Because it whirs for one less and doesn't get hit with removal which they will keeping for tezz 55s or heralds?
I guess KCI is something tho - there's no other card you can name to stop them I guess? Ie pyrite spellbomb
If you can't shut out specifically KCI then they can still draw their entire deck to find nature's claim, at that point they can kill the needle and kill you
Some initial thoughts on your list:
You mentioned Serum Visions felt lackluster, you couldn’t Whir of Invention for Ensnaring Bridge on turn 3 as often as you would have liked, mana was too slow and you have trouble fending off the fast matchups. I think all of these problems are connected and easily solvable for you. It is your mana. You only have 15 ways to make blue outside of Pentad Prism and Mox Opal. It is pretty standard to count non-land sources as half sources so with those you now have ~ 18 blue sources. You need to be closer to 22. You are also a few sources short of being able to consistency hit land drops for your 3 and 4 cmc cards I suggest adding a Breeding Pool and 3x Blue Fetches. Then cut all of your colorless lands. As strong as the utility lands we have access to are, they inhibit you from casting Whir of Invention, Thopter Foundry, Time Sieve and Pentad Prism on time. They also prevent you from casting double 1 CMC cards on turn 2.
Also try to find a way to increase your combo count to 4/3 or at the very least 3/2. Thopter Sword is literally the only way to win outside of a Tezzeret ultimate and you want to be able to find ASAP in a lot of matchups. Getting the combo into play by T3 can end most Aggro decks when you are on the play and beat most fair decks unless they have an immediate answer.
I won’t @ you over the Emrakul/Polymorph sideboard plan but don’t remember it is a three card combo that is vulnerable to removal that has a large mana investment and may be for nothing when you are relying on Ensnaring Bridge to keep them locked up. Also, don’t board in the Herald when you bring the combo in lol.
If you are commonly losing to artifact spot removal it is because you artifact threat density is too low. Meaning you have only a few artifact they really care to kill. In your case that is 5. 2 Ensnaring Bridge and 3 Thopter Foundry. They can ignore everything else and still win the game. This is why prioritizing 4x Foundry and 3x Ensnaring Bridge is so important. Jund should be favorable game 1 because they don’t have enough removal to stop the combo + Ensnaring Bridge and you only need to combo for one turn before they can’t recover.
I would recommend against Crucible of Worlds because it is too slow and un-impactful. Also, Play another Dampening Sphere in your sideboard to help with Tron and combo. The card is incredible out of our sideboard.
I don't really get what you're saying about shred memory being easier to cast. Getting BB in our primarily U based deck is much harder than getting UU. Its secondary, non-tutor mode is more niche as well.
It might be easier to CAST 1B then UU, but you are right. Most of the time you don't plan to cast that card.
IDK I Run 3 agent of bolas and I’m typically killing my opponents with his -4 before I ever take them out with thopters. AOB gives you this additional win con u need when people go crazy against the combo
Oh I totally agree, but the build I was testing was way off the beaten path and it was significantly less good there. In traditional builds he is an all star.
I have been testing a build that was pretty mediocre but the new Tezzeret fits into it perfectly and may make the idea more viable. Draw 2 is SUPER powerful. I know the plus is underwhelming and the mana cost is a bit steep but draw 2 is absurd on a planeswalker. If it lives one turn you cast opportunity and a fog. This is very nearly the floor of the card unless they have an overwhelming board state the turn you play it.
The idea I have been playing with is as few artifacts as possible, 4x Thirst for Knowledge and more control cards like Fatal Push/Cast Down/Damnation. AoB felt really out of place in the deck and I was playing just a worse control deck. However this new planeswalker could be incredible. You are likely to look at 5 new cards before putting together a plan to protect him. IF you do protect him you will win soon after, burying the opponent in cards. IF you don't protect him you are plus 3 cards. Seems fantastic but won't work in an Ensnaring Bridge deck.
Builds playing 4x Darksteel Citadel and largely mono-blue outside of splashing for the combo seem like a natural home. I know there is a very real chance this card is bad for modern, but I plan to test it extensively before giving up on it.
Also fine against affinity. Really good if you hit the creature with Cranial Plating attached to it. Pretty narrow but it may be strong enough for us to play anyway.
I have also been thinking more about Torpor Orb. Other relevant matchups include Elves, Jekai Geist, (Snapcaster Mage $ SpellQueller/Restoration Angel) Mardu Pyromancer, (Shuts off Bedlam Reveler) Dredge, (Shuts off Prized Amalgam) CoCo Vizer, Amulet Titan and random Thought-Knot Seers. I am probably going to try one soon.
What are everyone's thoughts on trying to bring back some of the bigger stuff we use to play with more "fair" decks in the metagame? Cards like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine can be brutal at the right time.
I wasn't going to do a report but then I decided whats the point if we only read positive reports? Clearly some decisions in my list had to be incorrect in order to perform so poorly. Now everyone else knows not to do what I did. lol. I think I just fell for the trap of attempting to metagame Modern. Whatever you do just make sure your deck does something very powerful. You need to have draws that are near unbeatable when you draw well I don't think my list had that.
@thenobodys: I am glad to see you had some success! I never found you but I didn't get your PM until I got home. I was the guy in the bright red shirt and blue backpack. There was another tezzerator player there though! Watched him gain infinite life against titanshift lol.
My tournament report is TERRIBLE. I don't think I have ever had a worse day playing magic. On the drive down our car blew a tire on the highway and I had to change the tire with a broken arm (it has been broken since the start of may due to a racing car crash so it has healed some but not nearly enough). Got there with just enough time to wash up and get to my seat.
Round 1: Skred Red 0-2
Game 1: I ask him if he brought his fun deck and says that he brought the fun deck over his competetive deck. I joke that this will be enjoyable unless his idea of fun is turn 1 Blood Moons. Promises me no turn 1 Blood Moon. He is on the play and goes "Snow-Covered Mountain, pass" so no turn 1 blood moon but a turn 3 blood moon indeed. I had a needle in my opener so I proactively needled Koth of the Hammer. He had Chandra, Torch of Defiance in hand instead. I get an Ensnaring Bridge into play but fail to find any action flooding on lands and die to a chandra ultimate combined with his main deck abrade.
Game 2: I have a fast combo and am working through a Relic of Progenitus which I eventually hit with Pithing Needle. I take a turn off comboing to jam a tezzeret and he answers back with Koth killing my Tezzeret. The turn after that he abrades my combo, then Goblin Dark-Dwellers the abrade. The next turn he replicates a shattering spree to destroy all of my non thopter artifacts and Anger of the Gods all my tokens. I lose. I was a little salty I was beaten by an Anger of the Gods that shouldn't have been in his deck after sideboard but I shrugged it off and moved on to the next round.
Round 2: Naya Eldrazi 1-2
Game 1: Looks like I am playing against RG eldrazi so I prioritize getting a bridge down asap and do so on turn 2 on the play. He almost conceded but after drawing for his turn decided to play it out because he assembled the Eldrazi Displacer/Thought-Knot Seer lock. If you don't know how this works you essentially draw two cards during your draw step and he decides which one you get to keep. While the triggers were on the stack I Whired into the combo and he eventually died to thopters.
Game 2: I keep a turn 2 Ensnaring Bridge hand but he is on the play with turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer which strips my bridge. I have nothing and he follows up with Reality Smasher making quick work of me.
Game 3: I keep a hand with an Abrupt Decay, Damnation, and Ensnaring Bridge. I use my decay to kill a Stony Silence but lose both my Ensnaring Bridge and Damnation to Thought-Knot Seers. I proceed to draw back to back Tezzerets that are unable to find another Ensnaring Bridge and I die.
Round 3: RG Ponza 2-1
Game 1: I have the combo online before Blood moon hits the table and I use my mountains to make a thopter army which kills him reasonably fast.
Game 2: I have the combo pretty quickly again but he keeps me at zero to one land for over 10 turns until he finds Inferno Titan.
Game 3: I go to one at least 4 times in this game while trying to race an Inferno Titan with thopter tokens. Eventually I find an Ensnaring Bridge to stabilize and take over the game.
Round 4: Vialess Merfolk 1-2
Game 1: He concedes to a turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge.
Game 2: I got the combo into play through a spell pierce and a Deprive but by the time I did that he was attacking for way too much unblockable damage.
Game 3: I have the combo, 2 Ensnaring Bridges, a bunch of removal and he has answers for ALL of it. I felt terribly unlucky. After the games we are talking about sideboard decisions and he brought 13 cards in against me. Hurkyl's Recall, Echoing Truth, Negate, Deprive, Spell Pierce, Ceremonious Rejection etc. So maybe not unlucky, but found the guy with all the sideboard for me.
Round 5: Mono Blue Turns 0-2
I have a friend who plays this deck and this matchup is not winnable. I find Tron to be a more winnable match up. We have to kill them before turn 5 because none of cards interact with their game plan meaningfully and killing before Turn 5 is super hard.
Game 1: I get the combo going and attack him to 9 before he combos off and kills me with an Emrakul the Aeons Torn.
Game 2: I have T2 Dampening Sphere into T3 Dampening Sphere into T4 Tezzeret make a 5/5, T5 Make a 5/5. I know sphere wouldn't do much but it was better than other cards I had. I couldn't race fast enough and he combos off killing me with an awakened Island.
Round 6: Mardu Pyromancer 2-1
Finally a match up I was looking forward to.
Game 1: I get the combo together and he can't beat it.
Game 2: I am hellbent with 2 Ensnaring Bridge on the table plus 2 Welding Jars and I feel like I am in command of this game. He has 8 tokens in play but none of them can attack. I cycle a bauble on his turn which draws me into 2 lands on my turn. I play one land and then have to take a hit form his tokens. Draw another land the next turn and am forced to take a second hit from the tokens. Draw a fourth consecutive land and die to his token army. This lost felt terrible. Maybe I shouldn't have cycled the bauble at this point knowing that this is the ONLY way I lose from here but the odds of me drawing 4 lands in a row was less than 1.5%
Game 3: Game develops in such a way that I have lethal with a Tezzeret on the table and he misplays by attacking me instead of Tezzeret. He asked me what the ultimate did when I killed him with it. :/
Despite winning I didn't even feel good about this match knowing that I could have prevented a loss in game 2 and likely would have lost game 3 had the opponent read my cards.
Round 7: Tron 1-2
Game 1: I feel pretty good about my position having Pithing Needled Karn, combo online, Ensnaring Bridge in play and Tezzeret in play. He rips Oblvion Stone and wipes my board away. I play a second Foundry from my hand and use my Darksteel Citadel to begin the combo once again. He draws Ugin and exiles my Thopters and Thopter Foundry. I am able to end step a whir for a third foundry, combo, and have enough thopters to kill Ugin. He then has a World Breaker to destroy my Thopter Foundry. I draw Ensnaring Bridge for turn, He plays Ulamog to exile my bridge and I concede. EVERY time I get some hope against Tron they are able to cantrip through their deck to chain together ridiculous plays like these.
Game 2: I have the turn 2 Dampening Sphere while he does everything he can to stop Thopter combo. Eventually I am able to kill with a Tezzeret ultimate after he drew many lands in a row.
Game 3: He had the T3 Karn into T4 Ulamog on the play hand. I lost very quickly.
Round 8: Burn 1-2
My oppoenet was a few minutes late to the table but we weren't playing for anything of value so I decided not to call a judge and just play.
Game 1: I get the combo online T3 and make one thopter. He was on the play and was able to kill me on turn 4 with his Searing Blaze removing the blocker and burning me for 3 more.
Game 2: I have some removal plus the combo and he concedes while I was at 9 health starting to make thopters.
Game 3: I was at 3 life with one open mana after assembling the combo. He had an unknown card in hand plus a Swiftspear in play. I combo on my turn to play around a 3 damage burn spell on his turn but his last card in hand was a Searing Blaze which killed my thopter and let the Swiftspear get in for lethal. I don't know why he had Searing Blaze in after sideboard. We talked about board decisions after the match and he boarded out his Boros Charms for cards like Rest in Peace and Relic of Progentius. Which in my opinion is clearly wrong, Boros Charm is much better than Searing Blaze in the matchup and his Lava Spikes are better then RIP or Relic.
Round 9: My teamates were dead for top 8 so we headed for Subway and then back to Maine.
Overall I am super disappointed with the way my day went. I felt like I brought a configuration ill-equipped to handle the metagame I ended up facing. I was hunting Humans, Jeskai, Jund or any other non-linear deck but only found blood moons and linear decks. I felt like I played sub-optimally at times although I found myself to be a much better player than my opponent on average. Which is incredibly frustrating when you keep losing to them. (Players not reading my cards, didn't know how Thopter/Sword worked, Ponza player didn't know about new Blood Moon rulings, Tron opponent tried to Ugin away my Sword of the Meek, bad sideboard choices, destroying the wrong artifacts with hate, etc.) I don't know how much of it was me, my deck choices, or just bad luck. I lost more games on Saturday after assembling the combo than I have since Sword of the Meek was unbanned up to Saturday. It seemed like my opponent always had it and rarely could I stop them.
Maybe I will iterate on this list but I am going to think on it for a while before trying something different.
@everyone?: I think the Ideas vs Serum are not comparable. At first I was very skeptical of the Ideas Unbound technology (Compared it to Serums plus a host of other cards in a previous post here) but as more conversation evolved I understood that they are facilitating 2 complete different decks. Serum IS going to be better in the more tezzeret focused builds that are more popular here for reasons people have mentioned. Namely scry being incredibly powerful for us in the late game while smoothing draws in the early game. However those playing Ideas Unbound are playing it specifically because it enables faster Thopter/Sword by digging deep early and looting it away. Not to smooth draws like we are with Serum Visions. This is also why people are not playing Thirst for Knowledge. It is solidly in the middle of both these effects while excelling at neither. The Ideas builds are playing the full 4 copies of Sword of the Meek while most Tezzeret builds are opting only for 2. The tezzeret build has more options in setting up locks and grinding down the opponent where the other versions are all in on thopter/sword.
@pasngr46n2: Here is the list I plan to take to regionals. It is very similar to yours in that I cut the Serum Visions. @thenobodys I also decided the game 1 grave hate was unnecessary so I removed it. I liked having it as my out to Storm in game one so I might main deck a Grafdigger's Cage but we'll see.
I am trading the pushes in for more hand disruption. The only card I feel like I need to kill is a Thalia on curve. Hand disruption allows me to still grab Thalia while also being very good in most other games. In the sideboard I tried to split up my kill spells in the face of meddling mage. If you can't tell Humans is the match I am most concerned for and this is also why I am playing 2 EE in the main deck. However Jeskai is nearly a by so I am excited to see lots of it going around,
I am concerned I have a little too much in the sideboard for my favorable matchups. Namely the fair decks. I board in most of the artifact protection effects as well as JTMS and Padeem. Maybe I can cut JTMS and play something for the storm or Tron games? Any ideas?
If you can't shut out specifically KCI then they can still draw their entire deck to find nature's claim, at that point they can kill the needle and kill you
Some initial thoughts on your list:
You mentioned Serum Visions felt lackluster, you couldn’t Whir of Invention for Ensnaring Bridge on turn 3 as often as you would have liked, mana was too slow and you have trouble fending off the fast matchups. I think all of these problems are connected and easily solvable for you. It is your mana. You only have 15 ways to make blue outside of Pentad Prism and Mox Opal. It is pretty standard to count non-land sources as half sources so with those you now have ~ 18 blue sources. You need to be closer to 22. You are also a few sources short of being able to consistency hit land drops for your 3 and 4 cmc cards I suggest adding a Breeding Pool and 3x Blue Fetches. Then cut all of your colorless lands. As strong as the utility lands we have access to are, they inhibit you from casting Whir of Invention, Thopter Foundry, Time Sieve and Pentad Prism on time. They also prevent you from casting double 1 CMC cards on turn 2.
Also try to find a way to increase your combo count to 4/3 or at the very least 3/2. Thopter Sword is literally the only way to win outside of a Tezzeret ultimate and you want to be able to find ASAP in a lot of matchups. Getting the combo into play by T3 can end most Aggro decks when you are on the play and beat most fair decks unless they have an immediate answer.
I won’t @ you over the Emrakul/Polymorph sideboard plan but don’t remember it is a three card combo that is vulnerable to removal that has a large mana investment and may be for nothing when you are relying on Ensnaring Bridge to keep them locked up. Also, don’t board in the Herald when you bring the combo in lol.
If you are commonly losing to artifact spot removal it is because you artifact threat density is too low. Meaning you have only a few artifact they really care to kill. In your case that is 5. 2 Ensnaring Bridge and 3 Thopter Foundry. They can ignore everything else and still win the game. This is why prioritizing 4x Foundry and 3x Ensnaring Bridge is so important. Jund should be favorable game 1 because they don’t have enough removal to stop the combo + Ensnaring Bridge and you only need to combo for one turn before they can’t recover.
I would recommend against Crucible of Worlds because it is too slow and un-impactful. Also, Play another Dampening Sphere in your sideboard to help with Tron and combo. The card is incredible out of our sideboard.
Hope this helps!
It might be easier to CAST 1B then UU, but you are right. Most of the time you don't plan to cast that card.
Oh I totally agree, but the build I was testing was way off the beaten path and it was significantly less good there. In traditional builds he is an all star.
The idea I have been playing with is as few artifacts as possible, 4x Thirst for Knowledge and more control cards like Fatal Push/Cast Down/Damnation. AoB felt really out of place in the deck and I was playing just a worse control deck. However this new planeswalker could be incredible. You are likely to look at 5 new cards before putting together a plan to protect him. IF you do protect him you will win soon after, burying the opponent in cards. IF you don't protect him you are plus 3 cards. Seems fantastic but won't work in an Ensnaring Bridge deck.
Builds playing 4x Darksteel Citadel and largely mono-blue outside of splashing for the combo seem like a natural home. I know there is a very real chance this card is bad for modern, but I plan to test it extensively before giving up on it.
Also fine against affinity. Really good if you hit the creature with Cranial Plating attached to it. Pretty narrow but it may be strong enough for us to play anyway.
Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/265094671
What are everyone's thoughts on trying to bring back some of the bigger stuff we use to play with more "fair" decks in the metagame? Cards like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine can be brutal at the right time.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Darksteel Citadel
2 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Spells:
2 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Thoughtseize
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
1 Welding Jar
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Battle at the Bridge
1 Damnation
2 Damping Sphere
1 Duress
2 Fatal Push
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Welding Jar
1 Witchbane Orb
Game 1: I ask him if he brought his fun deck and says that he brought the fun deck over his competetive deck. I joke that this will be enjoyable unless his idea of fun is turn 1 Blood Moons. Promises me no turn 1 Blood Moon. He is on the play and goes "Snow-Covered Mountain, pass" so no turn 1 blood moon but a turn 3 blood moon indeed.
Game 2: I have a fast combo and am working through a Relic of Progenitus which I eventually hit with Pithing Needle. I take a turn off comboing to jam a tezzeret and he answers back with Koth killing my Tezzeret. The turn after that he abrades my combo, then Goblin Dark-Dwellers the abrade. The next turn he replicates a shattering spree to destroy all of my non thopter artifacts and Anger of the Gods all my tokens. I lose. I was a little salty I was beaten by an Anger of the Gods that shouldn't have been in his deck after sideboard but I shrugged it off and moved on to the next round.
Round 2: Naya Eldrazi 1-2
Game 1: Looks like I am playing against RG eldrazi so I prioritize getting a bridge down asap and do so on turn 2 on the play. He almost conceded but after drawing for his turn decided to play it out because he assembled the Eldrazi Displacer/Thought-Knot Seer lock. If you don't know how this works you essentially draw two cards during your draw step and he decides which one you get to keep. While the triggers were on the stack I Whired into the combo and he eventually died to thopters.
Game 2: I keep a turn 2 Ensnaring Bridge hand but he is on the play with turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer which strips my bridge. I have nothing and he follows up with Reality Smasher making quick work of me.
Game 3: I keep a hand with an Abrupt Decay, Damnation, and Ensnaring Bridge. I use my decay to kill a Stony Silence but lose both my Ensnaring Bridge and Damnation to Thought-Knot Seers. I proceed to draw back to back Tezzerets that are unable to find another Ensnaring Bridge and I die.
Round 3: RG Ponza 2-1
Game 1: I have the combo online before Blood moon hits the table and I use my mountains to make a thopter army which kills him reasonably fast.
Game 2: I have the combo pretty quickly again but he keeps me at zero to one land for over 10 turns until he finds Inferno Titan.
Game 3: I go to one at least 4 times in this game while trying to race an Inferno Titan with thopter tokens. Eventually I find an Ensnaring Bridge to stabilize and take over the game.
Round 4: Vialess Merfolk 1-2
Game 1: He concedes to a turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge.
Game 2: I got the combo into play through a spell pierce and a Deprive but by the time I did that he was attacking for way too much unblockable damage.
Game 3: I have the combo, 2 Ensnaring Bridges, a bunch of removal and he has answers for ALL of it. I felt terribly unlucky. After the games we are talking about sideboard decisions and he brought 13 cards in against me. Hurkyl's Recall, Echoing Truth, Negate, Deprive, Spell Pierce, Ceremonious Rejection etc. So maybe not unlucky, but found the guy with all the sideboard for me.
Round 5: Mono Blue Turns 0-2
I have a friend who plays this deck and this matchup is not winnable. I find Tron to be a more winnable match up. We have to kill them before turn 5 because none of cards interact with their game plan meaningfully and killing before Turn 5 is super hard.
Game 1: I get the combo going and attack him to 9 before he combos off and kills me with an Emrakul the Aeons Torn.
Game 2: I have T2 Dampening Sphere into T3 Dampening Sphere into T4 Tezzeret make a 5/5, T5 Make a 5/5. I know sphere wouldn't do much but it was better than other cards I had. I couldn't race fast enough and he combos off killing me with an awakened Island.
Round 6: Mardu Pyromancer 2-1
Finally a match up I was looking forward to.
Game 1: I get the combo together and he can't beat it.
Game 2: I am hellbent with 2 Ensnaring Bridge on the table plus 2 Welding Jars and I feel like I am in command of this game. He has 8 tokens in play but none of them can attack. I cycle a bauble on his turn which draws me into 2 lands on my turn. I play one land and then have to take a hit form his tokens. Draw another land the next turn and am forced to take a second hit from the tokens. Draw a fourth consecutive land and die to his token army. This lost felt terrible. Maybe I shouldn't have cycled the bauble at this point knowing that this is the ONLY way I lose from here but the odds of me drawing 4 lands in a row was less than 1.5%
Game 3: Game develops in such a way that I have lethal with a Tezzeret on the table and he misplays by attacking me instead of Tezzeret. He asked me what the ultimate did when I killed him with it. :/
Despite winning I didn't even feel good about this match knowing that I could have prevented a loss in game 2 and likely would have lost game 3 had the opponent read my cards.
Round 7: Tron 1-2
Game 1: I feel pretty good about my position having Pithing Needled Karn, combo online, Ensnaring Bridge in play and Tezzeret in play. He rips Oblvion Stone and wipes my board away. I play a second Foundry from my hand and use my Darksteel Citadel to begin the combo once again. He draws Ugin and exiles my Thopters and Thopter Foundry. I am able to end step a whir for a third foundry, combo, and have enough thopters to kill Ugin. He then has a World Breaker to destroy my Thopter Foundry. I draw Ensnaring Bridge for turn, He plays Ulamog to exile my bridge and I concede. EVERY time I get some hope against Tron they are able to cantrip through their deck to chain together ridiculous plays like these.
Game 2: I have the turn 2 Dampening Sphere while he does everything he can to stop Thopter combo. Eventually I am able to kill with a Tezzeret ultimate after he drew many lands in a row.
Game 3: He had the T3 Karn into T4 Ulamog on the play hand. I lost very quickly.
Round 8: Burn 1-2
My oppoenet was a few minutes late to the table but we weren't playing for anything of value so I decided not to call a judge and just play.
Game 1: I get the combo online T3 and make one thopter. He was on the play and was able to kill me on turn 4 with his Searing Blaze removing the blocker and burning me for 3 more.
Game 2: I have some removal plus the combo and he concedes while I was at 9 health starting to make thopters.
Game 3: I was at 3 life with one open mana after assembling the combo. He had an unknown card in hand plus a Swiftspear in play. I combo on my turn to play around a 3 damage burn spell on his turn but his last card in hand was a Searing Blaze which killed my thopter and let the Swiftspear get in for lethal. I don't know why he had Searing Blaze in after sideboard. We talked about board decisions after the match and he boarded out his Boros Charms for cards like Rest in Peace and Relic of Progentius. Which in my opinion is clearly wrong, Boros Charm is much better than Searing Blaze in the matchup and his Lava Spikes are better then RIP or Relic.
Round 9: My teamates were dead for top 8 so we headed for Subway and then back to Maine.
Maybe I will iterate on this list but I am going to think on it for a while before trying something different.
I am trading the pushes in for more hand disruption. The only card I feel like I need to kill is a Thalia on curve. Hand disruption allows me to still grab Thalia while also being very good in most other games. In the sideboard I tried to split up my kill spells in the face of meddling mage. If you can't tell Humans is the match I am most concerned for and this is also why I am playing 2 EE in the main deck. However Jeskai is nearly a by so I am excited to see lots of it going around,
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Spells:
2 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Thoughtseize
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
2 Welding Jar
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Battle at the Bridge
1 Damnation
2 Damping Sphere
1 Fatal Push
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Welding Jar
1 Witchbane Orb
I am concerned I have a little too much in the sideboard for my favorable matchups. Namely the fair decks. I board in most of the artifact protection effects as well as JTMS and Padeem. Maybe I can cut JTMS and play something for the storm or Tron games? Any ideas?