slaver-pentuvus combo or Titan?

[M.Solymossy]

ControlSlaver has seen some pretty good success all over, from the Star City Games tournament to Gencon to even the little tournaments in Milwaukee to even my 3rd Place finish in Grafton which was swiss with NO top 4 =-(.

In playing ControlSlaver I have realized that about 80% of the time, I find myself beating my opponent with a Sundering Titan instead of even TRYING to get them under a slaver-lock.   More often than not having a welder and a titan can kill better than even slaving once or twice can.

so heres the question:  Has slaver died? Titan is much better early play than slaver, and currently I am working on a Control-Titan varient of my own.  

what are peoples oppinions:  is slaver or titan better in a control (Drain) deck and why?

[The Atog Lord]

Has slaver died?

No.

[effang]

Yes, this is what i'm curious about too. Why even bother slaving them? generally it costs a ton to recur for more than one two turns, and that's assuming you have all the moxes, arti lands, and enough mana to weld in and out (losing a mana source each time.) i have found that i always weld in the beats first, and if i can afford to, then i weld in the lock...

seems as if i should just be playing heavier beats then.?

[Addolorisi]

I find that Pentavus works much better with Smokestack than it does with Slaver. Even then, you have to piss around maintaining a lock. When thier life total is at 0, there's nothing to maintain, giving them less outs and giving you less of a chance to screw up.

Additionally, there's the issue of Welder itself. Dropping a piece of fat can happen off Shops more easily than you can cast and activate Slaver. Further, you don't need to recur a piece of fat every turn for it to be effective (that's also pretty ineffective, unless your opponent decided to play a Concordant Crossroads). You just need to find a way to drop it into play (usually killing some lands) and turn it sideways every turn.

The problem is that a Slaver won't actually kill the opponent itself, so it only makes sense that giant 7/10s are going to be doing the majority of your winning. I'm going to ride the fence and not actually answer your question, since to me, they're too different for that. One is a lock piece while the other is a giant ErnhamGeddon rolled into a single card. Since it's usually a one-shot effect, I don't really consider it to be a lock component in the same way that Slaver is.

[Conan_barberarn]

Slaver lock with Pentavus= Bad. Slaver lock with Crucible + land= Good.

I usually slave them once just to be sure they don't have any counters or tricks laying around. After slaving them once you probably have 2 or more turns to establish the hard lock with Crucible+ artifact land (I run Vault of whispers while others run Citadel, since Gorilla seems to be less present).

/ Gustav

[effang]

what would you cut for crucible?
COW is extremely weak in slaver deck, you're not fully abusing it.
slavers carry no wastes, and not even a strip, so i don't really see the point in running an additional main slot just to help out a given win condition.  If you can recur slaver multiple times you should have won.

the argument here is that it generally feels easier and more efficient to just recur the fat, rather than the lock.

[jazzykat]

Re: Titan over Slaver

I used both in my last slaver builds but they were non-standard builds that offered a lot of flexibility.

I don't know how much people have actually played the deck but until you have played 200+ games I think it is actually hard to feel the nuance of the deck. The deck has a pulse more than most other I played. Sometimes it is right to go aggro with an early tinker or weld for fat and bust face, other times slaving is the right way to go. Slaving really good decks(ie real bomblicious ones: tog, 4cc)normally IMO is better than dropping a titan. I tried to drop titan against underpowered decks like fish and UG not only because it wasn't stopped by null rod but because it is a big stupid creature that turned sideways and made them immediately deal with a large threat. Sometimes, it depends on your opponents handsize or mana base. There is no heuristic on what to try to get into play in my opinion.  I always just tried to outbroken my opponents by doing the most the fastest and that usually made them loose. If you are interested in my old list then PM me.

[Hi-Val]

There have been many people T8ing recently with Meandeck Titan, and the last Hadley was a Titan mirror match finals. I think people are realizing the strength in the deck.

Mindslaver is still potent, no doubt. I find Titan to be a more solid guarantee though.

[Eastman]

the last Hadley was a Titan mirror match finals.

No it wasn't, it was Belcher Vs. Cerebral Assassin (maybe he meant Somers -Z)

CA played Meandeck Titan in the top 4 and swept.


Titan is just better than Mindslaver most of the time. Titan actually means game over, costs considerably less mana to use, and isn't ruined by null rod.

Slaver is a LOT better against combo. Right now combo isn't really a force in the meta and so Titan makes the cut.

[The Atog Lord]

An early Titan can be game-ending. It is a very solid card, and I've run it in Control Slaver myself before. I may do so again.

As for the matter of Control Slaver vs Meandeck Titan. If someone who had no experience with either deck wanted to play one in a tournament tomorrow, he should probably go with Meandeck Titan. Titan is much more forgiving of mistakes than Control Slaver, and has a more straightforward game plan.

That being said, Control Slaver has a more stable (basic) mana base, more flexibility, and more Yawgmoth  

[Windfall]

A couple of thoughts on this issue --

1)  I enjoy The Atog Lord's post of "no."  Short and sweet and very true.

2)  Pentavus is amazing.  I would cut both Titan and Platinum from my Control Slaver build before Pentavus.  In fact, I've run two before and enjoyed them.  They help you SO much vs. many decks.  Whether you want a solid 5/5, flying blockers, flying attackers, welding tools, or permanents to tap/sac vs. Stax, he's ridiculous.

3)  Titan was only good when 4cControl was big.  I wouldn't even play him if I were to play CS today.  Maybe in the board, but probably not.

4)  To those of you who try and set up slaver locks, don't waste your efforts on that.  It's something that just happens sometimes and when it does, you just win.  However, I've found that with more and more Welders on the other side of the table, it's more and more frequent that Slaver locks occur because you can use opposing Welders to lock them.  Pentavus makes this possible.  The point here is that Slaver locks aren't all this deck tries to do; it's simply one path to victory that's near impossible to stop once it's active.

5)  To those of you who don't think Slaver is good, either your opponents are very lucky or very skilled.  Taking your opponent's turn, even if just once, is usually enough to win the game.

     ~Mark B.

[M.Solymossy]

thanks to atoglord, hi-val, eastman, and windfall for your oppinions.  it helps that the names i see with the most intellegence in the boards helps this issue.

i'm still undecided as to which to play.   Milwaukee... being heavy still with 4cc, fish, and mono-blue, is definitely meriting me to play titan.  A titan resolved against 4cc whipes the board, against fish will often shut down their colored sources, and against mono-blue they normally won't have something to handle it.

I don't think there will be any combo since the only person who has run combo that i've seen is either me or my friend Mike.


next question:   is it good to play control with One slaver/pentuvus and 2 or 3 slavers or just play good old meandeck titan?

[Outlaw]

A couple of thoughts on this issue --

1)  I enjoy The Atog Lord's post of "no."  Short and sweet and very true.

2)  Pentavus is amazing.  I would cut both Titan and Platinum from my Control Slaver build before Pentavus.  In fact, I've run two before and enjoyed them.  They help you SO much vs. many decks.  Whether you want a solid 5/5, flying blockers, flying attackers, welding tools, or permanents to tap/sac vs. Stax, he's ridiculous.

3)  Titan was only good when 4cControl was big.  I wouldn't even play him if I were to play CS today.  Maybe in the board, but probably not.

4)  To those of you who try and set up slaver locks, don't waste your efforts on that.  It's something that just happens sometimes and when it does, you just win.  However, I've found that with more and more Welders on the other side of the table, it's more and more frequent that Slaver locks occur because you can use opposing Welders to lock them.  Pentavus makes this possible.  The point here is that Slaver locks aren't all this deck tries to do; it's simply one path to victory that's near impossible to stop once it's active.

5)  To those of you who don't think Slaver is good, either your opponents are very lucky or very skilled.  Taking your opponent's turn, even if just once, is usually enough to win the game.

     ~Mark B.

1. Very True

2. I definitely agree here, I can notably remember dropping a first turn pentavus on an aggro deck and winning the prize.  With recent t8's of Stax, pentavus gives you the edge with a higher number of permanents, along with the constant weldability.  Hes a solid 5/5, or flying beats (cloud of faeries beats).

3. I found with the recent "going back to basics" strategy lately that when i played Titan there was constant more destruction on my side of the board than on my foes.  Titan = Ownage on Tog/4cc like no other.

4. I also agree here, dont go out trying to lock an opponent up, you can become side tracked with your Combo Slaver lock that they manage to pull themselves out.  Slaver lock occurs when you least expect it, and mostly when theirs a welder on opponents board.

5. I believe Slaver is the best deck in the format, mostly because thats what I play and am most confident with.  With recent mass appears (gencon, waterbury) something is goin right for it.

[Covetous]

You don't need to choose between running slaver or titan--both CSlaver (a la Rich Shay) and Meandeck Titan can and do run both (depending on build).  They are the same deck, just with slight variations.  True, they run somewhat differently due to the higher need/desire to control the game present in the CSlaver strategy (and the fact that Titan == Hulk).  However, the decklists are within about 10 cards of each other.  For most purposes you can consider them variants of the same theme, Mana Drain + Goblin Welder + Thirst.  I don't think that CSlaver has any better resilience to nonbasic hate unless you are considering Blood Moon to fill that role (i.e. strip effects are now mountains).  I run Titan with 5 basic islands and it's pretty hard to get me in a waste/crucible lock without the ever-powerful strip mine.

When you play a deck with a lot of card draw and tutoring, you can play one each of several threats and get the one you need when you need it.  In other words, you don't need to decide to play either Titans or Slavers--you can play both if you want to.  I have been playing Titan with a pentavus, a titan, a slaver and a platinum angel.  It seems to work well, because each of these threats does something that another one does not.  Big Plats sometimes just wins and is great vs. decks that cannot easily remove a 4/4 artifact creature (mmmm Fish).  PentaBus is good against stax or against any aggro where blocking is key, and allows infinite slavery.  Titan just smashes face.  Slaver is great against control and can just randomly pull a win out when nothing else could.  Sometimes you just need to slave a few times until you can draw what you need to win.   Some people don't like Big Plats and/or PentaBus, and they can replace either of those slots with another threatening artifact like Titan#2 or Slaver#2.  That's basically a matter of choice.  I would run Slaver with Titans and I would run Titan with Slavers.

On the direct topic of whether Titan or Slaver is better, the answer is yes.  Both of these decks have what it takes to win in the current environment and which one you play should depend on your playstyle, metagame and personal preferences.  And each of the cards for which the decks are named can do something game-breaking that the other cannot.  It is possible that Titan is better versus more decks than Slaver is (thus the basis of creating the original Meandeck Titan), but a good Slaver activation can win the game outright or put the opponent in a no-win situation.

[Windfall]

It's all about analyzing the matchups and what creature will win the game for you against each deck you expect to face.

The array of Platinum Angel (the heroine), Sundering Titan (the destroyer), and Pentavus (the Swiss Army Knife) work quite well.  Game 1 you always have a good creature for the enemy deck.  After that you can board out the ones that aren't as solid for matchup dependant bombs.

If I were to play today, I'd probably just play the Angel and the Pentavus, but that's because decks with dual lands just don't exist where I play.  Everyone is afraid of all the non-basic hate, so Titan wouldn't be that solid in my meta.  I'd probably keep a Titan in the board though just in case I do face a deck that he'd be good against.

I think 2 Mindslavers is the correct number.  Sometimes I board one out.  Sometimes I board both of them out.

As far as your meta is concerned, I don't think Titan is good vs. MonoU, since he'll hit your own lands and it'll be difficult to get him in play.  I don't far the MonoU as much as other players though because I know how good Duress is.  I'll be cutting Duress about the same time I cut Ancestral Recall from Control Slaver.  But that's another topic...

     ~Mark B.

[Mixing Mike]

I've cut Angel.  She was only a win more card whenever I had her out.  Mostly because Blood Moons were cleaning up those matches (sans most aggro).  Speaking of aggro, I've found that anything over a 3/4 will stop aggro dead in it's tracks, espically a Triskelion + Welder.  Memenarch is pure gold considering the drop or lack of Null Rods.  Getting a Memenarch out in the mirror is just as good as Pentavus.  I'd even go as far as to say it's only a step lower than slaving them.

IMO, Titan right now is much better for the meta.

They are the same deck, just with slight variations. True, they run somewhat differently due to the higher need/desire to control the game present in the CSlaver strategy (and the fact that Titan == Hulk). However, the decklists are within about 10 cards of each other. For most purposes you can consider them variants of the same theme, Mana Drain + Goblin Welder + Thirst.

I can't agree with that at all.  Intuition throws your brown things in the yard once you've played a Welder.  Everytime I've played Titan agaisnt control, I've always been the beatdown, rather than control.  Titan even outdraws Hulk.  They are NOT even close in terms of decks.  It may look like it on paper, but in reality they're really not.

[Covetous]

I might have overstated the facts when I called the decks the same, but I still consider them variants of the same deck rather than completely independent decks.  For most intents and purposes, Titan = CSlaver with Intuition/AK.  This does indeed make the decks play slightly different, but you deal with opposing threats in the same ways.  Also, your sideboard is usually similar and opposing sideboard strategies will be similar.  And on the issue of Titan playing beatdown vs. control, doesn't CSlaver often play beatdown against other control decks (i.e. make threats and win rather than answer threats and win)?

Do the two decks have any major differences in how specific matchups play out (i.e. does one deck do a lot better in a certain matchup than the other)?  I guess that would be the deciding factor about how different they are and which one is better.

[Mixing Mike]

For most intents and purposes, Titan = CSlaver with Intuition/AK.......Do the two decks have any major differences in how specific matchups play out?

I'm not flaming you here, but slightly different to play?!?!?  Are you serious? With saying that and asking about matchups, I don't think you've played both decks enough to be making claims along the lines of calling both decks 'virtually' the same.  Here's what I would call a better comparison for the two decks....

Slaver : 4 FoF Mono-U :: Titan : Hulk

Sometimes Slaver wants to play aggro-control, sometimes it wants to play control, sometimes it wants to find a bomb card and win with a better board position.  This is the same for Mono-U was with 4 FoF's.  Both of their win conditions (not cards that say GG when used) are more than difficult to remove.

Titan always wants to play beatdown, and runs counters to keep their opponent from winning.  Titan's only goal is to put a Titan into play, and gain back the tempo it lost while it was getting that Titan into play with the CIP effect.  The same may be said about Hulk, with the key difference being that Hulk gains the tempo when it attacks, not when it comes into play.

[Team-Judgement]

For most intents and purposes, Titan = CSlaver with Intuition/AK.......Do the two decks have any major differences in how specific matchups play out?

Yeah like mike said there is alot of difference. I played Meandeck Titan at a tourney and did alot of pre testing. It outdraws allmost every other deck, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ak, 3 Intuition and 4 Thirst + The Blue and Black broken cards. But even if you would win in the long game i usually just drop welder>thirst/intuition>titan

And yes Titan is the aggro beatdown against every single deck it playes, its very rare when its best to sit back, draw a bunch of cards and have board control before winning. I mean control deck can do that, then its easier to play Mono U or something

[Hi-Val]

You think Titan is bad against monoblue? I've found that it's pretty even thanks to a card called Goblin Welder. The entire game comes down to if you make that badass gobbo stick. Here's the critical part of playing Titan, and to a lesser extent, CS: you need nonblue mana only once a game. As long as you have Welder out, you can let all your volcs die if you have to.

Specifically against monoblue, you have far more draw cards than them, but they can counter everything you do. If you can make a Titan dance, you win, hands down. You sit on your pile of basic Islands and then take two of theirs away every turn. Did I mention that it blocks Phids too? The downside of monoblue is that they need a lot of land lategame. If you can stop them with Titan, one of the few ways to landscrew them, you're winning.

It's not an easy match, but trust me, Titan is pretty hot against monoblue. Besides, when are you gonna be using nonbasics anyway? Between wastes and b2b, just consider them gone.

[Karn, Mox Golem]

Ive been testing with control slaver and death long a lot recently( and a lot against both ) and have found that the slaver lock, while not the most important part of the deck, is easily one of its most formidible weapons.  People also seem to forget sometimes that you dont just slaver lock someone, you can get the activation off once or twice and completely decimate them.  I was doing a test game against death long(Piloted by a person who top 8's a lot in the midwest) where I had countered enough to survive into the mid game, he was set to go off the next turn off a few nuts plays.  I thirst on end step discarding slaver and procede to ruin the deck via mindslaver into ywill.  Some people might be thinking that platinum angel would have been just as good in that instance, and it would have if he hadnt had the hurkylls recall in yard.   That is only 1 example of mindslaver's insanity, and while the titan is nice I see no reason to not go with the GenCon win condition build of
1 pentavus
1 titan
2 slaver
1 angel
because it seems to work just fine.