Filling out 5 Colour Stax

[Dante]

The thing about Ground Seal is that it just wins the game against Dragon and makes it a freaking huge headache against Control Slaver.  You aren't locking them in the literal sense, but you are still severely limiting their options on how to beat you-which is in a sense a "lock".

Not to side track things, except anyone who is any good with a good build will be bringing in some sort of Engineered Explosive, Deed, or both in expectation of things like Seal of Cleansing, T. Crypt, Ground Seal, etc.

[cssamerican]

Read Steve's Premium Article. If you don't have Premium, buy it. If you don't have money, sell a kidney.

I can't see buying a Premium account for one article out of a hundred, especially since I don't play in lucrative tournaments in the Northeast. However, this was one of the few articles that actually tempted me. If they would have posted this and a Dragon article by Dicemanx on the same day I might have had a temporary mental lapse and paid the membership fee for two articles

Carpet of Flowers
This was mentioned in Steve's article as an option against Fish, and I noticed that this card pulls you out of Back to Basics or Energy Flux like a dream. For those of us on the West Coast, where Mono Blue is big, that could be key. It's still much worse than Choke, but it's something to keep in mind.

Wouldn't Seal of Cleansing and Ray of Revelation be better ways to protect you versus those enchantments? Plus they are a lot more useful versus other decks.

Another little tidbit:

"I argued that even if they have Colossus out, your Swords isn’t likely to stop them from winning the game."

This is great in theory, but I've found it to be less than completely true in practice. Games don't always follow the script, and a good Gifts player will know exactly when he's too far to reign the game back under control and run an emergency tinker. Sometimes wacky things happen and it's nice to have infinitely more than zero outs. I guess if you have piles of stuff, you can drop Rather Large Karn and try to race, or run stupid tricks with Smokestack and Sundering Titan (which has happened precisely once, ever, and also involved a Time Walk, Ancestral, Lotus, and Yawgmoth's Will), but I just don't like running scoops to a card that's everywhere. You can address it with Mage or you can address it with StP, but I tend to think that StP is stronger because if you could be dropping your out beforehand, it might as well be another lock part instead of a difficult-to-cast 2/2.

I agree with Steve. If you look at the odds that a lone StP is going to save you versus a Tinkered Colossus, it isn't too good. Think about it for a second, you aren't going to tutor for it before the Colossus comes into play. For one, it may never hit play; secondly even if they do Tinker for the Colossus your StP dead if the Gifts player has any playable countermagic to protect it. Then couple this with the fact that you can't tutor for it and cast it at instant speed in response to them Gifting the Colossus combo up. So, this means it is only a good when you just happen to have it in your hand and your opponent is sitting with no way to prevent you from Plowing their freshly Tinkered Colossus. That scenario just isn't going to come up very frequently enough for you to devote a maindeck slot to handle it, especially when you have Balance that can fill that role.

Expect another ten-page oddysey by Friday.

I really enjoyed your last oddysey, so needless to say I can't wait

[Smmenen]

Another little tidbit:

"I argued that even if they have Colossus out, your Swords isn’t likely to stop them from winning the game."

This is great in theory, but I've found it to be less than completely true in practice.

I did alot of Gifts v. Stax in prepartion for Richmond (Using the then popular Gift.fr) and you know what STP reminded me of?

You know how Fish can sit there holding a Stifle against TPS?  TPS has jus tplayed a draw seven and a ton of spells and Ritual Ritual and then it plays TEndrls for like 40.  Do you think that Stifle is going to win the game?  That's how I feel about STP v. Colossus.  But I could be wrong. 

[b-tings]

I did alot of Gifts v. Stax in prepartion for Richmond (Using the then popular Gift.fr) and you know what STP reminded me of?

You know how Fish can sit there holding a Stifle against TPS?  TPS has jus tplayed a draw seven and a ton of spells and Ritual Ritual and then it plays TEndrls for like 40.  Do you think that Stifle is going to win the game?  That's how I feel about STP v. Colossus.  But I could be wrong. 

I understand where you're coming from, and when Gifts goes "Gifts for Tinker Time Walk Black Lotus Ancestral" and proceeds to YawgWill, you're completely right. But when Gifts goes "Tap two lands for Mana Vault to get around Sphere of Resistance and Chalice on zero, drop an Underground Sea straight into your wasteland, Tinker," you're wrong. This is what I meant about the games not always following the script. I have found that the majority of games I lose to either Gifts or Mono-Blue are not due to getting overpowered (at least, not until we get to Mono-Blue post-board, and even then it the games I'm losing break that way 25-30% of the time), but are due to outmaneuvering them into a corner where they HAVE to run an emergency, backup-less Tinker, and I don't have the out.

For the record, I have cut the single StP from my list, because there are stronger cards when Workshops aren't catching on, but I always seemed to draw it at exactly the right time against Random Large Man. I swear, It's the whole "chosen people" thing.

[Lunar]

Wow, so I missed a lot while I was gone in Maui...dang, this is such a good thread too, hopefully over the next several days ill actually have time to read all the tons of stuff I missed (including ALL of the 10 page b-tings post)

I ran Stax at Eudemonia 8 two saturdays ago. I did terrible with it...2-3 on the day (small tourney since the black lotus tourney was the next day...something like 28 players I think...5 rounds of swiss...) one of my wins was a bye in round 4...ouch...my win was against a bad dragon deck in round 5....obviously things just went plain wrong...

Round 1 im playing against Fish...you all know how bad that matchup can go...I lose the match 2-1...

EDIT: Crap fish was round 4...Control Slaver was round 1.

Round 2 im in the losers bracket and get matched up against one of the best players in our area running gifts (David Ochoa ended up winning this event though, so props to him, and it does make me feel slightly better about losing my ass to gifts)  Game 1 I drop some minor prisoney stuff and he ends up just doing terribly broken things after rebuilding me twice and mind twisting me for 4 on two different occasions...it was just awful...Game 2 I keep a broken hand, but get my brokenness force of willed...I proceed to top deck ancestral recall however turn 2 and get going pretty good...He ends up getting bosejiu into play though (to which I cant find a waste in time) and that unfortunatly gets around things like my resolved in the eye of chaos and chalices on 3 and 0....damn, he wins a close game (one more turn and I would have had him, Karn had beat down to like 3 or 4) Oh well...what a great tourney 0-2 and out...I decide to keep playing though just to practice with the deck and things dont get much better...I get a bye for round 3 and end up playing against Control Slaver round 4 (EDIT: I played CS round 1 and lost and fish round 4 and lost)

The control slaver match was a lot of fun, and was very close...I ended up scooping in game 2 to a platinum angel when I only had 2 turns left to deal with it (smokestack on the table was at least 3 permanents short of being able to eat the angel) I wanted to get to game 3 to pull out a win (there were only 15 minutes left and stax is slow to win sometimes...) Game 3 I had the game locked down the whole time, and couldnt get a win condition to save me...my own mana crypt ended up dealing me 21 points of damage (I lost 7 dice rolls from turn 2 to the end) and I lost on turn 3 of extra turns....SHIT.

Round 5 against Dragon was an easy match though, I smashed face.  But the deck i was playing against was terrible and not really worth going into too much detail about...

This all from a deck that took me to top 8 the last tourney and played amazing for me...

I find the deck to be too 50/50 against everything...Maybe I cant play the deck optimally all the time like steve says you have to...maybe it is the nature of the deck...

My tourney match record for 4 tourneys was something like 11-8-1 (3-2. 2-3. 4-1-1, 2-3) Thats pretty even...the games show it even closer with I believe only 2 matches being 2-0 and only 1 or 2 being 0-2...

I just cannot justify running this in large tourneys...I instead ran my Brain Rapist version of Cerebral Assasin at the Lotus tourney the next day and placed 5th. (I was first after swiss @ 6-1, only losing 3 games in the swiss rounds.)

If I was going to run stax again anytime soon I would have to go with vromans stax list (or something very close) its too good to deny it...I didnt like previous builds of uba stax, I always felt it was either dominating all the time or getting dominated all the time, it was too streaky for my tastes...I actually liked the 50/50 nature of chron stax, and hoped that play skill could up my chances in those 50/50 games...I just couldnt do it though...(although I still have all the cards and will put it back together at some point dont you worry...) I just felt that uba stax broke some basic stax rules in that not all the deck is prison stuff...bazaar feels too conditional in the deck sometimes...but thats something that I could get over I guess...

Just wanted to give you guys a little info on how my last tourney went with the deck...sorry to say it didnt go as well as hoped...

[Whatever Works]

Me and several players have given up on 5c stax... Not that its a bad deck... but primarily because we are not kevin cron, and we know it...

I dropped the deck for these reasons:

1.) Consistency --- IT is a true dice roll deck if there ever was 1. If your on the play you will win 75+% (minimum), and if your not... well then I guess your just hoping your opponent isnt holding any combination of Land + 2 artifact mana sources (mox/sol ring/crypt/etc.)...
2.) Play Skill --- The deck requires amazing playskill, and every time you think you master it you realize that you havent. I think that I am very good with the deck, but I know that I can play a drain deck more effectively.
3.) UW Fish --- This matchup is flawed... and fixing it screws up soooo many other matchups.
4.) If threat is drained early it can often end the game (however I guess this can be said about all stax decks... accept 5c stax has less recursion, and no real draw to help recover.

Its still a great deck. Though, I dont think it is "THE" choice for gencon... Especially with alot of budget aggro decks that would likely tear the deck to shreds.

Kyle L

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Me and several players have given up on 5c stax... Not that its a bad deck... but primarily because we are not kevin cron, and we know it...

I dropped the deck for these reasons:

1.) Consistency --- IT is a true dice roll deck if there ever was 1. If your on the play you will win 75+% (minimum), and if your not... well then I guess your just hoping your opponent isnt holding any combination of Land + 2 artifact mana sources (mox/sol ring/crypt/etc.)...
2.) Play Skill --- The deck requires amazing playskill, and every time you think you master it you realize that you havent. I think that I am very good with the deck, but I know that I can play a drain deck more effectively.
3.) UW Fish --- This matchup is flawed... and fixing it screws up soooo many other matchups.
4.) If threat is drained early it can often end the game (however I guess this can be said about all stax decks... accept 5c stax has less recursion, and no real draw to help recover.

Its still a great deck. Though, I dont think it is "THE" choice for gencon... Especially with alot of budget aggro decks that would likely tear the deck to shreds.

Kyle L

1) As steve says, the deck changes drastically after board. Game 1 is a die roll, but with proper sideboarding, every match is winnable.

2) It's not just playskill. It's the way you approach a matchup. Understanding what cards are good and what cards are bad is key for stax. Once you understand the way the deck plays and it's matchups, I don't think it's harder to play, than say, Gifts.

3) Not really. Most fish players don't know how to play this matchup. They have a very slow clock and smokestack is often game over. If fish really is annoying you, something like a MD Drop of Honey should fix that matchup.

4) Why are you keeping a hand with only 1 threat? More importantly, if the deck is played right, you don't give the opponent a chance to drain. Them draining a shaman/chains/sphere is acceptable, so long as you follow the countered threat with something else.

Finally, I'd like to address Uba stax. After trashing it initially, we tested the deck, and I do give it a lot of credit. It is very well designed and abuses welder better than any stax list I've ever seen. Plus, there are very small synergies in the deck like stax/solemn/rod that are simply amazing. I'm not certain if it's better than 5c stax, but it certainly deserves attention. The deck seems like it'd wreck fish and workshop, but not as strong vs. something like gifts. Depending on the metagame, it may be the better choice.

-Bob

[PucktheCat]

You know how Fish can sit there holding a Stifle against TPS?  TPS has jus tplayed a draw seven and a ton of spells and Ritual Ritual and then it plays TEndrls for like 40.  Do you think that Stifle is going to win the game?  That's how I feel about STP v. Colossus.  But I could be wrong.

I still don't understand why anyone is even considering an answer to DSC other than Welder in a Stax deck.  Welder may not be a lock part, but neither is any of the other crap people are trying to deal with a fast Tinker and at least Welder can, you know, singlehandedly win the game for you against control by recurring countered spells.

There may be a reason out there - I am certainly not a Stax expert - but no one has presented it yet.

Leo

[b-tings]

I still don't understand why anyone is even considering an answer to DSC other than Welder in a Stax deck.  Welder may not be a lock part, but neither is any of the other crap people are trying to deal with a fast Tinker and at least Welder can, you know, singlehandedly win the game for you against control by recurring countered spells.

There may be a reason out there - I am certainly not a Stax expert - but no one has presented it yet.

Leo

In my previous list, I had Mystical Tutor, which effectively upped the number of outs I had to Colossus.

Welder does other things outside of taking out Colossus, yes, but so does StP. Especially in a shop-heavy environment, random spot removal is so good.

Welder has to come down BEFORE Colossus hits to be an out, unless you like scooping to Time Walk. This means that Welder is visible to the Gifts player, and they won't just run a random Tinker. While this may help in that you'll no longer scoop to a random Tinker, it's much worse when you're battling through an actual game, and the Gifts player adjusts his plan in order to include the maindeck Echoing Truth. Because StP is hidden information, it gives the Gifts player a better chance to get wrecked by it, or end up playing around it games two and three. This is also extremely important, in that you always have a higher chance of StP saving your ass than Welder, since it can be in the top cards of your deck as well as in hand.

Welder also messes with Balance, something I try thoroughly to avoid in this deck.

Not that Welder doesn't have its good points, either. But you asked for reasoning for the other outs, and I've given you some.

[PucktheCat]

Those are reasons, at least.

That still doesn't explain Meddling Mage as a Tinker answer though.

Mystical could get Balance of course.  Mystical for Balance is usually a pretty solid play anyway since Mystical loses you a card.

I can see not wanting to mess with Balance, although it seems to me that if they have critters out you will nearly always have a way to throw your Welder under the wheels - people are seldom going to go out of their way to keep your Welder alive.  I find this reason the most compelling you present, however.

You are mostly right that Welder needs to come out before Tinker, at least some of the time, however it also CAN come out earlier than Tinker.  That's an advantage because a Gifts player is less likely to be able to counter early than he is on the turn he Tinkers.  In other words, Welder may scoop to Walk if it comes down a turn late, but Swords scoops to Force/Mana Drain while a resolved Welder pretty much requires that the Gifts player find Echoing Truth.  There are more Forces and Drains in Gifts/CS than Time Walks, obviously.

And, of course, that doesn't even get into the fact that Welder is pretty decent utility in this deck even if they don't have Tinker.  As has been mentioned, it is an absolutely key card against other Workshop decks, and it is, of course, far better than Swords or Meddling Mage (or Sculpting Steel) against Control throughout the early and mid-game.

I think I understand the reasoning that led people to cut Welder in the first place.  The deck prefers running lock pieces to a way to recur dead lock pieces.  But when you are already cutting lock pieces for an answer to DSC and you are playing one of the decks that can play pretty much the ONLY answer to DSC that isn't a mulligan in the early game it seems wrong not to do so.

Leo

[cssamerican]

There may be a reason out there - I am certainly not a Stax expert - but no one has presented it yet.

The biggest reason is I never want to cast Goblin Welder. Everytime I cast a card that doesn't have an immediate impact I feel that I am giving a chance for my opponent to get out of my lock. It isn't that Goblin Welder isn't an excellent card once it has a chance to make an impact, it's that it takes too long for it to make that impact. This deck is all about strangling your opponent resources, so every card you play should be trying to accomplish this goal. Casting Goblin Welder early in this deck sucks because it doesn't slow your opponent down, casting Goblin Welder later sucks because you have to wait to use it. It is hard to explain until you play the deck some, but I don't think it will take you long to realize it just doesn't fit.

Just seen your new post, these updates before your post is submitted are great.

I am not sure we should be cutting lock parts to maindeck a possible answer to Tinker-DSC in the first place. That might actually be the discusion we should be having. Is it worth cutting lock parts in an effort to have a possible answer to an early Tinker-DSC?

[PucktheCat]

I am not sure we should be cutting lock parts to maindeck a possible answer to Tinker-DSC in the first place. That might actually be the discusion we should be having. Is it worth cutting lock parts in an effort to have a possible answer to an early Tinker-DSC?

I think this is exactly right.  My whole question was premised on the discussion of answers to DSC in this thread.  Things like Swords to Plowshares and Meddling Mage have even less immediate effect on the game than Welder.

Leo

[vroman]

answer to an early Tinker-DSC?

maze of ith is uncounterable, unbouncable means to keep iron giant home even if they double walk. Im much more scared of the tendrils win though.

[Lunar]

I was running a single maze of ith in my SB and it was okay...the thing was is that it always feel like if I drop some answers for say the tinker/dsc win they just super easily switch over to the tendrils win...or vice versa...personally I would rather attack the fast tinker win against gifts and force them to try and tendrils me out, I feel they have a worse time getting this accomplished than tinker beats...

Meddling Mage was originally considered by Steven and Kevin as an answer to early tinker...it accomplishes this pretty well...what some of you guys seem to forget though is that mage CAN be set to other things as well, and he has won me a number of games I would have lost if mage were StP or Welder (actually i was running 2 mages, 1 welder and 1 StP that tourney anyways, but the mage on turn 1 or 2 won me the actual games...)

Consistancy with the deck (and probably play skill and matchups) have made it a bad choice for me right now...I have taken it to 4 recent tourneys...I finished 5th at 2 of them and near last in the other 2....this isnt good...id be happier and less frustrated with a deck that was at least fetching me consistant results...something like top 16 every time at the least (top 16 is not so bad at 40 person tourneys here in NorCal..) A deck for me to play it has to proove itself to have a winning record for me more often than not...5color stax has shown itself to me to be at times brilliant, and at times random and bad...

There is no denying that it works...a look at the chicago SCG prooves that with 3 different stax decks in 1st 2nd 3rd, but I personally have found it to falter at times...

Uba stax does seem to be more stable to me, but im still not convinced it is the correct choice for stax overall...but it sure did have a good weekend...(gasp)

[b-tings]

I know I said I would have another monster for you by Friday. Sadly, preparations for University derailed that plan. I apologize, and will try to finish it up by the end of a busy weekend.

[prosbloom225]

If your deck runs crop rotation, then maze of ith is a great one-of in the sideboard.  I'd often fetch that over tolarian.  When im being hit with the colossus, maze is a great tutor target because most people don't counter the tutors and when maze hits your clock is extended until they draw waste/strip/bounce.

[Smmenen]

If your deck runs crop rotation, then maze of ith is a great one-of in the sideboard.  I'd often fetch that over tolarian.  When im being hit with the colossus, maze is a great tutor target because most people don't counter the tutors and when maze hits your clock is extended until they draw waste/strip/bounce.

Kevin and I have this ongoing debate about the merits of sbing out Crop Rotation in the Control match.  What do other people think?  Has anyone put some thought into this?  I'm curious to get some other perspectives on a complex and fascinating question.   

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

If your deck runs crop rotation, then maze of ith is a great one-of in the sideboard.  I'd often fetch that over tolarian.  When im being hit with the colossus, maze is a great tutor target because most people don't counter the tutors and when maze hits your clock is extended until they draw waste/strip/bounce.

Kevin and I have this ongoing debate about the merits of sbing out Crop Rotation in the Control match.  What do other people think?  Has anyone put some thought into this?  I'm curious to get some other perspectives on a complex and fascinating question.   

I honestly have never thought about siding out crop rotation. It gets the best card in your deck: Strip Mine. Also, because it is an instant, you can use it to bait on your opponent's eot. That, and most control players seem to tap out on your eot to cast shit like brainstorm/thirst. If the opponent uses a FoW on a crop rotation, I'm still pretty happy. Also, it often gets you out of jams. turn 1 rotate for shop is pretty good I hear. I think the risks of it being countered are outweighed by it's impact on the game.

Barring the mulligan to 5, you usually have enough lands to sac that a countered rotation won't hinder your plan too much.

Also, keep in mind, many control decks run wasteland, and there is nothing hotter than rotating in response to a wasteland.

Maze of ith seems interesting, but I can see it being a terrible draw if they don't have tinker colossus. Also, a walk + recoup or will gets around maze just fine. I still have 1 swords MD because they are quite useful against WS aggro, and fish. Also, I can tutor for it in a pinch to deal with pesky welders game 1, or other annoyances. If it happens to take out a colossus, great, but that's not the primary purpose of swords.

-Bob

[prosbloom225]

Maze isn't a dead card because its in your sideboard.  Unless they decide to change up and pull their tinker/colossus out of their deck, its a good draw.

[b-tings]

I have found myself siding out Crop rotation, but more against counter-heavy Fish (Daze or some such nonsense) than control, because that's the deck that can capitalize the most on the tempo swing incurred by countering it. Control, it's much less of an issue, even if it is more likely to get countered.

Honestly, my weakest point while playing this deck is manipulation of the sideboard, which is in part why I'm trying to generate discussion on it. I tend to have difficulty seeing what should be taken out beyond the obvious, and have a terrible tendancy to over-board. You probably shouldn't listen to me on these issues.

[prosbloom225]

Sideboarding is usually the part of playing the deck I hate the most.  I play more of a blue based stax deck with thirsts and welders so boarding out is a bitch sometimes. 

One more note on crop rotation, the synergy with crucible is fantastic on top of getting to fetch maze/academy/strip.