Please do innovate, I'd love to see the deck get somewhere.
As for Aether Vial, my thoughts are still much the same as the OP. Unless you have enough 1/2(/3) drops to make it worth it, it's often going to sit dead. And yes, it is bonkers with Cloud of Faeries and Spellstutter Sprite, but it's a nombo with the Ninjas.
I don't have lists in front of me, but my experience with D&T tells me that you need to be running a lot more creatures to get value from it.
TheThirdBardo, do you mind posting a decklist?
I'm coming into a little bit of MTGO credit soon, and I've been tempted to finally build my deck on there to test with. A non-FoW version would be the starting point for me.
That said, I'm still waiting on concrete results from this deck before I'm going to do much with the opening post. Has anyone done better than or equal to 4-2 in a 6+ round tournament?
-T
Since I'm playing MTGO-only right now, I won't really be able to test this deck at all. If anyone wants to create a new 'official' decklist, I'll be happy to update the OP with it and give credit.
-T
Has anyone been playing this deck? If so, what's your list?
If I could afford it, I'd be playing this on MTGO more often.
As it is, while in Japan, I don't have a way to play the deck IRL.
If anyone has Forces/Standstills to loan me, I'll test it out!
-T
I have a slightly higher aggro-bent to my deck, multiple Masters + Metamorph can end games very quickly. He's also blue, and artifact, and can act as a wall.
Tectonic Edge is for the 12-post and other matchups. We don't need U so badly that we can't run some control elements.
Spine + Titan = If you have an active Transmuter, you either Vindicate every single turn, or you kill their manabase in 1-2 turns. Plus, either is a great target for Metamorph.
Metamorph, btw, is the single most important card in the deck.
Are you running the land destruction in the sense that you'd have mana advantage over the opponents because you're running mind stone and Vedalken Engineer? I understand that you get an extra 1 colorless mana advantage with Vedalken Engineer, but the effect is delayed a turn whereas Etherium Sculptor's ability can enable you to play 1-2 other artifact spells the turn it comes into play. Take for example:
T3: Play an island, total of 3 islands, play Etherium Sculptor, tap last island for 1 and play Mind Stone.
However with Vedalken Engineer, you have to wait till T4 which will slow things down quite a bit.
Mind Stone is great acceleration and late-game card draw. My decklist posted has no 1-drops (hence the 4 Halimar Depths), and so I wanted 8 2-drop accelerants. While Etherium Sculptor is a decent card, if you play it turn 2, you're pretty much done.
Example from my deck:
T2: Vedalken Engineer
T3: Grand Architect, tap it and the Engineer for Transmuter.
It lands the same turn as Sculptor, but it's effect is better every turn after. Plus, it can tap for Blue mana to activate abilities.
Also, keep in mind I'm running Etched Champions and that Etherium Sculptor is an artifact and Vedalken Engineer is not and therefore doesn't contribute to the metalcraft abilities such as protection from all colors and stoic rebuttal's 1 less mana to play.
I tried to stay away from pure 'affinity' cards in my build, even Master of Etherium takes a while to get big. Mox Opal has been in and out of the deck as well. I would hesitate to play Etched Champion without a 90% chance of it being pro-all-colors when it's dropped.
Myr Superion combos great with Grand Architect and Vedalken Engineer, but I'm going to have to test that a bit more because I feel that Myr Superion may be a bit conditional. However, since we have 8 creatures that can bring it out, I think its definitely worth a shot.
Technically, we have 12 ways, as you can always drop it into play off of Transmuter.
Good reminder on the Relic of Progenitus. It really helps against reanimation and other return to graveyard cards that have been annoying me in recent match ups against Vampires and other B and/or G decks.
Something else to take into consideration is what kind of deck we're trying to make?
I have two other builds of the deck, one aggro (-transmuter -most targets) and one control (-MoE, -Superion, +additional targets +spreading seas). Both have their ups and downs.
The build I posted felt like the most middle-of-the-road in terms of adaptability. This may not be a good thing, though.
I've been working on this deck for a few weeks now, I've found that Vedalken Engineer is MVP. Between him and Architect, you can run Myr Superion quite easily.
When they play a spell, Standstill triggers. You let it get sacrificed and then draw three cards. At that time, you play your countermagic.
If you try to counter a spell right away, Standstill will trigger again and give your opponent three cards.
I'll have to rework the Budget list in the OP, as things have changed with the deck (Signal Pest, Mental Misstep).
I just updated the opening post with the newest version of the deck and an updated Budget list.
-T
NPH didn't really add anything to this deck, IMO, besides Mental Misstep. As proven at the last SCG tournament, having that card makes Standstill quite a bit better.
I haven't updated the opening post in quite a while.
Honestly, I haven't had the time or effort to test this deck in the current legacy metagame. The last few pages have had some reasonable decklists, though.
-T
Tarmogoyf dies to every removal printed. Doesn't mean it's a bad card. While Signal Pest doesn't deal damage and isn't a Faerie, it does pump the rest of your team while providing evasion. We often have 3-4 1/1s in play, making them 2/1s increases our clock substantially.
-T
As for Aether Vial, my thoughts are still much the same as the OP. Unless you have enough 1/2(/3) drops to make it worth it, it's often going to sit dead. And yes, it is bonkers with Cloud of Faeries and Spellstutter Sprite, but it's a nombo with the Ninjas.
I don't have lists in front of me, but my experience with D&T tells me that you need to be running a lot more creatures to get value from it.
-T
I'm coming into a little bit of MTGO credit soon, and I've been tempted to finally build my deck on there to test with. A non-FoW version would be the starting point for me.
That said, I'm still waiting on concrete results from this deck before I'm going to do much with the opening post. Has anyone done better than or equal to 4-2 in a 6+ round tournament?
-T
Since I'm playing MTGO-only right now, I won't really be able to test this deck at all. If anyone wants to create a new 'official' decklist, I'll be happy to update the OP with it and give credit.
-T
-T
If I could afford it, I'd be playing this on MTGO more often.
As it is, while in Japan, I don't have a way to play the deck IRL.
If anyone has Forces/Standstills to loan me, I'll test it out!
-T
I have a slightly higher aggro-bent to my deck, multiple Masters + Metamorph can end games very quickly. He's also blue, and artifact, and can act as a wall.
Tectonic Edge is for the 12-post and other matchups. We don't need U so badly that we can't run some control elements.
Spine + Titan = If you have an active Transmuter, you either Vindicate every single turn, or you kill their manabase in 1-2 turns. Plus, either is a great target for Metamorph.
Metamorph, btw, is the single most important card in the deck.
I strictly play this on MTGO, and it's still really expensive there as well. The rest of the deck is fairly inexpensive, though.
Mind Stone is great acceleration and late-game card draw. My decklist posted has no 1-drops (hence the 4 Halimar Depths), and so I wanted 8 2-drop accelerants. While Etherium Sculptor is a decent card, if you play it turn 2, you're pretty much done.
Example from my deck:
T2: Vedalken Engineer
T3: Grand Architect, tap it and the Engineer for Transmuter.
It lands the same turn as Sculptor, but it's effect is better every turn after. Plus, it can tap for Blue mana to activate abilities.
I tried to stay away from pure 'affinity' cards in my build, even Master of Etherium takes a while to get big. Mox Opal has been in and out of the deck as well. I would hesitate to play Etched Champion without a 90% chance of it being pro-all-colors when it's dropped.
Technically, we have 12 ways, as you can always drop it into play off of Transmuter.
Something else to take into consideration is what kind of deck we're trying to make?
I have two other builds of the deck, one aggro (-transmuter -most targets) and one control (-MoE, -Superion, +additional targets +spreading seas). Both have their ups and downs.
The build I posted felt like the most middle-of-the-road in terms of adaptability. This may not be a good thing, though.
-T
Here's my current list:
4 Halimar Depths
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mind Stone
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Vedalken Engineer
4 Master Transmuter
4 Grand Architect
4 Myr Superion
4 Master of Etherium
3 Thoughtcast
3 Treasure Mage
1 Sundering Titan
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Sundering Titan
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Spreading Seas
2 Echoing Truth
1 Spine of Ish Sah
3 Relic of Progenitus
I'd really like to fit Spellskite somewhere in the deck, but I currently cannot afford it.
-T
Part of the draw of this deck is that you can take it in quite a few directions. Test a list and give us some results.
-T
I haven't touched it for competitive play in months, V5 of the list is a purely theoretical starting point, it isn't tested at all.
If anyone has any testing data or tournament data, I'd very much recommend they post it.
The major problem with the deck is that it doesn't have an 'I win' card. No Jace, The Mindsculpter, no Natural Order.
-T
If you try to counter a spell right away, Standstill will trigger again and give your opponent three cards.
I'll have to rework the Budget list in the OP, as things have changed with the deck (Signal Pest, Mental Misstep).I just updated the opening post with the newest version of the deck and an updated Budget list.
-T
-T
-T
Honestly, I haven't had the time or effort to test this deck in the current legacy metagame. The last few pages have had some reasonable decklists, though.
-T
Tarmogoyf dies to every removal printed. Doesn't mean it's a bad card. While Signal Pest doesn't deal damage and isn't a Faerie, it does pump the rest of your team while providing evasion. We often have 3-4 1/1s in play, making them 2/1s increases our clock substantially.
-T
And I don't like Nexus, but I can understand your choice.
-T