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Is there a video of the interview? I was playing at my LGS with someone who has playtested against him and asked if it was dark steel citadel or darkslick shores. He says he’s pretty sure it was dark steel citadel. This is post Baltimore though so he could have changed them to citadels.Quote:
Originally Posted by drude1
Well, here's a small snippet from SCG website:Quote:
Originally Posted by SDBobPlissken
Brian Durkin
Age: 33
Hometown:
Philadelphia, PA
Archetype:
Mono-Blue Painter
Why did you play the deck you played this weekend?[B][B][B]
I brewed it 2 weeks ago and I came to test for Eternal Weekend. I don't own fetches or duals so I had to get creative.
Will Assassin's Trophy make an impact on Legacy? If so, how much?
Yes. Right now Abrupt Decay can't answer the Antiquities War. The older the format the better Assassin's Trophy becomes.
Also, here's a video of the coverage where he is playing Darkslick Shores:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeCm3MPdaP8
Yeah, if you jump to ~10:27, you can see he looks at one off the Antiquities War trigger.Quote:
Originally Posted by drude1
Fair enough. I durdled around with the deck, and indeed it is not always that easy to have a second color available for EE, so I guess replacing the shores by seas is the way to go.
I’m still very unsure how interesting this build is for an environment like MODO. Antiquities is great against fair decks, threatening to win with creatures while helping dig for combo pieces, but getting it to resolve can be a pain. And there’s nothing much to protect the combo pieces themselves, only 4 FoW mainboard, and I guess the Spellskite, and nothing much against other combo decks. I feel like I’d need to watch a few videos of this deck before I’d enter a league with this...
That's why you play it with chalice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfy
I've been playing the deck on MTGO (mostly practice room stuff) and it performs pretty well. However, I've actually cut down on the painter/grindstone combo quite a bit (3 painter/1 grindstone) to add thopter/swords combo, which is just bonkers against things like Miracles and grixis. Chalice is obviously great against combo. Eldrazi post is still difficult and the only way I win is when I get painter + llawan out and strip their deck of or counter all is dust. Here's my current list:
// 60 Maindeck
// 17 Artifact
3 Mox Opal
1 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Tormod's Crypt
// 7 Creature
3 Painter's Servant
3 Sai, Master Thopterist
1 Spellskite
// 3 Enchantment
3 The Antiquities War
// 6 Instant
4 Force of Will
2 Whir of Invention
// 21 Land
4 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Underground Sea
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
// 1 Planeswalker
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
// 5 Sorcery
1 Transmute Artifact
4 Thoughtcast
// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Null Brooch (Just a fun card, would probably be 3sphere in a competitive tourney)
SB: 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
SB: 2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Unmoored Ego
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
I've been testing a Grixis Painter list rocking the Thopter/Sword combo myself for two tournaments, so far with suboptimal results - but I guess I figured out how to play (strategically) now, and expect my performance (and list) to improve. Right now, this is where I am at:
// Grixis Painter
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Grindstone
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Thopter Foundry
// 13 Creature
4 Painter's Servant
4 Baleful Strix
2 Imperial Recruiter
2 Goblin Welder
1 Trinket Mage
// 14 Instant
4 Pyroblast
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
4 Brainstorm
// 20 Land
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Seat of the Synod
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Great Furnace
1 Mountain
1 Bloodstained Mire
// 6 Sorcery
2 Transmute Artifact
4 Ponder
Going forward, I see myself trying out more Lim-Dul's Vault (this mini-Doomsday-pile-thing is really strong!) and maybe a third Transmute Artifact, since it's so damn versatile and tends to win the games that I manage to resolve it.
Some of those numbers look off. If you're playing the fullset of strixes you probably want to be playing more than 2 goblin welder since swapping strixes is just a source of CA. The trinket mage seems a little misplaced. Fixing mana + getting grindstone is nice, but unless you're running some silver bullets in the sideboard he doesn't seem that good. I'd do a 2/1 split of foundry/sword since you probably want to see the enabler a lot more than you want the actual sword.
Went 5-0 with this list the other day
https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...gue-2018-10-13
It was my first run with it since they finally fixed the grindstone bug.
I have also built it in paper and have been doing very well at our local Friday Legacy.
I made a few changes from the stock list
- Darkslick Shores, I don't really get. Changed to Darksteel Citadels.
- Ditched the Chrome Mox for a Lotus Petal
- Added an Academy Ruins
- I am testing a bunch of different sideboard cards.
Really enjoying the deck, it always seems to have an answer for almost every matchup. Here are some quick notes on my matches.
It was a mixed bag of decks for sure.
Match 1 2-0 (4C Loam)
Game 1:
Turn 1 Grindstone and Painter (Lotus Petal, City of Traitors)
Turn 2 Activate
Game 2:
Really Grindy Match. Opponent was able to kill two painters and vindicate Antquities War. But a turn 9 Painter top decked with two grindstones sealed the deal.
Match 2 2-1 (Gitrog Monster.dec)
Game 1:
Turn 1 Painter, Opponent Wastelands the City of Traitors. Darksteel, Mox Opal, Grindstone Turn 2. Turn 3 Drop another Mox Opal to activate.
Game 2:
Finally get to see what Opponent is on. Its a BUG deck with Gitrog Monster, Liliana the Last Hope, and Garruk the Veil Cursed. Spicy.
Go for an early win with Painter, Lotus Petal, Mox Opal. Opponent drops EE for 0. He has academy ruins and bring EE back to hand and casts Liliana.
Get Sai online and Anitquities War, but end up dropping a bridge to not die from the Gitrog Monster. He Chalices on 1 to keep the grindstones out.
Game goes on for a long time while I hide behind bridge and Opponent ultimates Liliana and makes a Zombie Army.
Eventually manages to get rid of Bridge and I die horribly.
Game 3:
Another grindy match. Early Painter, no Grindstone. Get Karn online, Opponent EE's and then Chalices. Cast own EE for 0. Get a grindstone off the top Turn 9.
Match 3: 2-0 (Miraclesish? Played Daze and Volcanic Island)
Game 1: Opponent gets land screwed on 2 lands. Get early Grindstone, sandbag a Painter until I get get 5 mana. Cast Painter with FOW backup.
Game 2: Opponent EE's early Grindstone. Cast Antiquities War with FOW backup. Not enough artifacts to get the kill (Abrade), get a second Antiquities War in play.
Match 4: 2-0 (Dragon Stompy)
Game 1: Opponent turn 1's a Chalice of the Void on 1. Turn 3 Antiquities War, drop a bunch of Artifacts. Win
Game 2: FOW the early Chandra. Get Sai online. Meekstone locks down Stormbreath Dragon while Antiquities War Ticks up.
Match 5 2-0 (Antiquities War?, Karn)
Game 1: Early Painter, FOW EE, Cast Grindstone
Game 2: Get an early Sai, Opponent Spyglasses Grindstone. In return I Pithing Needle his Karn. Make lots of Thopters to block Karn Construct. Get down Antiquities War for the win.
I really like the bones of this deck, but I would like to try out a few things:
- Maybe test Whir. It would be a more reliable way to get grindstone out, and can work around Chalice. Might need to cut Sai though.
- Sometimes it can be hard to get Opal online early in the game. Might need to tweak the numbers a bit. Maybe play some Mishra's Baubles?
- Try out Echoing Truth in the Board. Might help against opposing Ensnaring Bridges on the Antiquities War kills, and can help when have own bridge out. Might be useful to bounce Chalices as well.
Thanks for your input/remarks :) Maybe my list makes more sense with some commentary... Initially, I had the Sword/Foundry split the other way around, but found that I did not like or need it that way: The combo itself is strictly plan B (from testing, I think to now know that I have to resist the urge to play the control role, and should pretty much always try to press for a quick Painter/Grindstone win with), and without its other half, Sword is a bit more useful than Foundry.Quote:
Originally Posted by CptHaddock
The real enabler in my list is Transmute Artifact (I plan to play another copy, but it's still in the mail), since it allows to get the appropriate combo's other half in a rather flexible and low-risk way - and with that card, saccing Sword of the Meek always feel better than getting rid of something that does not have innate recursion. Recurring Baleful Strix with Goblin Welder to abuse its EtB-trigger is a neat thing, but it's definitely not what you should plan to spend significant amounts of time on. I included Strix mainly due to the fact that it's a very good roadblock that most fast clocks in the format have to respect/handle, it can fuel Transmure Artifacts, it draws removal away from Painter and Grindstone, and it replaces itself. Its main secondary utility (apart from enabling Transmute Artifact), so far, was to slow the game down a bit after a failed combo attempt, while not costing me a card. I like it, but it does feel a bit clunky.
Trinket Mage opens the line of Imperial Recruiter -> Trinket Mage -> Grindstone, which is absurdly slow, but sometimes necessary. It gains a lot of utility post-board, when there's stuff like Engineered Explosives available.
LolQuote:
Originally Posted by Spud911
I'm not really sure i'm following the logic here. Welder adds redundancy to the combo, can be used to create a draw engine and functions well with both the thopter sword combo and transmute but isn't good because you don't want to be spending a lot of time drawing cards? :eyebrow:Quote:
Originally Posted by colo
4-0'd weekly with Brian's SCG list with a few changes (-4 shores, -1 spellbomb +2 inventor's fair +2 lotus petal +1 Retrofitter Foundry). First time playing painter but have been trying to find the best shell for Antiquities War (tested Bomberman, Tezz, Affinity, etc). I beat Miracles 2-1, Stoneblade 2-1, Elves 2-0, and 4c Loam 2-0.
Should've definitely checked here first as there were some super suspect cards in Brian's list that I don't think I'd play again like Chrome Mox.
Anyway, just wanted to ask why people aren't playing Inventors' Fair? It's amazing in Bomberman and did well for me tonight but consensus seems to be negative for Painter.
Lastly, Retrofitter Foundry is hilarious and one of the reasons I wanted to play this specific version. 4 Trinket Mage and 3 Sai means pumping out 4/4 constructs happens pretty often. Probably just win-more but man that card is great.
I too came upon this deck after monkeying with Bomberman for a while. I have tried just about every iteration of a deck with Antiquities War in it, and this one has been the most successful by far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaono
I will test out both of those cards and give you some feedback.
I also went through Gatherer looking for <=1 Artifacts. Here are a list of a few interesting ones.
- Grafdigger's Cage - Useful against Miracles, other Snapcaster decks, Storm. Tormod's might just be better
- Hope of Ghirapur - Played this in another Antiquities War deck. It protects the combo, maybe another Miracles bullet.
- Lion's Eye Diamond - Used in other versions to activate Grindstone. Might be too all in for this version
- Lodestone Bauble/Mishra's Bauble - More card draw, I think I would rather keep the Lotus Petal instead as a free artifact to activate Opal
- Relic of Progenitus - Another Graveyard hoser. This comes with a draw effect. Prob too slow against Dredge.
- Welding Jar - Protection from artifact removal.
I tired a version with Chalice and Whir, it didn't have the same velocity. I always seemed to have a Chalice out and a Grindstone in hand.
I think the problem with Inventor's Fair is that you want to maximize your Sol Lands since they are extremely useful when trying to play Painter, Grindstone and doing the Grindstone activation. No Painter deck gets to play the full 8 sol lands, and that's because they need colored mana sources to function. If you want to play Inventor's Fair you then need to increase the land count of the deck, and that is probably not worth it. Also, in Bomberman there are plenty of mana sources both in terms of sol lands, Mox Opals and LED's. I think in general the deck has access to more mana in total, so activating Inventor's Fair is easier. Not least you get access to infinite mana when you assemble Salvager + LED, Painter doesn't have that. On the other hand, it's a relevant effect so it can definitely be tried.
I'm considering adding a Hangarback Walker to go with The Antiquities War. The Walker can be found by Trinket Mage and can potentially provide a ton of artifacts for The Antiquities War. It's also quite good vs Grixis decks, I imagine... But it may still be too weak.
Very interested in reading more about your testing, Spud911. Any reason why you choose mono blue (sorry if you commented already and I forgot)?
Inventers fair is probably fine in some lists. For example, the list that spud posted didn't use a lot of colored Mana so you could easily replace 1-2 copies of citadel, which is probably what I would do. However, if you are trying to play more Mana intensive versions of the deck such as lists with whir of invention or multi color lists (grixis, shortcake) then there probably isn't room for it for the reasons petdan posted. Also, R/W lists play some number of blood moon.
I also agree with spud that the chalice lists are not as "high velocity" as non-chalice versions. But that's the cost of playing a strong prison element. So it depends on what your play style is I think. The antiquities war win is no slower in the chalice version and in that case your opponent also can't cast their one drops. I do wonder why people are just playing preordain in that list. If you are playing blue and not playing chalice on one, there's just no reason to not play brainstorm and fetches... Even in a mono blue list.
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Has anyone tried combining the power-packed taste of the two Painters decks that placed highly at that one SCG event into UW? Something like the below? I like the idea of the Canonist+Copter package, and Antiquities War is just a house that turns both those cards on. Obviously without Welder the pitch to Copter isnt as good.
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
2 Island
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den
1 Tundra
3 Sai, Master Thoperist
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Trinket Mage
4 Mox Opal
4 Grindstone
3 Smuggler's Copter
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Meekstone
4 Antiquities War
2 Thoughtcast
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Enlightened Tutor
tired_papasmurf
Interesting idea, might be worth testing.
Kaono
Retrofitter Foundry is not on MTGO yet, so I have not had a chance to try it. I am trying to find a copy locally so I can test it at FNM. It might be a little too cute as it doesn't do a lot without Sai in play.
I cut a Darksteel Citadel for the Inventors' Fair. I have only played a few games, but it has won me two matches where I was able to search for a combo piece on my opponents end step. Still not enough play time to determine if its good or bad.
drude1
There are only 6 Basic Islands in the deck, so either you need to cut Artifact Lands or Sol lands for the Fetches. Preordain is really the best way to dig when you don't have shuffle effects.Quote:
I do wonder why people are just playing preordain in that list. If you are playing blue and not playing chalice on one, there's just no reason to not play brainstorm and fetches...
pettdan
Honestly I am not a deck builder, but I wanted to play Antiquities War in Legacy because its fun? I try just about every list that shows up on MTGTop8 with the card, and this has been by far the best for me record-wise. I also like the way it plays, I have a pretty deep card pool so I like to bring odd decks to FNM. This deck has performed extremely well.Quote:
Very interested in reading more about your testing, Spud911. Any reason why you choose mono blue
I have not had much time to play the last few days but I am planning to play Legacy at GP Shizuoka and this is the deck that I am planning to play. So I will be making time to hammer on this deck for the next month and a half.
Yes wtf, if you have access to fetchlands and dual lands why are you not playing brainstorm??? LmfaoQuote:
Originally Posted by drude1
"There are only 6 Basic Islands in the deck, so either you need to cut Artifact Lands or Sol lands for the Fetches. Preordain is really the best way to dig when you don't have shuffle effects."
Play 4 island and 5 fetches and cut the citadels. Brainstorm is so much better than preordain that it would be totally worth it. Honestly, I don't even understand the citadels. You are playing those so they become 5/5 guys with antiquities war? I mean maybe to help turn on opals but that shouldn't be an issue. Why not just play more islands and not get color screwed? The original list was playing darkslick shores to have a second color for e.e.
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Actually only running two of those these days, Academy Ruins and Inventors' Fair have taken the two slots. The Citadels do come in handy for both Opal, and Antiquities War. Sometimes it makes sense to drop Antiquities War as early as turn 3 and having an extra artifact is nice to do the damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by drude1
The deck does not really get color screwed that often, the only two blue spell is Force of Will.
The Darkslicks do allow an EE for 3 which could be handy against Choke, maybe a Blood Moon. It does not come up that often. If running Fetches it might be worth it to run 1 or 2 Underground Seas. They are Wasteland targets, but a person can always sandbag a fetch until it is needed.
Good ideas, I will add it to the list of things to try.
With Sai in play it's obviously bonkers, but without Sai its floor is a Kjeldoran Outpost that scales. In grindy games it will singlehandedly take over and require an answer. It won me a game vs Miracles when I topdecked it hellbent and with no board. I think it's perfect as a one-of tutor target for Trinket Mage and am currently exploring other decks I can play it in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spud911
Even just ignoring the 4/4 making ability with Sai the card is pretty strong:
- upfront cost of 1 mana is extremely low
- can activate it the turn it comes into play
- 2 mana to make 1/1 dudes is a good rate -- 3 mana guarantees you'll make at least 1
- instant speed so you can always "rescue" any servos about to die and turn them into thopters for 1 mana
- infinite chump blockers
- untaps itself so is an amazing mana sink lategame
Individually each piece seems rather weak/mediocre, but put them all together and the flexibility RF offers is pretty nuts. I can't think of another Trinket Mage target that is a must-answer threat just on its own.
Inventors' Fair is super good, it's just a matter of whether it's good in this deck. I think any high-artifact / toolbox / Antiquities War versions of the deck should definitely play it since there's close to 0 downside and the upside is uncounterable instant speed Fabricate.Quote:
I cut a Darksteel Citadel for the Inventors' Fair. I have only played a few games, but it has won me two matches where I was able to search for a combo piece on my opponents end step. Still not enough play time to determine if its good or bad.
Re: the brainstorm discussion: I agree completely and even just like 4 fetchlands alongside the 4 Trinket Mage is enough shuffle effects. In desperate times we can also Grindstone ourselves to clear the top.