im a bit surprised no one is including narset in their lists. She combos with tefferis puzzle box pretty nice and digs.
Just gotta go back enough pages. We're pretty cutting edge here, mister! (Cool b4 it was cool, ya know)
So I played a few leagues after finally buying urzas and engineers. Just want to let folks know that prismatic vista hasn't been necessary at all, and I've been not having any issues casting Astrolabe. Seeing lots of UW control, which is OK I guess for us. Urza and engineer help by increasing the axis on which we can attack. The new bridge vine is surprisingly hard to hate out, because carrion feeder kind of ignores your yard interraction, unless you happen to play leyline.
Urza and Engineer are super sweet, and both a lot of fun to play. Really happy with my list so far.
I've started playing a bit on mtgo too. Still not entirely sure where I want to go with it, but Urza and Engineer both seem great. I was able to grind out a game where my opponent played a turn 2 stony thanks to urza, and engineers. I ended up saccing my bridges to Sai, attacking with a couple 20/20 Constructs, then using engineers to bridge the bridges back into play. All while drawing basically a whole ton of cards every turn between engineers (chromatics stars and terrarions), Sai, and Urza. I ended up having to dig through my ENTIRE deck as my 2 Ghirapur Aether Grids were the actual bottom 2 cards (what are the odds!).
I think the biggest annoyance I have is actually playing out the combo with Urza is quite time consuming on mtgo. Especially if you have to try and dig for an answer like Aether Grid. That match I had to dig through my whole deck I only had about 2.5 minutes left on my clock, and we only played 2 games.
On the Narset front, I was really enjoying Narset pre-Horizons, but now I just can't seem to fit her in. Too many cards I want to play, not enough room to play them all now that I'm jamming engineers and Urzas into the list
im a bit surprised no one is including narset in their lists. She combos with tefferis puzzle box pretty nice and digs.
Just gotta go back enough pages. We're pretty cutting edge here, mister! (Cool b4 it was cool, ya know)
So I played a few leagues after finally buying urzas and engineers. Just want to let folks know that prismatic vista hasn't been necessary at all, and I've been not having any issues casting Astrolabe. Seeing lots of UW control, which is OK I guess for us. Urza and engineer help by increasing the axis on which we can attack. The new bridge vine is surprisingly hard to hate out, because carrion feeder kind of ignores your yard interraction, unless you happen to play leyline.
Urza and Engineer are super sweet, and both a lot of fun to play. Really happy with my list so far.
Could you possibly post a list of your current iteration? I know you posted one a couple pages back, but considering the Vistas are unnecessary, I wasn't sure if you had an updated version you could share? Thanks in advance!
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The freezing moon can obsess you
Sure! It's a grixis list at the moment, because I didn't want to splash W quite yet for fear the mana might be too clunky. SB is pretty unsetteled in the new meta. Not really sure what we're supposed to do against Hogaak Vine, (but I like needles on carrion feeder/altar). I might try ravenous trap. Spine has been really nice out of the board with urza.
Sure! It's a grixis list at the moment, because I didn't want to splash W quite yet for fear the mana might be too clunky. SB is pretty unsetteled in the new meta. Not really sure what we're supposed to do against Hogaak Vine, (but I like needles on carrion feeder/altar). I might try ravenous trap. Spine has been really nice out of the board with urza.
What about Fiery Islet? Do you feel the swamp is necessary, with only 4 fetchlands getting it?
My limited testing showed that I need red quite often, so I'd advise 2-3 rainbow lands, However I didn't play Dead of Winter, so I don't have the knowledge how reliable wrath it is.
As per the Dredgevine MU, bridge seems great, as well as the combo, so stuff like battle at the bridge, Collective Brutality, etc. Should buy enough time right?
Astrolobe definitely pushes the deck in the direction of playing 3 or even 4 colors. Chromatic Star is something I wanted to try but it really doesn't appear to fit anymore. Astrolobe is generally slightly to much better as we want to keep artifacts around for future Whir's and repeated mana fixing is nice.
Dead of Winter is sweet but I'm pretty worried about it being a miss with only ~1/3 of the deck being snow permanents and the potential to kill our own creatures randomly as well. At sorcery speed it also competing with Battle at the Bridge. I think it might be better ultimately to play a couple On Thin Ice or Dispatch.
Spine is hilariously castable with Urza (and since he doesn't care about Stony I can see it being a central piece going froward).
Yay, I finally got a 5-0 with Grizis Urza Thopter Sword! And the deciding match was a tense one against the dreaded Hogaak Vine! Needling Altar saved my butt game 3. Echoing Truth was very good against them, bouncing a leyline so I could infinite, and bouncing a huge carrion feeder. Game one I won by infiniting with exactly 1 life left.
A few notes:
-If you're playing online, and you assemble infinite with Urza, make sure to remember that you can grow your Urza token for lethal, which can save a lot of time against something like storm or tron. (Rather than drawing your deck to grab whatever).
-Tooled around with Aether Grid, moving a Sai to the board, for 1 Grid 1 Sai main, and another Grid and Sai SB. Grid can tick down on annoying walkers like Teferi, and having one main deck means having your "finisher" for Urza be a utility pinger otherwise. Not sure about the grid maindeck yet, but I'll probably keep it in for now.
1) Do you like Arcum's astrolabe so far? Do you think you would play it even without other snow related cards, is it worth the effort in terms of mana consistency?
2) Do you have any tip or shortcut for when you go off on MTGO? I went off with Urza a couple of times but I m afraid I can throw away already won games just because clicking throught the combo is endlessly long and time passes! Any suggestions?
1) So far I've been trying it and kinda loving it. Cantrips you on ETB, which is so much better than something like Chromatic star since it works under Rest in Peace. It's fixing is reusable, and it sticks around for Whir. So far I haven't really experienced ANY issues with a 3 colour deck and a manabase very similar to what The Nobody's posted. I'm running Jeskai and I just swapped swamp to plains, and I cut a fetchland for a Mountain. I didn't like field of ruin being able to strip my only red source. It's a small issue with 4 astrolabes and 4 opals, but especially with Stony Silence it happens. I don't think I've had an issue casting Astrolabe on turn 1, or otherwise casting my spells
2) a) It gets a bit easier with a little practice. So far it hasn't been a major issue for me, but it could be. Most of the time people scoop within 5 or 10 thopters. Sometimes if you've got a Karnstruct from a previous Urza that is capable of attacking, you can just pump it to lethal. If you absolutely need to dig with Urza's ability to win it just sucks balls and there isn't too much way around it if they make you play it out.
2) b) The way I do it that I feel is best is click Thopter Foundry, which then since you're activating an ability means only urza's mana ability is allowed so you only have to click Urza once, then click sword, then sword again. Lather, Rise, Repeat. Similarly if you're going to activate his other ability click it first, then it's a bit easier to make mana with him.
I have not been in an active meta for a while being off of MTGO and having a small modern community here. I am terrified of Karn though, so I have tacked to a more midrange version of the deck which focuses on Goblin Engineer, Sai and Urza as threats while playing artifact based disruption.
Needs more testing to see if it can work. I'm hoping to play in an IQ when I visit the states next week, but the thought of buying 3 Urzas is making me queasy.
Sure! It's a grixis list at the moment, because I didn't want to splash W quite yet for fear the mana might be too clunky. SB is pretty unsetteled in the new meta. Not really sure what we're supposed to do against Hogaak Vine, (but I like needles on carrion feeder/altar). I might try ravenous trap. Spine has been really nice out of the board with urza.
I was pondering about your combo-version of the deck.
I like the idea of using Goblin Engineer. What are your thoughts of using Entomb instead of Goblin Engineer to stay two colored eg. UB?
I can't see any "big" shenanigans going on with Goblin Engineer except putting Sword of the Meek in the yard.
With all the GY-hate going on, maybe Entomb is "better" because of the instant-speed and low mana cost?
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Modern: WCDeath and TaxesCW EDH: BRGProssh, Skyraider of KherGRB
it's been a while since I picked up modern (since before the unbanning of Jace ...), but I have been selected to play in Redbull Untapped, which will feature 5 rounds of modern. Naturally my first reaction was to dig up this thread. Glad to see the tezzeret still has followers.
Is there any content available, video or otherwise, that can help me get up to speed in the play patterns for the deck in the current metagame?
This list has always been notoriously hard to tweak, and in the past I always started from lists proposed by systrill and the nobodys, so I'm glad you guys are still going at it. But atm I don't have any idea what we are going up against. Karn does seem like a giant pain though.
As soon as I get the chance to team up with some of the other players going to the event, I'll report my findings on the current iterations I can find here/come up with.
the biggest change to the meta recently is the new Bridgevine deck with Hogaak and Altar of Dementia. Worth checking that out so you know how it works. Bridge is no longer a slam dunk against them as Hogaak, Altar, and Bridge from Below, give them a way to just mill you out without ever needing to attack.
As for video content, there isnt much. Though if you check of the recent twitch stream of Kanister_mtg. Yesterday he took TheNobody's deck, made some changes (mostly the sideboard) and ran it through a 4-1 league, then made a few more changes and 5-0'd another league. I see he's streaming another UWR modification of the deck right now as well.
I've also been mostly playing variations of TheNobody's list. Arcum's Astrolabe feel more and more where we want to be. From there so far Goblin Engineer does feel like you really want the card, so it leads you down the path of options of Jeskai or Grixis, so it'll be interesting to see what people think is best. I've been playing a bunch of Jeskai lists lately and quite like them. I feel like you lose out on Unmoored Ego, but the rest of the sideboard cards are better
Yeah, that's the one.
Kanister also played it and tweaked it to u/w/r. Watched like 6 hours of his game play. Much better player than olive. I like some of his changes, some not so much. Pyrite spellbomb is nice but the do nothing but draw artifacts weren't. There's already astrolobes and a bunch of tutors. Making it all in without any other interaction isn't really what I wanna be doing.
Nobodys, have u tried like a 2 of Karn mb? His usefulness is pretty nice. Run lattice, sieve, and ballista side. He'd allow u to snag ballista when going Infinate with urza for a non aggro win, if u have thoptersword and no urza snag sieve from side and win. And then there's lattice and other toolbox artifacts.
I'm waiting for urza to drop in price before I pick mine up. So I haven't had a chance to test your list or it's variants. I foiled my deck and I'm solo not dropping $800 on a set of urzas.
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The freezing moon can obsess you
Just gotta go back enough pages. We're pretty cutting edge here, mister! (Cool b4 it was cool, ya know)
So I played a few leagues after finally buying urzas and engineers. Just want to let folks know that prismatic vista hasn't been necessary at all, and I've been not having any issues casting Astrolabe. Seeing lots of UW control, which is OK I guess for us. Urza and engineer help by increasing the axis on which we can attack. The new bridge vine is surprisingly hard to hate out, because carrion feeder kind of ignores your yard interraction, unless you happen to play leyline.
Urza and Engineer are super sweet, and both a lot of fun to play. Really happy with my list so far.
I think the biggest annoyance I have is actually playing out the combo with Urza is quite time consuming on mtgo. Especially if you have to try and dig for an answer like Aether Grid. That match I had to dig through my whole deck I only had about 2.5 minutes left on my clock, and we only played 2 games.
On the Narset front, I was really enjoying Narset pre-Horizons, but now I just can't seem to fit her in. Too many cards I want to play, not enough room to play them all now that I'm jamming engineers and Urzas into the list
Could you possibly post a list of your current iteration? I know you posted one a couple pages back, but considering the Vistas are unnecessary, I wasn't sure if you had an updated version you could share? Thanks in advance!
The freezing moon can obsess you
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
2 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Time Sieve
1 Damping Sphere
2 Ensnaring Bridge
Creatures:
4 Goblin Engineer
2 Sai, Master Thopterist
4 Urza, Lord High Artificer
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
5 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Coverd Swamp
Instants:
4 Whir of Invention
2 Echoing Truth
3 Unmoored Ego
2 Dead of Winter
3 Battle at the Bridge
2 Ghirapur Aether Gri
1 Torpor Orb
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Spine of Ish Sah
What about Fiery Islet? Do you feel the swamp is necessary, with only 4 fetchlands getting it?
My limited testing showed that I need red quite often, so I'd advise 2-3 rainbow lands, However I didn't play Dead of Winter, so I don't have the knowledge how reliable wrath it is.
As per the Dredgevine MU, bridge seems great, as well as the combo, so stuff like battle at the bridge, Collective Brutality, etc. Should buy enough time right?
Dead of Winter is sweet but I'm pretty worried about it being a miss with only ~1/3 of the deck being snow permanents and the potential to kill our own creatures randomly as well. At sorcery speed it also competing with Battle at the Bridge. I think it might be better ultimately to play a couple On Thin Ice or Dispatch.
Spine is hilariously castable with Urza (and since he doesn't care about Stony I can see it being a central piece going froward).
I like what you've started with a lot.
A few notes:
-If you're playing online, and you assemble infinite with Urza, make sure to remember that you can grow your Urza token for lethal, which can save a lot of time against something like storm or tron. (Rather than drawing your deck to grab whatever).
-Tooled around with Aether Grid, moving a Sai to the board, for 1 Grid 1 Sai main, and another Grid and Sai SB. Grid can tick down on annoying walkers like Teferi, and having one main deck means having your "finisher" for Urza be a utility pinger otherwise. Not sure about the grid maindeck yet, but I'll probably keep it in for now.
1) Do you like Arcum's astrolabe so far? Do you think you would play it even without other snow related cards, is it worth the effort in terms of mana consistency?
2) Do you have any tip or shortcut for when you go off on MTGO? I went off with Urza a couple of times but I m afraid I can throw away already won games just because clicking throught the combo is endlessly long and time passes! Any suggestions?
Best of luck to you, artificers!!
2) a) It gets a bit easier with a little practice. So far it hasn't been a major issue for me, but it could be. Most of the time people scoop within 5 or 10 thopters. Sometimes if you've got a Karnstruct from a previous Urza that is capable of attacking, you can just pump it to lethal. If you absolutely need to dig with Urza's ability to win it just sucks balls and there isn't too much way around it if they make you play it out.
2) b) The way I do it that I feel is best is click Thopter Foundry, which then since you're activating an ability means only urza's mana ability is allowed so you only have to click Urza once, then click sword, then sword again. Lather, Rise, Repeat. Similarly if you're going to activate his other ability click it first, then it's a bit easier to make mana with him.
Needs more testing to see if it can work. I'm hoping to play in an IQ when I visit the states next week, but the thought of buying 3 Urzas is making me queasy.
Ux Whirza
Rb Goblins
Legacy
U Urza Stompy
Duel Commander
Sai, Master Thopterist
Hey!
I was pondering about your combo-version of the deck.
I like the idea of using Goblin Engineer. What are your thoughts of using Entomb instead of Goblin Engineer to stay two colored eg. UB?
I can't see any "big" shenanigans going on with Goblin Engineer except putting Sword of the Meek in the yard.
With all the GY-hate going on, maybe Entomb is "better" because of the instant-speed and low mana cost?
WCDeath and TaxesCW
EDH:
BRGProssh, Skyraider of KherGRB
Ux Whirza
Rb Goblins
Legacy
U Urza Stompy
Duel Commander
Sai, Master Thopterist
Well
Alright my question is redundant...
WCDeath and TaxesCW
EDH:
BRGProssh, Skyraider of KherGRB
it's been a while since I picked up modern (since before the unbanning of Jace ...), but I have been selected to play in Redbull Untapped, which will feature 5 rounds of modern. Naturally my first reaction was to dig up this thread. Glad to see the tezzeret still has followers.
Is there any content available, video or otherwise, that can help me get up to speed in the play patterns for the deck in the current metagame?
This list has always been notoriously hard to tweak, and in the past I always started from lists proposed by systrill and the nobodys, so I'm glad you guys are still going at it. But atm I don't have any idea what we are going up against. Karn does seem like a giant pain though.
As soon as I get the chance to team up with some of the other players going to the event, I'll report my findings on the current iterations I can find here/come up with.
As for video content, there isnt much. Though if you check of the recent twitch stream of Kanister_mtg. Yesterday he took TheNobody's deck, made some changes (mostly the sideboard) and ran it through a 4-1 league, then made a few more changes and 5-0'd another league. I see he's streaming another UWR modification of the deck right now as well.
I've also been mostly playing variations of TheNobody's list. Arcum's Astrolabe feel more and more where we want to be. From there so far Goblin Engineer does feel like you really want the card, so it leads you down the path of options of Jeskai or Grixis, so it'll be interesting to see what people think is best. I've been playing a bunch of Jeskai lists lately and quite like them. I feel like you lose out on Unmoored Ego, but the rest of the sideboard cards are better
I looked for it but couldn't find it. Do you have a link?
Edit: never mind, found it, a dice factory build from a few weeks ago.
Kanister also played it and tweaked it to u/w/r. Watched like 6 hours of his game play. Much better player than olive. I like some of his changes, some not so much. Pyrite spellbomb is nice but the do nothing but draw artifacts weren't. There's already astrolobes and a bunch of tutors. Making it all in without any other interaction isn't really what I wanna be doing.
Nobodys, have u tried like a 2 of Karn mb? His usefulness is pretty nice. Run lattice, sieve, and ballista side. He'd allow u to snag ballista when going Infinate with urza for a non aggro win, if u have thoptersword and no urza snag sieve from side and win. And then there's lattice and other toolbox artifacts.
I'm waiting for urza to drop in price before I pick mine up. So I haven't had a chance to test your list or it's variants. I foiled my deck and I'm solo not dropping $800 on a set of urzas.