Can't wait. I'm gonna win again.

Keith Seals
Shawn Griffiths
Joel Lim

Yepper I'll be at TPsG.

Serenity convinced me 100% this past weekend.  I had it be strong in several games and it completely won me the last game against Shawn in the finals.  Completely turned the game around.  Wiped his board save for a land or two when I was staring down several creatures and lock pieces, let me win a turn or two later.

Jon, sorry I didn't reply sooner.  So I was completely rooting for the 9ers, disregarding the record tying in favor of my hatred for the Ravens.  A friend of mine cheered me up after, because he reminded me that in a year or two, the Ravens win will be mostly forgotten, but the Steelers will still hold the record

As for the changes, the Underground Sea has been great!  There has been a time here and there where I got hurt by Wasteland, but there have also been games where Deathrite won me the game all by herself.  I also feel that the Forest is the most important basic, as long as you keep that out you can often get your other mana from your dudes.

I also have been quite happy with the Flusterstorms.  Misstep was often a dead card, and Flusterstorm was able to do the same work plus some.

I played the same 75 at the recent Lancaster tournament to a first place finish!  My pairings were good, I played vs Shops 3 times in the Swiss and 2 more times in the Top 8. 

My other pairing in the Swiss (aside from an intentional draw) was against Dredge which I 2-0'd!  In game 1 I wasted my opponent's first and only Bazaar, got some beatdown going with a few Pridemages, and had Meddling Mage on Dread Return.  It was just enough.  Game 2 Rest in Peace won the day. 

Then in the miracle of miracles, I played vs Dredge again (different opponent) in the Semifinals, and 2-0'd again!  Similar story both games, with the addition of two Dazes two turns in a row to protect Rest in Peace.  I think I must have some crazy good karma, cause 2-0'ing Dredge with Fish twice in one tournament doesn't seem likely to ever happen again.

Hey Lance, this is Bill btw

I think I'm starting to agree.  I was always big on Selkie, but he sucked against non-blue decks, whereas Edric would have drawn me a card or two. 

Cutting Serenity sounds scary, but you're right that there's not that much I want to side out.  Cutting it to some number under 4 would be a possibility too.
 
I think more hate against anything blue would be where I could use the most help. 

I only played Shops once, either Martello or Esprosso, not sure.  The Serenity's never came into play, as I recall both games he played an early sphere effect or two, but I came out from under them pretty quickly with multiple mana dorks.  In game 2 I wasted his Workshop and the sphere hurt him more than me.  I do think that with the addition of one more Deathrite Shaman, plus the Trygons, Qasali's and Serenity post-board, that it's enough against shops.

Before the top 8, I beat Landstill, Suicide Girls, shops as mentioned above, and I drew 1-1 against Bomberman.  The Landstill matchup went pretty easily as I recall, Suicide Girls and Bomberman were very close matches.

I played the following list a few weeks ago in NJ to a top 8 finish.

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Time Walk
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Meddling Mage
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Trygon Predator
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Path to Exile

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Strip Mine
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland

SB:
4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Mental Misstep
3 Rest in Peace
4 Serenity

Basically I took Mike Noble's anti shops list from a few posts above, and tweeked it to make it a little more generic. 

Deathrite Shaman was great, if I were to play the list again I'd want to up it to 3. 

I didn't really miss Null Rod/Stony Silence at all.  I think the higher likelihood of getting a Trygon out helps here.

I lost in the top 8 to Landstill, which was quite disappointing because I feel like this should be a fairly good matchup.  I mulled to 5 in game 3, kept a mana light hand.  On turn 2 I Green Sun'd for zero to get Dryad Arbor for mana, he Forced, I Forced back then he Forced again.  I wasn't able to recover after that.

Shawn Griffiths
Rob Edwards
Justin Kohler
Jon Jones
Matt Elias

The problem, imo, with Welder as the sole kill method is that yes, you are playing for the 1-0 victory, but you're letting your opponent play for the 1-0 as well.  If they win a drawn out game one, you have just as much trouble winning two more in time as they would.

I suppose you could have a fast kill card or two in the board for the case where you lose the first game, but I think I'd just stick to a few kills main.

Has anyone thought about running Sundering Titan in the board to come in vs.  multi colored control decks?  It seems like sweeping 2-4 of their lands in one turn could be very strong, even at the high casting cost.  It's something I plan to try.

@BreathWeapon:  I agree, I'd love to see some other opinions on sideboarding, I've never been that happy with my plans.  I was going to post some of my sb plans here, but as I was typing them I realized I don't have very good plans.  I definitely feel that with Stax sideboarding when playing first or drawing first is quite different.  When on the draw I'll often take out Windfall, Spheres, and/or Chalice, but other times I often find myself taking out random cards, like -1 Sphere, -2 Chalice, etc.  Some more educated takes on the board would be great.

@David:  First, I agree with you not running Wastelands in your build.  When I was running black I didn't run them either, and I think it'd be very difficult to do so without causing color problems.  

I'm still not sold completely on Meditate, though given both your advice, and Smmenen's re. Keeper, I may try them again.  

You mentioned that you liked Fabricate so far.  Have you tried Vampiric Tutor?  I was running that for a while, and being instant speed and able to fetch any card, at two mana cheaper, it seems like it would be a stronger choice.  Any thoughts?

I like the Divert in the board, I may have to test that a bit myself.  

Also, thanks for the link, it's a lot to dig through, but it should prove enlightening.

@ Smmenen: Thanks for the tips.  I have found same as you that Smokestack is the strongest lock piece in the match.  

I find it incredibly difficult to keep Welders on the board though.  As you say, the first one gets plowed, but it seems like too often the second gets countered, and the third gets Fired, etc.

@BreathWeapon: I prefer Thirst for Knowledge over Meditate.  While it draws less cards, Meditate was fairly situational, not nearly as good when there's no Smokestack on the board.  The discard on Thirst is negligible, and even advantageous, as you can dump a juicy artifact and weld in back into play.  Thirst is, in my opinion, strictly better.

I've thought about Trinisphere, and I plan to playtest it some more.  For now I'm thinking about tournaments in the near future when Darksteel still isn't legal.  After that, I'm going to test it with Trinisphere a lot.  

How good does everyone think it will be in Stax?  I'm not sure if it will prove better than Sphere or not.  Casting a draw-7 is often followed by dropping a 0cost artifact or 2, which is much easier accomplished at a cost of 1 each rather than 3 each.  And of course there's all the other issues people have discussed here already, the fact that it's no good in multiples other than as an extra permanent, I can't tap it down to Tangle Wire, etc.  If anyone has better arguments on why they think it's better than Sphere, I'd love to hear them.

@Wollblad:
The draw-7s are a fairly essential part of the deck.  The idea is to have the opponent either locked or at least semi-locked, then achieve massive card advantage and continue the lock.  You're right that Timetwister is the least synergistic draw in the deck, since it removes any Welder food from my graveyard, but the strength of Timetwister, especially early game, far outweighs any dissynergy it might have.  It's also great vs any other graveyard based decks.  Vs. Dragon it can sometimes undo several turns of work.

Time Walk is, I think, even less synergistic than Timetwister.  The only dissynergy with 'Twister is my Welders, while Time Walk is worse with active Smokestack or Tangle Wire, and often is only a draw-1.

I haven't thought about Viashino Heretic, I may hafta try it though I suspect Rack and Ruin's instant speed will prove better, I know the damage from the Heretic won't help me that much.  This deck kills in a way similar to Keeper or Hulk, control the game then just win.

@Toad:
My reason for the 2nd Trike is that I have found myself locking an opponent completely out of the game, but not being able to draw a kill card in time.  This is how I drew both of my matches at the Waterbury tourney.  Admittedly this may be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to those draws, but I've really enjoyed having extra defense against things like opposing welders, gorilla shaman, etc.  Not to mention how fun it is to have an active Welder and one Trike on board and the other in the grave.

Hey all, I'm new to the Mana Drain, I've been playing type 1 seriously since about last August.  I was wondering if anyone is still playing this deck?  This is the deck that got me into type 1, but sadly it seems to have fallen some in the current metagame.   Here's the list I've been using:

Stax

//-The Lock
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Goblin Welder
//-The Kill
2 Triskelion
1 Karn, Silver Golem
//-Draw
1 Memory Jar
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
2 Thirst for Knowledge
//-Manas
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lotus Petal
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Volcanic Island
3 Pollutted Delta
1 Shivan Reef
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard:

2 Blood Moon  
1 Jester's Cap  (Good vs Hulk and Dragon, and other combo decks with few kill cards, and fun )
3 Fire/Ice
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Tormod's Crypt

This is, I think, a fairly standard list.  It started from Stephen Menendian and Matthieu Durand's list in their Starcity article from this past summer, and is now very similar to Menendian's list from a fairly recent article.

I'm not really sure what to put for a card by card analysis.  The deck used to have black in it, for Yawgmoth's Will and Demonic Tutor, and I was even running Vampiric Tutor at one point as well.  

I also ran a sole Mindslaver at one point in place of Trike #2, while very good sometimes, 'Slaver was too situational in this deck.  

I played almost this exact build, I think the only difference being that I still had the Mindslaver in, at the recent Waterbury tournament.   I went 2-1-2, beating a Keeper and a Hulk deck, drawing to Hulk and GAT, and I lost to a CounterSlavery build I had never seen before.  

My biggest problem matchup right now is Keeper, though admittedly I have only 1 playtest partner, and that is his pet deck.  I've been testing against Big O., U/R Landstill, Keeper, Hulk, TnT and Dragon.  I'm hesitant to say too much about these other matchups yet, as I haven't gotten that many matches in yet.  For example, I went about 1-5 vs Big O. last week, and I think 3-1 this week.  Fairly indeterminate.

What does everyone think, is this deck still viable?  Any suggestions on card changes/color splashes, etc?  I'd just love to see more discussion on my favorite deck.