Stacks Primer (Part 1 of 2)

[Toast]

Part 0. The Beginning

I decided to write this primer in an attempt toorganize everybody's thoughts about one of the hottest new decks out there Stacks (also called Ducktape, Lock Stock, and Smokestack) and hopefully to come up with a finalized build of the deck.

I am in no way an expert at playing the deck which iswhy I have refrained from posting any finalized build. I am actually requesting emails from anybody who thinks they know the deck well enough to
be able to justify their various card choices.

Please email me at Email_toast@yahoo.com with your
decklist, a brief explaination of the less obvious card choices, and your TMD username.

Here are all of the threads I used as sources for this primer:

Ducktape'03

Top 2 Dulmen Smokestack Decks

Dulmen Deck Discussion

Lock Stock

Part 1. The Basics

The ultimate goal of Stacks is to establish a lock through permanent
destruction and or disruption and gain the upper hand through stack tricks and running an overabundance of permanents. The two cards that make the deck:

Smokestack    4

Artifact

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a soot counter on Smokestack.At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player sacrifices a permanent for each soot counter on Smokestack.

Tangle Wire 3

Artifact

Fading 4 (This artifact comes into play with four fade counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a fade counter from it. If you can't, sacrifice it.)
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player taps an untapped artifact, creature, or land he or she controls for each fade counter on Tangle Wire.

The main trick to using Smokestack is that you put the add counter ability on the stack and then put on the sacrifice ability. That way you have to sacrifice the old number of permanents but your opponent is forced to sack an additional permanent.

This deck was made to get around Tangle Wire. First of all you can remove the fade counter first and then proceed to tap the tangle wire itself, and there is a good chance that you will already have out at least one other permanent (like a smokestack) that is completely unaffected by being tapped.

Also if you have both out at the same time, you can tap the permanents before you have to sack them, minimizing the effects of the cards on you even more.

Part 2. Card Choices

Smokestack + Tangle Wire:

You would have to have a very[/u] ingenius idea to justify replacing either of these, simply put, the deck is based around them.

7 SoLoMox + 1 Grim monolith:

also almost certainly a must, what you need to give you the edge over your opponent.

Mana Crypt + Mana Vault:

not as widely backed but it is still even more mana accel and permanents.

Sphere of Resistance:

This card is a very nice choice for the deck, extra mana for all spells + mana denial = good. With all of the artifact mana that you have this card is not very hard for you to play around and at a nice 2 colorless,
it is very easy to drop on the first turn.

Lotus Petal:

Probably the least powerful of all the mana accel. Still it is a free mana of any color.

Gorilla Shaman:

Kills off all those pesky moxen for a cost of R. The deck should probably run this or Karn, but Karn is slightly prefered over this.

Karn, Silver Golem:

when using Mishra's workshop 5 mana is no too hard to come by, and for that 5 mana you get a 4/4, mox monkey and an animate artifact ( which is very useful in this deck) all in one.

Metal Worker:

only costs 3 and it's tapping ability will net you much much more than this number with the quantity of artifacts that are run in this deck.

Juggernaut, Su-Chi, Triskelion:

one possible win condition is to use these guys to run your opponent over

Black Vise:

Costs one, great kill for a deck that has an effective lock. Downside is it is difficult to use as the only win condition as it is restricted and highly removable.

Time Vault:

The rules allow you to untap a permanent that is already untapped, which means that you can use this card to give your opponent as many turns as you want. You can use time vault as a method to deck your opponent.

Mishra's Workshop + Tolerian Acadamy:

These cards have great synergy with artifacts, vital for the mana base.

Strip Mine and Wastelands:

Slightly controversial... good mana denial, but is there the space and the luxury to be able to run them.

City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb:

both produce two artifact mana but both also have fairly big downsides.

Meditate:

This card has amazing synergy with the deck, you get 4 cards for 1U and you get to skip sacking permanents for a turn. Very good for giving you that extra edge over your opponent.

Goblin Welder:

a nice way to replace unwanted permanents with ones that you need, a reset button for stack and wire when you are in a bind, all for the minimal cost of R. Another great card.

Ancestral Recall:

good in any deck that runs blue, and if you aren't running blue in your deck, you might want to consider splashing for it just because of this card.

Brainstorm:

A nice cheap draw spell, might be worth running.

Time Walk:

this card is broken, but is also slightly more questionable, you don't want to take an extra turn if you have out a lock that would put you at a disadvantage. Be cautious about this one, but it still is an extra turn for 1U.

Timetwister:

New hand, recycles everything in your graveyard, very nice for 2U.... but it does it for your opponent too.

Tinker:

turns something you don't want into something you want for cheap.

Mystical Tutor:

Another nice cheap blue spell to use, tutors are always nice to have.

Yawgmoth's Will

A great way to replenish your depleted supply of permanents. but is it worth splashing black for?

Balance:

Very broken, just like Will, but also off colored.

Scroll Rack + Land Tax:

A very nice card drawing engine for the deck. This engine is by far the most powerful one available for the deck but it has the downside of being a two piece engine.

Agrivan Find:

This card costs 1 and brings back an artifact from the graveyard. It is a very nice recusion spell and it might be exactly what the deck needs.

enlightened tutor:

when running white, there is no reason not to run this powerful tutor.

Zuran Orb:

Works great with land tax giving you a nice protective life buffer, and has amazing synergy with balance. A very good choice to go along with a white splash.

Forcefield:

This card is a very nice cusion while trying to set up the lock.

Urza's Bauble:

This is not only a free permanent, but it also replaces itself, meaning it is like running a 56 card deck.

Tsabo's Web

A Cheap Permanent, it replaces itself, and it has the added side benefit of shutting down Library of Alexandria and Bazaar of Bagdad, Man Lands and even Dustbowl (which isn't too commonly used but still is used)

Oath of Scholars:

4 mana for a nice way to cycle through your deck. However, not a common choice.

Grafted Skullcap:

Another 4 cost deck cycling mechanism. It is an artifact, which is nice and your opponent does not benefit from it , but it nets you less cards and it's ability is not optional.

Blood Moon:

Few decks in the current metagame run basic lands, so running a hoser card like blood moon main is not that bad of an idea.

Candelabra of Tawnos:

This can be used in conjuntion with Academy and Workshop to generate boatloads extra mana. Might be overkill though.

Tetravus:
This card allows you to safely put more counters on stack than you normally would be able to because it comes in a pack of 4 and it is very easy to bring back over and over again with welder.

Copy Artifact:

This is a very nice card choice, it is a great utility as you can double anything you need at the time, it even can double your opponent's artifacts which is great when playing against TnT and Mask.

Howling Mine:

A new addition but almost certainly a must, a kind of permanent card drawing mechanism is exactly what this deck needs.

Trade Secrets:

double blue is difficult to come by and this card is very ugly if your opponent has any sort of maindeck hoser game 1 and in all situations where your opponent has a sideboard that is prepared for you games 2 and 3. If they don't, its nice card advantage.

Remember I do not back all of these card choices, but all of these cards are being run in the various decks that have been posted in these forums and at least deserve mention as being viable options.

Colors[/b]

It also would be nice to decide on the best colors for the deck to use. So far we've seen U/R, Mono R, 4 Color, and W/R.

Red is used across the board as red has a few cards that are just great in the deck, the most noticeable of which, is Goblin Welder. This deck functions 10x more efficiently with Goblin Welder which makes red a very solid choice for the deck.

 Blue is nice because it has Meditate, and all of the restricted blue brokeness like Ancestral, Time Walk, Tinker, and the Draw Sevens.

 White offers Balance, Tax-Rack engine and some artifact recursion, making it another strong choice.

 Also the splash for a bit of everything approach could be taken. It's advantage is you get access to all of the various power cards over the color spectrum, but it's disadvantage is a lack of consistancy.

 On the other extreme we could take the mono colored route and increase consistancy dramatically but also have to cut out some really nice card choices.

I look forward to hearing your responses and reading your emails and hopefully I will be able to post part 2 soon.

EDIT: added cards

[Jacob Orlove]

You might want to also check out "Oatmeal", a deck that uses the same artifact "engine" but throws in Tax/Rack too.

Also, Meditate is 2U.  

[urza's child]

Yes i run oatmeal variant, throughout testing i have found it to be just as good as Duct Tape, if not better. Here's the decklist:

//NAME: Alpha Shift
1 Black Lotus

1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crpyt
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Balance
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Memory Jar
2 Time Vault
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
1 Zuran Orb
1 Strip Mine
2 Mountain
1 Wheel of Fortune
6 Plains
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Forcefield
4 Plateau
4 Argivian Find
4 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack
4 Goblin Welder
2 Karn, Silver Golem

SB:  1 Seal of Cleansing
SB:  1 Aura of Silence
SB:  1 Solitary Confinement
SB:  4 Orim's Chant
SB:  3 Swords to Plowshares
SB:  2 Sacred Mesa
SB:  1 Moat
SB:  2 Cursed Totem

The non-conventional choices (Find, Tax, Rack, etc) I find to be rather obvious, tax/rack is the drawing engine, and find gets back everything. The moat in the sideboard is against stuff like sligh, RG tnt, sui, etc. Basically anything without flying. Mesa is against control and GAT mainly, but sometimes other random things. Pretty self explanatory card choices, if you need any help explaining just PM or email me, but do it tonight because im going away for a week leaving tomorrow morning

EDIT: Im going to test these changes:

-1 Main Deck Time Vault
-1 Main Deck Zuran Orb
+1 Main Deck Sphere of Resistance (to make it 4)

The decklist as of now is 61 cards, any imput is always welcome

[Toast]

Edit: Added White card choices

[Raven]

Personally I think the duleman version is the best right now.

I playtested ducktape 03 alot, and while it can have really broken/explosive hands, its alittle random and inconsistant. It plays similar to a Achademy deck, but without the consistancy.

I like the duleman deck because it's solid as a rock and just as consistant. It can capitolize on a opponents bad land draw with wastelands/strip mine, it has access to easy moxen destruction via 2 Karns. It can shoot down opposing welders/BoP's/Sligh Beats with reccuring Triskelion. It can also capitolize on a weakened counterspell deck after a long counter bout with a follow-up Yawgmoth's Will, or a timely Balance. And the sideboard is very solid, with added mana denile from blood moons and fire/ice just becomming a powerhouse card for this deck.

It's just so damn consistant, and has an answer for almost any threat. And it really hits multicolored power decks where they hurt, there mana base. You can really capitolize on smokestack's destruction when you take out half of your opponents permenants through the use of balance/karn/waste/strip/trisk. You find yourself useing meditate less and less. You become less dependant on smokestack with the duleman deck. A timed balance with a followed Tanglewire can be just as devistating, if not more.

It's so well rounded, and the results show that it was a problem for others to deal with. So I chose to play a more Dulemen oriented deck, it just wrecks multicolored power decks. Ducktape has to rely on a lone gorilla shaman for mox eating, and it is not reccurable through welders. Balance is also a card that is irreplaceable in my eyes. And with ducktape, you are extreamly dependant on your Smokestack for permenant destruction, and I found that sometimes thats not enough. If your aggro opponent is able to drop 3-4 early creatures and 3-4 land, then your life clock will run out before your smokestack eats all there creatures.

With ducktape I was still able to go better than 50-50 with good aggro decks, but with the duleman deck it was more like 65-35. So maybe if ducktape can make room for 1 triskelion, and a balance, it would be safer to play in my eyes.

[NaClhv]

First, another helpful link, which introduced this decktype to the world:Presenting Ducktape

I think that by looking at an old list, and seeing its history, it would be helpful to see what cards get moved in and out of the deck, which helps us in turn decide what cards form the core of the deck.

In my mind, the following are a must in Ducktape:

Smokestacks
Tangle wires
Sphere of resistances
Meditates
Goblin welders

And, of course, the mana to support these cards (e.g. lots of artifact mana, workshops, academy)

Beyond that, I don't particularly subscribe to the "single optimal decklist" school of thought.  Obviously, Psyduck is experimenting with some radical card choices in his latest version, some of which will turn out to be good and some of which will not.  But rather than focus on those few card choices, it would probably be more productive to decide on the core cards which are essential to the deck.

Toast:  Calling this a "primer" is a bit presumptuous (and what the hell is "stacks"?  Did anyone else call Ducktape that before?), but it's nice to have a collection of all the possible cards to be used in ducktape.  Good work.  I was wondering, though, did you see any decks use Tetravus?  I know that it moved in and out of various workshop-related decks for a while, and I had thought that there would still be some decks which used it.

Oh, and on the "oatmeal" builds:  How is that working out?  As the creator of ABM and a contributor to Ducktape, I don't particularly see great synergy between the tax/rack engine and the lock.  Isn't ducktape way too mana hungry in order to be able to run tax/rack effectively?  I mean, the ideal situation for the deck is when your opponent has no lands in play- and then you can't tax.  Add to that the number of nonbasics that you want to run (blue for meditate, red for welder, white for land tax, plus academy and four workshops, maybe the strip/waste suit...), and I don't really see the tax/rack engine working with this deck.

Of course, all this is just theory... If you have empirical evidence which suggests that tax/rack can work in ducktape, by all means share it with us.

[Toast]

First of all, I guess I should give a brief explaination of why I chose to write this primer.

I recently have seen the emergence of many similar decks all revolving around the idea of using the smokestack/tangle wire/ sphere/welder core and various other tricks to establish a board lock and then take control and kill the opponent. This deck strategy fairs very well in the current metagame and does not have any overwhelming weaknesses.

Honestly all of these decks show potential for being very good and I am trying to compile a list of the different card options for them to help out the many people who want to play them.

Part two of my primer, I had realized ahead of time, would almost certainly not consist of a single finalized build. However, I am trying to get a very solid core for each of the variants of this deck and separate out the generic good choices from the testing/personal metagame choices.

In part two, I will try to post good decklists for different variants and the strengths and weaknesses of each of those decks. I do think this initial step was nessessary to stir up enough of a conversation to be able to truely figure out what works well with the deck.

I also tried not to let my personal opinions shine through too much in the actual primer because, while I might side more with some choices than others, I know that some people are still undecided and I did not want anybody who read it to take my opinions as fact.



NaClhv: The main reason why I did not use any of the previous names to describe this deck is because I did not want to offend anybody. While Ducktape was the original deck to encorporate this very nice idea, the idea has been taken off in enough different directions that it would not be fair to classify them all under one variants name.

 Also it would be silly for anyone other than you or Psyduck to write a Ducktape primer because you are the deck's creators. The fact that there are multiple variants of the deck make me feel qualified to write a primer on the idea in general, but I would never feel qualified to write a primer on any deck that was created by someone else in these forums. ( The only other primer I've written was on my own variant of  Dragon.dec called speed dragon. You can still check it out here)

However, are my personal views on the deck at this time:

I think that Stack/Wire/Sphere/ and Welder are all nessesary in almost any build. For mana accel the 7 SolLoMox are also Nessesary, and grim monolith is nice to have. Workshops, Academy, and Strip/Waste are also nessesary.

 Black Vise, 2 time vault, and 2 karn would probably be my choices for kill and I would try (haven't tested yet) 4x Bauble, 3-4x Web because they are a great way to draw cards and at the same time are very cheap permanent fodder.

 Meditate and ancestral are too broken not to run, but my main color might even be white. Agrivan Find works great with bauble and web, Balance is amazing to have, and land tax is a great way to ensure you aren't missing that land drop. However, I would opt not to run scroll rack (maybe 1) because a two piece engine is very difficult to maintain with this deck and I'm not sure if it is nessesary based on my other choices.

[Fishhead]

Quote Balance is also a card that is irreplaceable in my eyes. And with ducktape, you are extreamly dependant on your Smokestack for permenant destruction, and I found that sometimes thats not enough.

My first reaction the the Dulmen list was to remove the White & Black from the mana-base and go to a pure UR version.  I thought that the Will might be good in games I was already winning and that, since I run zero Tutors, I'd never be able to Balance consistently against Aggro.  (This would be fine if Balance was good in the mid- or end-game, but its not.  When I am trying to seal the lock I have more lands and cards, if not always creatures.)  

It sounds like you had a different experience - can you expand on the idea of how Balance helps even if its un-fetchable?

Quote The main reason why I did not use any of the previous names to describe this deck is because I did not want to offend anybody.

Oh, its not possible to avoid offending someone.    

Actually, I didn't like the name "Stacks" because it seemed to support Smemmen's quixotic campaign to rename the deck "Stax".  The whole "Stax" thing pisses me off a bit - it reminds me of Rakso's old Ankh Sligh articles where he coyly pretended that he didn't know of Legend's contribution to the deck.  "Oh no, its not because I don't like you Legend, its just because I got the decklists from Kaplan. Hehehe.  So sorry old buddy."  

Anyway, I feel stupid arguing over decknames and props and crap like that.  But I think that the evidence shows that Psyduck posted the first Meditate+Smokestack+Tangle Wire+Sphere+Welder based deck, and as long as you are playing that engine, IMHO, you are playing a DuckTape varient.

Quote Add to that the number of nonbasics that you want to run (blue for meditate, red for welder, white for land tax, plus academy and four workshops, maybe the strip/waste suit...), and I don't really see the tax/rack engine working with this deck.

Oatmeal seems to have cut the Meditates and gone pure WR, counting on redundancy via Argivian Find to make up for the hammer that is Meditate+Smokestack.  I counted 9 non-basics (though that decklist has no organization that I can discern!) versus 8 basics.  

I dont think you have to Tax/Rack as aggressively as ABM does; its more like the rarer situation where ABM Balances away the board, but uses Rack once to set up its post-Balance comeback turns.  Besides it only costs 1 to Rack, so you should be able to do a bit of Racking in most situations, even if its not your primary focus.  Just off the top of my head.  

[Smmenen]

Quote (Fishhead @ April 12 2003,15:19)Actually, I didn't like the name "Stacks" because it seemed to support Smemmen's quixotic campaign to rename the deck "Stax".  The whole "Stax" thing pisses me off a bit - it reminds me of Rakso's old Ankh Sligh articles where he coyly pretended that he didn't know of Legend's contribution to the deck.  

LoL.

Actually, I don't really care that much.

The reason why I don't want to call it LockStock or Ducktape is becuase the Duelmen decks are VERY different.  Sphere of Resistance is THE card that makes the maindeck work.  Without maindeck sphere it is a different deck.

I think of the duelmen decks as sufficiently distinguished in list AND in form and success to warrant a different name.  Call is stack or smokestack or stax or whatever, but it is neither lockstock nor ducktape.  

Steve

[Fishhead]

Quote The reason why I don't want to call it LockStock or Ducktape is becuase the Duelmen decks are VERY different.  Sphere of Resistance is THE card that makes the maindeck work.  Without maindeck sphere it is a different deck.

Ah, OK.  Since I see Psyduck every now and then in the local scene I get a slightly different impression of the deck than people who see it through is posts.  

Anyway, Psyduck is always trying something new, and he's a bit mercurial about the stuff thats in the deck in general.  One week the Spheres are MD'ed (note the the linked Ducktape listing has 4 in the SB and the Ducktape 1.X listing has 2 main) and they're the greatest thing ever, then next week he's cut them to 2 because "you just need them to finish the lock."  The week after, there are 3 maindeck.   He's constantly tinkering with the exact balance of cards.  Anyway, in the current meta, he's very excited about the Spheres again as you can see in the DuckTape 03 thread.  I always considered them part of DuckTape, even though he first posted a decklist with them in the side.  

But whatever.  Like I said, I feel silly even bringing it up.  As long as you aren't acting on some goofy Rasko v. Legend impulse by calling the deck Stax then I have no problem with it.

[Raven]

Quote (Fishhead @ April 12 2003,15:19)My first reaction the the Dulmen list was to remove the White & Black from the mana-base and go to a pure UR version.  I thought that the Will might be good in games I was already winning and that, since I run zero Tutors, I'd never be able to Balance consistently against Aggro.  (This would be fine if Balance was good in the mid- or end-game, but its not.  When I am trying to seal the lock I have more lands and cards, if not always creatures.)  

It sounds like you had a different experience - can you expand on the idea of how Balance helps even if its un-fetchable?

For the same reason ducktape runs a lone gorilla shaman. With all the draw effects, it's not hard to get it.

And it's not always a must have card. It just adds more creature controll to your arsenal. Triskelion, Balance, 2 Karns, and 4 Tangle Wires is better than ducktape's 4 Tanglewires.

Why does Ducktape run a gorilla shaman when it has no creature tutors? Because it can draw into it with all the draw 7's. Same idea is with the duleman decks.

And with my playtesting of Ducktape, I found that often game 1's would be lost where they could have been easily won had the deck run a lone Triskelion, or Balance or Karn. Fast aggro decks can race your smokestack and win.

[waSP]

I can understand how Will would be good in the situation you describe.  But if you are casting all sorts of draw, just to find balance, wouldn't you be winning.  I hear drawing 7 cards helps a bit.  I run a tetravus main and have found it to be amazing when trying to stabilize under a smokestack.  But if you are playing the webs and baubles I can understand how it might not be necessary.  Tetravus just makes Welder that much more broken and it also makes you immunne to the stack.  Whether or not Psyduck is always running Sphere's main, it is a part of the core.

[psyduck]

Ahem, the people playing "stax" at dulmen were playing ducktape. There is no quetsion about that. Id even mail the guy to make sure (but my guess ) is that he got they looked at the TOC 6 decklists that i submitted over a *year and a half ago* not to mention me playing it randomly online throughout that time AND discussing it with random #bdchatters, as every bdchatters knows that its mine and jeek posted my decklist at the time of the TOC6.

As for spheres, 4 were in my sideboard at the time of the TOC6 deck submissions. I was toying with them in and out of my maindeck, and idecided for the TOC i wouldnt need them maindecked. In any event, tape 03 has spheres maindecked, they have always been in the deck either main or side since the beginning.
Just to clarify anything about this.

[Smmenen]

I doubt that Ribbock and Kaul scoured the Mana Drain looking for the "answer" to Groatog.  It is more likely that they started with a concept and took it to its logical extension - and as so it is not surprising that it looks similar to something you have been working on for some time.  

Steve

[bebe]

I played Workshop variants before Ducktape, but i freely admit that the first Lock, Stock borrowed a lot of its tech. Psyduck's build was innovative and spurred me on to recreate my pld deck along his mold. As for dulmen - the first renditions of Lock,Stock were seen and commented on by the Germans as it was posted on their website. I'm not sure that Psyduck is off the mark at all.
Last, do call my deck a ducktape variant as really it was Psyduck who inspired me. I'm not claiming it is better than his, just that it worked well in my meta. I am also constant;ly changing the build and finally added spheres on his results and recommendations.  
The primer is good but really, it is a Ducktape primer no matter how you disguise the fact. I would have liked a full primer by Psyduck or NaClhv but that is not meant on as a knock to you Toast. It is just nice to see how the deck evolved through the originator's eyes and his comments on the Dulmen decks would be welcome.

[Fishhead]

Quote For the same reason ducktape runs a lone gorilla shaman. With all the draw effects, it's not hard to get it.

You know, I wasn't ever convinced of Psyduck's latest versions.  I say without having played them as-is, and I also note that he seems to do well with them in casual games at C&Js.  So they don't suck, the question is whether they are the direction to develop the deck in.  Anyway -  here's a tangent that leads back into the draw-effects question:

One interesting decision is what the manabase of this deck should be.  Psyduck right now is running 13 land + 10 artifacts, which is a sparse 23 cards worth of mana.  The Dulmen decks ran 15 land + 4 fetchies + 9 artifacts for a typically German manabase of 28 cards.  

So thats a pretty big difference.  Especially when you consider that Psyduck is running 63 cards.  If you wonder how he managed to cram so many cool cards like Tsabos Web and Bauble in, thats 8 cards difference right there.  

Anyway, as a result of this, he's able to squeeze 4 Draw 7's into the deck while the Germans ran only 3 (no Windfall).  Actually, he's encouraged to do this by running the 4 Baubles - the Draw 7's have a nice synergy here.  But I dont think its a co-incidence that he feels "Pretty much the only factor in deciding weather to keep or mulligan is if you have a land in your hand or not."    

So the question is - do you play Combo (low land, 0cc artifacts, draw7s, one win condition) or Control (high land, redundancy in cards) with this deck?

[CHA1N5]

Quote So the question is - do you play Combo (low land, 0cc artifacts, draw7s, one win condition) or Control (high land, redundancy in cards) with this deck?

We need to create a term for this...

What is it, a sub-classification of a meta-type?  Combo Keeper anyone?

 IMO, Psyduck is crazy to run what amounts to "Baubles over land".  True, they have some synergy with the deck at the basest level, but I've said it before:  all Smokestack decks suffer from a low threat-density.  

I ran into this in Extended all the time.  The deck that I feared most, The Rock, has 7-8 Duress effects and 4x Deeds... you know what I lost to?  The guy that also had 1x maindeck Naturalize.  Because you're counting on each and every threat to be there.  The only time you don't care about people removing your Smokestack/TangleWire/Sphere is when you happen to have drawn a second

That said, I think that this question is very metagame dependent.  Against GAT & Keeper, Wastelands and speed are very important.  This likely neccesitates a higher land count and as much artifact acceleration as possible.  Against Aggro, your stuff is going to resolve, but how much will you be disrupted?  Draw-7's are very important against Wastelands, Duress and Shaman/Vandal.

Against every deck, you usually just want to draw this:

Workshop
Mox
Delta
Smokestack
Tangle Wire
Sphere
Welder

And be done with it

But, realistically, you're going to draw this:

Delta
Mox
Mox
Smokestack
Welder
Walk
?

And what that  is is the whole trick behind building the deck.  Do you want it to be a Mana Vault?  Windfall?  Will?  Balance?  Sphere?  I find that this is a useful mental exercise for deck construction, play, metagame and even mulligan issues/practice.

[Raven]

I know I'll probably get shot down for mentioning this, but I have recently been testing Howling Mine in the deck with supriseingly good results.

I found the baubles to be ok in the deck, but not really important. And after spheres hit the table, drawing into baulbes becomes annoying. And suddenly these cards that supposedly thin the deck out, become hard to cast keeping the deck fat.

When playing vs controll, I felt the need for a permenant drawing source. And the lone oath of scholars wasnt cutting it. At 4 mana, it was slow, and often times my opponent would take advantage of it. The deck seemed to get inconsistant draws, and needed aliitle bit of redundancy.

I just wasn't feeling the baulbes at all. Then I thought about trying Grafted Skull Caps again, but 4 mana was much too slow. And the caps hurt you before they help you by discarding. Then I came to Howling Mines, at a measly 2 mana, it is very common to drop a turn 1 mine.

And I know what everyone will say, Howling mine is a terrible card helping your opponent draw into cards. But the deck plays much like a turbo stasis build. The basic principle is that how can the howling mine benefit the opponent when they got smokestack/tanglewire/sphere of resistances to deal with?

And the howling mines double as a kill card, drop 2-3 of em get the lock and lay down the time vault for the good game hand shake. Draw 7's add to the decking effect as well.

A turn 1 Mine is a great play, and the mana curve is so low it's really easy to drop it. It just totally smoothed out the deck draws for me. Allowing for a much more consistant gameplay and a assurance of being able to draw plenty of cards.

Also I added a couple Copy Artifacts because they are the ultimate utility card. Need an extra mine to speed up the game? Copy it, or if you need an extra tangle wire, copy one, ditto with the spheres and smokestacks. And even better, if your mana base is hurting, copy a sol ring or mox, or the grandaddy, memory jar.

Haveing played turbo stasis back in the day to much success, I can safely say that howling mine can be a extreamly one sided card, and most people overlook it which useually leads to there demise. If your opponent is smart and stops the early mine, they have a better chance of winning, if they let it out, good game.

Basically this is what I'm testing right now. The obvious problem would be the sligh matchup wich is why the sideboard runs 4 Chill's. If a sligh deck can kill a deck running 4 chill/tanglewire/sphere/smokestack, then that sligh deck deserves my handshake.

// Artifacts
        4 Smokestack
        4 Howling Mine
        4 Tangle Wire
        4 Sphere of Resistance
        2 Time Vault
        2 Metalworker (Might Drop 1)
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Candelabra of Tawnos

// Red
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        4 Goblin Welder

// BLUE
        2 Copy Artifact (Extra tangle wires please)
        1 Fact or Fiction
        2 Meditate (Less dependant on these babies)
        1 Timetwister
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Tinker

// LAND
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Grim Monolith
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Diamond (Good for welder or permenant mox)
        1 Black Lotus
        4 Mishra's Workshop
        4 Volcanic Island
        2 Shivan Reef
        1 City of Traitors (My 5th Workshop)
        1 Polluted Delta
        1 Tolarian Academy

// SB: Anti-Blue/Controll/Combo
SB:  2 Defense Grid
SB:  4 Pyroblast

// SB: Anti-Mirror/TnT/Reccursive Decks
SB:  2 Tormod's Crypt
SB:  3 Rack and Ruin

// SB: Anti-Sligh
SB:  4 Chill

This is still a prototype, and testing will be done with the addition of white for balance if necessary. Also a maindeck zuran orb might be worth a look. And a maindeck Forcefield is also a idea. But the main difference is the 4 Mines and the copy artifacts. It really speeds up the deck, and makes for some turbo gameplay. But it does rely on decking your opponent so games "can" take awhile if you aren't carefull. But useually the mines make for quick finishes. And you can do some fun stuff with the copy artifacts depending on the opponent your playing and what artifacts he is useing

[NaClhv]

If anyone would write a definitive "primer" for ducktape, it would have to be Psyduck.  I could be the editor, though.  I'll talk to him and see if he wants to do it, although I somehow doubt he would do it.

Howling mine is not a bad idea at all.  Remember, if you're winning with this deck then your opponent has 7 cards in hand.  Howling mine also does everything that an artifact in this deck does.

Another card-drawer of interest in this deck is trade secrets.  Psyduck was very excited about this card for a while, but I don't know how it worked out.  Anyone have any opinions about whether this is any good or not?

My personal feel for the deck tells me that I would prefer the relatively high land count build, which baubles would probably have to be cut for.  Some of those extra lands would be strip/wastelands, so your main strategy won't be diluted by the presence of a high land count.  It would also be a U/R deck.

As for white in the deck... well, I'm not sold on argivian find.  Almost anything argivian find does, welders do better in this deck.  I already mentioned how I feel about tax/rack. - not bad, but not particularly great, either.  And therefore not worth giving up meditates and ancestral (which are "particularly great") for.

The one white card which would be truly great in this deck is balance.  It's tempting to add the whole color for just this card, and then to shore it up with the rest of white's not-bad-but-not-great cards.  Because balance is so strong, I'm not so sure that this would be a mistake.  

But having said all that, I would like to reiterate my aversion towards the "one optimal decklist" school of thought.  As I understand it, Bebe has had a great deal of success with his version of ducktape, and of course the dulmen decks have done well in their tournaments.  Much of the differences in these decks are metagame or personal playstyle choices.  Even the addition or omission of entire colors can be attributed to the two factors above.  I think what's important for US to do on this thread is to decide on the core cards which are NOT a metagame or personal playstyle choice, and then compile a list of those cards which could be used as these periphery cards.

About the naming of the deck - I feel it is important to distinguish between the archetype and its variants.  Sligh is an archetype:  goblin sligh and ankh sligh are its variants, and Legend Ankh Sligh is not quite a variant, just a particular build of a particular variant of an archetype.  Keeper is an archetype.  It's variants are paragon keeper, trinity, 5-color keeper, OSE, bloodmoon keeper, and others which I have undoubtedly failed to mention.

With this in mind, the assigning of names for this deck that we're talking about here becomes more clear:  Ducktape is the archetype.  Bebe's lock, stock and barrel, or Dulmen's smokestack decks, or even Psyduck's current build (which he calls by its archetype name - Ducktape - because after all, he's the deck creator) - they are the variants.

And lastly:
@bebe - Thanks for your post.  Having you say those things means a lot.
@Toast - I think your "primer" is a good resource to have, and I'm looking forward to part 2.

[thorme]

@Raven:  A 4 Howling Mine build is absolutely begging for a Black Vice.

I had great luck running Vice in my sideboard at the recent NOVA tournament to bring in vs GAT, Parfait, and Keeper decks.  Seems like it would certainly make the maindeck if you have 4 Mines.

[Raven]

Black vise is worth a good look since a turn 1 vise could very well be a good game vs alot of controll decks out there today. Follow it up with a sphere or tangle wire with a howling mine and you don't even have to bother with drawing half your deck to lock your opponent.

Further testing proved that copy artifact really should belong in any smokestack deck running blue. I droped down to 1 copy cause bad luck was giveing me opening hands with 2. But its such a good utility card, I would suggest everyone playtest 1 copy in there own version.

Me and Lord of the Goats came to similar agreements about the duleman smokestack decks. No smokestack deck should be able to get away with running 4 colors. And if you playtest the german version, you will often find yourself mana screwed with miss matching colors. But then you wonder how did those germans get away with such a horrible mana base? Look at the other decks in the duleman enviroment, they all run similar horrible mana bases. When everyone runs a bad mana base, it negates the effects. We here in the US tend to run more stable mana bases. No 4 colored deck should run 3 wastelands and strip mine, not to mention the un-useable workshops.

With that said, 3 colors is still dangerous waters to venture. Balance is a incredible card, but it's primary function i'm sure we would all agree is for creature controll. And testing 1 Forcefield has proved to be the answer. Saves our mana base from certain destruction and deals with everything from Mask-Naught to Morphling/Psycatog based builds. Nothing more frustraiting than loseing 3-4 permenants each upkeep and only dealing a measly 1 point of damage a turn. Zuran orb just adds to the fun.

As for trade secrets, I would shun the card just for the casting cost. Two Blue is hard to get especially when some versions only run 13-14 Lands. And with the addition of the howling mine, you don't feel the need for extra draw cards. I have cut down to just wheel of fortune, memory jar, timetwister, and ancestrall. The 2 meditates count as well I suppose, but the fact or fiction was just a slower wheel/twister card at an extra mana that didn't allow me to draw 7 cards. Windfall was situational and overkill with the mines in play.

Which leads me back to the black vise, while you would think it's a good card to drop in. Useually by the time I have my opponent locked I have done so much drawing and memory jars that useually there deck is down to 25-20 cards left. And with 2-3 mines out, thats only 8-5 turns they will live. Thats just as fast as a black vise kill. Unless of course you get a god ninja turn 1 hand with vise and lots of jankyness. I dunno, I'll try it.

[Zherbus]

Moved.

[Cling]

Howling Mine/Black Vise vs. other kill card debate:
Black Vise is a rather poor choice for a kill card, since your worst matchups by far are aggro decks of all sorts (TNT is quite the headache), and neither black vise nor howling mine contribute to helping win the matchup at all (like say, a karn would - pop them moxen!).  If your goal is to drop a first turn vise then stall like a madman until the vise can kick in, you're not playing the deck to its full potential.  You want your opening hand to be full of immediate threats, and vise/howling mine just don't make the cut in terms of card quality.


This, however, changes a bit when kill switches are added.  Kill Switch is a bomb vs. TNT, and I might go so far as to say that it's even more devastating than Rack/Ruin is.  Not only this, but the synergy between howling mine and switch can be overwhelming.  Switch is also quite a boost vs. another one of Stax' iffy matchups - Academy.  While you're busy setting up a lock, they're busy setting up a turn 2-3 kill.  The Academy matchup basically comes down to whether or not you get A) A Wasteland or two, or B) Sphere of Resistance on the table.  

Time Vault is also a suboptimal choice for a kill method. Sure, its great when you have a double counter stack and a wire on the table, but you've basically won the game by that point anyway, and vault does absolutely nothing to help you setup into that sort of position.  While I was running vaults, I was never ever happy to see one in my opening hand.

As for copy artifact, it does seem like an intriguing idea, and I'm very interested in trying it out.  I'll probably run a build like this.

//NAME: IWillMakeYouRefuseToPlayMe
// Prison
        4 Smokestack
        4 Sphere of Resistance
        4 Tangle Wire
// Utility
        4 Goblin Welder
        1 Copy Artifact
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Time Walk
// Draw/Search
        3 Meditate
        1 Tinker
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Timetwister
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Wheel of Fortune
// Kill
        2 Karn, Silver Golem
        1 Triskelion
// Mana
        4 Mishra's Workshop
        3 Volcanic Island
        2 Polluted Delta
        2 Flooded Strand
        2 Wasteland
        2 Underground Sea
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Plateau
        1 Badlands
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Grim Monolith
        1 Black Lotus
// Sideboard
SB:  3 Blood Moon
SB:  3 Red Elemental Blast
SB:  3 Kill Switch
SB:  3 Fire/Ice
SB:  3 Rack and Ruin

Metalworkers just weren't doing anything for me.  Usually if I had the mana to play a metalworker, I would rather be playing a more dangerous artifact like wire.
The Balance was decent too, being tutorable two ways, and it was nice having another way to kill evil opposing welders than just Trisk.  Even so, it was hurting the mana base far too much to be worth the splash.

[Toad]

As a good sideboard card against aggro decks and more precisely Sligh, you can mention the old Mirror Universe. After lots of testings against Sligh, I found this far superior to Bottle Gnomes or Chill. I've just access to 1 Mirror Universe, but If I could have more, I would definitly play 3 of these in my sideboard.

So far, my current sideboard looks like this :

1 Mirror Universe   -- comes in against Sligh   
2 Bottle Gnomes      -- should be 2 more Mirrors
2 Rack and Ruin      -- TNT and DuckTape variants
1 Shattering Pulse   -- idem
3 Fire/Ice      -- aimed at Welders and Sligh's critters
3 Blood Moon      -- obvious
3 Defense Grid      -- obvious

I'm currently running an U/R version, with a B splash for Demonic Tutor. I've dropped W because Balance with only 1 tutor is not worth the crappy mana base.

My only kill card is Karn (2 maindeck), I run no Time Vault and no Black Vise. I consider Time Vault as a suboptimal kill card because the opponent is not forced to scoop even if he's left with no permanent on the board, and can get the draw in a 50 minutes round. Black Vise is still an option, but if you negates the ability of playing spells to your opponents, it's just a matter of turns before he gets overwhelmed by Karn and his fellows animated artifacts, smashed for >20 in a turn. Karn is also a great blocker and helps for mana denial by eating moxens.

[Toast]

I was recently contacted by a person without a TMD account by the name of David Hernandez. We should see about getting this guy an account gomcse@thevine.net

For now at least he has given me permission to quote some of the things he has sent to me via email.

Quote I designed the Stacks-style deck back in September 2002. Initially it was based around J.P.Meyer's Stacker II deck.  In email with him in October 2002, I mentioned that i was building the stacker deck variant with Tanglewires and Smokestacks (email dated 10/11/2002).

The other cards i ran were ANKH OF MISHRA, BLACK VISE, and IRON MAIDEN.

At the time, i had not considered skipping turns (using Meditates, Chronotog, and/or Time Vaults).  I just wanted to build a  Stacker/Control deck that hosed permanents but utilized the power of Black Vise.  

I was trying to create a new variant of the old Vise-Age deck (Henry Sterns?), but using the framework of Stacker II.  

I ran the deck with Browbeat's for card drawing, along with the Wheel  and Memory Jar. Ankh's are amazing against GroTog, Keeper, and Emerald Alice.

The Iron Maiden/Black Vise were awesome.  The deck did well, although I only played it as small tourney's.  Here is the original build:

"Chocolate Cherries"

10 Mountain
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
(25)

4 Tanglewire
1 Memory Jar
4 Smokestack
3 Cursed Scroll
(12)

4 Goblin Welder
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Browbeat
1 Wheel of Fortune
(13)

2 Iron Maiden
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Black Vise
3 Copper Tablet
4 Ankh of Mishra
(11)

My current build is U/R:

1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crpyt
1 Grim Monolith
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Mana Vault
1 Strip Mine
2 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Island
4 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Polluted Delta
(30)

1 Ancestral recall
3 Meditate
1 Chronatog (the Meditates and Chronatog need to be 2 Time Vaults and 2 Spheres of Resistance, but I dont have them yet)
1 Timetwister
1 Timewalk
1 Waterfront Bouncer
1 Tinker
(9)

1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Goblin Welder
(5)

1 Memory Jar
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
1 Black Vise
(10)

2 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Juggernaut
2 Triskelion
(6)

My sideboard usually runs:

2 Jester's Cap
4 Pyroblast
2 Anarchy
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Dwarven Miner
2 Defense Grid
3 Blood Moon
(15)

I hope this is helpful.

--David.

when asked to explain his use of Bouncer he said:

Quote The Bouncer has been FANTASTIC in the main deck.  Against Nether Void it removes Negator/Hippie/Nantuko Shade.  Often, it finishes the lock by removing one more permanent from the opponent, and then the smokestack rolls over the remaining permanents. Against GroTog and TnT it is also very strong, and works well in conjunction with the Meditates to refill the hand while allowing Smokestack to operate in my favor.
 
When I buy 2 Time Vaults, this may change (I may need to reconsider the Bouncer) because of the lost card-drawing of Meditate.  I am considering 4 Howling Mines in the main to make up the difference while making the Stack deck more like a Turbo-Stasis deck.  
 
I am also considering a Claws of Gix or Despotic Scepter (1 or 2 main deck) to kill the Smokestack prior to the start of my turn.  Then, weld it back into play at the "same time", and put a counter back on it during my upkeep.  I lose "nothing", they lose "something".  I am working on a build like this now, and will probably pull Black Vise in favor of a Despotic Scepter.  Im not sure what second card to pull.  As always, a one-card change can alter the whole synergy, so I will test it with 1 Despotic and then decide if it is worth pursuing.

Thank you to david for being one of the elite few to actually email me.

p.s. I dont know if you are able to use tap abilities during your untap phase / beginning of upkeep. maybe those are old rules that I am thinking of, but some part of me is saying the only way you could do the weld out / weld back in , in time to add a counter is to weld it twice at the end of their turn (v.i.a. multiple welders)

[Cling]

OK, Copy Artifact turns out to be terrible.  Might replace with a maindeck shaman or somesuch.  Its just not worth it to run the copy artifact, its just a win more card 90% of the time.  The only thing you ever want to copy is a tangle wire, and if you dont draw one of those, its just a useless extra mana source or something.   Maybe maindeck Hurkyll's recall?  It can be quite the mana engine, and EOT recall can spell doom with a wire and the ability to generate lots of mana sphere-free.

[Toast]

Really? What have you been using as kill, because I found the copy to be quite useful. I generally copy Tangle Wire, Black Vise, Iron Maiden (which I am now testing), Howling Mine, and most importantly some of my opponent's fat during the TnT and mask matchups, it is almost like a form of artifact removal. I also would assume the copies would work wonders if you were running tubbies as kill.

Also, David cleared up that question I had about the welders.

Quote regarding multiple welders, the answer is 'no'.  I meant that before the end of the opponents turn I would Despotic Scepter my Smokestack, and then (still before the end of their turn) Welder the Smokestack back in.
 
Then, it will be my turn, and I will have a Smokestack available with no counters on it, and I can add a counter.  That way I lose nothing, but still keep the Smokestack lock going.

[Cling]

2 Karn is enough for the kill.   Black Vise is really sub par in this deck, because when facing an aggro deck (and those are the ones that give you the biggest headaches), you want to set your objective on locking them down.  Black Vise does nothing to contribute to your board position.  Howling mine is bad for the same reason.  With no removal, turn 1 pup turn 2 fanatic, pup can be a frightening prospect.

And don't try to tell me that smokestack is removal.  Its good, but if you try you treat it as a removal spell, youll lose many a game to a turn 1 negator.

[Toast]

Here is some more stuff from David:

Quote I went back and studied the various builds on TMD, including the Dulmen
builds on morphling.de.  

we all seem to agree that these are the foundation cards:

4 Smokestack
4 Tanglewire

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Timewalk
1 Tinker

1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Goblin Welder

1 Memory Jar
2 Karn, Silver Golem

7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Grim Monolith
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop

That's 34-cards. From there, we all seem to branch off.

We all agree that Time Vault and/or Meditates are required, but some
say to
use Time Vaults over the Meditates, and there are disagreements about
how
many of each to run.  We all know that the Meditates give us card
drawing
plus resource protection under a Smokestack, but the Time Vault
provides a
hard lock.  I am finding that a combination of the two work very well.
Ultimately, the Dulmen build appears (in my opinion) to have the best
overall **foundation**, and they ran only 3 Meditates (no Time Vault
and no
Chronatog). I think that the Dulmen build lacks the hard-lock.  We all
agree
that Chronatog is sub-optimal, but some players may have to run them
for
lack of Time Vaults (which now cost over $40 each on eBay).

I am seeing success with:

3 Meditate
1 Time Vault

The more I play Sphere of Resistance, the more I find that 4 are
required
for both the lock and for consistency. Previous comments from others
point
out that the Sphere's act like Nether Voids, and I agree. So, add:

4 Sphere of Resistance

Many of the players who have posted are running Juggernauts.  I was
doing
this as well because of the beat-down they provide, but after testing
the
Dulmen builds (which have no Juggernauts in them) I have taken them
out.
The Dulmen builds also used 2 Metalworkers, but I think that running 2
is
too much.  Some of the comments in this thread remark that the
Metalworkers
aren't needed.  I tend to agree, but in testing I am finding that ONE
Metalworker plus a Mana Vault are excellent.  The Mana Vault helps get
a
turn-1 explosion, while the Metalworker is fabulous under the Sphere's
of
Resistance. So, I added:

1 Metalworker
1 Mana Vault

There have been many comments about Windfall, and with the way this
deck
works I believe that Windfall belongs in the main (but only if you are
running a 2-color U/R version).  If you are running the U/R/b/w Dulmen,
Windfall loses to Yawgmoth's Will or Balance for the slot.  In a U/R
build,
add:

1 Windfall

For Spot removal, we have seen Masticore as well as Triskelion.  I
think the
synergy between Triskelion and Goblin Welder make the Triskelion a
better
choice for the main deck.  Some players may want a Masticore in the
sideboard (although I am running a second Triskelion in my sideboard
instead):

1 Triskelion

In reviewing the mana bases that people are running, there is a lot of
disagreement.  Here is what I have chosen for a U/R build, and 'why':

1 Strip Mine (for their Academy, or to pin them under a Sphere or a
Blood
Moon)
4 Volcanic Island (U/R)
3 Island (basic land vs. B2B and Blood Moon)
2 Mountain (basic land vs. B2B)
2 Wooded Foothills (fetch Volcanic Island or mountain as needed)
2 Polluted Delta (fetch Volcanic Island or Island as needed.)

Note that I have removed the 2 Wastelands (that some builds use) in
favor of
basic land.

Also, I am considering replacing the 2 Polluted Delta's with Flooded
Strands, and replacing 1 Island and 1 Mountain with 1 Plateau and 1
Tundra.
Then in the sideboard I can run Balance.

The Dulmen build uses a Mystical Tutor, but I don't see room for it.  

Sideboards vary widely with the local metagame, so I won't go into it
except
to mention what I will put in mine:

3 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast (Beta is TEQ!)
2 Shattering Pulse (buyback is good)
1 Rack and Ruin
3 Blood Moon
3 Bottle Gnomes
1 Triskelion

The winner of Dulmen did not run Tormod's Crypt.  The second place
finisher
did.  There was no difference between their decks, except for the
sideboard.
This made me believe that the first-place sideboard had better cards in
it,
thus my exclusion of Tormod's.  I personally like Jester's Caps, but
they
are too slow (I won't go into it-enough people have given good reasons
for
not using Caps).

Has anyone tried using Cunning Wish in the main, with some other
instants in
the side?

Also, having mentioned Nether Void earlier, I wonder if a Nether Void
B/R
version of this deck has been tested...?  Comments?

I wish I could post this conversation!

--David H.

P.S. while it is nice to be upping my post count with some one elses work, it might be easier to get Dave that account, I am sure there is other stuff he would be posting that he hasn't sent to me.

[Smmenen]

I would add that the Duelmen builds DID NOT use mana vault - which is fucking insane, btw.  


Steve