[Single Card Discussion] Metalworker & its role in Shop.

[skecreatoR]

Lately, Metalworker have totally dissapeared from any competetive deck in T1. In as artifact heavy decks as 7/10 and Slaver, and especially the former, vast amounts of colorless mana is always useful.

Metalworker had its glorious days back in the days were people played wMUD & S.t.a.x., where it was a efficient way to speed up the locking of people. It will in may cases be dropped of a turn1 Workshop, and most likely provide about 6-8 mana the next turn. It can easily drop Smokestack, Tangle Wire & Sphere of Resistance turn2 in any MUD build and just go bloody-broken in any beatdown deck that existed back then.

But why have it left the format with such a full-blown retreat as it has? First of all, the infamous frenchie Toad said something that probably is correct quite, and that is that what before needed 3-4 different lock components can now be achieved off a single card, that card is of course Mindslaver. It is stronger then any luck, and it doesn't damage yourself in any way.

But yet again, dropping multiples of Gilded Lotus and maybe a Mindslaver in the first 1-2 turns is still very powerful, and if Metalworker haven't been tested, then some people maybe should give it a try.

Second, it is a creature, and therefore it have Summoning Sickness and is a target for any removal spell in the format. Even though, I have found him very, very useful at times, my own Slaver build is based more on Gilded Lotus then anything right now, and it is mainly because of the speed it provides.

Am I totally insane actually saying people should test this, or have people simple overlooked this little gem people were actually talking about restricting? Or is it just that it is too easy to get rid off and too limiting in its play?

Hope that people will have some reasonably arguments for / against using Metalworker in the current generation of Workhop based decks.

[johnstown713]

I agree that metalworker can speed things up and it was an awsome card.  Thsi past weekend at Waterbury someone used/abused the ability it had against me and went artifact crazy.  The thing is it seems almost possible that the format is fast enough without it.  Workshop based decks are pretty fast on their own and can drop/activate slaver within a couple of turns.  It could work but Im don't think it is necesarry.  

Johnstown713

[riggy]

My first incarnation of a RU Stacker deck with Mindslavers in it also had Metalworkers. This worked b/c there were only 6 blue spells and 4 red spells, while the rest was mostly artifacts (and about 15 lands). So out of a 60 card deck, there were 35 artifacts in it.

In my current slaver homebrew build, there are around 23-26 artifacts due to the surge of blue draw/search/control that's been added to it. That makes it pretty difficult to make the metalworker as effective as he once was.

Combine the immediate lack of change in board position with the reduced effectiveness and they became the first thing I cut (once I realized that metalworkers no longer were producing the 8 to 12 mana they used to).

[TheAdvantage]

You've already listed several of the reasons its no longer used.  WMUD and Stax used tons of artifacts, thus Metalworker was never dead.  Current Slaver builds run more blue and less brown so it cannot be abused as easily; Brainstorm and Force of Will mean 8 fewer artifacts in the deck.

Further, Metalworker + Gilded Lotus does not generate Mana.  Metalworker reveals a Lotus or two for two or four mana, respectively, while each of those Loti take 5 to put on the board.  With a metalworker you are essentially dropping each Gilded Lotus for free, but you are doing so at the cost of tempo, via summoning sickness.  It isnt incredibly hard for these decks to generate 5 mana on turn 1 for a Lotus.  This slight loss of tempo(untapping with a 'worker) is not worth the possible explosion of mana in a deck that a) runs fewer artifacts than either of the builds you mention or b) has artifacts with much higher cmc's than that of the builds you mention.

All of a sudden you are not tapping him for as much mana and the difference between the amount of mana you gain and revealed artifact's cmc is greater than that of a Wire/Stack/Sphere.

[Kowal]

SamiteHealer's Broodstarrunner abuses Metalworker the way it should be abused.  I suggest using the search function to find the deck discussions.

[Dante]

The other guys hit it on the head - decks like wMUD had an artifact list, in addition to the mana accelerants, of:

4 sphere
4 tangle wire
4 Smokestack
4 graftedskullcap
2 winter orb/null brooch/metagame artifact
2 karn
1 memory jar

that's like 21 artifacts in addition to the 9 mana accelerants and 4 metalworkers.   A deck like 7/10 will have the mana accelerants plus:

3 titan
2 trike
1 memnarch
1 memory jar
4 gilded lotus

or slaver:

3 slaver
3 big creatures (pentavus, memnarch, 1 other)
1 Jar
4 gilded lotus

these decks have like 11 + 9 mana accelerants + 4 metalworkers.  And 4 of the artifact drops (gilded lotus) would suck to have to metalwork out (turn 1 metalworker, turn 2 gilded lotus seems a waste when you should be playing business spells).

the difference between 34 artifacts in the deck with a lot of artifact business spells vs 24 artifacts with less artifact business spells makes Metalworker not a good choice in Slaver or 7/10.  The reason these decks run gilded lotus is because of the heavy colored (thus non-artifact) basis of the deck's draw.

[Machinus]

There are two somewhat general, and somewhat related reasons for Metalworker's drop in use.

The first, and more pertinent reason, is that it is only useful when it is dropped early, which means that you require fast mana to put it out, which in turn means that you are running more mana sources in your deck. Slavery already has some problems with manaflood and it only has a modest mana base. Less mana is needed, and it is needed more quickly. I think that realistically, Metalworker does not provide an effect which is useful anymore, because of its speed and because of the conditions required to make it useful. There are decks that can abuse it, but they are not as consistent, or as reliable.

The second reason is that there has been an increase in syngery between cards that make metalworker weaker. Thirst for knowledge, Gilded lotus, even Goblin Welder are more powerful because they accomplish the same task more consistently and more powerfully. Trinisphere makes prison into a different kind of deck than it was previously, and metalworker isn't nearly as broken. Things were never really that similar to the way they were in Houston, but they have gotten even more different recently.

[DEA]

one other observation about metalworker is that it tempts players to keep hands with one shop and a worker
when your shop gets wasted and your worker gets oxidized you're up the creek without a paddle

[rozetta]

The previous point is a very pertinent one. When goldfishing a deck to see if it seems consistent enough I always imagine going against an opponent who FoWs your first spell and then wastes your first land (the "fuck you" opening).

Metalworkers have to be considered as mana, since that's what they're there for, but they also can't be counted on, since they're so easy to get rid of and are a huge FoW target. This fine balance is what causes inconsitency, since opening hands which look really juicy with metalworker suddenly end up losing you the game if it doesn't resolve or live long enough to go active.

Decks seem to be well enough prepared for things like turn 1 lackey, welder, shaman or metalworker right now that it becomes a liability to run that kind of mana source. However, things will eventually change to where he's viable again. Maybe 5th dawn will bring something.

[snachos]

There is a fundamental problem the control player must come to deal with when deciding whether or not to counter the lowly metalworker.  Yes, if he/she does not counter it there can be multiple threats coming down next turn.  If he/she does counter it, will they be able to draw into another answer for the obviously held next threat on the following turn?  Most players would not keep a hand that had just a metalworker in it relying solely on the metalworker's ability to complete the job.  I play the worker in BSR, and I find that playing it provides a great advantage against control, because it either absorbs counters/removal or helps me to overwhelm my opponent with more spells than they can counter/remove.  If you would like to see a way that the metalworker can be abused take a look at my thread on BSR or search for what Samite Healer(the creator of Broodstarrunner) had to say about the deck.  There are a few comments on the card there.

I am not saying that metalworker is the best card ever.  I was just trying to make a point that the card has plenty of power and can be abused if put in the right deck.

[DEA]

most EXPERIENCED players would not keep such a hand
my observation is that MANY players would, and do keep such hands
of course, people are quickly weaned out of this habit :lol:

[Colossus]

The basic issue of whether to use the worker is "do you stock enough artifacts to consistently have 2-4 in hands when you trigger his ability?"
If you have 20ish artifacts in your deck, there's a chance you're good (if you top out over 30 go for it, but few people do.) If you've got 8-12 artifacts it gets real sketchy.

As far as workshop/slavery I'd think it would be a good choice as it accelrtes to the mana to activate the slaver (since workshop mana can only cast artifacts, not activate them.)

Personally I am probably going to use it if I end up going with a workshop/slavery build for my next type I deck, but it clearly doesn't have a place in other Artifact based decks like TnT (my other top choice right now.)

Note to anyone thinking about keeping one mana hands: even if its workshop, don't do it.  Wasteland eats you every time.