MTG Salvation

For gy hate I run a main deck cage and a Spellbomb. So far I really like having them with dredge gaining more popularity, and even when bad Spellbomb replaces it self for minimal mana investment.

@racing089 That list looks dope; 3 Tezzerets had my attention. How has Jace been?

@HiltonMode: JTMS has been bonkers. I know there was a lot of discussion about him shortly after the unban and many settled on not playing him. However for me he has been SO good that I had myself wondering if I I'd rather have more JTMS over Tezzeret. I am playing the 5 walkers to increase threat density against decks like UW miracles but still feel like I need more. Probably not more walker but another threat for sure. An artifact that is also a threat would be ideal. I have been considering testing 4x Etched Champion out of the sideboard but I fear they will bring back in the terminus in the event of a game 3 to remove them.

If you see them boarding In cards for game 3 you could side etched champion out for another non creature threat, then their terminus would be dead.

I took the results from all of the Tezzeret lists that have made the MTG Top 8 website since the printing of Whir of Invention and ran them through a deck aggregation program. This creates a deck list that would contain the most commonly played cards. The resulting deck list was shockingly good.



Now I am not saying to sleeve this up, although you definitely could, but some of the inclusions are thought provoking. Points of interest in my opinion:

- Time Sieve is the combo finisher of choice
- 4x Pentad Prism
- 4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
- 1x Fatal Push
- 4x Collective Brutality in the 75
- 3 Different colorless utility lands common enough to make the aggregate
- Green cards make the sideboard but Breeding Pool doesn't make the main deck

This sideboard actually looks great to me and is something I could see myself playing for sure. Any other interesting thoughts?

Assassin's Trophy better than Pulse nowadays ?
Other cards from GRN are probably better than old er options. Unmoored Ego comes to mind as well. Don't know if it's good yet as I stopped playing the archetype...

I've been playing Unmoored ego 4x in my board on xmage (still $500 short of finishing the deck lol), everytime I cast it and it resolves, the games is basically over. I've named stony silence, tron lands, griselbrand, it has definitely been game deciding. I don't think we want assassin's trophy, its really only okay in unfair fast decks where the land doesn't matter. We by nature have to be slow to really combo off and still be safe, since our combo takes so long to actually be lethal.

It seems we mostly agree that looking at our opponents hand is important, as is cantripping to our combo. Is Peek a possibility? I know it's mostly in Terminus decks as an extra enabler, but it's also being slotted into decks like Merfolk (and could probably work in infect again).

So lots of good discussion! A single Etched Champion was in my sideboard to good effect prior to Guilds, when dredge and steam kin exploded and its utility went down. But I really like it against stuff like Mardu, BG, and to some extent UW. Unmoored Ego has been good in certain matches, mostly combo, and slightly useful against dredge. It's a card that gets better with pilot skill, I cannot stress that enough, as I've looked back on losses that could have been wins had I made a better naming decision at the stage of the game I cast it in. I still haven't tested trophy yet, sorry to say, but I saw a recent 5-0 list had 3 in the board.

@racing089 - I actually think, and have changed my mind many times, that KCI is the better finisher for the current meta. The majority of games (in paper magic) end on the spot with a KCI combo. Those that don't? Tron and Ad Nauseum. Against fast aggro, like burn and dredge, KCI is superior to Time Sieve in ending games before they can win, because it can come down quicker and requires fewer resources.

@Selene - I appreciate the time you spent on your deck creation post, but it's entirely unnecessary and splits viewership between threads. The deck you piloted to tournament success was developed and formulated in this forum by current posters and others, for several years (going back to an older Tezz thread). The fact that not all lists have Tezz the planeswalker in them doesn't really matter. Affinity is still called affinity despite having maybe 1 card with affinity. Deck names are about recognizability and community input, not accuracy, if that makes any sense. Also, your sense of ownership of the decklist you prefer comes off as un-earned (at least to me), since it appears you took the list from developers here and elsewhere. This is further evidenced by your claim in your recent post that people here "already are trying Chromatic Star in stead of Pentad prism as I suggested at that time," which is, honestly, an annoying claim of leadership. I've made arguments that prism is a sub-par card for us for literally years, dating back to the old thread, not that I would expect you or anyone else to know that. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we all want to have a discussion about this deck here because the history of development has been here.

I've done some a bunch of Assassins Trophy testing and I still don't know if it is better than Abrupt Decay. Don't get me wrong, the versatility is valuable but with a RIP/Stony Silence counter spell deck in tier 1 I am unsure if it is worth passing up on the un-counterable clause.

I keep meaning to try out KCI and for whatever reason never do. I'll have to make sure I do that soon but I am inclined to believe you. I agree that it is better but I don't want to have another 4 drop to clog up my hand. I tend to run more 4 drops than most around here to begin with so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Couldn't agree more with The Nobodys comments on Selene's post. Although the forum is titled UBx Tezzeret Control the deck has evolved an enormous amount since it's inception. Unfortunately I can't rename the post but even if I could I still think the Uxx Whir of Invention Thopter/Sword Shell is well known and recognized as Tezzerator or Tezzeret control even if the planeswalker were never to appear again. Having said that you are absolutely welcome here and if you have any information you think the primer is lacking I would be happy to make an update. Need to do some cleaning up, add deck lists, new card sections, etc. in the next week or so anyway.

I've really liked Assassin's Trophy to be honest. It's just so versatile, especially when I find the most troublesome permanents for the deck are usually non-creatures (since obviously creatures tend to be well answered by Bridge/Thopter Sword). Lately I've been playing 1 Trophy main and 3 more in the board. It's just really nice having something that answers EVERYTHING basically (ok not non-permanents). I could see an argument for keeping some of the trophies as Abrupt Decay specifically because of the UW Control matchup, where decay being uncounterable is pretty big. But overall I think I'm leaning more towards Trophy because there are not really many situations it's actively bad in. I might actually try to move to something like a 2/2 split main/side. Possibly 2 trophy main, 2 Decay side. We have so little ways to answer planeswalkers if we don't have an immediate pithing needle, or thopter sword online, and that is another big reason I like Trophy even against UW.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play lately, so my experience with trophy is fairly limited. But I still feel like the upsides over Abrupt Decay outweigh the downsides, though if you're running into a lot of UW I can't really blame you for sticking with some Decays.

How do people feel about 2 vs 3 Ensnaring bridge? I see 2 a lot, and I do often try it out to make room for something else, but tbh, everytime I try only 2 Bridge I kinda hate it. Inevitably I'll have a bunch of matches where they answered both bridges, and if I had a 3rd I'd win but I don't and I lose. Usually I mitigate this a bit by moving the 3rd to the board, but still run into that issue in game 1's against decks that play things like Trophy, KCommand, etc. It feels like one of those things where I really want 2 bridge to be the right answer, but I always end up regretting cutting the 3rd

@Systrill: I main deck 2 Welding Jars in addition to my 2 Ensnaring Bridges and it seems to work out just fine. It is unlikely they have 4 answers to it in game one. I also play the 3rd out of the sideboard for the match ups where I feel I need it and it could get destroyed.I don't find myself losing many games over not finding or being able to maintain an Ensnaring Bridge.

@racing089 if you're looking for another threat that isn't a walker but is whirrable, I could not suggest Bottled Cloister enough. It competes with your other 4's, but I've been playing it for the better part of this entire year and have never looked back.

It seems gimmicky at first, but although there's no "Ultimate" like planeswalkers have, what it does do is provides a consistent form of card advantage just like your walkers, with the added bonus of becoming a 2-card combo lock with bridge when your hand/draws don't fall nicely for you. It's not something I think every pilot absolutely NEEDS in order to be successful, but if you're looking for a role player as mentioned previously, this card has been better than advertised for me.

Also having the extra utility for protecting your hand from discard, allowing herald to attack through bridge, making padeem's draw a non-liability with bridge up, filtering through the deck faster to find the green spells post board, it's all been great.

It's also worth noting that by the time you land this, you often don't have much in hand that you'd care about losing if it gets blown up. What it also does is acts as a lightning rod for removal, protecting the other crucial pieces you have on board (acts as a pseudo jar/skite). If they take another artifact and allow you to keep cloister, you start going through your deck fast enough to find a redundant copy of what they blew up/whir, plus now you have the same board state plus all the other cards you drew along the way.

I've been prioritizing this in my builds behind the first Tez or two, but definitely above the third Tez and every other CA threat available to us.

@dustycrumbz: Bottled Cloister is one of the few cards I have never tested. I never thought to consider it a threat on it's own but I suppose you are right. Seems like a must answer card in the grindy games. I have often found control players just let me resolve Whir of Inventions once they have a Stony Silence on the table because they don't think I can get anything that matters. Normally they are right but this would definitely change that dynamic and I'll be sure to give it a try.

I'm planning on adding either time sieve or KCI to let Thopter/Sword go infinite. What are people's experiences with these cards? Which do you prefer between Time Sieve and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Why?

Quote from iPuntPenguins »

I'm planning on adding either time sieve or KCI to let Thopter/Sword go infinite. What are people's experiences with these cards? Which do you prefer between Time Sieve and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Why?

I haven't tried Krark-Clan Ironworks but from what I've read here, it seems to be actually OK and it enables infinite mana if you have the combo with 2 swords (please, somebody correct me if I am wrong), although that isn't a guaranteed kill. I played Time Sieve as a 1-of and it's very useful vs decks where flooding the board with creatures and gaining a lot of life is not enough to win next turn (Infect and Lantern come to mind).

I prefer Time Sieve as it extra spicy to take infinite extra turns without even casting a spell but I think it's a preference thing.

In my experience KCI is on average a turn faster for going infinite which is very important in the fast meta we have. Time sieve is the stronger play against Tron and Bridge decks and to a much lesser extent control decks. Therefore, I prefer KCI as the % gained against the field far outweighs the % gained against those specific decks. Your local meta might dictate otherwise

Kci will often clog your hand and turn off a bridge. And infinite thopters seems to lose to quite a few things from EE to Ostone or even Terminus/Sweepers. But KCI is likely better against decks like Storm and Valakut as the infinite life can make it impossible to lose. Time Sieve is likely better against creature heavy strategies that you need to empty your hand for (or need another cheap artifact to enable a whir). Infinite turns also allows you to find the 1 or 2 removal spells to turn off an opposing infinite combo (Finks/Vizier combo is a primary offender) and an Academy Ruins means you can technically never deck yourself. I would love to see a goldfishing comparison of how early each are assembled without interaction. KCI seems slightly faster but maybe only half a turn.

I haven't tried Krark-Clan Ironworks but from what I've read here, it seems to be actually OK and it enables infinite mana if you have the combo with 2 swords

Only one copy of the combo is required. Double sword does help with Time Sieve and means you only need 4 mana.

Quote from JaceToTheFace »

Kci will often clog your hand and turn off a bridge. And infinite thopters seems to lose to quite a few things from EE to Ostone or even Terminus/Sweepers. But KCI is likely better against decks like Storm and Valakut as the infinite life can make it impossible to lose. Time Sieve is likely better against creature heavy strategies that you need to empty your hand for (or need another cheap artifact to enable a whir). Infinite turns also allows you to find the 1 or 2 removal spells to turn off an opposing infinite combo (Finks/Vizier combo is a primary offender) and an Academy Ruins means you can technically never deck yourself. I would love to see a goldfishing comparison of how early each are assembled without interaction. KCI seems slightly faster but maybe only half a turn.

I don't like to argue on here as I think everyone's input generates good creativity for our deck to grow, but there are some fallacies in these arguments that I think need to be pointed out to not mislead:

Clogging up hand: this is a deck construction argument, not a KCI vs time sieve argument. It's true we can't run infinite 4 drops but we can run some, you just have to choose between Tezz, Cloister, KCI, Damnation, etc. For example, I run only Cloister and KCI at my 4 spot with 21 lands, 3 mox, and 3 brutalities main. So clogging up my hand isn't relevant.

Time sieve is likely better against creature heavy strategies: I believe this is close to 100% incorrect. Creature aggro decks can't interact with infinite life, and KCI combo is assembled faster than Time Sieve combo. I'm not sure what else to say here.

I'm 100% on KCI in this meta, absolutely no question for me. KCI has closed out many games against aggro that I would have otherwise lost if Sieve was in its slot. Time Sieve is better only against Tron, Counters Company, and Ad Nauseum - and that's only in theory, because KCI is definitely faster to assemble. Turn 4 is common given a hand with the combo and a whir, and that's even missing a 4th land drop, with a board of foundry+sword+bauble+thopter and 3 land to whir for KCI. Also, I've found myself in the position of drawing a sword on turn 4 with a board of 4 land +foundry+spellbomb+bauble, whirring for KCI, saccing the bauble and spellbomb to cast the sword I just drew and go off. And the argument that Time Sieve lets you dump your hand faster for bridge is overlooking the fact that KCI can resolve on turn 4 and begin generating mana that turn to empty your hand and cast a bridge.