Goblin Welder, Baleful Strix, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek

[alphastryk]

Title says it all. These card are all very reasonable, and work well together. Welder-Strix has been played to some success in Vintage, and they work pretty well in Legacy too.

Strix also works well with Sword of the Meek & Thopter Foundry - for example, you can weld out sword for strix, and end up with both in play and draw a card. Add a Thopter Foundry, and you can sac strix to make a thopter, weld sword into strix and be up a card, a life, and a thopter.

I decided to try to work this into the shell of the old Esper Tezzeret / Shot in the Dark decks, using red instead of white. Losing enlightened tutor is tough, but welder + Strix is absurd, possibly enough to make up for it.

Tentative list (probably my third draft or so, jammed a few games against Maverick and Thresh to find out how well the deck works).


4 Ponder
3 Brainstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Meekstone
4 Goblin Welder
1 Darkblast

4 Baleful Strix
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

2 Trinket Mage

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Jace the Mind Sculptor

4 Force of Will

3 Mox Opal
2 Chrome Mox
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Great Furnace
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Desolate Lighthouse


sb:
2 Perish
1 Firespout
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Cabal Therapy


This is a rough draft still, but against non-combo, the deck feel very strong, and can rapidly overload the board. Force of will and sideboard cards may not be enough to turn around the combo matches though.

Things I am also considering:

Painter + Grindstone
Artificer's Intuition

Any input is appreciated.

[Moondancerbb]

I think this can be really powerful but a few changes i might try out with your list are to go up to 4 brainstorms and put darkblast in the board. Switch out the Ponders for Faithless looting.

Drop a mox not sure which type and desolate lighthouse for two more scalding tarn.

Fitting a Chalice of the void in the main and some number in the side also seems good

[alphastryk]

I've tried Looting, and it was not as good as I'd hoped, but certainly worth trying. The 4th Brainstorm was a recent cut. Right now we do not have enough shuffles to get value out of it, and Ponder sees more cards.

The weakest 2 maindeck cards are definitely the Lighthouse and the Darkblast, and adding another fetch would help make branstorm better.

I hate to drop a mox, as you are quite reliant on them to power out your threats. Chrome Mox is typically the harder to use, if you do choose to go that route.

[Moondancerbb]

To me the problem with chrome mox stems from the only things you can remove to it are basically your best cards since its non artifact non land.

[metalhead]

No love for Thirst for Knowledge? And being as your three colors it seems like Mox Diamond would be better than Chrome Mox. Your land count is somewhat low for Diamond. But being able to produce any Color seems like it would help alot.

[whienot]

Seems that Intuition should be there in some quantity. Intuition is good on its own and is incredible value with an active Welder. Also pairs nicely with the singleton Darkblast.

There's an argument for Ensnaring Bridge over Meekstone, but that depends on how valuable you need your Trinket Magi to be.

[alphastryk]

I don't think you need Mox Diamond, as Mox Opal also produces any color, and you are less 3-color than it might initially look. This is a UB deck splashing Goblin Welder, so you only need red for that one spell.

Chrome Mox does have a high cost, but you often need the artifact in play more than the card in your hand. Other than cantrips, your imprintable cards are either slow, or situational. From playing similar decks, I have learned to worry less about imprinting cards like Jace and Tezzeret, as you see enough cards in most games that you will find what you need.

I don't feel the need for a slow draw spell like Thirst for Knowledge, as strix allows you to gain a ton of incremental advantage.

Intuition is very powerful, and worth looking into. Not sure what to shave to fit one or 2 in, as the list is pretty tight right now.

If you ever get active Welder / Strix, you always have 5+ cards in hand, making bridge much worse against decks like Thresh and Maverick.

[UnsungHero]

+1 Academy Ruins, -1 Desolate Lighthouse

Ruins is too good not to run in here.

[alphastryk]

I actually had Academy Ruins in my initial list and never used it, so I figured I'd give the lighthouse a try. Ruins may be correct, but we may not even want a colorless land, as our spells are fairly color-intense.

[HPB_Eggo]

At least IMO, you want to add Intuition over Trinket Mage, cut the package for it, and add Academy Ruins.

Switching the around lets you toy around with Intuition piles, instead, which seems much better when you can tutor up, for instance, triple Sword of the Meek with Strix in hand.

Past that, with Intuition you can add some other very solid Welder cards and go for Looting over some number of Ponder or Brainstorm. The most impressive Welder card ever is definitely Wurmcoil Engine, so adding one main and two in the SB seems like it would be excellent in some matches.

Only other big thing I can see is that you probably want the Grindstone combo in the SB, as it is a faster win and an essentially guaranteed victory playing against certain decks, even in games two and three.

[alphastryk]

Tentative Intuition desklist:


4 Goblin Welder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Darkblast
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
4 Ponder
1 Thoughtseize

4 Baleful Strix
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

3 Intuition

3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Mox Opal
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Great Furnace
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Polluted Delta
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Academy Ruins
1 Mountain
1 Chrome Mox


I switched the Cabal Therapies main, as Faithless Looting and Intuition make it much better than Force of Will. I'm a little worried about creature matchups right now without a lot of removal, but maybe Thopter-Sword + Strix as removal does enough.

[HPB_Eggo]

My own take is similar, although I have yet to have the time to test it...

4 Goblin Welder
4 Baleful Strix
3 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

4 Faithless Looting
4 Rush of Knowledge
3 Intuition
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Cabal Therapy

2 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Mox Opal
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Great Furnace
1 Vault of Whispers
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Academy Ruins

Seems like a house against fair decks, kind of like Maverick. Not sure how well it will do against the best in that category, though. It certainly has Maverick's 'Answer this or lose' strategy down. Seems like it will be fairly consistent, too, with all the solid CA.

As for combo, I think it is basically a loss pre-board. For Storm, multiple Therapies and gaining life from Foundry might do it. Same for Sneak Show or Reanimator. Certainly not enough consistency to win out regularly, though.

When I test, I suspect it will be found that the SB needs 2 Grindstone and Painter's Servant for fair decks and literally every other slot to have a chance against combo and dredge. Will have to wait and see, though.

EDIT: Other big thing for testing is the usefulness of Therapy over some sort of counter, other discard, or some sort of permanent artifact hate, a la pitying needle or something of the sort.

[John Cox]

if you running 15'ish blue cards force of will could fit in there.

[HPB_Eggo]

if you running 15'ish blue cards force of will could fit in there.

Certainly. It's more a question of whether it is better than Therapy. I am actually inclined to believe Therapy is stronger here, as we are generally okay with saccing guys and our blue sources are all essential methods of generating card advantage.

I would probably put Spell Pierce in over Force if I moved from discard to counters in the main, but testing will at least shed some lout on what works and what does not.

All that being said, Force would definitely be among my top choices for the SB, as it is the only hard counter we can reasonably run in the deck, given the current mana base.

[Nihil Credo]

Played a handful of games with a list not too different from OP's (Thirst for Knowledge over Ponder, also 4 Brainstorm - srsly wtf - maindecking Wurmcoils and Spell Pierces over some artifacts and Mages). Real fun deck. Thoughts:

Thopter/Sword don't need to be a 4/3, even without ETutor. The Strixes buy you a ton of time, and between TfK, Top and Tez there's enough dig that you can assemble the combo by the time you have enough mana to profit from it. Also there's far too many ways your opponent may try to shut that plan out, so it can't be relied upon too much.

TfK works really well (note that I ran 22 mana sources and 3 Tops though), can't imagine playing without it, too often it was the only thing that turned on Welder. I am actually considering supplementing it with 1-2 Faithless Lootings somewhere. Intuition might also work but I didn't test it; I expect it would be more suited to a more Welder-invested build with Lightning Greaves and the like.

Spell Pierce was kinda bad. Outside of combo stuff, the thing I really wanted to counter with it was removal, and it was played with open more often than not. I'd play Turn Aside or some such except that countering the combo stuff was actually quite life-saving. Not sure where to go, think only answer is to suck it up, play Counterspell and accept keeping UU open after dropping Welder. Or Counterbalance, talk about it later.

Maindeck Wurmcoil is great. Daze is at an all-time low so tapping out for it isn't really as dangerous as it was, and takes over games like few things. Welder of course makes it insane, although more as StP bait/protection than to weld it in and out for a quick kill. On the other side, bringing in anything that outright can't be hardcast (Sundering Titan, Platinum Emperion) seems not worth it, protecting Welder in those matchups is hard.

JMS is kinda crap, always wished it to be another Tez or pitched it. Might try actually running Jace Beleren instead, the list is short on 3-drops and they still protect from enemy JMS. Most likely will just cut it.

The board needs a way to deal with red decks (mostly U/G/R decks). I tried Counterbalance which worked really well, may even try maindecking it, and Spellskite which was underwhelming, too vulnerable to the same things everything else is.

On a whim I also put a pair of Crosis Charms in the board, mainly meant for Stoneblade and Sneak&Show both of which might bring in all sorts of unexpected hate. Surprisingly good, at least against the former, didn't play against the latter after adding them. They're almost certainly not part of the optimal 75, but in the uncertainties of early playtesting they shine.

[klaus]

BigUp. Glad more people realize the power that Strix inherits.
My first approaches on the Source were more or less bashed.

Keep up the good work - will follow your findings.

[Blitzbold]

I've been intriqued by Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas for quite some time, and the printing of Baleful Strix added to this as well. Strix is a nice little card on his own which indeed buys a lot of time for an investment of just two mana.

Welder was a very strong card in Vintage and was abused there to hell nearly a decade ago, but he was never able to settle himself in Legacy. This probably is because of the amount of targeted removal running rampant here. He might be to cute in this deck as well, but we'll see.

I guess another viable approach for this deck is to take a look at the existing decks of this type and trying to fit as many Strixes (right plural form?) and Welder as possible without weakening the original gameplan. Also, the current predominance of decks that are trying to cheat a game-ending fattie into play by round 2-4 (Reanimator, FreakShow) should be taken into account as those decks contain a lot of protection as well.

Another weakness might be the manabase in a format filled with Wastelands, but at least there are some playable Moxen and basic lands to help with this.

The decks listed on TC Decks labled "Tezzeret Control" are differing quite a bit, so when using my suggested approach we should settle on one of the different builds first. Nihil's findings seem to be very helpful here as well.

=> Tezzeret Control by Douglas McKay -- quite aggroish, Jace TMS, Liliana OTV main, no Thopter Combo at all, no CB
=> Shot in the Dark by Martin Bonneville -- 'traditional' E-Tutor-package, no Jace TMS, CB main
=> Shot in the Dark by David Gearhart -- the 'original' build - E-Tutor-package including Humility and stuff, Jace TMS main, CB in the board

TC Decks isn't in action for too long, but on the other hand older decks wouldn't be too helpful anyway. As much as I like Humility in times where Griselbrand or Emrakul are frequently seen at the top tables, it might just be too slow against those decks (short of dropping it for your opponent's Show and Tell). Oblivion Ring seems to be a nice catch-all as well, but this would mean going 4-colored as well as either adding Enlightened Tutors or a multitude of O-Rings.

I think such a deck could work just fine, but we need to find solutions against Reanimator and FreakShow. Those are the matchups I am worried most when thinking about the current upper tier decks.

All in all I am interested in developing your approach as well. I am looking forward to reading more ideas and suggestions.

[alphastryk]

I've done some more testing, and I've gotten to the following list. We're less all in on the artifact, welder, etc. plan, and I think the deck is better overall. It is a lot more prepared for combo with Force, Pierce, and Clique. I've been playing it online (cockatrice) to decent success, although its definitely not a perfect list.

I cut down on the reliance on Thopter-Sword, and the mass of artifact mana to make the deck a bit more stable, but maybe that's not the right way to take the deck.

This is where I'm at right now:


4 Goblin Welder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Faithless Looting
4 Brainstorm
1 Darkblast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Ponder

4 Baleful Strix
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Snapcaster Mage

3 Intuition
1 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Vendilion Clique

2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Force of Will

1 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Mox Opal
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Academy Ruins
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain
1 Swamp


Sideboard:

3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Perish
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crush
1 Engineered Explosives

[unicoerner]

Hi,
i like the upper list, but i have 2 questions:
1) Do you get Opa active fast enough? It seems that most of the time you get him active on turn 3 or even later if you miss land drops, because of him.

2) Wouldn't 2 fatties be cool, because then every Intu will bring you some goodness with welder?

[Sloshthedark]

+4x Ensnaring Bridge