Uba Stax - pseudo primer

[Polynomial P]

It is also fun when they rebuild your chalice for 1 and combo out while you hold that REB in your hand. I have had issues with REB as well, but defense grid is more easily dealt with than REB by most decks. I think that for the most part if you get Chalice at 1 it is worth the dyssynergy with REB.

I really dont like the Lightning bolts in the side, especially if you are dropping chalice at 1 alot. I havent had the chance to test fiery temper, but it sounds solid, especially if you are running 4 mountains and 2 solemns.

[sean1i0]

I completely agree with fiery temper > lightning bolt in this deck.  Chalice @ 1 is one of the greatest plays this deck can make against a plethora of decks, thereby negating lightning bolt.  I can see your point about pyroblast and there are some red spells out there that counter blue spells with converted mana cost = 2, but I don't believe that any of them quite have the same range as pyroblast; the one that really stands out in my mind right now is from alliances (I can't quite place the name.) for 1R that reads "Counter target blue instant."  It's a damn good card and I could definitely see myself running it in the sideboard for a very specific metagame, but for a general or considerably large metagame, it just won't save you from as many situations as a pyroblast.

Also, as far as defense grid goes, I've used it before in sideboards, but only as a combo deck; even with that, I believe that xantid swarm is far more times the correct choice.  Say that turn 1 you put down a defense grid (you've gone first) in preparation for a second turn smokestack.  Now, say that the control deck you're facing, since I can't see ever playing defense grid against anything other than a control deck, has a hand something like this:  2-3 lands, blue draw spell, force of will, mana drain, 0-1 mana crypt, 0-2 moxen, 0-1 mana vault, 0-1 black lotus.  In other words, this player has a strong hand that, while not being overtly broken, has the potential for 3 mana on your turn.  Now, since you've done nothing to truly affect him on his first turn and since he sees that you have a defense grid down, he will, most likely set himself up to counter whatever bomb he figures that you're protecting.  On your turn, you play smokestack which is, most likely, countered.

Now consider the same situation except that instead of defense grids you have pyroblast.  Again you want to set up for the 2nd turn smokestack, but this time you put down a mountain and a mox to set yourself up for a second turn smokestack with counter protection on turn 2.  Or, you could play mountain => welder which will either draw out a counter from the control or make every other counter they use this game nearly worthless.  Either play is greater than defense grid and puts your resources to better use than the defense grid.

[yespuhyren]

Obviously in that situation REB is better.  Do you realize how DIFFICULT it is, though, to start off with

1 in 7 red sources
1 in 7 free mana accelerators
1 in 4 smokestacks
1 in 4 workshops

Just so you do know, it is a 3% chance.

Now, in the long run, its very situational.  I always try and get out chalice for 1, and shutting off their drains for a few turns isn't bad.

[vroman]

using pblasts to force your threats through is hard to set up, as youve noted, and also frequently underplaying the card. Id rather hold back reb to counter bombs like ancestral, tinker, gifts, rebuild, energy flux, etc. its easier to draw another threat, than to recover from their broken spell

[sean1i0]

You're right, that particular situation isn't something that you're going to come across all the time or anything approaching that.  Still, I was using that as a way to talk about the cards in general.  In other words, I don't believe that defense grid will ever really add anything to the deck.  The only time I could potentially see it helping a stax player out is if you're going against a mono blue deck with very little acceleration.  Otherwise, you're just better off sticking with pyroblast, not just for the example cited above, but also, as vroman said, to stop the bombs that the the control deck will try to resolve.  Also, you can actually bring in pyroblast in to combat other decks if the situation calls for it; defense grid can only be considered if you're playing against a control deck.

[vroman]

a top8 performance for GRubastax in karlsruhl germany:


6th
Peter Sieb
"Verweile doch, du bist so schön" - RG Uba-Stax

4 Smokestack
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Null Rod
3 Uba Mask
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Vault
1 Trinisphere
3 Duplicant
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Barbarian Ring
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Taiga
60

Sideboard
3 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Viashino Heretic
1 Duplicant
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Maze of Ith
1 Null Rod
15


besides the lack of black lotus and mox saphire in a zero proxy tourney, this is essentially the list weve been discussing. very encouraging

[pyr0ma5ta]

Wow.  Impressive.  Does the pilot read TMD, and can we get him to make some comments on the deck?  I've been testing GRuba, and while it is obviously very powerful, it is equally obvious that I'm a terrible stax player.  I'm practicing, however, and I hope to take this list to tournaments in the next couple months.  We'll see how it goes.

[yespuhyren]

I was just looking at that list a few minutes ago, and then came here to post about it as well.  It is very interesting.  The main differences he made MD were

-Lotus
-Sapphire

+Petal
+Duplicant

and the only differences he made SB were

-Duplicant
-Maze
-Pblast

+REB
+Rod
+Heretic

These differences were likely made for proxying reasons, though the list is essentially what has been discussed, as Vroman has said.

Personally I've been testing the G/R version as well.  The only things I don't like about it, is that sometimes fastbond isn't very strong, and if you discard it, you can't get it back.  The one other concern is that the two cards added by adding a new color are both CC 1.  This could definitely be an issue, because unless I'm on the play with chalice in hand (where I would drop it for 0) I'm almost always going to drop it at 1.

[Evenpence]

I've been fiddling around with a version that's mono red that has spheres instead of fastbond/cropper/no wheel of fortune.

So I'm playing 3 mountain/4 b-ring/4 sphere/no wheel of fortune.

I win on the play 95% of the time, lol.  Spheres are just that powerful.  I can go down to 3 spheres and have 2 mox monkeys, but I really wanted to try to have Chalice at 1 be HUGE.  My reliance on workshop has become insane, though.  That's the only huge downside to my list.

Instead of accelerating my own gameplan via crop rotation/fastbond, I instead go the more staxish route and try to counteract what they're doing moreso, plus, chalice at 1 is much better for me than for gruba.

No Wheel of FORTUNE!?  Without Moxen because of Null Rod, and with the addition of spheres, getting that much mana is hard.

This is my list, for anyone who cares:

4 Workshop
4 Bazaar
4 Barbarian Ring
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
3 Mountain

4 Welder
2 Duplicant
1 Monkey

9 Artifact Mana
1 Trinisphere
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
3 Uba Mask
3 Null Rod

60 total.  Yes, look at all those lock cards.  It's crazy.

Sideboard:
4 Heretic (he doesn't suffer from the same problem as wheel because you take out the null rods, so moxen are still good)
4 Pyroblast
3 Lightning Bolt (this card is just better than fiery temper because I'm usually not putting chalice at one against a stax deck, and it's better with ubazaar).
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Duplicant (these are better than glacial chasm without fastbond)

The deck is much stronger on the play than grubastax because of the increased number of disruption artifacts.  However, as I said before, the deck is much more reliant on workshop and even the moxes to power through sphere of resistance.  The null rods and spheres have dissynergy.  The good thing is, that after the first game, you know which one is more harmful to your opponent, and you can side them out accordingly.  Putting down both is usually very good.

[yespuhyren]

Has the self inflicted damage from B-Rings ever been too difficult for you though?  I know in my version of R ubastax, I play

3 B-RIng
4 Mtn

1 Bring SB

And even without the spheres, I have to do a lot of B-Ring tapping and take a lot of damage from them.  Red mana is often needed for welders/heretics/REBs etc.  In your version, more non workshop mana is required, meaning you will either need to be tapping for red mana more often, or keeping around wastes/strip. 

Also, you have even cut down on solemns, so you have no way to tutor out mountains, of which you only run two, which means that 4 out of 7 red mana sources are going to be dealing you a lot of damage. 

Basically, I'm not complaining, just wondering if it causes you a lot of trouble.  Regardless, cool idea with increasing the lock components.

[vroman]

I have noticed chalice @ 1 hurting me w gruba more than before. maybe it just seems worse when Im stuck holding an auto-win fastbond. going back to monoR w the megalock plan is interesting. Id drop 1 duplicant for 1 mtn.

[Evenpence]

I meant three mountain.  The deck isn't a problem because it wins on the play alot more consistently.  The ability to drop mox, land, sphere is huge, because you can play stax next turn barring wastelanding your wasteland or something absurd like that.

Chalice at 1 is huge. The deck also tends to be able to just lock up the board like crazy.  It beats grubastax 55-45.  If you don't get fastbond or something nutz like shaman out first game, I can win usually first and third or second/third, although it all depends, as we both obviously side out null rod and maybe some other stuff.

I've actually never lost the mirror with this version, whether it be 5c or gruba, (or even old school uba).  Chalice for 1 is huge in this deck.  I'm considering even dropping welders because of all the welder hate, but I doubt I'll do that.  If I did that, there'd be no point for any colored cards in my deck and I'd probably end up running ancient tombs and some other stuff.  Ancient tomb to sphere first turn is huge.  City of traitors isn't bad at all either.  It's permanent disadvantage, but a severe boost in tempo.  I'm still expirimenting.

[van der pierre]

Wow.  Impressive.  Does the pilot read TMD, and can we get him to make some comments on the deck?

...obviously the pilot does read TMD. as you noticed playing in a non-proxy tournament i had to renounce the missing power, which actually didn't diminish the explosve force of the deck. In the course of the tournamet I had to face birdshit, landstill, ws-aggro and 2 oath, which especially made evident to me that the indulgence of Grubastaxx is based on Aggro-matchups. Due to the ineffiencency of a host of slots, something like FCG should be real horror... Another deficit i cursed about is the lack of win conditions... so i had some matches just reducing the opponent's permanents to zero and desperately searching for a beatdown or bring kill. therefore in the final match after an ID with a teammate i unfortunately stumbled in a Draw which annulled my win ambitions.


nevertheless thanks for borrowing your deck, good job Vroman!

[pyr0ma5ta]

I spent about 3 hours playtesting GRUBA last night, and I have come to the same conclusion.  The lock is solid, and the mana base/threat count is great.  The only problem is, you don't win when your opponent has nothing left.  Your win conditions are 1/1s and 2/4s, and recurring barb rings.  Is there some way we can help this?

[Moxlotus]

I win on the play 95% of the time, lol

I'm sorry, but after this statement nobody is going to take anything you say seriously.  There is also such a thing as too many lock cards.  You are only going to play 1 each turn (besides chalice), so having both Spheres and Rods in addition to all the other stuff is just waste.  I really don't think Stax needs help winning when on the play.  Also cutting Welders would be the worst thing ever in Uba Stax.  It sounds as if you want to try a MUD build.

[yespuhyren]

I also realized that the deck with spheres has NO mazes in the SB, which are SOOOO good against oath.  I'd at least switch out the 2 crypts for 2 mazes.

EDIT:

What about winds of change instead of Wheel of Fortune.  It might not net you 7 cards under Uba, but it will removie their entire hand from the game.  It also DOES do the messing up of their perfect hand.

[vroman]

What about winds of change instead of Wheel of Fortune.  It might not net you 7 cards under Uba, but it will removie their entire hand from the game.  It also DOES do the messing up of their perfect hand.

lol
NO

[PucktheCat]

Evenpence, your build is one card away from one I have been working with (see my post early in this thread).   Sphere is brutal against every deck in the format.  The only problem is that "every deck" includes your own.  I have definately lost games to Sphere's effect, although I am sure it has won more than it has lost.

The tradeoff between a G/r and Sphere is power vs. consistency and mid-game vs. early game.  Sphere is best when cast very early, and because it costs so little it almost always can be cast that early.  The two green cards require a bit of luck to cast early (you will get a green source early more than half the time, but you will nearly always have two colorless) and are most effective a bit further into the game (they are most potent when interacting with other lock parts).  When the green cards work to their potential they are a good deal more powerful than Sphere, but they are less likely to work and when they do it tends to be later in the game.

Leo

[Evenpence]

I'm sorry, but after this statement nobody is going to take anything you say seriously.  There is also such a thing as too many lock cards.  You are only going to play 1 each turn (besides chalice), so having both Spheres and Rods in addition to all the other stuff is just waste.  I really don't think Stax needs help winning when on the play.  Also cutting Welders would be the worst thing ever in Uba Stax.  It sounds as if you want to try a MUD build.

I was only kidding.  The lol is because no one is gonna win 95% of the time.  It was an overexaggeration. 

Thanks for telling me I'm dumb though.

[yespuhyren]

While trading with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, he actually, for some reason, had 4 foil fiery tempers lying around.  SWEET!  So far the testing with 2-4 in the SB has been strong, as I'm in a heavy aggro meta.  Whoever suggested that card to be in the SB, good call.  Its definitely a great slot.

[yespuhyren]

On another note, has anyone ever tried using Thunderclap instead of Fiery Temper?

Pros :

Only needs 1 R mana
Can be cast for free
Doesn't need a discard
Doesn't get hit by chalice for 1

Cons:

To cast it for free you have to sacrifice a mountain (though crucible helps this greatly)
Only does damage to creatures (not so bad)


Does anyone have any ideas on this?

[Polynomial P]

Fiery temper does not get hit by chalice at one either. In your deck you have 3 mountains, so the alternate casting cost of thunderclap isnt entirely easy to use.

Most importantly, you can rip a fiery temper off a Bazaar activation, discard it, and cast it, all with no cards in your hand. This is a great desparation move that cannot be fulfilled by thunderclap. I think fiery temper is a great choice for the SB in aggro heavy/heretic heavy metagames.

[yespuhyren]

Well, you have to look realistically.

4x Bazaars to use Fiery Temper, and you can't really cast it off moxes nice and quick.  With Thunderclap, you have

3x Mountain
1x Solemn Simulacrum

And to a further extent

4x Bazaar of Baghdad to Dig to find crucibles and recur the lands.  I'm not saying it IS better.  I'm just saying if we want to tweak this to be the best deck there is, we might as well be thorough in our testing of it.

[meadbert]

Regarding the green splash.

Is the purpose of Crop Rotation and Fastbond to improve oppening hands or is it to combo out later in the game.
Drawing some oppening hands I found that like half the time I drew a fastbond or crop rotation I had no green mana source with which to play.  Furthermore I had to make tough decisions like do I drop a Chalice on 1 holding a fastbond with no welder in my hand.

If the strategy is to drop fastbond early more green may be needed.
Might it be better to add a fetchland and drop a barbarian ring, whose damage ability cannot be used till threshold is established?

There is a 22% chance of getting a fastbond or a crop rotation on the draw.  There is a 53% chance of getting no green mana source.

An extra fetch improves the probably of drawing a green mana source from 47% to 54%.

Usually threshold is not established till you are about 13 cards into a deck.
with 4Barbarian Rings there is a 63% chance of having a Barbarian Ring once threshold is established.
with only 3 barbarian rings the probability drops to 53%

Stax is all about the relative number of permanents you have to your opponent.
Barbarian Ring can repeatedly kill creatures and then come back using Crucible, but a fetch land can fetch a Taiga and then come back to fetch another Taiga.


It seems the strategy here is not to hope to drop a Fastbond on the first turn (which is huge)
Rather it is to wait till later in the game, weld out the Chalice@1 and the cast Fastbond and go infinite with Barbarian Ring, Crucible and Glacial Chasm?

Is this correct?


Also Eon Hub,  I have never found it to be good enough but with the cards in this deck something to consider is:

With Welder + glacial chasm + UBa Mask out and Eon Hub in graveyard.  After opponents draw weld out Uba Mask for Eon Hub. They lose the card they drew and no you don't have to pay for Glacial Chasm's upkeep.

Also Eon Hub hoses Oath which is one of Uba Stax's tougher matchups.  Like I said, I have never felt it was worth adding to a deck but it is worth some consideration. Especially now that crop rotation can be a 5th bazaar which gets rid of dead cards.

[yespuhyren]

Eon Hub also hoses smokestacks, which is not very good 

[meadbert]

With an Eon Hub, a Smokestack and a welder out you can do some cool things.

Ramp the Smokestack up to two counters.

Then every other turn you can weld in the Eon Hub at the end of your opponents turn and weld it back out at the end of your turn.

The result is you only lose two permanents every two turns and your opponent loses two every turn.
With two welders you can force your opponent to lose 2 permanents a turn and never lose one of yours.

The cooler move with two welders is to trade Eon Hubs and Uba Masks so you never have to sac a permanent and your opponent never gets to keep a draw.

I have tried Eon Hub in a traditional Stax build with Tangle Wires and stuff and it was not worth it.

Even though it doubles the life span of a Tangle Wire and you only have to tap on half the turns it still wasn't worth the cost and slowness of it.

Basically you would rather see any other card in the oppening Hand.

Oath was the only deck I wanted it against.
Even against Oath it was not that great because it would not always come down in time.

I am certainly not trying to advocate its use, but it does interact well with Smokestack, Uba Mask and Glacial Chasm so I figured it was worth mentioning.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I played 20 games (1/2 play, 1/2 draw) against a buddy with GWS style Oath, list here: http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=15238

I actually won 14 unsideboarded games out of 20, mainly on the strength of the number of bombs this deck packs.  Chalice for 2 was instawin due to the lack of bounce (I admit this is a terrible play in a tournament situation unless you know your opponent is oath).  Several times I raced his angels with Smoky and won that way, and twice I saced the tokens to stack to prevent an activation and eat most of his board, which he lost the next turn.  To do this, one time I stacked the triggers on my stacks "the wrong way," so as to sac both of my tokens and my Shaman to go to 0 creatures, and devastate his board the next turn.  I'll test this matchup more thoroughly to present a more thorough analysis, but I'll just note that the games where he went Orchard, Mox, Oath, I didn't win.  I didn't win if he cast Oath within the first 2 or 3 turns, unless I had Smoky down or ready to come down already.  Siding in Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, and Duplicant can only make it easier.

I'm pretty sure Eon Hub is terrible.  It hoses your upkeep effects, which are the some of the best in the game.  Relying on welder is also bad, because Chalice 1 is just so strong, you want to drop it against most decks, and from then on welders are dead draws that get pitched to bazaar.

I've been playing 4 Taiga, 3 Barb ring, because cropper can fetch a Barb Ring but it can't fetch Taiga if you don't have Green, and you don't need Taiga if you can cast it anyway.

[Moxlotus]

Unlike the above post, I have found that Oath has the advantage about 60/40 pre and post board, however with a lot of variance in people playing the decks and sideboards (particularly the SB of Uba stax).  If Oath isn't running a bounce spell nowadays, it is a bad decklist.  Chalice is still dangerous and Stack is brutal.  Crucible/waste is eh and Rod and Mask are realy bad, but Welder and Bazaar are really scary.  In the side, Mazes and Chasms are somewhat suboptimal since they are lands and Oath should run 5 wastes and possibly a Crucible or 2 in the board.  It just has to waste, then attack in the same turn.  That said, Duplicant is a bitch-I fucking hate that card.  I really hate that card.  Duplicant is by far the scariest thing Uba Stax has against Oath.

I would like to know what people are boarding out against Oath.  I'm assuming Shamans and lock pieces, but I'm not sure which ones since IMO Rod and Mask both suck.  It is possible that my stats are off becuase we were boarding the wrong cards out.

[PucktheCat]

Another play that comes up against GWS is Barbarian Ring+Wasteland as an answer to Orchard (they drop Orchard, you Waste, they give you a token, you ping the token).  It isn't my idea of optimal resource usage, but sometimes it is necessary.  And, of course, Welder+Duplicant is pretty good too.

@Moxlotus:  I have been cutting Uba Mask because first turn Null Rod will often delay Oath for a turn.  That isn't great, but not terrible either.

Moxlotus brings up an important point about Duplicant.  I generally was of the opinion for a long time that Duplicant was a necessary evil for this deck to handle random stupid aggro and Fish.  My recent testing, however, has made me take another look at the card.  There aren't many decks that it is bad against.  Even a deck like Gifts, which is supposed to only put out its man when it is winning, can play a lot looser when Duplicant isn't in the picture.  Tinker + Pithing Needle, for example, is pretty easy for Gifts to put together if it doesn't have to worry about saving a counter for Dupe.  I think the importance of Duplicant to this deck's success has been somewhat underrated.

Leo

[Polynomial P]

The oath matchup is definetly in favor of Oath, so I think Moxlotus's numbers are about right. I disagree with Puck though, and I take out null rod. Yes, it does slow oath down a turn, but it also disrupts your ability to play your fatty artifacts that can actually prove problematic for oath: Smokestack and Duplicant. I think shamans also come out. Uba mask isnt as bad as you might think agianst oath, simply cause they might randomly remove a win condition from the game.

Duplicant is an amazing card in this deck because you can cheat the cost with welder/bazaar. I know that Vroman will board in extra duplicants against competent slaver players because welder advantage is so important in that matchup.