Discussion, Burning Slavery. Building, playing, insights, and so much more.

[Special K]

Seeing all this chat about REB, has anyone tried it in the maindeck? It seems like it would give the deck a sweet trick against not only Gifts and the mirror, but Fish and IT as well (game 1- before they've boarded out lots of blue cards against us).

Unlike Tormod's crypt it can't be pitched to Thirst for any type of advantage, and further more I would think a duress would serve the same function and be functional in more match ups even if it just strips a mox from a creature heavy deck or at least gives you the necassary information about your opponents deck.

I personally would rather run a duress over a tormod's crypt just because I find it would be more important to strip a bomb from my opponent and force them to top deck another and in that time hopefully build up a mana base/hand to better combat my opponent in the mid game.

[Evenpence]

The 3 Weldes is by no means permanent. My build for SCG was not optimal against Stax with 3 Welders and only 3 basic lands. This gambit worked and it didn't -- I only faced one Workshop deck the entire time, but that one did beat me.

Shout out to the most busted hands ever, word up.  Rich, I really had no idea.  You still took home more prize than I did, though, and I top 8ed both days! 

I agree with your philosophy of narrow cards being the broken in some matchups, especially when you have tutors in your deck.  The broken is more consistent with tutors and draw that allows you to get them easier, and I think that's a point that you may have overlooked, but right, imo, nonetheless.

Also, Brian:  Laugh up the Duplicant beats when you can.  I'll be looking to take you out in Rochester.    You're a great guy man, I hope something like that happens again.  BTW, WHY did you get Yawgmoth's Will when I had Cap out?  I think we both made mistakes. 

[The Atog Lord]

Were Control Slaver a proactive deck, then it would vary less as a function of the metagame. However, just by the reactive nature of the deck, it needs to be suited to a particular metagame. Part of this is crafting the maindeck and sideboard to be especially strong against certain decks which you expect to be common. The result of this, however, is that you need to also pick decks and matches that you won't focus on so much. I knew going in that my build wouldn't be quite as strong as previous builds against Workshop decks, and that was a gamble I was willing to take to make my deck better in other matches.

I know that Steve likes to argue that either Meandeck Spoils or Grim Long is the hardest deck to play correctly, and Steve knows that I think Control Slaver is the hardest deck. The more reactive a deck is, the more it needs to be tuned -- which is likely why Fish decks constantly vary so much in their builds. Meandeck Gifts is very focused and directed in its gameplan, and proactively pursues that plan. Control Slaver, as I play it, is far more reactive, and that means that it has to be tuned to be able to play the reactive role. Steve might have a new deck for every tournament, but I seldom step into the same river twice myself. Really, Control Slaver is a descendant of Combo  Keeper. Brian DeMars' Control Slaver build even includes a mana denial component.

[forests failed you]

Also, Brian:  Laugh up the Duplicant beats when you can.  I'll be looking to take you out in Rochester.    You're a great guy man, I hope something like that happens again.  BTW, WHY did you get Yawgmoth's Will when I had Cap out?  I think we both made mistakes. 

Are you seriously JK?  Without getting the Yawgmoth's Will before the Cap resolved I would have lost the game.  I had no cards in hand the turn cap resolved, and you had two Barbarian Rings on board with one mountain.  The Will allowed me to cast recall, timewalk, welder, and Solem Similacrum from the yard and forced you to burn both of your barbarian rings right away, which did two things.  Firstly, it denied you two on board mana as you had to use both immediately.  and secondly it put through several quick points of Damage which was relevent because I only had a 2/4 and one more 1/1 left in my deck to kill you with.  Also, I had to draw counterspells and drawspells to stop your future threats and find and protect the Duplicant with.

BTW, in getting the Yawgmoth's Will:  Even if you had taken my Duplicant I still could have killed you having gotten the Will.  I could have waited to draw the Slaver and then hard cast it and taken your turn; then tapped out your barbarian Rings on your turn that I controlled, untapped and cast Will... Welder, Time Walk, and whatever else and used the pain from your Barbarian Rings to kill you. 

Will was definately the correct play; and gave me infinate opportunities to win that game no matter what card you had taken.  I wouldn't even have considered finding another card with my DT.

[Evenpence]

That makes sense.  I don't remember everything that was going on with the gamestate that well, but you're probably right as you seem to remember it alot better than I do.

[Smmenen]

Were Control Slaver a proactive deck, then it would vary less as a function of the metagame. However, just by the reactive nature of the deck, it needs to be suited to a particular metagame. Part of this is crafting the maindeck and sideboard to be especially strong against certain decks which you expect to be common. The result of this, however, is that you need to also pick decks and matches that you won't focus on so much. I knew going in that my build wouldn't be quite as strong as previous builds against Workshop decks, and that was a gamble I was willing to take to make my deck better in other matches.

I know that Steve likes to argue that either Meandeck Spoils or Grim Long is the hardest deck to play correctly, and Steve knows that I think Control Slaver is the hardest deck. The more reactive a deck is, the more it needs to be tuned -- which is likely why Fish decks constantly vary so much in their builds. Meandeck Gifts is very focused and directed in its gameplan, and proactively pursues that plan. Control Slaver, as I play it, is far more reactive, and that means that it has to be tuned to be able to play the reactive role. Steve might have a new deck for every tournament, but I seldom step into the same river twice myself. Really, Control Slaver is a descendant of Combo  Keeper. Brian DeMars' Control Slaver build even includes a mana denial component.

Hahaha ! Grim Long isn't 1/10th as hard to play as Meandeck Tendrils. 

Meandeck Tendrils is 100% the hardest deck to play in not just Vintage, but magic period.  It's ridiculous to even mention the deck when talking about what's the hardest deck to play, and since the deck isn't tournament viable, it's a moot point anyway.

I would say that Grim Long is the hardest viable deck to play in the format, probably.  Although Meandeck Gifts is pretty high up there.  I think that one key quesiton in terms of how hard a deck to play is the nubmer of options and decisions.  Both MDG and Grim Long are very tutor heavy.  Thus there are lots of options and more decisions.  THat's just one marker of a hard deck though.

[forests failed you]

I think the point Rich was making was that although many of the tier one combo decks may be technically the most difficult decks to pilot in an event;  In many was Slaver is comparable in difficulty to win with, but not so much because of the actual physical play of the deck, but rather in the sense that you win or lose before the event even starts based on whether or not you metagamed and constructed your deck correctly.  The fact that Long is an aggressive control deck means that variations in build will be only slight based upon one's particular metagame (perhaps, and extra bounce spell or two maindeck), whereas tier one Slaver builds my vary by up to thirteen to fifteen cards, even more if you include sideboard, (IE burning slavery, v shay slaver) at any given time.

Long and Slaver are both among the most difficult decks to win with at any given event, but for different reasons.  Grimlong requires numerous difficult decisions and flawless play in order to win (or rather, to not beat oneself by making small errors);  whereas, Slaver also requires very tight play, there are less difficult decisions and math (IE tutoring et cetera) from game to game.   However, Slaver builds must be slighted against the metagame in order to be successful, and if one misses the results are disastrous. 

If you look at my results playing Slaver at major events in the past year they clearly reflect this trend.  I'm 3/6 in major events for making top four.  Basically, from build to build I either hit right on against the metagame or I miss and my deck is not properly built and I do fairly poorly.  Although, the last Chicago I think is a statistical outlier because I lost to good match ups with their nut draws in order to not T8.

With Slaver, if the build is on and you play tight you top eight.  If you misevaluate and don't have the proper cards maindeck you will lose.  That is what makes Slaver such a difficult deck to pilot correctly.  Not to mention, Slaver can be a very cruel deck (especially against Gifts or combo) if you do not micro manage all of your resources.

[Gabethebabe]

I don't hesitate to hit the first blue spell I can with my REBs because in the early game I am more than happy to trade card for card with combo decks;  especially when it gains me tempo. 

You don´t hesitate to hit the first blue spell with REB?
In my point of view, REB reads: "Whenever your opponent plays a blue spell and you have open and ~this~ in you hand, counter that spell"

[LordHomerCat]

On the issue of boarding Leylines against IT in particular:

Isn't the standard IT plan against pretty much everyone to board out FoW's and some of the Yawg-Will tutors for a full boat of Confidants and Tendrils?  Even if they don't board that way, and you drop a Leyline game 2 and wreck them, they are certainly gonna bring in the mini-tendrils plan game 3 and make your 3-4 Leylines all but useless against 2/1 beatdown and small Tendrils.  Grimlong obviously doesn't run this sort of backup plan, making Leylines much better against them, but against IT they just don't seem like they are a great idea postboard, since there's a pretty good chance your opponent has already gone with Plan B in anticipation of Tormod's Crypt and other graveyard hate, which will make your Leylines really bad if not completely worthless (since they run a grand total of one recursion spell).

[The Atog Lord]

Yes, Mr. Cat, the Leylines are much better against the aggressive fast combo approach than they are against the Man Plan.

But that's alright. I'm very afraid of being torn apart in the first couple turns by Grim Long or IT or anything else. And while not always the case, the vast majority of the time, when something degenerate happens in the first couple of turns, Yawgmoth is somehow involved in the matter. Even with the Man Plan, IT is perfectly capable of winning via Yawgmoth's WIll quite quickly.

Now, the Bob-Go plan is stronger against Leyline, but at the same time, Control Slaver is much better prepared as a deck to fight against the Bob-Go plan. The Bob-Go plan builds up card advantage over several turns and then uses that advantage to win the game. It also has the side effect of giving Control Slaver more time to set itself up. If things get into draw-go mode, I'm happy.

[Metman]

I'm going to have to agree with Atog Lord here.  If Grim/IT Long plays the draw go route I'm happy.  I'm not even closely sold on Leyline of the Void.  It would have to be run as a four of and I would rather be siding in REBs and Crypts than a four cc enchantment that requires double black and is dead if not drawn in the opening hand.  I can't imagine this being any better than what Slaver already runs in the SB. 

[RezDawg]

Is it foolish the put brain freeze in CS/BS sideboard to combat tendrils?  I know IT is faster and you might not even get a turn sometimes, so...  Is it better to combat the combo at its core or treat the symptom and brain freeze in response to tendils?

[forests failed you]

I don't hesitate to hit the first blue spell I can with my REBs because in the early game I am more than happy to trade card for card with combo decks;  especially when it gains me tempo. 

You don´t hesitate to hit the first blue spell with REB?
In my point of view, REB reads: "Whenever your opponent plays a blue spell and you have open and ~this~ in you hand, counter that spell"

Congratulations you have restated what I said?

If you Leyline and shut off early Will and they play the Bob-Go plan; congratulations you win.  Drawing one per turn and passing cannot possibly draw more cards than Slaver's Draw Engine.  They draw a card and pass, and you cast EOT TFK.  They are losing at this point and you can counter their relevent spells.  Not to mentino if they have to win without Will against an on board Leyline; by the time the reach a point in their game where they are actually dangerous, you are equally dangerous (if not more dangerous) because you can cast your own Will or Slaver and win the game/

[The Atog Lord]

Well, REZ:

If they have DSC, decking them won't be so good.

If they Duress you while going off, this plan fails.

If they run out of cards in their library but don't attempt to draw any more, they're fine. So, if you cast this while they have Tendrils on the stack, you'll need Ancestral to make it work.

Stifle is a better card for making their combo not work, in terms of what can be cast from hand.

[Necrologia]

Is it foolish the put brain freeze in CS/BS sideboard to combat tendrils?  I know IT is faster and you might not even get a turn sometimes, so...  Is it better to combat the combo at its core or treat the symptom and brain freeze in response to tendils?

Unless you've also got some instant speed targeted draw the best you can hope for is to mill their library in response to them winning. Not to mention that Brain Freeze needs much more than the ~9 Storm Tendrils does before it's lethal, and many combo decks go off with just enough to kill.

[Metman]

Is it foolish the put brain freeze in CS/BS sideboard to combat tendrils?  I know IT is faster and you might not even get a turn sometimes, so...  Is it better to combat the combo at its core or treat the symptom and brain freeze in response to tendils?

Unless you've also got some instant speed targeted draw the best you can hope for is to mill their library in response to them winning. Not to mention that Brain Freeze needs much more than the ~9 Storm Tendrils does before it's lethal, and many combo decks go off with just enough to kill.

In addition to this...
If you don't mill them to victory you feed their Yawgmoth's Will to ensure they win the game.  REB, Tormod's Crypt and Duress are better options. 

[Gort32]

Theoritical Question:

Game 1, turn 1 you have the following decent hand:
Mana Crypt
On-color Mox
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Force of Will
Echoing Truth (or other random blue pitchable card)
Gifts Ungiven

So your major play is to drop Gifts first turn w/ a FoW backup.  What Gifts pile would you grab in this case with sifficient resources but no business cards?

(Edit: typos  - stupid new keyboard...)

[marcb]

I would probably take more draw cards, say for example thirst, mystical (for ancestral maybe), FoF (or Burning wish), and a mana drain for back up (assuming you no longer have force, otherwise I might replace this w/ brainstorm).  Having all this mana is great, but now you need to see some cards, so drawing more seems like the right decision to me.

[cryolyte]

Well, if the gifts goes through unopposed, leaving you still with force backup, I might gifts for: Mindslaver, Thirst, brainstorm, and mystical. If they do give you the mindslaver, you'll be able to hardcast and activate in short order, and if they choose for the slaver to go into the yard, you'll have two draw spells to try and find a welder for it. I do tend to play the deck too aggressively sometimes, though. It also depends on what kind of land they played first turn and what kind of information you could gleam from it. If they waste your land, I would gifts for a more permanent heavy set of cards: 2 on-color moxen, other cards depending on what the other blue cards was.

[MoxMonkey]

Theoretical Question:

Game 1, turn 1 you have the following decent hand:
Mana Crypt
On-color Mox
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Force of Will
Echoing Truth (or other random blue pitchable card)
Gifts Ungiven

So your major play is to drop Gifts first turn w/ a FoW backup.  What Gifts pile would you grab in this case with sufficient resources but no business cards?


(Edit: typos  - stupid new keyboard...)

I'd Gifts for Demonic tutor, Mystical Tutor, Thirst for Knowledge, (FoF in my list, Merchant Scroll in Shays list, Burning Wish in FFY's list maybe something else in yours.)

Demonic tutor grabs Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will or Black lotus depending on what else you get.
Mystical tutor fetches Ancestral Recall, Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will.
Thirst for knowledge is a draw spell to let you get back into the game.

Merchant Scroll gets Ancestral or another FoW or a Drain to make sure Tinker/Will or something resolves
Burning Wish gets you Deep Analysis for the Control Mirror, Rolling Earthquake/Pyroclasm against Fish, Echoing Ruin against Null Rods, and Tendrils to kill someone with.
Fact or Fiction is just a broken draw spell to help you get back into the game.

[marcb]

Mox Monkey,

  Are you assuming you still have force?  Would you replace one of your choices with mana drain if you had to force in order to cast gidts? If so, which card would you replace? I think I agree if you still have force backup. Originally I said brainstorm instead of DT, but I was definitely wrong. If I didn't have force back up, then I would still replace DT with mana drain and take drain, mystical, thirst, FoF.

Marc

[MoxMonkey]

I wouldn't get counters because you have nothing left in your hand.  You want two business spells to end up in your hand because your not doing anything else other than Top decking without them.  No good player is going to play something important into a counter they gave you. 

I like the pile I gave cause at the end you either get Double Draw, Double Tutor, a Draw spell and a Tutor.  I'm pretty sure I can hold my own with both of those since he didn't Force back and theres a low chance for a Drain up turn 1.  The Worst situation I see is he gets Drain and has another Force ripped off the top so he counters both and you go into topdecking but with 4-5 mana you can hardcast almost everything off the top so long as Crypt doesn't kill you first.  Storm combo killing you turn 2 is another thing that could get you.

The Gifts I said is really just so you have outs and or can tutor for outs.  It's probably not the best one but it gets you draw or it finds you answers or a little bit of both.  Knowing what your playing against Changes the Gifts pile a lot.

[marcb]

I would like to start up the discussion of how to SB against IT again. I have tried Leyline of the Void, and I don't think it's as good as chalice. It's still very easy for IT to win in the first few turns with necro, bargain, or mind's desire and never be affected by the leyline in play. If my leylines would have been chalice I would have one many more games. The other negative to leyline is that if it's not in your opening hand, it's pretty dead. Anyway, I was wondering what others have thought, and I was also curious what FFY was doing with his SB since there really isn't much room to add chalice. Also, I definitely think its time for a crypt main, and one more in the SB no matter what version of control slaver you play.

Marc

[sean1i0]

Crypt main I can definitely rally behind.  It's just so damn good.  As for chalices though, I'm curious:  To which numbers would you set the counters?  Obviously if you're going first and you have it in your opening hand, you set it to 0.  What if they've already gone and dropped a ton of accelerants?  Whenever I play Ubastax, that's when I would set it to 1, but Slaver, as a deck, can't handle chalice at 1 nearly as well as Ubastax can.  Shutting off Ancestral Recall, Brainstorms, tutors, and goblin welders (notice I put the welders at the end of the list) is just not something that I see slaver as wanting to do.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Chalice isn't a good anti-combo card.  Personally I think I will try before Chalice of the Void is a card that was used about a year ago as anti-combo tech:  Sphere of Resistance.  I think it just might have merit in slaver sideboards again.

[marcb]

Sean10,

 I can't say that I have personally tried playing with sphere, but I agree with what you said. Chalice can be hard to play in Slaver, but as you said playing it first turn for zero is great. In fact, sometimes it's the only play that could save Slaver from loosing next turn to IT or Grimlong. I will definitely give sphere a try.

Marc

[SiegeX]

What do you guys think of Rise//Fall as a utility card in the SB for Burning Slaver?

Rise // Fall {UB // BR} |Sorcery // Sorcery| Return target creature card in a graveyard and target creature in play to their owners' hands. // Target player reveals two cards at random from his or her hand, then discards each nonland card revealed this way.

Both halves are on-color as far as either slaver variant is concerned.  Rise seems like a great trick but a bit too situational and Fall seems like a watered down Hymn to Tourach.  So I guess the question is, similar to Ghost Quarter, does two less than spectacular abilities packaged into one a good card make? I don't think Rise//Fall is good enough to replace the echoing truth in the SB, but perhaps its good enough to replace the 3rd duress?  Also something I just noticed, the one half that can stand on its own, Fall, uses the two splash colors.

[sean1i0]

Overall, without testing obviously, my first instinct would be to say that this is not powerful enough.  The first ability is definitely weaker than echoing truth because it's situational and because it only bounces creatures.  The second ability is much weaker than duress; duress is by far the best unrestricted discard in the format.  Not only does it give you precisely the most powerful card in the opponent's hand, but it also gives you a ton of information.  Fall does neither of these.

[Gekoratel]

I can't say that I have personally tried playing with sphere, but I agree with what you said. Chalice can be hard to play in Slaver, but as you said playing it first turn for zero is great. In fact, sometimes it's the only play that could save Slaver from loosing next turn to IT or Grimlong. I will definitely give sphere a try.

I've been playing IT a bit lately and Chalice does not affect that deck nearly as much as other combo decks in the format.  The ability to cast Intuition for 3x Dark Ritual against Chalice @0 or 2x Cabal Ritual/1x Lotus against Chalice @1 makes Chalice less effective.  Sphere of Resistance on the other hand severely slows down the broken Yawgmoth’s Will plan of the deck as well of the man plan.

[SiegeX]

IT took the win for a Mox Sapphire at the last local T1 tourney we had up here in the bay area and so SB'ing for it has now become a priority for the next tournament.  Ive been considering putting a singleton 'extract' in the SB which is fetchable via Burning Wish but I have a few questions.  1) Do you think on average I will even have time to extract a decent IT player game 1? This would require me to at least see one of their turns to know what they are playing, then it would most likly require me to tutor for the Wish and then play that for extract which is about 5 mana (4 if I can mystical).  2) If I do get Extract to resolve, what would hurt IT the most game 1, Necro or Yawgwill?  I am running maindeck Tormod's Crypt so extracting for Yawgwill might be a bit redundant and as I read in the GWS IT Primer, Necro is "the only card that beats me."   I already have decent aggro hate in the SB so maybe I should just keep the SB the way it is, chalk up game 1 to a potential loss and side in the bob hate games 2/3.

[The Atog Lord]

2) If I do get Extract to resolve, what would hurt IT the most game 1, Necro or Yawgwill?

Just take the Tendrils.