[DECK] Kamigawan Slaver

[Vood]

I have been working lately on a slaver build that would win the mirror match. I played it at SCG Syracuse to a 12th finish.

Here is the decklist.

Mana Source[/u]
4 Volcanic Island        
4 Polluted Delta      
4 Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Strip Mine      
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Mox Pearl      
1 Mox Emerald      
1 Mox Jet      
1 Mox Ruby   
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus   
1 Sol Ring   
1 Mana Crypt
   
Disruption
4 Mana Drain         UU
2 Disrupting Shoal   XUU
4 Force of Will      3UU

Creatures   
4 Goblin Welder         
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel      
1 Duplicant         
1 Gorilla Shaman

Combo
1 Mindslaver      
1 Crucible of Worlds   

Draw Engine
4 Thirst for Knowledge   2U
1 Ancestral Recall      U
3 Gifts Ungiven          3U
4 Brainstorm          U
1 Deep Analysis     3U
1 Fact or Fiction           3U

Utils
1 Tinker            2U
1 Time Walk         1U
1 Yawgmoth wills         2B

Sideboard
1 Mindslaver
2 Lava Dart            
2 Engineered Explosives      
1 Shattering Pulse      
3 Blood Moon      
3 Red Elemental Blast   
1 Tormod's Crypt   
2 Rack and Ruin   

I will explain the choice for this build. I was playing Goth Slaver before coming up to this build so I will take goth slaver as the template. I think we already discussed a lot about Intuition/AK engine in previous post. Intuition/AK takes a whopping 7 slot in a deck. Since intuition would also be used as a way to drop artifacts in the graveyard, I went to find a way to replace the engine without losing too many card draw and keep intuition usefulness.

-4 Accumulated knowledge
+1 fact or fiction
+1 Deep Analysis

for 2 cards less, I get about the same card draw value. Sure both cost twice the mana, but slaver being a control deck, it doesn't hurt that much.

-3 intuition
+3 Gift ungiven

Again we raise the casting cost by 1 but we get a nice tradeoff getting 2 broken cards. Gift ungiven was a revelation for me in testing. Gifting for yawg will, ancestral, tinker and gorilla shaman always gets interesting results. Later on, I use gift to set up crucible combo/lock.

+2 Disrupting Shoals

I always wanted to play with them and I tried them. I consider them better than mana leak in a deck like control slaver. By raising the mana curve a little bit by 5 cards at converted cost of 4, shoal was now usefull against a lot more cards. Some say it is too situational, I respond yes, in those situations, its incredible. Its a bad spellblast, yes, but not as useless as mana leak in the late game. Its a bad force of will. Of course! nothings compare to force of will. But put all those qualities together, and you get a pretty good counter spell. Most of the time, I would pitch shoal to force of will. Often I would just hardcast it to counter ancestral and welder. It the versatility of this card that impress me the most. I would rather have 6 force of will effects against combo than some mana leaks...During the whole tournament, shoal has never been dead in my hand. Having 10 counters allows me to win the counter wars.

I won't comment matchups since they are pretty much the same as control slavers.

[Yossarian]

Hi,

I would never want to put someone down for trying new ideas, but  I am curious as to how you decided to put arguably the worst card in Betrayers into arguably the best deck in Type 1. Please do not take this a flame or shot of any kind. I just want some actual competitive play testing results.

thank you for your time

[Rebel7284]

Hi,

I would never want to put someone down for trying new ideas, but  I am curious as to how you decided to put arguably the worst card in Betrayers into arguably the best deck in Type 1. Please do not take this a flame or shot of any kind. I just want some actual competitive play testing results.

thank you for your time

12th finish out of a lot of decks does seem like a fairly good result.  Also using labels such as "worst" and "best" is usually not a good idea if you really do want to avoid people taking it as a flame.

Now for the feedback: This direction of adding more counters can possibly be the right direction and the different draw engine does get rid of the AK wars, however adding so many cards that cost more to play, do you find yourself short on mana more than earlier itterations of this archeotype?

[Vood]

Discussion has been done to death about disrupting shoal and I may be the only one who really played with it at a major tournament. My testing have revealed that 2 is the right number.

Raising the casting cost of spells didn't really cause any problem. Remember, Intuition + AK cost 5 mana. One thing everyone should remember, control slaver is a Control deck. It is slowly establishing its board control until you drop a threat, so 1 more mana is not likely to be a problem. One thing I have learned during my time with goth slaver, is that welders are only bait most of the time. But a bait that the other player can't leave alone. I am now considering running one trash for treasure instead of a welder. Trash for treasure would be a good target for gifts and is 1 turn faster than goblin welder.

[Tristal]

I'm not really sure if using Disrupting Shoal with the goal of winning a mirror match is ever a very useful idea.  Seems like pitching TFK to counter TFK is a little disadvantageous when it's the only thing you can pitch.  Force of Will is different here because you can pitch the worst blue card you have, but with Shoal you need to pitch the worst blue card of that CC - you've just limited your play options by a huge factor.  Of course, there is still a lot to be said about additional Welder counterspells at 1UU, but at the same time it's a lot harder to counter the expensive spells, like FoW.

[Vood]

First of all, Disrupting shoal is not Force of will or Mana drain.

We all agree that shoal is situational. Here is what my playtesting results are with the card.

 - Sometimes you hard counter a cheap spell like ancestral, welder etc.
 - Sometimes you force a dark ritual, welder pitching a brainstorm. You force a smokestack by pitching gifts ungiven, deep analysis, fact or fiction.
 - Most of the time, in the middle to late game, it is simply a counter that cost at most 6 to play.
 - Often you pitch it to force of will.
 - It will occasionally win an important counter war.

All this results in a card that is almost never dead in my hand most of the time. (Based on my playtesting). The point here is that I find Shoal better than mana leak in this deck. Shoals is not breaking the mirror, gifts ungiven is.

With Trinisphere restricted, we will probably see combo played more. I would rather have 6 force effects when this happens.

[Garth One Eye]

I really like the concepts you've put forth.  Up until now, I've been using Misdirections with limited success.  Another reason I like the idea of running Shoals is the "WTF!?" factor.  You know, the look on your opponets face when they see a card that they totally didn't expect to see.  

[forests failed you]

Assuming you are expecting less shop and more combo:  Why wouldn't you add +2, or +1 Underground Sea, and +2 Duress?  Duress seems much less situational than Shoal, plus seeing your opponents hand is a huge advantage when making tactical decisions.

[yodoblec]

Sure both cost twice the mana, but slaver being a control deck, it doesn't hurt that much.

Then why is it such a big deal about 7 mana? By the way Intuition + AK = 5 mana.

Looks like a good decklist though and I really like Disrupting Shoal, which I'm a big fan of having as a 2 or 3 of in control decks. If the match-ups are the same as slaver and you beat slaver in the mirror match then I would see no reason to play Goth Slaver.