The One-Card Lock: a new lock piece or a new archetype?

[Lord of Water]

The card I'm talking about is this:

Posessed Portal - 8
Artifact
If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
At the end of each turn, each player sacrifices a permanent unless he or she discards a card from his or her hand.

This card is awesome. It locks the game idefinitely - where the game is, the game stays. Then, it destroys the board and each player's hand. Once this is on the table, either one player wins or they call it a draw.

First, I'd like to talk about lock pieces. Here is a short list of common powerful lock pieces, and a simplification of their pros and cons:

Smokestack
Pros - puts opponent in a terribly difficult situation when you control more permanents than they do. Blows things up democratically.
Cons - warms up slowly and has no immediate effect when played.

Tangle Wire, aka Brown Time Walk
Pros - works at full potential instantly, acts as time walk (locks opponent up for a turn, while you get a less hindered turn afterwards)
Cons - withers with time and dosn't stop your control opponents from playing their draw spells at instant speed.

Chalice of the Void
Pros - knocks out a portion of your opponent's deck with no mana inventment beyond the first. Lasts indefinitely and can even cancel out artifact hate that plagues other lock pieces.
Cons - sometimes knocks out some of your own deck, can require careful planning. Vulnerable to Mox Monkies (gorilla shamans).

Trinisphere / Sphere of Resistance
Pros - slows down all play democratically, favors the player with more mana resources (usually the player controlling the Sphere), Very strong turn 1 play.
Cons - dead in hands with little mana, often dead in late game. Aka, bad draw in topdeck war.

Now, let's look at Portal:
Pros: affects board immediately, lasts indefinitely, shuts down all card draw, destroys opponent's board position, destroys opponent's hand, strong late-game play.
Cons: expensive, beats at your own board position and hand as well.

This lock piece is loaded to the brim with pros, and touts cons similar to other powerful lock pieces. The only obstacle is its expense: hello Goblin Welder! We've seen you before, welding expensive game-enders like Mindslaver and Juggernaught into play.

I think this card may be the dawn of a whole new artifact archetype. Keep a few threats in hand, dump Portal in the graveyard, and weld it into play. Countermagic can protect the portal while you let fly with your threats. Your own lands and hand are sacrifice while your threats blaze to the win - and Karn is juicy here. An 8/8 will end the game in 3 turns.

Discussion of this strategy?

 -LoW

[Razvan]

You forgot:

Mindslaver - 6

Pros: At best, it's game over.
Cons: At worst, it's an expensive Time Walk.

I think this is the lock piece that makes all other lock pieces redundant.

Otherwise, the Portal is an interesting, albeit slow way to lock the game. Even Workshop decks can't get to 8 mana fast enough against the faster combo decks and even Hulk and stuff. The Spheres work faster, that's why they are so good.

[defector]

I have been looking long and hard at this card and I love it.  I'm not sure if its going to be sb vs aggro, where I feel mindslaving is less than optimal or if I'll build a deck around it, but I'm getting a playest of these guys.
defector

[Lord of Water]

I understand how powerful Slaver is, and I play with it myself. I love the card and I love the deck built around it, but the fact is that Portal lets you play a whole new game: denial. Let's talk about the denial game a bit.

In Slaver, denial is counterintuitive and generally stupid. Force of Will is not denal in Slaver, because it's only used to stop a card that would otherwise win the game. Slaver dosn't use cards like Mind Twist, Duress, Strip effects, Mox Monkies, etc because when the slaver finally goes off you need your opponent to be strong so you can use their deck against them to full effectiveness. Even Chalice of the Void, a card that has been popular in Slaver, obviously requires careful planning so that Slaver can play the "I lose" cards when Slaver finally attacks.

Portal brings denial to a whole new level. Suddenly, all the denial components that Slaver is all but forbidden to use are doubly powerful because when Portal hits, the denial will hurt all the more.

Keep in mind again that I know Slaver plays with some denial, and some slaver players use strip effects. I know that Control Slaver plays a different denial game than Workshop Slaver does. I'm also not trying to say that Portal is superior to Slaver. The point I'm trying to make that they are completely different animals and the strategies they command are different too.

Here's a deck that I've built and tested with friends (Portals proxied):

Hard Lock Cafe 2k4
by Lord of Water and Team Beebles

Mana x24
7 SoLoMoxen
2 Mana Crypt/Vault
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Card Advantge/Utility x16
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor

Disruption x8
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void

Creatures x9
4 Goblin Welder
3 Gorilla Shaman
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Platinum Angel

Combo Pieces x3
2 Posessed Portal
1 Memory Jar

TOTAL: 60 CARDS

Current sideboard (for testing vs tier1-tier2 gauntlet)
4 Trinisphere
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Coffin Purge
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Snuff Out
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Fire / Ice
1 Fact or Fiction

This deck has been tested in the following matchups:

Teir 1: Slaver, Tog, Draw7.deq, DeathLong.deq (tier 1? my friends think so)
Teir 2: Fish/GayUR/WTF, DARgon, Belcher (2land and 3land), Keeper/4c Control, EBS, Madness
Random Matches: Scrubby Black Deck With Random Cards, RG Beatz, Iso-Keeper.

My group's results are incomplete and obviously mean nothing since 5th Dawn isn't out yet, but here's where we place those matchups so far:

Favourable: Slaver, DeathLong.deq, Fish, Belcher, Keeper without Angel, all random matches
Push: Tog, Draw7, DARgon, Angel Keeper
Unfavorable: Madness, EBS (angels and mongrel/friends are too fast in many cases, Portal dosn't stop them fast enough)

The unfavorable matchups start looking better when I resolve Karn or Angel, but their necessary scarcity makes those matchups hard.

Hard Lock Cafe uses many of the same cards as Slaver, but plays in a diffefent way. It disrupts the opponent to the point at which their funamental turn is delayed, drops light beats, then welds Portal in or plays it before the opponent's fundamental turn can ever be reached.

I'd like to encourage further discussion of Posessed Portal and Hard Lock Cafe because I think it has potential to win a lot of games in T1.

 -LoW

[Colossus]

O.k. . . I heard somewhere that there was a Survival for artifacts in fifth dawn. . . I somehow doubt it, but I've definately heard of this supposed 1u casting monstrosity that is inevitbly aiming towards banning/restricted if it is true. . .
BUT if such a card does exist its turn two or three you can establish the lock with a welder (Of course now you have no hand ostensibly)
You'd need to follow up with an artifact that puts cards into you're hand instead of drawing cards, and possibly a pentavus so you can sacrifice the tokens instead of real cards (and weld them back into stuff that ends up in your yard.)
Just an idea, based on some cards I'm not sure exist yet.

[Jebus]

There is an artifact "Survival" card, but it has limits.

Artificer's Intuition -  
 Enchantment
, Discard an artifact card from your hand: Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost 1 or less, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Rare

[OPColby]

The card isn't that good.

You have to sac IT eventually.

And if you have less permanents out than your opponent does, or less creatures, etc, they have the upper hand.

It's not really a lock card at all.

[The Hamburgler]

The card isn't that good.

You have to sac IT eventually.

And if you have less permanents out than your opponent does, or less creatures, etc, they have the upper hand.

It's not really a lock card at all.

This shows what you know about lock components and artifact control biased decks. Nothing. The entire point of the deck is to have a permenant advantage of your opponent to make Tangle Wire and Smokestack more effective. I still think you might as well just play a Mindslaver or a Sundering Titan instead, as Slaver resets opponent's board positions, and Titan kills lands and slows down the opponent enough to swing for the kill.
- The Hamburgler

[BreathWeapon]

I think the card is effecitvely useless as an entire deck strategy. It freezes the board position AND Draw phase, which meens its only useful when you have superior board position. How can you sell Posessed Portal over Slaver or 7/10 Split? 8cc isn't very attractive either.

[defector]

Correct me if I'm wrong but this card+Squee would mean game over, right?  Then commence with welder beatdown or receive concession.
The key would be to ftk it into the yard or entomb it and then weld some zero drop artifact out for it.
Lock-12-
Portal x4
Welder X4
Squee X4
There's also the possibility of using a pentaus double welder lock here, but the slavery stragegy is inherently stronger.  I'll keep dicking around with this until I find something taht works.
defector

[OPColby]

The card isn't a lock card at all.

It costs 8 mana to get out, and you need permanent advantage over your opponent.

It's crap.

Make a stasis deck.

[defector]

It is a one card lock, seeing as its a smokstack set to 1 and a chains of meph(sort of) right of the bat, also I can hardcast pentavus(7cc0, I can probably hard cast this fucker if I have to, but i raraely hardcast any of these, even the paltry six I would pay for slaver, instead use TFK and weld.  It has more possibilty than you guys are givuing it.
defector

[DEA]

the problem i see with this is each player sacs one at each eot, so welder can't play tricks with it for total immunity
however, you can weld it out so that you get to draw cards
that makes for a more lopsided effect

[MarkPharaoh]

Otherwise, the Portal is an interesting, albeit slow way to lock the game. Even Workshop decks can't get to 8 mana fast enough against the faster combo decks and even Hulk and stuff. The Spheres work faster, that's why they are so good.

Thats why we have Memory Jar, TFK and Welder, we don't have to hardcast it all the time.  The card is cute and will see play but it definately won't become such a bomb where decks are built around it.  I can see it as a 1 or 2 of in a deck to Tinker into play because I will prefer drawing other lock pieces then this thing early.

[defector]

You shouldn't have to discard/destroy anything, just discard a squee and get him back the next turn, as long as you can do this you're netting zero while your opponent is -1 each turn.  Not bad.
defector

[Nocturnal]

defector, it hits ALL players EVERY turn.
So with Squee, its -1 to -2.
You need 2 Squees

[AIcOPed]

with the blue enchantment and FtK and memory jar and wheel of fortune and widfall, there are plenty of good ways to put this in your graveyard and then weld it out. It is interesting to say the least.

[outta_names]

I can see this card being really really really good in game 2 of Slaver vs Tog.
Togs permanents include: Mana sources.
Slaver's permanents include: Mana sources + other stuff.
Also, Tog's 3 or 4 color dependencies can be hampered by this card.
However, what does Slaver remove for this card?

peace,
-outta

[Lord of Water]

Survival for artifacts ia terrible. The best things you can fetch are Chalice or Lotus. As another note, Portal has no place in Slaver. Slaver dosn't generate the large permanent advantage that other more permanent-intensive lock decks do unless it gets a super-Pentavus into play, in which case it would be stronger to go infinite with a Slaver.

Oh, and about the lock with Squee: forget it! Squee is terrible unless you have enough outlets for it, and that means it's bad even if you're playing 4 Portal and 4 Bazzar. If you want to really go infinite with the Portal, use Pentavus. Team Beeble tried it and we had it in the deck for a week before we finally decided to cut it in favor of Karn. 2 reasons:

Karn is a bitch and will end the game, FAST.
Karn is easier to hard cast than Pentavus is.
Karn blows up moxen and chalices.

Also, as in Slaver, going infinite was infrequent unless we really tried for it and even then felt like a win-more strategy - just playing the slaver/portal is usually enough to win, no matter keeping in working indefinitely.

Pentavus is a house vs aggro and did a lot to shore up the matchups vs EBS and Madness which are currently a pain. For those reasons alone we may switch back to Pentavus or try both Pentavus and Karn, cutting an Angel or something else - but for now, ending the game or setting up the lock faster vs Tog, Slaver, and other decks that will dominate the late game is a priority.

By the way, for those of you who don't understand, here's the Karn - Portal lock: Play Karn, play Portal (or the other way around!). Karn swings for 4, Portal swings for 8 every turn. Game is over. No slaver needed. Portal is great because somewhat like slaver, it keeps your opponent from getting out from under the lock. If they don't have the answer in hand when Portal hits, game is over no matter what.

As a side note, a comparison was made in Portal to Smokestack set to 1 and Chains: it's better than either. Chains lets your opponent draw, and even after the first they can discard cards to riffle through their deck looking for answers. No bullshit under portal. Smokestack set to 1 takes 3 turns to set up: the turn you play it, their turn, and your next one. Portal takes 1 turn to set up: yours. Then it happens again on their turn. So, it's like an instant Ass-Kicking, Hand-Busting Smokestack set at 2. Kinda.
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OPColby wrote:
The card isn't a lock card at all.

It costs 8 mana to get out, and you need permanent advantage over your opponent.

It's crap.

Make a stasis deck.
-----------------

Wrong. It costs R to get out and needs a mix of permanent and card advantage. Notice that Hard Lock Cafe is an advantage machine: it packs disruption, card advantage, and utility. Give it another look if you missed that the first time, because if you don't understand that you really don't understand the deck.

 -LoW

[defector]

I agree with LOW, my testing is Pentavus drivern, I just threw the Squee thing out there because I thuoght it was clever.  This is going to be fun, so far my worst testing experience is u/g madness, i hate that deck.  Once i get some more experience under my belt, I'll post a list of what I'm doing with this focker.
defector