An unintuitive slaver build

[silvernail]

Well i was messing with slaver for the past few months and decided intuition and deep analysis werent really good enough.
So what did i do? I added cunning wish in their place along with Duress.

heres the new found glory: ( cant stand that band though lol)

1 strip mine
1 tolarian academy
1 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
4 underground sea
4 volcanic island
3 island
3 mox ( sapphire jet ruby )
1 black lotus
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 demonic tutor
1 yawgmoths will
3 duress
1 mystical tutor
1 time walk
1 tinker
1 gifts ungiven
3 goblin welder
4 brainstorm
4 thirst for knowledge
2 cunning wish
3 mana drain
4 force of will
! pentavus
1 triskeilon
1 darksteel colossus
2 mind slaver

SB:
1 vampiric tutor
1 coffin purge
1 jesters cap
1 echoing truth
1 fact or fiction
2 tormods crypt
3 engineered explosives
2 red elemental blast
3 rack and ruin

this build allows for some things the regular build doesnt by utilizing wish and disrupting with duress. And as for the wish it can get tutor or purge in black, echoing truth or fof in blue and reb or RnR in red, pretty much the standard pool there but thats somethign the normal CS builds dont get to do. Unfortunately i havent gotten to test this updated build in any events yet but i do pretty well in MWS testing. So any thoughts on an unintuitive build of control slaver?

[Jacob Orlove]

3 Mana Drains, 3 Goblin Welders, and 3 Moxes? Most slaver decks run 4, 4, and 5, with good reason--welder, moxes, and drain aren't just good, they're your key cards. People used to make arguments for cutting down on Welders, but at this point if you don't want to run 4 Welders you can just play Gifts.

Should we assume that you're running fewer drains and moxes for budget reasons?

Basically, if you want to post a build like this, you need a LOT more explanation than you gave, especially for the cards you cut.

[EnialisLiadon]

I've cut Deep Analysis from my slaver build, but I <3 Intuition.  Why isn't Intuition good enough?  It fetches the lock, welders, can set up a busted Will, and can do all the tricks Gifts can do and more((in slaver, derf)).

Plus, it's fun to slaver someone and play Intuition at the end of their turn .

[Demonic Attorney]

I've cut Deep Analysis from my slaver build, but I <3 Intuition.  Why isn't Intuition good enough?  It fetches the lock, welders, can set up a busted Will, and can do all the tricks Gifts can do and more((in slaver, derf)).

Plus, it's fun to slaver someone and play Intuition at the end of their turn Very Happy.

Intuition runs into problems inasmuch as it makes you much more susceptible to graveyard hate, which is present in the metagame already to address Gifts Ungiven decks, and now probably Dragon too.  All it takes is a 0cc artifact that a decent number of players run and a vast majority sideboard to make Intuition an effectively dead card in your deck.  Moreover, relying on a 3cc spell as a roundabout tutor slows you down a little, although granted not much.  However, Slaver's greatest vulnerability is undoubtedly its early game, and every little bit of speed counts when you're up against decks that come roaring out of the gates looking to overwhelm you within the first few turns.

I know what you're thinking.  "Well all that is fine and good, but if you have an active Welder and and a castable Intuition, you've pretty much won, and if you can play Intuition on a Slave turn...ohboy, ohboy ohboy!"  Yes.  True.  But, conditional cards are generally suboptimal maindeck choices, and in my opinion, Intuition is no exception.  If you have an active Welder, you have an advantage anyway, and for my purposes, I'd rather my whole deck be built to maneuver into that advantageous situation, rather than try to make a good position even better.  Furthermore, if you've used Mindslaver, you've already won.  Intuition, FOF, or whatever else on their turn is nice, but unnecessary.  The difference between FOF and Intuition that makes me run the former but not the latter is that resolving a FOF is virtually always good; resolving an Intuition will only accomplish stuff for you if you're already in a good position.


And as for cutting moxes, Welders, or Drains, that is just unfathomable to me.  The reason Slaver is viable as a top contender in Vintage but not in Legacy or Extended is because of the availability of 0cc artifacts that accelerate the deck, thereby performing a dual function at no initial mana cost.  Mana Drain is recognized as one of the most powerful unrestricted cards in Vintage, alongside Goblin Welder.  And what's more, Goblin Welder is likely to become more of a necessity in the current metagame, with Stax decks gaining in popularity.  Welder is one of your biggest assets against those decks, outside of your counterbase, because it allows you to manipulate their board and neutralize their threats once a turn.  I don't mean to shoot down this idea, but I would never, never implement these changes.  Sorry.

[Arvid]

I play 1 Platinum Angel, 1 Pentavus, 1 Mindslaver in my build. I think playing more fat artifacts just increases the risk of dead draws. I think Platinum Angel holds the best effect in magic (althought the mana cost is not the best in magic, however we've got Tinker and Welder) and therefore it can win you games you should have lost without her. It's good against combo which seem to be a tough matchup preboard. I see no reason not to play it.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

Firstly, I agree completely with Jacob said, drains/welders/moxen are the backbone of Tier 1 CS.

That being said, I can understand putting Duress into the deck.  However, Cunning Wish just isn't that good, the point of CS is card advantage, and Cunning Wish simply doesn't get you any, yes you get utility or FoF, but most builds usually have the few utility cards maindecked, based on the meta game.  With CS, you shouldn't need to Wish for them, you should be able to draw/tutor for them easily.

And you can definitely cut some of those artifacts like silvernail suggested, especially the Darksteel Colossus, because CS wants beef in its graveyard so you can Weld it back into play, not an 11/11 that can only come out using a Tinker.

[warble]

And you can definitely cut some of those artifacts like silvernail suggested, especially the Darksteel Colossus, because CS wants beef in its graveyard so you can Weld it back into play, not an 11/11 that can only come out using a Tinker.

I don't think so.  I used to run Darksteel Colossus as a sideboard card in CS to punish players who run Rack and Ruin as their "answer" to my fat artifacts early.  However, I advocate it's use in the maindeck of CS now mainly because of the lack of bounce in many decks, and the fact that CS with Triskelion maindecked doesn't suffer from opposing welders nearly as badly as it used to (remember the welder mirrors a half a year ago?)  Once you get Trisk out with fast mana you're going to want to tinker in the fat boy, not mindslaver.  With brainstorm and thirst it's really not an issue pretending DsC is dead in your hand.  Especially since you don't want as many artifacts anymore, you want more gifts ungiven in CS if anything.  I would, however, go down to only one copy of Mindslaver if you are running DsC as both are tinkerable wins.

[Kowal]

because of the lack of bounce in many decks

Every deck that isn't stax maindecks Rebuild or Echoing Truth.  If you're one of those people who isn't yet doing that (which means nobody in New England anyway), you seriously need to reevaluate your position on these spells.

I think I've made my position on DSC pretty clear, but just in case you've been under a rock-

Darksteel Colossus does not do anything.  If swinging for damage is going to win you the game, you could get pretty much anything with Tinker and kill somebody with it.  The note above about lack of synergy with welders is HUGE, but not nearly as big as the fact that Colossus is just a large body and nothing more.

[warble]

Darksteel Colossus does not do anything.  If swinging for damage is going to win you the game, you could get pretty much anything with Tinker and kill somebody with it.

Hmm, well I think it's a pretty common instance to be up against combo and know if you can just make sure you do damage over the coming two turns(when they resolve necro it's usually only one turn), you'll win.  It's not a big body, it's the biggest tinkerable body.  And the reason I don't fear SSB with DsC main.  Both decks will race with a side-war of counter, draw, counter, draw, rinse and repeat.  If I don't have charbelcher or DsC I don't trust my clock (meaning no suicidal tinker -> pentavus).  If I have it, I'll be fine doing tinker while holding time walk.  Even if you get your belcher and severance off that turn in response, I will still win.  Another tinker target, yes, could be mindslaver in this instance and that's likely what I would go for.  But in the odd event that mindslaver isn't there (in the graveyard or hand or RfG) I'm very happy to put you on a two turn clock.  If you aren't going to at some point accept running aggro with DsC instead of Sundering Titan, that's merely a choice.  The pros and cons are titan hits lots of mana and is better against control decks, DsC is a turn faster and indestructable meaning cunning wish -> rack and ruin doesn't work (but bounce still does) and also allows you to do stupid broken things like island+mana crypt+tinker holding 4x force of will in hand.  Specifically, against combo I want that extra little bit of speed that titan just doesn't have, and I don't want to include mana severance in my deck.

[Kowal]

I don't know where you're playing where Combo is relevant, but even so:

Mindslaver kills a turn (or two) faster than Colossus EVER will.  This is not an argument about "if mindslaver is somehow unavailable" because the slot I'm arguing for is another Mindslaver.  In addition, every single combo deck (except dragon I guess) maindecks artifact bounce.  Sundering Titan is still better against Dragon, TPS, Sensei, and even Doomsday should anybody play it.

Also, ph33r SSB.  It will always own you and everybody else.  :p

[silvernail]

As for why not 4 4 and 5 i have proxies for the drains and other power and im too lazy to buy a 4th welder. my view on tinker-dark Col is that it gives your opponent 2 turns to do soemthing or lose, but there are many times where i will tinker up a slaver instead because it will give me multiple turns in which my opponent may not be able to do anything because ive used his cards against him effectivly winning me the game ( yes ben, sonner than colossus).
 the main concept of this list folks is trading 2 deep analysis for 2 cunning wish and 3 intuition for 3 duress from the usual builds  so lets try to stay on topic instead of discussing DsC and combo meta games.

[Kowal]

I've never seen a list running 2 DA and 3 Duress.  Seeing any Duress or DA is pretty rare in fact.

Here's the most recent list that I've seen publicized.  This is Rich Shay's from a couple tournaments back.

2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
4 Goblin Welder
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Drain
1 Mindslaver
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
4 Force of Will
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Tormod's Crypt

Now don't get me wrong, there's a number of things I really don't like about this build (DSC and Vamp come to mind) but the last time I saw Duress in a successful list was GenCon last year, and the only times I've ever seen Deep Analysis in a succesful build was from Eric Dupuis several waterburies ago.

Note:  I plan to kill the fucknut who decided it would be awesome to copy the [##] set tags when you post lists from MWS.  What a bastard.

Of the slots to cut here, DSC has to turn in to the second slaver.  That leaves you with Vamp and Tormod's Crypt as the really flexible slots in the deck.  Dinking the count of welders, moxen, drains, thirsts, or any of that shit is absolutely horrible however.  I'd cut Fact or Fiction long before I'd cut a drain or a welder from the deck, and I wouldn't even consider cutting Fact or Fiction.

[silvernail]

2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy

4 Brainstorm
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Goblin Welder

1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Mindslaver

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Echoing Truth

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Tormod's Crypt

the bolded cards are cards i dont run main and instead i have those slots either in the SB to be wished for or in multiples in the SB 2 tormds crypt for example.

looking at this list i would need these  proxies: ancestral, walk, 5 moxes, lotus, 4 drains, LoA,mana crypt and in a 10 proxy tournement i cant use all of them.

It would appear his list is a tool box of sorts using tutors to get whatever he needs for a given situation, and my deck is essentially the same, and perhaps "weaker" in that it costs 2U instead of U or B for one of the 1cc tutors to fetch an echoing truth or a FoF, but i can also get coffin purge, rack and ruin, ReB, or a card ive RFGed via yawg will or force. So for a bit more mana i get a bit mroe flexiblity.

the duresses are arguable and i havent gotten to play in an RL event for a while so they are possibly bad but at least untested.

and my other post was arranged a bit wrong the list i was using previously ran 2 DA and 3 intuition and now i run 2 cunning wish and 3 duress in those slots, not 2 DA and 3 duress.

[Moxlotus]

looking at this list i would need these  proxies: ancestral, walk, 5 moxes, lotus, 4 drains, LoA,mana crypt and in a 10 proxy tournement i cant use all of them.

Sorry to say it, but if you can't run the deck fully powered, find a different deck.  While the deck doesn't need LoA, it needs everything else.

[Lou]

looking at this list i would need these  proxies: ancestral, walk, 5 moxes, lotus, 4 drains, LoA,mana crypt and in a 10 proxy tournement i cant use all of them.

Sorry to say it, but if you can't run the deck fully powered, find a different deck.  While the deck doesn't need LoA, it needs everything else.

This is almost true.  At the Friday prelim event at Gencon, I cut the Pearl for a Lotus Petal due to unavailability, and I didn't really notice a difference.  I don't think I ever sacked it for mana though, and it basically just played the part of letting me weld something else in.  Everything else however, for sure, needs to be there.  Except the LoA.

[silvernail]

nah the deck doesnt "need" drains, sure they help but the deck can function without a full set. Also many decks in type 1 "need" full power to play as well as most elitests think they should, but it isnt required at all. The fact being having a fully powered deck can lead to more draws where you win out of brokenness adn you lose that part of the playablity when you cut powered cards. This means i have to win using brute force and skill instead of random draws, no big deal.

[Moxlotus]

nah the deck doesnt "need" drains, sure they help but the deck can function without a full set. Also many decks in type 1 "need" full power to play as well as most elitests think they should, but it isnt required at all. The fact being having a fully powered deck can lead to more draws where you win out of brokenness adn you lose that part of the playablity when you cut powered cards. This means i have to win using brute force and skill instead of random draws, no big deal.

As opposed to your opponents who will have both options to victory-brute force and playskill-available.

[silvernail]

exactly, it means the odds are against you, but it doesnt mean you wont win or even that you cant win, simply that it isnt as likely.

[Kowal]

Actually, the change in odds is such a difference that your chance for success dramatically increases when you switch to an intentionally underpowered deck.

Or, in other words, I'm far more concerned by a capable fish pilot than a budget control slaver.