[Discussion] Tangle Wire in Ubastax!

[Evenpence]

I like Karn/Trisk/Titan, in that order, but I don't think I could bring myself to putting Null Rods in the side at Blue Bell.  I expect there to be alot of oath and some aggro there, but also a good bit of Gifts, and probably some Slaver.

I think I'm better off playing the list currently in the first post, with 4 spheres / 3 null rods, and either 3 caps in the sideboard, or 2 caps and a karn.  (I've raced Oath before with Karn.  This guy is unbelievably good.)  Karn is also by far the best card to have against any kind of aggro.

If I did put Caps main (although I don't think I would EVER do that,) I would take out the rods for 1 cap, 1 karn, and 1 trike.  Then I'd have the null rods in the sideboard, and probably an extra cap too.

[vroman]

I played this list in a 27 person tournament yesterday

same mana base as always
4 welder
4 chalice
4 crucible
4 resistor
4 smoky
3 tangle
3 uba
2 dup
1 maze
1 trisphere

side
4 null rod
4 f temper
3 heretic
3 maze
1 tormod

I made top 8, but lost to a team mate w slaver. I put all the nrods in the board bc it was mostly local players w non-tier decks. one thing I noticed was the incredible synergy of tangle + smoky. every turn, tangle goes down by one and smoky goes up by one, and enemy loses permanents before they tap, while I sack only tapped things, and tangle gets sacked when its down to 1 or 0. while I already knew this intuitively, it was awesome to see it happen, since I had only tested a few games w tanglewire so far. tangle definitely is worth it.
even if I permanently drop shamans from the main, I will not cut mtn#3, bc:
1- bring needs a 2nd red source to fire. if I have 1 bring in play, I would only have 5 other non-artifact red producers. bring is hard enough to use w threshold complications, I dont want to be running into color problems also, or I might as well just go back to only mtns and maybe sacrifice a lock for maindeck lavadart.
2- depending on matchup I may be boarding in 7+ red cards, which massively upsets the color balance even before the proposed cut.
I will probably keep shamans in the board anyway, in place of tormod crypt, which has been marginaly useful at best, and is boarded in every matchup where Id want 4xnrod. except maybe dragon, which is nonexistent in midwest lately.

if I were to play a large tourney, Id run this:

standard mana
4 welder/smoky/crucible/chalice
4 resistor
3 uba
3 tangle
2 nrod
1 maze
1 trisphere

side
4 ftemper
3 maze
3 heretic
2 shaman
2 nrod
1 dup

though the shamans could easily become 2xdup
I hesitate to bring back jester cap, though it is a great card, bc it seems too slow to deal w oath and combo, esp vs nrod.

[Evenpence]

I've actually come to the exact same conclusions you have, Vroman.  Right now I'm running a list with 2 Uba/2 Rod main, 2 of each in the side.  (although I'm going to go down to 1 Uba in the side).

The deck is actually evolving naturally.

EDIT:

On a separate note, I'm trying to get a 4th Tangle Wire in there, because the card is SICK.  3 is perfectly fine, I'm just thinking about what I could possibly take out.

Vroman, I would have played the same thing you would have at the 27 man tourney (exact same MD) except for -1 Maze + 1 Wire.

Tangle Wire is so sick.  So, I just played a game where I had 3 Spheres.  He draws his seventh land next turn, being able to cast a rebuild I know he mysticaled for three turns ago (I've been laying spheres ever since).

I draw Tangle Wire.

GG.

[yespuhyren]

I've been playing 4 wires since the first day I saw the post about them.  Right away, I cut 3 resistors and 1 something and have been playing wires.  I always hated spheres, and wires are just so good with welder. 

[Evenpence]

While spheres are good for initial disruption, Tangle Wires also serve as time walks, almost guaranteeing you locks in you draw into them, with the exception of multiple force of wills.

I usually try to lay Tangle Wire as my first lock, even before Smokestack against a mana drain deck to insure myself the ability to get a Smokestack or Uba Mask into play.

The order of my priorities against blue based control goes like this:

Welder,
Tangle Wire,
Uba Mask/Smokestack

And a bazaar somewhere in there.

Sphere of resistance is good on the draw if you have enough mana to eek out a sphere AND a tangle wire, or on the play if you have enough mana to do a sphere THEN a tangle wire, but sphere by itself is poo poo on the draw, and on the play it's not enormous amounts better, as they can just lay moxes.

I will admit, though, the 2 cc is pretty nice.  I'm torn on the issue.  I've been testing a build similiar to Yesphuren's, and it's been going along REALLY well against blue-based control.

[GAUDARD]

...

The order of my priorities against blue based control goes like this:

Welder,
Tangle Wire,
Uba Mask/Smokestack

And a bazaar somewhere in there.

...

So if you could lay a turn 1 smokestack you'd still play the turn 1 Welder?  What about Wasteland/Crucible? 

Given enough mana to play 1 thing lock what would you play? You could play Welder, or you could play Smokestack, or you could play Crucible?

[MarkPharaoh]

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?  If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.  I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

[nataz]

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?  If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.  I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

regardless of other stuff, why in the world would a CS player not generaly counter a T1 welder vs. UbaStax? All it takes is a bazaar and a Mox and suddenly that welder becomes a really potent threat by giving the ubastax player an easy out against mana your mana drains drains.

[MoxMonkey]

I wouldn't but thats cause unlike others I mainboard a Darkblast or Fire/Ice so with  A tutor that Welder goes away whenever I want it too and I have Shamans who make your Drop a mox weld No longer possible.  Having 2 Black Tutors 2 shamans and the Fire/Ice gives me 5 Outs to your Amazing turn 1 Welder and remember you still need that mox or something to weld and I also have 3-4 Welders Myself which I can use to weld your stuff around.  Its all depending on their hand but not countering Turn 1 Welder should point you in the direction of better stuff in their hand.

[nataz]

I wouldn't but thats cause unlike others I mainboard a Darkblast or Fire/Ice so with  A tutor that Welder goes away whenever I want it too and I have Shamans who make your Drop a mox weld No longer possible.  Having 2 Black Tutors 2 shamans and the Fire/Ice gives me 5 Outs to your Amazing turn 1 Welder and remember you still need that mox or something to weld and I also have 3-4 Welders Myself which I can use to weld your stuff around. 

my mistake, I must have missed the memo where CS now generally plays a maindeck darkblast AND fire/ice AND 2 shamans.

Black Tutor -> Shaman requires B1R1 just to kill a mox in response to a weld, and if that is your plan for not countering my first turn welder, by all means go for it. I'm sure that nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan.

Nothing like the fact that it requires TWO off color mana sources against a deck with 5 strip effects and 3 null rods. Nothing like the 4 chalice of the voids that are going to be set to 1 as soon as possible. Nothing like the 4 MD b-rings that can kill your welders w/out ever having to cast a spell. Nothing like the fact that if you don't deal with your first turn, an active bazaar can ruin your day w/ a welded smokey, wire, null rod, crucible, etc.

Its all depending on their hand but not countering Turn 1 Welder should point you in the direction of better stuff in their hand

umm, duh?  I mean if you are holding the darkblast, or a pithing needle, or a fire/ice, sure, by all means let the bugger though. Heck, I will not argue that CS is a good match-up for any variant of UbaStax, but lets be realistic here. A T1 welder *is* a threat, more so in ubastax then in traditional stax simply b/c of bazaar. If you don't counter it, you better have a pretty good reason, and I would argue that situation would not be the norm.

[Evenpence]

...

The order of my priorities against blue based control goes like this:

Welder,
Tangle Wire,
Uba Mask/Smokestack

And a bazaar somewhere in there.

...

So if you could lay a turn 1 smokestack you'd still play the turn 1 Welder?  What about Wasteland/Crucible? 

Given enough mana to play 1 thing lock what would you play? You could play Welder, or you could play Smokestack, or you could play Crucible?

No, you always try for the Smokestack first, obviously, as if they counter the smokestack, that forces them to counter the Welder.  If the welder goes free, then the smokestack is fine.  The payoff for first turn smokestack is much greater than first turn Welder.

Sorry for the confusion.  If I have a steady mana curve of 2, 3, then 4, I go for Welder, then Tangle Wire to get them off drain mana, then Smokestack.

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?  If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.  I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

The point is to get a welder through so counterspells don't matter.  Ubastax is designed to play around counterspells, which is why decks like Gifts generally lose to Ubastax.  I would play turn 1 welder against control because you're able to ramp a stax right then, and then play your welder for a good-ol' lock.  Playing welder-stax gets you the ability to force a stax through, but you lose tempo and give them advantage by not playing the stax.

I never said that I would play a welder over Stax, but having welder on the board is more of a priority and possibility.  If I have a hand like:

Workshop, Workshop, Ruby, Stax, Welder, Crucible, Tangle Wire, and I'm on the play,

Then I'm going to play it like this against blue based control:

Ruby, Workshop, Stax.  Go.
Tangle Wire (hoping it gets countered), workshop, crucible, WELDER, go.  Welder is last because he's the most important.  I can weld out wire for crucible and just win.  If they don't counter crucible, then it's I win even more.

This is an amazing hand against control, though.  The priorities between Stax and Welder are that Stax is more important to actually have on the table early game, however, welder is more huge long game, because by the time they have 5+ lands, Stax doesn't do much.  However, welding out Uba Mask (for instance) to deny them lands or key sorceries (like DT) is huge.

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?혻 If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.혻 I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

regardless of other stuff, why in the world would a CS player not generaly counter a T1 welder vs. UbaStax? All it takes is a bazaar and a Mox and suddenly that welder becomes a really potent threat by giving the ubastax player an easy out against mana your mana drains drains.

Welder is a huge threat to CS.  If I win the welder war with CS, I generally win.  Period.  The hard thing is actually winning the welder war when they have counterspells and welder kill.  The reason we generally lose to CS is BECAUSE they counter Welders.  Seriously.  No joke.  For real.

If I get a welder out 1st turn, they can't counter my stuff.  If they do, they lose.  If they can't counter my stuff, I can start pumping out ubazaar.

[forests failed you]

For what its worth, I always play tangle Wire in my Stax lists, regardless of whether it is Five color or Uba.  Stax has a lot of slow cards that take a turn to become active.  Smokestack, Welder, Sometimes Crucible if you needed your land drop to cast it.  THerefore I like having as many cards in my deck as possible to do stuff right away, to ensure I get a chance to make my slower cards work.  I like Sphere of resistence, Tangle Wire, and Chalice of the void because they all get to work right away.

I don't like lazy cards.  It is also saucy to shut off their mana Drains and resolve Stax on the next turn.  I've also found it is a good card to bait with, and it allows you to resolve a Welder at a critical time.

[Evenpence]

You nailed it Brian.

I use Wire primarily to shut off drain mana, but it's INSANE when you topdeck it with a ramped stax out.  MUCH better than Shaman.

[benthetenor]

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?  If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.  I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

The point is to get a welder through so counterspells don't matter.  Ubastax is designed to play around counterspells, which is why decks like Gifts generally lose to Ubastax.  I would play turn 1 welder against control because you're able to ramp a stax right then, and then play your welder for a good-ol' lock.  Playing welder-stax gets you the ability to force a stax through, but you lose tempo and give them advantage by not playing the stax.

I never said that I would play a welder over Stax, but having welder on the board is more of a priority and possibility.  If I have a hand like:

Workshop, Workshop, Ruby, Stax, Welder, Crucible, Tangle Wire, and I'm on the play,

Then I'm going to play it like this against blue based control:

Ruby, Workshop, Stax.  Go.
Tangle Wire (hoping it gets countered), workshop, crucible, WELDER, go.  Welder is last because he's the most important.  I can weld out wire for crucible and just win.  If they don't counter crucible, then it's I win even more.

This is an amazing hand against control, though.  The priorities between Stax and Welder are that Stax is more important to actually have on the table early game, however, welder is more huge long game, because by the time they have 5+ lands, Stax doesn't do much.  However, welding out Uba Mask (for instance) to deny them lands or key sorceries (like DT) is huge.

You're putting an awful lot of importance on a 1/1 creature. Goblin Welder is meant to be an additional route to success and one way to fight counterspells, not your sole plan. Playing lock parts is equally damaging to counterspells, which is why against something like CS resolving Sphere of Resistance is better than resolving Goblin Welder. Uba Stax is more than capable of taking the welder-less Stax route if necessary, which is especially important given the prevalence of Darkblast and other Welder kill.

Why on earth would you play a turn1 Welder over a turn1 Smokestack against control?혻 If they don't have FoW they are probably losing.혻 I mean hell, even most CS players I know wouldn't even force a Welder turn1 if they had the counter.

regardless of other stuff, why in the world would a CS player not generaly counter a T1 welder vs. UbaStax? All it takes is a bazaar and a Mox and suddenly that welder becomes a really potent threat by giving the ubastax player an easy out against mana your mana drains drains.

Welder is a huge threat to CS.  If I win the welder war with CS, I generally win.  Period.  The hard thing is actually winning the welder war when they have counterspells and welder kill.  The reason we generally lose to CS is BECAUSE they counter Welders.  Seriously.  No joke.  For real.

If I get a welder out 1st turn, they can't counter my stuff.  If they do, they lose.  If they can't counter my stuff, I can start pumping out ubazaar.

Winning the welder war doesn't so much win you the game as losing the welder war loses you the game. At the point where you aren't ahead on Welders, you lose the ability to use Uba Mask and Smokestack effectively, turning the 'Mask into a liability that more likely than not should be sided out. More than that, they can now use their welders effectively and you will no longer be able to "counter" their welder activations with activations of your own, because quite frankly, they have more activations per turn than you do. What this means is that they can use their cards like Triskelion to decimate your board or Pentavus to make Smokestack a joke, and can thus more effectively slip out of the soft locks that you were hoping to harden up. What we need more than anything else is an effective way to deal with Welder 100% of the time, much like CS can have main-decked Darkblast/Triskelion and about a hundred ways to find them.

[Evenpence]

I agree almost completely, Ben, although I have a question:

Uba Stax is more than capable of taking the welder-less Stax route if necessary, which is especially important given the prevalence of Darkblast and other Welder kill.

More capabale than what?  5c Stax?  Well, sure, considering they don't have as many lock pieces as us, but Welder is extremely important to this deck.  Locks revolve around him.  Ramping smokestack to 3+ revolves around him more than it does crucible.  He's very important to the deck.

[benthetenor]

I said "more than capable", not "more capable than". As such, it's not more capable than any one deck, it is just very capable of playing in Welderless fashion. I agree that Welder is important, but it seems to me that you rely too much on Welder tricks to get the job done. Have you ever sided Welder's out?

[Evenpence]

Alright, I understand you now.  I agree.

I actually have sided out Welders before against Oath, hoping for them to activate Oath while I had b-ring threshold out, so I could kill the tokens, fetching a duplicant to imprint their guys.

This worked once out of about 10 tries.

Other than that, I haven't tried siding out welders in any matchup, because I don't think it would help in any of my matchups.

However, I have played tons of games where I never see a welder and win, so I understand what it's like to play welderless Ubastax.  It's not better than Ubastax with welders though.  Welder is a very important part of the deck that could never go down to a 3-of, let alone get taken out completely.

[b-tings]

I'm thinking if you want to fit the fourth tangle wire in, the logical cut would be the fourth Chalice of the Void. As big a proponent as I am of Chalice, I'm a proponent because of it's ability to play Null Rod on the play if need be, and with Mox Monkey and Null Rod in your kitchen sink build this role becomes less necessary. I'm currently testing a similar build, except rather than the fourth Tangle, I've gone with a 2/2 split between Monkey and Null Rod, with the fourth Chalice in the board for CS. The other option I'm looking at is a 4/1 Chalice/Monkey split, with the second Monkey coming in for the fourth Chalice on the draw. It depends on how much CS is kicking around and how well you've rigged your dice.

[Evenpence]

Chalice is an auto-include at a 4-of spot.  There are some cards in this deck which I feel must ALWAYS be in the deck to even be considered Ubastax, and at a certain number at that.  These cards are the following:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Strip mine
1 Tolarian Academy

1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
5 Moxen

4 Goblin Welder

4 Smokestack
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere


Everything else is negotiable.  Even one chalice is simply not cuttable.  You always want to see chalices in your hand to take out threats.  I would rather cut the 4th Stax, 4th Crucible, or even the 4th Welder before I cut the 4th Chalice!

By the way, if the above are non-negotiable, then that leaves us with 20 slots which can be changed to everyone's liking.

Null Rod
Uba Mask
Gorilla Shaman
Tangle Wire
Sphere of Resistance

And others always appear in weird numbers from build to build.  I'm going to run a peculiar list at Blue Bell just to see how it goes.  I won't be running one huge component in the MD and possibly even in the SB which might turn some heads.

[b-tings]

I don't see why it should. There's been talk about cutting Uba Mask for a long time. It drifts in and out on the fringe, and doesn't get much credit, but I voiced the idea in the old UbaStax thread that splintered into a 5c Bazaar-stax thread. This is the same thread, in fact, in which I was one of the fiercest detractors from Gorilla Shaman in the old UbaStax thread. That idea didn't get much credit either, at the time.

Anyway, "non-negotiable" slots are always negotiable. Welder used to be non-negotiable in the same way Tangle Wire was non-negotiable before they both got removed from 5c builds, and the same can be said for Gorilla Shaman. Questioning your approach is a good thing.

Having said that, I'm about as big a fan of Chalice, and as small a fan of Gorilla Shaman, as they come, so I went with a 4/1 Chalice/Shaman split, with the second shaman in the board for when I'm on the draw, as well as the remaining two Null Rods.

Out of curiosity, with the addition of Tangle Wire, have people found it problematic setting early Chalices at 3 when you get those explosive mana draws? I feel like this deck is better equipped to aggressively set Chalice at 1 than most other Stax builds I've played, but I feel like that ability has come at the expense of the ability to set higher Chalices. Thoughts?

[Evenpence]

I top 8ed in a small tourney over the weekend running 3 Wires / 2 Shamans / 2 Duplicants with no spheres in the board or maindeck.

I was expecting a huge Oath turnout, when in fact, there was only ONE OATH DECK that came up, and we IDed the round before the top 8.

Six cards in my sideboard were completely useless (shaman didn't do anything either) but Tangle Wire was GOLDEN in a few matchups.

I never needed sphere in the matchups, and because it was a small tourney, I was expecting lower-tier decks, which there were tons of.

I lost in the first round of the top 8 to Blue White Fish - my BEST MATCHUP because of double energy flux and ridiculously bad opening hands / draws.  I crushed him first game because even though I had a sub-mediocre hand, it was keepable, and I got crucible out so his wastelands did nothing.  It was the guy's first Vintage tournament, and he top 8ed in it.  I was so glad for him.  I could have won through a single energy flux (and almost did second game), but not through a double (third game) when he has a guy with curiousity.  Oh yeah, also not against a guy who METAGAMED TO BEAT MY DECK (almost his entire sideboard had cards for me).

He had disenchant MD, and FOUR ENERGY FLUX in the board.  Not to mention having an answer for every single lock I threw down game 2 AND 3.  I couldn't keep a single lock on the board other than crucible in either game because of artifact removal.

Maze of Iths were CRAP.  I expected scrubby aggro (I got paired up against UR Fish and UW Fish, heh), so I thought the mazes would come in handy.  They didn't.  At all.

I went undefeated throughout the swiss, and had the best tiebreakers out of anyone, (three people that I got paired against top 8ed as well as two making it to the finals).

I'll write more about it in a tournament report that I'm probably going to submit tonight, but man oh man, wires were unbelievable.

[RaZe]

I have been playing this list for a month now at MWS...

4 Workshop
4 Waste
4 Bazaar
4 B.Ring
3 Mountain
1 Strip
1 Tolarian

4 Welder
2 Shaman
2 Duplicant

4 Smoke
4 Chalice
3 Tangle
3 Crucible
3 Rod
2 Sphere
2 Uba
1 Trini

9 Mana Artifacts

SB

2 Dup
2 Ith
3 T Crypt
4 Temper
4 Heretic

Wire is quite a game breaker whether your winning or loosing. At one point, I was able to break through my opponents E.Flux via doing welder tricks w/ Wire and Sol Ring while paying for Crucible upkeep with my B.rings [felt like I was running Ancient Tombs]. Wires are very good anti-drain cards. Shamans didn't seem to be needed except as chump blockers against UW Fish. But I'm still reluctant to cut them. [I woulda lost that game if my Shaman hadn't blocked that Lion] On another game against Ichorid, Wire buyed me a lot of turns due to the Active Player Priority rule which resulted on the Ichorid player decking himself due to too much dredging.

Wire has been great for me, but I didn't really like cutting down on the Ubas. I might go -1 Null Rod +1 Uba Main, -1 Crypt +1 Rod SB. I don't face a lot of Gifts, so I can't relly tell how it is for the match-up. I have yet to pull of the Uba+Wire combo. Seems interesting.

[Evenpence]

Your deck tries to do everything. 

It's got a ton of variety and not alot of consistency.  You might want to try cutting the two Spheres for the 4th Crucible and a 3rd Uba Mask.  If you do that, I'm pretty sure that's the same list I ran at Blue Bell.

I'm growing dissatisfied with the spheres lately.  I think the Wires are just flat out better.  However, Sphere + Tangle Wire is great.

If I ran a list with everything in it, this is the list I would run:

30 Lands and Mana Artifacts

6 CREATURES:
4 Welders
1 Shaman
1 Duplicant

12 big locks:
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible
4 Chalice

12 little locks:
3 Tangle
3 Sphere
3 Uba
2 Rod
1 3-Ball

I would have to have two null rods in the board, then.
This might be the superior list, and I will might be taking this list to Richmond with me.  It packs a little of everything, but is still very consistent.

[b-tings]

How often do you have the first sphere when you want it with 3? The second?

How often have you drawn Duplicant when you wanted a sphere? How about when you wanted Duplicant?

Sphere has always been very strong for me in the Oath matchup, simply for its ability to keep the oath off the board for a turn, but I'm not sure what this deck does for that extra turn that makes it worthwhile unless you've already stuck a Smokestack or have waste recursion to keep that Oath off the table. You certainly can't use that space to set up the kill, which is one of my grievances with this deck.

I understand the whole Stax philosophy of trying to make your target sit still before you go for the headshot, but I am increasingly finding myself frustrated with my inability to change gears on opponents who commit themselves to just keeping out of the lock. Not that this game plan is an especially dangerous one, but when your opponent gets one step ahead, there is really very little you can do except draw into cards that let you take two steps in one turn, and hope your opponent doesn't have the FoW. Especially with Bazaars and Welders, I feel like this deck desperately wants a bomb, so I'm going to try cutting the Shaman for Karn. I know he's at odds with your two Null Rods, but that's a risk I'm willing to take most days for the ability to force the opponent's hand and switch roles on a dime when the lock isn't in sight.

I've never been a big fan of Duplicant against Oath. He's mostly good against 5/3s and such nonsense. Is this what you had in mind when you put him in, or were you expecting him to get rid of angels for you?

[Evenpence]

I find myself constantly disagreeing with you, b-tings.  Not that it's necessarily a bad thing for me to disagree with you, but really, I think you and I might have different philosophies about the deck.  I'll answer your post in sections, but I'm leaving in about ten minutes and won't be able to answer you until tomorrow if you have any more questions about my answers.

How often do you have the first sphere when you want it with 3? The second?

I've always liked 3 as the number of spheres.  I tried going up to 4, but found them to be cluttersome.  I really don't want to draw sphere when I could be drawing a better lock for the situation.  I think Tangle Wire is inheritantly stronger with the deck anyway, and would rather go up to a 4th Wire than go to a 4th Sphere, even though Wire sucks in multiples compared to Sphere.  I want that sphere only to create a soft lock for a turn or two, not to build up to a huge 3+ Sphere wall, which takes alot of time and energy to do anyway.

I don't like sphere's plan of destroying my ways of playing locks, as well.  Hardcasting Duplicant becomes almost impossible with 4 spheres in the deck, although 3 isn't much better if you're expecting to make spheres a huge priority of the deck.

How often have you drawn Duplicant when you wanted a sphere?

Only in the opening hand.  Only when I'm currently winning or have a decent board position, as well.  So, very early game.

How about when you wanted Duplicant?

Alot of the time, especially mid, or late game.  In other words, I've wanted Duplicant alot more than Sphere, and in most situations.

Sphere has always been very strong for me in the Oath matchup, simply for its ability to keep the oath off the board for a turn, but I'm not sure what this deck does for that extra turn that makes it worthwhile unless you've already stuck a Smokestack or have waste recursion to keep that Oath off the table. You certainly can't use that space to set up the kill, which is one of my grievances with this deck.

Duplicant is like 10x better against Oath than Sphere.  He takes out Angels.  He absolutely demolishes Oath when you go first turn red land, welder, mox, second turn bazaar away duplicant.  Oath can't do anything for a while.  Sphere just delays the inevitable.

I understand the whole Stax philosophy of trying to make your target sit still before you go for the headshot, but I am increasingly finding myself frustrated with my inability to change gears on opponents who commit themselves to just keeping out of the lock.

I don't think this is the Stax philosophy at all.  The Stax philosophy is to not allow your opponent to play anything, ever.  You can let them build up if you have the possibility of getting a Smokestack into play, because it only takes a couple of turns for the boards to be clear, or better yet, for their board to be clear, and you to be at 3-5 permanents (welder helps here).

Spheres only help when they have little permanents on the board.  They're not win-more, however, because they prevent your opponent from getting permanents on the board quickly (like by stopping moxes) or by making moxes almost fully ineffective (double sphere on the board does that well).

Duplicant is an answer card.  He only comes in handy when you're losing, or are tied in board position, which is the complete opposite of sphere.

Not that this game plan is an especially dangerous one, but when your opponent gets one step ahead, there is really very little you can do except draw into cards that let you take two steps in one turn, and hope your opponent doesn't have the FoW. Especially with Bazaars and Welders, I feel like this deck desperately wants a bomb, so I'm going to try cutting the Shaman for Karn. I know he's at odds with your two Null Rods, but that's a risk I'm willing to take most days for the ability to force the opponent's hand and switch roles on a dime when the lock isn't in sight.

Every card in the deck is important against every matchup, virtually, because they all have synergy with each other.  I agree with your cutting Shaman for the Karn if you want a fatty in a 2 Null Rod build, but I feel Karn can be win-more alot of the time, and it forces you to negate your Null Rod.  You also can't kill nullified moxes with Karn unless you weld your null rod out.  Karn also can't come down in the early game.

If you were going for a single fatty, Karn, Triskelion, or Sundering Titan is right.  Titan is the most synergistic with the deck, Triskelion is best for killing enemy welders, and Karn is best for killing opponents.  However, I don't think the deck needs a bomb creature.  Duplicant does the job just fine.  Even though you need to swing for 20 turns with Welder most of the time, this is the most advantageous way to play the deck because it increases your chances of locking the game up early.

I've never been a big fan of Duplicant against Oath. He's mostly good against 5/3s and such nonsense. Is this what you had in mind when you put him in, or were you expecting him to get rid of angels for you?

He's there for angel removal, primarily with Welder, but he can also be hardcasted to get rid of an angel.  He's good in other matchups, too, like removing opposing welders, or being the only target in your graveyard for their welders to use and whatnot.  He's good.

[b-tings]

So this doesn't get annoyingly cluttered with quotes, I'm just going to respond in pieces. If you can figure out which piece of your post I'm responding to, you win a fabulous prize!

I understand what you mean when you say Spheres get cluttersome, especially in multiples and especially when Null Rod gets involved. I also agree that building up a wall of Spheres is usually more effort than it's worth. The more I think about it, the more I realize more often than not I only want a single Sphere, and the more I'm leaning towards cutting one.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, however, that Duplicant is that much better against Oath than Sphere. Certainly, he has a bigger impact when you need him, but I've always found that the most effective route against Oath is keeping their mana tied up and keeping Oath off the table. As for the situation you mentioned, it's a pretty god-drawish situation, and you could just as easily, for example, drop a turn one null rod, turn two sphere or waste effect, followed up by more of the same or Tangle Wire, and prevent Oath from hitting the table in that fashion until you can find Stack/Crucible. If it got to the point where Oath was going to stick in the later stages of the game, I'll often be able to race with Karn and a couple of his children anyways.

Regarding the philosophy bit, I was trying to express more or less the same thing, but my metaphor was bad. In particular, headshot implies a quick kill. My point was that, especially the way you've constructed it, a lot of Stax is played to immobilize your opponent first and kill them second. I've simply found that while this is elegant in theory, in practice sometimes the game doesn't always go according to script. This was the same reason I ran Sundering Titan in my old 5c build; you don't always have the nice progression of lock parts that puts your opponent on ice. Sometimes, your 6-card hand just screams "Tinker or Bust," and it's times like these that Tinker->Smokestack isn't going to cut it. Similarly, there will be times with this deck when your hand doesn't put the opponent in leg irons, or when you can keep pushing back that critical spell (say, Oath) a turn, but in order to do so you can't afford to miss a turn of disruption to drop Smokestack and put things to bed for good, or when you mulligan into a 4-mana source hand with a first- and second-turn play that doesn't draw out. It sounds about as rare as your duplicant example, but openings like Shop->Sol Ring (Mana Crypt or Vault can come down next turn)->Crucible, followed by Karn and waste a land, munch a mox, or beat for three, are all pretty simple ways to win games. Effective mana disruption like Mox buffets or recurring Waste coupled with 7 a turn is pretty difficult situation to overcome, especially when you looked at a hand with 3 lands, a mox, and a draw spell, and figured it would be able to power you through mana disruption and win you the long game.

As for Karn being a win-more card, he looks like it a lot of the time when he comes down with 7 lock parts on the table and ends the game then and there, but he plays a different role in other situation. He can munch Moxes all on his own, and he stops aggro decks in their tracks. I don't think there's any play quite as satisfying in the pseudo-mirror as throwing a dead Tangle Wire in front of a Juggernaut. I challenge your assumption that he will rarely come down early, as turn one or two Karns off a Shop are not all that uncommon, and are a fantastic gambit when your opponent doesn't have much to guage the rest of your hand on. Such a play puts your opponent on a variable clock that they don't know the variables of, which is a tricky situation to play out of, especially when all of their moxes are suddenly lotus petals.

Having put forward all of these arguments, I completely understand your desire to have Duplicant in the deck. He's a house when he works, and he gets you out of lots of jams that no other card in your deck can get you out of. I just find that, when you're bringing your A-game and your deck isn't trying to burn you, you don't get yourself into many of those jams in the first place.

[Evenpence]

That was a very well thought out and great post.  Personally, I like Karn better than all of the fatties for the reasons you've just mentioned, but I can't find room for him.  If we were at 60 card minimums, we'd probably cut Null Rod and have a Karn or two in the build, of course, we wouldn't dominate and combo would...

But regardless, I think Karn is the best fatty out of Trisk, Titan, and Duplicant when you don't have Null Rod in play and when you've got the game either locked up or tied in board position.  He can win the game for you occasionally when you're losing, but almost always doesn't.  Trisk and Titan can do that too, although they are really good mid-game.

Karn is an early game type of guy.  He likes to get out there and start swinging on moxes and then swinging with 4/4 smokestacks.  He likes to come out late too, if you have enough mana (and locks!) to finish the enemy off with a single blow.  Mid game is where he actually shines the least comparatively to the other guys.

Trisk kills enemy welders and annoying fishies, while Titan blows lands up to cement you the game.  Karn...ehh.  Karn blows up moxes, and puts your opponent on a two, three, or four turn clock.  That's about it, really.

I might try the same build as above with a missing Duplicant for a Karn to see how it works out, but I doubt it will be any better.  I'll also try cutting Shaman for Karn (which is what I assume you're pitching as well).

I disagree with you on the Oath matchup, though.  Tangle Wire is alot better with Duplicant than it is with Sphere.    Delaying your opponent with wires so that you can fish for a Duplicant is key against Oath, and ranks up there in good plays with Chalice at 2, and Workshop-Mox-Smokestack.

What does your list look like, btw?

[b-tings]

I'm currently working with:

The same Land/Mana Base as Everyone Else

4 Smokestack
4 Crucible
4 Chalice
4 Tangle Wire
3 Uniball
3 Mask
2 Null Rod
1 tri-ball

1 Karn
4 Goblin Welder

I think Karn is better in the mid-game then you're giving up, but I guess it depends when your midgame is. T1 has this strange way of warping the traditional definitions of game time, and Stax has a strange way of warping it back, so it's tough to tell what time of game we're talking about sometimes. Regardless, I've played an awful lot of games with Karn in my stack, and a reasonable sum with more than one copy, and I have trouble remembering any situation in which I didn't already have him in play and was disappointed to see him, unless I was already scrambling and on a two-outer.

As for the Oath matchup, I realized that my past experiences were probably weighted far too heavily against Duplicant, because an awful lot of my memories come from a time I was playing Welder-less 5c, terms under which Duplicant functions mighty differently than when he comes in and out and you have a pitch outlet. I guess I'll have to give him another shot, but even if he does do everything as advertised in the Oath matchup, I'm not sure that he'll warrant a slot.

As for what I'm pitching, not really anything. I'm not terribly in tune with the global metagame, as I don't get a chance to play very much when I'm away at university, being without a car, contacts who could give me rides to tournaments, or mIRC to play games over apprentice/MWS. Fish is popular on the West Coast, so I know I'll be including a copy of Karn if I head to any tournaments. If I had to go to Seattle tomorrow to play, that's what I'd be taking, but that's not necessarily because it's ideal - it's just simple and familiar.

[Evenpence]

Uniball is one I've never heard for:

Sphere of Resistance
Sphere
Resist Orb
Resistor
Minisphere
Lilsphere
1-Ball
AND NOW:  UNIBALL

I think it's interesting that you cut a creature for Tangle Wire, but other than that, your build is identical to mine.  Honestly, I would cut a creature for the 3rd Null Rod, personally, because that frees up two sideboard slots instead of one, because with 3 Null Rods, you don't need another in the board, but with 2, you need 2 in the board.  Why?  Because running 2 MD is bad Game 1 against decks where Null Rod is necessary to win through.  However, you need the other 2 in the board to win games 2 and 3.  Running 3 MD means that you have a much better chance of winning game 1 against those decks, so games 2 and 3 are less important.  I think most people agree with me on this.

I'll test out Karn and let you know what I think.

ALSO, FOR FUTURE REFERENCE ON THIS THREAD:
Instead of writing out:
4 Smokestack
4 Crucible
4 Chalice
4 Welder

Everyone knows that every good Ubastax list has 4 of each of these, and other numbers vary.  Because of this, I am nicknaming these four cards the "LOCK 16."

So we have the "MANABASE 30" comprised of 21 Lands and 9 Artifact Mana, and the "LOCK 16" comprised of Welder and his buddies.

This will make it easier for people to talk about the differences in their build without writing out all that crap.

[yespuhyren]

I've done extensive testing on Karn a while back, and cut him rather soon.  He is incredible, yes, but so often I wouldn't draw him until I have a rod down, and I don't want to weld out the rods, as they are hurting the opponent more. 

Like I said in the other thread, without Rods, Karn is hands down the best kill card, but rods are too many to risk him being shut down. 

As I also said, I take the least amount of chances for dead cards, meaning I don't even board TCrypts because I would only board them into matchups I'm already using NRods, and I'd rather have all useful live cards.