Burning Slaver. Which Way is the Best Way of Winning?

[rureddy31]

I am sure everyone is familiar with burning slaver, a deck innovated by my arch nemesis (Brian Demars), which I now, incidentally, play. Anyway, it looks a lot like normal CS except for the inclusion of Burning Wish a few wish targets in the board (most importantly, Tendrills of Agony). The deck is easily capable of winning through robots and welder tricks, but also through a broken yawg will, wishing for tendrills. Now on to my question, suppose you have the ability to win both ways at the same time. That is to say, you have a turn where you can go broken with your artifact engine and win in two or three turns, or have the ability to set up a big Yawg Will and eventually wish for tendrills.

Which is the most efficient, or correct way? I have been told that it is not right to give your opponent extra turns. If you can win right away, and be able to protect that win,  shouldn't you go for it? Mind you, there is also the time consideration to look at...

My major issue is, is there such thing as "Over-winning" or perhaps a sports equivalent, running up the score. This has to do with the Wish vs. Robots issue, but also in situations where you Slave your opponent and then cast Gifts on their turn. Is it overdoing it? Or should you play to win, completely foolproof at all costs? I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

[Lou]

If you can win now, and you have the chance to protect it, there is absolutely no reason why you would continue on with the game and allow your opponent the chance to draw themselves back into the game.  WIN NOW.

[Draven]

I play Gifts, and although they are different decks, they are very similar in the fact you can spend 2 turns attacking with DSC or win now with Yawg's Will->Tendrils.

I will always win with the Will->Tendrils if the option is available.  There is absolutly no reason not to. Vintage is the swingiest, if I rip the right thing off the top, I win format in the game. If you have the opportunity to win this turn, do it.

[Scoops666]

I absolutely believe that you should win right away. Giving people extra turns to find answers is bad. Plus, you could always start the robot/wwelder tricks next turn if something went haywire.

[Retaks13Mac]

In my opinion it really depends on the situation, like which game you are in and if you have him on a slaver lock. If you have him in a slaver lock and can put a robot on the board you win with the robot for the reason that you don't want to give your opponent to much info. Like he many not know that you are playing the burning wish, they might just think you are playing old fashion slaver and not burning slaver. Also if you have him in the slaver lock they can't topdeck there way out because they don't get to play. I'm a burning slaver player myself (and test with demars very frequently) and that's my personal opinion. But if you don't have a slaver lock or you can't slaver him until you have won the game with the robot then just will it up and win the game.

Mitch

[Hydra]

In the example you gave there's no question, you should win now.  I think a more relevant thing to discuss would be the amount of set-up required.  As a Gifts player, I'm probably the only one on here who will normally go for the Colossus win, with the Tendrils option being a last-ditch resort.  The reason for this is a matter of set-up.  Decks like Stax and Fish are all about denying you the resources to "win big" via Tendrils, so often times it's far easier for me to protect the DSC compared to Tendrils.

Against Stax, to win with Tendrils through their normal set-ups I need Yawgmoth's Will, Rebuild, Burning Wish, quite possibly Recoup, and a large amount of mana (normally of the Moxen and Loti variety).  To win with Colossus, I need Tinker and enough mana to cast the Tinker and cast a counter in order to protect my Colossus.  The amount of set-up required for said respective wins can be quite labor-intensive, and a lot of times not even worth it in certain matchups.

I believe in taking the route to victory which takes the least amount of effort to set up while allowing me to maximize my ability to answer my opponent.  Winning now can be nice, but often times you don't get the perfect set-up which allows you to do that untouched by your opponent.  You really need to weigh your options for each win, regardless of how much of a "sure thing" an option like Will/Tendrils might look.

[God_Campbell]

For me if I have the option and the mana to build up a lethal tendrils over swinging with Robots then I will take it.
As was said before I hate letting an opponent have more turns then they deserve, and the chance they could get back in to a game you should have won.

[Gabethebabe]

I don´t understand really your question. If you are in the situation to win, pick whatever you like best, congrats you have just won.

Since BS has so many ways of winning - Tendrils, Slaver or artifact (or even red 1/1) beatz, every time you start a new game with (hopefully) 7 new cards you have to look at them and decide what is the way you´re going to win this particular game against the deck you´re playing. Make up your plan and play your cards accordingly. And at the moment you´re in the agreable position that you can win the game in more than one way, just win. How you do it is academic.

It is getting into this position that is the hard part.

[mattdeballer]

I agree with what seems to be the consensus. Win now, say gg and proceed. No need wasting time going through mindslaver turns and wasting all that time doing things that will end up with you winning anyway.

[pyr0ma5ta]

If the Wish plan is in the deck, I firmly believe that 8 storm, BBR3 floating in pool is the correct way to win.  It wins now.  Don't bother with robots beating down or crucible-citadel-slaver-welder locks.  Just win.  Same reason that Gifts prefers to combo out rather than attack with dsc; it allows too many outs.  Winning now is ALWAYS better than winning over the next few turns, because your 1 FoW may not cut it for 3 turns.