My (ill-fated) intentions were for this to be a conversation about the best cards to durdle with in Uwr -- and I felt white null rod was an excellent start. With that said, it would be a refreshing change of pace if people discussed decklists with the namesake card "Stony Silence" somewhere in the 75. If you're looking for the most optimal Young Pyromancer deck please check mtgtop8.com, morphling.de, or your website of choice for some excellent competitively proven decks.

I really like the idea of meddling mage. Have you ever encountered a scenario where your card draw outlets became bad/dead cards because they were uncastable or detracted from your ability to counterspell?

I will probably try meddling mage in a list without gush, as it feels with caverns, and the need to keep 2+ mana up most of the time that thought scour could be of similar quality.

I really like the ideas guys.
@Tribet It'd be nice to see some ideas as to a deck that casts non-artifact creatures which can beat mishra's workshop.

Some personal thoughts on cards I thought under-performed:

Preordain/Ponder/Brainstorm all under-perform when cast if there isn't enough of a disruption suite in the deck to cantrip into (this is why I only ran 2x preordain).
Gitaxian probe seriously under-performed for me personally (but I'm running a "flash deck" with lots of eot effects in containment priest and snapcaster).
I'm on the fence on whether or not Young Pyromancer is actually worth slots  . (He's kinda sorcery speed and takes 2+ turns to end the game and doesn't pitch to FoW).
Non-Sapphire Moxen. They don't interact too favorably with Tcruise, get in the way of stony silence postboard, and lands are more consistent.

Thoughts on cards that over-performed:

17x Blue Lands. If you're running less than this your deck will operate glacially slow (not good for tempo).
4x Mental Misstep. It's only "bad" vs. shops, which hopefully speaks to how good it is vs. everything that's not designed around trinisphere.
Thought scour is surprisingly effective by itself at activating tcruise (it will always be better than preordain by 1-2x cards which is very significant).
4x Treasure Cruise. If you have the fetchlands/mana and consistently interactive versatile spells (read lightning bolt/mana drain) to fuel it.
1-2x JtMS. Jace is just good, after playing with it and 19x mana sources he just feels like a king vs. oath and big blue (I think this is a big reason why BUG was running him).
3x Swords to Plowshares in the 75. This ups the removal to 7 pieces (3x Lightning Bolt, 1x Fire // Ice, 3x Swords to Plowshares) giving us a chance vs. young pyromancer decks, bomberman, and possibly shops.

Here's an example of what the list would look like if it were more geared towards enabling tcruise and maintaining resilience vs. oath/dredge/tinkerblue. Delver's in all of these lists have been a simple cop out to needing a 3 power flyer for 1 cmc to deal with opposing delvers, lodestone golems, pitching to FoW, needing a partial clock, etc.. The split with the 1 cmc counterspells is pretty common in vintage where daze isn't quite viable (you need a more diverse counter suite than 3x spell pierce for powered cards and moxen imo).

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Stony Silence
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Delver of Secrets
2 Steel Sabotage
3 Containment Priest
1 Fire // Ice
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Thought Scour
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Treasure Cruise
3 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
1 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
4 Mental Misstep
1 Time Walk
1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Stony Silence
SB: 3 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 1 Pulverize
SB: 3 Swords to Plowshares

Hmm, that would really interfere with the durdle plan. See the hyperlink related to Luis Scott Vargas in the main post to see more of what I'm trying to convey.

However, I have considered dropping a mana drain for a 1 cmc counterspell like spell pierce/pyroblast/steel sabotage, as it is only useful for casting tcruise and countering tinker/yawgmoth's will/planeswalkers. A big issue with the deck in its state as posted is there are not enough mana sources. Dropping JtMS and a gush for 1x volcanic island and 1x cavern is likely correct.

That seems like a great idea. Perhaps cutting a gush for a caverns is the correct call.

Durdle: "To stand around and do nothing; taking a long time doing an action or set of actions and accomplishing nothing [--] wasting time."


Here is an image closely associated with what most blue decks are doing in the vintage meta-game before they cast tinker:



Here is an image closely associated with what mature un-powered blue decks could be doing to blue decks with time vault and black lotus recursion:



This deck is about taking durdling to the nextest level. We're talking legitimately doing nothing for turns on end until playing Young Pyromancer only to let it get countered by Force of Will. Everything our opponent is doing has the potential to be a lot better (read faster) than anything we can cast out of our deck, so we hold our own Force of Wills until we see their Yawgmoth's Will, Television Set, or dreaded Tinker. More often than not we'll save our Force of Wills until we scoop to see our sideboard, cursing ourselves for choosing this silly decklist and not running 3x stony silence maindeck in favor of more durdling with Dack Fayden and JtmS. Postboard we get Pyroblast, and a tough decision on what to cut for the second and third stony silences (if we board them in at all).

If you like durdling as much as Luis Scott Vargas or being as childish as Jacob Wilson, Matt Nass, and David Shiels you are going to love adding a white splash of pampers and pacifiers to UR delver.

UWR Stony Pacifier

3 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire // Ice
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
1 Spell Pierce
1 Pyroblast
1 Spell Snare
4 Mental Misstep
1 Dack Fayden
1 Stony Silence
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Delver of Secrets
2 Gush
4 Treasure Cruise
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
2 Containment Priest
1 Strip Mine
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 4 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 1 Pulverize
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Stony Silence

Credits go to the Channelfireball team for illuminating UR delver so vividly in their video documentaries. Thanks also to LSV for proving 3-color delver is possible.
Special thanks to Jar of Fortune and Brianpk80 on cockatrice for re-iterating 3-color delver is often correct, and that containment priest is a house.

I like your deck a lot. Have you tried magus of the future? I noticed most of your deck was filled with artifacts and other things easy to cast off the top of your deck. Also, if you wanted to, you could probably add a tutor engine and auriok salvegers, and play out a bomberman-esque mode.

Just a head's up, the pilot testing on the 5cc powered list was a pretty big flop. The deck was really inconsistent, was extremely loose to counterspell without welder, and loose to counterspell on power 9 (which is a problem if your hand is clogged with welder). Also the pilot deck with wheel effects etc. still lost to generic fish decks running trygons and kataki; the deck needed 4x wurmcoil, a duplicant, and a triskelion in 75 to deal with these threats, and even then had trouble.

As Guli is saying sometimes, in the control slaver build posted, you do not have mana to activate Mindslaver; this can be problematic, and may lead to switching the mana base a bit to accommodate city of traitors/ancient tomb. The deck can naturally flood like any traditional workshop deck, as the mana density is quite high. A mulligan strategy for this is critical, and will be developed further. Flood can be okay if we are running into lots of wasteland effects to slow the game down (perhaps we add expedition maps to the main, which were decent in testing at 2 copies). However, most resolved Mindslaver effects either win the game on the spot or within the next few turns. This is something people seem to be underestimating about the deck, even though it is a common mode to victory.

If there are far better tuned 5cc shop lists, I'd be interested in seeing them and testing with them. At the moment I have only seen Derek Wochinski's list top 8. What else am I missing here?

Patterns of success are slowly emerging for the deck in testing:

Metalworkers are a necessity and lead to the most blowouts when activated.
Spheres are a necessity vs. bomberman and other combo decks and do not interfere significantly with Mindslaver if you're tutoring it with Kuldotha (if the opponent can't beat your spheres in the first place don't activate Mindslaver, it's really that simple guys; if the opponent can hurkyls and tendrils under sphere lock props to them, this should be unlikely if wasteland effects are abused).
Destroying lands is imperative to be able to compete after a hurkyl's recall; ergo sundering titan, wastlelands and crucible cannot be cut.
Destroying Moxen is also very useful; suggestions better than steel hellkite are welcome, but this creature has sufficed.
The creature suite is fairly good where it's at; kuldotha is fine at three copies, however...
The deck cannot abuse an early tinker without blightsteel collusus; perhaps this card should be included maindeck.
Resolving mindslaver and activating when an opponent has more than three cards in hand leads to a high probability of victory.
Playing brick wall creatures (kuldotha, wurmcoil, hellkite) before playing Mindslaver is imperative to winning vs. fish.

The deck does have elements that play against itself, the maindeck will be edited to cut the Thalias; this seems to be a big problem when people initially view the deck, and to be honest, she doesn't get drawn often enough at two copies for me to have an informative opinion yet. As stated earlier, acall is probably "that good", testing will begin with vampiric, acall, and other power 9 (including at least 1 wheel) in another pilot deck.

@TheWhiteDragon: [1] Wurmcoil definitely has to stay. [2] The opponent naturally boards into artifact mana, or a way to bypass a single sphere effect; in the event there are two out, welder can potentially sacrifice one, and if going the kuldotha route (1 to 3 kuldothas), kuldotha could sacrifice spheres too: pretty slick, I like your ideas being picked up from previous MUD "combo" lists. [3] I will reserve my judgement and testing on mental misstep and spell pierce in this list for the time being: there is more testing to be done without these cards.

@Serracollecter: [1] Treasure mage has been pretty okay in testing and can tutor for things like wurmcoil and battlesphere (just thought of battersphere last night when looking at plausible bombs). [2] Again, kuldotha is looking good and cuts need to be made to the deck to find room for him. [3] "Forbidden Alchemy"*/fact or fiction feel like great cards in this list, as it is naturally trying to either directly tutor, or dig very deep into the deck to find a slaver setup: currently I don't know where they would fit, but they're pure value. [4] Other reanimation effects aside from welder are being shied away from now, but will be reconsidered. [5] A lot of support is going out to homeboy bazaar of baghdad, and I will implement it in all future builds.

How many staves, and at what cuts? Wurmcoil is a probable cut as staff gains life in a similar matter, but is there a way to tutor for staff (drawing more than one staff in a game could be problematic when the only significant source of colorless mana for the activation of artifact abilities comes from a 1/2 creature). In this scenario it would be better if staff of domination cost 6 or more. Staff of Nin is off the table due to its inability to mesh with the controlling style of the deck (drawing two cards a turn does not provide enough impact, whereas going infinite with staff of domination secures a win via slaver lock).

The reasoning behind Thalia was that she was a sphere effect replacement from the original list that doesn't just get hurkylled. Cutting it for a more powerful and proactive gameplan like you're suggesting is easily viable. Bazaar would be an interesting step towards aiding the welder plan and possibly trimming excess mana (although excess mana does not occur too often, and the deck is very mana hungry to begin with). The initial design of the deck was built around maintaining some form of protection vs. opposing combo that did not put the player down a card (as FoW does) would swing profitably (as lodestone and thalia can do) and still maintain the ability to play an opponent's deck against itself (all of these roles function as control parameters in magic, not necessarily proactive combinations).

There are concerns as to the vampiric tutor/ancestral suggestions, and that is the prevalence of mental misstep in the meta. Nothing wrong with shoving an ancestral in, but the opportunity cost of a blue mana, for a card that potentially will not resolve, can sometimes be high in a deck like this (perhaps the pilot wants to cast treasure mage or a big artifact instead, but then again maybe ancestral really is too good to pass). Vampiric probably won't make it into this decklist, as it really belongs in vault/key and gush decks, that already have an active card advantage engine that surpasses everything in the field, and the card they tutor for usually ends the game on the spot while costing 1 or 2 mana (timevault/key and fastbond respectively).

As for the wheel effects, they are, more than likely, strictly better than treasure mage in a deck designed to withstand disruption. Initially 7 virtual copies of mindslaver were needed in the deck so one would be found every game while drawing only a single card per turn. Resolved wheel effects break this probability wide open, allowing a cut on slaver and most likely all treasure mages. The problem foreseeable with wheel effects is that they do not interact favorably with welder if they do not resolve (perhaps forcing a more Grand Abolisher-centric creature-base). The reasoning behind treasure mage as the tutor of choice is that he is: uncounterable, tutors for meaningful ways to exploit the mana advantage inherent in the deck, and swings for 2 each turn when faced against opponents who are willing to partake in the fish strategy (combo denial such as counterspell, stony silence, RiP, null rod, engineered explosives on 0, all backed with creatures).

tl;dr: If there were a way to guarantee the resolution of the high-powered cards suggested, they would be run over dinky creatures in a heartbeat (we would most likely get to have a permanent lock in such a situation). The shell of the deck permits cutting many, if not all, of the clunky sphere effects for raw power; perhaps in a pilot test for a redesigned welder deck this could be done. Do note that this would make the deck entirely soft to any form of combo and almost all disruption. I will attempt to put a deck together with a close approximation of your power 9, so that the maximum velocity of the deck can be analyzed more thoroughly.

Speed does not always close the gap. If you're looking to play Derek Wochinski's deck. Play their deck instead.

Recently, I've been getting absolutely crushed by bomberman varients; in particular, Brianpk80's take on the human-centric list.
I've been trying to find a way to build/play these bomberman decks to their maximum potential, but its becoming clear to me that others have spent far more time developing their play and tuning their deck than I'll have patience to do so. In short, I want to play bomberman without playing or tuning bomberman.

Cards with an asterisk (*) to their right indicate that the entire section of cards is subject to omittal upon a better suggestion. I am currently looking for any and all suggestions.

Without further ado,

Play Their Stronger Deck:

--Artifact Acceleration--
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Metalworker
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Expedition Map
1 Chromatic Lantern
-------- Lands* ---------
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Buried Ruin
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Ancient Den* (useful in netting card advantage with cruci and welder)
-- Really Good Cards ---
1 Tinker
1 Mindslaver (could be more)
--- Colorful Creatures ---
4 Goblin Welder
-- Colorless Creatures --
4 Lodestone Golem
3 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Sundering Titan
1 Steel Hellkite
--- 6 other flop slots* ---
1 Triskelion (mana denial vs. fish)
4x Sphere of Resistance (useful vs. combo, can be sacced to kuldotha)
1 Karn, Silver Golem (mana denial vs. moxen)
1 Ranger of Eos (sometimes you need welders)

Sideboard:
3 Grafdigger's Cage*
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Duplicant
3 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Bazaar of Baghdad

For reference, here is the source from which I edited, Derek Wochinski's MUD: <http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=6625>.

The deck attempts to maintain hands where it generates enough mana to cast mindslaver (the 4x metalworkers appear essential here) and potentially kill the opponent or lock with welder (hence the cavern of souls). The setup/mid-game, as opposed to relying on, primarily, the traditional card draw of blue, is based upon acquiring draw steps via wasteland effects + crucible, lodestone golem, Karn, Silver Golem, and sometimes duplicant/wurmcoil. Any tutor effects that could potentially be used to tutor for goblin welder (Imperial Recruiter perhaps) would be useful in trying to move towards a mindslaver lock vs. an opponent with limited graveyard interaction; otherwise, the deck functions with mindslaver as a tutorable timewalk (via kuldotha forgemaster, also potentially treasure mage), while maintaining beatsticks.

The current transition into the mid-game is very susceptible to faster decks (e.g. lack of sphere of resistance which could be a problem moving forward). Cards like Smokestack would not work well in this current iteration, because most of its permanents are not lock pieces, and ~9 cards are artifacts that become sacrificed or are spells that cannot be sacrificed to Smokestack. Chalice of the Void has been omitted due to its weakness to bounce spells such as repeal, but could come into consideration as sideboard technology, or a maindeck choice if the format trends toward 1 cmc spells. The main appeal of this deck is its fast mana, and the powerful effects it can resolve if given a chance. I would say that this deck has one of the most degenerate mana engines in the game, and attempts to use it in a way that controls the game-state, perhaps this is a core fault of the deck; however, the deck has tested positively in games where it has resolved mindslaver's effect, or metalworker's effect.

I agree that caverns and gorilla shaman are two of the best ways to combat CotV (typically on 1 or 2) vs. shops without sacrificing the mana base to include abrupt decay maindeck. A final configuration after taking out 3x Gitaxian probe and 2x Cabal Therapy would probably be: in +1x Gorilla Shaman, +2x Sensei's Divining Top, +2x Cavern of Souls. This swap allows extra use out of your colorless mana, and provides a good starting point for players who are interested in adding the mox pearl and mana crypt to the strategy. As Atog Lord said, the strategy is primed for an abuse of skullclamp (in null-rod deficient metas) which requires a decent amount of colorless mana and early uncounterable pyromancers to run smoothly.