If I were to play Lodestone Golem

[meadbert]

Spawning Pit is interesting.  It stops those Pesky Orchards for sure and has some synergy with Karn + Smokey since you can animate Smokey and sack it eot on your opponent's turn if it is ramped too high.  Still, if you already have Karn + Smokey + 3rd artifact you should be winning anyway.

For Orchards there is also Powder Keg.  Basically Waste the Orchard then Explode Keg at 0.  Keg can also stop Vault/Key and Welder and Welder can be a beating for this deck.

[Kotch]

I've been using The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale for years vs Oath in Prison-Shop-decks, with success. It's the best way to sacrifice tokens, keeping an Oath activation away especially if you correctly use your Wastelands. Plus, Tabernacle is very good vs Dredge and can be usefull vs Fish. No need to mention that Tabernacle cannot be countered or discarded by Duress/Thoughtseize/Therapy, which is a very important point vs Oath and Dredge who don't play Wastelands.

[Cyberpunker]

I've been using The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale for years vs Oath in Prison-Shop-decks, with success.

What happens if they give you a token EOT? 

[Kotch]

I've been using The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale for years vs Oath in Prison-Shop-decks, with success.

What happens if they give you a token EOT? 

That's why I mentionned that you have to use correctly your Wastelands. Tabernacle is useless without Waste or Strip. You have to keep them to destroy opponent's lands at the end of HIS turn, so that if he uses Orchard in response to give you a token, you can sacrifice it at your upkeep with Tabernacle (or Smokestack).

That's why Tabernacle is good only in Prison builds, with the full set of Wastelands and even Crucibles.

[Neonico]

Prediction:  God's Eye will be a disappointment.

In this particular build, with tutors for it, and full set of Crucibles and Stacks, after a few testings today, i must say that it's golden...
When you have map and want to ramp smokestack to 2, it's the perfect tutoring target.

I've been using The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale for years vs Oath in Prison-Shop-decks, with success. It's the best way to sacrifice tokens, keeping an Oath activation away especially if you correctly use your Wastelands. Plus, Tabernacle is very good vs Dredge and can be usefull vs Fish. No need to mention that Tabernacle cannot be countered or discarded by Duress/Thoughtseize/Therapy, which is a very important point vs Oath and Dredge who don't play Wastelands.

As you need to have Strip/waste to make it work, smokestack does just exactly the same.... Untap, waste orchard, they give you a token, you ramp up your stack and sac the token....
One very good option against Oath/tinker in a build with Expedition map remains Maze of Ith, against the non combo (Tyrant) version of oath deck and aginst any tinker target but leviathan.

Depending on how the oath creature base will evolve with the big legendary ELdrazi, Karakas could be another good option against Iona.

[Kotch]

Agreed, Tabernacle acts as Smokestack #5 to 7, but it is not counterable and also good vs other matchups.

About Maze of Ith vs actual Oath builds : unless you get 2 Maze on board, you will be able to untap just 1 creature, which means that on 2nd Oath activation you can't contain the assault.

[TheShop]

God's Eye is the worst land in the deck until you resolve a smokestack, use it for a turn, and keep it in play...then, it is only marginally good (1 permanent difference) until you have crucible.  So we have a land that taps for 1 colorless that is good when you have a 2 card combo with a cost of 7 in play and only then 2 turns later.

If the issue is feeding smokestack, then your deck needs to be adjusted so that the topdecks feed it.  A 1/1 is not that impressive.

[Neonico]

God's Eye is the worst land in the deck until you resolve a smokestack, use it for a turn, and keep it in play...then, it is only marginally good (1 permanent difference) until you have crucible.  So we have a land that taps for 1 colorless that is good when you have a 2 card combo with a cost of 7 in play and only then 2 turns later.

If the issue is feeding smokestack, then your deck needs to be adjusted so that the topdecks feed it.  A 1/1 is not that impressive.

how is god's eye worst than any other 1 mana in this deck ? How is it even worst than Mishra's factory ? I win alot more games by a concession to a hard lock from my opponent with this build than by eating his 20 life points.

And when you have smokestack in play, it's more 3 permanent difference than one, compraing to your opponent (+1 when you ramp up smoke to one, +3 the first turn you sac God's eye (you lost 0 permanent when he lost 1 and 2) and +2 each other turns (you loose 0 permanents, he looses two a turn)), and it allows you to safely up it to 2, or even 3 with God's eye allowing you to only loose your stack when your want to stop using it.

The point isn't to rely on God's eye instead of winning the permanent war, it's to optimize the build to be able to tutor up for it when you go for the hard lock. There is a huge difference in the deck build when you have to rely on a dense build, with 3 or 4x each important card instead of relying on tutors, which allows you to include some 1of you'll be happy to have in particular situations.

In this build, i really think that God's eye is alot better than a 4th mishra's factory.

[TheShop]

You make my point again:  this card only taps for 1 colorless unless you are sporting a smokestack- which mealy all players identify as a threat to destroy, bounce, or counter.   

It is a win-more card because it is only useful when you should already be winning- when you have a lock.  Topdecks should feed smokestack until you bore them to death or find a creature.  This land does not contribute to a lock, or attack the opponent.  I would rather run a basic land.

[smasher]

This land does not contribute to a lock, or attack the opponent.  I would rather run a basic land.

I can see running the basic if you have colored spells in the deck. If we are talking about an artifact only list then I can't see the basic being better. I do not support running Gods eye either. I'd rather increase my taps for more than 1 mana land count or a real creature land like mishra's factory. About the only place I can see Gods eye being moderately effective might be a shop mirror match.

I don't see it strong enough to warrant a deck spot in a deck that continues to get new cards to play. You just can't fit them all in a 60 card deck now that we have been given modern tools such as thorn of amethyst and lodestone golem. I like playing a 1 of urborg, tomb of yawgmoth and often can't find room to fit that card in.

[credmond]

You make my point again:  this card only taps for 1 colorless unless you are sporting a smokestack- which mealy all players identify as a threat to destroy, bounce, or counter.   

It is a win-more card because it is only useful when you should already be winning- when you have a lock.  Topdecks should feed smokestack until you bore them to death or find a creature.  This land does not contribute to a lock, or attack the opponent.  I would rather run a basic land.

I wouldn't disregard God's eye gate to the Reiki so quickly as win more. Strategically, the card is like bloodghast in the bloodghast bazaar stax build in that it allows you to ramp smokestack to 2 with impunity. Being able to keep a smokestack at 2 indefinitely beats any other deck (except dredge) and will enable you to seal your lock turns sooner than if you could only ramp smokestack to 1.

[TheShop]

If you guys want to run it, go for it.  We can just sit back and wait for it to disappear again just like the the last 3 times people tried to create reasons to run this card in other variants of Stax...and it still has not found a home as a staple or generally accepted "good card" status for this archetype.

[smasher]

One more comment about Gods eye,

If it's in play without crucible its pretty underwhelming.

If you tutor for it with expedition map you are losing a permanent to get it which makes it underwhelming.

If you have crucible of worlds out you don't need Gods eye to safely put stacks on 2 for several turns.

If you draw into Gods eye and already have stacks in play you can get a turn with stacks on 3 with minimal impact to your board.

If you draw Gods eye without stack it taps for 1 mana.

Maybe I'm missing some other scenarios where it's good. I'm still pretty sure its usefulness remains in the shop mirror when you have crucible in play. I'm not ready at this point to play Gods eye for the shop mirror when I could play red shop deck with goblin welder along with some viashino heretic sideboard.

[Evenpence]

One more comment about Gods eye,

If it's in play without crucible its pretty underwhelming.

If you tutor for it with expedition map you are losing a permanent to get it which makes it underwhelming.

If you have crucible of worlds out you don't need Gods eye to safely put stacks on 2 for several turns.

If you draw into Gods eye and already have stacks in play you can get a turn with stacks on 3 with minimal impact to your board.

If you draw Gods eye without stack it taps for 1 mana.

Maybe I'm missing some other scenarios where it's good. I'm still pretty sure its usefulness remains in the shop mirror when you have crucible in play. I'm not ready at this point to play Gods eye for the shop mirror when I could play red shop deck with goblin welder along with some viashino heretic sideboard.

It's really good with Smokestack alone, and absolutely incredible with Smokestack + Crucible.  Because this deck runs 4x Expedition Map, it's not a bad idea to run 1 of them, just in case you need it for something.  Being a 1-of, you're more likely to tutor for it than you are to draw it.

"If you tutor for it with expedition map you are losing a permanent to get it which makes it underwhelming."

This is only true if you've already played your land on the turn.  You can still sac expedition map to Smokestack (instead of breaking it) if you want.

It still taps for 1, if nothing else.

[meadbert]

So I have been doing a ton more testing.  I have been happy with the main deck as is.  Sphinx is the scarier Tinker target now, but giving Smokestack an extra turn to wipe the board is pretty huge.

Right now I would keep the maindeck as is, except maybe a token God's Eye.  It usually does not matter one way or the other, but Factory is a lot better against Fish.

With the board I would keep Leyline, Chalice and Brooch.  The Needle slot is interesting.  It was never needed for Dredge.  What I want out of that last spot is a way to handle Welders and Oath most importantly.  Next handling Vault/Key would be nice and handle stuff like Needle on Strip/Waste would be nice.

For all of this Powder Keg is best.  Keg is solid for Welder, Key/Vault and Needle.  It is not amazing against Oath, but with 9 Strip/Wastes if you could Expedition Map you are fairly likely to have Strip or Waste and Keg combos with those to remove Orchard and Orchard tokens.

Keg also wipes Moxen and Warrens if anyone were to play that so if I were to play that.  Keg also wipes out Bridge tokens, but it is not clear to me that I would board it in against Dredge anyway.

A close second behind Keg is Spawning Pit.  If a meta were a third Oath or had very little in the way of Welders then Pit might make sense.  It is narrow, but very useful in that spot and for whatever reason there are very few Welders around right now.

I did test Metalworker and was not impressed.  Turn 1 Worker allowed for amazing turn 2 plays, but really opened up a chance for your opponent to hurt you.  It also was a huge double edged sword against Oath.  Counterintuitively Worker seems to work better in lists without Serum Powders and Expedition Maps because it is a decent alternative to Shop.  Once you already mulliganing to Shop and protecting it with Crucible and Maps, Metalworker is basically not needed.  If you have your Shop then you can play your spells anyway.
Metalworker is very good, but I would probably drop the Expedition Maps and possibly Crucibles.  Powder might still make sense since it is helpful in hand with Worker out, but even Serum Powder might not make sense.

[Prospero]

I played in Blue Bell over the weekend and was Empty'd twice, resulting in two match losses.  I'm running a MUD variant, and I have to say, I'm strongly considering Powder Keg at the moment.  It doesn't interact well with Chalice of the Void, or your own Moxen, but it's better than outright losing the game.  I'm also considering The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, if only because it would handle Empty tokens, and be a decent board card for all the Noble Fish decks that are out in the field right now.  I don't like that it's Waste-able, especially since Noble Fish runs Waste effects.

MUD is an exceptionally powerful strategy, and Lodestone Golem is tremendous.  If you run either Keg or Tabernacle, let me know how it works out for you.  I'll be doing testing of my own as the weeks go on.

[meadbert]

I played in Blue Bell over the weekend and was Empty'd twice, resulting in two match losses.  I'm running a MUD variant, and I have to say, I'm strongly considering Powder Keg at the moment.  It doesn't interact well with Chalice of the Void, or your own Moxen, but it's better than outright losing the game.  I'm also considering The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, if only because it would handle Empty tokens, and be a decent board card for all the Noble Fish decks that are out in the field right now.  I don't like that it's Waste-able, especially since Noble Fish runs Waste effects.

MUD is an exceptionally powerful strategy, and Lodestone Golem is tremendous.  If you run either Keg or Tabernacle, let me know how it works out for you.  I'll be doing testing of my own as the weeks go on.

Keg answers Empty which is nice, but I would not add it the main just for that reason.

Something to be careful of when evaluating losses to Empty the Warrens is while Warrens finishes you off, you were usually already losing since they were able to get off a 4cc Sorcery.  Answering Warrens is mostly important if you are playing some sort of Long deck with Spirit Guides that can actually drop Warrens on turn 1.  For the decks that I am guessing you faced the question is where were your Spheres to stop Warrens from ever being played.

[Evenpence]

For the decks that I am guessing you faced the question is where were your Spheres to stop Warrens from ever being played.

Just six or even four goblin tokens beat Stax variants pretty soundly, not necessarily hard to do even with a sphere or two out.  If your opponent is going first and has multiple copies of EtW in his deck, it's even worse.

[Neonico]

You make my point again:  this card only taps for 1 colorless unless you are sporting a smokestack- which mealy all players identify as a threat to destroy, bounce, or counter.   

It is a win-more card because it is only useful when you should already be winning- when you have a lock.  Topdecks should feed smokestack until you bore them to death or find a creature.  This land does not contribute to a lock, or attack the opponent.  I would rather run a basic land.

Did you even realize that we speacking of god's Eye instead of Mishra's Factory right ?
We speack of a 1 mana land instead of another 1 mana land, not a shop, Ancient tomb or city of traitors.

I personnaly run 18 lands in MUD lists. The core is Academy, 4 shop, 4 waste, 1 strip, 4 ancient Tomb, 2 city of Traitors. That leave me with 2 slots, and they have allways been 1 mana lands. Usually it's Mishra's factory, but i would happily trade one of them for a god's Eye as soon as i switch from an aggro build to a prison build. I don't see where it hurts your manabase. ANd as a bonus, it's good with smokestack.

[meadbert]

Just six or even four goblin tokens beat Stax variants pretty soundly, not necessarily hard to do even with a sphere or two out.  If your opponent is going first and has multiple copies of EtW in his deck, it's even worse.

It just takes one creature to stop even 6 Warrens tokens from beating you since they swing for 5,4,3,2,1 totally 15 life.
They are way ahead in the permanent war weakening Smokestack and they got 4 mana from somewhere to begin with, so I am not saying that you are likely to win.
All I am saying is that Empty the Warrens is more likely a symptom of your disease (an utter failure to deny mana) rather than a disease in and of itself.

[Smmenen]

I played in Blue Bell over the weekend and was Empty'd twice, resulting in two match losses.  I'm running a MUD variant, and I have to say, I'm strongly considering Powder Keg at the moment.  It doesn't interact well with Chalice of the Void, or your own Moxen, but it's better than outright losing the game.  I'm also considering The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, if only because it would handle Empty tokens, and be a decent board card for all the Noble Fish decks that are out in the field right now.  I don't like that it's Waste-able, especially since Noble Fish runs Waste effects.

The Tabernacle is incredibly powerful, and synergistic with MUD.   Another thing about Tabernacle is that it can actually help you beat Oath as well, since you can sacrifice Orchard tokens, forcing them to give you a token on your endstep.   If you have Wasteland or Wasteland recursion, you can prevent this from happening.   This can buy you time to find an answer to Oath directly.   

[Prospero]

I played in Blue Bell over the weekend and was Empty'd twice, resulting in two match losses.  I'm running a MUD variant, and I have to say, I'm strongly considering Powder Keg at the moment.  It doesn't interact well with Chalice of the Void, or your own Moxen, but it's better than outright losing the game.  I'm also considering The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, if only because it would handle Empty tokens, and be a decent board card for all the Noble Fish decks that are out in the field right now.  I don't like that it's Waste-able, especially since Noble Fish runs Waste effects.

The Tabernacle is incredibly powerful, and synergistic with MUD.   Another thing about Tabernacle is that it can actually help you beat Oath as well, since you can sacrifice Orchard tokens, forcing them to give you a token on your endstep.   If you have Wasteland or Wasteland recursion, you can prevent this from happening.   This can buy you time to find an answer to Oath directly.   

It is, and though I would board it in against Oath, I wouldn't look at it as an answer against Oath.  In order for Tabernacle to be truly effective, I need to both protect it (they can't Waste it on me at an inopportune time) and I would need recur-able waste effects, making their Orchards sorcery speed.  The other answers that MUD decks have open to them - notably cards like Duplicant - are flat out dead against certain Oath strategies.  I watched a Hellkite Overlord get Duplicant'd, only to watch the Oath player flip up Karrthus on the following turn and swing for lethal.

I have been boarding in three cards that handle Trygon Predator (an early Trygon is almost assuredly a game loss) and handle Oath targets (including Dragons).  I'm happy with the tech as it stands now, but would rather not share it until I've gotten a little more mileage out of it.

I ran two Duplicants in my board while at Blue Bell last weekend, and I was happy with them.  They are not, however, the perfect answer. 

[meadbert]

Trygon is problem.  Yet again I want my Ensnaring Bridges back.

[Troy_Costisick]

Trygon is problem.  Yet again I want my Ensnaring Bridges back.

Meadbert, do you have an updated decklist for this?

[Prospero]

Trygon is problem.  Yet again I want my Ensnaring Bridges back.

Trygon is a serious problem, and there aren't really all that many great answers.  Most of the decks packing Trygon are also packing Null Rods - so something like Triskelion may just be as dead as some of the other "answers".  Razormane Masticore is great if you've got him on the board, but he's not a topdeck answer.  And, because he's not a topdeck answer, he's not going to help you against a resolved Trygon.  If you're going to go the traditional route, you're going to need to Wire and Stack them out.  It's not the easiest proposition, especially because the Noble Fish decks run many cheap permanents that can make your Wires much less effective. 

If you're running Ensnaring Bridges, you're probably best off running Bazaars as well - as they would aid the Bridge and also help Crucibles.  If you're running Bazaars, in addition to crutching on your Crucibles, you should probably be running Welders, which scraps the whole idea of MUD. 

Noble Fish is prevalent around here.  And, I have to say, I was quite annoyed this past weekend when I played against someone I'd never seen before, and he dropped a Meddling Mage and named Tangle Wire. 

Even running through lists in my head (that run red) I find myself having a tough time marrying a proper balance of red mana sources and acceleration.  Running 3-4 Bazaars in the main cuts into design space.  Additionally, running red means cutting the Serum Powders - which are absolutely tremendous, and a great asset.

For the time being, I'm going to continue running MUD, and I'm going to hope for two things:

1.  That I draw my proper hate when I need it in order to fight Trygon's.  Because I think they have a very tough time beating MUD when they don't have a Trygon on the board.

2.  That the metagame adapts to combat the rise of Fish.  I was glad to see Steve win Blue Bell this weekend if only because it means that the Fish decks have to start considering TPS.  TPS should run over Fish, and Fish looks like it's 15-20% of the metagame.  There isn't much that Fish can do, beyond resolving a Null Rod and a Gaddock Teeg.  And Lord knows that TPS has answers to that junk.

 

[TheShop]

Did you even realize that we speacking of god's Eye instead of Mishra's Factory right ?
We speack of a 1 mana land instead of another 1 mana land, not a shop, Ancient tomb or city of traitors.

I personnaly run 18 lands in MUD lists. The core is Academy, 4 shop, 4 waste, 1 strip, 4 ancient Tomb, 2 city of Traitors. That leave me with 2 slots, and they have allways been 1 mana lands. Usually it's Mishra's factory, but i would happily trade one of them for a god's Eye as soon as i switch from an aggro build to a prison build. I don't see where it hurts your manabase. ANd as a bonus, it's good with smokestack.

Yes I did, my last comment on the subject:  without a smokestack, this land is bad...if you can keep a smokestack in play-you shouldn't need this land at all to feed the stack or have a Win condition...therefore, it is unnecessary.  Factory would be ok, And even a basic is at least unwastable.

[Evenpence]

Did you even realize that we speacking of god's Eye instead of Mishra's Factory right ?
We speack of a 1 mana land instead of another 1 mana land, not a shop, Ancient tomb or city of traitors.

I personnaly run 18 lands in MUD lists. The core is Academy, 4 shop, 4 waste, 1 strip, 4 ancient Tomb, 2 city of Traitors. That leave me with 2 slots, and they have allways been 1 mana lands. Usually it's Mishra's factory, but i would happily trade one of them for a god's Eye as soon as i switch from an aggro build to a prison build. I don't see where it hurts your manabase. ANd as a bonus, it's good with smokestack.

Yes I did, my last comment on the subject:  without a smokestack, this land is bad...if you can keep a smokestack in play-you shouldn't need this land at all to feed the stack or have a Win condition...therefore, it is unnecessary.  Factory would be ok, And even a basic is at least unwastable.

It's absolutely nuts in the Stax Mirror and also allows you to ramp to 2 (or more) if you have Crucible + Stax recursion out to wipe the enemy board quicker (against anyone) if you get behind.  With land tutors, it's very good as a singleton.  

As Neonico has mentioned, he runs 18 lands in MUD lists where two of them are 1 mana lands.  When you're comparing this card with a Mishra's Factory, it seems the added benefit of being nuts in certain situations as opposed to a 2/2 that you have to siphon mana into is pretty good, especially when (as mentioned) you can tutor for it if you have conditions set up.

Can you really not see why this card might be good in this list?

It appears that your arguments are:

1)  Without a smokestack this land is bad.
2)  You don't need it with smokestack in play because you will have other permanents to sacrifice to it.
3)  You don't need it as a win condition.
4)  Mishra's Factory is better (no reasons mentioned why this might be, however).
5)  A basic is better because it can't be wastelanded.

Okay, let's break these down.

#1 -- How is this land bad if smokestack isn't in play?  It produces mana.  It produces the same mana as Mishra's Factory (as we seem to like comparing it to this card all-of-a-sudden).  One could argue that this card is just as good the vast majority of the time compared to M. Factory.
#2 -- Clearly you don't *need* it when smokestack is in play.  You don't *need* any card to sustain Smokestack.  Following the same line of reasoning (and straw manning a bit) you don't *need* Black Lotus in your deck with Smokestack in play.  You don't *need* Crucible of Worlds when Smokestack is in play.

Do they help?  Of course Crucible helps when Smokestack is in play, and the synergy between the two cards is reason enough to run them along side each other.  They make each other much better -- Smokestack is actually benefited much more with a Crucible in play than the other way around.

In the same way, God's Eye has great synergy with Smokestack, and to a lesser extent, Crucible.  When combined with both cards, the synergy is overwhelming.

#3 -- You don't need Mishra's Factory, a basic, or any other card you could put in here as a win condition either.  Senseless point.
#4 -- How is Mishra's Factory better?  It produces the same amount of mana and requires mana to activate to swing or block.  Points here would be nice.
#5 -- A basic is better because of wasteland?  Really?  Who on earth is going to choose to wasteland a card that gives it's controller a 1/1 over the infinite better targets the MUD player will have on board.  Even if you (for whatever reason) have this as your only land, the opposing player will most likely sit on the wasteland until a better target arrives.

Moreover, how is Factory better than the basic here again?  You could make the same argument that a basic is better than Factory because it's unwasteable.  In fact, you could make that argument for any land in the deck.  God's Eye is probably the least favorable target to wasteland in the entire deck.

[dragzz]

I've always considered Ashnold's Altar/Phyrexian Altar as a fairly decent answer to Oath ever since mana burn was removed. There would be a lot of cases wherein your opponent would be giving you tokens in order to get mana from the orchards, and you can just turn things around by getting mana off the tokens.

I've been testing it out on MWS on 5c/Mono Red and MUD versions of Stax and it's been working fairly well, arguably the card may not be better that Gargadon for MonoRed or 5c, but I definitely think it's far better than Spawning Pit or Eon Hub, and I can see it being synergistic with a list like this that runs 4 copies of Expedition Maps.

[madmanmike25]

The God's Eye argument is rather intriguing to me.  Comparing it to Mishras Factory seems unfair because God's Eye just can't win in my eyes(see what i did there?).

So this card is good when you have Smoke amped and Crucible in play?  If you have Crucible in play and an amped Smokestack you are already in really really good position.  Hell, I would settle for just an amped Smokestack.  Maybe in some crazy/rare mirror scenarios this card will determine the victor, but I'm going to label it win-more.

A very minor point is that Factories are great against Oath as to not be 'alive' on your opponents upkeep.  If your opponent Strips (some Oath lists even run a Waste or 2) God's Eye, they don't need Orchard because you just triggered Oath.  One activation can be deadly.

God's Eye is Legendary.  God's Eye cannot become a 3/3 blocker.  God's Eye cannot become a 3/3 attacker.  God's Eye in a vacuum will produce only 1 mana, Factory or even Rishadan Port does more in a vacuum.  God's Eye will not always make it to your graveyard making vacuum comparisons valid.  God's Eye will not put your opponent on any type of clock whatsoever w/o Crucible and Smoke recursion.  Wasting your own land to get a 1/1 seems horrible.

God's Eye appears to be 2 permanents in one, but in reality it is just a 1/1 at the cost of a permanent and/or land drop.  If you have a Stax infested meta, only then could i see potentially maindecking this. 

Ok, if you really are going to run FOUR Expedition Maps then maybe, just maybe 1 can go in.  But my point would be that there are far better utility lands to use as singletons.

1)  Without a smokestack this land is bad.
2)  You don't need it with smokestack in play because you will have other permanents to sacrifice to it.
3)  You don't need it as a win condition.
4)  Mishra's Factory is better.

I would agree with all of these.  I do think however that God's Eye is superior to a basic land.  How many MUD lists run a basic land?

I would file God's Eye under 'really great but only under really narrow circumstances'.

Random thought:  Anyone ever consider Clamping the God's Eye tokens?  But even then I would take Blinkmoth+Clamp over this.  Hmmm that seems ok with Crucible...

[RJ]

Has anyone tried skullclamp as a tactic against orchard tokens?  I know they could still give you one at EOT, but it could help you dig for answers if they do trigger oath.