Artifact Control.dec

[hatfulofhollow]

//NAME: Artifact Control.dec
 
// Lands
        4 Volcanic Island
        4 Polluted Delta
        3 City of Brass
        2 Underground Sea
        1 Swamp
        1 Island
 
// Creatures
        4 Magus of the Unseen
        4 Arcbound Ravager
        4 Goblin Welder
        4 Neurok Transmuter
        3 Gorilla Shaman
        1 Pentavus
        1 Platinum Angel
        1 Memnarch
 
// Spells
        4 Mana Drain
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Thirst for Knowledge
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Time Walk
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Tinker
        1 Fact or Fiction


This started off as an attempt at T1 Ravager but morphed into something completely different. After some card changes I saw it as a sort of bad aggro deck with a possible control option. In its current state its stuck somewhere between control and aggro, but I'm still not happy with it. I was going to play one of the many incarnations of this deck in the upcoming SCG tournament but now I can't go so I figured I'd post this and get some feedback from the boards.

That's enough rambling. Its easier to talk about this deck if I just go into my card choices. That should begin with my two odd creature choices...

Magus of the Unseen - This was included right from the beginning. I've always loved this guy. In fact I've always had a playset of them in my binder because I knew someday they'd be wonderful. I think that time has come. Everytime he hits the board he is great. In combination with Ravager he's even better. Also he has great synergy with Wedler. Hell, its just a top notch creature in my opinion. In fact I'm often wishing I had him whenever I get into trouble.

Neurok Transmuter - Another odd choice but very utility. Let's Ravager, Memnarch, and Pentavus work under null rod and has great synergy with Welder, Magus, and Memnarch. This guy is glue that holds the deck together.

Now I'll talk about the rest of the deck...

Brainstorm/Thirst For Knowledge - Shamelessly stolen from Control Slaver and abused in this pile for my own needs. It doesn't look as strong here with such a limited supply of artifacts but it works out... sort of. Even in situations where I'm forced to ptch two cards to a resolved TFK I'm still digging, which is always a good thing. This is something that could possibly be changed, though, so I'm open to suggestions here. This was alot stronger when I was running Force of Will, so without adieu..

Force of Will - Where is it? I've tried it off and on with varied degrees of success. I just don't think it's needed. I'd rather have Mana Drain and I don't feel like I have the resources to pitch. I'd rather be casting my blue spells. Mana Drain helps that happen.

Two Black cards? - Originally black was a stronger presence and I ran a full complement of Disciples, but testing showed that they weren't as good as they were on paper. They were the first thing to get cut. I've tried versions that completely cut black but DT just makes for more consistency and YawgWill really does say I win in this deck. The only thing that can be said for cutting black is that it promotes better consistency in the mana base, but I feel its pretty strong as is.

Fire/Ice - I want this so badly. If black does get cut, it would be to make room for these guys. Two at least. I miss them very much. Some of my alternate lists included a pair and I never hated seeing them.

That's about it for card choices and such. Now I want to talk about match-ups. The decks I ended up playing against the most were fish, monobrown, and a little belcher.

Fish - I have bigger beats and I can get them out fairly fast. Conclaves are the biggest problem. Null Rod is a minor issue and I have ways of dealing with it. My strategy is usually to play aggro and make trades in my favor. Once a fatty hits the board my opponent usually scoops.
 
Monobrown - Once Welder or Magus hits it's usually time for the scoop. This deck has too many answers for artifacts. Usually broken plays are made and my opponent cries.

Belcher - When I had Force the match-up was about even. I'm not sure now. I still have answers but Force helped alot. I'll say that any version of this deck that doesn't have Force has an unfavorable match-up with any combo, but thats not always true, especially versus a deck whose winning strategy relies on an artifact. The recent re-inclusion of gorilla shaman helps alot here but more testing would be needed.


Conclusion...
I've been toying with this for about the past month or so and it shows promise, but it is still very much a work in progress. Maybe in the hands of someone more skilled it might actually evolve into something, but right now its just a pet project developed by myself and another gccg user. If nothing else I hope this sparks some conversation. Even if it's just to tell me to stop posting...

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Criticisms?

[TrixR4Kidz]

Once Welder or Magus hits it's usually time for the scoop.

Well what if they have an active welder going first, is it time for you to scoop?

I know this is a general statement to say, but in all reality, if your going to play an artifact deck, why aren't you just playing 7/10 or control slaver, In your article tell the reasons as to why you chose this over control slaver or seven ten, I wanna hear them, and see if they are reasonable, The deck looks pretty cool, Magus is sweet, I understand this is a control deck, but it still seems kinda sketch, especially with magus being so situational

[hatfulofhollow]

Once Welder or Magus hits it's usually time for the scoop.

Well what if they have an active welder going first, is it time for you to scoop?

Actually no, that's not the case at all. Generally you don't want to see welder on the opposite side of the table but if it does hit Transmuter is often your answer in combination with either your own welder or magus. In previous lists that ran Fire/Ice welder hurts even less.

Once Welder or Magus hits it's usually time for the scoop.

I know this is a general statement to say, but in all reality, if your going to play an artifact deck, why aren't you just playing 7/10 or control slaver, In your article tell the reasons as to why you chose this over control slaver or seven ten, I wanna hear them, and see if they are reasonable, The deck looks pretty cool, Magus is sweet, I understand this is a control deck, but it still seems kinda sketch, especially with magus being so situational

Its actually a good question, as those are both decks I've been toying with recently. In fact I generally switch between this and both of those several times while playing online. The only thing I can say is that this is fundamentally a different deck. It does different things and as such, can't really be compared to the others. As I said before this was originally intended to be a T1 Ravager deck, but it ended up morphing into something else. I don't really know how it stacks up to either of those decks, but it does play differently and as such can't really be compared to either of them as far as "why would you play this over them?" goes. They aren't really the same decks.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I think that 4 md magus of the unseen makes very little sense.  The only decks it really does anything against are artifact based decks.  It does nothing against fish, FCG, Hulk, 4cc, Dragon, tendrils combo.  The only decks I see this being useful in are workshop decks, including wMUD, $T4KS, 7/10, abd the slavers.  Unless your meta is worksop insane this makes very little sense.

Also, the non-inclusion of force of will is pure madness.  You have plenty of blue spells in the deck and fow IS the best card in the format.  How do you beat combo without it?

so: cut the 4 magus of the unseen for 4 fow, becuz there is no way that magus>fow in this deck (or any other deck I have seen).

3 gorrilla shamens seems excessive.  They are useless in multiples and you are running a fair bir of draw, so I would drop the count to 2.

Why no draw 7s when your deck could really abuse them?

[hatfulofhollow]

I think that 4 md magus of the unseen makes very little sense.  The only decks it really does anything against are artifact based decks.  It does nothing against fish, FCG, Hulk, 4cc, Dragon, tendrils combo.  The only decks I see this being useful in are workshop decks, including wMUD, $T4KS, 7/10, abd the slavers.  Unless your meta is worksop insane this makes very little sense.

Also, the non-inclusion of force of will is pure madness.  You have plenty of blue spells in the deck and fow IS the best card in the format.  How do you beat combo without it?

so: cut the 4 magus of the unseen for 4 fow, becuz there is no way that magus>fow in this deck (or any other deck I have seen).

3 gorrilla shamens seems excessive.  They are useless in multiples and you are running a fair bir of draw, so I would drop the count to 2.

Why no draw 7s when your deck could really abuse them?

Cutting Magus is not an option. Your comments are based on some random idea of how you think the deck will play out. Magus is core to the deck. It simply does not function the way it should without him. If anything is pure madness it's your idea that cutting him for Force is a good idea. If anything should be cut for Force it's both black cards, the lone basic Swamp and a Gorilla Shaman. That is something I have tried in the past and after much discussion I have decided that this deck wants the Black cards over force for the reasons I listed in my initial post.

The amount of Gorillas could be tweaked but 3 is a fair number for a deck that wants to play both aggro and prison depending on the situation. Shaman helps in both of those departments by contributing to a number of combos.

And as far as your suggestion to add Draw 7's goes, I don't think I even want to respond to that because it's quite possibly the stupidest thing I've read all day. But against my better judgement I'll offer one insight...  with no explanation to back up that proposal you lead me to believe that you sir have no idea what you're talking about.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

So, a 1/1 creature at 2cc with an ability only really useful when your opponent controls an artifact is the core of your deck(and even then, it is useless to grab most artifacts unless you have a welder in play)?  Cards that are conditional regarding your opponen't deck don't make good "cores."

Ok I have heard alot of things about shamen but never regarding combos. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what mysterious combos the shamen contributes to?

So re-fueling your hand with a draw 7 after dropping mana artifacts, as well as dumping artifacts into the graveyard to use with welder is a bad thing?  If your afraid of possibly re-fueling an opponent's hand that is understandable, but draw 7s are powerful and could do some pretty broken stuff in this deck.

If you would like to read a really, really stupid thing, read this:
magus of the unseen is a good card to base a deck around and should get the nod over force of will

[hatfulofhollow]

So, a 1/1 creature at 2cc with an ability only really useful when your opponent controls an artifact is the core of your deck(and even then, it is useless to grab most artifacts unless you have a welder in play)?  Cards that are conditional regarding your opponen't deck don't make good "cores."

Memnarch and Neurok Transmuter make the ability just a little bit better. Just a little bit.
It's useless unless I have a Welder, or oh, I don't know, maybe a Ravager?

Ok I have heard alot of things about shamen but never regarding combos. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what mysterious combos the shamen contributes to?

The ability to destroy artifacts comes in handy when you have the ability to turn perms into artifacts with Memnarch. Theres a whole lot of synergy regarding the various creatures and their abilities.

So re-fueling your hand with a draw 7 after dropping mana artifacts, as well as dumping artifacts into the graveyard to use with welder is a bad thing?  If your afraid of possibly re-fueling an opponent's hand that is understandable, but draw 7s are powerful and could do some pretty broken stuff in this deck.

You are trying to turn an aggro-prison deck into bad Draw7. Stop.

If you would like to read a really, really stupid thing, read this:
magus of the unseen is a good card to base a deck around and should get the nod over force of will

Magus contributes to the soft-lock that the deck is trying to generate. Force does not. Understand?

[rvs]

Force, however, is a whole lot better than Mana Drain for your deck. When you should be casting your "lock"-parts, you don't seem to since you'd be holding back for Drain. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Also, seeing as you put a lot of weight on your transmuters, and the nature of the T1 metagame being control, how do you expect to keep it on the board for it to kick in? All your cards might be synergetic with each other, but it's all based on situational 2 or 3 card combos.
I can't really say I'm impressed.

[hatfulofhollow]

Force, however, is a whole lot better than Mana Drain for your deck. When you should be casting your "lock"-parts, you don't seem to since you'd be holding back for Drain. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Also, seeing as you put a lot of weight on your transmuters, and the nature of the T1 metagame being control, how do you expect to keep it on the board for it to kick in? All your cards might be synergetic with each other, but it's all based on situational 2 or 3 card combos.
I can't really say I'm impressed.

You really only need 2 of the 4 main creatures in the deck for things to start working he way they should.

Transmuter + Magus
Magus + Welder
Welder + Transmuter

You'd like to see Ravager as well but its really not necessary to cast early.

Transmuter doesn't NEED to be on the board. The deck has alot of other things it can do.

And I'm not going to agree with anyone saying for is better here. I've tested this alot. The deck really does need the extra push it gets from a Drain.

[wonkey_donkey]

Handbags away, please, gentlemen. Bitching's not going to help anyone.

The main issue here seems to be over drain and FoW. I think that you need both, to tell the truth - are you sure you can't cut any of the magi or transmuters? Also, 3 monkeys seems slightly excessive. Are you sure you want the platinum angel maindeck, too? I'd be tempted to cut one of your fatties, at any rate. The mananbase is slightly shakey, too - why are you running the maindeck swamp? 3 CoB is possibly 1 too many.

I'd be worried that you don't have enough artifacts to support ravager in the way that it'd like. Is it really that useful? I am sceptical, but could be convinced. I'd cut the black for extra artifact mana like mana crypt, mana vault and possibly even grim monolith. Other possible additions would be windfall, wheel of fortune, wasteland/strip mine, or shivan reef.

Bearing in mind that most of this is off the top of my head, I'd say that the deck has some promise; however, promise is all I'm going to give it for the moment. It seems to try and do everything in the "who's the beatdown" roles - aggro, control, and combo (transmuters/magi/welders etc). However, unlike top decks that try to do this, it does it unsuccesfully for the moment. Needs a fair bit of work yet.

Oh, and where's your sideboard? Don't claim to have tested extensively but with no sideboards involved, because that is not extensively.

Tom

[Purple Hat]

Hey guys, lets tone down the hostility a bit, ok?

You are trying to turn an aggro-prison deck into bad Draw7. Stop.

Actually Draw sevens are used in many successful decks other then Draw7.dec  an example would be $t4ks.

Your deck seems to be highly mana intensive every turn.  I was wondering if you had considered Guilded lotus to help you activate memnarch and the transmuter and magus all in the same turn.

You haven't responded to the questions about how your deck plans to respond to combo.  Traditional prision decks solve this problem by using Spheres or chalices to slow down the combo decks and lock them out.  Decks in type one with enough blue cards in them play Force of Will to hold off combo.  I understand that you don't like Force, but you need an answer to combo if you are expecting to be able to get anywhere with this deck.  giving Belcher or draw7 2 turns where they are entirely undisrupted generally results in a match loss.

[hatfulofhollow]

The main issue here seems to be over drain and FoW. I think that you need both, to tell the truth - are you sure you can't cut any of the magi or transmuters?

For quite a while I was running

-1 Gorilla Shaman
-1 Swamp
-1 Mox Jet
-1 Demonic Tutor
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
+1 Seat of the Synod
+4 Force of Will

I've tried other changes as well along the way. The current list was something I started using only a few days before posting the list. I had been switching Force in and out for a while because the original list we started with used no control elements and focused solely on setting up a soft lock. That version runs very smoothly, but I can't play blue without some sort of disruption, and also a possible answer to combo. Cutting Transmuters or Magi was tried but this deck really does want to draw them. I always wanted to see one of them over whetever else I could possibly draw. The only time they got taken out was during sideboarding.

Also, 3 monkeys seems slightly excessive. Are you sure you want the platinum angel maindeck, too? I'd be tempted to cut one of your fatties, at any rate. The mananbase is slightly shakey, too - why are you running the maindeck swamp? 3 CoB is possibly 1 too many.

I'll admit that the 3 monkeys does seem excessive. I probably only need 1, but I'd like 2. Like I said above, they are a recent addition. I've gone through alot of testing and I never really settled on the perfect number. Three monkeys was the last number I was testing before posting this list.

I'd be worried that you don't have enough artifacts to support ravager in the way that it'd like. Is it really that useful? I am sceptical, but could be convinced. I'd cut the black for extra artifact mana like mana crypt, mana vault and possibly even grim monolith. Other possible additions would be windfall, wheel of fortune, wasteland/strip mine, or shivan reef.

A version that a friend of mine is running has completely cut black and all counter magic in exchange for a full complement of moxen and strip/waste effects. The 3 CoB are mostly leftovers from a previous version that ran a 4cc syle sideboard and 3 maindeck Cunning Wish, with StP and disenchant in the board. I was never really happy with that version so it was changed over time. I just kept them around because I needed to have black mana when I drew DT or Will. That's something that I think I'm going to change right now.

Bearing in mind that most of this is off the top of my head, I'd say that the deck has some promise; however, promise is all I'm going to give it for the moment. It seems to try and do everything in the "who's the beatdown" roles - aggro, control, and combo (transmuters/magi/welders etc). However, unlike top decks that try to do this, it does it unsuccesfully for the moment. Needs a fair bit of work yet.

I never said the deck was amazing but it has alot going for it, which is why I thought I'd post it. The fact that it can switch between aggro, combo, and control is one of it's strengths. I was hoping to take it to the SCG tournament this weekend to get some real performance data but that doesn't look like its going to happen. My only results have been from about a month of testing.

Oh, and where's your sideboard? Don't claim to have tested extensively but with no sideboards involved, because that is not extensively.

I didn't include a board because it's been changed so often. At one point I was running the board of 4cc complete with Cunning Wish in the maindeck but I wasn't really happy with that. I've still not settled on a board. That has been altered more than the main deck.

[hatfulofhollow]

Your deck seems to be highly mana intensive every turn.  I was wondering if you had considered Guilded lotus to help you activate memnarch and the transmuter and magus all in the same turn.

It is very mana intensive, but only in the first few turns. Once you get a few things on the board you have room to play. This deck has a very decent mid to late game. I usually end up playing catch-up to fast aggro though.

I have not tried the lotus, but I don't know how it will play out. I think the lotus is only playable in the various workshop decks because of the workshops. Since I'm not running them I doubt it would help since the only way to get them into play would be with welder and if I can weld something in I'd rather it be ravagers or a fatty.

You haven't responded to the questions about how your deck plans to respond to combo.  Traditional prision decks solve this problem by using Spheres or chalices to slow down the combo decks and lock them out.  Decks in type one with enough blue cards in them play Force of Will to hold off combo.  I understand that you don't like Force, but you need an answer to combo if you are expecting to be able to get anywhere with this deck.  giving Belcher or draw7 2 turns where they are entirely undisrupted generally results in a match loss.

Most of my testing against belcher was with the version running force, which is why I had such favorable results. In light of everyone telling me to use force I'm going to do more testing versus control with and without it.

[AngryPheldagrif]

[backspaces through lengthy response]

Why don't you hop on Apprentice and I'll show you why this deck is bad?

-Dan
First of all, this should have been a PM. Second, please stop challenging people to apprentice matches--they're completely meaningless.
-Jacob

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Memnarch and Neurok Transmuter make the ability just a little bit better. Just a little bit.
It's useless unless I have a Welder, or oh, I don't know, maybe a Ravager?

The ability to destroy artifacts comes in handy when you have the ability to turn perms into artifacts with Memnarch. Theres a whole lot of synergy regarding the various creatures and their abilities.

I understand the synergies but shamen plus memnarch = 2UU to stone rain a land, and anything else will cost a ridiculous amount of mana due to the 1XX cost to activate shamen.  Thus, I am glad you have agreed that 2 is better now.

Also, with ravager you will pay 1U, tap, destroy target artifact and put a +1/+1 counter on ravager.  Not exactly impressive unless the artifact was big, because most of the moxes you swipe coul just be eaten with the monkey.  (ever heard of viashino heretic?  He does just about what your magus+ravager does)

You are trying to turn an aggro-prison deck into bad Draw7. Stop.

As mentioned earlier, stax, slavery, etc all have sucess with draw 7s.  I'm not sure what you think draw7 is like, but adding wheel of fourtune and windfall to this deck wouln't make it anything close to a bad draw7.  (interesting that a deck called "artifact control" is aggro-prison, also )

maguc contributes to the soft lock that the deck is trying to generate.

Force of will contributes to you not dying, and then helping to force through and protect key components of the "lock".  Understand?

The problems with this deck are numerous (for now)

1: It doesn't run force of will

2: It is as of yet unsucessful in easily switching between and preforming it's various roles.

3: It's "soft lock" relies on the sunergy between various possible creatures and is thus quite fragile.  On their own there creatures are not exactly spectacular (read: with the exception of monkey or memnarch if you have alot of mana, or maguc if they happen to be playing a workshop deck and you can take advantage of the particular situation)

so, fixing #1 is easy.  Take out something for the fows.

#2 will require more tinkering with the deck.  As of now it seems a bit clunky.

#3: I'm not sure this is possible to fix and still keep it the same deck.  It might just be one of those inherent flaws in design that will limit the directions the deck can take.

[AngryPheldagrif]

The basic problem is that you're relying on 2 creature combos. That's not strong enough for the current metagame. What exactly do you do if your opponent plays a Chalice for 2? Or an Aether Flash?

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

There are actually quite a few "combos," but I agree with what you are saying.  It ties back into my #3 problem with the deck in my previous post.  The fact that the "combos" are fragile is bad enough on it's own, but made worse by the absence of force of will (which I hope will change).

Edit: Duress also seems like a good edition to protect combo pieces/disrupt opponent's combo in addition to force of will.  However, because of all of the creatures in the deck, I am not sure what would be cut for it.