[ Article] A Closer Look At Control Slaver

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=9061

Control Slaver is the hottest Vintage deck on the planet, but there's a huge amount of debate about what the best configuration looks like. Should the deck run the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine? Is it worthwhile to add Black to the deck? What's the best deck configuration to help you win the mirror match? Does Meandeck really need to use training wheels to win? All of these questions and more are examined inside!

[Moxlotus]

I thought this was a very well written article.  Especially with the 2/3 color Goth Slaver debate-there is no "right" choice all the time.  It was very informative on the merits of each deck and non-objective.

As the guy playing with Razormane Masticores, I can confirm that I won solely based on Cron not running Pentavus/any big guy in the second game.  When that crucible came into play, the biggest "WTF" came into my mind because I had never seen a Goth Slaver list before.  He had his moment of glory this weekend at least.

[Smmenen]

Exactly.  The lack of big men cost him games.  BTW, what do you mean by "non-objective"?  I'm arguing, I think, that there is a better choice and a worse choice in regards to whether or not to run black.

[Eddie]

Nice read. I was just looking at your "Goth" Slaver list, and I'm wondering why you don't play Tinker? Surely Tinker is a better main deck bomb than Mind Twist? It feels like the list is a little outdated.

e.g. I play your list -1 Intuition, -1 Mind Twist, -1 Mindslaver, +1 Goblin Welder, +1 Tinker, +1 Triskelion. Also, I have Crucible which allows me to run only 1 underground sea. I run a citadel en a strip mine instead of the second sea and the Library.

[Smmenen]

The Goth slaver list at the beginning of the article was made midsummer for that environment.  It is therefore 8 months out of date.  I didn't play Tinker becuase I felt that the deck was a Yawg Will deck, not a Tinker deck.  Tinker was only good for putting a large artifact into play - but it didn't draw any cards by itself.  Obviously, I think that is wrong today - but that's becuase of what I've already said.

[jingles]

Another fine article indeed Smmenen, was a bit curious about the whole tinker thing but the posts summed that up.  And I agree as you mentioned before, the debate between the 2 and 3 color slaver is a hard one. Personally I find that the 2 decks have there own place and time meta dependant of course.  However I tend to use the "goth+" version a bit more often due to the tweaks made to the build and the stability of the deck in the current format.  Having, or not having a Yawg will in a controll deck with only 8 hard counters to me is like jumping out of a plane with or with out a parachute.

Although that may be a little dramatic of an example im sure you get the point.  The inherint strength of slaver comes not from any one element but from the combined efforts of all parts, in some harmonic symphony of drawing,controll, and trix that all get to happen all over again thanks to the maestro himself Yawgmoth.

Then again things are changing due to the recent B&R which i will not get involved with here although I will say that I support most of the arguements you made in that thread.  


What will come of the Controll V.S. Combo???

[Moxlotus]

Replace non-objective with non-biased and it will read as I wanted it to.  What I meant was that you did not form an argument that Goth was clearly superior/inferior to Shay style Slaver.  Sorry for the confusion.

[Smmenen]

I really hope people read this article.  I put alot of effort into it and came up with some really cool scenarios in the second half of the article that any aspiring control player should read :p.

[Echoing Truth]

I really hope people read this article.  I put alot of effort into it and came up with some really cool scenarios in the second half of the article that any aspiring control player should read :p.

I belive that I fall into the catagory of "aspiring control player", and as such truly appreciate the effort you put forth to write the article.  I have read it multiple times to get the most from it.

I have been working on my own build of slaver, and have been torn on which version to base it off.  This article shed light on the differences between the two, and the sizeable advantage that Will gives to the deck.

In the article, you put forth:
" I do not believe you can simply cut AKs while running Deeps, as that permits your AK opponent to use their AKs freely. Not only that, but ballsy or stupid Goth Slaver players may not even cut AKs after game one. There are actually grounds for not doing so, which I can explain if asked."

I am asking you to explain, as I would like to know when its a good move to keep the AK's, and when its being a "stupid Goth Slaver player".

[Smmenen]

I'm actually glad you read it multiple times.  I was trying to reread it and some of the arguments I was putting forward were rather dense (i.e. closely argued and not fully elaborated).  I think it probably requires two reads to get all the information I was trying to describe out.

I think that if you are confident in your ability to essentially outdraw/play your opponent and you have plenty of REBS, and they don't, I might actualy Intution for AKs knowing full well my opponent has them.  Why?  Although in the long game this could be a problem, you are assuming that you can steal the game before it reaches that point with Yawg Will.  

It is difficult to put into specific terms that will help guide you aside from using bland statements like "strength of the player," number of Rebs in the SB, etc.  My advise is this: test the Goth Slaver mirror with AKs in after board.  See how often you can just AK 3 and 4 and prevent your opponent from even playing their first AK becuase of your card draw has turned sufficient enabled your countermagic to stop them.  

Does that help?

I'm afraid that my first argument: that Goth Slaver is, in my view, superior, may have been a little too complex for the amount of space I dedicated to articulating it.  

Does anyone understand my major point?  I also was hoping Rich would engage this debate - becuase I have been holding back this argument until this article was printed - choosing not to participate in various threads directly on point.  Alot of this article was directed at Rich Shay.  Ironically, it was written  before his article went up.  I didnt' make any changes after his article either.

[Null Rob]

Would this decision also hinge, at least in part, on whether you are on the play or the draw in games 2/3? It seems as though leaving the AK's in would be much better on the play since you'll start out with a good deal of tempo advantage.  It seems to me, from my testing with and against goth slaver, that it's almost always able to drop land, mox, mox; or land, mox, sol ring, or land, mana crypt, so that an Intuition on your opponent's turn one end step will allow you to cast AK for 3 on your turn 2, without your opponent having drain mana up yet.  If I were making the decision, I would almost certainly leave the AK's in on the play, and board them out on the draw.  The only thing to watch for is if your opponent left their AK's in as well, for them to play land, mox and cast AK for 4 in response to your AK, since you also won't have drain mana.  Let me know if there's any error in this thinking...it's been working out pretty well for me so far.

[Smmenen]

Would this decision also hinge, at least in part, on whether you are on the play or the draw in games 2/3? It seems as though leaving the AK's in would be much better on the play since you'll start out with a good deal of tempo advantage.  It seems to me, from my testing with and against goth slaver, that it's almost always able to drop land, mox, mox; or land, mox, sol ring, or land, mana crypt, so that an Intuition on your opponent's turn one end step will allow you to cast AK for 3 on your turn 2, without your opponent having drain mana up yet.  If I were making the decision, I would almost certainly leave the AK's in on the play, and board them out on the draw.  The only thing to watch for is if your opponent left their AK's in as well, for them to play land, mox and cast AK for 4 in response to your AK, since you also won't have drain mana.  Let me know if there's any error in this thinking...it's been working out pretty well for me so far.

Agreed.  That is what I was getting at.  

An additional wrinkle though is the quantity of REbs you may want to SB in and the difficulty in determining exactly what to SB out.  It's really a question of "Role" - i.e. who is the beatdown.  The problem is that you could be either control or beatdown and still win the game depending on the draws, etc.

[The Atog Lord]

Steve, I’m flattered that you want my input on the article. As such, I have made sure to prepare a response. However, I do not have SCG Premium, nor do I have plan to get it; therefore, my ability to respond to future articles is questionable.

Your first point is that Combo Finishes are creeping up in more non-traditional places, from aggro decks to control decks. I agree with you entirely. Part of this is a matter of personal style; even when I play a deck like Keeper, it quickly transforms itself into a sort of combo-control deck. But even beyond personal preference, there are certain advantages to a combo-finish in a control deck.

What comes to mind is that the goal of Old 1996-style Keeper is more akin to Stax than to Control Slaver. I realize that Control Slaver and Old Keeper are both Mana Drain Control style decks built around card drawing and generating card advantage. However, Control Slaver seeks to use its control elements to stifle the opponent only long enough to get its own combo elements into place and establish itself; from there, it uses its control elements to force through its combo. On the other hand, 1996.dec seeks to dominate the entire game state by dominating the opponent’s hand and board position; winning from this point is merely an afterthought. In fact, the older Keeper decks running Elemental Augury exemplify this point that Keeper in many ways seeks to establish a lock on the game. Thus, in some ways, Keeper is closer to Stax than Control Slaver.

Let me now address the question you raise about Yawgmoth’s Will’s place in Control Slaver. As I have posted before, I would sooner cut Ancestral Recall than Yawgmoth’s Will. I realize that you were discussing Goth Slaver, and the majority of my experience stems from Control Slaver without Intuition. However, what I can say is that I am constantly amazed by the way in which Yawgmoth’s Will allows me to win games that I would otherwise have lost.

You’ve heard of Win-More cards. I contend that Yawgmoth’s Will is in fact a Lose-Less card. I have, on many an occasion, been without a hand or anything resembling a decent board. And Yawgmoth has seen fit to be drawn by me and win me that game that no other card in the history of the game could have won for me.

But, I’ll spend no more time talking about how amazing Yawgmoth’s Will is in Control Slaver. I feel that the card is so powerful that it makes arguments for itself better than any I could make. Again, it is not that it will win you the games that are going well; rather, it is the ultimate spell with which to steal games that you are losing.

The only thing that I will mention is that playing a Slaver list without Tinker, as was posted in your article, cannot possibility be correct. Tinker is, like Yawgmoth’s Will, a card that can win you games when things start to go badly for you. Perhaps you can say that with all of your card drawing, you don’t need cards such as Tinker or Yawgmoth’s Will. My answer to that is that if you are drawing that many cards, you are already winning. If you imagine deck construction from the perspective that you will be drawing so many cards, then you are designing from too optimistic a perspective. In reality, draw engines fail through disruption, and games often do not go according to plan. What I love about Yawgmoth’s Will and Tinker is that they allow you to win those games, and not just the ones where you’re drawing seven extra cards.

Now, let me get to what I’m sure you wanted me to respond to: Whether Control Slaver (CS) or Black Trench coat and Marylyn Manson Records Slaver (GS) is better.

I’ll take a cue from you and begin by quoting myself. This is a good summary of my feelings on the matter.

“I personally find Control Slaver without Intuition or AK to be the best build. I think it is faster and more agile. I think the benefit of adding the Intuition/AK engine is most helpful in matches that are already good, and that the engine does little to help against matches that are already difficult. I realize that Intuition itself can be good without AK, but this requires a Welder on the board, thus making Intuition too situational for my taste as a stand-alone card.”

Now, I’d like to address your concerns. You say that my dislike of the AK engine is that it is not flexible enough. The AK engine in some decks is fine; I have used it in other decks, and believe that it belongs in some decks. The flexibility of which you speak is essentially the cost of the deck space required for including the Intuition engine. In other words, there is an opportunity cost associates with the draw engine of AK being included in the deck, and that cost translates into seven deck slots. Whereas GS is forced to fill those slots with the AK engine, I am more free to use those slots to adjust my deck to the metagame.

I haven’t used Blood Moon in quite some time, and believe the card to be suboptimal in today’s metagame. However, its inclusion illustrates that the CS build of the deck has more overall flexibility because it has more room for metagame cards. Recently, I have been running Skeletal Scrying, a strong draw spell immune to Misdirection and REB, which moreover takes up far fewer slots in the deck than the clunky AK engine. Again, I’m just listing these cards as examples, and not saying that any are the be-all end-all of metagame additions.

You continue to argue that Goth Slaver is superior by stating, “Because Goth Slaver is a more objectively powerful deck.” Surely you know that by assuming anything to be true, it becomes easier to prove. This seems to be what you are doing here – claiming Goth Slaver to be more powerful, and then using that claim to show that it is better than Control Slaver. You then compare AK to Thirst. I believe that Thirst is stronger, even if you end up with fewer cards in hand with Thirst than you would with AK. Oftentimes, I’d rather discard that artifact than have it in my hand anyway. And AK is more expensive than Thirst. First, Thirst requires three mana to see three cards, whereas Intuition/AK requires five. Second, and moreover, as I said before, the added cost of the Intuition is that it eats so much deck space. To be sure, this is another, hidden cost of the engine.

As for having to know when to time casting draw spells with Control Slaver, I agree that the deck is not easy to play. No argument here.

Finally, I’d like to address one more of your points, and hopefully clear up a misconception. You say, “Now, let's talk about this deck generally. This deck has glaring weaknesses that can be exploited. Stop the draw engine and you win. The problem comes when Goth Slavers start running Deep Analysis. Then the deck becomes too much to handle.”

This is where I must disagree. Trying to stop Control Slaver’s draw engine is a losing strategy. The deck – either my build or Goth Slaver – has so much draw that trying to out-counter it is like trying to catch all the drops of rain in a storm. I have yet to encounter a Control Deck that has a good game against Control Slaver. Rather, if Control Slaver can force a deck to become the Control Deck in the matchup against it, then Control Slaver is probably going to win. The way to actually stop the deck isn’t by hoping to control its draw power – that probably won’t happen. Rather, a better approach is to be so fast that Control Slaver is forced to become a Control Deck, something it is not as equipped to do. Control Slaver doesn’t need DA to make sure that it draws its cards, because in those situations, it is in good shape already. Rather, DA is too slow to be good in Control Slaver’s worse matchups.

Those are my thoughts after considering what you’ve said. Overall, I disagreed with less than I thought I would. I see what you are saying about trying to find a synergy between flexibility while maintaining that AK engine, though I’m convinced that whatever flexibility you receive will be less than what you would have without that engine.

[Smmenen]

Were you gearing up to disagree with it or something ?

You might have misread my article.  I spent an extensive amount of time arguing basically the same position as you with regard to Yawgmoth's Will: that it isn't so much of a win more card as a Lose-less.  My examples surely bear that out.  For example, my Meandeath example.  Also, I used it to show how you could leverage a win that would not otherwise be possible.  Did you think I was opposing yawg Will?  It should have been abundantly clear what my position was.

In addition, as I already stated - the list without Tinker was designed mid summer for an entirely different metagame where there was only control decks being played and I didn't want to cut an Intuitoin for it given the fact that the draw was the key to winning, not tinkering into play a large dude.  That is really a beside the point comment regadless becuase the list is outdated.  

As for the real debate: Goth v. Control Slaver - I was hoping to get you to see that you CAN acheive the flexibility you are looking for with Goth Slaver.  It just requires more work.  I'm quite aware that you haven't used Blood Moon or Wish in some time - but they illustrate the point: that you gain agility  from having greater freedom of design.  

However, you dispute the notion that Goth Slaver is objectively stronger.  If you sat down and goldfished both decks in a vacuum, I beleive most people would find Goth Slaver to be a monster and your deck to be nifty.   I think I said it best in the article: Goth Slaver can trade down but your deck can trade up - and in trading down (that is, in cutting great cards for additional flexibility that you would seek, Goth Slaver is in a better spot).  I think that the results of the Waterbury bear this out.  Ultima is the perfect example of cutting to gain flexibility in goth Slaver.  

The simple fact of the matter is that you are COMPLETELY right about Control Slaver being more Agile, but Dead Wrong about it being faster for reasons put forward in the article.   In fact, you concede this:  

As for having to know when to time casting draw spells with Control Slaver, I agree that the deck is not easy to play. No argument here.

And stopping the draw engine is certainly possible.  That's how I played you at Origins with Tog.  The only real pressure is on turn two when you have Land, Land, mox and possibly thirst, if you have played Thirst.  Otherwise, most control decks - decks that try to play the control role - CAN stop the draw engine with Rebs, Duress, Drain, and Force of Will.  Your only draw really is this: Fact, Thirst, and Ancestral.  That's 6 cards.  It is much more difficult to stop Goth's card drawing.  

My hope is that you might find ways to explore flexible design with Goth Slaver.  Becuase not only do I think you could make it work, but it would be scary good with your expertise of the archetype.

It may be that in the final analysis, you find greater flexibility that will enable you to perform at tournament with your build.  That is legitimate.  But I want to be clear that it is not because a) Control Slaver is faster b) or becuase it is strictly weaker.   It is a much closer balancing that you are undertaking and not at all obvious.  That was the whole point of my article.

You said in another thread that you tested Goth Slaver without Yawg Will against your deck.   Perhaps the one thing that should be absolutely clear out of this is that testing against Goth Slaver without Yawg Will is like testing Long without Yawg Will - you are taking away the core card that makes the deck run.  Hopefully you will test against Yawg WIll Gothenberg Slaver next time .

[Joblin Velder]

Very nice article, Chris. You hit on every point I could think of bringing up.

Yawgmoth's Will is insane in CS. Next to Tinker, it's the only card that really helps the terrible match up against fast aggro. I can't tell you how many times Rich or Chris have been one Warchief swing away from defeat, only to use Yawgmoth's Will and take control of the game, usually winning on that very turn.

[Meddling Mike]

I would hardly classify Yawgmoth's will in the "win more" category, often times a timely Yawg Will resolving has turned games completely around in my favor. It's even better when breaking open a tight game, forcing through a Yawgmoth's Will often marks the turning point in the game and the beginning of the end for my opponent. I would never play control slaver without Yawgmoth's Will.

Although I agree with nearly all the critiques made by Demonic Attorney, I found this particularly puzzling and astonishing.

Smmenen identifies the core of the Slaver deck as Mana Drain, Force of Will, Brainstorm, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk. Conspicuously absent from this set of core cards are Goblin Welder, Thirst for Knowledge, and Mindslaver—the cards which had always seemed to me to be the fundamental engine of every Slaver deck since the German prototype.

I'm not quite sure what criteria you used to determine what qualifies as a "core card" and I agree that mana drain is an important part of making the deck function properly as it is synergistic with the rest of the deck, but as Force of Will could be characterized as more of a disruption element I don't see how that could be included as the "core" and I find it rather ironic that Rich Shay's first Control Slaver list with which he won power only had 3 brainstorms. Although in hindsight this was most likely a mistake on Mr. Shay's part, I think it proves that the deck can properly function with less than 4 brainstorms.

[Matt]

The only thing I have to contribute here is to comment on the appallingly poor selection of terms. "Lose less" is really an awful term to describe what you guys are trying to say, because it doesn't follow the pattern of "win more" (which is already entrenched in the lexicon).

"Win more" = When you when, you do so by bigger margins
"Win more" =/= Win more often

yet both of you use 'lose less' to mean 'lose less often.' It seems to me that "lose less" should follow suit and mean "you still lose, but you make of a fight of it." Like imagine Sligh boarding in Ankh of Mishra against Dragon - it only minorly inconvienences the opponent. You still lose, it just takes longer.

I suggest "game stealer" or something.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Since jeek has assembled this in secret and I'm totally not gonna be doing an article on CS anytime soon, I think the debate should be informed by this table of the CS builds in his absolutely immense database of decklists.

Also, Chris, impressive criticism. I only hope I never invite that much controversy with one of my pieces. :)

[Jacob Orlove]

Since jeek has assembled this in secret and I'm totally not gonna be doing an article on CS anytime soon, I think the debate should be informed by this table of the CS builds in his absolutely immense database of decklists.

Also, Chris, impressive criticism. I only hope I never invite that much controversy with one of my pieces. :)

That table is misleading. It includes only three AK-slaver builds: two from europe, and one from Z's article. There's no mention of the waterbury AK builds, for example.

Also, the only deck to run 0 copies of Yawgmoth's Will in that list does not actually include any mindslavers! It's just counters, welders, fatties, and card drawing (including pulse of the grid!).

I can't see how that table is supposed to be relevant to the debates at hand.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Jacob:

The table's not perfect, and it's certainly not as controlled or comprehensive of non-morphling.de sources as I would like, but it does provide, for instance, a sense of the "core" cards (a point raised in Chris's critique), and specific items like Duress. If nothing else, the dominance of non-AK versions shows that (a) the Europeans prefer Rich's deck type, (b) exactly what they prefer it for in exacting detail.

Surely there's some insight about CS in there, despite the lack of data perfection. In almost any deck discussion there are assertions about what's common or universal; virtually any table like this is useful for substantiating and dismissing those assertions.

[Smmenen]

I'll say a few more words for Chris to mull over for his response:

Goth Slaver is the mana drain equivalent of Long: It's a Yawg Will deck.  It is designed entirely to find and play yawg will.  Decks like Tog and Goth Slaver are tempo losers.  They suck up mana and draw cards and draw and draw and draw.  Without Yawg WIll you have no way to easily recoup that tempo loss.  The card drawing and intuitions not only make it easier to find yawg will, they also make it more likley you will be able to protect it.  Testing Goth Slaver without Will is like testig Long without Will.

Ok, now - in talking with Rich, one of the notions he disputes is this "objective" notion.

With Long and Meandeck Tendrils and many other decks the design process I go through looks like this:

1) Step one is to goldfish the hell out of them.  Even Goth Slaver.  Why?  Becuase goldfishing helps identify intradeck synergies that you can maximize before tuning for your metagame.

Take GroAtog.  You can do this for GAT.  (i'm talking 4 Gush GAT).  That's how I came up with the versions I wrote about.

One may dispute whether this is good.  Goldlfishing can help you decide how many Merchant Scrolls to run in GAT or Intuitoins in Tog.  They can help you see frequency issues that assist, but do not decide design.  

2) Step two is to test against the metagame and then tune for flexiblity

You can actually goldfish Goth Slaver.  Goth Slaver is a combo deck that uses Drain to get mana and FOW to force through its draw spells.  But it can shift into a control role for a while and then BAM: Yawg will combo.

[ChaosTheory]

I would just like to say, great article Steve.

The whole "play it like a Yawgmoth's will deck" part has actually helped me to learn the deck better and have a better understanding as to why to use YawgWin and Black in general.

I still agree that the Intuition/Ak draw engine is good in the deck, esepecially with Yawgwin in the deck, so in a way you can play two diffrent types of games with Slaver.

You can go "Combo" with Yawgmoth's will and use your draw to feed it, or you can play strict control and not worry about the will at all.

Overall I think the article was a great read, and has helped me become better by understanding the deck even more. It has helped me to think "outside of the box" rather than keep my brain "inside the box" with Control-Slaver.

[Samite Healer]

I found the article to be excessively verbose, at times disorganized, and occasionally opaque in terms of diction.  Writing style is an important consideration when evaluating the quality of dialogue, just as content is.  Taking the extra few minutes to have someone else review your work for clarity or even just editing it yourself to make sure it's accessible to your readership is an important step in the writing process and should not be overlooked.  To do so is to place unnecessary barriers between your audience and your argument by forcing them to navigate flawed writing.

I agree with Demonic Attorney on this point, especially since avid readers of Vintage articles (of which I am NOT) are now forced to PAY to read the same compilation of prose that they would've received for free a few months ago.  Quite naturally, they expect to receive a certain level of argumentation with supporting facts and a clear thesis.

I'll readily admit it.  I had no idea what the hell you were talking about when you spoke of "trading up" and "trading down" in the respective Slaver decks.  However, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent man and a competent Vintage player; therefore, if I can't understand what you're saying, that's a problem with the manner in which you chose to say it, and not with my reading skills.

Likewise, I also consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person and extremely competent and competetive Vintage player; however, I still had no idea what Steve was talking about.  Perhaps if I read the article three times over I could figure it out, but I'm not about to spend the time doing that.

As fas as writing style goes, I believe it is important for everyone to have their own technique, as it adds flair and an individual touch the article.  I think Chris' main point about the article stems from this chain of logic:

1) This article was written to represent Steve's point of view regarding the subject/debate, provoke some thought, and help the avid Vintage reader make a decision.

2) In order to convey his thoughts, Steve should've provided a more focused argument conveniently backed up with facts X, Y, and Z.

3) Instead, the Vintage reader received a verbose and confusing article in which the points were not clearly outlined and supported, thus confusing said reader.

4) Chris felt obligated to make his opinion known so that these "complaints" can be addressed in future articles.

[Rico Suave]

Goth Slaver is a yawg Will deck. Everything you are trying to do is to find, play, protect, and maximize Yawg Will. That is your singular goal. Everything else is bait. Mid summer as I was tuning this deck from what the Swedes gave us, I found that in most of my testing I would rather have Intution number 4 than Tinker. Why? Because Tinker up Slaver/platz/pent is simply not better than drawing 3-4 cards. If I tinker up slaver but don't have Welder, I get one slave and spend resource into the Tinker which I don't get to recoup if the slave sucks. If I tinker up Platz, it is a 5 turn clock and too slow. I've invested my resources into it when I'd rather have played INtuition to find Aks. That was last summer. I claerly think that is wrong in todays environment. You will notice that although Rich has been running Platinum Angel for over a year, most decks did not include Platz until the rise of Oath. Tinker for Platz is so good against the Combo/oath metagame that it is stupid not to run it. But it is not the sacred cow in the summer that it is now in GOTH slaver. You invest resources for a plan that is by and large inferior to drawing cards to find and play yawg will.

Every deck is weak to something that Tinker finds.  If it's not Platinum Angel, Pentavus, or Trisk then it's Mindslaver.  Clearly you have never activated Slaver in the mirror if you think drawing 3 cards is stronger than Tinkering up a Mindslaver.  It is the only card, aside from Will and possibly LoA, that totally breaks open the mirror if it isn't stopped.  If I ever have a choice between drawing 3 and casting Tinker to activate Slaver, I will always cast Tinker because it doesn't matter how many cards my opponent draws or even if they cast Will as long as I'm controlling their turn.  

When you Slave somebody in the mirror, the following cards are good for you to see:

-Mana Drain
-Force of Will
-Brainstorm
-Ancestral Recall (who says we can't Slave and still draw 3?)
-Demonic Tutor
-Yawgmoth's Will
-Thirst for Knowledge
-Goblin Welder
-Tinker
-Mystical Tutor
-Lava Dart
-REB
-Fetchlands

For those of you counting, that's nearly half the deck.  At worst you get to Mind Twist half their hand away.  At best their Welder recurs your Mindslaver for you or you get to use their Will against them, which is just as game breaking as casting your own.

I've never heard of someone having a sucky slave against a deck that is meant to be slaved, and yes Slaver falls apart even if it gets Slaved only once.  Every card is weak to something, and Mindslaver is weak to many - Null Rod, stupid beatdown creatures, and the legendary rule.  That's why Tinker finds Platinum Angel, Pentavus, Trike, Sundering Titan, and a whole slew of other cards that when played cause the opponent to scoop their cards.  Rich even Tinkered for Sphere of Resistance against combo in the infamous Lava Dart game during the Waterbury finals, and won a close game.  

The notion that anybody could at any point in time cut Tinker and be better off for it is simply absurd.  Will aside, the entire point of Control Slaver is to get out a Mindslaver and activate it.  What card does this better than Tinker?  There is absolutely no reason, even during last summer, to ever cut Tinker.  

I'm going to forgo nitpicking you and attmept to recraft the argument I was making. Since that is really what matters: which side is right on this matter. Goth Slaver is an objectively stronger deck in vacuum. It is faster and more robust. The question is: is the AK/Intuition slots worth it? Most of the arguments have hinged on the notion that there are better things to do with those slots. My argument is that you CAN acheive ALL the things you want to achieve with Control Slaver WITH Goth Slaver. The difference is that it requires working within a tighter frame. Most of what I was doing in these paragraphs is trying to demonstrate how one might do that.

Hmm.  "Goth Slaver is an objectively stronger deck in vacuum."

I doubt the relevance of such a newly defined statement if the important  and overpowering point is that we are not operating in a vacuum.  If you reference Duress in your article as an option to play over Intuition-AK, then why didn't you also include how well Duress sets up Yawgmoth's Will?  It does a much better job than Intuition.  No it's not better in a vacuum, but casting Duress to clear the way for Will is much better when the only thing stopping your Will is what you just Duressed away.  It also only costs 1 mana, and not 5.  

Your argument that a Control Slaver player can work within a tigher frame and still achieve all the things he/she wants to is just a dream for me and many others.  Intuition-AK is at least 6 slots, and you seem to be implying more like 8 slots.  It seems you had an answer ready for this one though:

Deck design does not hinge upon whether a card has won you countless games. Deck design is far more intricate than that. You could have Abyss in yoru deck and have it win you 100 games in 30 tournaments, but Moat may have won you more. As always, it is a matter of determining whether another card is better overall. Most of the cards we consider for T1 decks are fucking awesome. It isn't a matter of whether these cards are good. Obviously Thirst is insane. But the reason I listed three thirsts is becuase if push came to shove, I'd rather have INtuition number 2 or Platz or any card that is trying to fight its way into the deck that I consider MORE "essential" than those cards. It is a matter of degree. And this is all the more important with Goth Slaver. You may not fullly understand this exercise becuase of your limited experience with Goth, but Goth is an extremely tight build. Cutting Thirst 4 or Welder 4 is something you can do if it will give you an even more broken card. In fact, I cut the 4th Welder when I was planning on playing it at SCG Chicago and my team followed suit. That would seem like sacrilege except htat it worked. Moreover, with Goth Slaver, Intution AK is better becuase you see more cards more quickly. That isn't to say that you won't run Thirst 4 - but if it came down to Intution 3 or Thirst 3, I would think long and hard and probablyo cut the third Thirst. The cards I listed as essential are the non mana sources which you can under no circumstances cut from the deck - not even if there is something that is just ridiculous to include - you have to cut something else to make room for it.

You say that to make room, perhaps cutting back on copies of Thirst for Knowledge or Goblin Welder will do the trick, since other cards are more broken.

As a Control Slaver player, I can certainly tell you that it is not in my best interest to cut down to 3, much less 2 Thirsts as you suggest to make room for Intuition.  Intuition may be able to abuse Goblin Welder, however Thirst abuses Welder and more since it unclogs the hand of large artifacts - something Intuition can't do.  Intuition can draw cards, and it can abuse Welder.  No doubt.  Thirst is the only card that can do both at the same time, and still leave your other mana open to use the spells drawn off it.  Anybody who has played Fish can tell you that tempo wins games, even if it is difficult to pinpoint and analyze correctly.  

Cut back to 3 Welder?  Welder essentially lets the deck bypass the drawback of this concept called the casting cost of artifacts, all for a measly R.  In most instances I'll look at a Mindslaver in my hand that wouldn't normally be playable until 6 mana, but suddenly it's hitting play when I'm at 3 mana (Thirst-Welder) and suddenly Welder is the red Ritual here.  That's not counting the times it's recurring Black Lotus either.  Why would I want to run only 3 of a card that lets me basically ignore the casting cost of such a powerful card that it lets me take control of the opponent's turn.  There's no doubt this deck is so powerful because of the synergy between Welder and Thirst.  Running less than 4 of either one is akin to running less than 4 Dark Rituals in a Tendrils deck.  

There is a certain threshold of artifacts in the deck that will make Thirst a consistent card and not just a mediocre cantrip, but Intuition takes up slots where artifacts would go.  Intuition takes up slots where I have mana.  Intuition takes up slots where I have potent card-draw already, such as Fact or Fiction.  At what point are we making so many small sacrifices that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because now we experience early game mana screw more often, our Thirsts don't give us artifacts to discard, and by the time we get to cast Intuition-AK we'd be at the top of the mana curve right where FoF would be, when it should be noted FoF gets SB'd out against many matches because it is too slow.  

If there was enough room to support Intuition-AK without sacrificing what I've just outlined above and more, then this would be a totally different scenario.  

What I am saying and what the Waterbury results bear out, is that you can get all the agility and flexibility from intelligent design. The deck is not so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could not play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants. The examples I provided were merely possible ways to approach the deck to acheive that end.

Taking out the double negative:

"The deck is so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants."

Either way, I don't see how that sentence, and thusly the point, makes sense.  I think that this is a perfectly good example where unclear wording not only detracts from the effectiveness of the arguement, but also renders it imcomprehensible to many.  

I can certainly see that Waterbury builds performed well with Intuition-AK.  On the other hand I am confused how AK Slaver is a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck as you stressed it when it appears to me that the Waterbury lists didn't even include the card.  Perhaps I'm just curious how that evidence supports your point, considering the entirety of the article and the whole picture of Goth Slaver being a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck.

[jpmeyer]

I cut out a massive amount of the arguments over semantics and rhetoric.  While the presentation of an article is important (note that I left in Samite Healer's post as he makes the point succinctly), this back and forth babbling was totally cluttering up the thread with 20 page treatises about grammar and crap that were making the thread very difficult to follow for people who cared about the actual arguments being addressed in the issue.[/color]

[Meddling Mike]

Because Tinker up Slaver/platz/pent is simply not better than drawing 3-4 cards.

How did I miss that?

I'd like to echo Rico's statements here, suggesting that 3-4 cards drawn>slavering an opponent is just ridiculous. Half the time an activated slaver wins me the game, the other half it sends me well on my way. Typically my opponent is left devastated after I brutally rape their hand and push all their resources to helping me out, they fetch to find nothing, play their own spells then force them removing key spells from the game and lord help them if I catch them with Yawg Will, ancestral or some way to find either of these. After all this is said and done, it must also be taken into account that I can now move to my turn assured that whatever important spells I deem fit to play will resolve. All this if I don't have a welder for recursion to boot.

Also, the other tinker targets are their for the simple reason that some decks cannot effectively deal with them. I've seen people concede to a turn 3 tinker for Platinum Angel because their deck simply did not run answers for her. Trike can pick off welders before they have a chance to become active and can be a beatstick when that's not necessary. typically I only find myself tinkering for pentavus when I need to deal with multiple threats at once and plats isn't needed for whatever reason, or I'm trying to finalize my slaver lock.

[Saucemaster]

Every deck is weak to something that Tinker finds.  If it's not Platinum Angel, Pentavus, or Trisk then it's Mindslaver.  Clearly you have never activated Slaver in the mirror if you think drawing 3 cards is stronger than Tinkering up a Mindslaver.  It is the only card, aside from Will and possibly LoA, that totally breaks open the mirror if it isn't stopped.  

Once again, Stephen specifically noted that the lack of Tinker this last summer was a reflection of his testing against the metagame this last summer.  How many Control Slaver mirrors were we all playing this last summer?  Because as I remember it, it was basically Rich Shay and a few other top caliber players who were piloting it to wins, and it was still just a strong niche deck at the time.  If you think Tinker still would have been better against last summer's metagame, I can see arguments for that point.  Make the argument!  Right now, though, you haven't actually addressed the point at hand, which is tangential in any case.

The notion that anybody could at any point in time cut Tinker and be better off for it is simply absurd.  Will aside, the entire point of Control Slaver is to get out a Mindslaver and activate it.  What card does this better than Tinker?  There is absolutely no reason, even during last summer, to ever cut Tinker.

You started to address it here ("even during last summer"), but you never actually supported the claim.  Again, I think you may have a point, though in any case that's a relatively minor point.  Steve can always just say "Yeah, that was a mistake" and his fundamental arguments remain unaffected.

I doubt the relevance of such a newly defined statement if the important  and overpowering point is that we are not operating in a vacuum.  If you reference Duress in your article as an option to play over Intuition-AK, then why didn't you also include how well Duress sets up Yawgmoth's Will?  It does a much better job than Intuition.  No it's not better in a vacuum, but casting Duress to clear the way for Will is much better when the only thing stopping your Will is what you just Duressed away.  It also only costs 1 mana, and not 5.

I think there's an interesting debate contained in this.  Here's how I view the point:

1) All other things being equal, if deck A is more powerful than deck B in a vacuum, it is a stronger deck than deck B is.  This is the guiding principle of Steve's point.

2) All other things are NOT equal.  Everyone acknowledges this.  Tournament play, which is all that matters, is not played in a vacuum, and you can't simply ignore your opponent.  Specifically, Rich doubts Goth Slaver's (deck A's) flexibility in adjusting to constantly changing metagame conditions, and feels that its extra power is undercut by its perceived inability to sufficiently adapt.

3) Steve disagrees.  He thinks that Goth Slaver, while it is a tighter decklist than Control Slaver, still has enough flexibility to adapt to the metagame while still being able to leverage its greater inherent power.

4) Obviously this is an issue that can only be settled by actual gameplay.  This involves both sides testing, and a close look at tournament results.  Steve points to his own (and generally, Meandeck's) testing and the Waterbury results.  Rich has a valid counter in pointing to his own numerous top finishes and constantly evolving decklist, which certainly displays a great deal of flexibility (and it certainly helps that he's and undoubted master at adapting his deck to the expected metagame).

So right now, I see it as a stalemate.  I'm not sure we're going to be able to solve this one simply through discussion, because I think this is one of those questions that can really only be solved by testing and more tournament results.  My personal experience is that Goth Slaver *is* flexible enough so far, but there's going to be a limit at some point to how much it can adapt, and I have no idea where that limit is.  My instinct is that if the metagame changes to the extent that you need more slots to shore up your metagame position than Goth Slaver affords, you're probably playing the wrong deck in the first place, and might be better served by simply changing decks entirely.

As a Control Slaver player, I can certainly tell you that it is not in my best interest to cut down to 3, much less 2 Thirsts as you suggest to make room for Intuition.

I'm not sure about this.  I think two is too few, I agree with you there.  But three Thirsts seems doable to me.  Four Brainstorms and three Thirsts, plus simply discarding at the end of your turn after drawing an assload of cards (as Goth Slaver is wont to do) seems reasonable to me.  And Stephen pointed out that cutting the fourth Thirst would be a rare occurence, and almost never correct.  So we're discussing fairly extreme conditions.

Cut back to 3 Welder?  Welder essentially lets the deck bypass the drawback of this concept called the casting cost of artifacts, all for a measly R.  In most instances I'll look at a Mindslaver in my hand that wouldn't normally be playable until 6 mana, but suddenly it's hitting play when I'm at 3 mana (Thirst-Welder) and suddenly Welder is the red Ritual here.  That's not counting the times it's recurring Black Lotus either.  Why would I want to run only 3 of a card that lets me basically ignore the casting cost of such a powerful card that it lets me take control of the opponent's turn.  There's no doubt this deck is so powerful because of the synergy between Welder and Thirst.  Running less than 4 of either one is akin to running less than 4 Dark Rituals in a Tendrils deck.

And running four Welders doesn't count all the times when you play a first-turn Welder who does nothing but sit on the table looking pretty until turn three or four.   Does that happen often?  Not particularly, no.  Do you almost always want four Welders?  Absolutely.  But the point is that, especially in Goth Slaver, you rarely want or need one on turn one.  With the number of cards this deck sees, Welder is like Psychatog: you're going to see one when you need it.  And you don't need it until you're ready to win.  I usually find myself dropping Welder until turn three so that I can drop him and keep up Drain mana or (with a Mox) three mana for Intuition or Thirst on my opponent's end step.  Again, you know the deck quite well and I know we're all aware of this.  But this is exacerbated in Goth Slaver by the fact that often the deck's Plan A is simply to cast YawgWill on turn four, play a Welder, play a Time Walk, then go apeshit.  Stephen wasn't kidding when he said that Goth can frequently be considered a YawgWill deck.  Goth Slaver views Welder more like Psychatog than it does like Dark Ritual.

What I am saying and what the Waterbury results bear out, is that you can get all the agility and flexibility from intelligent design. The deck is not so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could not play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants. The examples I provided were merely possible ways to approach the deck to acheive that end.

Taking out the double negative:

"The deck is so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants."

Steve put the second negative in the wrong place.  Let me rephrase it.  Here's the question: "Is the deck so tight that a player the calibre of Rich Shay cannot get all the agility and flexibility he wants if he plays Intuition/AK?"

Here's Steve's answer: "No."

The sentence was slightly flawed, but cut Steve some slack, guys.  He writes more articles, more frequently, than anyone else on this sight.  They can't *all* be perfect, and (IMHO) he's still the single best writer on the Vintage scene.

I can certainly see that Waterbury builds performed well with Intuition-AK.  On the other hand I am confused how AK Slaver is a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck as you stressed it when it appears to me that the Waterbury lists didn't even include the card.  Perhaps I'm just curious how that evidence supports your point, considering the entirety of the article and the whole picture of Goth Slaver being a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck.

That's a valid point.  It's worth noting that Goth Slaver is never *just* a Will deck, but that the deck very frequently plays as one and that's an entirely valid strategy for the deck.  Against a lot of deck's that really is Plan A.  I think the Waterbury builds point to the deck's being strong enough, even without one of its best cards, to still perform very well.  However, there is a very good counterargument here that I'd like to hear Stephen counter: if the deck is flexible enough to sufficiently adapt to the metagame despite the larger number of "core" cards that it needs to run, why is it that its best tournament results to date have featured decklists that seemed to need to cut one of its best cards in order to take the metagame into account?  And this was in a metagame where the deck has a natural advantage anyway (a lot of mirrors and other control decks running around, where the tempo loss that Rico has been talking about matters significantly less than against, say, a combo- or aggro/control-heavy environment).

[Rico Suave]

Every deck is weak to something that Tinker finds.  If it's not Platinum Angel, Pentavus, or Trisk then it's Mindslaver.  Clearly you have never activated Slaver in the mirror if you think drawing 3 cards is stronger than Tinkering up a Mindslaver.  It is the only card, aside from Will and possibly LoA, that totally breaks open the mirror if it isn't stopped.  

Once again, Stephen specifically noted that the lack of Tinker this last summer was a reflection of his testing against the metagame this last summer.  How many Control Slaver mirrors were we all playing this last summer?  Because as I remember it, it was basically Rich Shay and a few other top caliber players who were piloting it to wins, and it was still just a strong niche deck at the time.  If you think Tinker still would have been better against last summer's metagame, I can see arguments for that point.  Make the argument!  Right now, though, you haven't actually addressed the point at hand, which is tangential in any case.

The notion that anybody could at any point in time cut Tinker and be better off for it is simply absurd.  Will aside, the entire point of Control Slaver is to get out a Mindslaver and activate it.  What card does this better than Tinker?  There is absolutely no reason, even during last summer, to ever cut Tinker.

You started to address it here ("even during last summer"), but you never actually supported the claim.  Again, I think you may have a point, though in any case that's a relatively minor point.  Steve can always just say "Yeah, that was a mistake" and his fundamental arguments remain unaffected.

If Steve admitted to it being a mistake, that would be one thing.  We all make mistakes, there is no shame in it.  I didn't ever see him admit to making a mistake though.  In fact, he further argued in the face of criticism that he was justified in running it "during last summer."

Now perhaps Tinker didn't work for him last summer.  That is not a fault of Tinker.  Tinker can only be as good as the best artifact in the metagame, so if Tinker ceases to be good then artifacts cease to be good.  Clearly that is not the case now, nor during last summer.

I doubt the relevance of such a newly defined statement if the important  and overpowering point is that we are not operating in a vacuum.  If you reference Duress in your article as an option to play over Intuition-AK, then why didn't you also include how well Duress sets up Yawgmoth's Will?  It does a much better job than Intuition.  No it's not better in a vacuum, but casting Duress to clear the way for Will is much better when the only thing stopping your Will is what you just Duressed away.  It also only costs 1 mana, and not 5.

I think there's an interesting debate contained in this.  Here's how I view the point:

1) All other things being equal, if deck A is more powerful than deck B in a vacuum, it is a stronger deck than deck B is.  This is the guiding principle of Steve's point.

2) All other things are NOT equal.  Everyone acknowledges this.  Tournament play, which is all that matters, is not played in a vacuum, and you can't simply ignore your opponent.  Specifically, Rich doubts Goth Slaver's (deck A's) flexibility in adjusting to constantly changing metagame conditions, and feels that its extra power is undercut by its perceived inability to sufficiently adapt.

3) Steve disagrees.  He thinks that Goth Slaver, while it is a tighter decklist than Control Slaver, still has enough flexibility to adapt to the metagame while still being able to leverage its greater inherent power.

4) Obviously this is an issue that can only be settled by actual gameplay.  This involves both sides testing, and a close look at tournament results.  Steve points to his own (and generally, Meandeck's) testing and the Waterbury results.  Rich has a valid counter in pointing to his own numerous top finishes and constantly evolving decklist, which certainly displays a great deal of flexibility (and it certainly helps that he's and undoubted master at adapting his deck to the expected metagame).

So right now, I see it as a stalemate.  I'm not sure we're going to be able to solve this one simply through discussion, because I think this is one of those questions that can really only be solved by testing and more tournament results.  My personal experience is that Goth Slaver *is* flexible enough so far, but there's going to be a limit at some point to how much it can adapt, and I have no idea where that limit is.  My instinct is that if the metagame changes to the extent that you need more slots to shore up your metagame position than Goth Slaver affords, you're probably playing the wrong deck in the first place, and might be better served by simply changing decks entirely.

I fully understood the point he was making.  

As you said the statement "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" is conditional upon all things being equal.  Once we get to step #2 in your flow, we must reapply that to step #1 and we then realize that the condition upon which step #1 hinges is false, that is all things are not equal and consequently the statement thereafter is not necessarily true or false - it's just not relevant.

In simple wording, "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" means absolutely nothing.  Arguing theory and having a catchy slogan all is fine, but the statement is clearly an illusion with no real application.  I would assume it would mislead a great number of people unable to see through the smoke, though.  

That is what I meant by saying I don't see the relevance of such a newly defined statement.  Concerning the rest of what you quoted here, it seems you didn't respond to the main point I tried to make that Duress is an example of a card that may not be strong in a vacuum, but it certainly is a good card in actual gameplay.  I saw no reference in the article to even a passing thought that Steve has played anything but Intuition-AK in the deck.  I saw nothing that showed me he has played the deck with other possible cards that may set up Will better than Intuition-AK, and I can't assume otherwise.  I saw no critical analysis of Intuition compared to other cards that may also set up Will better than what Intuition-AK currently does.  That right there is content.  The only things I saw were several dismissed cards and ideas and an onslaught of praise for AK.  I'm saying it would be far more persuasive if Steve took into account other options aside from Intuition-AK and at least explained each option's usefulness before implying it is the wrong choice.  

Ultimately, yes, tournament results are the best factor in determining whether AK should be run or not.  Are you aware of any such numbers?  I am.  

As a Control Slaver player, I can certainly tell you that it is not in my best interest to cut down to 3, much less 2 Thirsts as you suggest to make room for Intuition.

I'm not sure about this.  I think two is too few, I agree with you there.  But three Thirsts seems doable to me.  Four Brainstorms and three Thirsts, plus simply discarding at the end of your turn after drawing an assload of cards (as Goth Slaver is wont to do) seems reasonable to me.  And Stephen pointed out that cutting the fourth Thirst would be a rare occurence, and almost never correct.  So we're discussing fairly extreme conditions.

I'm glad you wouldn't cut any Thirsts and would instead call it a rare occurrence.  Regardless, Steve was discussing the 3rd Intuition vs. the 3rd TFK in his article, which is well beyond the point of cutting the 4th TFK, and the 4th Thirst isn't even on the list of cards that must be included.  It's the primary engine!    

You did conveniently ignore the rest of my reasoning for TFK.  It is for tempo reasons that TFK is so good.  Fish would beat Tog based purely on tempo, and Control Slaver does much of the same.  I don't see how taking away that aggressive tempo only to replace it with something slower is going to help accomplish anything.  

Cut back to 3 Welder?  Welder essentially lets the deck bypass the drawback of this concept called the casting cost of artifacts, all for a measly R.  In most instances I'll look at a Mindslaver in my hand that wouldn't normally be playable until 6 mana, but suddenly it's hitting play when I'm at 3 mana (Thirst-Welder) and suddenly Welder is the red Ritual here.  That's not counting the times it's recurring Black Lotus either.  Why would I want to run only 3 of a card that lets me basically ignore the casting cost of such a powerful card that it lets me take control of the opponent's turn.  There's no doubt this deck is so powerful because of the synergy between Welder and Thirst.  Running less than 4 of either one is akin to running less than 4 Dark Rituals in a Tendrils deck.

And running four Welders doesn't count all the times when you play a first-turn Welder who does nothing but sit on the table looking pretty until turn three or four.   Does that happen often?  Not particularly, no.  Do you almost always want four Welders?  Absolutely.  But the point is that, especially in Goth Slaver, you rarely want or need one on turn one.  With the number of cards this deck sees, Welder is like Psychatog: you're going to see one when you need it.  And you don't need it until you're ready to win.  I usually find myself dropping Welder until turn three so that I can drop him and keep up Drain mana or (with a Mox) three mana for Intuition or Thirst on my opponent's end step.  Again, you know the deck quite well and I know we're all aware of this.  But this is exacerbated in Goth Slaver by the fact that often the deck's Plan A is simply to cast YawgWill on turn four, play a Welder, play a Time Walk, then go apeshit.  Stephen wasn't kidding when he said that Goth can frequently be considered a YawgWill deck.  Goth Slaver views Welder more like Psychatog than it does like Dark Ritual.

It's blatantly obvious that a Dark Ritual effect is greater than a Psychatog effect.  

Just because a first turn Welder is inactive for a turn or so doesn't mean that it isn't bringing in a Mindslaver when it does become active.  In the example you provided, by all means cast Intuition-AK during my end step.  If I played a "useless" Goblin Welder first turn I'll respond with Thirst, weld in Slave, take your turn and use Will for my own good.  Unlikely?  It takes 7 mana, whereas your Welder, Intuition-AK play is 6.  As far as tempo is concerned, those plays are VERY close in terms of when they happen during a normal course of the game.  You tell me which one wins.

Of course it's a powerful early play.  The point is that by running 4 Welders and 4 Thirsts, those plays will happen as often as they possibly can.  Cutting back on either card will only disrupt the natural flow of the deck and make it more difficult to achieve it's goal.

If you can find another slot to cut besides TFK or Welder, I'm all ears.

What I am saying and what the Waterbury results bear out, is that you can get all the agility and flexibility from intelligent design. The deck is not so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could not play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants. The examples I provided were merely possible ways to approach the deck to acheive that end.

Taking out the double negative:

"The deck is so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants."

Steve put the second negative in the wrong place.  Let me rephrase it.  Here's the question: "Is the deck so tight that a player the calibre of Rich Shay cannot get all the agility and flexibility he wants if he plays Intuition/AK?"

Here's Steve's answer: "No."

The sentence was slightly flawed, but cut Steve some slack, guys.  He writes more articles, more frequently, than anyone else on this sight.  They can't *all* be perfect, and (IMHO) he's still the single best writer on the Vintage scene.

Good.  That's one improvement down, now let's hope this trend continues.

I can certainly see that Waterbury builds performed well with Intuition-AK.  On the other hand I am confused how AK Slaver is a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck as you stressed it when it appears to me that the Waterbury lists didn't even include the card.  Perhaps I'm just curious how that evidence supports your point, considering the entirety of the article and the whole picture of Goth Slaver being a Yawgmoth's Will combo deck.

That's a valid point.  It's worth noting that Goth Slaver is never *just* a Will deck, but that the deck very frequently plays as one and that's an entirely valid strategy for the deck.  Against a lot of deck's that really is Plan A.  I think the Waterbury builds point to the deck's being strong enough, even without one of its best cards, to still perform very well.  However, there is a very good counterargument here that I'd like to hear Stephen counter: if the deck is flexible enough to sufficiently adapt to the metagame despite the larger number of "core" cards that it needs to run, why is it that its best tournament results to date have featured decklists that seemed to need to cut one of its best cards in order to take the metagame into account?  And this was in a metagame where the deck has a natural advantage anyway (a lot of mirrors and other control decks running around, where the tempo loss that Rico has been talking about matters significantly less than against, say, a combo- or aggro/control-heavy environment).

Firstly, I want to say I think tempo plays a huge role in the mirror too.

I don't think Yawgmoth's Will is a metagame call.  I can't explain why those players chose not to run it.  Maybe they were afraid of Crucible, or non-basic hate.  I don't know.  Whatever the case, I have no qualms with Steve regarding the use of Will.  I was simply wondering why he referenced evidence to support one point when the evidence he himself referenced is itself directly contradictory to his other points.  If anything is to be drawn from those decklists, it's the conclusion that "the only way to get AK Slaver to work is by cutting Yawgmoth's Will."  I trust Steve would not recommend those as optimal decklists for that very reason, and so I was left curious how those decklists prove his point that Control Slaver players can work within a tighter frame and still get everything they wish.  Will is obviously something I wish to have, but the data that Steve offers me as a guideline to include AK only leaves me wondering why these people can not play Will.  I don't get it.

[Smmenen]

I doubt the relevance of such a newly defined statement if the important  and overpowering point is that we are not operating in a vacuum.  If you reference Duress in your article as an option to play over Intuition-AK, then why didn't you also include how well Duress sets up Yawgmoth's Will?  It does a much better job than Intuition.  No it's not better in a vacuum, but casting Duress to clear the way for Will is much better when the only thing stopping your Will is what you just Duressed away.  It also only costs 1 mana, and not 5.

I think there's an interesting debate contained in this.  Here's how I view the point:

1) All other things being equal, if deck A is more powerful than deck B in a vacuum, it is a stronger deck than deck B is.  This is the guiding principle of Steve's point.

2) All other things are NOT equal.  Everyone acknowledges this.  Tournament play, which is all that matters, is not played in a vacuum, and you can't simply ignore your opponent.  Specifically, Rich doubts Goth Slaver's (deck A's) flexibility in adjusting to constantly changing metagame conditions, and feels that its extra power is undercut by its perceived inability to sufficiently adapt.

3) Steve disagrees.  He thinks that Goth Slaver, while it is a tighter decklist than Control Slaver, still has enough flexibility to adapt to the metagame while still being able to leverage its greater inherent power.

4) Obviously this is an issue that can only be settled by actual gameplay.  This involves both sides testing, and a close look at tournament results.  Steve points to his own (and generally, Meandeck's) testing and the Waterbury results.  Rich has a valid counter in pointing to his own numerous top finishes and constantly evolving decklist, which certainly displays a great deal of flexibility (and it certainly helps that he's and undoubted master at adapting his deck to the expected metagame).

So right now, I see it as a stalemate.  I'm not sure we're going to be able to solve this one simply through discussion, because I think this is one of those questions that can really only be solved by testing and more tournament results.  My personal experience is that Goth Slaver *is* flexible enough so far, but there's going to be a limit at some point to how much it can adapt, and I have no idea where that limit is.  My instinct is that if the metagame changes to the extent that you need more slots to shore up your metagame position than Goth Slaver affords, you're probably playing the wrong deck in the first place, and might be better served by simply changing decks entirely.

I fully understood the point he was making.  

As you said the statement "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" is conditional upon all things being equal.  Once we get to step #2 in your flow, we must reapply that to step #1 and we then realize that the condition upon which step #1 hinges is false, that is all things are not equal and consequently the statement thereafter is not necessarily true or false - it's just not relevant.

That's false.  The only relelvant question is: Is the benefit of running AK greater than the cost?  That's it.  The analysis that Goth Slaver is more powerful in a vacuum IS relevant to that. HOWEVER, it is not logically necessary to accept that point to conclude that the benefit of AK engine is worth the cost.  That's where you and Chris were getting tripped up.  It was simply a supporting point and in no way necessary to the conclusion that Goth Slaver is  better becuase the AK engine is worth it.

In simple wording, "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" means absolutely nothing.  Arguing theory and having a catchy slogan all is fine, but the statement is clearly an illusion with no real application.  I would assume it would mislead a great number of people unable to see through the smoke, though.  

That's, again, false.   Objective power is most definately a relevant question.  Objective power is measurable and it has an application.  It is one factor, among many, that you should consider in determining which deck to play.  Objective power is often measured by goldfishing,  Goldfishing helps identify, as I said, intra-deck synergies that should be considered in weighing final design questions int he cost/benefit analysis. It is not determinative, as I said, but it helps. All information helps. I talked with Rich about this and the problem is that you simply can't goldfish with Control Slaver - it doesn' t make any sense to do so. BUT, you CAN With Goth slaver. You can play out the whole game in solitare in a way that you can't with Control Slaver becuase the decks, in some ways, are so different.

Most importantly, and the primary reason you are making a false statement is this:
 Speed is relevant. Speed is a measure that has many purposes. Faster decks can slow down and in doing so leverage their speed to trade for power. In other words, you can slow down a fast deck and often leverage that speed into a more powerful play next turn. With meandecck tendrils, the goldfish rate is mostly turn one, but if you slow it down, you can make your hand more resilient to their countermagic on turn two becuase you can then over power them with too many threats. The same principle applies here. The faster your goldfish the more inherent burst of power you have that can be leveraged into a more dominant midgame position.

That is what I meant by saying I don't see the relevance of such a newly defined statement.  Concerning the rest of what you quoted here, it seems you didn't respond to the main point I tried to make that Duress is an example of a card that may not be strong in a vacuum, but it certainly is a good card in actual gameplay.  I saw no reference in the article to even a passing thought that Steve has played anything but Intuition-AK in the deck.  I saw nothing that showed me he has played the deck with other possible cards that may set up Will better than Intuition-AK, and I can't assume otherwise.  I saw no critical analysis of Intuition compared to other cards that may also set up Will better than what Intuition-AK currently does.

That's what the point of this thread is for.  My article wasn't to assert conclusively that AK engine is superior - it was to suggest that those who don't like it might be able to get the same things out of the Goth Slaver builds that they like out of the other builds.  Getting into the specific card analysis is way beyond the scope of the article.  It is much more suited for a direct dialogue, say here, to talk about individual card valuations.  I know very well the value of Duress in control decks to protect will.  

 That right there is content.  The only things I saw were several dismissed cards and ideas and an onslaught of praise for AK.  I'm saying it would be far more persuasive if Steve took into account other options aside from Intuition-AK and at least explained each option's usefulness before implying it is the wrong choice.  

Again, that sort of analysis is also beyond the scope of the article.  The article was intended to be the start of a dialogue about AK/Intuition - not the end of it.  That's why I directed it to Rich and why I wanted him to respond.

Ultimately, yes, tournament results are the best factor in determining whether AK should be run or not.  Are you aware of any such numbers?  I am.  

Absolutely you can point to a million tournaments won by Rich Shay.  But that doesn't not prove that AK engine isn't better.   Why?  Becuase as I said in my response to Chris, you can win 100 games with Abyss, but you might have won 101 with Moat.  Moreover, the Waterbury generally provides the most convincing evidence and would have to be given by far the greatest weight.  But I'd rather not go down this road becuase, it, like the debate about my clarity in writing, will distract from the only relevant question: is AK worth the benefit?  And the only way we can persuade the other side is by presenting convincing arguments for our positions.  I think the burden is clearly on the non-AK players to explain why they think its better without it given my claim that they can get all the cards they want into their decklists if they just work a bit harder at it.  The top two decks at the Waterbury prove this: both had great metagame choices: md darts and Wishes.

As a Control Slaver player, I can certainly tell you that it is not in my best interest to cut down to 3, much less 2 Thirsts as you suggest to make room for Intuition.

I'm not sure about this.  I think two is too few, I agree with you there.  But three Thirsts seems doable to me.  Four Brainstorms and three Thirsts, plus simply discarding at the end of your turn after drawing an assload of cards (as Goth Slaver is wont to do) seems reasonable to me.  And Stephen pointed out that cutting the fourth Thirst would be a rare occurence, and almost never correct.  So we're discussing fairly extreme conditions.

I'm glad you wouldn't cut any Thirsts and would instead call it a rare occurrence.  Regardless, Steve was discussing the 3rd Intuition vs. the 3rd TFK in his article,

This statement is a plain lie.  The first three TFK were in my "essentials" list and therefore I never ONCE said that the third TFK was cuttable.  

You did conveniently ignore the rest of my reasoning for TFK.  It is for tempo reasons that TFK is so good.  Fish would beat Tog based purely on tempo, and Control Slaver does much of the same.  I don't see how taking away that aggressive tempo only to replace it with something slower is going to help accomplish anything.  

Again, no one is talking about cutting out TFK from the deck entirely.  I was simply making the piont that if push came to shove, I'd rather have the third Intuition than the 4th TFK.  

Cut back to 3 Welder?  Welder essentially lets the deck bypass the drawback of this concept called the casting cost of artifacts, all for a measly R.  In most instances I'll look at a Mindslaver in my hand that wouldn't normally be playable until 6 mana, but suddenly it's hitting play when I'm at 3 mana (Thirst-Welder) and suddenly Welder is the red Ritual here.  That's not counting the times it's recurring Black Lotus either.  Why would I want to run only 3 of a card that lets me basically ignore the casting cost of such a powerful card that it lets me take control of the opponent's turn.  There's no doubt this deck is so powerful because of the synergy between Welder and Thirst.  Running less than 4 of either one is akin to running less than 4 Dark Rituals in a Tendrils deck.

And running four Welders doesn't count all the times when you play a first-turn Welder who does nothing but sit on the table looking pretty until turn three or four.   Does that happen often?  Not particularly, no.  Do you almost always want four Welders?  Absolutely.  But the point is that, especially in Goth Slaver, you rarely want or need one on turn one.  With the number of cards this deck sees, Welder is like Psychatog: you're going to see one when you need it.  And you don't need it until you're ready to win.  I usually find myself dropping Welder until turn three so that I can drop him and keep up Drain mana or (with a Mox) three mana for Intuition or Thirst on my opponent's end step.  Again, you know the deck quite well and I know we're all aware of this.  But this is exacerbated in Goth Slaver by the fact that often the deck's Plan A is simply to cast YawgWill on turn four, play a Welder, play a Time Walk, then go apeshit.  Stephen wasn't kidding when he said that Goth can frequently be considered a YawgWill deck.  Goth Slaver views Welder more like Psychatog than it does like Dark Ritual.

It's blatantly obvious that a Dark Ritual effect is greater than a Psychatog effect.  

Just because a first turn Welder is inactive for a turn or so doesn't mean that it isn't bringing in a Mindslaver when it does become active.  In the example you provided, by all means cast Intuition-AK during my end step.

You just have a fundamentally flawed understanding of how Goth Slaver works.  The deck doesn't jsut sit there and wait for welder to work.  Often with Goth Slaver I won't even play a Welder until I've cast Yawg Will and Time Walk out of it and then Welder.  The analysis comes down to: would you rather have the 4th Welder or another draw spell: i.e. 3rd Intuition or Fact.   A definate amount of the time, I'd rather have the draw spell with Goth Slaver.  Moreover, the example you gave with Mindslaver is rather puzzling as almost all of these decks only run one Slaver, and at most two.  Welding in Pentavus or PLatinum Angel is a weak manuever for Goth Slaver given what it can do.  

 If I played a "useless" Goblin Welder first turn I'll respond with Thirst, weld in Slave, take your turn and use Will for my own good.  Unlikely?  It takes 7 mana, whereas your Welder, Intuition-AK play is 6.  As far as tempo is concerned, those plays are VERY close in terms of when they happen during a normal course of the game.  You tell me which one wins.
 

Again, you example is extremely puzzling considering that you probably only have one Slaver, or at most, two.  Your chances of going turn one Welder turn two Thirst dropping slaver and welding it in is extremely low.    

Of course it's a powerful early play.  The point is that by running 4 Welders and 4 Thirsts, those plays will happen as often as they possibly can.  Cutting back on either card will only disrupt the natural flow of the deck and make it more difficult to achieve it's goal.

Again you simply don't understand the goal of the deck.  This isn't control slaver - it's Goth Slaver.  Instead of maybe getting to Slave you, Goth Slaver wants to outdraw you by a huge margin, and then fucking obliterate you with a massive will.  

If you can find another slot to cut besides TFK or Welder, I'm all ears.

What I am saying and what the Waterbury results bear out, is that you can get all the agility and flexibility from intelligent design. The deck is not so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could not play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants. The examples I provided were merely possible ways to approach the deck to acheive that end.

Taking out the double negative:

"The deck is so tight that the player the calibre of Rich Shay could play Intuition/AK and still get all the agility and flexibility he wants."

Steve put the second negative in the wrong place.  Let me rephrase it.  Here's the question: "Is the deck so tight that a player the calibre of Rich Shay cannot get all the agility and flexibility he wants if he plays Intuition/AK?"

Here's Steve's answer: "No."

The sentence was slightly flawed, but cut Steve some slack, guys.  He writes more articles, more frequently, than anyone else on this sight.  They can't *all* be perfect, and (IMHO) he's still the single best writer on the Vintage scene.

Good.  That's one improvement down, now let's hope this trend continues.

You didn't answer the question though: can Rich Shay make Goth work with the agility and flexibility he wants?  

This is the question I hope, FINALLY, we can get to.  Instead of arguing about Rhetoric - can we PLEASE start addressing this issue?  I've put forward my arguments, now instead of critiqing the clarity of  my article (which you have successfully done) or arguing minor/ancillary points that don't directly bear (whether one deck is objectively more powerful or the debate over goldfishing), let's address the only central issue in this whole debate: Is the benefit of AK worth the cost?

[Saucemaster]

As you said the statement "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" is conditional upon all things being equal.  Once we get to step #2 in your flow, we must reapply that to step #1 and we then realize that the condition upon which step #1 hinges is false, that is all things are not equal and consequently the statement thereafter is not necessarily true or false - it's just not relevant.

I think that's slightly off-base.  Moving to (2) doesn't mean that (1) is irrelevant, but it does call into question the nature of its relevance.  (1) identifies "power in a vacuum" as a potential way to evaluate a deck's strength.  (2) acknowledges that there are other ways to evaluate that strength as well, which may sometimes override (1) entirely, or for all we know may in some cases be entirely overshadowed by it.  Which is why your next statement:

In simple wording, "Goth Slaver is an objectively more powerful deck in a vacuum" means absolutely nothing.  Arguing theory and having a catchy slogan all is fine, but the statement is clearly an illusion with no real application.

...is not supported by anything you've yet claimed or argued for.  All your Duress example demonstrates is that there are considerations besides power "in a vacuum" that also affect the strength of a deck.  Of course there are.  We all know that, we've agreed on that point.  In fact, that's the exact *premise* of the argument at hand.  My point is that as far as I can see, there's no way besides testing and tournament play that we can actually evaluate which is more important, and to what degree the objective power of a deck is mitigated by interactive considerations.

Logically speaking, this is like saying, "Since air resistance can change the rate of a body's acceleration in freefall, and since the simple formula for the acceleration of a falling body due to gravity doesn't take air resistance into account, that formula is utterly useless."  It's not, it's just that, for some practical purposes, it will have to be modified to account for other forces.  I assume that what you're really contending is that the concerns--like counter-strategies, tactical interaction, and so forth--of tournament Magic are such an overwhelming force that a deck's objective power is only rarely, if ever, a factor.  I disagree, though I think there are obviously cases (like Meandeck Tendrils) where the increase in objective power is insufficient to counteract the corresponding weakness in interactive play.

Ultimately, yes, tournament results are the best factor in determining whether AK should be run or not.  Are you aware of any such numbers?  I am.

Tournament results *and testing*.  My personal belief is that very few people on either side of the table have actually done enough testing with both builds.  The tournament results so far are biased by the fact that so many more people are *playing* the Intuition-less builds, so testing is the next natural step.

You did conveniently ignore the rest of my reasoning for TFK.  It is for tempo reasons that TFK is so good.  Fish would beat Tog based purely on tempo, and Control Slaver does much of the same.  I don't see how taking away that aggressive tempo only to replace it with something slower is going to help accomplish anything.

Intuition is only slower than TfK when you're considering it as a draw engine.  I know it's been said many times by many people besides myself, but Intuition really only finds AK in those cases where the deck can afford the tempo loss *anyway*.  In almost all other cases, Intuition is simply an instant-speed tutor for a 3-of.  In this role, it's not actually comparable to any card in Control Slaver, since Control Slaver doesn't even have a card that functions in this way.

I also think you're underestimating Goth Slaver's ability to recoup lost tempo.  Tempo does win games, in Type 1 more than any other format, but this deck in particular can do just what Psychatog used to, and make up for its lost tempo in spades.  Giving up tempo in order to recoup it with interest later in the game has always been one of the fundamental principles guiding Control decks in all formats.

Not to mention those times when Intuition is actually more tempo-positive than TfK is, namely any time you have a potentially active Welder.

And finally, note that this only even becomes a consideration in talking about one card in the deck in strange circumstances: i.e. in an imaginary metagame where you have to decide between Intuition #3 and Thirst for Knowledge #4.

It's blatantly obvious that a Dark Ritual effect is greater than a Psychatog effect.

Except that Goblin Welder isn't always a Dark Ritual effect, and that in any case the Ritual effect is *identical* no matter what turn it's cast on, as long as it's cast on the turn before you want to Weld something.  There may be times when you want to weld on turn 2, but god-hands aside, they're actually a rarity.  You are much more likely to jockey for position for a turn or two and THEN start welding, and that's the position in which Goth Slaver often finds itself, and where it Intuition helps it excel.  For that purpose, the 4th Welder, while frequently desirable, is not strictly necessary.

In the example you provided, by all means cast Intuition-AK during my end step.  If I played a "useless" Goblin Welder first turn I'll respond with Thirst, weld in Slave, take your turn and use Will for my own good.  Unlikely?  It takes 7 mana, whereas your Welder, Intuition-AK play is 6.  As far as tempo is concerned, those plays are VERY close in terms of when they happen during a normal course of the game.  You tell me which one wins.

In the example I provided, if I resolved a Welder on turn three, holding enough mana to either Drain or cast Intuition or TfK, and I cast Intuition on your endstep, what in the world makes you think I'm going to Intuition for AK?  I don't require anything LIKE 6 mana (which in any case is a full turn faster than your 7 mana), I just need that three mana on your endstep, and then I get to weld the juicy artifacts I Intuitioned for on my turn.  We're not comparing 6 and 7, we're comparing 4 and 7.  And as far as tempo is concerned, those plays aren't anything near close in terms of when they happen during the normal course of the game.