Does cage stop you from playing lands from your graveyard? It sais playsers cant CAST cards from graveyards, but I thought you don't cast land, but play land?

I played 5c shops a few tournaments in a row months ago (with sylvok replica, choke, ...) my reports are somewhere on these forums. I did quite well with the deck, but found that it has the following weaknesses:

against blue based decks: These decks have evolved to beat 13sphere decks. Being in the role of the stax deck and NOT using all those spheres and the manabase to quickly deploy them onto the table, gives them a lot of breeding room. sometimes too much breeding room to deploy their strategy. Also now with mental misstep goblin welder becomes a liability. They now have 8 free counters to stop him and most builds have maindeck lightning bolts to get rid of him.

Against MUD: having welders, mox monkeys, replica, maindeck ancient grudge and maybe balance and the tutors to find them alongside crop rotation and crucible to get them into a wastelock make the matchup look like it is in your favour. But it's actually quite a strugle. They can often lose by having to many dead cards like spheres where you have real threats for the mirror. But you are weaker to their strategy than the blue decks. You run less reliable manasources. Blue decks have fetches and basics to build their manabase. We have shops, but shops do not allow us to reliably cast the cards we need most against MUD. A few spheres and a wasteland or a fast clock like lodestome golem make it very difficult. The matchup is very drawdependent and the dieroll is also too important.

I only play 5cc if I expect a field with lot of random aggro, christmas beats (decks with a lot of artifact hate) and ichorid because I'm more confident with this deck against those decks than I am with MUD or red stax.

In Germany Painter is very popular and a lot of shop players there board kozilek. It seems to work, but it's just because of all the painter decks

Well, the condition was we would limit the magic aspect of the vacation to a minimum. However I do not recomment taking your wife/girlfriend to a magic tournament because no matter how many times she says you can play and that she is not bored, it's very hard to believe her  (Kinda makes you feel guilty and not play very good)

Our trip started at 5 in the morning and we would arive at about 4 in the afternoon. As allways the trip was lots of fun. We went in 2 cars and took our wives/girlfriends with us. At first we were not going to play, but eventually I decided to play vintage.

Some pictures of the trip:

The beautifull landscape:




About haldway we stopped to get something to eat. It was the worst meal of our lives, but we had lots of fun commenting on the food, because nobody could understand what we were saying anyway (at least we hope)



a quick stop in Luxemburg to buy cheap cigarettes. They actually sold buckets with tobacco in it.




In Annecy we got to our hotel (Balladins like most players because it is right next to the venue)
The rooms were okay. They had lower prices because of the tournament, but I must say: If we had paied the regular price, I would have felt seriously ripped off.

The first job was finding some food. We got to a little restaurant we remembered from last year. They had really good food en great wine. So afterwards: everybody was a little bit drunk:

the restaurant on the right:


We after dinner and wine:

Kris (He played Reanimator Oath, went 4-5 or 5-4, is not on any of these forums)


Robin and his girlfriend Sandra. They did not play, he's on these forums as Overseer I think and is most active in the Dark Depths thread and will play any deck as long as it's not tier 1. She collects and plays elves


Benjamin and me (BBG and Punki op this forum, we both played UBG gush)



my wife: She thought before this trip that all magic players are geeks and nerds. At least now she knows for sure.




Benjamin's girlfirend Vera:




Activities in Annecy:

One day we went into town to take pictures of Sandra in het Cosplay outfit. Benjamins girlfriend Vera took the pictures.








We also made a little boat trip:










The evenings we spend at the hotel, trying to empty all the bottles of wine we bought during the day. Pictures of this are better left off the internet.

I would like to mention the guys from Germany and our friends from Gent we met in the Hotel. It was fun. Seriously fun. The last night I think about everybody in the hotel knew how much fun we were having downstairs. During the day Benjamin and Kris saw that our german friends were about to buy some dutch beer and quickly prevented a catastrophy by pointing them to the belgian beer.



So let's get to the magic part

The list I played:

Maindeck (60):
Spells (45):
1 Black Lotus
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 noxious revival
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
2 spell pierce
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gush
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Preordain
1 Rebuild
3 Repeal
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Fastbond
1 engineered explosives



Lands (15):
1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 misty rainforest
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

Sideboard (15):
1 Praetor's grasp
2 dismember
2 nature's claim
2 trygon predator
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Leyline of the void
1 forest
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 pithing needle


Round 1 and 2 I had a bye so I took some more pictures:







In this last picture Kris has reanimated Iona and Gaethan just hardcasts his blightsteel and wins

I did not take notes, so I'll give a very brief report:

Round 3 against BUG fish I think. Game 1 I can go for a fast tendrills. Game 2 he starts with a black leyline, I counter some stuff, claim the leyline and go nuts for a fast win.

Round 4 against a guy playing tezeret control. Very nice guy. He wins game 1 on a confi and jace. Game 2 has me casting gifts and fact or fiction in his endstep followed by a few ancestralls (noxious revival) and he scoops to a praetor's grasp. Game 3 he has some confidants + jace again and a top. I have 5 lands and blightsteel in hand and nothing on board so he wins.

Round 5 against RGB aggro. I thinker the big dude twice and shake hands

Round 6 against MUD. Game 1 he opens trini + golem, g2 I get a fast predator, g3 he opens chalice on 0 and 1 and all I draw costs 1 or 0 mana.

Round 7 against a german. I win the first one off tendrills. The second one he has control but reveals blightsteel and fow to confidant.

Round 8 against ANT I only remember I won

Round 9 against another blue deck. He opens the 2 galmes we play with library of alexandria, I thank god it doesn't provide blue mana. game 1 I bait a fact or fiction EOT and twister for the win in my turn. second game I get tinker and timewalk and he is tapped out.

So I finish 7-2 and get 10 scars of mirrodin boosters for the 25th place.

Still had fun though.


When we got home monday evening, my enormously fat kitty was very happy that me and my wife were back home

No Richard, blind cabal therapy on restricted cards for the win  :p

btw: you get very loud after winning a few lotusses and drinking a few belgian beers  :p :p

Yes, that happened 3 times already. Oh well. She had fun and I did well so everybody happy 

You do have a point: I should get my wife drunk before every tournament

The pre-tournament story:

The night before the tournament my wife and I met some friends at a party in Genk. The beer and the bubbles where very cheap so off course she got drunk and I knew she would keep me awake all night long being sick and wandering through the house. So I send a textmessage to the teammate who I would be traveling with that I would not make it. At 4 in the morning I finaly fall asleep and he calls me on my cellphone. Off course I don't pick up and try to fall asleep again. Around 9 inb the morning textmessage wakes me up. I fall back asleep, but with the sun being up, I decide to just go to the tournament. I've got an hour to get there and its a 45 minute drive.

I arrive at the tournament and there are only 17 people fighting for a mox jet and byes for Bazaar of moxen. The organisers guaranteed the prize, but we will be playing 6 rounds of swiss and top 4 (allthough top 8 gets prizes. So they gave away a jet, FBB plateau, 2 savannah, 4 vindicate and 4 goblin lackey (best unpowered) with only 17 people. And its not organised by a shop of something, but a private initiative of some dedicated people. So thanx again for MCM for the tournaments and I hope in the future more people will show up like in the good old days.

the report:

Round one against Matthi. very nice guy playing I think jace control with a lot of REB after sideboard.
G1 I resolve a first turn ancestral, we both counter a few key threats of the other guy, but we both don't advance,  he gets a jace into play and my hand is twister, robot and 2 mana against his 2 cards. So i cast the twister because I can't keep up with the advantage jace gives him. I get a decent hand, play control for 2 turns and then storm for lethal.

G2 He has a very slow hand. I get fastbond, play will, we have a counterwarr over a deglamer he casts on fastbond in response on will, I win the counterwar and easily storm for lethal.

Round 2 against Jens playing Madness.
G1 he's in controll, but I get a tinker fo colossus through. He gets 2 turns to find bounce (2 rootwallas chumping) but he doesn't find it.
G2 I open with mox, mox, crypt lotus, thoughtseize, fact or fiction repeal tinker for blightsteel against his board of only a bazaar. The robot gets there.

Round 3 against Tom playing control with welders

G1 I storm him after baiting counters with fof or gifts.
G2 is also a very quick tendrills win.

Round 4 against Tim playing shops metalworker with staff

G1 is easy I gush in response of his tangle wire triggers, counter everything that could do damage and tendrills.
G2 he gets striplock
G3 I have tinker, 2 chewer, bounce and two land. I hope it will get there, but I can't get a mox in time and lose.


Round 5 against Michiel playing shops

G1 early tinker wins the game
G2 I counter or destroy everything that could deal damage and he dies to his crypt and tombs.

Round 6 ID with Roel playinh Ichorid

Top 4 splits and I get the BOM byes for being the only one in top 4 actually going top annecy.
The list:.
Spells (45):
1 Black Lotus
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gush
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Preordain
1 Rebuild
3 Repeal
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Fastbond
1 Ancient Grudge

Lands (15):
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15):
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
4 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Thoughtseize
2 yixlid jailer

I saw some people I thought would be playing ichorid, so last minute I swapped REB and pyroclasm for 2 jailers.

I pulled that one from a german revised booster a few months ago. Seemed like a perfect gift for you 

Hi Everybody,


I'm a shop player trying to become a drain player. I just mention this to warn you that this post will contain more questions than answers.

I now have played 3 tournaments with a drain deck. Result: top 8, 3-3 break even and a top 4 split. The two times I did well, I did it with a german drain list. The first one was painter.deck and the last time it was this list:

(original decklist by Stefan Richter who won the first blackborderbrawl with it)
Maindeck (60):
Spells (45):
1 Black Lotus
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gush
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Preordain
1 Rebuild
3 Repeal
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Fastbond
1 Ancient Grudge

Lands (15):
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15):
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
4 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Thoughtseize

I believe a combination of ingot chewers and ancient grudges is a very good answer to shops
So this list gives me 7 cards to bring in against shops:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain

So I have removal and bounce. The problem I am facing now is that I have to board out 1 of my winconditions in order to bring in the sideboard. I always take out 4 gush, fastbond, tendrills and twister. My only win left in the deck now is blightsteel colossus (or ingot chewer beatdown).

This poses the following problem:
The shop players in my meta usually board or play maindeck jester’s cap and/or ensnaring bridge and I also see a lot of duplicants and scuplting steel (and maybe the new version of that last card once the new set becomes Legal). This seriously compromises only having colossus as a win.

Is my sideboarding correct? Are there alternatives? I actually won more games without sideboard than with the sideboard. Especially on the play I am tempted to leave in the engine. The deck has the possibility to bounce their board and win. But more often than I would like, I have to pull an emergency-bounce to stay in the game. Having gushbond in those cases would give me more chances of turning that into a win.

What are (in this list) other  possibilities to board out?

And a more general question: Why don’t we play straight black blue combo of control decks anymore in a shop meta? Do red and green really help us win? Or do we compromise our manabase too much with it, but does it somehow even out a bit because of the extra removal we get to board in?

From the perspective of a shop player I need chalice@2 or at least three on board sphere effects to be pretty sure I stop a hurkyl's recall. If I can waste a few lands in the process, I'm much happier. So facing an opponent with 4 basics an two moxes, possibly holding mass bounce scares me a lot more, than an opponent who can build up mana to destroy one or two of my permanents. In the case of the red and green sideboard cards, my wastelands al of a sudden give me the option to uncounterable shut off all removal from my opponent. So why have hurkyls and rebuild fallen out of grace in favour of ancient grudge and chewers?

guaranteed price-support:

1 mox ruby unlimited
2 Jace, the mind sculptor
3 Tundra
4 Tundra
5-8 Foil Mishra's Factory

50 or more people (we are now @30+) first place gets an alfa ancestral recall

I think Robrecht had a hellkite and a duplicant and he had nothing at least that's the way I read it.

Why would duplicant that imprinted a sculpting steel copying hellkite be a 2/4? Is there something in the rules I missed? The sculpting steel comes into play as a hellkite and if it gets removed it's a sculpting steel again so duplicant is 2/4? Is that right?

@ Robrecht congrats on the first tournament win. I didn't know it was your first one. Go Team Hasselt 

@ Leooooh

I also played against Jeroen with his red shops. It had welder, chalice, golem, magus, solemn

But probably all the decklists will be posted, the Breda team always does that.


@Carl: Nice result, congrats.

Peter

I didn't run chalice, it probably should be in this deck I just didn't find the room for it yet.
My reasoning for excluding it atm: I run null rod which takes out artifact mana even on the draw and I usually do not want to play chalice@1 or 2 because of welders and spheres and rod

Reason I didn't get a decent lock is propably because I often couldn't find a sphere in time. Golem could solve this but I really like the maindeck ensnaring bridges. It gives you a chance g1 against ichorid if they relie on zombies getting in the red zone and it wrecks aggro mud (especially combined with null rod)

I have to re-addapt to the monored playstyle, I miss the tutors I've been running for the last weeks. I 'm experiencing the same frustrations I had before: too much mulligans because of hands that are too slow, topdecking 3 irrelevant cards in a row without a bazaar to filter, desperately waiting for the needed card to seal the game and drawing x blancs in a row and mostly: lack of (targetted) (creature-)removal or a way to come back from a losing board position by topdecking something broken. I would also love some big beaters because sometimes you just lose game 1 and your opponent will not scoop the second game because even if you have them in a lock you have limited amount of time to fire barbarian rings at them

I used to play Ubastax in the flash/gush era and did pretty well with it, saw this thread and also played a list with null rods and tangle wires, but with maindeck bridges.

The (aggro) MUD matchup was great as expected
Fish is almost impossible, especially without chalice
combo and blue decks are 50/50
Ichorid is not that great either

Even with the filtering power of bazaar, I found that I could only get soft locks and my opponent could usually get out of it.

T 0 leyline of the void often completely wrecks the deck, it turns of crucible and welder, makes bazaar pure carddisadvantage, makes it more difficult to maintain smokestack.

Well my list just gets worse and worse 
reference: with this one I went 5-2 at German Magic:

5mox
lotus
manacrypt, vault, sol ring
4 shop
4 waste
1 stripmine
1 tolarian
4 city brass
3 gemstone mine
0 mox opal

1 bazaar of baghdad

4 welder
1 sylvok replica
1 sundering titan
1 wurmcoil engine
 

2 Uba mask
2 ancient grudge
demonic
2 crop rotation
vampiric
ancestral
tinker
4 tangle wire
3 smokestack
Trini
3 sphere resistance
3 crucible
2 ratchet bomb

SB
2 duplicant
2 sylvok replica
2 REB
2 nihil spelbomb
1 ancient grudge
2 T crypt
1 In the eye of chaos
1 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
1 bojuka bog
1 arcane lab

It's obvious I still face a lot of MUD, So I keep running maindeck ancient grudge. It also takes out null rod against fish so ratchet bomb can take out the rest of their board and it's nice against time vault decks as a surprise removal spell.
I'm with Bomberman in that you do not need that many lock pieces for a stax deck to work well, But in that case it's more played like 5color control (especially the staxless one I think)

I completely agree with you that from an analysis of the deck you would conclude it is crap against blue decks and against combo. I have been playing stax with a lot of lockpieces in the past, I've read all of Vromans and the jester's posts about stax a few years ago and I learned to play shops by their golden rules of minimum number of lock pieces and mulliganing if you do not have a relevant play in the first turn and can follow it up with more pressure.

However since then shops have become much more played: Golem and more proxy-tournaments made the archetype bloom and I find myself playing too many mirrormatches with too much randomness. So I made the deck so that it would have less dead draws in the mirror. In the last tournaments I won the matches against blue and combo, but I have to aknowledge I played more games against MUD, fish, ichorid than against typical blue decks or combo decks. And I do believe I win those matches because of the original build and mistakes made by my opponents that have been too conditioned playing against 10+sphere.deck.

So I completely agree that Bomberman and I are playing bad decks. In a vacuum and based on the lists there are so many sub-optimal choices. So I kinda gave up on posting lists and arguments for or against certain cards, because the nay-sayers are right. But in the system that a magic tournament is, the deck becomes playable and sometimes even quite good. There is a lot of raw power in the deck with all the restricted cards, you can still have openings with a sphere followed by striplock, tangle wires that just keep coming with welders, uba-lock, ... in the early game and you have more of a mid game if the early game doesn't turn out like you hoped (like opponent starting with 3+ mana turn one and/or with counters for your first two lock pieces.

This does need a certain meta that is slowed down by MUD being very present, making blue players play more mana and answers to MUD instead of more threats and winning turn 1/2 and combo-players running decks like gush or TPS instead of ANT.

I also don't think Bomberman or I are trying to convince peaople 5cstax of staxless are the best decks. Because obviously they are not. I will never play staxless in a mid-game deck like this, but I will not argue against it, because I used to believe I needed a first turn play, where I now found I win a lot of games starting with mana - go, welder - go or crucible - go, where in the past I would mulligan those hands because of no relevant first turn play. So maybe I'm wrong about still playing smokestack?

My final point is: don't evaluate this kind of deck as a pure stax deck, see it as 5C control with a good stax matchup  So suited for certain meta's (But I do not mean no proxy meta! I mean a meta where MUD is an important factor and fast combo like ANT is very unpopular)

Theshop has several good points. But it's a mistake assuming 5c beats MUD n fish and loses to blue n combo. I actually find my blue matchup better than the MUD match.

It does have a much worse combo matchup than MUD or monored, at least my version does, staxless might actually be better against fast combo because smokestack against ANT doesn't quite get there.

As for the arguments against smokestack: read that piece before, it sounds logical, but it fails to akknowledge that after those '4 turns' smokestack is so busted it wins you the game in most cases.

I have a problem with theshop's remark that 5c does not have a real lock. Against every deck: tez, oath, mud, fish, aggro, ... I manage to get them without permanents and then tutor up a (trini)sphere and I have a hardlock. Having tutors ensures you get a hardlock, where with monored and MUD you relie on a good openinghand, not getting to much key pieces countered or destroyed and a few good topdecks to stay in the game. With those decks you need a fast and good start and keep ahead, where 5c can affort to fall behind a bit and still come back much easier than MUD and monored.

I do agree MUD (and monored) have more ways of having a broken start, more redundancy in lock pieces. But the fact I win consistently against blue control and against combo without chalices and with only 3 resistors and a trini proves to me you do not need that many lockpieces.

I do think 3 crucible are needed at minimum to maximize chances of striplock (my no1 wincondition in playing the deck) SMokestack in my opinion is neede to make up for the lack of so many spheres. You can get mostly 2 and often only 1 sphere into play with this deck. If you let the opponent build up mana, you might as wel play no sphere. You denie them mana with strip-crucible for land, monkey or ratchet bomb or null rod for the moxes and you need the smokestack to help you here.

played correct smokestack takes out any permanent, if you have no removal for a certain creature, enchantment or planeswalker, destroy the lands and moxes and let smokestack take care of the rest. I let Bombermn convince me to run 3 smokestack in stead of 4 (seen that in other succesfull lists too) and ratchet bomb is a very nice addition to the deck (in my meta empty the warrens is making a comeback) I have cut mox opal because it takes the place of a lockpiece and I find I do not need it to have a solid manabase.

I would replace the maindeck monkeys with ancient grudge, ratchet bomb takes out th moxes, grudge takes out bigger artifacts and takes out null rod so ratchet bomb can destroy the decks running null rod

I'll never go staxless  :p

No seriously, I play very agressively with smokestack, it's just my playstyle, I can't play without it.

Why not just plain ubastax? I thought about it, but I wanted a versatile deck for an unknown metagame so I ended up with this list. The croprotations could have been bazaars, but with the sideboard tabernacle and bojuka bog I wanted to test, I chose croprotation. It really made the ichorid matchup a walk in the park, crop rotation is also nice against decks with wasteland and in the shop mirror.

My SB against MUD: I side the same on the play and on the draw, taking out dead cards: 3 sphere, trini, titan and i bring in 2 duplicant, 1 grudge and 2 replica. I can win against MUD, but
it's difficult. If they leave in the spheres it's more difficult. It really is a tempo game and sometimes they have a fast start and I can't catch up. Always a turn too late mostly because of sphere and the fact I run collored spells. I will not call it manascrew, but if you have 2 non shop mana and an ancient grudge and there's a sphere, you have to wait a turn, then a golem follows and you just can't get back in the game.
Also relic usually stalls long enough to make sure welder does nothing and ancient grudge is a one-shot.

So the real problem I have after sideboard is if they:
a) They get to start start with sphere of a relevant chalice that denies me a first turn play and they follow it up with a fast clock or some wastelands. On the other side if they start shop sphere and I can waste and they stall a bit on mana I can take over
b) They start with metalworker, I have no fast answer and they bury me in dragons and golems
c) sculpting steel on a crucible and/or a relic force me to trade one for one with them, but they usually have more mana so they thorw out big threads faster than I can topdeck or tutor for answers

Off course if I get in the comfortable position of having active welder and a replica I can usually take care of anything as long as I can keep making permanents. Duplicant was also good for me because it is also reusable with welder and eventually I can get rid of relics if they do not have a fast clock. But I'm looking for a permanent answer for their big hitters and I think ensnaring bridge wil be it.
- it's immune to GY hate
- If they sculpting steel it, I don't care
- They have no removal for it

The only problem is that I would need an alt win condition in barbarian ring or I would need to clear the board with smokestacks and others, destroy the bridge myself and start attacking. Not always something you want to or can do in 50 minutes.


I think the power of 5C stax in today's metagame is that it gets to run non artifacts, but it's also it's greratest weakness against MUD, So I think the main SB plan against MUD has to be an artifact. The replica stays in my SB, but against MUD he doesn't do enough.

I couldn't get to the tournament I mentioned because of to much snow but I did play at Germagic in Hanau and was 11th out of 80 only losing twice to MUD

report: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41705.0

I tried 2 ubamask and 2 croprotation and loved them.

3 smokestack was indeed enough and ratchet bomb is a fine replacement for the 4th.

In the future I will be packing ensnaring bridges against MUD because the artifact removal doesn't get there enough, welder gets nullified by relic of progenitus from the sideboard and I always lose to too many big beaters faster than I can get rid of them.

So I'm thinking of upping the number of bazaars and putting bridges in the sideboard

That's how I've been playing the card for years now, 2 replacement effects so the dredge player can just choose to dredge in stead of drawing.

I really like the ensnaring bridges against MUD. I'm playing 5c Ubastax at the moment and i always lose to too many big hitters lke golems and especially dragons. I'm trying the bridge now too

@ Prospero: I too was sceptical about ubamask un til I tested it in my 5 c list. I ran 2 uba, 1 bazaar and 2 croprotation to try the engine out and I was very pleased with it.
Against blue decks it is true they do not run enough real drawspells to make Uba shine like it did when brainstorm was a 4-off. Decks with dark confidant as drawengine just laugh at uba, but everybody knows confidant is good anti stax tech. On the other hand an early uba still gives blue decks and combo trouble especially combined with spheres, chalice or wires to prevent them from playing the card they removed. Removing will or their  bouncespell or a powerfull big mana spell they can not or do not want to cast at that moment is a powerfull effect. And don't forget it neutralizes all countermagic accept the ones already in their hand.

Against shops You need uba and a welder and you can prevent them from playing anything. Last tournament I Put a Mud player on zero permanents and with uba and welder never let him play another land by welding out uba everytime he revealed a land. It can also be used to take care of topdecked dragons, sculpting steels, duplicants and triskellions, ...

And Uba + bazaar is still the best draweninge you can have in stax in my opinion. It also makes you less dependant on your graveyard to get cardadvantage. Mud will bring in relics against decks with welder and relic is really anoying. So crucible and welder do not get you full value and then it's very nice to have something that generates cardadvantage

How is a turn 1 uba a win against dredge? I 've always been sure it does not prevent them from dredging

When we saw there was a big vintage tournament in Germany with full p9 as pricesupport, Benjamin and I booked us a hotelroom. I looked up some german top 8 lists from recent tournaments to get some idea of the meta over there and concluded MUD was pretty popular, oath was still being played, gush storm did well and fish also, ichorid was often found in top 8 as well. So it looked like a healthy metagame.

I tested the (I think spanish) gush lists, concluded it was probably the best deck to play, but without enough experience I deceided to just sleeve up my 5 color stax again.

I'll start off with the list. I changed it the night before and it felt a little awkward playing it all day long.

5mox
lotus
manacrypt, vault, sol ring
4 shop
4 waste
1 stripmine
1 tolarian
4 city brass
3 gemstone mine
 

1 bazaar of baghdad

4 welder
1 sylvok replica
1 sundering titan
1 wurmcoil engine
 

2 Uba mask
2 ancient grudge
demonic
2 crop rotation
vampiric
ancestral
tinker
4 tangle wire
3 smokestack
Trini
3 sphere resistance
3 crucible
2 ratchet bomb

SB
2 duplicant
2 sylvok replica
2 REB
2 nihil spelbomb
1 ancient grudge
2 T crypt
1 In the eye of chaos
1 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
1 bojuka bog
1 arcane lab


Round 1against Marc with Gush (I think he made top 8) 2-1

He was a very nice guy and we chatted about the german metagame and how I tested his deck, but decided not to play it because of inexperience with it. Game 1 I mull to 5 and keep a hand with academy, mox and ancestral. I play them and he forces the ancestral. He made a comment that he is surprised I’m not playing stax. I draw blanks and he casts an heretic to blow up my mox, putting me on zero mana. I decide to draw a card and do nothing for a few more turns and then scoop, not giving him any info about my deck, because one game down and with his maindeck shop hate I Had to make him board completely wrong to have a chance. And it worked.
Game two I had a trini that got fowed, He makes a remark that stripmine, mana crypt trini is a nice start for a blue deck against combo and after my turn two strip-crucible lock he and the guy next to him start laughing I propably had a transformational sideboard to stax. Anyway, I eventually land a welder to get enough spheres into play, but I made some small play errors that allowed him to sometimes sneak in some artifact mana, but he didn’t draw any lands until it was too late.
Game 3 I locked him and got a fast wurmcoil online.

Round 2 against Ichorid 2-1
Game 1 he does what he has to do
Game 2 He starts with double leyline of sanctity, cutting me off all my GY hate, but I always bring in the sylvok replica’s to fight the leylines. He has a slow start, I waste his bazaar, demonic for tabernacle at a point where he can start getting creatures. Crucible waste ensures he keeps non in play, replica’s et the leylines out of the way and a croprotationed bojuka bog adds insult to injury while wurmcoil is beating him down.
Game 3 he mulls into oblivion.

Round 3 against Martin with MUD 2-0
He arrives a few minutes late and gets a gameloss. I tell him he can appeal to the head Judge and that he should, but the game loss sticks. He’s shook up about it, we start game 2 without sideboard and after a strange game with to much tangle wires, I get a wurmcoil, he copies it with sculpting steel, all the creatures trade in combat, heg ets a hellkite, i get ancient grudge and welder online and here the game is over. He eventually gets a trisk to kill welder, but its to late because he has nothing left and I have some wurms.

Round 4 against MUD 1-2
I don’t recal muc from this game. I win the First one with wurmcoil, lose the second one to  second turn triple lodestone golem. Third game I just get smashed, to much big creatures to fast.

Round 5 against fish 2-1
Game 1 He starts tropical into hierarch. I have wasteland, saphire, pearl and ancestral in hand and manage to f** it up. I lead with saphire and he dazes it. Son o wasteland or ancestral action for me. He lands some hatebears and I scoop them up.
Game 2 is his time to make mistakes, he has goyf, hierarch, pridemage and predator against my lonely welder and a duplicant. He keeps tapping out so I duplicant his predator, Block his goyf to get duplicant back in the graveyard, he taps out zo I duplicant his quadsali pridemage, destroy my own duplicant and dupe the goyf that blocks the meddling mage and it’s game over for him.
Game 3 fish does what it does: keeping shakey mana, getting wastelanded and not drawing any lands. I even ancient grudged his lonely mox against my board of almost everything in my deck.

Round 6 against MUD 1-2
Game 1 he gets turn one metalworker, turn two dragon. I have nothing against it.
Game 2 I get a welder, he gets a relic. At one point he cracks lotus and tries to rmove it with relic, I weld his relic out in response to get my crucible and welder online and that decided the game. He sculpting steels my crucible, I ancient grudge it and he scoops against my double smokestack and double welder.
Game 3 he starts with sphere (I thought he boarded them out) I suffer from the sphere, he gets chalice@ 1 and a double golem and I die.

Round 7 against MUD 2-0
Game 1 I have an early welder and keep him locked and he scoops.
Game 2 I Get crucible strip going and get Uba mask and welder out. Every time he removes a land with uba, I weld Uba out so he can’t play a single land for the rest of the game. So his board stays empty.

My final thoughts after the tournament:
MUD is a coinflip: if I go first I usualy win. I always lose to first turn metalworker into fatty
Ichorid is a great matchup with this sideboard
Fish is ok with the ratchet bombs and removal for their null rods
The deck is very dependant on it's graveyard. Mud bringing in relics is a real pain.
I often wonder if the colored spells that are not labeled goblin welder are worth it

I can't find an e-mail to preregister for this tournament.

My question:

When constructing a sideboard, do you pay attention to the main gameplan of the deck you are sideboarding against or to the possible sideboard plans that specific decks have against you?
Ichorid has to do the second thing and have sideboardoptions only to adress the hate the other player will bring in, but to what extend do you go that route when playing shops, drains, fish or combo?

As an additional question when would you consider sideboarding to a different strategy and becoming a different deck (cfr a sideboard to become an oath deck) Is it solely based on the amount of hate you expect for the archetype you are playing or are there other factors?

interesting list, especially the sideboard. Aura fracture is very interesting, but I think sylvok replica is better in my meta.


I'm going to try and attend a tournament this weekend and try a new permutation of a 5c list, maybe with smokestack, maybe without it.


I'll probably start with your list and try to squeeze in wurmcoil and replace the relic with mox opal. I also don't know if I'm ready to let go of the maindeck artifact removal and the 4th smokestack, but it's a small tournament so I'll just give it a go 

I see you often run memory jar. Is it worth the slot? I see it a lot in stax, but I never tried it.
The lonely barbarian ring is also often played, but I'm afraid it's squeezing the manabase to much and doesn't often come online fast enough. Even in Ubastax with 4 bazaars and 4 B-rings it often took too long to come online for me. What is your experience with the card?

And a final question: I find I have trouble with other decks that bring in graveyard hate. At least more than I would have expected because I really count on my welders and crucibles, especially in the shop matchup, a relic on the other side is very anoying. How do you deal with that? I usualy take out spheres for some artifact removal, but never want to waste my removal on relics and crypts. Also metalworkers on the other side often spell doom if cast the first two turns. So much I would consider running null rods, but it sounds suicidal in a 5c build to run rod.

I slo think not running smokestack is a mistake unless your meta consists of almost nothing but fast combo.

I compare the staxless list to my own and roughly I would say you run 2 chalice and 2 ratchet bomb where I would run smokestack. I would like to include those two cards in my list, I haven't found the space,  but I would never cut smokestack because it has so much synergy with the rest of the deck.

I'll throw out my list for feedback. At the moment I have a slightly positive result in testing matches in our testgroup and in the last 3 tournaments together I'm 29 wins - 11 losses and 1 unintentional draw.

My list and explanation of the choices and evaluation of some of the cards:

First: this maindeck and especially the SB where for a tournament with a lot of stax/mud

The manabase: I run mox opal as a sixth mox and 1 gemmstone mine more than some lists just bacause I feel the collored spells are very important.
5mox
lotus
manacrypt, vault, sol ring
4 shop
4 waste
1 stripmine
1 tolarian
4 city brass
3 gemstone mine
1 mox opal

1 bazaar of baghdad  I used to run more, but it felt clunky, so I cut them and added a crop rotation. I almost never tutor up the bazaar and almost only want it is I have an active welder. It also works very well with vampiric tutor: put a gamebreaker on top, bazaar it to the graveyard and weld it in. (I mostly do this with a wurmcoil engine and it gave me many games)

4 welder no explanation needed, tangles, bazaar and smokestack all want welders
1 sylvok replica I want 4 between sideboard and maindeck. This time the SB was full, so it went maindeck (also lots of shops) Why do I love it so much? takes out leyline and bridges against ichorid, takes out everything in the mirror and dodges chalice @1 and 2, can be recurred with welder, chumpblocks against aggro decks, takes out energy flux, oath and serenity and there is always an artifact you want to destroy, even if it is just to help them make a choice what to sacrifice to smokestack or what to tap to tangle wire. I took out moxes, just zo they would have to sac or tap a land. Having it on board with a green mana available also stops the 'I topdeck TV or key and win now' scenario's. And on top of that: it kills sphinx of the steel wind for one green mana.
1 sundering titan: tinkertarget and hardcastable and complements the rest of the manadenial plan. Sadly I'm often forced to use it to blow up a single land to stay in the game mostly because of the low count of spheres in my build.
2 wurmcoil engine Could be only 1, I just love the card atm so I run 2 and never regret seeing it.
1 triskellion to fall back on, but in all those games almost never seen it or used it. Once it teamed up with a relic from the sideboard to take out a goyf and two basking rootwallas. That's the most use I ever had out of it.

1 Balance a sometimes much needed reset button aginst fast aggro of to stop a combo opponent from sculpting their hand. Also plays nice with wurmcoil engine.
2 ancient grudge A bit of a metagame call this time, but I would almost everytime run 2, same reasoning as the replica: You can almost always find something to take out with it and it is a backup against the topdecked TV and key
demonic imho tutors are what makes 5c viable
1 crop rotation see reasoning behind the lonely bazaar. Also great against wastelands and to get strip-lock
vampiric
ancestral I almost always want to cut it, but it makes me feel better knowing it is in the deck, especialaly whan I have to take multiple mulligans.
tinker mostly for the titan. I sometimes feel I do not run enough big artifacts to really justify running tinker. It's mostly a tutor and imperial seal is a card I would also like at a lower cost, but it also has a much lower impact and doesn't put titan in to play in the first turns when needed.

the lock pieces: I run less and manage to control the game with the following, backed up by welders and tutors.
4 tangle wire
4 smokestack
Trini
3 sphere resistance
3 crucible (3 because I love random watse or strip lock, especially with the croprotation and other tutors. I want this card to show up regularly in my hand without having to waste a tutor on it. Also great with agressive smokestack ramping, trying to find a welder in the meantime.

SB

I ususally run 3-4 mindbreak traps because the combo matchup is difficult. This tournament I saw little combo players and many shops so I switched them for 1 grudge and 2 needles (also some ichorid spotted)

I always start out with:
3 sylvok replica
4 REB (or maybe 3)
I almost always want those cards because they are so versatile against the field.

Than the anti ichorid package:
2 T crypt
3 relic progenitus
I like these because they are easily castable, you can tutor them and they are reusable with welder. Ichorid fights these with white leyline and sometimes needle, So I need my 4 replica's to take care of those, block zombies and sometimes remove bridges.

the metagame call in this case, or in other cases the anti combo slots together with REB and one or two crypts
2 Pithing needle
1 ancient grudge


Cards I sometimes miss in this build:

gorilla shaman or ratchet bomb
chalice of the void
in the eye of chaos

Cards I've tried before, liked but put aside for the moment:
Liquimetal coating

what's the reason it is staxless? Do you think smokestack is to slow? I play a simmilar list but no chalices and no ratchet bomb and a few other small changes.

Isn't chalice a liability as a two-off with all the one mana costers in the deck?
Why 2 mox opal? I run only one and an extra gemstone mine and I never have manaproblems

well I started out monored, wanted green for ancient grudge and the replica and finally decided on a 5c manabase to add tutors.

Monored with the 4 basics really appeals to me, but I would want some kind of drawengine to compensate for the lack of tutors.
Heretic always found 4 spots in my sideboard when playing monored, So maybe it would be maindeckable in this build.

I try to look at succesfull shop decks in the past and I'm torn between ubastax or aggro stax for this list. If staying monored I would try:

aggro aproach with magus: I added sword of fire and ice as a drawengine and a clock to turn al those little creatures into real threats. Also darkblast and fire/ice or other burn spells are really anoying if you are dependant on 1/1 and 2/2 creatures to make your deck work.

// Lands (15, no waste/strip)
    1 Tolarian Academy
    2 Ancient Tomb
    4 Mishra's Workshop
    4 Great Furnace
    4 Mountain

// Creatures
    3 Gorilla Shaman
    4 Goblin Welder
    4 Magus of the Moon
    2 Karn, Silver Golem
    3 viashino heretic

// Spells
    2 Mox Opal
    1 Black Lotus + 5 moxes + Sol ring + Mana crypt
    1 Mana Vault
    
    4 Liquimetal Coating

    1 Trinisphere
    3 Sphere of Resistance

    2 Sword of fire and ice (maybe 3 and cut one sphere or smokestack)
    
    4 Tangle Wire
    4 Smokestack


Going the UBA aproach: Ubamask + bazaar = drawengine and uba on itself has become slightly better because of jace. Also with the welders you can ubalock the opponent from casting anything but instants.

// Lands (15, no waste/strip)
    1 Tolarian Academy
    2 Ancient Tomb
    4 Mishra's Workshop
    4 Great Furnace
    4 Mountain
4 Bazaar of baghdad

// Creatures
    3 Gorilla Shaman
    4 Goblin Welder
    3 Karn, Silver Golem

// Spells
    2 Mox Opal
    1 Black Lotus + 5 moxes + Sol ring + Mana crypt
    1 Mana Vault
    
    4 Liquimetal Coating

    1 Trinisphere
    4 Sphere of Resistance

3 ubamask

    4 Tangle Wire
    4 Smokestack

I think you need the extra artifact removal.

mud can throw chalice @1 or a needle on shaman or welder so you want to get rid of that
null rod can be anoying and toe destroy it with shaman you ned 5 non artifact non shop mana

I also think you need some instant speed artifact removal tot deal with fish's null rods and with TV key and against shop decks that can keep you locked down with tangle wires.

Magus seems interesting, so I'm going to try your list. I just think I will miss the ancient grudges and sylvok replicas I run now because they do not combine very well with magus. But maybe magus is strong enough on its own so I'm going to test him

I'm happy I'm not the only one trying coating in stax (see my thread different take on shops)
I tried it in a 5 c stax shell with welders and crucibles, ancient grudge and sylvok replica. The shaman can not take out creatures where coating + replica or grudge can. Also cutting strip and wastes is an interesting idea. I did not cut them because they work very well with the rest of the deck. now you need coating + mox monkey or karn to take out a (one) land. If they have a fetch, it also takes you two turns to take out that one land. I would run the wastelands and stripmine complementary to the coatings.

Welder also works well with liquimetal coating. If they have an artifact in graveyar you can weld out anything on their side (accept sphinx and inkwell)
ALso in midgame it is nice to turn one of your lands into an artifact, weld it out for something you need and replay the land with crucible.

I think 3 mox opal is to much, I also think 4 karn is overkill. They are legendary and my 5c manabase works fine for me with one opal, so I can imagine yours would too. If you want to run so many copies of all of those cards, I would consider bazaar of baghdad to filter dead cards