"go big or go home" Burning Slaver; Decklist

[TheWayOfNoWay]

That is, you Drain there turn two main phase play and untap and win.

It seems like that play hinges on your opponent spacing out. Generally, players try not to walk 2-3 CC sorceries into your Drains.

[forests failed you]

That is, you Drain there turn two main phase play and untap and win.

It seems like that play hinges on your opponent spacing out. Generally, players try not to walk 2-3 CC sorceries into your Drains.

Really?  I wasn't aware that Fish and Stax had stopped trying to play main phase threats these days.  Apparently, those decks must be running a bunch of Leonin Blade Traps and Plaxmantas.

Even in a control mirror players are forced to make a decision like... Do I cast a TFK so I can hit my land drop with a Force of Will in my hand.  It forces them to make a difficult decision based upon imperfect information.  A deck like this really punishes players who choose unwisely.

If a year of standard has taught me anything, it is that threats are really good.  It is a matter of playing the right threats and the right ways to protect them.

[TheWayOfNoWay]

Both Fish and Stax manage to survive in a Drain meta (especially if you consider SS to be a Fish variant). Since one can't avoid being Drained every time, and since the play does tend to be "Drain, Untap, Win", Fish and Stax (and anything else) must be doing something to not lose to Mana Drain.

I'm not saying that decks don't play main phase threats. Just that, when you see a Crucible, Stack, or Meddling Mage come down on turn two, the person who played it has probably considered it getting drained and decided to go for it anyway. Things that could make someone go for it anyway are (aside from you not having UU open): Force/Daze backup for Fish and a Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, or Tangle Wire already out from turn one for Stax.

Please don't take this to mean that resolving Mana Drain is impossible or even improbable. Just that, a lot of the time, it's not as simple as Drain turn 2 thing, untap, win.

[forests failed you]

I disagree:

The point is that those decks continue to exist because they have a high threat density; and also because they attempt to set up their game plan quickly enough that they can somehow disrupt Mana Drain decks.  The point is, that any and all of those games where they don't get their game going fast enough to have threats, disruption, et cetera, up and running before Drain gets online are most likely going to end up in a blow out in the Drain player's favor.  The key thing to remember here is that that is why we who choose to play Drain decks, choose that archetype:  Because Drain is a BUSTED card, and when Drain ---->  Big Spell happens, it is the equivelent of a Stax nuts draw, or an Oath nuts draw, so on and so forth.

My inquiry is how to best abuse the Drain archetype in general, and to find the most consistently broken and powerful possible list.  I think a list that lies somewhere around these ground may indeed be the most abusive deck.  Welder + Jar recursion is, for all of my experiements thus far, the most abusive draw engine and combo enabler I have ever played with.  The mere capacity to Draw 14 cards in a turn and then cast Yawgmoth's Will at the end of it is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen (especially when one considers that the deck can also protect itself with a very solid set of defensive stratagies, which just so happen to help you go off;  ie. Mana Drain, Chain of Vapor, Rebuild, Burning Wish, et cetera.

I playtested quite extensively against SS and Onelovemachine's new Gifts list last night, to a finding of extremely staggering success with only minor changes to the list posted at the begining of the forum.

Maindeck

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
1 Time Walk
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tinker
1 Repeal

2 Goblin Welder
1 Recoup
1 Burning Wish

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Mindslaver
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Memory Jar
1 Tormod's Crypt

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby

1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolerian Academy
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Snow Covered Island

Sideboard


3 Duress
2 Stifle
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Echoing Ruin
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

So maindeck I switched up:

-1 Lotus petal +1 Library of Alexandria
-1 Fact or Fiction +1 Repeal
-2 Island, + 1 Underground Sea +1 Volcanic Island

and in he sideboard I changed:

-1 Mind Twist
-1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
-1 Chain of Vapor
-1 Isochron’s Scepter

+2 Stifle
+1 Rack and Ruin
+1 Hurkyl’s Recall

Basically, I feel that the deck was a complete success in testing, and that most of the changes were extremely favorable.  The one card that didn't particularly impress me was LoA in this list, I'm positive that I would rather have a Basic Island in its place.  This deck just wants to do stuff with colored mana all the time, and wasting a land drop on LoA can cost you a whole turn of going off because it only makes colorless.  Not to mention one of the two games I lost to Fish was because I couldn't put up Drain Mana on the second turn to slow down his development.  Had LoA have been Island I would most likely have won as a result of Draining his Dark Confidant.  This kind of list LOVES Drain Mana and wants to always have it online as soon as possible.  Remember, that via Jar and Welder draw two or three cards over the corse of the first few turns really pales in comparison to just randomly racing to Jar tricks and drawing your entire deck while going off. 

I weakened the mana base a bit by adding two addtional dual lands, however to make up for this fact I would most likely move LoA from the maindeck to up the count of blue producers as well as the basic count back to four;  also, because of the increased vulnerability to Wasteland, I added more Stax and Workshop sollutions to the board:  Hurkyl's Recall (or Rebuild), Rack and Ruin,

The only time I really feel Library is AMAZING is when you randomly draw into, or simply have, either Lotus, Lotus Petal, or Mox Sapphire, because you can get the double blue up right on time anyways.  The Repeal was sauce, Kudos for the NE guys for getting on that card, especially against the SS deck where making him pick up his guys was amazing because it gained me tempo and card advantage (due to his missed extra cards from Bob.

I think there is still something to be said about LED and I will give it more attention next time; although I agree sometimes it is a bad draw and causes mulligans.  I think the key to solving this problem is not to run it in one of the alloted mana sources spots.  Or rather play 25 mana soures outside of LED.  It is extremly powerful, especially with Jar.

Gifts -----> LED, Black Lotus, Yawgmoth's Will and Recop is hardly a fair pile in this deck.

Basically, the backbone and single most important card in this deck (aside from the obvious control all star team ie, restricted list, Force of Will, Mana Drain, and Brainstorm, has definately been Jar.  When I was working on it I really put a lot of effort in placing as much emphasis as possible on abusing Memory Jar.

Anyways, I hope that this has provided additional perspective to those of you who have been reading this forum, and have addressed specific concerns, or were seeking explaination of card choices , et cetera.

[LessThanRight]

Have you given any thought to Intuition/AK as the draw engine.  In my testing, Having AK's in the yard under a yawg will is just better than Thirst.  It also seems like you only have three big artifacts that you'd want to pitch to it (slaver, DSC and jar).  I also love Intuition as a mini-Gifts. 

Aslo, could you talk briefly about you game plan with this deck?  Are you looking to play traditional slaver for the first 2 turns, then combo out?  Are you racing to jar as you mentioned earlier?  Or is it more fluid than that, i.e. react to opponent and win when appropriate.

[forests failed you]

Ok.

For a very long time I played almost no competative Magic except for Vintage;  and for the duration of that time the only deck I really cared to play was old school Keeper.  The one with Morphlings, Balance, Gorilla Shaman, and Swords to Plowshares.  Playing that deck for a very long period of time, and mastering it and its playstyle over the course of years of playing the deck led me to have a very particular style that I felt comfortable with.  My philosophy has always been, if you play the deck that doesn't die, you can eventually win later, so long as you stay alive.  Therefore, according to this mantra I would pack my decks full of Draw, Counter, and answers and stall, stall, Stall until I could eventually use Balance and Will to take complete and utter control, Cripple my opponent, and win the game with unkillable Morphlings.

In many ways:  I feel that the first Burning Slaver lists (the one's I top 8'd with in Richmond and Rochester), were extremely controlish decks...  In my opinion the most controlish deck in the format.  Which is perhaps why not to many people aside from Jeff Anand (also a die hard 4cc player) and I ever really put up good showings with the lists.  The deck was packed full of answers to every possible situation you could find yourself in.  COW, Strip, Titan, Duplicant, E Truth, Burning Wish for answers to every problematic card in the format, infi tutors, Mindslaver, Welder, Gorilla Shaman and of course counter magic.  Aside from the Draw cards and the land almost every card in the deck was used to control the tempo of the game (in many cases by cutting an oppoent off his mana sources Via Strip, Shaman, and Titan.  And then once all threats were neutralized and you had Slavered your opponent into submission you could win in whatever way you wanted.  Often times merely beating down with unimprinted Duplicant was more than enough to get the job done.  The key was, although Burning Slaver "could" do silly things with cheap artifact mana and Yawgmoth's Will for Tendrils... It was never really the primary game plan, that is, to go completely broken.  Rather, you wanted to wait, wait, wait, until you had neutralized any hope your opponent had of winning the match and then finally when he was crippled you were ready to win the game.

However, when I approched the task of revising my list... Especially after playing with Memory Jar in the deck... I realized that a Slaver varient could very well be more powerful if it didn't worry so much about answering every threat and controling the game, but rather just disrupted and went aggro.  The addition of Memory Jar to the deck really changed the entire dynamic of how the deck functioned and what its role was in many match ups.  Clearly, first and foremost a combo control deck has to be able to defend itself against cards like Smokestack, Chalice, and Null Rod.  So I used cards that play offense and defense in those roles.  Cards like Rebuild and Chain of Vapor.  The main difference to playing this deck as opposed to a more controling Slaver deck, is that it is much more aggressive and that the control elements are merely there to gain you tempo and Mana via Drain, as well as the ability to protect your own bombs from opposing Threats, such as Force of Will, Trinisphere, et cetera (cards that must be countered, or against counterspells that are attempting to stop the spells you must resolve)

My good friend John Wilkerson gave me his UR Tron deck from Standard to play in the team PTQ's last season, and I found a lot of similarities between it and this new buld of Slaver.  Tron doesn't always gain control of the game via its control cards...  But rather it plays tempo based protection like Repeal and Counters to keep the board safe until it can startdrawing lots and lots of cards and making insane ammounts of Mana and eventually go off by casting huge creatures that are very hard to deal with, or even giant game ending fireballs off Tron.  The key to remember is, you want to use your countermagic to keep things under control, long enough to go off

With Will or Slaver.

[GrandpaBelcher]

That, I think, is the explanation I've been looking for.

I think the problem I have with the deck isn't in its construction; it's in the name!  The Slaver archetype runs the most potent control elements in Vintage magic:  a bunch of counters and an artifact that renders your opponent null and void for the rest of eternity if need be.  It was named after Mindslaver because that's the control card with the most powerful effect available in the game, and it's the artifact around which the deck was built.

By calling the decklist "go big or go home" Burning Slaver, I think a lot of people were expecting a heavy control deck built around Mindslaver.  But it's not.  This deck isn't built around Mindslaver.  Mindslaver is still important, disruptive and powerful, but it's no longer central to the plan. 

GBoGH is much more similar to Gifts than Slaver since it's more geared to combo out with blue-control backup.  However, since it doesn't run a full suite of Gifts, it can't be called a Gifts variant either.

Now that I know not to compare this to previous decks too much and that I'll be thinking about this as a completely new construction, what are you going to call it?

Also, thank you very much for the history of this deck and its progenitor.  It was very enlightening.

[Pave]

'Combo Slaver' occurs to me, and is implicit in FFY's name for the deck.

[tehmajickguy]

Have you considered testiing Mind's Desire in the deck? It has a lot of synergy with all the bounce the deck runs, gives the deck another uncounterable way to "go off" in the control match, and even a mediocre desire could potentially put you far enough ahead to win with ease.

Another question I have for you is how do you feel this particular version fairs in the mirror match and the SS match? It seems like you're forced to take aggressive stance in the mirror since you can't out control other version of Slaver(i.e. Reflections latest version of Slaver). Also it seems as though SS may not be a terribly strong match with their ability to disrupt you being more potent than against a normal Slaver deck.

[Mantis]

The problem with Mind's Desire in this deck is that you run 8 counters and 15 land which do nothing when being flipped over. The deck also isn't designed to build huge storms without Yawgmoths Will and if you pull off an amazing Y. Will you shouldn't have trouble winning anyway. That said, Mind's Desire is nowhere near as broken as it is in combo decks. The card costs 6 mana which is a lot for a card that requires a huge setup to win you the game and is just an enabler. In my opinion, if you manage to successfully cast a broken Mind's Desire you would have won that game anyway, as it means you have reached a point where you control the game and that is precisely the goal of Slaver. FFY explained this a lot better than I could a few posts ago.

Something completely different:
After my initial enthusiasm on LED in this deck, I have found it to be rather dead in playtesting. This is because you are still playing a control deck and giving up your hand is the biggest cost you can make. It's sort of counterintuitive with what the deck is trying to accomplish with the heavy focus on card advantage. Sure it's good with Will, but I've never really had problems winning with this deck. Actually, from all the control decks I've played so far this deck has the least difficulty winning as there are so many ways (Gifts, Tinker, TfK + Welder, Will etc.). Therefore I truly don't think you even need another way of going broken after Will.

[Glix]

Minor comment: Why Echoing Ruin in the sb over Shattering Spree?  Spree costs less, gets around chalices, and is more likely to kill multiple permanents than ruin.

With the limited testing I have done of this deck, I have to say I do like it.  It doesn't get stuffed up with welders/gifts etc., but rather seems to function well.  Furthuremore, it is the first "fussion" of gifts and slaver that I have played that can opperate on both strategies with ease.  I will definitly look into this deck more.

[Gabethebabe]

Minor comment: Why Echoing Ruin in the sb over Shattering Spree?  Spree costs less, gets around chalices, and is more likely to kill multiple permanents than ruin.

The answer is obvious: Spree is too red. Wish for Echoing Ruin is already putting a great strain on your mana base, because you need double red for it to work or a red source that sticks until the next turn.
Spree is unlikely to help you against Chalice=1, because the deck that run chalice are normally also decks that attack your volcanics. You will 'never' be able to Wish for Spree and get to take out that Chalice.

[forests failed you]

Exactly,

It would also be possible to run Primitive Justice in that spot.  Emerald, Lotus and Petal all make Green Mana.

[Gabethebabe]

When I played this deck i was very happy having a Deep Analysis in the SB as it turned out to be my no. 1 Wish target.
Also last time I played I played 2 Duress and 1 Mind Twist. Mind Twist is especially good against those decks that board in things like 4 REB. Mind Twist is also a beating vs IT and can make a juicy Wish target.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Problem with the Twist is that it is a control, card advantage card, that doesn't further along your combo win.  It seems like you would rather wish for gas of some type rather than Twist with this deck.

[Glix]

Minor comment: Why Echoing Ruin in the sb over Shattering Spree?  Spree costs less, gets around chalices, and is more likely to kill multiple permanents than ruin.

The answer is obvious: Spree is too red. Wish for Echoing Ruin is already putting a great strain on your mana base, because you need double red for it to work or a red source that sticks until the next turn.
Spree is unlikely to help you against Chalice=1, because the deck that run chalice are normally also decks that attack your volcanics. You will 'never' be able to Wish for Spree and get to take out that Chalice.

However, you will rarelly hit more than one card with echoing ruin, and rarelly in an effective manner, so in esscense, both cards will destroy 1 artifact, and r is cheaper than 1r.  Primitive Justice is even more expensive than that, and, imo, is out of the question.  You don't need to replicate, and rarelly will you, but it is probably more common that you replicate than you hit two artifacts with ruin.  Just my thoughts, and what has occured in my testing.

[rureddy31]

Echoing Ruin hits a Chalice for 1 for the cost of 1R. Shattering Spree can also hit a Chalice for one, but for the cost of RR. Since Chalice and/or Null Rod are the most common artifacts that you're killing, it is more effecient to run Ruin. Also, I doubt he has a foil japanese shattering spree, but has one of Echoing Ruin That would also make a lot of snese.

Keeping in topic of the "go big or go home" aspect. Why not remove Mindslaver and Tormod's Crypt to include the Mizzium Transreliquat combo. It is affected by the same hate as Mindslaver, but wins you the game outright, whereas Mindslaver doesn't. It doesn't happen all that often, but there are times where you can lose after activating a slaver. Also, slaver is just plain bad against some decks, whereas infinite turns is never bad (unless you have no library, or a Mana Crypt at a low life total). Tormod's crypt just seems wrong in a comboish style of control slaver. Bounce is always good (especially when it cycles or acts as a hurkyl's recall.

Also, Burning Wish is just bad. If you want the Tendrills win, run a Tendrills. I have found that burning wish is just a dead card a lot of the time. With Tendrills, its not expected in the MD, and is useful when you're in need of life.

As for the number of welders, I'd run 3 as the deck is now, or 2 if you put in the secondary combo. Mizzium can be dead useful as well. I hear there are a ton of artifacts in T1. Namely Darksteel Collossus, Sundering Titan, Crucible, etc...

Anyway, just my thoughts on a deck I have poured much time and effort in.

[emidln]

Also, Burning Wish is just bad. If you want the Tendrills win, run a Tendrills. I have found that burning wish is just a dead card a lot of the time. With Tendrills, its not expected in the MD, and is useful when you're in need of life.

It seems that Burning Wish -> Rolling Earthquake, Burning Wish -> Time Walk (after RFGing it), Burning Wish -> Echoing Ruin, or Burning Wish -> Yawg Will (after a short tempo will) could all be important and game breaking plays. Burning Wish is played for flexibility, to free up situational cards from the MD. If you played any of these individual cards over Burning Wish (R. Earthquake, Echoing Ruin, Tendrils) you would get screwed from not having the right options at the right time.

[rureddy31]

I understand what it is used for, but if you have ever played this deck (original BS), like I've been doing since January, you realize how clunky and unecessary the wish really is. Chain of Vapour/Rebuild should usually be able to do the trick. And why would you ever need to Burning Wish for Time Walk after playing Yawgmoth's Will. If you haven't won yet, you're doing something wrong. I find that Vintage players just like tutoring for something, rather than play the copy of the card they are most likely to tutor for. You also don't want to use the Wish early, incase Tendrills win is your only option. Play with the card, and you will ifnd you hate to see it, unless you're in the process of going off.

[emidln]

I've found that I wish for Rolling Earthquake or Echoing Ruin more than Tendrils. Also, I've both seen and used a Wish -> Walk after a Will because the Will was for Tinker and I wanted to win immediately. It doesn't happen often, but without Wish it's not even possible. The thing I always cherished about the Burning Slaver lists have been that they have answers and outs to every scenario. It yields more consistency throughout tournaments. In addition, early Burning Wish -> Rolling Earthquake is so common that I considered some sort of removal maindeck for awhile in a fishy meta.

[rureddy31]

First off, Rolling Earthquake is bad. I can think of only one situation where Earthquake is better than pyroclasm. Secondly, what are you destroying with Ruin that you can't bounce for a turn and get around. And how are you producing the mana to ruin, let's say a chalice or rod. All the decks that play those cards (with the exception of fish), win/lock you out on turn 3 or four anyway, so how are you able to generate that 4 mana with chalice/rod/tangle wire/smokestack in play. Also, this is a combo style Slaver build. That 2 mana is unecessary. Why worry about his creatures when you can just set up and go off. Even if he has a Meddling Mage, he isn't naming Tendrills. Heck, he shouldn't know that you even run a Tendrills win.

But seriously, Wish is way too situational to be good. So what, you can deal with everything. So can your three main deck bounce spells.

[FlamingCloud]

This is still basically a pure control deck, tons of draw, tons of control elements, bunch of tutors.  In almost every match the deck will be playing a non-aggressive control role, waiting to set up a nice drain and win.  It certainly does not warrant a title of combo slaver.  It is basically just burning slaver, or a gifts/cs hybrid. 

Take recoup instead of a third welder, jar instead of FoF, rebuild/repeal instead of robots/cruicible and you ave burning slaver, the changes are not significant enough to warrant a name change.  Why should there be 3 slaver deck names when they all play 4bs, 4tfk, 4 drain, 4fow, same mana base, 2-4 welder, 2-4 robots, FoF/Gifts/Jar etc.  The nights whisper versions of CS are more unique then this because the fundamentally change how the deck plays and not just it's win condition.  CS should probably be named Welder Control or something in the first place.as the win condition of the deck is more of an after thought.  Gain card advantage, counter things that would kill you and then win with big clunky things after you have enough mana.

I have made my peace on naming conventions =P 

That being said I like where you are going with the deck, taking it away from randomly trying to mana screw your opponent with monkey/strip.

[UniversalSnip]

[/standard 'not a vintage player' caveat]

I was thinking the same thing as rureddy31. I see t1 lists with the single restricted burning and it seems to me vintage players don't understand just how much they're giving up by running it. Unless you overload on randomness (Eye of Nowhere much?) it's not going to get you relevent plays that, say, imperial seal wouldn't. If you do, your post-board games are significantly cut into. Even with four the majority of wishboards (not all) are bad for this reason. It isn't like seal is even much worse in topdeck mode... you can't afford to sideboard your real breakers anyway.

If you take the 'everybody gets one game of brokenness per match' literally you are going to play more x-1 matches than you would in other formats anyway, thus increasing the value of your board.

[FlamingCloud]

[/standard 'not a vintage player' caveat]

I was thinking the same thing as FlamingCloud. I see t1 lists with the single restricted burning and it seems to me vintage players don't understand just how much they're giving up by running it. Unless you overload on randomness (Eye of Nowhere much?) it's not going to get you relevent plays that, say, imperial seal wouldn't. If you do, your post-board games are significantly cut into. Even with four the majority of wishboards (not all) are bad for this reason. It isn't like seal is even much worse in topdeck mode... you can't afford to sideboard your real breakers anyway.

If you take the 'everybody gets one game of brokenness per match' literally you are going to play more x-1 matches than you would in other formats anyway, thus increasing the value of your board.

I don't "not like" burning wish in CS, I just think this whole change 2-3 cards and call the deck something different is getting out of hand.

[UniversalSnip]

[/standard 'not a vintage player' caveat]

I was thinking the same thing as FlamingCloud. I see t1 lists with the single restricted burning and it seems to me vintage players don't understand just how much they're giving up by running it. Unless you overload on randomness (Eye of Nowhere much?) it's not going to get you relevent plays that, say, imperial seal wouldn't. If you do, your post-board games are significantly cut into. Even with four the majority of wishboards (not all) are bad for this reason. It isn't like seal is even much worse in topdeck mode... you can't afford to sideboard your real breakers anyway.

If you take the 'everybody gets one game of brokenness per match' literally you are going to play more x-1 matches than you would in other formats anyway, thus increasing the value of your board.

I don't "not like" burning wish in CS, I just think this whole change 2-3 cards and call the deck something different is getting out of hand.

Er, that was a typo. I meant rureddy31. My mistake.

[Gabethebabe]

I can think of only one situation where Rolling Earthquake is better than pyroclasm.

I can think of 22 reasons.
Rolling Earthquake is better when:
1) When you want to deal 0 damage
2) When you want to deal 1 damage
3) When you want to deal 3 damage
4) When you want to deal 4 damage
.
.
20) When you want to deal 20 damage
21) When you want to deal direct damage to your opponent
22) When you want to sell it.

Try drawing cards with your bounce spell or look at your opponents hand and take a card from it. It will not work.
Burning Wish is not only an answer, for 2 mana it can do just about everything.

[rureddy31]

I can think of only one situation where Rolling Earthquake is better than pyroclasm.

I can think of 22 reasons.
Rolling Earthquake is better when:
1) When you want to deal 0 damage
2) When you want to deal 1 damage
3) When you want to deal 3 damage
4) When you want to deal 4 damage
.
.
20) When you want to deal 20 damage
21) When you want to deal direct damage to your opponent
22) When you want to sell it.

Try drawing cards with your bounce spell or look at your opponents hand and take a card from it. It will not work.
Burning Wish is not only an answer, for 2 mana it can do just about everything.

Typical answer from a T1 player. You just like being able to search as much as possible. You like having the comfort of knowing you have a choice. Burning wish does nothing in normal situations. It does nothing in the mirror, except take up the place of a useful card. Sure, there may be one situation where rolling earthquake will be used to tie a game, but for every one time that happens, you will lose the game twice because burning wish took up two extra mana, whereas tendrils would have won you the game.
For 2 mana, burning wish does three things. Fetches a board kill spell you shouldn't need. An artifact kill spell that you shouldn't need, or be able to cast, and tendrills, which should be main deck.

[tehmajickguy]

Typical answer from a T1 player. You just like being able to search as much as possible. You like having the comfort of knowing you have a choice. Burning wish does nothing in normal situations. It does nothing in the mirror, except take up the place of a useful card. Sure, there may be one situation where rolling earthquake will be used to tie a game, but for every one time that happens, you will lose the game twice because burning wish took up two extra mana, whereas tendrils would have won you the game.
For 2 mana, burning wish does three things. Fetches a board kill spell you shouldn't need. An artifact kill spell that you shouldn't need, or be able to cast, and tendrills, which should be main deck.

Your response seems to do nothing but arrogantly assume that you'll not find yourself in a position where Wish is ever going to be useful, and just shrug off any justification of Wish's use by claiming its a "T1 thing". I dunno why you feel the need to condescending in your replies, but lets see if we can break down your arguement.

It does nothing in the mirror, except take up the place of a useful card

This isn't necessarily true. The mirror tends to be about mana advantage and who can activate a slaver first. Little else tends to matter in the mirror, with the exception of resolving a "broken" spell. One of the best ways to put yourself in a position where you can just win the game is to draw more cards and accelerate yourself ahead of your opponent in terms of CA and mana. Tendrils does neither of these things in your main deck, whereas Wish can grab a DA and give you a leg up on cards when you're at a disadvantage/in a stalemate. Its great that Tendrils is basically an uncounterable way to win the game, but its not anywhere as important as slaving your opponent in the mirror. Winning is basically an afterthought.

Sure, there may be one situation where rolling earthquake will be used to tie a game, but for every one time that happens, you will lose the game twice because burning wish took up two extra mana, whereas tendrils would have won you the game.

I think that this isn't even looking at the Rolling Earthquake/Pyroclasm slot in the right context. Unless you're playing Dragon, drawing the game is almost never an option.  Its not even really a valid point for debate. And lets say that the extra 2 mana, for whatever reason, will keep you from wishing > lethal tendrils, you could even just wish for a non lethal tendrils and use the life cushion to find either recoup or will and win the game outright. But if you can't come up with 2 mana to win the game, you're either not playiing correctly and rushing the kill, or going with the wrong killing plan.

For 2 mana, burning wish does three things. Fetches a board kill spell you shouldn't need. An artifact kill spell that you shouldn't need, or be able to cast, and tendrills, which should be main deck.

I dunno about you, but when I play magic, situations come up where I may need to sweep the board of a Confidant and a Cutpurse. Theres times where I may need to remove a pair of chalices set to 0 and 1 so that I can drop my hand and win.  And more often than not, 2 mana isn't an issue if you're winning the game. Tendrils in the main offers no utility, and is basically a shortcut for those who can set up their win properly. Its just another card your don't want to see in your opening hand, or to have set aside with Jar (which IMO is really the centerpiece of the deck). It gives Burning Slaver another card thats basically an auto-mull in your opening hand, in a deck that runs a ton of cards that can be considered auto-mulls.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

It gives Burning Slaver another card thats basically an auto-mull in your opening hand, in a deck that runs a ton of cards that can be considered auto-mulls.

Burning wish in one's hand is almost an auto-mull, too; it's basically just as bad(oh, and it ALSO gets removed with Jar the same way Tendrils does, so I don't see where this argument is coming from) .  Burning wish does give one options and flexibility, and allows one to do some cool tricks, but I don't think it's really necessary. 

In playing control decks with Burning Wish, I found that most of the time I was just wishing for tendrils, and the red mana was a pain in the ass when going off, especially if I had needed to cast recoup in the same turn.  Often I had to rebuild mox ruby just to get red for the wish.  The extra 1R really does matter.  There have been games with maindeck tendrils that I've won where I never would have been able to win with wish, because I needed to kill my opponent or die the next turn, and I only had exactly enough mana and storm to cast it for lethal. 

There's also the fact that burning wish is counterable, whereas with a maindeck tendrils one's opponent can only counter one or more of the copies.

The sideboard slots one dedicates to wishing for with a single maindeck card that can only be used once each game are better served by including cards one actually wants to side in to improve mathcups post-board, since one will generally play more post-boarded matchups anyways I would prefer a dedicated sidebaord rather than a 'toolbox' maindeck that I won't used very frequently, especially since one is already running bouce spells to take card of problem permenents.

As for this build of burning slaver, I think that FFY is taking the deck is a good direction.  By cutting welders and big artifacts, it gets rid of a lot of the janky conditional cards in slaver and makes the deck more streamlined while maintainling multiple avenues to victory.  I agree with you tending to see drain-based will decks as all the same rather than distinguishing them as 'gifts' and 'slaver' when they really share so many of the same cards and strategy that they are almost the same deck.

[forests failed you]

Burning Wish is the nuts;  cutting it from Gifts or a combo oriented Slaver deck in place of a maindeck Tendrils of Agony would be a huge mistake.  Burning Wish, actually finds you two win conditions.  Firstly, it finds you Tendrils when you are storming off.  Secondly, it finds you RFG'd Time Walks when you are beating down with Darksteel Colossus.  Perhaps, the only reason that Colossus is so good in Gifts and Slaver decks, is because he is very quickly lethal when matched with Walk and the many easy ways to recast it.  This deck has them all.  B wish, Recoup, Will,/ 

I actually think the most insane thing about the Tinker / Colossus combo is Time Walk.  Just me though.


That is why Burning Wish is so good.  It has insane synergy with the deck.  It is actually one of the most important cards.

There is no such thing as an auto=mull in your opening hand when you play four brainstorm and four thirst for knowledge.  Maybe Colossus if you have tinker in hand.

Tendrils of Agony is the deadest of dead cards in the mirror.  Far worse than Wish.

I have killed people, and drawn games with Rolling Earthquake.  At Waterbury, and SCG Richmond for instancce/  As well as at the last RIW poer event i played in.

Have you looked at this list?  When is R1 going to be a problem when going off?  You have fing Jar.  A one sided reusable draw seven. gg