U/G Stasis Vintage Deck Improvement.

[Sujer]

Hi, I am currently working on a stasis deck to (hopefully) one day use in a legacy tournament. Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated!
First off, let me set this up. I have been playing magic since late 1993, and stopped playing in 2000. I have recently come back to magic (about 6 months ago) and have picked up some cards to help me construct decks.
I have never been in a tournament, and have only played against 2 different people.
I chose a stasis deck because after looking at a lot of different decks, it seemed like a natural fit to be a well rounded type. A lot of these newer cards do thing I have never seen, so I figured that if I could lock down the board, I would increase my chances of playing against them. My Blue/Green Stasis deck is as follows:


Creatures
4 - Birds Of Paradise: This will be used with Instill Energy to produce the land necessary to pay for the upkeep on Stasis.
2 - Cudgel Troll: This was put in to help fend of creatures early in the game with its regeneration ability.
4 - Mirri, Cat Warrior: This is used for its ability to not tap when attacking, which will be necessary to use when Stasis and Nature's Will are both on the board.
4 - Serra Sphinx: This will be used similarly as the Mirri, Cat Warrior.
2 - Pouncing Jaguar: This was put in to help fend off early game attacks that my deck seems to be so susceptible to.
2 - Troll Ascetic: This creature was put in for its regeneration ability (like the Cudgel Troll) but, also because of the shroud.

Spells
4 - Counter Spell: These will be used to either get rid of creatures/spells that can some how ruin the stasis ability, or general creature control.
2 - Gigadrowse: I originally used twiddles, but when I saw this card I figured it was an obvious choice. It is used to tap lands and or creatures of my opponent or untap mine.
2 - Snap: I originally used Boomerang's to help with creature control once my Stasis was out, and I figured that this was better than the Boomerang.
1 - Time Walk: The stasis is used like the Time Walk, I am trying to not allow my opponent to play anything during his turn, so I felt this was a good card to add in!

Enchantments
4 - Instill Energy: This is to be used with the Birds Of Paradise to allow me to pay the upkeep cost of stasis without losing it to the Stasis.
3 - Nature's Will: This was the best card I could find to help me really take advantage of the Stasis. With my vigilant creatures, I could untap my lands every turn, and make sure my opponents lands were tapped before his turn.
3 - Propaganda: This was a way to help me the whole game. The early part of the game it would be used to not allow many creatures to attack me at once, buying time for my stasis. Once the stasis was out, I would use it to not allow my opponent to attack.
4 - Stasis: This is what everything is built around.

Artifacts
1 - Black Lotus: Used for quick mana draw
1 - Mox Emerald: Used to help speed up the deck in the early portion of the game to play 2 land generation cards in one turn.
1 - Mox Sapphire: Same as above.

Land
8 - Forest: Since I have to get my Birds Of Paradise out before the stasis, and the Birds Of Paradise can be used for blue mana, I thought that the Forest is the most important land to draw early.
6 - Island: Used to pay for my spells, creatures, and enchantments.
4 - Tropical Island: Dual lands are always useful to have in a multi colored deck.

So far I have had a lot of luck with this deck, but, if I am playing against a speed deck, if I don't get the right draw, I have a lot of trouble with it. Having never played in a tournament i'm not sure what to expect, so if you could help me out with this deck it would be greatly appreciated!

tl;dr: Help me get my Stasis deck tournament ready, you can check it out here: http://essentialmagic.com//decks/View.asp?ID=760629

Thanks in advance!
Sujer

[silvernail]

are you planning on playing in vintage or legacy ? they are two different formats with different banned / restricted lists. Have you played in your local area recently  ( IE do you know what others are playing) ?

[Killane]

Welcome to TMD!

Quick terminology: Legacy and Vintage are different- Legacy being what used to be referred to as Type 1.5 (in which cards such as Black Lotus and Moxes are banned). what you are looking to play is Vintage.

unfortuantely, Stasis hasn;t seen play in Vintage in years. One of the reasons is that it requires a lot of set-up- in your example above, you need to find a resolve BoP, then find a resolve instill energy, and then find a resolve Stasis, all while avoiding Death in the meenwhile. This is a larger propblem for a deck like this in 2010 than it was in 2000. The reason is that Vintage is a very fast format with (to quote the byline of a rather prominent article series by Smmemen on SCG) "so many insane plays".

Let's take some examples:

Tezz- the current "top dog" of the format - plays more coutnerspells than you do, tons of tutors, and spends 4 mana to literally give you no more turns, upkeep cost of 1, lets them untap.

In other words, it does what you want to do, but more compactly and quickly with more ways of stopping you.

Dredge- kills you on turn 2 or 3. Uses Fatesticher, which helps it ignore stasis. Doesn;t have to untap much to win.

In other words, it kills you before your gameplan comes online, and even if you get a nut draw, it mostly ignores what you are doing anyway.

Stax - locks out your mana and all of your permanents in a far more one-sided way than stasis, and more quickly.

Oath- pulls up dudes that have haste and only need to attack once each to kill you, or pulls up a dude that locks you out by preventing you from playing spells of your best color, then taking infinite turns. Oh, and it can do this on turn 2.

TPS - if I were running TPS against you, I'd do this: land, go. land, go. land, duress, kill you. It's a powerful, fast combo deck that really doesn;t need to tap much of anythign before it kills you as long as it doesn;t have to interact with you beforehand (which it doesn't).

I'm not trying to be critical - Stasis decks were maddeningly good back in the day. unfortunately, the format has outgrown them.

[Sujer]

are you planning on playing in vintage or legacy ? they are two different formats with different banned / restricted lists. Have you played in your local area recently  ( IE do you know what others are playing) ?

I am trying to play Vintage. I have never played in a tournament, and I live in San Jose, California. I know that there are vintage tournaments in my area because I checked this board and saw that the run some at Super Stars in San Jose, and according to the calendar, they look to be playing 1 tournament a month.

Killane: Thank you for the run down! Correct me if i'm wrong, but this is what I gathered from your post: Currently, the vintage matches are dominated by a very select group of decks. So in a tournament of say 20 people, its possible for many of these people to be using the same deck as another person? Or do these decks have a certain theme that is followed, and the cards are your choice?

Also, my deck would have been good in 2000, but currently, with the new cards that have come out, the format has outgrown my deck, and more specifically the stasis theme in general? I guess its no surprise that the theme of my deck would have been good around the time I stopped playing.

So, if I were to try and construct a deck, the best way to start would be to find a list of the cards in these types of decks?

Thank you all in advance! Any light you can shed on this is very helpful! It is very amazing how much the game has evolved since I left!

Sujer

[thecman]

You should go to the tournament reports forum and find the report from the last event at shop you're looking to play at.  There will probably be deck lists so that you can get a good idea of what people are playing there.  Find lists for Tezz, Oath (Iona and Dragon), Dredge, Shop, and Fish (Noble and BUG).  Then proxy up some decks and play a few games to see what fits your play style the best.  There is also tons of information on here in terms of primers and strategy discussion to get you started.  Good luck!

[Beralt]

Kilane - great rundown of how the top decks would do against so many proposed decks, almost worth copying for all newer players to see what the format is in terms of big bad archetypes that want to eat your deck.

[Killane]

thanks. It's a bit of an oversimplication, but i think the message gets through.

[BruiZar]

Many eternal players play both vintage and legacy. Stasis is best played in legacy. The closest evolution of the stasis / winter orb deck is stax, a deck based on mishra's workshop, tangle wire, sphere of resistence and smokestack. If you would like to proceed with a stasis list, I encourage you to try Forsaken City.

[swawagon]

Forsaken City (discard but untap to pay upkeep on Stasis), or Gush/Daze/Thwart (Bring back tapped Islands to replay untapped), or Jace (draw extra mana)/Garruk (untap Islands) all help pay for Stasis, and/or are disruption, draw engines, or win conditions.

Tarmogoyfs are just big beaters and win many games regardless of Stasis. And under Stasis they are excellent 'walls'.

Ancestral Visions are great draw in long games.

The Planeswalkers help make Stasis work as their abilities do something relevant, each turn, without further mana investments. And with enough time, both are win conditions.

If I were to play 4 Stasis in a Vintage deck it would look something like this below:

STASIS

9 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
3 Forsaken City

1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Jace
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Thwart
1 Misdirection
3 Mana Drain
4 Stasis
1 Gush
1 Chain of Vapor

2 Garruk
4 Tarmogoyf

SB
4 Energy Flux
3 Arcane Laboratory
4 Spell Pierce
4 Seal of Primordium
or
3 Vendillion Clique
3 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
3 Vedalken Heretic
3 Seal of Primordium
3 Energy Flux

[BruiZar]

Reset or Turnabout could also provide additional turns with Stasis

[waffles]

Forsaken City (discard but untap to pay upkeep on Stasis), or Gush/Daze/Thwart (Bring back tapped Islands to replay untapped), or Jace (draw extra mana)/Garruk (untap Islands) all help pay for Stasis, and/or are disruption, draw engines, or win conditions.

Tarmogoyfs are just big beaters and win many games regardless of Stasis. And under Stasis they are excellent 'walls'.

Ancestral Visions are great draw in long games.

The Planeswalkers help make Stasis work as their abilities do something relevant, each turn, without further mana investments. And with enough time, both are win conditions.

If I were to play 4 Stasis in a Vintage deck it would look something like this below:

STASIS

9 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
3 Forsaken City

1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Jace
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Thwart
1 Misdirection
3 Mana Drain
4 Stasis
1 Gush
1 Chain of Vapor

2 Garruk
4 Tarmogoyf

SB
4 Energy Flux
3 Arcane Laboratory
4 Spell Pierce
4 Seal of Primordium
or
3 Vendillion Clique
3 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
3 Vedalken Heretic
3 Seal of Primordium
3 Energy Flux

As it stands they can still get one use out of what they play and most cases that enough. With  Frozen Æther it's a lock from the get go. I understand that its a bit slow for this format, but you are running enough counters to slow them down so you can.

The deck i run is chronostasis and i it does eat stax but i still lose to aggro decks, as it did in the past. see this link for the dev of my stasis deck, although i havent posted my current decklist: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38953.msg541161#msg541161

[swawagon]

I contributed to that Stasis thread back then as well.

Honestly, with Stasis, either Planeswalkers really is a lock.

The thing about the 6 Planeswalkers over Frozen Æther is:
- Planeswalkers are also win conditions.
- And Jace is also a draw engine - that costs less.
- and they both directly (Garruk) or indirectly (Jace drawing extra mana) pay for Stasis upkeeps
- and both are good "without" Stasis.

Frozen Aether really does not do near enough.

Daze (and Thwart, but Thwart without Stasis is pretty bad, unless it can be hardcast) are the "best" counters under Stasis as they counter, for no mana, and bring back tapped Islands to replay untapped and help pay for Stasis. What's great about Daze as it keeps you in the early game countering spells in the first few turns, guarding you from blowouts. Then when in other decks Daze's ability drops off considerably, they become the best counters you can have while under Stasis.

Gush is a must in a Stasis deck with Islands. Draw 2 cards, and pay for 2 more Stasis upkeeps - for free. A perfect Stasis card. Play 4 if you could.

Ancestral Visions is a card I hadn't used enough in older Stasis lists. When you have to drop a Stasis early (or die) and you are not all set up to pay the upkeeps for the long haul, when any of these Suspended cards resolves you will likely find that Forsaken city or Gush or Lotus or what have you and then you are in business to keep them under Stasis for the games entirety. What deck doesn't want 5 Ancestral Recalls? And when they are Suspended before Stasis is dropped it's mana that didn't do much anyway. So while under Stasis they are 3 cards for no mana. Can't beat that under Stasis.

Stasis decks will certainly take damage early against aggro, but stabilize at low life and lock up the game. Play patiently and drop Stasis as late in the game as you can.

[the boogie man]

undiscovered paradise and root maze seem like they are viable as well. paradise pays for stasis at the expense of land drops instead of your hand.

[swawagon]

Undiscovered Paradise doesn't work as with Stasis down you skip your Untap step...

[serracollector]

I don't know about in vintage, but root maze works amazing in legacy.  Stops combo from the bat, and gives me time to wait for Ancestral Visions.

This is my try at a legacy 1:

4 ancestral vision
4 lotus petal
4 exploration
4 daze
4 force of will
3 chronatog
4 stasis
4 root maze
2 tidal bore (doubles as a goyf stopper, and gives u the land to drop for stasis etc.)
2 jace baleen
2 jace the mind sculptor
1 misdirection
1 thwart
4 trop
4 pool
4 misty
7 island
2 forsaken city

I mean isn't root maze essentially the same thing as kismet and aether for only 1 mana?  Plus its an early staller for ur opponent anyways.

Anyways, its an idea.

[swawagon]

Root Maze is OK (far better than Aether and Kismet), but I'd play far fewer (or none) of my own Fetch lands if I ran them...

Exploration seems unneeded. They'd probably be better served as more Jace, as Tarmogoyfs, and/or as a Chain of Vapor.

[waffles]

Root Maze is OK (far better than Aether and Kismet), but I'd play far fewer (or none) of my own Fetch lands if I ran them...

Exploration seems unneeded. They'd probably be better served as more Jace, as Tarmogoyfs, and/or as a Chain of Vapor.

i just don't see how aether is bad, it does what root maze does not, nullify creatures. Also, i dont see how a planeswalker is a lock.

[jovialevil]

In general, I suppose I agree that it would be easier to beat the big fancy decks by playing something other than stasis.  But if you wanted to try to make that deck, I'd try something like this:

4 Stasis
4 Chain of Vapor
1 Boomerang
4 Root Maze
4 Elephant Grass

4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Thwart
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce

1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush

1 Tinker
3 Black Vise
1 Sundering Titan

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
3 Forsaken City
8 Island


  Elephant grass is basically the same as propoganda, except that you can play it on the first turn... and then it dies soon.  Forsaken City lets you keep stasis going, or chain of vapor lets you return it to your hand, untap, and then hope it doesn't get countered when you play it again.  And presumeably black vice plus root maze would deal 20 damage sooner than trying to mill someone.

  If you can't run any proxies, the mana artifacts could be islands, and ancestral recall could be something cheap like opt.