MTG Salvation

I went to the scg event this weekenf and I felt like the deck is not on the same level as a lot of other decks in the format. I managed to beat an affinity deck and a storm deck over the weekend which was surprising but I found winning the die roll is insanely important and I don't think I beat a death shadow deck that had 2 pieces of discard in the first 3 turns(which happened more than I would have liked. I also lost to a dredge vine deck and exalted triggers+too many expensive cards in my hand. Green attacking creatures are supposed to be what we excel at beating :/.

Man, so strange to see the negativity(not that it isn't warranted to some degree) in this thread, I've been having some great weeks locally, I was talking about adding Lili's to TurboTezz a page or so back, and she's really overperformed.

I ended up dropping the second mainboard GY hate piece(Spellbomb) and an Inquisition, and I haven't missed them too badly. She's helped my win games where I've received Shatterstorms and Fracturing Gusts, and works great with Bridge. Sideboard Chalice has also been insane for me, I can't echo the recommendation enough.

Ended 3-1, Handily beating Grixis DS and Control, UWR Saheeli while losing in incredibly close one to WBRG Shadow(only kept one thopter back, lost to a topdeck'd Ancient Grudge, wah). I will say most players are skimping on artifact/GY interaction(that isn't RiP) in my meta, so that probably plays a roll in my "successes", however meagre they are.

In the end, even if UBx Tezz is under-powered or somewhat easily answered, I have so much fun playing powerful cards like Whir (my god I love crapping on people by Whiring for relevant hate cards) and Tezz, I don't get too concerned.

I think having a variety of decks to play helps too, I run Bant Spirit, midrange Knightfall and am looking at BWx Solemnity in addition to Tezz, so I dont get hung up on awful matchups.

The card I am most often disappointed with is honestly pentad prism. its a bad topdeck in almost every situation, and we have many other things to do on turn 2 that make this feel like a time walk more often than not. Even the dream of t3 tezz animate prism swing is sort of moot with so many 0-1 cmc artifacts - I could do the same trick with a talisman and a random opal/bauble/jar. I am also very reticent to minus tez and 1) expose him to bolts and 2) make my opponents push/path live.

When people were raving about the prism synergy with whir I was skeptical, and I think time has mostly bore out my initial reaction. WIth all the 0-1 cmc stuff I do not find whirring for 2 on turn 3 difficult at all, and while I cannot reliably whir for a bridge on turn 3 most of the time I'd still have 2-3 cards in hand even if I did so playing it turn 4 is roughly the same thing. Having prism setup a fast giant whir would be a lot juicier if I had some kind of 5 or 6 mana bomb that I wanted to grab as soon as I could - but I don't think batterskull or wurmcoil are where this deck wants to be.

The overall gameplan is tight. You have a focused thopter/sword/bridge plan A, tezzeret plan B, and all backed up by a couple tutorable bullets (needle, cage, relic for me) and even time sieve as a true combo finish. We get to g2/g3 and whir pulls extra value by giving you virtual copies of other bullets post-board. That is a very coherent plan - its just not great because its too easy for too many decks to interact with us or ignore us.

I never played extended but from what I understand the sword combo was at its peak when it was paired with hexmage/dark depths, as this presented a whole other angle of attack for the opponent to stress about so that they couldnt just board in some artifact hate or gy hate and call it a day. I would also note the only other place I saw the combo in modern really was UW gifts tron as a tutorable package for weird situations where reanimating norn/iona wouldn't win the game.

I suspect that's the crossroads. I think we're near the ceiling of what can be done on the combo+tez focused deck - and its pretty good, just not great. Valid FNM modern deck, just vulnerable to a lot of interaction/hate with little interaction of its own. If I had to guess where the alternative lies I think its in finding another win condition that doesnt rely on artifacts or graveyard but somehow still synergizes with thopter/sword and maybe whir.

Quote from BadMcFadden »

The card I am most often disappointed with is honestly pentad prism. its a bad topdeck in almost every situation, and we have many other things to do on turn 2 that make this feel like a time walk more often than not. Even the dream of t3 tezz animate prism swing is sort of moot with so many 0-1 cmc artifacts - I could do the same trick with a talisman and a random opal/bauble/jar. I am also very reticent to minus tez and 1) expose him to bolts and 2) make my opponents push/path live.

When people were raving about the prism synergy with whir I was skeptical, and I think time has mostly bore out my initial reaction. WIth all the 0-1 cmc stuff I do not find whirring for 2 on turn 3 difficult at all, and while I cannot reliably whir for a bridge on turn 3 most of the time I'd still have 2-3 cards in hand even if I did so playing it turn 4 is roughly the same thing. Having prism setup a fast giant whir would be a lot juicier if I had some kind of 5 or 6 mana bomb that I wanted to grab as soon as I could - but I don't think batterskull or wurmcoil are where this deck wants to be.

The overall gameplan is tight. You have a focused thopter/sword/bridge plan A, tezzeret plan B, and all backed up by a couple tutorable bullets (needle, cage, relic for me) and even time sieve as a true combo finish. We get to g2/g3 and whir pulls extra value by giving you virtual copies of other bullets post-board. That is a very coherent plan - its just not great because its too easy for too many decks to interact with us or ignore us.

I never played extended but from what I understand the sword combo was at its peak when it was paired with hexmage/dark depths, as this presented a whole other angle of attack for the opponent to stress about so that they couldnt just board in some artifact hate or gy hate and call it a day. I would also note the only other place I saw the combo in modern really was UW gifts tron as a tutorable package for weird situations where reanimating norn/iona wouldn't win the game.

I suspect that's the crossroads. I think we're near the ceiling of what can be done on the combo+tez focused deck - and its pretty good, just not great. Valid FNM modern deck, just vulnerable to a lot of interaction/hate with little interaction of its own. If I had to guess where the alternative lies I think its in finding another win condition that doesnt rely on artifacts or graveyard but somehow still synergizes with thopter/sword and maybe whir.

Yes! Another person sees the light (pentad prism, or spending turn 2 to ramp, is not what we want to be doing). Haven't played a prism in a long time. Whir is really not a turn-3 spell even if prism allows it to be (and you're right BadMcFadden that the 0-1 cmcs do the same job), and in fact, Whir only gets better in the mid game after you see what is really needed. But I know, I know... still the minority here.

To all the negativity on this deck's performance, I had another 5-0 on a MTGO competitive league with Esper Thopters, beating DS grixis, 2x Affinity, Jeskai control, and Burn. The deck is just humming for me. Liliana is the truth, and has helped turned the UW control matchup around, as well as being much better against DS decks and combo than Tezz. So Tezz is definitely staying in the board for now. As long as I hardly see any big mana decks, I'm going to keep grinding this deck.

While I don't think Pentad Prism is insanely good as a ramp piece, it still lets you cast Abrupt Decay in response to Stony and Blood Moon. Even then, the ability to spew Thop/Sword onto the table as early as turn 2 has merit, despite it not being always being an instant win.

And isn't our answer to RiP and Stony still Herald of Anguish? Most opponents, in my limited experience, drop Terminate and Path against us for hate pieces , or has something changed and I just don't realise it?

@Reedy26 when you mention cutting one of both Foundry and Sword, are you thinking 3/2 or 2/1?

Quote from CerealKyra »

And isn't our answer to RiP and Stony still Herald of Anguish? Most opponents, in my limited experience, drop Terminate and Path against us for hate pieces , or has something changed and I just don't realise it?

My experience has been that they do not drop path because they fear tezzeret 5/5 indestructibles - even if we don't run citadel in a list, opponent will expect it and not be caught with no answers. Also it is quite common for creatureless decks to bring in creatures post-board - scapeshift used to bring in titans and baloths, esper control brings in baneslayer or gideon jura, 8rack brings in pack rats or nyxathids, etc. They will likely shave a path or two, but not actually remove all of them if they've ever been burned for it before. Also some people are just bad players and won't take their removal out even when they should. Then you get next leveled.

Maybe Esper is the right choice. Lingering souls is a very strong card. And I like the idea of timely reinforcements. We'll almost always gain 6 and get 3 dudes. And I do love lotv main. I always used to run her and it feels wierd not doing so now

And as far as another combo I only really see duskmantle and mindcrank that could fit in our build. Theres also the Planeswalker plan. Many walkers can win us the game if protected. Ob, Jace memory adept ect

Some ideas I'm trying now:

1) cut prisms. Not sure of exact mix but I will try the chromatic stars and 1-2 talismans. It's possible the talismans should be Mind Stones so that they cycle when needed but the mana fixing is not to be ignored vs blood moons and just trying to cast lili and whir and decay.

2) cut from 3 bridges to 1. I think Time Sieve carries a lot of the weight bridge used to for me. Instead of establishing a soft lock and poking with thopters I'm way more often just going infinite without giving them time to find an out. You absolutely want a bridge in the whir toolbox, but I don't think multiples is the place to be - certainly not 3 copies.

3) testing 2x muddle the mixture. I don't know if this was universally tried and found too niche/slow or if people just never even gave it a chance in this deck. It finds all 3 combo pieces and abrupt decay out of the side to take down a rip/stony. It also counters shatterstorm/kcommand and provides some interaction against creatureless decks that don't care about bridges or slow thopters. 1UU+2 is a lot of mana to ask for a combo piece at sorcery speed but vs controlling decks we will have the time - there may even be corner cases where we want to actually get collective brutality or something.

Quote from WolfJulio »

I don't agree at all about cutting prisms, if you have ever played any pod deck you will understand it perfectly, well, prisms don't block creatures but instead they can add x2 manas in one turn or 3 if we are playing whir.

I don't play mishra's baubble and I was thinking about selling this deck due to that but I asked one friend (top 16 in the pro tour that grixis control won in standard (Hawaii)(He played UW Control)) and he said: ''you should never play bubbles on that deck. They can pump your speed up, but your its not a 'combo or go home' kind deck''

After 4 matches the other day testing it I ended up 8-1 in games. So happy with my tezzerets

Do you see the dissonance between saying you need prisms to go fast and then don't play baubles because you don't need to go fast?

I don't think cutting serum is correct. The card feels very good in the deck - we're often looking for something specific and there are lots of things we don't want to draw: redundant combo pieces, excess opal/planeswalker, the whir/opal enablers like jar/bauble and the misc silver bullets like needle/cage/relic. It also lets you run 20 lands and gives us something to do on turn 1 where we may otherwise have few plays. Not a card I would ever cut entirely and I doubt I'd ever go below 4 - certainly not below 3.

I'm starting at 1 bridge to see how it feels but I am aware of what you mention - my hope is that time sieve and welding jar do some work so that if they've spent time taking out a bridge I'll have time to do something else just as potent.

Only a few matches in but muddle the mixture has felt decent. Used one to tutor a combo piece and block just enough death's shadow to stabilize that turn, used another to tutor combo piece vs control, and a third I actually used to counter a cryptic command

Quote from WolfJulio »

Do you see the dissonance between prisms adding mana and baubles only addiing for whir?

bauble is there for opal/whir while also having the quite amazing upside of costing 0 and providing a card when not needed. We play it mostly for the speed it provides - much like prism. The cards are doing similar things for the deck, if anything bauble does more because it turns into another card once it would otherwise be dead, whereas prism just becomes flat out dead.

For reference this is what I'm testing atm to at least interesting results:

Game one is the one you can most commonly win with straight up thoptersword. I would not dilute the maindeck too much so if you add chalice you presumably drop the silver bullets like relic needle cage spellbomb. Did you gain enough points in chalice matches to make up for the loss of those cards? I doubt it since they are high impact whir targets that also fuel whir and opal. Cage in particular has been very good for me md - hitting snapcaster chord and company is solid and randomly hurting dredge goryos gifts storm etc. Whirring in response to stuff can also actually generate card advantage.

Ive mentioned before that my experience with 4 md chalice in the rw prison deck was actively bad. Chalice on one mostly strands path bolt and push and mid-game discard. All things tez isnt particularly worried about. On two you can get in trouble drawing prisms brutalities and combo pieces that get stranded (yes you can bin your sword - still not great). Out of the board I get it because you are targetting specific decks that you know will suffer greatly and generally hit their hate cards in the same move)(revelry in burn, natures claim in tron). At that point the nuisance you cause yourself is worth it.

But youre going to feel prety bad w chalice on 2 and merfolk slams a cavern while you sit there with foundry or sieve in hand. Blind chalice is not good when there is a risk it can seriously hinder your own deck. Eldrazi and rw prison run almost no 1 drops or 2 drops in order to get away with md chalice. We dont have that luxury

@BadMcFadden - nice looking list. The only thing I would recommend is turning the 2 maindeck jars into 1 more of each Thopter/Sword. Jars are dead (for their regneration) game one against a lot of decks, so unless your meta is full of Jund and Grixis, I would move them to the board. Besides, drawing a combo piece instead of a jar is probably going to be more proactive and produce similar insurance.

I've put in a few more matches online and just want to say that I continue to be happy with 2x muddle the mixture. I've used it to protect combo pieces from kcommand/cryptic and resolve them through stubborn denial/negate. And while it hasn't come up yet I like the fact that I can transmute it for abrupt decay post-sb as well as counter more targeted post-sb hate like disenchant, revelry, and wear. And I am sure if I play long enough I'll find a scenario where I transmute it for a brutality to drain the last 2 points of life off someone. Someone a few pages back was running a "5th whir" with infernal tutor and muddle can play that role when needed while also being a decent piece of interaction the rest of the time. I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Another nice switch has been dropping prisms for chromatic stars. These play a lot like baubles where I fire it down early to enable opal/whir and later on I can cash out for a card. I also like that I can sac to foundry for a chump block without losing cards, and that it sometimes allows me to juggle mana/life total to get a whir off and then cast a liliana. It's also often a better topdeck than bauble since it cycles immediately for 1 mana (effectively) whereas bauble we pass turn and wait to get the card back. And while the synergy isn't mindblowing, its possible to bauble your deck, see a muddle, crack the star and then draw the muddle to counter something. Christmasland exists right? Finally I'd just point out that we are loaded on the 2 drop slot so swapping some for 1 drops feels pretty good too. 1 often means 0 when you're casting it to enable a bauble as well.

I took the advice above and dropped my 2 jars, moving 1 to the board. When all is said and done this is what my deck is at the moment:



The Elixir is a test I haven't actually boarded in yet. Probably crap, but theoretically does work vs burn and mill and maybe grindy matches (recycle whirs, walkers, decays, destroyed combo pieces). Good chance it should just be another collective brutality.

I'm pretty surprised at the negativity towards what I feel was becoming a more standard build. I'll definitely test removing some prisms, (ideally for a 21st land at first though).

I've had a ton of success with this deck as is and many people are joining the team after watching me play it.

I just got second in a 60 person pptq, losing in the finals to 2 top decks the turn he needed them after I played through multiple hate pieces.

My record was 5/1 in Swiss. Beating dredge, uw control, 4 color non blue shadow, faeries, and Jund. losing to bring to light scape shift. In the top 8 I beat faeries and affinity to lose in the finals versus 14 sideboard cards in junk guys.

My main changes recently since getting 9th at the classic were to cut heralds for a padeem (absolute Rockstar) and 4th tezz. Herald was a great alternate win condition, but it encourages you to keep in prisms. Versus many decks I cut prisms and moxes post board to become a more control focused grindy deck. Game one however I am trying to assemble a combo or lock as soon as possible, and prism helps.

As I've said previously it's about balancing tempo and card quality to me. I prefer having the flexibility rather than having only slow grindy elements.

This deck is not about trading 1 for 1 with opponents. I feel Inquisition and push are terrible in this deck. I want to be nullifying entire portions of their deck (removal/creatures). I'd suggest trying a build without push or Inquisition if you're having a hard time.

Hey allz. Have been moving and then travelling for the last couple of weeks so i can't test and comment as much as I'd like. However i think its important to keep in sight that some of us working on exploring a grindier build (i believe it should be taken as such) doesn't spell the death of turbo-Whir style builds. Which you are right, are fairly well tuned i think and put us in that place where all we need is representation. Like you do, @Molz.

Keep it up, awesome build btw. I'd pick it up any day. Only fear I'd have would be getting my Tezz or Foundry extracted, however I guess it's playable around and once Chalice hits the field, you dont have to worry about it so much.

I always thought of the "grindy" version being based on dropping opals and prisms in favour of liliana, iok, push. I guess there's a spectrum where on one extreme you play gemstone caverns and spirit guides while on the other its some sort of ub bridge control deck in no rush to assemble anything.

For molz - what do you think about welding jar md? Does it actually stop enough game 1 cards? Its like kcommand, decay, and pridemage basically - maybe fatal push if you use tezz minus. I actually think it might be better to drop jar and bring in a spellskite out of the board. A lot of times my stuff is getting bounced (cryptic) exiled (ulamog, dsphere) or flickered (wisp) where jar doesnt help. Skite can also eat decay and is a god card vs burn and some random stuff like bogles and kiki decks. I just dont like skite md because itll eat every terminate path push that would otherwise be dead.

I still wish there was a better third option to win with - but for now I think the best we can do is uber streamline for thopter sword sieve with tez as a backup, and dedicate the rest of the deck to silver bullets (cage, orb, needle) and beating hate (thoughtseize, muddle, decay, pulse)

One last thought - lotv seems like a necvessary evil. While shes not actually a win con she usually draws fire like crazy allowing us to slip through other cards. Her plus lets them discard stranded removal which sucks, but her ult is an out to lots of problems and her minus is an out to norn/emperion.

Quote from Molz7 »

I'm pretty surprised at the negativity towards what I feel was becoming a more standard build. I'll definitely test removing some prisms, (ideally for a 21st land at first though).

I've had a ton of success with this deck as is and many people are joining the team after watching me play it.

I just got second in a 60 person pptq, losing in the finals to 2 top decks the turn he needed them after I played through multiple hate pieces.

My record was 5/1 in Swiss. Beating dredge, uw control, 4 color non blue shadow, faeries, and Jund. losing to bring to light scape shift. In the top 8 I beat faeries and affinity to lose in the finals versus 14 sideboard cards in junk guys.

My main changes recently since getting 9th at the classic were to cut heralds for a padeem (absolute Rockstar) and 4th tezz. Herald was a great alternate win condition, but it encourages you to keep in prisms. Versus many decks I cut prisms and moxes post board to become a more control focused grindy deck. Game one however I am trying to assemble a combo or lock as soon as possible, and prism helps.

As I've said previously it's about balancing tempo and card quality to me. I prefer having the flexibility rather than having only slow grindy elements.

This deck is not about trading 1 for 1 with opponents. I feel Inquisition and push are terrible in this deck. I want to be nullifying entire portions of their deck (removal/creatures). I'd suggest trying a build without push or Inquisition if you're having a hard time.

LeoLeft's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 thopter foundry 3 sword of the meek 4 whir of invention 3 ensnaring bridge 3 tezzeret agent of bolas 4 Pentad prism 4 Mishras bauble 3 Mox opal 4 serum visions 3 collective brutality 1 time seive 1 grafdiggers cage 1 relic of progenitus 2 welding jar	Lands 4 polluted delta 4 flooded strand 3 island 1 swamp 2 watery grave 1 breeding pool 4 darkslick shores 1 inventors Fair	Sideboard 3 chalice of the void 2 thought seize 1 tezzeret agent of bolas 1 padeem 1 damnation 2 Pithing needle 2 abrupt decay 2 Maelstrom pulse 1 Witchbane orb

I'm still pretty happy and working to tweak my all-in turbo list. The biggest difference I see in our lists is the lands. Is Spire of Industry's life loss enough of an issue to skip it altogether? I like its always untapped/painless options enough to run them

Yo thread, 4-0'd tonight running a slightly modified list:

Chalice was a beast against Burn and my warmups against DSJ, Crucible package let me win against both Colourless Eldrazi and Bant Eldrazi while sitting behind a Bridge. The other victory was over a Jund opponent who didn't fully understand the combo and surgical'd badly, twice. I feel no real need to change the core of the deck, pentad prism still feels fine, and helped facilitate my abrupt decays more than once. Different strokes I guess?