[Deck] Simplified Stax for Post Gen-Con world

[diamond66]

2 quick things. Primarily, I chose the TFK over meditate as it is a card drawer that doesn't force me to wait to use it.  Meditate digs deeper and allows you to extend your lock, but it doesn't do a single positive thing if you have either stalled or are trying to bait a counter.  Yes, it may draw you into a piece you need, however the likelihood of that being countered against control, and then giving them a free turn is too high.

Also, smokestack has nothing to do with the name of the deck STAX.  The name is derived from the phrase "the 4 thousand dollar solution" (T4K$S).
When you shift the last s, you get ST$KS, or STAKS, the real namesake of the deck.

[Razvan]

When you have just a Crucible Lock going... Meditate is bad, as it allows them to have 2 Land drops...

When you have a Crucible Lock... the rest is irrelevant, you pretty much won.

Yeah well, they'll be getting the first one regardless, unless you're playing savage Pardic Miner tech , and the one extra land doesn't matter compared to the savage business drawn off meditate.

The point was to show that there are numerous instances where meditate is playable. I really think the biggest problem is that Magic players are scared shitless of giving their opponents extra turns, I mean, that's like a time walk or something. Kindly remember though, that many plays are essentially time walks, such as an early tangle wire. Honestly, the circumstances in which meditate is good are too numerous to list here, so just test with it.

I had a Crucible, Workshop lock against my opponent, and for one turn, he dropped a fetchland. Next turn he dropped Ancient Tomb, and was at 3 mana, and was able to cast a Rack and Ruin.

The one extra land can destroy your whole plan, and the 4 cards you draw might not be able to atone for the loss. Giving your opponent a whole turn might not be the end of the world, but they could break out of the lock, which... yeah, not good.

I am not saying that's the reason to pick Thirst over Meditate... but it's not a decision to be taken lightly.

Also, smokestack has nothing to do with the name of the deck STAX. The name is derived from the phrase "the 4 thousand dollar solution" (T4K$S).
When you shift the last s, you get ST$KS, or STAKS, the real namesake of the deck.

You seriously believe that it has no correlation? Smokestack was the central piece of the deck. I am sure the designer's had that in mind.

First of all, the $ sign is put at the beginning (even before the T in this case). $T4KS.

Either way, we are arguing about semantics.

[Covetous]

What about running both TFK and meditate?  Each of these cards has strong advantages as well as disadvantages or less-optimal points compared to one another.  TFK is "safe"--you can play it when you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole and not get powned by your opponent getting two turns when you haven't established a lock.  Thus, TFK is better for trying to win when you are in a bad position already--in this way, it can help you win.  It also can dump Mr. Titan into your yard, which is where you want him to be.

On the other hand, meditate is stronger card advantage and its drawback can be turned into an advantage--stacks is about permanent advantage and smokestack + any number of counters + mediate = serious permanent advantage.  However, meditate is not as strong when you are trying to dig yourself out from a problem situation (think--you are facing some beatdown with just a welder on the table and a titan in hand).  

This doesn't mean that mediate is bad, or that thirst is better per se, it's just that meditate is strongest when you are already in a position where you can win (i.e. have lock components) while thirst is good all of the time, and can help to put your win condition into position.  In this way, TFK is better in the early game while meditate is stronger later on (usually).  Has anyone considered running 5 or 6 total card drawers in some sort of 2:3, 2:4 or 3:3 configuration (I believe TFK deserves more slots)?  Also, what is the consensus on draw-7's?  Do they belong, or are they bad because giving your opponent a new 7 cards to dig themselves out of the hole they are in might be bad?

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Draw 7s are essential to the deck simply because the insane mana acceleration rapidly depletes your hand, and in order to keep applying pressure you have to refill it. Don't worry about giving your opponent a better hand than he had, instead think about how much better his hand can be than yours. If your hand is going to improve more than his hand, that is the appropriate time to play a draw 7. The simplest indicator of this is that you have less cards in hand than your opponent. Also consider the affect of the draw 7 with respect to welder, if you've already got some savage graveyard exchange, it might be wiser to hold off on the timetwister that will shuffle your library.

[Wollblad]

Don't worry about giving your opponent a better hand than he had, instead think about how much better his hand can be than yours. If your hand is going to improve more than his hand, that is the appropriate time to play a draw 7.

The critical issue is the upkeep after you have played your draw 7. Then your oppenent will have a full hand which, if the deck is someting to fear, will contain a card like Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation or Rebuild. It is much better that your opponent needs to spend there own, scarse mana on finding those cards. Mana by the way is what your opponent is supposed to be low on. If you play a draw 7 you will throw away the spells he cannot play and instead give him mana. It is much more stable, specially in the start when the lock has not yet been established to have a lock component extra instead of a draw 7. Having both Thirst (or Meditate) and draw 7 will give you too few lock components forcing you to play early card drawing instead of spending your mana on locking your opponent. This is also why having both Meditate and Thirst is bad. Last important fact is that you will be too heavy on colored cards forcing you to take more mulligans than would othervise be neccesary.

I have tested both with and without draw 7. It is hard to let go of the brokeness they can give, but once you do, you will not miss them.

[Covetous]

What about memory jar?  I usually consider that to be different from the other playable draw-7s (twister and wheel) because it only works for you...
Anyway what is the optimal # of lock components in this deck?  I thought that 4 each of stack, wire, crucible and 3sphere would be sufficient, backed by jar and 4-6 draw spells, with 2 titans and a trike as win conditions.  Is this sufficient?  Also, is mindslaver a good card for this deck or is it too clunky?

[Jacob Orlove]

This is newbie-level question/answer stuff.

[xrobx]

I'll start by saying please playtest this deck for a few weeks before you comment on how TfK works, or how meditate works.

Yes, it may draw you into a piece you need, however the likelihood of that being countered against control, and then giving them a free turn is too high.

This simply doesn't make sense.  First, if this card is countered, then you do not skip your next turn.  The 'skip your next turn' crap is part of the effect, not the activation cost  Second, if you are playing against control, and you play meditate at the right time (yes, magic does take some skill and you do have to know how to play certain cards in certain decks), isn't it a good thing for the opponent to be wasting his counters on this??  If it is a guarenteed 3cc, instant speed FoW/Mana Drain grabber, then why not play it?  USUALLY, this is how it goes (I know from playtesting, not because I am pretending to know ):

end of monoU players turn/control players turn:
me: tap 3 mana, meditate?
1) Good opp: *looks at board...1 smokestack 2 counters* "Crap...FoW it (if no 3sphere/mana drain)...*
2) Bad opp: *looks at board..reads card* "Oh..so, you skip your next turn?  Hmm, that seems cool...okay it's fine."

choice 1) i bait out 1/2 cards, and have cleared the way for a threat (welder, ancestrallllllllllllllllll, anything, draw 7 if you need it even).

choice 2) you just won the game.  you'd be suprised how OFTEN this happens when you play against people who don't know how to play against stax/meditate.

So, obvious shit aside (meaning yes you will have to know how to play in order to use this card), meditate is amazing in stax.

As for 8 draw cards; stax doesn't have enough room (atleast mine doesn't) for 4 TfK and 4 meditate.  It also depends if you are running draw7s or not.  I believe in wheel and jar only.  Timetwister often ruins me or is a dead card, and windfall just doesn't restock my hand as nicely.  Again, I play balance and yawgWIN in my build, so yawgWIN is basically a draw 7-x, where x is bigger allllllllll the time (further into game, the better) which is unlike many draw 7s (usually stax goes: dump hand, i need food....draw7?).

To each his own, but I suggest playtesting before telling people to run TfK or whatever, and how meditate is sub-par.  Meditate is broken.

[Covetous]

I'm pretty skeptical of memory jar now after some more playtesting.  Since jar makes you drop stuff NOW, it makes your 3sphere really piss you off and generally just gets you a few cards you can play and several you can't.  I prefer Twister for several reasons:
1.  It can hose certain strategies (graveyard, library stacking, topdeck tutors).  This means that it can be a utility card with uses other than just re-filling your hand.
2.  It can allow you to re-play fun cards like recall, tinker and welder which you already played and maybe got countered.
3.  It draws you seven cards for three mana (not five like Jar).
4.  It's power.
5.  I own it.

I also think that Mindslaver is a good inclusion, and I replaced memory jar with it and haven't looked back.  I even considered running a pentavus as well, because not only does he make infinite slaver locks, but more importantly he is huge permanent advantage.  Pentavus is one single card that turns into five permanents, allowing you to ignore your smokestack/tangle wire not to mention all of the other fun things he does.  I think that Trike and Titan are generally better, but the Pent is worth considering.  

On a somewhat unrelated note, I often find myself without enough colored sources and I'm not exactly sure what the best solution is because my manabase is already pretty tight.  I find myself with this sort of mana in play:
Workshop
2 off-color moxen
2 wasteland
...etc. and 2 TFK's in my hand but no blue.  I am running 9 blue-producing lands (4 volcs, 2 fetches, 2 reefs and either 1 more reef or The Academy), plus mox & lotus and I'm wondering if that's enough.

[cssamerican]

On a somewhat unrelated note, I often find myself without enough colored sources and I'm not exactly sure what the best solution is because my manabase is already pretty tight.  I find myself with this sort of mana in play:
Workshop
2 off-color moxen
2 wasteland
...etc. and 2 TFK's in my hand but no blue.  I am running 9 blue-producing lands (4 volcs, 2 fetches, 2 reefs and either 1 more reef or The Academy), plus mox & lotus and I'm wondering if that's enough.

I would think this to be more than enough. The build I am currently playing just has 8 color producing lands plus the moxes and lotus. And I don't find it to be a major problem. Of course you have to realize that any deck with 9 non-color producing lands is going to prone to color screw every now an again, but I must say that Crucible has improved color screw tremendously since it inclusion.

My only question is why just play two colors? Playing a five-color build allows for Sundering Titans effect to always be one-sided. Having access to black's tutors and Balance (My MVP) maindecked is huge in almost every conceivable match-up. Plus being able to side in gamebreaking cards such as Artifact Mutation can generate more wins than any two-color configuration could hope for. I just can't understand the logic behind the two-color builds.

As far as draw cards are concerned, I play with 3 Meditates and 3 TFKs. I like Meditate as a draw engine the best, but I like having access to TFK for those times in which you have active Welders and something good in hand like a Titan. I might eventually go to a 4:2 configuration but as of now I am happy with what I am running. I do not run any draw sevens because I do not want to give my opponents additional way out of my lock. Plus I don't think you can support more than six draw cards without running into problems such as being too color dependent or having an insufficient number lock parts.