Nice list, Racing089. I'm definitely doing something similar. I checked the binder, and was like, yup 2 Jace (I had 3 for the legacy version, but I think I sold one). I'm definitely going with Lilianas as well (still need to get under bridges in time).
I've long been a proponent of a 4/3 thopter sword split, but now that I'm back on the Planeswalker Plan, 3/2 seems just fine. Collective Brutality I feel will be a must in the new meta (as I see a lot of aggro trying to get under the new toys). I'm going to try the Altar of the Brood plan in the board, along with surgical effects to combat combo and big mana, as well as all the UW control that might be out there. Altar is also lights out against lantern. I'll see how it goes.
@Reedy26 - I think talismans are better than prisms 4 out of 5 times. Making thopters every turn is a big part of the plan, and investing 2 mana on one turn for 2 mana another turn doesn't really support that plan. Sure, you can fire off a whir for bridge a little faster with prism, but whirring for a bridge on turn 3 usually leaves you with 3-4 cards in hand (on the play), so really, what's the point? Also, the number of times you can go turn 2 talisman into a 1 drop is quite high, which means talisman is often a "1 drop."
@Reedy26 - I think talismans are better than prisms 4 out of 5 times. Making thopters every turn is a big part of the plan, and investing 2 mana on one turn for 2 mana another turn doesn't really support that plan. Sure, you can fire off a whir for bridge a little faster with prism, but whirring for a bridge on turn 3 usually leaves you with 3-4 cards in hand (on the play), so really, what's the point? Also, the number of times you can go turn 2 talisman into a 1 drop is quite high, which means talisman is often a "1 drop."
Also, now that we're going to be trying to chain 4 mana walker into 4 mana walker into Whir, I think we'll need more permanent mana (Talisman) rather than one-time explosive mana (Prism). Although actual playtime may prove this wrong.
Keep in mind that Pentad Prism was instrumental in my «Tron-slayer» build. If you want to [/e: BEAT] Tron, be dropping a Prism on T2 and casting Tezz and swinging with it on the next turn (while disrupting 'em). That's how you do it.
Edit: « Beat ». Of course. Godammit i can’t write anymore.
I think I'm going to continue playing a list very similar to what I have been playing; just need to find room for 2 jace's. 2 Jace really is the sweet spot.
Back on this topic, just to notice that the very recurring question whether 3 or 4 Tezzerets is the better number, now we have the answer : 3 Tezz + 2 Jace (until more testing eventually cut one copy of either). We can also say goodbye to Ashiok and free some slots in the SB, good riddance !
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I typed up a big reply to all of you but then I hit something and it vanished… so here it goes again.
@radouf: I cut hand disruption from my list for a few reasons.
I wanted to make room for the Crucible of Worlds/Expedition Map/Ghost Quarter/Inventor’s Fair/Academy Ruins package. I see magic becoming a lot fairer for the time being and having a main deck engine to chip away in the long games and interact favorably with tron is appealing to me.
I also felt like hand disruption was a routine speed bump for me. T1 you almost always prefer to cast Serum Visions but now on turn 2 you regularly have to decide between being mana efficient and playing your combo piece or casting IOK. It is usually right to cast IOK and that seemed to slow me down almost an entire turn for a small amount of disruption. I’d rather use all my mana every turn so that we can empty out our hand for Ensnaring Bridge faster while still putting impactful cards on the table.
@reedy26: It is not that 2 JTMS feels right but that 5 powerful planeswalkers feels right. I found Tezzeret to still be better than JTMS in our deck and therefore I am on the 3/2 split. However you could switch that around if you have a lower artifact count.
Casting Whir without prisms is fine since I have so many cheap artifacts. I have 8 zeros and 5 ones in addition to 8 twos. That and 3 lands gets us to Ensnaring Bridge on T3 pretty consistently. The talismans are closer to being mana sources instead of mana accelerators when you have only 19 lands.
Like I mentioned above, all the cheap artifacts help me empty my hand quickly for Ensnaring Bridge. Most games are play out my entire hand, then Ensnaring Bridge, Planeswalker. A turn 3 planeswalkers on the play can end the game on the spot in the grindy matchups. My Jund opponent had a great hand of discard/goyf/Liliana. I drew JTMS off the top for a T3 JTMS on the play, bounced his goyf and then ignored LOTV while I brainstormed into whatever I wanted. Ensnaring Bridge locks up with the game without the need for any removal but you could play some out of the sideboard if you find Ensnaring Bridge to be unreliable. My solution is just more Ensnaring Bridge protection with a Spellskite, Welding Jar and Duress.
I had considered playing LOTV but I liked the utility lands to much to afford casting her. Triple blue on T3 and double black on T3 is daunting when you want to play 4+ colorless lands in your 19 land deck. In addition to that I would have to cut Search for Azcanta for them and I don’t feel like that is a big upgrade (or any upgrade) for the deck.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
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@Racing: Fair enough. Look out for triple U from Whir being an issue then, with all the colorless ute lands! Keep us posted on how the fine-tuning evolves.
@Reedy: We’ve always been torn between a « blacker » attrition game and « blue-er » velocity-driven game. Running LotV, the second you +1 her, you’re cutting yourself from eventual ressources. With Tezzeret and Whir heavy builds, I’ve always felt we were stronger in building up ressources and out-gaming our opponent this way, rather than attrition-ing up with Lili behind a Bridge. Now that our curve is going way up with more Tezzies and Jacies, keep an eye on how Lili activations do hinder your own board / game development. There are some match-ups where it’s obviously to our advantage (Titanshift, Tron), but many others where i think you may just be better off going blue and drawing cards rather than ditching em.
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
@radouf regarding Lili, you know she has a -2 right? I played 3 Lilis for months main deck and 4 whir, and rarely did I ever not happily activate one of her abilities. Often when you +1 you are dumping something like a sword or a second Lili, or a land when you already have enough. If your hand is already full of sweet combo action, you're probably casting those pieces instead of her anyway. The double black is a bit of a hindrance, I do agree about that. Mana artifacts help, though.
I know its not really the direction we are looking at the moment, but has there been any testing using Sly Requisitioner? the body is a little questionable, but the effect seems nice with sword of the meek, mishras bauble, as well as some other occasionally cards like nihil, im just wondering if it would be worth it. it does also go infinite with arcbound ravager/grinding station and the sword, which while not something we would normally play, is not a bad card of course. Im probably gonna do some testing with it in the near future but wanted to know if anyone else has done any testing or had expirience with it.
I know its not really the direction we are looking at the moment, but has there been any testing using Sly Requisitioner? the body is a little questionable, but the effect seems nice with sword of the meek, mishras bauble, as well as some other occasionally cards like nihil, im just wondering if it would be worth it. it does also go infinite with arcbound ravager/grinding station and the sword, which while not something we would normally play, is not a bad card of course. Im probably gonna do some testing with it in the near future but wanted to know if anyone else has done any testing or had expirience with it.
Actually, I have tested Requisitioner, with ravagers but not grinding station. In fact, I thought the card had serious sleeper potential when Kaladesh came out that I bought about 20 copies. Her mana cost is just a little too high, at the moment, in my opinion. If she cost even 1 less, or if there were a usable-1 mana artifact sac engine, she'd come down earlier to start providing value, but realistically she's not making bodies until turn 4. If the infinite combo could go turn 1, turn 2, turn 3 that would be awesome, but ravager and sword both cost 2, meaning the combo can't come online until turn 4 (barring something like faithless looting discard sword turn one, ravager gets it back turn 2). That said, the combo was actually pretty darn good with ravager because it took no mana and could be "restarted" instantly by saccing a random artifact. The fact that she makes colorless servos was somewhat relevant during testing, as they avoided Ugin's minus and all is dust. I mean, this deck still has flex spots. Adding 1 Ravager and 1 Requisitoner to try out is doable.
There's definite potential for some sort of ravager/thopters build where she can play a part. Ravager is just such a superb do-it-all card, plays great offense, defense, and enables combos.
I have actually cut my Thopter Combo (3/2) at the moment to make room for 2 JtMS. I've used the other 3 spots to drive up the low curve artifact count to get a better feeling of how reliably I can jam T2/T3 walkers. My list is 4 LotV, 3 Tezz, 2 JtMS with 4 Whir and I am really counting on the Walkers plus Bridge to win the game for me. My hope is with Jace as another win condition I can further weaken Stonys impact on the deck by cutting Thopter Foundry. Post board where I can bring in more direct interaction to fight my opponent I will be less reliant on ramping into walkers which naturally will make me stronger against Stony as Mana rocks and Baubles are now my only activated artifacts.
I will plan to record some with the new list later this week.
PS traded into 3 Opals over the weekend at GP Toronto and then played the list to a 3-3 in PTQ on Sunday. First real event with the deck in paper. It had mostly been online for me before. Beat Humans, lost to burn (really lazy keep in G3 on the draw), lost to Traverse Shadow with all of the hand disruption and Stubs, beat Amulet in 3 (that took some serious doing), lost to Abzan, beat Affinity.
TGCRequiem, I'll be interested to hear how you did with that list with no thopter/sword. I'm not sure how I'd be able to beat burn or affinity with no combo, but maybe you lean on CB? I feel like the combo gives this deck a certain matchup advantage that lantern doesn't have. What would your list look like?
Burn definitely would be worse. I was/am running 4 Brutality and 2 Inventor's Fair plus 3 maindeck Tezz AoB so it's not like it's unwinnable but definitely worse than when I was running a 3/2 split.
I personally think Thopter Combo, in a manner of speaking acts mostly like extra Bridges in the deck against aggro lists like Affinity which is certainly welcome/needed in some matchups.
That said I'm trying to push away from it to try and find the right balance of necessity. Jace gives us another non Stony, non GY win condition and so I think while Thopters are good to great in some matchups it's one of the easier pieces of the deck to hate on.
By the time I record I very well may have them back in the deck.
Btw, has Golden Demise been discussed in this thread ? Tendrils and Damnation have been playable SB options, and I guess Demise would fit well along with Thopterson our side. So ?
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Btw, has Golden Demise been discussed in this thread ? Tendrils and Damnation have been playable SB options, and I guess Demise would fit well along with Thopterson our side. So ?
I didn't notice this card during spoiler season. Certainly interesting to think about.
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Hello all, I've been lurking on this thread for a few months now and am close to buying the pieces I need to build a Tezzerator deck. Before I get to it though, is there a version of this deck that takes a more aggressive approach? Or should I just stick with what works (bridge, combo, planeswalkers). Thanks.
I've also been seeing a ton of Kolaghan's Command being played due to Bloodbraid Elf and it's been a huge pain in the butt. It's always been a part of Jund, but they are able to cast them quicker and with more regularity due to BBE cascade churning through the deck faster. I think it's important to have some discussion about it soon. Does this put more emphasis on running extra Welding Jars? Maybe hexproof with Padeem? He's hard(er) to remove with Fatal Push and can even block a Bloodbraid Elf. 4 drops are a bit much though now with Jace taking up slots...
I guess Spellskite becomes worse than Jar, since the latter can't be destroyed by creature-removal spells. I personally always ran 2 protection artifacts, so 2 Jars hsould make the cut for me.
It means even less creatures in the deck (actually 0). Glint-Nest Crane could be interesting in the slot of Serum Visions in order to have some early blockers then. I'm rusty with the deck and a new meta is coming, darn I could be saying I am confused !
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I've been testing a bit with my version of Lantern/Thopters hyrbid versus Jace Jeskai control to get a feel for the new format. I 7-0d post board and pre-board. Opponent resolved 2 ancestral visions, and had active Jace in play for 10 turns cryptic commanding 5 times and I still won by search for Azcanta and thopter combo.
The Jace decks from what I'm seeing are WAY better than the BBE decks. I don't run any Jace's of my own because pithing needle on jace is critical. I don't think Jace is better than Tezz or even better than search in our deck.
Due to the uptick of jund and ancient grudge in sideboards I am definitely sideboarding a Padeem. Padeem is incredibly strong and I could see a world running 2. I still don't like jar maindeck, but we'll see. The lantern half is getting worse, but it is still very powerful in controlling your own draws. The biggest reason I like the lantern package is to self mill aggressively and improve your overall card quality.
I've also went down to 3 moxen versus 4 because you never want 2, and I wanted to make room for another impactful card in Search for Azcanta.
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Mox Opal
1 Welding Jar
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
3 Talisman of Dominance
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge
Instants/Sorceries: 10
3 Serum Visions
3 Collective Brutality
4 Whir of Invention
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Land: 20
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Spire of Industry
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Time Sieve
1 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
3 Altar of the Brood
1 Damnation
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Battle at the Bridge
1 Thoughtseize
I've long been a proponent of a 4/3 thopter sword split, but now that I'm back on the Planeswalker Plan, 3/2 seems just fine. Collective Brutality I feel will be a must in the new meta (as I see a lot of aggro trying to get under the new toys). I'm going to try the Altar of the Brood plan in the board, along with surgical effects to combat combo and big mana, as well as all the UW control that might be out there. Altar is also lights out against lantern. I'll see how it goes.
@Reedy26 - I think talismans are better than prisms 4 out of 5 times. Making thopters every turn is a big part of the plan, and investing 2 mana on one turn for 2 mana another turn doesn't really support that plan. Sure, you can fire off a whir for bridge a little faster with prism, but whirring for a bridge on turn 3 usually leaves you with 3-4 cards in hand (on the play), so really, what's the point? Also, the number of times you can go turn 2 talisman into a 1 drop is quite high, which means talisman is often a "1 drop."
Keep in mind that Pentad Prism was instrumental in my «Tron-slayer» build. If you want to [/e: BEAT] Tron, be dropping a Prism on T2 and casting Tezz and swinging with it on the next turn (while disrupting 'em). That's how you do it.
Edit: « Beat ». Of course. Godammit i can’t write anymore.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
@radouf: I cut hand disruption from my list for a few reasons.
I wanted to make room for the Crucible of Worlds/Expedition Map/Ghost Quarter/Inventor’s Fair/Academy Ruins package. I see magic becoming a lot fairer for the time being and having a main deck engine to chip away in the long games and interact favorably with tron is appealing to me.
I also felt like hand disruption was a routine speed bump for me. T1 you almost always prefer to cast Serum Visions but now on turn 2 you regularly have to decide between being mana efficient and playing your combo piece or casting IOK. It is usually right to cast IOK and that seemed to slow me down almost an entire turn for a small amount of disruption. I’d rather use all my mana every turn so that we can empty out our hand for Ensnaring Bridge faster while still putting impactful cards on the table.
@reedy26: It is not that 2 JTMS feels right but that 5 powerful planeswalkers feels right. I found Tezzeret to still be better than JTMS in our deck and therefore I am on the 3/2 split. However you could switch that around if you have a lower artifact count.
Casting Whir without prisms is fine since I have so many cheap artifacts. I have 8 zeros and 5 ones in addition to 8 twos. That and 3 lands gets us to Ensnaring Bridge on T3 pretty consistently. The talismans are closer to being mana sources instead of mana accelerators when you have only 19 lands.
Like I mentioned above, all the cheap artifacts help me empty my hand quickly for Ensnaring Bridge. Most games are play out my entire hand, then Ensnaring Bridge, Planeswalker. A turn 3 planeswalkers on the play can end the game on the spot in the grindy matchups. My Jund opponent had a great hand of discard/goyf/Liliana. I drew JTMS off the top for a T3 JTMS on the play, bounced his goyf and then ignored LOTV while I brainstormed into whatever I wanted. Ensnaring Bridge locks up with the game without the need for any removal but you could play some out of the sideboard if you find Ensnaring Bridge to be unreliable. My solution is just more Ensnaring Bridge protection with a Spellskite, Welding Jar and Duress.
I had considered playing LOTV but I liked the utility lands to much to afford casting her. Triple blue on T3 and double black on T3 is daunting when you want to play 4+ colorless lands in your 19 land deck. In addition to that I would have to cut Search for Azcanta for them and I don’t feel like that is a big upgrade (or any upgrade) for the deck.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
@Reedy: We’ve always been torn between a « blacker » attrition game and « blue-er » velocity-driven game. Running LotV, the second you +1 her, you’re cutting yourself from eventual ressources. With Tezzeret and Whir heavy builds, I’ve always felt we were stronger in building up ressources and out-gaming our opponent this way, rather than attrition-ing up with Lili behind a Bridge. Now that our curve is going way up with more Tezzies and Jacies, keep an eye on how Lili activations do hinder your own board / game development. There are some match-ups where it’s obviously to our advantage (Titanshift, Tron), but many others where i think you may just be better off going blue and drawing cards rather than ditching em.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Actually, I have tested Requisitioner, with ravagers but not grinding station. In fact, I thought the card had serious sleeper potential when Kaladesh came out that I bought about 20 copies. Her mana cost is just a little too high, at the moment, in my opinion. If she cost even 1 less, or if there were a usable-1 mana artifact sac engine, she'd come down earlier to start providing value, but realistically she's not making bodies until turn 4. If the infinite combo could go turn 1, turn 2, turn 3 that would be awesome, but ravager and sword both cost 2, meaning the combo can't come online until turn 4 (barring something like faithless looting discard sword turn one, ravager gets it back turn 2). That said, the combo was actually pretty darn good with ravager because it took no mana and could be "restarted" instantly by saccing a random artifact. The fact that she makes colorless servos was somewhat relevant during testing, as they avoided Ugin's minus and all is dust. I mean, this deck still has flex spots. Adding 1 Ravager and 1 Requisitoner to try out is doable.
There's definite potential for some sort of ravager/thopters build where she can play a part. Ravager is just such a superb do-it-all card, plays great offense, defense, and enables combos.
I will plan to record some with the new list later this week.
PS traded into 3 Opals over the weekend at GP Toronto and then played the list to a 3-3 in PTQ on Sunday. First real event with the deck in paper. It had mostly been online for me before. Beat Humans, lost to burn (really lazy keep in G3 on the draw), lost to Traverse Shadow with all of the hand disruption and Stubs, beat Amulet in 3 (that took some serious doing), lost to Abzan, beat Affinity.
I personally think Thopter Combo, in a manner of speaking acts mostly like extra Bridges in the deck against aggro lists like Affinity which is certainly welcome/needed in some matchups.
That said I'm trying to push away from it to try and find the right balance of necessity. Jace gives us another non Stony, non GY win condition and so I think while Thopters are good to great in some matchups it's one of the easier pieces of the deck to hate on.
By the time I record I very well may have them back in the deck.
I didn't notice this card during spoiler season. Certainly interesting to think about.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Anyway, hope to see some talk about K Command.
It means even less creatures in the deck (actually 0). Glint-Nest Crane could be interesting in the slot of Serum Visions in order to have some early blockers then. I'm rusty with the deck and a new meta is coming, darn I could be saying I am confused !
The Jace decks from what I'm seeing are WAY better than the BBE decks. I don't run any Jace's of my own because pithing needle on jace is critical. I don't think Jace is better than Tezz or even better than search in our deck.
Due to the uptick of jund and ancient grudge in sideboards I am definitely sideboarding a Padeem. Padeem is incredibly strong and I could see a world running 2. I still don't like jar maindeck, but we'll see. The lantern half is getting worse, but it is still very powerful in controlling your own draws. The biggest reason I like the lantern package is to self mill aggressively and improve your overall card quality.
I've also went down to 3 moxen versus 4 because you never want 2, and I wanted to make room for another impactful card in Search for Azcanta.
4 Glimmervoid
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Botanical Sanctum
2 Island
1 Academy Ruins
3 Mox Opal
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Witchbane Orb
4 Codex Shredder
2 Ghoulcaller's bell
4 Lantern of Insight
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Whir of Invention
1 Search for Azcanta
4 Thoughtseize
1 Padeem
2 Tezz
2 Ghirapur Aethergrid
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Welding Jar
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Pithing Needle