I've been running 2 Trophy main, plus 2 Decay in the board lately and liking the feel of that. Trophy is a nice catchall. I'd almost just want to run 4 trophy in the 75 if UW weren't so popular. I like the flexibility of the trophy, either hitting a problem land, a planeswalker, a creature, a stony silence. I like that it hits stony, RIP, and Leyline, unlike Decay. Especially if we've got the bridge or the thopter sword combo online, I'm generally fine with giving them a land.
I've always liked Battle at the Bridge over fatal push as well. Sure instant speed is nice, but I like battle often being able to kill really anything. Maybe they've got a Platinum Emperion, or a Baneslayer Angel, so something indestructible, whatever. Plus the life gain is great. I've even just battle'd my own token to gain like 14 life before. I love Battle, but the maindeck trophy has kicked battle out of the main Battle certainly has some advantages, easier to kill thalia etc, but again the flexibility of Trophy is just so appealing
Sai needs to be a 2x in everyone’s SB. If he goes unchecked in g2 or 3 the game ends instantly. The herald is not worth the energy now that Sai’s printed IMHO
Really? I've found Sai to consistently be very underwhelming. Every time I've cast him so far he's been mediocre to bad. I've never had him be anywhere close to game ending. Like he's great out of KCI's board, but they play a lot more artifacts than we do, and more ways to chain their artifacts into drawing and casting more artifacts. I find I generally don't just have spare artifacts to sac to draw cards very often when I play him. By the time you include stuff like Serum Visions, Collective Brutality, Whir, Battle at the bridge, maybe Tezz, sideboarded non-artifacts, we've just got fewer. To be fair, I could definitely be overboarding some of the time I bring him in, which further reduces the artifact count, but that's definitely not always been the issue
Every time I cast Sai, he so often sits there for several turns not making any thopters while I draw Abrupt Decay, Whir, land, land, Serum Visions, etc. So far I think every time I put Sai into my sideboard, I consistently regret it and wish it was almost anything else.
I've never really been a fan of Herald either. My experience is people almost always leave a bunch of removal in, either because they are unfamiliar with the matchup, or they are expecting sideboard Sai/Padeem/Something.
I've really liked Assassin's Trophy to be honest. It's just so versatile, especially when I find the most troublesome permanents for the deck are usually non-creatures (since obviously creatures tend to be well answered by Bridge/Thopter Sword). Lately I've been playing 1 Trophy main and 3 more in the board. It's just really nice having something that answers EVERYTHING basically (ok not non-permanents). I could see an argument for keeping some of the trophies as Abrupt Decay specifically because of the UW Control matchup, where decay being uncounterable is pretty big. But overall I think I'm leaning more towards Trophy because there are not really many situations it's actively bad in. I might actually try to move to something like a 2/2 split main/side. Possibly 2 trophy main, 2 Decay side. We have so little ways to answer planeswalkers if we don't have an immediate pithing needle, or thopter sword online, and that is another big reason I like Trophy even against UW.
Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play lately, so my experience with trophy is fairly limited. But I still feel like the upsides over Abrupt Decay outweigh the downsides, though if you're running into a lot of UW I can't really blame you for sticking with some Decays.
How do people feel about 2 vs 3 Ensnaring bridge? I see 2 a lot, and I do often try it out to make room for something else, but tbh, everytime I try only 2 Bridge I kinda hate it. Inevitably I'll have a bunch of matches where they answered both bridges, and if I had a 3rd I'd win but I don't and I lose. Usually I mitigate this a bit by moving the 3rd to the board, but still run into that issue in game 1's against decks that play things like Trophy, KCommand, etc. It feels like one of those things where I really want 2 bridge to be the right answer, but I always end up regretting cutting the 3rd
IMO, the deck IS a thopersword combo/prison deck, and as soon as Whir of Invention was printed, the deck stopped revolving around Tezzeret and now revolves around Whir of Invention. As much as I love playing with Tezzeret, playing more than 2 just feels so bad right now. He's slow, if you don't have thoptersword or bridge out when you play him it's very easy for him to just die even if you make something into a 5/5. Sometimes a turn 3 or 4 tezz making 5/5s can steal games, but I find him cluttering up my hand and making bridge worse too often to play more than 1-2 copies. I still like him as another wincon and just a strong card, so I don't like going down to 0, but I do get why people do.
Chalice is something the deck can easily play and build around, though I'm not convinced it's worth it in the current metagame. Chalice on 1 is never really bad, but it's also too frequently not that great either, that I don't think it's worth losing out on the 1 drops we can play. Crucible and Chalice also do really want a more colourless heavy manabase, with Darksteel Citadels and Ghost Quarters. It does go into a more classic pre-Whir Tezzerator type build. Which is a viable route, but it pretty much means dropping Whir, and I think right now the value of Whir is just higher than the value of these other options. Probably even moreso now that people are adding extra basics to their decks because of Assassin's Trophy
How have the sideboard Mentor's been? I never really thought of Mentor, but it's an interesting idea considering even in a traditional list, all your spells trigger it, and splashing another sideboard colour isn't really that hard, even if you're going into a 4C route with green for Trophy/Decay and White for Mentor. Or just do like here and drop green for white and use DSphere. I do worry that DSphere gets a bit weaker with Trophies running around, but still a great and versatile answer
Some people will cut some of these cards, but I think you'll see these cards in these numbers or higher more often than not here. Manabase is also a bit flexible if you want a more fetch heavy one like this, or a fetchless one works fine too imo.
You've still got 10 card slots in the main to play stuff like Fatal Push, Battle at the bridge, Witchbane Orb, Bottled Cloister, More thopter sword pieces, More Tezzerets, Discard Spells, mana rocks, welding jar etc. Sideboard is also pretty open to play with. The Abrupt Decay/pulse are essential post-board anti-hate pieces, probably about to just swap to Assassin's Trophy for pretty much all. Padeeem is great vs targetted hate, and torpor orb is great vs Humans and Spirits. Beyond that you could have thoughtseizes if not in the main, welding jars, spellskite, more pithing needle effects, more grave hate, more tezzerets, other alt-wincons, etc.
I'd probably recommend, as someone starting out, take the initial list, go up to 4/3 or 4/4 on the Foundry/Sword pieces, maybe add a 2nd tezz to get a feel for it, then fill the last 6-7 slots with discard/removal spells. I think that would be a good place to be to get a feel for everything going on with the deck and start figuring out what direction you want to go with it in the future
I feel like Trophy both helps and hurts us. Good catchall answer to stony/rip/pithing needle/Leyline. Abrupt decay is really nice for being uncounterable against UW Control, but with the popularity of Leyline of the Void lately, you've especially needed at least one answer for that. Trophy could just replace all of those, cram 3-4 in the 75 and call it a day. Might well be worth squeezing 1 or 2 into the main. Answering everything from Tron lands, to Walkers, to Enchantments is huge.
That said it also is quite good against us, more maindeckable answers to bridge/foundry/tezz, etc. Though at least it being GB will limit how many decks can play it. I think it's an instant 2 of in our 75 minimum, probably more like 3-4
Note, when playing in paper I swapped the Sorcerous Spyglass in the main for a Damping Sphere, and cut the Sai from the sideboard for the Spyglass. I run into a lot more KCI and Tron in paper than I do on mtgo.
Recently I narrowly missed out on a comp league 5-0, which was a bit disappointing, I was 4-0, then last round got rolled by Burn. They just had a really explosive start game 1 that was too fast for just about any hand I could have had. Game 2 I kept a risky 1 lander with high payoff if another land was in my top 2 cards, and it didn't work out and I scooped by turn 3.
Also played a PPTQ yesterday with the deck. Went 3-2 which wasn't as good as I hoped, but what can you do. Beat UW Control, UW Spirits, Mardu Kiln Fiend. Lost to KCI and Ad Naus. Against KCI they did KCI things game 1 before I could get a damping sphere down. Game 2 I got lucky to draw both Damping Sphere's early. I however got unluckly that I never drew a needle or whir and they pretty quickly EE'd them both away. That's just how it goes sometimes. Against Ad Naus I punted game 1. I had Damping Sphere out, Needle naming Lightning Storm, and thopter foundry and some stuff. He had a Lab Man out. At one point I cast Sword leaving 3 open mana. He untapped and in his upkeep did his ad naus things and won with lab maniac. If I'd just held onto the sword, I could have Whir'd in response to Ad Naus, got a Pyrite Spellbomb, and killed the Lab Man. Not entirely sure I would have won if I did that, but it would have been the right play.
But overall have felt pretty happy with the deck. Of course there are always more cards that I want to put in but don't have space for. Pyrite Spellbombs have felt quite good. Cheap artifacts that I can cycle for a card, or they kill eidolon's in burn, meddling mages, drogskol captains (sometimes), kiln fiends, etc. I think I'll keep them awhile longer. The extra help vs humans is always nice.
Though I probably do need to work on my KCI matchup. Damping Sphere helps a lot. I'm not sure if Chalice is where I want to be out of the board, or if I want Surgical Extraction, etc. If I got Surgical I probably need to work on the timing of when to surgical, it does feel weak against them as they can play around it easily if they have KCI/Scrap Trawler in play. More Nihil Spellbombs in the board or main could be an option. I've liked how just emptying their yard when they are starting to go off can put a wrench in their plans. Not really sure
Murderous Cut seems pretty solid. Though personally I'm still a fan of Battle at the Bridge. It's pretty sweet and is not that hard to get it able to kill most things. I've cast it for 9 against bogles to kill a giant spirit dancer. I've cast it for 14 before in a stalemate situation. That was kinda overkill, but might as well gain as much life as you can!
I've also been trying out the Pyrite Spellbomb idea, and to be honest, I'm kinda digging it. Humans is already pretty good, but it certainly does help out there. I always like some cheap artifacts to make whir/opal better. Chromatic Star is totally another option, and when used for card draw is a fair bit cheaper. However I do like spellbomb's ability to kill something or draw a card depending on the situation. Playing 4 Glimmervoid scares me a little, so I've opted for 2 glimmervoid, 4 Spire, 4 fetchlands, with a watery grave, breeding pool, and steam vents. I dunno if it's the right way to go with the manabase, but it's what I'm trying out lately. I don't think it's a slam dunk sure thing that the deck needs, but I think it's a viable option
Has anyone tried Bitterblossom in the past? I was trying to think of some extra cards to help with UW Control and am about to start trying a sideboard Bitterblossom. I notice that resolving a turn 2 Thopter Foundry is really big in the matchup, as it's the most likely time to successfully get it on the board, especially on the play. So I thought another cheap threat that is resilient to removal, since my experience is everyone always keeps in some removal, would be helpful and bitterblossom might fill that role. It also has a really small Sword of the Meek synergy in that it'll trigger a sword to come back earlier maybe.
Anyway, just a thought, about to start trying it out
I find, especially with tron being monogreen, things like field of ruin just aren't enough. Killing their lands really only helps if you are able to put them under a lot of pressure. We typically can't in my experience, so I find it's really just not worth it. Especially when being able to whir for time sieve or damping sphere is so much more important vs tron.
I'm fairly of the opinion that the Tron match is a writeoff anyway. We have to skew our deck so hard to really have game against tron that it comes at a heavy cost of hurting all our other good matchups, and it still doesn't even really make tron a good matchup. I'd rather just focus on stuff that is good elsewhere that just happens to be good vs tron. Like damping sphere, or discard+surgical etc
I've started bringing in Extirpate/Surgical in more matchups and am certainly starting to feel a lot better about it. While it does feel worse in some really graveyard heavy matchups like Bridgevine/Dredge/Living End, i'm starting to appreciate the flexibility. As an example, I recently played it against Grixis Control. Rough matchup if they're on 4 snap and 3-4 KCommand + cryptics. However I managed to steal a game 1, and game 2 I brought in the surgical/extirpate. I got my combo online, they KCommanded the foundry as expected. So I ruins'd the foundry back on top and extirpated the kcommand. They actually just scooped on the spot to that. Likewise in another match being able to strip their ancient grudges made the game suddenly feel back to solidly in my control. Especially with the discard spells I'm starting to be a big fan.
As for lands, I'm also getting behind cutting inventor's fair more and more. Taking Nobody's list without ruins or fair, I put ruins back in, but I am very much not missing fair. I find I rarely activated fair anyway. Ruins on the other hand I don't think should be cut. I think it's well worth the colourless source. It's cheaper to activate and while I don't do it a ton, the matchups where I do activate it, it feels busted. Like cracking a spellbomb and then putting it back on top. Or tossing the foundry/bridge back on top after they kill it (but can't kill you), really feels great.
I tried switching back to extirpate and surgical, and I dunno. I just faced like 3 bridgevine decks in a row and got rolled by them all. They've been coming out way too fast for bridge in a lot of cases. Plus their sideboard plan of Ingot Chewer + Leyline of the Void has been making it so combo'ing is difficult, and bridge isn't reliable enough. Even matches where I've got multiple extirpate effects off, I still keep getting rolled post-board. Bridge feels great in game 1, but so far games 2 and 3 are feeling pretty rough. Though at least some of those postboard games I drew pretty poorly
I've always liked Battle at the Bridge over fatal push as well. Sure instant speed is nice, but I like battle often being able to kill really anything. Maybe they've got a Platinum Emperion, or a Baneslayer Angel, so something indestructible, whatever. Plus the life gain is great. I've even just battle'd my own token to gain like 14 life before. I love Battle, but the maindeck trophy has kicked battle out of the main
Really? I've found Sai to consistently be very underwhelming. Every time I've cast him so far he's been mediocre to bad. I've never had him be anywhere close to game ending. Like he's great out of KCI's board, but they play a lot more artifacts than we do, and more ways to chain their artifacts into drawing and casting more artifacts. I find I generally don't just have spare artifacts to sac to draw cards very often when I play him. By the time you include stuff like Serum Visions, Collective Brutality, Whir, Battle at the bridge, maybe Tezz, sideboarded non-artifacts, we've just got fewer. To be fair, I could definitely be overboarding some of the time I bring him in, which further reduces the artifact count, but that's definitely not always been the issue
Every time I cast Sai, he so often sits there for several turns not making any thopters while I draw Abrupt Decay, Whir, land, land, Serum Visions, etc. So far I think every time I put Sai into my sideboard, I consistently regret it and wish it was almost anything else.
I've never really been a fan of Herald either. My experience is people almost always leave a bunch of removal in, either because they are unfamiliar with the matchup, or they are expecting sideboard Sai/Padeem/Something.
Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play lately, so my experience with trophy is fairly limited. But I still feel like the upsides over Abrupt Decay outweigh the downsides, though if you're running into a lot of UW I can't really blame you for sticking with some Decays.
How do people feel about 2 vs 3 Ensnaring bridge? I see 2 a lot, and I do often try it out to make room for something else, but tbh, everytime I try only 2 Bridge I kinda hate it. Inevitably I'll have a bunch of matches where they answered both bridges, and if I had a 3rd I'd win but I don't and I lose. Usually I mitigate this a bit by moving the 3rd to the board, but still run into that issue in game 1's against decks that play things like Trophy, KCommand, etc. It feels like one of those things where I really want 2 bridge to be the right answer, but I always end up regretting cutting the 3rd
Chalice is something the deck can easily play and build around, though I'm not convinced it's worth it in the current metagame. Chalice on 1 is never really bad, but it's also too frequently not that great either, that I don't think it's worth losing out on the 1 drops we can play. Crucible and Chalice also do really want a more colourless heavy manabase, with Darksteel Citadels and Ghost Quarters. It does go into a more classic pre-Whir Tezzerator type build. Which is a viable route, but it pretty much means dropping Whir, and I think right now the value of Whir is just higher than the value of these other options. Probably even moreso now that people are adding extra basics to their decks because of Assassin's Trophy
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Spells (10)
4 Whir of Invention
2 Collective Brutality
4 Serum Visions
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Lands (21)
1 Academy Ruins
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Breeding Pool
2 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Swamp
3 Spire of Industry
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Torpor Orb
Some people will cut some of these cards, but I think you'll see these cards in these numbers or higher more often than not here. Manabase is also a bit flexible if you want a more fetch heavy one like this, or a fetchless one works fine too imo.
You've still got 10 card slots in the main to play stuff like Fatal Push, Battle at the bridge, Witchbane Orb, Bottled Cloister, More thopter sword pieces, More Tezzerets, Discard Spells, mana rocks, welding jar etc. Sideboard is also pretty open to play with. The Abrupt Decay/pulse are essential post-board anti-hate pieces, probably about to just swap to Assassin's Trophy for pretty much all. Padeeem is great vs targetted hate, and torpor orb is great vs Humans and Spirits. Beyond that you could have thoughtseizes if not in the main, welding jars, spellskite, more pithing needle effects, more grave hate, more tezzerets, other alt-wincons, etc.
I'd probably recommend, as someone starting out, take the initial list, go up to 4/3 or 4/4 on the Foundry/Sword pieces, maybe add a 2nd tezz to get a feel for it, then fill the last 6-7 slots with discard/removal spells. I think that would be a good place to be to get a feel for everything going on with the deck and start figuring out what direction you want to go with it in the future
That said it also is quite good against us, more maindeckable answers to bridge/foundry/tezz, etc. Though at least it being GB will limit how many decks can play it. I think it's an instant 2 of in our 75 minimum, probably more like 3-4
1 Academy Ruins
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Island
2 Glimmervoid
4 Spire of Industry
4 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
Artifacts (27)
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Bottled Cloister
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Serum Visions
2 Collective Brutality
4 Whir of Invention
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Damping Sphere
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Sai, Master Thopterist
1 Spellskite
3 Thoughtseize
1 Welding Jar
1 Torpor Orb
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Note, when playing in paper I swapped the Sorcerous Spyglass in the main for a Damping Sphere, and cut the Sai from the sideboard for the Spyglass. I run into a lot more KCI and Tron in paper than I do on mtgo.
Recently I narrowly missed out on a comp league 5-0, which was a bit disappointing, I was 4-0, then last round got rolled by Burn. They just had a really explosive start game 1 that was too fast for just about any hand I could have had. Game 2 I kept a risky 1 lander with high payoff if another land was in my top 2 cards, and it didn't work out and I scooped by turn 3.
Also played a PPTQ yesterday with the deck. Went 3-2 which wasn't as good as I hoped, but what can you do. Beat UW Control, UW Spirits, Mardu Kiln Fiend. Lost to KCI and Ad Naus. Against KCI they did KCI things game 1 before I could get a damping sphere down. Game 2 I got lucky to draw both Damping Sphere's early. I however got unluckly that I never drew a needle or whir and they pretty quickly EE'd them both away. That's just how it goes sometimes. Against Ad Naus I punted game 1. I had Damping Sphere out, Needle naming Lightning Storm, and thopter foundry and some stuff. He had a Lab Man out. At one point I cast Sword leaving 3 open mana. He untapped and in his upkeep did his ad naus things and won with lab maniac. If I'd just held onto the sword, I could have Whir'd in response to Ad Naus, got a Pyrite Spellbomb, and killed the Lab Man. Not entirely sure I would have won if I did that, but it would have been the right play.
But overall have felt pretty happy with the deck. Of course there are always more cards that I want to put in but don't have space for. Pyrite Spellbombs have felt quite good. Cheap artifacts that I can cycle for a card, or they kill eidolon's in burn, meddling mages, drogskol captains (sometimes), kiln fiends, etc. I think I'll keep them awhile longer. The extra help vs humans is always nice.
Though I probably do need to work on my KCI matchup. Damping Sphere helps a lot. I'm not sure if Chalice is where I want to be out of the board, or if I want Surgical Extraction, etc. If I got Surgical I probably need to work on the timing of when to surgical, it does feel weak against them as they can play around it easily if they have KCI/Scrap Trawler in play. More Nihil Spellbombs in the board or main could be an option. I've liked how just emptying their yard when they are starting to go off can put a wrench in their plans. Not really sure
I've also been trying out the Pyrite Spellbomb idea, and to be honest, I'm kinda digging it. Humans is already pretty good, but it certainly does help out there. I always like some cheap artifacts to make whir/opal better. Chromatic Star is totally another option, and when used for card draw is a fair bit cheaper. However I do like spellbomb's ability to kill something or draw a card depending on the situation. Playing 4 Glimmervoid scares me a little, so I've opted for 2 glimmervoid, 4 Spire, 4 fetchlands, with a watery grave, breeding pool, and steam vents. I dunno if it's the right way to go with the manabase, but it's what I'm trying out lately. I don't think it's a slam dunk sure thing that the deck needs, but I think it's a viable option
Anyway, just a thought, about to start trying it out
I'm fairly of the opinion that the Tron match is a writeoff anyway. We have to skew our deck so hard to really have game against tron that it comes at a heavy cost of hurting all our other good matchups, and it still doesn't even really make tron a good matchup. I'd rather just focus on stuff that is good elsewhere that just happens to be good vs tron. Like damping sphere, or discard+surgical etc
As for lands, I'm also getting behind cutting inventor's fair more and more. Taking Nobody's list without ruins or fair, I put ruins back in, but I am very much not missing fair. I find I rarely activated fair anyway. Ruins on the other hand I don't think should be cut. I think it's well worth the colourless source. It's cheaper to activate and while I don't do it a ton, the matchups where I do activate it, it feels busted. Like cracking a spellbomb and then putting it back on top. Or tossing the foundry/bridge back on top after they kill it (but can't kill you), really feels great.