Richmond is in 3 days - Do you have your welders ready?

[rureddy31]

Alright. It's that time again, and I am sorry to say, that the SCG will be without "the cocky canadian redhead" who happened to annihilate the field and top 8 with Control Slaver (ok, I am jking, I actually had to make a prize split in the last round just to T8). Anyway, we all know Control Slaver is a solid deck, and it is always a force. We have gone over the many different builds. I want to focus on one. Although I am not going to SCG, if I were, I know exactly what list I would play. And without further ado, here it is:

CONTROL
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

DRAW/SEARCH
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestrall Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Burning Wish

UTILITY
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Echoing Truth

BROKEN
3 Goblin Welder
1 Yawgmoth's Will A.K.A The Win^tm
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk

ROBOTS
1 Mindslaver
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelion

MANA
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Library Alexandria
1 Flooded Strand
1 Tolerian Academy
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

SIDEBOARD
3 Duress
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Solemn Simalcrum
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Deep Analysis
1 Tendrils of Agony

So here's my charge to all of you. If you WERE to pick up Burning Slaver, what changes would you make (keep in mind, I am expecting Fish/Gifts mostly).

[MoxMonkey]

Have you ever found a Game where you wanted a Fire/Ice or Darkblast?  Was Triskelion enough for you in testing and in tournament play?

[rureddy31]

I was thinking about that. For the most part, in the mirror (or when welders matter, etc.) I find Trike or Crypt to be good. I may try to fit one Fire/Ice into the main or board...

[God_Campbell]

Looks like a solid List Trep, I just gotta ask, how does your stax match up playout?
These reason I ask that is because I see a distinct lack of Crucible of Worlds in your deck, Pentabus is in Yes I know but he doesn't help you stabilize your lands like the COW.
other then that nitpick, soild list, and not to far from my own current pile O' 60

[warble]

I'd add rebuild and chain of vapor.  Burning slaver likes bounce, both for early control and late storm comboness.  Plus, it's going to save you from stax and the chain will save you from dragon, both of which are rough game 1's.  I'd feel free to side them out game 2 for better hate.

Also, I'd have a 3rd Tormod's Crypt in the sideboard or maybe even main.  Just because I hate will that bad.

[TD]

I am interested in picking up Control Slaver and learning the deck but i have a question about your build. What are the Solemn Simalcrums in the side board used for? I have seen these in a few CS boards and cant figure them out. Can you please explain?

[forests failed you]

I would build it like this:

Brian DeMars
Burning Slavery
3rd Place

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Artifact Creatures
1 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan

Artifact Lands
1 Darksteel Citadel

Creatures
3 Goblin Welder
2 Gorilla Shaman

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force Of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor

Legendary Artifacts
1 Mindslaver

Sorceries
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Basic Lands
3 Island

Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy

Snow-Covered Basic Lands
1 Snow-covered Island

Sideboard:
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fire / Ice
1 Pyroblast
1 Rack And Ruin
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Deep Analysis
3 Duress
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Tendrils Of Agony

Legality:
This deck is Vintage-legal.

Although the Pentavus / Trike robot configuration has been solid and a staple for some time;  I've switched up to the Sundering Titan, Duplicant, Crucible pack of angry robots.

Reason number one is that I don't want to get hosed by Null Rod.  Rod is already a big enough annoyance for the deck; and I don't want to give it any more power over me than necessary.  Against Stax you can go for COW , or post board Solem Similacrum and laugh at them.

Duplicant also randomly deals with Darksteel Colossos that  slip through your counter wall, or Oaths fatties.  Game one this can be a huge problem for an Oath player when you randomly have a duplicant and a welder to kill their team.

Between Titan and Colossos I opted for Titan.  Although Darksteel is bigger and tramples... I found the advantage of being able to weld the Titan to make him a worth whie inclusion.  Although in some match ups he is  a liability (stax for instance) if you play smart and don't put him in the yard you don't really need to worry so much about it.  With the Shamans, Welders, Stripmine/cow and Titan... Burning Slaver can put up an effective assult on an opposing control or aggro deck's mana base and easily take control of the game via its effective draw engine.

SIDEBOARD
3 Duress
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Solemn Simalcrum
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Deep Analysis
1 Tendrils of Agony

to:

Sideboard:
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fire / Ice
1 Pyroblast
1 Rack And Ruin
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Deep Analysis
3 Duress
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Tendrils Of Agony

Ryan I see no reason not to switch up one or two of the REBs to pyroblasts.  The advantage is you can Gifts for Blast and REB.  Or, in this deck pyroblast seems to be better as you can Pyroblast your own lands or guys that are not blue in order to build storm.

Secondly you have no card to Burning Wish for that Kills Null Rod or Chalice of the Void.  Echoing Ruin is saucy, or even Eye of Nowhere is worth playing if you don't like Ruin.

My other main concern is that you don't have any way of killing random idiots in the SB.  Stuff like Meddling Mage or opposing Goblin Welders.  I have found that disruptive aggro is a big problem.  I was running Pyrite and Fire Ice to deal with Mages and Voidmages post board.  Also, I think it is a mistake not to devote some number of slots to efficient removal because it gets very easy to lose random games to dragon or combo if they slip in a turn one Xantid Swarm that you can't kill.


I think in many ways you are over compensating to beat the Drain Mirror.  You have what looks like eight slots devoted to Gifts.  3 REB, 3 Duress, 2 Tormod's Crypt .... But you can't actually side in that many cards.  You could easily cut a REB and a Tormod's or or a Duress and put two efficient kill spells in the board that would help with the match  ups that you don't have any cards to bring in against.  (aside from Equake and Solem).

Ryan, you should change this thread to a discussion about Burning Wish Control SLaver decks and move it to the open Forum.  Or, if you don't I might consider starting the thread. 

[pyr0ma5ta]

Brian, I have a question for you.  When you cast the random Gifts Ungiven, what are your usual targets?  Do you just gifts for 4 robots and say "pick your poison"?  You clearly can't go for Yawg/Wish/Recoup/Tinker or any of the standard Gifts.dec piles because you don't run the Recoup.  What's your pile then, or is there a standard pile at all?

[Jacob Orlove]

If you just want to put big artifacts into the graveyard, Gifts for just two of them. That's a double entomb.

Otherwise, it would depend a lot on whether you want mana, tutors, or card drawing.

[forests failed you]

The deck isn't designed to abuse Gifts the way that Gifts is.  And I don't play Recoup.  Here are the basic non situational piles.  (that is to say the piles you get when you are not under a ton of pressure, and you don't have a specific threat to deal with.

Cow Pile - Darksteel Citadel, Strip Mine, Cow, Fetchland / Academy /

Tutor Pile - Mystical, Vamp, DT, anything else
Win the Game Pile with protected Will -  Lotus, Mox, Crypt, Academy / Dt

Double entomb Pile - Slaver and another robot

Gas Pile -  TFK, Mystical, Drain, Burning Wish (for deep)

Stax's Pile - E Truth, Shaman, Welder, Mystical or Tinker

The gifts piles for this deck are not as straightforward as the ones that you make for GUControl or combo.  Firstly you don't have recoup to recur big spells so you usually don't want to gifts them out right away.  Secondly, whether or not you have active welder makes a big difference in what you want to get. 

Basically when you cast Gifts with this deck you ask yourself the following questions.  (when you are not just obviously entombing)

Realistically, what two cards would I like in my hand right now. 
What cards would I have to give up from my deck in order to get the two in my hand that I need.
Is the trade of pulling those cards out of my deck worth it. 

With Gifts you can almost always find a way to get whatever card you need and put it into your hand via the tutors.

I've made some goofy gifts piles before.  I think the best one was Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, Sundering Titan, Mana Drain.

My hand at that point was Welder and Walk, and all I wanted was to put Titan into my hand with Drain to protect my Welder and my walk.  So, I figured... The two best cards I want win me the game I can sacrifice the two best cards in my deck to set up the scenerio that I want.  Sure enough, wrecked him with Titan, welder and Drain.

Hopefully this was what you were looking for.  Its a hard thing to break down to a science because in this build gifts becomes a really situationally powerful card.

[Harlequin]

Also I'm sure Gift'ing durring your slavery turn ... thats got to be fairly game-winning.
"Gifts ... That are, in fact, Given"
Instant
"Search your library for two awsome cards and put them in your hand.  then search your library for two huge artifacts and put them in your graveyard.  Win target game."

Arguably better than:
"Fact AND Fiction"
Instant
"Look at the top 5 cards of your library.  Put all huge artifacts in the graveyard, and all other cards in your hand"
Eat it ancestral recall ... eat it

[pyr0ma5ta]

Harlequin, what you say is true, but you don't actually need to cast GU when you're slaving, you already won the game. Although, I remember giving myself Yawgwill and Lotus and slapping Tinker and Time Walk in the grave.  That was fun times.

@Brian, thanks a lot.  I've always had trouble figuring out what the correct Gifts pile was when playing Slaver and usually ended up grabbing something like Slaver, Pentavus, Welder, Thirst, which was fine most of the time.  GU becomes much more utility based than a game-ending bomb in Slaver, then, it would appear.  It mostly fetches utility 1-ofs.

How are you liking the Deep in the board?  Do you find yourself wanting Mind Twist sometimes?  Do you ever board out the wish?

[Harlequin]

GU becomes much more utility based than a game-ending bomb in Slaver, then, it would appear.  It mostly fetches utility 1-ofs.

If this is true, what is your fealing about darkblast?  It seems like a great card for the mirror / stax matchup.  Needless to say, you get it in hand reguardless of how your opponent splits the piles.  A buddy of mine is trying to build CS and we are on the fense about:
1 Gifts + 1 Darkblast (or Lavadart)
or
1 FoF + 1 monkey
(the list we are using goes with Imperial Seal over buring wish so I understand that its a totally differnt deck)

From your list you chose gifts over FoF and went with 2 monkies and 0 darkblasts ... any comments?

[TD]

I am interested in picking up Control Slaver and learning the deck but I have a question about your build. What are the Solemn Simalcrums in the side board used for? I have seen these in a few CS boards and can't figure them out. Can you please explain?

Can anyone explain the Solemns?

[Harlequin]

Can anyone explain the Solemns?

short answer, Its for stax.  Stax has plenty of big drains, so even as a drop with no welders in play... hes two permenants! And hes a quality sac to a smokey because you draw a card.  So even without welder hes a way to ride above stax trying to pull you down.
Now roll welder into the mix and he becomes a mid-quality draw engine, and a way to dig for vital lands.  It can be difficult to have enough mana to thirst for draw reliably.  If you've got an active welder Solem can be a way to draw cards under a righteos sphere-of-reistance'ing.

[forests failed you]

He's also a potential four for one against fish.

Comes into play gets Island +1
Blocks one of their idiots and puts damage on the stack +1
Gets Welded out for an artifact in the graveyard +1
Draws a card when it hits the yard +1

Rinse repeat.

This guy gives aggro major headaches.