Shopless Survival

[Negator13]

This is an idea I've been keeping in the back of my mind for awhile now. The premise is that Hasted Welders are the best creatures in the game, and that Survival of the Fittest is essentially a Thirst For knowledge that not only guaruntees a large artifact creature in the graveyard, but that also gives you the Welder to get it out.

Now TnT has been employing these concepts for awhile now with great success a couple years ago, but its not so hot now. Really I think the problem is that TnT and similar builds are clogged with unnessecary cards like Workshop, Juggernaut and Su-Chi that makes them unfocused and top-heavy. Instead of taking this Workshop-Aggro approach I've decided to try a more control oriented but still fast build that uses Blue card draw alongside a Survival Toolbox to accelerate artifact fat out reliably and early.

Here is a largely preliminary list:

Mana

4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
4 Birds of Paradise

Welders and Artifact Fat

4 Goblin Welder
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel

Critter Toolbox

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Druid Lyrist

Draw and Search

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Survival of the Fittest

Disruption

4 Force of Will

Broken

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar



Basically the plan is to drop an early SotF, protect it, and use it to power out a Hasted Titan or Angel via Anger and Goblin Welder. Brainstorm and Thirst for knowledge keep the deck from running out of steam and Birds of Paradise helps to accelerate and fix mana while being pitchable to SotF.

A few concerns I have with this current list:

I am questioning FOW's effectiveness in a deck with only 16 blue spells, including the Forces. I do feel they are nessecary though because Trinisphere, Crucible, B2B, and also enchantment removal present problems that are otherwise difficult to answer.

I would also like to fit in Fire/Ice, and some other toolbox creatures.

Please give suggestions and keep an open mind.

EDIT: Updated list as of 10-20-'04

6 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Taiga
1 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Welder
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Druid Lyrist
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Genesis
4 Survival of the Fittest
3 Blood Moon
4 Skullclamp

SB:
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Root Maze
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Simoon
2 Tormod's Crypt

(Removed ESG's, which were performing poorly, stabilized the mana base a little, and added some MD hate with Blood Moon, which looks to be very solid. SB is still very rough and isn't the focus of my testing right now.)

[Necrologia]

Would the Birds be better as Elvish Spirit Guides? They still pitch to Survival, but help you to power it out turn 1. They aren't color fixing but it generally shouldn't be much of an issue.

Also, how has the Genesis been working out for you? It made it into most early TnT builds but was inevitably cut for more utility, like Waterfront Bouncer or Gilded Drake. Both are outdated thanks to Duplicant, but what about something like Quirien Ranger, or Gorilla Shamen?

[Hi-Val]

You've only got 15 cards for FOW, which is hella low. I must admit though that this idea is really intriguing. Survivalling anger into titan into welder with a mox or something is pretty hot, not gonna lie.

[BreathWeapon]

It's a fairly clever concept, but what can Survival do that Intuition or even Gifts Ungiven can't for you? These cards are; Blue, Instant, Less Mana Intensive, Tutor for Multiple Artifacts at once and aren't limited to Creatures.

Survival can get anger AND titan into the graveyard, while putting welder in your hand. It also provides long term card advantage. Plus, it's cheap enough to cast before your opponent can get UU up for drain. Intuition and Gifts make no sense here.

Also, stop randomly capitalizing words. It's annoying.
-Jacob

[Team-Judgement]

This deck over TnT ? The problem with this deck is that it got 4 survival, and 4 welders as the only threats in the deck, the few artifact fatties come out very late, and the draw engine isnt better than so many others. I think that this deck is gonna have a hard time against Mono U, and combo, since it doesnt have any kind of disruption, except 4 forces(not even wastes)

This deck should more be compared to Meandeck titan, a deck that focuses on welding a titan in as fast as it can, while meandeck titan has a better draw engine, and a bit more disruption in 4 mana drain, 4 force of will and post SB some duress. Meandeck titan has a fewer number of 'real' threat it has more ways to protect them, and of course it has will like in tog, just wins the game.

I think that this deck has some potential, it just need more threats as f.x Juggers are just some beaters(maybee a madness set)

[Covetous]

Su-Chi and Juggernaut are not superfluous to TnT.  They ARE TnT.  The idea of TnT is:
Turn 1 Fat
Turn 2 Welder + Fat
Turn 3 Survival
Turn 4 Go Broken
It is not all about cute welder tricks, although those help in the long game.  It is about Fat artifact beats hitting play turn 1 and/or turn 2, followed by the survival/welder engine for enhanced staying power.  The idea certainly has merit, but remember that above all else, TnT is a beatdown deck, not a combo deck.  

This deck isn't TnT--if it were, it would be running workshops and fat. This deck is focusing on the survival-anger-artifact guy-welder chain.
-Jacob

On the issue of 3 colors--it makes your manabase more vulnerable to Titan, which is one of your best survival bombs.  True, most opposing decks will have blue, but it's basically a rule of thumb.

[Bob The Builder]

This post contained the following suggestions:

1. Add 5 strips and Crucible.
2. Possibly run madness creatures?
3. Cut blue from the deck. Replace Fire/Ice with Lava Dart.

Next time, use decent formatting, and don't throw in terrible ideas like crucible/fastbond/zuran orb. Consider this a verbal warning.
-Jacob

EDIT: Sorry for using the edit after MOD changes, doesn't seem to happen, but I'm working on my posting skills and hoped to get it right this time...  Feel free to remove this.

Starting with the idea of cutting blue as a color to stabalize the manabase.
Why cut blue?  Force of Will just isn’t that good wihtout a high blue spell count.
Cutting blue frees up these slots :

- 4 tropical islands
- 4 brainstorm
- 4 thirst for knowledge
- 4 Force of will
- 1 Time walk
- 1 Ancestral recall
- 1 tinker

Ok cutting tinker, Ancestral recall and brainstorms can not be called a good idea, but just work with me here to see if cutting blue is a good thing or a even-worse-than-bad thing.

Having 19 empty slots here is what I’d add to begin with:

1 forest
3 mountain (replacing the tropical Islands)
4 wasteland
1 strip (4 wastes + strip in addition with titan can really set back the opponent if you don't go of T2)
2 Crucible of worlds (for recurring strip or fetch)

So far we filled up 11 of the 19 free spaces this gives us 8 more slots.

I was thinking

lava dart (3 to 4) instead of the suggested fire/ice

gorilla shaman (1 or 2) for even more mana denial in power heavy meta

basking rootwalla (3 to 4) for more beatdown althought titan should be enough

Looking at the decklist now makes me wonder if I can’t replace the BoP for something else, since mana fixing isn’t really an issue any more.  Seeing the CoW added makes me believe Orcish Lumberjack is a good choice here.  He gives you more mana than the BoP would.  A setback maybe is needing a forest in play, (but that shouldn’t be a problem, since we wanted a forest for SotF to begin with) that gets sacrificed making you need the Crucible.  I think it’s worth testing though...

On the other hand, Tinker really is a good card in the deck...

[kill doug]

This post was completely unreadable. That makes it spam. Consider this a verbal warning.
-Jacob

the deck list is a good start i've been toying with a similar idea myself.  First i would cut brainstorm either all together with force of will and make it more aggro but still take out the shops.  1st add wheel of fortune memory jar and i also would try wild mongrel and even rootwalla which help with speed/discard/survival. i haven't tested birds yet but there are some nice tricks you can do with them if you have anger and Sotf,  to me maybe 1 or 2 would do well.  To help with the mana base add crypt and monolith to help with speed at worst there welding targets. Also i would a eternal witness which some cool tricks could be played with also a sex monkey is better than zealot.

good luck with the deck i hope for you to keep this page updated the deck has potential

[Negator13]

Heh, thanks for clearing up all the chaff, Jacob.

For those that don't get it, the point of this build is to cast Survival early, and the next turn, pitch any random creature (even a Welder, doesn't matter) to find an Anger, pitch that to find a Titan, discard the Titan to find a Welder, cast the Welder, and swing for 7 Hasted damage after Geddoning.

Why do I think this is better than TnT? I'm not screwing up my Survival capabilities by cutting green sources for Shops so I can play jank like Jugs and Su-Chi. I dont know about you, but I haven't seen a Juggernaut kill anyone lately. 3 Toughness men that have to attack every turn dont survive long, at least from what I've seen.

On BoP vs. ESG: BoP's mana fixing is very important to this deck, and equally so is his long term mana acceleration. I want to be able to cast Thirsts and Welders, opposing Wastes or not, and I want to be able to Survival multiple times a turn. BoP lets me do this, ESG does not.

I am cutting the Wonder for a Memory Jar, and cutting Genesis and Viridian Zealot for Sex Monkey and Druid Lyrist.

I am debating axing the Forces, since the blue count is low, but I really need some disruption/protection.

I will not add Strips for the same reason I dont run Shops: It cuts my green count.


Opinions?

[Kowal]

I dont know about you, but I haven't seen a Juggernaut kill anyone lately. 3 Toughness men that have to attack every turn dont survive long, at least from what I've seen.

I disagree.

EDIT:  I still disagree.

[Negator13]

It appears I have been trumped. Or have I...

I just dont think Jugs is a very strong threat, and certainly not one that should warrant messing up a tight manabase to support. I'm not saying (or, if I did, I shouldn't be saying) that Juggernaut is a totally ineffective threat, but he's just not good enough to change the focus of my deck for.

Also, that deck was focused on beating down with midrange threats while maintaining a lock, this one's plan is to rush out an early, huge guy. Stacker needs Jugs as a semi-cheap source of pressure, this deck already has that in Survival. Basically, Survival is my cheap, aggressive threat, making stuff like that unnessecary.

EDIT: The list you edited in is essentially the same as the first. Are you trying to show Jugs in different builds, thus disproving what i just said, or are you just finding more evidence of Juggernaut in winning decks? If it's the latter, I already addressed that.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

I would be very concerned about playing FoW in such a proactive aggro deck, which could run a toolbox of creatures seamlessly. I also wildly support intuition in this deck. It either gets you three cards, when you consider that so many of them are useful in the bin anyway, or gets you the survival you have failed to draw. Also, TFK seems pretty week, given that you only have a few artifacts you want in the bin. Playing intuition could *maybe* allow for AKs.

[Negator13]

I would be very concerned about playing FoW in such a proactive aggro deck, which could run a toolbox of creatures seamlessly. I also wildly support intuition in this deck. It either gets you three cards, when you consider that so many of them are useful in the bin anyway, or gets you the survival you have failed to draw. Also, TFK seems pretty week, given that you only have a few artifacts you want in the bin. Playing intuition could *maybe* allow for AKs.

I would argue that Thirst is just as effective, maybe even more, here than it is in Slaver or Titan. Not only do I run the same amount of artifact fat and mana sources as those decks, I also run Squee and Anger which I obviously don't mind discarding.

I also dislike FOW, but I am having difficulty finding something that would address problem cards like Trinisphere more efficiently. If you have any ideas for specific replacements, please let me know.

Intuition... I really don't see why I'd want this in here, the best I can do with it without heavily modifying my other card choices is go for 3 pieces of Artifact fat right off the bat, which is fairly weak. Intuition as a straight-up tutor is just horrible, IMO.

[Matt]

I would be very concerned about playing FoW in such a proactive aggro deck,

I guess no one has noticed/bothered to mention this yet, but this deck is NOT aggro. It is clearly combo/control.

I like the idea but I am concerned that you have only one "trick". There's so many ways to use Survival...is there not something else synergistic you could be doing? This feels like half of a deck.

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Druid Lyrist

As far as the specific toolbox goes, I'd like to see Gilded Drake in there somewhere. It's excellent against opposing creatures. Imagine stealing an opposing Titan or Colossus or Platinum Angel. Even just stealing a Welder could easily win you the game. It's also another blue card to help your FoW count.

Do you really need Druid Lyrist? What MD enchantments need killing? You can keep these in the side for B2B/Blood Moon, and even so you have BoPs. A Quirion Ranger would also be awesome - not only with BoPs but to protect against Wasteland and Titans (both yours and your opponent's), and with Welder it's insane. It also softens the blow of Crucible and makes B2B look retarded.

[Windfall]

First off, Negator, I'd like to say thanks for posting this.  Not only am I impressed with this innovation, I am also enjoying your posts, which address arguments and defend your idea here.

I'm actually quite glad that Hi-Val read this and also sees its potential.  I'm also glad Jacob is keeping is keen eye on this thread.

I have a few thoughts on this deck.

One, I'd say that Birds are much better than ESG.  You're bound to have turn 1 Survival anyway since you run a full compliment of Moxen.  More traditional Green Survival decks or G/u Survival decks don't run more than 1 or 2 Moxen, so ESG powers their Survival turn 1 as Moxen will do for you.  Birds also seem very strong in a deck with many lands vulnerable to non-basic hate.

As far as the mana base is concerned, I think City of Brass would be good here.  Mainly because it is immune to Sundering Titan, but also because it gives you any of your colors.  I wouldn't run 4 I don't think, maybe just 1 or 2, but I think it's worthy of thought.  I also believe that you could benifit from a Basic Mountain.  Anger is amazing in this deck and he's easy to shut down with opposing Wastelands since you're only running 4 Mountains that are all nonbasic.  I can imagine situations where you could just go broken and win if you only had a Mountain in play.  I'd like to avoid this scenario since it seems that it'd be quite common.

Thirst for Knowledge seems solid here.  The people raving about Intuition are just players that are afraid to try anything new.  Intuition is awful in this deck and AKs would be worse...

Keep it up man... people like you are what The Mana Drain needs right now.
     ~Mark B.

[Hi-Val]

I like this because once Survival hits, it's a pretty much uncounterable way to get a Welder in play and then something fat. Since the deck seems really focused on Survival, you might consider cutting TFK for Impulse. It digs deeper and costs less. These are both good things!

After taking a couple long pulls from the crack pipe, I came up with the following. You can dispatch most aggro decks (which probably will outpace you) by using Silent Arbiter or Big Platz. You might even consider Memnarch, but I think that'd be win-more, as if you have Survival, you should have a Titan in play.

I am really on the fence about Force of Will. I could see putting 4 better cards in its place to free up the constraints on blue. You could consider things like Crucible, Blood Moon, Pyrostatic Pillar, etc.

And take my word on it: Thirst is so much better in Titan : ) You want to be casting Survival fast. Titan just wants to get the damn SunderTits in the yard.

Also, you might consider running (gasp) one Goblin Welder and a bit more draw. I think the deck could support it and it'd really ease up your need for red manas.

[BreathWeapon]

It's a fairly clever concept, but what can Survival do that Intuition or even Gifts Ungiven can't for you? These cards are; Blue, Instant, Less Mana Intensive, Tutor for Multiple Artifacts at once and aren't limited to Creatures.

Survival can get anger AND titan into the graveyard, while putting welder in your hand. It also provides long term card advantage. Plus, it's cheap enough to cast before your opponent can get UU up for drain. Intuition and Gifts make no sense here.

Also, stop randomly capitalizing words. It's annoying.
-Jacob

I wasn't implying that he should use Intuition and Gifts Ungiven in this deck. I was implying that if he wanted to play a deck based on welding utility out of the grave yard than a 4xGifts Ungiven and 4xThirst For Knowledge variant of Titan or Slaver would be a wiser decision.

I don't see what you have to gain by playing a Survival Combo Deck instead of one of the afformentioned Welder Control Decks. Mana Drain is an immense boon vs Combo, and it allows you to hard cast threats. Considering that this deck falls short vs Combo, has no convincing advantage vs other Welder Decks and is crippled by Coffin Purge why play it?

[goober]

this deck needs to resolve survival, untap, then win.  that has a lot of advantages to playing a long drawn out control game.  they are vastly different decks.  it is like saying why play madness, when you could play 4cc.
gifts is also not very good because you can't get what you want where you want it.  survival hastes everyone, gets the best target, and the welder for it, when gifts would get you one or 2 of those pieces for more mana.

[effang]

Your two sentence post serves only to show that you don't understand how "consolidation" works. Verrbal warning for spam.
-Jacob

Everything said above is true, however many people are uneager to try out new archetypes because we want to minimize the number of decks played in this format, and hence bring consolidation to type 1.  Personally, I don't care, many people would like to play decks that have equivalent power levels if they can use a choice card that they love.

[Mana Duane]

I find ESG would be better than BOP in this deck. First turn survival seems like a crucial play to me because you need to get it down before the opponent gets UU up. Even fully powered decks don't see artifact accel in every first hand and i would hate to get survival but be unable to play it because i had BOP not ESG.
I also find ESG to be more powerful when you do have artifact accel since it would allow you play a cost 1 spell AND the survival. So you could play brainstorm, find the survival with the 'storm and then drop it with ESG and a mox. Or if you've got a God hand you could play survival with ESG and then a welder.  Is BOP actually any good when you can play 1st turn survival? In this case I don't think that you would want to waste G to play the BOP, but rather you would just start your survial chain.

I support the quirion ranger sugguestion. Vengeur masque decks here are currently playing 3 and it makes wasteland very week against them.

James

[Tainted_Wood]

I have a few concerns about this deck.  It seem to lack non-survival discard outlet.  If I can counter your survivals, I think I pretty much win.  I think that was really the reason for the workshops in TNT, that you could cast your fat and get the counters out of their hand, and then do the survival-welder thing.  

Yes, I understand they are totally different decks, the comparison is usefull none the less.

I could be totally off base here, but this is kind of a combo deck in that it's threats are small in number but large in effect (as opposed to an aggro deck with lots of small threats) But most modern combo decks have something to protect their combo (TPS) or hope to power through it (Draw 7, DeathLong) or both (Dragon)

I don't want to be antagonistic, but how does this deck recover from a countered Survival? (That's not a pissy, retorical question; I actually want to know if/how it does it.)

Edit: clarity and grammer.

[Vegeta2711]

I've had a similar deck like this a loooong time ago (I.E. Back when singleton artifact creatures didn't win the game like they do now. ) Though I'm suprised that few others have at least not considered this sort of deck. Kudos for a good post though, it's a rarity nowadays in any of the mills.

I'm honestly curious what you plan to do vs. control or TPS-esque combo. It seems like FoW + Drain / Duress really hurts here when trying to force through a SOTF basically. Though I can see the successful racing of drain (or lucky FoW),  it seems like a rather risky proposition. I assume there would be some Xantid's and possibly REB's in the board?

Have you considered a Regrowth or possibly a few Eternal Witness for the deck? They would help shore up the possiblity of losing an early SOTF, recur draw and in the case of EW, be Survival bait.

Also BoP is not only usually better for these sorts of decks, but other than casting first turn SOTF, ESG is rather unspectacular here.

[Apocd21]

I think there should atleast be a blue creature in the deck because then any creature in hand is blue for the cost a green mana.  This way you are sort of cheating the blue card count for force of will.  I suggest it be guilded drake or old man of the sea but you would need a few more blue mana sources then.

[cssamerican]

To me this deck resembles Ninja Mask style decks more than any other deck, and for heavily tested ideas that is where I would look at. The main difference is you use Goblin Welder to get uncounterable fat into play at a reduced cost, Ninja Mask uses Illusionary Mask to do the same.

While I was reading this thread I am suprised that no one has suggested [card]Volraths Shapeshifter[/card]. It fixes most of the problems people have brought up with the deck. It bumps up the blue count, it is an additional way to get fat in action, and it allows for some interesting plays abusing the stack. Its only draw back is that it would negate the ability to use Anger effectively, since you mana base needs to be titan proof. I realize this would change the decks focus to a degree, but it would make the deck stronger versus control (Since the deck would no longer be a one trick pony known as Goblin Welder), I could make the deck stronger versus combo due to an increased blue card count which creates a more reliable Force of Will. The aggro match might suffer a little, but I think there is plenty of room to give up in those match-ups.

Edited: I forgot to eliminate the apostrophe in the card's name for the hyperlink to work.

[Frappie]

I did some thinking about the maindeck disruption, i.e. Uktabi Orang and Lyrist. They could easily be replaced by Living Wish. This would allow for a sideboard of tricks. This is just a rough sketch but this is what I have so far:

Mox Monkey
Old Man of the Sea
Bazaar of Baghdad
Stripmine
Genesis
Sex Monkeys

Quick explanation:

Mox Monkey: Eats jewelry, if you need a greater explanation, it functions as a way to disrupt most artifact decks.

Old Man of the Sea: Have heard, but not tested, that this card is great against opposing welders.

Bazaar of Baghdad: This card will allow you to have another method of getting your artifact men into the yard while also drawing cards, it's a psuedo-thirst.

Stripmine: The oddball of the board really, but it functions as another mana source and offers more defense against dragon.

Genesis: I noticed that this card was originally cut and I understand, but if SotF is countered then your going to want to get your welders back.

Sex Monkeys: When you absolutely must destroy that platinum angel.

The deck seems really tight, and I like the innovation behind it. Man I hope I spelled everything right.

[Hi-Val]

Playing around with it revealed this:

1. You can run a single Welder.

2. Replace those cut slots with Witnesses. You'll see why.

[Sammy]

I really like the idea of this deck. It's like a budget Welder based deck (doesnt require Shops/Drains) but it still works very well.

I agree with whoever said Ranger should go in here. Any deck with Birds in T1 should run Ranger! That is crazy mana accel, and even better if they are hasted! So heres what I think:

You should lose 1 Birds, and possibly 1-2 Welders since you dont need to draw into them as much as in decks without Survival (I think Hi-Val pointed this out) And if you drop 1 Welder also lose the Lyrist and put in 3 Rangers.

I am strongly considering playign this deck.

[Covetous]

I don't mean to belabor the comaprison to TnT (because Jacob already pointed out that this deck isn't TnT), but my earlier point was that it sounds like this deck basically needs to resolve survival.  Tnt is superior in this aspect because it can beat face or suck up countermagic with artifact fat while biding its time to play SotF and THEN do dirty combo tricks.  I certainly can understand the concern to not waste mana-base space by having Shops, but at the same time, what makes TnT not horrible is the ability to have more than one game plan.  Here, if someone can kill your welder and counter your survival, you are basically screwed.  That is why I belabored the TnT comparison.  I see TnT as a deck with more synergy that this--it runs 3sphere because it can drop it turn 1 with shop then follow up with fat and waste recursion.  I personally consider that a better disruption plan than 4x FoW plus a few blue cards.  I'm not trying to knock your deck, I'm just attempting to make a point.

The idea of Regrowth/EWitness has merit, as does Genesis.  On the issue of Viridian Zealot, I should remind you that he works well with Genesis and takes the place of both Sex Monkey and Druid Lyrist.  In terms of disruption I would normally say that for this type of deck 3sphere is better than Fow, but of course then you would basically have to make the deck back into TnT/blue which isn't your main focus.  Have you considered altering TnT in such a way as to incorporate both aspects of the deck?  For example:
Fat beats:
4 juggernaut (I don't care if you don't think he's good--turn 1 jugg is a must-answer threat)
1 sundering titan
1 paltinum angel
1 triskelion
1 duplicant
Combo nastiness:
4 sotf
4 welder
1 anger
Disruption:
4 trinisphere
Draw:
4 thirst for knowledge
1 wheel of fortune
1 ancestral recall
Utility:
1 time walk
1 tinker
1 viridian zealot
1 wonder (or something else--I think 5/3 fliers are 100% better than normal 5/3's)
1 genesis
Mana:
7 solomoxen
1 crypt
1 vault
4 wooded foothills
3 taiga
3 tropical island
2 city of brass
1 mountain
2 forest
4 mishra's workshop

I know you disagree but I wanted to point out that you can incorporate a better draw engine into a deck which already is good and still not have to remove the perversion of turn 1 workshop-->something nasty.  Shops also have merit in that they can power out an early titan without requiring welder.

[Corndog]

I think Tinker has a spot in this deck. The moxen would support it. Sundering Titan is a big enough tinker target. Platinum angel is also a target, however less of one. It's also another blue card.

On another note. What about trying to abuse Solemn Simulacrum and Back to Basics. Or maybe even as a sideboard route. Abusing Titan isn't always the easiest thing. Alot of pain lands running around these days.

Also if I were looking to lock their mana down with Titan, I'd want a main deck mox monkey to take care of their moxen.

[Jacob Orlove]

I assume there would be some Xantid's and possibly REB's in the board?

Xantids might actually be pretty decent in the maindeck, if you could find room. They draw out removal that would hit welders, counters that would hit survival, etc.