PaleoStax

Okay, okay, I’ve missed two days in a row. I’m sorry. Sunday I should have written before I went to see my girlfriend, but I decided I deserved a break, especially after getting stomped in that tournament, which was depressing but not terrible and which I would have been able to handle if we hadn’t had to drive all the way to Dayton to do it.

And yesterday I played Magic: Spells of the Ancients for something like six hours.

What can I say? I’m an addict. I seriously need to cut down on that or I’ll never do anything else ever again. Probably the one saving grace of that was getting so annoyed with myself that I went out and took a walk for about an hour.

I’ve been playing Old Skool computer Magic because it’s so darn cool.

My Shandalar deck now has two Black Lotuses, five Contracts from Below, and five Lightning Bolts. Probably my best game so far has been: Swamp, Lotus, triple Bolt you, Contract, Lotus, Fireball you for the win.

Thanks for stopping by!

It’s nice when opponents don’t start with 20 life.

I’ve also been fooling around with the deckbuilder, and I think I know what Stax would have looked like circa 1995. I have it named TooStax in the file, but I’ve started calling it PaleoStax because, well, that’s what it is:

4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Mishra’s Factory
4x Island
4x Underground Sea
4x Desert
4x Strip Mine
1x Library of Alexandria
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Mana Crypt

4x Juggernaut
4x Triskelion

4x Winter Orb
4x Ankh of Mishra
4x Icy Manipulator

1x Ancestral Recall
1x Timetwister
1x Time Walk
3x Braingeyser

So far the only deck it loses to consistently—like without getting a terrible draw or the computer drawing something terribly broken against an average draw, at least, against the computer—is White Weenie. First turn Juggernaut, second turn Anhk and Orb, third turn Icy Manipulator is pretty good. So is first turn Juggs, second turn Trike, third turn Trike.

I realize that Strip Mine is (and was) restricted, but if I built it now I would definitely run four Wastelands in place of three of them, so that’s probably okay. Also, in comparing the computers decks against Vintage decks now, it’s probably about as effective since the computer rarely uses a non-basic land whereas Vintage decks use non-basics pretty much all the time.

Desert and Trike are quite possibly the best two cards in the deck. I mean, there’s nothing quite like swinging Juggs in for five on turn two, but Trike comes in and saves the day so many times against so many creature laden opponents. Plus, since the computer usually taps out to play every turn, he so often kills otherwise unkillable regenerators (for some reason Will o’ the Wisp is in almost every black deck the computer makes).

Desert is similar in that lots of creatures can only attack you once, so maybe you take one or two while you save yourself from one or two a turn. Imagine that in multiples! I’m sort of surprised people don’t use it more often nowadays. I mean, I see where it wouldn’t be good in Vintage because, hey, no creatures, but you might want to take a look at it in Legacy. I suppose at this point Quicksand is just as good, if not better.

Mana Crypt, Library of Alexandria and Braingeyser have all underperformed for me. Well, actually, the Braingeyser’s been okay and the Library’s drawn me a few cards, and even the Crypt has let me do lots of broken stuff (i.e. Trike) a turn earlier (e.g. first turn). The problem is that I have no way to get rid of my own Mana Crypt and I usually play out my hand so fast that the Library just doesn’t work.

I’d keep both of them in but replace the Geysers with Transmute Artifact, I believe. It’s like Tinker for dinosaurs!

As for Ankh of Mishra, I’m not sure how realistic it is. I have a feeling that the computer players have different personalities and that some are more aggressive than others. Sometimes I can drop two Ankhs first turn and they’ll just start discarding land for fear of the damage. These games aren’t hard to win, but I have a feeling that a human player would put one or two lands down in hopes of drawing an out.

The other cards probably work about as well as you’d expect: Icy Manipulator is frustrating to opponents who get fast aggro starts and slow mana starts; Winter Orb is a challenge for everyone once it’s in play, but I’ve definitely gone all the way with a Mishra’s Factory under Orb lockdown; and everything else is just hot, blue, T1 brokenness.

Actually, I’d sort of like to see this deck tried in Legacy. I mean, you’d have to replace the Workshops and restricted mana sources, probably with Cities of Traitors and Ancient Tombs plus the non-restricted mana like Mox Diamond.

Usually, once you get your lock parts and a thumper down, your extra mana goes to waste, so you could probably splash black for Dark Rituals and some tutoring (and maybe disruption, like Duress). Then you could maybe use Chrome Mox too since you’d have colored cards to imprint, though I don’t know if you’d want to give up a card like that.

Plus, I bet Trike is, you know, decent against Goblins and maybe even Ichorid, since it can kill four of them, even on the same turn.

Give it a thought and give yourself over to the Dark Side of Stax.