How can tangle stax fight maindeck hate?

[prosbloom225]

After gencon people are finally realizing the power of the stax archetype.  Its not overpowered by any angle and doesn't require any restrictions, but it has reached the point where it is winning tournaments all over.  As shown by the last major tournament, control slaver and other decks are starting to run maindeck hate.  Also with tier 2 and 3 decks like fish and r/g beats, they devote most if not their whole deck to hating on stax.  Rack and Ruin and Artifact Mutation seem to be the biggest hate cards, aside from null rod.  Null rod seems to be the most difficult hate card to deal with, and is in many cases mutual hate so there isn't really a need to counter that, but the artifact destroying cards usually hurt more, and leave the opponent at such a higher board position that it is tough to recover from.  Is sideboarding blue elemental blast a viable option for 5c stax (or tangle stax/chang stax, depending on what you call it nowadays)?

[elias]

I think null rod is more of splash damage rather than meandeck hate. It also shuts off gifts and TPS quite handily. Yet Uba stax USES null rod, so I think you can actually use the rod to lock down opposing decks.

Artifact destruction DOES offer problems. In the case of rack and ruin, if you have a welder in play, you can fizzle the spell anyway. If not, you might want to consider using seal on one of the artifacts targeted.

THEN we board in BEB.

As for the opponent's board having an advantage after destroying your artifacts, well, balance should do quite well in evening things out.

[Stijn]

Rack and Ruin will still resolve when one target becomes illegal. It tries to do as much as possible.

Maybe the best option indeed is to run MB hate cards too, BEB seems like a good option, but maybe you could try to use Hanna's Custody. You can't play welders anymore but it is a very good anti-hate card.

[prosbloom225]

O im playin welders allright .  But BEB is about the only thing that i can think of to counter all the red spells that hate the deck.  Hanna's custody is allright, just the 2w cost looks a bit tougher than R. 

[forests failed you]

If you are that afraid of Slaver's one maindeck Rack and Ruin play two maindeck In the Eye of Chaos.  It makes Rack cost six.  Force cost at least five, and Gifts cost eight.  Its a beating.

[prosbloom225]

I've been seeing decklists around here that are running 3+ racks, thats the only reason I'm worried.  I have a feeling the R/G Beatz deck with 4x md artifact mutation won't pan out, but still.  In the eye of chaos is good, but i still don't think its better than defense grid.  Even though it stops rack and ruin.  Defense grid is welder friendly, and makes everything cost 3.  Stack that up with trin and spheres, and you have a card built for stax.

[Rapalaman1]

If you are that afraid of Slaver's one maindeck Rack and Ruin play two maindeck In the Eye of Chaos. It makes Rack cost six. Force cost at least five, and Gifts cost eight. Its a beating.

I think this is a great idea, however, most people will play "tangle stax" or the deck that Roland won Worlds with because, well first of all, Roland won Worlds with it, and secondly it plays Thirst for knowledge. In the Eye and Thirst have terrable synergy and unless you want to cut Thirst for In the Eye, you would be better off playing enchantment stax (my personal favorite). Enchantment stax has alot more resiliance against todays stax hate, with the exception of the seldom played Serenity.

[prosbloom225]

Personally I think tangle stax leaves for a better drop going second than any other deck in the format ( besides that god t1 hand with belcher, ect.)  You can go second and drop shop tangle and just own.  Enchantment stax?  Is that like cronstax?  Reminds me too much of keeper, and seems to be more fragile than tangle stax.  Stax is awesome because you can come back from almost anything.

[Lunar]

actually cron stax is probably considerably less fragile than 5cTangleStax stuff...its just considerably more difficult to play...

How about this for an answer to things like R&R...the whole entire deck itself...

if you cant make your opponents rack and ruin cost them more than they will ever have, then you arent doing your job anyways...

If you want to run ITEOC to battle instants across the board (R&R, gifts, intuition, FoF, Thirst etc etc etc) then you can drop the thirsts and also run chains of mephistopheles I suppose...(then of course you start to get into cronstax stuff) Losing the discard effect of thirst though reduces your welders effectivness...