Pointed Discussion

-jaw drops- blue control just got their long-lost best friend back.

Ugh a friend of mine uses a horrible nasty Stasis deck, with Kismet, Mana Short, and Reset. Just brutal in multiplayer. Add creatures with vigilance, season to taste.

What about Root Maze, Chronatog, Stasis?

So, if I understand the ruling correctly, this could be kind of fun to combine with, say, Equipoise and Reality Ripple, since your opponent's cards will phase out but, having no untap phase, won't be able to come back, right?

Fun article about this artwork and unopened Antiquities booster packs.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/a-life-of-cards-from-bridge-to-magic/

They need to reprint this, show people why Serra Angel's Vigilance makes it better then Baneslayer.

i'm thinking of a land... it's Forsaken City

Magic used to have rather surreal art...

Epic art is epic.

Maybe a little less annoying than if it had cumulative upkeep instead...

Let's see, a wizard and a blind-folded fox (pre-kamigawa kitsune?) eating a round of cheese, imperfectly balanced on a see-saw at night with a painter's palette floating in the middle.

Begin your analysis. Mine starts with "W T F?!!"

Best card art ever

Oh, how I used to love this card...
Oh, how my opponents used to *hate* this card ;-)

I'm a little surprised this hasn't seen print since 5th,
but I guess I can understand Wizards not reprinting a card
infamous for dragging the game out and making it significantly less fun for everybody.

Still, 5/5.
This is major power in the right hands-
but it's not going to win you any friends.

This combos with Undiscovered Paradise, or Braid of Fire and Gemstone Array or some other filter. Just have a bit of removal, and draw into a big burn spell.

I use this card with a couple of things, as the trick is not to keep it in play but to bounce it.

Vedalken mastermind lets you bounce it on your opponents turn for one blue mana

isochron scepter with boomerange works too but 4 mana to keep open is kind of a drag for blue.

The type of player who plays this deck annoys me. Not because they play prison decks, which while annoying are pretty balanced and fair, but because it's so often they just netdeck a good deck and can't play it because it doesn't autopilot, making their turns longer than they should be and super confusing.

Still, a beautiful card.

Bear Umbra on something like a Horseshoe Crab and Gigadrowse

even Reset on a stick if you feel like spending the $

Blue-White deck that uses this and Serra's Blessing? I've got a new pet project, thankyouverymuch.

Combine with Storm Cauldron and Kismet to make all of your opponents hate you.

Sure does bring back memories. Ultimately I can’t get mad at Wizards for limiting the addition and reprint of certain cards in core sets, etc, it kind of adds a mythical identity to the older cards. At the same time, the effect of Stasis is recreated and elaborated in many versions of different cards, so it’s not like the gameplay has been restricted from us. As of today, Stasis boils down to a pro and con of: Super cheap to play but need to pay 1 blue during your upkeep to keep it. The upkeep is not cumulative, so that’s also a huge plus, and once your lockdown serves your purpose and you’re ready to come out of hibernation for the win, simply do not pay the upkeep. sure, vigilance and things like that, etc, etc. Then again, maybe you just don’t need an untap phase ;) For a little more mana you can achieve the same effect with other spells while not having to pay during your upkeep, especially when you don’t want to be tapping much, and I don’t want to add a dozen cards just to do boomerang-like things with Stasis.
The artwork is awesome as an abstract-like expression/representation of the card’s effect.

Stasis
Anvil of Bogardan
Iron Maiden
Winter Orb
Frozen AEther
Vedalken Mastermind
Muddle The Mixture (for its Transmute ability)

Throw in some draw spells, maybe a Howling Mine, some Twiddles/Boomerangs/Unsummons and if you are feeling nice and nasty a Prosperity or two. Mono blue and keep it 60 cards TOTAL and three to four of each of those cards. It'll play slow like a stasis deck should, but fast enough that you won't have to absorb too much damage.

(I throw Feldon's Cane in mine so I keep recycling if I need to)

throw into a deck with sword of feast and famine to keep your lands untapped and smile evilly?

Love it with Vedalken Mastermind. In addition to that, I like Maralen of the mornsong. what are they going to do to you with the Maralen when all of their mana is tapped?

It is quite encouraging that many of you here appreciate the artwork of Fay Jones' "Stasis".
It's a pity that many other gamers nowadays prefer the generic, grade-B Dungeons & Dragons-style ogres and zombies on newer Magic cards over the paintings of old which actually looked like real artwork. It speaks volumes about the audience Hasbro has attracted with its interrupt-less, mana-burn-less world of reminder parantheses. The Golden Age of Magic art in sets like Legends and Ice Age was timeless and inspiring. They were beautiful and left something to the imagination. Many of them would be fit to hang on a wall in a larger size. Verduran Enchantress and Adarkar Unicorn come to mind. The newer sets' art mostly looks so much the same, one artist is indistinguishable from another. There is very little attempt at abstraction - that would be beyond the sophistication of the Play Station crowd, most likely. I would never have become a Magic fan if I was looking at cards with art like Thornling, Darksteel Colossus, or Mogg... anything.

The Pokemon kids that would sneer at Fay Jones' "Stasis" are in awe of the "epicness" of, say, 5th edition Unholy Strength. Subtlety has gone out the window in M:tG land, with art that is far to active and angular; artists use too many hot colors with extreme color-saturation, with so much contrast it hurts one's eyes just to glance at it. The serene, subtle, and graceful paintings of Quinton Hoover, Dameon Willich, and Tom Wanerstrand are from another world. Unfortunately, the early art is generally scorned or ignored by the bulk of the current cardflopping crowd. When the Wizards of the Coast started issuing new artwork for reprints of the same cards, it was almost always inferior to the original. Just compare the old & new Tundra Wolves for a particularly blatant example. Look at old & new versions of Verduran Enchantress, Serra Angel, Crusade, Deflection - how dull and interchangeable the new pictures look! The original art was memorable; the replacements that came along are so generic, they could have been named anything at all!

The old art was awesome, end of story. It's what primarily kept me in Magic for years. When it went downhill - somewhere between Mirage and Weatherlight, I lost interest. I am grateful that the old art is preserved here in the Gatherer - I hope some young ones who are turned off by the umpteenth ugly screaming ogre are inspired by the Golden Age of Magic art.

@DrJack I registered an account to commend your comment. You've made a fantastic summary of the state of card art today versus the glory that it used to be. Its something that crosses my mind every time I browse a set, new or old. Well done.

@DrJack I am a new player to magic. Just started in New Phyrexia, haven't even been here long enough to be considered an actual planeswalker. But I've seen cards from all sets. They're beautiful. The newer arts on certain cards ( Battle of wits, Fog bank) are in some cases better. But i've still got an appreciation for the surrealistic art of Stasis and foxfire. They're all amazing in their own right, all beautiful works of art that if made into framed pieces, i'd hang each and every one of them on my wall. Well...maybe not Hasran Ogress, but my point still stands.

Fact is, I love all the art, and have enjoyed watching their progression. Heck, there are some cards like Fires of undeath that i play ONLY for the art. It's cards like those that make me lose games, but hell, i don't care. I played Ogre Resister simply for his flavor text, and after seeing the set New Phyrexia, i knew he lost. Believe it or not, his story makes me sad, and the art portrays his battle well. I don't know a lot about the story of magic, since i started so late in the game, but the art from the very beginning to now is all awesome, and I'm privileged to be a part of it.

To all those people who don't understand the art, let me explain it to you:
The jackel is blindfolded becuase he's blind, and sunglasses don't fit on canines. It's a tragity, because blind people cannot appreciate the miming genious of Marcel Marceau, so the brilliant mime gave the jackel a ball to keep him happy becuase even more then a mime, Marcel is an entertainer first. The jackel with the ball clearly weighs more then Marcel Marceau, but the see-saw remains balanced because everything is frozen. That's also way Marcel's paint pallet is floating even though he dropped it because he is a mime, not a painter. The fact that everything is frozen fits the card's name and function perfectly because it freezes everything.
I hope that clears everything up.

@Glunders: but only if you can keep Stasis going forever...

Works quite nicely with Eon Hub - interesting, considering they both cause everyone to skip an entire step of their turns.

Start throwing in Peacekeeper, Maralen of the Mornsong, Anvil of Bogardan, Fatespinner... hack those turns down to nothing!

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It is my understanding that Stasis puts smiles on faces.

I have a deck based on a 3 card combo using stasis. the other cards in this combo are Frozen AEther and Temopral Adept or Time Elemental. With this combo all cards my opponents put into play come in taped (Frozen AEther) and no one gets an untap step. the kicker is that I use my Temporal Adept or Time Elemental to return the Stasis to my hand during the end step of the turn before mine, I get a regular turn, including untap step, where I return stasis to play, as well as build an army. The key is to leave enough untapped mana sources to use the activated ability of the Adept (UUU) or the Elemental (2UU).

+Artifact Lands + Unwinding Clock.

Oddly enough, I've seen R34 of this art.

@Memitim - Doesn't work since you both skip the untap step, preventing the clock from doing anything.

This card does what blue does best; Stall for time. Blue isn't a fast colour, it slows down everything until blue can get a solid foothole to start taking the offensive, making this card blue incarnate!!! 5/5

I'm gonna go ahead and say least fun card ever...

How has nobody mentioned garruk wild speaker yet?

Signed copies of this are more rare than Signed copies of Black Lotus, I believe. Since the Vintage Market skew ENORMOUSLY for Rarity compared to Power Level (be honest- what is the REAL Statistical difference between Black Lotus, Mox Anything, Mana Crypt, and Sol Ring? Not nearly enough for power to justify the price differentials on its own.)

It will take a while for Stasis to catch up to Black Lotus, but I believe it will. Only the Signed ones. But that signature I believe will make that much of a difference. I don't know if any other Alpha-Beta Rares have artists who passed away.

I suppose when Christopher Rush passes, the Lotus will gain back its value. However I'm fairly confident that he's done way, way more signatures than Fay Jones. Rarest signature on a Magic Card?

Maybe?

But Fay Jones is still alive in Seattle?

Your mixing it up with the other Fay Jones, the architect, Darth.

@Dr Jack - Agreed. Magic used to have Art, but now they are just illustrations.

I'm giving this card 5 stars from the deckbuilding challenge it has bought, an unique alternate win condition, the fun/unfun it has given magic players all round, and that Art! Love it or hate it, it is one of the memorable art in Magic.

@Memitim
You do realize Unwinding Clock requires untap steps to work, right?

If they ever reprint this card they should use the same illustration, just to *** off those who don't appreciate art gallery art.

@DrJack: You sound like a pretentious dick that can't fathom that other people like something else than you do. While I like the old illustrations of Magic the Gathering, as they were definitely more varied in style and tone, and I particularly wish that Anson Maddocks still illustrated Magic today, the illustrations of today are indubitably of a higher technical quality, and for some people, that's all they want. And there's nothing wrong with that, even though some variety and uiqueness may be lost in this attempt to make everything as photorealistic as possible.

I predict this card's next reprint in From The Vault: Stalling.

All complete with new fancy art that still depicts the original setting by Fay Jones.

Other cards features in this set:
Winter Orb, Orim's Chant and Silence, Boomerang and Vapor Snag, Remand and Memory Lapse,
Propaganda and Ghostly Prison, Fog and Tangle, Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens.

me: so, all of your creatures and lands are tapped out, yet you are at 40 life, and i am at 1, and all I have is this tiny dutiful thrull, this kismit, and only 2 mana untapped.

opponent: mhh, you might as well concede.

me:quite the contrary, actually. Hidden strings, ciphered onto the thrull. untap the lands i used to cast it.

opponent:and that helps you... how?

me: I play stasis. attack with the thrull, you can't block, copy hidden strings, untap the thrull and this island, your at 39.

opponent: ok, my turn I-

me: nothing untaps, and because of kismet, everything enters tapped.

opponent *sigh*, pass turn

(39 turns later)

me:I attack with my thrull, you are now at 0 life, I win by hitting you with a 1/1 40 times

opponent: f***!

This would go rather nicely with Prophet of Kruphix...

This actually doesn't mix with Prophet of Kruphix since they don't get an untap step, meaning you can't untap your stuff either.

Here's a flavorful (if not exactly efficient) combo with this: Eon Hub takes away the upkeep, Kismet (or Frozen Æther) keeps your opponents from saving lands up, Wheel of Sun and Moon recycles your discards, and Mana Short begins the lockdown. Do this and you essentially freeze time. Forever. Just wait for them to deck out.

Or (for the especially sadistic) give your opponent a wheel too, and Magic the Gathering turns into a game of "Who can put up with sitting here doing nothing the longest?"

The very first griefer deck's cincher. Launcher of a thousand rage-quits.

To those who think that newer sets no longer have surrealistic art like this, check out the art on Rekindled Flame.

As for the card, I think the developers made it the way it was because they thought it was just going to be a stall card. Without any combo, you have to pay mana on each of your turns to sustain Stasis, and the lands that you use to pay the upkeep cost don't untap. Because of this, I guess the developers thought that Stasis would just stall the game until you run out of land to pay the upkeep cost. SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA!

Great combo with Time Elemental or Temporal Adept. Great game lock with kismet or blind obedience too.

Travel back to a time when Wizards were not able to afford powerhouse artists and instead had to enlist the help of someone's 5 year old niece to do card art.