@bop, The landstill player was one mistake away from receiving a Game Loss by the Head Judge for accumulated Game Rules Violations. Had these warning carried over from the Swiss rounds, he would not be in the finals. He was pulled aside for over 20 minutes after a deck check in the Top 8. He played strategically foil cards that were so warped you could see them on top of the deck. He was forced to replace cards in the deck that were suspected of being marked. He was forced to change sleeves that were marked.

There is no saltiness about this. These are the facts.

@davidlemon said:

No one is casting Hurkyl's or Ancient Grudges. I think that's potentially one reason that Landstill with bombs like Energy Flux did so well (other issues notwithstanding).

And interestingly enough, these are the only cards I lost to in the entire tournament while piloting Null Rod Stax. Landstill is naturally favored due to high land count, high basic count, and sideboard bombs.

@Smmenen I could with your conclusion only if I were lining up to play a Daily Event or other similar 4 round event. Most paper events are not, so this carries limited value outside of trends of play, rather than what is actually competitive.

@ajfirecracker This assumes MTG players are rational actors. This is possibly true in Pro Tour considerations, but less so in our more casual events. A player can be both willing to play weaker decks ("fun Blue decks only") and metagame influenced decks ("2 Card Monte" when there's an above average graveyard dependence). The utility is derived from enjoying the act of playing, not simply as proving an intellectual exercise.

Anyways, there is usually more of a persuasion to play fun blue decks that are tuned to beat other fun blue decks rather than concern themselves with playing cards and decks that are optimized to beating Workshop decks. This allows the misers to pick up Workshop and ruin everyone's idea of a fun Vintage event...

supposedly.

@gkraigher
What purpose does Lightning Bolt serve? What is it answering?
There's limited space in the deck to make this like Stax, and the appeal is that it's mostly Legacy legal.

I could see Viashino Heretic being included for some more artifact destruction, but in general Fiery Confluence achieves this very effectively.

@Serracollector
I imagine that it's going to typically by Lava Axe mode, but destroying opposing color relevant Moxen is always good. That's the beauty of this card - it's flexible as it needs to be.

@Smmenen I could with your conclusion only if I were lining up to play a Daily Event or other similar 4 round event. Most paper events are not, so this carries limited value outside of trends of play, rather than what is actually competitive.

@Serracollector said in [Aether Revamped] Paradox Engine:

is no one else seeing how utterly retarded and broken this card is?

It has the ability to generate a ton of mana. Yes, but so goes Gush + Fastbond, and that's already running an above average number of draw spells; but sees next to no competitive results. It's an engine card without a strategy that neither needs additional mana, nor can afford to waste Tinker to find it.

Time Vault is already broken with Voltaic Key and Tezz. Adding Paradoxical Enginer doesn't change how broken Time Vault already is.

@ajfirecracker This assumes MTG players are rational actors. This is possibly true in Pro Tour considerations, but less so in our more casual events. A player can be both willing to play weaker decks ("fun Blue decks only") and metagame influenced decks ("2 Card Monte" when there's an above average graveyard dependence). The utility is derived from enjoying the act of playing, not simply as proving an intellectual exercise.

Anyways, there is usually more of a persuasion to play fun blue decks that are tuned to beat other fun blue decks rather than concern themselves with playing cards and decks that are optimized to beating Workshop decks. This allows the misers to pick up Workshop and ruin everyone's idea of a fun Vintage event...

supposedly.

Hi Stephen & Kevin

I'm Jacob Kory, 2nd place finisher from the event.
As Kevin already alluded to in the podcast, my Stax's deck basis was indeed from Terra Nova. An earlier invocation of it consisted of all 8 creature lands. However, it struggled against Eldrazi of all stripes, as well as "Other" deck types like hatebears. Consequently, I reworked the mana base a bit, added some new flair from Kaladesh (Inventors' Fair), and reintroduced Karn to provide some sort of Wall of Stone against Eldrazi. Of course, he works to destroy Moxen reliant manabases as well.

I had considered Ensnaring Bridge as a sideboard card, but ultimately elected to triple down on Tabernacle as a more effective answer to attacking creature decks. For instance, I would not consider Ensnaring Bridge as a useful card against Oath decks even if they do win with creatures.

Interestingly enough, Rich Shay and I came to a nearly similar core of the deck independently, and during the week leading up to the event I borrowed his mana configuration by adding Inventors' Fair and Urborg to my deck.

Also, during Game 2 of the Finals was the first time in the entire event and also my first time having Inventors' Fair as a decision tree. My immediate threat to answer was Jace TMS, but in retrospect, there is good argument for taking Smokestack and following up with Phyrexian Revoker on Jace. It was a nuanced decision that was colored by my loss in the Swiss rounds to a Jace ultimate out of an Oath deck.

Cheers!

There are other foils in the Landstill deck: fetchlands.

@davidlemon said:

No one is casting Hurkyl's or Ancient Grudges. I think that's potentially one reason that Landstill with bombs like Energy Flux did so well (other issues notwithstanding).

And interestingly enough, these are the only cards I lost to in the entire tournament while piloting Null Rod Stax. Landstill is naturally favored due to high land count, high basic count, and sideboard bombs.

@vaughnbros Bingo. Thorns/Wasteland decks doing so well is because the format is tilting towards greedy blue decks with low land counts. One resistor and one Wasteland means those decks are operating with razor thin edges to maintain their gameplan.

@bop, The landstill player was one mistake away from receiving a Game Loss by the Head Judge for accumulated Game Rules Violations. Had these warning carried over from the Swiss rounds, he would not be in the finals. He was pulled aside for over 20 minutes after a deck check in the Top 8. He played strategically foil cards that were so warped you could see them on top of the deck. He was forced to replace cards in the deck that were suspected of being marked. He was forced to change sleeves that were marked.

There is no saltiness about this. These are the facts.