You only though ankh sligh was dead.....

[Deathisforyou]

well heres the deck everyones been downing as of late. so i looked at the primer on the [card]Mana Drain[/card] to see why the builds of sligh that have been going around were losing. it made alot of sense. heres my take on Ankh sligh. heres the decklist and breakdown.


// Lands
    1  [card]Strip Mine[/card]
    3  [card]Wasteland[/card]
    17  [card]Mountain[/card] (2)

// Creatures
    4  [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card]
    4  [card]Gorilla Shaman[/card] (2)
    4  [card]Jackal Pup[/card]

// Spells
    1  [card]Black Vise[/card]
    1  [card]Mox Ruby[/card]
    4  [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card]
    2  [card]Isochron Scepter[/card]
    1  [card]Wheel of Fortune[/card]
    4  [card]Price of Progress[/card]
    4  [card]Incinerate[/card]
    4  [card]Chain Lightning[/card]
    4  [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]
    2  [card]Fireblast[/card]

// Sideboard
SB: 4  [card]Scald[/card]
SB: 3  [card]Rack and Ruin[/card]
SB: 4  [card]Fire[/card]/[card]Ice[/card]
SB: 4  [card]Red Elemental Blast[/card]


Creatures
[card]Gorilla Shaman[/card]- Due to the lack of power in the deck(also it power slows it down) this little critter is a 4 of for taking out moxen [card]Sol Ring[/card] or other mana accelleration.

[card]Grim Lavamancer[/card]- This guy here takes old bolts and makes em into [card]Shock[/card]s. hes good [card]Disrupt[/card]ion against aggro. and combined with any other burn spell in the deck he takes out anything thats as fat as 5. hes re-useable burn that just keeps on pingin.

[card]Jackal Pup[/card]- Quite strait forward. 2/1 one mana. hes fat for one mana. and he is gonna get through once the oposing creatures get toasted. he puts heavy pressure that sligh needs early game to win on your opponent.

Bolts:

[card]Lightning Bolt[/card]- one mana. three damage. instant speed. no more to say.

[card]Chain Lightning[/card]- its a waterd down version of the [card]Lightning Bolt[/card]. its still one for three damage however. its effect can be quite annoying at times. is strictly better then [card]Shock[/card](i [card]Retract[/card] all preveous statments kurt).

[card]Incinerate[/card]- Instant speed 3 damage for 2. gets rid of those pesky regenerators as well.

Damage Sources:

[card]Price of Progress[/card]- this little thing kills control. for 2 mana you can completely ruin a control deck. its happned many many times in the past. its probably one of the most lethal cards in the deck. when your facing aggro it gets boarded out for [card]Fire[/card]/ce

[card]Ankh of Mishra[/card]- considering that sligh only needs 3 lands to run off whenever your opponent drops a lands this little bugger does 2 damage. combined with [card]Black Vise[/card] or anothing [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card]. this little 2 mana artifact can be quite a threat.

[card]Black Vise[/card]- first turn lay. does alot of damage. souped up bolt.

[card]Isochron Scepter[/card]- one of these suited up with a [card]Fire[/card]/[card]Ice[/card] or a bolt of some sort can be the little bit of board control you need. or it could just be the end of your oppoenent. this little tool is best suited for an [card]Incinerate[/card] or a [card]Fire[/card]/[card]Ice[/card].

[card]Fireblast[/card]- well 0 mana for 4 damage? and its playable when your tapped out. combine with a [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], [card]Chain Lightning[/card], or [card]Incinerate[/card] and early game [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card] damage this little dude is gonna kill ya.

Draw:

[card]Wheel of Fortune[/card]- well, the little piece of gear gets me a mit full of burn spells. i dont really think there is much of an explanation for it. the only worthy draw spell for a mono red ankh sligh deck.

SideBoard:

[card]Scald[/card]- well, your playing a keeper or a blue based control deck. bring in the fucker. so when your opponent drops a land and taps it. thats a grand total of a bolt to there forehead. combine with multiple [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card]s it usually can mean game following a few bolts.

[card]Rack and Ruin[/card]- blows up to artifacts. this can mean 2 trinixphers a trinixpherer and a [card]Smokestack[/card] 2 juggernaughts. its really the most stable card in the sideboard.

[card]Fire[/card]/[card]Ice[/card]- well when your facing aggro and your [card]Price of Progress[/card] arent doing anything usefull and your only getting about 2 damage out of them. then your really gonna need to take POP out for this little fers. takes out 2 1/1 critters or one big 2/2 critter. its the same as pop except that you get to divide the damage up.

[card]Red Elemental Blast[/card]- well, agains [card]Mana Drain[/card] and [card]Force of Will[/card]. your gonna need this things. and it stops the [card]Cunning Wish[/card] to get the naturlize for your [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card]


Mana sources

[card]Mountain[/card]- obvious cho[card]Ice[/card] here.

[card]Mox Ruby[/card]- its a [card]Mountain[/card], except that it gets to drop a turn earlier than most lands. i find its they only acceptble mana acceleration in the deck.

[card]Strip Mine[/card]s- well [card]Wasteland[/card]s and stripmine blow up your opponents non-basic lands. taking away an opponents land isnt good, because there gonna wanna replace it. with [card]Ankh of Mishra[/card] down/knowing you have an arsenal of damage sources. there not going to want to relay that land any time soon.


in any case. thats the breakdown of all the cards. the build seems quite effective against most tier one decks. it has a little problem with most welder archtypes. and any comments or ideas are greatly appriciated.

-Doug

[Zherbus]

Re-opened. The Newbie forum should allow this, if not for explanatory purposes.

[PipOC]

Can you explain the reasons why you are ressurecting this deck, why it would be viable in this metagame?  Your decklist looks to be little different from all the builds I've seen over the past year, you have no secret tech or anything.  You're also playing wheel of fortune...Letting workshop dump their hand a draw a new one on your turn is just about the worst thing you can do if you aren't going to win that turn.

[martyr]

Here's what I see wrong with the deck:

#1: No fetch lands. You're playing Grim Lavamancer. In a SLIGH deck. Fetch lands will give you anywhere from 1-3 extra shots with this mutha, as well as thinning your deck out. I would play the full complement of 8.

#2: No Barbarian Ring. This smacks Silver Knight, as well as being uncounterable damage. This is the kind of card that Sligh's all about: squeezing the last little bit of damage out of every resource you have.

#3: 4x Gorilla Shaman. I'd rather play 2x and then something cool, but if this works for you, then whatever.

#4: Wheel of Fortune. You know what I love doing? Spending my third turn doing nothing! It just puts a smile on my face! And gosh-darned if I don't cream my shorts if I can get my opponent to draw a bunch of cards while I'm at it!

#5: Mono-Red. This is best for Goldfishing, but you'll run into problems when you start actually playing against people. I would suggest Green or White (Green for Naturalize/Elvish Lyrist and Artifact Mutation, and White for Disenchant/Serenity/Seal of Cleansing/Reprisal). This'll be especially easy when you throw in those 8x Fetch lands

#6: You're not playing with Goblins. Goblins gives you better creatures, and cheaper, more effective burn. Hate to say it, but your build has nothing over Goblins unless you want a slightly better game against decks that play excessive amounts of lands, all the time.

[Berserk]

Wouldn't fetches put him at a severe disadvantage with his Ankh of Mishra? He would be taking 4 dmg for every fetched land while he could be taking 2.

Wooded Foothills
, Pay 1 life, Sacrifice Wooded Foothills: Search your library for a Mountain or Forest card and put it into play. Then shuffle your library.

Ankh of Mishra
Whenever a land comes into play, Ankh of Mishra deals 2 damage to that land's controller.


Fetches are great synergy with Grim Lavamancer but the Ankh really screws with that plan. I can't think of a situation where I would ever consider playing Ankh of Mishra in any Vintage deck. I'm sure it only works correctly in land destruction decks, and those... don't exist in Vintage.

[sa17dk]

I wasn't as concerned about the Fetchland/Ankh problem as much of the fact that if you were going to go with the 8 Fetch plan, then you would probably have to figure out something to replace Fireblast with, since it wouldn't alwasy be reliably castable.

My build runs 4 Pyrostatic Pillars over the Lavamancers since right now, you have absolutely no way of dealing with combo at all. Another possible advantage of running the Pillar is being able to replace the horrible Scalds with better cards, since the Pillar hoses control decks pretty well.

[martyr]

Wouldn't fetches put him at a severe disadvantage with his Ankh of Mishra? He would be taking 4 dmg for every fetched land while he could be taking 2.

Wow. My bad.  I believe I wrote that late at night, on finals week. Sheesh.

Yes, fetches are slightly poor with Ankh. Wossname's got a point: Ankh is poo. Play two more Isochrons and some more burn. Or actually....just play Goblins.

[Mark_Story]

I think a goblin creature base would be much faster and have denser more relavant threats.  Piledrivers can swing for huge amounts of damage, with just a few other goblins on the table.  

I would suggest looking at the goblin sligh decks that are played in Legacy.  

Or taking a look at RDW archetype used in legacy and extended for some ideas.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21078

[Jujuboy]

Right now my friend is playing something like this:

Creatures: 16
4x Gorilla Shaman
4x Lavamancer
4x Mog Fanatic
4x Slith Firewalker

Burn: 12
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chainlightning
4x Incinerate? (Pretty sure he runs these, might be something else in this slot)

Hate: 13
4x Ankh of Mishra
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x Price of Progress
1x Black Vice

Mana: 19
12x Mountain
4x Wasteland
1x Stripmine
1x Lotus Petal (Becomes Black Lotus with proxies)
1x Sol Ring (It’s decent with his main deck but great with his board. Becomes Ruby when using Proxies.)

Sideboard (roughly):
4x ReB
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Rack and Ruin
3x Bloodmoon


He's been trying to make red work for awhile now and this is his best attempt yet IMO, the deck is stuffed full of spells that average at least 4 points of damage within a turn of two of casting them (Pillar, Ankh, PoP). His match up against the tier 1 decks is pretty rough game 1 but he has been playing Mono-Red for so long he can still make the powered players at the store work for their wins (at least the ones where they weren't able to mull into a first turn Oath.) The four serious vintage players at our store play Oath, Oath, 4CC+Green, Various Workshop Decks.

Post board he does surprisingly well.

He can bringing in shiz like 4x Ensnaring Bridge and 4x ReB vs my Oath deck, (boarding out liabilities like Firewalkers and Lavamancers.)

R&R proves pretty effective against the Workshop decks, especially with all the ways to burn welders. I’ve also seen him use his bridges to strong effect vs artifact decks.

Against control Blood Moon + ReB come in to back up his full compliment of main deck Mox Monkeys and ankhs giving him a pretty solid mana denial game plan.

Anyone have thoughts on this list? It cuts chaff like Jackal Pup and Fireblast for what he and I feel to be more reliable sources of damage and the ensnaring bridge seems to be genuine tech vs the dominant decks at our shop.

A couple random thoughts:
Fetchs + anhk not= a combo
Barbarian Ring + Lavamancer not= a combo
Isochron Scepter < Ankh, Pillar and PoP

[Veru_]

Goblin bombardment is better against oath than bridge, which costs more, and won't ping the crap out of them.

[Frappie]

Mox Ruby- its a Mountain, except that it gets to drop a turn earlier than most lands. i find its they only acceptble mana acceleration in the deck

.

last time i checked black lotus was pretty good too. Just my opinion. If your concerned about them welding the lotus for iso scepter then you have a problem cause that means you let them have a welder. Also in Extended magma jet is being tested over volc hammer (or Incinerate in your deck) because of consistency issues. Plus Scepter+Magma Jet = gooseness.

[doctrellor]

What about adding ...

4x Cursed Scrolls
1x Fork

[Frappie]

I completely disagree with fork. The problem with fork is that either a.) you are casting a spell in your deck that is more powerful then the two mana your paying on it, i.e. the only card in his deck that would be worth it is fireblast. Or your opponent is casting a major spell and you just happened to havbe left your mana open rather then killing him, way too situational.

[pinoy_tech]

As stated before, I think a goblin creature base is much more efficient. You then could replace the chains for goblin grenade. Also, if you are going to run ahnk in your deck, instead of the 2 fireblast, you could use shrapnel blast in its stead. Its cc fits your mana curve quite nicely and gets that extra point of damage in. I also think slith firewalker is much better creature in the place of the 'pups, though it costs 2, its haste and ability to potentionally "gro" make it much better than the vanilla 2/1 for 1cc w/ the potential to kill yourself.

[andrewpate]

Okay, there is no chance that Shrapnel Blast would come in for Fireblast; that's just a fact.  Even if your deck did have enough artifacts to support Shrapnel Blast, that wouldn't be the card to cut.  But it doesn't.  Sure, you can sack Ankh, but I find Ankh to be a questionable play in the first place and when you do play it, Shrapnel Blasting with it basically amounts to a big, sorcery-speed, overcosted burn spell that could have been Fireblasts 3 and 4.  To support it, you'd need to run Great Furnace like Big Red does, and lands that get hosed by Null Rod are not exactly brilliant in a deck relying largely on its amazing game 1 against Null Rod decks in the first place.  Sligh does two things:  it kills dudes and it kills players.  Think very carefully before adding any card incapable of single-handedly doing either or both of these things.

On another note, I must agree that the goblin creature base is much better.  Turn 1 Mountain, Skirk Prospector, turn 2 Mountain, Mox Ruby, Goblin Warchief, turn 3 Mountain, Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Piledriver, Fireblast.  Your opponent is now dead.  Please show me a turn 3 kill draw with only 1 restricted card in it and only 1 doubles draw of a 4-of using your list.  And there are others, such as triple-Piledriver and no Mox.  I don't know if Goblin Grenade would be smart or not--I tend to think that it would--but I do know that the goblins' tribal synergy is better than Jackal Pup and friends when you are concerned primarily with the 20 to 0 game, which Sligh is.

[pinoy_tech]

I've already mentioned the goblin set-up for a better creature base. But what I'd like to address is the current errata for Shrapnel Blast to clarify what it does, as a few individuals obviously do not.

Shrapnel Blast
   
Instant
As an additional cost to play Shrapnel Blast, sacrifice an artifact.
Shrapnel Blast deals 5 damage to target creature or player.

With the list given, he has 8 artifacts and the 2 fireblast. All I was suggesting was to change the fireblast to shrapnel blast. Do not lecture me if you yourself do not know what the errata on the card is. He does not need to include the artifact lands to support it, as stated before, he is running 8 artifacts to 2 shrapnel blast.

-tech

[andrewpate]

That post made absolutely no sense.  That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever read.

Errata?  There is no errata for Shrapnel Blast.  What you posted is exactly what it says on the card, what it says in the Oracle, what it says everywhere.  There is no errata.  None.  And furthermore, 8 artifacts and 2 Shrapnel Blasts, while sounding fine when worded in that way, is ridiculous, seeing as how 2 of those artifacts are Isochron Scepters (meaning you spend 3 cards for 5 damage, unless you are playing the Scepter unimprinted, which is idiotic) and 4 of them are Ankh of Mishras which, as I have said, probably shouldn't even be in there.  Certainly Black Vise and Mox Ruby might outlive their usefulness and be cashed in for a quick 5 to the dome, but that is exactly 2 artifacts that you might reasonably want to sacrifice to Shrapnel Blast.  With artifact lands you'd have 2 mana and 1 land for 5 damage instead of 0 mana and 2 lands for 4 damage, which might (might!) actually be better, but wouldn't be worth it due to other problems such as Null Rod, Back to Basics, etc.

Shrapnel Blast is crap in this deck.  End of story.