Welder MUD by Team MeanDeck - TheManaDrain article

[Toad]

Introduction

A month ago, right after The Origins, Stephen Menendian (aka. Smmenen) and Matthieu Durand (aka. Toad) introduced "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution", aka $T4KS, in StarCityGames columns. This deck was our personal build (designed with Kevin Cron, aka Cha1n5) of what is commonly referred to as Stax, an Artifact Prison based around a Sphere of Resistance, Tangle Wire and Smokestack lock. Since then, the deck has proven very strong, as Kevin's fifth place finish at GenCon, Matthieu's second place finish at Antwerp or Sebastian Kaul's recent third place finish in the last D�lmen tournament all indicate.

But a shadow was growing in the East... or, for the European players, the West. Hulk was proving to be the single most powerful deck in the format, and everyone who is considering which deck to play in the current metagame must choose a deck that can defeat, or at least, have a chance against the Tog monstrosity. One obvious answer is to tweak out the Tog deck into a mirror match fighting machine. This might include upping the Deep Analysis count, or radically altering the SB options. These are solid decisions, but are doomed to relative failure. The first reason is many changes you make to the "best deck" weaken it to decks it had solid matches against - that is inherent in the nature of changing deck fundamentals. The second reason is that in spite of elegant and thoughtful alternations, luck plays a huge factor. The luckiest mirror match player will probably be the winner - not the player with the best tech. $T4KS proved to be really strong, but is commonly hosed by single card strategies, involving Pernicious Deed or Artifact Mutation. It also has a pretty bad matchup against Rector Trix, which (along with Hulk) is a serious contender for the title of the best Type One deck in the current metagame. Strong sideboard strategies help, but the best deck doesn't want to rely on drawing hate cards for winning.

One approach to the current metagame is to find a "hate deck" - a deck that is completely antithetical to the aimed for deck. F*ck-you-blue is an example of this sort of strategy. This is a doomed strategy. Hate decks never succeed because, inevitably, the best deck is only a portion of the metagame unless you are playing in the Masters. The best strategy, or the optimal strategy, is to find the inherently powerful deck is naturally antithetical to the aimed for deck. What Team Mean Deck present today is a tweaking of a deck that is exactly what we are looking for: WELDER MUD.

The Deck - Welder MUD

// Mana sources -- 23
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
2 City of Traitors
7 Mountain
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Black Lotus

// Lock and disruption -- 22
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Tangle Wire
4 Smokestack
3 Powder Keg
2 Winter Orb
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

// Utilities -- 5
4 Grafted Skullcap
1 Memory Jar

// Creatures -- 10
4 Goblin Welder
4 Metalworker
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Single card analysis

The Manabase

The deck's manabase combines the safety of basic lands (Mountains) with an "excess" broken, acceleratory lands and artifacts (Workshop, Academy, City of Traitors, SoLoMoxen, etc.). The 7 basic lands provide stability and resiliency against non-basic land hate (Wasteland, Price of Progress). The Mountains are invulnerable to everything in the metagame except for Strip Mine and Sinkhole, ensuring they will remain on the board. Moreover, despite having only 9 sources of red mana (7 Mountain, 1 Mox, 1 Lotus), the deck will normally have access to red very easily, again, due to their basic nature. The non-basic lands and mana artifacts, however, enable a quick start to your game plan combined with the disrpution of 5 Strip effects, while the latter also provide great fodder for Welder. This balance of stable mana sources and broken acceleration allows the deck to be both explosive and robust. It should also be noted that outside of the original MUD, this deck makes the most efficient use out of Mishra's Workshop due to having only 4 spells (Goblin Welder) that cannot be cast with Workshop mana.

The key lock spells, Sphere of Resistance, Tangle Wire and Smokestack

Stephen and Matthieu have already covered that part in their article introducing $T4KS - Please refer to that article for informations on about this lock works.

Metalworker

This little guy is absurd. As Stephen once noted, $T4KS actually has a slightly more explosive first turn than MUD (and thus Welder MUD), but this is usually because Welder MUD spends the first or second turn dropping Metalworker. What this means is this deck's second and third turns are completely insane. It is not uncommon for Welder MUD to drop its entire hand on turn two or three. Without multiple Forces of Will, there is no multi-color control deck in Type 1 right now that can withstand that kind of barrage - particularly when you take into account that Welder MUD's Wastelands can often destroy the second untapped blue dual-land (to shut off Mana Drain) before it drops its hand. Metalworker also allows Welder MUD to keep pace with some of the combo decks in the format, particularly when going first. They may Duress one of your lock parts on their first turn, but you'll usually have a couple left, and if you're able to drop Sphere + Tangle Wire, or Wire + Smokestack (or hell, all three) on turn two, it will take combo a while to recover - during which time you can Wasteland their key duals and then pull ahead with Grafted Skullcaps, or solidify the lock with a Smokestack and additional Spheres.

Winter Orb

This deck (and MUD) abuses Winter Orb like no deck since the original Prison decks packing Icy Manipulators. Take note of the evil combination of Winter Orb and Tangle Wire (which some people miss when first glancing at the decklist). It's this combination that makes Winter Orb almost as good against aggro and combo as it is against control. Sligh just finished playing its second land, its third dork, and is counting on swinging next turn? Not anymore. Wire + Orb amounts to a 2-3 turn Time Walk against many decks, leaving them completely helpless for multiple turns while you set up a Smokestack lock or begin outdrawing them with Skullcap. It is, however, pointless in multiples and weak against many decks on its own (most combo and most aggro are not too heavily disrupted by an Orb *without* Wire on the table), so we're just running two for now. If you see nothing but control all day long, feel free to increase the number of Orbs you're running. Hulk in particular wants to use all of its mana on every turn to cast drawers and put cards in its graveyard to feed the 'Tog, and even on its own Orb frequently slows them down enough for you to run away with the game. Winter Orb is also really strong with the Wastelands.

Powder Keg

Powder Keg is Welder MUD's main utility. Powder Keg, or often referred to as Keg, is used mainly to create permanent advantage through being able to often destroy multiple creatures and or artifacts at once. This denial (i.e., the gaining of permanent advantage through Powder Keg) is synergistic with Welder MUD's key lock cards (Sphere of Resistance, Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Winter Orb). Powder Keg is used as much as a Moxen sweeper as it is against opposing creatures or problem artifacts. The fact that Powder Keg is so polyvalent is what makes it such a strong inclusion -- it's a "catch-all" card that serves to cement your lock against an opposing board full of mana artifacts, prevent your death when faced with a fast Sligh opening, and (if it hits the table early enough) serve as a defense against the possibility of an opposing Goblin Welder.

Goblin Welder

Goblin Welder is the only reason that this deck isn't just a weaker version of MUD. MUD is a very powerful deck that seems to have been underappreciated, but it has one Achilles' Heel: opposing Workshop decks like Stax or TnT have a four-of, maindeck bomb that can give them a huge edge in the matchup. Namely, Goblin Welder. Our solution to this, when we began to look very closely at MUD, was one of deterrence: a sort of Goblin Welder arms race. If we have our own Goblin Welders, and can get them with similar frequency (or slow down the game until we draw our Welder and drop it first, as often happens in the TnT matchup) then we'll have nullified the other deck's natural advantage. The addition of Goblin Welder to MUD actually ever-so-slightly weakens the deck's inherent power against non-Workshop decks, but it remains so strong, and helps the Stax and TnT matchups to such a degree, that it is nevertheless worth the sacrifice.

Don't misunderstand: Goblin Welder is obviously a very strong card, and performs all the same tricks here that he can perform in Stax, recurring Tangle Wires, Memory Jar, resetting Smokestack; there's a reason the other Workshop decks are running him, after all. It's just that this Workshop variant doesn't actually need him in order to beat control.

Why play this deck over Stax?

1) Welder MUD's manabase is much more solid, especially in the face of Wasteland.

2) More disruption with 5 Strip Effects! These are key to keeping multi-color Control off that 2nd blue and are also really strong against Combo.

3) There are no Draw7 (except for Memory Jar) that are hard to cast and can fill your opponent's hand with an answer.

4) 4 sources of continuous card draw (Grafted Skullcap).

5) Metalworker allows for some disgusting "I dump my hand" turn 2s.

6) Powder Keg allows you to sweep the board from quick, 1 & 2 drop when facing Aggro.

7) Winter Orb is a house against Control.

Credits

Kevin Cron (Cha1n5), Matthieu Durand (Toad), Max Joseph (Westredale), Steven Mennendian (Smmenen), Koen v/d Hulst (Thug), Justin Walters (Saucemaster), for the deck and the article.

Team Mean Deck like to acknowledge the simultaneous and independent discovery of this deck by Zhalfirin and the C&J's players, and thank them for their patience in holding back their own lists until we felt we had a list worthy of posting. Zhalfirin and Fishhead have both had recent success with their own, independently discovered versions of Welder MUD at C&J's, and Zhalfirin contributed to this post as well.