Filling out 5 Colour Stax

[b-tings]

I've been playing this deck for kicks locally in Vancouver, and recently got to take it for a spin at a Mox tourny in Seattle, coming in fourth. Since then, I've found several cards I absolutely HATE maindeck. For reference, here is the list I played in Seattle:

Ben Wilinofsky
5-color Stax
*Lock Parts*
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
*Dudes*
1 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
1 Karn, Silver Golem
*Search*
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
*Assorted Goodies*
1 Time Walk
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
1 Memory Jar
1 Tinker
*Mana*
1 Crop Rotation
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
4 Mishra's Workshop

 
Fiddling with the deck since, I've tried all sorts of things ranging from seemingly obvious additions to outside-the-box to borderline insane. Some of these include a single Jester's Cap, Demonic Consultation, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, a single Ancient Tomb, 3 Dark Rituals (Yes, I am a fast mana junky. Sue me.), 4 Welders, 4 Juggernauts, 1 Duplicant, between 1 and 2 Skeletal Scryings, 4 Duress, and probably some things I'm forgetting.

Going over the cards that I tested that didn't make the cut:

Jester's Cap is quite the hotsex against a lot of decks; Decks with 3 or fewer win conditions include Meandeck Gifts, Dragon (pre-board), some iterations of Stax (mostly my build as far as I can tell), TPS, Oath, and the occasional Sensei deck skirting on Cunning Wishes. However, with only a single copy main, it is often mana-intensive and slow to Cap someone. Additionally, it is awful against pretty much anything it doesn't win the game against (Meandeck Tendrills, off the top of my head, is the only deck it doesn't hardlock against where it could conceivably be good), and even the decks with fewer than three win conditions can survive a Cap simply by holding onto a win condition. Ultimately, Cap is a gamebreaker when it's good and expensive Smokestack fodder when it's not. May find some space in the sideboard, but as a singleton it's too random. If the Meta gets drastically warped in favour of Gifts, I may play these main, but either way it will not be in singleton form.

Demonic Consultation, and it's baby brother Spoils of the Vault, are two of my favourite tutor effects, simply because they are so powerful when they work. 1 mana for a card of your choice is a damn fine deal. My reasoning was that the lock parts which make up the heart of this deck are all 3- and 4-ofs, and that consultation could act as flexible additional copies at a cheap cost, as well as fetching timely Wastelands, Mishra's Workshops, or running the gamble for a 1- or 2-of when necessary. The problem with Consultation arose not from the usual minor drawback (killing you), but rather from the removal of cards from the deck. That old adage that cards in library are irrelevant until they are drawn is a drastic oversimplification. Every one-of you remove from your deck gives you one less option for your tutors. Another very real risk is that you will remove all three of your win conditions, and even if you can set up an unbreakable lock, the fact that you consulted will almost surely mean you will get decked. Another problem is that this card isn't cheap enough. I'm completely serious. I wanted this to add to the redundancy of my lock parts, but because it costs coloured mana, it is extremely difficult to resolve this and any lock part other than chalice of the void turn one. It requires either two fast mana sources or mana crypt AND coloured land, or jet/petal/lotus AND Mishra's Workshop. In practice, these situations don't occur often enough for Consultation to act as a redundant lock part; instead, it is relegated to late game utility like Vampiric and Demonic, a role that Consultation does not play well.

Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Ancient Tomb, Dark Rituals were all attempts to speed the deck up. It is a nigh-unbreakbale rule of Stax that failing a turn one lock part, you have to mulligan (the only exception is Recall, which can dig you into fast mana or chalice for 0. But not every hand with coloured source + recall is keepable). This requires two things: lock parts and fast mana. Since all the best lock parts are crammed into the deck, I gave some of the fast mana a whirl. Chrome Mox was tested with the full set of Welders to in order to maximize pitchable cards, and still came up short. Ancient Tomb was pretty much a bad 5th Workshop that dealt me damage. It's possible that this could still make the cut, but for now it didn't really make any bad draws good or any good draws incredible, so I'm dissatisfied. Grim Monolith is the worst Sol Ring ever, and will not be making the cut before Ancient Tomb.

The Welders were...

What's that?

No, I never tested Dark Ritual in the deck.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

The Welders were something that was bad because Steve and Kevin said they were bad, and I could see IN THEORY why they were bad, but because I suddenly had a huge gaping hole to fill, I gave them a whirl. They were bad for all the reasons I could see in theory: they only really have an interesting interaction with Smokestack with the lack of Thirsts, and first turn Welder is a bad play because it usually means you're not casting first turn lock part (this is all aside from screwing up Balance). Despite their ho-hum synergy with the rest of the deck, they make tinkering into Colossus difficult, and that is fairly good in today's metagame. These, like Jester's Cap, may be revisited as a maindeck option if Gifts makes a push in the Northwest.

4 Juggernauts was simply not the direction I wanted to take this deck in at this time. Juggernaut is very good at what it does and an excellent addition to a Workshop Aggro deck; for the time being, my deck is not that deck.

Having come back to this point, I do not feel that I provided a particularly valid reason, so I'm going to elaborate. Juggernaut is, in my opinion, an extremely bad lock part. It trades speed for power, something you cannot afford to do in Type 1. It does this by doing nothing for three turns, but winning the game on the fourth. Compare this to Smokestack, a similarly costed lock part, which takes a permanent on your opponent's second turn after resolving, and 1 or 2 following that, and soforth. This is my reasoning against Juggernaut.

1 Duplicant was one of those things that didn't immediately make me go "ick," and appears to be the logical replacement for the Triskelion I removed from the main (See below), as an out to random large things that may or may not be indestructible. Duplicant is an excellent "out" to a bad situation, but I have a general philosophy that it is better to set up your deck to be as focused as possible and minimize how often you need an out rather than having a ton of options but always needing to find them because you drew the wrong out at the wrong time (a la Keeper). For now, Duplicant has not been discarded, but it has not earned it's place either.

Skeletal Scryings were too often under the wrong conditions. You need 3 cards in your graveyard or an opposing Welder to make Scrying better than Night's Whisper, and that costs 4 non-shop mana. None of the cards in my deck cost 4 non-shop mana. In addition, Scryings are antisynergistic (do we have a shorter word for this yet?) with Crucible of Worlds, the now-absent Yawgmoth's Will, and Sphere of Resistance. These do, however, represent an interesting plot point in my testing: trying to find a draw engine for the deck. Can I do better?

4 Duress were slightly less bad than Welders, but were bad for the same reasons, and are arguably worse in the later game than Welders are, which is when I have to cast these things. I like the idea, but in the end it just does too little.

I have made 6 subtractions and one addition since then; my current test list looks like this:

*Lock Parts*
4 Smokestack
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
*Dudes*
1 Sundering Titan
2 Karn, Silver Golem
*Search*
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
*Assorted Goodies*
1 Time Walk
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Balance
1 Tinker
*Mana*
1 Crop Rotation
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
4 Mishra's Workshop

Changes are: -1 Engineered Explosives -1 Yawgmoth's Will -1 Mind Twist -1 Mystical Tutor -1 Memory Jar -1 Triskelion +1 Karn +5 VACANT SLOTS

The second Engineered Explosives was simply a bad draw too often. Against Fish, where it could clear up chalices, two-drops, or Aether Vial, it was good. Against everything else, where it basically played Mox clean-up on the draw, it was awful way too often. At least it's cheap smokestack fodder. The second Karn fares about as well on Mox Cleanup as the second explosives, being a turn or two slower at times but not hitting your own moxes. Against Fish he's decent on defense as long as they don't draw bouncer, and other aggro decks don't have that (although shop has Razormane which can get through). However, Karn also does something fantastically well the Explosives doesn't: end games. He's a bona-fide threat that can cripple mana bases and swarm a Darksteel Colossus. He's not as cheap as explosives, which can hurt, but what he lacks in efficiency he makes up for in versatility, being a generally good card to draw rather than a specifically good one. Second explosives may make the cut again in a Fish/FCG heavy metagame, and if not will certainly kick around the Sideboard.

The Yawgmoth's Will was a mulligan every time I drew it in the opener. Obviously, Will is a late-game card, but between Spheres, chalices for 0, and Workshops, I did not feel as though I was maximizing Will's power. This is one of the more recent cuts and one that I'm not entirely positive about.

Mind Twist, like Yawgmoth's Will, was a victim of being an excellent card that cost more than 2 non-shop mana. The difference was that, in the tournament, Mind Twist was much better to me than Will. However, theoretically I would expect the reverse to be true. I liken Mind Twist to Tangle Wire: it cripples the opponent in the short-term, but unlike something like Chalice, Crucible, Smokestack, or Sphere of Resistance, it does not "lock down" the opponent; the opponent's natural draw step makes the effect of Mind Twist "wear off" over time, so to speak. This, coupled with the massive amounts of non-shop mana required to make twist good, the increase in the play of Misdirection, and the antisynergy between spheres, chalices, and mind twist (dead cards "pad" their hand against random discard), makes Mind Twist an impressive card that's in the wrong deck.

Mystical Tutor may seem like a natural cut with the disappearance of targets like Twist and Will, but in fact it was one of the first cuts I wanted to make, before either black card. Mystical Tutor for Ancestral is a deceptively bad play, and one that I found myself using time and again when my hand was bad because it had Mystical Tutor instead of something else. Mystical Tutor DOES find the two most broken spells in my deck (with apologies to Trinisphere, which, while arguably more broken, is a bad target for Mirage tutors generally), Balance and Tinker. Balance is situational, and Mystical Tutor->Tinker is very dangerous against a Blue mage, often crippling you when they counter and earn a 3 for 1, running you out of both non-shop mana and gas. Mystical tutor->Time Walk has also been good to me, but is once again a situational play. I just found myself too often sitting on a Mystical Tutor, preferring to play from the top of my deck to whatever options Tutor offered up. Incidentally, since it was relevant at the time I cut it, tutoring for Will is good as long as Will is good, but clearly for the reasons Will was cut this is not as often as one expects of a hallmark card like Will. I never once tutored for Mind Twist, which was part of what opened my eyes to twist needing to be cut.

*EDIT* Looking over this post, I realized I never posted reasoning for cutting Triskelion. While the discussion has clearly moved on from here, for sake of completeness I'm going to post it anyways. Triskelion used to be absolutely necessary for winning the Welder war. Nowadays, the Welder war hardly exists, and Triskelion's major role is to kick Fish in the gonads. While he does an awesome job at it, I haven't been having enough trouble with Fish to justify the bad draw Triskelion is against everything else. He has a place in the sideboard for Fish and the occasional random Welder deck, but for now the main deck slot is better occupied by something less situational.

Memory Jar...oh wow. Do I ever have reasons to cut this card. This is copy/pasted from a thread on Gamble-Stacks, but is more or less a Memory Jar tangent I ran with.

Consensus among players is that Jar is a "must-counter." That means, if Jar is resolving, your opponent does not have the ability to counter, or alternatively you tapped low enough for Jar not to be a threat for a turn and they're just setting up for the win next turn anyways (Gifts, mostly). In the second instance, Jar is clearly bad, but it's the first instance I want to talk about. If your opponent has neither the ability to counter your spells nor the abilitiy to draw into a counter to counter your spells, you should just resolve a threat (Karn costs the same amount of mana) and win. Considering you play 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Sphere of Resistance 4 Smokestack 1 Trinisphere (my build), cracking jar immediately is usually not an option. This gives your opponent time to set up for your jar turn, which mostly involves untapping. When you DO crack Jar, ignoring the fact that the cards involved influence your opponent's decision to keep their opening hand or not, in any random game you give your opponent a shot at 4 Brainstorm, 4 Mana Drain, 4 Force of Will, and probably 1 Mystical and 1 Vampiric Tutor. You're probably not in a position to play Moxen between Spheres and Chalice, but let's for sake of argument give you a mox and land drop off a Jar. Presuming you cast Jar off the first 5 mana you had available, that gives you seven mana. Sometimes this will be more, sometimes less, but I'd say seven mana for a jar hand is pretty generous given what I've seen, considering we're going to play it out with no spheres on the table, and no chalice for zero(this, of course, raises the question of why in hell you were keeping a hand with no spheres or chalice for zero, and why you're not dead yet from doing so, but we've read this far, we're going to finish the fairy tale). This gives you the chance to cast AT MOST two threats. That's 5 mana for the chance to cast two threats next turn on a good day, while your opponent gets 7 shots at 14 cards in their deck. If they draw Force off your Jar, you just traded two full turns of mana for a threat, as opposed to the one turn it would take for you to resolve the threat if you just put more redundancy in your deck instead of a Jar. If they hit Brainstorm, they get to set up their next two draws out of ten new cards you've shown them, which puts an opponent who didn't have enough gas to do anything against the Jar in the first place well back in the game. The mirage tutors have largely the same effect, although they can be better or worse than brainstorm depending on what you Jar your opponent into and what's left in their deck. Don't even get me started on Jarring an opponent who you've been trying to pin under mana denial the whole game into a Mana Drain.

*Snipped out parts not relevant to my decklist*

If this discussion seems biased towards the control matchup, that's probably because that's what's popular right now. Even so, against other match-ups, you're still jarring them into SOMETHING. Fish runs Force of Will, sometimes brainstorm, and Aether Vial. Combo (mostly TPS) runs everything that control does except Mana Drain, but they also run Rebuild (Gifts does too, but there are other control decks out there, despite what the internet will make you think). Rebuild in response to Jar's end-step trigger is Big Games unless you're gripping more threats, which of course brings us back to why you're jarring in the first place. Against other shops, you've got twice the lock parts, meaning twice the spheres, chalices for 0, smokestacks etc. to minimize your mana; you'll be lucky to drop a land and a threat, and if your opponent wins the Welder war, you're going to be in for a world of hurt when their Jar hand hits the graveyard.

...and Rack and Ruins in a pear tree.

*end copy/paste tangent*

So yeah. Man, do I hate Memory Jar. That card is bad.

If you're still with me, I'm quite frankly amazed. It must be a slow day at work. Any and all comments are appreciated, including but not limited to: the cards that I tested that you think should make the cut, the cards that I cut that you think should be put back in, cards I haven't tested that I should test and/or add to the maindeck (some cards I've looked at but not had time to test yet include Platinum Angel, Darksteel Colossus, Root Maze/Orb of Dreams, the third Karn (yes, he's a legend. Yes, I'm crazy like that.), Pithing Needle, and Possesed Portal), My avatar as subtle political commentary.

Go nuts. I already have.

[And11]

-Gorilla Shamans are very solid and have great synergy with your overall gameplan. You really should consider a couple of those, since you're not always on the play which makes your CotV's less impressive. It's not that Moxen are your only targets, Vials and opposing CotV's could be a problem as they pretty much wreck your gameplan, unless you see an early Smokestack.

-Tanglewire seems like a natural inclusion to this deck; it stops beats, it keeps your opponent from doing bahroken stuff and generally just buys time for you to set up "the lock" and win the game right there.

-I'm sure you know all about In the Eye of Chaos and Chains, but I understand if you're concerned about their casting cost.

GL with the most boring deck ever

[Whatever Works]

First I would like to say that Tangle Wire doesnt fit the deck at all, and is horrible. Gorilla shaman is a must. I have been testing this deck for almost 6 months now, and this is the list I currently am running with alot of success.

// Lands
    4  City of Brass
    4  Mishra's Workshop
    1  Strip Mine
    2  Tendo Ice Bridge
    1  Tolarian Academy
    4  Wasteland
    3  Gemstone Mine

// Creatures
    2  Gorilla Shaman (2)
    1  Karn, Silver Golem
    1  Triskelion

// Spells
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Balance
    1  Black Lotus
    3  Chalice of the Void
    2  Choke
    3  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Engineered Explosives
    1  Fastbond
    2  In the Eye of Chaos
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    2  Sensei's Divining Top
    4  Smokestack
    1  Sol Ring
    3  Sphere of Resistance
    1  Swords to Plowshares
    1  Tinker
    1  Trinisphere
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Yawgmoth's Will

// Sideboard
SB: 2  Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 1  Engineered Plague
SB: 2  Hanna's Custody
SB: 2  Pithing Needle
SB: 2  Pyroclasm
SB: 2  Ray of Revelation
SB: 2  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2  Viashino Heretic

Maindeck Choke has been amazing in the current metagame, and chains of mephistopheles has been moved to the board, because of its general lack vs. gifts/merchant scroll etc.

fastbond is a bomb in the deck whether you have crucible in play or not...

In the eye of chaos is a must... first turn in the eye of chaos is probably the strongest play in magic right now, and I am dead serious when I say that.

Sensei's Divining Top works well with alot of the shuffling effects, and Cron etc. have been running it for a while.

Other cards people sometimes run that I am not is seal of cleansing, but oath/aggro workshop is not heavily played in my metagame.

The best reason to play the deck right now is that it beats gifts almost 80% of the time I tested it, and if I played perfectly probably higher. The reason not to play this deck is Chalice Fish which is a flawed matchup, and the fact that it is extremely hard to play well.

Kyle L

[And11]

I just hate all those colored cards and want to make good use of my Shops, not to mention consistency.

Choke is definitely great and all, but has serious cc issues. Espicially when you're playing it WITH stuff like ItEoC, Fastbond and StP (all colored and possibly "dead" in certain matchups). Don't you have mulligan issues with that build? I mean, with Workshops and lots of colored stuff?

.A^

[Lunar]

I rarely ever have to mulligan with my ChronStax build, and it has way more color to it than your build does...I even run MD meddling mages which have been abosultly amazing IMO...

My most recent tourney list (from several weeks ago at the eudemonia Ancestral Recall tourney in NorCal www.eudemonia.net/p9) was this...sorry about how messy the list is, I copied it right from eudemonias site...

Keeper Stax by Scott Lemenager

Maindeck:

1 Sol Ring
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Mana Vault
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Goblin Welder
1 Mox Jet
4 Wasteland
1 Mox Pearl
4 Smokestack
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Tinker
1 Trinisphere
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Mishras Workshop
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Triskelion
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Meddling Mage
4 City of Brass
1 Sundering Titan
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Black Lotus
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mox Emerald
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Crop Rotation


Sideboard

1 Old Man of the Sea
2 Pyroclasm
1 In the Eye of Chaos
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Jester's Cap
2 Choke
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Ground Seal

my most recent tourney report is on www.starcitygames.com in the tourney reports section ( http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=279756 ), its the silly one that ended up getting locked, there is a link to it from the basic user forum in here..but the tourney reports at the beginning are actually really good, it has some match rundowns for you if you are interested in how my day went.

Im actually dropping mystical tutor to add demonic consultation, its been very good in testing, and I hear good things from others about it. There have actually been a number of games that I could have won if the mystical in my hand was a demonic consultation...

[b-tings]

Interesting that someone else has brought up Demonic Consultation. I guess I'll give it another whirl.

Regarding Gorilla Shaman, it's been very good at what it does, but it's a pretty narrow function. I've more or less replaced the mox cleanup roll with Engineered Explosives and the second Karn. I may add another explosives to this mix as well, or possibly a single Gorilla Shaman. Out of curiosity, can anyone give me an approximation of how often you're able to eat an Aether Vial with Shaman? How about how often you can clear a Jitte? Do you get to it before or after counters?

I generally try to avoid spells with multiple coloured symbols in their mana cost. Do you really need Old Man of the Sea against Fish? Isn't Engineered Explosives better in general because of it's ability to clear problematic Chalices, Aether Vials, and Jittes as well as Fish's entire creature base on one setting? I guess to do that you need two coloured mana, but ANY two coloured mana is easier to come by than UU. On the same issue of casting cost, what have Mages been good againt? I tend to think of them as a narrow, difficult to cast Chalice of the Void.

When do you tutor for the single Welder? When are you unhappy drawing it? What about In the Eye of Chaos?

Have you kept track of when you draw Shaman and would've rather had Explosives?

I will give Fastbond a try, as well as StP, but both seem fairly narrow in function, something I'm not big on.

More later, I've got to run for now.

[Lunar]

the lone in the eye has been golden a number of times for me, the meta is good enough for it right now that its not dead over 90% of the time for me...

Shaman eats vial pretty easily, jitte less so.

I do not play EE in my area due to most of the fish around me still playing null rod...its kinda pointless in that matchup.

with city of brass and gemstone mine UU might as well be WG or BW or GR or RR...UU is less tough because even tolarian gives me UU...color is rarely an issue. Old man works in my area, always remember SB options are meta specific and they can vary drastically. Whats right for me might be terrible for you.

Meddling mage comes down turn 1 or 2 quite often and is quicker to stop things like gifts or jitte or oath or tinker a lot of times where you dont have 4 mana turn 1 to drop chalice for 2 (or 6 for tinker or 8 for gifts etc etc etc)..or if your on the play and want to drop chalice on 0 AND shut off something nasty across the board...meddling mage is good also by naming things like  rebuild or rack and ruin etc etc etc..Ive never regretted having him, even on the rare occasions I couldnt play him for some reason. He more than makes up for it by the times I get to drop him and just win...

I rarely unhappy just drawing into welder...He still says "hi, if you counter me im a 1cc Hymn to Tourach, and if you dont counter me im a better xantid swarm...what are you gonna do about it?"  I am probably going to go with 2 next time to be a little less random as well though... He is an extra bonus against tinker/dsc since I can just focus on alternate kills with a resolved welder. (like shutting off the tendrils kill in gifts) I only really tutor for him if I really want something back from my own yard or if I feel I need to keep tinker at bay (they arent going to tinker as likely if you can just weld him right back into their library)

I cant think of many occasions where id rather have EE MD over shaman...shaman helps seal locks, EE is a one shot destroy spell...different functions, Id rather have MD shamans and SB EE to replace them in say a vial fish matchup....or keep both and side out other things to have both shaman and EE...Shaman deals with chalice better than EE (since its something you mentioned) but I rarely have problems with chalice.  Id rather set my OWN chalice on 2 against fish, and kill aether vial with seal of clensing or shaman or smokestack, chalice for 2 is the same one time cost as EE for 2...plus you can pay for chalice with shop..(you can for EE as well, but its not colored mana, and the activation isnt payable with workshop either...

Swords to plowshares is great in a meta where your either playing against tinker/dsc or fish...if you expect lots of combo obviously its not the greatest MD choice...ive found need for it though in my area...

any other questions let me know.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Right now, I can't see stax being playable without 3 shaman and 1 triskelion. Without these cards you simply cannot beat fish. Their only threats to you are chalice and vial, and shaman deals with both. Triskelion will simply steal games for you, as he'll stall the game like a mother.

ITEOC is amazing. Even vs. shit like WS aggro, you shut off their thirsts and their brainstorms now cost 2 non shop mana.

Engineered explosives is amazing too. It wipes out fish's creatures and acts as a 4th shaman, while dealing with welder.

As far as the kill goes, I think even 1 karn and 1 trisk is overkill, but trisk might be a necessary evil.

Welders, while they seem good right now, still suck. Sure they weld out colossus and weld in countered artifacts, but a good opponent will play through Mana Drain and Co like nobody's business, and tinker sucks when it costs 4-5 mana and when they can't play moxes. The bottom line is that welder is not a lock piece and does nothing to establish your lock of Crucible and Stax, nor does it actively disrupt your opponent.

The same goes for fastbond. I can see it being good vs. opposing wastes, but it does nothing by itself. Stax has no mana issues at all, and wastes look silly vs. gifts and it's 5 fetch 5 island. I tested fastbond when Trinisphere was legal as a 4-of and didn't like it then.

Tangle wire is tricky. If there is LOTS and I mean LOTS of aggro, it's inclusion is warranted. But in a metagame like that, stax would be a bad call regardless. I think the problem with tangle wire is that you can't take advantage of the tempo gain like WS aggro decks can.

Will is AMAZING in 5c stax. Everytime i resolved will, I won. When I first started testing this build of stax yawgwill seemed horrible, but it got better as I got more familiar with the deck. Will in this deck serves a much different purpose than in other decks. You rarely get card advantage from it unless you have recall, but it generates permanent advantage like none other. Sometimes you'll be riding a smokestack w/ one counter and ITEOC for 5 turns and suddenyl rip or tutor for a will. All the shit that you sacced will be replayed and you will have likely won the game by then. Even in your opening hand, will is not terrible. When playing vs. gifts or a deck that relies on moxen, they usually counter your turn 1 chalice 0. I have on occasion cast will just to replay a chalice. Just that 1 threat that will gets back justifies it's inclusion. It's like Welder on steroids.

There are only few cards to tweak in the MD of stax. The important part of the deck is the board. Moreso than any other deck, boarding will determine if you win or lose matches. Stax, being 5 colors and having such an explosive manabase can afford to play the best hosers in the game. These include Choke, Price of Glory, Ray of revelation, Old man of the sea (which, IMO is better than Pyroclasm vs. fish because he IS a win condition, and not to mention a permanent), Pithing Needle (AMAZING against fish, shutting off wastes, factories, jittes, and vials), Artifact mutation, Viashino heretic, and arcane lab.

5c Stax is still an amazing deck, but it needs constant tuning. Like Kevin said, the process can be very tedious, but is very rewarding.

-Bob

[Lunar]

Ive messaged Steve and Kevin about price of glory several times and they never replied back...ive always thought it was sweet against control decks, pile that with ITEOC and its a house...

My primary reason for running the welder was because basicially the only games I was losing at all in my area were to tinker/DSC and welder was good against it...fish decks around me are mainly null rod versions (I have no clue why none have gone to vial fish...?)

Trike IS a needed evil critter...Ive even been running the titan to hose over gifts decks by tossing a strip mine and 2 wastelands at them on turn 2 or 3 that also happen to swing for 7 a turn...its been pretty solid for me, but I can totally understand not running it.

Believe it or not, I actually took Zvi's advice and dropped will from my lists, I havnt really looked back because I really havnt found myself in any situations thinking..."hmmmm, wish I had yawg will right now." Generally games im losing are due to me getting mana screwed badly somehow and will wouldnt even be castable at these times...I think it about it every now and then, and maybe ill try again on your suggestion.

ALL of the SB options you mentioned are solid though, I hadnt re-thought of artifact mutation, ive been in a heretic/rack and ruin/seal of cleansing frame of mind for artifact kill lately...good one there. (sheesh I even used to be a dedicated FCG player)

I dont run EE anymore due to fish in my area being Null Rod fish, but its solid elsewhere for sure...

Any particular reason you guys are running arcane laboratory over rule of law??? We dont play Force of Will.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Any particular reason you guys are running arcane laboratory over rule of law??? We dont play Force of Will.

You run 1 more blue mana than white: Academy. The logic of it being REBable is total and utter crap. If you're opponent is boarding in REB against you, he has that many cards less to deal with ITEOC, crucible and Stax. If he wishes for it, then again, he isn't wishing for artifact kill.

Believe it or not, I actually took Zvi's advice and dropped will from my lists, I havnt really looked back because I really havnt found myself in any situations thinking..."hmmmm, wish I had yawg will right now." Generally games im losing are due to me getting mana screwed badly somehow and will wouldnt even be castable at these times...I think it about it every now and then, and maybe ill try again on your suggestion.

You run 1 welder. Switch it with Will and you'll be glad. You'll draw it in your opening hand less than like 20% of the time, and you can always tutor for it. Stax will almost ALWAYS get into the late game, where you have a billion mana and will becomes amazing.

Also, you shouldn't be playing to counter Tinker-Colossus, you should be playing to PREVENT Tinker-Colossus. That's why you run cards like Sphere/chalice/shaman. Should they resolve Tinker-->Colossus, 1 Welder will not make a difference and you still have 3 ways of getting your swords.

I'm still on the fence about price of glory. It's simply amazing vs. control as it forces them to tap out on their turn (and make drain unplayable), but then again, I don't know how good that actually is. The deck already plays around drain QUITE well, and the card doesn't really disrupt them. Granted, against inexpierenced control players, this card absolutely WRECKS their house. Basically, I question if it's better than choke and ITEOC, and I don't think it is. More testing will determine if Price deserves the slot.

-Bob

[b-tings]

with city of brass and gemstone mine UU might as well be WG or BW or GR or RR...UU is less tough because even tolarian gives me UU...

I just wanted to point out that UU is harder than two random colours because you run the 5 Moxen.

As for the rest of the posts, I have found Triskelion to be less and less useful. Playing two maindeck EE makes my Fish matchup pretty good, and the second Karn is a house here in addition to being good against, well, everything. Triskelion, on the other hand, is something I rarely want to draw, and those times are only in one specific matchup. I'll find him a place in the board as a useful Tinker target, but with fewer and fewer Welders (Which EE conveniently handles) and an already-solid Fish matchup, Trisk is not a necessity anymore.

Arcane Labs has been completely cut from my board. Combo has all but disappeared from the metagame.

My issue with ItEoC is not as much that it isn't good when resolved (it usually shuts SOMETHING off), but that resolving it takes a LOT of effort. Anything I'm paying three non-shop mana for has got to win me the game when resolved. ItEoC does that occasionally, but mostly against Gifts and the random Mono-blue that shows in the northwest. That, to me, is too narrow for a maindeck card in a meta that's not all that focused. Saying that it shuts off Thirst and Brainstorm against Shop Aggro is a little like saying it shuts down Food Chain against FCG. You still get run over.

I didn't get to try out Fastbond or StP today, but I gave Will another spin and did some broken stuff involving tutoring up a lotus. Still, this was mostly because I was playing against Black Fish, or, as I prefer to refer to it, "Gold Fish."

@Clown: Running too few actual win conditions gives Fish outs I don't like them having by making Rootwater Thief actually good in a matchup it's supposed to be horrendous in. Gorilla shaman beats are usually not an appropriate solution.

For the record, the breakdown of the last tournament (what to work off in terms of metagame):

Gifts: 8
Fish: 7 (5 U/w, 2 U/g)
Workshop aggro: 5
TPS: 3
Mono U Control: 3
Stax: 3 (1 Playing Mask/Naught)
Control Slaver: 2
Dragon: 2
Salvagers Oath: 2
Landstill: 1
Goblins: 1
Sligh: 1
Vengeur Masque: 1

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

@Clown: Running too few actual win conditions gives Fish outs I don't like them having by making Rootwater Thief actually good in a matchup it's supposed to be horrendous in. Gorilla shaman beats are usually not an appropriate solution.

Who cares? Seriously. I've won too many games with shaman beat down. When you have the lock, your opponent has no permanent in play. I even won a game because all my Win conditions were in my yard but i set up an infinite lock and he had a smaller library than me.

If fish taps 2 mana to thief you that just means he didn't spend 2 mana to play a mage naming stacks or some other threat. The LAST thing I'm worried about is my opponent thiefing me. If you run too many win conditions, however, you fill your deck up with crap that doesn't affect the game state immediately. Stax is a combo deck. The combo is Smokestack/Crucible. Once you achieve this it doesn't matter if you beat down with a shaman, a mountain goat, a goblins of the flarg, or a karn, you've already won.

As far ITEOC goes, I never said it was good against WS aggro. I said it's not completely dead against them. Shutting off thirsts means they've got no draw engine either, while you still have tutors. It also means they can't do broken shit with welders. Also, it seems WS aggro lists are now including rack and ruins, which will be useless if you have an ITEOC in play.

Fish is not a good matchup, especially on the draw. Lets get this straight. If they run WTF, they can race you easily with vial/mongrel. If they run U/W fish, they still can race with jitte and a mage naming stax can give you serious issues. Trisk gives you potentially 2 more ways of dealing with their pesky creatures.

-Bob

[islanderboi10]

I haven't played stax or T1 for that long. Can someone kindly explain to me what is the new staxx lock?

[Smmenen]

Crucible and Smokestack.

[Whatever Works]

If anybody is playing with more then 4 kill conditions then they do not understand how the deck works... The key theme to the deck is that every card is a lock card, or it gets a lock card, or it helps create the lock. Every creature in the deck (shaman/karn/trike) all have uses besides just beats. Shaman is board control...Trike is board control... etc...


@ Clown

I have to say that I preffer rule of Law over Arcane Lab. I understand your arguement, but I think there is a much greater chance of your opponent having a cunning wish then there is of you being unable to create white mana. However, Its still a prefference question (and it so happens I have foil asian Rule of Laws)... So thats more motivation...

Oh, and this deck gets ennough mana to EASILY cast threats like choke etc for whoever questioned the ability for that to occur.

Kyle L

[b-tings]

@Clown: Running too few actual win conditions gives Fish outs I don't like them having by making Rootwater Thief actually good in a matchup it's supposed to be horrendous in. Gorilla shaman beats are usually not an appropriate solution.

If you run too many win conditions, however, you fill your deck up with crap that doesn't affect the game state immediately.

The same can be said, at various gamestates, for Gorilla Shaman, ItEoC, Swords to Plowshares, and Yawgmoth's Will. And that's ignoring tougher mana requirements like on Meddling Mage or Trike.

As far ITEOC goes, I never said it was good against WS aggro. I said it's not completely dead against them. Shutting off thirsts means they've got no draw engine either, while you still have tutors. It also means they can't do broken shit with welders. Also, it seems WS aggro lists are now including rack and ruins, which will be useless if you have an ITEOC in play.

I never said it was good against WS aggro either. I said precisely what you said; that it shut off Thirsts and made Brainstorms cumbersome (I actually think I said it shut of Thirst and Brainstorm, which is obviously a mistake). Then I said that this is not enough to justify the slots. If the Rack and Ruin technology starts picking up in the Northwest, I might give it another look, but for now, look at the meta I'm playing in:
Gifts: 8
Fish: 7 (5 U/w, 2 U/g)
Workshop aggro: 5
TPS: 3
Mono U Control: 3
Stax: 3 (1 Playing Mask/Naught)
Control Slaver: 2
Dragon: 2
Salvagers Oath: 2
Landstill: 1
Goblins: 1
Sligh: 1
Vengeur Masque: 1

Against Fish, I'd rather have something else. It's so-so against TPS I suppose, but TPS is generally a good matchup anyways, at least in my testing. Maybe I need to get better testing players, because I've heard widely varying claims on that point. Against Mono-Blue, ItEoC is deceptively bad, although it's better in game one. Post-board, it gets cut from the deck in this match. Against the 8 shop decks, until RnR gets picked up, it's bad. Control Slaver I didn't test for this tournament, because I thought that everyone who was playing CS had switched over to Gifts except Rich. ItEoC definately seems strong here. Dragon, it shuts down Force, Intuition, and Lim-Dul's Vault, so it seems fine here too, although I'd much rather go after the rest of the deck than the strong support spells. Salvager's Oath, I guess you hit countermagic and TfK, but they still run too many cheap tutors to set up oath. I don't think ItEoC is fast enough for this matchup, frankly. You need to take out their ability to drop a 2cc permanent, or have explosives handy and able to pop. FcG is the only match in the bottom four that actually matters, and ItEoC is junk there.

If I could guarantee ItEoC would come down turn one, we wouldn't be having this conversation. In my experience, though, this simply hasn't happened, and the only way to resolve one turn two is without having cast sphere of resistance turn one. When it resolves in the right matchup, yes, it's a house. That requires it to resolve, and for you to be in the right matchup.

While we're on the topic, Whatever Works said: "Oh, and this deck gets ennough mana to EASILY cast threats like choke etc for whoever questioned the ability for that to occur."

Choke is a bit different functionally from ItEoC, in that it can come down later and still be very effective. ItEoC is something I don't want to have to wait around to resolve, and in my experience I have had to do precisely that.

Fish is not a good matchup, especially on the draw. Lets get this straight. If they run WTF, they can race you easily with vial/mongrel. If they run U/W fish, they still can race with jitte and a mage naming stax can give you serious issues. Trisk gives you potentially 2 more ways of dealing with their pesky creatures.

-Bob

Maybe this has something to do with my two maindeck EEs. Also, the two maindeck Karns (which, for some reason, I have an infinitely easier time casting than the Trike whenever it shows up) are ridiculously difficult to race. If they get a creature down and Jitte equipped (which costs them at LEAST five mana, and in U/W six), and if you don't have Karn or Tinker or EE handy, or a tutor for any of those, then Fish can cause you trouble. That's a lot of ifs. The mongrel problem is not as big on the West Coast since everyone is scared shitless of gifts, and U/W is just so much slower. I will have to test WTF further to see if it causes me more problems, but for now Fish is the last thing I'm scared of.

[cssamerican]

Just a few comments to add to this discussion:

Price of Glory doesn’t seem that great to me. It doesn’t prevent your opponent from playing anything on their turn, so that means it doesn’t help much in the war of permanents. I would rather use Choke an In The Eye Of Chaos because you can’t play around their effect.

I rather Rule of Law over Arcane Laboratory just because some people’s only enchantment removal is Red Elemental Blast. In such cases they will side it in because it does handle In The Eye Of Chaos as well as sideboard cards such as Arcane Laboratory. And while it might not be the most optimal card for them to bring in against you, in some cases it could be better than what they are siding out.

I also like Fastbond in the deck just because I have seen it turn games completely around or lock games up permanently in conjunction with Strip Mine. Which by the way isn’t that hard to assemble with the plethora of tutors at your disposal. Plus it allows for faster starts and Wasteland recursion, neither of which is totally useless by any stretch of the imagination.

Finally, has anyone toyed with the idea of using Ghostly Prison? It is one-sided (Not that it matters much) and it makes it difficult for aggro decks to keep up the permanent war and continue to attack you. It is also a cumulative effect, so having multiples in play makes it that much better.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

The same can be said, at various gamestates, for Gorilla Shaman, ItEoC, Swords to Plowshares, and Yawgmoth's Will. And that's ignoring tougher mana requirements like on Meddling Mage or Trike.

With the deck running tutors, I think 1 StP might be a necessary evil. It looks like cron switched it for echoing truth, so that might be an acceptable substitute. As for Will, I've argued for it's inclusion already. As far as shamans and ITEOC goes, they do actually help you establish the lock. Gorilla shaman is never dead, as most decks run anywhere from 7-15 artifacts. He wins you the permanent war, which is what stax is about. If you're opponent doesn't run moxes, you should win, because that means they'll be permanent light for the first few turns. Worst case scenario, you hold him back and he's your win condition.

The problem with running multiple win conditions (ones that don't help you establish a lock, like triskelion) is that they clog up your hand. Ever draw two or three oath of druids? How about drawing trisk and pentavus in CS? Sure, they can win the game faster, and might even steal games, but is it worth making your deck more inconsistent, especially since you don't run any draw engine? You only need 1 creature in your hand to win the game. Most opponents will scoop to a stack/crucible/chalice lock, and if they don't, just beat down for 20 turns with a shaman. It's not like they can do anything about it.

I never said it was good against WS aggro either. I said precisely what you said; that it shut off Thirsts and made Brainstorms cumbersome (I actually think I said it shut of Thirst and Brainstorm, which is obviously a mistake). Then I said that this is not enough to justify the slots. If the Rack and Ruin technology starts picking up in the Northwest, I might give it another look, but for now, look at the meta I'm playing in:
Gifts: 8
Fish: 7 (5 U/w, 2 U/g)
Workshop aggro: 5
TPS: 3
Mono U Control: 3
Stax: 3 (1 Playing Mask/Naught)
Control Slaver: 2
Dragon: 2
Salvagers Oath: 2
Landstill: 1
Goblins: 1
Sligh: 1
Vengeur Masque: 1

Against Fish, I'd rather have something else. It's so-so against TPS I suppose, but TPS is generally a good matchup anyways, at least in my testing. Maybe I need to get better testing players, because I've heard widely varying claims on that point. Against Mono-Blue, ItEoC is deceptively bad, although it's better in game one. Post-board, it gets cut from the deck in this match. Against the 8 shop decks, until RnR gets picked up, it's bad. Control Slaver I didn't test for this tournament, because I thought that everyone who was playing CS had switched over to Gifts except Rich. ItEoC definately seems strong here. Dragon, it shuts down Force, Intuition, and Lim-Dul's Vault, so it seems fine here too, although I'd much rather go after the rest of the deck than the strong support spells. Salvager's Oath, I guess you hit countermagic and TfK, but they still run too many cheap tutors to set up oath. I don't think ItEoC is fast enough for this matchup, frankly. You need to take out their ability to drop a 2cc permanent, or have explosives handy and able to pop. FcG is the only match in the bottom four that actually matters, and ItEoC is junk there.

If you see half the field is playing control, you run ITEOC. Seriously. Against those decks, ITEOC is a must counter and will win you the game on the spot if it resolves. It;s even good vs. TPS. They run brainstorm as a set up card, gifts, and rituals as mana sources. Also, the reason TPS beats you is because they can rebuild. With ITEOC out, rebuild costs 6. I've played vs. TPS many times, and have had them scoop because they couldn't deal with ITEOC.

Also, I make it a point to leave in 1 ITEOC in vs. FCG. In SB games, they'll bring in upwards of 8 artifact removal spells, and if they resolve mutation, you basically lose. ITEOC stops all that nonsense.

Against fish, I will agree that there are better cards to run.

If I could guarantee ItEoC would come down turn one, we wouldn't be having this conversation. In my experience, though, this simply hasn't happened, and the only way to resolve one turn two is without having cast sphere of resistance turn one. When it resolves in the right matchup, yes, it's a house. That requires it to resolve, and for you to be in the right matchup.

While we're on the topic, Whatever Works said: "Oh, and this deck gets ennough mana to EASILY cast threats like choke etc for whoever questioned the ability for that to occur."

Choke is a bit different functionally from ItEoC, in that it can come down later and still be very effective. ItEoC is something I don't want to have to wait around to resolve, and in my experience I have had to do precisely that.

I can't agree here. ITEOC is pretty amazing anytime you cast it. It guarantees your shit will resolve, and if they counter it, great, you have 1 counter less to worry about. It plays a supporting role. You can't ride it alone to victory, but it clears the path of counters/wishes/bounce. Stax is a deck that can keep other decks off 4 mana for quite a few turns. I can't see how playing an ITEOC on even turn 4 is a bad play.

If your field was all WS aggro/fish/stax, then yes, ITEOC would be horrible. But if there is control in your metagame, ITEOC is the right call.

Maybe this has something to do with my two maindeck EEs. Also, the two maindeck Karns (which, for some reason, I have an infinitely easier time casting than the Trike whenever it shows up) are ridiculously difficult to race. If they get a creature down and Jitte equipped (which costs them at LEAST five mana, and in U/W six), and if you don't have Karn or Tinker or EE handy, or a tutor for any of those, then Fish can cause you trouble. That's a lot of ifs. The mongrel problem is not as big on the West Coast since everyone is scared shitless of gifts, and U/W is just so much slower. I will have to test WTF further to see if it causes me more problems, but for now Fish is the last thing I'm scared of.

So wait, getting 2 different colored mana to play EE vs. a mana denial deck is easy, yet will/ITEOC have huge mana requirements? Stax runs 28 mana sources, 4 of which are shop. Mana has never been a huge issue for me playing stax.

As far as the fish matchup goes, here's how I see it. Their mana denial is much better against you than it is against them. They have Vial to bypass wastes/spheres. They have a chalice, which screws you over much more than it screws them over. And without crucible, all your shit is wasteable, while they run 4 fetch, 4 island. On top of this, your mana curve is much higher than theirs. In my testing vs. fish, a competent fish player will definitely have the upper hand.

-Bob

[Lunar]

I have lately been prefering StP over Echoing Truth due mainly to meta considerations and game experiences where ive been one mana short (this has happened in multiple tourney matches for me, thus it was getting frustrating) of casting either balance or echoing truth to stop something large that just slipped by.  I do realize that StP is much more narrow, and meta considerations aside I would say ET is much better overall.

ITEOC is amazing, I cant say enough about this card...it kinda laughs at gifts decks when it resolves, and that is always much fun...

Im currently re-trying yawg will, we will see how testing goes. I realize its amazing in theory but some times there are mana issues(not quantity of mana open, but type, I might have 3 shops and only 1 city or something like that)...im open to it though...maybe if I just think good thoughts...

Price of Glory helps the war on permanent by forcing them to either allow your permanents to resolve, or sacrafice their mana base (especially juicy when they are tapping two basic islands to do this)  Is it really better than Choke or ITEOC? That remains to be seen, The only tourney ive run it at I only saw it once against gifts and it was force of willed after reading the card 3 or 4 times....

Ghostly Prison and Propoganda are both great in an aggro meta IMO...ive never used them because im in a mostly control meta...but id definatly consider them if I expected mostly fish/goblins/shop aggro....

I have never found UU to be any more difficult to cast than any other two colors...Tolarian Academy, City of Brass, Gemstone Mine, Lotus, Sapphire, and maybe lotus petal...

The rule of law/arcane laboratory argument is a little silly really...1 more blue mana availible is rare, so is cunning wish for REB...although wish for REB is cheap and easiest for a mana screwed player...if they must get rid of it and they have wish, they are going to go for REB over disenchant or ray of revelation...this is obviously rarely a worry for stax, but blue for lab vs white for rule is rarely an issue as well...I suppose if I had foil asian signed versions of one verse the other id chose the foil ones...

I love triskelion in my build...he steals games, even against null rod versions of fish because he is just bigger than anything they can throw at me...stealing games against a deck that a lot of people think is a bad matchup...this is similar against a number of other less popular aggro decks like stompy, RG beatz, goblins etc etc...with tangle wire not in these builds this is a needed card IMO...you can always side him out for matchups where he is not needed, but he is invaluable against something like fish especially when you are on the draw.

I know clown that I should be trying to prevent tinker in the first place, but at times this is not possible...basically the only games in tourney play the last two tourneys ive run this at (here in California) ive only lost to tinker/collosus that was able to sneak through before I got to enough locks to keep it away...then I was maybe one mana short of dealing with it via welder or swords to plowshares...ive since increased my amount of DSC/Tinker hate to deal with the fact that this is the only way ive lost important game 3s and stuff...if I can deal with something stupid like first or second turn DSC then it makes my game immensly easy to deal with whatever other kill they have (like tendrils against gifts or TPS)  Welder is going though for now, I have always followed steve and kevins beliefs on it not being needed, I guess I just had issues with losing it...its a crutch that I have gotten used to, he is great at times though...

All in all I cannot wait for next weekend, 3 big big big tourneys at least around the nation (SCG, Ogrecon, and Two including the Black Lotus event at Eudemonia here in CA) Im sure we will get some cool new info after them...hopefully I do good enough again to show you my new build 

Good luck to any of you other stax players this weekend as well...

[vroman]

everytime I see a 5c stax list I really wish I could get to play w all the colorful toys, like yawgie, fastbond, blue cards.
the main reason Ive gone to mono red stax is nonbasic hate. a few months ago, nearly every single person in the local meta was either playing waste/crucible or something blue w back to basics main or side. basic mountains rock, Ive felt like my mana base is invincible ever since.
price of glory is an interesting hoser in my color, that I hadnt really noticed. for the fish/goblins/oath/juggernaut matchups Ive been boarding 2x maze of ith, which are highly functional. shuts down single lethal threats and keeps jitte or lacky from connecting. however, the ability to wasteland the maze out from under me before the crucial attack phase has been a problem, even w crucible on my board. ensnaring bridge might be a better play, since w uba theres no chance of getting caught w too many cards in hand. the only problem then comes when I actually have to win, meaning a welder or smoky is vital. the obvious downside is 3 mana vs 0 uncounterable, plus rackruins and enemy welders as removal.
Ive been thinking about playing dwarven miner. its slow of course, but if draingifts is on the rise, then mana denial is the simplest solution. same philosophy as vishi heretic against shop decks.

as for the 5C stax operation, here are some crazy things Ive tested in the past, Im just now noticing these are mostly double color costs, which helps explain why theyre probably unplayable
army ants: fragile, but turns every land into a stripmine. situationaly better than crucible
mana vortex: harder to remove but not as broken as smoky, plus doesnt get rid of non-land problems
braids cabal minion: definitely not the easiest to get on board, but comes into play w a soot counter ready to go and is a win condition
aura of silence: the lopsided white two-sphere. not the best, since its almost impossible to play turn 1, and the primary target, shop decks, can power over it.
glowrider: this originally came up in a strange 5C survival of the fittest deck I was trying years ago as an attempt to give that deck a chance against combo. both glowrider and the deck failed miserably in that regard. however, it might be more effective piled on w other stax stuff, its a 2 power beat attached to a resistor. eh?
possessed portal: usually only hits play via welder, but is a single card prison. totally brutal if it ever gets on board
granite shard: Im a huge fan of this card. easier to play than trike, and lasts longer. if not for my current null rod plan, Id be running 4 of these between main/side.

btw, whatever happened to winter orb?

[b-tings]

Regarding the one StP main, how much worse does this get with the elimination of Mystical Tutor from the deck? If I'm replacing it with Consultation (blah blah blah consult for a one-of blah blah blah), how much does this temper the loss of Mystical -> Swords?

Regarding the extra win conditions, Karn DOES help establish a lock in a similar way that Gorilla Shaman does, although he comes down later. Karn, however, is something I haven't been unhappy with except on the rare occassion I draw both, and I've had bad experiences with drawing G-unit Shaman at the wrong time. Sure, both are equal when you've set up the hardlock, but if you don't, Karn can bail you out in ways Shaman can't. You can argue the benefits of stronger lock parts vs. stronger back-up plans or stronger lock parts vs. more versatile cards; but without hard testing it comes down to playstyle, and with a reasonable tutor engine and good overall game I prefer versatility to narrow strength. Of course, this may change with more extensive testing, but I'm currently training for hockey, with four-a-days starting next week, so it's unlikely I'm going to be able to put it in.

Coming back to ItEoC, it's quite frankly pretty bad against Mono-Blue. That deck has precisely 4 cards that scare me; 3 Back to Basics and one Tinker (well, ok, it takes more than that, but they play a minimum of 3 chalice and 2 Keg for mox cleanup. Back to Basics is just the nail). Post-board, this goes up to 7 with the inclusion of Energy Flux. None of those cards get stopped by ItEoC. You can argue that it shuts off the counters, but if it's resolving, they probably don't have active counters anyway, in which case I'd rather resolve something to keep them off the cards that actually worry me. Same thing goes for Oath, except that they resolve their scary card much faster and it's much harder to play around than B2B, and arguably harder to play around than Flux, depending on what they oath up and the game state.

Ignoring Randstill, that leaves us with 8 Gifts, 2 Control Slaver, and 3 TPS out of about 36 decks. Like I said, I haven't tested the Control Slaver matchup, so I would have to see how that panned out before looking at ItEoC. I'll keep it in mind, but I'm not sold yet. Your point about FcG was interesting, and I may try out bringing an ItE in against them, but it might suffer from the old "hate for the hate" problem. I tend to find bringing in narrow hate bad in a deck that can just run the table with it's stronger openings regardless of it's opponent's hand.

The other thing to keep in mind here is that I'm not just trying to metagame the entire tournament, but the top tables, which is why I ignore the stupid decks like Sligh and Vengeur Masque. I also didn't see TPS from where I was sitting all day. Quick sidenote: I just noticed that metagame breakdown is incomplete, or else Mike Turian's deck got misclassified. He was playing Animal Farm without the HoGs. Not that it's pertinent to the discussion, or anything. I just, you know, had to mention it.

Regarding EE vs ItEoC in terms of mana cost, since all your lands produce five colours, the only relevant cards that make ItEoC easier to cast than EE for two are Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Crypt, and Lotus. For half of those, this means you need two pieces of fast mana to resolve turn 1 ItEoC, or two non-shop lands and your opponent to lack mana denial of their own for turn two ItEoC. This is all ignoring the fact that against Fish, you don't need a QUICK Engineered Explosives. Maybe this mindset has developed because I mulligan super-aggressively to find a turn one lock part with follow-up; I look at ItEoC, and see a lock part that I can't resolve turn one with any sort of regularity, and think "What good is that?" I'll try having a reasonably talented Gifts player goldfish around turn two ItEoC and see what it does in a vacuum, if I ever get time.

Speaking of seeded goldfishing, I took a couple dozen turns with Fastbond seeded in my opener and was thoroughly unimpressed. Is it just me, or is it awful any time you have less that four lands in your hand? And if you're keeping a four land Fastbond two spell hand, those two spells better be pretty fuckin' impressive, pardon my French. In fact, most of the time I would fan open 6 + Fastbond and think "This hand would be so much better if it was a freakin' Mox Diamond." Does it seriously do that much in the lategame for you? I know it lets you do silly things with Smokestack and Crucible or Crucible and Stripmine, but Smokestack and Crucible or Crucible and Strip mine let you do silly things with Smokestack and Crucible or Crucible and Strip Mine. Oh wow, that sentence was ugly.

Speaking of Mox Diamond, I was actually fairly intrigued in Seeding by a card I thought would be thoroughly awful, even with Crucible. Anyone else give this a whirl and tell me if my perspective is just skewed by my fast-mana junkie-itch?

I've re-tried Will, and I've been more impressed lately. Maybe I'm just not expecting too much of the card, but usually I can look at a late game-state and count Will as an out. Early game, I just hope it eats a Duress.

At Vroman, have you tried Barbarian Ring in your Mono-red? I've done some bad, bad things with that card, and as a one-of it shouldn't make you too vulnerable. At the very least, every wasteland it eats isn't hitting a bazaar.

Personally, I love playing with the goodies. But please, for the love of god, let's not call them "colorful toys." It sounds like you're a door-to-door dildo salesman.

I gave Maze of Ith a whirl right after SCG:Oath, and was completely underwhelmed, for the same reason you've found it underwhelming. Bridge seems much better with Scuba Mask. Finding a welder or Smoky shouldn't be terribly hard to do when you're trying to win, since that usually means you've got the game locked down pretty pat anyways. If worst comes to worst, there's always Ring + Crucible for the win  .

Miner takes an awful lot of non-shop mana to do the same thing as wasteland. Gifts is pretty good at protecting it's duals until it really needs them anyways.

You certainly named some interesting cards, and sent me scampering over to Apprentice' deck editor more than once, but as one of the strongest advocates for not stretching your non-shop mana, I can't see myself running them. But oh, wow, are army ants and mana vortex begging to be artifacts. I also wanted to throw in that, right after Trinisphere's restriction, when everyone was playing bad Control Slaver and bad Storm Combo, I built a U/W fish list that played four Glowrider main and smashed many an online face. Then everyone else started playing Fish too :<. RIP, we hardly new ye, Glowrider.

Possessed portal is pretty much a no-go without Welders, but I keep desperately trying to find a way to make it work, because it's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure anything with portal would have to run Mystical Tutor as another way to find Tinker. I know CA does a pretty good job of abusing it between Squee and Welder, and I have to say as a Stax player that hates seeing opponents do things, seeing Possessed Portal in action gives me a good-sized stiffy.

Basically the only thing you threw out that I'm going to have to call you out on is Granite Shard. Trike is a 4/4 body, Trike can shoot down x/2s, and Trike doesn't require mana every turn. Granite Shard is also hardly a clock when your opponent doesn't have dorks that need to be shown who's the boss.

Winter Orb was something I looked at when browsing through the list of artifacts (I get bored and do things like that, combing for tech), but quickly dismissed as pretty bad.

Out of curiosity, how aggressive is your current build? How are Null Rods working out for you? Is it important to have a Welder, Smokey, or some other way to get rid of them?

We've thrown the talking stick for a few solid turns around the circle; does anyone have some hard testing numbers to pitch in? I have terrible testing habits personally, so most of what I have to say comes from "experience."

[Smmenen]

Mox Diamond is phenomenal when you seed it in your opening hand, but one of the biggest considerations with this deck is not just what do you think of it in your opening hand, but how will it be to topdeck. 

I played 5c Stax at SCG Richmond and got ninth place (badly screwed on tiebreakers) with an identical deck to the one Kevin played and I found it enormously difficult to play correctly.  I actually would have made 2 changes to the mainboard, but I decided to play exactly what kevin played.  I would have cut the STp for another Shaman and I can't remember the final change, but...

Getting back to the point about Mox Diamond - it is one thing to have an amazing opener, but this deck does not play like other Stax decks.  The correct play with Smokestack in old Stax decks was to ramp ramp ramp.  The correct play, frequently, with Cronstax variants is to set Smokestack and one and keep it there.  Then you just feed it until you topdeck Crucible or a tutor to push you way ahead.  Mox Diamond doesn't help that plan. 

If you have Control Slaver in your area, I think Chains of Mephistopheles is simply a must.  Chains and Lab are also very good against TPS.  The Academy is a big reason to run Arcane Lab over Rule of Law, despite what was said here earlier.

The single and most fundamentally important rule with this deck, in my view, is that it must have sufficient turn one plays off Mox and a land.  I think this deck took a huge nose dive (and Kevin's performance showed it at Rochester) when Chains of Mephistopheles became bad.

You had the following turn one plays of Mox and Land:

3 Chains
2 Shaman
3 Chalices
4 Sphere of Resistence
and of course the broken tutors and Workshop plays.

In Rochester, Kevin substitued the 3 chains for 2 Meddling Mages - which have an operational casting cost of 2.5. 

I think the loan STP is crappy but EE is better than it once was. I still think this deck is fundamentally flawed against Fish regardless of how it is built.  Aether Vial is actually much worse than Chalice. 

I also think that Fastbond is weak.  It's a nice thought, but not useful enough. 

Look for 0-2 casting cost spells to fill the Chains gap and you could make this a serious contender. 

I'm curious why some of you are now saying that Welder is good.

I have actually written about this in an unpublished response to Zvi's article on Kevin's deck, but basically it goes like this:

If Welder is good, what are you using it to weld?  I'm not being facetious.  I'm dead serious. 

There are the following artifacts in the deck
4 Sphere
1 3Sphere
4 Stack
3 Crucible
1 Karn
3 Chalice
X EE

Regular Sphere of Resistence usually won't get countered.  You don't care if Karn is countered becuase you have Will or Shaman beats, and Chalices and EEs are useless to Weld.  Most of hte time people don't counter Crucibles either.  The only real cards likely to get countered is Smokestack.

So you are going to fill your deck with 1/1 goblins for the sole purpose of welding in a card you might not even see for many turns after your first turn?  That is not good in a deck so dependent upon having every card be good. 

I think if welder is going to be a viable option, there has to be more artifacts like Tangle Wire to really make it worth it. 

B-Tings, I think one of the biggest mistakes EVERYONE makes when they look at Cronstax variants is this:

They cut Seal of Cleansing.  I was very hesitant about running Seals when I first tested with Kevin's list until I actually played in the tournament and more than just Gifts matchups.  Seal of Cleansing singlehandedly dominates the Workshop mirror, hugely assists the Fish matchup, and would allevate alot of concerns you have about b2b and Energy Flux. 

[vroman]

b-tings:
barbarian ring is an excellent idea, and pretty much eliminates the need for lava darts in my sideboard. price of glory, maybe not so much. I misremembered it as 1R, ie price of progress. uba mask handles countermagic already and is 'cheaper' being an artifact. I still am holding onto mazes for the time being as they really are great at tripping up aggro, wo the need for any mana. surprisingly they are weaker in the matchups where they seem better, for example oath and colossus. the reason being that the enemy will do whatever he can to neutralize the maze, and this will usually work for a turn, until I get crucible recursion, and in those matchups, single attacks are game finishers. unlike swarm aggro where one turn w/o maze isnt going to ruin me.
null rods I find to be superb, and am surprised it took this long to realize they can be stolen from the anti-workshop archetypes, and used against them. stax is all about mana denial and board control. null rod is uber-efficient at shutting down non-workshops only acceleration, plus major splash damage against win conditions and utility cards.
I maintain that granite shard is good, however maybe that was more relevent back when 50% of all people in the world were playing control slaver and turn 1 shop->shard w a mountian in hand, was practicaly a lock by itself.
pertaining the possessed portal possibility, months ago I built a "goblinstax" deck that played: 4 welder, 3 squee, 2 warchief, 4 recruiter and no workshops.
the plan was to cast a recruiter, set up squees, welder, warchief. then bazaar away a portal, and cast a hasted welder to slam the door. crucible/squees absorb all the discard/sacking, and then warchief beats for the win. I tried aggro versions w the usual goblin army; heavier stax versions w workshops and other artifact locks; and more comboish versions w REBs and Gamble. in some testing I cheated in Goblin Lore to send squees and portals into the grump faster, which helped a lot. in the end it was basicaly just a combo deck that didnt immediately win when it 'went off', ie got portal in play. so no go.
I guess this is a little off topic, so let me bring it back to 5C stax. not to muddy the waters, but I thought Id mention a few more roguish cards that have been thrown into our testing gauntlet. for the record, my testing is pretty much always against control slaver first, which is what my friend jim erlinger plays, and other tier deckswhen I get around to it.
Keldon Arsonists: I played this guy in a kind of turbo-land-stax deck that had exploration and trade routes draw engine. in that deck I tinkered for crucible about half the time. hes terrible card disadvantage, but if you really want to hammer home the mana denial, hes very quick.
Withered Wretch: double color again, but can rip up a lot of ppls plans. amazing in the workshop mirror, primarily by making their crucibles irrelevent, more so than the welders. this guy really impressed me when it hit play, bc yard hate is powerful these days and ph furnace is too slow some times, and t-crypt is a 1 shot. 2/2 for 2 isnt bad either.
Preacher: probably the best creature stealer, ignoring color. Old man isnt versatile enough, not being able to grab big guys. only 1 toughness is a liability but he does everything old man does but better, while in play.
Wand of denial: surprisingly good for the cost. I tried it in early versions of ubastax to really secure the draw step lock. just seeing all their draws before they do, is a nice perk. its a cool bluffing game when youve seen them draw barnstorm or something, and then hesitate a long time before letting them keep their next draw.

I spent a lot of time proxying up bizarostax decks, looking for anything good. hope any of this helps.

[b-tings]

You are one crazy mofo vroman. Sadly, I don't think 5c can support Null Rod, but it's one of those cards that sits next to Juggernaut that I stare longingly at. Then I shuffle up, draw Balance, and remember why I play this deck in the first place.

@Steve: I realize seeding it in your opener makes it seem a lot better than it is, but for initial testing, I don't really feel like sitting around and goldfishing a hundred times to see it come up three or four. Obviously it's a terrible topdeck, and that will show up if seeding shows enough promise for me to give it a whirl the old-fashioned way. At the very least, it helped me come to the conclusion that Fastbond is junk, which means it's doing something right.

Everyone seems to disagree with me on the Shamans, so I'm starting to think I'm missing something. Both you and Clown suggest what I find to be an astonishing 3 maindeck. You're also suggesting I put Seal of Cleansing back in, which was something I had done with a friend's U/W Fish, but hadn't quite made the leap to Stax because "Everyone is playing Gifts." My question is: how do Seal, Engineered Explosives, and the potential extra maindeck Karn affect the role and numbers of Gorilla Shaman? Currently I'm playing two Explosives and two Karn, and with the addition of Seal, there's a lot of ways to deal with a problematic Chalice, Vial, or mox. As a collary to this, is Karn's cost and legendary status too prohibitive to run in multiples? One point about Karn that I think a lot of people are overlooking, probably because I think I'm super special and no one else has noticed, is his ability to stop Jitte in the Fish matchup. I fully expect to have to carry a March of the Machines around with me all day so I have proof that "equipment that's a creature can't equip a creature." This is something Shaman is pretty bad at. While I'm taking a good look at them, how much worse does playing with a bunch of Shamans make Balance?

Regarding Chains, how tough was it on Gifts in testing? Does it get easier to play around with versions running multiple copies of impulse?

The Mox and a Land consideration is one that I agree with, but I take it a bit further and adamently refuse to keep a hand that doesn't have a turn one lock piece. Since I don't play with Shamans, I'd like to know how strong they are as a turn one play, since your opponent can still do his/her thing freely, even if it means losing moxen in the process. In other words, it just makes things worse for them, rather than flat out stopping them.

I don't see anyone saying Welder is good in this thread.

Times I've had to open my deck editor because of vroman in this thread: 5

[Disburden]

btw, whatever happened to winter orb?

I've been following this thread like a madman for the past few days since it's on my favorite deck at the moment: Stax.

I think the big reason people aren't running Winter Orb anymore is that it just doesn't do much for you in a amazingly one sided way, like for instance smokestack/Crucible does. I used to run it before Trinisphere ran rampant, but in this 5c build I think it hurts you just as much as the other dude. This deck relies on a lot of mana, and abusing that mana to get around all the prison you put onto your opponent. I can imagine being severely frustrated needing to untap and not being able to because of the Orb, especially in a deck without Welders, which suck IMO.

About Fastbond: I don't see the point of running this card much. I put it into my deck for testing days ago and I've been testing about 20 games a day since then. It's been fairly useless most games.  It is a restricted card, which means I never see it much from top decking unless I'm lucky. I'd much rather use Demonic/Vamp to get Will anyday then just be able to play more lands with crucible. I can see how it can be a brutal play once you make the lock but isn't that just a win more scenario? Once I set smokestack to one, have crucible/strip in effect it really doesn't seen necessary.


I 100% agree with Steve that Seal of Cleansing is a must in this deck right now. My meta consists of alot of Aggro decks (fish, RG beats, Workshops, oath,etc) which might be why I'm so in love with it, true, but it has always been nothing but a useful draw for me.

Mad props to Kevin Cron! 

EDIT: I had one question I forgot to ask after posting: Why doesn't anyone want to run four Chalice of the Void (I know the poster of this thread does)? To me this seems absolutely needed against most decks now a days. Especially fish and Gifts. To me the more Chalices you get the better, you can always use them and if not its Stackfood. Steve, since you and Kevin know this deck so well, maybe you can answer this question?

[Sean Ryan]

Good discussion.  And good job making T8 B-tings, that Mindtwist against Thompson was savage!

With Fish being a problematic match up and being a large part of the field, shouldn't Tangle Wire be reconsidered?  One of Zvi's observations that struck me was that some combination of Welders (2) and Wires (3) is probally neccessary.

  Meandecks assertion that Welders don't do enough to contribute to the lock is correct but, that doesn't mean you need to throw the baby out with the bath water. 

By running 2 Welders they are seen much less in the opening hand and become more of a utility card to both disrupt oppenent and help finish off a lock. 

I think it is a mistake to completley disregard the defensive role Welder plays in both the Fish match and other Workshop matches where opposing Welders are present. 

As far as Seal of Cleansing and Engineered Explosives are concerned, some combination of the 2 is necessary.  I like EE b/c. it gets around Chalice for 2 which is one of the strongest plays right now.  Until Null Rod becomes more prevalant EE is probally better MD than Seal.

Is there a concensus on running singleton lock peices?  Trinisphere, In the Eye of Chaos, and even Uba Mask which was mentioned in Zvi's article.  Also, I know Cron's list had 3 Chalices but I have been running 4 in every Workshop deck since Trinispheres restriction and I'm always happy to see them.

 5c Stax is one of my favorite decks to design b/c. of all the different tools you can use to acheive your goal  - and we haven't even got into all the side boarding options yet.  Speaking of which Needle seems really  good as well.

Sean

[Smmenen]

No one really directly addressed my criticism of Welder.

Kevin is the sb master.  Period.  The sbs most of these decks are using (and including the bulk of the md cards like In the Eye were Kevins).  But it isn't that Kevin is just good at sbing, he has such a fundamental understanding of it i wish he'd write an article on it.

Chains has problems agianst Gifts becuase Gifts and Fact and tinker get around it.  But it still stops Brainstorm - which is part of hte reason Chains is so good. 

I'm also not understanding the point about Shaman. I think Shaman is really good - why wouldn't it be?

[Disburden]

I'm curious why some of you are now saying that Welder is good.

I have actually written about this in an unpublished response to Zvi's article on Kevin's deck, but basically it goes like this:

If Welder is good, what are you using it to weld?  I'm not being facetious.  I'm dead serious. 

There are the following artifacts in the deck
4 Sphere
1 3Sphere
4 Stack
3 Crucible
1 Karn
3 Chalice
X EE

Regular Sphere of Resistence usually won't get countered.  You don't care if Karn is countered becuase you have Will or Shaman beats, and Chalices and EEs are useless to Weld.  Most of hte time people don't counter Crucibles either.  The only real cards likely to get countered is Smokestack.

So you are going to fill your deck with 1/1 goblins for the sole purpose of welding in a card you might not even see for many turns after your first turn?  That is not good in a deck so dependent upon having every card be good. 

I think if welder is going to be a viable option, there has to be more artifacts like Tangle Wire to really make it worth it. 

I think the biggest reason people might be thinking they like Welders all of a sudden is because Zvi said so in the article. But I really don't see anyone being totally all for Welders in this forum either. I think most of us don't want them in the deck. One of the worst points about playing the older UR versions of stax, for me, was that you had to rely A LOT on welders to win. This build doesn't and now I can cast lock pieces instead of whimpy gowimpyfirst turn. I wasn't a big fan of tangle wire either, they had nice tricks with welding, but overall I'd say they weren't all that one sided either, like I said about Winter Orb before, but not as much.
I do need to admit though that my opinion on welders isn't that great, and I think they only have a good place in Slaver. I never thought they were much "fun" to play with. I took them out of my Gifts deck way back when Kowal insisted on them being good.

On Gorilla shaman:

I really don't see where these guys aren't good either. I used them to eat moxen almost every game, which adds to the mana denial plan that the deck is ABOUT doing. I hardly use him to beat down, but to deny mana almost 90% of the time. In other metas with less Moxen, he's still good. He eats Chalices out by other places (fish) and null rod/Vial (fish).

Back to Zvi. I read his article too, and I disagreed on some major issues he insisted on being correct, such as removing Will. REMOVE WILL?! I can cast a trillion lock piece to sack and play ancestral, lotus, moxen, demonic/vamp all over again. How does that not help the deck at all? It's a late game card....This is a late game deck with a powerful early setup game.

[b-tings]

No, the first turn Chalices for 0 and 2 were savage. The Mind Twist after that was just to prove to everyone else that God loves us chosen types. Face it, Orlove and Zvi are good for a reason.

Shaman is really good - when he's munching. But every time I draw him when I already have a Chalice for 0 on the table, I cringe...never mind when I have Chalice for 1. And with three maindeck, I'm going to be cringing a lot. Hell, I played 2 EE main and found THEM to be bad draws too often. EE and Karn serve similar cleanup duty, so it's not just whether or not Shaman is really good, but whether he's really better than these two.

Maybe you can offer specific quotes you're seeing in support of welder? I'm not trying to be snarky, I honestly don't see it. Lunar runs/ran one (did we convince him to cut it yet?) and vroman runs the set, but that's mono-red Scuba Stax with Bazaar, which I think we can safely say is at the opposite end of the spectrum of prison decks.

At sryan, I've wondered if Welders might help in smaller numbers, but I honestly don't see it. Sure, with Tangle Wires and Stax, they're ok...but then you're playing Tangle Wires. I just don't see them being all that great without Wires/Stax/Ridiculous Artifacts + Thirst for Knowledge/Bazaars/Intuition. Regarding the Needles, what do you name? They're reasonable on Aether Vial in the Fish matchup, but EE seems better here. They shut down...3 fetchlands against Gifts? I suppose in the Shop pseudomirror they deal with Welders, but EE does this job fine, as well as dealing with opposing Gorillas. Same thing against CS, although Needle is cheaper in both instances I suppose. I just can't see it warranting the slot; it's very narrow and not all that much stronger than alternatives.

Keep it going, boys, this is quality stuff.

[Disburden]

Shaman is really good - when he's munching. But every time I draw him when I already have a Chalice for 0 on the table, I cringe...never mind when I have Chalice for 1. And with three maindeck, I'm going to be cringing a lot. Hell, I played 2 EE main and found THEM to be bad draws too often. EE and Karn serve similar cleanup duty, so it's not just whether or not Shaman is really good, but whether he's really better than these two.

Keep it going, boys, this is quality stuff.

I don't think there's any conversing on whether Mox Monkey is better than Karn and EE. I Think the conversation is that you need those and two-three monkeys too. Chalice for one can make him dead in your hand, yeah, but this deck is going to do that to you a lot. I always play chalices first to stop the game down to a halt, then if I draw into cards that cost the same as the set Chalice, it can be annoying (only because I want to cast shit). The point is chalice should always come first, if not then you can play the monkey and rely on him to eat some metal and swing too. The point of having both is that if you can't get one, you get the other, and sometimes you get both but you deal with it since you want to lock some ass anyway. He's going to be dead sometimes, but the times he isn't are the times that make him uncuttable. I've played against fish with vial out, gotten monkey into play, and then had lunch. A turn later Chalice for one came out and that ended the worrying of vials. It's sometimes a risky call to tell what to play first to not have dead cards, but Chalice is never wrong IMO.

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