WELDERZOA *Reloaded*

[MDB]

My first deck for live play, and though I got tons of play experience, coin is ever lacking :frown:.
So I've been innovating on a budget-friendly list, for months now. My current list is bashing a fair bit more than getting it. Me happy, very happy. Yet, before I start ordering the cards to make an impact in some backend corner of Europe, let's see what you guys think about this crazy list..

WelderZoa - the Cantrip King
Lands 16
4x City of Traitors
4x Island
4x Seat of the Synod
4x Great Furnace

Artifacts 24
3x Mox Opal
3x AEther Spellbomb
2x Pyrite Spellbomb
4x AEther Vial
4x Elsewhere Flask
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Lightning Greaves

Creatures 20
4x Goblin Welder
4x Vedalken Certarch
4x Etherium Sculptor
4x Esperzoa
4x Master of Etherium

Sideboard 15
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pithing Needle
3x Phyrexian Revoker
+
4x Trinket Mage
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Engineered explosives
or
3x Etched Champion
3x Umezawa's Jitte

In the case of a Jitte board I would go +1 Island +1 Aether spellbomb and -2 Pyrite spellbomb in the main.

Description:
Welderzoa is a savagely explosive aggro-deck, which relies on raw card advantage to overwhelm an opponent. It utilizes accelleration such as City, Mox and Sculptor to power out artifact cantrips for cheap. Cantripping like a madman into Welder and Esperzoa, which turn the cantrips into card advantage. The deck is very consistent in spewing out hasted Esperzoa's and Masters, with the Spellbombs and Certarchs clearing the way for a turn 1-2 clock, which often catch opponents off-guard. The amount of cards this deck manages to draw is crazy, as are the massive swings the deck pulls out of thin air.

Core:
Goblin Welder: Tha Nuts with Wellspring and Greaves. Good with Flask, Spellbombs and Master/Zoa.
Vedalken Certarch: Controls the board. Good with Greaves, Sculptor and Master.
Esperzoa: Evasive beatstick and bob all-in-one. Awesome with Flask/Wellspring and Mox Opal.
Master of Etherium: Good with Sculptor/Zoa, Spellbombs/Certarch and Greaves.
Lightning Greaves: With 8 tappers and 8 beatsticks, Lightning Greaves gets incredible mileage.

Cantrips:
AEther Spellbomb: Used as cantrip/Welder fodder until it can clear the way for the alpha strike.
Pyrite spellbomb: Some critters are worth shooting down, plus additional Wincon and reach.
Elsewhere Flask: Tha nuts with City. Primary Welder kickstart. Sacc, save City, weld for Wellspring, happy days.
Ichor wellspring: Caters to both Welder and Zoa as engine, the missing piece to the puzzle.

Acceleration:
Mox Opal: Good with Welder, Zoa and Sculptor.
AEher Vial: Allows for the low land count. Particularly good with Sculptor.
Etherium Sculptor: Basically everything for less. Good man.

Lands:
City of Traitors: Good with Flask and Sculptor.
Island: Basic shit.
Seat of the Synod: Needed for Mox, Master and Welder.
Great Furnace: Same here, and for Pyrite Spellbomb.

Mainboard is pretty fixed, apart from whether or not to run a 5th Island and/or a 4th Aether Spellbomb instead of Pyrite Spellbomb. The land count is seemingly borderline, yet the majority of one-land hands can be played succesfully. Wasteland kills, but hardly as often as I expected before I dropped to 16. I kept getting manaflooded, even though I was only running 18 lands. Also, I'm always trying to fit 2-3 Trinket Mage, 1 Crypt, 1 Needle and 1 Basilisk Collar in the main...

Sideboard is still in dubio, advice is very welcome.

[Redshift]

Hello there,

I've been playing a deck very similar to this, inspired by your original idea of the artifact cantrips and Esperzoa, with pretty good results. I'm currently running phyrexian revoker maindeck, with cranial plating and etched champion. I split the top 4 of a 40+ man event and barely missed top 8 in another 40+ man tourney. I really love the explosiveness of the deck combined with the strong mid game.

I tried the deck with shrapnel blast, galvanic blast, umezawa's jitte, veldalken certarch, thoughtcast, and riddlesmith. Of those, galvanic blast is the one I think shows the most potential.

From my experience, the deck most often wins on the back of master of etherium, plating and esperzoa or goblin welder shenanigans. I've been looking at ways of maximizing those scenarios and I think lightning greaves seems to be a good way to do that.

Anyway, the deck is strong and really fun to play. It will be very interesting to see if anything cool comes out in the next set that will push it over the top.

[Meekrab]

I get the synergy between Esperzoa and the cantrips, but I can't imagine playing this deck without Cranial Plating, Etched Champion, and Ornithopter to Plate up.

[sco0ter]

I like your deck. I play a similar one, but I am still not confident with the list. I tried Stiflenought in it, but it will probably go out for other stuff.
Do you really want 8 cantrips? I play 4 Wellspring and 4 Tangle Wire, which has similar synergy with Welder and Zoa, I only tested Wire once though.

I thought about including Wurmcoil Engine and therefore acceleration like Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key. What do you think about it?

[Drac]

You play enough blue cards for FoW, why is it not included?

[Redshift]

You play enough blue cards for FoW, why is it not included?

I have been using Force Of Will in the sideboard for combo and decks that I can't interact with using only the maindeck (i.e. Burn). The deck is redundant and aggressive enough that the card disadvantage of force is not worth it unless it stops a lethal combo. As an added bonus, Force Of Will is horrible against this deck when coming from any of the tempo decks running rampant right now with no way to recoup the cards.

As far as playing the full 8 cantrips, I'm still on the fence regarding this. The Elsewhere Flask are a must if you are playing City of Traitors, but I have gone between 2 and 4 Ichor Wellspring with success both ways. I think if we could come to an understanding of the key cards in the deck then playing as many cantrips as possible is probably the right answer, in order to maximize the chances of drawing only the most powerful cards available.

I would say the core cards are:

Master of Etherium
Cranial Plating
Esperzoa
Goblin Welder
Aether Vial
Elsewhere Flask
Ichor Wellspring
Etherium Sculptor

Very possible inclusions:

Etched Champion
Phyrexian Revoker
Galvanic Blast
Lightning Greaves
Umezawa's Jitte

I keep switching between different combinations of those last five cards and as of yet am not sure exactly what configuration is best.

Anyway, this deck is awesome and super fun to play :smile:

[jazzykat]

I just wanted to say Kudos to you for making such a neat deck. I guess the only thing that jumps out at me is no Thoughtcast in the MD.

[Carabas]

I would try and get some Tsabo's Web. It's a good cantrip artifact, and its ability is relevant much more often than Eleswhere Flask's would be, most likely.

[rufus]

Skill Borrower could be interesting in a deck like this since it does have some synergy with cantrip effects, and you like the tap abilities. There's a library of eggs - though none fit the color profile, but Chromatic Star and Chromatic Sphere seem like reasonable cantrip artifacts for you.
It doesn't really fit the character of the deck and isn't a budget card, but Sensei's Divining Top is a cantrip-like artifact that will work well with Goblin Welder.
Copy Artifact could also be interesting since it has OK interaction with cantrip artifacts and your beaters. The 3rd/revised version looks like it's reasonably cheap too.
Transmute Artifact also has some good interaction with cantrip artifacts, and can fetch Master of Etherium but :u::u: isn't so solid and the 2-1 factor can hurt. It's also a bit pricey.
Thirst for Knowledge and to a lesser degree Trinket Mage could also be good fits for you.

[jazzykat]

Transmute Artifact also has some good interaction with cantrip artifacts, and can fetch Master of Etherium but :u::u: isn't so solid and the 2-1 factor can hurt. It's also a bit pricey.


FYI, Transmute has been errated so that you have to sac only on resolution. Using Ichor Mindspring is really good with it but yes you are right in that if you "tinker" for your master and it gets swordsed then they 2/1ed you regardless of what use/cards you drew off the sacced artifact.

[Redshift]

I would try and get some Tsabo's Web. It's a good cantrip artifact, and its ability is relevant much more often than Eleswhere Flask's would be, most likely.


Tsabo's Web is certainly good, but I think it would replace Ichor Wellspring if anything. Elsewhere Flask performs too many functions in this deck to be excluded:

Mana fixing
Allowing multiple City of Traitors to be played
Preventing landwalk, mostly against Merfolk
Getting an artifact in the graveyard to start welder tricks

Ichor Wellspring only becomes really good if it gets destroyed somehow (like EE@2) or if Goblin Welder is active. Web might actually be a good replacement for wellspring...it certainly should be tested I think.



It doesn't really fit the character of the deck and isn't a budget card, but Sensei's Divining Top is a cantrip-like artifact that will work well with Goblin Welder.

The biggest problem with using top here is the lack of shuffle effects. It does combo quite well with welder, but then again so does everything else in the deck. :smile:


Copy Artifact could also be interesting since it has OK interaction with cantrip artifacts and your beaters. The 3rd/revised version looks like it's reasonably cheap too.

Copy Artifact does look pretty cool. I was wondering if Sculpting Steel might be better because it is affected by Etherium Sculptor and can be welded from the graveyard.


Thirst for Knowledge and to a lesser degree Trinket Mage could also be good fits for you.

Thirst for Knowledge definitely has potential. The biggest problem I see is the mana cost. With no way to cheat on the cost (vial, welder,sculptor) three may just be too much. Once again it probably deserves some testing.


I just wanted to say Kudos to you for making such a neat deck. I guess the only thing that jumps out at me is no Thoughtcast in the MD.

Speaking of card drawing, I did some computer modeling (I know...I know :tongue:) to test the effectiveness of Thoughtcast in place of four of the cantrip artifacts. I found that after about turn five the cantrip artifacts start to pull ahead, in terms of cards drawn over the game, as long as Welders and Esperzoas aren't immediately removed. Of course that is all theoretical, but I still think it's interesting. Anyway, just some food for thought.

[Squirrel]

Hey Guys
just want to share my list, still testing, so don't wonder about some choices:

4 Esperzoa
4 Goblin Welder
4 Elsewhere Flask
1 Ichor Wellspring
4 Etherium Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Mox Opal
4 City of Traitors
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Contagion Clasp
4 Glaze Fiend
2 AEther Spellbomb
1 Tsabo's Web
4 Master of Etherium


I added black instead of the islands
this gave me:
Glazefiend: He is often a 6/7 flier, sometimes he is something like 10/11-->really nice
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas: Tezzeret is, like in most Artifact decks, simply the nuts. He comes out early to make some lands become Beaters or let you search artifacts you need and then finish with the Ultimate, 4-of, because its my finisher, and pichtable to Fow
Contagion Clasp: test it as a recursable removal, darkblast is also in testing
im also thinking about something like Intuition and Thopter Foundry+ Sword of the Meek, but that means that i have to cut Master of Etherium.

Comments PleasexD