[Deck] Welder TriniMUD

[Tautochrone]

Now that Darkstell is legal I've been trying to fit Trinisphere's into my Welder MUD deck. I finally found a way and played at the Rhode Island Tourney with it and got in 16th (3-3-0)  . I packed up decks like Sligh and Hulk but got completely and totally pwn3d by Madness. I can never beat Madness unless they get a REALLY crappy hand. Anyway, here's the decklist with some explanations:


Mana Sources:  Total: 25

4 Mishra's Workshop (Lotus Lands)
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Mountain
1 Tolarian Academy
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault


Lockdown: Total: 16

4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
4 Sphere of Resistance


Other Goodies: Total: 8

3 Chalice of the Void
3 Winter Orb
1 Mindslaver
1 Memory Jar

Creatures/Kill: Total: 11

4 Metalworker
4 Goblin Welder
2 Triskelion
1 Karn, Silver Golem


Sideboard: Total: 15 (errrr...duh)

4 R.E.B.
3 Blood Moon
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Jester's Cap
1 Platinum Angel

To fit the Trinispheres: -1 Chalice of the Void, -1 Wheel of Fortune, -1 Karn, Silver Golem, -1 Triskelion

I used to be a fan of Wheel of Fortune but have come to the conclusion that more times than not giving my opponent a fresh new hand (a lot of the time it's a new hand of Forces, Drains, etc.) hurts a lot more than giving me a new one to throw down on the table.

The lone Mindslaver is in there for an alternate win. Yea, I could put that extra Karn in there in it's place or main deck a Rack and Ruin for those main decked Null Rods, but I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do about it yet.

The Platinum Angel in the sideboard used to be main decked. But I find it's better off in the sideboard as it is only useful against decks like Sui-Black that can't kill it and therefore can't kill me and Hulk if for some reason I wouldn't be owning Hulk anyway.

3 R&R's might be a little heavy but there in there for the mirror match, but I don't think many people play MUD/Stax anyway. Whatever, then it's for the Slaver Control that won in Johnston, RI last Sunday.

Like I said in the introduction, this deck blows against MaDnEsS and I don't know what I can do about it. Can I add/remove some things to improve my odds against Madness or should I just take it like a man and face the fact that Madness will always kick MUD in the nutz?

[JuJu]

You're not running any draw? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this. Against Madness they have to draw, then discard through Careful Study, Bazaar and draw 7ens in other builds. Mind's Eye with Karn make powerful blockers. Also, I've cut Sphere of Resistance for Trinisphere but I'm still not sure about this, what are your experiences with it? Also is Winter Orb all that useful? Did you ever miss having that 4th Chalice of the Void? Could your build have done better if you were running skullcaps with Bridges? Lots of these questions have been asked before but no has been talking about Welder Mud at all lately, the only talk about Workshops is for Slaver.

I might post a Workshop Thread like I had done on the old TMD so keep an eye out. Thanx

Edit : Spelling

[DEA]

i played against mad dragon using a similar deck
wasn't fun at all
either they aggro'ed you out or if you had the lock, they'd just combo you
normal approaches to dragon fails against the madness components
i only found myself winning with greaved platinum, because he packed shivan hellkite for the kill
the rest of the time, it'll be the trinisphere shutting out the rootwallas and the standard hardlock parts finishing him off

i don't see any reason not to maindeck the angel
against madness too, if they can't remove it (slobad :D:D) they're screwed

[Tautochrone]

Took some advice from you and others and added some draw:

Deck Changes: -1 Winter Orb, -1 Mindslaver, -1 Sphere of Resistance
                       +2 Mind's Eye, +1 Chalice of the Void

To answer your questions:

- I don't want to totally cut Sphere of Resistance from the deck unless I know it's not helping me. When I think about it there aren't many decks that use many cards with cc's out of reach of Trinisphere (meaning over 3, although Trinisphere has no effect on 3cc spells). Trinisphere effectively screws up 0-2cc spells and for the 3cc spells (Yawg Will, Cunning Wish, 'Tog, Pernicious Deed) I could just use Chalice of the Void. I haven't had much time to see if Trinisphere nullifies the need for Sphere of Resistance. I'll let you know...

-Winter Orb is very useful. It just makes Tangle Wire that much better. With a Winter Orb on the table it makes my opponent tap non-land permanents, the goods. Even without a Tangle Wire out it still slows down my opponent a lot. Even though I cut the Winter Orb count down to 2 I don't think I would ever consider completely cutting them.

-I never really missed having the 4th Chalice of the Void but then I never saw a time where I could use, or benefit from using, Mindslaver so I decided to cut the Mindslaver for the 4th Chalice of the Void. This way I should rarely ever be short on Chalices.

-I don't think I would've done better if I was running Grafted Skullcap with Ensnaring Bridge although I've already seen an improvement since I've added more draw (Mind's Eye) to the deck. Besides, I don't think I have the room for both Grafted Skullcaps andEnsnaring Bridges.

-You're right, people should talk more about Welder MUD and not Slaver Control...although I think I'm the only one in my area playing Welder MUD right now...I've seen some Control Slaver but no other Welder MUDs.

[BreathWeapon]

While the Trinisphere has really good synergy in Stax with the Meditate/Thirst and Draw 7 engine WelderMud doesn't benefit much from it. I've gone all the way back to the original wMUD lists with the 4 core lock pieces; Stack, Wire, Sphere, Chalice and the traditional draw engine of Grafted Skullcap for the Ensnaring Bridge combo SB vs Aggro. An interesting idea i've tried is ditching the Karns for additional lock pieces, 2 wOrb, so I could have 4 MD wOrb and they seem to be working great vs Control. wMUD simply doesn't need a kill condition with 8 weenies bringing the pain.

How are you getting away with 4 Mountains?

[Toad]

Your mana base is horrible. You need at least 2 more Mountains. Post board against most decks, you have 7 red spells and only 4 sources to cast them. And you need more mana sources (2 lands).

Winter Orb blows. It's weak, It only shines against Control.

Control decks need draw. Madness outdraws you, which is bad. You want Grafted Skullcaps here, for their synergy with Ensnaring Bridge, which are great against Madness.

[JuJu]

For reference here's my list, the only real problems I've been having are against Madness and O.Stompy, The Stompy matchup is much harder because of Null Rods, Naturalize and Root Maze, 2 of which can't be dealt with the current available sb options. Dragon is a tough matchup, but I try to play Trinisphere first, followed by a Chalice for 2 and so on, eventually getting Mind's Eye into play and winning . If Entomb gets unrestricted at the next announcment(which would make me Very happy) then Reanimator might be a problem also, especially packing that green Creature making me sac Artifacts. Anyways, enough with my blabbering, here it is:

7 Mountain
4 Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Strip
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 MetalWorker

4 Goblin Welder
3 Karn, Silver Golem
2 Duplicant*

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
4 SmokeStack
4 Trinisphere*

3 Mind's Eye
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar

SideBoard:
4 Reb
3 Blood Moon
4 Rack And Ruin
4 Tormod's Crypt

*Card choices within need of explanation

Duplicant: I must've skimmed over this in the Mirrodin Spoiler or had thought of it the wrong way, Iunno. Anyways, after reading Toad's TnT thread and someone talking about Duplicant as being a house vs Dragon and Aggro alike, I tryed it. My results have been mixed, with only having 2 they seem to not come out fast enough, however when they do, it's game over, especially with a Welder. I might replace Duplicant with P. Angel just because P. Angel doesn't really require a Welder vs aggro to become effective, only problem is that P. Angel doesn't do its job right away while Duplicant takes effect when it enters play. If Anyone else has tested this, please let me know.

Mind's Eye vs Grafted Skullcap: The age old argument, I have nothing against either one of these cards, I still prefer Mind's Eye because in my experience it has drawn me more cards then Skullcap could've. However, I might have to replace Mind's Eye with the Skullcap and put Bridge in the sideboard if no solution to Aggro becomes Viable to me. I'm not even going to ask for opinions on this because I've heard them all, the best would be for me to test it myself

Trinisphere vs. Sphere of Resistance: This is still a pretty difficult decision, one thing I'd like to point out is Trinisphere's "turn off" effect, if you have to play it early game, where it is most useful with a Tangle Wire following it, then chances are it's gonna get turned off, at least once. That is where my suspicions lie for Sphere of Resistance vs Trinisphere. Opinions on this aren't needed as like the Skullcap vs Mind's Eye Debate.

Some of you might have noticed that I'm running less mana sources then others, this is because I don't see alot of Artifact removal and even when I do, it's not the MetalWorkers that they take out, but the other things. In my opinion Keeper poses the most threat to this deck, and to combat that Trinisphere must be used to make him lose tempo from the Mana Drain sinks, his Brainstorms and his Swords and Fire/Ice.

I'm planning on writing somewhat of an article about Workshop decks in General, mostly discussing Welder Mud and Slaver along with a bit of Trini-Stax. If anyone would like to help me with this, PM me please.

[BreathWeapon]

Winter Orb blows. It's weak, It only shines against Control.

Considering Combo is sleeping and Tog is all the rage wOrb seems more than appropriate at the moment. wOrb is also pretty decent vs O-Stompy. If you have a lock piece in mind thats better than wOrb i'm all ears tho'.

[tomlcsc]

now please bear with me because I am no expert on Welder Mud but I recently saw an interesting decklist on morphling.de that used bazzars and squees in a version of welder mud.

That seemed like a good idea to me being that welder mud needs a draw engine plus ways to empty your hand for recursion.  good stuff or crap?
-tom

[Toad]

Crap.

Bazaar of Bagdad costs you a land drop and is bad without Squees. Even if the synergy is nice with Goblin Welder, you are still losing cards. You are a control deck, not a combo deck. You can't afford that.

In order to fit in the 4 Squees and the 4 Bazaars, the deck cut Trinispheres, Sphere of Resistance and Chalice of the Void. Smokestack and Tangle Wire are not what you want to see against Combo, and this deck dies to TPS or Dragon (no stalling engine).

He's also running only 3 Wastelands and 1 Petrified Field, while a standard wMUD build can afford running 4 and 2, increasing the mana denial stratgy of the deck.

[mr. green]

ok aggainst tribal decks Bridges is tottaly needed , even if not against it  u should still add em in main deck and or sideboard .

[Zherbus]

TRIBAL DECKS? What format is this again?

[Shadow Ninja]

I played Prison recently at our school's T1 tournament (ten proxies, anything proxiable) to good success, only losing to Dragon in the semifinals.  I also managed to completely crush two B.O.B. decks (no one could make Oshawa).  If it's B.O.B. you're having trouble against, then I must admit I'm perplexed.  After all, they may drop a Walla or two first turn, but unless they have an INSANELY broken draw, that's all they should get before you drop Trinisphere.  

Once Trinisphere is down, what I would do is go for is either an early Tangle Wire and some land disruption via Wastelands or Strip Mines, or I would drop an early Smokestack and never let them play anything ever again.  Turn 2 Smokestack is always real nice.  

One of the games against B.O.B. actually did reach a late game status, at which point I locked up with a Stack at one or two (which eventually got subbed out for Jar or something), a Trinisphere, and Mindslaver.  Nothing says "GG" like taking your opponent's turn, making them sac their best permanents, and then using their bazaar to get rid of their hand.  

Anyway, I couldn't make a completely optimal build, seeing as I was lacking quite a few of the cards necessary for such a thing (power, workshop, duals, and Academy), but here's what I ran:

// Creatures
        4 Goblin Welder
        1 Karn, Silver Golem
// Spells
        1 Mindslaver
        2 Meditate
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Tinker
        3 Chalice of the Void
        4 Smokestack
        4 Tangle Wire
        4 Trinisphere
        4 Thirst for Knowledge
// Mana
        1 Black Lotus (proxy)
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Grim Monolith
        1 Mox Ruby (proxy)
        1 Mox Sapphire (proxy)
        1 Mox Jet (proxy)
        1 Strip Mine
        2 City of Brass
        2 Glimmervoid
        1 Tolarian Academy (proxy)
        3 Flooded Strand
        3 Wasteland (don't have the fourth available)
        2 Island
        2 Volcanic Island (2 proxy)
        2 Seat of the Synod
        4 Mishra's Workshop (4 proxy)

I decided against 3 Meditate, instead opting for the Slaver, which ended up being a pretty good decision.  You only want Meditate when you have Wire or Stack active, anyway, so cutting it down doesn't hurt anything, and adding the Mindslaver gave me another dimension of the lock to go for, to force the game to end quicker and to make sure my opponent couldn't hold onto pesky things like Arrogant Wurms when I still hadn't found my Karn.

Oh, and I must agree with whoever said WOrb isn't worth it here.  There are other tricks you'd rather Weld in, and although one sided WOrb is quite good, it doesn't shut down the fast mana aggro and combo decks enough to merit inclusion.  After all, when your opponent gets to untap something like Bazaar or Academy and play out his hand anyway, you know WOrb isn't doing its job.

One last thought:  One of the absolute coolest plays I made was against Severance Belcher/ Stacker Control: Wastelanding his Seat of the Synod and then immediately bringing it back to play in exchange for his Belcher with the Ashtray Master is just too awesome.  I love this deck.