Weirding/Salvagers splits for 1st in MN. not sure how.

[Methuselahn]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I have been working on a cute little deck aside from team projects. I wasn't going to post it because it is really rough and looks to have no credibility. However, I managed to win a ~15 person tourny with it last night. I thought that that was funny, so now I will write about it.  Note that I think this deck idea has some major problems.

...First the deck.

I wanted to build a Salvager/Trinket Mage combo deck that goes off with 1 aether bomb and 1 pyrite bomb. With this, I wanted to be able to have multiple win conditions. I also wanted 4 Mana Drains and 4 Forces. I figured the deck should have more than just the combo to win. I figured that I have Drains and Forces to back up my slow combo vs other faster combo. But, against control decks, I just needed more overall threats. I thought about a fishy theme like what Shortbus was/is working on, but wanted something different to play with. I figured Exalted could be a good choice. I was already playing U/W. Also, to beat other combo and control, (because I theoretically had more threats than other control) I decided to add Zur's Weirding. As we know, it combos with Angel and somewhat with Salvager. If I had either an Angel or a Salvager, I could inevitably combo out or hard lock my opponent.  One of my favorite plays is getting to three mana, casting Trinket Mage and going right for the Lotus in order to go Turbo-Angel turn 4.

Ok, the list I played. Shield your eyes.

Weird-Salvagers (an Aggro-Control-Prison-Combo varient)

Maindeck:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Fire/Ice (meta call-for the fishes)
2 Swords to Plowshares

2 Zur's Weirding
3 Exalted Angel
3 Auriok Salvagers (I want 4 MD now)
4 Trinket Mage
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 AEther Spellbomb

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Impulse (signed by Rico Suave!!hot!!)

1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard:
2 Control Magic
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Hurkyll's Recall

A few things about the deck in hindsight from the tourny; I threw the Impulse in there because I couldn't find my third Weirding. It turned out to be awesome. I want more. Too many swords in MD and SB combined. Artifact hate was perfect.  I should have had 1 Tormod's Crypt in SB, just because.  

Some people may question Brainstorm and Zur's Weirding together because of the replacement effect + putting 2 cards back aspect of Brainstorm.  This is easy to play around tho.  The thing to remember is that you shouldn't cast Brainstorm if you have only 2 good cards in hand with a Weirding out.

Alright a quick tourny report:

Round 1: TradewindRider.dec
G1: I go awesome broken and toss a billion bombs at his face, with force backup to his mystic snake.
G2: I notice him side in a bunch of grave hate. he plays a turn 1 crypt, I follow with Walk and resolving an Exalted. I win
1-0

Round 2: Jon with RG beats.  He also ends up taking first seed in standings.
G1: I mulligan twice and am not able to counter his river boas or remove his Ascetics.
G2: It's a stand off for ever. I desperately need a white mana source for my plows and Salvager blockers. I manage to flip an angel early with lotus tho. He builds a huge army then swings for lethal in one turn.
1-1

Round 3: Gay R.
G1: I mulligan into mana. I draw out counters and drop a morph. I flip for some missionary and the win.
G2: Just like game 1, except much more savagely.
2-1

Round 4: FCG without Food Chain.
G1: He is really impressed that I own power for some reason. With some clever brainstorming and mage bouncing I get the combo off.
G2: A turn 1 lackey that shits out a SGC and Goblin Goon is the death of me.
G3: I ramp up on tons of mana and topdeck like a king. I combo out turn 4.
3-1

T8: Belcher Parfait and sticks.
G1:  He gets scepters out, a belcher, tax, scroll rack, story circle and everything. He has bad luck belching me for little amounts. Finally he is able to kill me, Although I could have gone off on him the very next turn because I could have Iced his scepter + belcher and played Salvager to combo out with force backup. But alas, I die to the goblin tube.
G2: I show him how the combo works on turn 4 after rack and ruining his chalice for zero on turn 2
G3: I get an angel out and him down to ten before I rip a Salvager and am able to combo out.

T4: there was no t4! Jason told me that the kid thought that he wouldn't be able to beat me, so he left. Thats the fucking force fucking with you bitch!!!

Finals: Standard Procedure is that Finalists split and 3rd/4th gets about half of what the top 2 recieve. Tonight was $22 to the winners and $10 to the others.  I think this is because of time issues.

I had hoped to get enough store credit built up again to purchase his remaining Berserk, but someone had bought it while the tourny was going on.  Major Frowns.    

The End.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Er, obligatory congrats and all, but (assuming, as I always have too, unfortunately, that this isn't a joke) you're better off playing standard Kaeper for what you're trying to do. Playing with both the Angels and the combo is pretty much just Kaeper with a crap-load of dead cards and chump blockers. Your matchups were jokes, and your one loss was to what should be grossly in your favor (assuming he wasn't packing random hate).

I wasn't going to post it because it is Salvagers.dec

Fixed.

-Dan

[Methuselahn]

No, it wasn't a joke, I guess.  I did actually play this in a friday night t1 tourny.

Trinket Mages let me go turbo-angel on turn 3 or 4 with lotus, avoiding burn such as fire/ice, grim, bolts, etc.   Weirding has synergy with the angels.  I can still combo out if I just have salvagers/weirding and can play them.

Sure, it's not the best, but the deck has lots of fun tricks and usually the opponent only sees 1/2 of the deck game one and sides without knowing that I will probably go for the other win condition game 2.  Like, when I play randoms on mwsplay, I try to combo out.  When I sb for game 2, I almost always go for turbo-angel first.

[Matt]

The white spellbomb would give you a lock with Weirding and Salvagers.

[AngryPheldagrif]

The white spellbomb would give you a lock with Weirding and Salvagers.

If you can pull that off, you're better off just winning. Extra soft locks rarely justify the inclusion of bad cards.

-Dan

[Methuselahn]

I'm not sure you are completely familiar with how Weirding plays out AngryP.  I think Matt is right.  If you have Weirding and Salvagers but no Trinket Mage you can eventually draw into any spellbomb.  Drawing into any spellbomb sort of makes Salvager a 2/4 +2 draw damage off weirding.  Drawing into both a bomb AND a lotus is much more difficult.  And lord knows, they will deny you your mage when it comes up.  So Ideally, the bomb you want in this situation is Sunbeam Spellbomb

I think putting many 1cc and 0cc artifact one-of's in the sideboard is perfectly logical.  Sunbeam Spellbomb, Tormod's, Skullclamp, and even The Rack/Ivory Tower (well in theory anyway-usually not good in practice, sans casual.)

I wasn't going to post it because it is Salvagers.dec

Fixed.

 NO!
I originally posted this on our team forums and wasn't going to post it there.  So this thread is actually a carbon copy from it.   So in actuality, I wasn't going to post it because it is new and still rough around the edges.

[LotusHead]

I like this build because (duh...) it uses the Salvagers Combo when applicable and has a few (2-3) other tricks up it's sleeve.  The Exalted Angel/Zur's Weirding thing is just...weird.  But you have a solid mana base, the whole waste/strip thing and still Trinket Mage beastick backup.  

In your testing, did you ever side out Zur's Weirding against certain matchups?

I myself use Tinker/Colossus as backup plan #2 maindeck, siding it out in the Welder/Swords to Plowshares matchup (for more BEB and Counter Spell type things.)

I belive that most opponents are not prepared (or at least used) to Combo decks having actual Non-combo threats and counter/control backup. Neat.

Hope to read about more Salvager Deck Tourney reports. It was refreshing.

Also, I feel that Rebuild in the sideboard is strictly better than Hurkyl's Recall in that while it may cost one more mana, it has no target (all players' artifacts get bounced) and your artifacts have a combined cost of ONE colorless mana, excluding Spellbombs which is irrelevent when going off. This helps agains Tangle Wire and Trinisphere in my testing/experience.

[AngryPheldagrif]

I'm not sure you are completely familiar with how Weirding plays out AngryP.  I think Matt is right.  If you have Weirding and Salvagers but no Trinket Mage you can eventually draw into any spellbomb.  Drawing into any spellbomb sort of makes Salvager a 2/4 +2 draw damage off weirding.  Drawing into both a bomb AND a lotus is much more difficult.  And lord knows, they will deny you your mage when it comes up.  So Ideally, the bomb you want in this situation is Sunbeam Spellbomb

I understand perfectly, but I don't really think it's worth going to all that effort for a soft lock when you could just win.

I think putting many 1cc and 0cc artifact one-of's in the sideboard is perfectly logical.  Sunbeam Spellbomb, Tormod's, Skullclamp, and even The Rack/Ivory Tower (well in theory anyway-usually not good in practice, sans casual.)

Though you don't use Cunning Wish, something I think should be an auto-inclusion both to help the Kaeper side and the Salvagers side of the deck, I still don't think this is wise. I've toyed with Lotushead's Engineered Explosives tech and found it a welcome addition to my sideboard, but I've never found that the 0 and 1 casters pack bullets of sufficient strength to get in over Wish targets, and especially not over metagame slots and standard board bits. The only one's I'd consider at all would be Crypt (if you've got some Dragon in your area or just against Crucible) and possibly Sunbeam Spellbomb (based on your semi-combo). Rack/Tower are way too janky and Skullclamp is mediocre bordering on downright useless.

You really should decide which way you want to take this, because it's way too janky for most metagames. I still don't see the point of throwing in the combo with so little to support it. Your loss to R/G illustrates that perfectly.

Good luck, and let me know if you guys are seriously thinking of working on this. I'd love to help or at least share my knowledge of this mediocre and much ridiculed combo.

-Dan

[Methuselahn]

Angry Pheldagrif:  

1) I'm not going to be playing this at any major power tournies.  Reread the very first paragraph of this thread again.  I can play just about any other combo at the big tournies here, so I'm not going to use this one.  

2) There is no 'Keaper' side to this combo.  Weirding + Angel is not control, nor is it combo.  It is a symmetrical prison, and it's a hard lock most of the time.  Cunning Wish is bad here because it is not a control deck, the deck isn't passive like 4cC at all.  The counters are there to make your plan work.  

3)One R/G matchup means nothing.  RG Beats is a tempo deck.  He out tempo'd me and killed my mana or I was mana fucked (game 2)

You really should decide which way you want to take this.

This is the part that really gets to me.  I have decided.  I decided to take this deck to a tourny and told why I chose it.  I also described all the theories and decisions for what I included.  I have tested the Lotushead build and found that I don't like it for reasons I don't want to get into in this thread.  So, you can either a) test this deck yourself and try to improve it without altering the core concepts, or b) not test it, and kindly not tell me how I could redefine the deck.

Maybe it would help if I told you that this was an Exalted/Weirding deck with the Salvager combo in it instead of a Salvager deck with Angel/Weirding.

[LotusHead]

Isn't int Weird (I before E except in Weirding) how a 2/4 beatstick for 3W is a combo peice?

I applaud any other takes on Salvager Combo Decks.  I mean, who DOESN'T play with a Black Lotus?

"Well built" Salvager decks throw a monkey wrench into any meta (mine is pretty rough) and with enough tweeking, Salvager decks could be a mean force to be reckoned with.

From personal experience, I HATE playing agains this deck (any Salvagers deck).  Short of Duress, I never know when Salvagers is going to go off, and Duress doesn't deal with Salvagers or Trinket Mages.

Keep on playing your build, and let us know how things go.  In a real tourney, not everyone knows what Salvager decks can produce, as it is a new deck.  None of the builds out there are "optimized", but Salvagers have this way of winning with their openning hands. (on that thought, other than Dragon, how many decks can win with their openning hands? Sure, it doesn't happen all the time, but a 1st turn kill with other "my combo didn't happen, but I still win anyway" tricks maindeck as backup?

Fifth Dawn has produced exactly three decks: "anything with Crucible of Worlds", $2 Affinity Decks, and Salvager Combo Decks.

Keep up the good work!

[AngryPheldagrif]

So, you can either a) test this deck yourself and try to improve it without altering the core concepts, or b) not test it, and kindly not tell me how I could redefine the deck.

I ran it through, and found it inferior in comparison to both Kaeper and multiple other decks. I'm not trying to get into an argument, but I don't see the Salvager combo as doing much more than taking up space in a janky Prison-ish Kaeper build. I think you'd be better off with those spots as something more focused, either more control or just running more combo components/acceleration (does the Weirding+Words of Worship work? I forget how that one rules out).

And yes, I am advocating that you remove the Salvagers part. It just doesn't fit w/o a decent support structure. I don't want to reopen the whole Salvagers argument over and over. But it really seems like a pretty random inclusion.

-Dan

[Methuselahn]

So, you can either a) test this deck yourself and try to improve it without altering the core concepts, or b) not test it, and kindly not tell me how I could redefine the deck.

 
I kindly asked you to not give me suggestions such as removing entire core concepts and this is exactly what you have done.  Not only that, but you offer no suggestion other than "add control stuffs or combo stuffs or Words of Worship!?!!?!?"  This is really useless, isn't it?  

There is a reason I put this in Newbie.  There is an explanation that I would use a different combo deck in my local power tournies if I choose to play combo.  There is also a definitive explanation as to why Angel, Trinket, Weirding, and Salvager are all in this deck.  I have stated the reasons and wouldn't change them, even if it means that the deck sucks, because I obviously don't care.

For the love of gawd, stop talking about how I can change this deck into one of the other Salvager decks or current 'Keeper.'  Please let the thread die out, or respond with alterations of how you would say, tweak these core concepts.

[jdl]

Did you split in the finals with me last week with a deck similar to this, or am I blanking out completely on who Methuselahn is?  The fact that a Zur's Weirding was on the table during our swiss match makes me think that it was you.

I was playing two color TPS if that helps.

Anecdote from that match, so that this post isn't completely worthless:
In our last game, he went first.  He had what would have been a bomb of a hand, including a first turn Zur's Weirding which was a total surprise to me.  Unfortunately for him, I had a Library of Alexandria in my hand, and he didn't have a Wasteland.  2-1 life payments to deny each other mana was too much for him to outlast.  I think that he made a mistake by letting me keep a Brainstorm, but honestly there wasn't a whole lot he could have done at that point.  It was a long long game that was won on the first turn.