there's a mediate options that are available to deal with things the problem is is a lot of its rotating out and I'm trying to look to the Future.

My biggest problems end up being the mono red and mono black (which of course is really black green) strategies for aggro. Anything that can out pace my life gain or early big threats becomes a problem. Sometimes control matchups can be tedious but the deck normally does well to keep trying to pump threats on the board making them burn counters while the wide through sai and animator do their thing with the life gain

I love this build and the way it plays. I've been trying to build something similar, in the form of a mono-blue artifact control deck for my son, with the cards we have on hand. Unfortunately I'm not very experienced on building "control", as I've always favored aggro, and was wondering if you'd be willing to take a look at it and give me some thoughts/advice on modifications. The deck is Brad's Blue Artifacts. Hopefully the link takes you to the most up-to-date version, if not it can be found on my user page.

Solid!

Questions!

1) Have you considered Treasure Map  ^Flip? It pairs with Phylactery Lich in a frightening way when the map becomes a land (suck it, Abrade! Albeit that is a moderately priced card so maybe not for budget.

2) Any suggestions for card draw? Maybe splash in white or run some Anticipate? The deck is very similar to one I ran for a bit and the biggest issue Id run into is no card draw - especially if I didn’t get a Sai, Master Thopterist in play.

3) Have you considered splashing in White? Three colors gets janky but Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and even Tragic Poet can do wonders for decks that use Artifacts and Sagas together. It can also get your Phylactery Lich back every time you play a historic spell which is most of the Deck!

Just my thoughts :)

DarthVirulence Does the counter stay on Treasure Map  ^Flip when it flips? I, probably wrongly, assumed that once a flip no longer became an artifact the counter would be lost as the card had a specific play condition otherwise I would make use of Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip for my Lich deck

Treasure map has been in and out tested. In all not s good fit. Takes too long to get it to flip for that condition. Also I'm not worried about abrade as it's rotating out. There's an ok amount of existing draw and fetch in here so ai don't feel anticipate is needed being it'd take up critical space.

The original version of this tested in white and I just don't wanna clog it up and lower the consistency just because of land.

@Sims81 yes it does!

@w33m4n fair! Had to ask! The deck is definitely quick paced when it gets going :)

Yeah. Surprisingly enough one thing I've noticed is this deck does really well in games that drag out long cause of the life gain. I've already had a few matches where it went 15 to 18 turns but the whole time I was just hovering between 5 and 10 life from the life gain and ended up winning in the end just from everything stacking up

I've got an idea for a possible 4 drop instead of Scriptures if they aren't running Creatures. Twilight Prophet You're easily getting the cities blessing. Otherwise I'm fur sure trying this out tonight!

Vaughntastic147 Ok so that's just creepy cause I was just looking at that Yesterday debating on if I could realistically fit that to work. My only thing there is that life loss is interesting but it fits a specific situation. In most cases playing against a creature heavy meta I'm gonna need the Scripture more often than his extra damage where as yes that extra damage is nice in most cases the most it'll be is 4 being the only thing over that cost is Tezz and even then there's way more of the deck that costs less. It's good but I don't feel quite like its critical 4 drop spot good but really on the fence. I was thinking sideboarding him against control matchups for the extra damage without having to worry about bodies on the field.

Thanks for your input though. Let me know how you turn out with this. So far I've been seeing others get pretty solid results.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bless-the-artifacts-midrange-ub/?cb=1535133467

Here's the version I'm gonna run tonight. I'll post my results tomorrow.

Vaughntastic147 Sounds good. I'm gonna be doing some sideboard testing of Twilight Prophet. It'd be viable to switch with Phylactery Lich if needed

hey i just noticed you were running sparring construct instead of short sword. What's the idea behind that? I was just thinking that short sword would be more resilient at the cost of the 1 equip cost.

what's the merit of Unwind as opposed to a more flexible counter spell such as Cancel?

what's the least amount of removal you think this deck could run? (i don't have phyrexian scriptures and would like to know if the life gain alone is enough against aggro)

what's the idea behind dampening sphere?

MushroomKing30 Dampening sphere, unwind are strictly against control matchups and thus need to stop noncreature spells. Unwind is nice cause it's a free counter to a counter that leaves Mana open if I need to use a second one or if I need to use a kill spell if they happen to get a body out.and sphere helps to slow the pace late game where control decks will start to get pace playing multiple spells. Using sparring over the sword cause the sword ya gotta keep paying for if what it's attached to dies. Not worth the 1 Mana over and over for +1 I'm testing sparring because he makes a good sac Target for vicious offering or sai while giving that extra +1 giving me more value to certain combos that has shown some benefit plus construct can help with early damage where the sword can't really

Looking forward to play/test with this deck but i´m also noticing there is a non budget deck from you and i wanted to try it but there is no comment nor update on it like this (budget) one. The budget one works better than other one (non-budget)? Also i have x3 karn and x2 tezz and want to play with them but not sure if is viable and card to cycle it. Really lu

PersonaHawkIf you do 2 karn and tezz pull Phylactery for karn and whatever for the second tezz. I just don't care to update the non budget one. Only made it shut people up about "why isn't karn in here" cause they didn't see budget tag. So expensive. But that's just the general jist if you wanna run karn and tezz in budget current setup. Does play a smidge differently but not by too much. I'd balance the lands if you run karn

What would you suggest to put in instead of Tezzeret? I don't have a Tezz and you mention it's not that great in here. Or maybe do you feel it belongs there after all?

It works but I tend to run another Traxos, Scourge of Kroog or a 3rd The Antiquities War.

Also looking at the idea of a Twilight Prophet instead

I've been playing with this deck online a bit and loved it enough to order all the pieces for paper magic at my local LGS. The only problem I've run into (online) is against control matchups. Most other matches I just kind of run away with the game sooner or later, especially if I'm swinging on turn 3 with a 5/5 fountain of renewal, lol. So, just wanted to say that I'm loving the deck, great job!

Jaegur thanks, really appreciate feedback. I did some recent testing against energy shell and it really held up. I'm testing now against another friends / control to see what can be adjusted for in sideboard.

What I noticed was a lot of U/W people using bounce spells a pretty good bit. Of course, I played against a pretty obnoxious Approach deck.

Results from Sunday Free Standard.

2-2 First match was against mono-red, Game one stomped with unexpected 5/5 artifacts on turn 3. Game 2 was closer, put in negates to stop bolts. Didn't draw

Going to my last FNM for a bit as my work schedule has shifted, but I'm going to be attempting Chaos Wand for some fun. I've found against control decks we can snatch like a counter, or even against turbo decks grab a Nexus.

Vaughntastic147 good to hear the deck held up relatively against mono red which is big. I've debated Chaos Wand a few times but never have done any testing. I'm going to be doing some testing now against my Treasure Production Control now that it is post rotation revised and see how it holds up. Think it might be saveable

WOOOOOOT. Happy to report the Decks first 4-0 FNM after a long series of 3-1's.

U/R Aetherflux Reservoir Combo deck 2-1 W

Mono Red (really with splash ) 2-1 W

Mono Black Rats (was the most insane match) 2-1 W

BUG Energy w/ Pummeler (Close friend's deck) 2-1 W

What do you think of Golden Guardian x2 in the sideboard as an alt win con against control decks or any game that goes long? It’s basically a value engine. If they kill it, you flip it over. They don’t kill it, it fights your animated artifact, zahid, traxos, or lich, and flips over. Either way you’re getting 4/4 creatures for 4 mana per turn.

MushroomKing30 I have thought about it but long game I just go wide in a big way anyway especially of hitting an The Antiquities War or Tezzeret, Artifice Master and all the cheap bodies adding up with the big ones. Found that out last night playing against a really potent rat deck