Why don't we see a lot of STAX in New England?

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

The deck is very powerful.

It's also great in our current metagame.

Why is it that we don't see it around?

1. Not enough popularity?
2. Too Expensive?
3. Percevied to be hard to play?

Why?

[Zherbus]

Partially because of 5 (and to a lesser effect, 10) proxy systems. Also, New England has always been heavily control biased.

[Kowal]

People in New England run Force of Will, Goblin Welders of their own, basic lands, and often Pentavus.

Stax sucks up here.

[Wollblad]

It can be connected to the amount of proxies allowed. But the last tournament here in Sweden showed 4 Stax in the eight first possitions. Decklists can be found here. There, no proxies were allowed. That Stax is popular can be because the dollar is really cheap. A Workshop is here sold for about 1200 Swedish krowns, that is about $170, thus many Workshops are bought on e-bay draining USA on them.

Stax is not a forgiving deck. Your descisions have influence several turns later, but the choices are few and it is often obvious what the right choice is, so I would not consider it hard to play.

@Kowal
Stax hardest matchups are Dragon, TPS, Workshop aggro and Control Slaver, and if those are heavily played, Stax is perhaps not a good choice. But another explaination is that those mathups get even worse if Stax give priority to brokeness over stability, including more than two colors and/or draw 7. So far, I havn't seen an American deck without either draw seven or extra color(s).

[Toad]

@Kowal
Stax hardest matchups are Dragon, TPS, Workshop aggro and Control Slaver, and if those are heavily played, Stax is perhaps not a good choice. But another explaination is that those mathups get even worse if Stax give priority to brokeness over stability, including more than two colors and/or draw 7.

Balance and Demonic Tutor are really strong in these matchups. Especially Workshop Aggro. I read your decklist from the tourney and I fail to see how 2 maindeck Sphere of Resistance are better than Balance and Demonic Tutor against Workshop Aggro and Control Slaver.

And STOP talking about "American" Stax and "non American" Stax. These two decks have been designed for specific metagames, not for American players and non American players. There are a lot of metagames where I would go with the 5colour build over the 2colour build. Stability is not really an argument since the 2cc build runs no basic lands (and your builds only run 2 Crucibles, which are key to the decks stability, while Cron's 5c build had 4).

[cssamerican]

I don't understand how so many people think a two-color build is superior when they don't even run basic lands in those builds. What the hell is the advantage of running two colors when your mana base isn't any more stable than the five-color builds? What the hell am I missing?

I would be interested to hear what people feel the best draw engine is for 5c Stax: Draw7s, Meditate or Thirst for Knowledge.

I have personally been running Meditate because I feel it has synergy with more cards in the deck than any of the other engines, but I would like to hear other peoples’ opinion on the draw engine of 5c Stax.

[Apollyon]

I think it has to be that a lot of the best players have pet decks of their own, meaning that Stax just doesn't have the popularity that it needs to be a dominant deck. Additionally, Wollblad is right in that Stax has trouble against TPS, Workshop Aggro, and Control Slaver.  With a decent amount of the better players in New England playing one of those 3, Stax is a hard deck to start playing, especially if you have plans of making t8.

A two color build is superior to the 5 color build if you run basics. If you run no basics, there is little to no reason to play only 2 colors when you could have access to Demonic Tutor and Balance, both of which are rumoured to be good cards.

I've tried out the Spheres, and they just seem so win-more, especially considering their lack of synergy with Trinisphere. If anything, I'd consider running Chalices over Spheres, simply because Chalice improves the matchup against combo (notably by cutting off either Moxen or the 1 drop spells in the absense of Trinisphere or having the late game potential to drop for 3, cutting off Rack and Ruin, Rebuild, Energy Flux, and Cunning and Death Wish).

I have personally found that the Draw7s are consistently good, while Meditate is either game breaking or dead. Thirsts were somewhat weak, although they don't suffer from the disadvantage of being dead, so the call about Thirst would be running Thirsts over Meditate, both of which are good choices. I personally go with Meditate, since drawing 4 cards has made the difference in many matches, especially if I'm looking to finish the lock.

I also highly reccomend 4 Crucibles, mainly because of their synergy with Tangle Wire (it's a tapped card that still works), Smokestack (play a land and sac it to Smokestack), and Wasteland/Strip Mine (adding a 2nd, and usually easier, type of lock is really good).

[Covetous]

At least 3 crucibles (and preferably 4) is key.  Thirst is good because it is a proactive card that can do three useful things:
1.  Draw cards whenever you need them, not only when you are ahead already (like meditate).
2.  Toss a Titan or Slaver into the 'yard (unlike Twister or Meditate)
3.  Give you one-sided card advantage (unlike Draw-7's).
Nonetheless, I run my Stax with Wheel and Twister, although I am currently using the 2-color version because I only have it for fun, wouldn't play it at a tourney, and am too damned lazy to play with a deck that IMO has no real chance of winning a tourney where I live unless it is a zero-proxy tourney (I have shops and full power).

[zero]

To me, the 2 color version is like running u/r stacker and replacing the juggernauts and su-chi with smokestack and tangle wire; the 4 trinisphere and 3 crucible stay the same. One thing that will never change for workshop decks is that your opening seven have a huge impact on how your game is going to play out, and even with crucible you are subject to bouts of inconsistency. This is one of the biggest arguments against stax and other workshop decks; and at least a juggernaut puts someone on a fast clock combined with the disruption. A first turn tangle wire doesn't draw out a FoW like a juggie.
I do think you are slightly more consistent with two colors even without many basics, though I can't prove it empirically.  It may not even be the manabase; it may be because it forces the deck to be designed with more clarity of purpose and no extraneous elements. I guess I haven't seen a 5c deck list I was entirely comfortable with, either, or thought had a good chance to consistently beat keeper and control slaver. I wouldn't run it myself, but I think the the 2 spheres are to increase the likelihood of getting ate least one of trini/resistance in the opening hand. I would also at least run wheel of fortune, you can empty your hand pretty quickly with stax.

[Marton]

I would be interested to hear what people feel the best draw engine is for 5c Stax: Draw7s, Meditate or Thirst for Knowledge.

Not directly answering the question, but applying the answer to a 'general' (5x or not) stax build...

Meditate is explosive, no doubt there. The problem with meditate is that the only good scenarios that make it really good are those:

1- You play with metalworker (blame my non-proxy meta and lack of power ). With metalworker this card is almost like free mana, a great card drawer, and allows you to play more agressive smokestack buildup. Essentially, it feels like playing suicide in a way. The problem with this is that the more you play meditate with metalworker, the less your metalworkers are good since youre cutting down your artifact-to-card ratio. Sure, most people don't play metalworkers in stax, but for those who do, i recommend that you instead turn your head towards draw-7s or mind's eye.

2- You have in play/draw into a tangle wire. The problem with this is over-relying on tangle wire, which is some bad vs problematic instants, such as rack and ruin and/or cunning wish. Sphere of resistance is good versus those.

3- You have in play a smokestack with counters. Sure this is really nice, but usually at this point, wether you draw cards or not, the game is in your advantage. *This isn't the case all the time, but very generally it is.* Wether you draw 4 cards or not won't change much of the game at this point. The problem is that you're spending 3 mana here on a card that does NOT give you a permanent into play (which you need for the smokestack). The following (2) turns, when your turn begins again, you need to sacrifice another permanent, which can hurt if you do not have the crucible of worlds. You see, at this point, but playing meditate you gave up playing a permanent to sacrifice to smokestack (the meditate itself is not a permanent), gave up the possibility of using crucible if you had one into play, and also you went into the possible problem of sacrificing a permanent that you need to hold down the lock (on the next time u get a turn). The problem gets even worse if your opponent is smart and knows he can screw you up badly by wasting 2 of your lands during his 2 turns (which often means you get forced to sac either the smokestack or the trinisphere). You see, meditate can turn a so-so board both ways. Meditate is good if you can draw into the missing parts, but honestly, I just prefer using my next turn on using my 'trusty' crucible which does not randomly retaliates against me. It's a question of choice, but I prefer relying as less as possible on a colored card as possible.

4- Your hand/board sucks (or smokestack counters not racked up enough), a trinisphere is into play, and all you need is that strip mine/wasteland.

5- Your opponent plays stax. Well, meditate just owns the mirror.

6- You have a memory jar into play. Meditate, in response activate the jar, draw-11. Of course, you should play this during your upkeep so that you draw a full 12 cards in one swoop. Be sure to play metalworker to ensure immediate scoop motion from the opponent.

The problem however is that meditate and crucible of worlds just don't mix great. Most of the time I would prefer keep the crucible lock over playing a meditate and skipping my next turn (meaning essentially giving up the possibility of using a crucible).

Thirst for knowledge

Thirst for knowledge is only acceptably good if you have an active welder.
Turn 1 welder, turn 2 thirst feels almost like playing a tinker. It certainly allows you to put higher cc cards in your deck since you don't have to pay for them anyway. Sure, it's a huge plus. But here comes the problem linked with thirst for knowledge for which I have not found a good solution: Every deck in the format can and most likely WILL attack your first turn welder (since you cant always draw the turn 1 trinisphere reliably). You see, thirst is a waste of mana, in my opinion, in every possible way if you do not have a welder into play. I don't know about your meta, but in mine i cannot possibly hope to have a welder stay into play. The odds of having my welder nuked are much higher than the odds of drawing a first turn trinisphere (not that the 2 events are linked). If your meta permits you a turn 1 welder then by all means play thirst for knowledge and get that titan into play. In all other case, well, just don't play thirst. It's 3 mana spent on a non-permanent card which you cannot sacrifice to smokestack. Every 3 mana spent on something that isn't a lock component or a mana source/accelerant better has a a damn good CARD ADVANTAGE signed on it because every card that isnt a permanent starts with a -2 card advantage whatever it is. You see, if you don't play a permanent, that means you end up sacrificing one of those instead of it: a land, an accelerant or a lock component. All of those are rather crucial, except perhaps lands. You could say they all don't matter when your board is full, but then again I reply to those that your argument doesn't matter because at that point the game was won whatever card you drew.

Thirst of knowledge CAN turn games in your way. The problem is that without welder it's really too inefficient in my opinion.

Draw-7s.

I cannot honestly understand why a stax deck would not play (one of) those. Playing a draw-7 gives you damn good chances of drawing into a strip/waste, the crucible you were waiting for, or any of the other game winning cards in your deck. Most often your hand will be depleated faster than your opponents simply because your deck features a minimum of a full 30 cards out of 60 which are mana sources, most of which generate more than 1 mana. I might make a brief mention that draw-7s and metalworker are some fun, and that they are very very funny with mind's eye into play. On the other side it is true that once you have the lock all you need is to drop 1 permanent per turn, so draw-card is a bit useless since you already won, but in my experience the draw-7s were just too game breaking to not include.


I believe we should perhaps try more that mind's eye that could. Sure it looks very janky but it is another card that must be adressed by the opponent. The more stax can force the opponent to play by his game, the more the opponent cannot keep up.

On a side note I will mention that in my testing there should be more chalice of the void in stax builds. Chalice of the void is *the* card that wins you the matches against your worst matchups. Balance and demonic tutor are the better replacement for those, but I've had a hard time finding place and messing the mana base for minor color splash.

[Conan_barberarn]

I'm starting to get quite tired with all this "meditate draws you four cards" talk. Why are you all disregarding the card drawn in the draw-step (which you don't get from meditate contrary to TFK)?

Meditate has win-more written all over it as it's only really good when you either have a lock-piece in play or under extreme circumstances.

The difference between TFK and meditate can be summarized as: would you like to discard a mana-expensive artifact or skip your next turn? The answer is easy...

Draw7s can be good, but they also have lots of drawbacks; cant be cast eot to avoid drain, gives opponent a fresh new hand (you may even give him the strip mine he needed to seal the gamewith CoW) etc.

TFK 4 life /Gustav

[Toad]

Meditate has win-more written all over it as it's only really good when you either have a lock-piece in play or under extreme circumstances.

There are a lot of matchups where you can go first turn Meditate with no lock component on the board.

Furthermore, the point of Stax is to have a lock piece in play anyways. And Meditate helps you there.

There is no clear superiority between Thirst for Knowledge and Meditate. There are a lot of matchups where I want Meditate over Thirst for Knowledge. And vice & versa.

would you like to discard a mana-expensive artifact or skip your next turn? The answer is easy...

No, It's not.

[Kowal]

I almost always would prefer meditate.  It's my opinion that Meditate is a little bit more skill testing, and people that don't immediately reap the benefits of Meditate are quick to brush it off as a poor card choice.

[Conan_barberarn]

There are a lot of matchups where you can go first turn Meditate with no lock component on the board.

That means you'll reduce your chances of locking them drastically. They will get the chance to play lands so that can drain your next spell or easilly break out from under a 3sphere. Are you sersious about casting a meditate 1st turn? Maybee if you have a god hand with which you can play both meditate and one/more threats i could consider it but otherwise it's just crap.

Furthermore, the point of Stax is to have a lock piece in play anyways. And Meditate helps you there.

How does it help? It doesn't help you to get the lock-piece in play earlygame (the best you can draw is wire as you wont have time to add counters to a stack). TFK is the only card that might help you to get a lock-piece into play if you have an active welder (if we are talking about help as in not hardcasting the threat/lock-piece).

Do you agree with me that TFK is better 1st turn/early game?

would you like to discard a mana-expensive artifact or skip your next turn? The answer is easy...

No, It's not.

Yes it is. Regardless of my/your oppinion though, do you think the question is ok put?

/Gustav

[Kowal]

Casting Meditate turn one is usually fine.  Your opponent gets two lands, whoop dee crap.  Usually one of them is a nonbasic, and if you've drawn seven plus four, you're pretty likely to have an answer to that, or at the very least, multiple threats.  

Another argument that hasn't really been made yet is that of opposing goblin welders.  Thirst is almost guaranteeing it'll put an artifact in your graveyard so your opponent can have fun with your lock pieces.   Meditate will make them deal with what you've got, usually long enough to neutralize the threat of the welder so you can freely allow things like Tangle Wire to fade out and activations of lotus petal, etc.

[Toad]

There are a lot of matchups where you can go first turn Meditate with no lock component on the board.

That means you'll reduce your chances of locking them drastically. They will get the chance to play lands so that can drain your next spell or easilly break out from under a 3sphere. Are you sersious about casting a meditate 1st turn? Maybee if you have a god hand with which you can play both meditate and one/more threats i could consider it but otherwise it's just crap.

Have you ever playtested against Fish? First turn Meditate is really strong in this matchup. Far more than a first turn Thirst for Knowledge, something I would consider as quite weak.

TFK is the only card that might help you to get a lock-piece into play if you have an active welder (if we are talking about help as in not hardcasting the threat/lock-piece).

"If you have an active Welder"? This could be reworded in "If you are winning". If you have an active Welder on the board by the time you want to cast either TFK or Meditate, you have already won.

The synergy between Welder and TFK is not an issue here since Stax does not rely on Goblin Welder to win, contrary to Drain Slaver, for example.

Do you agree with me that TFK is better 1st turn/early game?

No, I don't. Mostly because :

* If I cast a draw spell on turn 1, I have no other lock component to cast. Aside from probably meaning I kept a hand I should have mulliganned, It also means I need to find lock components to make my deck going. TFK gets me 2 cards. Meditate 4.

* In mid or late game, Stax has to have at least a soft lock on the game to win. If it does not, It will lose, regardless of what you are casting (I know I'm over generalizing but well). If it does have its soft lock, well, Meditate is clearly better.

[Conan_barberarn]

Have you ever playtested against Fish? First turn Meditate is really strong in this matchup. Far more than a first turn Thirst for Knowledge, something I would consider as quite weak.

1st turn meditate is awful against fish. That would grant them plays like: lavamancer, cloud of faeries standstill/rod. It's downhill from there.  

The synergy between Welder and TFK is not an issue here since Stax does not rely on Goblin Welder to win, contrary to Drain Slaver, for example.

I agree with you that if you have an active welder you are probably on your way to victory. You said however, that meditate helped you get the lock-pieces into play and I can't see how it could do this. TFK+ welder is the only way I can see that'll help you to get threats into play unless your hardcasting them (ofcourse there is tinker). The synergy between welder and TFK is imo the same as between stack (with counters) and meditate, none happen to often.

Do you agree with me that TFK is better 1st turn/early game?

No, I don't. Mostly because :
* If I cast a draw spell on turn 1, I have no other lock component to cast. Aside from probably meaning I kept a hand I should have mulliganned, It also means I need to find lock components to make my deck going. TFK gets me 2 cards. Meditate 4.

Here you must be asuming that you can cast this newly found lock piece the same turn you cast meditate which means you calculate on having at least 6 mana (1 blue) on the 1st turn, i.e not likely. If you dont intend to play the lock piece that turn then consider that TFK will draw you 4 cards (one in your draw step which you wont get if you use meditate) and then discard one artifact. That leaves us with what I said before: would you rather discard an artifact or loose a turn?

* In mid or late game, Stax has to have at least a soft lock on the game to win. If it does not, It will lose, regardless of what you are casting (I know I'm over generalizing but well). If it does have its soft lock, well, Meditate is clearly better.

Yea, if they dont have a softlock by midgame they will loose, I just dont see how meditate helps you here any better than TFK. With meditate, the opponent can enter midgame earlier (since he gets an extra turn) and only smokestack with counters can prevent him from breaking whatever softlock is there.

Still, do you agree that the comparizon (discard an artifact or loose a turn) between TFK and Meditate is relevant?

/Gustav

[zmx]

If this can help you, I have often an Hand Like that :
1 Meditate
1 ManaCrypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 CoB
1 Waste
1 Welder

And Then I play the medidate dor Drawing Workshop, TangleWire, Gemstone, random card

With this, I play the tangle after the meditate and having a soft lock in play

Now, With Tfk instead of Medidate :
Playing : ManaCrypt, Lotus Petal, CoB, Tfk
Drawing : Workshop, TangleWire, Gemstone
Discarding : Tangle
Playing : Welder
Next Turn I can Weld for Tangle Wire, but this turn I haven't any piece of Lock

(In this sample you can easily replace Workshop by Black and seen that you cannot playing Tangle even if you have already LandDropped)

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Thing is the only threat fish has against stax is rod, and its NOT EVEN THAT BAD. I've won through rod plenty of times.  If you have a single locki piece resolve against fish game 1 its usually over. 3sphere, tangle, smokestack. Crucible/waste is very devestating also.

Turn one meditate is golden against fish.
lavamancer- not a threat unless your in a position where you already lost
cloud - not a threat
standstill - maybe somewhat of a threat but its not gamebreaking in the matchup.
nullrod- it might be considered game breaking but it really doesn't put the stax deck in that bad of a situation.

Welder/TFK is synergy. But drawing 4 cards from a deck thats almost 50% mana sources and dumping your hand is just as good, If not better.

[jpmeyer]

Meditate rewards having faith in your deck.  If you are casting Meditate with the assumption that you're going to pass the turn after you draw your cards, Meditate isn't so hot and really requires you to have a Tangle Wire or Smokestack.  But if you Meditate thinking that you'll be able to play a couple of those cards, it becomes a lot better.

[Iceman5150]

I finished top 8 in Brockton and top 4 in W. Springfield this past weekend, and I saw a pretty good amount of STAX. I was beaten by it in the top 8 in Brockton.

I agree with JP in regards to meditate. You do have to really know your deck well, and have complete faith that the turn you give up will be made up by the fact that you can shut them down afterwords.

[CrazyCarl]

It's a matter of experiance with the deck.  If you've been playing it long enough or are able to familiarize yourself with it, Meditate is going to be a great deal better for you than Thirst For Knowlege which just isn't as good in the deck.

One of the things people often forget about Stax is(which has already been mentioned) that it isn't a Joblin Welder deck.  The deck can function just fine without a Welder. Welder is the nail in the coffin.  The lock isn't aided very much by Thirst whereas Meditate gives you more cards(obv) at once and makes your lock components better making you, like I said, less reliant on Joblin Welder.

[Conan_barberarn]

Turn one meditate is golden against fish.
lavamancer- not a threat unless your in a position where you already lost
cloud - not a threat
standstill - maybe somewhat of a threat but its not gamebreaking in the matchup.
nullrod- it might be considered game breaking but it really doesn't put the stax deck in that bad of a situation.

Welder/TFK is synergy. But drawing 4 cards from a deck thats almost 50% mana sources and dumping your hand is just as good, If not better.

So basically what your saying is that fish have no threats to worry about? Giving a fish deck an extra turn early game is horrible IMO. They shouldn't have anything with cc>2 in their deck and you help them get that mana online through 1st turn meditate? Of course Cloud isn't a threat but it a free perm and that is what should try to deny them. After all, you win when they can't cast spells and have no perms which should be the basic plan right?

@The example given with meditate vs TFK above:
Why did you play the CoB istead of paying TFK via petal (as you did with meditate)? If you play it though petal then you'll be able to play wire via WS. Anyway, wire 1st turn is nothing to aim for, it's rally weak play IMO.

@All:
Do you agree on the simplification that meditate vs TFK basically boils down to: Discard an artifact or loose a turn??? Please answer this!

/Gustav

[kill doug]

@All:
Do you agree on the simplification that meditate vs TFK basically boils down to: Discard an artifact or loose a turn??? Please answer this!

NO !!!!!!!!!!

Meditate gains 3 extra cards not 1 in hand 1 in the grave.

also meditate is usually a second or third turn drop at best. you want to establish some form of lock down before dropping it.  Putting down a smoke stax or trini first turn with a mox or 2 sets you perfectly for 2-3 turn meditate. Which ends the game just about there.

If staxs gets going there really is no way to stop it meditate just seals the deal and end the game.

also a rules question that at my local meta were not so sure of does the staxs player stack the abilities on each players turn.(example. you have a smoke stack and a tangle wire out both with counters on them who gets the choice of whether they tap then sac or sac then tap.)  I think the stax player does on each players turn, not each player on their own turn.

[Dante]

also a rules question that at my local meta were not so sure of does the staxs player stack the abilities on each players turn.(example. you have a smoke stack and a tangle wire out both with counters on them who gets the choice of whether they tap then sac or sac then tap.)  I think the stax player does on each players turn, not each player on their own turn.

Yes, each player stacks their own upkeep effects in the order THEY choose.  The active player stacks their effects and the non-active player stacks their effects.  So obviously you stack it so they sac first, then tap.

[kill doug]

thanxs that just makes the deck the much better.

a reason for people not playing the deck (at least in my meta)is out of respect to other players, because of the fact its so easy to play.

When i started i played budget dragon with rituals. and it won me the stuff i needed to play in a fully powerd enviroment week after week. Upgrading to fish(HA, at least in the eyes of my friends) upgraded my statis of a newb to a true t1 player.

Stax is a deck that takes little (almost none) thougt to play which is not what we try to do , but instead improve are playing skill.

[Mixing Mike]

I've played this deck for one night and I can already tell that resolving a Meditate with a Wire at 4-3 and/or Stack with 1-2 counters on them is pretty game breaking.  Doesn't matter if you're ahead or behind, where Thirst can't do that.  I don't understand why people in Europe aren't playing them.

[Marton]

while meditate is game breaking while under a wire or stacks with counters, this is (obviously) pretty much the optimal case for a meditate, other than facing the mirror. Usually when you are at this point, meditate usually does not change much of the outcome of the game compared to other comparable cards. What we should focus on is wether the optimal play for meditate is easy enough to get to warrant it's inclusion in the deck, and also consider the other cases where the card is played in sub-optimal way. I prefer playing with chalice of the void instead of meditate because it fixes my bad matchups while meditate is a gamble most of the time (you need to be confident about your deck).

[Eastman]

So, what does any of this have to do with the relatively small amount of stax that shows up at NE tourneys ?

Or are we just playing the 'lets pretend there is no topic here' game?

[Zherbus]

...what Eastman said.

Closed