The Many Faces of Control Slaver

[cryolyte]

@Eandori: I will playtest that gifts list. I wonder about the missing Shamans (cause he is hotness with a welder out), but who knows. By the way, your post was entertaining to read because it read like an infomercial. BUT WAIT.. THERE'S MORE! It slices, it dices, it loves the graveyard!

Heh

cryolyte

[forests failed you]

The main critique that I have of your deck is that you have no real way to deal with opposing creatures once they have hit play.  While it is true that against aggro you can use Plats to ignore your opponent, in other match ups creatures dictate more than just life totals, but also board position.  In particular, in my opinion perhaps the most important card in the Slaver V Gifts or SLaver match up is Gorilla Shaman; because he gives you such an advantage on mana, and also elimintates opposing Welder targets and powers down Tolerian Academy. 

Have you considered playing Duplicant over perhaps Plats?  Whereas Plats is good against Oath but bad in the mirror and against Stax, Dups really shines in all of these matchups.  He can kill Akroma or Colossos as well as be recurred to eliminate pesky Welders or Shamans.  It is also relevant that he can still get to work under a Null Rod against Fish or Uba Stax, which is why I replaced Triskellion with him.

Good Luck.
Just a thought/

[pyr0ma5ta]

Trike is better than Dup against 1/1 things, but Dup is the more versatile answer to creatures.  I like trike against fish and gifts/mirror, and Dup against everything else.  Platz is surely cuts, she does against other blue decks (gets bounced or welded). 

If I start seeing more Null Rods, I may have to try the Dup.

[forests failed you]

Also, don't forget that against Oath Trike is all but a dead card, whereas Dup is game breaking.  I'll admit, Dup is worse than Trike in the Slaver Mirror, but in almost every other match up (Especially against the best decks of the format(  Dup appears to be the stronger choice.

[Lou]

Don't flame me, but has anyone thought about Nullstone Gargoyle as a creature of choice for CS?
There might also be a way to abuse it with some number of Arcane Labs in the main.  Just an idea.

[MoxMonkey]

That seems pretty cool the only issue I would have is that Your First Spell is also Countered with it.  The 4/5 Body isn't that great either but thats probably worth some testing.  Nice idea Lou.

[pyr0ma5ta]

9 mana is all but out of reach for hardcasting.  Trike and dup are hardcastable, and you can conceivably drain into it on turn 2.  The Gargoyle is....awful, especially because it shuts you off, too.  It also doesn't answer anything threatening.

[49 Cents]

You could try it in a version with Intuition though. Intuition finding Nullstone, Trisk/Dup, Titan isn't that bad with a Welder out. Both Titan and Nullstone wreck most control decks..

[pyr0ma5ta]

yes, er, but, um...Control slaver is a control deck  :shock:

[49 Cents]

I recall that the 'older' Goth Slaver versions played 3/4 Intuition and a minimum of 3 large Artifacts it could Intuition into..

[pyr0ma5ta]

Um, everyone is already playing Gifts in Slaver, so how about a gifts pile of: Trike, Dup, Titan, Gargoyle?

I dunno, I really don't like the gargoyle, but the others are all tried and proven.

Edit: I'm a moron.  Trike, Dup, Titan, Slaver?

[49 Cents]

That would make you play with a minimum of 5 large artifacts, which is also sub optimal..

I was toying with the next idea:

Aggro Slaver. A deck that uses Intuition and Thirst to find Large artifacts and Weld them back into play, or Mana Drain to hardcast them. I was thinking about a creature base that consisted with 2 Titans, a Triskelion and a Pentavus. Maybe with Crucible as well, because Intuitioning for Crucible, Strip Mine, Academy seems fairly good. I'm also thinking about Deep Analysis in the deck to Intuition for / Discard to Thirst for the Control mirror.

I haven't tested one bit with this idea, but it sure seems fun. Don't actually know if it's strong enough or not. I wouldn't want to play it in a meta that's full of Welder hate, but I haven't actually seen meta's like those here in Holland.

[PipOC]

That would make you play with a minimum of 5 large artifacts, which is also sub optimal..

I was toying with the next idea:

Aggro Slaver. A deck that uses Intuition and Thirst to find Large artifacts and Weld them back into play, or Mana Drain to hardcast them. I was thinking about a creature base that consisted with 2 Titans, a Triskelion and a Pentavus. Maybe with Crucible as well, because Intuitioning for Crucible, Strip Mine, Academy seems fairly good. I'm also thinking about Deep Analysis in the deck to Intuition for / Discard to Thirst for the Control mirror.

I haven't tested one bit with this idea, but it sure seems fun. Don't actually know if it's strong enough or not. I wouldn't want to play it in a meta that's full of Welder hate, but I haven't actually seen meta's like those here in Holland.

Dude, we could call it Meandeck Titan!

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/7819.html

[49 Cents]

I didn't even knew that :/

But still, maybe it's time for a comeback?

[spindrift]

I am more of a casual non-tournament player, but I do play against alot of players in casual as they are developing decks. I play a crude version of CS and I have seen a few people building Oath decks with [card]Juntu Stakes[/card]! It is a real pain in the butt!

Has anyone else run into this? What is a good plan to deal with this? It seems to slow me down just enough that Oath will take control before I can recover!  If Oath decks continue to grow as they have and utilize Juntu Stakes, maindeck CS may have to change a little.

For me, Gorrilla Shaman works sometimes, but I have to pray I find him in time and Rack N Ruin works, but again, I have to find it in time! It really puts CS on a clock!

I can weld it out but it can be a tough deed against Oath!

Are there any suggestions? Again, I am not the best player but I see a trend coming.

[forests failed you]

Duplicant really helps out in the Oath Matchup.
 You also have Echoing Truth to bounce random cards like Stakes that you were not planning on seeing that hose your gameplan.  Not to mention if you are playing something like Bunring wish for a solution in your sideboard. 

Also, don't forget that you have eight maindeck answers to everything in your maindeck.  Four force of will and four mana Drain.  FOr the most part Slavers counter and draw engine is strong enough that you should be able to keep most of the problematic cards off the board, and then use your tutors and versitle board cards to deal with anything that slips through.  Between Tutors, Burning Wish, Welder, Shaman, Duplicant, and Echoing Ruin there is really no problem that can't be solved within the maindeck.

[Eandori]

The main critique that I have of your deck is that you have no real way to deal with opposing creatures once they have hit play.  While it is true that against aggro you can use Plats to ignore your opponent, in other match ups creatures dictate more than just life totals, but also board position.  In particular, in my opinion perhaps the most important card in the Slaver V Gifts or SLaver match up is Gorilla Shaman; because he gives you such an advantage on mana, and also elimintates opposing Welder targets and powers down Tolerian Academy.

Have you considered playing Duplicant over perhaps Plats?  Whereas Plats is good against Oath but bad in the mirror and against Stax, Dups really shines in all of these matchups.  He can kill Akroma or Colossos as well as be recurred to eliminate pesky Welders or Shamans.  It is also relevant that he can still get to work under a Null Rod against Fish or Uba Stax, which is why I replaced Triskellion with him.

Good Luck.
Just a thought

Thanks for the post.

I actually don't worry about creature removal, because I play what I consider to be the strongest creature removal in the game: Swords to Plowshares.  1 white, instant, remove creature from game.  Swords is a BOMB against decks with a single creature for the win.  I really like the platinum Angel also because she just gives me such massive card advantage.  Who cares if my opponent has a Colossus, Akroma, Spirit, a horde of goblins, fish creatures, etc?  All I care about is the few cards in his deck that can remove plat.  And eventually, I'll get at least 1 slaver activation and then it's GG.

I can Cunning Wish for Swords main deck, and I can sideboard it in on games 2 & 3.  I'll tell you this much right now... I really don't fear Oath or Gifts very much at all.  I have a higher win percentage against those decks actually.  The only decks that can go 50/50 seem to be some versions of Stax, and Dragon.  You know how those decks can play, They can win on turn 1 before I get a turn, and I don't always draw Force of Will.

I can see changing out plat/pentavus/1 welder for trike or shaman main deck in some meta games.  I believe the list I showed you is the most "well rounded" I have found.  This deck goes up against EVERYTHING.  Vintage/Legacy/Extended/Standard, my buddies play it against me.  And always at some point, the cards in that list end up being huge.  The list as is seems to be VERY strong in pure Vintage too, which is why I use that.  If some janky red/black fire/discard deck comes up against me, I can beat it.  If somebody plays Goblins against me, I can beat it.  Etc.

Cheers,

[seer]

I'd hate to say it Eandori, but your deck is pretty janky.

Swords? Disenchant? And to top it off, no balance? 

What exactly do you plan to disenchant? An oath? I hear Groundseal isn't too hot for CS, a card which Oath decks (popular in many areas) tend to play.  Seems to be a flexible sideboard card that can hit artifacts or groundseal/oath/dragon/chains/etc allowing you to conserve sideboard space. 

Swords is next to useless vs gifts in a control battle.

In the control mirror the game is going to end with gifts casting yawg will and then tinkering out the michelan man and time walking twice most of the time (or using some alternate form of victory). Your swords will be irrelevant at that point.

Posts Merged.  Don't double post, just edit your first post. - Dante

[PipOC]

Swords is next to useless vs gifts in a control battle.

In the control mirror the game is going to end with gifts casting yawg will and then tinkering out the michelan man and time walking twice most of the time (or using some alternate form of victory). Your swords will be irrelevant at that point.

Except when your opponent knows you aren't playing stp because he saw goblin welder and thirst for knowledge.

[The Atog Lord]

yes, er, but, um...Control slaver is a control deck  :shock:

Control Slaver is a control-combo deck; it starts the game seeking to play the role of a control deck, and then transforms into a combo deck, often with little warning to the opponent.

True Control decks aren't really present anymore. The traditional strategy of drawing a card and passing the turn has been replaced as the format became better and better able to offer threats. Eventually, even slower decks came to start being much more proactive than decks of the past.

[seer]

Thanks for replying in my post.


I would say that echoing truth is a superior anti ground seal card. Why is that? Because if they play more than one you still can bounce both to get in that crucial weld.

We all know it only takes one slave to usually change the game completely in the slaver player's favor.

[Eandori]

I'd hate to say it Eandori, but your deck is pretty janky.

funny how people call a deck janky when it just doesn't agree with their own card choices.  I made top 8 in the only power tournament I took this too.  My friend played a mirror of my deck.  He made top 8 also.  I flat out win almost every game I play with this deck.  I don't agree with your accessment.

Swords? Disenchant? And to top it off, no balance?

Swords see's play in lots of other Vintage decks FYI.  Disenchant is an answer that is sorely needed depending on what my opponent does.  Note that neither one is main deck but I can get them in a pinch.  Balance is a great card.  It's funny to me that I heard people complaining when I used it, and I also hear people complaining when I don't have it.  Now... for me, balance does not work well in this deck because #1.  I try to keep my hand full of cards.  #2 I almost always have a creature in play (welder).

What exactly do you plan to disenchant? An oath?

Oath of Druids, Ground Seal, Back to Basics, Planar Void, Blood Moon, Choke, Seal of Cleansing, Null Rod, Uba Mask, Pithing Needle, Trinisphere, Smokestack, Tanglewire, Karn, Sundering Titan, Sphere of Resistance, Dampening Matrix, Chalice of the void, Crucible of Worlds, Skullclamp, Jesters Cap, Mindslaver, Pentavus, to name a few.  Did I make my point yet?
 

Swords is next to useless vs gifts in a control battle.

That's why it's not main deck.  That's also why I have 4 red blasts, 3 wastelands, and a Gorilla Shaman in the sideboard.

In the control mirror the game is going to end with gifts casting yawg will and then tinkering out the michelan man and time walking twice most of the time (or using some alternate form of victory). Your swords will be irrelevant at that point.

Again, in the control mirror I probably don't have swords sideboarded in.  I probably sideboarded to limit their mana and win the counter war.

I would say that echoing truth is a superior anti ground seal card. Why is that? Because if they play more than one you still can bounce both to get in that crucial weld.

I'll give you this much, Echoing Truth is definately a great card and I DON'T disagree it's better situationally.  Now, I personally feel that I would rather put their card into the GY then back into their hand.  I've had Echoing Truth help me by removing multiples, but I have also had it hurt me by letting my opponent recast it (remember Slaver does NOT have more counters then some decks).  I also find that if my opponent gets something hurtfull into play (back to basics, choke, etc.) then draws another, they hold that 2nd one because I might play an echoing truth.  Or I might overextend myself just to kill the one, thinking I'll recover after it's gone.  then they just untap, cast another, and win.

So again, the Echoing Truth is a great card, but I prefer Disenchant.

[cryolyte]

Okay Eandori. I played your deck last night in my stax infested meta and got 4 out of 9 people. Sure it's not a big tourney but it is good for playtesting and it does qualify me to comment on the deck. I was going to just netdeck your list card for card and use it, but I couldn't bear some of the cardchoices you made. It could very well be that I was wrong. It was a 3 round tourney for store credit, and the only deck I lost a game to was 5cStax. Game one being a grinder that he finally pulled off, and game two he drew god (him on the draw, 1st turn land, mana vault, black lotus, 3sphere tinker vault for sundering titan).

But anyways, the card changes I made were:

MD:
-1 Platz, +1 Triskelion completely a meta call since there is no combo and I do see opposing welders and shamans

SB: now here is where I went a different way, completely.
-1 Burnout for +1 REB (sure a card is nice, but less mana is better I think)
-1 Disenchant for +1 Rack and Ruin (stax infested, I said - left one disenchant in though)
-1 Stifle for +1 Rack and Ruin (stax)
-1 Gifts Ungiven for +1 Echoing Truth (I don't really think I needed more CA in the board, even to wish for. CS does pretty well in this department, so I dropped it for more protection)
-3 Wasteland for +1 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Gilded Drake - I wanted some graveyard hate and gilded drake is my pet project.

About the wastelands. I can see where they would be useful is you have down a crucible and the game is long. However, I contend that since CS is so mana intensive (sometimes I want 7 to cast that bus, etc.) losing a land drop (even if you are taking one away from them) is not a good thing. This could have been more of a metagame choice, since I don't have any gifts in the meta. Pertaining to gifts, is your strategy to keep them lower on mana so they can't pull the big gifts combos?

EDIT: Oh, and I REALLY missed the shamans maindeck.

@Everyone Else: Do any of you have an opinion on the gilded drakes? He pitches to force in a pinch, only costs U1, and cannot be taken by duress. He grabs oath creatures and colossus. On the other hand, he's not an instant, so if they bring down the colossus and time walk a couple of times you're screwed. Of course, if you let the game get that out of hand you deserve to lose anyway.

[seer]

Your "top8" evidence is not very convincing since it was a small tournament in oregon with only 15 players. 3-2 made top8.

From your earlier post where you talked about swords and then the next sentence talked about not fearing gifts I assumed that you were using swords as evidence of this.

I don't agree with your card choices because I fail to see how they help your problem matchups. I would prefer Rack and Ruin vs stax. I can see how the white might help you against oath but it's very risky because they too run 4x wasteland, 1 strip mine.

[Harkius]

Your "top8" evidence is not very convincing since it was a small tournament in oregon with only 15 players. 3-2 made top8.

Please do not deride people for posting this kind of information. Many people surf threads looking for a good estimate of metas in other environments. Unpowered and small tournaments are tournaments, as well, and rogue decks can appear from nowhere.

I, though, would like to go on record as saying thanks to cryolyte. I know it would be objectively 'better' to do so in a PM, please don't flame me. However, it feels as though the community here is more like a series of enclaves, trying to one-up each other. At tournaments, this is reasonable. Intrateam tech? Sure, keep it to yourself. If a person asks for help, though, these kinds of posts make sense for everyone to see, so that someone else doesn't have the same question a week later. Actual playtesting of a deck in a controlled, competitive environment (he said his meta was Stax heavy, and it is hard to play Stax without having some idea what you are doing) is the key to objective understanding of both decks and environments, and this is useful information that could be helpful.

Cryolyte: You may want to start/add to an existing thread in the Tournament Forums board about a mini-report. Let people see the decklist, tell them a little about the meta, and then add what other builds you saw, archetypes were represented, etc. I, for one, would appreciate more information being around.

Thanks everyone!
Harkius

[seer]

Harkius: I only said that because I was at the tournament in question. I can safely say the level of play at this tournament is far below what you would see at your typical east coast/mid west tournament.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I disagree, by the way, that Platz is effective combo protection.  Tendrils.dec is running Rebuild, Hurkyl's and sometimes Chain of Vapor maindeck both as hate against Chalices and as a storm builder.  Platz is great, but all it does is make your opponent find a bounce spell before going off, which may delay him a turn but doesn't do all that much.  Platz happens to catch incidental hate   Note that she doesn't do much against belcher either, as you go to 0 life first, then she dies on the next activation.  The only thing she really does is allows you to ignore Random.aggro.dec and Serra Angel ftw. 

The angry gorilla is just so much better. 

Also, I don't like wastelands in the board simply because you want your mana, especially colored mana.  What do you side out to bring in lands that don't even stick around?

I've been testing Crucible Maindeck, and I'm very happy with the results.  It's so good against opposing wastelands, and even just replaying 2 fetches before welding it out for Trike is good. 

[Komatteru]

Platz is great, but all it does is make your opponent find a bounce spell before going off

Or after.  I know it's not so hard to sit there on 38 life and wait a few turns to dig up Rebuild.

[Eandori]

Wow, lots to reply to.  Here goes.

But anyways, the card changes I made were:

MD:
-1 Platz, +1 Triskelion completely a meta call since there is no combo and I do see opposing welders and shamans

SB: now here is where I went a different way, completely.
-1 Burnout for +1 REB (sure a card is nice, but less mana is better I think)
-1 Disenchant for +1 Rack and Ruin (stax infested, I said - left one disenchant in though)
-1 Stifle for +1 Rack and Ruin (stax)
-1 Gifts Ungiven for +1 Echoing Truth (I don't really think I needed more CA in the board, even to wish for. CS does pretty well in this department, so I dropped it for more protection)
-3 Wasteland for +1 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Gilded Drake - I wanted some graveyard hate and gilded drake is my pet project.

About the wastelands. I can see where they would be useful is you have down a crucible and the game is long. However, I contend that since CS is so mana intensive (sometimes I want 7 to cast that bus, etc.) losing a land drop (even if you are taking one away from them) is not a good thing. This could have been more of a metagame choice, since I don't have any gifts in the meta. Pertaining to gifts, is your strategy to keep them lower on mana so they can't pull the big gifts combos?

EDIT: Oh, and I REALLY missed the shamans maindeck.

I think all your switches are fine, except rotating out Gifts Ungiven and the 3 Wastelands.  I've played a ton of games against Stax now, and it often seems like the most threatening thing I can do to Stax is limit HIS mana too.  Stax wins by having tons of acceleration, and making everything harder to cast.  If he does not have that massive acceleration, then he's just as limited as you are.

What do I take out against Stax for the Wastelands?  Well sticking to the theory, I remove very hard to cast late game cards.  Getting 4+ mana is very hard against that deck.  When I play Stax I take the roll of Aggro and limit his mana as well.  My welders, FoW, Drains, strip/wastelands, searchlands, and crucible are some of my biggest threats to him.  Plat also does not help much against Stax.  So stuff like Plat, Fact, Gifts, etc. come out.  I win against stax either when I get a slaver lock, or when he's mana screwed and I keep him there with shaman/welder/wasteland/crucible.  Sometimes because I get a pentavus out and multiply pentavites faster then his smokestack/tanglewire can deal with them.

I can totally see how in some meta's shamans are needed main deck.  Same as Trike.

Harkius: I only said that because I was at the tournament in question. I can safely say the level of play at this tournament is far below what you would see at your typical east coast/mid west tournament.

Well for one thing, that's about the only thing we have in my area.  I'll take what I can get.  But in my group of friends, we build and test every deck out there.  The guys I test with are the same ones who also made top 8.  Ryan got 2nd in fact.  And yes, BTW the guy who WON that tournament (James Lincoln) is no scrub.  His deck is worth more with the Beta power and foil everythng else then nearly any other deck out there.  He plays at all the Vintage tournaments I see in the area.  And BTW, I barely lost to him in the first round of finals.  I won game win with a huge Yawg will.  Game 2 we ended up topdecking half our decks.  I had a welder in play, pentavus in the yard, plenty of mana on the board, and could NOT draw 1 single artifact to weld out for the pentavus... in 30 cards...  nor could I draw any of the 4 tutors that would let me get one.  Game 3 he played a first turn choke of a lotus, I choked, nuff said.

I disagree, by the way, that Platz is effective combo protection.  Tendrils.dec is running Rebuild, Hurkyl's and sometimes Chain of Vapor maindeck both as hate against Chalices and as a storm builder.  Platz is great, but all it does is make your opponent find a bounce spell before going off, which may delay him a turn but doesn't do all that much.  Platz happens to catch incidental hate   Note that she doesn't do much against belcher either, as you go to 0 life first, then she dies on the next activation.  The only thing she really does is allows you to ignore Random.aggro.dec and Serra Angel ftw.

The angry gorilla is just so much better.

Well yes and no.  The shaman is great, and he's a serious mana threat early game and he enables welder.  I don't disagree that he's situationally better.  Definately in some metas.  But no, Plat is combo protection and Card Advantage.  If she's in play, the number of threatening cards in most decks drops to around 3.  Not only do I only have to counter/stop around 3 cards, but my opponent MUST still fear 1 single slaver activation, because that still will probably mean the game.  So I can keep plat on the table and use her as a constant threat.  Forcing him to hold counters so he can get her off the board, while I play other threats against him (welder, thirst, etc.)

Again though, it's a meta game choice.  I'm just unwilling to say one is always better, because I still think it's situational.

[Moxlotus]

Why not just play Rack and Ruin over Wastes?  They are more devastating, and you should be able to support 3 mana with basic lands.  Your own wastes don't do dick when they have their own crucible.