B/R Ghast Stax plus bonus list

[the boogie man]

With the printing of bloodghast, A Lot of things were going through my head. It is extremely efficient, cheap to actually cast, and has haste later on down the road. The only thing that it requires is the deck to run some sort of discard outlet. Obviously bazaar was the first thing I really wanted to try it with. And so on and so forth until I came up with this decklist:

B/R Ghast Stax

4 Welder
4 Bloodghast

4 null rod
4 tangle wire
4 chalice
4 sphere of resistance
3-4 Smokestack
3-4 crucible
1 trinisphere
1 memory jar

4 bazaar of bag
4 workshop
4 waste
4 badlands
1 fetch
1 strip

5 mox
1 lotus
1 sol ring
1 crypt

And there are 2 slots left. Still in the works, but it looks really good.

The Ghast is awesome when it happens early, because tangle wire and smokestack all of a sudden get unfair. It also provides a free clock that avoids your own lock pieces. With a couple of these guys, it easy easy to ramp the stacks up substantially and sustain it.

Welder is pretty sweet as well, with obvious synergy throughout the deck.

I originally had confidants in the deck, but the life loss coupled with the low amount of colored sources made me think twice. but perhaps 4 sb for control?

Null rod is cool as well, severely damaging your opponents mana, buying time you need early to really start getting welder and ghast going.

as for the 2 open slots, I'm not really sure what to run. sundering titan? would that be too rough on my own mana base? Karn, even though he has anti-synergy with rod? There is also mana vault, if necessary. I'm just not sure.

There is also the possibility that rod does not belong. this would open up space for confidant, and maybe a divining top or two.





As for the bonus list, it is dawn of the dead with Ghast. Happy halloween!


Day of the Dead

4 goyf
4 confidant
4 Blood ghast
3 quasali pridemage
3 cannonist
2 teeg
1 tidehallow sculler

4 null rod
3 thoughtseize
2 duress
2 life from the loam
1 extirpate
1 vamp
1 darkblast
1 diabolic edict

4 Bazaar
4 B/G fetch
3 waste
3 bayou
2 scrubland
1 swamp
1 strip
1 undiscovered paradise

3 mox
1 black lotus
1 lotus petal

I couldn't decide between another disruption creature or a duress, so I picked sculler. The artwork is sick. a little drege + wasteland + ghast = a really cool deck. it plays well together. cannonist works really well with bazaar and ghast allowing you to kind of cheat the 1 play a turn rule. and, ghast + goyf is a pretty fast clock.

[suffocation2157]

i think this is interesting. i don't know how smooth the deck runs but i would make the following changes

-1 bloodghast (4 seems like over kill)
-1 null rod
-1 smokestack
-1 crucible
-1 bazaar

+1 mana vault
+1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth (maybe even 2)
+1 vamp tutor
+1 demonic tutor
+1 gorilla shaman

[StrongIslandRob]

Hey bro i see were you are going but but idk about nuull rod i tried it but it screws you over moor imo and i dont think loss of life shouldnt be a problem while playing staxx mana in my deck is 3 gemstone mines 4 city of brass 4 workshops 1 barbarian ring 1 bazarr 4 wast 1 strip 1 tolarian academy 5 mox 1 lotus sol ring mana crypt mana vault and run 3 crucibles  and i love sundering titan i just try to weld him in and out to destroy as much land as possible if blockers arent needed

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Hey bro i see were you are going but but idk about nuull rod i tried it but it screws you over moor imo

Null Rod may hurt you, too, but with Workshop and Bazaar/Welder it is definitely asymmetrical.  I would not suggest cutting Rod, because it is the single best lock piece (on its own) in the entire deck, since it usually shuts off around 10 mana sources in your opponent's deck--they go from playing an accelerated mana base that composes about 40% of their deck to land a turn mana base of about 25%: this is absolutely crippling.  Null Rod is especially important when you are on the draw and your opponent has the chance to play artifact mana first turn--it's one of the best ways you have of slowing them down so you can catch up.

[StrongIslandRob]

I like powder keg over chalice of the void as well on the draw

[TheShop]

I like to think of the Chalice/Rod thing in this way:
Null Rod Kills:
5 mox
1 lotus
1 mana vault
1 sol ring
1 Mana crypt
but also,
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
Xx Grindstone

this means that in the average game Rod means normally 10-11 cards in the opponent's deck become dead draws immediately. (1/6 of the deck simply gone).  This continues to be true throughout the rest of the game.

Chalice on the other hand stops:
Turn 1
5 moxes
lotus
crypt
-or-
everything with a cost of one which includes:
4 duress
4 spell pierce
vamp
mystical
imperial seal
ancestral (biggest thing stopped)
possible bounce spell

this means that the average chalice in play kills at least 7 cards in the opponent's deck (1/10 of the deck)
if we get rod and a chalice at one we stop nearly 1/3 of the opponent's deck.

This is compared to your deck:
you stop your artifact mana, but do not care because you are not playing 5 colors and every mox is a mox crystal.  Also, you are digging to find either workshop or welder/bazaar...either of which are an engine which makes you accelerate through the lock pieces...making them more one-sided than before.  In short, you are turning off FAR less cards in your deck than in theirs.  You will ALWAYS be happier with everyone's artifact mana off because this is not as important for you as it is for the average blue deck.

On powder keg:
Keg does not stop the opponent from using their artifacts at least once, making every mox nearly as good as lotus petal and not a dead card.  Chalice on the draw serves a completely different function than it does on the play if they get their artifacts down.  Don't underestimate the power of chalice with a number of counters other than 0.
Lastly, keg has no effect on the stack.  Chalice is proactive because it deals with the problematic spells before the opponent can play them and destroys the power of card drawing for card advantage.  Keg simply blows up a mox or two ONE time and then is gone until you lose a permanent to weld it.

[StrongIslandRob]

true im not a strong vintage player yet but i am a fan of powder keg still.

[suffocation2157]

so ive been testing this version of Stax out and im really enjoying it...enough that i went out and bought 3 foil ghasts. ramping stax up to 2-4 doesnt seem to be to big a problem. the only thing i dont like is that he cant block...but i guess you cant have it all. i will continue to test this version and see how it goes as i have a lotus tourney at the end of nov.

[the boogie man]

Please give any real tournament feedback, I never get to play.

How are the rods for you? do you think that they belong? It kind of make this a little more tempo oriented, especially with the ghast.

[TopSecret]

Would it be worth taking out the Badlands for Mountains?
How often are you able to cast Bloodghast vs. how often is being open to Wasteland on your colored mana a problem?

PS: One maindeck Nether Spirit might be cool, since Welder is the only guy that will stay dead.

PPS: If you ever cut Null Rod, you could put in a few Skullclamps.

[TheShop]

1) Is the assumption that Smokestack must be in play and adding multiple counters necessary for Bloodghast to be good?  Because if it is, then looks like a win-more card on level with Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai (which has not been included since its creation).  Your deck should not have an issue keeping up with a Smokestack on 1 counter just by top-decking.  You should be able to maintain a Stack at 2 counters if you have a crucible in play and more counters than that if you have the previous items plus a welder.

2) Is speeding up the clock really worth taking 4 slots that could be lock components and replacing them with 4 more cards that make the deck more venerable to yard hate?  The yard hate count looks like:

4 Bazaar
4 welder
4 bloodghast
xx Crucibles
This is 1/5 of you deck owned by a leyline and it makes you far more reliant on Bazaar than you were before, when Bazaar was the icing on the cake.

[suffocation2157]

i didnt really like having both null rod and chalice since they both fill a similar roll. so i added a pithing needle instead as it can be used to hit other stuff as well. for a reference this is the list i am working on

5 mox
1 lotus
1 sol
1 crypt
1 vault
1 memory jar
4 workshop
3 wasteland
1 stripmine
4 badlands
1 bloodstained mire
1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
1 tolarian academy
3 bazaar


4 smokestack
3 tangle wire
3 crucible
4 sphere
2 thorn
1 trinisphere
3 chalice
1 pithing needle
4 welder
1 gorilla shaman
3 ghast
1 karn
1 vamp T
1 demonic T