Legacy Championship at GenCon '09

I'm new to this forum, as my account was just recently validated, but I have been reading through this forum for some time, looking for ideas on this deck. I took an idea I found in the Monowhite Stax thread to GenCon's Legacy Championship, and thought I would share my decklist and general tournament matchup results, originally posted in the Monowhite thread. This contains a near full report, so this is a long post.

Quote:

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DECKLIST

--Lands
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Kor Haven
1 Savannah
3 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Mishra's Factory
3 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
5 Plains

--Creatures
3 Magus of the Tabernacle
2 Knight of the Reliquary

--Artifacts
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack

--Enchantments
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Ghostly Prison

--Other Spells
4 Armageddon

--Sideboard
3 Suppression Field
1 Trinisphere
2 Aura of Silence
3 Krosan Grip
3 Choke
3 Sphere of Law

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DISCUSSION OF BASICS:
Obviously, the most notable aspect of this deck compared to traditional GeddonStax is the addition of green for maindeck Knights and the sideboard. I think that many people who have tried this splash have misunderstood exactly how much is needed. I only have 6 reliable sources in the deck (4 /Moxes, Horizon canopy, Savannah), but I have rarely found myself wishing I could draw the green mana. Knight is also a card that you'll rarely want to play early; ideally, it comes down after you geddon, after you've searched out your Savannah with a Flagstones that bit the dust.

Other than that, I feel the stuff is pretty standard. Chokes are in to help against Landstill (a terrible matchup), Merfolk (which has alwayus given me a couple problems), and the rare MUC. Krosan Grip also helps against these, and additionally Dreadstill.

MATCHUPS:

Round 1: Combo (Belcher)
This is a really straightforward matchup: Cast trinisphere/chalice and win.

Game 1: Won the die roll, chose to play. Casted a turn 1 Chalice at 1. He managed to play through it a couple turns later and resolve the Belcher, but miscounted his mana and did not have the mana to activate. I had the O-Ring in my hand, played it, and simply beat him down with a factory a few turns later.
1-0
Sideboard: -3 Magus of the Tabernacle, -3 Smokestack, +1 Trinishpere, +2 Aura of silence, +3 Krosan Grip

Game 2: He was on the play, and decided to turn 1 Empty the Warrens for 10 Goblins. I was kicking myself for being an idiot and taking out the Maguses. So, I drew, put down an O-ring off a city and mox to buy me a turn. My life goes to 11. Next turn, I topdeck the Prison, and proceed to lock him out of the game with 3 chalices, at 0, 1, and 2.
2-0, 1-0-0

Round 2: Combo (Belcher)
Seeing as how the matchup I just outlined above is pretty typical of the deck, I'm not going to go into it again. The games were much shorter, and the result was the same.
2-0
4-0, 1-0-0

Round 3: Zoo
There was quite a bit of Zoo running around at this tournament, something I really wasn't looking forward to. I won the die roll.

Game 1: Played out a chalice for 1, and immediately saw his face go slightly sad. He played the turn 2 Pridemage, which I promptly O-Ringed, while he didn't have the mana open to sac it. Continue to Waste-lock him out of the game.
1-0
Sideboard: On the draw, I figure trinisphere isn't that impressive.
-3 trinisphere, +3 Sphere of Law

Game 2: He leads out with a Nacatl, which I answer with chalice for 1 again. Turn 2, He plays a 'goyf second turn, so I answer with a Ghostly Prison. On his turn, it seems he has fetched out all his basics when he plays another goyf, so I Armageddon on my turn. I soon play a Magus of the tabernacle and lock up the game.
3-0
6-0, 3-0-0

Round 4: Merfolk
This match was the longest I played at the tournament, taking the full hour plus a small extension for a judge ruling that had to go the head judge. As I stated before, this is a matchup I really do not enjoy playing. They seem to randomly win too often with Vials and counterspells. Luckily, I'm on the play again.

Game 1: I get the God Draw for the deck. I go turn 1 Trinisphere, turn 2 Smokestack, Turn 3 Crucible. He doesn't even get a chance to do more than hit me with a Mutavault a couple times. He still makes me show him the win in the form of a Factory, so the game still takes about 10 minutes total.
1-0
Sideboard: For some reason, I decided I don't want suppression fields in. I don't remember what I sided out for some reason, but +3 Choke went in.

Game 2: This was an extremely grueling game, taking about 50 minutes of play. Early game I answered theats fairly well, utilizing Armageddon and Maguses, and even having the Crucible in play, but never quite locking out the game due to Relic of Progenitus. I'm forced to break every one of his Standstills, so he's 12 cards up on me. Eventually, he manages to swing in for 9 at my life total of 14 by playing rushing river on both of my ghostly prisons. I go to 5. I have the mana to replay both prisons, bu tI have to do something about that. So, after I have a rather large Knight in play, I decide to drop a chalice at 3. He doesn't have any answers for this, and after a long time just sitting there staring at each other, he decks on the 5th turn of time. Perfect, if unnecessary, timing.
2-0
8-0, 4-0-0

Round 5: Bant Counter-top
Well, this matchup made me find another way to bluff the type of deck you're playing in magic. If you use a score sheet, you can do this artificially, even though it happened to me by accident. I still had the scores from my Zoo matchup on my sheet (I had 2 different ones, so the Merfolk totals weren't there), and he saw it. Since Zoo scooped both games to me, it looked like he went from 20-ish to 0 in one turn. So, my opponent thought I was playing some kind of combo. I win the die roll.

Game 1: I have to mulligan to 5 cards, and finally find a semi-keepable hand with a turn 1 chalice, turn 2 knight. I play out the chalice, surprising my opponent; I'm definately not playing combo. I put out the turn 2 knight and he's even more surprised. After spending a turn legend ruling my flagstones by searching with knight, making him a 6/6 after counting the Mox Diamond land, completely dwarfing his 3/4 goyf. He plays his second Tarmogoyf, and we stare at each other for a couple turns, neither wanting to attack into the other. After he counters my Crucible, though, I have to do something, so I throw down a 'geddon the turn after. This makes my knight a 10/10 and his goyfs are only 4/5's. A few swings and chump blocks later, I win the game.
1-0
Sideboard: -4 Ghostly Prison, +1 Trinisphere, +3 Choke
Game 2: I don't remember quite how this game went, but I do remember waste-locking him after playing Armageddon on his basics. Nothing too notable happened; any kind of goyf/thresh deck like this has a pretty similar matchup with white stax.
2-0
10-0, 5-0-0

Round 6: U/W/R Landstill
This is the matchup I have been dreading; I have never been able to find a way to beat landstill well. Hopefully, the suppression fields in the side will tax him enough to be able to do something.

Game 1: On the play again, I lead out with a chalice for 1, which gets countered. I try to resolve a crucible after I get daze backup out, still unsure of my opponent after I see a Volcanic Island and a basic island, and he plays a Counterspell. He resolves his own crucible, and I don't find a way out before Factories beat my face in.
0-1
Sideboard: -4 ghostly prison, -2 chalice, +3 suppression field, +3 choke.

Game 2: Somehow, I completely blank on siding in Krosan Grips, which might have easily cost me the game. I don't really remember specifics of this game, but it involved him resolving another crucible, and me not being able to answer it. Suppression field slowed him down a little bit, but just didn't do enough.
0-2
10-2, 5-1-0

Round 7: Bant Counter-top with Red Splash.
This is a must-win round for me.
Game 1: I mulligan to 6, and simply don't have enough steam to keep up with the deck. He beats me down with a goyf... or something. It's pretty much a classic game of this deck not drawing what it needs and getting its relevant spells countered.
0-1
Sideboard: -3 Tinisphere, +3 Choke I find Trinisphere to not be as useful against Bant, since they have a higher curve to begin with.
Game 2: I manage to resolve an armageddon with a Crucible in play, as he doesn't draw any counterspells this game. After the Armageddon, he simply cannot recover, and I soon waste-lock him.
1-1
Sideboard: No change.
Game 3: I resolve 2 Ghostly Prisons, which are quite good at holding his Trygon at bay. Then, I resolve an armageddon. He didn't see a Force all game, and never recovers.
2-1
12-3, 6-1-0

Round 8: Tempo Thresh
I decide to ID, even though a 6-1-1 or two is going to be cut from the top 8. My breakers were fairly good, so I'm confident.
12-3, 6-1-1

Top 8: 7th seed

For information on decks and some live coverage of the top 8, there's a post in another section of the forum: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=14543

Round 1, single elim: 43 Land
I haven't tested nearly enough for my liking against this deck, but felt that it should be a good matchup for me.
Game 1: On the draw. He plays a turn 1 manabond, and dumps a nuce bit of land with the life already in hand. I play land-go for a while, as he ports one of my lands every turn. The crowd is enjoying his play quite a lot, as he dredges and cycles through about half of his deck by turn 5. Of course, I enjoyed the armageddon I dropped on turn 5. He never recovered and I took the game.
1-0
Sideboard: I didn't think that o-ringing the manabond after he'd gotten the use out of it would be too useful, so I decided to go for more prevention. -3 Oblivion ring, +3 Suppression field

Game 2: He gets another good start after manabond and gamble, and despite the fact that I have a field in play, he ports 3 of my lands every turn, and I simply can't draw into the mana to cast an armageddon. He ends up beating me down with lands.
1-1

Game 3: I keep a 2-geddon hand, and he never fully gets into the game. I drop a chalice at 2 and follow it with a 'geddon, a Knight, and the second 'geddon. It's over pretty quickly.
2-1
14-4, 7-1-1

Round 2: Dredge
I didn't really expect to see this matchup, and thought that maindeck Prisons and Magus would be enough. See the link above for the match.


SPOILER:


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I end up losing game 1 without playing a card, and game 2 I opted to chalice for 0 to prefent the turn 1 kill, which I believe he had again, judging from what he said. However, without crypts, and given the nature of Dredge, I couldn't come back and lost 0-2.

Finish: 3rd/4th place

Overall, I'm very happy with the performance of this deck. I didn't test Nomad Stadium quite enough, and think I may have been happier with another Horizon Canopy, as the Stadium seemed like a win-more, since you almost have to play Armageddon to get threshold, whereas the Canopy would have given me another green source and that card draw with crucible is so good.
Given the chance, I probably would have run a Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or two, along with possibly upping the Armageddon count to 5 if I had the Ravages of war. Other than that, I'm EXTREMELY pleased with Knight of the Reliquary, and may change the split on creatures to 3/2 in favor of Knight if I can get my hands on a Tabernacle, since it can be searched for.

Special thanks:

This forum for giving me the idea of running Knights!

Matt for forcing me to test so many freaking times against threshold!

The guys at Yottaquest for helping me and giving suggestions!

My dice for winning me a ridiculous number of rolls in this tournament!

Way to beat belcher 2 rounds in a row. I hate stax in general, but I like the report, and congratulations on the T8.

Congrats on the finish. I like the list with Knight. Did you ever want maze of ith? Might be good with knight to fish it up but I guess if you have knight on the board you are probably winning.

Congrats on T4ing!

With all the Stax decks I saw, I was surprised there weren't more in the T8.

Nicely written tournament report and well played!

congrats man and nice report. I was wondering have you tried elspeth and some number of tabernacles in place of the magi? My friend has used the elspeths in his list and absolutely loves them.

By the way I hate you for doing so well with the deck. I can't stand playing against it at tournaments and I think I'm going to have to face it more and more now. :)

Thanks for the congratulations, everyone.

@Beastman

Why do you hate stax? It's not like it's the single-handedly most sadistic deck in the format. Oh. Wait...

@Rockout

I haven't tested Maze of Ith, but I feel that if I ran a land that didn't produce mana, it would have to be Tabernacle. Kor Haven replaces Ith well enough in this deck without messing up the mana base.

@Esper3k

There were more Stax decks? I only heard of 1 or 2.. and witnessed one of them sacrifice his Smokestack at 1 while he had a crucible in play...

@irrelevant

I have tried elspeths in the deck, and I've said it a couple times before: I hate the fact that they can attack her through Ghostly Prison. Sure, some opponents won't think about it, but I can't rely on that. She just dies way too fast, and I haven't really find a problem with magus such that I need to replace them with something. I think they're in the deck to stay.

Thank you for the report, and great finish.

I faced off against a Mono white Stax deck and saw a few others floating around (I was hoping to face more Stax!) during both days of the prelims, so I assumed they were around on Saturday as well.

I was your round 3 Zoo opp. and I gotta tell you my heart sank when you opened with that chalice.

On a side note that was just spectacular to watch you rip that second geddon against your t8 43 land matchup with kotr in play :-P.