**This may seem a bit disorganized, as I just went down the pages responding to any relevant questions.**That is the weakest argument I have ever heard. Fabricate is strictly crappier than Trinket Mage in this deck, as it doesn't chump or beatdown and can't find anything the Mage can't.
Stifle is a non-argument, since it is hardly a game-breaker to Stifle a mage.
Hmmm, why would you want to beatdown with a 2/2 if you are playing combo? Shouldn't the combo be your win condition, with perhaps a good alternate?
Stifling a mage I'd say would pretty much hose you, until you draw another or a Lotus.
One question though, (and please do not be insulted by it's appearance of irrelevance) exactly how much does this deck weigh?
Uh, I don't know exactly. Less than Battle of Wits perhaps?
As for the Stifle the Mage thing, I like having a chump blocker slash beatstick because the deck is also built to abuse the control angle. I'm not that worried about a card that most people play on their sideboards, and is not going to get boarded in against me.
And how does salvagers not lose to 7/10? 3Sphere beats you very badly. It makes you incapable of winning, not to mention Chalice at 0. All the while taking 4 - 11 damage per turn from phat beats.
I don't know where he got the 'AP's deck destroys 7/10 thing,' but this matchup is definitely not in my favor, unless I can pull out some fast Forces and walk them into a Drain or 2. It's not the worst match by any means, but it's certainly a painful one.
ReapLace with no decent recursion, just as many dead slots, and a vulnerability to creature removal.
Apart from the combo, (and unless you're facing a Sui Black player or something) both Reap and the Laces are dead cards 99% of them time. In Salvagers, Lotus and LED are free mana (though LED is a bit trickier), Spellbomb is spot removal or cantrip, and Salvagers is utility recursion. And a lot of decks are vulnerable to creature removal, including (but not limited too) Tog, 4cControl, Dragon, 7/10 Split, Madness, and TnT.
Here is my question: How do you address the fact that I was playing extremely badly with a sub-optimal build of an aggro deck that wasn't really supplying threats to me at a very good pace and yet I was able to out goldfish your "control-combo" deck?
His build was not mine, and sounds pretty bad. I've never had problems with your deck in testing, and we never even
considered Standstill. That's just bad card choice.
I feel that this is a slightly naive way of looking at things. The "work going on here" has been, as ever, reduced to very little, and has hence ceased to become work. I personally don't think much of the deck myself, but then again I haven't tested with it or against it, so I am fully prepared to admit that I am looking at it from what could be an unfair angle. I think that the reason that people have become, shall we say, more abrasive than usual is that when people suggest things they are usually ignored or dismissed as being irrelevant.
I agree completely, but as I've stated repeatedly, people's suggestions
are taken into account. And they help this deck a lot. Without them I'd probably never found the AK engine or any of a dozen minor innovations and fixes that made the deck about a hundred times better. That's the only reason I keep posting the thread, despite the inevitable flames, though it pains me to just see pages and pages of them from even the more senior members.
you say that your deck beats draw7, for one thing. You may have not lost a game out of 4 games, but that is not a very large test sample, is it?
I tested 7 matches against draw-7, and split them fairly evenly, with a slight advantage towards me. As with a lot of control decks, the draw-7 matchup is often just a matter of the luck of the draw.
I hope this doesn't come across as a personal attack, as it is not intended to. However, I am merely trying to stress that this thread needs to get back on track before any work can be done on the deck, and that Bram's post needs answering - why indeed would I want to play this? Evidence of testing and tournament results are needed to convince anyone, let alone the deck's critics.
Actually your's is one of the more civil and constructive posts I've had since I last saw the thread before I went to bed. As for the 'why would I want to play this?,' it's a very valid question whose answer will warrant a much longer answer than I can make in this response post. I'll work on it once I get done PMing the lastest batch of new members the FAQ and links explaining why their topics were closed

.
I really like the fact taht FINALLY somebody posted a new decklist. I have heard several rumors (maybe thats all they are) that several teams are working on a similar deck. Perhaps alot of the harsh critisism is to try to keep tech from being revealed, or perhaps im talking out of my arse (which is probably the case.)
Couldn't tell you for sure, but I know people are working on something like this. As for this, Team DD hates team secrecy. If someone wants to copy my list and go play some tournament with it I'm okay, hell I'd love for that to happen. But I'm afraid that most of the critism is genuine.
The deck has several ways it could go you went for the tog setup, but i was thinking perhaps you could of gone a more Draw7 engine that could possibly help you draw into the lotus, or help the combo go off more successfully. The deck is esentially a 2 card combo (3 counting kill), and perhaps could make the deck faster. With a a modified draw 7 engine the salvagers combo might ... might... work better then Tendrils or maybe u could fit 1 dendrils or brain freeze in as an alternate kill.
We had indeed tried this, and it just came out 100% strictly worse than Draw-7 (and for the love of god, please don't quote this and continue the 'strictly worse than Tog' thing). The engine was too close to pure combo, and this deck is not good as a pure combo, simply because Belcher and Draw-7 are better 'pure combo.'
Are you concerned with the high number of Null rods that will be seeing play, because that card alone can just stall the deck several turns?
I'm concerned greatly for Null Rods. Null Rods are vicious and painful. But I can survive Null Rods, and can often keep myself alive long enough to take them out with Cunning Wish for whatever, whereas decks like Draw-7 and Belcher just roll over and die to it. Ditto for Trinisphere, Chalice, etc.
Intuition is a key card in the deck their is no question about it, but the rest of the draw engine doesnt seem as critical. The combo is very easy to hate out, and making it faster and a little more consistent might be the proper way to go. The deck in a way plays like dragon in the fact that it doesnt have to go off immedietly, but then again if the combo is stopped you dont lose all your permenants. So making the deck faster might be a good way to go.
Dragon is indeed the comparison I like to use. Is Dragon dead now? Maybe. But it won a lot of tournaments back in the day. And the hate is not as easy to hate as you would think. A lot of decks think that they can board in a Crypt or Purge or 2 and wreck me, only to get thoroughly destroyed by good old stack tricks. If you have any suggestions to make it faster, we'd be glad to test them out.
Thanks for all the help
-Dan
PS: Editted in the newest things.
Most notably would be get rid of the Trinket Mages, play Transmute Artifact instead. A lot of hate in this thread is aimed at the rather useless Trinket Mage. Transmute Artifact is a solid replacement. It's a solid tutor, costs one less and you've got the standard compliment of mana artifacts and the spellbomb to sac to it.
Also, why no Tinker? For the same reason as mentioned above.
This was debated/discussed/tested for a while. The thing is, when you Trinket Mage for a 0-mana artifact, it's just like Tinkering for it. Except you don't lose a Mox and you get a free creature. Same with Transmute. Sure they can counter the Lotus, but they can counter the Tinker too. And this way you save your Mox.
You saw a new combo and popped a million boners.
Actually I was one of the earliest critics of the deck. I blasted it as inefficient and useless until I got utterly annihilated by an inferior version. Since Team DD was taking a break from MaskNought, we decided to see how good we could make this, and were pleasantly surprised by what we found.
Let it die, and stop making a new thread every time you change 1 fucking card.
Indeed, this will be the last thread I make on the subject barring a major tournament victory or perhaps the Casual Forum in the far future. If people want to let this die then go ahead, but until then I'll just keep responding to the suggests that I get.
So using the search function, I took a look at some of the other threads relating to the Salvagers deck and noticed that several suggestions never got incorporated or even responded to.
There've been a lot of good suggestions, and a lot of other stuff that I've been having a hard time keeping up with. If I ignored anyone's suggestions then they're welcome to repost them and I'll be be happy to test them out and respond to them.
Dammit, people, why are you not sharing some of that good loving over at my salvagers thread?
You need to build up a decent reputation about being confrontational and rude. Or alternatively make it a lot worse and let me post it.
We have no desire to stick up for you or even keep your thread clean. This is exactly what you wanted - moderation staying out of your way. This is what you got. Deal or leave.
Looks like I'm a sitting duck here people. You can now flame with a sense of security. The powers that be have decreed it.