European Stax (with wastelands!!!)

[Machinus]

I found this decklist to be very interesting, as it took first at a 57-player event in this T8:

3x 4c Control
2x Stax
1x Dragon
1x Landstill
1x Affinity

The deck uses some very unusual configurations. Here is the list, slightly reorganized:

MD:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Shivan Reef
4 Volcanic Island
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Memory Jar
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Goblin Welder
1 Sphere of Resistance
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan

SB:
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Viashino Heretic
2 Winter Orb
2 Tsabo's Web
1 Triskelion
1 Tormod's Crypt


While the sideboard is kind of strange, I think there are some nonstandard aspects of the maindeck which I think are strong. For the most part, this deck demonstrates that a higher level of consistency is possible for workshop decks - but more importantly, that perhaps consistency is the right direction to take stax if one wants to pilot it to wins. The single crucible is much more accessible in a deck with a level of draw and recursion that this deck has, and allows the deck to succeed viciously at the land destruction game. The one titan allows the deck to press this advantage if it is the best option, with minimal negative synergy (4 volcanics and the crucible). The absence of black is extremely noticeable, but this again is the consistency that I am referring to, and adds to the potency of the mana denial aspect.

The other additions which I found interesting are the two maindeck spellbombs and the single sphere of resistance. In a deck as mana heavy as this, it seems kind of obvious that colorless cantrips would be a good consideration, but I am not totally sold on their inclusion. Two extra damage, that can be done underneath a sphere, would actually be a lot more beneficial in the fish-saturated American metagame. I am not entirely sure why the single sphere of resistance was included, because it is not really a good substitute for the 3spheres. Does anyone else think u/r stax has potential, or is this archetype fated to inconsistency and merely the potential for brokenness?

[Kerith]

I am not entirely sure why the single sphere of resistance was included, because it is not really a good substitute for the 3spheres.

My guess would be that the Sphere of Resistance is 3Sphere #5, since 4 3Spheres are in the deck and against many decks, their effects are similar.

[DEA]

3sphere is good only against spells with small cc, but wish -> rack takes 3 on it's own
you'll find that a 3sphere + a sphere of resistance can often hold off a wish long enough for you to either waste or smokestack his permanents away

[Phyr[NA]]

Does anyone else think u/r stax has potential, or is this archetype fated to inconsistency and merely the potential for brokenness?

Not only do I think it has potential, but I think that it's one of the best decks in the format right now, if not the best. It doesn't have any really bad matchups, Dragon and Control Slaver aside (Workshop aggro isn't a very good matchup either, but who plays that?).
(Don't tell me that Hulk is a bad matchup, because Stax just destroys that deck)

I know the guy who played this deck (and won) at the Danish T1 Championships.
IIRC he said that he included the Pyrite Spellbombs because he expected alot of Welders in the top 8.
I think that he removed 2 Sphere of Resistance(or maybe 1 SoR and 1 Crucible) for them.

[Wollblad]

@Machinus
What is trange about the sideboard? Except that it has 1 Chalice and 1 Tormod's instead of two Spellbombs, it looks perfectly standard according to me.

Kenny who played the deck also said afterwards that he probably should have played two Crucible which I think is the accurate number to include. And adding black is neither needed, nor possible to do if you want to use Wastelands (which you want).

I don't agree on the maindeck Spellbombs. They are too weak in many matchups, for example against Dragon and Tog. Even though the Tog matchup is fairly easy, you can still loose it to initital draws with too little steam, and spellbombs increase that risc.

[Lashkar]

It might be useful to explain how this whole T8 went down.

Two type 1 tournaments were held at the danish nationals, one each day. For each day, the T4 (first day found by T8 playof and the second day it was just decided after 7 rounds of swiss due to time constraints) qualified to the "Grande Finale" T8, where it was possible to change your deck. So even though I piloted oldschool UB hangover dragon (with titanium golem sideboard tech) to a 6-1 second place finish in the second tournament (played real nats before going 2-2-2 drop   )  the T8 saw me playing 4cc.

Ironically I got paired against Kenny, who won on the second day, in the T8?!, random pairings 4L - even had the game decided by life totals, but that's all for another story.

But to return to the stax deck; I think it took most of the danes by surprise, both as stax hasn't been played for nearly a year in Dk and what was played then was quite different. But it is a very strong deck and I think it deserves a fair bit of respect that it isn't getting. After the nationals I tested the trinistax deck from Smmenen's metagame walkthrough and while it was decent, it completely faded in comparison to the swedish version, which is simply much more consistent while still drawing a high number of "I win" hands. I recently played it in a tournament and while it was supposed to be "the secret tech" a friend of mine had, independently, thrown an almost similar deck together, we both got decent results, both falling to workshop aggro in the end though (on a sidenote, how can you lose to a mulligan to 4?!, turn one memnarch was pretty good though , especially when lacking red mana for RnR). But workshop aggro might just be what renders the deck nearly unplayable in some regions, if TMS in some form is really going to be played.

[thorme]

IIRC he said that he included the Pyrite Spellbombs because he expected alot of Welders in the top 8.

Yes, this is the reason for Spellbomb inclusion.  Pyrites are much worse then Fire/Ice against Fish, since Null Rod makes Spellbomb look pretty silly.

[Ssapphire]

Hi

I was the one who played this configuration of staxs and won this tournament.

The spellbombs in main deck where only to handle welders before sideboarding (in this particular Top8) and are usually 2 Chalice of the Void or alternate 2 regular spheres.

The lone sphere should switch for the 2nd Crucible witch are very powerful in this deck.

This deck magnify the importance of consistency and are in my opinion something who (if the Workshop didn't be a 160$ card) should be a more visible dominant deck of Typ1. So many games are determined on the raw power of Workshop and/or the power of Trinisphere.

One of the things I have wondered about are that why in the US (where proxy tournament are standard witch is not the case in Europe) players chose to play decks as Fish & Hulk witch is inferior to Staxs and both have a very bad match up against it.

In Sweden Workshopdecks are becoming more and more dominant and we have such a high number of workshops that I am starting to see a problem rising

Just some collective thoughts I have about this.

Regards
Kenny Öberg

[Smmenen]

To be fair, Stax dissapeared from my area becuase of Workshop Slavery.  Slavery completely destroyed Stax as it has Force of Will, Workshops, and more importnatly, cards like Gilded Lotus which spelled doom for Stax.  Tog is not an easy matchup, contrary to your opinion, when Tog is focused on dealing with Workshop decks.

Now that Fish has killed Tog, I think Stax will make a big showing at Gencon.  Stax is again on the rise.

[Purple Hat]

In my area Stax and other Prision decks are in limbo right now.  People aren't familiar enough with them to just pick them up and the mulligan decisions can be kinda complicated if you aren't used to the deck.  Then again I've seen some kids just pick up draw7 or belcher around here so I think they also suffer from the lack of the "Oh, wow, that's really cool," factor for newer players to pick it up.  It never belches for its deck or anything like that.

Stax is definately a deck that I consider strongly before any tournament.  I love it, and I always feel confident bringing it to an event.  I may fear the randomness that is the Crushing Chamber mirror enough to play stax at gencon.

Hale

[BreathWeapon]

I'm just left wondering if Stax is stronger than 7/10 or Ur Stacker. 7/10 is more broken, but less Tempo oriented. Stacker just drops FAT after Trinisphere, follows up with a Waste and that's gg. Tangle Wire doesn't come close to that kind of goodness.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I'm just left wondering if Stax is stronger than 7/10 or Ur Stacker. 7/10 is more broken, but less Tempo oriented. Stacker just drops FAT after Trinisphere, follows up with a Waste and that's gg. Tangle Wire doesn't come close to that kind of goodness.

The deck is imo missing two more Crucibles, but aside from that, Stax has one big advantage over Slavery, because it's mana curve is low enough to run without Workshop/Gilded Lotus. With Wasteland coming back into the format heavily in place of Tog and both Fish and 4CC focusing on mana denial, that lower individual CC is very important.

Note that I never considered any of these a tough matchup for 4CC before Crucible, but I'm not sure yet how much it will change.

[Wollblad]

Tog is not an easy matchup, contrary to your opinion, when Tog is focused on dealing with Workshop decks.

And how would that be accomplished? As I see it, there are two ways.
1) Include red. As a Stax player, I'll be most happy if that is the case because then I can get ful use of my Wastelands, Crucibles and my Sundering Titan will be a bomb he can never recovers from. The only really dangerous thing is Artifact mutation, but it costs 2 and there will most often be a Chalice for two in play.
2) Try to run as many basic lands as possible, e.i. not running red at all. Dropping LoA you can get 6 basic Island. Then the Tog gets to have most of it's land left in play and Titan vill only take one land, only being a large body. But then you do not get access to any really good artifact destruction. Personally I'm much more affraid of this version, but even here, Stax has at least 60-40 if not more.

[Sauron]

Hey there,

@ Ssapphire: regards the exclusion of the Draw-7's - whats the reasoning here? I ask since I dropped them from my own Stax deck (very similar to this build) a while back when I realised that incremental changes to the deck over time (to fit in Chalice, then Trinisphere and Wastelands) actually meant that the deck no longer supported the Draw-7's particularly well any longer.

@ Smmenen: have you actually played a current version of Stax with Crucible?

I've noted your comments on the deck here and elsewhere in the forums and to be honest your comments suggest you're out of touch with the current builds.

For instance your assertion that Null Rod is good against Stax. Both of the players who posted reports here disagree on that one, as do I after much playtesting. I can see how effective it could be against the last build you last presented at Starcitygames which still played black, Lotus Petal, Grim Monolith, and the full complement of Draw-7's, but as per Zhalfirin's comments current builds can largely ignore it.

I'd love to see the Tog build that is specifically geared to bearing Workshop decks to see how much different it is to what I've been testing against.

My Tog test deck has maindeck Shaman (1), and Deed (1) and access to the full spread of Wishable Artifact destruction - Oxidise, Artifact Mutation, Naturalise, Rack and Ruin. Pre-board that build is losing around 75% of games and post-board its not a great deal better. Unlike 4cC which can kill Welder's, Tog just tends to get reamed by them when it can't counter Crucible/Titan.

So the 4cTog route is not one that appears to pay dividends Vs current Stax, like Wollblad I'm more concerned by the current B2B w/5+ basic Island builds which I currently have yet to test against.