Mephistopheles' Remix: GWS B/R Stax

[Komatteru]

Gone.

[Moxlotus]

I would like to make sure everyone notices the sideboard.  The lands are the best thing in the board.  Tabernacle is frankly TEH ABSOLUT BALLZ against Fish.  Your goal is to strip them of all mana.  The beat you by playing dudes before you can do that.  You pretty much always end up destroying their mana, but they still have those pesky guys that tend to kill you.  Maze stalls Grunt, but Tabernacle absolutely wipes out their army and prevents the reserves from showing up.  I"m surprised no one else has found this card and abused it.

I personally believe that this is one of the best decks in the format and I think it is the best Stax variant currently out there.  11 turn 1 lock spells that can be cast off a land+mox.  A turn 1 bob isn't terrible either if you have something to back it up like lock+waste next turn or a Stack.

[Imsomniac101]

I'm pretty sure Vroman knew about Tabernacle for a long time. I've tried it and Glacial Chasm in 5c Stax and it felt pretty underwhelming. Sure it could be amazing at times but most of the time it blows. Why not just go tutor ---> balance .

[Moxlotus]

I'm pretty sure Vroman knew about Tabernacle for a long time. I've tried it and Glacial Chasm in 5c Stax and it felt pretty underwhelming. Sure it could be amazing at times but most of the time it blows. Why not just go tutor ---> balance .

Balance requires you to play a crappy mana base.  Tutor-balance requires your opponent to not suck and/or not have any counters.  You can't CoW/Bazaar Balance into play.  Tutor-Balance doesn't work if you have a Chalice at 1 or 2 out.  I've never found a time for Tabernacle to blow.  I pray to have that card in every opening hand against Fish.  I don't think I've ever been pissed to topdeck it either.

[Polynomial P]

I ran a B/R stax build over a year ago and this list is eerily similar to what I ran at the time. The printing of Bob is a huge boost to the deck (and refilling the hand was the huge problem with the deck at the time). The other problems i had at the time was dealing with casting spell. Between null rods and 4x sphere, a wasteland would often lock me out of the game as well. 26 mana sources seem about right, in addition to the bazaars, but what kind of mana problems have you run into, especially after casting a sphere then wanting to cast bob?

[Nastaboi]

JD, you had a long post telling how amazing Confidant is and how you dislike Welder. Still, you ended up running 3 Confidants and 4 Welders. Shouldn't the numbers be other way around?

[unknown.root]

JD, you had a long post telling how amazing Confidant is and how you dislike Welder. Still, you ended up running 3 Confidants and 4 Welders. Shouldn't the numbers be other way around?

Once this deck gets rolling and get Bob+Bazaar going. Welders are needed to pull junk back out at the ever growing rate in which your graveyard fills.

my current list, a bit different than my comrades.
4 workshops
4 factories
4 badlands
3 bazaar
3 fetch
2 wasteland
1 strip
1 academy
1 b-ring
10 artifact mana
4 chalice
4 resistor
3 crucible
3 smokestack
2 tangle wire
2 trikes
1 3sphere
3 confidants
3 welders
3 black tutors

I'm not 100% happy with my list, however i'm as smitten as a kitten with the mana base. I might cut the 2 wires for crucible #4, and a metagame slot.

I do miss balance, and crop rotaion but this deck is a move in the right direction from terrible mana base, and random crapping out.

[AJFirst]

3 fetches and 4 fetchables? GWS has made you more and more like Becker...

I like the list though. Wires could definitly hit the bench though. I'd cut 2 fetches for a creature and 3rd wasteland, and the wires for crucible and either the 4th waste or the last Bob.

I'd also suggest testing Gamble in this deck since it can get the red mana more easily, and with so many cards via Bob, and Welders letting it act as Entomb, I could definitly see it being a good addition (You'd have to up Welders and/or Bobs to the full playset to get the right circumstances to fully abuse it). It also has great synergy with Crucible acting as a Crop Rotation, but you sac a card in hand instead of a land. For example:

4 Shops
4 Factories
4 Badlands
3 Bazaar
3 Wasteland
1 Srip
1 Academy
1 B-Ring
1 Cabal Pit

7 SoLoMox
1 Vault

4 Chalice
4 Resistance
4 Crucible
3 Smokestack
1 Trike
1 Trinisphere

4 Bob
4 Welder
2 Gamble
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric
1 I. Seal

The problem is it doesn't have the ultimate piece of mana denial in Null Rod. I kind of want to play it over Chalice since chalice for 0 is often underwhelming, and at 1 or 2 it hurts you pretty badly as well.

Well even if Gamble sucks (Which it could, I just say my ideas, not that they're necesarily good ones) then I still think the mana base could use less fetches and more wastes (if colored sources is a problem you could cut the second utility land in cabal pit for a blood crypt).

Either way, great deck guys. Keep up the good work.
-AJ

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Gamble is an interesting card that I have considered in stacks as well, because it has a lot of synergy.  The thing that I don't like about it, however, is that without Welder/Crucible it's just bad because of the random discard (and this came up quite often in testing; Gamble was often win-more).  That's why I ended up discounting it as a possible addition.

I do think that Confident is a good addition to stacks, and I like the apparent consistency of the B/R list (as it has been said, 5c stacks is quite unstable and can frequently either blow its opponent out of the water or conversely just lose to itself) as well as the access to tutors.

[Vegeta2711]

What is up with the lists outside of the opening post?

Root's list has 2 Wastes and 4 Crucible. I don't even pretend to understand the point of running less than 5 strips if you have 4 crucible. What are you recurring all the time that 4 Crucible would even be necessary for? Tangle Wire makes no sense at all either in those numbers, by running it you want to see it early for the stall effect, but you run a whole two. So you won't have any real shot of seeing it by turn 3 on a consistent basis, but you might draw it later for no useful effect. Speaking of the 2 Wastes thing, why not 4 anyway?

Two Triskellion also strikes me as odd. With only two you don't really have a chance to abuse it against Fish (not to mention Null Rod), yet it's not an optimal kill card in other matches due to the speed it kills at with no secondary disruption effect.

This brings up another puzzles, why cut Smokestack? I mean, I get the premise behind cutting all of them, but cutting just one seems silly. It's your best weapon against the dreadful card, Basic Island, and the quickest way either build has to 'win' the game. Multiples might be less than good, but I thought that's what Bazaar was supposed to help with.

AJ, your build raises the question of how well 13 colored cards work with 6 colored lands, of which equal only 5 in each color. It seems difficult to imagine consistently hitting these in the opener and yet over 1/5th of the deck is colored cards.

As a final note, I note the opening post had reasoning and explanations behind the deck. Then I see lists in the thread with nearly no support or reasoning behind choices at all. Most of the questions in this post could've been easily answered with a few sentences about why X or Y was different from the opener.

[unknown.root]

What is up with the lists outside of the opening post?

Root's list has 2 Wastes and 4 Crucible. I don't even pretend to understand the point of running less than 5 strips if you have 4 crucible. What are you recurring all the time that 4 Crucible would even be necessary for? Tangle Wire makes no sense at all either in those numbers, by running it you want to see it early for the stall effect, but you run a whole two. So you won't have any real shot of seeing it by turn 3 on a consistent basis, but you might draw it later for no useful effect. Speaking of the 2 Wastes thing, why not 4 anyway?

Two Triskellion also strikes me as odd. With only two you don't really have a chance to abuse it against Fish (not to mention Null Rod), yet it's not an optimal kill card in other matches due to the speed it kills at with no secondary disruption effect.

The 4 crucibles are because they are the MVP of the deck. Between Factories, recuring land pitched by bazaar, and the ever favorite crucible strip. The basic land has foiled me game after game, thats why i've got a dislike for wasteland. it's so much easier to tutor strip mine and get that lock going. The double trike allows me to push a little more aggroish against decks with smaller men. the double tangle wire is going, it was 3 but i axe'd another one and now the card is going. Once again with the wasteland issue, the deck can only support so many colorless lands and i'd rather have factories over them.

If you want to further discuss your build and original ideas, then feel free to start your own thread.  Discussing something somewhat related but not linking it back to the original discussion is not staying on topic--i.e., if you want to discuss things you don't like with the original build, and holes you perceive in the deck ("Where does this article's logic break down?"), go ahead, but don't just post something completely different and offer no explanation for why it is better than the original. -JD

[Moxlotus]

JD and I feel that factories are unnecessary because you already have cheap beaters and I'd rather have wastelands to prevent my opponent from casting spells.  Even with lots of basics, wastelands are still king.  There are tons of times where I'm just begging to rip a waste off the top.

I also feel that if you aren't playing Rod then you are missing the most important lock card.  It is simply the best mana denial spell in the deck.  Cutting it is a mistake no matter what cards they allow you to play.

[Purple Hat]

JD, I love the tabernacles in the board.  I can't believe I've forgotten about that card over the last 2-3 years.  I could see swapping one main for the maze if I was expecting a high density of fish/other aggro.  it might even still be decent against oath, as it prevents them from oathing more than once, but still not as good as maze there, obv.

[Methuselahn]

So I threw this deck together and played a number of matches.  By a number of matches, I mean 4.  I like the deck in theory, but ran into some issues.

First, the mana.  It just seems too inconsistant.  The list (in the original post) has ~14 land drops that don't produce B/R.  There are times when I weep because I see Bob and a Mox in my opening grip, but no black source.  Other Bob decks are completely focused upon getting him out there turn 1 and the manabases are dedicated towards it.  This deck is not, but relies on Bob just as much because it is half of the draw engine.

Second, the lockies.  This deck appears to break the fundamental rule of dropping a lock piece on the first turn.  Often you want to drop Bob or Welder before Spheres and Chalices.   I've had a hard time deciding which to do with this deck.  The critters are so important and want to come down early, but they don't directly affect the board.  I've come to the conclusion that your gameplan is very specific to the hand you draw.  I can see that you also have to mulligan very aggressively with this deck.  This tells me that the deck is inconsistant, which seems to be inherent in all 'Shop decks.

I think there is a conflict of interest in the deck.  I also think that the deck gets pwnt by Blood Moons and Lava Darts.   Again, just some limited testing done here.

-Jeff

[Moxlotus]

This deck appears to break the fundamental rule of dropping a lock piece on the first turn.  Often you want to drop Bob or Welder before Spheres and Chalices.   I've had a hard time deciding which to do with this deck.  The critters are so important and want to come down early, but they don't directly affect the board.  I've come to the conclusion that your gameplan is very specific to the hand you draw.  I can see that you also have to mulligan very aggressively with this deck.   

No, you don't break the fundamental rule of stax.  You drop your lock components if you have them, unless you are playing against fish.  I also mulligan with this deck less than any other deck in type 1.  I mull about once every 7 or 8 games.  The deck has 11 lock components that can be cast off a mox+land.  It is completely redundant.

The list (in the original post) has ~14 land drops that don't produce B/R.  There are times when I weep because I see Bob and a Mox in my opening grip, but no black source.  Other Bob decks are completely focused upon getting him out there turn 1 and the manabases are dedicated towards it.  This deck is not, but relies on Bob just as much because it is half of the draw engine.
 

Bob is not an essential turn 1 play.  He is second rate compared to the lock spells.  The mana will come to cast him, but the lock spells are what's important in your opening hand.  He is what you use to refill your nuts after you've already dropped them on the table.  You don't need to be spending mana to cast Bob when you haven't played your locks yet.  The deck is not reliant on bob--5c Stax doesn't have ANY draw engine and it seems to do fine.  Bob is a bonus for the deck but hardly the focus.  Play the deck like a standard Stax deck, don't try to get fancy with Bob.

I should also note that this is the hardest deck to play perfectly than I've ever played.  Its much harder than combo (besides MD Tendrils), fish, Oath or Slaver.  At the tournament I went to the deck was trying to hand me wins but I kept throwing them away--especially when I played against Josh Rayden.  You have to play it perfectly to get it to work--especially against fish.  postboard it is heavily in favor of B/R Stax, but it took me a month of practice to get it that way.  Every match is close and coming down to a turn difference, but much more often than not B/R Stax will come on top games 2 and 3.  Like I said, it took a long time to get it that way.

[Methuselahn]

Well, I'll give it another go, but now I have even less faith in my ability to produce results.

I should also note that this is the hardest deck to play perfectly than I've ever played.  Its much harder than combo

That's not something I like to see out of a stax deck.

[Dante]

Do not spam threads with off-topic lists please.  Anything with Juggernauts is off topic here.  Thank you.

[Moxlotus]

Well, I'll give it another go, but now I have even less faith in my ability to produce results.

I should also note that this is the hardest deck to play perfectly than I've ever played.  Its much harder than combo

That's not something I like to see out of a stax deck.

Why not?  I think 5c Stax is a harder deck to play perfectly than combo.  I just think this deck is even more difficult to play perfectly than 5c stax.

[Oedipus]

I may have missed a previous reply but why not run Braids?

[hitman]

@ Oedipus - Braids has a prohibitive mana cost.

[TheAlpha]

Did you ever consider a more enchantment heavy build with something like In The Eye and Chokes? A combination of good enchantments and artifacts are harder to bounce or even destroy. I think the main problem with Stax is that a lot of decks can sweep your board EOT and then just combo off, maybe the suggested approach with more enchantments is an idea?

[Outlaw]

Did you ever consider a more enchantment heavy build with something like In The Eye and Chokes? A combination of good enchantments and artifacts are harder to bounce or even destroy. I think the main problem with Stax is that a lot of decks can sweep your board EOT and then just combo off, maybe the suggested approach with more enchantments is an idea?

One should first infact read the post before commenting on the deck.  GWS stated that they tried a build that ran In The Eye of Chaos main but decided to stick with a B/R mana base instead.  Running those two enchantments would surely make the deck go back to being 5color which was too much of a strain on life totals to be able to fully utilize Bob.

[Methuselahn]

Well, I'll give it another go, but now I have even less faith in my ability to produce results.

I should also note that this is the hardest deck to play perfectly than I've ever played.  Its much harder than combo

That's not something I like to see out of a stax deck.

Why not?  I think 5c Stax is a harder deck to play perfectly than combo.  I just think this deck is even more difficult to play perfectly than 5c stax.

Well, personally, I find combo harder to play.  I don't see much room for debate over this opinion. 

Basically, I was saying that the above quote was not a good selling point for the deck.  "This deck is the absolut bollz hard to play" is a fine way to scare people off from playing the deck.  I guess it's also a dangerous thing to say because it looks like you're setting up to say "You didn't win the deck? Oh, you're not playing it well enough then" far too easily.  That kind of thing has happened before on this website.  I personally don't think that you would take this angle, but just sayin'.

[warble]

The real question remains:  does this deck have the same potential to recover that 5 color stax does?  I'm not saying there isn't additional risk involved with a 5 color manabase, but I definitely see a lot of weakness with the 1 toughness creatures as opposed to karn, duplicant or balance where we immediately utilize the strength of the play.  All of the cards in your build are about either locking, mana denial or future card advantage.  With 5 color we have more active plays like timetwister and wheel that can potentially destroy a well sculpted hand only looking for another turn.  I do enjoy the focus that restricting a manabase always provides stax, but the question of what happens when we don't draw an explosive start with our stax deck, mulligan and again don't get the explosive start what do we do?  Because of the sheer volume of lock and draw power, it seems wrong to simultaneously be so reliant on that early soft lock and also mana denial.  I suppose your saving grace is null rod, arguably the strongest single card in stax after the restriction of trinisphere.  The fact that the strongest opening hand for a lot of circumstances will be confidant, chalice for 0 is really disconcerting to this gameplan.  I'm interested in how you resolve this issue, because giving an opponent an unmolested turn or two with stax is never good and with this deck anything of that sort would be exceptionally bad.  Is the answer that you always mulligan into at least two pieces of soft lockage?

[vroman]

I criticize the inclusion of cabal pit. barbarian ring is not very good at killing creatures or opponents. you need threshold, an additional red source, and must be able to afford losing land drop. the added utility minus the damage and nonbasic penalties make it only just barely better than a basic mountain. cabal pit is strictly worse than b-ring in that it is not a win condition. this makes it worse than swamp/RBdual/fetch.

I also am tanglewire apologist. how much have you played stax vs drain match up? tangle is extremely good counter bait bc if it resolves (esp w resistor on board) you have carte blance to resolve atleast one or two more threats the next few turns.

Ive been running this online w much sucess

4 workshop
3 waste
4 badland
2 fetch
2 b-ring
2 factory
5 mox
2 lotus/sol
2 strip/academy
4 bazaar
4 confidant
4 resistor
4 chalice
3 crucible
3 welder
3 null rod
3 tangle
3 smoke
1 dtutor
1 vtutor
1 darkblast
1 trisphere
side
4 duress
4 pblast
3 heretic
2 tormod
2 duplican

[Moxlotus]

I honestly don't know what cards I would cut for Tangles if I were to play them.  All of the other lock spells are better.  Wire is the worst lock spell, even against Drains because it doesn't do anything except shut off counters but Welder does that for 2 mana less.  Sure it lets you play other spells, but why not just play those other spells anyway?  The tutors are great.  I'm a huge fan of the DB and the Maze maindeck to give you tutorable outs if something annoying slipped down before you got a lock.  DB is great against Kataki, Pain in the Ass and against opposing Welders.  Maze is a great way to buy time against a DSC or Grunt or a random Angel from Oath while you ramp up a stack.

how much have you played stax vs drain match up?

Turn 1 chalice/Sor/Rod.  Will probably resolve unless they have sapphire+land+drain.  Then they're just the champions.
Turn 2 chalice/sor/rod/waste/bob/welder.  Will resolve if you were on the play.  Will resolve on the draw if you had turn 1 SoR.  You should have either Shop or land+mox.  If you have a waste, take our their second source and play your spell.  If you don't have a waste, you might have a Welder so you can bait with that shitter.  Don't be an idiot and just run a CoW/Stack into a drain.  So far this game you should have probably played waste+2 spells or 3 spells.  This is assuming you had either a Shop or a Mox which isn't a stretch because if you didn't you probably should have mulled.
Turn 3 highly dependent on how the game has progressed.

IMO, the only time Tangle is actually any good is turn 1 with a shop on the draw.  Any time after that another lock is just better to play.  And the longer you wait to play Tangle, the worse it gets so there's really only the smallest opening when its better to cast it over other spells.

The fact that the strongest opening hand for a lot of circumstances will be confidant, chalice for 0 is really disconcerting to this gameplan.  I'm interested in how you resolve this issue, because giving an opponent an unmolested turn or two with stax is never good and with this deck anything of that sort would be exceptionally bad. 

Wait--why the hell are you casting Bob on turn 1 instead of a lock piece?

Is the answer that you always mulligan into at least two pieces of soft lockage?

Well, the deck has 11 lock spells @2 or less mana plus 5 wastes plus 4 stacks.  Getting 2 in your opening hand shouldn't be a big deal.

Basically, I was saying that the above quote was not a good selling point for the deck.  "This deck is the absolut bollz hard to play" is a fine way to scare people off from playing the deck. 

Steve has showed in great detail the complexities of Gifts and how tough that deck is.  It hasn't scared people off.  If it did, I doubt he cares.  I'm just making sure people realize they won't be able to pick the deck up take it to a tournament.  A few goldfishes with Pitch Long through a lock piece or 2 and you're pretty good to go for a tournament and have a nice chance of just outbrokening everyone ftw.  That won't work with this deck.

but I definitely see a lot of weakness with the 1 toughness creatures as opposed to karn, duplicant or balance where we immediately utilize the strength of the play.

Oh, opposing darkblasts are a huge pain in the ass but those are answered with Chalice@1 or just going for the bRing kill.

I'm not the biggest fan of CPit, but it gets the job done.  Since Bobs are barely hurting us, and we cut cities+crypt+vault, the damage from Pit rarely matters too much so the creature kill is worth it.

One should first infact read the post before commenting on the deck.

Sigged!  Applicable for all threads in all forums

[Evenpence]

IMO, the only time Tangle is actually any good is turn 1 with a shop on the draw.  Any time after that another lock is just better to play.  And the longer you wait to play Tangle, the worse it gets so there's really only the smallest opening when its better to cast it over other spells.

Beat you to it, Vroman.

Tangle Wire might function much differently in Ubastax than in B/R Stax (I sincerely have not tried out your list yet), but turn 1 on the draw is pretty good.  The real reason I like Tangle Wire is that it does so much for so little.  On top of that, the most important time to have it is when you have sufficient lock pieces to destroy your opponent with Stax, but you've gotten off to a slow start and he has more permanents (particularly lands in the drain matchup) than you would like him to have access to.

In this case, Tangle Wire cements the game.

Many more people than myself have said that Tangle Wire was their MVP of a tournament when running Ubastax.  Sometimes it's the only card you can draw that will allow you to win the game, especially in Drain Matchups, which is what I think Vroman might have been alluding to.

I also agree with playing lock components before Bob - it seems silly to do it the other way around.

[lordarcanis]

I definitley like the BR Stax list, but I think that there is some more work to be done here:

1.  I agree with Vroman, Cabal Pit is worse than pretty much any other land would be in it's place.  I would put in B Ring #2.
2.  Why Blood Crypt?  You stated in your initial post that Vault, Crypt, and Cities are not in the deck because of the life loss.  Obviously, you could just have the Crypts come into play tapped, but that seems to slow the deck down too much.  I suggest putting in Gemstone Mine instead.  You have 3 Crucibles that can recurr it if it runs out of counters and it would allow you to maindeck BALANCE, which is probably the only card that really feels like it is missing.