I've yet to run into UW packing RIP maindeck, but it does make me want to move one decay from the SB to the main. Playing 2 Muddle the Mixture can make it a more consistent find.
@Dustycrumbz: I read that MD RIP was very successful in the MOCS for UW decks, so I think you're right that this will be a trend on the rise. I think having 1 copy of a Planeswalker doesn't hurt you much, esp. if you have Bottled Cloister. When I played with Serum Visions I didn't want more than 1 since drawing an early copy was pretty blank. Once I started playing with Faithless Looting it seemed I could go up to 2 MD copies comfortably.
@TheNobodys: Man, being able to tutor up an uncounterable RIP disenchant G1 sounds awesome. In my testing I've found even with 4 Whir, 4 Looting, 4 Foundry, 4 Sword, and 2 Inventors' Fair I can go 30 cards deep and sometimes not find one of my combo pieces. I'm very seriously considering adding the 1s Muddle to my own 75 because of this.
I think I'm leaning towards a maindeck walker over a maindeck decay just because that despite seeing the success the_nobodys has had recently, I just haven't had the time to test muddle the mixture myself and it doesn't immediately strike me as something I value exponentially higher than Collective Brutality, especially in regards to the lines surrounding the bridge plan. I also would rather have a card that trumps multiple RIP on board than a 1 shot that doesn't matter if they find a second before/after I get the decay. Muddle might be fine still and as enticing as it seems, I'm just not quite sold on it enough to sleeve that plan up blindly ahead of the weekend.
I do think I will play 1 maindeck Tez though. Not sure what I'm cutting from the 75 yet, let alone the main in order to make room. I want to keep the singleton Azcanta I've recently readapted in my list, but that may be what gets the axe.
@dusty: I think Azcanta and Tezzeret fill very similar roles. They are both slower cards that shine in match-ups where you're facing discard or counters. Tezzeret's main advantage is that he is an alternate win-con, and TBH I think he's both faster and more versaitle. I guess Azcanta dodges countermagic a little better, and there are fewer answers to it once it's on the board?
@dusty: I think Azcanta and Tezzeret fill very similar roles. They are both slower cards that shine in match-ups where you're facing discard or counters. Tezzeret's main advantage is that he is an alternate win-con, and TBH I think he's both faster and more versaitle. I guess Azcanta dodges countermagic a little better, and there are fewer answers to it once it's on the board?
You're absolutely right. But I felt like I only had room for 1 of the two and that's why I've moved back to Azcanta maindeck over Tez - I value the ability to resolve it/force early countermagic ahead of resolving a turn 3 threat (Foundry/Whir), plus it's a little better with the Bridge plan as you can filter your draws to maintain a proper line/double spell the turn after a bridge. Neither is great against aggro, but I'd lean towards preferring Azcanta based on cmc/filtering to what you need to stabilize.
It's close though, was trying to see if I could maindeck both but I might ultimately decide to keep Tez out of the main if I can't find the right adjustments that follow. It is a really narrow meta call, and one that not even the vast majority of players on this single matchup have adapted to yet. Maybe it's correct to not over-adjust to this niche adjustment from some UW control players.
Can I afford to cut 3rd Mox (I remember seeing racing089 trim to two a while back), as it's not a crucial piece of the puzzle like it is in KCI/Affinity. Sometimes its great, but not nearly as often as in the aforementioned decks?
@dustycrumbz: I do like not over-reacting. I've actually found that vs. UW a Thopter Foundry is fine even with RIP in play. You can just make a few thopters and beat down with them. Eventually they start using removal on them because they have no choice. You have plenty of artifacts that are semi-dead here, so plenty of fuel to keep up gentle pressure.
10-0 today with the revised version of Thopter-Bridge. Let's not kid ourselves, it's a small sample size so the record doesn't mean a lot. But it does feel good!
I removed the Spellskite in the main to put in a Bottled Cloister. JacetotheFace joined me on my stream and kept pointing out cases where it would be useful, and I realized that Ironworks just wasn't sufficient for emptying my hands quickly for Bridge when there were too many lands, and Cloister is just perfect for that. Not to mention sometimes you would like to draw two cards a turn, especially post-board when you're looking for non-artifact cards. Spellskite was supposed to help with Infect, but it turns out they could just beat me down with 1/1s before I emptied my hand, so it didn't quite matter I could turn off most of their pump spells.
I'm still looking for help figuring out what to do post-board vs. Tron, KCI, and control decks with either white hate enchantments or Blood Moon. I'm pretty locked in on 1 Grafdigger's Cage, 1 Torpor Orb, 4 Spellskite, but everything else is negotiable! (Systrill made some comments on stream that convinced me I'd been under-utilizing Torpor Orb, and it's very good despite the non-bo with Thopter-Sword, since the decks it is good against also turn off your combo with enchantments.) The 2nd Damping Sphere is for Storm specifrically, but is good vs. several other decks and I could part with it if I had a plan that replaced its utility there. Tezzeret Agent of Bolas and Girapur Aether Grid are there to be alternate win-cons when Thopter-Sword is turned off, and additional threats vs. control. Unmoored Ego seems like the best Tron-killer (get a Tron land early, take out Ulamog and Worldbreaker later), and seems to have good value against KCI, Amulet Titan, Scapeshift, and other decks dependent on a single spell. But, please, tell me what you'd do here? I've got 8 slots pretty open to fix just 3 match-ups!
Speaking of Unmoored Ego, who has experience with it? Which matches do you like it? When you play it in each match, what do you usually name? For some decks it's obvious, but like, what do you name vs. Storm? Or UW control? Or Blood Moon control?
I've pretty much just written off the Tron matchup as unwinnable. I've found that to make the matchup any better than bad, you need to skew the deck basically into a different deck. One with Darksteel Citadel, Ghost Quarter, Crucible, Needle, Chalice, etc. As it is I just take the tools at my disposal that are good for other matchups, the Assassin's Trophys, Ego, sometimes discard, needles, and hope for the best. Best results are usually a little disruption into a fast Tezzeret making 5/5s. But the matchup is always quite bad imo.
I fully back Systrill's statement. As I mentioned previously, the archetype matchup of tron vs thoptersword just doesn't line up favorably. You could dedicate all 8 open slots but realize that all you're doing is taking a 40/60 matchup (tbh it's probably much worse than that) and only making it closer to 45/55. It's not worth losing edge against the other matchups in modern that are close/favorable, as you'll be losing win% overall. Tron is just 1 matchup, don't overcommit into it.
To put it into perspective, take a look at all of the decks you think are favored against Tron (i.e. hyper aggressive decks and fast combo decks that only need 2 cards to go infinite). While we can implement gameplans that mimic these gameplans to some degree (early Tez to make 5/5's, can assemble a 3-card infinite loop), the bottom line is that we aren't actually either of these things primarily/consistently and that's where the true weakness lies. If you want an edge over Tron, don't play this deck. I'm ok with my biggest weakness being this single matchup in a wide open meta, even if it is one of the top tier archetypes.
Things that I've tested and liked against Tron are:
- Needle effects
- Thoughtseize specifically
- Chalice
- Assassin's Trophy
- Unmoored Ego
- Vendilion Clique
- And Uptick in Tez to make 5/5's
- Ensoul Artifact
I still think that if you play a reasonable amount of these things, you're still unfavored and are doing a disservice to your sideboard slots and overall tournament success, unless you have some reason (like entering an LGS FNM) to believe you have a much higher than average probability of facing Tron. Again, play these things because you are shoring up other matchups - make the upside of Tron applications less of the focal point.
Also, @TolariaWest, you're totally right. Foundry making thopters without sword is still fine vs a deck like UW. I've beaten plenty of fair decks with these types of lines, so I think I'll stick with the list the way I have it currently. Thanks for helping me retain focus!
While I agree that it's not wise to overreact to possible changes in one matchup, the opportunity cost of moving 1 card from the SB to the main is not very high. For instance, I maindeck 1 Collective Brutality, and could just straight swap a decay for it.
The other way to combat maindeck RIPs would be to adjust the serum visions/IoK composition. My last league, I moved up to 4 IoK and 3 visions, to help against infect and humans, but discard is quite relevant against UW control as well. I'm never high on discard, but it does help, and if people are going to paper tourneys, discard also alleviates some of the decision fatigue. Dustycrumbz, dropping a 4th mox isn't a bad deal at all - you lose out on some explosive starts, and I would say I probably wouldn't main-deck a jar if I didn't play 4 moxen, but it opens up the counts of serum visions and discard nicely.
@the_nobodys: congrats on your continued success with your current build. Do you remember/mind sharing the matchups you faced in your last 2x league 5-0's?
Also, I know the 4th mox is an easy flex slot decision, but my question was regarding dropping the 3rd mox. I ultimately decided that I don't think I like going down to 2. Could be fine, I'm just not comfortable with it personally ATM.
Thanks, dustycrumz. Last league was against sultai midrange, mardu phoenix, living end, mono red phoenix, and esper gifts. The league before that, I think I remember spirits, tron, and storm.
All these phoenix decks are great matchups. Damping sphere is good in so many matches now.
Since you're obviously not able to present a fast clock without Tez, are you just bringing in your LOTV/Egos/needle effects and keeping in the full KCI combo gameplan against Tron? Do you find that the split of 3-drops mentioned above + needle effects buys enough time to get to the resources/turns necessary to assemble a 3-card combo? Or did you feel like you got away with murder like I did last time I faced Tron? Lol
Hey guys! I've been working on a different looking list and I think I am ready to share what I've got.
the nobodys has been killing it with his turbo thopter/sword builds featuring Muddle the Mixture and the rest of the community seems to be following suit building decks that also try to turbo out the combo. Another theme I have noticed is more and more graveyard hate. I feel like this has to be right direction and I wanted to go deeper on a deck that could abuse main deck relic of progenitus while also playing the combo.
I have been less satisfied with the artifact tool box now that playing 4+ graveyard hate cards is correct. Therefore I wanted to try testing without Whir of Invention again. Here is what I have come up with:
I want to get more testing in but my preliminary results have been promising. The relics give you very favorable matchups against all the graveyard decks. The control shell gives you game against tribal decks and Thopter/Sword lets you grind out the fair decks. If anyone thinks I'm missing something here let me know. I'll be running this back Monday and Thursday night this week.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Thanks, dustycrumz. Last league was against sultai midrange, mardu phoenix, living end, mono red phoenix, and esper gifts. The league before that, I think I remember spirits, tron, and storm.
All these phoenix decks are great matchups. Damping sphere is good in so many matches now.
The nobody's, I got you up via pm and would appreciate any insight you could give me
Keep Torpor Orb in the board. The Damping Sphere is a fine narrow bullet to have in the main cuz when you need it, it has the potential to steal important game 1's against decks you don't want to have to win against in 2x postboard games, whereas Torpor Orb matchups are fine game 1's without it.
Good luck today Al_Z_Heimer and anyone else participating in this weekend's round of RPTQ's/the SCG Open. I myself had to pull out of my plans to attend the Baltimore Open due to a family emergency, but hopefully I'll be able to manage to get to the RPTQ near me next weekend.
Play tight and hope to hear you guys report back with good news!
Go for it man, it's certainly not a wrong call! I worry about the 19 lands, as I played 19 for a while and felt the 20th was necessary after extensive testing. I had been on 21 for the majority of the last PPTQ season but recently went back down to 20 and THAT makes me nervous lol. Hopefully you can seal the PT invite! Best of luck!
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@TheNobodys: Man, being able to tutor up an uncounterable RIP disenchant G1 sounds awesome. In my testing I've found even with 4 Whir, 4 Looting, 4 Foundry, 4 Sword, and 2 Inventors' Fair I can go 30 cards deep and sometimes not find one of my combo pieces. I'm very seriously considering adding the 1s Muddle to my own 75 because of this.
I do think I will play 1 maindeck Tez though. Not sure what I'm cutting from the 75 yet, let alone the main in order to make room. I want to keep the singleton Azcanta I've recently readapted in my list, but that may be what gets the axe.
You're absolutely right. But I felt like I only had room for 1 of the two and that's why I've moved back to Azcanta maindeck over Tez - I value the ability to resolve it/force early countermagic ahead of resolving a turn 3 threat (Foundry/Whir), plus it's a little better with the Bridge plan as you can filter your draws to maintain a proper line/double spell the turn after a bridge. Neither is great against aggro, but I'd lean towards preferring Azcanta based on cmc/filtering to what you need to stabilize.
It's close though, was trying to see if I could maindeck both but I might ultimately decide to keep Tez out of the main if I can't find the right adjustments that follow. It is a really narrow meta call, and one that not even the vast majority of players on this single matchup have adapted to yet. Maybe it's correct to not over-adjust to this niche adjustment from some UW control players.
I removed the Spellskite in the main to put in a Bottled Cloister. JacetotheFace joined me on my stream and kept pointing out cases where it would be useful, and I realized that Ironworks just wasn't sufficient for emptying my hands quickly for Bridge when there were too many lands, and Cloister is just perfect for that. Not to mention sometimes you would like to draw two cards a turn, especially post-board when you're looking for non-artifact cards. Spellskite was supposed to help with Infect, but it turns out they could just beat me down with 1/1s before I emptied my hand, so it didn't quite matter I could turn off most of their pump spells.
I'm still looking for help figuring out what to do post-board vs. Tron, KCI, and control decks with either white hate enchantments or Blood Moon. I'm pretty locked in on 1 Grafdigger's Cage, 1 Torpor Orb, 4 Spellskite, but everything else is negotiable! (Systrill made some comments on stream that convinced me I'd been under-utilizing Torpor Orb, and it's very good despite the non-bo with Thopter-Sword, since the decks it is good against also turn off your combo with enchantments.) The 2nd Damping Sphere is for Storm specifrically, but is good vs. several other decks and I could part with it if I had a plan that replaced its utility there. Tezzeret Agent of Bolas and Girapur Aether Grid are there to be alternate win-cons when Thopter-Sword is turned off, and additional threats vs. control. Unmoored Ego seems like the best Tron-killer (get a Tron land early, take out Ulamog and Worldbreaker later), and seems to have good value against KCI, Amulet Titan, Scapeshift, and other decks dependent on a single spell. But, please, tell me what you'd do here? I've got 8 slots pretty open to fix just 3 match-ups!
Speaking of Unmoored Ego, who has experience with it? Which matches do you like it? When you play it in each match, what do you usually name? For some decks it's obvious, but like, what do you name vs. Storm? Or UW control? Or Blood Moon control?
2 Island
2 Inventors' Fair
4 Spire of Industry
4 Glimmervoid
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Spirebluff Canal
Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Whir of Invention
Artifacts
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
4 Welding Jar
4 Pithing Needle
1 Damping Sphere
4 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Bottled Cloister
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Damping Sphere
4 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
4 Unmoored Ego
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
To put it into perspective, take a look at all of the decks you think are favored against Tron (i.e. hyper aggressive decks and fast combo decks that only need 2 cards to go infinite). While we can implement gameplans that mimic these gameplans to some degree (early Tez to make 5/5's, can assemble a 3-card infinite loop), the bottom line is that we aren't actually either of these things primarily/consistently and that's where the true weakness lies. If you want an edge over Tron, don't play this deck. I'm ok with my biggest weakness being this single matchup in a wide open meta, even if it is one of the top tier archetypes.
Things that I've tested and liked against Tron are:
- Needle effects
- Thoughtseize specifically
- Chalice
- Assassin's Trophy
- Unmoored Ego
- Vendilion Clique
- And Uptick in Tez to make 5/5's
- Ensoul Artifact
I still think that if you play a reasonable amount of these things, you're still unfavored and are doing a disservice to your sideboard slots and overall tournament success, unless you have some reason (like entering an LGS FNM) to believe you have a much higher than average probability of facing Tron. Again, play these things because you are shoring up other matchups - make the upside of Tron applications less of the focal point.
The other way to combat maindeck RIPs would be to adjust the serum visions/IoK composition. My last league, I moved up to 4 IoK and 3 visions, to help against infect and humans, but discard is quite relevant against UW control as well. I'm never high on discard, but it does help, and if people are going to paper tourneys, discard also alleviates some of the decision fatigue. Dustycrumbz, dropping a 4th mox isn't a bad deal at all - you lose out on some explosive starts, and I would say I probably wouldn't main-deck a jar if I didn't play 4 moxen, but it opens up the counts of serum visions and discard nicely.
All these phoenix decks are great matchups. Damping sphere is good in so many matches now.
the nobodys has been killing it with his turbo thopter/sword builds featuring Muddle the Mixture and the rest of the community seems to be following suit building decks that also try to turbo out the combo. Another theme I have noticed is more and more graveyard hate. I feel like this has to be right direction and I wanted to go deeper on a deck that could abuse main deck relic of progenitus while also playing the combo.
I have been less satisfied with the artifact tool box now that playing 4+ graveyard hate cards is correct. Therefore I wanted to try testing without Whir of Invention again. Here is what I have come up with:
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Instant:
1 Cast Down
3 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
1 Mana Leak
2 Muddle the Mixture
1 Negate
4 Opt
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Damnation
Enchantment:
2 Search for Azcanta
Artifacts:
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
Planeswalker:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Collective Brutality
2 Damping Sphere
1 Dispel
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Negate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Repeal
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Unmoored Ego
I want to get more testing in but my preliminary results have been promising. The relics give you very favorable matchups against all the graveyard decks. The control shell gives you game against tribal decks and Thopter/Sword lets you grind out the fair decks. If anyone thinks I'm missing something here let me know. I'll be running this back Monday and Thursday night this week.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
The nobody's, I got you up via pm and would appreciate any insight you could give me
Good luck today Al_Z_Heimer and anyone else participating in this weekend's round of RPTQ's/the SCG Open. I myself had to pull out of my plans to attend the Baltimore Open due to a family emergency, but hopefully I'll be able to manage to get to the RPTQ near me next weekend.
Play tight and hope to hear you guys report back with good news!