Heo Edwin, I played MTG since I am ten. (1996)At this time I don‘t know anything about editions or something... i only pointing at the packs in the Store where MTG Where selled. Trank you for the history you Shared with und! Really, my Wife hate when I watch MTG but your More symphatic than Andy other TH-camr!!!! I Hope my english is ok to understand. I want to „verbeugen“ me. (Translate ist) Thank yoooouuuu!!!!
Thanks for such a detailed analysis of your deck Edwin! You literally opened this oldschool archetype for me and now that I got all pieces for this deck (well, except for the tabs 😊) I'm excited to give it a try. I wouldn't have even thought about it if I hadn't come across your channel!
This is just fantastic! THIS is exactly why I do my channel. To share my hobbies/passions with the world and get other people passionate and excited about hobbies as well. Thank you so much for sharing this! Made my day. Remember that the deck is designed to be aggressive-control, not defensive-control. I recommend you goldfish this a few times to get comfortable with playing Stasis as early as you can sustain it. Focus on these 4 points... 1. Keep starting hands with at least 2 mana and either a Winter Orb or a Howling Mine. Don't keep hands filled with Black Vises at the start. 2. Play Stasis as early as possible. Typically if I have 1-2 Howing mines on the table and 2 blue left AFTER playing Stasis... play it! OR if you have at least 1 open blue mana, several howling mines, and a Time Vault in play. 3. DO NOT bother dumping your Counters/Boomerangs on opposing creatures unless you need to stay alive, or you can lock by doing it. Just take a few hits in the face with creatures then lock them tapped with Stasis. 4. Any game where you can maintain a constant level of suppression (Orb, Stasis) on the table.. you'll likely win. Please reply again later and let me know how it goes for you!
Edwin the Magic Engineer wow thanks for the guidelines! Now I need to write them down next to the decklist as a reminder to have them at hand :) I'm going to put the deck together after the winter online league in which I'll play the Machine Head powered by my favourite Juzams 💪 I'll let you know as soon as I test your Turbo Stasis in action!
I'd like to see this deck in action. I'd love to watch you play vintage on MTGO. Do you have any video of you playing this on TH-cam or Twitch? Please consider added those kinds of videos to this channel. Thank you.
Hi Starcore Labs, I've had a lot of requests to get some actual games filmed and post them. I'm definitely interested in getting that figured out but I have not yet set it up. I agree that it would be fun and I do want to add that kind of content. Now that I have some vacation time I'll spend some time working on this. I've avoided MTGO completely and I'll continue to do so. Firstly because I don't trust WoTC to do the right thing with digital assets that I've paid for. But second because I've always been very bothered that the price for virtual packs is about the same as real life packs. I've always believed that was the wrong direction. I personally believe that the cost of MTGO booster packs should be 1/4 or less than real boosters. Plus there's something to be said for the fun of holding the cards in my hands and playing MTG anywhere I am, including at a Cabin in the woods with no internet! I will have my cards and the ability to play MTG when I'm 80 years old. Who really knows what will happen to the WoTC servers for playing MTGO if WoTC runs into financial trouble and/or shuts it's doors. Anyways, yeah I'll hopefully work out my video gaming setup soon. Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
Agreed. Please note I don't mean to insult anybody who plays it. I bear no ill will or lack of respect for the people doing it. I just personally don't trust it and I keep waiting for the whole MTGO market to get crushed by WoTC throwing their weight around.
Hi Edwin I am a big new fan :D. 1 card I feel like you have missed is Reconstruction for the Black Vise strategy to keep it coming back to your hand if it gets destroyed and it was in Antiquities so it is legal! Also if you want a free way to record in decent quality you can get OBS or xSplit which are usually used for streaming purposes but can just record the screen as well. Appear.in is a much cleaner layout for games so you can use that site over webcam to play. You also have access to Copy Artifact to copy the Black Vise. This is just some ideas to make the deck possibly better. :)
Divine Shadow- Gatherer of Magic Hi and welcome! Lots of comments, I'll try to answer them the best I can on my smartphone while walking around with the family. Reconstruction is a reactive/recovery card that's a dead card if and until something of yours blows up. The first reason it's wrong for this deck (not an oversight) is because this is an AGGRESSIVE control deck which means there are very few slots for reactive/answers. The reactive/answer cards that are in the deck also double as combo/lock pieces. The Power sink taps down mana, the boomerang pops stasis or the orb back into my hand allowing an untap. The other reason Reconstruction is not needed is because when this deck is doing it's thing you are both drawing 2-5 cards a turn with limited mana so what ever just got blown up... you'll get another and it's ok. The final reason Reconstruction is wrong is because Timetwister is already filling the slot of getting blown up artifacts back into the deck to be drawn again.
Divine Shadow- Gatherer of Magic about the software/tools, thanks for the notes. Yeah I'm trying to work that out right now. Lots of options and different ways to solve that problem! Believe me... Copy artifact has been used to copy nearly every artifact in the deck at one time or another except the off color moxes.
Stasis and Blood moon in the same deck?!! This is awesome. I was toying around with a list similar to your last one. Granted I am new to the format but how do you deal with a resolved nethervoid? Seemed impossible to beat when I just kept getting stripmined. Do you think white would be better than red so you can run disenchants? Deals with both energy flux and nethervoid. Maybe even play a 1 of kismet in the main.
They are indeed good and I have used them in various builds of stasis over the years. They were not cheap enough for this version. This version is fast and aggressive and tries to win quickly.
Also curious (this time I'll spell curious right!) if you play tested any variations with Candelabra of Tawnos, been trying to think of a way to make it work well, possibly with the Mox's, Sol Ring, etc. Was that a thought at one point?
It's definitely a thought and it definitely has merit. I did consider the Candelabra but I didn't test with it. It's main use would be using moxes to untap my Islands, and that would indeed be useful. But when you look at what cards need to come OUT to replace it... what you lose is more helpful than what it brings. Now... if the Candelabra let you tap and untap lands... whoa... that would be totally different! I could use it to keep them locked down. But as it stands, it's only for untapping lands and the deck gets by without it just fine. I wish there was room to squeeze in some copy artifacts in version 2.4! Those would be the next to go back in.
That is indeed the plan but I want the Sideboard to be fully fleshed out. That's where almost ALL the effort is right now. Getting the sideboard locked down. It takes a LOT of games against the whole meta, that's what's taking time.
No pressure, Edwin. Thanks for the content and I (among others, i'm sure) am looking forward to the next video. I just picked up my Stasis playset and I am more than happy to work with your 2.3 in the meantime! Good luck
How does this handle more aggressive decks like Mono Black and Goblins/Burn? The amount of explosive turns they can have off of 1 or 2 mana can leave more controlling versions reeling.
I love this deck, I was wondering how you would modify it for Vintage, I know the Old School format is restricted to only a certain number of sets and I was curious if you would leave it the same for Vintage play or if you would add things to it.
I think this kind of deck was the first I ever saw that made use of 'bad cards' to win. in '94 we were taught that a card like Howling Mine was bad, because when you play it, your opponent gets to draw first. and boomerang was bad because it cost you a card and them only some mana , they keep the card and replay it. and Stasis was a bargain bin rare.... then somebody put it all together and we were like, wow this is next level ..... a real engine deck.
I remember thinking the same thing. That's one aspect of MTG I always appreciated SO MUCH... how a different way to build with or play those same game pieces could totally flip my whole reality on their value.
I'd like to play this deck what would be a competitive deck to go against this deck for a second player to have fun with also. Is it a deck you may have already made a video of?
Any of the budget decks (another video series I did) are fun to run against this deck. The green deck often wins against Turbo Stasis because it's just so fast and mana dorks avoid the lockdown strategies. Plus the greenies that push against artifacts are great in that deck.
Two questions. Why no Library of Alexandria? And I’m assuming you tested with workshop or two? Was the fact it’s not a blue source why it’s not in the main deck?
Hi Michael, Great questions. Firstly the LoA is very likely the most powerful land in all of MTG. So it's a very valid ask when it's missing from a deck. Usually when it's missing it's because the deck NEEDS to drop it's cards fast to have that speed edge (examples are red burn decks or affinity decks). The other reason LoA can be terrible is if playing or tapping lands is extremely painful. Winter Orb is a perfect example... this deck NEEDS it's blue mana. Untapping the Library might allow you to draw more... sure... but often times I noticed I needed the blue mana so badly I would just leave the Library tapped. Also if I get fast mana and lock artifacts, I play them as early as possible. So in all my testing it just didn't work with the deck strategy. Workshop is much easier to answer. The artifacts are all so cheap that getting mana for them is simple. Workshop would power out a fast start and then be a dead land much of the time. Blue mana is super super critical in this deck. If my build included more expensive artifacts like Icy Manipulator it would be more worth it.
Hi Joshua. Yes it is banned in both of those. This is a very special and growing fast format called Old School where only cards that were originally printed in 1993-1994 are allowed. (newer reprints with original artwork and card frame are also allowed). Chaos Orb has special rules to "fix it" and make it usable. www.eternalcentral.com/9394rules/
Edwin the Magic Engineer Ok, that makes much more sense! I played extensively from about 1994 to 1997 then sold my cards when going off to college (to become an Aerospace Engineer!) I'm getting back into it now while teaching my son. I'm still getting used to all the formats, didn't see the Old School format on the Wizards site, but that makes sense that it's still growing in popularity. I like it, thanks!
That's a great question. Because Time Walk is almost ALWAYS an auto include. I had to play test this deck with and without it a bunch of times before I could really conclude it was better off without it. Most of the time, with an active Stasis, or Winter Orb in play spending 2 mana for a Time Walk was more of an issue than a benefit. This deck works by keeping your own mana unlocked better than your opponent. Point in fact, the ability to SKIP a turn is sometimes just as powerful as the ability to take an extra turn with Time Vault. If the opponent is under a couple vises, with a full grip of cards, getting chewed up every turn, you really want that active stasis for several turns to chew them up. The 1 blue upkeep with Stasis is the challenge. With Time Walk you often end up not wanting to cast it because you gain more benefit just keeping your mana open. If you have no Stasis or Winter Orb... Time walk is great there... but in that situation you are already in trouble and what you really need is something that helps you trip them up or get the lock in place. Time walk helps for sure... but often times in those cases you would rather have a boomerang, or a power sink, or a Transmute Artifact, etc anyways. I know it's weird... but the deck is really better off without it. It comes down to the fact that this deck changes the very fundamentals of the game by having no untap phase and making mana the most important asset.
When you use the mirror universe, could someone fork it's ability and reverse it back at you? Lol I would guess probably not, but you can just shatter or disenchant it correct? Two decks I would suggest you to make build videos on would be budget 4x underworld dreams, 4x howling mine, 4x winds of change, 1x braingeyser, 1x wheel, a few library of leng's, I can't afford time twister so that's out of the picture, but a red/black/splash blue with some city's, vice draw deck. Also a red blue midrange deck would be great minus mox's and power lol. Burn, psionic blast, counterspell, etc with possibly either energy fluxs or blood moons and all basic lands. If we included artifacts go blood moon, if not go flux! Surprise me and it would be awesome content, a shout out appreciated if possible
Best video yet
Heo Edwin,
I played MTG since I am ten. (1996)At this time I don‘t know anything about editions or something... i only pointing at the packs in the Store where MTG Where selled.
Trank you for the history you Shared with und! Really, my Wife hate when I watch MTG but your More symphatic than Andy other TH-camr!!!!
I Hope my english is ok to understand.
I want to „verbeugen“ me. (Translate ist)
Thank yoooouuuu!!!!
Im in they airport Amsterdam waiting 10 ours for my next flight. Edwin you saved my day with your videos. All the best.
Thanks for such a detailed analysis of your deck Edwin! You literally opened this oldschool archetype for me and now that I got all pieces for this deck (well, except for the tabs 😊) I'm excited to give it a try. I wouldn't have even thought about it if I hadn't come across your channel!
This is just fantastic! THIS is exactly why I do my channel. To share my hobbies/passions with the world and get other people passionate and excited about hobbies as well. Thank you so much for sharing this! Made my day.
Remember that the deck is designed to be aggressive-control, not defensive-control. I recommend you goldfish this a few times to get comfortable with playing Stasis as early as you can sustain it. Focus on these 4 points...
1. Keep starting hands with at least 2 mana and either a Winter Orb or a Howling Mine. Don't keep hands filled with Black Vises at the start.
2. Play Stasis as early as possible. Typically if I have 1-2 Howing mines on the table and 2 blue left AFTER playing Stasis... play it! OR if you have at least 1 open blue mana, several howling mines, and a Time Vault in play.
3. DO NOT bother dumping your Counters/Boomerangs on opposing creatures unless you need to stay alive, or you can lock by doing it. Just take a few hits in the face with creatures then lock them tapped with Stasis.
4. Any game where you can maintain a constant level of suppression (Orb, Stasis) on the table.. you'll likely win.
Please reply again later and let me know how it goes for you!
Edwin the Magic Engineer wow thanks for the guidelines! Now I need to write them down next to the decklist as a reminder to have them at hand :) I'm going to put the deck together after the winter online league in which I'll play the Machine Head powered by my favourite Juzams 💪 I'll let you know as soon as I test your Turbo Stasis in action!
I'd like to see this deck in action. I'd love to watch you play vintage on MTGO. Do you have any video of you playing this on TH-cam or Twitch? Please consider added those kinds of videos to this channel. Thank you.
Hi Starcore Labs,
I've had a lot of requests to get some actual games filmed and post them. I'm definitely interested in getting that figured out but I have not yet set it up. I agree that it would be fun and I do want to add that kind of content. Now that I have some vacation time I'll spend some time working on this.
I've avoided MTGO completely and I'll continue to do so. Firstly because I don't trust WoTC to do the right thing with digital assets that I've paid for. But second because I've always been very bothered that the price for virtual packs is about the same as real life packs. I've always believed that was the wrong direction. I personally believe that the cost of MTGO booster packs should be 1/4 or less than real boosters. Plus there's something to be said for the fun of holding the cards in my hands and playing MTG anywhere I am, including at a Cabin in the woods with no internet!
I will have my cards and the ability to play MTG when I'm 80 years old. Who really knows what will happen to the WoTC servers for playing MTGO if WoTC runs into financial trouble and/or shuts it's doors.
Anyways, yeah I'll hopefully work out my video gaming setup soon. Thanks for watching the video and commenting!
Agreed. Please note I don't mean to insult anybody who plays it. I bear no ill will or lack of respect for the people doing it. I just personally don't trust it and I keep waiting for the whole MTGO market to get crushed by WoTC throwing their weight around.
I recently discovered untap(dot)in guys. Its free to play. Maybe give it a chance? Id just love watching you in action Edwin!
Hi Edwin I am a big new fan :D. 1 card I feel like you have missed is Reconstruction for the Black Vise strategy to keep it coming back to your hand if it gets destroyed and it was in Antiquities so it is legal! Also if you want a free way to record in decent quality you can get OBS or xSplit which are usually used for streaming purposes but can just record the screen as well. Appear.in is a much cleaner layout for games so you can use that site over webcam to play. You also have access to Copy Artifact to copy the Black Vise. This is just some ideas to make the deck possibly better. :)
Divine Shadow- Gatherer of Magic Hi and welcome! Lots of comments, I'll try to answer them the best I can on my smartphone while walking around with the family.
Reconstruction is a reactive/recovery card that's a dead card if and until something of yours blows up. The first reason it's wrong for this deck (not an oversight) is because this is an AGGRESSIVE control deck which means there are very few slots for reactive/answers. The reactive/answer cards that are in the deck also double as combo/lock pieces. The Power sink taps down mana, the boomerang pops stasis or the orb back into my hand allowing an untap.
The other reason Reconstruction is not needed is because when this deck is doing it's thing you are both drawing 2-5 cards a turn with limited mana so what ever just got blown up... you'll get another and it's ok.
The final reason Reconstruction is wrong is because Timetwister is already filling the slot of getting blown up artifacts back into the deck to be drawn again.
Divine Shadow- Gatherer of Magic about the software/tools, thanks for the notes. Yeah I'm trying to work that out right now. Lots of options and different ways to solve that problem!
Believe me... Copy artifact has been used to copy nearly every artifact in the deck at one time or another except the off color moxes.
Stasis and Blood moon in the same deck?!! This is awesome. I was toying around with a list similar to your last one. Granted I am new to the format but how do you deal with a resolved nethervoid? Seemed impossible to beat when I just kept getting stripmined. Do you think white would be better than red so you can run disenchants? Deals with both energy flux and nethervoid. Maybe even play a 1 of kismet in the main.
no icy manipulators? back in the days i digged those!
They are indeed good and I have used them in various builds of stasis over the years. They were not cheap enough for this version. This version is fast and aggressive and tries to win quickly.
Also curious (this time I'll spell curious right!) if you play tested any variations with Candelabra of Tawnos, been trying to think of a way to make it work well, possibly with the Mox's, Sol Ring, etc. Was that a thought at one point?
It's definitely a thought and it definitely has merit. I did consider the Candelabra but I didn't test with it. It's main use would be using moxes to untap my Islands, and that would indeed be useful. But when you look at what cards need to come OUT to replace it... what you lose is more helpful than what it brings.
Now... if the Candelabra let you tap and untap lands... whoa... that would be totally different! I could use it to keep them locked down. But as it stands, it's only for untapping lands and the deck gets by without it just fine.
I wish there was room to squeeze in some copy artifacts in version 2.4! Those would be the next to go back in.
Candelabra may also be too defensive a method to play with this deck!
Any Chance youre thinking of making a video for your 2.4 from the video with Rudy?
That is indeed the plan but I want the Sideboard to be fully fleshed out. That's where almost ALL the effort is right now. Getting the sideboard locked down. It takes a LOT of games against the whole meta, that's what's taking time.
No pressure, Edwin. Thanks for the content and I (among others, i'm sure) am looking forward to the next video. I just picked up my Stasis playset and I am more than happy to work with your 2.3 in the meantime! Good luck
How does this handle more aggressive decks like Mono Black and Goblins/Burn? The amount of explosive turns they can have off of 1 or 2 mana can leave more controlling versions reeling.
I love this deck, I was wondering how you would modify it for Vintage, I know the Old School format is restricted to only a certain number of sets and I was curious if you would leave it the same for Vintage play or if you would add things to it.
Hi edwin one quick question do you have a vintage or legacy versión of this deck? What changes would you to this deck? Thanks very much
I think this kind of deck was the first I ever saw that made use of 'bad cards' to win. in '94 we were taught that a card like Howling Mine was bad, because when you play it, your opponent gets to draw first. and boomerang was bad because it cost you a card and them only some mana , they keep the card and replay it. and Stasis was a bargain bin rare.... then somebody put it all together and we were like, wow this is next level ..... a real engine deck.
I remember thinking the same thing. That's one aspect of MTG I always appreciated SO MUCH... how a different way to build with or play those same game pieces could totally flip my whole reality on their value.
No white for kismet?
I'd like to play this deck what would be a competitive deck to go against this deck for a second player to have fun with also. Is it a deck you may have already made a video of?
Any of the budget decks (another video series I did) are fun to run against this deck. The green deck often wins against Turbo Stasis because it's just so fast and mana dorks avoid the lockdown strategies. Plus the greenies that push against artifacts are great in that deck.
Two questions. Why no Library of Alexandria? And I’m assuming you tested with workshop or two? Was the fact it’s not a blue source why it’s not in the main deck?
Hi Michael,
Great questions. Firstly the LoA is very likely the most powerful land in all of MTG. So it's a very valid ask when it's missing from a deck. Usually when it's missing it's because the deck NEEDS to drop it's cards fast to have that speed edge (examples are red burn decks or affinity decks). The other reason LoA can be terrible is if playing or tapping lands is extremely painful. Winter Orb is a perfect example... this deck NEEDS it's blue mana. Untapping the Library might allow you to draw more... sure... but often times I noticed I needed the blue mana so badly I would just leave the Library tapped. Also if I get fast mana and lock artifacts, I play them as early as possible. So in all my testing it just didn't work with the deck strategy.
Workshop is much easier to answer. The artifacts are all so cheap that getting mana for them is simple. Workshop would power out a fast start and then be a dead land much of the time. Blue mana is super super critical in this deck. If my build included more expensive artifacts like Icy Manipulator it would be more worth it.
Edwin, how do you keep a disc tapped with twiddle? As they un tap, then u tap it? how does priority work in then to keep him from activating the disc?
My understanding is you can't use a twiddle to prevent them from using a disk. The disc cam be used in response to a twiddle.
Isn't Chaos Orb banned in both Legacy and Vintage formats? Or do you just play this for fun, not in sanctioned tournaments?
Hi Joshua. Yes it is banned in both of those. This is a very special and growing fast format called Old School where only cards that were originally printed in 1993-1994 are allowed. (newer reprints with original artwork and card frame are also allowed).
Chaos Orb has special rules to "fix it" and make it usable.
www.eternalcentral.com/9394rules/
Edwin the Magic Engineer Ok, that makes much more sense! I played extensively from about 1994 to 1997 then sold my cards when going off to college (to become an Aerospace Engineer!) I'm getting back into it now while teaching my son. I'm still getting used to all the formats, didn't see the Old School format on the Wizards site, but that makes sense that it's still growing in popularity. I like it, thanks!
Is this still your last version of the deck before unrestricted time vault ?
Curios, why no Timewalk?
That's a great question. Because Time Walk is almost ALWAYS an auto include. I had to play test this deck with and without it a bunch of times before I could really conclude it was better off without it.
Most of the time, with an active Stasis, or Winter Orb in play spending 2 mana for a Time Walk was more of an issue than a benefit. This deck works by keeping your own mana unlocked better than your opponent. Point in fact, the ability to SKIP a turn is sometimes just as powerful as the ability to take an extra turn with Time Vault.
If the opponent is under a couple vises, with a full grip of cards, getting chewed up every turn, you really want that active stasis for several turns to chew them up. The 1 blue upkeep with Stasis is the challenge. With Time Walk you often end up not wanting to cast it because you gain more benefit just keeping your mana open.
If you have no Stasis or Winter Orb... Time walk is great there... but in that situation you are already in trouble and what you really need is something that helps you trip them up or get the lock in place. Time walk helps for sure... but often times in those cases you would rather have a boomerang, or a power sink, or a Transmute Artifact, etc anyways.
I know it's weird... but the deck is really better off without it. It comes down to the fact that this deck changes the very fundamentals of the game by having no untap phase and making mana the most important asset.
If someone doesn’t own the power, what would you suggest? I was thinking more relic barriers
Without power the deck will just not run right. In that case, splash white, add plows, disenchants, more counters, and play more traditional stasis.
Have you changed this deck since this video? If so, how and why?
Side out?
Does artifacts cease to work when they are tapped in oldschool?
That Harrah’s dice...
Cost of the deck :-) ?
is this vintage legal?
When you use the mirror universe, could someone fork it's ability and reverse it back at you? Lol I would guess probably not, but you can just shatter or disenchant it correct? Two decks I would suggest you to make build videos on would be budget 4x underworld dreams, 4x howling mine, 4x winds of change, 1x braingeyser, 1x wheel, a few library of leng's, I can't afford time twister so that's out of the picture, but a red/black/splash blue with some city's, vice draw deck. Also a red blue midrange deck would be great minus mox's and power lol. Burn, psionic blast, counterspell, etc with possibly either energy fluxs or blood moons and all basic lands. If we included artifacts go blood moon, if not go flux! Surprise me and it would be awesome content, a shout out appreciated if possible