Funnily enough, about the Tron game I was recounting: my T1 map into T2 double Prism, T3 Smashing Tezz met by his T3 Karn that's dead to a 5/5 next turn anyway. Well HERE if T4 I would have cracked my Map for a GQ and put him off Tron for the upcoming turn, he couldn't have cast and cracked his O-Stone the same turn ; right there I believe I possibly could've won. Unfortunately, his T1 Needle naming «GQ» prevented me from taking that line. I think this is a real-life example of how useful Map can be, even (especially?) against the bad match-ups. I mean, Map and Tolaria are now my MB GQs #3 and 4.
So about Map and Tolaria being slow, there's a window where grabbing the right bullet when you're the beatdown can be very valuable, for little opportunity cost like we said. The other situation where I want to see them tutors is when the board is stabilized but game is not won yet and you're topdecking. This is 95% of the time sitting being a Bridge. In such a situation, my point about Tolaria and Map being able to get a Fair and go infinite on Crucible is not that I actually intend to take this dream line all the time, of course not because it's so slow; my point is that the possibilities are seemingly limitless. To name a few:
- Need Bridge protection? Map/West -> Jar and/or Ruins to get back a used Jar.
- Staring at an Abzan CoCo, Flickerwisp-Hatebear, Kiki-Chord, or Affinity board behind a Bridge, with spare mana? Map/West -> Ballista and go to town.
- Affinity pulls an Aether Grid and starts gunning you down? Map/West -> Fair -> Needle.
- Whatever deck goes all Lingering Souls on you? Map/West -> EE.
- And the list goes on, I'm sure more situations will come up where Chalice of the void et al. will be a valuable ressource to us.
The best part of it is that, given time, all of these lines can involve grabbing a Crucible and slowly «going off» with Fair, giving you inevitability, while you keep playing your regular game on the surface and opponent has no clue of what's going on there. But even better, this is happening to very little opportunity cost, like you said.
I'd rather get access to these lines than topdeck a River of Tears. So I'll be testing, and I encourage you guys to do such as well. Even if it turns out bad like you expect, we'll find out sooner if I'm not alone testing in my grindy metagame.
@Magpie842:
When SotM was unbanned, we started on a 4/4 split. We quickly realized that a Foundry on it's own is a bit underwhelming, yes, but at least you still get some value out of it. On the other hand, a Sword of the Meek on it's own is horrible, mostly useless (huge-ass Skites and Cranes don't count). Hence why we want to draw it slightly less often than the Foundry, and the 4/3 initial split. Then we got access to two more virtual copies in Inventors' Fair (down to one now), and then four more with Whir of Invention. So dropping down to 3/2 still gives you lots of opportunities to assemble the combo. 2/2 is fine too, I guess, but the rule of one-less-sword-than-foundry always served me well so I'd stick to it.
@Reedy26:
I'm running Trading Post mainly because the top list were all running it, because I find it kind of clunky and slow most times. For recursion, we already have Academy Ruins (now 3x if we count Map and Tolaria West as copies), and countless copies and tutors for Thopter-Sword for lifegain. I guess its abilities to make chumpers against Goyfs AND to draw you cards when you're digging for something, ON TOP of those first two features make the power of the card. Versatility. But it's slow and grindy for sure. This being said, I drew it against Burn the other day and it 100% won the me the game on it's own. I mean, every card I topdecked from there on read: «1: discard this card to gain 4 life». Can't beat that! So I'll bring it in against anything I need lifegain badly, or when I'm aiming at grinding including against K-Command / Grudge decks where I can be recurring stuff to stay alive. However it's spot is not set in stone.
On your deck construction: when I was rocking the full playset of Cranes a couple months back (represent!), my testing led me to run 25 artifacts MB to hit reliably. You seem a little low there; but there's an argument to be made that Crane is digging you toward your big pieces anyways. And if I'm not running it today, it's really that Infect and Affinity and non-existent in my meta ATM. Love this card.
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Regarding Welding Jars: I like me some K-Command / Maelstrom Pulse / Abrupt Decay / Qasali Pridemage / Shatter counterspell & discard spell hybrid ('cause that's what you'd take) that sits on board with massive synergy with the rest of our deck!
When you have a Bridge and a Jar, the rest hardly matters. You MAKE TIME.
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
The opener I like to see looks like: 2x Lands at least, 1x mana artifact (Prism, Map, Opal if enabler is present), and a payoff card at least (Whir, Tezz, Bridge), then some measure of disruption between Brutality and Fatal Push. Then look for card selection: Bauble + fetch; then consider if you're on the draw, you'll get one more chance to hit a winning recipe.
Man, on sideboarding I'll have to get back to you. Gotta leave to work now.
For now, some rough guidelines upon which I suggest you reflect:
1. Are you the beatdown?
2. Is there grind potential?
3. What silver-bullet do you have access to?
4. What hate do you expect from them?
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
So I've been looking at the map/tolaria west thing and I have two relevant questions:
1) How do we beat tron, and specifically is ghost quarter effective? ghost quarter + crucible reliably effective?
2) How do people find engineered explosives? My build does not have a third colour, so I'm doing it for 0-1-2 only, and at 2 it would kill off my talismans, foundries, and swords (cranes too if I'm using them) which makes it sketchier. Ruins+EE is often great, but not sure it actually works well here.
That's my thought. If I'm using tolaria 90% of time to get ruins it should probably just be another academy ruins. Map at least provides cheap improvise and gets hit by tez/crane so there's some theoretical advantage to playing it over a second ruins if that's all I usually use it for.
I'd think the only time I'm getting inventors fair is if I already have ruins or my gy has been nuked. Next targets are GQ and explosives - so really depends how good those cards are.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
As you can see i've opted for a singleton godless shrine for engineered explosives purposes, instead of spire of industry. I can afford the microsplash because i'm not playing triple blue for whir of invention, and also it doesn't deal me that much more damage than spire would. Playing godless shrines also gives me 8 virtual white sources that i can fetch if needed, as opposed to only 2x spires.
Wednesday went 4-0
R1 win 2-0 vs mono green devotion, G1 i was able to kill all his creatures and he didn't get to cast any of his big spell. G2 was more or less the same.
R2 with win 2-1 vs breaking // entering combo, G1 i had nihil spellbomb and just assumed it stopped the combo, but it doesn't because the milling and reanimating all happen as part of the resolution of the spell. G2 and 3 i was lucky enough to have early grafdigger's cage, and i was able to grind through a bunch of beck // calls. Whatever, the deck just got rule-banned...
R3 win 2-0 vs knightfall, it was the first time my opponent played this deck so he didn't play optimally at all. G1 was able to trick my opponent with needle on a fetch, which is valuable vs the combo. Later he though he had the win and combed off with knight of the reliquary + retreat to coralhelm, losing a bunch of life to his lands, but i had a nihil spellbomb at the ready to shrink his knight. I untapped with my tezz on 4 and ulted ftw. G2 i was able to executioner's capsule his selfless spirit, followed by damnation ftw.
R4 win 2-0 vs mardu tokens/midrange, very grindy and long games, by my value got there. Scrap trawler in particular was awesome, as was herald of anguish. Glint-nest crane did overtime by blocking lingering souls tokens all day.
Thurdays went 2-2
R1 win 2-1 vs melira CoCo, G1 got comboed and i didn't have any interaction. Had more luck G2 and 3, thanks to grafdigger's cage was able to grind G2. G3 my opponent had 4 mana dork out by turn 3, plus gavony township. Luckily a timely EE solved that issue.
R2 loss 1-2 vs bant aura hexproof. Basically bogles with geist of saint traft and Sram, senior edificer. Had some trouble vs this deck, we my opponent has a huge trampling threat with hexproof and totem armors, there is not much i could do. This is the matchup were Liliana of the veil or ensnaring bridge would help a lot.
R3 win 2-0 vs u/w control. Very grindy long games, but thopter foundry + sword of the meek got there G1, cryptic command and supreme verdict only delay the inevitable. G2 opponent mulled to 5 but the game goes long and he gets to draw a bunch of card with ancestral vision. My opponent had rest in peace but i got to EE it, and later sacced a big hangarback walker to foundry for a bunch of tokens ftw.
R4 loss 1-2 vs ad nauseam. My deck is not designed to beat this sort of deck. G1 my only chance is to needle lightning storm and have an executioner's capsule ready to kill laboratory maniac, bypassing pact of negation. I almost got there G1, got the needle in my opener, but i missed my third land drop, which delayed my plan of trinket mage-ing and casting capsule before lotus bloom resolved. Drew the land one turn too late, basically. G2 My opponent had a slow start and tezz -1s raced me to victory. G3 everything was under control, i had needle + capsule + mana up, but no clock. My opponent evetually drew hurkyl's recall and cast it in my end step. He had phyrexian unlife and was at ten, and i had echoing truth ready to bounce the enchantment. He then spoils of the vault for ad nauseam and got lucky enough to get the card with 4 life remaining (if he got negative life i just bounce unlife ftw). On his turn he ad naus, i echoing truth the unlife, but he had back up angel's grace ftw... Unfortunate but the games were closer than i though they would be.
So, I played 4 rounds of modern tonight (LGS event). I really wanted to be on radouf's "turbo package", but alas I don't have the baubles for it.
I suppose I didn't actually copyright the turbo package =/ but Radouf is cool so moving on...haha
GQ + Crucible is not a guaranteed win vs. Tron unless you have it out before they cast Karn. The scenario's are usually as follows:
1) Crucible online AND a GQ activation before their 3rd piece (Our 3rd/4th turn when we're on the play or our 2nd/3rd turn when they're on the play), this obviously requires accelerated mana and Whir is just not fast enough.
2) Needle for their first threat and then Crucible + GQ
3) Pressure, for us in the form of Herald and/or Tezz beats + needle.
Unfortunately, Whir for crucible is usually not fast enough to get the crucible lock because they're already casting their big stuff by then. I usually have to whir for needle or bridge. Unless you get the nut draw for crucible you will not be able to stop them in time because you need the mana off GQ to cast crucible before they go off. Obviously, if they stumble on assembling tron or you already have needle crucible-lock becomes more reasonable.
Regarding EE, yes it hits foundry/prisms etc. but it's great at pulling us back into the game. If we have Foundry + sword we're probably already winning the match. When we don't, EE helps stabilize. Prism is not a diamond ring; it's their to accelerate us and that's it. Don't hesitate to use counters for things like push/inq, and don't hesitate to blow it up with EE if it sets your opponent back. EE is great when we're behind and mediocre when we're ahead, and that's a fine card for this type of deck. When it's mediocre it still is a zero-cost artifact for metalcraft, an animation target for Tezz, and fodder for foundry. I keep 1 in the board.
Regarding hands, I wanna see something close to 2 lands, a prism, a push, and 1 of bridge/whir/tezz or obviously thopter/sword/whir (pick 2)
Ballista is not terrible at all. It serves as push #5 or arc trail #1 when that's good. It can also pressure PWs (Tron) pretty well. Unfortunately a good amount of decks that it's strong against usually have stony post-board but I like it better than foundry in those matchups so it's fine.
Note: In the video, Gerry Thompson credits a tweet by Zac Elsik (mentioning MTGSalvation in passing). In the comments in the article, however, Zac Elsik credits you.
That said, it was great watching Gerry wreck a bunch of opponents even with a mistake or two. As he puts it, this deck is gas!
I checked the thread and did not see it, then I started writing my post but had to attend to something else before posting, so hour posts crossed like ships on a darkened ocean (I never get that expression, they have radar and lights, no?). Sorry about that. I've only watched the first three matches, but it is kinda fun to watch him going from being skeptical to "this is gas!"
Hey thanks for the heads up guys, and credits, although I really consider this a collective thing. I'm just really glad that the deck is showcase, and after watching the whole serie, gotta say it's looking good. Like you said Zac: even through some pretty big mistakes (Whir into the wrong half of the combo haha, or letting Baubles sit on the field forever, cutting himself off free cards), the deck just carries him to victory each time. That's saying something about the consistency of the engine!
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Double post because lots of questions asked, dang.
@Alphabetagames: as I don't have the time to write-up a comprehensive SB guide for against all the other decks of our pretty open format, can you ask what specific match-ups you want SBing tips against?
@BadMcFadden: you beat Tron by disrupting their game plan while presenting a quick clock. So it's either Thoughtseize (or Negate or Needle) and they had a threat-light hand or either GQ (Surgical is excellent here) and they had a land-light hand, while powering out a T3 beater. There if they have the Claim, you have to have the Jar. Map or Tolaria West can be useful here as fetching the GQ they can break their Tron on turn 3 or 4 and buy you a couple turns to beat down in the process. If you land a Lili ticking up and munching at their hand, you still got to find a quick clock otherwise if you don't reach ultimate, their topdecks will eat (exile, technically) yours. It's not reliable but it's the best we got so far. Haven't GQ-locked a Tron opponent yet so can't tell, but I've seen it done in Lantern. EE is ok in my experience, just not great anymore. Loads synergistic though. /e: what Trav says.
/edit: @Trav34: Hadn't seen your answer to BadMcFadden, I agree with you all the way. Our experience against Tron seem consistent!
@Magpie842: Walking Ballista is a theoretical alternate wincon to Tezz to kill people from behind a Bridge, and that you can recur with Academy Ruins for value. It also guns down critters from creature-based combo when you're at a board stall. It is Tolaria West fetchable, although that's even more experimental. Noteworthy that for a long time, people in this thread have been looking for the ideal alternate win-con for when we're locked down under a Bridge and we don't have access to Tezz and/or Foundry (in case of Extraction for instance). In this alternate win-con slot, Mechanized Production (on Welding Jar) is also testing worthy in my opinion as it works wonders in Lantern control.
@Reedy: Lol yeah @faces. What bullets do you think we/you need? (That will fix match-ups where Tezz/Bridge/Thopter-Sword won't already win you the game)
I think the mainboard is pretty locked tight, I did drop one fatal push for a pithing needle main, because aside from bridge and combo, it is my the target I whir for most often.
Most of the difference for me are in the sideboard, and sideboard is always subjective to the meta you expect. I think the easy cuts from radoufs lists are trading post and jester's cap. While cute they both are a little slower than I want to be, even though they represent whir-able targets.
I have never gotten much value off of padeem, but maybe someone has some insight into why this guy is worth the slot. I see him as the least synergistic part of the deck as he is not an artifact, so can't be found with our toolbox. Add onto that being a creature, I feel like he is just working against what the deck is trying to do. Could be a meta call if there is a ton of ancient grudge/nature's claims in your meta, but most of the hate I see is stony silence and grafdiggers. Always seemed too unreliable and as a one of in a toolbox deck, I just never got to see him when I wanted. If a similar effect was on a CMC 4 artifact it would be an easy include though.
Herald of anguish is the all-star in the sideboard for me atm, basically giving another huge payoff for running 20+ artifacts in the deck. 3 Seems right and has won me more games than any other sideboard card.
I tried a copy of tolaria west, and I agree with the people saying its too slow. Map helps a lot by letting us find our lands, but Whir for map for tolaria for ballista is WAY to mana intensive to ever actually do, especially when whir for map for Fair for crucible is much more synergistic and rewards rather than punishes you for doing it in small parts and gives more inevitability.
First things first. Shutout to Gerry and Zac for getting this sweet deck some time in the limelight. The deck is criminally underplayed right now.
Second. I was very interested to see the Mishra's Bauble style list in action since I have done no testing with that card. I have to admit the Mishra's Baubles looked pretty powerful. The downside of waiting a turn for a card was largely mitigated by having Whir of Invention a turn early our Ensnaring Bridge on the battlefield. However it makes the deck extremely susceptible to Stony Silence by having so many zero cost artifacts with activated abilities.
Third. Do we have anyone representing in Worcester this weekend? I was unable to attend but I am hoping we can get some Tezzeret pilots down there.
Fourth. I am going to wait out the next B&R announcement before changing the Bauble section of the primer, if it survives then I'll add more information regarding Mishra's Bauble builds.
Fifth. In the list Gerry was playing, I think not including Trading Post is a mistake. Not because Trading Post is a good card, because it isn't. But it is the best value target you have for Whir of Invention when you have nothing else going on. There were a couple games where he had to sit on Whir of Invention because he already had an Ensnaring Bridge but couldn't assemble the combo. I also saw the comments on the video suggesting Time Sieve which is just terrible. All of his opponents conceded to Thopter/Sword. We don't need to win any harder at the expense of another dead top deck.
@Radouf: When you post your updated list I'll add it to the primer since it is getting a lot of attention and many people seem to think it could be the best direction for the deck.
I am hoping to get out and do some testing of my own with Mishra's Bauble tonight against the majority of Tier 1/2. I'll report back.
Added the video series to the Primer under additional resources.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
I think the mainboard is pretty locked tight, I did drop one fatal push for a pithing needle main, because aside from bridge and combo, it is my the target I whir for most often.
Most of the difference for me are in the sideboard, and sideboard is always subjective to the meta you expect. I think the easy cuts from radoufs lists are trading post and jester's cap. While cute they both are a little slower than I want to be, even though they represent whir-able targets.
I have never gotten much value off of padeem, but maybe someone has some insight into why this guy is worth the slot. I see him as the least synergistic part of the deck as he is not an artifact, so can't be found with our toolbox. Add onto that being a creature, I feel like he is just working against what the deck is trying to do. Could be a meta call if there is a ton of ancient grudge/nature's claims in your meta, but most of the hate I see is stony silence and grafdiggers. Always seemed too unreliable and as a one of in a toolbox deck, I just never got to see him when I wanted. If a similar effect was on a CMC 4 artifact it would be an easy include though.
Herald of anguish is the all-star in the sideboard for me atm, basically giving another huge payoff for running 20+ artifacts in the deck. 3 Seems right and has won me more games than any other sideboard card.
I tried a copy of tolaria west, and I agree with the people saying its too slow. Map helps a lot by letting us find our lands, but Whir for map for tolaria for ballista is WAY to mana intensive to ever actually do, especially when whir for map for Fair for crucible is much more synergistic and rewards rather than punishes you for doing it in small parts and gives more inevitability.
@Shadowgripper: if I was to sleeve up Tezz FTW tonight (which I can because night shift), I'd be on:
Notes: some cards I want to be testing are Tolaria West (yes it's slow. Mid-game topdecked Tolaria West I believe still holds lots of value over a regular land because, as opposed to Gerry who doesn't seem to appreciate Inventors' Fair, I'm a huge sucker for it. Lantern experience speaks. And T-West and Map are 2nd and 3rd or 4th copies of that and Academy Ruins and Ghost Quarter) likely in place of 3rd Flooded Strand, and then I'd likely cram a Walking Ballista in there in place of the 3rd Thopter Foundry. This opens up the possibility of optimizing access to SB Chalice of the Void and MB/SB Engineered Explosives too.
Sideboard is moving a lot. I'm really close to switching to a blue-er board, by which I mean: -2 Herald of Anguish (Indeed strong but always comes in a turn too slow to my taste), for +1 Mechanized Production and +1 Vendilion Clique.
More SB notes: Second Relic is most definitely a flex-spot, we rarely need a Relic on top of another (and on top of Cage). I think the 4th Collective Brutality could be useful in a Burn-heavy or counterspell heavy meta (I find Gerry sides it out too often also; it's valuable removal against Affinity for example).
Trading Post and Lost Legacy / Jester's Cap are also flex-slots. In taking these out (for Liliana of the Veil, for instance), we have to start to worry about diluting our artifact count too much post-board. If I went for a blue-er SB like I said, I would likely give a spin to the couple Negate @Racing089 has been advocating for. But again, artifact count.
@OnlyTiggerlol: Padeem has been excellent for me. Thing is, and this is pretty much the level of thinking we need to start working at, Padeem switches tough and bad match-ups around. The point being that the fact you're running it in your SB gives you % points where you need them. For example: Jund midrange or Grixis control, or even Tron. Turning off all their target effects while they've taken out their removal is huge, and the card advantage super relevant too. I'm actually considering a second copy somewhere. But again, artifact count. And slots, at that point
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@Reedy26 - I don't think anyone knows for certainty what might get banned, and anyone who claims to know is lying. People speculated Bauble ban because of its simularity to Gitaxian Probe and let you play a 56 card deck as well as being played in a deck a lot of people think/thought is/was broken (DS jund). Having said that I doubt it will get banned, and give it ~ 5% chance of even being mentioned in the B&R announcements.
Street Wraith is much more likely to see the axe and for similar reasons, as it is a instant speed uncounterable free(ish) draw and lets DS jund manipulate life total at instant speed for no resources. I still think its unlikely, but closer to 20%.
@radouf - I can see your point, and I'll do some more testing with him. Its just hard to test him because he is a 1 of in the 75 with no way to tutor, so its really hard to see the percentage point bump we get with him.
Oof - so crucible+GQ isn't really that good/reliable vs tron. The fastest it goes is t3 and that requires prism if you're whirring, or a naturally drawn mana rock + crucible + gq - and even then if tron is on the play its too slow.
Needle I've used in esper control for tron, and I've certainly done 4x thoughtseize before to try and fight them off, with clique for a faster clock. I guess for UB tez thoughtseize+needle works, and herald maybe gives us a decent clock to supplement a tezz/combo?
The last option is GQ+surgical but we need high counts of both. I was cool with 3 surgicals in the side when dredge was everywhere, now I'm less sure that's a good use of slots when I could just be leaning on whirs with spellbomb/cage. Quarter also feels a little derpy since I don't generally care about manlands with fatal push, and its hard to actually keep tron off their 3 lands with quarter at the best of times, esp when trying to build whir count or hit tez mana. It's not like we need 6 mana but we do kind of need 4 and saccing lands on t2 to beat tron to the punch prevents us from casting talisman/prism t2
So I guess bottom line: needle+seize. But how many needles to get the job done? 2?
Edit: similar question, how about Valakut decks? Just whir for the witchbane orb and hope they don't have an ancient grudge? I'm guessing ghost quarter doesn't get there at all in this match?
So about Map and Tolaria being slow, there's a window where grabbing the right bullet when you're the beatdown can be very valuable, for little opportunity cost like we said. The other situation where I want to see them tutors is when the board is stabilized but game is not won yet and you're topdecking. This is 95% of the time sitting being a Bridge. In such a situation, my point about Tolaria and Map being able to get a Fair and go infinite on Crucible is not that I actually intend to take this dream line all the time, of course not because it's so slow; my point is that the possibilities are seemingly limitless. To name a few:
- Need Bridge protection? Map/West -> Jar and/or Ruins to get back a used Jar.
- Staring at an Abzan CoCo, Flickerwisp-Hatebear, Kiki-Chord, or Affinity board behind a Bridge, with spare mana? Map/West -> Ballista and go to town.
- Affinity pulls an Aether Grid and starts gunning you down? Map/West -> Fair -> Needle.
- Whatever deck goes all Lingering Souls on you? Map/West -> EE.
- And the list goes on, I'm sure more situations will come up where Chalice of the void et al. will be a valuable ressource to us.
The best part of it is that, given time, all of these lines can involve grabbing a Crucible and slowly «going off» with Fair, giving you inevitability, while you keep playing your regular game on the surface and opponent has no clue of what's going on there. But even better, this is happening to very little opportunity cost, like you said.
I'd rather get access to these lines than topdeck a River of Tears. So I'll be testing, and I encourage you guys to do such as well. Even if it turns out bad like you expect, we'll find out sooner if I'm not alone testing in my grindy metagame.
@Magpie842:
When SotM was unbanned, we started on a 4/4 split. We quickly realized that a Foundry on it's own is a bit underwhelming, yes, but at least you still get some value out of it. On the other hand, a Sword of the Meek on it's own is horrible, mostly useless (huge-ass Skites and Cranes don't count). Hence why we want to draw it slightly less often than the Foundry, and the 4/3 initial split. Then we got access to two more virtual copies in Inventors' Fair (down to one now), and then four more with Whir of Invention. So dropping down to 3/2 still gives you lots of opportunities to assemble the combo. 2/2 is fine too, I guess, but the rule of one-less-sword-than-foundry always served me well so I'd stick to it.
@Reedy26:
I'm running Trading Post mainly because the top list were all running it, because I find it kind of clunky and slow most times. For recursion, we already have Academy Ruins (now 3x if we count Map and Tolaria West as copies), and countless copies and tutors for Thopter-Sword for lifegain. I guess its abilities to make chumpers against Goyfs AND to draw you cards when you're digging for something, ON TOP of those first two features make the power of the card. Versatility. But it's slow and grindy for sure. This being said, I drew it against Burn the other day and it 100% won the me the game on it's own. I mean, every card I topdecked from there on read: «1: discard this card to gain 4 life». Can't beat that! So I'll bring it in against anything I need lifegain badly, or when I'm aiming at grinding including against K-Command / Grudge decks where I can be recurring stuff to stay alive. However it's spot is not set in stone.
On your deck construction: when I was rocking the full playset of Cranes a couple months back (represent!), my testing led me to run 25 artifacts MB to hit reliably. You seem a little low there; but there's an argument to be made that Crane is digging you toward your big pieces anyways. And if I'm not running it today, it's really that Infect and Affinity and non-existent in my meta ATM. Love this card.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
When you have a Bridge and a Jar, the rest hardly matters. You MAKE TIME.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Could you provide perspective on what you look for on a starting hand and what you are boarding in and out against a few different matchups?
Man, on sideboarding I'll have to get back to you. Gotta leave to work now.
For now, some rough guidelines upon which I suggest you reflect:
1. Are you the beatdown?
2. Is there grind potential?
3. What silver-bullet do you have access to?
4. What hate do you expect from them?
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
1) How do we beat tron, and specifically is ghost quarter effective? ghost quarter + crucible reliably effective?
2) How do people find engineered explosives? My build does not have a third colour, so I'm doing it for 0-1-2 only, and at 2 it would kill off my talismans, foundries, and swords (cranes too if I'm using them) which makes it sketchier. Ruins+EE is often great, but not sure it actually works well here.
That's my thought. If I'm using tolaria 90% of time to get ruins it should probably just be another academy ruins. Map at least provides cheap improvise and gets hit by tez/crane so there's some theoretical advantage to playing it over a second ruins if that's all I usually use it for.
I'd think the only time I'm getting inventors fair is if I already have ruins or my gy has been nuked. Next targets are GQ and explosives - so really depends how good those cards are.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
My current list:
3 hangarback walker
1 walking ballista
4 glint-nest crane
2 scrap trawler
2 trinket mage
2 herald of anguish
Artifacts: 14
1 engineered explosives
2 pithing needle
2 nihil spellbomb
2 executioner's capsule
4 thopter foundry
2 sword of the meek
1 ratchet bomb
4 fatal push
sorceries: 2
2 damnation
planeswalkers: 2
2 tezzeret, agent of bolas
Lands: 24
4 polluted delta
3 bloodstained mire
2 watery grave
1 godless shrine
1 island
3 swamp
3 drowned catacomb
1 Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
1 inventors' fair
1 academy ruins
4 darksteel citadel
4 duress
2 battle at the bridge
2 echoing truth
2 quicksilver fountain
2 grafdigger's cage
1 hope of ghirapur
1 basilisk collar
1 welding jar
As you can see i've opted for a singleton godless shrine for engineered explosives purposes, instead of spire of industry. I can afford the microsplash because i'm not playing triple blue for whir of invention, and also it doesn't deal me that much more damage than spire would. Playing godless shrines also gives me 8 virtual white sources that i can fetch if needed, as opposed to only 2x spires.
Wednesday went 4-0
R1 win 2-0 vs mono green devotion, G1 i was able to kill all his creatures and he didn't get to cast any of his big spell. G2 was more or less the same.
R2 with win 2-1 vs breaking // entering combo, G1 i had nihil spellbomb and just assumed it stopped the combo, but it doesn't because the milling and reanimating all happen as part of the resolution of the spell. G2 and 3 i was lucky enough to have early grafdigger's cage, and i was able to grind through a bunch of beck // calls. Whatever, the deck just got rule-banned...
R3 win 2-0 vs knightfall, it was the first time my opponent played this deck so he didn't play optimally at all. G1 was able to trick my opponent with needle on a fetch, which is valuable vs the combo. Later he though he had the win and combed off with knight of the reliquary + retreat to coralhelm, losing a bunch of life to his lands, but i had a nihil spellbomb at the ready to shrink his knight. I untapped with my tezz on 4 and ulted ftw. G2 i was able to executioner's capsule his selfless spirit, followed by damnation ftw.
R4 win 2-0 vs mardu tokens/midrange, very grindy and long games, by my value got there. Scrap trawler in particular was awesome, as was herald of anguish. Glint-nest crane did overtime by blocking lingering souls tokens all day.
Thurdays went 2-2
R1 win 2-1 vs melira CoCo, G1 got comboed and i didn't have any interaction. Had more luck G2 and 3, thanks to grafdigger's cage was able to grind G2. G3 my opponent had 4 mana dork out by turn 3, plus gavony township. Luckily a timely EE solved that issue.
R2 loss 1-2 vs bant aura hexproof. Basically bogles with geist of saint traft and Sram, senior edificer. Had some trouble vs this deck, we my opponent has a huge trampling threat with hexproof and totem armors, there is not much i could do. This is the matchup were Liliana of the veil or ensnaring bridge would help a lot.
R3 win 2-0 vs u/w control. Very grindy long games, but thopter foundry + sword of the meek got there G1, cryptic command and supreme verdict only delay the inevitable. G2 opponent mulled to 5 but the game goes long and he gets to draw a bunch of card with ancestral vision. My opponent had rest in peace but i got to EE it, and later sacced a big hangarback walker to foundry for a bunch of tokens ftw.
R4 loss 1-2 vs ad nauseam. My deck is not designed to beat this sort of deck. G1 my only chance is to needle lightning storm and have an executioner's capsule ready to kill laboratory maniac, bypassing pact of negation. I almost got there G1, got the needle in my opener, but i missed my third land drop, which delayed my plan of trinket mage-ing and casting capsule before lotus bloom resolved. Drew the land one turn too late, basically. G2 My opponent had a slow start and tezz -1s raced me to victory. G3 everything was under control, i had needle + capsule + mana up, but no clock. My opponent evetually drew hurkyl's recall and cast it in my end step. He had phyrexian unlife and was at ten, and i had echoing truth ready to bounce the enchantment. He then spoils of the vault for ad nauseam and got lucky enough to get the card with 4 life remaining (if he got negative life i just bounce unlife ftw). On his turn he ad naus, i echoing truth the unlife, but he had back up angel's grace ftw... Unfortunate but the games were closer than i though they would be.
About to watch them myself.
I suppose I didn't actually copyright the turbo package =/ but Radouf is cool so moving on...haha
GQ + Crucible is not a guaranteed win vs. Tron unless you have it out before they cast Karn. The scenario's are usually as follows:
1) Crucible online AND a GQ activation before their 3rd piece (Our 3rd/4th turn when we're on the play or our 2nd/3rd turn when they're on the play), this obviously requires accelerated mana and Whir is just not fast enough.
2) Needle for their first threat and then Crucible + GQ
3) Pressure, for us in the form of Herald and/or Tezz beats + needle.
Unfortunately, Whir for crucible is usually not fast enough to get the crucible lock because they're already casting their big stuff by then. I usually have to whir for needle or bridge. Unless you get the nut draw for crucible you will not be able to stop them in time because you need the mana off GQ to cast crucible before they go off. Obviously, if they stumble on assembling tron or you already have needle crucible-lock becomes more reasonable.
Regarding EE, yes it hits foundry/prisms etc. but it's great at pulling us back into the game. If we have Foundry + sword we're probably already winning the match. When we don't, EE helps stabilize. Prism is not a diamond ring; it's their to accelerate us and that's it. Don't hesitate to use counters for things like push/inq, and don't hesitate to blow it up with EE if it sets your opponent back. EE is great when we're behind and mediocre when we're ahead, and that's a fine card for this type of deck. When it's mediocre it still is a zero-cost artifact for metalcraft, an animation target for Tezz, and fodder for foundry. I keep 1 in the board.
Regarding hands, I wanna see something close to 2 lands, a prism, a push, and 1 of bridge/whir/tezz or obviously thopter/sword/whir (pick 2)
Ballista is not terrible at all. It serves as push #5 or arc trail #1 when that's good. It can also pressure PWs (Tron) pretty well. Unfortunately a good amount of decks that it's strong against usually have stony post-board but I like it better than foundry in those matchups so it's fine.
Happy hunting tonight
Not sure if you've seen it, but your list is featured on StarCityGames:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34883_Video-UB-Tezzeret-In-Modern.html
Note: In the video, Gerry Thompson credits a tweet by Zac Elsik (mentioning MTGSalvation in passing). In the comments in the article, however, Zac Elsik credits you.
That said, it was great watching Gerry wreck a bunch of opponents even with a mistake or two. As he puts it, this deck is gas!
I checked the thread and did not see it, then I started writing my post but had to attend to something else before posting, so hour posts crossed like ships on a darkened ocean (I never get that expression, they have radar and lights, no?). Sorry about that. I've only watched the first three matches, but it is kinda fun to watch him going from being skeptical to "this is gas!"
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
@Alphabetagames: as I don't have the time to write-up a comprehensive SB guide for against all the other decks of our pretty open format, can you ask what specific match-ups you want SBing tips against?
@BadMcFadden: you beat Tron by disrupting their game plan while presenting a quick clock. So it's either Thoughtseize (or Negate or Needle) and they had a threat-light hand or either GQ (Surgical is excellent here) and they had a land-light hand, while powering out a T3 beater. There if they have the Claim, you have to have the Jar. Map or Tolaria West can be useful here as fetching the GQ they can break their Tron on turn 3 or 4 and buy you a couple turns to beat down in the process. If you land a Lili ticking up and munching at their hand, you still got to find a quick clock otherwise if you don't reach ultimate, their topdecks will eat (exile, technically) yours. It's not reliable but it's the best we got so far. Haven't GQ-locked a Tron opponent yet so can't tell, but I've seen it done in Lantern. EE is ok in my experience, just not great anymore. Loads synergistic though. /e: what Trav says.
/edit: @Trav34: Hadn't seen your answer to BadMcFadden, I agree with you all the way. Our experience against Tron seem consistent!
@Magpie842: Walking Ballista is a theoretical alternate wincon to Tezz to kill people from behind a Bridge, and that you can recur with Academy Ruins for value. It also guns down critters from creature-based combo when you're at a board stall. It is Tolaria West fetchable, although that's even more experimental. Noteworthy that for a long time, people in this thread have been looking for the ideal alternate win-con for when we're locked down under a Bridge and we don't have access to Tezz and/or Foundry (in case of Extraction for instance). In this alternate win-con slot, Mechanized Production (on Welding Jar) is also testing worthy in my opinion as it works wonders in Lantern control.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Executioner's Capsule
1x Expedition Map
4x Mishra's Bauble
3x Mox Opal
4x Pentad Prism
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Sword of the Meek
3x Thopter Foundry
2x Welding Jar
1x Academy Ruins
4x Darkslick Shores
3x Flooded Strand
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Inventors' Fair
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
3x Watery Grave
Instant (7)
3x Fatal Push
4x Whir of Invention
Planeswalker (4)
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3x Collective Brutality
1x Chalice of the Void
2x Negate
1x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Herald of Anguish
1x Pithing Needle
1x Quicksilver Fountain
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Thoughtseize
1x Witchbane Orb
I think the mainboard is pretty locked tight, I did drop one fatal push for a pithing needle main, because aside from bridge and combo, it is my the target I whir for most often.
Most of the difference for me are in the sideboard, and sideboard is always subjective to the meta you expect. I think the easy cuts from radoufs lists are trading post and jester's cap. While cute they both are a little slower than I want to be, even though they represent whir-able targets.
I have never gotten much value off of padeem, but maybe someone has some insight into why this guy is worth the slot. I see him as the least synergistic part of the deck as he is not an artifact, so can't be found with our toolbox. Add onto that being a creature, I feel like he is just working against what the deck is trying to do. Could be a meta call if there is a ton of ancient grudge/nature's claims in your meta, but most of the hate I see is stony silence and grafdiggers. Always seemed too unreliable and as a one of in a toolbox deck, I just never got to see him when I wanted. If a similar effect was on a CMC 4 artifact it would be an easy include though.
Herald of anguish is the all-star in the sideboard for me atm, basically giving another huge payoff for running 20+ artifacts in the deck. 3 Seems right and has won me more games than any other sideboard card.
I tried a copy of tolaria west, and I agree with the people saying its too slow. Map helps a lot by letting us find our lands, but Whir for map for tolaria for ballista is WAY to mana intensive to ever actually do, especially when whir for map for Fair for crucible is much more synergistic and rewards rather than punishes you for doing it in small parts and gives more inevitability.
First things first. Shutout to Gerry and Zac for getting this sweet deck some time in the limelight. The deck is criminally underplayed right now.
Second. I was very interested to see the Mishra's Bauble style list in action since I have done no testing with that card. I have to admit the Mishra's Baubles looked pretty powerful. The downside of waiting a turn for a card was largely mitigated by having Whir of Invention a turn early our Ensnaring Bridge on the battlefield. However it makes the deck extremely susceptible to Stony Silence by having so many zero cost artifacts with activated abilities.
Third. Do we have anyone representing in Worcester this weekend? I was unable to attend but I am hoping we can get some Tezzeret pilots down there.
Fourth. I am going to wait out the next B&R announcement before changing the Bauble section of the primer, if it survives then I'll add more information regarding Mishra's Bauble builds.
Fifth. In the list Gerry was playing, I think not including Trading Post is a mistake. Not because Trading Post is a good card, because it isn't. But it is the best value target you have for Whir of Invention when you have nothing else going on. There were a couple games where he had to sit on Whir of Invention because he already had an Ensnaring Bridge but couldn't assemble the combo. I also saw the comments on the video suggesting Time Sieve which is just terrible. All of his opponents conceded to Thopter/Sword. We don't need to win any harder at the expense of another dead top deck.
@Radouf: When you post your updated list I'll add it to the primer since it is getting a lot of attention and many people seem to think it could be the best direction for the deck.
I am hoping to get out and do some testing of my own with Mishra's Bauble tonight against the majority of Tier 1/2. I'll report back.
Added the video series to the Primer under additional resources.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4x Whir of Invention
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Expedition Map
3x Thopter Foundry
2x Sword of the Meek
4x Mishra's Bauble
Bullets
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Welding jar
Disruption
1x Executioner's Capsule
4x Fatal Push
3x Collective Brutality
3x Mox Opal
4x Pentad Prism
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Inventors' Fair
1x Academy Ruins
4x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
3x Watery Grave
4x Darkslick Shores
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Quicksilver Fountain
1x Trading post
1x Witchbane Orb
3x Thoughtseize
1x Flaying Tendrils
1x Damnation
1x Jester's Cap / Lost Legacy
1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2x Herald of Anguish
Sideboard is moving a lot. I'm really close to switching to a blue-er board, by which I mean: -2 Herald of Anguish (Indeed strong but always comes in a turn too slow to my taste), for +1 Mechanized Production and +1 Vendilion Clique.
More SB notes: Second Relic is most definitely a flex-spot, we rarely need a Relic on top of another (and on top of Cage). I think the 4th Collective Brutality could be useful in a Burn-heavy or counterspell heavy meta (I find Gerry sides it out too often also; it's valuable removal against Affinity for example).
Trading Post and Lost Legacy / Jester's Cap are also flex-slots. In taking these out (for Liliana of the Veil, for instance), we have to start to worry about diluting our artifact count too much post-board. If I went for a blue-er SB like I said, I would likely give a spin to the couple Negate @Racing089 has been advocating for. But again, artifact count.
@OnlyTiggerlol: Padeem has been excellent for me. Thing is, and this is pretty much the level of thinking we need to start working at, Padeem switches tough and bad match-ups around. The point being that the fact you're running it in your SB gives you % points where you need them. For example: Jund midrange or Grixis control, or even Tron. Turning off all their target effects while they've taken out their removal is huge, and the card advantage super relevant too. I'm actually considering a second copy somewhere. But again, artifact count. And slots, at that point
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Street Wraith is much more likely to see the axe and for similar reasons, as it is a instant speed uncounterable free(ish) draw and lets DS jund manipulate life total at instant speed for no resources. I still think its unlikely, but closer to 20%.
@radouf - I can see your point, and I'll do some more testing with him. Its just hard to test him because he is a 1 of in the 75 with no way to tutor, so its really hard to see the percentage point bump we get with him.
Needle I've used in esper control for tron, and I've certainly done 4x thoughtseize before to try and fight them off, with clique for a faster clock. I guess for UB tez thoughtseize+needle works, and herald maybe gives us a decent clock to supplement a tezz/combo?
The last option is GQ+surgical but we need high counts of both. I was cool with 3 surgicals in the side when dredge was everywhere, now I'm less sure that's a good use of slots when I could just be leaning on whirs with spellbomb/cage. Quarter also feels a little derpy since I don't generally care about manlands with fatal push, and its hard to actually keep tron off their 3 lands with quarter at the best of times, esp when trying to build whir count or hit tez mana. It's not like we need 6 mana but we do kind of need 4 and saccing lands on t2 to beat tron to the punch prevents us from casting talisman/prism t2
So I guess bottom line: needle+seize. But how many needles to get the job done? 2?
Edit: similar question, how about Valakut decks? Just whir for the witchbane orb and hope they don't have an ancient grudge? I'm guessing ghost quarter doesn't get there at all in this match?
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron