[TMD OPEN REPORT] *9th* with Slaver Control

Here is the deck that I used to take 9th place at The Mana Drain Open on 1/17:

// Creatures
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pentavus
4 Goblin Welder
// Counter
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
// Drawing
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Memory Jar
2 Fire/Ice
// Other
2 Mindslaver
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
2 Blood Moon
// Black
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
// Mana
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
// Land
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
7 Island
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 2 Fire/Ice
SB: 3 Rack and Ruin
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Hibernation
SB: 2 Stifle
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast

Round 1: Elie with White Weenie
Elie told me that it was his first type one tournament. It’s great to see more and more people discovering this format. He was playing a classic white weenie deck, featuring Crusade, Serra Angel, and Order of Leitbur. Game one, he was applying some pressure with a Savannah Lion and a Knight, but I Demonic Tutored into a Tinker and got out Pentavus. I countered a Swords, and he couldn’t deal with it.

Game two, I go infinite. The Slaver deck can go infinite by having in play a pair of Welders and a Pentavus, and having a Mindslaver in the graveyard. Each turn, you can remove two counters from the Pentavus, switch the Pentavus for a Mindslaver, and then switch a token back for the Pentavus.

1-0

Round 2: Kent with Zur's Weirding
Kent is playing out Tundras and Underground Seas, so I assume that he is playing Keeper. I resolve a Bloodmoon, and then Slave him. And see a replenish. Still unsure of what he is playing, I go infinite this game as described above.

Game two, I learn what he is playing when he casts Golden Wish and grabs Words of Worship. It seems that his deck is based on the Zur’s Weirding/Words of Worship combo. I tried getting it to work in type 2 when the 8th edition spoiler was reveal, but was unsuccessful. This game, I slave him and win with Pentavus.

2-0

Round 3: Brian Ritter (Scald Monger) with Rectal Agony

After he mulligans, Brian opens with a Mox Diamond and says go. I play out some mana, and Brian therapies me. I play out a second turn jar, to which Brian responds with a rector who is quickly traded for a Bargain. He draws a large number of cards. After he Bargains down to 1 and plays a Mox, I pop the Jar – he had quite a few cards in his hand at this point. Unable to win off his new seven cards, he passes the turn and reclaims his old hand, of which he selects the seven best cards. I am unable to do much on my turn, and he untaps, goes to his main phase, and kills me.

Game two, Brian keeps his initial seven cards. He plays a seal of cleansing on the second turn, which I mana drain. That was probably a mistake, as the counter would have been useful later. I still have a pair of FOWs, though. We both spend time establishing our mana bases, and around turn four Brian pounces. He therapies. I hardcast a Force to stop it. At this point I have a stifle, a Force, and one other blue card in hand with one island untapped. Brian has three cards left in hand. He plays Yawgmoth’s Will, which runs into a Force of Will. Then, much to my chagrin, he Rituals out a Bargain. I stare at the stifle in my hand and the untapped island I have on the table. I lose, as he duresses me before Tendrilling me out.

2-1

Round 4: Jason Stapels (Leviat) playing Landstill

Game one, we both spend time establishing mana bases. The pattern this game is what often occurs in this matchup: Jason casts Standstill early. He then starts attacking for 2 per turn, and I wait until I’m at around 8 to cast a Thirst at the end of his turn. Landstill gains considerable card advantage off Standstill but they tend not to have a large wall of counters once Standstill is broken. This game, after breaking standstill, I resolve Yawgmoth’s Will, playing a Bloodmoon and a Welder. There is a Mindslaver in my graveyard and I have a few artifacts on the board, so should I get the Welder active I would win. Jason has no basic lands in play at the start of his turn. However, he plays an Island, a Disk, and a Timewalk. He untaps, destroys my board, and I watch as I am disemboweled by Factor Workers.

Game two, I resolve a turn one Bloodmoon. Jason is unable to recover and I win this game.

During game three, time runs out when neither of us are in any position to win.

2-1-1

At this point, with four rounds to go, I’m a bit discouraged, but confident that winning the next four rounds would result in my making top 8.

Round 5: Bill (Euthyphro) playing Stax

Throughout game one, I did not know that Bill was playing a Workshop based deck, and instead thought that he was playing a deck like mine. He played out Islands and Welders, but did not play Workshops. I play around Mana Drain – which he did not run – and eventually resolve a Mindslaver after his Welders had been Fired. He concedes when I activate it.

In the first game, I see a tangle wire, which indicated that he may have been playing something involving Workshop, but I was not certain of this until game two. He gets a more traditional Stax draw, playing out a Tanglewire and then a Smokestack with a Workshop. He had a Karn, but Karn was held off by my Welder. He kept his Smokestack at one counter, and thus I was able to maintain a Welder, a Mox, and a land on the table. Fortunately, I was mana flooded. Eventually, he sacrificed one of his inconsequential artifacts to his smokestack. My welder sprang into action. His smokestack became a Mox, allowing me to cast the Rack and Ruin which had been sitting in my hand for quite some time, as I could finally reach three mana. I soon had a second Welder on my team, while his met the red side of Fire/Ice. His good artifacts became worse ones, and I used his own Wires to lock him. My welders also made certain that his Mana Crypt remained in play. I don’t even need to mention that Welder is key in this sort of match. I believe that he took 18 damage from his own Mana Crypt, and my Welders swung in for the win.

3-1-1

Round 6: Gavin playing Landstill

Game one, my first turn attempt at a Bloodmoon is countered. He plays an early standstill and starts hitting me with manlands while I establish my mana base. Eventually, as I did earlier, I break standstill at the end of his turn and “go off” on my own turn. I believe it involved Yawgmoth’s Will.

The second game is very similar to the first. The key in this matchup, I believe, is that while I may be out-drawn by Landstill, my threats are on the whole more potent. So, although breaking standstill is forcing an opponent to draw three cards, because of the relatively slow speed of Landstill’s threats, by the time I break Standstill I am usually able to overwhelm their permission and do something game-ending. Moreover, breaking Standstill during their end step, when they already have seven cards in their hand, transforms their Ancestral into a Cephalid Coliseum. This game, further, illustrates the power of Mindslaver as a card. When I slaved him, Gavin had a pair of Standstills and a Tormod’s Crypt in his hand. He drew into a Chain of Vapor. I really enjoyed this. I played a Standstill, broke it with a second Standstill, broke the second Standstill with the Crypt, and then shot his Chain at the crypt. I made him sacrifice a land to bounce the Chain at his Mox, and sacrifice another land finally to send the Chain at my tapped Mana Vault. Then he crypted himself. Then he conceded.

4-1-1

Round 7: Stephen Menendian (Smmenen) playing Deathlong

As someone who played Long.dec for a long time, I really wanted to see a deck built around Death Wish in action, so I was looking forward to playing Steve. Early in game one, he rituals into Deathwish. I tinker into Platinum Angel. Angel attacks a few times, and Steve eventually starts to chump with his Swarms. One he is out of Swarms, Steve loses.

From what he said, Steve’s hand in game two was not that good. Again, Steve casts Deathwish early, going to 10. Around turn 3, he thinks, and eventually plays Wheel of Fortune. Unable to kill me after wheeling, he passes the turn. I get out a Slaver and activate it. He has a Mox Jet, a Gemstone Mine, and a City in play. The only viable option for me is to tap his city for him and cast Death Wish. He ends the turn with no threats in hand (he did have two tendrils, however, and I believe a Swarm). We both play draw-go for a few turns until I rip Yawgmoth’s Will off the top. I cast Will, Tutor for a Lotus, and recast the two Fire/Ices in my graveyard for the win.

5-1-1

Round 8: Carlo Verardi playing TNT

Carlo and I prepare for a game in which the winner makes it into top 8, as we are both 5-1-1. In the first game, he reveals a hand of Mox Pearl, a Welder, a Sol Ring, and some threats in order to cast Land Grant. I Force the Land Grant hoping to slow his mana and prevent his playing anything for the first few turns. He soon draws a Workshop, however. I tinker into a Pentavus, but have only three land, none of which are red sources. Staring at the pair of welders in my hand, I watch as my Pentavus stands against the assault of a pair of Juggernauts and a Tetravus. Carlos resolves a Survival, and my Pentavus is not enough to save me.

In the second game, I am again losing terribly. This time, ironically, I have in play three Welders. They have nothing to weld, however, neither on my side nor on his. Carlos is attacking me with Juggernauts again, and I have little chance of winning. Until Carlos plays and uses a Memory Jar. He probably would have killed me next turn if he had not done this, but his doing so puts my own jar into my graveyard. On my next turn, I “go off” by recurring my Jar multiple times until I can Slave him. He gets no more turns after that.

While we are shuffling for the third game, time is called. I call over the judge to ask about legal options for one of us to win the game. Carlos suggests flipping a coin, but this is illegal. The judge confirms that this is illegal, but says that we are allowed to agree on a prize split, and then one of us may concede to the other. Carlos doesn’t want to play any more games that day, as he is tired. So, we agree on a 50/50 split, and Carlos concedes, with Ray watching to make sure everything is legal.

6-1-1

Well, I admit, I was unhappy to hear that I only made ninth place. Apparently, everyone else with a 6-1-1 record top 8’d. Even so, I can’t complain. It was a very fun day, and all of my opponents had been good sports. As a metagame choice, Control/Slavery is especially potent against control decks, due to its high threat ratio and solid card drawing. And, of course, taking someone’s turn for them is really fun. While the maindeck Bloodmoons might look bad on paper, they were great in the metagame.

Props:

Ray and everyone else involved in running this event. This was amazingly well run, and a fun and relaxed atmosphere was maintained the entire time.

Kim Kluck. The initial list I saw for a deck like this was his.

Andy Lambe (Hyperion). Andy actually gets double props. First, he convinced me to run this deck at the TMD Open. What often happens is that I’ll put a lot of time into testing a deck, have one discouraging night of testing, and abandon the deck. Andy knows this, and talked me into playing this deck after some unfavorable testing against dragon – which, ironically, I did not face. Second, Andy gets uber-props for doing a huge amount of driving. He put in about 6 hours of driving, without a word of complaint. The only vehicle to which we could get access was manual, and I don’t know how to drive manuals.

Slops:

This was such a fun day that I’m going to refrain from assigning slops.

PS:

Does anyone have a better name for this deck? It seems that the Workshop based deck has taken the name “Slavery,” and this deck is very different from that one.