FoF Slaver

[Meddling Mike]

Ever since the June 19, 2009 DCI Banned & Restricted List Announcement the Control Slaver archetype has been dead in the water. Without Thirst for Knowledge as a 4-of the deck couldn't reliably dump artifacts into the graveyard on an opponent's end step while netting significant card advantage. Replacements were attempted, but none notably succeeded. WotC giveth and the DCI taketh away. However, with the recent unrestriction of Fact or Fiction it might be just enough to revive Control Slaver as a viable archetype. There was never a period where Control Slaver and 4 Fact or Fiction were available at the same time, so this concept is still new in some ways. There are a large number of hurdles and questions that accompany the attempt to resurrect this archetype. First, let's work out an approximate build.

Must Haves (37)
4 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Tolarian Academy
9 SoLoMoxen Crypt Vault
4 Goblin Welder
1 Gifts Ungiven
2 Mindslaver

I think the argument for the inclusion of all these cards are readily apparent. I could see entertaining an argument for an inclusion of smaller numbers of Goblin Welders, Mindslavers, Fact or Fictions or Mana Drains; but I think these are the right numbers and I feel confident that they should be included in some quantity.

Seems Good
Thoughtseize- A strong card in a number of matchups. One of the deficiencies of a Slaver build centered on Fact or Fiction rather than Thirst for Knowledge is that it does not offer the option of discarding the fat artifacts in hand. Because Thoughtseize allows players to target themselves and use it as a discard outlet for those fat artifacts in a pinch it clearly gets the nod over Duress. The lack of any Dark Confidant, Fastbond, Yawgmoth's Bargain or Necropotence makes the life loss of minimal consequence.
Wurmcoil Engine/Myr Battlesphere- I am not certain which one of these would be the correct bot for this deck. I like both of these as they are both realistically castable from hand at and respectively, they both ignore Null Rod, they both have excellent synergy with Goblin Welder and facilitate a hard slaver lock with two Goblin Welders. Blightsteel Colossus is tempting, but the fact that it can't be welded because of it's graveyard replacement effect and the casting cost of 12 make it's only realistic use as a Tinker target.
Underground Sea- These are obvious, I am just unsure about the quantity.
Volcanic Island- These are obvious, I am just unsure about the quantity.
Island/Snow Covered Island- These are obvious, I am just unsure about the quantity.
Swamp- These are obvious, I am just unsure about the quantity.
Fetch Lands- These are obvious, I am just unsure about the quantity.
Hurkyl's Recall- With Workshop decks being more abundant this is a natural inclusion in the maindeck. It doesn't hurt that this also responds well to Time Vault/Voltaic Key or Blightsteel Colossus. In a pinch, it can also be used to generate mana if you have a lot of fast mana on the table. I think 2 might be the correct number.
Sensei's Divining Top- This card seems to be at it's best in conjunction with cards like Counterbalance, Dark Confidant or Voltaic Key. The synergy with Goblin Welder and fetch lands is still enough to warrant consideration. I think the correct number is 1-2. Each additional top is largely redundant, so any more than that may not be advisable.
Mox Opal- A deck of this nature likes artifacts that make mana, I think there are enough artifacts to justify the inclusion of this card. Probably correct as a one or two-of.
Library of Alexandria- Capable of providing devastating card advantage. Fact or Fiction also gives an excellent opportunity to refill a depleted hand to get it active again.
Mystical Tutor- A large number of excellent targets in the deck for this card.
Merchant Scroll- A large number of excellent targets in the deck for this card.

Maybe?
Time Vault/Voltaic Key- In case your other take infinite turns combo doesn't work out... The Voltaic Key has some nice synergy with the many other artifacts in the deck. Goblin Welder is helpful for assembling the combo through counters.
Tezzeret the Seeker- If you include Time Vault, Tezzeret is an excellent inclusion.
Grim Monolith- If you include Tezzeret and Voltaic Key, Grim Monolith is an excellent source of producing colorless mana.
Dark Confidant- An excellent Draw Engine in control decks. There may not be room for another draw engine in this deck.
Riddlesmith- When Scars of Mirrodin was released, some felt that this card might provide enough filtering and a discard source capable of supporting the deck. Two decks had even managed to crack the t8 in European tournaments, but the success was limited.
Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce/Mental Misstep- Additional control elements to supplement the Force of Wills/Mana Drains already in the deck. Possibly sideboard considerations.
Forbidden Alchemy- It's like an impulse that was custom designed for Control Slaver. One mana more expensive, but allows you to dump the cards for welding. Also offers some marginal additional value with flashback in the very late game. Not a bad card in the unselected pile of a Fact or Fiction.
Deep Analysis- Another fantastic card to see in the unselected FoF pile.
Ancient Grudge- More great synergy with Fact or Fiction, necessitates running at least one green source.
Jace, The Mind Sculptor- It still crushes people with card advantage, deals with some problem cards and provides an alternate win condition.

Sideboard Considerations
For Dredge
Tormod's Crypt- Can be recurred with Goblin Welder. Susceptible to Chalice of the Void for 0.
Nihil Spellbomb- Similar to Tormod's Crypt, more expensive, but gives the opportunity to draw cards when excess black mana is available. If space allows, it might be usable as a one-of in the maindeck as the effect is usable in a number of matchups and enables card drawing.
Leyline of the Void- Potentially free and allows no opportunity for the Dredge deck to win until it is dealt with.
Yixlid Jailer- The most expensive solution and leaves opponents in no reduced capacity once it is dealt with, but it provides a 2/1 body and ducks common anti-hate cards like Nature's Claim and Wispmare.

For Workshops
More Hurkyl's Recall- It's possible this deck is not fast enough to really optimize this card. When you cast it you need to be able to win on your turn.
Shattering Spree- Very effective artifact removal that works around Chalice of the Void and sphere effects nicely.
Energy Flux- Makes it really tough...if you can resolve it through all those spheres.
Steel Sabotage- Counters OR bounces!

For Control
Red Elemental Blast- Might have lost some ground with Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce available, but this card still wins counter wars for one mana and kills Jaces.
Duress- In case the Thoughtseizes aren't enough?

1) One of the biggest hurdles that this archetype would need to get by is the existing control decks in the format. Does the power level of the deck compare to the potency of the Gush or Tezzeret based decks in the format? This deck doesn't have many early plays that win the game. If it's not as explosive as those decks it needs to be either more consistent, more controlling or better in other matchups. It's hard to say where this deck falls without a set list or testing yet.

2) The metagame has changed a lot since the last time Control Slaver was a viable archetype. Workshop decks have grown significantly in power level and popularity and is a force to be reckoned with. Decks often struggle with coming up with the mana necessary to resolve a Hurkyl's Recall EOT, two more mana to cast Fact or Fiction might not be reasonable. Dredge has also become a stronger and more popular archetype, fewer routes to a quick win may hurt in this matchup relative to other control decks out there.

Any thoughts about the viability of this archetype in the approaching 4 FoF metagame? Thoughts on how more specifically how to go about building this deck? Any cards I may have missed in my evaluation?

[Stormanimagus]

Is the card Mindslaver really the best option any more? Isn't Vault/Key just plain better? I mean, Slaver dies to the same hate as Vault/key and costs 4 to activate. Is 1 Slaver activation even enough because what if you don't have a second or 3rd artifact to chew up with it?

Just curious as to your thoughts Mike.

-Storm

EDIT: Why do people think my name is Chris?

[The Atog Lord]

When I get some free time, I hope to give FoF Control Slaver a try. However, when I'm building this deck, I'd almost certainly want to include Blightsteel Colossus and Time Vault. FoF combined with Welder should make it easier than ever to assemble artifact contraptions. I know that Blightsteel doesn't play nicely with Welder -- but he's so powerful that I can't fathom excluding him. And Vault/Key seems too powerful to ignore.

I think that refining the list will take some testing. It's too early to tell if it will be good at this point. But I certainly hope that it is.

[hitman]

I think abusing the synergy between Goblin Welder and Fact or Fiction may have merit but probably shouldn't be central to what a modern blue deck is doing.  Mindslaver is strictly worse than Time Vault.  Mindslaver's cost is much greater, and I would argue less powerful, than Time Vault.  Weldable robots aren't nearly as powerful as Blightsteel Colossus.  None of them can take a window of opportunity and exploit it as well as Blightsteel, except maybe Sundering Titan.  With so many people playing Gush, Shops and Dredge, I doubt Sundering Titan is the way to go.  I think if you want to go the Welder route, you should only play one or two as a means of gaining inevitability.  Welding in a Time Vault is harder to do than tutoring for it and casting it or Tinkering for the combo.  The list you presented is more like a "slower" grinding style of blue deck where you play draw-go, sit on countermagic and leverage Drain mana into bombs.  I think modern Vintage has passed that style of deck in terms of viability.  You can't play the draw-go game nearly as effectively anymore against any of the major archetypes.  

Is casting Fact or Fiction and welding an artifact better than casting a Tezzeret and tutoring up a Time Vault, casting Fastbond and Gushes, or just playing an early Dark Confidant?  Those are the engines your blue deck would be competing with.  They all seem either faster or more definite.  Fact or Fiction may be as good as or better than Jace.  That's where Fact or Fiction needs to fit, as a slower auxiliary engine.  You don't have to give up your early game playing a lot of Welders and you can gain a lot of value going into the middle and late game leveraging end of turn Facts, countered or not, into game winners on your turn.  If you have Welder, good.  If not, oh well.  Based on all that, I would probably start with two Fact or Fictions and one Goblin Welder and tweak a normal blue shell to synergize with them.  

[Samite Healer]

As much as I would like to think that Slaver is viable again, I feel there are probably more efficient routes to victory in today's environment with Gush as a draw engine and key/vault as a lock.  The casting cost of Fact of Fiction concerns me in general, especially in a workshop matchup.  Four casting cost draw spells aren't going to help me when I need to dig for a solution, which Preordain and Ponder do really well right now.

A lot of the utility or support slots that you might consider running in a blue deck, such as ancient grudge, Jace, Tezzeret, or Nature's Claim might be taken up by some clunky robots.  You are essentially trading the consistency of modern blue decks for the ability to get Welder + Some Robot Trick online, which seems inefficient.

It's also important to mention that Tinker --> Blightsteel is still incredibly powerful and still warrants inclusion despite the lack of Welder synergy.

If I were to try a new slaver build, I'd probably want to try out multiple Grim Monoliths and make some kind of accelerated version to power out Fact or Fiction that also has synergy with the rest of the deck.

[Stormanimagus]

Sorry, thought you were Chris Pikula. My bad.

-Storm

[serracollector]

Why isn't frantic search anywhere on that list or "good ideas" list?

If I were to start a Slaver deck it would start with:

3 FoF
3 Frantic
2-3 Expedition Map
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Bazaar of Bagdad
4 Welder
1 Mind slaver

and then work from there.

[Lemnear]

4x FoF
4x Goblin Welder
2x Gorilla Shaman
1x Memory Jar
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
4x Mana Drain
1x Memnarch

That is enough to win the game as a core. You can try courier's capsule too, that was a lot of fun after T4K got the axe but does look too cute today.

One question remains: Is this not too clunky against Shop and it's spheres?

[tito del monte]

Much as I would dearly love to dust off my Welders, I think I agree with Hitman here: One of Slavers problems post Time Vault was that it didn't really pack any relevant early game plays - and I'm not sure leveraging Mana Drain to cast Fact or Fiction solves that.

One card that might help that problem though is Mental Misstep which lets you interact early - and is probably necessary in a deck hoping to play a one-drop creature as part of its strategy - Misstep your Misstep targeting my Welder...

Otherwise, I think Forbideen Alchemy may be more effective at getting cards cheaply into the yard that Fact or Fiction, even if you can't gain card advantage without paying the ridiculous flashback cost. Is Strategic Planning still just better than both?

And a last quick thought on bots: To justify playing this deck rather than a deck that Tinkers for Blightsteel, the bot package should probably be able to achieve exactly what Blightsteel does - win in one swing after you untap with him. To my mind, the best way to achieve that in a slaver shell would be to play the old Magister Sphinx + Sharum package, which at least gives you a comparable clock to Blightsteel. Sharum can obviously also let you let your recur any half of Key+Vault which has been countered.

[heiner]

Why play Welder and all the crappy artifacts at all? If you are resolving EOT FoF you should win the game anyways. I rather play preordain in my first turn than dropping a welder. Second turn drain, 3rd turn FoF, win from there. Welder is just winmore. (the only reason why welder might be interesting is Stax).

I have been playing a similar list to the one posted here, without welder but with 4 mental mistep, the full preordain/ponder/BS package, TV/key, Tinker/Blightsteel. I actually like it so far. It doesn't have the brokeness of a Fastbond/Gush engine, however a 3rd turn resolved FoF is much more likely to win you a game than a resolved gush. By playing full artifact acceleration and drains the 4 mana spells are casteable, and vault/petal is a great addition vs. stax.

[bluemage55]

One question remains: Is this not too clunky against Shop and it's spheres?

No, because Welder destroys Shop.  If there's any trouble with that matchup at all in a given meta, sb or maindeck Gorilla Shaman in conjunction with Welder takes care of it completely.

[bluemage55]

Why play Welder and all the crappy artifacts at all? If you are resolving EOT FoF you should win the game anyways. I rather play preordain in my first turn than dropping a welder. Second turn drain, 3rd turn FoF, win from there. Welder is just winmore. (the only reason why welder might be interesting is Stax).

Welder is also a dangerous midgame threat that draws out counters, and later makes your combo pieces effectively uncounterable.  Having a welder, a mox, and one part of time vault/key means that you win right there no matter how many counters they have.

[Leooooh]

Here is the first list that I am testing.


    3 Island
    1 Tolarian Academy
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Volcanic Island
    1 Tropical Island
    4 City of Brass
    4 Polluted Delta


    2 Goblin Welder
    1 Sundering Titan
    1 Gorilla Shaman (2)

    1 Time Vault
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mox Pearl
    2 Sensei's Divining Top
    2 Voltaic Key
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Emerald

    1 Gifts Ungiven
    2 Fact or Fiction
    1 Ancient Grudge
    1 Hurkyl's Recall
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    4 Mana Drain
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Thirst for Knowledge
    1 Brainstorm
    4 Force of Will
    1 Mystical Tutor
   
    2 Preordain
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Time Walk
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Tinker
    1 Yawgmoth's Will

    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
   


Some explanation for the chosen cards:

2 Keys - Combined with Sensei's Top you have an average drawing engine. This card is also useful to generate more mana when combined with Crypt, Sol Ring and Mana Vault and this deck needs fast mana to be abble to cast Gifts, Jace and Fof as soon as possible.

2 Sensei's: Great tool to dig for desired cards. Can be used as a draw engine when combined with Key

2 Welders: 4 Welders is too much. I prefer to play at least 2, since it can help you assemble the Vault/Key combo easier, makes Gifts even more stronger than it already is, can be used as a way to remove the oponents Tinker Bot and when combined with Gorilla Shaman against Stax, things get messy pretty fast.

1 Sundering Titan - This guy is really vulnerable, but his "comes in to play" ability against blue decks are so damn powerful that I decided to test it. Most blue decks are playing with 3 or 4 colors, making this guy even more stronger.

2 FoF: The card is strong, I know, but using 4 of them is too much. I might try 3, but not 4. The 4th FoF i prefer to be Gifts Ungiven.

As for the mana base, I decided to try the mana base used in that DemarsControl deck. It seems solid for this kind of deck.

Feel free to comment. Thanks

[Blue Lotus]

I'm not sure fof is the right direction for slaver. If I were to make a slaver deck, I would probably start with the strategic planning list and swap those out for the new instant speed one.

However, neither card sculpts the hand like thirst and I'm not sure any iteration of slaver will be as good as decks with gush or bob. Of course you could play dark confidant, but again you ahve no reliable way to get big artifacts out of your hand and maximize your welder.

I think I will try fact in a steel city vault list.

[serracollector]

Once again, frantic search gets bots out of hand.  Why is no one wanting to use them in the decklists proposed?  EOT FOF, if they "make" you keep a bot, u then Frantic, and win anyways.  Why use strategic planning over Frantic?  Im not understanding.

[Prospero]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you want to try and take all of *their* turns for the rest of the game when you can just take all of yours? 

Hasn't Vault/Key made Slaver irrelevant?  Why isn't this just a blue deck with Welders for whatever benefit Welder provides? 

Once again, this is outside of my pillar, so...  Still, I don't think we're about to witness a Slaver renaissance.

And Jeff, I wholeheartedly agree - if I'm wrong (and this is viable) then adding Grim Monolith to the deck to power out FoF or Slaver seems like a good call.

[honestabe]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you want to try and take all of *their* turns for the rest of the game when you can just take all of yours? 

Hasn't Vault/Key made Slaver irrelevant?  Why isn't this just a blue deck with Welders for whatever benefit Welder provides? 

Once again, this is outside of my pillar, so...  Still, I don't think we're about to witness a Slaver renaissance.

And Jeff, I wholeheartedly agree - if I'm wrong (and this is viable) then adding Grim Monolith to the deck to power out FoF or Slaver seems like a good call.

I think if you're going to run welder and vault/key, you might as well just run a slaver too.  It's better in the control mirror, and provides another route to victory

[Delha]

Once again, frantic search gets bots out of hand.  Why is no one wanting to use them in the decklists proposed?  EOT FOF, if they "make" you keep a bot, u then Frantic, and win anyways.  Why use strategic planning over Frantic?  Im not understanding.

Strategic Planning is +0 CA while Frantic is -1 CA, for a start.

[serracollector]

Is CA that big when ur trying to ditch stuff to recur with welder?  Isn't that the objective of welder/slaver? SO you can win?

[Joblin Velder]

Is CA that big when ur trying to ditch stuff to recur with welder?  Isn't that the objective or welder/slaver?

Its objective is to win.

[Meddling Mike]

Is CA that big when ur trying to ditch stuff to recur with welder?  Isn't that the objective of welder/slaver? SO you can win?

It would be nice if these cards were good without necessarily having an active welder handy.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you want to try and take all of *their* turns for the rest of the game when you can just take all of yours? 

Hasn't Vault/Key made Slaver irrelevant?  Why isn't this just a blue deck with Welders for whatever benefit Welder provides? 

Once again, this is outside of my pillar, so...  Still, I don't think we're about to witness a Slaver renaissance.

And Jeff, I wholeheartedly agree - if I'm wrong (and this is viable) then adding Grim Monolith to the deck to power out FoF or Slaver seems like a good call.

the thought that the archetype may be outdated is a legitimate one, but I don't know if a straight up comparison to Time Vault is accurate. You do need Key/Tezzeret to accompany Time Vault, it's also restricted. The restriction doesn't matter as much in a deck with multiple copies of Tezzeret the Seeker.

[Delha]

Is CA that big when ur trying to ditch stuff to recur with welder?  Isn't that the objective of welder/slaver? SO you can win?

You do realize that the deck was called Control Slaver, right? It's not like you're expecting to slave your opponent on T2 and just autowin from there. Slaver was not a fast deck. CA is always big, and that goes double in the long game where attrition starts kicking in.

[serracollector]

FoF is used for the CA, and the fact u can choose to dump bots, but you don't think your opponent isn't going to put your Key card with your bots so you keep them in hand?  I am saying that TOGETHER, FoF and frantic work really well (better than FOF alone) to fill the TfK slots that are gone now. 

[bluemage55]

FoF is used for the CA, and the fact u can choose to dump bots, but you don't think your opponent isn't going to put your Key card with your bots so you keep them in hand?

This doesn't matter most of the time.  Frequently you will be in one of three situations:

1. You have Welder out, so you don't mind dumping Key/Vault with the bots.
2. You have Key or Vault, so you take the pile with the bots and win anyway.
3. You have neither Welder nor a piece of Key/Vault, so dumping one piece and the bots is fine.

[Daenyth]

What I've noticed from playing my own build of this is that the mana is very awkward sometimes. The 4cc spot is very overloaded with 4 facts, so I think going to 2-3 would be better.

Is there any merit to Trike currently as a secondary bot? It kills Bob, Revoker, Panter, etc.

[desolutionist]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you want to try and take all of *their* turns for the rest of the game when you can just take all of yours? 

Hasn't Vault/Key made Slaver irrelevant?  Why isn't this just a blue deck with Welders for whatever benefit Welder provides? 

I was thinking about Vault/Key with Fact or Fiction while at church this morning.  It occured to me that in a Goblin Welder deck, 1 Mindslaver might be better than 2 Vault/Key.  The reason for this is because Vault and Key are both dead by themselves and consistently rely on tutors.  Fact or Fiction is not a tutor, its a draw spell -- meaning you could flip over a piece of the combo, but probably won't see the other.  If you've managed to get a couple moxes on the board, isn't a couple Mindslaver activations good enough?

Does "FoF Slaver" want any tutors at all?  It seems to me that you'd want to pass the turn with mana up to cast Mana Drain or Spell Pierce rather than cast Merchant Scroll or Demonic Tutor. 

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Just for the record, Time vault is not dead by it's self. I untap that bad boy to gain an edge all the time.

[bluemage55]

What I've noticed from playing my own build of this is that the mana is very awkward sometimes. The 4cc spot is very overloaded with 4 facts, so I think going to 2-3 would be better.

You need to heavily load up on fast artifact mana to fuel it, and you need to play your Drains more as forms of tempo/acceleration and secondarily as answers to threats, rather than the other way around.  Doing so greatly enhances the playability of FoF x4.

Does "FoF Slaver" want any tutors at all?  It seems to me that you'd want to pass the turn with mana up to cast Mana Drain or Spell Pierce rather than cast Merchant Scroll or Demonic Tutor. 

Depends on whether you want a more reactive control deck or a more combo-oriented one.  Having Thoughtseize/Duress x4 to disarm threats makes the sorcery tutors a lot moe usable.

[Daenyth]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you want to try and take all of *their* turns for the rest of the game when you can just take all of yours? 

Hasn't Vault/Key made Slaver irrelevant?  Why isn't this just a blue deck with Welders for whatever benefit Welder provides? 

I was thinking about Vault/Key with Fact or Fiction while at church this morning.  It occured to me that in a Goblin Welder deck, 1 Mindslaver might be better than 2 Vault/Key.  The reason for this is because Vault and Key are both dead by themselves and consistently rely on tutors.  Fact or Fiction is not a tutor, its a draw spell -- meaning you could flip over a piece of the combo, but probably won't see the other.  If you've managed to get a couple moxes on the board, isn't a couple Mindslaver activations good enough?

Does "FoF Slaver" want any tutors at all?  It seems to me that you'd want to pass the turn with mana up to cast Mana Drain or Spell Pierce rather than cast Merchant Scroll or Demonic Tutor. 

You definitely want tutors. Gifts ungiven is pretty fun with goblin welder in play...

[desolutionist]

I think that Gifts Ungiven is also pretty fun without Goblin Welder in play.

So if you say I definitely want tutors, would you say I definitely want Goblin Welders?