Top of the line.  And it was four gush decks, three of which were piloted by exceptional players.  Congrats to Doug, I had a great time playing against him.  I think that Ichorid has an amazing matchup against gush decks, and thatis why I chose to play ichord. Ichorid is a linear deck, but it does require skill to top eight with it, and a little bit of luck.

Did someone close to you die?  Did I upset you in some way that I don't know about?  How is this ridiculous?

We decided to change the sideboard around, and boarding the portals in was a pain, so I put them main.  I also cut a dread return for the third portal because in my opinion, three dread return was plenty, so now my sideboard looks like:

4 ancient grudge
4 pithing needle
3 ray of revalation
4 sickening shoal (kills grunts mainly, but also hits welder and confidant easily)

In regards to leyline main, in my opinion, if a deck can support it main, then it should play it, it hurts so many decks.

I like shambling shell for two reasons.  One he dredges, which is key in this deck, and like you say it does get around wasteland, but the other reason I love him, is because he is black.  I found that in some games, and in certain matchups, I needed a few more creatures to pitch to ichorid.  I like gigapede though, and if leyline wastnt so damn broken, he would be in the deck for sure.

Flux

The only way Vroman and I found to beat leyline is to devote all 15 slots in the sideboard to doing so. 

Something like:

4 emerald charm
4 abbolish
4 savannah
3 temple garden

But after being undefeated at Chicago this pasts weekend, that is until the semi-finals, I say don't fear leyline at all.  Out of the forty-plus people that were in the tournamnet, I think I was the only one playing it.

Here is the deck I ran:

Jim's list
4 bazaar
4 petrified field
4 ichorid
4 nether shadow
4 dread return
4 grave troll
4 stinkweed
4 golgari thug
4 shambling shell
4 serum powder
4 chalice
4 leyline
4 cabal therapy
4 unmask
1 sundering titan
1 symbiotic wurm
1 angel of despair
1 riftsone portal
side
3 riftstone
4 ancient grudge
4 ray of revelation
4 pithing needle

The only thing that I would change, is angel of despair for rifstone portal.

This deck scoops to leyline, but can beat everything else in the metagame, including tormod's crypt, wateland, and jotun grunts.

Flux 

I disagree.  I would love to have a mountain in my deck so I could always have a red source for my rack and ruin, or better yet my viashino heretic.  I do however think that it would be terrible early in the game where you would want to fetch an island.  You could also run cards like shattering spree which would be insane in slaver.

I agree with you when you say that you don't need tinker colossus in slaver.  Colossus is just a beater, that is easily dealt with, while pentavus and titan, can be so much more.

It isn't good to assume anything, especially when it comes to type one.  It only takes one duplicant and a welder, or an echoing truth, or a jester's cap activation to beat that deck.  Oath does not beat CS most of the time, and I have played against the best.  I think at best it is about 50/50, but that is pushing it.  I believe that control slaver has the upper hand most of the time.  I have only lost one game in a tournament against Oath, mainly because he had first turn Oath, how lucky...

Flux

Tanglewire is dogshit in Ubastax.

The best deck that ever used tangle wires was workshop aggro, with four trinispheres and juggs.  Ubastax should stick to null rods and sphere of res. because those hurt way more in the long run than taglewires do.  If you play a tangle wire, you also want a clock established that your opponent can't deal with.  First turn trinisphere followed by tanglewire, followed by jugg is the best use for tanglewire in my opinion.

Also I think that the deck needs to bring its duplicants back in some number.  I could see why you wouldn't play shaman but you need the duplicants, or else you will have no way of dealing with oath or welders.

Flux

She unfortunately is not my girlfriend...she is just one of the many that wish they were.

Flux (Thank you JD for giving me something that I could put in my signature)

"Jim has managed to trick a very nice looking young woman (any other way I put it would border on pornographic) he knows who lives nearby to spend the afternoon watching him play Magic.  Several of us who drew spend the round teaching her to play with foreign T1 cards.  Not an easy task."

Well said leo.  There are two things I do well in life: play magic and women...

Congratulations on splitting the pearl, although it should have been me splitting it with you...damn grim long!

Flux

You forgot to mention how the judge didn't know that null rod shut down artifact mana....Thank god I never had to call him over in a match.  I hate Grim Long...

Flux

I disagree completely with the statement that stripmine is bad in slaver.  It rarely is in my opening hand, and the games that it is, I usually win.  Being able to set up an early slaver lock, with a deck that has counterspells is insane!  

Slaver has always had cards that don't have synergy with the rest of the deck, those are the metagame cards.  

Red blast isn't all that good against combo.  After loosing to Eric I realized why they were bad, the majority of his deck is black.

In regard to what JDizzle said:  I kind of agree.  The times that I slavered my opponent, who was playing combo, and it did something were rare.  I remember I slaver Morrison once and he had a necropotence in play, how lucky for me.  To beat combo you need to do one of three things, destroy their mana, destroy their hand, or destroy their win condition (example: jester's cap, swords(against dragon), stifle).  This is another reason that I would run strip mine, as it is an out against combo.

Slaver lock is ideal, but that is true against any deck...

Flux

I think that I found a way of dealing with combo and other bad matchups all with a few cards.  I need to playtest it a ton more before I let anyone know.  Also I don't want Eric from GWS knowing how I will beat him.

I like Blood Moon, but I hate it at the same time.  It stops all of my black mana, which sucks.  I would run blood moon if I was running a swamp though.

Minslaver is very good, but just too slow against certain combo decks.

Flux

This is the best thing that has ever happened for control slaver, dropping null rods, duplicants, and gorilla shamans, for tangle wires.  This makes me a little horny.  Seriously though, tangle wires are just ok in my opinion.  There are more situations in control slaver where null rod or shaman is worse than tangle wire.  This might sound crazy but I think that tangle wires are only good in traditional stax builds with juggernauts.

The idea behind the wires and the spheres, is to sure up all the other matchups.  Also I don't think that many people play control slaver in the midwest, so making the change is ok for Vroman and anyone else playing in the midwest.

Evenpence:  If you want any history about Uba Stax feel free to PM me some questions you might have.  I was there when Vroman suggested uba mask as a good card, I looked at him and said, "I guess but how can you abuse it?  I just don't think you can."  I was wrong. 

If it wasn't for months of me beating him with blue/red fish then he still might be playing with platinum angel/lightning greaves or worse, the rack!  (I still think that he beat me a majority of the time...four trinispheres will do that)

Flux

Why are we even considering stax as a problem?

Annul is good but I would rather let them play their hand and then completely wreck them, with a rack and ruin or a mox monkey.  I feel confident that I could beat stax without sideboarding. 

We should be talking about how to beat combo, like grim long or dragon, control slaver's worst matchups.

Flux

Vroman and I talk about this all the time.  The swamp is a bad call I think and he tends to agree.  The more we tested it we found that not having the two blue was an issue,  especially now that he runs sphere of resistance and tangle wires.  Good stax players fear two islands, while bad stax players don't realize that they should fear two islands.  From testing with darkblast for the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that resolving it once is usually enough. 

Every Control Slaver deck should be running Crucible, and you aren't then you aren't beating stax.  Even more scarier than two islands, is two fetches with a crucible in play.  I think that if you would ever consider running a basic swamp/mountain you would have to crucible in your deck.  I tried running a basic mountain and a basic swamp in control slaver with one bloodstained mire, and the issue was still the lack of two blue on turn two.

What they need to do is make a blue/red fetch land.

Flux

Both Crucible and Pentavus are in the deck for different reasons, and I feel there is no reason not to run both, along with strip mine.  Pentavus destroys fish, in my opinion, along with goblins.  And I know that it is highly unlikely, but you can randomly get stripmine/crucible lock, which is savage, as any type one player should know.  And if I felt that I didn't want to run mana crypt, I would cut a mox pearl before I would cut it completely.  Mana Vault is perfect for the deck and I agree with Demars, it helps do what control slaver was made to do, win.

Flux

dicemanx:
I apologize for being so irrational, I am not a morning person.  I have tested the deck against stax and control slaver and it did well against them.  This deck does not win as fast as other builds of dragon, and I should say that after playing with it, it plays more like a control deck, with the land kill and null rods.  you do need the bazaars to combo out, and that is why the life from the loams help you get them into play.  I agree, that dragon should win game one, because it has trouble after sideboarding.  I was trying to find a descent enough build where it could have a more solid plan games two and three.

Wild Zombies is good but I like the idea of winning the turn you go off.

Thanks for the advice.  I like the idea of sensei's divining top.  And I think that you are right about the null rods.  The rods are in there against combo as well, but I don't know how much of a problem combo is, because I have not tested against it.

Flux

Dicemanx

Have you tested this deck at all?  I have.  The great thing about the deck is that it doesn't need bazaar in it's opening hand.  Life from the Loam is great at getting wasted Bazaars back, and if I am using 1G mana each turn to deny my opponent from having any mana, I am OK with that.

And if anything the theory behind dredging in dragon is the only reason why this deck was ever made, so why is there a theoretical flaw in dredging a win condition into the graveyard?

Pithing needle is dealt with just as easily as the blue/black version could deal with it, post board.

Flux (Why don't you play the deck before you bash it?)

Normal Dragon decks run 5-6 animate spells, while this one runs seven just for the problem of dredging away your animate spells.  That is also why I run the Krosan reclamation, so you can get the animate spells back.  I love ebony charm more than ancestral recall in the blue/black version of dragon.  Both help win the game but ebony charm is graveyard hate.

Well It should be necropotence...but yes it is necromancy.  I thought about adding necropotence, but the problem is you loose the free dredge during your draw step and it costs three black. I would love someone to playtest this against Oath and other combo and let me know how it goes.  Vroman and I usually just test control slaver vs. ubastax.  I could play that match up in my sleep.

Flux

Sorry for not posting this by itself, in the future if we come up with any crazy decks I will start a new thread.  It just seemed to me that everyone didn't like the Ichorid deck, so I took the opportunity to show a different dredge deck that might be viable in the metagame.  Yes the darkblasts are in the deck for the dredge mechanic, but they also take care of welders, shamans, cards in fish, cards in goblins, spirit tokens, cards in stompy (that last one might have been stretching it).

The two best dredge cards are darkblast and Life from the Loam.  That is the main reason why these are in the deck and not putrid imp and grave-troll, both of which do nothing for the deck, other than fill the yard.  The idea is to abuse the Life from the Loam stripmine/waste recursion while filling the yard with dragons.  I have thought about including cycling lands, maybe one of each color.

Flux

I liked the cerebral assassin deck that Vroman made, it was fun to play with.  The problem with the deck is it had trouble dealing with any early threats.  In my opinion, any deck that looses to an early tinker should not be played in type one. The great thing about Dredge-Dragon, is that it can find and recur stripmine, faster than any deck I have ever seen.  Life from the Loam also fuels the combo, and the bazaars, which makes the deck very synergistic.  And yes the ebony charm has been randomly good in certain matchups.  When we decided to make the deck black/green I had to figure out another way to win.  I liked the eternal witness because it can recur an animate spell, be darkblasted, and combo out with ebony charm.  And welders have not been an issue, maybe it is the three maindeck darkblasts? 

Flux

Dredge is something that is worth looking at.  The trouble with it is what deck does it fit the best?  Team Ogre, well mainly Vroman, Ben, and I, have been tinkering around with the following deck:

Team Ogre Dredge-Dragon:

Enchantments
2 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
3 Necropotence

Sorceries
4 Life from the Loam
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal   

Instants
1 Entomb
3 Darkblast
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Krosan Reclamation 
1 Crop Rotation
1 Ebony Charm

Creatures
1 Eternal Witness
1 Caller of the Claw
2 Xantid Swarms
4 Worldgorger Dragon 

Lands
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
2 Forest
3 Bayou
3 Swamp

Artifacts
3 Null Rod
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

Tormod's crypt was an issue, so the null rods are a must, not to mention the rods are good against CS, Stax, and Control.  The appealing thing about the deck is the waste/strip recursion.  Dredging into stripmine is so easy and with the life from the loams it creates a soft lock.  The xantid swarms help against control, as do the duresses.  The odd card in the deck is the Krosan Reclamation, which turns out to be fine in the deck in order to get back any of the animate spells that you might dredge away.  Overall the deck is consistant, although I have yet to test against Oath and Combo.

Flux

The beauty about ubastax is that when it locks an opponent, it can dig better than any other stax deck to find a way to win. 

Flux

I agree with what you said to some extent, but you have to remember that a stax deck wins when it locks it's opponent from playing or doing anything.  Does a stax deck, which has a primary goal of locking it's opponent from playing anything, need an eloquent win condition?  I don't think it does.  But you are right when you say that mana drain decks can be a problem for stax, that is why Vroman hates control slaver.  Also Sphere of Resistance is a problem for mana drain decks, which is why Vroman decided to run them.

Flux

A good vintage player will know when he/she is beat.  If Vroman got me in a lock, then I would most likely just scoop, because the chances of me drawing anything that can help me, I most likely can't cast anyway.  The only cards that can help you out of uba lock are cards like rebuild, or rack and ruin, the problem is, these won't help you, you still need to be able to stabilize that turn.  Once you are in a a stax lock it is nearly impossible to get out, the deck can win slowly if it wants too.  I have seen numerous games where Vroman's opponents scoop because they can't win and it is in there best interest to proceed to game two where they have a better chance of winning.  And if you are beating with a 1/1 and throwing a shock at his face every turn, then isn't that only 7 turns?  That isn't a problem especially when your opponent isn't doing anything.  This is also assuming that your opponent hasn't taken any damage from cards like force/fetches, or random beats from your shaman or duplicant.  That is one of the things I love about stax, it makes your opponent look like a helpless schoolgirl.

Flux

Ben made thirteenth with the deck at worlds not to mention is a close friend with Vroman, he knows what he is talking about.  The barbarian ring is necessary, as is the wheel of fortune.  I hope Vroman doesn't run four rings in his deck when I am playing against him.  Stripmine is probably the right choice most of the time, when casting the crop rotation.  Are you going to get bazaar with the crop to find the stripmine?  Vroman is constantly telling me that he wants to find stripmine as soon as possible after he has the crucible out.  It just depends on the gamestate, but I would be willing to bet that you get b-ring or strip before you get the bazaar.  The forth ubamask in my opinion is superfluous and if you need to cut something then it can be cut.  And you talk about having crop or fastbond in your opening hand, and how important it is to have the green mana.  How often does that really happen?  If you get fastbond and a green source in your opening hand frequently then I bow down to your playskill.

Flux

I like this list, although I think the wheel of fortune should be main deck.  The only thing you could cut for it would be an ubamask.  If Wheel of Fortune isn't main, then there isn't any reason to play it.  Green seems to be the other color to play in Ubastax, although the vulnerability to wasteland does hurt, also the fact that you no longer run the Solemn's to get the basic mountains.  Vroman said that Back to Basics hurts his deck, so cutting the only basics might be a problem.  Over all I like the deck a lot, fastbond is so broken in this deck.

Flux

Jester's Cap main?  Why didn't I think of that...oh wait I did!  My list has always had some odd choices (mindtwist?), but I think with Oath becoming more popular, then I have to run the cap main.  If I didn't have a fetish for goblin welders and mana drains then I would play Oath, the deck is so good, not as good as legacy slivers...Anyway, I hope to see some of you GWS (what the hell does it stand for) players soon, i got some new control slaver tech for you to bitch about.

Flux