[Free Article] 5c Stax in Action

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17832_So_Many_Insane_Plays_5c_Stax_in_Action.html

Editor's Blurb:

Monday, August 3rd - In today’s edition of So Many Insane Plays, Vintage maestro Stephen Menendian takes the format’s true control option – Stax – for a spin in a seven-round Vintage tournament. While he didn’t quite make the final table, he learnt a lot about the strategy behind the deck, and he shares that knowledge today.

Let me know what you think!  

[Prospero]

"Despite what anyone else says, this is the way to build 5c Stax in the current Vintage metagame. This is what I played on the second day of the ICBM XTreme Power Nine Open: "

Really?

Beyond that statement, here's why your list is wrong:

1.  You're working to build a deck that abuses Balance and yet you're not running any Bazaars.  You're running Crop Rotation in multiples and yet you can't seem to find space for Bazaar.  You speak of playing a devastating Balance, and of Balance being a truly broken card in the deck and yet you did nothing with it over the course of seven full rounds with it.  You had one instance over the course of the day in which you felt that it could be truly busted.  

Furthermore, you fail to understand that in order to cast a truly busted Balance you have to make sacrifices in your other card choices.  Not everyone is playing aggro.  How was Balance in your combo match-up?  It certainly wouldn't have been all that amazing against Tezzeret.  So what were you playing it for?  Your deck isn't positioned to abuse it fully, so I'm really not sure here.

You're wedded to this card and there's no reason for you to be, especially if you haven't built your deck to abuse the hell out of it.

2.  You've built the deck like a blue deck.  You're sacrificing pressure for tutor effects with multiple Crop Rotations and Imperial Seal.  5CStax's biggest advantage is in the early turns; turns 2-4 are absolutely critical.  If you don't establish something truly devastating by then you won't.  Most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, this means building redundacy because you have to be able to play through their counters and your list does not does this as effectively as it should.  You sacrifice gas for potential.  

I was playing in GP Boston this weekend and while playing a side game of Vintage I cast a Vampiric Tutor for Goblin Welder with a Thoughtseize on the stack.  I had Crucible, Trinisphere and Wasteland in yard, Smokestack and Tinker in hand before the Thoughtseize resolved.  And I was then told by a prominent member of the Vintage community that I should have found Ancestral Recall.

This deck isn't blue, as much as it is a control strategy.  I don't run Force of Will.  You find gas or you lose.  Ancestral Recall is awesome, my favorite bait spell of all time.  But it's not gas, it is merely potential.  

Oh, and I won the game off the back of that Welder.

You also have built a list that will lead players to get blown out when their Crop Rotation gets Force'd.  But that's another point altogether.

3.  You're not running Sundering Titan.  Titan is more than just a 7/10, he's an Armageddon on legs.  He blocks Inkwell Leviathan all day long.  He does nasty things with your Welders.  He turns a resolved Tinker into something truly devastating against an opposing Drain player.  Sundering Titan is a lock piece before he's a creature.  Not running him is a neophyte's mistake.

4.  Most importantly, you fail to acknowledge what 5CStax is - an elegant hate deck.  This deck does not, cannot, exist in a vacuum.  And yet you've put together a list with nary a single word on what in particular you're looking to beat, what the environment is like at all.  There is no "right" Stax list, there is only a Stax list that is "right" in a given metagame.  The metagame has shifted and I'm not running the same deck I've been running because I understand this.  

I'll grant you that you're possibly the best combo player in the country.  I'll grant you that you are probably also the best Gro player in the country.  By your own admission, you haven't played this deck in over four years - and yet you open with a statement that leaves no room for qualifiers.  You haven't won anything with this deck - in fact you have all of three match wins with it, yet you claim that this construction is superior to any other.  You have built something that supposedly can exist in a vacuum, which this deck cannot do.  

If I was going to listen to someone on Meandeck about 5CStax, I'd listen to Roland Chang.  He's the best 5CStax player of all time.  This list fails to address several fundamental points that 5CStax cannot ever successfully ignore.  I have a very difficult time imagining an elite Stax player playing a list that looked anything like that.  You're elite with combo, you're elite with Gro, you're not elite with Stax.

You're one of the best players in Vintage, if not the best.  And that list is wrong.

[2nd_lawl]

There will be blood.

[BruiZar]

@Prospero

Have you read the entire thing? Although he started of claiming this was the optimal build, he sort of came back to those words at the end:

"5c Stax is a legitimate contender, but it is – as with all decks worth playing in Vintage – a deck that requires a good deal of skill to play well. 5c Stax is a contender, but I suspect that it may not be the best Stax build. The chief advantage of 5c Stax over other Stax variants is Balance and access to Balance. Other Stax builds probably have greater synergies, and those synergies probably outweigh the power of 5c Stax. For example, Jerry Yang’s second place tournament deck list utilizes Dark Confidant and Bazaar of Baghdad, as well as Entomb and the incredible recursion power of both Cabal Pit and Barbarian Ring. There are many design options with Stax, but 5c Stax is definitely the most entertaining and fun of the Stax options."

[wiley]

Vs. GW, game 2;

The way I would have planned it would have been turn 1 city->seal for trini, turn 2 play crypt->trini, t3 on upkeep vamp for balance.  Kataki causes the turn 3 plan to be skewed for a turn or two, but it still provides you with at least another turn for him to build up permanent resources that will be destroyed by balance, and it severely slows his tutor->seal plan which is one of the more devastating things he can do to you.

vs Twaun, g2;

I'm not sure how you boarded, but I would have sealed for darkblast turn 1.  Winning the welder war and cutting him off confidant should prove crippling.

@Prospero

I disagree that you need to build the deck to abuse balance to a huge degree (ie past the inherent synergies it already has with a deck that runs out a large number of unaffected permanents).  The deck has problems against aggro far more than combo/control, so making it always serve as a wrath instead of a mind twist (a huge oversimplification) is still not a bad thing.  Against tezz you can often run out much of your hand after tutoring for shop and then cast balance with a stack online.  This also hopes that they haven't drawn a counter for your balance in the first place.

I do agree, though, that the deck needs either a) more consistency or b) a real and viable card advantage engine, whether that be bazaar and welder or even dark confidant.

[Smmenen]

"Despite what anyone else says, this is the way to build 5c Stax in the current Vintage metagame. This is what I played on the second day of the ICBM XTreme Power Nine Open: "

Really?

Objective achieved.  

My purpose with that statement was to provoke debate.  My last article on 5c Stax didn't really foster any discussion of the issues that I identified as central to Stax:

1) How Many Colors Should be Run?
2) How many Spheres should be included, and which ones?
3) What is the role/value of Bazaar of Baghdad and how many should be included?
4) What should the win conditions be? Sundering Titan? Barbarian Ring?
5) Does Time Vault have a place?
6) How Many Crop Rotations should be included, and how many Crucibles to support them?

Beyond that statement, here's why your list is wrong:

1.  You're working to build a deck that abuses Balance and yet you're not running any Bazaars.  You're running Crop Rotation in multiples and yet you can't seem to find space for Bazaar.  You speak of playing a devastating Balance, and of Balance being a truly broken card in the deck and yet you did nothing with it over the course of seven full rounds with it.  You had one instance over the course of the day in which you felt that it could be truly busted.  

You said you read my article from a few weeks back.  It's not that I can't find space for bazaar; it's that bazaar is suboptimal.

As I said there:

It is my opinion that Bazaar of Baghdad is fool’s gold in five color Stax. A few years ago, Robert Vroman innovated a Stax variant known as "Uba Stax." This Stax variant is typically mono-Red and used 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Null Rod, and 4 Uba Mask. Bazaar of Baghdad was used to discard artifacts that could be returned to play with Goblin Welder as well as to draw cards with Uba Mask. Many 5c Stax pilots subsequently started running a single Bazaar for its synergies with Welder. It is also claimed that Bazaar will help you find your win condition in the late game.

My main criticism of Bazaar is that it is a ‘win-more’ card. The point that it will help you find your win conditions requires us to ask why not just run a win condition in that spot? Another criticism of Bazaar is that it does not actually help you win when you are in a losing position. Bazaar appears as if it might help you salvage an otherwise unplayable hand, but rarely ends up helping you win such games. It’s interaction with Welder is undeniable, but the opportunity cost of the slot is often overlooked. My enduring belief is that the better your deck is, the worse Bazaar is in it. But if your deck is unturned and full of junk, Bazaar might be okay.

Furthermore, you fail to understand that in order to cast a truly busted Balance you have to make sacrifices in your other card choices.  Not everyone is playing aggro.  How was Balance in your combo match-up?  

Balance is actually AWESOME in the combo matchup.  It's devastating against virtually every combo deck, actualy

If you think Balance is for Aggro, then you fail to understand what Balance is about in this deck (which explains why you sideboard it :p)

It certainly wouldn't have been all that amazing against Tezzeret.  

Balance is amazing against Tezzeret.  It's a two mana I win or bait so that something else can resolve.   Not sure why you would say this.

2.  You've built the deck like a blue deck.  

You say this several times, but I have no idea what you are talking about.   Blue decks run Force, Brainstorms, fetchlands etc.   How have I built this deck a blue deck?

You're sacrificing pressure for tutor effects with multiple Crop Rotations and Imperial Seal.  5CStax's biggest advantage is in the early turns; turns 2-4 are absolutely critical.  

I completely agree.   Imperial Seal is here because Vampiric Tutor is here and it's close enough in power to run.  Imperial Seal is also awesome.   Both Rotation and Seal contribute to the critical turns 1-4.

I was playing in GP Boston this weekend and while playing a side game of Vintage I cast a Vampiric Tutor for Goblin Welder with a Thoughtseize on the stack.  I had Crucible, Trinisphere and Wasteland in yard, Smokestack and Tinker in hand before the Thoughtseize resolved.  And I was then told by a prominent member of the Vintage community that I should have found Ancestral Recall.

This deck isn't blue, as much as it is a control strategy.  I don't run Force of Will.  You find gas or you lose.  Ancestral Recall is awesome, my favorite bait spell of all time.  But it's not gas, it is merely potential.  

I'm not sure what the value of your point is here.   I would have gotten Welder too.

You also have built a list that will lead players to get blown out when their Crop Rotation gets Force'd.  But that's another point altogether.

Did you see me ever play Rotation when I would get blown out by Force?  You play Rotation only when it suits you in cost/benefit analysis.  I discussed this several weeks ago.

3.  You're not running Sundering Titan.  Titan is more than just a 7/10, he's an Armageddon on legs.  He blocks Inkwell Leviathan all day long.  He does nasty things with your Welders.  He turns a resolved Tinker into something truly devastating against an opposing Drain player.  Sundering Titan is a lock piece before he's a creature.  Not running him is a neophyte's mistake.

I analyzed this point a few weeks ago.

As I said:

I feel that Sundering Titan, while powerful, is also suboptimal for 5c Stax. The fundamental problem with it is that it is dead in opening hand. I goldfished 30 games with Sundering Titan in my opening hand, just to see how quickly he could be cast. With little variation, it was a turn 6 play. That is simply too slow for this deck. This deck must focus on creating a soft lock immediately, and running cards that do not immediately contribute to that end can diminish your chances for victory. Sundering Titan is primarily a Tinker target, and its value as such is indisputable. 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.

 I actually think that running Sundering Titan is an advanced player's error.

4.  Most importantly, you fail to acknowledge what 5CStax is - an elegant hate deck.  This deck does not, cannot, exist in a vacuum.  And yet you've put together a list with nary a single word on what in particular you're looking to beat, what the environment is like at all.  There is no "right" Stax list, there is only a Stax list that is "right" in a given metagame.  The metagame has shifted and I'm not running the same deck I've been running because I understand this.  

I agree.   Well put.

I'll grant you that you're possibly the best combo player in the country.  I'll grant you that you are probably also the best Gro player in the country.  By your own admission, you haven't played this deck in over four years - and yet you open with a statement that leaves no room for qualifiers.  You haven't won anything with this deck - in fact you have all of three match wins with it, yet you claim that this construction is superior to any other.  You have built something that supposedly can exist in a vacuum, which this deck cannot do.  

It's not true that i haven't won anything with 5c Stax.  I won tournaments with 5c Stax when I was innovating Stax back in 2003.   Unfortunately, I got 9th place at SCG Richmond in 2005 with Stax, and that's the best I've done with it since, but I've only played in two tournaments since.  I have over a half decade of experience testing and playing Stax though.   And my team has some of the best Stax pilots around like Kevin Cron and Roland Chang.

[Prospero]

Vs. GW, game 2;
@Prospero

I disagree that you need to build the deck to abuse balance to a huge degree (ie past the inherent synergies it already has with a deck that runs out a large number of unaffected permanents).  The deck has problems against aggro far more than combo/control, so making it always serve as a wrath instead of a mind twist (a huge oversimplification) is still not a bad thing.  Against tezz you can often run out much of your hand after tutoring for shop and then cast balance with a stack online.  This also hopes that they haven't drawn a counter for your balance in the first place.

I do agree, though, that the deck needs either a) more consistency or b) a real and viable card advantage engine, whether that be bazaar and welder or even dark confidant.

Mishra's Workshop provides Shop decks speed.  If you build the deck to work for card advantage you're going to flail against certain other decks in the format.  You're never going to be able to keep up with the blue players in terms of card advantage - because they have so many more options available to them that you do not.  You can't win that war, so why fight it?

You can win by using your speed to create a soft, then hard lock.  This is the battle that you should be fighting.  You need to know your role and understand what your best path to victory is.  Card advantage, even card quality, aren't it.  Speed, and brutal efficiency in your timing are assets that must be taken advantage of.

I have been arguing with people on the forums over Balance because I believe precisely what you have said - that you do not need to build the deck to abuse Balance.  I think that Balance is an awesome card in the right metagame.  I do not think that it is an auto-include, which many players do seem to believe.  I was saying that if you were going to build a deck to abuse Balance that Steve's list is not the best way to do that.

[Prospero]

You said you read my article from a few weeks back.  It's not that I can't find space for bazaar; it's that bazaar is suboptimal.

As I said there:

It is my opinion that Bazaar of Baghdad is fool’s gold in five color Stax. A few years ago, Robert Vroman innovated a Stax variant known as "Uba Stax." This Stax variant is typically mono-Red and used 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Null Rod, and 4 Uba Mask. Bazaar of Baghdad was used to discard artifacts that could be returned to play with Goblin Welder as well as to draw cards with Uba Mask. Many 5c Stax pilots subsequently started running a single Bazaar for its synergies with Welder. It is also claimed that Bazaar will help you find your win condition in the late game.

My main criticism of Bazaar is that it is a ‘win-more’ card. The point that it will help you find your win conditions requires us to ask why not just run a win condition in that spot? Another criticism of Bazaar is that it does not actually help you win when you are in a losing position. Bazaar appears as if it might help you salvage an otherwise unplayable hand, but rarely ends up helping you win such games. It’s interaction with Welder is undeniable, but the opportunity cost of the slot is often overlooked. My enduring belief is that the better your deck is, the worse Bazaar is in it. But if your deck is unturned and full of junk, Bazaar might be okay.

I know who Vroman is and I respect him for his innovative approach to the format when he created Uba Stax and for his skill running Shops.  He's one of the elite Stax players in the country.

Bazaar of Baghdad interacts with more than Goblin Welder - it also interacts with your Crucible's.  Waste effects, and the ability to keep your Drain opponents off as much mana as possible is of paramount importance in the current environment.  If Drain players build a board you will lose.  

The most important thing that a Stax player must understand is order.  There is an order in which your plays must be made in order for you to win.  Just like there's an order to the triggers on the stack, there's an order for when you should play the cards in your hand.  You've consistently mentioned that Magic cards must not be evaluated individually, but for their interaction with other cards.  I believe that you're right there - but if you are right, doesn't this mean that a given card should not be evaluated in a vacuum, but in the chain of events that it partakes over the course of a game?    

If you're using Bazaar of Baghdad as a draw engine then of course it's going to seem terrible.  It isn't a draw engine, it's a fixer.  It helps when you're mana flooded, in allowing to discard lands for spells.  It helps in allowing you to do devastating things with Welder - like essentially resolving two threats a turn for a turn or two.  I've already mentioned its interaction with Crucible.  

Yes, in emergency situations, when the game is truly desperate, it has been used to draw cards.  This is, at least, Bazaar's tertiary purpose when used by a good player.  If you viewed it as the primary purpose then of course you would not think it a necessary inclusion.

Balance is actually AWESOME in the combo matchup.  It's devastating against virtually every combo deck, actualy

If you think Balance is for Aggro, then you fail to understand what Balance is about in this deck (which explains why you sideboard it :p)

If I wanted to build my deck around Balance I could build a deck that abused the hell out of it.  If Balance was unrestricted, I could understand trying to do this.  As everyone knows, Balance is not unrestricted.

If you're telling me that Balance is awesome in the combo match that means that you're trying to use Balance as a Mind Twist.  A combo player, when knowing that their opponent is playing Shops, will hold lands, or find basics with their fetches.  Because they have so few lands, you will outnumber them there.  They usually run one creature, so there's not much of a benefit there either.

And yet if you're using Balance as a Mind Twist, when are you able to launch it and have it be truly devastating?  How much time have you afforded the combo player in doing so?  

You're giving them windows of opportunity that you can't afford to give them.  

I have said repeatedly that Balance is a metagame decision.  My team and I had constructed a deck that was built to beat the pre 6/20 metagame.  Instead of trying to increase the busted-ness of any one card we worked towards creating a series of incremental advantages that was impossible to overcome.  The deck, as it was built, was not made to take advantage of Balance because while it is possible to create a truly devastating Balance it makes you infinitely more susceptible to cards like Mana Drain and Force of Will.  Redundancy is your greatest ally - because it makes their counters worse.  Drain decks cannot counter every spell that I run, they usually only counter one or two, if they're able to counter any at all.  As such, I must continuously apply pressure, or I will lose.  

Your deck is much more susceptible to losing to a well timed counter than the proper 5CStax list should be.

You say this several times, but I have no idea what you are talking about.   Blue decks run Force, Brainstorms, fetchlands etc.   How have I built this deck a blue deck?

You sacrifice gas for tutors, pressure for potential.  5CStax runs several tutor effects - Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Tinker, and some number of Crop Rotations.  By adding Seal and extra Crop Rotations you look to abuse potential.  You fail to apply the requisite amount of pressure.  

When I say that you build the deck like it's a blue deck, I'm saying that you're failing to understand the nature of Stax.  If it's forced to fight a card advantage, or card quality, war then it's going to lose.  The blue decks in the format need time to operate - time to get their sculpting and draw set before they're able to set up the kill.  Stax's biggest advantage is that it affords the opponent such little time.  Your deck gives them more than they should have.  

I completely agree.   Imperial Seal is here because Vampiric Tutor is here and it's close enough in power to run.  Imperial Seal is also awesome.   Both Rotation and Seal contribute to the critical turns 1-4.

Seal is awesome.  And slow.  There are times when it's right to run it in the main.  I don't think that now is that time, especially considering the speed with which Vault/Key can be assembled.

Outside of Crop Rotation tutors are the finisher in the deck.  They're not there for sculpting, but for the death blow.  If you're casting Imperial Seal on turn one or two I'd really like to know what you're playing against, or hoping to accomplish.  You're giving an opponent unmolested turns to assemble his combo, sculpt his hand or draw cards.  Why permit them anything?  You're trying to build a lock and yet you're giving them time.

I'm not sure what the value of your point is here.   I would have gotten Welder too.

My point is that there are many people in the country, even prominent players, who seem to think that they know how to build or play a Shop deck.  And they don't.  They build it with an emphasis placed on the wrong cards.  Their prominence in the community leads many players, including new Shop players, to value what they have to say more than it should be valued.  

If I wanted to build or play T.P.S., I'd look to a few people in the country and you're one of them.  If I wanted to play Drains I'd look to Rich Shay, Paul, or a few others.  

If I wanted to play Shops I'd look to Roland, Vroman and one or two others.  I wouldn't look to you for advice on Shops.  But others will, and I think you're leading them the wrong way.  I don't want anything to do with leading anyone but I don't think the people that should be speaking up are.

Did you see me ever play Rotation when I would get blown out by Force?  You play Rotation only when it suits you in cost/benefit analysis.  I discussed this several weeks ago.

No, but this comes back to deck construction.  You've built a list that is susceptible to it, and as such there are going to be times where your hands dictate "going for it" with your Crop Rotations.  Why you would ever give them any advantage that you can afford not to give them is beyond me.

By trying to play around cards, instead of through cards, you have sacrificed one of your advantages.  Mishra's Workshop has afforded you speed.  If you sacrifice speed for timing you've sacrificed the primary benefit of Workshop.  A Drain deck is built around timing.  A Workshop deck like 5CStax isn't, or at least, shouldn't be.

I analyzed this point a few weeks ago.

As I said:

I feel that Sundering Titan, while powerful, is also suboptimal for 5c Stax. The fundamental problem with it is that it is dead in opening hand. I goldfished 30 games with Sundering Titan in my opening hand, just to see how quickly he could be cast. With little variation, it was a turn 6 play. That is simply too slow for this deck. This deck must focus on creating a soft lock immediately, and running cards that do not immediately contribute to that end can diminish your chances for victory. Sundering Titan is primarily a Tinker target, and its value as such is indisputable. 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.

 I actually think that running Sundering Titan is an advanced player's error.

I don't know why you would goldfish 30 games with Titan in your opening hand to begin with.  Very rarely is it ever in your opening hand, and as mentioned, it is more than acceptable as a Tinker target.  Titan is the death blow to most Drain decks.  The deck isn't built to race out a Titan as fast as possible, but to create a lock.  

It's not true that i haven't won anything with 5c Stax.  I won tournaments with 5c Stax when I was innovating Stax back in 2003.   Unfortunately, I got 9th place at SCG Richmond in 2005 with Stax, and that's the best I've done with it since, but I've only played in two tournaments since.  I have over a half decade of experience testing and playing Stax though.   And my team has some of the best Stax pilots around like Kevin Cron and Roland Chang.

I don't think we need to discuss how much things have changed in the last four years.  I never said that you didn't win anything with the deck.  I just know that you haven't played it in a very long time and that whatever testing you've done with the deck isn't going to compare to some of the testing that the active Shop players have done.  

Put more succinctly, I think that your list fails to attack the environment as it should be attacked in order to win.  

[Prospero]

@Prospero

Have you read the entire thing? Although he started of claiming this was the optimal build, he sort of came back to those words at the end:

"5c Stax is a legitimate contender, but it is – as with all decks worth playing in Vintage – a deck that requires a good deal of skill to play well. 5c Stax is a contender, but I suspect that it may not be the best Stax build. The chief advantage of 5c Stax over other Stax variants is Balance and access to Balance. Other Stax builds probably have greater synergies, and those synergies probably outweigh the power of 5c Stax. For example, Jerry Yang’s second place tournament deck list utilizes Dark Confidant and Bazaar of Baghdad, as well as Entomb and the incredible recursion power of both Cabal Pit and Barbarian Ring. There are many design options with Stax, but 5c Stax is definitely the most entertaining and fun of the Stax options."

Yes, I have.  His comment, as I understood it, was that his 5CStax built was optimal, but that he wasn't sure if 5CStax was the best Stax deck to play in the metagame.

[wiley]

Bazaar of Baghdad interacts with more than Goblin Welder - it also interacts with your Crucible's.  Waste effects, and the ability to keep your Drain opponents off as much mana as possible is of paramount importance in the current environment.

This is card advantage, and something that stax needs.  For bazaar, discarding cards doesn't really matter for the deck as almost everything there works with crucible or welder from the graveyard.  Since you still have access and can easily use these cards you have not really gone down in card advantage.  Confidant would be more suited to something like 5c stax, where there is a significant portion of your deck that gets cut off when in your graveyard.

Either way, it is a necessity for two main reasons.  First is that this is indeed a hate deck; there are some cards that are priorities for specific match ups and there are some cards that will not apply enough pressure.  This is where the idea that massive amounts of tutors are a good thing for stax, but that doesn't fully take into account the second reason a card advantage engine is needed.  The second reason it is needed is because you can easily peter out on gas without applying enough pressure, especially in actual games where the opponent has an interactive game with counters, bounce and/or wastes.  With even 1 bazaar or bob giving you extra gas, these situations almost disappear.  At any point in the game that you can't add to your board position, you are giving the opponent time to weasel out from under any locks you have created.  Unless you're playing mud, they still have a couple turns between you locking them out and you finishing the game.

[Smmenen]

1. Balance

Balance is actually AWESOME in the combo matchup.  It's devastating against virtually every combo deck, actualy

If you think Balance is for Aggro, then you fail to understand what Balance is about in this deck (which explains why you sideboard it :p)

If I wanted to build my deck around Balance I could build a deck that abused the hell out of it.  If Balance was unrestricted, I could understand trying to do this.  As everyone knows, Balance is not unrestricted.

If you're telling me that Balance is awesome in the combo match that means that you're trying to use Balance as a Mind Twist.  A combo player, when knowing that their opponent is playing Shops, will hold lands, or find basics with their fetches.  Because they have so few lands, you will outnumber them there.  They usually run one creature, so there's not much of a benefit there either.

And yet if you're using Balance as a Mind Twist, when are you able to launch it and have it be truly devastating?  How much time have you afforded the combo player in doing so?  

You're giving them windows of opportunity that you can't afford to give them.  

Balance has three functions: creature kill, land destruction, and hand destruction.  

In Vintage, all three are important, but I would say that the latter two are generally more important.   How am I using it?  Against Combo, hand destruction is by far the most improtant.  If I have balance in my opening hand, I will use it to try and make them discard 3 cards or more.  Just like I used it in my game against Soly on MWS, when I was playing 5c Stax and he was playing Bob Tendrils:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35867.150

Sleetshot plays Balance from Hand

<M.Solymossy> lol
<M.Solymossy> must
M.Solymossy rearranges cards in M.Solymossy's Hand
M.Solymossy puts Tendrils of Agony to Graveyard from Hand
M.Solymossy puts Lotus Petal to Graveyard from Hand
M.Solymossy puts Polluted Delta to Graveyard from Hand
M.Solymossy puts Mox Jet to Graveyard from Hand
M.Solymossy puts Swamp to Graveyard from Play

Soly still had one card in hand, but the effect is still enough to do some serious damage.

Against Tezzeret, against blue, I use Balance for land and hand destruction.  

Since I have so many artifacts in my deck, Balance is naturally assymmetrical.  You don't have to work to discard cards to make it so.   While I agree that the deck is a metagame deck (all well-built VIntage decks are metagame decks, in that they are sensitive and built for their particular metagame), I think Balance is too objectively powerful to not play with.  

2.Bazaar of Baghdad

You said you read my article from a few weeks back.  It's not that I can't find space for bazaar; it's that bazaar is suboptimal.

As I said there:

It is my opinion that Bazaar of Baghdad is fool’s gold in five color Stax. A few years ago, Robert Vroman innovated a Stax variant known as "Uba Stax." This Stax variant is typically mono-Red and used 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Null Rod, and 4 Uba Mask. Bazaar of Baghdad was used to discard artifacts that could be returned to play with Goblin Welder as well as to draw cards with Uba Mask. Many 5c Stax pilots subsequently started running a single Bazaar for its synergies with Welder. It is also claimed that Bazaar will help you find your win condition in the late game.

My main criticism of Bazaar is that it is a ‘win-more’ card. The point that it will help you find your win conditions requires us to ask why not just run a win condition in that spot? Another criticism of Bazaar is that it does not actually help you win when you are in a losing position. Bazaar appears as if it might help you salvage an otherwise unplayable hand, but rarely ends up helping you win such games. It’s interaction with Welder is undeniable, but the opportunity cost of the slot is often overlooked. My enduring belief is that the better your deck is, the worse Bazaar is in it. But if your deck is unturned and full of junk, Bazaar might be okay.

I know who Vroman is and I respect him for his innovative approach to the format when he created Uba Stax and for his skill running Shops.  He's one of the elite Stax players in the country.

Bazaar of Baghdad interacts with more than Goblin Welder - it also interacts with your Crucible's.  Waste effects, and the ability to keep your Drain opponents off as much mana as possible is of paramount importance in the current environment.  If Drain players build a board you will lose.  

The most important thing that a Stax player must understand is order.  There is an order in which your plays must be made in order for you to win.  Just like there's an order to the triggers on the stack, there's an order for when you should play the cards in your hand.  You've consistently mentioned that Magic cards must not be evaluated individually, but for their interaction with other cards.  I believe that you're right there - but if you are right, doesn't this mean that a given card should not be evaluated in a vacuum, but in the chain of events that it partakes over the course of a game?    

If you're using Bazaar of Baghdad as a draw engine then of course it's going to seem terrible.  It isn't a draw engine, it's a fixer.  It helps when you're mana flooded, in allowing to discard lands for spells.  It helps in allowing you to do devastating things with Welder - like essentially resolving two threats a turn for a turn or two.  I've already mentioned its interaction with Crucible.  

Yes, in emergency situations, when the game is truly desperate, it has been used to draw cards.  This is, at least, Bazaar's tertiary purpose when used by a good player.  If you viewed it as the primary purpose then of course you would not think it a necessary inclusion.

I think we are talking past each other here.

I have acknowledged that Bazaar has synergies in the deck.  It synergizes with Welder, with Crucible, it can help you shorten the game, it can fix your mana.  

Bazaar can do many things.   But there are serious drawbacks:

1) It costs a land drop.  Why not play 4th Wasteland or something else instead?

2) It does nothing to your opponent.   The opportunity cost of the card is high.

3) If its good enough as a singleton, why not run 2? or 3?  or 4?  

These are questions I raised, and more, and I don't think you addressed them.

I'm happy to be wrong, but I'd like to know *why* i'm wrong.

3. Sundering Titan

I analyzed this point a few weeks ago.

As I said:

I feel that Sundering Titan, while powerful, is also suboptimal for 5c Stax. The fundamental problem with it is that it is dead in opening hand. I goldfished 30 games with Sundering Titan in my opening hand, just to see how quickly he could be cast. With little variation, it was a turn 6 play. That is simply too slow for this deck. This deck must focus on creating a soft lock immediately, and running cards that do not immediately contribute to that end can diminish your chances for victory. Sundering Titan is primarily a Tinker target, and its value as such is indisputable. 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.

 I actually think that running Sundering Titan is an advanced player's error.

I don't know why you would goldfish 30 games with Titan in your opening hand to begin with.  Very rarely is it ever in your opening hand, and as mentioned, it is more than acceptable as a Tinker target.  Titan is the death blow to most Drain decks.  The deck isn't built to race out a Titan as fast as possible, but to create a lock.  

The answer is quite simple, and I thought I explained it clearly.  

Like Bazaar, I understand and acknowledge the benefits of Titan: it's clearly the best Tinker target, it's amazing in the mid-late game against Drains, etc.

However, that's not the end of the discussion.    

All decisions on whether to run a card in an optimal deck are cost/benefit decisions.  Listing the benefits is not enough.  It has to be weighed against the costs.

While I admit that the benefits are real (which makes it surprising to me that you simply reiterate them), my point is that the costs are greater.   Sundering Titan in an opening hand is dead.   The same cannot be said about any other card in my deck.   It is this cost that outweighs whatever advantages accrues from Sundering Titan.   While Sundering Titan *might* win mid-late games, it could cost you early games.   In the end, I don't think you need a great tinker target to seal up games.   It's nice, but it's not necessary, while the early game cost is too great.

[Sean Ryan]

I thought this post from the other thread on 5c Stax might add to the disscussion.  I agree with Prospero that consistent presure is the key to sucess with any Workshop deck.  The results point toward this as the more redundant and explosive Mud variants and Red Shop Aggro consistently post the best results in the larger European metagame. 

   
Quote from: LennoxLewis86 on July 31, 2009, 12:50:13 PM
 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.


Sean

I would like to see if we can move the discussion toward design options. 

Prospero, how would you build Stax in this current enviornment?

Steve, the three Stax decks that placed at the ICBM open alll employed tactics for increased redunancys with either Dark Confidant, and/or more lock peices.  They also either ran Null Rod, or the Time Vault combo.  Bazaar was also present in all of those decks.  What do you think of these design options? 

I take the position that you should either run the Time Vault combo or Null Rod, or have a damn good reason why you are not doing so.  In playing Stax, you want to be able to play Null Rod and/or chalice yet 5c has a hard time doing either.  When there are other Workshop designs that can abuse those cards why should one choose 5c over one of them?  Is Balance, Recall, and Tinker, especially without a bomb like Titan, really worth not choosing another design with more redunancy and consistency?         

[Smmenen]

Steve, the three Stax decks that placed at the ICBM open alll employed tactics for increased redunancys with either Dark Confidant, and/or more lock peices.  They also either ran Null Rod, or the Time Vault combo.  Bazaar was also present in all of those decks.  What do you think of these design options? 

I happen to agree with you that 5c Stax is not the best Stax option right now.   

But I'm not sure it's because of consistency or redundancy.  I think its actually because of synergy.    5c Stax has the greatest concentration of the 'best' cards, but it does not produce the greatest synergy of interactions of the Stax variants.

The RB Bob/Null Rod Stax deck is so incredibly synergistic, it's almost like a living organism.   For example, Cabal Pit becomes an amazing card in that deck.  Bazaar is absurd with Bob.  It's just unfair.    It's probably the strongest Stax list out there.   

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I've played a lot of stax in my day, and I'll never not run balance. It's just to versitile and cheap to not use.
I also know for a fact that the spooky kid also consideres balance to be the best card in 5c stax.

[Prospero]

Steve,

I have an offer for you.

I'll play you 5 matches, boarded in games two and three, in which you play that list, and I play the list that Raf Forino played when he came in 4th at the N.Y.S.E. Challenge.  It's not even the list that I'd run at Worlds.  Still, I think it's better than what you're running.

If you win 3/5 matches I'll give you either 50 cash or, if you'd rather, I'll post on TMD that you were right and I was wrong.

If you lose, I want you to admit that your list is wrong and I want you to autograph my Sundering Titan saying as much.

I'd be willing to consider some kind of variation on it.

And I want this match in person.  Worlds, the next big event afterwards, whenever.  It's a standing offer.

You game?

[policehq]

Prospero, I wonder if you might be contradicting yourself with your points about early pressure, the most important turns being 2-4, and the insistence of including Sundering Titan. If you do draw Sundering Titan during this important early period, you've limited your ability to achieve the deck's crucial goal, right?

Secondly, I'm not sure that a Stax quasi-mirror match would necessarily prove Steve is "wrong" that his list is worse against The Metagame. That sounds illogical and unreasonable.

[Smmenen]

Steve,

I have an offer for you.

I'll play you 5 matches, boarded in games two and three, in which you play that list, and I play the list that Raf Forino played when he came in 4th at the N.Y.S.E. Challenge.  It's not even the list that I'd run at Worlds.  Still, I think it's better than what you're running.

If you win 3/5 matches I'll give you either 50 cash or, if you'd rather, I'll post on TMD that you were right and I was wrong.

If you lose, I want you to admit that your list is wrong and I want you to autograph my Sundering Titan saying as much.

I'd be willing to consider some kind of variation on it.

And I want this match in person.  Worlds, the next big event afterwards, whenever.  It's a standing offer.

You game?

That has got to be one of the silliest offers I've ever been presented with.   Why don't we just whip out our dicks and see which one is bigger?  That's as valid as your proposed method.

The point of this debate isn't to say: haha, you are wrong and I am right, but to engage each other on the issue.   I have identified and analyzed the issues carefully.   I stated what I thought were the 6-7 issues involved in Stax design.  Then I took a position on either side of those issues.  My statement about the 'optimal Stax deck' was intentionally provocative to bait out people like yourself.  

That doesn't mean I'm right.  I'm perfectly willing to be wrong.  But I've at least advanced specific reasons to think that I'm right.  I've articulated the costs and the benefits of Titan and Bazaar, and I am inclined to conclude -- based on the reasons I've surveyed -- that both are suboptimal.   No one has advanced reasons to either rebut that by providing new evidence or by suggesting that I'm improperly weighting existing evidence which would suggest that my conclusion is wrong.   That doesn't mean I'm right, but I'm trying to understand the other position.  

[Juggernaut GO]

I know so little about stax, I've never had much success with it,




but I am pretty certain that in this current metagame, if you aren't playing null rod in stax, you're pretty much doing it as wrong as you possibly can.

[2nd_lawl]

 My statement about the 'optimal Stax deck' was intentionally provocative to bait out people like yourself.  

Oh please, So you reserve the right to backpedal on any blanket statement you write because you think it may provoke discussion?  Lets ignore for a moment disservice you are doing to your readers(who pay for your article) who do not see this thread and your retraction and walk away thinking that your list is the unqualified best stax list.  Instead I want to ask this:  why do you feel the need to "bait" those knowledgeable about stax into a discussion in the first place? If the article contains something to talk about(either a interesting game situation, or an unconventional card choice, etc) then a discussion would evolve naturally without having to coax it out through unqualified assertions about the efficacy of the list.  I commend what you are doing with the mini-polls about the play situations, I think they are great in tournament reports, and if this article was just a tournament report, it may have not provoked a wall of text from nick, but it would have at least been intellectually honest.  Its doubly insulting that you would knowingly decieve your readers 2 weeks before vintage worlds when many players likely use the lists you post in your article for testing.  You are already an authority within the vintage community, if you post a list that you played in a tournament, people are going to consider that list seriously without you having to declare it the no-holds barred best version of the deck.  

[Pingram627]

I know so little about stax, I've never had much success with it,




but I am pretty certain that in this current metagame, if you aren't playing null rod in stax, you're pretty much doing it as wrong as you possibly can.

This could not be a more false statement....


Looks like Menendian is running scared to a perfectly reasonable offer. Prospero is one of the best stax players i have seen, and I am going to have to say that Menendian should put his money where his mouth is.

[Troy_Costisick]

Looks like Menendian is running scared to a perfectly reasonable offer. Prospero is one of the best stax players i have seen, and I am going to have to say that Menendian should put his money where his mouth is.

Hm.  Brand new account.  Lobbing insults at a long time, respected member with the first post.  Not substantively weighing in on any other issue.  I call shenanigans.

[Juggernaut GO]

I know so little about stax, I've never had much success with it,




but I am pretty certain that in this current metagame, if you aren't playing null rod in stax, you're pretty much doing it as wrong as you possibly can.

This could not be a more false statement....

which one, the first one or the 2nd?

I'll give you a hint, 1 of them was sarcasm.

[Vegeta2711]

My purpose with that statement was to provoke debate.

Kidding, right? That's a pretty silly and backwards ass way to promoting genuinely useful discussion.

On a side-note, though I'm amused at the idea of a money match going down, but it just doesn't really work for MTG purposes. If there were more skill elements involved it'd be legit, but as it stands I doubt you guys could play enough games to sufficiently remove the luck / random chance element to one sides liking.

[BruiZar]

@ Sean Ryan

I agree that we need to move forward into design innovation. The proposed stax lists both of Stephen and Dennis both look very vanilla and not innovative at all. Looking up 5c-stax on deckcheck would have given almost the same information. I noticed there doesn't seem to be a concensus on which direction Stax needs to develop in. Therefore, I want to chime in with my own ideas.

First off, I want to define my opinion between the different subtypes in the Stax archetype.

Stax is a prison deck based on artifacts that tries to lock out by limiting your opponent's options of playing spells (Tanglewire/Spheres) while using the extra upkeeps gained from this to eat away permanents (Crucible+Strip, Shaman, Smokestack). This is why Ichorid is a dangerous matchup, they don't need to play spells to put Narcomoeba and Ichorid into play and smokestack will trigger bridge.

5C-Stax was designed so that it could use enchantments, which are more difficult to hate out, in conjuction with artifacts to prevent itself from cards such as Rebuild/Hurkyl's Recall. However, the lists proposed on TMD this week seem to focus on individual card strength in the form of Tinker, Ancestral Recall and black tutors. I believe this is what he meant by saying you designed the deck to be blue Stephen. Focusing on restricted bombs instead of consistency.

MUD is a completely different breed. It is an aggro deck that uses spheres to Time Walk just enough times to win by attacking. I will not discuss MUD for the reason that it is not a prison deck.

So the problem lies with the fact that 5c-Stax makes you deviate from the focus of your deck due to the sheer powerlevel of restricted one offs.

White (parfait) cards have a lot of similarities to Stax cards. White essentially gives you enchantment versions of various lock pieces. This is exactly what we want if we want to diversify our threats in order to create resilience against mass artifact bounce/hate.

Card-By-Card Analysis.

1 Balance - Twist/Wrath/Geddon. Gives so much board position and disrupts opponent's card advantage. Doesn't affect enchantments nor artifacts.

2 Seal of Cleansing - I was thinking of switching this for Aura of Silence, to increase the strength of the decks focus. However, I think having 2 of these around to actually kill artifacts will allow me to use Welder better. The rationale for not running aura of silence is: Why pay 1WW if I'm going to use it to shoot an artifact anyway. This might be wrong.

1 Enlightened Tutor - Gives us lotus, seal of cleansing, trinisphere, Tormod's Crypt, Karn, Crucible. I don't want to turn this into a toolbox deck. Gamble might be stronger occasionally due to the fact that this deck can support Proclamation of Rebirth.

4 Smokestack - Eats up your opponents permanents and your Flagstones

4 Tangle Wire - Gives you extra upkeeps

4 Sphere of Resistance - Even more upkeeps

3 Crucible of Worlds - This is a central card. It gives strip locks, smokestack fodder and more importantly Flagstones which could be thought of as 2 land drops a turn under smokestack. You can play flagstones from graveyard, and play stripmine the next turn to add pressure to your opponent under the smokestack. Also helps fetch out plateau. This card can support a 2-soot Smokestack which is alot to deal with for any player.

3 Null Rod - Helps in the mana denial plan and the nullrod/timevault plan

1 TriniSphere - Broken

3 Goblin Welder - The prime utility creature and one-drop. I feel I don't want this on turn 1, because I need a bomb, but I want them often enough in the late game. I think 3 is a good number but I'm open to suggestions. Works with Proclamation

2 Gorilla Shaman - Mox Monkey and one-drop. Helps mana denial and works with proclamation

2 Aven Mindcensor - Prevents tutors for mass removal, the biggest problem Stax faces. This card is great for its abillity to prevent solutions from being searched. It fits the theme because Stax prevents cards from being played. It sort of gives a second line of defense against hate cards, which is the biggest threat for Stax.

1 Karn, Silver Golem - Blocks aggro+inkwell, shoots moxes and beats down. This guy has so many applications.

1 Proclamation of Rebirth - This is a great way of gaining board advantage which is so important because you need to feed Smokestack and Tangle Wire. You can hardcast it to return (up to 3) Welders and Shamans, or hold it for Forecast while you establish board control with Crucible. Its very nice to be able to throw away nonartifact-nonland creatures with bazaar.

1 Swords to Plowshares - I like the speed of STP but feel like duplicant is a stronger answer to creature strategies. 6 mana is a lot and getting duplicant drained could spell game over even when you've got your opponent stuck in spheres. You shouldn't give that room to wiggle. This is why I chose StP. However, Duress might make me change my mind as duplicant can be recurred.

3 Flagstones of Trokair - This is your primary form of board advantage with Smokestack. It helps you play more aggressively because you can ramp up smokestack to 2 and still be able to pay for it each turn.

4 Mishra's Workshop - Fuels quick lockpieces

3 Wasteland - mana denial and lock plan

1 Strip Mine - mana denial and lock plan

1 Plains
4 Plateau - Fetched by Flagstones, pays for welder/shaman
2 Bazaar of Baghdad - Draws into stuff, Pitching cards for welder/proclamation/crucible. I chose 2 because you want to see one every game, because your clock is slow, but you don't waste your first drops to it unless you have Welder.

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault


With white you get an awesome post board list, you get access to a sideboard that can support cards like:
Argivian Find - When facing alot of counters
Pithing Needle - Bazaar, sometimes vault or fetch
Suppression Field - Bazaar and vault, but hurts you more than others most of the time
Ghostly Prison - Ichorid, Fish,
Rule of Law - Combo, Drain decks
Ethersworn Canonist - Combo, Drain decks. Probably better than rule of law because shop mana is usable.
Aura of Silence - Stax mirror
Martyrs of Korlis (Works with proclamation) - Tendrils
Jester's Cap - Tendrils, tinker, time vault, tezzeret
Wheel of Sun and Moon - Not sure, but it avoids null rod
Dispeller's Capsule - 1 Drop, can be recurred with welder, but has an activation cost. Probably doesn't belong in the deck

I hope this can provoke some more thoughts about innovation with shop decks. Feel free to add to the discussion

[Prospero]

@Troy,

This is P. Ingram:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpbos09/stand15

Look at 44th.  He's on the Pro Tour and did well at PT Honolulu. 

@Steve,

You can say what you want about my card selections, deck choice, build, or whatever else, but then you've done nothing with this deck in years and I've won about 2k in cards with the deck in the last year. 

I offered you a challenge and you weren't up to it.  Skewer it any way you wish; I have the satisfaction of knowing that you would rather equivocate than resolve this. 

I'm not going to be manipulated by you or anyone else.  Starcitygames is done getting my subscription fee for this alone.  When you wonder why people don't respond to your provocations in the future perhaps you should reflect upon your actions.

I've had enough of all of this.  I'm done responding to anything in this thread, or any other outside of announcing tournaments on Long Island.

[Harlequin]

My purpose with that statement was to provoke debate.

Kidding, right? That's a pretty silly and backwards ass way to promoting genuinely useful discussion.

On a side-note, though I'm amused at the idea of a money match going down, but it just doesn't really work for MTG purposes. If there were more skill elements involved it'd be legit, but as it stands I doubt you guys could play enough games to sufficiently remove the luck / random chance element to one sides liking.

Also the fact that its a sort of mirror match kinda screws up the idea of showing wich deck is more viable for a metagame. Steve isn't running Sundering Titan, and that gives him an edge, because in the 5c mirror, Titan is pretty awful.  However beating another 5c doesn't prove or disprove the claim that 5c stax shouldn't run titan. 

I will say that Bazaar and Titan are either in or out as a package.  If you don't run Bazaar, Titan is just a hugely overcosed dude.  If you run bazaar giving yourself 1 or 2 game breakers like Titan or Jar make sense.  I see the logic behind either choice... its really consistancy v brokenness (conditional on having welder). 

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

There will be blood.

How true. Guys, please: Smennen's proposal of comparing dicks is perhaps a elegant way to solve those silly arguments. Is it so hard for anybody to just ignore provocation and move on?

[Smmenen]

This thread has spiraled out of reality quickly.    There is much overreacting.

  My statement about the 'optimal Stax deck' was intentionally provocative to bait out people like yourself. 

Oh please, So you reserve the right to backpedal on any blanket statement you write because you think it may provoke discussion?  Lets ignore for a moment disservice you are doing to your readers(who pay for your article) who do not see this thread and your retraction and walk away thinking that your list is the unqualified best stax list.  Instead I want to ask this:  why do you feel the need to "bait" those knowledgeable about stax into a discussion in the first place? If the article contains something to talk about(either a interesting game situation, or an unconventional card choice, etc) then a discussion would evolve naturally without having to coax it out through unqualified assertions about the efficacy of the list.  I commend what you are doing with the mini-polls about the play situations, I think they are great in tournament reports, and if this article was just a tournament report, it may have not provoked a wall of text from nick, but it would have at least been intellectually honest.  Its doubly insulting that you would knowingly decieve your readers 2 weeks before vintage worlds when many players likely use the lists you post in your article for testing.  You are already an authority within the vintage community, if you post a list that you played in a tournament, people are going to consider that list seriously without you having to declare it the no-holds barred best version of the deck. 

Whoa.

Why don't you read my remarks in this thread in their entirety?

I have not deceived anyone.   I presented the list in this article that *I* Believe is an optimal 5c Stax list.   

1) I presented the issues in Stax design (all 6 of them)

2) I weighed the pros and cons on each side of the issue

3) I came to a determination about which I felt was correct, after weighing the evidence.

Therefore, I believe that the *LIST* I presented is optimal.

The statement I made is true insofar as I am presenting a decklist I believe to be optimal.  However, the overbreadth of the statement was designed to provoke people to debate the issues.  What's wrong with that?  Absolutely nothing.  The last article on 5c Stax (my 250th article), did not provoke much debate.  Nick responded, but he didn't disagree or engage me on these issues.  So I took a slightly stronger position as a way of eliciting a stronger response.

Then, Nick challenged me to this crazy offer that would prove absolutely nothing.

And let me be clear: although I think it's a ridiculous challenge, since it would prove nothing, except being a showy display of machismo, I certainly would take him up on his offer.   It would be fun!  

@Troy,

This is P. Ingram:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpbos09/stand15

Look at 44th.  He's on the Pro Tour and did well at PT Honolulu. 

@Steve,

You can say what you want about my card selections, deck choice, build, or whatever else, but then you've done nothing with this deck in years and I've won about 2k in cards with the deck in the last year. 

I offered you a challenge and you weren't up to it.  Skewer it any way you wish; I have the satisfaction of knowing that you would rather equivocate than resolve this. 

I'm not going to be manipulated by you or anyone else.  Starcitygames is done getting my subscription fee for this alone.  When you wonder why people don't respond to your provocations in the future perhaps you should reflect upon your actions.

I've had enough of all of this.  I'm done responding to anything in this thread, or any other outside of announcing tournaments on Long Island.

Nick: I know that people are prone to overreact on the Mana Drain, especially since it's not possible to read tone into a forum posting, but i have to say that you are SUPER overreacting.   Nothing I said was intended as a criticism or insult to you, and yet that's apparently how you are taking my comments.

As I said:

The point of this debate isn't to say: haha, you are wrong and I am right, but to engage each other on the issue.   I have identified and analyzed the issues carefully.   I stated what I thought were the 6-7 issues involved in Stax design.  Then I took a position on either side of those issues.  My statement about the 'optimal Stax deck' was intentionally provocative to bait out people like yourself. 

That doesn't mean I'm right.  I'm perfectly willing to be wrong.  But I've at least advanced specific reasons to think that I'm right.  I've articulated the costs and the benefits of Titan and Bazaar, and I am inclined to conclude -- based on the reasons I've surveyed -- that both are suboptimal.   No one has advanced reasons to either rebut that by providing new evidence or by suggesting that I'm improperly weighting existing evidence which would suggest that my conclusion is wrong.   That doesn't mean I'm right, but I'm trying to understand the other position. 

Do you see what I'm saying?   This isn't about insulting or demeaning you.   And yet, that seems to be how you've taken it.   Relax.  I respect your abilities and I'm trying to engage you (and others) in a debate for the benefit of the community.   Even when people disagree, the clash of ideas is often illuminating.   

No one should take offense or be or feel insulted by either my article OR my posts.   If anyone is taking offense, they need to step back and take an emotion-free read of everything I've said in the article and here once more.   

[Klep]

Everybody settle down.  I don't want to have to start handing out warnings in what started off as a solid thread.  Let's get back to discussion of the deck.

-Klep

[Pitlord]

My purpose with that statement was to provoke debate.

Kidding, right? That's a pretty silly and backwards ass way to promoting genuinely useful discussion.

On a side-note, though I'm amused at the idea of a money match going down, but it just doesn't really work for MTG purposes. If there were more skill elements involved it'd be legit, but as it stands I doubt you guys could play enough games to sufficiently remove the luck / random chance element to one sides liking.

Also the fact that its a sort of mirror match kinda screws up the idea of showing wich deck is more viable for a metagame. Steve isn't running Sundering Titan, and that gives him an edge, because in the 5c mirror, Titan is pretty awful.  However beating another 5c doesn't prove or disprove the claim that 5c stax shouldn't run titan. 

I will say that Bazaar and Titan are either in or out as a package.  If you don't run Bazaar, Titan is just a hugely overcosed dude.  If you run bazaar giving yourself 1 or 2 game breakers like Titan or Jar make sense.  I see the logic behind either choice... its really consistancy v brokenness (conditional on having welder). 

I agree with this last point, and I will argue for the inclusion of both Titan and Bazaar keeping this in mind.
Though I understand and can appreciate your points regarding Sundering Titan and Bazaar, I also feel that not including them seems like a bit of a contradiction in the context of your list. The list you presented has a great deal of colored bombs and tutors, because they provide the deck with a good deal more raw power than would be available going for a less tutor-intensive approach.

First of all, it's odd in my mind that you include multiple crop rotations and Imperial Seal for power purposes, but in many games tinkering for Titan or using bazaar to fuel welder or crucible are two of THE most powerful things you can do.
Secondly, the fact that you have so many tutors seems to actually add to the argument for the inclusion of Titan and/or Bazaar. Neither are particularily great in the opening hand, granted, but with the critical mass of tutors you have, they are both terrific to have somewhere in your deck. Having 3 tutors for tinker makes it much more likely to find tinker before you draw the Titan and then makes your tinkers much better. The same applies to bazaar, you have several tutors that can get it, and generally you should have 1 of the 8 cards in your list that interact well with Bazaar online before you have the actual Bazaar.