In The Know Volume 3 [Premium]

[Vegeta2711]

It's back and this time dealing with Stax.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12202.html

For those who just want to endlessly take random pot shots about what they'd do without reading the article, here was the scenario.

The Scenario
It's game 1 and you're on the play with Five-Color Stax against an unknown opponent.

Your opening seven-card hand is:

Seven spells that seal your fate

Mishra's Workshop
Wasteland
City of Brass
Chalice of the Void
Crucible of Worlds
Goblin Welder
Vampiric Tutor

General tutor targets are standard Five-Color stuff: Ancestral Recall, Tinker, Balance, etc.

Question #1: What's the play for turn 1?
Question #2: What's your general plan going to be for the next few turns?
Question #3: Does the play change if you know your opponent has Force of Will in hand?

Thanks go to Jacob Orlove for coming up with the original scenario, though I tweaked it a wee bit.

[MaxxMatt]

My plan would be to apply a good denial route within two turns.

If anything goes undisturbed, my opponent would be probably stalled out for a long time.
Key cards to accomplish this winning path are Vamp and CotV.

Turn 1.

I'll play CotV@0 first, to taste his response and his behaviour towards the block to his own possible mana development.

If it resolve I would play Goblin Welder.  It is a bait for counters and, retrospectively speaking, support any turn 2 plays better than anything else, especially because those turn 2 play would involve an artifact for sure. I prefer playing it rather than CoW because this move can let you relax a bit more about your future interactions with opponent.

If CotV doesn't resolve, I would play Vamp for Null Rod. I should expect a lot of artifact mana on table, so Rod is far more game sealing than Shaman/Welder.

Resolving Welder or not, isn't important. If they counter, it would be even better, because I would be sure that, next turn, I would go pretty undisturbed. If Welder resolve, I gained more informations about him rather then I would have thought. He could have a so-so hand or he could not play counters at all.



Turn 2.

I would play Vamp.Tutor during my Upkeep, talking out Stripmine from my deck.
That move would imply that the had not done something really NASTY, such as Necropotence or Bargain or Welder and my plan was going on undisturbed.
Resolbing CoW off MW would be the next consequent move.

If they went on with Island and SolRing, I would grab Null Rod instead, because CoW+Wasteland AND Rod can be a good clock too.
If they went on with Dual something else, I would Waste his land first, waiting for CoW's recursion till turn 3.
If they went on MW and CoW, I would probably play Vamp for Shaman, because all I need is to feed a bit him and switch things with my Welder.
If they played something that would oblige me thinking about have a few time before my artifacts would be bounced back into my hand, I would try to play CoW-Strip as soon as possible.

I don't know if Bazaar of Baghdad is in the deck, so I cannot pose attention to heavy Welder+Grave's recursions enhancers.

After those reasoning, I think that the deck could still win/lose the game, without locking the game too much, especially because you aren't aware of opponent's weakness and opponent's possible plays.

CotV@0 isn't a so much smart play, especially if you are not aware of his weapons, but you have Vamp and Welder in hand, so you can't risk it resolved and your bombs clunked in hand.
CoW+Strip is really fast. You can set up it even a turn faster than I described you, simply playing CoW turn1, Vamp for Strip, Strip, turn 2 and then reitering it since turn 3.
If something goes wrong, you have not as much as gas as it seems to recover and win.
The best thing to do to win fast would be to put out a Smokestack lock too.
Leaving it locked at one and with CoW in play, you would acquire an almost undefeateable lock.

MaxxMatt

[49 Cents]

5c Staxx doesn't play Null Rod.

[Disburden]

It is really cool that you picked 5c Stax as the deck to use in this article. I loved it, thanks.

What I would do is probably what everyone said in the article. To me, first turn Chalice at 0 is very strong against pretty much anything. Even aggro control in the form of SS runs all the moxen now. My first turn would look like this:

Play Chalice set to zero
Play city of brass
Play Welder

Now if I were playing against Mana Drain, the Chalice would probably not resolve. This would make my Welder play weaker for the first turn, it will change strength when I tutor for something relevent on turn 2.

Let's say Chalice did resolve though, I would most likely Vamp during my Upkeep for Smokestack and then play it turn two.

The real question about this article is what do we do if Chalice is countered? I would like to hear what everyone has to say about the correct tutor target turn two if all you have on the board is a useless Welder without any artifacts in play. As someone that plays Drains a lot right now, I would almost never keep a hand without Drains or Force of Wills. I'm pretty certain Chalice wouldn't resolve. Stax can do okay as long as it plays a lock piece right away, even if it is countered. So what would you do if you only got your Welder into action on the play?

Null Rod is strong. If the deck did run this card, I would tutor for this on my upkeep.  I would like to say that some versions of 5c Stax that I've seen run 1-2 Null Rods, so it is a possible card in the deck.

[warble]

I would most likely Vamp during my Upkeep for Smokestack and then play it turn two

With your SUPER mana!  Go super mana go!  It deflects bullets, it flies, it even taps twice in one turn!

My opinion is to lay the chalice for 0 and the welder.  Turn 2 vamp for trinisphere during your upkeep and lay trinisphere during that turn.  There aren't a lot of decks that can take that...and who cares if you have strip if you have waste and chalice for 0 and trinisphere and a welder.  If your brass gets wasted turn 2 you have to go workshop crucible and go for the l8r chalice or smokestack play depending on how the board develops.  If they have a force of will I'd still do the exact same play.  Just because they can counter one lock component doesn't mean they can play around the other two.  This would be what I'd expect to do, not necessarily what I would do depending on their turn 1 play.

[MaxxMatt]

@Warble.
ok. no turn 2 Smoke.
You can play turn 2 CoW, turn 3 Smoke.
It is a lock really difficult do avoid, especially if CotV@0 resolved during first turn.

@49Cents.
I would play one or two Rods in my 5C.$t4k$.
Tutorable singletons are THE NUTS.
This deck can play Demonic, Vamp and even I.Seal to search things.
Running 3 Welders instead of 4 and cutting something to make space to single copies of restricted bombs is really strong.

My cards selection of singletons.

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Null Rod
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Tinker
1 Balance
1 Crop Rotation
1 Fastbond
1 Strip Mine
1 Ancestral Recall
( 1 Regrowth, possibly, according to maindeck space )


@Disburden

Rod is on top of my list of choices if cotv would not resolve.
On the other hand, you could resolve Vampiric Tutor for Gorilla Shaman too.
If opponent would not be too explosive, I feel that Shaman ca restore mana parity in two turns and maybe Wastelands and MW can give you an edge against him.

Smokestack would let you keep his mana development low, but you have not so much permanents aside from CoW+Smoke. If something would go wrong, you'll be pissed off.


MaxxMatt

[zREIGNz]

what is the reasoning in not playing cotv for zero first, bait the counter then play shop and CoW?

[warble]

what is the reasoning in not playing cotv for zero first, bait the counter then play shop and CoW?

CoW doesn't win the game or accomplish much of anything.  If your opponent forces the chalice then with the play you suggested it takes until turn 3 to do anything of relevance, which is in type 1 called scrubbing the f''' out.

[LotusHead]

what is the reasoning in not playing cotv for zero first, bait the counter then play shop and CoW?

CoW doesn't win the game or accomplish much of anything.  If your opponent forces the chalice then with the play you suggested it takes until turn 3 to do anything of relevance, which is in type 1 called scrubbing the f''' out.

I don't know... if they Force your Chalice, then they pitch a blue spell (hand size now five) which isn't bad.  This also means they have moxen they are trying to protect (and a brainsotrm/ancesral or Orchard/Oath/Mox play).  A resolved crucible with wasteland in hand is always good when facing unknown opponent. Turn 2 isn't a non-turn for you.  Either Waste a land (whee!) or play a Welder or consider whatever topdeck you get..  Turn three is the smackdown round.

[Disburden]

what is the reasoning in not playing cotv for zero first, bait the counter then play shop and CoW?

CoW doesn't win the game or accomplish much of anything.  If your opponent forces the chalice then with the play you suggested it takes until turn 3 to do anything of relevance, which is in type 1 called scrubbing the f''' out.

This is true. Although I would call it not playing the right lock piece over "scrubbing the f*ck out." Stax needs to play pieces that stop the opponent first now and then use Crucible with wasteland/ Strip mine. I have faced some Stax players before who lay first turn Crucibles because they didn't mulligan into something better. Crucible just sucks without Strip and waste during your opening turns.

[unknown.root]

My thoughts are
turn 1
Cotv@0
City of brass, welder

turn 2( if nothing major happened)
vamp for bazaar
bazaar into craziness.

turn 2 (if welder is countered/killed)
vamp for strip mine.
mws, then CoW

turn 2 (if major crap happened)
vamp for "answer"

this hand is decent because of  vamp. tutor if not i this hand can't apply enough pressure.

Kevin

[FlamingCloud]

I would go:

CotV at 0
City => Welder..

If welder resolves against a deck you think is combo you upkeep vamp -> trinisphere workshop->3sphere.. grimlong is gonna lose 95% of games against first turn cotv -> 0, second turn trinisphere, third turn CoW -> wasteland, tps or IT might be able to survive under 3 fetchlads and cast a rebuild or hurkyl's and win... but its a really long shot, if they dont have 2 fetch + land & artifact bounce in their first 10 they basically lose.

If you think your playing control, you probably want to upkeep vamp-> stripmine, Using wasteland if they have a non-basic, and stripmine if they have a basic.  Play the other strip effect next turn if their is a target, otherwise cast CoW, if it gets countered just weld out the CotV play any moxen you picked up and strip again.  You basically are gonna win this game if you resolve the welder barring a disasterous turn of events.  If they do FoW the welder you still have wasteland+cruicible and a cotv at 0.. If they for some reason FoW the chalice you are probably best off vampiric -> mox monkey, but countering a blind cotv with 6 cards and a land drop left is pretty stupid (you could just play another cotv or a 3sphere)

If welder gets countered you cast crucible or wasteland depending on the situation, along with a opponents end step vampiiric for whatever you need (mox monkey, or stripmine probably. maybe 3sphere or smokestack)

If it wasnt for the vampiric I would certainly cast CoW instead of welder as I would rather CoW get countered, and having an active welder is pretty useless with no artifacts in the yard.

If I knew I was playing against a deck without basics I would defintely Cotv 0 -> cruicible, as its bascally a hard lock unless they drop their own crucible (and you can just vamp an answer to that)


Regardless of what your opponent has this is a great hand and your gonna win like 75-80% of G1 and 70-75% of G2 with these kind of hands, the only thing missing a good source of non-artifact mana like a solring or a crypt.  Still two relevant turn 1 plays with two relevenant turn two plays is pretty sick.

[AJFirst]

I agree with the two guys from the article, but I think they got it backwards.

Assume they have a counter. What would YOU rather resolve, Chalice or Welder? Answer: Welder, which is why you drop the Chalice first. If they had a weak hand or didn't mulligan properly and have to force, then you are going to win this game. Lay the Welder, Vamp for 3Sphere on upkeep turn 2 and lock them out of the game. Best part is you have a Crucible/Waste to back up the Trinisphere as well as a threat on board in the form of a Welder.

If they let your Chalice and Welder resolve, then it depends on what they do:

Island, go -- Vamp for Strip, and strip.
  -Island, go -- Workshop, Crucible.
  -Non-basic, go -- Waste
  -Fetchland, go -- Workshop, Crucible
Non-basic, go -- Vamp for something silly like Ancestral Recall and Wasteland
  -anything -- Ancestral, Workshop, Crucible
Fetchland, go -- Vamp for Smokestack, Workshop, Crucible

That's just my opinion, but I am the one who thought my now ex-girlfriend would find it funny if I hung up on her for four days straight, so take it with a grain of stupidity (and hilariousness).
-AJ

[Changster]

Trinisphere crossed my mind during the response, however it occured to me that a second turn 3sphere is hardly as effective as some of the other options provided.  Also, Crucible-Waste lock is almost completely useless in today's metagames.  When's the last time in a non-mirror match that you locked your opponent down with Crucible-Waste?

[AJFirst]

I agree Crucible-Waste is far from a hardlock, but it is still quite hindering. Especially under a 3-Sphere, which is the only reason I would go get it. Also, with a Chalice at 0, they only get one turn in which to play one casting cost spells for one until the 3-Sphere is active. If the Chalice hadn't been in that hand, the second turn trinisphere would be extremely underwhelming though.
-AJ

[TopSecret]

     I would suggest:

Turn 1: Play Chalice for Zero. Assuming it resolves, play Workshop and Crucible.
     
     If the Chalice is Forced, play City and cast Welder.
This is assuming the pitch card leads to the conclusion that the opponent is playing control combo.

In the event that the pitch card suggests Fish, play Workshop and Crucible.
They probably have Wasteland.

Turn 2, and Beyond: It all depends on what they do.

[Disburden]

How does turn one Crucible affect the way they play their first turn? Crucible with nothing in play to create as waste type situation is a waste of mana, imo.

[Smmenen]

i agree with roland.

My instinct would be vamp for strip mine

It's so good against almost every deck

I'd play;

TURN ONE:

Chalice of th void for 0

If they FoW it, then I would still play City of Brass and then Goblin Welder.

If they don' FoW it, the I'd still play City of Brass and WElder.

The only difference FoW makes is that it will determine what i vamp for and what i do on turn two.

their first turn will give you a TON of information. T hen you can upkeep vamp for strip mine and drop it and go to freaking town.  take them down a land and next turn drop welder

Having Strip Mine in your gy is like having black lotus in your gy for Grim Long, it's where you want it.  It may not be necessarily immediatley, but eventually yyou'll be glad its there. 


Strip Mine recursion plus Chalice is more of a hard lock than Trinisphere + Wasteland and Crucible, that's for sure. 

[LotusHead]

I don't know if here or there (SCG.com) is the proper place to say this, but is this article truly worth keeping premium? I got to see it only cuz my brother in law likes to keep up to date with Legacy Fun Decks (think 3 Guildmasters maindeck.dec) and I got to see articles at his place.

To Vegetta90210 (I forget numbers), Nice article and thought experiment. Also kudos for giving FreeTMD users the meat and potatoes of the article (ie, said senario) to respond to.

We had posts like this on TMD for weeks (GLong/GiftsPlaySituations/etc).

That being said, is this article ONLY to help/educate P9 Midwest/EastCoast Vintage players? (Vegetta is from California, where I am from, and our playerbase/Meta is different than the 100+ tournies of SCGp9/Waterbury. There, I said it.)

Why premium? for this?

(don't get me wrong JS, other articles you have written were wonderful (FCG comes to mind, as is thoughts on fish (yeah, yea said it. Fish.  ANd your Fish decks were cool...)

Lotushead Statement #1: Vintage tech/lists are cool, but your local Vintage Playing Grounds should determine what kind of deck you should play (or give up on), what your sideboard should consist of, and what your gameplan should be.

Lotushead Statement #2: information (for the most part) should be free-ish.  We in T1 want better opponents.  We love this game and are cardboard Crack Addicts (though usually not T2 crack addicts). Smmemen's Ichorid Breakdown (got to read it at my Bro=inLaw's heh) was sweet, innovative and worthy of being supersecrettech (and I guess Premium quality).

Play senarios?

(one last time: none of this is slam on Vegetta 2781.  Other authors were unsure of whether or not their articles would be premium-restricted.)

That is all for now.

Kudo's for TMD being premium free and Vegetta27180 for being Vintage Active enough and SCG.com for having legendary UberTournies and for NorCal for being hardcore UberPwners who would mop up any MidwestEastCoaster that doesn't win dire roll and win game 1 turn 1 and game 3 turn 1.

There, I said it.

[Vegeta2711]

@Lotushead.
Just call me Veggies or Josh, almost everyone who knows me on IRC / my teammates do.

Anyway, let me try to clear up a couple of your points up.

1. Whatever the editor decides is premium, is premium. Knut's articles which dealt with the same set-up and stuff were also premium, so it's much the same for us.

2. I've decided to share the scenarios from all my future articles. They really are benefical to the community and don't take anything away from the article.

3. Information is mostly free. All I did was ask these players their opinions and they gave them to me. All I did was ask / clean it up a bit. People need to ask / read more, because that's generally how you get better. I just happen to consolidate a lot of the good info in one place.

4. GO NORCAL! <3

[warble]

Strip Mine recursion plus Chalice is more of a hard lock than Trinisphere + Wasteland and Crucible, that's for sure. 

No, it's not for sure.  Against a deck playing a bunch of basics, maybe, but Steve your deck runs 0 basic lands.  Are you just trying to convince people that the best way to play magic is to lose to you?  Sorry for coming off a little harsh, but you're giving blatantly bad advice.  Stop doing that.  Or back up what you're saying with something other than your instincts.  Yes, chalice has shut off some mana, but without trinisphere your deck isn't going to be the least bit worried about a crucible and strip mine...and neither is mine and I'm playing CS.

[Demonic Attorney]

Smmenen is correct.  As someone who's played CS for a long time now, there are few things scarier than Crucible/Strip out of Stax.  If a Chalice for 0 is on the board as well, I'd probably just scoop right then to save time.

Granted, there are decks out there that don't run a strong complement of basic lands, but in my experience there are far more decks that include a significant number of basics than those that do not.  To wit,

Slaver and its two main permutations (CS and Burning Slaver), Gifts decks and all their variations (SSB, Meandeck Gifts, Intution Gifts, etc.), 3cc, Mono-U control, Confidant Combo, Fish and most of its permutations, G/R beats, some conservative builds of Tog, and Oath all typically run 3 or more basics, with fetches.  Slaver and Gifts alone usually account for a large percentage of a given tournament field, especially in certain geographical regions, i.e. the Northeast.

On the other hand, decks like Belcher, Long, Stax and its variations, and older builds of Dragon run few or no basic lands.  Those decks account for a much smaller percentage of the breakdown of a tournament field.

It's turn 1 and you don't know what you're up against; if you're good, you'll play conservatively and acknowledge the statistical likelihood you're up against a deck that packs basic lands and fetches, and can use those to fight out of Crucible/Waste.  Crucible/Strip plus Chalice however, will beat practically any deck regardless of its number of fetchlands.

That said, I think accusations that Smmenen is intentionally giving bad advice are unfounded in this case.  Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean they're plotting to mislead the community.

[Smmenen]

i meant to say that what you vamp for will depend on what you see.

if you see a city of brass, then i'd decide whether they are lpaying ichorid or grim long and make a chocie

if you see island, than i think strip mine is the correct play for sure.

as i said: their first turn will give you lots of information

therefore, it should have been clear - or at least implied, that i felt that the decision should be based upon information you have, but that a significant amount of the time, strip mine will be the correct play.

moreover, i said i agreed with roland and that is what he said

[FlamingCloud]

Against a combo deck, you are gonna want 3sphere, against control, stripmine, against ichorid.. I really have no clue seeing as the best thing you could probably do against ichorid is some kind of triskilion tricks swing for 4, shoot 2 ichorid, and itself and weld trike back in and block.. so probably bazaar to try and get it going since you dont have the mana for tinker.  In the mirror you have already won if they dont have workshop + crucible.. vamping a stax and laying down the crucible(or wasting their land drop) probably the best play in this matchup.

Still this hand would wreck anything but the most savage of grim long hands in game 1.  It is extremely unlikely(<5%) that they can first turn win under a chalice for 0, and once the 3shpere and wasteland recursion are started the game is over.

[Changster]

@warble

The reason why I chose not to go the Trinisphere route was b/c of this scenario that would most likely occur:
Your Turn 1 - Chalice (0), City of Brass, Welder, Pass.
Opp. Turn 1 - Fetchland, Pass.
Your Turn 2 - Upkeep, Vamp for Trinisphere, Draw Trinisphere, Workshop Trinisphere, Pass.
Opp. Turn 2 - Fetchland #2 or Island, Pass.
Your Turn 3 - Draw (in topdeck mode), Play Crucible, Play Wasteland, Pass.
Opp. Turn 3 - Island or Fetch #3, Pass.
Your Turn 4 - Draw into a possible threat, say Smokestack, Cast the threat, It will probably get Mana Drain'd, If not then possibly an EOT Bounce Spell to bounce your board. 

Let's say that he decides to bounce your stuff at the end of your turn, that means none of your threats are really threats anymore to him.  Crucible-Waste is useless against him basic lands and the Smokestack you might have luckily topdecked in Turn 4 would take another two turns to activate.  The Chalice is probably his biggest threat and you could probably put it down, set at 2, but a good control player's not going to let that resolve.

I'm not saying that going for Trinisphere is completely wrong, but with so many basics and bounce spells being run in today's metagame, it makes locks much harder to achieve.  Getting an early Trinisphere out in play can be deceptively weak, so just keep that in mind.

If you can correctly assess that your opponent is running a combo deck, go for the Trinisphere.  However, if you can't follow it up with something substantial to finish off the lock vs basics, you've wasted your only hope with that tutor.

Steve is not misleading anyone here.  If you think he's trying to mislead you, then you are completely wrong.  He simply agreed with the scenarios and actions I would have taken given the situations.  I consider this deck to be harder to play correctly than most because you have to adjust your game according to what your opponent reveals in the first few turns.  My success with this archetype is not by mistake or making them.

[warble]

Okay, Steve wasn't trying to intentionally mislead people.  He just was too terse in his response and neglected to mention that if your opponent plays a nonbasic land on his turn 1 you will typically want to vamp for trini because as you all noted it denies a full turn and likely will shut your opponent out for the remainder of the game.  Especially against combo.  I do agree that if I saw a chalice and a welder with a 5 color land, I'd be expecting 5 color stax and play my basic or fetchland, but the key is to know what happens in all situations including when an opponent has a sub-optimal hand or chooses, for example, to play his delta, pops the delta for a volcanic island, and then plays a gorilla shaman.  It's not just winning against the best hands, it's making sure we win at the earliest possible moment.  In many cases that will be accomplished by vamping for trinisphere.

[b-tings]

I agree with the two guys from the article, but I think they got it backwards.

Assume they have a counter. What would YOU rather resolve, Chalice or Welder? Answer: Welder

Wrong answer. Crucible + Strip + Chalice at Zero is a hell of a lock to work around. If they counter Chalice, you have nothing to weld out, and nothing to weld in, unless you fancy exchanging your crucible for a chalice at zero after they drop their moxen.

Smennen is bang on about what to do with this hand.