[Single Card Discussion]Skullclamp

[Ric_Flair]

I realize that there was a [card]Skullclamp[/card] thread open that became locked, but I think this card is something we need to think about a bit more closely.  

Recently two trends have made Skullclamp appear on my deckbuilding radar for Vintage (Clamp is obviously ridiculous in Standard right now, single handedly switching the balance of power from Affinity to Goblins).  First is the development of Skullclamp Elves, a T2/1.x combo deck that uses tokens, [card]Wirewood Hivemaster[/card], and Skullclamp to run through an elf deck quickly.  Second is the moaning that people have been doing about WW.  

While I don't think the elves combo deck is up to snuff for Vintage, Skullclamp does open new doors to various combo decks.  Are we missing something?  Is there a combo deck based on Skullclamp, token generators, and a mana generator that triggers when stuff goes to the graveyard?  I am not sure, but the elves deck is too interesting to ignore.  Let's work out that idea on this thread.  The second thing that the thread can focus on is the use of Skullclamp is modern non-Workshop aggro decks, especially of the budget variety.  Just for a lark I threw together a Stompy deck with Skullclamp in it and OH MY GOD.  The Clamp single handedly made the deck work past Turn 5, something that Stompy has never been able to do.  So the second issue for the thread is this:  Does Skullclamp revitalize weenie aggro deck enough to give them staying power in the late game?  I am not sure, but again the possibility is there and it deserves discussion.

The old thread focused on the theoretical drawbacks or weaknesses in Skullclamp.  Let's assume for the purposes of this thread, that Skullclamp is good enough to make a deck around.  What do those decks look like?  Combo?  Aggro?  A hybrid of the two?  White Weenie (Holy Tommy Gun) w/ Clamp?  Gen Con Sligh with Clamp?  FCG with Clamp?  Stompy with Clamp?  Oshawa Stompy with Clamp?  Fish with Clamp?  What happens?

[cssamerican]

1 [card]Auriok Steelshaper[/card] allows you to use the equip ability of [card]Skullcamp[/card] for free. [card]Leonin Shikari[/card] allows you to use its ability at instant speed, so you can draw cards in response to spells. With this in mind I would think if it has a place in wennie aggro it would be in WW(Holy Tommy Gun).
Just my 2 cents.

[BreathWeapon]

Skullclamp simply doesn't have any practical applications in Type 1. Removing a threat for 2 cards is a massive loss of Tempo for any budget Aggro deck. With the emphasis of Type 1 resting on pure speed and heavy disruption, a draw engine is the last concern for Weenie Swarm decks. Stompy and WW are simply sub optimal decks because they aren't fast and they lack Disruption, not because they are out drawn by control

[ELD]

I will be testing a TnT build with the clamp.  My theory is it will create a second card drawing engine.  When welding in and out I'm now getting two extra cards in hand.  When they finally kill my Juggernaut I draw cards to replace it.  The card advantage in goldfishing can get very broken.  

I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[ctthespian]

It would be interesting to see Skullclamp in TNT, however I think the Solems that some people run are far superior to Skullclamp.  Just the fact the Solems are survivable and get both land and cards while still providing an asset with power and toughness makes them superior in my mind.  It would be interesting if your testing could prove me wrong.

-Keith

[cssamerican]

Skullclamp simply doesn't have any practical applications in Type 1. Removing a threat for 2 cards is a massive loss of Tempo for any budget Aggro deck. With the emphasis of Type 1 resting on pure speed and heavy disruption, a draw engine is the last concern for Weenie Swarm decks. Stompy and WW are simply sub optimal decks because they aren't fast and they lack Disruption, not because they are out drawn by control

You are missing the point. Skullclamp is a pump that when one of your threats are removed you can draw cards to make up for your loss. So when one of your creatures are removed the pump stays and you draw a couple of cards. That is why Leonin Shikari is essential, so you can use it in response to removal spells. This is almost like a Standstill effect for WW, you try to remove a threat you give me two more. That is how I am advocating its use in WW. I wouldn't nuke my own threats unless I am using it in some kind of combo deck.

[theorigamist]

Skullclamp simply doesn't have any practical applications in Type 1. Removing a threat for 2 cards is a massive loss of Tempo for any budget Aggro deck. With the emphasis of Type 1 resting on pure speed and heavy disruption, a draw engine is the last concern for Weenie Swarm decks. Stompy and WW are simply sub optimal decks because they aren't fast and they lack Disruption, not because they are out drawn by control

You are missing the point. Skullclamp is a pump that when one of your threats are removed you can draw cards to make up for your loss. So when one of your creatures are removed the pump stays and you draw a couple of cards. That is why Leonin Shikari is essential, so you can use it in response to removal spells. This is almost like a Standstill effect for WW, you try to remove a threat you give me two more. That is how I am advocating its use in WW. I wouldn't nuke my own threats unless I am using it in some kind of combo deck.

Who cares about the pump?  A +1 pump only matters on a 4 power creature, where the 1 extra power drops the clock down a turn.

Stompy and WW are simply sub optimal decks because they aren't fast and they lack Disruption, not because they are out drawn by control

I agree.

[Vegeta2711]

The main issue with Skullclamp is your trading crappy threats for... *get ready*... even more crappy threats!

This logic, in blazingly fast T1, doesn't work all that well.

It works well in T2 for 3 reasons.
1. The enviroment is slow enough for it to be more effective than normal aggro strategies.
2. The control decks rely on mass wrath effects to control the board. So when they suddenly can't trade 3-4 for 1 they've got major problems.
3. Skullclamp outclasses every other draw engine except Thoughtcast +Thirst and that's 8 cards to 4.

It doesn't work in T1 for 3 reasons.
1. Weenie aggro is already outclassed by even bigger creatures.
2. Combo still maims you.
3. Control is fast enough/packs enough bombs for it not to matter as much.

BTW. R&R > Skullclamp in FCG. Though if you add Skullclamp to a modified Goblin deck it may work better.

[The Hamburgler]

I heard someone was trying it out with Kobolds, Carnival of Souls and Tendrils of Agony for kill. The reason I think it is weak is how Swords too Plowshares is the most populous removal spell in the current environment. Skullclamp only works when creature is placed into a graveyard, so Swords too Plowshares voids the effect. I think the Kobold deck sounds allot like Egg Academy, with the same fault of drawing into two dead cards. That’s just my reasoning, maybe someone will try it out in Oshawa Stompy, I have been and it has been running very smooth.

[bebe]

Though if you add Skullclamp to a modified Goblin deck it may work better

My thoughts as well. In a Gobvantage type build this indeed might be useful. As well, it is good against Fire/Ice and allows you to block and refill against other aggro until Belcher hits to finish. The quewstion is wether it merits a main de3ck spot. Rather like Aether Vial, it can be very good or a waste of space.

[Tempe]

Interesting how Skullclamp Elves in Type 1, in the Budget Forum, is _completely_ ignored, but I digress.

The point of skullclamp is not to have a steady engine drawing you a few cards a turn. In a deck like Elves, when you play Skullclamp, you win, more often than not. Paying 1 to sacrifice a creature and draw 2 cards is pretty good in elves. But, I definitely doesn't work in _every_ aggro deck. It works in elves for a few reasons, though.

First, elves naturally generates an absurd amount of mana; more than any other deck I know. It is never a mana concern trying to run with skullclamp. Besides of which, when you draw cards, you end up drawing into mana elves, which will give you more mana to fuel the engine.

Second, elves has a way to continually generate more tokens in Wirewood Hivemaster. This means that you are not sacrificing your own creatures. Essentially, this turns your Llanowar elves into 1G: Draw 2 cards. If it has haste, then its just 1: Draw 2 cards. It only gets more absurd when you have priests of titania, quirion rangers, and other goodies that benefit from more elves in play.

Third, elves has an extremely high density of creatures. 20-25 creatures in a deck gives you a good chance of drawing into another creature with which to fuel the engine. Combined with wirewood hivemaster, I have never, repeat, never, fizzled out once I got going, and that is with hundreds of _real_ games against real Type 1 opponents.

Vegeta: I am not going to counter your Type 2 points, but I do have responses to your reasons why it doesn't work in Type 1.

1. Elves isn't weenie aggro for two reasons. First, if it ever were to attack with its elves, it would either have a Coat of Arms out and be attacking with 10/10s or bigger, or go the normal route of pumping an unblocked elf/insect 4 or so times with [card]Timberwatch Elf[/card], and win right there. Second, half the time you can just generate absurd amounts of mana with [card]Intruder Alarm[/card] and kill with Stroke of Genius, or any other X-spell.

2. Contrary to popular belief, decks don't just sit and wait for combo to kill them if they don't have control. At least, mine doesn't. Newer versions can pack 4x Root Maze, as well as 4x Winter Orb, and can easily mulligan into a first turn of either of them, and possibly the second one as well. Also, you really only need to slow them down 2-3 turns. I regularly go off on turns 3-4, with slower hands going into the turn 5 range. Thats faster than most aggro.

3. If Control packs bombs, a Skullclamp deck probably packs more. Tog has Psychatog and Pernicious Deed as bombs, but if you can keep those off the table via mana denial, the game shouldn't be difficult. Counters are not a great defense because of 4x Xantid Swarms, and a huge amount of threats. Hands are emptied by turn 2 sometimes, and the mana advantage will almost always go to the Elves player.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm just saying that you shouldn't dismiss a deck without at all testing it, based on theory. I'm showing the opposite end of the spectrum, but the deck in fact falls somewhere in between the two. Even if a deck isn't dominant however, the deck is definitely viable and playable in almost any Type 1 environment.

Most of you probably just pass over elves, deeming them "janky," and I really don't particularly care if you pay attention to it or not, but please don't try and reinvent a similar deck, or claim that you "broke" Skullclamp. I say this because the few of you that support this card come off as sounding like you have "discovered" it, when it has in fact already been found a long time ago in Type 1, Type 1.x, and Type 2. Elves is already a competative Type 1 deck in most metagames, and its only in a position to improve. I encourage anyone who wants to use Skullclamp as an engine to check out This thread. Thank you.

--Tempe

[GodzillA]

I've been doing some testing with a modified GobVantage variant running the Clamp. Initial testing is VERY positive. I did a bunch of testing with it last night against Vegeta and others and it performed very well in all matchups tested with the exception of Skull.dec. It went 1-2 against Dragon only because Vegeta is a bastard and boarded Engineered Plagues against me.    (Heh, no offense Vegeta - it was a good play.)

In any case, I just ran the build through a basic gauntlet, playing a full match against each. The results were as follows:

Landstill 2-0
MUD 2-0
Trinistax 2-0
Chalice Black 2-0
Dragon 1-2 (Engineered Plague pwnage)
Stompy 2-1
Skull.dec 1-1 (If Vegeta had slow-played by a single turn he would have crushed me game 2. I count this match heavily in Skull's favor.)

A couple things to note: the testing was done with a 1.5 legal build against 1.5 legal decks. This means that these results are not steadfast for a T1 meta. Obviously a lot of the decks listed above gain a great deal from T1 conversion, Trinistax in particular. I'm not posting these results to suggest that this new build owns all of these matchups - only to demonstrate that the concept clearly has very strong potential, and deserves to be explored.

Skullclamp has very strong synergy with GobVantage, particularly with Sharpshooter, SGC, and Recruiter. It provides early game card advantage, which is particularly useful against control and prison. The deck certainly has a better game against these matchups than FCG.

I see a lot of the arguments against Skullclamp are that you sacrifice crappy threats for more crappy threats. This isn't the case with GobVantage. Its threats range from Skirk Prospector and Recruiter (often dead) to Warchief, Ringleader, and SGC. In other words, you're giving up a useless threat for 1 or 2 very useful ones. The synergy between Clamp and Recruiter is also particularly impressive. Often FCG's problem against control is that it stacks with Recruiter, and then can't resolve Ringleader to draw the stacked goblins. Clamp circumvents control altogether (assuming you're able to resolve it early on), and allows you to draw into your stacked threats.

Given the initial success with a mono-red GobVantage/Skullclamp hybrid, I'm now working on a version of FCG which includes it. I won't go into too much detail here, as I plan to start a seperate thread on it as soon as I've done a bit more testing.

[Vegeta2711]

I make general points and you come back for points for a specfic deck? Wtf?

1. What makes you think you'll have time to resolve a Coat of Arms to any meaningful effect? Last time I checked most aggro packs some sort of removal or failing this, a lot of disruption. Timberwatch Elf is a much more meaningful arguement, but still that's relying on a specfic creature to stay alive.

2. Contary to popular belief, combo actually can beat hate nowadays. Isn't that something? Root Maze is good hate, but can be beaten. I remember Smmenen mentioning how he nearly went off against a Null Rod and Root Maze combo. Not to mention he would've gone off again, if not for a mistake, and that was against a Root Maze plus Chalice set @ 0 & 1. Smmenen of course plays near perfectly with his combo decks, but I'm merely illustrating the example that it can be done. Plus decks nowadays run FoW MD anyways.

Winter Orb is a very laughable excuse for anti combo since non-Dragon combo decks run only 10-15 lands anyways and I've been beaten on turn 2, with my opponent playing zero land. And against Dragon they have Duress, counters and possibly Chain of Vapor anyways.

3. What are you talking about? Keeper has Balance, Mind Twist, Humility and plenty of broken ass cards. Tog has P. Deed and Mind Twist. Landstill doesn't have bombs really, but makes up for it by being overly redunant and consistent as hell.

A mono green deck has Skullclamp. That's it. Everything else is based on a swarm and working togheter theory of play. That's synergy, not bombs.

I didn't bring up your deck specfically, so why your saying I'm dismissing it is beyond me. But anyways if you want to make your point, why don't you show me some proof your deck can actually do anything?

I say this because the few of you that support this card come off as sounding like you have "discovered" it, when it has in fact already been found a long time ago in Type 1, Type 1.x, and Type 2.

Nobody discovered the card for. It was obvious to anyone who read the spoiler, also a month does not constitute a 'long time'.

BTW, Godzilla. I didn't particularly mean your deck, since I know you built it specfically around the card.   So I know your deck had slightly more of a game-plan in mind. Also converting it to T1 where the land of speed and broken cards aplenty sounds fun, can't wait to see how it does against a gauntlet.

[Matt]

A mono green deck has Skullclamp. That's it. Everything else is based on a swarm and working togheter theory of play. That's synergy, not bombs.

Perhaps he means that once you have 3-4 Elves in play, Timberwatch becomes a bomb.

[Tempe]

Keep in mind I'm not saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm just saying that you shouldn't dismiss a deck without at all testing it, based on theory. I'm showing the opposite end of the spectrum, but the deck in fact falls somewhere in between the two. Even if a deck isn't dominant however, the deck is definitely viable and playable in almost any Type 1 environment.

I'm sorry if I sounded like my deck was the greatest, and I was just advertising, but you may have missed this quote. What I mean to say is that I was taking the other side of the spectrum. I am showing that, combo doesn't always slaughter Skullclamp.dec, and that skullclamp.dec can do equally well against combo.

Since you are talking so generally, I assumed you were making blanket statments. Therefore, I would refute your blanket statment by saying that at least some of the decks that run on skullclamp don't follow those rules. I hope this makes sense.

In response, though:

1. Note: With 4x Fabricate and a boatload of mana, if you play some other win spells the same turn, getting a Coat of Arms shouldn't be too difficult. Either way, Timberwatch Elf and Stroke of Genius are the main kills.

2. Yes, you are going back to the other end of the spectrum. I'm not going to argue that either is better than the other, but I can say that Combo does not always massacre skullclamp.dec, and that, at least Elves w/ skullclamp has a chance through hate. Its pretty difficult for dragon.dec to go off normally with root maze + winter orb, or one of the two, hindering it, especially when its still on a relatively fast clock. Note: Winter Orb is a control hate card, but against aggro and some combo, especially land based such as dragon.dec, it will slow it down a turn or two.

3. Ok, maybe my definition of bomb cards is a little different. But, if I set up a little bit, getting some elves into play, there are plenty of cards that just say I win for me. Skullclamp will usually say it, as will Timberwatch Elf. Intruder Alarm says infinite mana for the deck, which makes it significantly easier to get your bombs out a well.

From the way you were talking in your first post, I assumed that, since you were stating that skullclamp.dec really wasn't viable, that you were completely dismissing any deck with it. That comment though wasn't targeted directly at you. I posted close to 2 weeks ago on the deck, and I have not heard 1 mention of it, even though there has been talk about using it in Goblins, and even of the other skullclamp deck, Koboldpotence.

A month is a long time in terms of claims of developing a deck. When people refute who developed a deck most times, the decks were created close to simultaneously. In this case, I would just like to point out that the use of Skullclamp as brought up in this thread is not new.

On the point of me giving you proof, the only proof I can provide is in my proxied testing, and in other people's results, from those few others who have tested it. The reason is that I am a 14 year old who's parents don't exactly support this habit. I have no ride to tournaments, and no way to acquire cards, so I am left proxying decks up, and testing with my friends, who also proxy Type 1 decks up and play them. I doubt my results there are enough to convince anyone, let alone a highly esteemed TMD member.

--Tempe