Smokestack

Artifact

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a soot counter on Smokestack.

At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player sacrifices a permanent for each soot counter on Smokestack.

Discussion (51)

Nodrog666 on Numot Stax

5 days ago

Hey man! Good first draft! I like some of the ideas in here. I have some constructive criticism for you, so, as brutally honest as I will be with my suggestions, keep in mind I’m just offering my best advice on how to improve this list. I tested this deck a bit and here’s some thoughts I have:

More Tutor / Draw: You’re running very little card advantage, which I noticed when I was testing this deck. There isn’t enough dig or deck manipulation going on here. Basically every time I found myself durdling. Here are some suggestions:

• Sensei's Divining Top
• Scroll Rack
• Crystal Ball
• Courier's Capsule
• Wheel of Fortune
• Windfall
• Stroke of Genius
• Mystic Remora
• Mulldrifter
• Ponder
• Jace Beleren
• Long-Term Plans
• Fabricate
• Land Tax
• Academy Rector
• Idyllic Tutor
• Madblind Mountain
• Fetch Lands. Literally any fetches.

More spot removal: Your deck doesn’t have a lot of ways of dealing out targeted removal. Mass Land D and other sweeper spells are great and all, but you also need ways of handling individual problems as they arrive. Here are some suggestions I have:

• Path to Exile / Swords to Plowshares
• Seal of Cleansing / Dispeller's Capsule
• Return to Dust
• Crush Contraband
• Capsize
• Boomerang
• Shattering Pulse
• Shattering Spree
• Oblation
• Chaos Warp
• Lightning Bolt
• Pongify

More Persistent harassment: You’re running MLD, Tax, but you aren’t running a whole lot of effects to consistently torment the opponent. Smokestack, Pendrell Mists, Kataki, War's Wage, Manabarbs keep pressure on your opponents. Even just running more stuff to slow things down (Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, Kismet, Rule of Law, Stranglehold etc.) would be useful here.

Consider less creatures, more enchantments: Hatebears are cool, but consider the fact that they are easier to kill than their enchantment counterparts. Magus of the Moon dies much easier than Blood Moon and you want these effects to have a good return on investment. This one is more food for thought than actual criticism.

Suggestions for cuts: Hall of Heliod's Generosity (?): It’s a great card, but right now you aren’t running enough Enchantments to justify it. Most of the time it’s going to just tap for colorless. If you run more Enchantments, it’s a keeper! (I think I’m going to try and find a slot for my own deck)

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain: This is pretty vestigial. It’s not really pulling much weight. Cut it.

Karn, Silver Golem: See above.

Remorseful Cleric: This is too squishy. Run Tormod's Crypt instead. Just as easy to recur (moreso, in fact, cause Academy Ruins sees it) and it lowers your curve.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist: I get what you’re going with here, but you’re blowing up your lands anyway, making them untargetable is kind of moot. There’s a bunch of hatebears I’d rather run in this slot.

Burning of Xinye / Wildfire: These are weak, you can do way better for MLD in your colors. Add Sunder (Cheaper at Instant speed!).

Saltblast: This card is kind of bad. Costs waaay too much for targeted removal. Also, is completely dead against decks that run white. I’d honestly remove this and replace it with Wrath of God instead.

Karn, the Great Creator: Not doing enough. I see the combo with Mycosynth Lattice, but Hellkite Tyrant is a much better combo.

Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis: This card isn't great. If you want Elspeth, put in Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Elspeth, Sun's Champion instead. Both make tokens as a +1 ability.

Empowered Autogenerator: Too slow, too expensive. It’s not as good as it looks. Ideally, rocks should slot into the 0-3 CC range. If you desperately wanted something in the 4 slot, why not just run Thran Dynamo instead? It’s more consistent.

Firemind Vessel – See above.

Azeworai on

5 days ago

Welp. Due to the essence of this being churlish and competitive, I shall aid you as such.

A stack package is oft a requisite for decks such as this. Urza, Lord High Artificer, Winter Orb, Static Orb, Smokestack, and Tangle Wire beseem this.

Swan Song, Foil, Daze, and Force of Negation are all of note.

Soothly, Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal spell only doom.

May woe betide your foes.

Dolphin_Jesus on Alela

1 month ago

If you want longevity, stax is a very viable route to take!

Smokestack is a house in my list, and with the recent banning, Mycosynth Lattice may come down to a reasonable price to throw in to generate extra tokens! Mace of the Valiant does tons of work too.

Tutors are a great way to increase consistency, and some of them are decently affordable. Diabolic Intent is half the cost of a Demonic Tutor and you can sac a fairy that you pooped with Alela.

Sacrifice outlets that produce mana like Ashnod's Altar and an X spell like Torment of Hailfire are more consistent ways to combo kill, and can add value mid game when a combo is not an option. Others like Spawning Pit or krav will provide value recycling your creatures.

I would lastly look at effiecint removal and draw. Swords to Plowshares is excellent and things like Read the Bones is an affordable way to dig and get through those mid turns with a refill, draw selection, and enough mana to play a thing.

Hope some of these help!

rdean14 on Card creation challenge

1 month ago

Liliana Vess is my big, big second ability planeswalker. I genuinely can't remember her Ultimate and tend to switch her discard ability with Liliana of the Veil .

I feel my favorite archtype: Stax doesn't have an adequate planewalker. My current decks feature Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , Teferi, Time Raveler , and Dovin Baan in one, and all the Elspeths in the other, as it is a more sacrifice and token oriented build (proliferating Smokestack is super fun, especially if you have loads of tokens).

Venser, Lord of the Ephemeral

Legendary Planeswalker - Venser

+1: Exile target permanent you neither own nor control. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.

-1: Until you next turn, whenever a player taps a permanent for mana, that permanent gains phasing.

-10: You get an emblem with "Whenever a permanent enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, that player exiles a permanent they control."

3

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This would be absolutely ideal for a stax build.

another favorite of mine, which features in my stax builds, is Mass Land Destruction. I want either or Commander (Creature or Planeswalker) for MLD.

I use Selvala, Explorer Returned for mine I've also seen Golos, Tireless Pilgrim , The Gitrog Monster , Zo-Zu the Punisher , Lord Windgrace .

TheSimikBOat on How about a magic trick?【Skip My Turns Primer】

2 months ago

Finally I think that I'm not going to put Smokestack in the maindeck, because you can put counters on it only during your unkeep, and that is a disadvantage because we can't abuse of it in a stupid way. Anyway it still quite good, and for that reason I put it in the maybeboard as an interesting option.

TheSimikBOat on How about a magic trick?【Skip My Turns Primer】

2 months ago

Thanks! Smokestack is a vey good option, but I don't like Possessed Portal because if I skip my turns or not it will punch me anyway.

SomeDipshit on How about a magic trick?【Skip My Turns Primer】

2 months ago

also uh where your Smokestack and Possessed Portal at

Sanguinolency on Hulk Inc. Kenrith cEDH (Budget)

3 months ago

Deathstroke2791 people do play Back to Basics in my play group, however due to how tuned our decks are, it's not a show stopper. It is mildly irritating at best and its only expected in Urza or other high powered mono blue decks in the cEDH meta and I am running more than enough ramp/counters/removal to get around a Back to Basics. The deck's average cmc is 1.73 and doesn't have a problem when starved of mana through things like Winter Orb , Tangle Wire , Smokestack , or what have you. It seems odd, but most 4 and 5 color decks in the cEDH meta are running few to no basics, maybe one or two depending on the color pie of the deck. I need the support of mana that can tap for at least one of two colors and does not come in tapped for the deck to run smoothly, so having all non basic lands is the way to go. Thanks for the insight! Also, if I were to run any basic lands, it would only be one of each color at max. A lot of cEDH decks are set up for Consult/Pact lines so they can't run multiple of a single card. This deck can also support a Tainted Pact win line, but its not currently in the deck because flash//hulk is more resilient and strong.