I think in my mind the Grixis Prison shell is much more likely to also be able to more regularly make use of Tezz's minus ability under a Blood Moon or on top of a Chalice to close the game quickly. The deck would be less reliant on sitting behind Bridge I think. Before with only 4 Tezz I found the Grixis Prison shell often just lost while it durdled to a wincon. Adding extra Jace offers flexibility within games that your opponent should be taxed in one manner or another while also allowing a threat to close 'quickly'. Heck Fateseal is even better when Fetches are locked out.
Like all such decks though you certainly run risk of drawing the wrong half. Whir for example is sometimes a struggle to consistently cast early under your own moon. Pentad Prism also can be sad when you're running so many basics. I think that's inherently an expectation of prison style decks though. My thought here is that the deck becomes more consistent in a couple different axises than it was previously which warrants an attempt. Sadly I'll probably have to pick up a 3rd JtMS to try that list out and Lily while she would be great in the strategy would be very tough to support.
I think UB Tezz gets a little better with Jace against the old format but I'm thinking the adjustment to Jace and BBE creates a format of decks we don't want to go long against and decks that try to go under those decks which we also stress us to draw well. All said I feel this will push UB Tezz, the way we're all playing it now, into a bit of a tough position.
Obviously this is just thoughts/opinions/conjecture for now.
So Molz7 at this point your deck is just Lantern with Thopters no? Not dissing, looks super fun.
I'm running a hybrid list with 4 Lily, 3 Tezz, and 2 JtMS. Due to KCommand resurgence and desire to turn on Opal faster I'm 4/3/2 Bauble/Opal/Jar. Jace is a great wincon in the deck that offers different flexibility from Tezz but most of the time Jace is just fatesealing in my testing so far. He's great at guaranteeing a win behind Bridge, but this is far from the best deck for truly making use of him. Jace was borderline useless in the matchups I ran into last night but that's going to happen.
I think it may be worth considering a shift to a Grixis Prison shell now. Part of the issue before was durdling into nothing with a chalice, blood moon or Bridge on the BF. Using an explosive artifact Mana package with some SSG and a stronger sweet of 4 cmc walkers could be great. T2 blood moon, T3 Jace bounce for example makes more use of Jace's abilities and could lock some opps out of the game. This is definitely an approach I'd like to try.
Burn definitely would be worse. I was/am running 4 Brutality and 2 Inventor's Fair plus 3 maindeck Tezz AoB so it's not like it's unwinnable but definitely worse than when I was running a 3/2 split.
I personally think Thopter Combo, in a manner of speaking acts mostly like extra Bridges in the deck against aggro lists like Affinity which is certainly welcome/needed in some matchups.
That said I'm trying to push away from it to try and find the right balance of necessity. Jace gives us another non Stony, non GY win condition and so I think while Thopters are good to great in some matchups it's one of the easier pieces of the deck to hate on.
By the time I record I very well may have them back in the deck.
I have actually cut my Thopter Combo (3/2) at the moment to make room for 2 JtMS. I've used the other 3 spots to drive up the low curve artifact count to get a better feeling of how reliably I can jam T2/T3 walkers. My list is 4 LotV, 3 Tezz, 2 JtMS with 4 Whir and I am really counting on the Walkers plus Bridge to win the game for me. My hope is with Jace as another win condition I can further weaken Stonys impact on the deck by cutting Thopter Foundry. Post board where I can bring in more direct interaction to fight my opponent I will be less reliant on ramping into walkers which naturally will make me stronger against Stony as Mana rocks and Baubles are now my only activated artifacts.
I will plan to record some with the new list later this week.
PS traded into 3 Opals over the weekend at GP Toronto and then played the list to a 3-3 in PTQ on Sunday. First real event with the deck in paper. It had mostly been online for me before. Beat Humans, lost to burn (really lazy keep in G3 on the draw), lost to Traverse Shadow with all of the hand disruption and Stubs, beat Amulet in 3 (that took some serious doing), lost to Abzan, beat Affinity.
I am SUPER excited to add a couple Jace's to the list. Seem's like a fantastic way under Bridge to win and otherwise filters into the right answers. I'm thinking 3/2 split Tezz/JtMS to start. Probably want a more explosive start so more zero's and 1's in the deck to maximize Opal starts and Whir into Bridge. Fatesealing your opponent out of answers that are relevant to bridge while setting up a relatively quick win is definitely an added boost to the deck. I am super excited.
I play Nihil Spellbomb over Relic in most decks that have access to black mana. I agree with Search for Azcanta, Thopter combo, and in some cases Academy Ruins it would make sense here over Relic. Currently I don't in my list because I want to be able to gain value against certain decks incrementally throughout the game. In the matchups I want gy hate I'm really looking to slow them down more than get a one off impactful hit. This being because these decks (Tezz decks) don't always close fast. In a deck running Death's Shadow or Goyf to close quickly I'd almost certainly running Nihil.
I played with Trinisphere quite a bit and found it good in two matchups. Storm and Shadow. Storm for the obvious reasons, and Shadow because it's a bunch of cheap spells but the creatures are big. Trini definitely impacts your ability to empty your own hand which makes it bad against cheap go wide decks looking to get under burn. I had started testing it with 3, fairly quickly got down to 1 and stuck there for a while before just determining the 3rd chalice is nearly as good and is stronger against a lot more decks like Tron, Infect, Burn etc.
Hi. This is me. I don't believe I've ever posted on this thread before but I've read most of it. I started by trying to make a Grixis Prison deck with Tezz as a finisher put a lot of time into it and by the time I started reading this I had made most of the same conclusions everyone here had. I was very serious about learning tezz so I read the entire thread over a month or two which was the tail end of a 2-3 month immersion in Tezz. It gave me some ideas and I went through phases of trying things like Quicksilver Fountain and tried to record matches then but I was having microphone issues and had to toss probably 10 matches worth of recordings. This was probably around Nov-Dec. Then my buddies and I decided to go to GP Toronto and I've mostly been playing Grixis Shadow since then... But since I finally got my microphone issues fixed I NEEDED to get some Tezz up there. This is where I ended with the list when I had put it down for a bit. I was a little rusty and shouldn't have played that last Lantern match. It was the classic, one more match when it was already past bed time. Very tired and lots of misplays.
All said UB Tezz is one of the decks I most enjoy playing so there will be more coming in the future...just probably not much prior to Toronto in a couple weeks.
I unfortunately don't have the time with my kiddos to stay active on the boards like I used to, but I got excited about the Vizier Combo possibilities and did some videos with it on my youtube channel if you're interested. https://youtube.com/c/tgcrequiem
The first match vs Storm we had some bad luck. Match 2 I think I needed to mulligan better...maybe was a little lazy. Matches 3-5 showcase the power...and if you go back and watch Storm again after seeing what the deck can do you'll see how close we actually were in Games 1 and 3.
I went for something a little different than what people have been playing with the straight GW version because I feel like the GW versions focused on the Vizier combo, in my minimal testing, lost a bit of the raw explosive power of Elves. Certainly infinite mana is great but real games don't always work out that conveniently and so my version has the main deck focused on Elves being Elves. I have the ability to backdoor into the Vizier combo off Chord, but the focus is on Elves, and in matchups where that is best I can maintain that focus. Postboard however I have the ability to run a more focused plan on trying to combo out. I will preface this by saying I've never been a huge fan of Genesis Wave in previous iterations of Elves, but here it works. It helps give you a critical mass of spells to go off when you're racing to get the infinite mana, and it gives you another way to win outside of Ezuri by casting a Genesis Wave for X= the size of your deck and Shaman of the Packing your opponent out of the game.
I plan to tune the deck a bit more and will likely post more videos in the coming weeks. Also, I'm not a person who generally feel bans are needed, and I'm not saying we're even close yet, but I feel confident that Devoted Druid is going to get banned. Vizier has more applications that probably warrant its inclusion in the format over Devoted Druid which is why I think it's got the bigger target. It is extraordinarily easy to setup infinite mana on T3 and just win that same turn. Certainly it can be broken up with removal, but that didn't stop Infect from eventually needing a banning as well. Again I'm not trying to start a ban chant b/c I love playing Elves, I'm just saying WotC is not going to let infinite mana that is this easy to put together stick for very long.
is their a stock number on the number of spell snares the lists should run ?
If you're running a list with Spell Snares, I'm assuming you're running a fairly controlling list at which point you're in the 2-3 range. Probably 2 in the main and maybe one in the side. There are a LOT of really good 2 cmc targets right now.
I think Countersquall is definitely better, I just feel the color requirements are tougher in the midrange version and so sometimes the Negate is better than the Squall. It's a hedge. Even in my controlling versions I tend to run two of each. I could run 4 Countersquall, but in the later parts of the game I might need to cast two in the same turn to resolve a threat and Negate just increases the odds that colors aren't a problem.
Double black is also a cost of Victim of Night. The cost is very relevant in a tri color deck only running 22 land. It's not just in casting the first Go for the Throat, but Snapping it back. It is relevant against all the decks running Ghost Quarters, Fulminator Mage, and Merfolk. It also isn't dead against Dredge, which while weakened still exists. I just find the first Go for the Throat to be far superior to the first Victim of Night. Right now I'm running Victim of Night in the side over a second Go for the Throat since Affinity and Storm are so popular. Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion post board versus Storm is a legit thing right now. As for Tron, if that deck resolves a Wurmcoil and you're playing BGx it is almost impossible to win anyway. That said I do think the BGx versions have a lot more game against Tron due to the countermagic package to fight the walkers, so you are more likely to run into a few scenarios where you're able to win through a Wurmcoil.
I really like Collective Brutality, but the tricky part is realizing when it's worth it to pitch an otherwise good card to use a second ability. It's easy to pitch a Thoughtseize against Burn to escalate it. It's less easy to escalate on top of giving a creature -2/-2 by pitching a Snapcaster to it to get rid of the opponent's Fatal Push to clear the way for Tarmogoyf the next turn. Snapcaster is so strong it feels like it's better in your hand, but effectively there are matchups where the tempo of essentially trading the Snappy for their Fatal Push without spending the 2 mana on Tarmogoyf for the Fatal Push to just eat it anyway is totally worth it. It's not always clear when that is appropriate obviously. The other thing I like about it is just the flexibility in modal cards. It is not the strongest kill spell, discard effect, or lifegain spell for 2 mana, but it plays as extra removal and lifegain against almost any go wide deck. It's extra discard against almost every combo deck that can hit the combo pieces costing over 3 cmc. It just is flexible.
As for the countermagic I love Countersquall, but again it's not without its costs. In the end I may go back to a Countersquall/Negate split, but I want to see how well the Spell Pierce work on protecting us in those T1 on the draw against a T2 Stony Silence type draws. It may not be good enough without more early threats like Delver of Secrets, but one doesn't know without trying.
@smoresnbacon Adjustments in the main:
-1 Stubborn Denial - We only need enough counter magic in the main to keep our opponent off balance. The deck is more delirium than control, which means we should be pressing the attack.
-1 Collective Brutality - I want 3 in the 75 for Burn, but I only want 1 in my main for my 7th hand disruption
-1 Abrupt Decay - Want 3 in the 75 but this deck is short fatty boom boom killers
-1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang - It's just 1 to many in a deck trying to run 4 Grim Flayer main, which I think is correct with the focus on T1 hand disruption.
+1 Go for the Throat - fatty boom boom killer
+1 Inquisition of Kozilek - I want 6 pieces of T1 hand disruption in these lists
+2 Nihil Spellbomb - I actually think this is in a good place right now, pairs well with our beaters, cantrips if you can afford it. It's commonly played in Abzan lists and it's primarily a Grim Flayer/Tarmogoyf enabler.
I'm also not sure that we should be playing a man land other than Creeping Tar Pit
Adjustments in the side:
-2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - LtLH is better against control, midrange mirrors and swarm aggro. Playing 3 Damnation and 2 Ashiok as a way to fight creature decks is just to slow. Ashiok always underperforms and it makes me sad.
-1 Surgical Extraction - Cut down with addition of 2 main deck Nihil Spellbombs. Still like 2 paired w/hand disruption/countermagic/land destruction/thought scour plan.
-2 Damnation - I can see one, but this just needs to represent more 2cmc Terminate style removal.
+1 Negate - BGx loses to Burn and spell based combo like Valakut off Scapeshift, Tron, Storm. We want to have ways of stopping those.
+1 Spell Pierce/Stubborn Denial/Dispel - I'm not sure this shouldn't just be another Negate, but I want to try 2 Spell Pierce. I'm somewhat worried about reliably having 4 pwr creatures in post board games, and the spells that tend to matter and create our creature weakness (Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus come down early so we may benefit from the 1 cmc disruption more here.
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope - Mentioned above about Ashiok.
+1 Go for the Throat/Victim of Night (fatty boom boom killers) - I prefer Go for the Throat b/c it kills EVERY big creature. It cannot touch Affinity, which is a bummer but you wouldn't side it in versus them either. It's possible Victim is better than the second GftT because it is playable versus Affinity, but I think about it's inability to kill (Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Gurmag Angler, Huntmaster of the Fells).
+1 Abrupt Decay - I want 3 in the 75. There are plenty of random things to handle and it handles so many.
I've seen several list going without Serum Visions. Is it worth dropping for other spells?
@h3xw0l7 I like the list, you are however light on removal spells, as mentioned before. If you where to have the full play set of Fatal Push, how'd the list look like?
Many modern events this weekend, I'm hoping for some sort of BUG list to take top 8 or 16 :)..
In the BGx versions of Sultai Serum Visions is not a necessary card. You are trying to disrupt and close. Thought Scour helps feed your Goyfs, Flayers and Snapcaster Mages far more effectively than Serum Visions does while simultaneously acting as a sort of combo trick pumping your creatures after blocks.
In the UBx version of Sultai that are playing more controlling you almost certainly want Serum Visions.
Like all such decks though you certainly run risk of drawing the wrong half. Whir for example is sometimes a struggle to consistently cast early under your own moon. Pentad Prism also can be sad when you're running so many basics. I think that's inherently an expectation of prison style decks though. My thought here is that the deck becomes more consistent in a couple different axises than it was previously which warrants an attempt. Sadly I'll probably have to pick up a 3rd JtMS to try that list out and Lily while she would be great in the strategy would be very tough to support.
I think UB Tezz gets a little better with Jace against the old format but I'm thinking the adjustment to Jace and BBE creates a format of decks we don't want to go long against and decks that try to go under those decks which we also stress us to draw well. All said I feel this will push UB Tezz, the way we're all playing it now, into a bit of a tough position.
Obviously this is just thoughts/opinions/conjecture for now.
I'm running a hybrid list with 4 Lily, 3 Tezz, and 2 JtMS. Due to KCommand resurgence and desire to turn on Opal faster I'm 4/3/2 Bauble/Opal/Jar. Jace is a great wincon in the deck that offers different flexibility from Tezz but most of the time Jace is just fatesealing in my testing so far. He's great at guaranteeing a win behind Bridge, but this is far from the best deck for truly making use of him. Jace was borderline useless in the matchups I ran into last night but that's going to happen.
I think it may be worth considering a shift to a Grixis Prison shell now. Part of the issue before was durdling into nothing with a chalice, blood moon or Bridge on the BF. Using an explosive artifact Mana package with some SSG and a stronger sweet of 4 cmc walkers could be great. T2 blood moon, T3 Jace bounce for example makes more use of Jace's abilities and could lock some opps out of the game. This is definitely an approach I'd like to try.
I personally think Thopter Combo, in a manner of speaking acts mostly like extra Bridges in the deck against aggro lists like Affinity which is certainly welcome/needed in some matchups.
That said I'm trying to push away from it to try and find the right balance of necessity. Jace gives us another non Stony, non GY win condition and so I think while Thopters are good to great in some matchups it's one of the easier pieces of the deck to hate on.
By the time I record I very well may have them back in the deck.
I will plan to record some with the new list later this week.
PS traded into 3 Opals over the weekend at GP Toronto and then played the list to a 3-3 in PTQ on Sunday. First real event with the deck in paper. It had mostly been online for me before. Beat Humans, lost to burn (really lazy keep in G3 on the draw), lost to Traverse Shadow with all of the hand disruption and Stubs, beat Amulet in 3 (that took some serious doing), lost to Abzan, beat Affinity.
Hi. This is me. I don't believe I've ever posted on this thread before but I've read most of it. I started by trying to make a Grixis Prison deck with Tezz as a finisher put a lot of time into it and by the time I started reading this I had made most of the same conclusions everyone here had. I was very serious about learning tezz so I read the entire thread over a month or two which was the tail end of a 2-3 month immersion in Tezz. It gave me some ideas and I went through phases of trying things like Quicksilver Fountain and tried to record matches then but I was having microphone issues and had to toss probably 10 matches worth of recordings. This was probably around Nov-Dec. Then my buddies and I decided to go to GP Toronto and I've mostly been playing Grixis Shadow since then... But since I finally got my microphone issues fixed I NEEDED to get some Tezz up there. This is where I ended with the list when I had put it down for a bit. I was a little rusty and shouldn't have played that last Lantern match. It was the classic, one more match when it was already past bed time. Very tired and lots of misplays.
All said UB Tezz is one of the decks I most enjoy playing so there will be more coming in the future...just probably not much prior to Toronto in a couple weeks.
https://youtube.com/c/tgcrequiem
The first match vs Storm we had some bad luck. Match 2 I think I needed to mulligan better...maybe was a little lazy. Matches 3-5 showcase the power...and if you go back and watch Storm again after seeing what the deck can do you'll see how close we actually were in Games 1 and 3.
I went for something a little different than what people have been playing with the straight GW version because I feel like the GW versions focused on the Vizier combo, in my minimal testing, lost a bit of the raw explosive power of Elves. Certainly infinite mana is great but real games don't always work out that conveniently and so my version has the main deck focused on Elves being Elves. I have the ability to backdoor into the Vizier combo off Chord, but the focus is on Elves, and in matchups where that is best I can maintain that focus. Postboard however I have the ability to run a more focused plan on trying to combo out. I will preface this by saying I've never been a huge fan of Genesis Wave in previous iterations of Elves, but here it works. It helps give you a critical mass of spells to go off when you're racing to get the infinite mana, and it gives you another way to win outside of Ezuri by casting a Genesis Wave for X= the size of your deck and Shaman of the Packing your opponent out of the game.
I plan to tune the deck a bit more and will likely post more videos in the coming weeks. Also, I'm not a person who generally feel bans are needed, and I'm not saying we're even close yet, but I feel confident that Devoted Druid is going to get banned. Vizier has more applications that probably warrant its inclusion in the format over Devoted Druid which is why I think it's got the bigger target. It is extraordinarily easy to setup infinite mana on T3 and just win that same turn. Certainly it can be broken up with removal, but that didn't stop Infect from eventually needing a banning as well. Again I'm not trying to start a ban chant b/c I love playing Elves, I'm just saying WotC is not going to let infinite mana that is this easy to put together stick for very long.
If you're running a list with Spell Snares, I'm assuming you're running a fairly controlling list at which point you're in the 2-3 range. Probably 2 in the main and maybe one in the side. There are a LOT of really good 2 cmc targets right now.
I really like Collective Brutality, but the tricky part is realizing when it's worth it to pitch an otherwise good card to use a second ability. It's easy to pitch a Thoughtseize against Burn to escalate it. It's less easy to escalate on top of giving a creature -2/-2 by pitching a Snapcaster to it to get rid of the opponent's Fatal Push to clear the way for Tarmogoyf the next turn. Snapcaster is so strong it feels like it's better in your hand, but effectively there are matchups where the tempo of essentially trading the Snappy for their Fatal Push without spending the 2 mana on Tarmogoyf for the Fatal Push to just eat it anyway is totally worth it. It's not always clear when that is appropriate obviously. The other thing I like about it is just the flexibility in modal cards. It is not the strongest kill spell, discard effect, or lifegain spell for 2 mana, but it plays as extra removal and lifegain against almost any go wide deck. It's extra discard against almost every combo deck that can hit the combo pieces costing over 3 cmc. It just is flexible.
As for the countermagic I love Countersquall, but again it's not without its costs. In the end I may go back to a Countersquall/Negate split, but I want to see how well the Spell Pierce work on protecting us in those T1 on the draw against a T2 Stony Silence type draws. It may not be good enough without more early threats like Delver of Secrets, but one doesn't know without trying.
Adjustments in the main:
-1 Stubborn Denial - We only need enough counter magic in the main to keep our opponent off balance. The deck is more delirium than control, which means we should be pressing the attack.
-1 Collective Brutality - I want 3 in the 75 for Burn, but I only want 1 in my main for my 7th hand disruption
-1 Abrupt Decay - Want 3 in the 75 but this deck is short fatty boom boom killers
-1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang - It's just 1 to many in a deck trying to run 4 Grim Flayer main, which I think is correct with the focus on T1 hand disruption.
+1 Go for the Throat - fatty boom boom killer
+1 Inquisition of Kozilek - I want 6 pieces of T1 hand disruption in these lists
+2 Nihil Spellbomb - I actually think this is in a good place right now, pairs well with our beaters, cantrips if you can afford it. It's commonly played in Abzan lists and it's primarily a Grim Flayer/Tarmogoyf enabler.
I'm also not sure that we should be playing a man land other than Creeping Tar Pit
Adjustments in the side:
-2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - LtLH is better against control, midrange mirrors and swarm aggro. Playing 3 Damnation and 2 Ashiok as a way to fight creature decks is just to slow. Ashiok always underperforms and it makes me sad.
-1 Surgical Extraction - Cut down with addition of 2 main deck Nihil Spellbombs. Still like 2 paired w/hand disruption/countermagic/land destruction/thought scour plan.
-2 Damnation - I can see one, but this just needs to represent more 2cmc Terminate style removal.
+1 Negate - BGx loses to Burn and spell based combo like Valakut off Scapeshift, Tron, Storm. We want to have ways of stopping those.
+1 Spell Pierce/Stubborn Denial/Dispel - I'm not sure this shouldn't just be another Negate, but I want to try 2 Spell Pierce. I'm somewhat worried about reliably having 4 pwr creatures in post board games, and the spells that tend to matter and create our creature weakness (Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus come down early so we may benefit from the 1 cmc disruption more here.
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope - Mentioned above about Ashiok.
+1 Go for the Throat/Victim of Night (fatty boom boom killers) - I prefer Go for the Throat b/c it kills EVERY big creature. It cannot touch Affinity, which is a bummer but you wouldn't side it in versus them either. It's possible Victim is better than the second GftT because it is playable versus Affinity, but I think about it's inability to kill (Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Gurmag Angler, Huntmaster of the Fells).
+1 Abrupt Decay - I want 3 in the 75. There are plenty of random things to handle and it handles so many.
In the BGx versions of Sultai Serum Visions is not a necessary card. You are trying to disrupt and close. Thought Scour helps feed your Goyfs, Flayers and Snapcaster Mages far more effectively than Serum Visions does while simultaneously acting as a sort of combo trick pumping your creatures after blocks.
In the UBx version of Sultai that are playing more controlling you almost certainly want Serum Visions.