So I know how creatures can keep equipment attached on them if they switch sides, but this situation is a bit different. What happens if the equipment changes control in response to the equip ability? The target creature doesn't seem legal anymore because it's on the opposite side of the equipment, but the original controller still controls the ability, right? I keep thinking that the ability would be countered, but I'm not at all sure.
Specific example: Player A tries to equip a Mortarpod to a creature. Player B responds by playing Restoration Angel, blinking their Zealous Conscripts to gain control of the Mortarpod.
@AshtonDragon: How has 3 Summoning been testing for you? I am pretty much on your exact list not, except im -3 Doom Blade -2 Mana Leak, +4 Spellskite, +1 Summoning. In my limited testing ive almost always wanted a Summoning in my opening hand, granted drawing 2 kinda sucks but every game I have one it just feels so hard to lose. I agree that Spellskite is not what this deck wants, I have been looking for a replacement for it as it hasnt been that great in testing. I also cut the Emperion for a Steel Hellkite; Hellkite has been amazing for me. You almost always get a Wurmcoil first regardless, but it gets you out of alot of problematic situations you find yourself in.
3 Summoning is fine, no current plans to change from that. If I don't have one, I should at least have a doom blade or mana leak to play that turn, and Architect/Simulacrum can get me into my wurmcoil plan. I don't think the risk of drawing multiples is worth the increase, so far.
Steel Hellkite is almost certainly better than Emperion. I went ahead and moved Mindslaver to main for now, although I haven't done enough testing with that yet to know if it'll stay.
With Sever the Bloodline becoming somewhat popular, what would you guys say is the best answers to that? Exiling two wurmcoils with the threat of flashback later is just plain brutal, so I'm trying to think of my best board options against control decks with black.
If the opposing deck plays any of their own artifacts (like Solar Flare playing Wurmcoil), boarding in Steel Sabotage seems worth it just to bounce our dudes in response to removal. It's not as ideal as just countering their wurmcoil, but it's still a good amount of value if it saves one or two dudes.
As far as the current discussion goes, this definitely makes me rethink boarding in Spellskite. I'm concerned about it in my deck against something like the Grixis Burning Vengeance deck, though, since it dies to Slagstorm when I have HS down. The only other card I can think of is Apostle's Blessing, which strikes me as kinda janky, but it gets the job done.
I was working with Contagion Engine in my sideboard for aggressive decks, but maybe that's something Platinum Emperion can work towards as well. One minor question though, what do you use the sideboard copies of Dead Weight for?
Contagion Engine was in my original build, but then it got moved to board, and eventually cut entirely. It did save me on more than one occasion, though, so I might get it in there again if I find space. As for Dead Weight, it can help against decks like pod, but it's mainly to help survive against tempered steel and red deck. Just shrinking down a Stormblood Berserker or a Vault Skirge when TS is down can be life-saving, sometimes. Note how the later is annoyingly immune to doom blade.
Two problems with Heartless Summoning build: without Heartless, you have a very slow start, and opponent can chump block all day.
Well, it depends on how you want to optimize your deck. The deck is obviously a lot slower without a turn 2 Heartless Summoning, but then it just operates like any other Grand Architect deck, which is fine. That's why I'm discussing the deck here instead of the Heartless Summoning thread, now.
That said, I don't hate your build. If you are running some utility artifacts, Tezzeret actually becomes quite a bit better. The only reason I'm not running him is because I don't run anything like wellsprings or Tumble Magnet, so his -1 ability was almost useless. I dunno how to fit it in, though... your deck looks pretty packed. I considered a white splash before (mainly for Oblivion Ring, actually), but I didn't try it out because I like my landbase and really don't want to have to play Mycosynth Wellspring.
Mindslaver against control? will you be able to resolve that, esp with only 2 counters in your deck and no snaps to double up?
It's not like they can counter every spell you play. Mindslaver might not always resolve, but it's really powerful against them if it does, and it's Treasure Mage-able (and Buried Ruin-able) if I'm in a situation where I think it will work. And there's no better artifact to play against them.
Full set of wurmcoils has not been a problem for me at all. Having more than 2 wurmcoils in hand without being able to stick HS or architect or multiple simulacrums is extremely rare, and even then it's not a big problem unless the opponent is playing a fairly quick deck. After all the playtesting I've done, I can't even imagine going down to 3 wurmcoils.
What I can imagine doing is cutting that Emperion for something, though. I might just move the Mindslaver to main in place of that, since I'm expecting control decks to become a little more popular. It's nearly a dead card against something like red deck, unfortunately, but Emperion is kind of slow against them anyway.
My build on the previous page is similar except I use more clones and snapcasters, in lieu of the full set of wurmcoils and solemn's. I'd rather have cheaper dudes after the first to have backup counter/kill, and then the snapcasters just multiply the control. With clones, I can either make more fatties, copy snaps to recur more control, or copy their best bomb before killing it.
You only need heartless for the first superion or wurmcoil. After that, you don't really need HS. If they kill the HS, you make more fatties. If they kill the fatty, you make more fatties.
And clones are great for dealing with fliers, evasion, or legendaries like geist, thrun, skytherix, etc.
Yeah, I saw your build and kinda liked it. I considered boarding a few more clones in case Geist of Saint Traft becomes popular, but it hasn't been needed yet (and Wurmcoil tends to shut that down anyway). Snapcaster is interesting (dying to summoning is unfortunate, but I guess just getting a spell back for one mana is still worth it), but I guess the difference in our decks is that mine only pretends to control. I'm much more concerned with slamming wurmcoil engines than leaving mana open for things, but having a few mana leaks still forces my opponents to play around them.
I also absolutely agree about not needing heartless summoning past turn five. It's important for speeding up the deck to be able to keep up with aggro decks and to put early pressure on control decks, but we don't need it to win at all.
In all honesty, if you're going to use Heartless Summoning and protect your combo, you could really use Spellskite and some variety. People seem like they could fly over you for the win.
"Combo"? I don't really mind if someone destroys an architect or the summoning somehow, at least not enough to devote another card to protecting them. Saving a Wurmcoil from an Oblivion Ring would be fine, but it doesn't really feel needed. I guess flying over Wurmcoil would be a concern, but they'd have to be killing me that turn before lifelink starts saving me. The only deck where that's a problem is Tempered Steel, which I admit is a pain, but Steel Sabotages help with that deck a lot.
I actually had Spellskites in my original run of the deck (which played Tezzeret), but once I gave up on that plan, I realized I didn't ever really want to board them in. I also used Steel Hellkite for quite a long time, but realized that I almost never tutored for it (since it's so easily destroyed), so I cut it for Batterskull. "Variety" might sound good, but the current build is just plain consistent.
I've decided that this deck is definitely an "Architect deck" and not a "Heartless Summoning deck", so posting it here this time. I think I posted my first version in the first few pages here, but I've done a lot of testing and updating since then.
The deck basically just wants to stick either a summoning or an architect, and then slam as many wurmcoil engines as possible for the rest of the game. The lack of Tezzeret might seem odd, but the deck has performed much smoother without it.
Testing continues to go far better than I expected. Red deck can be dangerous, but the second wurmcoil is usually game over for them, and the third one definitely is. Pod and sword decks aren't too dangerous. Solar Flare feels pretty even, which is something I'd like to have a positive matchup against right now, so I'd like to optimize against that deck if possible. Maybe maindeck Ratchet Bombs to deal with Oblivion Ring? The only card in my deck that I'm iffy about is obviously the Emperion, but he sometimes just wins a game, and I can only play so many Wurmcoil Engines.
There's something special about being late in a game and thinking "There are seven cards left in my deck that are Wurmcoil Engine, not even counting Ponder".
I honestly think Architecht is the way to go. You are able to cast plenty of threats quickly, and using your creatures for mana is absolutely wonderful since you have your mana open for anything else you could need. I am not sold on Chapin's build, but with some tweaking I think it's the way to run Heartless.
Still of the same opinion, although I'm now just looking at is as an Architect deck that happens to feature Heartless Summoning. The "Heartless Summoning decks" tend to be too narrow, and are just mediocre if they don't draw the summoning.
Although I said the same thing about Birthing Pod in the previous standard, and was proven wrong (eventually).
What do you think about -2 Wurmcoil -1 Treasure mage +3 Phantasmal Image?
I like Phantasmal Image a lot, but I've been avoiding using it over Metamorph because it's sacrifice ability can be annoying (sometimes just making my clone'd wurmcoil blue with Architect is important, for example), and Metamorph is almost as easy to play here anyway thanks to Heartless Summoning and Grand Architect.
And after playing the deck for awhile, cutting some wurmcoils or treasure mages is just not going to happen. I guess you could say that the deck's "Plan A" is just slamming a wurmcoil every turn from turn 4 onwards until you win.
Decided that Tezzeret wasn't doing enough in this deck, so those and a couple of other cards were cut to fit Ponders in. It's surprising how many times I've been saved by Ponder, just because I can prevent a Reckless Waif from transforming on turn 1. And the deck has enough ways to shuffle the library to get rid of the garbage (although not if Ponder is played on turn 1).
The deck is overall more consistent now, although I've discovered that Tempered Steel is fairly brutal, hence all the sabotages and removal in board. I'm not even sure if that's enough, yet, but I need to see how popular the deck is first.
The only cards I'm iffy on right now are the spellbombs in board (doesn't even feel needed against Solar Flare) and the Blightsteel, which was won me a couple games, but not as many as I would like.
Treasure Mage has been doing pretty great things for me, tutoring for Wurmcoil/Steel Hellkite/Blightsteel Colossus while also helping pay for their costs if an architect is around. I also run Metamorph over Phantasmal Image, but that's mostly because I wanted to raise my artifact count due to a couple Tezzerets being in the deck. If I end up cutting Tezzeret, I might switch to the image instead, since it's better as long as I'm not playing it with the architect.
if you have 2 heartless summonings out with solemn... you ramp and draw a card for free *drool* that seems REALLY good. I feel like playing more than 1/2 summonings at a time is really greedy
Yeah, this works pretty well in my experience so far. Unless you are running something like Blightsteel Colossus, though, you probably don't need that ramp with two summonings already in play.
But I do play Blightsteel. Good times. Too bad it doesn't kill in one hit with two summonings down, but that's only an issue if they have no creatures in play anyway.
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Specific example: Player A tries to equip a Mortarpod to a creature. Player B responds by playing Restoration Angel, blinking their Zealous Conscripts to gain control of the Mortarpod.
3 Summoning is fine, no current plans to change from that. If I don't have one, I should at least have a doom blade or mana leak to play that turn, and Architect/Simulacrum can get me into my wurmcoil plan. I don't think the risk of drawing multiples is worth the increase, so far.
Steel Hellkite is almost certainly better than Emperion. I went ahead and moved Mindslaver to main for now, although I haven't done enough testing with that yet to know if it'll stay.
If the opposing deck plays any of their own artifacts (like Solar Flare playing Wurmcoil), boarding in Steel Sabotage seems worth it just to bounce our dudes in response to removal. It's not as ideal as just countering their wurmcoil, but it's still a good amount of value if it saves one or two dudes.
As far as the current discussion goes, this definitely makes me rethink boarding in Spellskite. I'm concerned about it in my deck against something like the Grixis Burning Vengeance deck, though, since it dies to Slagstorm when I have HS down. The only other card I can think of is Apostle's Blessing, which strikes me as kinda janky, but it gets the job done.
Contagion Engine was in my original build, but then it got moved to board, and eventually cut entirely. It did save me on more than one occasion, though, so I might get it in there again if I find space. As for Dead Weight, it can help against decks like pod, but it's mainly to help survive against tempered steel and red deck. Just shrinking down a Stormblood Berserker or a Vault Skirge when TS is down can be life-saving, sometimes. Note how the later is annoyingly immune to doom blade.
Well, it depends on how you want to optimize your deck. The deck is obviously a lot slower without a turn 2 Heartless Summoning, but then it just operates like any other Grand Architect deck, which is fine. That's why I'm discussing the deck here instead of the Heartless Summoning thread, now.
That said, I don't hate your build. If you are running some utility artifacts, Tezzeret actually becomes quite a bit better. The only reason I'm not running him is because I don't run anything like wellsprings or Tumble Magnet, so his -1 ability was almost useless. I dunno how to fit it in, though... your deck looks pretty packed. I considered a white splash before (mainly for Oblivion Ring, actually), but I didn't try it out because I like my landbase and really don't want to have to play Mycosynth Wellspring.
It's not like they can counter every spell you play. Mindslaver might not always resolve, but it's really powerful against them if it does, and it's Treasure Mage-able (and Buried Ruin-able) if I'm in a situation where I think it will work. And there's no better artifact to play against them.
What I can imagine doing is cutting that Emperion for something, though. I might just move the Mindslaver to main in place of that, since I'm expecting control decks to become a little more popular. It's nearly a dead card against something like red deck, unfortunately, but Emperion is kind of slow against them anyway.
Yeah, I saw your build and kinda liked it. I considered boarding a few more clones in case Geist of Saint Traft becomes popular, but it hasn't been needed yet (and Wurmcoil tends to shut that down anyway). Snapcaster is interesting (dying to summoning is unfortunate, but I guess just getting a spell back for one mana is still worth it), but I guess the difference in our decks is that mine only pretends to control. I'm much more concerned with slamming wurmcoil engines than leaving mana open for things, but having a few mana leaks still forces my opponents to play around them.
I also absolutely agree about not needing heartless summoning past turn five. It's important for speeding up the deck to be able to keep up with aggro decks and to put early pressure on control decks, but we don't need it to win at all.
"Combo"? I don't really mind if someone destroys an architect or the summoning somehow, at least not enough to devote another card to protecting them. Saving a Wurmcoil from an Oblivion Ring would be fine, but it doesn't really feel needed. I guess flying over Wurmcoil would be a concern, but they'd have to be killing me that turn before lifelink starts saving me. The only deck where that's a problem is Tempered Steel, which I admit is a pain, but Steel Sabotages help with that deck a lot.
I actually had Spellskites in my original run of the deck (which played Tezzeret), but once I gave up on that plan, I realized I didn't ever really want to board them in. I also used Steel Hellkite for quite a long time, but realized that I almost never tutored for it (since it's so easily destroyed), so I cut it for Batterskull. "Variety" might sound good, but the current build is just plain consistent.
4x Myr Superion
4x Grand Architect
4x Treasure Mage
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
4x Solemn Simulacrum
4x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Platinum Emperion
Spells (13)
4x Ponder
3x Doom Blade
2x Mana Leak
3x Heartless Summoning
1x Batterskull
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Drowned Catacomb
3x Buried Ruin
3x Swamp
9x Island
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Dead Weight
3x Steel Sabotage
2x Ratchet Bomb
1x Mana Leak
1x Sever the Bloodline
1x Batterskull
1x Mindslaver
Testing continues to go far better than I expected. Red deck can be dangerous, but the second wurmcoil is usually game over for them, and the third one definitely is. Pod and sword decks aren't too dangerous. Solar Flare feels pretty even, which is something I'd like to have a positive matchup against right now, so I'd like to optimize against that deck if possible. Maybe maindeck Ratchet Bombs to deal with Oblivion Ring? The only card in my deck that I'm iffy about is obviously the Emperion, but he sometimes just wins a game, and I can only play so many Wurmcoil Engines.
There's something special about being late in a game and thinking "There are seven cards left in my deck that are Wurmcoil Engine, not even counting Ponder".
Yeah, it would be in the graveyard before you get priority to do anything.
Still of the same opinion, although I'm now just looking at is as an Architect deck that happens to feature Heartless Summoning. The "Heartless Summoning decks" tend to be too narrow, and are just mediocre if they don't draw the summoning.
Although I said the same thing about Birthing Pod in the previous standard, and was proven wrong (eventually).
I like Phantasmal Image a lot, but I've been avoiding using it over Metamorph because it's sacrifice ability can be annoying (sometimes just making my clone'd wurmcoil blue with Architect is important, for example), and Metamorph is almost as easy to play here anyway thanks to Heartless Summoning and Grand Architect.
And after playing the deck for awhile, cutting some wurmcoils or treasure mages is just not going to happen. I guess you could say that the deck's "Plan A" is just slamming a wurmcoil every turn from turn 4 onwards until you win.
4x Myr Superion
4x Treasure Mage
4x Grand Architect
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
4x Solemn Simulacrum
4x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Blightsteel Colossus
4x Ponder
3x Mana Leak
2x Doom Blade
3x Heartless Summoning
Land(23)
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Swamp
9x Island
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Dead Weight
2x Dismember
1x Doom Blade
3x Steel Sabotage
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Mana Leak
3x Spellskite
1x Mindslaver
The deck is overall more consistent now, although I've discovered that Tempered Steel is fairly brutal, hence all the sabotages and removal in board. I'm not even sure if that's enough, yet, but I need to see how popular the deck is first.
The only cards I'm iffy on right now are the spellbombs in board (doesn't even feel needed against Solar Flare) and the Blightsteel, which was won me a couple games, but not as many as I would like.
Yeah, this works pretty well in my experience so far. Unless you are running something like Blightsteel Colossus, though, you probably don't need that ramp with two summonings already in play.
But I do play Blightsteel. Good times. Too bad it doesn't kill in one hit with two summonings down, but that's only an issue if they have no creatures in play anyway.