Some people have been playing damnation before to mixed success so this could be a player for the deck. Having said that I find it hard to see a situation where damnation isn't almost always the correct choice if you want this kind of spell.
I think opal and bauble go together hand in hand, and without one of the others I would be less likely to play either. With the 4 of bauble it means you can have opal turned on turn 1-3 much easier where as without you rarely will have that. I'm not too suprised you think opal is lackluster when you aren't running the 4-of baubles.
Is the expedition map still worth running in this list if you don't have ghost quarter or academy ruins? it might be better off as a third welding jar, a darksteel citadel or maybe another inventors fair or even another U/G shock or fetch.
19 lands seems rather ambitious if you are leaning heavily on casting 3 and 4 cmc spells as win-cons but with opals and prisms its hard for me to tell straight off the bat.
1. Tezz is a beast against stony silence as he turns your "useless" artifacts into 5/5s while a lot of the cards you play aren't relying on activated abilities. Herald is also good for turning things like pentad prism and friends into removal spells.
2. Check out the Tron match-up parts of the thread.
3. Collective brutality, fatal push, and thoptersword combo are the plans against burn. Witchbane orb is also great here.
4. Negate in the board is really good here.
@shubb
Collective brutality is just infinitely versatile which is what makes it good. Its a way for us to essentially spend cards early in match-ups where speed and tempo are all that matters such as burn, affinity, etc which is always something that control decks have suffered from.
Re: Sideboard hate discussion
The most problematic sideboard hate I see is shatterstorm, ancient grudge, and an early stony silence or blood moon.
Shatter storm is a bad card IMO and it shouldn't be in peoples sideboards. It really is only good against a narrow margin of decks but people still run it. If they get you with it G2 just realize they are taking % from other match-ups to dodge affinity or fringe decks like this.
Ancient grudge, on the other hand, is stupid good and is the sideboard artifact hate of choice. I never want to see my opponent draw this card because it is a guaranteed 2 for 1 and can easily lead to huge blow out situations. Card should honestly not have been printed like it is as it just means fringe playable artifact decks (like us) have a really hard time being competitively viable. Imagine if they printed a card with the same costs but said creature instead of artifact? broken as hell.
Stony Silence is actually not a big issue as long as they don't open with it. If it locks up pentad prisms, opals, or artifacts in hand you are pretty screwed, but midgame the deck has the tools to fight through it. Tezz and Herald are both great vs stony silence and you best artifacts (Pithing Needle and Ensnaring Bridge) aren't affected by stony silence.
Blood Moon is a perennial modern hoser and a deck trying to cast UUU and UB spells can be negatively affected. If they are on the blood moon plan start fetching out basics ASAP and laying down pentad prisms. Blood moon is a pretty feast or famine hoser and it either completely locks you out from playing magic or does almost nothing.
Some comments, nothing definitive just some thoughts.
+1 Pithing Needle, +1 Herald of Anguish, +2 Damnation;
-1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Ghost Quarter
I prefer leaving sword in here and not adding Herald, but idk for sure.
+2 Thoughtseize, +1 Duress, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Quicksilver Fountain, +1 Damnation;
-1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Fatal Push, -3 Collective Brutality
Herald is good here IMO, I would be off the thoptersword combo completely because its unlikely you are going to outgrind them. Also you want your surgicals here i think.
Personally I am fully off the bridge and thopter sword plan here and fully on Herald of Anguish and Tezz beats. I know you have a decent amount of testing here but just my thoughts.
Once again I am normally off the bridge plan here and go down to one each of the combo. Herald of Anguish is good here (except when it lets them PiF easier. Also you definitely want witchbane orb even though it doesn't stop empty the warrens.)
+2 Thoughtseize, +1 Duress, +1 Welding Jar, +2 Damnation;
-1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Thopter Foundry, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Collective Brutality
I bring in Quicksilver fountain as they are basically a 4 colour deck playing sol lands. It does work any time I play it. Watch for people trying to still use temples as sol lands!
Herald of Anguish is good here, another beater to go in with
Just a general sideboard question, Why the copy of duress over another copy of thoughtseize? in my experience you almost always want the flexibility of thoughtseize and the match-ups where you are bringing in discard the 2 life isn't as relevant. Is there any match-up in particular where it makes a big enough difference?
Any non-white or LotV deck I am eager to jam herald even as a one of normally replacing Collected Brutality or Push. I still think his inclusion is a meta call as my meta is has a lot of combo, which is why I run 3.
Going down to a single copy SB in a more creature oriented meta with lots more Kommands running around could be a good choice, likely subbing one for Padeem? or maybe even welding jar #4
IN a more creature centric deck this makes sense as you would rather play creatures for an on board tempo gain rather than be playing zero mana artifacts to be activating whir.
But the "turbo" list that is more on the ensnaring bridge/thoptersword plan is already playing 4 bauble, 3 opal, and two welding jars in order to enable faster and higher improvise Whirs and earlier Tezz. In fact another 0 mana artifact that has utility is something the deck actively wants but does not exist in modern. Pentad prism acting as a pseudo-zero mana artifact that also enables fixing and acceleration is why its getting played.
I think your criticism of it "Only being a zero mana artifact with upside" is the reason its good in the deck and its being played.
Its not like the hand I detailed is anything insane for this deck to do. You generally are running 4-5 copies of Thopter/sword and 4 copies of Whir along with a ton of cheap artifacts and 4 prisms.
Either way a full prism adds 3 CMC to a whir while a talisman or signet adds 1 for the same CMC cost. That alone means prism is likely better than talisman as we aren't even trying to ramp, we are trying to accelerate.
What version of the deck are you playing? The deck atm is pretty up in the air with lots of variations running around, so its hard to to know whats going on unless you specify a bit more. Also I would be interested in seeing a more creature based version if you don't mind posting it.
Game one Tezz minus's are pretty weak against any B or W deck. Almost all modern decks are playing some sort of creature removal and one advantage of artifact decks is that we blank a lot of the creature removal. By rushing out Tezz turn 3 and -1 you are opening yourself up to a blowout.
The primary reason we run pentad prism is for Whir, not Tezz. It means a hand of Prism, Thopter Foundry/SotM, Whir + 2 lands + any other 2 cards will likely have the thoptersword combo on by turn 3. This almost always wins the game against "fair" decks and can put in work against some of the unfair decks.
It means a hand of prism + whir can likely hit a bridge turn 3 prior to combat, which against some decks is instant win.
It helping land a turn 3 Tezz is more relevant in the unfair combo decks as we need to finish ASAP against these deck and is more of a secondary interaction.
Throne is pretty bad and rarely relevant. I am pretty sure it is a worse Time Sieve, A card I already ruled out for being too "Win More". I think this slot is occupied by expedition map right now, and map is the least "win-more" of these kind of cards.
Authority is surprisingly decent by doing a decent bridge impression. It lead to a circumstance where I could block out Hierarch beats from connecting while behind a bridge. Also theoretically in certain situations it prevents you from getting blown out by a artifact removal spell because its an activated ability vs a static effect.
I'm not sure its worth the slot as its expensive and requires mana to activate but I want to test it a bit more before completely ruling it out.
Be interested to hear if anyone is trying out any of the new released cards.
I think we are actually not as terribly positioned Game 1 if we know we are facing tron as we have really good tools maindeck to deal with it. We are playing GQ+Crucible main with some meaningful interaction in IoK and Pithing Needle. Problem is a good vs tron hand with natural GQ+Crucible or GQ+Lands+Whir+Tezz is abysmal against a deck like DS jund, burn, Dredge, or really any fast deck. If you sit down blind against an unknown opponent and keep a Push, Brutality, Bauble, Bridge, 3 lands hand you are going to be in for a sad game if they turn one Urza's mine expedition map, even if it would likely be a good hand against most of the format.
I like the list and think BUG is an interesting way to go with the shell already in place. First thoughts are:
1. Trading Post main? I have rarely gotten it to work for me as it always is just too overcosted for its effect. YMMV but imo its an easy cut for something like another pentad prism
2. Inventors Fair has always put in work for me. I think taking out GQ can be a reasonable meta choice if you are seeing no tron, as other than that matchup the land is terrible. Also both academy ruins and tolaria west are only useful in slower metas to close out the game, and are expendable to add in green.
Inventors fair has always been relevant when I play it giving me 2-10 points of life for free in match-ups where that can make all the difference. Decks like affinity and burn have no way to deal with this once it gets online.
3. 3 Whir seems wrong but I'm not sure what you can take out for it. which leads to my biggest issue with the deck...
4. I agree that Ancient Stirrings is kind of absurd, one of if not the strongest modern legal card. Having said that it requires you to be playing enough colourless setup and payoff cards to work. The problem with these versions of tezzerator is while it plays a bunch of colourless cards, the payoffs are all coloured except bridge. This means ancient stirrings midgame behind a bridge looking for a way to close the game can grab... EE, trading post, maybe sword of the meek? It missing thopter foundry mean that it is really no substitute for Whir. I feel like if I wanted to be casting ancient stirrings, I would be removing cards like Tezz to replace them with colourless threats stirrings can hit. Having said that I'm no expert on stirrings math and being able to use it turn 1 to setup your land drops is 50% of the power of the card.
All in all, if you have done any match-up testing with this deck we can compare it to the UB "turbo" version. Because ultimately I think the decision to go BUG vs UB will depend on if this can shore up bad match-ups without making its good match-ups worse.
@Grouty If fountain comes down T3 on the play, it will still hit a tronland before they can assemble tron. Most of the time you also have whir X = 3 up by turn 3 on the play as well so you can whir for it in that case. Sadly turn 3 on the draw means if they have either natural tron or 2 pieces + expedition map they will get at least one turn with fully assembled tron. Good thing about fountain is it will turn off tron and then you can sacrifice it to thopter foundry or herald of anguish, meaning they are stuck with all islands.
In reference to fountain I recommend people try it out in more than just the Tron matchup. It is surprisingly good against any 3 colour deck with strict mana requirements such as Jund, Grixis Control, Bant Eldrazi, etc as a one-of whir target.
Tezz is definitely better in the tron match-up, but going up to 6-7 threats helps against tron still as we are playing herald alongside Tezz, as we are the beatdown. It expands the amount of keepable hands because against Tron, I always want some combination of disruption and a threat to follow it up with. To add to heralds benefit in the match-up, while tron top-decks really well, they can rarely spare the cards they open with as they almost always will need all of them in order to both assemble tron and play a threat or 2, meaning the discard off Herald can punish really hard.
Re: Negate
My meta at my local shop has a lot of combo and some control where negate shines. I think ultimately it comes down to being a metacall, but it has performed well for me.
/e. I might try to do some goldfishing to find the average turn mana+improvise = 7 comes online, as I think ultimately that will decide if Herald is playable. If it comes down 50 or less % of the time, it probably means it isn't quite getting there as often as I have experienced.
I haven't seen any discussion since full spoilers got released about the new set. Seems like we don't get anything new, and there is a couple new artifact hate cards that are similar to cards we already see. AKA nothing new for us, but it may shift the meta in beneficial or malignant ways.
Yeah I screwed up the TL;DR a bit as I had spent too much time effortposting and just tacked that on encase anyone didn't want to read it all. Fixed now though.
Onto your point its hard for me to say because I think its very hand/game dependent. I am fairly liberal with my prism mana as well as using bauble with no obvious payoff in hand like you seem to be as well, but in my experience I tend to have access to 7 mana+improvise when ever I have herald in hand so honestly I'm not too sure on the math. I think taking lines with the plan to topdeck herald is definitely not the way to play it so it could end up stuck in your hand turns 3-6 if you draw it T2 and already started cracking cantrips. The flipside being if you open with it you likely are able to find a line to play it turn 3.
Against Abzan CoCo, I would side in 2 thoughtseizes, 2 negates, Grafdiggers Cage, and an extra pithing needle and take out one foundry, one SotM, 2 Collective brutality, relic, and expedition map. Herald is not very good here as they either are playing combo we can beat with cage and pithing needle or they are on a more midrange plan, where Herald is weak. I flirted with a one - of Jace, AoT for this match-up so we can win through infinite life but as of now I am not running it.
Not sure with bant knightfall as I haven't done much testing against it and it doesn't exist in my local meta. I imagine Herald is OK here if you can catch them having sided out Path of Exiles but it also looks faster than you, signalling to me this is a "land a bridge + welding jar" sort of match-up.
In regards to the tron match-up, by that logic you would also conclude Tezzeret is bad as it comes down on turn 4 (I am ignoring the obvious hastiness of the artifacts as well as making multiple 5/5s for dramatic effect). I don't think the plan can be not interact until turn 4 and land a Herald or Tezz to win the game, but with some decent disruption you can force them off of tron or having no threats for a couple turns, which allows Tezz or Herald to get there before they can recover. I wouldn't say Herald alone solves the match-up but it lets us go up on threats which means we can close the game faster than without.
For reference my current tron sideboard plan is
IN
3x Thoughtseize
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Herald of Anguish
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Pithing Needle
1x Quicksilver Fountain
OUT
3x Fatal push
3x Collective Brutality
1x Relic
2x ensnaring bridge
1x Thopter Foundry
1x Sword of the Meek
I appreciate the Tron match-up work you are doing and probably am going to switch one of the heralds for a vendillion clique once I get a chance to do some testing, and am very interested in what you come up with.
Some people have been playing damnation before to mixed success so this could be a player for the deck. Having said that I find it hard to see a situation where damnation isn't almost always the correct choice if you want this kind of spell.
I think opal and bauble go together hand in hand, and without one of the others I would be less likely to play either. With the 4 of bauble it means you can have opal turned on turn 1-3 much easier where as without you rarely will have that. I'm not too suprised you think opal is lackluster when you aren't running the 4-of baubles.
Is the expedition map still worth running in this list if you don't have ghost quarter or academy ruins? it might be better off as a third welding jar, a darksteel citadel or maybe another inventors fair or even another U/G shock or fetch.
19 lands seems rather ambitious if you are leaning heavily on casting 3 and 4 cmc spells as win-cons but with opals and prisms its hard for me to tell straight off the bat.
1. Tezz is a beast against stony silence as he turns your "useless" artifacts into 5/5s while a lot of the cards you play aren't relying on activated abilities. Herald is also good for turning things like pentad prism and friends into removal spells.
2. Check out the Tron match-up parts of the thread.
3. Collective brutality, fatal push, and thoptersword combo are the plans against burn. Witchbane orb is also great here.
4. Negate in the board is really good here.
@shubb
Collective brutality is just infinitely versatile which is what makes it good. Its a way for us to essentially spend cards early in match-ups where speed and tempo are all that matters such as burn, affinity, etc which is always something that control decks have suffered from.
Re: Sideboard hate discussion
The most problematic sideboard hate I see is shatterstorm, ancient grudge, and an early stony silence or blood moon.
Shatter storm is a bad card IMO and it shouldn't be in peoples sideboards. It really is only good against a narrow margin of decks but people still run it. If they get you with it G2 just realize they are taking % from other match-ups to dodge affinity or fringe decks like this.
Ancient grudge, on the other hand, is stupid good and is the sideboard artifact hate of choice. I never want to see my opponent draw this card because it is a guaranteed 2 for 1 and can easily lead to huge blow out situations. Card should honestly not have been printed like it is as it just means fringe playable artifact decks (like us) have a really hard time being competitively viable. Imagine if they printed a card with the same costs but said creature instead of artifact? broken as hell.
Stony Silence is actually not a big issue as long as they don't open with it. If it locks up pentad prisms, opals, or artifacts in hand you are pretty screwed, but midgame the deck has the tools to fight through it. Tezz and Herald are both great vs stony silence and you best artifacts (Pithing Needle and Ensnaring Bridge) aren't affected by stony silence.
Blood Moon is a perennial modern hoser and a deck trying to cast UUU and UB spells can be negatively affected. If they are on the blood moon plan start fetching out basics ASAP and laying down pentad prisms. Blood moon is a pretty feast or famine hoser and it either completely locks you out from playing magic or does almost nothing.
Some comments, nothing definitive just some thoughts.
-1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Ghost Quarter
I prefer leaving sword in here and not adding Herald, but idk for sure.
-1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Fatal Push, -3 Collective Brutality
Herald is good here IMO, I would be off the thoptersword combo completely because its unlikely you are going to outgrind them. Also you want your surgicals here i think.
-1 Thopter Foundry, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Executioner's Capsule, -2 Fatal Push, -1 Collective Brutality, -1 Ghost Quarter
-1 Pithing Needle, -1 Executioner's Capsule, -1 Fatal Push, -2 Collective Brutality, -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Ghost Quarter
Herald is pretty good here
-1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Sword of the Meek, -3 Fatal Push, -3 Collective Brutality, -1 Ensnaring Bridge
Personally I am fully off the bridge and thopter sword plan here and fully on Herald of Anguish and Tezz beats. I know you have a decent amount of testing here but just my thoughts.
-1 Pithing Needle, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Executioner's Capsule, -1 Fatal Push, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Ghost Quarter
Once again I am normally off the bridge plan here and go down to one each of the combo. Herald of Anguish is good here (except when it lets them PiF easier. Also you definitely want witchbane orb even though it doesn't stop empty the warrens.)
-1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Thopter Foundry, -1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Collective Brutality
I bring in Quicksilver fountain as they are basically a 4 colour deck playing sol lands. It does work any time I play it. Watch for people trying to still use temples as sol lands!
-1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Pithing Needle, -1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -3 Fatal Push
Herald of Anguish is good here, another beater to go in with
Just a general sideboard question, Why the copy of duress over another copy of thoughtseize? in my experience you almost always want the flexibility of thoughtseize and the match-ups where you are bringing in discard the 2 life isn't as relevant. Is there any match-up in particular where it makes a big enough difference?
Any non-white or LotV deck I am eager to jam herald even as a one of normally replacing Collected Brutality or Push. I still think his inclusion is a meta call as my meta is has a lot of combo, which is why I run 3.
Going down to a single copy SB in a more creature oriented meta with lots more Kommands running around could be a good choice, likely subbing one for Padeem? or maybe even welding jar #4
IN a more creature centric deck this makes sense as you would rather play creatures for an on board tempo gain rather than be playing zero mana artifacts to be activating whir.
But the "turbo" list that is more on the ensnaring bridge/thoptersword plan is already playing 4 bauble, 3 opal, and two welding jars in order to enable faster and higher improvise Whirs and earlier Tezz. In fact another 0 mana artifact that has utility is something the deck actively wants but does not exist in modern. Pentad prism acting as a pseudo-zero mana artifact that also enables fixing and acceleration is why its getting played.
I think your criticism of it "Only being a zero mana artifact with upside" is the reason its good in the deck and its being played.
Its not like the hand I detailed is anything insane for this deck to do. You generally are running 4-5 copies of Thopter/sword and 4 copies of Whir along with a ton of cheap artifacts and 4 prisms.
Either way a full prism adds 3 CMC to a whir while a talisman or signet adds 1 for the same CMC cost. That alone means prism is likely better than talisman as we aren't even trying to ramp, we are trying to accelerate.
What version of the deck are you playing? The deck atm is pretty up in the air with lots of variations running around, so its hard to to know whats going on unless you specify a bit more. Also I would be interested in seeing a more creature based version if you don't mind posting it.
Game one Tezz minus's are pretty weak against any B or W deck. Almost all modern decks are playing some sort of creature removal and one advantage of artifact decks is that we blank a lot of the creature removal. By rushing out Tezz turn 3 and -1 you are opening yourself up to a blowout.
The primary reason we run pentad prism is for Whir, not Tezz. It means a hand of Prism, Thopter Foundry/SotM, Whir + 2 lands + any other 2 cards will likely have the thoptersword combo on by turn 3. This almost always wins the game against "fair" decks and can put in work against some of the unfair decks.
It means a hand of prism + whir can likely hit a bridge turn 3 prior to combat, which against some decks is instant win.
It helping land a turn 3 Tezz is more relevant in the unfair combo decks as we need to finish ASAP against these deck and is more of a secondary interaction.
Throne is pretty bad and rarely relevant. I am pretty sure it is a worse Time Sieve, A card I already ruled out for being too "Win More". I think this slot is occupied by expedition map right now, and map is the least "win-more" of these kind of cards.
Authority is surprisingly decent by doing a decent bridge impression. It lead to a circumstance where I could block out Hierarch beats from connecting while behind a bridge. Also theoretically in certain situations it prevents you from getting blown out by a artifact removal spell because its an activated ability vs a static effect.
I'm not sure its worth the slot as its expensive and requires mana to activate but I want to test it a bit more before completely ruling it out.
Be interested to hear if anyone is trying out any of the new released cards.
I think we are actually not as terribly positioned Game 1 if we know we are facing tron as we have really good tools maindeck to deal with it. We are playing GQ+Crucible main with some meaningful interaction in IoK and Pithing Needle. Problem is a good vs tron hand with natural GQ+Crucible or GQ+Lands+Whir+Tezz is abysmal against a deck like DS jund, burn, Dredge, or really any fast deck. If you sit down blind against an unknown opponent and keep a Push, Brutality, Bauble, Bridge, 3 lands hand you are going to be in for a sad game if they turn one Urza's mine expedition map, even if it would likely be a good hand against most of the format.
I like the list and think BUG is an interesting way to go with the shell already in place. First thoughts are:
1. Trading Post main? I have rarely gotten it to work for me as it always is just too overcosted for its effect. YMMV but imo its an easy cut for something like another pentad prism
2. Inventors Fair has always put in work for me. I think taking out GQ can be a reasonable meta choice if you are seeing no tron, as other than that matchup the land is terrible. Also both academy ruins and tolaria west are only useful in slower metas to close out the game, and are expendable to add in green.
Inventors fair has always been relevant when I play it giving me 2-10 points of life for free in match-ups where that can make all the difference. Decks like affinity and burn have no way to deal with this once it gets online.
3. 3 Whir seems wrong but I'm not sure what you can take out for it. which leads to my biggest issue with the deck...
4. I agree that Ancient Stirrings is kind of absurd, one of if not the strongest modern legal card. Having said that it requires you to be playing enough colourless setup and payoff cards to work. The problem with these versions of tezzerator is while it plays a bunch of colourless cards, the payoffs are all coloured except bridge. This means ancient stirrings midgame behind a bridge looking for a way to close the game can grab... EE, trading post, maybe sword of the meek? It missing thopter foundry mean that it is really no substitute for Whir. I feel like if I wanted to be casting ancient stirrings, I would be removing cards like Tezz to replace them with colourless threats stirrings can hit. Having said that I'm no expert on stirrings math and being able to use it turn 1 to setup your land drops is 50% of the power of the card.
All in all, if you have done any match-up testing with this deck we can compare it to the UB "turbo" version. Because ultimately I think the decision to go BUG vs UB will depend on if this can shore up bad match-ups without making its good match-ups worse.
In reference to fountain I recommend people try it out in more than just the Tron matchup. It is surprisingly good against any 3 colour deck with strict mana requirements such as Jund, Grixis Control, Bant Eldrazi, etc as a one-of whir target.
Tezz is definitely better in the tron match-up, but going up to 6-7 threats helps against tron still as we are playing herald alongside Tezz, as we are the beatdown. It expands the amount of keepable hands because against Tron, I always want some combination of disruption and a threat to follow it up with. To add to heralds benefit in the match-up, while tron top-decks really well, they can rarely spare the cards they open with as they almost always will need all of them in order to both assemble tron and play a threat or 2, meaning the discard off Herald can punish really hard.
Re: Negate
My meta at my local shop has a lot of combo and some control where negate shines. I think ultimately it comes down to being a metacall, but it has performed well for me.
/e. I might try to do some goldfishing to find the average turn mana+improvise = 7 comes online, as I think ultimately that will decide if Herald is playable. If it comes down 50 or less % of the time, it probably means it isn't quite getting there as often as I have experienced.
Yeah I screwed up the TL;DR a bit as I had spent too much time effortposting and just tacked that on encase anyone didn't want to read it all. Fixed now though.
Onto your point its hard for me to say because I think its very hand/game dependent. I am fairly liberal with my prism mana as well as using bauble with no obvious payoff in hand like you seem to be as well, but in my experience I tend to have access to 7 mana+improvise when ever I have herald in hand so honestly I'm not too sure on the math. I think taking lines with the plan to topdeck herald is definitely not the way to play it so it could end up stuck in your hand turns 3-6 if you draw it T2 and already started cracking cantrips. The flipside being if you open with it you likely are able to find a line to play it turn 3.
Against Abzan CoCo, I would side in 2 thoughtseizes, 2 negates, Grafdiggers Cage, and an extra pithing needle and take out one foundry, one SotM, 2 Collective brutality, relic, and expedition map. Herald is not very good here as they either are playing combo we can beat with cage and pithing needle or they are on a more midrange plan, where Herald is weak. I flirted with a one - of Jace, AoT for this match-up so we can win through infinite life but as of now I am not running it.
My current iteration for reference http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tezzwhirturboupda/
Not sure with bant knightfall as I haven't done much testing against it and it doesn't exist in my local meta. I imagine Herald is OK here if you can catch them having sided out Path of Exiles but it also looks faster than you, signalling to me this is a "land a bridge + welding jar" sort of match-up.
In regards to the tron match-up, by that logic you would also conclude Tezzeret is bad as it comes down on turn 4 (I am ignoring the obvious hastiness of the artifacts as well as making multiple 5/5s for dramatic effect). I don't think the plan can be not interact until turn 4 and land a Herald or Tezz to win the game, but with some decent disruption you can force them off of tron or having no threats for a couple turns, which allows Tezz or Herald to get there before they can recover. I wouldn't say Herald alone solves the match-up but it lets us go up on threats which means we can close the game faster than without.
For reference my current tron sideboard plan is
IN
3x Thoughtseize
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Herald of Anguish
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Pithing Needle
1x Quicksilver Fountain
OUT
3x Fatal push
3x Collective Brutality
1x Relic
2x ensnaring bridge
1x Thopter Foundry
1x Sword of the Meek
I appreciate the Tron match-up work you are doing and probably am going to switch one of the heralds for a vendillion clique once I get a chance to do some testing, and am very interested in what you come up with.