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My only concern with a red or black splash is that its much harder on the manabase. With g/w being allied colors you have access to a bunch of other dual lands. Also, even though green might not offer more reach or removal I still feel like you would be increasing the power level of the deck significantly. I think I'll work on a list and post it later today.

I was wondering if anyone has tried this. I don't mean a w/g deck, but really just a white weenie deck that splashes green. With all the new allied color lands that have come out recently you can basically do it without losing white mana sources for your very mana intensive cards and you can just stick to playing gold cards so that they are still powered up by things like honor the pure.

Recently I've felt like my WW deck could use a bit of a boost power-wise and splashing green gives you a lot of really amazing options such as gaddock teeg, knight of the reliquary, dauntless escort, rancor and many others as well. I just got this idea so I'm not really sure what else would be available. I was hoping I could get some input and ideas. Some other solid additions I've thought of would be watchwolf, quasali pridemage and glare of subdual.

I really like chrome mox for the early acceleration. Thanks to the spoils mulligan you also don't really have to worry about it gumming up an opener and as a lategame topdeck, sure its bad, but I think the speed it can offer is worth it.

Another card that might be interesting to look at would be time warp/capture of jingzhou. We are up to 6 planeswalkers at this point as well as a few other things that work well with time walk effects so it might be worth testing.

[LAND- 36]

I really like upheaval in my staxx oath build. It is pretty much an auto win if you cast it at 9+ mana and can still be a great reset even if you have to cast it for 6. I personally found it to be much more useful than something like wildfire as it will always end the game if you have enough mana and is more versatile as well.

For reference here is my current list (altough it seems its missing a card or two, maybe i'll just add thopter combo as it seems very solid since tezz can just fetch up both pieces)

LAND- 36
mishra's workshop
rishadan port
the tabernacle at pendrell vale
wasteland
dust bowl
academy ruins
ancient tomb
blinkmoth well
library of alexandria
maze of ith
tolaria west
darksteel citadel
city of traitors
urborg tomb of yawgmoth
flagstones of trokair
island
city of brass
forbidden orchard
glimmervoid
flooded strand
windswept heath
arid mesa
polluted delta
scalding tarn
misty rainforest
wooded foothills
bayou
scrubland
badlands
underground sea
volcanic island
tundra
tropical island
savannah
taiga
plateau
Artifact- 28
chrome mox
mox diamond
everflowing chalice
grim monolith
fellwar stone
mind stone
boros signet
izzet signet
azorious signet
darksteel ingot
coalition relic
worn powerstone
thran dynamo
gilded lotus

sphere of resistence
winter orb
static orb
voltaic key
tangle wire
icy manipulator
clock of omens

crumbling sanctuary
crucible of worlds
obelisk of alara
sensei's divining top
smokestack
mindslaver
scroll rack
BLUE- 10
mana drain
gifts ungiven
intuition
fact or fiction
collective restraint
Thirst for knowledge
compulsive research
transmute artifact
mind spring
upheaval
GREEN- 3
crop rotation
life from the loam
oath of druids
WHITE- 6
moat
ravages of warthirst
armageddon
oblivion ring
faith's fetters
martial coup
BLACK- 2
demonic tutor
tainted pact
Planeswalkers- 6
elspeth
ajani vengeant
tezzeret
garruk
jace mind sculptor
gideon jura
Creatures- 3
sharuum
sphinx steel wind
baneslayer
GOLD- 1
vindicate
RED- 3
burning of xinye
wildfire
rolling earthquake

I might come to this. I'll be in Europe for most of May and will be going to the BoM4 for sure and possibly GP Lyon. I just saw over  on mtgthesource that this is part of a big magic weekend that also has a large legacy event so legacy&highlander is probably worth the detour. Who really needs to go to Switzerland anyway. Probably isn't much to do there on weekends anyway and I can even take a short trip to Amsterdam if I'm making my way to Frankfurt for this(although I seem to go to Amsterdam one each of my European trips).

Since people have been talking about possibly banning LoA, gifts and loam I'll just give my opinions...

I believe LoA is by far the most broken card of the 3. It is probably the most broken card that is legal atm. I think its strictly better than mind twist and hate how random some games can be thanks to the autowins/autolosses you will have due to opening with turn 1 LoA. It should be banned.

Gifts is also extremely powerful. It is really the most powerful tutor out there as it can tutor up many different 2 card combos that win the game as well as various answers or engines. Most of the time if you resolve gifts at your opponents eot and untap with enough mana you can't lose. That being said gifts can easily be countered or discarded. It is a lot easier to stop gifts from resolving than to shut down LoA. We also have a lot of other very powerful tutors in this format and until control decks running gifts start dominating the format I am fine with it staying. I actually don't like banning tutors and would probably want gifts to be legal regardless especially since it is fairly mana intensive and a lot of cheap mana accel is already banned.

I don't think loam engines are all that powerful. Even if they get going you can win through them and unless you gifts into a loam engine they take a lot of luck/setup. Gifts into loam is also somewhat unimpressive when compared to other gifts piles so I don't think loam should be banned.

I really wish they started watching "balance"... nice good card to wreak super fast aggro plays Would love to run it, even if for a brief period.

Balance is way too easy to abuse. I think its easily one of the most powerful cards on the banned list and should stay there. It would fit great into my stax deck, but it is really broken. Some friends and I played points singleton in the past and you can easily build a deck that spits out a ton of artifact mana while digging for balance and then just wins. In that format if you did run balance you were at least very restricted on what other tutors and draw 7's you could run because of the points list, but here you can run balance in stax along with things like timetwister and windfall to refuel your hand. I personally think trinisphere is a much fairer card and it really only dominates against aggro. Most midrange and control decks can at least answer it or function to a certain extent. Its also a dead topdeck lategame while balance is just insane at all times. Sorry to beat the same drum again, but I just really miss playing with trinisphere 

I think the bannings are good, but the Fact that today is 1.April make me think that the Banning of Survival is 90% fake and Mind Twist 20%.

In my oppinion every overpowered card  should be banned:

Oath of Driuds(I know Control is not dominating, but this card is totally overpowerde though,just think of the new Eldrazi

Library of Alexandria (Do you really think that it's normal for a land to draw cards just by tapping and it prdouzes mana)

Survival of the Fittest ( Maybe now you have realized that this card is dominating the format)

DemonicTutor  ( Every other Tutor for every thing cost 4(This card is the favorite of Sturmgott)

Bazzar of Bagdad   ( This card belongs to P9)

Besides survival and library none of those cards seem all that problematic to me.

Oath is a monster, but control is extremely weak as is and with enlightened tutor gone it isn't that easy to land an early oath. Oath is also one of the few ways control can end games quickly which is important if you ask me.

Bazaar of Baghdad has never impressed me. It is nowhere near as powerful as LoA or even workshop. I think workshop and bazaar are fine as is.

Demonic is powerful, but I like having tutors. I also don't see it doing anything inherently stupid. Gifts is much more of an I win card that demonic, but I dislike banning tutors anyway. I would like to see enlightened and mystical unbanned tbh.

Nobody has any thoughts or explanations on this?

It does appear I am missing a land as port is listed twice. I'm not exactly sure what I want to run in that slot. Bazaar has always been a favorite card of mine, and is very good with loam, but the engine usually takes a while to set up and can be quite slow. Running bazaar would make worm harvest much more interesting as well. Currently though I don't think worm harvest is all that viable.

Mind twist is good. Very good, but I tend to have most problems with aggressive strategies and it isn't all that great there. Control decks just fold if I am able to cast any of my bombs so it seems somewhat unnecessary.

[LAND- 37]

So I recently reworked my stax deck quite a bit. I added red for wildfire effects and incorporated a much stronger orb lock than I had previously been running.

I would just like to hear any suggestions people might have as to what changes could be made. I know a lot of lists don't run as much discard and argivian restoration, but it has always been great for me. The real issue though is that the list is very tight. There are a number of cards that would make good inclusions, but what would I cut? Its also possible I left out something obvious as this is just a first draft of my new deck.


LAND- 37
mishra's workshop
rishadan port
the tabernacle at pendrell vale
wasteland
dust bowl
academy ruins
ancient tomb
blinkmoth well
library of alexandria
maze of ith
rishadan port
tolaria west
darksteel citadel
city of traitors
urborg tomb of yawgmoth
flagstones of trokair
island
city of brass
forbidden orchard
glimmervoid
flooded strand
windswept heath
arid mesa
polluted delta
scalding tarn
misty rainforest
wooded foothills
bayou
scrubland
badlands
underground sea
volcanic island
tundra
tropical island
savannah
taiga
plateau

Artifact- 28
chrome mox
mox diamond
everflowing chalice
grim monolith
fellwar stone
mind stone
boros signet
izzet signet
azorious signet
darksteel ingot
coalition relic
worn powerstone
thran dynamo
gilded lotus

sphere of resistence
winter orb
static orb
voltaic key
tangle wire
icy manipulator
clock of omens

crumbling sanctuary
crucible of worlds
obelisk of alara
sensei's divining top
smokestack
mindslaver
scroll rack

BLUE- 11
mana drain
gifts ungiven
intuition
fact or fiction
collective restraint
thirst for knowledge
compulsive research
transmute artifact
mind spring
argivian restoration
upheaval

GREEN- 3
crop rotation
oath of druids
life from the loam

WHITE- 6
moat
ravages of war
armageddon
oblivion ring
faith's fetters
martial coup

BLACK- 2
demonic tutor
tainted pact

Planeswalkers- 5
elspeth
ajani vengeant
tezzeret
garruk
jace mind sculptor

Creatures- 4
sharuum
sphinx steel wind
baneslayer
lodestone golem

GOLD- 1
vindicate

RED- 3
burning of xinye
wildfire
rolling earthquake

I just revisited this deck and posted an updated list as well as some thoughts. Any comments would be appreciated.

For whatever reason I keep flirting with the idea of splashing green(or any other color;green just seems like the best choice). I don't want to go W/G as I think that deck is a completely different animal, but now with zendikar fetches a light splash seems much easier to pull off and adding just a few cards like knight of the reliquary, loam lion, quasali pridemage, rancor, glare of subdual, watchwolf, goyf and a few others would drastically imcrease the raw power of the deck without adding any real consistency issues.

I don't have any decks that prey on my mana in my meta so I don't have to worry about blood moon or back to basics. The only real question is whether or not it is worth sacrificing the consistency I have with mono-white for a minor splash. That being said the splash will be minor and therefore any sacrifices in consistency will also be minor. I would think I would lose 3 white mana sources  at most and would have access to a solid 15 green sources.

Why is this still banned? Since academy and mana vault have been banned it seems much harder to drop this turn 1 as well as to build around it. The only comparable cards to trinisphere are blood moon or back to basics. In some ways trinispheres effect is less cripling than both of those effects. The only difference is trinisphere is an artifact making it splashable and can be cast turn 1 off of a workshop. Is this enough to warrant a ban? I have personally thrown it into a number of decks when testing and have never found it to be problematic. To me it seems like a t1 library or a turn 2 survival are both much stronger plays than a turn 1 trinisphere as both will usually win the game in short order. Trinisphere also gets significantly weaker as the game progresses while those cards both make fine topdecks.

Here is my tourny report from last night.

Background info: I have been tweaking my deck quite a bit and hadn't completely decided on what was the best version so at about 5:00 PM I just throw in the final 5-10 cards. A few of the choices were quite poor. I had also gotten fairly little sleep the night before and as the tournament dragged on and I started to get tired I made quite a few mistakes.

Round 1 playing Ben with U/W control:
Some people think my deck will fold to a good control deck. I've always said this isn't the case as I don't run cards that are dead in any matchup. I really don't do much to interact with my opponents until I lock them up. I also play a ton of "bombs" that a control deck would need to answer. If I sneak any of them into play it is pretty much game over.
He wins the die roll. I open with LoA, activation, mox diamond (with gifts and other goodies in hand). He gets a land tax and tries to keep up with LoA while I am ramping up and tutoring. Some fairly irrelevant cards get played and I lock him up with slaver/academy ruins.

Round 2 playing Chris with U/W/B Enchantment control
He wins the die roll and has turn one LoA. Not to worry I had turn 2 elspeth and was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to handle that. I have turn one ancient tomb, grim monolith, coalition relic. He activated LoA and suspends ancestral vision turn 2. I drop elspeth and make a guy. He activates LoA and disenchants coalition relic. I drop fellwar stone and make another 1/1. LoA activation and vindicate on elspeth. I tap out to mind spring for 4. He drops bitterblossom and uses LoA. I drop a land and pass. Visions goes off. I gifts at his eot nabbing loam and friends. Either during this turn or the next one I make the first mistake that costs me the game. I forget to attack for 2 once. My next mistake is not countering ethersworm adjucator thinking I need the argivian restoration in my hand even though I have enough mana to use my witness and play sharuum. Around this point time is called. I decide to play for the win, but he drops zuran orb which means unless I hit capture on jingzhou I won't be able to kill him. The turn before he played zuran orb he was at 5 and I had obelisk of alara in play with mana to use it. Had I not missed the attack for 2 earlier he would have been at 3 and I could have burned him for 3 with obelisk. Anyway I screw mess up again by not wasting one of his lands and leaving him with the possibility of activating adjucator and untapping it to swing in. He goes for ice on my sharuum. My final mistake is not gaining 5 life with obelisk before casting FoW on his ice to keep myself alive. This left me at 2 with only a white source and ancient tomb for mana and him swinging for 3. Had I obelisked things would have been more interesting although a draw seemed inevitable.

Round 3 playing Rob with MBC
He has turn 0 leyline. Let me take a moment to say leyline of the void is fucking gay. It should be banned. If trinisphere is banned due to being unfun leyline should not only be banned, but they should confiscate all leyline's and burn them. Trinisphere is usually abused to be a type of lock component. It makes games end faster. Leyline does nothing except make games drag on. I will stop there, but I really could go on and on. Leyline just pisses me off in pretty much every format it is legal in.
Anyway the game was a draw because of leyline. Here is a quick rundown.
I open with turn one voltaic key, turn two grim monolith. Turn three sees me playing tezzeret, gilded lotus and demonic tutor. He kills tezzeret. Turn four I Capture of jingzhou, armageddon, drop a land and timetwister. My 7 cards are fairly awful. I hit FoF and dead cards like loam and mana. Turn 5 fact or fiction is awful too. All I find is oath. His bitterblossom means my oath isn't going to do much. I do finally draw something that isn't useless (obelisk of alara) and only need one more turn to win with it, but tops and finds pithing needle that turn. Tendrils of corruption gets him enough life to make sure bitterblossom doesn't kill him and time runs out.

Round 4 Nick with slivers:
He curves out perfectly and I make a ton of stupid mistakes. The first is counting my mana wrong once, then crop rotationing for tabernacle even though it was really weak at that point and finally counting my mana wrong again thinking I still have ancient tomb instead of tabernacle. All of my stupidity means I have to ramp up my smokestack to 3 and more or less reset the game just to stay alive. I am left with just tabernacle when smokestack dies. I play a land and pass into his empty board. I have 2 non green lands, loam gifts and fow in hand. He doesn't have a land. I drop a land. He misses another land. I finally hit another land and gifts. He hits lands, but it is too late as I have sharuum into sphinx of the steel wind.

Final thoughts: The abyss is awful. Elspeth is pretty bad. Garruk is pretty good. Leyline of the void should be banned. Wildfire/burning of xinye needs more testing as it would have been awesome all day. I tested them against my white weenie deck before and they were bad as ww can somewhat ignore them and can recover quite well, but none of the decks played at this tournament would survive a wildfire. Oath might not be worth it. At times it is absolutely nuts and can end games faster than any other single card in the deck, but there are also times where it is very very very bad. Upheaval needs more testing as it was usually better than wildfire and if wildfire needs testing upheaval does too. Exploration was amazing. Exploration and garruk were by far the best additions with the abyss being the worst.

[35 Lands]

I really enjoyed the 2hg highlander. I think it is much better as a 1 game match format than regular highlander. I made a number of tweaks to the stax deck I have been working on though to make it work better in a 2hg format. Here is what I played...

35 Lands
mishra's workshop
tabernacle at pendrell vale
library of alexandria
bazaar of baghdad
darksteel citadel
seat of the synod
ancient den
tree of tales
vault of whispers
great furnace
wasteland
city of traitors
ancient tomb
polluted delta
windswept heath
flooded strand
academy ruins
petrified field
rishadan port
tolaria west
island
plains
flagstones of trokair
maze of ith
glimmervoid
city of brass
hallowed fountain
breeding pool
adarkar wastes
underground sea
tundra
bayou
tropical island
savannah
scrubland

24 artifact
chrome mox
mox diamond
talisman of unity
talisman of progress
talisman of dominance
mind stone
felwar stone
grim monolith
worn powerstone
coalition relic
darksteel ignot
spectral searchlight
eye of ramos
thran dynamo
guilded lotus
smokestack
senseis top
sphinx of the steel wind
sharuum the hegemon
tangle wire
crucible of worlds
winter orb
crumbling sanctuary
engineered explosives

26 blue
propaganda
fabricate
force of will
land equilibrium
careful study
argivian restoration
stroke of genius
flux
intuition
rising waters
upheaval
time warp
capture of jinzhou
transmute artifact
reshape
time spiral
deep analysis
mind spring
thirst for knowledge
gifts ungiven
parralax tide
fact or fiction
tezzeret
recall
frantic search
savor the moment

6 white
armageddon
ravages of war
open the vaults
moat
ghostly prison
magus of the tabernacle

6 green
oath of druids
eternal witness
sylvan scrying
life from the loam
crop rotation
regrowth

2 black[/b
demonic tutor
tainted pact

1 gold
vindicate

The deck was a blast to play and it just did stupid things all day. Round one I had oath in my opener and I oathed into sharrum while Ben hit sundering titan. We then proceeded to attempt to take 3/4 extra turns, but were met with a concession via pact of negation and no mana to pay for it. Armageddon followed by land equilibrium was brutal too as it left me with a bunch of artifact mana and due to the wording on equilibrium Ben could still play lands. In our third round Ben got LoA and crucible wasteland going while I dropped parralax tide to slow them down until I got smokestack flagstones going. They never recovered.