Strawberry Crush

[Corndog]

Thread split off Rico's post due to being extremely offtopic. -jeek

I have a workshop arggo deck I play that I've pretty much only seen in the northwest. It derived from Affinity and became Crusher.

The table top crew were the first people I saw play it. It ran blue for tinker, time walk, ancestral.

I playtested the deck vigorously and came up with using red.

I present to you Strawberry Crush:

This is the most update and best list I feel.

Cory McElroy
Strawberry Crush

MD
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Memory Jar
3 Lighning Greaves
4 Triskelion
4 Goblin Welder
4 Arcbound Crusher
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Metal Worker
4 Skullclamp
4 Myr Retriever
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Great Furnace
4 Wasteland

SB
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Jester's Cap
4 Defense Grid
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere

I have played this deck 3 times in a 30-55 person tournament. I have made top 8 every time, and taken first to win a mox once.

Background on the deck.

Basically I saw the deck played and was dumbfounded that Arcbound Ravager + Triskelion was amazing. The tabletop crew were racing combo with creatures, and touted the ability to kill on the second turn.

So I get a list, put it together and start playing. I fall in love with the deck. Its fast, its resilient and can combo out facing any type of threat.

The first list that I tested ran Tinker, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, Sundering Titan, 4 Arcbound Workers. That is the difference from my current list.

Playing the deck, you get the feel that retriever is really good. I decided that I needed to test red, Initially it was for sideboard options vs combo and welders. The welders are amazing in this deck. Not only do they do the normal tricks... But let me list the other benefits of him.

1. Welder + retriever nets you a artifact from the graveyard.
2. Helps you make Crusher get bigger by swapping artifacts.
3. Allows you build a arcbound creature's counters with only having 1 in play and 1 in the graveyard.

Those are the main 3 things that welder does in this deck that it doesn't do in every artifact deck. Still stellar vs control and still welds out someone else's colossus.

When playtesting this deck, I kept asking myself what is the weakest card in the deck. And I always came back with the answer of Arcbound Worker. Everything else in the deck seemed to fit the feel. This creature did not however. The only thing he really adds to the deck is the ability to move mod counters on him and make the deck a little more resilient to artifact hate.

So at this point the deck was the same as above except it ran 4 goblin welders and 3 arcbound workers. At this point I switched the arcbound workers to jester's cap main deck.  It was good, however I found it to be useless in non combo or combo finish deck matches.

So after playing 2 tournaments and hundreds of games. I came to the conclusion that Goblin Welder is too slow. He was gettin killed or being drawn the turn I was comboing out for the win and was essentially just a clamp target or a non artifact that was taking up space.

Lightning Greaves is the answer. It speeds up the fundamental turn of this deck by 1. This deck would put out tons of third and 4th turn kills. With Greaves it is now 2nd and third turn. It also makes comboing out much easier, once you clamp some stuff and draw into that second metalworker that used to be dead...now nets you like 12 mana... and fuel to go through the rest of your deck.

Lightning Greaves has fringe benefits only noticed when playing a bunch of games. The protection that it provides... Welders and ravagers. Many times I'll throw out a bunch of moxes, a ravager, and a greaves, and have a 5/5 hasted cant be targeted ravager in play... 4 turn clock that cant be answered directly.

I know combo is this deck's nightmare... However this deck is incredibly consistant. My team mates would ask what I was gonna do vs combo and I'd say "lose" jokingly.

This deck has a different mentality than most other decks in the format. It is really consistant. It will never win on the first turn, and rarely on the second, but like 60% on the third turn and the rest by turn 5.

When I analyze how a Match can go this is what outcomes I forsee when playing any deck.
1. I get a broken hand and win on turn 2 or 3.
2. They get a broken hand and win before I can get to turn 2 or 3.
3. They get a bad to mediocre hand.
4. I get a bad to mediocre hand.

What crusher's biggest strength is... Is it's ability to eliminate #4. I'm not saying you wont have to mulligan. Because you do a fair share of mulliganing. I'm just saying that its so redundant and synergistic that it doesn't really have a bad hand, baring you get 3 mana by turn 2.

I expect any given match to end in 3 games with Crusher. And I've built the sideboard accordingly. The deck does win 2-0 semi-often, But it requires them to get a bad hand or me get a broken hand games 1 and 2.

Trinisphere only comes in vs combo and when I play first vs any deck. Trinisphere is really bad in this deck and is really bad in general when played going second.

Defense grid is a great first turn play vs control, for 2 mana it says opponent must counter this. It helps metalworker hit play vs control.

Jester's cap is potent, especially in a deck that can drop and activate it first turn. Helps the combo match up.

I run spheres in the board just to throw a wrench in combo's gears. It doesn't really stop much of the combo, But it can lead to you still being alive around turn 5.. Which should have sealed you the game.

Honorable Mentions
Cranial plating. Everyone knows this is a beating. However I don't feel it fits the deck, alone it does nothing. If i have a creature out, I'm usually winning anyway.

Staff of Domination: it taps akroma, it combos out for the win. But coming up with 3 artifacts in hand, a non sickened metalworker and no disruption is a lot to ask for in type 1.

Junk Diver: Retriever 5-8? Or just a flying retriever? I'm not sure that 1 more mana is worth making it fly. I never really have a problem trampling over something.. and usually just end up killing with a triskelion anyways.

The Blue Vs Red Debate.

Blue is good for short power bursts.
Red is good for longevity.

With this deck, 1 welder activation is as good as a Tinker or ancestral. I weigh welder as an ancestral every turn. Every turn that welder is active, it is equivalent to drawing 3 cards.

I basically have seen lots of attempts to break ravager/skullclamp on the forum. And have sat back and played this to top 8 finishes 3 times with lots of testing. Before I gave my list to the community. And yes I've tested disciple of the vault, and yes it is horrible without a ravager in play.

The key to this deck is having everything interact with eachother, but nothing only interacting with just 1 other card in the deck.

Matchups:

Single worst match up has to be Control Slaver.

I've played it 3 times in a tournament. Once in swiss, and twice in top 8. I've only ever beaten it in the swiss by a good player who still made top 8. The losses went to Randy Bueler and another wizards employee who borrowed Randy's deck for the next tournament.

The reason Slaver has so much game against Crusher, is their game plan is to slave you once to win... and they know you don't have any disruption besides what you see on the board.

Combo the second worst match up
Anything that can kill before crusher gets a turn is a problem. Tps is a larger problem due to main deck hurkyls recall and rebuild. Other things like dragon with blue etc are usually 1 turn to slow.

Control decks are usually in Crusher's favor due to so much recursion, they can counter stuff, but they cant counter all the threats, even retriever is a threat because it'll get something back they don't want.

Arggo and Arggo control are usually really favorable to Crusher. Due to the fact that you can do your combo thing while they watch and be pissed that someone else is playing creatures that aren't 11/11 in type 1.


CS seems to be leaving and gift colossus taking it's place. I think it makes Crusher an excellent candidate for any large tournament in the near future.

I plan to play this deck on Saturday at power tournament being held at regionals.

I hope this helps some people, because it took a while to type this out.

Thanks for reading.
Cory

PS Thanks too
Virtual and Xrizzo from TWL for constructive input on the deck.
Table top crew for showing me the original deck.
Team card tard  for helping me test all of the changes.

[Vegeta2711]

So you lose to CS, you lose to Gifts and you lose to combo. Solid. Oh and you die to any deck that packs Balance in the off-chance they bother to tutor for it and blow up the world.

I wish people would stop posting lists, as they seem to get worse and worse the further from the original post we get.

[Corndog]

So you lose to CS, you lose to Gifts and you lose to combo. Solid. Oh and you die to any deck that packs Balance in the off-chance they bother to tutor for it and blow up the world.

I wish people would stop posting lists, as they seem to get worse and worse the further from the original post we get.

I dont want this to turn into a flame war. But you could atleast playtest the deck before you belittle it. Yes, grabbing balance and wiping my board kills me. So does combo, comboing out before CS ever gets a turn. And yet its considered one of the best decks. These are extreme examples.

Against gifts you have welder vs their colossus. Not to mention the fact that gifts is relatively slow.

Combo is the worst matchup, its not unwinable.

I put alot of time, and so did other TMD members into this deck, and it went through three 30-55 person tournaments and made top 8 three times and won one of them. All of this was done before it was brought to the community.

And all you do is attack it with a "I dont like this deck, i wish you newbs would fall off the earth and stop trying to play magic" attack.

I surf this forum just as much as the next guy. And I see decklists I think are horrible, and are horrible. Usually they have no playtesting background and no matchup analysis or card choice arguments and are quickly locked or disreguarded.

I do a matchup analysis and am torn apart to identifying a weakness.

This may be why people don't wonna take the time to write about a deck on these forums.

Thanks
Cory

[Vegeta2711]

Here's the thing, you admit you have a horrible CS match, which is one of the better / popular decks nowadays. Typically that would automatically make running such a build a risky proposition. But then if you even just take a look the Gifts vs. Crusher match, you realize you have 0 disruption against them and they can go wild doing whatever they feel like.

Against gifts you have welder vs their colossus. Not to mention the fact that gifts is relatively slow.

Gifts IS slow, but mostly only when you do something to disrupt the mana. This means, Sphere, Chalice, Smokestack, etc., meanwhile you only have 5 strips to effectively stall against them. The worst part is, they can easily fetch 2 Island and then just Drain the biggest target you decide to play on your 2nd or 3rd turn with no reprecussions or difficulties. This allows them an easy 2-4 mana boost on their next turn and you'll have serious issues trying to stop them from comboing out.

And if you're going to try and rely on Welder to stop DSC, more luck to you. Because that's the only way it'll do a damn thing to help in the match. It certainly isn't going to stop them if they Gifts combo out, run the Belcher win or decide to just counter it.

Yes, grabbing balance and wiping my board kills me... These are extreme examples.

How is fetching Balance in Stax with 4-5 tutors an extreme example? Winning on turn 1 with a combo deck vs. fetching a restricted card and casting is so different it's a ludicrous comparison to make.

[Corndog]

I'm just saying there is more to this deck that it looks like on paper. Lets take the balance issue. Balances own as long as there isnt a retriever or skullclamp out, and your hand is empty. There are other things to consider in this stax matchup.. Like the fact that you have probably more permenants than them. And that retriever saced to smokestack is almost helping you. Not to mention you can board in crucibles as well. Not to mention that a resolved metalworker puts you so far ahead of stax counters. You can sac all your lands, and still cast as if nothing is going on.

Also vs gifts they have to have 2 fetches to be able to drain. If you go first, if they dont have force of will, you can kill them before they get to two mana, barring they dont have lotus, or sapphire.

This deck banks on the fact that 2 outa 3 games, you're not gonna find the answers fast enough.
I think the probblem with online deck critiquing is that in theory, you're right this deck isa pile.

Lets look at food chain for instance. Its a deck that pretty much has no chance in beating combo. And yet it does sometimes. TPS or dragon should on paper beat goblins every time. They can beat a 3-4 turn clock with ease.

However tournaments are won with goblins rarely, and do beat combo in swiss rounds.

This is the result of the combo player not being able to find that 1 last mana source to go off in time, or the goblin player dropping 2 first turn lackeys, followed up by kiki and piledriver.

I believe that this deck tries to abuse a part of magic that most decks dont. The fact that you can be consisnt and self driven.

I know you're thinking wtf are you talking about.

Lets look at gifts ungiven decks. They're consistant, which is why its good, but it isnt self driven. If the opponent refuses to play anything or you dont get a mana drain, they deck is very slow.

Crusher has alot of fast plays that by themself can win the game. First turn crusher, first turn ravager, first turn metalworker, first turn welder, first turn skullclamp.


We're discussing workshop aggro in this thread. I'm trying to bring an idea to the table that makes workshop aggro better. Gifts, and CS still beat the normal workshop aggro decks.

Normal workshop aggro builds revolve around resolving 1 threat first turn, followed by another turn 2.


Crusher shines because it has to many first turn dropable threats, and things to bring them back cheaply, and is able to draw more cards than the curent workshop aggro. It can drop a few low casting cost threats turn 1, and drop the rest of its hand turn 2. Semi-often finishing the opponent off that turn.

So in ideal magic, gifts, cs, etc will have answers, and the right mana base to combat aggro decks, and hell should even have force of will, with first turn sapphire, island, and stifle in hand to deal with combo.

I like to bank on the fact that 1 outa 3 games they're gonna die trying to find answers. 1 game i'm gonna go broken. Every type one deck "CAN" go broken on the first turn. And 1 game I plan on them going broken and owning me.

What I feel it comes down too is. Do I want force of wills in my deck to combat Combo or Combo finishes, or do i wonna make my deck fast and consistant and just race them. Half the time a force of will against combo is met with either  a duress or force of will anyways. I'd rather put them on the fast clock.

If gifts belcher is heavy in the metagame, this deck can obviously support pithing needle to help that matchup, as well as the CS matchup, however i see it getting welded out vs cs.

My finals thoughts are, they're two types of magic players. 1 thinks they will outplay their opponent or have a better matchup 2 outa 3 games in a match. The other(me) Thinks I'm gonna win 1 game that they cant pull out of, and my opponents deck is gonna fail atleast once in a match.

[JamesPr]

What Corndog is trying to say I believe is that this deck can win through consistency as much as it can win by nutty draws.  There has to be something to be said for that, because consistency is pretty important.  Also, he hasn't done poorly with the deck like scrubbing out at every tournament he goes to.

[Corndog]

What Corndog is trying to say I believe is that this deck can win through consistency as much as it can win by nutty draws.  There has to be something to be said for that, because consistency is pretty important.  Also, he hasn't done poorly with the deck like scrubbing out at every tournament he goes to.

Pretty much exactly what I was getting at. Guess I got long winded and didnt go for the simple explanation.

[silvernail]

A card ive been playing around with in combination with crusher and trike is pentevus as he says pay X mana give crusher +x +x or with a welder and a trike as well( might be an  uncommon situation) it can read deal X damage to divided an way you choose between any number of creatures or players ( by paying XX mana to activate pent making a dude giving crusher a counter then putting the token back on pent, then welding the crusher to move counters to trike).

 i know it seems random but it allows you to make crusher pretty big at times and gives the aforementioned combo to nuke target aggro players creatures.i liked it when i tested on MWS and im going to be running it every chance i get to see hwo it does overall.

[Sean Ryan]

Heh, I appreciate the effort you put into posting.  Even if the content was a bit off topic I don't think this belongs in the Newbie forum.  I'm another NW Vintage player and I am familiar with this archetypes performance in our meta.

 The deck is a powerhouse, anyone who has played against it knows this.  However, it does have some weaknesses that will prevent it from sticking around outside of a isolated metagames.  Simply put once the deck catches on it will not be able to beat the hate.  Null Rod owns you and with the rise of u/w Fish this seems like a very risky choice.  I would also be worried about Energy Flux and might suggest Eon hub in the SB. 

When testing my 5/3 against Crusher I was getting owned left and right, then I put to Null rods in the SB and won nearly every game (I was playing the rainbow manabase so finding the Rod was easy).  I'm not saying the deck isn't viable, only that you need to be aware of how much hate is going to hit you and be prepared for it.  On the flip side of this you've made me reconsider my deck choice for our upcoming tourney so
Strawberry/Blueberry Crush does need to answered here in the NW meta.

Good luck this weekend!

Sean

[virtual]

So, I think I was the one that added red to this when working on it w/ Cory... but anyways

Playing Versus CS, if they slave you, life is not fun.  I won't argue that. 

However, you do play 4 trisks, and 4 welders of your own.  Resolving either of those makes their welders a lot less dangerous, and they need to ramp up to 10 mana to hard-activate slaver against you. 

This deck does stupid stuff with retriver/clamp.  Recurring mana, recurring retrivers, etc. In that respect, if you have anything out, that is clamped, and they balance, life is still not bad.  More likely than not you draw into more threats which can be clamped etc, and your draw engine works out better than theirs.  If they keep your clamps off the board, and your welders off the board, AND they balance before you've gotten them low enough to recover after a balance, well, you have to lose some games.

When I was working on the deck, the greaves weren't in, and there were 3 maindeck Jester's caps.  Versus Oath, gifts, TPS, deathlong, and countless other decks, activating cap wins.  That shored up your bad matchups in a very surprising fashion.

Triskelion + ravager is absolutely disgusting.  Pentavus is an interesting idea.  The one issue is that this deck doesn't have a good way to dump creatures from its hand into the graveyard.  Usually it uses a metalworker to get it out.  This deck very quickly gets inevitability behind it. 

Null rod is bad news for it, but that's the case with most affinity decks.  The crushers and welders help to keep this weakness to a low, and null rod is falling out of fashion. 


-Virtual
Team White Lotus

[Corndog]

I think we came to red at the same time, you just posted your list first, while me Anton, and Adam dicussed and tested it verbally.

And to null rod. Does it hurt the deck? Yep. But when I won my Emerald, Dragon played a first turn null rod against me, Answered it just fine with a crusher that became big and a trike. Thats right, combo, played first turn hate vs the deck and I still won the match in 3 games.

The great thing about this deck is that it doenst just die to hate. Energy flux is laughable. You pay for metalworker, and drop your hand/kill them all in the same turn. Or simply use metalworker to pay all the upkeeps.

If you examine the current fish lists you'll see that alot of them don't even run null rod. When nulll rods come into play, you basically just have to realize that you have new goals. Get a giant crusher, or cast triskelions.

I think this deck has taught me something very valuable. Hate isnt everything. If they dont draw it, or the damage is done before it hits, it is useless. In response to a null rod many of times i'd made a 6/6 ravager or so and rode it to victory.

[Purple Hat]

I spent an aweful lot of time working on a deck like this last summer.  I came in 14th at SCG 1 with it and made a coupple top eights.  there was a 100+ post thread about it running around.  We used affinity to grow the crusher rather than metalworker though.  I still think that's the way to go because it leaves you more mana to clamp things with.  We also used genesis chamber to add counters to the crusher and give us stuff to clamp.  Have you considered moving either defense grid or sphere of resistance to the main deck?  We found that sphere rarely bothered us so it was safe to drop a sphere and then go off the next turn because you usually had so much mana that it didn't matter.

Hale

[Mixing Mike]

Two things....

Where's Shrapnal Blast?

Where are the hott red heads?

[Corndog]

too the both of you, the hardest problem for me is finding space to fit sphere or shrapnel blast etc.  Sphere is really good with affinity. However maybe I am just taking a different approach than you did. With metalworkers and lightning greaves, I play to combo out on like turn 2. or 3.

As far as i'm concerned, there are only 3 floating spots in the deck, thats the lightning greaves. I've found that disruption is an afterthought with this deck.

Good ideas thus far though.

[PipOC]

This deck looks to not be very strong against something with wastes.  Your large threats are really high on the curve and it looks like a single waste can keep you out of playing jugg or trike or crusher for the entire game.  Welder looks something less than optimal here considering that all he is is insurance against counters.  I'd really look into SoFI since as it stands your match against WTF seems scary.

[Corndog]

This deck looks to not be very strong against something with wastes.  Your large threats are really high on the curve and it looks like a single waste can keep you out of playing jugg or trike or crusher for the entire game.  Welder looks something less than optimal here considering that all he is is insurance against counters.  I'd really look into SoFI since as it stands your match against WTF seems scary.

In the original post, you will see why welders are strong in this deck. Also it doesn't run juggernaut. Wasteland doesnt hurt this deck at all. Metalworker is its mana engine. If I found wastelands were a problem I'd run crucible. Crucible is only good when you can use it against your opponent.

[Purple Hat]

The problem I've always had with metalworker is that it makes an aweful lot of cards start to read "1 of some color, cut off my mana and time walk" or "counter this and take an extra turn while all my big stuff gets stranded in my hand" when it's played on turn one and when it's played on any turn after that you probably don't have too much stuff in your hand.  I think you might be better off looking into lowering your curve or finding ways to play without the metalworker.

My second point is that frequently with a lower curve you are gonna be in a situation where if you had metalworker you could empty your hand by the end of turn two, but you can do that anyway, so who cares?

Hale

[MrBeichner]

do you find yourself siding in the spheres of resistance most of the time? This deck seems too be begging for them in the main deck.    A very interesting deck though regardless,  kudos.

[luke_twigger]

How about Wheel of Fortune?

[Corndog]

sphere of resistance is the least sided card, i'm thinking about taking them out of the sideboard all together.

And Wheel of fortune is great.. except if you dont win that turn, you gave your opponent 7 new cards that they WILL win with.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

Why would this deck be better than any other MWS aggro deck?  It has absolutely no disruption, and relies purely on creatures to create pressure on it's opponents. I'm sorry, but this deck NEEDs some serious disruption if it want to handle anything besides the random aggro deck. I have 2 suggestions.
A) You take this deck and make it into more of the 5/3 deck of Christmas past, add in good artifact disruption, such as Tangle Wire, Sphere of Resistance, Uba Mask(not a good example, but same strategy), Ankh of Mishra, Defense Grid, ect...  This approach would cut down on your beaters, but it would actually give you a game against stuff like CS and Gifts.
B)My second suggestion, though it would be a little extreme, is that you turn it into a Mono U aggro deck(I use this term loosely).  Just use big fat like Triskelion, Myr Retriever, Archbound Ravager, Juggernaught, Su-Chi, maybe Duplicant, and other under-priced, overpowered creatures as your aggro beats and use FoW, Stifle, Misdirection, Echoing Truth, Chain of Vapor, ect... as your disruption. If you went this rout you would also have all the great blue draw spells like TFK, Ancestral, possibly brainstorm, ect...  This suggestion is probably not viable in you case though, because frankly, I think that you want to stick with the the mostly artifact, Ravager type of deck you have posted.

These are just my suggestions, so pls don't take this as an insult or something, I tried to be as respectful and on task about the deck as I could.  Personally, the only experience I have with the deck is playing against it in every format, and briefly running it in T1 to no avail, but that may have been due to my meta-game.

[Ben Kossman]

Have you tried Genesis Chamber? I remember an almost identical deck on Morphling.de utilized it.

[virtual]

So I think from the responses to this thread (and as I've thought for a while), this deck is about as good as it can get without changing into something entirely different. 

As it stands, bring it out vs the correct meta, and you should be able to do well, but it isn't something that you should blindly bring in vs an unknown field because there's a few big weaknesses that can just take the deck down.  (Fast Combo, null rod, control slaver).  Those will NOT be present in every meta, and the ravager/trisk/welder/skullclamp in this deck can make it a very fast, and momentous aggro deck. 

I stopped working on this a while ago because of that fact.  It's about as good as it can get without changing significantly (losing a color, or adding 1-4, and switching roles).  The attempt behind this deck really turns into abusing Modular as much as possible.  It does a good job at that, and can steamroll people, but I think there are better choices for the current Meta.  But if you wanna play some rogue/jank, this does a pretty good job @ that. 

-Virtual

[Dzy]

I agree that this deck is good in a random metagame. I also agree that this deck needs sphere of resistance maindeck, it might not be good to board in, but maindeck it can really screw your opponent, while him being on a clock. I also agree you should nee a Mox Emerald[/u] I think you forgot to post it.

Good luck with the deck, ill test it a few games later this day

[tradewhore]

I tried this deck out and found it to be very effective. About 80% of my games were won early while I found myself mana screwed in the others due to bad shuffling on my part.

[islanderboi10]

I'm a NW player(I play in Washington State) and a lot of the Crusher decks I have seen run Sphere of Resistance. The deck looks solid otherwise. I will test.

Also, What does the red splash have over the Mono Brown version?

And where's the Chalice of the Voids?