Mantis Rider

[desolutionist]

Hey guys, I want to point out that Mantis Rider has a favorable interaction with one of my favorite decks: Stasis

I played mono blue stasis on mtgo for a couple dailys (back when they used to fire) and had some success.  I think I finished 2-2 in all of them but had some victories in the 2-mans as well.  I was impressed by Stasis, usually once it hits the table, the opponent can't really do anything until you can stop paying for it, which is supposed to be never thanks to cards like Gush, Thwart, Ancestral Visions, and Forsaken City.  The biggest challenge for the Stasis deck was to close out games.  Batterskull had been my kill condition because it was the best vigilance creature and one of the best win conditions in magic.  I also seriously considered Serra Sphinx because its blue and has flying/vigilance.  But these vigilance kill conditions often time were too expensive to quickly deploy under a Stasis lock.

Mantis Rider was the card I wanted last time I played the deck, so I imagine they'd be very good.  Unfortunately I won't have an opportunity to test it anytime soon.  So this is why I'm sharing.  I'm trying to find my exact list because it was very tight but it was along these lines:

4 Stasis
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Gush
2 Daze
1 Thwart
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ancestral Visions
3 Mystic Remora
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Batterskull
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire

3 Forsaken City
22 Island

Nothing too extraordinary from the last time Stasis has seen play except for maybe Mental Misstep, which is an obvious improvement as well. I think I'd try a light fetchland manabase w/ Forsaken City to cast Mantis Riders.  The redundancy of basic island is very good in this deck.

Mantis Rider conveniently solves one of the biggest threats for this strategy: an opposing Jace the Mind Sculptor. 

[vaughnbros]

Mantis Rider does seem pretty solid, but how much better is it than lightning angel?  The 1 more toughness on the angel lets it survive lightning bolt, and beat flipped delvers in combat.  Of course both seem like they could be pretty good though in a strong control list.

Planewalkers are incredibly powerful in general with stasis, as they pretty much just require a stale game state and stasis can usually do that for them.  Ral Zarek in particular is pretty much game with a stasis in play, as he not only untaps your own permanents, but taps your opponents permanents.  And after you grow him sufficiently large he can either ultimate and give you a ton of extra turns, or start lightning bolting your opponent in the face.

I feel like there has been a stasis deck to build for a while now, but have never been able to pull it off.  How does this list play when it doesn't draw / resolve an early stasis?  I've found this to be the biggest problem.

[xouman]

I think back to basics would help a lot in this deck. And what about Frozen Aether, the blue Kismet? (not speaking of white options, already useful if mantis rider comes in) Propaganda in the side would help too.

Isn't better to stay all blue if possible?

[Saya]

Being tripple color seems so hard for Stasis

[vaughnbros]

Being tripple color seems so hard for Stasis

Isn't better to stay all blue if possible?

Can someone elaborate on why its beneficial for Stasis to be mono colored?  Nothing about the card restricts your access to specific colors.  It only restricts mana in general.  All of the powerful interactions with other colors seems far more important than a mana base being immune to wasteland.

[desolutionist]

I think in addition to wasteland, your lands never untap so you need Forsaken City or Gush to generate color mana if you're not holding the fetch/non-basic

[vaughnbros]

I think in addition to wasteland, your lands never untap so you need Forsaken City or Gush to generate color mana if you're not holding the fetch/non-basic

You can still play multiple colors with gush though.  I mean it's not uncommon to see 4c gush decks.  Also forsaken city itself is a non basic that can't be gushed off.  If the deck was running B2Basics I understand, but there is nothing about stasis itself limiting you to only blue.

[brianpk80]

That was an insightful post.  While I don't have much experience in Stasis, I did take Mantis Rider for a few spins in a Cavern Humans shell (as an Exava substitute) and it was definitely solid. 

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

I think in addition to wasteland, your lands never untap so you need Forsaken City or Gush to generate color mana if you're not holding the fetch/non-basic

You can still play multiple colors with gush though.  I mean it's not uncommon to see 4c gush decks.  Also forsaken city itself is a non basic that can't be gushed off.  If the deck was running B2Basics I understand, but there is nothing about stasis itself limiting you to only blue.

De solution is to is well aware of 4c gush him and my buddy Allen were the ones that developed East Coast Wins a few years back (a 4c gush deck) hahahaha

[desolutionist]

vaugnbros, let me start over

The Stasis deck can most likely play fetchlands and island duals but the downside is that you would be removing basic Islands.  Basic island is particularly good because it means your lock can't be disrupted by Wasteland while playing "draw-go" for ten turns.

[Protoaddict]

I would think you would want your stasis deck to at least be primarily blue.

As has been mentioned before, Stasis got its new best friend in Ral a few sets back. He quite realistically does everything you need in the deck from untapping your land every turn to pay upkeep to tapping them down to being a win condition in and of himself. You can probably also just use time vault in that list as well and once you have that combo let stasis die and just take infinite turns to win.

A tri color creature that can be removed via most of the 1 color removal spells in the format does not seem like that solid a win plan to me when Ral just seems so much better with much more utility.

[msg67183]

That was an insightful post.  While I don't have much experience in Stasis, I did take Mantis Rider for a few spins in a Cavern Humans shell (as an Exava substitute) and it was definitely solid. 

Mantis Rider does seem strong for a Jace Killer. Also swings and trades with Lodestone so I feel it deserves merit

[MaximumCDawg]

Mantis Rider seems like a fine card and all, but I don't think that Stasis was being held back for lack of a good finisher.  As people have mentioned previously, Planeswalkers are amazing with Stasis.  Beyond that, I guess this is the best stasis finisher in a creature we've seen since Serra Angel, really.  I mean, the main competition among hasty vigilantes are Cerodon Yearling (who doesn't fly) and Lightning Angel (who costs more).  So... okay?

I feel like the main problem with Stasis has never been finishing the game.  It's been the fact that Stasis is an utterly unique effect and so it's hard to make the deck consistent.  That, and the problem of actually finishing a game in time, of course.

[serracollector]

I have been testing Mantis Rider in an American Delver shell alongside four Delver four Young Pyromancer and four Containment Priest with four Cavern of Souls as they are all humans dropping Gush entirely. Its been quite nice allowing for faster finishes and helping the deck versus its hardest matchups of Mud and Oath. Also it gets around Ratchet Bomb and Engineered Explosives and allows me to run Swords to Plowshares in conjunction with bolts.

[xouman]

@vaughnbros: Maybe I'm biased because when I played against stasis manabases were far less stable (lots of years ago). I fact when I said I'd keep stasis deck monoblue, the first sentence was "I think back to basics would help a lot in this deck.". I'm not saying b2b is stasis 5-8, but helps with the strategy (and cotv/null rod would help too). Being able to pay each turn stasis is key, and being inmune to wasteland helps. Of course you can add a second and a third color if needed (i also would play ral zarek, jace and maybe even tezz 1.0)

one problem with mantis is that suffers from lots of removal (decay, bolt, stp, pyro...), so I don't find it the final solution for stasis.

[Protoaddict]

I have been testing Mantis Rider in an American Delver shell alongside four Delver four Young Pyromancer and four Containment Priest with four Cavern of Souls as they are all humans dropping Gush entirely. Its been quite nice allowing for faster finishes and helping the deck versus its hardest matchups of Mud and Oath. Also it gets around Ratchet Bomb and Engineered Explosives and allows me to run Swords to Plowshares in conjunction with bolts.

Interesting, using it very much like the blood witch in 5cc humans. That being said the mantis is problematic because it does not win the game fast enough on its own and offers no disruption itself.

I would be very excited to know some random humans aggro deck is winning by running lightning angels, not holding my breath though as oath still gets there even witg priest i think.

[nedleeds]

I think I'd rather just win with Ral Zarek or Black Vise than go through the trouble of a 3 color boltable man. If you are playing Stasis you are obviously playing 3-4 Chain of Vapor (absurd with Stasis EOT) I think I'd rather just Chain Jace in response to BS. With the rise of dudes I could see Ensnare being pretty good -- you can also just Ensnare in a pinch with no targets to get 2 Islands.

[rcwraspy]

Isn't Lightning Angel better anyway?  The one extra mana for one extra toughness isn't generally a good trade-off, but in this case it means the creature dodges both Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolt, neither of which can be said for Mantis Rider.