Control Slaver Tech - Basic Swamp?

[MoxMonkey]

In Control Slaver.  A mainboard Swamp without Duress -> Good or Not? 
or more to the point Is a basic swamp in Slaver able to turn a game around?

Edit: I've tested this in 4 Tournaments (30+) 2 with it and 2 without.  Both with never disappointed me and I won cause I had it in 1 Matchup.  When I went without at Myriad Games I lost a matchup because I lost my 2 Seas due to wastelands and couldn't cast my Yawgmoth's Will.  Lotus and Jet got Destroyed by TMWA.

I know with Duress, I would run a mainboard Swamp even if it cost me Drain mana not being up. I would rather have 3 mana in order to cast Thirst on turn 3 at the latest instead of waiting an additional turn. But Without Duress, is a swamp good enough for the mainboard?

Pros:
Can be used to cast: Darkblast, Demonic tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will. All of which in the mainboard can be cast without problems against Wasteland decks.
Massacre beats U/W Fish when timed right because it cannot be Blue-Blasted or Dazed.
Darkblast mainboard or sideboard doesn't suck anymore.  I tested without it at the Exchange tournament and it was terrible, but at NY the basic Swamp helped me a ton.
Blood Moon's Much Better because it gives you the Black Mana

Cons:
It's not blue and there are only 3 or 4 mainboard cards that are black.
It slows down Drain if you play the Swamp.
Another non-blue land since people have been cutting LOA since it's not blue, which I don't get but I guess it's a con.

What do you think?

[Evenpence]

Playing Ubastax, one of your best matchups, I would love it if you ran a basic swamp, as it's better than an Underground Sea for me.  Even though I can wasteland your Underground Sea, basic swamp doesn't produce blue mana, and drain is far more scary for me.

[MoxMonkey]

The Idea is I get Drain Mana Up then grab a Basic swamp and have infinite Darkblast for your Welders and such.  I understand Drain Being Really big but comeon 1 Swamp in the mainboard doesn't kill your Double Blue openings by that high of a Percentage and I also had Strip and LOA in these testing.  I was always Able to have Drain at these times.

For some reference this was the mana base I used.
3 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta/Strands
1 Tolarian Academy
1 LOA
1 Strip Mine
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
I cut Mana Vault for Wasteland at Myriad Games Due to it helping in TMWA Matchup which is Popular up there.  It also gave me the game I won.

13/16 Lands are Blue  Strip, LOA, Swamp are non Blue.  Also then you have Sapphire and Black lotus and maybe Petal depending on the metagame.

[Evenpence]

After I play a Welder, I'm going to put down Chalice at 1 if I know you play Darkblast, regardless of whether you play basic swamp or not.

Is there any other reason for basic swamp?

[MoxMonkey]

You Don't Always Draw and or Resolve Chalice and Control Slaver is a Nightmare for Uba Stax No matter the Build or Player.  I've beaten it flawlessly played with making a couple little mistakes on my behalf.  The Fact is Welder Wars get won and lost and Rack and Ruins + Pentavus are good times for me.

I want to get to and keep 3 Mana on the board at all times.  Once I have a Stable 3 Mana (For Example 2 Island 1 Swamp) Everything except the Welders and Shamans are now castable and my mana curve isn't gunned down by Crucible - Wasteland which is getting really big even here in NE.  Its also Opens up Black to the SB for cards people may have never looked at before.  Skeletal Scrying has been on the downplay because of Wastelands, Duress without Basic Swamp is garbage, Dark ritual Powers up Tendrils and Yawgmoth's Will.  These are only a couple of Known Cards that could be used with a basic Swamp its not as stupid a question as it seems and gives a lot of felability and does almost nothing to your ability to get double blue, maybe 1 out of 100 games you will see the Swamp Strip Mine as your mana sources opening and muligain but 1/100 isn't that bad for what they do.

[Joblin Velder]

After I play a Welder, I'm going to put down Chalice at 1 if I know you play Darkblast, regardless of whether you play basic swamp or not.

Oh yeah? Well he has Rack and Ruin with double Force back-up.  /sarcasm

It sounds like a great idea if you're in a fish/TMWA metagame. I always end up fetching early if I have a darkblast, which unfortunately gives my opponent a great opportunity to own my manabase.

[Komatteru]

After I play a Welder, I'm going to put down Chalice at 1 if I know you play Darkblast, regardless of whether you play basic swamp or not.

Is there any other reason for basic swamp?

Actually, you're going to put down Chalice at 1 after you've got a Welder if your opponent is playing Slaver regardless of whether Darkblast is in his deck.

EDIT: Yeah, Ben is right that the phrase "after you've got a Welder" isn't needed in the above sentence.

[benthetenor]

And also, you're going to be putting Chalice at 1 down against CS regardless of whether or not you've played a Goblin Welder yet. If you pass the first turn without a Chalice at 1 in play against CS, you've probably just lost the game.

I think that the Swamp is a solid choice if and only if you run Duress, or if you're counting on getting 3 or 4 activations out of Darkblast. That being said, it's usually worth it to have a guaranteed D-Blast outlet. I would just do a ridic amount of testing to see how often it screws with early 'Drains, though realistically it's not going to be often. It should happen every once in a while, but that's what the testing will determine.

[Joblin Velder]

I think against the decks you'll need early darkblast against, it does drain's job. Why bother draining a X/1 (if you don't need the mana) when you can just pay B at the end of turn to kill it? Against fish, I'd wait a turn to drain if it meant setting up a situation where his dudes were always going to be in trouble.

[ozimek]

I think maindeck Crucible is a better answer to land destruction than adding a basic swamp.

Resolving Crucible early against LD.dec is obv. powerful in itself, but in general knowing that you have Crucible in the deck, allows you to be less careful about fetching your 2 Seas in the early and mid game for Duress, Darkblast and Tutors.

Only recently have i started playing MD Crucible in CS, and I have been very pleased with it. Also it is a lot easier to set up a Slaver hard lock with Crucible+Citadel+Welder than with Pentavus+Welder+Welder.

I know that the intention with this thread wasn't to discuss "Crucible or not in CS", but you can't really answer the basic Swamp question without considering if you should play Crucible.

/Jan

[Gabethebabe]

Pros:
Can be used to cast: Darkblast, Demonic tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will. All of which in the mainboard can be cast without problems against Wasteland decks.
Massacre beats U/W Fish when timed right because it cannot be Blue-Blasted or Dazed.
Darkblast mainboard or sideboard doesn't suck anymore.  I tested without it at the Exchange tournament and it was terrible, but at NY the basic Swamp helped me a ton.
Blood Moon's Much Better because it gives you the Black Mana

What do you think?

I think Swamp sucks in Slaver. It is the tertiairy color. You only want basic lands in your main colours. The only cards that use Black in a "normal" Slaver deck are Demonic and Will. Two Undergrounds is more than sufficient to feed those spells, coupled with 4-5 fetches.

Massacre kills UW Fish, but is bad against weenie decks that don´t run Plains. Pyroclasm is on colour and if you have it dazed, you just played like an idiot and if your opponent has put Blue Blasts, congrats to him.

Blood Moon is a non issue. It is absent in the current meta.

[MoxMonkey]

Random Weenie Decks lose to FTK from the board with a Pyroclasm as well.  Also Tinker Pentavus or DSC or a hardcasted Triskelion is more or less game as well.  U/W fish is probably the only Random Aggroish deck I would be afraid of playing against but everything else is pretty easy once you set up some mana and set up a yawgmoth's will.

Blood Moon is Huge in the metagame.  uba Stax already has a hard time with Slaver and if they don't have a way to deal with Welders (Barb Ring) You win the Welder War.  5 color combo like Dragon and Grim Long have 3 outs once Blood Moon Resolves Mox Jet Black lotus and lotus petal.  It is definitely worth a 1-2 spot in the board.  (I ran 1 since i couldn't find my second one and I tutored for it with Vamp so it wasn't that bad)

Black allows you to Run Coffin Purge/Tormod's Crypt, Darkblast, Vampiric tutor, Demonic against any deck in the Early game Without Losing mana to wastelands.  Losing mana in the first few turns is how you lose games.  I should know I've done it a million times and missed moxen in doing so.  You need to create your mana base and then win the game.   

I would like to see some people who may have tested it themselves and hear from them.  I know Ive seen Vroman talk about how someone on his team uses it main with a darkblast and its been testing good for him.  Anyone else's testing shown differently?  Anytime its been bad for someone? 

Anyone good with Percents so we can see what the drop is in blue mana in opening hands with adding a swamp so its a 13 Blue vs 3 nonblue?  Thanks in Advance if someone can do this.

[Flux]

Vroman and I talk about this all the time.  The swamp is a bad call I think and he tends to agree.  The more we tested it we found that not having the two blue was an issue,  especially now that he runs sphere of resistance and tangle wires.  Good stax players fear two islands, while bad stax players don't realize that they should fear two islands.  From testing with darkblast for the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that resolving it once is usually enough. 

Every Control Slaver deck should be running Crucible, and you aren't then you aren't beating stax.  Even more scarier than two islands, is two fetches with a crucible in play.  I think that if you would ever consider running a basic swamp/mountain you would have to crucible in your deck.  I tried running a basic mountain and a basic swamp in control slaver with one bloodstained mire, and the issue was still the lack of two blue on turn two.

What they need to do is make a blue/red fetch land.

Flux

[MoxMonkey]

Oh man Blue/Red Fetchland would make me So happy.  I agree it came up in NH where TMWA is played but I could have played differently and should have so I would have won that game and maybe the match.  I think you need Crucible right now just to help set up the mana base and keep it stable too.  I thought maybe a Swamp could bring out some Crazy tech like Scryings, Coffin purges and what not but CS seems to have everything it needs without adding Crazy new tech to it.  Thanks for replying back.

[forests failed you]

My teamate Josh Franklin was a long time proponent of maindeck Swamp in his Tog decks.  He liked the fact that he could keep a black source of Mana on the board for an extended period of time against Wastelands decks. 

I told him that I thought it was really bad, and that he was over compensating for a problem that wasn't as big of a deal as he thought it was.  He played that damned swamp for like four months before I finally convinced him it wasn't good.  And he's never looked back since.  I don't think that playing a swamp is even remotely necessary.  If I were going to commint slots, Which i do, to lands that don't produce blue I can think of quite a few better ones.  Strip Mine, LoA, and Darksteel Citadel all come to mind as being better lands to play in the non blue slots than Swamp.

Furthermore, Slaver doesn't need cross colored fetches.  If they made a Red Blue one, would anybody actually play a Mountain in their maindeck?  There is no reason for that.  The only advantage is that it would be another singleton that I could play in my deck to hose pithing needle?  Plus it would have new card face/ 

[MoxMonkey]

I actually got the Idea from seeing one of his List with a Swamp in it.  I have had 1-2 Blood Moons in my board for a while and with Darkblast and Vampiric Tutor Mainboard I Figured it was worth the Testing at least.  When Boarding in Blood Moons the Swamp was so Savage since it Reminded me of the Times when I had 3 Color Tog with Back to Basic Main.  I'm not sure if its the right Idea and it could easy be changed into a Citadel/Seat and or another island.  I figured I'd share an idea and see what people had to say and it seems like everyone believes that its trash except if Blood Moon is Involved.

[Whatever Works]

Swamp isnt a horrible change, and has always been considered... However, please people stop throwing the word tech around so losely.

RUNNING 1 BASIC is not TECH!

I guess it could be argued that it is decent vs. stax... However, stax is your best matchup. Against fix I guess its slightly better, but still running a decent board is much more "tech" then switching ONE land.

[MoxMonkey]

Running skeletal Scryings cause you now have the black mana up against Wasteland probably does count as Tech then.  I do use Tech a lot but thats cause I do stuff to Slaver that others would call Techy but its just something normal for me.  It isn't just the 1 Swamp being run that makes it tech its what you get to run cause of the 1 Swamp that makes it tech.  I didn't wanna post my newest list because I havn't tested it very much because it is just some ideas I've had and Wanted to see what some others thought.  Heres My Current list with minimal Testing.

3 Island
1 LOA,
1 Academy,
1 Swamp,
1 Strip Mine,
3 volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Fetchland
1 sol ring
1 Mana vault
5 Moxen
1 Black lotus

4 Force
4 Mana Drain
4 brainstorm
4 Thirst for knowledge
3 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 tinker
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 DSC
1 Triskelion
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampimic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 darkblast
1 Echoing truth

SB
2 REB
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hurklys Recall
1 Rack and ruin
1 Rushing River
1 Aether spellbomb
1 Lava Dart
2 FTK
1 Pentavus
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 tormod's Crypt
2 Blood moon

This is the list Im running Right now and Im trying to fit in a Coffin Purge because its so good in the metagame.  Its not the Only or best use of a Basic Swamp but its a place to start anyway.

[Eandori]

Your build of slaver seems a bit thin on artifacts to pitch to the TFK IMO.  DSC is huge, but not weldable.  You have tinker or hardcast to get him.  Tinker does not come out often, so he would be a dead card lots of times.  When I cast TFK I usually WANT that artifact in the yard, not back in the Library.  Even if it was a mox, often times I'll use that and my active welder to generate more mana by trading moxes when I'm casting something big and keeping my blue open.  You left out the mana crypt which really helps power out Gifts/TFK in early game.  I'm also quite a fan of 2 slavers.  But hey, I never tried your list.  That's just what stands out to me.

As for the topic at hand, I find that 5 fetches and a crucible get the job done well enough for me that I don't worry about black.

Cheers,

[pyr0ma5ta]

No Pentavus or Mana Crypt?  Please explain.

Pentavus is a friggin game winner against Stax.  DSC is just dead weight waiting to get welded out or dup'd. 

I personally run Slaver, Crucible, trike, bus as my artifacts and also the crypt because turn 1 tinker/thirst/gifts/whatever is just awesome.  I find that this mix of artifacts is fine, and there's nothing wrong with casting Gifts (which I run a 1-of) for Tinker, Lotus, Yawg, Ancestral. 

MoxMonkey is running an awful lot of draw: a Vamp Tutor that I don't run, Fact or Fiction (Gifts in my build), and a Scrying.  I also don't run LoA because Island is tech, but then I also run 4 volcs, no strip and no swamp.  However, the extra draw and tutors do afford you extra sideboard flexibility.  I presume the spellbomb is there against dragon and oath; how do you like it?  I'm not a fan of bounce against oath, I much prefer the -4 bad cards (including 2 shamans) +4 annul plan.  Annul even hits Animate!

[Jeffrey2d]

One issue that I think is worth considering is how that swamp looks in a smaller hand.  You don’t often want to see the swamp in your opening hand, but in a seven-card hand it is tolerable.  In a six-card hand it is a liability, and it is dreadful with five or less cards.  So one consideration you need to take into consideration when you play an off color land like this is how often you plan on taking a mulligan. 

[MoxMonkey]

There should be a Mana Crypt I must have missed typing it in when I was doing the list cause its 25 mana sources all together and only 24 listed.

Theres 13 Artifacts To pitch to TFK which is more than enough.

2 Mindslavers are very good but I'd much rather have Crucible, Triskelion, DSC, Mindslaver and I dont wanna cut anything for the second.  It was in my board for a while and might go back for the combo and control matchups.

Vamp is over Mystical since it finds the Single Mindslaver faster kinda like why some run Gifts.

Pentavus is in the board for Aggro and you can quote me on this Stax is a bye for me in a tournament.  I board in a Rack and Ruin and maybe the Hurkly's Recall I don't need Pentavus to win he sometimes goes in.

Annul sucks against Dragon since they run Xantid swarms and it doesn't stop them from Animating a Kumano and going for the beat down.  I hate Annuls and have tested them.  The Rushing river is for Anti Dragon, Oath, and then Enchantments so it hits all around and isn't just for 1 matchup.  The spellbomb is more or less my Anti Oath Card just so I have at least one.

No LOA is stupid good.  I have beaten Stax because of a turn 1 LOA not getting Wasted for 3 turns.  If you don't like it then dont run it but Fear LOA in Control Mirrors because its not fair how stupid they are.

[JACO]

If you are not playing Duress, which you prefaced your question with earlier, then I would not play a basic Swamp.

That being said, I was playing Duress in my version, and I did play a basic Swamp. I don't like getting my lands Wastelanded. In fact, I hate it. I ALWAYS played 1 Underground Sea and 1 Swamp in Control Slaver, just as I ALWAYS played 1 Swamp in Tog, in Oath, and in Gifts. I have enjoyed playing Duress in like every deck, and I think there is no reason not to run the 1 basic Swamp if you are playing Duress. Most of the time you are fetching for a specific land at a certain point in the game anyway, so if you need Underground as a blue source, fetch Underground. If you don't, fetch an Island or Swamp.

When designing my mana bases, I have always taken the opinion that you should first design against playing against a Wasteland heavy field. I have never been screwed by a lack of dual lands in my deck, whereas I and probably everybody else have been screwed by the Wasteland or double Wasteland draw of an opponent at a critical time. And that was BEFORE everybody was playing Crucible.

[Akuma]

I don't understand why people are questioning the inclusion of DSC in Control Slaver. Yes, you can't weld it in, I'm sure Mox Monkey figured that out. Guess what, it's still retarded!

Tinker comes up often enough (tutors + card draw). Tinker --> DSC should be played in just about every deck that can support it, just because it's so stupid...

[Whatever Works]

CS has a great matchup vs. stax. Therfore the inclusion of a pentavus just for the stax matchup makes little sense. Boarding it in vs. aggro I find to be a little cute, because a pyroclasm is almost always better and more efficient in that matchup.

[forests failed you]

I understand that Tinker Colossus is powerful.  But why do you NEED it?  If you want to play that combo why not run it in a deck better suited for it like Gifts?  Droping a huge beater and attacking goes against everything else that Slaver is trying to accomplish over the course of the game. 

And the fact that you can't weld it is a huge drawback, as well as the fact that if you thirst it away you can still re draw it.  I think it is an awful card choice for Slaver and it does something that Slaver doesn't need to do in order to win the game.  To me it is a clear case of people who don't know any better adding powerful combos to a deck that don't actually have synergy with the rest of their deck.  Sure you win games with a quick Tinker for Darksteel Colossus, but if you are quick Tinkering don't you just win already regardless of whether you get Colossus, Pentavus, or Titan?  It seems like any other Big robot has more potential to be stronger in more games, while doing the same thing as Colossus on a one or two turn slower clock. 

[Flux]

Furthermore, Slaver doesn't need cross colored fetches.  If they made a Red Blue one, would anybody actually play a Mountain in their maindeck?  There is no reason for that.  The only advantage is that it would be another singleton that I could play in my deck to hose pithing needle?  Plus it would have new card face/ 

I disagree.  I would love to have a mountain in my deck so I could always have a red source for my rack and ruin, or better yet my viashino heretic.  I do however think that it would be terrible early in the game where you would want to fetch an island.  You could also run cards like shattering spree which would be insane in slaver.

I agree with you when you say that you don't need tinker colossus in slaver.  Colossus is just a beater, that is easily dealt with, while pentavus and titan, can be so much more.

[forests failed you]

Haha, fair enough;  I guess we can debate the former topic if and when we ever get a UR fetchland. 

However, I'm still not sold on playing a basic Swamp in Slaver.  If I were making room for another basic, I'd much rather it be another Island.  You can never have too many basic Islands.

[seer]

That's my main problem with running Darksteel Citadel. For every game it wins, that you would haven't been able to win without it, how many are lost by it not being an island?

Obviously you only run Darksteel Citadel if you have both Vampiric and Demonic Tutor in your deck.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Citadel is an auto include if there's a Crucible in the deck, I think.  It's infinite welder food.