I believe we opted for 2 Mindslavers in those slots...

I checked a 'dark beta' Sapphire, and there is no such marking on the card. Hopefully it's of some use down the road...


Also, there is more than 'beta dark' power, certainly he must have printed off later versions of power (both UL and B) from what I've seen. Luckily, if you have spare power to do a comparison, like mike stated, you can see the printing is not only slightly darker, but the pictures themselves seem to be offset slightly.

Tormod's Crypt will be far more useful than just a sideboarding option against gifts and slaver. Tendrils combo is now even more dependent on will, with dragon and gifts having to worry about timing issues throughout entire matches. The only real deck that it is useless against is stax to some extent, and even there it can help against opposing barbarian rings. I think crypt itself is far more powerful than you're willing to give it credit for. Stifle, on the other hand, is something I rarely have found useful against anything but dragon.

I say the Honda or Regal, not really knowing much about the SHO.

The V6 accords are fun to drive, and hondas are extremely reliable cars. At the time I looked into buying cars, the mid 90's and latest accords were among the top cars on my list, and after owning a civic, I love hondas reliability. As for the regal, I distinctly remember tooling around with one of my friends and noticing how nice the car was. Granted it was his parents, I know they never had a problem with it, and loved how the car drove year round.

P.S. Tell Antes to bring your library tuesday.... and good luck with whatever you decide to buy.

I somewhat disagree with this point of logic. Many individual events have been won on the backbone of decklists that were posted far prior to the tournament (even the vintage champ's list was posted prior to Gencon). Saying that team forums and competition has stunted the growth of the format is naive. Gifts was something that was considered by a relevant enough amount of people to be good before the accepted decklist was spawned. Sometimes it's hard to create good initial results, and decipher which 'potential cards' will actually live up to their hype. 


Although it seems Kamigawa brought Meandeck the best top 8 appearance it has had to date.

Both.


The major advantage to learning to pilot every major archetype allows a player to understand the simple or more focused plays a player is bound to make. Learning what others are thinking or knowing the most optimal play their deck can make allows a control player to counter the right spell, and it allows the workshop player the ability to bait. Knowing all archetypes is also beneficial in knowing what your specific role in each matchup should be, and how to excecute proper mulligans, the extension of a hand, and conservation of damage. While all these abilities may be understood after playing the game for a long period of time, new archetypes are presented in a montly fashion these days. Being able to quickly adapt is key in staying ahead of your opponents, and using this to your advantage in how to 'metagame' your deck and sideboard.


While playing and being able to use every archetype is all fine and good, it isn't essential to play every deck. If the deck in question has been something you are comfortable with, and that you know has a good game against most archetypes that seem to pop up, by all means play it. Staying a step ahead of the rest of the metagame is the essential part, so a good deck can be viable for fairly long periods of time.


The major drawback to learning every new deck is becomming convoluted with strategy and sometimes inducing confusion over what will happen in the average game. Sometimes you just lose, but being on tilt causes players to assume far too many situations that any can be plausible. Also, the major drawback to having a known deck is people are bound to find very distinct answers to your threats, and if enough of this happens, it can push a deck out of contention (or at the very least, make it difficult as hell to succeed). The prior is also highly probable in a small tournament environment where everybody knows each other.

If Yoda had Killed Sidious you could probably eliminate everything in the series from then out, because Vader would have no reason to exist, or wouldn't have any drive to become anything other than average. Anakin's character is weak in respect to confidence, and virtually was a pendulum until either side proved to be more convincing to him than the other. Yoda defeating Sidious simply eliminates the potential of Anakin to exist with the dark side.


This would remove Luke from becomming a Jedi, although it could be believed that Yoda should be willing to have him serve as an apprentice. The effects of that would prove more beneficial to the Jedi than Obi-wan as Luke's master.

The one scenerio that your probably trying to lead into is what would occur if these events coincided. If both events were instantaneous, Yoda would hold more power to Anakin than the dark side, and again, Vader would cease to be. Without episodes 4-6 all these situations are somewhat believable, but the knowledge of the end is what makes either, or simply one from ever occuring. 

Well, one problem would be sure to arise, Padme would be dead....

A real matchup? I have played this version of tog with slaver multiple times, and rarely feared what it could pull off in time for me to resolve welder and push in a mindslaver or duplicant for a win. Both decks actual resources are nearly the same in that they have random maindecked answers to the other, but after boarding it becomes a whole different story (especially if you have neglected to run red). You're draw engine is accumulated knowledge, gush, ancestral, and fact or fiction. This leaves accumulated knowledge as the "better draw engine" against what? Thirst for Knowledge? You're spending more resources doing the same thing if not less here. Saying you would steam roll any competent player is laughable. Be honest, the matchup is far closer than you make it out to be....

Fire/Ice is a wonderful maindeck card in a random metagame, although I don't agree that the citadel has enough benefits to outweigh Library, or for that matter, strip mine. The citadel is a land in your opening grip that you can't use that instant, and is only useful with tinker, and in the face of a strip/waste lock. In the first situation I would have to say I have been less than satisfied with not having drain mana up second turn without a reason, even at the risk I may not be able to use a land for that one restricted bomb in my deck. Under a strip or waste lock there is the ability to refuse breaking a fetch. Basically it boils down to the fact that citadel is often just an artifact that says "I'll sit here until I'm useful", where another basic/library/strip can be used now.


Slaver is a versetile deck, and is very dependant upon player skill, feeding off from what decks are winning currently. Slaver has a leniently good matchup verses anything with artifacts, although I dont think that any of the decks you have noted are to be considered those described from a random metagame.

Without Crucible of Worlds there is no apparent need for the citadel or strip mine, and Library should be your only colorless mana source. The inclusion of platinum is 'comfortable', although it would be assumed that a duplicant or second mindslaver would be superior (triskelion will dominate random aggro, and isn't as easily fought around). Other than that the deck should be fairly well rounded, and engineered explosives isn't needed with the inclusion of a well rounded 'creature base' and tutorable answers (which you have). Finally, it should be noted that control slaver isn't suited for the "random metagame."

That's funny rationale considering the fact that fish, mono blue control and to some extent stax cannot fit under your definition of a 'combo'. Yawgmoth's will is in itself a self sustaining combo (although there are very few cards that have been used to limit its' efficiency by recent standards), and it shouldn't be used to define too many successful archetypes at the moment. Control decks have only been hampered in design over the past couple of months, not due to a lack of interest, but from a lack of player base.

The result of putting moon in play would be Jet, Lotus and/or Petal needing to be in play in order to cast tendrils. The tinker win is the most logical route, but again, bouncing welder or the moon would be the gifts main advantage in this situation (also noting that the gifts player has the distinct advantage at 7 counters to 4 with the moon in play). I've played with both gifts and slaver, but haven't personally tested with the moon, so there is no way to give a definitive answer. The only thing that I can say is that moon is good against workshops/bazaar/ring, and is a reasonable solution.

Blood moon is the first thing that comes to mind, with it's ability to hate on the current gifts lists as well as stax.

Without knowing what mainboard you have specifically it is hard to fully anticipate what cards should be in the sideboard. If you are running the intuition/ak engine for drawing, any 3 of should be fine for your sideboard. Using Nashoba, Ravenous Baloth is a serious consideration, although I believe either woodripper or the 'protection angels' would be useful in other matchups. If aggro is an extreme concern, drop of honey is an excellent deterant against fish/goblins, and as previously suggested, hydra is a strong maindeck contender.

Hymn is never nice to me, and fiend has legs/costs 1B, making it my discard effect of choice. Another permanent has meant game vs. stax, a creature to block has been game vs. fish, and it almost always screws with your opponents perspective. If they invest 3-4 mana to bounce fiend, I'm more than willing to give them the card back just to vial in another fiend, or duress them the next turn.


It's mainly my personal preference and what I test against. I've hardly ever seen graverobbers flip, and I've never been satisfied drawing him over negator in most matchups. Negator has treated me well, but I can see the argument that he is the single 'weakest' choice in the deck. Having it mainboarded will lose you matchups which should have been won outright. If I added a color to the deck, negator would be the first to go, there is no arguing that point.


Oath decks run 2 creatures, one is white (before boarding), and one is black. Provided you might actually be able to play ritual---> Dystopia, they will stack the oath to bring out a creature then sacrifice it, leaving you to deal with a 6/6 or 6/5 flyer. The oath deck has 12-14 counters, 8 of which can be active their first turn. Against fish there are 7 counters...4 being hard counters, and 3 leaving you to bait for a turn, or play out the 'chance game'. The point being, it's much harder to resolve dystopia vs. oath, and it can still be moved around provided they sideboard correctly, or have read either card. Imprison/paralyze was a suggestion I said was probably not so great vs. gifts, which is a much more prevalent deck right now. In that situation, they will either bounce the paralyze, or play walk so that you cannot even enchant the darksteel. And as far as relolving anything, I am not worried about it, this deck has a decent game vs. most non-aggro decks. On the subject of keeping the deck mono black....it's my belief the deck cannot survive the full gauntlet without adding a color. Take that however you want to, it just doesn't have the answers it needs to swing some matches in it's favor.


Since chains has been mentioned, and tested I have been using 3, and haven't looked back . Top is quite amazing as a first turn play or for consistancy smoothing as well.

There has been a couple of us that have tested, and continue to test the deck as new developments and suggestions arrise. I have tested nearly every matchup so far, and the only 'problem' decks you face are oath, fcg, and workshop aggro. Other fish decks have proven slow by comparison, and if you can get chains/jitte/negator on the board, you will most likely dominate their field. So far, the last portion of this thread has only been random decklists with little to no reports on specific results and improvements on the problem matchups the deck has (thus, are not worth addressing).


Factory was a horrible idea, and I've already stated the card hurt the bomb spells this deck needs to resolve early, although Graverobber seems to be comming up among everybody as a creature in this deck. The primary creature base has, and should be, Fiend/Negator/Wretch/Skirge. Hymn to Tourach is always horrible for me, and honestly 4 chalice, 3 chains, 4 duress, 4 Fiend, and possibly some therapies has been enough disruption, allowing for the decks main plan to procede without relying too much on raping your opponents hand. After chains hits, you only need to hit specific threats, and counters mean nothing with a vial on the board.


The single most devestating card in the deck, there is no arguing this is house against everything but goblins and r/g beats.


It's funny that you address the dark ritual situation, although later assume that the card itself is not needed for the deck, but as a whole is needed to keep tempo with your opponents game plan.


It's far too slow, and essentially is a mesmeric fiend with the drawback of allowing them to choose the card, and is a growing investment that really never pays off. I have never tested the card, but I would refuse to believe that in any relavent matchup it would be able to win you the game.


They are just fine at killing a mongrel, just make sure a mongrel is the only thing on the board after you ping with jitte and this is hardly an issue.


Agreed, although contesting any of the major cards including chains or wretch should be uncontested as well.


Blue or white seem to be the most devastating of the two colors to splash. Being able to use rule of law, swords, serenity, or disenchant is reason enough to take notice from white (as well as the walking energy flux from kamigawa). Blue offers flux, arcane lab, time walk, annul, ancestral (at the very worst it rapes their hand), and bounce affects. The next best color has been red, due to shaman, small creature removal, and pyrostatic pillar.


Aether vial is excellent, once it is on two counters you can use it's ability as instant speed discard and graveyard removal, and run uncontested against counters. Saying it is only good on turn one is somewhat correct, although it can be very useful in the late game, as multiple vials can pull you out of a pinch with negator, as it is known the deck is creature heavy, and needs permants to sack in a pinch.


Ritual is needed, no questions asked, it allows plays that would otherwise take 2 turns to play, and so I see no reason to remove it from the deck without further reasoning.

Only 2 decks are made to kill fiend, fish and r/g beats. In this specific situation the fish/beats player killing your 1/1's over the 2/2's and 5/5 Negator's is a horrible move. Neither deck runs more than 7 hard counters, so the justification behind fiend remains, as it will not help to further their game plan just to get a card back and see another, much larger threat return to the field. Situational? The best I can say is that it will win you games that were otherwise in your opponents favor, especially combo matchups.


Negator is a kill condition, where hymn will neither deal a point of damage, nor does it have the ability to block opposing threats. Also, if you haven't noticed, most of the builds mentioned do not run negator as a 4 of, and rely more heavily on jitte to win games. Graverobber seems to be less of a threat than skirge does, because the skirge can fly over blockers, and provides more useful as a beatstick. Also, earlier on testing proved in the matches that mattered most... graverobber would be more useful unflipped the whole game, allowing for an attack and the removal of possible threats (lets be serious...graverobbers secondary ability hardly ever proves useful).


Dystopia is a good card vs. fish sure enough, but it's a horrible card against oath. Most of the time the opposing player either counters it or lets it resolve, and brings out a creature that can't be dealth with ( making the dystopia a wasted investment). Paralyze/Imprison would be very good, except you're assuming that you will a)get it past counters and b)get a turn before colossus kills you (as gifts is set up to walk after tinkering up darksteel). The honest answer to dealing with workshop is a green or red splash, I haven't really found any other way to deal with the matchup (although, plague deals with goblins/slaver).


Chains has been the equivalent to a black standstill, there has been no argument as to whether or not to play it, the question is how many....

1. Vial was a major consideration in order to push the majority of your threats through a wall of counters. This also eleviates the need to strip your opponent of counters, and eliminate their draw and potential threats through it. Vial also allows you to lay down more threats every turn, and put a lot of early pressure through, so that you can get through tough matches.

2. No

3/4. Sideboarding options have already been discussed for the deck, although I personally believe the deck needs another color because it just cannot compete with stronger aggro or combo's which don't rely on their graveyard (dissapearing, but still a valid concern).

Another large problem that the factories present is the lack of the ability to lay down the strongest threats in the deck. It simply isn't reasonable to think you will be reliably casting double duress', or withered wretch on the second turn. Although if the factory route is a must, I would assume the vial would also be an instant inclusion, as well as chains over whispers. Chains is blacks more 'permanent' and threatening standstill, as it can provide a lock component down for your creatures to swing under.

Funny, one of the main goals of the deck is to get up UU to cast drain anyway, so it should be no hastle to tutor/wish for any bounce spell and cast it when it's needed. In a pinch the sorcery bouncer is not a must have, but it definately doesn't hurt if there is no other/better metagame call at that particular time.

The card in question was already noted as Eye of Nowhere, the Champions of Kamigawa's replacement for boomerang at sorcery speed (with the benefit of being an arcane spell....). Eye was used in one of our weekly tournaments recently, and seems to be a fairly decent answer to an opposing collosus or any other permanent that is producing a headache.

1. If you cast the hymn before the wretch that is enough random discard to allow your opponent to make use of, and if you drop wretch first then the next best optimal play would be negator or jitte. I just dont see how the tempo produced by the hymn will be better than a 3rd turn jitte/negator in comparison. The card isn't fully weak, but it just doesn't fit the gameplan of the deck. Therapy punishes oath, and makes solid use of other decks as well.

2. Scrying as a two of with necro would be interesting to test, but for those that run the chains it would be hard to make good use of the scrying later on. I'm not knocking the scryings, but only a few will really be useful (I didn't run more than 2-3 whispers after chains had been mentioned anyway).

3. Contagion I've been playing as a sideboard card for some time already, and it is indeed very useful in certain matchups, no disagreement there.

I mentioned a splash for another color some time ago, although it was ignored I believe it can solve some of the decks weakness, and atleast make the oath and aggro matches possible.

 

This would also spell disaster for you if you drop a slaver/sundering titan/crucible/trinisphere in the graveyard, or manage to setup an opponents Yawgmoth's Will midgame. Hymn generally will not hurt, but rather help, most welder decks, and with reanimator and fish using threshold, hymn would not only be a bad move, but it would most likely cost this deck the game by it's own doing. Running Sinkhole is a mana investment that that will not pay off, because instead of doing something to your opponents life total, or raping specific cards from their hand, you are destroying land drops that probably will only allow them to drop moxen to accelerate through the sinkholes.


How about you leave the mindset of sui black and realise that random discarding is something that may rob your opponent of their hand, but also will rob you of precious time you save by removing bombs with cards like fiend. So to answer your question, yes it would be a horrible idea to play a 2/2 flyer for 3 when you could actually beat with other cards in the deck.


Skrying was mentioned early on, and would cost 4 before it gained an advantage over whisper, and with so many permanents in the deck, it would be hard to use scrying multiple times in one turn.


Again, this deck runs mainly on vial/chalice/Jitte/creatures, so the powder keg would take out many of your threats as a trade off to take out maybe a few of theirs. Also, the keg takes turns to set up that you probably wont have at the time, and doesn't slow down their acceleration efficiently.

Overall, you are trying to suggest making this deck into sui black, which has already been proven to be a dead archetype with cards like welder, reanimators, and yawgmoth's will in the format.

Perhaps adding some scrubs would gain this deck some more merit. Testing finds that the deck works well against combo/control decks, but to race aggro-control/aggro maybe the deck would benefit from StP/Seal/Serenity/Balance. Blacks inherent weakness in destroying artifacts and enchantments hasn't been a huge issue, although adding in the ability to deal with such spells would probably be a step forward. Mono colored, the deck was fun in testing, but in reality the wretch/chains/duress/fiend have been the cards the deck is forming around, and splashing another color allows the deck to deal with the decks it has difficult matchups against.

As for the Priest, it would be a giant step back for the reasons already presented, and also due to the fact the priest is a weak body for the cost you are paying into it. I haven't found the necropotence to be entirely useful, and negator is often already the target of random 'hate', and if the deck becomes established, it seems he needs to be replaced by something that can't be easily abused by opponents.

Oath only needs a deck that isn't creature heavy to be useful. 3-4 Oaths and 1-2 creatures is all the combo needs against fish/ws aggro/beats. Considering forbidden orchard takes up so much of a decks area, it may be worth it to build a deck with oath as a tool, and not the only gameplan....then it would not only be better than masknought, but just also more 'flexible'.

1. Welder is not always the primary kill condition of slaver...a well placed tinker will win the game in some matches. The Oath matchup from boath sides is very close, the Oath player is hoping that welder doesn't bring out Platz, and the slaver player is trying to counter Oath itself, and slow down their plan. I have to disagree with saying that tog is not a naturally weak deck, it is just a somewhat worse oath deck at the moment. Slaver itself runs the control game until it wins or creates it's lock, and currently is playing a great deal like 3-4cc (packing Gorilla Shaman and atleast one fat ass win condition.

2. White is something I agree needs to stay. The ability to use Mage, Seal, StoP, and Blance is a big deal with most of the matchup's in the current metagame. The only decks that are really random right now are fish and workshop aggro, so knowing what to name with needle is not the issue... knowing how good needle is the current question on most people's mind.

3. Thirst is a very useful draw engine, and fits in many more decks than those that revolve around welder or reanimation, and will dig further than most cards that are being used right now. Skrying is much less attractive in keeper without Exalted making it a somewhat fair tradeoff.

Overall I like the idea of keeper in the current metagame, but in reality it needs a decent clock.

Although fish's gameplan would be to get the standstill out early enough to make it useful, when chains may or may not have hit the board. Doing this also opens up the fact that they must leave the mana open for a 'instant' to do it with. They can't use brainstorm, because it would negate breaking the standstill in the first place, so the only thing is one of 7/8 counters that could be used on your turn. Otherwise, since you are an aggro deck as well, your gameplan would be to break the standstill and ruin them. I don't see how this trick really does much, but it might be practical in the late game after which you have no hand and no real worries about what draw you're going to get.

The card itself is versetile, but will only allow the format to work around it's abilities. Fetches aren't so much of a worry since most decks can run 2/2 fetches to negate the drawback, and minimize its ability. The strip effect being shut off is the ability to shut down a 1 of or a 4 of, and most of the format has already created manabases that are strip proof until the duals themselves are needed. Shutting down Bazzar is probably the biggest bonus that I have seen, but with dragon's tutoring ability it wouldn't be hard to pack a rebuild or artifact destruction spell (even though some lists already do regaurdless). Being able to shut down library is laughable, because you would be doing it so late in the game it wouldn't matter, or would have to count on the fact that a player actually gets to use it BEFORE it is known to be in their hand. Pithing Needle is reactive for the most part and I personally would rather play something else as a sideboard card, knowing that in a tournament situation I most likely will not know what an opponent is playing, and therefor will not want this maindecked. As a sideboard card it is decent at best.

Noted, actually I had forgotten to fix my post afterwards, in hindsight I was a little too tired at the time. Good catch I suppose... as for the bane, I will test it, but I highly doubt it will be a card that will prove to be useful in the long run. I feel that as a sideboard card, it is a somewhat narrow and situational card.

Combo seems to have a decent matchup when you can cabal therapy, fiend, duress, chalice and run chains after the board. The only real combo that I've played is dragon, which is highy in your favor if you can drop a withered wretch and eliminate the dragons. I still had to dismantle combo pieces, but mulling into a good hand has helped that out.

Also, necropotence should probably be replaced with Night's Whisper since the card draw is a must, and being able to use that slot a turn earlier will be a good swap being that its disadvantage coincides with the advantage gained. Finally, the skirge I've only goldfished with, but it seems it isn't a bad card decision, and makes the Cabal Therapy that much easier after boarding, and can block Akroma's fat ass in a pinch, and stands a chance to kill her if a jitte becomes active.