Wow, your last round opponent was aweful.

In regards to the deck - I like it a lot. I even had to look up Tortured Existence - its not often I have to look up cards given my semi-photographic memory but that one has completely escaped my notice until now.

In regards to Sacred Ground - thats a bad ruling.

This came up with Braids in Type II a while back and while you choose which land goes, the effect that is puting the land in the GY is clearly controlled by your opponent.

Here some additional rulings stuff on Sacred Ground if anyone it still doubtful:

http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/judgefinder.php?keywords=Sacred%20Ground

In regards to this:


I love this play. This is one of the things I loved about Fact or Fiction when you have a good card for matchup/game state already in hand - your opponent overvalues a revealed card and splits poorly. With Gifts its even better since you choose to get a card already in hand.

Not playing Time Walk in Slaver? Whisky tango foxtrot? I can't even being to describe how good Walk is in Slaver, the number of times I've Walked to get an effectively Hasted Welder is ridiculous.

I like both Pentavus and Crucible in Goth Slaver.

Crucible often allows for more precipitous Slaver locks since a single Intuition is usually enough to set the lock up with an active Welder, in addition to its other uses. I like Seat as the Artifact land in that configuration, I generally haven't found Wastes to be a problem although it can take more effort to set up in the face of Wastes.

Sometimes though you just want a beatstick, or a way to stall aggro, and Pentavus shines there.
EDIT: Its probably worth pointing out that Platinum can't be relied upon to perform this role anymore with the proliferation of Jitte/Swords, sure you can run Greaves to help make sure of it, but I just don't like the Greaves at all. The main plus I see for Greaves is hasted Welder, but the deck already has a card that performs that function, its called Time Walk.

Playing both increases the permutations of draws that establish a lock, sometimes its Crucible and a single Intuition and sometimes you get two active Welders and then set out to get Pentavus and go that way.

You actually only need to add one colourless land, the Strip.

You can play a Seat of the Synod in place of Darksteel Citadel quite happily. Granted it can make initial setup slightly more difficult in the face of Wasteland, but all you need is at least one other artifact to Weld out for the first Slaver activation. After a single Slaver activation your opponent never gets the chance to Waste your Seat in response to the Welder activation and you're golden from there.

I really like the feel of the deck with Crucible, recurring Fetchland/Strip just gives it a more solid control feel to me.

I've been playtesting Intuition-Slaver a bit lately and I very quickly realised that I hated Accumulated Knowledge builds, which I initially expected to prefer.

I still have the Bus in my Intuition builds though, my meta includes lots of aggro and the Bus is nice there as infinite fog but I also just like having another path to Slaver recursion. As Hi-Val mentioned you usually don't actually need to go infinite with Bus to kill your opponent before they take another turn.

Nice article.

Since decklists are not premium it would be nice if a policy was adopted whereby people starting threads of this ilk automatically include the decklists.

At the very least it would reduce all the "could you please post your list" posts.

Interesting to see I sparked off some discussion on this one.

In regards to what people have raised:

Yes the floor rules are quite explicit about 'regardless of the complexity of the play situation', however some flexibility should be applied. This isn't drawing extra cards, misrepresenting a spell, or some other infringement thats largely black and white. Some regard to the game state and complexity should be allowed,  and I'd agree with 5 minutes being a reasonably absolute maximum.

Generally though I'd be more stringent than that. A friend I judge with went to last years worlds, the head judge there instructed them that decisions about land drops, phases of play, declaration of attackers, resolving spells and so forth should generally take no longer than a minute.

EDIT: As a judge and player I'd second the advice given above - if you think your opponent is playing slow call a judge. More than that, call one early in the round.

I've been called to make a ruling about slow play several times when the round clock is about to run down, at that point I can almost never back the complainant since without time to observe the match in progress it all boils down to "I said - he said". Don't risk drawing/losing a round because your opponent ran you out of time.

This is an interesting comment, having watched Smmenen take his interminably long first turn in the recently posted Waterbury video coverage (Round 1 Game 1).

The audio was bad due to backround ambient noise, so I don't know whether a judge was called by his opponent, but I sure would have called a judge to watch for slow play. As a judge I almost certainly would have given a caution and, barring improvement, subsequent warning, for the length of time taken between spells and so forth.

Is the length of this turn typical for a turn one winning hand with this deck?

If the deck is really that difficult to play then its no wonder at all that over multiple rounds razor edge mistakes creep in that cost games and matches.

While that is true I still don't see it being too large an issue, after one activation the opponent will have no window to Waste the Seat/Furnace in any case and you can always weld another Artifact out for the Slaver if they have a Wasteland on the table.

I'm wondering why everyone feels that the Artifact land has to be a Citadel? Personally I'd rather play Seat/Furnace for coloured mana.

In regards to matchup discussion:

Any aggro 'Shop deck will be a bad matchup for Stax, this has been known for the longest time. They have Welders for one thing and creature threats in place of Stax lock components which don't work particularly well Vs another 'Shop based deck.

Dragon is a bad matchup also, as mentioned. Dragons mana base is resilient to Wasteland for the most part and they can win with Wire et al on the stack via Necromancy.

TPS and UBr Tog also have favourable matchups.

Otherwise Stax matchs up well with most decks, and as Toad mentioned better than 5/3 in some cases but it suffers from the proliferation of 'Shop based aggro presently.

Nice article.

Finally someone else backing Intuition in the U/R builds. I've had two in mine for ages and as you say Toad they can do broken things. Basically they take the place of DT and VT in that build, although with Welder and Crucible often Intuition is far more powerful.

I like a Slaver in my U/R build and haven't had trouble reaching 4-non 'Shop mana, fetch + Crucible helps here a lot I guess, as does 2x Ancient Tomb maindeck which I still like (my SB has quite a high artifact count as some staples like Rack and Ruin are not required in my meta where only I have 'Shops).

I've actually been considering adding a single Artifact land as you mentioned for the Slaver lock with Crucible, some limited playtested suggests this is very doable, since it generally only takes a single Intuition to set up. Being able to settle that lock quickly is nice since it can let you ignore board position in those games where you fail to settle the usual lock early.

Er, yes, Tainted Pact is great in Highlander. However Eld I did assume this was with a view to vintage, having been posted in a Vintage Forum?

I like Tainted Pact a lot, but its really more like Impulse in the early going, and how much play is Impulse seeing? At least Impulse can also be pitched to FoW.

Having played with it a lot I can tell you its not a more reliable Spoils/Consult, since they can get you the card you want right now (with the obvious drawback of killing you sometimes and letting Slaver ruin you), whereas Pact is generally gets you a (not even neccessarily the best one either) card in the top 6 or so.

I agree with pretty much the entirety of Chains post, which succinctly restates some of what I had mentioned that got lost in the, ahem, 'side-discussion'.

In regards to "If you can mitigate these and other risks, you can effectively use Tomb." I'd suggest that my mana base does so adequately, the pair of fetches and singleton Island in particular reducing the chance of Wasteland cutting off coloured mana. Noticeably Clowns mana base is almost exactly the same with Shivan Reef in place of fetch/Island. That we independently converged on essentially the same mana base probably gives a nod to how stable it is.

Sigh.

You state:  "but it suggests that you needed to make some positive arguments - which you have since done. Nothing more, nothing less. " Again you missed the fact that the positive arguments in question had in fact already been made (I was quoting an earlier post), which undercuts several of the comments you have made since.

You also state: "I think what has made this debate fruitless is that you pursue and attempt to score useless rhetorical points, while they may appear to be of worth, actually have no bearing on anything relevant or advance the debate. If you want to keep this debate on the substance of the issue at hand, i'll be glad to do so with you. However, if you want to continue this rhetorical war - I relish that too, even if there is no purpose."

That whole part of the discussion could have been circumvented had you addressed the points I had already made that you seem to want to continually assert I had not yet made. I have no desire to 'score points' whatsoever, but when you misrepresent and do not read my posts carefully I'd rather raise that than have your take on the my posts going uncontested.

Now if we can get back to discussing the matter at hand that would good (I'm sure as heck the original poster would appreciate it). Again, the same caveat: my comments are more specifically geared towards U/R Stax builds.

You state: "I think the primary difference between us is that I no longer see consistency issues at all as a result of Crucible and the power of the deck. The old Workshop consistency problems weren't just that it relied on Workshop, but that you had expensive lock components like Chalice in addition to Smokestack. Old Stax, before the printing of Chalice, had issues becuase its support was nothing like the stax of today - which is much less comboey and far more actual pure prison.

The fact that your lock parts all cost 3 except for Smokestack means that Workshop is simply not as important as it once was. There are lots of combinations of cards in the maindeck that permit broken turn ones without actually needed a workshop - the least of which includes balance or something with Mana Crypt. Kevin also runs Grim Monolith and Lotus Petal to help these plays. Which I agree with. Add to this the printing of Crucible and you have stability with dramatically lower mana requirements. This is why I think Stax is so powerful right now - becuase its consistency issues have been dramatically ameolorated naturally. "

Now this is good point, CoW has certainly ameliorated many of the historical consistency issues. You say you agree with running Grim and Petal  - they increase the number of permutations of opening draws that allow broken turn ones. For the 4/5c builds I'd be perfectly fine with going this route as Petal is a 5c mana source. I see Tomb simply as another route to solving the same problem, with some advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is a lowering of the decks vulnerability to Null Rod, although Null Rod is not the concern it once was, and that Tombs damage  drawback is lesser to my way of thinking compared against Grim and Petal, which in the first several turns of the game are typically one-shot deals. Also you need only draw Tomb + Mox rather than the three card requirement of Mox/Land/Grim or Petal (this is disregarding draws that include Crypt/Vault and so on, cards shared by both decks).

Obviously not being an Artifact it cannot be Welded, which is probably the larger of its disadvantages although there are several smaller cons you could draw on (doesn't enhance Tolarian Vs Grim/Petal, requires another card to be pitched to Thirst, no coloured mana Vs Petal which is a non-issue in the U/R versions which as stated is where my comments are geared).

You say: "While you certainly want to have a good chance of being able to play Trinisphere on turn one, we need to be careful about suggesting that doing so has no cost. Taking your statement to the extreme, it would suggest that we should play with 4 Tombs becuase that increases your chance of turn one trinisphere. You have arbitrarily or not so arbitrarily drawn the line at 2. I draw that line at none, based upon not unsubstantial testing/experience." I'm not and have not for a second suggested there is no cost involved here but if I could find the room for 4 Tombs in all likelyhood I would play 4. Playing 2 isn't an arbitrary decision, but based on my own testing and lack of space, I really don't want more than 28 mana sources and  don't want to cut any of the business spells in the deck.

@ Smmenen: Several things to mention here really.

You're misreading, or misprepresenting, my intent in some instances.

You state : "Instead of explaining why they (Tomb) are needed. . . " I did actually make the following statements in regards to why to play Tomb:

"In my testing with Stax, which also happens to be extensive, I found Tomb was a perfect fit. One of the biggest cited problems with 'Shop decks has been that they are inconsistent, being overly reliant on 'Shop and also on occasion being screwed by the 'Shop on a non-Artifact heavy draw. For some time this was true. Crucible has gone a long way to addressing this, and 2x Tomb further smooths consistency issues.

With 6 mana accelerating lands (and Tolarian) the deck runs silky smooth and is generally perfectly happy even when it doesn't see a 'Shop. As Clown mentioned the ability to use Tomb for casting Welder under Sphere, Meditate/Thirst and so on is not to be underestimated. I've found its ability to increase the redundancy with which you can cast a first/second turn lock component and its boost to casting non-Artifact spells are additive in terms of smoothing consistency, rather than being simply the sum of their parts."

You state: "you try to poke holes in my arguments that they (Tomb) aren't (neccessary)" If I'm not dreadfully mistaken I was under the impression that part of discussing a topic meant critically examining others points of views and defending your own.  The part about defending your own ideas seems as important as critiquing others, which is in large part why I take issue with your notion that there is a burden of proof on me that you back with decklists which really seems like a way of opting out of dialogue.

You state: "You didn't raise any issue beyond the claim that my testing is antiquated or misguided." I did actually take issue with your central claim against Tomb:

"Your reason for why Tomb is unneccessary seems very unsound to me. You say you only need two non-Workshop lands in order to cast any non-Stax card? This would be fine if first turn Trinisphere wasn't far and away the decks most powerful play, two non-Workshop lands simply doesn't cut the mustard if it means delaying your Trini a turn. The extra 2 'Shop analogues really help here. "

You appear to be rebutting this when you say: "I don't agree with people who say that Trinisphere is only good on turn one. Trinisphere can be good on turn 4 after Tangel Wire and Smokestack has shut them down a bit. It can seal the deal. " I fully agree with this, however, it doesn't change the fact that you always want to be able to cast it on turn one which is where Tomb helps.

You state: "Additionally, I am well aware of the European Stax lists, and I think that the claim that Stax in Europe making top 8 runs them is hardly compelling to justify the claim that those lists are optimal. " My intention here was simply to state that throwing down some successful decklist sans Tomb is insufficient, the more so because I can also do the same for lists inclusive of Tomb. Secondly, I never actually claimed that the European lists were optimal as you seem to imply.

The fact that you find lists with Tomb insufficient to justify claims that they are optimal is interesting in that it is the same "proof" you appear to offer for why lists with it are optimal or should be presumed as such. If my production of lists is insufficient to produce a burden on you, then your own use of the same device seems tenuous to me also, even despite the disparity in tournament quality field that you implicate.

When you state: "You probably don't beleive that Tog has a shot in hell against Stax." you're making an assumption here. Obviously Tog has "a shot in hell", I found that depending on build and player the matchup did fluctuate a lot, a great build piloted very well can indeed beat Stax. But overall I would rate Stax in this matchup, as you would appear to also given your comment about builds and matchup knowledge. In the comment I was referring to in a different thread you rated the matchup heavily in Togs favour, so I mentioned this merely to illustrate that your opinions on Stax are not neccesarily sacrosanct.

I do have to agree with this however: "Such a debate can only boil down to assertions back and forth." Indeed this is a fruitless avenue to continue down.

So at this point you think my arguments are insufficient, and I find yours equally unpersuasive. Agreeing to disagree seems to be the point we've come to.

I'm at work so I will post a longer reply later this is just a quick note in regard to MD Volcanics and S.Titan: MD Volcanics are no impediment to playing Titan. You get one land tops (target a Volcanic twice) which is generally acceptable Vs the losses inflicted on the opponent, if you have CoW then the loss is negated in any case.

@ Smmenen: I will pose some positive arguments for inclusion of Tomb later. For now I will just say that I can produce european top eight decklists that do play Tomb. Suggesting that those two decklists sans Tomb in any way suggests that Tomb is not required is hardly compelling, it wouldn't be the first time that an archetype has put up very good results without neccessarily being optimal. It is a very cute way of not addressing the issues I raised with your arguments though.

@ Fominian: Your comment "With that said, history has shown us that Tombs are simply not needed within stax. The deck will run without them and will pilot to impressive finishes" runs in a similar vein to Smmenens citing those two decklists. More accurately history has not shown us that Tombs are not needed, but merely that they haven't been played.

@ Smmenen: Your reason for why Tomb is unneccessary seems very unsound to me. You say you only need two non-Workshop lands in order to cast any non-Stax card? This would be fine if first turn Trinisphere wasn't far and away the decks most powerful play, two non-Workshop lands simply doesn't cut the mustard if it means delaying your Trini a turn. The extra 2 'Shop analogues really help here.

Your comment "The Tombs (I had a pair for a while) were infrequent and came up when I didn't need them." makes me suspicious about exactly how much testing they actually saw. The addition of two cards typically requires a significant ammount of testing to accurately gauge their effect on a deck, the fact that you refer to them coming up "when you didn't need them" suggests your sample size was perhaps too small.

It seems like you're struggling to convey exactly what you want in terms of Tomb, hopefully Kron can drop a line with his thoughts and explain it further as you suggest.

On the 4/5 colour builds: I like 'em. You're right about Seal of Cleansing, its hot right now. However, the Intuition in my build can fetch Strip on demand without requiring the addition of a colour and with Welder/Crucible on the table can be more powerful on occasion.

As an aside: I did acknowledge your considerable experience with the deck, your list of your experience with the deck, while impressive, is superfluous. Despite all that experience you have drawn wrong conclusions about Stax in the past, there was a thread a while ago when Fish was uber-dominant where you talked about how devastating Null Rod was to Stax. Both Wollbad and I argued against that comment, which was misinformed, as I believe subsequent tournament results attest.

EDIT: Going back through some older threads there was also a thread where you made comments about Tog Vs Stax that suggested a lack of up to date testing and again Wollbad argued you were wrong, again I agreed with Wollbad.

If the reason isn't that its too tight (which I happen to agree with, the mana bases that Clown and I have are rock solid) then the real question is why not play Tomb?

First, a caveat: the following discussion refers only to UR Stax which is where my experience lies and may not be valid for the 4/5 colour builds.

In my testing with Stax, which also happens to be extensive, I found Tomb was a perfect fit. One of the biggest cited problems with 'Shop decks has been that they are inconsistent, being overly reliant on 'Shop and also on occasion being screwed by the 'Shop on a non-Artifact heavy draw. For some time this was true. Crucible has gone a long way to addressing this, and 2x Tomb further smooths consistency issues.

With 6 mana accelerating lands (and Tolarian) the deck runs silky smooth and is generally perfectly happy even when it doesn't see a 'Shop. As Clown mentioned the ability to use Tomb for casting Welder under Sphere, Meditate/Thirst and so on is not to be underestimated. I've found its ability to increase the redundancy with which you can cast a first/second turn lock component and its boost to casting non-Artifact spells are additive in terms of smoothing consistency, rather than being simply the sum of their parts.

While I recognise your experience with Stax and other 'Shop based decks, I do wonder whether you have actual arguments/examples to back your comments, rather than just alluding to your own testing experience whose results differ from my own (evidently Clowns also). I note that Kron has largely been playing the CoB and Gemstone type builds - is your testing with Tomb more applicable to those builds?

I see your mana base is essentially the same as mine Clown, except where you have 3 Shivan Reef I have 2x Fetch and a basic Island. I'm sure Reef is fine, but I'm greedy and like to have some Thawing Glaciers with my Crucible when Waste/Strip hasn't shown up.

Is there any particular reason you favour Reefs?

Ancient Tomb is fantastic in Stax, this is my last list (haven't worked on the deck in a while):

// Mana:
    1 [UG] Island
    4  Volcanic Island
    4  Mishra's Workshop
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Wasteland
    1  Tolarian Academy
    2  Polluted Delta
    2  ANCIENT TOMB

    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mana Vault

// Creatures
    4  Goblin Welder
    2  Sundering Titan
    1  Karn, Silver Golem

// Draw
    4  Thirst for Knowledge
    1  Memory Jar
    1  Ancestral Recall
 
// Lock
    4  Smokestack
    4  Trinisphere
    4  Tangle Wire
    3  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Mindslaver

// Stuffs that finds stuffs
    1  Tinker
    2  Intuition

The only change that springs immediately to mind is the possibility of playing a single Artifact land of some description to open another lock (Slaver, Crucible) that is fetchable with Intuition.

I've played in one tournament to date (horribly random field unfortunately,  it was a no top 8 - top 2 playoff for the final which essentially made it 5 rounds of single elim and all the other powered decks got beat in the first three rounds) and in that tournament and playtesting the Tombs were golden.

The report offers a build that is a viable alternative to 4cCron Stax and the Draw-7 builds that is not susceptible to Null Rod, and seems like it fits the tournament report criteria even if the meta I play in is undeveloped.

Landstill and WTF/r still seem fairly relevant, they may be marginalised in general now, but they still make appearances nonetheless. I could also point out the quality of opponent here, these are guys with Nationals Team appearances and have rankings > 1900.

Bah, I've been working on a list based on the same premise for a little while now (not with Slaver recursion in mind initially, but giving Drain Slaver another control element, the Slaver element became obvious a little later since I had utilised the list with 2x Citadel as a starting point) based on the success of Intuition in my Stax build. Now the idea is out there and I can't hoard this one away for myself  

Oh well, I probably won't have a Type I tourney for months so its all moot really.

EDIT: Forgot to actually mention how much I've been enjoying the deck, my list is reasonably similar (+1 Crucible, -1 Slaver) but still retains Black. I'm not sure how long it would have stayed with Black, since I cut Black from Stax before others started doing the same, but I was enjoying playing with Will again.

On Null Rod:

I wouldn't say it works wonders against all Stax builds. Its poor Vs builds along the lines of my build (in the Trinistax report thread a little further down) and Wollbads build, which also eschews the draw-7's.

Try it out and you'll see they are generally not terribly affected by them, if WTF/r actually had a clock to speak of that may be a different story, but they don't and it isn't.

I've played Stax for over a year now, and while Crucible is beyond fantastic in that deck all it takes is a change to multiple basics for most decks to drastically reduce its power.

If Stax, which is essentially the best deck to showcase Crucible, can't dominate a format with Crucible then it suggests to me that it doesn't require restriction.

EDIT: On the analogy of Vice and Crucible - the fundamental difference is that while its possible alter a few cards in a decks build to negate/minimise Crucible, the same isn't really true of Vice.

Energy Flux is probably the best, its one of the reasons (in addition to Back to Basics) that I boarded 3x red blasts. That said, in how many of our games did you have three mana available in your main phase?

So I played the annual Andy Fletcher memorial Type I tournament on Sunday as the returning champion having won it last year with Stax. I won again. So I get this HUGE trophy (seriously its like the Stanley Cup, its that big) and my name will be engraved on the first two lines.  Next year will have to be the three-peat.

Anyways, the tourney was 5 rounds swiss with cutoff to Top 2. Thats right Top 2. No pressure or anything, its only single elim all day. The turnout was dissapointingly a little smaller than last year, but there are more powered players. There is my fully powered deck, a fully powered (and FULLY BLACKBORDERED) 4cC, an almost fully powered Tog, a fully powered (as far as I could tell) Rector Trix deck, a semi-powered Metalworker deck and also several good budget builds in Landstill, WTF/r, Food Chain Goblins and a decent Survival/Masknaught deck.

So what did I play? Stax again. The funny thing is that I tell everyone I'm playing Dragon (I have the Bazaars and even take one and a dragon to the tourney to reveal to people) and everyone changes their SB's and takes out stuff thats good against me (this is reasonable, I'm the only guy in the country who can build Stax due to the Workshops). In the second round Vs the 4cC guy (who took out his second SB Rack and Ruin as I was playing Dragon) I Strip his first land and in response he casts Cunning Wish---->Swords to Plowshares. Hilarious. In the final my blatant lies helped out again, my Landstill opponent had removed 4x Rack and Ruin from his board in anticipation of a Dragon matchup.

I play in order:

Black (more control than suicide) 2-0

Game 1: I start the first game after parising, playing a land and saying go. I have 2x Crucible and Ancient Tomb in hand so it looks decent for me. He starts with Ritual, Duress, Hymn and gets my Crucibles and crucially my Tomb. He lays Hypnotic Spectre, I reply with Volcanic, Welder. He lays Lake of the Dead and casts Plague Spitter (WTF?! Its soo bad for me at this point in time) so I have one turn to draw a Mox to save myself. I mize one off the top, cast it, Weld in a Crucible, play Tomb from the yard and cast a Smokestack. His turn sees the end of my Welder with the Plague Spitter activation, I take 5 damage and lose a card. I add a counter to my stack, draw Wasteland and off his Lake. He loses a land to the stack and swings for 5 again, I have no hand by this time. I add a second counter to the Stack after saccing a land that I can replay with Crucible, and mize Tanglewire off the top. I keep Stack around for a couple of turns to completely clear his board of permanents, draw and cast Trinisphere, then draw Intuition for Strip/Academy/Delta and its over.

Game 2: After a stern test in the first game this one is just dead easy for me. He boarded in Negators and now I have Fire/Ice and Triskelion. I get his first Negator with a Trike, he even sacs a land to my first Triskelion activation (how nice!). I randomly draw my Strip Mine shortly afterwards with a Trini on the table and Intuition for Crucible.


4cC (with the Tinker Collosus) 2-0

Game 1: We get deckchecked and he misregistered his gorgeous all black bordered, fully powered 4cC. So I get a free game - how good! Even better since he still thinks I'm playing Dragon and now won't have the opportunity to play two games after board.

Game 2: His start is quite broken with several Moxen and Lotus, but I Strip his first land and he Cunning Wishes----->Swords to Plowshares thinking that I have Dragon. On my next turn I drop Shop---->Trini and he knows his Cunning Wish target was terrible. He makes a mistake and Drains the Trini despite having like 3 Moxen + Lotus on the board, I think this was a fear reaction to the Trini which raped him in another tourney. He uses the Drain mana to cast Crucible, which would be bad except that he hasn't drawn Waste or Fetch yet. Eventually we get to a situation where he Wishes for the 1 Rack and Ruin in his SB, but I have 3 lock pieces that he needs to kill and a Welder that he can't answer. I draw Slaver with a Stack on the board and over the course of a few turns make him sac his Crucible, then his Moxen. While I'm taking his turns I'm using my turns to Weld in the Trini and Crucible he Rack and Ruined with a Wasteland in the yard and thats game.


Sligh Vs the finalist from the previous days State Champs tourney 2-1

Game 1: I forget the details, but my draw was seriously busted and he scoops in short order after 2x Intuition gets me whatever I needed.

Game 2: He beats me! I parised and kept an average six with only two Moxen for mana and his Shaman makes me pay. I've never lost Vs red with Stax so this one was quite a shock.

Game 3: I keep a marginal hand with too much land and proceed to draw many more off the top. I topdeck a Tanglewire and it keeps me in the game long enough to eat his board. A little later he almost gets to enough mana to endstep-Bolt, unkeep-Fireblast me out while I keep drawing land but I draw Thirst----> Strip Mine to seal the deal.


Food Chain Goblins Vs our regions player of year 2-1

Game 1: I paris but my six are busted. I go first and lead with Ruby, Vault, Crypt, Jar and say go holding Karn and Tinker. Second turn I activate the Jar in unkeep and get an amazing hand with Academy, and I'm able to finish the turn with a Welder and Trinisphere (from Intuition) in play. He has Taiga and Mountain in play with a Piledriver by my next turn, so I Tinker for Titan and ruin him.

Game 2: I'm such a horrible player. I deserve to lose one after I cast Trinisphere turn one, and then realise that the Tanglewire in my hand is actually a Mana Crypt. He Wastes my Shop and I pick up my cards shortly thereafter.

Game 3: Somehow I'm not fazed by my terrible mistake in the last game at all, just grimly determined. This game is really close and the pivotal moment is when he Strips a Volcanic, which would take me to only 2 mana sources (Strip + Volcanic) and would almost certainly win him the game since I had no artifacts in play to go with my Welder. In response to the Strip I Intuition for 3 Moxen and on my turn cast a Crucible and Weld in a Stack for the Mox. I'm taking 4 a turn from a Driver + Recruiter so the game is still tight for a couple of turns where it looks like he will kill me before I clean his board, but I mize Tanglewire and though the game continues for a while I essentially won as soon as the Wire hit.


WTF/r with Dryads instead of Boa piloted by friend who was in last years National Team 2-0

Game 1: His draw is good, he even gets a maindeck Crucible into play which looks like it will give him the time to win since my hand is empty and my own Crucible is now useless. I MIZE Jar off the Top and my seven cards are savage. Again the details are hazy, suffice to say that I ripped like a fiend.

Game 2: I know he has 2x Artifact Mutation and 3x Null Rod in the board for me and may also bring in the Hydro/Pyroblasts. I'm not too unhappy about this, I'll try to Waste his red or green sources to stop Mutation and I know that Null Rod is not that good against me anyway. He agonises over whether to mulligan for a long time and eventually does, drawing into a six card hard that he thinks over for a long time also but keeps. Since he parised I decide to keep my hand, which has little business in the way of spells but does have 4 Wasteland. In the end the Wastelands ruin him and he has a lone basic Island on the board for the longest time, during which I draw nothing to put the game away. In the end I finally get Intuition---->Strip Mine + 2 irrelevant cards and lock him down with Trini + Crucible.

Final:
Vs Landstill played by a friend and 3 times National Team player 2-0

Game 1: Turns out I saved my most busted draw all day for this game. He draws all four Force of Will this game (!!!!) and forces the game to the point where we both have empty hands. I make a comment about how its all about the topdeck now and proceed to rip Ancestral. It takes a few turns to grind out the win after that, but it felt pretty comfortable after the Ancestral.

Game 2: We board and I think he has 4x Rack and Ruin in the board for me, but it turns out he removed them when he thought I was with Dragon. This game is unusual and while I could probably have won earlier, I have 2x Pyro and 1x Hydro in hand so I slow play it so he can't Drain----> Disk. It drags on a bit and I just can't draw a non-Workshop source to cast the Tinker which would immediately win me the game (he can't counter due to Trini) and instead hard cast a Titan to kill his only remaining land. Next turn I draw Wasteland and cast Tinker with the Sapphire in play, he knows theres a Strip in my yard and extends the hand in concession.

Here is my list:

// Lands
1 [UG] Island
4  Volcanic Island
4  Mishra's Workshop
1  Strip Mine
4  Wasteland
1  Tolarian Academy
2  Polluted Delta
2  Ancient Tomb

// Creatures
4  Goblin Welder
2  Sundering Titan
1  Karn, Silver Golem

// Spells
4  Thirst for Knowledge
1  Memory Jar
4  Smokestack
4  Trinisphere
1  Tinker
4  Tangle Wire
1  Sol Ring
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Mox Emerald
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Ruby
1  Ancestral Recall
1  Black Lotus
1  Mana Crypt
1  Mana Vault
3  Crucible of Worlds
1  Mindslaver
2  Intuition
1  Time Walk

Yeah, its 61 cards. Sloppy but I wanted to play my Walk, if you wanted the list at 60 cards Walk is the one that leaves (I boarded it out all day long). The MVPs would be Ancient Tomb (makes the deck so much smoother, it can handle Shop-less draws and importantly lets you cast non-Artifact spells like Thirst/Intuition/Tinker easily) and Intuition. Intuition was just amazing all day long, whether it was getting Titan/Jar/Slaver with an active Welder, Strip/Academy/Delta with a Crucible in play, 3x the lock component I wanted at the time or just some random set (like the 3 Moxen) to pull me back from the brink.

I love this build haven't missed the draw-7's at all in either testingor tournament play. 28 mana sources with the 2x Tombs runs soooo silky smooth, the deck just doesn't even skip a beat when it doesn't draw Workshop or has it Wasted. The other thing I like about this build is that Null Rod does virtually jack against it, its only on a 2+ Mox draw thats also light on other mana that the Rod can hurt.

EDIT: SB was the following -

3 Fire/Ice
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Pyroblast
2 Hydroblast
2 Defense Grid
1 Triskelion
1 Tormod's Crypt

Basically the SB was geared towards Sligh (theres still a lot of it here, as you can probably tell by my facing an undefeated sligh deck in round 3) and 4cC/Tog (being the other powered decks I expected to face).

I was the one playing Stax, we played a bunch of games a couple of nights after the tourney and it really is attrociously bad for the WTF/r deck. It gets better after board for him no doubt, but his board wasn't really configured for me being the only person who can build Stax. Of the cards in his board I care about Mutation (obviously) but Null Rod is exceedingly average against my build of Stax, which is similar to Wollbads and eschews the draw-7's and just doesn't rely on Moxen/Petal et al for its mana to anything like the same extent as other builds.

Hey there,

@ Ssapphire: regards the exclusion of the Draw-7's - whats the reasoning here? I ask since I dropped them from my own Stax deck (very similar to this build) a while back when I realised that incremental changes to the deck over time (to fit in Chalice, then Trinisphere and Wastelands) actually meant that the deck no longer supported the Draw-7's particularly well any longer.

@ Smmenen: have you actually played a current version of Stax with Crucible?

I've noted your comments on the deck here and elsewhere in the forums and to be honest your comments suggest you're out of touch with the current builds.

For instance your assertion that Null Rod is good against Stax. Both of the players who posted reports here disagree on that one, as do I after much playtesting. I can see how effective it could be against the last build you last presented at Starcitygames which still played black, Lotus Petal, Grim Monolith, and the full complement of Draw-7's, but as per Zhalfirin's comments current builds can largely ignore it.

I'd love to see the Tog build that is specifically geared to bearing Workshop decks to see how much different it is to what I've been testing against.

My Tog test deck has maindeck Shaman (1), and Deed (1) and access to the full spread of Wishable Artifact destruction - Oxidise, Artifact Mutation, Naturalise, Rack and Ruin. Pre-board that build is losing around 75% of games and post-board its not a great deal better. Unlike 4cC which can kill Welder's, Tog just tends to get reamed by them when it can't counter Crucible/Titan.

So the 4cTog route is not one that appears to pay dividends Vs current Stax, like Wollblad I'm more concerned by the current B2B w/5+ basic Island builds which I currently have yet to test against.