Defence against Slaughterhouse?

tarantulus wrote:

One of my opponents has started playing a slaughterhouse deck, basically based on having MMPAs (with parthenon) and a deck full of Slaughterhouses , and also using Zygodat , combined with Scrying of secrets to destroy my library...

I used all of my 4 sudden reversals last night just trying to stop him getting the slaughterhouses/parthenon, but by the time the game was in full swing I was burning 6 library every turn...

If you're really annoyed you could start playing the Parthenon yourself (and contesting it) and make him handjam with Master cards.

Klaital wrote:

There is also Jericho Founding and Can't Take it With You, both of those votes can really ruin someones day who is running lots of locations (so can be useful against other decks also)

If you are passing votes, disputed territory is good as well. Steal his parthenon/slaughter house and use them or give the slaghter house to his predator. Disputed Territory is almost always useful so it is not a waste if you are not playing against the slaughter houses..

As others have pointed out, deck depletion doesn't usually lead to wins. Sometimes I have seen players "sac up". this means they do not transfer they do not do anything but sit until the game changes or until the predator is ousted. It is not fun, but sometimes it is the best thing you can do. Instead of conceding you may try to force him to oust you. While he is trying to bleed you out the rest of the table will be building and will pretty much be too strong for the deck depletion trick to work.

I've ousted a Slaughterhouse deck as my predator in a four-player simply based on permanents in play. Put enough minions in play, such as Embraces, and maybe some combat permanents and cards in hand becomes far less relevant.

But, mostly, just hope the player eventually realizes that decking people doesn't actually have anything to do with winning and switches to something else.

I have to agree with everyone else here. I built what I thought would be a brutally effective Slaughterhouse deck - MMPAs to get the Slaughterhouses in play, three copies of Dia de los Muertos + Brinksmanship + Daring the Dawn for the oust, and then loads of defensive cards to stop from being ousted - and I only barely managed to oust my first prey towards the very end of the game. And then we realized that, even had everything worked perfectly, there would have been a very easy way for my prey to remain in the game: simply stop playing cards from his hand. If a HoS player's prey maintains a hand of seven cards, s/he can't be ousted. Slaughterhouse is a terrible strategy.

now now, the slaughterhouse player can play the game any old way he likes.

1. ignore the slaughterhouses, and just stop the Parthenon to cause master handjam. well, this applies to every deck that uses Parthenon actually.

2. some players think they have to conserve cards, but the opposite is true. you want to speed through your library and get to the best stuff before it disappears forever. I once had my library emptied early on by a slaughterhouse predator, yet I managed to get a full table sweep with just the 7 cards left in my hand. because they were the right 7 cards I needed.

3. slaughterhouse does no harm until your library is completely gone, don't get discouraged by the discards you see. instead, count them and figure out the ratios of what's left. (this is what I do when I play slaughterhouses, it's like extra scouting information)