Heh, we do get a decent amount of people for these, but I really wish we would stop calling them "500 dollar" cash tournies, as there is no way we'll ever get that many. I'd just like to say it was a good tourny, my only wish was that it wasn't a t4 split so we could have seen a little bit more tense playing as my rounds mostly consisted of beating red/green based decks, some weren't even FCG, just red and green cards. My 7/10 build worked well for me, I don't know if it's great yet, been tinkering with it on my own, I'll probably post it later in a seperate thread. Just some nitpicking:


I do believe Chirs made the wrong play here, but didn't tinker for the wrong thing, just used the slaver wrong. We were talking about how he should have got Pentavus, but he didn't have enough mana to destroy it if you had Artifact Mutation, and that was a good chance.

Really? when were you gonna tell me about the green goblins you put in my FCG deck  

You gotta make this much more intense sounding then you did. First off I went first and should have mulled to 5, because 1st turn welder isn't that great when I need chalice or 3 Sphere against you. Either 3 Sphere or Chalice would have broken up your crazy turn 1 play. Also when you had lethal on the board I topedeck thirst getting exatly what would have kept me in the game, a mox to weld, Trike and a tinker. What you didn't mention at the end though that along with your broken hand was another taiga and a Artifact Mutation. I couldn't get the extra turn I needed to cast tinker and hold on to stabalize like I thought I would.

I'd also like to thank Mike Barselow as Matt already did for running a good tourny and lending out so many cards as I've already got so many people  hoaring cards off me. If it wasn't for him there probably would have been quite a few more bad aggro decks in the tournament then there already was. (I'm saying bad aggro while I'm playing with Timmy artifact creatures and lending out FCG )

@ Jebus - It was because he had already passed the turn and then asked, the judge may have been right if it had been called a while ago, but I can see John's frustration as his opponent was playing slow and from what I've heard from everyone that went up with him, the one extra turn would have been a win.

Anyways, I do not work in a sweat shop, and if I was unreliable I wouldn't have gone to work now would I.    Anyways I'm glad you talked everyone into going since Rob and Chris both made top 8  and Chamberlin just missed it, probably because he played Chris and lost. Some of those "Academic Study Association" girls were hot, you should have just kicked the ugly ones out and left the good ones in the pool. I could have waited   O and I think you made a major misplay against that PT Cruiser, you should have pulled it over, beat the shit out of it with a baseball bat and then dropped it into the pits of hell...or just have given the old lady the bird, that would have been good to.

I like that manabase much much more Wollblad. I would still probably try to cut it back to 28, but it looks solid. As I said I get stuck in a rut sometimes and I'm still working a lot with my old notes on old metagames. I know some stuff that I planned for what I think is up and coming, but Wasteland is more popular again and Stifle is present, so these are the kinds of things I need brought to my attention sometimes. I'll be testing this out some more this weekend when 5D is actually legal.

Here in New England I think shop decks might be able to make a rise again, Control Slaver is falling out of favor for 4CC, Hulk and Gro as far as control goes, and although good decks, are not as hard as Control Slaver for decks like these. I'm glad to see so many shop decks out there now, as long as people plan on playing the right one, be it Shop Slaver, BFD, Stax, whatever. I think they will have a good chance at doing well because of the power of Mishra's Workshop and artifacts in T1. It is also still not totally realized as a card I believe.

I'm going to answer everyone questions in a sec, but let me just say two things. First off I realize that they're are many other viable shop decks out thier, this is a metagamed deck, if the meta doesn't turn out the way I think it will then I will scrap this no problem, so don't worry about I'm not obsessed with the deck. The other thing is I'm a pretty bad writer so I didn't make this clear, although I enjoy getting the help with the decklist of course, I more want to talk about Stax as an archtype and how/if it will make a dent this summer. Continue of course with the deck tweaking though. Alright moving on

@Wollblad: I agree totally with Clown, Stax does not need Gilded Lotus, nor does it need Transmute artifact (if it was actually another tinker, then yes). Also, 30 mana sources seem like way to much to me, but I useally run with close to not enough mana, so I'll try uping the count. My most recent version has 28 which I'll post at the end. Also Sundering Titan is a powerful choice which I'll discuss in a sec

Clown: The kill condition was my greatest concern actually, I know how some people were just running Welders for the win for a while there. Think of them not so much as win conditions as toolbox cards. Trike is gonna either fit in, or get in the sideboard though.

Purple Hat: Pretty much summed it up for me, I never liked black in here for the splash as I did in things like control slaver for example. I'll be testing meditate and thirst back and forth for a while to come. It's not just a set up card though. Your thinking:

Turn 1: Smokestack
Turn 2: Tangle Wire
Turn 3: Meditate at upkeep

What will probably happen is

Turn 1: Smokestack - Forced/Dazed
Turn 2: Tangle Wire
Turn 3 Meditate - Much less powerful, if they have any instants, they can take advantage of the next few turns. Obviously there are many different situations, but I just like thirst for those times everything isn't going so well.

Bobduh: I am one that also dislikes smashing decks together, but look at those cards the same way as Karn, they are toolbox cards. They do something no other card in the deck can save me from. A lot of decks have "O Shit" cards. Tog has Deed, 4CC has Balance. Pentavus is amazing vs aggro and creates a hard lock with Slaver. They work well alone and together, so I don't see how it's taking other decks pieces, they are just to powerful artifacts. Titan is another guy I'd like in here, possibly in the side vs control and take out Pentavus?

Crucible is amazing and it is not just another lock piece. These lock decks always suffer from the fact that it's not easy to keep a hard lock without many many pieces on the table. This does two things to those end besides others. It finalizes the lock. Not a win more mind you, but a finsher. It also is a hard lock with 3 Sphere, meaning turn 1 3 sphere turn two Smokestack or Crucible is more possible. Besides that the saving shops from the grave and getting back things like Tolarion on say a Memory Jar turn is a great bonus. Helps keep you going under Smokestack as well. I see the benifits outweighing the negatives much more anyways.

New List:

Ductape 04'

4 Mishra Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
7 SolMoxLotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
2 Ancient Tomb

4 Tangle Wire
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of World

3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Meditate
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Ancestral Recall

4 Goblin Welder
1 Karn Silver Golem
1 Mindslaver
1 Pentavus

Changes I made were -1 Wasteland -1 Thirst for Knowledge -1 Windfall +2 Ancient Tomb +1 Meditate

The tombs should help accelerate out my lock pieces more and the increase in mana will help smooth out the times mana is sparse and needed. I'm testing the Meditate to see if it's both more powerful then Windfall in most situations and to see if I like it better then Thirst as well when it comes up, you could call this the test slot for now. Mystical Tutor is one other thing I'm looking at for Tinker #2 since I can get anything in my deck except Goblin Welder and land with it if I grab tinker. A little slow, but I always liked it back in the day.

I realize I started this with saying I wanted to talk about the archtype but didn't get around to it. Have to go to work and I wanted to get this out. Next time I'll focus more on it.

Last thing, I found a link in the Vintage forums for more information:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15736

I halted at first to post this because of the W/Mud and the Stacker thread going on, but I believe this is different enough to be worth discussion as well. U/R Stax was originally started as a foil to the powerful GAT. I started playing Stax at the pinnicale of GAT's power to the last tournament before it was legal. You can see the original thread here in the Extreme Vintage Forum: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11877

With some work from the best and brightest, this deck became powerful, if not popular because of the lack of shops and popularity of control (at least here in New England). I believe it was more popular in Germany.

Anyways with the death of Long and the rise of Slaver builds I put my favorite deck away to what I thought was it's death bed. Two very important events brought me back to it though. The first was the number of tools brought about by this last block. I promised myself that I would take a second look after I saw all the powerful artifacts. I'll cover those in the build later so I don't do it twice. The second and most important was the fact that Stax was built to be a metagamed deck and well the metagame changes. Now though, I see 5D GAT on the horizon and artifact hate dropping with the exception of Null Rod of course. This may be prime time for Stax to make a rise again. Broken down into sections for discussion, here is my current build.

Stax 2004/Crucible-Stax or still my favorite "Ductape".

Mana Base

(Without a doubt) 19
4 Mishra Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
7 SolMoxLotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine

These are without a doubt automatic inclusions for me, if there is any debate here, it would be in Tolarian, but I feel it is to powerful in this.

(Up for debate) 8 - Total 27
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

The fetches to get those Volcanics out and the Wasteland to keep my opponent down. The three things I'm having trouble with now are 1.) Lots and lots of testing on 27 or 28, I have always gone with 27, but I want feeback. 2.) I really really want a basic Island to keep the manabase stable and to make Blood Moon in the sideboard more powerful by keeping me at my full potential. 3.) Can it get better? would something like 29 be to far fetched or could it be cut to 26 since I have Crucible? Keep that in mind as I get to the rest of the deck.

Lock Pieces - 17

4 Tangle Wire
4 Trinisphere
4 Smokestack
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of World

This is the crowning glory, this is the deck with it's most powerful parts to date. I find that Tangle Wire and Smokestack are still the two most powerful for me because they aren't totally dead mid-game as 3 Sphere and Chalice can be and deserve to keep the 4 Slots. Some may disagree with 4 Tangle Wire as some have with me, I am loathe to do it though so I will need good reasoning. 3 Sphere needs to be in a 4 Slot so it shows up as much as possible as early as possible. I miss Sphere of Resistence sort of, but I'm getting over it. Chalice I'm really confused about. Testing wise, 3 has been fine, but in my head it seems like a 4 of inclusion. Should I not trust my intuition on this one? Finally 2 Crucible. Very powerful let me tell you, I actually enjoy making my Workshops invulnerable more then anything. Disregarding that, this is actually more of a finsher and so I left it to the 2 Slot. Moving on

Draw - 9

4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker I consider this a draw 7 as well as a tutor
1 Memory Jar
1 Ancestral Recall

Meditate is powerful, Thirst for knowledge is more reliable and can be used to do more tricks. In the end I almost always wanted the Thirst over Meditate. I miss the crazy times where I would meditate into something amazing for the win, but Thirst seems to be pulling it's weight better and works well with Crucible as well as the obvious Welders. I'm not including Timetwister as of now because I never liked it's interaction with Welders, but it may go back in for Windfall, thoughts on that? I've been messing around with a mix of Thirst and Meditate and haven't been to succesful since I want Meditate when I have Thirst or vice-versa.

Kill/Control - 7

4 Goblin Welder
1 Karn Silver Golem
1 Mindslaver
1 Pentavus

Welders are automatic, no reason for less then 4. Karn is still the kill that I enjoy the most. The animate ability is invaluable. Slaver...well it's powerful it's got that, and Smokestack + Slaver is amazing of course. It's is also another soft lock. Pentavus is two fold, to improve the aggro matchup and to get a hard lock with Slaver. These three have all been amazing, but are they the best? I really don't know. The whole goal of this discussion is to get debate like this going. I get stuck in ruts easily with few testing partners and get more comfortable with things then I should while testing.

Watch out Combo GAT, I'm gunning for you.  

Take a look here: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9230&highlight= Samite Healer put this together a long time back so some stuff may be out of date, but it's pretty well constructed and similar to this. A small amount of disruption is going to be needed though either in Force of Will or some artifact lock piece like 3 Sphere. I mean you might get away with none, but your going to have to focus your game plan alot more if you want to do that then.

Edit:
My bad  :lol: , but it's a good link for others who might say the same thing as in the BSR thread.

I think both Lotus and Saphire should be included, it may not be about explosion, but setting up early is, and that turn 1 Null Rod vs a turn 2 Null Rod can make all the difference. The only part I really disagreed with was this:


Many Slaver decks run Shaman now for the mirror and most other decks with Welders run some way that will put stuff in your yard, be it Karn, or Smokestack or a draw 7.  Also, any good player will not weld in your lotus during your main phase or anything, but at the end of your turn and then go crazy on you.

I think how you define rogue really matters here. All I really see a rogue deck as is either one of three things, a bad deck, a good deck yet to be tested much, or a tier 2 or lower deck (aka a metagamed deck). So what is a good rogue deck? A deck that has potential, but has not reached that point yet. But as you said:

What this says to me is that the best decks are the ones highly tested (obviously) and use some or all of the best cards in the format. In otherwords, not rogue. Now I have no problem with rogue decks, obviously they are what sometimes can get discussion started and help prove that your deck is good. What I have a problem with is people who build a "rogue" deck and post it with little to no testing. People have said it before and I'll say it again, once you have, or someone else has won a major tournament with that deck, then come back and discuss it. I don't care how bad it looks on paper, if it did well then it has some merit, more so then testing does to me because it was a real field.

Anyways to get back to the point, I don't think there are real rogue decks (or maybe I just don't like the term?), there are Tier 1, metagamed decks (which is what I would classify rogue as) Tier 2 decks and lower and decks that are just 60 pieces of useless cardboard. I think what is important is not whole new decks, but innovation as you pointed out as part of deck building. When you build Control Slaver for example, how many cards do you put in automatically and how many do you think about? Same with Hulk, all I've ever seen were Hulk with 3 togs, but recently I've seen people play more controlling hulk with 2, but when I built tog before I never even thought it a possibilty to go below 3. It was as much a part of the deck as 4 Underground Sea. Net decking is not bad as long as you understand the whole deck and how it works, which many don't. As you said: Again I don't think going rogue here is the answer unless you have lots and lots of time to test, I'd much rather innovate some interesting idea into a current deck and suprise people. If they are on autopilot it will screw them up that much more.

I don't know, I think both our reasoning has some holes in it, I've been sitting here for a while trying to pick the right words to say but they aren't all coming to me. Rip this to shreds so I can see where I went wrong.

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9184

Read this next time.

I can tell you most people will not see it as T1 viable. I've had some fun with it myself in the past, but the fact that it is to random turns most people off. I think if you can build a deck with it and it works decently then hell have fun with it, but no one will probably take it seriously even if you won a rather large tourny with it since they would just consider it random luck. You could argue that people use stuff like Demonic Consultation and even Death wish has been tried out, but those almost always mean "I win" when you use them, while gamble is mostly going to mean you come closer to winning...that is if the gamble turns out how you want it to. Long story short, no it's not viable now, I won't say it will never be, but for right now the decks that could use it are in no need of it.

lol I shouldn't count for the top four, I played vs Stompy, Underworld Dreams.dec, Broodstarrunner.dec and Oath/Sneak/Erratic Explosion, Broodstarrunner being the only person that beat me, possibly because I forgot how Chalice of the Void worked for zero after my last two games of it being useless vs Underworld Dreams and Sneak, Explosion...thing. Which by the way I took his turn, wordly tutored for draco and Exploded it in his face. Next game he Oathed out Kroshan Collouses and I stole him with Memnarch.   Ya and we did wimp out in the end, I'm pretty sure John would have owned me hard though. O and Stompy (actually splashed blue for some stuff) actually beat me up pretty bad until I slavered him and broke his own standstill and double rancored my Trike   Pretty close games though and good for (what I heard) was just thrown together stuff. So Underworld Dreams.dec and Sneak whatever are the only decks I'll give the wtf award to.

Last time I heard everyone from the Cape was doing well at Waterbury to (I hadn't slept in two days so that's my excuse for not going) Hopefully Rob well screw up Dr. Sylvan's stats for this month   I'm rooting for Jeff if he really played Highlander again though.

digga digga digga digga digga DELETED! um seriously though take a look here http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=9 before you post a decklist by itself.

Nothing to really note since I don't know much about Gay/r, for power do you not have anything besides library? Misdirection may be a better call then daze, and Shaman isn't really needed with Null Rod main deck, but like I said, no info no help, sorry.  

Fling lets you only have to pump the tog to ten and then finsh it from there, Infiltrate is just making your 10/11 Tog unblockable and now you have a close to empty hand/graveyard. Am I missing something there or no? Anways since you don't have deeds I suggest you look into old GAT sideboards and take a look at what they used to run, I remember Smother and Submerge, but I don't know how good those would be today. O now I remember, Ensnare wouldn't be bad maybe? I wouldn't normally use it, but it lets your tog swing and fills your hand up.

Also I don't have time to look over your mana base much, but without Trops, you could possibly add a Strip and a Wasteland or two for surprise factor. Just some thoughts off the top of my head anyways, good luck.

Dozer actually hit upon everything I wanted to say, glad I read that before I started. I couldn't help, but say this though about the deck Meddling Mage posted: You have a deck with both blue, artifacts and Memory Jar, yet no Tinker, please explain?

Anyways JP is correct, I think a good thing a lot of people could do is go and make up a T2 Ravage Affinity deck and try playing it VS some major T1 decks. Find out what's good and whats bad (obviously rolling over to null rod) and then work from there. Instead of working from a T1 deck up, I believe we should try working from a T2 deck down...blasphemy I know  :shock:

Very interesting and a good read. Nice refreshing idea's, I especially liked the U/R Stacker that tries to be more controlling then like Sui black or prison. Are there any cards that you have tried out already and haven't worked or anything you would like to try out in this? Wastelands didn't make the cut? I would imagine they make the Mana Leaks better, but I don't really see where you could make room either, just wondering if they had been looked at.

I made the assumption from people I've talked to and what I've seen, I have to live with it if I'm wrong, but we'll see. I'm glad you and Ric do, and I assumed Ric did of course since he made this thread in the first place. I should not have made this sound so much like an attack, I'm sorry if it came off that way.



That's the problem right there, and that's what need to be dealt with I believe. It's the answer to this we need to look for now. It's easy for me to just say "Mod's just move more threads" but I have no idea how much time and/or work this entails. Again, as the good doctor said, thoughts?

That's the thing though, I doubt anyone reads the forum rules when they first come here, I know I never have when I post anywhere else. There useally not this strict. Obviously they are for a reason and I agree with them, but if someone is on there 1-5 posts, they should be given a chance at least. People have been saying lately that T1 has become much more popular, and with that there will be many more new people coming here. As I said, things are just out of balance right now and time and effort will fix it in good time. Then there is just the small flow of noobs coming in afterwards that can be dealt with more easily.



Everyone thinks they know what they're talking about if they are new to the game. I can't talk people out of playing Tsunami maindeck where I play at college because they have always played with a random number of cards in a deck with no sideboards. They all agree that this is fine because that's what they have been taught. If everyone knew what they were talking about then there would be no reason for discussion.



Simple, me you and others give them time and patient to become better and make them productive members. Maybe I have a little more patient with kids and people learning new things because I want to be an elementary school teacher. The only point I'm trying to get across is that by combining the two forums, all that will happen is decent players will stay decent, and bad players will stay bad. People will not improve if they are being helped by people who know as little as them. It's like the blind leading the blind.

Although I agree with Ric on everything, what he basically says at the start concerns me. If a full TMD member was a pain in the ass, can't we expect the same to be true for lots of other newcomers? The number of people I've seen with 1-10 posts all of sudden has been a huge jump in the community and it's a little off balance right now is all I feel.

I think this huge group of locks all at once is probably a good idea to grab some attention since nothing else has seemed to work, but combining the two forums does two things, neither of which I'd be happy with.

1.) It would be that much harder for all those who want full membership to get it, since there would be that much more stuff to shift through and would only make the job of the mods harder with double the number of threads jumping up and down as people tried to get in their point about a topic. At least even now with the huge amount of shit topics that have popped up, I can skim through what I want to see by just opening up the page and not scrolling around looking for it.

2.) It means we've been given up on. This isn't meant to provoke a fight or something, I just mean to say that we've really been cut in half as a community if that happens. I've already talked to a few Full members here about it, and it's pretty much unanimous that none of them even want to look at the newbie forum anymore except for mod reasons. Moving everyone to a newbie forum would literally cut the community in two.

The only solution I can think of is some how make the forum rules appear right out on the front page, which isn't desired of course, because it's for new news. Basically it comes to this, if you have a tested mainstream or new deck, post it in the Open forum. If you have a deck that is new and untested or that isn't budget, but has been talked about quite a bit and you only want help with it, post it in the newbie forum. I won't say anything about single card discussions and the like because I don't know myself where they best belong, although I usually post anything like that in newbie.

There are many idiots online and I don't believe by putting them together with the people that have more intelligent things to say could possibly be the right answer. All answers should be exhausted before that happens, we'll have to see how the number of locked threads affect how people post for now. Remember though we get new comers all the time so this is only a temporary solution.

Anyways, that's what I've got to say on it. I personally don't care about full membership because I only useally come out around big tournaments or important topics like this. I know Zherbus and the others aren't looking for this. Don't wreak it for the people who do though by posting a billion Show and Tell decks. Keep old threads open and really get into a good discussion about decks. Don't be so lazy that you open your own thread on the topic just because you don't feel like reading through 6-7 pages of material. Personally I liked those deck that were showing up, but they belong in Newbie or Casual because they are not tournament decks, if you can't realize this then you haven't played enough yet. Sorry.  

Eric filled it out in Silver Pen again? lmao. Anyways I didn't get to play, but I came by after work. Seemed liked everyone had a good time though when I got there. I'm pretty sure what we ended up doing for prize structure was that $200 was first and you could pay 50 more for the Jet since attendence was so low. I think 1st and 2nd ended up walking away with $130 each or something like that instead though since they drew. We should keep doing the deck list thing, even though you guys didn't actually do deck checks yet I heard    Although I don't think it mattered with that few people. We also need someone from the Cape to be able to post in the tournament forum so we stop making Kowal do it.  Also someone needs to have our next tourney date changed, since it's the same as Waterbury and no one one including Cape Codders will go   It's for a Saphire so that would be kinda sad if we couldn't get people for that.

Just do it during the draw step like you would with Fire/Ice. I know there's been lots of argument on whether this card is good as of late, but if your meta, which it does, consists of a lot of control I don't see why not. Also agree with Toad, your gonna need to bump the land count up, I know both Hulk and Slaver don't useally run wastelands, but TNT, Big O and FCG do and they will hurt a lot with only 26 sources.

I don't useally like to comment on sideboards, but it seems like Humility is a really nice silver bullet right now for Keeper, Vs anything except for Control slaver maybe, it makes them dig for an answer while you set up and play out the game on your terms. It works against more decks then Perish also. Which I don't think is all that good as long as the Big O/Madness player doesn't overextend. Just change Wild Mongrel's color and play out the threats you were holding on your turn after they probably just tapped out for Perish (since you would need it early to take back control.) Obviously it's not always that ideal, but at least all your removal and creatures can now deal with any creature in there deck. Come on, firing two arrogant wurms feels good  

Card : Raven Guild Master  
Cost : 1UU  
Type : Creature - Wizard Mutant  
Power : 1/1  
Wording : Whenever Raven Guild Master deals combat damage to a player, that player removes the top ten cards of his or her library from the game. Morph 2UU (You may play this face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)

Card : Exalted Angel  
Cost : 4WW  
Type : Creature - Angel  
Power : 4/5  
Wording : Flying Whenever Exalted Angel deals damage, you gain that much life. Morph 2WW (You may play this face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)  

I'm not sure if your just trying to be creative here with a different creature or something, but look at the pros and cons:

They both have the same morph cost essentially (WW and UU) There both going to kill in the same amount of time since your opponent will be of course drawing cards, but will also be taking plinks from fetchlands and shadowmage. Angel though is a huge creature, has evasion and has life gain.
Your using the same flawed argument with swords to plowshare that I used to here all the time with Mana Drain. "I don't want to play that spell because it's a big drain target" If you play carefully you're useally fine, and your opponent is not always gonna have drain in hand. Saying blockers will get plowed is like me saying I have Trinisphere in my deck so I will play it first every game. Sometimes you don't draw it and sometimes they have an answer for it. We don't need to turn this into EBA, but unless your going for some theme, I don't see why using the best creature for the job is out of the question for you.

I think the best route for this deck though may still not be angels, but Negators maybe? I mean it doesn't look like a control deck, it just looks like a Sui-Black deck with horrible creatures. So what I suggest is that you first decide how aggressive you want this deck to be and then work with it from there. With all that discard the deck is just asking for a nice cheap fattie to plop down after you hit them with Duress and Hymn. If it wasn't late at night I could come up with a deck list but I'll just drop some ideas. Maybe do something with the heavy discard you have now, some nice cheap fat and maybe even the Chains of Mephistopheles main deck, depending on what you play against of course. Might work wonders in a Control heavy meta. I don't know what else, getting tired, hope I helped a little.

I'm pretty sure I could, and I can get at least 3-5 people from the Cape that I know would like to go to. Last one was great, keep em up.

P.S. Get different pizza  

Just a quick note, I'm pretty much finshed with my FCG except with small tinkering from time to time, but if both this thread and the sideboard FCG thread are to stay open, lets make sure they stay on topic. One on the deck, the other on sideboard. Thanks for keeping them both going though  

I don't think you could have put that any better  

Since these are sideboards we're talking about, it's hard to argue what is better or worse for metagames. I think packing only 4 Artifact removal, (R&R for me at the moment) R&R would be the best choice, since it is powerful and harder to "chalice out" plus all the other reasons that have been mentioned before this. If you see a ton of artifact based decks though, maybe 6 removal spells with more varying CC's maybe better. Without card draw though, I wouldn't like to have say, 2 A.M. and 2 R&R in my deck and be praying to draw the correct one.

Thought it was zero, but just checked to be sure and it was. Godzilla pointed out exactly what I meant to say about R&R plus some, the red mana thing is really relevant since I don't useally fetch out a dual until I know I can play Food Chain if at all possible.

Lol jCokn, the funny thing is with how wierd the CC of the creatures is, I was still able to go off a while back With 1 Sphere of resistence (there were actually 2, I A.M. the other one) and Chalice for 1 and 2.

Anyways I don't think I have much more to say about this for the time being so we'll wait and see if Fifth Dawn brings us anything.

Edit: Was typing when Maniac posted  

I don't think I'd mind that at all actually, as long as we were to go totally combo, but without a way to pull up food chains, there is no reason for it and as I said, would make the aggro element that much weaker and the aggro part is what makes it more interesting then most combo decks to me. But I'm talking in circles, the deck is probably fine the way it is now with a little tweaking to the sideboard and playing around with the two different versions I've heard about, with and without wastelands. Besides meta game tweaking though, does anyone have any other idea's for the deck at the moment, or is it as good as it's gonna get for the time being?

I know it's bad, gamble is horrible as well though so I don't know if you were just tossing ideas around like I was either. I just think there's got to be some random old jank card that might actually fit into here, there's useally some card laying around people have forgotten about. Your right though, keeping the secondary plan as solid as possible will probably keep this from becoming constantly a combo deck, but I was just hoping for something.

I don't think it's so much that it's not powerful, it's that you can't really build a deck around it without making the deck pretty weak without it, and it's hard to just toss into other current decks. I don't think the 5 mana cost is bad at all, Firebird used the example of Memory Jar, but useally I wait a turn anyways to activate it unless I need card draw right that second. It can also be welded in, or just left there until the time becomes useful unlike Scepter, which you need to imprint right away. Honestly I think the only thing holding this card back is the problem that there are just better things to do on your turn then this that let you win just as much. Slaver might be the only thing I'd say it's worth putting it in right now, but Slaver is powerful enough without it and again there are other things it rather be doing.  

Thanks Fuzz, I think I'm gonna try your idea's out for a bit and see how it goes or at least mess with the creature base some more.

Purple Hat, I'm not a fan of arc bound ravager in this deck. This is probably a bad way to compare it, but I see them as Nantuko Shades in a deck without enough black. In here they start off small and will probably only make it to a 3/3 at the most since I can't draw up a ton of extra cards to just toss to them. They need to be early strong creatures. I may find a place for 2 of them and see how they go though while I mess around with the creature base though. Again, it's all a test, so keep the ideas coming, just because I might shut the ideas out initialy, I will probably change my mind later as I see how things play out.

The Atog Lord said what I would have, temporary stall is all your looking for, Null Rod is also a temp stall, but it is also a powerful choice. Also I wasn't looking at Root Maze so much for the slaver matchup (although I'd like to test and see how much it changes the game vs them) but the dragon and tps/draw 7 matchup. Dragon can't make as much mana as it wants so it has to go beat down, which buys you a few turns and thats even if you don't block, which I don't think any extra reanimate targets in dragon have trample or flying, except dragon itself. Rootmaze pretty much is a win vs TPS especially if you back it up with Null Rod so they have to look for two answers.

I'm still not sure on A.M. Vs Rack and Ruin, yes they both cost three under 3Sphere, but you've been slowed down so much at this point that your probably going to need to deal with more then one thing, and I wouldn't be worried about the 3 Sphere once I ramp up to 3 mana anyways since I'm fine from there if they only have semi board control and I have R&R...so I don't know still  

Also is there any way we can make sure this deck goes combo more often? I'll toss out the horrible suggestion of wordly tutor, which I don't think would really be any good, but just to get conversation starting...plus every suggestion afterwards will look good because I started with Wordly Tutor  :lol:

This is what my sideboards looking like right now.

4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Rack and Ruin/Artifact Mutation (still not sure)
4 Root Maze
3 Null Rod

Just curious what the other FCG players were running as well.

REB: Blast is for control obviously

R&R vs Artifact Mutation: I'm not sure yet, vs Slaver and Aggro shop decks I like the Mutation better, but vs Trinistax I like the R&R better. These change constantly

Rootmaze: Put these in over crypts because they work vs. both dragon and other combo decks, as opposed to just dragon.

Null Rod: More artifact hate, I don't know if it's to much with R&R/AM, these are a recent addition so I haven't tested fully sideboarding with them yet.