I think this card really needs its own thread. Been dabbling around with it lately and it's quite a potent card for the artifact deck. It obviously has similarities to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas strapped with Tezzeret the Seeker's ultimate. 3U draw 2 with potential for lots of burst damage / flat out be a win condition is no joke.
Here's some testing I got with it this weekend:
Undefeated Grixis (UBR) Tinker Upheaval Wildfire Ramp (Reanimator player cut me off from giant robots, but Tinker for Memory Jar was still extremely potent with Psychatog / Upheaval).
Highlights:
My opponent scooped the turn before TAW's "ultimate" would trigger. Note that I could activate Mishra's Factory in response to TAW's trigger to make it a 5/5.
This was after an Upheaval AND a Wildfire:
Don't let the "win more" scenarios above fool you for those were just the highlights. There were definitely more scenarios where it was draw 1-2 cards, deal 5-10 damage. Not having control of chapter 3's timing can be awkward if you NEED to Wrath of God / Balance that turn, but that's going to be the exception most of the time and definitely not the rule. The triggers happening at the beginning of your pre-combat mainphase is nice since you can still tap your mana rocks for mana in response to a creature removal spell.
The card is good, for sure. I don't think it's Tier 1 support for the artifact.dec, but it's definitely a good support card for that shell. I may give it some additional testing in the future if I feel like the deck is looking for some additional help.
The card is good, for sure. I don't think it's Tier 1 support for the artifact.dec, but it's definitely a good support card for that shell. I may give it some additional testing in the future if I feel like the deck is looking for some additional help.
IMO
Cards Above TAW
- Tinker
- Mishra’s Workshop
- Tolarian Academy
- Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
- Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
- Metalworker
Below TAW
- Academy Ruins
- Goblin Welder (in my experience at least)
- The Abyss (this has been underperforming a lot recently)
Equal-ish
- Tezzeret the Seeker (I like TAW much more in Unpowered / in cubes not supporting Time Vault)
- Daretti, Scrap Savant
The potency of some artifact support cards can vary from unpowered to powered, which is important context when considering TAW. I ran Welder for a year and never really saw it perform well. A lot of unpowered cubes don’t run Tinker / Mishra’s Workshop for being too explosive. The nice thing about TAW is that it’s resilient and requires very little set up: no graveyard shenanigans you have to set up, no having to have artifacts in your hand, etc. Being mono colored is also really nice in comparison to Tezz, AoB and the resilience of being an enchantment is a huge leg up against more aggressive strategies. Being able to ultimate by turn 5 can also be lethal if the board is clear and you curved into 4 artifacts. Even if you don’t, Fireballing them for 10-15 damage puts them in burn / Earthquake range.
upheaval, ulamog 2.0x , tolarian academy, grim monolith, mana vault, blue tezzeret, ral zarek, devils play, walking ballista
Combo
Tinker, cantrips, show and tell, sneak attack, blightsteel, tutors
These are all interchangeable to some degree, but the best artifact decks have a focus.
Where antiquities war ranks relative to the various niche support cards , really depends on ALL the support cards you have in your cube.
IE , welder gets way better if you have a powered cube that runs mind slaver, tormenting voice and cathartic reunion. Compared to an unpowered cube that doesn't.
I'd move Welder, Daretti 1.0 and Tezz into the tier-1 list of support cards for sure. All of those cards are nutty in the artifact.dec builds, and are core to their success, IMO. I'd add the new Karn to that list too; it's so damn good in that deck. Loadstone Golem could go here too.
I'd move Workshop down (way too much of what makes the artifact.dec work are non-artifact spells), and put Ruins and The Antiquities War into that tier with Thirst, Trash for Treasure, Trinket Mage and a few others.
Testing is showing TAW to be consistently potent, more so than Tezzeret the Seeker / Goblin Welder / Daretti, Scrap Savant has in my Unpowered cube at least. YMMV, but here’s two scenarios I saw tonight:
1.). Opponent has god draw and went off turn 5 with TAW representing 20 damage. If I didn’t draw my 4th land for Cryptic Command I would’ve easily eaten 15 of that damage and would’ve lost my
2.). Opponent was able to swing for 10 (I was able to absorb half with Maze of Ith). The burst damage TAW represents is scary when a lot of Grixis builds can finish you off with something like Thundermaw Hellkite / Earthquake / Chandra, Flamecaller / Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh.
Great arguments and examples Steve. You've convinced me to give it some extended testing. My experience was soured by having chapters I or II miss a couple of times (and it's super mediocre if it only winds up drawing 1 card) but the math suggests that should be relatively improbable in most decks that would actually play TAW. I'll report back with my next round of results.
I should have about an 84% chance to hit w/ chapter I and an 81% chance to hit with chapter II (if chapter I was a hit), so it should draw 2 cards more often than not.
Drafted 2 artifact decks both which tested antiquities war last night
One midrange brew
(stone forge + Jitte/SOFI, angel of invention, sun titan, trinket mage, black lotus, walking ballista, pithing needle, chrome mox, tolarian academy, new karn, smugglers copter, phyrexian revoker, knight of the kitchen sink etc)
One tinker ramp deck
(Tinker -> blightsteel/mind slaver/sphinx of the steel wind, sol ring, tolarian academy, mishra's workshop, academy ruins, memory jar, walking ballista, bunch of mana rocks, time twister, mind twist, ulamog 2.0, show and tell)
Both decks had plenty of artifact targets. Unfortunately, was a bit luke warm on it's initial testing. Drew and played it 3? times.
Highlight(lowlight):
First turn I cast antiquities war (5 lands! whiff).
Next turn antiquities war drew vedalken shackles, I drew tinker. I sacrificed a mana rock , tinkering for blight steel colossus.
Next turn Antiquities war overun , 3 artifacts in play. Mana rock + shackles + blight steel. Realized it shrank my blightsteel to a 5/5 AWKWARD. Opponent had a vraska's contempt so it didn't end up mattering, but it was a fringe downside that could have ended up mattering. Hit him for 10, but I had no follow up to it.
Conclusions:
Very small sample, but I think I overestimated the over-run a bit and under-estimated the 2x artifact impulse a bit. What's nice is that you are digging 10! cards deep, so if there are any premium artifacts in your deck that you haven't drawn, you have a decent shot of finding it.
As a 4 mana spell, I'm getting the sense that it is not uncommon to want to cast it early to generate some card advantage (you may have no other gas in your hand), but when you cast it early, you miss out on the possiblity of a lethal over-run.
Antiquities war felt quite a bit better in my midrange brew than the combo version. Of the 3 times I cast the card, none of the scenarios presented lethal damage. Having other ways to chip in the final 5-10 points of damage felt important to leverage it's power. The tinker combo version had threats that either did nothing or won the game, so dealing 10 damage was fairly unimportant.
Also, my artifact top end consisted of Blightseel colosus (12 mana), sphinx of the steel wind (close to uncastable) and mind slaver. Only mind slaver would I have been happy to impulse into.
In the midrange version, i had a wider range of utility where card selection was useful.
Still testing... Initially felt like a worse tezzeret agent of bolas, with a MUCH more desirable mana cost.
I'd move Welder, Daretti 1.0 and Tezz into the tier-1 list of support cards for sure. All of those cards are nutty in the artifact.dec builds, and are core to their success, IMO. I'd add the new Karn to that list too; it's so damn good in that deck. Loadstone Golem could go here too.
I'd move Workshop down (way too much of what makes the artifact.dec work are non-artifact spells), and put Ruins and The Antiquities War into that tier with Thirst, Trash for Treasure and a few others.
Welder and U Tezz hven't pulled their weight in the unpowered cubes I've been playing. I suspect much of its mediocre performance has to do with the fact that the environments don't have moxen, lotus, or cards like vault/crypt/ring. Usually, U Tezz just tutored up a signet or some other rock. The artifact decks here tend to be big mana here with sweepers, so welder can get a bit awkward to deploy. Could you post a decklist so I can see the shell you use to abuse welder/U Tezz?
I'd move Welder, Daretti 1.0 and Tezz into the tier-1 list of support cards for sure. All of those cards are nutty in the artifact.dec builds, and are core to their success, IMO. I'd add the new Karn to that list too; it's so damn good in that deck. Loadstone Golem could go here too.
I'd move Workshop down (way too much of what makes the artifact.dec work are non-artifact spells), and put Ruins and The Antiquities War into that tier with Thirst, Trash for Treasure and a few others.
Welder and U Tezz hven't pulled their weight in the unpowered cubes I've been playing. I suspect much of its mediocre performance has to do with the fact that the environments don't have moxen, lotus, or cards like vault/crypt/ring. Usually, U Tezz just tutored up a signet or some other rock. The artifact decks here tend to be big mana here with sweepers, so welder can get a bit awkward to deploy. Could you post a decklist so I can see the shell you use to abuse welder/U Tezz?
Having the powered mana makes a big difference. I can't testify to how any artifact.dec cards perform in unpowered environments, since I've never played them there.
I don't really have a desire to cube the artifact deck at 450 unpowered, but the positive testing of TAW has made me wonder if it's good enough on it's own without additional artifact deck support. We cube a pretty high density of mana artifacts for an artifact cube that doesn't run the full set of signets (the count is 19, which is about the same density as the last MODO cube). It seems great in a deck that gets ~7 artifacts.
Is this just a fever dream? Sort of feels like it doesn't get there but wanted people's thoughts.
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I just cut this from my cube. Steve convinced me to re-test it, but it was still pretty medium for us. And that's with the artifact.dec being a heavily played and supported archetype. I certainly wouldn't recommend it without that deck being a commonly drafted thing (and being fully powered). In the 540-630 range when some number of tier-2 artifact.dec support cards need to be added in for saturation it's probably fine, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a 450-caliber card.
I just cut this from my cube. Steve convinced me to re-test it, but it was still pretty medium for us. And that's with the artifact.dec being a heavily played and supported archetype. I certainly wouldn't recommend it without that deck being a commonly drafted thing (and being fully powered). In the 540-630 range when some number of tier-2 artifact.dec support cards need to be added in for saturation it's probably fine, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a 450-caliber card.
I'm having similar experiences. Initial impressions are that it's totally fine as an artifact value card, certainly a solid playable in the deck, but nothing very impressive. The final chapter overrun just hasn't been as "win the game" as I was hoping.
Still testing, but dangerously close to being perma-axed.
I'm in a similar boat with being meh on it with trying it again. I push artifacts likely harder than most (I run things like Cranial Plating and whatnot, FWIW) and haven't been super huge on it. Will keep trying it for the time being, though.
I think this card really needs its own thread. Been dabbling around with it lately and it's quite a potent card for the artifact deck. It obviously has similarities to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas strapped with Tezzeret the Seeker's ultimate. 3U draw 2 with potential for lots of burst damage / flat out be a win condition is no joke.
Here's some testing I got with it this weekend:
Undefeated Grixis (UBR) Tinker Upheaval Wildfire Ramp (Reanimator player cut me off from giant robots, but Tinker for Memory Jar was still extremely potent with Psychatog / Upheaval).
Highlights:
My opponent scooped the turn before TAW's "ultimate" would trigger. Note that I could activate Mishra's Factory in response to TAW's trigger to make it a 5/5.
This was after an Upheaval AND a Wildfire:
Don't let the "win more" scenarios above fool you for those were just the highlights. There were definitely more scenarios where it was draw 1-2 cards, deal 5-10 damage. Not having control of chapter 3's timing can be awkward if you NEED to Wrath of God / Balance that turn, but that's going to be the exception most of the time and definitely not the rule. The triggers happening at the beginning of your pre-combat mainphase is nice since you can still tap your mana rocks for mana in response to a creature removal spell.
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IMO
Cards Above TAW
- Tinker
- Mishra’s Workshop
- Tolarian Academy
- Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
- Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
- Metalworker
Below TAW
- Academy Ruins
- Goblin Welder (in my experience at least)
- The Abyss (this has been underperforming a lot recently)
Equal-ish
- Tezzeret the Seeker (I like TAW much more in Unpowered / in cubes not supporting Time Vault)
- Daretti, Scrap Savant
The potency of some artifact support cards can vary from unpowered to powered, which is important context when considering TAW. I ran Welder for a year and never really saw it perform well. A lot of unpowered cubes don’t run Tinker / Mishra’s Workshop for being too explosive. The nice thing about TAW is that it’s resilient and requires very little set up: no graveyard shenanigans you have to set up, no having to have artifacts in your hand, etc. Being mono colored is also really nice in comparison to Tezz, AoB and the resilience of being an enchantment is a huge leg up against more aggressive strategies. Being able to ultimate by turn 5 can also be lethal if the board is clear and you curved into 4 artifacts. Even if you don’t, Fireballing them for 10-15 damage puts them in burn / Earthquake range.
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How much support you want to give the artifact.dec is an interesting cube design puzzle.
From MY cube experience, supporting specific artifact archetypes.
Graveyard builds
Academy ruins, welder, faithless looting, mind slaver, animate dead , sundering titan, battlesphere, Daretti scrap savant, Feldon, tormenting voice.
(I find this really needed a lot of support with multiple red looting effects to be a distinct archtype)
Wildfire builds
smoke stack, crucible, catastrophe, winter orb, tolarian academy, strip mine, land tax, wrath of god, Planeswalkers, fiery confluence, balance.
Extreme Ramp
upheaval, ulamog 2.0x , tolarian academy, grim monolith, mana vault, blue tezzeret, ral zarek, devils play, walking ballista
Combo
Tinker, cantrips, show and tell, sneak attack, blightsteel, tutors
These are all interchangeable to some degree, but the best artifact decks have a focus.
Where antiquities war ranks relative to the various niche support cards , really depends on ALL the support cards you have in your cube.
IE , welder gets way better if you have a powered cube that runs mind slaver, tormenting voice and cathartic reunion. Compared to an unpowered cube that doesn't.
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I'd move Workshop down (way too much of what makes the artifact.dec work are non-artifact spells), and put Ruins and The Antiquities War into that tier with Thirst, Trash for Treasure, Trinket Mage and a few others.
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1.). Opponent has god draw and went off turn 5 with TAW representing 20 damage. If I didn’t draw my 4th land for Cryptic Command I would’ve easily eaten 15 of that damage and would’ve lost my
2.). Opponent was able to swing for 10 (I was able to absorb half with Maze of Ith). The burst damage TAW represents is scary when a lot of Grixis builds can finish you off with something like Thundermaw Hellkite / Earthquake / Chandra, Flamecaller / Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh.
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I should have about an 84% chance to hit w/ chapter I and an 81% chance to hit with chapter II (if chapter I was a hit), so it should draw 2 cards more often than not.
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My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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One midrange brew
(stone forge + Jitte/SOFI, angel of invention, sun titan, trinket mage, black lotus, walking ballista, pithing needle, chrome mox, tolarian academy, new karn, smugglers copter, phyrexian revoker, knight of the kitchen sink etc)
One tinker ramp deck
(Tinker -> blightsteel/mind slaver/sphinx of the steel wind, sol ring, tolarian academy, mishra's workshop, academy ruins, memory jar, walking ballista, bunch of mana rocks, time twister, mind twist, ulamog 2.0, show and tell)
Both decks had plenty of artifact targets. Unfortunately, was a bit luke warm on it's initial testing. Drew and played it 3? times.
Highlight(lowlight):
First turn I cast antiquities war (5 lands! whiff).
Next turn antiquities war drew vedalken shackles, I drew tinker. I sacrificed a mana rock , tinkering for blight steel colossus.
Next turn Antiquities war overun , 3 artifacts in play. Mana rock + shackles + blight steel. Realized it shrank my blightsteel to a 5/5 AWKWARD. Opponent had a vraska's contempt so it didn't end up mattering, but it was a fringe downside that could have ended up mattering. Hit him for 10, but I had no follow up to it.
Conclusions:
Very small sample, but I think I overestimated the over-run a bit and under-estimated the 2x artifact impulse a bit. What's nice is that you are digging 10! cards deep, so if there are any premium artifacts in your deck that you haven't drawn, you have a decent shot of finding it.
As a 4 mana spell, I'm getting the sense that it is not uncommon to want to cast it early to generate some card advantage (you may have no other gas in your hand), but when you cast it early, you miss out on the possiblity of a lethal over-run.
Antiquities war felt quite a bit better in my midrange brew than the combo version. Of the 3 times I cast the card, none of the scenarios presented lethal damage. Having other ways to chip in the final 5-10 points of damage felt important to leverage it's power. The tinker combo version had threats that either did nothing or won the game, so dealing 10 damage was fairly unimportant.
Also, my artifact top end consisted of Blightseel colosus (12 mana), sphinx of the steel wind (close to uncastable) and mind slaver. Only mind slaver would I have been happy to impulse into.
In the midrange version, i had a wider range of utility where card selection was useful.
Still testing... Initially felt like a worse tezzeret agent of bolas, with a MUCH more desirable mana cost.
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Welder and U Tezz hven't pulled their weight in the unpowered cubes I've been playing. I suspect much of its mediocre performance has to do with the fact that the environments don't have moxen, lotus, or cards like vault/crypt/ring. Usually, U Tezz just tutored up a signet or some other rock. The artifact decks here tend to be big mana here with sweepers, so welder can get a bit awkward to deploy. Could you post a decklist so I can see the shell you use to abuse welder/U Tezz?
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Having the powered mana makes a big difference. I can't testify to how any artifact.dec cards perform in unpowered environments, since I've never played them there.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Is this just a fever dream? Sort of feels like it doesn't get there but wanted people's thoughts.
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
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I'm having similar experiences. Initial impressions are that it's totally fine as an artifact value card, certainly a solid playable in the deck, but nothing very impressive. The final chapter overrun just hasn't been as "win the game" as I was hoping.
Still testing, but dangerously close to being perma-axed.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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