Vintage Control Slaver deck
The primary focus of Control Slaver is Mindslaver. It can be either "hard casted" or brought into play with Goblin Welder. The deck typically only needs one activation to put the opponent at a significant disadvantage, but can recur it with Welder if necessary. Once it has solidified control of the game, the deck typically wins with a large artifact creature such as Darksteel Colossus, Pentavus,Sharuum the Hegemon or Sundering Titan.
Early days
Control Slaver was first seen in tournament play at Duelmen on Dec. 21, 2003, played by Kim Kluck of Team CAB:
Two schools
Then two schools emerged: Control Slaver (also called Drain Slaver) based around the list above, and Workshop Slaver, which has no permission.
Here is a list of Workshop Slaver, played by Kevin Cron on Mar 13 2004:
Control Slaver proved to be better that Workshop Slaver whose appearances dwindled. Control Slaver was a common deck in the Top 8 of major tournaments around 2006.
Modern designs
A list played by Rich Shay at Star City Games Richmond's Power 9 tournament on March 16, 2006 looked as follows:
Another solid version is Brian DeMars's Burning Slaver (SCG Power 9 tournament from March 19, 2006):
Restriction of Thirst for Knowledge and resurgence
After the restriction of Thirst for Knowledge in June 2009, Control Slaver disappeared for several years as a Vintage archetype. It has seen some amount of resurgence since September 2015, after Thirst for Knowledge was again unrestricted at the same time as the dominant Workshops deck took a hit from Chalice of the Void being restricted. Modern Control Slaver decks may choose to downplay the number of Goblin Welder in the Mental Misstep era of Vintage.
External links
- Brian DeMars (September 26, 2005). "How to Play Control Slaver Now". StarCityGames.