Control Slaver takes 1st Place in Brockton

[Meddling Mike]

I recently managed to mize a Mox Ruby at the wizard's duel in Brockton MA using control slaver. My list is as follows.

4 Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
8 SoLo Moxen Crypt
1 Library of Alexandria

25 Mana Sources

1 Platinum Angel
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
4 Goblin Welder

7 Creatures

Demonic Tutor
Mystical Tutor
2 Cunning Wish

4 Utility/Tutors

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge

10 Draw spells

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

8 Counters

2 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

Fat welder tricktastic artifacts

Time Walk
Tinker
Yawgmoth's Will

Bah-Roken

Sideboard:
3 Suq'Ata  Firewalkers
3 Blood Moon
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Mogg Salvage
1 Gush
1 Fire/Ice
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast

I apologize in advance for my lack of memory on the subject, it's quite possible that my report could be slightly inaccurate in some places or perhaps I mislabeled a game. I'd say it's mostly very accurate.

Round 1: Control Slaver Mirror vs. Matt

Game 1:
Matt appears to be one of the scholars folk, or so his deck would later reveal, ELD's build is about the only one that I know of that runs deep analysis MD. We basically stare each other down with welders for a long while, trying to draw into our broken spells. My memory is really hazy, but my life totals indicate I took five damage from somewhere and then there was no more written down with him at 18 life, my guess is that I resolved a pivotal tinker/will and had him slaver locked for a couple turns and he saw no reason to keep up the charade and move along to game 2.

Sideboard:
- 1 Platinum Angel
- 1 Memory Jar
- 2 Cunning Wish
- 1 Brainstorm
+ 2 Mogg Salvage
+ 1 Blue Elemental Blast
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast
+ 1 Fire/Ice

Game 2:
I really don't like writing tourney reports for mirror matches, they essentially come down to the draws rather than adopting the proper strategy and so forth, no really tight plays or misplays this game, I just got a good draw and did the proper setup and when the good spells resolve good things happen.

Match count: 1-0 Game Count 2-0

Round 2: Andy playing FCG

Game 1: this was a bit of a new experience for me, I had never actually played the FCG matchup before and was only farmiliar with the common knowledge workings of the deck. An early tinker for pentavus was enough to tango with his first turn lackey. His goblin sharpshooter got him back into the game to some extent by allowing his lackey to punch through. A well placed gempalm incinerator put an end to my pentavus, fortunately a goblin welder shortly afterwards had his own opinion about pentavus staying in play. A slaver lock ensued. The first mindslaver allowed me to sac all his guys to the food chain and left him with nearly no permanents.

Sideboard:
- 2 Cunning Wish
+ 1 Fire/Ice
+ 1 Blue Elemental Blast

Game 2: The story of this game was basically my opponent forgetting entirely about that tormod's crypt he has in play. He quickly amassed a pesky goblin army and was prepared to take me to the whipping shed, he then proceeded to gempalm incinerate my lone goblin welder hanging back on D. In response I TFK'd ditching platinum angel, then welded her in for a mana crypt. He neglected to use the tormod's crypt in order to win the game, and his incinerator was gone, used on my welder. I would later hardcast a slaver and activate it. I used his tormod's crypt on his turn to RFG his graveyard. During his turn goblin sharpshooter would be his bane. I matroned up a second one and then took his whole team down. After I had to spend a minute explaining to him that creatures given haste by goblin warchief may indeed use their tap abilities regardless of summoning sickness. When all was said and done he really wasn't looking so hot, a plats finished the job despite a very solid recovery on his part.

Some crazy Jedi Mind Trick ownage, "you do not have a tormod's crypt in play, just let the ability resolve"

Matches 2-0 Games 4-0

Round 3: Jacob Orheart with WTF

I've been friendly with Jacob for just under a year now, after I met samite healer at BC I met Jacob shortly afterwards, as well as others like Ric Flair. I always find it kind of difficult playing friends in tourneys, it's caused some rather uncomfortable situations from time to time, but fortunately Jacob's just about the most mello person I've ever met, so I felt comfortable playing vs him regardless of outcome.

Game 1: I got beat by a river boa, there wasn't much I could do but sit there and watch that little man own me. I cunning wish, but he has mana open to regenerate the boa, so I end up going for gush to draw into some brokenness, but it's just land and a counter, no go.

Sideboard:
- 1 Mindslaver
- 2 Mana Drain
- 2 Cunning Wish
- 2 Brainstorm (In retrospect I'd remove one FoF and sb in one less card instead)
-1 Memory Jar
+ 3 Suq'ata Firewalker
+ 3 Blood Moon
+ 1 Fire/Ice
+ 1 Red Elemental Blast (wouldn't side this in vs. WTF in retrospect.)

Game 2:
Jacob's deck tried to put up a fight, but this draw was probably THE most broken I saw of the day. Ancestral, tinker, FoW backups, Goblin Welders, TFK's,  Yawg Will. I don't quite remember how it went down exactly, but more or less I'd cast my broken spells, then Jacob would desperately try to claw his way back into the game, then came another topdeck by me. That's REALLY hard to compete with for nearly anybody, I don't think I could have asked for a better draw. But I suppose no mox tourneys are won without an amazing draw or two.

Game 3: The sideboard hate shows up big time and firewalker shows up and takes care of a bunch of guys, blood moon shows up a turn later and shuts down his remaining man lands and makes sure he can't cast his call of the herd. He concedes shortly afterwards.

Matches 3-0 Games 6-1

Round 4: Rich Shay (The Atog Lord) playing Control Slaver

Myself and Rich initially discuss ID'ing this round to which the store owner informs us that it is one of his "house rules" that no ID's be allowed. He hadn't announced this rule prior along with the rest of the "House Rules" and it wasn't listed on the "house rules" posted all throughout the store, as such I found this discovery quite upsetting and we sat down to play our games.

Game 1: Rich decides to go all in on an unprotected Yawgmoth's Will, I'm sitting with a fist full of lands and have to let it resolve, after that it was all over.

Sideboard:
See Round 1

Game 2: My draw continues to be somewhat lacking, Rich had the tools necessary to win, I was really never in control of the game.

Matches 3-1 Games 6-3

Round 5: Chris Alexander playing Control Slaver (Deep Anal style)

I met Chris a number of years ago when he was a regular at TJ collectibles, I've always had ample respect for his abilities as a magic player and have always found him to be an extremely competent judge. The last time we played I got owned in quite a large way, but at the time I was also playing Suicide Black against pre-restriction long.dec, I don't think I ever really stood a chance anyways. Since then both of us have migrated to a more enjoyable deck.

Game 1: I apologize, my memory is quite lacking on this one, I think my mindslaver going for the gold first was key, but I don't recall.

Sideboard:
See Round 1

Game 2: I don't recall a thing about this match, sorry. Perhaps Chris remembers better than I do.

Matches 4-1 Games 8-3

Round 6: Brian Rozzero playing R/G Beatdown with man lands

Game 1: I get my ass beat by an efreet and a man land for an extended period of time, he burns me out with a shitload of incinerates and lightning bolts

Sideboard:
Don't quite recall, brought in blood moon, don't recall much else.

Game 2: See game 1 plus a blood moon that arrived far too late to the party and 2 slavers that got me absolutely nothing of consequence.

Matches 4-2 Games 8-5

Cut to top 8, 12 points made it with good tiebreaks, 7th overall

Quarterfinal Round: Brain Rozzero playing R/G Beatdown with man lands

Game 1:  I guess the force was with me on this one or something, my hand has all the tools necessary to beat a deck like this. My pentavus hits the table via tinker and owns. I swing in with my 1/1's and the big man and keep mana open to hang back on D, that's all she wrote.

Sideboard:
See Round 6

Game 2: Similar + an effectively placed blood moon as I recall.

Matches 5-2 Games 10-5

Semifinal Round: Mike playing WTF

Mike was kind enough to write this one for me (edited for grammar):

Top 4 vs Meddling mage playing salver
Game 1 I suck at remembering, but I do remember it being all mine until he resolves a slaver and slavers me and I top deck recall and he had 0 cards in hand. I recall him because I love making bad plays under slaver and he wins at 3 with angel on board. His mana crypt was on the board for like 5 turns and I only won once. This isn’t cool because it cost me the match.

(Sideboard: See Round 3)

Game 2 I go turn one land, mox, cloud, lavamancer. I follow up next turn with cloud null rod and I win rather easily but I got really luck with, I think, 2 Pyros in hand just in case.

Game 3 was very one sided as he plays the slaver game I hate so much and I really never was in this game.


Matches 6-2

Games 12-6

Finals: Rich Shay (The Atog Lord) playing Control Slaver

Game 1: Rich starts off strong with an ancestral recall. We both have two active welders, my slaver + activation resolves first. Rich makes a last ditch effort to weld in his slaver and slave himself at the end of my turn hoping I would forget my own active welders, I didn't. I weld in my slaver in response, he welds his in again in response, I weld mine in again in response. My welder's ability resolves first, killing his mindslaver as a result of state based effects. I took his turn to find a juicy hand featuring mystical tutor and Yawgmoth's Will. I Mystical during his upkeep for brainstorm. I do relatively little this turn other than welding in his crypt and my mindslaver. On the next activation I cast his yawgmoth's will, ancestral targeting myself, mystical for Thirst for Knowlege, brainstorm, cast thirst for knowledge ditching pentavus and plats into oblivion, and I burn his tinker out to replace a mox with a mox. His welder recur my slaver, then the second attempts to recur his slaver, putting a mox and the mindslaver into his RFG pile. After that he was left with really no hand or reasonable win conditions left.

Sideboard: See Round 1

Game 2: Rich works himself into a position to weld in a mindslaver and activate it the following turn. I hardcast a slaver, in response he welds in his slaver, I let that ability resolve and then weld out his slaver. After this my slaver resolves with no artifacts in my graveyard. This keeps rich from being able to play his own mindslaver or welding it in on his turn (Legendary Artifact). He is forced to pass the turn to me, I slaver him with approximately 3 activations coming my way courtesy of his welders, I yawgmoth's will and acquire all the tools necessary to win the game, Rich's one last turn doesn't draw him anything of consequence and I win the game.

Final Record Matches 7-2 Games 14-6

I paid the fourth place finisher Mike $50 as agreed upon and gladly accepted my brand new mox ruby. After that we managed to mize some food at a far away TGIFridays and finally retired to my bed at BC.

Props:
Jeff Anand (Samite Healer) For hooking me up with a ride to Brockton, the day after I move in with him I win a mox tourney, coincidence?

Rich Shay (The Atog Lord) for innovating control slaver, being a good friend and initially offering to ID in round 4 of the swiss.

Demonic Attorney for clawing his way to a respectable finish and providing ample amusement involving Urza the cat during the first round of t8 and also being kind enough to loan me his spare platinum angel while mine is being matrixified.

Jacob Orlove for coming back from California as chill as ever.

Chris Alexander for being the judge in leiu of a real one.

The store for putting up an excellent garunteed prize structure and also providing a quite comfortable play area and somewhat reasonable prices.

Slops:

The late night service at TGIFridays for being insanely slow and inattentive, then giving me a look for leaving only 15%

The store, for not allowing concessions or ID's and neglecting to announce this, souring an otherwise entirely positive experience.

Little kids at the store, for being incredibly annoying with questions like "does anybody want a bringer?" x 50

Andy Golden for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Urza the cat for not respecting the play area of others.

Jeff Anand for randomly yanking on my beard.

What I learned:
Vampiric Tutor is terrible in the board.

Cunning Wish is still quite good.

Darksteel Citadel is the nutz and will be finding it's way into my list.

Mystical Tutor was indeed the new hotness.

Memory jar is no longer the house it once was in this deck.

Firewalker and Blood Moon are adequate to defeat fish in the board.

Blood Moon>Tsaboo's Web.

Vault isn't really necessary.

[The Atog Lord]

Congrats, Mike.

For what it's worth, think about how the new Legend rule would have dramatically changed our match.

[Covetous]

Congrats on the Mox.  I have a few questions about your build, which is slightly different from the other recent builds I've seen, but is more to my liking (I like Cunning Wish because I hate not having answers to problem permanents).

Did you miss the 2x MD Duress that many other Control Slaver decks run?  
How did Gush work for you in the SB?  
How often did you wish for/SB in Gush, and in what situations?
Did the Gush make it easier to run -1 mana source?  
Did you miss the 26th source?

Thanks.

[Zherbus]

How many people showed up for this? Also, is there a way I can snag Top8 lists? Thanks.

[Jacob Orlove]

How many people showed up for this? Also, is there a way I can snag Top8 lists? Thanks.

There was no deck registration (another house rule) so there's no way to get the lists.

Good job on the win, Mike. I'll be writing a mini-report with some of my thoughts later.

[Meddling Mike]

Ok, there were 36 participants in the tourney.

The top 8 was something like this:
(excerpted from Noobo the clown's report)
The top 8 is announced and the breakdown looks something like this
4 control slaver
2 wtf/r (me and Jacob the only ones playing it at the tourney)
1 agrro workshop that was r/g with skullclamp for drawing
1 4 cc (the one that beat me round 5)

I'm not sure where my first round of top 8 opponent fits in here, it was r/g but I never saw a skullclamp or any creatures that are synergistic with skullclamp.

Did you miss the 2x MD Duress that many other Control Slaver decks run?

Personally, I have always opted for cunning wish over MD duress, cunning wish has bailed my ass out of waaay to many situations that would otherwise be crushing for me not to run it.

How did Gush work for you in the SB?

This is really a personal choice, when I changed the list to move FoF into the main deck I found that my wishes were much less effective without an effective draw spell. The ideal situation with gush came when I had library on the table but only three cards in hand, I played out a red source on my turn to bait out a wasteland over wasting the library, in response I cunning  wished for gush, gushed the island back to my hand along with another, had 7 cards in hand and activated my library eot. It's key for reactivating a library quickly, saving lands, and it's just a good cheap draw spell when you need one. I've personally found it to be an excellent wish target and a better draw spell in the board than alternatives like skeletal scyring. I would say that it helps very slightly with smoothing out the lack of one source, I wouldn't say it's incredibly significant, it's of course very nice if they burn a wasteland trying to kill one of your islands and now you can consistently make your land drops for a few more turns. I only mulled 3 times throughout the course of the entire tourney, but there was a noticeable lack of wastelands, I think by running four basic islands and five fetches the mana base can consistently set up a wasteland-proof mana base before it necessarily needs to stop dropping the non basics, basically getting mana drain or TFK online before they start hurting your mana base. I'm currently working on adding a 26th source, two citadels in leiu of an underground sea and probably a memory jar.

[The Atog Lord]

Running a single Wish maindeck without a draw spell in the sideboard is fine, but if you run a pair of maindeck Wishes, as Mike does, you really want to be able to grab something to crack open a stalemate.

Instead of decklists, this establishment has each player examine their first round opponent's deck for legality (after the match has concluded, of course). They also disallowed IDs and concessions, something that I was not thrilled with. Still, Jacob and I had a very fun game round six, when we were both assured entrance into the top eight.

[StarOrc]

I made top 8 (5-1-0, 3rd after Swiss) playing Control Slaver and Scrubbed out vs Noobo the Clown in top 8. My only loss came in the first round to Jacob Orlove when in the third game I mulled to 5. This is my list if you are interested:

Control Slaver

Mana Base (25)
2 Island
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
8 SoLo Moxen Crypt
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

Men (5)
4 Goblin Welder
1 Pentavus

Tutor/Utility (3)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth

Draw (11)
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Deep Analysis
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm

Counter (10)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Duress

Artifacts that Win (3)
2 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

Random Brokenness (3)
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Sundering Titan
1 Rack and Ruin
3 Fire/Ice
3 Flametounge Kavu

I really like this build as it treated me well all day except for the two random Mulligan to 5 Games against WTF/r in the first round and the top 8.
I played WTF/r (2), Control Slaver, Mono-Red Goblins, 4cc, Super Gro, and the Artifact Agro deck with Clamp that made top 8.

Also on a side note, I think Rich (The Atog Lord) played against the Artifact Agro deck I played against in round 6. Maybe the last deck wasn't a 4cc but another R/G aggro deck.

Corey

[The Atog Lord]

The Workshop deck that I played in the first round of top eight looked like TnT with Clamp. It had Survival, Trike, Welder, Clamp, and Anger.

[Nameless]

The Workshop deck that I played in the first round of top eight looked like TnT with Clamp. It had Survival, Trike, Welder, Clamp, and Anger.

Survival AND Clamp?  That seems like overkill for a drawing engine easily stopped by the well-played Null Rod.  Though, I guess paying for 2 cards a turn by Clamping Squee isn't a bad deal...

[noobo the clown]

I know where I made my mistake.  WHen playing Jacob we tryed to figure out how many slavers were in top 8 and he asked Mike and he must of misunderstood and said he played salver in top 8 first round.

SO it was
3 slaver *
1 R/g beats
2 wtf
1 aggro workshop
1 4 cc

it went like this
rich vs agrro workshop
Mike vs r/g beats
Jacob vs 4 cc
Me vs slaver

than wtf vs salver
wtf vs slaver

slaver vs slaver in finals
and wtf vs wtf in 3/4 place match

[Covetous]

I have another question about control slaver builds.  Have those of you who play control slaver considered and rejected Karn as a utility creature?  He seems to me like he could fill some of the role that Mox Monkey played in some of the earlier control slaver builds, and also be a good blocker in the event that something fat makes it into play and attackes you.  He has the unique ability to destroy Darksteel Citadels in the mirror in addition to moxen.  Just a thought I had and I wanted to know if he has already been dismissed as not good enough.  Thanks.

[Meddling Mike]

The thing about Karn in this deck is that if you're going to be getting a fat artifact into play, typically you want something a bit more gamebreaking than  a Karn. Karn also requires alot more mana to get out and to do what he does, and he doesn't kill vaults or sol rings. Shaman is much cheaper and can take care of sol ring and vault in a pinch.

[Covetous]

I guess I was thinking about Karn as something you might actually cast, as opposed to something to be tinkered or thirst/weldered.  But the point about not killing vault or ring is definitely legitimate.  I was looking at Karn as more of a defensive tool to keep you alive while you set up for enslavement.

On a different note, have you considered moving FoF back to the SB and replacing it with a MD Deep A since you run 2x Cunning Wish and mentioned disliking a lack of card-draw in the SB?

[Meddling Mike]

I believe you misunderstood me covetous, I was actually saying that I had found gush to be a quite adequate wish target for card drawing. I've also never really found deep analysis to be that great. I've always found Fact or Fiction to be superior for the four mana that you pay for it, it helps you get cards in the graveyard that you may actually want in your graveyard, it's also not a targeted draw spell like deep analysis, so a single slaver activation that catches you with deep analysis in hand can be very painful. I've just found FoF to be the superior Main Deck draw spell and wouldn't cut anything else in the main deck to fit Deep Analysis in personally. I've found Gush to quite nicely fit my card drawing needs, and activates library very suddenly if needed.

[Kerz]

Props on the win. I guess Control Slaver keeps its "the cool deck to play" status up.

You were 7th seed with a 4-2 record? Do you think if the store didn't have the "no IDs" rule you would have t8ed?

Jeff Anand for randomly yanking on my beard.

That's so good. Jeff <3s the random yanking (on people's beards, of course)

[circus]

I piloted 4cc to a top 8 finish and then lost to Jacob.  Here is the deck list:

1 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 City of Brass
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Skeletal Scrying

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fire/Ice
1 Balance

2 Gorilla Shaman
3 Exalted Angel

SB:
1 Mind Twist
2 FTK
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Pyroblast
1 BEB
1 Coffin Purge
1 Gush
1 Vamp
1 StP
2 Rack & Ruin
1 Disenchant

Matchups in Swiss:

Mirror - Draw
Budget 4cc - Win
FCG - Win
Slaver - Loss
WTF/r - Win
Dryad Fish - Win

[noobo the clown]

hey circus this is the kid you played in the 5th round playing wtf. good job for the top 8 finish.  I also lost to Jacob but for the 3rd place match.  I do have 2 questions for you.  How did the 2 main gorilas shamans work for you? I know there were quite a bit of fish decks and they arnt great in that match up but I saw how good the 3 angels were.  Also how do you like the mind twist in the sb instead of the main?

[circus]

How did the 2 main gorilas shamans work for you?

I like them in the mirror and versus Slaver.  Mox Monkey saved my ass big-time against your buddy running Dryad Fish, but that deck was kind of random.

Not totally sold on 2 Gorillas main.  Maybe 1 Gorilla Shaman & 1 Crucible would be a better configuration.  As you said, Gorillas are are bad vs. Fish.  Still a lot of fish in the area.

Also how do you like the mind twist in the sb instead of the main?

Mind Twist in the sideboard was excellent.  Two thumbs up.  Way up.  I only wanted it in the mirror match.  All the good Tog players seem to have migrated over to Slaver.  And I have yet to see anyone local running Smmenen Blue.

Props to you for T4.

[Meddling Mike]

You were 7th seed with a 4-2 record? Do you think if the store didn't have the "no IDs" rule you would have t8ed?

Well Kerz, 3-0-3 would have had the exact same amount of points as 4-2 with twelve, but the plan actually would have been to ID with TAL, then play out my next two matches confident that I could take down at least one of them, leaving me with 13 points, placing me just a hair above 4-2, and the same for Rich. I was 3-0 at the time I got paired vs. Rich, I went 1-2 for the last half of the swiss, then went undefeated in top 8.

[noobo the clown]

circus not that it really matters anymore but yokomoto (my friend nick) wasnt playing fish, he was playing the very old version of gro with werebear dryad meddling mage and mystic enforcer, it was a deck he was borrowing from a friend that got 4-2 and 9th with control slaver.  I don't know the exact ctreature base but I know those were the creatures and I know some of the deck list and it doesnt use curisioty or anything with good evasion execpt Enforcer what would be bad in a fish deck but I guess you can say old gro can look sort of close to fish with stifles daze ect.

gorilla shaman is good and I use 1 in fish and 1 in hulk smash but im not sure if 2 helps the match up with slaver because of the 2 darksteel citidels.  they onlyn eed one of those than play moxs from hand after your tapped out from the slaver turn to go off on you.