Yeah I have to admit that I wasn’t able to remember what Amulet deck was about... I just watch him play and have been surprised by the tolaria transmute to Sumomers pact to Titan. And then the lands giving haste etc... I clearly wasn’t on point and yes he always had a reclamation sage.
@deleno sometimes the deck is great, sometimes it’s clunky and dies. It’s a two card combo that doesn’t instantly win the game. You have to love the deck and keep tuning it or play some actual tier one deck. But you’re right, is the juice worth the squeeze? If trying to take down a big tournament - no. Not currently.
Personally it is worth the squeeze as you say! I own affinity, living end, lantern, hardened scale (yes artefacts are life for me) and have access to burn or somethimes UW Control. When I began going to larger and more comptetitive event I always felt like I had to play better/tier one deck and even when I had some result, I was not enjoying it. So I stopped that to now only play the decks that I enjoy playing and Oh Boy I love our Tezz !
The addition of KCi was quite interesting for me and opened new interaction that sometimes saved my ass! I know that a lot of you play Time sieve instead but currently I am more comfortable with KCI.
I hope the new set gives us new toy to play with but currently I am not even sure what kind of tool I hope for the deck... some ideas ?
I remember the time people said all this deck needed to be Perfect was access to Jace TMS but seems the unban wasn’t enough
I think draw engine could be nice for our deck but with a totally other plan than the current Bridge one. I will maybe try some other stuff with the deck during casual modern event.
I'm right there with you @Mysa_21. I like fringe decks that have character. Tezzerator is the epitome of that. People sometimes forget that most of us play this because we love it. I have 8-rack which i love as well and mono green stompy for new players that are interested in modern but are intimidated by the price tag on most decks. I own a shop in the states and always try to get new players into the game.
Awesome job on the tournament and report! Any changes you're thinking of after the tournament? I've definitely thought about just straight up main boarding the Abrupt Decays in place of the Fatal Pushes but i do think opponents are somewhat blindsided by them post board and i like having that slight advantage. every little bit helps with this deck.
Did you feel like you would have wanted a Torpor Orb in the sideboard? I'm thinking of dropping the one of in my side board as well as the second Nihil Spellbomb for 2x Surgical Extractions. I'm on 6 hand disruption spells in the main and can go up to 8 post sideboard. I feel like a couple surgicals could do some work. How did the one of work out for you during the tournament? It brings my sideboard artifact count down from 6 to 4 though. Dunno if that will be an issue at all. Current main deck artifact count is 24.
The KCI vs Time Sieve is usually a matter of preference. I don't think one is better than the other. However, I like NOT running KCI cause it is on everyone's radar right now.
I love pithing needles and similar effects. i never feel like i have enough. playing against Coco decks makes me wish my entire deck consisted of needle effect and the combo!
Hello everyone, it's been a long time since I've been in on this deck, but I shared all my thoughts on it on Reddit, and would love to know what you guys think about where I am at with the archetype. I feel like Pyrite Spellbomb is an all-star right now: LINK
@LachOut:I was going to reply to you on reddit but then realized I wrote just about a book in response. Saw you posted here so thought that I'd leave my reply here instead.
I'm not sure you identified the weaknesses of the deck appropriately.
1.)You start by stating UW is popular and seem to propose that it is a match-up that needs fixing. This isn't true. Once you have 4x Thopter Foundry and 4x Whir of Invention you have 8 "effective" copies of thopter foundry in your deck in addition to 8 more cards that can dig to those pieces. Against control you only need to stick ONE thopter foundry and you are a huge favorite to win the game. Post board gets significantly more difficult for you but if you pack alternate win conditions and 2+ abrupt decay it is still very winnable.
Starting with your stated problems:
1.) You only need ~ 22 artifacts to make Whir of Invention/Mox Opal/Tezzeret reasonably reliable. In fact despite being an artifact deck you want to play as few artifacts as possible. Why? Imagine a deck that is 20 lands and 40 artifacts. If you cut one artifact for any new card than that new card is likely to be the best possible card for your deck since it wasn't chosen from a subset of the population of magic cards. In addition to that the artifact you cut is the WORST card in your deck. The trick is to run as few artifacts as possible while still powering up the necessary artifact-matters cards. Mathematically, that number is ~ 22 artifacts for Whir of Invention builds.
2.)Despite what modern players like to tell everyone you are not dead on turn 4 90% of the time. Combo online or nearly hellbent with ensnaring bridge in play by turn 3 is fast enough. Your solution to trim the combo and play more 3 and 4 drops than normal is exactly the opposite of what you want to be doing to speed yourself up. Think ahead, play to your outs and you should come out of the gate fast enough to play with even the fastest decks in modern. If your meta is particularly fast look into playing more main deck removal.
3.)Thinking the deck leans heavily on Ensnaring Bridge just means the combo isn't getting together consistently enough. Looking at the top ten decks in modern right now: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online the only times you NEED the Ensnaring Bridge is against Humans and depending on the speed of there draw versus your draw Hollow One and Bant Spirits. Other than that the combo is more than enough to stop them dead. Ensnaring Bridge is one of my most commonly boarded out cards but due to its raw power and ability for fringe decks to just kill you without it you have to play it main deck.
4.) Of the cards you listed the only one I would consider standard is the Welding Jar. Spellskite and Dampening Sphere should be in the board and playing the third combo piece is still debatable.
5.)Pyrite Spellbomb seems fine against humans but fatal push is on color and more effective against a variety of decks. Stretching your mana base into red for one card is not worth it.
6.)Your mana base has only 17 lands that make blue and if we count 2 of the Mox Opals (Legend rule, get destroyed, not always online) that gives you 19. Every time you draw only two lands or three lands but one isn't blue, you slow down Whir of Invention by a turn and that is a quick way to lose a lot of the fast games. 21-22 blue sources is far more consistent.
What I believe are the real problems facing the deck:
1.) The degenerate starts of this deck don't compare to the degenerate starts of most other combo decks in the format. The best possible start against a goldfish is a t4 win that requires you draw 8 specific cards in your top 11-12. Versus Storm/Infect/AdNauseum/Burn/Hollow One/Bridgevine having theoretical turn 3 kills and much more consistent kills beyond T4.
2.)The deck is incredibly hard to fine tune to the perceived meta game. Much like Kiki-Chord if you go into the tournament misunderstanding the field you will get punished and often lose. The deck is not currently good enough to attract the attention of pros or grinders so it is largely a grassroots effort to build up the deck.
3.)The deck requires a critical mass of artifacts to function but has very few auto-include value artifacts to play. You have to stretch to fill out the artifact slots and that means you are playing worse cards than your opponent most of the time. (WOTC Baleful Strix WHEN?!)
4.) It has a huge target on it's back despite not even being a player in the meta game. Getting aggressively hated out by affinity or KCI sideboard cards hurts the deck significantly going in to post board games.
The only one of these 4 you can fix is number 2 and it will take way more time and practice than it is worth to play a tier 3+ deck right now.
I don't mean to discourage you or anyone else from playing this deck. I love this deck. I want more people to play it. But it seemed like you were relatively new to the deck and falling into some of the traps that many of us testing the deck for years have already thoroughly tested.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Hello, thanks for the reply, see my reply below. In summary, I think you misunderstood what I was going for a bit:
Let me clarify something first: I didn't say this deck was weak against UW Control, I was making the point that artifact prison decks are usually weak vs control, and turned to this deck as a prison deck that can perform well in the matchup, as I believe that Tezz and Thopter/Sword are great against UW. I have played this deck in the past, a full year ago I was playing it in the PPTQ circuit and won a large PPTQ with it. I eventually came off it as I am a Grixis Control player at heart, but am revisiting it as I think it might be an interesting meta deck right now.
On artifact count, I specifically wanted to make turn 1 Mox Opal and Glimmervoid reliable. I wasn't trying to force up the artifact count in this deck in general overall. This is because I love painless mana and the flexibility of these lands, and think that Mox Opal is the most powerful card in the deck. In the past my old builds were closer to your current build, and I found that Opal usually came online on turn 2, which is not powerful. To that end I wanted to maximise the number of cmc 0-1 artifacts. I also didn't want to run mainboard cards that are soft to UW, so I picked spellbomb as it can cycle (which also makes hitting land drops more reliable in a pinch)
I understand what you are saying on card quality, the problem with that view is that I am approaching this build as a prison build first and foremost. I want to maximise my whir targets, and the only artifact that I would even begin to question for its effect (ignoring card type) is spellbomb, but in the context of this being an ensnaring bridge deck (which I see as a strength to be maximised, not a weakness/crutch to be compensated for) I am excited by the card because the effect and rate are perfect. I don't need more from my removal spell than a shock because bridge covers everything else and this card cycles, helping the deck to be more consistent and meaning it is not a crap card (like push) against control. I also like that I can get it out of my hand before I need to call upon it
My aim is not to build around the combo, only to have access to it in the matchups where it is good. In my experience of modern the combo is usually but not always good enough. The top 10 decks are <40% of the meta combined and bridge isn't bad against even any of those. I like having 4 bridges as it frees up my whirs for things like the combo when it is good, and bridge is never bad.
Yeah ok on typical cards. I wanted to sideboard jar as again I am trying to snipe control Jar also isn't as good here as other prison decks as we don't run Tolaria West/explosives/main chalice/Tezzeret the Seeker so I don't mind seeing it go form the main
I think the beauty of spellbomb is that mana isn't stretched with enough cheap artifacts and I don't want removal, only bridge. Spellbomb kills the only creatures that ruin the bridge plan (noble hierarchs, freebooter, meddling mage, etc.) Already mentioned that I rate cycling very highly and have tended to use it more than the 2 dmg mode as removal is usually unnecessary. This is why a deck like U/R Prison doesn't need removal
My Moxes are more reliably on than normal remember, I think it's fairly reasonable to count them as legend-ruling myself isn't such a bad thing. I was considering this to be 21 blue sources in deck-building for that reason. Agreed it is something I should monitor and could considering cutting back on Academy Ruins for an Island or something.
In summary, i think your criticisms come from you wanting this to be a Thopter/Sword deck and me just wanting a prison deck with access to some ways to apply pressure. There was a time when I was on 2 Bridges in this archetype and in that world I'd lower my Mox and artifact count down towards 22 and follow your suggestions in general I think. Looking at the problems of the deck:
Agreed. I think that trying to out-compete the combo decks here is not realistic for this deck, without major sacrifices. Focusing on being a good bridge deck does however let you beat the degenerate starts of decks like Hollow One, Bridgevine, Bogles and elves though. My approahc to this problem is to dodge the spell-based combo decks or hope to get lucky. With my build I also have to dodge Tron.
Agreed. I am specifically targeting a meta full of Hollow One, Bridgevine, UW and Humans with my build, and not much else, which may help to explain some of my card choices.
I think that my build doesn't suffer from this problem as the only truly weak artifacts are narrow ones like witchbane orb / grafdiggers cage in matchups where they suck and the ones that cycle... But they cycle so I am basically increasing the density of really good cards by using them. I find that needle effects generally more than justify themselves. Especially post-board I tihnk our top-decks tend to be insanely good as many of our hits are extremely powerful
20 lands + 4 Whir + 3 Tezz + 4 Bridge + 1 Cloister + 1 Witchbane? I feel like we are going to have a hand full of uncastable cards a lot. Maybe 22ish lands with Opal would be fine? Nihil Spellbomb seems like a card you might want to split with Pyrite.
I've been doing something a little different lately. Since we have access to 8 rainbow lands, generally run fine with a fairly low land count, don't mind discarding, and almost never have an important creature, I've been wondering how playable Smallpox is. The one downside is obviously that our optimal T3 plays involves a whir or bridge and Smallpox is going back a mana, but it's very often hurting our opponent far more.
So after a year of following this thread and slowly buying the pieces for the deck, I finally got to play it for the first time last night. I went 0-4, all due to inexperience, but I had fun playing. It looks like the meta at my lgs is Tron, Merfolk and Control. Some of the guys I played strongly suggested I put some discard in my sideboard, maybe even in the main. I'm not really sure what to cut, so I was hoping for some suggestions. My current deck is heavily based off of Racing089's list.
Should I cut the green and Abrupt Decays? I do have a playset of Thoughtseizes and Inquisitions, and I'm willing to invest in LotV if necessary. Anything to stop Hurkyl's Recall. That Merfolk player blew me out with it. And yeah, I need one more Mox Opal. Still working on that lol
@HILTONMODE
Congrats on building the deck, welcome in the Family. I hope those results didn’t discourage you to play it. The thing with this deck is that you need to play it a lot to understand the timing needed with you card. You have to know when to play threats vs when to play lock piece targeting directly your opponent’s plan and to do so you need to be as aware as possible of all you possibility at every moment of the game. Literally every time you have the priority you need to analyse if you have to whir for something specific now or if you wait etc.
Even if I play the deck for one year and a half intensively, every time I do small changes in the main deck, I struggle a bit to remember if I have one or 2 pithing needle or if I have a Nihil spellbomb or a GrafsdiggerCage etc.. You need to be so aware of your deck and your opponent deck, tricky sometimes.
So far there’s is no major problem with your deck list, I mean there are a ton of different ones here and what I see is that you have a functional one. Of course 3 Mox Opal will really help but I understand your are still building.
Since you play a 4/3 thopter sword you could maybe but one Tezzeret in the side and Adding the 3rd Collective brutality. This card is so good and it let’s you discard if you draw too many combo piece and is so good with Bridge.
I don’t recommand you to cut the Abrupt Decay since they are sometimes our only answer vs RiP or Stony Silence or even an Early Liliana of the Veil. I board them in 70% of the time.
Keep playing it and try a lot of small tweak to find what suits you and your mets the most, I am sure other will add some advice for you, I just convered a little here.
Edit : I didn’t see that your only green sources were a Breeding Pool and 1 Mox ... so yeah you will maybe struggle with the decay. Add some Spire of Industry in your manabase and the Decay won’t be a problem, you can even try a Maelstrom Pulse if you want.
So after a year of following this thread and slowly buying the pieces for the deck, I finally got to play it for the first time last night. I went 0-4, all due to inexperience, but I had fun playing. It looks like the meta at my lgs is Tron, Merfolk and Control. Some of the guys I played strongly suggested I put some discard in my sideboard, maybe even in the main. I'm not really sure what to cut, so I was hoping for some suggestions. My current deck is heavily based off of Racing089's list.
Should I cut the green and Abrupt Decays? I do have a playset of Thoughtseizes and Inquisitions, and I'm willing to invest in LotV if necessary. Anything to stop Hurkyl's Recall. That Merfolk player blew me out with it. And yeah, I need one more Mox Opal. Still working on that lol
Sorry to hear you went 0-4, but glad you're not discouraged. Mysa was right that the deck takes a lot of practice.
If I could give you some card swap suggestions, let me say that 4 Push + 3 Bridge is way too much creature hate, given the fact that you will reliably assemble the combo to make blockers. I would go -4 push, -1 bridge, especially if your meta is a lot of tron and control. That's 5 slots that can be anything from discard to main-deck decay (to open up a few SB slots). There's also nothing wrong with main-decking damping sphere if you expect tron. Also, I agree with Mysa that 3 Tezz is a lot, main. I would try going -1 Tezz, -1 Talisman, and putting in +2 Chromatic Star. The card is becoming a 4-of in most of my builds, as 1-drops are very important, and it acts as a cantrip, ramp for whir, fixes your mana, and a is great card to sac to foundry.
In the SB, I would take out a relic (as you already have 2 graveyard hate cards maindeck), and put in more enchantment hate. I've been running Back to Nature, but if you're looking for something less narrow that will hit: D-Sphere, Leyline of the Void, RiP, and Stony, Krosan Grip is not a bad choice. It also hoses affinity quite well.
Just saw Reid Duke played a single Murderous Cut in his recent Abzan list. I kinda like that as a 1x for us as well. I consistently curse the fact that Push doesn't hit Gurmag/Smasher/etc. I've even considered just playing the Dismember. Cut has the similar upside of being able to pay mana when it's available, but only costing 1-2 most of the time.
Hey guys I'm building this deck but probably won't have the cards for a bit now, probably around February. I know as a prison/control deck cards change often but here is the list I'm starting out with.
I've chosen the more spell/discard heavy route as I think having too many silver bullets is just hoping you get them. Having more interaction to stay alive until you combo off/take control of the game I've found effective in my current modern deck Blue tron. I will probably ending up getting a second Mox Opal to "speed up" the deck but have more consistent mana especially with bloodmoon decks in my current meta. Do any of you have thoughts/ suggestions I should change/make to help make this better?
I've been testing on xmage with okay results and goldfish is alot of proxies I've printed out. I definitely enjoy the lots of discard spells.
Murderous Cut seems pretty solid. Though personally I'm still a fan of Battle at the Bridge. It's pretty sweet and is not that hard to get it able to kill most things. I've cast it for 9 against bogles to kill a giant spirit dancer. I've cast it for 14 before in a stalemate situation. That was kinda overkill, but might as well gain as much life as you can!
I've also been trying out the Pyrite Spellbomb idea, and to be honest, I'm kinda digging it. Humans is already pretty good, but it certainly does help out there. I always like some cheap artifacts to make whir/opal better. Chromatic Star is totally another option, and when used for card draw is a fair bit cheaper. However I do like spellbomb's ability to kill something or draw a card depending on the situation. Playing 4 Glimmervoid scares me a little, so I've opted for 2 glimmervoid, 4 Spire, 4 fetchlands, with a watery grave, breeding pool, and steam vents. I dunno if it's the right way to go with the manabase, but it's what I'm trying out lately. I don't think it's a slam dunk sure thing that the deck needs, but I think it's a viable option
Thanks for the insight. I'll definitely keep practicing with the deck, I love how much I have to think while I'm playing it. Also, good call on Spire of Industry. Those will definitely help until I get my hands on another Opal.
@the nobodys
Chromatic star looks so good, I may get a playset. And I didn't even know Back to Nature existed, thanks so much.
Does anyone remember what we were doing before they unbanned Sword of the Meek?!? I've been "trying" to play the deck since i saw Shouta Yasooka's list way back when it was spot removal, hand disruption, Tez/Lili, and some sweet, sweet Batterskull action . I know we stuck to that for a while. Then another Japanese player started jamming Whir if Invention in the deck. Now I can't remember if that was post Sword unbanning or not or what the hell our decklists looked like before it got unbanned!
**Also Completely of any topic but what i really wanted to talk about**
What kind of bans completely destroy our deck? It always worries me cause i don't want to ever have to play another deck in modern.
I've heard people speak of and/or complain about Mox Opal and Ensnaring Bridge. I feel like we just say, "f*%k the police" and play Damnation or Bontu's Last Reckoning(OMG, bring back a one of Consume the Meek) if Bridge ever got the ax
Can we still function efficiently without Opal, though? I'm not trying to ramp out Whirs anymore so i feel like we could do without the 0 drop but I'm a terrible magic player so...
What do y'all think?
PS: I might hit up an IQ or 1k today so wish me luck! Tezzeret Collective FTW!!!
The addition of KCi was quite interesting for me and opened new interaction that sometimes saved my ass! I know that a lot of you play Time sieve instead but currently I am more comfortable with KCI.
I hope the new set gives us new toy to play with but currently I am not even sure what kind of tool I hope for the deck... some ideas ?
I remember the time people said all this deck needed to be Perfect was access to Jace TMS but seems the unban wasn’t enough
I think draw engine could be nice for our deck but with a totally other plan than the current Bridge one. I will maybe try some other stuff with the deck during casual modern event.
Awesome job on the tournament and report! Any changes you're thinking of after the tournament? I've definitely thought about just straight up main boarding the Abrupt Decays in place of the Fatal Pushes but i do think opponents are somewhat blindsided by them post board and i like having that slight advantage. every little bit helps with this deck.
Did you feel like you would have wanted a Torpor Orb in the sideboard? I'm thinking of dropping the one of in my side board as well as the second Nihil Spellbomb for 2x Surgical Extractions. I'm on 6 hand disruption spells in the main and can go up to 8 post sideboard. I feel like a couple surgicals could do some work. How did the one of work out for you during the tournament? It brings my sideboard artifact count down from 6 to 4 though. Dunno if that will be an issue at all. Current main deck artifact count is 24.
The KCI vs Time Sieve is usually a matter of preference. I don't think one is better than the other. However, I like NOT running KCI cause it is on everyone's radar right now.
I love pithing needles and similar effects. i never feel like i have enough. playing against Coco decks makes me wish my entire deck consisted of needle effect and the combo!
1.)You start by stating UW is popular and seem to propose that it is a match-up that needs fixing. This isn't true. Once you have 4x Thopter Foundry and 4x Whir of Invention you have 8 "effective" copies of thopter foundry in your deck in addition to 8 more cards that can dig to those pieces. Against control you only need to stick ONE thopter foundry and you are a huge favorite to win the game. Post board gets significantly more difficult for you but if you pack alternate win conditions and 2+ abrupt decay it is still very winnable.
Starting with your stated problems:
1.) You only need ~ 22 artifacts to make Whir of Invention/Mox Opal/Tezzeret reasonably reliable. In fact despite being an artifact deck you want to play as few artifacts as possible. Why? Imagine a deck that is 20 lands and 40 artifacts. If you cut one artifact for any new card than that new card is likely to be the best possible card for your deck since it wasn't chosen from a subset of the population of magic cards. In addition to that the artifact you cut is the WORST card in your deck. The trick is to run as few artifacts as possible while still powering up the necessary artifact-matters cards. Mathematically, that number is ~ 22 artifacts for Whir of Invention builds.
2.)Despite what modern players like to tell everyone you are not dead on turn 4 90% of the time. Combo online or nearly hellbent with ensnaring bridge in play by turn 3 is fast enough. Your solution to trim the combo and play more 3 and 4 drops than normal is exactly the opposite of what you want to be doing to speed yourself up. Think ahead, play to your outs and you should come out of the gate fast enough to play with even the fastest decks in modern. If your meta is particularly fast look into playing more main deck removal.
3.)Thinking the deck leans heavily on Ensnaring Bridge just means the combo isn't getting together consistently enough. Looking at the top ten decks in modern right now: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online the only times you NEED the Ensnaring Bridge is against Humans and depending on the speed of there draw versus your draw Hollow One and Bant Spirits. Other than that the combo is more than enough to stop them dead. Ensnaring Bridge is one of my most commonly boarded out cards but due to its raw power and ability for fringe decks to just kill you without it you have to play it main deck.
4.) Of the cards you listed the only one I would consider standard is the Welding Jar. Spellskite and Dampening Sphere should be in the board and playing the third combo piece is still debatable.
5.)Pyrite Spellbomb seems fine against humans but fatal push is on color and more effective against a variety of decks. Stretching your mana base into red for one card is not worth it.
6.)Your mana base has only 17 lands that make blue and if we count 2 of the Mox Opals (Legend rule, get destroyed, not always online) that gives you 19. Every time you draw only two lands or three lands but one isn't blue, you slow down Whir of Invention by a turn and that is a quick way to lose a lot of the fast games. 21-22 blue sources is far more consistent.
What I believe are the real problems facing the deck:
1.) The degenerate starts of this deck don't compare to the degenerate starts of most other combo decks in the format. The best possible start against a goldfish is a t4 win that requires you draw 8 specific cards in your top 11-12. Versus Storm/Infect/AdNauseum/Burn/Hollow One/Bridgevine having theoretical turn 3 kills and much more consistent kills beyond T4.
2.)The deck is incredibly hard to fine tune to the perceived meta game. Much like Kiki-Chord if you go into the tournament misunderstanding the field you will get punished and often lose. The deck is not currently good enough to attract the attention of pros or grinders so it is largely a grassroots effort to build up the deck.
3.)The deck requires a critical mass of artifacts to function but has very few auto-include value artifacts to play. You have to stretch to fill out the artifact slots and that means you are playing worse cards than your opponent most of the time. (WOTC Baleful Strix WHEN?!)
4.) It has a huge target on it's back despite not even being a player in the meta game. Getting aggressively hated out by affinity or KCI sideboard cards hurts the deck significantly going in to post board games.
The only one of these 4 you can fix is number 2 and it will take way more time and practice than it is worth to play a tier 3+ deck right now.
My list for refrence: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1312482#online
I don't mean to discourage you or anyone else from playing this deck. I love this deck. I want more people to play it. But it seemed like you were relatively new to the deck and falling into some of the traps that many of us testing the deck for years have already thoroughly tested.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Let me clarify something first: I didn't say this deck was weak against UW Control, I was making the point that artifact prison decks are usually weak vs control, and turned to this deck as a prison deck that can perform well in the matchup, as I believe that Tezz and Thopter/Sword are great against UW. I have played this deck in the past, a full year ago I was playing it in the PPTQ circuit and won a large PPTQ with it. I eventually came off it as I am a Grixis Control player at heart, but am revisiting it as I think it might be an interesting meta deck right now.
In summary, i think your criticisms come from you wanting this to be a Thopter/Sword deck and me just wanting a prison deck with access to some ways to apply pressure. There was a time when I was on 2 Bridges in this archetype and in that world I'd lower my Mox and artifact count down towards 22 and follow your suggestions in general I think. Looking at the problems of the deck:
I've been doing something a little different lately. Since we have access to 8 rainbow lands, generally run fine with a fairly low land count, don't mind discarding, and almost never have an important creature, I've been wondering how playable Smallpox is. The one downside is obviously that our optimal T3 plays involves a whir or bridge and Smallpox is going back a mana, but it's very often hurting our opponent far more.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Swamp
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Breeding Pool
2 Watery Grave
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Inventors' Fair
Artifact
3 Mishra's Bauble
2 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
1 Time Sieve
2 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Darksteel Citadel
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Damping Sphere
1 Spellskite
4 Whir of Invention
3 Abrupt Decay
Sorcery
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Planeswalker
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Herald of Anguish
1 Defense Grid
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Damping Sphere
3 Negate
2 Fatal Push
1 Battle at the Bridge
2 Damnation
Should I cut the green and Abrupt Decays? I do have a playset of Thoughtseizes and Inquisitions, and I'm willing to invest in LotV if necessary. Anything to stop Hurkyl's Recall. That Merfolk player blew me out with it. And yeah, I need one more Mox Opal. Still working on that lol
Congrats on building the deck, welcome in the Family. I hope those results didn’t discourage you to play it. The thing with this deck is that you need to play it a lot to understand the timing needed with you card. You have to know when to play threats vs when to play lock piece targeting directly your opponent’s plan and to do so you need to be as aware as possible of all you possibility at every moment of the game. Literally every time you have the priority you need to analyse if you have to whir for something specific now or if you wait etc.
Even if I play the deck for one year and a half intensively, every time I do small changes in the main deck, I struggle a bit to remember if I have one or 2 pithing needle or if I have a Nihil spellbomb or a GrafsdiggerCage etc.. You need to be so aware of your deck and your opponent deck, tricky sometimes.
So far there’s is no major problem with your deck list, I mean there are a ton of different ones here and what I see is that you have a functional one. Of course 3 Mox Opal will really help but I understand your are still building.
Since you play a 4/3 thopter sword you could maybe but one Tezzeret in the side and Adding the 3rd Collective brutality. This card is so good and it let’s you discard if you draw too many combo piece and is so good with Bridge.
I don’t recommand you to cut the Abrupt Decay since they are sometimes our only answer vs RiP or Stony Silence or even an Early Liliana of the Veil. I board them in 70% of the time.
Keep playing it and try a lot of small tweak to find what suits you and your mets the most, I am sure other will add some advice for you, I just convered a little here.
Edit : I didn’t see that your only green sources were a Breeding Pool and 1 Mox ... so yeah you will maybe struggle with the decay. Add some Spire of Industry in your manabase and the Decay won’t be a problem, you can even try a Maelstrom Pulse if you want.
Sorry to hear you went 0-4, but glad you're not discouraged. Mysa was right that the deck takes a lot of practice.
If I could give you some card swap suggestions, let me say that 4 Push + 3 Bridge is way too much creature hate, given the fact that you will reliably assemble the combo to make blockers. I would go -4 push, -1 bridge, especially if your meta is a lot of tron and control. That's 5 slots that can be anything from discard to main-deck decay (to open up a few SB slots). There's also nothing wrong with main-decking damping sphere if you expect tron. Also, I agree with Mysa that 3 Tezz is a lot, main. I would try going -1 Tezz, -1 Talisman, and putting in +2 Chromatic Star. The card is becoming a 4-of in most of my builds, as 1-drops are very important, and it acts as a cantrip, ramp for whir, fixes your mana, and a is great card to sac to foundry.
In the SB, I would take out a relic (as you already have 2 graveyard hate cards maindeck), and put in more enchantment hate. I've been running Back to Nature, but if you're looking for something less narrow that will hit: D-Sphere, Leyline of the Void, RiP, and Stony, Krosan Grip is not a bad choice. It also hoses affinity quite well.
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Spells (16)
2 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
4 Whir of Invention
Artifacts (21)
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Mox Opal
1 Welding Jar
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pithing Needle
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
1 Time Sieve
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Academy Ruins
2 Breeding Pool
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Battle at the Bridge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Damping Sphere
1 Spellskite
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Damnation
2 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
I've chosen the more spell/discard heavy route as I think having too many silver bullets is just hoping you get them. Having more interaction to stay alive until you combo off/take control of the game I've found effective in my current modern deck Blue tron. I will probably ending up getting a second Mox Opal to "speed up" the deck but have more consistent mana especially with bloodmoon decks in my current meta. Do any of you have thoughts/ suggestions I should change/make to help make this better?
I've been testing on xmage with okay results and goldfish is alot of proxies I've printed out. I definitely enjoy the lots of discard spells.
I've also been trying out the Pyrite Spellbomb idea, and to be honest, I'm kinda digging it. Humans is already pretty good, but it certainly does help out there. I always like some cheap artifacts to make whir/opal better. Chromatic Star is totally another option, and when used for card draw is a fair bit cheaper. However I do like spellbomb's ability to kill something or draw a card depending on the situation. Playing 4 Glimmervoid scares me a little, so I've opted for 2 glimmervoid, 4 Spire, 4 fetchlands, with a watery grave, breeding pool, and steam vents. I dunno if it's the right way to go with the manabase, but it's what I'm trying out lately. I don't think it's a slam dunk sure thing that the deck needs, but I think it's a viable option
Thanks for the insight. I'll definitely keep practicing with the deck, I love how much I have to think while I'm playing it. Also, good call on Spire of Industry. Those will definitely help until I get my hands on another Opal.
@the nobodys
Chromatic star looks so good, I may get a playset. And I didn't even know Back to Nature existed, thanks so much.
Does anyone remember what we were doing before they unbanned Sword of the Meek?!? I've been "trying" to play the deck since i saw Shouta Yasooka's list way back when it was spot removal, hand disruption, Tez/Lili, and some sweet, sweet Batterskull action
**Also Completely of any topic but what i really wanted to talk about**
What kind of bans completely destroy our deck? It always worries me cause i don't want to ever have to play another deck in modern.
I've heard people speak of and/or complain about Mox Opal and Ensnaring Bridge. I feel like we just say, "f*%k the police" and play Damnation or Bontu's Last Reckoning(OMG, bring back a one of Consume the Meek) if Bridge ever got the ax
Can we still function efficiently without Opal, though? I'm not trying to ramp out Whirs anymore so i feel like we could do without the 0 drop but I'm a terrible magic player so...
What do y'all think?
PS: I might hit up an IQ or 1k today so wish me luck! Tezzeret Collective FTW!!!
Dis what i be takin':
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Fatal Push
1 Battle at the Bridge
3 Collective Brutality
4 Whir of Invention
PlanesWalkers
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Artifacts
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Mox Opal
1 Welding Jar
2 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Damping Sphere
1 Time Sieve
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Witchbane Orb
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
3 Spire of Industry
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Spellskite
1 Damping Sphere
1 Welding Jar
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Herald of Anguish