It's Raining Men 2K6

[Moxlotus]

So, there hasn't been any discussion in these forums for a while, so maybe the deck I split a Sapphire with will generate some discussion. 

8 solomoxencrypt
4 shops
1 academy
5 waste
8 rainbow lands
2 mishra factories
4 juggernaut
3 clockwork hydra
2 duplicant
3 dark confidant
4 ankh of mishra
4 pyrostatic pillar
4 red elemental blast
4 spellsnare
1 black vise
1 ancestral
1 time walk
1 trinisphere

sideboard:
4 crucible of worlds
4 lightning bolt
4 seal of cleansing
2 null rod
1 fastbond

Matt Morrison was the first to post and play some Shop deck similar to this, but it was only U/R.  However, it had REBs, Spell Snares, and Stifles as its disruption.  I was inspired. 

First thing, Ankhs are immediately cut in half and thrown in the trash.  They were awful.  I'd probably replace them with a Demonic, Vamp, Imperial, and something else. 

Here was the idea of the deck.  Beat down with huge dudes while disrupting your opponent and trying to cram in as many type 2 cards in the deck as I can justify due to teammate request.  Most shop aggro decks have used artifact disruption such as Crucible, Chalice, and Tangle Wires.  Decks have adapted to this and know how to play around it.  To spite my opponent's playtesting, I used ridiculous disruption like Spell Snare, REB, and Pyrostatic Pillar.  I also used Ankh to bone fetchlands and combo with Pillar, but they are god awful.  Maindeck REBs are amazing against everything not called Stax.  They are also a huge surprise to opponents.  Spell Snare is decent against Slaver, damn good against Gifts, and the absolute balls against Fish.  Against Gifts it stops key turn 1 Scrolls and Drains, in addition to restricted cards.  SS counters every card in Fish worth countering, including Kataki, Pain in the Ass.

Pyrostatic Pillar is a card I've been in love with since the first SCG tournaments in 05.  It is amazing against Tendrils, and while they can combo out through it, it really screws up their math.  Pillar is insane against Gifts and can screw up their math too.  It's not terrible against Slaver.  Theoretically, its amazing against Fish, but they are usually beating me down before I have dudes down, and my answers would hurt me so Pillars come out against fish. 

Clockwork Hydra is nothing short of amazing.  He was shooting Welders, Bobs, and Katakis all day.  5 mana kind of sucks, but he's better than the alternatives of Suchi and Complex Automaton.

Bob should be in every shop deck ever.  He is so much better than Welder.  He beats and draws you cards.  I'd play him turn 1 all day long.

Dupe is back up plan against pretty much anything.  He can randomly take out whatever, or is a 2/4 dude against fish.

Black Vise is the stone cold nuts.  It really is.  When combo'd with Pyrostatic Pillar, the opponent is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  It is also brutal with an early trinisphere.  Sure, sometimes its useless, but when we are both in danger due to double Pillar (which happened somewhat frequently that day), Vise and Factories seal the deal.

The sideboard is pretty weird, but it worked great.  Lightning Bolt is the unsung hero.  A long time ago when Mat Endress and I would play Sligh, we would have "generic burn" in the board to replace whatever hate was useless.  I revived this idea in here.  Frankly, bolt is a really good card in the current environment.  It kills Bobs, Welders, and Katakis for 1 mana.  Against Belcher, I cut him off Tinder Wall mana that he needed for his next turn.  In combination with a waste and a Seal of Cleansing on his Sol ring, I locked him out.  Bolt also throws a wrench into storm combo's math.  Bargain, Necro, fetchies, forces, and Grims deal a lot of damage to the combo player.  When they are trying to deal with Pyro Pillar math, this can instantly win you the game when you have no business getting a W.  As one of the designers of Pitch Long, I can tell you that Pillars plus random Lightning Bolts would not be on my list of things to play against.

Seal of Cleansing is pretty standard, coming in against Oath, Dragon, and Stax.  It also comes in agaisnt Fish if they have Flux.  Fastbond comes in against Stax.  Crucible also comes in against Stax and Fish if they don't have Flux.  Rods come in against Slaver and combo. 

I designed the board to have lots of general cards that cover a variety of decks because the maindeck has cards that absolute must come out depending on the match.  Look at Stax.  Take out REBs, SS, and Pillars.  I need to board somewhere around 12 cards.  So Crucibles, Seals, Fastbond, and Bolts can come in.  Are bolts amazing?  No, but they sure as hell are better than the stuff I'm taking out. 

This deck is also a blast to play.  There's nothing like beating face with BIG DUDES while stopping your opponent with type 2 cards.  Opponents also have no idea how to play against it, because they had no idea what was in the deck.  How could I cram in all the standard shop cards plus the unorthodox ones?  The games usually played out one of two ways.  The first was to put down a turn 1 guy and follow him up with a turn 2 guy or waste+ankh/Pillar and ride damage to victory.  The second was to play a turn 1/2 Bob and draw a bunch of annoying spells to slow them down like REB and SS.  Eventually, you gained enough card advantage from Bob to destroy them.

[Dante]

Nice job beating with fat men.

For anyone wondering how you can run Bob with large artifacts, the ave CC in the maindeck is 1.4.

[Methuselahn]

So, I'm sort of confused. 

Are you suggesting that other people give this list a try?  The deck seems to be based around surprise, strong Workshop cards, and "type 2 cards."  It's kind of hard to debate "cram in as many type 2 cards in the deck as I can justify due to teammate request" as deckbuilding theory.

Maybe you could tell us where the deck is going from here to spur discussion.

[nataz]

I worked on a deck really similar to this about three months ago. The largest differences were razormain instead of clockwork, and random broken stuff instead of the spell snares. Otherwise, it was almost card for card the same. Like you, I was trying to rebuild your old raining men deck to compete against the current meta. Pyro's for combo, REB for all the gifts running amok, and dark confidant for some sort of draw.

The problem I ran into was one of flow. Unless I had a turn 1 confidant, I found it was way to easy to get hit with a counter on turn two, and then lose to some sort of broken turn 3/4 to gifts. Sure they might take a hit from jugg, but that was pretty much it.  Perhaps the spell snares help to alleviate the problem, but like all reactive control elements, you have to leave mana open to play them. Because on the artifact constraints on the deck, and the commitment to waste effects, it seems like it would be hard to maintain your early curve of threats, while protecting them at the same time with spell snare and REB.

My solution to this was to try and fit in proactive disruption, first with non-traditional cards like Duress and Leyline, before settling on the very traditional tangle wire. I like tangle wire so much in aggro-workshop because it free's up your colored mana and ties up your opponents drain mana. For me, tangle wire ended up replacing the ank's that I originally had. I realize this is nothing new, just laying out where I went with the deck.

Still, I couldn't get past the problem of having a mana choke point turn 2/3, leaving me with the undesirable choice of running a valuable threat into a drain, or using my colored mana for a duress/reb.

I look forward to playing some test games with your deck, and figuring out just how much the added snares change the equation. 

   

[Moxlotus]

So, I'm sort of confused. 

Are you suggesting that other people give this list a try?  The deck seems to be based around surprise, strong Workshop cards, and "type 2 cards."  It's kind of hard to debate "cram in as many type 2 cards in the deck as I can justify due to teammate request" as deckbuilding theory.

Maybe you could tell us where the deck is going from here to spur discussion.

If anyone wants to play a Shop aggro deck, I'd suggest giving this a try.  The type 2 card comment was kinda a joke.  GWS has a running joke that any deck we design has to have a certain number of Type 2 cards since my teammates always end up finding some way to put type 2 cards into their decks and make them work (Remand, Perplex).  The Spell Snares are my type 2 card.

The sideboard could probably use a little work.  I didn't have time to actually test the sideboard before the tournament.  It worked, but I'm sure its far from optimal.

[Razvan]

Interesting idea, but i have a bit of an issue with some of the choices, or at least, maybe if you could give a longer explanation as to why you chose them:

First, Spellsnare seems really designed only against fish, since everything there is crammed at 2. Why not use Chalice of the Void instead? You can cast it for 1 and 2, since you don't really have much (other than the above) at that casting cost anyhow? It is fantastic against Mana Drain, and that alone gives it consideration, but there's a LOT of decks that don't run Mana Drain, and then it's either a dead, or very situational.

Chalice of the Void is a lot more proactive, I think. It's also twice the cost for 2, but at least it fills more roles.

It also helps against combo, dropping it for 0-1. Yes, Pyrostatic Pillar is pretty broken too, but it's a 3-drop, and they will find ways to bounce it, as you said. It's not a knock against Pillar, it's more of a reason to include Chalice, instead of Spellsnare. I could, of course, be wrong.

I also don't get Black Vise. Your deck does have damage, but doesn't have terrible disruption against mana, like the old Stax decks that included it did. It's great in the opening hand, it's not that great afterwards, and it might do less than a Lightning Bolt. You did explain it a bit, so I guess I cannot really complain about this one.

The REB's, again, I wonder. Are you really that worried about Blue decks that you are willing to dedicate this large a portion of your deck against them? I realize you are siding them out against Stax, but for a deck with no draw other than the 2 Confidants, having this many dead cards (including Spellsnare) can possibly mean that you are willing to give up G1?

[Moxlotus]

I wonder. Are you really that worried about Blue decks that you are willing to dedicate this large a portion of your deck against them?

Yes, or else I bend over to mana drain.  Badly.  Historically it is Drain decks that beat the crap out of Shop aggro.  They drain my guy, play some big spell, and I am out of gas.  I changed up the disruption to try to compensate for that.  Spell Snare and REB both deal with Mana Drain for 1 mana, as opposed to chalice which costs 4.  I've noticed a lot of Gifts hands include mana+disruption+1 business spell in the form of Scroll or BS.  If I take out their business spell for a single mana its golden.  Or if I make them use a force+blue card on my shitty spell instead of a Big Dude that I'd be casting turn 2, then I'm off to the races with me effectively neutralizing the CA of Scroll-->Ancestral.  Casting REB on a turn 1 BS is insane because all I'm trying to do is slow them down a turn or 2 so I can get in 1 extra beats, or get 1 more turn to find a Pillar.  Or even more annoyingly, get 1 more turn to delay them again with ANOTHER REB or SS. 

Besides, what decks don't play blue or have juicy 2cc targets?  Stax?  I play Big Dudes.  Big Dudes>Stax anyways.  Every other deck has key blue spells or juicy 2cc spells.

While Chalice is amazing against Fish, you need a turn 1 shop+mox to take out their Kataki, Pain in the Ass.  Spell Snare only needs a land and doesn't get eaten by Mox Monkeys.  URBana Fish is starting to show up in my metagame at least.

Yes, Pyrostatic Pillar is pretty broken too, but it's a 3-drop, and they will find ways to bounce it, as you said. It's not a knock against Pillar, it's more of a reason to include Chalice, instead of Spellsnare. I could, of course, be wrong.

Pillar is a 1 or 2 drop.  I'll cast that thing turn 1 over a big dude against storm.  If decks play bounce, they play maybe 1 chain of Vapor that can take care of Pillars.  They also usually have 1 or 2 artifact bounce in the main.  If it is storm combo ,they might have 3 or 4 more artifact bounce in the board.  Have fun finding that 1 saving grace while getting Shocked each time you play anything.  Thrown down a dude and the clock is shortened to around 2 turns unless he's a champion and rips the Chain.  Pillars are only vulnerable to that 1 Chain, instead of 1 Chain, 3 Hurkyl's, 2 Rebuild or whatever numbers are being played.

Vise is kind of an odd slot.  I'm not gonna disagree.  It definitely combos with old Stax decks that locked out mana.  It also combos with Pillar.  It might not be optimal, but it worked out pretty great for me.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I like Vise. And Pillar is way, way better than anyone gives it credit for being. Resolving Pillar is pretty much game against Drains, since they, like combo have 1 ET or Chain to deal with it. And you have REB and SS to deal with their answers to it once it's in play. Control players don't realize how big of a must counter it is - Bomberman can't combo with Pillar in play, Gifts has to do alot of playing around it until they find Chain, and almost every card Slaver can use to find the SS-able Echoing Truth hurts them. The card is a beating, and with the right supplements, says "I win" against Drains and Combo.

[nataz]

Clockwork Hydra is nothing short of amazing.  He was shooting Welders, Bobs, and Katakis all day.  5 mana kind of sucks, but he's better than the alternatives of Suchi and Complex Automaton.

Why not trike instead. It doesn't lose a counter every time it attacks, and you can ping for more then one at a time. I assume its the null rod issue, but if then wouldn't razormain just be a better creature for killing the little fishies?

[Komatteru]

Trike costs 6, which is more than 5 (Hydra), which is more than 4 (Complex Automaton, Su-Chi).  That was part of the issue with that.

Razormane kinda blows.  He eats your hand, and there's no guarantee he kills anything.  The problem is that the machine gun trigger happens at the beginning of draw, meaning that the opponent has chances to remove it with StP or a bounce spell before you can use its ability.

[nataz]

True, the largest drawback of Razormain for me was that you could lose the card during the upkeep, and then get it STP'd/bounced before the draw.

My problem with the hydra is that the moment it does anything relevant, its instantly a 3/3 for 5 which was terrible in combat. At 5 mana, my clockwork spent plenty of time pinging a x/1 and then running into a grunt. There must be something better. Maybe some kind of split between Serrated Arrows and Phyrexian War Beast?

On a side note, since you don't run trike, and you run more non-artifact acceleration then most decks in the form of workshop, maybe null rod deserves a place in the MD in those ank slots.

[Moxlotus]

You can try Razormane, but I don't think the deck can handle the card disadvantage every turn without stuff like Crucibles and Welders to abuse the discard.  I'd definitely play Razormane over Trike though.  6 mana for Trikes is just too much since Dupes are already in the deck.

Once Hydra has done something relevant, then that's all he needed to do.  After that, it doesn't matter what he cost or how small he is becoming because he got the job done at the time which is what that slot is supposed to be for.  If he runs into a Grunt, then he should kill it.  Or if he pinged a X/1, then wait a turn then kill Grunt.

Rod might deserve a maindeck slot, but the colored Moxen are surprisingly important for the disruption package.  I ran into a few minor, but still unexpected problems against Slaver because of this.  But since Rods are such a nut high against decks, it might be worth investigating.  JD suggested the black spells to me with the logic of "if you're looking for more cards to cram in, why not just use ones that find the cards you know are good--the ones in your deck?'  If I do that, I might be able to branch off and cut some of the 4-ofs for random cards that might be insane in certain situations like Rod or Monkey.

[Mith]

I've been testing something rather similar, but much more control oriented. Basically, I've worked in Hide/Seek, Chalice, STP, and Lighting Bolt in place of some of your other choices. I also run Null Rod maindeck, giving it a slower aggro-control feel. So far, I've been happy with the results...but there are times that Clockwork is just not the card I want to see at 5cc...especially off a Confidant draw.

[MuzzonoAmi]

My distaste for Hydra is also growing. It seems way too clunky for what it does. If it were 4cc, I'd be happier, but as it stands it's a turn 3-4 play that can't do anything until turn 4 at the absolute earliest, and then becomes pretty much useless until you can put another counter on it. I'm seriously questioning Bob here, and the lifeloss isn't the problem. He's slow, contrbutes extremely slowly to the flow of the deck (which is already poor because of the huge number of mana sources and conditional spells), while exacerbating the lifeloss problems posed by City of Brass and Pyrostatic Pillar. I think the general concept behind this deck is awesome - what's lacking is consistency (which I realize is a problem that WSA has faced since day one), and Bob doesn't help much, if at all, there. So here's what I'm testing to fix the problems:

-3 Clockwork Hydra
+2 Triskelion
+1 Masticore

-3 Dark Confidant
+3 Night's Whisper

-4 Ankh of Mishra
+1 D. Tutor
+1 Vamp. Tutor
+2 Thirst for Knowledge

-1 Wasteland
+1 Factory

The Wasteland/Factory slot is almost entirely my preference - without Crucible/Strip lock, individual Wastelands serve only as stopgap measures to cut opponents off a color or stunt their development early in the game and capitalize on the asymmetry of Workshop. The prevalence of Basics right now also hurts the utility of ripping a Waste off the top - it's often just a colorless source that doesn't do anything to develop your game, and in a deck like this, every draw has to count. I've never been unhappy to see a Factory in this deck, because they make cards like 3sphere and Pillar that much better by forcing your opponent to make hasty removal descisions that generally create huge swing in your favor (for example, forcing an opponent to Waste your Factory under a 3sphere is fantastic, and even moreso if they're under Pillar - they become more dependant on artifact mana that hurts under Pillar and requires full turn investments under Trini). That being said, this is entirely a personal descision. If the Tutors/TfKs don't pan out, I'm also going to look into Chalice and SoR as cards to further improve the deck, particularly against combo. I'm somewhat worried about the discard with Masti, but he does provide a permanent solution to Jotun Grunt (let's face it - the guy has a gigantic ass and trades with Juggs - he's a problem) as well as ways to kill pesky things like Bomberman's Trinket Mages and (if you have alot of free mana) Salvagers themselves. If the discard doesn't turn out to be a problem, I may switch the Masticore and Triskelion counts.

If anyone has good sideboard ideas, I'd be really appreciative of them. In particular, PitchLong is still a problem since you're relegated to just 4 counters to protect your Pillars/Bolts which the combo player can often play around anyway. I've been considering Rule of Law/Arcane Lab as an option for these matches to give them one more thing to play through, but Chalice and Null Rod are better at buying time for the Men to do their job. I'd like to put in 1 more anti-combo spell as a 2-of, but I'm not convinced of the correct option. For reference, here's the board I'm using:

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Fastbond

[Moxlotus]

I've replaced the Ankhs with Standstills.  I am nothing short of amazed at how great that has been.  Seriously.  Standstill is just what the deck needed to smooth over some consistency issues.  Put a guy out and lay the 'Still.  This deck is definitely Gay Fish from 04 with big dudes instead of little shitters.  That card is just so amazing in the deck I can't stop typing about it.

My taste of Hydra is lessening, but I don't like any other option

I still believe that Bob is the absolute balls in the deck.  I love seeing him.  He is your number 2 threat in case your first gets countered.  Yes he's slow, but he refills your threats and he's still damage that can block stupid idiots.

Oh, and apparently the deck won a Type 1 side event at a GP recently and a different small tournament in Wisconsin.  So this pile actually can't be too bad

[MuzzonoAmi]

Standstill and Masti are the hotness. The discard is never a problem, and the ability to draw 3 cards when people send a man farming is nothing short of amazing, because you'll probably hit another guy in those 3. I still think Bob is slow, and I'm definately going to start testing Whisper over him.

[Methuselahn]

I really like how this deck feels like fish, except with Workshops as mana sources.  If fish and stax had babies, this would be it.

Another deck of the same ilk, split for an Emerald in Ottawa.  The deck below uses many different cards but works the same gameplan.  It looks like this archetype can be a strong choice.  Personally, I like the Null Rods maindeck.  Juggs and Rods baby, yeah!

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30828.msg447121#msg447121

Ugo Rivard, 1st/2nd Split
"Suicide Workshop"

4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Balance
1 Choke
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Dark Confidant
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan
4 Juggernaut
1 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Null Rod
4 Chalice of the Void