So in a nut shell, to really build a Grand Architect deck we need more ways to bring the big guys into play, and ideally ways that aren't as vulnerable to creature removal. So that leaves basically two routes in my own mind...
1) Mono-blue devotion that tries to make use of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to produce obsurd amounts of mana as plan B.
2) Mono-blue energy theme that Grand Architect slots brilliantly into and make use of Aetherworks Marvel.
3) Do both!
Thrown together really fast so I didn't have time to organize this listing...
You missed Heartless Summoning on that list of options I am a firm believer in the power of the enchantment. It dodges all common removal aside from Abrupt Decay and Kolaghan's Command (yeah Jund is a rough matchup) and sure it does have a drawback, but it is fairly simple to build/play around and also provides some crazily explosive plays.
As far as your list goes, it is intriguing and worth investigating but I am hesitant. Energy does have potential to be broken but it isn't yet. As it currently stands, the mechanic forces you to play a lot of subpar cards for finicky pay off. Magic already has enough luck involved in it and I don't want to add more reliance on luck for cards like Aetherworks Marvel. I also disagree that the "all in for a bomb" is the way to go. In my opinion, one of the most powerful aspects of the Heartless and MUD Architect decks is the wide variety in possible lines of play. An aggro or midrange deck with many options is much more resilient in this unforgiving format and isn't forced to rely on 1 interaction (in this case dropping a leviathan) that doesn't immediately win the game.
The deck above doesn't rely on Aetherworks Marvel at all. It's using it as one option to get the leviathan out, but if it can't the other option is to burn the energy on card draw and scry to get Grand Architect and/or nykthos online. In the end it plays better than it looks and while the list just has leviathan at the end, it's not hard to switch things up with different cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The primary issue with this idea is using Esperzoa. It's a similar situation to using Smothering Abomination in that the card can quickly backfire against some more aggressive strategies that leave you with nothing to sacrifice or return but the creature. Because of that the lightning bolt test becomes more important to the analysis and it's also very easy to remove in modern without some kind of protection. I could have sworn there was a more controllable version of Esperzoa out there, but the only thing that sort of does what I'm thinking of is Eldrazi Displacer with a Training Grounds, and that only works on creatures. You could probably use Master Transmuter for the purpose, but that is definitely not optimal.
Maybe consider Metallurgeon as a sideboard to help against burn? Reusable artifact regeneration is an often overlooked avenue. I need to stop by the affinity thread and some other ones to see what they are packing as well. Picking strong cards is a necessity in the modern format sometimes and throwing a little money to buy up some spellskite may help your deck list a lot. Another card to get is Academy Ruins, which I had hoped would have seen a reprint in C16 but the (expletives censored for the sake of humanity) company decided brilliantly that what we really need is more useless come into play tapped lands and a partial reprint of a pain land cycle, so now we got a nice big several month period before we even know if they reprint the darn thing.
Also, as a quick update I've switched to mono-blue devotion instead of simic. Simic sounded good since there are ways to get a lot of mana out of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in green with cards like Khalni Hydra, but in the end splitting the colors just made the entire experience watered down and it really felt like putting too many eggs in one basket, especially with Blood Moon and Ghost Quarter running amok.
What makes making this deck so hard is that when it comes right down to it, if your expected meta is going to be T1 decks I just am not finding a way to compete with them in esper artifacts. What makes those decks T1 is that they are the epitome of what they do and excel at: Dredge / Affinity are basically the paragons of fast linear aggro in many ways, and the paragon of mid-range is basically Jund with it's deck crammed full of overpriced good stuff. Then there is my all time favorite Merfolk, which tends to bend more towards aggro as it uses a glut of lords and the OP as balls Aether vial to power out threats rapidly.
The two limitations that make Grand Architect hard to work with:
1) It buffs blue creatures and needs blue creatures to get the best value, otherwise it's mana dork with an artifact limitation and buffs other creatures if they happen to be blue.
2) The card really wants to do something like artifact elf ball. If we had a few more cards that help enable this strategy and potentially a big artifact creature that does a craterhoof behemoth impression we'd be set, but the designers didn't do that so we have this odd ball lord card sitting out in the sidelines that looks amazing on paper, but just doesn't have a good home yet. So instead, we are trying to find a way to just power out a single big artifact creature that wins the game on it's own without any synergy or back up plan if that one point of failure happens to fail.
So in a nut shell, to really build a Grand Architect deck we need more ways to bring the big guys into play, and ideally ways that aren't as vulnerable to creature removal. So that leaves basically two routes in my own mind...
1) Mono-blue devotion that tries to make use of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to produce obsurd amounts of mana as plan B.
2) Mono-blue energy theme that Grand Architect slots brilliantly into and make use of Aetherworks Marvel.
3) Do both!
Thrown together really fast so I didn't have time to organize this listing...
This deck is basically all in on getting the bomb artifact of choice onto the field, so in a way it really plays a bit like tron. The primary reason I chose Inkwell Leviathan as my bomb of choice in this deck is that Spreading Seas is a really good card in a format that wants to play so many different colors, so in effect it acts as land denial and makes the leviathan effectively unblockable. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is there for the obvious reason that by turn 3 we likely will have at least 3-4 blue creatures on the board against decks that want to play their own game, but against removal heavy decks I'd greatly recommend siding it out down to two and picking a different utility land. Of course, against removal heavy decks the land is a lot less useful, but that's why we got Aetherworks Marvel and so many energy based cards. Basically, you don't really give two hicks if they blow up Energy Turtle or our durdly Minister of Inquiries. Heck, they can kill Grand Architect if they want as they can't stop Aetherworks Marvel without artifact removal at instant speed. Regardless, objective is insane amounts of mana turn 3-4 or just enough energy to fire off the marvel and pray to the seven heavens it hits. Yes, we all bow before the RNG gods.
Energy really is a broken mechanic, by the way. It's only going to take about one card that does something really insane to make the otherwise worthless energy cards good and Modern has zero ways to interact with the mechanic due to it being so insular. That and I finally got to play Commandeer against a Tron deck and took control of Karn Liberated. That was a fun moment.
Edit: Got a few more games in and am not liking Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as much as I thought. It does help when we have at least 3 creatures down, though, and that often is pretty important when trying to get to big creature bombs. Also, the early drops are surprisingly good at slowing down some of the small creature aggro decks in modern. Not quite as good against Jund, though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'll take a crack at building a grand architect deck tonight. My thoughts are ignore early artifacts and go simic to maximize the ramp while getting access to good one CMc combat tricks. The deck desperately needs that creature density to work for sure.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I might add that if someone is path to exiling me when I'm trying to power out 4 cmc creatures, he's playing the game wrong and needs to go re-read the card. Do you really want to give the guy who is mana-screwed a land? I've seen Path to Exile get misplayed so much in modern it's ridiculous, and I don't even have a lot of time to go to FNM these days or modern night. I still think if I wanted to find ways to slow the game down I'd play Ethersworn Canonist alongside Authority of the Consuls and Lodestone Golem. Combine that with Chalice of the Void and now you've effectively taken the gas out of most aggro decks.
Not saying the above idea works in this deck largely because it takes too many slots, but those are some of the other options out there. I might try a pure artifact build with Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor instead of Grand Architect. It might sound funny, but it feels like Wizards designed Grand Architect around the idea of Craterhoof Behemoth elfball. The card works best when you have other small blue creatures out that ramp, but unlike green, blue doesn't have any one cmc rampers. Maybe trying to add in Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and going mono-blue would help?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I never really considered it before, but then again it's an equipment, which I tend to universally underestimate.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'll keep this deck idea thread in mind moving forward. I've been working on finding ways to get big artifact bombs into play while not getting annihilated by aggro and have started looking towards some historic options.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Anyone here tried Foundry Inspector as Etherium Sculptor 5-8? It seems like it's another option to make things cheaper in the deck and may make things more consistent, though I'm not sure what to take out to make room for it. Also, yeah I've found the best "lord" for thopter sword is Stone Haven Outfitter, since the sword gets auto-equipped and with a sac engine you now have card advantage on a stick. It's a cute combo, but I find the deeper one goes into one engine the more vulnerable the deck gets to disruptions. It's why I ended up trying out Myr servitor in my own attempt at making an artifact deck just to recover the swords, as well as synergize with Reckless fireweaver.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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The deck above doesn't rely on Aetherworks Marvel at all. It's using it as one option to get the leviathan out, but if it can't the other option is to burn the energy on card draw and scry to get Grand Architect and/or nykthos online. In the end it plays better than it looks and while the list just has leviathan at the end, it's not hard to switch things up with different cards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The primary issue with this idea is using Esperzoa. It's a similar situation to using Smothering Abomination in that the card can quickly backfire against some more aggressive strategies that leave you with nothing to sacrifice or return but the creature. Because of that the lightning bolt test becomes more important to the analysis and it's also very easy to remove in modern without some kind of protection. I could have sworn there was a more controllable version of Esperzoa out there, but the only thing that sort of does what I'm thinking of is Eldrazi Displacer with a Training Grounds, and that only works on creatures. You could probably use Master Transmuter for the purpose, but that is definitely not optimal.
Maybe consider Metallurgeon as a sideboard to help against burn? Reusable artifact regeneration is an often overlooked avenue. I need to stop by the affinity thread and some other ones to see what they are packing as well. Picking strong cards is a necessity in the modern format sometimes and throwing a little money to buy up some spellskite may help your deck list a lot. Another card to get is Academy Ruins, which I had hoped would have seen a reprint in C16 but the (expletives censored for the sake of humanity) company decided brilliantly that what we really need is more useless come into play tapped lands and a partial reprint of a pain land cycle, so now we got a nice big several month period before we even know if they reprint the darn thing.
Also, as a quick update I've switched to mono-blue devotion instead of simic. Simic sounded good since there are ways to get a lot of mana out of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in green with cards like Khalni Hydra, but in the end splitting the colors just made the entire experience watered down and it really felt like putting too many eggs in one basket, especially with Blood Moon and Ghost Quarter running amok.
What makes making this deck so hard is that when it comes right down to it, if your expected meta is going to be T1 decks I just am not finding a way to compete with them in esper artifacts. What makes those decks T1 is that they are the epitome of what they do and excel at: Dredge / Affinity are basically the paragons of fast linear aggro in many ways, and the paragon of mid-range is basically Jund with it's deck crammed full of overpriced good stuff. Then there is my all time favorite Merfolk, which tends to bend more towards aggro as it uses a glut of lords and the OP as balls Aether vial to power out threats rapidly.
The two limitations that make Grand Architect hard to work with:
1) It buffs blue creatures and needs blue creatures to get the best value, otherwise it's mana dork with an artifact limitation and buffs other creatures if they happen to be blue.
2) The card really wants to do something like artifact elf ball. If we had a few more cards that help enable this strategy and potentially a big artifact creature that does a craterhoof behemoth impression we'd be set, but the designers didn't do that so we have this odd ball lord card sitting out in the sidelines that looks amazing on paper, but just doesn't have a good home yet. So instead, we are trying to find a way to just power out a single big artifact creature that wins the game on it's own without any synergy or back up plan if that one point of failure happens to fail.
So in a nut shell, to really build a Grand Architect deck we need more ways to bring the big guys into play, and ideally ways that aren't as vulnerable to creature removal. So that leaves basically two routes in my own mind...
1) Mono-blue devotion that tries to make use of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to produce obsurd amounts of mana as plan B.
2) Mono-blue energy theme that Grand Architect slots brilliantly into and make use of Aetherworks Marvel.
3) Do both!
Thrown together really fast so I didn't have time to organize this listing...
4 Aether Hub
4 Aether Meltdown
4 Aether Theorist
4 Aetherworks Marvel
2 Era of Innovation
2 Glassblower's Puzzleknot
4 Grand Architect
2 Hedron Archive
3 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Inventors' Fair
14 Island
2 Minister of Inquiries
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Spreading Seas
4 Thriving Turtle
This deck is basically all in on getting the bomb artifact of choice onto the field, so in a way it really plays a bit like tron. The primary reason I chose Inkwell Leviathan as my bomb of choice in this deck is that Spreading Seas is a really good card in a format that wants to play so many different colors, so in effect it acts as land denial and makes the leviathan effectively unblockable. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is there for the obvious reason that by turn 3 we likely will have at least 3-4 blue creatures on the board against decks that want to play their own game, but against removal heavy decks I'd greatly recommend siding it out down to two and picking a different utility land. Of course, against removal heavy decks the land is a lot less useful, but that's why we got Aetherworks Marvel and so many energy based cards. Basically, you don't really give two hicks if they blow up Energy Turtle or our durdly Minister of Inquiries. Heck, they can kill Grand Architect if they want as they can't stop Aetherworks Marvel without artifact removal at instant speed. Regardless, objective is insane amounts of mana turn 3-4 or just enough energy to fire off the marvel and pray to the seven heavens it hits. Yes, we all bow before the RNG gods.
Energy really is a broken mechanic, by the way. It's only going to take about one card that does something really insane to make the otherwise worthless energy cards good and Modern has zero ways to interact with the mechanic due to it being so insular. That and I finally got to play Commandeer against a Tron deck and took control of Karn Liberated. That was a fun moment.
Edit: Got a few more games in and am not liking Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as much as I thought. It does help when we have at least 3 creatures down, though, and that often is pretty important when trying to get to big creature bombs. Also, the early drops are surprisingly good at slowing down some of the small creature aggro decks in modern. Not quite as good against Jund, though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Not saying the above idea works in this deck largely because it takes too many slots, but those are some of the other options out there. I might try a pure artifact build with Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor instead of Grand Architect. It might sound funny, but it feels like Wizards designed Grand Architect around the idea of Craterhoof Behemoth elfball. The card works best when you have other small blue creatures out that ramp, but unlike green, blue doesn't have any one cmc rampers. Maybe trying to add in Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and going mono-blue would help?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The three cards that are available at 2 cmc that have artifact specific ramp I can think of are Renowned Weaponsmith, Chief Engineer, and Vedalken Engineer.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!