AngryPheldagrif
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« on: May 30, 2004, 09:55:59 pm » |
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At my local T1 tournament, I had played MaskNought for the first 2 (winning the first), but after it crapped out the second time, I decided to go Workshop Slaver. Bear in mind, Milwaukee has an incredibly artifact heavy meta, so I decided to get in on the action. Playing a fully powered, standard Workshop Slaver I went 1-3-1. While this also includes the last round loss against FCG in which I was paying about 5% attention (my most memorable lines were "Oh, uh, so it goes off in one turn? Oops."), it was an abyssmal showing for a Tier 1 deck. My matchups were Fish (win), Control Slaver (game 3 tie), Hulk (loss), Hulk (loss), and FCG (loss).
As my brother happily pointed out, playing what everyone else is playing is not exactly a great way to win. With another tournament coming up in the forseeable future, I've resolved not to play what everyone else is playing.
At this point, I'm really open to advice. I need something that can do well in a 100% powered, competitive metagame full of artifact and 'tog. Being a loyal guy, I've created a somewhat revamped version of my earlier MaskNought deck. After a ton of games played with my useless sideboards gathering dust, I've decided on a transformational sideboard. I figured since I often fall victim to second/third game artifact hate and the even more frustrating first game Null Rod/Damping Matrix, I figured that pulling all my artifacts for an entirely new, but still compatible strategy will leave them with hands full of dead cards and leave me with a lot more 2-0 matches. The deck is:
Combo: 4x Phyrexian Dreadnought 4x Illusionary Mask 4x Berserk
Disruption: 4x Duress 3x Unmask 4x Wasteland 1x Strip Mine 2x Phyrexian Negator
Draw/Search/Yawgmoth's Will: 4x Brainstorm 1x Ancestral Recall 1x Time Walk 1x Demonic Tutor 1x Demonic Consultation 1x Vampiric Tutor 2x Tainted Pact 1x Necropotence 1x Yawgmoth's Will
Mana: 4x Dark Ritual 1x Black Lotus 1x Mana Crypt 1x Sol Ring 1x Mox Emerald 1x Mox Sapphire 1x Mox Jet 2x Polluted Delta 2x Bloodstained Mire 3x Bayou 4x Underground Sea
Sideboard: (Transformational to Gro) 4x Quirion Dryad 4x Force of Will 3x Stifle 4x Coffin Purge
The basic idea is post-sideboard, not only will their artifact hate be useless, but I will have a ton of disruption, enough to stall and break artifact and 'tog until a Dryad can finish them off. The layout of the board ensures a hefty dose of control through the Forces of Will, additional disruption from the Stifles (in addition, they are Force bait and solve my archnemesis, Pernicious Deed), and the Coffin Purges. Aside from the obvious synergy with Dryad, Coffin Purge helps against a ton of the decks present in the metagame. Against Slaver and 7/10 Split they remove the primary win condition as well as heavily disrupting the Welders, hopefully long enough to prevent them from answering a decent sized Dryad. The 2 shot deal is golden, as many of the decks are played to rely on just a few choices and taking 2 of them can be crippling, especially since it is un(or at least hard to)counterable and un-Duressable. It is less powerful against Tog, but the potential to cut or at least slow down the AK engine is very helpful.
The original sideboard (or at least the one being used before) was: 3x Xantid Swarm 3x Withered Wretch 3x Tempting Wurm 3x Naturalize 3x Gilded Drake
Help wanted, be it in advice, suggestions, or whatever. I'm totally open at this point.
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