true before a mass land destruction card is worth it. Just ask yourself, would you rather cast
Emrakul, the Promised End
, or cycle
Decree of Annihilation
? One of these cards is good in a lot more situations than the other one.
Go-Wide Strategies
This sort of goes with the "Token Makers" bit, but I don't think cards that rely on having a lot of creatures in play are worth it. These include
Shamanic Revelation
, which requires a big board state.
Triumph of the Hordes
is also like this; it will usually kill 1 person with even just a couple elves, a stax bear, and Radha. But to end the game it requires a lot more than that. I also sort of include
Garruk Wildspeaker
and
Xenagos, the Reveler
in this category. They both make tokens, and then they have a payoff for having a lot of creatures in play: garruk
Overrun
s, and xenagos gives you a
Gaea's Cradle
worth of mana. But Garruk doesn't make a token while ticking up to the overrun. And Xenagos doesn't give you anything to use that mana on. These were both good cards in the deck, but I ultimately decided I didn't have room for two more cards that 1) didn't affect the opponent and 2) didn't provide card advantage. I have considered
Chandra Ablaze
as a decent card-advantage planeswalker, since her -2
Mind Twist
s everyone and also draws you up to 3 cards. The forcible discard is pretty good, since when opponents are faced with a lot of stax pieces, they spend their turns sculpting their hands until they're able to blow up or bounce your stuff and then assemble a win. Making them discard everything and draw 3 random cards undoes all that. This would be preferable to
Wheel of Fortune
, which gives your opponents too many new cards; too many ways to answer your stax.
Graveyard Recursion
There just isn't enough strong graveyard recursion in Red-Green to justify running stuff that is shut off by
Rest in Peace
.
Eternal Witness
is probably the best recursion card in G/R; and I think instead of
Eternal Witness
you'd rather just have something that draws cards.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strength : Storm Decks. These get really shut off by stuff like
Scab-Clan Berserker
and
Eidolon of the Great Revel
, as well as taking maximum punishment from
Thorn of Amethyst
and other spheres. They also tend to have no blockers, which is just awesome, turning all our bears into mana.
Weakness : Board wipes. This is a permanent-based deck. We put stuff in play. If all our stuff gets blow up, that's bad. If our creatures all get blown up, that's the worst, but at least we also have artifact and enchantment stax, so we're not totally out. If we lose everything - like
Nevinyrral's Disk
or
Planar Cleansing
, then... I don't think there's much of a way to mitigate this. There's bad cards like
Fresh Meat
which requires holding up too much mana, and something like
Whisperwood Elemental
only works against death triggers, not
Cyclonic Rift
, while being expensive and narrow.
Strength : Combo Decks. This is the whole idea. We prey on combo decks by playing a huge number of cards that stop combos. Stuff like
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
and
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
are the best opponents.
Weakness : Graveyard Combo. This is rough, since there aren't many good ways of answering the graveyard in Red and Green. We have
Scavenging Ooze
but that's about it. I think stuff like
Tormod's Crypt
is a possibility, but that's shut off by
Null Rod
and doesn't answer every graveyard combo. Definitely a possibility if your meta calls for it.
Weakness :
The Gitrog Monster
. This is the greatest of all graveyard combos. It is extremely difficult to stop without
Rest in Peace
or
Leyline of the Void
. That said, we have some outs: if they play a creature-based sac outlet like
Oblivion Crown
it'll be hit by
Harsh Mentor
and
Burning-Tree Shaman
. With
Omen Machine
in play, they can't draw and they can't dredge.
Decimate
can kill
The Gitrog Monster
and make it harder to recast him. We can slow him down with stax. We can kill their mana dorks with
Goblin Chainwhirler
. But we can't attack into the 6/6 Gitrog to make mana. It's a pretty rough matchup.
Weakness : Decks with Creatures. If decks put out a lot of creature, it makes it harder for us to get mana out of
Grand Warlord Radha
's ability. This is unfortunate, but it isn't usually game breaking. We have a lot of ways to make mana.
Push : Midrange. If they run a lot of boardwipes, we're disadvantaged. If they're trying to assemble some kind of value engine, most of those recursive sort of things are stopped by our stax bears. We probably have more ramp and can hit something like
Void Winnower
or
Emrakul, the Promised End
before they can do something really insane.
Help This Deck! Please.
If you think this deck is cool, and would like to help, please build the deck and play it against a competitive pod. Post and let me know how it goes!
