Esper Thopter Foundry

Chris Andersen has had some recent success with this deck. He made 13th at an open in January with it:

1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry

3 Baleful Strix
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Note
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thought Scour

1 Supreme Verdict
3 Thoughtseize

1 Seat of the Synod
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas

Sideboard:
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Baneslayer Angel
3 Counterbalance
1 Detention Sphere
1 Humility
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Surgical Extraction

At the invitational, he made top 8, and I believe he had to go at least 6-2 in Legacy to do that. The list was almost exactly the same with these changes:

Maindeck: -1 Mental Note, +1 Ponder
Sideboard: -3 Counterbalance, -2 Sensei's Divining Top, -1 Surgical Extraction, +3 Hymn to Tourach, +2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang, +1 Engineered Plague
Link here if you want to see the whole thing

I wanted to play the Invi list last night at my local but I forgot my Thought Scours and only had 3 digs. So I played the full set of Ponders, a Gifts Ungiven, and a Lingering Souls, and cut the Mental Note for a basic island.

I promptly got obliterated by BUG Veteran Planeswalkers, Infect, and Enchantress. (However, I did get to resolve a Gifts for Sword of the Meek, Baleful Strix, Force of Will, and Academy Ruins against Enchantress, which felt good until they comboed off the next turn.)

Has anyone else tested this deck?

I've been keeping an eye on this but I haven't had a chance to try it myself yet. Definitely seems like it has a lot of potential.

Did some more testing. Really want to replace Thoughtseize. In some matchups it takes a while to get thopters online and the life loss can be relevant. Question is what goes in:

-IOK doesn't cost life, and I'm not really sure what is 4 or more that we can't counter or otherwise deal with.
-Cabal Therapy has synergy with the mill cards, tokens, and can hit multiples of cards like Abrupt Decay or Force of Will or LED that can be annoying
-More removal in the form of Innocent Blood, Murderous Cut, or another sweeper could be useful.

Spell Snare is also on watch.... It hits a lot of important cards but whiffs a lot too.

I think this would be a good Myth Realized deck to present a different angle of attack.

I also really feel like this deck needs a planeswalker... Jace is obvious, but one of the 4cc Sorins or Tezzeret could work too.

19 land and only 4 dig cards seems dangerous. Thoughtscour and Mental Note are as likely to mill you past your second land as to find it for you.

So after watching Chris play this at the invitational i took to for a drive at my LGS. I played 4 rounds and went 1-3. I know most of that was unfamiliarity with the deck and misplays. This deck is super fun to play though and all my matches went three games except round three. My matches were UWR Control, Dredge, Blood Moon dot deck, Junk Nic Fit. I won't go into details about specific matches but i will do a simple run down of some thought I have about the deck.

This is a hyper Dig Through Time deck. What i mean by that is this decks wants to Dig Through Time as quickly as possible. This helps to find the combo or answers. In one match i cast dig four times and still had two left in my deck. Find cards like thoughtseize of counterspies to force through the combo are also good for the deck. The deck has an extreme weakness to wasteland and blood moon because it runs 0 basics. I had the unfortunate privilege of playing against a mono red blood moon stompy deck round three and just had to scoop when a magus hit the board. I was a big fan of the Thoughtscours as they helped to feed delve and have great synergy with sword of the meek if you happen to mill one over. One of the cards I really questioned was Spell Snare. It was basically FoW fodder and cast it once all night to stop a Young Pyromancer from hitting the table. In the future I think that card would be better served as a Spell Pierce. The deck is very very good at grinding out wins and I won all of my game ones in four rounds. I am currently messing around with a transformational sideboard into a more controlling Esper deck.

Potential Sideboard:

2 Flusterstorm
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Containment Priest
1 Disenchant
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Batterskull
2 Tasigur, the golden fang

Went 3-0-1 at a local event with the unchanged Chris Anderson list yesterday. MUs were Merfolk (2-1), Infect (2-0), UWr Miracles (1-1-1, but was in a commanding position and 1 or 2 turns away from winning when we timed out) and RB Goblins (2-1).

I think 19 Lands is fine, even with the "bad" cantrips. If you go higher you will flood out too often. I'm not a fan of the E-tutor SB, but yesterday both Plague and Humility served my well if you look at my MUs. Tasigur was MVP out of the SB.

Yes, Blood Moon is bad, but if you manage to stick a Thopter Foundry first, you still have a shot at winning.

@ZimAshe: I really like the look of your SB, please keep us updated how your testing goes.

Spell snare is awesome. its blue and pitches to force worst case scenerio, and provides mana value in hard counter form. You dont want to play spell pierce because its a soft counter, and you have no pressure. Its easy for an opponent to just wait your soft counters out if you arent killing them ever. Most decks have good 2 drops to counter and spell snare is a fantastic target for snapcaster mage.

Dont cut the baneslayer for batterskull. The fact that none of the creautres you bring in get killed by abrupt decay is really important. SFM isnt really needed, and you never really want to tutor for your combo pieces via Stoneforge or enlightened tutor. Just grind them out and beat them eventually when theyre out of resources.

Jace is pretty hard to protect in this deck, and you dont need the card advantage he provides. Dig does an excellent job of that already. I havent tried him yet though and he is jace, so it might be okay as a one of in the board.

any other questions let me know. The deck is very very real.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chrandersen

Spell snare is awesome. its blue and pitches to force worst case scenerio, and provides mana value in hard counter form. You dont want to play spell pierce because its a soft counter, and you have no pressure. Its easy for an opponent to just wait your soft counters out if you arent killing them ever. Most decks have good 2 drops to counter and spell snare is a fantastic target for snapcaster mage.

Dont cut the baneslayer for batterskull. The fact that none of the creautres you bring in get killed by abrupt decay is really important. SFM isnt really needed, and you never really want to tutor for your combo pieces via Stoneforge or enlightened tutor. Just grind them out and beat them eventually when theyre out of resources.

Jace is pretty hard to protect in this deck, and you dont need the card advantage he provides. Dig does an excellent job of that already. I havent tried him yet though and he is jace, so it might be okay as a one of in the board.

any other questions let me know. The deck is very very real.

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Thanks Chris. I have a lot of questions, sorry for being annoying but I really love the idea of a blue control deck that doesn't play Countertop or SFM.

What was your Legacy record at the invi?

Which of your sideboards did you like better? Tasigur is ridiculous after board, I love it.

What do you think about swapping out Thoughtseize for some other sort of disruption or removal? I think Cabal Therapy might be better, I know it doesn't always hit turn 1 but we usually also know what cards beat us by turn 2 or 3. I just like the idea of being able to nail multiple Decays or Counterbalances, and it's ridiculous against SFM decks (in fact I would say Batterskull is the only compelling reason to play Seize over IoK since we're going to be using our life total aggressively and we can plan around whatever other scary 4+ drops they may have with our suite of countermagic.) I will be testing therapy but I can see an argument for any of them.

Maybe I'm playing Snare wrong. Do we always want to hold it up if we can? I've always played it as a "nice to have," where I will usually err on the side of developing my board (strix/top) or playing a proactive spell (in this deck it's really only ponder or thoughtseize). I have noticed that it's nice to have 5 extra one-mana cantrips in scour/note so that you can hold up snare and still develop your GY at their EOT if you want. I agree that spell pierce is not what we want instead, but what about Flusterstorm or Swan Song, or even Stifle?

I only mentioned Jace or PWs in general because I felt like sometimes I was scrambling to assemble thopter-sword and thought something that could add real pressure would be nice to find off of Dig if we only have one piece. I really think one of the Sorins might be a good add, and Solemn Visitor has the benefit of not just dying to Night of Soul's Betrayal (which someone dropped on me out of Nic Fit). Tezzeret is nice because we have a decent amount of artifacts and he can make a strix huge (and we can win in one turn with a bunch of thopters and his ultimate). Any thoughts?

Also, I've noticed that when I do win, my exile and GY pile is huge compared to my library. That's just an observation to say that DTT is ridiculous.

Congratulations for this deck ! Very nicely built.

Why play W over R ?
I feel like a deck in legacy needs Reb nowadays :). Bolt + Thopter is approximately the same as Bolt + Thopter (except for Knight of the Reliquary maybe). Whipflare and/or Toxic Deluge is also quite the same as Supreme Verdict. R also opens up to Dack Fayden MD, and Blood moon, Keranos in the sideboard (with a slight change to the manabase).
It also feels weird to play Hymn in a deck with 4 dig, 2 counterspell and 2 snare , and I would prefer Reb in that slot (with snapcastermage). I'd like to have your opinions on that matter.
(Goblin welder ? ^^)

Chris, how often do you side out the combo and what are you bringing in? I'm assuming that's what the Baneslayer and Tasigurs are for to get a better faster clock on your opponent.

Bringing this list tonight to my LGS for our weekly Legacy event. I have made 0 changes to the main deck and implemented a transformational sideboard. I had a lot of grat success game one against my opponents but couldn't fight the hate game 2 and 3. the idea is to side out the combo and side in Jace, Baneslayer and Tasigur game 2 against the fair decks. opposing combo decks like dredge, storm, etc get more counter magic, GY hate, etc. I should have a handle on this later tonight.


Main Deck (60)


Creatures (5)

2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Baleful Strix

Spells (36)

1 Mental Note
1 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Snare
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thought Scour
2 Counterspell
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Force of Will
4 Dig Through Time

Lands (19)

1 Academy Ruins
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Karakas
1 Seat of the Synod
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra

Sideboard (15)

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Flusterstorm
1 Disenchant
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Containment Priest
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZimAshe

Bringing this list tonight to my LGS for our weekly Legacy event. I have made 0 changes to the main deck and implemented a transformational sideboard. I had a lot of grat success game one against my opponents but couldn't fight the hate game 2 and 3. the idea is to side out the combo and side in Jace, Baneslayer and Tasigur game 2 against the fair decks. opposing combo decks like dredge, storm, etc get more counter magic, GY hate, etc. I should have a handle on this later tonight.

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Let us know how it goes, I've only done a little bit of testing so far so not much of anything to contribute, but I do check this thread when it gets bumped. Very interesting deck.

Since I only own 1 Tundra and didn't feel like borrowing some, I played a Sultai version of this last weekend. Green for Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay and side Krosan Grip. Went a horrible 1win-3loss-1draw but other then a Temur delver deck that went way too fast all games were pretty close. The annoying thing to me is how hard it is sometimes to actually stabilize. And some cards hate us out so much like Engineered Plague or that 4mana enchantment that gives all creatures -1/-1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TraxDaMax

Since I only own 1 Tundra and didn't feel like borrowing some, I played a Sultai version of this last weekend. Green for Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay and side Krosan Grip. Went a horrible 1win-3loss-1draw but other then a Temur delver deck that went way too fast all games were pretty close. The annoying thing to me is how hard it is sometimes to actually stabilize. And some cards hate us out so much like Engineered Plague or that 4mana enchantment that gives all creatures -1/-1.

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Can you post the list? I've been working on something similar.

The card you're thinking of is Night of Souls Betrayal. What deck was playing that? What were your matchups?

I'll be testing this tonight at my local:

3 Baleful Strix
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3-4 Dig Through Time
3-4 Gitaxian Probe
3-4 Ponder
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
2 Counterspell
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Sensei's Divining Top
0-1 Spell Snare
0-1 Dimir Charm

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
1 Island
0-1 Karakas
0-1 Plains

I have done testing going with a more traditional cantrip suite of Probe + Ponder, and Cabal Therapy. I started by playing the regular deck, drawing my hand, and saying, how often do I wish that this Thought Scour was just a Probe? The answer was surprisingly often.

At the end of the day, we are paying 5 mana and using two cards to get a single 1/1 (OK, technically a 2/3, but whatever). We have no way of dealing with a card like Abrupt Decay or Counterbalance other than discard or countering. Knowing whether or not those cards are there is crucial information that can help us sculpt our plan for the entire game and prevent us from making a mistake that ends up with us not able to win the game. I know that we see their hand off Thoughtseize/IoK as well, but we do go down a card and use a turn's worth of mana, and if we see DRS-Goyf-Brainstorm-Decay-Wasteland-2x Fetch I think I'd rather dig a card deeper toward my Verdict or know that I should hold up a fetch/get a basic land than have just gone down to 17, have a wasteable land, and be facing down a serious clock.

Also I never plan to fire off a blind Therapy, I would rather wait for a Probe or play a Ponder/Top or hold up a fetch/counter/Brainstorm. You get bonus value from playing against a Stoneforge Mystic. Most decks you can figure out after the first turn or two anyway, and then name the card that kills your plan. Sure, sometimes they're going to go Underground Sea - Ponder - Shuffle and you're going to name Abrupt Decay and they're going to show you LED-Petal-Ritual-Ritual-Volc-Burning Wish, but even then you have outs.

Further, we have a lot of disposable creatures in our deck. Strix and SCM have CIP abilities, so we don't really have to keep them around if we absolutely have to get rid of something. And of course Thopters are free bodies.

And of course while it's not turbo-DTT anymore (hence potentially going down to 3) you still fill the GY up pretty fast without the threat of milling past your fun-ofs like TarPit, Ruins, Top that you might really want later in the game. I will miss the blowout plays of EOT Mental Note, Brainstorm, crack fetch, DTT, untap having just seen 13 cards, but they are so rare anyway. I've found I either chug right along with like 20 cards in exile, GY/hand, and library and ripping through my deck to find the combo, or I am stuck with multiple DTTs and Mental Note effects in my opener and no real selection or action.

I have 11 slots for Probe, Ponder, and DTT. I'm leaning toward 4-3-4, but 4-4-3 might be better. 3-4-4 is possibly right, but I doubt it, as looking at their hand turn 0 is really important for setting up my mana and cantripping.

Further... Spell Snare has been brainstorm-shuffle-fodder more than anything. I think Dimir Charm is a better fit because it nails problematic combo spells (Infernal, Burning Wish, NO, GSZ, Glimpse, S&T, Time Spiral), kills SFM/DRS/Mom/Thalia, and even gives me a (potentially better?) Mental Note-style effect if I am really digging for something (or want to fateseal my opponent). I am a huge sucker for modal spells though so this might be totally wrong. I also still will keep one Snare in because of 1 cmc.

I will probably toss a sideboard together right before the event just after I see who's in the store. My meta is ridiculously high on Enchantress so I might have to (locate and) play Leave No Trace or Tempest of Light. In fact, last time I played, I had Seal of Cleansing out postboard, opponent had a Seal of Removal and he remarked this might have been the first time two Nemesis seals had been in play against each other in the history of the store as he was bouncing and replaying his Cloud of Faeries for ridiculous mana. I also will probably test a Sorin in place of BSA, I just don't think casting BSA is feasible against the decks I want it for, and Sorin is really nice against Miracles and Abrupt Decay decks. Karakas might become basic plains because if I do run into Blood Moon I need to be able to cast Seal of Cleansing or whatever, and I don't see a ton of S&T/Reanimator recently.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maharis

Can you post the list? I've been working on something similar.

The card you're thinking of is Night of Souls Betrayal. What deck was playing that? What were your matchups?

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4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Dig Through Time
2 Life from the Loam
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
3 Mental Note
3 Thought Scour
1 Intuition
3 Baleful Strix
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Enginiereed Explosives
1 Damnation

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Creeping Tarpit
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

Side

1 Batterskull
1 Vendillion Clique
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Intuition
1 Krosan Grip
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance

Round 1 DnT 1-2
Round 2 UR Delver 0-2
Round 3 ANT 2-1
Round 4 RUG Delver 0-2
Round 5 UW Stoneblade 1-1

Night of Souls Betrayal was in testing against Shardless, they play one side and it is hella annoying. That and Null Rod are just ugh...
Anyways, the main thing I think I will be changing are adding 2 land, being 1 Academy Ruins and probably a Bayou and cutting a Mental Note and a Thought Scour.
In testing before the tournament I never had trouble finding land with 18 lands, 10 cantrips and 2 Loam but in the tournament I lost several games off not drawing enough, getting wastelanded, or tax effects such as Thalia/Rishadan Port.

Thanks for posting. I'm going to continue exploring BUG but I liked how last night went with Esper.

Per my post above, I played 4 Probe, 4 Ponder, 3 Dig Through Time, 1 Spell Snare, 0 Dimir Charm, 1 Plains. My sideboard was:

2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Dread of Night
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Detention Sphere
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Pithing Needle

Rd 1 D&T: Lose die roll and he opens Flagstones-Vial. OK. I draw, probe him, see Mom x2, Brimaz, and two lands including Wasteland. I debate, but fetch U-Sea and Therapy away both moms. He Wastes my sea and passes. I cantrip to find more land, but he rips Thalia and Port and I can't get going before Brimaz hits the field.

Game 2: I go to 6 on the play and keep Tar Pit, fetch, EE, other stuff. I start on Tar Pit but he wastes. I rip a land though. At some point Probe reveals SFM, Serra Avenger, Spirit of the Labyrinth. Nice EE setup. Avenger comes down first, then Spirit. I am at 6 when I therapy Batterskull and EE away all three two-drops, then drop Dread of Night. But I have no way to win and he assembles vial on 3 and Brimaz which I can't beat. Could not find Pithing Needle off multiple digs to shut off Vial despite the fact I had multiple STP and SCM.

This matchup is near unwinnable with the current configuration. They have Revoker MB, which makes Thopters very difficult, in addition to the obvious pressure on the mana base and counterspells with Waste/Port/Thalia/Vial. After the match I told him I boarded out my Foundries and brought in tasigur (left in Swords for value on Strixes) and he reminded me that he has Karakas. Nearly stepped in it there.

I get a bye, then...

Rd 2 cloudpost: Player I am very familiar/friendly with, so I actually opened on blind therapy naming Expedition Map, hitting one and leaving him with 2 primeval titans and lands. I cast a strix and flash back to kill titans, gutting his hand, but I can't win through having to Swords Ulamog, which blows up my Foundry, before he's able to stick Emrakul. I actually get one block in with Strix, saccing a bunch of thopters and lands, but Emrakul shuffles and he has Eye of Ugin, so...

Game 2: I'm on the play again we both go to six. I probe him and see 3 titans and 3 lands. He explains that there's enough mana in that hand to make it worth keeping, especially since he draws another card. I cantrip looking for therapy, don't find it, ship. He draws Top, plays and passes. I start digging some more to find Therapy. A couple turns of land-go later I am able to strip them, but obviously I haven't been able to slow his mana development. He needles Thopter Foundry. I pick away with SCM and strix and cast Sorin, making an emblem. He shows in Emrakul. I dig through time and find Supreme Verdict and Creeping Tar Pit. What luck! I attack with some beefy Strixes, cast Verdict (Emrakul shuffles), make a guy with Sorin and drop Tar Pit. But he finds Eye and gets Ulamog, killing Sorin, and I can't win through it.

This matchup is also difficult because of mainboard Needle and the fact that we can't really interact with their mana development. My initial thought: Shadow of Doubt might be really good here, especially with SCM, or maybe even Aven Mindcensor. Depends, of course, if those are good elsewhere.

Rd 3 Miracles: Win die roll, we both play land-go for a while with me plinking away with a strix. Eventually he's at 4 lands when I probe and see triple force, STP, Entreat, Jace. I cast Therapy. He responds with STP on Strix. I force STP. He forces Therapy. Counters resolve. I attack, then flash back naming Jace. I eventually win with Sword of the Meek on Strix and a Creeping Tar Pit.

Game 2: This game was insane. I go to 6 with a few lands, Probe, a cantrip, Spell Snare. He plays a land and I open on Probe finding Counterbalance, REB, Rest in Peace, Entreat, lands. I rip Therapy off that draw and get Counterbalance out of there. He plays another land and passes. I cantrip and find a second therapy, probe him seeing he has counterspell now, and pass. He untaps, cantrips, and jams RIP. I snare it. Resolves. I therapy REB. He jams Jace, I force, he counterspells. I kill jace with tar pit. I assemble thopters, he assembles Countertop, there's a Terminus somewhere in there, he needles Foundry, and I resolve Sorin, which eats Council's Judgement. But I'm pressuring with my Sorin token and a Tar Pit. At some point I have top and the top three cards of my library are DTT, Force, Force and I have lots of lands in play and nothing in hand. I draw DTT. He miracles Entreat. I flip top and hardcast force. Resolves. we each play top in our turns. He tries Entreat again, I do the same thing. Keep attacking with Tar Pit. He resolves a Jace, brainstorms, and extends his hand. I slump onto the table with exhaustion.

This matchup isn't terrible, but it is intense. REB is a threat. But thats why Probe and Therapy are so important. In this matchup, you are definitely not riding Strix to the end so you can think of it as a Snapcaster for therapy.

I have to say I definitely think this approach is right. There was no time when I wished I had Thought Scour or Thoughtseize. Had I played against Storm or Painter perhaps Thoughtseize would've been missed, but that's what the sideboard is for.

I don't know if the D&T matchup can be saved, though. They have us on too many angles. BUG might be better there just because of Decay but the mana is arguably worse.

Speaking of which, other than value/style points I can't think of a reason to play Karakas over plains. I feel like we should have ample ways to defeat S&T and Reanimator with all the counters and discard. I love my beat up English Legends Karakas but I'd rather have more outs to Blood Moon.

I'm thinking in my build Liliana could be pretty decent, I just have no clue what the cut could be.

Kind of a bust tonight as I only got to play two rounds of actual magic, going 1-1. (Round 1 bye, round 4 ID)

I played the same maindeck and a different sideboard, with no Surgicals, 2 E-tutors, 1 tasigur, 1 cloudform and 1 dreadnought. My feeling was that I wanted some sort of e-tutorable wincon that didn't have the same weaknesses as Thopters.

I beat RUG Delver 2-0. Was at 1 life for quite a while in game 2 but he couldn't close it out.

I lost to TES 1-2. Game 1 was funny: My 7 was academy ruins and 6 spells, and my 6 was plains, force x2, probe, dig, brainstorm. So bad. But I kept it because I had double force. He leads on probe, therapy, which I accidentally let resolve (he named force obv). I drew some dreck and probed him to find land, lotus petal, LED, infernal tutor, dark ritual. Well, I'm dead unless I rip another force. Of course I did because blue. I forced his IT after he cracked LED and eventually won somehow.

Game 2 I couldn't find enough disruption.

Game 3 I actually hit him with 5 discard spells, but thoughtseize and probe chewed my life total up so much that it didn't take him many lucky topdecks to hit storm 4 with tendrils.

My friend on cloudpost generously split with me so I wouldn't have to get pounded and drop from the store credit tier to the pack tier. My LGS is upping legacy prices and prizes starting in May, though, so not sure if that will ever happen again.

I'm super excited that I found this thread. I've been theory crafting a thoptor brew for quite some time and with Chris Anderson having actual success it in gives me hope.
My questions are; what is the core of this deck?
Is Thought Scour/Mental Note really necessary or can these be replaced with Ponder since it's a "better" cantrip?
Can more artifacts be added like Engineered Explosives, maybe even some amount of the swords and Umezawa's Jitte? I heard the elves matchup was bad and EE and Jitte help tremendously.
If the artifact plan is followed, is Tezzeret an option?

Anyways, I'll be testing out some ideas once I'm done with school and hopefully I'll be able to provide some valuable reports.