Uba Stax - pseudo primer

[nataz]

Pyro can target anything, .: you can use it to target a non blue spell/perm, have it "fizzle" (fill in proper term here), and then it will hit the yard.

This helps to build threshold, which in turn can activate your b-rings as damage sources, which can then hit the welder.

[yespuhyren]

I just wish the REB was worded the same, cause pyroblast looks terrible compared to beta REBs

[Zomar]

okay so the ability to gain threshold and kill welder is more important than keeping a blast through a mindslaver turn because after mindslaver you are screwed anyway? makes more sense now.

thanks guys.

[yespuhyren]

I'm just trying to figure out whats up with the fish matchup.  The Canadian U/W fish that Finch used to T8 at waterbury and win OVC has a 6-1 record, or something close to that, in uba stax matchups in the 2 tourneys.  I even think he is 4-0 against Marc Sims, who even SBs 3 Lightning Bolts.  There has to be a way to fix it so we can win, other than taking out some rods for beef, which I believe Razvan has tried.

[sean1i0]

First of all, I would like to ask who was piloting UbaStax in those 6 losses to U/W Fish.  The way that I'm thinking about the match is that there should be no way in hell that Fish could be this deck.  First of all, Fish's main disruptive elements are Chalice of the Void and Null Rod...oh wait, Ubastax uses those itself.  Fish also uses wastelands.  Ubastax uses those, too, except it has crucible of worlds.  Then, there are smokestacks, uba masks, 2 duplicants, and barbarian rings.  Post board ubastax could sideboard in up to 2 more duplicants, 4 maze of ith, and 4 pyroblast if it really needs to.  I really don't see how the match up should be a problem.

[Evilkin]

Well let me explain it a bit then.  OFM 2K5 wins the Crucible wars and wins the Welder wars...  why?  Because there are 4 FoW, Seals of Cleansings, STP's, Crucibles and Old Men of the Sea all in the maindeck.  Then 9 or 10 more cards are sided in for games 2 and 3.  Duplicant is pretty bad when you can't weld them and require 6 mana when your Workshops and Bazaars are continuously wasted.  Smokestacks are allowed to resolve cause I'm the one with the Crucible and the Ninja drawing cards.  Uba Mask isn't a threat unless there is a Bazaar out and that usually isn't very long.  Maze of Ith is terrible when I keep recurring my Wastelands.  Chalice is the biggest threat, but OFM 2K5 runs a evenly balanced distribution of 1, 2, 3 cc answers.  So 1 resolved Chalice usually isn't enough for the Uba player.  If they set it to 1 they can't drop Welders.  If they go Welder, Chalice for 1, then I drop an Old Man that can't be Pyroblasted cause of the Chalice for 1.  The match isn't 70-30 in OFM 2K5's favor, but I'd say it is a favourable match up. 

Btw, I'd just like to add that Uba Stax is a very good deck and is real fun to play.  Nice job constructing this beast Vroman.

[Zomar]

I've only tested maybe 5 games against UW fish, but they were decent hands for both players.

Uba Stax COMPLETELY DESTROYED the fish deck. Fish has no particularly strong cards against you. It's small number of counters allows for sucessful agressive play. Fish is so slow that you have as much time as you need. Uba Stax has the ability to drop a bomb nearly every turn. Fish can't deal with it all. Barbarian Ring is nuts once active. Goblin Welder makes any counters or meddling mages useless. Your wastelands and strips are very good against their relatively unstable mana base. Chalice for one or two is very gamebreaking. Fish can not race or play enough permanents to race smokestack. A smokestack in play, is GG for you.

The only way I see fish beating Ubastax is if it gets a draw engine going by turn two. But even then, what is fish going to draw into? Fish can draw a million cards and still have no way to win or stop you anytime soon.

It's true that a fish build maindecked to beat stax will have the upper hand, but those, at least in my knowledge, are not the norm. Crucibles, Old Men, and Seals all seem to be suboptimal mainboard against the general metagame.

[Evilkin]

Very good point Zomar.  A sub-par Fish deck will get killed by Stax.  OFM 2K5 is not at all geared towards beating Stax though.  Initially, it was meant to defeat the rise of Oath, TPS and Slaver.  We see very little Stax around our area and anything that hits it is just a bonus.  It just so happens that certain cards that may seem "suboptimal" are infact pretty good against a random metagame.  Crucible of Worlds is very under used in Fish.  Sometimes I wish I had more Disenchant effects then I already do as well.  Old Man of the Sea is a bit more questionable, but he is simply better main deck.

Overall though, most U/W Fish builds aren't too similar to OFM 2K5 and Uba Stax isn't going to have a lot of trouble beating them.  But if you plan on playing it here in Canada I'd recommend metagaming it more to hate out OFM 2K5 or play a different deck.

[yespuhyren]

Like Finch said, against a normal U/W fish deck, sure, Uba will win.  I personally believe that the Listowel guys make THE strongest U/W fish decks anywhere.  Everytime they come up with a new build, they put at least 1 in T8 when they compete. 

As for the pilot, Marc Sims, he has T8'ed at SCG at least 1 time I know, and always does very well here.  He is not a random scrub.  Again, though, trying to beat the Listowel guys' OFM2K5 decks is really really difficult.

[Zomar]

OFM 2K5
2x Old Man of the Sea
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Spiketail Hatchling
3x Meddling Mage
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
1x Misdirection
2x Swords to Plowshares
2x Seal of Cleansing
3x Null Rod
4x Standstill
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand
1x Polluted Delta
3x Island

Sideboard
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Control Magic
2x Disenchant
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Misdirection
1x Stifle

[/size]

Is that the list you are referring to?

I can't see that having any better of a game against Uba Stax than a more standard version of fish. All this deck seems to have on stax is the 2 of crucible and seal of cleansing. Aparently this deck has performed decently, but it makes me want to cry. The inclusion of Old Man seems weak at best.   Cloud of Faeries? The reason why that card was played in the first place was it's synergy with curiosity, which is not here. In fact no draw spells other than the situational Standstill are in this list ( I have nothing against standstill, I always found it better than brainstorm in fish but it needs another draw engine to go with it, ie curiosity or ninja as it is not reliable, or enough draw by itself. remember fish wants quantity not quality). 3 Meddling Mages seems flat out wrong. If you are trying to combat Oath, TPS, and Slaver, as you say you are, Meddling Mages is a bomb. 2 Seal of Cleansings wont give you game against oath either. Nor will only 2 Swords to plowshares. As controversial as people may find this: It is wrong not to play at least 3 swords in the current meta. The only thing this has on combo is null rod. Crucible and Old man are both very expensive for fish at three mana and are both varyingly situational or just too slow. Fish has always had null rod. I'm not going to even mention the board, as those are constantly in flux, other than say WTF?

I didn't want this to turn into me bashing OFM 2K5, so sorry if it seems to have come out that way. The card choices just seem illogical, and your statement that this deck has a strong matchup against Stax doesn't seem to be true. Unless an exceptionally good player was piloting this deck, I'd feel no worries going into the matchup with ubastax.

if it's not the list... well ignore this (you said you were playing ninja?)

[yespuhyren]

That is an older list of OFM 2K5.  They are constantly changing their decks.  They have a new version out, codenamed Blizzard I believe.  I also believe that no one outside of team Listowel and the TO's have the decklists at the moment.  They have been keeping the lists hidden.

[Zomar]

oh secrecy >_>. I love how this debate has basically become "my deck pwnzors against ubastax, but I can't show you the deck list, so take my word for it."

okay, here is a question for uba stax players: you go first, it's turn one, you know you are playing against drain based control. You have the option to play first turn smokestack or uba mask. Which do you play? Which has a more powerful effect against the opponent? What other cards in your hand influence your decision? What if those cards weren't in your hand? Why do you choose to play one over the other?

[Old Dan of the Sea]

The thing a lot of people forget with OFM 2K5 is that it can be tailored to certain metagames very easily.

Bryan Finch "Evilkin" piloted it this weekend in Rochester to a 5-1-1 Swiss, defeating 2 UBA Stax decks.

In his final round of swiss he played a UBA player with a 4-0-2 record. This is what happened in the match using his exact words posted on our Ontario website.


"I snuck into top 8 after swiss sitting at 5-1-1. I almost never got there cause my opponent in the final round who was playing Uba Stax was playing very slow.

I scooped game 1 early while still at nearly 20 life. He only had a Gorilla Shaman, Uba Mask and Crucible in play but I conceded when he drew the Bazaar and I had no cards. The game was taking soo long I feared it was going to take him another 20 mins to finish me off and leave me with no time left to play other games.

His record was 4-0-2 and he wasn't too happy he drew a few rounds that I guess he thought he should have won. But if he played that slow in every match up I can see why he drew twice. Thanks for the excellent judging present during my match for warning him to make a play sooner rather then later.

Game 3 against this guy was retarded. He played a Chalice for zero on turn 1 against me. My hand had only 1 land, and a Mox Pearl. I think he must of had slight telekinetic powers. My very first draw was Mox Sapphire. So I had 1 land which was a plains for about 10 turns in a row before I drew my 2nd land and he couldn't capitalize on it. Mainly cause I ended up having 2 FoWs and 2 STPs for various threats. I then chose to drop a Pithing Needle naming Strip Mine in desperation, fearing to lose my only land. He then actually Bazaar'd up a Strip Mine a turn or 2 later which he discarded. Nothin worse then staring at 2cc critters and a Crucible in hand 10 turns later and still not being able to drop them. Well, I finally drew land 2 and immediatly began to capitalize on it. He resolved an Uba Mask and drew into a few Bazaars to make the game close. But I had a Crucible in play and was able to get rid of them. I pretty much had game 3 won with about 10 minutes left to play. He was still fairly high on life though cause I hadn't done any damage to him up to this point. With Crucible, Ninja and Factory out, I started beating him down and then he seemed to be playing a lot slower. It took him nearly the entire 10 minutes of time to decide on one turn whether or not to block my ninja with his only creature a Gorilla Shaman. I very much appreciate the fact there were a couple judges and many spectators present here or I might have just ended up getting a draw with this guy. "


Needless to say OFM is 4-1 against UBA in the last 2 major tourneys.

Old Dan

[nataz]

okay, here is a question for uba stax players: you go first, it's turn one, you know you are playing against drain based control. You have the option to play first turn smokestack or uba mask. Which do you play? Which has a more powerful effect against the opponent? What other cards in your hand influence your decision? What if those cards weren't in your hand? Why do you choose to play one over the other?

I'm not sure that there is anything that would have me want the stax over the uba mask. Mask makes drain.dec's game plan much harder right now, as opposed to stax which won't actuals effect the board for two turns.

Uba mask on your first turn means that they are limited to the counters they drew in their opening hand, and any instant card draw gets neutered, with Brainstorm being the worst of the bunch.

How have people been liking the 2x dup in the MD? It certainly makes the oath match-up game one much better, but it's a clunky way to get rid of welders and shaman. Since I live in NE, and oath seems to see much less play here, I think that I'd like to switch out those spots for something else. DSC can still be handled by Welder if need be. 

I'm running the green version, very similar to the one buttons posted in the thread earlier.
Here is what I've been thinking.

-4 taiga, -2 dup

+ 4 COB
+1 Darkblast
+1 Glacial Chasm

The COB are no less wasteable then Taiga, and of course allow for the black for darkblast, along with other SB-able hate

Darkblast helps with the loss of a B-ring, and provides more answers to welder and shaman. Although finding the black mana may be a pain (5 perminant sources in jet + COB), it shouldn't be that much harder then finding a red source (7 perminant sources in ruby + COB + other rings) AND having threshold, especially early game.

Chasm can be found with bazaar or crop rotation, the "combo" with chasm, fastbond and crucible can be very worthwhile.
I also added chasm to the sb to replace maze of ith. They both can be wasted, and chasm has the added drawback of loss of life, however that can be mitigated with a chalice in play. The upside is that you only need one to hold off 2 or more creatures, and they can't tw for the win.

SB, I'd propose adding in ray of Revelation to help handle oath, which in addition to chalices, more chasms, and blasts should be enough.   

thoughts?

[Buttons]

Needless to say OFM is 4-1 against UBA in the last 2 major tourneys.
Old Dan

Do you know how unlikely those scenarios are?  I would LOVE to play OFM 2k5 with Ubastax.  It's almost a dream matchup.

Him not drawing anything off bazaars means bad deck, or, as it probably seems, he drew the right things and didn't play the right stuff, as he seems like a sub-par player to begin with.

The old man of the sea makes Welder a little less friendly, but come on?  at 1UU, the Stax player should be DOMINATING before Old Man comes out.  My philosophy is, if someone hardcasts a 4cc threat that actually is a THREAT against you, your deck is on the downswing.  3cc isn't much better.

Come on, he put chalice for ZERO down, against FISH.  That's a bad player.  And what major tourney was this?

When I talk of major tourney, I talk about Richmond and Gencon.

-4 taiga, -2 dup

+ 4 COB
+1 Darkblast
+1 Glacial Chasm

The COB are no less wasteable then Taiga, and of course allow for the black for darkblast, along with other SB-able hate

thoughts?

Interesting, but I think your build might be too inconsistent.  Also, COB damages you.  Gemstone Mine might be better, as it works well with Crucible.

Darkblast is a BIG help, especially vs. welders, but I think B-ring does the trick just fine, and crop rotation in the deck allows you (essentially) to have a 4th B-ring, if you really need it.  Crop rotation really makes your deck 2x Strip, 5x Bazaar, and 4x B-ring.

As for the Uba Mask/Smokestack question, it really depends.  If I think he's holding FoW, probably go with Smokestack, as either one will be countered.  If I have Welder in hand, and the ability to cast it 1st turn, you DEF. go with Uba Mask, as you'll be able to weld it in next turn.

If you get the nut hand of Mox Anything/Mox Ruby/Welder/Workshop/Smokestack/Uba Mask/Bazaar,

You go:

Workshop, Mox, Uba Mask <<FOWed>>
Mox Ruby, Welder,
Go.

Next turn, you go...

<draw a land, let's say>

Smokestack, Tap the mana on your mox something that you weld out (you might get Sol Ring or something),  You keep the Ruby in play because it's your only red source, and you might draw a Welder or Wheel next turn, weld in Uba, Play Bazaar, activate bazaar (simply to get cards in the graveyard either to weld in or to actually play, like moxes.)

Anyway, I'm currently playing 3 Uba and +1 Wheel in my previous version.  It's the version I'm going to take to Richmond.

[prometheus829]

I have a question about the 1 solemn simulacrum.

I remember looking at a list for ubastax a while ago and seeing multiple solemn, so I assume they got cut down to one.  But today, I looked at the list for the first time in months.  What is one solemn really going to do?  What is its purpose?  It's not as powerful as trinisphere, where when you get one you feel lucky.  You only have 3 mountains to go and get; I suppose it's an uncounterable draw with welder, but welder has better things to be doing with his time usually.  Wouldn't you rather have a mountain or a gorilla shaman?

[Evilkin]

As for a deck list of OFM 2K5 you could have at least posted the one that placed 2 in the top 8 at Star City P9 Rochester 6 months ago.  I don't think Star City allows us to withhold decklists, so if you want to playtest the match then just wait for the next list to be posted from this passed Rochester.  

I wasn't meaning this to be about how our deck wrecks Uba Mask.  I said earlier I simply thought it was slightly favourable.  I only initially posted to show how a deck might be able to beat this juggernaut of a deck in a duel.  I suppose you prefer more ignorant responses such as there is no way it should lose unless the pilot was terrible, etc, etc.  The first Uba player was a very skilled player that I had to face both in Swiss and Top 8.  The second was 4-0-2 before my match.  I think they would also disagree with your assessment of them being terrible players.

Anyways, I will not be posting anything else in this thread unless I have something insightful to add to Vromans deck.  I do infact playtest the deck myself.  It is currently one of my favorite decks just to play around with and always a heavy consideration of mine for tournament play.

[yespuhyren]

Him not drawing anything off bazaars means bad deck, or, as it probably seems, he drew the right things and didn't play the right stuff, as he seems like a sub-par player to begin with.

I don't know who you are in real life by name, though Marc Sims has T8'ed at one if not more SCG P9's.  He's definitely not a sub-par player.  You just make silly assumptions based on "Oh, I smash the conventional fish".  Lets see, they come up with a version, and get 4th AND 5th at SCG P9.  Then they come up with a new version and T8.  Obviously its better than the other fish decks.  How can I judge this???  Oh...yeah...cause if other fish decks were as good they would T8 as well.  You might win, you might lose, but don't assume Uba wins every matchup against fish, especially this one, and definitely don't call players who might very well be better than yourself sub-par

[benthetenor]

oh secrecy >_>. I love how this debate has basically become "my deck pwnzors against ubastax, but I can't show you the deck list, so take my word for it."

okay, here is a question for uba stax players: you go first, it's turn one, you know you are playing against drain based control. You have the option to play first turn smokestack or uba mask. Which do you play? Which has a more powerful effect against the opponent? What other cards in your hand influence your decision? What if those cards weren't in your hand? Why do you choose to play one over the other?

I would personally argue that a turn 1 Smokestack is absolutely savage. Running Uba Mask out there first turn does little other than potentially cutting off one extra draw, where as a first turn Smokestack (preferrably followed by Chalice -> 0) will go a long way towards winning the game. And like I said, if you get the Uba Mask out the second turn, you've only lost one card, but you've ramped the smokestack up during a crucial part of the game, when permanents are going to be low and when you will get more mileage out of a Smokestack for 1. Plus, if you randomly peel a crucible or something, you're all set to go. 1 permanent > 1 card in hand.

[vroman]

@ zomar
resolving smokestack is pretty much the best thing you can possibly do w this or any stax deck. turn 1 smokestack is virtualy unbeatable for non-shop decks. the only way out is if I get hit by wasteland and then proceed to be mana screwed, or they get lucky and find moxen and rack and ruin.

@ prometheus
solemn is good bc no one counters it. jens is an excellent strategic play. it lets me read opponent for counters, bc most ppl will always think about countering it, but rarely follow through, and I can tell what they're holding. it gets red mana which is frequently key, to avoid color screw, and dominate w a welder, or explode off a wheel. solemn is a major edge in stax mirror, and recursion will win it. as long as I play mono-red I will always play atleast one solemn.

@ fish players
as for fish v ubastax, I am not trying to condescend when I say this is definitely the easiest tier deck I can face. Id rather face fish than foodchain or charblecher, both relatively unchallenging. the clock is slow, the disruption irrelevent. counterspells dont matter if they dont have welder to mess w artifacts in my yard, and they dont counter w mana drain, so theres no inherant danger in having things countered besides losing the card. their attack is dependent on nonbasic lands and small creatures. thus resolving crucible is an auto win via wasteland and bring. resolving smoky is going to demolish them, since they are dependent on maintaining an active board, and not trying to hold back a gifts ungiven or draw 7 to combo out unexpectedly. depending on the build, chalice @ 1 or 2, can turn off whole swaths of their deck: threats, counters and draw. chalice @ 0 is never right against fish. uba mask shuts off all their draw, including standstill, a major engine. I have never lost a tournament match to fish of any kind, and have played against every variety under the sun: UR, URW, UW, UG, UGR, UB, monoU, etc. Ive played against lots of name players piloting fish, and never felt like I was playing agaisnt any kind of disadvantage.

[Zomar]

Lets see, they come up with a version, and get 4th AND 5th at SCG P9.  Then they come up with a new version and T8.  Obviously its better than the other fish decks.  How can I judge this???  Oh...yeah...cause if other fish decks were as good they would T8 as well

There is not always a direct link between a good deck and a high finish. Time and time again, good players have piloted "bad" decks to successful tournament finishes. It is the strength of the players and knowledge of their decks that determins the outcome of most matches. Of course there are terrible matchups and broken draws, but those are anomalies.

[nataz]

@ zomar
resolving smokestack is pretty much the best thing you can possibly do w this or any stax deck. turn 1 smokestack is virtually unbeatable for non-shop decks. the only way out is if I get hit by wasteland and then proceed to be mana screwed, or they get lucky and find moxen and rack and ruin.

I'm actually surprised that you say this. Two things that I worry about from a drain based control (gifts) deck are a) Mana Drain, and b) rebuild. I am most defiantly not afraid of Rack and Ruin, and actual rarely see it in comparison the the mass bounce. I suppose if I am playing Control Saver that I am also worried about welder, but for my example I'm going to be talking about gifts.dec.

A turn 1 smoke stack gives the gifts player a completely unmolested turn 1, which to me seems dangerous. With a mox + land opening, the gifts deck will still have drain mana on turn two, which, combined with draw can find the rebuild for the win, or fuel the gifts for more perms. If you are on the draw, that scenario is even worse.

A turn 1 uba, shuts down the blue player from making eot draw decisions, therefore they are less likely to find the hate/drain. Not only will they not be able to dig for answers, but also they are less likely to then be able to counter your turn 2 threat, stack.

I think this example changes when you add the ability to play a chalice for zero, or an early null rod, which then makes it much harder for the gifts player to break out of the early stacks lock, but even then I'd at least consider uba.

conversly, I think the value of uba mask goes up if you have a bazaar in hand. 

am I really undervaluing the smoky that much?

vintage plays fewer turns per game than any other format. thus what you need now is usually more important than what you need later in the game, bc frequently there is no later. when choosing between a soft lock now or a hard lock in a few turns, absolutely the lesser, immediate threat is better than giving them any unimpeded amount of time.

[vroman]

the 2nd quote of mine there is stating the general case, and perhaps I was too loose with the superlatives. against mana drain decks, your goal is to eliminate their mana, as there whole game plan depends on having 2 blue open. once I resolve smoky, I can kill their mana w relative ease, just by making land drops more consistently than them, and playing many 0 and 1 drops which are not going to hand them game winning quanties of mana, if drained. riding turn 1 smoky to victory is very easy against drain. assume they keep a hand w 2x land + drain, and they are going first, thus unless you have stripmine, they will definitely be able to drain the 2nd threat you play on turn 2. when you have 4 mana turn 1, and must choose between uba and smoky, its bad to have uba resolve, and smoky countered. turn 1 uba, while potent, lets them develop mana, which is never good. and especialy against gifts, w its many "put into hand" draw effects, will be able to play around uba alone. w smoky, you can just sit there w soot=1 until there down to only one blue source, before laying more big guns.

[Buttons]

Both are good to have out against Gifts, no question.

I think Uba is a threat drain-based decks would want to counter almost as much as Stax.  Stax is absolutely savage early on against drain-based decks, as well as Uba.  It all depends on what you have in your hand.

If you have Bazaar, Uba is the threat that you want to get out, because you're bound to draw into more stuff.  It all depends, really.  If they're playing first, it's alot easier to make a decision, (of course) but I assumed that we were playing first in this example.  Playing first, I would almost always drop the Uba, because if it gets countered, great, and if it doesn't, that's fine too.  Playing Smokestack first, I wouldn't want it to get countered via FoW.  I want to hardcast Smokey, or weld in Uba.  Either or.  Welding in Smokestack is bad because you delay the soot a turn.

I don't know who you are in real life by name, though Marc Sims has T8'ed at one if not more SCG P9's.  He's definitely not a sub-par player.  You just make silly assumptions based on "Oh, I smash the conventional fish".  Lets see, they come up with a version, and get 4th AND 5th at SCG P9.  Then they come up with a new version and T8.  Obviously its better than the other fish decks.  How can I judge this???  Oh...yeah...cause if other fish decks were as good they would T8 as well.  You might win, you might lose, but don't assume Uba wins every matchup against fish, especially this one, and definitely don't call players who might very well be better than yourself sub-par

Are you serious?  Fish is cake. 

as for fish v ubastax, I am not trying to condescend when I say this is definitely the easiest tier deck I can face. Id rather face fish than foodchain or charblecher, both relatively unchallenging. the clock is slow, the disruption irrelevent. counterspells dont matter if they dont have welder to mess w artifacts in my yard, and they dont counter w mana drain, so theres no inherant danger in having things countered besides losing the card.

I would want to go up against Fish moreso than any other good deck in the format.  Also, Chalice for 0 against Fish is a BAD PLAY.  I'm sorry if you disagree.

[b-tings]

I noticed in the possible hosers that you dismissed Damping Matrix against Uba Stax as an overcosted Pithing Needle. This brings up a series questions, in my mind:

1) How crucial are welders to the operation of this deck? You also said you would rather drop Chalice at one than a welder turn one against CS. How comfortable would you be playing this deck without access to your welders?

Which leads into

2) How strong can Damping Matrix be against CS or other decks packing Heretic?

Notably, it shuts off Welder and Heretic, as well as random large artifact such as Pentavus, which was always an issue with 5c and seems like it could be a real pain in the ass, even with welder or heretics of your own, and Mindslaver, which is never fun times . Null Rod deals with the latter two but not the former. I'm out of touch with the last six months or so, having taken a break from the game to get adjusted to university life (read: drink myself stupid). Does matrix shut off anything else popular in non-CS decks?

3) If Damping Matrix is a feasable sideboard option, how far do you go to accomodate it? Do you remove Shamans when you board it in? Welders? Karn? Do you remove some of these from the main deck?

I'm mostly interested in finding a strong solution to Heretic, as it really does seem leaps and bounds ahead of other hosers. Is something as specific as Pithing Needle too narrow? Is it possible to construct the deck to constrict mana even further, in order to make anything that requires 6 mana accross two turns a non-issue in a large enough majority of games to make Heretic undeserving of specific sideboard slots? How do Heretics of our own stack up against Heretics vs. the other decks? If we both have one in play, who's winning the majority of the time? It seems fairly obvious that CS will gladly engage in a Heretic staring contest, but the rest of the Workshop decks my brain is too rusty and I am too far away from my testing partners to figure it out.


EDIT

On an unrelated note, I'm trying to work in Sphere of Resistence, and I noticed you suggested cutting Null Rod. How much worse is Null Rod than Gorilla Shaman? Rod kills your mana, whereas Shaman needs it to run. Shaman Kills Permanents, Rod can be welded. My biggest objection to Shaman is and always has been that at 1cc, it interferes with the strongest chalice you have available. How do you work around this in matchups where you want a chalice at one?

For all questions, I understand that negative synergy can be circumnavigated better in Bazaar decks than in other decks, but are there other reasons why specific negative synergies might be more or less important than others, ignoring sheer power levels?

[Komatteru]

I noticed you suggested cutting Null Rod. How much worse is Null Rod than Gorilla Shaman? Rod kills your mana, whereas Shaman needs it to run. Shaman Kills Permanents, Rod can be welded.

I think Null Rod is the strongest card in the deck.  It's such a bomb in the current meta.  It makes Will nigh-unplayable almost.

[cophos]

resolving smokestack is pretty much the best thing you can possibly do w this or any stax deck. turn 1 smokestack is virtually unbeatable for non-shop decks. the only way out is if I get hit by wasteland and then proceed to be mana screwed, or they get lucky and find moxen and rack and ruin.

Resolving turn 1 Smokestack is pretty much the best thing to get smashed by combo completely ...

[sean1i0]

It's only game against combo if the rest of your hand is nothing but lands.  Turn 1 Smokestack followed by turn 2 null rod, trinisphere, chalice for the appropriate number, or a combination thereof will almost certainly deal with all but the fastest combo hands.  The thing is that it starts constriction on your opponents permanents so early in the game that if the stax deck produces any kind of pressure after that, it should be able to easily pull a victory.

As far as the heretic goes, I believe that your own heretics (vroman had 3 in his chicago sideboard), barbarian rings, and duplicants the threat of enemy heretics should be one that the deck can pull through.

[b-tings]

I noticed you suggested cutting Null Rod. How much worse is Null Rod than Gorilla Shaman? Rod kills your mana, whereas Shaman needs it to run. Shaman Kills Permanents, Rod can be welded.

I think Null Rod is the strongest card in the deck.  It's such a bomb in the current meta.  It makes Will nigh-unplayable almost.

I've been out of the current meta for six months. Can you elaborate as to what precisely about it makes Null Rod such a bomb? Does Chalice for 0 on the play, and Chalice for 0 + Monkey on the draw, more or less accomplish the same thing?

[zergwrong]

Since I haven't seen Memory Jar being mentioned anywhere yet, can it possibly replace Wheel?
It can use shop mana, is a permenant, can be welded in/out (which can possibly win the game this way), sort of dodges rebuild (artifacts can be replayed during the next few turns), and activates at instant speed.