Aggro Salvagers

[rozetta]

Well, as we all wait here for the results of the SCG Power 9 tournament to arrive, I thought I'd share a decklist with you guys that I've been working on recently. That way, we have something to talk about in between postings of the match coverage,

It's actually a sort of rework of the fat deck I was posting in casual for a while. I decided to post it here, since it's been pointed out that some of my casual decks are a little more competitive than I give them credit for and, who knows, we might be able to get some tech out of this. Or at least have a good old laugh about it.

Without further ado...

//Broken 9
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Memory Jar

//Creatures 21
4 Sundering Titan
3 Pentavus
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Metalworker
4 Goblin Welder

//Random 12
4 Sculpting Steel
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Conjurer's Bauble

//Mana 18
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy

I do not have a sideboard planned for this as yet.

So what is this pile? I'll give a brief summary.

Firstly, it's an attempt at creating something with good synergy. Salvagers want to recur small artifacts and this deck contains plenty of small artifacts that allow a card to be drawn (the spheres and baubles). Additionally, welder can play around with those too - Pentavus + Welder + Baubles, etc. is a nice little way to get a few extra cards.

The Salvagers were actually a late addition to the deck (they were Juggernaughts before) - the reason I originally put the baubles and spheres in the deck was that I was always seeing too much land and wanted to up the count of artifacts for Metalworker. Any cantrip artifact would do (for example, Pyrite or Aether Spellbombs). I was even considering Tsabo's Web, since it's the only artifact to my knowledge which has a draw a card CIP effect (but unfortunately, doesn't work as well with salvagers, and I liked the sphere and bauble's effects better). Anyway, the salvagers seemed like they'd have good synergy with all the baubles, so I tried them out and ended up liking them.

Then we have the obvious Metalworker + lots of artifacts thing going. This allows us to play out those fat creatures or create enough mana to go broken off a draw 7 (or start the Salvagers combo).

Then there's Sculpting Steel wants to ideally copy a Darksteel Colossus, but any other artifact will do, given the moment. Sundering Titan is okay if you want to kill a land (remember that the copy gets the CIP effect). Memory Jar is extremely good. Remember also that you can copy your opponent's artifacts too, and don't be afraid to copy a Lotus, even, if you want the mana boost.

Then, of course there is a small possibility that, should the beatdown not win quickly enough, that you may end up able to pull off the Salvagers+Lotus trick. In this case, make lots of mana, bring back all your 1 or 0 cost artifacts, recur a bauble until you draw your deck, cast all the creatures, cast and recur time walk (with a bauble) enough to annoy your opponent, twister, untap and beat down.

Well, this is obviously not a highly competitive looking deck. It is, admittedly, a little inconsistent (which pretty much goes for anything half-relying on Metalworker). Also, it probably doesn't look all that focused - is it aggro or combo? Well, the big creatures are mostly in there to give you game versus nullrod.dec, since they probably have a hard time dealing with an early 7/10 or two. The combo element is not the primary focus, but anything that can give you a win out of nowhere is worth trying, right? The main point was an experiment in getting some good synergy between some of the new cards.

Post feedback, comments, advice and, above all, enjoy flaming me

Edit OMG!!!!1!1one!!1! Noone has flamed this post in 6 hours. Please feel free to enjoy this opportunity of telling me why I should be playing tog or slaver!

[LotusHead]

Ok, Flame#1- There are 20 creatures, not 21, so there is room for the Vampiric Tutor which belongs in almost any deck.

Flame #2- You did not Brainstorm! How could you? I know the deck has 8 Cantripy Baubles and all, but this is type 1! No Brainstorm? Ancestral Recall and Time Walk and Time Friggin Twister??? But no Brainstorm??????

Flame #3- If you are going to combo out, when the Titan fail you, why play Time Walk? Play the Beacon of Time Walk! It only costs 8 AND it suffles into your deck! (no need for Baubling up a new Time Walk, infinite card draw, infinate mana Salvager thingy. Just play Beacon of Time Walk 5D style and let them choke on their Mana Drains.

Which leads me to...

Flame #4- No Mana Drain? No Force of Will? I thought this was Type 1, up for discussion on The Mana Drain- premere Type 1 (ahem) Vintage Magic Tourament User Forums?

Flame #5- No Brainstorm? Now Force of Will? No Mana Drain? AND you are playing lowly ass Time Twister?!?!?

Note: This whole post is 98.2% in jest. I love this decklist.  I immediately played it "solo" on apprentice and it was a blast! It can do some crazy crazy stuff! It is most definately Aggro first, Combo if it just happens to work out.  If the Salvagers don't show up, no big deal! Other cool stuff shows up.  Since most decks run tuns of duals, the Titans just wreck havok! (I'm stockpiling my Ardukar Wastes even as we speak.)

After reading this post, then playing against the scrubs, I traded to get said Beacon of Timewalk from 5D to try out this 3rd Salvager deck (I have no Time Walk.)  Since the Salvagers don't neccessarily see play, this may well be considered MetalWorkShopBaubleDeck.

Union.dec

Made in China.dec

Keep up the good innovations, there is definately new tech to be scrutinized here.

Go Rogue! (It is amazing how Rogue decks are now "Decks I built myself," but hey, established decks do rule...

[Dozer]

Well, given that Shortbus has taken a Salvager-Combo-Deck to the SCG P9 tournament and that a Workshop-aggro-deck did make it to the finals, and your deck looks like a crossover of both, it cannot be discarded as easily as before. Still...

I believe that even though you run a Workshop mana base, your creatures are too expensive. I'd cut down on the Pentavi and probably also on the Salvager cogs to incorporate one of the "smaller" artifact beaters, Juggernaut or Su-Chi. Also, I don't think that 5 white mana sources (excluding the Lotus) is enough if you actually want to rely on Salvager recursion. Are the Cromatic Spheres enough to help out? It seems to me that they aren't.

If you have tested this, how did it fare on the white mana, especially against opposing Wastelands? A single Wasteland on your first land is bad for you. As the deck currently is, I theorize it might win some games, but will only do so when totally undisrupted or doing the turn 1 "3 Moxen, Tinker, Workshop, Sculpting Steel" thingy which will make your opponent face 2 Darksteel Colossi.

Dozer

[rozetta]

It is indeed mana-light and an opening of FoW on the worker followed by wasteland on the shop would be bad. The deck does not get very consistent opening hands to be honest.

I agree that the pentavii should be Juggernaughts, Su-Chis or even something like Myr Enforcer. I've been generally preferring the Juggs over Salvagers (swapping the LED for Vampiric). I think the deck probably needs a couple more land, but couldn't really find anything appropriate. Ancient Tombs might be a possibility. I suppose the best direction to take this would be more aggro, so:

- 4 Auriok Salvagers
- 1 LED
- 3 Pentavus

+ 4 Jugg
+ 1 Vampiric Tutor
+ 3 Ancient Tomb

This stabilizes the mana base, reduces the coloured mana requirement and keeps the artifact count high enough to make the workers and sculpting steels worthwhile.

There's probably a direction to take this if we were going more towards the Salvager combo, but I can't think of it off-hand. Also, Staff of Domination is another way to go for comboing, since it already works well with metalworker.

Here's a link to the previous version in case anyone's interested:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18108

Thanks for the feedback so far!

[waSP]

I <3 this deck, but it needs the Salvagers.  Please don't cut them.  I was screwing around with it on apprentice and found that you do need the extra mana (so I cut a Conjurer's Bauble and a Chromatic Sphere for two Ancient Tombs).

Yeah, the Pentavi should be Juggs.  Such a good first turn threat ^_^ especially if they take the time to leave tempo in your hands (Wasteland).

I really enjoyed this goofy little deck.  This will be my "casual" online deck. (Meaning I smash appr randoms with it)

[rozetta]

@Wasp: Those seem like good changes, I think I'll run that same configuration. Yeah, on after thought, the Pentavii were definitely a little over the top The salvagers are growing on me. At first, I only liked them sometimes, and other times wished they had been Fat, but now I play the deck more, they just get better and better. Plus with the new changes, I get the Juggs back

I actually played around a bit in seeing if I could make the deck more combo-oriented and the best I could come up with was this:

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Memory Jar
1 Burning Wish

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Sundering Titan
4 Goblin Welder

4 Helm of Awakening
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Conjurer's Bauble

1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy

Wish Targets:
Windfall
Mind's Desire
Tendrils
some answers like Balance, Pyroclasm, etc.

In a deck like this, the Conjuring Baubles are actually pretty damn good, since you can get back draw-7s all day long. If you get to the second or third turn, you will probably take infinite time walks from that fact alone, which basically allows you to win with a board full of fatties. Against dragon, you could use the bauble to put twister on your deck after they've milled you out and then continue from there (although they no doubt have a secondary win like sliver queen).

Note also the cool shuffle effect you get if you TfK away the colossus - might or might not be useful.

This is, unfortunately, not as much fun as the aggro version, althought it does kinda feel like a type 1 Tooth and Nail.

However, I think the theory behind the application of that particular engine to a combo deck is quite interesting. Of course, you do still get to win with a colossus (although not with multiple copies).