Q&A yep.

[Vegeta2711]

I'm bored, so I'm giving you guys a chance to randomly ask me something. Why? Because I hate posting on most other threads at this point in time. Most of the threads I start are about my own decks, so other than in a few of my articles I really don't talk about the meta at large. Remember my main fields lie in deckbuilding, aggro of all kinds and some combo. I do have some knowledge of CS and Gifts though.

So here you go. Few guidelines before we begin though. (Borrowed from Buktooth over at Shoryuken)

1) Be Specific!. You can't just rattle off a question like, 'omg teach me how to play fish' or 'wats the best build of CS?'. If you ask me, 'What's your opinion on the best win conditions for CS / Gifts decks?' then that's something I can get behind.

2) Use the search function before coming here. I'm not answering anything that's been gone over 4 million times before.

3) No Decklist Requests, that's what the search button is also for.

4) No incredibly retarded questions. These should be obvious.

5) I'll answer Tier structure questions in a very limited capacity. In general I'm going to ignore them, but if it's a specific ranking for a deck, that I'll probably just say it.

Oh and try not to write a thesis on any one question. I really hate anything that drones on.

[o]

Half of the top eight of the last SCG P9 tournament were fish.  Fish has exploded in popularity recently.  With that in mind, how many fish decks do you expect to top eight at the next SCG P9?  Less, because now everyone will bring out their super-secret fish hate, or more, because now more people are playing and innovating fish decks?  Personally I think something around 3 sounds reasonable, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

[Vegeta2711]

O -

Considering the next SCG event is in Chi-town, I don't expect nearly as many Fish decks to do as well. More shops = more bad matches for the little blue fishes. Still, I'd say I wouldn't be surprised if 2 slots of the next T8 was Fish. Jitte is a beating, plus Energy Flux, Serenity and Kataki provide plenty of board wrecking opportunities. Fish deck futures rely heavily on people contuning to play different builds and contuning to mutate them towards whatever meta you expect.

I think a lot of the effectiveness from the recent uprising of fish decks is:
1. How consistent they are
2. The fact that opposing decks have to deal with 3-4 different versions all with different weaponary. It reminds me quite a bit of Extended season with the 'same deck, yet different' type.

[silvernail]

At the last waterbury i used Stifle to counter mana drain's trigger ability, after the tournament i realised stifle said cannot counter mana abilities. So my question is this: can you counter mana drain's effect with stifle or does the ability count as a mana ability?
Rules questions belong in the rules forum.

With that said, Mana Drain's mana, like Eladamri's Vineyard mana, can be Stifled:

406.1. A mana ability is either (a) an activated ability that could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves or (b) a triggered ability that triggers from a mana ability and could produce additional mana. A mana ability can generate other effects at the same time it produces mana.
-Jacob

[Smmenen]

1) From a theoretical standpoint - shouldn't the card Oath of Druids be seeing more play and in more variety given how good Fish and Workshop aggro decks are?  Even if the lists don't use Orchard - the quantity of creatures in the format seems to suggest that Oath would be good - at least better than the metagame gives it credit for - no?

2) What decks should use Pithing Needle and in what quantities?

3) What happened to Gifts decks - it looked like everyone loved them and now lots of people have stopped playing them?  What happened?

4)  Is Ideas Unbound broken?  If so, what deck does it belong in?  If its a new deck, what does that deck look like?

[Nantuko Rice]

What's up with WU Tang Fish. Why doesn't anyone wanna play with it anymore. Is it decided somewhere that Vial/Chalice fish is the better build?

Why do people bother playing WTF (U/G). The white component of fish is much more useful than a "faster clock." Why does a clock matter if your opponent is locked down.

Vial/Chalice fish builds have only 4 force of wills. Is this enough? WU builds have around 8 counters as well as mages.

[RThomas]

For the next SCG Chicago, I look to play FCG. I've built my build around a lot of the European decklists. I've noticed that most builds have Maze of Ith in the sideboard, something I haven't seen in the US (Mike Zaun's list, for example). I know you had a hand in creating FCG, so I was hoping you could give some insight on why this is such a prevalent card over there, and could it do well in Chicago?

[silvernail]

meh im bored too so i'll try to answer peoples questions

from steve:
) From a theoretical standpoint - shouldn't the card Oath of Druids be seeing more play and in more variety given how good Fish and Workshop aggro decks are?  Even if the lists don't use Orchard - the quantity of creatures in the format seems to suggest that Oath would be good - at least better than the metagame gives it credit for - no?

oath has issues with Meddling Mage naming oath as well as the number of echoing truths and Rushing Rivers i've seen recently, aside from that your analysis seems correct.

2) What decks should use Pithing Needle and in what quantities?
Hard to say really it does a number of neat things, it comes down to this: what card(s) are you trying to use this against most often and is this the best answer to that card or cards. the versitility alone suggests many decks can use it as a 2 of in their SB to combat anything they want with it .

3) What happened to Gifts decks - it looked like everyone loved them and now lots of people have stopped playing them?  What happened?

Not sure but ive heard some say they got bored with the deck but other than that I'm in your boat sir, what did happen?

4)  Is Ideas Unbound broken?  If so, what deck does it belong in?  If its a new deck, what does that deck look like?

broken - no why - its a sorcery and require double blue. this means in decks that want to abuse it ( IE combo) they do many things that are contradictary: they tap out on their turn(potentialy), loose possiblity for open drain mana,run more blue sources comapred to other needed mana colors(usually black see TPS or 2 land belcher)
All in all it isnt broken initaly because it requires you to work around its inherent disadvatages, but that being said you could likley design something that abuses it just because type 1 is like that.

next onto mister Rice

What's up with WU Tang Fish. Why doesn't anyone wanna play with it anymore. Is it decided somewhere that Vial/Chalice fish is the better build?

Why do people bother playing WTF (U/G). The white component of fish is much more useful than a "faster clock." Why does a clock matter if your opponent is locked down.

Vial/Chalice fish builds have only 4 force of wills. Is this enough? WU builds have around 8 counters as well as mages.

your questions all pertain to one similar one: why dont people run UW fish the Tang way?

Well vial gets your men out leaving you mana to do other things with meaning your doing more than the average no vial fish per turn. Chalice can slow people down such that you gain tempo advantage and that is what fish has always been about since day one either via mana denial or some other means.

WTF is an aggro deck standard fish and vial fish are aggro control decks, the game plan of each build is differnt.

and finally shorele

For the next SCG Chicago, I look to play FCG. I've built my build around a lot of the European decklists. I've noticed that most builds have Maze of Ith in the sideboard, something I haven't seen in the US (Mike Zaun's list, for example). I know you had a hand in creating FCG, so I was hoping you could give some insight on why this is such a prevalent card over there, and could it do well in Chicago?

well i am not him but maze of ith deals with oath of druids primarily( as well as being an option vs colossus) which i believe oath is seen more often over there than over here which is why maze sees more play there than here. All things considred its hard to say because it really is there to deal with oath of druids and bring it if you think oath will be big that day. Recently oath hasnt shown up much so i woudlnt run them. What would i run, i dont know perhaps pithing needles would be good.

[o]

2) What decks should use Pithing Needle and in what quantities?

At first, I believe this card is gonna generate some hype and scare people to changing certain decks, or just staying away from certain decks altogether.  After a while I think people will discover what trash it really is.  Honestly it's terrible as a maindeck card because it's hard to know what to name before it's too late.  It is quite likely to see play in some sideboards (fish perhaps), but if you look at any of its specific uses (welder/dragon/etc..), you will always find a better card for the job.  The one thing this card has going for it is its versatility, but that really doesn't matter when you could just dedicate something better to sore up your bad matches.  So I wouldn't stock up on them, but hey, that's just my opinion.

[yodoblec]

I'm glad that this thread was started, it looks like it'll prove to be a nice helper.

My question is, what chance does storm combo stand with aggro-control on it's way up which could potentialy make control numbers fall a little bit?

[Rico Suave]

At the last waterbury i used Stifle to counter mana drain's trigger ability, after the tournament i realised stifle said cannot counter mana abilities. So my question is this: can you counter mana drain's effect with stifle or does the ability count as a mana ability?

Mana Drain's ability is not a mana ability, it is a triggered ability (begins with "at") and therefore you can Stifle it.

[Vegeta2711]

1) From a theoretical standpoint - shouldn't the card Oath of Druids be seeing more play and in more variety given how good Fish and Workshop aggro decks are? Even if the lists don't use Orchard - the quantity of creatures in the format seems to suggest that Oath would be good - at least better than the metagame gives it credit for - no?

2) What decks should use Pithing Needle and in what quantities?

3) What happened to Gifts decks - it looked like everyone loved them and now lots of people have stopped playing them? What happened?

4) Is Ideas Unbound broken? If so, what deck does it belong in? If its a new deck, what does that deck look like?

In order now.
1: Oath of Druids as a card is actually impressive right now. The deck itself might have some flaws to be fixed, but the card can be very effective right now and I'm suprised that so few people are using it. I think part of it is that (Some) MWS and Fish decks now no longer auto-lose to a resolved Oath and that it takes a turn to effectively function. The other part is people just refusing to change what creatures they run, even though there are some obvious choices which are more effective than SOTN / Akroma / Hydra agains aggro at the moment. For example, Crater Hellion clears almost any creature currently played from the board and dies so you can Oath up another creature the following turn. Spike Weaver can fog for 3 turns while you either Oath up another creature to win with or another Spike to 'go infinite' with. This effectively stops DSC and more Jitte counters from accumulating. Oathing up Rector w/ Therapy is also a very valid option many combo decks seem to overlook, despite the obvious goodness involved against aggro.

It's sort of funny, a 3-4c control deck could be viable right now with it's main defense against creatures being Oath -> Exalted Angel or DSC or anything similar, as you said, without Orchard. I chalk this up to the fact that Oath saw nearly no play pre-Orchard so everyone absolutely must run it to even consider the card.

2: I'd like to say Fish, but only later once the meta adjusts. I expect it to see more play in boards when people start playing more removal, then it'll be used to shut off EE, Old Man, Disk and other various permenant based removal. I actually think Dragon could gain the most out of the use of Needle, why? It shuts off Wasteland, which is one of the biggest detriments (at least in my experince) to comboing off early in the game. If Tog or Welders ever came back to be a major force, I could also see it being used. Ironically though the Tog decks probably will just replace Tog with Tinker -> DSC so it matters a lot less now.

One of the least talked about uses of the Needle is to shut off Vial for a deck like CS or Gifts. Considering that Vial allows them to fight multiple counter wars over creatures (Counter fight over Vial and then the creature itself) or dodge counters entirely while leaving mana open.. it may be worthwhile. Also note turn 1 Chalice won't stop you from dropping a Needle if you want (Unlike higher costing anwsers).

3: This has just been my experince with them, but I've found 2 issues / events which I think caused the deck to fade.
A. It's vunerable mana base and threshold of 7-9 mana for an 'I-Win' situation to occur (barring blind Tinker for DSC).

The decks have very efficent mana bases that can stand up well to losing a land, but if you can shut down the artifact mana or hit multiple lands, the deck sort of flounders. It can draw all the cards it wants, but suddenly as long as it gets limited to only casting 1, or maybe 2, a turn the opponent can just goldfish you. U/G and W/U Vial Fish decks abused this and were mostly proven to be effective counters to the average Gifts build. By effectively denying it's mana it usually is just casting card drawing spells to make other cards 'live' again. Chalice is huge in this match because everything in the Gifts deck that affects the board costs so damn much. It's also useful to note how little it DOES effect the board before it tries to win, this is why certain MWS decks can also effectively stall it out for a Juggernaut or similar beater to go all the way.

B. Control Slaver was proven not to be completely inferior to said Gifts decks.

The original consensus was that Gifts did everything CS did, but better. After a number of tourneys and infinitely more testing, a number of people are beginning to discard that notion and go back to CS or just switch to a Fish deck for consistencies sake. Other control decks like Oath and CS were also showing better aggro games than Gifts, so that was another part of the switch I believe.

4:
A. I think it's a decent card, but not broken. UU limits it a LOT to what it's worth playing in. WOTC put just enough of a drawback on here to prevent it from being awesome.
B. I originally thought it'd be a good addition for Affinity or a new breed of Madness decks. This hasn't proven to be the case though as, as listed above, UU is a harsh mana requirement with the added drawback of limiting what you can do during your mainphase.
C. Honestly? Welder Reanimator or a new build of the other two decks I listed. The only decks I've had even mixed results in was a deck a bit like turbo-titan / CA. On turn 1 I typically have better plays than Careful Study and so it makes sense to use the beefier better versiion of it. The card isn't broken or even great, but it's efficent and not a complete crapfest in these sorts of decks.

Ironically the archetype I find REALLY can't support it is combo. I much rather play Night's Whisper or Meditate than try and come up with consistent UU cost unless I'm playing High Tide.

What's up with WU Tang Fish. Why doesn't anyone wanna play with it anymore. Is it decided somewhere that Vial/Chalice fish is the better build?

Why do people bother playing WTF (U/G). The white component of fish is much more useful than a "faster clock." Why does a clock matter if your opponent is locked down.

Vial/Chalice fish builds have only 4 force of wills. Is this enough? WU builds have around 8 counters as well as mages.

W/U Fish seems to be seeing plenty of play, though all of the builds differ in some ways. There doesn't look to be a consensus 'best build' list. Though I think about 52+ of the cards are pretty much standardized at this point in time (Ninja is hot, Seal of Cleansing and Crucible are good, etc.) just in different amounts. The normal Null Rod builds also seem to be getting more play than the UW Vial builds (or that's how it looks to me at least) for the time being.

People play the U/G builds because they do something Fish hasn't been able to do in a while. Win the game in an reasonable amount of time, without having to completely cripple the opponent. Mongrel and Rootwalla w/ Jitte speed the deck's clock up enough to reasonably win on turn 5 or 6. When you have Chalice, FoW and strips backing you up in the short-term, that sort of speed is great. WTF really reminds me of RDW in it's playstyle and configuration.

 I'll put it like this - UW Goal: Strip the opponent of key cards through Thief, Null Rod and counters. Gain tempo and plenty of damage, but also while directly going after the opponents strategy.

UG Goal: Slow the opponent down using Chalice, Vial, strips and FoW. Deny mana to create dead cards in hand and limit how much he can stop you. Beat him down before he recovers from tempo loss and is able to use all the dead cards he had.

UW is actively trying to dismantle your strategy by limiting key cards you can play or draw into. UG doesn't care what or how much the opponent draws as long as s/he can't cast the relevant spells in time. As such I think the UW Vial builds only running 4 counters may be lacking a bit, but UG builds should't care.

Does that answer the basic questions?

For the next SCG Chicago, I look to play FCG. I've built my build around a lot of the European decklists. I've noticed that most builds have Maze of Ith in the sideboard, something I haven't seen in the US (Mike Zaun's list, for example). I know you had a hand in creating FCG, so I was hoping you could give some insight on why this is such a prevalent card over there, and could it do well in Chicago?

I would guess it's so FCG can have a better Oath game. Most builds can't remove it, so suddenly they take 3/4x longer to kill you than before. It also could be used against the Gifts DSC-only winners. Unless they have 28891278923 million mana to wish for an answer, time walk, swing, etc. it means they can't kill you in the normal 1/2 extra turns they get. It's unique and can serve a purpose in these few matches so I won't say it's a bad choice, I definitely have questions about it being optimal in the deck board though.

I'm glad that this thread was started, it looks like it'll prove to be a nice helper.

My question is, what chance does storm combo stand with aggro-control on it's way up which could potentialy make control numbers fall a little bit?

Short answer: Aggro-control makes playing combo even riskier as it makes the statistical gambling decks (SX, Belcher, Kobolds) literal byes, while taking away a few of the easier matches other combo has. The influx of Chalices may not break combo's back, but it certainly doesn't help it's already waining presence in the metagame. The fact that your opponent might be going Turn1: Chalice @ 0, Brainstorm into Turn2: Thief w/ FoW in hand isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy thought for combo players.

I might edit more into this answer later, so sleepy now.

[Hi-Val]

What's up with WU Tang Fish. Why doesn't anyone wanna play with it anymore. Is it decided somewhere that Vial/Chalice fish is the better build?

Why do people bother playing WTF (U/G). The white component of fish is much more useful than a "faster clock." Why does a clock matter if your opponent is locked down.

Vial/Chalice fish builds have only 4 force of wills. Is this enough? WU builds have around 8 counters as well as mages.

My takes on thisL

Chalice on the first turn seems better than Null Rod on the second, because Chalice stops Tinker and that's all Fish really cares about. Null Rod doesn't stop the welding in of fat men either, and I found that it's generally too slow to stop me when I'm playing combo or control.

People play WTF because UW Fish beats the tar out of everything and WTF beats the tar out of UW Fish.

The big threats against Fish is Tinker. Vial Fish runs 4 Thieves and 4 Bouncers, along with 4 Mages. That makes Tinker a lot less scary. Jitte answers Welders in a big way too. I guess the bigger question is, what do you really want to counter? Fish isn't a mana denial deck like it was before.

[slicer]

Hi,

For a long time I've been playing UR Stax. Since Trinisphere gone I have difficulties in beating Oath. I tried different SB-strategies with Duplicant, Goblin Bombardment, EE, Spawning Pit and REB but none was successful enough. My current configuration contains REBs, Ensnaring Bridge and Gilded Drake because i feel, that you can't win the war against Orchard ( despite wastelands) but you can stop them from attacking you. That is also the reason that I keep my welders after boarding.
My question is : What do you think is the best way/strategy for MWS-decks to fight Oath.
 
EDIT:
I want to stick with the UR build, because I don't like  COBs and the horrible Gemstone Mines, although I know there are better Sideboard options with a 5-color manabase.

[Nantuko Rice]

UW Fish has ummm.... Swords to Plowshare. That handles everything except Iridescent and Pristine. Your opponent has one copy of Tinker, you have 3-4 copies of swords (most likely 3).

I agree with what Vegeta says. If you're going to play Vial Fish, play UG. If you're planning to play UW Fish, you need more than 4 counters because the clock just isn't fast enough.

When I built WU Tang fish, it's intent was to be able to beat Welder Decks as well as other fish decks by the inclusion of 3 swords and 4 javelineers. UG Fish can also easily beat other fish decks through sheer strength and beat other decks by stealing tempo, but sometimes tempo stealing doesn't work out perfectly. Are there any numbers floating around that show this?

EDIT: Actually, if i were to play wu tang now I wouldn't play 4 javelineer, maybe 2. Most of the fish creatures just got bigger (thanks WTF). They also can't do anything against mages and thieves. They were the proper metagame call back in the day because people still played bad fish creatures like Cloud of Faeries and Spiketail. Those creatures today don't fare well anymore.

[Hi-Val]

So 3 answers to Tinker vs. 12 answers to Tinker? That doesn't seem comparable at all, especially considering that the answers that Vial Fish can play are essentially uncounterable.

Jitte also speeds up the clock in the deck tremendously. It can't close the gap like WTF can as quickly, but when you only lose to Tinker, you have a bit of time to race.

Slicer: Oath is just a bad matchup : \ Do you run Tangle Wires? Those might help out. I'd be careful of running artifact solutions to Oath, since postboard they have Energy Flux or Naturalize or a host of other cards. A safer bet might be Goblin Bombardment, especially since it doesn't get hosed by Null Rod. However, you can't weld it in, so I guess there's a tradeoff. Winning the match against Oath is about getting an early Smokestack and stacking away their board for a while. Oath is a permanent-light deck and so when you go after the mana, sometimes it falters.

[nartman99]

Ok, so I have an opening hand strategy question here.

Your playing Menendian's Stax decklist from the 2nd last Star City tournament and your playing against Leviat.dec.
You won the dice roll and you are playing first.
You know what deck your opponent is playing.
Your opening hand consists of:

Mana Crypt
City of Brass
Mishra's Workshop
Trinisphere
In the Eye of Chaos
Chains of Mephistopheles
Gorilla Shaman

What is the best first turn play?
I only ask because there is a lot of arguing over the best first turn play between myself and some friends so I wanted to see what you guys thought.

Thanks in advance!

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

 Turn 1 crypt, MWS, sphere. All day. the point of stax is to deny the opponent of permanents. by casting turn 1 sphere, you shut off all accel the have, and you open yourself to play through counters. Even if they wate, you have city to cast your other spells. If you play anything else turn 1, you give the opponent the chance to comeback.

-Bob

[shade88]

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

[Vegeta2711]

Ok, so I have an opening hand strategy question here.

Your playing Menendian's Stax decklist from the 2nd last Star City tournament and your playing against Leviat.dec.
You won the dice roll and you are playing first.
You know what deck your opponent is playing.
Your opening hand consists of:

Mana Crypt
City of Brass
Mishra's Workshop
Trinisphere
In the Eye of Chaos
Chains of Mephistopheles
Gorilla Shaman

What is the best first turn play?
I only ask because there is a lot of arguing over the best first turn play between myself and some friends so I wanted to see what you guys thought.

Thanks in advance!

1st turn 3sphere. It's the most potent 1st turn play you have and leaves you with plenty of back-up options in case of FoW.

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

Most Fish builds run minimal artifact mana and hence only have 2-3 zero cost artifacts to sacrifice, then you'd have to sac stuff like Null Rod or Crucible. The Vial builds run signficantly more artifacts so they have a much easier time running the combo if they want. The other thought is why you'd dilute a normally very consistent type of deck with a random combo. Yes it can randomly win the game, but it can also cause dead cards to pile up or only be usable if your willing to sacrifice a useful card like Chalice or something. Ultimately I think that's why it hasn't been immediately accepted by Fish players at large yet.

[Hi-Val]

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

I think Kowal ran it in his WTF list. The big problem is that if C Lo. gets stuck in your hand, there is no way to get him out (unless you have mongrels in the deck or ramp Vial to 11 : ) ) so you end up with a dead card in the deck and a dead card in hand. Fish's draws are so crappy anyway that you can't risk drawing that one Colossus or drawing Tinker when you need a mana denial component. Tinker/DSC is really nice, but I'm not sure that Fish is the deck for it.

[shade88]

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

I think Kowal ran it in his WTF list. The big problem is that if C Lo. gets stuck in your hand, there is no way to get him out (unless you have mongrels in the deck or ramp Vial to 11 : ) )

not to mention waterfront bouncer which also helps against oath and an opposing colossus.
I am probably going to test a deck in the near future running 3-4x waterfront bouncer, 2x moxen, 2x crucible of worlds, and 4x null rod. Giving the deck a way to shuffle the colossus and 8 artifacts to sacrifice, effectively giving the deck 3 null rods 1 crucible and 2 moxen to sacrifice with no real worries. Is running this setup realistic for fish, or too much anit synergy and dead cards?

Edit: If I also play kataki, which is a legend, that is going to leave the deck with a slew of unplayable cards, which might mean ideas unbound could replace standstill or work alongside it, time will tell

[Dzy]

Pretty simple question. Why doesn't fish run tinker, mystical tutor, and darksteel colossus?

I think Kowal ran it in his WTF list. The big problem is that if C Lo. gets stuck in your hand, there is no way to get him out (unless you have mongrels in the deck or ramp Vial to 11 : ) )

not to mention waterfront bouncer which also helps against oath and an opposing colossus.
I am probably going to test a deck in the near future running 3-4x waterfront bouncer, 2x moxen, 2x crucible of worlds, and 4x null rod. Giving the deck a way to shuffle the colossus and 8 artifacts to sacrifice, effectively giving the deck 3 null rods 1 crucible and 2 moxen to sacrifice with no real worries. Is running this setup realistic for fish, or too much anit synergy and dead cards?

I think you should test it, because I think because Fish already has so much dead draws mid-late game, another would hurt even more. Since Fish doesnt play Drains, hardcasting is no option either until very-very-very lategame, when you've probably lost anyway.

[Freelancer]

I think you should test it, because I think because Fish already has so much dead draws mid-late game, another would hurt even more. Since Fish doesn't play Drains, hardcasting is no option either until very-very-very lategame, when you've probably lost anyway.

To be fair I have ramped a aether vial before to 11 with fish and casted a colossus that way (yes I actually won that game), it doesn't happen often though. And yeah that was in the very-very-very lategame, I guess I just wanted to brag about the fact that I vialed a colossus with fish.


And a question off my own:

How competitive do you consider birdsh*t to be? And what are its weakest aspects? Any idea's how to improve this? (not asking for a decklist, just guidelines)

[racetraitor]

agreed. the WTF build I'm using at the moment has 3 Brainstorms in addition to 4 Mongrels, and getting stuck with Collossus in hand has never been an issue so far. mystical is also very nice to have in the deck, finding time walk often gives you the time you need to get those final points of damage in vs. a midtempo combo deck like Gifts or TPS, and getting ancestral puts you way ahead in a topdecking war. when it comes to standard fish the tinker plan becomes more of a liability imo, since you have less artifacts and ways of getting rid of the collossus if it ends up in your hand.

[49 Cents]

Ok, so I have an opening hand strategy question here.

Your playing Menendian's Stax decklist from the 2nd last Star City tournament and your playing against Leviat.dec.
You won the dice roll and you are playing first.
You know what deck your opponent is playing.
Your opening hand consists of:

Mana Crypt
City of Brass
Mishra's Workshop
Trinisphere
In the Eye of Chaos
Chains of Mephistopheles
Gorilla Shaman

What is the best first turn play?
I only ask because there is a lot of arguing over the best first turn play between myself and some friends so I wanted to see what you guys thought.

Thanks in advance!

You have a godhand. I'd say MWS, Trini, and if he counters you drop a turn 2 Chains so he isn't going to bazaar anymore.. But a first turn Trini hurts ALOT, but that's against EVERY deck exept shop.dec

[Revvik]

If you're playing Cron Stax against a deck running no wastelands, would it be better NOT to drop the Crypt before the Trinisphere?  Next turn, you're going to be able to pay three for it, play a city, and use both to play Chains of Mephistopheles anyways, I just think opening yourself up to another turn of unnecessary Crypt damage isn't a good idea.

[rvs]

If you're playing Cron Stax against a deck running no wastelands, would it be better NOT to drop the Crypt before the Trinisphere?  Next turn, you're going to be able to pay three for it, play a city, and use both to play Chains of Mephistopheles anyways, I just think opening yourself up to another turn of unnecessary Crypt damage isn't a good idea.

No, that is a bad idea, since you could also draw something useful to cast off the Shop mana.

[Revvik]

If it's Cron Stax, the only castable thing that would cost six is Karn, a singleton at five mana.  Maybe Smokestack, but you already have several powerful spells in hand that may take precedent.
But then, this is against Leviat, does your life total really matter that much?

[Jacob Orlove]

If it's Cron Stax, the only castable thing that would cost six is Karn, a singleton at five mana.  Maybe Smokestack, but you already have several powerful spells in hand that may take precedent.
But then, this is against Leviat, does your life total really matter that much?

His point was that you could draw some cheap artifact to cast off the shop, while you tap your Crypt and City to play whatever colored spell you want to drop. If you had to tap the shop to play the Crypt, then that other artifact would be stranded in your hand for at least a turn.