budget stax v budget slaver, is it even worth thinking about?

[elias]

In a meta with close to no power, is Stax or Slaver the deck worth building?

Budget = no drains, no workshops, no power.

Possible?

My list...

STAX

[8]
1 Sundering Titan0
1 Triskellion
1 Karn, Silverr Golem
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Goblin Welder
[3]
1 Balance
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
[15]
4 Smokestack
1 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Crucible of Worlds
[6]
1 Crop Rotation
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor

MANA GASSS [28]

1 Barbarian RIng
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Glimmervoid
2 City of Brass
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Great Furnace
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Voltaic Key

SB [15]

1 Jester's Cap
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Viashino Heretic
2 Choke
2 Seal fo Cleansing
3 Red Elemental Blast

Newbie forum.

[diamond66]

The problem that you will most likely run into is that without the acceleration the true power gives, you will most likely have a very difficult time against aggro decks.  Not being able to start powering out threats on turn 1 or 2 all of the time gives aggro and aggro-control like fish a valuable opportunity to build up the resources they need to overcome your lock.  Given the fact that your workshop replacement of ancient tomb also deals 2 damage to you every time you tap it, they will have a much easier time getting you down to low life where the game hangs in a very tenuous balance that is often in your opponents favor.  I have always found it impossible to replace power in a deck like this, as moxen not only act as an accelerant, but also as  easy to cast welder fodder.  Overall, if you need to use no power, and would still like to use a welder/workshop deck, I think that the Transmute decks that were popular on the forum a few months ago would be a better fit for you.  As for the second part of the question, control slaver without drains is problematic at best, and is less likely to succeed than powerless stax.

[coop]

If your facing alot of aggro, you should try combining grafted skullcap, along with ensnaring bridge.  I played around with stax in legacy for awhile and those two combined were a great plan against aggro.  The nice thing about bridge is in most cases, its pretty effective because you dump you hand quickly, so you often don't even need the skullcap.  You also have balance available which can absolutely ruin an aggro decks day. 

I would not play budget slaver, it really needs the moxen and drains to compete, not to mention duels which can be pricey if you don't have them already. 

How good will those gorilla shamans be in an unpowered environment?  You might find that they are not pulling their weight without a bunch of moxen flying around.  Maybe swap a few of them for ensnaring bridges?  Alot of stax decks like to run a seal of cleansing as well, which gives you some flexibilty that can take care of things gorilla shaman could never touch.

Your stax build looks like a good starting point though, nice job.

[elias]

Thanks for the replies.

Ensnaring bridge looks pretty promising. Would Bosh be an addition or is Trisk enough to win with a bridge in play? Upping the number of Trisk looks to be the most obvious choice for me.

Shaman definitely will be cut. I'd feel safer with the Seals of Cleansing.

Is there any way for me to gain life against mono-red aggroxburn? In all my decks, I've been having problems with red the most even if I get past combo, oath and the random aggro deck. Fast direct damage really causes a problem...

Clearwater goblet? But I'd need to put more counters, and adding a card that does that makes this a suckier deck.

Sun Droplets?

Gragh...

Gain life?

[Aaron]

Is there any way for me to gain life against mono-red aggroxburn? In all my decks, I've been having problems with red the most even if I get past combo, oath and the random aggro deck. Fast direct damage really causes a problem...

Clearwater goblet? But I'd need to put more counters, and adding a card that does that makes this a suckier deck.

Sun Droplets?

Gragh...

Gain life?

Bottle Gnomes! 

In any case, I can't really say budget Stax is the deck to play in a powerless environment. Without Moxen and friends, you will be very far behind in permanent count, making your lock pieces ineffective. Also, Ancient Tomb pain adds up incredibly fast. If you want to play artifacts, take a look at a Stacker list which should be much better for steamrolling random decks.

[elias]

Stacker? Links to lists please...

*Sigh*

Chalice of the Void and pithing Needle might be a good way of upping my permanent count, but yeah, that's what the moxen are for...

Less stax and more Sphere of Resistance?

I really love how stax wnis with class though.

[Marton]

You can run a budget stax list with metalworker and many draw-7/meditate and/or well of knowledge (soo retarded to double your hand size each turn).

Here's what I used to run a year ago, as I recall it

5x strip
1x tolarian
4x ancient tomb
3x city of traitors
4x volcanic island
2/3x shivan reef

1x sol ring
1x mana crypt
1x mana vault
1x grim monolith
1x voltaic key
1x candelabra of tawnos (budget forces you to play sub-optimal accelerants :/ )

4x metalworker
2x welder
1/2x sundering titan
2x triskelion
1x karn, silver golem

4x tanglewire
4x smokestack
3x crucible of world
1x trinisphere (back then, it ran 4x trinisphere)
0-4x chalice of the void / sphere of resistance  (was trinispheres back then)

1x tinker
1x memory jar
1x wheel of fortune
1x windfall
2x well of knowledge

[Sjoerd]

Hi,

I've been working on the same problem, since there will be an open sanctioned championship coming up shortly. I don't own power, and can't afford things like workshop, drains, or even Mana Crypt.

This is the build I've been testing lately, but the Vintage environment is quite low here...

1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Uba Mask
1 Sol Ring
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
1 Trinisphere
1 Memory Jar
2 Tangle Wire
2 Gilded Lotus

1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Enlightened Tutor

4 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Triskelion
1 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel

4 City of Traitors
2 Great Furnace
1 Strip Mine
3 Glimmervoid
4 Wasteland
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Ancient Tomb

I think Platinum Angel will help the NonPowered decks out a bit, since you've got a couple of extra turns with it in play. City of Traitors helps me out quite some times, since you need most of your mana in the first couple of turns, and can wait/tinker/tutor for a crucible afterwards. The tournament allows power, but no proxies, so I think I'll leave the mox monkeys in. The main problem I have encountered with this build is not having the right mana, which is why I added the Gilded Lotii, and the Glimmervoids. To screw more sorcery of instant heavy decks, I should have a couple of "In the Eye of Chaos" soon.

Any affordable ideas?

[vroman]

I assure you there is no point in trying to play ubastax w zero power. you absolutely need bazaars at the very least or you are missing out on the whole draw engine facet of the deck.
try 5c stax.

[elias]

I agree, without the bazaars, you'd be moving at the same speed as your opponent.

If you wanna have an Uba mask type lock in a budget stax, use possessed portal. It DOES cost 8 and you' probably just have to tinker/weld it in, but it stops ALL the draws. Just make sure your board is better than his.

I'm also playing around with the idea of cutting stax altogether and using the crux, fastbond, zuran orb combo... Zuran orb's a weldable 0 cost, so no big. but it'd be an ass to get fastbond into play.

I tried to base my build on chang stax or 5C stax since it has the versatility that all the colors offer. Vroman himself alluded to the fact that he cut cards to make his deck more focused on locking, albeit weakening its versatility.

In one sense, it's faster and more dogged than 5c stax, but 5c has more options and your larger card pool allows you to overcome the abscence of power.

(am I right so far?)

[Dipstik]

I used to play a non-budget (but crappy) version of stax that ran grafted skullcap and Oath of Scholars to tremendous effect. combine that with ensnaring bridge, and you can probably handle beatdown.

If you're looking for an artifact answer to burn, don't try to gain life. Look at crumbling sanctuary. Works great with welder too if you can keep it around.

[tradewhore]

This deck will not work without any kind of acceleration. One of the keys to stax/ welder/aggro is getting as much acceleration out first turn and coasting. You are extremely vulnerable to Ux Fish and and counter solid based deck. If you are still going to play I would consider playing Defense Grids.

[Sjoerd]

Before the non-proxy tournament I probably going to a proxied one, and I will proxy power i think. I'm still a bit in doubt of what to do exactly.

It's 12 proxies, (?), so what should i put in:

4x Bazaar
4x Workshop
4x Power (Lotus, Mox Ruby, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire)

or maybe to disrupt a little bit more:

4x Bazaar
4x Workshop
3x In the Eye of Chaos.
1x ?

Since I will not be able to play with proxies all the time, I like to use the tournament to try some ways to better the deck with more affordable cards.. This tournament is not just to win, but have the best way to test a deck. Any ideas? I am thinking about getting rid of the Masks, like Vroman said (thanks to you) and trying more disruption (in the eye of chaos, chains of M). Although I think the Chains will do nothing to just the same to me as to the opponent.

I think the Workshops and Bazaars are an auto include in any stax build, but that leaves four vacant spaces, and other adjustments. I do not have a clue about the metagame at the tournament, but I expect a couple of guys playing Oath, Stax and Gifts. Any help would be very welcome.

Cheers,

Sjoerd