Turbo Titan: Time for a comeback?

[Negator13]

Waaaaay back in the Summer of 2004, Doug Linn, a.k.a.  Hi-Val, piloted his Turbo Titan to a Top 8 finish at a SCG Power 9 tourney. His deck was metagamed against Fish and the many decks sporting millions of Duals that were running rampant.
This is what he played, as quoted from his article on SCG:

TurboTitan
The First Division:
4 Goblin Welder
2 Sundering Titan

Supply Convoy:
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction

The Counter Attack:
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

The Decisive Rout:
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mindslaver
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

The Battlefields:
4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring (That Soul Thing!)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

The Reinforcements:
2 Tsabo's Web
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Platinum Angel
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Fire / Ice



After his success, the metagame changed. Trinisphere allowed Workshop decks to push Fish out of the metagame, and Crucible of Worlds gave everyone the "fear" and soon not a deck was to be found that wasnt sporting 5 basic lands and 4 Fetches. No longer a suitable metagame for Sundering Titan, Turbo Titan was forced to go back to its roots and become everyon'e favorite Goth Slaver.

However...

Trinisphere was restricted! Workshops are in decline! Fish is making a triumphant return! Duals are everywhere! ...So, where is Turbo Titan?

In my eyes, the current metagame, especially that of the Drain-loving New Englanders, is once again the perfect place for Turbo Titan to reign supreme. Think of the popular decks right now:

-The many variants of Fish, which all fold to a 7/10 Armageddon,
-the incredibly mana-hungry Gifts Belcher, which is practically unable to recover from the loss of 3 lands with a 3 turn clock on the board,
-TPS, which needs all the colored mana it can get its  hands on,
-and Oath, whose creatures are smaller than Titans and whose strategy can be easily foiled by a U/R control deck.

Most decks, besides Oath, have eschewed the Intuition/AK engine, making TurboTitan's engine almost risk-free. What's more, Gifts Belcher is widely considered superior to Control Slaver, so Welder hate has died down considerably.

These factors seem to make it the perfect time for:

TurboTitan2K5

4 Island
4 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

4 Goblin Welder
2 Sundering Titan

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
4 Intuition
1 Tinker
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mindslaver

Potential Sideboard:

1 Duplicant
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Lava Dart
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Spawning Pit
2 Engineered Explosives



A few notes on card choices:

-Only 23 Mana Sources: This may seem low, but the overall curve of the deck is very low and with 24 lands it often gets flooded. Keep in mind that all the mana sources besides Lotus are permanent, unlike decks like Gifts that run 1 shot effects like Petal.

-Strip Mine: Titan gained a new toy since Doug played it, in Crucible of Worlds, so this gives you the option of Strip-locking your opponent before setting up an eternal Slaver or bashing their face in with Titan. It just supports the overall strategy of the deck nicely.

-Darksteel Citadel: See above, CoW gives you a Slave lock. Plus, this helps against Gorilla Shaman and Wasteland.

-Mystical Tutor: This is played over DT because you only want to fetch a Sea when you have Will in hand, and because it pitches to FoW. It fetches Intuition, Anecstral, Tinker, Will, or AK #4. In other words, its gold.

4 Intuition: Intuition is the best card in the deck. It gets AK's, it gets titans, it gets the Slave lock, it sets up Will, and it pitches to FoW. You want 1 ASAP and its always nice to see multiples. Run 4.

-YawgWiN: I don't think I have to explain why this is worth the black splash.

-CoW/Slaver: Sometimes, if you have the mana, you can jsut Intuition up Slaver/Citadel/CoW and thats a lock. You can also get Strip Mine/CoW/Slaver early in the game to lock your opponent out that way.

The Sideboard is rough, but it has Dupes, EE, and Pit for Oath, REB and Crypt for Gifts, Dart for Welders and Fish, and Lab for Combo. I think its a good place to start.

So, that sums up my thoughts about TT in the new metagame. I'd like to hear any thoughts or opinions about the deck list and its viability, just keep in mind this is a rough list, although close to what I would play at a tournament.

[M.Solymossy]

I have been running ICBM-Turbo Titan for several months now (since January).

Anyways... there is a couple flaws with Doug Linn's deck. 

For one, it is a control deck, but in his words he wants to get titan's on the board as quickly as possible.  He gives up too much control in his plan.

The mindslaver in the deck is NOT needed, and instead of making this a whole new deck, he has made it a slight variation of Control Slaver. 


there's so much other stuff I don't like about the list.


Here's my list i Top 4'd with twice (losing to dragon, and 7/10 split).  I bombed at star city CHI (dropping at 1-2-0 after getting First Turned TWICE by salvagers (NOt oath, not gifts, Just First turn "Lotus, Crypt, Academy, Mox, salvagers, generate mana, spellbomb" TWICE!!!)... and then against slight with 4 mox monkey's in the main.

I also won a Bazaar in the side event beating CSlaver 2-0, TPS 2-1, and 7/10 split (identical list) 2-0

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pear
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Artifact Creatures
1 Platinum Angel
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion

Creatures
3 Goblin Welder

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force Of Will
2 Intuition
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Read The Runes
4 Thirst For Knowledge

Sorceries
2 Deep Analysis
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Lands
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Legendary Lands
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
3 Sphere Of Resistance
2 Blood Moon  (if you're not playing against dragon, Back to basics is SO much better)
2 Lava Dart
1 Mogg Salvage
2 Rack And Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rushing River
1 Stifle
1 Spawning Pit


the list is pretty good.  I'm in the process of putting AK's back in the list (at the time i was expecting a lot of Oath and Psychatog).   

I've been playtesting wtih my group Titan, Slaver, SSB, Gifted.Fr, Gifts-Salvagers, and TPS and Titan is by far my favorite deck to play, and the most successful against all the decks in the format.

 

[Hi-Val]

I've been thinking about pulling the deck back. The original fear was that you'd sometimes lose two lands (sea and volc) to an opponent's one, or that they'd be playing Workshops and laugh at you. Depending on how the metagame shakes out, Titan may be the house again.

Mindslaver is critical for the deck. Think of Titan and Slaver as a venn diagram. What one does not beat, the other does. Stax crumbles to Slaver, but not to Titan. Also, I found that Slaver won me many games against stuff like Dragon where you could tempo them for a while with it.

And wait, how does the deck give up too much control to get a Titan out fast? I see that your list has 2 Cunning Wish, the only other element of control over mine. I have Mindslaver, which kind of evens the playing field. The gameplan is a turn 1 Welder or Brainstorm, turn 2 Mana Drain something, turn 3 TFK or other broken stuff. It works just like a control deck should.

If I were to run a list today, it would be just like Negator's but minus an Intuition for a FOF. I'd cut something else (I don't know what) for an Academy because that card is busted now. I'd also try to fit Trike in because you need to win a Welder war, although they are becoming less common.

And I could not in good faith ever run Read the Runes or only 3 Welders in the deck. I think the main clunkiness of the deck is Intuition/AK, but I guess that's hard to avoid. Needs further work.

[M.Solymossy]

the only problem's i EVER had with this deck was Dragon.  I'm about 50/50 with dragon, but it's a hard matchup.

and I really don't see MindSlaver winning the dragon matchup, but idk.  Testing is needed. 

And about Read the Runes.  It's a solid card, but basically it was seeing play over Skeletal Scrying due to my only having 1 Underground sea.   It was cut along with 2 Deep's and somethin else (forget which) for AK's since i went back to that build.

[Null Rob]

I wasn't surprised in the least when I saw this thread here.  About 2 weeks ago I mentioned to Mixing Mike that I was thinking it was a great time to bring Titan back, and I almost decided to take it to the Beanie Exchange, but didn't because I wasn't comfortable playing after such a long hiatus and no recent testing.  However, I think the deck absolutely needs another mana source, even if it means playing 61 cards.  24/61 is a much safer ratio than 23/60, and the 24'th source could be a second Underground Sea, meaning you could run D.T. over the 4th Intuition or Mystical Tutor.  I would also consider replacing an off-color mox with a Mana Vault, because it makes the deck a turn faster whenever you draw it, and can cast a turn 1 Crucible from a hand of land, vault, CoW, which would just add another way to draw one of the deck's "oops, I win" hands.  It is also better than a mox when you cast Y.Will and will usually allow you to cast one extra draw spell during your Will turn that you wouldn't have been able to cast if it had been, say, a mox pearl.  A Tolarian Academy is also a MUST, as it will always tap for at least 1, and is not affected by Titan's C.I.P. ability.  It's better than a basic island in every way except that it cannot be fetched out, Wastelands don't really matter either because you have Crucible.  If you run the second Sea you can also DT for the academy when you have a few artifacts in play. 

[Mixing Mike]

Yes, Rob, you and I were talking about it.  It probably it a pretty good deck to play right now since the metagame is so messed up.

I do like your list Justin.  Peronally, I would run 3 Titans so you can Thirst one out on turn 2 more often if you don't have Intuition. 

Take note that when I was testing against Brassman, I totally owned him.  He decided to take the deck to SCG, making Top 8.  He was running black.

I think Chalice if a little weak for combo hate.  Maybe running 2 Portals and a Pentavus is a good idea.  You Intuition these out under a Welder, and you have a Portal lock. Though if you wanted to try this route, you'd need to up to 4 Intuitions.

[Lunar]

....Ive talked with HiVal at length about Sundering Titan (due to me being a big proponent of Cerebral Assasin)

The timing is perfect for Titan decks in general to do well, with the main problem being that stax is doing amazing right now...

I fully believe if you want to run turbo titan you are going to need the slaver in there, however I think you all might be concerned with the upcoming addition of pithing needle to our format....I think the needle is overhyped to a large degree, however tons of people will be playing it, and having a welder based deck could become a liability...

for this reason alone I am not sure if titan will make a full comeback...or if it does it might be short lived....

Cerebral Assasin should be a good choice right now as well, if anything it can blast out titans even better, and gets around welder hate with ease...having the dragon kill MD is great as well and helps against bad matchups for titan based kills...the flexibility of the deck is hot and it benefits from not being a drain dependant deck (which is what everybody seems to be gunning for, at least in my area.)

[Duncan]

why don't you run LoA? I think it is quite useful running 4 TfK and the intuition/ak engine..

[Dozer]

why don't you run LoA?

Because LoA is too slow, I'd say, and does not fit in with the decks mana base at all. By just looking at the comments in this thread, you'll see that the deck runs on 23 or 24 mana. Negator13's list runs 13 blue sources, 13NoVa runs even less. Unless you find something else to cut other than a (blue) mana source, LoA is taking up a valuable slot for the development of the deck. Also consider that the metagame seems to return to Wastelands (which it should never have given up), so having enough colored mana is a bigger concern than it was. Like any other Vintage deck, this one wants to be on the play, which makes LoA even less useful.

On top of that, the deck has Boseiju available as an option. Boseiju is better in Gifts, but can find a place here as well and is the better tool to break control mirrors. LoA gains you a subtle advantage over time, whereas Boseiju can outright win the game by making you resolve a key Intuition, Will or even a TfK.

What I am wondering about is the absence of City of Brass in all lists presented here. If you are looking for another source of black to fit in Demonic (which I consider good), why not use a City or two? The number of fetchlands is reduced to four anyway, so the argument that City is unfetchable loses a little of its weight. The benefits are IMO higher than the drawbacks, since the main gameplan is the fast Titan. City keeps you operable under a Titan in case you have to target land of your own. I understand that normally you will hit opponent's lands only, but the case for City can nevertheless be made. So why is it not included?

Dozer

[M.Solymossy]

Basically, I Don't run Library in my build because of this:

Titan is made to DESTROY decks that rely too much on their dual lands (Gifts suprisingly is like this, as is some Slaver builds, TPS even, and 4cc) and those deck's will all try EXTREMELY hard to keep your key spells from resolving (tinker, Time Walk, Yawgmoth's Will, AK, Thirst...)

Bosieju > Library in Control mirrors.

I'd rather Bosieju a tinker.

[Hi-Val]

The other concern with this deck is that it can bottleneck worse than Slaver can. Ground Seal, Chalice 0 or 1 or just lots of Lava Darts force you to find Tinker or lose. It's one of the reasons why I am not playing it right now (aside from laziness). Perhaps cramming Titans into CS might be the better option right now; I am not sure. You could throw Cunning Wishes or Echoing Truth in for flexibility though.

[M.Solymossy]

@ Hival.

Slamming Sundering Titan's Into Control Slaver... .  Isn't that what you did?

I DO play Cunning wish and i Hardcast titan's a lot too.  Welder's are too much of a crutch, and i win a LOT of games without them.

Turning the team sideways for the win!