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When people were mentioning running Black, I immediately thought of Mausoleum Secrets here. Thinking it over, it probably actually isn't good enough, but it was funny to imagine a two-card combo with the option of having 4x Demonic Tutor. If only it actually was.
Actually Michael Keller has posted a list with Tainted Pact before so you basically can play a list with 4 instant speed Demonic Tutor. I keep trying lists too, building them, but nothing worth playtesting yet.
Looking forward to a tournament report. Unbeaten in side-events sounds very promising.
I'm interested, can we have your list? =) And the Tainted Pact tooQuote:
Originally Posted by Michael Keller
I played a grixis Artificer's Intuition Painter list to a top4 finish at our local legacy event this weekend.
Went 3-1-1 in swiss - beating Goblins, DnT and monoR Painter, losing to Infect and drawing into top8. I then beat the same monoR Painter list in the quaters before losing to 1-2 to B/r Reanimator in the semi.
Deck seemed sweet. And I can confirm that Retrofitter Foundry is absurd :)
Posting this here for those who haven't seen it on the Discord.
So, I've been thinking of a way to try to combine the old UR-all-in lists of yore, with the Mono-U-toolboxy list from Baltimore with Antiquities War and I've come up with this:
Land (19)
2x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
1x Flooded Strand
2x Great Furnace
2x Island
1x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Seat of the Synod
3x Volcanic Island
Instant (12)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Pyroblast
Enchantment (2)
2x The Antiquities War
Artifact (12)
1x Aether Spellbomb
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Grindstone
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
3x Mox Opal
1x Tormod's Crypt
Creature (12)
2x Goblin Welder
4x Painter's Servant
2x Sai, Master Thopterist
3x Trinket Mage
1x Walking Ballista
Sorcery (3)
3x Ponder
Sideboard (15)
1x Abrade
2x Blood Moon
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Flusterstorm
2x Goblin Cratermaker
1x Meekstone
1x Pithing Needle
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Sulfur Elemental
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Tormod's Crypt
It's kind of taking pieces from every Painter build and combining them into this horrible amalgamation of...stuff.
What I'm really looking to accomplish here is a UR list that has a viable backup plan, but still gets to play Force, Welder and Blasts. I will say that it was a little difficult to cut the Intuition, but I think it's not needed when you've got Trinket Mage.
So far from testing, I'm:
2-1: Lasav-Naught
2-0: Enchantress
2-0: Storm
2-0: Shortcake
2-1: Tin Fins
2-1: Post (colorless-green)
2-0: Eldrazi Post
0-2: Shardless
2-0: Miracles
1-0: Miracles (they timed out)
2-0: Hypergenesis
2-0: Vial Goblins
1-2: Nic Fit
1-2: Nic Fit
2-0: BW Pox
2-0: Miracles
Of course, this is all in the very competitive arena that is the MtGO Tournament Practice Room.
I plan on running through a league or two sometime this week.
The deck feels strong, though. It's nice to have a viable backup plan in UR, instead of trying to be all-in on the combo and trying to protect it.
I find a lot of times I actually won't fight over a combo piece, especially if I'm holding an Antiquities War. Hell, half the time that card finds you your combo anyways, allowing you to both threaten the combo, along with the imminent death of a bunch of 5/5 trinkets looming just around the corner.
I would have said, if you don’t have copter cut trinket mage for intuition especially if you have led.
Got a list? Sounds sweet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cabs
(Anecdotally, I played Retrofitter Foundry and Thopters at SCG Con and went 8-0 in two Challenges together. I can confirm the card is extremely powerful.)
Off the top of head the list I played was:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaono
4 Welder
4 Strix
4 Pyroblast
4 Painter
3 Grindstone
3 Artificer's Intuition
2 Dack
1 Daretti I.I
1 Sai
1 Intuition
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Meekstone
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Walking Ballista
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Pithing Needle
1 LED
4 Mox Opal
1 Ancient Tomb
5 blue fetches
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
3 Seat of the Synod
3 Great Furnace
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Academy Ruins
1 Inventor's Fair
Any chance of a list? How many Foundry did you play? How 'hard' did you go on the synergy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Keller
So, I played in the Community Legacy League last night on MTGO.
Went 3-1 for 3rd place with straight UR Painter.
Beat Czech Pile 2-0
Lost to Burn 0-2
Beat Sneak n Show 2-0
Beat Miracles 2-1
Decklist
Probably the biggest highlight was taking a hit from Emrakul, G2 against Sneak n Show, just to come back and win with Trinket Mage and Cratermaker beats (Trinket Mage found a Needle for his Sneak Attack).
Here's what I played to a 3-0 finish and then an 0-2 finish at two local events. I beat Grixis Control (2-1), Buried Phoenix (2-0), and BG Depths (2-0). Then lost to Abzan MOST (0-2) and TES (1-2). I can go into more detail on the matches if folks are interested.
Main:
6 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
3 Mox Opal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere
4 Painter's Servant
3 Grindstone
2 Trinket Mage
1 Trophy Mage
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 The Antiquities War
3 Thoughtcast
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Transmute Artifact
Sideboard:
1 Trinisphere
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Walking Ballista
1 Spellskite
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Tsabo's Web
2 Echoing Truth
3 Tormod's Crypt
I think this build of the archetype has some legs. It attacks on a lot of different angles. It was somewhat inspired by Brian Durkin's list that placed 6th at SCG Baltimore at the end of September 2018. However, I hated the Force of Wills and decided to take a prison-based approach instead. Landing a turn one Chalice or Sphere is just completely debilitating for a lot of decks in the format, especially when followed up with additional lock or disruption pieces. With 8 Sol Lands and 8 CMC2 lock pieces, casting one on turn 1 or 2 happens frequently. It is kinda awkward that Chalice on 1 disables casting Grindstone, but we can either just cast Grindstone first, Transmute for it, or just win on the back of our balls turning into 5/5s. I wanted the Trinket/Trophy Mage targets in the main to not suck entirely on their own (like the Tormod’s Crypt in Durkin’s list) and just do something/help me to not die to creatures. Despite aggro decks not being a huge part of my local metagame, I could definitely see a Ballista finding its way into the front 60. Retrofitter Foundry is a solid engine against control decks but pretty slow. Lots of hate for the Depths and control matchups out of the board. Current issue is not being able to close out the game quickly enough in some matchups - TES was able to build out under the Spheres and Burning Wish for Pulverize before I was able to assemble a win in one game, and was able to find the bounce for Ensnaring Bridge to swing in with ETW tokens before I could find the Painter half of the combo in the other.
Some ideas I want to pursue further with this list:
- Lotus Petal over Mox Diamond and/or Chrome Mox. Both Mox have felt very awkward sometimes and stellar at others. I think some kind of fast mana in addition to the Opals is needed to enable the real broken starts the deck can have. Could be adding 1-2 land and cutting Chrome for a 2nd Diamond.
- Cutting one or both Thirst for Knowledge. I like it in theory but I notice I board it out frequently. It just doesn’t impact the board immediately. Thoughtcast on the other hand has felt very strong but I think just the 3-of might be correct.
- Adding a maindeck Karn, Scion of Urza or Tezzeret the Seeker.
- Adding a 23rd (or even 24th) land - 4th Wasteland, Tolaria West, Inventor's Fair, Mishra’s Factory, Darksteel Citadel, etc. I think the deck may also want an additional blue source.
- Running Back to Basics in the board over Tsabo's Web
- Running Propaganda in the board somewhere
- Considerations for the Sneak/Show matchup? Seems like it could be a nightmare but I haven't played or tested against it yet.
- Off-the-wall ideas of cards that could fit somewhere in the 75: Welding Jar, Sculpting Steel, Myr Welder, Mind Stone, Zuran Orb, Uba Mask, Telemin Performance, Basilisk Collar, Sword of X/Y (Fire/Ice, Body/Mind, or Feast/Famine are probably strongest - just can't name any Sword colors with Painter. Often don't name blue anyways to not help OP cast Force of Will)
Very interesting! Yes, I'd like to read details about the matches if you find time to write it down.
Yeah sure. I'm still experimenting with how to SB in different matchups but it's fairly straightforward. I most often cut Thirsts and trim on Transmute Artifact, Painter, and the misc tutorable artifacts in control matchups and cut Thirst and trim The Antiquities War and the weaker tutorable artifacts vs combo and aggro (maybe not right, TAW is kind of a guaranteed albeit slow path to victory)Quote:
Originally Posted by pettdan
Grixis Control (2-1)
G1: I had an opening with the Painter combo and a Chalice against an unknown opponent. I lead with Grindstone and follow up with Chalice on 1 and Painter. Opponent doesn't do much, fetches some duals and cantrips before we go to game 2.
G2: I board out the Ensnaring Bridge and Aether Spellbomb. An early Gurmag Angler, along with some Ancient Tomb hits, kills me before I can do anything relevant. Still think these are the correct cards to board out.
G3: I'm able to drop multiple Spheres and Chalice along with a Wasteland that my opponent fetches basics around. There are some shenanigans with Retrofitter Foundry and I get to a 4/4 Construct before a Strix comes down. Sorcerous Spyglass reveals a Creeping Tar Pit along with 3 and 4 CMC spells. I name his Scalding Tarn in play (his 3rd land) and my opponent deflates. 5/5s kill him a few turns later.
Buried Phoenix (2-0)
The lock pieces come down before the discard and my opponent never really gets going in either game.
BG "Slow" Depths (2-0)
G1: I have an opener with Grindstone and Chalice. I rip the Painter and my opponent doesn't have the Abrupt Decay in time.
G2: I get a Trinisphere down early as my opponent durdles with Dark Confidant and Tireless Tracker but can't play many spells. Painter keeps Bob from coming in for quite a few turns. The Antiquities War finds Sorcerous Spyglass and Chalice before an Echoing Truth clears a blocker and the 5/5s come in.
Abzan MOST (0-2)
G1: The game gets very drawn out with lock pieces. I kinda fumble under his Thalia combined with my own Sphere of Resistance. We eventually get to a point where I'm at 6 with my opponent on Thalia, Recruiter of the Guard, Knight of Autumn, and Quasali Pridemage. I have Painter and Grindstone in play but can't find the right time to activate it, trying to play around Abrupt Decay and Swords, completely missing the Pridemage on board. I scoop it up after I activate Grindstone and Pridemage takes out my Painter - however, perhaps prematurely, as I also had TAW ticking up to ultimate the next turn and could have survived his attack for 5 and maybe activated Grindstone after forcing blocks.
G2: I keep a hand that doesn't do much but has a couple Wastelands. Opponent has a land heavy hand and I never draw out of my weak opener before he untaps with a Fauna Shaman and I scoop it up.
TES (1-2)
G1: I have a couple of Spheres, but no Chalice, along with a Grindstone and Retrofitter Foundry in play. I think I have all the time in the world and I'm waiting on a Painter or second blue source to Transmute for my Painter. Opponent is very slowly playing out lands, fetching basics, and casting cantrips for 3 mana. Eventually they have enough mana to cast a threshed Cabal Ritual, Burning Wish for Pulverize, wipe my board, and follow up with 0cmc artifacts and ETW.
G2: I have an early Chalice on 0 and Painter/Grindstone. Opponent is forced to use two bounce spells on Painter and shows a hand of double Chrome Mox, double LED, Burning Wish after the Grindstone finally connects.
G3: Opponent makes an quick Empty the Warrens but I dump my hand early and have the Ensnaring Bridge. I end up taking one swing, and Tombs are quickly chipping away at my life total as I cast every topdeck to keep my hand empty (including a TFK and a Thoughtcast! :eek:). I have the Grindstone but can't find the Painter or Transmute before opponent finally finds the Echoing Truth for any of my permanents (they chose the Bridge).
In playtesting some matches against UR Delver, I found that the deck struggles with early creature threats and my fears were also realized in the match against MOST. So I think some SB slots may need to be further directed towards aggro and maybe away from Depths. I don't necessarily think the TES matchup is bad (certainly not as good as ANT) but I think some way of closing the game out quickly might be needed. Losing game 1 felt so bad. Sometimes they just get the better side of variance though.
Like I said above, I think the 2 Thirsts should get cut, probably in favor of the 23rd land (4th Wasteland), cut Chrome Mox for the 2nd Mox Diamond (I think 23 land should be enough to support 2 Diamond), and adding a Tezz or Karn maindeck. Tezz seems like he closes the game quickly by either tutoring up the missing combo piece or animating your board. I also like maybe upping the Ballista count in the side or cutting Aether Spellbomb, Retrofitter Foundry, or Crucible of Worlds for a Ballista in the main. Crucible never came up in any matches, I think Trophy Mage got it once but was never cast. Spellbomb got cycled once. Foundry was medium, nothing amazing, and got locked out by Chalice a few times. Trophy Mage was also pretty meh, I think it chump blocked once against MOST.
Edit: Going forward, I'll try the following changes: -2 Thirst, -1 Trophy Mage, -1 Crucible, -1 Chrome Mox, +1 Tezzeret the Seeker, +1 Trinket Mage, +1 Wasteland, +1 Walking Ballista, +1 Mox Diamond.
I've been on a Grixis list with Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek as an alternative win conditon, and I like that approach quite much. The trio of Transmute Artifact gives nice flexibility to find either missing part of one of the two combos, and also a variety of matchup-specific silver bullets.
1 Badlands
1 Flooded Strand
1 Great Furnace
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Misdirection
3 Ponder
3 Transmute Artifact
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Pyroblast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Thopter Foundry
4 Grindstone
1 Trinket Mage
2 Goblin Welder
1 Imperial Recruiter
4 Baleful Strix
4 Painter's Servant
In another deck of mine and while spectating other players, I was very impressed with the performance Ethersworn Canonist puts up, and I was thinking that I might want to abandon B, and go for W instead. That would make me swap out Underground Sea and Badlands for Tundra and Plateau, and go for Canonist over Baleful Strix. Now I'm not sure how that would work out in practice, but I know that Canonist does great work in other Painter lists (Strawberry Shortcake). Since I rarely find myself chaining cantrips to frantically dig for stuff, I was wondering if anyone of you had any experience with Canonist in a more controlling, cantrip-heavy shell - can it work? Or, if you've never tried - do you think it could work?
I feel like your list is doing a bit too much that isn't just trying to kill the opponent. There's not so much disruption, and a multitude of different strategies to the win. It'd definitely grind out many decks though, so maybe that's the best way forward for your list. is transmute artifact worth the insane monetary cost?
I've been trying to get together a mono U painter list using tezeret, thopter-sword, the antiquities war as an alternate wincon. i've been considering the transmute artifact and/or whir of invention, but the money problem with transmute artifact is a real thing for me. Would you say that i should save up for city of traitors first or the transmute artifact?
Edit: I like the thopter sword as a plan B-wincon, even though it makes your mana pretty ropey. I think canonist is probably good, as you can then also splash a mom and swords too.
To be honest, having messed around with your list online, yours is much better than mine. It's generally more hateful and flexible, somehow. I think mine ended up being similar to painter splash miracles, so it's good as long as my opponent doesn't end up landing anything into play.
those transmute artefacts you have are really good. I wish i had the dough for the set of 3!
So I still go back to this deck pretty much every time I think it gets a new toy, and, boy, does Karn count as a new toy. I am 11-5 over the last three leagues plus a match with it, and two or three of those losses being significant player error and rust. There is a lot still in flux in the main, and the board is a complete mess, but the deck feels strong against everything I played against.
I have gotten punished a few match by main deck artifact hate (K command and Abrade), but that seems like its part of the inbred MTGO meta. Maybe (hopefully) it will calm down after the Karn madness dies down.
The list:
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Seat of the Synod
2 Great Furnace
2 Volcanic Island
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Underground Sea
1 Vault of Whispers
4 Goblin Welder
4 Painter's Servant
2 Baleful Strix
2 Sai, Master Thopterist
4 Brainstorm
3 Pyroblast
3 Force of Will
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Mox Opal
3 Grindstone
2 Smuggler's Copter
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3 Karn, the Great Creator
SB:
1 Force of Will
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Blood Moon
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Grindstone
1 Pithing Needle
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Walking Ballista
I kinda want more "value" cards to grab with Karn out of the board. The silver bullets are good, but there a lot of times where I want to grab something like Retrofitter Foundry that's going to put me ahead on the board in long grindy games. Liquimetal Coating or another Chopper or something maybe.
This list still feels really unpolished (3 FoW main, kill me), but even rough, its doing great work.
There was someone I saw who ran thopter/sword as well as painter stone combo to wish for. Not sure if that’s something good for value for ya.
Liquimetal coating is very good off the wish. Just shutting down a jace for a turn has been good. Then you can start nuking lands one at a time after that.
One thing, if you find your guys being hard to protect, i run earnest fellowship and Hanna’s custody, if you want more reason to go white. HC is great, but EF shuts down mom and other dnt irritants.
Also, have u tested the new painter-safe sweeper? It’s 2rw, and each creature hits itself. Kills TNN, and a host of other irritants to your game.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Top 8ed CardKingdom's 1K this past weekend and 3-0-1ed the Monday night weekly as well(rd4 opponent needed to leave so split with him) with a more cantrip heavy, artifact light build of UR painter. The idea of the deck was to use more of a sneak and show kind of shell, but get to try and maximize the value of Karn and play a tighter combo to allow for more countermagic main.
Decklist:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=21997&d=348450&f=LE
main change I made after the 1K is going to 3 volcs by cutting an island as I ran into some problems finding red at the 1K. Might want room for the 3rd city somewhere too.
At the 1K played against BUG delver with stifles and sinkholes(2-0 win), Slow Depths(Loss 1-2) though I probably punted game 2, BW walker Dead Guy(2-1), Planeswalker Post(2-0), Elves(2-1), then lost 2 close games to Miracles in the top 8(one game I drew all 4 islands natually and lost a counterfight with pyro in hand and no red mana).
At the weekly, played vs BUG land control on camera if you want to watch the match, Goblins, UW stoneblade and drew with RUG but we played 1 game and I lost.
Overall, the deck felt great. Probably a turn slower on average than something like SnT, but with more grind power and general more protection for the combo. Sometimes Karn has felt a little clunky, which is why I kinda want another sol land if I can find room.
wait did i see that right? 4 miracles in the top 8???
that's one of the reasons i struggle to not have at least 6 blasts in the 75. But the power of cantrips are so high that it really starts to squeze them out.
Good work representin'! Aside from speeding up the mana, is there any other changes you'd be considering? you're playing 5 basics, presumably all those miracles lists run BTB. Did you ever feel like you needed a blood moon? Or maybe basics are so rampant it doesn't really stop their games anyways.