So I was thinking about getting a laptop for school and such things. I will only be using it for word processing, internet and the usual stuff, no gaming on it. I am not very computer savy so I would love to hear any advice you can give me. What kinds of computers should I be looking at? Where should I buy them? How much should I expect to pay (The less expensive the better)? Thanks in advance for your responses.
Is the format much harder for Stax? Maybe it is..but this seems to happen to stax (almost in the way dragon is so off and on good) People started to get away from more traditional stax lists when Uba Stax came out...people stopped worked on tinkering with their 5cStax and CronStax lists and tried working on Uba Mask like stuff....Youll notice at that time with the exception of Vroman Stax was doing terribly...until Roland Chang played a much more traditional version of 5cStax and won worlds with it, his list was much more true to the original trinistax lists (obv minus 3 trinis) but it got back the focus of Stax...Stax continued to do fine from this point until the Jesters Cap deck (which was a good meta call...) and then shortly thereafter the staxless stax thing...since then nearly all focus on what Stax was meant to do has been lost to various "neat" options.
People stopped playing 5c Stax because it simply wasn't performing. A teamate of mine who plays Stax exclusively, played 5c Stax for several months and the deck was just terrible in a modern meta. You keep talking about this untangible concept of "focus". What exactly makes current stax builds less focused then old builds and is being more focused even better? If we just get stuck with past notions of Stax then we will be unable to innovate it.
this problem was further complicated when that jesters cap nonsense came out and even more with poorly thought out arguments about smokestack being bad.
When people started running Jester's Cap and questioned Smokestack that was innovation, and it made Stax better not worse. Perhaps we should look into the past some for ideas, but you can't discount modern Stax builds on a whim.
As for innovating stax now some things to consider are, Armgeddon, Nether Void, Mycosynth Lattic+Null Rod and of course Fish based Stax.
Easily actually. I don't like Bazaar particularly because it takes up a land drop and I don't like Confidant because it causes a lot of life loss a lot of the time. However, it all depends on your build.
Sorry you are going to have to explain to me how Stax gets BBB or 4BB to play Necro or Bargain.
I can understand why some builds don't like Bazaar, mainly builds without welder. The life loss on Confidant however is not relevant compared to the number of cards you are drawing. As long as the average life loss is less then 2 your fine. Stax builds have successfully running Confidant since its printing.
I think the problem with Stax is its lack of a decent draw engine, hence why I'm using Necropotence and Bargain now. Bazaar just isn't as good any more and TfK isn't long term.
Metal_Militia
I don't see how Stax actually casts Necro and Bargain, both Bazaar and Confidant are the best draw engines Stax has now.
Aven Mindcensor is interesting, it makes Stax more like Fish which is good. Casting Mindensor is a little difficult though, running Ancient Tomb to support all of Stax's non artifact spells might be good.
Bitter Ordeal only copies when a permanent is put into the graveyard so Dark Ritual does not work. This makes it really difficult to storm it at all. Bitter Ordeal doesn't fit the Gifts game plan and it is only affective vs. Oath and some Storm decks. Either Extract or Jester's Cap would see play before Bitter Ordeal, and neither of those do see play in Gifts.
If you want to rebuild Stax (pun intended) then I suggest you look at creature based Stax lists. In my experience Stax decks that run Confidant, Grunt etc. are the scariest. Creatures give you answers to Fish, a draw engine and a most importantly a faster clock.
Seems pretty terrible honestly. You are never going to be able to pull off the Gravestorm and Dragon doesn't want to play this kinda of card. Even if Dragon did want something like this I would play Cranial Extraction first.
Does anybody know where magic cards are actually printed and all the processes that happen to create a physical magic card? Any articles or information on this would be great.
Let me elaborate on my card choices. First the cycling lands, if Root Maze is in play the drawback is small but what if Root Maze is not in play? Without Root Maze those lands are unusable for a turn and tempo swings towards your opponent. The only benefit the lands give you is that they cycle, so at best the lands replace themselves with another random card. Why not just run a better card in the first place that you would not have to cycle? If you are looking for draw Keen Sense is actually decent when it comes to R/G.
Browbeat is subpar because it gives your opponent a choice. Lets say its late game and you need that last burn spell to kill your opponent, only you draw Browbeat. Now instead of dieing your opponent can choose to have you draw 3 cards, this is why giving your opponent choices is bad. Browbeat also happens to be overcosted and a deck like R/G beats can't have expensive spells. R/G is one of the decks where it is acceptable to not have a draw engine at all and just have a deck full of cheap threats. This is because R/G simply has no good options for draw and running bad draw spells will not help.
Urza's Rage is bad because not being able to be countered is not worth 2 colorless. The only deck with creatures and counters is fish and you don't want to be waiting until turn 3 to find an answer to their Dark Confidant you would much rather be answering it on turn 1.
Forgotten Cave and Tranquil Thicket are really bad run some basics/fetch lands in there place. Browbeat and Urza's Rage cost to much for a deck like this and Browbeat is weak because it gives your opponent choices. I would try out Root Maze and cut some of your 2 and 3 of's for 4 ofs to give the deck some consistency.
People stopped playing 5c Stax because it simply wasn't performing. A teamate of mine who plays Stax exclusively, played 5c Stax for several months and the deck was just terrible in a modern meta. You keep talking about this untangible concept of "focus". What exactly makes current stax builds less focused then old builds and is being more focused even better? If we just get stuck with past notions of Stax then we will be unable to innovate it.
When people started running Jester's Cap and questioned Smokestack that was innovation, and it made Stax better not worse. Perhaps we should look into the past some for ideas, but you can't discount modern Stax builds on a whim.
As for innovating stax now some things to consider are, Armgeddon, Nether Void, Mycosynth Lattic+Null Rod and of course Fish based Stax.
Sorry you are going to have to explain to me how Stax gets BBB or 4BB to play Necro or Bargain.
I can understand why some builds don't like Bazaar, mainly builds without welder. The life loss on Confidant however is not relevant compared to the number of cards you are drawing. As long as the average life loss is less then 2 your fine. Stax builds have successfully running Confidant since its printing.
I don't see how Stax actually casts Necro and Bargain, both Bazaar and Confidant are the best draw engines Stax has now.
Aven Mindcensor is interesting, it makes Stax more like Fish which is good. Casting Mindensor is a little difficult though, running Ancient Tomb to support all of Stax's non artifact spells might be good.
Browbeat is subpar because it gives your opponent a choice. Lets say its late game and you need that last burn spell to kill your opponent, only you draw Browbeat. Now instead of dieing your opponent can choose to have you draw 3 cards, this is why giving your opponent choices is bad. Browbeat also happens to be overcosted and a deck like R/G beats can't have expensive spells. R/G is one of the decks where it is acceptable to not have a draw engine at all and just have a deck full of cheap threats. This is because R/G simply has no good options for draw and running bad draw spells will not help.
Urza's Rage is bad because not being able to be countered is not worth 2 colorless. The only deck with creatures and counters is fish and you don't want to be waiting until turn 3 to find an answer to their Dark Confidant you would much rather be answering it on turn 1.