Top 4 @ Pastimes with 5c Aggro stax.

[unknown.root]

Well I'm not one for saying much, so heres what i played.

4 workshop
4 factories
4 city of brass
3 gemstone mine
2 wasteland
3 bazaar
1 academy
1 strip mine
1 b-ring
7 SoLoMoxen
2 mana crypt/vault

3 dark confidant
3 welders
2 trike

4 chalice
4 crucible
3 smokestack
1 3sphere
1 memory jar

1 imp seal
1 v. tutor
1 d. tutor
1 balance
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 crop rotation

s/b
4 leyline of the void
2 ray of revelation
2 ancient grudge
2 in the eye of chaos
1 tinker
1 duplicant
1 t. crypt
2 jesters caps


Round 1: Eric Becker Playing Bazaar Storm (1-2 Lose) - He was lucky
Round 2: AJ ______  Playing 2-land Belcher (2-0 Win) - bad deck
Round 3: John Frankowsi Playing U/w Fish (2-0 Win) - Trike + factory > fish
Round 4: Josh Rayden Playing MDG (2-0 Win) - Prettiest deck ever I ever Cap'd
Round 5:  Donavan (GWS) Playing URBana Fish (2-1 Win) trike + factory > fish again
Round 6: Mark (i think) from ICMB (ID)

Top 8: Eric Becker AGAIN: (2-1) He wasn't as lucky this time. During the match:
I had the best chain of vapors play EVER!!!!
i'm beating like a motherfucker with trike, during my upkeep(empty hand) i bazaar, eric chains my trike, i get ready to throw it in the gy and then decided to sac my bazaar to bounce a vault and sac my factory to bounce my crypt, bazaared the replayed the trike.
craziness.

Top 4: TK playing Grim Long (0-2 Lose) During the match:
Game 1:I thought the guy was playing MDG so i start with Chalice@2 Go.
He drops first turn Bargain. Nuff said.
Game 2: I get Leyline, chalice for 0, 1, and something else like cruicle.
then draw mana 5 turns in a row with NO THREATS. some time later EOT rebuild and i'm on my way home.

Thoughts after the tournament.
Leyline sucks in stax when you keep hands for the leyline but the rest is iffy. in addition i HATE dead cards later on.
5c Stax has the worst mana base in the world. This might be my last time playing that crap.

Props:
Vroman for recommending Time Walk, & a place to stay.
moxlotus for loaning said Time walk.
Flux for his mad driving & playing skills.
Blaine for 0-2 dropping and getting me Subway.
TEAM OGRE for remaining friends w/ me after my leave.
Becker for getting lucky round one FORCING me to play better all day.
The rest of GWS for moral support.
Pastimes for another great tournament.

Slops:
Flux for Top8ing w/ a deck that cost $50 + bazaars to play while I built the most expensive deck in the format to play. Not that i have anything against flux just damn price of deck is what bugs me.
DCI Sol Rings for dropping so damn low in value.
Living so far away from all my comrades.

My first decent tournament with stax since gencon. However i think it's time for a massive change for the archtype.

Kevin Brewer
unknown.root@gmail.com
TEAM GWS

[Polynomial P]

Congrats on your T8 Kevin. Why did you decide to put tinker in your SB?

It really seems like your build really wont get the full potential out of Mishra's Workshop with only 12 artifact locks and 2 big artifact creatures, which you will probably want to weld anyways. With so few locks how is your combo matchup overall?

Anyways, I am glad 2 stax decks made it to the T8. Congrats again.

[ErkBek]

When was I lucky? did I make any play mistakes?

[Disburden]

Congrats on your T8 Kevin. Why did you decide to put tinker in your SB?

It really seems like your build really wont get the full potential out of Mishra's Workshop with only 12 artifact locks and 2 big artifact creatures, which you will probably want to weld anyways. With so few locks how is your combo matchup overall?

Anyways, I am glad 2 stax decks made it to the T8. Congrats again.

This also seems why you are so against the 5c mana base of prismatic Stax. When you overwhelm the deck with 6 creatures of two different colors, and a ton of colored spells over abusing Mishra there's no question why you think about changing decks at this point. I think the only way 5c stax is going to work is to run either Confidant or Welder (not both) and then mostly lock components, not mostly/evenly colored spells. Anyway, I love hearing about Stax in tournament reports. Keep it up!

[unknown.root]

As anyone who watch me play I had Crucible + strip mine in at least 1/4 of my games, and were talking most of these times by turn 2/3. The reason i run like this is after HOURS of watching vroman play his uba stax with 4-5 lands in play the whole game. with twenty-three lands in the deck most of the time i throw them in the graveyard. An idea game is to set up the crucible+strip by turn 3 then run off a bazaar, workshop, factory, & rainbow land for the rest of the game. I was angry still at my mana base last night when i wrote this but I still can't stand the lands i have to run for the effect of the game. I might try badlands in my deck over gemstone mines if i decided to keep playing 5c.
@ Eric.
You were lucky that I played this pile and not something that hated out combo. I'm just giving ya shit eric. If anyone was lucky it was me for applying enough pressure those games.
@ Polynomial P
I've ran tinker in the board for about half a year now. I use it in matchups were i need a tutor for ~this~ answer. outside that it's an ugly card for the casting cost. In games where Bob leaves I might bring in tinker to improve my chances of getting welder+jar combo going. once i get a bob + bazaar my one workshop in play gets use almost every turn.
tinker 4 duplicant vs oath, gifts, stax
tinker 4 trike vs fish, stax, combo
tinker 4 jar vs stax, fish.

@ Disurben
I was angry at the mana base, i've had issues with stax's mana base for almost 2 years now and I believe the future of stax is in a solid one or two color mana base. Our matches are hard enough we don't need to be fighting ourselves while were at it.
My brother once said 5c stax doesn't need an oppnent to lose, because it is it's own enemy.

[Disburden]

Stax was hugely successful back in the day of four trinisphere (duh). Do you think that it was also in part that the deck ran a more appropriate UR mana base? I have seen a lot of lists lately from Europe that still make a good amount of Top 8s because they use Fetchlands, Volanic Islands and only Tinker, Time Walk, Ancestral and 3 TFK for non creature spells. What are your thoughts? I think I may try it out soon, since it seems quite competitive right now. This is the colored spell base I've thought of using:

3 Welder
1 Shaman

3 Thirsts
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral recall

Seems a lot easier to manager than all those other spells.

[unknown.root]

A mono colored or two colored version seems more stable than the 5c standard. Without 4x 3sphere the most "broken" thing stax can get is cruicble+strip.
Crop Rotation, Balance, flashback removal, In the Eye of Chaos. are the only reasons i stick with a 5c mana base.

Thrist for knowledge is shit is stax now days, since bazaar is still arround. Bob + bazaar allows me to see 4 cards a turn, keep the best one( mostly a colored spell) then the rest goes packing to be replayed out of the graveyard. As you see the only 3cc Colored spell i still play is In the eye of chaos, and the on again off again tinker. It's going to be hard for me to EVER maindeck one again.

Gorilla Shaman is iffy for me, I'll always pick something else in a 5c build, however he's by buddy in uba stax.

the rest of the cards I play already in my 5c stax.

Like i said before, I plan on having as little as possible in play.
workshop, wasteland/mox, factory, rainbowland, & bazaar. Thats all i need, thats all i want.

Playing the mirror, night after night for months, and all the matches vs vroman has tought me that you have to run a tight shift, & dead cards = dead player. It drives me nuts running all these non-artfact spells, but thier shear-brokeness or ability to find strip mine is required.

Kevin