[SCD] Magus of the Bazaar - bringing Slaver back ?

[silvernail]

With Scars coming out it makes some sense to see if revitalizing old decks from Mirrodin days is possible. The biggest deck at that time was control Slaver, which has fallen out of favor due to Thirst for Knowledge being restricted. Lots of big artifacts are coming and welder is a solid method for putting them in play. But how can we get them into the yard ?

Enter Magus of the Bazaar - it's blue and it throws big artifacts into the yard. Most people would dismiss Magus as unplayable but I think that is invalid. Why ? Dark Confidant is a 2cc draw engine just like Magus. The difference is that Bob swings at the same time while Magus does not. I don't think that difference makes Magus unplayable. Magus draws more than bob and sets up welder / Will plays in the process.

Can we build a working list ? Is it too slow? Can we make it faster ?

[Bill Copes]

With Scars coming out it makes some sense to see if revitalizing old decks from Mirrodin days is possible. The biggest deck at that time was control Slaver, which has fallen out of favor due to Thirst for Knowledge being restricted. Lots of big artifacts are coming and welder is a solid method for putting them in play. But how can we get them into the yard ?

Enter Magus of the Bazaar - it's blue and it throws big artifacts into the yard. Most people would dismiss Magus as unplayable but I think that is invalid. Why ? Dark Confidant is a 2cc draw engine just like Magus. The difference is that Bob swings at the same time while Magus does not. I don't think that difference makes Magus unplayable. Magus draws more than bob and sets up welder / Will plays in the process.

Can we build a working list ? Is it too slow? Can we make it faster ?

Summoning sickness & it gets hit by just about any and all creature removal.  I'd say no.

[meadbert]

If they use removal on Magus at least they did not target a Welder.

It is really slow though.  Perhaps try adding some combinations of Squee, Goblin Nabob, Accumulated Knowledge and Intuition.

I think I tried him in Legacy Slaver once with Survival of the Fittest and he was too slow to make the cut there.

[Gambit]

Are you using magus because he pitches to FOW? This is type 1, you can use the actual land if you want.

[silvernail]

Summoning sickness doesn't count IMO. Bob doesn't draw a card until the next turn and he sees play. Bob dies to the same things that Magus does ( aside from blue hate).

As for why Magus over the land ? Yes it pitches to force, it is also has different strengths and weaknesses. It also doesn't cost tons of money

I'm suggesting him on the basis that he is as good or better than Bob, but weaker than TfK. Other cards could replace TfK as well - perhaps Read the Runes as a 1 of sink for drain mana.

[honestabe]

With Scars coming out it makes some sense to see if revitalizing old decks from Mirrodin days is possible. The biggest deck at that time was control Slaver, which has fallen out of favor due to Thirst for Knowledge being restricted.   TIME VAULT

Fixed that for you

[silvernail]

I figure control slaver would have plenty of room for vault/key and welder helps against artifact removal. It stands to reason that time vault is not the reason the deck stopped seeing play. Oath didn't stop seeing play due to time vault - it just added it in. CS would do the same if 4 Tfk were legal still.

[meadbert]

The other more obvious replacement for Thirst is Intuition which is nice with Vault/Key because it gets exactly what you want.

Here is an old list that I had lying around:

1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
5 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Inkwell Leviathan
3 Goblin Welder
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force Of Will
1 Fact Or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Intuition
1 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
sideboard
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Empty The Warrens
1 Lava Dart
4 Yixlid Jailer
3 Spell Snare

[honestabe]

I figure control slaver would have plenty of room for vault/key and welder helps against artifact removal. It stands to reason that time vault is not the reason the deck stopped seeing play. Oath didn't stop seeing play due to time vault - it just added it in. CS would do the same if 4 Tfk were legal still.

But people dropped Slaver because Time vault was so good, it was just a wasted slot, not because TfK was restricted.  TfK's restriction was directly related to Time Vault, not Mindslaver. 

[T00L]

To be fair slaver is probably still a deck the issue is up until very recently none of the handful of people in the format who actually can make decks have tried to put work into slaver.

[zeus-online]

.

[Delha]

I figure control slaver would have plenty of room for vault/key and welder helps against artifact removal. It stands to reason that time vault is not the reason the deck stopped seeing play. Oath didn't stop seeing play due to time vault - it just added it in. CS would do the same if 4 Tfk were legal still.

But people dropped Slaver because Time vault was so good, it was just a wasted slot...

This was pretty much how I viewed it. With Vault included in the deck, it felt like a huge chunk of what CS did was now obsolete. Far too much of the time, going for Slaver/Pentavus/Trike meant answering a threat when a better play was to instead "just win".

[Blue Lotus]

Summoning sickness doesn't count IMO. Bob doesn't draw a card until the next turn and he sees play. Bob dies to the same things that Magus does ( aside from blue hate).

Please explain how card advantage and card disadvantage are the same thing. And 2 > 0 is relevant as well.

[TheShop]

Question on the fundamentals of slaver:

Why pay 10 mana and multiple cards to slave someone indefinitely when you can pay 4 mana with 2 cards and take your own turn indefinitely?

[hitman]

Slaver could just play Vault/Key.  Vault/Key didn't make it obsolete.  The restriction of Brainstorm and Thirst for Knowledge killed Slaver.

[silvernail]

Summoning sickness doesn't count IMO. Bob doesn't draw a card until the next turn and he sees play. Bob dies to the same things that Magus does ( aside from blue hate).

Please explain how card advantage and card disadvantage are the same thing. And 2 > 0 is relevant as well.

Both cards require the deck they are put in to consider their drawbacks. Bob limits casting costs and could kill you, Magus necessitates some kind of graveyard recurrence to utilize the discards. Magus would be strictly worse than bob, if the deck didn't already use the graveyard in the first place.

[brianpk80]

If Slaver were viable again (and the deck is in theory, ie Welder + Discard, though the namesake kill is what's obsolete), Enclave Cryptologist or Riddlesmith would work better than Magus of the Bazaar.  It's possible to Weld Inkwell into play, though not possible to Weld him out of play.  So I'm thinking a modern "Slaver" build would be similar to the Jace decks except that its gas would come from Intuition rather than Bob and it's anti-Workshop strategy would be Welders & Shamans & Warrens, instead of Cobras and Predators.