Can't you define 4 Trinket Mage or 4 Enlightened Tutor  in the examples above just as a tutor engine? Typically you are going to get Skullclamp or Necropotence but sometimes you just get Black Lotus instead. Hence tutor engine rather than draw engine.

Ok what if I say, "doesn't look like I can win, well played" and lay my hand on the table? If I'm facing an easily excited opponent who scoops his cards up is that a free win then?

Where is the line between concession and mind trick? Is it it simply rephrasing?

"If you scoop your cards up and shuffle them then I'll give you the win?"

If its not seeking information, then where is the line drawn for concession?

Can I be like "I don't think I can win, well played sir" reveal my hand, shake my opponent's hand, then after my opponent scoops his cards up be like "How nice of you to scoop, I said I concede I was just complimenting you, I wanted you to actually play it out."

It seems to me that his statement was a state based concession of sorts. (Maybe triggered is a better metaphor?)

Unfortunately, it's true...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8709003703

What do you think this will go for?

When: Saturday, May 7th.  Tournament starts at 3pm.

Where: Alter Reality in Lakewood.
15601 Detroit Ave.
Lakewood, OH
(216) 226- 5890
www.altereality.net

Proxies: 5 allowed with base entry, $2 for each additional proxy.

Prizes: 1st place Unlimited Mox Emerald.  This is based on 20 entrants, and additional prizes will be based on turnout.

Entry Fee: $15 advance or $20 day of tournament.

The metagame has traditionally focused on Control Slaver and Oath, with some rogue/budget, Workshop Aggro and Dragon thrown in the mix.  If you have any questions feel free to pm me or call the store.  Hope to see you there!

Jacob was copying my posts from the Mean Deck boards, it was Josh Franklin (who is in the same crew as Mark Biller and Brian Demars) from Michigan, not Josh Reynolds.  We met them all at the Columbus tournament, and I think Kevin was just getting the names mixed up.  I realized it after a while, but I guess that didn't get relayed.

A lot of people have been discussing the Lava Dart slot.  The reason Rich plays Lava Dart main deck  is because in the NorthEast Control Slaver is the most popular deck.  If Control Slaver is a really popular deck in your area and you want to maximize your chances at winning those matches, then having a main deck Lava Dart is a good choice no matter whether or not you use Intuition (although Dart is particularly good with Intuition).  If Oath is much more popular in your area, then run something like Engineered Explosives.  If your metagame is focused around another deck, use a card that is good against that deck - it could be Platinum Angel or whatever you think works best.  If you prefer a catch all answer or you have a really diverse field, then you may want to use Cunning Wish.  I think he even states this in his article.

@ Anusien - I would cut Lava Dart for Trike and run 3 guys.  If you decide to run Crucible you can cut a random land for Strip Mine and cut Pentavus for Crucible, and then just use Platinum Angel and Trike as your aggro backup plans rather than Pentavus.  Trike does a good job at controlling the board vs. aggro, and if he's not enough you can always just not lose the game.

Alright, this is coming up this weekend, and it will be awesome.  From what I've been hearing it sounds like we're going to get a good turnout, so I'm looking forward to some good competition and even more fun.  I wouldn't miss it if I were you.

I just got around to reading this, and the only thing I really wanted to address was from the very start of the thread and kind of off topic, but I'm going to do it anyways.



Genocide in any form is sickening and unacceptable.  It is overwhelmingly insulting for you to try to justify the genocide of Native American peoples based upon the privileges you currently enjoy, and I would like you to apologize for it.

These choices are generally based more on play style and approaches to the deck than anything.  These cards probably actually best represent the two extremes in play style.

People who leave out Tinker play the deck as a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck.  Their goal is simply to draw as many cards as possible, as fast as possible, and then play Yawgmoth's Will.  Since their graveyard and hand are likely to be ridiculous, they have no problem winning.  These players are likely to do things like Brainstorm back an early Goblin Welder in favor of a Mox to fuel more draw spells.  With this game plan, Tinker is actually fairly weak.  You don't care at all about getting Mindslaver or whatever until after you've already won by casting a giant Will.  The summer GS list from the beginning of the article is probably the epitome of this, and this is Smmenen's approach to the deck.

People who leave out Yawgmoth's Will play the deck much more similarly to traditional Control Slaver, but prefer more explosivity to flexibility.  These players want to go Turn 1 Welder, Turn 2 Intuition for Crucible Lock or Crucible, Strip, Trike.  If they don't have that early Welder, then their plan B (a close second) is to overwhelm the opponent with card draw.  They forego some of the flexibility offered by Control Slaver and instead answer their opponents threats through drawing as many cards as possible until their combo is complete or they have regained control through said card advantage.  We all know that a topdecked or tutored Yawgmoth's Will allows any deck to regain a lot of lost tempo and card advantage.  However, Control Slaver has to time it's draw spells carefully, so the CS player will often be going through their deck a lot slower than the GS player.  GS decks that cut Will try to maintain tempo and/or regain any lost tempo by playing a card drawing spell every turn - this is especially true of decks that cut Will for things like Deep Analysis.  Instead of having some turns where you're drawing cards and some turns when you're sitting back because you have a strong control hand like the CS does, this style of GS player is fighting to get the tempo back by just constantly drawing cards.  The graph for this example might look like the profile of a mountain range for CS and like the profile of a plateau for GS.  People who cut Yawgmoth's Will believe that their high number of card drawing spells and the ability to quickly Intuition up their win is enough to generate enough tempo in most situations and regain enough tempo in difficult situations that Yawgmoth's Will is unnecessary.  Ultima's Waterbury list is probably the epitome of this play style.

Since that ended up being a lot longer and in depth than I had originally planned, I guess I'll just throw in my opinions on how to best build and play Goth Slaver.

I don't think the first play style (and the resulting builds) is correct.  This glosses over many of the other strengths and synergies between the other cards - many of which are the reason that Control Slaver is an incredibly strong deck.  I believe the second play style is the best way to play the deck, though I still run Will in my version.  The reason is that Will adds even more flexibility to the deck - I think the deck has enough raw power without it.  It allows the deck to play the first approach when it is the best plan, and it allows the deck to get out of situations that no other card could.  This is why I think Will is a better choice than running a main deck Lava Dart or Cunning Wish, like the 1st place Waterbury deck list had.  Basically I prefer lists that have a full compliment of Welders, Tinker, Will, and Mystical Tutor, since I think this setup allows the right balance between card advantage and flexibility.

Mindslaver + Crucible of Worlds + Seat of the Synod is an infinite lock.  Weld out the Seat for Slaver, Slave them, then replay Seat as your land for the turn.  This wins outright.

Fetching Crucible of Worlds + Strip Mine + Triskelion + Sundering Titan with Gifts is amazing vs. Control Slaver.  It allows you to get long term resource advantage, and this, combined with an a dollar monster, really ensures you're gong to win the long game.  Also, drawing both Crucible and Strip will randomly win you games.

The addition of these cards gives the deck a lot of flexibility, and the tools to take multiple paths to victory to handle a variety of situations.  A lot of these ways are playing the more traditional control deck, and while they don't win immediately they often give you more long term flexibility and utility.

Kellog's Corn Pops with Barq's Root Beer.  It tastes like tingly tang, which is fairly rare but surprisingly good.

All the Mind's Desire players I talk to say the Madness versions with Stifle have much less of a clock, and are therefore often easier than versions without.  If you're running Stifle primarily for Desire, I'd rethink this.  Then again, if I were you I'd just run Mind's Desire myself...

If you don't buy your portal cards now you won't have the most BLING versions.  Even if they do reprint portal cards, why would anyone want to run the newer versions!?  

I would not run any less than 3 Scrying.  If you Fetch, Brainstorm or Duress, and Mana Drain or Force of Will on Turns 1 and 2, then you can Scrying for 3 on turn 3.  This is comparable to all the other draw engines in the format, and if you don't want draw spells in you're opening hand I'm not sure what you want.  You don't have to Scrying for 5 or whatever you're trying to do.  If you're worried about not being able to shuffle back in Mana Drain and Force of Will because they're removed from the game then you need to recognize that if you're activating Oath you're winning.

I don't believe there is any reason to run more than 1 Gaea's Blessing - in the current iterations of Oath I've always approached it as a necessary evil or an insurance plan.  It's not very often that you need the one, and I can think of really very few situations where you would want to have two.  You never want to draw it, and most of the time you don't care if it triggers or not since you are getting to Oath after all.

Wastelands are a metagame call.  Meandeck Oath (which was desigined for a specific tournament and was outdated the day after that tournament) ran 3 because we thought there would be some Oath but not much, and running 4 Intuition allowed us to fetch a Wasteland in the mirror.  Like Jaco said you will not win the mirror match if you have no Wastelands, unless you're lucky game 1 or have something like Spawning Pit in your sideboard...  If I expected a lot of Oath or Dragon I'd run all 5 in some combination of main deck and sideboard - it's usually very hard to have mana base stability and run all 5 wastelands.  I would not take Jaco's latest mana base to a tournament, but then again I think one of the biggest weaknesses 3 Color Oath has is it's own mana base and I haven't been able to solve that problem myself.

Also, the first list in the thread has no way to deal with Platinum Angel main deck.  This is 2005 - every single deck has to have a way to deal with Platinum Angel.  It worked in October 2004 in Richmond (we didn't expect much Control Slaver and were right), but since then (partially because our original list had no main deck out) a big enough portion of the field runs tinker plats and you must respect that.

I think that's everything...

I've been super into The Thermals alblum More Parts Per Million as of late.  I'd put them somewhere in between punk and post-punk.  The Clash is probably a given.  And if you don't listen to the Smiths you should, I guess they could fit on the punk CD since your definitition of punk is really loose, to say the least...

Someone suggested that they might bring back a restricted list for type 2, restricting things like the artifact lands and maybe some of the other problematic cards.  I thought that was a really interesting idea.

Alright, this is in two days.  In case you're planning on making the trip, here's some info:

In January we had 27 players, 5 rounds, top 8.

1st: Control Slaver (Shay Style)
2nd: Oath
3rd: Oath
4th: Meandeck Tendrils
5-8: Food Chain Goblins
5-8: $T4KS
5-8: Meandeck Tendrils
5-8: Oath

Oath is a popular deck here, and there balance of the decks are generally control and aggro, with a few combo decks.  If you have any more questions or need directions or anything like that feel free to shoot me a PM.  Hope to see you there.

That's why he has Cunning Wish.

I think your addition of Yawgmoth's Will is really innovative.  We initially thought it was bad in the deck because obviously Will does nothing if you have no graveyard because of Blessing.  However, if you're Oathing you're probably winning regardless.  It seems like Will would be excellent for those times that you didn't get the early Oath and need to fight back against the momentum that Slaver has gained in the mid game, as well as to play any Oaths that didn't resolve or got blown up by Engineered Explosives.  I can definitely see Demonic Tutor and Will being good replacements for Impulse, at little cost to the mana base.  

At first glance Cranial Extraction and Crucible of Worlds seem really slow, though I suppose they could work.  Also, Energy Flux is much less effective without the Back to Basics to combo with.  Just some things to consider.

Oh, and as a side note, we played Mana Drain from the start - I'm not sure why Jacob's originial list has counterspell in it.

I tend to have a bag full of food at large tournaments.

It's important to eat a protein for breakfast to get your mind started.  Bananas are also really good for breakfast too.

I usually eat some bread or pita, a banana or two, some nuts, and some orange juice for breakfast.

Throughout the tournament I'll eat nuts, fruits like apples and oranges, sometimes granola bars, and usually hommus and pita.  I eat something every 1-2 rounds.  I also usually bring something for dinner to eat right before the top 8.  I like chips and salsa or refried beans because they are relatively portable.

At times when I am drinking caffiene (I go back and forth) I usually quit it at least 3 or 4 days before a big tournament so I don't have to deal with the previously stated drawbacks of drinking caffiene or caffiene addiction.  I drink a ton of water between rounds, and I also like to stretch, do some relaxation techniques, or do some head stands every couple rounds.  

Yeah, I'm pretty fucking eccentric and I take this game way to seriously...

Standard American milk chocolate is overrated in terms of taste. It is ok, but I find it too overpowering and sweet when consumed alone.  Dark chocolate is too bitter for me.

Do you like white chocolate Steve?  Back when I used to consume dairy I was completely in love with it, while my relationship to more standard varities of chocolate was quite conditioinal.

Although Soy Dream Chunky Mint Madness frozen non-dairy desert has a chocolate base and is probably the best sweet food ever made, if not tied with the Soy Dream Cookies and Cream.

I'm not sure what the rest of your sideboard looks like, but I'd be more inclined to run Coffin Purge because of the performance of Rector Trix at Waterbury and Dragon at Waterbury and the last SCG:VA.

The dedicated will always win more tournaments in the long run.  If people don't want to pay $30, then they can just spend more time playtesting.  The content has to come from somewhere, right?  For the SCG writers who are on MeanDeck, their information comes from playtesting and team discussions, a model for sucess that is very repeatable.  I'm not sure what to say to people who think that reading a 2 or 3 page article is a substitute for testing, other than good luck.

Energy Flux is terrible against Control Slaver.  I just wanted to make sure you weren't siding it in against them, since it is currently the most popular Welder deck.  I often see people do this - please don't be one of them.

Ultima's Waterbury list plays only 23 mana sources.  Brainstorm is necessary in the deck.  It is amazing for the reasons you explain in the rest of your post.


If you look at the list, though, there are only *4* artifacts of consequence - Triskelion, Platinum Angel, Crucible of Worlds, and Mindslaver.  For this reason, you seldom need Welder until you are about to win, and you generally only need one.  I do agree that it is great counter bait, but in versions with Yawgmoth's Will, everything is bait for Yawgmoth's Will, at which point you just win.  I play Goth Slaver (with Will), like I play Tog - you only really need Tog when you are about to win or when you're about to lose.  I almost always Brainstorm + Fetch away welders in the early game since you simply don't need them, which is another argument for 4 Brainstorm.  However, if I was playing in the NorthEast I would probably try to find room for the 4th Welder in the Will versions simply because of the popularity of main deck Lava Dart.

In the past I have preferred the Will version because it gives you yet another set of cards to Intuition for - ie. Intuitioning for whichever of the following you haven't seen yet: Ancestral, Time Walk, AK #4, Black Lotus, random lock parts.  I have not, however, gotten a chance to test the Deep Analysis version, which may maximize your Intuitions just as well.  Sometimes I do like winning more though

Re: Lotus Petal
Shay ran Lotus Petal solely for the acceleration against combo, and it was the 26th mana source.  It's perhaps tied with Mana Vault as the 26th or maybe the 25th Mana Source, but I couldn't really ever find room for anything more than 24.

Oh, and Ultima: Did you ever have any trouble getting your 1 Mindslaver into the graveyard?  I've always thought 2 was a necessity.

I personally don't think the price Star City is asking is too much, but then again I do keep up on other formats and am particularly interested in limited.

One idea I had was offering memberships with a certain amount of store purchases.  Would everyone who is adverse to a paying for a membership be opposed to buying some amount of their cards and supplies at Star City in exchange for a membership?

I board Chrome Mox in against decks with Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void but no countermagic.  In these matchups you generally just want to win ASAP, so you board out the Polluted Delta in favor of the Chrome Mox in order to maximize the odds of winning turn 1 at the cost of some stability.  Chrome Mox was main deck in earlier lists (including the one we played at Waterbury), but we cut it for Chain of Vapor.  Often times Chrome Mox is played without imprint to up your storm, something Chain of Vapor often does better, and Chain of Vapor is needed against main deck hate cards such as Platinum Angel more than having a conditional mox.

Re: Underground Sea
We originally had only 2 lands, and added the fetch as a way to add stability.  In matchups where you want to go off right away, such as vs. ST4K$, I always side out the third land.  The Fetch thins a land out of your deck out and adds to threshold, and you really rarely ever want to see 2 real lands.  For those reasons, I would stick with the fetch.

Cutting Egg #4 for Chrome Mox is a viable option.  At Waterbury we had Necro, Chrome Mox, 4 Eggs.  At Virginia we decided the right cuts for the necessary 2 bounce spells (Jacob and I ran 2 Chain of Vapor on the chance that spoilsing for them would be our only out, Smmenen ran 1 Chain 1 Hurkyl's) were Necro and Chome Mox.  A whole lot of the time Chrome Mox didn't help in it's Mox capacity, but was just a 0cc spell that upped storm, which Chain of Vapor does quite well.  I ran Chrome Mox in the SB at VA to bring in for the fetch.  Zherbus only wants 2 Eggs, I really like the Eggs and wouldn't cut one any time soon.

Oh, and the Chains/ Chain+Hurkyl's were for early Platinum Angel or random main deck CoTV.  Often you can do things like play a bunch of moxes and then bounce them back to your hand and generate a bunch of storm and extra manas.  Sometimes the land sacrifice even gives you threshold!

Isn't that Tog's plan?  (Which, as I understand it, is what you played...)



I think most people misunderstand Goth Slaver, and the way to play it.  I'll go so far as to say they're completely different decks, with completely different game plans, even though they share the same win condition.  I think comparing Goth Slaver to Tog is much more relevant than comparing it to Control Slaver, so I don't think you can base your comparison on that.  Unless you want to agree with something like if Control Slaver is entirely inferior to Oshawa Stompy, then it is by definition trash.

I'm not sure if this is the place to discuss it, but I'd be glad to elaborate.

-Jason
(eternal advocate of Goth Slaver and also a Cure fan...)