Artifacts & Tezzeret AoB
Deck Help forum
Posted on March 27, 2012, 5:02 p.m. by Minousmancer
OK, I have this deck:
I originally had these cards: 4xMimic Vat; 4xMindslaver; 4xSundial of the Infinite; 4xDarksteel Relic; 4xEvil Twin(as creature control); 4xTorpor Orb; 4xSpellskite; 4xTezzeret, Agent of Bolas ; 4xIsolation Cell & land... I've left most of the descriptions of why I had chosen these cards here: deck:i-need-tezz-help
The deck was simply, vastly too slow. I am not generally a fan of too many Artifacts. There is a small handful in all of MtG that I actually like. The ones I do like are either super quirky(Ersatz Gnomes) or simple and straight forward(Icy Manipulator). There are some cool ones in Standard, but I just can't seem to get them all to come together for me.
I dealy I would stick to Blue/Black, not deluding the two-color mindset, but what I need to know is A: what am I doing wrong? B: how do I fix it? C: what makes an average Artifact deck an excellent Artifact deck, what should I be mindful of?
Thanks for any and all help.
M. Mancer
Well making a lot of your artifacts double as artifact creatures really helps. Signal Pests and Memnites come to mind. Also, make sure artifacts you put in have a purpose beyond being artifacts. Mox Opal is a great card to have in because once you hit metal craft it really helps accelerate your mana. Etched Champion can go a long way to winning a game if you have metalcraft.
Simply dumping in a bunch of Sundials and Darksteel Relics, cards that do little to help you win on their own, won't make for a win.
Think of it this way, if Tezz doesn't come out, can you still win the game? With some artifact creatures/useful artifacts, yeah. With a bunch of Sundials and Torpor Orbs, no.
March 27, 2012 5:20 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #4
Miasma the win-con was making Darksteel Relics a 5/5 creatures, then take control of their turn so the didn't do anything useful and slowly pound them down. I 4x of everything 'cause I just wanted to get everything set up all at once, obviously I'm starting to see the error of my choices. Thank you for your impute, I thought if I was going to go Artifacts I leave out conventional 'color-creatures' but it's a balance issue I see that now thanks.
funkalunk Thanks I feel so ignorant with Artifact deck construction, that is why I've usually had decks with 0-5 every once in awhile 6. They've always seemed like a reliability and at most a short term boon.
March 27, 2012 5:33 p.m.
KorApprentice says... #5
What are you using Torpor Orb for? It seems like a very wasted 4-of slot.
March 27, 2012 11:38 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #6
The idea behind Torpor Orb was to slow down some grow deck by making sure I had one in the first could draws, to slow down stuff like: Skinrender; Forge Devil; later in the game all the titans.
March 28, 2012 1:14 a.m.
Decks utilizing Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas are generally control/mid-range decks that use small, efficient artifact creatures and Tezzeret to win the game, with a handful of U/B control staples to smooth the ride.
I would start off with Spellskite, Etched Champion, Vault Skirge, and Sphere of the Suns as your main artifact shell. All of these are generally four-of, though any of them can become 3-of's.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas should always be a 4-of in this deck, since he is your main engine.
Your goal is to survive until turns 4-6, were you really shine with options and brutality. You have several lines of attack, including dealing 10 points of infect damage with Inkmoth Nexus. Remember, it turns into an artifact creature, and then Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas can pump him into a 5/5 until the end of turn.
As far as the rest of the deck is concerned, you're looking at a large pile of generally good cards: Consecrated Sphinx and Wurmcoil Engine are the two biggest contenders, and I think both warrant spots in the deck. 3 slots for the both of them is fine, either 2-1 Wurmcoil over Sphinx or vice-versa, depending on what your meta looks like. More Wurm if it's heavy aggro, more Sphinx if it's heavy control.
You have cards like Ponder, Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy, Gitaxian Probe as ways to dig through your deck, although they aren't as necessary because Tezzeret also digs for you. I think 6 or 7 of any combination of these cards is fine, although I prefer a 3-3 split of Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy.
Some targetted removal is also nice: Tragic Slip, Go for the Throat (Which is much better than Doom Blade at the moment), and then some mass removal in the form of Black Sun's Zenith. A card you may be interested in is Dispatch, which works extremely well with this deck. However, it makes the mana a bit shaky and the inclusion of Mox Opal mandatory. Maybe Vapor Snag.
One sweet card to look at is Batterskull. While this card is decent against aggro, RG can just Ancient Grudge it and Zombies or Humans just swarm you and doesn't care. This card is crushing against control, however, and a 1-of would be just fine if you wished to include it.
24 Lands as per usual, utilizing all 8 of the U/B dual lands (Darkslick Shores and Drowned Catacomb) as well as Inkmoth Nexus as either a 3 or 4 of.
Snapcaster Mage might be good, but he's more of a control staple and not very useful in this deck. Paying 1UUB for a 2/1 body that kills a non-artifact creature at instant speed on ETB is always good, so maybe a 2 of could suit you.
It all really depends on your playstyle. I understand that you aren't particularly fond of net-decking, but researching an established archetype (And U/B Tezz is indeed an archetype) is just fine. Ultimately, it's up to what you want to play.
Good luck.
-BuLLZ3Y3
March 28, 2012 7:20 a.m.
Minousmancer says... #8
Thanks BuLLZ3Y3, these are many of the ideas/directions I'm getting and I'm beginning to agree.
I think my biggest mistake was designing a deck just based on artifacts and what they did and not focusing on building a deck then adding in artifacts so they can help what I'm already doing...
I believe I'm on the right track and will be editing a functional for of my deck most likely today...
Miasma says... #2
It appears that the deck is too top heavy in the mana base, and has a weird distribution in cards and their numbers. (4x Mindslaver
? and 4x Sundial of the Infinite
?) It also looks as if you are trying to control the other deck to the point you have no win con for yourself. Generally, most of the Tezz decks I've seen work best taking an aggro approach. Hitting 4-5 artifacts early game before you drop Tezz puts great pressure on. Turning that turn that 1/1 Memnite
into a 5/5 is no laughing matter. 1x or 2x of Mox Opal
tends to be a staple, as it speeds the deck up tremendously. I think Etched Champion
would be a powerful beater and is very hard to remove. Artifact mana ramp is great, because it could be further used as 5/5's with Tezzeret. So Sphere of the Suns
and Pristine Talisman
are worth looking at, especially if you use Grave Titan
's and Wurmcoil Engine
. There are also control styles, but I figure I will leave that explaination to someone else. I hope this helps.
March 27, 2012 5:18 p.m.