It is Premium content, so I'll just say Tom Ross was a little shaky on how to play the deck and he was using a sub-optimal build running Revoker main. And he still won 3 out of 5! If he was running Thopter Engineer over Revoker, he would have won a fourth.
I do not understand why people are running that card (Revoker) main? That's a SB card. Bring it in if needed. People are also playing Stubs main. Why? We don't care if we lose our Ensouled creature. We've got enough fire power to win without it game 1. Now, game 2/3, sure, bring it in. Bring in the Revokers, too, if it can help. No sense in slowing the deck down game 1, though.
I ran into the UR Mill deck that won the San Diego GP tonight at FNM. I didn't think it would be a hard matchup with the high amount of colorless permanents in the deck not triggering multiple Tutelage triggers. But when Jace hits the board, things start going fast.
I lost in 3, managing to get him to 1 in game 2. It was actually surprising how well he was able to control the board sweeping with Whelming Wave, Dispersing Ensouled artifacts, and using Anger of the Gods to negate Hangarback's dying clause. Anyone have any tips for the matchup? I figure I'll run into it much more in the coming weeks.
Very nice write-up! Thanks for sharing. Congrats on your win and your personal best finish!
Thoughts on your deck build? Any cards you feel would make it stronger? Do you like it the way it is?
Thanks, I really like all of the cards in the deck for the most part. I was back and forth on playing the Swiftwater Cliffs or a 6th Island. I think the Swiftwater Cliffs was correct when considering all of the Red sideboard. Also, I did not bring in Smash to Smithereens once during the tournament, while that does not mean they should not have been there I wonder what the best sideboard strategy is for the mirror. The 3 life from Smash matters but Smash does not deal with a Darksteel Citadel. Other options would be Voyage's End, Force Away, and Sidisi's Faithful which cannot be countered with Stubborn Denial but can be killed with the exploit trigger on the stack.
Thanks, I really like all of the cards in the deck for the most part. I was back and forth on playing the Swiftwater Cliffs or a 6th Island. I think the Swiftwater Cliffs was correct when considering all of the Red sideboard. Also, I did not bring in Smash to Smithereens once during the tournament, while that does not mean they should not have been there I wonder what the best sideboard strategy is for the mirror. The 3 life from Smash matters but Smash does not deal with a Darksteel Citadel. Other options would be Voyage's End, Force Away, and Sidisi's Faithful which cannot be countered with Stubborn Denial but can be killed with the exploit trigger on the stack.
I originally had 2 Cliffs in my build, and bailed on them when I went to 4 Drums. Went 4-1 with my build at FNM, only losing to GR Devotion in round one when I had to mull to 6 game 1 and then got mana flooded. Won game two and then got mana flooded again game 3 and he was mana short, but managed to draw three straight lands. We played a couple more games for fun and split them. I don't think we really need to SB for the mirror. We have the stokes, the rest is just gonna be luck.
Ensoul Artifact is the best card in this deck. Darksteel Citadel is probably the best land in this deck because it enables so much.
Without these two cards, this deck is completely dead. Right now it's being hated out of every top-8 now that people know about it, and without those two powerhouse cards the deck is basically a collection of draft leftovers.
And that's not to mention the losses of Shrapnel Blast and Ornithopter. Do you really think there's going to be anything close to as good as these cards printed in BfZ, which probably does *not* have any kind of artifact theme??
Enjoy playing this deck while you can, because it's going to be completely gone once M15 rotates out.
I'm guessing that with 'Devoid" as one of the new mechanics in BFZ, colorless matters is going to be quite a thing. Hang on to your Walkers and your Blades!
I went 2-2 today at a standard tourney, my worst outing with this deck yet. I got run over by Red Aggro and RW Aggro. Still can't keep up with the lifegain and I couldn't draw my Seismic Ruptures. Kind of hard to beat a turn 1 Swiftspear, followed by a turn 2 Swiftspear and a Titan's Strength. Bleh.
I ran into the UR Mill deck that won the San Diego GP tonight at FNM. I didn't think it would be a hard matchup with the high amount of colorless permanents in the deck not triggering multiple Tutelage triggers. But when Jace hits the board, things start going fast.
I lost in 3, managing to get him to 1 in game 2. It was actually surprising how well he was able to control the board sweeping with Whelming Wave, Dispersing Ensouled artifacts, and using Anger of the Gods to negate Hangarback's dying clause. Anyone have any tips for the matchup? I figure I'll run into it much more in the coming weeks.
1. Try to put every Ensoul on a DS Citadel. This dodges both Anger AND Disperse (animated DS Citadel is not a "nonland" permanent thus cannot be targeted by Disperse).
2. Bring in Stubborn Denials and once you get an Ensoul active, try to use Stubborn to stop Tutelage. Yes, even if this means losing your 5/5 to a Disperse you believe they're holding. You can always make more dudes, you cannot afford to let Tutelage resolve. If you can't stop Tutelage, try to Stub a Cruise or other big draw. You'd be surprised how often U/R taps all out, even a lowly Force Spike can do work. Their mana is tight.
3. Bring in Annuls, which also counter Tutelage.
4. You're not running Annuls? What are you, crazy?
5. Run Annuls. Crushing against a lot of big cards in Standard right now, including Courser, Hangarback, everything in Constellation, everything in the mirror, plus Tutelage.
6. Other than that I dunno. Run Thopter Engineer so you can at least get hasty punches in before you get wiped by Anger? Not much else to say.
7. Desperation play: Learn from the Past? Hilarious to just reset mill. It will only give you 2, 3 turns tops before they mill you out again though, so you need to resolve this on top of having a clock out. Just a thought.
Edit: 8. Revoker. If you board them, bring them in. A double-revoker hand is just horrific for them. Name Tutelage with the first and Anger with the second. Even a single Revoker is nasty, though a singleton should name Anger.
Ensoul Artifact is the best card in this deck. Darksteel Citadel is probably the best land in this deck because it enables so much.
Without these two cards, this deck is completely dead. Right now it's being hated out of every top-8 now that people know about it, and without those two powerhouse cards the deck is basically a collection of draft leftovers.
This. I was struggling to make Ensoul work as a deck prior to Origins by using Cloudform, Lightform, etc., etc. It sucked miserably. I couldn't get anything to work. The stuff from Origins, particularly Hangarback, give the deck the gas it needs to succeed. But it is still fundamentally an Ensoul / Shrapnel Blast deck. Those are how this deck closes out most of its victorious game ones. Losing that = losing the deck. You may be able to build some other sort of robots list but it won't really be this deck; it will deserve its own thread as a different deck altogether.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/31364_BBD-VS-The-Boss-GW-Aggro-VS-UR-Thopters.html
It is Premium content, so I'll just say Tom Ross was a little shaky on how to play the deck and he was using a sub-optimal build running Revoker main. And he still won 3 out of 5! If he was running Thopter Engineer over Revoker, he would have won a fourth.
I do not understand why people are running that card (Revoker) main? That's a SB card. Bring it in if needed. People are also playing Stubs main. Why? We don't care if we lose our Ensouled creature. We've got enough fire power to win without it game 1. Now, game 2/3, sure, bring it in. Bring in the Revokers, too, if it can help. No sense in slowing the deck down game 1, though.
I lost in 3, managing to get him to 1 in game 2. It was actually surprising how well he was able to control the board sweeping with Whelming Wave, Dispersing Ensouled artifacts, and using Anger of the Gods to negate Hangarback's dying clause. Anyone have any tips for the matchup? I figure I'll run into it much more in the coming weeks.
Eric
Very nice write-up! Thanks for sharing. Congrats on your win and your personal best finish!
Thoughts on your deck build? Any cards you feel would make it stronger? Do you like it the way it is?
Thanks, I really like all of the cards in the deck for the most part. I was back and forth on playing the Swiftwater Cliffs or a 6th Island. I think the Swiftwater Cliffs was correct when considering all of the Red sideboard. Also, I did not bring in Smash to Smithereens once during the tournament, while that does not mean they should not have been there I wonder what the best sideboard strategy is for the mirror. The 3 life from Smash matters but Smash does not deal with a Darksteel Citadel. Other options would be Voyage's End, Force Away, and Sidisi's Faithful which cannot be countered with Stubborn Denial but can be killed with the exploit trigger on the stack.
I originally had 2 Cliffs in my build, and bailed on them when I went to 4 Drums. Went 4-1 with my build at FNM, only losing to GR Devotion in round one when I had to mull to 6 game 1 and then got mana flooded. Won game two and then got mana flooded again game 3 and he was mana short, but managed to draw three straight lands. We played a couple more games for fun and split them. I don't think we really need to SB for the mirror. We have the stokes, the rest is just gonna be luck.
Ensoul Artifact is the best card in this deck. Darksteel Citadel is probably the best land in this deck because it enables so much.
Without these two cards, this deck is completely dead. Right now it's being hated out of every top-8 now that people know about it, and without those two powerhouse cards the deck is basically a collection of draft leftovers.
And that's not to mention the losses of Shrapnel Blast and Ornithopter. Do you really think there's going to be anything close to as good as these cards printed in BfZ, which probably does *not* have any kind of artifact theme??
Enjoy playing this deck while you can, because it's going to be completely gone once M15 rotates out.
I went 2-2 today at a standard tourney, my worst outing with this deck yet. I got run over by Red Aggro and RW Aggro. Still can't keep up with the lifegain and I couldn't draw my Seismic Ruptures. Kind of hard to beat a turn 1 Swiftspear, followed by a turn 2 Swiftspear and a Titan's Strength. Bleh.
All this red is not fun.
1. Try to put every Ensoul on a DS Citadel. This dodges both Anger AND Disperse (animated DS Citadel is not a "nonland" permanent thus cannot be targeted by Disperse).
2. Bring in Stubborn Denials and once you get an Ensoul active, try to use Stubborn to stop Tutelage. Yes, even if this means losing your 5/5 to a Disperse you believe they're holding. You can always make more dudes, you cannot afford to let Tutelage resolve. If you can't stop Tutelage, try to Stub a Cruise or other big draw. You'd be surprised how often U/R taps all out, even a lowly Force Spike can do work. Their mana is tight.
3. Bring in Annuls, which also counter Tutelage.
4. You're not running Annuls? What are you, crazy?
5. Run Annuls. Crushing against a lot of big cards in Standard right now, including Courser, Hangarback, everything in Constellation, everything in the mirror, plus Tutelage.
6. Other than that I dunno. Run Thopter Engineer so you can at least get hasty punches in before you get wiped by Anger? Not much else to say.
7. Desperation play: Learn from the Past? Hilarious to just reset mill. It will only give you 2, 3 turns tops before they mill you out again though, so you need to resolve this on top of having a clock out. Just a thought.
Edit: 8. Revoker. If you board them, bring them in. A double-revoker hand is just horrific for them. Name Tutelage with the first and Anger with the second. Even a single Revoker is nasty, though a singleton should name Anger.
This. I was struggling to make Ensoul work as a deck prior to Origins by using Cloudform, Lightform, etc., etc. It sucked miserably. I couldn't get anything to work. The stuff from Origins, particularly Hangarback, give the deck the gas it needs to succeed. But it is still fundamentally an Ensoul / Shrapnel Blast deck. Those are how this deck closes out most of its victorious game ones. Losing that = losing the deck. You may be able to build some other sort of robots list but it won't really be this deck; it will deserve its own thread as a different deck altogether.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
with out
Ensoul Artifact
Shrapnel Blast
where kinda screwed. sad sad sad
I wish they would start posting some artifacts!!!!