@Luxoflux: hey! It is fantastic. The deckbuilding guidelines are still relevant I believe, but they certainly havent been updated to the current meta. They're lagging a couple months I’d say.
From where I stand, I believe that firstly there’s been a rise in the density of artifact hate found in most sideboards in the last couple months. Secondly when we thought we had the best build to gun down the metagame (dropping Pushes for IoKs that helped solve the new Storm and Stony Silence problems preemptively; also leaning on a SB removal suite of Abrupt Decays and Maelstrom Pulse to get rid of Stony Silence -- it works), then there’s been a slight metagame shift that bit us in the ass.
Namely: an overall downtick of popularity for Storm — which we had been preparing for — and a slight uptick in many things tough to deal with, among which: Vizier Coco and Elves and all their hate, on top of their ability to win through a Bridge and/or assembled Thopter-Sword (note: Time Sieve works here, but it's tough to pull off on time). Match-ups which, in retrospect, totally need Push aboard. So they would throw at us things like Reclamation Sage (found off 4x Chord and 4x CoCo, all rebuy-able with E-Witness) and Creeping Corrosion, on top of Kataki, Stony Silence and Tidehollow Sculler. I recall games where I’ve felt hated from 360• lol. Pretty ugly things sometimes, I swear.
I think this somewhat unfavourable metagame has made most Tezzerator pilots found around here pretty sad during their modern PPTQ season. That’s why there’s this slight *burnt toast* smell around this thread. I know there are some seasons where the metagame is favourable to this deck. I dont think right now is one. It is not unplayable, mind you! But posthoard games are very very tough, sometimes, when they do draw multiple silver-bullets that attack you from different angles.
Actually looking at tier 1 decks, most match-ups are all generally fair-ish (off the top of my head, E-Tron, Grixis Shadow, Burn, Affinity, Titanshift — this one isnt consensual, but in my recent experience it has been so with very specific piloting). Then in tier 2 is when sh*t gets worse: Abzan, Knightfall, Vizier CoCo and such Wxx decks is where it gets the roughest. When any of these tiered decks do topdeck multiple hate pieces hitting you from different angles, you know what happens.
So we haven’t had lots of success lately, but we’re a pretty small group too. Who knows what wouldve happened with a better sample size.
Bottom line would be: play the deck! It’s heaps of fun, very powerful and flashy to booth, but its admittedly hard to pilot. Your opponents may get lucky with their hate sometimes, you gotta be prepared for that.
And the build from the primer sure needs slight updating. Zac’s (Shadowgripper) list makes for a good starting point. I do believe that we still wanna have that ability to go overboard, either with KCI or Time Sieve.
Thanks Radouf, that's very helpful! I already play Affinity and Death & Taxes so I have two decks that are towards the higher end, power wise, of the field, and also means I'm used to trying to dodge artifact hate (often unsuccessfully I might add). Your analysis makes a lot of sense, I can see how Coco Vizier is a problem, especially as the local player of that at my FNM plays stuff like main-deck Qasali Pridemage.
Ultimately it looks like an incredibly fun deck, I'm going to see if I can get the remaining pieces I need for the standard build and start playtesting/tinkering away.
So after switchng over to Jeskai Thopters to face the current online meta game today, I started 4-0 in a competitive league, going 2-0 in all matches (Jund DS, Abzan, Titan Shift, Counters Co) before losing to storm 1-2. Saheeli combo for the win against both combo decks, both games, and boarded out against the fair decks. Nahiri and blood moon doing work out of the board.
It feels great having both these decks available to attack the online meta. Esper thopters was amazing for a stretch this summer, before big mana and counters co grew in meta share. I agree with radouf, that the meta is currently tough on a thopters build that can't find an infinite combo quickly. There just isn't that much aggro/merfolk/dredge to get easy wins against.
One thing I want to mention, is I believe Krark Clan Ironworks may be the superior infinite combo piece to Time Sieve at the moment. Whirring for 4 on turn 4 can't win until turn 5, true, but it will "answer" the combos that either Titanshift or Counters Co will throw at you, guaranteeing a win the next turn. Whirring for 4 is easier than whirring for sieve and needing 5 mana to keep going. That's just UUU, a thopter, a foundry, a sword and a bauble, and can respond to removal.
Edit: KCI against counters combo, actually, infinite ballista beats infinite thopters thanks to the sword trigger. My mistake. But infinite thopters will beat the green pump guy.
It won't beat Rhonas if they also have a Rec Sage/Pridemage/Revoker etc. in their deck. I definitely like KCI more than Time Sieve; having to spend a turn making Thopters before you can active Sieve the first time often renders it too slow in the matchups it's intended for.
It's good to see Zac posting here and having fun/success with the deck. I'm curious whether the green splash is worth it; I think Decay/Pulse are very useful tools beyond how necessary they are vs Stony Silence but it does ugly things to the manabase. Fetches/shocks are dodgy in this deck as basic Swamp is very awkward with Whir and the life loss is a problem if you have a clunky draw. They do improve Bauble and Push though. I'll have to try it again; these problems really jumped out at me before because I was playing a slower version of the deck where the life loss etc. mattered more. The alternative manabase probably wants Spire anyway? 4 Shores are a must, then you get to play River of Tears and a handful of utility lands, but it's hard to fill it out after that without too many basics.
I think the deck still has a lot of potential and I hope I can justify playing it at the RPTQ or GP Madrid.
Thanks for the link. I've played against that version of Lantern, and it's definitely better than the non-whir version. In fact, it's really hard to beat unless you open with enough hate, because they WILL hit bridge by turn 4, or if they have it, extra mill rocks.
@djhova - I've played the same basic mana base for a lot of online games, and with 4 Serum Visions and 4 Baubles, it works reliably. There's only one land that doesn't make blue, the basic swamp. I have personally given up on colorless utility lands, because the number of successful games that I keep 1-landers is quite high thanks to the cantrips. Fetchlands are really huge with bauble, you basically get a free Opt on turn 1.
@Shadowgripper: Excellent article! These two decks are basically what I play all the time, gravitating from the prison, to the combo side of what I perceive as Ensnaring Bridge artifact control decks
What aspects of the deck, in your opinion, do we still have to further perfect?
I would say resiliency to artifact hate, but is that really a thing? There are so many forms of them (destruction in Grudge, Spree, etc. ; Kataki Tax ; Stony Silence shutdown...).
The article has also ignited some interesting conversations in the comments section. From them we can see that Pentad Prism really isn't liked by everyone, even though I personally think it has a lots of utility. To make a case: firstly it ramps decently and even though it's one-shot, one shot is usually what this deck needs to take over. Secondly it fixes better than Talisman will, so you can float Decay mana in response to their Stony Silence on the stack for instance. Thirdly it's a free artifact body to sacrifice to Foundry to re-trigger your Sword to void a Surgical Extraction, a Scooze activation or a Relic of Progenitus tick (same reason why I prefer playing my own Relics rather than Spellbombs; counter these). It's artifact body is also very relevant in optimizing your Mox Opals -- It enables reaching Prism (x2) + Opal (x1) mana to Whir for two right there on your second turn. And also gives Tezz's -1 a low opportuniy-cost target, while generally adding to the artifact count in the deck, helping with it's +1 too.
The KCI vs Sieve also seems to be up in the air.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
- It's card quality fixing first, graveyard feeding, and if we tweak our build a little, it could probably ramp us pretty quick;
- Then once flipped it's an instant-speed CA engine, and digs precisely for what we're looking for: non-creature spells (Tezz, combo pieces, bullets, Decay and Pulse). Whir digs for artifact, this digs for the rest. What's not to love?
More importantly, regarding what I was just saying: it is resilient to artifact hate.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Well, what matchups is a card-filtering, late game mana hungry card advantage engine good in? I admit I haven't tested it, but I think I'd rather just play Padeem in the side for those kinds of matchups. Or even chart a course as a more immediate payoff on turn 2.
Yo, I actually tested Search last Monday as a 2-of(as I said I would during spoilers) and I really liked it, going 3-1 losing to U-Tron but beating Mardu Goryos, 8Rack and Grixis Delver/Shadow.
We go long in this deck fairly often, in my experience, either looking for a combo piece or a way to break out of Stony/Rip while Brige keeps opponent at bay. Having a way to impulse through my deck was insane, considering every card in our deck is a hit or a land.
@the nobodys I'd much rather have one or two Searches in my main then having a Padeem taking up valuable sideboard slots. Chart seems so poor in a deck with 0 Creatures and 2-3 cards we actually want in our GY, I rather play Thirst.
Search has been very good for me in my Draw-Go Thopter/Sword abominations, I can't see why it wouldn't be good in normal Tezzerator. I think any blue deck that has 20 or more noncreature spells would be remiss to not play at least 1 copy.
Search perfectly embodies a recurring issue with this deck: people try to cram it full of cute grindy cards when this is already one of the best decks in the format in the mid-late game.
For the people who have cut Darksteel Citadel altogether: do you miss the lines it opens up with Tezz? I've liked Inventors' Fair and Academy Ruins so far but I wonder if they shouldn't just be more Citadels if I'm using those slots on non-blue lands.
I do miss free wins against Jund when you just suit one Citadel up, and also the points against Big Mana where we could get a real (indestructible) clock going. But it's Whir of Invention that has pushed them out. And Whir of Invention brings a whole new level to our game, so you can't really compare the two.
But if our main problems we have are with non-interactive combo match-ups, big mana decks and facing multiple angle of artifact-hate attack, I don't think Citadel brings much to the table. We can still bash people's brains in with smashing Jars or Prisms. The indestructible doesn't seem like a huge difference there IMO.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
"Search perfectly embodies a recurring issue with this deck: people try to cram it full of cute grindy cards when this is already one of the best decks in the format in the mid-late game."
Is it really a cute grindy card? Or is it a hard to interact with consistency card that turns into a strong grindy card? Maybe you are underestimating Think Tank?
Quote from Reedy26 »
"... honestly i feel like [Azcanta] is in the same spot as big tezz [...] tezz just straight tutors for whatever we need and can threaten lethal with his ult, plus is hard to kill coming in at 4 loyalty."
Big Tezz isn't going to be hard to kill if you minus it to find an artifact. I have nothing against Whir #5, but the early game consistency of Azcanta and the general ability to avoid interaction makes it stellar, imo.
... "search is open to all kinda of enchantment removal and at 3 mana it's pretty awkward, if we havent found the combo or a bridge by the time it flips and we can afford to sink 3 mana into it we're likely just going to lose the game, otherwise i'd rather spend my mana casting brutalities, push's, bridges and whirs."
All kinds of enchantment removal? It's no more vulnerable than any of our artifacts, and actually taxes the opponents artifact hate even harder. All the good artifact hate, aside from Stony, would probably rather be saved for our threatening artifacts rather than our consistency cards. I am a little worried about it once it flips, becoming vulnerable to GQ effects is a real drawback, but at that point it is also protecting Inventor's Fair and becomes a 2 or 3 for 1 if you can activate it in response.
Has anyone tried lingering souls sideboard? Some are looking for a non artifact win con and casting a few lingering souls and still being able to hide behind bridge feels pretty comfortable
I've played souls both side and main. It's never a bad card, but if you're looking for alt win cons, I think something that poses a quicker clock would be better. I'm testing Monastery Mentor at the moment, but haven't many reps in with him yet.
And despite all my initial dismissing, I've been testing a singleton search for aczanta. So far, it has felt a little win-more, but it IS very good against BGx decks. Against combo or aggro, though, I've been boarding it out. It's quits good at what it does, but we just have so many tools already against midrange.
I started out playing legacy Tezz, and had a sideboard notion thief. If I can remember, he was a decent clock in a resource-choked boardstate, keeping brainstorms stranded. I don't think he does much in the modern meta. I think I'd rather play something like Shadow of Doubt or Aven Mindcensor, as search effects are what decks are doing to broken effect. The other card seems totally out of place in this shell, and not good.
On anothter note, Mentor has been helpful in a few games. I realized, for the most part, I hold my moxen in hand until turn 3 anyway (when metalcraft comes online) in order to hide my potential plays and/or get lucky with an opponent choosing to take a mox with discard. And if I have a mentor in hand, I will scry a bauble 2-deep off of a turn 1 serum visions, knowing I can play it the same turn as mentor and crack it, essentially netting a free monk token. He saved my butt one game against dredge and did work against shadow. I'm not sure he solves any of this deck's weaknesses, though, but he synergizes with all the noncreature spells.
not sure if you guys have seen the list but this top 8'd a tournament a few days ago. looks super outdated but a couple things stand out to me... 1) notion thief, ive not seen it mentioned previously? and 2) torment of hailfire.
has anyone got any experience playing these cards at all?
Link / source?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
From where I stand, I believe that firstly there’s been a rise in the density of artifact hate found in most sideboards in the last couple months. Secondly when we thought we had the best build to gun down the metagame (dropping Pushes for IoKs that helped solve the new Storm and Stony Silence problems preemptively; also leaning on a SB removal suite of Abrupt Decays and Maelstrom Pulse to get rid of Stony Silence -- it works), then there’s been a slight metagame shift that bit us in the ass.
Namely: an overall downtick of popularity for Storm — which we had been preparing for — and a slight uptick in many things tough to deal with, among which: Vizier Coco and Elves and all their hate, on top of their ability to win through a Bridge and/or assembled Thopter-Sword (note: Time Sieve works here, but it's tough to pull off on time). Match-ups which, in retrospect, totally need Push aboard. So they would throw at us things like Reclamation Sage (found off 4x Chord and 4x CoCo, all rebuy-able with E-Witness) and Creeping Corrosion, on top of Kataki, Stony Silence and Tidehollow Sculler. I recall games where I’ve felt hated from 360• lol. Pretty ugly things sometimes, I swear.
I think this somewhat unfavourable metagame has made most Tezzerator pilots found around here pretty sad during their modern PPTQ season. That’s why there’s this slight *burnt toast* smell around this thread. I know there are some seasons where the metagame is favourable to this deck. I dont think right now is one. It is not unplayable, mind you! But posthoard games are very very tough, sometimes, when they do draw multiple silver-bullets that attack you from different angles.
Actually looking at tier 1 decks, most match-ups are all generally fair-ish (off the top of my head, E-Tron, Grixis Shadow, Burn, Affinity, Titanshift — this one isnt consensual, but in my recent experience it has been so with very specific piloting). Then in tier 2 is when sh*t gets worse: Abzan, Knightfall, Vizier CoCo and such Wxx decks is where it gets the roughest. When any of these tiered decks do topdeck multiple hate pieces hitting you from different angles, you know what happens.
So we haven’t had lots of success lately, but we’re a pretty small group too. Who knows what wouldve happened with a better sample size.
Bottom line would be: play the deck! It’s heaps of fun, very powerful and flashy to booth, but its admittedly hard to pilot. Your opponents may get lucky with their hate sometimes, you gotta be prepared for that.
And the build from the primer sure needs slight updating. Zac’s (Shadowgripper) list makes for a good starting point. I do believe that we still wanna have that ability to go overboard, either with KCI or Time Sieve.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Ultimately it looks like an incredibly fun deck, I'm going to see if I can get the remaining pieces I need for the standard build and start playtesting/tinkering away.
It feels great having both these decks available to attack the online meta. Esper thopters was amazing for a stretch this summer, before big mana and counters co grew in meta share. I agree with radouf, that the meta is currently tough on a thopters build that can't find an infinite combo quickly. There just isn't that much aggro/merfolk/dredge to get easy wins against.
One thing I want to mention, is I believe Krark Clan Ironworks may be the superior infinite combo piece to Time Sieve at the moment. Whirring for 4 on turn 4 can't win until turn 5, true, but it will "answer" the combos that either Titanshift or Counters Co will throw at you, guaranteeing a win the next turn. Whirring for 4 is easier than whirring for sieve and needing 5 mana to keep going. That's just UUU, a thopter, a foundry, a sword and a bauble, and can respond to removal.
Edit: KCI against counters combo, actually, infinite ballista beats infinite thopters thanks to the sword trigger. My mistake. But infinite thopters will beat the green pump guy.
It's good to see Zac posting here and having fun/success with the deck. I'm curious whether the green splash is worth it; I think Decay/Pulse are very useful tools beyond how necessary they are vs Stony Silence but it does ugly things to the manabase. Fetches/shocks are dodgy in this deck as basic Swamp is very awkward with Whir and the life loss is a problem if you have a clunky draw. They do improve Bauble and Push though. I'll have to try it again; these problems really jumped out at me before because I was playing a slower version of the deck where the life loss etc. mattered more. The alternative manabase probably wants Spire anyway? 4 Shores are a must, then you get to play River of Tears and a handful of utility lands, but it's hard to fill it out after that without too many basics.
I think the deck still has a lot of potential and I hope I can justify playing it at the RPTQ or GP Madrid.
@djhova - I've played the same basic mana base for a lot of online games, and with 4 Serum Visions and 4 Baubles, it works reliably. There's only one land that doesn't make blue, the basic swamp. I have personally given up on colorless utility lands, because the number of successful games that I keep 1-landers is quite high thanks to the cantrips. Fetchlands are really huge with bauble, you basically get a free Opt on turn 1.
20 lands
What aspects of the deck, in your opinion, do we still have to further perfect?
I would say resiliency to artifact hate, but is that really a thing? There are so many forms of them (destruction in Grudge, Spree, etc. ; Kataki Tax ; Stony Silence shutdown...).
The article has also ignited some interesting conversations in the comments section. From them we can see that Pentad Prism really isn't liked by everyone, even though I personally think it has a lots of utility. To make a case: firstly it ramps decently and even though it's one-shot, one shot is usually what this deck needs to take over. Secondly it fixes better than Talisman will, so you can float Decay mana in response to their Stony Silence on the stack for instance. Thirdly it's a free artifact body to sacrifice to Foundry to re-trigger your Sword to void a Surgical Extraction, a Scooze activation or a Relic of Progenitus tick (same reason why I prefer playing my own Relics rather than Spellbombs; counter these). It's artifact body is also very relevant in optimizing your Mox Opals -- It enables reaching Prism (x2) + Opal (x1) mana to Whir for two right there on your second turn. And also gives Tezz's -1 a low opportuniy-cost target, while generally adding to the artifact count in the deck, helping with it's +1 too.
The KCI vs Sieve also seems to be up in the air.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
- It's card quality fixing first, graveyard feeding, and if we tweak our build a little, it could probably ramp us pretty quick;
- Then once flipped it's an instant-speed CA engine, and digs precisely for what we're looking for: non-creature spells (Tezz, combo pieces, bullets, Decay and Pulse). Whir digs for artifact, this digs for the rest. What's not to love?
More importantly, regarding what I was just saying: it is resilient to artifact hate.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
We go long in this deck fairly often, in my experience, either looking for a combo piece or a way to break out of Stony/Rip while Brige keeps opponent at bay. Having a way to impulse through my deck was insane, considering every card in our deck is a hit or a land.
@the nobodys I'd much rather have one or two Searches in my main then having a Padeem taking up valuable sideboard slots. Chart seems so poor in a deck with 0 Creatures and 2-3 cards we actually want in our GY, I rather play Thirst.
For the people who have cut Darksteel Citadel altogether: do you miss the lines it opens up with Tezz? I've liked Inventors' Fair and Academy Ruins so far but I wonder if they shouldn't just be more Citadels if I'm using those slots on non-blue lands.
But if our main problems we have are with non-interactive combo match-ups, big mana decks and facing multiple angle of artifact-hate attack, I don't think Citadel brings much to the table. We can still bash people's brains in with smashing Jars or Prisms. The indestructible doesn't seem like a huge difference there IMO.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
And despite all my initial dismissing, I've been testing a singleton search for aczanta. So far, it has felt a little win-more, but it IS very good against BGx decks. Against combo or aggro, though, I've been boarding it out. It's quits good at what it does, but we just have so many tools already against midrange.
On anothter note, Mentor has been helpful in a few games. I realized, for the most part, I hold my moxen in hand until turn 3 anyway (when metalcraft comes online) in order to hide my potential plays and/or get lucky with an opponent choosing to take a mox with discard. And if I have a mentor in hand, I will scry a bauble 2-deep off of a turn 1 serum visions, knowing I can play it the same turn as mentor and crack it, essentially netting a free monk token. He saved my butt one game against dredge and did work against shadow. I'm not sure he solves any of this deck's weaknesses, though, but he synergizes with all the noncreature spells.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.