[Free Article]Lets talk about: 5 Color Stax

[Marske]

Today,  Dennis "XdeckX" Bijkerk talks about a deck he's quite fond of which has been on the rise lately. Check it out !

http://www.vintage-sideboard.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:vintage-5-color-stax&catid=5:vintage-articles&Itemid=12

Editor's blurb:

All tournament players know about it. Some love it, some hate it. Either way, it's the deck with the most consistent brutal turn 1 plays, possibly even ending the game by locking the opponent out while securing the win later in the game. From the first time a friend introduced me to Stax, I fell in love with the raw power of the deck. As time progressed my affection with Stax grew even more after seeing all the different directions the deck could take. You have lots of options regarding colors, playable cards and win conditions. I'm not going to take you back to the history of the deck. Instead I'm just going to concentrate on the list which I regard as the strongest Stax list in the current metagame: 5 color Stax.

[ArtOvWar]

Nice post. Good explanetion of the cards. Dont got anymore to say about it.

[XdeckX]

Thanks allot for posting my article Marske. I just hope people like it.

[Marske]

@XdeckX,
hehe thanks for writing it I think it touched on some very nice subjects and should be a good read for anybody.

[chrissss]

nice read

[maatn]

Nice article Dennis. Good read!
You could have said something on the metagame-choice of 5c Stax over Red Staxx or MUD, but that was recently covered in Steven Menedian's article on Crop Rotation-Staxx a few weeks ago anyway.

I do have a few questions, if I may (although I'm no pro on Staxx):
- the list you suggested plays 4 welders. Do you find that to be the (only) correct number? I've seen others play 2 or 3 copies. With the rainbow-manabase one could play 2 welders, 1 regrowth and 1 gifts, to add more flexibilty, recursion and a 2card tutor. What are your thoughts on not including Gifts Ungiven or Regrowth?
- you've chosen not to include Uba Masks. In the tourney in Utrecht last saturday I got paired against Arjen Ruiterkamp, playing R-Staxx with bazaars and Uba Mask. The amount of cards he drew was simply put insane. Why did you not include the Ubamask-Bazaar draw eninge?
- On the 'what cards to play first' issue. This always bugs me when I'm playing the Staxx deck in my testing group. I often know my opponents playing FoWs, and I'm often stifled by not being sure what card to cast first. Smokestack seems to be the right choice though. Crucible is often you trump card, so it's not wise to get that countered early on. Learning how to play this any deck correctly and successfully comes pretty much down to knowing what hands to keep, and how to play them. That means lot of testing, and tournament play!

As a final note, I didn't know that you could tell your opponent how he should stack upkeep triggers. Good to know though.
On the trigger-issue, is it possible to stack smokestack with 0 counters on it in your upkeep in such a way, that you can sac a permanent to it? For instance against Oath, you might wanna sac spirits as fast as possible. So you normally first sac 0 permanents, then put a counter on. But from you article I understand you could do the reverse?

Thanks again for the article!

[voltron00x]

Nice article Dennis. Good read!
You could have said something on the metagame-choice of 5c Stax over Red Staxx or MUD, but that was recently covered in Steven Menedian's article on Crop Rotation-Staxx a few weeks ago anyway.

I do have a few questions, if I may (although I'm no pro on Staxx):
- the list you suggested plays 4 welders. Do you find that to be the (only) correct number? I've seen others play 2 or 3 copies. With the rainbow-manabase one could play 2 welders, 1 regrowth and 1 gifts, to add more flexibilty, recursion and a 2card tutor. What are your thoughts on not including Gifts Ungiven or Regrowth?
- you've chosen not to include Uba Masks. In the tourney in Utrecht last saturday I got paired against Arjen Ruiterkamp, playing R-Staxx with bazaars and Uba Mask. The amount of cards he drew was simply put insane. Why did you not include the Ubamask-Bazaar draw eninge?
- On the 'what cards to play first' issue. This always bugs me when I'm playing the Staxx deck in my testing group. I often know my opponents playing FoWs, and I'm often stifled by not being sure what card to cast first. Smokestack seems to be the right choice though. Crucible is often you trump card, so it's not wise to get that countered early on. Learning how to play this any deck correctly and successfully comes pretty much down to knowing what hands to keep, and how to play them. That means lot of testing, and tournament play!

As a final note, I didn't know that you could tell your opponent how he should stack upkeep triggers. Good to know though.
On the trigger-issue, is it possible to stack smokestack with 0 counters on it in your upkeep in such a way, that you can sac a permanent to it? For instance against Oath, you might wanna sac spirits as fast as possible. So you normally first sac 0 permanents, then put a counter on. But from you article I understand you could do the reverse?

Thanks again for the article!

I can't imagine playing with less than 4 Welders is correct, now more than ever (see: people playing Darkblast specifically to counteract Welder & Dark Confidant).

Regarding the article, it was very good.  I think there are too few primers like this out there for Vintage.  I liked the part regarding stacking the triggers especially, as I imagine this would be very helpful to new Stax players.

[XdeckX]

Nice article Dennis. Good read!
You could have said something on the metagame-choice of 5c Stax over Red Staxx or MUD, but that was recently covered in Steven Menedian's article on Crop Rotation-Staxx a few weeks ago anyway.

When I started with the article my first thought was that I wanted to write about 5CStax and MUD since I regard both to be the best Stax lists for the current meta. But as the article grew I thought it would be to big. I wanted to provide as much information about card choises as possible. So in the end I just removed the MUD sections and elaborated a bit more on some details. The big part of the article (especially the section on how to play the deck) can be used for most Stax decks. Perhaps, if I have enough inspiration and time, I will write an article on other Stax (or workshop) decks.

I do have a few questions, if I may (although I'm no pro on Staxx):
- the list you suggested plays 4 welders. Do you find that to be the (only) correct number? I've seen others play 2 or 3 copies. With the rainbow-manabase one could play 2 welders, 1 regrowth and 1 gifts, to add more flexibilty, recursion and a 2card tutor. What are your thoughts on not including Gifts Ungiven or Regrowth?

I've seen lists with less than 4 Welders too but every time I play Stax I'm really happy when I draw a Welder. It's never dead due to his unique ability; he can help you get countered lock pieces back into play, you can switch opponents artifacts for e.g Moxen that you can kill with Gorilla Shaman or Karn. Maybe other people feel confidant enough to play less  then 4 but I'm more than happy with that number.
I've never tested Regrowth to be honest. Although the effect is quite appealing I'm always struggling for deckspace (that's why I sometimes play 61 cards) and than I think it would get cut to make room for better cards. You want to play cards that affect the game or let's you search for cards that affect the game. In that view a card like Gifts Ungiven might be a good card. But I think the manacost of Gifts is a bit too much. You're really stretching your non-workshop manasources to play Gifts. The best moment to play Gifts is usally at the end of your opponents turn but that would mean you keep 4 mana open during your turn which in my oppinion could be better used by casting lock pieces.

- you've chosen not to include Uba Masks. In the tourney in Utrecht last saturday I got paired against Arjen Ruiterkamp, playing R-Staxx with bazaars and Uba Mask. The amount of cards he drew was simply put insane. Why did you not include the Ubamask-Bazaar draw eninge?

5CStax and UbaStax (which is the deck Arjen was playing) are completly different. If you want to run more than one Uba Mask you also want to run more than one Bazaar to make the most out of that drawengine. That would mean you probably have cut some lands to make room for Bazaar or cut spells for Bazaar (since Bazaar doesn't tap for mana) Then you will have to make room for Uba Masks as well. That would mean you're going to cut into the colored spells to make room which results in removal of colors and thus the need for rainbow lands. I've built 5CUba Stax lists in the past but I've never found that to be solid enough to take to a tournament.

- On the 'what cards to play first' issue. This always bugs me when I'm playing the Staxx deck in my testing group. I often know my opponents playing FoWs, and I'm often stifled by not being sure what card to cast first. Smokestack seems to be the right choice though. Crucible is often you trump card, so it's not wise to get that countered early on. Learning how to play this any deck correctly and successfully comes pretty much down to knowing what hands to keep, and how to play them. That means lot of testing, and tournament play!

It often comes down to gut feeling for me. Sometimes I play a spell only because I want my opponent to waste his counter on that. That gives me the opportunity to drop a permanent which is far more devastating. Don't let the fact that your opponent plays FoW's get to you. You opponent _will_ counter some spells (if he's playing counterspells that is) You just know which spells you want resolved and which spells are nice to have but will not impact the game too much.

As a final note, I didn't know that you could tell your opponent how he should stack upkeep triggers. Good to know though.
On the trigger-issue, is it possible to stack smokestack with 0 counters on it in your upkeep in such a way, that you can sac a permanent to it? For instance against Oath, you might wanna sac spirits as fast as possible. So you normally first sac 0 permanents, then put a counter on. But from you article I understand you could do the reverse?

Well you can only decide to order of the triggers of permanents you control.
It's possible to stack a Smokestack with 0 counters so you have to sac a permantent the same turn you put a counter on it.
==TOP==
Add counter to Smokestack
Sac permanents equal to the number of counters on Smokestack
==BOTTOM==
This way when the stack resolves you first put a counter on Smokestack and then you will have to sac a permanent to the Smokestack. So bye bye Spirit token.
Smokestacks sacrificte part triggers no matter how many counters are on it. It only checks for counters when the trigger resolves. This is totally different to e.g. Oath of Druids which checks if the conditions of the card are met before a trigger is put on the stack. Thats why it's impossible to get Oath to trigger when you give your opponent a token during that same upkeep. (Oath checks the conditions at the beginning of the upkeep)

Thanks again for the article!

Glad you liked it.

[Duncan]

Thanks for the article!

Are you going to do a follow up with sideboard options, boarding plans and matchup analyses? Those were topics I kind of missed in this one.

Regarding the deck: I find it hard to believe the Sword in the deck is correct. Duplicant answers Goyf and Sphinx (even better), is a permanent and is not dead against decks without creatures, not to mention welder-synergy and tinkerability.

Inkwell is handled by Karn.

[zeus-online]

No mention of null rod? I'm pretty sure null rod is at it's strongest ever right now and it's not even mentioned.

But other then that it was a nice read.

[BruiZar]

All in all a nice article. I have a few questions though. Why the absence of In the Eye of Chaos or Imperial Seal? An explanation for the amount of Crop Rotations you are running would also have been nice. A list of cards that didn't make the cut and the reasoning for it would have been great too. Even though the list is sort of vanilla, I thought the article was well written. There's a lack of good workshop articles and I'm glad you're doing something about it!

[Tempus]

In a world of bobs, repeal on sdt/remora, drains and ak why you don't include chalice? It seems so good right now and it just blocks spheres and dt in your deck.

Nice read btw

[SadDubs]

what are stax's key weaknesses? Which decks usually beat stax?

[XdeckX]

Seeing these replies makes me want to get back to writing once more. Maybe a follow-up article might be in order.
Anyway lets get back into some card choices.

-Swords to Plowshares
As stated in the article StP is one of the free slots. I didn't want to play another robot (I usually play Duplicant out of the board) maindeck. When creating the list I've been fiddling with that one slot. I ran a 2nd Powder Keg, Memory Jar, Imperial Seal, In The Eye of Chaos, Uba Mask and the StP. During some testing I kinda stuck with StP because whenever I drew it, it helped with the matchup. I'm not advocating it's inclusion but for me it's been working. If you feel it's suboptimal by all means change it for something else.

-Karn vs Inkwell
I must admit I didnt think of this when I wrote the piece. Karn does indeed block Inkwell Leviathan. Eventhough I have some experience I'm no pro

-Null rod
It is a strong card in the current meta for sure. But with the limited deckspace I think the cards I listed are better suited for the deck. Again this is just my personal opinion. It shuts down the main winconditions: Karn and Trike (although this can be handled by using some other robots) And with the higher number of non-artifact cards I need all the mana to cast those spells (even more mana is needed when a Sphere is in play) Shutting down my own Moxen might hinder me in doing so even if it helps slowing down the opponent.

-In the Eye of Chaos
I've tested the card and in the past I've played it maindeck. It is a strong card. But I felt the Spheres did the same thing.

-Imperial Seal
It does the same thing as Vampiric tutor but at sorcery speed. Perhaps it needs inclusion, perhaps it doesn't. Allot of 5C play it, allot don't. I don't play it because I don't like it all that much. I've owned one from some years and just recently sold it just because I never play it in any deck. It just feels slow. Maybe it's just a feeling I'm having with it

-Chalice of the Void
Again it's a matter of deckspace I guess. Cutting the lesser card. I think especially the combination of Sphere and Tangle Wire makes the inclusion of these to cards worthwhile. Slowing down the opponent to get a hard lock going just works better with the overall gameplan. Tangle Wire also helps with slowing down aggro decks which can give you the time needed to stabilize. Chalice doesnt nessesarily slow down the opponent but just locks out certain cards.

-Weakness
Of course Stax is hurt by global artifact bounce, and targeted destruction but then again all decks play cards that do that nowadays. As far as matchup go I've had allot of bad experience with Oath of Druids, Ichorid and general fast aggro decks. Oath trumps the gameplan because once Oath is in play the Oathplayer doesn't have to cast any spells if all goes well. Ichorid and aggro in general are usually too fast for Stax to handle maindeck. Ususally you're facing lethal damage before you get some sort of grip on the game.


And yes the list is really vanilla. Lots of cards in the list are just auto-includes if you want to make the strongest list. On the other hand you do have the option of playing lots of non-standard cards.
In any case I'm planning on writing more on Stax in the future since there is so much ground I haven't covered. MUD, Matchup analysis, possible sideboard cards, controversial lists.

[mightymouz]

Is there a reason that Memory Jar is excluded? Or have you just forgotten about it? Memory Jar looks like an auto-include for this deck.

[BruiZar]

I'd like to point out that the inclusion of In the Eye of Chaos makes Imperial Seal better because it is unaffected by ITEOC unlike Vampiric Tutor. Seal dodges your own ITEOC while vamp can dodge Duress and Thoughtseize.

On Null Rod, I believe its much more affected in a more Ubastax build.

[Sean Ryan]

I love 5c Stax.  Playing broken colored spells and Workshops in one deck is alot of fun, but results are pointing to 5c Stax being more Johnnie than Spike.  Even before this recent turn of events MUD out significantly performed 5c Stax for at least the last year.

The recent ICBM T8 results show two Stax decks opting to drop the 5c package to support Null Rod and or more consistency.  There was the R/g version with Crop Rotations x4 and Bazaars piloted by Spookey Kid, and two BR version with Bobs, one ran Rod the other the Time Vault combo.  

The 5c version is the most inconsistent of the viable choices.  Stax players still using the traditonal 5c model need to reexamine their rationals against the T8 data

Did you consider any of this when you wrote the article, or were you just trying to put together a general primer on 5c Stax exclusivley?

  

[MaxxMatt]

@XdeckX

I would rise these issues first:

*   Add somewhere Gifts Ungiven: it is stronger than in any other deck because of his cute interaction with Welders. Playing $t4k$ with a Welder in play, you can easily resolve GU checking for 2 cards, put them into the grave in order to use GU as an overpowered Entomb, with multiple and lethal targets to switch. If you are not so lucky and Welders have been neutralized or didn't show up, you'll use it to gain advantage from 2 strong cards feeding grave for further plays. Spheres will not slow you down too much, because of your mana base and possible interactions with Welders, switching them in & out at will.

*   IMHO, all cards included in your list, aside StP & PKeg can be considered standard if not deck defining. I cannot see how this deck could be played in a different manner. Karn, Shaman, Waste, CoW, STitan will power up the entire denial plan to his maximum. A better lock situation could be achieved only adding Null Rods too, but it would immediately exclude your winners of choice. I feel them very strong, so, despite my love for Null Rods in such a build, I will leave them in sideboard to slow down combo & control combo decks more than ever

*   StP & PKegs are uneeded. Lock pieces ( Wires + Smokestack ), while doing it quite slowly, will handle critters and robots in a better way. Balance plus Tutors are needed to protect yourself from Shroud or untouchable targets. It will free you additional slots. GU & Time Walk or GU & IntheEyeofChaos will be my own maindecked cards of choice.

*   Sideboard will be key in order to deal with you bad matchups. Among them, I'm going to consider:

4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Spheres of Resistance
3 Viashino Heretics
3 Null Rod
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Darksteel Colossus

I will apply these plans against specific opponents:

- Recurring Tormod's Crypt against Ichorid
- Heretics, Rods & Robots against MirrorMatches ( especially MUD versions )
- Rods & Sphere ( or at least additional Spheres ) against blue based decks
- Simply roll over aggro & aggro control without too much efforts. Maybe Titan can be switched for Inkwell because of Shroud

[LotusHead]

Nice article.

I've ran lists without Chalice of the Void, and always regretted it (me loves Chalice for 1 and/or 0 on the play).

In fact, Chalice for 1 makes me not overload my deck with 1 cc spells.

Ancestral Recall
No explanation is needed on why this card is included.

In a Misdirection filled meta, Ancestral can sit quietly in my proxy binder. (yes, I have a binder of nice proxies).

[XdeckX]

@Sean Ryan
In the end my article turned out to be more general primer than anything else.
But I disagree with your statement that the 5C versions of Stax are the most inconstent and the players need to reexamine their lists. When examining the Morphling.de recent T8 data the most Stax decks that make T8 are indeed 5C. This leads me to believe that's 5C Stax is hardly inconsistent and still outperform other Stax lists.
Of course there are other lists and people are more than welcome to try out new things. That's the beauty of Stax. You have a better possibility to try out different things than you have with any other deck. E.g I've been tinkering with a list playing multiple crop rotations, enlightened tutors and entombs.

As with any deck you play with the list you feel most comfortable with.

@MaxxMatt
I feel the CMC of Gifts is a bit too high to support it in 5C Stax. You're really stretching your non-workshop manabase to the max when playing Gifts, especially if you have one or more Spheres out. I sometimes even struggle to get the mana needed to play Tinker. On the other hand it won't hurt to test it (which I didn't due to the CMC) Maybe Intuition could also fit the same role. Sure it lets you search for one card less and you can't choose to just put 2 cards in your grave, but you can on the other hand find find multiples of the same card. And the CMC is a bit easier on the manabase.

Both StP and Pkeg are what I consider to be free slots. You could play any combination of cards you feel deserve a place. I've tested all sorts of different cards in these slots. I'm not asking you to agree with my choice of StP and PKeg I've played these cards with some succes (more than any other) thats why I included them.

The sideboard is something that's highly meta dependant. The Dutch meta is totally different from the US meta, it's also different from the other countries around Europe to be honest. And as with any meta it's always shifting.
You can face several bad matchups (feel free to add any if you feel it's a bad list)
-Oath of Druids
-Fast aggro
-Ichorid
-WS aggro (with Welders)
-BUG Fish

@Lotus
Right now I'm running Chalice in the sideboard. It's a card I'd like to have maindeck but right now I feel Sphere and Tangle Wire are both a bit stronger so I play those instead (and chalice gets cut because I dont have room for it)
Luckily we're not seeing too many Misdirections over here I'd hate to see someone steal my Recall and draw the 3 cards.

[Sean Ryan]

@Sean Ryan
In the end my article turned out to be more general primer than anything else.
But I disagree with your statement that the 5C versions of Stax are the most inconstent and the players need to reexamine their lists. When examining the Morphling.de recent T8 data the most Stax decks that make T8 are indeed 5C. This leads me to believe that's 5C Stax is hardly inconsistent and still outperform other Stax lists.
Of course there are other lists and people are more than welcome to try out new things. That's the beauty of Stax. You have a better possibility to try out different things than you have with any other deck. E.g I've been tinkering with a list playing multiple crop rotations, enlightened tutors and entombs.

That's not what I see in the data.  I have mined all of the tournament data on Morphling,de and your statement that 5c Stax makes the most top8s is incorrect.  The only way I see you coming up with that result is if you are lumping the U/R lists with five color.

It's even more revealing when you only focus on tournaments with 50 or more players.  Here is the data for T8 with 50+ since 2009 from Morphling.de

Mono Red Workshop Aggro: 7   
Aggro-Mud: 7*
MUD: 6
U/R Stax: 4
5c Stax: 3
Uba Stax: 2
B/R Stax: 2 (1 with Rod, 1 with Time Vault)
R/G Stax: 1 (Rod)
Blue Workshop Aggro: 1 (Rod)
N=31

*Best finish winning BOM with 350 players

If you lump U/R and 5c together they tie with mono red aggro and aggro mud.  The difference between Mud and aggro-Mud is a little blurred.  I categorize a deck as Aggro Mud if it doesn't rely on a hard lock, rather disrupts with lock parts then finishes with creatures before the opponent can recover.  If you break the whole sample down between those that try to achieve a hard lock (16) and those that go for a soft lock (15) and finish with creatures it is almost even.

If we include tournaments with 20+ the data becomes more varied but 5c Stax still does not take the lead.  One of the major problems I see with 5c Stax is that it can't effectively run Chalice of the Void or Null Rod, two of the most powerful denial spells in the format.  Instead you are running fewer lock pieces and more tutors/colored spells.  I have found MUD variants to be much more consistent, which is supported by there high finishes in the largest tournaments in Europe.  The recent innovations to come out of the midwest also increase consistency by going B/R for Bobs and tutors, or the R/G version by Spookey kid that looks like the modern decendant of Uba Stax.

I'm not saying that 5c Stax is not competitive, just that the data suggests there are better ways to increase the likley hood of winning a large event with Workshops.     
 

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Nice article Dennis. Good read!
You could have said something on the metagame-choice of 5c Stax over Red Staxx or MUD, but that was recently covered in Steven Menedian's article on Crop Rotation-Staxx a few weeks ago anyway.

I do have a few questions, if I may (although I'm no pro on Staxx):
- the list you suggested plays 4 welders. Do you find that to be the (only) correct number? I've seen others play 2 or 3 copies. With the rainbow-manabase one could play 2 welders, 1 regrowth and 1 gifts, to add more flexibilty, recursion and a 2card tutor. What are your thoughts on not including Gifts Ungiven or Regrowth?
- you've chosen not to include Uba Masks. In the tourney in Utrecht last saturday I got paired against Arjen Ruiterkamp, playing R-Staxx with bazaars and Uba Mask. The amount of cards he drew was simply put insane. Why did you not include the Ubamask-Bazaar draw eninge?
- On the 'what cards to play first' issue. This always bugs me when I'm playing the Staxx deck in my testing group. I often know my opponents playing FoWs, and I'm often stifled by not being sure what card to cast first. Smokestack seems to be the right choice though. Crucible is often you trump card, so it's not wise to get that countered early on. Learning how to play this any deck correctly and successfully comes pretty much down to knowing what hands to keep, and how to play them. That means lot of testing, and tournament play!

As a final note, I didn't know that you could tell your opponent how he should stack upkeep triggers. Good to know though.
On the trigger-issue, is it possible to stack smokestack with 0 counters on it in your upkeep in such a way, that you can sac a permanent to it? For instance against Oath, you might wanna sac spirits as fast as possible. So you normally first sac 0 permanents, then put a counter on. But from you article I understand you could do the reverse?

Thanks again for the article!

I can't speak for the author, but I've played with and against shops and extremely large number of times. Here are my thoughts on your questions:
Regrowth and gifts are just card's that you can play with shop mana that get pushed out of range by your own lock pieces. These cards are aslo no threats them selves in this deck, and don't make broken turn 1 plays.

I usualy tend to run around 3x welder in 5c stax. You don't really need them to win, and usually you want to reduce your 1cc spells so you can challice at 1 (granted this is up for debate right now)

Uba mask is a good card for the constroll match up, but its bad against bob, bad against aggro, doesn't come down turn 1, and occasionaly just gets played through by your opponant who just assembles key/vault. Not to mention bazaar is fine without uba mask for welder, crucible, or just inproving your card quality.

As for what cards to play 1st, it's always hand dependant. As a general guide line, lead with your bate spell (obviously), don't be afraid to lose welder to fow ,or try to turn off FOW some how with a 2 ball/wire. Don't play tangle wire turn 1 on the play.

there was a question about memory jar, a lot of time the card ends up being either expensive to play and activate, or slow to use.

[Prospero]

@Sean Ryan
In the end my article turned out to be more general primer than anything else.
But I disagree with your statement that the 5C versions of Stax are the most inconstent and the players need to reexamine their lists. When examining the Morphling.de recent T8 data the most Stax decks that make T8 are indeed 5C. This leads me to believe that's 5C Stax is hardly inconsistent and still outperform other Stax lists.
Of course there are other lists and people are more than welcome to try out new things. That's the beauty of Stax. You have a better possibility to try out different things than you have with any other deck. E.g I've been tinkering with a list playing multiple crop rotations, enlightened tutors and entombs.

As with any deck you play with the list you feel most comfortable with.

@MaxxMatt
I feel the CMC of Gifts is a bit too high to support it in 5C Stax. You're really stretching your non-workshop manabase to the max when playing Gifts, especially if you have one or more Spheres out. I sometimes even struggle to get the mana needed to play Tinker. On the other hand it won't hurt to test it (which I didn't due to the CMC) Maybe Intuition could also fit the same role. Sure it lets you search for one card less and you can't choose to just put 2 cards in your grave, but you can on the other hand find find multiples of the same card. And the CMC is a bit easier on the manabase.

Both StP and Pkeg are what I consider to be free slots. You could play any combination of cards you feel deserve a place. I've tested all sorts of different cards in these slots. I'm not asking you to agree with my choice of StP and PKeg I've played these cards with some succes (more than any other) thats why I included them.

The sideboard is something that's highly meta dependant. The Dutch meta is totally different from the US meta, it's also different from the other countries around Europe to be honest. And as with any meta it's always shifting.
You can face several bad matchups (feel free to add any if you feel it's a bad list)
-Oath of Druids
-Fast aggro
-Ichorid
-WS aggro (with Welders)
-BUG Fish

@Lotus
Right now I'm running Chalice in the sideboard. It's a card I'd like to have maindeck but right now I feel Sphere and Tangle Wire are both a bit stronger so I play those instead (and chalice gets cut because I dont have room for it)
Luckily we're not seeing too many Misdirections over here I'd hate to see someone steal my Recall and draw the 3 cards.

Gefeliciteerd Dennis, jij deklijst is zeer goed.  Luisteren niet wat de anderen Mana Drainers hebben zeggen hier.  Je weten wat je hebben gedoen.  En sorry mijn Nederlands is zo slecht.  

[zeus-online]

@Sean Ryan
In the end my article turned out to be more general primer than anything else.
But I disagree with your statement that the 5C versions of Stax are the most inconstent and the players need to reexamine their lists. When examining the Morphling.de recent T8 data the most Stax decks that make T8 are indeed 5C. This leads me to believe that's 5C Stax is hardly inconsistent and still outperform other Stax lists.
Of course there are other lists and people are more than welcome to try out new things. That's the beauty of Stax. You have a better possibility to try out different things than you have with any other deck. E.g I've been tinkering with a list playing multiple crop rotations, enlightened tutors and entombs.

As with any deck you play with the list you feel most comfortable with.

@MaxxMatt
I feel the CMC of Gifts is a bit too high to support it in 5C Stax. You're really stretching your non-workshop manabase to the max when playing Gifts, especially if you have one or more Spheres out. I sometimes even struggle to get the mana needed to play Tinker. On the other hand it won't hurt to test it (which I didn't due to the CMC) Maybe Intuition could also fit the same role. Sure it lets you search for one card less and you can't choose to just put 2 cards in your grave, but you can on the other hand find find multiples of the same card. And the CMC is a bit easier on the manabase.

Both StP and Pkeg are what I consider to be free slots. You could play any combination of cards you feel deserve a place. I've tested all sorts of different cards in these slots. I'm not asking you to agree with my choice of StP and PKeg I've played these cards with some succes (more than any other) thats why I included them.

The sideboard is something that's highly meta dependant. The Dutch meta is totally different from the US meta, it's also different from the other countries around Europe to be honest. And as with any meta it's always shifting.
You can face several bad matchups (feel free to add any if you feel it's a bad list)
-Oath of Druids
-Fast aggro
-Ichorid
-WS aggro (with Welders)
-BUG Fish

@Lotus
Right now I'm running Chalice in the sideboard. It's a card I'd like to have maindeck but right now I feel Sphere and Tangle Wire are both a bit stronger so I play those instead (and chalice gets cut because I dont have room for it)
Luckily we're not seeing too many Misdirections over here I'd hate to see someone steal my Recall and draw the 3 cards.

Gefeliciteerd Dennis, jij deklijst is zeer goed.  Luisteren niet wat de anderen Mana Drainers hebben zeggen hier.  Je weten wat je hebben gedoen.  En sorry mijn Nederlands is zo slecht.  

Although i do not speak dutch....I'd translate it as:
???? Dennis your decklist is very good, don't listen to what the other mana drainers are saying. You know what you're doing, i'm sorry that my dutch is so terrible.

All of the words are very close to german or danish words...so i think it's about right

[XdeckX]

Lol. Thanks for translating Zeus. Its really accurate

@prospero
since this is an international forum I'll keep my reply in English. Thank yo for your post. Its really funny seeing a non-Dutch writing in Dutch. Your post was really accurate. But lets get back on topic. Im happy to hear you like the list and I won't let some of the critical comments get to me After all... all we're all trying to do is get the best list of a deck together. A healthy discussion on decks and cards is always a good thing in my book.

[LennoxLewis86]

Great read Dennis!
It's nice to get updated on Stax for a change. My knowledge of it is terrible, as well as my record against it. On paper 5c Stax looks absolutely the best Stax deck out there. It has all of the annoying lock pieces and plays the best colored spells in vintage to boot. It is interesting to see that Aggro MUD and Mono Red Shop outperform 5c Stax though. What do you think could be the reason for this?

[Sean Ryan]

Great read Dennis!
It's nice to get updated on Stax for a change. My knowledge of it is terrible, as well as my record against it. On paper 5c Stax looks absolutely the best Stax deck out there. It has all of the annoying lock pieces and plays the best colored spells in vintage to boot. It is interesting to see that Aggro MUD and Mono Red Shop outperform 5c Stax though. What do you think could be the reason for this?

Consistency.

As great as being able to play the best colored spells in the game is in theory, it actually detracts from what Stax wants to accomplish, which is to lock up the board.  It's almost a miss-assignment of role.

Another aspect that contributes to the general notion of consistency in the aggro builds is that they don't have to completely lock their opponent out of the game to win, just slow things down enough to beat face before the opponent recovers.

Aggro-Mud is on the opposite spectrum of Workshop decks compared to 5cStax.  Instead of broken spells and trying to completely lock the board down, it opts to run a higher concentration of both lock pieces and acceleration.  On top of that it doesn't have to acheive complete control to win.  It's disruption  has to be just good enough.

If I were to play Shops in the current metagame I would want to be able to run Null Rod.  If your Stax deck can't run Rod you really should be asking yourself why?  Vintage used to be Yawgmoth's Will vs Null Rod, now its Time Vault vs Null Rod. 

The recent success of running B/R with Bob as a draw engine supports is another example of finding new creative ways to achieve consistency. 

I think the time has arrived for thinking about Workshop decks in terms of those that want to lock the opponent out of the game and those who pursue a more aggro route to victory.  I don't even think it's necessarily that useful to focus on the minutia of 5c Stax vs UR vs BR vs RG in separate terms when they have the same strategy with slightly different tactics.  The discussion shouldn't only be about the last 2-3 slots in your pet 5cStax list, but about the pros and cons of various tactics the different Shop decks employ in the current metagame.

I think this mini primmer is a great way to introduce new players to the concepts, and more importanhtly, shoul dbe part of a larger project of outlining all the Workshop variations at our disposal.

Sean

[XdeckX]

@Sean Ryan
You do raise a good point.
When playing with Shops you should start with decide what you're gameplan is. Control of Aggro. Both are more than capable of getting to the finishline. Maybe there's a personal aspect involved when making this choice.
WS Control : Slow the game down long enough to establish a hardlock and win
WS Aggro: Slow the game long enough to kill your opponent with beats.
Allot of cards played will be same for both lists with the difference being cards played to suit the gameplan.

Let's get back to Stax for a minute.
Eventhough I wrote an article about 5C Stax (just a personal preference) it might be wise to discuss what version of Stax is best suited for a specific meta and what cards should be played.
And maybe we do need to compare WS Control and WS Aggro but it might be better to start a new thread on that (since this thread is about Stax after all)

[Aneurysm]

I don't see how people want to put Gifts in here.

You're usually going to have a sphere or two out so its going to cost five. You can't cast it off workshop mana. It's definitely win more.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I don't see how people want to put Gifts in here.

no one wants to, because its a bad idea.
I wouldn't call it a win more card, more like a dead draw in a deck with a poor/no draw engine.