Let me tell you the story of a dead empire, where the dead rule the silent chambers of oblivion.
This deck is very versatile in its ways of playing and winning, so it's quite fun to play with.
Ok, so I will list a few ways this deck can be played, starting with the most obvius one, and one of the keys of this deck: Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. The +1 lets you look at the top five cards of your library and reveal one artifact and then put it into your hand, making this search-draw very helpful for finding key pieces. The -1 converts one artifact into a 5/5 artifact creature (don't forget Darksteel Citadel or Inkmoth Nexus here). The -4 makes a target player lose X life where X is twice the number of artifacts you control (This deck has 20 artifacts and a good artifact-search engine, haha). Doing the final ability requires only one use of the firt one, so it can easily be used on the next turn of playing Tezzeret. So as you can imagine, we can often have 6 or 7 artifacts on the battlefield and Tezzeret doing his 'thingy'.
Please notice the few number of creatures in the deck and the heavy removal material, of wich Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse are focused on destroying permanents instead of only creatures, at a low cost. Dismembers are meant to deal with indestructible creatures, Excecutioner's Capsule is meant to be a warning for key nonblack creatures. Damnation deals with almost anything and works wonders against token decks or aggro decks. Sultai Charm (one of the most versatile cards in the deck) works like a charm against artifacts, enchantments and monocolored creatures and also lets you draw two cards and discard one (helful in many situations). Ratchet Bomb and Engineered Explosives are meant to obliterate tokens and small converted mana cost creatures. The explosives can be played for 0, 1, 2 or 3 different colors. Inquisition of Kozilek can be used early in the game to look at a player's hand and discard anything that has 3 or less converted mana cost (go for the counters, Stony Silence, Pithing Needle, etc).
On the not-offensive department, we have Academy Ruins to help us retrieve fallen artifacts, Thirst for Knowledge lets us draw three cards and discard two unless we discard an artifact card. Urborg, Tomb of Yaughmoth is meant to make the ruins, the citadels and the nexus' more useful. Talisman of Dominance, Golgari Signet and Dimir Signet are the ramp of the deck, helping to fix the mana. The Thopter Foundry is another one of the key pieces of this beauty, by paying one colorless mana, you sacrifice an artifact (I strongly suggest you sacrifice Sword of the Meek) to put a 1/1 Thopter artifact creature into the battlefield (if the sword was in the graveyard, it enters the battlefield equipping the Thopter. Yes, just in time to repeat the process for each mana that you can produce). Did I mention that you also gain 1 life each time you do that? Combine that with Tezzeret's -4 ability and rest asured you are going to hear the laments of your opponents as you smile at their downfall.
- "Strike," the fumes hiss."Raise an empire with your ambition." -
