[Article] A Slaver For You!

[Smmenen]

This article presents a new variation on the Mindslaver theme. The deck I'm introducing here can be considered as an hybrid between the standard Drain Slaver deck Kim Kluck created about a year ago and "Turbo Titan", the Sundering Titan based control deck designed by my MeanDeck teammate Doug Linn. It tries to abuse one of the best artifacts from Fifth Dawn, Crucible of Worlds, in a way no one did before: setting up Mindslaver nastiness.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8339

[Jacob Orlove]

Mad props to Toad for all his work on this.

[The Atog Lord]

Toad, I'm not sure your history section is complete. You may have missed something.

[Sauron]

Bah, I've been working on a list based on the same premise for a little while now (not with Slaver recursion in mind initially, but giving Drain Slaver another control element, the Slaver element became obvious a little later since I had utilised the list with 2x Citadel as a starting point) based on the success of Intuition in my Stax build. Now the idea is out there and I can't hoard this one away for myself  

Oh well, I probably won't have a Type I tourney for months so its all moot really.

EDIT: Forgot to actually mention how much I've been enjoying the deck, my list is reasonably similar (+1 Crucible, -1 Slaver) but still retains Black. I'm not sure how long it would have stayed with Black, since I cut Black from Stax before others started doing the same, but I was enjoying playing with Will again.

[rvs]

@Toad: I can't really see the advantage (yet?) of your decklist over hi-val's titan deck, other than just different win conditions, but I guess I'll give it a spin.

[Covetous]

Crucible is awesome in this deck.  It is a single useful card that allows existing deck pieces to be even better than they already were.  This deck is very similar to a list I've been playing (not that I created the list--Meandeck did), but is basically +1 citadel, +1 strip mine -1 titan -1 mystical tutor.  I guess my question is--why is this better than titan with slavers?  Or, alternatively, why not run titan in this deck?  I have been trying to run a diverse threat base, with 4 or 5 one-ofs that each do something unique and broken.

[Toad]

As I mentionned it in the article, this deck is an hybrid between Drain Slaver and Doug's Titan. I'm not saying this deck is better than the Titan build, It's just an other variation on the theme. It has a different game plan (mostly Intuitioning for Titan + stuff vs. Intutioning for Crucible + Mindslaver + Strip Mine or Darksteel Citadel) and hence is aimed at different metagames.

In a metagame with a lot of Workshop Aggro using those janky 5cc mana bases or Charbelcher Combo, for example, using Mindslavers is better. If everyone is all about 4CC and Ubrg Tog, Sundering Titan is better. Using Mindslaver shifts the deck towards different objectives and is aimed at different metagames. One deck wants to slam a Sundering Titan on the board ASAP, the other one is more about hard locking the game.

The deck basically takes the skeleton of the Titan build, add Mindslavers instead, which has side effects on the deck such as the inclusion of Crucible of Worlds and Strip Mine. Running Titan in the deck is totally feasible, for example over Pentavus since Crucible of Worlds does what Pentavus does for hard locking the opponent, and I've been playing a lot with Sundering Titan there. Nevertheless, a lot of decks are shifting towards more stable mana bases and the Titan impact on the game has been lessened lately.

@Toad: I can't really see the advantage (yet?) of your decklist over hi-val's titan deck, other than just different win conditions, but I guess I'll give it a spin.

Different win conditions, that is. As I said before, It's aimed at a different metagame. I just think that this deck has a more powerful Intuition by turn 2 after a turn 1 Goblin Welder, since at that point of the game getting Titan into play will not have a strong impact of the game (especially if the opponent went "Polluted Delta go") while getting Crucible of Worlds + Strip Mine + Darksteel Citadel or Polluted Delta is devastating, even against slower Combo decks like Dragon.

Crucible is awesome in this deck. It is a single useful card that allows existing deck pieces to be even better than they already were. This deck is very similar to a list I've been playing (not that I created the list--Meandeck did), but is basically +1 citadel, +1 other land -1 titan -1 something else.

You are totally right about Crucible of Worlds, It's one of the reason that makes me run this deck over the Titan build. True, the Titan build could accomodate room for Crucible but I think Mindslaver is the card that abuses the most of the Darksteel Citadel recursion.

[Zherbus]

What people just aren't getting is that Toad is European, Enslaver was developed in Europe, then was further made into Goth Slaver in Europe, which Toad worked from. There was no Rich Shay involved. In fact, Rich Shay is a completely other branch of Control Slaver development. Everyone knows how great he is, how nice of a guy he is, and all the work Rich did on HIS side of the Slaver tree. There's no need to shoe-horn him in to appease his fans.

It is my decision as far as TMD posting goes that Toad made no attacks, intentional or otherwise even in the face ot others blatantly flaming him. Two, almost three people have been DEMOTED since they cannot act like adults. I'm more than eager to hand out bannings as well.

If you strongly disagree, you have two options.

1) PM both Toad AND myself explaining why you think Toad is out of line. Pictures of middle fingers and other obscenities will count as flames and you'll be banned.

2) I don't moderate at SCG, bring it up there. It stays off the face of TMD unless you can make a valid case to Toad. If that ever happens (I think the logic I presented above is hard to give rebuttal), I'm sure Toad will be man enough to apologize.

If you make a post regarding Toad not shoe-horning Rich Shay into the article, it will be deleted and you will recieve proper warning.

[Hi-Val]

What's important to note is that Titan and Slaver have different functions. My Titan list (which you'll be seeing an article on, I promise!) will be coming out soon and it's basically like 2 cards off from this. The function of the decks are different, however. Slaver is better in Stax and workshop heavy metagames and I predict will fare better against Oath, as it doesn't have to cast Welder until it absolutely needs to. Titan is strong in control metas where land advantage is what is essential to victory.

The strength of this deck is obviously the power of Intuition. I've long held that it's the most powerful unrestricted card right now barring Drain and Force and I stand by it. Goblin Welder turns the disadvantage of the card into an advantage and also unrestricts all the cards in your deck. Not bad, I'd say.

[Razvan]

Intuition is trully the missing piece of the deck. I often have 3 Crucible in the sideboard of my Control Slaver build, primarily to foil opposing Crucible locks, but also to develop the mana base nicely with fetchlands. Drawing multiples is okay, since the function as Thirst for Knowledge food, in case you don't have a better play.

If they kill it, and you got 1-2 uses out of it, it's good enough, and if you even get 4-5 or so, you will have a lot of mana, and might even be able to actually start hard-casting some of the actual threats (unless you got lucky and have some drain mana available).

With Intuition, there's no need to actually run more than one Crucible, even if it might get Tormod's Crypted out. I considered it before as well, especially since you can get the 3 big threats at once (Slaver, Pentavus and Angel/Titan/Colossus, whatever), and just do funky Welder tricks with them. I never really considered adding AK's to the mix, either. Now that Oath themselves have AK's, this could be more interesting. As a side note, I almost always used a single AK in the sideboard with any deck running Cunning Wishes. It's great mad tech.

Anyhow, Matthieu, it is a nice build.

[Mixing Mike]

Uh....yeah, great article.  It's an intresting build to say the least.  I'm not exatly sure if I'd run black due to all the non-basic hate around.  I know this deck has the biggest of Yawg Wills, but I feel that the splash is unnecessary in a deck with so much draw power as this one.

With all the work on Welder decks recently, have you considered Triskelion to fit into your creature base?  I could easily see it in Mindslaver #2's slot (as your deck will see one-of's far more often then most other decks).  I'm curious as to how you beat Ground Seal.

But really, good work.  I've been fiddling with Crucible for a few weeks now.  It really makes the bridge across Titan and C.Slaver.  I'm going to have to disagree with Razvan on this one.  Crucible allows you to have two focal points to the deck, the other being Pentavus.  Having the faster lock as another weapon is really a HUGE step forward in this style archtype.

[Eddie]

I'm still testing this deck out. The first thing I did was cut a card and make it 60   . I've cut a basic Island for now as I feel there is enough land in the deck and you have better resilience against wasteland/strip with your own Crucible.

After some games I removed Angel main deck. Platinum Angel is not needed in my current metagame and I've put a Sundering Titan in it's place. This might change though if Gay/R doesn't diminish and Mono U is rising. Also, I’m expecting A LOT of oath next tournament (thank you for those top 8 results   ), so I might even put Duplicant main. Due to this change, I've cut the flooded strand and I'm trying out Tolarian Academy.

I was a little worried about cutting black out the deck, but the deck is more focused and faster this way. Yes, you will lose the "I win" moment you had if you topdecked Will. But the goal is to win regardless...

This is my current sideboard:
1 Platinum Angel
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion (the above 3 should only take 2 plaves in my sideboard so I will cut one in the future)
2 Blood Moon
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice / Lava Dart
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Sphere of Resistance
2 Red Elemental Blast

Edit: Did you cut LOA to increase the Island count? I'm trying to make room for it but it is very hard to do so...

[Shades]

I could easily see it in Mindslaver #2's slot (as your deck will see one-of's far more often then most other decks).

No. We already discussed this issue and came to the conclusion that the 2nd Mindslaver IS needed when you play Intuition. You really want to get it into your graveyard and not into our hand.

@ Toaddy: I already told you how great this article is.

[Smmenen]

I wish we still had our development posts on Goth Slaver, but frankly, Meandeck was ASTOUNDED, that no one else picked up on the Swedish Slaver we called "Goth Slaver."   When my team switched boards, our previous boards blew up, but Goth Slaver friggen blew out minds.  It took us like 3 days to tune a monster list.  Goth Slaver was so named after "Gothenberg" where they debuted the list.

The very notion of Running AKs and Thirsts - two Draw Engines seemed so degenerate.  It reminded me of tog with 4 Facts and 4 Intuition/AK.  

The only reason we didn't play it was becuase in our testing, Tog was doing fine against it because Deep Anal performed better than Thirst and also becuase Goth Slaver had an even worse game against Fish than Tog.  Then Doug put Titans in it and it was much better and that's how he made top 8 at SCG VA while we all played Tog

[Covetous]

You can certainly put crucible into titan--it's a perfect fit.  That was the deck I was alluding to earlier (titan + crucible + slaver, etc.).  Intuition and welder are probably the best remaining unrestricted cards, and their abusive synergy is incredible.  I don't think this deck needs black because in spite of how broken yawgwin is (and of course demonic is also the bomb), bastardizing the manabase for two cards seems unwise to me in the face of all the current nonbasic hate.  It also makes blood moon much weaker, and I feel that Moon will rise in popularity in response to forbidden orchard/oath decks (i.e. MeanOath).  You have a stronger draw engine that Hulk--you can effectively get anything in your deck when you need it, making tutor less necessary.  Nothing can replace yawgwin, but the deck doesn't really need it to win.  I'm not sure how this deck will fare in the face of oath, but the perception that slaver is a better threat than titan in that matchup is probably true.  In a meta with lots of fish and 4cc, titan was certainly a better threat than slaver.  However, both of these decks are on the downswing so slaver becomes more powerful again.  Pentavus is still a house in this deck--he's not just for slaver locks.  He owns stax and aggro decks (and the mirror for the most part), and is just a useful all-around card.  Armies of flying 1/1's can be useful for oh, so many things, and thus the pent-house should remain.  

Since titan appears to have declined in general usefulness but is still very powerful against the right decks, would you put one in the SB against those decks, or do you not really need anything else to beat them (aside from what hate you already have)?  I suppose that REB and Blood Moon would probably hose any multi-color control sufficiently to keep titan from being necessary.

Also, what about duplicant?  He can be SO good if used properly and is one of the ways you might be able to beat oath pre-SB (or post-SB).

[zero]

I think it's certainly an interesting direction to take the deck. I tried out the titan version, and found constantly I didn't have artifacts after thirsting, so I changed the draw engine into 3 thirst and 2 deep analysis. I see you have the ds citadel, so maybe that's the difference. In any case that ratio seemed to work very well for me, ususally winning with 20 cards left in the deck because I drew so much. I agree that intuition has remained unabused for too long, probably because tog was around and no one thought there was a better deck to use them in. I used 2 from the moment crucible came out in my U/R stacker build, and sometimes in trinistax. It's great to go strip, waste, waste with a crucible out, negating the basic land strategy. I also use it to tutor up other lock components (usually trinisphere or crucible, whichever one is not out yet). If you think about it, it's even psuedo card advantage in the same way fetchlands are, getting three cards out of your deck (psuedo-ancestral ) and hopefully improving future draws.

[dexter]

since my last post got deleted for no obvious reason i want to say this again since i acctually feel that when a player should have props for somehing it should be the right player who gets them.

this is not something against toad its just to clearify that in the article it seemed like kenny oberg got the props for putting the ak / intution engine into the deck when it acctually was the 3rd place finishing decks owner who did. John Zhang was the first player here in gothenburg that played the ak / intuition enginge and from what i remeber even first player in gothernburg to play the controll slaver deck at all. and if u look at the third place decklist u also might notice that the brainstorm team meandeck wanted to fit into the deck were already there.

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=144

[Toad]

I've been playing with Sundering Titan a lot in the maindeck. It was great a couple of monthes ago, before people start to play with Juggernauts and Crucible of Worlds in the same decks. Then we had a strong tendency in the metagame, with people switching decks and going away from highly vulnerable mana bases (4CC, Psychatog or others) to more Wasteland proof ones. This has weakened the impact of Sundering Titan in the maindeck. Then I threw one in my sideboard to bring in over Platinum Angel against multicolor Control, but then Blood Moon is better, especially when 4CC maindecks 4 City of Brass. If you really want to go the LD route, you can always used the Crucible Strip combo enabled with Intuition or Tinker, something I often do.

Maindeck Duplicant is something doable too, since It's a strong toy against Oath of Druids. Nevertheless, I would almost always Tinker for something else (Platinum Angel comes to my mind), so I don't feel It's needed as a maindeck card. It's a must have in the sideboard though.

[Saucemaster]

Toad, by the way, tweaked this Crucible build to perfection basically on his own.  Great article, Matthieu, and great deck.  I think the American metagame is swinging around to the point where this may be, hands down, a better choice than Titan, too.  Any other changes to the SB that you'd make to accomodate the Oath matchup, besides the Duplicant and Engineered Explosives you mentioned in the article?

[Toad]

I've been toying with numerous sideboard cards aiming at the Oath matchup. Considering they will likely bring in Ground Seals, Engineered Explosives is good since It blows both Ground Seals and Oath of Druids. Duplicant is interesting.

Fighting over Orchards is probably the best think to do, since they can't Oath then. Blasting Station and Spawning Pit are two strong artifact solutions, and I currently have a preference for Spawning Pit since you can make artifact tokens for Goblin Welder and Tinker if they don't have Oath of Druids out.

Summary : Engineered Explosives + Spawning Pit.

I would probably go up to 4 Spawning Pit sideboard if I'm expecting lots of Oath in the forecoming tourneys, which I do expect.

[Mixing Mike]

Duplicant is a house.  I've been running him since everyone was sticking Colossus and Tinker in their decks.

To be totally honest, I don't really fear the Oath matchup as long as I can keep Ground Seal off the table, or have the ability to hardcast a Duplicant.  Pristine Angel can be a problem though.

[Covetous]

Engineered E is a card that I think should see more play, and hopefully will now that null rod decks have fallen out of favor.  Against unmodified Meandeck Oath, your game plan is to get out P Angel ASAP because Platz == autowin.  But, Oath decks will probably begin to sport at least some MD removal, making that strategy less than an auto-win.  EE is able to solve two of your problems, Oath and Ground seal, making it a strong card against Oath.  Ironically, I wouldn't be shocked if Oath played their own EE's to smoke your welders.  This deck overall has a huge amount of versatility and the ability to be customized completely to your specific metagame.