The State of Control Slaver

[hauntedechos]

 


Thank - You all for the continued discussions on Slaver.


At HitMan:  I belive that Negate is a great card and I have been testing it.  I belive that there is a call for testing on Annul as well.  No I'm not crazy, but think about TPS and it's moxen, necropotence and Bargain as well as memory Jar.  Now think about the Painter match up.  Now think about the Oath match up and then MUD, then  RED Shop, then staxx........all the way down to........it pitches to Force and it's available turn 1; where once this turn was...Brainstorm perhalps Mox - go.  I do agree that at 2 , Blood Moon is a bit on the slow side and that might just be the tipping of the scales in favour of Gorrilla Shaman.  Once again, I was not saying that Shaman is a terrible card that should not be played, it was mearly a thought process between Shaman and Blood Moon.

At TinMox:  I do like Tangle Wire very much, however if BloodMoon is deemed too slow for it's casting cost;  I don't know that Tangle Wire would be that much better.  However please test it and do get back to the community on how you find it working out.  Specific game plays and what it enabled for you would be very good to defend your suggestion.

At Qube:  Right now one of my primary concerns with Slaver is beating the Painter match up.  TPS is at top priority and Painter is not too far behind for me.  That said, perhalps the people out there that belive that Slaver needs to look to more extream measures to stay alive should certainly look to test this out.

I'd like to present a list that I am working on right now.  It would be great if some pilots who have had success with Slaver (top 8 and above) would comment and perhalps direct me a little.

First off, my meta is covered with Oath- ICBM, and other variants-, Fish- all kinds and colours, well built and poorly a like- Ichorid, some goblins and a few Bomberman, TPS, and Painter players.  Combo is the least played, however I take it very serious; especially since I would love to travel to the States and play one day ( I don't know anyone in the states however ).  There is no Stax or shop decks in my meta as of right now, however with ICBM playing chalices and Fish playing Null Rod, I take artifact disruption into the same package as stax considerations.  Last but not least, the meta is five free proxies and a dollar per proxie after that to a maximum of ten.

Control Slaver

25 mana sources

5 Moxen
   Black lotus
   Mana crypt
   Sol Ring
3 Polluted delta
3 Flooded strand
3 Volcanic
3 Underground sea
4 Island
   Tolarians

3 Welders
1 Mind slaver
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskalevus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds -1 Slaver for this.

4 Force of will
4 Mana Drain
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyls recall
1 Negate - possible Annul here

4 Thirst for knowledge
   Ancestrall recall
   Brainstorm
   Ponder
2 Night's Whisper
   Demonic tutor
   Mystical tutor
   Merchant Scroll
   Tinker

   Yawgmoth's Will
   Time Walk

   As you can see the list is only 59 cards.  I know that I could always use another Negate/Annul or Night's Whisper.  However I am unsure as to whether I should be including Shaman, Blood Moon, the above mentioned cards or a mysterious card that I have not thought/heard about.  At this point I am opening my list up to the community and asking for help and serious discussion based on my meta and the development of Control Slaver in general.  I have not even started on a SB yet as I believe that one needs to have the main finalized before moving onwards.  Beyond that, Mr. Shay has mentioned that the sb of Slaver needs to expand on the exsisting themes incorporated into the main.  I would love to hear thoughts on this matter as well.

Haunted.

[bluemage55]

Have you considered more removal?  I would be concerned with only a single E. Truth and Hurkyl in the main.  A single Engineered Explosives is great against a wide variety of decks, including the ones in your meta.

Against Oath, EE at 2 (not difficult on Turn 1 with an off-color moxen) can blow up Oath.  At 0, it can at least shut down tokens.  With Sol Ring or Strip Mine (or a Welder and an artifact already in play), it can also come down at 0 to break ICBM Oath's annoying Chalices.

Against Painter, EE at 2 takes down Servant, and EE at 1 gets Grindstone.  Fish hates EE at 2, which can often function as Pyroclasm+.  Against Ichorid, EE kills zombies to buy you time.  If you do run into Shop, EE is great against Sphere/Thorn/Arcbound Ravager at 2, and Crucible/Wire/3Sphere/Metalworker/Staff of Domination/SoFI at 3.

Best of all, EE makes Academy better, provides cheap Welder fodder (in spite of Chalice), and pitches to Thirst when not needed.  You also rarely fear killing off your own permanents (except maybe moxen), since you have few permanents at the most often set 2 and 3.  The only thing EE doesn't beat is Null Rod.

[maggot870]

 
As you can see the list is only 59 cards.  I know that I could always use another Negate/Annul or Night's Whisper.  However I am unsure as to whether I should be including Shaman, Blood Moon, the above mentioned cards or a mysterious card that I have not thought/heard about.  At this point I am opening my list up to the community and asking for help and serious discussion based on my meta and the development of Control Slaver in general.  I have not even started on a SB yet as I believe that one needs to have the main finalized before moving onwards.  Beyond that, Mr. Shay has mentioned that the sb of Slaver needs to expand on the exsisting themes incorporated into the main.  I would love to hear thoughts on this matter as well.

Haunted.

hi !
i've got a suggestion to the card draw in your deck, which would be a "Frantic Search" (prices for strat are way too crazy). I made very positive experiences in my deck with it. I suppose you guys will say its not as good as Night's Whisper since its no handsize increase, but when searching for FoW / pitch you either got the counter or the pitch already, dont you ? Also good a thing seems to me that it can bring back mana for a drawn drain or another solution / disruption, especially with Tolarian Academy in play. On the other side i agree to bluemage's suggestion to add EE to the deck, which is a superiror card to this deck and even if you only blow some mana artifacts -> moxen/Lotus etc. which combo decks need much more than a slaver, at least according to my experiences.

[hauntedechos]

I've been thinking a lot about EE, since it was suggested.  I really hadn't thought about it before and I am unsure as to why it hasn't been more talked about in the past years, when Slaver was a real big contender.  Everything that was stated about EE makes complete sence to me and it fits in very neatly to what I was trying to discuss through my posts:

1.  It is stand alone
2.  It does not stress the mana base
3.  It can be pitched to Thirst when not needed/relevent
4.  It's cheap (in consideration to the cards Slaver wants to be rid of, excluding moxen of course), which means it fits into the early game needs
5.  It plays nice with Welder
6.  It can draw out a counter

I know that Bomberman plays it (well I haven't looked into Bomberman in a long time, so I assume it's still played), even though it makes more sence to Bomberman given the Trinket mage package.  So why doesn't CS?

It is possible that I am just overly happy to have another threat/answer to the Oath match up game 1.  On the other hand, as stated, it does have applications to many other matches as well.  Unlike Welder, I don't see myself siding out EE in any game really, which is a huge plus when trying to develop a main deck.

For sure I am going to test this card out.  In the mean time I'd really like to hear from some CS players who have used this card and comment on it.  How effective is it as a singleton?


Haunted.

[hitman]

The second biggest threat to Control Slaver is Null Rod.  The less dependent you are on it, the better off you are.  Also, it doesn't shore up one of your worst matchups, Ritual-based combo.  If you're looking for an all-around generally good card, Mana Leak could be strong to help you through the early game if you incorporate the mana denial package to keep it strong throughout the mid-late game.  This way, you have both mana denial and countermagic to stall the opponent until you can Tinker or weld for the win. 

[the boogie man]

I think that viashino heretic will be awesome in the side. so many people will be playing the new artifact creatures, and heretic is awesome against them and null rod, too. They also add to to the mana denial a little, if you have spare mana.

[bluemage55]

For sure I am going to test this card out.  In the mean time I'd really like to hear from some CS players who have used this card and comment on it.  How effective is it as a singleton?

I'm probably biased as I really like the card, but I've tested EE in CS, Xc-Control, and Gush Storm.  Except for Gush Storm (where I found I'd rather have a card that gets me to winning sooner, and which didn't have TfK to pitch it), it was pretty solid.

It's actually so flexible as a singleton I rarely side it out, as it's almost never a dead card in hand.  I would pretty much recommend it for any TfK-based deck that needs a second removal slot
(after E. Truth).

[wox2]

Haunted, in my opinion you didn´t included so many business spells. I think you should try 2 Read the Runes because of three Welders you´re playing. If your meta is not flooded by Workshop decks I don´t think you need Hurkyl´s Recall main. If there is so many Fish decks try Razormane Masticore in side it should work well for deck.

[bluemage55]

Haunted, in my opinion you didn´t included so many business spells. I think you should try 2 Read the Runes because of three Welders you´re playing. If your meta is not flooded by Workshop decks I don´t think you need Hurkyl´s Recall main. If there is so many Fish decks try Razormane Masticore in side it should work well for deck.

I wouldn't be so quick to advocate RtR in a slower control deck due to the negative card advantage. 

I would recommend Gifts Ungiven instead.  Besides the possibility putting 2 robots in your grave, it can grab Demonic/Mystical/Vampiric/X, 4 lands or moxen, or simply 4 solid spells (Drain/FoW/Thirst/Whisper comes to mind).  It also does nice broken things when you already have a tutor or Yawg in hand.  The mana cost is rarely prohibitive in a deck that runs 4 Drains and the full completment of artifact mana.

If you run Strip Mine, Gifts synergizes with that as well.

[wox2]

Haunted, in my opinion you didn´t included so many business spells. I think you should try 2 Read the Runes because of three Welders you´re playing. If your meta is not flooded by Workshop decks I don´t think you need Hurkyl´s Recall main. If there is so many Fish decks try Razormane Masticore in side it should work well for deck.

I wouldn't be so quick to advocate RtR in a slower control deck due to the negative card advantage. 

I would recommend Gifts Ungiven instead.  Besides the possibility putting 2 robots in your grave, it can grab Demonic/Mystical/Vampiric/X, 4 lands or moxen, or simply 4 solid spells (Drain/FoW/Thirst/Whisper comes to mind).  It also does nice broken things when you already have a tutor or Yawg in hand.  The mana cost is rarely prohibitive in a deck that runs 4 Drains and the full completment of artifact mana.

If you run Strip Mine, Gifts synergizes with that as well.

I like possibility to discard robots from hand not to search them for with so many of them... Gifts has static converted mana cost. You can cast RtR for two discarding one card (or sacrificing). In haunted list is no Vampiric so you cannot tutor for it.

[The Atog Lord]

Haunted, in my opinion you didn´t included so many business spells. I think you should try 2 Read the Runes because of three Welders you´re playing.

Read the Runes isn't any good in a deck like Control Slaver. Sure, sometimes being able to get rid of Oath-enabling Tokens will be nice. But the vast, vast majority of the time you'd much rather just draw cards in a way that results in card advantage. Even among those options which include discarding, Obsessive Search and Careful Consideration are generally better cards.

[hauntedechos]

So I see that there is zero activity in this thread, which is disheartening and also understandable given the release of Shards.


I've been talking with a couple of people over PM the last little while and the state of Slaver is pretty unknown right now.  In fact I think that working on Slaver itself has probly fallen off the map of most builders and players in general.  For me, however, it remains my focus as of late and before the Shards cards were spoiled.  Combo continues to be the archtype that needs the closest attention and my own thoughts on the needs of early game threats that make a dent in the early game has changed as well.

I was the poster that stated that I also belive that Slaver needs to return to a grass roots build and then only replace cards that are ineffective and only with cards that are stand alone, so as to keep the decision tree to a bare minimum.  This was supposed to allow the pilot to focus on just drawing and countering the threats, then win through card advantage in the late game.

Here is the list I was looking to tune:

black lotus
5moxen
Mana crypt
Mana vault
Sol Ring
Tolarians
3 Island
3 Sea
3 Volc
3 Flooded
3 Polluted...25 sources.

3 Welders
1 Sundering
1 Triskelavus
1 Mind Slaver
1 Tormod's
1 E.Explosives

4 Thirst
3 Night's
Ancestral
Brainstorm
Ponder
Fact
Demonic
Mystical
Scroll
Tinker
Yawgs
Time Walk

4 Force
4 Drains
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyls Recall

So how did this list work out for me?....terrible.  Hurkyl's Recall wasn't what I was looking for to help with the mass Chalice/Rods.  E.Explosives was fine for setting at two and blowing up an Oath that got through a counter war...but it cannot be welded in at two, so it fell WAY short in practice.  Long story short the list sucks....aside from drawing, that it does like crazy!  Where that fell short was a few times that I needed to run a Whisper out in the first few turns against Strip effect heavy decks.  No I didn't get pwned, in fact the draw power of the list here was able to pretty much ignor that fact as more lands just turn up at a great rate.

What I've been tinkering around with as of late is generating greater threat density and thusly added routes to different victorys.  In addition, because of my heavy Oath meta, I've been trying to find ways of doing this w/o increasing the bodies that Oath loves to see.  With the added draw that I am running, I've been able to pair down the Welders to the x2 that Brian DeMars ran with his showing of CS at Worlds.  It doesn't charge the yard like his list does, however it does keep my hand fully stocked at all times due to the raw draw power.  The result has been having multiple U cards when Force is in hand, and never missing a land drop (which is what I wanted to use Crucible for, as well as anti Strip), all things that I wanted.

With the comming Vault/Key combo being unleashed and everyone running to stuff it in like a new age Tinker/DSC;  DeMars' Shaman/Rack n' Ruin seems like an auto include to be sure.  In fact there may be cause to pair down the Whispers to x2 and increase the Shamans to x2, or maindeck the sb spree etc.  Artifact removal at instant speed is going to be paramount in the upcomming meta as it shapes.  Welders are not going to be the answer for this.  If there is one thing that I have learned in the last while of testing, it is that:  While welder isn't terrible, he sure isn't great either.  Welder is only at his best for recurring failed attempts of hard casted artifacts, or Slaver recursion etc.  Other than that Tinker into win condition is almost strictly superior.  Since that is the case, then Welder takes a back seat and sits as a back catcher to do what he is good at in the current meta...Plan B:  necro up nuked artifacts and mess around with Staxx.

I have a list that I would like the community to look at and discuss.  It's a list that I've been bantering around and looking for opinions on.  I'll be completely honest, suggestions by Mr. Shay have lead me to experimentation down this route.

Black Lotus
5 moxen
mana crypt
mana vault
Sol ring
3 island
3 sea
3 volcanic
3 polluted
3 Flooded
Tolarians....same 25

2 Welders
2 Tezzeret
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Slaver
1 Sundering
1 Triskelavus
1 Tormod's

4 Thirst
2 Whispers
Ancestral
Brainstorm
Ponder
Fact
Demonic
Vampiric
Scroll
Tinker
Yawgs
Walk

4 Force
4 Drain
1 Echoing Truth

How has it been in testing?  So far I've only had a limited amount of testing in, mainly against ICBM Oath builds and it's been great there.  The draw is bang on, and the trade of 1 B card for another (whisper for Vamp), which is also the trade of Mystical for Vamp, has been fine.  The effect is about the same anyways (top deck tutor), except for the superior range of cards that I can seek out.  There is still a little stress on the B lands, however as I said the draw keeps that effect to a real minimum on the CS pilot.  The 25 sources, including the Vault, makes the quick suicide Tezz more possible (it happened more than a couple of times in about 20 games) and allows the CS player to keep more cards off a Thirst while also increasing Tinker Targets.  With Tezz, we stay at 22 U cards for Force consideration.  With Tezz we have another route to vitory, which is still possible through draw and hardcasting as well as Tinkering the missing piece etc.  The result has been too many paths to victory to calculate and handle.  I am suddenly needed and have to leave this posting as is, there isn't TOO much more I wanted to state anyways, so please discuss and ponder things.


Mike
aka Haunted.

[hitman]

I think you're going in the wrong direction with the addition of Tezzeret.  All you've done is increase the number of cards you can't play early on.  Why play the Slaver components at all?  Tezzeret is more powerful than they are.  If you're going to play Tezzeret, I would cut the Slaver, Triskelavus and Welders for sure.  You'll have way too many dead draws.  If you want to play Slaver, cut the Tezzerets.  If you cut the Slaver stuff, you can keep your robust draw engine, only play two colors and still maintain a powerful win condition that isn't as situational as Mindslaver and Welder with Triskelavus.  I honestly think Slaver is a bad option right now.  Null Rod should see a lot of play with Painter, Slaver, Drain Tendrils, Bombeman and now Tezzeret seeing play.  If you're going to play a Drain deck, at least play one that's easier to win with like Painter or some Tezzeret build.  Think about it; if you cut all the Slaver stuff and just go blue/black, your manabase will be stronger and the deck will be more streamlined.  You'll have a cleaner combo kill with Tezzeret and an alternate Titan kill with Tinker.  You can also play relevant early game disruption like Duress.  Just saying......I think there's no good reason to play Control Slaver outside of just liking to play the deck. 

If you're bent on playing Slaver, I still stand by the mana denial and Mana Leak plan.  It allows you to counter early and disrupt the manabase.  Sometimes just attacking the mana wins games.  That gives you time to develop your resources so you can win any way you want.  The last thing I would do, though, is to add more hard-to-cast cards in a deck already full of them.  Just my opinion. 

[marcb]

My favorite list as of recently has been a list similar to the one played at worlds but with strategic plannings replaced by negates, although I would like to try a combination of negates and whispers at some point. I'm going to have to agree that more counters, more blue cards (negate provides both), and mana denial has been the best plan that I've seen for the current meta.

Marc

PS-I've found negate to be better than mana leak intesting but maybe others disagree.

[Troy_Costisick]

PS-I've found negate to be better than mana leak intesting but maybe others disagree.

My findings are similar.  The creature boom that was happening last year and early on into this year seems to be over.  Fish decks are on the rise, but unless the cards in ALA really make an impact, I don't see them becoming a major portion of the meta.  I'm starting to really warm up to Negate.

[the boogie man]

If you wanted to go mana denial, spell snare might be a decent card it seems. it counters a ton of relevant spells now, and it only costs 1 mana. that, along with drains and force, might allow you to cut some duress if you have any, and put less stress on the mana base. courier's capsule might also be worth it, along with a diving top or two. the extra counters could eat up early turns and possibly push you into the midgame.

[hitman]

My findings are similar.  The creature boom that was happening last year and early on into this year seems to be over.  Fish decks are on the rise, but unless the cards in ALA really make an impact, I don't see them becoming a major portion of the meta.  I'm starting to really warm up to Negate.

I really disagree with this because Null Rod is very big right now and is usually played in aggro-control decks.  I expect a resurgence of aggro and aggro-control decks to combat the new Tezzeret lists and other Drain decks in general.  In any case, if anything, I expect an increase in creature decks being played.  The more you depend on Negate to get you through the early game, the more you open yourself up to underpowered, creature-based strategies that attack common weak points in the top tier.  If you want to continue playing Slaver, you're going to still be able to beat up on "jankier" decks and have reasonable game against the newer, more powerful Drain decks like Tezzeret and Painter.

[hauntedechos]

@ Hitman:  You may be right in terms of playing a Tezz build.  However, dropping welders and that stuff, means that you are not playing Slaver anymore.  The point of the experimentation with Tezz and the Vault Key combo, was to see how well it can function in Slaver.  To that end I have found that the deck has almost no flexability as the deck is stuffed with auto includes.  On the other hand, the U count is still good and at the end of the day you have a selection of win conditions to choose from.  Further to the last point, I can see how having that amount of win conditions can lead to the situations where you only have a piece of each condition.  So to that end, streamlining is a decent idea.  So to finish off the thought, Tezz and the combo was just something that I was testing before a "Tezz control/combo" deck is defined, or the home for him is found.

Haunted.

[hitman]

However, dropping welders and that stuff, means that you are not playing Slaver anymore.

That's what I was getting at.  I don't think there's a good reason to play Control Slaver right now.  I think it'll be outclassed by more streamlined decks with better disruption, like Tezzeret and Painter.  If you think mana denial is Control Slaver's way of competing, why not just play Landstill?  It has game against all these decks.  If you want to play broken Drain decks, Slaver's just too slow.  It requires too many things to go your way to even get to the point where you're in a winning position.  You have to fight through Dark Ritual, Null Rod, Duress, Red Blasts, Wasteland and random aggro-control decks with whatever they play, whether it's Stifle, Cursecatcher and/or Tarmogoyf.  I think there's too many things going against this deck right now.  How do you prepare for all that?  With Tezzeret you can just play all the 1U counters in the world untill you hit seven mana and just win.  You don't need to open your manabase to attack and Tarmogoyf doesn't have much on infinite turns and Sundering Titan or Darksteel Colossus. 

[Rush]

Alright, so I'm fairly new to posting here (hell, this may be my first actual post, though I've been looking on these boards for a long time), so I'm not sure everything I should include in an opening post.  Regardless, I've been working on a CS deck recently.  I've personally found that Sharuum the Hegemon works quite well in the deck.  I can post my current decklist (although not exactly "janky," it does have some problems) later if anyone is interested.  Finally, are Cunning Wish, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal no longer used in the deck?

[Anusien]

CS is probably not dead.

[Rush]

I liked the build you just posted, however, I would like to see Strategic Planning in there somewhere.  If I were running the deck I would like to see Sharuum in there.  It's not as hard to cast as you would think and he's a big flying Sphinx.

EDIT: I'm actually only running 1 Sharuum at the moment, and it may be axed.  I'm also running 1 maindecked Platinum Angel, though I believe that may see the axe eventually.  For the record, I'm also running Gush (it's great with Library).

[neotrophy]

A couple of thoughts that made me want to sign up and post.

I've played a fair amount of CS in the past, but haven't really played a lot of Magic recently at all, so I may be well off the mark here.  The first thing that strikes me with pretty much all of these lists is that they're not playing Lotus Petal.  One of the fundamentals of CS is to get Drain mana up ASAP.  Petal is only really good if you have it in your opening grip, but it does weld, and pitch to TFK.

Another card that I think is worth considering is Remand.  It gives you a play on turn 1 with the opportunity to get Drain online for the next time the card comes around.  It seems kind of like a blue Night's Whisper that happens to suck in the late game, but less than Mana Leak.

Sharuum the Hegemon, while pretty powerful, requires a Pearl, Lotus or Petal (if you play it) to hard cast. 

I agree with Rush asking the question about Vampiric Tutor, but were Cunning Wish and Imperial Seal ever really used in CS?

Mana denial is definitely an important piece of the puzzle of keeping CS competitive.  My past experiences with builds including Gorilla Shaman, Strip Mine and Crucible show that it can be a surprisingly explosive deck at destroying a manabase.  That little ape is horrible when you don't get the strip or a Sundering Titan though.  Unfortunately, the two other possibilities that come to mind, Karn and Toymaker have issues of their own, and at least the Mox Monkey will also eat Null Rods for 5 mana along with some other annoying trinkets.

[Rush]

neotrophy: I actually run a single Tundra in my manabase and 5-6 Fetchlands (haven't really decided on the correct number yet).  As for Wish and Seal, when Seal was first legalized, I can remember a few (like 5 or so) decks that t8ed around the nation using it.  As for Wish, about that same time, several lists were running 1-2 Wishes in their main with the Echoing Truths in the side.  A good many of them also used Gush in the side, which is where I got the idea from, and I personally think it's a great idea, since it can save your lands from being manhandled and can also give you the boost you need to make Library playable.  Anyway, I'm rambling now.

P.S. Just try running a single Tundra and Sharuum.  It can be a brutal card, especially with Gifts.

EDIT: After going back through to the old decks, I discovered they never did use Seal actually.  I guess it must have just been some big discussion I was in at the time.

EDIT2: Thoughts on Trash for Treasure?

[neotrophy]

My thoughts on Trash for Treasure are that you wouldn't want to run it until you'd maxed out your Welder count and wanted another one.  The only advantage that it has over Welder is that it doesn't suffer from summoning sickness.  It cost 3 times as much and is a one-shot effect.  Welder's reusability is what makes it truly game-winning.  It's ability to swap artifacts out of your opponent's graveyard is also very important.

I think that the only way to make it really work would be to really commit to the artifact reanimation plan.  I think that would make the deck even more vulnerable to graveyard hate. 

Could be a consideration for a build with Strategic Planning, since they already run a full complement of Welders and commit to the reanimation plan more than normal builds.

[The Atog Lord]

Argivian Restoration is much, much better than Trash for Treasure.

[bluemage55]

I apologize for the thread necromancy, but it seems more appropriate to post here than to start a new thread on Slaver.

It would appear that despite the neglect of Slaver in favor of Tez Control, Slaver is still a force to be reckoned with in the current meta. 

Taking first place out of a field of 65 and defeating Mastriano's Drain Tendrils in the finals, Andy Bilarczyk's CS list dropped the mana denial components (Stirp Mine, Gorilla Shaman, Crucible of Worlds, as well as the SB Wastelands) of McCarthy and DeMars' Worlds lists for a third Welder, and singleton copies of Fire/Ice and secret tech Shadow of Doubt.  The list also passed up Strategic Plannings, insead relying on more tutoring power (Gifts, Vampiric Tutor, and Top) to find business spells and another artifact mana source to make up for the lost consistency.

[Soon-Man]

I really don't know much about Slaver. I just know that there is a million and one different ways to go about building it. What is the deal with the Master of Etherium/Courier's Capsule builds that have been going around lately? Are they stronger then traditional builds? If so, why? If not, why?

[bluemage55]

What is the deal with the Master of Etherium/Courier's Capsule builds that have been going around lately? Are they stronger then traditional builds? If so, why? If not, why?

I'm not aware of what you're talking about.  There hasn't been a single Slaver list that has top 8ed with either card.

There's a single Blue Stax list using those cards that took 2nd place in Spain, but other than that, I have no idea what you might be referring to.

[Webster]

What is the deal with the Master of Etherium/Courier's Capsule builds that have been going around lately? Are they stronger then traditional builds? If so, why? If not, why?

I'm not aware of what you're talking about.  There hasn't been a single Slaver list that has top 8ed with either card.

You can find tournament info about that build of CS here, here, here, and here as well as tournament reports here and here.