One is the post above, the other is your signature.

What is up with your mixed signals, dude?   :lol:   

First of all, this should have been a PM, as it has nothing to do with the discussion.  Second of all, if you read carefully, you'll see that the quote from the signature is attributed to me.  I believe I said it earlier in the thread actually.  Don't clutter this thread further. -JD

This is so true.  Today, on MWS, I was playing Grubastax against new MUD. 

(40 lines deleted).  We don't need your whole game log when your point can/should be summarized like you did below.  -Dante

One of the funnest most fun games of magic I've ever played in my life.  That kind of stuff can't happen if he's using ancient tomb for his moxes.

Whatever Works,

Stax has almost twice as many top8's as Gifts, and around the same ratio of tournament wins.  The first number isn't surprising, but the the second number certainly is.  Right now, based on statistics of top8's alone, the three top decks are Stax, Gifts, and Control Slaver, and Stax beats both of the others fairly consistently.  5c is 55-45 on both, IMO.  I might be a little off.  Uba is 60-40 and 40-60, respectively.

The ONLY dominant deck in Vintage this year with winning tournaments has been stax. 
Out of major tournaments, stax has won close to 50% of them. 
Moreover, it has more broken first turn plays than either of those, and in fact, everything in the format.
And, on top of all that, it has the premier super-wins that Steve mentioned, including the world championship.

I don't know what medium you're using to judge dominance in decks, but it seems skewed to me.



Stax is doing better now than Trinistax ever did.  However, so is everything else, especially combo.

Great work, Steve.  I give you mad props.

I don't know what I meant, but I didn't mean dragon.

I was probably thinking of some other deck and typed dragon because I was talking with this kid about dragon on MWS right before I wrote that.  Probably.


Why?  All you need is dragon/animate dead.  I don't understand why null rod is so bad for you.  Sure, it's feared if your opponent has a smokestack or something, but you can always drop the moxes for sac targets.

Not exactly understanding why you would fear this more than Tormod's Crypt.  Was that an exaggeration?

Anyway, instead of me just reciting stories from now on, I'm going to save them.
How about not spamming the boards with apprentice logs.  If you want to use some anecdotal evidence to support a point, that's fine, but do it without pasting lines and lines of random unnecessary text. -Klep

There's not much room in Ubastax's MD at all.  The deck is finely tuned, and every card is essential.  Right now, currently, in the mono-red form of the build, (which is mostly dead), there are about 4 cards that can be sculpted.

In the RG build, there are no cards that can be sculpted, virtually.  You can take out the duplicants if you want.  That's about it.

The sideboard possibilites however, are endless.

Null Rod, and not Uba Mask is the reason Ubastax wins.  (against decks like Fish, obviously Uba is better, but that's not what I'm saying)

Anyway, I don't know if you all were talking about Null Rod in Oath, but ever since the Chalice of the Void thread, and before that, I've been saying that Null Rod should be in Oath.  Why would Oath run Chalice over it?

Anyway, cheerio, smmenen.  Play me on MWS with something sometime.

Kickass.

I'd also like to add something to this.  Not only does it have huge sideboard versatility, I'd say, by far, that it has more versatility than any other deck in the format.  You can change the numbers around, throw new stuff in, heck, you can put sphere of resistances in to trade out for null rods if you really want to.

Basically, you have SEVEN free slots.

You can go down to 3 pyroblasts (as I find myself sometimes only siding in 3 pyroblasts for some crazy reason), you can go down to 3 heretics (although I always stay at 4,) although you could completely take out the tormod's crypts if graveyard hate just isn't your thing (heh), they're better in there, so I'm not counting them as versatile.  Fiery temper is completely subjectional - you can take them ALL out, and glacial chasm is pretty much an experiment that's working pretty well.

3 pyroblasts
3 heretics
2 crypts

Also, if you really wanted, not only could you add in green stuff, like exploration, or oxidize, etc, but you could have a completely transformational board.

With 8 free slots, you could even do something like 4 oath, 3 wooded foothills, darksteel colossus, lol.  Although, that's not recommended.  *grins*

Null Rod is good in dragon, fish, etc, but not broken, unless, of course, you're playing belcher/grimlong. 

Actually, Wizards was going to do that until they realized that the influxed surge for demand of basic lands would make approximately every basic land $20, and plains $30 (because they're easier to use), and every black lotus around 50.

And the price on FOIL basic land?  Oh man.  It would make you stagger.

So currently, Wizards is toying around with something they've codenamed:  "Operation Rainforest for Cardboard."

Enchantments are hard to deal with, too.

Chains + Rod is a house, and no one's done it yet.  *wink*

Null Rod won't be a broken card in a deck that doesn't have orchard or workshop, so the point is moot.

It's like saying FoW is good in a deck without blue cards.

These are far better:

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Crucible + Trinisphere.  You'd almost certainly have to draw Trinisphere for this to be a broken second turn play, as trinisphere is the norm for the first turn-play.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Any land, Smokestack.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Any land, Trinisphere.  (assuming you drew it, as you'd probably play it first turn, unless you were on the draw, and they had a crazy amount of artifact mana out, in which case this would probably be the correct play)

Turn one:  Wasteland, Mox, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Crucible, abuse wasteland.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Red land, Crucible/Welder.

Or, the alternate:

Turn one:  Land, mox, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Uba Mask.

All my examples involve workshop, but really, that's how ubastax is so good.



No.  Not at all.  If you're on the draw, particularly, and your opponent is Grimlong, and they stall out, but have four moxes on the board, null rod is infinitely better.

If you're on the play, against any kind of combo, null rod is infinitely better.  That's probably it, though.

Yep.  Anyone normal can tell a difference between a new card and a new foiled card.  Same with beta/anything else.

I would really like to play in this.

Doing 3 rounds, two hours a round seems good.  It would be a three day tourney, probably.  (maybe 4).

If you're going with Mono-Blue, why not run Back to Basics?

You could acually still add in another color (black or white) with fetchlands, with 4 Back to Basics if you just put in a basic land or two of every color you wanna splash for.

I'm always up for playing a game on Apprentice.   If you see me on, contact me, and I'd love to play.

Colby

The thing that makes the CE cards unplayable isn't the gold-bordered backs, but the square corners.

And yes, CE cards were intended to never become tournament-legal, hence the corners and different backs.

Yep.

If you can get CE cards cheap, though, do it, because you can sell them on Ebay for actual cash, because some people actually believe they might become legal.  I don't know why, but some people do, so they hoarde them up like nothing else.

CE cards will never be legal, as normal cards or as proxies.

To me, they not only feel stiffer, as in you can't bend them as easy, but they also feel less smooth.

Mirage cards are perhaps the most infamous when it comes to lack of smoothness.  It's like there are small grits all over the cards, which hold really well inside a sleeve.

Can you also not feel a difference between world championship cards and mirrodin?  World championship cards are even thinner, and more easily bendable.

I can tell a small difference.  I've heard tons of people say the same thing.

Between Masques and Saga, there's a small difference as well.

It's not as bad as Beta and Mirrodin, for instance, but throughout the years, the cards get thinner and thinner, and thinner.

As a tournament organizer,

We judge proxies before we allow the player to play with them.  All players must have proxies brought up with their decklists, and a judge (or me) will decide on whether the set of proxies should be legal.

We've allowed slips of paper that have been glued with very little glue (usually they use a light glue stick, and it's fine).  You really can't tell all that much, especially when the card underneath is from a set mirrodin and newer (as we all know, the cards are thinner).

For other slips of paper, we haven't allowed them, simply because they could slip out, were too thick a piece of paper (seriously), or other easily identifiable methods.

We've never had anyone bring in a proxy printed on a peeled foil.  I imagine it would be allowable, though.

And, we, of course, allow basic lands with oracle text, card name, casting cost, type of spell, etc.  Moxes have to be on basic lands of the type of mana they produce.

The perfect thing would be to allow proxies printed on peeled foils (as you all have been saying it's really good), and disallow all other proxies.  That way we wouldn't have to look at black lotus, mountain edition.

I'm just putting up stuff I have problems with:


Okay.  I'm gonna comment on why I think these are the wrong numbers.


2x barbarian ring  (I, personally, would have 3 MD, none SB.)
1x strip mine  (Why is this MD?  This should totally be SB, as you then have four chances of getting it.)
1x tolarian academy  (I debate whether this should be in the SB or not.  You're probably going to be fetching bazaar/strip, but this is a better living wish target than workshop).
3x wasteland  (You should trade your strip mine for another wasteland.  3 is just too small).
3x wooded foothills  (This seems too many, with you already running 4 taiga.  I'd go down to 2, and possibly think about turning down the Taiga count to 3.  You find one regularly in your opening hand or with a bazaar.  I'd run 6 green sources, probably 4 taiga/2 fetch)

3x crucible of worlds  (You need 4.)

3x goblin welder  (You need 4.)
1x karn, silver golem  (You don't need this guy in the MD.)

4x living wish  (I'd go down to 3 with this particular build).

SB:
3x tormod's crypt   (WAY TOO MANY)
1x viashino heretic  (WAY TOO LITTLE)  You want three or four so you can keep one in the sideboard and side in others.
1x wasteland  (As explained above, this should be a strip mine.)

No Chasm in the SB?

Damn.

Fastbond is the shizzle.

On a separate note, here's a funny idea - GRBubastax with fetchlands:

I don't seriously plan on playing this, but it's an interesting idea.  I thought of it after vroman was talking about a RUB build with fetchlands.

9 RESTRICTED MANA
9 Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault/Lotus/Moxes

22 LANDS
4 mishra's workshop
4 wasteland
4 bazaar of baghdad
2 bloodstained mire
1 wooded foothills
1 taiga
2 badlands
1 barbarian ring
1 tolarian academy
1 strip mine
1 glacial chasm
31 so far

17 LOCKS
1 trinisphere
4 smokestack
4 chalice of the void
3 crucible of worlds
3 null rod
2 uba mask

48 so far

6 CREATURES
4 goblin welder
2 gorilla shaman

54 so far

6 GREEN/BLACK BOMBS
1 fastbond
1 crop rotation
1 demonic tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 vampiric tutor
1 imperial seal

60.

I'm running 4 fastbonds.  Regular, DT, VT, and IS.    Anything else I need is covered there too.

Possessed Portal

If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
At the end of each turn, each player sacrifices a permanent unless he or she discards a card.

Uba Mask

If a player would draw a card, that player removes that card from the game face up instead.
Each player may play cards he or she removed from the game with Uba Mask this turn.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm going to draw a card - can I put Posessed Portal's triggered ability on the stack first, then Uba Mask's, so that I can still use the card?

I'm almost positive this is right, but I'm just checking with you guys.

That said, if I stacked the Uba Mask first for my opponent, than the Possessed Portal,

The triggered ability of the possessed portal would resolve, but the Uba Mask's ability wouldn't be neutered, would it?  He'd still get to remove it from the game, right, or would the Portal's ability cease the Uba Mask's ability to exist?

If Uba Mask gets taken out, the Bazaar count should be lowered to 3, (or possibly two, as bazaars are then not very good at all in duplicants), and Yawgmoth's Will would be added to the deck.

The deck should have a codename to separate it from the other stax builds.

5c Bazaar Stax is just too long to say.

Scuba is an easy way to identify a 5-color uba stax build, but what if we're not running Uba?

Right now, this is pretty much the only version really left to ALOT of discussion.

The traditional 5c list has had a ton of variation, but it's boiled down to more or less Chang's build with small variants.
The current ubastax build might as well be set in stone.
Unfortunately, not alot of people play Cron's build, and there's not a whole lot of discussion about it.

So that leaves us with a 4th, undeveloped archetype.

For the debate:  I don't like Karn/Triskelion.  Titan's okay, but stuff that gets neutered by Null Rod is out of the question.

Sphere is a good idea.  Sphere/Null Rod sounds really good, and as it's been said before, 4 mana is not hard to pull off first turn with Workshop/9 mana accelerants.

I'll edit the decklist to take out all but one Uba, and make it a little more according to the kind of deck we've been talking about.

Wow.  That seems like a rules nightmare.

I changed the name because we're still trying to come up with a good nickname for the deck.  DWT is Dirty Welder (or Will) tricks, and POSS is Pile of Sh*t Stax.  I personally like POSS.  The POS is your graveyard. 

I've fiddled around with the idea of a 5c Ubastax build for a good deal, but dismissed it early as a bad idea.  The manabase is rocky, and as any good ubastax player will tell you, colored cards are a detriment in your hand unless they can start giving you threats immediately.

However, 5c Bazaar Stax, which is somewhat more similar to a traditional 5c stax build, just won the seattle vintage championships.

This decklist, posted by its creator, Foolish Mortal, WON, and I repeat WON, the Seattle Vintage Championships:

$T4XX0rs!

MANA:
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Gemstone Mine
3 City of Brass
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxen

DRAW:
3 Bazaar or Baghdad  Buttons Note:  Only three!

SPELLS(non creature):
1 Swords To Plowshares
1 Balance
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fastbond
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Null Rod
1 Mindslaver
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance

CREATURES:
4 Goblin Welder
2 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Karn,Silver Golem

SIDEBOARD:
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Hurkylls Recall
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Null Rod
3 Choke
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Ray of Revelation

I'm going to quote Vroman here, on the makeup of this build.  For those of you who don't know, Vroman is the creator of Ubastax, the deck that's all the rage these days, primarily because Vroman's won two very recent huge SCG tournies.


I agree with his sentiments.  Here's the deal:  If an unoptimized build can win a huge tourney, an optimized build can do much more.  Let's make that optimized build as a community.

Nataz, in the Ubastax primer thread, posted the suggestion of a 5c Ubastax build.

Nataz, for those of you who do not know him, is on the cutting edge with innovations in the Ubastax archetype.  Glacial Chasm [I believe, Vroman can correct me on this] was his idea for a sideboard splash against aggro and combo.  Right now, I even run one Chasm main (although I'm taking it out) because it's so good.

Nataz has also suggested the possibility of instead of running Taigas in the current build [for fastbond and crop rotation] (which has proved to be better than the monored version in small tournaments and through extensive playtesting), to run rainbow lands for SB options and tutors.

Vroman's current list of RG Ubastax is this:


Everyone's build might be a little bit different.  I currently am running the same list, with:

-1  Barbarian Ring
+1  Taiga
-1  Duplicant
+1  Glacial Chasm

Nataz is running generally the same thing, with no duplicants MD, no taigas, but 4 city of brass, and a darkblast.

Nataz, in the Ubastax thread, has also suggested cutting Chalice of the Void altogether for the addition of more rainbow lands and tutors.  (many tutors would be set at one, and therefore, would interfere with chalice set for 1).


I think this is a step in the right direction.  Sphere of Resistance is also an option.

With the addition of a 5c manabase, we free up alot of sideboard slots, like Fiery Temper.  We'd definitely leave chasm in the MD for the ability to tutor it when going broken with fastbond (or vice versa), and might even have the capability to add MORE tutors.  That is, only go for tutordom, and not worry about utility spells like swords to plowshares.

We could comfortably go up to 6-7 rainbow lands.

I'll edit this later, but this might be a sample decklist of what we're looking at:

9 Artifact Mana:  (these are the only givens in the entire deck)
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

19 LANDS NOT INCLUDING BAZAAR:
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

27 so far.

3 Bazaar of Baghdad

30 so far.

8 SPELLS (BOMBS):
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Balance
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
1 Yawgmoth's Will

38 so far.

16 LOCKS:
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Null Rod
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere

54 so far.

6 CREATURES:
4 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman

60 total.

SIDEBOARD:
Tons of Options

Okay, that's my 60, and it's not polished at all.  I managed to fit in SEVEN rainbow lands.  There are also two barbarian rings, and not only one.

There are a total of 13 colored spells right now, but it's not only to seven colored mana sources.

The total sources of colored mana in the deck, are:

5 Moxen
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Tolarian Academy

16 total.

We're going to have to do it by color.  *sighs*

Null Rod does not affect (NRDNA for short):  Rainbows, Tolarian Academy, Barbarian Ring.

Blue:  1.  Ancestral Recall.
Sources:  10.  Lotus, Sapphire, Tolarian Academy, Rainbows.
NRDNA:  8.
Ratio:  1 to 8.

Black:  2.  Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor.
Sources:  9.  Lotus, Jet, Rainbows.
NRDNA:  7.
Ratio:  2 to 7.

Red:  7.
Sources:  11.  Lotus, Ruby, Rainbows, Barbarian Rings.
NRDNA:  9.
Ratio:  7 to 9.

Green:  2.
Sources:  9.  Lotus, Emerald, Rainbows.
NRDNA:  7.
Ratio:  2 to 7.

White:  1.
Sources:  9.  Lotus, Pearl, Rainbows.
NRDNA:  7.
Ratio:  1 to 7.

Taking out anything uncolored and adding in any additional colored stuff makes that ratio worse.  For instance, if we were to take out a crucible to add in an imperial seal, it would make things worse, but not by a huge amount.

I'm fine at 2 to 4 with my 2 green cards to my 4 taigas.

MANA CURVE:

11 total 1cc cards.  (none of which are weld-in-able)
6 total 2cc cards.   (the null rods are weld-in-able, which leaves demonic and balance)
3 total 3cc cards.   (all weld-in-able)
7 total 4cc cards.  (all weld-in-able)

I think this deck is a great idea, because virtually, all you're doing is making the deck better than it already is, (that is, the one that won the seattle championships,) by making the sphere of resistances uba masks, and converting his big stuff that null rod neuters into synergistic cards.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT:

I went with the more tutoring fo' bombs route.  Demonic Consultation in my testing, has been worth it.  You can get a Null Rod and play it first turn easier now.  However, it's out of the deck right now because I don't know what to take out for it.  Vampiric Tutor is a go, because you can get Trinisphere or anything else that just flat out wins you the game.  Demonic is only good to get 4-of's, something this deck does not just heavily rely on, like grubastax.  Moreover, it can just make you lose the game.

My build's not optimal and still needs alot of work.  I went down to 1 B-ring.  *frown*

I took the Uba Mask's out in favor of other things more central to the deck's construction.  I also was still capable of leaving in 2 Gorilla Shaman's, to my heart's content.  Yawgmoth's Will has been added in, probably to the joy of everyone.

Another interesting idea is Regrowth, although it probably won't see play.

The sad thing I'm seeing is that the deck is looking more and more like a 5c stax build, and while adding in Yawgmoth's Will, Spheres, and taking out the Uba Masks, really (I think) benefit the deck, we're still trying to find a happy medium between the power capabilities that regular Uba holds, and the tutoring/bomb capabilities 5c Stax holds.

I think adding in big guys, like Karn/Triskelion is a mistake, because we lose that mentality.

An interesting idea, which was posted on the Ubastax thread is adding in a single Living Wish and having Karn/Triskelion/Titan etc in the SB.  I think it's a subpar idea, but that's only in theory.  In testing, it might be really good, as we have easy ways to discard them.

Also, multiple bazaars are just bad in this deck since we've taken Uba Mask out for now.  We might want to drop the Bazaar count to 2 (eww) or add in just 1 Uba for tutoring.