[Improvement] Workshop Slavery

[akabane]

Hi all.
I'd like to talk about a deck i really liked time ago and i think now it can perform well in this meta of gush, drain, flash and stax.
I'm talking about workshop slavery.
It's an aggressive ws-based deck with 8 protections (4 of them do 1xX) that aims to go nuts with welder recursion of MindSlaver.
The list i play now its:

_MANA_
2 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
4 Shivan Reef
4 Workshop
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Mox
1 Lotus
3 Gilded Lotus
1 ManaVault
1 SolRing
1 ManaCrypt

_Creatures_

4 Welder
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
1 Memnarch
1 Sundering Titan

_Artifacts_
1 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
1 MindSlaver
1 Memory Jar

_OtherSpells_
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 TimeTwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction/Gifts Ungiven

SIDEBOARD:
3 Shattering Spree
2 Razormane Masticore
2 Jester's Cap
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Tormod's Crypt

The first thing that comes to eye is that we can set ALWAYS chalice at 2 without losing ANYTHING (the only CC2 spell is timewalk).
That means in this way we shut off drains, painters servant, flash, spheres, merchants, demonic, and so on.
Meanwhile we can lay billions of mana thanks to gilded lotuses and do crazy things with memnarch, sundering etc..with welder.
Of course, if needed and if we have mana and artifactstuff in hand, we can drop an early chalice@1 and then put it at 2, in that case we can't rely anymore on welder but if we have in hand sundering or memnarch and have lots of mana (as the deck is designed to develop) we can play without welder.

Then we have FoWs, that can help us protect our menaces (primarly chalice and welder) or do good things with the surprise-effect:
for example, we start, have workshop, mox, chalice, fow and blue card and 2 other cards.
We go mox-ws-chalice@2 and pass.
Then the opponent can go mystical/darkritual/ancestral etc and we can force it; that's a psychological advantage when the opponent doesnt know we play slaver and thinks we play for example stax.

The only card that doesn't satisfy me too much is the pentavus, i think it's a win more in this deck, but it can be useful vs critters (remembering we don't play intuition or other to tutor up triskelion)...

The sideboard has a little gravehate (tormods), tons of combohate (magus, reb, jesters), a little critters/nullrod hate (masticore) and some artifact hate (shattering).

What do you say about it, i'm sure it can be improved, but its a really versatile deck and, imho, it's REALLY, REALLY fun to play.
Let's discuss 

[Lemnear]

Basically I test a list using Merchantz scroll to tutor up things like Gifts and protection but this is an Workshop-Thread so we work out on Shop-based-lists.

First of all your manabase: I have no idea why you prefer shivan reef over more fetchlands. Only 2 Deltas to fix your mana by looking for the island facing staxx is suicidal. The tech with gilded lotus is IMO outdated. Ramping 5 mana to cast it then getting 3 ... you'll aware that it's not the style of the deck to hardcast all those artifacts ... but to discard and welder it in ... the problem is at this point ... without welder this type of slaver is pretty weak. Of course I'm aware of the memnarch and it's use of G.L. but try Coalition Relic. It provides to store mana for the next turn to cast spells more mana-intense like gifts/artifacts or change 3 colorless into 1/2 colored instead of the lotus that trades 5 for 3. To open a match with workshop -> C.R. -> Ancestral/Welder/vampiric tutor is pretty stong or you store the mana for turn 2 to ramp without any other manasource to 5 mana! Much more easier than casting G.L. anyways.

So we walk on. Your creatures are all nice but you don't need all those. You'll fine with the Welder, a TRISKELAVUS and a beater/tool like Platz/Sundering T./DSC whatever your metacall is. Trike-Bus is a single slot instead of the two you mentioned ... If needed I would consider a duplicant in the beater/tool slot. Memnarch is simply tooooooooooo slow for todays metagame and much to mana-intense....

Now the blue-core: Trinisphere is not working well with FoW. You are not Staxx that prevents opponent from playing spells. You use Slaver as time walks and disrupt the opponent by playing his deck in your favor like "misdirection" his ancestral recall. Chalice is OK ... I still prefer splashing black for tutors/will and duress (also great with Coalition Relic). The left cards are pretty solid but please drop the draw 7 Wheel and Twister. While twister can be tech vs. ichorid the more fatal is Wheel. For draw 7 tricks you'll have Jar but Twister is against your playstyle (out of the grave) and moreover the meta is not good for playing draw 7 the community realizes again and again...

At least you run no bounce! Not only in my meta your sure dead in the water. Think about the slot ... it's worth it. You should never cut Gifts! Are you aware of its ability to tutor for UP to 4 cards? That means that you'll able to simply "find" only 2 cards and force opponent to put them into the grave as an blue entomb! With an active Welder in the game it's really insane!

PS: Listening to much to Ramstein ... I guess

[Thicketman]

I played against this deck last night on MWS. It is very very nasty. It's seems like a fun deck and is even fun to lose to.

[akabane]

@lemnear; hi, thanks for posting.
The deck you talk about with merchants is Control Slavery and in my opinion, is pretty subpar running in a control core 4welder 1 slaver and say, 1 titan; because you can win better and sleeker with 3 confidant, 1 recoup and 1  tendril maindeck (assuming youre playing yawg/gifts MD and not the tendril you save up 1 slot) in a shell like that. Because you can go draw insanely with confidant, tutor up gifts for ie lotus, yawg, recoup, walk and can win on the spot, instead to go for welder/slaver recursion. Ofcourse, that's just my opinion

Taken off this little OT, let's continue.
I'm preferring Reef over other fetches (even if im planning to go -1 reef +1 fetch) because of the titan recursion. It can be really lethal against control (before a chalice@2, that's obvious) and can win you games even with a single wasteEffect without recursing. By playing reefs you don't lose your lands. Assuming an example: land, mox mox tinker fow and blue card. Yes that seems all but a workshop deck but it happens. If the land is a fetch/volcanic, in early game you are 100% losing that land, that can be useful. If that land were a shivan reef, you only lost 1 life to keep a colored land. I think that's a good bargain

Gilded Lotus/Coalition Relic: well didn't knew that card, thanks, but i don't think it fits well as gilded the managiver in ws.slavery. That's because, you know that, if we start always in example, ws mox mox or ws crypt and have a TFK in hand (really far more broken that starting with a welder, speaking of 4x) i really prefer playing the gilded. That's because it's INSANE with welder to develop mana without losing permanents (as black lotus does) and it gives MORE fast mana. Not counting it gives COLORED mana NOW, and 3 is the perfect number in this deck as you may have noticed. starting ws coalition relic brainstorm is far less appetizing that doing a gilded lotus-tfk/tinker/wheel and so on.
Hope you get the point im explaining.
That's the contrary of coalition relic that gives yes mana but more slowly compared to gilded lotus. Not counting, repeat, that if you weld in coalition relic you have 1 mana now. If you weld in gilded lotus it gives you 3 mana. (Thats not an uncommon play to discard to thirst a gilded to weld it back, thats an huge advantage in terms of mana)

Yes i thought of triskelavus, and my really only thing i'm afraid of is that you have to pay mana to deal damage. In a case when you have to face a meddling for example (or put a confidant or everything else) you have 2 ws in play and no other mana sources, if you cast triskelion now you have probably put yourself in advantage killing the creature; if you play triskelavus (in the same mana situation) you'll have to wait a turn, maybe that turn the opponent uses to chain your triskvus and have a new counter backup to counter it again. It's about tempo.
But, if we see that that mana isn't a problem, well, triskelavus may really be the right right choice

For the Memnarch, i think it's the best beater/tool that WorkshopSlavery can have. We produce tons and tons of mana. Of course if you think of it "like it is" you find it slow and weak. But it must be contextualized.
You do a chalice@2 (the most common in here and stops really a lot), then setup a welder with slaver for, say, 2 or 3 slaved turns. In those turns if you manage to get a Memnarch in play, you KNOW that even when your slaverturns are over (because you ran out of weldable artifacts -ie moxen) in those 2-3 turns slaved you can NOT ONLY steal "an ancestral recall", but you can play a lotus and steal it, steal some interesting stuff the opponent has (iE it happened to me, had memnarch in play, opponent had tinker in hand, i slaved his turn, took his platinum and won right away - yes i could have tinkered for nothing but that's an out i'd always like to have). Memnarch in this deck does not play the "platz/titan" role, when whenever it enters play, it does something useful. It has to be used in the right way
That's obvious that vs long i'm not going to play memnarch, but that's up to your skill

Trinisphere is a slot that thrilled me alot.
It's really insane within the first or second turn, but then it's fairly dead. The fact is that if i have an early protected tinker, id always like to get trini, because it gives lots of problems in early game. If you get a first turn titan, you do nothing, opponent can go land mox merchant->chain and screw you. Same with plats. I always tinker for Trini or Gilded lotus in early game, depending on what i have to do (and if i'll be locked by my self trini lol - so i see my mana situation).
Splashing black can be really good in this deck BUT - yes there is a but lol - i think it will only get the whole functionality down. I have 12 turn1 plays (welder, brainstorm, chalice) i don't think i would prefer going duress when i can drop a chaliceAt2.
The really only things i regret are iseal/vampiric/yawgmoths'will, but i don't think destabilizing manabase more than it's now can reward in terms of play choices.

I know i have to run at least 1 bounce maindeck, and probably pentavus is the card i'll cut.

PS: Yep, theire always in my playlist

@Thicketman: yes it's really fun deck, glad you liked it ^^

[Moxlotus]

The biggest problem Workshop Slaver or 7/10 decks have is that they are too slow.  Sure if the game gets to turn 3 you are set.  But before that you have some chalices and forces--and not that many blue cards to pitch.

[Lemnear]

I already realized the use of Reef for Titan recursion but I still don't think that welding the titan in more than just one time is nice but most of the time not really needed. Moreover you'll lose nothing if opponent plays red too and even if you have to sac a land it's a good trade to let your opponent face a 7/10. The Gifts-Plan is common but I never need a tendrils kill in this kind of deck and yes scroll-slaver is more control but I compared the build several times to WS-Slaver and I realized that the disruption is not the key difference but the access to chain T4K's and scroll gifts to create cardadvantage that is very good in the current meta so I prefer the WS-less build also to stabilize my colored mana. I should mention that I run NO Mana Drains ... so it's not drain-slaver ... not sooooo control...

The Confident is quite nice but I always going mad 'bout him in decks with masses of expensive spells (in your posted list 14 spells that deal 4 or more damage) 

The Gilded Lotus topic: I know 'bout the strenght of it via welder but to me it's luxury to cast it turn 1/2 and then follow with T4K and Co. The problem I faced time and time again was that without a workshop to cast it it's pretty unplayable to create FAST mana. Most of the discussion of both cards and maybe the whole deck is about to make it playable in the meta. So having a welder in the game and then T4K a lotus in the yard and weld it in to continue playing is pretty favorable but IMO you nearly won the game much earlier if the opponent can't screw you from getting masses of mana and hitting welder etc. My 2 cents are that the 2 mana casting cost more of gilded lotus makes it more complicated to play it early and so effective. You make yourself toooooooo addicted from workshop in the opening hand.

To Trike-Bus ... We're both on the line: Mana is not the problem in the deck. It flies, creates blocker and ping those very few creeps in vintage. It won't kill more than a handful of Confidants or opponents welders to it's use in the current meta is pretty ... say ... limited. So I mentioned Duplicant in my last post. The main topic 'bout trike-bus is that it's spwning Mogg Fanatics and gets weld in and out for more artifact-moggies and infinite slaver recursion if you'll able to drop a second welder. Anyways it will provide you several turns of beating including slaver the opponent so this is another reason you'll never miss the memnarch which is simply to slow and uneffective in meta but this is a point we're unable to finish in discussion  Why are you tinker for Trinisphere (if you're not facing combo) or G.Lotus instead of ripping them with your aggro? The lack of carddraw/access to it makes you running out of gas pretty quick to why not accelerate the game putting pressure on your opponent? I do so nearly every time I play Staxx that is much slower than Slaver....

The splash of black is possible if you're not playing Shop means playing control. Instead you'll be forced to play rainbow-lands if you'll really wanna try the 3 color-shop.

A thing that I missed till now: Moxlotus is right, you run a damn low count of blue in the featured list. Myself feel sick running FoW without a averange count of 20-22 blue spells. 

[akabane]

The idea to try rainbow lands to try 3-color ws slavery is thrilling me 
I'll try to build a thing like that really early!
PS Can you pm me your list of "not so control" slavery? I'm really curious!! 
Of course if we talk about a ws-less version the gilded lotus is the FIRST card that have to be cut.
Yep, i tried triskelavus ultimately and it's an house  it gives you a free slot and it has the same effectiveness of trisky+pentavus, i tested that mana isn't a problem.
The fact that i play a low count of blue spell is right, but i feel favorable that it's right for now to continue playing FoW..at least, until a new idea for disrupting comes 
I say that's just the "minimum" number of blue cards. And happened just 1 or 2 times that i had a fow without blue card in hand...
Some news: after some testing with another TMD member (Nico) we talked about the inclusion of a 2-copy of trinket mage; that's because it came to mind that the major spell shopslavery has is chalice; with virtually 6 chalices we have another opportunity to get that powerful spell online as soon as possible.
We also thought about using at it maximum extent the manapower this deck has, thinking to include some overcosted as 1-ofs really using the Gilded Lotus mana.
Some names came to mind: Teferi, or Magus of the future...
Also speaking of what could take place of Fows we thought about some cards, as In the eye of chaos (discarded because of: 1-it shuts down our drawing engine; 2- because it's not so synergic with opponents turn stealed with slavers) and Nether Void (that would be some good, the only thing that freightens me is the 4 mana cost -but overall it would be good-)

Some suggestions about this line of thinking? 

[Edi1986]

a good idea for the deck is to try sensei divining top.

You can do so much tricks with it and is a good way to remove the problem of manabase and manipulation.

[ryc3]

Add  Sphere of Resistance?Thorn of Amythyest? It'll help slow the game down more. Trinisphere isn't enough in my honest opinion.

[akabane]

@ryc3: adding spheres effects would cut almost totally the most, MOST broken play this deck can provide: chalice at two.
Just because of this i think it would not be good to add them; remember, we're not an artifact/stax type of deck. We just slow down the game with chalices and fows the first turns, meanwhile we set our mana and explode some turns later.
That trinisphere there is much a "jolly" slot; when you have it, that's good; maybe, if fow backup, it can do most of the game for you, expecially vs some decks. Otherwise, in later turns, that's an artifact pitchable to Thirst, or an artifact good for welder switching.
We don't aim to provide a full lock as artifacts deck do, we have our own strategy, our own game to follow to win, we have our broken plays and our weaknesses, and, i assure you, we don't need spheres 
I.E. assuming we are vs STAX, we do chalice2, he has some good dead stuff in hand he kept. He can do juggernaut, and we have fows and welders. (Just to let you see where chalice @ 2 is really broken talking of spheres  - but think of it vs merchant.dec, painter.dec, drain.dec, flash and so on..)

[Lemnear]

I'll post the list in the forum instead so the folks are invited to discuss too. Gosh! Kinda hard to imagine the exact list of my slaver-build 'cause I'm writing on a university pc but my original lists are on my pc home but I'll try...

4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
5 Mox
1 Lotus
1 SolRing
1 ManaCrypt
4 Welder
1 Triskelavus
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Sundering Titan
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Duress
2 MindSlaver
1 Memory Jar
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical tutor

So obviously this is another deck based on scroll and uses it to create cardadvantage like others too but your gameplan is to put the artifacts into grave beside. 2 Slaver to increase the chance to grab one and the jar to recurring draw 7 action with welder. I put into the Tutors but lighten the manabase as you can see 'cause being less addicted to masses of mana is good in the meta but if you'll face masses of staxx and manadenial feel free to cut Vampric for additional land. I dismissed Academy too ... I mulled several hands with it but without moxen and so it's not only useless but moreover a victim to Wasteland. It's advantage is obvious if you can grab 2 or more moxen but I try to design decks due to averange stability and counting on the moxen is not the ways it's used to be.

I add the Will insteaed of several other spells like the dismisses Trike/Pentavus couple and it's pretty good after welding jars for moxen or recast welders and ancestral. Even provides more space if your running out of Slaver-turns caused by a lack of artifacts on the table. Play will and recast the whole bunch to continue... The Duress replaces the Chalice 'cause casting a 1st turn duress to opponents flash etc. is more common than dropping Chalice @ 2 to stop the same.


@ryc3: Adding resistors at any number would do the same as Trinisphere I mentioned above but even worse 'cause I can't see how you'll able to cast your colored spells through the resistors with a very wacky manabase Shop-Slaver runs. Realize that we're not defenceless ... there are 4 FoW and 4 Duress (+2 Misdirection?) to protect the gameplan. Staxx has not and thats the reason it tries to block opponents spells by making them expensive via resistors. Slaver disrupts opponents gameplan ACTIVE and not PASSIVE as staxx. Guess you're very very fixed to the staxx' gameplan ...

@akabane: I'll dismiss the idea of posting a Rainbow-Shop-Slaver-list now ... guess it will drive me mad to create a solid manabase 

[akabane]

Update 
Yesterday i did a tournament here in italy (20-22 people) and did 2-2-1. Not bad, counting that if i did 3-1-1 i was in top8 (and i did an error choosing to keep an horrible hand in the last match), and counting that i nearly never tested for real the deck.

First of all, my list: (Lemnear, here you go! PENTA Slavery!! lol)

4 City of Brass
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Volcanic Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy

5 Mox
1 Lotus
1 Crypt
1 Vault
3 Gilded Lotus

4 Ponder
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
4 Force of Will

1 Balance
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Panoptic Mirror
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
1 Sundering Titan
1 Mindslaver

4 Goblin Welder
1 Memory Jar

Sideboard:

3 Magus of the Moon
3 Electrostatic Bolt
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Razormane Masticore

Some cards:
-Pentalands, balance and tutors: they're far too broken. They saved me 2 matches otherwise i would have lost them. Not counting that imprinting Balance or a Tutor on panoptic mirror is broken.
-Panoptic mirror: the most broken play of the day. Played it 3 times, 1 imprinting tinker vs red shop, 1 imprinting balance vs controlSuicide, and 1 imprinting demonic vs control. I cut Memnarch for it and i think i will keep using this.
-Ponders: the deck doesn't have the number of resshufle effects needed to support Brainstorm. I went for ponder so i can fix better the mana situation and can resshuffle if needed. Really good, don't think i'll return to brainstorm.
Sideboard: the electrostatic are there to cut all the utility critters (bob, meddling, etc) and exploding nearly all the artifact things (Ravager, Painter's, Metalworker, Triskelion, Juggernaut, Karn and so on if i forgot any); imho they are really good.

So, i think (now that i took it in a tournament) that the deck can do really impressive things. Maybe it has to be refined, but it's great and funny.
[end of Update  ]

[marcb]

Akabane,

 Have you seen the lists in the tournament forums that are using vexing shusher from shadowmoor? It's an interesting idea. I remember my biggest problem with workshop slaver was trying to choose between dropping chalice for one as soon as possible and not wanting to lock myself out of playing welder if I didn't already have one down. I haven't tested the deck yet, but it seems interesting.

[Lemnear]

Hmmm ... your record means nothing at all ... if you can list your matchups and the averange powerlevel we're in talk. I could post more impressive records with Slaver and Staxx in tournaments of around 20 people facing unpowered decks like fish and elves all day long. I mean that we're just able to discuss the strength of some cards listed in this deck compared to the meta you faced. Guess discussing 'bout cards in general is not that efficient the topic deserves.

Even without exact knowledge 'bout your opponents I feel like your multicolorbase with only 4 Rainbows is not so well ... guess the Gemstone Mines instead of the Volcanics would do better. 15 blue cards to run FoW is random ... I'll repeat this in almost every forum time and time again. Ponder is ok if you're able to cast it anytime you have it in hand ... especially to find your beloved Shop 

The 5c shell with cards like balance is pretty common in 5c Staxx but as I mentioned it's no deal to run it in slaver. Agree? 3-Sphere, Pentavus, Triskelion and Panoptic mirror are wasted slots ... the first 3 cards are discussed above but Mirror is nothing new to me ... I faced it 2 time in my career and was never impressed ... in Germany with it's dozen of fishes in tournament and their stifles and Co. you would neither win a cup of coffee. Most of the time it lacks 'cause of it's cost ... second to the masses of artifactremoval and bounce (I wonder no one simply drop Energy Flux against you ... wired meta you have) ... and third the lack of spells your able to imprint ... dropping it into play with a hosser in hand, imprint it and cast the spell imprinted again and again without any opponents resistance ... seems to me that the oppoents themselves are at least weaker than their decks.

I cut my comments to your SB to Magus ... you run a 5c manabase without a single basic and Magus of the Moon??? I would consider it's use to hate your deck! 

At least, I took my own conclusion of the meta out of your description and I'm sure that the Deck underperformed, especially because you write that 2 times balance saves you the day. If it prevents you two times from losing, that means that without ripping it out of your deck, your record would be much worse ... and that shows that no other card/play was able to do that, means winning/turning the game. Guess that very sad. 

PS: Calling it "Slavery" is kinda fake 'cause no Slaver's in ... changes the style of the deck and I was confused 'bout ... the list looks more like staxless staxxx.  Did you ever do the Gifts-trick?


@marcb: Shusher is nice but ONLY to prevent your spells from being countered ... opponent can still do whatever he want's ... you'll simply cut their FoW and nothing else. Moreover the casting cost make it complicated too. You'll drop chalice @ one against combo and nearly nothing else. Cutting you from playing welder should not be critical in this deck ... but IF it is you've done wrong anyways as you construct a deck completely addicted to welder. You should always have a plan B...

[akabane]

I faced 1 Control Slavery (lost because of a 1st turn triskelavus in g3), 1 T1Tshell storm (so with AK, drains, and so on, with tendril/etw - draw cause we went to additional turns and i couldnt find a beater to take him down even if i was in welderslaver), 1 Red Shop Aggro (win, panoptic+tinker/demonic the first and slavering him with his own triskelion damaging him the 2nd), 1 TDS with Negators (that was the only one i used balance because she dropped a 1st turn negator fow backupped and i had the panoptic/balance - in fact, i wrote 1 time, not 2 - the "they saved me 2 matches were because i was speaking generally of balance+tutors), 1 TPS (lost because didn't see any chalices even after mulligans in g1, 1 game won thanks to demonic, 3rd game a desire for 6 revealing spells but he had tendrils in hand so gg).

I'm not saying "i made for me a decent result so this is an house", i only said that the deck can perform well (and the RedShop and TPS player are good players, the others dunno, they aren't n00b for sure) and if we can tune it it can do some good stuff IMHO.

Magus won me 2 games (1 vs TDS, 1 vs TPS) because they didn't expect it to come in from sideboard.
I imagine youre telling 3sphere, pentavus, triskelion and mirror are wasted slots because you run 1 triskelavus and 3 slots are, what, duresses? 
I really don't know WHAT would you put in instead of those. The trini is a last-choice because in the tournament i ran 1 Fact orFiction instead of 3sphere.

EDIT: I'm not a top player at all, i feel that i'm always a n00b, so i think i did lots of play mistakes, that's obvious, that's also why i test and ask for suggestions.


PS It HAS slaver, and it is the main win condition. Do you always put in 4 slavers in a deck to call it slaver?
Another thing about your drainless,wsless list.
How do you have the mana to always activate slaver?
Do you always plan to have 3 lands and 1 mox or 2 land and 3 mox or such?
If you ALWAYS see 2+ moxen every time you fan your opening hand, that's good. It doesn't happen too much with me.

Cheers

[Lemnear]

First of all I have to say sorry ... I simply overread the Slaver and so I missed it ...

The 2 times-thing: I read it like the tutors always grab the Balance to save the game ... so maybe another fault...

Guess I should cool down ... I will not mess with anyone ... especially none uprising Vintage-Players. We all make misstakes ... we all learn and you can be a bit proud of yourself entering a tournament without netdecking a played list. I myself hate nothing more than an opponent asking me "What list do you play?" or telling me every time I make something unexpected "this card is not played in the deck...", so I'm here to encourage especially newcomers to make their own experience in the format and their own conclusion due to deckconstruction and their plays.

So a bit more on our lists ... I run the Duress instead of the Chalice ... I try to strip my opponets from early broken plays so I can go a bit in the controlposition if needed and laying mana turn after turn so I filled the open slots I named "waste" with the scrolls. The idea is to have more access to tool and draw instead of running an extended amount of conditions. I prefer to filter them out of the deck ... kinda philosophy of deckbuilding...

So I always run 2 Slaver (double the chance to get one) to have with Scroll and Thrist (extended to Ancestral and Gifts) always the ability to draw/tutor/discard them if needed. The topic is to slow the game a bit down 'cause we're not combo ... and by slowing down, we're able to simply lay down more lands. It's obvious that having 3 mana in turn 1 is sick but happens not so often we want it, but the ability to cast 1st Turn Welder/Duress/Brainstorm/Scroll(with1mox) is more than good angainst almost every deck. You don't have to smash your opponent with a 1st turn T4K or Chalice to win the game ... I you fear the opponents speed, slow them down and go more control. If you do, having 4 or more mana is pretty easy ... in my experience scroll'n up FoW or a 1st turn duress slows the averange plays of the opponents down for at least 1 turn (maybe 2 if you are lucky). IMO that means having at least one additional turn to lay down lands,  the mana to activate the Slaver is no problem.

If you want to hardcast the Trike-bus/Titan/Slavers the manatopic is a bit different ... in this case you grab T4K and discard them and don't miss the fact that you recieve 3 new cards ... maybe a land included...

[Harlequin]

Stylistic Note:  The ellipsis is a good tool when used mid sentance to add dramatic pause before the ... final conclusion.  But when used to end a sentence it's generally suposed to be a sort of disapointed downturn in intonation, or the trailing off a thought.  So its as if your like if the sentence was being narrated by Eeyore from Whinnie the Pooh, or from a doughtering elder...

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-elusive-ellipsis/


Back on Topic:  I have recently had some success with an almost identical list.  When my roommate and I brought our deck to a 30 person tourney we ended up BOTH top-8ing!

Balance, DT, Vamp:  Essentially your running a 5-color deck to add 3 cards.  They are good cards, and if you think they are nessisary to the sucess of the deck, then I would suggest looking into Staxless Stacks.  And particularly looking at Aven Mindcensor (hes such a house right now).  I prefer Timetwister to a tutor in this deck.  This also frees up slots for vexing susher which I'll explain more below.

Chalice over Duress:  Chalice at 1 on turn 1 is probably one of the strongest un-restricted plays in vintage right now.  Right now decks are pushing the limits of 1 drops: 8x Duress, 8x Brainstrom, 8xREB.  Decks right now hinge on 1 or 2 of these three 'cards' (not nessisarily always in 8-of's but usually 6+).  The power of chalice @1 is that it protects itself from removal.  Not because it stops the removal cards dirrectly, but because it hinders your opponent's ability to smooth his draws and find the answers needed.  Chalice @1 also hit plenty of other less common cards: Welder, Rit, Swords to Plow, Vamp, Ancestral, fanatic, lackey. 

Chalice has other applications outside of @1.  @2 is often a very strong follow up.  More than 50% of decks out there find it impossible to win game 1 when faced with a chalice @1 and then @2 by turn 3-4.  Chalice at 0 is also a nice way to protect a slow-hand on the play, becuase it typically is enough to ensure there will be a turn 2. 

Now the problem is that typically ShopSlaver can end up hurting itself with chalice @1.  Welder and Ponder are both important early plays.  And the deck sometimes can't wait to lay down a welder and then turn-2 a chalice at 2. 

Vexing Shusher:  Shusher is the Key to running the deck on Chalice.  It also alows the deck to return to a less painful 2 color manabase of Volcs and Shivan Reefs. 

[akabane]

Hi harlequin, i'm glad that you both made results with slaver right now.
it may be a good idea to put shusher, the only thing that stops me is that i am really afraid to think of it like a play that basically on its own does nearly nothing; more importantly now that you suggest (as i see in your list) that you run it in 3x...
But, but, it may be a real good deal, i get that.

If you can do a mini-report of the tourney i'll be glad to hear how the deck performed vs some decks!
Thanks a lot!
(Lemnear, i'll answer more in deep later, now i have to go)

[Lemnear]

@Harlequin: I don't use the "..." for creating any kind of dramatic pause. I simply use it instead of ";" to explain parallel thoughts while writing or is a symbol for following thought I won't write down 'cause everyone could make his own conclusion. "so maybe another fault..." would mean that it's possible that there are some more, for example. Guess that's a very personal writing style and if a bunch of people complain 'bout I'll change it for the sake of the forum  Hope I still have credit as non-nativ speaker.

The Chalice discussion is IMO a bit more complex than saying that chalice @ 1 is THE play in todays vintage. True that Ponder and Thoughtseize increases the averange number of one drops in vintage but most of the cards what kills you are 2cc like Oath, Flash, Drayd (maybe Scroll and Drain too). I doubt that chalice @ 1 is so much stronger than the time before lorwyn. Even more the meta decides if @1 or @2 is the right play. I would never consider a meta with masses of Painter and GaT with Ponder/Brainstorm/Thoughtseize/Duress as given standard to construct decks. Duress remains the more flexible spell directly compared to chalice and cheaper to protect you from opponents following spells. Of course, this sight is kinda narrow too. Running bounce for  cc and for  cc with Scrolls is pretty standard so figuring out "the right play" is even harder.

The real advantage Shusher creates is that you can cast a welder though a chalice@1 and so on. In my experience it's slow and not really impressing.

Topic that chalice @2 follows the @1: If you can cast 2 of them it's pretty good, especially if opponent won't do anything against for several rounds (counter?). You're not the first realizing that...

[akabane]

Now, i think we have to think a little about new restrictions in terms of the deck and the decks this will face.

First of all, 4 ponder's gone.
The first perfect fit i think is Sensei's Top.
But, how we fit it in?
1 Ponder
3 Sensei
or
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
2 Sensei?

I think sensei's better, with welder it does some cool tricks and now that the metagame will slow a little we can afford play the sensei.
Second thing, the most broken play remains the CotV at 2, but now it has less targets (-3 merchants and flash's), but that's still a really average play. It still stops the mono-merchant, lol, drains, painters, oath, spheres, basically all of the fish's stuff (meddling, jotun, bob), tarmo, and i think some impulses 'cause someone will start again to play them in a heavy control shell.
The deck, per se, has not lost anything.
I'll start again testing with 3 sensei's top and update.
May it be that this new B/R helped us?
 

[Lemnear]

You have to realize that other decks will change too. Why should Painter be worth playing anymore? Tyrant Oath is gone too. Without a real engine you are not able to use it a it should. Oath will turn back to aggro with Akroma/Razia I guess.

I said it in another thread already ... the averange opinion that the meta will slow down due to the weakening of blue is wrong. Why do you think it will? The Gushbond-engine and Flash-combo are gone and both were the common vintage standard 'till 01/06/08. True both could be very fast but I can see that the weakening of blue (=control) will lead to more aggressive combodecks like the return of long.

More in detail to your idea ... guess my list is pretty trash now  but brainstorm in your deck is too. I leave the garbage on your deck and dont shuffle it away like ponder (I would neither play). Top is a common decision to run in Slaver and it can do cool things but only with welder and artifacts in grave ... even with all of it it provides only one extra draw. If you can combine it with confident it looks much better but my problem is again that I don't think it's a good idea to slow a already slow deck down...