Optimizing Control Slaver in the Fall 2k6 metagame

[forests failed you]

I've noticed one thing with CS in the past month to 2 months: It loses the counter wars consistently.
Too many decks pack the FoW/Mana drain, but also pack in 2 misdirections. Add in REB (which CS can use and some do out of the SB) and slaver is going to lose the counter war too often.

The reason for this is that CS doesn't actually ever do anything in a game, until turn four or five after it has safely established board control and developed its mana.  The problem is that aside from Tinker, CS doesn't play any real early game threats...  Instead it casts TFK and attempts to develop its Mana and set up something game impacting for later.

The reason that CS "loses the counterwar" as you put it, is because it isn't proactively trying to push threats though.  Rather, it is always trying to counter an opponent's spell.  In most situations regarding the first big counterwar in a Drain mirror Slaver will be able to counter once or twice on its own early end step.  The problem is that a Gifts player isn't going to come at you unless it has at least 1 counterspell, or more likely, has Scrolled for double back up.  Therefore, Gifts puts itself into a position where it is aggressively casting a spell and has two counterspells to CS's 2 counterspells.  The Slaver player has to try and stop the EOT Gifts, and obviously loses the counterwar, and then Gifts gets to untap and go nuts, most likely winning the game.

I Think the inclusion of Misdirection is a fine way to improve this problem, but then again, if the deck has to run so many protection spells to not lose counterwars, what is the real incentive to play Slaver instead of a more streamlined combo deck?

I agree Slaver is the best deck for out playing bad players, it gives you lots of opitions and a lot of opportunities to capitalize on mistakes.  The problem is that the metagame is gettig faster, which gives Slaver players less and less time to develop its gameplan.  What I see here is an attempt to speed Slaver up so it can compete with decks like Gifts and Long... Something that I attempted to do when I was working on my Burning Slaver lists.  The problem is that fundimentally Slaver is just slower than those decks (primarily because Goblin Welder doesn't have haste) which makes it almost a full turn, on average, slower than Gifts or Tendrils decks. 

It appears to me that when control decks have to start packing cards like Misdirection and Duress in the maindeck, just to compete with the pure speed and consistencey of the faster Drain and Ritual decks.  People play Slaver because it is forgiving, and fairly consistent...  For the same reasons people played 4cc when psychatog decks were broken. 

I think that the real draw to playing Slaver should be that it is a very strong Mana Denial deck.  Cards like Gorilla Shaman, Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Sundering Titan all give you a sound stratagy against an opposing Mana base.  I found that when I was playing Slaver, the best way to ensure that I could win the counterwar was to make sure that I had more resources than my opponent.  The best way to do this was to attack my opponent's mana, so that they were unable to play multiple spells in a turn.  I also really enjoyed boarding Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistence against fast decks, those cards backed by Welder and Countermagic were usually enough to anhilate Gifts or Long (but once again, only if I could live long enough to get it set up.)  The key is that you have to bring in spells that allow you to be proactively affecting the game, rather than sitting back and trying to stop threats with counterspells.  Duress works much in the same way, because it is something proactive you can do, rather than let them build a superhand.  However, Duress is a one for one trade with a card in their hand, and it doesn't actually affect the board... Not to mention it forces you to search out black mana early, which is quite the risk against Stax or Fish.

[Metman]

I think that Gifts and Slaver have similar strengths and weaknesses against the metagame with one exception and that is Long in it's variants.  MDG is significantly stronger than Slaver in this matchup.  Am I right with these assumptions?  

I'm not trying to propose a Slaver/Gifts hybrid but since there are plenty of meta slots in Slaver wouldn't pushing it towards Gifts help out the combo match?  I can see doing this by adding Merchant Scrolls, picking up a Gifts Ungiven, yet sticking with the Welder/Artifact core of the deck as opposed to Tendrils.  The discussion of Night's Whisper really didn't convince me of playing it.  Wouldn't MS serve a similar purpose as well as help it's combo matchup?  

[forests failed you]

But if you are already going through all of that trouble... adding Scrolls and whatnot. why not just play MD Gifts???

Are the Welders really any better than playing more copies of Gifts, Recoup, only 1 Robot, and bounce spells??  That is the question that I had to ask myself after Gencon, and I couldn't answer it myself.

[warble]

As for the Gifts piles.
#1: Paying 5 mana for a card I want = not that great. Oh and you have a 2nd card-disadvantage tutor ready to go the next time around. Whoopity-do.

#2: So you get Time Walk and a huge Drain target whose worth is completely dependent on Serverance cast / in hand.

See I used to play Gifts in CS, that's why I'm  :shock: at most of these examples as their pretty weak.

You don't understand how CS gets set up, and you also don't understand the deck's composition and how it must be played with Gifts in the mix.  It used to be that these piles would be worthless, but the deck's composition and typical set of cards in hand make these gifts piles priceless.  If I wanted to show you the entire setup and play you through the rounds, I'd need to get paid for that.  I'm just saying I can't hand you CS on a silver platter, but I can lead you towards a better build.

I've noticed one thing with CS in the past month to 2 months: It loses the counter wars consistently.
Too many decks pack the FoW/Mana drain, but also pack in 2 misdirections.

Didn't I just advocate putting one or two Misdirections in CS?  Did you just go Pulp Fiction on this thread?

[The Atog Lord]

Brian, I went through the same mental process perhaps a year ago. There are clearly things that Gifts decks do better than Control Slaver decks, and I for a few months struggled to understand why I should continue playing Control Slaver over Gifts for any reason other than being more comfortable with Control Slaver. After all, Gifts on paper is a much "cleaner" deck with tutors in the slots that Control Slaver spends on large artifacts. And of course the Storm Combo deck is quite a bit better for Gifts.

However, eventually, I realized that Control Slaver has several strong advantages over Gifts. First and foremost, Gifts has to win big or not win at all. Gifts wins by casting a whole lot of spells and then dropping a Tendrils onto the table, or it wins by Tinkering for a Colossus and riding him to victory. Control Slaver, on the other hand, is quite good at winning small. Sometimes Goblin Welder beats someone to death. Othertimes a hard-cast Triskelion wins it. This is further illustrated by considering that Control Slaver does not need as much mana as Gifts does. The Tendrils win requires a large amount of mana on the table. The Tinker win requires either a handful of pitch counters or a lot of mana. Control Slaver is much more potent if the opponent is able to collapse its manabase.

Further, Control Slaver is much harder to hate out that Gifts. Tormod's Crypt does a number on Gifts decks. Perhaps Time Spiral will change this, but then it is too early to know what changes that set will bring. Slaver is much more resilient to Crypt than Gifts is. REB is also much better against Gifts than against Slaver -- for the same reason that Gifts is better at supporting Misdirection. Finally, Jester's Cap does not beat Control Slaver but it does beat Gifts oftentimes.

The last, yet perhaps most important, reason to play Control Slaver over Gifts is Mindslaver itself. Control Slaver at its best is designed to use and abuse this card. It is a single-card combo that quite often ends the game. In the Slaver on Gifts matchup, Mindslaver is one of the key factors in the match.

So, Brian, is Gifts a good deck? Yes. But Slaver still has its advantages. The Combo match isn't very good, but other than that I feel very confident in the deck.

Finally, let me point out that everything I've said here is said not just to Brian, but to anyone considering how to build Control Slaver. You need to build your Control Slaver deck to take advantage of those advantages which Control Slaver has over other Drain decks. If you build Control Slaver as though it were a watered-down Gifts deck, then it will be just that -- a watered down Gifts deck. Instead, seek out how to leverage those strengths which Slaver has over other, similar decks and exploit those strengths.

[brianpk80]

Further, Control Slaver is much harder to hate out that Gifts. Tormod's Crypt does a number on Gifts decks. Perhaps Time Spiral will change this, but then it is too early to know what changes that set will bring. Slaver is much more resilient to Crypt than Gifts is. REB is also much better against Gifts than against Slaver -- for the same reason that Gifts is better at supporting Misdirection. Finally, Jester's Cap does not beat Control Slaver but it does beat Gifts oftentimes.

Well put.  It bears noting that where Gifts might edge out Control Slaver in a combo matchup, Control Slaver runs circles around Gifts in its ability to handle Fish, a deck that has been gaining increasing prominence and some real gems from R&D this year.  No other deck knows how to get that Triskelion into play and indulge in the most horrifically decadent shooting sprees like Slaver.  Slaver's diversity of threats makes it much more resilient to all hate based strategies.  As the rise of combo has favored Gifts, I think the impending rise of Fish will enable a more Slaver-friendly metagame.   

-BPK   

[aryah]

I Think the inclusion of Misdirection is a fine way to improve this problem, but then again, if the deck has to run so many protection spells to not lose counterwars, what is the real incentive to play Slaver instead of a more streamlined combo deck?
...
It appears to me that when control decks have to start packing cards like Misdirection and Duress in the maindeck, just to compete with the pure speed and consistencey of the faster Drain and Ritual decks.  People play Slaver because it is forgiving, and fairly consistent...  For the same reasons people played 4cc when psychatog decks were broken. 

I dont understand how packing more countermagic in a controll deck would be going out of character of such a deck? cca 10 counterspells is not that excessive.. Maybe unnecessary, but doesnt seem like aimed only at combo deck primarly - its aimed to a point at controll decks too, right?

I think that the real draw to playing Slaver should be that it is a very strong Mana Denial deck.  Cards like Gorilla Shaman, Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Sundering Titan all give you a sound stratagy against an opposing Mana base. 

And I guess one could add Crucible to this list. Yes, its an interesting perspective on the deck. Sounds really akin to Keeper thinking

Duress works much in the same way, because it is something proactive you can do, rather than let them build a superhand.  However, Duress is a one for one trade with a card in their hand, and it doesn't actually affect the board... Not to mention it forces you to search out black mana early, which is quite the risk against Stax or Fish.

Well, Duress is often capable of doing things common counterspells arent, (and by the look of the new editions it seems num of cards problematic to counter will continue to increase) and is cheaper to play. Yes, the mana color issue remains, and may or may not be a good tradeoff for the effect, but then again, Nights Whisper has this same problem, and I see Kowal did great with a Nights Whisper Slaver deck recently, so maybe its not such a horrible thing...

Im not too optimistic that slaver can or even should adapt to an extremely fast metagame. I just hope it slows down a bit. It would be great to see aggro viable again.... And the battle of combos is not such a great format...

[forests failed you]

I fail to see the point of playing a deck that tries to win small in a field full of bigger, better, faster decks that try to blow you out of the water on turn three.

However, if the field is full of little fishys and Staxsies then Slaver is obviously a good choice.

[brianpk80]

I think that Gifts and Slaver have similar strengths and weaknesses against the metagame with one exception and that is Long in it's variants.  MDG is significantly stronger than Slaver in this matchup.  Am I right with these assumptions?  

You are right that Gifts is stronger against Long, but there are other differences.  Slaver is significantly stronger against Fish and Stax than Gifts. 

-BPK

[Metman]

I think that Gifts and Slaver have similar strengths and weaknesses against the metagame with one exception and that is Long in it's variants.  MDG is significantly stronger than Slaver in this matchup.  Am I right with these assumptions?  

You are right that Gifts is stronger against Long, but there are other differences.  Slaver is significantly stronger against Fish and Stax than Gifts. 

-BPK

This is probably most true game one.  After sideboarding the decks look very much alike though with blasts, creature removal, rack and ruin, etc. 

Has anybody thought about upping the black cards in the deck other than NW, increasing the Underground Seas and finding room for something like Duress MD?  New cards like Fade Away and Trickbind may throw the control and combo decks for a loop if they aren't proactively taken care of.  It would obviously put a hamper on the mana base and make red more of a splash color.  Thoughts?  Has Duress been something you have tried playing 3of MD?

[brianpk80]

This is probably most true game one.  After sideboarding the decks look very much alike though with blasts, creature removal, rack and ruin, etc. 

Yes, after sideboarding, Gifts gets a lot more red, and hence more reminiscient of Slaver.  But even then, Slaver will always edge it against hate based strategies for a few reasons.  First, all of Stax's hate rolls over to Slaver's Welders, giving it yet another option beyond mass artifact bounce to gut Stax's gameplan.  And secondly, Slaver is very concerned with board position (reflected in some of its popular cards choices like Triskelion, Fire/Ice, and Tormod's Crypt) whereas Gifts doesn't give a hoot about anything on the table, preferring instead to just Gifts for the win or ride a Colossus to the exclusion of paying attention to anything else on the table.   Even post-sideboard, Gifts doesn't reflect anywhere near as much concern for board position as Slaver.

-BPK

[Khahan]

This is beginning to turn into a gifts vs slaver thread. I'd rather refocus on optimizing slaver, as its been my pet deck for quite a while now. Some of you (like BPK) have stumbled across me playing it on MWS and know I've been play testing the hell out of it.

Here are the problems I'm facing:
1. The counterwar: Even against other decks w/ just FoW/Mana drain this often goes awry for me. Of course, that may just be a sign of the need for more playtesting and experience on my part. But quite often I find my opponent simply has more counters, no matter how I try to conserve them or how much card draw I rip through (ie: by turn 3 I've seen 0-3 counters and they've seen 3-5).   Is adding more counters Main Deck the answer?

2. Pitch long: This deck has just bashed me over the head. I'd say I win about  2/5 matches against it and those wins are tough when they happen. They usually occur because of an experienced  pitch-long pilot or are just hard-fought wins. My win % against most other storm decks is closer to 55%.   

3. The deck is very draw-dependent. My opening hand either drops a lot of mana and a welder quickly or I mulligan to 5. To be honest, I think this one is more of a shuffler dependent issue on MWS. I'm in the middle of a streak of 8 consective GAMES that has DSC in my opening clutch.   Over the past weekend, I also consistently mulliganed away my opening 7 due to having 0 mana sources (I run a slightly different mana base than most, but the same number of mana sources as most standard decks).
But, I think over the past few months I have a large enough sample to state that CS can be very draw dependent. It either has gas or it doesn't.  That is problematic to me. I would like to see its consistency smoothed out.

[LordHomerCat]

The problem with it being "draw dependant" is that you have to run all kinds of cards that are often terrible in your hand like goblin welder, mindslaver, DSC, and trike.  Gifts only has Recoup, Tendrils, and DSC, and tutors and draw spells instead of Artifacts.  That is the price you play for playing with Slaver, and you can hardly cut the things that clog up your hand without switching decks.

Also, Pitch Long is built to beat up on slaver.  You just plain don't find enough counters to keep up with them early game: while you are casting Thirst for Knowledge for 3 mana and drawing 3 random cards, Gifts is spending 2 mana getting Force or Drain.  This allows Gifts to win the counter wars, and they can still win by resolving a single Gifts Ungiven.

And, to finish responding to your points in reverse order, you could try something like Mana Leak (as Ugo Rivard IIRC and other Canadians have run in the past), or Night's Whisper to give you a small boost and up your chances of finding early Forces and Drains.  Both are viable approaches, and from a non-slaver-expert's point of view, both seem like something worth trying if the deck is not performing as you would like.

[GUnit]

This weekend I played in two tournaments with a new 24-card manabase (sans Mana Vault) and with the expensive draw (gifts/fact) removed in lieue of impulse and misdirection. I found that the somewhat lower curve helped get me into the games earlier and I didn't really have any mana issues. For now this is the configuration I will keep.

[FlamingCloud]

I fail to see the point of playing a deck that tries to win small in a field full of bigger, better, faster decks that try to blow you out of the water on turn three.

However, if the field is full of little fishys and Staxsies then Slaver is obviously a good choice.

I would be very suprised if there was not more fish+shop than gifts+long decks in an average field.

It is interesting that control slaver is considered by some to be hand dependant the last time I played it in a tournament I went 8 rounds without needing to muligan and lost a total of like 3 games I think.  Compared to the amount of hands in stax or oath you need to throw back it is very generous.  4 TFK + 4 Brainstorm usually smooths over dead draws like slaver/trike/dsc.

Right now I am testing a board with 2 chalice, 2 duress, 2 tormod's crypt, 2 reb, 2 pryoblast as control/combo hate, it is probably overkill tho.


Lastly people again talk about slaver like it is dead.  It put up 2 top 8, 4 top 16 in boston and 4 top 8 and 8! top 16 at waturbury thats 25% of the top 8 and top 16 at waturbury, and 12.5% at boston.

So slaver has 12 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events(4 tournaments).
 
Long Variants
Waturbury - 1 top 8 2 top 16
Boston - 1 top 8 2 top 16

So Long has 4 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events.

Gifts Variants
Waturbury - 1 top 8 1 top 16
Boston - 5 top 8 8 top 16

So Gifts has 9 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm CS sure is dead, and damn thats an impressive showing by Long, Gifts was non-existant in the meta before gencon it would seem, sorta like 5c stax before it last year.  I could do this for the whole year and I have no doubt that in 2006 CS put up the best showing of any deck in major tournaments(although to be fair it has been played in numbers higher than alot of other decks).

[The Atog Lord]

People started by saying that Control Slaver isn't viable, or is a bad Workshop deck. After some success with the deck, people started calling it dead. This has gone on literally for years, and despite all of this Control Slaver continues to put up strong results. I doubt it is going to disappear any time soon.

As for being hand dependent, to a degree all Magic decks are. That's why people play Duress. Control Slaver, however, is as consistent as any Type One deck.

[zeus-online]

Sounds like the same thing as keeper....people called it "dead" several years before it actually died.

I'd say that the only reason to ever play Slaver over any other deck is Mind Slaver itself..that card is just nutz, and no other deck can use it properly.

If the thirst engine is running, the dead-cards in hand issues often goes away, problems arise if that engine is not running.

I'm not sure how much additional "worse" counter magic like Misdirection is gonna help you...it seems wrong to add suboptimal card. Running more draw/Search would likely solve the problem just as well, like kowal's Night's whisper or rich shay's merchant scrolls (Though i'm not sure if he runs them anymore?).

/Zeus

[GUnit]

I may be wrong, but aren't the NW's Rich Shay's as well?

[The Atog Lord]

Yes, Night's Whisper Slaver was my idea. However, Ben has done well with Night's Whisper Slaver, whereas I never had any tournament success with the Whispers in the deck. I've only actually run them in a single tournament, and it seems that Ben is a bigger fan of Night's Whisper in Slaver than I am.

[warble]

I doubt it is going to disappear any time soon.

I doubt I'm going to stop playing it any time soon.  If the SCG organizers rename it as SSB, so be it.  I know it's CS, and choosing Belcher+Severance over Burning Wish+Rebuild is just a metagame choice.

I'm not sure how much additional "worse" counter magic like Misdirection is gonna help you

Because it is better than FoW in numerous circumstances, and it costs 1 card from your hand and no mana.  I'm sure if CS wasn't friggin' insanely tutor and draw-spell dependant it wouldn't seem like it mattered, but the difference between resolving a duress and using a misdirection will swing a game.  Additionally, you can't afford to play against Gifts with 4FoW2MisD without your own 4FoW2MisD.  Is Misdirection hate specifically designed to beat Gifts and Pitch Long when played in CS?  Yes, yes it is, and those are the decks CS has to learn to beat.

Edit:  Hymn to Tourach, Mind Twist, Ancestral Recall, etc.  The card singlehandedly made Mind Twist unplayable.

[zeus-online]

Numerous instances? ...don't you just mean against Ancestral recall?

Misdirection only helps against opposing counters, so for you to succesfully counter an opponents gift you'd have to have an additional counter online. I find that misdirection is good at pushing your own spells through, and horrible at stopping your opponents spells, and since slaver is the slower deck in almost every match-up I don't think you can just race them with your spells.

Yes, Night's Whisper Slaver was my idea.

Oh, sorry about that!
My point is still the same though.

/Zeus

[GUnit]

Numerous instances? ...don't you just mean against Ancestral recall?

Misdirection only helps against opposing counters, so for you to succesfully counter an opponents gift you'd have to have an additional counter online. I find that misdirection is good at pushing your own spells through, and horrible at stopping your opponents spells, and since slaver is the slower deck in almost every match-up I don't think you can just race them with your spells.

/Zeus

The first time gifts tries to resolve a threat it's either going to be a turn 1 ancestral which MAY not have backup, or a turn X (something) that will definitely have counter backup. In either scenario misdirection is obviously a good card to have in hand.

[Imsomniac101]

Numerous instances? ...don't you just mean against Ancestral recall?

Misdirection only helps against opposing counters, so for you to succesfully counter an opponents gift you'd have to have an additional counter online. I find that misdirection is good at pushing your own spells through, and horrible at stopping your opponents spells, and since slaver is the slower deck in almost every match-up I don't think you can just race them with your spells.

/Zeus

The first time gifts tries to resolve a threat it's either going to be a turn 1 ancestral which MAY not have backup, or a turn X (something) that will definitely have counter backup. In either scenario misdirection is obviously a good card to have in hand.

Here's a play situation that arises often when I play MDG, and one I capitalize on whenever possible. Opponent casts his bomb, you respond with an instant bomb of your own (ie FoF, Gifts, AR) they cast counter, you cast MisD and use their counter to counter their bomb and resolve yours. Here you only need MisD, where as if you used FoW or Drain, you would still need a second counter to resolve your bomb or stop theirs (whichever you choose).

[zeus-online]

You cannot be sure that your opponent will counter your bomb unless its yawgmoth's will. If his bomb is strong enough he might just let yours resolve to conserve counter-magic.

I am fully aware of that trick, but i find it very conditional.

[Metman]

It's a cute trick.  I've had it done to me in games against Gifts.  It is situational but usually means game over if it happens.  I try to force of player to play into that situation if I'm sitting on a similar hand sans the Misdirection.  Has anybody tested the MisD maindeck?  It seems it would push the deck closer to Gifts but Trickbind and Fade Away both concern me.  I think both those cards will cause control decks to cut back on counters past eight and find ways to proactively take care of uncounterable threats.  Duress seems the best fit.

[forests failed you]

I fail to see the point of playing a deck that tries to win small in a field full of bigger, better, faster decks that try to blow you out of the water on turn three.

However, if the field is full of little fishys and Staxsies then Slaver is obviously a good choice.

I would be very suprised if there was not more fish+shop than gifts+long decks in an average field.

It is interesting that control slaver is considered by some to be hand dependant the last time I played it in a tournament I went 8 rounds without needing to muligan and lost a total of like 3 games I think.  Compared to the amount of hands in stax or oath you need to throw back it is very generous.  4 TFK + 4 Brainstorm usually smooths over dead draws like slaver/trike/dsc.

Right now I am testing a board with 2 chalice, 2 duress, 2 tormod's crypt, 2 reb, 2 pryoblast as control/combo hate, it is probably overkill tho.


Lastly people again talk about slaver like it is dead.  It put up 2 top 8, 4 top 16 in boston and 4 top 8 and 8! top 16 at waturbury thats 25% of the top 8 and top 16 at waturbury, and 12.5% at boston.

So slaver has 12 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events(4 tournaments).
 
Long Variants
Waturbury - 1 top 8 2 top 16
Boston - 1 top 8 2 top 16

So Long has 4 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events.

Gifts Variants
Waturbury - 1 top 8 1 top 16
Boston - 5 top 8 8 top 16

So Gifts has 9 top 16 appearances in the last 2 major non-sanctioned events.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm CS sure is dead, and damn thats an impressive showing by Long, Gifts was non-existant in the meta before gencon it would seem, sorta like 5c stax before it last year.  I could do this for the whole year and I have no doubt that in 2006 CS put up the best showing of any deck in major tournaments(although to be fair it has been played in numbers higher than alot of other decks).

The advantage CS has over other decks is that it is a very good deck for the swiss rounds of an event.  The more explosive decks, like Gifts or Long are more difficult to pilot correctly and more susceptable to random hate, or even rogue decks.  Slaver, on the other hand is very comfortable, plays around hate better and gives you much more opportunity to outplay bad players.  That is why I usually play it at SCG tournaments... Because it isn't particularly hard to pilot it into the top eight.   However, I think that right now Slaver is a difficult deck to win a top eight with at the moment.  Once you reach top eight you are more likely to be playing against the faster decks with very compitent pilots.

I'm not jumping on the Slaver is dead or Slaver is a bad deck bandwagon.  I'm far from it... Slaver is a fine deck that rewards patience and diligence in a tournament.  However, you have to live long enough for all of your little tricks to impact the game.

In Michigan right now there is a lot of Long and a lot of Gifts.  All of the good players here have gotten onboard for playing the more powerful decks.  So, Slaver isn't the best choice here at the moment.  I don't really know why it is taking Dark Rituals such a long time to show up in the NE;  Combo is clearly, card for card, one of the most powerful stratagies in Vintage right now.  When players from all over the nation showed up to play at Worlds, and we had a mixed metagame from all over... Skilled Tendrils players clearly ruled the day.  However, at the NE SCG in Boston Tendrils was all but absent in the top eight? 

I think that the information can be interpreted in two ways:

1.  It was a fluke, Drain players were not prepared at GenCon, and they have learned how to solve the Tendrils problem.
2.  Or, the New England players just don't like to play combo for some reason.

I've played in New England before and I would lean toward the later.

If this is the case, and Tendrils decks (long varients) just don't exist on the coast in any kind of force... Why even bother building your Slaver decks full of Duress and Misdirection?  The Slaver core is solid, just like the Keeper core used to be back in the day, and it does what it does very well.  It controls the game and then Mindslavers an opponent and resolves Will.

The reason that Slaver always gets proclaimed as being "dead." is because it isn't explosive and people are not scared of it.  Its that slow keeper deck that if you give it too much time and don't do your job in the match up, gains advantage and crushes you with its weapons.  People are fine with that happening.  It seems fair, because it is a control deck, and it acts like a control deck, and people understand that if they don't get the upper hand and stay ahead against control they do not have inevitability and therefore lose the game.  People are scared of playing against Combo decks because they just kill you from out of nowhere and it doesn't seem very fair when it is happening.  Most players don't test or prepare properly for the combo match up and end up getting crushed by good Long players.  It is because of the explosiveness and 'fastness' of these decks that people put them in such an esteemed position in the metagame.

People also don't understand the dynamic of the Combo V Slaver match up very well when they play it from the Slaver side.  You have to be a Control deck.  Not a tempo control deck, not a combo control deck, but a pure control deck.  You must control the game and stop them from winning until you actually win the game, because they can kill you from out of nowhere.  Slaver isn't particularly great at this, because it doesn't have as good of tools to execute this game plan, via finding countermagic as other Drain or aggro stratagies do.

Slaver isn't the primary deck anymore.  Everybody knows what it does, how it works, and has its own plan against it.  It is just like beating any other control deck ever in the history of magic.  You put pressure on it, disrupt it as much as possible, and hope that your clock can get the job done. 

Slaver is a control deck.  Combo Control, sure, but the emphasis is on control because it is a reactive deck.

It is therefore a metagame deck.  Control decks always are:  Since they are designed to control and outplay whatever the top decks in a metagame are.  Therefore, Control Slaver should be built as a metagame deck, designed to beat whatever is popular and good in a specific area.  I like cards like Shaman, Crypt, Trinisphere, Rack and Ruin, Rebuild, and Fire/Ice in the maindeck of different Slaver decks, because it shows an understanding of what cards and what decks you are expecting and trying to beat.  One of the best indicators of what a particular metagame looked like at a specific tournament is to look at whatever Slaver deck made Top 8, and then see what seemingly sideboard cards they had in the maindeck.  If it is Rack and Ruin, you know it was a Shop heavy field and that the pilot was very saavy to predict this, if it was Crypt there was probably a lot of Gifts et cetera.  The key to winning with Slaver is to predict and have the answers.

However, I think that if there were more Smennens, TKs, Beckers, et cetera in the NE that Slaver would not be putting up the kind of numbers that it is out there.  Because the match up just isn't good.

However, if I were going to attend a tournament in NE or VA I wouldn't hesitate to play a Slaver deck myself, because I know that none of the compitent players would be packing D RITS.  Gifts maybe, but that match up, though unfavorable is far from unwinnable... especially with post board tech.

My criticism is...

If you are building CS to beat combo, WHY?  The match up is bad any way you look at it because you don't have threats or a clock.  (Just so that no wisenhiemer responds with it:  Okay, your clock is a Slaver activation... Consistently turn 4?  Three if lucky?  Doesn't count.  Its the plan, yes.  But a poor one.)  If your metagame is full of combo, why not just play a deck that is good against combo... Instead of weakening the integrity of a good deck "slaver" by trying to give it a still unfavorable match up against combo, though a bit improved?  To rephrase, why are we trying to play a metagame deck that is bad against the metagame, instead of playing the correct metagame deck?

I don't mind having a plan for combo in the board, when I think that Slaver is the right deck for an event.  It is usually 3sphere and Sphere or Resist out of the board.  But, having to play Duress, Scroll, and Misdirection seems like you are just playing the worst deck ever game one against half of your match ups.  Stax, Fish, and the mirror.  I guess at least those cards are not dead in the mirror, but I'd much rather have Shaman and business.  (like the deck is supposed to look pre board.)

Just some thoughts.  I don't hate Slaver.  But it is definately not what keeper was in 2000; the deck that beats all decks that should always get played.

[FlamingCloud]

Slaver has not just put up good numbers in new england.  It did amazing in richmond, great at waterbury, great all over the place except at gencon.  Why did slaver do poorly at gencon? because everyone was playing combo because combo wrecks jank decks, and cs loses to jank like sligh and sui black.  Slaver is not the deck of choice if you are going to play against GR beats, increased combo and burn decks.  The best thing slaver has going for it in reality is that none of its matchups against good decks are worse then 40-60.  Oath, and pitchlong are probably its worst match ups and I would be very suprised if they were worse than 40-60 pre-board and combo gets better post-board.  It isn't like 5c stax and its horrible ichorid match or jank vs combo match.

[warble]

The Slaver core is solid.  It controls the game and then Mindslavers an opponent and resolves Will.

The reason that Slaver always gets proclaimed as being "dead." is because it isn't explosive and people are not scared of it.  Its that slow keeper deck that if you give it too much time and don't do your job in the match up, gains advantage and crushes you with its weapons.

Slaver isn't the primary deck anymore.  Everybody knows what it does, how it works, and has its own plan against it.  It is just like beating any other control deck ever in the history of magic.  You put pressure on it, disrupt it as much as possible, and hope that your clock can get the job done.

Control Slaver should be built as a metagame deck

However, I think that if there were more Smennens, TKs, Beckers, et cetera in the NE that Slaver would not be putting up the kind of numbers that it is out there.  Because the match up just isn't good.

If you are building CS to beat combo, WHY?  The match up is bad any way you look at it.

I summed up that post real quick.  You stated both the core is solid and the deck is a metagame deck.  By equating CS with keeper you ignore the fact that a turn 3 mindslaver in CS is the goal.  Keeper had no turn 3 wins that you can only counter or die to.  CS does, so it is inherently not playing the simple control role.  By placing a bajillion tutors you're setting up the winning combo...the same way that dark ritual decks do but without emptying your hand so it's obviously slower.  And almost exactly like a gifts deck...

If there were more combo, we would metagame the deck to hate combo more and it wouldn't matter because tormod's crypt is in the sideboard already.  I've played hundreds of matchups with combo and I can say without a doubt that a combo deck that can play through hate will be the ultimate combo deck.  The problem is, when I tried to put that deck together I ended up with a tweaked version of CS.

You think because people know you're playing CS you can stop it?  I played two undefeated opponents last tournament who knew my deck, win conditions, basically everything because they scouted me.  If it had mattered, and that silly little strategy you just wrote up worked, don't you think they maybe would have...you know...won against CS?  I sincerely doubt you can even NAME all of the win conditions a CS player could take into a tournament.  It's like having a little rambo trunk full of guns and you decide to pull out what you want for the tournament.  You can't hate that, because you don't even know what you're playing against.  Is this the ideal in deck evolution, to have a deck so powerful in any of five or fifty or even five hundred configurations it's ideal for different environments, and strong against all of those?  For CS players, we're believers in that sort of a solution.  We don't need "the ultimate deck."  We are happy to have something beautiful enough to play and win with, that we can also call our own.

[AbouTreeFiddy]

A turn 3 slaver activation is pretty wishful thinking bro.   A turn 3 tinker for colossus with force backup is much more likely of a way slaver ends most of its games.

Slaver is all about resolving 2 spells, tinker and yawg will.  welders are there as a backup outlet if you cant get tinker early enough, and they serve as your defense many more times then your offense against certain decks.

[GUnit]

You guys are talking about CS like slaver activations are the only way to win games. In practice I activate slaver in less than half of the games I win, and I think the same can be said for my yawg's will. I thought the main strength of this deck was its versatility.