The Many Flavors of $T4KS: Learning CronStax and Preparing for GenCon

The Origins of Stax
I vividly remember the first time I played with Stax. At the height of the GroAtog era Vintage was fresh and invigorating. After years of wintry repose, the format was in spring once again. Vintage was in a state of rapid expansion and every tournament result seemed like a rare bloom in a newly discovered rainforest. Driving most of this energy and growth was a new deck abusing the recently printed Fetchlands permitting application of the Gro concept to a three-color deck. Gush helped to grow gigantic Quirion Dryads and Psychatogs.

Out of this fierce struggle Sebastian Kaul crushed his way through a field of Quirion Dryads with a stunning development: Stax. Using Mishra’s Workshop to pump out Smokestacks and support Sphere of Resistance, the GroAtog decks suddenly found their light mana base to be a liability, not an advantage designed to increase threat density.

Almost as soon as I had the opportunity, I visited with my friend Kevin Cron to test this new deck. We sat down and played a dozen games with him piloting this new Stax deck and me playing GroAtog. We suddenly understood the score. This was a classic struggle of Mother Nature versus the artifice. And we all know who wins that battle.

Stax drew a million cards and seemed to just explode onto the board locking up the game with ease and mysterious tranquility within a few turns.

The development that made this deck possible was the discovery by David Wee of using Meditate within a Workshop prison shell. David’s deck, Ducktape, was the progenitor to Stax. However, he completely failed to understand the importance and role of Sphere of Resistance evidenced by the fact that he had all four in his sideboard or else split it two and two between the mainboard and sideboard. It was Sphere of Resistance that made this deck a force. It capitalized on the “Gro” or TurboXerox concept: using a really light mana base with cantrips to make up for it. The Gro idea is that you can cut a land for evey two cantrips. You can imagine what Sphere of Resistance does to that idea.

Kevin and I began in earnest to tune and fix the small deficiencies we found in Kaul’s list. We soon found another person interested in working on the deck: Frenchman Matthieu Durand. Soon we came upon an agreed upon list and published an article for this site after having a chance to abuse it a bit first.

For Kevin, this was all very suitable. For some time he had been using Smokestacks in Extended with Grim Monoliths and Ancient Tombs. The chance to play with the card in Vintage was a dream-come-true. Although I was in Europe at the time, Kevin managed to use his expertise and experience with the deck to snatch a Top 8 at GenCon after going first in the swiss despite the widespread dissemination of the archetype.

GroAtog was dead – murdered by administrative decision of the DCI to restrict Gush. But before its demise, the key solution to that matchup had been discovered: Artifact Mutation. GroAtog (GAT) splashed Red onto its already tender mana base and surprisingly was able to turn the matchup around. This simple answer was what Moat had been to Stompy and it was now well known. Although GroAtog was gone, Kevin expected lots of Mutations and Hurkyl’s Recalls and ever the sideboarding master, turned this liability into an advantage through the use of Divert. In a critical round eight match, Kevin used Divert to misdirect Travis Hopkins Ancestral Recall to seal up a game and his top 8 slot.

In the intervening year, Stax fell pretty far from favor. Chalice of the Void helped the archetype, but it still seemed too weak to compete with Psychatog and Dragon combo. After a year of disillusionment with other decks, Kevin returned to Stax once more in time for GenCon. This time his list was far less traditional. He adopted a five-color mana base from Eric Miller. But he also added cards like Balance to the deck once again after we dropped them from Kaul’s original list. And once again, Kevin proved his superior knowledge of the deck and secured a Top 8 spot.

By StarCityGames Syracuse in February of this year, his knowledge and understanding of the deck had far surpassed my own. I could no longer assist with critical decisions or even fully understand the deck. The only suggestion I made that he implemented was to put in Crop Rotation (and I urged him to add Vampiric Tutor as well as Yawgmoth’s Will) based upon application of a Flores article I read on interactivity. Kevin lost to Mark Biller in a brutal third game of the GenCon top 8 after he resolved Wheel of Fortune that totally swung the game in Biller’s favor. I chastised him with the remark that Yawgmoth’s Will would have won the game that Wheel lost.

What Kevin has done with Stax is what anyone can do to almost any good deck in the format: tune it to win. Almost anything can win under the right circumstances. What are those circumstances?

Basically, you have to find the internal configuration of cards which best deals with the expected metagame. He tested every major matchup in detail learning what cards were winning games and which cards were losing. If someone has enough focus to pull this off and a little bit of metagame support, you can really devise a devastating deck. Sometimes, it’s not worth the effort simply because the deck has to bend over backwards to work. Kevin managed to get it to work.

I decided that I was going to try my hand with his deck. I couldn’t go to the April SCG event in Chicago, but Kevin took ninth place (after winning Syracuse) and did so despite the fact that Trinisphere was now restricted. The metagame seemed to be aimed at the Mana Drain decks and the time was ripe to try Stax if I ever wanted to learn it again. Another missed opportunity and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having it as an option for GenCon. This article will detail my own experiences and insights with the deck both in preparing for and playing in SCG Richmond.

Almost immediately I discovered that the deck was indeed very good – but also very skill intensive. The design of the deck is one that has been an evolution that coincided with Kevin’s own discoveries and experiences with the deck. Picking it up without serious testing first would be folly. I two fisted and tested online and with teammates and felt comfortable enough with the deck that I could pilot it without making too many errors.

I also became comfortable enough with the deck that I could make suggestions and criticize some inclusions. In this article, I’m going to basically provide a primer on Kevin’s deck based upon my testing and experience as well as conversations with Kevin. Then I’ll discuss alternative options with Stax and explore the various permutations of Stax. Stax has just stunned the environment with three totally different Stax decks making Top 3 at SCG Chicago in July and also placing first through third in the swiss.

Here is the deck we played in Richmond:

Stax

Stephen Menendian

9th Place at Star City Games Power 9 Series on 05-22-2005

Vintage

Creatures (3)

Lands (18)

Spells (39)

Sideboard

The Objective
The first thing one should remark upon seeing Kevin’s lists are: how can that possibly be right? Or: Man that deck looks weird. [Zvi said these things when he saw the decl. – Knut] It is weird. Many of the decisions are complex and controversial. Many of them seem downright wrong. I’m here to explain why they are right or not.

As I’ve said before, most Stax decks try to jump out and lock down the game as quickly as possible – not permitting the opponent to do anything.

Kevin’s deck is not designed that way. Check out this:

http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?p=395300#395300

The debate was over Uba Mask versus Chains and Jim Gaffney (Godot) said this:

“This statement says a great deal about how Cronstax works. The deck wins small… Having tested against it an innumerable number of times you feel like you are just about ready to get back into the game and take control, but it never happens.

It’s like a boa constrictor. When it first wraps itself around you its not necessarily that tight/scary, but every time you breathe out it squeezes just a little bit tighter, restricts your resources just a little bit more, until you just can’t breathe at all.

Playing a 2sphere, a Chains, a Chalice(0), stripping a land–all these little resource gains add up and allow the deck to take full advantage of the long term cards like Smokestack and Crucible.”

I know I couldn’t have said it better. There are basically two critical reasons why it is designed that way. The first is simple: Mana Drain. The deck is designed to destroy Mana Drain decks plain and simple.

One of the biggest flaws in the Workshop concept is the threat of Mana Drain. Although Workshop enables you to play expensive spells, the flip side of that is that a spell played off Workshop and countered by Mana Drain is not just a huge drawback, it is likely to lose you the game.

So how do you defeat Mana Drain? One is to try and play around it. Considering the tempo loss, that is a questionable plan. The other is to try and overwhelm it. That is the plan of traditional Stax. But it is very conditional and inconsistent plan. It relies upon luck of the draw. The third alternative is to attack the opponent such that the Mana Drain mana can’t be fully abused. In other words, instead of trying to just race Mana Drain or overwhelm it, you can play spells that restrict the ability of the opponent to take advantage of it so that you don’t just lose if you get Mana Drained.

A regular Stax deck that gets Mana Drained should probably lose before they see another turn. This deck constricts the opponent such that Mana Drain as a threat is neutralized. Two of the cards that do this best are Chains of Mephistopheles and Sphere of Resistance. Chains turns off the rapid draw that makes Mana Drain so painful and Sphere neutralizes the efficiency of plays like Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge or Cunning Wish off of a Mana Drain. As I said, the deck is strategically oriented. Instead of locking down the opponent’s mana alone – it constrains their ability to execute their game plan. In many ways, it reminds me of Keeper. It just keeps the opponent from winning. The idea is to just keep the opponent a hair away from winning and you will win. Your inevitability will kick in and it will be all over. It’s like keeping your opponent off balance and keeping the pressure on until they are no longer able to right themselves.

Here is an example:

Turn 1:
Mox, Land Sphere of Resistance.

At this point, your opponent has a choice. They can let it resolve or not. If they do, they might go: Land, Mox.

At this point, you may follow up with Gorilla Shaman.

Turn 2:
Gorilla Shaman. Play a land. Eat their Mox.

Once again, you have a card that would not be in and of itself a counterspell target, but with Sphere of Resistance in play, your opponent is going to fall further and further behind. If they let it resolve, you eat their Mox and keep them under the hole.

Alternatively you could play something like this:

Turn 2:
Land, Chains of Mephistopheles

If they let it resolve, they aren’t going to get to use their Brainstorm or Thirst for Knowledge that they are a turn away from playing. Another good turn two play would be Crucible, Smokestack off a Workshop, or even another Sphere of Resistance. A more docile play like just Wastelanding their land – a solid play which will buy more time for you to see more cards off the topdeck.

Certainly, you will sometimes get the utter nuts: the Mana Crypt, Sapphire, Jet play that enables Vampiric Tutor, Ancestral and Tinker all on the same turn. Those hands aren’t the hands that lose games and so they aren’t the hands you should be focusing on. The real trick is to play a steady stream of efficient threats to keep opponents all tied up.

One of the points I’m trying to illustrate is that by being able to rely on a Mox and a Land on turn 1 in addition to the Mishra’s Workshop, you have a far more consistent deck.

Now that you understand the premise of the deck, I’m sure you have as many questions as I did. I’m going to try and answer them all.

I’m not going to do a card-by-card analysis because that is unnecessary. Instead, I’m going to present the view of the deck in a logical manner that will hopefully answer all those latent questions.

Having a Turn 1 Bomb
In my view, one of the critical things that any Stax deck needs is a turn 1 threat. I have learned that the best turn 1 threat with Kevin’s deck begins with a Mox and a land. That is a huge advantage. One of the flaws of Mishra’s Workshop deck is the sixty-card constraint in a deck built around four lands. Operating off a Mox and a Land on turn 1 is a realistic and doable goal. Relying on Mishra’s Workshop to pump out a turn 1 threat, on the other hand, is unrealistic and leads to design inconsistencies. Most frequently, that will look like a Sphere of Resistance or a Chains of Mephistopheles. If you do get the Workshop, your turn 1 play can be a Smokestack or a Crucible of Worlds. And not infrequently it may be Gorilla Shaman. And if you’re lucky, it could be a turn 1 Balance.

The starting principle is that if you are on the draw, you must have a turn 1 threat. You cannot let your opponent go unmolested through their first two turns. If your threat is Force of Willed – that’s fine. At least you played a threat. If you are on the draw, the lack of a turn 1 threat may be compensated by a really strong hand and some solid turn 2 plays. Generally that is not ideal though.

The Chains of Mephistopheles and the Gorilla Shamans give Kevin’s deck an efficient and potent early game. However, it should be noted that all of these efficient turn 1 plays are real bombs. Kevin isn’t littering the deck with temporary cards or sometimes ineffectual cards like Tangle Wire or Goblin Welder. More on that later.

The big mistake that people are likely to make with the deck is to just go for the throat. This deck wants to draw the opponent in. If your real threat is Smokestack, you may want to drop turn 1 Chains to lure out a Force of Will and then drop the Smokestack next turn. The trick isn’t knowing how to bait, it’s identifying which card is the bait and which is the winner. I have trouble seeing that sometimes.

Relying on the Topdeck
One of the other counter-intuitive things about Kevin’s deck is that it has no draw aside from Ancestral Recall. Almost every other Stax deck has either Meditate or Thirst for Knowledge. Vroman’s Uba Stax is an exception as well. It used to be said that the difference between Stax and Mud was that Stax accelerated the game by drawing lots of cards and using the draw to play lock components whereas Mud produced the same result by decompressing the game. Where a Wheel of Fortune drew 7 cards for Stax, which Stax made asymmetrical because of the lock components, Mud would use seven turns of having the opponent locked down to produce the same effect. Kevin’s Stax and Vroman’s Uba Stax more closely approximates the Mud deck.

Without being the designer – it is hard to realize this. But Kevin’s deck has been intentionally and purposefully designed to facilitate topdecks. Every card in Kevin’s deck is either an immediately useful, unconditional lock component, a tutor, or a mana source. That is actually the reason that Kevin’s deck mulligans so well. It doesn’t matter if the card is on the top of your deck or in your hand – the result is the same. I’m going to repeat myself for emphasis:

It doesn’t matter if the card is in your hand or on the top of your deck – the result is the same.

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

Kevin’s deck usually draws 2-3 lands per opening hand. Mox Diamond increases your ability to play a turn 1 threat without causing you to lose much because you are usually turning dropping a Gemstone Mine or some such land to play the Mox. Once in a while you might draw a one land hand where you can’t use the Mox Diamond, but that usually isn’t the case. The problem with Mox Diamond in Kevin’s mind, and the reason it wasn’t included in our Richmond lists were as follows: First, Mox Diamond is a terrible topdeck. As I said, everything in Kevin’s deck is something that you can topdeck and then put directly into play or use to find a massive bomb. Having immediately effective cards is really important when you have no draw or fixing. Also, the topdeck factor is very important when you are trying to feed a Smokestack – something I will talk about later. Second, it is terrible when you mulligan. Although a usual starting hand is very likely to have two or more land, a hand of six or less is not. These two facts were enough to make use decide against it.

The Real Lock
The real source of card advantage in this deck is Crucible of Worlds. And the real lock in this deck is Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds. In the past, the key lock has always been Smokestack and Goblin Welder. That is history.

My instinct with Smokestack is to ramp it. That is what you did, historically. You would use your draw spells to play lots of permanents like Tangle Wire and then use the Welder to mitigate the damage that Smokestack did to your own board. This deck is very different.

With Kevin’s Stax, unless you need to do something to stop the bleeding, the usually correct play is to set Smokestacks at one and then keep them there – even if your opponent has no cards in play. Why? This goes back to the point I was just making: every topdeck is a permanent. You will be able to feed the Smokestack until you can find a final solution like Crucible or a tutor.

I think the way this fact was first demonstrated to me was in this situation:

You have two Smokestacks in play and a number of other permanents. My instinct and experience with past Stax decks tells me to just ramp the hell out of one of the Stack and leave the other idle. Move the first Stack to one, two and three and by the time your opponents board is gone, let it die with a few of your own worthless cards. Then if they start playing other permanents, ramp up the other Smokestack.

This is wrong. The proper play is to set both Smokestacks at one. I didn’t fully appreciate this until lots of testing, but the premise is simple: you can support a Smokestack at one with your own topdecks. If you ramp them both to one, then you can let one go and support the other. Or you can ramp one and then keep the other at one. It gives you maximum flexibility. The important point is that eventually you will see the card you need: whether it’s Crucible of Worlds or a tutor or whatnot. Either way, a Smokestack set at one is no danger to your own mana base either since it can take itself out if you want to let it go.

Aside from the Smokestack/Crucible lock – the other most important lock in the deck is Strip Mine + Crucible. This deck has numerous ways of finding Strip Mine and part of its game plan is simply to slow the game down long enough for the deck to find Strip Mine. One of the tricks is to figure out how to get your opponent to let your Crop Rotation resolve simply to get Strip Mine into the graveyard for the moment when Crucible does resolve.

Where is Goblin Welder?
This is probably the most critical question that people wonder about Kevin’s deck. I have watched over time as Kevin has moved them out of his deck – first down to two and then to none. For a while, I simply could not understand how this could be right. I assumed that one of the reasons that Kevin removed them was because they kept getting killed. But there is more to it than that.

Anyone who asks about the absence of Goblin Welder should have this question asked of them: What is it that you are Welding back? What is it that you are using Goblin Welder for?

Think about that. What is it that you are welding back? Kevin has no Tangle Wires (and I’ll explain a bit about that in a moment). Kevin’s only real artifact lock components are: Sphere of Resistance, Smokestack, Crucible of Worlds, and Chalice of the Void. What are you Welding back? Sphere of Resistance? In most cases no one counters this spell. It just slows the game down. Even if they do counter it, do you want to play a creature whose purpose is to bring this card back? It’s not worth it. Chalice of the Void is not a card that works at all with Goblin Welder. Crucible of Worlds? This is a fine and dandy Welder target, but like Sphere of Resistance, many decks don’t bother countering it – especially on a turn 1 or turn 2 Workshop without a Smokestack around or a Strip Mine visible. The only card that people are really likely to counter without anything more is Smokestack and the deck only has four. It’s simply not worth it to run four Goblin Welders – a card that is basically dead until a Smokestack comes around for the sole purpose of making Smokestack less symmetrical. The design of the deck makes Smokestack asymmetrical and Crucible of Worlds completes the lock in a better fashion than Welder does. If Kevin was using Tangle Wire, then Goblin Welder would be a lot stronger.

Why no Tangle Wire? I think the decision I disagreed with the most for some time was the removal of Tangle Wire. Tangle Wire is a very strong card that can tie up the game and permit other cards to take over. Tangle Wire also helps Stax tie up the game when it is on the draw. Although I can’t definitively say why Tangle Wire doesn’t make the cut, I can provide a number of reasons that I think Kevin would likely bring up to support his decision:

First, it is temporary. Kevin’s deck deals in cards that truly constrain your opponent’s game plan. He wants true bombs, not cards that can be played around with instants on your upkeep like Cunning Wish, Thirst or Intuition. Second, Tangle Wire is not good by itself. It is a support card, much like Goblin Welder – whose utility is conditioned upon having some other threat. As a result, it isn’t always a must-counter card. Third, it increases your reliance on Mishra’s Workshop. Almost every card but Karn and Smokestack can reasonably be played off of mana sources that aren’t Mishra’s Workshop.

However, I think it is important to mention that Tangle Wire, although not included in CronStyle stax for the last eight months or so, may be, in fact, a better choice now than it once was. The massive increase in the number of Chalice of the Voids may make the bigger risk not Wasteland, but the inability to use your non-Workshop accelerants. Relying more on Mishra’s Workshop through the use of Tangle Wire may be wise.

I also think that Goblin Welder may be stronger than it was in January. One of Kevin’s concerns with Welder was that Control Slaver would take advantage of your Welder. Zvi suggested that running two Welders might be the way to go. Matt Morrison took that tack. On the Mana Drain boards, Robert Vroman said:

I dont know why you’d dump welder. maybe reducing it to 2, but still look at this card: for a single colored mana you gain protection from artifact destruction and have the ability to interefere with enemy artifacts, which is crucial in the workshop mirror. welder is V undercosted and useful. considering you only have 1 win condition, karn, an ability to retrieve him if countered/killed seems necessary. furthermore, most opponents WILL counter welder if they have the chance, so at worst, you 2 for 1 them when they force something that lets you slip in eye of chaos or smoky immediately after.

He’s got a point – no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Moreover, I think that Goblin Welder is now a stronger early play now that Chains of Mephistopheles is weaker. The need for non-Workshop threats supports Zvi, Vroman, and Matt Morrison’s conclusion.

The Role of Mishra’s Workshop
Someone once asked a very reasonable question in the StarCityGames forums: If Kevin is going to use all these enchantments in the sideboard and so few artifacts in the maindeck, then why is he even running Mishra’s Workshops? I had that same question in fact! I tested Ancient Tombs in two of the Workshop slots and it was that testing which demonstrated to me the tight balancing act that Kevin has done with his deck. He has included just enough artifacts to make the Workshops shine but not so many that he is reliant upon them. The current combination of Crucibles and Smokestacks really do make the Workshops functional (as do the Sphere of Resistance). I thought that the Ancient Tombs would be solid because they could enable cards like Choke and In the Eye of Chaos more quickly – but I was mistaken. The trick isn’t getting the two colorless – it’s getting the two colorless and the colored mana. I found myself being unable to play a Crucible ASAP because the land was Ancient Tomb instead of Workshop. Situations like that caused a quick reversion back to the Shops.

Moreover, the increase in the number of Chalice of the Voids suggest that reliance upon Mishra’s Workshop may not be as misplaced as it was some time ago when Mishra’s Workshop was going to get destroyed and then you’d be dealing with Mana Drain. Roland Chang’s more traditional Stax seeks to straddle this finer line between relying upon Mishra’s Workshop without getting entirely screwed if you don’t see it:

Stax

roland chang

3rd Place at Star City Games Power 9 Series on 07-31-2005

Vintage

Creatures (8)

Lands (18)

Spells (34)

Sideboard

Going First and Going Second
Stax will win a significant majority of the games that it is on the play, but it will tend to lose more than it wins when it is on the draw against the best decks competently piloted. The deck lacks genuine fixing (aside from design) that other decks have cards like Brainstorm. The result is that it can’t stop a really broken turn 1 play on the other side of the table with Force of Will nor can it immediately optimize its hand to ensure that it has an equally devastating opening. This is something you just have to be aware of going into it.

The reason, in my view, it is still worth it to play this deck is because of the amazing work Kevin has done with his sideboard. Kevin’s sideboard is a mix of devastating bombs. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Zvi commented upon this in his article – there is a huge difference between game one and game two.

To summarize this point, going first is hugely important in game one – but after game one, everything changes. If you have a good sideboard, then percentages will shift in dramatic ways that go beyond going first or second.

Sideboarding Theory and Approach
Zvi commented that he simply can’t see how two In the Eye of Chaos could be correct. Kevin reflected that he used to scoff at people with lots of pairs in their sideboards. If a card was worth using, why wouldn’t you run at least three to maximize your chances of seeing it? It is a valid criticism but there is a sound answer.

First, I need to explain the basic approach to sideboarding that Kevin uses. Kevin believes, in general, that diversity is more important than redundancy. The advantage of using multiples of a single card is that you are more likely to see it and resolve it in any given match. The advantage of using a diversity of threats is that you are unlikely to see a redundant card. And in Stax, a redundant card is very often a totally dead card. The only positive opportunity cost value of an additional Choke, Arcane Lab, In The Eye of Chaos or Crucible of Worlds is the fact that if the first one is countered, you are more likely to see and resolve another. Diversity of threats means that you trade off the utility of seeing a stronger card more frequently by not seeing a redundant card. I trusted that Kevin’s experience gives him the insight to be able to identify the point at which that tradeoff reaches an optimum value. He has the experience to know when a multiple of a card is causing him to lose a game.

Aside from just the low value of any given multiple, redundancy has the flaw of being narrow. Sure you can get enormous efficiencies from growing the same crop in mass quantities – but you make your whole enterprise much more vulnerable to a single ailment. If you play Choke, then you are vulnerable to a bounce spell. If you play In the Eye, then you are vulnerable to Tinker. If Kevin’s deck is to act as a boa constrictor – it must attack the opponent from all points – not just one. By using pairs of a sideboard card he can sideboard in three or four different cards in any given matchup and not see a multiple of any given card. Kevin has a well-defined sense of the disutility of redundant cards. Because each card choice can make the difference between winning and losing given how the deck is designed and the vulnerabilities of Stax, Kevin greatly fears drawing useless cards.

The diversity principle is one that extends to his mainboard construction as well. I argued quite strongly that he should have four Chalice of the Voids in the maindeck (as did Zvi). However, Kevin insisted that he’d rather have that slot used by a different card. I think Chalice of the Void is very good in the deck because it is a good topdeck, an early threat, flexible, and it is good to topdeck with a Smokestack on the table. However, he would rather have an objectively weaker card than a fourth Chalice simply for diversity.

Most sideboards are designed to either answer a particular deck with a widely used card: like Red Elemental Blast against control decks or Rack and Ruin against artifact decks. Kevin’s sideboard is designed of broadly useable cards that can be used in many matchups. Since there are only 15 cards in the sideboard, he seeks to squeeze as much utility from it as possible by using only a few of any given sideboard card with the intention of using half a dozen cards in any given matchup. That is, instead of bringing in four Chokes against Control Slaver – he can bring in two Choke, two In the Eye of Chaos, two Viashino Heretics and a Ground Seal or two.

Utilizing his five-color mana base, he has stacked his sideboard with the best cards the card pool can offer. The result is that every single matchup improves post-board far more for you than it does for them. Kevin may be losing game one’s almost half the time – but he isn’t losing matches because of his sideboard. Heretic is good against Workshop decks, Slaver decks (he has found it critical at nailing Pentavus), Fish decks (with Null Rod and Vial), and decks like Landstill. Choke is broadly useful as well. It comes in against Fish decks, Control decks, and even decks like TPS. An example of the problem of redundancy is that although Arcane Lab might be good against TPS, they may be able to fight it, even if you have several in play, with a single Echoing Truth. Add In the Eye of Chaos and Choke to the picture and they will have a difficult time dealing with it.

Here is an example. Against Control Slaver in Chicago, here was Kevin’s sideboard plan:

Take CS for example:

– 4 2Sphere
– 1 3Sphere
– 2 Crucible
– 1 Rotate

+ 3 Choke
+ 2 Heretic
+ 2 Ground Seal
+ 1 Old Man

In testing, the only card that Kevin was having trouble with against Gifts was really Tinker. That’s the reason why we put the Meddling mages into the sideboard.

The Debates
There were four cards in his Chicago list that I argued against going into Richmond. The first were the Swords to Plowshares, the Engineered Explosives, and the two Seals of Cleansing. I argued that the Seal of Cleansings were terrible against something like Gifts and that they should be something that impacts the game more powerfully. I also felt that although it was nice to have a Swords to Plowshares to tutor up against a Colossus, I would rather have something that is more useful most of the time. I also thought that the Engineered Explosives was too narrow and basically only good for removing Goblin Welders. I argued that a third Gorilla Shaman, a fourth Chalice of the Void, and two In the Eye of Chaos should replace those four cards – or, the third Shaman, fourth Chalice, and a Seal of Cleansing and Mox Diamond.

I’ve already talked about why Mox Diamond wasn’t included. I think that the fourth Chalice and third Shaman would have been good. But in retrospect, I don’t think I appreciated how good Seal of Cleansing was. I did a lot of testing against Gifts type decks and they didn’t show how good Seal was. Seal really shines against Workshop and Fish decks. It nails Energy Fluxes and Null Rods against Fish. And it really wrecks Workshop decks by taking down that key artifacts – often a Crucible. It is strong against Oath and solid against Landstill. Kevin did agree that Engineered Explosives could have been a stronger card and subsequent to the tournament he agreed that Swords wasn’t very strong. I argued that even if they have Colossus out, your Swords isn’t likely to stop them from winning the game.

The Mana Base
I tried to use a Tendo Ice Bridge in one of the Gemstone Mine slots but it didn’t work either. Crucible of Worlds isn’t just important as a combo part – it also is important to help salvage your own bizarre mana base.

Lotus Petal isn’t exactly the most exciting card to draw – but it does help you play turn 1 threats. I understand why Zvi didn’t like it – but I think that his sample size was probably too small. I also know where Zvi was coming from with his dislike for Yawgmoth’s Will – but I’m not sure he fully appreciated the importance of this card in the late, late game. Yawgmoth’s Will and Balance are what enabled Kevin to beat Bob Kochis in the Syracuse finals after getting Nevinyrral’s Disked three times. Will is a card that can certainly be a dead draw for some time – but eventually it will bring you back into a game you were losing.

My test games against Fish were hilarious because they would often involve my opponent being entirely locked up but me being entirely locked up as well. It would come down to me finding that final City of Brass in my deck so I could cast the one spell that would break the lock. I was comfortable relying on inevitability – even if it was a stressful experience.

I definitely agree that Gemstone Mine is the weakest part of the mana base. Relying on a five-color mana base has that inherent drawback. But it also gives you a lot. Each Mox you draw is a really solid card. You’ll often have rainbow hands where you can play Shaman, Vampiric Tutor and Ancestral Recall in the same turn because you drew Mox Jet, Mox Ruby and a land. The deck is a genuine five-color deck.

The worst part about the mana base is when you get an artifact and Workshop draw and you start to accumulate colored spells you can’t play just yet. That happens, but it comes with the deck. Usually, you’ll be able to survive long enough to find a mana source to play them. Sometimes you won’t.

Robert Vroman has taken an entirely different tack with the Stax mana base. He has decided to go monochromatic so that he can rely on at least a few lands. But one thing all of the Stax players agree on is that Barbarian Ring is here to stay! Take that Goblin Welder!

Constant Evolution
One thing that needs to be mentioned is that this deck can’t remain static. The environment is constantly changing and the pressure points change with it. This deck needs to continue to adjust to meet the metagame head on. One of the things that needs to remain however is a certain density of threats that can be played off a land and a Mox. I disagreed with Kevin removing Chains of Mephistopheles from his deck for Rochester simply because it dramatically diminished the quantity of turn 1 threats. Although it isn’t as big of a bomb as Uba Mask – like Godot said, it comes down on turn 1 in pretty much every hand you might get. Perhaps the third Shaman and fourth Chalice are strong additions to fill some of that void. But if Control Slaver comes back again, then those Chains will be very good once more.

When we added Meddling Mage back into the sideboard almost entirely to combat Tinker, we recognized that it had a functional casting cost of 2.5. I was able to resolve a Meddling Mage against a Rector Trix player naming Academy Rector in round seven and eat away at his life. I understand why Zvi doesn’t like the Mages – they are difficult to use and the mana base is shaky as is. But they are decent sideboard options in the right match.

The deck as designed for Richmond was designed for a Mana Drain metagame. This Stax list has a much tougher match against the Vial Fish decks that are growing in number and serious adjustments will have to be made to handle them. Kevin used Carpet of Flowers in his sideboard in Rochester as one solution. There are others. Although Stax must be designed properly for the metagame, I think the lesson to be learned is that with a little bit of luck and lot of creativity it can always be a threat. Vroman’s Stax has used a lot of counter-intuitive choices. For some time he has used Null Rod despite the fact that it seems so symmetrical. If you rely on Workshops more, then you can use your own Moxen to play the Rods, and then power our threats with Workshops while the Rods shut your opponent down.

With so many fantastic Stax decks to choose from (Check out the Top 8 from Chicago)– each of which has proved extremely potent, it is quite clear that these decks are going to be a superb choice for GenCon. You’ll notice how the Stax decks in the Chicago Top 8 not only were first through third in the swiss, but each of them beat up on the other four Mana Drain decks in the Top 8. Also, these decks are clearly designed to fight Fish. Learn the deck, play it flawlessly, and you’ll practically guarantee yourself a slot in GenCon top 8.