Introduction
This version of Tezzerator is a two-color (UB) artifact control deck that relies on Wurmcoil Engine + Sword of War and Peace as a finisher. It’s a slightly altered version of UB Tezzeret that used to see play during Scars of Mirrodin – Innistrad Standard. The deck abuses interactions between cards, such as Master Transmuter with literally everything and Trading Post as sac outlet for eggs like Ichor Wellspring and token spammer for Wurmcoil Engine. It’s a generally fun deck to play with, very interactive and more permissive than most ‘pure control’ decks. I chose not to play counters to leave more slots for removal, but if you prefer, you can have them just fine.
Card Choices
Wurmcoil Engine – The deck’s ultimate finisher. 6/6 deathtouch, lifelink that spawns two dudes with useful abilities on death for 6: who wouldn’t want it? It can turn the tide on your favor if you swing with it while it’s equipped with Sword of War and Peace and goes unblocked: the opponent will take much more than 8 damage and you will gain much more than 8 life. It’s a must in this deck, up to 3-4 copies.
Phyrexian Metamorph – The artifact version of Clone that can copy artifacts as well and that can be cast for one less mana at the measly cost of 2 life – you will find out that life won’t mean anything to you as the game progresses. The fact that it’s an artifact makes it much, much better than Clone in this deck. It can be bounced by Transmuter, turned into a 5/5 by Tezzeret, kill Geist of Saint Traft and copy interesting things such as Wurmcoil itself, which makes it a Wurmcoil for 3 and 2 life. I run 3 copies: it’s up to you to decide how many of these you’re willing to use.
Master Transmuter – Our utility card. Its bouncing ability has many applications here: save a creature or artifact from dying, similar to blinking; recur and/or cheat in Spine of Ish Sah; and cheat in Wurmcoil Engine. You can run up to 3 of these.
Treasure Mage – A cheap tutor for Wurmcoil and Spine stapled onto a 2/2 dude. He’s pretty useless for anything other than this, since it doesn’t have the artifact supertype. He’s a 1- or 2-of.
Solemn Simulacrum – I remember back at SOM-ISD Standard when ramp could be found in all colors because of this guy. The best part of it is that it can be recurred by Transmuter, netting us lots of mana. I would use 3 to 4 of them, though my list doesn’t have any. I couldn’t find anything to take off my list so that he could get in, but he’s good indeed.
Pristine Talisman – Ramp that nets you 1 life. The life gain can be useful in that it can save you from a game loss. The fact that it generates colorless mana is irrelevant, for most of the deck is comprised of artifacts and spells with phyrexian mana in its cost. Can be bounced by Transmuter to cheat in other stuff. 2- to 3-of.
Ichor Wellspring – Egg that nets you a card when enters the battlefield and when it goes to the graveyard from the battlefield. It’s a cheap cantrip, either value-wise or cost-wise. I run 2 of them. You can stick to 1-2.
Ratchet Bomb – “Wait, why the hell are you using this instead of Engineered Explosives?” Well, it’s because ours is a 2-color deck and wouldn’t abuse it as much as Bomb does, although it only gets counters once a turn. It’s a personal preference, though: you can use Explosives if you want to. It’s a 2- to 3-of. Can be animated by Tezz and bounced by Transmuter.
Spine of Ish Sah – It has a Vindicate stapled onto it. Its mana cost can be ignored, though, because it can be easily cheated in by Master Transmuter. It deals with planeswalkers and there’s roughly 7 cards in the format that can counter it, of which only Trickbind makes it to decks, unless people are siding in other stuff that counters activated abilities. It’s a 1-of, due to its high cost.
Trading Post – Our Swiss army knife. It nets you life, a chump blocker, a card, interacts with Wurmcoil and is a sac outlet. The trick with Wurmcoil lies in its third ability. Pay 1, tap it and sacrifice Wurmcoil (a creature) to the ability, then, as it resolves, return Wurmcoil (an artifact) from the graveyard to your hand. When it’s sacrificed, it leaves a 3/3 deathtouch wurm and a 3/3 lifelink wurm. You can then either hardcast it or cheat it in with Transmuter. You can also use it as sac outlet for Ichor Wellspring and get two cards instead of one. 3- to 4-of.
Sword of War and Peace – I don’t know what the people at R&D were thinking of when they designed this card to be in the same block as Wurmcoil. It’s bonkers by itself alright, but try equipping it onto a Wurmcoil to see what happens. 8/8 deathtouch, lifelink, protection from red and from white, spams 2 tokens upon death and if it connects, it effectively turns the tables in your advantage. It would be optimal to run 4 of them, but I run 2 instead.
Dismember – It used to be the best piece of removal in Standard and its status remained here. You can cast it for as little as 1 – getting rid of early Goyfs and most creatures that see play in Modern. It’s immune to indestructibility. The (optional) life cost is measly here, too, for you can recover it as soon as you cast it with Trading Post’s first ability. 3- to 4-of.
Go for the Throat – Though it is conditional removal, there aren’t many artifact creatures playing outside of Affinity (which has been hit by the banhammer) and Furnace decks. It’s one of the best options alongside Doom Blade, but it has a wider array of legal targets. Definitely a 4-of.
Black Sun’s Zenith – Mass removal that’s immune to indestructibility (Boros Charm) and regeneration (Golgari Charm) and shuffles itself in your library. If you’re facing Melira Pod, you can trade these for Damnation instead. 3- to 4-of.
Watery Grave Darkslick Shores/Drowned Catacomb (as you prefer, I’d rather go with Catacomb here) Island Swamp Ghost Quarter – It’s useful against decks with greedy manabases and to ramp your own mana. Wait for them to pop their fetchlands then destroy the shock. They will be able to tutor for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield untapped, but at least it’s a basic land and, while it can be useful for them during that turn, it will eventually hurt them on the long run. It’s a 2- to 3-of.
Phyrexia’s Core – It’s a sac outlet for Wellspring as well as a life source. Tap Pristine Talisman to generate 1 and gain 1 life, tap Phyrexia’s Core and sac Wellspring, gain 1 more life and draw a card. I run it as a 4-of.
Fetchlands – Yes, we also run fetchlands. Even though ours is a 2-colored deck, fetchlands are useful in that it provides us a shuffling effect, minimizing the chances of getting resource-screwed. My list runs 2 Misty Rainforests and 3 Marsh Flats. You can use them as you would like.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas – Our deck’s namesake. This guy is pure utility. His +1 is CA for us, his -1 is an animator that can turn a normally useless artifact (such as Wellspring) or other creatures (Transmuter/whatever Metamorph is copying) into a 5/5 beatstick, and it’s not hard to blow his ultimate and eventually turn the tables. Definitely a 4-of.
Batterskull – It’s always good to have more win conditions, isn’t it? Though it can’t be cheated in as early as turn 3 as you could with SFM, it’s still very strong and can abuse our interactions with other cards. It can be equipped onto animated artifacts and even Wurmcoil (though the lifelink ability would be rather redundant here.)
Damnation – Facing Melira? No problem. Take out your Zeniths and side these in. Like we’re out of options for mass removal, right?
Torpor Orb – We’re among a huge multitude of creatures with spells stapled onto them. And we don’t have counters here. Torpor Orb is a nice shutdown for creatures like these – they lose their value almost entirely, then you can just ditch them.
Sword of Feast and Famine – Very useful vs. Jund matchups, it also untaps all your lands, leaving you free to respond to threats during your opponent’s turn.
Tormod’s Crypt – GY-hate against Tarmogoyf. You can pick either this or Nihil Spellbomb. I would rather have the spellbomb, because it can net you a card in addition to being GY-hate.
Norn’s Annex – If you’re being badly beaten up by a swarm of dudes, this might be an option. They would then pay either W or 2 life for each creature they want to swing against you or Tezz. The 4 life loss is, as I’ve already said, irrelevant.
Q&A
- It's fun to play with it
- It interacts with your opponent, as opposed to combo decks
- Easy to maneuver
- Inexpensive compared to tier 1 Modern decks
- You don't like playing control decks
- Matches can drag on for a lot of time (I've had it take 20 turns to kill the opponent once)
- You hate blue for some reason
I haven’t had the opportunity to test this deck against established Modern decks, because nearly nobody in my region plays Modern, so I don’t have statistics as to how good it does in a matchup against those. However, I’ve beaten casual Affinity decks running Cloudpost, won 2-1 against a Quest deck and beat to the pulp Legacy BW Tokens. I’ve playtested it against Standard Esper Control once and it decked out. lol
-1 Metamorph (Clogs up)
-1 Go for the threat (Overkill)
-1 Sun zenith (Overkill)
-1 Talisman (Clogs up and slows your openings)
-1 Ratchet (Overkill)
-1 Post (Overkill and clogs up)
-2 SoWaP (Overkill)
Thats tweaking it in the least possible way. Personally I'd forget the posts and wellsprings altogether in lieu of a controlling toolbox. I would try to focus on consistently abusing transmuter with an artifact toolbox, so I would add some lightning greaves as well or some spellskite to protect transmuter. skite also protects you.
EDIT: Your list is missing 4 cards, add some tezz to the decklist or call it "Tezzerless Tezzerator"
-1 Metamorph (Clogs up)
-1 Go for the threat (Overkill)
-1 Sun zenith (Overkill)
-1 Talisman (Clogs up and slows your openings)
-1 Ratchet (Overkill)
-1 Post (Overkill and clogs up)
-2 SoWaP (Overkill)
Thats tweaking it in the least possible way. Personally I'd forget the posts and wellsprings altogether in lieu of a controlling toolbox. I would try to focus on consistently abusing transmuter with an artifact toolbox, so I would add some lightning greaves as well or some spellskite to protect transmuter. skite also protects you.
EDIT: Your list is missing 4 cards, add some tezz to the decklist or call it "Tezzerless Tezzerator"
Lol. Fixed it. I was almost sleeping with my face on the keyboard as I was typing the decklist. Thank you.
I wish SFM was Modern-legal. This way I could make something like a stoneblade deck which is not as outrageously expensive as the Legacy one. But this is not Magical Christmasland.
SoWaP is also protection for transmuter, since it can't be the target of burn spells and path. But I'll put some thinking into it and will playtest/tweak it a lot. I really love this deck, and I'd be very happy if I could compete with it someday. That way I could get into competitive play playing with something I actually enjoy very much.
Introduction
This version of Tezzerator is a two-color (UB) artifact control deck that relies on Wurmcoil Engine + Sword of War and Peace as a finisher. It’s a slightly altered version of UB Tezzeret that used to see play during Scars of Mirrodin – Innistrad Standard. The deck abuses interactions between cards, such as Master Transmuter with literally everything and Trading Post as sac outlet for eggs like Ichor Wellspring and token spammer for Wurmcoil Engine. It’s a generally fun deck to play with, very interactive and more permissive than most ‘pure control’ decks. I chose not to play counters to leave more slots for removal, but if you prefer, you can have them just fine.
Card Choices
Phyrexian Metamorph – The artifact version of Clone that can copy artifacts as well and that can be cast for one less mana at the measly cost of 2 life – you will find out that life won’t mean anything to you as the game progresses. The fact that it’s an artifact makes it much, much better than Clone in this deck. It can be bounced by Transmuter, turned into a 5/5 by Tezzeret, kill Geist of Saint Traft and copy interesting things such as Wurmcoil itself, which makes it a Wurmcoil for 3 and 2 life. I run 3 copies: it’s up to you to decide how many of these you’re willing to use.
Master Transmuter – Our utility card. Its bouncing ability has many applications here: save a creature or artifact from dying, similar to blinking; recur and/or cheat in Spine of Ish Sah; and cheat in Wurmcoil Engine. You can run up to 3 of these.
Treasure Mage – A cheap tutor for Wurmcoil and Spine stapled onto a 2/2 dude. He’s pretty useless for anything other than this, since it doesn’t have the artifact supertype. He’s a 1- or 2-of.
Solemn Simulacrum – I remember back at SOM-ISD Standard when ramp could be found in all colors because of this guy. The best part of it is that it can be recurred by Transmuter, netting us lots of mana. I would use 3 to 4 of them, though my list doesn’t have any. I couldn’t find anything to take off my list so that he could get in, but he’s good indeed.
Pristine Talisman – Ramp that nets you 1 life. The life gain can be useful in that it can save you from a game loss. The fact that it generates colorless mana is irrelevant, for most of the deck is comprised of artifacts and spells with phyrexian mana in its cost. Can be bounced by Transmuter to cheat in other stuff. 2- to 3-of.
Ichor Wellspring – Egg that nets you a card when enters the battlefield and when it goes to the graveyard from the battlefield. It’s a cheap cantrip, either value-wise or cost-wise. I run 2 of them. You can stick to 1-2.
Ratchet Bomb – “Wait, why the hell are you using this instead of Engineered Explosives?” Well, it’s because ours is a 2-color deck and wouldn’t abuse it as much as Bomb does, although it only gets counters once a turn. It’s a personal preference, though: you can use Explosives if you want to. It’s a 2- to 3-of. Can be animated by Tezz and bounced by Transmuter.
Spine of Ish Sah – It has a Vindicate stapled onto it. Its mana cost can be ignored, though, because it can be easily cheated in by Master Transmuter. It deals with planeswalkers and there’s roughly 7 cards in the format that can counter it, of which only Trickbind makes it to decks, unless people are siding in other stuff that counters activated abilities. It’s a 1-of, due to its high cost.
Trading Post – Our Swiss army knife. It nets you life, a chump blocker, a card, interacts with Wurmcoil and is a sac outlet. The trick with Wurmcoil lies in its third ability. Pay 1, tap it and sacrifice Wurmcoil (a creature) to the ability, then, as it resolves, return Wurmcoil (an artifact) from the graveyard to your hand. When it’s sacrificed, it leaves a 3/3 deathtouch wurm and a 3/3 lifelink wurm. You can then either hardcast it or cheat it in with Transmuter. You can also use it as sac outlet for Ichor Wellspring and get two cards instead of one. 3- to 4-of.
Sword of War and Peace – I don’t know what the people at R&D were thinking of when they designed this card to be in the same block as Wurmcoil. It’s bonkers by itself alright, but try equipping it onto a Wurmcoil to see what happens. 8/8 deathtouch, lifelink, protection from red and from white, spams 2 tokens upon death and if it connects, it effectively turns the tables in your advantage. It would be optimal to run 4 of them, but I run 2 instead.
Dismember – It used to be the best piece of removal in Standard and its status remained here. You can cast it for as little as 1 – getting rid of early Goyfs and most creatures that see play in Modern. It’s immune to indestructibility. The (optional) life cost is measly here, too, for you can recover it as soon as you cast it with Trading Post’s first ability. 3- to 4-of.
Go for the Throat – Though it is conditional removal, there aren’t many artifact creatures playing outside of Affinity (which has been hit by the banhammer) and Furnace decks. It’s one of the best options alongside Doom Blade, but it has a wider array of legal targets. Definitely a 4-of.
Black Sun’s Zenith – Mass removal that’s immune to indestructibility (Boros Charm) and regeneration (Golgari Charm) and shuffles itself in your library. If you’re facing Melira Pod, you can trade these for Damnation instead. 3- to 4-of.
Watery Grave
Darkslick Shores/Drowned Catacomb (as you prefer, I’d rather go with Catacomb here)
Island
Swamp
Ghost Quarter – It’s useful against decks with greedy manabases and to ramp your own mana. Wait for them to pop their fetchlands then destroy the shock. They will be able to tutor for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield untapped, but at least it’s a basic land and, while it can be useful for them during that turn, it will eventually hurt them on the long run. It’s a 2- to 3-of.
Phyrexia’s Core – It’s a sac outlet for Wellspring as well as a life source. Tap Pristine Talisman to generate 1 and gain 1 life, tap Phyrexia’s Core and sac Wellspring, gain 1 more life and draw a card. I run it as a 4-of.
Fetchlands – Yes, we also run fetchlands. Even though ours is a 2-colored deck, fetchlands are useful in that it provides us a shuffling effect, minimizing the chances of getting resource-screwed. My list runs 2 Misty Rainforests and 3 Marsh Flats. You can use them as you would like.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas – Our deck’s namesake. This guy is pure utility. His +1 is CA for us, his -1 is an animator that can turn a normally useless artifact (such as Wellspring) or other creatures (Transmuter/whatever Metamorph is copying) into a 5/5 beatstick, and it’s not hard to blow his ultimate and eventually turn the tables. Definitely a 4-of.
Batterskull – It’s always good to have more win conditions, isn’t it? Though it can’t be cheated in as early as turn 3 as you could with SFM, it’s still very strong and can abuse our interactions with other cards. It can be equipped onto animated artifacts and even Wurmcoil (though the lifelink ability would be rather redundant here.)
Damnation – Facing Melira? No problem. Take out your Zeniths and side these in. Like we’re out of options for mass removal, right?
Torpor Orb – We’re among a huge multitude of creatures with spells stapled onto them. And we don’t have counters here. Torpor Orb is a nice shutdown for creatures like these – they lose their value almost entirely, then you can just ditch them.
Sword of Feast and Famine – Very useful vs. Jund matchups, it also untaps all your lands, leaving you free to respond to threats during your opponent’s turn.
Tormod’s Crypt – GY-hate against Tarmogoyf. You can pick either this or Nihil Spellbomb. I would rather have the spellbomb, because it can net you a card in addition to being GY-hate.
Norn’s Annex – If you’re being badly beaten up by a swarm of dudes, this might be an option. They would then pay either W or 2 life for each creature they want to swing against you or Tezz. The 4 life loss is, as I’ve already said, irrelevant.
- It's fun to play with it
- It interacts with your opponent, as opposed to combo decks
- Easy to maneuver
- Inexpensive compared to tier 1 Modern decks
- You don't like playing control decks
- Matches can drag on for a lot of time (I've had it take 20 turns to kill the opponent once)
- You hate blue for some reason
3 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Master Transmuter
1 Treasure Mage
Instants (7)
3 Dismember
4 Go for the Throat
Sorceries (3)
3 Black Sun's Zenith
Artifacts (14)
2 Ichor Wellspring
3 Pristine Talisman
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Spine of Ish Sah
2 Sword of War and Peace
3 Trading Post
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Lands (22)
4 Watery Grave
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Phyrexia's Core
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Marsh Flats
1 Island
2 Swamp
1 Batterskull
3 Damnation
4 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Torpor Orb
2 Thoughtseize
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Norn's Annex
I haven’t had the opportunity to test this deck against established Modern decks, because nearly nobody in my region plays Modern, so I don’t have statistics as to how good it does in a matchup against those. However, I’ve beaten casual Affinity decks running Cloudpost, won 2-1 against a Quest deck and beat to the pulp Legacy BW Tokens. I’ve playtested it against Standard Esper Control once and it decked out. lol
UB Sacrifice
RWU Miracle Control
Modern
UB Tezzerator
Clint Cearley ♥
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
-1 Metamorph (Clogs up)
-1 Go for the threat (Overkill)
-1 Sun zenith (Overkill)
-1 Talisman (Clogs up and slows your openings)
-1 Ratchet (Overkill)
-1 Post (Overkill and clogs up)
-2 SoWaP (Overkill)
and off the top of my head I'd add:
+4 Duress/Kozilek/Thoughtseize
+2 Pithing Needles
+1 Transmuter
Thats tweaking it in the least possible way. Personally I'd forget the posts and wellsprings altogether in lieu of a controlling toolbox. I would try to focus on consistently abusing transmuter with an artifact toolbox, so I would add some lightning greaves as well or some spellskite to protect transmuter. skite also protects you.
EDIT: Your list is missing 4 cards, add some tezz to the decklist or call it "Tezzerless Tezzerator"
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
Lol. Fixed it. I was almost sleeping with my face on the keyboard as I was typing the decklist. Thank you.
I wish SFM was Modern-legal. This way I could make something like a stoneblade deck which is not as outrageously expensive as the Legacy one. But this is not Magical Christmasland.
SoWaP is also protection for transmuter, since it can't be the target of burn spells and path. But I'll put some thinking into it and will playtest/tweak it a lot. I really love this deck, and I'd be very happy if I could compete with it someday. That way I could get into competitive play playing with something I actually enjoy very much.
UB Sacrifice
RWU Miracle Control
Modern
UB Tezzerator
Clint Cearley ♥