Getting roundhoused kicked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex aka the BR Stax primer

[Twaun007]

The Type 1 populous is looked upon as being filled with flamboyant, hyperactive players who are overwrought with the idea of playing a go-zillion spells a turn while destroying opponents on turn one. Of course Vintage is filled with these glamorous Divas, but I am not here to aggrandize their popularity and their astute ability to climb decision trees. I am here to praise the unsung heroes of Vintage, the most sinister of all Vintage pilots, the few who watch gleefully as their opponents stare into an oblivion of no escape, the few who relish the idea of slow suffering and cruelty, a community whose gusto and inclination toward hate comes from the tapping of a single land: Mishra’s Workshop.

A few years ago Jerry “Yangtime” Yang and I were traversing the globe, living it up on the glamorous Vintage tourney circuit. Your travels took you deep into ICBM country one weekend and then bounced off to Meandeck territory the next. During your ventures I found myself flip-flopping through deck choices between every tournament, and this vacillation was getting me nowhere. My frustrations were fueled by my inability to make it through the Swiss rounds and break into the top eight. During this time, on the way home from one of Ben “Tha Gunslinga” Carp’s ICBM Opens, Yangtime proposed a resolution to my frustrations: instead of being an average player by battling with multiple archetypes, I should try to master a single archetype. Yangtime was supposed to join me in this quest, but being the dominant wizard he is he decided to scrap the commitment. I fortunately was locked into this bid.

I’m not going to bore you with how the deck evolved, what cards were tested, what was good, and what didn’t make the cut. Believe me; everything was tested from Price of Glory to Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai. I am just going to present the final product, give a rundown on the deck, and explain how I sideboard.

The B/R Stax Primer

Artifacts-30
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod
4 Smokestack
1 Sol Ring
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere

Instants-1
1 Darkblast

Creatures-8
4 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Welder

Lands-21
4 Badlands
1 Barbarian Ring
2 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cabal Pit
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

Side Board
2 Maze of Ith
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Relic of the Pro Gamer
2 Viashino Heretic
 
The core strategy of this deck is to stop your opponent from accelerating beyond you with resource development. The deck tries to accomplish this by having each lock piece play a role as a pseudo Time Walk. Slowly but surely, turn by turn, playing lock components one after the other takes away the opponent’s ability to develop resources. If B/R Stax can keep its opponent’s resource development on par with its own, it should be able to grind out the game and come out on top in a battle of attrition.

The synergies between Dark Confidant, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Goblin Welder provide a dangerous combination, one that this deck takes full advantage of.

Dark Confidant may seem like he has an awkward place in Workshops, but you have to look at the deck as a numeric equation. Let’s break it down. You have 60 cards with a total converted mana cost of 68. This brings your average converted mana cost of the deck to 1.13333333. Having such a low converted mana cost allows Dark Confidant to be in play for 17.64 consecutive turns.

Toss Bazaar of Baghdad into the mix and you have a stream-lined draw engine that perfectly complements the Workshop archetype. You’re also granted an amazing discard outlet to fuel Goblin Welder and filter out unwanted cards. Dark Confidant and Bazaar of Baghdad allow the deck to see four cards a turn, and both, as mentioned above, facilitate further abuse by Goblin Welder.

Playing the deck

The first rule when piloting Workshop Prison is that you must have three possible threats by turn two. In Vintage you cannot afford to give your opponent a single turn unmolested. Remember, the deck is trying to punish its opponents by taking away turns and grinding away their permanents. The moment the opponent gets ahead of the deck in resource development is the moment in which the deck starts to fight the uphill battle.

This list is built to maximize consistency.

Understanding Upkeep and the Stack.

Time and time again I have seen opponents cringe when they realize that during their upkeep you get to stack the triggers of your artifacts. No other deck in the history of MTG has as many upkeep triggers. It is crucial that you understand the way this works.  

Here is a pretty basic rundown:

Let’s suppose it’s the beginning of or our upkeep, on board you have two Tangle Wires with four and one fading counters and a Smokestack with one soot counter.  Remember that during your upkeep, each Smokestack and Tangle Wire has two triggers each, one adding or removing a counter, and one that sacs or taps based on the number of those counters.

Since they’re triggers from permanents you control, you get to put them on the stack in the order that benefits you the most, basically fade, tap, sac, ramp.

I would recommend putting your triggers on the stack this way:

1.   Smokestack @1 ramp
2.   Smokestack @ 1sac
3.   Tangle Wire @ 4 tap
4.   Tangle Wire @ 4 fade
5.   Tangle Wire @ 1 tap
6.   Tangle Wire @ 1 fade

So they resolve like this, in last-in, first-out order:

1.   Tangle Wire @ 1 fade (to zero counters)
2.   Tangle Wire @ 1 tap
3.   Tangle Wire @ 4 fade (to three counters)
4.   Tangle Wire @ 4 tap
5.   Smokestack @ 1 sac
6.   Smokestack @ 1 ramp

This allows you to lower the first Tangle Wire to zero fade counters and not tap any permanents. Next you fade the second Tangle Wire to three and can tap both Tangle Wires and Smokestack. Smokestack’s sacrifice trigger happens next, so you can sack the Tangle Wire with zero fade counters on it.  Then the Smokestack can be ramped to two counters for more sacrificing fun on the next turn.

Let’s take the same situation, but have it happen during our opponent’s upkeep. You’ll say your opponent has a Dark Confidant out too.

Since you own the Tangle Wires and Smokestacks you get to put them in the order you want, and to boot, your triggers resolve first.  All triggers are put on the stack in active player, non-active player (APNAP) order.  Your opponent’s triggers (Dark Confidant) go on the stack, and then ours, so ours resolve first.

I would recommend putting them on like this:

1.   Opponent’s Dark Confidant
2.   Tangle Wire @ 4 tap
3.   Tangle Wire @ 1 tap
4.   Smokestack @ 1 sac

So the stack resolves like this, again from last to first.

1.   Smokestack @ 1 sac
2.   Tangle Wire @ 1 tap
3.   Tangle Wire @ 4 tap
4.   Opponents Dark Confidant

This maximizes the value of our Smokestack and Tangle Wires by having our opponent sac a permanent first, leaving them with fewer permanents to tap to the Tangle Wires.

When dealing with our opponent’s Energy Flux, Kataki, and similar hosers in the upkeep, remember that these cards grant an upkeep trigger to artifacts.  Since you control the affected permanent, you also control the trigger and can stack it to be least detrimental to your position.

Another helpful tip is to always stack our Dark Confidant triggers to reveal first, before you have to tap or sacrifice anything to Smokestack.

Combating the blue decks, a.k.a. battling Mana Drain

The strategy with B/R Stax isn’t to directly combat Mana Drain itself, but to combat the engine that Mana Drain fuels. You do this by resolving a multitude of lock components that incrementally shut down Mana Drain’s power. This means that you have to correctly choose the pattern of casting your spells to hinder Mana Drain archetypes the most. This is probably the most difficult concept to master while piloting any form of Workshop Prison.

Here is a perfect example. Your opponent is on the play and opens as with Island, Mox Sapphire, and then passes.

Your hand is Mishra’s Workshop, Mox Emerald, Thorn of Amethyst, Thorn of Amethyst, Chalice of The Void, Null Rod, Smokestack, and your draw is Dark Confidant.

You clearly have three threats by turn two, but what’s the most efficient way to minimize Mana Drain? What do you do?

Think about it...

The core strategy of the deck is to reverse Time Walk your opponent over and over. This is how you’re going to do it:

Mox, Shop, Thorn (Drained), CotV, Thorn, pass.

CotV halts acceleration from future moxen.

This allows you to cast Confidant if you draw a land next turn and allows you to cast Null Rod too. If you lead the Null Rod first it would stop the Confidant from coming down. Another Workshop allows you to drop both Rod and Stack.

Locking down the meta

Tezzeret: This deck is engineered to slaughter Vault-Key decks and it just happens that Tezzeret is the most prevalent of them. Each of our lock components incrementally adds up to hinder Tezzeret’s game plan. In the end you should pull ahead of the Tezzeret deck if you minimize their lines of play. Watch out for Darkblast in Tezerret’s main; it can become problematic until you can put down a Chalice of the Void at one.

Since the mainboard is already pretty dominating against Tezzeret, I usually just bring in two Red Elemental Blasts to combat their bounce or other blue spells.

-2 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Some of the new lists that play Red might bring in Ingot Chewer. Be on the lookout for this. One of our strongest weapons vs. Tezzeret is Null Rod; it shuts down their combo and hinders their mana development.  

Painter: Painter already has a pretty bad match up versus Stax since you run few blue cards for their red blasts to prey on. I would recommend boarding like this.

-4 Thorn of Amethyst
+2 Vashino Heretic
+2 Rack and Ruin

I chose not to bring in Red Elemental Blasts because any decent Painter pilot isn’t going to choose blue if his opponent is playing red. In my experience, I have found that most competent Painter players side out their blue spells in favor of Ingot Chewers and other red-colored forms of Stax hate.
  
Combating Fish

This matchup can be quite a battle since they will be dropping permanents just as fast as we will. Your strongest tools in combating this archetype are Tangle Wire, Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, Smokestack, and Chalice of the Void set at two. Tangle Wire halts their aggro assault; Crucible of Worlds helps recover from their Wastelands while complementing our own; and Smokestack will eat their board. Don’t be afraid to use  Bazaar of Baghdad aggressively. Getting Threshold online is imperative so that Barbarian Ring and Cabal Pit are active as soon as you find them.

On the other side of the table, Trygon Predators and Qasali Pridemage have been showing up lately so be on the look out for them.  They are very annoying if you don’t have Tangle Wires or Welders to deal with them.  Another thing in combating Fish is that you’ll probably stabilize when our life total is in the red zone. This can be mentally taxing, but remember that a life total is just another resource. It doesn’t matter if you win at 20 life or two.

If they’re playing blue or Trygon Predator, bring in Red Elemental Blasts. The Red Elemental Blasts also combat Energy Flux if your opponent banks on that helping. Viashino Heretics are helpful if Dark Confidant or Cold-Eyed Selkies rear their ugly heads. The Heretic provides a useful 1/3 body that can block and live through combat.

My overall plan is simple:

-4 Thorn of Amethyst
+2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
+2 Maze of Ith

The most important thing is Tangle Wire, Smokestack and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. The combination of these three should tie up the fish player and allow you to establish board control.

Combating Combo

This one is tricky. Today’s combo decks, TPS and Steel City Vault, attack Workshops in two completely different ways. TPS tries to reach a critical mass and cast its mass Artifact bounce spell during our end step, while Steel City Vault battles our artifacts as they appear with Ancient Grudge, Ingot Chewer, and other non-blue answers.  This calls for a completely different way of attacking each deck.

TPS

TPS has a rock-solid mana base which usually includes two basic Islands and two basic Swamps. Post-board it will most likely have even more basic Islands. This lethal combination of basic land makes it virtually impossible for you to attack the mana base outside of Strip Mine. TPS also has the uncanny ability to win through Null Rod since it contains Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. In battling through these strengths, Smokestack, Thorn of Amethyst, and Chalice of the Void at one will be our best tools. Don’t be afraid to ramp up Smokestack beyond one. It is crucial that you apply as much pressure through Smokestack as possible so their mana base gets eaten away. Toss in a Thorn of Amethyst or two and it will usually equate to victory.

In my experience a TPS player’s first tutor target is a mass bounce spell, so be on the lookout for the point in which they reach critical mass with their mana. Like I stated earlier, it is crucial that you do not let them hit their critical mass of mana.

Our maindeck has the tools to win against TPS. Post board you know that they will be bringing in a few basic lands and some blue artifact bounce. I tend to sideboard the same as I do for the Tezzeret match:

-2 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Steel City Vault

This deck relies heavily on its artifact acceleration since it excludes Dark Ritual and has a fragile mana base to support all five colors. Unlike TPS, SCV is very susceptible to Wasteland and Null Rod. These are going to be MVP’s in this match up. Crucible of Worlds will be important as well since it allows you to replay Wasteland. SCV runs a few Goblin Welders too, so be careful in the decision of what to sack to Smokestack. I feel that this match up is more favorable than TPS, but don’t underestimate SCV. The deck can explode in a single turn by drawing a million cards and utilizing its multicolored resources to the fullest.

Steel City Vault seems to be on the rise and tend to abuse a non-blue way of dealing with artifacts, but Red Elemental Blasts are still the best answer for dealing with their most powerful spells.

-1 Bazaar of Baghdad or a Dark Confidant
-1 Darkblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast

Unlike the Tezzeret match up you’ll have to keep your Crucibles in to hinder their mana development. Instead of waiting to use Red Elemental Blast on a mass artifact bounce spell, try to counter their blue draw spells.

Goblin charbelcher

If Nat Moes is playing at your tourney you’ll need to know this: first, win the die roll; then sideboard like this:

-2 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale


Oath of Druids

Oath can be a scary match up. You want to utilize Tangle Wires and Smokestacks as much as possible in order to race a quick Oath of Druids. Make sure to use Wastelands to control the amount of Forbidden Orchard tokens that are being produced. Chalice of the Void will slow them down, but it is by no means a hard lock. This is one of the tougher match ups, but it is far from un-winnable.

From the sideboard, you bring in Maze of Ith to deal with the Oathed up creatures:

-1 Darkblast
-1 Dark Confidant
+2 Maze of Ith

Some people have questioned pulling of Darkblast from the main in games two and three because it can deal with Orchard tokens. The problem you have run into with this is that while you’re trying to deal with the tokens by dredging over and over you don’t really advance our board position. This lets our opponent dig and draw cards to either find another Forbidden Orchard, counterspell, or Chalice of the Void for one. Look for cards that immediately affect the game state.


Dredge

Game one is pretty much un-winnable unless you draw God and they draw garbage. Postboard B/R Stax becomes very strong. You will have graveyard removal, and it is possible to get an active Goblin Welder out with a Tormod’s Crypt. Another helpful hint is welding out their Chalice of the Voids at zero for their discarded Serum Powders. This allows you to play your Tormod’s Crypts with impunity. Depending on game state, I would recommend playing Thorns first instead of Goblin Welder due to the threat of Contagion.  

Game two and three are a whole different animal. Thorn of Amethyst, Wasteland, and Trinisphere are of huge value in this match up. Thorn of Amethyst hinders Cabal Therapy and Dread Return while Wasteland deals with their Bazaar of Baghdad. If the Ichorid opponent is playing a heavy contingent of blue draw spells, Thorns, Trinisphere, and Wastelands become even more effective. Chalice of the Void at one will shut down much of their control and sideboard answers; you can use that, permitted the cards in our hand allow us to play around it as well.
 
-3 Null Rod
-2 Chalice of the Void
-4 Tangle Wire
-2 Smokestack
+2 Tabernacle
+2 Maze of Ith
+3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+2 Viashino Heretic


The Mirror

Understanding the Workshop mirror is probably the most skill intensive application in Magic. No other mirror match in Magic will test your level of endurance and mastery as this one. Always keep track of how many permanent you have versus how many they have. Work on Mastering Goblin Welder--how to maintain Welder advantage, when to Weld properly, and when to swing with Welder. Learn when to use Wasteland and when to ramp Smokestack above one to win the permanent race.

Against other Workshop decks you have a superior draw engine, so B/R Stax can grind out workshop mirrors favorably. The biggest concern in the mirror is finding Crucible of Worlds; the second is avoiding Triskelion; and the third is finding a way to eliminate opposing Welders and Gorilla Shamans. You have Null Rod to combat Triskelion, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Metal Worker. And Rack and Ruin and Viashino Heretic are obvious inclusions. Depending on the build I will board out Null Rod sometimes for Relic of the Pro Gamer instead of the Thorn. This usually comes up versus Workshop Aggro decks that rely on cards unaffected by Null Rod such as Razormane Masticore and Duplicant.  

-3 Thorn of Amethyst
-4 Tangle Wire
+2 Rack and Ruin
+2 Vashino Heretic
+3 Relic of the Pro Gamer


Some tips on playing the deck.

Do not be afraid to mulligan aggressively. If you can’t lay down three threats by turn two, ship your hand back for a new one. You have to understand that a sub-par hand is probably not going to get there against a competent blue mage. The deck is designed to work through a Smokestack set at one so don’t be afraid to ride it out for the long haul.

Every card in the deck except Dblast is a permanent so in theory you’ll never be unable to put a permanent into play.

You should also never be afraid to ride out Dark Confidant. The card advantage gained from him over the course of a game should let you topple any opponent. Remember, that he can technically be in play for 17.64 turns. This will blow peoples’ minds. Trust me, you’ll be grinning when your opponent is planning on you dying from your own Confidants.
 
Keep track of your high casting cost artifacts when Confidant is out. It helps a lot when you’re figuring out your future plays.

Remember that you’ll stabilize below 10 life a lot versus Aggro.

Personal things…..

On Ensnaring Bridge--It never made sense to me that I would side in high casting cost artifacts to deal with Aggro since I’ll be taking infinite damage from them. I do tinker around with Ensnaring Bridge sometimes when I up my Bazaar of Baghdad count to three or four.

The Gorilla Shaman Conundrum--I have always found Gorilla shaman to be too mana intensive. He is good, and I know that he has fanatical followers; I just don’t think he is right since Null Rod does the same thing at a slightly less cost.

The Trifecta: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Imperial Seal--These cards are busted and I would run them if I were to omit Chalice of the Void. Denying an opponent the ability to develop mana is currently better than tutoring up bombs, and bombs are worthless without mana.

Jester’s Cap--The best meta-game hate card that I can think of. Even better than Null Rod. Sucks it costs 6 to use.

I hope this little bit of information provides some insight to the soot covered workshop Mishra operates.

-Twaun007

EDIT: May Trinisphere get unrestricted.

Shout outs and references

Cron, Chang, and Vroman; The godfathers of stax. I pour a bit out of my 40oz for you guys every time.
Stephen Q. Menedian; If it wasn’t for your enthusiasm and love for the format I probably wouldn’t be playing Vintage right now.
Nam "Nartman99" Tran; The stax oracle.
Nick “Prospero” Detwiler; CEO of the N.Y.S.E and East coast Workshop dominator.
Jerry “Yangtime” Yang; Perhaps one of the greatest wheel men ever. Your ideology towards the game has defiantly helped me understand the finer aspects of the workshop genre.
Mark “Snoop Trogg” Trogodon; clearly reside outside of the box when it comes to Workshop design and theory.
The rest of the Cleveland Crew; We really are the Workshop Mecca of the world.
Nat "Lochinvar81" Moes; Without your mastery of the English language this primer would look like a three year old wrote it and I cannot thank you enough for helping me with it. May you see Goblin Charbelcher in your opening hand for all eternity.
GWS; Thanks for letting me on the Team.

SMIP 5c Stax in action

TLWR NYSE 5c Stax

$T4KS The $4000 Solution to type 1

The Harmony of Spheres; A Closer look at Trinisphere

The Many Flavors of Cron Stax and preparing for Gencon

How to Test for Vintage

Stax Dissected

Bluffing Drains and Storming Brains

Sharpening your Skills; Playing with and around Mana Drain

 

[voltron00x]

Pure awesome sauce.

[Shean]

Nice list and primer!

I played a mono red Stax list last weekend in Lindenherst, and if I weren't terrible at magic, I feel that I would probably have T8'd.  Such is life when you haven't
touched magical cards for a year and a half.

I thoroughly enjoyed your sideboarding explanations, as I had some trouble figuring out what I wanted to board in/out against quite a few matchups.

Are you going to be at the Meandeck Open next weekend, Twaun?

[personalbackfire]

Twaun,
Thanks for writing this. I love this workshop variant and if I were to switch to the dark side, which I came very close to in Pitt earlier this year this would be the deck I would be picking up.

You did a good job at addressing important plays and important cards in each match up. This will be a great tool for anyone who is interested in the deck.

Onto a few questions:
Edit: I completely missed the part on the tutors.

Also how effective is Cabal Pitt? In my limited testing with the deck I felt like that card was junk.

BTW get your way onto a Bluebell or Philly open!

Thanks again!

[GrandpaBelcher]

You bring in REBs a lot, especially where you're concerned about Drains or the mass bounce spell.  Do you use it to protect early spells?  Many times I bring in REB and end up discarding it to Bazaar or wishing it was another lock piece.  I find I'm often casting things without the mana to back them up, especially with Thorns/Spheres on board.  Do you ever want to bring in a more focused lock piece (like Ensnaring Bridge against Oath) or something that you can leave in play (like Null Brooch) rather than REB?  How do you best utilize REB?

Also, Thorns vs. Spheres.  Any debate there?  Do Thorns do enough against the metagame?  What if you go against GWB Beats or Fish?

[vroman]

good primer. you overlooked one major aspect of the deck, the play vs draw strategies. stax plays substantially differently based on whos going first. game 3 re-boarding is important.
as for your specific list:
I disagree w the omission of jester cap. how are you beating oath? unless they have awful hand, maindeck stax options are really only t1 resolved trisphere/smoky/chalice@2, or welder+tangle. this is too small a subset of your likely plays.
I think you are under-utilizing your sideboard in general. you should be boarding more than 2-4 cards in every matchup.
lastly, Ive adopted this philosophy in building every archetype (except dredge), which is to always play mana crypt, and always board it out.

[Yare]

Great primer! Thanks for posting this.

[Vanderstar]

Great article - I found your BR stax list in the Stax draw engine thread yesterday and have been very pleased with it so far.  Having a primer available will be very helpful.

As well, it's always mentioned that finding Crucible is the one of most important parts of the stax mirror, and my limited testing confirms this.  Is there a reason a 4th crucible in the board is not used in this or any other list I've seen?  Is that 1 SB slot not worth it for a single matchup?

EDIT: Another question that came up in testing: How do you handle a resolved tinker -> Inkwell / Sphinx?  My only options seems to be to race it (since I can't weld it and BR lacks the blocking from Titan on Inkwell) or try to ramp a stack quickly.  These were both usually too slow.  Is there a place for something such as Diabolic Edict in the deck?

[miguelmatix]

Nice list.  Awesome knowledge of the deck =)

Now, let's see if someone is skilled enough to ride this baby and smash the "blue forces" around.

Ps - I really believe Ensnaring B. is the solution against oath.

[Twaun007]

Are you going to be at the Meandeck Open next weekend, Twaun?

Yes.

Also how effective is Cabal Pitt? In my limited testing with the deck I felt like that card was junk.

BTW get your way onto a Bluebell or Philly open!
 

I live in a meta ripe with creature based decks and Cabal Pit has been an amazing addition to the deck. It not only acts another Barbarian Ring, it equalizes the red and black mana sources. It also lessens the effect of an opposing Pithing Needle. There have been many games where Cabal Pit has earned its value and I would never cut it.

Believe me, I’m trying to make it out the Bluebell or one of the Philly opens.

You bring in REBs a lot, especially where you're concerned about Drains or the mass bounce spell.  Do you use it to protect early spells?  Many times I bring in REB and end up discarding it to Bazaar or wishing it was another lock piece.  I find I'm often casting things without the mana to back them up, especially with Thorns/Spheres on board. Do you ever want to bring in a more focused lock piece (like Ensnaring Bridge against Oath) or something that you can leave in play (like Null Brooch) rather than REB?  How do you best utilize REB?

Also, Thorns vs. Spheres.  Any debate there?  Do Thorns do enough against the metagame?  What if you go against GWB Beats or Fish?

I rarely use Red Elemental Blast to protect my own spells. In most cases I’ll hold onto it to counter an opponents draw spell or mass artifact spell. This may sound retarded, but I’ll hold Reb in my hand for quite some time. I’m talking 4-5 turns sometimes. I’ve found this to be great since my opponent usually thinks my threats are all expelled. That’s when you give the illusion that they’re ahead in the war of attrition and when they go for a game ending spell, KUNG-POW, you hit them with the Reb.

That is when I find Red Elemental Blast to be best.

Null Broach versus Red Elemental Blast; unlike most Stax lists, I have found myself having a decent seized had throughout the game and I have never wanted to lose it. I think that the card disadvantage that Null Broach gives you isn’t enough to power through the late game. Eventually your opponent (if they’re competent) will set up a situation where they’ll be able to cast a bait spell on your end step then go nuts on their main phase with a resolved spell.  I haven’t had success with a Null Broach and Null Rod mix either.

Ensnaring Bridge coming in against Oath; I’ve found Ensnaring Bridge to give me a false sense of security versus Oath. You think you’re safe and then it gets bounced or destroyed. Ensnaring Bridge also doesn’t provide you an out against Vroman’s Ionia Oath build. They’ll just replay everything and get rid of your Bridge.

Thorn of Amethyst versus Sphere of Resistance; in the beginning this was a metagame call, but now I would probably never run Sphere of Resistance again. ToA allows you to cast your creatures turn earlier and makes many unkeepable hands keepable.

Mox, Land, SoR, Confidant, Welder, CotV, Crucible = Terrible

Mox, Land, ToA, Confidant, Welder, CotV, Crucible = Bees Knees

Against Fish you Sphere’s always get sided out anyway so it really doesn’t matter which ones you’re using.

good primer. you overlooked one major aspect of the deck, the play vs draw strategies. stax plays substantially differently based on whos going first. game 3 re-boarding is important.
as for your specific list:
I disagree w the omission of jester cap. how are you beating oath? unless they have awful hand, maindeck stax options are really only t1 resolved trisphere/smoky/chalice@2, or welder+tangle. this is too small a subset of your likely plays.
I think you are under-utilizing your sideboard in general. you should be boarding more than 2-4 cards in every matchup.
lastly, Ive adopted this philosophy in building every archetype (except dredge), which is to always play mana crypt, and always board it out.

Play vs. Draw strategies could be a Primer all unto itself since every deck in vintage does this? I’ll take some notes and update the primer with this later.

I have found Jesters Cap to be too slow. By the time I have invested six mana into a hate card my opponent has already triggered Oath. The most success that I have had in combating Oath is through Tangle Wire and Smokestack. Both are colorless answers that Ionia cannot stop. My second concern it stopping Oath's mass graveyard recursion with Thorn’s and Null Rods. This has been working for me.

You bring in more than 4 cards vs every match! How big is your sideboard, 20 cards? The main deck is already streamlined to destroy certain archetypes without a sideboard. I believe the matchups in which you are weakest are the ones you should sideboard in the most cards.

As for Mana Crypt, I’m willing to bet that I have died to this card more times than Mike Solymossy. I cut it ages ago and have never missed it.

As well, it's always mentioned that finding Crucible is the one of most important parts of the stax mirror, and my limited testing confirms this.  Is there a reason a 4th crucible in the board is not used in this or any other list I've seen?  Is that 1 SB slot not worth it for a single matchup?

EDIT: Another question that came up in testing: How do you handle a resolved tinker -> Inkwell / Sphinx?  My only options seems to be to race it (since I can't weld it and BR lacks the blocking from Titan on Inkwell) or try to ramp a stack quickly.  These were both usually too slow.  Is there a place for something such as Diabolic Edict in the deck?

Crucible in the sideboard is pretty much dead in every match minus the mirror and with Rack and Ruin and Viashino Heretic coming in you should be able stabilize and take control of the mirror match fairly quickly. I have never wanted a Crucible in the board, but if your meta is polluted with Workshops you could consider it. I know Mark Trogdon has put extra Crucible of Worlds in his sideboard before.

If Tinker resolves I just race it by Ramping Smokestack and try to resolve Tangle Wire. If I were running Workshop aggro I’d consider Diabolic Edict, but I have found having non-permanent spells do not help when you’re trying to sweep your opponents board away.   

Ps - I really believe Ensnaring B. is the solution against oath.

I totally encourage everyone to try out Ensnaring Bridge and if you do post up your results. Personally, I have never had luck with it.

sorry didnt want to post this on the boards. i play ritual based wgd with no bazaars how would you board in against me only u/b typic 1-2 turn win game one 2 basics 17 lands petal, lotus, crypt, 2 mox  many tutors maindeck bounce 3 cov,1 pact of negation only control

   

-2 Crucible of Worlds
-3 Null Rod
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+3 Relic of the Pro Gamer

If you’re running a heavy amount of Blue I would bring in Red Elemental Blast.

[madmanmike25]

The Trifecta: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Imperial Seal--These cards are busted and I would run them if I were to omit Chalice of the Void. Denying an opponent the ability to develop mana is currently better than tutoring up bombs, and bombs are worthless without mana.

I don't fully agree with this.  You say it's better to deny the opponent mana than tutor up a "bomb" when in fact the very first tutor target that would come to my mind would be Strip Mine.  I see that as directly impeding mana development.  I see 3 Crucibles in your deck that can turn just one Chalice OR Sphere into GG if you get the much coveted Strip lock.  It's also easy to turn 2 mana into 3 if needed with DT.  You can debate over Vamp and ImpSeal night and day(I wouldn't) but I flat out think not running Demonic Tutor is wrong, and I hope that doesn't sound harsh.

Also on the Spheres vs. Thorns I disagree in general.  When playing Stax I would rather make Qasali cost 3, Teeg cost 3, maindeck Kataki's cost 3, as well as delay opposing Bob's(everywhere) and Welders.  I havent tested this deck, but I have tested Thorns extensively and the vast majority of times found Sphere to be superior unless I was running many more creatures than you have here.  I'm just saying on paper it's questionable, even with your examples.  My example would be an opponent sb'ing Ingot Chewer; which is better now?  When I play Stax I want ALL my opponents spells to cost more, even if it hurts me as well because a good Stax deck can recover faster and generate more mana.

I will say that this seems WAY more fluid than 5c Stax could ever hope to be and looks like you figured out a good way to put Welders and Confidants together.  Good job.

Mike

[GrandpaBelcher]

Also on the Spheres vs. Thorns I disagree in general.  When playing Stax I would rather make Qasali cost 3, Teeg cost 3, maindeck Kataki's cost 3, as well as delay opposing Bob's(everywhere) and Welders.  I havent tested this deck, but I have tested Thorns extensively and the vast majority of times found Sphere to be superior unless I was running many more creatures than you have here.  I'm just saying on paper it's questionable, even with your examples.  My example would be an opponent sb'ing Ingot Chewer; which is better now?  When I play Stax I want ALL my opponents spells to cost more, even if it hurts me as well because a good Stax deck can recover faster and generate more mana.

I will say that this seems WAY more fluid than 5c Stax could ever hope to be and looks like you figured out a good way to put Welders and Confidants together.  Good job.

I haven't decided on this either for sure (or I wouldn't have asked in the first place!).  I've been playing essentially Twaun's build for the past few months except with Spheres of Resistance over Thorns.  There have definitely been times where I've Sphered myself out of the game because I stop drawing lands and can't play the Dark Confidant in my hand because it costs five non-Workshop mana.  If my opponent is drawing lands, it's fairly easy for them to continue drawing cards slowly and eventually put together a win.

I'm sure, ultimately, as with most things, it comes down to metagame.  Against a developed Tezzeret field, I'd definitely rather have Thorn because it lets me get my draw and Welder engines online sooner.  Against an aggro field, it would have to be Spheres or something else entirely.

[suffocation2157]

next weekend i have a lotus tourney and i'm thinking about playing r/b stax again. the biggest concern i have with the deck is confidant flips. at the last tourney i lost 3 games 1 of which lost me a round keeping me from the top 8. yes i was playing a few higher costing cards and maybe i just hard bad luck, but that could happen to anyone. one of the things that i think is important to realize with this deck is why play r/b stax than 5c stax? and the answer comes in the combination of bazaar and confidant. creating solid card advantage in a deck like stax increases your chance to lock them out by a lot. with this in mind it has recently come to my attention that once you have achieved this roll with confidant that he could be sacrificed to smoke stack while you could continue to inflict damage through welders or b-ring.once i realized this i have been finding the damage i take to be a lot less critical. the only difference i have made to the deck from your list is that i am not running chalice #4, instead i added a demonic tutor. if i thought there was room i would add in the other tutors also as finding stripmine just ends so many games. i am going to continue to test this deck as time gets closer to this tourney and will keep you informed. i am also skeptical about thorn/sphere. in a field with occasional goblins, fish, g/w aggro ish and other decks that run creatures that could cause you a bit of trouble. i continue to go back and forth between these two without ever really deciding on either. 

[Shean]

next weekend i have a lotus tourney and i'm thinking about playing r/b stax again. the biggest concern i have with the deck is confidant flips. at the last tourney i lost 3 games 1 of which lost me a round keeping me from the top 8. yes i was playing a few higher costing cards and maybe i just hard bad luck, but that could happen to anyone. one of the things that i think is important to realize with this deck is why play r/b stax than 5c stax? and the answer comes in the combination of bazaar and confidant. creating solid card advantage in a deck like stax increases your chance to lock them out by a lot. with this in mind it has recently come to my attention that once you have achieved this roll with confidant that he could be sacrificed to smoke stack while you could continue to inflict damage through welders or b-ring.once i realized this i have been finding the damage i take to be a lot less critical. the only difference i have made to the deck from your list is that i am not running chalice #4, instead i added a demonic tutor. if i thought there was room i would add in the other tutors also as finding stripmine just ends so many games. i am going to continue to test this deck as time gets closer to this tourney and will keep you informed. i am also skeptical about thorn/sphere. in a field with occasional goblins, fish, g/w aggro ish and other decks that run creatures that could cause you a bit of trouble. i continue to go back and forth between these two without ever really deciding on either.  

As an aside:  Try to make paragraphs.  If you post 8 lines of text, people are less likely to read what you said.  This is referred to as a, "Wall of Text."

As for the Confidants:  The damage from Confidant is a mathematical equation, just as many other things in Magic.  Is it possible to flip 4 Smokestack in a row and take 16 damage?  Sure it is.  But you knowingly take that risk in lieu of the benefits.

As for the Sphere/Thorn:  As stated previously, this is completely a metagame call.  Thorn has more synergy with your deck, since you run 8 creatures in this version; however, in a fish/goblins heavy metagame, run Sphere instead.  It's more of a decision based upon what you expect to see at the tournament, with the afterthought that one is technically better in your deck than the other.

As for winning the game:  I rarely find that you actually have to present a "win condition" when playing Stax.  Once you lock someone out of the game, they usually scoop.  In a tournament situation, this is usually because of timed rounds.  There are only two situations that I can think of which would be beneficial for your opponent to not scoop:

1)  Untimed T8 matches.

2)  Your opponent won G1 and you are currently trying to win G2.  There could be a situation with time where your opponent may believe that you can't seal the deal before time runs out and they win 1-0-1.

[TheShop]

The Trifecta: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Imperial Seal--These cards are busted and I would run them if I were to omit Chalice of the Void. Denying an opponent the ability to develop mana is currently better than tutoring up bombs, and bombs are worthless without mana.

I don't fully agree with this.  You say it's better to deny the opponent mana than tutor up a "bomb" when in fact the very first tutor target that would come to my mind would be Strip Mine.  I see that as directly impeding mana development.  I see 3 Crucibles in your deck that can turn just one Chalice OR Sphere into GG if you get the much coveted Strip lock.  It's also easy to turn 2 mana into 3 if needed with DT.  You can debate over Vamp and ImpSeal night and day(I wouldn't) but I flat out think not running Demonic Tutor is wrong, and I hope that doesn't sound harsh.

Also on the Spheres vs. Thorns I disagree in general.  When playing Stax I would rather make Qasali cost 3, Teeg cost 3, maindeck Kataki's cost 3, as well as delay opposing Bob's(everywhere) and Welders.  I havent tested this deck, but I have tested Thorns extensively and the vast majority of times found Sphere to be superior unless I was running many more creatures than you have here.  I'm just saying on paper it's questionable, even with your examples.  My example would be an opponent sb'ing Ingot Chewer; which is better now?  When I play Stax I want ALL my opponents spells to cost more, even if it hurts me as well because a good Stax deck can recover faster and generate more mana.

I will say that this seems WAY more fluid than 5c Stax could ever hope to be and looks like you figured out a good way to put Welders and Confidants together.  Good job.

Mike

Everyone seems to act like running tutors denies you the ability to play lock components.  This is WRONG.  Running tutors does not keep you from running the same Density of lock components in the deck.  Since this is TRUE, the lock will be in your hand with the same consistency as if they were not there.  Since the previous sentence is a statistic reality, you have a choice whether to play a lock component or a tutor...make the correct play and running tutors is simply not an issue.  If anything, this increases the chance of getting the component you need in a relevant amount of time.

Great primer!  I am loving the resurgence of Shop in any form.

[smasher]

Everyone seems to act like running tutors denies you the ability to play lock components.  This is WRONG.  Running tutors does not keep you from running the same Density of lock components in the deck.  Since this is TRUE, the lock will be in your hand with the same consistency as if they were not there.  Since the previous sentence is a statistic reality, you have a choice whether to play a lock component or a tutor...make the correct play and running tutors is simply not an issue.  If anything, this increases the chance of getting the component you need in a relevant amount of time.

Lets say you want to run demonic, vamp, and imperial seal. You need to cut 3 lock pieces to do so.

It's true that your tutor counts as any lock piece but consider an opening hand with 2 lock pieces and a tutor. First piece gets countered. next turn you land a lock piece. 3rd turn you must tutor for a piece and unless you are going for strip mine or a 2 drop lock piece Its possible you won't be landing a 2nd lock piece until turn 4.

Its random what you draw and its possible  you drew 1 more lock piece over the first 3 turns and did not get put into the awkward position of  needing to tutor for something you cant play yet. It's also possible you just drew another tutor or worse your opener had 2 tutors and 1 lock piece.

I'm not saying don't run tutors because if you have crucible its damn nice to grab strip mine, but its dangerous to consider tutors as lock pieces in the early game where it really counts. This is when you need to apply the most pressure to be capable to live to the late game.

Aside from this I've been playtesting a very similar list to the original posters list. I play in a field of quite a few fish and aggro decks and lots of stifles floating around. Due to this I've opted to play sphere over thorn and wouldn't consider thorn playable except possibly in the sideboard.

Also because of stifles I cut the fetchlands for a swamp and mountain. I will need to play more games to see how much this matters as far as getting the colors I need. It was a small change to the manabase and so far I think its an improvement. If I had a fetch and went for the dual land turn 1 or 2 then my opponent wastelands me those games where uphill battles that rarely came out in my favor.

I would consider increasing the bazaar count as well. It's a card I like to see and it digs into answers/threats better than anything else and sets up welder tricks really quick. He is hard to abuse otherwise unless relevant threats got countered already.

One last thing, I think I'm ok not playing mana crypt but it seems like mana vault should still be in the list. In your experience are you setting chalice at 1 enough so that you are justifying not having another dead draw?

Thanks for the list and tips/tricks playing with it.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Lets say you want to run demonic, vamp, and imperial seal. You need to cut 3 lock pieces to do so.

not true

[Sean Ryan]

I would consider increasing the bazaar count as well. It's a card I like to see and it digs into answers/threats better than anything else and sets up welder tricks really quick. He is hard to abuse otherwise unless relevant threats got countered already.

QFT

The omission of the 4 Bazaars is a serious flaw IMO.  Bob-Bazaar backed up with either Welder or Crucible IS the engine.  Why in the hell would you only run 2 copies when Shops are so dependent on the opening grip?

[smasher]

Lets say you want to run demonic, vamp, and imperial seal. You need to cut 3 lock pieces to do so.

not true

Some explanation would be nice. Are we then cutting mana sources? Shop decks like a lot of mana.

[Tempus]

Lets say you want to run demonic, vamp, and imperial seal. You need to cut 3 lock pieces to do so.

not true

Some explanation would be nice. Are we then cutting mana sources? Shop decks like a lot of mana.

Maybe -1 Confidant, -1 Welder, -1 Wasteland +3 Tutors... Those aren't lockpieces or mana sources...

[serracollector]

Mind you, I have been out of the loop for a while now, but I have ran Stax and it's variants at many a tournament so some questions:

Since you are running bazaar, why not Mindstorm Crown over the 2/1 guy?  Its colorless, makes drawing "free", and even when it does damge you, it does it for less life. Since almost everything in your deck is a permanent, having no cards in your hand is not a "drawback", the only time I can see it being so is when you sideboard in REB, and thats if you do hold it for several turns, causing you a lack of draw and 1 life.  But as you only use 2, I think this is minimal for the gain.

If you got the mindstorm/bazaar route, then I think Ensaring bridge ALONG with a Maze or two as backup would be key against both oath and fish.

<3 Pendrel Vale, nice tech. Question, and maybe I just don't know timing on the stack so well, but why not side in Pendrale Vale against Oath, and stack it so you have to sac any orchard tokens they give you BEFORE they can oath?  If you never have creatures, then their Oath's are useless correct?

If you worried about decks that SB in a basic land or 2, have you tested Ghost Quarter?  If they only have 1-2 basics, it is essentially a strip mine.  Just a thought.

Also if you use Mindstorm crown instead of Draw guy, then you can easily run Sphere over Thorn, making your fish matchup that easier to manage.

No manacrypt.....You have Smokestack, if mana crypt becomes a problem, sac it, or weld it, or anything.  There are so many ways to get rid of it once it's not needed, but the point is, for the first few turns, if you want to outrace your opponent in mana and resources, it IS needed.  There is no faster artifact mana maker outside of lotus/Mana Vault. You may want to consider vault as well.  Smokestack and Welder make drawbacks on both of those null IMHO.  Maybe -1 Urbog (assuming you play Mindstorm), +1 Mana Crypt, -1 Bloodstained, +1 Mana Vault.  This would actually increase your mana output, and decrease your life takers.  If the deck is built for the long haul anyways, I wouldn't see this as problematic.

Just my 2 cents, take it as you will, hope to hear your thoughts.

[RecklessEmbermage]

That was a beautiful post.

[madmanmike25]

<3 Pendrel Vale, nice tech. Question, and maybe I just don't know timing on the stack so well, but why not side in Pendrale Vale against Oath, and stack it so you have to sac any orchard tokens they give you BEFORE they can oath?  If you never have creatures, then their Oath's are useless correct?

That won't work.  They will simply use Orchard after your upkeep or EOT to make a token thus triggering Oath on their turn.  At the very best you will only have 1 Oath creature to deal with since you will be sacrificing your existing token(s) next upkeep.  Forget it if they have 2 Orchards.  Another reason Tabernacle isn't good enough vs. Oath is if they can pay 1G for Oath they can surely pay 1 to keep their fat flyer alive, and thats typically all it takes.

The truth is a RESOLVED Oath is very difficult to get rid of w/o Smokestack amped.  If they mox+Orchard->Oath, and you mox+Shop->Smoke you will probably still lose.  Smoke needs to be in play before Oath for you to race.  Jesters Cap and E. Bridge are viable options, but honestly your best bet is on CotV@2 BEFORE they cast Oath.

Wow just checked the price tag on Tabernacle!  Glad I got mine for 30 bucks a while back.

[Twaun007]

After a few days of traveling the vintage tourney circuit I’m back to answer some of your questions and explain the reasoning behind my card choices with B/Rstax.

Everyone seems to act like running tutors denies you the ability to play lock components.  This is WRONG.  Running tutors does not keep you from running the same Density of lock components in the deck.  Since this is TRUE, the lock will be in your hand with the same consistency as if they were not there.  Since the previous sentence is a statistic reality, you have a choice whether to play a lock component or a tutor...make the correct play and running tutors is simply not an issue.  If anything, this increases the chance of getting the component you need in a relevant amount of time.

Let,s say you want to run demonic, vamp, and imperial seal. You need to cut 3 lock pieces to do so.

It's true that your tutor counts as any lock piece but consider an opening hand with 2 lock pieces and a tutor. First piece gets countered. next turn you land a lock piece. 3rd turn you must tutor for a piece and unless you are going for strip mine or a 2 drop lock piece Its possible you won't be landing a 2nd lock piece until turn 4.

Its random what you draw and its possible  you drew 1 more lock piece over the first 3 turns and did not get put into the awkward position of  needing to tutor for something you cant play yet. It's also possible you just drew another tutor or worse your opener had 2 tutors and 1 lock piece.

I'm not saying don't run tutors because if you have crucible its damn nice to grab strip mine, but its dangerous to consider tutors as lock pieces in the early game where it really counts. This is when you need to apply the most pressure to be capable to live to the late game.

I don’t even feel like I need to reply since Smasher’s reply is spot on.

I have played with The Trifecta and they have equally preformed good and bad. Sometimes they tutor you up a win and sometimes their tutoring power is a turn too slow. My reasoning for their absence is the redundancy of the deck and it's lack of bombs. The only thing I found myself searching for was Strip Mine and most of the time it didn't matter since I was winning already.  

Aside from this I've been playtesting a very similar list to the original posters list. I play in a field of quite a few fish and aggro decks and lots of stifles floating around. Due to this I've opted to play sphere over thorn and wouldn't consider thorn playable except possibly in the sideboard.

I questioned Thorn of Amethyst until Nick Detwiller and his N.Y.S.E. crew started running it and finally when Jerry Yang suggested trying it I decided to pull the Sphere’s. To tell you the truth, I would probably never go back to Sphere of Resistance again. The ability to cast your Welders and Confidants a whole turn earlier is just way too valuable. Plus, Spheres are the least important lock piece versus fish and aggro strategies. You really want to shoot for Tangle Wire and Smokestack.  Now, if your meta is 50% Goblins and fish we're obviously not going to run Thorn of Amethyst. Remember that Stax very metagame dependent and your build should be suited to prey and hate on the meta you’re entering.  

Also because of stifles I cut the fetchlands for a swamp and mountain. I will need to play more games to see how much this matters as far as getting the colors I need. It was a small change to the manabase and so far I think its an improvement. If I had a fetch and went for the dual land turn 1 or 2 then my opponent wastelands me those games where uphill battles that rarely came out in my favor.

I tried the basic land thing before and have come to this conclusion. If your land doesn’t tap for two colors, tap for 3 colorless, sacrifice to give a creature -2/-2, tap to draw two and discard three, etc…. It doesn’t belong. Basic lands are good, but there is absolutely nothing like having two Dark Confidants in your opening hand while the rest is Workshop, Mox, Mountain, Thorn of Amethyst and Null Rod. It is equally annoying when you have multiple Welders and a basic Swamp in your opener.

One last thing, I think I'm ok not playing mana crypt but it seems like mana vault should still be in the list. In your experience are you setting chalice at 1 enough so that you are justifying not having another dead draw?

The mana base is designed to function perfectly under Null Rod so CotV at one isn’t my reasoning behind Crypt and Vaults omission from the deck. The average converted mana cost of the deck to 1.13333333 so the boost from Vault and Crypt haven’t been an issue for me.

I would consider increasing the bazaar count as well. It's a card I like to see and it digs into answers/threats better than anything else and sets up welder tricks really quick. He is hard to abuse otherwise unless relevant threats got countered already.

QFT

The omission of the 4 Bazaars is a serious flaw IMO.  Bob-Bazaar backed up with either Welder or Crucible IS the engine.  Why in the hell would you only run 2 copies when Shops are so dependent on the opening grip?

Running four Bazaar of Baghdad’s was, I believe, the soul reason I was unable to break into the top 8 at Brian Keil’s Steel City Power 9 Extravaganza. Over the course of the tourney I had to mulligan away over 11 hands due to multiple Bazaar of Baghdad’s in my opening hand without CotV.  I ran three at Ben Carp’s ICBM Power Nine Tourney and I think that’s the correct number. I just recently cut the third Bazaar for a Darkblast since Dark Confidant has found its way into Tezzeret, but with Oath’s resurgence I've gone back to the third Bazaar.

Mind you, I have been out of the loop for a while now, but I have ran Stax and it's variants at many a tournament so some questions:

Since you are running bazaar, why not Mindstorm Crown over the 2/1 guy?  Its colorless, makes drawing "free", and even when it does damge you, it does it for less life. Since almost everything in your deck is a permanent, having no cards in your hand is not a "drawback", the only time I can see it being so is when you sideboard in REB, and thats if you do hold it for several turns, causing you a lack of draw and 1 life.  But as you only use 2, I think this is minimal for the gain.

If you got the mindstorm/bazaar route, then I think Ensaring bridge ALONG with a Maze or two as backup would be key against both oath and fish.

I very rarely have zero cards in my hand when piloting this deck. I also think the deck would need a complete revamp in order to make an artifact draw engine work. Unlike the artifact draw engines you can sneak Confidant in pretty easily under multiple Thorn of Amethysts. You also don’t have to expel your entire hand to make Confidant work. Another positive aspect with having Dark Confidant as a draw engine is that he isn’t affected by artifact removal.

If you worried about decks that SB in a basic land or 2, have you tested Ghost Quarter? If they only have 1-2 basics, it is essentially a strip mine.  Just a thought.

Ghost Quarter doesn’t immediately take away a mana source.

No manacrypt.....You have Smokestack, if mana crypt becomes a problem, sac it, or weld it, or anything.  There are so many ways to get rid of it once it's not needed, but the point is, for the first few turns, if you want to outrace your opponent in mana and resources, it IS needed.  There is no faster artifact mana maker outside of lotus/Mana Vault. You may want to consider vault as well.  Smokestack and Welder make drawbacks on both of those null IMHO.  Maybe -1 Urbog (assuming you play Mindstorm), +1 Mana Crypt, -1 Bloodstained, +1 Mana Vault.  This would actually increase your mana output, and decrease your life takers.  If the deck is built for the long haul anyways, I wouldn't see this as problematic.

Taking away land and adding artifact mana sources when one of your strongest lock components is Null Rod is not a strong play.

<3 Pendrel Vale, nice tech. Question, and maybe I just don't know timing on the stack so well, but why not side in Pendrale Vale against Oath, and stack it so you have to sac any orchard tokens they give you BEFORE they can oath?  If you never have creatures, then their Oath's are useless correct?

That won't work.  They will simply use Orchard after your upkeep or EOT to make a token thus triggering Oath on their turn.  At the very best you will only have 1 Oath creature to deal with since you will be sacrificing your existing token(s) next upkeep.  Forget it if they have 2 Orchards.  Another reason Tabernacle isn't good enough vs. Oath is if they can pay 1G for Oath they can surely pay 1 to keep their fat flyer alive, and thats typically all it takes.

The truth is a RESOLVED Oath is very difficult to get rid of w/o Smokestack amped.  If they mox+Orchard->Oath, and you mox+Shop->Smoke you will probably still lose.  Smoke needs to be in play before Oath for you to race.  Jesters Cap and E. Bridge are viable options, but honestly your best bet is on CotV@2 BEFORE they cast Oath.

Yup. I have found Jesters Cap to be two slow in combating Oath and E. Bridge means nothing versus Vroman's Oath deck. As awful as it sounds I’m starting to test Greater Gargodon versus Oath.

Wow just checked the price tag on Tabernacle!  Glad I got mine for 30 bucks a while back.

Man, there is nothing like living in Christmas land.

About the Primer in general and the Workshop mentality

The decklist presented in the primer is in no way a concrete version. Just like every deck in magic, B/Rstax needs to adapt in order to combat the metagame. We need to understand that Workshop Prison decks should be a constantly evolving organism. The overall feel toward the Workshop Prison archetype I want to relay is one of change and progression. Don’t look as if the deck is a solidified mass of cards. Look to it as a liquid being poured into the glass of the metagame. Also, take into account what works for me in Cleveland might not work for someone somewhere else. Its these differences that shouldn't be debated with absolutism, but should be explained with relativism in order to help us evolve.

I’d also like to quote Nick Detwiler in regard to workshop players mentality since he put it so well.

I have broken the omerta because 5CStax is now one of the most popular decks in Vintage, and it seems as though the world is intent on creating the worst list possible for Shop players. Drain and Combo pilots across the country look to lecture you, the Shop players, on what, and how, to play. Disregard them. Find your fellow Shop players, band together, test and learn the deck. Let the Drain and Combo players tell all their friends about how poorly conceived, poorly built your deck is. As you leave them in the loser’s bracket.
They look to lecture me as well. But I know better.
Shop players, we are a community unto ourselves. We are not prevalent, but we are present. Work with each other, test, discuss theory, listen, learn.

And win.

There is always more to be said, there are always more points to be enumerated.

May Mishras Workshop be in all your opening hands.

[Neonico]

Are you sure that strip mine is the only thing you want to tutor for in this deck ?
I personally tutor up alot for those cards :
 - Dark confidant and/or bazaar of bagdad
 - Trinisphere
 - Strip Mine
 - Crucible of worlds
 - Smokestacks

[Bongo]

Sweet primer, thanks for writing this up!

How good has the singleton Darkblast been? With no tutors, isn't it hard to have it when you need it?

[voltron00x]

There are a few other cards that are worth tutoring for, besides Strip Mine.

-Darkblast (mainly in the mirror or vs opposing Confidants)
-Welder (especially in a mirror-type situation)
-Academy (I think I've won every game in testing where I had access to Academy)
-Bazaar (with only 2, the ability to run a virtual 3rd is pretty relevant, as Bazaar is insanely good in this deck IMO)

Obviously you occasionally want to find a specific lock piece, like Null Rod or Trinisphere or Tangle Wire.

I've been testing this list with -1 Chalice of the Void, +1 Vamp Tutor... but I have a generally low opinion of Chalice right now.  If there's something better to cut, I couldn't figure out what it would be.

[TheShop]

Stax variants have been winning over the last 5 years without running 23 lock components(when the meta was slow enough).  For the vast majority of Stax decks (of any variant), they don't cut lock components to run tutors...because they are already running the 19-20 lock components that they initially planned to run.  This was the focus of my last post.

That being said, with Bazaar + Confidant and 4 copies of nearly every conceivable lock component, I can understand how tutors are devalued from your perspective.

These number of lock components in the new Stax variants seem more like old MUD lists (4 Chalice, 4 Sphere, 1 Trinisphere, 4 Smokestack, 4 Wire, 4 Crucible).  There is nothing wrong with this fact.  Look at Roland Chang's list from his Vintage Championship victory:  1 Trinisphere, 3 Sphere of Resistance, 4 Smokestack, 3 Crucible, 4 Wire.  This is 8 less lock components than the new lists run.  I know these are different archtypes, but the variability among winning decks is puzzling.

[voltron00x]

Tested this deck again tonight.  I'm really impressed by it.  There's a good chance I'm going to play it at the December Blue Bell, despite my concern that I'll be hopeless in the mirror.  Not because of the deck, but because of my lack of experience with Shops, especially compared to the die-hard Shop fanatics that play the deck locally and from NY...

[Will]

Twaun: Thanks for the great primer on the deck and some supplemental reading on Stax as a whole.  I enjoy the idea of your deck and how it works in the abstract, but from my semi-limited experiences I feel that while Null Rod oftentimes hurts your opponent much more than it hurts you, it is not necessary to form the deck around.  While I fully understand that this and 5cStax are not the same deck, they do branch from the same family and so I feel that comparisons hold their water well enough.  From my experience this past weekend, I played my variation of Nick Detwiler's list and went 3-1 against Tezzeret with the game total being 7-3.  Of my three game losses to Tezzeret two were because I did not draw a colored source until well after I needed it in one instance, and never in the other.  My other loss was while I had a Strip+Crucible lock and my opponent untapped and won with only a Mana Crypt in play.  (Though I misplayed a REB which would have changed the game) The reason that I am explaining this is because Null Rod which to the best of my knowledge is primarily aimed at Time Vault decks would not have improved my performance against the currently biggest Time Vault deck, Tezzeret.  I agree that the card is very good right now, but if the card that separates RB from 5c most besides Dark Confidant is not necessary to win then can Tutors be added in place of some or all Null Rods so that other areas can be shored up?