@jayjayhooks: Really nice list there mate. Been toying around with lists that have less artifact synergy and more control cards recently too (esper, jeskai, sultai builds). I have a foil playset of Bontu's that I've been wanting to use too... so I'll give your list a go! Looks fun.
How is Whir in the deck? When are you using it? Does 3 copies feel correct? Have you considered Gifts Ungiven?
3 Whir sometimes feels excessive because it's a bit Mana intensive in this deck. Drawing 2 copies of it in the first 10 cards isn't great because I'm usually too busy dealing with thier early stuff to have the Mana for it. Basically using it as an instant speed threat - deal with their things, leave open Mana to react, if they don't do anything threatening, whir for combo piece if I have the other or a shackles/crucible (depending if they are a creature deck or not or if the Mana denial will lock them out) if I don't have another combo piece.
I haven't really considered gifts, but I will think on it and get back to you. Basically we use it to tutor for Sword? Or like snap/reckoning/damnation/x? What did you have in mind?
I think the speed mox opal offered drew me down a path of metalcraft and closed the possibilities.
After trying the snapcaster/cryptic build I think it's a beautiful fit. and whirring for a sword, untapping playing a land and snap whirring for foundry is a totally busted play that allows us to keep up cryptic sheilds.
I'm trying a build with thoughtsiezes and I also think big tez fits this build a lot better because AOB needs a certain artifact density to not whiff on his plus whereas big tez just needs to survive a turn to get your combo online.
@jayjayhooks are you still uncertain on shackles? Also - anticipate vs thirst for knowledge... have you considered that at all?
I think the speed mox opal offered drew me down a path of metalcraft and closed the possibilities.
After trying the snapcaster/cryptic build I think it's a beautiful fit. and whirring for a sword, untapping playing a land and snap whirring for foundry is a totally busted play that allows us to keep up cryptic sheilds.
I'm trying a build with thoughtsiezes and I also think big tez fits this build a lot better because AOB needs a certain artifact density to not whiff on his plus whereas big tez just needs to survive a turn to get your combo online.
@jayjayhooks are you still uncertain on shackles? Also - anticipate vs thirst for knowledge... have you considered that at all?
The artifact count isn't high enough to justify Thirst For Knowledge. The deck could probably use at least a 2nd swords, and that might push TFK to being on par with Anticipate. They are close for sure, but Anticipate is just a little more mana efficient; a line that comes up often is holding back from casting a T2 Talisman to hold Mana Leak/Think Twice/Anticipate. Casting the Talisman on T3 then allows us to hold up the countermagic/anticipate a little longer.
Shackles is either really great, or really bad. But it's not a sideboard card because we run so few artifacts that our opponents are more prepared for it post-board. Unfortunately there really isn't a better alternative, as we need something to grab with Whir if Crucible wont cut it or if we don't already have a second combo piece and we are starting to fall behind.
I don't think Tezz the seeker is right for the deck - Almost everything else operates at instant speed and his + does even less than AOB + does without having an ability to protect itself. Even when AOB wiffs it puts us that much closer to finding a piece, but generally only drop AOB if you can minus it first. Sometimes a 4cmc 5/5 is a fast enough clock to turn the tide once you've gained control.
Thoughtseize is probably good. I just prefer to be counterspell heavy because the deck operates mostly at instant speed and our combo is fairly resistant to hate in G1. Thoughtseize/Inquistion out of the board is probably something I will consider going forward.
**Edit - After a few more matches, and some more thinking I've come to think it might be better to move up to 4 Talisman of Dominance and 1 R/B Talisman and switch Bontu's last Reckoning with Damnation. In the matchups where it matters, being able to T2 Talisman + Push and then T3 Damnation is likely better than Bontu's. I'm gonna keep playing with Bontu's because I'm having a blast with it, but I suggest testing the other way if you want to move forward with this deck competitively. I don't see myself moving off UW in the near future, especially with the new Planeswalker rule, but I'll keep checking in with you guys to see if it's developing at all, and posting any of my findings as well.
@jayjayhooks yeah, I played a few games with your build and tweaked some. I bumped thopter/sword to 2/2 and have a bridge/time sieve and a few other random artifacts. That count makes thirst better, and also snap helps to reward qus for binning spells.
With tez seeker I'm usually casting it when the game path is set so he's getting a bridge/time sieve ftw or he's a great win condition g2 when they have sided out a bunch of spot removal and have a bunch of stony/rip/wrath things happening. I have tick boomed him for the win in about half of my SB games so far. He has been so good I've cast him after using AOB for the turn, so imagining games with TWO Tezzes working together? Heaven.
I'll post a list if I get anything that feels good.
I agree about the damnations over bontu's but maybe a split instead of either/or.
Thoughtsieze/snap is really good against eldratron which is strong in my meta so I'm def brewing with a salty eye on that deck.
+1 to Big Tezz' glorious return, at least to my sideboard. The tutoring power is insane, especially alongside AoB.
EDIT: I am no fan of Bontu's Last Reckoning. I tested it for a week and swiftly dropped it. On turn 3 (or on the turn when I get to 3 mana), I don't want to commit to double black, and I don't want to wipe the board. On later turns, the one cheaper casting cost doesn't matter, but the 3+ lost mana on the next turn do. I first was sure it looked great and deserved a chance, but now I'm convinced it's a *****ty card in an awkward spot. I'd rather include Flaying Tendrils if I really needed a CMC3 sweeper, and I'd never play BLR over Damnation. As a budget alternative for people who don't have Damnations (and it has become really affordable after the reprint), if anything, I'd play Languish, Yahenni's Experise or even splash for Esper (which doesn't hurt Foundry and Canonist, either, and opens up a plethora of nice sideboard options) for a white Wrath effect.
Bontu's Last Reckoning won't touch my Tezz deck anytime soon. I think it's a bad choice.
To be fair, I wasn't advocating Reckoning in traditional Tezz builds and it's inclusion wasn't a budget choice.
I'm still testing the card, in a very specific build, but I generally agree with your sentiments. So far in this specific testing, Reckoning has saved me more times than I can keep track of where a 4cmc sweeper would not have. I also don't think that Flaying Tendrils is a feasible maindeck consideration, whereas Reckoning is nearly never dead. Double black, in my specific build, is trivial by turn 3.
prior to whir being a thing, i use to play a more disruptive build with IoK and lilys which honestly ran alot smoother. i think both builds have merit but ive since gone back to including more disruptive cards to my build and put back in serum visions because the card filtering just helps with durdly hands. Also ive gone with more talismans over prisms since a lot of times i find myself needing a second use out of them.
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Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
I just played a 3 round casual tourney with the 'whir control' build and got steamrolled in 2 matches.
It's a small sample size, but I was lacking the wow factor that makes the deck exciting to me. I'm gonna tweak some more, but the initial fidnings are troubling.
@magpie842 that; my friend, was a beautiful post. It summed up my feelings perfectly.
I think that's what felt sad last night. I did have interactive cards like cryptic and mana leak, but my level of action was almost zero.
I'm going to test a deck with less land, more artifacts and aether grids main (and maybe a saheeli or two) Against most decks that run creatures grid is just insane. When you get thopter sword every thopter you make also dealing a damage (tap thopter and sword before sacrificng sword) is a really insane rate of return.
As for Saheeli I didn't realize her ultimate was so relevant.
I honestly think, if you're sleeving up mana leak, snapcaster, cryptic and co in your MD, you're better off not playing thoptersword. Exchanging card for card while incrementing value and obstructing your opponent to get ahead (the control plan) is not optimally done while also trying to assemble thopter + sword and leverage it for value in the present meta. This is, somewhat obviously, why UW control (and Jeskai) do not run thoptersword.
...
Now, as I see it, the main problems with this deck are it's weaknesses to Storm, Tron and creature decks that kill you without attacking (Vizier Combo, Elves if they combo, and so on). That's because while the deck is very good at not dying to attacking creatures, and also at having inevitability, it cannot reach out and touch your opponents lands or creatures game 1 (excepting a few ways, e.g. needle, lilli, inquisition, but these are not enough). Back when I was playing a more controlling UB shell, with fatal push and stuff, the creature combo decks were fine. That deck also had the GQ + Crucible combo, and more hate in the board for tron.
The second paragraph here is in stark contradiction to the first. Ill sum it up how I read it, and you tell me if it's a fair assessment:
First paragraph - "Interactive cards are not good in conjunction with Thopter sword.(refering to mana leak, fatal push) People who play Control don't use combos therefore they are bad"
Second - "Our deck doesn't do well because it doesn't have interactive cards, can't kill creatures and can't touch lands " - sort of like how leak, snapcaster, cryptic and spreading seas do?
In the second paragraph you state that the deck is bad against Combo, Big mana, and aggro. I would suggest that it's also pretty bad against control. That makes it weak to basically every archetype that exists in the meta. Yet you defend the choice to not explore new territory.
I really can't understand where you are coming from.
Came back from GP Metz where i did all the 6 modern side events (4 rounds Swiss). Some games will be comment-less because i had no time until the next round starts. So let's go for a long recap.
G1 : He goes turn 1 hierarch, turn 2 finks, turn 3 more beasts and then he just used gavony to buff them and trample me.
G2 : I discard him turn 1, taking out a part of combo. Then i use a pithing needle on devoted druid and he plays kataki on turn 2. Game over.
Round 2 : ???
G1 : ???
G2 : ???
G3 : ???
Round 3 : UB take turns
G1 : Tried to disturb his plan by decaying his mine, but i dit not draw a kill.
G2 : I discarded him of all his take turns and he had only 1 mine on the play with 0 card in hand. But he drew 1 dictate and 1 mine from top at his turn and then went off.
Note on the match up : maybe a strong pack of decay and discard targeting his howling mine effects is the way to deal with this match up.
Round 4 : BW smallpox
G1 : He does not have an efficient way of dealing with the combo and loose to it in a few turns
G2 : We got stalled to the topdeck game 2 after he managed to get both stony silence and leyline of the void in play while i had a bridge. I went down to 7 cards in library but i eventually drawn a tezzeret to finish him. The maelstrom pulse would have done the job too, freeing the combo.
Swiss 2 : 3W/1L
Round 1 : UW control, not complete
G1 : Discard his counterspells and bury him with the combo
G2 : Pithing needle takes care of PW, Decay takes care of spheres and sideboard, Discard clears the way to carefully assemble the combo.
Round 2 : Valakut
G1 : Liliana empty the opposing hand so well that he only have 1 card left and 6 lands on turn 5. I check his hand with the discard i kept to take his kill and he only have a land. He topdecks a scapeshift.
G2 : He did'nt see any part of the combo so he gess that i am some sort of UB discard deck. He packs up leyline of sanctity to protect himself for the liliana's sac effect and discard instead of going for artifact removals. I thought that it was a fair trade for me before he play's madcap experiment and put Platinium emperion on the play.I have infinite turn combo but i can't remove the emperion ... without targeting him and left the pulse in the sideboard.
Round 3 : Nahiri control
G1 : He has nothing to remove the combo game 1 so i just swarmed him with tokens.
G2 : Pithing needle does his job and discard cuted out the blood moon.
Round 4 : Burn
G1 : He goes first and the combo does not comes fast enough
G2 : Combo online by turn 3 with a welding jar, he can't keep up with life-gain despite his 3 skullcrack
G3 : He keep a hand with 1 land and 1 progenitus relic but does not draw a land in 5 turn, giving me all the time i need to assemble the combo.
Swiss 3 : 4W/0L
Round 1 : Bant Eldrazi
G1 : He start pretty slow and discard reveal no TKS. So i take time to whir for pithing needle turn 3 naming explosives before landing bridge.
G2 : He packs up some counterspells to get rid of the bridge but dicard does the job and bridge still lands. Then whir for pithing naming explosives and he is doomed again.
Round 2 : Boggles
G1 : Bridge at 6 life blocking his beast. He does pop 3 1/1 to finish the job but i whir for a foundry, allowing me to sac mox opal and baubble to block his beasts.
G2 : Bridge wins it again and, if discard is disabled by leyline of sanctity, i'm still able to whir a welding jar for extra protection.
Round 3 : Elfball with druid combo
G1 : Not the same deck but same strategy, bridge does the game and even 0/2 are buffed by archidruid when do not allow any trick with collected company. His kill with infinite mana is ezuri so even that is blocked by the bridge. I feared for balista the whole game but he had none.
G2 : Same story.
Round 4 : Affinity
G1&2 : no record but i remember pithing needle and abrupt decay doing a nice job. Also the whir into needle surprises them,so needling the ravager is awesome.
Swiss 4 :2W/1L
Round 1 : EldraTron
G1 : The plan against Eldrazi decks is always the same : bridge him and use the main deck pithing needle to block his solution. Here i did exactly that : turn 3 bridge because he had no chance to have 7 mana next turn, then wait for him to cast Karn and pithing it in response with whir.
G2 : I landed the combo on turn 3 and then just swarmed him.
Round 2 :
EldraTron
G1 : He mulligan to 6 and kp. He goes tron land and map. On my turn i use IOK and find this : ulamog, all is dust, 2 more tron lands. On his turn he map for a second tower. I try to race him with the combo, but turn 3 all is dust, turn 4 ulamog is impossible to beat.
Sideboarding : I did a guess that it was more likely for him to be playing a regular tron when went of fast than an eldratron that had his two more expensive cards and no creature early. So i took out bridges.
G2 : The guy goes turn 1 tron land and map, on my turn i use decay on it hoping to slow him a bit. Then he goes turn 2 tron land, turn 3 full tron and use 7 mana to ... TKS and Matter reshaper ! Well, first loose against eldratron in 25 games but he disguised himself x)
Round 3 : bye
G1 :
G2 :
G3 :
Round 4 : Affinity red
G1 : Decay does the job well. It prevented him from racing me too fast by removing signal pest of a turn 1 hellbent. Then combo closes the deal
G2 : He goes more carefully and with a more heavy hand, playing overseer and master of etherium. I caught him with a turn 2 collective brutality discarding a sword to lower my hand count for a turn 3 bridge + welding jar. With 1 card in hand locking his attack step, he took too long finding a second artifact killer.
Swiss 5 :1W/1D/1L
Round 1 : Valakut
G1 : We both start assembling our stuffs fast. At his last turn he seemed to fear a negate and tried to kill my with titan to get 2 valakut and then add a land for a total of 18 in a turn, i had just 3 mana left to go to 19hp and stay at 1 hp. Next turn i whired for time sieve and infinite turn. Close one.
G2 : He keeps a hand with low lands but 2 scapeshift and 2 artifact destroyer (1 ancient grudge and 1 with only one use). I discarded the grudge because he was really slow at getting lands. It allowed me some time to find a spellskite to protect the combo. I started by playing sword, and then foundry. And here i guess he missplayed because in answer he destroyed the sword. Which came back after he tried to remove the foundry with flashbacked grudge. I redirected the grudge to the skite, and sacrified the skite to the foundry. After that the game was over for him.
Round 2 : Grixis shadow
G1 : After the first stage of the game that went mainly with discard the game went pretty lame. I bridged him and then drawn only lands, while him was chaining draw cards, lands and snapcasters on draw cards. He finally drew a kolagan's command and went off.
G2 : Game 2 i stayed a long time trying to assemble the combo through discard and counterspells. I finally landed a bridge that he destroyed and whired for the missing sword after a discard to make sure that they where no counterspell waiting.
G3 : 2 min left in round when we started playing, i discarded him life loss cards to make sure he would not kill me.
Round 3 : RG tron
Not much to say, it's tron, half of his deck counters our, the second half just ramp for the first half.
Round 4 : Intentional draw
Swiss 6 : 3W/0L
Round 1 : UW control
G1 : I discarded his counterspells and resolved the combo early. Then i kept a decay to remove any sphere that would come and the combo was too much to handle.
G2 : He managed to prevent me from landing my combo with tons of counterspells. Finally he killed me with CA and Celestial colonnades .
G3 : After side i have 10 discard spells so this time i managed to remove all his counterspells and resolved 1 foundry and 1 whir for the win.
Note : Pithing needle helped all games by keeping PW in check, especially jace that can nullify my attacks.
Round 2 : Eldratron
G1 : Not much to say : bridge turn 3 and kept whir in hand to resp karn or whir for infinite turn if possible. I did resp to karn and needled it, winning on the spot because he don't play ulamog main deck.
G2 : This one was closer because despite bridge and needle he managed to deal me 10 dmg through the bridge with 2 balistas at 10 mana. Still once the combo assembled i went out of range in 1 turn.
Round 3 : Bant spirit
G1 : It's an other deck that struggle getting over bridge. I whired for it on turn 3. it gave me a lot of time to assemble the combo.
G2 : Discard were important that game. I had to be really carefull with each spell because he drew 3 Mausoleum Wanderer and had a lot of open mana. I did'nt draw the bridge but i had a foundry so i had to whir for the 2nd part of the combo. It took sometime but i forced him to sac 2 of his wanderer to counter a 2 mode brutality and then finally whir to safety.
Round 4 : Intentional draw
Total : 15W/1D/5L
Personal thoughts about the tournament :
It seems like the match ups that rely on attacking creatures are really easy to win as planed.
I like time sieve a lot, against valakut it's often the only way to win game 1.
I'm considering adding 2 stoic rebuttal to help against other combo decks. It was a part of my first iteration of the deck and it was always awesome. I had more artifact back then but i think it can still do things.
@Xatrith: thanks for the report man. A 15W/1D/5L is pretty impressive.
Your sideboard, as of now, is only showing 9 cards. Care to update us this? Because I'm genuinely curious about your MB/SB configuration.
I'm noticing that you're really cutting back on Tezzeret AoB. Yet he's one of our best card against big mana and combo, as he closes games faster than Thopter & Sword ever could (without Sieve). But he's also a house against Midrange -- looking at Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron. And in the shifting meta where G-Tron is starting to show up again, I'd tend to run more of him, not less. What do you think?
I've also tried Pithing Needle as a 3-of between the boards in my last PPTQ run and, it felt like too many. Even against E-Tron where they have all the targets. With targeted discard and thanks to the reactive speed of Whir of Invention, I think two is the sweet spot; as in the third isn't bringing much to the table. What did you think of it?
Regarding your closing statements:
- Some games I've been losing to Elfball myself, or to Burn going under us. I'm personally going to go up on Flaying Tendrils in the side.
- Loving Sieve too. It's now an essential part of our core if you ask me.
- Rebuttal I'm not too high on. Exactly as @Curundil just put it, Whir enables us to play all our proactive tools at reactive speed, but it's also much more. A healthy mix of Whir and targeted discard (IoK, TS, Brutality) is more synergistic and at the end of the day, I think, gives us all the tools we need to win against the current field. Maybe a couple counterspells could do some work, but I doubt it's the best thing we can be doing with our sideboard slots. What is it exactly that you're trying to do against combo? Counter their key spell (à la Ad Nauseam)? Then Lost Legacy doest that. Punch through their countermagic? IoK/TS/Brutality/Sword and end-of-turn Whir as a bait does that. Defense Grid also works. Let us know, specifically.
@TugoTog: Rebuttal really becomes a liability in the face of aggro, when you're leaning on a Bridge -- one of the strongest cards in our deck, which we should totally be leaning on btw.
Regarding a blue-er approach to deckbuilding, I've tried it before to way less exciting results. And we've come so far. I really believe that we have a winning formula on our hands we really just need dedication to it. Deck is strong AF people, don't you agree?
I am super in love with Lost Legacy, especially in tandem with targeted discard. If you get a peek at their hand with a T1 or T2 Thoughtseize and you see something else troublesome in their hand, LL gets 'em good. That comes up mostly against Tron when I TS a map or scrying to slow them down, then followup with LL to extract whatever other threat was in their hand. LL is our answer to every deck where taking T3 off doesn't just make us lose: Titan/scapeshift, UW control, Tron. I keep 2 in my sideboard and love them!
@Magpie: If you're looking to snipe Storm I'd advise running the G-Cage in the main. G1 let them set up their yard and Whir for Cage in resp to Past in Flames. Then also, I believe at the very least 1x Brutality should be run over the third Push. I mean, Brutality pushes all the Electromancers off cliffs just as well, but also nabs an important spell from their hand. It's the nuts, no?
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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.
Came back from GP Metz where i did all the 6 modern side events (4 rounds Swiss). Some games will be comment-less because i had no time until the next round starts. So let's go for a long recap.
G1 : He goes turn 1 hierarch, turn 2 finks, turn 3 more beasts and then he just used gavony to buff them and trample me.
G2 : I discard him turn 1, taking out a part of combo. Then i use a pithing needle on devoted druid and he plays kataki on turn 2. Game over.
Round 2 : ???
G1 : ???
G2 : ???
G3 : ???
Round 3 : UB take turns
G1 : Tried to disturb his plan by decaying his mine, but i dit not draw a kill.
G2 : I discarded him of all his take turns and he had only 1 mine on the play with 0 card in hand. But he drew 1 dictate and 1 mine from top at his turn and then went off.
Note on the match up : maybe a strong pack of decay and discard targeting his howling mine effects is the way to deal with this match up.
Round 4 : BW smallpox
G1 : He does not have an efficient way of dealing with the combo and loose to it in a few turns
G2 : We got stalled to the topdeck game 2 after he managed to get both stony silence and leyline of the void in play while i had a bridge. I went down to 7 cards in library but i eventually drawn a tezzeret to finish him. The maelstrom pulse would have done the job too, freeing the combo.
Swiss 2 : 3W/1L
Round 1 : UW control, not complete
G1 : Discard his counterspells and bury him with the combo
G2 : Pithing needle takes care of PW, Decay takes care of spheres and sideboard, Discard clears the way to carefully assemble the combo.
Round 2 : Valakut
G1 : Liliana empty the opposing hand so well that he only have 1 card left and 6 lands on turn 5. I check his hand with the discard i kept to take his kill and he only have a land. He topdecks a scapeshift.
G2 : He did'nt see any part of the combo so he gess that i am some sort of UB discard deck. He packs up leyline of sanctity to protect himself for the liliana's sac effect and discard instead of going for artifact removals. I thought that it was a fair trade for me before he play's madcap experiment and put Platinium emperion on the play.I have infinite turn combo but i can't remove the emperion ... without targeting him and left the pulse in the sideboard.
Round 3 : Nahiri control
G1 : He has nothing to remove the combo game 1 so i just swarmed him with tokens.
G2 : Pithing needle does his job and discard cuted out the blood moon.
Round 4 : Burn
G1 : He goes first and the combo does not comes fast enough
G2 : Combo online by turn 3 with a welding jar, he can't keep up with life-gain despite his 3 skullcrack
G3 : He keep a hand with 1 land and 1 progenitus relic but does not draw a land in 5 turn, giving me all the time i need to assemble the combo.
Swiss 3 : 4W/0L
Round 1 : Bant Eldrazi
G1 : He start pretty slow and discard reveal no TKS. So i take time to whir for pithing needle turn 3 naming explosives before landing bridge.
G2 : He packs up some counterspells to get rid of the bridge but dicard does the job and bridge still lands. Then whir for pithing naming explosives and he is doomed again.
Round 2 : Boggles
G1 : Bridge at 6 life blocking his beast. He does pop 3 1/1 to finish the job but i whir for a foundry, allowing me to sac mox opal and baubble to block his beasts.
G2 : Bridge wins it again and, if discard is disabled by leyline of sanctity, i'm still able to whir a welding jar for extra protection.
Round 3 : Elfball with druid combo
G1 : Not the same deck but same strategy, bridge does the game and even 0/2 are buffed by archidruid when do not allow any trick with collected company. His kill with infinite mana is ezuri so even that is blocked by the bridge. I feared for balista the whole game but he had none.
G2 : Same story.
Round 4 : Affinity
G1&2 : no record but i remember pithing needle and abrupt decay doing a nice job. Also the whir into needle surprises them,so needling the ravager is awesome.
Swiss 4 :2W/1L
Round 1 : EldraTron
G1 : The plan against Eldrazi decks is always the same : bridge him and use the main deck pithing needle to block his solution. Here i did exactly that : turn 3 bridge because he had no chance to have 7 mana next turn, then wait for him to cast Karn and pithing it in response with whir.
G2 : I landed the combo on turn 3 and then just swarmed him.
Round 2 :
EldraTron
G1 : He mulligan to 6 and kp. He goes tron land and map. On my turn i use IOK and find this : ulamog, all is dust, 2 more tron lands. On his turn he map for a second tower. I try to race him with the combo, but turn 3 all is dust, turn 4 ulamog is impossible to beat.
Sideboarding : I did a guess that it was more likely for him to be playing a regular tron when went of fast than an eldratron that had his two more expensive cards and no creature early. So i took out bridges.
G2 : The guy goes turn 1 tron land and map, on my turn i use decay on it hoping to slow him a bit. Then he goes turn 2 tron land, turn 3 full tron and use 7 mana to ... TKS and Matter reshaper ! Well, first loose against eldratron in 25 games but he disguised himself x)
Round 3 : bye
G1 :
G2 :
G3 :
Round 4 : Affinity red
G1 : Decay does the job well. It prevented him from racing me too fast by removing signal pest of a turn 1 hellbent. Then combo closes the deal
G2 : He goes more carefully and with a more heavy hand, playing overseer and master of etherium. I caught him with a turn 2 collective brutality discarding a sword to lower my hand count for a turn 3 bridge + welding jar. With 1 card in hand locking his attack step, he took too long finding a second artifact killer.
Swiss 5 :1W/1D/1L
Round 1 : Valakut
G1 : We both start assembling our stuffs fast. At his last turn he seemed to fear a negate and tried to kill my with titan to get 2 valakut and then add a land for a total of 18 in a turn, i had just 3 mana left to go to 19hp and stay at 1 hp. Next turn i whired for time sieve and infinite turn. Close one.
G2 : He keeps a hand with low lands but 2 scapeshift and 2 artifact destroyer (1 ancient grudge and 1 with only one use). I discarded the grudge because he was really slow at getting lands. It allowed me some time to find a spellskite to protect the combo. I started by playing sword, and then foundry. And here i guess he missplayed because in answer he destroyed the sword. Which came back after he tried to remove the foundry with flashbacked grudge. I redirected the grudge to the skite, and sacrified the skite to the foundry. After that the game was over for him.
Round 2 : Grixis shadow
G1 : After the first stage of the game that went mainly with discard the game went pretty lame. I bridged him and then drawn only lands, while him was chaining draw cards, lands and snapcasters on draw cards. He finally drew a kolagan's command and went off.
G2 : Game 2 i stayed a long time trying to assemble the combo through discard and counterspells. I finally landed a bridge that he destroyed and whired for the missing sword after a discard to make sure that they where no counterspell waiting.
G3 : 2 min left in round when we started playing, i discarded him life loss cards to make sure he would not kill me.
Round 3 : RG tron
Not much to say, it's tron, half of his deck counters our, the second half just ramp for the first half.
Round 4 : Intentional draw
Swiss 6 : 3W/0L
Round 1 : UW control
G1 : I discarded his counterspells and resolved the combo early. Then i kept a decay to remove any sphere that would come and the combo was too much to handle.
G2 : He managed to prevent me from landing my combo with tons of counterspells. Finally he killed me with CA and Celestial colonnades .
G3 : After side i have 10 discard spells so this time i managed to remove all his counterspells and resolved 1 foundry and 1 whir for the win.
Note : Pithing needle helped all games by keeping PW in check, especially jace that can nullify my attacks.
Round 2 : Eldratron
G1 : Not much to say : bridge turn 3 and kept whir in hand to resp karn or whir for infinite turn if possible. I did resp to karn and needled it, winning on the spot because he don't play ulamog main deck.
G2 : This one was closer because despite bridge and needle he managed to deal me 10 dmg through the bridge with 2 balistas at 10 mana. Still once the combo assembled i went out of range in 1 turn.
Round 3 : Bant spirit
G1 : It's an other deck that struggle getting over bridge. I whired for it on turn 3. it gave me a lot of time to assemble the combo.
G2 : Discard were important that game. I had to be really carefull with each spell because he drew 3 Mausoleum Wanderer and had a lot of open mana. I did'nt draw the bridge but i had a foundry so i had to whir for the 2nd part of the combo. It took sometime but i forced him to sac 2 of his wanderer to counter a 2 mode brutality and then finally whir to safety.
Round 4 : Intentional draw
Total : 15W/1D/5L
Personal thoughts about the tournament :
It seems like the match ups that rely on attacking creatures are really easy to win as planed.
I like time sieve a lot, against valakut it's often the only way to win game 1.
I'm considering adding 2 stoic rebuttal to help against other combo decks. It was a part of my first iteration of the deck and it was always awesome. I had more artifact back then but i think it can still do things.
@Xatrith: thanks for the report man. A 15W/1D/5L is pretty impressive.
Your sideboard, as of now, is only showing 9 cards. Care to update us this? Because I'm genuinely curious about your MB/SB configuration.
I'm noticing that you're really cutting back on Tezzeret AoB. Yet he's one of our best card against big mana and combo, as he closes games faster than Thopter & Sword ever could (without Sieve). But he's also a house against Midrange -- looking at Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron. And in the shifting meta where G-Tron is starting to show up again, I'd tend to run more of him, not less. What do you think?
I've also tried Pithing Needle as a 3-of between the boards in my last PPTQ run and, it felt like too many. Even against E-Tron where they have all the targets. With targeted discard and thanks to the reactive speed of Whir of Invention, I think two is the sweet spot; as in the third isn't bringing much to the table. What did you think of it?
Regarding your closing statements:
- Some games I've been losing to Elfball myself, or to Burn going under us. I'm personally going to go up on Flaying Tendrils in the side.
- Loving Sieve too. It's now an essential part of our core if you ask me.
- Rebuttal I'm not too high on. Exactly as @Curundil just put it, Whir enables us to play all our proactive tools at reactive speed, but it's also much more. A healthy mix of Whir and targeted discard (IoK, TS, Brutality) is more synergistic and at the end of the day, I think, gives us all the tools we need to win against the current field. Maybe a couple counterspells could do some work, but I doubt it's the best thing we can be doing with our sideboard slots. What is it exactly that you're trying to do against combo? Counter their key spell (à la Ad Nauseam)? Then Lost Legacy doest that. Punch through their countermagic? IoK/TS/Brutality/Sword and end-of-turn Whir as a bait does that. Defense Grid also works. Let us know, specifically.
@TugoTog: Rebuttal really becomes a liability in the face of aggro, when you're leaning on a Bridge -- one of the strongest cards in our deck, which we should totally be leaning on btw.
Regarding a blue-er approach to deckbuilding, I've tried it before to way less exciting results. And we've come so far. I really believe that we have a winning formula on our hands we really just need dedication to it. Deck is strong AF people, don't you agree?
Hi !
Thx for your answer and sorry about the sideboard things, the sorceries had no number value attached to it so they were not displayed. It is now corrected.
About tezz : you might have noticed that I've cut all the pentad prism of my deck, so there is no good target for his -1. A -1 that i tend to dislike a lot because we have no other target for removals main deck and so give a target to dead cards. Otherwise i feel it too slow against aggro decks, and they are ... well everywhere. You point out that it kills faster than the combo but i don't play as many artifacts as other list you can see here (turbo ones) so i often need the combo to generate enough artifacts for tezz's ult, at which point i'm already winning. I prefer sieve as a game closer, especially against control decks. Seems to me that Regular tron is an unwinnable match up, so i don't focus on it too much.
Pithing needle have a lot of match up where it does something. And in some of them it's just a game saving card. In most of those cases i want to draw it as often as necessary to make him survive the artifact hate/discard that shows up often. Adding more of it also allows me to draw it naturally and keep my Whir of inventions on combo pieces or locks cards.
Sometime we will loose on match ups where we are favored, just look at how i lost to Elrazi tron. Unlikely but not impossible. Basically the strategy against elves is the same : bridge and pithing needle walking balista.
Maybe i'm a bit biased on the stoic rebuttal subject because i keep being topdecked by valakut players after discarding them to an empty hand. The point would be to care of spell drawn after discard. Giving us time to find the piece that we need to close the game.
Hope that it will help you to understand the choices i made.
I've really dis-liked defense grid as a SB option. It's limited to affecting basically 1 archetype and even then it's not backbreaking. If you resolve it early (which is almost never) great. If you resolve it late, they have extra mana anyways for your threat so the card does nothing and opposes our Whir. That's been my experience with the card so I'd look elsewhere.
For that reason, I run atleast a single Slaughter games and usually 2 (vs. Lost Legacy) as it strips their cryptics and then we can usually punch through situational counters. All while also being great against a lot of other decks. I think it's only getting stronger too.
+1 for cage MB. Countless free wins from it and minimal impact to other games.
I don't think metallic rebuke is strong enough for a SB slot even considering synergy, but the time to add counterspells might be here. Maybe muddle is good enough as a SB slot to cover counte duty while providing redundancy in MU's where combo just wins? The non-bo torpor orb is starting to look good again too.
@Xatrith: Oh, hadn't noticed your relatively low artifact count and lack of Pentad Prism. Then Tezz getting somewhat underwhelming makes sense. All my suggestions were made in light of a Turbo build approach, which I believe strikes a good balance of answers vs. threat. And here's the key, I think:
When you're saying that you want to draw answers (Rebuttal) to the Scapeshift they might topdeck, I say I want to draw Tezz and get them dead. You are mentionning it:
Maybe i'm a bit biased on the stoic rebuttal subject because i keep being topdecked by valakut players after discarding them to an empty hand. The point would be to care of spell drawn after discard. Giving us time to find the piece that we need to close the game.
You won't need the counterspell if they're dead. I'm not spitballing here, but it's really been a long collective process of balancing answers vs. threat that brought us to the Turbo build -- not that there's no wiggle room, mind you, but I just want to make a point. And sometimes there's no better UNIVERSAL answer than the opponent being dead.
So maybe you should power back up your Tezzes?
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I'm not sure i made myself clear about the stoic rebuttal thing. I'm thinking of them as sideboard slots.
About the Tezz thing i feel like 2 liliana, 3 bridges, 4 whir and 1 tezz are already a lot of expensive cards making bridge a bit slow sometime. Yet i'm really happy about the one in the sideboard which is never a problem because he face match up where he is never too slow. I think tezz has not the same effect for a deck that can put it out on turn 3 than for a deck that can't. It would not help me face tron or valakut the way it does for you. In exchange for that loss of win rate against ramp decks i'm more resilient to discard, i disrupt more of my opponent's plan.
Note that if the meta goes slower or get grindy i will happily put back more tezz. I like the card a lot and i'm a bit disappointed to see that his -1 is usable only on a few decks.
PS : I saw on this post that someone said that Nihil spellbomb would not affect our swords and allow us to combo from there. Nice point, it also allow us to whir for it in emergency with only 3 mana if needed. I gess my relic is out.
vs bant collected counters 2-0
game1
first turn i inquisition a visor out of his hand, he had combo ready to go so we stopped that. durdle for a bit and get foundry out he trys to coco and i whir in a cage to stop any spicy stuff. i eventually get a bridge of tezz and sit back till i can get a sword and win.
game 2
game was kind of instense. i whir out a bridge to save myself and establish some position. he is beating me down with exalted birds and at one point gets a kessing till i needle it. get foundry online and draw into ironworks for infinite GG's
vs bring to light scapeshift(black version) 0-2
game 1
i know what im playing against and try to get something online quick. he cryptics the important stuff and scapeshift does what it does and i die.
game 2
im able to escalate brutality killing a huntmaster and grabbing a bring to light out of his hand and extract it. i stabilize pretty well and he goes on a beatdown plan. i set myself up for a win with ironworks out. i try to bait a counter with sword, then i whir on his endstep for foundry, it got countered. whir again also countered. he kills me with a wolf token and 2 sakura tribe elders.
vs UW control 2-0
game 1
he doesnt know what im playing. i inquisition a gideon of trials out of his hand. i play pentad prism. get a foundry out and i have ironworks in my hand. i bate a counter by casting tezz, then whir for the sword and precede to combo and win.
game 2
longest game of my life. i start by extracting a fetch land to get some information, then pithing needle gideon of trials for my first turn. im able to combo off at one point making infinite dudes he wants to play it out and top decks of all things a jace, architect of thought. he also lands a rest in peace and stony silence. im stuck sitting here keeping jace for going by swinging with 2 thopters that have swords. i cast tezz he detention spheres it. he finally gets rid of my pithing needle and makes a gideion emblem. we proceed to almost deck each other till it goes to turns and he gives me the win since i already won the first.
vs Esper control 2-1
game 1
this plays like all the control matches. i slam a diggers turn 1 and i can tell he wasnt pleased. we durdle for awhile i sneak out the combo and end up winning.
game 2
he gets down a stony silence right as i get my second piece of the combo. Narset of all walkers was in his sideboard which was massively problematic. he eventually kills me with gear hulk and colonnade.
game 3
i get an early foundry sword and am able to pump out 4 thopters before he gets a rest in peace. my thopters get in for about 8 dmg before he gets a board wipe. im able to get tezz on board and animate a citadel. im extremely worried about blessed alliance here. i make 1 last thopter, animate tar pit, and swing with everything for just enough dmg. he was also playing consume the meek which killed my tar pit in game 1 and 2
vs boros burn(splash green) 2-0
game 1
inquisition eidelon out of his hand and i have a quick foundry sword on 2 and 3. i was able to grind it out to get there. pretty close though as he got me down to 4
game 2
i was getting murdered. i was able to brutality escalate getting rid of an eidolon and ripping a boros charm out of hand. he is in top deck mode and im at 4. i cast a witchbane orb with prism and im struggling getting land. he hits me with a goblin guid finally i get a land. fetch to 1 and brutality with escalate to kill the guid and go back up to 3. cast a tezz and start going to work with 5/5's. i try to brutality again he responds by skull cracking himself so i dont gain the life. hes at 2 im at 3. he plays a swiftspear and swings. i whir in a spellskite and hope he doesnt have a revelry. he didnt and barely get the game.
ending thoughts. i think the control match ups are interesting and we can win but it takes alot of baiting and planning. I have 0 idea how to beat scapeshift. even whiring for orb if they are smart usually have a counter backup before they go off. i think i may also need to look into time sieve as there were games where taking an extra turn could have just won me the game. Also extracting fetchs was great for intel and although not back breaking to the opponent led to some interesting and worth while later plays.
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Also extracting fetchs was great for intel and although not back breaking to the opponent led to some interesting and worth while later plays.
I wouldn't extract fetches unless you know they have another in hand. Surgical are for making snapcasters into ambush vipers without deathtouch or royally hosing gy decks. I don't know that I'd even bring it in against control decks. Most of the time vs. them it is going to be a dead card.
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I haven't really considered gifts, but I will think on it and get back to you. Basically we use it to tutor for Sword? Or like snap/reckoning/damnation/x? What did you have in mind?
After trying the snapcaster/cryptic build I think it's a beautiful fit. and whirring for a sword, untapping playing a land and snap whirring for foundry is a totally busted play that allows us to keep up cryptic sheilds.
I'm trying a build with thoughtsiezes and I also think big tez fits this build a lot better because AOB needs a certain artifact density to not whiff on his plus whereas big tez just needs to survive a turn to get your combo online.
@jayjayhooks are you still uncertain on shackles? Also - anticipate vs thirst for knowledge... have you considered that at all?
The artifact count isn't high enough to justify Thirst For Knowledge. The deck could probably use at least a 2nd swords, and that might push TFK to being on par with Anticipate. They are close for sure, but Anticipate is just a little more mana efficient; a line that comes up often is holding back from casting a T2 Talisman to hold Mana Leak/Think Twice/Anticipate. Casting the Talisman on T3 then allows us to hold up the countermagic/anticipate a little longer.
Shackles is either really great, or really bad. But it's not a sideboard card because we run so few artifacts that our opponents are more prepared for it post-board. Unfortunately there really isn't a better alternative, as we need something to grab with Whir if Crucible wont cut it or if we don't already have a second combo piece and we are starting to fall behind.
I don't think Tezz the seeker is right for the deck - Almost everything else operates at instant speed and his + does even less than AOB + does without having an ability to protect itself. Even when AOB wiffs it puts us that much closer to finding a piece, but generally only drop AOB if you can minus it first. Sometimes a 4cmc 5/5 is a fast enough clock to turn the tide once you've gained control.
Thoughtseize is probably good. I just prefer to be counterspell heavy because the deck operates mostly at instant speed and our combo is fairly resistant to hate in G1. Thoughtseize/Inquistion out of the board is probably something I will consider going forward.
**Edit - After a few more matches, and some more thinking I've come to think it might be better to move up to 4 Talisman of Dominance and 1 R/B Talisman and switch Bontu's last Reckoning with Damnation. In the matchups where it matters, being able to T2 Talisman + Push and then T3 Damnation is likely better than Bontu's. I'm gonna keep playing with Bontu's because I'm having a blast with it, but I suggest testing the other way if you want to move forward with this deck competitively. I don't see myself moving off UW in the near future, especially with the new Planeswalker rule, but I'll keep checking in with you guys to see if it's developing at all, and posting any of my findings as well.
Cheers
With tez seeker I'm usually casting it when the game path is set so he's getting a bridge/time sieve ftw or he's a great win condition g2 when they have sided out a bunch of spot removal and have a bunch of stony/rip/wrath things happening. I have tick boomed him for the win in about half of my SB games so far. He has been so good I've cast him after using AOB for the turn, so imagining games with TWO Tezzes working together? Heaven.
I'll post a list if I get anything that feels good.
I agree about the damnations over bontu's but maybe a split instead of either/or.
Thoughtsieze/snap is really good against eldratron which is strong in my meta so I'm def brewing with a salty eye on that deck.
To be fair, I wasn't advocating Reckoning in traditional Tezz builds and it's inclusion wasn't a budget choice.
I'm still testing the card, in a very specific build, but I generally agree with your sentiments. So far in this specific testing, Reckoning has saved me more times than I can keep track of where a 4cmc sweeper would not have. I also don't think that Flaying Tendrils is a feasible maindeck consideration, whereas Reckoning is nearly never dead. Double black, in my specific build, is trivial by turn 3.
Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
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It's a small sample size, but I was lacking the wow factor that makes the deck exciting to me. I'm gonna tweak some more, but the initial fidnings are troubling.
J
I think that's what felt sad last night. I did have interactive cards like cryptic and mana leak, but my level of action was almost zero.
I'm going to test a deck with less land, more artifacts and aether grids main (and maybe a saheeli or two) Against most decks that run creatures grid is just insane. When you get thopter sword every thopter you make also dealing a damage (tap thopter and sword before sacrificng sword) is a really insane rate of return.
As for Saheeli I didn't realize her ultimate was so relevant.
Again, dank post Magpie.
Searches up foundry/sieve/tez/abrupt
Seems relevant and a way to remove redundancy/up versatility in the MB
The second paragraph here is in stark contradiction to the first. Ill sum it up how I read it, and you tell me if it's a fair assessment:
First paragraph - "Interactive cards are not good in conjunction with Thopter sword.(refering to mana leak, fatal push) People who play Control don't use combos therefore they are bad"
Second - "Our deck doesn't do well because it doesn't have interactive cards, can't kill creatures and can't touch lands " - sort of like how leak, snapcaster, cryptic and spreading seas do?
In the second paragraph you state that the deck is bad against Combo, Big mana, and aggro. I would suggest that it's also pretty bad against control. That makes it weak to basically every archetype that exists in the meta. Yet you defend the choice to not explore new territory.
I really can't understand where you are coming from.
Your sideboard, as of now, is only showing 9 cards. Care to update us this? Because I'm genuinely curious about your MB/SB configuration.
I'm noticing that you're really cutting back on Tezzeret AoB. Yet he's one of our best card against big mana and combo, as he closes games faster than Thopter & Sword ever could (without Sieve). But he's also a house against Midrange -- looking at Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron. And in the shifting meta where G-Tron is starting to show up again, I'd tend to run more of him, not less. What do you think?
I've also tried Pithing Needle as a 3-of between the boards in my last PPTQ run and, it felt like too many. Even against E-Tron where they have all the targets. With targeted discard and thanks to the reactive speed of Whir of Invention, I think two is the sweet spot; as in the third isn't bringing much to the table. What did you think of it?
Regarding your closing statements:
- Some games I've been losing to Elfball myself, or to Burn going under us. I'm personally going to go up on Flaying Tendrils in the side.
- Loving Sieve too. It's now an essential part of our core if you ask me.
- Rebuttal I'm not too high on. Exactly as @Curundil just put it, Whir enables us to play all our proactive tools at reactive speed, but it's also much more. A healthy mix of Whir and targeted discard (IoK, TS, Brutality) is more synergistic and at the end of the day, I think, gives us all the tools we need to win against the current field. Maybe a couple counterspells could do some work, but I doubt it's the best thing we can be doing with our sideboard slots. What is it exactly that you're trying to do against combo? Counter their key spell (à la Ad Nauseam)? Then Lost Legacy doest that. Punch through their countermagic? IoK/TS/Brutality/Sword and end-of-turn Whir as a bait does that. Defense Grid also works. Let us know, specifically.
@TugoTog: Rebuttal really becomes a liability in the face of aggro, when you're leaning on a Bridge -- one of the strongest cards in our deck, which we should totally be leaning on btw.
Regarding a blue-er approach to deckbuilding, I've tried it before to way less exciting results. And we've come so far. I really believe that we have a winning formula on our hands we really just need dedication to it. Deck is strong AF people, don't you agree?
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Hi !
Thx for your answer and sorry about the sideboard things, the sorceries had no number value attached to it so they were not displayed. It is now corrected.
About tezz : you might have noticed that I've cut all the pentad prism of my deck, so there is no good target for his -1. A -1 that i tend to dislike a lot because we have no other target for removals main deck and so give a target to dead cards. Otherwise i feel it too slow against aggro decks, and they are ... well everywhere. You point out that it kills faster than the combo but i don't play as many artifacts as other list you can see here (turbo ones) so i often need the combo to generate enough artifacts for tezz's ult, at which point i'm already winning. I prefer sieve as a game closer, especially against control decks. Seems to me that Regular tron is an unwinnable match up, so i don't focus on it too much.
Pithing needle have a lot of match up where it does something. And in some of them it's just a game saving card. In most of those cases i want to draw it as often as necessary to make him survive the artifact hate/discard that shows up often. Adding more of it also allows me to draw it naturally and keep my Whir of inventions on combo pieces or locks cards.
Sometime we will loose on match ups where we are favored, just look at how i lost to Elrazi tron. Unlikely but not impossible. Basically the strategy against elves is the same : bridge and pithing needle walking balista.
Maybe i'm a bit biased on the stoic rebuttal subject because i keep being topdecked by valakut players after discarding them to an empty hand. The point would be to care of spell drawn after discard. Giving us time to find the piece that we need to close the game.
Hope that it will help you to understand the choices i made.
For that reason, I run atleast a single Slaughter games and usually 2 (vs. Lost Legacy) as it strips their cryptics and then we can usually punch through situational counters. All while also being great against a lot of other decks. I think it's only getting stronger too.
+1 for cage MB. Countless free wins from it and minimal impact to other games.
I don't think metallic rebuke is strong enough for a SB slot even considering synergy, but the time to add counterspells might be here. Maybe muddle is good enough as a SB slot to cover counte duty while providing redundancy in MU's where combo just wins? The non-bo torpor orb is starting to look good again too.
When you're saying that you want to draw answers (Rebuttal) to the Scapeshift they might topdeck, I say I want to draw Tezz and get them dead. You are mentionning it:
You won't need the counterspell if they're dead. I'm not spitballing here, but it's really been a long collective process of balancing answers vs. threat that brought us to the Turbo build -- not that there's no wiggle room, mind you, but I just want to make a point. And sometimes there's no better UNIVERSAL answer than the opponent being dead.
So maybe you should power back up your Tezzes?
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
About the Tezz thing i feel like 2 liliana, 3 bridges, 4 whir and 1 tezz are already a lot of expensive cards making bridge a bit slow sometime. Yet i'm really happy about the one in the sideboard which is never a problem because he face match up where he is never too slow. I think tezz has not the same effect for a deck that can put it out on turn 3 than for a deck that can't. It would not help me face tron or valakut the way it does for you. In exchange for that loss of win rate against ramp decks i'm more resilient to discard, i disrupt more of my opponent's plan.
Note that if the meta goes slower or get grindy i will happily put back more tezz. I like the card a lot and i'm a bit disappointed to see that his -1 is usable only on a few decks.
PS : I saw on this post that someone said that Nihil spellbomb would not affect our swords and allow us to combo from there. Nice point, it also allow us to whir for it in emergency with only 3 mana if needed. I gess my relic is out.
4 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
3 watery grave
1 breeding pool
3 darkslick shores
2 creeping tar pit
2 ghost quarter
2 darksteel citadel
1 inventors' fair
2 island
1 swamp
sorcery
4 serum visions
3 inquisition of kozilek
2 collective brutality
4 whir of invention
4 fatal push
artifacts
4 thopter foundry
3 sword of the meek
3 pentad prism
2 talisman of dominance
1 grafdigger's cage
1 relic of progenitus
1 pithing needle
1 welding jar
1 ensnaring bridge
1 krark-clan ironworks
walkers
3 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 collective brutality
2 damnation
2 spellskite
3 abrupt decay
3 surgical extraction
1 engineered explosives
1 ratchet bomb
1 witchbane orb
vs bant collected counters 2-0
game1
first turn i inquisition a visor out of his hand, he had combo ready to go so we stopped that. durdle for a bit and get foundry out he trys to coco and i whir in a cage to stop any spicy stuff. i eventually get a bridge of tezz and sit back till i can get a sword and win.
game 2
game was kind of instense. i whir out a bridge to save myself and establish some position. he is beating me down with exalted birds and at one point gets a kessing till i needle it. get foundry online and draw into ironworks for infinite GG's
vs bring to light scapeshift(black version) 0-2
game 1
i know what im playing against and try to get something online quick. he cryptics the important stuff and scapeshift does what it does and i die.
game 2
im able to escalate brutality killing a huntmaster and grabbing a bring to light out of his hand and extract it. i stabilize pretty well and he goes on a beatdown plan. i set myself up for a win with ironworks out. i try to bait a counter with sword, then i whir on his endstep for foundry, it got countered. whir again also countered. he kills me with a wolf token and 2 sakura tribe elders.
vs UW control 2-0
game 1
he doesnt know what im playing. i inquisition a gideon of trials out of his hand. i play pentad prism. get a foundry out and i have ironworks in my hand. i bate a counter by casting tezz, then whir for the sword and precede to combo and win.
game 2
longest game of my life. i start by extracting a fetch land to get some information, then pithing needle gideon of trials for my first turn. im able to combo off at one point making infinite dudes he wants to play it out and top decks of all things a jace, architect of thought. he also lands a rest in peace and stony silence. im stuck sitting here keeping jace for going by swinging with 2 thopters that have swords. i cast tezz he detention spheres it. he finally gets rid of my pithing needle and makes a gideion emblem. we proceed to almost deck each other till it goes to turns and he gives me the win since i already won the first.
vs Esper control 2-1
game 1
this plays like all the control matches. i slam a diggers turn 1 and i can tell he wasnt pleased. we durdle for awhile i sneak out the combo and end up winning.
game 2
he gets down a stony silence right as i get my second piece of the combo. Narset of all walkers was in his sideboard which was massively problematic. he eventually kills me with gear hulk and colonnade.
game 3
i get an early foundry sword and am able to pump out 4 thopters before he gets a rest in peace. my thopters get in for about 8 dmg before he gets a board wipe. im able to get tezz on board and animate a citadel. im extremely worried about blessed alliance here. i make 1 last thopter, animate tar pit, and swing with everything for just enough dmg. he was also playing consume the meek which killed my tar pit in game 1 and 2
vs boros burn(splash green) 2-0
game 1
inquisition eidelon out of his hand and i have a quick foundry sword on 2 and 3. i was able to grind it out to get there. pretty close though as he got me down to 4
game 2
i was getting murdered. i was able to brutality escalate getting rid of an eidolon and ripping a boros charm out of hand. he is in top deck mode and im at 4. i cast a witchbane orb with prism and im struggling getting land. he hits me with a goblin guid finally i get a land. fetch to 1 and brutality with escalate to kill the guid and go back up to 3. cast a tezz and start going to work with 5/5's. i try to brutality again he responds by skull cracking himself so i dont gain the life. hes at 2 im at 3. he plays a swiftspear and swings. i whir in a spellskite and hope he doesnt have a revelry. he didnt and barely get the game.
ending thoughts. i think the control match ups are interesting and we can win but it takes alot of baiting and planning. I have 0 idea how to beat scapeshift. even whiring for orb if they are smart usually have a counter backup before they go off. i think i may also need to look into time sieve as there were games where taking an extra turn could have just won me the game. Also extracting fetchs was great for intel and although not back breaking to the opponent led to some interesting and worth while later plays.
Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
I wouldn't extract fetches unless you know they have another in hand. Surgical are for making snapcasters into ambush vipers without deathtouch or royally hosing gy decks. I don't know that I'd even bring it in against control decks. Most of the time vs. them it is going to be a dead card.