Stax, where ya been?

[madmanmike25]

Thought I would start a Stax thread since it's been a while since I have seen one.   Juggernauts are just not good against Flash and Oath.  Fun fact:  Lots of people are playing Flash and Oath.  Creatures in general are not so good (again) now that the Flash kill doesn't need to attack.  I have been testing this list and am quite pleased.

Mono-red Stax

Metal:  26
4 Smokestack
4 Chalice
4 Crucible
4 Sphere
4 Tangles
3 Orb of Dreams
2 Platinum Angel/Jester's Cap
1 Trinisphere

Goblin Welders:  4
4 Goblin Welders

Lands:  22
4 Workshops
4 Mountains
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 B-Rings
3 Wasteland
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Stripmine
1 Tolarian Academy

Acceleration:  8
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

SB: Needles, Caps, Thorns, Crypts, Dupes, and Trikes oh my!

I go back and forth between Angels and Caps, I really do.  Angels are great when you have disruption out and you force your opponent to try and find an answer before winning.  It buys Stax more time, and is a fairly efficient beater(5 turns in a Stax deck is not unreasonable with lock pieces out).  I'll probably stick with Angels for now, but it won't hurt my feelings if you prefer Caps.  Angels also mitigate Mana Crypt, but my main reasoning for Angel>Cap is that I play with.....

Orb of Dreams:  I'm liking these maindeck especially in combination with GQs.  Orbs put the hurtin' on fetchlands as well make sure your opponent won't be casting much.  They really do slow the game down....and that's good for Stax.  If you cast an early Orb followed by a Wasteland, you put even more of a hurtin' on fetchlands since you can now get rid of them.  Did I mention that Orb helps vs. the difficult Ichorid matchup??  I only use 3 since they are not omgsuperfreakin'awesome but good enough for inclusion.  As stupid as it sounds, they are not bad vs. Tyrant Oath, especially in multiples.    The 3cc is a fair price and they can complement the......

Ghost Quarters:  Mid-late game these turn into Stripmines #2-3.  Early game it is just one more Strip effect vs. decks that run little to no basics(Ichorid for one).  Those of you who have actually played Stax decks are probably questioning my 7 red lands and that's good.  GQ can find those mountains for you.  Yes, you can GQ your lands.  All it takes is one red mana to cast that Welder and it is farily easy to determine if you can take the -1 land to cast him.  The deck does run 4 Crucibles after all, why not take advantage of that?

Well, that's what I have been playing lately.  I can see Stax doing better than Shop Aggro in the current meta.  Anyone disagree or have a mono-red version they wish to share?  I just got sick of playing turn 1 Sphere/Thorn in Aggro and seeing my opponent simply lay down another land and cast Oath/Flash for a whopping 3 mana.

Mike

p.s. Poor poor Uba Mask.  It used to be a hot card, now it's just on fire.

[vroman]

Ive been testing some stax lately. my conclusions:
orb of dreams is decent
jesters cap is decent
goblin welder is weak (mana drains are largely absent, ramping smoky is more likely to win the game by itself, thus long term resource managment less important, thus welder tricks less important. waiting for haste is just awful. what tap-ability creatures are played anymore?)
qhost quarter is playable (though I wouldnt cut a wasteland slot for any)

[madmanmike25]

Really?  Welder is usually pretty good for me, especially with Tangles and Bazaar.  Often I have been able to keep mediocre hands consisting of Bazaar, Welder(+red source), and Chalice simply because next turn I can weld in something good. 

FoW is such a common card, and Welder is still nice to have.

I never let Welders delay me from casting CotV@1.  Even if I have one in hand.

I totally agree about resource management being irrelevant in any non-mirror games.

Are you suggesting cutting all Welders?  Or just 1-2?  If you cut all of them it kinda turns into MUD-Stax.

I don't think cutting more than 1 would be a good idea, and I'm not even convinced that one should go out.

Care to post your list?

[meadbert]

I am going to post what I have been up to although it is mostly irrelevant now.

List:

4 BarbarianRing
3 Mountain
1 TolarianAcademy
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bazaar of Baghdad

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
4 Serum Powder
1 Sol Ring

4 Smokestack
4 Uba Mask
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Trinisphere
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Karn, Silver Golem
4 Goblin Welder

sideboard:
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Null Rod
4 Powder Keg
4 Leyline of the Void

I have not changed the main deck for over a year.  I have been very happy with it.  Now things will have to change since Uba Mask has been bashed by errata.  More on Uba Mask later.
This sideboard has been working well for the current meta.  Leyline of the Void is ridiculously powerful in conjunction with Serum Powder since you are just about assured of starting with it every game.

GAT, Empty Gush, TTS, etc
Uba Mask in almost any incarnation and with almost any sideboard tears up GAT.  I think I usually barely sideboard.  Generally I bring in two Kegs and maybe an Ensnaring Bridge.

Tyrant Oath
Serum Powder really helps mulligan into hate.  You are far more likely to be able to open with Chalice to keep Oath off the table.  This matchup is far worse than GAT though.

Shop Aggro
Rods and Ensnaring Bridges are HUGE here.

Deez Goyfs
Ensnaring Bridge is amazing against the list I was testing against because Trygon Predator was the main method of artifact removal.  I think the only way to remove Bridge was Explosives which is tough to pull off under mana denial.
If Welder is out then Bridge can easily be welded back in.  Powder Keg is great for dealing with Bob/Goyf.

Ichorid
Along with Leyline, you also have Waste/Strip to fight Bazaar as well as Chalice and Resistor to make removing Leyline that much tougher.  Finally you have Ensnaring Bridge, which Ichorid must remove and you have the Powder Kegs to blow up tokens in case they try to slow roll you.

Flash
This is similar to Ichorid.  Basically you mulligan into Leyline.  Now Flash must find Leyline removal, Hulk and Flash and that is quite tricky under fairly heavy mana denial and with the risk of Chalice@2 dropping at any minute.

Changes:
Recently Powder Keg has been worse.  First, there are fewer opposing Welders to remove.  Second, Flash no longer worries about Keg@1 as it did with the slivers kill.  Finally, Rod has been added to the deck so against Warrens decks Keg is worse since you frequently also want to add Null Rod and Rod shuts off Keg.

Heretic had been a huge problem, but it turns out that adding Null Rod really makes a big difference.  It turns out that resolving Heretic is far more difficult through Rod.

Jester's Cap - This guy has strong synergy with Serum Powder.  First, you are more likely to mulligan into it.  Second, you can open with Mox, Shop, Cap.  turn 2, Powder, Activate Cap.  This allows turn 2 Cap activations with more regularity.  In theory Cap fights Flash and Oath, but in practice turn 2 is too late to activate a Cap.  Every time I test Cap I start running into decks with a 4th win condition or decks that just win too fast (Flash)

Orb of Dreams is a fairly solid card:  It is easy to cast of off Shop giving is synergy with Serum Powder (since Serum Powder basically allows you to mulligan into Shop)
Orb of Dreams fights Gushbond based decks very well.  The trouble is that Ichorid is not bothered by Orb of Dreams like it once was because of Bridge tokens and Flash and Oath still win through it easily enough.
Shop Aggro does not really care.  In fact not being able to recur Factory to block with Crucible can be annoying.  Generally I prefer Resistor to Orb of Dreams.

Tangle Wire - This is strong against Shop Aggro and Oath.  I have considered adding it the board.  I would still not put it in the main.  Serum Powders are far too important to the strategy of mulling into Shop in game 1 and hate or Shop in games 2/3.  I still prefer Resistor to Tangle Wire.  Against Gush, which still show up all over the place I would rather have Resistor than Wire.  Against Stax neither is great, but you generally do not want to have to sacrifice the Wire as that can cause you to lose a permanent war.

Bottled Cloister - In testing Mud I was surprised at how good this card is right now.  I wonder if it could work in Uba Stax.  Cloister is a draw engine and is great for dodging Duress/Thoughtseize, although there is the risk of it being bounced in the early game.  Turn 1 Cloister followed by Chain of Vapor would basically be game loss right there.  Cloister has some synergy with Bazaar since you can mill for free when your hand is RFGed.  Also any draw engine is nice with Bazaar because it allows you to draw 4 cards and keep one each turn.  Digging 4 cards deep is solid.  Cloister works well with a Ramping Smokestack as well.  It is sort of a poor man's Uba-Bazaar but does not need the two card combo.  Finally Bottled Cloister has awesome synergy with Ensaring Bridge since you can build up a large hand and attack with your creatures but your opponent cannot do the same!

Welder is still very good.  I board out some Welders frequently, but Welder answers Force of Will, Duress and even Thoughtseize.
Obviously Welder WAS good with Ubas.
There is still Welder + Bazaar to cheat expensive artifacts into play.
Using Welder to recur Powder Kegs is very strong.

Regarding Uba Mask:
First of all I am still holding out hope that Uba Mask is amended to reenable the Uba Lock.  Based on Mr Gottlieb's article it appears that they desired to keep the functionality as close as possible.  They may not have realized the effect this would have on Uba Stax.  I think there is still a decent chance that they reenable the Uba Lock.

If Uba Mask remains as is then does the card go away completely?  If so then Bazaar and Welder get much worse.  One option would be to run 3 Ubas instead of a full set.  Some decks already did this.  It is fairly difficult to draw into two Ubas when you only run three so these decks were not relying heavily on the traditional Uba Lock anyway.  I am not sure what to add if the Uba count is dropped to 3.  A token Ensnaring Bridge could be usefull for stealing game 1s against Ichorid and Shop Aggro.

[islanderboi10]

Although i dont play mono red stax, I do play 5 color stax. I recently took 3rd/4th and you can read about it in the tournament forums.

Anyways, for me, welder seems good. I like it.  I haven't tested Orb yet, but I surely will.  The card that has been pretty amazing, though, has been Chalice of the Void. Chalice along with spheres and such really help lock the board down much quicker.
It won me a game when I was dead in the water. 

Its pretty late, but I will definetly post results and such.

[sorcutt]

@ Madman

I really think that your decklist is viable n today's meta.  However, I would not play this in a serious tournament which abides by stigent time rules.  The Barb Ring + Crucible plan is just too slow.  The sad fact of the matter is that if people see that's your primary kill they'll stall or just take long enough to make you go to time every round.  Platz beats can be painfully slow too.  I'd seriously consider adding 3x Karn, the 'tin wall robot' just to speed up the clock.  This deck could definitely dominate a more casual tournament that doesn't care too much about abiding by 50 min rounds.  Finally, I'd rather play this deck in a combo heavy meta than in one dominated by Flash/Ichorid for the obvious reasons.

[madmanmike25]

Bert,

So you are still pleased with Uba's in the main?  I have had no problem since taking them out.  Welder/Bazaar/Crucible is still good for me without the Uba's.  Sometimes the 4cc was the issue, and sometimes when it came down it was already too late.

As much as I dislike(but not hate) Powders, post SB I bet they are extremely powerful to get that Leyline.

I got to ask though,

4 BarbarianRing
3 Mountain

You were actually the one to convince me on 4 Mountains and 3 B-Rings.  What happened?  I found typically by the time I had threshold I had found one B-Ring.  Maybe this is because you still play with Uba??  Just curious.

@islanderboi
Chalice kicks ass in a Stax deck.  Period.

@Sorcutt
If you think an opponent is stalling call the judge.  If you have a few Chalices out and a few Spheres out, it shouldn't take your opponent tooooo long to figure out if he can cast something.  Don't let em stall you.  In that 2-of slot, I found Platz to be slightly better than Karn and Dupes vs. Flash.  But not by much of course.  I just sometimes like the fact that you have the potential to weld such a powerful artifact into the game.  Not being able to lose the game until she's dealt with is a pretty stupid ability.  Think of her as a better, more expensive version of E.Bridge.  Sometimes it would have been better to have 2 other cards, but I never hated to see her.  But as I stated, when more Flash/Combo gets in the mix she is gone for more locks.

Mike

[ACME_Myst]

Nobody seems to have gotten the memo; Wizards nerfed UbaLock:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/453a

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

@acme_myst.
although you can no longer lock out an opponent with 2 uba masks and 1 welder, this doesn't entirely ruin uba mask. I've played with and against a considerable amount of shop, and I can count the amount of times I've been uba locked on one hand(I think maybe two times totally in testing and tournament play ever). Generally, uba mask can still be used to ruin some ones game plan, nullify most draw and control spells and generate silly card advantage via bazaar. These are the things that win games.

[meadbert]

Nobody seems to have gotten the memo; Wizards nerfed UbaLock:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/453a

So has anyone heard if Wizards has any intention of re-enabling the Uba Lock?  I am hoping they find a new errata that is closer to Uba's original intent.