The Jester 2016 - back to the dark ages

[bop]

I'd fit in smokestack in there.

[Khahan]

I've been play testing an ubastax list since mid february. Without any shops experience my list was decent but not much else. However, ubamask simply wins in this meta. The amount of card draw that so many decks have packed into them means mask really screws with people's game plans. Its very strong now.

[vaughnbros]

I've tested a lot of Uba Mask lately and it's a great card when it works. It's also absolutely atrocious at times, especially against Dack Fayden, or an opposing Bazaar.

[A Former User]

Maybe your account isn't gone. You just have to login both in www.themanadrain.com and themanadrain.com

[Fred_Bear]

I agree with @vaughnbros . When it works, it's amazing and, in the limited testing I've done, it's a must-counter/remove for a lot of decks. My fear is that there is not enough game early to keep Mentor in check. Welder just feels too fragile and relying on the Mask/Bridge to keep you from getting hit by hordes doesn't seem fast enough.

[GrandpaBelcher]

Glad you're back, @Yespuhyren. I have an Uba Stax list in my article for tomorrow, and we're surprisingly close. (Like, you're going to think I lifted your list, but I swear I didn't!) I used Phyrexian Revokers over Null Rods and Spheres over Thorns for example. Thorns might be right, though. You have more mana, which I think is the right way to go. I'm looking forward to working more on these lines to see if this deck makes a comeback.

[A Former User]

@GrandpaBelcher link to article please.

[xouman]

@gkraigher http://www.gatheringmagic.com/natmoes-040616-you-were-too-good-lodestone-golem/
It was as easy as clicking on the user link, and in his main page you can find last messages from that user.

[albarkhane]

That deck is my favorite one too. Last time i played it in tournament was november and i was trying to update it (for a tournament next month) when the new B/R came. I am not yet sure what i will do to take in account the new B/R (work on this deck or build a new one) but here is the way i adressed some problems with the deck.
My list was on the old website but i can't find it so here it is :

1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Mountain
3 Barbarian Ring
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Tangle Wire
4 Goblin Welder
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Uba Mask
2 Expedition Map
3 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 3 Razormane Masticore

If i compare to yours the differences are :

• barbarian rings / caverns are not really friends (i mean you can't use cavern to activate rings for damage). I chose to run rings for the ability to ping creatures in a agro meta. Now, i would probably come back to cavern only.
• i did not used sphere MD because of few combo in my meta. Now i would put the whole package.
• Null rod is not a strict replacement for chalice. It works quite differently and I would use it only in a Tezz (or so) meta.
• I run ratched bomb (in the smokestacks slot) because it is more targetted.
• expedition map is off-tempo in all shop decks but not in this one. then i could cut the 4th bazaar (to reduce double BoB in opening hand) and i get a nice land toolbox.
• my SB is very different but well it depends a lot on the meta.

I am not sure if this deck is a good call in the new meta and these days i was actually trying some very different builds. Chalice + golem restricted are a huge blow to a strong prison build so i was trying colored builds but with a less prison build. Nothing very conclusive so far. I am very interested too by any comment or advice about uba stax deck.

[Eksem]

I played this list at a microtournament/playtest thing yesterday and it felt great. I played against Painter twice (won both) and Storm twice (one win and one loss, the loss was partly due to a terrible mulligan descision vs a storm god hand):

Creatures:
3 Goblin Welder
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Lodestone Golem

Lock pieces:
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
3 Uba Mask
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Smokestack

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

Lands:
3 Barbarian Ring
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra’s Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

SB:
4 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Witchbane Orb
2 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Jester’s Cap

The 4 Thorns might be the incorrect choice for certain meta games, but I assume there will be a lot of spell based decks hoping to take advantage of the Lodestone restriction. If I had Leyline of Sanctity I would have run them over Witchbane Orbs and some number of the Jester's Caps.

I felt unusually comfortable with all of the numbers actually, I would definitly like to try this exact list except for some sideboard changes again to see if anything is working out badly in other matchups.

[BC]

I played Uba Stax at the Eudemonia Vintage event in January and made the top 8. It is (unfortunately) probably not the best Workshop deck right now, but it is definitely the most fun. The restriction of LSG hurts this build much less than the more aggro archetypes.

Here's my current list:
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault

1 Lodestone Golem
4 Goblin Welder
2 Triskelion

4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Smokestack
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Uba Mask
1 Trinisphere
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Ensnaring Bridge

Sideboard:
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Triskelion
3 Witchbane Orb
2 Null Rod

Here are some of my thoughts on the deck:

Null Rod is good, but it is dead against a fair number of decks.

Ensnaring Bridge is the best.

Why are people playing Thorn? You play literally 6-7 creatures. Just play Sphere.

Why are people playing Barbarian Ring? You know you have to have another red source to activate that card, right? When we used to play 3-4 Mountain in ADDITION to B-Ring it was pretty solid, but now with Cavern it's not useful anymore.

Why are people playing Leylines in the board? Wouldn't you rather have something that you can cast and interacts with Welder?

And finally, you gotta play Smokestack. It's not the best right now, but it is central to the goal of the deck.

[Eksem]

Had a chance to run the same list as I posted earlier in a smallish 4 swiss round tournament and got knocked out in semis. I beat Mentor, Oaths and Planeswalker Control and lost to Painter (terrible draws) and Lich Mirror (on the draw against a turn 1 combo deck that doesnt event care that much about taxing effects was a rough matchup).

Never drew any Ensnaring Bridges in the matches I wanted it, and they have been dead in most matchups I have faced with this deck so far, but that is of course meta game thing.

I like to max out on sphere effects so I run both Thorns and Spheres. I would cut Thorns before Spheres though if I wanted to cut that effect.

I run Barbarian Rings mostly as an alternative win condition more than utility, but they are hard to activate, yes. In some meta games the damage you take from them matters enough to change them to Mountains I guess.

While Leylines are harder to interact with for some decks where that effect is needed the most I have changed my mind and I think I prefer to be able to cast the spells in my deck; though I do understand why someone would run them over Witchbane Orb.

Smokestack is great.

Best performing card this tournament was Crucible of Worlds. Goblin Welder was of course doing a lot of work as well. Biggest surprise was how much I gained from Uba Mask even without Bazaars in play.

[emidln]

Welcome back Jason! Glad to see The Jester rebuilt. I miss talking with you and Evenpence about the deck on the BZK forums and on instant messenger.

Some general thoughts:

The last time I played the deck (2nd Gush era with a heavy Dredge component with lesser amounts of shop pseudo-mirrors, oath, and fish lists), we needed Powder Kegs to handle the combination of Dredge and the permanent-based mirrors (fish and shops). I'm unsure how well Ratchet Bomb would do these days, given that our main token-producing enemy was Empty the Warrens, which didn't really refill, but it has the possibility of killing Oaths (and as always it's something to do vs spirit tokens, although unexciting) as well as Jace (albeit super slowly). Being cheap, it does offer to bridge the gap to an Ensnaring Bridge, and given that we no longer have multiple Chalices, it may be of tactical importance to kill moxen to make Smokestack effective.

4x Bridge was important then, and I can't see it being less important now. The only matchup where it is actively bad is Storm, and even then, we've always made good use of spare permanents and spare cards in hand. Not drawing one against Mentor or the shops mirror seems more catastrophic than a dead permanent vs Storm. Both Cap and Smokestack seem less important as 4-ofs than Bridge, although I'd lean towards Cap being slightly more important to draw early (early Smokestack is negated more often now due to our lack of Chalice @ 0).

The Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale was a 1-of main, with multiple other copies in the sb (up to 3 IIRC), and it seems very good at controlling token populations, although I suspect that 1-3 monks is still a major problem. I don't know if this card is still good enough, but it's worth considering in depth.

Pithing Needle was strategically important in 2007 against Bazaar and opportunistically against workshop mirrors (where we'd needle something that they had that we didn't yet, and be able to smokestack it away in the future if we drew our copies). I'd suspect that we need copies of the effect against Planeswalkers, although Revoker being able to pressure walkers might be stronger these days than Needle on Bazaar from 2007.

Without Chalices to constrict mana and options at 1cc, Sphere of Resistance seems important as a sideboard option for making the most out of Smokestack. I vividly remember assembling a Smokestack/Crucible lock but being unable to close out games where I didn't have Trinisphere.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth helped smooth the manabase some (letting Bazaar tap for mana and letting us cast Leyline of the Void ). We might not have the space for it now, but I remember this being very useful.

In general, I worry that Crucible isn't strong enough with more Barbarian Rings or Factories.

Regarding Uba Mask vs planeswalkers:

• Uba Mask is decent at slowing down Jace, although it's a disaster if Jace stays around long enough to get them to an empty hand. Jace is already a disaster, so I don't know if this is worth worrying about.
• Dack Fayden isn't very good against our deck, and the targetting looting shouldn't be more than a mill against us. For them, it provides the same obstacle as Jace does if they can empty their hand.
• Both of these are similar, although I think less problematic than Brainstorm was in the first era. Brainstorm, if we did not lay Chalice @ 1, served as 4 spare copies of Ancestral Recall. While not repeatable like a planeswalker, it was far more dangerous as we had little in the way of options to interact with it (Factory, Barbarian Ring, Revoker, and Needle are all options now) AND they tended to have mana left over with which to cast spells.

[Serracollector]

Karn should be in these lists, shouldnt he? Eats moxen to help Stax Lock, is a game ender, and can block the mightiest of mentors. Just my thoughts.

[Juggernaut GO]

splashing white gives you all the answers to trouble matchups.

ethersworn canonist, containment priest aegis of the gods all fantastic in current meta, easily castable via cavern of souls. makes welder un counterable also.
blaine has the right idea barbarian ring is no longer viable,

[Yespuhyren]

Man, I'm so happy right now. Emildn is still around, Travis is still around, it's great to see some old school guys still around!

As far as the list, I'm testing a ton of variations with Expedition map as a quicker way to ensure crucible strip, as well as the 1 ring when absolutely necessary. It may get cut, but as of now excluding great furnace or a 3rd mountain I can't find anything else to replace it.

White would be great, and I am definitely not against it. I've had random mono white hatebears decks since the days of Glowrider. I just would have to think of a way to fit it in, as red for welder is far too crucial.

[joshuabrooks]

I'm wondering if the fragility of the White Eldrazi deck's manabase might signal a good time for a more Staxish (or Crucible-based) shops deck.

[Stormanimagus]

@joshuabrooks said:

I'm wondering if the fragility of the White Eldrazi deck's manabase might signal a good time for a more Staxish (or Crucible-based) shops deck.

I'm on a GW version with brushland and horizon canopy and noble hierarch. that has helped to keep the manabase functional in my experience.

[emidln]

@Yespuhyren Harkening back to the no-smokestack builds, I've tried this in a few Cockatrice matches today:

4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Goblin Welder
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Trinisphere
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Tangle Wire
4 Jester's Cap
3 Uba Mask
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy

SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 1 Buried Ruin
SB: 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 3 Sphere of Resistance

Some notes:

• Sulfur Elemental is too ambitious I think. 3 non-artifact mana is too hard to come up with sometimes. It is very very good in the metagame though.
• Buried Ruin probably belongs in the maindeck as a way to enable Crucible off Bazaar when Welders are neutralized.
• Ratchet Bomb is pretty good in the metagame for the reasons I outlined above. Actually destroying moxen is a big deal. It can temporarily derail Monks, but it's not the idea solution there. I do think this is more critical to a mana denial plan and would encourage people to test it in builds featuring Smokestack but not Null Rod.
• Jester's Cap continues to perform reasonably well after almost a decade. It's still good taking Crucibles in the pseudo-mirror. It's at its best against DPS and Oath, although serviceable in other matchups.
• The 4/4/4 Crucible/Welder/Bazaar core is still present and still outstanding. Cavern makes resolving it reliable enough, and Welder is still a kill on sight creature in Vintage. There is a reasonable amount of removal, so we can't be sure to keep it around. This might mean we need some number of Smokestacks to actually close out games in the face of Swords to Plowshares or Sudden Shock (to make Trinisphere or Lodestone Golem actually lock them).
• Grafdigger's Cage is amazing. I wish we had this in 2007.
• The Cap / 5 sphere / Cage plan seems sketchy against DPS. Maybe I just need Leyline of Sanctity against them?

[Yespuhyren]

@emidln sorry I didn't reply sooner, just had surgery and finally mostly recovered.

I totally agree with you on some of the cards, Ratchet Bomb definitely has some potential.

With the threat of white decks and Eldrazi so prevalent, I've also moved up to 4 ensnaring main.

With regards to Cap, I am still amazed at how well it performs. It still gives frequent turn 1/2 kills against Oath decks, combo decks, and a number of other decks.

There's really no fear of cards being sub par in some matchups if they straight up win others simply because Bazaar filters so well.

I have been testing 2 Expedition Map and have to say it's been absolutely bonkers. Being able to find the bazaar for your welder or Strip Mine to pair with your crucible lock is unreal, as well as being a cheap artifact to weld

Really don't like smokestack, and I feel that's not where this deck needs to be.