Transmute-Stax

[mr_rogers]

I have been working on a Stax variant for about two or three months.  I think I now have a playable list that is somewhat different than most of the ones I've seen.  I'm going to list my deck first then the reasons why I picked certain cards.

Land
3x City of Brass
1x Tolarian Academy
3x Gemstone Mine
4x Mishra's Workshop(p-own one)
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland

Artifacts
8x SoLoMoxenCrypt(p-except for Sol Ring and Mana Crypt)
4x Smokestack
1x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Trike
1x Sundering Titan
4x Su-Chi
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar

Enchantments
3x In The Eye of Chaos

Instants/Sorceries
1x Time Walk(p)
1x Wheel of Fortune
4x Transmute Artifact
1x Tinker
1x Balace
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Demonic Tutor

I have not finalized the sideboard yet so I will not post it. 

In The Eye of Chaos- This card is amazing with all the Drain decks presant right now.  It seems like everyone is playing TFK and FoW and all sorts of instants this card makes basically unplayable.

Transmute Artifact- I believe this card should be seeing more play than it does. Tranmute makes it so you have five Tinkers in your deck to search out your threats. 

Su-Chi- Works well with Transmute Artifact, which is why it's played in this version.  Being able to get Sundering Titan or anyother artifact card in my deck by saccing the Su-Chi is amazing.  Also a 4/4 for four mana is pretty nice alone.

Most of the other cards are self-explanatory.  I included a couple draw 7's into the deck as I seem to empty my hand very fast.  I may replace Yawg Will but I don't know what to put in its place.  I have been testing the deck more lately and it seems to do well, but sometimes I can't quite pull the early ITEOC's out because of color screw.  I would really like to hear any suggestions on this deck or thoughts on which direction I may want to take this.  I want to keep the Transmute Artifact theme though as I just purchased them and have been waiting to use them. (p)=Proxy.

[BigMac]

If i counted right you have, including moxen about 9 blue sources and almost no draw engine. This deck very much looks like TheTinker.dec except for the very shaky manabase.

The deck may very well work but with such a shaky blue base i think its hard to get to the 2 blues you need for the transmutes, leaving you with either dead cards in hand or a slow hand to begin with without MWS.

The beauty of the tinker.dec was that with the inclusion of welders you could get a recurring jar going, very much stomping your opponents. As this is a prison build that is not an option, but you either get prison pieces out soon, which will slow down the use of transmute, or get a big critter of which not many people will get really scared.

The beauty of tinker and transmute is to find threats, not to find prison pieces. So i fail to see the use of them in a prison deck. I think you can get a better prison deck without them.

I agree that transmute artifact doesnt see play enough, but its a very specific card with which certain synergies (dont pay the cost and welder it in) must be used to full potential, otherwise it just hurts your manabase to much. As i have worked on the manabase for thetinker.dec for a while so i know how hard it is to get a stable manabase, specially with a high density of artifact spells and a UU spell and still maintain a certain speed within the deck.

Anyways, proove me wrong, ill look into it anyways and see if i was right or wrong with my concerns.

[mr_rogers]

So how would you change the mana base of the deck?  I do have trouble with the 2 blue sometimes.  I will look at the tinker.dec and see if I can add anything from that deck.

[BigMac]

I can se 4 cards that actually warrant all the multicoloured lands as well as the sundering titan which is great sometimes. But consider making it mono blue. You lose Wheel of fortune (replace with timetwister which is better as welder decks, dragon decks and gifts decks all make better use of the graveyard than you.

You also lose balance, demonic tutor and yawgmoth's will. Balance will be hard to replace, as will demonic, although with demonic i ask myself what you want to look for.

The will is the biggest puzzle of all, how do you use that to good use in this deck is a riddle to me. Offcourse it has its uses but generally i would rather have a different card in my hand than that one in this deck.

Replacements could be 1 mindslaver, as a mindslaver can wreck you opponent bigtime. (replacement of balance)
You could play mystical tutor, making the chance of actually drawing a tinkerlike spell even bigger. (replacement of demonic)
The will i would replace with an extra manasource.

The lands you play can now be replaced with blue lands and fetchlands. Also you could consider playing 1 or 2 gilded lotus. What to cut for those you will have to look yourself. But this way you have a better manabase with less cards that can disrupt you.

Another card which wuld still be an auto include is the one trinisphere. Just cut 1 sphere of resistance and put back the trinisphere.

With these changes i think it would gain stability.

You could play propaganda as you dont need mana really for your counterspells and it stops critterdecks. (could also be sideboard)

[Space_Stormy]

I don't like the time walk in the deck.  I just feel that it is unessisary when you could be running ancetrial instead.  I just feel that Walk is more of a Late-Game card when you need to punch through for those last points of damage and you need another turn.  Going land, Mox, Walk, is very bad compared to Workshop+lock component.  Also, 3 In the Eye of Chaos seems to be too many.  Pack too many colored spells in the deck and your Workshops become worse as you need colored lands compared to Workshop.  I really feel that your colored cards should either Win, Find ways to win or prevent your opponets from stopping you.  So, too many draw7 seem bad.

[BigMac]

Time walk is a good inclusion for the following reason. The card is that good.

Imagine this hand

MWS, mox, land, time walk, Su chi, Smokestack, tanglewire.

You start with MWS, mox and SuChi turn.

Opponent goes mad but you survive.

Now you get 2 turns to go mad and you get 2 draws. Chances are you get another blue mana source and a transmute or an even bigger critter within those draws.

You do at least 8 dmg with the Su chi plus extra with whatever you get after that, you can also play tanglewire after your turn3 locking opponent down for a bit as well. It just generates a lot of advantage. But you need to take the risk of dying turn 1 of your opponent.

If your opponent starts you pretty much are bound to playing the tanglewire anyways, so you keep the time walk for somewhat later. It at least never is a dead card.

[mr_rogers]

Well based on suggestions so far I've decided to go mono-u. Here's my revised list...

Lands
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Mishra's Workshop(p-own one)
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
3x Delta
4x Island

Artifacts
8x SoLoMoxenCrypt(p-except for Sol Ring and Mana Crypt)
4x Smokestack
1x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Trike
1x Sundering Titan
4x Su-Chi
4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Tangle Wire
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar
1x Trinisphere
2x Gilded Lotus
1x Memnarch

Enchantments
2x In The Eye of Chaos

Instants/Sorceries
1x Time Walk(p)
4x Transmute Artifact
1x Tinker

Well those are the changes I'll be testing out. Thanks for the input so far, it's really helped.

[BigMac]

As you speak of 8 moxen i think you refer to the 5 moxes (keep those), mox diamond (replace with an island), chrome mox (replace with an island) and manacrypt (keep that) also try and incluse sol ring somewhere. It is really good and it will help you out a lot i think.

chome mox and mox diamond is a 2 for 1 trade of and they arent good enough for that. Besides, i think you still need all the islands you can get.

[mr_rogers]

8x SoLoMoxenCrypt=5x Moxen, Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring. I just didin't have to proxy the Crypt or Sol Ring.

I'm sorry to double post,  but I just got back a Time Walk that was stolen from me three years ago and now want to make a change to the deck.

-1 Transmute Artifact, +1 A.Recall

I also posted again because I'd like this thread not to die so easy.

Double post merged. Using low-content posts to "bump" your threads is against the rules.
-Jacob