[Deck] Sligh (with blue splashed)

[Rane]

Well I've done a lot of pondering about competitive Sligh in Type 1 and come to some conclusions.  Firstly splashing white, black or green won't work until the colour pie gets drastically changed.  All these colours may bring something to help Sligh in T1 but they all cause it to lose consistency.  Rancor is great, but can be dead.  Oxidize can kill naughts, but can be dead.  Duress are AWESOME, but can be dead.  There are MANY things that help Sligh, but can be dead.  There are only two things that are not dead in Sligh;

1. Damage
2. Draw when all you have is damage.

Mono-Red Sligh is all about damage.  The problem is that it is pretty much the same in T1 and T1.5 bar adding 1xMox Ruby.  If Sligh wants to be competitive in a T1 meta it needs to gain a LOT more out of being able to use restricted cards.  I have seen and made many a version of Sligh with land destruction, pump, hand disruption, and several others but they all have their flaws.  The idea of this thread is to see how much we can improve mono-red Sligh in competitive Type 1 without it losing consistency.  So with that we only add cards that draw more cards OR improve the cards we have at a reasonable cost OR can replace the damage cards we currently have.  Such cards I'm thinking about are;

[card]Ancestral Recall[/card]
Well der.  If I have to explain this to you then please leave the thread now.

[card]Timewalk[/card]
Although some people have been debating it's usefulness as of late claiming that it is simply a cycler, in Sligh it is UNBELIEVABLE.  It lets you creatures attack or use their abilities twice and gives you the mana to activate a scroll late game or empty your hand more.  All without even using up a card.  Even if it only lets my Pup attack once more, I would still use a card that read "1U - Sorcery: Deal 2 dmg to target player, draw a card".

[card]Standstill[/card]
Yes I know what Fish and Landstill are.  I was wondering if we could tweak this in Sligh to basically be Ancestral #2-5.  When under a SS and facing some creatures and/or Grim's 'n Scrolls, this can net you serious card advantage.

[card]Cloud of the Fairies[/card]
Is this worth it?  I dunno.  I've done some testing and when combined with Timewalk or SS it it pretty affective.  The question is though is a 1/1 enough?  It wouldn't replace Pups/Cadets because they are a necessary threat especially with SS, but they aren't dead late game as flying is practically non-existent in T1, and allow you to still Scroll.  Perhaps better than Mogg Fanatic?

That's about it.  Which brings me to the main problem of the deck.  Pretty much the ONLY problem.  Sligh is designed so most cards are Rcc.  It doesn't like off colour mana AT ALL.  This means that if you splash a colour in Sligh it has to be prety much a divide not a splash.  In short, we need more blue cards.  The problem of course is that there is and probably will never be anything even close to 1-2cc that lets you draw more than one card.  This leans then to dmg which blue, the worst at dmg competes with red, which is the best at dmg.  So other blue cards are wanted... any suggestions?

P.S.  Why don't wizards print a Red Savannah Lions?!  Seriously I HIGHLY doubt that it would distort ANY format.  Can red get a non-drawback Cadets plz?

R
Creature - Goblin
2/1
"It's about time."

[arj]

Don't forget browbeat

[Thissa]

Well, one excellent card that a blue splash offers is Electric Eel. He only needs (and actually requires) a very small blue splash. Standstill is also excellent, especially versus control, since Sligh will usually have board advantage that early in the game. Eel Sligh hasn't been played much recently, but it's definitley worth looking into.

[johnstown713]

I paly a type 1 red goblin sligh that uses two volcanics and time walk along with ancestral recall.  Those two cards are absolutley absurd when comboed with red.  Finally someone else asks for a red lions.  I play burn to but the red lions would be awsome.  Damn Cadets  I don't think that standstill and clouds are worth it but it is a matter of opinion.  By the way with the addition of blue, I went to my first type 1 tourney at waterbury last month.  The red-bleu got me 4-2 or 3-3 sorry I can't remember.

[Fëanor]

It's me again.

I think adding blue to traditional burn would make Sligh into a more rounded deck for sure. Bascially though all you've suggested is to put in Gay Red elements and change the win from man-lands to burn. In this resepect you can see that it will be harder to resist the breaking of a Standstill. I think as far as  U/R goes, you could play Phids and have a blast, but the mention of .still just distorts the win. I must not forget to mention also that scroll and 'Mancer will have less of an effect on a .still game since cards stay in your hand until the bell tolls.

Yes, someone mentioned Browbeat...... ....but anyway you DO have to weigh in whether you'd rather be color screwed or just mana screwed....hm......I'll take a 3cc 5 blast without a downside

Don't forget that cards like cloud of faeries CAN be countered, which makes you want to smash your head against a concrete wall......plus unlike the Fan, it won't net you certain damage.

Other suggestions: [card]Seal of Fire[/card] with .still = fun stuff
[card]Goblin Lackey[/card] also with .still = almost broken
[card]Timetwister[/card] without 'Mancer it's great
[card]Daze[/card] and other cheap counters like force spike give you a buffer and protection once you draw a kill like fireblast. Plus, who doesn't tap out on turns one through three??? :lol:
hehe...oh nothing......hehe..........we could always splash white for Lions :lol:  :lol:  :lol: .....ahem.........sorry.
A good friend of mine likes to "cheat" under a .still with a nice LOA
No Ankh, bring on the fetchs and duals.

Peace

[Redman]

This is an idea that has been tried numerous times, with more or less success, most recently by wasp with his U/R Iso-Sligh:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15381

And a tournament report:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15521

Keep in mind what adding colors to an deck like mono-r sligh does. It increases your options and makes the deck more controlling while decreasing your consistency somewhat; but also remember that Sligh is a deck traditionally built upon consistency.  I feel that if you start splashing colors, what you end up with really isn't Sligh, even though it may share basic Mountains and Lightning Bolts, and that is something you should keep in mind.

[Rane]

What Redman addressed is exactly what I was trying to establish in my first post.  This deck will only be splashing Draw.  That's it.  I don't want to add counters or control or anything like that unless it ties in exactly with Sligh's theme.  This is why I am not running Sceptre's, Stifle, Daze, Force Spike etc.

Cards that I can't believe I forgot about;
[card]Browbeat[/card]
Expensive, but fits very nicely with the theme of the deck.  I am aware of the argument that choice cards suck because the oppponent will always choose what is best for them at the time.  In this deck however, They will always 'lose' to it as there will be no bad choice really.  It's like trying to div up a godlike Fact or Fiction.

[card]Curiosity[/card]
Although it can gain card disadvantage it really can gain MONSTER card advantage for Sligh.  Coupled with CoF or Mancer this can really cause trouble for the opponent.

[card]Electric Eel[/card]
RR activation cost... can we suport that?

I realise others and myself have tried numerous times to splash in Sligh and failed.  I am not really trying to add a colour as much as I am tryting to add drawing.  Any comments on which cards are/are not suitable is greatly appreciated.

[martyr]

I would suggest just playing "I@n"'s deck from worlds.

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Mogg Fanatic/Goblin Vandal
4x Goblin Cadets
4x Goblin Piledriver
2x Siege Gang Commander

4x Price of Progress/Ankh of Mishra/Pyrostatic Pillar/Scald
4x Reckless Charge
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Goblin Grenade
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall

4x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Barbarian Ring
1x Volcanic Island
5x Mountain
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Ruby

SB: 4x Red Elemental Blast
SB: 4x Rack and Ruin
SB: 4x Goblin Vandal/Mogg Fanatic
SB: 3x Overload (???)

I mean, this is slightly modified, but the general idea is still the same.

Play a Lackey.
Burn a blocker. Abuse Lackey.
Burn opponent. Kick opponent's head in.
If head still intact, draw some cards and attempt to kick again.

[johnstown713]

The only problem with this deck is that there are so many non-basic lands that price of progress will end up hurting you a lot.  I would consider it for sideboard.  And also there are a lot of wastelands running around that you need another volvcanic island.

[Vegeta2711]

In this deck however, They will always 'lose' to it as there will be no bad choice really. It's like trying to div up a godlike Fact or Fiction.

Not really. Browbeat is just really bad. If you deal 5 for 3 mana, joy, you just played a really overcosted burn spell. Which they'll do unless they really think your going to kill them. In which case you cast a slightly better Concentrate. It just doesn't work that well in practice.

[tomlcsc]

If there were ANYTHING to add to sligh to make it competitive, I'd add curiousity.  It turns otherwise dead cards into tempo which sligh needs much.  Electric eels sound good but for less mana you could do more damage with tools that sligh already has.  Standstill might be a good idea with a full complement of scrolls etc also.

I would highly suggest looking at would the people using void' decks are doing.  They highly highly improve a deck by simply adding a couple of cards while not disrupting the general idea of the deck.  Good stuff-Tom

[np]

Well, this is something numerous people have thought of before, including myself. I chose Goblin Sligh for playtesting, simply because it's more explosive and has Lackeys. It also has Warchiefs, which make it easy to play Standstill along with one or two Gobbos on turn three (with Mox or Lackey) or turn four.
One of the problems ist Standstill itself. It can draw into burn, but you can't play burn efficiently from underneath it. Therefore, you want to play it only if your hand is empty. Thus, you have to clean up the board position and empty your hand before playing Still. This means that the correct number of Standstills would be around three imo. Ancestral replaces one, so it would be two, and still - they're slowing down the deck and I don't know if six damage in one or two turns is better than three now.

Standstill is also only good in control-matchups, they are unreliable in weenie and combo matchups, and utter crap against O.Stompy, TnT and the like. Thus, they can be played only in control-oriented metagames. I believe that Curiosity is superior in a RU Sligh, because it has great synergy with burn spells, is cheaper and does not give your opponent so many choices, yet also exploits one of controls weaknesses. It can be killed along with the creature just as Standstill can backfire or be countered.

[Rane]

I have thought of using Goblins instead and find that it is far superior when you manage to draw a lackey in your opening hand.  The problem is when you don't draw one and end up worse than normal Sligh.

I do think that Standstill is inferior to Curiosity IF AND ONLY IF you're running CoF and Grim's.  Otherwise Curiosity can easily be a dead draw late game which is exactly what we are trying to prevent.  Curiosity can be cast on Pups/Cadets but in the mirror or against any other aggro it often can't.  Also the logic on Standstill is flawed.  You play it as soon as you have board control which is very early.  Turn 2-3 is optimal.  There is no reason not to run 4 and Ancestral doesn't replace one, it's a different card.

Since when was 5 dmg for 2R bad?  It's no Bolt and is a Mana Drain target, but unlike Ball Lightning it doesn't cost RRR.  Even if it isn't good it's not because it's overcosted, give a beter reason.

Current cards questioned:
Cloud of Fairies
Curiosity
Browbeat
Standstill
Razorfin Hunter

[np]

Also the logic on Standstill is flawed. You play it as soon as you have board control which is very early.  Turn 2-3 is optimal.

What prevents you from doing that with Curiosity? Also, when do you actually want to pla Still on turn two (barring Mox and double Lackey)?
Furthermore, you never have real control with Sligh. You have threats and finishers, and that's about it. The only control element is mana denial and post-sideboarding Blasts.

There is no reason not to run 4 and Ancestral doesn't replace one, it's a different card.

Actually, there is a very good reason not to run four (+ Ancestral), namely the speed of the deck. Refilling the hand after completely depleting it is great, sure, but how many Standstills do you want in your starting hand? Is it even one? It's a tempo loss not to be underestimated, for which you might not even get the cards early enough to race him, especially considering that speed is Goblin Sligh's best weapon.
Ancestral, against experienced opponents, is nothing more than a cheaper, more reliable Standstill and should be treated accordingly until more Misdirections show up.

Since when was 5 dmg for 2R bad?  It's no Bolt and is a Mana Drain target, but unlike Ball Lightning it doesn't cost RRR.  Even if it isn't good it's not because it's overcosted, give a beter reason.

Choice cards are either very powerful or utterly unplayable. This card is three cards when you need five damage (you may have to wait for a turn before casting the draw burn) and five damage when you need cards, which buys your opponent time. Furthermore, if your opponent needs the mana, it may well become a welcome Drain target. Even if it was unconditional burn (five for three) other cards are just better, especially when playing with Goblins.

Cloud of Fairies is only useful against weenie aggro, which is an easier matchup without the blue splash. Also, it signals the opponent you might be playing Standstill and is suboptimal against creature-light decks. Even with Curiosity, it's just too puny. You must remember that Fish and Gay/r are decks with a completely different deck philosophy than Goblins. Fish lays a few threats and plays Standstill, preferably turn two, always with some cards still in hand, trying to subsequently control the game. Also, it can lay threats afterwards, which GoblinStill can't - unless you squeeze four Factories into a mana-light two-color deck that desperately needs Wastes and the Strip.
Razorfin Hunter is nothing to consider. Even Sparksmith would be better, and can have as much burn as you can possibly wish for.

Also, I would strongly recommend cutting all Siege-gangs from a build with Standstill. They work just fine with Curiosity, though.



Now don't get me wrong here. I think incorporating Standstill into Goblins is a great idea. I'm just reporting what I found playtesting on Apprentice. I don't think Curiosity is that much better than Standstill, either. It's just that Curiosity very often at least cantrips the turn it comes into play, while your opponent may pop Standstill with Chalice for one, Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, Void, TnT fatties, CoP:Red, or, worse, a non-interactive combo, or even occasionally cycle a fun Decree for a few tokens. What I'm saying is that with Curiosity, you know pretty much what's gonna happen, which is very important in straightforward, non-utility aggro.



Btw, is it really necessary to just incorporate Standstill into something? How about you abandon Goblins, but Ankhs as well. Black Vise would still be a fine choice, and so would Grim L. (plus fetchlands), Firewalker (a real clock under Still, and does not need goblins to run), and other typical Ank-weenies. Mox Monkeys, of course. Perhaps something to use cards drawn under Standstill for, though nothing efficient comes to mind.[/quote]

Come to think of it, why not use Skullclamp? It can pump anything bigger than a X/1, grants "protection" from Edicts, board sweepers and so forth, doesn't require another color, digs in just about when your creatures become suboptimal and what you want is dd, and it's cost is adjustable. Could be fun with Shrapnel Blast and has some synergy with Grenade, Siege-gang and Warchief, too. Yet it falls to Null Rod. Well, have to think that over.

[TJ-Whoopy]

Fire/Ice..... I don't know maybe I'm missing somthing seems in sligh it would be good burn or cycle it and tap a blocker/land/other nasty inconvenience.

[np]

Yeah, Fire/Ice would be good in a aggro mategame, killing up to two weenies and shutting down big Madness and TnT blockers. But as I said before, I think regular Goblins would do better in such a meta, or, better still, FCG.
Also, Fire/Ice is really versatile but suboptimal at what Sligh wants to do: damage efficiently. Tapping a big blocker, even for a card, isn't as good as having an actual finisher.

[TJ-Whoopy]

good explanation thanks

[Fëanor]

A friend of mine plays with curiosity, but the flaw in it is that its weak as a creature enchantment that can easily be dropped and forgotten in the blink of an Edict etc.

I suggest [card]Mask of Memory[/card], since you'll want to dig for your burn. Browbeat ain't as bad as you're saying. I've played the beat for a while and basically, you dont want to play it unless you wont mind it being gone. as to it being what you dont want it to be, either way, its you benefiting with an ancestral sized CA, or your opponent being at 15

Browbeat Conditions:
Opponent at or under ten life.
'Mancer or other form of kickass constant damage in play
You're attacking with a masked creature
your opponent is at 20 and it's your last chance before you get pummelled by his damn Negator  

fire and ice should be put in only if theres room left over. its a great cantrip and a great shock.

Peace

[Androstanolone]

bah, team bolt lives on.  I finally concluded that simple classic sligh, with around 18 mountains and a mox ruby, 16 of our standard weenies, 12 bolts, 3 pop, 3 ball light, and 3 scrolls was the best standard sligh build.  I also concluded that it simply wasn't competitively viable, even for a budget deck.  I made a gobbo sligh a while back for fun, I made it to be ultra aggressive, to basically win as fast as possible with no regard to board position.  I think whether you go FCG or goblin sligh, that goblins is the way to go atm.  T1 has become so fast that explosive decks are winning more than decks that are comparitively as consistent as winning decks are explosive.  Goblins simply have the ability to be much more explosive because of their synergy, especially with lackey.  When I made the deck I excluded SGC, the deck wants to just deal 20 damage by turn 3, and didn't like dead cards, so SGC had to be cut since it was conditional.  I may have to add it back, not sure.  

I honestly don't think trying to fit blue into sligh is the answer.  I know there has been some success with it, but it can also just end up being worse than regular sligh because of the strained mana base, dead cards, and a general lack of cohesion.  Blue is the least synergistic color, green and black work much better as I've seen with my "zombie sligh" and as anyone can see with RG beatz.  Ancestral recall and time walk are the only cards that easily fit into sligh's game plan, recall cuz it's just so damn cheap for so much and time walk is awesome in any aggro.  Neither is conditional, unlike curiosity.  Browbeat is crap, if it works to your advantage either way they choose, then you're already in a winning position whether the browbeat is a bolt, pop, or fireblast.  I've tested it, it's not, like, a bad card but it's just worse than anything else you could run in this slot.  

Mask of mem costs too much for sligh and is just as situational as curiosity.

Cloud of faeries wtf.

Electric eel wtf.  

Here's the goblin sligh I made several months ago, somewhat similar to the gobbo's listed previously, but different enough.  I just sat down one day and decided to make a deck that was capable of sacrificing resources rather than tapping mana to deal damage while also taking advantage of the natural synergy of goblins, and thus be as explosively damaging as possible.  

t3h 1ns@n0 sl1gh

Creatures:

4x lackey
4x kadetz
4x mogg fanatic
4x raging goblin
4x mogg flunkies
4x piledrivers

burn:

4x chain light
4x bolt
4x grenade
4x fireblast

tech:

2x Final Fortune

mana:

1 strip mine
16 mountains
1 mox ruby

The deck likes doing things like innocuously hitting for a few damage, then when the opponent is tapped out playing goblin grenade, goblin grenade, and fireblast for 14 burn .  Or getting a piledriver big quick with a raging then playing final fortune, swing with the 5-7 power driver again and play any ol' burn spell.  Obviously, you could splash blue for ancestral and time walk also, if you want.  The situational goblin, flunkie, was a necessary evil.  I had warchief here for a while but I needed something that came out a little earlier, and could put the opponent on a significant clock, also the warchief didn't help me cast anything but piledriver, and so was sometimes a waste.  

Zombiesligh

creatures (16):

4x carnophage
4x sarcomancy
4x rotting giant
4x wretched anurid

burn (22):

12x bolt
4x scroll
3x fireblast
3x Pop

mana (21):

1 jet
1 ruby
1 strip
4 waste
4 bloodstained mire
4 badlands
4 mountain
3 swamp

Basically, the addition of black gives us some more combat friendly creatures to help deal with aggro and still provides us with a good clock speed versus control and combo.  Besides this and some potential SB options, this is what black offers sligh that I have found so far.  It also sacrifices the utility of gorilla shaman and grim lavamancer to insure that all of its threats are, well, threatening.  The mana curve is a bit skewy, as the deck wants black mana early for creatures and red mana late for burn.  But, I think black definitely mixes better than blue, as it's an allied color for fetches and black has some superior beatz to go with red's fast burn.  I think every sligh player who knows sligh agrees that the creatures are the weak point in sligh, not the burn or really a need for card draw.  This was exactly what was in my mind when I decided to make red/black sligh, I knew black had better weenies and was an allied color, so I upgraded all of sligh's standard weenies.  Also, obviously you can run RG "sligh" but this just ends up as zoo.  

Not saying these are any better than regular sligh or FCG, just the stuff I've been messing with.  Love to hear what anyone else thinks.



- Androstan

PS:  they need to print some kickass zombies

[np]

A friend of mine plays with curiosity, but the flaw in it is that its weak as a creature enchantment that can easily be dropped and forgotten in the blink of an Edict etc.

Edict I wouldn't be tat worried about, but removal is bad, that's true.

Mask of Memory is a bit on the slow side, giving you a burn or creature spell on turn three where it might well be crucial to Bolt or PoP instead. This is a problem it shares with Still.

bah, team bolt lives on.  I finally concluded that simple classic sligh, with around 18 mountains and a mox ruby, 16 of our standard weenies, 12 bolts, 3 pop, 3 ball light, and 3 scrolls was the best standard sligh build.

Except that Ball Lightning has been unplayable in high-profile tournaments for quite some time now.
I won't discuss the build you mentioned cause I don't see the point. However, a RU Sligh would obviously need to take back some of its speed for later card advantage. If that's good or not is very matchup-dependant. If Curiosity > Standstill is so, too.
The ultra-aggressive plan looks good on paper, but then, so does Stompy. The fact is that Sligh can be shut down with a silver bullet rather easily and let the other player win at half their life or less. Sligh has few ways to build up again after the initial rush, so it really depends on how fast the opponent can win/take control.

I honestly don't think trying to fit blue into sligh is the answer.  I know there has been some success with it, but it can also just end up being worse than regular sligh because of the strained mana base, dead cards, and a general lack of cohesion. Blue is the least synergistic color, green and black work much better as I've seen with my "zombie sligh" and as anyone can see with RG beatz.  Ancestral recall and time walk are the only cards that easily fit into sligh's game plan, recall cuz it's just so damn cheap for so much and time walk is awesome in any aggro.

I totally agree with everyting you say here, barring extreme metagames. Oh, and also I don't think black is very good with red.



While in a metagame with very, very few control decks I could understand the inclusion of four grenades, I have absolutely no idea why you have four Fireblasts there. It's a card you never want do draw three times a game, or, if you'r trying to goldfish on turn three, even twice.
Also, I've found the Flunkies very suboptimal, since they, too, are very conditional and easily dealt with.
Final Fortune is very discussable, too.

I'm also pretty sure the few Zombies don't outweight the disadvantage of having a split mana base in such a mana-light deck. Carnophage and Sarcomancy aren't that much better than Pup and Cadets. Rotting Giant is a bit on the unreliable side, especially against random md-gy-removal. Wretched Anurid in a two-color creature swarm deck with md PoPs?!
Why not green? Green has better weenies, too, and a bit of extra sideboard versatility. A metagamized RG-Beatz build is far superior to this list imo.

In the first deck you don't even run Wastelands? And Mox Monkeys are absolutely crucial in powered metagames, in which they are far better than Fanatic or Raging G.



FCG is a very different deck design. It trades a chunk of its explosiveness for the possibility of comboing out. That's how it cements it chances in the midgame/late game and that's what makes it flexible. Against aggro, you play aggro, until you get the combo. Then you win, even against fattie-aggro which Sligh always has problems with.
Against control, it's slower than ordinary Goblins, sure, but the control player has not only to survive, but also consider the possibility of a Food Chain in your hand. Even with the reduced speed, Lackey/Warchief + Ringleader is very good card advantage, refilling your hand, allowing yourself not not to overextend and control is a very winnable matchup with any aggro, anyway ('xcept Tog).

[Androstanolone]

a lot of pretty decent comments np, a lot of negative criticism on my lists but I expected that, I knew they were flawed or I wouldn't post them for critique, I'd rather horde them until I could suprise everyone at a tourney .  

Except that Ball Lightning has been unplayable in high-profile tournaments for quite some time now.

yeah, hence why I said the build wasn't competitively viable, even for a budget deck.  Still, I think the slow ankh controllish version has similar chances at best.  I've played a *lot* with many versions of mono red sligh, and ankh was good until the meta exploded with all these new aggro decks that ankh was just crap against.  Since ankh was dead against the bad matchups, I altered the deck to improve its bad matchups (normally what you do).  I put in as much burn and inherent CA as possible with mancers and scrolls, giving the deck the ability to burn >3 toughness creatures without pitching 2 cards.  Also, with so much power even in other aggro decks, strips often were not enough, and sometimes slowed the deck down by not being able to cast 2 things on turn 2.  Taking out the 5 strips was probably the most controversial part, since they are so powerful in T1.  But the basic conclusion had become that sligh's disruption was simply too weak and was taking away from the speed, tempo, and potency of the deck, and red doesn't pack potent enough control elements to make full control sligh.  So, after lots of testing, I settled on an 18 red build with ball lightnings.  It's not the best for competitive play, but it's the best that mono red 4x jackal pup sligh has to offer.  Not to mention, though ball lightnings are bad against control, they are quite good in the big aggro matchups where you can either pay 3, kill a creature and shock/bolt an opponent (for 1 card) or deal 3 shocks with one card.  6 to the dome for 1 card is often all sligh needs.  

However, a RU Sligh would obviously need to take back some of its speed for later card advantage

but this is completely antithetical to the nature of sligh.  Making a deck that wants to go slower and build up resources is the very stereotype of a control deck.  Sligh wants to use its present resources so fast and efficiently that the opponent has no time to build up enough resources to regain control.  Putting sligh in the late game is a "bad idea".  It would not be sligh anymore, it would be a RU control deck, and would probably eventually morph into gay U/r.  Plus the fact that, improving sligh's late game primarily improves the one decent matchup it has, control.  Gaining CA in later turns isn't going to do much against those early su chi's, juggies, arrogant wurms, etc. etc. etc.  They'll just smash your face in.  And by the late game, stompy will have bazaar + squee draw engine up and easily out card you, TNT will have survival and go trisk + win.  If you got a good hand with a monored build, you could at least stand a small chance of burning them out with a few pups, ball light, price, and fireblasts.  Red has 3 really good disruption spells right now:  blood moon, pyrostatic pillar, and dwarven miner.  The problem is that, though each is potent, there isn't really any synergy between them, so a red control deck built around them just doesn't cut it.  

The ultra-aggressive plan looks good on paper, but then, so does Stompy.

I agree, the ultra-aggressive type strategy I have shown looks better than it actually performs, but I've played with the build I listed and various alterations on that basic skeleton (tweaks like price of progress, a little less land, 3 fireblast, warchief, SGC, etc.).  It is explosive, it can impact the board much faster than traditional sligh, and board-impact speed is probably the most vital aggro component right now.  I mean, when turn 1 negator has been outclassed, things have gotten fast.  Final Fortune is gold, get 5 points of beats on the table and fortune turns it into 10, which is all you need to win.  FF isn't iffy in the slightest, the deck is balls out aggressive, and FF is just such a card to fit its gameplan.  The only think that saddens me is you never wanna see 2 of these together, so I can only run 2.  It'd be sick if you could chain the FF's, play FF on an extra turn and get another turn.  The deck is designed so that there is no reason to build up, the opponent should be dead.  It wastes *zero* space torwards worrying about building up resources.  The fundamental premise is to simply be the most fast and efficient deck full of damage possible, and I'd like to hear comments on improving it in this respect.  

Flunkies are the weak point.  This slot in general is the weak point, it's the "heavy beater that isn't piledriver" slot.  I've had various things here, SGC and warchief among other less mentionables.  It's definitely up for debate if anyone has some definitive, valid points on what is optimal and what isn't, in context with the deck's theme.  

I'm also pretty sure the few Zombies don't outweight the disadvantage of having a split mana base in such a mana-light deck. Carnophage and Sarcomancy aren't that much better than Pup and Cadets. Rotting Giant is a bit on the unreliable side, especially against random md-gy-removal. Wretched Anurid in a two-color creature swarm deck with md PoPs?!
Why not green? Green has better weenies, too, and a bit of extra sideboard versatility. A metagamized RG-Beatz build is far superior to this list imo.

carn and sarc are better than pups and cadets, obviously.  You can chump block with them and buy time to draw into burn to win.  Chumping with Pups doesn't buy you any time while cadets will buy you a turn.  The B zombies also don't fuck you when keeper cycles decree.  Rotting giant is actually far less unreliable than one would guess at first.  I thought the same thing but in playing with him, it is rarely an issue.  The main question is if it is worth it in a powered meta, which I haven't had the chance to do extensive testing in.  Also, pop does sometimes turn out to be too much pain with anurids, but anurids alone are really no problem.  What could be run in place of price?  Also, it's already been established that RG beatz can be competitive, we here are trying to make a new incarnation of viable weenie aggro by splashing other colors into red, of which I am of the opinion that black is the most beneficial.  Perhaps the zombies don't outweigh the extra color, but the point is the weak part of sligh is the creatures, RG beatz does well because it has more robust creatures like kird ape, river boa, etc.  Gorilla shaman are needed in the RB version, I admit that, they are too strong.  

In the first deck you don't even run Wastelands? And Mox Monkeys are absolutely crucial in powered metagames, in which they are far better than Fanatic or Raging G.

strips don't fit, the deck needs as consistent a mana base as possible to cast multiple threats turns 2 and 3, and gorilla shaman doesn't belong because it is designed to take utmost advantage of total goblin synergy.  

Finally, I am of the opinion that FCG is the strongest slighesque in competitive T1 right now.  I actually played it many many months ago, when it was first born in extended.  My old list was pretty similar to the list in the primer, as the deck isn't very hard to make and only calls for a few card choices.  I pushed it to the side because I didn't consider it consistent enough, the beatdown was slow and the combo was somewhat erratic.  That was before the current meta, where decks like this actually start to thrive.  

Overall the shift in decks in T1 has been away from very consistent builds to more explosive ones that can explode often but not as often as an old sligh deck could kill on turn 4.  But these decks can do it on turn 3, sometimes turn 2, so old school sligh consistency just can't compete with the blistering speed and power in T1 atm.  I'm done.  



- Androstanolone

[Rane]

Heck yeah Team Bolt lives on!  Sometimes you gotta let a 19 page thread die but that doesn't mean you stop playing magic, you take what you learnt and... start a new thread.

Too many of you are missing my point.  The reason splashing always fails is because you splash to solve a problem at the cost of some efficiency.  The only thing that is almost as consistent as all damage, is all damage and draw.  THE ONLY CARDS I AM ADDING WITH BLUE ARE CARDS THAT ARE NON-SITUATIONAL DRAW, OR A SUPERIOR THREAT TO A PREVIOUS ONE.

With that I am not using Browbeat, or any other card that is not purely draw or damage.  I'll post more later.

[kirdape3]

Well, the point is that Sligh is awful in the traditional form.  You simply don't do very much against the strongest decks besides cast a single Pup then get annihilated.  Goblins is at least a little faster, but the burn-heavy variant isn't that much faster and really only has one win condition - Goblin Lackey.

Food Chain Goblins gives you multiple win conditions, outs against every deck in the format, and is on par with the average fundamental turn of the format.

[Fëanor]

SW33T, yooz gyz is still here. The team lives on  

Aight, Blu Burn:

[card]Psionic Blast[/card] can easily be splashed, but why splash red if we've got enough red burn?
[card]Psychic Purge[/card]
[card]Mind Bomb[/card]
[card]Suffocation[/card]

Blu Draw:

[card]Ancestral Recall[/card] der...
[card]Complicate[/card]
[card]Brainstorm[/card]
[card]Disrupt[/card]
[card]Frantic Search[/card]
[card]Gush[/card]
[card]Fire/Ice[/card]
[card]Opt[/card]
[card]Read the Runes[/card]
[card]Teferis Response[/card]
[card]Whispers of the Muse[/card]
[card]Careful Study[/card]
[card]Dream Cache[/card]
[card]Fact or Fiction[/card]
AK  

Psychic Purge is just cool, but it might not be T1 calliber
If we end up playing with Volcanics, Gush is a possibility, but it may be too conditional
I like Terei's Response a lot.
Long term playing of Opt proves its usefulness, but we may just want to run the "power draw"....conformists........

Peace

[np]

I guess no one proposes adding blue for burn.

Of the blue draw  you mentioned, the most cards are either unplayable or unplayable in Sligh.

[card]Brainstorm[/card] just makes sure you draw burn. Well, if it was burn, it would ensure the same thing.
[card]Complicate[/card] no fucking way.
[card]Disrupt[/card] is reactive and sometimes dead. Besides, it's a cantrip, not card draw.
[card]Frantic Search[/card] is useless if your hand is empty.
[card]Gush[/card] doesn't go well with a tiny splash in a minimalistic mana base.
[card]Fire/Ice[/card] is not card drawing, but a cantrip.
[card]Opt[/card] Why the hell would anyone play that over even Volcanic Hammer!?
[card]Read the Runes[/card] is far too expensive and almost useless with an empty hand.
[card]Teferis Response[/card] is reactive and very conditional.
[card]Whispers of the Muse[/card] far too expensive.
[card]Careful Study[/card] is useless with no cards in hand.
[card]Dream Cache[/card] is too expensive for the little it does.
[card]Fact or Fiction[/card] is too expensive. By turn four, you'd like to have won, not draw extra cards.

Draw X, discard X effects are generally useless in Sligh because there's nothing other than burn and lands you can discard. If you get excess lands often, you should take car of your mana base, not play dXdX cards. Also, they generate card disadvantage, not advantage.

Reactive spells you have to keep mana open for and they are highly unreliable, something Sligh can't stand. And cantrips just use up mana to make the quality of the draw better, which is something Sligh doesn't need badly enough to ruin its mana base.

[Lucentspirit]

My current sligh build has a blue splash. I'm not sure if I like it though. One of the great aspects of having a deck that's all one color and has such low cc spells is that it isn't as suseptable to wasteland and it can run on little land (which of course means more room for the business spells). The biggest drawback for me was chalice of the void. Sleigh used to be my favorite deck until chalice started to see regular play.

anyway.... here is my list.....

1 mox ruby
9 moutain
2 volcanic island
4 wooded foothills
1 strip mine
2 wasteland

4 lightning bolt
4 incinerate
4 chain lightning
2 goblin gernade
1 fireblast

4 goblin lackey
4 mog fanatic
2 goblin tinkerer
2 goblin piledriver
3 raging goblin
2 grim lavamancer
3 gorilla shaman

1 ancestral
1 timewalk
2 browbeat
2 winter orb

SB

2 wasteland
1 moutain
2 maze of ith
4 tormod's crypt
3 pulverize
2 null rod
1 goblin welder

This deck has performed well for me in several tournaments. Essentialy it uses the mana hate (wasteland, winter orb, and shaman, tinkerer) to delay it's opponent while beating them in the head with creatures. The burn usually funtions only to clear the board of creatures turns 1-3. After that they can usually land something you can't burn down and you switch stratagy. You pound them in the head with burn and use your creatures as defense.
    I'd also like to say Pulverize is awesome! It has saved me SO many times against fast artifact heavy decks as well as chalice for 1.

[Rane]

Ancestral and Time Walk which are definatly in.  The only other cards I'm considering now are Curiosity and Brainstorm.

Ask a control player what Brainstorm does.  It does NOT just make them get counters.  It gets them an awesome hand.  By itself it is like a tutor in Sligh.  In Sligh roughly 1/3 your deck is land, 1/3 creatures, 1/3 Burn.  Brainstorm lets your draw three, which is often one of each of these, and then you can choose which you want now and what order you want to draw the next two in.  If it gets more draw even better.  Also combined with Fetchlands these 'tutors' become cantripping tutors.  After the first few turns drawing 3 cards only to return 1 and a Mountain then shuffling them away is really efficient.  All this for U.  I want to run 8 fetches which may be overkill.  Perhaps only 4-6.  Needs testing.

Curiosity is just really broken if you can get it on CoF or Grim or an early beatdown creature.  Against aggro it can make you draw all the burn you need to win if on Grim or CoF.  Against combo Ucc doesn't really slow you down for the added burn you will draw to speed you up.  Perhaps get to that Pyrostatic Pillar faster.  Against control it is what wins games.  They have a hard enough time going 1f1 let alone you trying to out draw them.  Curiosity on CoF is enough CA to outdraw all but the best of combo decks.

CoF is still a VERY good option.  Think of it as Mogg Fanatic that late game you don't have to sac and it can deal one damage a turn.  Who plays flying blockers thesedays???  It cannot take out things like Welders unlike Fanatic, but it has enough advantages in being a free card to cast.  First turn Pup followed by CoF Bolt blocker Brainstorm is great especially when followed by a next turn Curiostiy.

[Fëanor]

Woah np, way to breathe down my throat. Just posting all blue burn and draw. there isn't much I've missed and yes, most of it was bad. Perhaps I was making my own statement.....Rane...ahem....

Brainstorm is broken to me. I play blue = I play brainstorm, from parfait to keeper.
@Rane: I play with fifve fetch and actually run into them quite frequently. However I'm talking about a control deck. So, I'm thinking you may want to test from 5-6, since 8 is, you guessed it.......massive overkill, not to mention a huge loss of life or a stifle-able thingy (BluMages love getting their Stifle off ).

Back in tempest, what kicked? Kindle...teehee...if players don't like brainstorm(!!), then play AK. Odds are usually at least 65% you'll be playing another deck with AK in it, depending on area.

Opt is better than you make it out to be. However, brainstorm is always better then Opt . And the TResponse is conditional, but good metagames will pack at least 5 reasons to play the card. if not you could always fizzle the response and go on to card drawing.

I wouldn't think twice about using Fire/Ice. Unlike the Response, it's not at all conditional (unless your opponent just played Worship), and it cantrips for goodness and a possible one creature fog. Fire/Ice is goodness. If this thread ever beings up shock, just remember our little F/I talk.

What makes Curiosity especially good, is the fact that most players have counters to back them up. Let me look at your deck and count the number of counters......oh sweet, no counters. This card is going to find it's way to the graveyard quite frequently. I'm not questioning it's power, I'm questioning it's endurance.

CoF would be even cooler if you had some cool land to do cool stuff with in conjunction, like........hehe............. ..LoA
(other card that work wel with CoF but not nec in this deck: Workshop, Factory, Urzatron, SagaLands, LegacyLands, Lands :shock:)

Who wouldn't salivate over a 5/5 Factory Worker? You knew you played CoF for a reason. *swing, OW!*

Peace

[Rane]

The problem with AK's is exactly THAT I will run into them.  The first one cycles and the second one is +1 CA.  Four mana for one card is not good.  I shouldn't be running into the third or fourth so they don't help.  I also won't get the benifit of my oppponents as I will be most likely first to play mine as I try to race them.  They will then get the benifit of mine.  AK's are definatly a no-no.

The only thing I fear with Curiosity is StP and Fire/Ice.  Whilst these may be enough to prevent me from using it because they are quite popular, that's about it.  Creature enchantments are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.  People used to pack sufficient creature hate and so Echantments would lose 2f1.  Thesedays however people have to deal with many more problems other than creatures.  Mainly Combo, Graveyards and Draw.

[np]

Brainstorm is broken to me. I play blue = I play brainstorm, from parfait to keeper.
@Rane: I play with fifve fetch and actually run into them quite frequently. However I'm talking about a control deck.

Well yeah, but control decks play very differently from aggro. But to be frank, I was writing a juicy answer as to why Brainstorm's bad, which got me thinking and now I believe it's testable (if you're not in an aggro-meta and only if playing fetchlands - and preferably Grim L).

Back in tempest, what kicked? Kindle...teehee...if players don't like brainstorm(!!), then play AK. Odds are usually at least 65% you'll be playing another deck with AK in it, depending on area.

Problem is, against those decks you have to play AK eot after they've ve played theirs, then kill them immediately before they kick your teeth in. That's no problem unless you draw two AKs, so I'd doubt they are an automatic 4-of. If you don't play four, however, they're dead against the non-AK decks. I could see this be a very sweet sideboard card in certain metas, though.

Opt is better than you make it out to be. However, brainstorm is always better then Opt . And the TResponse is conditional, but good metagames will pack at least 5 reasons to play the card. if not you could always fizzle the response and go on to card drawing.

Opt, reveal land, drop it, draw burn.
Opt, reveal burn, draw it.
Is both cases, you get a burn/damage spell at best, which is what you probably cut for Opt in the first place. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Teferi's Response requires two mana open, which will be on your third turn, and after the first one it's rather useless because the opponent knows you have it and won't try to cripple you without thinking first.

I wouldn't think twice about using Fire/Ice. Unlike the Response, it's not at all conditional (unless your opponent just played Worship), and it cantrips for goodness and a possible one creature fog. Fire/Ice is goodness.

F/I is a great control card. It's not even conditional against Worship, since you can burn creatures. Personally, I think it's too slow for Sligh, though. I prefer three to the head to making a blocker vanish. And a Fog won't help much, except against Hulk, but again, I would concentrate on killing faster.

What makes Curiosity especially good, is the fact that most players have counters to back them up. Let me look at your deck and count the number of counters......oh sweet, no counters.

I don't say it's good, either. I just think it's better than Standstill and Opt. Not sure about Brainstorm.


Help me out; what's CoF? You don't mean Cone of Flames, do you?  
Cloud of Faeries[/color]