T4 in Urbana, IL for a Mox Pearl, 2/18/2006

[Komatteru]

Gone.

[Moxlotus]

We both mulligan to 6.  He drops 4 Moxes and Lotus and Necro and takes 10 cards

WHAT THE HELL?  I wish I was as good as Eric Becker.

On another note-that guy puts infinite fetches in all of his decks.

[Evenpence]

Now Vroman needs to T4 with Belcher.

Your list looks peculiar, but understandable.  Good work.  I have a question, however:

4 Mountain?  1 Gorilla Shaman?  You have 5 red cards in the whole deck and 4 mountain/4 b-ring?  Were you really that worried?

I attribute your wins to Tangle Wire.    Okay, not really.

JD, how was it for you?  Did it serve it's purpose to your hoping?

[Komatteru]

Mountain #4 is a strong addition to support SoR.  You really do need the additional mana source to make SoR not be as symmetric.

Shaman could have been Uba Mask #3, but w/e.  I don't care much for the Masks themselves, so I left it at Shaman.

I mostly tossed the list together with suggestions from Jim.  That thread in the open forum has got so many opinions and lists flying around in it that it's a total disaster and isn't doing any good for anyone anymore.  The discussion is not remotely coherent.

[Evenpence]

I agree about the Ubastax thread.  I'm playing the Ubawire list that I posted in the Open Forum, although if I played Ubastax, it would be with Vroman's list (I think mine and his are identical, MD at least).

EDIT:  Oh, I also edited my post to ask you about Tangle Wire.  How'd it go?

[PucktheCat]

Justin, you're going to have to change your sig.  "Mad resource deniying at a top 8 near YOU!" perhaps?  Doesn't have the same ring somehow.

[Komatteru]

As for Tangle Wire, I didn't get a real good chance to evaluate it.  I'd like to bring it in vs. Slaver, but I can't find the cards to take out for it.  I boarded like this vs. Slaver:
-1 Shaman
-2 Uba Mask
+3 Fiery Temper

I boarded out Masks vs. Becker for Wires because Mask is savagely bad vs. Combo.  I didn't see it vs. Leo.

Justin, you're going to have to change your sig.  "Mad resource deniying at a top 8 near YOU!" perhaps?  Doesn't have the same ring somehow.

Maybe "Putting your ass on lockdown on the way to a T8 near YOU!" then? ;D

[ErkBek]

Nicely done for your first outing with stax. I know you'll be making your way back to the dark side after you try my deck.

About SoR and Tangle in uba. I think mox monkey shines more than null rod when either SoR or Tangle is in play. From my testing and tourney experience vs Uba, null rod combined with SoR slows down Uba almost as much as it does your opponent. However, Sphere and Monkey rip apart your opponent's moxen, while you are hardly affected. SoR also takes away the 1 shot affects that mox monkey lacked over null rod. Also, null rod and tangle just don't work well together, since opponent's tap down dead moxen, and still can break out of locks. In this case mox monkey eats there moxen, causing them to tap down their lands instead of dead cards. If I still played uba I would be running 1or 2 rods and 3 mox monkey. 

I look forward to our future matches.

Eric

[RThomas]

Clearly, this is what happens when Dark Rituals and you get into a fight; you leave the house and go have a fling with the guy that Mrs. Ritual hates.  I was there the night you declared your switch to permanent Dark Rituals.  Obviously, you meant business.

I suppose if I hadn't found out about this at 10pm the night before, I might have made an appearance.  An admirable performance on your part, anyways.

[unknown.root]

Great report JD,

I'm Kevin Brewer, no "T".... that you faced in the top 8. I dread the uba stax vs 5c stax matchup. it's just not fair you've got 4 welders to my 2, 4 crucibles to my 3, a draw engine, a stable mana base, and in the permanent battle it's 60 to 52.

I have tinker, balance, will, & GOBLIN TRENCHES.

fun match though, shame on the prize support. my g/f was upset that i made top8 and didn't break even.

shame on the shop on that one.

this match has me conclude that all STAX decks have to run bazaar, at least 1 or 2. I should have listened to vroman on the car ride over but my pride of not using proxies stopped me.

great report none the less.

Kevin

[Evenpence]

Nicely done for your first outing with stax. I know you'll be making your way back to the dark side after you try my deck.

About SoR and Tangle in uba. I think mox monkey shines more than null rod when either SoR or Tangle is in play. From my testing and tourney experience vs Uba, null rod combined with SoR slows down Uba almost as much as it does your opponent. However, Sphere and Monkey rip apart your opponent's moxen, while you are hardly affected. SoR also takes away the 1 shot affects that mox monkey lacked over null rod. Also, null rod and tangle just don't work well together, since opponent's tap down dead moxen, and still can break out of locks. In this case mox monkey eats there moxen, causing them to tap down their lands instead of dead cards. If I still played uba I would be running 1or 2 rods and 3 mox monkey. 

I look forward to our future matches.

Eric

I've thought about running 2 Null Rods personally, and putting them in the side.  There's room for them for sure.  There are seven slots that can be exchanged for pretty much anything, in my opinion.

However, they're probably better than any single lock in the deck, aside maybe smokestack.

Mox monkey also has dyssynergy with Chalice at 1, which is huge in most matchups.  When you have a fight between whether you should play Chalice at 1 or Mox Monkey, Chalice usually wins.  Mox monkey stops manabases, sure, but only after you use the mana.  Especially against combo.  If you're combo, you love if your opponent doesn't play Null Rod.  You just plop all your moxes down, and okay, stax destroys them.  That's a better yawg's will then.  Or, if they're a good stax player, they'll usually wait until your EOT, but you don't get an EOT, because you've won by then.  Chalice at 0 is probably bigger in that matchup, however, if they're holding multiple moxes.

Like I said, I've thought about doing it, but I probably won't.

[Komatteru]

I've gone back and forth about cutting Shaman.  I recall lots of games where I've been ripped to shreds by Gorilla Shaman, and plenty of games my opponents could not win because I had Shaman.  That said, it does require both players to have several Moxes to maximize its effectiveness, plus, as a 2-of, you don't see it enough to rely on it all that much.  Rod #4 might be better.

Shaman seems the way to go if you're maindecking Tangle Wire, otherwise I'd give it the spot to Rod #4.  Shaman is really hard to use effectively when you have your own Null Rod, since you want to get Bazaar cranking somewhere in the middle of all this as well.  Rod is better than Shaman because it is mana denial.  Monkey is not true mana denial, as it allows the opponent to get one shot out of their accel, which can often be enough.  Shaman is permanent denial more than it is mana denial.  I also really like setting Chalice at 1 in a lot of matchups.  Maybe I'm just unlucky and get matched up against decks with Welders and Shaman more often than most, but I always seem to be having to shut off stupid 1/1s. 

I really dislike setting Chalice at 0 because I have Rod to take care of artifacts, and much prefer to use Chalice for its flexibility to take out the cards that wreck me.

I don't know.  It's so hard to build Stax these days.  It seems like everyone is just taking a list of lock components and having an a la carte dinner with them... 3 of this, 4 of those, 2 of that...

[Evenpence]

Your last post was dead on, JD.

I agree with everything you've said.

[Flux]

You forgot to mention how the judge didn't know that null rod shut down artifact mana....Thank god I never had to call him over in a match.  I hate Grim Long...

Flux

[Lyle H]

Glad to see my shops could help you lucksack your way to a top 4 with no testing.  Great report. How was only having 2 Uba Masks working out.  I can see how you don't want to get those clumped up but I can see how you would want to draw one as well. I do like the way you used the slots of your deck all around though  I defanetly think the deck only needs 3 sphere of resistance.

[Changster]

Nice report and way to represent over in Illinois while I froze my ass off and represented over in upstate New York!

I'm glad you finally found a NON-Combo deck to suit your needs.  Great Job Dizzle!

-Ro