Nice report, i really like that people in your store hands out wins instead of draws, its not like people at my store are bad or anything but nobody ever does that where i play.
I'm glad walker works, i just love the creature and getting a threat that is resilient and grindy is pretty nice, i might try some for myself. I just wish I had preordered some, they are like 10$ a piece now I never though it would go up that fast!
I got one on my first attempt at the prerelease and bought the other for a dollar off someone at another prerelease
Man, hopefully they aren't too expensive on mtgo.
Yea, I still got $14 in store credit, people are pretty chill at my store.
I'm thinking about trying this "go big or go broke" approach with Whip and Forgemaster and Cryptologist/Disciple to bin the fatties. What do you guys reckon? Going over the top is something I enjoy and something I sometimes feel that the deck is missing.
I like the interaction between Chief Engineer and Disciple of Deceit, but I'm not sure how much I like Kuldotha Forgemaster without some expendable artifacts that hit the board early. Seems like with all your artifact ramp, you can probably just hardcast the first big fat artifact monster that comes along. I realize that the Forgemaster can search it up, but so can disciple of deceit and sacrificing 3 artifacts (unless a Battleshphere has already resolved) seems like a pretty significant cost. Especially when the card you'll be searching up doesn't end the game immediately. He also has to survive a turn since you aren't running something like Lightning Greaves, which can be tricky in modern.
I like the interaction between Chief Engineer and Disciple of Deceit, but I'm not sure how much I like Kuldotha Forgemaster without some expendable artifacts that hit the board early. Seems like with all your artifact ramp, you can probably just hardcast the first big fat artifact monster that comes along. I realize that the Forgemaster can search it up, but so can disciple of deceit and sacrificing 3 artifacts (unless a Battleshphere has already resolved) seems like a pretty significant cost. Especially when the card you'll be searching up doesn't end the game immediately. He also has to survive a turn since you aren't running something like Lightning Greaves, which can be tricky in modern.
Yeah that's the thing I was going over myself. Getting a critical mass of cheap artifacts which is kinda rough. Greaves might not be good enough (though worth testing) but I could always run 4 Skites since it's rarely (if never) a dead card. There's also Relic or Nihil Spellbomb (draws you a card when you sac it), both seem decent in the current meta. There are plenty of cheap artifacts worth main decking and if not, I could always go for the super cute Ichor Wellspring (+ might even throw in a singleton Trading Post while I'm ad it). Question is what do I cut for them? The jump between 5 and 7 is bigger than it looks in my experience. Getting to 7 mana in time is rough with this deck.
I'm thinking about trying this "go big or go broke" approach with Whip and Forgemaster and Cryptologist/Disciple to bin the fatties. What do you guys reckon? Going over the top is something I enjoy and something I sometimes feel that the deck is missing.
I think this type of deck would fair better with cards like Master Transmuter. I'd also recommend Thirst for Knowledge. Don't really think Disciple does much.
-4 Disciple of Deceit (requires Architect to really be valuable)
+2 Master Transmuter (alternate way to cheat in phatties/other artifacts)
+2 Thirst For Knowledge or Monastery Siege (can protect your board or allow you to dump fatties for Whip)
Also you might try to find room for a Steel Hellkite and Wurmcoil Engine.
I think you'll find you don't need multiples of the fatties, I'd just go one of each and run 2x Treasure Mage a la U-Tron to tutor up the most relevant one. Also like someone said you don't really have expendable artifacts for Forgemaster, and you will be forced to dilute your deck with irrelevant/clutter artifacts. Master Transmuter, Whip and Architect should be enough to provide a decent range for things you want to do. Also, only fatty I'd run 2 of is Wurmcoil Engine; 6 mana is reasonable to get to fairly fast.
Great minds. After posting I was actually looking at Transmuter. I think it require upping the Spellskite/Lightning Greaves count to something like 3/3. This is where I ended after some thought;
Don't forget that Disciple also works with Chief Engineer. Thirst might be good though I also like Siege (good at protecting Transmuter as well). I'm still in Lodestone/Thalia thought process mode. Wurmcoil would be good in a Treasure Mage build but with Disciple I'd rather run more fatties than the Mage since it starts the Whip chain faster. It might well be too cute and all though.
For my part i've stolen the idea of sage of epityr and i now play them instead of vault skirge. Skirge was just ok and i only played them because i needed more one drop. So far sage has been a lot better than skirge, decreasing the number of mulligans and increasing the number of great turn two action. Even later in the game i'd rather draw sage than skirge.
I've also cut cavern of souls. I lost some games yesterday because of it, either because it messes with vedalken shackles or because having this in the opener without other islands can be quite awkward.
@Ace, your list looks really solid, I like it. Sage Of Epityr is really good, esp with fetchlands; I'd say run atleast five fetches. Another card I've been tempted to try with Sage is Gitaxian Probe in place of Mishra's Bauble. Probe can be paid with life and circumvents Lodestone Tax atleast making it just cost one and 2 life if necessary. In a magic modern dreamland Fetchland + Sage + Probe = Ponder. With Bauble its a delayed Ponder without the cost of life and doesn't get taxed by Lodestone. You might like Probe as it allows you to see their hand, esp since you said not having Cavern cost you some games.
Sidenote: Sage also works well with Diviner's Wand in that he's a Wizard, but that might be a stretching it :P.
Also, let me know if you guys get to test out Hangarback Walker.
Thanks, i've put a lot of work in this deck and I appreciate exchanging ideas with fellow artificers.
Gitaxian Probe is a great card of magic but for any card, as great as it might be, not being a creature is a huge drawback in this deck. It is bad to the point i'm playing sage instead of serum visions, even though we can all agree visions is the better card normally.
Fetches are probably good, but in some cases where you want all your top 4 but need to fetch for your second land they can lead to embarrassing situations. I guess most of the times you don't want all 4 so i'll try to get some more blue fetches i guess.
For cavern counters haven't been a huge concern, the deck can play around them, especially with turn one judge's familiar, the card can just makes early opposing counters bad. The card never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes we can get draws that are vulnerable to targeted discard, but familiar turn one on the play can save us!
I have plans for hangarback walker, i've redesigned my black artifact aggro deck and made it a grixis thopter blast value/burn deck will some fun cards from origins, like Ghirapur Æther Grid. Funny fact: trinket mage can snatch a walker, which solves the issue of him normally not being able to get threats
haha as much as i like rings of brightheart i feel you need to copy something powerful enough (like all of tezzeret's activations) for it to be worth playing. I my deck copying Ghirapur Æther Grid activations seems fairly weak, i've always got something better to do with my mana. Copying thopter foundry and hangarback walker's tap ability is just ok, copying pyrite spellbomb is fine. So in the end it is a no, i just think rings are at their best copying planeswalker abilities in general. Those are why you play rings, the rest is just a bonus.
I find the affinity matchup rather difficult sometimes, it seems explosives (from the board i guess?) + ruins helped a lot. But we are generally light on removal and early platings or overseers I find hard to deal with.
@Ace, yea EE was from the board, it was a great way to "free the thopters" off of Hangarback.
Affinty is initially difficult, but Hurkyl's Recall is just a blow out against them, so is EE.
They just soooo many fliers .
I've been thinking more and more about 2x Vapor Snag main. In addition to the 2x Murderous Cut.
Yes indeed, and knowing when to cast recall isn't easy, you really need to cast it at maximum value, otherwise it is just a fog and they vomit back their and the following turn.
When i first played the deck i stacked a couple of easy wins vs affinity and just assumed the matchup was ok. But as i played the matchup more and more and collected more mental data it turns out quite difficult when they have a decent draw.
I've also added pithing needles in the board for that matchup in addition to recall. The needles are also randomly useful vs other stuff. I'm getting to think recall isn't that great and we use it because blue has the worst sideboard options in general.
Didn't do too well at the tourney last night, but I made alot of misplays and incorrect sideboarding. List the same as the last one I posted. Big upset was losing to a deck playing 3x Goblin Bombardment (yes the card is illegal but we didn't realize till after he won the match, apparently, according to the judge, playing with illegal cards doesn't result in a game loss/dq) .
I feel like I always want the Chief over the Sculptor, but I currently play a 2/2 split. Sculptor is good in some cases allowing for a turn three Lodestone, esp when I'm stuck on mana. But he doesn't "add" mana with every creature. Sometimes I steal games with just a Chief Engineer and no other accelerators (i.e Grand Architect or Aether Vial). Just so crazy how tight the spots are in this list.
Wow loosing to an illegal card sucks, although I kinda wish bombardment was legal I guess you didn't get a match win because of the level of rule enforcement? Small events like weekly tournaments have a very low level of enforcement, you'll rarely get dqs unless the opponent is very late to the round. I guess in a more competitive event with decklists and all that this would be a match loss for the opponent?
^Yea, not complaining too much about it, was just super annoying since I already lost my first 2 rounds. The ruling was that he kept the match win but had to take out the Bombardments and replace them with basic lands.
Sooo many thopters, lol. Good job but i think the opponent's keep was kind of loose, with no bogle on turn one. Also batterskull + thopter tokens is sweet!
haha that was no enough thopters apparently Pretty hard to win vs bogles when the game goes long and they get a gigantic creature with all the abilities in the multiverse...
I've been testing Serum Visions and so far I love it. It feels like the deck just got 10% better. It's a small price to pay to smooth out the draws and paying 1U for it in the mid/late game is perfectly acceptable. It feels like the deck kinda holds itself together now. Hangarback on the other hand I haven't been impressed with but I also haven't played a lot vs. Grixis or Jund lately. I imagine it shines vs. Kolaghan's Command. So until I get to test it vs. Jund/Grixis I'm keeping it in.
Fulminators and Drown are kinda awkward with Golem. But I tend to side him out a lot. Sometimes they overlap which is annoying but you can sequence yourself out of those spots in many cases.
This deck is explosive. As in "goldfishes before Elves" explosive. One game I went T4 Master into 2x Metamorph off of Chief Engineer (by tapping the elemental tokens). By the end I had infinite 4/3's.
The reason I'm trying this is because I get less and less excited by Lodestone as time goes by. The only thing I don't like about this deck is Harbinger who hasn't performed yet but at least he gives some devotion. I really wish that Chief Engineer was UU.
This deck is explosive. As in "goldfishes before Elves" explosive. One game I went T4 Master into 2x Metamorph off of Chief Engineer (by tapping the elemental tokens). By the end I had infinite 4/3's. The reason I'm trying this is because I get less and less excited by Lodestone as time goes by. The only thing I don't like about this deck is Harbinger who hasn't performed yet but at least he gives some devotion. I really wish that Chief Engineer was UU.
If I wasn't running Lodestone, my deck would be very similar to yours with Master of Waves an auto include. I think since you aren't running Lodestone, you should cut the Harbingers and run some combination of Dismember/Vapor Snag.
I still like Lodestone and want to go more into the taxing effect by possibly replacing the 2x Blinkmoths with 2x Tectonic Edge. The only reason I keep Ghost Quarter is soley for Tron. Thoughts?
I got one on my first attempt at the prerelease and bought the other for a dollar off someone at another prerelease
Man, hopefully they aren't too expensive on mtgo.
Yea, I still got $14 in store credit, people are pretty chill at my store.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
4 Enclave Cryptologist
3 Judge's Familiar
4 Disciple of Deceit
4 Chief Engineer
2 Renowned Weaponsmith
2 Spellskite
4 Grand Architect
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Whip of Erebos
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
3 Myr Battlesphere
2 Sundering Titan
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Darkslick Shores
4 River of Tears
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
4 Island
1 Swamp
I'm thinking about trying this "go big or go broke" approach with Whip and Forgemaster and Cryptologist/Disciple to bin the fatties. What do you guys reckon? Going over the top is something I enjoy and something I sometimes feel that the deck is missing.
Yeah that's the thing I was going over myself. Getting a critical mass of cheap artifacts which is kinda rough. Greaves might not be good enough (though worth testing) but I could always run 4 Skites since it's rarely (if never) a dead card. There's also Relic or Nihil Spellbomb (draws you a card when you sac it), both seem decent in the current meta. There are plenty of cheap artifacts worth main decking and if not, I could always go for the super cute Ichor Wellspring (+ might even throw in a singleton Trading Post while I'm ad it). Question is what do I cut for them? The jump between 5 and 7 is bigger than it looks in my experience. Getting to 7 mana in time is rough with this deck.
EDIT
Might try something like this:
-3 Judge's Familiar
-1 Sundering Titan
+4 Lightning Greaves
-4 Disciple of Deceit (requires Architect to really be valuable)
+2 Master Transmuter (alternate way to cheat in phatties/other artifacts)
+2 Thirst For Knowledge or Monastery Siege (can protect your board or allow you to dump fatties for Whip)
Also you might try to find room for a Steel Hellkite and Wurmcoil Engine.
I think you'll find you don't need multiples of the fatties, I'd just go one of each and run 2x Treasure Mage a la U-Tron to tutor up the most relevant one. Also like someone said you don't really have expendable artifacts for Forgemaster, and you will be forced to dilute your deck with irrelevant/clutter artifacts. Master Transmuter, Whip and Architect should be enough to provide a decent range for things you want to do. Also, only fatty I'd run 2 of is Wurmcoil Engine; 6 mana is reasonable to get to fairly fast.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
4 Enclave Cryptologist
4 Disciple of Deceit
4 Chief Engineer
3 Lightning Greaves
3 Spellskite
4 Grand Architect
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Whip of Erebos
4 Master Transmuter
4 Myr Battlesphere
2 Sundering Titan
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Darkslick Shores
4 River of Tears
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
4 Island
1 Swamp
Don't forget that Disciple also works with Chief Engineer. Thirst might be good though I also like Siege (good at protecting Transmuter as well). I'm still in Lodestone/Thalia thought process mode. Wurmcoil would be good in a Treasure Mage build but with Disciple I'd rather run more fatties than the Mage since it starts the Whip chain faster. It might well be too cute and all though.
For my part i've stolen the idea of sage of epityr and i now play them instead of vault skirge. Skirge was just ok and i only played them because i needed more one drop. So far sage has been a lot better than skirge, decreasing the number of mulligans and increasing the number of great turn two action. Even later in the game i'd rather draw sage than skirge.
I've also cut cavern of souls. I lost some games yesterday because of it, either because it messes with vedalken shackles or because having this in the opener without other islands can be quite awkward.
new list:
4 Signal Pest
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Sage Of Epityr
4 Myr Superion
4 Chief Engineer
4 Etherium Sculptor
2 Spellskite
4 Grand Architect
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Lodestone Golem
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Sword Of Light And Shadow
1 Sword Of Feast And Famine
lands: 20
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
16 Snow-Covered Island
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Thorn Of Ametyst
2 Pithing Needle
2 Monastery Siege
2 Hurkyl's recall
2 Echoing Truth
1 Mindlock Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Torpor Orb
Sidenote: Sage also works well with Diviner's Wand in that he's a Wizard, but that might be a stretching it :P.
Also, let me know if you guys get to test out Hangarback Walker.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Gitaxian Probe is a great card of magic but for any card, as great as it might be, not being a creature is a huge drawback in this deck. It is bad to the point i'm playing sage instead of serum visions, even though we can all agree visions is the better card normally.
Fetches are probably good, but in some cases where you want all your top 4 but need to fetch for your second land they can lead to embarrassing situations. I guess most of the times you don't want all 4 so i'll try to get some more blue fetches i guess.
For cavern counters haven't been a huge concern, the deck can play around them, especially with turn one judge's familiar, the card can just makes early opposing counters bad. The card never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes we can get draws that are vulnerable to targeted discard, but familiar turn one on the play can save us!
I have plans for hangarback walker, i've redesigned my black artifact aggro deck and made it a grixis thopter blast value/burn deck will some fun cards from origins, like Ghirapur Æther Grid. Funny fact: trinket mage can snatch a walker, which solves the issue of him normally not being able to get threats
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKrXOiL1UBw&feature=youtu.be
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
I find the affinity matchup rather difficult sometimes, it seems explosives (from the board i guess?) + ruins helped a lot. But we are generally light on removal and early platings or overseers I find hard to deal with.
Affinty is initially difficult, but Hurkyl's Recall is just a blow out against them, so is EE.
They just soooo many fliers .
I've been thinking more and more about 2x Vapor Snag main. In addition to the 2x Murderous Cut.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
When i first played the deck i stacked a couple of easy wins vs affinity and just assumed the matchup was ok. But as i played the matchup more and more and collected more mental data it turns out quite difficult when they have a decent draw.
I've also added pithing needles in the board for that matchup in addition to recall. The needles are also randomly useful vs other stuff. I'm getting to think recall isn't that great and we use it because blue has the worst sideboard options in general.
7 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Swamp
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Academy Ruins
1 Watery Grave
Spells (2)
2 Murderous Cut
Artifacts (10)
4 Æther Vial
2 Mishra's Bauble
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Grand Architect
3 Lodestone Golem
3 Myr Superion
2 Spellskite
2 Sage of Epityr
2 Hangarback Walker
2 Etherium Sculptor
2 Chief Engineer
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Logic Knot
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Trinket Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Before the tournament I was contemplating:
-1 Etherium Sculptor
+1 Chief Engineer
I feel like I always want the Chief over the Sculptor, but I currently play a 2/2 split. Sculptor is good in some cases allowing for a turn three Lodestone, esp when I'm stuck on mana. But he doesn't "add" mana with every creature. Sometimes I steal games with just a Chief Engineer and no other accelerators (i.e Grand Architect or Aether Vial). Just so crazy how tight the spots are in this list.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y58DpL9Xzis&feature=youtu.be
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
This is what I'm running right now
4 Serum Visions
4 Judge's Familiar
3 Sage of Epityr
4 Chief Engineer
2 Renowned Weaponsmith
2 Hangarback Walker
4 Myr Superion
3 Spellskite
4 Grand Architect
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Batterskull
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Flooded Strand
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
3 Dismember
3 Fulminator Mage
4 Drown in Sorrow
4 Thoughtseize
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Fulminators and Drown are kinda awkward with Golem. But I tend to side him out a lot. Sometimes they overlap which is annoying but you can sequence yourself out of those spots in many cases.
4 Judge's Familiar
3 Sage of Epityr
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Chief Engineer
4 Myr Superion
4 Grand Architect
4 Master of Waves
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Batterskull
4 Flooded Strand
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
This deck is explosive. As in "goldfishes before Elves" explosive. One game I went T4 Master into 2x Metamorph off of Chief Engineer (by tapping the elemental tokens). By the end I had infinite 4/3's.
The reason I'm trying this is because I get less and less excited by Lodestone as time goes by. The only thing I don't like about this deck is Harbinger who hasn't performed yet but at least he gives some devotion. I really wish that Chief Engineer was UU.
I still like Lodestone and want to go more into the taxing effect by possibly replacing the 2x Blinkmoths with 2x Tectonic Edge. The only reason I keep Ghost Quarter is soley for Tron. Thoughts?
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant