[Deck Discussion] Meandeck Slaver

[Mixing Mike]

Why play Memnarch when you can just whip out a P. Angel and beat down with it?  The only thing I can see beating a P. Angel is Exalted Angels.  I mean, even that you can get around with infinite Slaving and Pentavite beats if need be.

[kirdape3]

Memnarch also steals their stuff (despite that costing 7 mana).  He's a 4/5 beater, which is fine, but the annexation ability is really nice.

[Smmenen]

Becuase Memnarch wins far more games than Platinum Angel.

Steve

[Toad]

Platinum Angel was really cool with Goblin Welder on the board against Dragon, and that's almost the only situation where It's better than Memnarch. Now if you have a Welder on the board, Dragon will just beat you down with billions of Sliver or Bear tokens.

And 4/5 > 4/4. That matters a lot against TNT, Stacker or Oshawa Stompy.

[Wollblad]

Memnarch has synnergy with the deck, formost with Welders. This is exactly what I was trying to reach earlier. Choose fatties to have synnergy with the deck, not just to be fat.

Anyhow, people have pointed out that Brainstorms are needed to give the deck consistency, I can only agree that they help out some times. But quite often, they cost me blue mana that I would have needed to use the cards they find me. Also, it can sometimes be hard to abuse the Workshops since the deck includes so many colored spells. I know that the blue spellcount must be high enough for FoW to work properly, but what about removing two Brainstorms for two Scroll Racks instead. They can be cast with Workshops. Cost colorless mana to use and have wonderful synnergy with draw sevens and will increase the number of artifacts for Thirst.

[jazzykat]

I like smenmarch because he is funny and is a great terror weapon! You can drop him and instead of not losing you can win! Besides your opponent will be shitting themselves trying to figure out how to get rid of him quick before they can't!

Personally, if I could protect the angel well I would play her, as I have a control player mentality and wouldn't care if my life should be    
(-10000000000) and I had no cards in my deck as long as I can be alive long enough to win.

I think the fact of the matter is that winning > not loosing.

[Daniel_112]

I really liked Memnarch, I had one in my sideboard. He really wins games. One time against a mud deck. (gimmi ur smokestack), I stole his academy which gave me the change of stealing his whole board. Memnarch is really good! I luv him maybe I'll add another one to my board.

[Zelc]

The most maindeck fatties Slaver should play is probably 3.  One should undeniably be Pentavus.  The other two can be any combination of Triskelion, Memnarch, and Platinum Angel.  Since this deck runs no Fire/Ice, cutting the Trisk would be suicide, so that has to go in.  Basically, it comes down to Memnarch and Platinum Angel.

Platinum Angel:
Pros:
-You can't lose
-It has evasion
-It's not affected by Null Rod/Damping Matrix
Cons:
-If your opponent can deal with it, it's almost always worse than Memnarch (Which at least can steal some stuff)

Memnarch:
Pros:
-It slaughters opposing artifact-based decks
-It can steal stuff
-It can make your opponent's keg/deed kill their own land
-4/5 > 4/4
Cons:
-No evasion
-Null Rod/Damping Matrix makes this a vanilla 4/5 for 7

[jpmeyer]

Memnarch is better because it can deal with threats meaning that helps you not lose just as well.  Example:

They have Exalted Angel, you have Platinum Angel.  They knock you negative and then hold back until they get a removal spell.

You have Memnarch.  You steal Exalted Angel and win.

[Zelc]

Memnarch is better because it can deal with threats meaning that helps you not lose just as well.  Example:

They have Exalted Angel, you have Platinum Angel.  They knock you negative and then hold back until they get a removal spell.

You have Memnarch.  You steal Exalted Angel and win.

Of course, against hordes (Fish, O-Stompy, Madness, Goblins), a Platinum Angel works better than a Memnarch if you can take care of their Angel Kill, especially when you're low in life.

[Caelestis]

Memnarch isn't only fattie, you know. Pentavus and Trisk is what you use against those.

[jpmeyer]

Memnarch is better because it can deal with threats meaning that helps you not lose just as well.  Example:

They have Exalted Angel, you have Platinum Angel.  They knock you negative and then hold back until they get a removal spell.

You have Memnarch.  You steal Exalted Angel and win.

Of course, against hordes (Fish, O-Stompy, Madness, Goblins), a Platinum Angel works better than a Memnarch if you can take care of their Angel Kill, especially when you're low in life.

Memnarch is still great there.  They can't swing in or they lose their Arrogant Wurm and that buys you the time to steal said Arrogant Wurm

[Zelc]

Memnarch is better because it can deal with threats meaning that helps you not lose just as well.  Example:

They have Exalted Angel, you have Platinum Angel.  They knock you negative and then hold back until they get a removal spell.

You have Memnarch.  You steal Exalted Angel and win.

Of course, against hordes (Fish, O-Stompy, Madness, Goblins), a Platinum Angel works better than a Memnarch if you can take care of their Angel Kill, especially when you're low in life.

Memnarch is still great there.  They can't swing in or they lose their Arrogant Wurm and that buys you the time to steal said Arrogant Wurm

I meant when you're at like 5 life, and your opponent has a Basking Rootwalla, Wild Mongrel, and Arrogant Wurm in play.  Of course, this scenario comes up less frequently than scenarios where Memnarch is more useful, but Platinum Angel does have its uses.  If your meta is mainly beatdown decks, you should probably consider using Platinum Angel over Memnarch.

[Toad]

If your meta is mainly beatdown decks, you should probably consider using Platinum Angel over Memnarch.

Not even. Memnarch is broken too against Aggro. Your best weapon against Aggro is Pentavus, because you can split him in billions of blockers that can hold a swarm forever. Platinum Angel is just weak. It's a 4/4 body that does not win games on its own. Instead of surviving, I'd rather win.

[Wollblad]

I'm still onto the Brainstorms which I cannot get to work smoothly with the deck. It happends very often that I just find virtually nothing, like two lands and an artifact to expensive to cast putting back two lands and knowing I will draw crap for two turns. I have tried switching one Brainstorm for Mystical Tutor and found the deck working much more smoothly. It can fetch me any card drawing and most important, it can fetch Tinker. Suddenly, the irriation over drawing too many Brainstorms dissappeared and Mystical has really prooven itself. Why was it ever let out of the original build?

I'm still not totally happy with Brainstorm and will try thoughtcast instead. It sledoms cost more than two, but isn't stopped by Chalice for 1. Bad to get Mana Drained though. Anyone who has tested Thoughtcast?

[DEA]

i had a friend who commented on the brainstorms
he was playing against me and he said "damn, my next 2 draws will be shit"
shuffle effects should be good here
i scooped to memnarch playing wmud more times than i care to remember

[Toad]

i had a friend who commented on the brainstorms
he was playing against me and he said "damn, my next 2 draws will be shit"

Point is that even WITHOUT Brainstorms, his next 2 draws would have been shit. The bad draws are not due to the Brainstorms. Brainstorm is a setup for brokeness and consistency. It's not used as it is in Keeper or Tog, for example.

[DEA]

the point here is when you get bad draws, brainstorming away the shit can get you gold
brainstorming for consistency and brokeness STILL requires the next 3 cards of your library to be not crappy
without shuffle effects, all you get when brainstorming is advance notice of crap, yes?

[Sirena]

Why no glimmervoid?  Seems like 1 or 2 would be a good
replacement for painlands.

Too many times when you would have to have a prerequisite artifact in play that would get countered/blown up/eaten by Shaman.

Shivan Reef, I have found, is better than glimmervoid for that very reason. It says in play when the opponent starts molesting my artifacts.

I will never cut brainstorm because of the plethora of situations where the top three cards of my deck are the difference between winning and losing.
Not to mention, hiding cards from duress. I thought most people knew the reasons why brainstorm made decklists anyway. I love consistency, don't you?

In my area, Blood Moon is horrible because of the number of native mountains in decks already. 60% of decks in my area. I removed them for Fire/Ice. I would more than likely put them back in if I *EVER* went to a real event where more than 4 people were powered.

The number of unpowered Dragon around here has gone up a few people, so Platinum Angel makes my maindeck, and I still have Memnarch.

Memnarch - 4 dollars, Stealing Keeper's Exalted Angel - Priceless.

[Razvan]

1 Pentavus
1 Memnarch
1 Triskelion
1 Karn?

Only 4 guys... is that enough? I was wondering if you can up them to 5, or even 6? Maybe add a second Pentavus, and maybe another Memnarch?

This has been my primary concern. Rest looks good.

[Toad]

1 Pentavus
1 Memnarch
1 Duplicant

SB: 1 Triskelion

That's all what I'm using and I've never needed some other dudes. This is not a FatDude.dec.

[Justinsane]

i agree with Toad.  The point is to use slaver and welder, not beat.  There is enough draw to get you a condition eventually but the primary goal can not be hindered by more creatures.

[The Hamburgler]

I personally (be it a metagame decision) would swap the main decked Duplicant for the Triskelion in the sideboard. The Duplicant gets rid of big fat threats like Sundering Titan, Juggernaut and Phyrexian Dreadnought. I don't think this is moving the deck in the right direction. It should be more focused on activating a Mindslaver with a GOblin Welder on the board. Once that has happened then there is a much increased percent that you win the game. Triskelion is a win condition, it can deal seven damage a turn or four each turn. It gets rid of multiple nuisances such as oposing Goblin Welder, Gorrila Shaman, Viashino Heretic and Decree of Justice chump blockers. I am still testing out multiple Fire/ Ice main (once again, Slaver is very over populated here in New England and it is made to kill Goblin Welder) and still using CUnning Wish. I don't see Brainstorm as such a giant leap of innovation considering it (through playtesting) strongly weakens Chalice of the Void on your side of the field when it is essential to set it at one in early game matches, in my findings especaily against some mono black Dragon builds, with such few lands stopping a duress or a dark ritual is game defying.

[Tubebar]

Where does chalice fit in? What does it usually get set to? is that dependent on the matchup, or is 2 the magic number? (Stops drain, many fish, null rod, etc.) I only ask because my ability to playtest is due to my lack of a T1 playtest partner. Philly sucks....

Anyway, this deck is awesome, and i definately want to give it a run...but i think we've heard about the fatties enough though. Time to move on in this thread, i feel.

[Justinsane]

When i drop the chalice i normally drop for 0 or 2.  Don't like to drop one cause of the welders duh.  If you're playing hulk or gat probably 3 to stop deeds and tog.  Against fish you would want to drop it for 2 to stop null rod and like half of the deck.

[InsaneScrub]

I have been playtesting Trash for Treasure in mean slaver, it just makes good sense to play 2 of them, they are absolutely awesome!  And with bizaar they make it an awesome top deck if you can't somehow keep a Welder on the table.  

Insane Insight ~

[Tubebar]

whoa, did i miss something? where did bazaar come into the picture? i must be drunk.

And eh...i dont know about Trash...what does it replace form the list? It should be good in a pinch, but, well...yeah, only one pinch. So, i dunno, there could be something better.

[theorigamist]

I think putting Trash for Treasure in this deck would be just that.  (Sorry for the bad pun, I'm le tired.)

Goblin Welder is Trash for Treasure, except it also has power, it works a turn earlier, it works every turn after that, it's useful on its own, it hits opponent's stuff, and you don't lose an artifact if the ability is countered.

Please explain the good sense that says to play two of them, because I must be missing something.

[jpmeyer]

Yeah, seriously what are you talking about?

[The Atog Lord]

Against Control Slaver, you generally want to set your chalices for two. Fire/Ice and Mana Drain are two very strong cards which Control Slaver has and you don't. A two-counter chalice nullifies them.