Emry Inspector

[Albarkhane]

After quite some time without playing Legacy, i decided to go to a small shop tournament. I checked the meta and soon found out that i needed a new deck. As i was not expecting to be able to do great results, i decided that i would brew something.
I did some tests and finally ended with the list below. As expected, results at the tournament were not good but the deck shown some nice potential. I am trying now to improve it and would gladly welcome advice and hints. I don't plan to obtain a tier 1 deck but something decent enough for tournament would be great.

// Emry Inspector

// 13 Artifact
3 Mox Opal
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Lotus Petal
3 Thorn of Amethyst

// 24 Creature
2 Esperzoa
2 Foundry Inspector
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Etherium Sculptor
3 Master of Etherium
2 Sparkhunter Masticore
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
4 Lodestone Golem

// 3 Instant
3 Swords to Plowshares

// 20 Land
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 2 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 3 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Disenchant

Here are some explanations :
- The mana base : i don't like much the 12-posts mana base so i ended using steel stompy mana base. i did not play enough games to be really sure but i may need 1-2 more mana source (i mulliganed a lot for mana).
- The prison package is quite classic and need no explanation
- Etherium sculptor/foundry inspector : after some tests i found that the lower mana cost of sculptor was better than the higher body is inspector (i almost never used it as a beater). Those slots are a blast and let me steal many games.
- Esperzoa : i felt that some flying creature were needed. i would love to play more of them but their drawback make that quite difficult.
- Master of Etherium : our Tarmo and he is usually bigger.
- Golem : a good beater with more sphere effect. If he hits the field early enough, it is game.
- Masticore : a metagame call against Planewalker. I find it to be quite good even when no planewalker.
- Canonist : a metagame call against combo that could go to sideboard but i quite like it MD.
- Emry : our broken plan for the long run.
- Swords/ratchet bomb : i needed some disruption. My first try was ratchet bomb but i was not overly fond of the results so i ended with swords that is not very good with chalice @1. I am not happy with those slots and looking for better cards there ?
- the Sideboard : should be improved, that is just a raw one.

How do you think i can improve it (if it is worth it) ?

[FTW]

The overall shell of resistors, Lodestone Golem, and Master of Etherium looks strong. Emry recursion is great. I think you can tune other slots.

Swords to Plowshares + Chalice of the Void is a nonbo. You can avoid that by running 2-3cc removal instead (Declaration in Stone, Glass Casket, Winds of Abandon, Detention Sphere, Engineered Explosives).

Esperzoa looks like a weak slot. The only reason to even consider it is if you have some ETB combos where you can reuse it for value. I've tried to build decks around that, and it's still too fragile and clunky. A much better win condition is Urza, Lord High Artificer. Or you could just run 4 Steel Overseer, which seems amazing with such a high artifact creature count.

Phyrexian Revoker is good enough to run some copies main. It disrupts combo but also planeswalkers and other things.

I think you want to go up to 4 Mox Opal. Maybe add 3-4 Mishra's Bauble because the synergy with Emry is too good to pass up. At worst a Bauble will cycle, but with Emry you end up drawing a free card every turn.

The manabase looks shaky. You have few ways to get colored mana, but so many colored spells. I would just cut Wasteland, then replace it with mana-producing lands.
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Plains

Etherium Sculptor and Foundry Inspector look like weak slots. You could have just draw another land or mana rock instead, or something more interactive. How often has the cost reduction helped?

Another card that is very strong in artifact stompy decks is Karn, the Great Creator. It can tutor for any artifact out of the sideboard. This means you only need to have 1-ofs for conditional SB cards like Ensnaring Bridge, Ratchet Bomb, Phyrexian Revoker. It can save you space and diversify lines. Karn is normally amazing in Legacy, but it's a bit awkward with Thorn, Canonist and Golem. Something to consider.

[Reeplcheep]

There has been a bit of hype about a build with lots of xspells & gaeas cardle, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT6ZlaTWFK0.

May want to check that out for ideas.

[FTW]

There has been a bit of hype about a build with lots of xspells & gaeas cardle, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT6ZlaTWFK0.

May want to check that out for ideas.

That's basically a Steel Stompy-Affinity hybrid. Steel Stompy is a more proven but different deck. OP could go that direction.

It exploits the fact that Steel Overseer is very strong with Arcbound Ravager, Walking Ballista and Stonecoil Serpent.

[Albarkhane]

@FTW : thank you for your advices

- Swords to plowshare is obviously bad in that shell, the real problem is that alternate options are quite weaker. E.Explosives are quite similar to ratchet bomb : quicker but more costy (4 manas to destroy cc1 permanents when chalice is online). I had forgotten glass casket, the nice point is it is an artifact. I will try it. Other options are to go Black instead of White but i guess i need better reasons than just those slots.

- Revoker used to be main deck but when i trimmed the deck i had to make some choices. I guess it will be metagame calls.

- Esperzoa : i quite agree with you. When i tested the deck, i found i was very weak to delver and could loose quickly to a turn one delver. Another problem was that i must run enough creatures with decent power : i am slower than steel stompy so i must put bigger guys on the battlefield. On the list above, actually 11 creatures have small power and only 13 are big guys. Esperzoa adresses both problems. its drawback is not really one when playing artifact lands and many cc0 artifact but i can't afford to have two of them on the battlefield at the same time. that's why i play only 2 of them. I tried to find some nice ETB tricks but nothing was really convincing. So to sum up, they are not the best ones but they are not so many good flying artifact creatures within cc2-cc3 range.

- I did not test Urza LHA because i did not own it and i don't want to use a lot of cc4 cards (I kept only golem because of its sphere effect). Now that i have more time and i read it again, i will definitively give it a try but i may need to squeeze a karakas or two if i can. Chalice and thorns would produce mana which is quite neat too.

- Mishra's bauble : that is a good idea. I tried to squeeze a draw engine in the deck but i had to cut it when i trimmed the deck. I did not think about that card that could be more interesting than what i tested. I will test it.

- Mox opal/petal lotus : i used to run 4 opal but double one in opening hand is just bad and i don't have metalcraft on turn one very often. I was wondering if 4th petal would not be better because recurring it with Emry is not so bad. i need to test more here, maybe one more land would be just better.

- Manabase : i run 14 blue sources and 10 white source, that is not so bad. However, i definitively agree that the manabase need more work as i had to mulligan too much often. Wasteland are great with sphere effect but not so interesting in the current meta. Crucible used to be main deck but i found that strategy was too slow. I will try without wasteland and see.

- Karn : i tested both karn (the great creator and scion of urza), up to 6 total slots in various combinations. They are great of course but using them leads to another deck so i put them away for the moment. In my current shell, they are often off-tempo.

- Sculptor/inspector : i should have given more explanations in my opening post. In a way they are the core of the deck and they are much better than they look. Trying to make the story short : in Vintage, a turn one inspector is one of the most broken play that a workshop deck can do because next turn will be amazing. Decks running ravager/ballista/overseer became tier one because of inspector. Trust me here, i have been playing about every possible iteration of workshop decks for many years. Of course, Legacy is very different from Vintage. In Legacy, we can't have reliably 3 mana on turn one but 2 mana is quite easy. That is were sculptor comes in ... it would be much better if its cost was only colorless but blue is not the worst color for such deck. So here is the philosophy of the deck :
I had played steel stompy some time ago and i wanted to be able to run bigger threat. On the other hand, the really big guys that MUD decks are playing require to use lots of mana artifacts. Basically, i wanted something in between trying to get the best of both world. I also know the decks that are using Mystic Forge but they are sort of "all-in combo" decks, very strong but not what i want to play.
To make it short, a turn 1 sculptor make my deck about as quick as steel stompy but i am throwing on the battlefield much bigger guys. You are asking if they helped : you are not playing the same deck when they are online. When everything goes as it should, the deck is like a bulldozer that can't be stopped. Of course, it is not always like that. That is why i said the deck has potential but needs lots of tuning. Maybe it is flawed and can't work properly but i am curious to see if i can get something at least decent (and fun to play).

I tried it being UR (with goblin engineer) and mono U but so far UW looks like the best option.

@Reeplcheep : thank you for the link, i will look that long video as soon as i can find some free time :)

[FTW]

- Sculptor/inspector : i should have given more explanations in my opening post. In a way they are the core of the deck and they are much better than they look. Trying to make the story short : in Vintage, a turn one inspector is one of the most broken play that a workshop deck can do because next turn will be amazing.

Vintage is a different format. First, you have Workshop to cast it on 1 land on turn 1. Second, Vintage is more about explosive acceleration. Legacy is more about 1-for-1 card parity and tempo. Many Vintage-viable strategies cannot be ported into Legacy due to a fundamental difference in how the formats work. In Legacy, spending a card to play Nightscape Familiar is pretty bad even if it makes your other plays cheaper, because you have gone down a card to play a subpar body, which is bad against the large number of fair tempo decks.

There's a reason Foundry Inspector is tier 1 in Vintage but Sculptor (an old card) has never made much impact in Legacy over 10 years. At 3 mana you might want Metalworker, which at least has much higher payoff for the vulnerability it has. Inspector might work in Legacy with 4xMystic Forge, but that is more of an all-in deck.

- Esperzoa : i quite agree with you. When i tested the deck, i found i was very weak to delver and could loose quickly to a turn one delver. Another problem was that i must run enough creatures with decent power

Stonecoil Serpent solves all these problems. Beats flyers. Big attacker. Even dodges multicolor stuff like Decay, Oko, and Coatl. Can be cast on curve at any size.

- Mox opal/petal lotus : i used to run 4 opal but double one in opening hand is just bad and i don't have metalcraft on turn one very often. I was wondering if 4th petal would not be better because recurring it with Emry is not so bad. i need to test more here, maybe one more land would be just better.

Mishra's Bauble helps build metalcraft earlier. The extra mana rocks are good with Emry and Urza. A 2nd Opal generates 1-time mana just like a Lotus Petal would.