Do you really want 4 Inspiring Statuaries? Having multiples on the field does nothing, and I would imagine that there are enough other cards you could play instead, like Whir of Invention, which helps you search for the cards you need to go off, which should be important when you only play 1 Aetherflux reservoir maindeck.
Do you really want 4 Inspiring Statuaries? Having multiples on the field does nothing, and I would imagine that there are enough other cards you could play instead, like Whir of Invention, which helps you search for the cards you need to go off, which should be important when you only play 1 Aetherflux reservoir maindeck.
I was about to copypaste my answer from the old Aetherflux-thread, but I guess I could write a new answer for this new topic.
You absolutely do want all four Statuaries. It is the single most importanr card we have, and the deck can barely function without it. All the card draw and Cranes are necessary so that we can find at least one statuary consistently enough. Having multiples in play is a positive problem.
Whir does simply not play well with the synergies of the deck, and is painfully slow on top of it. In particular playing Whir instead Statuary for the intention that you "find the cards you need to go off" is backwards, since the card I would be tutoring for is Statuary. Casting Whir for any of the 0-mana artifacts would be a horrible mana-investment. As for tutoring Reservoir, you can check the VODs if you doubt one is not enough.
asking how to beat Abrade is a pretty broad question. Sometimes you can do something about the card, sometimes you can't. It's totally match-up dependent.
Your observation about the maindeck being tight is very correct, and it is indeed hard to find cuts for cards to bring in, which is why we board minimally.
Playing two Barals and siding the third one was somewhat an experiment. I found myself boardin the Assistants out quite often because they are the least relevant card and are very weak to cards like Ballista ang the ping-goblin, so I moved the third Baral to main again. What you said about the obvious sideboard strategies holds true as well. When I'm bringing the River's Rebukes in, my plan is to cut the one assistant and one Expertise or Commit//Memory, depending on the MU and whether I'm on the play or draw.
Now that I added Karn to my board I no longer have the Key, but I could see myself working that back in as well.
This deck's plan a is good enough, but against the most controlling strategies we need to increase our threat density at the expense of the do-nothing enablers in order to not get out-grinded, at which point our alternative wincons become appealing, as they require less cheap fluff and less succesfully resolved spells for any one turn. My standard boarding plan for these kind of MUs is:
This is just a rough draft. I haven't been able to fit Efficient Cobstruction into this puzzle yet - it could be that I should cut obe Commit, Baral, Ornithopter, or Mox. Efficient Construction is probably at its best against Grixis Energy, as they have both Abrade and a somewhat fast clock.
The extra Reservoir is for MUs where the opponent plays Abrades, and using Memory to shuffle it back to our Library is too cumbersome. Basically against Mono Red and other aggressive decks.
I can't give anyone a specific sideboard plan yet, since I'm still learning myself and there are dozens of archetypes being played in comp leagues currently.
I would be tempted to add 2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp in to SB as alt wincon to help through heavy artifact hate and damping sphere. I really like the build
Thanks mate. I have consider Djinn myself, but the problem is our deck is horribly weak at playing fair magic, and I doubt the card is good enough to truly stop mono red and white decks on their tracks. This is why I trust and use cards like Efficient Construction and The Antiquities Wars instead. They don't simply present a solid threat, they are hard to interactive with -threats that will absolutely win the game, and they are also value engines on top of that.
Also, if you're truly interested in my sideboarding ideas, you can always check my VODs at twitch and skip to the relevant parts. Of course this can be a little too time consuming for you, and I definitely don't mind replying to questions here.
[card]Key to the City[/c] I get in that situation; it lets you draw cards anytime you've used inspire to pay for anything, whether or not the cast spell was countered. I could see that being very useful in a drawn-out control MU.
I just have a bit of trouble picturing Treasure Map being all that great in any MU - I'm probably missing something. I mean, unlike something like Glimmer of Genius, you can't use inspire for the scry costs and it takes more mana overall and a significant turn investment - you can only draw one card per turn when it finally transforms. In conjunction with Spell Swindle it's more powerful, sure, but still. On top of that, it costs 2 mana that you can't inspire for, which makes a bad target for bouncing with Paradoxical Outcome - aside from the fact that you'd lose the counters. It *is* another artifact for The Antiquities War, but that stops being the case when it transforms.
Seriously, what's the upside? What am I missing? Are you just using it to slowly find the necessary cards, then use the extra mana to play Aetherflux Reservoir on the turn you go off?
The reason I stopped using Key in the past was that I much preferred Map. Sure, Key is great for card draw, but the scry for one is also very vsluable for making sure we hit our land drops. The thing flips very fast -three activations isn't much at all- and when it does you gain a mana neutral extra draw or a huge mana advantage, whichever you need. The treasures you gain play extremely well with (obviously) improvise, and Karn and The Antiquities war as well. On top of that card ramps you up in mana just by virtue of transforming into a land. Even though you need to invest a lot of mana into the card initially, it easily pays itself back in the end. Key is a different thing - it's purely a mana sink, and loses to Map in that department.
EDIT: this isn't to say that Key would be completely inferior to map. If you can afford to use the mana to draw cards off of Key, then Key does gain you a bigger CA than Map would. The card is definitely at its best you have access to 3-4 Rebukes. The ability to give unblockable could also be massive with Karn's construct tokens.
I'll just post my list here.. kind of in the same genre I guess? I'm tempted and probably going to add in Inspiring Statuary, but the deck functions off of Foundry Inspector.
Wincon is The Antiquities War, the deck seeks to have 7 artifacts on the table at the 3rd saga counter and have counterspell backup.
At the moment I have no idea what changes to make, but this deck wins on turn 6 consistently.
Our decks play a lot of the same cards, but the fact yours isn't built around Outcome makes it a completely different archetype. I recommend you to simply to make your own thread!
Remaining mono-blue, why not Zhalfirin Void as a 1 or 2-of? Also, Glimmer of Genius instead of a Reverse Engineer or two? Digs deeper as an instant and is cheaper with Improvise.
Remaining mono-blue, why not Zhalfirin Void as a 1 or 2-of? Also, Glimmer of Genius instead of a Reverse Engineer or two? Digs deeper as an instant and is cheaper with Improvise.
I have considered all of these cards, but splashing for them is far away from worth it. Glimmer is nice, but Engineer's value comes from exactly that you don't need to have statuary in play to cast it on the cheap.
Manabase can't handle additional colorless lands, even the one fair is pushing it.
Unwind is actually a nice suggestion - it could really help this deck go off in the control MUs. I'll try it in place of negate and maybe even one of the Rebukes.
I played a few practice games and I don't quite understand a few card choices. Why only 2 Barals mainboard? Being able to use mox as a colored source instead of colorless greatly alleviates some of the pressure on the lands. Also, only 1 Aetherflux mainboard feels really awful if they have any sort of way to remove the first because the only way to win the game from there are baral/bird beats and finding a Commit and dig down to it again.
Also, is there any consideration for Icy Manipulator or Pacification Array? I appreciate that the deck is really tightly bound to its gameplan, but it seems like the gameplan against mono-R or RB aggro is to scoop up your cards threateningly and go home.
I played a few practice games and I don't quite understand a few card choices. Why only 2 Barals mainboard? Being able to use mox as a colored source instead of colorless greatly alleviates some of the pressure on the lands. Also, only 1 Aetherflux mainboard feels really awful if they have any sort of way to remove the first because the only way to win the game from there are baral/bird beats and finding a Commit and dig down to it again.
Also, is there any consideration for Icy Manipulator or Pacification Array? I appreciate that the deck is really tightly bound to its gameplan, but it seems like the gameplan against mono-R or RB aggro is to scoop up your cards threateningly and go home.
I posted this earlier as well, but my most recent list plays 3 Barals and 1 Bird. I cut down to 1 Reservoir because it's worst card to see in your opener, and I found out that once this version of the deck goes off it goes off "too" well. Once you start to combo off you'll go through the entire deck, so just one Reservoir is enough to win. The second one is in the board for the Abrade-MUs.
Icy Manipulator and Array suffer from the same problem as djinn - this deck isn't set up to play fair magic. Adding one or two average interactive cards doesn't help at all, since we're always better of spending all the mana we have on setting the combo or comboing off.
I played a few practice games and I don't quite understand a few card choices. Why only 2 Barals mainboard? Being able to use mox as a colored source instead of colorless greatly alleviates some of the pressure on the lands. Also, only 1 Aetherflux mainboard feels really awful if they have any sort of way to remove the first because the only way to win the game from there are baral/bird beats and finding a Commit and dig down to it again.
Also, is there any consideration for Icy Manipulator or Pacification Array? I appreciate that the deck is really tightly bound to its gameplan, but it seems like the gameplan against mono-R or RB aggro is to scoop up your cards threateningly and go home.
From what I can tell, Mox Amber is in there entirely to bounce and play again to increase storm count for free.
With only two Barals to turn it into a normal Mox, it's not really meant to ramp.
@Regorek & Codecimal: Yes, one of Mox Amber's primary function is to bounce and play again for free. Once you go off, though, and you have a Baral in play, you can play one, tap it for U, play the next one (sacrificing the old one), tap that one for mana and so on. You can also do something similar without Baral if you just need an extra colorless mana for an Improvise-spell.
Also, 1 Aetherflux Reservoir MB is generally enough. You really don't want to draw it before you're ready to go off, and if the opponent destroys it, Commit // Memory can get it back with surprising ease. The bigger problem is exile effects, especially Lost Legacy. Cast Out can be answered with Commit // Memory though.
Since lost legacy can't hit artifacts that's not a problem for Reservoir though it's a lot harder to go off without all the paradoxical outcomes.
I cashed out of MTGO a while ago so I didn't have much left, I built the basic deck (minus karns) and put Padeem in instead. I figured the hexproof + card draw would provide a solid option. I have yet to actually side it in. The slots are so tight I'm unsure how to make room. Against all the abrade matchups I'm already bringing in the other reservoir, 2 spell pierce and 2 metallic rebuke (and 2 negate as well if it's URx). So far I haven't found it's needed. By the time you're going off you'll have counter protection anyway.
You'd think the card draw is good each turn but people leave in their removal to get rid of baral... If it wasn't for the fact it cost $50 for 2 karns I'd put them in instead.
By the way I'd love to hear people's thoughts on sideboarding. I'm really struggling to figure it out. Almost every matchup feels like + 1 reservoir, + 2 spell pierce, + 2 metallic rebuke and then just trimming like 1 map, 1 prism, 1 mox, 1 baral's expertise and 1 reverse engineer. If I want negate as well I cut a 2nd prism and 1 crane too. I'm not sure when I'd ever want rivers rebuke or spell swindle or several other cards. It's almost like you only need a 10 card sideboard and the rest are just empty slots.
Also I cut that scry bird completely. The 2nd was removed for Baral number 3 and the 1st was removed for that thopter making enchantment. I have been really impressed with it acting like a mini empty the warrens. Making 5 or 6 1/1 fliers on turn 5 can be enough to win and it at least buys a lot of time to actually go off fully. I know it's crap in the opening 7 but it's worth it. Also won me a game where grixis control had doomfall game 1 and hit my reservoir.
Aetherflux Reservoir storm with Mox Amber and Baral. I stream with the deck, check out my VODs: https://www.twitch.tv/tiemuuuu/videos/all
4 Ornithopter
2 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Mox Amber
4 Renegade Map
4 Prophetic Prism
2 Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
4 Inspiring Statuary
3 Aetherflux Reservoir
2 Commit // Memory
4 Paradoxical Outcome
3 Baral's Expertise
1 Inventors' Fair
4 Zhalfirin Void
13 Island
2 The Antiquities War
3 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Exclusion Mage
2 Aether Meltdown
1 Jace's Defeat
2 Negate
1 Navigator's Compass
1 Unwind
1 Fountain of Renewal
4 Ornithopter
3 Sai, Master Thopterist
3 Baral's Expertise
2 Commit // Memory
3 Metallic Rebuke
4 Paradoxical Outcome
3 Aetherflux Reservoir
4 Inspiring Statuary
2 Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
3 Mox Amber
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Renegade Map
13 Island
4 Zhalfirin Void
1 Sai, Master Thopterist
1 Baral's Expertise
1 Commit // Memory
1 Metallic Rebuke
1 Baral, Chief of Compliance
3 Karn, Scion of Urza
3 Negate
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
4 Renegade Map
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Inspiring Statuary
2 Aetherflux Reservoir
2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Ornithopter
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Baral's Expertise
4 Reverse Engineer
4 Paradoxical Outcome
17 Island
1 Inventors' Fair
2 Treasure Map
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Negate
2 Metallic Rebuke
1 Spell Swindle
1 Commit // Memory
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 River's Rebuke
1 The Antiquities War
3 ...
Youtube Channel
Youtube Channel
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
4 Renegade Map
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Inspiring Statuary
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
2 Artificer's Assistant
2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Ornithopter
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Baral's Expertise
4 Reverse Engineer
4 Paradoxical Outcome
17 Island
1 Inventors' Fair
2 Treasure Map
1 Key to the City
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Negate
2 Metallic Rebuke
1 Spell Swindle
1 Commit // Memory
2 River's Rebuke
1 The Antiquities War
1 Efficient Construction
1 Baral, Chief of Compliance
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
Youtube Channel
I was about to copypaste my answer from the old Aetherflux-thread, but I guess I could write a new answer for this new topic.
You absolutely do want all four Statuaries. It is the single most importanr card we have, and the deck can barely function without it. All the card draw and Cranes are necessary so that we can find at least one statuary consistently enough. Having multiples in play is a positive problem.
Whir does simply not play well with the synergies of the deck, and is painfully slow on top of it. In particular playing Whir instead Statuary for the intention that you "find the cards you need to go off" is backwards, since the card I would be tutoring for is Statuary. Casting Whir for any of the 0-mana artifacts would be a horrible mana-investment. As for tutoring Reservoir, you can check the VODs if you doubt one is not enough.
I'm glad to hear that! Cheers
Youtube Channel
well, here's one example: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/253572295?t=03h37m29s
asking how to beat Abrade is a pretty broad question. Sometimes you can do something about the card, sometimes you can't. It's totally match-up dependent.
Youtube Channel
Playing two Barals and siding the third one was somewhat an experiment. I found myself boardin the Assistants out quite often because they are the least relevant card and are very weak to cards like Ballista ang the ping-goblin, so I moved the third Baral to main again. What you said about the obvious sideboard strategies holds true as well. When I'm bringing the River's Rebukes in, my plan is to cut the one assistant and one Expertise or Commit//Memory, depending on the MU and whether I'm on the play or draw.
Now that I added Karn to my board I no longer have the Key, but I could see myself working that back in as well.
This deck's plan a is good enough, but against the most controlling strategies we need to increase our threat density at the expense of the do-nothing enablers in order to not get out-grinded, at which point our alternative wincons become appealing, as they require less cheap fluff and less succesfully resolved spells for any one turn. My standard boarding plan for these kind of MUs is:
-1 Mox
-1 Ornithopter
-1 Assistant
-1 Baral
-3 Expertise
-1 Statuary
+2 Map
+3 Rebuke
+1 Karn
+1 Negate
+1 Antiquities Wars
This is just a rough draft. I haven't been able to fit Efficient Cobstruction into this puzzle yet - it could be that I should cut obe Commit, Baral, Ornithopter, or Mox. Efficient Construction is probably at its best against Grixis Energy, as they have both Abrade and a somewhat fast clock.
The extra Reservoir is for MUs where the opponent plays Abrades, and using Memory to shuffle it back to our Library is too cumbersome. Basically against Mono Red and other aggressive decks.
I can't give anyone a specific sideboard plan yet, since I'm still learning myself and there are dozens of archetypes being played in comp leagues currently.
Youtube Channel
Thanks mate. I have consider Djinn myself, but the problem is our deck is horribly weak at playing fair magic, and I doubt the card is good enough to truly stop mono red and white decks on their tracks. This is why I trust and use cards like Efficient Construction and The Antiquities Wars instead. They don't simply present a solid threat, they are hard to interactive with -threats that will absolutely win the game, and they are also value engines on top of that.
Youtube Channel
Youtube Channel
The reason I stopped using Key in the past was that I much preferred Map. Sure, Key is great for card draw, but the scry for one is also very vsluable for making sure we hit our land drops. The thing flips very fast -three activations isn't much at all- and when it does you gain a mana neutral extra draw or a huge mana advantage, whichever you need. The treasures you gain play extremely well with (obviously) improvise, and Karn and The Antiquities war as well. On top of that card ramps you up in mana just by virtue of transforming into a land. Even though you need to invest a lot of mana into the card initially, it easily pays itself back in the end. Key is a different thing - it's purely a mana sink, and loses to Map in that department.
EDIT: this isn't to say that Key would be completely inferior to map. If you can afford to use the mana to draw cards off of Key, then Key does gain you a bigger CA than Map would. The card is definitely at its best you have access to 3-4 Rebukes. The ability to give unblockable could also be massive with Karn's construct tokens.
Youtube Channel
Wincon is The Antiquities War, the deck seeks to have 7 artifacts on the table at the 3rd saga counter and have counterspell backup.
At the moment I have no idea what changes to make, but this deck wins on turn 6 consistently.
4x Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
4x Pacification Array
4x Prophetic Prism
4x Renegade Map
4x Traveler's Amulet
Instant (4)
4x Metallic Rebuke
Enchantment (4)
4x The Antiquities War
4x Aether Hub
7x Island
1x Plains
4x Spire of Industry
4x Zhalfirin Void
Sorcery (4)
4x Board the Weatherlight
Creature (8)
4x Foundry Inspector
4x Ornithopter
4x Aether Meltdown
4x Filigree Familiar
4x Navigator's Compass
3x Negate
Youtube Channel
White gives you Board the Weatherlight, far better sideboard options vs Aggro (Settle the Wreckage), and Raff Capashen could catch a control deck unawares. I'd also like to work out Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle somehow (gets Glint Cranes, Ornithopters and Baral back)
Remaining mono-blue, why not Zhalfirin Void as a 1 or 2-of? Also, Glimmer of Genius instead of a Reverse Engineer or two? Digs deeper as an instant and is cheaper with Improvise.
Red has Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, Storm the Vault and SB options. I'm also considering Unwind, with Improvise it could be pretty powerful.
I have, but liked the other cards more
Youtube Channel
I have considered all of these cards, but splashing for them is far away from worth it. Glimmer is nice, but Engineer's value comes from exactly that you don't need to have statuary in play to cast it on the cheap.
Manabase can't handle additional colorless lands, even the one fair is pushing it.
Unwind is actually a nice suggestion - it could really help this deck go off in the control MUs. I'll try it in place of negate and maybe even one of the Rebukes.
Youtube Channel
Also, is there any consideration for Icy Manipulator or Pacification Array? I appreciate that the deck is really tightly bound to its gameplan, but it seems like the gameplan against mono-R or RB aggro is to scoop up your cards threateningly and go home.
I posted this earlier as well, but my most recent list plays 3 Barals and 1 Bird. I cut down to 1 Reservoir because it's worst card to see in your opener, and I found out that once this version of the deck goes off it goes off "too" well. Once you start to combo off you'll go through the entire deck, so just one Reservoir is enough to win. The second one is in the board for the Abrade-MUs.
Icy Manipulator and Array suffer from the same problem as djinn - this deck isn't set up to play fair magic. Adding one or two average interactive cards doesn't help at all, since we're always better of spending all the mana we have on setting the combo or comboing off.
Youtube Channel
From what I can tell, Mox Amber is in there entirely to bounce and play again to increase storm count for free.
With only two Barals to turn it into a normal Mox, it's not really meant to ramp.
Since lost legacy can't hit artifacts that's not a problem for Reservoir though it's a lot harder to go off without all the paradoxical outcomes.
You'd think the card draw is good each turn but people leave in their removal to get rid of baral... If it wasn't for the fact it cost $50 for 2 karns I'd put them in instead.
By the way I'd love to hear people's thoughts on sideboarding. I'm really struggling to figure it out. Almost every matchup feels like + 1 reservoir, + 2 spell pierce, + 2 metallic rebuke and then just trimming like 1 map, 1 prism, 1 mox, 1 baral's expertise and 1 reverse engineer. If I want negate as well I cut a 2nd prism and 1 crane too. I'm not sure when I'd ever want rivers rebuke or spell swindle or several other cards. It's almost like you only need a 10 card sideboard and the rest are just empty slots.
Also I cut that scry bird completely. The 2nd was removed for Baral number 3 and the 1st was removed for that thopter making enchantment. I have been really impressed with it acting like a mini empty the warrens. Making 5 or 6 1/1 fliers on turn 5 can be enough to win and it at least buys a lot of time to actually go off fully. I know it's crap in the opening 7 but it's worth it. Also won me a game where grixis control had doomfall game 1 and hit my reservoir.