[Deck] Painter-Stone

[merfolkotpt]

Hey guys,
I have a little mini report forthcoming, and my friend Nam will hopefully send me some information as well, but until then, just wanted to say that I really liked the list. Nam shot me an email late last week looking for a legacy list and I shot him painter and then started talking to him about some of the subtleties playing this list. Hilariously, Cedric Philips covered him in the last round and after he intuitioned for 3 Blood Moon, said something like, "this is the reason it is clear he has been playing the list for a really long time." Which I thought was pretty funny.

Anyhow, grats to Nam, he played great all day, and put up with me remembering random advice and trying to cram it in his head all day, and converted under the lights.


Edit: ....and here's the report!
Hello Everybody!

So UR painter had a good weekend with Nam top 8ing with the same 75 that i played to a top 32 finish. I still think this deck is basically the nut, and people should really consider playing it more, that being said, keep an eye out for cheap Transmutes because apparently they are up from ~$10 last year to about $60 on site at SCG Opens.

Anyhow, we elected to have breakfast all together at George's and then take the rapid again at my (apparently misinformed) assumption that the Marathon going on downtown would close down any reasonable parking for us. There were 9 cleveland (ish) folks who attended including: Caffrey on Storm, Snoop-Troog with a mono black concoction, Randall with mono red sneak attack, Jerry on Belcher, G on Twaun's BG pox list, Charles on Reanimator, Brad Wayne on shardless bug, and of course Nam and myself playing UR painter.

We met up with a couple other friends on site and some vintage was played on the side while we were waiting for the tournament to start.

After a semi-late start we started to get down and play some magic.

RD1 vs unknown person (merfolk) Win 2-0
I lost my notes on this round (I presume they washed away in the storm that exploded after the tournament) but I think this was the same guy that G scooped into a chance at top 64 in the penultimate round. In any event, all i remember about this MU is that game 1 I tried to block a merfolk when I had an island in play, and that I drew the grindstone on my last turn to kill him. Game 2 I sided +1 REB +1 ensnaring bridge -1 tormod's crypt and -1 ? and preceded to force his turn 2 aether vial off his second non-island land, and then play out the combo in short order to his board of exactly those 2 lands.
Record after this round 1-0-0

RD2 vs Tony with "JunkBlade" Win 2-0
Game 1 was a turn 4 kill with protection. Game 2 was slightly more interesting since he knew what my cards did, I had the potential for a turn 2 kill, but it would have involved losing to abrupt decay or swords. I ended up playing out grim monolith turn 2, spellskite turn 3, i forced a swords on his turn 4 on my spell skite, and then played out the combo turn 4 with spellskite redirecting an abrupt decay. This might be a hard MU but spellskite was really good, and without brainstorms, his removal spells absolutely have to do work.
Record after this round 2-0-0

RD3 vs Andrew with "Mono Red" Loss 0-2
Game 1 I kept a slower hand with a force of will and welder intuition thinking this was a pretty good hand, and then my opponent caused me to draw a free card, which was sad. His turn 1 goblin guide did not bode well for the good guys. I tried to keep up with him but his burn was just faster than my ability to assemble the combo, especially having to waste force on burn spells. He played pretty aggressively basically playing out his hand and giving no respect to the combo, but it worked for him. Game 2 He made a couple mistakes, flame rift using his only 2 lands than passing with a goblin guide in play (I would probably not block at 14 life there if he leaves mana up until after attacks, since i need spell skite to protect my combo guys. However, I assembled a pretty sweet board of spell skite in yard 3 blue mana up and another skite in the yard with welder in play and him with no cards in hand. He of course top deck'd the lava spike for the win, i actually had the win next turn i think, but sadly didn't get the chance to get there. I can't be too salty though with flame rift, lava spike and price as all possible ways to kill me that can't be retargetted to spell skite i wasn't expecting to win, just hoping. Anyhow, this seems like a bad MU but one i wouldn't ever spend sideboard slots on, but note that I played against it at table 1, so that is a deck that apparently can still hang with legacy.
Record after this round 2-1-0

Rd 4 vs Ryan with Belcher Win 2-0
This guy was a lot of fun but flashed me his deck a couple times while shuffling so I knew he was on belcher, but we joked around the whole time we were playing. We had a couple fun arguments about the sideboard of belcher with me claiming that 15 islands was the only way to do it, and him responding (and proving me wrong) by flashing me the Naked Singularity in his sideboard (yeah you should look that one up). In any event, my opener had a turn 3 combo and a force of will, he probed me turn one got a sad face and I ended up countering his Seething song for the win. In game 2 i mulled to 5 to find a force of will or a flusterstorm (i sided in 3 of these and three skites and sided out a substantial portion of the transmute artifact/wurmcoil/grim monolith plan) and my 5 had Force of Will but no blue card. In any event he probed me but had to pass the turn on t1. And i drew my card (a basic land) gave him the look that I hoped conveyed, "oh yeah i totally drew a blue card", but was probably read as "I am slightly constipated" and played a land + grindstone. He passes again on turn 2 (!) and I draw flusterstorm and play a land + welder. He attempts to get me to waste my brainstorm on his burning wish with no mana floating and three cards in hand, but i am not fooled. He says something like "you were supposed to counter that" and gets an empty the warrens and passes. I play a land and a painters servant and pass with 3 lands on the table (2 tapped) plus the combo and a fluster storm and force of will in my hand. He does not pull this one out. He is from sort of near by and I encourage him to check out a TSO with his friends (he seems like our kind of people), and mention the infinite proxy option, he seems pumped.
Record after this round 3-1-0

Rd 5 vs Brian with Sneak + Show Win 2-1
This guy seems like a very serious player. Nice enough, but all business and not at all excited about bantering, I continue to be my normal manic self in tournament settings. I knew that my opponent was on Sneak and show almost immediately, but my hand is basically crap and i don't find a tormod's crypt to go with my combo pieces before my show and tells a griselbrand into play. I put in a wurmcoil and get pumped because my opponent seems eager to trade and starts talking about going up to 27 (which means he wouldn't have activated his griselbrand in time!) but he quickly realizes that he needs to activate first and draws 14 cards, and proceeds to destroy me. For game 2 i brought in 3 Fluster storms the 3rd Reb the ensnaring bridge and the 3x Tormod's Crypt and side out most 2 wurmcoil 2Grims 1 LED and 1 grindstone 1 transmute artifact and 1 other cards. In this game i cast an ensnaring bridge early and protect it with a force of will and my opponent looks pretty upset. I then proceed to attack with 1 painter, then 2 painters, then a welder (which he ends up having to kill with REB) and taking the game with a combination of attacks and my opponent attacking himself pretty aggressively with his own ancient tombs. At one point he hard casts a brainstorm off 2 island and 2 Ancient tombs putting himself to 8 with me havinf 3 power of guys in play, my comment "best psionic blast ever!". I kill him this game with dudes. In game three i just have a ton of counterspells and do almost the same exact thing, just attacking for the win with 1 power guys, Vintage achievement unlocked. The only diffference is that ensnaring bridge never came to the party. (Apparently attacking for 1 is how to beat show and tell?)
Record after this round 4-1-0

Rd 6 vs Ed with Goblins Win 2-0
Ed was once again a real nice guy. He was on goblins (which was one of the reasons I decided not to play a grindier version--no pun intended--of painter after the last Legacy GP I attended) which is a MU surprisingly enough, i have tested a fair amount. My main concern was that he was going to get a fast kill, but i managed to get welder and painter to stymie some attacks and things, and finally get a Wurmcoil into play that he just couldn't deal with. One neat thing that happened was attacking with wurmcoil with a painter in play and a welder. Then we cracked back REBing my own Wurmcoil and welding it back in for 3 blockers and 9 more life for me. For game 2 i sided in the extra wurmcoil and the three spellskites which may have been wrong but he showed me plateau in game 1 (to cast a thalia) and i worried about swords and pyrokinesis. As it turned out he kept a very slow hand with basically no action but a rishadan port to slow me down presumably. I killed him on turn 4 with a healthy 16 life with grindstone plus painter and a Reb in hand for any shenanigans on his part. I talked to him for a bit about his list and how i have lost to goblins in the past when they get a real fast pile driver start. I also asked him what he thought of CeddyP's list since I would assume that is the standard one. We also had a good chat about how Goblins is actually like an insane control deck ( vs creatures) but has to be an aggro deck against combo which kinda sucks.
Record after this round 5-1-0

Rd 7 vs Brian with Pimped out Elves Win 2-0
Brian sat down and warned me that he hadn't slept in several days and was feeling a little ill and wanted to let me know he might be calling a judge and running to puke in the bathroom. I said whatever you need to do, but please don't puke on my Japanese Painter deck :\ . In any event we started out games and this guy had some ridiculously pimp'd out cards, all foily or beta. Miscut (two cards on them) basic forests, just straight up insane stuff. I had some of my best draws of the day, and killed him on turn 2 game 1. On turn 4 in game 2 with a force of will for his qasali pridemage and then a spellskite in play when i went off with a second Force of will in his main deck.
Record after this round 6-1-0
Since I ended super quickly this round I shot off to find Nam and saw him in the feature match area but something seemed off, and i realized that there were way too few cards in his hand and in play, and it looked like he had gotten hit by the mulligan bat in his feature match against Belcher. It looked this is not a great MU for us anyway and I know he had already beaten it once on the day, so he was probably due for the loss, but it sucked because the guy playing it was real bad. In any event, he and I chatted for a while about what we do if paired, and we decided we were going to ID. We were pretty confident that X-1-1 would top 8 and pretty sure that x-2 definitely wouldn't. So while one of us could have scooped the other one in it would have meant no chance at the top 8 for the other person. We decided we didn't want to blast each other out of the tournament and drew, which allowed us to scout every other player at the top tables.

We also got to chat a little bit about sideboarding plans and seeing 4 BUG/BRUG decks in the top tables we talked about how insane Blood Moon was in this matchup. Hint this will be important later.

Rd 8 vs Nam Q Tran Player extraordinaire ID
Record after this round 6-1-1

Rd 9 vs Peter with BRUG or 4 color cascade or BUG Shardless plus BBE Loss 0-2
I knew what this guy was on after scouting the previous round and felt pretty good about it. Until i mulled to 4 on the draw in game 1. I didn't even really get to make a decision my 7 cards were all spells, my 6 was 5 lands and a tormod's crypt, my 5 was all spells, none of which were combo pieces, and my 4 was 2 lands and 2 brainstorms. Let's do this. My opponent plays a tapped land turn 1 and i play land go. My opponent then hymns me :(. I do not win this game despite casting brainstorm in response. IN game 2 i bring in spellskites and blood moons and keep a 1-lander with great furnace, opal, 2 welders, blood moon, transmute artifact and a brainstorm. I do not draw a land until my 5th turn. I probably should have mulligan'd but i figured i needed to get luck at this point anyhow to win. Anyway, that was that but this match Nam was featured against shardless bug and you can watch it on the old coverage page. He ended up top 8ing which you should probably already know, and i ended up a respectable 19th which is still good enough for some money and in the top 10%.
Record at the end of the tournament: 6-2-1

The overall record for the weekend for our 75 was 13-3-2. My game win percentage for the weekend was 70.6% which is pretty exciting I think. Though Nam's was a bit lower.

Anyhow, there are a couple things I would change about a the list, the biggest of which is cutting the extra wurmcoil out of the board. I think it is a dead card most of the time as long as RUG is getting pushed out by BUG maybe it can be replaced by another card for reanimator/sneak and show/omnitell or maybe even the 4th blood moon. I also think i want to go up to 21 lands in the main board, and there has been some discussion about trying to fit in the 3rd REB in the main. Other than that though i thought the list worked really well. I would definitely encourage you to play with the list at other Legacy events, but please test it before hand, there are a lot of subtle interactions that you can miss out on if you haven't played with all these cards before. I was very happy with the finishes, and just wished i could have finished top 16 so we would have seen 2 of my list up there.

The weekend was fun, despite ending pretty rainy and late. I hope everyone else had a good time too.

The current list is here on starcity: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=59730

[gottfrid]

So I might be at odds with the mods here, in which case I will respectfully retract my opinion, however, the last couple of lists in here feel very different from traditional painter stone to me and could be in a separate thread (I know they were in one originally and were directed here).

I could critique the lists that are here, but I feel like I would be doing it from the frame of my style of list, and these are different enough that it might not make sense to do that.

That being said, if they are here, I am going to talk about them with respect to my own list. I want to know why a list with baleful strix and spire golem, are better than current technology. I think there are some interesting grind-ier lists out there (though Spire golem hasn't seen a lot of my testing) but my experience was that switching to those lists usually just made me a bad version of Miracles with RIP in it. I would much rather be focused very heavily on combo-ing quickly, with some resiliency and I think Transmute Artifact as an additional set of tutors lends itself to this. If you want to play a list that is focused on control with TA I guess it just seems like you would be better suited to play one of the various UB Tezz control lists floating around. Those lists might even want a blocker in the form of Spire Golem in them.

Maybe I am missing something fundamental but to me, we are playing a combo deck with force of wills (and in my case Welder) in it to win the game faster than our opponent, and shrug off their disruption, not to disrupt them, and then try to win incidentally.

This is exactly how I feel!

There really should be separate threads for transmute builds and straight up UR painter. Especially now that the TA version actually has made some great results!

I have tried TA in painter both irl and online and after playing a lot of painted stone I just think it's slow, conditional and messes with the mana in a deck that is hard pressed to have both sol lands and fetches. I could'nt imagine playing basic island in a painter deck that actually wants to win fast, even less large creatures or a plan B.

I mean, I realize that potential gain in transmuting for stuff. I believe the TA version may be very resilient and good on their own merits! I just feel like the difference in top/LED/blast numbers alone makes it almost useless for me to discuss that deck, and probably equally useless for the TA players to comment on my build.

If there was a forum that seriously discussed the fastest combo version I would regularly take part in the discussion. For example, I really need feedback on which sb cards that best address problematic cards/matchups.

If one version of the deck has to be "kicked out" to a new thread, I'd be fine with this thread still discussing the TA build and we'd start a new thread...

List:

4 painter
4 grindstone
4 intuition
4 welder
4 brainstorm
2 thought scour
4 top
5 red blasts
4 Force of will
3 mox opal
3 LED
3 seat of synod
3 furnace
3 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors
3 volcanic island
5 fetchlands

SB at the moment:
4 leyline of sanctity
3 angel of despair
3 tormod's crypt
1 red blast
2 misdirection
2 pithing needle


Seems like a different deck? I agree

[warfordium]

Maindeck:
4 Painter's Servant
2 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Goblin Welder

3 Grim Monolith
4 Grindstone
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mox Opal
4 Transmute Artifact

Lands
2 Great Furnace
2 Seat of the Synod
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Spellskite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Blood Moon
3 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast

I'm not in a graveyard meta, so the main deck value Crypt isn't that appealing. Might try a miser's Faithless Looting instead, or a Lotus Peta (perhaps its a metalcraft enabler?)

What about a Batterskull in the board in place of the extra Wurmspiralmachien?

[SirTylerGalt]

I'm not in a graveyard meta, so the main deck value Crypt isn't that appealing. Might try a miser's Faithless Looting instead, or a Lotus Peta (perhaps its a metalcraft enabler?)

What about a Batterskull in the board in place of the extra Wurmspiralmachien?

Maindeck Crypt is not only there to fight GY decks... It's also there to mill your opponent through Emrakul / Academy Ruins.

[TkDodo]

Edit: ....and here's the report!

Thanks for the report, it was a good read. It's nice that you liked the tops as well! Congrats on your finish.

Some questions:

Isn't the 3rd Seat of the Synod > the 2nd Great Furnace ? I believe that 10 red sources (6 fetches, 2 duals, 1 Mountain, 1 Great Furnace) should be enough (not even counting the Opals) for 2-3 blasts and 4 Welders. Getting to UU for TA can be troublesome, and Great Furnace seems to be the worst land in the list (wasteland-able and doesn't produce U)

Are 4 Tormod's Crypt really neccessary in the 75? I agree on the 1 maindeck, and I know we need 3 to Intuition them up postboard against GY decks, but with 4 TA and 3 Intution, having 3 postboard gives us a virtual 10 GY hate slots, which should be more than enough against GY dependant decks like Dredge and Reanimator. Against Emrakul decks it is nice to find the 3 card combo more reliably, but apparently the better plan is to beat them down with 1 power dudes ;)

I am surprised you didn't board out the REBs against Goblins. Against mono red decks, I normally board them out and put Painter on black. They will bring in their own blasts against us, they are a dead card for us without a Painter in play and we could give the more removal unnecessarily.

If you have a free SB slot, I recommend trying out Pyrite Spellbomb. It's a good 1-of, since it can be easily tutored up with TA, and it's recurrable removal with Welder or Academy Ruins. I started testing it because here in Europe, Death & Taxes became a lot more popular after it won the GP, and I lost to Maverick twice in Strassbourg. If they put a Mother plus a Revoker in play, we have no outs. Even just a Revoker is a scary thought because we need to find one of our REBs while having a Painter in play. Also, our backup solutoin (Wurmcoil Engine) is not that good against these decks because they have Swords to Plowshares. The Spellbomb is colorless damage (unless there is Painter in play of course) and one of the best solutions for us against hatebears.

[CalebD]

The monolith list is kinda sweet.

I like -1 furnace +1 seat.

I also like -1 crypt, -1 transmute for +1 city of traitors and +1 REB. This deck even has a backup win con in the form of wurmcoils, making crypt less necessary than usual, but I've never liked a potentially dead hoser in the maindeck of an efficient combo deck.

I've won games off of cycling Nihil Spellbomb with Mox Opal and Welder, and I'd add one over a crypt in the board. Plays around the random extraction and needle effects that can show up in Reanimator.

[merfolkotpt]

The monolith list is kinda sweet.

I like -1 furnace +1 seat.

I also like -1 crypt, -1 transmute for +1 city of traitors and +1 REB. This deck even has a backup win con in the form of wurmcoils, making crypt less necessary than usual, but I've never liked a potentially dead hoser in the maindeck of an efficient combo deck.

I've won games off of cycling Nihil Spellbomb with Mox Opal and Welder, and I'd add one over a crypt in the board. Plays around the random extraction and needle effects that can show up in Reanimator.

Hey Tk and Caleb,
Both of you guys nailed it, I actually made the first change for +1 seat -1 furnace in my list, but sent Nam my list (not actually current list) minus that change, so I guess we were on the same 74 (sorry Nam). As for the crypt, I have played with and without it, but in my experience winning off Wurmcoils is pretty tough to do against SnT decks, further having another 0 cc artifact for purposes of welding and turning on Opals, has been pretty good. I might be ok with +1 opal in that place, since I do want another mana source. Tormod's crypt has also been randomly good so many times (shutting off monguises, shrinking goyfs, wasting the 1st snapcaster, letting you BLOW OUT dredge sometimes) that I have found it to be worthwhile. I have been contemplating cutting the transmute for the third REB to allow you to intuition for it, and have 7 total protection spells and I think that is real interesting. I missed the third REB a couple times.

The nihil spell bomb switch is an interesting one (and almost certainly just correct) and cutting the 4th crypt in general out of the board seems reasonable to me. I have been contemplating going up to the 4th blood moon, or adding another REB/Pyroblast in that spot and the 3rd wurmcoil spot. I don't know if the difference between 3 and 4 blood moons is significant though, and siding in 5 more counterspells is tough to make room for when you want those. The other option i have is just adding my one-of karakas and venser back into the board in those spots, if reanimator is really going to be a thing again :\,since those (especially venser) give us some more awesome cards against omnitell, but they also are more flexible.



I am probably playing this at Legacy Champs so I will be testing a bit, but at the moment I am mostly focused on vintage.

As for this:

I am surprised you didn't board out the REBs against Goblins. Against mono red decks, I normally board them out and put Painter on black. They will bring in their own blasts against us, they are a dead card for us without a Painter in play and we could give the more removal unnecessarily.

It was a bit of a hedge, I considered opposing REBs, but I was a bit concerned about the existence of Leyline of Sanctity to shut off the combo, and I wanted a way to deal with it (another point in the venser column as a possible SB inclusion). That being said my first painter named black when there was no leyline in play on turn 0, and if i had needed a game 3 i might have sided out my REBs.

Proposed new sideboard:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Venser
1 Karakas (this could very easily be the 2nd venser or a different card too)
3 Spellskite
3 Blood Moon
3 Flusterstorm

As for the maindeck i think i am going to try, for initial testing, -1 TA +1 REB but I am also considering making that spot a City of traitors or an Academy Ruins too during initial testing.

[Dice_Box]

How do people feel about taking a page from fish and running Glass Spinner in the side as a way to protect Welder? I do not play this version, but I am watching it with the entent to try. The issue I find when playing mono red is that my welders die, fast. Now if I wanted them alive and I was splashing blue Kiera comes to mind.

[merfolkotpt]

I think spellskite is better, it is easier to cast and can be welded. Kira is sort of interesting, but skite is awesome. YOu haven't lived until you have had a skite in play and one in the yard with an active welder. Nice Abrupt Decays bro.

[Ish]

@new thread discussion
I really don't see a huge difference between TA builds and not. We are still a UR build using cantrips, counters, and tutors. TA is just another tool. Having a single discussion of the merits of different builds in one thread is beneficial to all playing UR painter.

But I have a question about SB
I really like leyline of sanctity. How do others feel about this? Against discard and storm it just buys us sooo much time. And protects an "all in" hand.

[TkDodo]

But I have a question about SB
I really like leyline of sanctity. How do others feel about this? Against discard and storm it just buys us sooo much time. And protects an "all in" hand.

It's an interesting idea, but I can't really get behind it. Unlike other decks, I don't think we want to mulligan for the Leyline. Also, I don't think discard is our main problem. We have enough ways to play around discard: hiding with Brainstorm/SD.Top, recurring with Welder/Academy Ruins, tutoring up more stuff with Transmute Artifact and Intuition. Most discard decks (Jund, BUG) are also weak to Blood Moon and I also want Spellskite in these matchups, and against Esper, I definitely want Spellskites and REBs from the board. So the question is: what to cut from the board and what to take out from your main deck when brining in leyline?

Now against Storm, it sounds more promising, especially since they will bring in Abrupt Decay as the main form of interacting with us and might be cold to it if they don't bring in bounce effects, and Goblin Tokens are ususally not fast enough against us.
I just don't see it being good enough to take four slots in the board. Against Storm, I have been very happy with 3 Flusterstorms, 2 more REB effects and a singleton Thorn of Amethyst to tutor with TA.

[Ish]

This is why I love this forum. Great thoughtful response! I can really see the downside to having leyline of sanctity, and I love the thorn idea side.

havnt had a real chance to test with spellskite, seems good though I think.

I playing this deck after being on mono red iPainter for some time now. My recent matches have been plagued by basic lands though! Not sure blood moon is as powerful as it was a few months ago. But here we can play it in the side anyway for those greedy manabases.

[Ish]

Here's my current list for comment:

Creatures:10
4 Goblin Welder
4 Painter's Servant
2 Wurmcoil Engine

Spells:30
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Mox Opal
4 Brainstorm
4 Grindstone
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Grim Monolith
4 Transmute Artifact
3 Intuition
4 Force of Will

Lands:20
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
2 Great Furnace
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Seat of the Synod
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:15
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Flusterstorm
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Spellskite
1 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Blood Moon
1 Ensnaring Bridge

[Koby]

#game.

[merfolkotpt]

Congrats to Koby on another t16 for UR painter. The list looked neat. Was just 2 intuition enough for you? What about the izzet charm, did it work out?

As for that other list that just got posted, i am super happy having gone down to 0 LED (I have three monoliths that do almost identical work) and 3 Transmutes for the 21st land, but that seems like a personal preference. I also still would not play a maindeck with 0 tormod's crypts but again that is personal preference.

[Ish]

Congrats to Koby on another t16 for UR painter. The list looked neat. Was just 2 intuition enough for you? What about the izzet charm, did it work out?

As for that other list that just got posted, i am super happy having gone down to 0 LED (I have three monoliths that do almost identical work) and 3 Transmutes for the 21st land, but that seems like a personal preference. I also still would not play a maindeck with 0 tormod's crypts but again that is personal preference.

Thanks, I've debated the LED, but has saved me a few times due to 0 cost, or needing to dump an artifact.

As for the crypt. I also agree! I have since gone, -1 Top, +1 Crypt or Nihil Spell Bomb


Also: Congrats Koby!!! My friend just pointed me to your T16.

[Koby]

OK so my story starts about a week ago after I took Maverick to a local prize tournament, and proceeded to go 2-3. Yep, def not playing that deck without more tuning or practice. Time to switch gears...

So I came back to this list, and specifically the one I played about 18 months ago with Tezzeret Agent of Bolas. I put it together, and drew the following goldfish hand:

Goblin Welder
Force of Will
Grindstone
Painter's Servant
LED
Mox Opal
Ancient Tomb
...

Yep, definitely on this deck now! (that's a turn 1 kill with Force of Will and Welder backup in case of counters)
I ran a few test games in the week leading up to SCG LA, and concluded two things:
1) Tezzeret is really hard to protect against UR/x tempo due to flyers and Lightning Bolts.
2) Playing only 1 Island was insufficient to play around Price of Progress.

So naturally, I came back to Hilty's list, and incorporated the few suggestions from this thread. I came to the following list:

4 Painter's Servant
4 Goblin Welder
2 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Grindstone
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Opal
3 Grim Monolith
1 Nihil Spellbomb (as an answer to Sneak Show decks maindeck)
3 Transmute Artifact
2 Intuition
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 REB/pyros

1 unknown slot

3 Seat of the Synod
1 Great Furnace
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 blue fetchland
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors

SB:
3 Spellskite
3 Ensnaring Bridge (again, Sneak Show)
3 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Tormod's Crypt

The unknown slot was Izzet Charm, 4th Pyroblast, or a maindeck Spellskite. In a short conversation with Hilty, we concluded that Izzet Charm provided the functionality of another Blast, utility for Goblin Welder with looting, and a way to kill Delvers and Thalias in preparation of going off. I ended up only using the Shock ability, and I didn't get to use it much since I drew the combo pretty easily.

Quick rundown of my matches:

Round 1 - Sneak Show (2-0) -- naturally drawn Nihil Spellbomb in game 1 means I was ready to fire the combo. G2 was Ensnaring Bridge lockdown off S&T.
Round 2 - Elves (2-0) -- We're the faster deck when an opponent does not interact.
Round 3 - Hive Mind (2-1) -- I win G1 on turn 2 with double Ancient Tomb, Painter, and Grindstone. #easymode I lose G2 on turn 2. G3 starts at the 7th turn of the match. LOL
Round 4 - Belcher (2-0) -- I win G1 on a mull to 5 because I topdeck Force of Will. Flusterstorm is boss!
Round 5 - Elves (2-0) -- on camera, see www.twitch.tv/scglive [I'll update the link later today once I have access to it]
Round 6 - Death & Taxes (1-2) -- Turn 2 Thalia on the draw really slows this deck down. Even moreso when backed by Wasteland and Rishadan Port. G2 is an Ensnaring Bridge lock with multiple Welders. G3 I'm on the draw again vs a turn 2 Thalia backed with Wastelands :\
Round 7 - BUG Delver (Ulanov) (1-2) -- G1 I form a plan to grind with Wurmcoil off Transmute Artifact. I draw Grindstone and don't adjust that game plan accordingly. Transmute Artifact resolves with 3 mana floating after saccing Grim Monolith; since TA resolved I could have just won with Grindstone. Instead I bring out Wurmcoil and lose the race to double Goyf and double DRS drains. G2 I draw 2 Grindstone 2 Painter's Servant and 3 lands #easymode G3 I'm struggling to assemble the combo and find REB to kill Tombstalker and/or Goyf. I take a hard line leaning on Izzet Charm looting, and draw 2 lands instead.
Round 8 - Elves (2-0) -- See round 2.
Round 9 - bUrg Delver (2-1) -- G1 I go off when my opponent is tapped out. G2 I lose to flying beats. G3 I generate 2 Wurm tokens per turn for 4 turns with Welders and Wurmcoil.

Final result: 7-2 matches, 16-5 games
vs Combo decks 6-0 matches, 12-1 games
vs Delver decks 1-1 matches, 3-3 games
vs fair decks 1-2, 4-5 games

I also got a deck tech, but credits to the list goes to Jacob Hilty (merfolkofpt).

Thoughts on specific cards:
Nihil Spellbomb - I think a single maindeck is necessary and useful. It's often boarded out, but if the current Sneak Show trend continues, then it will continue to be needed (either this or Tormod's Crypt). I agree with CalebD that the cycling ability makes it more useful.
Intuition - I started with 3, but feel like it's rarely used when Transmute Artifact is available too. It shines with Welder obviously. I used this card about 3-4 times in the day, equally between Welder shenanigans and digging for FoW/REB.
Wurmcoil Engine - I used it only three times on the day, each against the fair decks. It wasn't fast enough to race double Goyf without any Welder support. It was enough to discourage Mother of Runes / Thalia / Jitte attacks; and it was very useful to stabilize against Delvers and flyers, but only with Welder support. I feel like having the 2nd copy become Sundering Titan could be useful, especially against Delver decks. It needs more testing to figure out.

[Vandalize]

OK so my story starts about a week ago after I took Maverick to a local prize tournament, and proceeded to go 2-3. Yep, def not playing that deck without more tuning or practice. Time to switch gears...

So I came back to this list, and specifically the one I played about 18 months ago with Tezzeret Agent of Bolas. I put it together, and drew the following goldfish hand:

Goblin Welder
Force of Will
Grindstone
Painter's Servant
LED
Mox Opal
Ancient Tomb
...

Yep, definitely on this deck now! (that's a turn 1 kill with Force of Will and Welder backup in case of counters)
I ran a few test games in the week leading up to SCG LA, and concluded two things:
1) Tezzeret is really hard to protect against UR/x tempo due to flyers and Lightning Bolts.
2) Playing only 1 Island was insufficient to play around Price of Progress.

So naturally, I came back to Hilty's list, and incorporated the few suggestions from this thread. I came to the following list:

4 Painter's Servant
4 Goblin Welder
2 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Grindstone
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Opal
3 Grim Monolith
1 Nihil Spellbomb (as an answer to Sneak Show decks maindeck)
3 Transmute Artifact
2 Intuition
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 REB/pyros

1 unknown slot

3 Seat of the Synod
1 Great Furnace
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 blue fetchland
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors

SB:
3 Spellskite
3 Ensnaring Bridge (again, Sneak Show)
3 Flusterstorm
1 Pyroblast
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Tormod's Crypt

The unknown slot was Izzet Charm, 4th Pyroblast, or a maindeck Spellskite. In a short conversation with Hilty, we concluded that Izzet Charm provided the functionality of another Blast, utility for Goblin Welder with looting, and a way to kill Delvers and Thalias in preparation of going off. I ended up only using the Shock ability, and I didn't get to use it much since I drew the combo pretty easily.

Quick rundown of my matches:

Round 1 - Sneak Show (2-0) -- naturally drawn Nihil Spellbomb in game 1 means I was ready to fire the combo. G2 was Ensnaring Bridge lockdown off S&T.
Round 2 - Elves (2-0) -- We're the faster deck when an opponent does not interact.
Round 3 - Hive Mind (2-1) -- I win G1 on turn 2 with double Ancient Tomb, Painter, and Grindstone. #easymode I lose G2 on turn 2. G3 starts at the 7th turn of the match. LOL
Round 4 - Belcher (2-0) -- I win G1 on a mull to 5 because I topdeck Force of Will. Flusterstorm is boss!
Round 5 - Elves (2-0) -- on camera, see www.twitch.tv/scglive [I'll update the link later today once I have access to it]
Round 6 - Death & Taxes (1-2) -- Turn 2 Thalia on the draw really slows this deck down. Even moreso when backed by Wasteland and Rishadan Port. G2 is an Ensnaring Bridge lock with multiple Welders. G3 I'm on the draw again vs a turn 2 Thalia backed with Wastelands :\
Round 7 - BUG Delver (Ulanov) (1-2) -- G1 I form a plan to grind with Wurmcoil off Transmute Artifact. I draw Grindstone and don't adjust that game plan accordingly. Transmute Artifact resolves with 3 mana floating after saccing Grim Monolith; since TA resolved I could have just won with Grindstone. Instead I bring out Wurmcoil and lose the race to double Goyf and double DRS drains. G2 I draw 2 Grindstone 2 Painter's Servant and 3 lands #easymode G3 I'm struggling to assemble the combo and find REB to kill Tombstalker and/or Goyf. I take a hard line leaning on Izzet Charm looting, and draw 2 lands instead.
Round 8 - Elves (2-0) -- See round 2.
Round 9 - bUrg Delver (2-1) -- G1 I go off when my opponent is tapped out. G2 I lose to flying beats. G3 I generate 2 Wurm tokens per turn for 4 turns with Welders and Wurmcoil.

Final result: 7-2 matches, 16-5 games
vs Combo decks 6-0 matches, 12-1 games
vs Delver decks 1-1 matches, 3-3 games
vs fair decks 1-2, 4-5 games

I also got a deck tech, but credits to the list goes to Jacob Hilty (merfolkofpt).

Thoughts on specific cards:
Nihil Spellbomb - I think a single maindeck is necessary and useful. It's often boarded out, but if the current Sneak Show trend continues, then it will continue to be needed (either this or Tormod's Crypt). I agree with CalebD that the cycling ability makes it more useful.
Intuition - I started with 3, but feel like it's rarely used when Transmute Artifact is available too. It shines with Welder obviously. I used this card about 3-4 times in the day, equally between Welder shenanigans and digging for FoW/REB.
Wurmcoil Engine - I used it only three times on the day, each against the fair decks. It wasn't fast enough to race double Goyf without any Welder support. It was enough to discourage Mother of Runes / Thalia / Jitte attacks; and it was very useful to stabilize against Delvers and flyers, but only with Welder support. I feel like having the 2nd copy become Sundering Titan could be useful, especially against Delver decks. It needs more testing to figure out.

How exactly are you cantripping from Nihil Spellbomb if you can't produce black mana aside from Mox Opal? Tormod's Crypt is clearly better maindeck.

[Koby]

How exactly are you cantripping from Nihil Spellbomb if you can't produce black mana? Tormod's Crypt is clearly better maindeck.

Mox Opal.

[Vandalize]

Mox Opal.

Yeah, just realized it. But Crypt is still better, 0CMC vs 2CMC.