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Here is the awaited second part to A Fresh Perspective: Stasis. While the first half was an in-depth look of the basic “Stasis Philosophy” and an analysis of some of the possible cards and strategies the second half show my own results combined with those of everyone who gave me feedback with their own builds. Ready to see how everyone decided to take their build of the deck? Then let the Stasis-locks begin!
Before I even get started discussing the results I would like to thank everyone who left me feedback on Part 1. While I anticipated some responses, I never expected this level of creativity and thought behind them. For that I dearly thank you! Okay, so lets start off with the build I had after doing my research:
The basic premise of this deck was to set down an early Root Maze to slow the game down and then dig for one of your “untap” cards (Scrybe Ranger or Garruk) to seal the game with a permanent Stasis-lock. Once you settle down with the lock you have a couple choices; you can win with either Garruk’s beast tokens, Scrybe Ranger attacks (untapping him with his own ability), or using Jace’s third ability to mill your opponent to death. One little piece of tech that I did find in the deck which I’m not sure everyone saw was that if you have Abundance in play and getting the mana for Stasis isn’t a problem, then you can prevent yourself from milling by having Abundance search for a card type that is not in your deck. If you search for a land but can’t find any than you simply re-order your deck however you want and do not draw your card for the turn. Just a handy little trick!
The Aether, while slower, is a stronger, more reliable lock and will shut down creatures with vigilance. The Snapbacks are a sort of “catch-anything-that-slips-through” card. One thing to note with the Snapback is that you don’t have to immediately bounce any creature that is in your way. Once you get your lock in place it doesn’t matter what your life total is, so you can afford to wait for Frozen Aether to show up before you bounce the Vigilant annoyance. But enough about my deck, lets move onto the top four decks (in no particular order) of the responses I got! First up is Ryuzaki’s (Ryu) build.
This is probably the closest to what I was expecting when I asked for responses. He chose the Garruk plan, setting himself up for the infinite-lock. This list is heavy in control, packing four of both Root Maze and Frozen Aether for the hard lock, as well as four Cancels to keep anything too horrible off the board. This is also the surprisingly the closest anyone came to using the “old-school” method of Stasis with it’s “draw a Blue source every turn” theory. Ryu packs seven Howling Mine effects between Jace and the Rites of Flourishing. Combine that with the fact that he has Abundance which allows him to set up every single one of those draws he can effectively keep the Stasis going for a good period of time while he looks for his Garruk. The last point that I found interesting and wanted to comment on was the addition of the “man-lands”. By including the Dryad Arbor and Mutavault with Garruk, he effectively doesn’t have to worry about untapping creatures or using Vigilant creatures. A brilliantly simple solution to an annoying problem! As for weaknesses and strengths, this deck is very similar to my list, although slightly slower, but in better control. He plays the full double playset of the “lands come into play tapped” cards, meaning that he will have a easier time hard locking his opponent. However, he has less ways to untap lands and so will have a harder time infinite-locking his opponent. It just boils down to how you want your matches to run. Next up is the version of Stasis by EpilepticCricket (EC) dubbed “Merfolk Mania”:
This deck is probably my second favorite of the decks I received, simply because it took a completely new perspective on a card that I thought could not be effectively used in this situation and managed to work out all sorts of evil tricks with it. It also seems the most reliable in terms of not having to rush into the Stasis lock but being able to tutor out whatever it is missing and set all of it’s combo up together. The only thing I might suggest to those of you who try this build is to maybe add a couple “silver bullets” to find with the Idyllic Tutor. I can imagine things such as Teferi’s Moat as just a one-of to deal with certain situations. Next on the list is 3nd3r’s take on Stasis: Note: Ryu and EC were the only two who actually gave me standard legal decklists. However, as the non-standard decks were not just rebuilds of traditional Stasis I decided to include them here.
First off I would like to congratulate 3nd3r on being the only response that did not run Garruk Wildspeaker! I like this build because it is not entirely reliant on Stasis. The deck looks almost like more of a Blue/White control deck that just uses Stasis while it re-fuels its hand. While this deck seems sort of clunky on paper, it has decent power to play the part of a control deck. The deck has an eventual lock of Boomerang on the Isochron Scepter to bounce the Stasis every turn, it can take it’s time in getting there however, letting the opponent play out his hand and then just dealing with anything that gets too much in the way. And last, but by no means least is LutherVamplord’s take on Stasis:
Of all the builds and suggestions that I got I think this deck is the one that is best equipped to handle the Aggro match-up. He has the Root Maze to slow them down, and then follows that up with Fog Bank to hold off anything that gets too threatening to him while he sets up. The eventual lock is the popular Garruk – Stasis control with Root Maze as his “come into play tapped” card and cheap Vigilant creatures as the win condition. Well, that’s the end of my reviews of the submissions I received. I apologize if it was a little long, but I had no idea that I was going to get this level of feedback! If you are interested in learning more I suggest that you go read the discussion thread from Part 1 as well as checking out Tynion’s pieces talking about Stasis. I want to thank everyone who gave me feedback of any kind, whether is was a deck, a discussion of Stasis strategy over instant messenger, or even just giving your two cents in the discussion thread. Without you there wouldn’t have been a part two to this series. As for Stasis, I hope that anyone who is interested in building a Stasis deck has found something in AFP: Stasis that they can take away and use. There are, however, even more possibilities besides the ones I’ve mentioned. A perfect example of which could be a Fungus-Stasis deck utilizing Utopia Mycon like Luther suggested to me during one of our discussions. I hope after this you have managed to pick up that Fresh Perspective! ~ Dazboot
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Fresh
Perspective Stasis. 
The
weakness that I see in this deck is ironically one of the win conditions that I
discussed in Part 1: creatures with vigilance. Any creature that is larger than
x/1 makes victory extremely difficult with the game just coming down to a race.
If you have Garruk in play, then you are probably okay; otherwise the going gets
really rough. To counteract this weakness, I added the Rune Snags to counter any
player who tries to lay that Vigilant creature early.
The pair of Frozen Aethers help prevent them from trying to sneak
it in late. If you even end up playing this list yourself and your opponent's
catch on to this weakness then I suggest the following changes:
Merfolk
Mania. 
EC
managed to find a way to abuse a card that I had talked about briefly in Part 1,
but I had never expected to actually be very effective in this deck: Merrow
Commerce. He decided to take a series of Merfolk with abilities that triggered
when they became tapped and combine it with Utopia Vow and the Commerce to
create that lone Blue mana to fuel his Stasis. One plan that was surprisingly
unique to this deck was the inclusion of Idyllic Tutor. Because he is running
more of a combo build he does not have to worry as much about the control
aspect. Idyllic Tutor searches for: Stasis, Frozen Aether, Utopia Vow, and
Merrow Commerce. The only thing he needs to draw on his own is one of the ten
Merfolk in his deck. He also runs Garruk and Jace so he can slide right into
those as win conditions too if he draws them.