[Deck] The Jester

[BreathWeapon]

This deck is a product of an argument I had in the Evolution of UbaStax thread in the Open forum. In that thread, I stated that the deck list could not be classified as a Stax deck, and it was instead more similar to Workshop Slavery and Cerebral Assassin. So, instead of adding Jester's Cap to UbaStax and removing cards for it, I thought it would be a better idea to build a deck around Jester's Cap.

Here is the list I came up, along with an explanation of card choices and match ups.

The Jester

4 Jester's Cap
1 Mindslaver

Jesters Cap is the central card of the deck. Your goal is to either hard cast or weld in Jester's Cap and activate it to remove the opponent's win conditions. This is an effective game plan against Gifts and Slaver pre and post board, and an effective game plan against Oath and Combo game 1 (the opponent will SB in his additional creatures and Tendrils). Against more redundant decks, such as Stax or Fish, Jester's Cap can be used to either win the welder war or remove the opponent's hate cards, and against Ichorid you can remove their Ichorids to slow the deck down to a managable pace. Mindslaver is included for the instances when the game goes past Jester's Cap's ability to affect the game state.

1 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void

Trinisphere is the quentisential tempo card of Workshop decks, consider it three Time Walks in one against Control, a stop to their Will and a hard lock against Combo. Chalice is included to combat Combo, Oath and Fish. You can Chalice@0 with relative impunity, because this deck's manabase is incredibly redundant, and you can Chalice@1 against Combo because your Welders and Studies are irrelevant in the match up (if you can't resolve a Welder/Study and Chalice@1 on the same turn). You can Chalice@2 to stop Oath, Manadrain, Null Rod and all of Fish's relevant creatures.

1 Darksteel Colossus

Colossus is the most efficient win condition in Vintage, he allows you to win the game from a game state that no other card could.

4 Goblin Welder

They allow you to recur your threats, avoid Drain, disrupt the opponent and beat down.

4 Leyline of the Void

Leyline of the Void is with out doubt the most controversial card in this list, and although the draw engine included in this deck can easily discard dead copies, I'm certain people will still disagree with its inclusion. However, Leyline of the Void, is a metagame defining card. No one is prepared to face grave yard hate game one, let alone grave yard hate that can't be met with Null Rod or Pithing Needle. You will win entire games against Ichorid and Dragon, it stops Yawgmoth's Will based Combo from being a coin flip and turns off Combo's, Stax's, Gift's and Slaver's most important cards. The Jester is a deck that is designed to steal games, and this card fits in nicely with that philosophy.

4 Force of Will

This card prevents threats from resolving before Chalice can lock them out of the game. It helps resolve your threats against Control and is often the only thing standing between you, Combo and losing a game with out playing a card.

4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Careful Study
1 Ancestral Recall

Thirst is arguably the best draw engine in Vintage, seeing play in Slaver, Oath and Gifts. It discards large cc artifacts for welder trades cards like Leyline, Colossus and cards that would otherwise be countered by your Chalice. Study pales in comparison to Thirst, however it does improve your mulligan ratio, manabase, dig for Force or Chalice on the play as well as avoid Drain with a Welder on the table.

1 Tinker

The most efficient tutor and mana accelerant in Vintage, and your secondarly win condition to submission.

1 Time Walk

It cycles, untaps your lands and removes summoning sickness.

1 Mystical Tutor

Tinker#2
 
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Volcanic Island
4 Shivan Reef
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet

Tomb was included to increase the probability of first turn Caps, Chalice@2, activate a Cap if the opponent set a Chalice@0 as well as allow Welder to race Drain with a second turn Thirst on the play.

SB

Viashino Heretic
Granite Shard
Ensnaring Bridge
Blood Moon

Viashino Heretic and Granite Shard were included to combat Stax and give the deck additional kill conditions. Grainte Shard also doubles as board control against Ichorid and Fish. Ensnaring Bridge is for the Oath match up, Ichorid as well as the random aggro your bound to face at the lower levels of the tournament. Blood Moon has been included on a hunch; it will nullify Bazaars, Wastelands, Mazes, Dual Lands and do nothing of consequence to me I can resolve it first or second turn easily, and I think it is the single most powerful and underplayed SB card in Vintage at the moment.

Match Ups

Gifts,

Gifts is arguably one of your best match ups, if Leyline is in the first hand or you can resolve Chalice for 0 on the play than a Cap should have no problem removing the opponent's win conditions. You have Welder for an early Tinker and Force of Will should keep side board hate to a minimum. The version with Thirsts is also much less of a threat than the version with Scrolls. I don't SB for this match up.

Slaver,

Slaver is in the same position as Gifts, accept it can still hard cast its threats and use its Welders to disrupt you. I suggest SBing in Shard and Heretic to for your high cc artifacts and Welders and allow Leyline and Chalice to steal your games for you.

Oath,

Game 1 is often in your favor, Force can prevent the opponent from going all in with an Oath, and after that Cap or Chalice can seal the deal. Game 2 and 3 are much more difficult, because they SB 2 additional creatures making your Caps questionable, so SB in Bridge, Shards and Moon.

Combo,

Leyline shuts off Will, Chalice  shuts off Moxen or their most efficient tutors, draw and acceleration. Cap removes their win condition and Force stops anything broken from happening. I don't SB for this match up.

Stax,

Leyline shuts off Crucible, so your opponent can't Stack or Waste lock you. Going first is advantageous if you can resolve Chalice@0, and Force of will stops anything broken from happening. Welders provides the best disruption your deck has to offer. Tthe problem in this match up is figuring out how to win. A Colossus or a Slaver seems like the best answer, game 2 bring in Heretics for Caps.

UbaStax

This is not a favorable match up in testing, but it isn't awful. Leyline is amazing, because it turns Bazaar of Baghdad, Crucible of Worlds and Goblin Welder into completely anti-synergistic cards. Winning the coin flip helps if you can resolve Chalice@0, and Force stops anything broken from happening. The problem is that UbaStax is designed to win the war of permanents against other Workshop based decks, and Stack for all intents and purposes has strategy superiority over Cap. The deck has so many ways to gain card advantage in the form of Welder, Crucible, Bazaar and Uba to deal with. You need to beat them at their own game, so bring in Heretic, Shard and Moon. Moon looks to be the back breaker of this match up, because it turns off Bazaar, Waste and Ring. I'd test this match up thorougly.

Ichorid

Leyline=GG. Chalice@1 shuts off half of their most important cards. SB Bridge and Shard for high cc artifacts and Force, considering bringing in Moon too. Overwhelmingly in your favor.

Fish

A bad match up. Unless you can resolve Chalice@2 with Force back up on the play your going to lose game one. I suggest you bring in your entire board and pray.

Random Aggro

A worse match up. The deck isn't designed to deal with scrubs. You have to go all in on Tinker game one. You can bring in Bridge and protect it with Force, until Tinker shows up.

All in all I find the deck incredibly fun to play. For a Workshop deck, it ends games incredibly fast, which is a major reason to play this at a large tournament if you are a shop player. Since the deck doesn't use a hard lock, you also don't immediately lose to a resolved Rebuild or Recall (thank you Leyline). I'm not thrilled about the match up against Fish, and taking a game loss to Goblins sucks, but for a rogue deck I built completely on my own ... I'm rather proud of it.

Flame on!

Edit: I'm seriously considering removing Darksteel Colossus for Platinum Angel, on the argument that resolving either one will win the game in the same game state and I can hard cast Platinum Angel or weld it in from the yard. It also stops Combo and Oath from being able to race me, etc. That and I think it is more stylistic for the deck.

Edit: If I do swap Colossus for Angel, I'm probably going to remove Mystical for Portal, because I always like the card and watched Assassin do amazing things with it. All it has to do is sit in the yard with a welder in play to make a difference on the game state, which is pretty cool.

[AngryPheldagrif]

So, like, where are your win conditions?

[BreathWeapon]

Submission is the win condition, if I Cap Slaver's big artifacts, Gift's Tinker/DSC/Burning Wish, Oath's creatures and Combo's Tendrils I can beat down with Welder if I have to. My win condition is making sure they don't have one.

[8pt Monkey Hand]

So, you don't have a win condition, aside from DSC? What happens when that should fail?

[BreathWeapon]

I don't get what is so hard to understand about this, Jester's Cap is the win condition. It's the same thing as Stax, as long as you bring the game completely under your control than you can kill the opponent with whatever you want. DSC isn't really even a win condition, he's just a way to make Tinker broken.

[Evenpence]

There are alot of problems with this deck that you might not see, because others have not brought it up.

For one, Countermagic in a Stax deck is horrible, especially when you don't have enough blue cards to support Force of Will.

I would rather play Mana Drain over Force of Will in a second because it allows you to accelerate into your win conditions.  I don't know how you didn't see this.

Leyline of the Void is not good.  It's just not.  Especially in a deck where you can't Bazaar it away.

Another thing that makes you look really bad is the fact that you're running 4 Volcanic Island / 4 Shivan Reef.

I don't know where you've been for the past 3 years, but fetchlands exist.  Use them.  You can use brainstorms instead of Careful Studies then.  Careful Study isn't necessarily a horrible suggestion, but it's not as good as the uncounterable Bazaar of Baghdad.

I'm also seeing a noticible lack of Frantic Search in the deck.  The deck looks like a role model for why Frantic Search is busted.

Darksteel Colossus is horrible.  Use something else to tinker for.  You already have a Slaver in there, play something relevant like Sundering Titan, so the Fish Matchup won't be bad.

This whole post really shows your ignorance of fundamental ideas in Vintage - and I'm not saying that as an insult.  Not knowing about fetchlands, for instance, is just poor though.

[BreathWeapon]

I think your still just pissed off after the last thread, but that's cool. I'll just attack your argument, instead of you.

I don't need to use Fetch Lands, I don't have Crucible, I have 8 sorcery speed cards I want to resolve on the first turn so they don't protect me from Wasteland, they reduce the number of color producing lands in the deck in case the Fetched land gets Wasted and they get hit by random card like PNeedle, Stifle and Root Maze. They also wouldn't allow me to use Brainstorm effectively, and I think Careful Study is definately better. If you look at the original manabase of Workshop Slaver, they didn't use Fetch Lands either (and they used Brainstorm!).

Why would I add Fetch Lands and then add Sundering Titan? I'd need to crack the Fetch to find the blue source to Tinker for it, and then I would end up with out a blue source. Sundering Titan wouldn't improve the Fish match up, they'll chump block it until eternity. DC has reach, which is the entire point of him being in this deck.

This isn't a Stax deck, I have 16 blue cards for Force and I'm not afraid to discard Tinker if I have to. Combo decks have less blue cards for Force than I do. Mana Drain? 8 blue producing lands!

Leyline of the Void is good, very good. I have 8-9 cards that discard other cards. Also, I really don't see another card I'd prefer in that spot at the moment. I don't think any one is really giving the card a chance.

Frantic Search, actually, sounds like an good  idea. I wanted to replace Mystical Tutor with something better. Thanks!

[Evenpence]

I think your still just pissed off after the last thread, but that's cool. I'll just attack your argument, instead of you.

Did I sound pissed off at all?  I was just pointing out some problems with your deck.

I don't need to use Fetch Lands, I don't have Crucible, I have 8 sorcery speed cards I want to resolve on the first turn so they don't protect me from Wasteland, they reduce the number of color producing lands in the deck in case the Fetched land gets Wasted and they get hit by random card like PNeedle, Stifle and Root Maze.

Pithing Needle on FETCHLANDS?  STIFLE?  Root Maze is only played in the board of a single deck.  I don't mean for this to sound mean, really, but you have way more things to be worried about, like, people's opinions of your views into the format.

They also wouldn't allow me to use Brainstorm effectively, and I think Careful Study is definately better. If you look at the original manabase of Workshop Slaver, they didn't use Fetch Lands either (and they used Brainstorm!).

Fetchlands don't allow you to brainstorm effectively...okay.  Careful Study is a Bazaar of Baghdad that is counterable and non-renewable, I.E., almost strictly worse.

Why would I add Fetch Lands and then add Sundering Titan? I'd need to crack the Fetch to find the blue source to Tinker for it, and then I would end up with out a blue source.

You can NOT be serious.

Sundering Titan wouldn't improve the Fish match up, they'll chump block it until eternity.

This is what I mean when I say that you have a fundamental lack of knowledge when it comes to the format.

DC has reach, which is the entire point of him being in this deck.

  The thing is, DSC doesn't kill lands which counter your spells and accelerate your opponent into the win.  DSC is also bounced by all kinds of stuff and is much more unhardcastable than Titan.  It's also not able to be welded in.  I have no idea how you can advocate Colossus over Titan.

This isn't a Stax deck, I have 16 blue cards for Force and I'm not afraid to discard Tinker if I have to.  Combo decks have less blue cards for Force than I do.

Sorry if I'm like you and refer to Workshop variants as "Stax" decks.  I still refer to The Jester (you know, the true one), as Modern Ubastax, even if it's not even running Stax anymore.  You really need to change this deck name to something else, though.

I didn't realize you had 16 blue cards.  I guess Careful Study is good for pitching to Force, lol.

Combo decks?  The only Combo deck that runs Force, to my knowledge, is IT.  Obviously TPS runs it, but that's old.  I believe GWS has just thrown Force out of IT and are currently playing Hymn to Tourach and MD Confidants over it and some other stuff anyway.

Mana Drain? 8 blue producing lands!

Okay.  I wasn't telling you what to do with your deck, I was simply saying Mana Drain is better.  Which it is.  Exponentially.  Once again, not giving you advice, just giving you knowledge on the format.

Leyline of the Void is good, very good. I have 8-9 cards that discard other cards. Also, I really don't see another card I'd prefer in that spot at the moment. I don't think any one is really giving the card a chance.

I hardly doubt you'll be wanting to pitch Leylines to Thirst for Knowledge.  As for Careful Study, again, better cards, and again, non-renewable.

Frantic Search, actually, sounds like an good idea. I wanted to replace Mystical Tutor with something better. Thanks!

You're welcome, but you really need to take me more seriously.

[Stax0-2Drop]

I don't see the point of Blood Moon when it shuts off your whole mana base aside from Moxen and Artifact mana.

As you said if you play it first turn, it's not how your opponent will deal with it, it is how are you going to deal with it with your deck depending on ya know blue mana too, with the  mana base you have now...

just doesn't make sense to me....

~matt

[Tha Gunslinga]

So if I drop a Null Rod I auto-win?  I mean, Jester's Cap is decent, but it's not THIS good.  What if I kill your Welders and have a win condition in hand?

[BreathWeapon]

Yes, you definately sound pissed, or your just being sarcastic.

Fetch Lands in a deck with 4 targets for them can't support Brainstorm on the same level as a deck with 5 Fetch Lands and 9 other blue lands in the deck. The chances I have Brainstorm in hand and a Volcanic Island and a Fetch Land are very, very slim.

Yes, Pithing Needle, Stifle and Root Maze. Why would I allow myself to be victimized by one of these cards if I didn't have to, regardless of how often it may happen (I see a lot of Stifle, actually) for no tangible benefit? You didn't even refute the point, you just made a pathos attack. As far as my opinion on the format is concerned, I really don't care whether or not you give it any credence.

Brainstorm doesn't allow me to put an artifact in the yard to weld in and avoid Drain. Brainstorm with out a shuffle effect puts two cards I don't want on top of my deck, Careful Study lets me top deck fresh cards. If the opponent wants to Force or Drain my Study, that is awesome. Please do. No, it isn't renewable, but I'm not fighting a war on permanents. It isn't always worse than Bazaar, because it can't be Needled.

Sundering Titan doesn't do anything against Fish, seriously. The disruption to their manabase isn't that significant, because I have nothing to follow it up with and the chances of a Welder sticking around aren't good. Sundering Titan isn't a clock against Fish, they will chump block the card until they either find an answer to it or win the damage race. I've played this out dozens of times, it's what lead me to put DSC in the deck. And yes, losing a land myself could really suck if I was relying on it for Granite Shard or something of that nature, it's happend before (I actually hard cast FoW in this deck sometimes). I advocate DSC over Titan because DSC is an actual clock against aggro, which is what this deck needs more than anything. That said, I think Angel is better than both in theory.

Sorry, I made a poor assumption about a deck in an article named the Evolution of UbaStax with Smokestack in it, my bad. You made the mistake when I implied that this isn't a Stax deck in the first paragraph. It's not the same.

Your missing the point on FoW, I was stating that I had a sufficient number of cards to run FoW in comparison to other decks that have used FoW out of control or aggro control in the past (which is Dragon, CrazyStax, Slavery, TPS, IT, Long and SX in the SB).

I pitch Leyline to Thirst more often than you'd think. And as far as Study is concerned, yes I understand it is arguably the weakest card in the deck. It is also arguably the most necessary.

I really don't know what you are trying to say about Drain, do you meen I shouldn't be playing Shops at all? I don't think I could disagree with you more after seeing what Ichorid can do in a field of control. If I weren't playing Ichorid or Shops, I'd probably play Fish.

@ Gunslinger

Pretty much, that's why I have 4 Force, 16 blue cards and 4 Chalice along with 4 Heretic in the board.

I've never been put in that situation, usually if I don't pull all of the win conditions I start to dig for Tinker, Slaver or my DSC while I cap everything of relevance.

Edit: Thinking about this whole thing, I may be inlcined to do what Team MeanDeck did with Shop Slaver and include a number of creatures in the board for "The Man Plan." Moons can easily be cut for Titans, and I'd rather shore up the Fish and aggro match up more than UbaStax.

I'm also going to cut Time Walk for Triskelion in the MD. Time Walk doesn't do enough.

Edit: Correction to the last edit, Blood Moon should be removed for Triskelions SB and the Mystical/Frantic slot should be replaced with a Triskelion MD. Frantic is cool, but I'd rather have Time Walk in the MD for game 2 vs Aggro when my men come in.

[zeus-online]

Your mana base is really horrible....No basics, and no fetch...!
Fetchlands is about the best lands printed since....tolarian academy or something, not sure why you wouldnt run this?
And with brainstorms they become nuts good...sure you dont run BS, but i definetly think you should!
 
Also...i cant see your reasons for cutting time walk? Time walk does so much.....how does it "not do enough" ?

Scenarios involving time walk:
Turn 1, mox, land, time walk -> You've just accelerated your game plan, which is, good.
Mid-game, with a welder in hand, cast welder, walk -> Untapped with an active welder.
Tinker + Time walk = The Beatz.

Your lock also seems kinda weak, you've got chalice, trini, leyline (which may or may not be relevant, depending on if its on your start hand) and 4 fow's.....

4 FoW's probably wont win you any counter wars at all! Sure it helps against combo, but thats about all i can see it do with no back-up.

Chalice is pretty good, but again, its something you want in your start hand, and is much, much better when going first...almost all of your disruption seems to be based on the asumption that it WILL be in your start hand. Even trinisphere looses alot when going second.

/Zeus

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention the most important part of my mini-analysis.....Most of your disruption is absolutely horrible to top-deck.

[Evenpence]

Sundering Titan doesn't do anything against Fish, seriously.

Signatured.

I pitch Leyline to Thirst more often than you'd think.

0 Card Advantage off Thirst.  Good play.

I'm not even going to bother responding to your other stuff.

[Harlequin]

Firstly: "I can always discard this to X" and "It pitches to FoW"  Are NEVER* justifications for running something  Whenever that arguement starts sneaking its way in, thats a warning sign of a bad choice. 

*- Never is a bit harsh, the "its blue so its good with Fow" argument is ok if your considering two simlar or nearly identical cards like Rule of Law over Arcane Lab.  But thats double edged sometimes because REB is so popular. 


As for Fetchlands... they are definately worth thier wieght in the deck.  Its not like rootmazes and Anhks of mishrah are dominating right now.  A fetchland lets you statstically run "less" cards in your deck.  And even better is that it lets you run less lands in your deck as you get more lands on the board.  To put it another way, for each card in your opening hand you have roughly a 17/60 chance of drawing a land.  Every time you draw a non-land your odds of drawing a land goes up, every time you draw a land the odds goes down.  So your best chances to draw a land are in your opening hand.  As you play and draw lands you odds of drawing quality non-lands increases.  Evey time you fetch, your taking 2 lands out of your deck (the fetch and the card you fetch) wich gives you an extra kicker for non-land draws.  ~Also it increases your chances of drawing your shops and academy.  So it is statstically satifying all around to run fetchlands.  Your opening draws have the highest probability of lands and your late game draws have the lowest. 

[BreathWeapon]

@Evenpence

I don't even know what to say any more, all you do is rely on a bunch of "truisms" to tell me why certain cards are good and should be included, and instead of addressing any of my points you just call me ignorant. If you don't want to participate in the thread in a constructive manner then kindly leave.

@Zeus

The manabase is fine, it's the same manabase that was used in the original Shop Slaver. I'm not aware of a Stax deck that uses basics, other than UbaStax, and I've already addressed why I don't use Fetch Lands.

As far as all of the lock piececs being bad on the draw and Force not being able to win the counter war, your right. The thing is, I'm not playing this deck past turn 3 if I can help it, it's a Shop deck that effectively goes all in on Cap. If I get to the point where I have to start thinking about a counter war or a hard lock I've already lost, unless Leyline or Chalice caught them off guard or I can steal the game with Angel or Slaver.

@Harlequin

In most instances I would agree, but I would still use Leyline of the Void and Careful Study regardless of whether or not I could pitch to Force or discard it to Thirst, Frantic or Study.

Edit: Ok, I obviously I wouldn't use Study if it didn't pitch to Force.

Your second point is exactly why I don't want to use Fetch Lands, if the opponent has Wasted my Volcanic Island after I Fetched for it he's removed two U/R sources from my deck instead of one. The numbers don't come out as favorable as you think, tho' I really don't want to bother going into the math.

[Methuselahn]

I don't know what all these other guys are talking about Breath, but you had me at Darksteel Colossus + Ensnaring Bridge.  <3 <3 <3 

(and I don't use 3 "<3s" often)

[BreathWeapon]

I don't know what all these other guys are talking about Breath, but you had me at Darksteel Colossus + Ensnaring Bridge.  <3 <3 <3 

(and I don't use 3 "<3s" often)

I don't see how this is that difficult to understand, I Bridge to stall the game until I can find Tinker or Colossus etc and then Weld out the Bridge when I'm ready to race them to the finish line. It isn't the best plan, but what else can I do when I'm sitting across the table from Goblins?

Besides, I changed the boarding plan, so the point is moot now.

[Khahan]

@Evenpence

I don't even know what to say any more, all you do is rely on a bunch of "truisms" to tell me why certain cards are good and should be included, and instead of addressing any of my points you just call me ignorant. If you don't want to participate in the thread in a constructive manner then kindly leave.

The problem is, you are trying to support the use of substandard cards with substandard arguments. You cling to your arguments like they are chiseled on stone tablets. There is not much else to do.

@Zeus

The manabase is fine, it's the same manabase that was used in the original Shop Slaver. I'm not aware of a Stax deck that uses basics, other than UbaStax, and I've already addressed why I don't use Fetch Lands.

The original has evolved. There is a reason it evolved and changed.

As far as all of the lock piececs being bad on the draw and Force not being able to win the counter war, your right. The thing is, I'm not playing this deck past turn 3 if I can help it

I agree, I don't see you playing this deck past turn 3 too often. Maybe a MUC running Morphling will kill you on turn 10 or so. But most decks should finish this off by about turn 3.

Your second point is exactly why I don't want to use Fetch Lands, if the opponent has Wasted my Volcanic Island after I Fetched for it he's removed two U/R sources from my deck instead of one. The numbers don't come out as favorable as you think, tho' I really don't want to bother going into the math.

So, rather than adjust your mana base so that you don't lose a 2:1 to wasteland, you adjust your mana base so that you can still lose a 1:1 to wasteland?  Why not take out the 4 pain lands and put in 4 fetches. And then add SOME BASICS that wasteland can't touch?

[Harlequin]

@Harlequin

In most instances I would agree, but I would still use Leyline of the Void and Careful Study regardless of whether or not I could pitch to Force or discard it to Thirst, Frantic or Study.

Edit: Ok, I obviously I wouldn't use Study if it didn't pitch to Force.

Your second point is exactly why I don't want to use Fetch Lands, if the opponent has Wasted my Volcanic Island after I Fetched for it he's removed two U/R sources from my deck instead of one. The numbers don't come out as favorable as you think, tho' I really don't want to bother going into the math.

I support what Khahan said, in this day and age you need to be running at least 1 or 2 basics.  Also I would like to point out that that your deck is not that demanding of colored mana.  Its not like CS that NEEDS blue mana like...well... water.  Speaking as someone with an Actuarial Science Degree... I know the math (Calculus + Adv Probability + Corp Fin = Act Sci).  If you truely know "the math" then I'm even more confused about why you don't run fetchlands. 

[yespuhyren]

Please change the name of this thread.  Your deck is definitely not an improvement on mine.  It is a completely different deck.  You don't play

Uba
Wire
Bazaar
Crucible

Or anything along those lines that make it The Jester.

If you read my article, you would realize that I win by

UbaLock
Jester's Cap
B-Ring/Granite Shard

So, please, just change the title and name it something else.

[Methuselahn]

I don't know what all these other guys are talking about Breath, but you had me at Darksteel Colossus + Ensnaring Bridge.  <3 <3 <3 

(and I don't use 3 "<3s" often)

I don't see how this is that difficult to understand, I Bridge to stall the game until I can find Tinker or Colossus etc and then Weld out the Bridge when I'm ready to race them to the finish line. It isn't the best plan, but what else can I do when I'm sitting across the table from Goblins?

Besides, I changed the boarding plan, so the point is moot now.

Ok, lets forget that you changed your sideboarding plan after I pointed out that Bridge and an 11/x is just plain bad together, just for a minute.   How in the world do you expect to keep a Welder around versus a red deck long enough to use him?  Plus, 3 card combos are bad, ESPECIALLY when they are Welder+Bridge+DSC. 

Please quit trolling with this bad deck and just let it dieplstks

[BreathWeapon]

@Methuselahn,

I never claimed that it was a good plan, I claimed it was the only plan I had at the time. I'm well aware it sucked, I was the one who had to use it against Goblins. The point was you were trying to make me sound like an idiot by saying Colossus + Bridge PWNzor, like I was oblivious to their interaction. I also had Viashino Heretic and Granite Shard in those games, so there was usuallly a good chance I could remove the Bridge when DSC showed up or just try and ping them to death.

Tho' none of it ever really worked well.

I don't see how I'm trolling, I'm just trying to build a rogue Shop deck and make it as good as it can get, not introduce the latest and greatest tech from Team MeanDeck. Hence, I posted it in the improvement forum.

@Yespuhyren

I don't think the deck is an improvement, it's something entirely different. I just needed a hook. I also didn't realize you called your deck The Jester, so I'll just call mine The Joker ... because it seems to be what I'm becoming in this thread ...

@Khahan

How did the manabase of Shop Slaver evolve? The deck is exstinct. Even its last incarnation still used Shivan Reefs and Brainstorms, it just reduced the number of Ancient Tombs in the deck. This deck's manabase is in the same regard as theirs, accept I don't need to use Gilded Lotus to power out Mind Slaver and hardcast Force of Will, because Jester's Cap is 1/3 the casting cost and 1/2 half the activation cost and steals the game in the first few turns instead of the long game.

I'm not clinging to my arguments, I'm defending my choices. Most of the people in this thread haven't even bothered to present an argument, or are misoncstruing my remarks to try and make me sound like an idiot.

Fetch Lands wont protect me against Wasteland*, if I have a Goblin Welder or Careful Study in hand I can't sit on the Fetch, otherwise I'm losing tempo. Although including Fetch Lands for the soul purpose of finding an Island or Mountain sounds like a good idea, I'll consider it*.

About the turn 3 statement, I wasn't certain whether or not to read that as a quip, but the deck does have some decent match ups. Gifts and Slaver are favorable, Combo is favorable and Ichorid is favorable. The only problems I have are with other Shop decks and Fish/random aggro which is what my SB is dedicated to. Oath swings back and forth, tho' I think it is in their favor.

@Harlequin

Run the number on the chances of top decking a blue mana source discluding Black Lotus and Mox Sapphire in a deck with one less card compared to a deck with one more source. The odds of drawing an additional blue mana source favor the latter, correct?

Note: I'm assuming every deck that runs Wasteland runs Chalice, and between my opponent and myself one of us played it @0, hence not counting Black Lotus and Mox Sapphire.

[Moxlotus]

So what do you do if your opponent actually has a win condition in hand?  Hope to use one of your 4 FoWs on it?

I don't know what the fascination with Cap is.  It is either the nut high or it blows.  Sure, you will be able to randomly win some games, but against decks with more than 3 win conditions, or with one in hand, it doesn't affect the board position one bit.

I'm not sure how decks just don't just goldfish you while dodging your 4 FoW.

Combo,

Leyline shuts off Will, Chalice  shuts off Moxen or their most efficient tutors, draw and acceleration. Cap removes their win condition and Force stops anything broken from happening. I don't SB for this match up.

You have got to be kidding me.  Relying on 6 mana for cap=best.idea.evar.  Leyline=big whoop for combo decks.  Modern combo decks can easily breakthrough a force or Chalice.

I'm not clinging to my arguments, I'm defending my choices. Most of the people in this thread haven't even bothered to present an argument, or are misoncstruing my remarks to try and make me sound like an idiot.

I'll make one.  Your deck lacks hard card advantage and doesn't have a coherent strategy that actually wins.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Since you obviously rely a lot on Welder and have 8 draw+discard spells, why don't you wedge in a couple more win conditions like Sundering Titan, Triskelion, Karn, etc. It wouldn't take up more than a couple slots and wouldn't require any sort of radical realignment to support. It would give you better use of Welder, the ability to win without Tinker, and you can easily hardcast them without either of those.

[netherspirit]

As has been pointed out already you will be left dead against Null Rod, you need some form of anti artifact cards. Anything that shuts your Caps and Slaver off will completely dominate you. Rack and Ruin would be helpful and maybe even Shatter would do.

[Khahan]

Fetch Lands wont protect me against Wasteland*, if I have a Goblin Welder or Careful Study in hand I can't sit on the Fetch, otherwise I'm losing tempo. Although including Fetch Lands for the soul purpose of finding an Island or Mountain sounds like a good idea, I'll consider it*.

So I guess you'll never be in a position where your opponent has a wasteland on line before you have a fetchland? You know, something where he nukes your volcanic island. You then draw the fetch and get one back into play?  Or hold the fetch in hand? Or play the fetch and just don't break it cause its not needed  yet?  Yeah, that will never happen, you are right.


If all games go the way you seem to think they will, then this deck should win. The problem is, you are only imagining the scenarios that work in your favor. There are far too many other common scenarios that this deck just isn't prepared to handle.

[dicemanx]

I've had experience playing these types of mana bases (with a heavy colored count), and I can say with some certainty that while this deck has some issues it needs to address, the colored manabase is not one of them. The 4 Volcanics and 4 Shivan Reefs are superior to 4 Volcanics and 4 fetchlands by my estimation. This is because the deck has a very high colored mana spell count - if you fetch a Volcanic with the latter mana base and it gets wasted, you could get critically cut off from your colors and be unable to find the next colored source in time. There is a big difference between having access to 7 colored lands versus 6 colored lands after the first gets wasted, while on the flip side the temporary protection , shuffling option, and thinning offered by a fetchland has more minimal benefit in a deck not running basics or Brainstorm.

But I think the necessity of running such a mana base betrays another issue - Shop decks do not support such large counts of colored spells very well. I think if you want to look into running TfK, Welder, and other colored spells, you should look a few years ago at the Shop-Titan/Shop-Slaver decks of old. They ran things like Gilded Lotus and Metalworker that could support TfK a lot better (and up to 5 Tinker effects if they so wanted), and power out massive artifacts like Mindslaver (and Cap now) without relying on Welder recursion, and without relying on getting Shops early - with Metalworker you can similarly "cheat" the casting costs. You could easily ramp up your "immediately fatal" threats to 6-7 with multiple Caps and Slavers. Of course you run the risk of walking into Drains, but this issue is not circumvented by Shop decks very well period.

I don't believe that FoW is the right disruption for this deck - you are partially templating off Cerebral Assassin, but that deck has 8 graveyard recursion effects and has some game ending combos, which means it can support spells like Careful Study which in turn can support FoW better. In this deck, leaning on Welder too much can be fatal, especially if some of your draw spells are thinning your hand instead of building it. There *are* Shop decks that can support FoW and Drain effectively - one only needs to look at last summer's Rochester event and see what deck made t8 - but this deck is not it. I think you're much better off sticking to the more conventional Shop disruption with CotV leading the charge, and options like Trini/SoR, Tangle Wire, and maindeck Crypt not too far behind.

And yeah you might die to Null Rod, but it remains to be seen how prevalent Null rod will be in Rochester and other upcoming events. I have a feeling that the number of decks that will be fairly impervious to Rod will be fairly high, so the few decks that run them now (Fish, Oath, UbaStax) might opt not to do so. The Jester already eschews Rods for the game ending Caps, while the new style of Fish (URBana) prefers to abuse the fast acceleration of Moxes over Rods as well. ICBM/Meandeck style Oath might run some, but the count is likely to stay low (2 max on average), which gives you a window of opportunity early before they can find one and stop you. Here's an example of how you can build such a deck, templated partially from those older Shop-Slaver decks:


4 Welder

3 TfK
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker

4 Jester's Cap
2 Mindslaver

1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
4 Juggernaut

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Tormod's Crypt

4 Metalworker
3 Gilded Lotus
7 SoLoMox
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Ancient tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Volcanic Island
3 Shivan Reef

Yes, this deck says adios to Wastelands, Trini/SoR, and CoW, opting for immediate kills instead of mid range lockdowns. How something like this, which is a melding of ShopSlaver and Cap with a more tempo oriented direction (Juggernauts), can impact the environment, but I haven't seen too many people experiment with Shop, so I cannot answer that question. But its an example of the options available, and the many ways that Caps can be exploited.

[Harlequin]

I think Dicemax has some goodpoints in that list.

I think to that list I would add 1 Memnark (probable push a cap to board to make room).  Nark + Guilded lotus or Tolarian is very powerful in a world based on artifacts.  Also you might want to try and sneak a Karn in there as a psudo-mox monkey  and win condition all rolled into one.

[emidln]

Since you obviously rely a lot on Welder and have 8 draw+discard spells, why don't you wedge in a couple more win conditions like Sundering Titan, Triskelion, Karn, etc. It wouldn't take up more than a couple slots and wouldn't require any sort of radical realignment to support. It would give you better use of Welder, the ability to win without Tinker, and you can easily hardcast them without either of those.

It seems that this would be the way to go, but wouldn't you simply be playing bad turbo slaver at that point?

[yespuhyren]

The problem is he isn't playing anything right now.  A bad turbo slaver is better than a horrible nothing.  This deck has nothing to really do anything against you beside Jester's Caps.  This is a mixture of way to many random decks, and has lost what makes either of those decks good.

The Jester

He has lost the UbaLock, as well as the Bazaars, Wires, and just about everything that makes this deck good

Turbo-Titan

He is missing the Titan/slavers, etc that make that deck a beast

In general, this is a quickly built, and clearly suboptimal list in my opinion.