Budget slaver

[oyzar]

I have realy wanted to try out control slaver for some time. One problem though, I don't own any power. So here i decided to build my own budget version of the deck. I got a great deal of inspiration from this thread: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15444. I have to give some credits to those guys. Since it is buget Ancestral Recall and Time Walk is out of the deck. That and the fact that you cant replay moxen nor lotus makes Yawgmoth's Will mutch worse than in the powered verson. I have therefor decided to cut black compleetly. With the abscense of moxen the deck come up lacing in artifacts. Therfor i have added some artifact lands. That again leads to adding Crucible of Worlds for another and in my opinion easyer way to get the hardlock. Crucible of Worlds and the fact that i am only running two colors makes way for another addition to the deck, that of strips. Here is the decklist:

// Mana
    2 Darksteel Citadel
    5 Island
    4 Volcanic Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    2 Seat of the Synod
    1 Great Furnace
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Sol Ring

// Creatures
    4 Goblin Welder
    1 Pentavus
    2 Gorilla Shaman
    1 Platinum Angel

// Spells
    2 Crucible of Worlds
    2 Fire/Ice
    3 Mindslaver
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Fact or Fiction
    1 Memory Jar
    1 Tinker

The sb should be built more or less the same way as with the powered verson. Keep in mind though that this deck is a bit slower than the orginal and you got a lot less acceleration. As it is i have actually been killed by crypt + vault damage multiple times.

Some modifications that could be made would be adding one more Crucible of Worlds, cutting the Gorilla Shamans, adding Cunning Wish and change the number of Brainstorms and/or Fire/Ice. As it is this is the verson I feel most comfortable with and it has been testing well on Magic Workstation(though the quality of players there might not be the best). I am planing on bringing this verson or somthing similar to a local tourny next weekend and that will be it's first true test. I will come back to you with how it went.

Any feedback, sugestions or help will be welcome.

[maddux31]

I think that you should add a Sundering Titan because it is so good.  Also you should consider the Intuition/AK draw engine

[Meddling Mike]

I prayed this day would never come, look, power <3 Control Slaver, Control Slaver <3 Power, Moxen are an essential part of the deck, not just for the acceleration for which they are prized, but also for their synergy with the rest of this deck and the ability to replay them off Yawg Will. If moxes are good, they are just that much better in control slaver.  Artifact lands are NOT an adequate substitute and memory jar is not an adequate substitute for ancestral recall. I would strongly urge you not to attempt a budget version of this deck as your chances of success with a good budget deck, like fish for example, are much better than your chances with this abomination.

[Royal Ass.]

Dont be discouraged but this is a difficult thing to do.  that being said i would cut Jar for wheel of fortune.  that way you can dump high costing artifacts in your yard.  also you might try mox diamond.  you can return your pitched land to play with the COW.  THere is other artifact mana you could try exploiting as well such as Chrome mox and lotus petal.

Mystical tutor and more choice artifacts to weld would help as well, such as Sunderint titan, duplicant and triskilion.  I would cut back on the number of slavers to 1 or 2.

running this deck without moxes and lotus hurts.  good luck.

[Marton]

Personally I wouldn't cut the black in this deck, and for a good reason.
This deck has a hard time once a null rod hits play. Usually the duress helps a lot to avoid this, and it very interesting yawgmoth's will re-usable card.

I don't really see what justifies the jar in there, as it cannot really be used. I don't believe that wheel of fortune would be that much better, because this is a control deck that already has a good draw engine (control decks don't want the opponent to draw spells, and you sure don't want to loose yours in your hand).

Here's a build I tried last week. It wasn't spectacular, but attempted to best replicate the original.

1x tolarian academy
2x darksteel citadel
4x island
4x volcanic island
2x underground sea
1x tundra
4x polluted delta
1x flooded strands

1x sol ring
1x mana crypt
1x mana vault
1x grim monolith
1x mox diamond
3x gilded lotus
1x voltaic key

4x goblin welder
1x platinum angel
1x pentavus
2x mindslaver

4x force of will
4x mana drain
4x brainstorm
4x thirst for knowledge
1x fact or fiction

1x tinker
1x demonic tutor
1x yawgmoth's will
1x mystical tutor
1x balance     (new tech !

2x duress

total: 60 cards


a card that I really tried finding a place for is memnarch. memnarch and gilded lotus are pretty nice.

The basic idea of this deck is to try and use gilded lotus as a 'replacement' for the moxen.  It also sort-of enables yawgmoth's will. The deck sports the casual tutors (mystical, demonic, tinker), which allows for yawgmoth's will to be particularly worthwhile. Balance is a new addition of my own. I added balance in order to recoup for the lost power in the transition from powered to unpowered. It sure isn't great with a welder into play, but it is very very good when you play a lot with gilded lotus and run a low number of lands. While the build works up to a degree, it still feels a time that it lacks 1 or 2 draw spells. Perhaps it lacks a skeletal scrying (which isn't great with yawgmoth's will) or a cunning wish.

Perhaps this decklist can give you some ideas.

[Jacob Orlove]

Gilded Lotus is awful if you aren't running full power AND workshops. Honestly, you'd probably do better running like a Mirrodin Talisman or something.

[The Atog Lord]

Trying to build Control Slaver without power poses some interesting challenges. The issues with Budget Control Slaver run deeper than its being slower -- the deck has fewer of the low casting cost artifacts on which it depends. Low casting cost artifacts are essential not only for Thirsts, but also for Welding and Tinkering.

For low casting cost artifacts (costing one or less), you have 8. In my latest powered list, I have 10. Have you had a problem with fewer cheap artifacts? One card that might be worth trying to raise the low cc artifact count is Chromatic Sphere. It cantrips, it's an artifact, and may help smooth your mana with both Citadel and Waste in your deck. I've never tried it, but Scepter might be worth trying as well.

While there are some challenges to overcome with Budget Control Slaver, I haven't really tried myself. There may well be a solid deck to be built. How often do you get the Crucible/Artifact Land/Welder/Mindslaver lock?

Good luck with this, it would be really cool to see it do well.

[Marton]

While I agree that you need a lot of cheap artifacts to weld in (in order to be able to play them (when topdecked) and then pay for the slaver), the problem is that the budget artifacts are not explosive when combined with yawgmoth's will. You can't cast them all back once you resolve a yawgmoth's will. This makes yawgmoth's will considerably less interesting. The other 'good' artifacts to put are artifact lands, but you can't replay them all either once you play yawgmoth's will. So in my build I tried going the other way, relying less on yawgmoth's will, and use gilded lotus as much as possible. Interestingly, while gilded lotus is particularly not good at being welded for a slaver and is pretty bad to be played back from the grave after a yawgmoth's will, it DOES allows to pay for everything else in the grave. The gilded lotus are very fun to use with voltaic key too. I'll make a brief mention that they allow for memnarch if only I can find the place for it. I also put in Balance since I can much more reliably get the white mana (gilded lotus + mox diamond + tundra/5x fetch).

My build does not pack lotus petal, mostly because it is very rare that I am happy to sacrifice an artifact for one mana. The artifact itself is more necessary than the mana most of the time. But then, that means that ANY 0cc artifact would be almost in the same power range as lotus petal.

Chromatic sphere would probably be some good, but I truly fear the same trouble that I had with lotus petal. The deck needs more an artifact than whatever effect the artifact can produce. The worse effect an artifact can have is arguably a sacrifice.

I will have to try theses cards and see if I can make it work better: isochron scepter, lotus petal, chromatic sphere, pyrite spellbomb, copy artifact (! - perhaps 1 could work), talismans, pentad prysm, lightning greaves, memnarch.

[Jacob Orlove]

How often do you get the Crucible/Artifact Land/Welder/Mindslaver lock?

If you want to use Toad's tech, a couple of Intuitions would really help if you're trying to get that lock set up. He also runs AKs, which you'd have to cut black for anyway.

[miki]

HI people!!!
I'm pretty new to T1,but Martons build looks pretty good to me.
I think Duresses are prety good in this type of deck, because they can take out cards like Null rod and Damping Matrix which mean auto-loss for you. I think Yawgmoth's Will (read the card.It says I WIN) is Bah-roken and its prety cool in this kind of deck. I am not sure about this, but i would take out the Platinum Angel and put another Pentavus in, so you can have more tokens to weld away . This is just my 2 cents on the topic, and if i said the most stupidest things ever, just tell me please.

[BlueRedGaey]

In your area, do they allow proxies in the type 1 tourneys? Most of them do allow 5 just because many people are on a budget or aent willing to dump 3-4000 dollars into a deck. If you find a proxy tourney it can make the deck much better because you need some power stuff

[breseboy]

Where to start?

ok.  What is the point of running one great furnace?  When you can run another seat.

Run four mindslavers.  Getting two is not a bad thing.

Md fact or fiction is bad.

Stop the land destruction. Your slaver.  You need land.  Also no crucible.

Gorrilla shama=not get md

I hope slaver can come back!

good luck!

Hope this helped

[Mixing Mike]

@breseboy:  Did you know that Crucible locks them down with a Welder, Slaver, and an Artifact land? Not to mention that draws an extra card per turn with a fetchland in your hand/yard.  Did you know that Fact or Fiction is quite possibly the best draw spell for the deck?

I guess not, but now you do.

[exit music]

I have been testing a bit with this deck (ie. for the last 40 minutes) and since I have found something kind-of decent, I will post my results. Initially, I started off with the first decklist posted on here as a starting point. I found the deck okay, but it didn't really show me the power that Control Slavery does. Obviously, no budget version can power out first turn Welder into TfK/Platz or something (well, it could, but not as easily). This deck is not as consistant as CS can be, but I have changed the deck a bunch, possibly fixing it up a bit.

The list:

// Creatures
        4 Goblin Welder
        1 Pentavus
        1 Platinum Angel

// Draw/Tutor
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Accumulated Knowledge
        4 Thirst for Knowledge
        3 Intuition
        1 Fact or Fiction
        1 Tinker

// Countering
        4 Mana Drain
        4 Force of Will

// Lock Pieces
        2 Mindslaver
        2 Crucible of Worlds

// Mana
        4 Island
        4 Volcanic Island
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Flooded Strand
        2 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
        2 Darksteel Citadel
        3 Seat of the Synod
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Chrome Mox

So, as you can see, I added the Intuition/Ak engine. For the Budget list, I think Intuition adds something special to the deck. Since we cannot go broken like normal CS can, having Intuition to either draw cards or put the Combo into the graveyard definitely helps. The problem is that Intuition is normally a 3rd turn play with this deck, which really really hurts us. I changed the mana base a little but -- less wastes and more fetches and a Chrome Mox -- it seems good, but the avg CC of this deck is really high which suggests to me that this cannot be done successfully in an actual T1 Environment. I almost want to add an Ancient Tomb or two, just because there are so many 3 cc spells -- being able to play them T2 after a Welder or Brainstorm would be excellent.

If I test any more with this deck, I'll post what I come across.

Exit

[miki]

Nice deck Exitmusic. Since everyone is posting their versions of Budget Control Slaver , i guess i will post mine too. This basiclly has the usualy control slaver stuff - power, but more disruption. So without anymore talk,here is the decklist.
Budget Control Slaver 60 cards
Mana  //24
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Volcanic Island
4 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Seat of the synod
2 Great Furnance
2 Darksteel Citadel
2 Mountain
1 Strip mine
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
D00DS // 6
4 Goblin Welder
1 Pentavus
1 Platinum Angel
Lock // 8
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Mindslaver
2 Aether spellbomb (for oath , you can use pyrite spellbomb instead)Counters n' Stuff // 22
4 Force of Will
4 Mana drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Tinker
1 Demonic tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Duress
I know that this deck really needs power , but i plan to acquire my power when i can work but i would like to get experience with the deck before getting the $$$ cards, it would also be a cool thing if this deck would do well , like Atog Lord said. If your local tournies are 5 proxy , you could improve this deck alot.
Does Anyone want to do Budget Slaver testing with me on MWS? PM me if you are interested.
PS: Congrats Atog Lord for the 51st place in Pro Tour:Colombus   (altough its a pity you didn't invent some cool Welder deck , i would have loved to see a welder deckdo good in 1.x)

[breseboy]

fact or fiction is too slow in 1.5 w/o power

[Jacob Orlove]

Closed.

breseboy: Warning for spam and poor posting.