After some goldfishing, I realize that the version with Sylvan Awakening allowed me to pool a lot of floating mana while comboing. Has anybody considered Aurelia's Fury and Sphinx's Revelation in the SB (tutored with Glittering Wish)? Revelation as a way to refill our hand ; Fury to tap blockers and hit the dome, and also a way to win faster in real life. It's already annoying for the opponent when we're doing our combo and playing alone, anything that can end his misery faster is good, IMHO.
Also, shouldn’t we play a single Pact of Negation in the main board to protect the combo while were're firing off? The drawback of the spell is of no consequence if we win this turn, and because it costs zero, we can cast it even when we're tapped out (and the untapped trigger is on the stack). It will also cause another trigger on JA, and can at worst cancel a dork mid combo if we're about to fizzle (just to get a trigger).
Edit: Another reason why I love Sylvan Awakening is it's ability to end the game much faster, and put an end to opponent’s misery (out of respect ; I deeply hate it myself when it takes forever for my opponent to do his KCI or Storm trick). It doesn’t take much triggers to get to lethal once we add 2 or 3 attackers. Farseek and/or Explore could be relevant addition to the main deck. I think I prefer Explore... we have so many cards in hand, so playing an otherwise useless land during the combo and also drawing an extra card seems better than what Farseek can do for us. But Farseek would be more relevant to cast on turn 2 than Explore (in a deck that never features more than 18 lands, usually 17), thus increasing our chances to have 4 lands in play on turn 3 (and start the combo even without dorks or zero mana spells like Noxious Revival or Engineered Explosives). Both ramp spells make drawing/casting another Sylvan Awakening more relevant (we're bound to see copy #2 while comboing, anyway). Maybe one of each?
Edit 2 : Another reason why I love Sylvan Awakening is it’s abilty to protect us if we fizzle during the combo. Two or three 2/2 creatures with reach and indestructible go a long way soaking up some damage. And face it, opponent will certainly forget about them, and will be in a hurry to close the door before we win next turn. What a nice ambush spell, even if it was cast last turn (because its effect lasts until our next turn).
Hey, so I've been running this on MTGO for quite a while now.
I love Sylvan Awakening for many of the same reasons (speed is end game is ALSO one of them!). I can tell you that Noxious Revival is fairly important if you need to go off now (3 mana, 0 mana, win). Aurielia's Fury and Sphinx, not so much. I usually run 1 or 2 retraction helix/banishing in MB for these reasons.
Pact of Negation is fine, but silence is better ;).
I love the idea of explore! I added 4 just now and will test with this.
Note* I'm still not sure if this is better than fatestitcher. Both feel even to me. Sylvan is more reliable once you've cast it, but fate can be a turn faster it feels.
I'm not doing the best with this deckbuilder (never have).
Instant/Sorcery:
3path to exile
3fatal push
4inquisition of kozilek
2censor
1negate
1sphinx's revelation (trying this and pull from tomorrow as a 1 of. Pull is in sideboard when life doesn't matter -- so far it has been good for me) The reason is because I don't use Jace. I end up sometimes stalled on board with tons of land. I actually have only cast Pull from sideboard. Drew me 4 cards and I discarded a land.
^ trials have been amazing everytime. the cartouche brings them back once zur is live. First Strike and the 1/1 dude come up as well. One of feels right.
Hi Dennis. Been experimenting (very low key on MTGO) with the cartouche's and trial of ambition. I like what I have so far, beats up creature decks! Transformational sideboard for combo?
If you want to keep faithless looting, would a couple delve creatures be better than mindwrack? Thinking Tombstalker if you want flying. As well as the other key delvers for black.
I'll post a list of mine in a little bit... but do you ever feel that Copter's aren't doing a whole lot? I haven't used them, but feel that they require too much (ever have a Copter just sitting there?).
@D90Dennis14, I recgonzie you are experimenting around. Probably didn't stay very long with Zur. But, I'm going to give it a go. I like fatal push and the meta is turning away from "fast" decks. Mostly tron/scapeshift type stuff... we'll see!
Anyone else worried about Fatal Push? Snapcaster/Push decks may be our ruin (I play CoCo Bant no Knightfall). Mirran Crusader/Geist of Saint Traft are going to be more important.
Tezz is one of the main reasons to run the thopter combo. Stony Silence is more than annoying, I agree. Tezzeret doesn't give a crap though. He makes us more resilient than others... but, yes spell snare is probably your best bet in the SB for UB builds.
If you run bridge... who cares about stony? side out the combo and focus on artifact hate that doesn't care about stony (pithing needle or chalice). Get the Tezz win moving. Stony sided in could actually be a benefit for us playing tezz.
Jealous ;/. Was exciting to see what a more aggressive approach would have looked like. Your results are about what I expected though... but leave it to FNM to have crazy/ridiculous cards ;).
Also -- I know it is blasphemy... Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver better than Lili? Might be something to think about. Maybe neither. Your meta made it sound like you should just go 4/3 thopter/sword!
Been playing mostly MTGO, because my LGS is so far away. I have ALL of the cards for the unbanning (paper) and I'm excited to try out my deck. Drive the 40 miles to my nearest LGS... it closed LAST WEEKEND. The studying, preparation, deck building... got nothing.
Good luck to the rest of my Tezz AOB fans out there.
Not saying my way is better/worse, just the route I took. I agree, I'm worried about some ridiculous hate tonight. I have spell snare and mana leak (even considering spell pierce). Figured they covered more ground. The manaleak/spell pierce may be pretty good, considering the hate is probably going to be aggressively mulligan-ed (get the leaks out early).
@Raystack -- I guess we'll find out! I am ready to go for FNM as well. Going with a more traditional deck, more along the lines of the Shoota approach and Thopter added in. I love the godzilla package, I'm a huge fan. But I don't know if it is necessary anymore with Thopter? The same hate stops the godzilla package as well. minus spell snare. Maybe you add 1dismember and 1thopter foundry instead?
What's the point of that though? Go with your gut and let's see the results!
I am not using fate, although I have used 1 in past sylvan builds. Not sure yet to be honest.
Edit*
One other cool thing I picked up is that sylvan has allowed wins where opp. has damping sphere or other crazy sideboard hosers in play (chalice on 1).
Hey, so I've been running this on MTGO for quite a while now.
I love Sylvan Awakening for many of the same reasons (speed is end game is ALSO one of them!). I can tell you that Noxious Revival is fairly important if you need to go off now (3 mana, 0 mana, win). Aurielia's Fury and Sphinx, not so much. I usually run 1 or 2 retraction helix/banishing in MB for these reasons.
Pact of Negation is fine, but silence is better ;).
I love the idea of explore! I added 4 just now and will test with this.
Note* I'm still not sure if this is better than fatestitcher. Both feel even to me. Sylvan is more reliable once you've cast it, but fate can be a turn faster it feels.
Instant/Sorcery:
3path to exile
3fatal push
4inquisition of kozilek
2censor
1negate
1sphinx's revelation (trying this and pull from tomorrow as a 1 of. Pull is in sideboard when life doesn't matter -- so far it has been good for me) The reason is because I don't use Jace. I end up sometimes stalled on board with tons of land. I actually have only cast Pull from sideboard. Drew me 4 cards and I discarded a land.
Enchantments:
2detention sphere
1ghostly prison
1steel of the godhead
1thassa, god of the sea (haven't been impressed, but scry is surprisingly helpful. Haven't really needed for no blocks)
1cartouche of solidarity
3trial of ambition
^ trials have been amazing everytime. the cartouche brings them back once zur is live. First Strike and the 1/1 dude come up as well. One of feels right.
4lingering souls
4geist of saint traft
4zur the enchanter
1blood baron of vizkopa (1 in sideboard as well, white/black comes up a lot for me on MTGO -- haven't cast him once unfortunately)
24 lands/manlands
Sideboard:
Nothing out of the ordinary that I haven't already mentioned (rest in peace, stony, etc.)
jester's cap same thing. Didn't understand magic at the time, but it was alluring for some reason.
Then I was attracted to the darkest looking card I had seen up to that point: cabal patriarch and his cabal buddies.
The card that brought me back, however, was tezzeret, agent of bolas
Tezz is one of the main reasons to run the thopter combo. Stony Silence is more than annoying, I agree. Tezzeret doesn't give a crap though. He makes us more resilient than others... but, yes spell snare is probably your best bet in the SB for UB builds.
If you run bridge... who cares about stony? side out the combo and focus on artifact hate that doesn't care about stony (pithing needle or chalice). Get the Tezz win moving. Stony sided in could actually be a benefit for us playing tezz.
Also -- I know it is blasphemy... Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver better than Lili? Might be something to think about. Maybe neither. Your meta made it sound like you should just go 4/3 thopter/sword!
Been playing mostly MTGO, because my LGS is so far away. I have ALL of the cards for the unbanning (paper) and I'm excited to try out my deck. Drive the 40 miles to my nearest LGS... it closed LAST WEEKEND. The studying, preparation, deck building... got nothing.
Good luck to the rest of my Tezz AOB fans out there.
Not saying my way is better/worse, just the route I took. I agree, I'm worried about some ridiculous hate tonight. I have spell snare and mana leak (even considering spell pierce). Figured they covered more ground. The manaleak/spell pierce may be pretty good, considering the hate is probably going to be aggressively mulligan-ed (get the leaks out early).
What's the point of that though? Go with your gut and let's see the results!