Great posts, dustycrumbz. I appreciate the write ups, and adding that this community is helpful and innovative can't be said enough!
In regards to revoker, and the burn matchup, revoker is an easy sub-in considering your SB has no battle or any cards geared toward burn other than skite, and I suppose decay. You're taking out needle, cage, and spellbomb at the very least, as well as sphere and sieve. Bridges are nearly useless in the burn matchup, too. Revoker is by no means a good card against them, but it isn't useless because it trades with everything not named swiftspear. If you're looking for a card to drop for revoker, I'd say your second spellbomb is a likely choice. Not sure why'd you write off KCI, but revoker is quite nice against UW control, too. Whirring for a revoker in response to teferi is super sweet.
On another note, the newly spoiled card (no picture yet sorry) that is like a dimir Lost Legacy looks sweet!
1UB - Sorcery
Name a card. Search target opponent's hand, graveyard, and Library for up to 4 cards with that name and then exile them. Opponent draws cards for each card exiled from hand in this way.
Not only is it MUCH easier to cast than legacy, you can name KCI! And Oblivion Stone! And even Valakut! Man, what a ridiculous upgrade for us. This card will be played in some number in our sideboard, for sure. Legacy was quite good in testing even against control, as you could always name Command before they got to 4 mana.
@the nobodys those are some very good points, I will def keep revoker in mind moving forward. Idk If spellbomb is the cut but if GY decks start decreasing again, it'll be something worth considering for sure. I played with Battle before and while I don't necessarily miss it persay, I def wouldn't mind having 1-2 copies back in the deck. After the result of this weekend's SCG Open in Syracuse, now might be the time to adjust (there were soooooo many copies of Burn that made Day 2 and a decent amount that made Top 16 in the Sunday Classic).
Its a little sad but I don't think a lot of decks in modern can actually play Unmoored Ego and Assassin's Trophy. DeathShadow can play Ego... maybe, Jund and Abzan will play Assassin's Trophy in some number. A sultai midrange shell might pop up with both, but definitely with Assassin's Trophy. I think really only us and Fairies can support playing Unmoored Ego if it is good as it seems (as a sideboard card). So in foresight I don't think we'll have to worry too much about Ego but definitely Assassin's Trophy.
The search for my next modern deck has led me to Tezzeret. I started playing modern about half a year ago and UB mill was my first deck. While it is a fun deck to play, it slowly gets boring after a while due to the lack of interaction or "impactful" desicions. So I decided to seek a control list. Grixis quickly popped up, but it was a bit too grindy for me. I also had the feeling that it lacked a game plan or aim to work towards - well ok, the aim is basically to survive and bring their life to 0 somehow, but that didn't really appeal to me enough.
So... after further searching I found Tezzerator. And eventhough getting told countless times that it isn't a great deck I kinda like it and would want to get into it. It has the perfect mix of control, prison and combo without one overshadowing the other (although you could probably make a list that focuses on one of those aspects), it has a solid game plan in locking the enemy out of the game followed by either thoptersword, 5/5 artifacts or Tezz ult otk to finish the game. And it is highly customizable and can be altered to fit one's playstyle and local meta.
Now the question is what list to start with. Since everyone seems to have their own customized list and it looks like there is no "best", could someone recommend me a "balanced" or base list I can get and start my journey with? I assume everyone has to find their own preferred list, but one has to start somewhere.
Also, at which page of this thread does the relevent bit of information start? I assume the first X pages are filled with discussions about outdated decklists and old metas.
Some people will cut some of these cards, but I think you'll see these cards in these numbers or higher more often than not here. Manabase is also a bit flexible if you want a more fetch heavy one like this, or a fetchless one works fine too imo.
You've still got 10 card slots in the main to play stuff like Fatal Push, Battle at the bridge, Witchbane Orb, Bottled Cloister, More thopter sword pieces, More Tezzerets, Discard Spells, mana rocks, welding jar etc. Sideboard is also pretty open to play with. The Abrupt Decay/pulse are essential post-board anti-hate pieces, probably about to just swap to Assassin's Trophy for pretty much all. Padeeem is great vs targetted hate, and torpor orb is great vs Humans and Spirits. Beyond that you could have thoughtseizes if not in the main, welding jars, spellskite, more pithing needle effects, more grave hate, more tezzerets, other alt-wincons, etc.
I'd probably recommend, as someone starting out, take the initial list, go up to 4/3 or 4/4 on the Foundry/Sword pieces, maybe add a 2nd tezz to get a feel for it, then fill the last 6-7 slots with discard/removal spells. I think that would be a good place to be to get a feel for everything going on with the deck and start figuring out what direction you want to go with it in the future
Hello all. I've been following this forum for near close to a year now and finally getting around to posting on here and joining the "Tezzeret Collective". I started using a more aggro type deck involving play sets of Ensoul Artifact and Tezzeret's Touch along with a full set of Tezzeret AoB. Until someone suggested I use Ensnaring Bridge. And myself being new to the format at the time didn't know the card and what type of deck it involved. I started digging and found this forum. Very quickly built a version within my budget. Fast forward almost a year and my deck has evolved immensely with everyone's suggestions on this forum. I find my meta these days at any LGS in my city is mostly creature based, so Humans, Hollow One, Bant or U/W Spirits, Amulet Titan, Titan Shift, Merfolk, G/W hexproof, Grixis DS, D&T, the list goes on here people. There are a few Jeskai control and U/W, U/W/x control players and a rogue lantern player. I seem to be the only Tezzerator player in my area, and I'm fine with that tbh as my opponents usually don't know what I'm playing. I've played in a few modern events at the lgs's here and usually play at game nights throughout the week. Looking for any ideas or suggestions to the deck. This is my list so far. https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/6768-gearhead204s-deck
Congrats on the tournament win, Selene, especially considering you are new to the deck. Thanks for the write up! You're right about a lot of your observations, in my opinion, such as prism being trash and star being useful.
I like the sideboard, but I might find room for 1-2 battle at the bridge, which helps so much vs burn and can kill big stuff like golf and angler while gaining life.
I like having around 6 fetches for their interaction with Mishra's Bauble, the ability to get out ahead of a potential Blood Moon, and grabbing a Breeding Pool for the SB cards, but definitely willing to listen to the pros of the alternative. I'm going to try the all in Chromatic Star build at my local events this week and see how it feels. Faithless looting has felt very strong but finding the combo at turbo speed just isn't enough to auto win against many decks. Hand disruption is also much better with Pithing Needle main and cards like surgical in the side.
From my short amount of testing today, Chromatic Star is almost better than Serum. It's arguable how many one drops we should play but between 4-5 hand disruption spells, 4 Chromatic Stars, 1 Nihil Spellbomb, and 1 Pithing Needle. The 1 drops may just be full already. Deck felt very nice being able to consistently Whir for a Bridge by turn 3 and having excellent targets for Tez -1.
I finally brought out a deck tonight and cashed in a small tourney with it. I’ve been brewing on @the_nobodys list from a few months ago and I think there’s something really special going on.
Thought I’d post.
4 mox opal
3 welding jar
4 mishra’s bauble
1 krark-clan ironworks
4 thopter foundry
4 sword of the meek
4 whir of invention
SB very much up for debate
4 monastery mentor
2 wear/tear
2 ceremonious rejection
2 paradoxical outcome
1 whipflare
4 detention sphere
The fuel of the deck is that the forward momentum of your draw sorceries is doubly powerful because you can either sacrifice an artifact to get a discarded sword back into play or you can flashback lingering souls to get a discarded sword back. In the sideboarded games when they go insane on stonys etc monastery mentor tokens also trigger a returning sword. There are just a ton of cool synergies and a ton of ways to power forward into an infnite combo.
The final cool thing about this deck is that my meta is very control heavy so being able to pressure them with must-counter lingering souls is a great way to get your thopter sword combo back online.
Any thoughts would be cool, but feel free to test it out. Thoughts on the mana base/SB appreciated.
How have the sideboard Mentor's been? I never really thought of Mentor, but it's an interesting idea considering even in a traditional list, all your spells trigger it, and splashing another sideboard colour isn't really that hard, even if you're going into a 4C route with green for Trophy/Decay and White for Mentor. Or just do like here and drop green for white and use DSphere. I do worry that DSphere gets a bit weaker with Trophies running around, but still a great and versatile answer
I liked running 2 Academy Ruins in the heavy graveyard dumping build. The second can be pitched for value or saved against Field of Ruin decks.
Does 3 steelshaper's gift feel correct? With 4 swords I already have hands with 2-3 that I feel a bit eh about. I guess the idea is that we need enough T1 plays to enable the busted 2cmc looting spells.
Cool that you're revisiting the looting/gift list, boomforest. How has cathartic reunion been? I have to say I don't like it, even compared to something like tormenting voice, because having a hand where you have two spells that you know for sure you want to dump feels much rarer than those situations where the extra +1 draw is worth it vs TV. I'd try to find a few more spots for 1 cmc artifacts like star that help the reanimate gameplan while helping turn on opal.
I do like the mentor gameplan quite a bit out of the board, but I think the outcomes are too cute. Play repeal of you want a SB spell that plays nice with mentor while providing outs to problem permanents.
Hey guys I just picked my bug tezzerator deck back up after a few months of playing pyro prison. And I've been reading up on the forum and I've got a question for everyone what's your opinion on the third color and what are the best reasons to run each? I run green as my third color because I get abrupt decay and golgari charm but I've been toying with grixis and I've seen a couple people with esper list. So what are the strengths of each color combo and what decks are your sideboards equipped to deal with. When I put down the deck I was playing against alot of blood moons and stoney silence and even with the abrupt decays and golgari charms I was playing alot of very unfun games but no my meta has shifted away from them and I want someone to convince me (or reassure ) me of what third color I should play. Thanks
So I wanted to chime in on the Cantrip/Interaction flex slots of this deck. While I tested with and without Serum visions, with and without hand disruption, and with/without spot removal, I think Hand disruption in the maindeck is really lackluster right now. Most of the deck right now are strategies that fold to a quickly assembled thoptersword and/or bridge while hellbent. While you sometimes need to buy time and hand disruption can help you there, I'd much rather prioritize my focus on assembling a locked boardstate as quickly as possible rather than disrupting the opposing curve to buy time to get there.
The reason decks like lantern didn't need to play a cantrip like serum vision was because the pieces for the boardstate it was aiming to set up already inherently provided the same role - you can scry away the irrelevant and increase card quality. While the card you immediately cantrip into can certainly be great, the reason it's such a great role filler in this deck is that the scry ability allows you to set up card quality similar to lantern while also maintaining the bridge lock. I see some people playing faithless looting as well and while both cards are certainly different, the fact is that it's still filling a similar role - making sure you can get through the deck as quickly as possible to maintain control at a consistent rate.
I also strongly believe that while disruption can buy you time, those are steps you might HAVE to take but don't want to consistently be doing. Your advantage is to cut off entire lines/percentages of the remaining cards from the opposing strategy rather than make numerous/consistent 1-for-1 trades. Taking a step backwards to look at the big picture, two of the biggest strengths that this deck has going for it are:
1) creature strategies have a hard time beating Ensnaring Bridge
2) fair decks already have a hard time with the line of "Souls - flashback souls". Our combo does this at an increased rate every single turn, with upside.
Again, sometimes hand disruption can help buy you time, but there are too many decks right now that I do not want to be casting IOK/Thoughtseize against. I only reluctantly have been playing fatal push in the maindeck because of all the small creature decks running around that can spiral out of control quickly. Collective brutality in the main is the one slot I feel fills all these roles, as it duresses the spells you care about, can kill relevant resolved threats, give you a life gain buffer, but most importantly, allow you to simply escalate 1-2x to continue your gameplan of getting hellbent for bridge.
To each their own certainly, but after testing with and without both cantrips and hand disruption in the 1-drop slot, I noticed my win percentage go down when I cut the former and had the latter. I also tried 2x search to increase the card quality while also making room for hand disruption, but the ability for serum to fill the gaps in my lines with a high density of 2-mana spells on turns 1 and 3 was super valuable. Also, with a deck that only plays 20-22 lands, being able to reasonably keeping some number of 1-land hands with a serum vs almost never keeping 1-land hands with even 2-3 hand disruption spells is something I value highly. I tried looting before and it certainly has it's merits, but I moved back to serum because I realized I valued its casting cost in a deck who's mana is trying to get to triple blue as quickly as possible and can aggressively fetch basic island to save 2x life. Chromatic star is an interesting topic that's been coming up, but I'm iffy about trading off the scry 2 for the upside of whir synergies. I def want to try it though, I'm curious
tl;dr - I recognize these are all flex slots and it comes down to personal preference, but IMO through deconstructing from the ground-up, rebuilding/testing various numbers all year, I personally value Serum vision's ability to see 3x cards deep off of 1 mana to increase your gameplan's consistency more than access to spot removal and hand disruption, and I value push's role currently higher than IOK/Thoughtseize which is why I've been playing a split of serum/push in the main recently.
I also am moving away from hand disruption, recently. It's hurt against storm and fast combo, for sure, but star does more overall, especially when maxing out on opals. I still like serum visions for the reasons you mentioned, dustycrumbz, but it doesn't have to be a 4-of, especially if you're just hoping to make a few 1-land hand keeps. I've played 2 visions and been happy.
Also, to help out a lack of discard against fast combo, we now have Unmoored Ego, which I'll be trying out as a 4-of in the board.
I'm a little concerned that we're going to start seeing more Choke out of BGx sideboards now that as trophy frees up slots. Choke is my least favorite modern card, because it punishes playing basics, which is a terrible design. So if choke becomes a popular SB card, we might want to reduce the overall number of fetches/shocks and play more spies.
You're certainly right, I've recently cut a Serum Visions to make room for an extra piece of creature interaction in the 75. 3x has been fine for me, but I definitely like every copy of it over any copies of IOK/TS right now.
I like the idea of star if you're all-in on trying to maximize turning on Mox Opal early, and something like a 4-2 split of star/Serum seems totally reasonable (I assume that's what you're on right now). Again, I want to try this out for myself at some point.
I also could see moving away from Fetch/Island manabase, but it does make Bauble worse, as well as fatal push (though playing star as you're currently doing helps mitigate the impact of this). They're just minor downsides for a potential shift towards a metagame sb slot. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but with UW control being such a dominant force, it might happen. It's also worth noting that we've been resilient through hate such as Stony Silence, Blood Moon, RIP, etc. and while Choke forces us to combat it through a slightly different approach, I'm sure the green/white splash will help us continue to fight through this nonland permanent hate piece via similar play patterns. Again, hopefully this isn't a common hurdle we'll have to face in the coming months, time will tell!
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In regards to revoker, and the burn matchup, revoker is an easy sub-in considering your SB has no battle or any cards geared toward burn other than skite, and I suppose decay. You're taking out needle, cage, and spellbomb at the very least, as well as sphere and sieve. Bridges are nearly useless in the burn matchup, too. Revoker is by no means a good card against them, but it isn't useless because it trades with everything not named swiftspear. If you're looking for a card to drop for revoker, I'd say your second spellbomb is a likely choice. Not sure why'd you write off KCI, but revoker is quite nice against UW control, too. Whirring for a revoker in response to teferi is super sweet.
On another note, the newly spoiled card (no picture yet sorry) that is like a dimir Lost Legacy looks sweet!
1UB - Sorcery
Name a card. Search target opponent's hand, graveyard, and Library for up to 4 cards with that name and then exile them. Opponent draws cards for each card exiled from hand in this way.
Not only is it MUCH easier to cast than legacy, you can name KCI! And Oblivion Stone! And even Valakut! Man, what a ridiculous upgrade for us. This card will be played in some number in our sideboard, for sure. Legacy was quite good in testing even against control, as you could always name Command before they got to 4 mana.
I also do like Unmoored Ego quite a bit.
The search for my next modern deck has led me to Tezzeret. I started playing modern about half a year ago and UB mill was my first deck. While it is a fun deck to play, it slowly gets boring after a while due to the lack of interaction or "impactful" desicions. So I decided to seek a control list. Grixis quickly popped up, but it was a bit too grindy for me. I also had the feeling that it lacked a game plan or aim to work towards - well ok, the aim is basically to survive and bring their life to 0 somehow, but that didn't really appeal to me enough.
So... after further searching I found Tezzerator. And eventhough getting told countless times that it isn't a great deck I kinda like it and would want to get into it. It has the perfect mix of control, prison and combo without one overshadowing the other (although you could probably make a list that focuses on one of those aspects), it has a solid game plan in locking the enemy out of the game followed by either thoptersword, 5/5 artifacts or Tezz ult otk to finish the game. And it is highly customizable and can be altered to fit one's playstyle and local meta.
Now the question is what list to start with. Since everyone seems to have their own customized list and it looks like there is no "best", could someone recommend me a "balanced" or base list I can get and start my journey with? I assume everyone has to find their own preferred list, but one has to start somewhere.
Also, at which page of this thread does the relevent bit of information start? I assume the first X pages are filled with discussions about outdated decklists and old metas.
Thanks for your help
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Spells (10)
4 Whir of Invention
2 Collective Brutality
4 Serum Visions
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Lands (21)
1 Academy Ruins
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Breeding Pool
2 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Swamp
3 Spire of Industry
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Torpor Orb
Some people will cut some of these cards, but I think you'll see these cards in these numbers or higher more often than not here. Manabase is also a bit flexible if you want a more fetch heavy one like this, or a fetchless one works fine too imo.
You've still got 10 card slots in the main to play stuff like Fatal Push, Battle at the bridge, Witchbane Orb, Bottled Cloister, More thopter sword pieces, More Tezzerets, Discard Spells, mana rocks, welding jar etc. Sideboard is also pretty open to play with. The Abrupt Decay/pulse are essential post-board anti-hate pieces, probably about to just swap to Assassin's Trophy for pretty much all. Padeeem is great vs targetted hate, and torpor orb is great vs Humans and Spirits. Beyond that you could have thoughtseizes if not in the main, welding jars, spellskite, more pithing needle effects, more grave hate, more tezzerets, other alt-wincons, etc.
I'd probably recommend, as someone starting out, take the initial list, go up to 4/3 or 4/4 on the Foundry/Sword pieces, maybe add a 2nd tezz to get a feel for it, then fill the last 6-7 slots with discard/removal spells. I think that would be a good place to be to get a feel for everything going on with the deck and start figuring out what direction you want to go with it in the future
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/6768-gearhead204s-deck
I like the sideboard, but I might find room for 1-2 battle at the bridge, which helps so much vs burn and can kill big stuff like golf and angler while gaining life.
Thought I’d post.
4 mox opal
3 welding jar
4 mishra’s bauble
1 krark-clan ironworks
4 thopter foundry
4 sword of the meek
4 whir of invention
4 faithless looting
2 Ideas Unbound
3 Cathartic Reunion
3 steelshaper’s gift
3 lingering souls
1 spirebluff canal
2 seachrome coast
3 island
1 spire of industry
3 glimmervoid
2 hallowed fountain
1 steam vents
1 watery grave
3 flooded strand
1 scalding tarn
2 polluted delta
1 misty rainforest
SB very much up for debate
4 monastery mentor
2 wear/tear
2 ceremonious rejection
2 paradoxical outcome
1 whipflare
4 detention sphere
The fuel of the deck is that the forward momentum of your draw sorceries is doubly powerful because you can either sacrifice an artifact to get a discarded sword back into play or you can flashback lingering souls to get a discarded sword back. In the sideboarded games when they go insane on stonys etc monastery mentor tokens also trigger a returning sword. There are just a ton of cool synergies and a ton of ways to power forward into an infnite combo.
The final cool thing about this deck is that my meta is very control heavy so being able to pressure them with must-counter lingering souls is a great way to get your thopter sword combo back online.
Any thoughts would be cool, but feel free to test it out. Thoughts on the mana base/SB appreciated.
Does 3 steelshaper's gift feel correct? With 4 swords I already have hands with 2-3 that I feel a bit eh about. I guess the idea is that we need enough T1 plays to enable the busted 2cmc looting spells.
I do like the mentor gameplan quite a bit out of the board, but I think the outcomes are too cute. Play repeal of you want a SB spell that plays nice with mentor while providing outs to problem permanents.
The reason decks like lantern didn't need to play a cantrip like serum vision was because the pieces for the boardstate it was aiming to set up already inherently provided the same role - you can scry away the irrelevant and increase card quality. While the card you immediately cantrip into can certainly be great, the reason it's such a great role filler in this deck is that the scry ability allows you to set up card quality similar to lantern while also maintaining the bridge lock. I see some people playing faithless looting as well and while both cards are certainly different, the fact is that it's still filling a similar role - making sure you can get through the deck as quickly as possible to maintain control at a consistent rate.
I also strongly believe that while disruption can buy you time, those are steps you might HAVE to take but don't want to consistently be doing. Your advantage is to cut off entire lines/percentages of the remaining cards from the opposing strategy rather than make numerous/consistent 1-for-1 trades. Taking a step backwards to look at the big picture, two of the biggest strengths that this deck has going for it are:
1) creature strategies have a hard time beating Ensnaring Bridge
2) fair decks already have a hard time with the line of "Souls - flashback souls". Our combo does this at an increased rate every single turn, with upside.
Again, sometimes hand disruption can help buy you time, but there are too many decks right now that I do not want to be casting IOK/Thoughtseize against. I only reluctantly have been playing fatal push in the maindeck because of all the small creature decks running around that can spiral out of control quickly. Collective brutality in the main is the one slot I feel fills all these roles, as it duresses the spells you care about, can kill relevant resolved threats, give you a life gain buffer, but most importantly, allow you to simply escalate 1-2x to continue your gameplan of getting hellbent for bridge.
To each their own certainly, but after testing with and without both cantrips and hand disruption in the 1-drop slot, I noticed my win percentage go down when I cut the former and had the latter. I also tried 2x search to increase the card quality while also making room for hand disruption, but the ability for serum to fill the gaps in my lines with a high density of 2-mana spells on turns 1 and 3 was super valuable. Also, with a deck that only plays 20-22 lands, being able to reasonably keeping some number of 1-land hands with a serum vs almost never keeping 1-land hands with even 2-3 hand disruption spells is something I value highly. I tried looting before and it certainly has it's merits, but I moved back to serum because I realized I valued its casting cost in a deck who's mana is trying to get to triple blue as quickly as possible and can aggressively fetch basic island to save 2x life. Chromatic star is an interesting topic that's been coming up, but I'm iffy about trading off the scry 2 for the upside of whir synergies. I def want to try it though, I'm curious
tl;dr - I recognize these are all flex slots and it comes down to personal preference, but IMO through deconstructing from the ground-up, rebuilding/testing various numbers all year, I personally value Serum vision's ability to see 3x cards deep off of 1 mana to increase your gameplan's consistency more than access to spot removal and hand disruption, and I value push's role currently higher than IOK/Thoughtseize which is why I've been playing a split of serum/push in the main recently.
Also, to help out a lack of discard against fast combo, we now have Unmoored Ego, which I'll be trying out as a 4-of in the board.
I'm a little concerned that we're going to start seeing more Choke out of BGx sideboards now that as trophy frees up slots. Choke is my least favorite modern card, because it punishes playing basics, which is a terrible design. So if choke becomes a popular SB card, we might want to reduce the overall number of fetches/shocks and play more spies.
I like the idea of star if you're all-in on trying to maximize turning on Mox Opal early, and something like a 4-2 split of star/Serum seems totally reasonable (I assume that's what you're on right now). Again, I want to try this out for myself at some point.
I also could see moving away from Fetch/Island manabase, but it does make Bauble worse, as well as fatal push (though playing star as you're currently doing helps mitigate the impact of this). They're just minor downsides for a potential shift towards a metagame sb slot. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but with UW control being such a dominant force, it might happen. It's also worth noting that we've been resilient through hate such as Stony Silence, Blood Moon, RIP, etc. and while Choke forces us to combat it through a slightly different approach, I'm sure the green/white splash will help us continue to fight through this nonland permanent hate piece via similar play patterns. Again, hopefully this isn't a common hurdle we'll have to face in the coming months, time will tell!