Welder MUD was once one of the better decks in the T1 sce...

[BuboniC]

Welder MUD was once one of the better decks in the T1 scene, but come January first, it all will be changed. One of Welder MUD’s strongest matchups was Long.dec, which, come January first will be obsolete. MUD in order to stay competitive, must survive in a combo, combo hate, aggro, and control Meta’s. There for the deck needs to evolve to fit the Meta. So here goes, The Evolution of MUD:
 
Creatures:
4 Goblin Welder
4 Metal Worker

Kills:
1 Karn, Silver Golem

Lockdown:
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Mindslaver


Engines:
3 Thirst of knowledge
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Wheel of Fortune

Mana (25):
4 Glimmervoid
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra’s Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Sol Ring
1 Tolarain Academy
1 Strip Mine
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus

Sideboard:
4 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Powder Keg
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Blood Moon
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Card Choices:
Smokestack/Chalice of the Void/Tangle Wire:
The initial lockdowns, one of the main reasons this is a much more predominant deck than MUD/ workshop variants. Tangle Wire is the most sufficient hoser of aggro in the main deck, Chalice of the Void hates the hate of the deck, aggro, and combo (chalice for 2 vs. Dragon= long time opening of lockdown) Smokestack has obvious synergy with Welders, and especially Mindslaver (You choose what they sacrifice during there upkeep)

Goblin Welder:
The ideal recoverance vs. control/counters. Also this is part of the final lockdown with Mindslaver.

Mindslaver:
The new extreme lockdown, it also makes the match up vs. Dragon (if early enough) and Hulk.

Thirst of Knowledge:
Card advantage at it's finest, one of the most undiscovered cards in the deck, and the main reason to play this over MUD/Stax. Considering MUD has very little engine at all, and stax is fairly plentiful of it. But Slaver takes the cake, with several draw mechanisms, and not just one or two cards, but 2 draw 7's, 5 draw 4's, and then Mind's Eye.

Mind’s Eye:
This has so far played a fair role in the deck, you can make them play Brainstorms, or just about any card draw source, and use it too your advantage.

Sideboard card decisions:
Rack and Ruin:
Just to increase the match up vs. any other artifact prison, and Null Rod.

Powder Keg:
I need something to hate the Fish, which is so far the only deck I had extreme trouble with. It also is the house vs. Aggro.

Blood Moon:
Best card ever- owns Keeper, Gay Red, and any multi-colored based control.

Karn, Silver Golem:
Helps the deck against graveyard hate, so even if they remove the mindslaver, I can still go MUD sillyness on them.

Why you should play this deck over MUD:

1) This deck is more flexible; it has more kills, and more lockdowns. Karn isn’t such a “target” sign anymore, and is instead an alternate kill.

2) This deck still has all the same locks, and still has 4 strip effects.

3) The deck packs more engines, instead of Skullcaps, you get Mind’s Eye, Wheel of Fortune, the beloved Tinker, Ancestral Recall, and Memory Jar.

4) The deck still has enough artifacts too make Metal Worker very abused, and thus far in my testing has yet to disappoint me.
5) Still packs Blood Moon’s, Tormod’s Crypt and Rack and Ruin, which increase its match up vs. Workshop variants, Keeper, Fish and Dragon.

6) Powder Keg still owns aggro in the sideboard.

This is just part 1, of a three part series about this deck, and I’ll be working on it to perfection, because it has a lot of potential to be on the top of the T1 food chain. The reason i'm doing all this is because I feel MUD is beginning to not be as tier one as it could be. The deck could use a lot of work- and im full open to suggestions- please discuss how it is better than MUD- or if it is, opinionate my card choices, and please be constructive. Thanks.
                                                  -BuboniC

[Sytupal]

with a signature like that who can take you seriously mat?   lol.        cool concept.    you always have some unique takes on decks.   good job.     Interesting plasma choice.  maybe by using this card you may be able to use the vapor chain as well.

Anyways, i'mm off to write an essay

[BuboniC]

I tested vapor and it proved unnecessary- I don't really need to bounce their permanents if I control their every move   . I might use them in the SB tho.

[Methuselahn]

Wait, there must be some mistake.  I see Slaver and Welder but no Thirst for Knowledge.  Any thoughts on that?

[Haksaw]

Ack...

There are no Sphere of Resistance...I have to balk at this, as they're essential to lockdown...even more than Chalice, with the Workshop's you've got.   They stop your opponents first turn Moxen, Lotus (not to mention Dark Ritual), and you can drop it after your own Moxen (similar to Chalice)...the 3 mana from the Workshop allows you to keep ahead of the mana curve, repeating the drop of threats in later turns, while you opponent is still staring at 3 lands that they have to tap out for Mana Drain, causing the Force of Will in hand to be worthless.  The x4 Mindslaver might be overkill...with your lock components and the ability to Weld them back into play, I think that you can play with less.

Additionally, you've got Glimmervoids and Volcanics strictly for, Ancestral and Tinker, and with the Wastelands out there, I'd be worried about my mana curve.  You loses those two blue cards when you side in Blood Moon anyway, which makes sideboarding easier, but I think there are more effective uses of the spots (like Red Elemental Blast)

And the City of Traitors got's to go...Ancient Tomb deals damage, but with your lock conditions, you shouldn't have to worry about life until 9th turn...(7th with Sligh, as you might take damage before Chalice is down).  I'll be watching the post, good luck.

[Akuma (gio)]

Although I have not done so, I can see why he would leave the Sphere of Resistance out of the deck. Once you get a Slaver lock (4 Mana, 1 Active Goblin Welder, random artifact in play, Mindslaver in the graveyard), the Sphere's are annoying because you want to screw the opponent over as much as possible with the Mindslaver. Chalice of the Void works nicely when you to throw all of their 1cc spells to a Chalice for 1 and so on.

I have been testing the deck but I'm having trouble making it more worthwile than the traditional prison builds.

[BuboniC]

Sphere of Resistance has proved itself very suboptimal to the deck- not only does it stop me from screwing them over- but its only good matchups were vs goblins/simular aggro, and Long. Long is dead, and goblins are killed by powder keg/chalice.

[Binary]

Well, I've always been a fan of the Welder-related decks (it was watching Menedian play Stax that actually got me to say "Wow, Magic actually looks interesting again" for the first time in five years), so I like to see what others are doing with it.

A few comments:

Artificially creating a win condition with Mindslaver (by using Chain of Plasma) is IMO largely unnecessary. Sometimes you catch them with an "I win" card like Consult or Spoils, or you basically just turn the Mindslaver into a combination Mana Short/Mind Twist by casting everything in their hand with no real effect. (I can't count how many times I've done a "Cast this spell, Mana Drain, pitch random blue card to FoW").

In either of those cases, chances are pretty good you're going to win anyway because your opponent is stuck in topdeck mode for a while.

4 Mindslavers really aren't necessary. As soon as you draw into one, you're pretty much golden for the rest of the game, making the other 3 considerably less useful.

Metalworker.... sigh. In my experience, this card looks great in the list, but when I actually sit down and play the deck he never works the way I want him to. Either I hold onto artifacts I really should be playing just to make him useful, or I don't draw him until turn 5 or so when he becomes a living Sol Ring. But if he works for you, well more power to you...

Here are the changes I'd make...

-3 Chain of Plasma
-2 Mindslaver
+4 Sphere of Resistance
+1 Pentavus (Gives you another kill card, as well as quick fuel for perpetuating your Welder/Slaver)

[Kerzkid11]

Welder MUD was played extensively in New England before Jan 1. Long is almost never seen at a tourney in NE, but it still did fine, especially with Jacob Orlove as the pilot. I don't know how correct your  "MUD was once a great deck" statement is. It still is, and not in need of such a major revamping.

The deck you are proposing is closer to the Mindslaver deck. These decks usually run blue for thirst of knowledge, force of will, and some other goodie. These decks also cut a lot of the lock components.

BTW Quoting yourself in your sig 4L.\n\n

[BuboniC]

Quote (Kerzkid11 @ Dec. 10 2003,12:48)The deck you are proposing is closer to the Mindslaver deck. These decks usually run blue for thirst of knowledge, force of will, and some other goodie. These decks also cut a lot of the lock components.

I have tested both Force of Will and Thirst of Knowledge, Thirst was too expected- and to slow, and a nonartifact spell for metal worker. This just appeared to slow in my type of envirement, and didn't fit the deck. Force of Will I didnt like one bit, it was a pointless counter seeing as Goblin Welder is the ownage vs. Control, and if I was to play Force of Will, it would be a defensive counter against the hate- but Chalice does the job for me. I would like to see someone elses buiuld on the deck, because I have a nasty feeling im missing something that has to be played. Also: There was at one point alot of Tendrils based decks in my meta, and it caused an extensive change of the deck, I just think Welder Trix is better than MUD.

Binary:
Sphere of Resistance I have already told you is very unnecesary in the deck, seeing as it hardly affects any decks in T1. Pentavus is very suboptimal, considering I have forever to wait too get a kill condition.

[Mike D]

What do you mean by saying thirst of knowledge is expected? Are you trying to say its amazing? Cause that is what you should be saying, thirt of knowledge lets you draw 3 cards for 1 mana, what is wrong with that? Then after you pay that one mana, you get to reveal the artifacts you drew by turning a worker sideways, and play all of em. None of your points concerning thirst of knowlegde are reasonable, there should be atleast 3 in your build.

You have a point when saying force of will is not that good in your build, but you probably should be thinking about going in one of two directions: staying with a lock with smokestack, or locking down your oppontent with mindslaver.

The chain of plasmas in your build make no sense at all. You say that you can make them discard there hand and do dmg to them, but if you activate mindslaver, and take there turn you have already won. Chains in your deck is an over kill, and they would be much better as thirsts or spheres.

Since mindslaver is an legendary artifact and you do only need one to win, I would suggest taking out one, since you still want to draw them with consistancy ,but there is no need for all 4.

The deck looks good, but there still needs to be some radifications, and more playtesting.

[dbljprdy]

Hey all,
First off, I've been a long-time browser of the TMD forums and have finally registered myself an account, so here goes the first post  

@BuboniC: I will be trying a similar version of your deck today after work at a local weekly tourney and then some playtesting at night and this coming weekend. I have been playing wMUD for a couple of months and would like to think I have a pretty good understanding of the deck. I made the following changes, as I tend to agree with MikeD that Chain seems to be overkill and Thirst is just too good to be left out of a blue build.
-1 Mindslaver
-3 Chain of Plasma
-2 City of Traitors
+1 Sol Ring
+1 Mox Pearl
+1 Mind's Eye
+3 Thirst for Knowledge
I'm sure there will be a couple minor changes to the sideboard, but that's to be expected. My average weekly meta around here (Kansas City) can be rather skewed. Nonetheless, I will post any results of note here after this weekend and any other changes I made.

[BuboniC]

Thanks for all the suggestions:
I have decided to edit my list, and after a day of testing, Thirst for Knowledge makes the cut and then some. It will take more to get Force of Will in here, I think it very suboptimal, and the only way it will get in is -4 Metal Worker, +4 Force of Will, but that won't happen anytime soon. I think the deck started out as a more fun deck to play, and now is about to evolve to something better. also:

@Kerzkid:
MUD was losing strength, maunly to the uprising of keeper, Fish and Dragon. I think this deck is more competitive because it has more answers, and better ones too all those decks. I also think MUD was at the end of its leash, and players needed to be more creative, and thus Welder Trix is born.

[Mykeatog]

First of all, come up with a serious name for the deck. WAIT, don't do that, cause it already has one. This is simply a stax/mud varient. If you are trying to be taken seriously with anything that you say you must start by being a little more curteous, and using understanding of the world of magic in your arguements.

Saying that Sphere isn't good in the deck is going to draw a lot of heat simply because, IT IS THE BEST DAMNED LOCK CARD in the deck. I play Wmud, and more recently have begun testing 'Hadley History' Known by others as "Slavery" so I know what is going on as far as this is concerned.

Futhermore, Kerz is right, wMud has been the artifact prison deck to play for the last 3 months. It hs only exsisted since October on the widespread scale, and has been feared greatly. I play in one of the most intense type one fields in the world, and thirst is awesome. I would go as far as to say one of the reasons the deck works.

There are many other things to mention, but you can reach the same conclusions we have through playtesting.

[BuboniC]

Quote (Mykeatog @ Dec. 10 2003,16:09)Saying that Sphere isn't good in the deck is going to draw a lot of heat simply because, IT IS THE BEST DAMNED LOCK CARD in the deck.

No way, my meta consists of Workshop varients, Fish, Keeper, and gat for my envirement, and vs. all those decks Sphere of Resistance does next to nothing compared to chalice of the Void, Smokestack, and Tangle Wire. It may have "synergy" with wasteland, but so doesn't every other lock in the deck. I guess I will have to test more to get the real things, but I have already played vs. most of the best decks in the Type 1 scene, and if I can get a ride to Hadleys I will be there for saturday tournament- and maybe we can talk in person. I may play this or MUD, I have a set of workshops and no power, which do I play?

[Flurp™]

The thing about sphere of restince is it creates a hard lock.  with only stacks/wire/chalace your opponent can still make a comeback (unless there is chalace for 0 and 1).  With this deck the hard lock is formed by mindslaver, so once a mindslaver is out the spheres are not needed.  But in the early game spheres kill your opponents tempo, but an early mindslaver can mean game vs many decks.  In this deck sphere may not be needed, but this is all just theory, I havent tested this deck yet.

[Smash]

I have have gave slayer a shance... it is just too slow. Sure it is great if I resolve it agaist GAT with a way to play a tog.... but that is about it. Against almost any deck I would rather just worry about setting up the lock asap.

[BuboniC]

Quote (Smash @ Dec. 10 2003,17:14)I have have gave slaver a chance... it is just too slow. Sure it is great if I resolve it against GAT with a way to play a tog.... but that is about it. Against almost any deck I would rather just worry about setting up the lock asap.

It is awsome vs. Madness, Sui, Keeper, Workshop decks, and Hulk/GAT. I think I may just play MUD with alt. lock of Mindslaver- any thoughts?

[Mike D]

Bulbonic, your starting to get over your head, your not making much sense. You said something like Wmud was sliding cause there was an uprising in keeper? Ummm Wmud was made to beat control variants like hulk and keeper.

Spheres are very very good vs all the deck that you said it was bad against, including fish/gat/and espcially keeper.

Since im going to Hadley this sat (and winning  ), Im gonna call Bulconic out and before the tounrey we can hae alittle grude match ill play Wmud, it doesnt mater what you play.

[FireBall26]

The deck is better if you just go straight mud, or straight slaver.

[Mike D]

You already have drawing in the form of 3 thirst, a wheel, recall, and memory jar, which you can get with tinker. there is no need for mind's eye in the deck. You probably could cut the three of them, for something like force of will, or spheres.

[BreathWeapon]

Really, this deck is a sub optimal Prison.dec for a number of reasons.

1st, we want to be rid of Smokestacks, a subpar lock, not add them in addition to Mindslaver. Using Mindslaver and Smokestack together is foolish, because once you find a Mindslaver the Smokestack is completely irrelevant. Also, in the absence of Sphere of Resistance, I doubt you have the capacity to establish a hard lock for Smokestack to work at all without Sphere.

2nd, Plasma Chains are awful, Mindslaver is a lock and kill condition in one card. T1 decks have a habit of being able to kill themselves. That said, most Slavery decks pack a single Karn to win in a timely fashion vs decks that can't "Self Terminate," and he doubles as a utility piece vs the opponent's Moxen and Chalices.

3rd, you can't just cut Sphere of Resistance from Prison.dec because you feel like it. It is a significant part of your early lock mechanism. Now, certain decks CAN cut Sphere of Resistance because they are replacing it with Force of Will, which effectively serves the same purpose as the Spheres ... a quick lock. They also possibly use MD Bloodmoons, where Spheres are subpar inconjunction with the Moon's blanket effect on the opponent's Manabase. Cunnish Wish is also a conceivable replacement, tho' its an incredibly radical concept.

4th, your draw engine and mana acceleration blows. Where is Thirst for Knowledge? Why use Metalworkers over Guilded Lotus? Why use Mind's Eye over Future Sight? Why not use a City of Brass/Glimmervoid Manabase so you can use the Black tutors, Yawgmoth's Will and Balance? Xantid Swarms in the SB any one? Ever seen what a Workshop deck can do with the full restricted list? Yawgmoth's Will and Balance in Workshop, that ain't nothing to laugh at.

5th, You will get PWNed by Goblins. 4 Chalice of the Void doesn't scare them in the least without FoW back up. Goblins pack 8 MD answers with Goblin Vandal and Tinkerer with 4 Crash in the SB. They have MD removal for your Welders and are probably packing 4 Null Rods between the MD and SB. Can you deal with that?

What Slavery.decs really are, is Krazy Stax gone right. I imagine the inventors of Krazy Stax came to the realization that Thirst for Knowledge made Meditate look like sh!t, and Mindslaver wasn't merely a suplimental tool for the deck ... but in fact a superior lock condition than Smokestack. Then, they probably decided to drop Spheres for their lack of synergy with Bloodmoons and added Guilded Lotus to avoid the lock themselves. I'm not sure about that tho', I imagine there might be a devision of thought between cutting Spheres over the Tangle Wires.

[BaronSengir]

Quote No way, my meta consists of Workshop varients, Fish, Keeper, and gat for my envirement, and vs. all those decks Sphere of Resistance does next to nothing compared to chalice of the Void, Smokestack, and Tangle Wire. It may have "synergy" with wasteland, but so doesn't every other lock in the deck. I guess I will have to test more to get the real things, but I have already played vs. most of the best decks in the Type 1 scene, and if I can get a ride to Hadleys I will be there for saturday tournament- and maybe we can talk in person. I may play this or MUD, I have a set of workshops and no power, which do I play?

If you want this deck to gain international acceptance or something on that par (like inter-state or something) you want this deck to hate out, beat, or utterly r a p e every tier 1 deck in the meta. Saying you can handle decks like that is good, but what about Dragon? GAT's hibernating anyways. How about the whole new slew of decks, like TPS, other Combos, Blood Sui, and other Sligh decks packing 100% artifact hate?

Sphere is ESSENTIAL because it will disrupt ANY deck that wants to maximize mana usage in the early game. Now think class, what deck DOESNT want to do that? hmm... I would have to say I am comming up blank, unless you face mirror matches.

[Kerzkid11]

Bubonic: I'm not trying to insult you but- How much have you really playtested this deck? This quote lead me to this:

Quote No way, my meta consists of Workshop varients, Fish, Keeper, and gat for my envirement, and vs. all those decks Sphere of Resistance does next to nothing

Sphere is obviously bad vs. Mud, yes. But there is usually no more than 2-3 MUD decks at any tourney, just odue to lack of workshops. But that is totally beside the point. Sphere is not bad at all versus Fish and Keeper, slowing them effectively to drop wire, which slows them down even more untill smokestack comes around to clean up shop and establish complete prison. Sphere is integral to MUD, because this is the strategy the deck is based on. Also, Sphere is RIDICULOUS against GAT.

A MUD build with mindslaver doesn't work that great. The Mindslaver decks are completely different in the sense that they use more draw because the deck is more centrally pivoted towards slaver, and getting it active with welder then immidiately winning. With the strategy lock components are cut back, which is fine because the ultimate lock is added, Slaver itself.

[BuboniC]

Quote (BreathWeapon @ Dec. 10 2003,21:57)Really, this deck is a sub optimal Prison.dec for a number of reasons.

1st, we want to be rid of Smokestacks, a subpar lock, not add them in addition to Mindslaver. Using Mindslaver and Smokestack together is foolish, because once you find a Mindslaver the Smokestack is completely irrelevant. Also, in the absence of Sphere of Resistance, I doubt you have the capacity to establish a hard lock for Smokestack to work at all without Sphere.

2nd, Plasma Chains are awful, Mindslaver is a lock and kill condition in one card. T1 decks have a habit of being able to kill themselves. That said, most Slavery decks pack a single Karn to win in a timely fashion vs decks that can't "Self Terminate," and he doubles as a utility piece vs the opponent's Moxen and Chalices.

3rd, you can't just cut Sphere of Resistance from Prison.dec because you feel like it. It is a significant part of your early lock mechanism. Now, certain decks CAN cut Sphere of Resistance because they are replacing it with Force of Will, which effectively serves the same purpose as the Spheres ... a quick lock. They also possibly use MD Bloodmoons, where Spheres are subpar inconjunction with the Moon's blanket effect on the opponent's Manabase. Cunnish Wish is also a conceivable replacement, tho' its an incredibly radical concept.

4th, your draw engine and mana acceleration blows. Where is Thirst for Knowledge? Why use Metalworkers over Guilded Lotus? Why use Mind's Eye over Future Sight? Why not use a City of Brass/Glimmervoid Manabase so you can use the Black tutors, Yawgmoth's Will and Balance? Xantid Swarms in the SB any one? Ever seen what a Workshop deck can do with the full restricted list? Yawgmoth's Will and Balance in Workshop, that ain't nothing to laugh at.

5th, You will get PWNed by Goblins. 4 Chalice of the Void doesn't scare them in the least without FoW back up. Goblins pack 8 MD answers with Goblin Vandal and Tinkerer with 4 Crash in the SB. They have MD removal for your Welders and are probably packing 4 Null Rods between the MD and SB. Can you deal with that?

What Slavery.decs really are, is Krazy Stax gone right. I imagine the inventors of Krazy Stax came to the realization that Thirst for Knowledge made Meditate look like sh!t, and Mindslaver wasn't merely a suplimental tool for the deck ... but in fact a superior lock condition than Smokestack. Then, they probably decided to drop Spheres for their lack of synergy with Bloodmoons and added Guilded Lotus to avoid the lock themselves. I'm not sure about that tho', I imagine there might be a devision of thought between cutting Spheres over the Tangle Wires.

OK - I have been barked at for about 5 posts now- but it's posts like these that really get me going. Smokestack is not a subpar lopck at all, with mindslaver it is the best lock the deck packs. I also edited out Chain of Plasma's, my mana-base is fine through playtesting and the draw mechanism has proved very substantial. Now- I have never, never lost a single matchup to Goblins, and I never will. Sphere of Resistance will probably sneak back in, but this deck is alot faster than thought of, I get Mindslaver out 1-3 turn, and why would I need a sphere out when I can render all answers useles??also I have tested the deck alot Kerzkid. also:Tangle Wire is the best answer to goblins, so why take them out and, in your words "get pwned"

[Toad]

Quote (BreathWeapon @ Dec. 11 2003,06:57)What Slavery.decs really are, is Krazy Stax gone right. I imagine the inventors of Krazy Stax came to the realization that Thirst for Knowledge made Meditate look like sh!t, and Mindslaver wasn't merely a suplimental tool for the deck ... but in fact a superior lock condition than Smokestack.

Our Slavery build is not exactly a Crazy Stax evolution. The Crazy Stax build Smmenen designed and I improved with Mirrodin out is still a true Prison deck, with Smokestack, Tangle Wire and Sphere of Resistance, and It still uses some Meditate, along with some Thirst for Knowledge, which are nice additions. Crazy Stax is almost exactly like the Stax deck we designed some while ago, without black and with FoW + Chalice of the Void. It just runs a single copy of Mindslaver as a Tinker target. It is not built around Mindslaver at all. In Crazy Stax, Mindslaver is a second Memory Jar, but instead of drawing 7 cards you make your opponent destroy his hand.

On the opposite, our Slavery is totally designed to work with Mindslaver in mind. It's the key card in the deck, and all the engine is built around this. Slaver decks want two things : mana and Mindslaver. So the deck *just* packs mana sources, Mindslavers, card drawers and tutors.

[Binary]

Quote (BuboniC @ Dec. 10 2003,19:43)Sphere of Resistance I have already told you is very unnecesary in the deck, seeing as it hardly affects any decks in T1.

Sorry, I don't buy that.

Granted, Sphere isn't an instant win card vs most other decks like it almost is vs Long, but do you honestly think it doesn't really affect GAT? Or Keeper? I've dropped first turn Spheres against those decks and nearly made my opponent cry.

Yes, Sphere has bad matchups. It's certainly not very useful vs. Dragon, at least. But to say it "hardly affects any decks in T1" runs counter to virtually every experience I've had with the card.

[Riggy]

I've actually been playing a wMud/mindslaver since about 2 weeks after Mirrodin came out and this is the closest build I've seen to mine. Mine adds in the spheres, and cuts the mindslavers and the mind's eyes down to 3 and 2 respectively. And I think I have a pAngel maindecked and one more sideboarded for alternate kills & saving grace versus dragon and goblin.

Quote 1st, we want to be rid of Smokestacks, a subpar lock, not add them in addition to Mindslaver. Using Mindslaver and Smokestack together is foolish, because once you find a Mindslaver the Smokestack is completely irrelevant. Also, in the absence of Sphere of Resistance, I doubt you have the capacity to establish a hard lock for Smokestack to work at all without Sphere.

Smokestack + mindslaver means that you don't have to weld the slaver back in every turn. It adds flexibility in what my welding options are for my turn if I just sacked his most dangerous permanents to the stack on the turn I controlled.

I'm not sure I understand the rest of Breathweapon's post b/c the decklist I'm looking at has all of the corrections made (the mana base is fixed, the Thirsts are in there, etc.) .

The last tourney I took my deck to I went 3 and 2, losing to Hulk and a true prison deck. Of course, at that point, I only had 3 moxen and no workshops, so I think that this build can do just that much better.

[BreathWeapon]

Hmm, that makes me look at the deck a little differently Toad. So your saying its really Combo meets Workshop? Thats a rather disconcerting thought. Are you trying to push the deck into a similar direction as the Charbelcher Combo decks? Obviously the two builds have nothing in common other than the strategy by which they operate, but for the sake of comparison is this accurate?

[Toad]

No, not at all. Mean Deck's Slavery build is a true Control deck. It just doesn't Control the game the same way Welder MUD or Stax does, by locking it thanks to Smokestack or Sphere of Resistance.