[Deck] 8Tezz.dec - UB Tezzeret

[Serj]

So I've been thinking a little bit after watching St. Louis coverage; but would Blood Moon be a good option for us in the side board for grixis versions? We can fetch basics and between diamonds and signets we can produce colored mama as needed. Blood Moon out of the board can effectively shut down a lot of decks especially if we land it T1 or T2. It helps with Lands, BUG and RUG decks, as well as hampering other decks abilities to effectively be able to play Abrupt Decay against us. It also forces them to use a decay on Moon first and puts them on drawing more answers for the rest of our troublesome artifacts. Is this idea too cute or inconsistent? I know other decks have attempted to blood moon me before and I just never cared so I think we could make it work. It feels rather powerful against the current greedy manabases in the format and is in line with our more heavy red sol land chalice brethren in just locking people out of the game. I'm not sure if it is the best option but it certainly sounds enticing.

Anyone else try blood moon in this deck? Is the meta game shifting to the point where it is something to consider?

[Ephemeron]

That, or more The Abyss I suppose.
[/LIST]

The answer is always more The Abyss, haha.

Maybe Notion Thief in the board? I realize it isn't strictly an answer to baby Jace and the problems he presents, but it seems like a great card against Shardless in general since it's less frail than Chains and the chance to steal an Ancestral is real.

[Undomian]

The answer is always more The Abyss, haha.

Maybe Notion Thief in the board? I realize it isn't strictly an answer to baby Jace and the problems he presents, but it seems like a great card against Shardless in general since it's less frail than Chains and the chance to steal an Ancestral is real.

Notion Thief and Chains aren't really the same card. Chains is a lot closer to Chalice #5 than to Notion Thief in terms of what it ends up doing to a game.

[maCHOOga]

Unfortunately this Eternal Extravaganza did not go as well for me as the last one did, but bad matchups will cause that I suppose. A start with a bye ended up with a drop at x-3 to join the cheerleading squad for the people I came with - two of which made it to top 8!


Sorry to hear that! I ended loosing to a blue black tezz deck in round 7 of 9. Ironically he was running mox diamonds and not a 3rd color. I thought the was the draw to playing diamonds.

Ironically, I died to both tezz, agent and tezz, the seeker in both games.

[Serj]

So after testing against some Shardless BUG, I'm having trouble deciding how to board against them. I usually instantly cut 4 FoW, 1 Foundry, 1 SotM, to bring in 4 Leylines, 1 Helm, 1 The Abyss. But I've started to feel like Chalice just doesn't do anything against them a majority ofust the time and talking to some BUG players they were saying I should be bringing in Trinisphere, 2 Lodestone Golems, and (now) Blood Moon since I'm running it (for now, it's tested well so far, really awkward with MD wastelands but it's done work), and just cutting 4 Chalice for them. Is it reasonable to board Chalice out against them? I already run 3 wasteland + crucible main, but DRS makes that less of a good option. Chalice answers DRS until they Abrupt Decay/Pulse the Chalice.

In general what match ups should we be boarding Chalice out against? So far I've been usually cutting it against other Chalice Decks, Lands (might be a mistake), and Death and Taxes. How do you guys feel about Lodestone in general currently, is he still worth the board slots? I've been considering cutting 3sphere completely but I like to have an excess of T1/T2 lock plays against certain decks and is just such an incredibly strong T1 or T2 play against most decks.

What do you guys think? Just struggling with board plans in my mind now that the meta has changed around and I'm not just expecting to play against Miracles/Omni-Tell/Delver every other round.

[mifme]

So according to the results from the St. Louis open Shardless BUG was the most well represented deck Day 2 (14 copies) with 4 in the top 32 (2 in the top 8). Followed by Storm (2 top 32, 1 top 8) and Miracles at 8 (3 in Top 32, 1 Top8) each and then 7 copies of BUG and RUG Delver in day 2.

What do we need to do to stay ahead of an abrupt decay filled meta-game. I still feel generally confidant against most of the abrupt decay decks but it is a fairly stressful matchup when it starts to get grindy and they can pull ahead with Visions or rip a decay to kill the bridge we are hiding behind. I feel like the rest of the decks that worked their way to the top or where well represented are good for Tezz to see (Miracles, Storm, RUG to some extent).

Perhaps MD The Abyss is something to consider again? Maybe going up to 2 in the 75? Misdirections seem really strong right now as well (Counter Decay, can redirect visions, can stop Pulse and can help muscle down chalice or a planeswalker.


You need more guardian beast then decay doesn't matter ;)

[Ephemeron]

Chalice against Shardless is indeed underwhelming. Taking them off of DRS/Brainstorm/Thoughtseize/Random sideboard junk isn't bad, but it certainly doesn't cripple the deck since they have so many ways to just blow up Chalice and go on with life. I'd definitely cut some number in board games.

I dunno how effective 3sphere is against Shardless, I've actually watched Gerry Thompson stream some shardless where he had 3sphere in his sideboard, so I cant imagine it being that great.

I personally really like Chalice against lands. All their spells cost either 1 or 2 mana, so a turn 1 chalice locks them off half their deck and if you can ever get a chalice for 2, it'll be GG unless they topdeck a Krosan grip or naturally assemble stage + depths.

[theMonster]

I've boarded out some number of Chalice of the Voids against Jund a lot, too, especially on the draw. If they're gonna play Deathrite Shaman or Thoughtseize, they're gonna do it before you have a say. Plus they're probably boarding out Lightning Bolts. And Abrupt Decay/Kolaghan's Command/Ancient Grudge are cards, so Chalice isn't too crippling. I don't know if you see much Merfolk in your meta, but Chalice doesn't seem great against them either.

Not sure about Lodestone Golem, as I haven't had to board it in too often - not much combo in my meta - but it's been ok for me at least. It plays offense and defense.

Definitely agree with a Misdirection in the 75. It's done awesome things, and if it's later in the game, we can even hard-cast it.

I remember someone mentioning Spellskite as a sideboard option that they liked. Anyone agree? It can block, neutralize removal, and even do cute things like make Infect's pump spells moot (if you see a lot of that in your meta). Might not be great, but I'm curious to hear what people who have played with it think.

Any love for Creeping Tar Pit? It's probably too slow and may hamper T2 planeswalker plays, but it gives us another way to win if we flood out. Seeing as I'm running Life from the Loam and can recur it if it dies, I'm considering it.

[mifme]

I've boarded out some number of Chalice of the Voids against Jund a lot, too, especially on the draw. If they're gonna play Deathrite Shaman or Thoughtseize, they're gonna do it before you have a say. Plus they're probably boarding out Lightning Bolts. And Abrupt Decay/Kolaghan's Command/Ancient Grudge are cards, so Chalice isn't too crippling. I don't know if you see much Merfolk in your meta, but Chalice doesn't seem great against them either.

Not sure about Lodestone Golem, as I haven't had to board it in too often - not much combo in my meta - but it's been ok for me at least. It plays offense and defense.

Definitely agree with a Misdirection in the 75. It's done awesome things, and if it's later in the game, we can even hard-cast it.

I remember someone mentioning Spellskite as a sideboard option that they liked. Anyone agree? It can block, neutralize removal, and even do cute things like make Infect's pump spells moot (if you see a lot of that in your meta). Might not be great, but I'm curious to hear what people who have played with it think.

Any love for Creeping Tar Pit? It's probably too slow and may hamper T2 planeswalker plays, but it gives us another way to win if we flood out. Seeing as I'm running Life from the Loam and can recur it if it dies, I'm considering it.

Have you tried guardian beast yet ? ive been running it and its pretty good.

[Undomian]

Have you tried guardian beast yet ? ive been running it and its pretty good.

One of the big issues that I have with Guardian Beast is that, while both it and The Abyss are fine sideboard cards against Shardless, I'd rather have The Abyss basically every time.

[Serj]

Do you still think it would be better to run 2x The Abyss or 1x The Abyss 1x Guardian Beast. The Abyss answers Goyf and DRS from the Shardless Deck, but does not answer Baleful Strix, Shardless Agent, or Creeping Tarpit (and technically an unflipped Jace, VP, which they can easily just respond to the trigger by choosing him and flipping him). But Guardian Beast prevents them from answering Bridge, our own Strixes, Thopter Foundry and 5/5 Tezzed Artifacts. I've been mulling over the idea of 1x Guardian Beast over the Blood Moon in the board because they effectively do the same thing (protects our artifacts against Lands and BUG). But Beast also beats Krosan Grip, Ancient Grudge, Wear//Tear, Disenchant and opposing Dack Faydens.

[Undomian]

Do you still think it would be better to run 2x The Abyss or 1x The Abyss 1x Guardian Beast. The Abyss answers Goyf and DRS from the Shardless Deck, but does not answer Baleful Strix, Shardless Agent, or Creeping Tarpit (and technically an unflipped Jace, VP, which they can easily just respond to the trigger by choosing him and flipping him). But Guardian Beast prevents them from answering Bridge, our own Strixes, Thopter Foundry and 5/5 Tezzed Artifacts. I've been mulling over the idea of 1x Guardian Beast over the Blood Moon in the board because they effectively do the same thing (protects our artifacts against Lands and BUG). But Beast also beats Krosan Grip, Ancient Grudge, Wear//Tear, Disenchant and opposing Dack Faydens.

He does not protect Baleful Strix, as sweet as that would be. If I could have indestructible deathtouch dudes against Shardless I'd play that card in a heartbeat.

[Serj]

Wow reading is hard. Non creature artifact. Makes him less appealing. Not terrible but not nearly as appealing if all he does is protect bridge/foundry. Perhaps I'll just settle for -4 FoW -4 CotV -1 Foundry -1 SotM, +4 LotV +1 Helm +1 The Abyss +1 Blood Moon +2 Lodestone Golem +1 Misdirection.

Thoughts? If I'm running Kcommand should I board that as well? Can rebuy strix, kill their strix/agent + deathrite/Jace VP/Snapcaster, Can pressure Lili, and the discard can occasionally be relevant.

My Current board looks like:
1x Trinisphere
1x Blood Moon
1x Kolaghans Command
1x Misdirection
1x Helm of Obedience
1x The Abyss
1x Engineered Plague
2x Toxic Deluge
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem

How important is having a sweeper in the BUG match? Is it worth going back to a 1/1 Split with Damnation/Deluge because Damnation hurts a whole hell of a lot less when trying to kill Goyfs and there will be less Pyro decks with DTT gone?

[Undomian]

I basically bring in Kolaghan's Command against most anything that I think might ever contain a Null Rod or Pithing Needle in their SB. It's rarely ever completely dead, and it's usually better than whatever you take out.

[Serj]

Undomian what matches are you typically siding in 3 Lodestone Golems that aren't storm?

[Undomian]

Undomian what matches are you typically siding in 3 Lodestone Golems that aren't storm?

Show and Tell, Reanimator, most other non-Elves combo, occasionally 4 Ponder Miracles (I'll sometimes do this for game 2 if I watch my opponent immediately pull their 4 StP to the front of their deck during sideboarding).

[saum-nunca]

About BUG control and omnitells
I am side in 3 golens and 2 misdirection and side out the bridges
this matchs are very complicated to a ub tezz, then i am trying to win in a race, lodestones and artifacts made in creatures by ub tezz
It is still difficult to win, but this is showing fairer

[Admiral Nobeard]

So I've recently found this deck and so far I've fallen in love with the whole "swiss-army knife" style you can take the deck. But I do have a few questions before I start trying to proxy this and see how it does.

1.Can the Grixis versions run just as efficiently as the UB version or does going just two colours make it more stable?

2.Given the toolbox nature, can the deck function as a combo deck as well (aside from Thopter/Sword)?

3.Can the deck be built close to Stax?

4.How well does this deck fight combo, both creature and non-creature based?

5.What are the deck's glaring weaknesses?

[Undomian]

1.Can the Grixis versions run just as efficiently as the UB version or does going just two colours make it more stable?

The two decks play fairly differently even though they use many of the same cards. I'd suggest trying each of them to see which suits your playstyle.


2.Given the toolbox nature, can the deck function as a combo deck as well (aside from Thopter/Sword)?

See: Zach Dobbin's Helmerator (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=75221)


3.Can the deck be built close to Stax?

The current incarnations of this deck originated from a Stax variant called Planeswalker Stax (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20053-Planeswalker-Stax)


4.How well does this deck fight combo, both creature and non-creature based?

I'd say that (given a generic sampling of sideboards and considering the normally included maindeck cards) we're strong against Storm, Dredge, and Reanimator, but I'd describe the Elves matchup as unfavorable and our matchup against Show and Tell as bad.


5.What are the deck's glaring weaknesses?

This is a permanent-based control/prison deck at it's core, and a lot of the strength of this deck comes from the fact that many decks are unable to interact with our cards outside of the stack. That said, decks that ARE able to interact with our cards (see: GBx decks) put up much more of a fight. Also, decks which have a plan that can ignore our prison elements (see: S&T variants) are difficult matchups as well.

[theMonster]

I'm curious why no one plays Liliana of the Veil. I assume it's because it's awkward to cast, especially for the UBr lists that slot Dack Fayden at the 3-hole. But I'm considering trying her in my build that runs the Intuition/Life from the Loam package. I figure she'd do a lot o' work for me:

- recurring creature removal (if she lives)
- synergy with Ensnaring Bridge
- drawback of +1 minimized by ability to dredge Life from the Loam and discard lands that I can retrieve from the graveyard
- easier to ensure BB with Mox Diamond and seven fetchlands
- helps against combo

I guess the downside would be that she's (another) Abrupt Decay target and the stated mana burden. She also doesn't immediately wipe the board like Toxic Deluge. Is there anything else about her that I'm missing? She seems to accomplish what we want on paper. But she's not getting sleeved up in practice, so that's why I ask.

So if y'all were to maindeck a creature removal spell, which one are you going with between Lili, Deluge and The Abyss?

[Serj]

The Abyss is essentially an unattackable undecayable Lili in regards to being a creature removal spell. Lili has a bit more functionality beyond that (and can hit Mongoose if you care that much). Deluge is good to wipe away Elves boards and Death and Taxes shenanigans but is a lot worse against the Rug and Bug decks (or tarmogoyf in general) since it's a one shot thing and can bring us into bolt/tarpit range. It really depends on the meta you are playing in and what you expect to see or are worried about most. In an open field I'd say Deluge since it has the most value. But I think since the current field is going to be slightly more Goyf based I think The Abyss is a solid option. There's also Explosives and Ratchet bomb which I think are probably the best maindeck options given their utility, range, and general synergy with the deck.

Personally I still don't play removal/sweepers main because Strix, Thopter/Swords, and Bridge are usually enough G1. G2 when people bring in Artifact hate and such is when it gets a little more shaky because it's a lot harder to hide behind those types of cards and Sorcery/Planeswalker/Enchantment based removal starts to shine because it varies the game plan more and let's us interact/prison our opponents through other means.

[Ephemeron]

I think Deluge is by far the better main deck removal spell over The Abyss or Liliana. The Abyss is really at its best against Delver decks and Reanimator and stuff like that where they've only got a few threats they're relying on to go the whole way. Deluge has a lot more applicability. It's fine against delver (paying 5 life to kill a goyf sucks but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) but also great against stuff like Elves or TES where they just spam the board with tons of little guys. In those cases, playing The Abyss ends up looking laughable.

You might also want to consider Damnation over Deluge depending on what your meta is. 4 mana is a lot but it's good at what it does.

[theMonster]

All good points - thanks, Ephemeron and Serj. I think I'd lean towards Toxic Deluge over Damnation only because I tend to make a 5/5 early, and I can pay less than 5 life to deal with most of the stuff in the format and keep my Tezz-Beast alive. But the idea of no maindeck sweeper interests me, too. Ensnaring Bridge and Engineered Explosives can do plenty of work in game 1, and I can find them more easily with Intuition.

So, given that, here's my current list:

1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Seat of the Synod

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

4 Baleful Strix

1 Sylvan Library

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge

1 Transmute Artifact
1 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
4 Force of Will

-- sideboard --

1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Massacre
2 Lodestone Golem
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Misdirection

Miracles and D&T are well-represented in my meta, hence the Creeping Tar Pit and Massacre inclusions. I think I can get away with benching The Abyss because I'm packing three Abrupt Decays, though I can easily swap out Massacre for it. Misdirection has felt really good and versatile for me - last Friday, for example, I Misdirected a Slaughter Games to protect Thopter Foundry against NicFit, and it won me the game - so I may try to make room for a second copy.

When making Marit Lage is bad, like against Deathrite Shaman decks, I just board out Dark Depths and a Mox Diamond. This may not be right, but it's worked for me. I'm not winning tons of games because of turning Marit Lage sideways (but it's sweet when I do), but it's forcing my opponent to expend resources to defeat it and be on the defensive. Maybe it's not worth the risk of having to mull openers containing Dark Depths and no Mox Diamond, but some decks just can't beat a flying, indestructible 20/20 made without spells. Open to hearing thoughts about it. All the pieces to make it - Depths, Stage and Life from the Loam - make for an easy Intuition pile, so I can start from scratch. Intuition, by the way, has been insane for me. I always pull ahead when it resolves. No matter how precarious the board state, I always feel better when I basically tutor for three cards.

[bonkotsu]

I have been on the non diamond build for a while now, tested the diamond version and it just didn't feel right to me....that being said, a friend and I have been testing Grixis versions without diamonds. I have a few questions on my next build, just wanting to see what you guys think

1) What do you think about not running FoW? I have seen some that don't run it at all, seems like you lose harder to combo but you get more shenanigans in the main.

2) What do you think of Monastery Siege? Either mode

3) This one I really want to hear input on, Why do you personally play the Diamond build over the more "traditional" build?

[Ephemeron]

3) This one I really want to hear input on, Why do you personally play the Diamond build over the more "traditional" build?

Two reasons. One, Grixis obviously demands more colors so having all your mana rocks produce either blue or black is a hindrance. Diamond is just better color fixing. Two, it gives the deck more chances to drop a turn 1 Chalice of the Void, which is obviously the most backbreaking thing you can do to a lot of decks. In UB Tezz, you can only drop a turn 1 chalice if you have a sol land, whereas grixis will give you a few more hands where you can do it.

[bonkotsu]

Two reasons. One, Grixis obviously demands more colors so having all your mana rocks produce either blue or black is a hindrance. Diamond is just better color fixing. Two, it gives the deck more chances to drop a turn 1 Chalice of the Void, which is obviously the most backbreaking thing you can do to a lot of decks. In UB Tezz, you can only drop a turn 1 chalice if you have a sol land, whereas grixis will give you a few more hands where you can do it.

Thank you for a response. I plan on testing this build a few more times before I stick with the other build. I have a list I have been goldfishing and it seems more consistent and fun. I plan on Tezzing at the open this month, I just need to decide on a build.

[Ellomdian]

Life has been super busy, but I wanted to address this post:


I have been on the non diamond build for a while now, tested the diamond version and it just didn't feel right to me....that being said, a friend and I have been testing Grixis versions without diamonds. I have a few questions on my next build, just wanting to see what you guys think

1) What do you think about not running FoW? I have seen some that don't run it at all, seems like you lose harder to combo but you get more shenanigans in the main.

2) What do you think of Monastery Siege? Either mode

3) This one I really want to hear input on, Why do you personally play the Diamond build over the more "traditional" build?

1. FoW is valuable not only against combo, but in allowing you to force through a key 4-drop on turn 2. It gains 2 life against burn, it's your only real answer to blue combo G1 unless you are willing to put cards like Trinisphere main, and because this is Legacy, 'It Pitches to FoW'.

2. We beat it to death right after the release - it's terrible. It doesn't impact the board immediately, and it's effects are marginal against a handful of decks. The biggest issue with it in the UB build is that you don't need card quality, you just need quantity.

3. It's more explosive so it dodges more counter and disruption, and it has slightly more versatile SB options. (I still play the UB version, but that's the biggest reason I liked testing the Diamond version. Also, Dack is SWEET.)

[bonkotsu]

Life has been super busy, but I wanted to address this post:



1. FoW is valuable not only against combo, but in allowing you to force through a key 4-drop on turn 2. It gains 2 life against burn, it's your only real answer to blue combo G1 unless you are willing to put cards like Trinisphere main, and because this is Legacy, 'It Pitches to FoW'.

2. We beat it to death right after the release - it's terrible. It doesn't impact the board immediately, and it's effects are marginal against a handful of decks. The biggest issue with it in the UB build is that you don't need card quality, you just need quantity.

3. It's more explosive so it dodges more counter and disruption, and it has slightly more versatile SB options. (I still play the UB version, but that's the biggest reason I liked testing the Diamond version. Also, Dack is SWEET.)

Thank you for a response!

I love Aether Grid and dack, that being said is it possible to split the mana base and mana rocks to be able to splash red but keep the build similar to the non chalice version? A buddy loved my variants and made a more budgeted version using 1 volc, 2 sea, and splitting his signets a bit. It oddly didnt seem to get mana screwed when I tested, but whenever he piloted it kind of messed all over itself.

[Bobmans]

4 Baleful Strix

3 Dack Fayden
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact

2 Ghirapur Aether Grid

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

SB:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 The Abyss
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kolaghan’s Command

1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Lodestone Golem

1 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void


This list looks really sweet. Gonna proxy what i miss and try it. Would be ok if i'd shave of a Grid, Thopter and a Sword to replace with some other transmute targets or will that conflict with the plan to much?

[Admiral Nobeard]

So I just started tinkering with The Tezz Machine and this is the current list I'm working with. I'm a fan of prison decks so that's the direction I went with it.

Mainboard:

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Academy Ruins
3 Underground Sea
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Baleful Strix

3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact

4 Dimir Signet
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensaring Bridge
2 Smokestack

Sideboard
1 Trading Post
1 The Abyss
2 Massacre
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience


I'm wanting to add red for possibly Goblin Welder or Daretti if possible, but this is my current first draft. What can make it better? Would it be worth it to add red?

[Undomian]

This list looks really sweet. Gonna proxy what i miss and try it. Would be ok if i'd shave of a Grid, Thopter and a Sword to replace with some other transmute targets or will that conflict with the plan to much?

I suppose you could try it but I would watch the CMC of the things you replace them with. The UBr variant has a much harder time getting beyond 4 mana than the UB, so I wouldn't recommend putting things like Batterskull/Wurmcoil/etc. in the deck. I also designed the deck to this point with getting Thopter/Sword online as soon as possible, but if that's not as effective in your local metagame, you can certainly try less copies of those cards.

[theMonster]

Hey, y'all, had a couple line of play questions:

1) I'm 2-0 in a small local tourney and get paired against Storm. Game 1, I'm on the draw and see this hand:

Mox Diamond, Swamp, Force of Will, Chalice of the Void, Thopter Foundry, Tezzeret the Seeker, Engineered Explosives

Do you keep? If I draw a land (I run 24), and he has no T1 Duress, I have a pretty good anti-Storm hand. Of course you run the risk of never drawing a land and watching them go off. But this deck isn't the best with mulligans, so would you rather try for a more consistent 6?

2) I'm against MUD. He has a mana base of two Ancient Tombs, Glimmerpost and Metalworker, along with a tapped Grim Monolith. He resolved Staff of Domination with two unknown cards in hand and has a Lodestone Golem pacified by my Ensnaring Bridge.

It's my turn. I have a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas with four loyalty. I have three artifacts in play and a hand of Engineered Explosives (with the ability to play it for up to 3) and Tezzeret the Seeker (with six mana). We're both at 9 life. What's the play?

- We can play EE for 3, Tezz ultimate to put him at 1, then blow EE to kill Worker and Staff but sacrifice our Bridge and risk dying to Lodestone. Presumably we'd follow up with Big Tezz and do what? Tutor for Foundry first and chump block Golem until we assemble the combo the turn after?
- We can +1 Tezz to find an artifact so we can drain for lethal next turn and try to fade a Staff infinite.
- Possibly something else that I missed. This game was whacky.

For reference, here's my list:

1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

4 Baleful Strix

1 Sylvan Library

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

1 Transmute Artifact
1 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
4 Force of Will

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Thopter Foundr
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge

Thanks for the help!

[Navsi]

If you make EE then Ultimate Tezz, you go up to 17 life so you should definitely have time to find Thopter Foundry before Lodestone kills you.

[Bobmans]

If you make EE then Ultimate Tezz, you go up to 17 life so you should definitely have time to find Thopter Foundry before Lodestone kills you.
Which is the turn after because you cast big tezz into foundry.

[theMonster]

Which is the turn after because you cast big tezz into foundry.

We can put Thopter Foundry into play, but if we don't draw a land, we can't activate it cuz Tezzeret the Seeker would cost 6 due to Lodestone Golem. In that case, we'd get Foundry, Big Tezz would die, and then we'd draw off the top against MUD. That's still probably better than risking losing to Staff of Domination, though.

And what about the Storm hand?

Thanks, y'all!

[Serj]

If tezz ult drops him to 1 then you can tezz tutor for strix or foundry and just swing with a 1/1 for the win.

As for the storm deck I would definitely mull into more mana. Force does nothing if he probes or duresses you and if you don't top deck a land for T1 chalice you have a very real risk of dying on turn 2 or 3. Your best bet is to mulligan into a less clunky hand and hope your scry digs you into somethin relevant. Honestly if that hand was a 6 card hand minus the tezz it would be keep able but you need something better.


I have a similar question for you guys at the GP late in day 1 I get matched up against the slowest UWb stone blade player in my life. I win game 1 in 12 minutes. Game 2 he luck sacks his way into Jace ultimate me out (literally top decks disenchant into councils judgement into Jace VP into Snap) but take literally forever to actually win (he spent literally 10 minutes on trying to figure out Jace VP and the abyss interaction with 4 Judge questions and no time extension). So we go to game 3 with 6 minutes left and I have a hand of Helmline full combo, Thopter foundry, ensnaring bridge, mox diamond, wasteland, dack fayden. Do you keep the hand and just hope to draw sol lands? At this point a loss or draw ends your potential for day 2 and are equally bad.

[Undomian]

I don't really think you can keep that hand against Esperblade. They have both hand disruption and countermagic, either of which completely wrecks you.

[bonkotsu]

This is the list I ran at my LGS this past week for our game night, I wanted to try a forceless build to see if it made any difference or not.


Land (24)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x City of Traitors
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Enchantment (2)
2x Ghirapur AEther

Artifact (19)
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
1x Smokestack
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundr

Planeswalker (7)
3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver


Sorcery (4)
2x Toxic Deluge
2x Transmute Artifact

Creature (4)
4x Baleful Strix

Sideboard (15)
2x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Helm of Obedience
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
2x Misdirection
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Trinisphere



I had a blast playing this. The smokestack could probably be moved, I would consider another Ashiok(love this guy).

Round 1: Death and Taxes
This guy usually punishes me hard no matter what deck I play, this time I just had too many threats to deal with. He didn't seem to find many white mana sources.
g1 - I setup thopter combo early, aether grid, and a tezz, quick scoop
g2 - I keep a risky hand with multiple sol lands and only a diamond, got punished for being greedy but I tend to be greedy if I am up a game
g3 - Similar to game 1

Record 1-0

Round 2: Aggro Loam
Very good player, playing a build unique to our store so we had a blast trying to deal with each others things
g1 - I get out early dack and proceed to crucible wasteland him every turn while setting up my other combo for the kill
g2 - Got wrecked. He had too many dudes to deal with and just kept smashing me with punishing fire twice a turn. Hindsight, probably should have brought in that trinisphere....
g3 - I setup crucible turn 1, pitching a fetch so that I can keep thinning my next few turns, he thoughtseizes me twice. We both ran chalice on 1 so our boarded games we took them out, didn't see the thoughtseize coming. Transmuted to get a smokestack which cost me the game, should have went for a bridge.

Record 1-1

Round 3: Esper Deathblade
These games are pretty one sided, his only way to deal with a bridge is a 1 of council's judgement
g1 - Setup thopter combo early, he scoops
g2 - He was a bit more heavy on his counter magic that previous testing and got me before I could set up anything.
g3 - This one got interesting, we had a few judge calls about some interesting interactions. First was I took his Fire and Ice which was equipped to his stoneforge, he attacked and wasn't aware that I got the Fire and Ice triggers. Second was me using misdirection on his abrupt decay to target his true name nemesis.

Record 2-1

Fun game: Miracles
Have done zero testing against a counter heavy deck
g1 - He gets some super lucky blind flips, but cant deal with all of my nonsense going on with thopter and aether grid
g2 - Early tezz followed by thopter combo, went pretty fast

Love the list, still going to test it some. I have a lot of work to do before the NJ Open

[James718]

Hey everybody,

I played U/B Tezzerator today at South Florida Magics Sunday Legacy event. Here is the link (http://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/27145769), match starts around 43:45

My match up was against a very experienced Jund player. Feel free to watch it and tear me apart. I totally forgot a chalice trigger and let my opponent thoughtseize me. I also should have taken out chalice in game 2 and 3. Im getting better at Tezzeret (slowly) and I ask my friend for a lot of advice which helps. Sideboarding is probably the toughest for me and this deck does NOT mulligan well.

My list for today was:

Creatures - 10
4x Hangarback Walker
4x Baleful Strix
2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

Instants - 7
4x Force of Will
3x Impulse

Sorceries - 2
2x Toxic Deluge

Artifacts - 13
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Talisman of Dominance
3x Dimir Signet
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Ensnaring Bridge

Planeswalker - 4
4x Tezzeret Agent of Bolas

Enchantment
1x The Abyss

Lands - 23
3x Island
2x Swamp
3x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Seat of the Synod
1x Vault of Whispers
1x Academy Ruins
1x Urobog, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Helm of Obedience
3x Transmute Artifact
1x The Abyss
1x Damnation
1x Lodestone Golem
1x Pithing Needle
1x Trinisphere
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Ensnaring Bridge

I stopped playing the swords combo in here because Abrupt Decay is everywhere. My best games are either hide behind the bridge until ultimate or minus tezz and hit fast. I was looking to generate some card selection so thats why i went with Impulse and Jace. Also being able to flash back Impulse, Deluge, or damnation would be great. I really love the hangarbacks in here, they did great today.

I feel like the Sideboard is a mess and I might remove the Leyline/helm combo.

Let me know what you think. Fire away, I have tuff skin.

[Undomian]

That's certainly an interesting decklist. You can look back in the thread to around the time of the Origins release to look at the discussion of Hangarback Walker, but the general consensus is that Walker is too slow and costs too much mana to get much use out of it. If your metagame is as infested with Jund as you say, it might be fine, but it's not the greatest anywhere else. Jace, VP also looks really out of place in that list. You're not playing Thopter/Sword to get any kind of card advantage out of his creature-side activation, and even his flashback ability is somewhat unimpressive when your targets are 3 mediocre cards and 2 cards that you probably don't want to be casting more than once. I could maybe see a copy in that deck if you were playing Transmute Artifact as well (that card really should be maindeck if it's going to be in the deck at all), but at that point you run into issues with your artifact count for Tezzeret.

Notably missing from your deck are, as you mentioned, Thopter/Sword but also Baleful Strix. Baleful Strix (and Thopter/Sword for that matter) is really important in the BGx matchup to fight against Tarmogoyf, so I'm wondering why that's not in the list since you mentioned your concern for the Jund matchup. It's an attractive Decay target, sure, but I've found that the best way to fight against Decay is not to make your targets unattractive to your opponent (see: Hangarback Walker) but rather to present more must-Decay permanents than your opponent has Decays to cast.

[James718]

That's certainly an interesting decklist. You can look back in the thread to around the time of the Origins release to look at the discussion of Hangarback Walker, but the general consensus is that Walker is too slow and costs too much mana to get much use out of it. If your metagame is as infested with Jund as you say, it might be fine, but it's not the greatest anywhere else. Jace, VP also looks really out of place in that list. You're not playing Thopter/Sword to get any kind of card advantage out of his creature-side activation, and even his flashback ability is somewhat unimpressive when your targets are 3 mediocre cards and 2 cards that you probably don't want to be casting more than once. I could maybe see a copy in that deck if you were playing Transmute Artifact as well (that card really should be maindeck if it's going to be in the deck at all), but at that point you run into issues with your artifact count for Tezzeret.

Notably missing from your deck are, as you mentioned, Thopter/Sword but also Baleful Strix. Baleful Strix (and Thopter/Sword for that matter) is really important in the BGx matchup to fight against Tarmogoyf, so I'm wondering why that's not in the list since you mentioned your concern for the Jund matchup. It's an attractive Decay target, sure, but I've found that the best way to fight against Decay is not to make your targets unattractive to your opponent (see: Hangarback Walker) but rather to present more must-Decay permanents than your opponent has Decays to cast.


So far I have been liking the hangarback. Normally he starts swinging when he gets turned into a 5/5 plus his counters. My problem with transmutes was that the times I had them I haven't been able to get double blue. Jace was added for card selection with an upside I guess and flashing back the impulse.

Baleful is in the deck as a 4 of. Thopter/sword may go back in as 1/1. The lifegain loss is steep with this deck! So that may help mitigate. I've considered using a vault skirge as well. Has anyone here tried using Mox opals or etched champions?

[Serj]

So since making some changes after Sea-Tac I've been undefeated in local Legacy tournaments the past couple of weeks with this list:

Land (23)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Enchantment (1)
1x The Abyss

Artifact (17)
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundry

Planeswalker (8)
3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1x Jace, the Mindsculptor


Sorcery (2)
2x Transmute Artifact

Instant (4)
4x Force of Will

Creature (5)
4x Baleful Strix
1x Notion Thief

Sideboard (15)
2x Blood Moon
2x Toxic Deluge
1x Helm of Obedience
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
1x Misdirection
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Trinisphere
1x The Abyss

The decks been testing well against Miracles, BUG, Death and Taxes, Storm (lol), and Lands. Unfortunately literally nobody plays Delver in our meta and the Jund player is just on lands. But overall the decks been performing better than expected and I feel like I'm using every card in my sideboard more often than previously. Blood Moon has been doing some work as well. Even in long Grindy games a top decked moon has won me games against Bug. I've also experimented bringing it in against various other decks and it's always been very impactful while rarely screwing over my own mana.

[Undomian]

I do really like where our deck sits in the metagame right now. I played legacy all day Friday and on Saturday/Sunday after scrubbing out of GP Pittsburgh and only dropped a total of 3 matches over the course of the weekend.

Also:



Baleful is in the deck as a 4 of.

I somehow completely glazed over that, my bad.

[The Nobodys]

I'm bringing my version of Tezz to the NJ Legacy open this weekend. Here's my current list:

Creatures: 9
4 Baleful Strix
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Master of Etherium

Permanents: 15
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Tangle Wire
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Instants/Sorceries: 10
4 Ancestral Visions
2 Transmute Artifact
4 Force of Will

Mana Sources: 26
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Diamond
3 Dimir Signet

4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Seat of the Synod
4 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Wasteland

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Engineered Plague
1 Misdirection
1 The Abyss
1 Winter Orb
1 Trinisphere
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Cyclonic Rift


Some questions I'd like to ask people:
1. Ancestral Visions. Is four too many? I really like having this card as an alternate turn 1 play to Chalice of the Void, as well as a cheap way to power through BUG and other grindy decks.
2. Sideboard is locked except for the last two, Spine of Ish Sah and Cylconic Rift. I like these as catch-all answers to problems I haven't anticipated. Rift seems solid against Show and Tell and as a finisher against swarm decks. I'm considering a second bridge, a batterskull, and a Karn Liberated instead.

[bonkotsu]

So since making some changes after Sea-Tac I've been undefeated in local Legacy tournaments the past couple of weeks with this list:

Land (23)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Enchantment (1)
1x The Abyss

Artifact (17)
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundry

Planeswalker (8)
3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1x Jace, the Mindsculptor


Sorcery (2)
2x Transmute Artifact

Instant (4)
4x Force of Will

Creature (5)
4x Baleful Strix
1x Notion Thief

Sideboard (15)
2x Blood Moon
2x Toxic Deluge
1x Helm of Obedience
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
1x Misdirection
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Trinisphere
1x The Abyss

The decks been testing well against Miracles, BUG, Death and Taxes, Storm (lol), and Lands. Unfortunately literally nobody plays Delver in our meta and the Jund player is just on lands. But overall the decks been performing better than expected and I feel like I'm using every card in my sideboard more often than previously. Blood Moon has been doing some work as well. Even in long Grindy games a top decked moon has won me games against Bug. I've also experimented bringing it in against various other decks and it's always been very impactful while rarely screwing over my own mana.

Have you experimented with Aether Grid at all? Any testing with multiple Kolaghan's? Why one Abyss in the main and one in the side? Blood moon actually makes sense in some ways. Any reason for a Jace TMS vs maybe a big tezz? Also, no EE or Ratchet? Any reason?

[bonkotsu]

Took my forceless list to an IQ in Bristol this past weekend.

Round 1: Burn
G1: Thopter combo and an early trinisphere was GG
G2: Chalice for 1 followed by thoper combo and tezz made this match pretty short

1-0

Round 2: Death and Taxes
This one was frustrating because it was a person I test against regularly who rode with us to the event. I haven't lost to him since swapping to this build, until today...
G1: I keep a slow hand with waste lock and a foundry. He gets some creatures going and I Deluge them away. He plays some small threats then waits for me to play a piece to revoker it.
G2: Mull to 5, keep some acceleration with a signet from my scry, top deck another signet to get them hit by revoker, GG

1-1

Round 3: Esper Mentor
Copy paste of Chapin's list from GP SeaTac
G1: He just blows me away and sets up mentor nonsense before I can establish anything
G2: Counters my threats and waits to play a jace to fateseal me for the win

1-2

Round 4: Jeskai Aggro
This one was strange....
G1: Delver, Mantis Rider, Lightning Angel, and some heavy counter magic. Just confused at this point
G2: Setup chalice on 1, make some 5/5s with Tezz and she cant keep up
G3: Thopter combo with Aether Grid, just love it

2-2

Round 5: Elves
G1: He plays a 1/1 and passes, I turn 1 an Aether Grid, he looks wide-eyed, and I blow away his board until I setup thopter
G2: I got double Wirewood / Reclamation Sage'd. GG
G3: Setup a bridge and a Chalice early, Hit Aehter Grid to have him rec sage it, kill in response. Start widdling away with thopters and finish with a tezz ult
At one point he sighed and said "So this is how I lose...."

3-2 Overall

I am unsure If I want to keep in 4 Leyline of the Void, I saw Losset testing with only 2. Probably going to move some things around to have the forces back, as much as I love Aether Grid I think it may go to sideboard. Trying to finalize some things before the Jersey Legacy Open

[Serj]

Have you experimented with Aether Grid at all? Any testing with multiple Kolaghan's? Why one Abyss in the main and one in the side? Blood moon actually makes sense in some ways. Any reason for a Jace TMS vs maybe a big tezz? Also, no EE or Ratchet? Any reason?

Aether Grid is all right. I'm considering put one in the board over the second deluge since they serve similar purposes. I don't like it maindeck in my build because I'm not quite as all in on Thopter/Swords and that's where it can really shine. I decided on having 2 copies of The Abyss on the 75 because I really wanted better answers to cards like Goyf or Bskull that wasn't just deluge or hiding behind bridge and a lot of decks (BUG) have trouble winning through a resolved Abyss. It can randomly steal game 1s and postboard I really want to make sure I see one hence bringing in the second copy and sometimes a random pulse or Kgrip can roll of the top so having a backup copy really puts a strain on their SB hate.

I have a Jace over say an Ashiok or Big Tezz simply because in grindy games he can put you so far ahead and people see him as way more of a threat than say Dack or Tezz and will fight tooth and nail over Jace and then let you sneak in a real threat.

I stopped playing EE and Ratchet because I found that I was hurting myself as much if not more than my opponents when I played them for anything other than 1. Also I found when I was playing those cards I was often just using them as really bad sweepers that hurt me so I just decided that Toxic Deluge was performing the same functionality better over all. The only non creature permanents I feel we care about is Null Rod (EE and Ratchet don't do shit), Pithing Needle (we have so many things to needle and we are STILL a chalice deck), and sometimes Counter Balance can be annoying. So what exactly are we trying to Ratched or EE away at that point? Creatures? Deluge and Aether Grid do it better. Planeswalkers? I guess you could live the dream of getting an EE for 3 against an active Lili, or get a freebee Jace VP, but it's hell trying to get one to land against an Active Jace TMS (and getting to 4 colors can be difficult), and Ratchet bomb is just slow as molasses for anything over CMC 2 and can be played around or answered before it gets much higher. I could see possibly running these types of cards again with a second Academy Ruins or a good way to tutor for it so that it's easier for us to rebuild and can recur the effect but with a 1 of academy that can easily get wastelanded just doesn't seem worth it.

[James718]

I am taking this U/B Tezzerator (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tezerator-1/) list to legacy tomorrow:

Land (22)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
2x Seat of the Synod
2x Swamp
3x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of Whispers

Planeswalker (5)
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Enchantment (1)
1x The Abyss

Artifact (14)

4x Chalice of the Void
2x Cranial Plating
3x Dimir Signet
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Mox Opal
3x Talisman of Dominance

Creature (9)

4x Baleful Strix
1x Etched Champion
4x Hangarback Walker

Instant (7)
4x Force of Will
3x Impulse

Sorcery (2)
2x Toxic Deluge



What's different

Beatdown over combo. No more sword combo. Going quick beatdown has been very effective. Last week I experimented with a cranial plating and it was fantastic. Many times I'd have a turn 1 Hangar back into turn 2 tezzeret making 6/6 hangarback and swing with a turn 3 artifact plating and equip on hangarback and swing.

Looking at more cards - I added 3 impulses to get more card selection and a JTMS for more card selection and alternate wincon. I feel he will really help in the long grindy games.

No transmute artifact - I removed the transmutes from the maindeck and SB. I would like to have 1 in the main deck to look for silver bullets.

Added an Etched Champion - I feel like he can really help with the beatdown plan and can negate opponents removal.

Added a Mox Opal - I took out a basic Island and added one Mox opal. I felt like this can help with ramp while adding to the overall artifact count.


The Sideboard

Sideboard
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Damnation
1x Dread of Night
1x Engineered Plague
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Helm of Obedience
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Lodestone Golem
1x Perish
1x Pithing Needle
1x The Abyss
1x Trinisphere

The sideboard is filled with hate. There is another Abyss, a dread of night, and an Engineered plague to hate on the board and hopefully build advantage over the course of the game.

Let me know what you guys think! Feel free to critique as hard as you want, it's how I learn.

[James718]

- My Tournament Report -

I took this U/B Tezzeret (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tezerator-1/) list to Docking Bay today. I ended up doing pretty well so I didnt drop to commentate.

My third match was on stream today which you can see here (http://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/27892052), it starts around 1:48:30.


Round 1 - Sneak attack

This was a quick 2-0, Game 1 he played a show and tell revealing an emrakul and I revealed a The Abyss. Game two I had a chalice on 1 and swung with 5/5s
2-0, 1-0

Round 2 vs Storm

Game 1 I went on the aggro path quick preventing an adnauseum, Game 2 I had a turn 1 chalice on 1 and chalice on zero with a leyline of the void on the field.
4-0, 2-0

Round 3 vs Tezzerator (on stream)

I played my friend Ryan here who I have been consulting with about the build. Game 1 I mull to 5 :( and he lost, I took game 2 with a cranial plated Strix. Game 3 I misplayed by impusling with a tezz instead of using it as the tezz plus 1, The commentators confused some of the plays I made because they didnt see my hand. Ryan saw ALL of his forces and won with a sweet Tezz ultimate for like 28.
5-2, 2-1

Round 4 - 4C Punishing Loam
This is my worst matchup, they pull ahead with card advantage with Sylvan/Bobs, the wastelands hurt, and the abrupt decays on signets are worse. I sideboarded in ALL the hate and saw none of it. went 1-2
6-4, 2-2

Round 5 - Sneak n Show
Game 1 I resolved a Bridge which he had no answer for and won via Tezz ult. Game 2 I started with a quick lodestone, He played a show and tell and I revealed a bridge. A chalice came soon after and lodestone became a clock. 2-0
8-4, 3-2

I made top 8 in the 8th spot, there were 2 Tezzerators in the Top 8!

As fate would have it I played the same 4C loam deck and lost 0-2, such a bad matchup that I never really felt ahead at any point. 0-2
8-6, 3-3


Takeaways
Cranial Plating was great. I'm going to be cutting the etched champion and most likely the mox opal so I will have 2 more flex slots. Not sure about the Leyline/Helm package. Maybe adding misdirections can help the $C loam matchup

[Undomian]

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but having Thopter/Sword in your deck to fog your opponent's enormous knights and goyfs helps a lot with the 4C loam and other GBx matchups. That list you posted looks like you're trying to bridge the gap between the traditional UB lists of this deck and midrange-oriented Affinity. If you want to play with cards like Cranial Plating, it may be worth looking into running some cheaper creatures to equip it to and replacing Impulse with something like Thoughtcast.

[bonkotsu]

Went to an open trial the day before the open, got 2nd. 5-4 during the Open, will do a report tomorrow when I am not so tired.

[James718]

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but having Thopter/Sword in your deck to fog your opponent's enormous knights and goyfs helps a lot with the 4C loam and other GBx matchups. That list you posted looks like you're trying to bridge the gap between the traditional UB lists of this deck and midrange-oriented Affinity. If you want to play with cards like Cranial Plating, it may be worth looking into running some cheaper creatures to equip it to and replacing Impulse with something like Thoughtcast.

I may try to add the Thopter/sword as a 1/1, But I don't know if that would be enough to make it relevant. Its also a little slower and prime Decay targets. I like using perish to deal with their goyfs much better. Perhaps I will add another perish in the SB.

Yes, I think that based on the current meta, the speed of a Tezzeret beatdown deck has been much better, the cranial plating changes the game so much when it hits the board. You end up with a 10/5 strix a lot. I added the plating also to add to my must answer threat count to get Decays out of their hands.

I wouldnt know what other creatures to add though. There isnt much room in the deck. Any suggestions?

[bonkotsu]

I will do this as two separate posts vs a giant wall of texts will grammar errors.

Open Trial Fri 11/27

Round 1: MUD
Game 1: I am on the play, no idea what the guy is on, I keep a turn 1 crucible hand pitching a CoT to Diamond. He plays Chalice on 1. Next turn I just waste him, waste him, waste him, he scoops
Game 2: He plays Pithing Needle turn 1 on Crucible of Worlds. I proceed to set up Thopter Combo with Tezz on the field, he scoops.

Round 2: Infect
Game 1: Chalice for 1 does its work, waste away his Inkmoths, proceed to overrun him with Thopters
Game 2: He plays a Glisener Elf, fights over my chalice, gets me to 5 infect next turn, I slap down Aether Grid and start pinging his dudes. Eventually Crucible with Wastes, he scoops

Round 3: Miracles
Game 1: Make 5/5s swing away. GG
Game 2: Waste him 3 times, he scoops

Round 4: Elves
Game 1: I keep a slower hand with a force, he goes off pretty quick, I counter his Natural Order, he just swings in with little dudes to get me. Didn't see much except lands this game
Game 2: Mull to 5, keep a hand of tomb, waste, diamond, dack, deluge. I never see a third color source, he has me

Cut to top 4
Semi Finals: Elves
Game 1: I blow him out with thopter/meek/grid combo
Game 2: He sticks a Null Rod, I hide behind a bridge and try to find my Kolaghan's Command, Eventually he tries to decay my bridge, I misdirect to his Null Rod, GG

Finals: Infect (same player as Round 2)
Game 1: He has the nuts, kills me turn 3
Game 2: Mull to 5, diamond, fetch, deluge, grid, island. Keep and never see my 3rd mana source till later, deluge him to kill his dudes, He has a Sylvan Library, ends up just killing me before I hit a 4th source.

Overall I am quite content with my matches minus my mulligans. Made friends with the Infect player. Get my credit, playmat, and promos and head out to rest for the open.

Probably should also post my list, will type it out when I get home.

[Meekrab]

Game 2: He plays Pithing Needle turn 1 on Crucible of Worlds.
Errr. 0_o

You'd think a MUD player would know Crucible isn't an activated ability.

[bonkotsu]

List for reference


Land (23)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Enchantment (2)
2x Ghirapur AEther

Artifact (18)
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundry
1x Trinisphere

Planeswalker (7)
3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas


Sorcery (2)
2x Transmute Artifact

Creature (4)
4x Baleful Strix

Instant (4)
4x Force of Will

Sideboard (15)
2x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
2x Misdirection
2x Kolaghan's Command
2x Blood Moon
2x Toxic Deluge

[bonkotsu]

Errr. 0_o

You'd think a MUD player would know Crucible isn't an activated ability.

He was an interesting guy. Been playing since 94 and was talking about how he played different brews for their weekly events, but I think he is mainly a casual player

[Serj]

So I got 10th place (5-2) at the Denver 5k IQ this past weekend with the list I posted last page. Here's a small tournament report that I didn't take great notes with but I can remember most of the important stuff.

Round 1 Against UWR Miracles
Game 1 I am able to clobber him with a early chalice into Tezz the Seeker into beating down with 5/5s.
Game 2 is a long grindy game where we trade resources but I eventually cobble together Dack + Notion thief for a couple of turns while he as a clique pressuring my life total. The game ends with me -2ing Dack to steal his top when he has CounterTop on board and he tanks really hard and draws with top and I get a card off Notion Thief then cast Transmute Artifact to get Helm with my T0 Leyline and combo him out.

Round 2 RUG Delver
Game 1 I go Mox diamond island into Strix. Turn 2 I waste land his only land and he has 2 waste lands and doesn't do very much. We trade resources for a little while he finally finds another fetch and plays nimble mongoose. I cast The Abyss and he starts to worry and asks if that's the card that makes people sac on upkeep and I tell him kind of but not exactly so I call a Judge so he can read the oracle text of the card. He gets really condescending saying I don't even know what my own cards do and starts being a dick in general. He glances the oracle text and concedes with a Mongoose in play (lol).
Game 2 I keep a sketchy 6 and go T1 Signet off tomb. He wastes my tomb I play sea into strix and then he wastes my sea and costs ponder. I start beating down with strix and deploy another Tomb into Crucible that gets dazed. He plays a couple of creatures and starts to pressure me. After a couple of turns I'm able to assemble Thopter Foundry, Tezz, a bunch of artifacts and play a strix to stop him from attacking but am at 2 life from leaning on Tomb. He untaps draws his 3rd land and slams Vortex and I die on my upkeep.
Game 3 He just has the nutterbutters and dazes my T1 chalice, forces my T2 chalice and then gets mongoose and goyf into play and starts beating me in. He wastes my only colored sources I draw an uncastable deluge and then he just kills me in two turns. Boo.

Round 3 Dredge
Game 1 Playing against a guy from my LGS and he knows the matchup is terrible for him. Game 1 I get an early chalice but he's able to get 3 bridges into his Yard and makes some Zombies and starts to pressure me. I play a strix so that he can't attack without exiling his Bridge. I assemble Thopter Sword and sac my strix to exile his bridges and GG.
Game 2 I had turn 0 Leyline into Turn 1 chalice, he top decked Nature's Claim on his second turn. If I didn't have exactly Leyline + chalice he had a very easy Turn 2 win.

Round 4 I got to play against .DK who was on Tin Fins.
Game 1 He was able to cobble together a fast Tin Fins kill.
Game 2 I wasn't sure if he was still on the Doomsday sideboard plan so I kept a copy of the Abyss in and brought in my normal Helmline kill taking out a couple strixes and a copy of Dack and Jace. He ended up being on Mentor + Bob man plan and almost closed out game 2. I was barely able to race him with Tezz and 5/5 strixes.
Game 3 I brought in a copy of Deluge and another copy of dack to help keep under Bridge against mentor and kept Helmline in. I get T0 Leyline into T1 Chalice. He gets a turn 2 mentor off lotus petal followed by a Bob and started jamming cantrips into chalice for tokens. He started to pressure me pretty quickly but I was able to get Bridge and Dack out and consistently stay at 0 cards in hand. Eventually I was able to find a Transmute and transmute for Helm and combo him out.

Round 5 Shardless BUG
Game 1 I go Diamond Island Strix pass. He plays Bayou DRS pass. I play wasteland strix swing for 1. He plays wasteland pass. I swing with my strixes and slam crucible and play delta pass. He plays another wasteland and exiles my wasteland with DRS and casts ponder and passes. I get a Tezz out turn strix into a 5/5 and swing 6. He draws and I scoops.
Game 2 He goes land pass. I go Tomb Signet pass. He slams Null Rod on Turn 2 and passes. I play a Sea and pass (I have Kommand in hand just need to find a fetch to get Volc and I'm back in the game) he waste lands my sea and passes. I kind of peter out at this point with colorless lands and a diamond that can't help me. Eventually he gets shardless and goyf out and starts beating my face. I eventually was able to get a strix into play off some top decked basics but he plays lili and -s and then swings for lethal.
Game 3 We trade early resources and eventually he comes out on top with a couple of shardless agents into value.

Round 6 BUG Recurring Pod with Vet explorer
Game 1 He super grinds me out with pod, recurring nightmare and a bunch of persist creatures and a rec sage. It started off okay but ended up being super brutal.
Game 2 I side boarded out chalices since he wasn't leaning heavily on 1 drop cantrips and brought in Helmline. I had turn 0 Leyline and exploded out with diamonds and some other stuff. He gets a Deed into play and then eventually pops it for 4. I rebuild and get another Leyline out and then get a Tezz and smash with 5/5s He's able to get Pod and gets a redcap out. I get Dack into play with notion thief but I -2 to take his pod. He attacks Dack but I'm able to untap and top deck a Transmute for Helm and combo out.
Game 3 was similair to game 2 I get turn 0 Leyline and land a Turn 2 Tezz. He gets a ratchet bomb and starts to tick it up. I never end up finding a Kommand or Dack to steal his bomb so he's able to blow it for 4. I immediately jam a copy of The Abyss and he plays a couple of creatures into it including an explorer. I untap play another Leyline and he's under the Abyss and is no longer able to try and get a bunch of Value. I end up Helmlining him again for the match.

Round 7 UWR miracles
Game 1 I get T1 Chalice and then Turn 2 Tezz. He gets a clique into play around turn 3 and I play a strix and slowly cobble together Thopter/Swords before he concedes. I didn't know he was on miracles because he was playing daze, ponder, clique and I only saw Island and Tundra with 2 Flooded Strands before he conceded. So I sideboarded a little weird instead of my normal miracles plan.
Game 2 I figure out he was on miracles but I was still able to get an early Jace and Dack into play which found a Tezz and my planeswalker force was more than he could handle and I just overran him in CA and eventually got to helmline him out when I had enough mana to cast helm, put it ontop with Academy, get it back with Jace Tezz or Dack and then cast it again and activate and that finished the game.


Sorry if things aren't super clear and that I don't have perfect recollection beyond the first couple of turns a lot of the games ended up being pretty grindy and close with a couple of games where either player just got completely ran over. Overall I'm happy with the deck and the current side board. I brought Bloodmoon in for 4 of my matches but never saw them or was able to get them out early enough to matter. But there were definitely games where if I could have just slammed it on T1 or T2 it would have won me the game out right. Kommand could have won me the game against BUG if it didn't end up going so poorly. Sometimes this deck just draws poorly and I really probably should have mulligained into something better against my BUG and RUG opponents in the games I lost I feel like the hands were pretty sketchy and loose to wasteland/stifle/decay/grudge/rod/daze and could have tried for something more resilient and less all in. But against the rest of my opponents I always felt like I had outs, and could easily take control of the game and finish strongly. I think I might have to go to 24 lands and play a 5th Fetch because I feel like I've been diamond flooded without enough lands to pitch but I can't really say. The easiest card to cut would be Notion Thief but he stole at least 2 matches that would have been much more difficult to win and forced my opponents to make sub-optimal decisions because of his interaction with Dack. The Abyss was good when it got out and stalled the game for a few turns until I could develop a way to win, and even got the obnoxious RUG player who was oblivious to what the card actually did to concede a game that he otherwise could have easily won. Unfortunately it was a clean cut to top 8 with 1-8th just IDing into T8 because the other 15 point player got a pair down and lost (so the other 15 pointers who were going to play out IDd after the pairdown match was decided).

Overall a much better tournament than I had in Seattle and I'm getting better at mulligan decisions. A lot of the Judges were commenting on how sweet the deck was and how'd they'd love to play it, as did some of my opponents who were all saying they wanted to build it but could never bring themselves to do so despite only needing a few of the cheaper cards to finish it. Hopefully I can get some more practice in before Columbus in June and try for a strong showing there.

[hofzge]

So what are your stances on using Ghirapur Aether Grid? Should it replace an Abyss? Should it be main or side? How many?

At the moment it is not in my list, but it helps in a lot of annoying creature based matchups like Elves, Infect & Delver. If you play it main, I would also play at least 2-4 Artifact lands and less duals as well as less basics.

For reference I play this:

1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

4x Baleful Strix
1x Notion Thief

2x Transmute Artifact

4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundry
1x Trinisphere

3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4x Force of Will

1x The Abyss

Sideboard (15)

2x Blood Moon
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Helm of Obedience
1x In the Eye of Chaos
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
2x Toxic Deluge

I can imagine cutting Notion Thief, a Dack Fayden, The Abyss, as well as the sideboard cards In the Eye of Chaos & Chains of Mephistopheles (basically all the fun, obscure Legends cards :laugh:)

[bonkotsu]

So what are your stances on using Ghirapur Aether Grid? Should it replace an Abyss? Should it be main or side? How many?


I can imagine cutting Notion Thief, a Dack Fayden, The Abyss, as well as the sideboard cards In the Eye of Chaos & Chains of Mephistopheles (basically all the fun, obscure Legends cards :laugh:)

So, Aether Grid has replaced Toxic Deluge as my "2 of" for creature removal in the main. I love it. It makes DnT easier, it wrecks Elves, and it is an immense help against Infect. In long grindy games it has been nice for each thopter activation to gain 1 life, make 1 dude, and ping 1 all for 1 mana. As a dead card vs non aggro lists, I prefer this over other creature removal.

I dont play Notion Thief at all, he has been considered but isn't a favorite. I dont play Abyss, Eye, or Chains anymore.

[Ellomdian]

I think that one of the biggest impacts of SCG reducing the number of big, covered Legacy events has been that Delver has gradually gotten less popular over the last few months (post Dig bannings.) I have seen an uptick in non-interactive strategies (Storm especially.)

I think that the consequence is that there is no longer a 'best' version of the deck - it's back to being a core shell of a colorless acceleration and board control threats, but everyone has their own ideas how to build from there.

I have been trimming the mass removal (Deluge and Damnation) from my build, as Thopter/Sword and The Abyss are fine at dealing with BUG-style threats. I've also moved Lodestones from the SB to the Main for most events - T1 Chalice -> T2 Golem is just too strong against 90% of the field right now.

[pharmacolite]

I have been trimming the mass removal (Deluge and Damnation) from my build, as Thopter/Sword and The Abyss are fine at dealing with BUG-style threats. I've also moved Lodestones from the SB to the Main for most events - T1 Chalice -> T2 Golem is just too strong against 90% of the field right now.
Agree.But it is more similar to play MUD, I think it's better to cast huge artifact creatures than to make tiny thopters while opponent get troubles with mana.Also,the planeswalkers which bring us successive advantages plus 1 mana due to the Lodestones.

[Ellomdian]

Agree.But it is more similar to play MUD, I think it's better to cast huge artifact creatures than to make tiny thopters while opponent get troubles with mana.Also,the planeswalkers which bring us successive advantages plus 1 mana due to the Lodestones.

I don't totally understand your reply, but the biggest difference between MUD and my current build is that you have plays available even if your acceleration is disrupted. Also, your 'huge artifact creatures' are extremely vulnerable to the format's premiere removal, while the Thopter engine is pretty durable (as well as fueling other parts of the deck, like Tezz ultimates.)

[hofzge]

Went 3-1 Yesterday at the LGS with this list:

1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Baleful Strix
4x Chalice of the Void
2x City of Traitors
1x Crucible of Worlds
3x Dack Fayden
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Force of Will
2x Ghirapur AEther Grid
2x Island
4x Mox Diamond
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Sword of the Meek
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2x Thopter Foundry
2x Transmute Artifact
1x Trinisphere
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

SB

2x Blood Moon
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
1x Notion Thief
2x Toxic Deluge


Match 1: Michael on 4Color Loam
Game 1: He plays a Chalice on 1 turn 1 and I proceed to play chalices on 2 and 3 to effectifely lock him out.
Game 2: He plays a Liliana turn 2 and destroys me. I have 2 Islands in play at the end to his Confidant and Liliana
Game 3: I manage to halt his attacks with 2 Ensnaring Bridges and then draw a Aether Grid and shoot him down from behind the bridges

Match 2: Lightless (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/member.php?37441-Lightlesshttp://) on Storm:
Game 1: I know he plays storm and Keep Ancient Tomb into Chalice on 1 on turn 1
Game 2: He Gitaxian Probes me and sees that i have a Chalice, normal lands and a Force of Will. I then force his Cabal Therapy and luckily draw an Ancient Tomb Chalice on 1 on turn 1

Match 3: Daniel on Food Chain
Game 1: Grindy game where he inevitably gets ahead and attacks with 4 Misthollow Griffins. To close out he draws Vela, the Night clad
Game 2: I can transmute for a Lodestone Golem so the engine is shut off, but he gets Vela, the Night clad into play and still kills me

I think the deck is poorly matched for the problems that food chain poses.

Match 4: Mark on Elves
Game 1: I mull to 6 and keep a greedy hand on the play with 2 Chalices and Trinisphere but only 1 Usea. After srying and 4 turns i still have 1 land
Game 2: Chalice on 1 on turn 1
Game 3: I get Thoughtseized and have Chalice and Toxic Deluge in hand. On turn 2 i Deluge away a DRS and a Nettle Sentinel. He does not draw any action besides 2 Dryad Arbors and loses with Natural Order in hand against an Aether Grid.

[maCHOOga]

I played a similar Grixis list to a 1-3 finish this week without Aether Grids. Unfortunately, I played against a few Rogue-ish decks that felt like near impossible matchups. Results would have been different with Grids/Eplague lol!

Round 1: Win against reanimator. Abyss is OP!
Round 2: Loss against "Ninja-Fairies". Basically a deck that revolved completely spellstutter sprite and bouncing it to counter all your spells. I had a game where I resolved 1 spell, a dimir signet; all remaining spells where countered. It was miserable!
Round 3: Loss against Goblins. So Goblin sharpshooter negates all the thopters and strixes. It was in play in both games. Chalice and Force do close to nothing in this match.
Round 4: Loss against Elves. Game 3 ended in a topdeck war, which I didn't triumph in...went from 10 to 0 on 5 deathrite activations.

I do have a question, if I'm playing against Elves, should I stick with the thopter plan or move into the helm plan (in addition to all the removal in board!). Elves feels like a deck where they can try to combo you or grind you out. I'm going to guess Helm, since they are bringing in abrupt decays are more reclaimation sages?

[Undomian]

I played a similar Grixis list to a 1-3 finish this week without Aether Grids. Unfortunately, I played against a few Rogue-ish decks that felt like near impossible matchups. Results would have been different with Grids/Eplague lol!

Round 1: Win against reanimator. Abyss is OP!
Round 2: Loss against "Ninja-Fairies". Basically a deck that revolved completely spellstutter sprite and bouncing it to counter all your spells. I had a game where I resolved 1 spell, a dimir signet; all remaining spells where countered. It was miserable!
Round 3: Loss against Goblins. So Goblin sharpshooter negates all the thopters and strixes. It was in play in both games. Chalice and Force do close to nothing in this match.
Round 4: Loss against Elves. Game 3 ended in a topdeck war, which I didn't triumph in...went from 10 to 0 on 5 deathrite activations.

I do have a question, if I'm playing against Elves, should I stick with the thopter plan or move into the helm plan (in addition to all the removal in board!). Elves feels like a deck where they can try to combo you or grind you out. I'm going to guess Helm, since they are bringing in abrupt decays are more reclaimation sages?

Goblins has always been basically an unwinnable matchup, and I don't really see that changing any time soon. Protection from Blue is a busted ability against this deck. Elves is also not the greatest matchup, but I find that I win most of my games against them with 5/5s backed up by wraths.

[Undomian]

Double post, I guess, but I kind of look forward to testing this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYEDUJoWsAEOy-o.png

[That nice guy]

Goblins has always been basically an unwinnable matchup, and I don't really see that changing any time soon. Protection from Blue is a busted ability against this deck. Elves is also not the greatest matchup, but I find that I win most of my games against them with 5/5s backed up by wraths.

I've always sided Engineered Plagues, then I mull to them unless I have the stone cold nuts. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Ellomdian]

I've always sided Engineered Plagues, then I mull to them unless I have the stone cold nuts. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Why are you still running Eplagues? Are Goblins really that prevalent in your meta to justify inclusion of a card in what one assumes is at least a 3-of so that you can safely mulligan to them? Because it's an average to sub-par card in most other matchups (I guess it's the nuts against Cheerios, if they're still on the Kobold version.) And Goblins is verging on Tier 3 at this point, so you're spending 20% of your SB on a matchup you probably can't rely on seeing at a GP, let alone at your local store.

I guess I just play cards that I expect to be good, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Ish]

I don't currently play plague but:

It is decent against elves, puromancer (name human to get even Unflipped delver), DnT and possibly a few others.

That being said I just prefer things like toxic deluge.


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[Ellomdian]

I don't currently play plague but:

It is decent against elves, puromancer (name human to get even Unflipped delver), DnT and possibly a few others.

That being said I just prefer things like toxic deluge.


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Elves has too many X/2's (and Reclamation Sage,) it's marginal against Delver (when are you resolving it against pierce early?) and fine against DnT (but are you really running it for Gobbos and DnT?)

Again, if you are committing 3 slots to something, it had better either be really good against a major deck, or good against a lot of things. E Plague just isn't worth the slots in most environments.

[anakyn]

Hi guys,

have you already debated the comparison between Dack Fayden and Jace, the mind sculptor?

Latest lists seems to prefer Dack, and even if I was very skeptical at first, maybe now I see some reasons behind this choice.

Dack's -2 seems very situational (strong only vs DnT and MUD?), and we can't even use its ultimate, so it's used specifically for its +1: the "filtering" ability, draw 2 discard 2.
On the other hand, all Jace's ability are useful, but the most used is its brainstorm.

So, the comparison becomes: in this deck, is it better Dack's filter or Jace's card advantage?
The answer I gave myself is: in the first turn they land, Jace is better; in the following turns (assuming they stay alive), Dack becomes better and better simply because he filters more cards than Jace and allows us to find our bombs faster.
Of course Jace interacts a lot better with fetches, but this deck doesn't play many of them.

Assuming a situation with no fetches:
- 1st turn --> Jace sees 3 cards (puts 2 on top), Dack sees 2 cards
- 2nd turn --> Jace sees totally 4 cards, Dack sees totally 4 cards
- 3rd turn --> Jace sees totally 5 cards, Dack sees totally 6 cards
...and so on, with Dack filtering each turn 1 more card than Jace.

Summarize:
- DACK --> cheaper, more filtering (over the long-term game), very strong against some very specific decks (steals artifacts), he can put Sword of the Meek in the graveyard
- JACE --> requires only 1 color, all abilities are relevant, provides card advantage, can interact with creatures, can win by itself


My final question is: which is the best in your opinion?

[Undomian]

You can read back in the thread some for whenever we first started to play with Dack, but the fundamental answer to your question depends on the deck you want to play. UB is a Tezzeret deck with Thopter/Sword, and Jace is probably better there as additional copies of Tezzeret. UBr, on the other hand, is a Thopter/Sword deck with Tezzeret, and Dack works better than Jace here because he helps to assemble your combo more quickly.

[Bobmans]

UB is a Tezzeret deck with Thopter/Sword. UBr is a Thopter/Sword deck with Tezzeret.

Best summary ever. And so true.

So on the other news, i have been toying around with the UBg list the monster posted a while back and that list is pretty insane. Getting a Loam engine online under a Trinisphere is backbreaking for so many decks. But the best part is that with Intuition and loam/academy ruins you can assemble nearly anything against everything given that you have enough time to set it up. During testing i really liked having Trinisphere, but it kinda conflicted with the Mox Diamond's. The Mox'n where pretty nice draws when having Loam out (extra landdrop-ish, extra artifact for Tezz). And the DD/Stage coming out of nowhere really saved some games. Last, the addition of Abrupt Decay is pretty sweet, if anything, spot removal really was missing in Tezz lists.

[Ish]

Been having good success with this locally. Was playing the Grixis list for a while but just felt let down by Dack too many times. He's good, but usually just digs through the deck.

I wanted something with synergy and power... So I swapped red for white and went with stoneforge mystic. On its own batterskull and jitte just win games... We all know that. It also fetches half the thopter compo... And even without a thopter you can still transmute the sword into thopter.

Overall I have been very happy. I base the success totally of the foundation of the Grixis list, and really appreciate all the hard work on that deck. This is still at its core that deck, with just a tweet that has made a huge impact.

See what you think:


Creatures (8)

4 Baleful Strix
4 Stoneforge Mystic
Spells (28)

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Dimir Signet
2 Transmute Artifact
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Batterskull
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
Lands (24)

1 Academy Ruins
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 City of Traitors
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Tundra
2 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
Sideboard (15)

2 Flusterstorm
1 Trinisphere
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Toxic Deluge
2 Lodestone Golem
4 Leyline of the Void


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[Ephemeron]

@Ish: Why no Helm of Obedience in the sideboard? It's basically a freeroll if you're already playing 4 Leyline of the Void. For what it's worth I've never really liked Flusterstorm in this deck, I feel like it's better when it's slamming must answer permanents turn after turn (whether they're prison pieces or combo pieces or planeswalkers) rather than trying to interact on the stack. Humility might be a solid sideboard card too since you're playing white and plan on winning with thopters and equipment a majority of the time.

[Ish]

@Ish: Why no Helm of Obedience in the sideboard? It's basically a freeroll if you're already playing 4 Leyline of the Void. For what it's worth I've never really liked Flusterstorm in this deck, I feel like it's better when it's slamming must answer permanents turn after turn (whether they're prison pieces or combo pieces or planeswalkers) rather than trying to interact on the stack. Humility might be a solid sideboard card too since you're playing white and plan on winning with thopters and equipment a majority of the time.

I do like humility. Will test that.

In regards to helm. It was in there for a while... I swapped it for a second bridge. Lands is VERY popular in my region and wanted an additional out. I found that in key leyline match ups that it did its job on its own... And the win was trivial if landed. Could be right could be wrong.


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[Ellomdian]

You can read back in the thread some for whenever we first started to play with Dack, but the fundamental answer to your question depends on the deck you want to play. UB is a Tezzeret deck with Thopter/Sword, and Jace is probably better there as additional copies of Tezzeret. UBr, on the other hand, is a Thopter/Sword deck with Tezzeret, and Dack works better than Jace here because he helps to assemble your combo more quickly.

Well said.

I'd add that the UB lists are typically more board-control strategies, while the UBr lists are more combo-y. The UBr ones are more explosive, the UB ones are better mid-range decks.

[theMonster]

So on the other news, i have been toying around with the UBg list the monster posted a while back and that list is pretty insane. Getting a Loam engine online under a Trinisphere is backbreaking for so many decks. But the best part is that with Intuition and loam/academy ruins you can assemble nearly anything against everything given that you have enough time to set it up. During testing i really liked having Trinisphere, but it kinda conflicted with the Mox Diamond's. The Mox'n where pretty nice draws when having Loam out (extra landdrop-ish, extra artifact for Tezz). And the DD/Stage coming out of nowhere really saved some games. Last, the addition of Abrupt Decay is pretty sweet, if anything, spot removal really was missing in Tezz lists.

Glad to see someone giving it a shot! I'd been off it for a little while so I could test other things and try new archetypes, but now I'm back on Tezz. Trinisphere is a card I hadn't really considered because of the interaction with Moxen, but the idea of Wasteland-locking people in the late game appeals to me, as does just slamming it T1 and following up with a :4:-drop. @Bobmans, would you mind posting your list? I'm curious to see any adjustments you may have made. Are you running Abrupt Decays maindeck, or are they in the sideboard?

I may sleeve it up again for tomorrow's FNM. Thinking about running something like this:


4 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Seat of the Synod
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

4 Baleful Strix

1 Sylvan Library

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

2 Transmute Artifact
1 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Force of Will

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge

// sideboard //

1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Massacre
2 Lodestone Golem
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Misdirection


I'm gonna try Serj's advice from a while ago and not play an artifact sweeper like Engineered Explosives in the maindeck. I've always found it to be awkward as well, compromising my own board state because I'm a permanent-based control strategy. So I'm opting for more sweepers. 1 main/2 side may be excessive, but I think this deck needs it. I don't own any Chains of Mephistopheles or The Abyss, so I can't play any of those in the board right now. And I might be crazy, but I kind of hate Ensnaring Bridge, especially in my list that can produce Marit Lage. I find that it never sticks in the post-board games, but maybe it's a necessary evil. Considering one 3ball somewhere, too, but I'm on the fence about it because I think the meta is becoming quite midrange-y (at least by me).

If I opt to limit my Bridge count - say, cut the one in the board - I'm considering trying Tombstalker as a one-of so I can use my graveyard after dredging Life from the Loam. Too deep? I mean, maybe I cut the Bridges entirely and just try to slam people with huge threats. In that case, I could probably cut one Transmute Artifact and turn it into, say, a second Jace, the Mind Sculptor or maindeck a couple Abrupt Decays or something. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts. Also, any opinions on a miser's Spellskite in the 75? The card doesn't really further the game plan, so I haven't played it, but if it's that popular in Modern, it's gotta be worth something, right?

Glad to dust off my planeswalkers!

[Bobmans]

Glad to see someone giving it a shot! I'd been off it for a little while so I could test other things and try new archetypes, but now I'm back on Tezz. Trinisphere is a card I hadn't really considered because of the interaction with Moxen, but the idea of Wasteland-locking people in the late game appeals to me, as does just slamming it T1 and following up with a :4:-drop. @Bobmans, would you mind posting your list? I'm curious to see any adjustments you may have made. Are you running Abrupt Decays maindeck, or are they in the sideboard?

I may sleeve it up again for tomorrow's FNM. Thinking about running something like this:


4 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Seat of the Synod
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

4 Baleful Strix

1 Sylvan Library

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

2 Transmute Artifact
1 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Force of Will

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge

// sideboard //

1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Massacre
2 Lodestone Golem
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Misdirection


I'm gonna try Serj's advice from a while ago and not play an artifact sweeper like Engineered Explosives in the maindeck. I've always found it to be awkward as well, compromising my own board state because I'm a permanent-based control strategy. So I'm opting for more sweepers. 1 main/2 side may be excessive, but I think this deck needs it. I don't own any Chains of Mephistopheles or The Abyss, so I can't play any of those in the board right now. And I might be crazy, but I kind of hate Ensnaring Bridge, especially in my list that can produce Marit Lage. I find that it never sticks in the post-board games, but maybe it's a necessary evil. Considering one 3ball somewhere, too, but I'm on the fence about it because I think the meta is becoming quite midrange-y (at least by me).

If I opt to limit my Bridge count - say, cut the one in the board - I'm considering trying Tombstalker as a one-of so I can use my graveyard after dredging Life from the Loam. Too deep? I mean, maybe I cut the Bridges entirely and just try to slam people with huge threats. In that case, I could probably cut one Transmute Artifact and turn it into, say, a second Jace, the Mind Sculptor or maindeck a couple Abrupt Decays or something. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts. Also, any opinions on a miser's Spellskite in the 75? The card doesn't really further the game plan, so I haven't played it, but if it's that popular in Modern, it's gotta be worth something, right?

Glad to dust off my planeswalkers!

My list looks very much the same as your current one. Differences are very slight. Offcourse the 1-off Trinisphere. I run a Powder Keg main. I really can't justify myself not running a tutorable sweeper, even if that would mean it might take some of my own. The manabase is a little different. I dont run CTP, instead i have Urborg, less fetch and 4 USea + 2 CoT.
The board also looks a like. I do run 4 leyline.

Ill edit the post with an actual list later on.

I think Tombstalker is just to random. If more then anything i think perhaps something like Scourge of Nel Toth might even be better. IF we'd even want to be doing this kinds of stuff.

[theMonster]

I think you're right at Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth being a better fit than Creeping Tar Pit. I've found that I can't always attack with Tar Pit with an Ensnaring Bridge in play, and there are rare occasions when I wish it were any other land so I could play Must-Answer Card X on curve. Plus I could tap Dark Depths for mana, thereby only requiring it, Thespian's Stage and Urborg to make Marit Lage.

Most lists run City of Traitors, and I completely understand the appeal, but I've had so many situations where any other land would've been better for me. And Mox Diamond reduces the need for City since we're only playing two Dimir Signets as opposed to the full six :2:-drop mana rocks. Maybe I can hedge and play one, but I'm gonna try zero for now. How many Wastelands are you running? I'm trying to skate by with one because we can Intuition for it, and it's generally not until the later stages of the game that we want to Waste-lock people, given the deck's mana requirements.

I've always preferred the immediacy of Engineered Explosives over Powder Keg/Ratchet Bomb, but that's personal preference. I don't like that my opponent has time to adjust to a ticking time bomb, so I generally like cards that get lots o' things dead real fast. Again, that's just me.

Agree with the Tombstalker assessment. It was just an idea I've bounced around. Scourge of Nel Toth feels "win-more" to me because if we have two creatures to sacrifice, we're probably already ahead with the Thopter combo.

I'd love to see your list, @Bobmans!

[Bobmans]

There you go:


4 Force of Will
2 Intuition
1 Transmute Artifact

1 Sylvan Library
1 Life from the Loam

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

4 Baleful Strix
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Trinisphere
1 Powder Keg
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond

4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta

SB: 2 Lodestone Golem
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 The Abyss
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void


Edit: Additional cards have been tested.
Vraska the Unseen is unique to the BG colors and provides extra removal and win condition dodging life total. On itself a bit sketchy towards the overall strategy.
Liliana Vess can tutor up combo pieces/silver bullet's. Also a one sided discard can be nice, but not to good without protection.
In the end i found Big Tezz better. Big Tezz can dig up Thopter/Sword over 2 turns. Also gets a Pithing Needle under a Trinipshere/Chalice@1. This, among additional utility.

Urborg also makes your Ancient Tomb's better lategame and is/can be a real life saver.

[Ellomdian]

Most lists run City of Traitors, and I completely understand the appeal, but I've had so many situations where any other land would've been better for me. And Mox Diamond reduces the need for City since we're only playing two Dimir Signets as opposed to the full six :2:-drop mana rocks.

At this point, most of these lists look like they have come full circle through the Mox Diamond plan that Undomain advocates to accelerate out cheap Walkers for card advantage back to Control Loam shells. Most lists run City of Traitors because they are EXTREMELY disciplined when it comes to the manabase - one of the hardest things to do was to find room for an Academy Ruins, as it's kind of a luxury card. Most lists can function with 2-3 lands on the board at most, and are trying to empty their hands by turn 3-4. It's fascinating how once Crucible gets discussed, people immediately jump to Stage/Depths as a WinCon, and then Loam is just a more efficient engine that the board control elements that the UB and UBr builds are built around.

I don't think that Control/Prison/Loam whatever builds are bad, but I don't think they really have anything to do with the Fast Walker strategy that this deck uses as it's core strength. One of the biggest advantages about this archetype, especially in Legacy, is that it dodges much of the general 'good' types of answers and sideboard cards. The point was really to be playing a deck that is neigh immune to Swords, most Graveyard hate, and that is particularly good in a Tempo- and Combo-oriented Meta while still having game against the defacto best Control deck. I don't necessarily even think that this (Tezz) is even the strongest deck to abuse Chalice in, as Loam's engine is easier to get off the ground.

And, for whatever it's worth I keep looking at these lists, and if your Mox gets denied, your decks look really, really clunky. Rule #1 is that you play this deck because it can function without Brainstorm, and there are so many 1-of's and weird pieces (Intuition? Sylvan???) that I just don't want sitting in my hand, uncastable or on the board doing nothing.

Play what you want, but I suspect you would have more fruitful conversation and feedback in one of the many, many 3-4 Color Loam threads.

[Ellomdian]

Small update: Format kind of sucks when a third of the room is playing Standard cards in their Modern deck at a Legacy tournament. Chalice is a great card, but it's at it's best in matchups where your opponent is not ALSO trying to jam Chalice for 1 ASAP.

I've tested against Eldrazi decks, and you can beat them (I have 3 MD Damnations right now and no Abyss), but what's the point? You're basically building a Bridge ASAP and trying to get Thopter/Sword online against a deck that often runs multiple Relics MD. I'm pretty sure that Leyline/Helm is just stronger against them, because they can't interact with it once the pieces are on the table.

But, when the most popular deck in the room is not blue, play cards that are weak to FoW. Sneak and Show, ANT, even Belcher is a legit choice right now.

[Yonthan]

Small update: Format kind of sucks when a third of the room is playing Standard cards in their Modern deck at a Legacy tournament. Chalice is a great card, but it's at it's best in matchups where your opponent is not ALSO trying to jam Chalice for 1 ASAP.

I've tested against Eldrazi decks, and you can beat them (I have 3 MD Damnations right now and no Abyss), but what's the point? You're basically building a Bridge ASAP and trying to get Thopter/Sword online against a deck that often runs multiple Relics MD. I'm pretty sure that Leyline/Helm is just stronger against them, because they can't interact with it once the pieces are on the table.

But, when the most popular deck in the room is not blue, play cards that are weak to FoW. Sneak and Show, ANT, even Belcher is a legit choice right now.

I play-tested against the Eldrazi deck a bit, and i agree that bridge and Thopter/Sword are good against them, but they do have revoker which can be annoying for Thopter/Sword and Leyline/Helm

[mosaic]

Played local weekly ended 2:2, (my first time with 8tezz/ub-tezz, well to be honest just in tournament as I tested some versions in my playgroup before).

R1: Grixis Delver 1:0
g1, chalice forced followed by grindy match, where Tezz stabilize on 6 life with thopter/sword, damnation helped alot.
g2, starting with LOTV in play, my chalice of city got dazed (had to try it), killed with helm after some fight
(both games were prety close)

R2: Eldrazi 1:1
g1, lost the die roll, which kind of result in quick loss, they can hit critical mass very, very fast
g2, started with LOTV in play, some bridges and strixes got in the way, just to buy enough time to get proper pieces.
g3, started with LOTV, but had a slow start in exchange, hand was 2lands (non sol), rock, Bridge, Transmutation, Thopter Foundry. He put thorn in play, and next turn another thorn, from there, it was quick.

R3: counter-top-helm combo (storm) 1:2
g1, t1 chalice @1 sealed the deal
g2, chalice was pierced, after long grindy games, lost some life to snapcaster attacking, at 9 he managed play double grepshot with storm at 3 before first hence the second was enough. (had chalice @1 in play)
g3, chalice fowed, trinispehere fowed at the same turn, then he managed to get TOP with CB in play, after trying storm me out, fulsterstorm delayed hist plan, but only for one turn, even thought I had managed to sneak in thopter/sword.

R4: Death and taxes 2:2
g1, lost the die roll, he vialed mother on t2, just to meet the bomb, got little landscrewed in terms of colors, tezz seeker helped to get the right pieces to finish off
g2, mother, thalia, mystic meet the Virtue's Ruin, revokers are naughty especially in multiples - thopter, tezz agent, jace, we get into turns, just to get Toxic Deluge @1 to ruin such heresy.

This deck is a monster! Had a lot of fun, it is a real joy to play this deck. I do not know, but in all played games, it felt ... just like to do unimaginable evil things (in a funny way) to my opponent.


There is one thing I would like to know, what to do with Null Rod? I know that it is just usualy 1of card, but it does ridiculous things - nothing. (opted for Echoing Truth, which I am not sure about)
Because making it a creature and kill it with Damnation/Deluge is really bad. Splash for Decay/Grudge is not the way I would like to go with our land base.

Decklist:

4 Baleful Strix

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Dimir Signet
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Talisman od Dominance
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Transmute Artifact
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Damnation
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Force of Will
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Darkwater Catacombs
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Seat if the Synod
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Drowned Catacomb

Sideboard:

1 Flusterstorm
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
1 Perish
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Trinispehere
1 Virtue's Ruins
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Lodestone Golem


(normaly I am a TA player, but I lend my TA deck to a friend, hence only 2 Underground Sea as I just do not own 7-8 Underground Sea (and TA does not work without 4 Seas), Drowned Catacomb gets around Choke, taking 2 from Watery Grave is too much with Tombs in my mind)

[hofzge]

List for reference


Land (23)
1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
4x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Enchantment (2)
2x Ghirapur AEther

Artifact (18)
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
2x Thopter Foundry
1x Trinisphere

Planeswalker (7)
3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas


Sorcery (2)
2x Transmute Artifact

Creature (4)
4x Baleful Strix

Instant (4)
4x Force of Will

Sideboard (15)
2x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
2x Misdirection
2x Kolaghan's Command
2x Blood Moon
2x Toxic Deluge

This deck is a very good baseline for Grixis: I play a very similar deck and am trying out the one-off Tezzeret the Seeker. Also I wonder if the Badlands should be a Volcanic Island:

1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Badlands
2x City of Traitors
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Seat of the Synod
1x Swamp
3x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

4x Baleful Strix

4x Chalice of the Void
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
3x Sword of the Meek
4x Thopter Foundry

3x Dack Fayden
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1x Tezzeret the Seeker

4x Force of Will
2x Transmute Artifact

Sideboard

2x Blood Moon
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lodestone Golem
1x The Abyss
2x Toxic Deluge
1x Trinisphere

[Ellomdian]

Side Note #2: With the Unbanning of Sword of the Meek in Modern, there's a straight port of the Legacy deck that Pascal Maynard streamed some games for last week. http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-pmayne-modern-thoptersword/

Also, unrelated, did you know that Mox opal is legal in Modern? :cool:

[bigbobbobber]

Thought I'd share some thoughts on this deck as a whole. I have been playing the U/B version every week since January at my LGS, and I've been having some great success with it so far.

First thing I'd like to share is that I don't think this deck is nearly as inconsistent as some people say it is. I find that by running 6 or 7 planeswalkers along with 2 Transmute Artifact that I am very, very rarely flooded, screwed, or lacking the one card that I need. It happens, but not as much as when I was playing Goblin Stompy.

Next thought is that I feel this deck has no issues with most combo decks. I am playing with Leylines and Helm maindeck, so graveyard based combo is not a problem for me, and other forms of combo can be answered with Chalice of the Void and Force of Will. Thus far, I have rarely lost to any combo deck. The one issue I am running into is faster, more aggressive decks. There are several Merfolk players at my LGS, as well as at least one Burn player on any given week. These decks are an issue, and I haven't quite figured out how to win them yet. Two sideboarded Toxic Deluge, Ratchet Bomb, and Dismember just don't seem to cut it. I don't have a copy of the Abyss, but when a friend lent it to me one week to try I managed to cast it in all of one game and it didn't matter at that point anyways. Cards I have been thinking of trying out to shore up the aggro matchups include No Mercy, upping the Ensnaring Bridge count to 3, Meekstone, Energy Field, cheating and playing with 8 copies of Baleful Strix, and Damnation. I find that the thopter/sword combo is often too slow to establish against aggressive decks. I have been dead on turn 4/5 against Burn and Merfolk several times without any chance of getting the combo online. Any other thoughts on this subject?

All in all, very impressed with this deck. Haven't tried the Grixis version yet, but I find that my colors are often stretched as it is. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I will likely stick with the U/B version.

[BeforeMemory]

More Damnation and Ensnaring Bridge seem like those would help with merfolk. Maybe some cheap counterspells against burn like Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm or Dispel.
What is your current list?

[Ellomdian]

The one issue I am running into is faster, more aggressive decks. There are several Merfolk players at my LGS, as well as at least one Burn player on any given week. These decks are an issue, and I haven't quite figured out how to win them yet. Two sideboarded Toxic Deluge, Ratchet Bomb, and Dismember just don't seem to cut it. I don't have a copy of the Abyss, but when a friend lent it to me one week to try I managed to cast it in all of one game and it didn't matter at that point anyways. Cards I have been thinking of trying out to shore up the aggro matchups include No Mercy, upping the Ensnaring Bridge count to 3, Meekstone, Energy Field, cheating and playing with 8 copies of Baleful Strix, and Damnation. I find that the thopter/sword combo is often too slow to establish against aggressive decks. I have been dead on turn 4/5 against Burn and Merfolk several times without any chance of getting the combo online. Any other thoughts on this subject?

Bridge and Damnation are your friend against swarm style decks - The Abyss isn't going to help much against Folk. And I still play Sun Droplets depending how Aggro/Red the room looks. You might also up your Transmute count to 3, since you want to reliably have a Bridge online ASAP.

[Serj]

So after experimenting with Tezz in modern for a little bit and trying to jam T1 Chalices in a format that has no business doing so I came across a little gemstone cavern tech to help push the acceleration needed to keep up in that format (no really my modern games effectively end consistently by turn 4-5 even with a deck durdling with Bridge and Chalice) and ended up really enjoying having the 1 of Gemstone Cavern in the main (ended up throwing a second copy in the side for when I'm on the draw cause why the hell not), as it helped accelerate ahead further on the draw which is where I felt I wanted fast mana the most and it ended up being really good when I saw it.

So I decided to try it this week in some weekly legacy tournaments (-1 Island +1 Gemstone Cavern) because I figured on the draw in my opener it's effectively a chrome mox (or mox diamond) or a perfect candidate to toss to mox diamond. So far I've seen it 5 times in about 12 games (on the draw, seen it a couple times in the opener on the play but haven't had to mull due to not producing colored mana, at least yet) and it's been impressing me. I got to live the dream and turn 2 someone with Turn 0 leyline cavern into turn 1 helm turn 2 activate helm kill you. It's also helped increase the slight consistency of fast Tezz or Dack on the draw or Chalice on 1. Every time I "got lucky" with it, it's seriously helped push me past matchups that are either a race or otherwise hard to win the longer the game goes on (Abrupt Decay, P.Deed, Null Rod/Stony Silence decks) and helps make the card disadvantage pretty unnoticeable. Gonna try it more till Colombus and might go to a second copy (over maybe a wasteland, sea or volc) just to see if my first few anecdotal impressions stay consistent or if I start missing the basic island more and more.

Also an additional change I've made recently is going with Undomain's advice and playing more like a thopter/swords deck and moved to a 4/3 thopter/sword split and trimmed some of the fun ofs and "fat" to the board (Notion Thief, Crucible of Worlds, cut JtMS from the 75) and have been happier with the results. Game 1 it feels relatively easier to try and sneak a win with Thopter/Sword combo and trying to rely less on board control or completely locking my opponents out under Chalice/Bridge and some forces and instead just jam the combo until it sticks or maneuver into a position in which it stabilizes me into a Tezz ult for the win. And then game 2 siding down on copies of the combo (depending on matchup down to 3/2, 2/2 or 2/1) for high impact sideboard cards and/or helmline (been seeing a lot more RiPs and GY hate lately).

Overall I'm happy with how the deck has been performing for me lately, I was tempted to make the jump to storm cause we had 3 different BUG variants pop up in my usual LGS so life has been tough, but it's been working out and in more open and diverse LGS metas I've been consistently performing to X-0 and X-1 records. Also have yet to lose to Eldrazi, bridge OP.

On a side note I picked up some foil chalices and got foil copies of Thopter/Swords because I randomly had like 8 normal foundries and 7 SotMs that I kept picking up out of dollar boxes over the years and just traded them up into foil copies (suddenly started seeing foil swords in binders after the modern unbanning :rolleyes: )

[rlesko]

Played a pretty stock list the other day, actually I think most Tezzeret lists share this same shell of 29 cards

29 "Core"
4 Strix
2 Talisman of Dominance
4 Dimir Signet
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Transmute Artifact
4 Force of Will

22 Lands
Nothing special here...an urborg...an academy, typical UB lands, 7 sol lands.

So that leads us to the following 9 "flex" slots

3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Trading Post
1 Batterskull

Felt like I needed more ways to win the game...I think if I played the deck again I would definitely splash red for some Dack Fayden action...I think its safe to say I wanted more looting effects every game. 6 mana rocks felt great with 2 transmutes.

Lost to death and taxes in swiss and top 8. Seems like a terrible match up I'm honestly not sure how to beat them. I had 2 damnations in my sideboard and an engineered plague. I also brought in my Helm of Obedience out from the board in hopes he would Rest in Peace me...that never happened. Also an additional copy of ensnaring bridge. Ghirapur Aether also seems good against them.

Playing 4 Baleful Strix in some match ups feels like cheating. Playing force and chalice also feels like cheating sometimes.

[Serj]

Adding red to the deck certainly improves your DnT matchup. You can still lose to the deck (quite easily actually) because sometimes their draws just match up insanely well against everything we are trying to do, especially if they are on the play. But being able to have access to cards like Aether Grid (matches up exceedingly well against 1 toughness dudes), Kolaghan's Command, and Dack Fayden (taking Vial or equipment can be big game, putting SoFI on Strix is dirty) all add percentage points to the match up. Also playing Mox Diamond/Wasteland makes it easier to play around their Ports/Wastes and can help keep above their taxing effects. Add in some sweepers for good measure (deluge/damnation as you mentioned are good obviously). It is often important to play or grab a second bridge if you are in top deck mode if you are close to dying or they have an impressive board state because Flickerwisp can sneak in wins through bridge.

Other than that, the scariest creatures from their deck for us by far is Revoker and Flickerwisp (and I guess Mangara+Karakas if they run it). It isn't impossible for us to weather mana-denial strategy or bruteforce our way threw it. It's when they actually interact with our board and game plan that it becomes an issue.

[rlesko]

Other than that, the scariest creatures from their deck for us by far is Revoker and Flickerwisp (and I guess Mangara+Karakas if they run it). It isn't impossible for us to weather mana-denial strategy or bruteforce our way threw it. It's when they actually interact with our board and game plan that it becomes an issue.

Absolutely...I was naming "Horror" with my engineered plague. One of the games was a bit of a fluke though, i had about 10 lands in play, an ensnaring bridge, thopter foundry, and went through 3/4 of my deck and couldn't find a transmute or a sword of the meek. He also seemed to have multiple revokers every game, which is obviously extremely annoying :-/

[James718]

Absolutely...I was naming "Horror" with my engineered plague. One of the games was a bit of a fluke though, i had about 10 lands in play, an ensnaring bridge, thopter foundry, and went through 3/4 of my deck and couldn't find a transmute or a sword of the meek. He also seemed to have multiple revokers every game, which is obviously extremely annoying :-/

and then.... Cataclysm!

[Undomian]

I did a deck tech with the people at GatheringMagic:

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/insidethedeck-05192016-inside-the-deck-legacy-grixis-tezzeret-deck-tech/

[Bobmans]

I did a deck tech with the people at GatheringMagic:

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/insidethedeck-05192016-inside-the-deck-legacy-grixis-tezzeret-deck-tech/

Nice one, i shared it with a friend that wants to get into the deck.
Interesting to see a 3/4 split between Tezz/Dack, 2/3 split between Thopter/Sword and the lack of Aether Grid. What made you decide to run those numbers?

[Undomian]

Nice one, i shared it with a friend that wants to get into the deck.
Interesting to see a 3/4 split between Tezz/Dack, 2/3 split between Thopter/Sword and the lack of Aether Grid. What made you decide to run those numbers?

I've been running 4/3 of Dack/Tezzeret for a while now. After cutting down to 5 sol lands, Tezzeret doesn't come down on turn 2 as reliably. I had also been finding that, given the choice between casting Tezzeret and casting Dack, I was often choosing to play Dack first to get rid some dead cards in my hand or to dig for lands/sideboard cards/etc. I've always been a firm believer that the UBr variant is primarily a Thopter/Sword deck, so the 4/3 split there is a no brainer.

I go back and forth quite a lot between Aether Grid and The Abyss. It and The Abyss share a slot, and are each equally good - albeit in different matchups. This is just a metagame call, and I switch between them between tournaments based on what I see and my expectations of what will be popular.

[maCHOOga]

Been having good success with this locally. Was playing the Grixis list for a while but just felt let down by Dack too many times. He's good, but usually just digs through the deck.

I wanted something with synergy and power... So I swapped red for white and went with stoneforge mystic. On its own batterskull and jitte just win games... We all know that. It also fetches half the thopter compo... And even without a thopter you can still transmute the sword into thopter.

Overall I have been very happy. I base the success totally of the foundation of the Grixis list, and really appreciate all the hard work on that deck. This is still at its core that deck, with just a tweet that has made a huge impact.


Ish,
After recently acquiring Stoneforges (thanks GPs!) and trying the Tezz deck in modern (it sucks for multiple reasons); I decided to play your list with some minor tweaks. I really like the ability to play less swords and be more midrangy. I turned 1 a SFM against Death and Taxes and they looked really sad when they vialed their's in on turn 3. :-)

My tweaks -1 Misdirection +1 Jace, TMS.
Sideboard: -2 Flusterstorm, -1 Clique, -2 Deluges, -1 Bridge: +1 Helm of Obedience, +2 Damnation, +1 Aethersworn Cannonist, +1 Vindicate*, +1 EE

I wanted to play the Abyss, but it seems like a huge nombo Stoneforge and germ tokens. I went with Damnation over Deluges. I struggled to get double black when I needed to cast it. That was an oversight on my part. Helm is 1000% precent worth the spot. I had a D&T board in rest in peace against me. That was the easiest turn 3 kill ever. I wanted an SB answer to hate cards, so I went with a Anguished Unmaking. It probably should be a vindicate, but I do like the exile effect. Plus, I don't own a vindicate...somehow. (First world problems!)

I did have to mulligan a lot...I assume theres not way to improve the manabase?

[Ish]

Ish,
After recently acquiring Stoneforges (thanks GPs!) and trying the Tezz deck in modern (it sucks for multiple reasons); I decided to play your list with some minor tweaks. I really like the ability to play less swords and be more midrangy. I turned 1 a SFM against Death and Taxes and they looked really sad when they vialed their's in on turn 3. :-)

My tweaks -1 Misdirection +1 Jace, TMS.
Sideboard: -2 Flusterstorm, -1 Clique, -2 Deluges, -1 Bridge: +1 Helm of Obedience, +2 Damnation, +1 Aethersworn Cannonist, +1 Vindicate*, +1 EE

I wanted to play the Abyss, but it seems like a huge nombo Stoneforge and germ tokens. I went with Damnation over Deluges. I struggled to get double black when I needed to cast it. That was an oversight on my part. Helm is 1000% precent worth the spot. I had a D&T board in rest in peace against me. That was the easiest turn 3 kill ever. I wanted an SB answer to hate cards, so I went with a Anguished Unmaking. It probably should be a vindicate, but I do like the exile effect. Plus, I don't own a vindicate...somehow. (First world problems!)

I did have to mulligan a lot...I assume theres not way to improve the manabase?

Awesome! Yeah manabase can be wonky with any 3 color tezz deck. The misdirection was always a flex slot... Definitely play around with it. The stoneforge package just helps in some many fair matchups, and we're already good against combo and control.

Think I'll be playing this tomorrow at a local


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ephemeron]

@Undomain: I've got a question for you since the Grixis Tezz deck has been your baby for a while now. I've only played UB Tezz before but I want to try Grixis out (once I sell a kidney to pay for Mox Diamonds). My main question is, why play Wasteland? My experience with UB Tezz is that the manabase can be a bit fragile if it's under attack from enemy wastelands, and the deck in general is very mana hungry. Wasteland doesn't seem to fit into this paradigm.

[Undomian]

@Undomain: I've got a question for you since the Grixis Tezz deck has been your baby for a while now. I've only played UB Tezz before but I want to try Grixis out (once I sell a kidney to pay for Mox Diamonds). My main question is, why play Wasteland? My experience with UB Tezz is that the manabase can be a bit fragile if it's under attack from enemy wastelands, and the deck in general is very mana hungry. Wasteland doesn't seem to fit into this paradigm.

You can certainly play without it successfully, but I personally like the additional utility that it provides as a way to get rid of troublesome lands. I almost never use it aggressively like a delver deck might, so it's used as a mana source more often than not. It's nice to be able to stop Lands from being able to make a token for a turn, snag a Karakas before you Deluge your D&T opponent, or to destroy a Creeping Tar Pit threatening your planeswalkers. You have to run additional land for Diamond anyway, so it may as well give you a bit of utility when you no longer need it for that purpose. My current configuration actually runs a higher percentage of colored mana sources (35%) than the usual UB lists (~%33), so the mana isn't necessarily more fragile.

[anwei]

I picked up a Grixis variant and won a small (12-person) tournament (good for a U Sea) yesterday, but definitely lucked into more wins than my skill with the deck deserved. I have a few questions on sideboarding, since the many-angles of the deck seems to make this pretty complex.

For context, I've been playing around with Aggro Loam a tiny bit, and acceleration+Chalice function quite differently in the two decks, so I'm wondering how much of my boarding senses carry over from that list.

1. When are you cutting Chalice? Obviously against other chalice decks, and presumably against the vial decks on the draw. Vial decks on the play? (Loam cuts them, but t1 mana is much rarer.) I assume not against Shardless (as Loam does), but could be wrong - they certainly have a plethora of Decay targets.
2. Do you ever cut Mox Diamonds? Niklas Kronenberger was cutting 2 from Loam against Miracles/Shardless. I think I cut a couple against P. Deed Nic Fit, but I'm still not sure that was right, since pulling ahead quickly might have been better than reducing the loss to Deed.
3. When to bring in Leyline+Helm (mainly) as a win-con (and not just incidental win-con with grave hate)? I think I saw Undomian bring this in against Sneak/Show, which makes sense. I assume it comes in for Storm also, as the grave is relevant and pumping out 4 turns of Thopters gives them way too much time to find answers. Would you bring it in, say, against any deck likely to have RiP in the board, since (a) you can just get 'em and (b) it gives you more play if they shut off the yard?
4. Toxic Deluge against Delver/tempo decks? Or too risky/costly?
5. Finally, Niklas has started boarding 3-4 Swords to Plowshares in his Loam decks, to come in for Challice against things like DnT, Eldrazi, and Shardless, and as additional cheap removal for the delver matchup (where resolved chalice is so brutal against them that blanking a couple of your cards is fine). Has anyone tried sideboarding Bolt? Obviously it's worse against Eldrazi, Goyf, Lands, and Dredge, where StP is quite good. But, playing against 4-C Delver or Merfolk, I definitely would have liked some faster/cleaner removal than Deluge coming in from the board.

List, for reference:

4 Baleful Strix
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Dimir Signet
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Trinisphere
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact
2 Dack Fayden
1 JTMS
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainsforest
2 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 1 Izzet Staticaster
SB: 2 Blood Moon
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Kolaghan's Command
SB: 2 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Lodestone Golem
SB: 1 E Bridge
SB: 1 Slaughter Games

[Sisyphos]

I'm mainly playing the UB version, so the answers below might change slightly for the UBr version.


1. When are you cutting Chalice? Obviously against other chalice decks, and presumably against the vial decks on the draw. Vial decks on the play? (Loam cuts them, but t1 mana is much rarer.) I assume not against Shardless (as Loam does), but could be wrong - they certainly have a plethora of Decay targets.
Right on the first two. Vial deck on the play decision depends on which Vial deck you are talking about. Against Merfolk I'd cut them. Against Goblins I have kept them in in the past. They have more 1-drops than Vial that can wreck you, especially a fast Lackey draw can get ugly. DnT I'm not quite sure, probably keeping them in. MoM can prevent your Thopter/Strix from blocking, something that has lost me games in the past and Vial allows them to use their mana denial much more freely. But I also admit that I'm probably guilty of keeping them in too much. Vial decks are not played that much in my local meta, so I might be a bit behind on information here due to lack of eperience.


2. Do you ever cut Mox Diamonds? Niklas Kronenberger was cutting 2 from Loam against Miracles/Shardless. I think I cut a couple against P. Deed Nic Fit, but I'm still not sure that was right, since pulling ahead quickly might have been better than reducing the loss to Deed.
Can't comment much as the UB version does not play Moxes, but I'd guess the answer might change depending on play/draw. Against Miracles stopping Top is extremely relevant, so on the play I'd want the maximum chances to land Chalice@1 on the first turn. Can totally see cutting some against Deed decks.


3. When to bring in Leyline+Helm (mainly) as a win-con (and not just incidental win-con with grave hate)? I think I saw Undomian bring this in against Sneak/Show, which makes sense. I assume it comes in for Storm also, as the grave is relevant and pumping out 4 turns of Thopters gives them way too much time to find answers. Would you bring it in, say, against any deck likely to have RiP in the board, since (a) you can just get 'em and (b) it gives you more play if they shut off the yard?
Against Decks that bring in RiP to stop Thoper/Sword the correct play is to only bring in Helm, leaving Leyline in the board. You don't need Leyline, it would be a dead card as your opponent will not be using their graveyard themselves if they bring in RiP. I've won many a game against RiP by bringing in a singleton Helm and simply transmuting for it after they stuck the card.
As for matchups to bring in the whole package:
Fast Combo (Storm, Sneak/Show, Belcher etc.): It gives you a combo kill that can rival theirs in speed while Thopter/Sword is basically dead as it's much too slow. Against some decks (Storm/TinFins etc.) Leyline is actually a very relevant piece of disruption too.
Anything with a major graveyard focus (Loam, Dredge etc.): Obviously. I'd probably count Shardless here too, as they have next to no removal to get either piece of the table and their clock gets pretty anemic without a graveyard, but they are not as screwed as the other decks.
I'm personally still undecided against Delver decks with Deathrite. It's very good against Goyf/Deathrite, but it does absolutely nothing against T1 Delver. Sometimes it feels like it carries the game, other times it's a dead draw.
Sometimes the combo has more applications than expected. Played against NicFit yesterday. Leyline killed them. No Veteran Explorer, no Therapy flashback, no Stronghold/Witness/Persist recursion...


4. Toxic Deluge against Delver/tempo decks? Or too risky/costly?
I bring them in. It's not pretty and gets pretty ugly if you run into a Daze, but you need some form of sweeper. If Deluge is the only one you are playing, it's a necessary evil.


5. Finally, Niklas has started boarding 3-4 Swords to Plowshares in his Loam decks, to come in for Challice against things like DnT, Eldrazi, and Shardless, and as additional cheap removal for the delver matchup (where resolved chalice is so brutal against them that blanking a couple of your cards is fine). Has anyone tried sideboarding Bolt? Obviously it's worse against Eldrazi, Goyf, Lands, and Dredge, where StP is quite good. But, playing against 4-C Delver or Merfolk, I definitely would have liked some faster/cleaner removal than Deluge coming in from the board.
Would something like Pyroclasm not simply be better? They are both similarly bad against Eldrazi, Goyf and Lands, but against 4C Delver Clasm sweeps their board apart from Goyf and against Dredge it kills their board period. It does not get shut off by Chalice, is a turn faster than Deluge and does not cost life. It is also much more common for Tezz to get to three mana on T2 compared to Loam so it is easier to protect Clasm against Daze. Against Merfolk Clasm obviously sucks after the second Lord sticks, but with 2+ lords on the board a single Bolt alone will probably not save you anyway. Best bet is still a fast Bridge to lock them out.

[Undomian]

1. When are you cutting Chalice? Obviously against other chalice decks, and presumably against the vial decks on the draw. Vial decks on the play? (Loam cuts them, but t1 mana is much rarer.) I assume not against Shardless (as Loam does), but could be wrong - they certainly have a plethora of Decay targets.
I personally do against other Chalice decks, against Vial decks at all (not just on the draw), and some number against anything BGx, though that changes depending on which variant it is. They all come out against Jund, most of them against Shardless (depends on what my sideboard looks like but I like leaving one in to put on zero), and some number against BUG delver.

2. Do you ever cut Mox Diamonds? Niklas Kronenberger was cutting 2 from Loam against Miracles/Shardless. I think I cut a couple against P. Deed Nic Fit, but I'm still not sure that was right, since pulling ahead quickly might have been better than reducing the loss to Deed.
Mox Diamond is really important for color fixing and for acceleration in this deck, so I tend not to cut any of them.


3. When to bring in Leyline+Helm (mainly) as a win-con (and not just incidental win-con with grave hate)? I think I saw Undomian bring this in against Sneak/Show, which makes sense. I assume it comes in for Storm also, as the grave is relevant and pumping out 4 turns of Thopters gives them way too much time to find answers. Would you bring it in, say, against any deck likely to have RiP in the board, since (a) you can just get 'em and (b) it gives you more play if they shut off the yard?
I bring it in as a supplemental win condition against decks that Thopter/Sword is ineffective against or that we have an abysmal matchup against. Sneak & Show is a great example of the latter. Now that storm (particularly ANT) is leaning even harder on the GY with Dark Petition and such, Leylines are pretty great against that deck in general. I do also like to bring in the Helm (but not the Leylines) against fair white decks without Snapcaster Mage as they usually do have RiP and it's nice to be able to sneak in a win out of nowhere.


4. Toxic Deluge against Delver/tempo decks? Or too risky/costly?
It really depends on the version of Delver you're playing against. It's pretty hard to resolve a 3 mana sorcery against these decks in the first place, and you usually need to do it for 6 to kill Tarmogoyf. That usually just kills you if you're playing against RUG, and while it's a bit more viable against BUG, it's still not great. I do bring it in against 4c/Grixis delver because Pyromancer is so much of an issue.


5. Finally, Niklas has started boarding 3-4 Swords to Plowshares in his Loam decks, to come in for Challice against things like DnT, Eldrazi, and Shardless, and as additional cheap removal for the delver matchup (where resolved chalice is so brutal against them that blanking a couple of your cards is fine). Has anyone tried sideboarding Bolt? Obviously it's worse against Eldrazi, Goyf, Lands, and Dredge, where StP is quite good. But, playing against 4-C Delver or Merfolk, I definitely would have liked some faster/cleaner removal than Deluge coming in from the board.
I haven't tried this, but I can't say I like the way it sounds in this deck. I'd honestly rather just have another Bridge/The Abyss/a cheap sweeper effect.


And in more recent news, a slightly different take on the Grixis variant from this weekend: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=103790

This is much more toolbox-y than my build of the deck. It honestly reminds me a lot of the old Planeswalker Stax lists (4 bridge, 4 Wasteland+Crucible), which is kind of cool. Obviously it worked here, and if that top 8 was representative of the metagame of that tournament, it was certainly not a bad approach.

[anwei]

This is very helpful - thanks y'all.
I think I knew Bolt lacked a lot of the advantages of StP, and had toyed around with Pyroclasm before, but that's clearly better. (Although, is there a reason that Whipflare is not played?)

[Sisyphos]

This is very helpful - thanks y'all.
I think I knew Bolt lacked a lot of the advantages of StP, and had toyed around with Pyroclasm before, but that's clearly better. (Although, is there a reason that Whipflare is not played?)
I just used Pyroclasm as an example as I had seen the list Undomian linked to before I wrote my reply and the linked list used Pyroclasm. I've seen lists with Whipflare in the past as well. There are some situations where the drawback of Whipflare is actually relevant. You need to be able to kill Revoker against DnT as that card can shut down all of your win conditions. Against Delver decks Whipflare is obviously superior. So I guess the decision depends on which match-up you are more worried about and is more prevalent in your meta. But as I said, this is just me thinking as I play UB mostly and have only little experience with UBr.

[nedleeds]

I just used Pyroclasm as an example as I had seen the list Undomian linked to before I wrote my reply and the linked list used Pyroclasm. I've seen lists with Whipflare in the past as well. There are some situations where the drawback of Whipflare is actually relevant. You need to be able to kill Revoker against DnT as that card can shut down all of your win conditions. Against Delver decks Whipflare is obviously superior. So I guess the decision depends on which match-up you are more worried about and is more prevalent in your meta. But as I said, this is just me thinking as I play UB mostly and have only little experience with UBr.

I top 4'ed this past weekend. Yes Pyroclasm is necessary because Revoker is one of the best creatures against my deck. Additionally your Sorcery speed sweepers have to be as cheap as possible because you are normally bringing them in vs. mana denial / port decks like DnT, Goblins, or G/w Erhnamgeddon. Whipflare is being a little too greedy in my opinion.

Regarding bolt, I would never play a non-artifact 1 CC spell in this deck. Chalice stays in the deck for the majority of matchups. I have played a gentleman's Pithing Needle in the deck before to Transmute for because Jace is a fisting. I'm relying heavily on Tar Pit to help with Jace now since Bridge is probably being reduced to 1 or coming out in matchups where the opponent has access to multiple JTMS (Miracles most notably).

[sdematt]

I top 4'ed this past weekend. Yes Pyroclasm is necessary because Revoker is one of the best creatures against my deck. Additionally your Sorcery speed sweepers have to be as cheap as possible because you are normally bringing them in vs. mana denial / port decks like DnT, Goblins, or G/w Erhnamgeddon. Whipflare is being a little too greedy in my opinion.

Regarding bolt, I would never play a non-artifact 1 CC spell in this deck. Chalice stays in the deck for the majority of matchups. I have played a gentleman's Pithing Needle in the deck before to Transmute for because Jace is a fisting. I'm relying heavily on Tar Pit to help with Jace now since Bridge is probably being reduced to 1 or coming out in matchups where the opponent has access to multiple JTMS (Miracles most notably).

Congrats on the finish, Sean. Did you ever feel the need for more card draw, aka. Thirst or Sylvan if you ran green? Curious what you think.

-Matt

[nedleeds]

Congrats on the finish, Sean. Did you ever feel the need for more card draw, aka. Thirst or Sylvan if you ran green? Curious what you think.

-Matt

Games in which I lost and had 9-11 lands and 4-5 spells I would liked Thirst. Or Phantom Monster. Thirst would mean cutting Deluge, which is fine but then you are nearly hard locked vs creatures like Teeg and Revoker. Notice I cut Smokestack for bridge 4, so that would leave EE or stealing Revoker with Dack and Tinkering him away (which I have done).

[Serj]

So I day 2d GP Columbus this weekend with UBr tezzeretor and ended day 1 8-1. Day 2 wasn't quite as nice to me but a lot of that was my fault (improper deck identification and poor sideboarding) but I'll probably do a tournament report when I get home tomorrow. But the deck felt good.

[Undomian]

So I day 2d GP Columbus this weekend with UBr tezzeretor and ended day 1 8-1. Day 2 wasn't quite as nice to me but a lot of that was my fault (improper deck identification and poor sideboarding) but I'll probably do a tournament report when I get home tomorrow. But the deck felt good.

I think I might have been watching you for a bit near the end of day 2, good job on the finish!

My GP experience was a bit sour, going from my high of 5-0 starting round 6 at table 1 to 4 consecutive losses to good matchups. The super sunday series was a bit better I guess, finished 6-2 there. I ended up playing 2x Aether Grid over 2x The Abyss, and that decision paid off a few times over the course of the weekend, so I might keep it that way.

[Serj]

So here's my tournament report something were kind of fuzzy as I only recorded Play/Draw, Mulls, Deck, and game wins, but I'll try to recall as much as I remember.

The 75 I registered was:
Creatures
4 Baleful Strix

Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Dimir Signet
2 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

Enchantment
1 The Abyss

Instants and Sorceries
4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact

Planeswalkers
3 Dack Fayden
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Lands
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Blood Moon
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Damnation
2 Lodestone Golem
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tezzeret, The Seeker
1 Notion Thief

Day 1:

Round 1 Bye (randomly got to 1350 points towards the end of last season)

Round 2- 4C Delver Win 2-0
Game 1 He wins the die roll and casts a cantrip. I turn 1 a Chalice that gets dazed. He follows up with a Young Pyromancer, I played turn 2 Tezz and it resolves. I get thopter swords online the next turn, he goes kind of ham with pyro on his next turn but he couldn't find an answer to Thopter Swords and Tezz ticking up to ult.
Game 2 He mulls and keeps 6 I keep 7. I turn 0 Leyline of the Void he turn 1's a Delver and passes. I play turn 1 Sword of the Meek. He plays ponder Turn 2 and passes after shuffling and not seeing a land. I waste land him at somepoint after he fails to find another land and he keeps hitting me with a fugitive wizard. Eventually I find transmute and helm him.

Round 3 - Infect Win 2-1
Game 1 on the draw, he finds a window to kill me with a blighted agent and force daze backup.
Game 2 I assemble thopter swords under a bridge and tezz ult for win.
Game 3 he EoTs a Krosan Grip on my chalice for 1 at some point and untaps and then pumps his inkmoth precombat so he can't attack because I had Bridge with 1 card in hand. I untap and draw a red source for the Grid in my hand and he's never able to make another attack and grid kills him slowly.

Round 4 Shardless Lose 0-2
Game 1 I mull to 6 on the play he sees three abrupt decays and forces my Tezz and I can't do much.
Game 2 I turn 0 Leyline and jam threats but nothing really sticks and he beats with a 3/4 goyf and some 2/2 agents, he forced a strix and lili -1s the second, I flood out for a couple of turns and it's GG.

Round 5 Grixis Delver Win 2-0
Game 1 on the play win off a fast thopter swords.
Game 2 Win off fast thopter swords again and tezz making a 5/5 strix.

Round 6 Deadguy Ale? (BWg for decay midrange?) Win 2-1
Game 1 I win the die roll and Chalice for 1. He turn 1's a Stoneforge off chrome mox (imprint decay) and FBB Scrubland and grabs Batterskull. I get Thopter Swords and Bridge out and he scoops them up.
Game 2 Was the grind we trade answers and threats, he gets double bob out and I get The Abyss into play. He threads a fine line with Bobs and getting low with Deathrite activations on upkeep.
Game 3 is also a grind but I had turn 0 Leyline and eventually found helm for the win.

Round 7 Sneak and Show with Omniscience (seriously why is everyone and their mom playing their special snow flake variant of show and tell these days) Win 2-1
Game 1 I win the die roll and pressure him with fast Tezz into chuckin 5/5s but he gets emmy out and I'm done for.
Game 2 I start turn 0 Leyline and go Ancient Tomb pass. He plays Island ponder pass. I play Island pass. He plays Boseiju preordain top bottom pass. I draw Helm of obedience sigh dejectedly and pass without playing a land. He draws and just jams Show and tell with much excitement after announcing Boseiju, I choose my card he chooses his, He reveals Omniscience, I reveal Helm, he takes a game action and I activate helm. He tries to tell me that he has emrakul in his deck and goes on about some emrakul trigger and the Judge had to sit down and explain him how helmline works.
Game 3 I get turn 2 Tezz plus, into turn 3 thopter swords make a dude turn 4 I swing at him and make a bunch of 1/1s and -4 tezz and he can't activate his tomb and tarn to cast his spells.

Round 8 Esper Stoneblade Win 2-1
Game 1 win the die roll, present my deck annnnnd Deck Check, 10 minutes later the we started playing and it was a really back and forth game. I eventually got The Abyss out and then thopter swords sealed the game a few turns later.
Game 2 He just had stoneforge into batterskull and lingering souls in addition to a bunch answers, really long grind, he just eeked me out with double force double counter spell, and Engineered Explosives.
Game 3 was hilarious I resolved a turn 2 sword of the meek and he jams rest in peace triumphantly on turn 2. I land a Tezz and plus, he Council's Judgements it. I play another Tezz and it resolves and plus, the first card I see is Helm of Obedience, I don't even look at the next 4 cards and just reveal it then look and just threw the other 4 on the bottom. He passes after playing a land and I just jam Helm and he doesn't have the answer.

Round 9 Omnitell with Sneak Attack (not sure if he had Griselbees or not) Win 2-1
Game 1 win the die roll, lose to a turn 3 emrakul with force back up.
Game 2 we get into the grind but I get thopter swords online and kill him.
Game 3 I get a fast Tezz into Lodestone Golem and started chuckin 5/5s and Juggernauts at him. He desperation sneak attacks emrakul and swings but I go down to just the Lodestone and 5/5 Mox Diamond (and 3 life). He untaps plays two cantrips and can't find another fatty and concedes.

I'll do day two tomorrow if I can remember, I have slightly better memory as to what I sided in and out, mostly because I was wrong. For the most part I was siding Helmline in against almost every deck in day 1 except infect (which may or may not be correct I honestly don't know I haven't tested the MU nearly enough). Because everything either had some kind of GY dependency, had access to RiP/GY hate, or was a Show and Tell deck that could get sniped if they just jammed Show and Tell into a turn 0 Leyline, or possibly cause them to hesitate.

Overall the main deck The Abyss did work, sometimes it was swapped for Grid, sometimes it stayed in over grid, other times I wanted both so I could see having both main, 2 of 1 or switching the MD/SB split. I still believe the 4/3 thopter swords split main is correct, and I think that it's usually correct to board down some number of copies postboard to try and fit in helmline to diversify win cons so that Pithing Needle becomes less of a hindrance (it was everywhere). I felt like 2 bridges was correct because it was a card I wanted to see often Game 1 but also easy to side down to 1 or 0 depending on the matchup.

[nedleeds]

2x Aether Grid over 2x The Abyss

The Abyss was a nice stabilizer vs. Eldrazi, but you don't necessarily want it in your opener. It's also a "5th" bridge to have in hand vs. a resolving Show and Tell. I'm not sure I'd want 2 Abyss in my 75, it's very slow but has it's uses. It's also better backed up by sweepers (of which I have potentially 5 after sideboarding. Grid seems like a nice versatile card to sweep idiots, kill Teeg, and have something to do with your deck under Null Rod.

[Wilkin]

Hey Serj, I was your dead guy opponent. Nice to play vs a fellow poster. Yeah I was on pins and needles trying to apply enough pressure with bobs and not dying from them. Lol, love u specifically noted fbb scrubland. Not sure if helm killed me game three but u had so much going on I couldn't deal with it all. I needed teeg much earlier and first turn bob was giving me too many lands.

[Serj]

You might be correct on me not helming you, my notes just have you going from 24 to 23 to 20 to dead so in my foggy memory it looked like a helm kill but it could have also realistically have been a Tezz ult with active thopter swords now that I think about it because I went from 16 to 23 down to 16. That was an incredibly fun match glad to see I played against some posters as well.

I am a bit disappointed that you didn't come talk to me about Tezz Undomain, I would have loved to discuss the deck and ideas with you in person considering you are the reason I splashed Red in the first place.

Anyways here's what I can remember from Day 2 based on my notes:

Round 10 RUG Delver Lose 1-2
Game 1 I'm on the play I mull to 6 he mulls to 5 I have a quick Thopter Swords hand and just crush him.
Game 2 I mull to 5 and he dazes my first relevent play gets a mongoose out then a goyf and I buy time with a resolved thopter foundry but found the sword one turn too late and he counters it with no other artifacts for me to sac (I also didn't bring in helmline which I realized was a huge mistake).
Game 3 I mull to 5 he mulls to 6 I brought in Helmline and have a turn 0 Leyline (so almost like a mull to 4 but he had a turn 1 mongoose). My hand is kind of mediocre outside of that but I draw a Chalice but he counters it then extracts it, I start flooding out and I cast like a total of 4 spells all game and they all got countered while I watched a 1/1 beat me down until he played a 2/3 goyf to triple his clock and lost after not really doing much. We spent like 5 minutes on Judge call when I put The Abyss onto the stack and had to correct the Judge about how the card worked (third time a Judge started to say something incorrect and another Judge had to come over and help) and then he just spell pierced it anyways (this was when he only had a Mongoose on the battlefield).

Round 11 Grixis Delver 1-2
Game 1 Lost the die roll he goes turn 1 FBB Sea, Foil Ponder and tanks for a good while. Eventually he shuffles and draws. Based on the tank I put him on storm and jam Turn 1 Foundry and it gets dazed, oh boy was my deck identification skills horrendous in day 2. I eventually get thopter swords online later in the game and he concedes.
Game 2 I Mull to 5 and get my first turn play dazed and then second turn play pierced and then can't answer his Young Pyro and he kills me a few turns later (with help from some tomb usage that just got stuff countered), again I didn't bring Helmline in which is incorrect because of both DRS and Gurmag Angler (also therapy if Chalice doesn't resolve).
Game 3 I'm on the play and mull to 5 again and keep a solid hand of strix foundry and tezz with supporting mana but nothing resolves and then I just draw a pile of mana and lose to his quickly growing board. At this point I started to feel pretty bad losing to two delver decks in a row, mulling into oblivion but more to the fact that I didn't even stay true to my normal boarding plans against decks I've tested against and should know what my 60 should be postboard play and draw and still messed it up.

Round 12 Sneak and Show 0-2
At the start of this round my opponent was being a huge dick to me the entire time, he was like a minute late but didn't get a game loss because someone else was sitting in his seat and I guess he had Judge approval to go to the bathroom when pairings went up. But he kept complaining about me not shuffling my deck enough and a bunch of other bullshit and I was already pretty tilted on how the morning had gone. He also just rubbed me the wrong way and was being way to dexterous with cards for my typical liking (like fancifully flipping and flicking cards including mine when he was reading or looking at them). His sleeves were also not completely opaque and he would pile shuffle more than I should have probably allowed after I mentioned to him how it's a completely useless way of randomization. Not expressly saying he was cheating but the thought crossed my mind multiple times.
Game 1 I mull to 5 on the play he gets a fast emrakul with force back up and we go to game 2.
Game 2 I mull to 6 with a turn 0 Leyline and he turn 3s a Show and Tell off Sol Land Island with a volc open. I Force he forces back, I force again he forces back again, and gets a fatty into play, I looked at the top card of my library and it was a Helm, sad day.

Round 13 0-2 MUD Post
Game 1 I get a quick tezz out and start smashing with 5/5s. He plays a voltaic key on like turn 3 and I steal it with Dack because I was reading him on having Candelabra into Emrakul next turn if he was able to use Key. Instead he just plays Lightning Greaves and Blightsteel Colossus off of Cavern name Golem and playing a Cloudpost or Vesuva the first 3 turns of the game.
Game 2 I was super tilted and assumed he was still on Turbo Eldrazi for some reason though I only did see a couple of actual cards from his deck game one and a bunch of Locus lands and a Cavern. So I left in The Abyss to eat some spaghetti and didn't board in helmline. And oh god did I pay for that. I pretty much completely punted whatever chance I had at winning the match because I completely misread the situation. He Mulls to 5 and I keep the sketchiest hand I could keep that was double force double blue card Ancient Tomb double bridge. I didn't see a land for 4 turns and have to force a Lodestone Golem and Wurmcoil engine. Eventually I get a bridge out and start to deploy cards but then the grind becomes real. He gets a Forgemaster online and starts getting value. He gets a Spine of Ish Sah that he can cast pretty much everyturn for the rest of the game if he wanted and is just getting silver bullets. I get to cast 3 dacks to steal things but they all just die right away to a staff of Nin and I have to force him to tutor for stuff on times that aren't my endstep so I can finally get a Dack to steal his Spine and that was close to stabilizing me. Eventually I get thopter swords out but he tutors for a Needle and names it. Eventually the game comes down to me swinging with 2/3 Baleful Strixes but then he kills all the fun and Searches for Platinum Emperion and I'm out of outs. If I had Helmline this match would have been a Joke because it takes out all of his versatility and crushes his tool box and gives me more ways to kill him than he has of ways to prevent me from winning. I felt really bad after losing that match and was pretty dejected at the end of it.

Round 14 0-2 Infect
I meant to drop after round 13 because I honestly was done playing for the weekend and wanted to go do some more trading and watch my Omni-tell friend finish out his day but the Judge was watching our match and immediately took the match slip after the game finished and I didn't think about it because I was talking with my buddies about the match and all the mistakes I made.
Game 1 he gets an early window to kill me with a Berserk and pump and it's on to game 2.
Game 2 I get a copy of The Abyss online and I Deluge away his board of 2 heirarchs and a spellskite and waste his inkmoth nexus. Then it becomes a grinding halt where I'm not really drawing anything relevent and just some lands but I had double force and blue card in hand and I get a Bridge to land at some point. Eventually he draws up to 8 cards and discards an elf in his clean up step. I draw a mox diamond and like a complete tool don't play it. He EoTs a Crop rotation and I hard cast force he forces back I force pitch blue card and he forces back again. He gets an Inkmoth untaps draws and goes Invigorate Berserk kill me. If I just played my diamond and force pitch both blue cards to become hellbent I'm confident that I can win that game until he finds an answer for bridge. But I played like a complete tool that game. Completely my fault, but props to my opponent for finding a window and making the most of it.

After that I dropped for the day played a couple of EDH pods (finished foiling out my Sidisi, Undead Vizier deck this weekend getting a foil cabal ritual and infernal tutor which was sweet). Then did some more trading and watched my buddy close out day 2 for some pro points (he ended up 73rd). I ended up getting 4 foil Tezzes, 4 Foil Mox Diamonds, Foil Academy Ruins, 2 Foil Unhinged Islands, and 2 Foil Blood Moons over the weekend so made some progress on that end with the deck. Just need foil Deltas, Wastelands, Forces, Dacks and Strixes (based EMA) and the deck will be done as much as it can be (45k in City of Traitors not withstanding) so that's exciting. Hoping it will be done or close to done by the time GP Chiba rolls around cause I've already committed to going to that so that's exciting. Gonna try and hit up eternal weekend as well if I can afford the time off for it. But gonna stay on the Tezz train, I was having some doubts for a while when everyone started playing Nic Fit in my area for like a month but the deck is truly a blast to play.

[sdematt]

Sorry everyone was trying Nic Fit. I'm liking to blame.

I'll be re-building this (aka finding out where I left my deckbox with this deck in it) shortly and I'll be testing it again. I'm still convinced No Mercy deserves a slot, still.

-Matt

[nedleeds]

Sorry everyone was trying Nic Fit. I'm liking to blame.

I'll be re-building this (aka finding out where I left my deckbox with this deck in it) shortly and I'll be testing it again. I'm still convinced No Mercy deserves a slot, still.

-Matt

Thanks for the update. I'm eating corned beef hash and eggs and have taken this deck apart to use my beta undergrounds in another endeavor. Will update later.

[sdematt]

Thanks for the update. I'm eating corned beef hash and eggs and have taken this deck apart to use my beta undergrounds in another endeavor. Will update later.

Yeah yeah :P

Is anyone still playing No Mercy?

[chlb]

Is anyone still playing No Mercy?
I was playing with it in old UB version, but more as a fun-of than a serious pick. When combined with Trading Post or other life gain it might give out more mileage. Nowadays I am running Undomian's Grixis build and have not tested the card there.

[csanders]

Hey Sean, I was a little surprised to see no FoW's in your build. Did you ever miss them?

[nedleeds]

Hey Sean, I was a little surprised to see no FoW's in your build. Did you ever miss them?

There's a narrow view and holistic view of Force of Will. The narrow view is, I'm on the draw vs. Belcher. Man Force of Will is an awesome card, I wish I had it. I was in this position, round 6. I lost in a third game. Demolished him game 2 when I was on the play.

The holistic view is I'm playing a prison deck without the cantrip mafia. If I get a turn I have a decent shot. Making up the card quality from Mind Rotting myself is very hard to do. My blue count isn't very high and most of the time I'm pitching a win condition, tinker or other good card. It's just not a good force of will build. I really only want it vs. Belcher. Vs. storm combo, just 4 Force of Will is next to worthless, its the blind name on therapy, will likely get removed if you are on the draw. The dream opener of lock piece, tomb, force, blue card is great but I think that's not a hypergeometric calculation with a favorable %.

If I wanted on the draw Belcher proofing, I'd just play Mindbreak Trap, it's better than Force of Will vs. aggregate combo when your goal is to get a turn to cast a lock piece. My board is far from tuned vs. aggregate combo, the whole deck is designed to castrate Reanimator / Sneak Attack / and Eldrazi. A better sideboard vs. aggregate combo would include some combination of

Turn Zero defense (Trap / Leyline)
Flusterstorm (I think countermagic is abjectly not effective vs. good storm players
More 2 mana plays (Sphere of Resistance)
Soft Locks (Arcane Laboratory / Monastery Siege)

Permanent based hate backed up with Wastelands is very effective. Permanent based hate with no mana denial and no clock isn't particularly compelling.

[Kirbthewurb]

I just finished building this deck using one of the lists from these last few pages as a template. Any tips for the general playing of the deck, also how do we deal with a null rod if it lands? K-Command in the side?

[Undomian]

I just finished building this deck using one of the lists from these last few pages as a template. Any tips for the general playing of the deck, also how do we deal with a null rod if it lands? K-Command in the side?

You either kill it with Kolaghan's Command/Fiery Confluence out of the sideboard, take it with Dack and make it into a 5/5 with Tezzeret or sacrifice it to Transmute Artifact, or lay down an Ensnaring Bridge and Tezzeret/Ghirapur Aether Grid and use those to go the distance.

[sdematt]

You either kill it with Kolaghan's Command/Fiery Confluence out of the sideboard, take it with Dack and make it into a 5/5 with Tezzeret or sacrifice it to Transmute Artifact, or lay down an Ensnaring Bridge and Tezzeret/Ghirapur Aether Grid and use those to go the distance.

He's going the distance. He's going for speed.

[nedleeds]

He's going the distance. He's going for speed.

Stealing Null Rod, Transmuting it for Crucible and Wastelocking a Delver Ape is satisfying.

[Kirbthewurb]

So I'm running a mix of the usual sideboard options that I have seen used over the last few pages of comments. I plan on playing the deck for the first time on Tuesday, I was just hoping to get some insight on which matchups to use the sideboard cards, and what times they are usually used.

4x Leyline of the Void and Helm of Obedience: I understand to bring them in against any deck that relies on its graveyard, while any deck that may board RiP against me to stop Thopter/Sword I could also bring at least the helm in to try to snag an easy win.

I would bring in The Abyss/Toxic Deluge/Damnation against the creature heavy matchups.

What matchups in particular are the Blood Moons, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Notion Thief used for?

I also have a copy of K-Command in the side to deal with Null Rod, and to possibly bring back a dead strix if needed. Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated, both in sideboarding and playing the deck in general. My maindeck list is basically an exact copy of Undomain's.

[Ephemeron]

What matchups in particular are the Blood Moons, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Notion Thief used for?



Blood Moon is good against any deck with lots of non basics: Lands, Eldrazi, 4c Loam, Shardless, Delver, MUD, 12-Post, etc. A moon on turn 1 or 2 before they expect it can win the game right there.

Notion Thief is basically good against any deck that could play JTMS, so like Miracles, Shardless, and Stone/Deathblade. I don't think it's very good against Delver because it's too clunky and fragile just to snag a ponder or something like that.

Chains of Mephistopheles acts more like another copy of Chalice, in that it makes cantrips worthless, so you SHOULD bring it in against delver and also all of the aforementioned Jace decks, and also cantrip heavy combo like Storm and Reanimator. Basically, most blue decks are gonna have a rough time with Chains. It's also loads of fun with Dack, since you can plus him targeting your opponent and mind rot them.

[chlb]

Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated, both in sideboarding and playing the deck in general. My maindeck list is basically an exact copy of Undomain's.

Here are some sideboarding notes from talking about the deck with Undomian.

Lands, extremely favored:
-4 Force of Will, -3 Chalice of the Void
+4 Leyline of the Void, +1 Helm of Obedience, +2 Blood Moon

RUG Delver, about 50/50:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Toxic Deluge, +2 Blood Moon
Very draw dependant, you ideally want to have a lots of Chalices and Strixes.

BUG Delver, not favored:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Chalice of the Void, -1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
+2 The Abyss, +2 Toxic Deluge, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +2 Blood Moon
Your best cards in this matchup are Baleful Strix and The Abyss.

Miracles, extremely favored:
-2 Baleful Strix, (-1 Baleful Strix)
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Kolaghan's Command, (+1 Helm of Obedience)
You may consider boarding in Helm if they seem to lean a lot on RiP in G2.

Shardless, not favored:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Chalice of the Void
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +2 Blood Moon
Chalice goes on 0 here, not 1.

D&T, favored:
-2 Force of Will, -4 Chalice of the Void
+2 The Abyss, +2 Toxic Deluge, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +1 Helm of Obedience
Mox Diamond and Dack Fayden are your best cards in this matchup.

Sneak and Show:
-2 Thopter Foundry, -2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -4 Baleful Strix
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
Keep in mind that you're boarding out 6 blue cards on this plan, so you'll want to generally hold your planeswalkers to pitch to Force if you have one.

Omnitell:
-2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -3 Baleful Strix, -1 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
If Show and Tell ever resolves, you most likely lose. :P

ANT:
-2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Baleful Strix, -2 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
If they fetch lots of duals, you can consider bringing in Blood Moon but it is not great against them.

TES:
-1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +2 Toxic Deluge, +2 Lodestone Golem
TES relies far more on quick Empty the Warrens than ANT does so Deluge is good here.

[Kirbthewurb]

Here are some sideboarding notes from talking about the deck with Undomian.

Lands, extremely favored:
-4 Force of Will, -3 Chalice of the Void
+4 Leyline of the Void, +1 Helm of Obedience, +2 Blood Moon

RUG Delver, about 50/50:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Toxic Deluge, +2 Blood Moon
Very draw dependant, you ideally want to have a lots of Chalices and Strixes.

BUG Delver, not favored:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Chalice of the Void, -1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
+2 The Abyss, +2 Toxic Deluge, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +2 Blood Moon
Your best cards in this matchup are Baleful Strix and The Abyss.

Miracles, extremely favored:
-2 Baleful Strix, (-1 Baleful Strix)
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Kolaghan's Command, (+1 Helm of Obedience)
You may consider boarding in Helm if they seem to lean a lot on RiP in G2.

Shardless, not favored:
-4 Force of Will, -2 Chalice of the Void
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +2 Blood Moon
Chalice goes on 0 here, not 1.

D&T, favored:
-2 Force of Will, -4 Chalice of the Void
+2 The Abyss, +2 Toxic Deluge, +1 Kolaghan's Command, +1 Helm of Obedience
Mox Diamond and Dack Fayden are your best cards in this matchup.

Sneak and Show:
-2 Thopter Foundry, -2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -4 Baleful Strix
+2 The Abyss, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
Keep in mind that you're boarding out 6 blue cards on this plan, so you'll want to generally hold your planeswalkers to pitch to Force if you have one.

Omnitell:
-2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -3 Baleful Strix, -1 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
If Show and Tell ever resolves, you most likely lose. :P

ANT:
-2 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Baleful Strix, -2 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +1 Helm of Obedience, +4 Leyline of the Void, +2 Lodestone Golem
If they fetch lots of duals, you can consider bringing in Blood Moon but it is not great against them.

TES:
-1 Sword of the Meek, -1 Dimir Signet, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Ensnaring Bridge
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles, +2 Toxic Deluge, +2 Lodestone Golem
TES relies far more on quick Empty the Warrens than ANT does so Deluge is good here.

Wow thanks alot! I'll let you know how my first matches go after Tuesday. The store I go to also steams their legacy every Tuesday night so I may be on stream.

[chlb]

Wow thanks alot!
You should really thank Undomian and not me, I mostly just copied and pasted. :tongue:

I will be slinging spells alongside Tezz and Dack next Monday. Most likely using Undomian's maindeck with bit of tuning on the sideboard.

[Undomian]

That stuff is basically all still accurate if you have those cards in your sideboard still. I've made a few small adjustments (mostly Fiery Confluence > Kolaghan's Command, GAG > The Abyss) but it doesn't change anything drastically.

[Serj]

So I decided to take Sean's advice on not playing Force of Will (I was boarding it out so often at the GP and lost games due to drawing it with a bridge where I needed to stay hellbent) so I dropped them from the main and shoved them in the board because I'm still hesitant on not having any in the 75 (I also like having them on the draw in certain matchups) and ended up 4-0ing Monday Night Legacy. Gonna keep the same 75 for an IQ this weekend and see if it still performs well.

Overall changes to the deck where:

MD:
-4 Force of Wil
-1 Sword of the Meek
-1 Thopter Foundry
+4 Leyline of the Void
+1 Helm of Obedience
+1 Tezzeret the Seeker

SB:
-4 Leyline of the Void
-1 Helm of Obedience
-1 Tezzeret the Seeker
+4 Force of Will
+1 Kolaghan's Command
+1 Jace, the Mindsculptor (would probably replace this with a Misdirection, Guardian Beast, or Chains of Mephistopheles in the future, possibly a 3Sphere if Omnitell variants pick up in popularity more)

Overall Game 1 Helmline sniped some otherwise unwinnable scenarios and had way more impact against combo decks than Force would have had (specifically World Gorger combo and Storm). In MUs where it's mediocre or I show that over Thopter/Swords I can bring it out for more impactful side board cards, other times I can avoid showing one 2 card combo over the other and play mind games with needle effects, other times you just get matched up against re-animator or dredge and get the turn 0 scoop. Papa Tezz has also been pulling his weight, might go up a mana rock or back to 24 lands if I can figure what to cut, possibly down to 3 leylines main to try and get to 5 more consistently he pulled Thopter/Swords through Chalice on 2 which was sweet. Might even just go to 4/4 Dack/Tezz split so I can filter through extra Leylines more reliably. Grid in the main definitely feels better than The Abyss, it's never functionally dead as it can help apply pressure if you have an otherwise durdle hand with Mana rocks and chalices and bridges. I definitely think Main Deck helmline rewards knowing your meta and scouting more to be able to identify whether or not you can lean on it harder than not, but there's so much incidental GY abuse in the format right now that it never feels completely dead, and at it's worst it gives you the ability to just play more like a 2 card monte deck with 4 insta-win top decks. Reminds me of when I was playing UB in the Tcruise/DTT metas.

[Undomian]

I made top 4 of both of the Eternal Weekend qualifiers I played in at GP Pittsburgh this past weekend, losing on Saturday to Shardless and on Sunday to my own stupidity. I'm really looking forward to SCG Worcester, it should be a good tournament.

[Julian23]

Thought you guys might be interested: Joe Lossett is playing Tezzerator in Season#1 of the Legacy Mediocre League (http://legacymediocreleague.com/).

You can find his decklist (http://s623881501.online.de/joes-deck) over at the website. This is his Week#3 match vs Sneak Show:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wou-cqfecQ

All other VODs of the League are on our YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAnZCGszYaNty0d_vbD5PSQ).

[SirPsychoMantis]

Anyone have good sideboard recommendations for the online meta where Rishadan Port doesn't exist for the Grixis/Dack build? Lots of differences between Undomian and Joe's sideboard ideas and not really sure which way to go.

[ChaosOS]

http://mythicspoiler.com/cn2/cards/darettiingeniousiconoclast.jpg


Possible add to Grixis version? A much more board-focused planeswalker than Dack, but potentially viable (1/1 blocks things like Bob or a not-yet thresholded Mongoose from hitting our walkers, sac artifact for removal is solid, and the ult is actually relevant and reasonably likely to be a game-winner)

[chlb]

I like how black-red Daretti's +1 and -1 abilties go with Sword of the Meek. That and 3 cmc makes me want to give him a shot at least.

[Lzm]

hi everyone. lurked on this forum for few years since tezz is my deck of heart with whom i play/test experiment a lot. always preferred the ub board control toolboxy prison ub list but had to acknowledge that grixis thopter centric builds were doing better in the actual meta and that s why i m very interested with the new daretti that can open the possibility of a more hybrid grixis build that may be viable.

so, heres the list and some explanations of several choices wich some may seems surprising:
MD: 60
PW: 10
4 tezzeret agent of bolas
3 daretti ingenious iconoclast
3 dack fayden

artefact: 27

4 chalice of the void
3 trinisphere
3 ensnaring bridge
3 foundry
3 sword of the meek
4 strix
4 dimir signet
3 mox diamond

land: 23
4 ancient tomb
2 city of traitor
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
2 badland
2 island
4 polluted delta
2 scalding tarn

1) a grixis super friends build with 3 daretti, 6 sol lands in order to support a higher curve than undomian s list can hardly support transmute artefact ( the grixis mana base is fragile and you ll often already have to sac rock with daretti s -1). And since you can t play transmute wich is blue, and that daretti is not either, the deck can t support fow neither. so trini it shall be, which is not that bad, since it s a stealing game t1/t2 play wich also appears to be a game breaker vs storm, excellent vs delver (especially the grixis version which tend to me the most popular right now) and shardless (which is not a good mu at all with fow builds) good vs blue midrandge in general and miracle ( fow, mentor, top plays and cantrips) and even correct vs show and tell/rea if you have a follow up. the flaws to be bad in several is i think very well compensates by daretti s minus one dack plus one s foundry s effects or even tezz minus one, so you have a lot of ways to recycle the second/third one or even the first if it s bad in the mu or to late in the games to be useful. overall, i m not unhappy to have more anti combo/tempo/control permanent lock pieces since the list as more tools vs aggro/aggravating permanents and can kill mana dorks

2) the list is super friends oriented since daretti doesn t just have pornographic interaction with sword of the meek, and good ones with excedents trini/mana rocks, but also very good ones with dack plus one (feed) and minus two ( steal you re revoker null rod to destroy you re mentor/tarmo), and tezz plus one (feed) and minus 4 ( tokens). therefore, i choosed the tenth planes walker over the fourth foundry, for interactions and consistency ( it s the third dack that was added) s sake, which was heartbreaking, but the again, the list is a bit more hybrid than undomian s one.


3) therefore, the absence of transmute and the pw centric hybrid control/combo build push me to play 3 ensnaring bridges and 4 tezz

4)the higher curve than average grixis list plus trini with only 23 lands push me to play 6 sols and 4 signet/ 3 mox, than the 2/4 split of undomian.

5) dack is infinitely better than tfk in the build and did not have room for md the abyss with is less scary with daretti, or aether grid wich is obviously very good with daretti
6) with the sketchy mana base, the importance to find duals and the very high artefact count and daretti s plus one, i only play 2 island fetchable via 6 fetch and don t need artefact land.


not very sure of my sb right now, testing in process, but here s some candidates: lodestone, heather grid, the abyss, explosive ( maybe a bit paranoid with this new hate bear, and death and taxe is not rexactly the dream mu), smokestack toxic deluge silent arbiter ( maybe less attractive without transmute) mana maze ( loves this card vs storm/elves/omnitell with also happens to make your tezz/dack/foundry much harder to counter, and to nuilify nearly all shardless cascade), slaughter games ( always been very good to me, specially if you go more prison style as this list does) cursed totem leyline of the void, helm of obedience

All my apologies for my rusty english and thanks for reading.

[paradaxarada]

4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Dack Fayden
3 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

2 Transmute Artifact
4 Force of Will

4 Baleful Strix

4 Chalice of the Void
2 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Dimir Signet
2 Izzet Signet
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Ratchet Bomb

4 Ancient Tomb
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Academy Ruins
3 Wasteland
1 Darkwater Catacombs
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 City of Traitors
1 Badlands

SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Kolaghan's Command
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Trinisphere

I have only one thing to say: Daretti is really great, it's a amazing card in this deck, and probably runs better than The Abyss, its also takes care of oponents Null Rod and other artifacts.

[Lzm]

hi again. after further testing, here s a more coherent/focused/steam lined list , that acknowledge better the integration of the new radkos pw in tezz. had very encouraging results on cocka even if i m still groping concerning the sb :)
MD: 60
PW: 11
4 tezzeret agent of bolas
3 daretti ingenious iconoclast
4 dack fayden

artefact: 26

4 chalice of the void
3 trinisphere
4 thopter s foundry
4 sword of the meek
4 baleful strix
4 dimir signet
3 mox diamond

land: 23
4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitor
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
2 badland
1 island
4 polluted delta
2 scalding tarn

Sb: 15
2 engineering explosive
3 ensnaring bridge
2 lodestone golem
2 tormod s crypt
1 ghirapur aether grid
2 the abyss
2 slaughter games
1 toxic deluge

[Undomian]

Seeing all of this Daretti action made me want to try it out, and the card has been testing really well! My testing configuration is basically just -4 FoW/-1 Volc, +2 Daretti/+2 Trinisphere/+1 Badlands. The deck is certainly weaker against combo with no countermagic at all, so I'll probably try to shoehorn some number of FoW back into the sideboard since Daretti does a pretty good impression of stuff like The Abyss.

[EunB]

How does everyone feel about Guardian Beast in the board? It alongside Ensnaring Bridge is nearly a hard lock vs some decks, but I'd like to hear from some longer-term pilots of the deck before I drop $300 on a pair of sideboard cards. In my proxy testing I've been bringing it in vs any deck that runs Abrupt Decay.

As for Daretti I started out with 3, then have slowly dropped back to 1 in favor of Deluge to combat YP tokens. Grixis Delver I believe is this deck's "must solve" matchup since it has a high meta share and all the tools to beat us. I've been playing mainboard Sudden Shock to help hedge.

[Undomian]

How does everyone feel about Guardian Beast in the board? It alongside Ensnaring Bridge is nearly a hard lock vs some decks, but I'd like to hear from some longer-term pilots of the deck before I drop $300 on a pair of sideboard cards. In my proxy testing I've been bringing it in vs any deck that runs Abrupt Decay.

As for Daretti I started out with 3, then have slowly dropped back to 1 in favor of Deluge to combat YP tokens. Grixis Delver I believe is this deck's "must solve" matchup since it has a high meta share and all the tools to beat us. I've been playing mainboard Sudden Shock to help hedge.

I've tried Guardian Beast but it's a lot of mana for the effect that it provides. Generally, in the matchups that you wanted it in, The Abyss was just better - and The Abyss and Beast don't play well together. In a similar vein, though, this was just spoiled today:

https://i.imgur.com/u76XPFQ.png

It's slightly higher impact in that it (probably) draws cards if it doesn't immediately die, so it might be worth trying out at least.

[EunB]

I've tried Guardian Beast but it's a lot of mana for the effect that it provides. Generally, in the matchups that you wanted it in, The Abyss was just better - and The Abyss and Beast don't play well together. In a similar vein, though, this was just spoiled today:

https://i.imgur.com/u76XPFQ.png

It's slightly higher impact in that it (probably) draws cards if it doesn't immediately die, so it might be worth trying out at least.

Well my timing is impeccable it seems. I agree that aside from being prone to REB/PB he seems to be a direct upgrade for the deck.

Even moreso Beast is only for your non-creature artifacts whereas this new guy also protects animated artifacts and your Strixes. Looks great.

[NeckBird]

Well my timing is impeccable it seems. I agree that aside from being prone to REB/PB he seems to be a direct upgrade for the deck.

Even moreso Beast is only for your non-creature artifacts whereas this new guy also protects animated artifacts and your Strixes. Looks great.

Padeem is female, bro

[Serj]

I was gonna pick up Beast before GP Chiba but this new chick seems better. Has the similar pros to Beast in protecting our lock pieces but also has the upside of very often being a one sided howling mine and can actually battle without turning herself off. Also important to note that it's better against DnT in that it protects bridges from getting flicked or mangara'd in addition to protecting against disenchant. Worse against serenity though (seriously so sick of seeing that card recently, but it's my fault for playing this deck at the LGS for a better part of 2 years).

I am also trying Daretti in the deck since I've axed FoW a while ago (still haven't missed it and the games I have lost to combo since then FoW wouldn't have done anything anyways). I moved Helmline back to the board cut back to 2 transmutes and just added 2 Daretti's and a Jace and back to 4/3 thopter/sword. He's done well against the usual suspects (in fact I might cut The Abyss from the board for another sweeper effect or second 3-ball). And he's hilarious with SoTM and Grid. The fact he can also snipe null rods, revokers, and needles is pure gravy.

Jace has been good as a one of again but I might try this new chick in the main over him. Often times game 1 is when I really care about protecting Chalice and Bridge against abrupt decay decks. And chalice for 1 hits most of the removal spells people would have for her.

In other news I picked up a Chains and I have since then replaced the Notion Thief in the board for it. Moving away from Force really makes the difference in the combo matchup between getting this out turn 1/2 and Thief not being online easily until turn 3+. Also is nice to help stay under bridge compared to thief. Sucks that it dies to decay/wear//tear/krosan grip.

Anyways, how have people been enjoying the DnT matchup after Prelate and Recruiter? Before I added Daretti I think I got 3 matches out of about 12. Post it's been closer to 50/50 but still really stressful. Like I don't think it would be as bad if they got one or the other, but getting both at the same time I feel pushes the deck a little much.

[Lzm]

hi again ( had got a lot of time to test these past days :)

md changes: -1 sword +1 academy ruins: Realized 23 land with 3 mox/3 trini/ 4 tezz was enough. the more avoidable awkward moments i had with the deck was mulling otherwise good hands with only one land and one mox, or waste/variance induced screw. i tested with a friend, with a nicole bolas the planes walker as a proxy split card beetween sword/ruins/darsteel/seat of the synod and saw that ruin was the more often wanted card in order to have back chalice foundry strix bridge, explosive, golem or even signet when things go wrong or in order to fuel daretti... even, if a potential indestructible 5/5 that you can sac to daretti had been sometime very nice).

sb changes:-2 tormod: not radical enough except vs storm. +1 mana maze +1 transmute (when you need to fast combo or more bridge/Trini/ EE for o vs tokens or to get recursion going with ruins, if no chalice in play or daretti as a sac outlet even if it s a bit slow), but still not happy with my sb. i may try to change my 75 in order to support the leyline/helm plan in sb, wich probably would involve more transmute

@ undomian: with now 2 daretti/2 transmute/2 trini/3 tezz, are you still high on running 3 wasteland? 1) colored mana source seems to be more crucial than ever in order to cast all your gold and UU card hand you will often want to sacrifice moxen/signet to transmute or daretti when you don t have sword, tokens or anusefull 2 of/ late trini on the board, 2) and more sol lands would help casting more frequent fast trini/transmute trini/ fast tezz when needed. what land do you want to waste so bad beside grove that is a real problem since a chalice on 2 would cripples ourselves very bad ( even if daretti s ultimate shall not be forgoten) and like tabernacle, will be loamed back anyway even if you gained on tempo (ok, wasting chasm and sometime maze can give you a window for the kill), or tarpit wich can be a real pain but does not worth this sacrifice imho. besides that, you run blood moon, leyline and even ee for manland in sb don t you?
edit
PS: not sure land will survive CB and prelate being played in tier one decks

@Serj: totally agree on the fact that fow is far to be enough vs legacy combo deck wich are often design to beat it. i prefer fast trini with 6-7 sol and moxen vs nearly all of them (or trini on show and tell then bridge/ transmute on bridge _or daretti if its rakul vs show and lol)

concerning SANCTUM PRELATE, since i was really paranoid about this moronic overpowered bear, i choose to run 2 explosive in my sb that screw it and pass mom, and then have a varied curved and often proactive panel of answer vs it: 2 drop: combo pieces, 3 drop: daretti/deluge:grid end even bridge if you have a dack in order to get rid of the X card, and abyss as a four drop.
But despite all this counter measures, this card( that directly entered my top 3 worst pushed and dumb card design of all time) still could be a very huge pain/blowout in a former good mu that will now be way more tense if they re starting to play 3 or four or these in their 75. just hope that their new tutor will encouraged them, in a toolbox trend, to run fewer of this horrendous crap than they probably should. daretti can also help in that matter since you can EE for 1, get rid of tricky vial/ aggravating mom, then kill that card design aberration.

[Undomian]

@ undomian: with now 2 daretti/2 transmute/2 trini/3 tezz, are you still high on running 3 wasteland? 1) colored mana source seems to be more crucial than ever in order to cast all your gold and UU card hand you will often want to sacrifice moxen/signet to transmute or daretti when you don t have sword, tokens or anusefull 2 of/ late trini on the board, 2) and more sol lands would help casting more frequent fast trini/transmute trini/ fast tezz when needed. what land do you want to waste so bad beside grove that is a real problem since a chalice on 2 would cripples ourselves very bad ( even if daretti s ultimate shall not be forgoten) and like tabernacle, will be loamed back anyway even if you gained on tempo (ok, wasting chasm and sometime maze can give you a window for the kill), or tarpit wich can be a real pain but does not worth this sacrifice imho. besides that, you run blood moon, leyline and even ee for manland in sb don t you?
edit
PS: not sure land will survive CB and prelate being played in tier one decks

I might consider changing the wasteland slot around depending on metagame shifts and more testing with the new list. There's a chance that more fetchlands or something similar will prove to be necessary. We can run more sol lands I guess, but I hate having to run even one City of Traitors (and Crystal Vein isn't any better). I feel like I lose a large percentage of games where I ever have to play 2 of that card, though I concede that one at least is probably necessary. I'm also somewhat hesitant to do this with only 3 Tezzeret in my list now, as most of the other cards require two colored mana.

As for manlands (not sure what EE and Leyline have to do with these) they are a pain, but the Wastelands aren't in the deck primarily to deal with those. The card has so much utility in so many situations that I couldn't imagine cutting all of them, like wasting a fetchland against Miracles to probe for suspected CB numbers or hitting a port against D&T to free up colored mana in future turns. Blood Moon helps in some of these situations, but given the current metagame that's likely to be replaced since Jund/Shardless have been somewhat declining in popularity. I'm still playing around with my sideboard to figure out exactly what I want in that slot though. The list I currently have in my signature is starting to get a bit outdated, so keep that in consideration...

Regarding Sanctum Prelate, I imagine that it names 3 against us a large percentage of the time to shut off Bridge/Daretti/Deluge/etc., so any answer that we come up with to this card needs to have a different CMC. We may need to start diversifying our wraths (EE is a good solution since you can vary CMC and Sunburst numbers, maybe split Deluge/Damnation) or we could try playing something like Sudden Shock since that also gets around whatever protection they might usually have for that card.

[Lzm]

@undominian: EE for manland was a mistake (played pernicious deed too much i guess :) ) and i m affraid i ve stolen someone today with this jedi tech on cocka :).

leyline was about grove/punishing fire ( the reason why i was mentioning the crippling chalice on 2 to prevent recurring pf). sorry for my medium intelligible english

I m well aware that a good d&t player will name 3 post sb with prelate, and that s why a lot of my 3 cc answer like daretti, grid and bridge+dack are permanent i can cast before prelate hits the board with my 7 sol lands 4 signet 3 mox build. aside from my 2 EE, the 2 the abyss are the alternate casting cost to dodge that (and mom for EE). The abyss can sometimes comes to late vs d&t but also can do some great job, and love them vs gbx midrange deck and in a lot of other mu, sometimes some semi fringe ones, which is good for a metagamed deck like tezz ( same reason i love bridge).

concerning city of traitors, i guess it depends on the number of trini/tezz/the abyss/signet/mox/daretti and lands you re playing. i think fow is far to be enough vs legacy combo deck wich are often design to beat it. i prefer fast trini with 6-7 sol and moxen vs nearly all of them (or trini on show and tell then bridge/ transmute on bridge _or daretti if its rakul vs show and lol), and i love oppressive turbo trini/tezz vs a lot of other non combo mu (shardless/miracle for both, and delver/infect for trini,to give few examples) it can steal wins vs bad mu. a fast the abyss can be game breaking too.

[Hellraiser157]

I have been playing Tezzeret in the Dimir and Grixis List for a while now.

That is my current build, that uses the new Daretti.

GRIXIS TEZZERETTI

Planeswalkers:
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
2 Dack Fayden

Creatures:
4 Baleful Strix
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Perilous Myr

Artifacts:
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Engineered Explosives

Sorceries:
2 Transmute Artifact
1 Toxic Deluge

Lands:
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Academy Ruins
3 Wasteland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth



SB: 2 Trinisphere
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Slaughter Games
SB: 1 Notion Thief
SB: 1 Whipflare
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Kolaghan's Command

I'm really happy with the list so far. It is a lot of fun to play.

Thoughts:

#### Mana Base:

- No City of Traitors: UBR needs a lot of color fixing, and 8 colorless sources is enough
- needs at least 4-6 fetchies
- i tried 2 seats of the synod, but scrapped the idea, because i wanted to remove crucible anyways. and 3 basic lands are the minimum if u wanna play blood moon from the SB

#### Daretti:

- great addition to the deck!
- attracts a lot of aprubt decays ;-)
- i started testing with 3x Daretti MB and 2x seat of the synod, but i think that his 1:1 trade ability (-1 to kill stuff) needs either more artifacts or artifacts with value triggers.
- I often found myself not wanting to sac important artifacts like bridge, foundry, chalice, mox or strix
- thats why i moved to 3x Foundries and 3x Swords.
- ideas moving forward could be adding artifacts with "die"-triggers like Perilous Myr (2 dmg), Myr Sire (1/1 myr) or Hangarback Walker (1/1 flying thopter)
- what i like about the Perilous Myr is that he is a virtual 3/3 and a good target for Transmute Artifact
- maybe a list with 3x Daretti and 2-3 Perilous Myrs....

#### Liquimetal Coating

- oh yeah!
- magical christmas land: 3x Dack Fayden, 3x Daretti, 2x Coatings, Argent Mutation (works with Dacks bad ultimate, haha) .... one can only dream .... ;-)


#### Sideboard

- Helm Combo uses 5 slots
- Trinisphere helps in a lot of matchups. Mainly Delver, Burn and Combo strategies
- Blood Moon against BUG, Lands, Eldrazi....
- Revoker for D&T and Miracles
- Notion Thief ... u know why ;-)
- Whipflare, Toxic and Kolaghan's Command against creature heavy lists
- slaughter games vs combo, miracles

- maybe 1x Daretti and 1x Perilous Myr for the creatue matchups instead of k.command and whipflare...
- maybe 4x Fow, but i have never been a fan of them in the Grixis list

thanks for reading. i'm excited to see the new tezzeret.

- philip

[chlb]

I haven’t played any Magic at all in a month or so, but today I played the following list in a small local tournament.

4 Baleful Strix

4 Dack Fayden
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

2 Transmute Artifact

4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

4 Chalice of the Void
2 Trinisphere
2 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
1 The Abyss
1 Ghirapur Æther Grid
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pyroclasm
2 Lodestone Golem
2 Blood Moon

Started off with a win against ANT, and then lost to Nic Fit, TES and Aggro Loam. Got lots of rust to shake off and everyone else is probably a better player than me. Deck was fun to play though, Daretti felt good against any creature that wasn’t Siege Rhino. Now I have to figure out how to tune the deck to compete in the local meta.

[bruizar]

I like the Daretti list. I would add more creatures, add Liquimetal Coating and add Kolaghan's Command to ensure that there's always something to turn to pulp with liquimetal coating

[ChaosOS]

I'm just going to throw in that Daretti is so absurdly powerful in my testing that if you're not on Grixis at this point you're playing it wrong. Seriously, the dude is a monster and has single handedly carried me through more matchups than I can count at this point.

[bruizar]

I'm happy I got my foils in just in case it will do what foil Dack did :-) Daretti is as good as he is because of his removal ability and his ability to create an army once the opponent is out of gas. -1 for a terminate / shatter is really good, and you can sack swords, artifact lands, redundant mox opals or his own tokens for it.

[Darkenslight]

Quick question - is there ever a metagame where you could consider Saheeli Rai in the Dack spot, or is Dack just that damned good?

[Sisyphos]

Quick question - is there ever a metagame where you could consider Saheeli Rai in the Dack spot, or is Dack just that damned good?

No, but that is less based on the decks I expect to face but on how this deck is constructed. Saheeli Rai seems to be a planeswalker based around artifact synergies, but her abilities acutallly do very little to synergize with the deck.

Scry 1 is not as beneficial as Loot 2. The looting digs deeper and the deck includes synergies to reuse the discarded cards. You want to discard Sword not put it under your library.

What is the minus ability gonna do for the deck? Copying Foundry/Sword/Bridge/Chalice/Trini/Talisman does nothing relevant 99% of the time. The only artifacts you want to copy are Strix or maybe Lodestone if you run it. Copying Strix is basically "draw a card" as you can not block, which is nice, but worse than the abilities Tezzeret and Jace offer and only slightly better than Dacks plus ability. Stealing artifacts with Dack is much more useful in situations that come up more often. You would have to not only swap the planeswalkers but also build your deck differently to even get some value out of Saheeli's ability.

The ultimate is the only ability of Dack that is worse. But the ultimate of Saheeli is not very good either. The deck does not run any instant I-win-artifact-combos. The only options you have are lockpieces or Thopter/Sword. Sure, both are powerful, but you already have a large number of search for those cards with Transmute or Tezzeret.

[ChaosOS]

The new line of play that I recently found with Daretti vs. Miracles is fun: Land daretti, then just use his -1 to target their top. Either they have to return top to the top of their library, or you trade your worst artifact (potentially the useless 1/1 defender token) for their top. This frees you up to resolve your 2 drops through counterbalance.

[Serj]

You've been able to do that for a while with Dack as well, and if they let you have it you can spin the top to find something relevant, then put it on top when you want to resolve something important, best if you can follow up with a Chalice on 1 and blank their next draw and give them a useless top in hand. Even better if you have chains or notion thief in play.

On a real note though, I've been trying a main deck Padeem and she's been a house. Getting out an early chalice on 1 and following up with a Padeem feels so good against decks I've previously had issues with (namely elves, post CS2 DnT, shardless). Might put a second one in the board she's been that good. She's also helped put the nail in the coffin post board against decks like storm who bring in decays and chain of vapor effects. Sometimes her draw ability can be awkward with a bridge out, but often enough she'll help find a Dack or things to just vomit onto the table that it's not that much of an issue and can help us get back ahead when we're behind.

[ChaosOS]

Dack being a -2 though really puts a damper on your ability to repeatably blank top, good to know though

What is your list looking like now that you're on the Padeem plan? She seemed good in the more traditional UB tezz since that has less competition for slots and needs blue density for FOW, but I've been on a more prison plan that cuts FOW now that I'm on 4 tezz 3 Daretti 2 dack

[Serj]

The thing about Dack, especially against miracles is that you always have surplus loyalty in all reality. There's never really a reason to ultimate him so it's easy to just kind of sit there and build loyalty then in sequential turns target the top. Though better miracles players will respond by spinning with top, respond by drawing a card and then try and float a 2-4 drop on top if they can find one and just hope they chose the correct one (or simply leave top on top to play mind games).

List is still pretty simple, I've cut FoW for a while now and haven't missed it at all.

Grixis Tezz:

PW (9):
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Dack Fayden
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

Creatures (5):
4 Baleful Strix
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation

Enchantments (1):
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid

Artifacts (19/24):
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Dimir Signet
4 Mox Diamond
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek

Sorcery (2):
2 Transmute Artifact

Lands (24):
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Blood Moon
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Lodestone Golem
1 Trinisphere
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 The Abyss
1 Damnation
1 Toxic Deluge

Also for how good as Daretti is, I still think I'd rather play a 3rd dack over a 3rd daretti. Dack is what gives the deck a real form of consistency and is very realistic that he might be the best walker in the deck. Though Daretti's board control is beastly.

[Undomian]

This is pretty dead these days but I took this to an 8-2 finish (only 30th though :( , and screw 10 rounds in a day) at Eternal Weekend:

4 Baleful Strix

4 Dack Fayden
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
2 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
2 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

SB:
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Lodestone Golem
1 The Abyss
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation

I started off 1-2 before getting my shit together and rattling off 7 wins in a row, so my notes are pretty bad. I at least have the matchups if anyone is interested. Highlight of the tournament was being asked/reminded by my friend/opponent in round 3 why I had a loss already when I'd apparently won two byes to this tournament earlier in the year (many thanks to my memory).

[Jimbrewersbro]

I'd love to hear more about your tournament. How did the darettis perform? What were your matchups. Any changes you would make?

Thanks for keeping the thread alive.

[filln]

I'd love to hear more about your tournament. How did the darettis perform? What were your matchups. Any changes you would make?

Thanks for keeping the thread alive.

Ditto to the above. Would love to hear more about your experience!

[Ephemeron]

I'd also be interested in reading a tournament report!

[H]

Interested too. Padeem, Consul of Innovation seems like great tech versus GB/X decks and those that would shave on spot removal.

[Undomian]

Here you go! (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31123-Back-with-Dack-in-Black-8-2-at-Eternal-Weekend&p=976374)

[Ephemeron]

Here you go! (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31123-Back-with-Dack-in-Black-8-2-at-Eternal-Weekend&p=976374)

Nice read, thanks for posting that. Seems like you got to side in Daretti a lot, on a scale of 1-10 how much did you like him in the deck? Do you think he'll go down as a permanent inclusion in the deck or will he just be a flavor of the month?

[Undomian]

Nice read, thanks for posting that. Seems like you got to side in Daretti a lot, on a scale of 1-10 how much did you like him in the deck? Do you think he'll go down as a permanent inclusion in the deck or will he just be a flavor of the month?

I've usually had a slot or two in my sideboard for a card to kill Null Rod/Pithing Needle/etc., and Daretti is somewhat unique among those cards in that he kills both those and Tarmogoyf. Because of that, he's also useful in basically any matchup where your opponent is attempting to win by attacking with their guys, usually much more so than whatever you're taking out. I'm sure they'll print something even better eventually, but of Daretti/Fiery Confluence/Kolaghan's Command (just to name recent cards) he's the best by a long shot in most situations. He is, unfortunately, stone awful against combo/Miracles/whatever noncreature deck, so I don't see trying him in the maindeck again.

EDIT: If I have to assign a number to him, he's like a 7 when I bring him in.

[paradaxarada]

You're the guy on the "GatheringMagic" Tezz Deck Tech video, who inspired me to try this deck again haha Congratulations for the result!

[sdematt]

I'll be running this hopefully on thursday:

4 Baleful Strix

1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Trading Post

1 Dack Fayden
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

3 Transmute Artifact

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge

3 Mox Diamond
3 Dimir Signet
1 Izzet Signet
37

1 Academy Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
24

//Sideboard//

1 Cursed Totem
1 Forcefield/Silent Arbiter
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Pithing Needle
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 The Abyss
2 Flusterstorm
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Guardian Beast

Some pieces fun, some for pimp, some for sick value.

[sdematt]

Played my list to a 3-0-1 finish tonight, and good enough for first at our local. The list:

4 Baleful Strix

1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Trading Post

1 Dack Fayden
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

3 Transmute Artifact

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Ensnaring Bridge

3 Mox Diamond
4 Dimir Signet
37

1 Academy Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
24

Board:

2 Pyroclasm
2 Flusterstorm
1 Trinisphere
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Forcefield
1 Guardian Beast
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Cursed Totem
1 G. Aethergrid
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Kolaghan's Command

Plays of the night:

In the round 1 mirror against UBr Tezzy (non-Daretti), Dack is obviously king, and he's on 3 or 4. He plays turn 3 Dack, I play Turn 3 Guardian Beast. Nothing beats Dack quite like Beast.

In round 2, both my wins against BUG control are with Keranos after dropping walkers into counterspells. Sick.

In round 3, I'm on the draw with a Turn 2 Abyss incoming against Maverick. He drops Teeg first, then I use Daretti saccing my Mox to slag Teeg, then drop Abyss. Game over.

Round 4, against Storm. Play T1 Chalice @1, Turn 2 Sword, T3 Tezzeret -1 to swing, T4 Dack steal your LED. Sick. Game 2, lock up the board with Chalice @1, he decays. Draw go. Play Daretti, ultimate twice. First to produce 3 copies of Chalice from the graveyard (@0), then drop 3ball and make 3 copies. Seems good. Also playing Fluster through my own Chalice @ 1 to counter Ad Naus.

Overall, Keranos is a fucking tank worth considering. I'm going to cut Batterskull in the main for it. Grid never came up. Forcefield is iffy. Beast is the illest. Totem is a meta call, but also breaks up Scooze, one of the few cards that can break Thopter combo.

[Ephemeron]

@sdematt: do you think Guardian Beast was better for you than Padeem would've been? Was indestructible more useful than drawing an extra card each turn? (nevermind Beast being the infinitely more pimp choice)

[sdematt]

And you have the answer.

[JackaBo]

And you have the answer.

I totally agree on running abyss(es) in Tezz. However i can't see it in your list.


Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk

[sdematt]

Maindeck has one abyss. My bad.

[kingtk3]

How do you guys play against combo like Show&Tell? Despite having 4 fow, 4 chalices and 3 bridges maindeck, plus flusterstorm, lodestone golem, chains of mephistopheles, trinisphere, nether void in the side I find it an hard matchup especially if they're playing a number of Omniscence maindeck alongside Emmy and Grissy.
Chalice and trinisphere don't hinder S&T nor Sneak attack, only the cantrips, bridge is useful only against the big creatures plan and flusterstorm doesn't hit sneak attack.

Do you have any advice for the side? I play a list very similar to sdematt's:

4 chalice of the void
3 ensnaring bridge
2 sword of the meek
1 crucible of worlds
3 thopter foundry
2 dimir signet
4 Mox Diamond
4 baleful strix
4 force of will
2 Dack fayden
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 transmute artifact

3 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
4 ancient tomb
1 city of traitors
3 volcanic island
3 wasteland
1 academy ruins
2 island
1 swamp


SIDE
1 the abyss
2 toxic deluge
2 flusterstorm
1 tormod's crypt
1 engineered explosives
2 chains of mephistopheles
1 trinisphere
1 guardian beast
2 lodestone golem
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 nether void


Thanks.

[Serj]

Show and Tell decks are rough, the biggest thing is trying to identify if they are on more traditional Sneak and Show, Omnitell (with a full wishboard) or that abomination that has random bits of both and then trying to match your disruption with their game plan. Sneak Attack or SnT into big monster folds to bridge, Omniscience/Dream Halls gets disrupted by 3Sphere/Golem/Nether Void. It's important to know when to fight the SnT itself or let it resolve when you have the proper piece of disruption and save your Force for their answer to your disruption. And the most important thing is you need to be advancing your board presence and putting pressure on the opponent, because inevitably they will be able to answer whatever permanent you put into play. Sometimes your disruption doesn't line up correctly and you just lose anyways, other times you can just shut them down hard and they aren't able to do anything. There's also some consideration to playing a Chalice on 3 (especially against Omni-Tell) because their best cards against us are cunning wish and SnT and then Transmute into whatever you need after.

I know you aren't playing helmline in the board but that can also be a consideration as well if your meta is overrun with SnT decks because turn 0 Leyline might raise some wary of blindly playing SnT because you can just put in helm and kill them (actually did this twice in Colombus and my opponents where completely dumbstruck).

Other than that you can always just jam a fast Tezz, chuck 5/5s and throw forces at their SnT/SA while you just clock them.

[Undomian]

I was asked to write an article if anyone wants to read an intro/deck tech. It's translated into Italian, but there's a link to the original at the top:

http://www.magictitans.it/legacy-lets-talk-about-tezzeret-by-cameron-wisniewki-gianluca-boose/

[kingtk3]

I was asked to write an article if anyone wants to read an intro/deck tech. It's translated into Italian, but there's a link to the original at the top:

http://www.magictitans.it/legacy-lets-talk-about-tezzeret-by-cameron-wisniewki-gianluca-boose/

Very nice reading, but I would have liked some insight for the various combo matchups: could you talk a little about your experience against S&T, storm, reanimator and/or other combo decks?

@all: what's your opinion about a single copy of crucible of worlds maindeck? Recurring lands discarded for moxes and dack is nice and recurring wastelands is just backbreaking against some decks.

Also, do you ever have the feeling that 4 moxes are too much and that 3 should be enough? I know that mox is amazing when you have in your initial hand (along with at least 3 lands) or if you need to discard to hide under a bridge, but it's also true that it's an horrible topdeck and that sometimes it's awful even in the starting 7 if we don't have enough lands.

[sdematt]

I run 3 Mox, 4 Signet main and I think it is perfect for me. Might want to try an Izzet Signet.

I run Crucible side for the grindy matchups and I like it. Wouldnt cut it.

[sdematt]

Also note I do not like Force in this deck. I feel like it should play a lot like Tinker/Shops of old
Just big threats and lockpieces.

Played the same list and did some dying in the mirror (he has more dack) and lost to Stoneblade (drew nothing).

Sometimes I would love more raw card draw like Painful Truths. I may try Thirst as a 2-of again; Dack also slightly fills this role.

Daretti is also stone cold bonkers

[Serj]

So I went 5-4 in the main event at GP Chiba, I can do a write up if anyone is interested. The biggest problems I faced was poor deck identification and losing too many die rolls. It was also hard to keep my head in the game when I wanted to do non magic related things while in Japan and kept some poor hands because of it.

[kingtk3]

Also note I do not like Force in this deck. I feel like it should play a lot like Tinker/Shops of old
Just big threats and lockpieces.

...

Daretti is also stone cold bonkers

However Legacy is not a format where you can deploy the locks as fast as in Vintage and since I find combo as our worst matchup (I've played tezzerator in the last 2 events at my LGS and won all the matches against fair decks while always losing against combo) I think FoW is a necessary evil.

However since my side is all black and sideing always mean to swap blue cards for non blue ones, I don't think I can realistically support 4 Fow; hence I play only 3 copies.

That's the current list I'm testing:

MAIN
4 chalice of the void
3 ensnaring bridge
1 trinisphere
2 sword of the meek
3 thopter foundry
2 dimir signet
4 Mox Diamond
4 baleful strix
3 force of will
3 Dack fayden
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 transmute artifact

3 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
4 ancient tomb
1 city of traitors
3 volcanic island
3 wasteland
1 academy ruins
2 island
1 swamp

SIDE
1 the abyss
2 toxic deluge
4 leyline of the void
1 helm of obedience
1 engineered explosives
1 chains of mephistopheles
1 crucible of worlds
1 guardian beast
2 lodestone golem
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast


Since I'm so weak to combo I prefer to play a trinisphere maindeck instead the cruscible I used to. Also I don't know if crucible will come often from the side so it may be replaced by something else (I consider it a flex slot in the side along side with the helm).
I'm interested to test sphere of resistance in the side to strenghten the resistor package.

Also what are your thoughts about Daretti, Scrap savant? I think that in versions that cut fow for more artifact threats it may be superior to dack fayden because you don't need blu cards as much and the welder effect can turn the tables in many situations, not to mention the ultimate. Too bad you can't have both darettis in play...

[ChaosOS]

Dack is way more useful, having actually tested the swap. Looting is significantly better than rummaging given our hand size tends to dwindle as the game goes on, being castable t2 more consistently is definitely upside, and the reanimation is honestly more cute than the artifact steal. There's so many things to steal with Dack in legacy, whether it's forcing tops back to the library, stealing equipment, or other random stuff people play.

[filln]

So I went 5-4 in the main event at GP Chiba, I can do a write up if anyone is interested. The biggest problems I faced was poor deck identification and losing too many die rolls. It was also hard to keep my head in the game when I wanted to do non magic related things while in Japan and kept some poor hands because of it.

I'd be interested in a write-up if you're up for it! Thanks!

[Ephemeron]

Very nice reading, but I would have liked some insight for the various combo matchups: could you talk a little about your experience against S&T, storm, reanimator and/or other combo decks?

@all: what's your opinion about a single copy of crucible of worlds maindeck? Recurring lands discarded for moxes and dack is nice and recurring wastelands is just backbreaking against some decks.


I've always enjoyed playing one Crucible maindeck. My thought is that if I'm playing an artifacts matter deck with Mox Diamond, Wasteland, City of Traitors, and Dack Fayden, I should probably make room for a Crucible somewhere in the main.

[nedleeds]

So I went 5-4 in the main event at GP Chiba, I can do a write up if anyone is interested. The biggest problems I faced was poor deck identification and losing too many die rolls. It was also hard to keep my head in the game when I wanted to do non magic related things while in Japan and kept some poor hands because of it.

I got my third loss in the 6th round and dropped. I lost to RUG and DRShitRUG with both players missing multiple triggers and playing like apes. I also lost on the draw to a DNT player who should have been gamelossed about 9 times over but the judges took pity on him (putting jitte counters on during my main phase! sure!). I saw tons and tons of Eldrazi in the pre-lims and I destroyed Eldrazi twice and Pox once. Against DRShitRUG I had game 3 on the play after demolishing him game 1, I mulled to 5 and he kept 7 so I'm 90% on him having Force. But my 5 was Tomb / Chalice and a mana rock with a Fetch on top. I gambled on the 10% and ran the Chalice out. He forced, then wastes me. Game over. Maybe if I stick the Talisman I can play a little Magic. Anyway, I think it's a fine deck. Anytime I resolved Daretti he dominated.

[Serj]

Okay so my memory for the first couple of rounds is a little hazy and I lost my original note sheets but I'll try my best, I just spent 6 days doing things in Japan and my minds a little weary from spending 3 days in Akihabara doing some shopping.

Round 1 + 2 Byes

Round 3 rolled in a bit after R2 started and got settle in but got the super bad end of variance against Shardless Bug
Game 1 he just has the nutter butters of being on the play with Turn 1 TS, turn 2 Hymn, Turn 3 Lili and he just hits all my business and I'm left with a sword of the meek in hand and he eventually gets goyf beats and decays my bridge when I find it.
Game 2 I keep a hand that can either A) Turn 1 Bloodmoon or B) Turn 2 Bloodmoon but have access to Basic Island, Mox Diamond, Sol Land, and decide to just wait for the turn 2 to be able to cast the Tezzes in my hand. He unfortunately goes Turn 1 fetch basic swamp, DRS, and then Turn 2s Leovold when I my next business spell was Dack and I never see the 4th manasource for tezz, and just die to leo beats and has the decay for bridge when I find it.
Tough beats.
2-1

Round 4 Sneak and Show
Game 1 he wins the die roll and has turn 2 SnT into griseldaddy, I untap and find a bridge and play it with force back up but he found double force in the top 14 and then untaps into a Sneak + Emmy for lethal.
Game 2 I land turn 0 Leyline into turn 1 signet into Chalice on 1 into Turn 2 Trinisphere with Inventors' Fair active next turn. He untaps and doesn't understand how trinisphere works and tries to play Emrakul for 3 mana so we have like a 5 minute judge call to explain how 3Sphere works. He then just taps his 3 mana for SnT instead and puts in an emrakul and I put in a strix. I play my land and have enough permanents to be able to sac fair to get helm, sac everything but Leyline and Strix, block emmy with strix and just need a land to activate helm if he SnTs again. So I decide on that line, and sure enough he plays a second SnT and I put in helm, but then I top deck not a land and die to the next emmy swing, bad beats. I could have probably gotten bridge instead of helm but I had 21 lands left in the deck and took the chances of winning the next turn instead.
2-2

Round 5, starting to feel a bit defeated by now opening up effective 0-2, but my buddy was 4-0 so I decided to stick around until he dropped, and I get matched up against burn.
Game 1 He wins the die roll and just has turn 1 Goblin Guide into Turn 2 Eidolon. I resolve a turn 1 chalice of tomb, but the rest of his has was Eidolon, double rift bolt and fireblast.
Game 2 I assemble turn 2 thopter swords after turn 1 chalice for 1 and it's GG from there.
Game 3 he's on the play again and I mull to 5 with a hand that can chalice turn 2 and bridge turn 3 with a near empty hand. He goes turn 1 guide, turn 2 swiftspear lava spike, then Rift Bolt into fireblast on turn 4 and I died because I drew runner runner uncastable spells, really frustrated now and my buddy loses his first round.
2-3

Round 6, kind of tilted about how the day has gone so far (mostly because we walked like an hour to just get to the event between traveling to the trains and to the event hall). But was rewarded with a miracles matchup
Game 1 went in my favor as we both mulled to 6 and I jammed a turn 1 Chalice for 1 and then follow up with Tezz and Thopter Swords to close the game out quickly.
Game 2 He mulls to 6 and I keep a strong 7 with turn 1 Signet into strix into turn 2 Tezz swinging for 5 and then follow up with a Chalice with force back up and the strix just closes out the game in quick fashion. I think I also played a Chains at somepoint this game and had another like 5 minute judge call.
3-3

Round 7 DnT
Game 1 I was able to stabilize with bridge and thopter/swords to eventually close out the game, he Revokered Thopter Foundry that ended up getting jacked by Dack and then sacrificed to transmute for a sword.
Game 2 Was a pretty grindy game where he played 1 Needle, 2 Revoker, and a manriki gusari (to kill Sword I guess?) but I came out on top with Dack, double daretti, foundry, transmute, and tezz and eventually just back to back tezz ult under bridge took the game.
4-3

Round 8 Actual Stax
Game 1 he had chalice for 1, I had turn 1 tezz, GG.
Game 2 was a bit more back an forth until we both just wastelanded each other into doing nothing. I eventually landed a tezz but he plays a Tanglewire (not sure why this is still in the deck) so I drop a sol land and start dumping random artifacts to the board over the next couple of turns while he's tapped down by his own wire and eventually assemble thopter/swords into tezz ult to close out the game.
5-3

Round 9 Tin-Fins?
Game 1 he has turn 2 Griseldaddy into draw a bunch of cards into do it again next turn but with an unmask to add emmy to the party. I chaliced for 1 Turn 1 on the draw but it wasn't enough.
Game 2 I keep a turn 0 LEyline hand into a turn 2 Dack he sideboarded in a very bizarre fashion I wasn't expecting and played Thoughsteize me, unmask me, pass as I just simply passed back after play land and signet. He untaps and jams a strix. Then jams another strix, and I'm drawing blanks. Eventually he plays a Jace and a Liliana and I land a chains to stop his jace from BSing me out of the game, but then he just starts jace +ing me and eventually ults lili, hits me to 2 with strixes, and gets Jace into ult range and I don't find anything business related before it's too late. He also decayed a bridge at one point which I was not expecting. After the game he showed me his board of 3 strixes, 2 jace, 2 lili, 4 decay. He literally just boarded into a BUG control deck with a slight reanimation package, which I did not expect as I'm used to the Doomsday or Mentor plans, so well played to my opponent.
5-4

My buddy ended up losing his 9th round in a Show and Tell mirror and ended up 6-3 but decided to drop so we could go do more shopping in Akiba so all was well I suppose.

I do have to say everyone was nice and cordial at the GP, no one ever got salty, and even despite the language barrier it was an enjoyable event. Also props to hareruya to hosting one of the most well organized events I've ever played in.

[Ellomdian]

nevermind Beast being the infinitely more pimp choice

And you have the answer.

Never underestimate the power of Pimp. The Abyss happened because it was Pimp. I've spent far to many hours trying to figure out how to jam Neither Void in this thing, largely because of Pimp. Pimp rulez. :cool:


However Legacy is not a format where you can deploy the locks as fast as in Vintage ... I think FoW is a necessary evil.

Common misconception - it's rarely related to the speed that Lock pieces come into play, it's that the lock pieces themselves aren't as good in Legacy. 3-Sphere and Chalice are Nutter-Butters against 90% of the field in Vintage, but they are stone unplayable against a number of common archetypes in Legacy. It's the big reason that traditional Prison is stone unplayable in the format, unless I've missed something on my brief hiatus; Stax is fun, but the natural inefficiency of Legacy vs Vintage means that small inconveniences don't generate as large an advantage. Or, when was the last time someone played Sphere of Resistance against you in a real match?

[Undomian]

Never underestimate the power of Pimp. The Abyss happened because it was Pimp. I've spent far to many hours trying to figure out how to jam Neither Void in this thing, largely because of Pimp. Pimp rulez. :cool:


Cutting Nether Void from my SB ages ago was heartbreaking because I had to break up the "terrible trio" of The Abyss/Chains/Void :cry:

[nimkee]

Cutting Nether Void from my SB ages ago was heartbreaking because I had to break up the "terrible trio" of The Abyss/Chains/Void :cry:

Long time lurker here. I love the abyss and chains myself. Has anyone tried chains with dack? I finally moved Abyss to the board...sadly. I actually took chains out of the board. Enchantments seem to do better with Dacks filtering in the grixis version.

I recently put UB Tezz back together for testing purposes. OG Tezz did some work as a repeated tutor last night. I also put in the helm combo main and put the forces in the board. I had mixed results. Worse against non gy combo but better against the field I think. Worrying about 2 combos plus hate stretches ppl thin.

Here are a couple of other UB lists that seemed to do alright, albeit in smaller tournaments. My current list is very similar to the mtgstocks list. I have the 2cmc mana rocks w/o the diamonds. I really like diamonds, esp with the crucible and waste package. The mana-rocks appear to play nicer with Transmute than the diamonds...which are better with the 3 mana walkers and t1 trinisphere. Like I said...I'm starting with the original lists and am working my way through the evolution to get a better feel for the deck in its various forms.

Can anyone share some knowledge on the differences between the two decks, why the deck has shifted towards grixis etc?

Faithful to Tezz since Scars,

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-ub-32349#paper
http://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/118751

Edited from my PC
Sent from my SM-G935S using Tapatalk

[ChaosOS]

So we might have a new tool since Standard Destroyer Copter was too cute -

http://imgur.com/a/AqjQC

Heart of Kiran {2}
Legendary Artifact - Vehicle
Flying Vigilance
Crew 3
You may remove a loyalty counter from a PW you control rather than pay ~ crew cost
4/4

[TheArchitect]

Another new toy perhaps. Is this better than deluge though? Probably not.

http://www.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Battle-at-the-Bridge.png

EDIT: fixed the link

[Ellomdian]

Has anyone tried chains with dack?
...
Can anyone share some knowledge on the differences between the two decks, why the deck has shifted towards grixis etc?


I mean, sure, Chains and Dack is hilarious. I fully support it. The bigger issue is that you have a 2 card combo that doesn't deal with the 3/3 on the other side of the board beating you down. This deck doesn't really have a problem closing out games from T4+, it's getting there in a stable position that's the hard part.

Honestly, I feel like the Grixis shift is more a function of the kind of player who wants to play with these cards being really, really drawn towards the 'janky' bits like Dack and Daretti. I argue that the UB version is more stable and presents a more durable game plan from T3 onwards, Undomain would say that my version is slow and that the explosiveness of the Grixis versions is more preferable in a control-centric meta. YMMV.


Another new toy perhaps. Is this better than deluge though? Probably not.

I have to imagine you are broken-linking Yahenni's Expertise, right? Or Battle at the Bridge? If the former, it's a cute sweeper, but the free spell really doesn't help us out that much. If it's the latter, single-target removal is great at killing VIP threats that don't saturate the board, say, Goyf, which makes X spells costly, and Deluge is a boardwipe. It's also Sorcery speed, which is baaaad in eternal :)

[Ricardio]

http://i.imgur.com/O0I7jxk.png
http://i.imgur.com/O0I7jxk.png

No idea if this goes here.

[Poron]

4x Dimir Signet and Shaman scream for Winter Orb in SB against Eldrazi and Miracle

[Ricardio]

4x Dimir Signet and Shaman scream for Winter Orb in SB against Eldrazi and Miracle

that sounds dope. This is just my run at it. Thoughts from the experts would help. Condemnation for the abomination I built is also entertaining.

I figured shardless bug is good so cut out cute sht and add cuter sht.

[Ephemeron]

That decklist is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Shardless and Tezz are my two favorite decks. I'm gonna build that up tonight and take it to my weekly tomorrow.

[Ricardio]

That decklist is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Shardless and Tezz are my two favorite decks. I'm gonna build that up tonight and take it to my weekly tomorrow.

That's great BUT please take some time to review the deck. this is a rough draft and I would hate for you to run in blind and do poorly :cry:

[Ephemeron]

That's great BUT please take some time to review the deck. this is a rough draft and I would hate for you to run in blind and do poorly :cry:

yeah, I'm gonna mess around with it tonight and at least goldfish with it a little. There are gonna be some changes due to not owning certain cards (Leovold, looking in your direction). I'm also gonna end up with leyline/helm in the board since I'm a fan of Leyline in both regular Shardless and Tezz and my meta is infested with lands and 4c Loam.

I'm looking forward to beating the ever-loving shit out of Miracles though!

[Ricardio]

yeah, I'm gonna mess around with it tonight and at least goldfish with it a little. There are gonna be some changes due to not owning certain cards (Leovold, looking in your direction). I'm also gonna end up with leyline/helm in the board since I'm a fan of Leyline in both regular Shardless and Tezz and my meta is infested with lands and 4c Loam.

I'm looking forward to beating the ever-loving shit out of Miracles though!

Please feel free to share changes. this deck seems super fun, I only got to play a single match with it bc it was 3 am so im intrigued how well it will do. (beat Bug delver 2-1)

If I get time at work, I will revisit the list.

[Poron]

anyway I am not sure I would play green.

Daretti 2.0 and Blood Moon, to me, are much better than Abrupt Decay

[Ricardio]

anyway I am not sure I would play green.

Daretti 2.0 and Blood Moon, to me, are much better than Abrupt Decay

decay, drs, agent

[Poron]

decay, drs, agent

Drs would be 100% played in the Grixis list as well just adding a Tropical Island and 3 Mox Opal (great absent in these lists).

Opal would also help in the Blood Moon / Winter Orb plan and Daretti is just a winner on its own.

Oh yes, Grixis version has also access to Chains of Mephistopheles and Dack Fayden.

[sdematt]

Drs would be 100% played in the Grixis list as well just adding a Tropical Island and 3 Mox Opal (great absent in these lists).

Opal would also help in the Blood Moon / Winter Orb plan and Daretti is just a winner on its own.

Oh yes, Grixis version has also access to Chains of Mephistopheles and Dack Fayden.

BUG Thopters is a real option, because BG handles so many things we have trouble with - good removal (Decay) and card draw (Sylvan). But, notice gents, the lack of Chalice of the Void/Tombss/etc. This looks and feels a lot more like Shardless than Thopters, but I'm willing to give it a go.

Winter Orb seems slick in the side, I agree. I wish Grixis could run it.

[Ricardio]

Drs would be 100% played in the Grixis list as well just adding a Tropical Island and 3 Mox Opal (great absent in these lists).

Opal would also help in the Blood Moon / Winter Orb plan and Daretti is just a winner on its own.

Oh yes, Grixis version has also access to Chains of Mephistopheles and Dack Fayden.

While those are all great options, I don't think this is a good blood moon deck and Red isn't my thing. I do, however, acknowledge that your knowledge of this particular archetype far outweighs mine.


BUG Thopters is a real option, because BG handles so many things we have trouble with - good removal (Decay) and card draw (Sylvan). But, notice gents, the lack of Chalice of the Void/Tombss/etc. This looks and feels a lot more like Shardless than Thopters, but I'm willing to give it a go.

Winter Orb seems slick in the side, I agree. I wish Grixis could run it.

Im thinking a pulse should be somewhere as a catch all. Chalice is hit or miss for me. I decided to not play it because I don't have them on mtgo and because the life for tomb seems too high for me and what I want to be doing.

More threats is more better?

Winter orb would require some number of opals.

[Ephemeron]

Winter orb would require some number of opals.

If you think Orb needs more mana rocks to make it viable, I don't think it's viable. I can't imagine opal being any good in that deck. There aren't THAT many artifacts in the first place, even fewer than traditional Tezz and that deck doesn't play Opal either. In general, I don't think Opal is a playable card in legacy.

I'm with sdematt on the playstyle, BUG Shardless Tezz is gonna play out a lot more similar to Shardless or any other grindy BUG deck than it is to Tezzerator. The latter is way more of a prison style deck, so of course Blood Moon is gonna look a lot better. Are Tezzeret and Thopters better than Goyfs and Vision? I dunno, probably not. But it'll be fun as hell to try.

[Undomian]

I'd look to that Bant Shardless Thopters (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26523-Shardless-Thopters) deck people were talking about awhile back for inspo for this, it has some similar ideas. Top could be pretty good here though with signets and more 4 drops I'm not sure how good CB is.

[Ricardio]

If you think Orb needs more mana rocks to make it viable, I don't think it's viable. I can't imagine opal being any good in that deck. There aren't THAT many artifacts in the first place, even fewer than traditional Tezz and that deck doesn't play Opal either. In general, I don't think Opal is a playable card in legacy.

I'm with sdematt on the playstyle, BUG Shardless Tezz is gonna play out a lot more similar to Shardless or any other grindy BUG deck than it is to Tezzerator. The latter is way more of a prison style deck, so of course Blood Moon is gonna look a lot better. Are Tezzeret and Thopters better than Goyfs and Vision? I dunno, probably not. But it'll be fun as hell to try.

Opal is not a card im ultra familiar with so, defer to your opinion.
Yes, I agree. Prison vs Value midrange. I personally think visions is too gimmicky and Tezz is strong.


I'd look to that Bant Shardless Thopters (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26523-Shardless-Thopters) deck people were talking about awhile back for inspo for this, it has some similar ideas. Top could be pretty good here though with signets and more 4 drops I'm not sure how good CB is.

I will definitely check that out. I am not a huge fan of white in legacy. I hate death, taxes and that white weenie deck.
EDIT: I commented in that thread wondering if bug was better hahaha FULL CIRCLE, EH?

[Poron]

Stoneforge is great as plan B and as combo enabler

Anyway, always consider that Null Rod is played by anyone who can play it and that unluckily Foundry is an artifact indeed.

Sultai, Bant, Grixis?

I think I would play the Sol land Grixis version.

Turn 0 Chalice is still the best turn 0 possible apart from winning the match already.

Trinisphere + Winter Orb is just another thing impossibly strong

I would play a prison of

4 Chalice
3 Trini
4 Blood Moon

Remember that 1 Island + a Dimir Signet plays the whole deck

2 Daretti
2 Dack Fayden
4 Tezzeret
2 Jace

22 lands and something to deal with his problematic permanents like EE, Damnation or whatever

[Ephemeron]

I messed around with that Shardless bant list for a couple weeks a long time ago. Fun deck, completely incapable of winning any game in a timely manner. If you couldn't get thopter/sword going, it was basically impossible to win. It definitely needed something like Tezzeret to be a resilient alternet wincon. Nailing people with Humility was super fun though.

[Ricardio]

Stoneforge is great as plan B and as combo enabler

Anyway, always consider that Null Rod is played by anyone who can play it and that unluckily Foundry is an artifact indeed.

Sultai, Bant, Grixis?

I think I would play the Sol land Grixis version.

Turn 0 Chalice is still the best turn 0 possible apart from winning the match already.

Trinisphere + Winter Orb is just another thing impossibly strong

I do think the grixis seems strong currently, but I believe the BUG version to entirely unexplored. Innovation is the enemy of stagnation.


I messed around with that Shardless bant list for a couple weeks a long time ago. Fun deck, completely incapable of winning any game in a timely manner. If you couldn't get thopter/sword going, it was basically impossible to win. It definitely needed something like Tezzeret to be a resilient alternet wincon. Nailing people with Humility was super fun though.

that makes sense. turning the corner once you have established the combo is quick but one trick ponies don't win many tournaments.
SFM is strong but I think the deck lacks raw power.

[Poron]

I do think the grixis seems strong currently, but I believe the BUG version to entirely unexplored. Innovation is the enemy of stagnation

completly agree.

Also much more fun to play than the prison shell

[Ricardio]

completly agree.

Also much more fun to play than the prison shell

Let me know what you think of my list so we can adapt and make this deck great

in other news, ya, you right.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-thopter-sword-friends-legacy

[sdematt]

Cutting Red is sacrilage - but what about running Sylvans and decays main, keeping everything else?

[ChaosOS]

What does your mana base look like? The existing ones are already pretty pushed on colored sources by running sol lands, while your artifact count is likely to suffer if you start playing more decays and libraries.

[Ricardio]

What does your mana base look like? The existing ones are already pretty pushed on colored sources by running sol lands, while your artifact count is likely to suffer if you start playing more decays and libraries.

Grixis splash G blood moon deck. That hurt me to type haha

[Ephemeron]

Tried Shardless Tezz at my weekly, went 1-3. :rolleyes: Lost to food stamp burn twice and elves, beat 4c Delver. Guess all the Miracles players heard I was coming to take their lunch money and ran away. Dunno if I can take away anything from the losses, they're just shitty matchups and I was only able to get Thopter/Sword going once against burn (drawing all four Signets one game didn't help). Deck felt super good against Delver though, everything I was doing was way too powerful for that deck. Baleful Strix is the best.

Had a blast and I'd play it again. I think I'd want an Umezawa's Jitte somewhere in the 75. The deck can pump out creatures so easily, just turning a signet into a thopter and equipping jitte seems awesome.

In the past I've messed around with a more traditional BUG Tezz list with Sylvan and Life from the Loam and Decay in the board. Didn't really care for it, Grixis is way better (even more now that Daretti is a card).

[anwei]

food stamp burn

:)

[Ricardio]

Tried Shardless Tezz at my weekly, went 1-3. :rolleyes: Lost to food stamp burn twice and elves, beat 4c Delver. Guess all the Miracles players heard I was coming to take their lunch money and ran away. Dunno if I can take away anything from the losses, they're just shitty matchups and I was only able to get Thopter/Sword going once against burn (drawing all four Signets one game didn't help). Deck felt super good against Delver though, everything I was doing was way too powerful for that deck. Baleful Strix is the best.

Had a blast and I'd play it again. I think I'd want an Umezawa's Jitte somewhere in the 75. The deck can pump out creatures so easily, just turning a signet into a thopter and equipping jitte seems awesome.

In the past I've messed around with a more traditional BUG Tezz list with Sylvan and Life from the Loam and Decay in the board. Didn't really care for it, Grixis is way better (even more now that Daretti is a card).

tough luck, bud. Jitte sounds good, not sure where. Too bad you don't have any suggestions.

I like the grixis cards but I hate prison decks. I would be open to trying something grixis but I don't want to get locked into prison. :cool:

[Ephemeron]

tough luck, bud. Jitte sounds good, not sure where. Too bad you don't have any suggestions.

I like the grixis cards but I hate prison decks. I would be open to trying something grixis but I don't want to get locked into prison. :cool:

I played the list you posted except -2 Artifact Lands -1 Island -1 Leovold, +2 Creeping Tar Pit +1 FoW +1 Forest and my sideboard was:

4x Leyline of the Void
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
2x Toxic Deluge
1x Sylvan Library
1x Notion Thief
1x The Abyss
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ensnaring Bridge

The Abyss is probably too cute for a list like this, so I'd replace it with the Jitte. I was reasonably happy with the rest of the cards although given the matchups a large portion of those cards went unused. The Creeping Tar Pits could probably be something else too but they felt acceptable. I'm just not a fan of the artifact lands as a basic land that can be wastelanded in such a heavily 3 color deck.

[Ricardio]

I played the list you posted except -2 Artifact Lands -1 Island -1 Leovold, +2 Creeping Tar Pit +1 FoW +1 Forest and my sideboard was:

4x Leyline of the Void
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
2x Toxic Deluge
1x Sylvan Library
1x Notion Thief
1x The Abyss
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ensnaring Bridge

The Abyss is probably too cute for a list like this, so I'd replace it with the Jitte. I was reasonably happy with the rest of the cards although given the matchups a large portion of those cards went unused. The Creeping Tar Pits could probably be something else too but they felt acceptable. I'm just not a fan of the artifact lands as a basic land that can be wastelanded in such a heavily 3 color deck.

Leo is too good to cut. Tar pits being tapped lands hurts me, physically.

Jitte instead of abyss sounds good. I will likely swap an island for another delta. I like the artifacts lands, personally. Tezz a 5/5 land that doesn't die to abrupt decay.

[Serj]

What does your mana base look like? The existing ones are already pretty pushed on colored sources by running sol lands, while your artifact count is likely to suffer if you start playing more decays and libraries.

You could literally just take the Grixis wastelands and replaced them with like Trop, Bayou, Misty and call it a day.

Lands (24):
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Academy Ruins

With 4 Mox Diamonds you are running effectively 11 Green sources in the deck. Fair/City/Badlands could also just become another fetch, trop, basic swamp, bayou, or something as well to increase the colored count while lowering colorless lands (or in the case of badlands allow every dual to be fetchable via Delta/Misty), which is the same red count that was used to cast Dack as a 3-4 of in traditional grixis builds.

A deck list could be as follows if you wanted to add green cards:

4 Baleful Strix

2 Dack Fayden
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact
3 Abrupt Decay

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
2 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

This actually looks hilarious enough that I might test it for a GPT this sunday and see how it goes. Just need to find a sylvan library or just keep the third Dack.

[Ricardio]

I love that idea but you are still a prison deck. im not a huge fan of chalice so I will continue to search for alternatives.

Prison decks, in my experience, have been me hiding in my pillow fort till my opponent undoes the duct tape and roadhouse kicks my hopes and dreams away, exposing the fact im a snot-nosed kid.

[Serj]

New Tezz was spoiled:

2UB Tezzeret
+1 Create a lotus petal
-2 target creature gets +x/-x where x is the number of artifacts you control
-7 You get an emblem with at the beginning of combat target artifact becomes 5/5 creature (rough translation)

Starting Loyalty 5

Seems meh, possibly fine in traditional UB builds but probably not where Grixis wants to be. His + is pretty good with Daretti but not game breaking. His minus seems okay but again, Daretti is something we can already do. And his ult is just AoBs -1 everyturn for the rest of the game, which is okay but nothing amazing.

Kind of a let down, even compared to the PW Deck version. Might try him as a 1 of over an AoB for a couple of weeks and see if I like him in testing but pretty skeptical.

[Poron]

haha that planeswalker is a joke.

We already play 4 Tezzeret here and the only reason why I play the fullset of Agent of Bolas is because they pitch to Misdirection and Fow should we draw the third or the fourth

[Ephemeron]

Meh, that card stinks. I'd rather just play Jace or even Tezz the Seeker in the UB version and definitely Daretti in Grixis.

[Poron]

Quicksmith Spy/Rebel + Trinisphere/Chalice/Winter Orb/Howling Mine

Really, there are too many good cards/ideas

I try to make a list

[Piproberts]

4 Baleful Strix

4 Dack Fayden
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

4 Force of Will
2 Transmute Artifact

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
2 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Mox Diamond
2 Dimir Signet

1 Academy Ruins
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
2 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

SB:
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Lodestone Golem
1 The Abyss
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation


Heya guys. New to this site and kinda new to Legacy. I have assembled and tried a few variants of the legacy UB/Grixis Tezzeratorlists. I have ported from playing UB Tezzeret in Modern.
I will be streaming my attempts at learning the deck and the format the coming weeks if you would like to come watch. I will be posting questions at here in the forums in the days to come.

After yesterdays stream I learned that the Abyss did not work against the Marit Lage, i do not know why but I probably figured it was an edicteffect.

The list above is where I will start.

Anyway, come join me if you like. I am Piproberts at twitch.

[Piproberts]

My first two days of streaming has resulted in playing a total of 20 games.

1. Mono-green Spirits W
2. Nic Fit L W
3. Turbo-Depths WW
4. Saffron Olive Thopter-Sword W
5. UR Delver WL
6. BUG W
7. 4-C Delver LL
8. Lands L
9. Miracles WWW
10. Elves WW
11. Sneak and Show W
12. W Eldrazi and Taxes W
13. Unknown (early concede) W

That is a whooping 75% winrate, although half of the games where in the tournament practice area of MODO.

Questions:
How do you sideboard against delver? What type of cards should come in?
Against what matchups do you take out the Force of Wills?

[Poron]

My first two days of streaming has resulted in playing a total of 20 games.

1. Mono-green Spirits W
2. Nic Fit L W
3. Turbo-Depths WW
4. Saffron Olive Thopter-Sword W
5. UR Delver WL
6. BUG W
7. 4-C Delver LL
8. Lands L
9. Miracles WWW
10. Elves WW
11. Sneak and Show W
12. W Eldrazi and Taxes W
13. Unknown (early concede) W

That is a whooping 75% winrate, although half of the games where in the tournament practice area of MODO.

Questions:
How do you sideboard against delver? What type of cards should come in?
Against what matchups do you take out the Force of Wills?

Leyline of The Void and The Abyss

[Piproberts]

Here is a video of todays stream
https://www.twitch.tv/piproberts/v/110240252

Enjoy :smile:

[Piproberts]

I have been having a blast playing the deck! The Grixis versions feels really dynamic!
I even attended a Gatherling event the other night (Community legacy league) and went 3-1. I played and won against UR Delver and BR Reanimator. I lost to Esper Deathblade. The third win was a bye in the first round.
Awesome event either way. Check it out at gatherling.com.

I also streamed quite a bit and a few of you guys have come to see me. Good fun.
I will post a new video later today.

[paradaxarada]

I have been having a blast playing the deck! The Grixis versions feels really dynamic!
I even attended a Gatherling event the other night (Community legacy league) and went 3-1. I played and won against UR Delver and BR Reanimator. I lost to Esper Deathblade. The third win was a bye in the first round.
Awesome event either way. Check it out at gatherling.com.

I also streamed quite a bit and a few of you guys have come to see me. Good fun.
If you wanna watch my latest stream I have uploaded it too my youtubechannel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgmjQ_G6--s&feature=youtu.be

For some reason I cant watch you videos on youtube here in Brazil, but I enjoyed a lot on your stream on twitch.tv

Please guys, check my new list of tezz:

Land (23)

1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Badlands
1x City of Traitors
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Artifact (18)

4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Sword of the Meek
3x Thopter Foundry

Planeswalker (9)

3x Dack Fayden
2x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Creature (4)

4x Baleful Strix

Instant (4)

4x Force of Will

Sorcery (2)

2x Transmute Artifact

Sideboard (15)

1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Flusterstorm
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Pyroclasm
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Trinisphere

I cut 1 Daretti, and move my Crucible to the main, them choosed to not take 1 wasteland out for a copy of Inventors' fair, cause I dont believe that the number of artifacts on this versions makes the card work good enought.

On the sideboard, I decide to cut 2 Tinisphere as the card doesnt resolve our problem against Show and Tell decks, and with the 3 empty slots (-1 Crucible, -2 Trini), I opted to place 1 Chains of Mephistopheles and 2 Flusterstorm.

Waiting for opinions about the 75, and a happy new year for you all!

[Serj]

Running 1 Sword with 3 Foundry and 2 Daretti's in the main is questionable at best. Honestly if I was playing Daretti main I wouldn't run less than 2 swords if not 3. I would probably cut the ratchet bomb and add another sword, it should also make your thopter/swords and transmute artifacts better.

Sideboard seems fine, you should have an amazing DnT and elves matchup postboard. Omnitell will always be a rough matchup, even with fluster storms sometimes it doesn't matter. You really just need to try and push out pressure against them and close the game sooner than later. Sneak and Show is simple enough just need to get a bridge on the table and you should be able to just drag the game into Thopter/Swords or Tezz ult. All 3balls really does is set them back a turn or 2. But that can be enough time to kill with Tezz making 5/5s.

[paradaxarada]

Running 1 Sword with 3 Foundry and 2 Daretti's in the main is questionable at best. Honestly if I was playing Daretti main I wouldn't run less than 2 swords if not 3. I would probably cut the ratchet bomb and add another sword, it should also make your thopter/swords and transmute artifacts better.

Sideboard seems fine, you should have an amazing DnT and elves matchup postboard. Omnitell will always be a rough matchup, even with fluster storms sometimes it doesn't matter. You really just need to try and push out pressure against them and close the game sooner than later. Sneak and Show is simple enough just need to get a bridge on the table and you should be able to just drag the game into Thopter/Swords or Tezz ult. All 3balls really does is set them back a turn or 2. But that can be enough time to kill with Tezz making 5/5s.

Done, - 1 Ratchet Bomb +1 Sword of the Meek

[Poron]

Omnitell --> Trinisphere, Chalice
SneakShow --> Containment Priest (for the Stoneforge version), Bridge, The Abyss

I also play 4 Leyline of the Void MD because they can be cast easily and to wreck Delver decks, Reanimator and all Delve spells ever is sweet.

It also Instant kill if you transmute a Sword into Helm of Obedience making it one of the best hate card ever (Delver, Reanimator) until it's the very same card that kills

[Piproberts]

For some reason I cant watch you videos on youtube here in Brazil, but I enjoyed a lot on your stream on twitch.tv

It seems like youtube did not approve of my listening to the radio while streaming. I will put up some other videos instead, sorry about that.

As for the list I like it but I must say that Daretti is more a roleplayer than a mainboarder. He is great against certain things like Nullrod or the like but mediocre otherwise. I would certainly have him in the side.
Having both 2 Darettis and 2 K-com seems like overkill also.
I must say that I am impressed with Dack, he is always great, filtering your draws or stealing important artifacts!

[paradaxarada]

As for the list I like it but I must say that Daretti is more a roleplayer than a mainboarder. He is great against certain things like Nullrod or the like but mediocre otherwise. I would certainly have him in the side.

I understand the point, but the same argument coulded be said about decks that runs Swords to Plowshares, Terminus, or even us with the Ensnaring Bridges on the mainboard.

The deck have a bunch of ways to interact with combo and control decks, but very few to interact against creatures based decks, and even more, its also a way to interact against artifacts on the main, like Fire and Ice/Batterskull/Jitte, AEther Vial, Thorn, and Sensei's Diving Top.

It have it's utilities including a match like Miracles, it breaks the countertop interaction, creating a scenario where you can resolve your spells, as Dack do, and clean the table of the Tops, if some haresolved before your chalice. It's also a answear for Mentors.

The card have a thousant of interactions with the rest of the deck, like creating artifacts for Tezzeret -1 or -4, have a good sinergy with Sword of the Meek and Transmute Artifact, can sac the tokens created by Thopter Foundry, protect your Planeswalkers and life total with blockers or removals, etc..

The -6 bonus sometime provides you 3 Batterskull (opponent's one), 3 Baleful Strix (Ancestral Recall), and some unexpected plays, like in your streamed game against Aluren, if the Daretti dosen't get Decayed on the last moment, you coulded -6 it targeting the Parasitc Strix, closeing the game.

I don't think the new Daretti is the most glorious thing ever made and it's uncontestable, but I believe that it's too good to put it on the bench, and it really shine on some of the most important matchups nowday, like Delver, Eldrazi and Death and Taxes (historically our worst matchup), and even when it doesn't Shine, it's one more threat (one more target for decay, overloading the use of the card) and its really hard to be ignored once it down on the table.

But anymay, I don't exclude the possibillity that I am completely or partialy wrong about all this, it's just my analysis and my point of view.


Having both 2 Darettis and 2 K-com seems like overkill also.

I don't really know what to think about this, but one thing I know, both cards are really powerful and are able to turn a game in our favor, and redundance is a important quality in a deck without Brainstorm and Ponder.

And what I really like about the K. Com is the sneak and unexpected powerful effect that come some times in answear to a Port/Wasteland activation, from a deck that normally only do things in sorcery speed, and if its able to bring a Baleful back from our graveyard, the card can generate a value that is like 4 for 1.

Also a very good answear to a Revoker naming Daretti.

After the suggestions, thats my current 75:

Grixis Tezzeret

Land (23)

1x Academy Ruins
4x Ancient Tomb
1x Badlands
1x City of Traitors
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Volcanic Island
3x Wasteland

Artifact (18)

4x Chalice of the Void
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dimir Signet
2x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sword of the Meek
3x Thopter Foundry

Planeswalker (9)

3x Dack Fayden
2x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Sorcery (2)

2x Transmute Artifact

Instant (4)

4x Force of Will

Creature (4)

4x Baleful Strix

Sideboard (15)

1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Flusterstorm
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Pyroclasm
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Trinisphere

[Piproberts]

Like promised I have posted another video since I botched the last one.
So here is a video from yesterdays stream! 12 games of Grixis Tezzerator!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFySko-m-kU&feature=youtu.be

Todays stream is coming up later so if you want to see more check back a bit later.

[Piproberts]

I understand the point, but the same argument coulded be said about decks that runs Swords to Plowshares, Terminus, or even us with the Ensnaring Bridges on the mainboard.
The deck have a bunch of ways to interact with combo and control decks, but very few to interact against creatures based decks, and even more, its also a way to interact against artifacts on the main, like Fire and Ice/Batterskull/Jitte, AEther Vial, Thorn, and Sensei's Diving Top.
It have it's utilities including a match like Miracles, it breaks the countertop interaction, creating a scenario where you can resolve your spells, as Dack do, and clean the table of the Tops, if some haresolved before your chalice. It's also a answear for Mentors.
The card have a thousant of interactions with the rest of the deck, like creating artifacts for Tezzeret -1 or -4, have a good sinergy with Sword of the Meek and Transmute Artifact, can sac the tokens created by Thopter Foundry, protect your Planeswalkers and life total with blockers or removals, etc..
The -6 bonus sometime provides you 3 Batterskull (opponent's one), 3 Baleful Strix (Ancestral Recall), and some unexpected plays, like in your streamed game against Aluren, if the Daretti dosen't get Decayed on the last moment, you coulded -6 it targeting the Parasitc Strix, closeing the game.
I don't think the new Daretti is the most glorious thing ever made and it's uncontestable, but I believe that it's too good to put it on the bench, and it really shine on some of the most important matchups nowday, like Delver, Eldrazi and Death and Taxes (historically our worst matchup), and even when it doesn't Shine, it's one more threat (one more target for decay, overloading the use of the card) and its really hard to be ignored once it down on the table.
But anymay, I don't exclude the possibillity that I am completely or partialy wrong about all this, it's just my analysis and my point of view.


Hey, you make some good arguments. Don´t get me wrong, I think Daretti is a very strong card and it has serious synergies with the deck.
My experience however is that most of the time you have to cast him and sack something somewhat relevant (chalice, bridge, signet) to destroy something that is about to knock you dead and have him die to the counterattack. In a better scenario he is great but is that not a situation where you are already ahead?

[Serj]

So Chord of Calling for artifacts got spoiled today. Unfortunately improvise isn't nearly as good as convoke (can't generate colored mana) so the UUU might be rough. Perhaps UB builds could try it out over transmute?

[sdematt]

Doesn't it cost a nice, safe XUUU? Where "UUU" means basically not breakable?

I'm still on the same ol' list, but I think either someone borrowed a City of Traitors, or it's in another deck, or I misplaced it. Either way, shitty.

[Ganfar]

I don't if it's only me but I have missread the new Tezz -2.

-2: Target Creature Gets +X/-X Until End of Turn, Where X is the Number of Artifacts You Control

This Tezz can kill cretures, the other can't not. Still Agent of Bolas seems to be better

[Ephemeron]

I don't if it's only me but I have missread the new Tezz -2.

-2: Target Creature Gets +X/-X Until End of Turn, Where X is the Number of Artifacts You Control

This Tezz can kill cretures, the other can't not. Still Agent of Bolas seems to be better

Spot creature removal isn't really what this deck wants though. And how often are you going to play this and actually be able to minus it to kill a goyf or a TKS or something? 4 mana to kill a delver and leave a mediocre planeswalker behind isn't gonna cut it. Tezz AoB is light years better. Even Tezz the Seeker is better since at least it gets to ultimate the turn after you play it or can search up combo pieces (helm or sword and foundry on back to back turns).

[Ellomdian]

So Chord of Calling for artifacts got spoiled today. Unfortunately improvise isn't nearly as good as convoke (can't generate colored mana) so the UUU might be rough. Perhaps UB builds could try it out over transmute?

When I throw a signet through a transmute, it's effectively X=2, while improvise is only going to generate 1. So, Whir costs 2 mana more (1 colored!) for instant speed. Also, most of the time you are going to be tapping mana rocks anyways, so the only real upside is that you can tap crap like Relic or Needle or Bridge, and those are the cards you are most likely going to be searching out anyways.

Mechanized Production is my new BFF win condition. I like cards that literally say 'Win the Game' on them, especially when they are out of Decay range. It's more reliable than a Tezz ultimate. It legitimately has me looking back at ye olde Karn/Wurmcoil/Trading Post lists.

Guess how many Thopters I am going to have before my next upkeep? :cool:

[Ephemeron]

The thought of putting a Mechanized Production onto a Baleful Strix definitely gives me a half-chub. I feel as though if you have 8 thopters in play, however, you've already won the game.

[sdematt]

You dont have to enchant the same thing that you need to have eight copies of, am I reading this right? Enchant something that they cant Decay, go Thopter crazy, win?

[Ephemeron]

You dont have to enchant the same thing that you need to have eight copies of, am I reading this right? Enchant something that they cant Decay, go Thopter crazy, win?

Oh man, you're right. I hadn't thought about it that way but now that I read it again I guess you don't need the artifact you have 8 of to be the same as the enchanted artifact. I guess you could drop the red cards and do a straight UB version with Mechanized Production and Darksteel Citadel, since Citadel plays nice with Tezz AoB.