[FREE Article] So Many Insane Articles: The 250th

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17740_So_Many_Insane_Articles_My_250th_Article.html

Editor's Blurb:

Monday, July 13th - For his 250th article, Stephen Menendian composes an epic retrospective, chronicling his first fifty pieces for this very site. He also shares his thoughts and lists for 5c Stax. Congratulations on the milestone, Stephen… here’s to 500!

A lengthy discussion of 5c Stax opens the article.   Let the debates begin!

[Marske]

@Steve,
I enjoyed your article today as always. Congratulations on making it to 250 and hope you'll continue  the great work you've done.

[Smmenen]

Thanks Marske,

I was hoping to provoke some debate on 5c Stax. 

[voltron00x]

Thanks Marske,

I was hoping to provoke some debate on 5c Stax.  

I do find it curious that you upped the number of tutors immensely (if one includes Crop Rotation), but decreased the number of targets for those tutors, especially Crop Rotation (by cutting Bazaar and Barbarian Ring).  The MD changes you made from the list I posted today (to be clear:  Nick Detwiler's list, not mine, although it is the list I test with/against) were as follows:

Out:
-1 Sundering Titan
-2 Powder Keg
-1 Bazaar
-1 Barbarian Ring

In:
+1 Gemstone Mine
+2 Crop Rotation
+1 Imperial Seal
+1 Balance

My guess is that you are most interested in finding Balance and Strip Mine, and are focusing the deck on that by taking away some other tutor targets (Bazaar, Sundering Titan, Barbarian Ring) and upping the number of tutors in general.  Swapping out Ring helps smooth out the mana but removes a potential finisher and removal spell that costs the deck very little.  Sundering Titan has actually always been pretty solid for me in the limited testing I've done with the deck, but I could see cutting it in the interest of making the list "tighter".  Ditto the Powder Kegs, although I think leaving one makes some amount of sense given how many tutors you're running.

I'm not really well-versed enough with this deck to discuss it intelligently, but the changes you made seem to make sense as far as making a deck geared around "breaking" its opponent with Balance and Strip Mine.  Generally speaking I've usually hated drawing the Bazaar, but have tutored for it multiple times.  It can be a little bit win-more, but it also can be just "win faster", and that isn't always a bad thing.

[Gekoratel]

Turn one Imperial Seal for turn two Trinisphere is not only a perfectly legitimate line of play, it is one that will produce many victories.

I thought this line was interesting in the article, are you saying its fine to keep a hand that has no turn one disruption so long as it can set up turn 2 Trini?  I could see this as being an alright line of play when you get to go first since your opponent cannot have Drain mana up and isn't able to dig for Force as quickly but on the draw seems to slow.  The decision to not to run Sundering Titan does seem like a tough one and I think it goes hand in hand with the choice to run Bazaar since it will give you another outlet to get Titan into play other than Tinker.

[Smmenen]

Even if Trinisphere is countered, it is in a place (your graveyard) where it can be recurred later with Goblin Welder.   

[smasher]

Even if Trinisphere is countered, it is in a place (your graveyard) where it can be recurred later with Goblin Welder.   

turn one tutor for trinisphere that gets countered on turn 2 leaves you dead. This means your first piece of disruption comes down turn 3 or later if you need to play welder and wait a turn to activate. Your opponent may as well goldfish the game since 3 or 4 turns is plenty for most decks to win or get in a winning position to race your slow start.

[Smmenen]

Even if Trinisphere is countered, it is in a place (your graveyard) where it can be recurred later with Goblin Welder.  

turn one tutor for trinisphere that gets countered on turn 2 leaves you dead. This means your first piece of disruption comes down turn 3 or later if you need to play welder and wait a turn to activate. Your opponent may as well goldfish the game since 3 or 4 turns is plenty for most decks to win or get in a winning position to race your slow start.

 If turn two (on the play) Trinisphere getting countered leaves you dead, then the same is true of T1 Trinisphere on the draw.   After all, your opponents have the same number of unmolested turns.

Yet, I doubt anyone would say that turn one Trinisphere on the draw is a bad play.   In fact, I would hope that most would think it's a fine play.    If you draw out a counter, then you are more likely to resolve future threats.  If it sticks you likely win the game.  

[wiley]

The thing that struck me the most in this deck (as well as Nick's) was its complete lack of enchantments.  I thought the conventional wisdom of 5c stax was to have locks that got around rebuild and recall.  Obviously the deck works, especially now that you have a greater chance to see multiple shops, so how hard does recall and rebuild hit?  What made you shift away from using any enchantments and are there any that are still in consideration (other than seals)?

Have you tested Dark confidant in here?  The avg cmc of the deck is 1.33, and in a deck that wants to play into the later rounds it seems like a decent fit.  The deck has a lot of tutoring power, but very little draw.  It has less synergy with balance, but the odds are that you can cast 2 cards a turn anyway.

I agree, partially, with your assessment of bazaar.  In a stax list that doesn't contain uba mask, bazaar can almost always be a better card.  With the mask it turns a decent synergy with redundant threats and welders into something that speeds up and supercharges a slow and lumbering deck.  However, it is very hard to get mask and bazaar to fit into a 5c stax deck and still be a good deck given the number of one of tutor effects and upping the number of cards that welder doesn’t interact with.

[vroman]

Addition reasons include Gorilla Shaman, Red Elemental Blast, Barbarian Ring, etc.

b-ring is not a reason to run red. its simply once you are playing welder, and you need red mana, b-ring tops the list of things "better than a mountain". b-ring is not a great card. its slow, awkward removal, albeit uncounterable. its a glacial win condition w crucible.

Does not discuss 5cstax's greatest flaw: disynergy w chalice of the void.

while I agree in general that sundering titan doesnt belong in stax, reasons provided are somewhat unconvincing. sure its bad in opening hand. does this mean you auto-muligan tezeret hands that include inkwell?

lastly, I supose I should be grateful that 4yrs after the fact, my best vintage opponents still dont understand bazaar.

[Smmenen]

Addition reasons include Gorilla Shaman, Red Elemental Blast, Barbarian Ring, etc.

b-ring is not a reason to run red.

That's semantics.   Strictly speaking, if it is a card you can use, that's another reason to run red.  It's not *the* reason, or even a very good one, but it is a mark on the ledger in favor of running red.

Does not discuss 5cstax's greatest flaw: disynergy w chalice of the void.

You'll note that the article assumes a 5c shell.   It also is not comprehensive.   

while I agree in general that sundering titan doesnt belong in stax, reasons provided are somewhat unconvincing. sure its bad in opening hand. does this mean you auto-muligan tezeret hands that include inkwell?

apples and oranges.   Tinker is more important to Drain decks and is often the primary win condition.    The benefits of running a large tinker target are much higher and therefore the costs more acceptable.   This deck has several other win conditions and doesn't rely as much on Tinker or need a larger tinker target as badly.

lastly, I supose I should be grateful that 4yrs after the fact, my best vintage opponents still dont understand bazaar.

How is that?  I cite Bazaar as providing synergy with Welder and Uba Mask, among other purposes.  I don't pretend to comprehensively exlpain it in Uba Stax because it's obviously great there.      I jsut think it's suboptimal in 5c.   

[nataz]

Is it fair to say that bazaar could be less useful in 5c because the gy is less of an extension of your hand? Or maybe 1cc tutors are to intuition as bazaar is to TFK?

[Smmenen]

I think it's a combination of factors.    It costs a land drop, which can slow you down in other ways. 

I should emphasize that I am in the minority.  In my testing, I decided that Bazaar felt suboptimal for reasons I articulated.   Your mileage may vary.

The first step is understanding the issues and then articulating both sides of the argument.    That's why I tried to set out what I thought were the six major issues for Stax design. 

[Sean Ryan]

Steve,

Evaluating Titan based on having it in your opening hand is not an accurate assessment of it's value.  The cost of drawing it in your opening is marginal compared to the benifit of being able to tinker him into play and just win the game.  Not having Titan severley weakens your Tinker.  I would rather have a really broken Tinker myself.  Although I will say that Karn has been pretty amazing as well, blowing up moxen to weld combo parts then blocking the Leviathan like it was nothing. 

As the most powerful tinker target for Stax (and a another blocker for Inkwell) I think it deserves a spot.  However, I have not reached the same conclusion about Bazaar as you either, which supports Titan by giving you a way to discard it.  No you have got me thinking about it though and I will certainly be paying closer attention to whether the Bazaar may truuly be fools gold.w

I've also been trying an Ancient Grudge in place of gorilla shaman latley with good results.

Oath demands respect in my metagame as it's one of your worst matchups.  Ray of Revelation is narrow but effective, and Ensnaring Bridge is a flexible option that rewards those who run fools gold

The point about Chalice is well taken.  Whether 5c is better than neo uba stax, or the Mud versions that have been so dominant is yet to be seen.  Having 9 balls might be better than having 6 Tutors.  We shall see. 

What are your thoughts on the advantages/disadvantages between 5c Stax and the various MUD builds?

I would love to see a match up analysis article on the new 5c Stax vs whatever Tezz build you settle on in the future.     

[BruiZar]

Why aren't you running Mox Diamond?

First turn mox diamond + workshop gives your opponent a hard choice, counter the mox diamond preventing red mana from hitting play in the first turn. (Goblin Welder, Red Elemental Blast, Shaman, Tutors) or leave the mox alone to counter your workshop-artifact (Trinisphere, Thorn, Crucible.

If your mox is countered, it's a 2 for 2
If it isn't countered you can do so much more in the first turn
-potentially counter their fow/drain with REB while playing a sphere or crucible
-Play one of five tutors and play one of 5 spheres
-Play Gorilla Shaman + a sphere in the first turn
-Play 5c land, play mox diamond, crop rotate with REB backup
-Play a sphere or demonic while using wasteland as your first land drop.
-Leave it untapped, so you can respond to your opponent's strip effect with Crop Rotation or keep REB open
-Have stronger and more frequent first turn balances

I realize that chalice hits mox diamond as well, upping the cards that can be hit from 7 to 11. Still, there is welder, karn and shaman to deal with that. Do you think Crop Rotation takes over the role of mox diamond?

Also, I don't think Tabernacle is much of a solution against Oath. I'd replace the leyline of the voids for tormods crypts or relics. Leyline is a tough topdeck, and although crypt is hit by chalice, it is weldable.

The main problem I have with leyline is the fact that this deck has no draw engine. Drawing into a leyline is like giving your opponent a time walk. If you had a way of looking at the top card of your library (sensei) it wouldn't matter as much. In fact, sensei's divining top would help make the top deck tutors stronger as well, being able to draw the card right after resolving and shuffling your deck when the top 3 cards aren't impressive.

[Smmenen]

Steve,

Evaluating Titan based on having it in your opening hand is not an accurate assessment of it's value. 

Nor do I. 

I explicitly endorse cost benefit analysis on this issue.   

I do not think that its Tinker value outweighs its dead weight cost in the opening hand. I could easily be wrong. But even if I were, that’s a very, very difficult issue to answer, since even if it is suboptimal, it’s virtually impossible to prove that to a reasonable degree of certainty using tournament statistics.

You have only identified what I identified as the costs.

The cost of drawing it in your opening is marginal compared to the benifit of being able to tinker him into play and just win the game. 

That's where I disagree.   I think it's a very close question, and I err in favor of securing the early game rather than having a more powerful win condition.

Why aren't you running Mox Diamond?

Can you point me to a single 5cStax list in the last two years that has a Mox Diamond?   

Ask these players why they didn't play Mox Diamond in their Stax decks:

http://www.morphling.de/search.php?type=3&app=10&sorting=DESC&search=Smokestack&sent=1

Actually, I answer the Mox Diamond question in an article I wrote a few years ago here (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/10203_The_Many_Flavors_of_T4KS_Learning_CronStax_and_Preparing_for_GenCon.html )

I forcefully argued that Mox Diamond should be in the deck. I demonstrated this to Kevin with a series of goldfishes by artificially inserting Mox Diamond into goldfish hands. Mox Diamond was very good.

Kevin’s deck usually draws 2-3 lands per opening hand. Mox Diamond increases your ability to play a turn 1 threat without causing you to lose much because you are usually turning dropping a Gemstone Mine or some such land to play the Mox. Once in a while you might draw a one land hand where you can’t use the Mox Diamond, but that usually isn’t the case.

The problem with Mox Diamond, and the reason it wasn’t included in our Richmond lists were as follows: First, Mox Diamond is a terrible topdeck. As I said, everything in Kevin’s deck is something that you can topdeck and then put directly into play or use to find a massive bomb. Having immediately effective cards is really important when you have no draw or fixing. Also, the topdeck factor is very important when you are trying to feed a Smokestack – something I will talk about later. Second, it is terrible when you mulligan. Although a usual starting hand is very likely to have two or more land, a hand of six or less is not. These two facts were enough to make use decide against it.

That analysis remains accurate today.

Otherwise more Stax pilots would play Mox Diamond. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

Why aren't you running Mox Diamond?

Stax already has no draw engine; giving it a card disadvantage engine seems like a bad idea to me.

[Prospero]

Steve,

Please correct me if I misunderstand the following, which are either in statement or question form:

1.  As you are running 3 Crop Rotations (and no Bazaar) you have essentially said that you aim to establish some form of land lock, either with Waste or Strip early on.  This would seem to indicate that you intend on using Crop Rotation to hold down your opponents mana base by attacking their lands.

2.  If you are attempting to hold down your opponents mana, why would you cut cards like Powder Keg?  They're sweepers on Moxen, in addition to useful against both aggro and the Vault combo.  

3.  Furthermore, if you are attempting to hold down your opponents mana, why aren't you running cards like Chalice of the Void?  Chalices nuke Moxen if you're on the play and aren't dead draws in the mid to late game, as a Chalice on two is exceptionally devastating against many decks.

4.  Because you're running 3 Crop Rotations did you consider running the 4th Crucible?  It's obviously much better now...

I think the additional Sphere effects in the board are very interesting.  The Tabernacles as well.  It's been quite some time since that card has seen play in my board or main.  

Are you happy with your list or would you consider revising it?

[Smmenen]

Steve,

Please correct me if I misunderstand the following, which are either in statement or question form:

1.  As you are running 3 Crop Rotations (and no Bazaar) you have essentially said that you aim to establish some form of land lock, either with Waste or Strip early on.  This would seem to indicate that you intend on using Crop Rotation to hold down your opponents mana base by attacking their lands.

Crop Rotation is versatile, it can find you Shop, Academy, or Strip Mine, and post-board Tabernacle, which is great against Ichorid and creature decks and not bad against Oath.  

The idea is certainly to get Strip lock on earlier than in previous stax decks, but I wouldn't characterize it in quite the way you did.   I don't view 5c stax as a 'lock deck' so much as a boa constrictor, a soft lock that reduces opponents tactical options.  

2.  If you are attempting to hold down your opponents mana, why would you cut cards like Powder Keg?  They're sweepers on Moxen, in addition to useful against both aggro and the Vault combo. 

First, I don't like knocking out my own moxen.   There is no deck in Vintage that likes to draw every single mox as much as this.

That's one reason I can't fathom Null Rod in here.   Second, I have Shaman to kill moxen (and Karn). 

Finally, as for sweeprs, my god I have the best of all: Balance!

3.  Furthermore, if you are attempting to hold down your opponents mana, why aren't you running cards like Chalice of the Void?  Chalices nuke Moxen if you're on the play and aren't dead draws in the mid to late game, as a Chalice on two is exceptionally devastating against many decks.

Chalice of the Void is too symmetrical in 5c Stax.  It always has been despite our attempts otherwise.   With Brainstorm restricted, it's worse than ever, imo.

4.  Because you're running 3 Crop Rotations did you consider running the 4th Crucible?  It's obviously much better now...

I thought I talked about this a bit in the article...

Are you happy with your list or would you consider revising it?

The one thing I was thinking about is adding Pithing Needle main as a Tinker target to fight Time Vault.   

[Prospero]

In regards to the Crucible point, I must have missed it.  I read the article and I thoroughly enjoyed it though.

[Twaun007]

I believe that the two most powerful cards in the deck are Trinisphere and Balance.

I know I'm going to get some flack from this, but I have to disagree. The most broken card in any Workshop deck is Mishra's Workshop. Its basically a reusable Black Lotus every turn and it grants you the ability to pump out an array of lock components at an unbelievable rate.

Don't get me wrong, Balance has an unbelievable effect, but it isn't the greatest card in the deck. If your able to resolve Balance you are probably winning the match regardless.

Trinisphere is a very strong contender as well, but its straight poop if you have no pressure to follow it up with. What gives you the ability to abuse Trinisphere? Workshop does it. Have you ever went turn one Trinisphere off a Workshop then had it popped by a Wasteland? Sweet Trinisphere huh?

On account of cropper and the five-color banana base, there is a good case to be made that we should include quad lazer Crucibles.

I am going to toss this out there, but have you ever considered running all the Crucibles and Entomb instead of Crop Rotation? If Crop Rotation gets countered its a two for one plus a loss of tempo due to the land sacrifice. If Entomb gets countered it is like a mini duress. Entomb can also can get Darkblast or any artifact if you have an active Goblin Welder in play.

[Prospero]

I believe that the two most powerful cards in the deck are Trinisphere and Balance.

I know I'm going to get some flack from this, but I have to disagree. The most broken card in any Workshop deck is Mishra's Workshop. Its basically a reusable Black Lotus every turn and it grants you the ability to pump out an array of lock components at an unbelievable rate.

Don't get me wrong, Balance has an unbelievable effect, but it isn't the greatest card in the deck. If your able to resolve Balance you are probably winning the match regardless.

Trinisphere is a very strong contender as well, but its straight poop if you have no pressure to follow it up with. What gives you the ability to abuse Trinisphere? Workshop does it. Have you ever went turn one Trinisphere of a Workshop then had it popped by a Wasteland? Sweet Trinisphere huh?

On account of cropper and the five-color banana base, there is a good case to be made that we should include quad lazer Crucibles.

I am going to toss this out there, but have you ever considered running all the Crucibles and Entomb instead of Crop Rotation? If Crop Rotation gets countered its a two for one plus a loss of tempo due to the land sacrifice. If Entomb gets countered it is like a mini duress. Entomb can also can get a robot if you have an active Goblin Welder in play.  

You're entirely right.  Shop is what makes it all possible.  And I find that if I open up with Shop in hand, and it sticks for a few turns, I almost never lose. 

It's such a basic, and yet fundamentally important point.  I'm surprised it came up, but you're 100% right.

[Troy_Costisick]

I am going to toss this out there, but have you ever considered running all the Crucibles and Entomb instead of Crop Rotation? If Crop Rotation gets countered its a two for one plus a loss of tempo due to the land sacrifice. If Entomb gets countered it is like a mini duress. Entomb can also can get Darkblast or any artifact if you have an active Goblin Welder in play.

I've been thinking about Entomb myself a lot lately.  If you have a Crucible out, it's just as good if not better.  The problemis it's dependant upon Crucible.  Crop Rotation isn't.  It can get you Academy or Shop right away.  Entomb can't.  If I were to go the Entomb route, I'd want four Crucibles.  It's worth thinking about IMO.

Peace,

-Troy

[Smmenen]

I believe that the two most powerful cards in the deck are Trinisphere and Balance.

I know I'm going to get some flack from this, but I have to disagree. The most broken card in any Workshop deck is Mishra's Workshop. Its basically a reusable Black Lotus every turn and it grants you the ability to pump out an array of lock components at an unbelievable rate.

It's a what's more important to Water, Hydrogen or Oxygen type of discussion.   You can't separate it out.   Trinisphere is good because of Shop and Shop is good because of cards like Trinisphere.  It's a pointless debate.   My point was to draw attention to Balance, in partiuclar, as critical to the deck.

Don't get me wrong, Balance has an unbelievable effect, but it isn't the greatest card in the deck. If your able to resolve Balance you are probably winning the match regardless.

I haven't found that to be the case *at all*.    Balance has won countless games where nothing else would have.   

[Smmenen]

It's hard to believe, but this article is now FREE!   This was written three months ago?!

I hope you enjoy this stroll through memory lane!

[TheShop]

Let me start this off by saying that I have been a stax fanatic for my entire 8 years of following Vintage.  Also, I have only had the occasion to play in 16 Vintage Tournaments over my 10 years of playing Magic the Gathering because of the terrible state of the Vintage tournament landscape in Mississippi.  However, I goldfish with different variants of Stax nearly 100 times a day.  I have been working on a list for nearly a month now and I thought this would be as decent time to post it as ever...if this is not an appropriate place to post, I will delete it and move to a new thread (with apologies).  I have not had the chance to read Steve's article on this subject yet, but will as soon as I get time.  Here is what I would probably play (after some deck testing against the only other known, dedicated Vintage  player in the state:

1   Trinisphere
3   Null Rod
1   Seal of Cleansing
4   Chalice of the Void
3   Smokestack
3   Crucible of Worlds
3   Tangle Wire
4   Dark Confidant
4   Goblin Welder
1   Balance
1   Ancestral Recall
1   Tinker
1   Demonic Tutor
1   Vampiric Tutor
1   Imperial Seal
1   Crop Rotation
1   Karn, Silver Golem
4   Mishra's Workshop
1   Tolarian Academy
4   Wasteland
1   Strip Mine
4   City of Brass
1   Barbarian Ring
1   Mox Emerald
1   Mox Jet
1   Mox Pearl
1   Mox Ruby
1   Mox Sapphire
1   Sol Ring
1   Mana Vault
1   Black Lotus
3   Gemstone Mine

I removed the Sundering Titan in favor of Karn because he is not as dead in the opener.  The negative synergy with null rod does bother me.  Also, I have had thoughts of running the singleton Bazaar as well.  I will NEVER take Chalice of the Void back out of my 5-c stax list.  The rods and chalices used in the traditional Uba lists are simply FAR FAR FAR faster coming down than spheres.  Also, smokestack because playable in the absence of a workshop with more frequency when spheres are not in play.  It is much more probably to have a first turn with chalice/rod + stack/crucible which is a soft lock (if it sticks) than sphere with any of these.  Plus, playing a single lock component per turn seems more disruptible for the enemy whose sole purpose in their control deck is to find the next force of will (an understatement of control...but an ackowledgement of draw).

I put a great deal of weight on Vroman's older theoretical reasons for running Uba Mask:  that it does not allow the enemy to build up a hand.  Chalice has the same effect for a much lower mana cost in my opinion and it doubles to stop moxen (arguably the primary purpose).

Anyway, I would love to see comments.  I do not take credit for the original idea of any of these cards' inclusions in the deck and if I have restated something that Steve said in his article:  I do not claim credit for any of that either.  Thanks Steve for writing a 5-color stax article that I am sure I will enjoy as I PM you ever couple of weeks asking for material on the subject.  It is fun to read this stuff because the tourney reports you guys post, the forums, and the articles are as close as I will get to playing in a real tourney unless I travel a VERY long way.

Nick

EDIT:  I just read the article:  My main concern with the list proposed by Steve is this: 5-Color Stax is a deck that has-from inception, been more reliant on lock components that could be played from Land + Mox on turn 1.  The fact that so many low cost threats were in the original builds created a deck where workshop was necessary for the game finishing spells, but that other incremental small threats could be played early to support the deck until it drops the bomb (Stax, crucible....).  Bringing down the average cost of lock components not only makes a first turn component more likely, but also allows scenarios where more than one can be played per turn (your first turn is likely to be better than: pay 3-4 mana, take a force/blue spell from opponent's hand).  Many of the old first turn threats are now removed from the build (with good reason).  But I tend to feel that spheres are impairing the ability of the deck to play through without a shop (the deck was never meant to be completely reliant on a card you can only run 4 copies of).  Maybe with 3 crop rotations one can better rely on having workshop in play to play the higher costing threats, but this concerns me.

My last issue:  Spheres necessitate workshop for casting the main artifact threats of the deck, but they also require you to play additional lands/moxes to cast the colored spells that make the deck 5 colors.  This forces you to include more mana sources for color.  Workshop in play means one less colored source and more colored spells being stuck in the deck.  It is true that this is the risk taken by playing 5-color stax, but I believe that this problem is worse with spheres.  The same could be said of using a null rod/chalice and stopping your own artifact mana:  However, I would rather have rod in play than a sphere in many situations and chalice is not nearly as dead in the late game if your opponent is stabalizing as it locks out bounce spells.  The same is true for rod if we consider that Vault is running rampant.  All of this is submitted as my humble opinion and I would love comment.  Again, great article Steve.

[Neonico]

I will certainly not have new friends after saying this, but i really think that this list is bad.
There is absolutly NO REASON to play 3 crop rotations in a 5c stax deck if you don't run a Bazaar of Baghdad. I totally agree with Vroman on this one.

Also, about this :

Is it fair to say that bazaar could be less useful in 5c because the gy is less of an extension of your hand? Or maybe 1cc tutors are to intuition as bazaar is to TFK?

You play 3 crucible, 4 welder, 3 crop rotation, Bazaar should be a centerpiece of your toolbox. Even with only 1 crop rotation in my list, Bazaar is the land i tutor for the most often, as soon as i have a welder/Crucible on board. Yes, your graveyard is an extension of your hand in 5c stax, you have many GY recursion elements.

I think that actually, based on tests/Tournaments in my aera, the fact that people start to play Spell pierce in control decks makes me consider completly cutting Crop Rotation instead of upping its number.

Also cutting titan for a Karn kill in a heavy fish metagame (i still speak for my aera, don't know if it also applies in the US) is clearly wrong. Its the best weapon you have against them, providing a big attack to their manabase, and a good defensive weapon that doesn't suffer of Null rod.

[Stormanimagus]

I will certainly not have new friends after saying this, but i really think that this list is bad.
There is absolutly NO REASON to play 3 crop rotations in a 5c stax deck if you don't run a Bazaar of Baghdad. I totally agree with Vroman on this one.

Also, about this :

Is it fair to say that bazaar could be less useful in 5c because the gy is less of an extension of your hand? Or maybe 1cc tutors are to intuition as bazaar is to TFK?

You play 3 crucible, 4 welder, 3 crop rotation, Bazaar should be a centerpiece of your toolbox. Even with only 1 crop rotation in my list, Bazaar is the land i tutor for the most often, as soon as i have a welder/Crucible on board. Yes, your graveyard is an extension of your hand in 5c stax, you have many GY recursion elements.

I think that actually, based on tests/Tournaments in my aera, the fact that people start to play Spell pierce in control decks makes me consider completly cutting Crop Rotation instead of upping its number.

Also cutting titan for a Karn kill in a heavy fish metagame (i still speak for my aera, don't know if it also applies in the US) is clearly wrong. Its the best weapon you have against them, providing a big attack to their manabase, and a good defensive weapon that doesn't suffer of Null rod.

I am forced to agree with this assessment. I actually quite like the simplest mono-red approach to this archetype. One of my teammates plays such a deck and I think his list looks something like this:

Mono-Red Shops

Land (23):
4 Mishra’s Workshop
5 Mountain
4 Barbarian Ring
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad

Artifacts (33):
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
4 Chalice Of The Void
4 Sphere Of Resistance
4 Thorn Of Amethyst
3 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
3 Smokestack
1 Trinisphere

Creatures (4):
4 Goblin Welder

SB
4 Ravnous Trap
3 Tabernacle at The Pendrell Vale
4 Shattering Spree
4 Ensnaring Bridge

Now, while the win con is a bit shaky, this is the most streamlined version of Shops I've ever seen. It seems like, in the hands of a good pilot this is about as good as you can hope to do with the "lock" approach to stax. I have a really hard time beating this deck with TPS and I think Tezz will have a decently hard time as well. The one thing the deck might be able to use/abuse is Null Rod, but I actually think spheres contribute more to a mana-denial strategy that is one of the most robust around. Anyway, I'm not a Stax player, but this list seems pretty gosh darn solid to me. Just my 2 cents.

-Storm

[Darkenslight]

I wonder if Red Shops, couldn't use Valakuyt and cut the BRings for two more mountains and 2 Valakut.  It does more damage, taps for R and doesn't damage you.

[MirariKnight]

Barbarian Ring comes back from Crucible whenever you want it. Valakut needs 7 other mountains to work, and it's really difficult to trigger it multiple times (something like strip mine your mountain, replay it with crucible?) so thats 1/3 as fast as B-Ring, and loses utility.

I think that Null Rod is critical to decks like that Mono Red one, especially considering it's not relying on moxen for color fixing like 5C does. Definitely better than some number of sphere effects, and it's also nice that it actively prevents the situation where they somehow assemble vault/key out of a seemingly impossible lock.