[Deck] Mono Black Stax

[netherspirit]

Hi, I've just been tinkering about with this list, some of the choices may look weird but I shall explain them and why I feel they are appropriate.

Mana Base:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Workshop
5 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta

Creatures:
3 Silent Arbiter
4 Dauthi Slayer
2 Dauthi Warlord

Disruption:
4 Duress
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sinkhole

Draw/Tutor:
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Night's Whisper

Utility:
3 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Plague
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Grim Tutor
2 Mind Peel

Right, so, card explanations:

Silent Arbiter - I have no other form of anti creature in the main deck, Arbiter is easy to hard cast using Workshop, and is very good at stopping creatures.

Dauthi Slayer/Warlord - No one plays with shadow creatures much so these are basically unblockable, I chose these 2 because they are cheap to play and in my opinion the best shadow creatures for their cost.

Night's Whisper - The deck needs card draw, other wise it just can't keep up once the disruption weakens, Night's Whisper is very cheap and gets you two cards for only two mana.

Crucible of Worlds - This + Strip Mine/Wasteland = gg

Engineered Plague - Stops Goblins and gets rid of Welder in Stax. Also helps kill Spirit tokens against Oath.

Hymn to Tourach/Mind Peel - This deck can't survive being countered early game, so against Mono Blue Control and Fish decks I need to put as much pressure on as fast as possible. I never seem to have much luck with Cabal Therapy, at the most I just get to see their hand, so Mind Peel seems a better choice.


I've only explained the less obvious choices, but if you would like explanations of anything else please just ask.

The Stax match up is pretty easy if I can get the pressure on early enough with Duress and Sinkhole, games 2 and 3 Pithing Needle and Engineered Plague stop them doing any annoyin Welder tricks.

Suicide Black can be taken care of fairly easily once I have Silent Arbiter out.

Combo decks are a walk in the park usually, especially if I'm on the play, Sphere and Wire help to set them behind quite a way, and I just beat down with the little shadows.

Control/Fish though is a major problem, turn 1 Force of Will can put me quite a bit behind, and if I can't keep the disruption going they will just counter out all my board gummers and eventually kill me off.

I haven't done much testing against Oath yet though so I'm not sure about it, I should imagine I lose horribly if they get Oath out though.

Any advice on the deck would be much appreciated, so far I've been considering Black Vise, Imperial Seal, Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain. I haven't tested them yet though.

 netherspirit

[Zombie Shakespeare]

A teammate of mine had a mono-black Stax deck back when the Urza's and Mercadian Masques blocks were in Type 2. Coincidently its primary win condition was Nether Spirits.

I think your list is a good start. I'm curious why you chose not to include a few staples like Karn, Sundering Titan, Mana Vault and Mana Crypt in your build? I think the key area where your deck is lacking is in the creatures you have chosen. Silent Arbiter seems very strong against aggro decks but against control and combo not so much. If Oath and other forms of control and combo are more prevalent in your metagame I would move them to the sideboard. Neither of the shadow creatures seem to be sufficient as win conditions. I would definately try to find room for Imperial Seal in the main. Other cards you might want to consider playtesting:

Nether Spirit - combos with Smokestack early and serves as a win condition later on after you've established board control.

Sarcomancy - gives you more creatures without hindering Nether Spirit and the enchantment itself can sac to Smokestack.

Contamination - In combination with Nether Spirit its a Blood Moon and even by itself can cut off your opponent from nonblack mana for a turn. Plus its one more permenant to sac to Smokestack.

Entomb - this can serve as a pseudo Crop Rotation if you have Crucible in play or fetch a Nether Spirit.


Hope this helps!

[Implacable]

Why not run Dark Confidants?  They're a much better draw engine than Night's Whisper.  If they worked for T[censored] L[censored], then they can work for you!

[netherspirit]

I'm curious why you chose not to include a few staples like Karn, Sundering Titan, Mana Vault and Mana Crypt in your build?

Amazingly enough I actually forgot about Karn and Titan.  As for Vault and Crypt though - The deck's mana base can be quite unstable, I need 2 black available a lot of the time, and reducing the amount of black mana even more would damage the deck, although I could remove a couple of Moxen for them.

I love the idea about Nether Spirit, my favourite card ever, and I'm beginning to love this deck, so it seems a nice idea to try him out.

As for Dark Confidant, I like it, but I have a habit of dying to him, plus if I include Nether Spirit the inclusion of Confidant could cause problems once it hits the graveyard.

Edit:

Hope this helps!

Sure did!! Thanks loads!!!

[netherspirit]

Right, here's my current list:

Mana Base
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Workshop
5 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine

Creatures:
3 Nether Spirit (Such a great card)
2 Silent Arbiter

Disruption
4 Duress
4 Sinkhole
4 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Contamination

Draw/Tutor
4 Night's Whisper
1 Entomb
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Others
1 Black Vise
3 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard
2 Silent Arbiter
3 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Plague
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Grim Tutor

There it is at the moment, Contamination and Nether Spirit both were 4 ofs, but it was just too many Nethers, and Contamination never proved useful, so I cut them down. Im considering removing the other 2 Contaminations and possibly 1 Arbiter, and adding something else, I don't know what to choose though. I'm considering - The Abyss, Smokestack, and No Mercy, but I really don't know. I played two games earlier, one against a green beats deck that generates stupid amounts of mana and comes down for about 30 on turn 3, and one against red burn. Both of the crumbled miserably once I got the Crucible + Strip Mine lock out. However, blockers can be a huge problem, hence why I added Black Vise, because Nether Spirit may be good and all but it struggles to actually kill creatures. The only other main problem I had was trample, a Rancored Elvish Warrior is surprisingly tricky. Any opinions on the current deck and how it can be improved?

[parallax]

Why don't you run Smokestacks? You can play four Smokestacks and four Braids, Cabal Minion for extra redundancy. Plus, Braids is another win condition. I though that was always the point of playing Black Stax.

[netherspirit]

I HATE Smokestack, I've always ended up hurting myself more than I hurt my opponent for some reason. As for Braids, I just haven't tested her yet, but so far I can get control of the board fairly quickly and easily anyways.

[misslehead3]

If your going to play mono-black stax, then why not try Nether Void, as a lock almost with cruci-strip. The only drawback of this card is that you can cast it off shop mana. But is that so much a problem, i dunno, just a thought.

[Implacable]

Why don't you run Smokestacks? You can play four Smokestacks and four Braids, Cabal Minion for extra redundancy. Plus, Braids is another win condition. I though that was always the point of playing Black Stax.

Do you remember the excellent post about the worst Relentless Rage ever?  Smokestack is really, really outdated in Stax. Wire, Sphere, Chalice, and Crucible are all much, much better threats, because all of them, with the sometime exception of Crucible, affect your opponent immediately.  Stax might as well read: "4: Skip your turn" Braids is a much better card, at least, but I still don't think that there's a way to find space for it.  His reason to run black is actually a very good one; he gets to run quicker disruption.  As a matter of fact, that's probably the best way to make Stax Tier 1 again: to make it more viable against the faster decks that often immolate it.  To further speed up the deck, nether, may I suggest including Chalices in the board?

[df8251]

i have found luck in Distress for Counter removal when playing Control or Fish. it may work better than Mind Peel because they will just choose their worst card at hand, when with Distress the card is up to you. I too dont do very well with Cabal Therapy unless its game two, after you know what your opponent is playing.

[netherspirit]

Why don't you run Smokestacks? You can play four Smokestacks and four Braids, Cabal Minion for extra redundancy. Plus, Braids is another win condition. I though that was always the point of playing Black Stax.

Do you remember the excellent post about the worst Relentless Rage ever?  Smokestack is really, really outdated in Stax. Wire, Sphere, Chalice, and Crucible are all much, much better threats, because all of them, with the sometime exception of Crucible, affect your opponent immediately.  Stax might as well read: "4: Skip your turn" Braids is a much better card, at least, but I still don't think that there's a way to find space for it.  His reason to run black is actually a very good one; he gets to run quicker disruption.  As a matter of fact, that's probably the best way to make Stax Tier 1 again: to make it more viable against the faster decks that often immolate it.  To further speed up the deck, nether, may I suggest including Chalices in the board?

At last! Some one actually agrees with me! You've completely explained why I've not included Smokestack and Braids, thanks Implacable. As for including Chalice, I wish I'd thought of that, very smart idea, how about removing 2 Grim Tutor, 1 Silent Arbiter and 1 Hymn to Tourach?

i have found luck in Distress for Counter removal when playing Control or Fish. it may work better than Mind Peel because they will just choose their worst card at hand, when with Distress the card is up to you. I too dont do very well with Cabal Therapy unless its game two, after you know what your opponent is playing.

Distress is good but Hymn to Tourach is better in my opinion. As for Mind Peel... If you look somewhere on the thread you'll see an updated list, you'll see I've already cut it.

Thanks for the help guys!!!