Jhaggs, since your link doesn't seem to be working, I'll translate it.

Children's Songs Album

Standard Elementary School Teaching Material, Volume II

Zhen Dong (Sorry, it is not a word, and I am bad a romanizing words) Children's Chorus.

That point has been brought up before, and it is readily apparent that it is not the whole of Europe suffering from a Stax/Workshop infestation, but rather just Sweden.

That's why Forcing the Trinisphere is not the only answer to the turn 1 Trinisphere problem, you have the option of Wasting the Workshop, as many have stated already. At any case, if they aggressively mulled into the MWS + 3Sphere start, either solution would be potentially devastating to the Workshop player. Must-counter cards are not a problem when they are unable to cast them themselves. Chalice has only shown itself to be extremely effective against certain decks, and it is not that particularly hard to play around it with most of the decks out there. Besides, there isn't much you can do when they just start a hand with Moxens, Workshop, Waste, Crucible, 3Sphere, and Chalice. T1 is a broken format, and things like that happens every so often, except your chance of being able to double Force is probably higher than them being able to toss a multitude of threats at you time after time.

Neither, the DCI hits whatever they think is the culprit of metagame instability when there is either no metagame distortion, or merely getting the culprit entirely wrong. Applying that logic, it is highly probably they'll ban Workshop.

A Chalice for 2 on the Stack has a CC of 4.

It is my opinion from earlier on that even in the two color version, Wish is too slow to be used.  Instead of Wish, I believe that you should run Mystical Tutor, as Tutor-Tinker has proven itself to be extremely powerful against most decks. It also helps you find the missing third Intuition, which is imo the key to making the AK engine work.

Those are more based on Beacon of Creation, if I recall correctly, there are too many differences between the two decks to compare them like this.

@Hi-Val

On the Control Slaver thread, you mentioned that you have Duresses in the Chalice slots, what disruption would you use in a 2-Color build? Would you continue to use Chalice?

While I agree with the idea that Black can (or should) be dropped for consistency and a better manabase against Fish, I don't think additional Islands are the way to go. If you were to cut a Fetch for a Colossus, then the Undergrounds probably should change to Shivan Reef, as I've found Welder to be extremely important.

With the slots for Demonic and Yawgwin, I don't believe they should be Cunning Wish. Fire/Ice can be a viable option, but Cunning Wish is at a loss in that the deck is quite reliant on the Chalice to seal up combo games, and that it is not something you can Intuition for, as occasionally to seal up a game you will be Intuitioning for Demonic and other broken spells. So either those slots should be Fire/Ice, or you can md a Platinum Angel and have another random power card (Memnarch? Stax has been on a rise).

The point is that GaT is built to abuse Dryad, whereas Hulk to abuse Psychatog, and in turn AK. They are much better able to utilize the cards than you are. If you want to fight fire with fire like that, you are better off just playing Hulk, because GaT simply isn't equipped to use cards like that.

DEA, did you read what you quoted?



I believe you meant semicolon, though?

Eddavatar, it isn't exactly easy to run this side by side with AK when you are already running Serum Visions and all, maybe a two-one (or maybe one-two) configuration not unlike what Hulk does with Deep Anal in the event of AK mirror?

Breathweapon, that is indeed a rash comment  

This deck and Slavery handles in a considerably different manner. As someone said before, it is much more like TnT buffed. You cannot compare the two decks just based some similiar card choices, it is like comparing GaT and Hulk as the same deck.

One thing I noticed is that Back to Basics was never sbed in. Was that just due to the luck having worked it that way that you didn't face any deck that it is good for, or is it simply not useful?

Depends, as someone said earlier in this thread, this deck have a much better game against Slaver and Tog, while it does not lose randomly to scrub.dec. A slight change in the sb can probably go a long way.

EDIT: May I request for a Mod or Adept to close this thread? There isn't any productivity here.

As already expressed, you Touch the creatures, you waste their manabase, and you use your flying beats to own them. Not much secret here, the deck is like made to kill Tog and Slaver.

@RoadTrippin'

3) Was supposed to mean that md Crypt also helps in using the SB Swords, my apologies for the bad wording.

@ Rest

Thank you very much for clearing up my questions concerning Roar among other things.

@Kirdape3

1) Isn't this closer to the post 8th T2 version than the Extended?   Extended version is much more aggro-ish.

2) So the control-ish take is more of a metagame concern, due to Slaver running rampant?

3) Postboarding, wouldn't the acceleration of Crypt aid the use of Swords?

4) Thank you for the suggestions, I will be sure to look into it. For a budgetized version with heavy aggro, is it possible to adopt 1.x with Intuition-Roar and less strip effects?

5) I only count 4 shuffling effects, however, is that enough in your experience? Ｗｈｅｎ playing other decks somethings it feels insufficient to me.

6) Wonder-Alpha was great in T2 and 1.x, but that's when I had Roar for even more muscle. Is the control aspect of the deck enough to deny them of that? (Sorry, I didn't get to playtest yet, so I can only ask questions based on theories)

IMO 4 Touches was due to the Columbus metagame (just a guess), as you see multiple Tog/Slavers in the T8, where Touches own.

@ RoadTrippin'

What sort of replacements would you suggest for the power pieces? Will pseudo accelerators like Chrome Mox (or Crypt) be options? I am quite aware of Madness' cheap nature, but I am just confirming it.

@Hyperion



I had figured that, but Brainstorm doesn't appear to me as that much of an improvement either.



Well, I phrased my question a bit bad, I concentrated more on just Roar, but I really aimed to ask whether the whole phasing toward control (which resulted in cutting of Roar among other things) is just a metagame choice.

Also, which one (U/G or Virtual Insanity) would you rather pilot in a random metagame? It looks to me that U/G has more options, but I am open to what you all have to contribute to this matter.

Thank you both for answering my questions.

First Place (and 4th), Columbus 03/04/04, by JP Meyer (and I assume the rest of Team Mean Deck)

Maindeck:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Aquamoeba
4 Brainstorm
4 Circular Logic
2 Deep Analysis
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
1 Time Walk
2 Wonder
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel

Lands:
3 Forest
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Back to Basics
4 Oxidize
4 Stupifying Touch
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Wonder

This looks like an amazing deck, but I have a few questions concerning it.

1) (Directed mostly at JP) Is this what your "Keeper" deck (the one posted on the article the other day) turned into over time? Or is this an extension on the madness decks that exist now?

2) What advantage does this have over Hyperion's Virtual Insanity (or whatever it is called now, sorry for not checking)? You have adapted a much more Aggro-Control base, with mana denial packed in, but not using the Bazaar-Squee engine as well as the loss of Anger and Removals appears to me as quite a blow. Does the sb Sword of Fire and Ice pull enough weight on the Aggro matchup against other Aggro decks out there to warrant inclusion?

3) As a continuation from the last problem, if the Sword of Fire and Ice is good enough to be included, why no Mana Crypt as an acceleration source? I understand that this decklist looks extremely tight, and the mana denial component of Null Rod is against the use of Mana Crypt. However, with things like Arrogant Wurm and co. with so much colorless mana cost, as well as the possibility of speed up the deck further more, I thought Crypt would [almost] be an automatic inclusion into the deck.

4) Reading into the budget forum, I saw that there were attempts to budgetize this deck. Do you think that this can be a viable budget deck? U/G in other formats is known for its ease to build, while not losing much power. It appears to me that this has a good chance for budgetizing. If you were to budget the deck, what would you possibly include?

5) How well does Brainstorm compare with Careful Studies? It appears to me that with the apparently more controlling direction this has took over madness as we know it that it will be quite good. However, lacking in shuffling, it can also guarantee that your next draws will be bad. Is this enough to warrant more shuffling effects, or perhaps inclusion of a different draw engine?

6) Roar of the Wurm looks like it has taken a hit due to its relative high cost (even when flashed back) in a deck like this, but I believe that it still has merits against areas where aggro might be more prevailant. Is the lack of it just a metagame choice, or an attempt to shift the deck more to Control?

Thank you very much for putting up with my rambling and pointless questions.

@Jhaggs

You still have my AIM, don't you?

However, I am only back because of the vacation, need some kind of a diversion from schoolwork. Once vacation ends, I am going to be cramming my head full of stupid stuff that I don't care about...bah



Actually, it is my rough translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War (or however one spells it, I can't romanize Chinese for life)   A pretty pathetic attempt



You are contradicting your own quotes here  :lol:



In focusing on playing it like traditional workshop - perms ahoy, you force the deck to take shape in its strategy early on, when you are not sure whether it might be the best way to counter them. This isn't like Keeper, where your overall strategy is going to be control. Granted, years back you can drop a suicide Morphling and just plain win from there, but that is as far as Keeper had been to be able to play different roles. Rather, Keeper shifts its reactionary strategies according to the opponent through the use of tutoring and answers. Workshop changes its whole deck virtually, from Combo to Aggro, or whatnot, instead of sifting through the deck for a different answer, you play the deck in a wholly different manner as your solution.

Now, considering the Combo does not always work -especially apparent against Aggro- it is necessary for Slavery to change roles, we all agree on that. However, how long do you have? The true misassignment of role here lies in the fact you are not playing the deck like Combo. As Smmenen had said earlier, or someone else, you are using your life as a buffer in order to buy time to go off. At that point, dropping perms isn't your main concern, drawing cards to combo off is. In essence, LoA (and Brainstorm) here is like Brainstorm in (the now defunct) Long, to give you that slight increase in digging depth in order to go off. In turn, if anything, LoA enhances the combo aspect of the deck. It does not hurt the aggro either, as you don't have a handful of creature to drop all the time. All the role that Ancient Tomb fufills is to decrease your buffer, -giving you less time to go off- in exchange of being able to drop something one turn earlier, something that moxens can do also when you draw into them with LoA.

Granted, you are never fully playing Control, at least not to the point of Control Slaver, but you can still take advantage of card advantage as ridiculus as LoA, especially when it helps you fulfill the other two roles that the deck has a greater emphasis on.



As I have said in the last paragraph in the previous point, you are never fufilling what is exactly a control role. You are coming close to it in possible Draw-Going, and using dig cards to find solution, but not in the traditional control sense as one would have it. Smmenen said it already: "Library is not something you can rely on to win you games". It merely helps you along to play other roles better, since the deck can afford the tempo loss due to its ultra explosive basis.

I personally think your main qualm about Slavery lies in your playstyle, you try too hard to play actual control, when the best way to tackle the situation, as Smmenen said, is to feign like a control deck until opportunity arises.



To use a stupid physics analogy, in order to increase the kinetic energy of an object, you first would have to increase its potential energy. If you want to swing at some person, you give your fist some additional space first to increase the speed, as you can only push acceleration so much before distance becomes the limiting factor, physically speaking. LoA is like the distance that you use to increase the potential energy, and therefore the kinetic energy when you release the object.

@Smmenen

One question, how exactly do you play the Tog matchup? Usually, my opponents rush into a Tog, and I race to enslave them. How would you do it any other way? Granted, Chalice for 2 is brutal, but it isn't quite enough in my opinion to let Memnarch clean up like that.

@Wollblad

The sideboard is meant to give you even more flexibility, I'd think. The Blood Moon slot can easily be REB if B2B is common is common in your area. Save some vital creatures, you have quite many options of what to fill your SB with. I don't believe that a MD Island, or two even, will help to counteract the power of B2B. Direct solutions are much more desirable.

@Jhaggs



I can only reiterate what Toad said, specific matchups has specific ways of playing against it. Let's take Hulk for example, while its primary aim is to Zerk that Tog, it is capable of playing Control fully well, because it is sometimes necessary. The same applies for Slavery, and all these decks with a multitude of threats in design.



Jhaggs, I thought you read carefully, Smmenen already covered this.



It is not your 'primary avenue', in a deck as equivocal as Workshop Slaver, all options are equally attractive. You merely shift between them as situation arises. This has been the point all along, there is absolutely no point in concentrating on just one venue of winning. Rather, as the Chinese has observed in the past, flow like the water, and conform. To brute force one method across is senseless, and merely makes you vulnerable.



Regarding the report, Smmenen's hands were consisted of bombs, when you can outbroken them, why not? Again, I am not saying that comboing out with the deck is bad, merely that you have to take the opportunity to do it at the right time. Thus, to be able to feign as other decks (if only in drawing and buying time), an ability given by LoA, adds additional stability in the deck. For a deck that wants to combo out, the additional cards will matter more than one mana, with this many acceleration, you can almost be guaranteed to make up for that one mana difference, and more. Also, in my personal experience, I found LoA improved on the mulliganing of the deck as much as the 4x Brainstorms has done combined, it just generates so much card advantage.



Jake already said it best...



Additional Ancient Tomb appears overkill, and can indeed be.

@Jhaggs

Yeah, I've been quite busy with schoolwork as of late. Not as much time as I used to have.



I haven't died from it, but it did make me sweat some. One additional mana can go a long way to cast your beatstick or slave them, yes, but drawing additional cards can too when there are hate on the board. If you can stop the hate all the time, then you are free to go off, but you can't. In turn, the ability to shift to control as to dig for solutions is a plus imo.

@Jhaggs & Ultima





I am not advocating that you should always play Slavery like a Control deck, but I am speaking against piloting it only in a combo-ish manner. While the deck has the ability to go off easily, you can't maintain a long term lock all the time from that, and that would be fatal again decks that does not have a lose condition handy. As for hate, if they resolve it, your Combo route isn't going to help you (Tog is, well, Tog, you combo that). Better that you have the ability to net extra cards, the easier for you to draw into your beatsticks. Extra mana does not help you when you don't have the cards to play after they whipped a Deed out of blue which you can't stop. Drawing more cards does.

What you want to do and what you can do are two completely different matters. Hulk wants to Intu-AK first with mana for Counter left, but it can't do that all the time. Simply put, LoA only does not work in certain situations in your gameplan, and with the amount of card drawing that is packed into Slavery, even though you may empty your hand extremely fast, you still have the ability to replenish your hand to LoA mode again with its comboish amount of Draw7s. Also, Slavery has its component of being Control as well, implied by Toad when he said that "...you can afford to draw-go in the early game...". You do not have to drop all your cards in hand, with the ridiculus amount of acceleration, you can drop him into a Slaver lock in just one turn with the proper build up, and LoA provides exactly that.



Ancient Tomb allows you to drop some of your more vital spells faster, yes, but with draw you can find your way to accelerations that amounts to the same thing. Also, 2 Ancient Tombs' damage can rack up quite a bit, and Island is wholly unnecessary, as Toad said, it doesn't provide the red necessary for Welder.



You don't always want a fast start like that, against Aggro, for example, taking your time to set up with LoA is simply amazing. LoA allows you to be even more multifaceted in your arsenal of threats as you can play the different roles. I don't see why you limit yourself to only one or two aspect of Slavery, its strength lies in its verstile nature in being able to shift roles when necessary, and seamlessly.



I believe that he means what I tried to convey in the last paragraph, you need to be flexable with your playstyle. I dropped the Tomb for the LoA and never looked back personally.

Without charging you another $250 to do that, to boot... :shock:

In other words, your game plan against Control-esque decks in game 2 and 3 is to become a slower TnT/Stacker with less amount of card draw/search? :shock:

Memnarch isn't only fattie, you know. Pentavus and Trisk is what you use against those.

@ Specter: FYI, this deck was around even before TMD went down, I believe, back in early Dec. last year. It was recieved quite nicely in the Registered Vintage forum. To say that his deck is not backed up by results would be true - it is not a good deck for his metagame. However, for a theory, it is certainly an idea that we can discuss, considering how it has a pretty solid fundation, and passed through the Mods (back then, and now adding in Vintage Adepts) as well.

It might just be me, but Damping Matrix is ubiquitous. It shows up in Keeper, it shows up in some Aggro, it shows up in hybrid decks like EBA. Assuming you get to activate the Scepter is quite unlikely. GaT, however you take it, will always be on the manalight side. It is not like Chronic, a deck built to exploit Scepter as soon as possible, and with mass mana producers to boot with it. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to protect your scepter, then still use it as soon as it drops. To these hate decks, running Matrix or other artifact/control hate isn't a tempo disadvantage, it is a part of aggro not unlike Force is to U-Based control. To Keeper, it is a part of their strategy, to slow down your pace, and establish card and board advantage. Basically, most of the decks that would md some sort of solution against Scepter has whatever solution it is as a part of their gameplan, not just as an answer to random things.



I didn't suggest that. Once you drop Scepter, there are a wide variety of options in terms of cards that you can use. Stifle just happens to have gotten mixed up in this discussion. However, I do believe that Stifle deserves a spot in GaT very much so. It simples provides an answer to many things that GaT is traditionally unable to deal with, and works as a solution for a vast amount of deck strategies. The fact that it is an instant is the deciding point with me. You can keep it in hand with minimal tempo loss as you are anticipating a move against you, be it Waste or a sudden Necro eot. Tapping out during your main phase to cast something that there is much hate in the metagame for is much less desirable than that, in my humble opinion.

Kaervimon, Fastbond has been discussed some where in the old Extreme Vintage forums, when David Hernandez or someone else mentioned the idea of a Post-Restriction GaT. At then, it is just dismissed as a mulligan if you draw it, as there is not enough advantage spawning from it. Even now, it is the same situation. You just play it and...it does nothing, until you have some brokenness or another.



This was exactly the point that I made, there is simply too much things that you would have to do to protect the Scepter and to use it. It is of my opinion that a deck that is not built to abuse Scepter should not use it for a chance of random brokenness. In the long run, consistency is the Key.