[Discuss]Voltaic Construct combo

[rozetta]

I started thinking about how to build a fast combo deck involving the Voltaic Construct/Metalworker combo last night. With a million ideas in my head, I decided to jist sleep on it and today I played around with some rough ideas, goldfishing on MWS.

Here's the best thing I could come up with currently. It's completely untested, having only goldfished it, so it's built for speed with no metagame considerations or resilience:

//Lands 17
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop

//Creatures 14
3 Karn, Silver Golem
3 Clockwork Dragon
4 Voltaic Construct
4 Metalworker

//Spells 29
4 Tower of Fortunes
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Grim Monolith
3 Gilded Lotus
1 Tinker
3 Lightning Greaves
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault

Some notes about the design:

The basic combo of Metalworker/Voltaic Construct will gain you infinite mana as long as you have at least 2 artifacts in hand. However, once you have infinite mana, you need a win condition. Magma mine has been pointed out as being a decent enough condition. However, in this case, due to deck design, I decided to go with clockwork dragon, the idea being to pump it, greaves it and swing. With the above build, it's possible to go off on turn 2, although I don't have any actual percentages.

Lightning greaves is in the deck for a number of reasons:
1) Make metalworker active as soon as it enters play
2) Allow clockwork dragon to attack as soon as it enters play
3) In conjunction with Karn, allows you to make any artifact a creature, untap it and use it's ability again (e.g. Gilded Lotus, Tower of Fortunes)

The Towers of Fortunes are probably odd looking, but with infinite colourless mana, they actually seemed like the most appropriate "meditate" option for the deck. You may not have access to more blue when going off, but these can be cast and used immediately to get to more cards. Also, as mentioned, if you play Karn, you can turn them into artifact creatures, untap them, greaves them and use them again.

Gilded Lotus is there to provide the extra blue needed while going off. There are 8 blue spells in the deck, so this got the nod over Thran Dynamo. Remember also that with Karn and Voltaic Construct in play, you can create infinite mana with a Gilded Lotus also (or Mana Vault or Grim Monolith).

The Seat of the Synod and Darksteel Citadel are there mostly just to provide mana with Metalworker. Play out the citadel turn 1 if you don't have enough mana to do something useful, since it can't be wastelanded. Play out the Seat only if you're in need of blue mana now.

As an alternative to the combo win, this deck can play out a secondary fast-beatdown win which can happen often enough. A quick greaves'd Dragon or Karn + Towers and Gilded Lotii ends the game in short order.

Anyway, this idea is purely theoretical and I wanted to put it out there as an example of the potential of a Voltaic Construct combo deck. What I am really interested in is ideas about other cards/decklists which could also be playable and a discussion about the possibility of this sort of archetype.

[skecreatoR]

I love such decks.

Another quick question i think of is the viability of Darksteel Citadel over City of Traitors. Is it viable ? (I know i said Tomb, shut up )

Love the idea!

EDIT: Changed the deck list a little, it is quite hard to read as rozetta posted it:

- Utility (3)

3 Lightning Greaves

- Creatures (14)
3 Karn, Silver Golem
3 Clockwork Dragon
4 Voltaic Construct
4 Metalworker

- Draw/Tutor (13)

4 Tower of Fortunes
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Memory Jar

- Mana (30)

4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Grim Monolith
5 Moxen
3 Gilded Lotus
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault

Here you go, might ease up the discussion progress

[Pinky]

Another idea instead of the Towers of Fortunes might be [CARD]Planar Portal[/CARD]?

[Pago]

The problem with both is that their usefullness is only revealed once you achieve near-infinite mana with your combo

[BrokenNut]

Just a quick point, if you greaves the metal worker, your combo doesn't work anymore since you can no longer target him with the Voltaic Construct. Why not cut the dragon and the greaves and free up some space and just run the Magma Mine kill? Or heck, even the good old fashioned Rocket Launcher works as well.

Just another quick idea. Since you are running blue, Grim Monolith and the deck is designed to generate infinte mana, Why not put a power artifact or two into the deck as yet another possible combo for the opponent to worry about. At the very least it can go on Construct so you can go off with 1 artifact in hand.

[kakeboy07]

Im not going to post a deck as there have been plenty already...

heres some cards to think about


Blue:

power artifact (as stated)
cunning wish (stroke in s/b)
Braingeyser
Ambasador Laqutas
twister (search)

Artifact:
Magma Mine (as stated)
Rocket Launcher (also has been mentioned)
Heck Dragon engine also gets +1:+0 for 2 mana...

Red:
Ghitu Fire/Karaveks torch
Welder (probably not a good option)
wheel of fortune (more for search)



Running mono blue with art would make it able to fend off opposing threats, while still enabling search to aquire at least 2 art in hand at the time that youre ready to go off. Also cunning wish as a 4 of gives a UU method of kill in stroke of Genius, same as power art, but allowing you to run a 4 of in your deck istead of the solo power art.

I like the deck idea... keep evolving it... im sure ill be playtesting it on mws too..

joel

[rozetta]

Another quick question i think of is the viability of Darksteel Citadel over City of Traitors. Is it viable ? (I know i said Tomb, shut up )

I'm not really sure. I think i preferred the citadel just because it increases the artifact count (since I probably won't often drop it as a land). However, if I need to play out a couple of lands before going off, one which is wasteland proof seemed attractive.

Another idea instead of the Towers of Fortunes might be Planar Portal?

Planar Portal is a good idea actually, I had never thought about that card before.

Just a quick point, if you greaves the metal worker, your combo doesn't work anymore since you can no longer target him with the Voltaic Construct. Why not cut the dragon and the greaves and free up some space and just run the Magma Mine kill? Or heck, even the good old fashioned Rocket Launcher works as well.

You can greaves the Voltaic Construct, untap the Metalworker, greaves the Metalworker, tap it, repeat (since greaves is 0 equip and Voltaic Construct is a 2/2 creature).

The reason I didn't want to use Magma Mine or Rocket Launcher is that they're not that useful on their own (as compared to Clockwork Dragon).

Just another quick idea. Since you are running blue, Grim Monolith and the deck is designed to generate infinte mana, Why not put a power artifact or two into the deck as yet another possible combo for the opponent to worry about. At the very least it can go on Construct so you can go off with 1 artifact in hand.

I thought briefly about including Power Artifact, but the reasons I didn't include it is that
a) it's only really a win condition on Grim Monolith
b) there wasn't enough space for what I wanted to fit into the deck already and
c) I often didn't get to 2 blue mana before going off with the above build anyway.

Running mono blue with art would make it able to fend off opposing threats, while still enabling search to aquire at least 2 art in hand at the time that youre ready to go off. Also cunning wish as a 4 of gives a UU method of kill in stroke of Genius, same as power art, but allowing you to run a 4 of in your deck istead of the solo power art.

I'd venture to guess that Cunning Wish will almost definitely show up in any competitive build of a deck like this if one arises, since it'll need to be able to fetch answers. Note, for instance, that this deck is extremely vulnerable to null rod. So far the only protection it has is going off quicker than the null rod can be played, but that's not the smartest idea

So far, you guys have come up with some nice ideas. Thanks!

One thing I have to add about the build I posted is that it really wants a maximum of artifacts and a minimum of coloured mana requirements to go off quickly. This is because:

a) more artifacts = more chance of having construct+2 artifacts in hand when the metalworker goes active

b) once you get infinite colourless mana, you want to go off right then and not wait a turn to cast the win condition due to lack of 1 coloured mana (since both the metalworker and construct are pretty easy to deal with if you give the opponent a turn)

c) the blue spells are only there to try and dig into the win faster. I'd love less of the coloured spells, but found that the deck stalls too much without them. Basically, there needs to be a balance of not too many coloured spells to not too few search spells. If I could find colourless replacements for those cards, I'd be right on top of them. Planar Portal is about the best suggestion so far in this regard.

d) I tried red including welders and wheel of fortune, but found the deck quicker with just blue, since adding a second colour really strained the mana base and colour requirements, causing me to often have spells in hand that I couldn't cast.

Keep up the good work!

[serracollector]

I love the deck.  It seems to be very viable.  I perosnally would play the stroke maindeck, and (lauhg laugh) maybe even a hurkyll's recall?  If for some odd reason you didn't get an early Worker, hurkylling stuff into your hand then dropping the worker/greaves/voltaic would giv you your infinite mana much faster....
Also, wheel of fortune was mentioned, I noticed that you didn't play windfall, another great BLUE draw card.  Personally I think that twister should be maindecked also.  If your going combo, GO COMBO, play your draw 7's!  The tower of Fortunes, IMHO is better than the planar portal, simply looking at it from a "What if I don't have infinite mana?"  appeal.  
Lastly, I don't know how you could find room, but maybe a defense grid or two maindecked would not hurt?  Just my two cents.  Keep the deck a rocking

[Hi-Val]

Dragon requires a hell of a lot of mana to drop anyway, and you'd need Tower of Fortunes to find the Greaves anyway (note that tower isn't that good on its own either). Magma Mine kills HERE and NOW. I highly, HIGHLY reccomend it. It seems to be the best option possible.

Looks like a pretty interesting deck!

[Pago]

Given the proper tuning, I think this deck can really go off around Dragon's crucial turn. The one thing all combo decks require is plenty of mana. Metalworker, even neglecting the combo, pumps out huge mana each turn. Consider how prison.dec players manage to generate 10-12 mana on turn 2 and do a sickening play (as rendered in poker) where they "throw their hand down"

That being said, I think this deck should stay as mono-Brown as possible. Increases consistency with metalworker, and your kill conditions are Brown as well. As for paving the way for your combo, instead of traditional elements like FoW, try Spheres or Trinispheres. The additional mana is no problem (with metalworkers), and if you want to win turn 2-3, it really strikes a blow because most likely or not they wont have the resources yet to cast a drain (turn 2) or they won't have the mana (draw spells, trying to find an answer). The plus to doing this is that you can still include artifact lands like Seat of the Synod because they give brown mana anyways. However, removing colours takes away the draw engine. Iam not saying go all mono-Brown, but go as close as possible.

For the kill condition, I would suggest Magma Mine. Like said before, its a "win now" condition, where Dragon takes one more turn. Also, Magma mine is an activated ability that goes on stack regardless of Disenchant or whatnot (only stopping at a Stifle, but those are applied to everything, damn them).

... perhaps [card]Mindless Automation[/card] would work in mono-Br?

mmm.... no.

[skecreatoR]

You should actually win with a Magma Mine, just because it is so cool.

Anywho; i playtested this deck to a certain extinct and i found out that it is.. Good! It goes fast, and the Towers are inzane drawers with or without Constructs and Karn. The deck can go around swinging with its big fat claws in a few turns, it can even kill on turn one with the right hand! It can actually look a little like the dragon deck, being fast but not brokenly fast, as it can easily be disrupted. A little more playtesting and the deck might be ready for action.
 
That being: Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Metal Worker, Lightning Greaves, Voltaic Construct, Clockwork Dragon & a random artifact. You go Lotus, Crypt, Metal Worker, Lightning Greaves, equip, tap Worker, reveal 3 artifacts, play Voltaic Construct, create 1.000 mana and then drop the clockwork dragon, make it astonishing big and swing with the greaves. It is as easy as that.

The deck can easily within 2-3 turns drop its entire hand and quickly Tower into a lot of threads or just easily dropping a Dragon for a 3 turn clock. The versatility in the quick mana helps the deck against a lot of match ups, that the Dragon or Karn alone can provide the beatings to take out any opposing threads - quickly. A turn one karn is quite a wreck, and it happens quite often.

A lot of the comments are surely from people who havent bothered testing the deck. Magma Mine is a win condition, but it does not have the strength to go a solo beatdown road like the Dragon, and is therefore far from good enough to replace with the dragon.

The deck, being vulnerable to the various artifact annoyances, need answers to that. Cunning Wish is probably the greatest answer. I did not encounter any Null Rods during my playtesting, first of all because i usually already wooped their sorry ass at that point. But this proves nothing, as the deck needs it protection. My main problem is what to cut as the deck is a fine working machine at its current state. Being against a lot of hate might shut it down, i havent encounted any at the current state and i probably dont know if it is affecting that much.

Where there is any cards to cut, i think the Memory Jar might be an answer. The card is good, but somehow i only used it once, made it a 5/5, and i rarely need to jar anything. It might be me, but it seems a little odd to play - a forth Gilded Lotus might be an answer here? Im not sure yet, i want to see more play action from it before i decide.

The average turns on me going of / killing has been around turn 4. I had a few turn 2, a bunch of turn 3's an probably a lot of turn 5 too, but the average would be around turn 4. The deck, in this raw and rogue'ish form is already fast. I can't wait to get around more testing and find the flaws - we might have a new arch!

[rozetta]

Wow! Great

Thanks for testing this build in real life, since I've only had time to goldfish with it so far. Sounds like the results are already promising! I'd be interested to hear what you have played against and how the games went.

I tried to make a build today without blue, but it just wasn't working. The problem being that sometimes I needed that little push that an ancestral or thirst would give to get it going. The thing is that it needs to draw into a metalworker to get things going. It would be nice to have something else that can produce those amounts of mana in addition to metalworker, to fuel early game draws from tower of fortunes, etc. (maybe more acceleration like thran dynamo?) In that version, I tried trinisphere, which is almost perfectly compatible with the deck, given that most of the spells are 3 or more. I also tried 4 planar portal in the place of a karn, a dragon and 2 lotii. Maybe that just wasn't the right configuration, though.

What we need is a version that has more consistent turn 2 wins, since that's dragon's benchmark. Either that or enough reliable disruption (such as trinisphere) to slow dragon and other fast decks down a turn or two without impeding the deck's current performance. For instance, an opponent's opening of FoW + Wasteland might be a huge bummer for this deck (which is fairly common for fish, keeper, etc.).

I too like the way it can switch between combo and fast aggro on a dime, making it more resilient if the combo itself is somehow disrupted. A turn 2 greaves'd dragon is pretty good, as is, as you mentioned, an early Karn.

Thanks for the continued support of this discussion. Keep those ideas coming!

[Cavocavi]

Another idea instead of the Towers of Fortunes might be [CARD]Planar Portal[/CARD]?

Book of Rass you don't have to activate and can go infinite, Theroretically, with the cost of 2 life a pop though. My question is: Is there an other artifact that draws you cards and you don't have to tap to activate? That would be a key card for this type of deck.

[Jacob Orlove]

Well of Knowledge lets you draw as much as you want, but only during your draw phase.

[Hi-Val]

Another consideration is Myr Matrix as your kill, but again, it takes a turn. At least it removes the possibility of Swords on your Dragon if you decide to forgo Magma Mine. The big problem is that Null Rod/Damping Matrix completely shuts this deck down. If you run into them, a sideboard possibility is Hurkyl's Recall to bounce them. Otherwise, I don't see much of a way to stop them. Keep up the deck work, it shows promise!

[Magi]

I whipped up a decklist for fun a few days ago...it was just some random musings nothing too serious...but I was basically just trying to run it monoB. It had 4 Duress, 4 Therapy, 4 Rits, 4 Construct and Metalworker, but the reason I wanted to try it monoB was because I wanted to use 4 Spoils.

I too also came to the conclusion that Greaves was worthy of testing. It protects your Metalworkers, and the haste part can speed up the infinite part.

Magma Mine was my kill.

I  thought I'd just throw out in the open that maybe Spoils would be worthy of a test run?

[Cavocavi]

I think in a deck like this, it would make it more consistent if you included an alternate win condition. It wouldn't hurt to include Magma Mine and the Clockwork Dragon combo in the same deck.

[Pago]

What most combo decks need is some sort of disruption to pave the way for their combo. In this case, Trinisphere fits the curve perfectly, hosing balance, mana drain, moxen (anything to deny speed), and drawers.

[tanstaafl]

I'm not so sure that using blue in this type of deck is the way to go. First you open yourself up to anti-blue hate like red elemental blast and pyroblast, which are in every deck with red in them. The blue power is great, but i honestly think you can use black instead. Black's disruption and search are worth more then blue would be in this deck, because it's almost mono-brown in all the post's i've seen. I mean, if you want any chance of really winning a game with a deck based on a 3 card combo, you have to put the combo together fast, and you have to slow down your opponent.  Not to mention with the small amount of extra room in the deck, there's no room for force of will, or the blue cards to support it. Trinisphere looks great and it seems to fit the curve, but it's only good in the opening hand. For example you get it in the opening hand, you drop some fast mana,(moxen/lotus/solring and the like) then drop trinisphere. Then second turn you drop a land and metalworker, and on the third turn you drop construct and you try to win. If you go fist and have all of these cards in your hand...it works, but only if you have everything. You can't ancestral or use any other blue draw or black search without using all your extra mana on turns one and two. If you try it on turn three your most likely not going to have the cards in hand or the mana to search/draw and drop the construct, and there leads the problem. Turn 4, if you go first, will most likely mean you just walked into a counter. You need to be able to go off fast, turn 2 or 3, constantly. Also, just to state the obvious, if control goes first, they can have the mana up to counter on turn 3 (with the trinisphere on the table)
     I, for one, would rather drop some fast mana and a black producing land, cast a metalworker and a black tutor, then duress/unmask/cabal therapy on turn 2, tap the worker, play the constuct and just win with magma mine (waiting a turn to win is just asking your opponent to stop you, and if you want an alternative win condition...put it in your sideboard. If you have room in your deck for an alternative win condition, then you have room for more disruption/search. Good decks are focused.)

[Pago]

Ill make a little list (yes, its my hobby, making lists on posts) of things blue / black offer (basic)

Blue:
-Immense card drawing power
-Thirst for Knowledge (!!!)
-FoW, Mana Drain (it wont fit, but think of it as a big mana boost)
-Artifact removal for Damping Matrix or Nullrod (hurkylls, etc)

Black:
-Immense hand disruption (duress!) / critter killing (diabolic edict)
-Small mana boost (Ritual)
-Tons of tutorate (spoils, DT, vampiric, consultation, etc etc)

take your pick, but early on, I would rather draw alot (hence blue)

[tanstaafl]

In reponse to your list
  Blue
Card drawing....yes blue's card drawing is great...but it takes time and space, neither of which this deck has any extra of if it wants to have any chance of winning.
Thirst is too slow (3 mana for 2 cards in a combo deck?)
Force of will.....not enough room for enough blue cards to make it work.
Mana drain......a control card. This is a combo deck, we want to win, and win fast....not say no for a boost next turn.....considering our mana drain would probably be either mana drained itself, or Forced.
Damping matrix or null rod......duress them out their hand and just win. Or falling that die and head for the sideboard
~black~
The disruption....and it's proactive
Dark ritual...small mana boost yes.....but mana boost=speed, and speed is the essence of a combo deck
Tutors.....the real point of black. Get the card you need to win, and get it now, or at least the top of your deck (vampy) instead of hoping you draw it.

[skecreatoR]

Dark Ritual is nothing compared to anything else in this deck - a 3 BB mana is not something i want once, i need it from turn one and going. Disruption is neither as needed, i believe, that the deck throw so many spells out that it migth be hard to actually FoW or MD the right card. When that said, i might try running a little black - i dont believe in it, tho.

I will write a little article on some playtesting against Hulk later, i might even be able to run a Fro deck up. That will give some insights in those matchups.

Monoblue is the way to go

[theorigamist]

I goldfished the deck about ten times.  One time it won on turn 5.  Every other time it won on turn 4.  I was very impressed at how resilient the deck is to bad opening hands.  Even when I thought I was getting a slow start (like, for example, the opening hand of Workshop, Jar, Gilded Lotus, Gilded Lotus, Voltaic Construct, Memory Jar, and Thirst for Knowledge, which you would obviously never keep but I kept because I was just goldfishing) the deck still managed to pull of the combo very quickly (in that game, turn 4).  I was also amazed at how good Tower of Fortunes is even on its own.  It comes out quickly enough, but then the deck produces so much mana (even without the combo) so quickly that I was able to draw several cards off Tower to set up the combo, not just to abuse it.  

Lightning Greaves wins so many games.  I would use four.  Also, I found that I didn't have a blue source as often as I would have liked.  Rather than add blue sources, I would cut Time Walk (superfluous with Greaves anyway) and/or Twister, which I never really used.

I can see this deck having a tough time against aggro, and specifically against any form of burn.  Ancient Tombs hurt you a lot.  I don't mean they should come out.  If you could run more you should, because they are amazing acceleration.  But it is something to be aware of.  Maybe sideboard a Tower of Eons or something to give yourself a buffer so red can't simply burn you out.

I really want to test a red version of this.  And I don't just mean that Welder is sick (although it would be great in this deck).  I'm talking about how great this deck would be against anything with brown in it with a Gorilla Shaman and tons of mana.

[tanstaafl]

In response to skecreatoR
----dark ritual is a one time boost of 3 black mana yes, but those 3 black mana can be the difference between going off on turn 3, or going off on turn 4.
-----disruption: you need disruption in a combo deck....you can't simply 'hope' that you opponent doesn't know what to counter, because any control player worth his salt will counter the metalworker, because that is the card that primes the pump and makes it go. Your opponent stops the metalworker, and your just playing a bad artifact beatdown deck.


In response to theorigamist
-------Goldfishing a deck about 10 times just isn't enough...you need to goldfish it at least 50-100 times, with lots and lots of shuffling(both riffle and pile shuffling).
-------Having a combo deck with no disruption go off on turn 4 at the earliest, isn't going to cut it. Any combo deck that wants any reasonable chance of winning in type one, has to goldfish on turn 2 at least 40% of the time. Just look at the recent combo decks in type 1
----Long.dec--it could kill on the first turn 40%. First turn! That's why they restricted burning wish, lion's eye diamond and chrome mox. It was to damn fast.
----Dragon.dec-- it's killing on turn 2 at least 40% of the time...depending on the list, some dragon decks run little or no disruption and are killing as early as turn one, while the slower more disruption heavy builds are killing on turns 2 and 3 in 90% of there goldfishes.
    If you not going off on turn 3 at least.....tear the deck apart and try again...because otherwise it's just too slow.
    Later today i'm going to goldfish a base black build, and i'll post the results later tonight. If it's able to go off at least 70% by turn 3, i'll post the decklist.

[theorigamist]

I never said my testing was conclusive or comprehensive.  I was posting my initial reactions to how the deck played.  Although I'm fully aware that you can't judge a deck by only ten games and that I certainly didn't see every possible situation the deck could get into, I think there is something to be said for a deck that performs exactly the same way in 10/10 games.

Obviously turn 4 is too slow.  But part of what I was trying to get across in my post is that some combo elements (specifically Voltaic Construct) can be cut down to 2-3 without seriously affecting how the deck plays.  I also think the deck needs protection or removal of some form.  The best thing I see for that is red.

any control player worth his salt will counter the metalworker, because that is the card that primes the pump and makes it go

First of all, in the ten games I goldfished, and a few more since that, I did notice that the deck only needs Metalworker to do ridiculous combo things.  Clockwork Dragon on turn 2 or so is enough to win games.  Tower of Fortunes can be used off Gilded Lotuses/Ancient Tombs, and I did several times.  I think countering the Metalworkers would be enough to slow the deck down, and possibly take control.  But countering Metalworkers by no means would mean game.

I'll test it a few dozen more times to make my statements more credible, but, like I said, its consistency so far is not unimportant.

[skecreatoR]

The argument whether the deck is slow or not, isn't  really viable.

Why? Because that when people began playing dragon again, they said it was too slow going off turn two, that was of course when Long was played. The deck being able to go off on turn 3 (And yes, my average has fallen to that after a LOT of games) it is not too slow. Dragon maybe kill on turn two, but I have rarely seen it doing so. And in addition to that, a lot of decks doesn't even begin to wack things on turn 3-4. That is why the speed problem isn't really viable, imho.

Besides, the deck is somehow powerful enough to take out a well played Tog deck - trice in a row, and he had dual FoW in one of them. It is so easy to create large amounts of mana to fuel either Towers or other spells. I played Dragons on turn two just by using regular mana. And I even did a turn one against MBC, which was quite a lovely proof of the deck's power.

The thing that possibly annoy me the most is the fact that I cant see what need's to be removed. The deck can be/is blazingly fast and i rarely have any dead cards. It can easily drop an entire hand in one or two turns and do so often. It is just not stopped by a single Drain or FoW. I have no idea what to remove at this point