MTG Salvation

I would happily take over primer maintenance. I play a lot of this deck and have tried a ridiculous amount of tech. I enjoy watching everyone else have success more than myself in this community. :]

@Redbaron: good work! That sure is useful. Not sure what you mean with "Bonus list of the 75" though.

@Racing089: awesome! When you're re-writing and/or re-framing the primer's content, hit me up and I'll gladly get involved!

For reference two outstanding primers IMO are 1. the Countercat primer (by @AshtonKutcher) for it's slickness and the overall to-the-point aspect and fluidity of it's content, and 2. the Lantern primer (by @Thnkr) as it's just so darn useful to pick up the deck, yet is even useful in brewing around it. It really has that "collective tool" aspect to it. Thnkr even went one step further in setting up a huge spreadsheet where all peeps can register their data but... let's go step by step haha.

@radouf: It is likely that I will start on Thursday. If you have any information/suggestions/ideas let me know. I'll check out those primers you listed to use as a baseline. I am hoping to capture the flexibility aspect of the deck. List all the tools that really make the deck tick and explain some of the mathematics between hyper-geometric distributions and the various applications it has on the deck in layman's terms. Display some of the lists that have been successful to give new players a better idea where to take the deck.

We have received a lot of new toys since Thopter/Sword unbanning and the deck has evolved to look almost nothing like what it did a few years ago. I'm looking forward to pushing ahead with the Tezzeret archetype and would love to hear what other members of the community would like to see in the new primer.

@radouf
The bonus "in the 75" list was probably too much. There were a couple cards that appeared in the same number across all the decks but not all in the main or side. Mainly Collective Brutality is a 4 of across the 3 lists. I think the core of that deck is here and the numbers are more of a meta decision.

@skillingdakilling
I'm not sure the tempo advantage gained by Boom/Bust really helps as much as you would like. I don't think you want to be wasting Prism ramp on Bust and only 4 other sources of mana + crucible of worlds probably won't get you there quick enough. It could be good in a meta filled with tron and bant eldrazi or other decks with a really tight manabase.

I'm actually working on a dice factory list that ramps quickly and runs Boom // Bust and Ward of Bones to lock the opponent out of the game. It is pretty similar to the Tezzeret toolbox but takes a different approach on how to get there. I haven't done much testing with this list as I have been spending time on my other builds.

I've been thinking about which utility artifacts belong in the main and which in the side, and am seriously considering moving Nihil Spellbomb to the side. I know it can be cycled for 1B, but that is something I'm not interested in doing usually turns 2-5 when I'm interacting with my opponent or trying to jam thopter/sword. Which match-ups do we really want it in game 1 anyway?

0 Tier 1 Decks.

5 or so Tier 2 Decks:
-Dredge
-U/R Storm
-Grishoalbrand
-Snapcaster decks (to a lesser extent)
-Abzan Company (Spellbomb helps way less than Needle)

That's kind of it, right? Grafdigger's Cage is miles ahead in utility against all those decks, and I think I'd rather trade in the cycling aspect of spellbomb for the shut-down power of cage if I were to include a grave-hoser in the mainboard.

Decks that Cage additionally hurts (that Spellbomb doesn't):

Tier 2:
-Jeskai Harbinger
-CoCo Elves

Most of those decks we have very good games-1 against, except Storm and Elves, and Abzan company to some degree. I'm curious about people's thoughts/experiences with having Spellbomb main deck, and if they'd move it to the side.

3-0 and split prize last night (19 people).

2-0 Colorless Eldrazi Tron - Crucible/Bridge lock wins both games. Herald forces him to discard his Karns while I keep him under 7 mana.

2-0 Death's Shadow Aggro - Pretty simple matchup really. Post-board I recommend keeping Relic in to counteract surgical extraction.

2-1 Bant Eldrazi - Bridge/Crucible lock wins game 1. EE into stony wins him game 2. Game 3 he slams Stony silence with a smile on turn 2. I ignore it and proceed with Tezz beats and he doesn't shake my hand =( Transform SB that doesn't care about Stony silence feels like the way to go (as opposed to splashing for disenchant/abrupt decay/spine of ish nah effects)

Final opponent was on GW tron so I'm glad he offered the split.

Outside of the core (Tezz/Thopter combo/Bridge) Crucible was the MVP. I recommend 1 in your 75 if you have 3+ GQ.

Regarding Nihil Spellbomb: although I agree it's just not extremely relevant a lot of the time, eliminating dead cards in the maindeck and giving you something to do on turn 1 is important. I think it comes down to what proactive 1 drops you run; TS/IOK package or else Nihil/Relic/Map/Capsule

@Trav: good one! I went back to glance at your list and really like what I see. Regarding your overall list, has it evolved at all since you last posted it? Triple Herald is ballsy, and you're saying it's paying off? How is your Green Tron match-up looking with all this hammerpower packing? As for choices I'm curious to hear more about: there's Bottled Cloister that looks really good IMO, as the meta is slowing down significantly -- yet it seems to be taking the slot of third Tezz, which is not only card advantage (and selection), but also more hammerpower and a wincon through a Bridge. How has it played out? Have you reflected upon that?

Lastly, some slots I think maybe could be better used indeed: swapping Spellbomb for Cage I believe is correct, 3rd Sword out, Spellskite for Jar (ppl over in Lantern have started dropping Skite in favor of more Welding Jar, as Jar does the same job and even more, in the face of say Maelstrom Pulse, 90% of the time -- the exceptions being vs Karn and Cryptic Command against which Padeem also works, or cornercases Infect and giggl..err, I mean Boggles. But Jar also costs zero, enables improvise faster and doesn't die to all of the opponent's removal that we are otherwise blanking. Other question marks: second Crucible in the SB, with all your tutoring and digging power, do you really need it? Sun Droplet; always found this card lacking. Against say Burn, Brutality is a much bigger blow to their strategy in my experience, while being much more versatile in other cases. And then Spine of Ish Sah, big question mark. Just why? Let me know what you think. Cheers.

Here's my latest iteration:



Herald is just so good when the opponent has no removal after SB. I actually took the spellskite out of the MB to ensure this. Cloister is a great way of ensuring the bridge lock is online quick enough while allowing Herald to attack post-board. It's also another artifact that doesn't care about stony silence. I probably have one 4 drop too many. Trading post seems like the most likely cut because it's just not that good against our worst matchups.

I don't like cage MB because it's dead against so many decks. Agree with the Jar switch from spellskite as I did the same and put it in the board. My meta is full of fairer decks so I've decided to up the combo to 4/3 but 4/2 might be right. The Tron matchup is a nightmare, although less-so than in the past because they've been cutting oblivion stones/karns. Blue-tron is basically auto-lose.

I Noticed the same and cut the SB crucible, 2 is unnecessary. Sun droplet on the other hand has been very effective in grindy matchups and again doesn't care about stony. I just wasn't impressed enough with brutality but it has it's moments. It's meta-game dependent IMO. Spine was an experiment to fight tron and stony. It's too slow against tron and unnecessary against stony now that I just remove the combo post-board. However, it was pretty effective against jund/junk/control type matchups but so are a lot of other cards.

Here's my latest take on the deck:


Yesterday went 3-1, beating bant auras, losing to kiki-chord, then beating melira CoCo and b/w tokens.

Still missing the engineered explosives in ratchet bomb's spot, this costs me a game from time to time which is annoying, i'll try to get them soon...

Just picked up my damnations to compensate no bridge, and get rid of thing my other removal can't. Walking ballista has been pretty good, especially with scrap trawler triggers.

Awesome @Ace1! Are you coming tonight at l'Exped? I'll be there, and just put back together paper Tezz myself

Spent yesterday testing on Cockatrice and had a test session against my brother's 8-Whack earlier today. Ready to roll out!

List is the following, drawing both from the top-winning lists but also some bits from Trav's ideas:

/e: Can't shake off the feeling that we should be playing Mishra's Bauble for deck Whir and Metalcraft acceleration / Virtual scrying / Deck thinning and also upping the artifact count. Just can't.

/e: Can't shake off the feeling that we should be playing Mishra's Bauble for deck Whir and Metalcraft acceleration / Virtual scrying / Deck thinning and also upping the artifact count. Just can't.

Funny you should say that, I've been playtesting a "turbo" version of the deck running 4 baubles and 3-4 mox opals. It's actually really powerful. Basically, focus on the essentials and eliminate the fluff (-trading post, -executioner's bauble, - relic, etc). I run 4/3 thopter/sword, tezz, bridge, whir and get the lock + combo as fast and consistently as possible game 1. Game 2 the anti-stony silence package comes in (herald and friends). The bauble is effectively a mind stone that costs 0 to activate and 0 to cast which is crazy.

The core is strong, but I haven't quite figured out the support cards yet.

After playing a few hundred games with the dice factory shell in the past four months, I realized the deck needed something to truly be competitive and not rely on the opponent not being able to interact with the deck. Tezzeret was that something. I have combined the best two dice factory lists I have been testing. One was all in ramp/combo with Paradox Engine and Otherworld Atlas. The deck was capable of comboing out as early as turn 3 and reliably on turn 5/6. Being all-in on the combo with Wildfire as my sweeper/control didn't work well when my ramp was disrupted. Running the Wildfire Ramp shell with Tezzeret was powerful, but relied too much on him or high cmc finishers to win and had little disruption. Replacing Wildfire tor Tezzeret in the combo deck adds multiple other ways to win in addition to the combo and has seemingly made the deck much more resilient against it's traditionally bad match-ups. Losing Wildfire will make the tron match-up worse, but I am running 3 Blood Moon in the side without a problem. With 8 colored mana rocks and 3 Voltaic Key it isn't hard to produce 2 colors through a blood moon.

Here is the list that I am currently testing and having very positive results with



I'm wanting to try and squeeze an ensnaring bridge into the list, along with a Whir of Invention probably replacing 1 Atlas and 1 Paradox Engine. Right now in my testing, I can have trouble with Burn, Jund, Tron but everything else seems pretty solid. Some very fast decks can get there but it is a race more or less and we have ways to gain life maindeck.

While not the current list, the combo is the same and can be see in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8l0v6_7v6k&t=27s

Quote from Trav34 »

/e: Can't shake off the feeling that we should be playing Mishra's Bauble for deck Whir and Metalcraft acceleration / Virtual scrying / Deck thinning and also upping the artifact count. Just can't.

Funny you should say that, I've been playtesting a "turbo" version of the deck running 4 baubles and 3-4 mox opals. It's actually really powerful. Basically, focus on the essentials and eliminate the fluff (-trading post, -executioner's bauble, - relic, etc). I run 4/3 thopter/sword, tezz, bridge, whir and get the lock + combo as fast and consistently as possible game 1. Game 2 the anti-stony silence package comes in (herald and friends). The bauble is effectively a mind stone that costs 0 to activate and 0 to cast which is crazy.

The core is strong, but I haven't quite figured out the support cards yet.

This! This is basically what I play. 3 bauble, 2-3 opal depending on testing, 4/3 thopter sword split. My filler cards are 4 serum visions for further consistency.

It's hard to describe how good bauble is, because it's so subtle. Opening one is nice with a fetch, to gain a scry. Sometimes they just cycle and you don't notice it. Sometimes they allow for mox ramp and improvise mana, then cycle, and it's just gravy. Then again, I almost always bottom it with visions, which makes it feel just meh. Then other times it makes a nice 5/5 that's blocking as you can tap it to gain CA against removal or to not lose life against destructive revelry or smash. It's also a nice turn one against targeted discard, effectively "hiding" a card in your hand when you crack it on their turn.

Also, it plays nice with a quick bridge, which as we all know, can make all the difference in some matchups.

Will certainly look into it, as the couple games I lost yesterday were with Whir stranded in hand for just a couple turns too long. Actually, went 3-1:

R1 lost 1-2 to Affinity, stabilize at low-ish life and get blown up by multiple Galvanic Blasts he had been sandbagging/top-decked;

R2 won 2-0 vs Black Sombies Station: Ensnaring Bridge and Pithing Needle on Blasting Station;

R3 won 2-1 vs Titanshift: G1 I fast ramp into 5/5 beats ftw on T5. G3 is grindier, but my opponent is visibly unexperienced with the deck so I can capitalize on that and win with Thopter-Sword navigating through his hate;

R4 won 2-0 vs Bant Legendary, G1 on the back of Lili + Crucible lock, G2 Lili takes over again.

Will try the Baubles tech next time.

And hey, we're getting some attention here: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13865&writer=Adam Yurchick&articledate=3-23-2017

Hi, this is my first post on the primer. I first saw the whir tech on reddit and wanted to brew around with it and try different things out. After reading the thread, looking at the OPs deck, and doing some testing I came to this list


Link to deck @ TappedOut.net

Sideboard is down one card and ATM I am between

• 1x Herald of Anguish
  
• 1x Jace, Memory Adept
  
• 1x Negate
  
• 1x Painful Truths
  

This is basically the other end of the turbo-combo decks playing the much more controlling game focusing on slowing things down and playing more removal/hand disruption while laying out some artifacts and then using the raw power of cryptic command and whir to lockdown the game.

Main reason I prefer this to the turbo versions is it is much more resilient to artifact and grave hate (esp. shatterstorm & Rest in Peace) and the midrange/control decks in general. I think the meta has slowed down a bit with DS and Eldrazi decks being the DTB atm.

I'm testing less green splash and less abrupt decay but it is basically the only out we have against turbo-blood moon decks due to the colour requirements so I still have them in for now.

Herald of Anguish is amazing in the deck as it represents something the deck is missing a lot of the times, a fast clock. I am between one or two in the sideboard but I feel like two is the right amount. This comes in against any deck where you are the aggro deck. Also has the bonus of often the opponent boarding out the removal that can actually hit it (PtE) because of you not running any great targets game one.

Glint-nest is incredible in the burn/affinity/infect/zoo match ups as being a solid wall and often replacing itself, but is another non-artifact that just gets in the way against the midrange decks. Also the amount of artifacts we need to run to guarantee the hit is much higher than we actually want to run (25+) so I think if the body itself isn't good enough on a wiff you just straight don't want the card in your deck. Great side-board card against all the fast decks in the format.

I am not sure on the artifacts mainboard ATM, and think both relic and nihil are just not good enough to warrant running but have struggled to find a replacement and don't want to go down any more artifacts main (already light at 18)

Jace, Memory adept is clunky but it is a way against infinite life decks to still have an out once you have locked them out of the game but they have combo'd.

Another negate helps with control decks in the format and some of the artifact hate. Really helps against DSJ because they will almost surely have a couple Temur Battle Rages which can just end the game if you are relying on chumpblocking.

Painful truths is an option as the best draw spell available at the mana cost. Get some extra value from breeding pool. Great in control match-ups but those are pretty weak right now. I imagine it would be very good in the mirror.