Gimbles' list is missing Ironworks. Duh.  Fixed.

In any case, Belcher with Ironworks:

Some Lands (holy crap, we get to use lands?)
4x Seat of the Synod
4x Vault of Whispers
3x Ancient Den

Other Mana Goodness
7x SoLoMoxen
2x Mana Crypt/Vault
1x Lotus Petal
4x Krark Clan Ironworks
4x Dark Ritual

Dosn't Generate Mana without Ironworks
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Serum Powder
3x Pentad Prism

Can Win
3x Myr Incubator
2x Goblin Charbelcher

Friggin' Broken
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Timetwister
1x Memory Jar
1x Enlightned Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Balance

Stable Deck Wins
4x Brainstorm
4x Serum Visions

Card Choices here:
1) No Land Grant (no forests)
The win condition of Incubator has been added, either in suppliment to the Belcher win or a win all its own.
2) Pentad Prism, Serum Powder:
With Ironworks, these cards are actually pretty good.  Prism fixes your mana, then sacs to produce 2.  Powder costs 3, taps for 1, then sacs for 2. Because of that, you can afford to keep it in a good hand (needless to say, you can mulligan if it appears in a bad hand!)
3) Serum Visions:
Plays well with Brainstorm and helps find pieces of the deck, especially after a Brainstorm or Enlightened Tutor.
About color choices:  Blue and black are great for draw and mana.  White is chosen over red and green for one reason:  Balance.  That card is so broken in this deck that it's a win condition by itself.  We have very few lands, very few cards in hand, and no creatures.  Owned.  It also gives us utility of Enlightened Tutor, which is nice when there are enough cards that draw one or more for cheap.


Ironworks really reworks the framework of the deck and though this is far from optimal, but it's approximately as fast as 2-land Belcher, and, especially when it gets going, it's more reliable.  Criticism is encouraged!

 -LoW

Edited for clarity.  
- Kowal[/color]

Hard Lock Cafe wants its pentavus back, especially when I find myself with Tinkers and Demonic Tutors in hand. Karn and Angel are such empty answers to Fish and Madness!

The deck looks kind of funny on paper but I hate disregarding new combo decks, even though it's the cool thing to do. However, as I've never tested this deck or some of the cards in it, I need a few things pointed out to me:

1) Is this better than the old Lotus/LED combo deck (ReapLace) which is now totally obsolete?
2) How is this any better than Draw7.deq, Belcher, DARgon, or DeathLong?
3) Why is Pyrite Spellbomb a good kill mechanism?
4) AK - Intuition?  Plunge into Darkness? Explain??
And, the big question: where the hell are the Draw7's in this deck? If you say AK-Intuition replaces them, I'll really need a thorough explanation because I'm not convinced.
5) How does this deck do without disruption? Salvagers might bring back some of your threats, but considering salvagers is the only 'good' card in the deck and you have no disruption just resolving salvagers might be tough.

As a side note, any deck that has a section titled "broken" and a white component needs to run Balance. Duh.

Beyond that, I'd like to know how fast you goldfish with this deck and what your matchups look like.

Survival for artifacts ia terrible. The best things you can fetch are Chalice or Lotus. As another note, Portal has no place in Slaver. Slaver dosn't generate the large permanent advantage that other more permanent-intensive lock decks do unless it gets a super-Pentavus into play, in which case it would be stronger to go infinite with a Slaver.

Oh, and about the lock with Squee: forget it! Squee is terrible unless you have enough outlets for it, and that means it's bad even if you're playing 4 Portal and 4 Bazzar. If you want to really go infinite with the Portal, use Pentavus. Team Beeble tried it and we had it in the deck for a week before we finally decided to cut it in favor of Karn. 2 reasons:

Karn is a bitch and will end the game, FAST.
Karn is easier to hard cast than Pentavus is.
Karn blows up moxen and chalices.

Also, as in Slaver, going infinite was infrequent unless we really tried for it and even then felt like a win-more strategy - just playing the slaver/portal is usually enough to win, no matter keeping in working indefinitely.

Pentavus is a house vs aggro and did a lot to shore up the matchups vs EBS and Madness which are currently a pain. For those reasons alone we may switch back to Pentavus or try both Pentavus and Karn, cutting an Angel or something else - but for now, ending the game or setting up the lock faster vs Tog, Slaver, and other decks that will dominate the late game is a priority.

By the way, for those of you who don't understand, here's the Karn - Portal lock: Play Karn, play Portal (or the other way around!). Karn swings for 4, Portal swings for 8 every turn. Game is over. No slaver needed. Portal is great because somewhat like slaver, it keeps your opponent from getting out from under the lock. If they don't have the answer in hand when Portal hits, game is over no matter what.

As a side note, a comparison was made in Portal to Smokestack set to 1 and Chains: it's better than either. Chains lets your opponent draw, and even after the first they can discard cards to riffle through their deck looking for answers. No bullshit under portal. Smokestack set to 1 takes 3 turns to set up: the turn you play it, their turn, and your next one. Portal takes 1 turn to set up: yours. Then it happens again on their turn. So, it's like an instant Ass-Kicking, Hand-Busting Smokestack set at 2. Kinda.
------------------
OPColby wrote:
The card isn't a lock card at all.

It costs 8 mana to get out, and you need permanent advantage over your opponent.

It's crap.

Make a stasis deck.
-----------------

Wrong. It costs R to get out and needs a mix of permanent and card advantage. Notice that Hard Lock Cafe is an advantage machine: it packs disruption, card advantage, and utility. Give it another look if you missed that the first time, because if you don't understand that you really don't understand the deck.

 -LoW

I understand how powerful Slaver is, and I play with it myself. I love the card and I love the deck built around it, but the fact is that Portal lets you play a whole new game: denial. Let's talk about the denial game a bit.

In Slaver, denial is counterintuitive and generally stupid. Force of Will is not denal in Slaver, because it's only used to stop a card that would otherwise win the game. Slaver dosn't use cards like Mind Twist, Duress, Strip effects, Mox Monkies, etc because when the slaver finally goes off you need your opponent to be strong so you can use their deck against them to full effectiveness. Even Chalice of the Void, a card that has been popular in Slaver, obviously requires careful planning so that Slaver can play the "I lose" cards when Slaver finally attacks.

Portal brings denial to a whole new level. Suddenly, all the denial components that Slaver is all but forbidden to use are doubly powerful because when Portal hits, the denial will hurt all the more.

Keep in mind again that I know Slaver plays with some denial, and some slaver players use strip effects. I know that Control Slaver plays a different denial game than Workshop Slaver does. I'm also not trying to say that Portal is superior to Slaver. The point I'm trying to make that they are completely different animals and the strategies they command are different too.

Here's a deck that I've built and tested with friends (Portals proxied):

Hard Lock Cafe 2k4
by Lord of Water and Team Beebles

Mana x24
7 SoLoMoxen
2 Mana Crypt/Vault
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Card Advantge/Utility x16
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor

Disruption x8
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void

Creatures x9
4 Goblin Welder
3 Gorilla Shaman
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Platinum Angel

Combo Pieces x3
2 Posessed Portal
1 Memory Jar

TOTAL: 60 CARDS

Current sideboard (for testing vs tier1-tier2 gauntlet)
4 Trinisphere
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Coffin Purge
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Snuff Out
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Fire / Ice
1 Fact or Fiction

This deck has been tested in the following matchups:

Teir 1: Slaver, Tog, Draw7.deq, DeathLong.deq (tier 1? my friends think so)
Teir 2: Fish/GayUR/WTF, DARgon, Belcher (2land and 3land), Keeper/4c Control, EBS, Madness
Random Matches: Scrubby Black Deck With Random Cards, RG Beatz, Iso-Keeper.

My group's results are incomplete and obviously mean nothing since 5th Dawn isn't out yet, but here's where we place those matchups so far:

Favourable: Slaver, DeathLong.deq, Fish, Belcher, Keeper without Angel, all random matches
Push: Tog, Draw7, DARgon, Angel Keeper
Unfavorable: Madness, EBS (angels and mongrel/friends are too fast in many cases, Portal dosn't stop them fast enough)

The unfavorable matchups start looking better when I resolve Karn or Angel, but their necessary scarcity makes those matchups hard.

Hard Lock Cafe uses many of the same cards as Slaver, but plays in a diffefent way. It disrupts the opponent to the point at which their funamental turn is delayed, drops light beats, then welds Portal in or plays it before the opponent's fundamental turn can ever be reached.

I'd like to encourage further discussion of Posessed Portal and Hard Lock Cafe because I think it has potential to win a lot of games in T1.

 -LoW

The card I'm talking about is this:

Posessed Portal - 8
Artifact
If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
At the end of each turn, each player sacrifices a permanent unless he or she discards a card from his or her hand.

This card is awesome. It locks the game idefinitely - where the game is, the game stays. Then, it destroys the board and each player's hand. Once this is on the table, either one player wins or they call it a draw.

First, I'd like to talk about lock pieces. Here is a short list of common powerful lock pieces, and a simplification of their pros and cons:

Smokestack
Pros - puts opponent in a terribly difficult situation when you control more permanents than they do. Blows things up democratically.
Cons - warms up slowly and has no immediate effect when played.

Tangle Wire, aka Brown Time Walk
Pros - works at full potential instantly, acts as time walk (locks opponent up for a turn, while you get a less hindered turn afterwards)
Cons - withers with time and dosn't stop your control opponents from playing their draw spells at instant speed.

Chalice of the Void
Pros - knocks out a portion of your opponent's deck with no mana inventment beyond the first. Lasts indefinitely and can even cancel out artifact hate that plagues other lock pieces.
Cons - sometimes knocks out some of your own deck, can require careful planning. Vulnerable to Mox Monkies (gorilla shamans).

Trinisphere / Sphere of Resistance
Pros - slows down all play democratically, favors the player with more mana resources (usually the player controlling the Sphere), Very strong turn 1 play.
Cons - dead in hands with little mana, often dead in late game. Aka, bad draw in topdeck war.

Now, let's look at Portal:
Pros: affects board immediately, lasts indefinitely, shuts down all card draw, destroys opponent's board position, destroys opponent's hand, strong late-game play.
Cons: expensive, beats at your own board position and hand as well.

This lock piece is loaded to the brim with pros, and touts cons similar to other powerful lock pieces. The only obstacle is its expense: hello Goblin Welder! We've seen you before, welding expensive game-enders like Mindslaver and Juggernaught into play.

I think this card may be the dawn of a whole new artifact archetype. Keep a few threats in hand, dump Portal in the graveyard, and weld it into play. Countermagic can protect the portal while you let fly with your threats. Your own lands and hand are sacrifice while your threats blaze to the win - and Karn is juicy here. An 8/8 will end the game in 3 turns.

Discussion of this strategy?

 -LoW

Trade Secrets and Mindslaver: You draw 2 cards, I draw none... you draw 2 cards, I draw none....

Now that we have a way to make Secrets (and everything else) instant-speed, this is a new win condition for Slaver. However, slaver dosn't really need a new sin condition. So, the question is, are instant-speed Welders any good, and is Trade Secrets good enough that it can replace a few Brainstorm or Thirsts? Trade Secrets is undoubtedly an excellent card advantage, and in reality it's a lot like a Draw 7 card. Is the symmetry harmful?

I don't really know enough about slaver to decide. I've tested this about 50 times and it's only won the game about 1/5th of the time. It has never won a game that nothing else would in my experience, but it serves as an effective Draw7 then doubles as a kill.

I would like to encourage discussion of this on this thread.

I think you misplayed Mind's Desire. When you play it, you remove the cards from the game and then can play them as though they were in your hand. They never actually go to your hand. The cards origionally in your hand and card drawn with card drawing spells will not be affected by mind's desire at all.

I understand the logic and I think you're totally right. My inclination to move the food chains out may be the result of some skewed playtesting and tournament experience, but the fact is that I've played way too many games where I've been SlaverCombo'd with my own combo. For this reason, I only want to have a Food Chain in my hand on the turn I'm going to combo if possible, and that means drawing into one rather than keeping a hand with one in it. In fact, I usually mulligan hands containing Skirk Prospector or Food Chain against Slaver unless I'm almsot positive I can win on turn 2-3, even considering disruption. However, against Slaver, those odds are pretty terrible - so when I see Food Chain, I usually just mulligan. That is the logic - skewed or not - that led me to move a Food Chain to the sideboard.

3 Siege-Gang Commanders - the logic behind this is in running the combo without Food Chain. If a combo hand can mean Recruiter-Prospecor as well as Recruiter-Food Chain, the combo is a lot easier to pull off. However, the only goblin that can actually generate mana using the Prospector is the Commander - drop 3 Goblin Warcheives and 2 mana nets you 4, allowing you to actually power out a less explosive version of the combo with no Food Chain at all. The other perk of 3 MD Commanders is that it increases the chance that you'll draw one with a Lackey hand.

In my area, even decks that should't run mindslaver are RUNNING MINDSLAVER. My opponent even added Goblin Welder and 3 Mindslaver to his Madness build, and Parfait decks in my area are running 1 or 2 Mindslaver as tutor targets, etc, as a hoser/game sealer. Because of the huge influx of mindslavers in my area, auto-losing to mindslaver is totally unacceptable.

Please tell me if cutting a Food Chain is completely out of the question - I can see that being the case. I'm just not sure, and I'd just like to hear some people who are absolutely certian tell me what they think.

 -loW

Food Chain - 2G Enchantment
Remove a creature you control from the game: add mana of any color equal to that creature's converted mana cost plus one to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play creature spells.

Many Goblin Food Chain decks run 4 of these cards maindeck. The primary reason, of course, is that it increases your chance of drawing a "combo hand" with Goblin Recruiter and Food Chain, in which you set up a literal chain of goblins in your deck which you draw using Goblin Ringleaders, play, and attack with for the win.

However, in light of Workshop.deq and its many incarnations in Workshop Slaver, TnT, Stax, MUD, and others, the Goblin Food Chains combo is often impossible or undesirable. Other stacks with the Recruiter and Ringleader are often more desirable because of the lock pieces these artifact decks use to shut down combos like the one Goblin Food Chains prefers to win with.

In artifact matchups, hands that aren't particularly explosive force the GFC player into Aggro-mode. This isn't a bad thing, since Gobilns are great at aggro, but in this situation Food Chain is next to being a dead draw. Because Trinispheres, Spheres of Resistance, Chalices of the Void, and Tangle Wires are so popular, I believe the goblin beatdown side of the deck should be emphasized in the maindeck.

First, I tried cutting the Goblin Matrons. Sphere of Resistance makes this card simply unplayable; it is more expensive, the mana artifacts that accellerate it are more expensive, and the card it fetches is more expensive to boot. This leaves 1-3 slots open in many FCG decks. I never regretted cutting the matrons.

Then, I tried cutting Food Chain and Skirk Prospector cards. I went down to 2 Food Chain and 3 Skirk Prospector rather than 4 of each. This was mainly a decision based on the huge number of Mindslavers being activated- with a mindslaver in play, your opponent can turn your game-winning combo into an autoloss that draws every single goblin in your deck, plays it, and sacrifices it or removes it from the game. It was also nice not to draw so many 1-drop Prospectors with a Trinisphere in play. However, as is easily predictable, this significantly weakened its other non-Slaver, non-Workshop matches. Obviously, I thought, those key cards should not be cut.

However, I believe I found a solution that helps solve the Slaver problem and lessens the dead draws during Workshop/Slaver matches. I moved a Food Chain to the sideboard. It's a simple plan, but it really helps.

Moving the Food Chain so the sideboard and cutting both Goblin Matrons left 3 slots open in my deck. I filled those slots with a Goblin Vandal, another Gempalm Incinerator, and an important third Siege-Gang Commander. I believe that these small changes to the deck made it more consistant and stronger, elliminated some dead draws, and improved its matchup against Slaver somewhat.

I would like to hear some discussion on what other Goblin Food Chains players have done to improve workshop/slaver matchups and how their ideas turned out. Most importantly, I'd like opinions on moving one Food Chain to the sideboard. Thanks for your time in reading, and may you always draw your combo hand when your opponent plays Illusionary Masks.

I understand the basic function of Time Vault: You skip a turn now to get another turn later. But here's a usage of Time Vault that seems possible but unlikely (as it's completely broken):

Time Vault's text:

~this~ comes into play tapped.
~this~ doesn't untap during your untap step.
Skip your next turn: Untap ~this~ and put a time counter on it.
{Tap},Remove all time counters from ~this~: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability only if there's a time counter on ~this~. [Oracle 2001/08/24]

Now, let's imagine a turn-order structure. 1 will be my turn, 0 will be my opponent's turn. I win the flip.

1*010101010...
The * is put after the current turn.

Now, let's say my first turn is as follows: Land, mox, Time Vault.
I skip my turn and put vault's ability on the stack. The turn chart now looks like this:

1*00101010...

Vault's ability resolves and it gets untapped and gains a time counter. I then tap it and remove the time counter to take another turn after this one. The turn structure now looks like this:

1*1001010...

I pass my turn.
11*001010...

Again, I skip my next turn to untap the vault and put a counter on it. The turn structure would now look like this:

11*000101010...

I then tap the vault to take another turn after this one. The turn structure would be like so:

11*100010101010...

In this way, could I not create infinite turns with a time vault alone?
I assume it's not possible, but I don't have the smallest idea how the rules forbid it. I would like an explanation as to why this method of taking infinite turns is invalid. If it weren't, every deck in existance would run 4x Time Vault. =D

 -LoW

I don't see why anybody plays FEB at all any more - can anyone point out to me how this deck is beter than Ninja Mask/Vengeur Masque?

I love Magus of the Unseen as tech. He's great in Workshop matchups, beatdown or not. Firewalkers, on the other hand, I don't like too much. I perfer maindeck Fire/Ice.

How about Dead-Iron Sledge for games where rod comes out? Your opponent will not send his wurm token or Mongrel into a 1/1 with sledge equipped, and halting his beats/traiding 1-1 for his creatures is a great way to put him on the defensive where you can take control of the board. I'd like to hear more discussion on this card.

SoFI is great, I've picked up a set of them and testing has proved very successful. However, in Madness and TnT games I've usually lost by the time it comes out - between countering Survival and beats, there just aren't enough counterspells! And where SoFI is weak when you're on the defensive, Sledge is strong.

"Mmm, card advantage!" is my exact reaction to the Mask of Memory. In a recent T1 tournament I removed a maindeck Null Rod, Standstill, and Curiosity for a total of 3 MD Curiosity and 3 MD Mask. The fact is that I don't like drawing curiosity much because it commits you to one creature on your board. Mask can be moved around between your creatures. If it equips a Grim Lavamancer or Counterspell-on-Legs in the early game, it can equip a flying beater later on. It also has better synergy with manlands since you can activate them, equip the mask, and swing; using curioisty you lose it at the end of turn, but with Mask you have more flexibility.

Plain and simple, it's your card advantage that wins the game, and Mask of Memory/SoFI deliver in a big way.

For the past month I've been testing and tinkering with decks such as Landstill, Gay Fish, Gay Red, URPhidian, Phidless, Iso-Sligh, and Legend Sligh. My purpose is to find elements in red that can accelerate a blue deck to a quicker win, which is optimal when you're basically running Tempo.deq. In the decks that pack more critters (Legend Sligh, Gay Fish, Gay Red) I've tried a number of enchantment cards that can give the decks additional advantage over opponents or fill holes in the deck's strategy.

First, here is my comparison of Equipment to Creature Enchantments in Aggro-

1) They are, as a rule, less efficient. The most efficient is Bonesplitter, +2/+0 for 2 mana straight up. This is bad if you consider a deck's defining turn to be 2 or 3,.
2) They stay in play if the creature dies. In an aggro matchup, this can be golden! Losing card advantage to ditched creature enchantments is painful.
3) They are artifacts, not enchantments, so they are subject to the huge recent influx of anti-artifact tech.

The equipment cards I've tested are as follows:

Sword of Fire and Ice+
Banshee's Blade*
Bonesplitter?
Loxodon Warhamer*
Mask of Memory+
Dead-Iron Sledge?
Neurok Hoversail*
Lightning Greaves?
 *- Terrible
 +- Decent
 ?- Questionable!

Banshee's Blade was considered because it can turn an evasion creature into a monster that can win the game. However, this card does not contribute enough to the clock and isn't even so great in an aggro matchup, because you have to attack for the equipment to take affect.

Loxodon Warhammer is too slow and life gain sucks. It's out.

Neurok Hoversail is okay occasionally but your creatures are usually not big enough to spend extra cards giving them evasion.

Sword of Fire and Ice is great tech. It can protect your threats from burn while adding significant momentum to your clock, dealing an extra 4 damage a turn. The fact that it cantrips itself is great in addition, sometimes gaining significant card advantage.

Mask of Memory digs into your library and improves the quality of your hand. The same can be said of brainstorm, but you get an advantage every turn. Compare it to curiosity, which is commonly run in Gay Fish and Gay Red.

Lightning Greaves gives creatures haste, which is slightly useful, but better than that it protects them. In a deck where each of your threats are valuable, this is a big thing.

Dead Iron Sledge seems like an unlikely card choice, but in a meta with lots of Madness, TnT, and O Stompy, the ability to trade 1-1 with your opponent's creatures is very valuable. A Cloud of Faraes that can kill a 6/6 Wurm Token or a Juggernaught is much more valuable than a chump block.

Bonesplitter follows the same rhetoric as Dead Iron Sledge- now, a Spiketail Hatchling can put a Juggernaught or Basking Rootwalla away consistantly. The advantage of Bonesplitter is that it's cheaper and can contribute to your beats in the control/combo matcup, making it viable as a maindeck choice where Sledge is not.

What are your thoughts on these equipment cards? Are any of them viable for maindeck play? Sideboard play? Are my results accurate or have I made oversights? Equipment obviously has potential but it may not be fast and effective enough to make the cut in a winning T1 deck.

 -LoW

I've tested this deck about 50 times and though I've neglected to record all my results, here's the "jist" of what I found:

Against "home-grown" aggro that comes up at local tournaments, it's a bomb. They can't deal with your lock and they can't do very well to disrupt it either.

Against control, you've got major problems. One well-placed Misdirection really hurts you because your deck is very disruptable. You have no way to gain a marked card advantage - I'd like to suggest Skeletal Scrying here.

Your matchups are terrible against $t4ks and Welder MUD (And Slavery) because you let them dump all kinds of cards into their graveyard. All they have to do is resolve an early welder and you've got nothing. Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void are both very disruptive to your deck.

O'Stompy, Legend Sligh, and other fast aggro decks (Suiblack, etc) are bad matchups for you because your only option is to eat damage. There is a chance that you can drop Infestation with multiple returning creatures in your hand, but even then O'Stompy's creatutes are bigger than yours and Sligh packs removal. Suiblack's disruption hurts you terribly, denying you of your lock and basically giving you no chance at having the anwers to their threats.

By far your worst matchup is Madness. Your lock is actually a great benefit to Madness, givign him the equivilant of a free Bazaar activation every turn! I found myself totally at a loss to handle Stompy, as its creatures are bigger than your zombies and your lock is actually beneficial to them. Your only hope is to drop the bridge, but even then many madness decks run counermagic or even maindeck artifact hate, so good luck ever beating a Madness opponent.

Your deck has its merits and the lock is a lot of fun, but I wouldn't be taking it to any more tournaments in the future.

That's another two cents, good luck!
 -LoW

To begin, I'd like to note that it's retarded to judge a person's playing skill based on their gender, height, age, or how faded their Tool shirt is. Many adults playing in tournaments I've won gave me the "thanks for the bye" look before I handed their ass to them on a sliver platter, and I honestly believe that's because I'm fifteen and I dress up for tournaments. Oh, and because I use play of the hardest to use and most retarded decks in Type 1 magic, Parfait.

You've made a few huge oversights in your parfait deck. One is your color splash. One of parfait's hugest assets in an enviornment dominated by duals is its stable, hard-to-disrupt mana base. For reference, here's my Parfait mana base:

13 Plains
4 Land Tax
4 Tithe
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring

If you've been playing Parfait for awhile, you're probably thinking that 4x land tax and tithe is redundant. You'd be right a year ago, back when Parfait decks had to win with an antiquated and sub-par win condition, namely Sacred Mesa. However, as it's been noted, newer and better Parfait decks are using the excellent Goblin Charbelcher. Why is charbelcher better? Here are a few good reasons:

1) Dropping it early lets you smash at aggro creatures. Re-usable damage is golden in Parfait.
2) Late in the game, dropping it an activating it in the same turn is a sure win.
3) No questions asked, no attacking, no pegasus tokens. Just damage.

However, I'd like to point out that there are a number of cons to this plan, namely Serra's Sanctum, Library of Alexandria, Strip Mine, and friends. However, the way I see it, Charbelcher is -so much better- than sacred mesa that the cons are trivial. I've won more games with charbelcher since it came out than I ever did with parfait before its existance, and cosidering I play parfait often that's significant.

Mirrodin gave us another wonderful goodie that we can abuse to a great extent in Parfait - Isochron Scepter. How corny?? Everyone is using that card! Right, so if your metagame hates it out, forget it - but if you can get by with it, try it! Chant on a Stick is a dead lock in many games and when it's not, it's a great tool to use against Control. When the control deck has to hard-counter each spell you play twice, his counter wall will crumble. Other targets for scepter include Argivian Find (of which I run 4 in my deck), Swords, Abeyance (I have 4 in sideboard), Disenchant, Tithe, and many others.

I wish you plenty of luck with your parfait deck! If you want to see my complete build, you can look here:

http://www.essentialmagic.com/Decks/View.asp?ID=210710
(Please do not discuss my build of Parfait here, but if you have comments you can leave them by clicking View Comments and submitting a comment or rating of your own.)

-LoW

5 strips are absolutely necessary. Much of your land D is sub-par with the high mana cost and the double-green - here are some suggestions.

Splash Blue. You get another on-color mox, blue's inherit brokenness in the P9, hard-counters like Mana Drain, Brainstorm as a mana fixer, and most importantly Stifle. Stifle is excellent land destruction and kills the land before they can even tap it for mana, as well as serving a multitude of uses in the late game (anybody ever lost to Landstill's activation of the Disk or to a card with the word "Storm" printed on it? I thought so!)

Test Oxidize. It can wipe out a "fast" mana source early or it can dupe an artifact creature or lock piece later on. It's undercosted green artifact removal with no drawback at instant speed, definitely worthy of a look.

Try Powder Keg. I used to play it in monoblack LD and when it's not wiping out weenies by the handfull it seves as a very effective Wrath of Moxen, wiping out Mr. Control player's speedy mana sources.

I think a blue-green mana denial could work, but I really don't see the point! Red-blue seems optimal to begin with! Stone Rain is better than most green LD, and it only gets better from there. Fire / Ice is a house maindeck or sideboard and you get the advantage of Mox Monkies to destroy jewelery and other low-costed nonsense. Goblin Welder has obvious synergy with your fats and can put pressure on your opponent's artifacts, especially the Scepters which are so popular today.

If I'm missing something, fill me in right away. I think land destruction can work, but it definitely needs blue's card draw and Stifle. Red, green, or black would all make decent base colors for the deck.

My two cents.
 -LoW

Well, naturally Contamination dosn't exist in a vacuum. My Pox deck, which often sets up the Contamination lock successfully, runs 2x tutors (demonic consult/tutor), 2x Contamination, 2x Spirit, and the single Entomb to look for a spirit early on. It may seem redundant just for a lock that dosn't guarentee a win, but I think it's just redundant enough.

Any more than 2x Contamination and you're drawing multiples of a card that is plenty strong by itself. Same goes for Spirit, you don't want to draw multiples. If you can manage to draw or tutor for one, you're set.

Pox really is a great "Sneak" deck and I've "snuck" my way into the Top 8 of many online and real tournaments with a pox build that I change drastically depending on metagames. Two cards that almost always have a place in my pox deck are Spirit and Contamination, because they're good in almost any situation barring a metagame completely dominated by powered control decks.

-LoW

I've played Pox for quite some time now and I've found that one of the most disruptive bombs you can drop is Contamination.

Most of us have been forced to play around a contamination lock before, and it mostly boils down to finding the right color moxen. I've been forced to Demonic Tutor for a Mox Sapphire before just to fight my way out of a contamination lock (I couldn't even wish for my Disenchant!). Spirit makes it sustainable indefinitely by first stacking its sacrifice ability and then spirit's reanimation ability. It will shut down everything but other monoblack decks and at worst it will buy you time to look for cards that you need or end the game.

Contamination is also easily sideboarded out against Workshop.dec, which is much better hosed by Gate to Phyrexia (also fueled by Spirit).

-LoW

Looking at your matchups here:

Combo - Chains is a house, duress is strong as always, look at sideboard Tormod's Crypt (planar void?) for more options.

Control - Chains keeps the control player from outdrawing you. This is golden. You lack card advantage, however- Ritual into a Mind's Eye or Necropotence gives you plenty of "fake" or "fixed" draw even in the presence of Chains, and Mind's Eye is a house agianst control when chains isn't present (Look at eye, then look at Brainstorm, etc). When they can't outdraw you, they can't control you.

Aggro (fat/madness) - Ensnaring Bridge may save you. On the other hand, you probably won't draw it. Chains is almost dead (will shut down Bazaar, that's about it). Difficult matchup, you'll probably either find a bridge/lock down soon or lose. Infestation might create chumpers. Look out for removal from sideboard in game 2! Look at Chainer's Edict in the sideboard for additional removal.

Aggro (goblins/stompy/"homegrown") Persistant, fast wins. Maybe easy to disrupt, but your deck could get swarmed easily without any sweeper or difinitive maindeck answer. Infestations are the best viable option in mainboard, look at Powder Keg (Masticore?) as a sideboard option.

As I gague them, your worst matchups are against aggro decks.  Here's a short discussion of the sideboard cards I recommended:

Tormod's Crypt - stops combo decks, particularly Dragon.deq. Your graveyard hate is always important. A more permanent solution would be Planar Void, with your objective being to drop it turn 1 and hope your opponent scoops. It might seem corny but I've used it as an option with Devil's Bile and it works more often than not. One aspect to look at is its resilliance to the popular Stifle.

Chainer's Edict - Non-specific removal. This is good against old-school Draw-Go decks that run Morphling. Chains can easily force Draw-Go into a "suicide" morphling, or a morphling without backup. Edict is also good against fast fat and madness where your lock will keep their threat count down. Creatures that slip through the cracks are happily met by instant-speed non-specific removal.

Powder Keg - Classic removal against weenies. Goblin sligh decks can catch you by suprise and you need a sweeping answer. Keg for 1 against masses of goblins or keg for 2 against Goblin Piledrivers is an answer that Gob Sligh is usually powerless to avoid. This is also strong agianst stompy and homegrown aggro decks sporting hordes of low-cost creatures. Chalice of the Void also works in this spot but many of your spells cost 1 or 2, so CoTV might hurt as much as it helps. Overall, a metagame choice.


Changes I would make to your mainboard would include at least 1 early game threat (Phyrexian Negator in for 1 pact, 1 horror, and 2 Buried Alive) and the remaining Tainted Pacts replaced with Spoils of the Vault cards. Your deck is redundant and it's looking for consistantcy and this is exactly what Spoils gives, for one black mana at instant speed. I would also consider replacing Vampiric Tutor with a Spoils, since spoils dosn't set you behind regarding card advantage. The early game threat is justified by the edge it gives against control decks, drawing out a FoW or smashing face while you look for lock pieces or dump a few squee cards into the yard.

Another consideration is Mind's Eye and/or Necropotence in the maindeck. These would replace the Tainted Pacts and generate card advantage essential to the control matchup. Obviously my comments above regarding Spoils of the Vault are counter-intuitive with the Necropotence plan, so you'd want to count them out.

Overall I love the lock and the deck looks like a lot of fun to play. When I get home I'll load it onto Apprentice and give you a more experienced account of its matchups.

My two cents, another two to come soon.
LoW

Hello, my name is Ryan and my online handle is Lord of Water. I am, as they say, a long time listener but a first time caller. I've played Magic since I was eight years old and I am now fifteen. I live with both of my parents and I have a brother and a sister. I have a girlfriend and no job but I am prepared for employment in the biotechnology industry next year. I'm a sophomore in high school and don't take school nearly as seriously as I should.

I believe you can tell a lot about a person from the first Magic decks he tried to construct. Before our minds are shrouded with rules, metagame considerations, and netdecks, we are truly creative and build whatever makes us feel happy. My first deck was a Soldier and Knight deck. The deck was all war themed. It all started with the first creature card I ever saw, the Wall of Swords. The flavor, to an 8-year-old, is beautiful - imagine a floating wall of finely crafted weaponry, magically held into place, ready to oppose any force that tries to go through it. At the time I was quite inexperienced and whenver I played the deck I was beaten by cards like Necropotence (Why would you pay life to draw cards? It makes it easier for your opponent to win the game!) and Black Vise.

It's been many years since I started playing. I now play mostly online because I've dropped out of my real life play group. I still attend tournaments but I only draft since my old Type 2 decks have all been cycled out. In Type One, I confess, I play the most unreasonable and frusterating deck type in the format - non-blue-based control. That's right, I play Parfait! The beauty of an Isochron Scepter holding your opponent into a lock with Orim's Chant is too good for me to pass up, besides the fact that I don't have the budget for solomoxen and the other bombshell cards that define blue-based control decks. Similarly, in older Type 2 games I've played Rebels Control, Counter-Slivers, and Astral Slide - all decks obsessed with their board positions. This is my niche and so naturally, the card I fear the most is the position-denying Pernicious Deed. A most-feared card tells a lot about an experienced player.

As a brand new member to the TMD forum, I'd appriciate any and all comments from older and wiser members. I don't know a lot about what I can do as a member and I don't know what I'm expected to contribute, but I'll do what I can to be a popular and productive member of the community. Cheers to all!