I had not played in a Vintage Challenge for a while but the new restriction on MM got me excited to dust off some of my favorite 1-drops. I decided to start with Goblin Welder. I played the below deck to a 5-2 record.

3 Uba Mask
1 Myr Battlesphere
4 Goblin Welder
1 Lodestone Golem
4 Hollow One
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
2 Null Rod
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
3 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
6 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sundering Titan
1 Pyroblast
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Mana Vault
1 Karn, the Great Creator
1 Mystic Forge
1 Mindslaver
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
SB:
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Witchbane Orb
1 Null Rod
1 Sundering Titan
1 Pithing Needle
2 By Force

Here are my thought:

I love the Uba Mask but I faced 3 other Bazaar decks in the challenge so it was boarded out a lot in this event.

Null Rod was great. I'd like to find room for 1 more

I sometimes struggled to have red mana. That's part of the reason I am light on red. I'd like to have another Pyroblast though.

Daretti was just ok. I won a gome because of him but he was underwhelming in general

I never got to use Mindslaver but I think it still has a place.

Wurmcoil was great against the BUG decks

Sundering Titan was the most frequent game winner. This guy is awesome.

I underestimated how often I would have Karn in play. I think that I should put Lattice in the board for the free wins.

I'm curious what you all are doing. What are your favorite things in Welder?

I will always love the old days of Gifts Ungiven for some Welder shenanigans, but I must say I have not started to brew with Welder yet.
There are two directions I planned to brew with. First the aforementioned Control Slaver and secondly a SCVesque list with all the draw7s (chainings Memory Jars is just love) and a bunch of Fastbonds (as I still firmly believe the future of Fastbond lies in a turn 1 kill deck).

I really think Razormane Masticore has a place in your list, as it answers most creatures used in the meta, has a beefy body, is another discard outlet, and gets around Null Rod/Ouphe.

Hello! I took your list, made a few changes, and then battled in my local proxy vintage series to a 3-2 finish out of 21 people this weekend. Had I been a little more on top of my game, 4-1 would have been easily achievable which would have put me in top 4 contention.

Here is what I brought:

Creatures:
3 Goblin Engineer
4 Goblin Welder
4 Hollow One
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sundering Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Artifacts:
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Null Rod
1 Sol Ring
3 Tangle Wire
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
2 Uba Mask

Planeswalkers:
1 Karn, the Great Creator

Lands:
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Mishra's Workshop
6 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 By Force
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sundering Titan
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Uba Mask
2 Witchbane Orb
1 Spine of Ish Sah

Round 1 vs Survival 0-2:
G1: my mediocre hand loses to a very high power hand.
G2: I punt and lose a very winnable game that was mine to lose.

Round 2 vs Aggro Shops 2-1:
G1: made two hollow ones t1 on the play. Didn't play another turn before opp scooped.
G2: I have a mix heavy hand that gets slown down by a quick sphere draw by my opponent. Couldn't stabilize.
G3: Null rod invalidated my opponents deck. Welder turned into royal assassin.

Round 3 vs Fastbond Combo 0-2 (no dark depths):
G1: My opponent is able to go infinite on turn 2 and killed me with sunscorched desert. None of my cards came close to mattering.
G2: I was a turn away from getting watchbane orb into play, but died to a turn 3 to combo. I felt completely helpless. Opponent had contingency for the orb. Enlightened tutor for Courser of kruphix even invalidated my null rod.

Round 4 vs PO 2-0:
G1: Played a trinisphere, opponent played some land and slow Moxen. I get a wasteland lock with crucible before eventually playing a clock.
G2: T2 sundering titan. Opponent cast mystical tutor for tinker. I follow up by casting a welder. Opponent tinkers for blight steel. I don't misclick and weld the blight steel away and win.

Round 5 vs Fastbond combo 2-1 (with dark depths):
G1: I did something I felt was impressive, but lost quickly to a Marit Lage.
G2: Strangely, I win this match with a T1 Karn, trinishphere, and a wasteland lock, getting in underneath anything my opponent wanted to do.
G3: T1 pithing needle on zuran orb defined this whole match. I fail to draw a clock for a while and the game goes long and develops. I have 2 active welders for most of this, invalidating his force of vigor. Eventually I have 2 active welders, 2 summing sick welders, and an attacking wurmcoil. My opponent is able to ignore the pithing needle by playing glacial chasm use a horizon land to start drawing his deck. This forces me to swap out and back in my pithing needle to name the horizon land. He is then able to get infinite mana and life and make a 20/20 before passing the turn. I untap and draw goblin engineer. I am able to tutor up mindslaver and then slaver my opponent. On his turn he "decides" to combo off and kill himself after I weld out my pithing needle. This happened in turn 2 of extra turns. It was epic.

Notes from the event:

• Goblin engineer over preformed. It was always great, even the time or two I didn't already have a welder in play.
• Uba mask is great at combating blue decks. Combos well with Ensnaring Bridge.
• Maindeck bridge gave me outs to silly things, even if I was lucky in that I didn't need it in my particular games.
• I want the 4th null rod in the 75.
• Acting like I was not going to have karn in play almost lost me a game when my sideboard had changed to not be karn friendly.
• I never wished my engineer was a pyroblast or Daretti.
• The deck feels like a BIG underdog against Fastbond combo.
• Deck felt great against everything else I played against.
• I was certainly medium.
• Solemn Simulacrum was medium at best the 2 times I drew it. I never wanted to tutor for it and "grinding" it for advantage was never my optimal play. Will likely put the 3rd Uba mask back into the main in its place, but one event certainly isn't the best data set.
• Never had Spine of Ish Sah in play. I only wanted it to blow up fastbond, but never got the chance. Not sure if it should stay or go. It does answer random BS and you can tutor it with engineer.

I think the deck certainly has great potential and is doing powerful things. Lots of room for optimization and improvement.

I did some quick testing and went to our monthly tournament yesterday with a similar list. It went pretty well (3-1), the only games i lost were to variance or stupid errors from me. However, i am not yet happy with the deck and will test it more. Decks i played or tested against so far are : jeskai xerox, hatebear, eldrazi, dredge, PO and mirror. I have not played enough games so here are just some feelings as food for thought :

• Engineer is pretty cool and most of the time i fetch crucible or bridge with it, the entomb effect makes us less bazaar dependant. I feel that 7 goblins might be too much but not sure yet (i might try a 3/3 split as a test).
• I was not happy of the lone Karn and almost never played it when i drew it. The only time i did, it was not very impactful. I will try a very small sideboard target package, namely either only one lattice or a vault/key. The rest of the sideboard will be built as if there was no Karn. If this strategy is working, Karn might ends up in sideboard too as this might be interesting only in some matchup. If it is still akward, i might remove it entirely from the 75.
• During testing (namely against Eldrazi) i found myself hiding behind a bridge and my opponent had 2 revokers online that targetted both goblins. The game was pretty stalled and it was difficult if not impossible to find an out. More generally, i am not satisfied with the plan after we get a bridge online. So i added in an expedition map and switched a mountain for a barbarian ring, and i added a tabernacle in sideboard. I might want the tabernacle main deck and/or a second map but i could not find space for that yet. This strategy gives us more lines of play if needed. I will need more test to decide if it is a good idea or not.
• dredge is a favorable matchup, game 1 is still difficult but not impossible to win. Post board, the plan is simple : mulligan agressively into cage and/or waste, put a bridge (or a cage if needed) online with a goblin, and find a way to kill.
• mirror match is pretty technical if both players are serious.

To sum it all, i like that such a deck has some potential again but there lots of work to do on it to have it really competitive. Now i know how i will spend my spare time before our next monthly event.

Hi,

I am not a Vintage player, but follow the format nonetheless.
I've always loved Goblin Welder in Legacy and Casual, mostly in a prison/control shell, and I am currently experimenting with it again, due to the release of the recent sets which had some Welder toys.

Maybe a some food for thought for you:

Wishclaw Talisman has been pretty amazing with Welder. Activate it, in response weld it out, tutor.
Also works with Engineer, but maybe needs more support (like bouncing).

Witching Well is worth considering, too. Taps for Tangle Wire, activates Mox Opal (less important for you) and smooths your draws, sacrifices itself to activate Welder, and draw engine in the late game with Welder.

Emry, Lurker of the Loch: Obviously plays nice with Welder, helps for Barbarian Ring (threshold) and also good if you play Crucible (finds Wasteland). I am undecided if it's better than Engineer, though.

Lesser Masticore is not bad, too. Feeds Welder, and persist is nice with Smokestack. Turn 1 Welder, turn 2 Mastistcore, discard and weld <3. Even if it's only a Smokestack, it's a nice tempo play.
However, its ping ability is too expensive most often.

I also tried Mystic Forge, but I think it's better in a pure combo deck.

Due to the black, blue and red color requirements I am trying these cards in similar shells, like the old 5c Stax shells of yore.

I really like your list; it's a lot more aggressive. That might be the right call now as Force of Vigor really screws over slower MUD decks. Here is my current list. It's a lot more Stax based but i'll definitely try Hollow One.

// Vintage Welder Stax

// 60 Maindeck
// 30 Artifact
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Trinisphere
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Smokestack
1 Mana Crypt
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Uba Mask
4 Tangle Wire
1 Mana Vault
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Null Rod

// 8 Creature
4 Goblin Welder
1 Lodestone Golem
3 Phyrexian Revoker

// 22 Land
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Cavern of Souls

// 15 Sideboard
// 10 Artifact
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt

// 2 Land
SB: 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

// 3 Sorcery
SB: 3 By Force

I played the following at our local tournament in NC last week:

i went 3-2, getting 5th place. I lost to dredge (could have been won) and DPS which didn't seem winnable. I beat 2 white eldrazi decks and a non-welder shops list.

Random Thoughts:

Engineer as an entomb was great, and looping tangle wires was really strong. However, Sundering Titan can't really be played along side the engineers, you need the red mana to continue to get value out of him but the titan kills your mountain. plus titan just isn't as good as he used to be.

Expedition map was ok, but it was also terrible when all I had was shop or a mountain. It also doesn't play well with null rods. I would like to try out Golos if I were to play the deck again.

Every time I have slaver, I was short on mana to activate it.

There were a few time where, if I had a smokestack in the deck the game would have closed out a lot sooner, with less chances for my opponent to come back.

Uba Mask was a dud every time I drew it, and scouting the field it seemed like every deck it would be decent against ran multiple ways main and side to deal with it.

Hollow Ones were ok. They put in work, but I'm not 100% on them.

I really missed spheres, the land destruction plan just wasn't enough with things like force of vigor floating around.

Ankh of Mishra was a blank, I just didn't know what to put in there. Something like revokers or spyglass would have been better.

Witchbane orb did nothing vs DPS, I had it t1 in game 2 and they just chain of vapored it away and went off anyway.

There is an awful lot of value to be gained from welder tricks. Whether or not it is worth the 6-7 slots and the significantly worse mana base to support them is up in the air.

Something like the recent 5-0 "uba stax" decks seem just a bit better;

After some more tests, i played this list yesterday :

// Welder is back

// 22 Artifact
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Trinisphere
1 Black Lotus
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tangle Wire
2 Uba Mask
1 Null Rod
3 Sphere of Resistance

// 14 Creature
4 Goblin Welder
1 Lodestone Golem
2 Goblin Engineer
4 Hollow One
3 Golos, Tireless Pilgrim

// 24 Land
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Ancient Tomb
6 Mountain
1 Barbarian Ring
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Witchbane Orb
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

I could not test every matchups so i thought it would need some minor tweak to get something more balanced. After the tornament i am much less sold on the list. Here is my experience with it :

The main strategy was to get a tabernacle online with a crucible/strip lock. Post side, we are very solid against MUD, Eldrazi, Survival, Dredge and PO. I wanted the deck to be null rod effect proof.

• Golos is really great. Most of the time i got tabernacle (that does not care being tapped) or a mountain (when missing red source) or strip mine for the win. The body is nice with a decent clock. I did not play Karakas because i could not find a slot for it but my feeling is that it would be overkill most of the time (but i will try it still). Welder tricks with it are cute but most of the time there are more important stuff to do with welder.

• 6 goblins is the right number. I chose a 4/2 split but the entomb effect is so useful here that i am very keen on trying 3/3. I love the way engineer card was designed, i always found welder to be better but now i think they are both interesting, it just depends on the strategy we want. However, in this particular deck, we can't afford to do too many 'cute things' so in the end 4/2 might the be good choice.

• REB were a try to adress the pesky planeswalkers (namely dack and narset) and eventually PO (the card) or chain of vapor/hurkyl's. Revoker can't do the job because of Narset static effect that stops our bazaar. I fear we can't afford to keep mana open for that but i could not test it enough.

Now comes the real problem : stability. With decent opening hands, the deck is really strong but much too often everything comes up the wrong way. Agressive mulligan can help but it is not enough i fear. This problem is a recurring one for red shop. Years ago when i tried to adress it, the only solution i found was to have a really low curve (lower than the one of the deck above) and only a few more costy silver bullets. That way we are less dependant on which lands we get in opening hand. Unfortunately, here we can't do that because our strategy wants us to play more costy cards. So, either we can find a strategy that let us do that or maybe welder tricks are not worth it. Good news is there is still lots of paths to explore.

I just went 1-3 at ELD's with Deunan's list (Beat ANT, lost to BUG, and 2x Boris' Citadel Storm).

It was essentially his list, minus the 2 Karns, 1 revoker, plus 2 smokestacks and a Null Rod. (I can post it if necessary.c)

Some Observations on the day:

Null Rod is awesome and insane and that's why I wanted up to 4, post-board.I cut Karn GC for one, but I feel that is a big mistake, leading to my next point . . .

Hurkyl's Recall is the beatingest of beatings for this deck and my opponents ran a lot of them. Like, 4 of them, post-board a lot. If I had kept Karn GC in the deck and managed to stick it, it would at least be Hurk's proof and kept me in the game.

I had 1 Witchbane Orb and a Defense grid wedged into the board, replacing the Grafdigger's Cages (wasn't expecting Oath and we have other tools for dredge), but that's not nearly enough. I think this thing needs 2-3 Witchbanes and more Defense Grids to stand a chance. Even then, Grid doesn't help with a main-phase Hurkyl's, so I feel a touch at a loss on this one.

Golos is pretty cool, and although it's a little slow, its effect can be back-breaking! It mostly helped assemble Strip lock or find Academy and it was nice to be able to grab Tabernacle against BUG (Wasteland + Deathrite ate it, though).

I never wanted Urborg, but I know why it's there and we probably shouldn't cut it. Especially when BUG runs Energy Flux.

I never got to use God-Pharaoh's statue, and I wonder if this slot would be better suited toward something that could reliably come down earlier.

Bottled Cloister is surprisingly good and kept me a lot further ahead than I thought it would have.

Mishra's Factory was underwhelming today, but that could be because of the meta. Blast zones would have served much better in the games that I played. I would consider these as flex slots in the future.

Despite the format's speed, Smokestack somehow still wins games.

I think Hollow One is a better 4 CMC game ender than Smoke Stack. However, staxxing someone out is much more satisfying.

@BillCopes

We are not a combo deck , so i am really not sure if defense grid is a good call.
The most efficient card to deal with Hurkyl's recall is to run 3 witchbane orb. However, because we are doing that the most recent list are now running more chain of vapor instead of Hurkyl's.
An important point is how much pressure you can put on the field, best thing that can happen to us is when they must use their Hurkyl's as emergency button. We can't prevent all Hurkyl's to happen so we want it to happen at our time not theirs. If they play it when we are in attack phase, we have some more time to start build again and they won't gain full advantage of it. My point is, maybe removing creatures from the list was not a good idea.

I started with Deunan’s list and went 3-2 in league. Made some tweaks and then went 5-0. Made some more tweaks and then went 4-2 in the challenge, barely missing the top8, losing to my friend for the win and in.

I went the opposite direction, cutting Smokestack ultimately. You’ll notice in my 5-0 list I had Bazaar and Uba Mask, but they’re just not necessary. I upgraded Bottled Cloister to Coercive Portal, but it’s also an effect that is just not necessary. I just want a strong opening and Golos is enough to make the game out of reach for the opponent; Smokestack or card draw is just a slow effect that doesn’t really matter in a lot of games. It’s all about leading the game with a Sphere or something and following it up with a Golos. Ultimately I removed the ineffective 1-ofs for the very effective Stonecoil Serpents in the challenge. I think that was a pretty good move given the dominance of Oko. Ensnaring Bridge continues to be clutch, so running two of those feels pretty good against Survival and Dredge as well.

I also boarded 4 Leyline of Sanctity which felt pretty smart in the Oath meta.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2430853#paper

Defense Grid is very effective at pushing through threats like Golos as well as preventing Hurkyls/Force of Vigor.

I'm playing in the Vintage champs this weekend but due to work and other personal commitments I haven't actually played the format since the most recent bannings. Given this I'm sleeving up an archetype that I have experience playing in past formats - Uba Stax being one of the contenders.
Is the consensus that desolutionist's take on deck is the most balanced given a large event like EW? It seems strange to me to play an Uba Stax-like deck without Uba Mask/Bazaar/Smokestack.
Also, how is the God-Pharaoh's Statue? If I recall correctly there was another 6 mana artifact that nullifies planeswalkers completely from a recent set but I can't think of the name of the card to save my life. That seems likely to have more impact in several matchups.

@pmelies that would be The Immortal Sun

@blindtherapy Thank you! It was driving me crazy.

I've played both versions and they both have their pluses and minuses. Deunan's list isn't really a Uba Stax deck at all. It's more a grindy sphere deck that uses Golos tricks. Not that it's bad, but if you are used to playing a Bazaar/Uba/Stax/graveyard deck, then this version isn't for you. I have liked God-Pharaoh's Statue when I've gotten it into play. A double sphere is cool enough. The one damage is not very significant but it is a good animate target for Karn. I think it's skippable but it's not bad. One thing I do really like about that build is that it has a reasonable chance to beat dredge game 1.

@trius it’s also good against survival and Oath. (Bridge/Tabernacle and Karakas). The main targets in Oath are Griselbrand and Niv Mizzit so Oath has little impact vs Karakas sometimes if you also have some other cards to go along with it. They could bring in Blazing Archon, but they’ll never trigger Oath if you have Leyline of Sanctity.

Keep in mind the Karakas + Golos combo. It’s built in late game card advantage.

I think part of the idea behind one Smokestack, one Uba Mask, etc is that through Golos and Inventors Fair you can theoretically tutor for whatever lock piece you need. I chose to just go more straight forward because that flexibility idea is kind of like wishful thinking. Most games are decided on turn one. Sphere, Chalice, Golos is probably wishful thinking as well. Also any true lockdown prison deck is going to be soft against Oko. You really need some Stonecoil behind your Revokers.

Is Razormane Masticore just not good? I posted about it earlier, and I'll admit I have not tested, but on paper it seems so good for the meta. Providing a discard outlet outside of Bazaar, and being able to nuke opposing Welders, Wizards, Levolds/Dr Shamans, and just being a beat stick seems very strong on paper.

Masticore is a good card that is often suggested for such a deck. The synergies are pretty nice but often it does not pass the cut.
IMHO, in the upper curve there are better cards to use (namely golos but i would also probably use wurmoil or steel hellkite before it). It is also a bad topdeck and awfull when using uba/bazaar combo.
The main interest is that it provides a very efficient and nullrod-proof effect to ping creatures. That is strong enough and i often test it as a 2-of in sideboard.