Have you guys ever played with Tangle Wire and Smokestack? It’s fucking fantastic…when it goes right. I used to run these cards in all kinds of Stax decks in both Legacy and Vintage, but Green Stax which was recently submitted as a donation decklist is a new one even for me. I played this beauty of a deck in a Legacy league yesterday and despite a couple of punts I made, really enjoyed feeling the undeniable power of Ramunap Excavator, Hangarback Walker and many of the awesome synergies there are in this deck. Find out how we fared and which changes I would suggest to the deck.

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Legacy League with Green Stax



Like I mentioned in the video, there’s a couple of changes I would suggest to the list, going forward:

Cut black. Winding Constrictor is a card that has a lot of synergies with other cards in the deck, but I think the only one that’s really worth it is with Hangarback Walker, which just doesn’t cut it for me; especially since it occupies a very precious 2 slot, which is very important in a Mox Diamond deck.

That being said, I want more good 2-drops since you wanna maximize the power of your acceleration. When you have Mox Diamond in hand, you don’t wanna depend on also having a Sol Land in order to get maximum value from your opening hand. Because of that, my suggestion is to run at least a 2nd Sylvan Library, if not even a third one. Library helps a lot with matchups like Miracles or Grixis Control, especially since the latter’s discard can be devastating when you can’t stick that turn 1 Chalice of the Void. Statistically, you’re only gonna have turn1 Chalice in about 25% of your keepable opening hands in the blind – without even knowing whether it’s gonna be good in this matchup. Because of that, I am suggesting adding the two libraries, or at least one library + one more cmc2 card that allows you to either draw or at least filter cards.

We want more Tireless Trackers, probably three! The card is absolutely nuts in all non-combo matchups. Not only does it provide huge card advantage in non-combo matchups, it’s also a very reasonably sized creature and provides additional permanents for Smokestack and Tangle Wire. It provides the kind of staying power traditional Stompy decks used to lack in the past. In a way, it’s our Chandra, Torch of Defiance – a card that allows an otherwise rather inconsistent deck to become an actually reasonable contender outside of a 3-round FNM. Definitely run 3. To me, Ramunap Excavator and Tireless Tracker are the signature cards of the deck and the primary reason why I think Green Stax has serious potential.

While I suggest cutting black, I think we want to keep the Leyline of the Voids, at least on Magic Online where it seems to be absolutely necessary. If push comes to shove, we can technically even cast them with Mox Diamond, but that doesn’t play into my consideration of them at all. If you didn’t want to run them, the next best thing would be Faerie Macabre, which can be reasonable because we actually have a lot of card draw with Sylvan Library and Tireless Tracker. They are just much worse against Unmask.

Abrupt Decay is a card that made me wonder what I really might want it against. I suggest cutting it from the list unless there’s some kind of problem it solves that I overlooked. If you really want the effect, there’s always Beast Within, which unfortunately doesn’t synergize well with Smokestack and Tangle Wire. But honestly, I think once you’re in a position to tick your Smokestack up, I don’t think this will actually matter; it’s also a 1:1 (permanent-wise) after all. If it’s just for Enchantments and/or Artifacts, there’s a plethora of green options to choose from and we have Reclamation Sage and Green Sun’s Zenith in the main.

The Massacre was the most interesting card since it is quite clear it is meant for the Death & Taxes matchup. My suggestions are to either run Walking Ballistas, Torpor Orb or even Cursed Totem (which also happens to be insanely good vs Elves). I didn’t get any experience in that particular matchup, so I’m not 100% sure what the most challenging aspect of the D&T matchup is, so it’s hard to say which one of those options would be the best one. Phyrexian Revoker is a card, so I would actually be hesitant about running Ballista even though it’s really good. There’s also a world where you play a 1-of Bayou in the main + a ton of Fetchlands to enable Massacre, but I’m really not a fan of that.

All of this being said, my suggestions for the deck would be:

-3 Bayou -1 Snow-Covered Swamp -2 Winding Constrictor -1 Titania, Guardian of Argoth (even though I <3 this card)

+2 Forest +2 Windswept Heath +2 Tireless Tracker +1 Sylvan Library

I could also see cutting Azusa, Lost But Seeking for the 4th Trinisphere, which helps a lot vs Force of Will.

-3 Abrupt Decay -3 Massacre

+3 Cards that solve what Abrupt Decay is meant to do (?)

+3 Walking Ballista, even though I gotta say it leaves some things to be desired considering it gets completely shut off by Phyrexian Revoker with no other way to remove said Revoker, except for Umezawa’s Jitte which is really hard to connect vs Death & Taxes.

A card I actually found myself wanting throughout the league was Ensnaring Bridge. If you feel like you can make room for that card, I think it would certainly be a great choice! Against most aggressive decks it will buy you a ton of time, which is often all you need to get your way superior value engine online and eventually just Smokestack your opponent out of the game. Bonus points for also shutting down Marit Lage.

So long,

Julian

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