[Report] + [Discussion] GP DC, new deck

[SliverKing]

Since they are inter-related I'm putting my GP:DC tournament report and my 7/10 discussion into one thread, for interested in the tournament report you might want to skip ahead a bit.

About 6-7 weeks prior to GP:DC our local group (TripleS, Thorme, Myself) and the NoVa crowd (PhantomTapeWorm, RickJames, several others) organized a large weekend-long playtesting session at my house to get a grip on the most popular decks and how they all matched up.  We proxied around 20 decks and started a large spreadsheet to track results.  While that first weekend certainly provided a lot of data, it didnt point to any one deck that was grossly superior to all of the others.  We weeded out some of the low performers and began to focus on Slavery, Hulk, and a few others, each of us being assigned a few decks to work on and continue testing.
After a week or two an interesting message showed up from the NoVa guys,  that Slavery had a very poweful draw engine, but that Mindslaver itself occasionally sucked ass. A ten mana time walk in some situations (especially without the 1/1 goblin welder).  In a random experiment they tried sundering titan in the slot of mindslaver on the theory that a fatty is NEVER dead, and mana denial/disruption is a critical element to survival in Type 1.  A titan comes into play and takes several lands with it... even if the opponent has enough mana to deal with the titan, they'll lose more lands when they kill it.  Its a terrible dilemma for the opponent, which combined with the power-toughness prompted the name for the deck, 7 10 split (a bowling term for those that dont know, which is the most difficult position to be in)
I apprenticed the deck up (Hulk had been my job to test, so I wasnt very familiar with Slavery) and began goldfishing... for hours... and fell in love. the deck was so explosive, and the fatties so disgusting.  However there were some serious consistency problems that simply had to be addressed.  Taking the same approach that the NoVa guys had in cutting the slavers, I proposed the unthinkable, take out the FoW.  Everyone on the team (and Azhrei when he walked passed me fanning the deck out) gave me a look like I had just sprouted purple tentacles from my forehead. But to mee the FoW didnt fit the deck, they had no synergy and you were having to picth your  draw spells to use them... or not be able to use them at all sometimes! In the place of those FoW I added a much needed R/U source, a 4th gilded lotus, and 2 more fatties (2 triskelions to ensure welder dominance).  Without slavers to recur it became immediatly obvious that pentavus was also a terrible choice, so he became a random fatty-slot (duplicant, bosh, platinum angel... the jury is still out).    Suddenly the deck began to run much more smoothly, the gilded lotus and extra land helped the mana base, and the trikes gave it a greatly increased threat count.
So testing began again, with renewed vigor... to get as many games against as many matchups as possible.   We found that we were losing to exactly 3 things.   Aggessive mana denial (multiple wastes + null rod), random broken hands (no FoW leaves us with only chalice and titan as disruption),  and  occasional inconsistency (its mana base is still very shaky, which is why the mana denial is so powerful against it).  Our metagame guess had us expecting Gay/r, U/G Madness, and random NullRod decks (as they could be easily proxy-5'd) and the losses we were experiencing against these null rods was very unsettling.  
My first attempt to increase the consistency was to remove Time Walk for mystical tutor.  Killing time walk was a very difficult decision, but about 50% of the time it was just being cycled early in hopes of finding something good... where the mystical GOT something good. To supplement this new Mystical Tutor power, and help vs the nullrod problem we made a last minute switch of fatty#8 for a maindeck artifact killer (overload or shattering pulse depending on what we could find).  Bear in mind this was after watching the deck get housed by nullrod in dozens of games, but smash through other decks like a linebacker through kindergartners.   If we didnt think so many would be present, that last slot would be better suited as the time walk. 8 fatties were unnecessary, and the random walk wins would be most helpful.
Ok, now that the background is out of the way, here is the list I played

4 Shivan Reef
2 City of Brass
2 GlimmerVoid
1 Gemstone Mine (3rd city was causing too much damage)
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Gilded Lotus

4 Goblin Welder
3 Sundering Titan  
2 Triskelion
1 Memnarch
1 Duplicant

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 TimeTwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Memory Jar

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Overload

Revelent Sideboard

TriniSphere
Jester's Cap  (used this over crypt because it was good vs all combo, not just dragon, and I didnt expect dragon to begin with)
REB
BEB  (stops welder, Racka nd Ruin, dragon, random red )
Duplicant
Memnarch
Viashino Heretic  (can bring in vs null rod decks, unlike Rack and Ruin which will need 2 targets, but its still a house vs regular artifact decks, was amazing)
Rack and Ruin

Round 1 -     Rich w/ 7-10 split

Fabulous, 82 people and round 1 I meet not only a friend, but the mirror match.   I play a memnarch and welder, if I untap he loses.  He topdecks a time walk ( he was playing without the mystical)  which lets him lay bosh and walk in one turn, boshs away memnarch and welder before i can untap.  boo for me
Game 2 we fight for a little bit, but I slip out a heretic.  once again before I can untap and ruin his mana he topdecks duplicant, bye bye heretic.  follows up with a titan and 3 turns later its over.  

Round 2-      Marc Perez w/ GayR

This report is more a case study in how months of preperation are well and good, but sometimes things just go against you.  We decide not to eliminate each other and instead take an intentional draw.  gives us 2 shots to win out, instead of just 1.   Best play our team made all day long

Round 3 -      Matt w/  Isochron Hulk

At this point I am already very frustrated, the other players with 7/10 are doing great and I've been whored by pairings.  Die roll gives me an 18, he gets a 19.  Figures.
He goes land, mox, scepter w/ mystical tutor.   Hmm, this could get out of hand quickly.  Except 7/10 is way more broken than isochron scepter.  
Pearl. Sol Ring, lotus, academy, memnarch.  
Next turn he gets ancestral, I steal isochron,  followed by the mox, and when I get the first land we go to game 2.  

Game 2, he plays 1st turn ancestral.  discards a gush.  I play 1st turn chalice for 2, he has no FoW,  3 mana drains and time walk in  his hand are now dead.  2nd turn I get a gilded lotus and use it to FoF up 4 mana sources and a REB.  he splits the mana and the  REB and I take hte REB,
3rd Turn I hardcast Titan w/ REB back up for force, but he didnt have the force, scoop.        When the mana works out, the deck is broken

Round 4 - Nathan Zimmerman w/ Hulk

I'm starting to get my confidence, the deck is great and I can totally win out as long as it doesnt poop on me.    He plays a first turn ancestral, and mana crypt which never bolts him.  Forces my chalice, and drains a thirst.  uses it and the crypt to go broken.

game2 -  I keep a land with good mana and a 1st turn cap.  I play my cap, he has force.  lays a sapphire and crypt AGAIN to intuition for AK, and then mystical for 4th ak.   I have a window of about 2 turns to draw a drawspell or bomb but get 2 more mana sources.  And like that, i'm out of contention.     I still feel the matchup is favorable, he definetly had the best Hulk hands possible, and I still had a chance.

Round 5 -  I stay in to help marc's tiebreaks, that trophy will be ours damn it.    Playing Bill  w/ dragon

Game 1 I keep an unstellar hand with a 1st turn ancestral, he unmasks and takes it.  I'm very confused on what he's playing, so I drop my chalices at 1 and 0 thinking its some kind of combo.  turns out its dragon and I'm sol.  

Game 2 I play a 1st turn chalice on 2, 2nd turn cap his wins away.  I recur capa  few times before he conceedes

Game 3 he plays 2 duresses snagging my draw spells, but that doesnt stop my mana.  I lay a titan, nuke his lands and win.  

Round 6  Jeff w/ U/r  workshop beatdown

he lays a turn 1 reef and sol ring which doesnt tell me anything about his deck, I decide to go with a random chalice on 2 because I have no idea what else to do.  Turns out to stop zero spells in his deck, he lays a workshop and juggernaught to start making me really dislike my ancient tomb and reefs.  A 3rd turn su-chi makes the clock just fast enough that even if I cast my titan (which is in hand) he'll be able to run past it, so I conceed and keep it as a surprise.

Game2 - I play a 2nd turn heretic and ride him all the way to victory.  He gets a welder out, but end-step tricks combined with a rack and ruin let me kill him with his own guys.

Game3 - Early heretic slows him down while I find a fatty, he blows a few up with Rack and Ruin's of his own, but cant stop the heretic.

Round 7 - Eric Miller w/ theManShow

7 rounds 82 people, I get another friend matchup. I know i'm popular, but seriously there were maybe 10 people in the 80 that I knew.  what is this noise.   Ase we've both played marc before and were just in to help his tiebreaks, we draw and get dinner with Shane, go over some strategy vs the other top 8 decks.


Overall I think the deck is great...  my metagame analysis was a bit off, as I didnt see the null rods I was expecting, and my pairings luck is unrivaled in its crappitude, but i think the deck was great.  

It is still in its infancy in my opinion and needs some more tweaks to increase the consistency... the zero-mana/all mana issue has to be sorted out or the deck will have to be put down.   Its also a deck that gets markedly worse the more its played.  The power of the 7/10 is directly related to the number of dual lands in the environment, against other decks its just a random timmy-fatty.  

I'd also like to take a minute and say it was great seeing Mykeatog and and CHAIN5 again.  I wish more TMD'ers had made the trip but it was a blast as it was, cant wait to do it again!

[Grand Inquisitor]

Nice report; tough luck with the pairings.

Regarding the deck, what are its worst matchups?

How does this stack up with TnT, which seems to be the most comparable deck that exists.

Obviously Thirst and Gilded Lotus allow for much more explosive starts, but the biggest complaint so far has been about the consistency.  Since decks are often designed to compete through 6+ round tournaments, how comfortable would you be bringing this to something like GenCon?

How do you temper the balance between broken and consistent; is there a more 'conservative' build?

[Klep]

Nice read.  Nate Zimmerman is a friend of mine.  He had no idea you were playing something other than meandeck slaver.

What made you guys decide against using Wastelands?  It seems that a major focal point of the deck is the mana denial and disruption, and that strip effects would be a nice complement to this, helping deal with lands like Bazaar, Library, and Workshop the Titan can't touch.  Was it a worry about the acceleration, color screw, or something else?

[Jhaggs]

Awesome Deck!  Titan had been on my radar screen for awhile now but now I'm compelled to try this deck out.  I do have a couple of questions in addition to the ones already asked.  First, after this tournament would you make any alterations to the MD creature slots?  Would you still opt for the MD duplicant or would you rather have that as a SB option?  Second, a started a thread a couple of weeks back that explored Library of Alexandria in Workshop Slavery:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16269

Did you intentionally leave this out?

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Library was not a consideration for this deck as it does not pack fow to reward sitting on cards.  7/10 plays significantly different fom meandeck slavery even though they have much in common.

Given more time, I think we could have come up with a much better sideboard for the deck.  Most of our testing and annalysis, which was done in large part by Rick James, was done preboard.  The sideboards that the 7/10 bus players ran with were mostly last minute.  Future incarnations of 7/10 (board included) will be far more refined.

[Rick James]

The deck is so tight for mana that there is no space for wasteland. Granted if you could somehow fit in four without disrupting the already fragile mana base, then do it, but I think such a task is impossible.

I like to consider 7/10 the new face of aggro. IMHO it's far superior to TNT and most other aggro. Instead of 4/4s on turn 1 and 2 you're playing titans, memnarchs and boshs. The deck's mana production is usually 3->5->8.

Consider the deck "aggro combo" similar to hulk's "control combo".

7/10 beats TNT since it's fatties are much larger and come out at almost the same speed. In general if the deck is allowed to produce mana without disruption it is extremely difficult to stop. Hulk can sometimes do it via ridiculous draw, but it usually doesn't happen. When the deck loses it usually defeats itself via bad draw, manascrew, or doing an obscene amount of damage to yourself from painlands and mana burn.

[The Grim Reaper]

4 Shivan Reef
2 City of Brass
2 GlimmerVoid
1 Gemstone Mine (3rd city was causing too much damage)
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Gilded Lotus

So you run Shivan Reef over Volcanic Island?
Interesting... lol

[Hyperion]

He probably ran it that way because Volcanic Islands get killed by his Titans, whereas painlands don't.

[Hi-Val]

Have you considered any sideboard jank to deal with the landscrew problems? If you're facing heavy land destruction, I could reasonably see putting a Sacred Ground or two in the board. Consider that the deck has 11 colored sources for any off-color. If it dies so badly to Wasteland, it could be a solution, as well as something like Teferi's Response (which is REALLY good against Titan, by the way).

[Dante]

He probably ran it that way because Volcanic Islands get killed by his Titans, whereas painlands don't.

hmm...but adding 1-2 volcs instead of COB or gemstone may reduce the pain while sacrificing maybe 1 land...something to test....

[yodoblec]

This deck is better than TnT with the normal draw, but it's just a little inconsistent. Strip Mine might work since it gets any land and u only have to run 1. The only problem I see is what to take out, maybe a CoB???

[waSP]

It seems like the Gemstone Mine is about as fragile (you get 3 taps out of it) as a Volcanic.  You won't be dropping the Titan on turn 1.  Maybe it could replace that.

[yodoblec]

The thing you need most about the Mine is that you need that color bad, but that would probably the best thing to cut. The other option would be City of Brass to avoid damage, Glimmervoid is possible, but it's just too good.

[waSP]

What color?  I don't see anything black, white, or green.  Or do you mean maintaining colors while the game progresses?

How much was the 2 City configuration tested?  I feel like avoiding destroying your lands with the Titan THAT much seems a little over the top.

[Rico Suave]

I've been working on this kind of deck for a while too.  After tinkering for some bit, I posted it publicly here:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16307&start=0

It has undergone revisions and it's a lot more stable now, but it still follows the same basic framework as it did back then in that it basically takes a more disruptive route.  

I believe if you want to include Wastelands, the above build is what you want to play.  Not only do you get Wastelands, but you get Trinisphere, which is quite simply a ridiculous card that single-handedly wins games.  

I know you are probably upset that the deck doesn't have Gilded Lotus, but Lotus does not fit into the above deck.  It just doesn't fuel nearly as much "combo," since Trinisphere takes up the space of miscellaneous card draw.  That also provides a blessing in disguise, since decks that beat you through mana denial oftentimes pack Null Rod or other artifact hate, making Lotus difficult to use effectively.  Not only that, but having a 5cc mana source is painful against mana denial.  

Trinisphere also helps to solve that artifact hate problem, since it stops a lot of junk like Null Rod from ever hitting play.  Also, the synergy between Titan and Trinisphere is definitely worth noting.  

How do you fare against quick combo decks, ranging from draw-7 to Belcher to Dragon?  I think they would be difficult to beat, if I'm not mistaken.

These are just some things to think about.  Good work on the deck, though.

[SliverKing]

Well, so many questions... I think Rick James and the Worm have answered most of them, but I'll add a few comments.

Library and wasteland were never even considered because having a colored source is the source ofa bout half your mulligans.  Academy with no jewelry, tomb, workshop with no gilded lotus, glimmervoid with no jewelry...  lots of ways to get hands with no colored lands...   Nevermind the random fact that even mono-color decks get the zero land draw now and again. So much so that future iterations may attempt to swap glimmervoids and ancient tombs for more stable lands.  
To answer Grand Inquisitor... yes I would feel comfortable taking this to GenCon... assuming 2 things.   One, that I can find a mana base I like.  Two, that the metagame is sufficiently full of dual-land(or god bless em, basics) based decks with few combo decks.  The more workshop or combo decks in the environment, the crappier the 7/10 gets.   Granted any deck can poop out, and thats just a risk you take with a 6+ round tournament, but Fixing the mana base is really issue one with the deck.  

As far as matchups, as I alluded to above, anything thats using regular lands (basic or dual) is going to get housed.  They simply cant get anything on the table fast enough to deal with a 7/10 before their lands go away.  Combo is terrible game 1, with only chalices (which are great) game 1.  Games 2 and 3 the odds swing grossly in your favor with 3spheres and/or Jester's Cap.   Workshop based decks are a much closer issue.  The ability of either deck to go broken makes it really difficult to speak in generalities... every game is so randomly different.   Welder advantage is clearly the key (and thats a major reason for the 2 trikes maindeck)

The fatty mix,   I think 2 Sundering Titans, 2 Trikes, 1 Memnarch  are untouchable.   the 3rd Titan probably is also, but I feel this may be a place to fit Bosh into the decks, as he fills a similar 'smash your face' role, particularly to tinker for (or flat out drop) on turn1 or 2 (before they get enough land for titan to be really effective).    The last slot (or 2) is completely up for grabs.  Karn works great with the gilded lotii, and compliments the land-D of the titan, but is a very crappy beatdown creature in other situations, which can be a problem, without countermagic you cant just wait around forever.    Duplicant I feel is very very strong.  With welder recursion he is a total lock vs aggro.  he's awesome vs other workshop fatties,  dreadnoughts, even darksteel colossus for those random show=n=tell decks.   he's also an extra answer to opposing memnarchs which destroys the deck if it resolves.
Speaking of Memnarch he's a consideration for this fatty spot as well (and I did test a double memnarch version of the deck to help the workshop matchups a bit.  It was relatively solid most of the time,  but I felt that for the metagame I was expecting (littel slaver as it took too many proxies)  it was too specialized.
Platinum Angel suffers from Karn's problem, she's not nearly aggresive enough.  The matchups where youw ant her, you're either most likely dead already (combo)  or winning already (aggro).  I could see her as a sideboard option, maybe.. but overall I was never impressed.  Very very seldom did I wish there was an angel in the deck to go get.  (remember that with 4 brainstorm and 4 thirst, the mystical/tinker option does come up fairly often, enough that I've even considered the otherwise useless colossus)
Pentavus is crap. Which makes me sad as my shiny one will begin collecting dust again, but you dont need combat tricks (your critters are better), and you dont need to slave over and over, you only need that fatty to come into play once, maybe twice... easily done.
The last fatty in consideration is Bosh...  This card is alternately amazing and the only thing that could save you...   or a crappy titan (smaller, no land nukage).   I have seen enough games won by Bosh that I'm going to test him substantially.

[BreathWeapon]

So you took Mean Deck Slaver, ditched the Volcanic Islands, tossed the Force of Wills, replaced the Mindslavers with Titans for what? I know thats a really rash way to look at the deck, but I would be more inclined to just call this deck "Slavery that doesn't die to Damping Matrix 1st game" by switching out Slaver for Titan, have a worse game vs Tog and Combo and call it a day.

[Rick James]

So you took Mean Deck Slaver, ditched the Volcanic Islands, tossed the Force of Wills, replaced the Mindslavers with Titans for what? I know thats a really rash way to look at the deck

That is exactly how you should look at the deck, since that is exactly how it was built. We were playtesting with workshop slaver, and found a deck with a tremendous draw engine and an equally tremendous mana engine. The only problem were these bad ten mana timewalks called mindslavers =) Joking aside, we felt mindslaver was just not pulling it's weight and was holding the deck back from achieving maximum power, explosiveness, and brokenness. Too often it was merely a time walk and its effect was not worth the ten mana that was put into it. So we replaced it with the massive wrecking ball known as sundering titan. Titan has an immediate and gamebreaking that often hits 3 lands and seals the game. He is a tremendous beatdown and a 3 turn clock. He is also immune to null rod. Even if you get rid of him you lose 3 more lands. We feel titan is worth 8 mana, mindslaver is too often not worth 10. This change really alters the deck's focus from a prison deck to an aggro deck with huge engines of destruction. Once this was realized the decision to drop force of will for more men and a fourth lotus was made. It was not an easy decision by any stretch, but once we did we never looked back. FoW is strong in a control variant or a prison variant, but it is ineffective in this "aggro-combo" deck. It holds the deck back from going broken asap. Also the 16-17 blue sources really isn't enough to power fow consistently.

Yes the lack of forces weakens the combo matchup. It's a sacrifice we were willing to make as the change raised the strengths vs several other matchups.

This deck has at least as good a matchup vs hulk as slaver does. Sundering titan is an incredible house vs hulk, and almost always hits 3 lands. Often you'll take out their green source and they can't berserk the tog (if it's even out), then you proceed to go broken and play duplicant, memnarch, bosh or whoever and swing for 15 or 16 and win.

Mindslaver on the other hand is only truly a game winner if they have a tog in play.

If you want to play slaver I think the control variant is the way to go. If you are playing with workshops then this deck takes much greater advantage of the lotus/thirst engine's explosiveness and power. Like I mentioned before, mindslaver just holds the deck back by not properly utilizing the incredible draw/mana engine.

Keep thinking aggro-combo.

[Caelestis]

Breathweapon, that is indeed a rash comment  

This deck and Slavery handles in a considerably different manner. As someone said before, it is much more like TnT buffed. You cannot compare the two decks just based some similiar card choices, it is like comparing GaT and Hulk as the same deck.

[Triple_S]

Given a 5 proxy metagame, we thought that the amount of combo would be on the low end since most people don't own the cards necessary to build draw 7 or dragon even being spotted 5 proxies.  I personally only saw 2 combo decks the entire day (Rectral Agony and Dragon, my round 4 and semi-finals matchups).  The Chalices are amazing against combo, and the the 3sphere in the board help this also.

[The Hamburgler]

I like the deck; I will be playing around with it on MWS in a few. I just want to know if the deck is any more consistent than Combo Slaver, and if it then why? It looks to me like the build was spawned by simply adding more threats, which makes the control match up better, but that doesn't really matter because Combo Slaver already has a fair control match up. Sundering Titan, along with Sinkhole are too slow for the environment, seeing as you would be destroying their lands, let's say two three (early). By that time wouldn't Workshop Slaver have already established a solid Gilded Lotus mana base, a possible Slaver lock and have a Memnarch out. I don't get how this build is better, unless in a control heavy environment. I mean, Sundering Titan may be evasive and hard to kill because it kills your opponent’s mana sources, but doesn't Mindslaver just end the game? In about nine of every ten games I activate a Mindslaver I win, from killing them (Necropotence, Spoils of the Vault, Demonic Consultation etc) or playing Triskelion, Pentavus or Memnarch. I think a definition of the best Workshop deck is necessary, but I have yet to play test with this, so may word may be faulty, as this is only what I take in from just looking at the list.

[Dante]

I did some testing last night of this deck vs a 4 color Tog with 1 Deed and 1 Shaman maindeck (only did pre-sideboard testing for now).  It seemed that if the Hulk deck drew the deed or shaman early (but particularly the deed), that was it, the 7/10 deck could never really get it's mana going.  A hulk with 4-5 strips, it doesn't seem like you'll really get going.  

Did you guys (short bus) test against hulk with wastes, or was it just not prevelent enough to do so right now?

Bill

[BreathWeapon]

Breathweapon, that is indeed a rash comment  

This deck and Slavery handles in a considerably different manner. As someone said before, it is much more like TnT buffed. You cannot compare the two decks just based some similiar card choices, it is like comparing GaT and Hulk as the same deck.

Uh, how exactly is this comparable to TnT on any level? Its just Slavery with the Slavers boarded out for 4 big Land Destruction dudes. Its like game 2's 7 man plan with an added bonus.

[SliverKing]

We did not test against Hulk with wastes.  We tested against the generic Hulk deck you can find on TMD, and we tested against an updated Paragon build.  Neither of which use wasteland, because wasteland just slows the Hulk deck down instead of flat out winning.   In this one particular matchup they may help, but in general they are asstastic in Hulk.

I also think people who dont test the deck arent aware of how quickly the titans can come into play.  turn 2.5 is the average.   turn 1 welder + turn 2 thirst, OR  turn 2 gilded, turn 3 hardcast.  Broken turn 1 starts do happen, and sometimes you'lll want ot delay things a turn by leading with chalice or get a slower brainstorm-based hand.
That makes it fast enough to be a factor.  
While some players may win 90% of the time they activated mindslaver, we found that it was much closer to 60%.  That means that 40% of the time it was just 'ok'.   and without welder to recur it, just ok is not aceptable for a 10mana investment.   If we get an early titan and it doesnt do a great job on lands, guess what? its still a 3 turn clock.
Memnarch and Trikes are also decent bodies and capable of swinging games on their own.

[Dante]

I only played 12 games last night, but the average was NOT turn 2.5 for getting titan in play vs Hulk (it was higher).  I'll do more testing and post some more quantitative results.

[The Hamburgler]

While some players may win 90% of the time they activated mindslaver, we found that it was much closer to 60%.  That means that 40% of the time it was just 'ok'.   and without welder to recur it, just ok is not acceptable for a 10mana investment.

The odds of a Goblin Welder not being in play when a Mindslaver is activated are also slim, so this investment is rarely a ten mana one and generally is four. I did some gold fishing and it was true the speed of the titan coming out. The other thing is I find this deck to be weak because all it tends to do is make the control match up better for Combo Slaver, which is already an optimal match up for Combo Slaver, so the decks increasing control matches are unnecessary, the deck struggles against combo when a first turn Trinisphere isn't dropped, it has a very good aggro standup, seeing as a 7/10 wall generally does the trick.
- The Hamburgler

[Hi-Val]

I think you can look at it like this: Having a cheaper 7/10 threat that wins the game in three turns and simultaneously sets the opponent back is better than having a ten mana treat that may win the game right there and at least slows the game down, but has the potential to fizzle enormously.

I have played plenty of games with Slaver against Tog where I slaved and got absolutely nothing. Having a giant land-eating threat with inevitability is in most cases better than having a more expensive threat that might win, but might not as well.

[SliverKing]

I think you can look at it like this: Having a cheaper 7/10 threat that wins the game in three turns and simultaneously sets the opponent back is better than having a ten mana treat that may win the game right there and at least slows the game down, but has the potential to fizzle enormously.

I have played plenty of games with Slaver against Tog where I slaved and got absolutely nothing. Having a giant land-eating threat with inevitability is in most cases better than having a more expensive threat that might win, but might not as well.

Perfectly put.  Its not a guaranteed win, but its a 3 turn clock that stunts  the other guys mana.  

As for the 2.5 I quoted, that was the goldfish number, clearly a deck with duress and countermagic is going to set that number back.

[Triple_S]

The deck pretty much has a weakness to Null Rod, Wasteland, and combo game 1 if you don't draw an early chalice.  Otherwise it is just more disruptive in the early game than slaver.  It has such a high threat density that it is inevitable unless it gets disrupted.  The fact that the deck went undefeated in the swiss w/o any game losses (10-0 in games, 5-0-2 in matches) should prove powerful it can be.  I played against:

Venguer Masque
2 Land Belcher
Sui black
Rector Combo
2 tog (I offered a draw again after I won game 1 in round 2 in maybe 4 minutes).

[kirdape3]

I would assume that if anyone played a good U/G Madness that you'd be weak to that, just like Slaver is.  You have not all that much to stop a Wonder-equipped army, and they have a bunch of counterspells that literally just hit annoying creatures (since honestly your draw isn't worth the trouble since it takes time to be effective).