The deck averages 6 usable mana on turn 3 with the potential for much more. Mox Opal speeds the deck up by a full turn making for some very fast games. The deck, with its bountiful artifact mana, utilizes Wildfire to its full potential. A turn 3 or 4 Wildfire is devastating to most any deck in the format if resolved destroying all of their lands and creatures. There are very few creatures in modern that Wildfire does not hit and the card becomes a very one sided board wipe.
Why should I play this?
Dice Factory can be very challenging to pilot, offering many many potential lines of play and ways to ramp.
Dice Factory has the potential to be the fastest ramp deck in the format at the cost of some resiliency.
Sample Decklists
All of these lists are various ones that I have been testing. They could be used as a starting point when building your deck.
This is the first list that I built on mtgo continuing where I left off with my Surge deck back in 2012. It really speaks to the inner Timmy in me. I enjoy running this and the finishers give us more reach against a wider range of aggressive decks. It is weak against Eldrazi decks as they are often too big for Wildfire and cannot be exiled by Ugin. It is great against aggro decks due to all of the maindeck answers. The high costed finishers makes the deck somewhat hard to play around control but it can be done depending on the match-up. Another downside of this list compared to say tron, is that we don't have that inevitability factor that they have which gives us a poor Jund/Abzan/Grixis matchup.
This build is also really fun and focuses on going all in on the combo as a win-con. The idea on how to combo off is to use Otherworld Atlas and Paradox Engine to draw and cast as many cards as you need until you can deck the opponent. We use Elixir of Immortality to ensure that we will have more cards in our deck than the opponent. The combo is fairly consistent with wins capable as early as turn 3. This version is the least interactive of the lists and can be beaten by both fast decks and decks resilient against Wildfire.
The Sultai version of the deck is my favorite version to date. It uses hard hitting cards like Wurmcoil, Death Cloud, or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas to do much of the dirty work while retaining the ability to combo out quickly and just win. This is probably the most versatile list in the bunch and one of the strongest and most consistent from my testing.
This deck is a mix between Bant Eldrazi and Eldrazi Tron. It can be faster than both while going pretty big as well. Unlike Bant Eldrazi, we rely on artifact ramp in addition to Eldrazi Temple to cast our threats. This allows us to more reliably have the mana to cast threats and cast larger ones. The downside is that our threat density is a little lighter with only 14 real maindeck threats. Batterskull can turn 7 of our other creatures in to decent beaters as well though. This version puts a lot of pressure on the opponent and is by far the fairest version of the deck.
This version of the deck aims to lock the opponent out of the game with its wonderful toolbox. Whir of Invention allows us to tutor for things at instant speed while Tezzeret the Seeker tutors, ramps, and provides a win-con of his own. The deck also has Thopter/Sword combo thrown in to help grind the mid game. The deck can tutor for any card that it might need to help win the match and recur them with Academy Ruins if needed. Boom/Bust is a fun tempo card early game with Darksteel Citadel and a finisher late game with Ward of Bones. There are plenty of other artifacts that could be included or removed depending on the meta.
Everflowing chalice is one of our two chalice effects. This one has the potential of producing more mana than the Astral Cornucopia due to the smaller mana investment. We will hardcast the Everflowing Chalice much more often than an Astral Cornucopia. The downside to this chalice is that it only produces x.
Astral Cornucopia is our second chalice effect. It is a little more expensive to hardcast and we won't do it as often, but helps to provide colors for a variety of our spells. Astral Cornucopia is better in a build that runs more colored spells and can also power things like firebreathing on Inferno Titan.
Coretapper is the best way to manipulate charge counters in Magic. At the very least he can always be used to add two charge counters to a chalice or another artifact. It has the potential of becoming a net gain of 1 mana if we wait a turn before adding it to a chalice. Coretapper can be used to block creatures and then be sacrificed in response preventing the damage. The only thing that can really stop him is Sudden Shock if we pass priority after playing him.
Surge Node is almost as good as coretapper and is sometimes better depending on what we are trying to do. Surge Node can be played turn 1 for glimmervoid and help to ramp into 6+ mana turn 3. Surge Node can add more counters in the long run than coretapper because it blanks almost all maindeck removal.
Mox Opal has the potential to speed the deck up as a full turn. With the new legend rule, it can also be used as a Lotus Petal ramping us further. Metalcraft is almost never an issue with the deck running ~ 30 artifacts. 15 of which cost 0 and 6-8 of which cost 1
Voltaic Key is a big enabler for the deck. It can be used to turn chalice mana into twice that mana minus 1. It also lets us pay 1 to get two activations out of our other artifacts. It combos well with our chalices, Coretapper, Surge Node, Lux Cannon, Grindclock, Otherworld Atlas. Voltaic Key can also be used to give our Wurmcoil Engine or Sundering Titan pseudo-vigilance.
Tezzeret's Gambit draws us 2 cards for 3 and 2 life. That isn't exactly great for most decks, but the card also proliferates. It can be used to ramp our chalices if they already have one counter on them. This can lead to some great stabilization mid game if needed or provide gas to kill the opponent. This card can be very difficult to play correctly at the right time just because the two cards could offer many different lines depending on board state.
Ancient Stirrings greatly increases our consistency. The deck is usually only runs ~12 colored cards. It is most often used to find one of our "core" pieces to quickly build our mana. If we already have the mana engine online, we can use Stirrings to dig for Karn, Ugin, or Wurmcoil engine. All for G, it is the best card we can run to increase consistency.
Glint-Nest Crane is not usually as good as Ancient Stirrings is for the deck. It can only dig 4 and the card we pick must be an artifact. It can only target artifacts and is more likely to whiff. It does however provide a 1/3 body with flying that can help in some poorer match-ups that run smaller creatures. If this is ran, it should be in addition to Ancient Stirrings and usually with a Batterskull.
Wildfire is typically the most devastating card in the deck. The mana cost of 6 means we have a greater chance of casting it turn 3 every game regardless of how lucky we get. As a 4 damage sweeper, there are very few cards that can be played early that do not die to it. When you build around Wildfire, it is truly a force to be reckoned with. Each and every deck wants to have 2+ lands in play and this takes that from everyone. Combo can't go off with no lands, Control can't hit that tipping point with no lands, aggro usually doesn't even run enough lands to find more after a wildfire.
Everything above about Wildfire also applies to Destructive Force. The downside is that it will be harder to cast some games turn 3 on the play. The upside is that it can hit some more common targets that wildfire has trouble with. Particularly Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, Reality Smasher, Drowner of Hope, Doran, the Siege Tower, Wall of Roots, and some cards that have the potential to grow if you catch them at the right time.
Death Cloud is another wildfire type effect while also having the benefit of making each player discard also. The creatures are sacrificed and this helps against some of the creatures that Wildfire cannot kill. It can also potentially be cast for 4 mana as a smallpox if needed and scales up to however many lands they have with our ramp. Death Cloud is weak against decks that usually have 4+ creatures in play and can sacrifice less impactful ones.
Lux Cannon gives the deck options towards how to deal with enemy permanents. It can usually destroy something 1-2 turns after it hits the table with a possible activation every turn depending on the build. The more you build around this card, the better it is simply put. It can be very good paired with cards like Coretapper, Surge Node, Voltaic Key, Unwinding Clock, Tezzeret's Gambit, and Tezzeret the Seeker. It can be searched with Inventors' Fair or picked with Ancient Stirrings. Lux Cannon should be in the list as a 1 of at least to deal with trouble colorless permanents that Ugin can't take care of. It can keep opponents off of lands after a Wildfire effect, or destroy manlands after they are activated. We see a better return when using Karn for exiling cards from the opponents hand if we can use a Lux Cannon to control the board.
Otherworld Atlas is essentially being Mikokoro on steroids. It fits perfectly with our theme and can provide a huge advantage if used correctly. Atlas is best with 3+ counters on it allowing us to draw at least 7 cards leading up to a huge play. If we draw in our opponents end step, they will be forced to discard. Mana isn't an issue and we will likely play most of our hand after using Atlas. We are usually already set up if there is an atlas on the field and we are using it to find finishers. It helps the control matchup by giving us more threats than they will have mana to answer and the aggro matchup by giving us sweepers like Ugin or Wildfire. It is the single best enabler in a combo build utilizing Paradox Engine.
Unwinding Clock is a great card in an artifact heavy build. It essentially doubles the pressure that you can put on an opponent. It is one of the most helpful pieces towards getting a successful Lux Cannon lock in place by allowing you to destroy at least one permanent a turn. It combos best if you are using Lux Cannon, Otherworld Atlas, Grindclock, Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Contagion Engine, and Contagion Clasp.
Whir of Invention is a great tutor for the deck. The biggest downside to the card is the intensive UUU cost. It can be used to search for any artifact in the deck with a developed board state and put it into play. It is instant speed which really helps for some shenanigans with things like voltaic key or coretapper. Could be useful to find silver bullets out of the sideboard.
Reshape is a weaker version of Whir of Invention. It is sorcery speed and requires us to sacrifice an artifact as part of the cost. It is nice that it puts the artifact into play that we search for. It could be used with Lotus Bloom to generate an extra mana that turn. It comes down earlier than Whir of Invention but we don't really want to be sacrificing artifacts early. Best used in conjunction with Academy Ruins.
Planeswalkers
These planeswalkers all have their benefits towards the deck and can take the deck in different builds. Usually these can be played in lieu of some of the bigger finishers, Ancient Stirrings, or other mid-game artifacts. They are all picked for how they work with the deck and should be used to buy time before you can find a proper finisher. They shouldn't be relied on as primary finishers as they are too weak and need to be built around in most cases.
Agent of Bolas is a very solid card that can provide a decent win condition also. He should see a spot somewhere in the 75 if running rainbow lands. His +1 provides a great card advantage. The -1 helps to provide a clock against slower decks or a blocker in some cases. His ultimate often will do 10+ damage to an opponent and gaining 10 life helping against fast aggro. He is a must kill card for the opponent or he will provide a great advantage. His biggest downside is that he costs UB which can be hard on the mana base.
Ugin is one of our best planeswalkers. He often comes out on a critical turn to -x and wipe the board of all colored permanents. As our finishers are almost always colorless, this is often very one sided. It hits everything in the format except Eldrazi and Artifact decks. His +2 is enough to handle a lot of trouble creatures in the format. It can also close out the game in as few as 6 turns after hitting the board with just that ability. His ultimate is great and can be used to further our overwhelming board position.
Karn is a great finisher for the deck. 7 is easy to achieve turn 3 or 4. Karn comes down to exile the biggest threat the opponent has or to start tearing away at their hand. After the board has been wiped by Ugin or Wildfire, Karn alone can lock them out of the game. Most decks are wide enough to get around Karn's exile ability so I rate him slightly below Ugin.
Saheeli is a pretty decent walker for the deck. She imposes some deck restrictions like running Glint-Nest Crane over Ancient Stirrings for maximum effect. Scrying is pretty good for us as we often need to maximize our draws. She would be much better if she could copy the opponents things as well. Her ultimate will rarely be used but if you manage to get it off, it just wins the game fetching things like Batterskull, Wurmcoil Engine, or Sundering Titan.
The Firebrand is mainly considered for the Reverberate effect. She is very similar to Saheeli Rai in power level and what we want to do with her. The +1 on Chandra helps us against ramp decks and other decks that boast a lot of x/1 creatures. The -2 can be used to dig twice with Ancient Stirrings, blow up 8 lands and deal 8 damage with Wildfire, or draw 4 cards and proliferate twice with Tezzeret's Gambit. She usually forces the opponent to attack her because she can be quite powerful in some cases.
Torch of Defiance is a more well rounded 4 mana walker. She can provide ramp, card advantage, or shock a player while ticking her up and can remove anything wildfire can ticking her down. She doesn't require to be built around as much as the Firebrand or Koth and is probably the best red walker on her own. She is somewhat like tezzeret being able to do many things and he is just better for the deck 9/10 times.
Ajani Vengeant goes along with our plans of locking the opponent out of the game. We can use him to tap down large threats or keep an opponent off of their mana with his +1. Locking down lands works well with blood moon in the deck keeping them off of specific colors. His -2 is relevant against aggro/burn matchups giving us that much extra time to get a finisher into play. Finding W can be hard to find sometimes depending on the build.
The seeker is good in an artifact heavy build that tries to work towards a lock. His +1 can be used to ramp with chalices, or get more activations out of anything voltaic key is good for. He can tutor for any artifacts that the deck wants to run excluding Wurmcoil Engine. We can tutor a 0 CMC artifact for a shuffle effect. The Shuffle effect can be good as we don't have many ways to do this and might want to reshuffle the cards we have put to the bottom with Ancient Stirrings or Agent of Bolas. He can be used with a proliferate effect to ultimate the turn he comes into play. We will generally have 4-7 artifacts in play when using his ultimate to kill the opponent with.
Wurmcoil Engine is the best artifact finisher that the deck can play. It can easily be found with Ancient Stirrings and Inventors' Fair. Lifelink is a very relevant ability for this deck against aggro/burn because we do not interact much in the first couple turns. Wurmcoil helps us catch back up and eventually race aggro if unanswered and creates the tokens when targeted by something like Terminate.
Batterskull is an alternative to Wurmcoil Engine and works best in builds running Glint-Nest Crane over Ancient Stirrings. Batterskull is 1 cheaper and can sometimes be cast a turn earlier. There are also some other fringe times when Batterskull is better than Wurmcoil or vice versa. We often have the mana to recast this the next turn if it eats removal.
Paradox Engine is a very build around card but can lead to a combo version of the deck. It combos very well with Otherworld Atlas and allows us to pretty much draw and play our whole deck. The mana gets insane at that point and while comboing off, we basically draw our entire deck, have more mana than we can use, and use all of our finishers to kill the opponent. It is a very over the top way to win, but wins on the spot at sorcery speed opposed to other options.
Grindclock provides an alternative win condition when you can't win by traditional means. It comes down early against control and gives us more targets against artifact removal. It can win as early as 3 turns after it hits the field with the average being around 5 with only one on the field. It gets better in a prison build utilizing Lux Cannon and Unwinding Clock to lock the opponent out while building up the Grindclocks.
Titan forge is a lower cmc finisher that is better in an artifact heavy build. Titan Forge is best utilized in a build with full Voltaic Key and Unwinding Clock. It can be cast early against control and the Titans that it spawns can fight just about any other creature that tries to go big.
The thopter sword combo can be a potential way to close out the game. We often have a lot of mana to use and this could provide a good mana sink. Gaining one life per mana and chump blockers is pretty good against aggro and control decks. Both pieces can be found with Whir of Invention, Ancient Stirrings, Glin-Nest Crane, etc. It is a two piece combo that doesn't win the game right away unlike the Paradox Engine plan.
Sundering Titan is a decent finisher for the deck and goes along with the main plan of the deck. He will usually exile 2-3 of the opponents lands when he enters or leaves the battlefield and is a decent beater. He can be fetched with Inventors' Fair and drawn with Ancient Stirrings. Sundering Titan competes with Ugin for the higher CMC finisher and often has less of an impact.
Inferno Titan is a decent finisher for the decks with a lot of creatures or limited creature removal. He dies to all of the main big removal spells though and for that reason he isn't very good. While he can present a two turn clock if not responded to, he also can't be fetched with Ancient Stirrings or Inventors' Fair.
The Dragon is a good finisher on its own if cast early. It is in a very good place in the meta right now, only dying to Terminate maindeck. The biggest downside to the dragon is that he doesn't survive a wildfire if not monstrous. The pro-white is pretty relevant in almost all matches relying on Path to Exile. It isn't an artifact and can't be found with Ancient Stirrings so it is better in mono red lists.
A potential budget finisher. The Phoenix is easy to recur and is only ever lost to exile effects. It can be mana intensive sometimes though casting it on turn 3 without an Astral Cornucopia or Mox Opal due to the RRR. While it isn't an artifact, the easy recursion makes this a possible consideration in a discard heavy meta.
Inventors' Fair is a great card that helps us in two different ways. The "metalcraft" can be enabled as early as Turn 1. The 1 life per turn can help against a variety of aggro decks and some midrange decks. The second ability is great mid-late game allowing us to tutor for answers or finishers or even an Astral Cornucopia sometimes when we need colored mana.
Academy Ruins could be used for the chance of artifact recursion if we expect a lot of hate. It can be hard to find with no way to search it out other than Ancient Stirrings. It is somewhat slow as we do not want our artifacts in the graveyard in the first place. With Ruins in the deck, we could even think about a Mindslaver package as an alternate win con.
Darksteel Citadel is an enabler that helps many cards in our deck. It helps to enable metalcraft for Mox Opal and Inventors' Fair activations. It also protects Glimmervoid and enables Spire of Industry. The citadel is the only land that can be found with Glint-Nest Crane or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Speaking of Tezzeret, his -2 makes these lands indestructible 5/5 beaters.
This card produces any color of mana and with the deck running ~ 30 artifacts, it dying to the trigger is often the last thing we worry about. It can be often be played turn 1 for green mana and digging for a 0 CMC artifact with Ancient Stirrings to keep it alive. The chance of losing this land to having no artifacts is extremely low unless faced with something like Hurkyl's Recall or Creeping Corrosion/Vandalblast.
Spire of Industry is more or less a slightly weaker version of Glimmervoid. We won't always be able to or want to cast a 0 CMC artifact on turn 1 allowing us to produce colored mana with this. The loss of life from the land can sometimes be too much against decks that present a fast clock. We don't really run that many colored spells though. One benefit over Glimmervoid is that Spire of Industry can produce C for Sea Gate Wreckage or Eldrazi when needed.
The Ice bridge is one of our colored mana options. It is an additional colored land for 3 color decks and can be recharged with Tezzeret's Gambit. Most of the time we can use it for colorless while only using the colored in a pinch or to get us started before we draw into our better lands.
The fast lands in general are ideal for this deck. We often do not have more than 3 lands in play. They allow us to cast turn 1 Ancient Stirrings without having to play a 0 CMC artifact. This slot could be Grove of the Burnwillows if you are really worried about the 4th land coming into play tapped or you want more colorless sources for Sea Gate Wreckage. In the current list, Copperline Gorge is just better than any other RG land.
Mikokoro doesn't provide actual card advantage like Sea Gate Wreckage but it helps us to dig a little bit if needed. It is mainly used for 3 reasons over similar cards. We might have 2+ finishers in hand and no reliable way to cast them early due to hate cards. We might need to look for an answer when our opponent has us on a 1-2 turn clock. If we are about to lose anyways with few outs, our opponent drawing a card doesn't mean a whole lot. Mikokoro also combos well with Grindclock in the case of Eldrazi titans. We can have our opponent draw a card in response to the reshuffle trigger.
This card competes with Mikokoro with the main difference being that it provides solid card advantage. It is much more situational though in its uses. Some games it is hard to get the C unless you up the C sources. The biggest downside to this card is that you can only use it with no cards in hand. This means it won't help us if we are behind and looking for a way to ramp into one of the finishers we can't cast from our hand. It could be better than Mikokoro in matches that pack a lot of answers for our cards. Grixis, Jund, and Abzan come to mind.
Ghost Quarter can be helpful in different versions of the deck. We typically try to run a lower land count and don't want to be sacrificing our early lands. Ghost Quarter gives us a slightly better tron game and a way to deal with manlands main deck. It can be good in builds with Crucible of Worlds for recursion.
Scrying Sheets can be used with a snow-land type engine allowing us to filter through a few cards in the deck. If you are using the snow engine, you can't afford to run many of the other lands in this list and therefore it is not recommended. If you decide to build a mono colored build, this might be considered.
Inkmoth is a secondary win condition that can be utilized in a proliferate heavy build. Due to how light we are on creatures typically, he will eat whatever removal the opponent has. If you are running a more creature heavy proliferate build or the meta is removal light, Inkmoth could be a consideration.
Volt Charge is the only other proliferate spell that could possibly have an effect on this archetype. Paying 2 to proliferate is much worse than what Tezzeret's Gambit offers and Lightning Bolt would probably be better in this slot if this card is considered.
Thoughtcast could be considered as a draw spell in addition to Tezzeret's Gambit. The U cost can sometimes be restrictive and does not help us ramp. It is still one of the better draw spells we can play for this deck. The only other draw spells to consider could be Ancestral Vision or Thirst for Knowledge. Usually with such low threat density, we want to be using our filter cards like Ancient Stirrings, Glint-Nest Crane, or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Energy Chamber is an alternate way to ramp or add +1/+1 counters to our creatures. The big drawback to the card is that it competes with Coretapper at the 2 drop slot. Surge Node costs 1 less and can help us ramp earlier or be riskier with the hands we keep. Unlike surge node, Energy Chamber can't add multiple counters per turn with the likes of Voltaic Key or Unwinding Clock. Energy Chamber combos well with creatures that utilize +1/+1 counters like Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista.
Power Conduit is a very heavy build around card. The biggest benefit to the card is to be able to manipulate charge counters that are already on other artifacts. Powering down a chalice to power up a Lux Cannon. This card combos well with Chalice of the Void powering it up to ruin the enemy's curve.
Hangarback Walker helps us to stabilize against aggro decks or go wide against decks that don't run path to exile. It can be dropped early and built up very cheaply and works well with Voltaic Key. Hangarback can sometimes be too slow against the fastest aggro decks but does much better against midrange strategies.
Walking Ballista plays a similar role to Contagion Clasp while also providing a direct damage outlet. Ballista works best in a creature / artifact heavy build and he can act as a mana sink and win condition mid to late game. If he stays on the field for a few turns, he is likely to have a decent impact, but I think other cards are better for the space. He doesn't do well against enemy removal and dies to wildfire most games.
Contagion Engine is an additional board wipe against decks that try to go very wide with weak creatures or tokens. It is best paired with planeswalkers or an Inkmoth Nexus. Combined with Unwinding Clock, this card can really get some counters moving around.
Contagion Clasp can be used to outright kill any x/1's in the format and killing larger creatures but at a slower rate. It is best used as a tempo card in a format filled with early mana dorks or early creatures. The proliferate effect is often expensive compared to the engine and proves to be much slower in that aspect. Multiples can be sacrificed to Throne of Geth for additional proliferate effects.
Throne of Geth can be used in very artifact heavy proliferate builds that focus on trying to use planeswalker ultimates as quickly as possible. You can use this card to help enable ultimates as early as turn 3 or get rid of useless redundant artifacts or empty surge nodes.
Guide to Playing the Deck
The deck is extremely synergistic and offers many lines of play to achieve similar results. There are a lot of intricacies and it can be difficult to pilot correctly or make the right decision at the right time. The deck is also quite unforgiving to a novice pilot.
During the early turns of the game, we should be solely focused on ramping and widening the mana gap. When you are learning the deck, I recommend going second if possible every game. This will give you more cards in hand to explore different lines of play until you become more comfortable with how the deck functions.
The best cards to see in our opening hand are Coretapper, Astral Cornucopia, and Voltaic Key.
Coretapper is always more explosive than Surge Node. With a Mox Opal in hand, our ideal lines can differ a lot as we are starting at turn 2 basically.
This gives us a lot of options, but we could sacrifice the Coretapper adding two counters to the Astral Cornucopia essentially making the coretapper a free spell. We can then tap the cornucopia for 2, using 1 to untap with the Voltaic Key and then cast something like Tezzeret's Gambit. This would give leave us with a potential for 8+ mana on turn 3.
Matchups
The information here should be used as a general jumping off point if you are unfamiliar with the deck or unfamiliar with some of the opponents decks, this might help you get a general sense of when the deck is good and when the deck is bad. Dice Factory can be tuned in a number of ways to increase some of the bad match-ups but it will be a trade off for others. For the purpose of this list, I will talk about how the “core” of the deck interacts with each of these.
Aggro
Depending on your build, burn can be very easy or somewhat miserable. We can be set up to gain a lot of life quickly with Batterskull, Wurmcoil, Inventors’ Fair, Elixir of Immortality, Nature’s Claim, and Sun Droplet. Running things like Spellskite, Leyline of Sanctity, or Witchbane Orb also helps against spell heavy versions.
Decks like this are usually small enough to go under an Ensnaring Bridge and it shouldn’t be relied on against the likes of burn.
Mono G Stompy is a deck we actually have some problems with. They are resilient against our board wipes and we often don’t have the spot removal to deal with them. They are pretty fast so it might be hard for us to stabilize.
I have found the Eldrazi Factory version does quite well against this deck but most other versions have a hard time with it. 5/5’s from Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas might help out but you could easily be trampled and overran just as quickly.
Zoo is somewhat of a mix between the above two. We are set up much better against zoo because of the creatures actually stay dead when we use Wildfire or Death Cloud. This should be played similar to burn, trying to stall the game out a bit while controlling the board. They can be just a tad faster than us sometimes so being a little more reactive here can be a good thing.
Aggro-Combo
Affinity is probably the most known artifact deck and one that is always present in the meta. They can be too fast for us and are resilient against multiple board wipes. If we can get a Wildfire or Death Cloud out, we stand a much better chance. Typically they can play around Wildfire much more easily than a Death Cloud. It is a good thing all of our spot removal hits artifacts.
Abzan Coco is more of a swingy match up for us. The deck is pretty resilient to board wipes and can combo out with the right cards. We need to be faster than them. Spot removing their key cards is crucial here. If we manage to destroy a combo piece, we can go off before they do most of the time. Aside from that, they might durdle and just try to beat you down most of the time which is a lot slower for them.
Death's Shadow Jund is very similar to the traditional Jund match-up. Usually we will know in the first few turns if we win or if we die. Even though Death's Shadow can kill us more quickly, I think this matchup is better than traditional Jund because they have less maindeck interaction.
Typically they run 2 more discard spells in lieu of Abrupt Decay. This is good new for our mana rocks and we often have better chances ramping against Death's Shadow. The downside is that they usually kill us turn 4-6 if we aren't doing anything interactive. They Liliana of the Veil are usually cut to 2 and they only run 2 Kolaghan's Command
Our sideboard plans against the deck are largely the same as traditional Jund. They run 2 Ancient Grudge and Kataki, War's Wage in the board as additional hate to watch out for. Kataki is a fun card to play around and he usually doesn't slow us down much at all. If anything it makes us play at a fair pace. It is much easier to play around than a Stony Silence.
I do not mind being on the play or draw against decks that have so much discard. Usually you are looking to either explode very quickly and hope to stick an early threat or to keep a land heavy hand and draw into threats. Creature heavy builds will do worse against Jund because they also have Terminate.
Padeem, Consul of Innovation is a pretty good card to help against this deck. He survives a Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, and Kolaghan's Command. He also helps by protecting all of our artifacts and drawing us an additional card to deal with their discard. He needs to be ran in addition to other creatures to survive the Liliana edict.
The Eldrazi version of the deck has one of the better Jund matchups out of the list due to the size of the creatures and style of the deck. The other list that has been faring well is the Paradox Combo list, with the key combo pieces dodging Abrupt Decay.
Junk/Abzan (midrange)
Skred
Control
8 Rack
Esper Tapout Control
Grixis Control
Lantern Control
Nahiri Jeskai (RWU Draw-Go)
Sun and Moon
UB Control
Chalice of the Void helps us to interrupt the opponents curve. It can be used turn 1 for 0 to enable metalcraft and then set to 1 with a surge node to counter the opponents first play. Then it can be set to two to nearly time walk them. We typically want to set chalice to 2 or 3 as the other numbers hurt us more than the opponent most of the time.
Engineered Explosives is used to deal with problem permanents that the opponent controls or to deal with fast aggro decks. We can cast it for 0 to help enable turn 1 metalcraft for Mox Opal or Inventors' Fair. Using these to deal with token decks also hits our chalice effects and is not really advised. It is best used to deal with trouble permanents that wildfire can't hit, namely Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, and Liliana ov the Veil
Ratchet bomb is like a one time Lux Cannon. It has the same uses of Engineered Explosives with the potential for charging it up more slowly. Ratchet Bomb is almost always slower than engineered explosives and has all of the same uses. In this deck it is seen more or less as a budget option to Engineered Explosives.
Sun Droplet helps us in the burn match-up and buys us time in other fast aggro match-ups like zoo. It's low cost allows it to impact the game early and shave off 2 damage per turn against these decks. It typically comes down turn 2 with the potential for turn 1 with a nutty draw.
Clearwater Goblet is like a Sun Droplet on steroids. Costing 5 means that we are likely to cast this turn 3 with the potential for turn 2 with a nut draw. Clearwater Goblet will likely gain us much more life than Sun Droplet starting after about two uses. It can be a good target against midrange builds or aggro heavy metas.
One of our better sideboard options. Blood Moon has the potential to slow down many other decks and sometimes just completely shutting them off. It is great against tron, often slowing them down by at least 3 turns. I used to run the blood moons main deck and found them helpful in about as many matches as they hurt. They shut off our own utility lands in the hopes that we hurt our opponent more than we hurt ourselves. The same strategy with wildfire really. Blood Moon pairs well in the main deck with Koth.
Enchantment hate is an absolute must for the deck. Stony Silence absolutely shuts down more or less the entire deck and many white decks run it in their sideboard. Some decks that aren't white still run it in the sideboard because it is that good against artifact decks. Natures Claim fills that role and it is in color with Ancient Stirrings. Costing only G and being an instant makes it by far the best card to fill this role.
This card can be used as an alternative to Wildfire or Destructive Force against decks that land ramp or decks that use fetchlands. It is instant speed and only costs RR wiping the field of all creatures. It can also be used at instant speed to suprise a control player who thinks it is safe to tap out after a fetch. It is especially good against decks with a very greedy mana base that don't mind taking damage fetching on their turn.
Banefire is a good card against counter heavy decks that might not try to destroy/bounce our artifacts but instead counter our finishers. The deck can produce large amounts of mana in the mid game and cast a large lethal banefire. It is often too slow to be useful against faster decks but could be used for removal in a pinch.
Master is useful to put pressure on control decks and help provide a body against decks that rely on creatures to deal damage. He can be used to buy time before a wildfire effect or to fight larger creatures like Knight of the Reliquary. He is often a 5/5 for 2U which can buy us enough time to find a more powerful answer/finisher. He dies to Path and Push though so we have to be careful siding him in.
Guide to the Side...board
Full write-up coming soon
One of the crowning achievements of Kai Budde's Hall of Fame career was his World Champion title in 1999. He took the top place with this Wildfire deck. The combination of explosive mana accel allowed him to play the game-dominating sorcery post-haste, all the while denying his opponent mana with Mishra's Helix and drawing extra cards via Temporal Aperture. The fact those cards were artifacts then came in handy as Kai utilized Covetous Dragon to beatdown for the win.
Dice Factory is the spiritual successor of Kai Budde's Wildfire list that is Modern legal. We have a very similar game plan and the only thing that we really lack is a way to keep our opponent off their mana like Mishra's Helix could.
The deck was born in Standard when Scars of Mirrodin came out. One of the game's top deck builders, Patrick Chapin, recently presented this take on a Koth of the Hammer deck in his regular column on StarCityGames.com. The goal? Use proliferate to turbo-charge Koth and earn yourself an emblem. The deck is powerful, capable of accomplishing that very play as early as the third turn! Awesome!
Dice Factory was a similar list played during the same time. The deck used the great filter cards in the format at the time to find the pieces quickly and control the slower format at the time with the likes of Tumble Magnet. The deck's main win condition was the Grindclock after locking the opponents threats down with Tumble Magnet and Lux Cannon. All of the pieces were only in standard together for a short period of time and the deck was a fringe build.
This is the list that I ran when it was standard legal. It is sort of a combination of the 3 above archetypes. It could power out a turn 3 Destructive Force or Karn Liberated and wasn't terrible in the days of the Splinter Twin, Tempered Steel, Delver, and Valakut standard enviroment. Infect damage is the primary win condition aside from grinding the game out and the opponent conceding. The proliferate cards worked well but ultimately proved too slow for modern in my inital testing.
This deck is very unique/interesting. Is Energy Chamber too slow? Have you felt the need/want of any protection cards for your pieces (stuff that grants hexproof, or Spellskite)?
I think it would be relevant to add a section where you discuss individual matchups, with suggestions, strengths, weaknesses etc., at least for a few of the top decks in the meta.
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Vorthos-y Johnny. All will be One
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
I do think that Energy Chamber has a place in a list with Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista possibly in place of coretapper. In a build that runs very few creatures, the Energy Chamber is often too slow taking at least two turns after it hits the field to have as much impact as a coretapper, sometimes 3.
Protection for the artifacts isn't really something that I personally try to use. I would rather have more chalices than ways to protect one. Playing redundant artifacts is often faster and better for you than a one time protection. The best hexproof guy is Padeem, Consul of Innovation. He actually seems pretty decent but is really only good in an artifact heavy mid-late game build. I am currently focused on fast ramp into threats, hitting hard and fast.
These are most common in various control lists, Grixis, Rock, Jund, and Abzan. We have relatively bad matchups with all of these fair mid-range decks game 1 and possibly worse games 2-3. Grixis is the easiest of these 4, but still not favorable in the slightest.
While I could try to tune the deck to be better than these decks at their own game or protect my own plans more, I just see them as acceptable losses right now and focus on crushing the aggro, combo, and other ramp decks. The control matches can be somewhat difficult but they often give us enough time to cast a large threat and win.
I am starting to write a full match-up for the deck and different sideboarding options and it will be updated as I finish parts of it.
Cool let me know how it works out for you or if you have any questions with how to sequence things, hands to keep, etc.
I have also added two more deck lists to the main post that you might be interested in testing instead.
Geier Reach Sanitarium is a filter effect so it doesn't really help the deck. Usually we will be able to either spit out or hand and are looking for a finisher, or we have a finisher in hand and we are looking for a way to ramp into it. The deck doesn't really hold a lot of cards in hand to be used by a filter land potentially. I think Sea Gate Wreckage would be a better card to run if looking for additional draw effects from your lands.
Thank you for posting this, I am playing a version with Paradox Engine and 2 copies of Isochron Sceptre. Suddenly Remand can help me draw my deck or Swan Song can provide me infinite birds as well as be disruption.
Could you post a list? Have you playtested it much? How does it goldfish with the scepter? It sounds like you aren't playing Otherworld Atlas, what is the main win condition that you are using?
I'm using Blue Sun's Zenith and Atlas as my wincons which work great for me so far. I'm still testing quite a lot but will post my list soon!
EDIT: list posted above by dralin619 is very close to what I'm working with, I am using one Atlas one Temple Bell and one Voltaic to get a toolbox effect. I am also using four Chalice of the void on the SB.
Thanks for posting another combo list. I like to see how other people try to put it together.
You say that you are having trouble against fast aggro, control decks, and probably midrange abzan/jund, eldrazi along with 8 rack. That seems like a decent portion of the meta and you could tune your list to be better against the fast aggro or the control decks. Your list looks like an all-in combo version that has no way to interact with the opponent outside of the combo.
I'll offer some input on the cards that I don't think really have a place or could be replaced with something better that does something similar
Reshape
I think that reshape is directly worse than Whir of Invention. Personally I would rely on Ancient Stirrings, Otherworld Atlas, and Tezzeret's Gambit as your ways to dig for the paradox engine. If you still want to go the tutor route, I would increase the number of Whir of Invention to 4 and add 2 more Otherworld Atlas with the open spots. I don't see which artifacts you will really want to be sacrificing to use reshape. The card also gives the opponent card advantage because we have to sacrifice an otherwise beneficial artifact. Whir of Invention only costs U more compared with reshape while being both instant speed and using improvise. You can search for the piece you need at the end of their turn or after they tapped out and then win on your following turn.
Aetherflux Reservoir
I originally looked at this card when considering the combo version of the deck. It is a little over the top. It seems like a natural include since we can essentially play our entire deck during the combo. That said, with no other ways to gain life, I think you will be hard pressed to ever get to 50 life. Playing ~49 spells in a game after casting the reservoir seems hard and you could have easily decked the opponent many times before then with Otherworld Atlas or won some other way. I also notice you don't have any way to reshuffle your graveyard into your library, so you won't ever have at most 49 spells to cast. I think if you are looking for a way to win with damage rather than mill, I would look into Devil's Play. It has flashback so we can cast it from the graveyard if needed. It helps a little bit against aggro decks giving you at least one card that can interact and can be cast after it has been countered or discarded. This is probably the second best card to win with after the mill route.
Temple Bell
I agree with you that temple bell should not be in the list. For only 1 more mana we get Otherworld Atlas that has the potential to draw many more cards at once and can guarantee that we will combo off if we already have engine in play.
Lotus Bloom
I really like the card for it's ability to provide some good one time ramp. I don't think it synergizes with the rest of the deck. This isn't really a bad thing, but it seems like something you only really want to have to help against midrange / control or post sideboard to still ramp through artifact hate. Lotus Bloom can only be suspended and not cast on the spot. You can't use it as a cheap artifact to help combo off. I suggest trying Voltaic Key out because it has a lot of synergy with almost every card in the deck. It can be used to help ramp directly, or to add another charge counter to a chalice or atlas. It can also double the cards that you draw with atlas and that is huge when trying to go for a quick win. I'm not opposed to the lotus blooms, but I think it is wasted space and they are better in a list that does not have such a good ramp shell already to work with.
Paradoxical Outcome
I think this card needs testing. I can only see it being useful in two situations. You are facing something along the lines of Creeping Corrosion or Shattering Spree or you are using it to draw a bunch of cards in the hopes of comboing off. It could potentially give you more gas mid combo, but I do not think it is needed when using Otherworld Atlas to draw cards. Using this card without a Paradox Engine in play means that we reset our ramp to draw 3-6 cards most of the time. I don't think this is an ideal trade for us because the ramp is one of the things we rely on. Mainly, I just see this card as being a dead draw most of the time and it is pretty steep at 4 mana.
This would leave two slots in the main deck for some way to shore up your weaker match-ups. I think it would be easiest to try and find a way to buy time against aggro. Elixir of Immortality is a cheap way to gain 5 life and put more cards back into your library. Wurmcoil Engine or Batterskull are both possibilities because they dodge different removal while gaining a fair amount of life. It depends on your list, but I prefer Wurmcoil Engine to Batterskull. Maybe something like Secure the Wastes or White Sun's Zenith could be used to buy time against fair decks or put a lot of pressure on a slower opponent.
If you haven't considered it, Wildfire is an absolute house. It kills 90% of the creatures being played currently and helps to reinforce some of our better match-ups. It can also be used agaisnt an unsuspecting opponent who taps out after turn 3. It is very devastating and will usually buy you a few turns at least to combo out.
I think nature's claim is an automatic 4 of. We need it against opponents who can play Stony Silence. That card shuts off our entire deck and not having a nature's claim is almost always gg. It is great against affinity. Nature's claim can also help against burn if you are that worried by using it on our own artifacts to gain life.
Spellskite is a good card and helps agaisnt Jund. It can also help against any other decks that run a few artifact destruction spells. It is good against burn and some weenie decks. Since you are in U you won't often be paying life to activate it. I kind of see it and Welding Jar sharing similar roles. Spellskite is better than Welding Jar most of the time and should be a 4 or 3 of.
I agree that Chalice of the Void isn't a great fit for the deck. I is a 0 cmc artifact and we can manipulate it really well, but I don't think there are many decks that we would want to bring it in against. Most of the matches that this is helpful, we aren't too bad against. If you really fear cards that cost 1 - 3 you can run it, but I wouldn't rely on it winning you those games.
When I first built the deck, I was having problems with control, and decided to run Defense Grid. I learned pretty quickly that most of the things control decks could do that hurt me during my turn, they could also just cast during their own turn. Cards like Cryptic Command and Kolghan's Command. It isn't hard to play around a Mana Leak, Rune Snag or even Negate. The deck laughs at Remand and there aren't many other counters that people run. There are a few ways to play matches against control, either by putting early pressure on them with something like Wurmcoil Engine, Master of Etherium, Thrun, the Last Troll. If you were in red, Kuldotha Phoenix is a good card against counterspells and discard. You can also use Otherworld Atlas to draw more cards/threats than they have mana to counter, even if they have 10 counterspells in hand. The last way to play against them is to simply slow down, think about the game from their perspective and guess what they have in hand by the mana they leave open and the spells they cast. You can just wait until they think their play is tapping out for and try to win that next turn.
Thanks for clarifying some things. How are you currently doing your testing?
I misread Aetherflux Reservoir for sure. Different question about it then as it is easy to win with, how often do you have more than 1 spell to cast per turn if you don't get this down early?
Also thanks for clarifying that about Lotus Bloom. I didn't even think to tutor into it as ramp. That is a really nice target with the search spells. How often do you search up more than 1 in a game? Do you just try to use it the turn you combo off or more as a general ritual effect? A 1/1 split between this and Elixir of Immortality could give you more tutor effects while only fetching a Lotus Bloom for when you combo off. This could give you a secondary way to win while comboing off. It would help you against something like Leyline of Sanctity.
I'm not sure the discard route is the best sideboard option. We would want to cast these in the first couple of turns and with such few B sources, I don't think you would reliably be able to cast them on turn 1. What decks would you be bringing these cards in against?
The same is true for Abrupt Decay. While it would be great in a number of match-ups, it is not anywhere near as good as Nature's Claim against Stony Silence. You would need 2 colored sources and with only 8 lands in the deck that are in color, it would be very hard. You could cast it if you had one in hand, but on the draw it becomes much harder if they get one on turn 2. It would also not allow you to tap out in fear that they would just shut you down. Junk, some Jund lists, Sun + Moon, GW Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Naya Zoo, UW and Esper Control are just the more heavily played lists that you will run into that play Stony Silence. I could see Abrubt as a 3 of in the side to buy time against a variety of decks and allow some interaction. I think it should be ran in addition to Nature's Claim as they both have their uses and are better in different match-ups. Maybe 3/3 split.
The tron lands wouldn't work in this deck unless it was colorless and even then it wouldn't help all that much. We only run ~18 lands and want 4 Darksteel Citadel. We also want to run Inventors' Fair. That doesn't sound like a bad mana set-up for mono colorless but it would only add more random nut draws at the cost of interaction. Tron uses artifacts to generate colors and lands to ramp with. We are the opposite and use artifacts to ramp with and our lands and some artifacts for our colors. We would lose so many tools. Being able to reliably cast Wildfire on turn 3 is huge for the deck as it allows a single karn, ugin, or wurmcoil engine to take over the game. I used to run 6 wildfire effects in the main until I went a more explosive route with the planeswalkers.
I have ~120 games in with the Karn/Ugin list on MTGO and maybe 15 games in with the Paradox Combo list. Both have pretty similar matchups and different tools to combat them. Both are fun to play and I will probably continue to play both versions as they each offer a different feel.
@ Leyline of Sanctity
I was saying that running a single Elixir of Immortality maindeck would help against aggro while giving you an alternate win condition in the case of milling out the opponent and making them overdraw. Elixir can just be cast over and over again to constantly reshuffle cards from the graveyard back into the deck and then only using Otherworld Atlas after casting some spells or mox opals or whatever really. So long as they get to the graveyard during the combo turn.
I have considered Ensnaring Bridge. I haven't done any testing with it due to the price on mtgo, but I don't really think that it is needed in my list. While the combo list is slightly worse off against aggro decks than the Ugin/Wurmcoil route, we can still combo out before they kill us most of the time. It might help against Midrange and Control by buying us some time. In the route running tutors, I think it can be a good card to include as a 1 of somewhere in the 75.
With a Voltaic Key, you can draw 7 cards when you want to combo out if your Atlas has 3 charge counters on it. Atlas comes down turn 3 and you win by turn 5. You are sure to hit either Ancient Stirrings, Tezzeret's Gambit, or another Voltaic Key which can help you continue the chain until you find an engine. Even finding an Inventors' Fair can help you to win if you have 9 mana available and an Atlas in play. I won't play a Paradox Engine before I have an atlas on the field or I need to use it as a Voltaic Key effect and generate mana for something.
After a Paradox Engine resolves, it is almost always gg. I have only lost one game in testing when I have an Atlas on the board and then drawing into an Engine with it. That match was against Ad Nauseam and they were surprisingly resilient against Wildfire with so much artifact mana of their own. He was able to combo off when I started my combo.
I'm toying around with my sideboard for the combo vers and right now it looks something like this.
It is able to deal with most of the things that threaten us post-board. Blood Moon can be great on the play game 2 or 3 coming in and suprising them turn 2. It buys a lot of time against tron, control, 2 color decks that aren't red, and other 3 color decks.
Anger of the Gods helps against fast aggro decks that can win turn 4 or before consistently and don't need to interact with us. Decks like Mono Green Stompy, Affinity, Zoo, 8-Whack, and possibly elves. It deals with troublesome creatures that Wildfire cannot. With no Ugin in the deck, Wildfire is our only sweeper. Anger gets rid of Voice of Resurgence, Kitchen Finks, Strangleroot Geist, Bloodghast, Nacromeba, etc.
Natures Claim is a must because Stony Silence is the single best card against the deck. It is GG without cheap, easy to cast Enchantment removal. It also is a bonus against Affinity, and helps us against Burn by targeting our own artifacts.
Wurmcoil is great against so many decks. Bringing them in game 2 or 3 can really surprise the opponent and stall the board out long enough to combo out. It is good against just about every deck not running path when you can cast it early. Buying time against the midrange decks and being bigger than any of their creatures really helps with some of the bad match-ups.
Spellskite is a good multi-use card as well. Helps against a variety of things that can hurt us. Targeted artifact removal, burn spells, and bounce spells mostly.
I also added 1 more Everflowing Chalice putting the main deck up to 61 cards. Going to run it and see how it feels consistence wise. I used to run 1 in the side and bring it in against grindier decks that have more than just 1 way to interact with the artifacts.
Hi guys! Redbaron linked me here after I posted the deck I've been brewing on reddit. Originally this started as an expertise deck that I brewed when I saw the aether revolt spoilers but it looks like we ended up on the same shell, definitely a good sign!
Shout out to OP for pointing out Tezz's gambit! I just ordered a playset, once it shows up I will be running my list minus 3 voltaic keys and 1 lux cannon for 4 tezz gambit and throwing it through the midrange gauntlet (jund, abzan coco, dredge, grixis control, bant eldrazi).
All of the games on the drive sheet have been played with the "basic ramp vers" of the deck. I have recently been running the Paradox Engine combo version and find that having a combo win rather than Karn/Ugin/Wurmcoil as my finishers gives me more of a chance against the midrange and control decks. It can also be better against some aggro decks depending on your meta. I will be writing a section for Matchups and Sideboarding soon after I get some more games in. Right now I'm at about 150 games total with any vers of the deck in the last 2 months.
I have never even seen Ignorant Bliss. It seems like a good way to combat discard but is only limited to that. I don't see it as being very helpful due to the fact that discard only hits us in the early turns really when the deck doesn't have the mana to utilize the card.
Batterskull is nice as a finisher and is a little more resilient than a Wurmcoil Engine. It depends on the match, but Wurmcoil is usually better against any deck that isn't running white.
All is Dust is an alright card. If you are running it, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is almost always better. At the cost of 1 more mana, we get the ability to exile colored permanents up to 7cmc. He also comes with a repeatable lightning bolt effect and his ultimate is just bonkers usually winning on the spot or the turn after we use it.
The manabase is pretty tight and I don't think it could support Cavern of Souls. At least, I don't think we could reliably have it in hand when we needed it. If we are looking for uncounterable creatures, I think there are better options. Thrun, the Last Troll seems pretty good in a control heavy environment.
I'll edit the thoughts to the deck when I got the time at home...
Edit:
So here are some thoughts and explanations for what I have done here.
First of all I don't own mox opals yet, that's why they aren't in here, also I wanted to test darksteel ingot. You can have multiples of them on the board, they produce any color(Whir of invention is a thing here) and they are indestructable but cost 3.
Win cons: obviously Wurmcoil Engine and second, Ghirapur Aether Grid . I have to say I love it atm. I wanted to play the grindier games, although the deck can be very explosive. (even without opal atm) that's why I don't want to play the otherworldly atlas combo win. With GAeG you can control the board. With 4 artifacts on the board you hit almost every good creature in modern which are no finishers... Snapcaster, bob, goblin guide for example and you can EoT hit the enemy(on the average you have 3-5 artifacts on the field) this also works even if you stare at a stony silence!
Whir of invention is so cool because basically you tutor for your deck instant speed with improvise. You can grab manarocks, silverbullets(like bridge) or wincon in form of wurmcoil engine. Yeah I know I don't play any Islands but it works very good so far with ingot and cornucopia. Inventors' fair also helps a lot to get what you want and stalls the game via lifegain.
I got 1 spot left and don't know what to put in there, maybe another silver bullet... Like pithing needle
Edit2: I could add glimmervoid and spire of Industry to be able to cast Whir of invention more reliably. And to have more sideboard options.
Which is the next part of the deck which I have to do. Blood Moon is the obvious choice here for so many decks. Vandalblast for affinity matchups, Defense grid against control, for gravehate there are some good choices and I don't know which to take. Tormod's crypt, Relic of Progenitus, grafdiggers cage.
Also something to get rid of stony silence.
Edit3: against burn and discard I would go with Monastery Siege, it makes burn an discard a lot harder and protects your artifacts as well from the known artifact hate like decay wear/tear smash to smithereens and so on.
You could possibly use it as a card draw/filter engine to get cards you need.
I am liking all of the different lists that I am seeing. The finishers are neat and I will probably restructure the card choices to reflect some of the wider options that are being used. Going to use spoilers so I can respond to you both without having a huge long post.
Cool lists man. Welcome to MTGS. You can use the [ deck][/deck] tag so that your list will look like this.
You seem to have a pretty good grasp of the deck and how it performs. Looking at it, I really like the gifts choices. It really allows for more of a toolbox style deck since you can usually ramp into an early gifts and then whatever you want to cast with it. The list seems like it would work pretty well and have mostly consistent results against fair decks. Was it proving to be about a turn slow or more against discard/counter heavy decks? (Jund, Abzan, Grixis) I think Gifts is a nice option but it maybe just be too slow for the current meta. I like the Goblin DD / Boom//Bust interaction also. Have you considered Wildfire? It has a wider impact against most decks being able to wipe the board most times but you would lose the Goblin DD interaction.
The Eldrazi variant seems quite spicy. It could hard cast them relatively easy with the temples or get them out faster with the ramp. The list lacks hard card advantage outside of Endbringer but makes up for it with a really high threat density compared to the usual lists. This list looks like it would be better against some of our worse match-ups (Jund, Abzan, possibly Grixis). I'm pretty interested to test an Eldrazi themed list on MTGO to see how it does.
I like the take on an artifact toolbox deck. I have considered building one and adding in either Tezzert the Seeker and/or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Have you considered pentad prisim instead of Darksteel Ingot? I think it is the best card to potentially replace Mox Opal. It can't really be fetched with Whir of Invention and it's not indestructible nor can it always produce mana, it can run out. I think the benefits to using it could outweigh these negatives though as most decks do not run artifact destruction. Is Darksteel Ingot too slow at 3?
Are you finding that you need Ghirapur Aether Grid with 6 Wildfire effects? When I was running 6 maindeck, I rarely found that I needed more board control at that point but finishers. Aether Grid could be used as a finisher but I wonder if one of the Tezzeret's could fit into this slot. Agent of Bolas is used to increase consistency while the Seeker is used in toolbox builds. His ultimate is pretty good with Tezzeret's Gambit also potentially using both in one turn. Aether Grid comes down earlier and is in color though so it has that going for it.
Aside from that, this list looks pretty close to my build a few months ago with the addition of Ensnaring Bridge and Whir of Invention. I think they are both promising additions and this could head towards a toolbox style build. I recently stumbled upon Uba Mask and think the card would be great against anything draw-go. A 1 of maindeck Relic of Progenitus could be used to help against the Delver decks game 1 as it is a pretty bad match. Pithing Needle is also good and hits some things that mess us up like Engineered Explosives, Cranial Plating, Karn Liberated or Nahiri, the Harbinger.
What about Ward of Bones as a tutor target? This could be used to help lock the opponent out of the game and keep them on 1 land after a Wildfire. Jester's Cap could be a possible tutor target against combo decks. Mindlock Orb is possible in a search heavy meta. Monastery Siege seems nice but isn't tutorable. Witchbane Orb is good tutor target against most decks that want to target us but weak to early discard unlike Leyline of Sanctity. Orbs of Warding is also a potential target that helps against decks that try to go wide. Ethersworn Canonist is a card for storm or combo matches. There is also Sun Droplet or Clearwater Goblet for aggro/burn matches. A tutor version of the deck could be built many ways and I'm interested to see how it goes.
Thx for the reply, I love the toolbox possibility in the deck, but it's hard to cut anything I'm not sure what exactly... GAeG seems to be a good choice but we need to replace it with a finisher, so Tezzeret the seeker seems very nice to me in this build. He is a toolbox himself, helps ramp and is a finisher, but this means I have to rework the mana base a bit. Pentad prism seems nice as a replacement for darksteel ingot. It gives us the possibility to convert colorless mana into colored with surge node and coretapper it's faster than ingot which is definitely a reason to try it out. You put charge counters on pentad prism so thats no big deal here.
Maybe I cut a lux cannon and 2 aether grid for 1 relic and 2 Tezzeret the seeker, also substitute darksteel ingot with pentad prism. Uba mask is not that good as Defense grid against control, because it limits your play as well,for example the instant part on whir of invention is a big deal to use, but I love witchbane orb. I thought of ethersworn canonist as well but was not sure but with reworking the mana base he is a good addition.
I want silver bullets which aren't affected by stony silence.
And my finishers are creature based so I need a way to get my ensnaring bridge out of the way when I want to win, so maybe repeal is a thing.
Mana base: will cut mountains for 3 spires an 1 or 2 islands. (I am a little bit budget concerned so no glimmervoid atm.) Clearwater goblet is included in my brain for sideboard
I'll try and will give some feedback after testing
Edit: added card tags
Edit2: I just found Trading Post, and it looks super cool for the deck and it is a very flexible card
Great post Heskatet, Some of your suggestions are really nice, Clearwater Goblet on particular I hadn't considered. I am trying out Golem Foundry as of late, if you enjoy the golem approach and have yet to see someone stop me if I can get it out with engine in play
I too am trying to use cards that can remove Stoney Silence from the equation and am playing 4 Whir of Invention for a toolbox approach. So far I am using single copies of Voltaic Key, Otherworld Atlas, Isochron Sceptre and Pithing Needle main deck and Whir can fetch me all of them.
For Stoney Silence I have several Cyclonic Rifts to act as removal should it get on board and Swan Song main deck which both deals with Stoney and works as a win condition with the Sceptre and Paradox engine in play. Outside of that I'm kinda screwed.
I just threw this list together as a tentative eldrazi list. I don't have a sideboard for it just yet but it should be simple enough to throw one together. I will add a sideboard and include a write up on card choices tomorrow.
edit: I am really liking this list. I can definitely see me playing it more. It does what the other Dice Factory builds can't do easily and that is pressure the opponent. All of the other versions go big and reach critical mass winning the game while this list grinds the opponent down with efficient creatures. The creature choices allow the deck to take on multiple roles against a variety of decks.
The list is a mix of Bant Eldrazi and Eldrazi Tron. It can be as fast as Bant Eldrazi while applying almost as much pressure but can also go big like Eldrazi Tron. All of the pressure helps make sideboarding in artifact hate against the deck that much harder and the list can get around Stony Silence pretty well.
Eldrazi Displacer is here as an early threat. As a 3 drop, it comes down often turn 2 and can apply pressure or be used as a mana sink to put a soft lock on the opponent. It also combos well with Glint-Nest Crane and sometimes Thought Knot Seer.
Endbringer is another well-rounded versatile threat. He's a pinger, a card-advantage engine, and a potential lock piece. He can help us get in some damage against bigger creatures. This guy is really great to see on the board and he boasts a 5/5 body as well. Costing 5C
Thought Knot Seer really needs no explanation. It is such a good card and one of the main reasons to play an eldrazi list. This guy really brings the pain.
World Breaker is here as a 1 of. It could be Batterskull or another Wurmcoil Engine possibly. I like World Breaker here as something you could recur if discarded and it gives the deck main deck hope against something like Ensnaring Bridge.
Titan Forge is pretty good in the list if they manage to kill your Eldrazi. It gives us somewhat of another card advantage engine. Pumping out 9/9's is pretty good when your creatures just aren't big enough. You only ever need to make 1 or 2 before the enemy realizes they can't fight it. It also provides us a good mana sink mid-late game and something to do with excess charge counters.
Maybe Phyrexian Metamorph has a place in here as a 1 of or possibly in the sideboard. I plan to do a bunch of testing on mtgo with this list in its current state and will report back some of my observations.
Well i just made some testing just goldfishing some hands and lines of play and I am not really confident how it performs(although just in a vacuum) I still like the toolbox but the fact that I use ensnaring bridge means I have to play a combo finisher. The only planeswalker I consider as a finisher is Tezzeret agent of bolas which is a really nice thing but I think it is too hard with spire of industry and tezzeret's gambit(mostly paying 3 and two life) against any linear deck which just turns creatures sideways. That's why I like the Aether grid. It comes down fast, works always and helps when you don't have buisness spells to cast, which happens relatively often in this build.
I'll still play a toolbox but I will change it a bit. Clearwater goblet looks nice but is a pain in the ass to set up, first sun droplet seemed bad but it is faster, more easy to set up and gives 2 life every turn.
That is ok. I thought about golem's heart as well but it is only good when you play it first. In the late game it is dead.
My toolbox will be:
Win con's will be wurmcoil and ghirapur aether grid.
Mana base will stay with 11 mountains 2 inventors'fair
3 spire of industry and a ghost quarter.
I replaced the darksteel ingot with pentad prism and in the build with tezzeret the seeker it was just bad but in a build with Tezzeret the Seeker or GAeG it will work. Still I want my artifacts to not be one use only things so darksteel ingot looks better for me.
So I will stay with mostly the same build as before except the changes for the toolbox
I'm starting to look into a toolbox variant of the deck as well. Our builds are somewhat different with the tools, but that can be meta and playstyle dependent. While building the deck, I realized there are a few different ways a toolbox build could go depending on possible finishers, lock pieces, and colors. I opted not to run Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas due to all of the tools. Whir of Invention is a little bit weaker than Tezzeret the Seeker but still better for the deck than Agent of Bolas.
The list I ended up with is alright I guess. I am not sure if I want to bring it below 62 cards or not. It can usually tutor on turn 3 for whichever tool is best needed at the time. It relies heavily on Ensnaring Bridge to buy time. Boom // Bust is pretty decent in the build and is a good alternative to Wildfire. With Ensnaring Bridge taking care of creatures, Wildfire isn't needed as removal. Boom//Bust combos well with Darksteel Citadel early game and has the potential to keep the opponent on one land with Ward of Bones in play late game.
I have also included Sword of the Meek / Thopter Foundry combo to give the deck an alternate direction if needed. The thopters can attack through Ensnaring Bridge and we can really make use of our excess mana this way. I dropped Voltaic Key from the list because there simply aren't enough artifacts with tap abilities to warrant it. I also run it as a 3-4 of when I use it and wasting a tutor spell on one just seems like a really slow play.
Expedition Map can find Inventors' Fair, Academy Ruins, and Ghost Quarter. We can recur the sweet abilities or get lands back after Boom//Bust with a Crucible of Worlds. Academy Ruins gets whatever back from the graveyard and Inventors' Fair tutors whatever we need from the deck. Ghost Quarter can be used over and over especially against decks that run few basics. We don't need to play lands after the first couple most of the time and reusing a Ghost Quarter ever turn could really hurt 2 and 3 color decks.
Elixir of Immortality helps us to stabilize nearly as well as Sun Droplet while doing more immediately. It can reshuffle your tutors or dead creatures back into the deck to give you a better mid-game. Sun Droplet is only better than Elixir against burn. Against creature based decks, Ensnaring Bridge should just get there.
I went with Batterskull over Wurmcoil Engine for this list because it is much more resilient. We can equip it to a thopter token and get above the enemy for 5 lifelink. It comes down a turn sooner and in a list without Voltaic Key, the vigilance is much more relevant. Batterskull is an alternative to the Bridge lock against decks that don't mind it.
I don't have a sideboard just yet for the list and need to do a lot more testing. I'm thinking it will look something like this.
Sideboard is all over the place, mainly so I can test different things in different matches.
Overall, I think the toolbox version is probably the most difficult version of this deck to pilot correctly. There are just so many different lines of play. I am not sure if this would be better than any of the other versions that I have already built in mtgo. I don't own Batterskull or Ensnaring Bridge on mtgo currently and don't really see me buying them any time soon due to them being $40+ each. I might revisit this version later on down the line. Without much testing, I can't say for sure which match-ups this would be better/worse in.
So with the toolbox I found out that after the first Wildfire I need to be able to fetch a wincon. So I can get wurmcoil engine. That's it. No planeswalker no GAeG but I found something which could be used: Orochi Hatchery
It can be fetched with whir of invention for 0 or with inventor's fair, with XX as a casting cost we can swarm our opponent with snakes.
I'll try it out
@redbaron the list looks nice, but I'm not sure if the thopter sword combo is that good, but I can imagine it can do well in some situations.
I need to playtest that more to get better information and understanding of the playstyle
This saturday, I want to take this deck to a tournament at a local shop where I live, it's a qualifying tournament for the MKM series in Frankfurt, Germany.
I want to play this list, but I am not sure if I have to switch something in there, so please let me hear your suggestions. Like I said no combo win included.
I will write something about the choices later when I have more time. What could I include in the sideboard as the last spot or what could be changed?
I don't know what decks I have to expect, so I want to have something against everything... As far as that is possible.
Private Mod Note
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"Master they threatened to darken the sky with their arrows!"
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
Yeah, but it's really more "Disney Evil" than practical. It's like being a bond villain and giving a monologue rather then just shooting them.
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
What is Dice Factory?
Dice Factory is an artifact based ramp deck that revolves around manipulating charge counters. The deck can ramp into powerful finishers as early as turn 2. The ramp revolves around our chalice effects: Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice. Paired with a charge counter manipulator: Coretapper and Surge Node. The fast mana gets bigger and faster with cards like Mox Opal, Voltaic Key, and Tezzeret's Gambit.
The deck averages 6 usable mana on turn 3 with the potential for much more. Mox Opal speeds the deck up by a full turn making for some very fast games. The deck, with its bountiful artifact mana, utilizes Wildfire to its full potential. A turn 3 or 4 Wildfire is devastating to most any deck in the format if resolved destroying all of their lands and creatures. There are very few creatures in modern that Wildfire does not hit and the card becomes a very one sided board wipe.
Why should I play this?
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Surge Node
4 Coretapper
Sample Decklists
All of these lists are various ones that I have been testing. They could be used as a starting point when building your deck.
This is the first list that I built on mtgo continuing where I left off with my Surge deck back in 2012. It really speaks to the inner Timmy in me. I enjoy running this and the finishers give us more reach against a wider range of aggressive decks. It is weak against Eldrazi decks as they are often too big for Wildfire and cannot be exiled by Ugin. It is great against aggro decks due to all of the maindeck answers. The high costed finishers makes the deck somewhat hard to play around control but it can be done depending on the match-up. Another downside of this list compared to say tron, is that we don't have that inevitability factor that they have which gives us a poor Jund/Abzan/Grixis matchup.
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Darksteel Citadel
3x Glimmervoid
1x Spire of Industry
1x Academy Ruins
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2x Inventors' Fair
1x Snow-Covered Mountain
Spells - 12
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Tezzeret's Gambit
4x Wildfire
4x Coretapper
2x Wurmcoil Engine
Artifacts - 20
4x Astral Cornucopia
3x Everflowing Chalice
1x Lux Cannon
4x Mox Opal
1x Otherworld Atlas
4x Surge Node
3x Voltaic Key
Planeswalkers - 5
2x Karn Liberated
3x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Banefire
3x Blood Moon
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Grindclock
1x Lux Cannon
3x Stormbreath Dragon
4x Nature's Claim
1x Wurmcoil Engine
This build is also really fun and focuses on going all in on the combo as a win-con. The idea on how to combo off is to use Otherworld Atlas and Paradox Engine to draw and cast as many cards as you need until you can deck the opponent. We use Elixir of Immortality to ensure that we will have more cards in our deck than the opponent. The combo is fairly consistent with wins capable as early as turn 3. This version is the least interactive of the lists and can be beaten by both fast decks and decks resilient against Wildfire.
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Darksteel Citadel
3x Glimmervoid
1x Spire of Industry
1x Academy Ruins
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2x Inventors' Fair
1x Snow-Covered Mountain
Spells - 12
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Tezzeret's Gambit
4x Wildfire
4x Coretapper
Artifacts - 27
4x Astral Cornucopia
3x Everflowing Chalice
4x Mox Opal
4x Otherworld Atlas
4x Surge Node
3x Voltaic Key
3x Paradox Engine
2x Elixir of Immortality
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Nature's Claim
3 Blood Moon
The Sultai version of the deck is my favorite version to date. It uses hard hitting cards like Wurmcoil, Death Cloud, or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas to do much of the dirty work while retaining the ability to combo out quickly and just win. This is probably the most versatile list in the bunch and one of the strongest and most consistent from my testing.
1 Academy Ruins
2 Blooming Marsh
3 Darksteel Citadel
4 Glimmervoid
2 Inventors' Fair
4 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
Artifacts 27
4 Mox Opal
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Surge Node
3 Voltaic Key
1 Elixir of Immortality
4 Otherworld Atlas
3 Paradox Engine
4 Coretapper
Spells 10
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Tezzeret's Gambit
3 Death Cloud
Planeswalkers 3
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Nature's Claim
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Sun Droplet
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Crumble to Dust
This deck is a mix between Bant Eldrazi and Eldrazi Tron. It can be faster than both while going pretty big as well. Unlike Bant Eldrazi, we rely on artifact ramp in addition to Eldrazi Temple to cast our threats. This allows us to more reliably have the mana to cast threats and cast larger ones. The downside is that our threat density is a little lighter with only 14 real maindeck threats. Batterskull can turn 7 of our other creatures in to decent beaters as well though. This version puts a lot of pressure on the opponent and is by far the fairest version of the deck.
4x Coretapper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
2x Endbringer
2x Glint-Nest Crane
4x Thought-Knot Seer
1x World Breaker
1x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
Artifact 17
4x Astral Cornucopia
4x Everflowing Chalice
3x Mox Opal
4x Surge Node
1x Lux Cannon
1x Batterskull
3x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Land 17
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Glimmervoid
2x Inventors' Fair
3x Spire of Industry
Sorcery 4
4x Ancient Stirrings
1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1x Wurmcoil Engine
3x Pyroclasm
4x Nature's Claim
2x Sun Droplet
3x Defense Grid
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
This version of the deck aims to lock the opponent out of the game with its wonderful toolbox. Whir of Invention allows us to tutor for things at instant speed while Tezzeret the Seeker tutors, ramps, and provides a win-con of his own. The deck also has Thopter/Sword combo thrown in to help grind the mid game. The deck can tutor for any card that it might need to help win the match and recur them with Academy Ruins if needed. Boom/Bust is a fun tempo card early game with Darksteel Citadel and a finisher late game with Ward of Bones. There are plenty of other artifacts that could be included or removed depending on the meta.
4x Astral Cornucopia
1x Batterskull
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
4x Mox Opal
1x Pithing Needle
4x Surge Node
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Thopter Foundry
1x Ward of Bones
1x Academy Ruins
4x Darksteel Citadel
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Glimmervoid
1x Inventors' Fair
6x Island
Instant (3)
3x Whir of Invention
Planeswalker (3)
2x Tezzeret the Seeker
4x Coretapper
4x Glint-Nest Crane
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Spellskite
Sorcery (4)
4x Boom // Bust
Card Choices
Everflowing Chalice
Everflowing chalice is one of our two chalice effects. This one has the potential of producing more mana than the Astral Cornucopia due to the smaller mana investment. We will hardcast the Everflowing Chalice much more often than an Astral Cornucopia. The downside to this chalice is that it only produces x.
Astral Cornucopia
Astral Cornucopia is our second chalice effect. It is a little more expensive to hardcast and we won't do it as often, but helps to provide colors for a variety of our spells. Astral Cornucopia is better in a build that runs more colored spells and can also power things like firebreathing on Inferno Titan.
Coretapper
Coretapper is the best way to manipulate charge counters in Magic. At the very least he can always be used to add two charge counters to a chalice or another artifact. It has the potential of becoming a net gain of 1 mana if we wait a turn before adding it to a chalice. Coretapper can be used to block creatures and then be sacrificed in response preventing the damage. The only thing that can really stop him is Sudden Shock if we pass priority after playing him.
Surge Node
Surge Node is almost as good as coretapper and is sometimes better depending on what we are trying to do. Surge Node can be played turn 1 for glimmervoid and help to ramp into 6+ mana turn 3. Surge Node can add more counters in the long run than coretapper because it blanks almost all maindeck removal.
Mox Opal
Mox Opal has the potential to speed the deck up as a full turn. With the new legend rule, it can also be used as a Lotus Petal ramping us further. Metalcraft is almost never an issue with the deck running ~ 30 artifacts. 15 of which cost 0 and 6-8 of which cost 1
Voltaic Key
Voltaic Key is a big enabler for the deck. It can be used to turn chalice mana into twice that mana minus 1. It also lets us pay 1 to get two activations out of our other artifacts. It combos well with our chalices, Coretapper, Surge Node, Lux Cannon, Grindclock, Otherworld Atlas. Voltaic Key can also be used to give our Wurmcoil Engine or Sundering Titan pseudo-vigilance.
Tezzeret's Gambit
Tezzeret's Gambit draws us 2 cards for 3 and 2 life. That isn't exactly great for most decks, but the card also proliferates. It can be used to ramp our chalices if they already have one counter on them. This can lead to some great stabilization mid game if needed or provide gas to kill the opponent. This card can be very difficult to play correctly at the right time just because the two cards could offer many different lines depending on board state.
Ancient Stirrings
Ancient Stirrings greatly increases our consistency. The deck is usually only runs ~12 colored cards. It is most often used to find one of our "core" pieces to quickly build our mana. If we already have the mana engine online, we can use Stirrings to dig for Karn, Ugin, or Wurmcoil engine. All for G, it is the best card we can run to increase consistency.
Glint-Nest Crane
Glint-Nest Crane is not usually as good as Ancient Stirrings is for the deck. It can only dig 4 and the card we pick must be an artifact. It can only target artifacts and is more likely to whiff. It does however provide a 1/3 body with flying that can help in some poorer match-ups that run smaller creatures. If this is ran, it should be in addition to Ancient Stirrings and usually with a Batterskull.
Wildfire
Wildfire is typically the most devastating card in the deck. The mana cost of 6 means we have a greater chance of casting it turn 3 every game regardless of how lucky we get. As a 4 damage sweeper, there are very few cards that can be played early that do not die to it. When you build around Wildfire, it is truly a force to be reckoned with. Each and every deck wants to have 2+ lands in play and this takes that from everyone. Combo can't go off with no lands, Control can't hit that tipping point with no lands, aggro usually doesn't even run enough lands to find more after a wildfire.
Destructive Force
Everything above about Wildfire also applies to Destructive Force. The downside is that it will be harder to cast some games turn 3 on the play. The upside is that it can hit some more common targets that wildfire has trouble with. Particularly Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Siege Rhino, Tarmogoyf, Reality Smasher, Drowner of Hope, Doran, the Siege Tower, Wall of Roots, and some cards that have the potential to grow if you catch them at the right time.
Death Cloud
Death Cloud is another wildfire type effect while also having the benefit of making each player discard also. The creatures are sacrificed and this helps against some of the creatures that Wildfire cannot kill. It can also potentially be cast for 4 mana as a smallpox if needed and scales up to however many lands they have with our ramp. Death Cloud is weak against decks that usually have 4+ creatures in play and can sacrifice less impactful ones.
Lux Cannon
Lux Cannon gives the deck options towards how to deal with enemy permanents. It can usually destroy something 1-2 turns after it hits the table with a possible activation every turn depending on the build. The more you build around this card, the better it is simply put. It can be very good paired with cards like Coretapper, Surge Node, Voltaic Key, Unwinding Clock, Tezzeret's Gambit, and Tezzeret the Seeker. It can be searched with Inventors' Fair or picked with Ancient Stirrings. Lux Cannon should be in the list as a 1 of at least to deal with trouble colorless permanents that Ugin can't take care of. It can keep opponents off of lands after a Wildfire effect, or destroy manlands after they are activated. We see a better return when using Karn for exiling cards from the opponents hand if we can use a Lux Cannon to control the board.
Otherworld Atlas
Otherworld Atlas is essentially being Mikokoro on steroids. It fits perfectly with our theme and can provide a huge advantage if used correctly. Atlas is best with 3+ counters on it allowing us to draw at least 7 cards leading up to a huge play. If we draw in our opponents end step, they will be forced to discard. Mana isn't an issue and we will likely play most of our hand after using Atlas. We are usually already set up if there is an atlas on the field and we are using it to find finishers. It helps the control matchup by giving us more threats than they will have mana to answer and the aggro matchup by giving us sweepers like Ugin or Wildfire. It is the single best enabler in a combo build utilizing Paradox Engine.
Unwinding Clock
Unwinding Clock is a great card in an artifact heavy build. It essentially doubles the pressure that you can put on an opponent. It is one of the most helpful pieces towards getting a successful Lux Cannon lock in place by allowing you to destroy at least one permanent a turn. It combos best if you are using Lux Cannon, Otherworld Atlas, Grindclock, Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Contagion Engine, and Contagion Clasp.
Whir of Invention
Whir of Invention is a great tutor for the deck. The biggest downside to the card is the intensive UUU cost. It can be used to search for any artifact in the deck with a developed board state and put it into play. It is instant speed which really helps for some shenanigans with things like voltaic key or coretapper. Could be useful to find silver bullets out of the sideboard.
Reshape
Reshape is a weaker version of Whir of Invention. It is sorcery speed and requires us to sacrifice an artifact as part of the cost. It is nice that it puts the artifact into play that we search for. It could be used with Lotus Bloom to generate an extra mana that turn. It comes down earlier than Whir of Invention but we don't really want to be sacrificing artifacts early. Best used in conjunction with Academy Ruins.
Crucible of Worlds
Expedition Map
Ensnaring Bridge
Pithing Needle
Ward of Bones
Grafdigger's Cage
Nihil Spellbomb / Relic of Progenitus
Trading Post
Witchbane Orb
Planeswalkers
These planeswalkers all have their benefits towards the deck and can take the deck in different builds. Usually these can be played in lieu of some of the bigger finishers, Ancient Stirrings, or other mid-game artifacts. They are all picked for how they work with the deck and should be used to buy time before you can find a proper finisher. They shouldn't be relied on as primary finishers as they are too weak and need to be built around in most cases.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Agent of Bolas is a very solid card that can provide a decent win condition also. He should see a spot somewhere in the 75 if running rainbow lands. His +1 provides a great card advantage. The -1 helps to provide a clock against slower decks or a blocker in some cases. His ultimate often will do 10+ damage to an opponent and gaining 10 life helping against fast aggro. He is a must kill card for the opponent or he will provide a great advantage. His biggest downside is that he costs UB which can be hard on the mana base.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Ugin is one of our best planeswalkers. He often comes out on a critical turn to -x and wipe the board of all colored permanents. As our finishers are almost always colorless, this is often very one sided. It hits everything in the format except Eldrazi and Artifact decks. His +2 is enough to handle a lot of trouble creatures in the format. It can also close out the game in as few as 6 turns after hitting the board with just that ability. His ultimate is great and can be used to further our overwhelming board position.
Karn Liberated
Karn is a great finisher for the deck. 7 is easy to achieve turn 3 or 4. Karn comes down to exile the biggest threat the opponent has or to start tearing away at their hand. After the board has been wiped by Ugin or Wildfire, Karn alone can lock them out of the game. Most decks are wide enough to get around Karn's exile ability so I rate him slightly below Ugin.
Saheeli Rai
Saheeli is a pretty decent walker for the deck. She imposes some deck restrictions like running Glint-Nest Crane over Ancient Stirrings for maximum effect. Scrying is pretty good for us as we often need to maximize our draws. She would be much better if she could copy the opponents things as well. Her ultimate will rarely be used but if you manage to get it off, it just wins the game fetching things like Batterskull, Wurmcoil Engine, or Sundering Titan.
Chandra, the Firebrand
The Firebrand is mainly considered for the Reverberate effect. She is very similar to Saheeli Rai in power level and what we want to do with her. The +1 on Chandra helps us against ramp decks and other decks that boast a lot of x/1 creatures. The -2 can be used to dig twice with Ancient Stirrings, blow up 8 lands and deal 8 damage with Wildfire, or draw 4 cards and proliferate twice with Tezzeret's Gambit. She usually forces the opponent to attack her because she can be quite powerful in some cases.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Torch of Defiance is a more well rounded 4 mana walker. She can provide ramp, card advantage, or shock a player while ticking her up and can remove anything wildfire can ticking her down. She doesn't require to be built around as much as the Firebrand or Koth and is probably the best red walker on her own. She is somewhat like tezzeret being able to do many things and he is just better for the deck 9/10 times.
Ajani Vengeant
Ajani Vengeant goes along with our plans of locking the opponent out of the game. We can use him to tap down large threats or keep an opponent off of their mana with his +1. Locking down lands works well with blood moon in the deck keeping them off of specific colors. His -2 is relevant against aggro/burn matchups giving us that much extra time to get a finisher into play. Finding W can be hard to find sometimes depending on the build.
Tezzeret the Seeker
The seeker is good in an artifact heavy build that tries to work towards a lock. His +1 can be used to ramp with chalices, or get more activations out of anything voltaic key is good for. He can tutor for any artifacts that the deck wants to run excluding Wurmcoil Engine. We can tutor a 0 CMC artifact for a shuffle effect. The Shuffle effect can be good as we don't have many ways to do this and might want to reshuffle the cards we have put to the bottom with Ancient Stirrings or Agent of Bolas. He can be used with a proliferate effect to ultimate the turn he comes into play. We will generally have 4-7 artifacts in play when using his ultimate to kill the opponent with.
Wurmcoil Engine
Wurmcoil Engine is the best artifact finisher that the deck can play. It can easily be found with Ancient Stirrings and Inventors' Fair. Lifelink is a very relevant ability for this deck against aggro/burn because we do not interact much in the first couple turns. Wurmcoil helps us catch back up and eventually race aggro if unanswered and creates the tokens when targeted by something like Terminate.
Batterskull
Batterskull is an alternative to Wurmcoil Engine and works best in builds running Glint-Nest Crane over Ancient Stirrings. Batterskull is 1 cheaper and can sometimes be cast a turn earlier. There are also some other fringe times when Batterskull is better than Wurmcoil or vice versa. We often have the mana to recast this the next turn if it eats removal.
Paradox Engine
Paradox Engine is a very build around card but can lead to a combo version of the deck. It combos very well with Otherworld Atlas and allows us to pretty much draw and play our whole deck. The mana gets insane at that point and while comboing off, we basically draw our entire deck, have more mana than we can use, and use all of our finishers to kill the opponent. It is a very over the top way to win, but wins on the spot at sorcery speed opposed to other options.
Grindclock
Grindclock provides an alternative win condition when you can't win by traditional means. It comes down early against control and gives us more targets against artifact removal. It can win as early as 3 turns after it hits the field with the average being around 5 with only one on the field. It gets better in a prison build utilizing Lux Cannon and Unwinding Clock to lock the opponent out while building up the Grindclocks.
Titan Forge
Titan forge is a lower cmc finisher that is better in an artifact heavy build. Titan Forge is best utilized in a build with full Voltaic Key and Unwinding Clock. It can be cast early against control and the Titans that it spawns can fight just about any other creature that tries to go big.
Sword of the Meek / Thopter Foundry
The thopter sword combo can be a potential way to close out the game. We often have a lot of mana to use and this could provide a good mana sink. Gaining one life per mana and chump blockers is pretty good against aggro and control decks. Both pieces can be found with Whir of Invention, Ancient Stirrings, Glin-Nest Crane, etc. It is a two piece combo that doesn't win the game right away unlike the Paradox Engine plan.
Sundering Titan
Sundering Titan is a decent finisher for the deck and goes along with the main plan of the deck. He will usually exile 2-3 of the opponents lands when he enters or leaves the battlefield and is a decent beater. He can be fetched with Inventors' Fair and drawn with Ancient Stirrings. Sundering Titan competes with Ugin for the higher CMC finisher and often has less of an impact.
Inferno Titan
Inferno Titan is a decent finisher for the decks with a lot of creatures or limited creature removal. He dies to all of the main big removal spells though and for that reason he isn't very good. While he can present a two turn clock if not responded to, he also can't be fetched with Ancient Stirrings or Inventors' Fair.
Stormbreath Dragon
The Dragon is a good finisher on its own if cast early. It is in a very good place in the meta right now, only dying to Terminate maindeck. The biggest downside to the dragon is that he doesn't survive a wildfire if not monstrous. The pro-white is pretty relevant in almost all matches relying on Path to Exile. It isn't an artifact and can't be found with Ancient Stirrings so it is better in mono red lists.
Kuldotha Phoenix
A potential budget finisher. The Phoenix is easy to recur and is only ever lost to exile effects. It can be mana intensive sometimes though casting it on turn 3 without an Astral Cornucopia or Mox Opal due to the RRR. While it isn't an artifact, the easy recursion makes this a possible consideration in a discard heavy meta.
Inventors' Fair
Inventors' Fair is a great card that helps us in two different ways. The "metalcraft" can be enabled as early as Turn 1. The 1 life per turn can help against a variety of aggro decks and some midrange decks. The second ability is great mid-late game allowing us to tutor for answers or finishers or even an Astral Cornucopia sometimes when we need colored mana.
Academy Ruins
Academy Ruins could be used for the chance of artifact recursion if we expect a lot of hate. It can be hard to find with no way to search it out other than Ancient Stirrings. It is somewhat slow as we do not want our artifacts in the graveyard in the first place. With Ruins in the deck, we could even think about a Mindslaver package as an alternate win con.
Darksteel Citadel
Darksteel Citadel is an enabler that helps many cards in our deck. It helps to enable metalcraft for Mox Opal and Inventors' Fair activations. It also protects Glimmervoid and enables Spire of Industry. The citadel is the only land that can be found with Glint-Nest Crane or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Speaking of Tezzeret, his -2 makes these lands indestructible 5/5 beaters.
Glimmervoid
This card produces any color of mana and with the deck running ~ 30 artifacts, it dying to the trigger is often the last thing we worry about. It can be often be played turn 1 for green mana and digging for a 0 CMC artifact with Ancient Stirrings to keep it alive. The chance of losing this land to having no artifacts is extremely low unless faced with something like Hurkyl's Recall or Creeping Corrosion/Vandalblast.
Spire of Industry
Spire of Industry is more or less a slightly weaker version of Glimmervoid. We won't always be able to or want to cast a 0 CMC artifact on turn 1 allowing us to produce colored mana with this. The loss of life from the land can sometimes be too much against decks that present a fast clock. We don't really run that many colored spells though. One benefit over Glimmervoid is that Spire of Industry can produce C for Sea Gate Wreckage or Eldrazi when needed.
Tendo Ice Bridge
The Ice bridge is one of our colored mana options. It is an additional colored land for 3 color decks and can be recharged with Tezzeret's Gambit. Most of the time we can use it for colorless while only using the colored in a pinch or to get us started before we draw into our better lands.
Copperline Gorge Spirebluff Canal Darkslick Shores Blooming Marsh Botanical Sanctum
The fast lands in general are ideal for this deck. We often do not have more than 3 lands in play. They allow us to cast turn 1 Ancient Stirrings without having to play a 0 CMC artifact. This slot could be Grove of the Burnwillows if you are really worried about the 4th land coming into play tapped or you want more colorless sources for Sea Gate Wreckage. In the current list, Copperline Gorge is just better than any other RG land.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Mikokoro doesn't provide actual card advantage like Sea Gate Wreckage but it helps us to dig a little bit if needed. It is mainly used for 3 reasons over similar cards. We might have 2+ finishers in hand and no reliable way to cast them early due to hate cards. We might need to look for an answer when our opponent has us on a 1-2 turn clock. If we are about to lose anyways with few outs, our opponent drawing a card doesn't mean a whole lot. Mikokoro also combos well with Grindclock in the case of Eldrazi titans. We can have our opponent draw a card in response to the reshuffle trigger.
Sea Gate Wreckage
This card competes with Mikokoro with the main difference being that it provides solid card advantage. It is much more situational though in its uses. Some games it is hard to get the C unless you up the C sources. The biggest downside to this card is that you can only use it with no cards in hand. This means it won't help us if we are behind and looking for a way to ramp into one of the finishers we can't cast from our hand. It could be better than Mikokoro in matches that pack a lot of answers for our cards. Grixis, Jund, and Abzan come to mind.
Ghost Quarter
Ghost Quarter can be helpful in different versions of the deck. We typically try to run a lower land count and don't want to be sacrificing our early lands. Ghost Quarter gives us a slightly better tron game and a way to deal with manlands main deck. It can be good in builds with Crucible of Worlds for recursion.
Scrying Sheets
Scrying Sheets can be used with a snow-land type engine allowing us to filter through a few cards in the deck. If you are using the snow engine, you can't afford to run many of the other lands in this list and therefore it is not recommended. If you decide to build a mono colored build, this might be considered.
Inkmoth Nexus
Inkmoth is a secondary win condition that can be utilized in a proliferate heavy build. Due to how light we are on creatures typically, he will eat whatever removal the opponent has. If you are running a more creature heavy proliferate build or the meta is removal light, Inkmoth could be a consideration.
Artificer's Intuition
Artificer's Intuiton can replace Ancient Stirrings in more of a toolbox style of deck that runs many 1 cmc artifacts. Expedition Map, Chalice Effects, Chalice of the Void, Voltaic Key. Between Whir of Invention, Ancient Stirrings, Glint-Nest Crane, Trinket Mage, and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, we do not need Artificer's Intuition. It is negative card advantage and should be avoided.
Volt Charge
Volt Charge is the only other proliferate spell that could possibly have an effect on this archetype. Paying 2 to proliferate is much worse than what Tezzeret's Gambit offers and Lightning Bolt would probably be better in this slot if this card is considered.
Thoughtcast
Thoughtcast could be considered as a draw spell in addition to Tezzeret's Gambit. The U cost can sometimes be restrictive and does not help us ramp. It is still one of the better draw spells we can play for this deck. The only other draw spells to consider could be Ancestral Vision or Thirst for Knowledge. Usually with such low threat density, we want to be using our filter cards like Ancient Stirrings, Glint-Nest Crane, or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Energy Chamber
Energy Chamber is an alternate way to ramp or add +1/+1 counters to our creatures. The big drawback to the card is that it competes with Coretapper at the 2 drop slot. Surge Node costs 1 less and can help us ramp earlier or be riskier with the hands we keep. Unlike surge node, Energy Chamber can't add multiple counters per turn with the likes of Voltaic Key or Unwinding Clock. Energy Chamber combos well with creatures that utilize +1/+1 counters like Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista.
Power Conduit
Power Conduit is a very heavy build around card. The biggest benefit to the card is to be able to manipulate charge counters that are already on other artifacts. Powering down a chalice to power up a Lux Cannon. This card combos well with Chalice of the Void powering it up to ruin the enemy's curve.
Hangarback Walker
Hangarback Walker helps us to stabilize against aggro decks or go wide against decks that don't run path to exile. It can be dropped early and built up very cheaply and works well with Voltaic Key. Hangarback can sometimes be too slow against the fastest aggro decks but does much better against midrange strategies.
Walking Ballista
Walking Ballista plays a similar role to Contagion Clasp while also providing a direct damage outlet. Ballista works best in a creature / artifact heavy build and he can act as a mana sink and win condition mid to late game. If he stays on the field for a few turns, he is likely to have a decent impact, but I think other cards are better for the space. He doesn't do well against enemy removal and dies to wildfire most games.
Contagion Engine
Contagion Engine is an additional board wipe against decks that try to go very wide with weak creatures or tokens. It is best paired with planeswalkers or an Inkmoth Nexus. Combined with Unwinding Clock, this card can really get some counters moving around.
Contagion Clasp
Contagion Clasp can be used to outright kill any x/1's in the format and killing larger creatures but at a slower rate. It is best used as a tempo card in a format filled with early mana dorks or early creatures. The proliferate effect is often expensive compared to the engine and proves to be much slower in that aspect. Multiples can be sacrificed to Throne of Geth for additional proliferate effects.
Throne of Geth
Throne of Geth can be used in very artifact heavy proliferate builds that focus on trying to use planeswalker ultimates as quickly as possible. You can use this card to help enable ultimates as early as turn 3 or get rid of useless redundant artifacts or empty surge nodes.
Guide to Playing the Deck
The deck is extremely synergistic and offers many lines of play to achieve similar results. There are a lot of intricacies and it can be difficult to pilot correctly or make the right decision at the right time. The deck is also quite unforgiving to a novice pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-ssf_yZxE33RnZDS9kwOiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSWsXrhmKho
During the early turns of the game, we should be solely focused on ramping and widening the mana gap. When you are learning the deck, I recommend going second if possible every game. This will give you more cards in hand to explore different lines of play until you become more comfortable with how the deck functions.
The best cards to see in our opening hand are
Coretapper, Astral Cornucopia, and Voltaic Key.
Coretapper is always more explosive than Surge Node. With a Mox Opal in hand, our ideal lines can differ a lot as we are starting at turn 2 basically.
Turn 1 Voltaic Key
Turn 2 Astral Cornucopia, Coretapper
This gives us a lot of options, but we could sacrifice the Coretapper adding two counters to the Astral Cornucopia essentially making the coretapper a free spell. We can then tap the cornucopia for 2, using 1 to untap with the Voltaic Key and then cast something like Tezzeret's Gambit. This would give leave us with a potential for 8+ mana on turn 3.
It gets exponentially crazy when you factor in Otherworld Atlas
Matchups
The information here should be used as a general jumping off point if you are unfamiliar with the deck or unfamiliar with some of the opponents decks, this might help you get a general sense of when the deck is good and when the deck is bad. Dice Factory can be tuned in a number of ways to increase some of the bad match-ups but it will be a trade off for others. For the purpose of this list, I will talk about how the “core” of the deck interacts with each of these.
Aggro
Decks like this are usually small enough to go under an Ensnaring Bridge and it shouldn’t be relied on against the likes of burn.
I have found the Eldrazi Factory version does quite well against this deck but most other versions have a hard time with it. 5/5’s from Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas might help out but you could easily be trampled and overran just as quickly.
Aggro-Combo
Elves
Infect
Knightfall (KotR coco)
Soul Sisters
Aggro-Control
Death's Shadow Jund is very similar to the traditional Jund match-up. Usually we will know in the first few turns if we win or if we die. Even though Death's Shadow can kill us more quickly, I think this matchup is better than traditional Jund because they have less maindeck interaction.
Typically they run 2 more discard spells in lieu of Abrupt Decay. This is good new for our mana rocks and we often have better chances ramping against Death's Shadow. The downside is that they usually kill us turn 4-6 if we aren't doing anything interactive. They Liliana of the Veil are usually cut to 2 and they only run 2 Kolaghan's Command
Our sideboard plans against the deck are largely the same as traditional Jund. They run 2 Ancient Grudge and Kataki, War's Wage in the board as additional hate to watch out for. Kataki is a fun card to play around and he usually doesn't slow us down much at all. If anything it makes us play at a fair pace. It is much easier to play around than a Stony Silence.
Grixis Delver
White Weenie (hate bears)
Midrange
Bant Eldrazi
Eldrazi Tron
Jund is a difficult matchup any way you slice it. They are one of the few decks in the format with 10+ cards that can interact with us main deck. The deck runs 10 discard spells in Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Liliana of the Veil. They also have 5 maindeck spells to destroy our artifacts in Abrupt Decay, Kolaghan's Command, and Maelstrom Pulse. Out of the sideboard they usually have an Ancient Grudge and possibly Surgical Extraction to watch out for.
I do not mind being on the play or draw against decks that have so much discard. Usually you are looking to either explode very quickly and hope to stick an early threat or to keep a land heavy hand and draw into threats. Creature heavy builds will do worse against Jund because they also have Terminate.
Padeem, Consul of Innovation is a pretty good card to help against this deck. He survives a Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, and Kolaghan's Command. He also helps by protecting all of our artifacts and drawing us an additional card to deal with their discard. He needs to be ran in addition to other creatures to survive the Liliana edict.
The Eldrazi version of the deck has one of the better Jund matchups out of the list due to the size of the creatures and style of the deck. The other list that has been faring well is the Paradox Combo list, with the key combo pieces dodging Abrupt Decay.
Skred
Control
8 Rack
Esper Tapout Control
Grixis Control
Lantern Control
Nahiri Jeskai (RWU Draw-Go)
Sun and Moon
UB Control
Combo
Ad Nauseam
Dredge
Gifts Storm
Grishoalbrand
Puresteel Storm
Shaeeli Copycat
Ramp
Amulet Titan
Titanshift
Tron
Valakut Breach
This is a ramp deck and we generally fit into the meta the same as most other ramp decks.
http://modernnexus.com/pigeonholing-for-profit-modern-era-archetypes/
Full write-up coming soon!
Sideboarding and Alternate Card Choices
Chalice of the Void
Chalice of the Void helps us to interrupt the opponents curve. It can be used turn 1 for 0 to enable metalcraft and then set to 1 with a surge node to counter the opponents first play. Then it can be set to two to nearly time walk them. We typically want to set chalice to 2 or 3 as the other numbers hurt us more than the opponent most of the time.
Engineered Explosives
Engineered Explosives is used to deal with problem permanents that the opponent controls or to deal with fast aggro decks. We can cast it for 0 to help enable turn 1 metalcraft for Mox Opal or Inventors' Fair. Using these to deal with token decks also hits our chalice effects and is not really advised. It is best used to deal with trouble permanents that wildfire can't hit, namely Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, and Liliana ov the Veil
Ratchet Bomb
Ratchet bomb is like a one time Lux Cannon. It has the same uses of Engineered Explosives with the potential for charging it up more slowly. Ratchet Bomb is almost always slower than engineered explosives and has all of the same uses. In this deck it is seen more or less as a budget option to Engineered Explosives.
Sun Droplet
Sun Droplet helps us in the burn match-up and buys us time in other fast aggro match-ups like zoo. It's low cost allows it to impact the game early and shave off 2 damage per turn against these decks. It typically comes down turn 2 with the potential for turn 1 with a nutty draw.
Clearwater Goblet
Clearwater Goblet is like a Sun Droplet on steroids. Costing 5 means that we are likely to cast this turn 3 with the potential for turn 2 with a nut draw. Clearwater Goblet will likely gain us much more life than Sun Droplet starting after about two uses. It can be a good target against midrange builds or aggro heavy metas.
Blood Moon
One of our better sideboard options. Blood Moon has the potential to slow down many other decks and sometimes just completely shutting them off. It is great against tron, often slowing them down by at least 3 turns. I used to run the blood moons main deck and found them helpful in about as many matches as they hurt. They shut off our own utility lands in the hopes that we hurt our opponent more than we hurt ourselves. The same strategy with wildfire really. Blood Moon pairs well in the main deck with Koth.
Nature's Claim
Enchantment hate is an absolute must for the deck. Stony Silence absolutely shuts down more or less the entire deck and many white decks run it in their sideboard. Some decks that aren't white still run it in the sideboard because it is that good against artifact decks. Natures Claim fills that role and it is in color with Ancient Stirrings. Costing only G and being an instant makes it by far the best card to fill this role.
Lavaball Trap
This card can be used as an alternative to Wildfire or Destructive Force against decks that land ramp or decks that use fetchlands. It is instant speed and only costs RR wiping the field of all creatures. It can also be used at instant speed to suprise a control player who thinks it is safe to tap out after a fetch. It is especially good against decks with a very greedy mana base that don't mind taking damage fetching on their turn.
Banefire
Banefire is a good card against counter heavy decks that might not try to destroy/bounce our artifacts but instead counter our finishers. The deck can produce large amounts of mana in the mid game and cast a large lethal banefire. It is often too slow to be useful against faster decks but could be used for removal in a pinch.
Master of Etherium
Master is useful to put pressure on control decks and help provide a body against decks that rely on creatures to deal damage. He can be used to buy time before a wildfire effect or to fight larger creatures like Knight of the Reliquary. He is often a 5/5 for 2U which can buy us enough time to find a more powerful answer/finisher. He dies to Path and Push though so we have to be careful siding him in.
Guide to the Side...board
Full write-up coming soon
History of this Archetype
One of the crowning achievements of Kai Budde's Hall of Fame career was his World Champion title in 1999. He took the top place with this Wildfire deck. The combination of explosive mana accel allowed him to play the game-dominating sorcery post-haste, all the while denying his opponent mana with Mishra's Helix and drawing extra cards via Temporal Aperture. The fact those cards were artifacts then came in handy as Kai utilized Covetous Dragon to beatdown for the win.
Dice Factory is the spiritual successor of Kai Budde's Wildfire list that is Modern legal. We have a very similar game plan and the only thing that we really lack is a way to keep our opponent off their mana like Mishra's Helix could.
3 Masticore
1 Karn, Silver Golem
4 Covetous Dragon
4 Wildfire
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Fire Diamond
4 Grim Monolith
2 Mishra's Helix
4 Temporal Aperture
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Voltaic Key
2 Worn Powerstone
3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
The deck was born in Standard when Scars of Mirrodin came out. One of the game's top deck builders, Patrick Chapin, recently presented this take on a Koth of the Hammer deck in his regular column on StarCityGames.com. The goal? Use proliferate to turbo-charge Koth and earn yourself an emblem. The deck is powerful, capable of accomplishing that very play as early as the third turn! Awesome!
2 Chandra Nalaar
4 Koth of the Hammer
3 Necropede
2 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Destructive Force
2 Pyroclasm
4 Contagion Clasp
4 Everflowing Chalice
3 Lux Cannon
4 Throne of Geth
3 Voltaic Key
4 Mox Opal
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
61 Cards
Dice Factory was a similar list played during the same time. The deck used the great filter cards in the format at the time to find the pieces quickly and control the slower format at the time with the likes of Tumble Magnet. The deck's main win condition was the Grindclock after locking the opponents threats down with Tumble Magnet and Lux Cannon. All of the pieces were only in standard together for a short period of time and the deck was a fringe build.
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Mystifying Maze
16 Island
Spells:
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Surge Node
4 Tumble Magnet
4 Lux Cannon
2 Titan Forge
2 Chimeric Mass
4 Voltaic Key
2 Unwinding Clock
4 Preordain
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
3 Trinket Mage
This is the list that I ran when it was standard legal. It is sort of a combination of the 3 above archetypes. It could power out a turn 3 Destructive Force or Karn Liberated and wasn't terrible in the days of the Splinter Twin, Tempered Steel, Delver, and Valakut standard enviroment. Infect damage is the primary win condition aside from grinding the game out and the opponent conceding. The proliferate cards worked well but ultimately proved too slow for modern in my inital testing.
4 Trinket Mage
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
Spells
4 Destructive Force
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
Artifacts
4 Surge Node
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Lux Cannon
4 Voltaic Key
4 Contagion Clasp
2 Unwinding Clock
3 Karn Liberated
Manabase
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Halimar Depths
4 Scalding Tarn
6 Mountain
2 Island
3 Combust
3 Pyroclasm
4 Spell Pierce
3 Torpor Orb
2 Wurmcoil Engine
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
I think it would be relevant to add a section where you discuss individual matchups, with suggestions, strengths, weaknesses etc., at least for a few of the top decks in the meta.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Protection for the artifacts isn't really something that I personally try to use. I would rather have more chalices than ways to protect one. Playing redundant artifacts is often faster and better for you than a one time protection. The best hexproof guy is Padeem, Consul of Innovation. He actually seems pretty decent but is really only good in an artifact heavy mid-late game build. I am currently focused on fast ramp into threats, hitting hard and fast.
There are very few match-ups game 1 where we are facing artifact destruction. The biggest things that hurt us in game 1 are Abrupt Decay, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Maelstrom Pulse, Kolaghan's Command, Negate, and Cryptic Command.
These are most common in various control lists, Grixis, Rock, Jund, and Abzan. We have relatively bad matchups with all of these fair mid-range decks game 1 and possibly worse games 2-3. Grixis is the easiest of these 4, but still not favorable in the slightest.
While I could try to tune the deck to be better than these decks at their own game or protect my own plans more, I just see them as acceptable losses right now and focus on crushing the aggro, combo, and other ramp decks. The control matches can be somewhat difficult but they often give us enough time to cast a large threat and win.
I am starting to write a full match-up for the deck and different sideboarding options and it will be updated as I finish parts of it.
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
Any use for Geier Reach Sanitarium? Double Mikokoro on the field with all the many available sounds like a good plan to keep drawing gas.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
I have also added two more deck lists to the main post that you might be interested in testing instead.
Geier Reach Sanitarium is a filter effect so it doesn't really help the deck. Usually we will be able to either spit out or hand and are looking for a finisher, or we have a finisher in hand and we are looking for a way to ramp into it. The deck doesn't really hold a lot of cards in hand to be used by a filter land potentially. I think Sea Gate Wreckage would be a better card to run if looking for additional draw effects from your lands.
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
EDIT: list posted above by dralin619 is very close to what I'm working with, I am using one Atlas one Temple Bell and one Voltaic to get a toolbox effect. I am also using four Chalice of the void on the SB.
Thanks for posting another combo list. I like to see how other people try to put it together.
You say that you are having trouble against fast aggro, control decks, and probably midrange abzan/jund, eldrazi along with 8 rack. That seems like a decent portion of the meta and you could tune your list to be better against the fast aggro or the control decks. Your list looks like an all-in combo version that has no way to interact with the opponent outside of the combo.
I'll offer some input on the cards that I don't think really have a place or could be replaced with something better that does something similar
Reshape
I think that reshape is directly worse than Whir of Invention. Personally I would rely on Ancient Stirrings, Otherworld Atlas, and Tezzeret's Gambit as your ways to dig for the paradox engine. If you still want to go the tutor route, I would increase the number of Whir of Invention to 4 and add 2 more Otherworld Atlas with the open spots. I don't see which artifacts you will really want to be sacrificing to use reshape. The card also gives the opponent card advantage because we have to sacrifice an otherwise beneficial artifact. Whir of Invention only costs U more compared with reshape while being both instant speed and using improvise. You can search for the piece you need at the end of their turn or after they tapped out and then win on your following turn.
Aetherflux Reservoir
I originally looked at this card when considering the combo version of the deck. It is a little over the top. It seems like a natural include since we can essentially play our entire deck during the combo. That said, with no other ways to gain life, I think you will be hard pressed to ever get to 50 life. Playing ~49 spells in a game after casting the reservoir seems hard and you could have easily decked the opponent many times before then with Otherworld Atlas or won some other way. I also notice you don't have any way to reshuffle your graveyard into your library, so you won't ever have at most 49 spells to cast. I think if you are looking for a way to win with damage rather than mill, I would look into Devil's Play. It has flashback so we can cast it from the graveyard if needed. It helps a little bit against aggro decks giving you at least one card that can interact and can be cast after it has been countered or discarded. This is probably the second best card to win with after the mill route.
Temple Bell
I agree with you that temple bell should not be in the list. For only 1 more mana we get Otherworld Atlas that has the potential to draw many more cards at once and can guarantee that we will combo off if we already have engine in play.
Lotus Bloom
I really like the card for it's ability to provide some good one time ramp. I don't think it synergizes with the rest of the deck. This isn't really a bad thing, but it seems like something you only really want to have to help against midrange / control or post sideboard to still ramp through artifact hate. Lotus Bloom can only be suspended and not cast on the spot. You can't use it as a cheap artifact to help combo off. I suggest trying Voltaic Key out because it has a lot of synergy with almost every card in the deck. It can be used to help ramp directly, or to add another charge counter to a chalice or atlas. It can also double the cards that you draw with atlas and that is huge when trying to go for a quick win. I'm not opposed to the lotus blooms, but I think it is wasted space and they are better in a list that does not have such a good ramp shell already to work with.
Paradoxical Outcome
I think this card needs testing. I can only see it being useful in two situations. You are facing something along the lines of Creeping Corrosion or Shattering Spree or you are using it to draw a bunch of cards in the hopes of comboing off. It could potentially give you more gas mid combo, but I do not think it is needed when using Otherworld Atlas to draw cards. Using this card without a Paradox Engine in play means that we reset our ramp to draw 3-6 cards most of the time. I don't think this is an ideal trade for us because the ramp is one of the things we rely on. Mainly, I just see this card as being a dead draw most of the time and it is pretty steep at 4 mana.
This would leave two slots in the main deck for some way to shore up your weaker match-ups. I think it would be easiest to try and find a way to buy time against aggro. Elixir of Immortality is a cheap way to gain 5 life and put more cards back into your library. Wurmcoil Engine or Batterskull are both possibilities because they dodge different removal while gaining a fair amount of life. It depends on your list, but I prefer Wurmcoil Engine to Batterskull. Maybe something like Secure the Wastes or White Sun's Zenith could be used to buy time against fair decks or put a lot of pressure on a slower opponent.
If you haven't considered it, Wildfire is an absolute house. It kills 90% of the creatures being played currently and helps to reinforce some of our better match-ups. It can also be used agaisnt an unsuspecting opponent who taps out after turn 3. It is very devastating and will usually buy you a few turns at least to combo out.
I think nature's claim is an automatic 4 of. We need it against opponents who can play Stony Silence. That card shuts off our entire deck and not having a nature's claim is almost always gg. It is great against affinity. Nature's claim can also help against burn if you are that worried by using it on our own artifacts to gain life.
Spellskite is a good card and helps agaisnt Jund. It can also help against any other decks that run a few artifact destruction spells. It is good against burn and some weenie decks. Since you are in U you won't often be paying life to activate it. I kind of see it and Welding Jar sharing similar roles. Spellskite is better than Welding Jar most of the time and should be a 4 or 3 of.
I agree that Chalice of the Void isn't a great fit for the deck. I is a 0 cmc artifact and we can manipulate it really well, but I don't think there are many decks that we would want to bring it in against. Most of the matches that this is helpful, we aren't too bad against. If you really fear cards that cost 1 - 3 you can run it, but I wouldn't rely on it winning you those games.
When I first built the deck, I was having problems with control, and decided to run Defense Grid. I learned pretty quickly that most of the things control decks could do that hurt me during my turn, they could also just cast during their own turn. Cards like Cryptic Command and Kolghan's Command. It isn't hard to play around a Mana Leak, Rune Snag or even Negate. The deck laughs at Remand and there aren't many other counters that people run. There are a few ways to play matches against control, either by putting early pressure on them with something like Wurmcoil Engine, Master of Etherium, Thrun, the Last Troll. If you were in red, Kuldotha Phoenix is a good card against counterspells and discard. You can also use Otherworld Atlas to draw more cards/threats than they have mana to counter, even if they have 10 counterspells in hand. The last way to play against them is to simply slow down, think about the game from their perspective and guess what they have in hand by the mana they leave open and the spells they cast. You can just wait until they think their play is tapping out for and try to win that next turn.
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I misread Aetherflux Reservoir for sure. Different question about it then as it is easy to win with, how often do you have more than 1 spell to cast per turn if you don't get this down early?
Also thanks for clarifying that about Lotus Bloom. I didn't even think to tutor into it as ramp. That is a really nice target with the search spells. How often do you search up more than 1 in a game? Do you just try to use it the turn you combo off or more as a general ritual effect? A 1/1 split between this and Elixir of Immortality could give you more tutor effects while only fetching a Lotus Bloom for when you combo off. This could give you a secondary way to win while comboing off. It would help you against something like Leyline of Sanctity.
I'm not sure the discard route is the best sideboard option. We would want to cast these in the first couple of turns and with such few B sources, I don't think you would reliably be able to cast them on turn 1. What decks would you be bringing these cards in against?
The same is true for Abrupt Decay. While it would be great in a number of match-ups, it is not anywhere near as good as Nature's Claim against Stony Silence. You would need 2 colored sources and with only 8 lands in the deck that are in color, it would be very hard. You could cast it if you had one in hand, but on the draw it becomes much harder if they get one on turn 2. It would also not allow you to tap out in fear that they would just shut you down. Junk, some Jund lists, Sun + Moon, GW Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Naya Zoo, UW and Esper Control are just the more heavily played lists that you will run into that play Stony Silence. I could see Abrubt as a 3 of in the side to buy time against a variety of decks and allow some interaction. I think it should be ran in addition to Nature's Claim as they both have their uses and are better in different match-ups. Maybe 3/3 split.
The tron lands wouldn't work in this deck unless it was colorless and even then it wouldn't help all that much. We only run ~18 lands and want 4 Darksteel Citadel. We also want to run Inventors' Fair. That doesn't sound like a bad mana set-up for mono colorless but it would only add more random nut draws at the cost of interaction. Tron uses artifacts to generate colors and lands to ramp with. We are the opposite and use artifacts to ramp with and our lands and some artifacts for our colors. We would lose so many tools. Being able to reliably cast Wildfire on turn 3 is huge for the deck as it allows a single karn, ugin, or wurmcoil engine to take over the game. I used to run 6 wildfire effects in the main until I went a more explosive route with the planeswalkers.
I have ~120 games in with the Karn/Ugin list on MTGO and maybe 15 games in with the Paradox Combo list. Both have pretty similar matchups and different tools to combat them. Both are fun to play and I will probably continue to play both versions as they each offer a different feel.
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I was saying that running a single Elixir of Immortality maindeck would help against aggro while giving you an alternate win condition in the case of milling out the opponent and making them overdraw. Elixir can just be cast over and over again to constantly reshuffle cards from the graveyard back into the deck and then only using Otherworld Atlas after casting some spells or mox opals or whatever really. So long as they get to the graveyard during the combo turn.
I have considered Ensnaring Bridge. I haven't done any testing with it due to the price on mtgo, but I don't really think that it is needed in my list. While the combo list is slightly worse off against aggro decks than the Ugin/Wurmcoil route, we can still combo out before they kill us most of the time. It might help against Midrange and Control by buying us some time. In the route running tutors, I think it can be a good card to include as a 1 of somewhere in the 75.
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After a Paradox Engine resolves, it is almost always gg. I have only lost one game in testing when I have an Atlas on the board and then drawing into an Engine with it. That match was against Ad Nauseam and they were surprisingly resilient against Wildfire with so much artifact mana of their own. He was able to combo off when I started my combo.
I'm toying around with my sideboard for the combo vers and right now it looks something like this.
3 Blood Moon
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Nature's Claim
2 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Spellskite
It is able to deal with most of the things that threaten us post-board. Blood Moon can be great on the play game 2 or 3 coming in and suprising them turn 2. It buys a lot of time against tron, control, 2 color decks that aren't red, and other 3 color decks.
Anger of the Gods helps against fast aggro decks that can win turn 4 or before consistently and don't need to interact with us. Decks like Mono Green Stompy, Affinity, Zoo, 8-Whack, and possibly elves. It deals with troublesome creatures that Wildfire cannot. With no Ugin in the deck, Wildfire is our only sweeper. Anger gets rid of Voice of Resurgence, Kitchen Finks, Strangleroot Geist, Bloodghast, Nacromeba, etc.
Natures Claim is a must because Stony Silence is the single best card against the deck. It is GG without cheap, easy to cast Enchantment removal. It also is a bonus against Affinity, and helps us against Burn by targeting our own artifacts.
Wurmcoil is great against so many decks. Bringing them in game 2 or 3 can really surprise the opponent and stall the board out long enough to combo out. It is good against just about every deck not running path when you can cast it early. Buying time against the midrange decks and being bigger than any of their creatures really helps with some of the bad match-ups.
Spellskite is a good multi-use card as well. Helps against a variety of things that can hurt us. Targeted artifact removal, burn spells, and bounce spells mostly.
I also added 1 more Everflowing Chalice putting the main deck up to 61 cards. Going to run it and see how it feels consistence wise. I used to run 1 in the side and bring it in against grindier decks that have more than just 1 way to interact with the artifacts.
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4x Astral Cornucopia
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Chimeric Mass
4x Engineered Explosives
4x Everflowing Chalice
4x Ghirapur Orrery
1x Lux Cannon
4x Mox Opal
4x Pentad Prism
4x Surge Node
3x Voltaic Key
2x Academy Ruins
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Glimmervoid
2x Inventors' Fair
4x Spire of Industry
4x Coretapper
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I have never even seen Ignorant Bliss. It seems like a good way to combat discard but is only limited to that. I don't see it as being very helpful due to the fact that discard only hits us in the early turns really when the deck doesn't have the mana to utilize the card.
Batterskull is nice as a finisher and is a little more resilient than a Wurmcoil Engine. It depends on the match, but Wurmcoil is usually better against any deck that isn't running white.
All is Dust is an alright card. If you are running it, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is almost always better. At the cost of 1 more mana, we get the ability to exile colored permanents up to 7cmc. He also comes with a repeatable lightning bolt effect and his ultimate is just bonkers usually winning on the spot or the turn after we use it.
The manabase is pretty tight and I don't think it could support Cavern of Souls. At least, I don't think we could reliably have it in hand when we needed it. If we are looking for uncounterable creatures, I think there are better options. Thrun, the Last Troll seems pretty good in a control heavy environment.
Artifact sweepers like Shatterstorm or Creeping Corrosion aren't traditionally ran in most decks. Against the ones that do run them, we might have just enough time to combo off or cast Wildfire due to them not being cast until turn 3 at the earliest. The main artifact hate cards that we run into are things like Abrupt Decay, Kolaghan's Command, Vandalblast, Ancient Grudge, Shattering Spree, Crush, Disenchant, Nature's Claim, and Reclamation Sage. Cards like Engineered Explosives or Ratchet Bomb are also pretty real threats and can wipe all of our mana rocks at once.
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I have most of the pieces for the deck and like its idea, it is like back in the days with standard wildfire deck and I liked that a lot!! :-D
I took a little different way with the deck and I wanted to share my decklist and thoughts with you:
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Surge Node
4 Wildfire
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
4 Coretapper
4 Darksteel Ingot
2 Destructive Force
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Lux Cannon
3 Voltaic Key
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
2 Whir of Invention
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ghost Quarter
14 Mountains
I'll edit the thoughts to the deck when I got the time at home...
Edit:
So here are some thoughts and explanations for what I have done here.
First of all I don't own mox opals yet, that's why they aren't in here, also I wanted to test darksteel ingot. You can have multiples of them on the board, they produce any color(Whir of invention is a thing here) and they are indestructable but cost 3.
Win cons: obviously Wurmcoil Engine and second, Ghirapur Aether Grid . I have to say I love it atm. I wanted to play the grindier games, although the deck can be very explosive. (even without opal atm) that's why I don't want to play the otherworldly atlas combo win. With GAeG you can control the board. With 4 artifacts on the board you hit almost every good creature in modern which are no finishers... Snapcaster, bob, goblin guide for example and you can EoT hit the enemy(on the average you have 3-5 artifacts on the field) this also works even if you stare at a stony silence!
Whir of invention is so cool because basically you tutor for your deck instant speed with improvise. You can grab manarocks, silverbullets(like bridge) or wincon in form of wurmcoil engine. Yeah I know I don't play any Islands but it works very good so far with ingot and cornucopia.
Inventors' fair also helps a lot to get what you want and stalls the game via lifegain.
I got 1 spot left and don't know what to put in there, maybe another silver bullet... Like pithing needle
Edit2: I could add glimmervoid and spire of Industry to be able to cast Whir of invention more reliably. And to have more sideboard options.
Which is the next part of the deck which I have to do.
Blood Moon is the obvious choice here for so many decks.
Vandalblast for affinity matchups,
Defense grid against control, for gravehate there are some good choices and I don't know which to take.
Tormod's crypt, Relic of Progenitus, grafdiggers cage.
Also something to get rid of stony silence.
Edit3: against burn and discard I would go with Monastery Siege, it makes burn an discard a lot harder and protects your artifacts as well from the known artifact hate like decay wear/tear smash to smithereens and so on.
You could possibly use it as a card draw/filter engine to get cards you need.
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Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
Cool lists man. Welcome to MTGS. You can use the [ deck][/deck] tag so that your list will look like this.
// 18 Artifact
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Mox Opal
4 Surge Node
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Batterskull
// 12 Creature
4 Coretapper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Wurmcoil Engine
// 5 Instant
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Beast Within
// 1 Planeswalker
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
// 7 Sorcery
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Boom // Bust
4 Glimmervoid
2 Inventors' Fair
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Spire of Industry
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Island
// 5 Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
// 2 Creature
1 Thragtusk
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
// 5 Instant
1 Wear // Tear
2 Nature's Claim
2 Warping Wail
// 1 Land
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
// 2 Sorcery
1 Primal Command
1 Crumble to Dust
You seem to have a pretty good grasp of the deck and how it performs. Looking at it, I really like the gifts choices. It really allows for more of a toolbox style deck since you can usually ramp into an early gifts and then whatever you want to cast with it. The list seems like it would work pretty well and have mostly consistent results against fair decks. Was it proving to be about a turn slow or more against discard/counter heavy decks? (Jund, Abzan, Grixis) I think Gifts is a nice option but it maybe just be too slow for the current meta. I like the Goblin DD / Boom//Bust interaction also. Have you considered Wildfire? It has a wider impact against most decks being able to wipe the board most times but you would lose the Goblin DD interaction.
// 18 Artifact
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Mox Opal
4 Surge Node
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Batterskull
// 21 Creature
4 Coretapper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
2 Endbringer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Reality Smasher
3 Walking Ballista
4 Glimmervoid
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Spire of Industry
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Forest
// 4 Sorcery
4 Ancient Stirrings
// 7 Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Relic of Progenitus
// 1 Creature
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Grafdigger's cage
// 5 Instant
1 Wear // Tear
2 Nature's Claim
2 Warping Wail
// 1 Sorcery
1 Crumble to Dust
The Eldrazi variant seems quite spicy. It could hard cast them relatively easy with the temples or get them out faster with the ramp. The list lacks hard card advantage outside of Endbringer but makes up for it with a really high threat density compared to the usual lists. This list looks like it would be better against some of our worse match-ups (Jund, Abzan, possibly Grixis). I'm pretty interested to test an Eldrazi themed list on MTGO to see how it does.
I like the take on an artifact toolbox deck. I have considered building one and adding in either Tezzert the Seeker and/or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. Have you considered pentad prisim instead of Darksteel Ingot? I think it is the best card to potentially replace Mox Opal. It can't really be fetched with Whir of Invention and it's not indestructible nor can it always produce mana, it can run out. I think the benefits to using it could outweigh these negatives though as most decks do not run artifact destruction. Is Darksteel Ingot too slow at 3?
Are you finding that you need Ghirapur Aether Grid with 6 Wildfire effects? When I was running 6 maindeck, I rarely found that I needed more board control at that point but finishers. Aether Grid could be used as a finisher but I wonder if one of the Tezzeret's could fit into this slot. Agent of Bolas is used to increase consistency while the Seeker is used in toolbox builds. His ultimate is pretty good with Tezzeret's Gambit also potentially using both in one turn. Aether Grid comes down earlier and is in color though so it has that going for it.
Aside from that, this list looks pretty close to my build a few months ago with the addition of Ensnaring Bridge and Whir of Invention. I think they are both promising additions and this could head towards a toolbox style build. I recently stumbled upon Uba Mask and think the card would be great against anything draw-go. A 1 of maindeck Relic of Progenitus could be used to help against the Delver decks game 1 as it is a pretty bad match. Pithing Needle is also good and hits some things that mess us up like Engineered Explosives, Cranial Plating, Karn Liberated or Nahiri, the Harbinger.
What about Ward of Bones as a tutor target? This could be used to help lock the opponent out of the game and keep them on 1 land after a Wildfire. Jester's Cap could be a possible tutor target against combo decks. Mindlock Orb is possible in a search heavy meta. Monastery Siege seems nice but isn't tutorable. Witchbane Orb is good tutor target against most decks that want to target us but weak to early discard unlike Leyline of Sanctity. Orbs of Warding is also a potential target that helps against decks that try to go wide. Ethersworn Canonist is a card for storm or combo matches. There is also Sun Droplet or Clearwater Goblet for aggro/burn matches. A tutor version of the deck could be built many ways and I'm interested to see how it goes.
Good input guys, keep it coming.
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Pentad prism seems nice as a replacement for darksteel ingot. It gives us the possibility to convert colorless mana into colored with surge node and coretapper it's faster than ingot which is definitely a reason to try it out. You put charge counters on pentad prism so thats no big deal here.
Maybe I cut a lux cannon and 2 aether grid for 1 relic and 2 Tezzeret the seeker, also substitute darksteel ingot with pentad prism.
Uba mask is not that good as Defense grid against control, because it limits your play as well,for example the instant part on whir of invention is a big deal to use, but I love witchbane orb. I thought of ethersworn canonist as well but was not sure but with reworking the mana base he is a good addition.
I want silver bullets which aren't affected by stony silence.
And my finishers are creature based so I need a way to get my ensnaring bridge out of the way when I want to win, so maybe repeal is a thing.
Mana base: will cut mountains for 3 spires an 1 or 2 islands. (I am a little bit budget concerned so no glimmervoid atm.)
Clearwater goblet is included in my brain for sideboard
I'll try and will give some feedback after testing
Edit: added card tags
Edit2: I just found Trading Post, and it looks super cool for the deck and it is a very flexible card
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Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
I too am trying to use cards that can remove Stoney Silence from the equation and am playing 4 Whir of Invention for a toolbox approach. So far I am using single copies of Voltaic Key, Otherworld Atlas, Isochron Sceptre and Pithing Needle main deck and Whir can fetch me all of them.
For Stoney Silence I have several Cyclonic Rifts to act as removal should it get on board and Swan Song main deck which both deals with Stoney and works as a win condition with the Sceptre and Paradox engine in play. Outside of that I'm kinda screwed.
4x Coretapper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
2x Endbringer
3x Glint-Nest Crane
4x Thought-Knot Seer
1x World Breaker
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Astral Cornucopia
4x Everflowing Chalice
4x Mox Opal
4x Surge Node
1x Titan Forge
3x Voltaic Key
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Glimmervoid
2x Inventors' Fair
3x Spire of Industry
Sorcery (4)
4x Ancient Stirrings
Link for Playtesting
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/eldrazi-factory-3/
I just threw this list together as a tentative eldrazi list. I don't have a sideboard for it just yet but it should be simple enough to throw one together. I will add a sideboard and include a write up on card choices tomorrow.
edit: I am really liking this list. I can definitely see me playing it more. It does what the other Dice Factory builds can't do easily and that is pressure the opponent. All of the other versions go big and reach critical mass winning the game while this list grinds the opponent down with efficient creatures. The creature choices allow the deck to take on multiple roles against a variety of decks.
The list is a mix of Bant Eldrazi and Eldrazi Tron. It can be as fast as Bant Eldrazi while applying almost as much pressure but can also go big like Eldrazi Tron. All of the pressure helps make sideboarding in artifact hate against the deck that much harder and the list can get around Stony Silence pretty well.
Eldrazi Displacer is here as an early threat. As a 3 drop, it comes down often turn 2 and can apply pressure or be used as a mana sink to put a soft lock on the opponent. It also combos well with Glint-Nest Crane and sometimes Thought Knot Seer.
Endbringer is another well-rounded versatile threat. He's a pinger, a card-advantage engine, and a potential lock piece. He can help us get in some damage against bigger creatures. This guy is really great to see on the board and he boasts a 5/5 body as well. Costing 5C
Thought Knot Seer really needs no explanation. It is such a good card and one of the main reasons to play an eldrazi list. This guy really brings the pain.
World Breaker is here as a 1 of. It could be Batterskull or another Wurmcoil Engine possibly. I like World Breaker here as something you could recur if discarded and it gives the deck main deck hope against something like Ensnaring Bridge.
Titan Forge is pretty good in the list if they manage to kill your Eldrazi. It gives us somewhat of another card advantage engine. Pumping out 9/9's is pretty good when your creatures just aren't big enough. You only ever need to make 1 or 2 before the enemy realizes they can't fight it. It also provides us a good mana sink mid-late game and something to do with excess charge counters.
Maybe Phyrexian Metamorph has a place in here as a 1 of or possibly in the sideboard. I plan to do a bunch of testing on mtgo with this list in its current state and will report back some of my observations.
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I'll still play a toolbox but I will change it a bit. Clearwater goblet looks nice but is a pain in the ass to set up, first sun droplet seemed bad but it is faster, more easy to set up and gives 2 life every turn.
That is ok. I thought about golem's heart as well but it is only good when you play it first. In the late game it is dead.
My toolbox will be:
Win con's will be wurmcoil and ghirapur aether grid.
Mana base will stay with 11 mountains 2 inventors'fair
3 spire of industry and a ghost quarter.
I replaced the darksteel ingot with pentad prism and in the build with tezzeret the seeker it was just bad but in a build with Tezzeret the Seeker or GAeG it will work. Still I want my artifacts to not be one use only things so darksteel ingot looks better for me.
So I will stay with mostly the same build as before except the changes for the toolbox
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Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
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4x Astral Cornucopia
1x Batterskull
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
4x Mox Opal
1x Pithing Needle
4x Surge Node
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Thopter Foundry
1x Ward of Bones
1x Academy Ruins
4x Darksteel Citadel
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Glimmervoid
1x Inventors' Fair
6x Island
Instant (3)
3x Whir of Invention
Planeswalker (3)
3x Tezzeret the Seeker
4x Coretapper
4x Glint-Nest Crane
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Spellskite
Sorcery (4)
4x Boom // Bust
Link for Playtesting
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/toolbox-factory/
The list I ended up with is alright I guess. I am not sure if I want to bring it below 62 cards or not. It can usually tutor on turn 3 for whichever tool is best needed at the time. It relies heavily on Ensnaring Bridge to buy time. Boom // Bust is pretty decent in the build and is a good alternative to Wildfire. With Ensnaring Bridge taking care of creatures, Wildfire isn't needed as removal. Boom//Bust combos well with Darksteel Citadel early game and has the potential to keep the opponent on one land with Ward of Bones in play late game.
I have also included Sword of the Meek / Thopter Foundry combo to give the deck an alternate direction if needed. The thopters can attack through Ensnaring Bridge and we can really make use of our excess mana this way. I dropped Voltaic Key from the list because there simply aren't enough artifacts with tap abilities to warrant it. I also run it as a 3-4 of when I use it and wasting a tutor spell on one just seems like a really slow play.
Expedition Map can find Inventors' Fair, Academy Ruins, and Ghost Quarter. We can recur the sweet abilities or get lands back after Boom//Bust with a Crucible of Worlds. Academy Ruins gets whatever back from the graveyard and Inventors' Fair tutors whatever we need from the deck. Ghost Quarter can be used over and over especially against decks that run few basics. We don't need to play lands after the first couple most of the time and reusing a Ghost Quarter ever turn could really hurt 2 and 3 color decks.
Elixir of Immortality helps us to stabilize nearly as well as Sun Droplet while doing more immediately. It can reshuffle your tutors or dead creatures back into the deck to give you a better mid-game. Sun Droplet is only better than Elixir against burn. Against creature based decks, Ensnaring Bridge should just get there.
I went with Batterskull over Wurmcoil Engine for this list because it is much more resilient. We can equip it to a thopter token and get above the enemy for 5 lifelink. It comes down a turn sooner and in a list without Voltaic Key, the vigilance is much more relevant. Batterskull is an alternative to the Bridge lock against decks that don't mind it.
I don't have a sideboard just yet for the list and need to do a lot more testing. I'm thinking it will look something like this.
1 Lux Cannon
1 Grindclock
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sun Droplet
3 Swan Song
1 Dispel
1 Cryptic Command
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Relic of Progenitus
Sideboard is all over the place, mainly so I can test different things in different matches.
Overall, I think the toolbox version is probably the most difficult version of this deck to pilot correctly. There are just so many different lines of play. I am not sure if this would be better than any of the other versions that I have already built in mtgo. I don't own Batterskull or Ensnaring Bridge on mtgo currently and don't really see me buying them any time soon due to them being $40+ each. I might revisit this version later on down the line. Without much testing, I can't say for sure which match-ups this would be better/worse in.
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Orochi Hatchery
It can be fetched with whir of invention for 0 or with inventor's fair, with XX as a casting cost we can swarm our opponent with snakes.
I'll try it out
@redbaron the list looks nice, but I'm not sure if the thopter sword combo is that good, but I can imagine it can do well in some situations.
I need to playtest that more to get better information and understanding of the playstyle
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
I want to play this list, but I am not sure if I have to switch something in there, so please let me hear your suggestions. Like I said no combo win included.
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Surge node
4 Wildfire
4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
4 Coretapper
2 Destructive Force
2 Whir of Invention
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Orochi Hatchery
1 Voltaic Key
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Trading Post
1 Lux Cannon
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Orb of Warding
1 Sun Droplet
2 Spire of Industry
2 Inventor's Fair
12 Mountains
That's my list so far with 61 cards at the moment.
My sideboard may look like this
I will write something about the choices later when I have more time. What could I include in the sideboard as the last spot or what could be changed?
I don't know what decks I have to expect, so I want to have something against everything... As far as that is possible.
"Well, then we will at least fight in the shadow"
"There is no glory to be gained in the kingdom of the dead!"
Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy